CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PR 5263.C71 1902 The life of John Ruskin; 3 1924 013 542 646 DATE DUE -m^ ys^- 11975ti' ^m DEC] SJIZE f L FT l9 65Jgj r ^^^=^^^-»U; i7§f: U^ ^^^mr^^-vmryrmi^ Vifi^irwrmv PRINTED IN U S.A. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013542646 THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN BY W. G. COLLINGWOOD BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1902 The Life and Wei'fk of John RusMn, hy W. G. CoUingwtod, M.A., in two volumes, of which this volume is a revised and abbre- viated edition, was pitblished and copyrighted in 1893, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. PREFACE This book is not merely a reprint of ' The Life and Work of John Kuskin ; 2 vols., 1893.' The whole has been re- written on somewhat different lines. Of late years re-issues and cheaper editions have made Mr. Ruskin's writings much more accessible ; some which I described from the MS. have been published, so that ab- stracts of their contents are less wanted now. Many ' studies ' of Buskin have appeared, so that expo- sition of his teaching need no longer interrupt the narra- tive. On the other hand, I have been able to add much new biographical detail from various sources, especially from the old papers and journals at Brantwood. With Mr. Kuskin's leave, and by permission of Mr. George Allen, who has a claim upon all copyright work, I have given a number of letters hitherto unprinted, and the story, unfinished before, is now brought down to its close. w. a c. C0NI8TON, February, 1900. CONTENTS BOOK I. THE BOY POET (1819-1842). CHAPTER 1. HIS ANCESTORS .... II. THE FATHER OF THE MAN (1819-1825) III. PERFERVIDUM INGENIUM (1826-1830) . IV. MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP (1830-1835) V. THE GERM OF 'MODERN PAINTERS* (1836) VI. A LOVE-STORY (1836-1839) vn. 'RATA phusin' (1837-1838) . VIII. SIR ROGER NEWDIGATE's PRIZE (1837-1839) IX. 'THE BROKEN CHAIN' (1840-1841) X. THE GRADUATE OF OXFORD (1841-1842) BOOK II. THE ART CRITIC (1842-1860). I. 'TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS' (1842-1844) II. CHRISTIAN ART (1845-1847) III. 'THE SEVEN LAMPS' (1847-1849) IV. 'stones of VENICE* (1849-1851) V. PRE-RAPHAELITISM (1851-1853) VI. THE EDINBURGH LECTURES (1853-1854) VII. THE WORKING MEN's COLLEGE (1854-1855) VIIL 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED (1855-1856) . IX. 'THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' (1857-1858) X. 'MODERN painters' CONCLUDED (1858-1860) . ttat 3 13 22 30 44 51 57 66 72 79 87 97 107 119 130 141 149 156 168 180 vm CONTENTS BOOK m. HERMIT AND HERETIC (1860-1870>. OHArraB - '*"» I. 'UNTO THIS last' (I86O-I86I) . . .189 11. 'MUNERA PULVERIS' (l86l-1862) . • • 198 ni. THE LIMESTONE ALPS (l 863) . « • . 204 IV. 'SESAME AND LILIES* (1864) . . • • 210 V. 'ETHICS OF THE DUST ' (1865). . • .215 VI. 'the crown of wild olive' (1865-1866) . . 222 viL 'time AND tide' (1867) .... 234 VIII. AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE (1868) ... 246 IX. 'the QUEEN OF THE AIR ' (1869) ... 255 X. VERONA AND OXFORD (1869-1870) . . . 263 BOOK IV. PROFESSOR AND PROPHET (1870-1899). I. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES (1870-1871) . . . 271 n. 'FORS' BEGUN (1871-1872) .... 284 ra. OXFORD TEACHING (1872-1875) . . . 296 rV. ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK (1875-1877) . . 312 V. 'DEUCALION' AND ' phoserpina' (1877-1879) . . 327 VL THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD (1879-1880) . . 340 vn. 'FORS' RESUMED (1880-1881.) .... 353 Vm. THE RECALL TO OXFORD (1882-1883) . . . S62 ' IX. THE STORM-CLOUD (1884-1888). . , , 374 X. DATUR HORA QUIETI (1889-1897) . . . 386 ONE WORD MORE . . • • . 400 BIBLIOGRAPHY .»••«. 409 INDEX .«,»,, ,422 THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN BOOK I. THE BOY POET. (1819-1842.) ' Eat fern-seed, And peer beside us, and report, indeed, If (your word) " genius " dawned with throes and stings. And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs, Summers, and winters quietly came and went.' SOBDELLO. CHAPTER I. HIS ANCESTOES. ' And still within our yaUeya here We hold the kindred title dear, Even when, perchance, its far-fetched claim To Southern ear sounds empty name ; For course of blood, our proverbs deem. Is warmer than the mountain-stream.' Scott. IF origin, if eariy training and habits of life, if tastes, and character, and associations, fix a man's nationality, then John Ruskin must be reckoned a Scotsman. He was bom in London, but his family was from Scotland. He was brought up in England, but the friends and teachers, the standards and influences of his early life, were chiefly Scottish. The writers who directed him into the main lines of his thought and work were Scotsmen — ^from Sir Walter and Lord Lindsay and Principal Forbes to the master of his later studies of men and the means of life, Thomas Carlyle. The religious instinct so conspicuous in him was a heritage from Scotland ; thenCe the combination of shrewd common-sense and romantic sentiment ; the oscillation between levity and dignity, from caustic jest to tender earnest; the restlessness, the fervour, the impetuosity — all these are the tokens of a Scotsman of parts, and were highly developed in John Ruskin. And, indeed, he received a great impress of Scottish character from old Galloway, from ancestors whose names are famous in history as champions and patriots and martyrs. 1—2 4 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN The strange Tory revolutionism of ' Fors Clavigera,' at once monarchical and democratic, loyal and radical, holding so close to tradition, and yet so progressive in its aims ; the Ruskinian knight-errantry, his readiness to rush in on the weaker side with a passionate cry for poetical justice — these find their explanation as inheritances from men who stood for the King against Cromwell, and yet suffered for the Kirk under Claver- house ; afterwards, again, in many an instance, accepting the forlorn hope of Jacobitism as a solemn trust, or cherishing its lost cause as a sacred memory. Such men as these, among his various ancestors, most nearly anticipate his character, and undoubtedly had most influence in its formation. It was from Galloway, too, that he got the strain of Gaelic blood, in virtue of which he became a leader in that movement which latter-day critics have named ' the recrudescence of the Celt '; being, indeed, the central figure of a group of artists and poet§ whose inspiration we regard as a survival of Ossianic nature- worship, Fingalian romance, or Columban piety. But the exponent of a national ideal is rarely pure-bred. To expound an ideal, he must be in touch with the actual; to introduce one party to another he must hold, so to say, the hands of each. It is commonly remarked that notable men are of mixed race ; and in this case, as the pedigree shows, Celtic fire was fed with Norman strength, and tempered with some infusion of English coolness from sailors of the North Sea. In the days of auld lang syne the Rhynns of Galloway — that hammer-headed promontory of Scotland which looks towards Belfast Lough — was the home of two great families, the Agnews and the Adairs. The Agnews, of Norman race, occupied the northern half, centring about their island-fortress of Lochnaw, where they became celebrated for a long line of hereditary sheriffs and baronets who have played no incon- siderable part in public affairs. The southern half, from Portpatrick to the Mull of Galloway, was held by the Adairs, originally Gallgaedhel, or Vikings of mixed Celtic and Scandinavian blood — immigrants from Ireland, according to a family tradition, not unsupported by the history of this HIS ANCESTORS 6 sea-board in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Adairs (or, as formerly spelt, Edzears) took their name from Edgar, son of Dovenald, one of the two Galloway leaders at the Battle of the Standard. Three hundi-ed years later Robert Edzear — who does not know his descendant and namesake, Robin Adair ? — settled at Gainoch, near the head of Luce Bay ; and for another space of 300 years his children kept the same estate, in spite of private feud, and civil war, and religious persecution, of which they had more than their share. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, John Adair, the laird of Little Genoch, was married to Mary Agnew, a near kinswoman of the celebrated Sir Andrew, whose laconic harangue to the Scots Fusiliers at Dettingen has become proverbial ; ' My lads, ye see those loons on yon hill there ? If ye dinna kill them they'll kill you.' After the battle George II. rode up. ' So, Sir Andrew,' he began, as the Sheriff sat stoically at his parade, 'I hear the cuirassiers rode through your regiment • to-day.' ' Ay, please your Majesty,' the other dryly replied, ' but they didna gang back again.'* What was the exact relationship of Mary Agnew to ' the bravest man in the British army' remains undecided, but letters still extant from the Lady Agnew of the day address her as ' Dear Molly,' and end, ' Your affectionate cousin ' or ' kinswoman.' Her son Thomas succeeded his father in 1721, and, retiring with his captaincy, settled on the estate. He married Jean, daughter of Andrew Ross of Balsarroch and Balkail, a lady noted for her beauty, her wit, and her Latin scholarship, and a member of a family which has given many distinguished men to the army and navy. Among them Admiral Sir John Ross, the Arctic explorer, Sir Hew Dalrymple, and Field-Marshal Sir Hew Dalrymple Ross, were all her great-nephews, and her son. Dr. John Adair, was the man in whose arms Wolfe died at the taking of Quebec; it is he who is shown in Benjamin West's picture supporting the General. * Sir Andrew Agnew, ' Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway,' ii. 278. 6 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Dr. Adair's sister Catherine, the daughter of Thomas Adair and Jean Ross, married the Rev. James Tweddale, minister of Glenluce from 1758 to 1778, representative of an old Covenanting family, and holder of the original Covenant, which had been confided to the care of his great-aunt Catherine by Baillie of Jarviswood on his way to execution in the 'killing time.' The document was sold with his library at his death, his children being then under age, and is now in the Glasgow Museum. One of these children, Catherine, married John Ruskin, whose name, then of little account, was destined to become as famous, in the person of his grandson, as any of the heroic names with which it was thus connected. The origin of the name of Ruskin is obscure. It has been taken for Lowland Scottish, a variant of Erskine; for a Highland place-name, Roskeen ; for a corruption of Roger- kin ; or even for a vulgar nickname, Roughskin. These are mere guesses, but Ruskington, in Lincolnshire, points, by a well-known rule of place-names, to a tribe of Anglian settlers called Rusking, of whom this village was originally the tun, or homestead, as Pennington was the ' town ' of the Pennings, and so forth. Soon after the dissolution of Furness Abbey, Richerde Ruskyn and his family were land-owners at Dalton- in-Furness.* Other Ruskins and Ruskens are known in the North of England, and naturally also in London, whither all our tribes go up. One branch, however, and that with which we are especially concerned, settled in Edinbiurgh. John Ruskin — our subject's grandfather — when he ran away with Catherine Tweddale in 1781, was a handsome lad of twenty. His portrait as a child proves his looks, and he evidently had some charm of character or promise of power, for the escapade did not lose him the friendship of the lady's family. Major Ross, her imcle and guardian, * Communicated by Mr. W. Hutton Brayshay, from the Eecord OfiBce. See also Dr. Barber, 'Turness and Cartmel Notes,' p. 380. Daltou is within fourteen miles of Brantwood, and was the birthplace of Bomney, the artist. HIS ANCESTORS 7 remained a good friend to the young couple. She herself was only sixteen at her marriage — a bright and animated brunette, as her miniature shows, in later years ripening to a woman of uncommon strength, with old-fashioned piety of a robust, practical type, and a spirit which the trials of her after-life — and they were many — could not subdue. Her husband set up in the wine trade in Edinburgh. For many years th'ey lived in the Old Town, then a respectable neigh- bourhood, among a cultivated and well-bred society, in which they moved as equals,* entertaining, with others, such a man as Dr. Thomas Brown, the professor of philosophy, a great light in his own day, and still conspicuous in the constellation of Scotch metaphysicians. Their son, John James Ruskin (bom May 10, 1785), was sent to the famous High School of Edinburgh, under Dr. Adam, the most renowned of Scottish headmasters, and there he received the sound old-fashioned classical educa- tion. Before he was sixteen, his sister Jessie was already married at Perth to Peter Richardson, a tanner living at Bridge End, by the Tay ; and so his cousin, Margaret Cox, was sent for to fill the vacant place. She was a daughter of old Mr. Rusjtin's sister, who had married a Captain Cox, sailing from Yarmouth for the herring fishery. He had died in 1789, or thereabouts, from the results of an accident while riding homewards to his family after one of his voyages, and his widow maintained herself in comfort by keeping the old King's Head Inn at Croydon Market-place, and brought up her two daughters with the best available education. The younger one married another Mr. Richardson, a baker at Croydon, so that, by an odd coincidence, there were two families of Richardsons, * ' I had also a father more magnificent in his expenditure than mindful of his family ; so indiscriminate and boundless in his hos- pitalities that, when the invited guests arrived, he would sometimes have to inquire their names. My mother, too, had a heart large enough to embrace the whole human race, but with universal love combined peculiar prudence.' — J. J. Buskin to Miss Mitford, January 5, 1852. LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ! <2 > OQ ^3 tT 4* c— 1^3 g- «*j CQ ^ P3 S ^ Ti -5 •o- O 11 H.13 S !s 2 OO -•O o --< _— . oS*. C ^ 5- fe u 13 .£3 S ° ^ S -s P=- .2.3 Is ° §5 '■3 ST §s o M ■c a 3 bn -2--S a^s - B j:r3 ? a ^g .^^ m" 2, ti 0) E S M -=■5 S p h a O P3■ ft % J< . ^ 1 1 S -ra !0 M s° i^ S s o j= .J3 03 *o n t6 ffrd/jM toI, koI i^l/iepos Si Ad^m tJMvli,' AiirSeo rds (ripiyyaf iviKijaas yii.p deiduv, Theocritus, vm. OF all the prizes which Oxford could bestow, the Newdi- gate used to be the most popular. Its fortunate winner was an admitted poet in an age when poetry was read, and he appeared in his glory at Commemoration,^ speaking what the ladies could understand and admire. The honour was attainable without skill in Greek particles or in logarithms ; and yet it had a real value to an intending preacher, for the successful reciter might be felt to have put his foot on the pulpit stairs. John Ruskin was definitely meant for the Church, and he went to Oxford in the avowed hope of getting the Newdigate, if nothing else. His last talk with Mr. Dale was chiefly about ways and means to this end ; and before he went up he had begun 'The Gipsies' for March, 1837. Tlie prize was won that year by Arthur Perurhyn Stanley, afterwards Dean of Westminster. Our candidate and his old schoolfellow, Henry Dart, of Exeter College, set to work on the next subject, ' The Exile of St. Helena,' and after the long vacation read their work to each other, accepting the hints and corrections of a friendly rivalry. Meantime his old nurse Anne (it is trivial, but a touch of nature), being at Oxford in attendance on the ladies, and SIR ROGER NEWDIGATE'S PRIZE 67 keen, as she always was, for Master John's success, heard from the keeper of the Reading-room of criticisms on his published verses. She brought the news to his delighted mother. ' He was pleased,' she writes, ' but says that he forms his own estimate of his poems, and reviews don't alter it ; but " How my father will be delighted ! How he will crow !" ' Which historiette repeated itself many a time in the family annals. In Lent term, 1838, he was hard at work on the new poem. He wrote : ' I must give an immense time every day to the Newdigate, which I must have, if study will get it. I have much to revise. You find many faults, but there are hundreds which have escaped your notice, and many lines mxist go out altogether which you and I should wish to stay in. The thing must be remodelled, and I must finish it while it has a freshness on it, otherwise it will not be written well. The old lines are hackneyed in my ears, even as a very soft Orleans plum, which your Jewess has wiped and re-wiped with the comer of her apron, till its polish is perfect, and its temperature elevated.' In this March he got through his ' Smalls.' ' Nice thing to get over ; quite a joke, as everybody says when they've got through with the feathers on. It's a kind of emancipation from freshness — a thing unpleasant in an egg, but dignified in an Oxonian — ^very. Lowe very kind ; Kynaston ditto — nice fellows — urbane. How they do frighten people ! There was one man all but crying with mere fear. Kynaston had to coax him like a child. Poor fellow ! he had some reason to be afraid ; did his logic shockingly. People always take up logic because they fancy it doesn't require a good memory, and there is nothing half so productive of pluck ; they never know it. ' I was very cool when I got into it ; found the degree of excitement agreeable ; nibbled the end of my pen, and grinned at Kynaston over the table as if / had been going to pluck him. They always smile when they mean pluck.' The Newdigate for 1838, for all his care and pains, was 6—2 68 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN won by Dart. He was, at a,ny rate, beaten by a friend, and with a poem which his own honourable sympathy and assist- ance had helped to perfect. Another trifling incident lets us get a glimpse of the family life of our young poet. The Queen's coronation in June, 1838, was a great event to all the world, and Mr. Ruskinwas anxious for his son to see it. Much correspondence ensued between the parents, arranging everything for him, as they always did — which of the available tickets should be accepted, and whether he could stand the fatigue of the long waiting, and so forth. Mrs. Ruskin did not like the notion of her boy sitting perched on rickety scaffolding at dizzy altitudes in the Abbey. Mr. Ruskin, evidently determined to carry his pointy went to Westminster, bribed the carpenters, climbed tha structure, and reported all safe to stand a century, ' though,' said he, ' the gold and scarlet of the decorations appeM^d very paltry compared with the Wengern Alp.' But he could not fii'd No. 447, and wrote to the Heralds'" Office to know if it was a place from which a good view could be got. Blue- mantle replied that it was a very good place, and Lord Brownlow had just taken tickets for his sons close by. Then there was the great question of dress. He went to Owen's and ordered a white satin waistcoat with gold sprigs, and a high dress-coat with bright buttons, and asked his wife to see about white gloves at Oxford — & Court white neck-cloth or a black satin would do. Picture, then, the young Ruskin in those di-essy days. A portrait v/as once sent to Brantwood of a dandy in a green coat of wonderful cut, supposed to represent him in his youth, but suggesting Lord Lytton's ' Pelham ' rather than the homespun-suited seer of Coniston. ' Did you ever wear a coat like that .?' I asked. ' I'm not so sure that I didn't,' said he. After that, they went to Scotland and the North of England for the summer, and more fine sketches were made, some of which hang now in his drawing-room, and compare not un- favourably with the Prouts beside them. In firmness of line SIR ROGER NEWDIGATE'S PRIZE 69 and fulness of insight they are masterly, and mark a rapid progress, all the more astonishing -when it is recollected how little time could have been spared for practice. The subjects are chiefly architectural — castles and churches and Gothic details— i-and one is not surprised to find him soon concerned with the Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture. ' They were all reverends,' says a letter of the time, ' and wanted somebody to rouse them.' Science, too, progressed this year. We read of geological excursions to Shotover with Lord Carew and Lord Kildare — one carrying the hammer and another the umbrella — and actual discoveries of saurian remains ; and many a merry meeting at Dr. Buckland's, in which, at intervals of scientific talk, John romped with the youngsters of the family. After a while the Dean took the opportunity of a walk through Oxford to the Clarendon to warn him not to spend too much time on science. It did not pay in the Schools nor in the Church, and he had too many irons in the fire. Drawing, and science, and the prose essays mentioned in the last chapter, and poetry, all these were his by -play. Of the poetry, the Newdigate was but a little part. In ' Friendship's Oifering ' this autumn he published ' Remem- brance,' one of many poems to Adele ; ' Christ Church,' of which Mr. Harrison said that the last stanza was unintel- ligible, but he would print it for the people who liked their poetry so ; and the ' Scythian Grave.' In reading Herodotus he had been struck — as who is not .'' — by the romantic pic- turesqueness of the incomparable old chronicler. Several passages of Greek history — the story of the Athenian fugitive from the massacre at iEgina, and the death of Aristodemus at Plataea — offered telling subjects for lyrical verse; the death of Arion, and the dethronement of Psammenitus were treated, later, at length ; but, above all, the account of the Scythians, with their wild primitive life and manners, fascinated him. Instead of gathering from their history such an idyl as Mr. William Morris would have made, he fixed upon only the most gruesome points — their 70 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN fierce struggle with the Persians, cruelty and slavery, buriaJ- rites and skull-goblets — which he set himself to picture with ghastly realism. In these poems there is a strong tinge of the horrible, which, to judge from Mr. Ruskin's expressed opinions on art, we should hardly suspect ever to have been his tsiste. But during all his boyhood and youth there were moments of weakness when he allowed himself to be carried away by a sort of nightmare, the reaction from healthy delight in natural beauty. In later life he learned to put limits to art, and to refuse the merely horrible as its material — at least, to confine it to necessary revelations of actual suffering. As an undergraduate, however, writing for effect, he gave free rein to the morbid imaginations to which his unhappy affaire ie caeur and the mental excitement of the period predisposed him. Mr. Harrison, his literary Mentor, approved these poems, and inserted them in ' Friendship's Offering,' along with love-songs and other exercises in verse. One had a great success and was freely copied — ^the sincerest flattery — and the preface to the annual for 1840 publicly thanked the 'gifted writer ' for his ' valuable aid.' At the beginning of 1839 he went into new rooms vacated by Mr. Meux, and set to work finally on ' Salsette and Elephanta.' He ransacked all sources of information, coached himself in Eastern scenery and mythology, threw in the Aristotelian ingredients of terror and pity, and wound up with an appeal to the orthodoxy of the examiners, of whom Keble was the chief, by prophesying the prompt extermina- tion of Brahminism under the teaching of the missionaries, And while he wrote, his parents kept it from him day after day that his lady-love could be his no longer. This third try won the prize. Keble sent for him, to make the usual emendations before the great work could be given to the world with the seal of Oxford upon it. John Ruskin seems to have been somewhat refractory under Keble's hands, though he would let his fellow-students, or his father, or Mr. Harrison, work their will on his MSS. or proofs ; being SIR ROGER NEWDIGATE'S PRIZE 71 always easier to lead than to drive. Somehow he came to terms with the Professor, and then the Dean, taking an unexpected interest, was at pains to see that his printed copy was flawless, and to coach him for the recitation of it at the great day in the Sheldonian (June 12, 1839). And now that friends and strangers, publishers in London and professors in Oxford, concurred in their applause, it surely seemed that he had found his vocation, and was well on the highroad to fame as a poet. CHAFIER IX. THE BROKEN CHAIN. (1840-1841.) ' But nevermore the same two sister pearls Ean down the silken thread to kiss each other On her white neck ; so is it with this rhyme.' Tennyson. 1"^HAT 8th of February, 1840, when John Ruskin came of age, it seemed as though all the gifts of fortune had been poured into his lap. What his father's wealth and influence coilld do for him had been supplemented by a personal charm, which found him friends among the best men of the best ranks. What his mother's care had done in fortifying his health and forming his character, native energy had turned to the best advantage. He had won a reputation already much wider and more appreciable, as an artist and student of science, and as a writer of prose and verse, than undergraduates are entitled to expect; and, for crowning mercy, his head was not turned. He was reading extremely hard — ' in ' for his degree examination next Easter term. His college tutor hoped he would get a First. From that it was an easy step to Holy Orders, and with his opportunities preferment was certain. On his twenty-first birthday, his father, who had sym- pathized with his admiration for Turner enough to buy two pictures — the 'Richmond Bridge' and the ' Gosport '— for their Heme Hill drawing-room, now gave him a picture all to himself for his new rooms in St. Aldate's, — the ' Winchel- THE BROKEN CHAIN 73 sea,' and settled on him a handsome allowance of pocket- money. The first use he made of his wealth was to buy another Turner. In the Easter vacation he met Mr. Griffith, the dealer, at the private view of the old Water-colour Society, and hearing that the ' Harlech Castle ' was for sale, he bought it there and then, with the characteristic disregard for money which has always made the vendors of pictures and books and minerals find him extremely pleasant to deal with. But as his love-afFair had shown his mother how little he had taken to heart her chiefest care for him, so this first business transaction was a painful awakening to his father, the canny Scotch merchant, who had heaped up riches hoping that his son would gather them. This 'Harlech Castle' transaction, however, was not altogether unlucky. It brought him an introduction to the painter, whom he met when he was next in town, at Mr. Griffith's house. He knew well enough the popular idea of Turner as a morose and niggardly, inexplicable man. As he had seen faults in Turner's painting, so he was ready to acknowledge the faults in his character. But while the rest of the world, with a vefkjr few exceptions, dwelt upon the faults, Ruskin had penetration to discern the virtues which they hid. Few passages in his autobiography are more striking than the transcript from his journal of the same evening recording his first impression : ' " I found in him a somewhat eccentric, keen-mannered, matter-of-fact, English -minded — gentleman; good-natured evidently, bad-tempered evidently, hating humbug of all sorts, shrewd, perhaps a little selfish, highly intellectual, the powers of the mind not brought out with any delight in their manifestation, or intention of display, but flashing out occasionally in a word or a look." Pretty close, that,' he adds later, ' and full, to be set down at the first glimpse, and set down the same evening.' Turner was not a man to make an intimate of, all at once ; the acquaintanceship continued, and it ripened into as close a confidence as the eccentric painter's habits of hfe permitted. 74 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN He seems to have been more at home with the father than with the son ; but even when the young man took to writing books about him, he did not, as Carlyle is reported to have done in a parallel case, show his exponent to the door. The occasion of John Ruskin's coming to town this time was not a pleasant one — nothing less than the complete breakdown of his health ; we have heard the reasons why in the last chapter but one. It is true that he was working very hard during this spring ; but hard reading does not of itself kill people, only when it is combined with real and prolonged mental distress, acting upon a sensitive temperament. The case was thought serious; reading was stopped, and the patient was ordered abroad for the winter. From February to May, and such a change ! Then he had seemed so near the top of the hill, and the prospect was opening out before him ; now cloud and storm had come suddenly down; the path was lost, the future blotted out Disappointed in love, after fom- years of hope and effort; disappointed in ambition, after so nearly gathering the fruits of his labour ; to be laid aside, to be sent away out of the battlefield as a wounded man — perhaps to die. For that summer there was no hurry to be gone ; rest was more needed than change, at first. Late in September the same family-party crossed the sea to Calais. How different a voyage for them all from the merry departures of bygone Mays ! Which way shopld they turn .'' Not to Paris, for there was the cause of all these ills ; so they went straight southwards, through Normandy to the Loire, and saw the chateaux and churches from Orleans to Tours, famous for their Renaissance architecture and for the romance of their chivalric history. Amboise especially made a strong im- pression upon the languid and unwilling invalid. It stirred him up to write, in easy verse, the tale of love and death that his own situation too readily suggested. In 'The Broken Chain ' he indulged his gloomy fancy, turning, as it was sure to do, into a morbid nightmare of mysterious honor) not without reminiscence of Coleridge's ' Christabel.' But THE BROKEN CHAIN 75 through it all he preserved, so to speak, his dramatic in- cognito ; his own disappointment and his own anticipated death were the motives of the tale, but treated in such a manner as not to betray his secret, nor even to wound the feelings of the lady who now was beyond appeal from an honourable lover — ^taking his punishment like a man. This poem lasted him, for private writing, all through that journey — a fit emblem of the broken life which it records. A healthier source of distraction was his drawing, in which he had received a fresh impetus from the exhibition of David Roberts' sketches in the East. More delicate than Front's work, entering into the detail of architectural form more thoroughly, and yet suggesting chiaroscuro with broad washes of quiet tone and touches of light, cleverly introduced — ' that marvellous pop of light across the foreground,' Harding said of the picture of the Great Pyramid — these drawings were a mean between the limited manner of Prout and the inimitable fulness of Turner. Ruskin took up the fine pencil and the broad brush, and, with that blessed habit of industry which has helped so many a one through times of trial, made sketch after sketch on the half-imperial board, finished just so far as his strength and time allowed, as they passed fi'om the Loire to the mountains of Auvergne, and to the valley of the Rhone, and thence slowly round the Riviera to Pisa and Florence and Rome. He was not in a mood to sympathize readily with the enthusiasms of other people. They expected him to be delighted with the scenery, the buildings, the picture-galleries of Italy, and to forget himself in admiration. He did admire Michelangelo ; and he was interested in the back-streets and slums of the cities. Something piquant was needed to arouse him ; the mild ecstasies of common' connoisseurship hardly appeal to a young man between life and death. He met the friends to whom he had brought introductions — Mr. Joseph Severn, who had been Keats' companion, and was afterwards to be the genial Consul at Rome, and the two Messrs. Rich- mond, then studying art in the regular professional way ; one 76 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of them to become a celebrated portrait -painter, and the father of men of mark ; the present R.A., the architect and a Canon of Carlisle. But his views on art were not theirs ; he was already too independent and outspoken in praises of his own heroes, and too sick in mind and body to be patient and to learn. They had not been a month in Rome before he took the fever. As soon as he was recovered, they went still farther South, and loitered for a couple of months in the neighbour- hood of Naples, visiting the various scenes of interest- Sorrento, Amalfi, Salerno. The adventures of this journey are partly told in letters to Mr. Dale, printed in the volume above mentioned, and in the ' Letters addressed to a College Friend ' — books which, though not published by himself as part of his works, are interesting as contributions to his biography. In them the reader may trace, more fully than we can here detail, his occupations and travels, and find many a quaint remark and admirable bit of description, anticipating and explaining the wealth of language so soon to be displayed in his writings on art. On the way to Naples he had noted and sketched the winter scene at La Riccia, which he afterwards used for a glowing passage in ' Modern Painters ' ; and he had ventured into a village of brigands to draw such a castle as he had once imagined in his ' Leoni.' From Naples he wrote an account of a landslip near Giagnano, arid sent it home to the Ashmolean Society. He seemed better ; they turned home- wards, when suddenly he was seized with all the old symptoms worse than ever. After another month at Rome, they travelled slowly northwards from town to town; spent ten days of May at Venice, and passed through Milan and Turin, and over the Mont Cenis to Geneva. At last he was among the mountains again — the Alps that he loved. It was not only that the air of the Alps braced him, but the spirit of mountain -worship stirred him as nothing else could. At last he seemed himself, after more than a year of intense depression ; and he records that one THE BROKEN CHAIN 77 day, in church at Geneva, he resolved to do something, to he something useful. That he could make such a resolve was a sign of returning health ; but if, as I find, he had just been reading Carlyle's lately-published lectures on ' Heroes,' though he did not accept Carlyle's conclusions nor admire his style, might he not, in spite of his criticism, have been spurred the more into energy by that enthusiastic gospel of action ? They travelled home by Basle and Laon ; but London in August, and the premature attempt to be energetic, brought on a recurrence of the symptoms of consumption, as it was called. He wished to try the mountain-cure again, and set out with his friend Richard Fall for a tour in Wales. But his father recalled him to Leamington to try iron and dieting under Dr. Jephson, who, if he was called a quack, was a sensible one, and successful in subduing for several years to come the more serious phases of the disease. The patient was not cured ; he suffered from time to time from his chest, and still more from a weakness of the spine, which during all the period of his early manhood gave him trouble, and finished by bending his tall and lithe figiu-e into something that, were it not for his face, would be deformity. In 1847 he was again at Leamington under Jephson, in consequence of a relapse into the consumptive symptoms, after which we hear no more of it. He outgrew the tendency, as so many do. But nevertheless the alarm had been justifiable, and the malady had left traces which, in one way and another, haunted him ever after ; for one of the worst effects of illness is to be marked down as an invalid. At Leamington, then, in September, 1841, he was finding a new life under the doctor's dieting, and new aims in life, which were eventually to resolder for awhile the broken chain. Among the Scotch friends of the Ruskins there was a family at Perth whose daughter came to visit at Heme Hill, more lovely and more lively than his Spanish Princess had been. The story goes that she challenged the melancholy John, engrossed in his drawing and geology, to write a fairy- tale, as the least likely task for him to fulfil. Upon which 78 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN he produced, at a couple of sittings, ' The King of the Golden River,' a pretty medley of Grrimm's grotesque and Dickens kindliness and the true Ruskinian ecstasy of the Alps. He had come through the valley of the shadow, that terrible experience which so few survive ; fewer still emerge from it without loss of all that makes their life worth the living. But though for awhile he was ' hard bested,' he fought a good fight, and kept his faith in God, and in Nature, and in the human heart. CHAPTER X. THE GRADUATE OP OXFORD. (1841, 1842.) • * Enongh of Science and of Art ; Close up those barren leaves ; Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.' WOEDSWOETH. READY for work again, and in reasonable health of mind and body, John Ruskin sat down in his little study at Heme Hill in November, 1841, with his private tutor, Osborne Gordon. There was eighteen months' leeway to make up, and the dates of ancient history, the details of schematized Aristotelianism, soon slip out of mind when one is sketching in Italy. But he was more serious now about his work, and aware of his deficiencies. To be useful in the world, is it -not necessary first to understand all possible Greek constructions ? So said the voice of Oxford ; but oiur undergraduate was saved, both now and afterwards, from this vain ambition. ' I think it would hardly be worth your while,' said Gordon, with Delphic double-entendre. He could not now go in for honours, for the lost year had superannuated him. So in April he went up for a pass. In those times, when a pass-man showed unusual powers, they could give him an honorary class : not a high class, because the range of the examination was less than in the honour- school. This candidate wrote a poor Latin prose, it seems ; but his divinity, philosophy, and mathematics were so good that they gave him the best they could — ^an honorary double 80 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN fourth — upon which he took his B.A. degree, and could describe himself as ' A Graduate of Oxford.' It is noteworthy that our greatest master of English wrote a poor Latin prose. So much the worse, many will say, for Latin prose. The divinity, by which is meant Bible-know- ledge, was thoroughly learnt from his mother's early lessons. Not long after, he was contemptuously amused at a Scotch reviewer, who did not know what a ' chrysoprase ' was. As the word occurs in the Revelation, he assumed that everyone ought to know it, whether mineralogist or not. And his works teem with Biblical quotations — see their indexes for the catalogue. The mathematics were not elaborate in the old Oxford pass-school ; geometry and the elements of trigo- nometry and conies, thoroughly got by heart, and frequently alluded to in early works, sum up his studies. The philosophy meant the usual logic from Aldrich, with Bacon and Locke, Aristotle and Plato, analyzed into rather thin abstract. But Ruskin, with his thoroughness in all matters of general interest, took in the teaching of his books, and inwardly digested it. ' Modem Painters,' even in its literary style, is imbued with Locke; Aristotle is his leader and antagonist alternately throughout the earlier period of art criticism, and Plato his guide and philosopher ever after. Some Scotch philosophy he had read; Thomas Brown, his parents' old friend ; Dugald Stewart and the rest of the school ; and their teaching comes out in the scheme of thought that underlies his artistic theories. It is worth while dwelling upon hia acquirements at this moment — taking stock, as it were — ^because he was on the brink of his first great work. ' Modern Painters ' has been usually looked upon as the sudden outburst of a genius; young, but mature; complex, but inexplicable; to he accepted as a gospel or to be decried as the raving of a heretic. But we cannot trace the author's life without seeing that the book is only one episode in an interesting develop- ment. We have been gradually led up to it, and as gradually we shall be led away fi-om it ; and the better we understand THE GRADUATE OF OXFORD 81 the circumstances of its production, the better we shall be able to appreciate it, to weigh it, and to keep what is perma- nent in it. All this religious and useful learning was very lightly carried by our Oxford graduate. He could now take no high academic position, and the continued weakness of his health kept him from taking steps to enter the Church ; and his real interest in art was not crowded out even by the last studies for his examination. While he was working with Gordon, in the autumn of 184)1, he was also taking lessons from J. D. Harding ; and the famous study of ivy, his first naturalistic sketching, to which we must revert, — this must have been done a week or two before going up for his examination. The lessons from Harding were a useful counter-stroke to the excessive and exaggerated Tumerism in which he had been indulging through his illness. The drawings of Amboise, the coast of Genoa, and the Glacier des Bois, though pub- lished later, were made before he had exchanged fancy for fact; and they bear, on the face of them, the obvious marks of an unhealthy state of mind. Harding, whose robust common-sense and breezy mannerism endeared him to the British amatem* of his generation, was just the man to correct any morbid tendency. He had religious views in sympathy with his pupil, and he soon inoculated Ruskin with his contempt for the minor Dutch school — those bituminous landscapes, so unlike the sparkling freshness that Harding's own water-colour illustrated, and those vulgar tavern scenes, painted, he declared, by sots who disgraced art alike in their works and in their lives. Until this epoch, John Ruskin had found much that interested him in the Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century. He had classed them all together as the school of which Rubens, Vandyck, and Rembrandt were the chief masters, and those as names to rank with Raphael and Michelangelo and Velasquez. He was a humorist, not without boyish delight in a good Sam-Wellerism, and so could be amused with the ' drolV until Harding appealed to 6 82 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN his religion and morality against them. He was a chiai'- oscurist, and not naturally oifended by their violent light and shade, until George Richmond showed him the more excel- lent way in colour, the glow of Venice, first hinting it at Rome in 184<0, and then proving it in London in the spring of 1842, from Samuel Rogers' treasm-es, of which the chief (now in the National Gallery) was the 'Christ appearing to the Magdalen.' Much as the author of ' Modern Painters ' owed to these friends and teachers, and to the advantages of his varied training, he would never have written his great work without a farther inspiration. Harding's especial forte was his method of drawing trees. He looked at Nature with an eye which, for his period, was singularly fresh and unprejudiced; he had a strong feeling for truth of structure as well as for picturesque effect, and he taught his pupils to obsene as well as to draw. But in his own practice he rested too much on having observed ; formed a style, and copied himself if he did not copy the old masters. Hence he held to rules of composition and conscious graces of arrangement ; and while he taught naturalism in study, he followed it up witii teaching artifice in practice. Turner, who was not a drawing-master, lay under no necessity to formulate his principles and stick to them. On the contrary, his style developed like a kaleidoscope, ever changing into something more rich arjd strange. He had been in Switzerland and on the Rhine in 1841, ' painting his impressions,' making water-colour notes from memory of effects that had struck him. From one of these, ' Spliigen,' he had made a finished picture, and now wished to get commissions for more of the same class. Ruskin was greatly interested in this series, because they were not landscapes of the ordinary type, scenes from Nature squeezed into the mould of recognised artistic composition, nor, on the other hand, mere photographic transcripts ; but dreams, as it were, of the mountains and sunsets, in which Turner's wealth of detail was suggested, and his intuitive knowledge of form THE GRADUATE OP OXFORD 83 expressed, together with the unity which comes of the faithful record of a single impression. Nothing had been done like them before, in landscape. They showed that an artistic result might be obtained without the use of the ordinary tricks and professional rules ; that there was a sort of com- position possible, of whieh the usual hackneyed arrangements were merely frigid and vapid imitations ; and that this higher kind of art was only to be learnt by long watching of Nature and sincere rendering of her motives, her supreme moments, the spirit of her scenes. The lesson was soon enforced upon his mind by example. One day, while taking his student's constitutional, he noticed a tree-stem with ivy upon it, which seemed not ungraceful, and invited a sketch. As he drew he fell into the spirit of its natural arrangement, and soon perceived how much finer it was as a piece of design than any conventional rearrange- ment would be. Harding had tried to show him how to generalize foliage; but in this example he saw that not generalization was needed to get its beauty, but truth. If he could express his sense of the charm of the natural arrangement, what use in substituting an artificial com- position .'' In that discovery lay the germ of his whole theory of art, the gist of his mission. Understanding the importance of it, we shall understand his subsequent writing, the grounds of his criticism and the text of his art-teaching. If it can be summed in a word, the word is ' sincerity.' Be sincere with Nature, and take her as she is ; neither casually glancing at her ' effects ' nor dully labouring at her parts, with the in- tention of improving and blending them into something better, but taking her all in all. On the other hand, be sincere with yourself, knowing what you truly admire, and painting that, refusing the hypocrisy of any 'grand style' or ' high art,' just as much as you refuse to pander to vulgar tastes. And then vital art is produced, and, if the workman be a man of great powers, great art. All this followed from the ivy sketch on Tulse Hill in May, 6—2 84 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN 184(2. It did not follow all at once; repeated experiment was needed to give the grounds from which the induction was drawn. At Fontainebleau soon after, under much the same circumstances, a study of an aspen - tree, idly begun, but carried out with interest and patience, confirmed the principle. At Geneva, once more in the church where he had formed such resolutions the year before, the desire came over him with renewed force ; now not only to be definitely employed, but to be employed in the service of a definite mission, which, be it observed, was, in art, exactly what Carlyle had preached in every other sphere of life in that book of ' Heroes :' the gospel of sincerity ; the reference of greatness in any form to honesty of purpose as the underlying motive of a perspicuous intellect and a resolute will — ^these last being necessary conditions of success, but the sincerity being the chief thing needful. The design took shape. At Chamouni he studied plants and rocks and clouds, not as an artist to make pictures out of them, nor as a scientist to class them and analyze them; but to learn their aspects and enter into the spirit of their growth and structvure. And though on his way home through Switzerland and down the Rhine he made a few drawings in his old style for admiring friends, they were the last of the kind that he attempted. Thenceforward his path was marked out; he had found a new vocation. He was not to be a poet, — that was too definitely bound up with the past which he wanted to forget, and with conventionalities which he wished to shake off; not to be an artist, struggling with the rest to please a public which he felt himself called upon to teach; not a man of science, for his botany and geology were to be the means, and not the ends, of his teaching ; but the mission was laid upon him to tell the world that Art, no less than other spheres of life, had its Heroes ; that the mainspring of their energy was Sincerity, aaid the biurden of their utterance, Truth. BOOK II. THE ART CRITIC. (1842-1860.) ' The almost unparalleled example of a man winning for himself the unanimous plaudits of his generation and time, and then casting them away like dust, that he may build his monument — aire peremdva.^ — Rviskim. on Turner, 1844. CHAPTER I. 'TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS.' (1842-1844.) 'Af>xil yip ri Sn. Aristotle : Eth., i. 4 THE neighbour, or the Oxonian friend, who climbed the steps of the Heme Hill house and called upon Mrs. Ruskin, in the autumn and winter of 1842, would learn that Mr. John was hard at work in his own study over- head. Those were its windows, on the second-floor, looking out upon the front -garden; the big dormer-window above was his bedroom, from which he had his grand view of low- land, and far horizon, and unconfined sky, comparatively clear of London smoke. In the study itself, screened from the road by russet foliage and thick evergreens, great things were going on. But Mr. John could be interrupted, would come ranning lightly downstairs, with both hands out to greet the visitor ; would show the pictures, eagerly demonstrating the beauties of the last new Turners, ' Ehrenbreitstein ' and ' Lucerne,' just acquired, and anticipating the sunset glories and moimtain gloom of the ' Goldau ' and ' Dazio Grande,' which the great artist was ' realizing ' for him from sketches he had chosen at Queen Anne Street. He was very busy — but never too busy to see his friends — writing a book. And, the visitor gone, he would run up to his room and his writing, sure of the thread of his ideas and the flow of his language, with none of that misery and despair of soul which an interruption brings to many another author. In the 88 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN afternoon his careful mother would turn him out for a tramp round the Norwood lanes ; he might look in at the Poussins and Claudes of the Dulwich Gallery, or, for a longer excursion, go over to Mr. Windus, and his roomful of Turner drawings,, or sit to Mr. George Richmond for the portrait at full length with desk and portfolio, and Mont Blanc in the background, Dinner over, another hour or two's writing, and early to bed, after finishing his chapter with a flourish of eloquence, to be read next morning at breakfast to father and mother and Mary. The vivid descriptions of scenes yet fresh in their memory, or of pictures they treasured, the ' thoughts ' as they used to be called, allusions to sincere beliefs and cherished hopes, never failed to win the praise that pleased the young writer most, in happy tears of unrestrained emotion. These old-fashioned folk had not learnt the trick of nil admiran. Quite honestly they would say, with the German musician, ' When I hear good music, then must I always weep.' We can look into the little study, and see what this writing was that went on so busily and steadily. It was the long- meditated defence of Turner, provoked by Blackwood's Magazine six years before, encouraged by Carlyle's ' Heroes,' and necessitated by the silence, on this topic, of the more enlightened leaders of thought in an age of cut -and -dry connoisseurship and critical cant. True, there were teachersy like Prout and Harding, right, but narrow in range. The moment any author ventured upon the subject of ' high art,' his principles of beauty and theories of sublimity stood in the way of candour and common-sense. But 'Kata Phusin' had been to college, and read his ' Ethics,' and he had marked such a passage as this : ' We must not forget the difference between reasoning Jrom principles and reasoning to principles. Plato was quite right in pointing this out, and in saying that it is as important in philosophy as in running races to know where your starting- point is to be. Now you and I,' quoth Aristotle, ' can reason only upon what we know — not on what we ought to know, or might be supposed to know, but upon what each of us has 'TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS' 89 ascertained to be matter of fact. Fact, then — ^the particular fact — ^is our starting-point. Take care of the facts,' he says, to put him into plain English, ' and the principles will take care of themselves.' Which Aristotle did, and in the sphere of Ethics found that the observed facts of conscience and conduct were not truly explained by the old moral philosophy of the Sophists and the Academy. Just in the same way our yoimg Aristotelian, by beginning with the observed facts of nature — ^truths, he called them — and the practice (not the precept) of great artists, superseded the eighteenth-century Academic art-theories, and created a perfectly new school of criticism, which, however erring or incomplete in details or misapplied in corollaries, did for English art what Aristotle did for Greek Ethics. He brought the whole subject to the bar of common-sense and common imderstanding. He took it out of the hands of adepts and initiated jargoners, and made it public property, the right and the responsibility of all. Though John Ruskin had the honour of doing this work in the world of art, others were doing similar work in other spheres. Most of our soundest thinkers of the nineteenth century were brought up on the ' Ethics,' and learnt to take fact for their starting-point. The physical -science school, whether classically trained or not, was working in the same cause — the substitution of observation and experiment for generalization and a priori theories. And it is curious, as showing how accurately the young Ruskin was representative of the spirit of his age, that at the very moment when he was propounding his revolutionary art -philosophy, John Stuart Mill was writing that ' Logic ' which was to convert the old hocus-pocus of Scholasticism into the method of modem scientific inquiry. In his later works Mr. Ruskin appeared as somewhat of a reactionary — laudator temporis acti — opponent of modernism ; but, like many men of note, he began as a Progressist, the preacher of hope, the darter of new lights, the destroyer of pythons, of tyrannic superstitions quibus lumen ademptum. 90 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN His youth was an epoch of intellectual reform, one of many such epochs, when the house of life was being set in order for another period's work and wage-earning — no new thing, but necessary. There had been such a clearance begun 170 years before by John Locke, when he took fact for his starting-point in a revolt from the tjrranny of philosophical dogma. And it was not at all strange that our young author should model his manifesto upon so renowned a precedent ; that his style in the opening chapters of his work, his arrangement in divisions and subdivisions, even his marginal summaries, should recall the ' Essay on the Human Understanding,' &om which the scheme and system of his thought were derived. He began, like Locke, by showing that public opinion and the dicta of tradition were no valid authorities. If painting be an expression of the human mind — as, in another way, language is — and if the contents of the mind are Ideas, then, he said, the best painting is that which contains the greatest number of the greatest Ideas. Locke had shown that all Ideas are derived from Sensation, from Reflection, and from the combination of both ; the Ideas which painting can express must be similarly derived. And since the mind which we share with the Deity is nobler than the senses which we share with beasts, it was logical to conclude that, in propor- tion as the Ideas expressed in painting are intellectual and moral, the art that expresses them is fuller and higher. Ideas of Imitation, involving only the illusion of the senses, are the lowest of all ; those of Power, artistic execution, are a step higher, but still so much in the realm of Sensation as to be hardly matter of argument ; and therefore the Ideas of Truth, of Beauty, and of Relation (or the imaginative present- ment of poetical thought in the language of painting), are the three chief topics of his inquiry. For the present he will discuss Truth, the more readily as it was the general complaint that Turner was untrue to Nature. What is Truth ? Aristotle has stated plainly enough, ' Particular fact is our •TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS' 91 starting-point.'' But, unfortunately, Sir Joshua Reynolds, our old friend Northcote's master, the greatest English artist and art-theorist, had taught a modified Academic doctrine oi Ideas, not Lockeian, but Platonic ; and our young philosopher lost his way for the time in trying to reconcile one favourite authority with another. But he was able to show that old- fashioned generalization was not Truth, and, quitting the formal doctrinaire tone of his opening chapters, plunged eagerly into the illustration of his theme, namely, that Truth in landscape art was the expression of natural law by exhibit- ing such facts as tell the story of the scene. For example, Canaletto, with all his wonderful mechanism, when he painted Venice, lost the fulness of detail and glory of light and colour ; Prout secured only the picturesqueness with his ' five strokes of a reed pen ' ; Stanfield only the detail ; while Turner gave the full character of the place in its detail, colour, light, mystery, and poetical eifect. In the analysis of natural fact, as shown in painting, there was full scope for the power of descriptive writing which, as we have seen, was John Ruskin's peculiar gift and study. AVhen he came to compare Gaspar Poussin's picture of La Riccia with the real scene as he had witnessed it, he had the description ready to hand in his journal of two years before ; and a careful drawing on the spot, not indeed realizing the colour, which he could not then attempt, but recording ' the noonday sim slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage,' with their autumnal tints suggested so far as his water-colour wash on gray paper allowed. A still happier adaptation of accumulated material was his word-picture of a night on the Rigi, with all its wonderful successive effects of gathering thunder, sunset in tempest, serene starlight, and the ma,gic glories of Alpine sunrise, taken from the true story of his visit there, eight years before, as described in a rhyming letter to Richard Fall, and ingeniously embroidered with a running commentary on a series of draw- ings by Turner. 92 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Then, passing to the forms of mountains, he warmed with his old enthusiasm. Years of study and travel had taught him to combine scientific geology with the mystery and poetry of the Alps. Byron and Shelley had touched the poetry of them ; a crowd of earnest investigators were work- ing at geology ; but none beside this youth of twenty-three had made them the topic of literature so lofty in aim and so masterly in execution. And as the year ran out, he was ending his work, happy in the applause of his little domestic circle, and conscious that he was preaching the crusade of Sincerity, the cause of justice for the greatest landscape artist of any age, and justice, at the hands of a heedless public, for the glorious works of the supreme Artist of the universe. Let our yoimg painters, he concluded, go humbly to Nature, ' rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing,' in spite of Academic theorists, and in time we should have a school of landscape worthy of the inspiration they would find. There was his book ; the title of it, ' Turner and the Ancients.' Before publishing, to get more experienced criticism than that of the breakfast-table, he submitted it to his friend, Mr. W. H. Harrison. The title, it seemed, was not explicit enough, and after debate they substituted ' Modern Painters : their Superiority in the Art of Landscape Painting to all the Ancient Masters proved by Examples of the True, the Beautiful, and the Intellectual, from the WorkI' of Modem Artists, especially from those of J. M. W. Timier, Esq., R.A.' And as the severe tone of many remarks was felt to be hardly supported by the age and standing of so young an author, he was content to sign himself ' A Graduate of Oxford.' It is odd how easily men of note become the heroes of myths. The too common discouragement of young geniuses, the old story of the rejected manuscript, disdainful publishers, and hope defen-ed, experienced by so many as to be typical of the embryo stage of a literary reputation, all this has been tacked on to Mr. Ruskin's supposed first start. Anecdotes 'TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS' 93 are told of his father hawking the MS. from office to office until it found acceptance with Messrs. Smith and Elder. Absurd, since young Ruskin had been doing business for seven years past with that firm ; he was perfectly well known to them as one of the most ' rising ' youths of the time, and their own literary editor, Mr. Harrison, was his private Mentor, who revised his proofs and inserted the punctuation, which he usually indicated only by dashes. And yet there is the half-truth in it that his business dealings with the pub- lishers were generally conducted through his father, who made very fair terms for him, as things went then. In May, 1843, 'Modern Painters,' vol. i., was published, and it was soon the talk of the art-world. It was meant to be aiudacious, and naturally created a storm. The free criticisms of public favourites made an impression, not because they were put into strong language, for the tone of the press was stronger then than it is now, as a whole, but because they were backed up by illustration and argument. It was evident that the author knew something of his subject, even if he were all wrong in his conclusions. He could not be neglected, though he might be protested against, decried, controverted. Artists especially, who do not usually see their works as others see them, and are not accustomed to think of themselves and their school as mere dots and spangles in the perspective of history, could not be entirely content to be classed as Turner's satellites. Even the gentle Prout was indignant, not so much at the ' five strokes of a reed pen,' but at the want of reverence with which his masters and friends were treated. Harding thought that his teaching ought to have been more fully acknowledged. Turner was embarrassed at the greatness thrust upon him. And while the book contained something that promised to suit every kind of reader, everyone found something to shock him. Critics were scandalized at the depreciation of Claude ; the religious were outraged at the comparison of Turner, in a passage omitted from later editions, to the Angel of the Sun, in the Apocalypse. 94 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN But the descriptive passages were such as had never appeared before in prose ; and the obvious usefulness of the analyses of natural form and effect made many an ai-tist read on, while he shook his head. Some readily owned their obligation to the new teacher. Holland, for one, wrote to Harrison that he meant to paint the better for the snubbing he had got. Of professed connoisseurs, such as reviewed the book adversely in Blackwood and the Athenaeum, not one undertook to refute it seriously. They merely attacked a detail here and there, which the author discussed in two or three replies, with a patience that showed how confident he was in his position. He had the good word of some of the best judges of literature. 'Modem Painters' lay on Rogers' table; and Tennyson, who a few years before had beaten young Ruskin out of the field of poetry, was so taken with it that he wrote to his publisher to borrow it for him, ' as he longed very much to see it,' but could not afford to buy it. Sir Henry Taylor wrote to Mr. Aubrey de Vere, the poet, begging him to read * a book which seems to me to be far more deeply founded in its criticism of art than any other that I have met with . . . written with great power and eloquence, and a spirit of the most diligent investigation. ... I am told that the author's name is Ruskin, and that he was considered at college as an odd sort of man who would never do anything.'* When the secret of the ' Oxford Graduate ' leaked out, as it did very soon, through the proud father, Mr. John was lionized. During the winter of 1843 he met celebrities at fashionable dinner-tables : and now that his parents were established in their grander house on Denmark Hill, they could duly return the hospitalities of the great world. It was one very satisfactory result of the success that the father was more or less converted to Tumerism, and lined his walls with Turner drawings, which became the great attraction of the house, far outshining its seven acres of garden and orchard and shrubbery, and the ampler air of cultured ease. * From a letter kindly communicated by Mr. de Vere. 'TURNER AND THE ANCIENTS' 95 For a gift to his son he bought 'The Slave Ship,' one of Turner's latest and most disputed works ; and he was all eagerness to see the next volume in preparation. . It was intended to carry on the discussion of ' Truth,' with further illustrations of mountain-form, trees and skies. And so in May, 1844, they all went away again, that the artist- author might prepare drawings for his plates. He was going to begin with the geology and botany of Chamoimi, and work through the Alps, eastward. At Chamouni they had the good fortune to meet with Joseph Coutet, a superannuated guide, whom they engaged to accompany the eager but inexperienced mountaineer. Coutet was one of those men of natural ability and kindli- ness whose friendship is worth more than much intercourse with worldly celebrities, and for many years afterwards Mr. Ruskin had the advantage of his care — of something more than mere attendance. At any rate, under such guidance, he could climb where he pleased, free from the feehng that people at home were anxious about him. He was not imadventurous in his scramblings, but with no ambition to get to the top of everything. He wanted to observe the aspects of mountain-form; and his careful out- lines, slightly coloured, as his manner then was, and never aiming at picturesque treatment, record the structure of the rocks and the state of the snow with more than photographic accuracy. A photograph often confuses the eye with un- necessary detail ; these drawings seized the leading lines, the important features, the interesting points. For example, in his Matterhom (a drawing of 1849), as Mr. Whymper remarks in ' Scrambles among the Alps,' there are particulars noted which the mere sketcher neglects, but the climber finds out, on closer intercourse, to be the essential facts of the mountain's anatomy. All this is not picture-making, but it is a very valuable contribution and preliminary to criticism. From Chamouni this year they went to Simplon, and met J. D. Forbes, the geologist, whose ' viscous theory ' of glaciers ' Mr. Ruskin adopted and defended with warmth later on, and 96 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to the Beir Alp, long before it had been made a place of popular resort by Professor Tyndall's notice. The ' Panorama of the Simplon from the Beir Alp ' is still to be found in the St. George's (Ruskin) Museum at Sheffield, as a record of the draughtsmanship in this period. Thence to Zermatt with Osborne Gordon ; Zermatt, too, unknown to the fashionable tourist, and innocent of hotel luxuries. It is cmious that, at first sight, he did not care for the Matterhorn. It was entirely unlike his ideal of mountains. It was not at all like Cumber- land. But in a very few years he had come to love the Alps for their own sake, and we find him regretting at Ambleside the colour and light of Switzerland, the mountain glory which our humbler scenery cannot match. And yet he has come back to it for a home, not ill-content. After another visit to Chamouni, he crossed France to Paris, where something awaited him that upset all his plans, and turned his energies into an unexpected channel. CHAPTER IL CHRISTIAN ART. (1845-1847.) * They might chirp and chatter, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive — My business was hardly with them, I trow. But with empty cells of the human hive ; With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch. The church's apsis, aisle or nave. Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch. Its face, set full for the sun to shave.' Old Pictures in Florence. AT Paris, on the way home in 1844, Mr. Ruskin had spent some days in studying Titian and Bellini and Pei-ugino. They were not new to him ; but now that he was an art-critic, it behoved him to improve his acquaint- ance with the old masters. ' To admire the works of Pietro Perugino' was one thing; but to understand them was another, a thing which was hardly attempted by ' the Land- scape Artists of England ' to whom the author of ' Modem Painters' had so far dedicated his services. He had been extolling modernism, and depreciating ' the Ancients ' because they could not draw rocks and clouds and trees; and he was fresh from his scientific sketching in the happy hunting- ground of the modem world. A few days in the Louvre made him the devotee of ancient art, and taught him to lay aside his geology for history. In one way the development was easy. The patient attempt to copy mountain-form had made him sensitive to 7 98 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN harmony of line ; and in the gi-eat composers of Florence and Venice he found a quality of abstract design which tallied with his experience of what was beautiful in Nature. Aiguilles and glaciers, drawn as he drew them, and the figure-subjects of severe Italian draughtsmen, are beautiful by the same laws of composition, however different the associations they suggest. With the general public, and with many artists, associations easily outweigh abstractions; but this was an analytic mind, bent, then, upon the problems I of form, and ready to acknowledge them no less in Madonnas;,! than in mountains. But he had been learning these laws of beauty from Turner and from the Alps ; how did the ancients come by them ? They could be found only in a thorough study of their lives and times, to begin with, to which he devoted his winter, with Rio and Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jameson for his authori- ties. He found that his foes, Gaspar Poussin and Canaletto, and the Dutch landscapists, were not the real old masters; that there had been a great age of art before the era of Vandyck and Rubens, — even before Michelangelo and Raphael ; and that, towards setting up as a critic of the present, he must understand the past out of which it had grown. So he determined to go to Florence and Venice, and to study the religious painters at first hand. Mountain-study and Turner were not to be dropped. For example, to explain the obvious and notorious licences which Turner took with topography, it was necessary to see in what these licences consisted. Of the later Swiss drawings, one of the wildest and most impressive was the ' St. Gothard ' ; Ruskin wanted to find Turner's point of view, and to see what alterations he had made. He told Turner so, and the artist, who knew that his picture had been realized from a very slight sketch, was naturally rather opposed to this test,, as being, from his point of view, merely a waste of time and trouble. He tried to persuade the Ruskins that the Swiss. Sonderbund war, then going on, made travelling unsafe, and so forth. But in vain. Mr. John was allowed to go, for the CHRISTIAN ART 99 first time, alone, without his parents, taking only a servant, and meeting the trustworthy Coutet at Geneva. With seven months at his own disposal, he did a vast amount of work, especially in drawing. The studies of mountain-form and Italian design, in the year before, had given him a greater interest in the ' Liber Studiorum,'' Turner's early book of Essays in Composition. He found there that use of the pure line, about which he has since said , so much; together with a thoughtfully devised scheme of light-and-shade in mezzotint ; devoted to the treatment of landscape in the same spirit as that in which the Italian masters treated figure-subjects in their pen-and-bistre studies. And just as he had imitated the Rogers vignettes in his boyhood, now in his youth he tried to emulate the fine abstract flow and searching expressiveness of the etched line, and the studied breadth of shade, by using the quill-pen with washes of monochrome, or sometimes with subdued colour. This dwelling upon outline as not only representative, but decorative in itself, has sometimes led Mr. Ruskin into over- emphasis and a mannered grace ; but the value of his pen- and-wash style has never been fairly tested in landscape. His best drawings are known to very few ; some of his finest work was thrown away on subjects which were never com- pleted, or were ruined by rough experiments when he had tired of them ; and no other man with his feeling and know- ledge has attempted to work in the same method. At first he kept pretty closely to monochrome. His object was form, and his special talent was for draughtsmanship rather than for colour, which developed quite late in his life. But it was this winter's study of the ' Liber Studiorum ' that started him on his own characteristic course ; and while we have no pen-and-wash work of his before 1845 (except a few experiments after Prout), we find him now using the pen continually during the ' Modem Painters ' period. On reaching the Lake of Geneva he wrote, or sketched, one of his best-known pieces of verse, ' Mont Blanc Revisited,' land a few other poems followed, the last of the long series 7—2 100 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN which had once been his chief interest and aim in life. With this lonely journey there came new and deeper feelings ; with his increased literary power, fresh resources of diction ; and he was never so near being a poet as when he gave up writing verse. Too condensed to be easily understood, too solemn in their movement to be trippingly read, the lines on 'The Arve at Cluse,' on ' Mont Blanc,' and ' The Glacier,' should not be passed over as merely rhetorical. And the reflections on the loungers at Conflans are full of significance of the spirit in which he was gradually approaching the great problems of his life, to pass through art into the earnest study of human conduct and its final cause. 'Why Stand tb here all the Day Idle?" •Have you in heaven no hope — on earth no care — No foe in hell, ye things of stye and stall, That congregate like flies, and make the air Rank with your fevered sloth ; that hourly call The sun, which should your servant be, to bear Dread witness on you, with uncounted wane And unregarded rays, from peak to peak Of flery-gnomoned mountain moved in vain ? Behold, the very shadows that ye seek For slumber, write along the wasted wall Your condemnation. They forget not, they, Their ordered functions ; and determined fall, Nor useless perish. But you count your day By sins, and write your difference from clay In bonds you break, and laws you disobey. • God ! who has given the rocks their fortitude, Their sap unto the forests, and their food And vigour to the busy tenantry Of happy soulless things that wait on Thee, Hast Thou no blessing where Thou gav'st Thy blood 1 Wilt Thou not make Thy fair creation whole 1 Behold and visit this Thy vine for good — Breathe in this human dust its living soul.' He was still deeply religious — more deeply so than before, and found the echo of his own thoughts in George Herbert, with whom he 'communed in spirit' while he travelled CHRISTIAN ART 101 through the Alps. But the forms of outward religion were losing their hold over him in proportion as his inward religion became more real and intense. It was only a few days after writing these lines that he ' broke the Sabbath ' for the first time in his life, by chmbing a hill after church. That was the first shot fired in a war, in one of the strangest and saddest wars between conscience and reason that biography records ; strange because the opposing forces were so nearly matched, and sad because the struggle lasted until their field of battle was desolated before either won a victory. Thirty years later, the cleverest of his Oxford hearers* drew his portrait under the name of the man whose sacred verse was his guide and mainstay in this youthful pilgrim's progress, and the words put into his mouth summed up with merciless insight the issue of those conflicts. * " For I ! Whom am I that speak to you ? Am I a believer ? No. I am a doubter too. Once I could pray every morning, and go forth to my day's labour stayed and comforted. But now I can pray no longer. You have taken my God away from me, and I know not where you have laid Him. My only consolation in my misery is that I am inconsolable for His loss. Yes," cried Mr. Herbert, his voice rising in a kind of threatening wail, " though you have made me miserable, I am not yet content with my misery. And though I too have said in my heart that there is no God, and that there is no more profit in wisdom than in folly, yet there is one folly that I will .not give tongue to. I will not say Peace, peace, when there is no peace." ' Later on we have to tell how he dwelt in that Doubting Castle, and how he escaped. But the pilgrim had not yet met Giant Despair ; and his progress was very pleasant in that spring of ISiS, the year of fine weather, as he drove round the Riviera, and the cities of Tuscany opened out their treasiu-es to him. There was Lucca, with San Frediano and the glories of twelfth-century architecture ; Fra Bartolommeo's picture of the Madonna with the Magdalen and St. Catherine * W. H. Mallock, ' The New Republic' 102 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of Siena, his initiation into the significance of early religions painting ; and, taking hold of his imagination, in her marble sleep, more powerfully than any flesh and blood, the dead lady of St. Martin's Church, Ilaria di Caretto. There was Pisa, with the jewel shrine of Sta. Maria della Spina, then undestroyed ; the excitement of street sketching among a sympathetic crowd of fraternizing Italians ; the Abbe Rosini, Professor of Fine Arts, whom he made friends with, endured as lecturer, and persuaded into scaffold-building in the Campo Santo for study of the frescoes. And there was Florence, with Giotto's campanile, where the young Protestant frequented monasteries, made hay with monks, sketched with his new-found friends Rudolf Durheim of Berne and Dieudonne the French purist ; and spent long days copying Angelico and annotating Ghirlandajo, fevered with the sun of Italy at its strongest, and with the rapture of discovery, ' which turns the unaccustomed head like Chianti wine.' Coutet got him away, at last, to the Alps ; worn out and in despondent reaction after all this excitement. He spent a month at Macugnaga, reading Shakespeare and trying to draw boulders ; drifting gradually back into strength enough to attack the next piece of work, the study of Turner sites on the St. Gothard, where he made the drawings afterwards engraved in ' Modern Painters.' In August, J. D. Harding was going to Venice, and arranged for a meeting at Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore. Gossip had credited him with a share in ' Modem Painters ' ; now the tables were turned, and Griffith the picture-dealer wanted to know if it was true that John Ruskin had helped Harding with his new book, just out. They sketched together, Ruskin perhaps emulating his friend's slap-dash style in the 'Sunset' reproduced in his ' Poems,' and illustrating his own in the ' Water-mill.' And so they drove together to Verona and thence to Venice. At Venice they stayed in Danieli's Hotel, on the Biva del Schiavoni, and began by studying picturesque canal-life. Mr. Boxall, R.A., and Mrs. Jameson, the historian of Sacred and Legendary Art, were their companions. Another old CHRISTIAN ART 103 friend, Joseph Severn, had in 1843 gained one of the prizes at the Westminster Hall Cartoons Competition ; and a letter from Mr. Ruskin, referring to the work there, shows how he still pondered on the subject that had been haunting him in the Alps. ' With your hopes for the elevation of Enghsh art by means of fresco I cannot sympathize. ... It is not the material nor the space that can give us thoughts, passions, or power. I see on our Academy walls nothing but what is ignoble in small pictures, and would be disgusting in large ones. ... It is not the love of fresco that we want ; it is the love of God and His creatures; it is humility, and charity, and self-denial, and fasting, and prayer; it is a total change of character. We want more faith and less reasoning, less strength and more trust. You want neither walls, nor plaster, nor colours — fa ne fait rkn a T affaire ; it is Giotto, and Ghirlandajo, and Angelico that you want, and that you will and must want until this disgusting nineteenth century has — I can't say breathed, but steamed its last.' So early he had taken up and wrapped round him the mantle of Cassandra. But he was suddenly to find the sincerity of Ghirlandajo and the religious significance of Angelico united with the matured power of art. Without knowing what they were to meet, Harding and he found themselves one day in the Scuola di S. Rocco, and face to face with Tintoret. It was the fashion before Mr. Ruskin's time, and it has been the fashion since, to undervalue Tintoret. He is not pious enough for the purists, nor decorative enough for the Pre-Raphaelites. The ruin or the restoration of almost all his pictures makes it impossible for the ordinary amateur to judge them ; they need reconstruction in the mind's eye, and that is a dangerous process. Mr. Ruskin himself, as he grew older, found more interest in the playful industry of Carpaccio than in the laborious games, the stupendous Titan-feats of Tintoret. But at this moment, solemnized before the problems of life, he found these problems hinted in the mystic symbolism of the school of S. Rocco : with eyes now 104 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN opened to pre-Reformation Christianity, he found its com- pleted outcome in Tintoret^ interpretation of the life of Christ and the types of the Old Testament ; fresh from the stormy grandeur of the St. Gothard, he found the lurid skies and looming giants of the Visitation, or the Baptism, or the Crucifixion, re-echoing the subjects of Turner as 'deep answering to deep ' ; and, with Harding of the Broad Brush, he recognised the mastery of landscape execution in the Flight into Egypt, and the St. Mary in the Desert. He devoted the rest of his time chiefly to cataloguing and copying Tintoret. The catalogue appeared in ' Stones of Venice,' which was suggested by this visit, and begun by some sketches of architectural detail, and the acquisition of daguerreotypes — a new invention which delighted Mr. Ruskiu immensely, as it had delighted Turner, with trustworthy records of detail which sometimes eluded even his industry and accuracy. At last his friends were gone ; and, left alone, he overworked himself, as usual, before leaving Venice with crammed port- folios and closely -written note -books. At Padua he was stopped by a fever ; all through France he was pm-sued by what, from his account, appears to have been some form of diphtheria, averted only, as he believed, in direct answer to earnest prayer. At last his eventful pilgrimage was ended,, and he was restored to his home and his parents. It was not long before he was at work again in his new study, looking out upon the quiet meadow and grazing cows of Denmark Hill, and rapidly throwing into form the fresh impressions of the summer. Still thoroughly Aristotelian and Lockeian in method, he found no difficulty in making his philosophy the vehicle of religious thought. He was strongly influenced by the sermons of Canon Melvill — ^the same preacher whom Browning in his youth admired — a good orator and sound analytic expositor, though not a great or independent thinker. Osborne Gordon had recommended him to read Hooker, and he caught the tone and style of the 'Ecclesi- astical Polity ' only too readily, so that much of his work of CHRISTIAN ART 105 that winter, the more philosophical part of vol. ii., was damaged by inversions, and Elizabethan quaintness as of ruflF and train, long epexegetical sentences, and far-sought pomposity of diction. It was only when he had waded through the philosophic chaos, which he set himself to survey, that he could lay aside his borrowed stilts, and stand on his own feet, in the Tintoret descriptions— rather stiff, yet, from foregone efforts. But, after all, who writes philosophy in graceful English ? This volume, like the first, was written in the winter, in one long spell of hard work, broken only by a visit to Oxford in January as the guest of Dr. Greswell, Head of Worcester, at a conference for the promotion of art. Smith and Elder accepted the book on Mr. J.. J. Ruskin's terms (so his wife wrote), for they had already reported it as called for by the public. The first volume had been reprinted once, and was going into a third edition. When his book came out he was away again in Italy, trying to show his father all that he had seen in the Campo Santo and Giotto's Tower, and to explain 'why it more than startled him.' The good man hardly felt the force of it all at once. How should he ? And there were little passages of arms and some heart -quaking and head -shaking, until Mr. Dale, the old schoolmaster, wrote that he had heard no less a man than Sydney Smith mention the new book in public, in the presence of ' distinguished literary characters,' as a work of ' transcendent talent, presenting the most original views, in the most elegant and powerful language, which would work a complete revolution in the world of taste.' When he returned home it was to find a respectful welcome. His word on matters of Art was now really worth something, and before long it was called for. The National Gallery was comparatively in its infancy. It had been established less than twenty-five years, and its manager, Mr. Eastlake (after- wards Sir Charles), had his hands full, what with rascally dealers in forged old masters, and incompetent picture., cleaners, and an economical Government, and a public that 106 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN neither knew its own mind nor trusted his judgment. A great outcry was set up against him for buying bad works, and spoiling the best by restoration. Mr. Ruskin wrote very temperately to the Times, pointing out that the damage had been slight compared with what was being done everywhere else, and suggesting that, prevention being better than cure, the pictures should be put under glass, for then they would not need the recurring attentions of the restorer. But he blamed the management for spending large sums on added examples of Guido and Rubens, while they had no Angelico, no Ghirlandajo, no good Perugino, only one Rellini, and, in a word, left his new friends, the early Christian artists, un- represented. He suggested that pictures might be picked up for next to nothing in Italy ; and he begged that the collection might be made historical and educational by being fully re- presentative, and chronologically arranged. Such ideals cannot be realized at a stroke ; but as we walk round our Gallery now we can be thankful that his voice was raised, and not in vain ; and rejoice that in many a case justice has been done to ' the wronged great soul of an ancient master.' CHAPTER III. « THE SEVEN LAMPS.' (1847-1849.) ' They dreamt not of a perishable home "Who thus could build.' ■Wordsworth. HAVE you read an Oxford Graduate's " Letters on Art"?' wrote Miss Mitford, of 'Our Village,' on January 27, 1847. 'The author, Mr. Ruskin, was here last week, and is certainly the most charming person that I have ever known.' The friendship thus begun lasted until her death. She encouraged him in his work ; she delighted in his success ; and, in the grave reverses which were to befall him, he found her his most faithful supporter and most sympathetic consoler. In return, ' his kindness cheered her closing days ; he sent her every book that would interest and every delicacy that would strengthen her, attentions which will not surprise those who have heard of his large and thoughtful generosity.'* It was natural that a rising man, so closely connected with Scotland, should be welcomed by the leaders of the Scottish school of literature. Sydney Smith, a former Edinburgh professor, had praised the new volume. John Murray, as it seems from letters of the period, made overtures to secure the author as a contributor to his Italian guide-books. Lockhart employed him to write for the Quarterly Remew. Lockhart was a person of great interest for young Ruskin, * ' The Friendships of Mary Bussell Mitford,' edited by the Eev. A. G. L'Estrange. 108 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN who worshipped Scott ; and Lockharfs daughter, even with- out her personal charm, would have attracted him as the actual grandchild of the great Sir Walter. It was for her sake, he says, rather than for the honour of writing in the famous Quarterly, that he undertook to review Lord Lindsay's ' Christian Art.' He was known to be a suitor for Miss Lockhart's hand. His father, in view of the success he desired, had been in February looking out for a house in the Lake District; hoping, no doubt, to see him settled there as a sort of successor to Wordsworth and Christopher North. In March, John Ruskin betook himself to the Salutation at Ambleside, with his constant attendant and amanuensis George, for quiet after a tiring winter in London society, and for his new labour of reviewing. But he did not find himself so fond of the Lakes as of old. He wrote to his mother (Sunday, March 28, 1847) : ' I finished— and sealed up — and addressed — ^my last bit of work, last night by ten o'clock — ready to send by to-day's post — so that my father should receive it with this. I could not at all have done it had I stayed at home : for even with all the quiet here, I have had no more time than was necessary, for exercise. I find the rowing very useful, though it makes me melancholy with thinking of 1838, — and the lake, when it is quite calm, is wonderfully sad and quiet: — no bright colours — no snowy peaks. Black water — as still as death ;— lonely, rocky islets — leafless woods, — or worse than leafless — the brown oak foliage hanging dead upon them ; gray sky ; — far- off", wild, dark, dismal moorlands ; no sound except the rustling of the boat among the reeds. . . . ' One o'clock. — I have your kind note and my father's, and am very thankful that you like what I have written, for I did not at all know myself whether it were good or bad.' In the early summer he went to Oxford, for a meeting of the British Association. He said (June 27, 1847) : " I am not able to write a full account of all I see, to amuse you, for I find it necessary to keep as quiet as I can, and I ♦THE SEVEN LAMPS' 109 fear it would only annoy you to be told of all the invitations I refuse, and all the interesting matters in which I take no part. There is nothing for it but throwing one's self into the stream, and going down with one's arms under water, ready to be carried anywhere, or do anything. My friends are all busy, and tired to death. All the members of my section, but especially (Edward) Forbes, Sedgwick, Murchison, and Lord Northampton — and of course Buckland, are as kind to me as men can be ; but I am tormented by the pei-petual sense of my unmitigated ignorance, for I know no more now than I did when a boy, and I have only one perpetual feeling of being in everybody's way. The recollections of the place, too, and the being in my old rooms, make me very miserable. I have not one moment of profitably spent time to look back to while I was here, and much useless labour and disappointed hope ; and I can neither bear the excitement of being in the society where the play of mind is constant, and rolls over me like heavy wheels, nor the pain of being alone. I get away in the evenings into the hayfields about Cumnor, and rest ; but then my failing sight plagues me. I cannot look at anything as I used to do, and the evening sky is covered with swim- ming strings and eels. My best time is while I am in the section room, for though it is hot, and sometimes wearisome, yet I have nothing to sai/, — little to do, — nothing to look at, and as much as I like to hear.' He had to undergo a second disappointment in love ; his health broke down again, and he was sent to Leamington to his former doctor, Jephson, once more a ' consumptive ' patient. Dieted into health, he went to Scotland with a new-found friend, Mr. William Macdonald Macdonald of St. Mai-tin's and Crossmount. But he had no taste for sport, and could make little use of his opportunities for distraction and relaxation. One battue was enough for him, and the rest of the visit was spent in morbid despondency, digging thistles, and brooding over the significance of the curse of Eden, so strangely now interwoven with his own life — ' Thorns also and thistles.' 110 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN At Bower's Well, Perth, where his grandparents had spent their later years, and where his parents had been married, lived some old acquaintances of the Ruskin family. Their daughter used to visit at Denmark Hill. It was for her that, some years earlier, 'The King of the Golden River' had been written. She had grown up into a perfect Scotch beauty, with every gift of health and spirits which would com- pensate — ^the old folk thought — for his retiring and morbid nature. They were anxious, now more than ever, to see him settled. They pressed him, in letters still extant, to propose. We have seen how he was situated, and can understand how-, he persuaded himself that fortune, after all, was about to smile upon him. Her family had their own reasons for pro- moting the match, and all united in hastening on the event — alike ' dreaming of a perishable home.' In the Notes to Exhibitions added to a new edition of ' Modern Painters,' then in the press, the author mentions a 'hurried visit to Scotland in the spring' of 1848. This was the occasion of his marriage at Perth, on April 10. The young couple spent rather more than a fortnight on the way South, among Scotch and English lakes, intending to make a more extended tour in the summer to the cathedrals and abbeys. The pilgrimage began with Salisbury, where a few days' sketching in the damp and draughts of the cathedral laid the bridegroom low, and brought the toiir to an untimely end. When he was thought to be recovered, the Airhole, family started for the Continent; but a relapse in the patienti's condition brought them back. At last, in August, the youn^*' people were seen safely off to Normandy, where they went by easy stages from town to town, studying the remains of Gothic building. In October they returned, and settled in a house of their own, at 31, Park Street, where during the winter Mr. Ruskin wrote 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture,' and, as a bit of by-work, a notice of Samuel Prout for the Art Journal. This was Mr. Ruskin's first illustrated volume. The plates 'THE SEVEN LAMPS' 111 were engraved by himself in soft -ground etching, such as Prout had used, from drawings he had made in 1846 and 1848. Some are scrappy combinations of various detail, but others, such as the Byzantine capital, the window in Giotto's Campanile, the arches from St. Lo in Normandy, from St. Michele at Lucca, and from the Ca' Foscari at Venice, are effective studies of the actual look of old buildings, seen as they are shown us in Nature, with her light and shade added to all the facts of form, and her own last touches in the way of weather-softening, and settling-faults, and tufted, nestling plants. Revisiting the Hotel de la Cloche at Dijon in later years, Mr. Ruskin showed me the room where he had ' bitten ' the last plate in his wash-hand basin, as a careless makeshift for the regular etcher's bath. He was not dissatisfied with his work himself ; the public of the day wanted something more finished. So the second edition appeared with the subjects elaborately popularized in fashionable engraving. More ' recently they have undergone rpduction for a cheap issue. But any true lover of Ruskin knows the value of the real original ' Seven Lamps ' with its San Miniato cover and autograph plates. As to its reception, or at least the anticipation of it, Char- lotte Bronte bears witness in a letter to the publishers. * I have lately been reading " Modem Painters," and have derived from the work much genuine pleasure, and, I hope, some edification ; at any rate, it has made me feel how ignorant I had previously been on the subject which it treats. Hitherto I have only had instinct to guide me in judging of art ; I feel now as if I had been walking blindfold — ^this book seems to give me new eyes. I cb wish I had pictures within reach by which to test the new sense. Who can read these glowing descriptions of Turner's work without longing to see them ? 'I like this author's style much; there is both energy and beauty in it. I like himself, too, because he is such a hearty admirer. He does not give half-measure of praise or veneration. 112 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN He eulogizes, he reverences, with his whole soul. One can sympathize with that sort of devout, serious admiration, for he is no rhapsodist; one can respect it; yet, possibly, many people would laugh at it, ' I congratulate you on the approaching publication of Mr. Ruskin's new work. If " The Seven Lamps of Architecture " resemble their predecessor, " Modem Painters,'" they will be no lamps at all, but a new constellation, — seven bright stars, for whose rising the reading world ought to be anxiously agape.' The book was announced for his father's birthday. May 10, 1849, and it appeared while they were among the Alps. The earlier part of this tour is pretty fully described in ' Praeterita,' II. xi., and ' Fors,' letter xc, and so the visit of Richard Fall, the meeting with Sibylla Dowie, and the death of cousin Mary need not be dwelt on here. From the letters that passed between father and son we find that Mr. John had been given a month's leave from July 26 to explore the Higher Alps, with Coutet his guide and George his valet. The old people stayed at the Hotel des Bergues, and thought of little else but their son and his affairs, looking eagerly from day to day for the last news, both of him and of his book. Mr. Ruskin senior writes from Geneva on July 29 : ' Miss Tweddale says your book has made a great sensation.'' On the 31st : ' Thiers has surprised and delighted the Chamber of Deputies by your doctrine of no such thing as Liberty. I think he has borrowed.' On August 4 : ' The Spedator, which Smith sets great value on, has an elaborate favourable notice on " Seven Lamps," only ascribing an infirmity of temper, quoting railroad passage in proof. Anne was told by American family servant that you were in American paper, and got it for us, the New York Tribune of July 13 ; first article is your book. ' They say they are willing to be learners from, rather than critics of, such a book, etc. The DaAj News (some of the Punch people's paper) has a capital notice. It begins : " This is a masked battery of seven pieces, which «THE SEVEN LAMPS' US blaze away to the total extinction of the small architectural lights we may boast of, etc., etc."' On August 5 : 'I have, at a shameful charge of ten francs, got August magazine and Dickens, quite a prohibition for parcels from England. In British Quarterly, under aesthetics of Gothic architecture they take four works, you first. ... As a critic they almost rank you with Goethe and Coleridge, and in style with Jeremy Taylor.' The qualified encouragement of these remarks was farther qualified with detailed advice about health, and warnings against the perils of the way, to which Mr. John used to answer on this wise : •CORMAYEUE, ' Sunday afternoon ' {July 29, 1849). ' My dearest Father, ' (Put the three sheets in order first, 1, 2, S, then read this, front and tack, and then 2, and then 3, front and back.) You and my mother were doubtless very happy when you saw the day clear up as you left St. Martin's. Truly it was impossible that any day could be more perfect towards its close. We reached Nant Bourant at twelve o'clock, or a little before, and Coutet having given his sanction to my wish to get on, we started again soon after one — and reached the top of the Col de Bonhomme about five. You would have been delighted with that view — it is one upon those lovely seas of blue mountain, one behind the other, of which one never tires — ^this, fortunately, westward — so that all the blue ridges and ranges above Conflans and Beaufort were dark against the afternoon sky, though misty with its light ; while east- ward a range of snowy crests, of which the most important was the Mont Iseran, caught the sunlight full upon them. The sun was as warm, and the air as mild, on the place where the English travellers sank and perished, as in our garden at Denmark Hill on the summer evenings. There is, however, no small excuse for a man's losing cotu-age on that pass, if the weather were foul. I never saw one so literally pathless — so void of all guide and help from the lie of the ground — so 8 114 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN embarrassing from the distance which one has to wind round mere brows of craggy precipice without knowing the direction in which one is moving, while the path is perpetually lost in heaps of shale or among clusters of crags, even when it is free of snow. All, however, when I passed was serene, and even beautiful — owing to the glow which the red rocks had in the sun. We got down to Chapiu about seven — itself one of the most desolately-placed villages I ever saw in the Alps. Scot- land is in no place that I have seen, so barren or so lonely. Ever since I passed Shapfells, when a child, I have had au excessive love for this kind of desolation, and I enjoyed my little chalet window and my chalet supper exceedingly (mutton with garlic).' He then confesses that he woke in the night with a sore throat, but struggled on next day down the Allee Blanche to Cormayeur. ' I never saw such a mighty heap of stones and dust. The glacier itself is quite invisible from the road (and I had no mind for extra work or scrambling), except just at the bottom, where the ice appears in one or two places, being exactly of the colour of the heaps of waste coal at the Newcastle pits, and admirably adapted therefore to realize one's brightest anticipations of the character and style of the Allee Blanche. ' The heap of its moraine conceals, for the two miles of its extent, the entire range of Mont Blanc from the eye. At last you weather the mighty promontory, cross the torrent which issues from its base, and find yourself suddenly at the very foot of the vast slope of torn granite, which from a point not 200 feet lower than the summit of Mont Blanc, sweeps down into the valley of Cormayeur. 'I am quite unable to speak with justice — or think with clearness — of this marvellous view. One is so unused to see a mass like that of Mont Blanc without any snow that all my ideas and modes of estimating size were at fault. I only felt overpowered by it, and that — as with the porch of Rouen Cathedral — look as I would, I could not see it. I had not •THE SEVEN LAMPS' 115 mind enougli to grasp it or meet it. I tried in vain to fix some of its main features on my memory ; then set the mules to graze again, and took my sketch-hook, and marked the out- lines — but where is the use of marking contoiu-s of a mass of endless — countless — ^fantastic rock' — 12,000 feet sheer above the valley ? Besides, one cannot have sharp sore-throat for twelve hours without its bringing on some slight feverish- ness ; and the scorching Alpine sun to which we had been exposed without an instant's cessation from the height of the col till now — i.e., from half-past ten to three — ^had not mended the matter ; my pulse was now beginning slightly to quicken and my head slightly to ache — and my impression of the scene is feverish and somewhat painful ; I should think like yours of the valley of Sixt.' So he finished his drawing, tramped down the valley after his mule, in dutiful fear of increasing his cold, and found Cormayeur crowded, only an attic ' au quatrieme ' to be had. After trying to doctor himself with gray pill, kali, and senna, Coutet cured his throat with an alum gargle, and they went over the Col Ferret. The courier Pfister had been sent to meet him at Martigny, and bring latest news and personal report, on the strength of which several days passed without letters, but not without a remonstrance from headquarters. On August 8 he writes from Zermatt : 'I have your three letters, with pleasant accounts of critiques, etc., and painful accounts of your anxieties. I certainly never thought of putting in a letter at Sion, as I arrived there about three hours after Fister left me, it being only two stages &om Martigny ; and besides, I had enough to do that morning in thinking what I should want at Zermatt, and was engaged at Sion, while we changed horses, in buying wax candles and rice. It was imlucky that I lost post at Visp,' etc. A few days later he says : ' On Friday I had such a day as I have only once or twice 8—2 116 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN had the like of among the Alps. I got up to a promontory projecting from the foot of the Matterhorn, and lay on the' rocks and drew it at my ease. I was about three hours at work as quietly as if in my study at Denmark Hill, though on a peak of barren crag above a glacier, and at least 9,000 feet above sea. But the Matterhorn, after all, is not so fine a thing as the aiguille Dru, nor as any one of the aiguilles of Chamouni : for one thing, it is all of secondary rock in horizontal beds, quite rotten and shaly ; but there are other causes of difference in impressiveness which I am endeavouring to analyze, but find considerable embarrassment in doing so. There seems no sufficient reason why an isolated obelisk, one- fourth higher than any of them, should not be at least as sublime as they in their dependent grouping ; but it assuredly is not. For this reason, as well as because I have not found here the near studies of primitive rock I expected, — for to my great surprise, I find the whole group of mountains, mighty as they are, except the inaccessible Monte Rosa, of secondary limestones or slates, — I should like, if it were possible, to spend a couple of days more on the Montanvert, and at the bases of the Chamouni aiguilles, sleeping at the Montanvert.' And so on, apologetically begging (as other sons beg money) for time, to gather the material of ' Modern Painters,' volume iv. ' I hope you will think whether the objects you are after are worth risks of sore throats or lungs,' replied his father, for he had ' personified a perpetual influenza ' until they got Kim to Switzerland, and they were very anxious ; indeed, Pfister's news from Martigny had scared his mother — ^not very well her- self — into wild plans for recapturing him. However, Osborne Gordon was going to Chamouni with Mr. Pritchard, and so they gave him a little longer. And he made the best use of his time. ' Monday evening ' {Auffwt 20, 1849). 'My DEAREST Father, I have to-night a packet of back letters from Vi^ge . . . but I have really hardly time to read them to-rnight, I 'THE SEVEN LAMPS' 117 had so many notes to secure when I came from the hills. I walk up every day to the base of the aiguilles without the slightest sense of fatigue ; work there all day hammering and sketching; and down in the evening. As far as days by myself can be happy they are so, for I love the place with all my heart. I have no over-fatigue or labour, and plenty of time. By-the-by, though in most respects they are incapable of improvement, I recollect that I thought to-day, as I was breaking last nighfs ice away from the rocks of which I wanted a specimen, with a sharpish wind and small pepper and salt- like sleet beating in my face, that a hot chop and a glass of sherry, if they were to be had round the corner, would make the thing more perfect. There was however nothing to be had round the corner but some Iceland moss, which belonged to the chamois, and an extra allowance of north wind.' This next is scribbled on a tiny scrap of paper : •Glacibk of Greppond, * August 21. ' My dearest Fathee, ' I am sitting on a gray stone in the middle of the glacier, waiting till the fog goes away. I believe I may wait. I write this line in my pocket-book to thank my mother for hers which I did not acknowledge last night. I am glad and sorry that she depends so much on my letters for her comfort. I am sending them now every day by the people who go down, for the diligence is stopped. You may run the chance of missing one or two therefore. I am quite well, and very comfortable — sitting on Joseph's knapsack laid on the stone. The fog is about as thick as that of London in November, — only white ; and I see nothing near me but fields of dampish snow with black stones in it.' And then : * I cannot say that on the whole the aiguilles have treated me well. I went up Saturday, Monday and Tuesday to their 118 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN feet, and never obtained audience until to-day, and then they retired at twelve o''clock; but I have got a most valuable memorandum.' Meantime : 'Geneva, ' Monday, ' August 20, 1849. 'My dearest John, ' I do not know if you have got all my letters, fully explaining to you in what way the want of a single letter, on two occasions, did so much mischief — made such havoc in our peace. I think my last Thursday's letter entered on it. We are gi-ateful for many letters — that have come. It was merely the accident of the moment when first by illness and then by precipices we were most anxious — being exactly the moment the letters took it into their heads to be not forthcoming. Not writing so often would only keep us more in the dark, with little less anxiety. Please say if you get a letter every day ;' find so forth. Space can hardly be afforded for more than samples of this voluminous correspondence, or interesting quotations might be given about the ' ghost-hunt yesterday and a crystal-hunt to-day,' and life at the Montanvert, until at last (August 28) : *I have taken my place in diligence for Thursday, and hope to be with you in good time. But I quite feel as if I were leaving home to go on a journey. I shall not ha melancholy, however, for I have really had a good spell of it. . . . Dearest love to my mother. I don't intend to write again. * Ever, my dearest tather^ ' Your most affectionate son, ♦J. RUSKDT.' CHAPTER IV. •STONES OF VENICE.' (1849-1851.) ' I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand ; I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's waud.' Bykon. 'And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven.' — Mev. xxi. 2. A BOOK about Venice had been planned in 1845, during Mr. Raskin's first long working visit. He had made so many notes and sketches both of architecture and painting that the material seemed ready to hand; another visit would fill up the gaps in his information ; and two or three months'' hard writing would work the subject off, and set him free to continue ' Modem Painters.' So before leaving home in 1849, he had made up his mind that the next work would be ' The Stones of Venice,' which, on the appearance of 'The Seven Lamps,' was announced by the publishers as in preparation. Like ' The Seven Lamps,' this new book was not to be a manual of practical architecture, but the further illustration of doctrines peculiar to the author ; the reaction, that is to say, of society upon art ; the close connection, in this case, of style in architecture with the life, the religious tone, the moral aims, of the people who produced it. Venice was the nearest analogy in the past, among the great influential nations of history, to our own country. It was free, but 120 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN aristocratic and conservative ; Christian, but independent of the Pope ; it pursued a course of ' spirited foreign policy ' in contrast with — but as a consequence of — ^its apparently peace- ful function of commerce. So that, by its example, the lessons of national virtue which, since 1845, the author had felt called upon to preach, could be illustrated and enforced in a far more interesting way than if he had merely written a volume of essays on political morality. But in the end the inquiry branched out in so many directions that the main purpose was all but hidden among flowers of rhetoric and foliage of technical detail, which most readers took for the sum and substance of its teaching. He left home again early in October ; by the end of November he was settled with his wife at Venice for the winter. He expected to find without much trouble all the information he wanted as to the dates, styles and history of Venetian buildings ; but after consulting and comparing all the native writers, it appeared that the questions he asked of them were just the questions they were unprepared to answer, and that he must go into the whole matter afresh. So he laid himself out that winter for a thorough examination of St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace and the other remains- drawing, and measuring, and comparing their details ; only to find that the work he had undertaken was hke a sea ' chi sempre si fa maggiore.' The old buildings were a patchwork of all styles and all periods. In St. Mark's alone, every pinnacle called for separate study; every capital and balustrade, on minute inquiry, turned out to have its own independent history. So that, after all his labour, he could give no com- plete and generalized survey of the subject, chronological and systematic, without much more time and thought. But at any rate, the details he had in his note-books were the result of personal observation ; he was no longer trusting to second- hand information or the vague traditions of the tribe of ciceroni. His father had gone back to England in September out of health, and the letters from home did not report improve- * STONES OF VENICE' 121 ment. His mother, too, was beginning to fear the loss of her sight ; and he could not stay away from them any longer. In February, 1850, he broke off his work in the middle of it, and returned to London, arriving about the middle of April. The rest of the year he spent in writing the first volume of • Stones of Venice,' and in preparing the illustrations, together with ' Examples of the Architecture of Venice,' a portfolio of large lithographs and engravings in mezzotint and line, to accompany the work. The illustrations to the new book were a great advance upon the rough soft-gi-ound etchings of ' Seven Lamps.' He seourea the services of some of the finest engravers who ever handled the tools of their art. The English school of engraving was then in its last and most accomplished period. Photography had not yet begun to supersede it, and the demand for delicate work in book-illustration had encouraged minuteness and precision of handling to the last degree. In this excessive refinement there were the symptoms of decline ; but it was most fortunate for Mr. Ruskin that his drawings could 'be interpreted by such men as Armytage and Cousen, Cuff and Le Eeux, Boys and Lupton, and not without advantage to them that their masterpieces should be pre- served in his works, and praised as they deserved in his prefaces. Sometimes, as it often happens when engravers work for an artist who sets the standard high, they found Mr. Ruskin a hard taskmaster. The mere fact of their skill in translating a sketch from a note-book into a gem-like vignette, encouraged him to ask for more ; so that some of the subjects which became the most elaborate were at first comparatively rough drawings, and were gradually worked up from successive retouchings of the proofs by the infinite patience of both parties. In other cases working drawings were prepared by Mr. Ruskin, as refined as the plates. How steady his hand was, and how trained his eye, can be seen by anyone who looks carefully at the etchings by him — not after him — in 'Modem Painters,' which show that he was fully competent to have produced his own illustrations had 122 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN it been worth his while. The photogravure facsimiles in ' Poems,' the ' Poetry of Architecture,'' and ' Studies in Both Arts' bear witness that, while in one mood he does those roughly-sketched chiaroscuro studies like the ' Seven Lamps' illustrations, at other times he can ' curb the liberal hand ' and rival a cameo in refinement. Like much else of his work, these plates for ' Stones of Venice ^ were in advance of the times. The publisher thought them ' caviare to the general,' so Mr. J. J. Ruskin told his son ; but gave it as his own belief that 'some dealers in Ruskins and Turners in 1890 will get great prices for what at present^will not sell.' Early in 1850, his father, at his mother's desire, and with the help of Mr. W. H. Harrison, collected and printed his poems, with a number of pieces that still remained in MS., the author taking no part in this revival of bygones, which, for the sake of their associations, he was not anxious to re- call, — though his father still believed that he might have been a poet, and ought to have been one. This is tlie volume of. ' Poems, J. R., 1850,' so highly valued by collectors. Another resurrection was ' The King of the Golden River,' which had lain hidden for the nine years of the Ars Poetica. He allowed it to be published, with woodcuts by the famous ' Dicky ' Doyle. The little book ran through three editions that year, and, partly because School Boards have adopted it as one of their prizes, it still finds a steady sale. The first issue must have been torn to rags in the nurseries of the last generation, since copies are so rare as to have brought ten guineas apiece instead of the six shillings at which they were advertised in 1850. A couple of extracts from letters of 1850 will give some idea of Mr. Ruskin's impressions of London society and the Drawing Room : ' My dearest Mothee, ' Horrible party last night — stiff — ^large — dull — fidgety — strange, — ^run-against-everybody-know-nobodysort of party. ♦STONES OF VENICE' 123 Naval people. Young lady claims acquaintance with me — I know as much of her as of Queen Pomare — ^Talk : get away as soon as I can — ask who she is — Lady ( ) ; — as wise as I was before. Introduced to a black man with chin in collar. Black man condescending — I abuse different things to black man : chiefly the House of Lords. Black man says he lives in it — asks where I live — don't want to tell him — obliged — go away and ask who he is — ( ) ; as wise as I was before. introduced to a young lady — young lady asks if I like drawing — ^go away and ask who she is — Lady ( ). Keep away, with back to wall and look at watch. Get away at last. Very sulky this morning — ^hope my father better — dearest love to you both.' 'Park Street, . '4 o'clock ' (May, 1850). 'My dearest Father, ' We got through gloriously, though at one place there was the most awkward crush I ever saw in my life — ^the pit at the Surrey, which I never saw, may perhaps show the like — nothing else. The floor was covered with the ruins of ladies' dresses, torn lace jind fallen flowers. But E was luckily out of it, and got through unscathed — and heard people saying " What a beautiful dress !" just as she got up to the Queen. It was fatiguing enough but not so awkward as I expected. . . . ' The Queen looked younger and prettier than I expected — ^very like her pictures, even like those which are thought to flatter most — but I only saw the profile — I could not see the front face as I knelt to her, at least without an upturning of the eyes which I thought would be unseemly — and there were but some two to three seconds allowed for the whole afiPaii • The Queen ^ave her hand very graciously : but looked bored ; poor thin~, well she might be, with about a quarter of a mile square of people to bow to. ' I met two people whom I have not seen for many a day, 124 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Kildare and Scott Murray— had a chat with the former and a word with Murray, but nothing of interest. ' Dearest love to my mother. ' Ever, my dearest father,' etc. As one of the chief literary figures of the day, Mr. Ruskin could not avoid society, and, as he tells in ' Praeterita,' he was rewarded for the reluctant performance of his duties by meet- ing with several who became his lifelong friends. Chief among these he mentions Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple, afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple. The acquaint- ance with Samuel Rogers, in auspiciously begun many years before, now ripened into something like friendship ; Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) and other men of letters were met at Rogers' breakfasts. A little later a visit to the Master of Trinity, Whewell, at Cambridge, brought him into contact with Professor Willis, the authority on Gothic architecture, and other notabilities of the sister University. There also he met Mr. and Mrs. Marshall of Leeds (and Coniston) ; and he pursued his journey to Lincoln, with Mr. Simpson, whom he had met at Lady Davy's, and to Famley for a visit to Mr. F. H. Fawkes, the owner of the celebrated collection of Turners (April, 1851). In London he was acquainted with many of the leading artists and persons interested in art. Of the ' teacheis ' of the day he was known to men so diverse as Carlyle — and Maurice, with whom he corresponded in 1851 about his ' Notes on Sheepfolds ' — and C. H. Spurgeon, to whom his mother was devoted. He was as yet neither a hermit, nor a heretic : but mixed freely with all sorts and conditions, with one exception, for Puseyites and Romanists were yet as heathen men and publicans to him ; and he noted with interest, while writing his review of Venetian history, that the strength of Venice was distinctly Anti-Papal, and her virtues Christian but not Roman. Reflections on this subject were to have formed part of his great work, but the first volume was taken up with the a priori development of •STONES OF VENICE' 125 architectural forms ; aud the treatment in especial of Venetian matters had to be indefinitely postponed, until another visit had given him the opportunity of gathering his material. Meanwhile, his wide sympathies had turned his mind toward a subject which then had received little attention, though since then loudly discussed — the reunion of (Protes- tant) Christians. He put together his thoughts in a pamphlet on the text ' There shall be one fold and one Shepherd,' calling it, in allusion to his architectural studies, ' Notes on the Construc- tion of Sheepfolds.' He proposed a compromise, trying to prove that the pretensions to priesthood on the high Anglican side, and the objections to episcopacy on the Presbyterian, were alike untenable ; and hoped that, when once these differ- ences — such little things he thought them — were arranged, a united Chiurch of England might become the nucleus of a world-wide federation of Protestants, a civitas Dei, a New Jerusalem. TTiere were many who agreed with his aspirations ; he received shoals of letters from sympathizing readers, most of them praising his aims and criticising his means. Others objected rather to his manner than to his matter ; the title savoured of levity, and an art-critic writing on theology was supposed to be wandering out of his province. Tradition says that the ' Notes ' were freely bought by Border farmers under a rather laughable mistake ; but surely it was no new thing for a Scotch reader to find a religious tract under a catching title ; and their two shillings might have been worse spent. There were a few replies ; one by Mr. Dyce, the clerical R.A., who defended the Anglican view with mild persiflage and the usual commonplaces. And there the matter ended, for the pubUc. For Mr. Ruskin, it was the beginning of a train of thought which led him far. He gradually learnt that his error was not in asking too much, b«t in asking too little. He wished for a union of Protestants, forgetting the sheep that are not of that fold, and little dreaming of the answer he got, after many days, in ' Christ's Folk in the Apennine.' 126 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Meanwhile the first volume of 'Stones of Venice' had appeared. Its reception was indirectly described in a pamphlet entitled ' Something on Ruskinism, with a " Vesti- bule" in Rhyme, by an Architect' — a Puginist, it seems, who felt that his craft was in danger. He complains bitterly of the ' ecstasies of rapture ' into which the newspapers had been thrown by the new work : ' Your book — since reviewers so swear— may be rational, Still, 'tis certainly not either loyal or national ;' for it did not join in the chorus of congratulation to Prince Albert and the British public on the Great Exhibition of 1851, the apotheosis of trade and machinery. The ' Archi- tect ' finds also — what may siuprise the modem reader who has not noticed that many an able writer has been thought unreadable on his first appearance — ^that he cannot under- stand Mr. Ruskin's language and ideas : ' Your style is so soaring — and some it makes sore — That plain folks can't make out your strange mystical lore.' He will allow the author to be quite right, when he finds something to agree upon ; but the moment a sore point is touched, then Ruskin is ' insane.' In one respect the ' Archi- tect ' hit the nail on the head : ' Readers who are not reviewers by profession can hardly fail to perceive that Ruskinism is violently inimical to sundry existing interests? The best men, we said, were the first to recognise Mr. Ruskin's genius, Let us throw into the opposite scale an opinion of more weight than the ' Architect's,' in a transcript of the original letter from Carlyle. ' Chelsea, 'J/arcA 9, 1851. ' Deae RusKm, ' I did not know yesterday till yoiu- servant was gone that there was any note in the parcel ; nor at all what a feat you had done ! A loan of the gallant young man's Memoirs was what I expected ; and here, in the most chivalrous style, comes a gift of them. This, I think, must be in the style 'STONES OF VENICE' 127 fiyyr to the Renaissance ! What can I do but accept your kindness with pleasure and gratitude, though it is far beyond my deserts ? Perhaps the next man I meet will use me as much below them ; and so bring matters straight again ! Truly I am much obliged, and return you many hearty thanks. ' I was already deep in the ' Stones " ; and clearly purpose to hold on there. A strange, unexpected, and I believe, most true and excellent Sermcm in Stones — as well as the best piece of schoolmastering in Architectonics ; from which I hope to learn in a great many ways. The spirit and purport of these critical studies of yoiu-s are a singular sign of the times to me, and a very gratifying one. Right good speed to you, and victorious arrival on the farther shore ! It is a quite new " Renaissance," I believe, we are getting into just now : either towards new, wider manhood, high again as the eternal stars ; or else into final death, and the mask of Gehenna for evermore ! A dreadful process, but a needful and inevitable one ; nor do I doubt at all which way the issue will be, though which of the extant nations are to get included in it, and which is to be trampled out and abolished in the process, may be very doubtful. God is great : and siu'e enough, the changes in the " Construction of Sheepfolds " as well as in other things, will require to be very considerable. ' We are still labouring under the foul kind of influenza here, I not far from emancipated, my poor wife still deep in the business, though I hope past the deepest. Am I to understand that you too are seized ? In a day or two I hope to ascertain that you are well again. Adieu ; here is an interruption, here also is the end of the paper. ' With many thanks and regards.' [Signature cut away.] Charlotte Bronte wrote to one of her friends: 'The "Stones of Venice" seem nobly laid and chiselled. How grandly the quarry* of vast marbles is disclosed! Mr. * An allusion to the title of the first chapter. 128 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Ruskin seems to me one of the few genuine writers, as distinguished from book-makers, of this age. His earnest- ness even amuses me in certain passages, for I cannot help laughing to think how utihtarians will fume and fret over his deep, serious and (as tHey will think) fanatical reverence for Art; But Mr. Ruskin himself would hardly share Charlotte Bronte's contempt for the utilitarians. A short while ago one of her own people, a Yorkshire working man not far from Haworth, got up in a public discussion, and said that he had once talked with Mr. Ruskin, and tried to say how much he had enjoyed his works. 'And he said to me, "I don't care whether you enjoyed them ; did they do you any good?"' As soon as the first volume of ' Stones of Venice ' and the 'Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds' were published, Mr. Ruskin took a short Easter holiday at Matlock, and set to work at a new edition of 'Modem Painters.' This was the fifth reprint of the first volume, and the third of vol. ii. They were carefully and conscientiously revised ; some passages of rough, youthful criticism were cancelled, and wisely ; for more lasting good is done by expounding what is noble than by satirizing what is base. The work was left in its final form, except for notes added in later years ; and the Post- script indulges, most justifiably, in a little triumph at the changed tone of public criticism upon Turner. But it was too late to have been much service to the great artist himself. In 1845 — after saying good-bye and 'Why will you go to Switzerland ? there will be such a Jidge about you when you're gone ' — Turner was attacked by some form of paralysis or mental decay, and was never himself again. The last drawings he did for Mr. Ruskin (January, 1848), the ' Briinig ' and the ' Descent from the St. Gothard to Airolo,' showed his condition unmistakably ; and the lonely restlessness of the last, disappointing years were, for all his friends, a melancholy ending to a brilliant career. Mr. Ruskin wrote : ' This year (1851) he has no picture on the walls of the ' STONES OF VENICE ' 129 Academy; and the T^mes of May 3 says: "We miss those works of INSPIRATION !" ' We miss ! Who misses ? The populace of England rolls by to weary itself in the great bazaar of Kensington* little thinking that a day will come when those veiled vestals and prancing amazons, and goodly merchandise of precious stones and gold, will all be forgotten as though they had not been ; but that the light which has faded from the walls of the Academy is one which a million Koh-i-noors could not re- kindle; and that the year 1851 will, in the far future, be remembered less for what it has displayed, than for what it has withdrawn.' Too truly prophesied ; for Turner was in his last illness, hiding like a wild animal wounded to death. On Decem- ber 19, in the evening, the sunset shone upon his dishonoured corpse through the chamber window in Chelsea. Just so it shone upon another death -bed, for the sainted maid of Florence, prefiguring, they said, the aureole. 'The Sun is God, my dear,' Turner had told his house- keeper. Was there no ' healing in his wings ' for the fallen hero .'• or was that reserved only for the spotless soul of Ida ? Were there still other sheep.!" stones which the builders of sheepfolds rejected, all manner of precious stones ? * The Great Exlubitiou in Hyde Park. CHAPTER V. PEE-KAPHAELITISM. (1851-1853.) ' Don't go yet 1 Are you aware that there will be a torch-race this eveniDg on horseback, to the glory of Artemis ? ' That is entirely new to me, said Socrates. And do you mean that they will really have torches, and pass them from rider to rider in the race V — Plato, JRepuUic, 328. THE Times, in May 1851, missed 'those works of in- spiration,' as Ruskin had at last taught people to call Turner's pictures. But the acknowledged mouthpiece of public opinion found consolation in castigating a school of young artists who had ' unfortunately become notorious by addicting themselves to an antiquated style and an affected simplicity in painting. . . . We can extend no toleration to a mere servile imitation of the cramped style, false perspective, and crude colour of remote antiquity. We want not to see what Fuseli termed drapery " snapped instead of folded"; faces bloated into apoplexy, or extenuated into skeletons; colour borrowed from the jars in a druggist's shop, and ex- pression forced into caricature. . . . That morbid infatuation which sacrifices truth, beauty, and genuine feeling to mere eccentricity deserves no quarter at the hand of the public' Mr. Ruskin knew nothing personally of these young inno- vators, and had not at first sight wholly approved of the apparently Puseyite tendency of Rossetti's ' Ecce Ancilla Domini,' Millais' 'Carpenter's Shop,' and Holman Hunt's ' Early Christian Missionary,' exhibited the year before. All these months he had been closely kept to his ' Sheepfolds' PRE-RAPHAELITISM 131 and ' Stones of Venice ' ; but now he was correcting the proofs of ' Modem Painters,' vol. i., as thus : ' Chapter the last, section 21 : The duty and cufter privileges of all students. ... Go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, and re- member her instruction ; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing ; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth.' He went to the Academy to look at the false perspective and snapped draperies, the infatuated untruth and eccentric ugliness. Yes ; the faces were ugly : Millais' ' Mariana ' was a piece of idolatrous Papistry, and there was a mistake in the perspective. Cpllins' ' Convent Thoughts ' — more Popery ; but very careful, — ' the tadpole too small for its age ' ; but what studies of plants ! And there was his own ' Alisma Plantago,' which he' had been drawing for ' Stones of Venice ' (vol. i., plate 7) and describing : ' The lines through its body, which are of peculiar beauty, mark the different expansions of its fibres, and are, I think, exactly the same as those which would be traced by the currents of a river entering a lake of the shape of the leaf, at the end where the stalk is, and pass-' ing out at its point.' Curvature was one of the special subjects of Mr. Ruskin, the one he found most neglected by ordinary artists. The ' Alisma ' was a test of observation and draughtsmanship. He had never seen it so thoroughly or so well drawn, and heartily wished the study were his. Looking again at the other works of the school, he found that the one mistake in the ' Mariana ' was the only error in perspective in the whole series of pictures ; which could not be said of any twelve works, containing architecture, by popular artists in the exhibition ; and that, as studies both of drapery and of every other minor detail, there had been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as these pictures since the days of Albert Diirer. He went home, and wrote his verdict in a letter to the Times. After subsequent examination of Hunt's 'Two 9—2 132 LIFE AND WORJC OF JOHN RUSKIN Gentlemen of Verona,' and Millais' 'Return of the Dove' he wrote again, pointing out beauties, and indications of power in conception, and observation of Nature, and handling, where at first he, hke the rest of the public, had been re- pelled by the wilful ugliness of the faces. Meanwhile the Pre-Raphaelites wrote to tell him that they were neither Papists nor Puseyites. The day after his second letter was published he received an ill-spelt missive, anonymo abusing them. This was the sort of thing to interest love of poetical justice. He made the acquaintance of several of the Brethren. ' Charley ' Collins, as his friends affectionately called him, was the son of a respected K.A., and the brother of Wilkie Collins ; himself afterwards the author of a delightful book of travel in France, 'A Cruise upon Wheels.' Mr. Millais turned out to be the most gifted, charming and handsome of young artists. Mr, Holman Hunt was already a Ruskin-reader, and a seeker after truth, serious and earnest in his religious nature as in his painting. The Pre-Raphaelites were not, originally, Mr. Ruskin's pupils, nor was their movement, directly, of his creation, But it was the outcome of a general tendency which he, more than any man, had helped to set in motion ; and it was the fulfilment, though in a way he had not expected, of his wishes. His advice to go to Nature, selecting nothing, rejecting tfothing and scorning nothing, had been offered to landscape students, and it had involved the acceptance pf Turner as their great exemplar and ultimate standard. ' It was beginning to be accepted by many, but with timidity and modifications ; and, to indulge for a moment in the ' might have been,' if the Pre-Raphaelite revolution had not happened, a school of modern landscape, naturalistic on the one hand, idealistic and poetical on the other, would probably have developed constitutionally, so to speak ; with Mr. Rusltin as its prophet and Turner as its forerunner, — a school which would have been as truly national as the great school of portraiture had been, and as representative in one direction PRE-RAPHAELITISM 133 of the spirit of the age, as the sixteenth-century Venetians in their own time. But history does not behave so reasonably. There are more wheels in the piachine than we can count, 'cycle on epicycle,' not to hint at cometary orbits unknown to the almanac. The 'naturalistic movement, which had engaged Mr. Ruskin's whole attention at his start, was only one side of the nation's life. The other side was reactionary, leading to Tractarianism in some, in others to historical research, to Gothic revivals in architecture and painting and poetry ; in all cases betraying itself in the harking back to bygones, rather than in progressive modernism. The lower class of minds took one side or the other, and became merely radical and materialist, or Puseyite and romantic, as their sympathies led them. But the problem, to a thinker, was to mediate between these opposing tendencies ; to find the higher term that embraced them both; to unite the two aims without compromise. So Mr. Ruskin, who began as a naturalist, was met first by ancient Christian art, and spent his early manhood in dissolving the antithesis between modern English landscape- study, and the standpoint of Angelico. No sooner had he succeeded than a new element appeared — an element of life, as he perceived, and therefore necessary to accept — but at first sight irreconcilable with his arrangement of the world. So he brought it into his scheme, bit by bit: first the naturalism of the Pre-Raphaelites ; later on, their treatment of imaginative subjects. His attraction to Pre-Raphaelitism was none the less real because it was sudden, and brought about partly by the personal influence of his new allies. And in re-arranging his art-theory to take them in, he had before his mind rather what he hoped they would become than what they were. For a time, his influence over them was great; their first three years were their own ; their next three years were prac- tically his; and some of them, the weaker brethren, leant upon him until they lost the command of their own powers. 134 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN No artist can afford to use another man's eyes; still less, another man s brain and heart. Mr. Ruskin, great as an exponent, was in no sense a master of artists ; and if he cheered on the men who', he believed, were the best of the time, it did not follow that he should be saddled with the responsibility of directing them. The famous pamphlet on ' Pre-Raphaelitism ' of August 1851 showed that the same motives of Sincerity impelled both the Pre-Raphaelite Brethren and Turner, and in a degree, men so different as Prout, old Hunt, and Lewis. AD these were opposed to the Academical School who worked by rule of thumb ; and they differed among one another only in differences of physical power and moral aim. Which was all perfectly true, and much truer than the cheap criticism which could not see beyond superficial differences, or the fossil theories of 'the old school, defended in the pamphlet war by men like Rippihgille.* But Pre-Raphaelitism was an un- stable compound, liable to explode upon the experimenter, and ifs component parts to return to their old antithesis of crude naturalism on the one hand, and affectation of piety or poetry or antiquarianism, on the other. And that their new champion did not then foresee. All he knew was that, just when he was sadly leaving the scene, Turner gone and night coming on, new lights arose. It was really far more note- worthy that Millais and Rossetti and Hunt were men oj genius, than that the 'principles' they tried to illustrate were sound. Mr. Ruskin, always safe in his intuitions, divined their power, and generously applauded the dexterous troop in their imexpected Lampadephoria. Indirectly he found his reward. For like Socrates in the dialogue, by joining in the festival he found youths to discourse with, and with them gradually evolved his own Republic, the ideal of life which is his real contribution to human progress. ' What good have his writings done us ? Hitherto they have been for our enjoyment ; or, like the ' Seven Lamps,' vague outcries ; or, like the ' Sheepfolds, * To whose paper Mr. Euskin had formerly contributed. . PRE-RAPHAELITISM 135 tentative ideals. In the later volumes of ' Stones of Venice ' we find distinct aims prefigured. Immediately after finishing the pamphlet on ' Pre- Raphaelitism,' he left for the Continent with his wife and friends, the Rev. and Mrs. Daniel Moore ; spent a fortnight in his beloved Savoy with the Pritchards ; and then crossed the Alps with Mr. Newton. On the first of September he was at Venice, for a final spell of labour on the palaces and churches. He settled at the Casa Wetzlar, Campo Sta. Maria Zobenigo, and one of his first visitors was Dean Milman. 'I am amused at your mode of ciceronizing the Dean of St. Paurs,' wrote his father, who kept up the usual close correspondence, and made himself useful in looking up books of reference and consulting authorities like Mr. James Fei-gusson, — for these chapters of easy ' eloquence were not written without a world of pains. The engravers and the business department of the new publications also required his co-operation, for they were now becoming large ventures. During the three and a half years preceding the summer of 1851 Mr. Ruskin seems to have spent ,£1,680 of profits from his books, making by his writings at this period only about a third of his annual outlay; so that the estimated cost of these great illustrated volumes, some ^£"1,200, was a matter of anxiety to his father, who, together with the publisher, deprecated large plates and technical details, and expressed some impatience to see results from this visit to Venice. He looked eagerly for every new chapter or drawing as it was sent home for criticism. Some passages, such as the descrip- tion of the Calle San Moise (' Stones of Venice,' II. iv.) were unfavourably received by him. Another time he says, ' You have a very great difficulty now in writing any more, which is to write up to yourself:' or again, — 'Smith reports slow sale of "Stones of Venice" (vol. I.) and " Pre-Raphaelitism." The times are sorely against you. The Exhibition has im- poverished the country, and literature of a saleable character seems chiefly confined to shilling books in green paper, to be 136 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSON had at railway-stations. Smith will have an account against us.' He always sent adverse press-notices, on the principle that it was good for John : and every little discouragement or annoyance was discussed in foil. The most serious news, threatening complete interruption of the work rapidly progressing in spite of all, was of Turner's death (December 19, 1851). Old Mr. Ruskin heard of it on the 21st, a ' dismal day ' to him, spent in sad con- templation of the pictures his son had taught him to love. Soon it came out that John Ruskin was one of the executors named in the will, with a legacy of £Z0 for a mourn- ing ring : — ' Nobody can say you were paid to praise,' says his father. It was gossipped that he was expected to write Turner's biography, — ' five years' work for you,' says the old man, full of plans for gathering material. But when one scandal after another reached his ears, he changed his tone, and suggested dropping personal details, and giving a ' Life of his Art ' in the intended third and final volume of ' Modern Painters.' Something of the sort was done in the Edinbiu-gh Lectures and at the close of vol. v. of ' Modem Painters ' : and the official life was left to Walter Thornbury, with which Mr. Ruskin perhaps did not wish to interfere. But he collected a mass of still unpublished material about Turner, which goes far to prove that the kindly view he took of the strange man's morbid and unhappy life was not with- out justification. At the time, so many legal complications developed that Mr. Ruskin was advised to resign his executor- ship ; later on he was able to fulfil its duties as he conceived them, in arranging Turner's sketches for the National Gallery. Others of his old artist-friends were now passing away. Early in January Mr. J. J. Ruskin called on William Hunt and found him feeble : ' I like the little Elshie,' he says, nicknaming him after the Black Dwarf, for Hunt was some- what deformed : ' he is softened and humanized. There is a gentleness and a greater bonhomie — less reserve. I had sent him " Pre-Raphaelitism." He had marked it very much with pencil. He greatly likes your notice of people not keeping PRE-RAPHAELITISM 137 to their last. So many clever artists, he says, have been ruined by not acting on your principles. I got a piece of advice from Hunt, — never to commission a picture. He could not have done my pigeon so well had he felt he was doing it for anybody.' The pigeon was a drawing he had just bought ; in later years at Brantwood. In February 1852 a dinner-party was given to celebrate in his absence John Ruskin's thirty-third birthday. ' On Monday, 9th, we had Oldfield, (Newton was in Wales,) Harrison, George Richmond, Tom, Dr. Grant, and Samuel Front. The latter I never saw in such spirits, and he went away much satisfied. Yesterday at church we were told that he came home very happy, ascended to his painting -room, and in a quarter of an hour from his leaving our cheerful house was a corpse, from apoplexy. He never spoke after the fit came on. He had always wished for a sudden death.' Next year, in November 1853, he tells of a visit paid, by John's request, to W. H. Deverell, the young Pre-Raphaelite, whom he found ' in squalor and sickness — ^with his Bible open — and not long to live — while Howard abuses his picture at Liverpool.' Early in 1852 Charles Newton was going to Greece on a voyage of discovery, and wanted John Ruskin to go with him. But the parents would not hear of his adventuring himself at sea ' in those engine-vessels.' ' Steam is infernal,' said the father of John Ruskin. ' Better have ships only with sails, machinery only with water-force, and carriages with horses. We went more slowly — so much the better ; what do we hurry for.? We neither gain more, nor enjoy more. We are neither richer nor happier. The country, except to those who live in it, — and to those, all of it except their own neighbourhood, is for ever lost. We see nothing of it : we do not even breathe pure air. Steam and hydrogen are the odours of travellers from the engines, and we carry smoke with us to obscure the landscape.' So Newton went alone, and ' dug up loads of Phoenician antiquities.' One cannot help regretting that Mr. Ruskin lost this 138 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHxN RUSKIN opportunity of familiarizing himself with the early Greek art which, twenty years later, he tried to expound. For the time he was well enough employed on the ' Stones of Venice.' He tells the story of his ten months' stay in a letter to his venerable friend Rogers the poet, dated June 23 (1852). 'I was out of health and out of heart when I first got here. There came much painful news from home, and then such a determined course of bad weather, and every other kind of annoyance, that I never was in a temper fit to write to anyone : the worst of it was that I lost all feeVmg of Venice, and this was the reason both of my not writing to you and of my thinking of you so often. For whenever I found myself getting utterly hard and indifferent, I. used to read over a little bit of the " Venice " in the " Italy," and it put me always into the right tone of thought again, and for this I cannot be enough grateful to you. For though I believe that in the summer, when Venice is indeed lovely, when pomegranate blossoms hang over every garden-wall, and green sunlight shoots through every wave, custom will not destroy, or even weaken, the impression conveyed at first ; it is far otherwise in the length and bitterness of the Venetian winters. Fighting with frosty winds at every turn of the canals takes away all the old feeling of peace and stillness; the protracted cold makes the dash of the water on the walls a sound of simple discomfort, and some wild and dark day in February one starts to find oneself actually balancing in one's mind the relative advantages of land and water carriage, comparing the Canal with Piccadilly, and even hesitating whether for the rest of one's life one would rather have a gondola within call or a hansom. When I used to get into this humour I always had recourse to those lines of yours :— • " The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Ebbing and flowing," etc. ; and they did me good service for many a day ; but at last a time came when the sea was Twt in the narrow streets, and was always ebbing and not flowing ; and one day, when I found just a foot and a half of muddy water left under the Bridge of Sighs, and ran aground in the Grand Canal as I PRE-RAPHAELITISM 139 was going home, I was obliged to give the canals up. I have never recovered the feeling of them.' He then goes on to lament the decay of Venice, the idle- ness and dissipation of the populace, the lottery gambling ; and to forebode the ' destruction of old buildings and erection of new ' changing the place ' into a modern town — a bad imitation of Paris.' Better than that he thinks would be utter neglect ; St. Mark's Place would again be, what it was in the early ages, a green field, and the front of the Ducal Palace and the marble shafts of St. Mark's would be rooted in wild violets and wreathed with vines. ' She will be beautiful again then, and i could almost wish that the time might come quickly, were it not that so many noble pictures must be destroyed first. ... I love Venetian pictures more and more, and wonder at them every day with greater wonder ; compared with all other paintings they are so easy, so instinctive, so natural ; everything that the men of other schools did by rule and called composition, done here by instinct and only called truth. ' I don't know when I have envied anybody more than I did the other day the directors and clerks of the Zecca. There they sit at inky deal desks, counting out rolls of money, and curiously weighing the irregular and battered coinage of which Venice boasts ; and just over their heads, occupying the place which in a London counting-house would be occupied by a commercial almanack, a glorious Bonifazio — ' Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ' ; and in a less honour- able corner three old directors of the Zecca., very mercantile- looking men indeed, counting money also, like the living ones, only a little more living, painted by Tintoret ; not to speak of the scattered Palma Vecchios, and a lovely Benedetto Diana which no one ever looks at. I wonder when the European mind will again awake to the great fact that a noble picture was not painted to be hung, but to be seen ? I only saw these by accident, having been detained in Venice by some obliging person who abstracted some [of his wife's jewels] and brought me thereby into various relations with the respectable body of people who live at the wrong end of 140 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN the Bridge of Sighs — the police, whom, in spite of traditions of terror, I would very willingly have changed for some of those their predecessors whom you have honoured by a note in the " Italy." The present police appear to act on exactly contrary principles ; yours found the purse and banished the loser ; these dorCt find the jewels, and won't let me go away. I am afraid no punishment is appointed in Venetian law for people who steal twie.'' Mr. Ruskin returned to England in July 1852, and settled next door to his old home on Heme Hill. He said he could not live any more in Park Street, with a dead brick wall opposite his windows. And so, under the roof where he wrote the first volume of 'Modem Painters,' he finished ' Stones of Venice.' These later volumes give an account of St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace and other ancient buildings; a complete catalogue of Tintoret's pictures, — the hst he had begun in 1845 ; and a history of the successive styles of architecture, Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance, inter- weaving illustrations of the human life and character that made the art what it was. The kernel of the work was the chapter on the Nature of Gothic ; in which h^ showed, more distinctly than in the ' Seven Lamps,' and connected with a wider range of thought, suggested by Pi-e-Raphaelitism, the great doctrine that art cannot be produced except by artists ; that architecture, in so far as it is an art, does not mean mechanical execution, hy unintelligent workmen, from the vapid working-drawings of an architect's office ; and, just as Socrates postponed the day of justice until philosophers should be kings and kings philosophers, so Ruskin postponed the reign of art until workmen should be artists, and artists workmen. It was no idle dream. The day dawned early when that chapter ' on the Nature of Gothic ' was taken as the manifesto of Maurice and Kingsley's Working Men's College: and surely the sun had risen, when the same words were chosen for his loving adornment by our great art-craftsman, William Morris. CHAPTER VI. THE EDINBURGH LECTURES. (185i?, 1854.) ' Let him go up into the public chair ; We'U hear him.' Julivs Coesar. BY the end of July 1853 ' Stones of Venice ' was finished, as well as a description of Giotto's works at Padua, written for the Arundel Society. The social duties of the season were over; and Mr. Ruskin took a cottage in Glenfinlas, where to spend a well-earned holiday. He invited Mr. Millais, by this time an intimate and heartily- admired friend^* to go down into Scotland with him for the summer's rest, — such rest as two men of energy and talent take, in the change of scene without giving up the habit of work. Mr. Ruskin devoted himself first to foreground studies, and made careful drawings of rock-detail ; and then, being asked to give a course of lectures before the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, he was soon busy writing once more, and preparing the cartoon-sketches, * diagrams ' as he calls them, to illustrate his- subjects. Dr. Acland had joined the party ; and one day, in the ravine, it is said that he asked Millais to sketch their host as he stood contempla- tively on the rocks, with the torrent thundering beside him. The sketch was produced at a sitting ; and, with additional * ' What a beauty of a man he is !' wrote old Mr. Ruskin, ' and high in intellect. . . . Millais' sketches are "prodigious"! Millais is the painter of the age.' ' Capable, it seems to me, of almost everything, if his life and strength be spared,' said the younger Ruskin to Miss Mitford. 142 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN work in the following winter, became the well-known portrait now at Oxford, in the possession of Sir Henry Acland, much the best likeness of this early period. Another portrait was painted — in words — by one of his audience at Edinburgh on November 1, when he gave the opening lecture of his course, his first appearance on the platform. The account is extracted from the Edinburgh (xMflrtfJow. of November 19, 1853 : ' Before you can see the lecturer, however, you must get into the hall, and that is not an easy matter, for, long before the doors are opened, the fortunate holders of season tickets begin to assemble, so that the crowd not only fills the passage, but occupies the pavement in front of the entrance and overflows into the road. At length the doors open, and you are carried through the passage into the hall, where you take up, of course, the best available position for seeing and hearing. . . . After waiting a weary time . . . the door by the side of the platform Opens, and a thin gentleman with light hair, a stifl' white cravat, dark overcoat with velvet collar, walking, too, with a slight stoop, goes up to the desk, and looking round with a self-possessed and somewhat formal air, proceeds to take off his great-coat, revealing thereby, in addition to the orthodox white cravat, the most orthodox of white waistcoats. ... " Dark hair, pale face, and massive marble brow — ^that is my ideal of Mr. Ruskin," said a young lady near us. This proved to be quite a fancy portrait, as unlike the reality as could well be imagined. Mr. Ruskin has light sand-coloured hair; his face is more red than pale; the mouth well cut, with a good deal of decision in its curve, though somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength; an aquiline nose; his forehead by no means broad or massive, but the brows full and well bound together; the eye we could not see, in consequence of the shadows that fell upon his countenance from the lights overhead, but we are sure that the poetry and passion we looked for almost in vain in other features must be concentrated there.* ♦ ' Mary Eussell Mitford found him as a young man " very eloquent and distinguished-looking, tall, fair, and slender, with a gentle jhj- THE EDINBURGH LECTURES 143 After sitting for a moment or two, and glancing round at the sheets on the wall as he takes off his gloves, he rises, and leaning slightly over the desk, with his hands folded across, begins at once, — "You are proud of your good city of Edinburgh," etc. ' And now for the style of the lecture. Properly speaking, there were two styles essentially distinct, and not well blended, — a speaking and a writing style ; the former colloquial and spoken off-hand ; the latter rhetorical and carefully read in quite a different voice, — we had almost said intoned. . . . His elocution is peculiar ; he has a difficulty in sounding the letter "r"; and there is a peculiar tone in the rising and falling of his voice at measured intervals, in a way scarcely ever heard, except in the public lection of the service appointed to be read in churches. These are the two things with which, perhaps, you are most surprised,— his dress and manner of speaking — both of which (the white waistcoat notwithstanding) are eminently clerical. You natvu-ally ex- pect, in one so independent, a manner free from conventional restraint, and an utterance, whatever may be the power of voice, at least expressive of a strong individuality ; and you find instead a Christ Church man of ten years' standing, who has not yet taken orders; his dress and manner derived from his college tutor, and his elocution from the chapel- reader.' The lectures were a summing up, in popular form, of the chief topics of Mr. Ruskin's thought during the last two years. The first stated, with more decision and warmth than part of his audience approved, his plea for the Gothic fulness, and a sort of pretty waywardness that was quite charming." Sydney Dobell, again, in 1852, discovered an earnestness pervading every feature, giving power to a face that otherwise would be merely lovable for its gentleness. And, finally, one who visited him at Denmark Hill characterized him as emotional and nervous, with a soft, genial eye, a mouth " thin and severe," and a voice that, though rich and sweet, yet had a tendency to sink into a plaintive and hopeless tune. This is interesting enough, of course, but after all the man is in his books, not in his person.' — Literary World, May 19, 1893. 144 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Revival, for the use of Gothic as a domestic style. He tried to show by the analogy of natural forms that the Gothic arch and gable were in themselves more beautiful, and more logical in construction, than the horizontal lintel and low pediment of the ordinary Renaissance-Classic then in vogue, The next lecture, given three days later, went on to contrast the wealth of ornament in mediaeval buildings with the poor survivals of conventionalized patterns which did duty for decoration in nineteenth-century 'Greek' architecture; and he raised a laugh by comparing a typical stonemason's lion with a real tiger's head, drawn in the Edinburgh zoological gardens by Mr. Millais. He showed how a gradual Gothicizing of the common dwelling-house was possible, by introducing a porch here and an oriel window there, piece by piece, as indeed had been done in Venice. And he pointed out that this kind of work would give opportunities for freer and more artistic workmanship ; it would be an education in itself, and raise the builder's man from a mere mechanical drudge into an intelligent and interested craftsman. The last two lectures, on November 15 and 18, were on Painting ; briefly reviewing the history of landscape and the life and aims of Turner; and finally. Christian art and Sincerity in imagination, which was now put forth as the guiding principle of Pre-Raphaelitism. Public opinion was violently divided over these lectures; and they were the cause of much trouble at home. The fact of his lecturing at all aroused strong opposition from his friends and remonstrances from his parents. Before the event his mother wrote : ' I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of your bringing yourself personally before the world till you are somewhat older and stronger.' Afterwards, his father, while apologizing for the word 'degrading,' is dis- gusted at his exposing himself to such an interruption as occurred, and to newspaper comments and personal references. The notion of an 'itinerant lecturer' scandalizes him. He hears from Harrison and Holding that John is to lecture even at their very doors — in CamberwelL ' I see small bills THE EDINBURGH LECTURES 145 up,' he writes, 'with the lecturers' names; among them Mr. who gets your old clothes !' And he bids him write to the committee that his parents object to his ful- filling the engagement. He postponed his lecture — for ten years;* but accepted the Presidency of the Camberwell Institute, which enabled him to appear at their meetings without ofFence to any. The printed Edinburgh lectures were fiercely assailed by the old school ; but little damage was done, except to their own cause, by writers who held, with the Athenasum of that date, that the Middle Ages were characterized by canni- balism and obscenity ; and that Dante seldom drew an image from nature ; who, in the act of defending Greek art against Ruskin the Goth, had never heard of the important Stele of Aristion, known as ' The Soldier of Marathon ' ; who, as judges of modern art, found that 'water-colour painting can scarcely satisfy the mind craving for human action and human passion ^ ; and objected to the painting of contemporary history because ' we have had enough of por- traits, and as for modern battles, they are mere affairs of smoke and feathers.' While staying at Edinburgh, Mr. Ruskin met the various celebrities of modem Athens, some of them at the table of his former fellow-traveller in Venice, Mrs. Jameson. One lifelong friendship was begun during this time, with Dr. John Brown, the author of ' Rab and his Friends ' and ' Pet Maqorie,' who met Mr. Ruskin at Sir Walter Trevelyan's, near Otterbum, and corresponded till his death in 1882, on terms of the greatest affection. The next May (1854) the Pre-Raphaelites again needed his defence. Mr. Holman Hunt exhibited the 'Light of the World ' and the ' Awakening Conscience,' two pictures whose intention was misunderstood by the public, though as serious, as sincere, as the religious paintings of the Campo Santo of Pisa. Mr. Ruskin made them the theme of two more letters to the Times; mentioning, by the way, the * See Book III., chapter vi 10 146 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN 'spurious imitations of Pre-Raphaelite work' which were already becoming common. And on starting for his summer tour on the Continent, he left a new pamphlet for publication' on the opening of the Crystal Palace. There had been much rejoicing over the 'new style of architecture' in glass and iron, and its purpose as a palace of art. Mr. Ruskin who had declined, in the last chapter of the ' Seven Lamps,' to join in the cry for a new style, was not at all ready to accept this as any real artistic advance ; and took the opportunity to plead again for the great buildings of the past, which were being destroyed or neglected, while the British pubhc was glorifying its gigantic greenhouse. The pamphlet prac- tically suggested the establishment of the Society for the preservation of ancient buildings, which has since come into operation. This summer of 1854! he projected a study of Swiss history: to tell the tale of six chief towns — Geneva, Fribourg, Basle, Thun, Baden and Schaffhausen, to which in 1858 he added Bheinfelden and Bellinzona. He intended to illustrate the work with pictures of the places described. He began with his drawing of Thun, a large bird's-eye view of the town with its river and bridges, roofs and towers, all exquisitely defined with the pen, and broadly coloured in fluctuating tints that seem to melt always into the same aerial blue; the blue, high up the picture, beyond the plain, deepening into distant mountains. Suppose a Whistler etching and a Whistler colour-sketch combined upon one paper, and you form an idea of the style of this series ; except that Mr. Ruskin's work, being calculated for book-illustration, and not for decoration, can only be seen in the hand, and totally loses its effect by hanging — especially by exhibition hanging. But the delicate detail and studied use of the line are there, together with a calculated unity of effect and balance of colour which had not yet begun to degenerate into a mannered purple. But his father wanted to see ' Modem Painters' completed; and so he began his third volume at Vevey, with the dis- THE EDINBURGH LECTURES 147 cussion of the grand style, in which he at last broke loose from Reynolds, as was inevitable, after his study of Pre- Raphaelitism, and all the varied experiences of the last ten years. The lesson of the Tulse Hill ivy had been brought home to him in many ways : he had found it to be more and more true that Nature is, after all, the criterion of art, and that the greatest painters were always those whose aim, so far as they were conscious of an aim, was to take fact for their starting-point. Idealism, beauty, imagination, and the rest, though necessary to art, could not, he felt, be made the object of study ; they were the gift of heredity, of circum- stances, of national aspirations and virtues ; not to be produced by the best of rules, or achieved by the best of intentions. What his own view of his own work was can be gathered from a letter to an Edinburgh student, written on August 6, 1854 : ' I am sure I never said anything to dissuade you from trying to excel or to do great things. I only wanted you to be sure that your efforts were made with a substantial basis, so that just in the moment of push your footing might not give way beneath you; and also I wanted you to feel that long and steady effort made in a contented way does more than violent effort made from some strong motive and imder some enthusiastic impulse. And I repeat — for of this I am perfectly sure — that the best things are only to be done in this way. It is very difficult thoroughly to understand the difference between indolence and reserve of strength, between apathy and severity, between palsy and patience ; but there is all the difference in the world; and nearly as many men are ruined by inconsiderate exertions as by idleness itself. To do as much as you can heartily and happily do each day in a well-determined direction, with a view to far- off results, with present enjoyment of one's work, is the only proper, the only essentially profitable way.' This habit of great industry not only enabled Mr. Ruskin to get through a vast amount of work, but it helped him over times of trouble, of which his readers and acquaintances, 10—2 14-8 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN for the most part, had little idea. To them he appeared as one of those deities of Epicurus, sipping his nectar and hurling his thunderbolts, or, when it pleased him, showering the sunshine of his eloquence upon delighted crowds. He had wealth and fame, the society of wit and genius ; the delight of travel and intense appreciation of all the pleasures that travelling afforded. The fancy of the outside public pictured him in the possession of rare works of art, of admiring friends, of a beautiful wife. They did not know how the labour involved in his work and the drawback of constant ill - health made society distasteful to him and domestic life difficult. They did not see the disappointment and disillusioning of a young girl who found herself married to a man with whom she had nothing in common ; in habits of thought and life, even more than in years, her senior; taking ' small notice, or austerely,' of the gayer world she preferred, ' his mind half-buried in some weightier argument, or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise and long roll ' of his periods. And his readers and the public were intensely puzzled when she left him with apparent suddenness, and the separation ended in the annulment of the marriage. CHAPTER Vn. THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE. (1854-1855.) ' Sighing, I turned at last to win Once more the London dirt and din.' EOSSETTI. PHILANTHROPIC instincts, and a growing sense of the necessity for social reform, had led Mr. Ruskin for some years past towards a group of liberal thinkers with whom he had little otherwise in common. At Venice, in 1852, he had written several articles on education, taxation, and so forth, with which he intended to plunge into active politics. His father, like a cautious man of business who knew his son's powers and thought he knew their limitations, was strongly opposed to this attempt, and used every argu- ment against it. He appealed to his son's sensitiveness, and assured him that he would be ' flayed ' unless he wrapped himself in the hide of a rhinoceros. He assured him that, without being on the spot to follow the discussions of poli- ticians, it was useless to oflFer them any opinions whatsoever. And he ended by declaring that it would be the ruin of his business and of his peace of mind if the name of Ruskin were mixed up with Radical electioneering : not that he was unwilling to suffer martyrdom for a cause in which he believed, but he did not believe in the movements afoot, — neither the Tailors' Cooperative Society, in which their friend Mr. F, J. Furnivall was interested, nor in any outcome of Chartism or Chartist principles. And so for a time the matter dropped. In 1854, the Rev. F. D. Maurice founded the Working 150 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Men's College. Mr. Fumivall (as he states in a letter to Mr. T. J. Wise, printed in 'Letters to William Ward,' 1893) sent the circulars to John Ruskin ; who thereupon Tyrote to Maurice,* and offered his services. At the opening lecture on October 30, 1854, at St. Martin's Hall, Longacre, Mr. Furnivall distributed to all comers a reprint of the chapta ' On the Nature of Gothic,' which we have already noticed as a statement of the conclusions drawn from the study of art respecting the conditions under which the life of the work- man should be regulated. Mr. Ruskin thus appeared as contributing, so to say, the manifesto of the movement. He took charge from the commencement of the drawing- classes, — ^first at SI Red Lion Square, and afterwards at Great Ormond Street ; also superintending classes taught by Messrs, Jeffery and E. Cooke at the Working Women's (afterwaida the Working Men and Women's) .College, Queen Square. In this labour he had two allies ; one a friend of Maurice's, Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the well-known artist, whose portrait of Maurice was mentioned with honour in the ' Notes on the Academy ' ; his portrait of Kingsley hangs in the hall of the novelist-professor's college at Cambridge. The other helper was a new friend of Mr. Ruskin's. To people who know him only as the elegant theorist of art, sentimental and egotistic, as they will have it, there must be something strange, almost irreconcilable, in his devotion, week after week and year after year, to these night-classesi Still more must it astonish them to find the mystic author of the " Blessed Damozel,' the passionate painter of the ' Venus Verticordia,' working by Ruskin's side in this rough navvy- labour of philanthropy. It was early in 1854 that a drawing of D. G. Rossetti was sent to Mr. Ruskin by a friend of the painter's. The critic already knew Millais and Hunt personally, but not Rossetti, He had scarcely noticed his works, as they were not exhibited at the Academy. Mr. Ruskin was just bringing out the Edinburgh Lectures in book form, and busy with the defence ♦With whom he had corresponded in 1851. See p. 124. THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE 151 of the Pre-Raphaelites. He wrote kindly, signing himself 'yours respectfully,'' which amused the young painter. He made acquaintance, and in the appendix to his book placed Rossetti's name with those of Millais and Hunt, especially praising their imaginative power, as rivalling that of the greatest of the old masters. He did more than this. He agreed to buy, up to a certain sum every year, any drawings that Rossetti brought him, at their market price; and his standard of money -value for works of art has never been niggardly. This sort of help, the encouragement to work, is exactly what makes progress possible to a young and independent artist ; it is better for him than fortuitous exhibition triumphs — much better than the hack-work which many have to undertake, to eke out their livelihood. And the mere fact of being bought by the eminent art-critic was enough to encourage other patrons. ' He seems in a mood to make my fortune,' said Rossetti in the spring of 1854 ; and early in 1855 Mr. Ruskin wrote : — . ' It seems to me that, of all the painters I know, you on the whole have the greatest genius ; and you appear to me also to be — as far as I can make out — a very good sort of person. I see that you are unhappy, and that you can't bring out your genius as you should. It seems to me then the proper and necessary thing, if I can, to make you more happy ; and that I shall be more really useful in enabling you to paint properly, and keep your room in order, than in any other way.' He did his best to keep that room in order in every sense. Anxious to promote the painter's marriage with Miss Siddal — ' Princess Ida,' as Mr. Ruskin called her, — ^he offered a similar arrangement to that which he had made with Rossetti ; and began in 1855 to give her ^150 a year in exchange for drawings up to that value. Rossetti's poems also found a warm admirer and advocate. In 1856 'The Burden of Nineveh' was published anonymously in the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine ; Mr. Ruskin wrote to Rossetti that it was 'glorious,' and that he wanted to know who was the author, — perhaps not without a suspicion that he was 152 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN addressing the man who could tell. In 1861 he guaranteed, or advanced, the cost of 'The Early Italian Poets,' up to £100, with Smith and Elder ; and endeavoured, but unsuc- cessfully, to induce Thackeray to find a place for other poems in The Comhill Magazine. Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in his book on his brother 'as Designer and Writer ' and in ' His Family Letters ' draws a pleasant picture of the intimacy between the artist and the critic. ' At one time,' he says, ' I am sure they even loved one another.' But in 1865 Rossetti, never very tolerant of criticism and patronage, took in bad part his friend's remon- strances about the details of ' Venus Verticordia.' Mr. Ruskin, no doubt, wrote freely ; for their comradeship had seemed to warrant imreserved confidence and undisguised judgments. Eighteen months later, Mr. Ruskin tried to renew the old acquaintance. Rossetti did not return his call ; and farther efforts on Mr. Ruskin's part, up to 1870, met with little response. But the lecture on Rossetti in 'The Art of England ' shows that on one side at least ' their parting,' as Mr. W. M. Rossetti says, 'was not in anger;' and the portrait of 1881, now in the Oxford University Galleries, will remain as a memorial of the ten years' friendship of the two famous men, At Red Lion Square, during Lent term 1855, the three teachers worked together every Thursday evening. With the beginning of the third term, March 29, the increase of the class made it more convenient to divide their forces, Rossetti thenceforward taught the figure on another night of the week ; while the elementary and landscape class con- tinued to meet on Thursdays under Ruskin and Lowes Dickinson. In 1856 the elementary and landscape class was further divided, Mr. Dickinson taking Tuesday evenings, and Mr. Ruskin continuing the Thursday class, with the help of Mr. William Ward as under-master. Later on, Messrs. G. Allen, J. Bunney, and W. Jeffery were teachers. Mr. (later Sir Edward) Bume-Jones, met in 1856 at Rossetti's studio, was also pressed into the service for a time. There were four terms in the Working Men's College year, THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE 153 the only vacation, except for the fortnight at Christmas, being from the beginning of August to the end of October. Mr. Ruskin did not always attend throughout the summer term, though sometimes his class came down to him into the country to sketch. He kept up the work without other intermission until May 1858, after which the completion of ' Modem Painters ^ and many lecture-engagements took him away for a time. Li the spring of 1860 he was back at his old post for a term ; but after that he discontinued regular attendance, and went to the Working Men's College only at intervals, to give addresses or informal lectures to students and friends. On such occasions the ' drawing-room ' or first floor of the house in which the College was held would be always crowded, with an audience who heard the lecturer at his best ; speaking freely among friends out of a full treasure- house 'things new and old' — accounts of recent travel, lately-discovered glories of art, and the growing burden of the prophecy that in those years was beginning to take more definite shape in his mind. 1 As a teacher, Mr. Ruskin was most delightful. He spared no pains to make the work interesting. He provided — Mr. i E. Cooke informs me that he was the first to provide — casts from natural leaves and fruit in place • of the ordinary con- ventional ornament; and he sent a tree to be fixed in a I comer of the class-room for light and shade studies. Mr. W. Ward in the preface to the volume of letters already quoted says that he used to bring his minerals and shells, I and rare engravings and drawings, to show them. ' His delightful way of talking about these things afforded us most I valuable lessons. To give an example : he one evening took I for his subject a cap, and with pen and ink showed us how , Rembrandt would have etched, and Albert Diirer engraved ;it. This at once explained to us the different ideas and methods of the two masters. On another evening he would I take a subject from Turner's "Liber Studiorum," and with a large sheet of paper and some charcoal, gradually block in the subject, explaining at the same time the value and efiect ^ 154 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of the lines and masses.' And for sketching from nature he would take his class out into the country, and wind up with tea and talk. ' It was a treat to hear and see him with his men,' writes Dr. Fumivall. His object in the work, as he said before the Royal Commission on National Institutions, was not to make artists, but to make the workmen better men, to develop their powers and feelings, — ^to educate them, in short. He always has urged young people intending to study art as a pro- fession to enter the Academy Schools, as Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites did, or to take up whatever other serious course of practical discipline was open to them. But he held very strongly that everybody could learn drawing, that their eyes could be brightened and their hands steadied, and that they could be taught to appreciate the great works of nature and of art, without want ng to make pictm-es or to exhibit and sell them. It was with this intention that he wrote the ' Elements of Drawing ^ in 1856, supplemented by the ' Elements of Per- spective ' in 1859 ; which, though out of chronological order, may be noticed here as an outcome of his teaching, and a type of it. The ' Elements of Drawing ' are taught in three letters addressed to the general amateur ; the first devoted to practice with the point and brush, suggesting various ways of making such drudgery interesting. The methods of Rembrandt's etching and Diirer's woodcut and Turner's mezzotint are illustrated, and applied to naturalistic land- scape. In the next letter hints are given for sketching from Nature, especially showing the importance of matching colours, as students are now taught to do in the bettei schools. For the rest, the methods of old William Hunt are followed, in the use of body-colour and broken tints Finally, the laws of Colour and Composition are analyzed— not for the sake of teaching how to colour and how to com- pose, but, as he says again and again, to lead to greater appreciation of good colour and good composition in the works of the masters. THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE 155 In spite of the repeated statement that the book was not intended to show a short cut to becoming an artist, it has often been misused and misunderstood ; so much so, that after it had proved its popularity by a sale of 8,000, the author let it go out of print, intending to supersede it with a more carefully stated code of directions. But the new work, ' The Laws of Fesole,' was never finished ; and mean- while the ' Elements of Drawing ' remains, if not a standard text-book of art, yet a model of method and a type of object-lessons of the greatest value to those who wish to substitute a more natural, and more truly educational method for the old rigid learning by rote and routine. The illustrations for the book were characteristic sketches by the author, beautifully cut by his pupil, W. H. Hooper, who was one of a band of engravers and copyists formed by these classes at the Working Men''s College. In spite of the intention not to make artists by his teaching, Mr. Ruskin could not prevent some of his pupils from taking up art as a profession ; and those who did so became, in their way, first- rate men. George Allen as a mezzotint engraver, Arthur Burgess as a draughtsman and wood-cutter, John Bunney as a painter of architectural detail, W. Jeffery as an artistic photographer, E. Cooke as a teacher, William Ward as a facsimile copyist, have all done work whose value deserves acknowledgment, all the more because it was not aimed at popular effect, but at the severe standard of the greater schools. But these men were only the side issue of the Working Men's College enterprise. Its real result was in the proof that the labouring classes could be interested in Art ; and that the capacity shown by the Gothic workman had not entirely died out of the nation, in spite of the interregnum, for a full century, of manufacture. And the experience led Mr. Ruskin forward to wider views on the nature of the arts, and on the duties of philanthropic efibrt and social economy. CHAPTER Vin. 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED. (1855-1856.) ' Nor feared to follow, in the offence Of false opinion, his own sense Of justice unsubdued.' Robert, Lord Lttton. IT was in the year 1855 that Mr. Ruskin first published 'Notes on the Royal Academy and other Exhibitions;' He had been so often called upon to write his opinion of Pre-Raphaelite pictures, either privately or to the news- papers, or to mark his friends' catalogues, that he found at last less trouble in printing his notes once for all. The new plan was immediately popular; three editions of the pamphlet were called for between June 1 and July. 1. Next year he repeated the 'Notes' and six editions were sold ; which indicated a great success in those times, when literature was not spread broadcast to the millions, as it is nowadays, and when the reading public was comparatively limited. In spite of a dissentient voice here and there, Mr. Ruskin was really by that time recognised as the leading authority upon taste in painting. He was tnisted by a great section of the public, who had not failed to notice how completely he and his friends were winning the day. The proof of it was in the fact that they were being imitated on all sides; Ruskinism in writing and Pre-Raphaelitism in painting were becoming fashionable. Many an artist, who haid abused the 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED 157 new-fangled style three years ago, now did his best to learn the trick of it and share the success. It seemed easy : you had only to exaggerate the colour and emphasise the detail, people thought, and you could ' do a Millais '; and if Millais sold, why shouldn't they ? And thus a great mass of imitative rubbish was produced, entirely wanting in the freshness of feeling and sincerity of conception which were the real virtues of the school. But at the same time the movement gave rise to a new method of landscape-painting, which was very much to Mr. Ruskin's mind ; not based on Turner, and therefore not secured from the failure that all experiments risk ; and yet safe in so far as it kept to honest study of nature. So that, beside the Pre-Raphaelites proper, with their poetic figure- pieces, the ' Notes on the Academy ' had to keep watch over the birth of the Naturalist-landscape school, a group of painters who threw overboard the traditions of Turner and Prout, and Constable and Harding, and the rest, just as the Pre-Raphaelite Brethren threw over the Academical masters. For such men their study was their picture; they devised tents and huts in wild glens and upon waste moors, and spent weeks in elaborating their details directly from nature, instead of painting at home from sketches on the spot. This was the fulfilment of Mr. Ruskin's advice to young artists ; and so far as young artists worked in this way, for purposes of study, he encouraged them. But he did not fail to point out that this was not all that could be required of them. Even such a work as Brett's ' Val d'Aosta,' marvellous as it was in observation and finish, was only the beginning of a new era, not its consummation. It was not the painting of detail that could make a great artist ; but the knowledge of it, and the masterly use of such knowledge. A great land- scapist would know the facts and effects of nature, just as Tintoret knew the form of the human figure ; and he would treat them with the same freedom, as the means of expressing great ideas, of affording by the imagination noble grounds for noble emotion, which, as Mr. Ruskin had been writing at 158 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Vevey in 1854, was poetry. Meanwhile the public and the critic ought to become familiar with the aspects of nature, in order to recognise the diiference between the true poetry of painting, and the mere empty sentimentalism which was only the rant and bombast of landscape art. With such feelings as these he wrote the third and fourth volumes of ' Modern Painters.' The work was afterwards interrupted only by a recurrence of his old cough, in the exceptionally cold summer of 1855. He went down to Tunbridge Wells, where his cousin, William Richardson of Perth, was practising as a doctor ; it was not long before the cough gave way to treatment, and he was as busy as ever. About October of that year he wrote to Carlyle as follows, in a letter printed by Professor C. E. Norton, conveniently summing up his year : — ' Not that I have not been busy — and very busy, too. I have written, since May, good six hundred pages, had them rewritten, cut up, corrected, and got fairly ready for press — and am going to press with the first of them on Gunpowder Plot day, with a great hope of disturbing the Public Peace in various directions. Also, I have prepared about thirty drawings for engravers this year, retouched the engravings (generally the worst part of the business), and etched some on steel myself. In the course of the six hundred pages I have had to make various remarks on German Metaphysics, on Poetry, Political Economy, Cookeiy, Music, Geology, Dress, Agriculture, Horticulture, and Navigation,* all of which subjects I have had to " read up " accordingly, and this takes time. Moreover, I have had my class of workmen out sketching every week in the fields during the summer; and have been studying Spanish proverbs with my father's partner, who came over from Spain to see the Great Ex- hibition. I have also designed and drawn a window for the Museum at Oxford ; and have every now and then had to * Most of these subjects will be easily recognised in 'Modem Painters,' vols. iii. and iv. The 'Navigation' refers to the 'Harbonm «f England.' 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED 159 look over a parcel of five or six new designs for fronts and backs to the said Museum. 'During my above-mentioned studies of horticulture, I became dissatisfied with the Linnaean, Jussieuan, and Every- body-elseian arrangement of plants, and have accordingly arranged a system of my own ; and unbound my botanical book, and rebound it in brighter green, with all the pages through-other, and backside foremost — so as to cut off all the old paging numerals ; and am now printing my new arrangement in a legible manner, on interleaved foolscap. I consider this arrangement one of my great achievements of the yeai'. My studies of political economy have induced me to think also that nobody knows anything about that ; and I am at present engaged in an investigation, on independent principles, of the natures of money, rent, and taxes, in an abstract form, which sometimes keeps me awake all night. My studies of German metaphysics have also induced me to think that the Germans don't know anything about them ; and to engage in a serious enquiry into the meaning of Bunsen's great sentence in the beginning of the second volume of the " Hippolytus," about the Finite realization of Infinity ; which has given me some trouble. ' The course of my studies of Navigation necessitated my going to Deal to look at the Deal boats; and those of geology to rearrange all my minerals (and wash a good many, which, I am sorry to say, I foimd wanted it). I have also several pupils, far and near, in the art of illumination ; an American young lady to direct in the study of landscape painting, and a Yorkshire young lady to direct in the purchase of Turners, — and various little bye things besides. But I am coming to see you.' The tone of humorous exaggeration of his discoveries and occupations was very characteristic of Mr. Ruskin, and it was likely to be brought out all the more in writing to another humourist like Carlyle. But he was then gi owing into the habit of leaving the matter in hand as he often did after- wards, to follow side issues, and to take up new studies with a 160 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN hasty and divided attention ; the result of which was seen in his sub-title for the third volume of ' Modem Painters — ' Of Many Things ' : which amused his readers not a little. But that he still had time for his friends is seen in the account of a visit to Denmark Hill, written this year by James Smetham, an artist who at one time promised to do great things. He was at any rate a singularly charming and interesting man, admired by Mr. Ruskin for his personal character, and known now by the volume of his published letters. He wrote : ' I walked there through the wintry weather, and got in about dusk. One or two gossiping details will interest you before I give you what I care for ; and so I will tell you that he has a large house with a lodge, and a valet and footman and coachman, and grand rooms glittering with pictures, chiefly Turner's, and that his father and mother live with him, or he with them. . . . His father is a fine old gentleman, who has a lot of bushy gray hair, and eyebrows sticking up aU rough and knowing, with a comfortable way of coming up to you with his hands in his pockets, and making you comfort- able, and saying, in answer to your remark, that "John's" prose works are pretty good. His mother is a ruddy, dignified, richly -dressed old gentlewoman of seventy -five, who knows Chamonix better than Camberwell ; evidently a good old lady, with the " Christian Treasury " tossing about on the table. She puts "John" down, and holds her own opinions, and flatly contradicts him ; and he receives all her opinions with a soft reverence and gentleness that is pleasant to witness, ' I wish I could reproduce a good impression of " John " for you, to give you the notion of his " perfect gentleness and lowlihood." He certainly bursts out with a remark, and in a contradictious way, but only because he believes it, with no air of dogmatism or conceit. He is different at home from that which he is in a lecture before a mixed audience, and there is a spiritual sweetness in the half-timid expression of his eyes ; and in bowing to you, as in taking wine, with (if I ' MODERN PAINTERS ' CONTINUED 161 heard aright) " I drink to thee," he had a look that has followed me, a look bordering on tearful. ' He spent some time in this way. Unhanging a Turner from the wall of a distant room, he brought it to the table and put it in my hands ; then we talked ; then he went up into his study to fetch down some illustrative print or drawing ; in one case, a literal view which he had travelled fifty miles to make, in order to compare with the picture. And so he kept on gliding all over the house, hanging and unhanging, and stopping a few minutes to talk.' But it was not only from his mother that he could brook contradiction, and not only in conversation that he showed himself — contrary to the general opinion of him — amenable to correction, when it came from persons whom he could respect. And yet there were many with whom he had to deal who did not look at things in his light ; who took his criticism as personal attack, and resented it with a bitterness it did not deserve. There is a story told (but not by himself) about one of the ' Notes on the Academy,' which he was then publishing — ^how he wrote to an artist therein mentioned that he regretted he could not speak more favourably of his picture, but he hoped it would make no difFerence in their friendship. The artist replied (so they say) in these terms : 'Dear Ruskin, — Next time I meet you, I shall knock you down ; but I hope it will make no difFerence in our friend- ship.' ' Damn the fellow ! why doesn't he stand up for his friends.'"' said another disappointed acquaintance. Perhaps Mr. Ruskin, secure in his ' house with a lodge, and a valet and footman and coachman,' hardly realized that a cold word from his pen sometimes meant the failure of an important Academy picture, and serious loss of income — that there was bitter truth underlying PuncKs complaint of the R. A. : — ' I paints and paints, Hears no complaints, And sells before I'm dry j Till savage Euskin Sticks his tusk n, And nobody will buy.' 11 162 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Against these incidents should be set such a fine anecdote as the following, told by Mr. J. J. Ruskin in a letter of June 3, 1858. ' Vokins wished me to name to you that Carrick, when he read your criticism on " Weary Life," came to him with the cheque Vokins had given, and said your remarks were all right, and that he could not take the price paid by Vokins the buyer; he would alter the picture. Vokins took back the money, only agreeing to see the picture when it was done.' As a public man, it was his duty to ' be just and fear not'; and, hard as it is to be just, when one looks over these ' Notes on the Academy ' at this safe distance of time, one is surprised to see with what shrewdness he put his finger upon the weak points of the various artists, and no less upon their strong points ; how many of the men he praised as beginners have since risen to eminence, how many he blamed have sunk from a specious popularity into oblivion. Contrast his career as a critic with that of other well-known men, the Jeffreys and the Giffords, not to mention writers of a later date; and note that his error was always to encourage too freely, not to discourage hastily. The men who laid their failiu'e to his account were the weaklings whom he urged to attempts beyond their powers, with kindly support, mis- construed into a prophecy of success. No article of his snuffed out a rising Keats, or drove a yoimg Chatterton to suicide. And he never stabbed in the dark. 'Tout honnete homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public,'' says his proto-type Rousseau : and Mr. Ruskin, after publishing his first juvenile essays under a transparent pseudonym, always had the courage of his opinions and took the conse- quences of his criticisms. His relations with Carlyle show how far he was above the conceit of the ordinary clever man. The same comes out in his dealings with other of his friends, — for example, the Brownings. A letter from Mrs. Browning describes a visit to Denmark Hill, and ends, — ' I like Mr. Ruskin very much, and so does Robert : very gentle, yet earnest — refined and * MODERN PAINTERS ' CONTINUED 163 truthful. I like him very much. We count him one among the valuable acquaintances made this year in England.' This has been dated 1855; but Mr. Ruskin, writing to Miss Mitford from Glenfinlas 17th August 1853, says, ' I had the pleasure, this spring, of being made acquainted with your dear Elizabeth Browning, as well as with her husband. I was of covu-se prepared to like her, but I did not expect to like him as much as I did. I think he is really a very fine fellow, and she is the only sensible woman I have yet met with on the subject of Italian politics. Evidently a noble creature in all things.' In June 1850, Mr. Ruskin had met Robert Browning, on the invitation of Coventry Patmore, and said he liked him. ' He is the only person whom I have ever heard talk rationally about the Italians, though on the Liberal side.' In these volumes of ' Modem Painters ' he had to discuss the Mediaeval and Renaissance spirit in its relation to ai-t, and to illustrate from Browning's poetry, ' unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages, always vital and right and profound ; so that in the matter of art there is hardly a principle connected with the mediaeval temper that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged lines of his.' This was written twenty-five years before the Browning Society was heard of, and at a time when the style of Browning was an off'ence to most people. To Mr. Ruskin, also, it had been something of a puzzle ; and he wrote to the poet, asking him to explain himself ; which the poet accord- ingly did, in a letter too interesting to remain unprinted, showing as it does the candid intercourse of two such di^rent minds. •Paeis, •Dec. lOiA, '55. 'My dear Ruskin, — ^for so you let me begin, with the honest friendliness that befits, — ' You never were more in the wrong than when you professed to say "your unpleasant things" to me. This is pleasant and proper at all points, over-liberal of praise here 11—2 164 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN and there, kindly and sympathetic everywhere, and with enough of yourself in even — what I fancy — the misjudging; to make the whole letter precious indeed. I wanted to thank you thus much at once, — that is, when the letter reached me; but the strife of lodging-hunting was too sore, and only now that I can sit down for a minute without self-reproach do I allow my thoughts to let go south-aspects, warm bedrooms, and the like, and begin as you see. For the deepnesses you think you discern, — may they be more than mere black- nesses ! For the hopes you entertain of what may come of subsequent readings, — all success to them ! For your bewil- derment more especially noted — ^how shall I help that f We don''t read poetry the same way, by the same law ; it is too clear. I cannot begin writing poetry till my imaginary reader has conceded licences to me which you demur at altogether. I Tcnow that I don't make out my conception by my language, all poetry being a putting the infinite within the finite. You would have me paint it all plain out, which can't be ; but by various artifices I try to make shift with touches and bits of outlines which succeed if they bear the conception from me to you. You ought, I think, to keep pace with the thought tripping from ledge to ledge of my " glaciers," as you call them ; not stand poking your alpenstock into the holes, and demonstrating that no foot could have stood there ; — suppose it sprang over there .? In prose you may criticise so — because that is the absolute representation of portions of truth, what chronicling is to history — but in asking for more uUimates you must accept less mediates, nor expect that a Druid stone-circle will be traced for you with as few breaks to the eye as the North Crescent and South Crescent that go together so cleverly in many a suburb. Why, you look at my little song as if it were Hobbs' or Nobbs' lease of his house, or testament of his devisings, wherein, I grant you, not a " then and there," " to him and his heirs," " to have and to hold," and so on, would be superfluous ; and so you begin : — " Stand still, — why ?"* * Eeferring to the poem, ' Stand still, true poet that you are,' with the line, ' And Hobba, Nobbs, Stokes, and Nokes combine.' •MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED 165 For the reason indicated in the verse, to be sure, — to let me draw him — and because he is at present going his way, and fancying nobody notices him, — and moreover, " going on " (as we say) against the injustice of that, — and lastly, inasmuch as one night he'll fail us, as a star is apt to drop out of heaven, in authentic astronomic records, and I want to make the most of my time. So much may be in "stand still." And how much more was (for instance) in that " stay !" of Samuel's (I. xv. 16). So could I twit you through the whole series of your objurgations, but the declaring my own notion of the law on the subject will do. And why, — I prithee, friend and fellow-student, — why, having told the Poet what you read, — may I not turn to the bystanders, and tell them a bit of my mind about their own stupid thanklessness and mistaking.? Is the jump too much there.? The whole is all but a simultaneous feeling with me. 'The other hard measure you deal me I won't bear — about my requiring you to pronounce words short and long, exactly as I like. Nay, but exactly as the language likes, in this case. FoldsMrts not a trochee? A spondee possible in English .'' Two of the " longest monosyllables " con- tinuing to be each of the whole length when in junction ? Sentence : let the delinquent be forced to supply the stone- cutter with a thousand companions to " Affliction sore — ^long time he bore," after the fashion of " He lost his life — ^by a penknife" — "He turned to clay — last Good Friday," " Departed hence — nor owed six-pence," and so on — so would pronounce a jury accustomed from the nipple to say lord and landlord, bridge and Cambridge, Gog and Magog, man and woman, house and workhouse, coal and charcoal, cloth and broad-cloth, skirts and fold-skirts, more and once more, — in short ! Once more I prayed ! — is the confession of a self- searching professor ! " I stand here for law !" ' The last charge I cannot answer, for you may be right in preferring it, however unwitting I am of the fact. I may put Robert Browning into Pippa and other men and maids. If so, peccavi : but I don't see myself in them, at all events. 166 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ' Do you think poetry was ever generally understood — or can be ? Is the business of it to tell people what they know already, as they know it, and so precisely that they shall be able to cry out — " Here you should supply this — that, you evidently pass over, and FU help you from my own stock " ? It is all teaching, on the contrary, and the people hate to be taught. They say otherwise, — make foolish fables about Orpheus enchanting stocks and stones, poets standing up and being worshipped, — all nonsense and impossible dreaming. A poet's affair is with God, — to whom he is accountable, and of whom is his reward ; look elsewhere, and you find misery enough. Do you believe people understand " Hamlet " } The last time I saw it acted, the heartiest applause of the night went to a little by-play of the actor's own — who, to simulate madness in a hurry, plucked forth his handkerchie and flourished it hither and thither : certainly a third of the play, with no end of noble things, had been (as from time immemorial) suppressed, with the auditory's amplest acqui- escence and benediction. Are these wasted, therefore ? No — they act upon a very few, who react upon the rest: as Goldsmith says, "some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, are pleased to be kind." ' Don't let me lose my lord by any seeming self-sufficiency or petulance : I look on my own shortcomings too sorrow- fully, try to remedy them too earnestly: but I shall never change my point of sight, or feel other than disconcerted and apprehensive when the public, critics and all, begin to understand and approve me. But what right have you to disconcert me in the other way .'' Why won't you ask the next perfumer for a packet of orm-root ? Don't everybody know 'tis a corruption of im-root — the Florentine lily, the giaggolo, of world-wide fame as a good savour? And because "iris" means so many objects already, and I use the old word, you blame me ! But I write in the blind-dark, and bitter cold, and past post-time as I fear. Take my truest thanks, and understand at least this rough writing, 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONTINUED 167 and, at all events, the real affection with which I venture to regard you. And " I " means ray wife as well as ' Yours ever faithfully, 'Robert Browning.' That Mr. Ruskin was open to conviction and conversion could be shown from the difference in his tone of thought about poetry before and after this period ; that he was the best of friends with the man who took him to task for narrowness, may be seen from the following letter, written on the next Christmas Eve. ' My dear Mr. Ruskin, — 'Your note having just arrived, Robert deputes me to write for him while he dresses to go out on an engagement: It is the evening. All the hours are wasted, since the morning, through our not being found at the Rue de Grenelle, but here — ^and our instinct of self-preservation or self-satisfaction insists on our not losing a moment more by Our own fault. ' Thank you, thank you for sending us your book, and also for writing my husband's name in it. It will be the same thing as if you had written mine — except for the pleasure, as you say, which is greater so. How good and kind you are ! 'And not well. That is worst. Surely you would be better if you had the summer in winter we have here. But 1 was to write only a word — Let it say how affectionately we regard you. 'Elizabeth Barrett Browning. ' 3, Ede nr CoLys]^E, ' Thursday Evening, 24th' (December, 1855). So it came true^- ' I've a Friend, over the sea ; I like him, but he loves me. It all grew out of the books I write. . . ,' CHAPTER IX. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART.' (1857-1858.) ' Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high.' George Herbbet. THE humble work of the drawing -classes at Great Ormond Street was teaching Mr. Ruskin even more than he taught his pupils. It was showing him how far his plans were practicable ; how they should be modified ; how they might be improved ; and especially what more, beside drawing-classes, was needed to realize his ideal. It brought him into contact with uneducated men, and the seamy side of civilization, as it is usually thought to be — poverty and ignorance, and, most difficult of all to treat, the incompetence and the predestinated unsuccess of too many an ambitious nature. That was, after all, the great problem which was to occupy him ; but meanwhile he was anxiously willing to co-operate with every movement, to join hands with any kind of man, to go anywhere, do anything that might promote the cause he had at heart. Already at the end of 1854 he had given three lectures, his second course, at the Architectural Museum, specially addressed to workmen in the decorative trades. His subjects were design and colour, and his illustrations were chiefly drawn from mediaeval illumination, which he had long been studying. These were informal, quasi-private affairs, which nevertheless attracted notice owing to the celebrity of the speaker. It would have been better if his addresses had been 'THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 169 carefully prepared and authentically published ; for a chance word here and there raised replies about matters of detail in which his critics thought they had gained a technical advantage, adding weight to his father's desire not to see him ' expose himself in this way. There were no more lectures until the beginning of 1857. On January 23rd, 1857, he spoke before the Architectural Association upon ' The Influence of Imagination in Archi- tecture,' repeating and amplifying what he had said at Edin- burgh about the subordinate value of mere proportion, and the importance of sculptured ornament based on natural forms. This of course would involve the creation of a class of stone-carvers who could be trusted with the execution of such work. Once grant the value of it, and public demand would encourage the supply, and the workmen would raise themselves in the effort. A louder note was sounded in an address at the St. Martin's School of Art, Castle Street, Long Acre (April 2nd, 1857), where, speaking after George Cruikshank, his old friend — practically his first master — and an enthusiastic philanthropist and temperance advocate, Mr. Ruskin gave his audience a wider view of art than they had known before : ' the kind of painting they most wanted in London was painting cheeks red with health.' This was anticipating the standpoint of the Oxford Lectures, and showed how the inquiry was beginning to take a much broader aspect. Another work in a similar spirit, the North London School of Design, had been prosperously started by a circle of men under Pre-Raphaelite influence, and led by Thomas Seddon. He had given up historical and poetic painting for naturalistic landscape, and had returned from the East with the most valuable studies completed, only to break down and die prematurely. His friends, among them Mr. Holman Hunt, were collecting money to buy from the widow his pictiu-e of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, to present it to the National Gallery as a memorial of him ; and at a meeting for the purpose, Mr. Ruskin spoke warmly of his labours in the 170 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN caus«j of the working classes. ' The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' said the early Christians, and this public recognition sealed the character of the Pre-Raphaelite philanthropic movement ; though at what cost, the memoir of Thomas Seddon by his brother too amply proves. The next step in the propaganda was of a still more public nature. In the summer of 1857 the Art Treasures Exhibition was held at Manchester, and Mr. Ruskin was invited to lecture. The theme he chose was ' The Political Economy of Art.' He had been studying political economy closely for some time back, but, as we saw from his letter to Carlyle, he had found no answer in the ordinary text -books for the questions he tried to put. He wanted to know what Bentham and Ricardo and Mill, the great authorities, would advise him as to the best way of employing artists, of educating work- men, of elevating public taste, of regulating patronage ; but these subjects were not in their programme. And so he put together his own thoughts into two lectures upon Art con- sidered as Wealth : first, how to get it ; next, how to use it* He compared the body politic to a farm, of which the ' economy,' in the original sense, consisted, not in sparing, still less in standing by and criticising, but in active direction and management. He thought that the government of a state, like a good farmer or housekeeper, should not be content with laissezjhire, but should promote everything that was for the true interests of the state, and watch over all the industries and arts which make for civilization. It should undertake education, and be responsible for the employment of the artists and craftsmen it produced, giving them work upon public buildings, as the Venetian state used to do. Meantime he showed what an enlightened public might aim at, what their standards of patronage should be ; how, for example, each and all might help the cause by preferring artistic decorative work, in furniture and plate and dress, to the * July 10 and 13, 1857. He went to Manchester from Oxford, ■where he had been staying with the Liddells, writing enthusiastically ot the beauty of their children and the charm of their domestic life. *THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 171 mechanical products of inartistic manufacture; how they might help in preserving the great standard buildings and pictures of the past, not without advantages to their own art-production ; how they might deal directly with the artist rather than the dealer ; and serve the cause of education by placing works of art in schools. And he concluded by suggesting that the mediaeval guilds of craftsmen, if they could be re-established, would be of great service, especially :n substituting a spirit of cooperation for that of com- petition. There were very few points in these lectures that were not vigorously contested at the moment, and conceded in the sequel, — ^in some form or other. The paternal function of government, the right of the state to interfere in matters beyond its traditional range, its duty with regard to educa- tion, — all this was quite contrary to the prevailing habits of thought of the time, especially at Manchester, the head- quarters of the laissezjaire school : but to Mr. Ruskin, who, curiously enough, had just then been referring sarcastically to German philosophy, knowing it only at second-hand, and unaware of Hegel's political work, — to him this Platonic con- ception of the state was the only possible one, as it is to most people nowadays. In the same way, his practical advice has been accepted, perhaps unwittingly, by our times. We do now understand the difference between artistic decoration and machine-made wares; we do now try to preserve ancient monuments, and to use art as a means of education. And we are in a fair way, it seems, of lowering the price of pictures, as he bids us, to ' not more than ,£500 for an oil picture and £\00 for a water-colour.' From Manchester he went with his parents to Scotland; for his mother, now beginning to grow old, wanted to revisit the scenes of her youth. They went to the Highlands and as far north as the Bay of Cromarty, and then returned by way of the Abbeys of the Lowlands, to look up Turner sites, as he had done in 1845 on the St. Gothard. From the enjoyment of this holiday he was recalled to London by a 172 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN letter from Mr. Wornum saying that he could arrange the Turner drawings at the National Gallery. Mr. Iluskin''s first letter on the National Gallery, in 1847, has been noticed. He had written again to the Times (Dec. 29th, 1852), pressing the same point — namely, that if the pictures were put under glass, no cleaning nor restoring would be needed ; and that the Gallery ought not to be con- sidered as a grand hall, decorated with pictures, but as a convenient museum, with a chronological sequence of the best works of all schools, — every picture hung on the line and accompanied by studies for it, if procurable, and en- gravings from it. Now, — in 1857, — question was raised of removing the National Gallery from Trafalgar Square. The South Kensington Museum was being formed, and the whole business of arranging the national art treasures was gone into by a Royal Commission, consisting of Lord Broughton (in the chair). Dean Milman, Prof Faraday, Prof. Cockerell, and Mr. George Richmond. Mr. Ruskin was examined before them on April 6th, and re-stated the opinions he had wi-itten to the Times, adding that he would like to see two National Galleries, — one of popular interest, containing such works as would catch the public eye and enhst the sympathy of the untaught ; and another containing only the cream of the collections, in pictures, sculpture and the decorative crafts, arranged for purposes of study. This was suggested as an ideal ; of course, it would involve more outlay, and less display, than any Parliamentary vote would sanction, or party leader risk. Another question of importance was the disposal of the pictures and sketches which Turner had left to the nation. Mr. Ruskin was one of the executors under the will ; but, on finding that, though Turner's intention was plain, there were technical informalities which would 'make the administration anything but easy, he declined to act. It was not until 1856 that the litigation was concluded, and Turner's pictures and sketches were handed to the Trustees of the National Gallery. •THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 173 Ml". Ruskin, whose want of legal knowledge had made his services useless before, now felt that he could carry out the spirit of Turners will by offering to arrange the sketches; which were in such a state of confusion that only some person with knowledge of the artist's habits of work and subjects could, so to speak, edit them ; and the editor would need no ordinary skill, patience and judgment, into the bargain. Meanwhile, for that winter (1856-7) a preliminary exhibi- tion was held of Turner's oil-paintings, with a few water- colours, at Marlborough House, then the headquarters of the Department of Science and Art, soon afterwards removed to South Kensington. Mr. Ruskin wrote a catalogue, with analysis of Turner's periods of development and character- istics ; which made the collection intelligible and interesting to curious sight-seers. They showed their appreciation by taking up five editions in rapid succession.* Just before lecturing at Manchester, he wrote again on the subject to the Times; and in September his friend R.' N. Womum, Director of the National Gallery in succes- sion to Eastlake and Uwins, wrote — as we saw — that he might arrange the sketches as he pleased. He returned from Scotland, and set to work on October 7th. It was strange employment for a man of his powers; almost as removed from the Epicurean Olympus of ' cultured ease ' popularly assigned to him, as night-school teaching and lecturing to workmen. But, beside that it was the carrying out of Turner's wishes, Mr. Ruskin always had a certain love for experimenting in manual toil ; and this was work in which his extreme neatness and deftness of hand was needed, no less than his knowledge and judgment. During the winter, for full six months, he and his two assistants worked, all day and every day, among the masses of precious rubbish * Up to 1857 Claude's name nearly always appears in the annual reports of the National Gallery among the ' pictures most frequently copied.' In that year Turner's pictures were exhibited. Claude thence- forth lost the favour of the copyists. Turner gained it at once, and has kept it ever since. 174 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN that had been removed from Queen Anne Street to the National Gallery. Mr. J. J. Ruskin wrote, on February 19 and 21, 1852 :— 'I have just been through Turners house with Griffith. His labour is more astonishing than his genius. There are ^"80,000 of oil pictures done and undone — Boxes half as big as your Study Table, filled with Drawings and Sketches. There are Copies of Liber Studiorum to fill all your Drawers and more, and House Walls of proof plates in Reams — ^they may go at 1/- each. . . . ' Nothing since Pompeii so impressed me as the interior of Turner's house; the accumulated dust of 40 years partially cleared off ; Daylight for the first time admitted by opening, a window on the finest productions of art buried for 40 years. The Drawing Room has, it is reckoned, ^25,000 worth of proofs, and sketches, and Drawings, and Prints. It is amusing to hear Dealers saying there can be no Liber Studiorums— i when I saw neatly packed and well labelled as many Bundles of Liber Studiorum as would fill your entire Bookcase, and England and Wales proofs in packed and labelled Bundles like Reams of paper, as I told you, piled nearly to Ceiling . . . 'The house must be dry as a Bone — the parcels were apparently quite uninjured. The very large pictures were spotted, but not much. They stood leaning one against another in the large low Rooms. Some Jinished go to Nation, many unfinished not : no frames. Two are given un- conditional of Gallery Building — very fine : if (and this is a condition) ■placed beside Claude. The style much like the laying on in Windmill Lock in Dealer's hands, which, now it is cleaned, comes out a real Beauty. I believe Turner loved it. The will desires all to be framed and repaired and put into the best showing state; as if he could not release his money to do this till he was dead. The Top of his Gallery is one ruin of Glass and patches of paper, now only just made weather-proof . . . ' I saw in Turner's Rooms, Geo. Morlamds and Wilsons and Claudes and portraits in various stiles all by Turner. He •THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 175 copied every man, was every man first, and took up his own style, casting all others away. It seems to me you may keep your money and revel for ever and for nothing among Turner's Works.' Turner used frequently to sketch on thin paper which he folded across and across for packing, or rolled in tight bundles to go into his pockets. When he got his sketches home, as they were only four servir and of no value to any one but himself, they were crammed into drawers, anyhow, and left there, decade after decade. His sketch-books had rotted to pieces with the damp, their pages pressed together into mouldering masses. Soft chalk lay loose among the leaves, crushed into powder when the book was packed away. He economized his paper by covering both sides, and of course did not trouble to ' fix ' his sketches, still less to mount and frame them, as the proud amateur is careful to do. Among the quantities so recklessly thrown aside for dust, damp, soot, mice and worms to destroy — some 15,000 Mr. Ruskin reckoned at first, 19,000 later on — there were many fine drawings, which had been used by the engravers, and vast numbers of interesting and valuable studies in colour and in pencil. Four hundred of these were extricated from the chaos, and with infinite pains cleaned, flattened, mounted, dated and described, and placed in sliding frames in cabinets devised by Mr. Ruskin, or else in swivel frames, to let both sides of the paper be seen. The first results of the work' were shown in an Exhibition at Marlborough House during the winter, for which Mr. Ruskin wrote another catalogue. Of the whole collection he began a more complete account, which was too elaborate to be finished in that form ; but in 1881 he published a ' Catalogue of the Drawings and Sketches of J. M. W. Turner, R.A., at present exhibited in the National Gallery,' so that his plan was practically fulfilled. The collection — a monument of one great man's genius and another's patience — is still housed downstairs at Trafalgar Square, and it has never been so honourably viewed and so freely used as Mr. Ruskin once hoped. But in proportion 176 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to the means at the disposal of the powers that be, Turner is well treated. The sketches can at least be got at by those who know about them and care to study them, and many of the pictures are now better shown than formerly. The historical arrangement of the various schools, also, has been improved with every successive rehanging ; and the primitive masters, once neglected, have now almost the lion's share of the show. Such are Time's revenges. During 1858 Mr. Ruskin continued to lecture at various places on subjects connected with his Manchester addresses,-^ the relation of art to manufacture, and especially the de- pendence of all great architectural design upon sculpture or painting of organic form. The first of the series was given at the opening of the South Kensington Museum, January 12th, 1858, entitled 'The Deteriorative Power of Con- ventional Art over Nations'; in which he showed that naturalism, as opposed to meaningless pattern-making, was always a sign of life. For example, the strength of the Greek, Florentine and Venetian art arose out of the search for truth, not, as it is often supposed, out of striving after an ideal of beauty ; and as soon as nature was superseded by recipe, the greatest schools hastened to their fall. From which he con- cluded that modern design should always be founded on natural form, rather than upon the traditional patterns of the east or of the mediaevals. On February l6th he spoke on 'The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art and Policy,' at Tunbridge Wells; a subject similar to that of his address to the St. Martin's School of the year before, but amplified into* a plea for the use of wrought-iron ornament, as in the new Oxford Museum, then building. The Oxford Museum was an experiment in the true Gothic revival. There had been plenty of so-called Gothic archi- tecture ever since Horace Walpole ; but it had aimed rather at imitating the forms of the Middle Ages than at reviving the spirit. The architects at Oxford, Sir Thomas Deane and Mr. Woodward, had allowed their workmen to design parts 'THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 177 of the detail, such as capitals and spandrils, quite in the spirit of Mr. Ruskin's teaching, and the work was accordingly of deep interest to him. So far back as April 1856, he had given an address to the men employed at the MusfeUm, whom he met, on Dr. Acland's invitation, at the Workmen's Read- ing Rooms. He said that his object was not to give labouring men the chance of becoming masters of other labouring men, and to help the few at the expense of the many, but to lead them to those sources of pleasure, and power over their own minds and hands, that more educated people possess. He did not sympathize with the socialism that had been creeping into vogue since 1848. He thought existing social arrange- ments good, and he agreed with his friends, the Carlyles, who had found that it was only the incapable who could iiot get work. But it was the fault of the wealthy and educated that working people were not better trained ; it Was not the work- ing-men's fault, at bottom. The modem architect used his workman as a mere tool ; while the Gothic spirit set him free as an original designer, to gain — ^not more wages and higher social rank, but pleasure and instruction, the true happiness that lies in good work well done. That was his view in those times. The Oxford Museum prospei-ed, and Dr. Acland and he together wrote a small book, reporting its aims and progress in 1858 and 1859, illustrated with an engraving of one of the workmen's capitals. It was no secret, then, that the Museum was an experiment ; and, like all experiments, it left much to be desired; but it paved the way, on the one hand, to the general adoption of Gothic for domestic purposes,- and on the other, to the recognition of a new class of men — the art- craftsmen. Parallel with this movement for educating the ' working- class ' there was the scheme for the improvement of middle- class education, which was then going on at Oxford — the beginning of University Extension — supported by the Rev. F. Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury), and Mr, (after- wards Sir) Thomas Dyke Acland. Mr. Ruskin was heartily 12 178 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN for them ; and in a letter on the subject, he tried to show how the teaching of Art might be made to work in with the scheme. He did not think that in this plan, any more than at the Working Men's College, there need be an attempt to teach drawing with a view to forming artists ; but there were three objects they might hold in view : the first, to give every student the advantage of the happiness and knowledge which the study of Art conveys ; the next, to enforce some know- ledge of Art amongst those who were likely to become patrons or critics ; and the last, to have no Giotto lost among hill shepherds. The study of art-history he considered un- necessary to ordinary education, and too wide a subject to be treated in the usual curriculum of schools ; but the practice of drawing might go hand in hand with natural history, and the habit of looking at things with an artist's eye would be invaluable. He proposed a plan of studies, interweaving the art-lessons with every other department, instead of relegating them to a poor hour a week of idling or insubordination under a master who ranked with the drill-sergeant. Some- thing has been done, both by the delegates for local examinar tions (whom this movement created) and by the schools themselves, to improve the teaching of drawing ; but nothing like Mr. Ruskin's proposal has been attempted — simply because it would involve the employment of schoolmasters who could draw ; and the introduction of the object-lesson system into the higher forms. This intercourse with Oxford and willingness to help, even at the lower end of the ladder, is a pleasant episode in the life of a man struggling in the wider world against Academicism and the various fallacies of traditional creeds and cultures.. That his work had won him a high place in the esteem of his college, is shown by their giving him the highest honour in their power. In 1858 ' Honorary Student- ships ' were created at Christ Church by the Commissioners' ordinances. At the first election ever held, Dec. 6, 1858, there were chosen for the compliment Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Glad- 'THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART' 179 stone, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Dr. (Sir) H. W. Acland, and Sir F. H. Gore Ouseley. At the second, Dec. 15, 1858, were elected Henry Hallam, the Earl of Stanhope, the Earl of Elgin, the Marquis of Dalhousie and Viscount Canning.* ' Nosdtur^ it is said, ' a sodisP * From the Minute-Book, found and kindly commuoicated bj the Bev. E. L. Sampson, censor of Christ Church. 12— » CHAPTER X. 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONCLUDED. (1858-1860.) 'The best in this kind are but shadows.' Midsummer NigMt Dream. OXFORD and old friends did not monopolise Mr. Ruskin's attention: he was soon seen at Cambridge — on the same platform with Mr. Richard Redgrave, R.A., the representative of Academicism and officialism — at the opening of the School of Art for workmen on October 29th, 1858. His Inaugural Address struck a deeper note, a wider chord, than previous essays ; it was the forecast of the last volume of ' Modem Painters,'' and it sketched the train of thought into which he had been led during his tour abroad, that summer. The battles between faith and criticism, between the historical and the scientific attitudes, which had been going on in his mind, were taking a new form. At the outset, we saw, naturalism overpowered respect for tradition — ^in the first volume of 'Modem Painters'; then the historical tendency won the day, in the second volume. Since that time, the critical side had been gathering strength, by his alliance with liberal movements and by his gradual detach- ment from associations that held him to the older order of thought. And just as in his lonely journey of 1845 he first took independent ground upon questions of religion and social life, so in 1 858, once more travelling alone, he was led by his meditations, — freed from the restraining presence of •MODERN PAINTERS' CONCLUDED 181 his pai"ents, — to coiulusions which he had been all these yem-s evading, yet finding at last inevitable. He went abroad for a third attempt to write and illustrate his History of Swiss Towns. The drawings of the year were still in the style of fine pen-etching combined with bixiadly gradated and harmonious tints of colour; or, when they were simply pen or pencil outlines, they were much more refined than those of ten years earlier. He spent May on the Upper Rhine between Basle and Schaffhausen, June in the neighbourhood of the Swiss Baden, July at Bellinzona. In reflecting over the sources of Swiss character, as connected with the question of the nature and origin of art in morality, he was struck with the fact that all the virtues of the Swiss did not make them artistic. Compared with most nations they were as children in painting, music and poetry. And, indeed, they ranked with the early phases of many great nations — the period of pristine simplicity 'uncorrupted by the arts.' From Bellinzona he went to Turin on his way to the Vaudois Valleys, where he meant to compare the Walden- sian Protestants with the Swiss. Accidentally he saw Paul Veronese's 'Queen of Sheba' and other Venetian pictures; and so fell to comparing a period of fully ripened art with one of artlessness ; discovering that the mature art, while it appeared at the same time with decay in morals, did not spring from that decay, but was rooted in the virtues of the earlier age. He grasped a clue to the puzzle, in the generalisation that Art is the product of human happiness ; it is contrary to asceticism ; it is the expression of pleasure. But when the tinning point of national progress is once reached, and art is regarded as the laborious incitement to pleasure, — no longer tlie spontaneous blossom and fruit of it, — ^the decay sets in for art as for morality. Art, in short, is created by pleasing, not^r pleasure. And so both the ascetics who refuse art are wrong, and the Epicuretuis who make it a means of pleasure-seeking ; the latter obviously and culpably, because in their hands it 182 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN becomes rapidly degraded into a mere sensational or sensual stimulus, and loses its own finest qualities — ^technically as well as morally. But the ascetics are wrong, too; because we cannot place ourselves at the fountain head again, and resume the pristine simplicity of nascent society. Such was the claim of the Modem Vaudois whom he had gone forth to bless as descendants of those ' slaughtered saints whose bones lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.' He found them keeping but the relics and grave clothes of a pure faith ; and that at the cost of abstention from all service to the struggling Italy of their time, — at the cost, too, of a flat refusal to reverence the best achievements of the past. No doubt there were exemplary persons among them ; but the standard of thought, the attitude of mind, of the Walden- sians, Mr. Ruskin now perceived to be quite impossible for himself. He could not look upon every one outside their fold as heathens and publicans ; he could not believe that the pictures of Paul Veronese were works of iniquity, nor that the motives of great deeds in earlier ages were lying super- stitions. He took courage to own to himself and others that it was no longer any use trying to identify his point of view with that of Protestantism. He saw both Protestants and Roman Catholics, in the perspective of history, converging into a primitive, far distant, ideal unity of Christianity, in which he still believed ; but he could take neither side, after this. The first statement of the new point of view was, as we said, the Inaugural Lecture of the Cambridge School of Art. The next important utterance was at Manchester, Feb. 22nd, 1859, where he spoke on the ' Unity of Art,' by which he meant — ^not the fraternity of handicrafts with painting, as the term is used nowadays — but that, in whatever branch of Art, the spirit of Truth or Sincerity is the same. In this lecture there is a very important passage showing how he had at last got upon firm ground in the question of art and morality : — ' / db not sat/ in the least that in order to be a good painter you must he a good man ; but I do say that 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONCLUDED 183 in order to be a good natural painter there must be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped by other parts of the character.' So emphatic a statement deserves more attention than it has received from readers and writers who assume to judge Mr. Ruskin's views after a slight acquaint- ance with his earlier works. He was well aware himself that his mind had been gradually enlarging, and his thoughts changing ; and he soon saw as great a difference between himself at forty and at twenty-five, as he had formerly seen between the Boy poet and the Art critic. He became as anxious to forget his earlier great books, as he had been to forget his verse-writing ; and when he came to collect his ' Works,' these lectures, under the title of ' The Two Paths,' were (with 'The Political Economy of Art') the earliest admitted into the library. After this Manchester lecture he took a driving tour in Yorkshire — posting in the old-fashioned way — halting at Bradford for the lecture on 'Modern Manufacture and Design ' (March 1) and ending with a visit to the school at Winnington, of which more in a later chapter. In 1859 the last Academy Notes, for the time being, were published. The Pre-Raphaelite cause had been fully successful, and the new school of naturalist landscape was rapidly asserting itself. Old friends were failing, such as Stanfield, Lewis, and Roberts: but new men were growing ^np, among whom Mr. Ruskin welcomed G. D. Leslie, F. Goodall, J. C. Hook,^— who had come out of his 'Pre- Raphaelite measles" into the healthy naturalism of 'Luff Boy!' — Clarence Whaite, Henry Holiday, and John Brett, who showed the ' Val d'Aosta.'" Mr. Millais' 'Vale of Rest' was the pictm-e which attracted most notice: something of the old rancour against the school was revived in the Morning Herald, which called his works 'impertinences,' 'contemptible,' 'indelible disgrace,' and so on. It was the beginning of a transition from the delicacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Millais to his later style ; and as such the preacher of ' All great art is delicate' could not entirely defend it. But the serious strength 184 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of the imagination and the power of the execution he praised with unexpected warmth. He then started on the last tour abroad with his parents. He had been asked, rather pointedly, by the National Gallery Commission, whether he had seen the great German museums, and had been obliged to reply that he had not. Perhaps it occurred to him or to his father that he ought to see the pictures at Berlin and Dresden and Munich, even though he heartily disliked the Germans with their art and their language and everything that belonged to them, — except Holbein and Diirer. By the end of July the travellers were in North Switzerland ; and they spent September in Savoy, returning home by October 7th. Old Mr. Ruskin was now in his seventy-fifth year ; and his desire was to see the great work finished before he died. There had been some attempt to write this last volume of ' Modem Painters ' in the previous winter, but it had been put off until after the visit to Germany had completed Mr. Ruskin's study of the great Venetian painters — especially Titian and Veronese. Now at last, in the autumn of 1859, he finally set to work on the writing. He had to do for Vegetation, Clouds, and Water, what Vol. IV. had done for Mountains : and also to treat of the laws of Composition. To do this on a scale corresponding with his foregoing work, would have needed four or five more volumes. As it was, the author dropped the section on Water, with promises of a book which he never wrote, and the rest was only sketched — somewhat ampler in detail than corresponding parts of the ' Elements of Drawing,' but still inadequately and half-heartedly, as an artist would com- plete a work when the patron who commissioned it had died. The whole book had been simply the assertion of Turner's genius — plucky and necessary in the young man of 1843, but superfluous in 1860, when his main thesis was admitted, and his own interests, as well as the needs of a totally dilFerent period, had drifted far away from the originsJ subject. Turner was long since dead ; his fame thoroughly vindicated ; 'MODERN PAINTERS' CONCLUDED 185 his bequest to the nation dealt with, so far as possible. The Early Christian Art was recognised — almost beyond its claims; for Angelico and his circle, great as they were in their age, had begun to lead modem religious painters into affectation. The Pre-Raphaelites and naturalistic land- scapists no longer needed the hand which ' Modern Painters ' had held out to them by the way. Of the great triad of Venice, Tintoret had been expounded, Veronese and Titian were now taken up and treated with tardy, but ample recognition. And now, after twenty years of labour, Mr. Ruskin had established himself as the recognised leader of criticism and the exponent of painting and architecture. He had created a department of literature all his own, and adorned it with works of which the like had never been seen. He had enriched the art of England with examples of a new and beautiful draughtsmanship, and the language with passages of poetic description and eloquent declamation, quite, in their way, unrivalled. As a philosopher he had built up a theory of art, as yet uncontested ; and had treated both its abstract nature and its relations to human conduct and policy. As a historian, he had thrown new light on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, illustrating, in a way then novel, their chronicles by their remains. He had beaten down opposition, risen above detraction, and won the prize of honour — only to realise, as he received it, that the fight had been but a pastime tournament, after all ; and to hear, through the applause, the enemy's trumpet sounding to battle. For now, without the camp, there were realities to face ; as to Art — ' the best in this kind are but shadows.' BOOK III. EBBMIT AND HEBETIC. (1860-1870.) ' Hush t you must not speak about it yet, but I have made a great discovery. The fact is that the strongest man upon earth is he who stands most alone.' — Ibsen's Enemy of Society, CHAPTER I. •UNTO THIS LAST.' (1860-1861.) 'He was forty before lie talked of any mission from Heaven.'— T'Ae Bero as Prophet. ^ ' In this way he has lived till past forty ; old age is now in view of him, and the earnest portal of death and eternity.'— 2'A« Hero as King. Caklyle. AT forty years of age Mr. Ruskin finished 'Modem Painters,' and concluded the whole cycle of work by which he is popularly known as a wiiter on art. From that time art was sometimes his text, rarely his theme. He used it as the opportunity, the vehicle, so to say, for teachings of far wider range and deeper import; teachings about life as a whole, conclusions in ethics and economics and religion, to which he sought to lead others, as he was led, by the way of art. And in this later period, when he spoke of art in especial, the greater range of his inquiry naturally modified his aim and standpoint ; just as, in a vast wall-painting, the detail is viewed and treated otherwise than when it formed the subject of separate still-life studies. Some observers prefer the still-life; and indeed it may be good work. But the broad treatment is the greater. If we want to understand Mr. Ruskin, there is only one way of studying him; and that is to trace from point to point the growth of his mind. Now all those books, — . 'Modem Painters,' 'Stones of Venice,' 'Seven Lamps,' the earlier Lectures and Letters on Art, — are works of a young man, not yet forty ; that is to say, before the age at which 190 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN most great authors, painters, and thinkers have done their best. They contain much that is valuable and much that is characteristic; but they are only the forecourt, not the presence-chamber. They lead to his final conclusions, but they do not express them. What the juvenile poems are to these works, they are to the later works, — seedlings and saplings, so like and so unlike the full-grown plant. It is no use quarrelling with the author for not composing a con- sistent explanation of his views : though it would have been convenient for students ; who might as well wish that Plato had left them a handbook of his philosophy, or that Shakspere had appended notes to ' Hamlet.' During the time when he was preaching his later doctrines, Mr. Ruskin wished to suppress the interfering evidences of the earlier; not so much because they contained mistaken estimates and misleading statements, as because they betrayed a tone of thought which differed from the tone of his later period as much as a stained window differs from a Tintoret. He let his works on art run out of print, not for the benefit of second-hand booksellers, but in the hope that he could fix his audience upon the burden of his prophecy for the time being. But the youthful works were still read ; high prices were paid for them, or they were smuggled in from America. And when the epoch of ' Fors ' had passed, he agreed to the reprinting of all that early material. He called it obsolete and trivial ; others find it interestingly biographical — perhaps even classical. But when we read articles professing to analyse his life- work, and find that they estimate his art-theory from a few passages in ' Modern Painters' I. and II., obviously immature; when, on the other hand, magazine- writers criticise, as axioms of his social science, without tracing their origin and import, the winged words with which he tried, in his failing powers and forlorn hopes, to arouse the dull conscience of a Philistine public ; when men of a different generation, an alien race, of traditions dissimilar and irreconcilable temperament, hastily sample his paragraphs as customs-officers gauge a cargo ; we «UNTO THIS LAST' 191 turn at last to the historical method, and ask whether these things should be so. And as a geologist, puzzled at some inversion of strata, Nature's paradox, yet, on accurately plot- ting it out upon his map or model, sees the fitness and necessity of the phenomenon; so, with the biographical scheme understood, the discrepancies and difficulties of Ruskin fall into their place and explain themselves. He at last stands revealed, and then can be appreciated, as we appreciate any other thinking, growing man, — say Plato, Titian, Goethe, — who has left a long life's work behind him. This year, then, 1860, the year of the Italian Kingdom, of Garibaldi, and of the beginning of the American war, marks his turning point, from the early work, summed up in the old 'Selections,' to the later work, which no one has yet thoroughly examined in print. Until he was forty, Mr. Ruskin was a writer on art ; after that his art was secondary to ethics. Until he was forty he was a believer in English Protestantism ; afterwards he could not reconcile current beliefs with the facts of life as he saw them, and had to reconstruct his creed from the foundations. Until he was forty he was a philanthropist, working heartily with others in a definite cause, and hoping for the amend- ment of wrongs, without a social upheaval. Even in tht beginning of 1860, in his evidence before the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Institutions, he was ready with plans for amusing and instructing the labouring classes, and noting in them a 'thirsty desire' for improve- ment. But while his readiness to make any personal sacrifice, in the way of social and philanthropic experiment, and his interest in the question were increasing, he became less and less sanguine about the value of such efforts as the Working Men's College, and less and less ready to co-operate with others in their schemes. He began to see that no tinkering at social breakages was really worth while; that far more extensive repairs were needed to make the old ship sea- worthy. So he set himself, by himself, to sketch the plans for the 192 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN repairs. Naturally sociable, and accustomed to the friendly give-and-take of a wide acquaintance, he withdrew from the busy world into a busier solitudef. During the next few years he lived much alone among thei Alps, or at home, thinking out the problem ; Sometimes feeling, far more acutely than was good for clear thought, the burden of tlie mission that was laid upon him. In March 1863 he wrote from his retreat at Momex to Mr. Norton : — ' The loneliness is very great, and the peace in which I am at present is only as if I had buried myself in a tuft of grass on a battlefield wet with blood — for the cry of the earth about me is in my ears continually, if I do not lay my head to the very ground.' And, a few months later: — 'I am still very unwell, and tormented between the longing for rest and lovely life, and the sense of this terrific call of human crime for resistance and of human misery for help, though it seems to me as the voice of a river of blood which can but sweep me down in the midst of its black clots, helpless.' Sentences like these, passages here and there in the last volume of ' Modern Painters,' and still more, certain passages omitted from that volume, show that about 1860 something of a cloud had been settling over him, — a sense of the evil of the world, a horror of great darkness. In his earlier years, his intense emotion and vivid imagination had enabled him to read into pictures of Tintoret or Turner, into scenes of nature and sayings of great books, a meaning or a moral which he so vividly communicated to the reader as to make it thenceforward part and parcel of the subject, however it came there to begin with. It is useless to wonder whether Turner, for instance, consciously meant what Ruskin found in his works. A great painter does not paint without thought, and such thought is apt to show itself whether he will or no. But it needs a powerful sympathy to detect and describe the thought. And when that pd^erfal sympathy was given to suffering, to wide-spread misery, to crying wrongs ; joined also with an intense passion for justice, which had already shown itself in the defence of slighted genius and •UNTO THIS LAST' 193 neglected art ; and to the Celtic temperament of some high- strung seer and trance-piophesying bard ; it was no wonder that Mr. Ruskin became like one of the hermits of old, who retreated from the world to return upon it with stormy messages of. awakening and flashes of truth more impressive, more illuminating than the logic of scjioolmen and the state- craft of the wise. And then he began to take up an attitude of antagonism to the world, he who had been the kindly helper and minister of delightful art. He began to call upon those who had ears to hear to come out and be separate from the ease and hypocrisy of Vanity Fair. Its respectabilities, its orthodoxies, he could no longer abide. Orthodox religion, orthodox morals and politics, orthodox art and science, alike he rejected ; and was rejected by each of them as a brawler, a babbler, a fanatic, a heretic. And even when kindly Oxford gave him a quasi-academical position, it did not bring him, as it brings many a heretic, back to the fold. In this period of storm and stress he stood alone. The old friends of his youth were one by one passing away, if not from intercourse, still from full sympathy with him in his new mood. His parents were no longer the guides and com- panions they had been ; they did not understand the business he was about. And so he was left to new associates, for he could not live without some one to love, — that is the nature of the man, however lonely in his work and wanderings. The new friends of this period were, at first, Americans ; as the chief new friends of his latest period' (the Alexanders) were American, too. Mr. Charles- Eliot Norton, after being introduced to him in Liondon^ met him again by accident on the Lake of Geneva — ^the story is prettily told in ' Praeterita.' And Mr. Ruskin adds, 'Norton saw all my weaknesses, measured all my narrownesses, and, from the first, took serenely, and as It seemed of necessity, a kind of paternal authority over me, and a right of guidance. ... I was entirely conscious of his rectorial power, and affectionately submissive to it, so that he might have done anything with 13 194 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN me, but for the unhappy difference in our innate, and un- changeable, pohtical faiths.' So, after all, he stood alone. Another friend about this time was Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe, to whom he wrote on June 18th, 1860, from Geneva: — 'It takes a great deal, when I am at Geneva, to make me wish myself anywhere else, and, of all places else, in London;, nevertheless, I very heartily wish at this moment that I were looking out on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the children to breakfast to-morrow. ' I had very serious thoughts, when I received your note, of running home ; but I expected that very day an American friend, Mr. Stillman, who, I thought, would miss me more here than you in London, so I stayed. ' What a dreadful thing it is that people should have to go to America again, after coming to Europe ! It seems to me an inversion of the order of nature. I think America is a sort of " United " States of Probation, out of which all wise people, being once delivered, and having obtained entrance into this better world, should never be expected to return* (sentence irremediably ungrammatical), particularly when they have been making themselves cruelly pleasant to friends here. My friend Norton, whom I met first on this very blue lake water, had no business to go back to Boston again, any more than you. . . . ' So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter per- formances ! I congratulate you, for I suppose it is something like "Positively the last appearance on any stage." What was the use of thinking about him ? You should have had your own thoughts about what was to come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism will die out so quickly. It will last pretty nearly as long as Protestantism, which keeps it up ; but I wonder what is to come next. That is the main question just now for everybody." Mr. Stillman had been a con-espondent about 1851, — ' involved in mystical speculations, partly growing out of * ' Good Americans when they die go to Paris.' — ' The Autocrat of the Bj-eakfaat Table,' quoting from Lewis Appleton. 'UNTO TfflS LAST' 195 the second volume of "Modern Painters,"' as he says of him- self in an arjbicle on ' John Uuskin ' in the Century Magazine (January, 1888). He tells us that he wrote to the author for counsel, and quotes a long letter in which Mr. Ruskin advises ' on no account to agitate nor grieve yourself, nor look for inspirations — ^for assuredly many of our nohlest English minds have been entirely overthrown by doing so — but go on doing what you are sure is quite right — ^that is, striving for constant pui-ity of thought, purpose and word.' With Mr. Stillman he spent July and August of 1860 at Chamouni. He did but little drawing, and in the few sketches that remain of that summer there is evidence that his mind was far away from its old love of mountains and of streamlets. His lonely walks in the pinewoods of the Arveron were given to meditation on a great problem which had been set, as it seemed, for him to solve, ever since he had written that chapter on ' The Nature of Gothic' Now at last, in the solitude of the Alps, he could grapple with the questions he had raised ; and the outcome of the struggle was ' Unto this Last.'* The year before, from Thun and Bonneville and Lausanne (August and September 1859) he had written letters to Mr. E. S. Dallas, suggested by th^ strikes in the London building trade. In these he appears to have sketched the outline of a new conception of social science, which he was now elaborating with more attempt at system and brevity than he had been accustomed to use. These new papers, painfully thought out and carefully set down in his room at the Hotel de I'Union, he used — as long before he read his daily chapter to the breakfast party at Heme Hill — to read to Mr. Stillman : and he sent them to the CornhUl Magazine, started the year before by Smith and * The title, quaintly but aptly hinting the gist of the work, was taken from the motto prefixed to the collected series : — ' Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst not thou agree with me for a penny 1 Take that thine is, and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee.' 13—2 196 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Elder. Mr. Ruskin had already contributed to it a paper on ' Sir Joshua and Holbein,' a stray chapter from Vol. V., ' Modem Painters.' His reputation as a writer and philan- thropist, together with the friendliness of editor and pub- lisher, secured the insertion of the first three, — ^from August to October. The editor then wrote to say that they were so unanimously condemned and disliked, that, with all apologies, he could only admit one more. The series was brought hastily to a conclusion in November : and the author, beaten back as he had never been beaten before, dropped the subject, and ' sulked,' so he called it, all the winter. It is pleasant to notice that neither Thackeray, the editor nor Smith, the publisher quarrelled with the author who had laid them open to the censure of their public, — nor he with them. On December 21st, he wrote to Thackeray, in answer, apparently, to a letter about lecturing for a charitable pur- pose : and continued : — ' The mode in which you direct your charity puts me in mind of a matter that has lain long on my mind, though I never have had the time or face to talk to you of it. In somebody's drawing-room, ages ago, you were speaking accidentally of M. de Marvy.* I expressed my great obligation to him ; on which you said that I could prove my gratitude, if I achose, to his widow, — ^which choice I then not accepting, have ever since remembered the circum- stance as one peculiarly likely to add, so far as it went, to the general impression on your mind of the hollowness of people's sayings and hardness of their hearts. ' The fact is, I give what I give almost in an opposite way to yours. I think there are many people who will relieve hopeless distress for one who will help at a hopeful pinch; and when I have the choice I nearly always give where I think the money will be fruitful rather than merely helpful. I would lecture for a school when I would not for a distressed author; and would have helped De Marvy to perfect his * Louis Marvy, an engraver, and political refugee after the French Eevolution of 1848. He produced the plates, and Thackeray the text^ of ' Landscape Painters of England, in a series of steel engravings, with short Notices.' 'UNTO THIS LAST' 197 invention, but not — unless I had no other object — ^his widow after he was gone. In a word, I like to prop the falling more than to feed the fallen.' The winter passed without any great undertakings. Mr. G. F. Watts proposed to add Mr. Ruskin's portrait to his gallery of celebrities ; but he was in no mood to sit. Rossetti did, however, sketch him this year. In March he presented a series of Turner drawings to Oxford, and another set of twenty-five to Cambridge. The address of thanks with the great seal of Oxford University is dated March 23rd, 1861 ; the Catalogue of the Cambridge collection is dated May 28th. During this month he paid a visit to Winnington, and some time in the early part of the year went to Ireland as the guest of friends in county Kildare. On April 2nd he addressed the St. Greorge's Mission Working Men's Institute, and shortly afterwards, though at this time in a much enfeebled state of health, gave a lecture before 'a most brilliant audience,' as the London Review reported, at the Royal Institution (April 19th, 1861). Carlyle wrote to his brother John : — ' Friday last I was persuaded — ^in fact had inwardly compelled myself as it were — ^to a lecture of Ruskin's at the Institution, Albemarle Street. Lecture on Tree Leaves as physiological, pictorial, moral, symbolical objects. A crammed house, but tolerable even to me in the gallery. The lecture was thought to " break down," and indeed it quite did " a* as lecture " ; but only did from embairras de richesses — a rare case. Ruskin did blow asunder as by gunpowder explosions his leaf notions, which were manifold, curious, genial ; and in fact, I do not recollect to have heard in that place any neatest thing I liked so well as this chaotic one.' Papers on 'Illuminated Manuscripts' (read before the Society of Antiquaries on June 6th) and on ' The Preserva- tion of Ancient Buildings ' (read to the Ecclesiological Society a fortnight later) show that old interests were not wholly forgotten, even in the stress of new pursuits, by this man of many-sided activity. CHAPTER n. mUNERA PULVERIS.' (1861-1862.) ' Nor kind nor noiniige buys Aught above its rate ; Fear, Craft and Avarice Cannot rear a State.' Emeeson. IT is not every traveller nowadays who knows the Sal^ve. One goes through the Alps too quickly to linger among the foothills, and a mere three thousand feet of crag above the plain does not stop the way to aiguilles and glaciers. But the tourist of the future, after seeing Voltaire's Femex in the morning, will perhaps pick his way among the fields beyond Carouge and through the gorge of Monnetier, or drive on his pilgrimage by Annemasse round the Petit Saleve, to another shrine at Mornex. There, two thousand feet above sea-level, basking in the morning sun, and looking always over the broad valley of the Arve at Mont Blanc and its panorama, are country retreats of the modem Genevese, beneath the old mother-castle ' of Savoy ': and there, with its shady little garden and rustic summer-house, is the chalet, or cottage omie, where Mr. Ruskin went into hermitage, and wrote his ' Political Economy.' You can enter, now : it is a place of public entertainment ; and in the cool, broad- windowed dining-room, you can drink a glass to the memory. His retreat is described in one of his letters home : — ' My dearest Mother, 'This ought to arrive on the evening before your birthday : it is not possible to reach you in the morning, 'MUNERA PULVERIS' 199 not even by telegraph as I once did from Mont Cenis, for — (and may Heaven be devoutly thanked therefore) — ^there are yet on Mont Saleve neither rails nor wires. ' The place I have got to is at the end of all carriage-roads, and I am not yet strong enough to get farther, on foot, than a five or six miles' circle, within which is assuredly no house to my mind. I cast, at first, somewhat longing eyes on a true Savoyard chateau — notable for its lovely garden and orchard — and its unspoiled, unrestored, arched gateway between two round turrets, and Gothic - windowed keep. But on examination — finding the walls, though six feet thick, rent to the foundation — and as cold as rocks, and the floors all sodden through with walnut oil and rotten-apple juics — ^heaps of the farm stores having been left to decay in the ci-devant drawing room, I gave up all mediaeval ideas, for which the long-legged black pigs who lived like gentle- men at ease in the passage, and the bats and spiders who divided between them the corners of the turret-stair, have reason — if they knew it — to be thankful. ' The worst of it is that I never had the gift, nor have I now the energy, to malce anything of a place ; so that I shall have to put up with almost anything I can find that is healthily habitable in a good situation. Meantime, the air here being delicious and the rooms good enough for use and comfort, I am not troubling myself much, but trying to put myself into better health and humour; in which I have already a little succeeded.' After describing the flowers of the Saleve he continues : ' My Father would be quite wild at the " view " from the garden teiTace — ^but he would be disgusted at the shut in feeling of the house, which is in fact as much shut in as our old Heme Hill one ; only to get the " view " I have but to go as far down the garden as to our old " mulbeny tree." By the way there's a magnificent mulberry tree, as big as a common walnut, covered with black and red fruit on the other side of the road. Coutet and Allen are very anxious 200 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to do all they can now that Crawley is away ; and I don't think I shall manage very badly,' etc. Of his lonely rambles, he wrote later on : — ' Keswick, ' 16th August, 1867. 'The letter I have sent to Joanna to-day will seem a strange answer to your hope " that I have always some one with me on my mountain rambles "" — but that would be quite impossible. If I have a definite point to reach, and common work to do at it — I take people — anybody — with me ; but all my best mental work is necessarily done alone ; whenever I wanted to think, in Savoy, I used to leave Coutet at home. Constantly I have been alone on the Glacier des Bois — and far among the loneliest aiguille recesses. I found the path up the Brezon above Bonneville in a lonely walk one Sunday; I saw the grandest view of the Alps of Savoy I ever gained, on the 2nd of January, 1862, alone among the snow wreaths on the summit of the Saleve. You need not fear for me on " Langdale Pikes " after that ; humanly speaking I have never the least fear on these lonely walks — I always think them the safest — for as I never do anything foolhardy, nor without careful examination of what I am about, I have always, even in my naughtiest times, felt that I should be taken care of, and that — though if I was to suffer any accident, it might come, of course, at any time — yet it was more likely to come when I had people with me, than when I was alone. 'And, in mere paltry and arithmetical calculation of danger, I assure you there is more, nowadays, in a walk in and out of London — from possible explosion of all sorts of diabolical machines and compositions, with which its shops and back streets are filled — than in twenty climbings of the craggiest peaks in Cumberland. 'I have however been very shy of the bogs which are a new acquaintance to me, and of which I had heard awfiil stories — ^usually I have gone a good way round, to avoid them. But that hot day, whether I would or no, I couldn't 'MUNERA PULVERIS' 201 get from one pike of Langdale to the other without crossing one. I examined it carefully — and I am sure all the bog- stories about these mountain bogs are nonsense : it was as sound brown earth under the squashy grass as anybody need wish to walk on — though, of course, in a dark night — one might have tumbled into pools, as one might on Clapham Common into a horsepond.'' After a winter among the Alps, including a short stay at Lucerne, hearing that the Turner drawings in the National Gallery had been mildewed, he ran home to see about them in February 1862 ; and was kept until the end of May. He found that his political economy work was not such a total failure as it had seemed. Mr. PVoude, then editor of Fraser's Magazine, thought there was something in it, and would give him another chance. So, by way of a fresh start, he had his four Comhill articles published in book form ; and almost simultaneously, in June 1862 the first of the new series appeared. The author had then returned to Lucerne ; and he soon crossed the St. Gothard to Milan, where he tried to forget the harrowing of hell in a close study of Luini, and in copying the ' St. Catherine ' now at Oxford. Mr. Ruskin has never said so much about Luini as, perhaps, he intended. A short notice in the ' Cestus of Aglaia,' and occasional refer- ences scattered up and down his later works, hardly give the prominence in his writings that the painter held in his thoughts. He re-crossed the Alps, and settled to his work on political economy at Momex, where he spent the winter except for a short run home, which gave him the opportunity of addressing the Working Men's College on November 29. In September the second article appeared in Eraser. 'Only a genius like Mr. Ruskin could have produced such hopeless rubbish,' says a newspaper of the period. Far worse than any newspaper criticism was the condemnation of Denmark Hill. His father, whose eyes had glistened over 202 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN early poems and prose eloquence, strongly disapproved of this heretical economy. It was a bitter thing that his soij should become prodigal of a hardly earned reputation, and be pointed at for a fool. And it was intensely painful for a son ' who had never given his father a pang that could be avoided,' as old Mr. Ruskin had once written, to find his father, with one foot in the grave, turning against him. In December the third paper appeared. History repeated itself, — as usual, with variations. This time not only the public but the publisher interfered; and with the fourth paper the heretic was gagged. A year after, his father died ; and these Frmer articles were laid aside until the end of 1871, when they were taken up again, and published on New Year's Day 1872, as ' Munera Pulveris.' It is hardly necessary here, and now, to discuss or to defend Mr. Ruskin's protest against the political economy of the old school. Step by step it has won its way to audience, and, in most quarters, to approval of the main theses it advanced, And even if it be said that the victory was gained in disguise, — for other men have entered into his labours and restated his ideas, — the fact remains that we owe the larger hope and kindlier authority of what was once the ' dismal science ' to the daring pioneer- work of ' Unto this Lasf and ' Munera Pulveris;' Prom the outset, Mr. Ruskin was not without supporters. Carlyle wrote on June 30, 1862 : — ' I have read, a month ago, your First in Fraser, and ever since have had a wish to say to it and you, Euge, macte nova virtute. I approved in everj particular ; calm, definite, clear ; rising into the sphere of Plato (our almost best), wh^ in exchange for the sphere of MaccuUoch, Mill and Co. is a mighty improvement ! Since that, I have seen the little green book, too ; reprint of your Cornhill operations,— about f of wh'' was read to me (Icrwm only from what the contradict" of sinners had told me of it) ; — in every part of wh'' I find a high and noble sort of truth, not one doctrine that I can intrinsically dissent from, or count other than salutary in the extreme, and pressingly needed in Eno-l^ above all.' 'MUNERA PULVERIS' 203 Erskine of Linlathen wrote to Carlyle, 7 August 1862 : — * I am thankful for any unveiling of the so-called science of political economy, according to which, avowed selfishness is the Rule of the World. It is indeed most important preach- ing — ^to preach that there is not one God for religion and another God for human fellowship — and another God for buying and selling — that pestilent polytheism has been largely and confidently preached in our time, and blessed are those who can detect its mendacities, and help to disenchant the brethren of their power. ' I feel much self-condemnation on reading this little book — not that it declares what I did not know before, as to every man's duty to every man — and I can only wish the writer increased light and increased power, to carry on his good work.' [Then, referring to the cataract which was threaten- ing him with blindness, he adds — ^ ' The little book is valuable on its own account, and coming from you, it is doubly so.' Mr. J. A. Froude, then editor of Fraser, and to his dying day Mr. Ruskin's intimate and affectionate friend, wrote to him on October 24 (1862 .?)— ' The world talks of the article in its usual way. I was at Carlyle's last night. . . . He said that in writing to your father as to subject he had told him that when Solomon's temple was building it was credibly re- ported that at least 10,000 sparrows sitting on the trees round declared that it was entirely wrong — quite contrary to received opinion — ^hopelessly condemned by public opinion, etc. Never- theless it got finished and the sparrows flew away and began to chirp in the same note about something else,' CHAPTER III. THE LIMESTONE ALPS. (1863.) ' In delectu autem narrationnm et experimentorum melius hominTbm cavisse uos arbitramur quam qui adhuc in historia naturali veraati sunt.' ^Bacon, Inst. Magna. OUR hermit among the Alps of Savoy differed in one respect from his predecessors. They, for the most part, saw nothing in the rocks and stones around them except the prison walls of their seclusion ; he could not be within constant sight of the mountains without watching them and thinking over them, and the wonders of their scenery and structure. And it was well for him that it could be so. The terrible depression of mind which his social and philanthropic work had brought on, found a relief in the renewal of his old mountain-worship. After sending off the last of his Fraser papers, in which, when the verdict had twice gone against him, he tried to show cause why sentence should not be passed, the strain was at its severest. He felt, as few others not directly interested felt, the sufferings of the outcast in English slums and Savoyard hovels ; and heard the cry of the oppressed in Poland and in Italy : and he had been silenced. What could he do but, as he said in the letters to Mr. Norton, ' lay his head to the very ground,' and try to forget it all among the stones and the snows ? He wandered about geologizing, and spent a while at Talloires on the Lake of Annecy, where the old Abbey had been turned into an inn, and one slept in a monk's cell and THE LIMESTONE ALPS 205 meditated in the cloister of the monastery, St. Bernard of Menthon's memory haunting the place, and St. Germain's cave close by in the rocks above. About the end of May Mr. Ruskin came back to England, and was invited to lecture again at the Royal Institution. The subject he chose was ' The Stratified Alps of Savoy.' At that time many distinguished foreign geologists' were working at the Alps ; but little of conclusive importance had been published, except in papers embedded in Trans- actions of various societies. Professor Alphonse Favre's great work did not appear until 1867, and the ' Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung ' of Professor Heim not till 1878 ; so that for an English public the subject was a fresh one. To Mr. Ruskin it was familiar : he had been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1840, at the age of twenty-one; he had worked through Savoy with his Saussure in hand nearly thirty years before, and, many a time since that, had spent the intervals of literary business in rambling and climbing with the hammer and note-book. Indeed, on all his travels and even on his usual afternoon walks he was accustomed to keep his eyes open for the geology of any neighbourhood he was in ; and his servant regularly carried a bag for specimens, which rarely came home empty. The note-books of the 'Modem Painters' period contain infinite memoranda and diagrammatic sketches, of which a very small fraction have been used. In the field he had compared Studer's meagre sections, and consulted the available authorities on physical geology, though he had never entered upon the more popular sister-science of palaeontology. He left the determination of strata to specialists : his interest was fixed on the structure of mountains — the relation of geology to scenery; a question upon which he had some right to be heard, as knowing more about scenery than most geologists, and more about geology than most artists. His dissent from orthodox opinions was not the mere blunder of an ill-informed amateur ; it was a protest against the adoption of certain views which had become fashionable, owing chiefly to the popularity of the 206 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN UUSKIN men who had propounded them. Parallel with the state- religion in England there has been a state-science; the prestige of the science-bishops has been no doubt as wisely, used as that of the church-bishops : it has certainly prevailed', with their own inferior clergy and laity in much the same way. Mr. Ruskin, who had been the admirer and to some extent the personal pupil of several of the leading geologists, of the last generation, questioned the infallibility of the more recent school, and now, as the Journal de Geneve reported, ' la foule se pressait dans les salles de P Institut royale de Londres, pour entendre la lecture des fragments d'un ouvrage scien- tifique, dont Tauteur compte par mi les ecrivains les plus estimes de TAngleterre. M. Ruskin s'est fait connaitre depuis longtemps par des publications remarquables sur Tart en general et la peinture en particulier, mais il se presentait cette fois a son auditoire sous un nouveau jour. Cetait le ge'ologue que Ton venait entendre, et Tevenement a prouve qu'il n'etait point inferieur au litterateur et au critique.' The main object of this lecture was to draw attention to a series of mountain forms which could not have been produced merely by elrosion, conditioned as they are by internal struc- ture and original elevation ;* and to protest against tie extravagant application of the glacier-theories then coming into vogue. In this, also, he was doing pioneer work : for the views of 1863 have gradually undergone very considerable! modification, in the direction which Mr. Ruskin then endeavoured to indicate. As examples of Savoy mountains this lecture described in detail the Saleve, on which he had been living for two winters, and the Brezon, the top of which he had tried to buy from the commune of Bonneville — one of his many plans for settling among the Alps. The commune thought he had found a gold-mine up there, and raised the price out of all reason. Other attempts to make a home in the chateaux or chalets of * Described in farther detail in ' The Limestone Alps of Savoy ' ; supplementary volume to ' Deucalion.' THE LIMESTONE ALPS 207 Savoy were foiled, or abandoned, like his earlier idea to live in Venice. But his scrambles on the Saleve led him to hesitate in accepting the explanation given by Alphonse Favre of the curious north-west face of steeply inclined vertical slabs, which he suspected to be created by cleavage, on the analogy of other Jurassic precipices. The Brezon — brisant, breaking- wave — he took as type of the billowy form of limestone Alps in general, and his analysis of it was serviceable and substan- tially correct. This lecture was followed in 1864) by desultory correspond- ence with Mr. Jukes and others in the Reader, in which he merely restated his conclusions, too slightly to convince. Had he devoted himself to a thorough examination of the subject — but this is in the region of what might have been. He was more seriously engaged in other pursuits, of more immediate importance. Three days after his lecture he was being examined before the Royal Academy Commission, and after a short summer visit to various friends in the north of England, he set out again for the Alps, partly to study the geology of Chamouni and North Switzerland, partly to con- tinue his drawings of Swiss towns at Baden and Lauffenburg, with his pupil John Bunney. But even there the burden of his real mission could not be shaken off, and though again seeking health and a quiet mind, he could not quite keep silence, but wrote letters to English newspapers on the depreciation of gold (repeating his theory of currency), and on the wrongs of Poland and Italy ; and he put together more papers, never published, in continuation of his ' Mimera Pulveris.' But this desultory habit, by which Mr. Buskin's strength was broken up into many channels, — while it prevented his doing any one great work with convincing thoroughness in his later period, — was not by any means an unbalanced mis- fortune. It is quite impossible for a man who has no feeling for art and no interest in science to regard life as a whole, — especially modem life : and this Mr. Ruskin was better fitted than any of his contemporaiies to do. 208 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN In the last century, Samuel Johnson, great thinker as he was, found his influence decisively limited by his ignorance of the arts, and his consequent inability to take into his purview a whole range of emotions, activities and influences which are really important in the sphere of ethics, as motives of action and indices of character. So in this century, Johnson's spiritual successor, Carlyle, from a similar lack of sympathy with art and an indolence in acquiring even the inidiments of physical science, — from a certain want of ear for poetry* and eye for nature, — was left short-handed, short-sighted, in many an enterprise. In framing an ideal of life he is narrow, ascetic, rude, as compared with the wider and more refined culture of a Ruskin. Something of this contempt for scientific facts and theories which he had never faced, and easy admission of mysteries he cared not to solve, is traceable in a letter written soon after the period we have been describing, and in sequel to the Savoy Alps discussion. I print it, with a few others of his, from the originals, as illustrating the intercourse of our British Elijah with his Elisha. Since about 1850, Carlyle had been gradually becoming more and more fiiendly with Mr. Ruskin; and now that this social and economical work had been taken up, he began to have a real esteem for him, though always with a patronizing tone, which the younger man's open and confessed discipleship accepted and encouraged. This letter especially shows both men in an unaccustomed light : Ruskin, hating tobacco, sends his ' master ' cigars ; Carlyle, hating cant, replies rather in the tone of the temperance advocate, taking a little wine for his stomach's sake : — ' Chelsea, ' Deae Ruskin, ' 22 Fehv, 1865. ' You have sent me a munificent Box of Cigars ; for wh*" what can I say in ans' ? It makes me both sad and glad. Ay de mi. * As proved by his line — ' And weave for God the garment thou Beest Him by,' — if proof be needed. It is not suggested that he did not find, and admirably illustrate, the ethical interest of poetry. THE LIMESTONE ALPS 209 " We are such stuff, Gone with a puff — Then think, and smoke Tobacco !" ' The Wife also has had her Flowers ; and a letter wh'' has charmed the female mind. You forgot only the first chapter of " Aglaia " ; — don't forget ; and be a good boy for the future. ' The Geology Book wasn't Juices ; I found it again in the Magazine, — ^reviewed there : "Phillips,"* is there such a name .'' It has ag° escaped me. I have a notion to come out actually some day soon ; and take a serious Lecture from you on what you really know, and can give me some intelligible outline of, ab* the Rocks, — bones of our poor old Mother ; wh** have always been venerable and strange to me. Next *to nothing of rational could I ever learn of the subject. That of a central fire, and molten sea, on wh'' all mountains, continents, and strata are spread floating like so many hides of leather, knocks in vain for admittance into me these forty years: who of mortals can really believe such a thing ! And that, in descending into mines, these geological gent" find them- selves approaching sensibly their central fire by the sensible and undeniable increase of temperatv/re as they step down, round after round, — ^has always appeared to argue a hngih of ear on the part of those gent", wh** is the real miracle of the phenomenon. Alas, alas : we are dreadful ignoramuses all of us ! — Ans' nothing ; but don't be surprised if I turn up some day. * Yours ever 'T. Caelyue.' • 'Jukes,'— Mr. J. B. Jukes, P.B-S., with whom Mr. Easkin had been discussing in the Eeader. 'Phillips,' the Oxford Professor of Geology, and a friend of Mr. Kuskin'a. CHAPTER IV. •SESAME AND LILIES.' (1864.) ' Wherefore we ought alle women to obeye In al goodnesse : I can no more saje.' Chaucee. WIDER aims and weaker health had not put an end to Mr. Ruskin's connection with the Working Men's College, though he did not now teach a drawing-class regularly. He had, as he said, ' the satisfaction of knowing that they had very good masters in Messrs. Lowes Dickinson, Jeffery and Cave Thomas,' and his work was elsewhere. He was to have lectured there on December 19th, 1863; but he did not reach home until about Christmas ; better than he had been ; and ready to give the promised address on January 30th, 1864. Beside which he used to visit the place occasionally of an evening to take note of progress, and some of his pupils were now more directly under his care. This more than ten years' connection with a very practical work of education must not be forgotten when we try to estimate his ideals of culture and social arrangements, which hasty readers are apt to suppose the table-talk of an arm- chair philosopher. So energetic a man, one who spent no time in the ordinary recreations of life — more the pity, ultimately, for his own usefulness and happiness in later periods — so busy a mind, found opportunity for many occu- pations. And he does not deserve to be rated as a dilettante or a visionary simply because other folk cannot imagine how he managed to do more work than they. 'SESAME AND LILIES' 211 It was from one of these ^dsits to the College, on Febraary 27th, that he returned, past midnight, and found his father waiting up for him, to read some letters he had written. Next morning the old man, close upon seventy- nine years of age, was struck with his last illness ; and died on the 8rd of March. He was buried at Shirley Church, near Addington, in Surrey, not far from Croydon ; and the legend on his tomb records : ' He was an entirely honest merchant, and his memory is to all who keep it dear and helpful. His son, whom he loved to the uttermost, and taught to speak truth, says this of him.' Mr. John James Huskin, like many other of our successfu. merchants, had been an open-handed patron of art, and a cheerful giver, not only to needy friends and relatives, but also to various charities. For example, as a kind of personal tribute to Osborne Gordon, his son's tutor, he gave ^£"5000 toward the augmentation of poor Christ-Church livings. His son's open-handed way with dependants and servants was learned from the old merchant, who, unlike many hard- working money-makers, was always ready to give, though he could not bear to lose. In spite of which he left a con- siderable fortune behind him, — considerable when it is under- stood to be the earnings of his single-handed industry and steady sagacity in legitimate business, without indulgence in speculation. He left ,£120,000, with various other property, to his son. To his wife he left his house and ,£'37,000, and a void which it seemed at first nothing could fill. For of late years the son had drifted out of their horizon, with ideas on religion and the ordering of life so very difierent from theirs ; and had been much away from home— he sometimes said, selfishly, but not without the greatest of all excuses, necessity. And so the two old people had been brought closer than ever together ; and she had lived entirely for her husband. But, as Browning said, — ' Put a stick in anywhere, and she will run up it ' — so the brave old lady did not faint under the blow, and fade away, but transferred her affections and interests to her son. Before his father's death the 14-2 212 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN diiFerence of feeling between them, arising out of the heretical economy, had been healed. Old Mr. Ruskin's will tr^ted his son with all confidence in spite of his unorthodox views and unbusiness-like ways. And for nearly eight years longer his mother lived on, to see him pass through this probation- period into such recognition as an Oxford Professorship implied, and to find in her last years his later books ' becoming more and more what they always ought to have been to ' her. At the same time, her failing sight and strength needed a constant household companion. Her son, though he did not leave home yet awhile for any long journeys, could not be always with her. Only six weeks after the funeral he was called away for a time. Before going he brought his pretty young Scotch cousin. Miss Joanna Ruskin Agnew to Denmark Hill for a week's visit. She recommended herself at once to the old lady, and to Carlyle, who happened to call, by her frank good-nature and unquenchable spirits ; and her visit lasted seven years, until she was married to the son of the Ruskins' old friend, Joseph Severn, British Consul at Rome. Even then she was not allowed far out of their sight, but settled in the old house at Heme Hill : ' nor virtually,' says Mr. Ruskin in the last chapter of ' Praeterita,' ' have she and I ever parted since.' All through that year he remained at home, except for short necessary visits, and frequent evenings with Carlyfe And when, in December, he gave those lectures in Manchester which afterwards, as ' Sesame and Lilies,' became his most popular work, we can trace his better health of mind and laody in the brighter tone of his thought. We can hed,r the echo of Carlyle's talk in the heroic, aristocratic, Stoic ideals, and in the insistence on the value of books and free public i libraries,* — Carlyle being the founder of the London Library. * The first lecture, ' On Kings' Treasuries,' was given, December 64, 1864, at Busholme Town Hall, Manchester, in aid of a library fund for the Busholme Institute. The second, ' Queens' Gardens,' was given, December 14th, at the Town Hall, King Street, now the Free EefereuM Library, Manchester, in aid of schools for Ancoats. 'SESAME AND LILIES' 213 And we may suspect that his thoughts on women's influence and .education had been not a little directed by those months in the company of ' the dear old lady and ditto young ' to whom Carlyle used to send his love. These lectiu'es were the following up of his economic writing in this sense, — that he had required a certain moral culture as the necessary condition for realising his plans. It was as if one should say, ' Here is an engine ; on these principles it works ; but it must be kept clean, oiled and polished.' He did not demand, — and this is important to note, — ^he did not demand a state of society hopelessly unlike the present, such as the altruistic guild-brethren of Mr. Morris's Epoch of Rest, or the clock-work harmony of Mr. Bellamy's American Utopia. He took human nature as it is, but at its best ; not, as the older economists did, at its worst. He tried to show how the best could be brought out, and what the standards should be towards which education and legislation should direct immediate public attention, 'Sesame and Lilies' puts in popular form his explanation of the phrase in ' Munera Pulveris,' — ^ certain conditions of moral culture.'' In 1864 a new series of papers on Art was begun, the only published work upon Art of all these ten years. The papers ran in the Art Jmurnal from January to July 1865, and from January to April 1866, under the title of 'The Cestus of Aglaia,' by which was meant the Girdle, or restraining law, of Beauty, as personified in the wife of Hephaestus, ' the Lord of Labour.' Their intention was to suggest, and to evoke by correspondence, ' some laws for present practice of art in our schools, which may be admitted, if not with absolute, at least with a sufficient consent, by leading artists.' As a first step the author asked for the elementary rules of drawing. For his own contribution he showed the value of the ' pure line,' such as he had used in his own early drawings, learnt originally from Cruikshank etchings and Prout lithographs, and practised— with what success can be judged from such drawings as the 'Rouen' reproduced in the 'Poems,' Later 214 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN on, he had adopted a looser and more picturesque style of handling the point; and in the 'Elements of Drawing' he had taught his readers to take Rembrandt's etchings as exem- plary. But now he felt that this ' evasive ' manner, as he called it, had its dangers. It had, in fact, originated the ordinary type of popular free draughtsmanship, degenerating sometimes into that black blotting and scribbling with which Mr. Ruskin's ideals of delicacy, purity, dignity, to say nothing of the actual fineness of organic form, have nothing in common. And so these papers attempted to supersede the amateurish object lessons of the earlier work by stricter rules for a severer style ; prematurely, as it proved, for the chapters came to an end before the promised code was formulated; though they contained interesting — ^if rather free — criticism of current art, and many passages of lively wit and pretty description. The same work was taken up again in 'The Laws of Fesole'; but the use of the pure line, which Mr. Ruskin's precepts failed to enforce, was, in the end, taught to the public by the charming practice of Mr. Walter Crane and Miss Greenaway. A lecture at the Camberwell Working Men's Institute on ' Work and Play ' was given on January 24th, 1865 ; which, as it was printed in 'The Crown of Wild Ohve,' we will notice further on. Various letters and papers on political and social economy and other subjects hardly call for separate notice : with the exception of one very important address to the Royal Institution of British Architects, given April 15th, ' On the Study of Architecture in our Schools.' CHAPTER V. ♦ETHICS OF THE DUST.' (1865.) ' Si cette enfant m'etait confide je ferais d'elle, non pas une savante, car je lui veux du bien, mais une enfant brillante d'intelligence et de vie et en laquelle toutes lea belles choses de la nature et d'art se refleterait avec un doux dclat. Je la ferais vivre en sympathie avec les beaux paysages, avec les scenes id^ales de la po^sie et de I'histoire, avec la musique noblement 6mue. Je lui rendrais aimable tout ce que je voudrais lui faire aimer.' — ^Anatole Fbance, Le Grime de Sylvestre Bonnard. WRITING to his father from Manchester about the lecture of February 22, 1859—' The Unity of Art ' — Mr. Ruskin mentions, among various people of interest whom he was meeting, such as Sir Elkanah Armitage and Mrs. Gaskell, how ' Miss Bell and four young ladies came from Chester to hear me, and I promised to pay them a visit on my way home, to their apparent great content- ment.' The visit was paid on his way back from Yorkshire. He wrote :— ' WiNNINGTON, ' NORTHWICH, ChBSHIKB, ' 12 March, 1859. • This is such a nice place that I am going to stay till Monday : an enormous old-fashioned house — full of galleries and up and down stairs — but with magnificently large rooms where wanted : the drawing-room is a huge octagon — I suppose at least forty feet high — like the tower of a castle (hung half 216 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN way up all round with large and beautiful Turner and Raphael engravings) and with a baronial fireplace : — and in the even- ing, brightly lighted, with the groups of girls scattered round it, it is a quite beautiful scene in its way. Their morning chapel, too, is very interesting : — though only a large room, it is nicely fitted with reading desk and seats like a college chapel, and two pretty and rich stained-glass windows — and well-toned organ. They have morning prayers with only one of the lessons — and without the psalms: but singing the Te Deum or the other hymn — and other choral parts : and as out of the thirty-five or forty girls perhaps twenty-five or thirty have really available voices, well trained and divided, it was infinitely more beautiful than any ordinary church service — like the Trinita di Monte Convent service more than any- thing else, and must be very good for them, quite different in its effect on their minds from our wretched penance of college chapel. ' The house stands in a superb park, full of old trees and sloping down to the river ; with a steep bank of trees on the other side ; just the kind of thing Mrs. Sherwood likes to describe : — and the girls look all healthy and happy as can be, down to the little six-years-old ones, who I find know me by the fairy tale as the others do by my large books': — so I am quite at home. ' They have my portrait in the library with three others- Maurice, the Bp. of Oxford, and Archdeacon Hare, — so that I can't but stay with them over the Sunday.' It was not an ordinary school — still less a pensionnat de demoiselles of the type described in ' Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard,'* in which the pettiness and tyranny of the worst * The quotation at the head of the chapter is one marked with approval by Mr. Ruskin, who was greatly interested in the book on its appearance, not only for its literary charm and tender characterisation, but ' as finding there some image of himself ' in the old Membre de rinstitut with his • bon dos rond ' and his passion for missals, and Gothic architecture, and Benedictine monks, and natural scenery; and 'ETHICS OF THE DUST' 217 kind of schoolmistress of— let us hope — a bygone age, are pilloried. The principles of Winnington were'advanced ; the theology, — Bishop Colenso's daughter was among the pupils : the Bishop of Oxford had introduced Mr. Buskin to the managers, who were pleased to invite the celebrated art-critic to visit whenever he travelled that way, whether to lecture at provincial towns, or to see his friends in the north, as he often used. And so between March 1859 and May 1868, after which the school was removed, he was a frequent visitor ; and not only he, but other lions whom the ladies entrapped : — mention has been made in print (in ' The Queen of the Air') of Charles Halle, whom Mr. Buskin met there in 1863 and greatly admired. ' I like Mr. and Mrs. Halle so very much,' he wrote home, ' and am entirely glad to know so great a musician and evidently so good and wise a man. He was very happy yesterday evening, and actually sat down and played quadrilles for us to dance to — which is, in its way, some- thing like Titian sketching patterns for ball-dresses. But afterwards he played Home, sweet Home, with three varia- tions — quite the most wonderful thing I have ever heard in music. Though I was close to the piano, the motion of the fingers "was entirely invisible — a mere mist of rapidity ; the hands moving slowly and softly, and the variation, in the ear, like a murmur of a light fountain, far away. It was beautiful too to see the girls' faces round, the eyes all wet with feeling, and the little coral mouths fixed into little half open gaps with utter intensity of astonishment.' Mr. Buskin could not be idle on his visits ; and as he was never so happy as when he was teaching somebody, he improved the opportunity by experiments in a system of education ' tout intime et parfaitement incompatible avec I'organisation des pensionnats les mieux tenus,' and yet permitted there for his defiance of the Code Napoleon and the ways of the modern world ; with many another touch for which one could have sworn he had sat to the painter. 218 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN his sake. Among other things, he devised singing dances for a select dozen of the girls, with verses of his own Avriting, ' noblement emues ' ; one, a maze to the theme of ' Twist ye, twine ye,' based upon the song in ' Guy Mannering,' but going far beyond the original motive in its variations weighted with allegoric thought : — ' Earnest Gladness, idle Fretting, Foolish Memory, wise Forgetting ; And trusted reeds, that broken lie, Wreathed again for Tnelody. . . . ' Vanished Truth, hut Vision staying f Fairy riches, lost in weighing ; And fitful grasp of flying Fate, Touched too lightly, traced too late. . . ,* Deep as the feeling of this little poem is, there is a nobler chord struck in the Song of Peace, the battle-cry of the good time coming ; in the faith — who else has found it ? — that looks forward to no selfish victory of narrow aims, but to the full reconciliation of hostile interests and the blind internecine struggle of this perverse world, in the clearer light of the millennial morning. ' Thine arrows are sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall imder thee ;'— ' Yea, in all these things we are more them conquerors, through Him that loved us.' ' Put off, put off your mail, ye kings, and beat your brands to dust ; A surer grasp your hands must know, your hearts a better trust : Nay, bend aback the lance's point, and break the helmet bar, — A noise is on the morning winds, but not the noise of war ! ' Among the grassy mountain-paths the glittering troops increase : They come ! they come ! — how fair their feet — ^they come that publish peace ; Yea, Victory ! fair Victory I our enemies^ and ours. And all the clouds are clasped in light, and all the earth with flowers. ' Ah ! still depressed and dim with dew, but yet a little while And radiant with the deathless Rose the wilderness shall smile. And every tender living thing shall feed by streams of rest. No lamb shall from the fold be lost, nor nursling from the nest.' 'ETHICS OF THE DUST' 219 These dances were not mere play. They were taught as lessons, and practised as recreation. ' On n'apprend pas en s'amusant,' says the villain of the story to M. Bonnard. ' On n'apprend qu'en s'amusant,'' he replies, — vigorously imderlined and side-lined by Mr. Ruskin. ' Pous digerer le savoir, il faut I'avoir avale avec appetit.' The art of teaching is to stimulate that appetite in a natural and healthy way. ' On n'est pas sur la terre pour s'amuser et pour faire ses quatre cents volontes,' says the objector, again; to which he answers : ' On est sur la terre pour se plaire dans le beau et dans le bien et pour faire ses quatre cents volontes quand elles sont nobles, spirituelles et genereuses. Une education qui n'exerce pas les volontes est une education qui deprave les dmes. II faut' — here the pencil-marks are very thick — ' il faut que I'instituteur enseigne a vouloir.' ' Je crus voir,' continues M. Bonnard, ' que maitre Mouche m'estimait un pauvre homme ' ; and I observe that Mr. Ruskin's method of teaching, as illustrated in ' Ethics of the Dust,' has been variously pooh-poohed by his critics. It has seemed to some absurd t6 mix up Theology, and Crystal- lography, and Political Economy, and Mythology, and Moral Philosophy, wdth the chatter of school-girls and the romps of the playground. But it should be understood, before reading this book, which is practically the report of these Winnington talks, that it is printed as an illustration of a method. The method is the Kindergarten method carried a step, many steps, further. With very small children it is comparatively easy to teach as a mother teaches ; but with children of larger growth it is not the first-comer who can replace the wise father, whose conversation and direction and example would form an ideal education. Still, an experiment like this was worth making. It showed that play-lessons need not want either depth or accuracy; and that the requirement was simply capacity on the part of the teacher. The following letter from Carlyle was written in acknow- ledgment of an early copy of the book, of which the preface is dated Christmas, 1865. 220 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN * Chelsea, 'SODecrim. ' Dear Ruskin, ' Don't mind the " Bewick " ;* the indefatigable Dixon has sent me, yesterday, the Bewick's " Life " as well (hunted it up from the '' Misses Bewick " or somebody, and threatens to involve me in still farther bother about nothing) — and I read the greater part of it last night before going to bed. Peace to Bewick : not a great man at all ; but a very true of his sort, a well completed, and a very enviable, — living there in communion with the skies and woods and brooks, not here in d" with the London Fogs, the roaring witchmongeries and railway yellings and bowlings. ' The " Ethics of the Dust," wh*" I devoured with* pause, and intend to look at ag°, is a most shining Performance! Not for a long while have I read anything tenth-part so radiant with talent, ingenuity, lambent fire (sheet — and other lightnings) of all commendable kinds ! Never was such a lecture on Crystallography before, had there been nothing else in it, — and there are all manner of things. In power of expression I pronounce it to be supreme ; never did anybody who had such things to explain explain them better. And the bit of Egypt" mythology, the cunning Dreams ab' Pthah, Neith, &c, apart from their elucidative quality, wh*" is ex- quisite, have in them a poetry that might fill any Tennyson with despair. You are very dramatic too ; nothing wanting in the stage-direct"", in the pretty little indicat"' : a very pretty stage and dramatis personos altogeth'. Such is my first feeling ab' y' Book, dear R. — Come soon, and I will tell you all the faults of it, if I gradually discover a great many. In fact, come at any rate ! < Y" ever, ' T. Caelyle.' The Real Little Housewives, to whom the book was dedicated, were not quite delighted — at least, they said they * Bewick was being studied by Mr. Buskin in conuection with the problem of the Pure Line, for ' Cestus of Aglaia.' 'ETHICS OF THE DUST' 221 were not — at the portraits drawn of them, in their pinafores, so to speak, with some little hints at failings and faults which they recognised through the mask of dramatis personas. Miss ' Kathleen ' disclaimed the singing of ' Vilikins and his Dinah,' and so on. It is difficult to please everybody. The public did not care about the book ; the publisher hoped Mr. Ruskin would write no more dialogues : and so it remained, little noticed, for twelve years. In 1877 it was republished and found to be interesting, and in the next twelve years 8,000 copies were called for. This was only one of many cases in which Mr. Ruskin was in advance of his age. CHAPTER VI. •THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.' (1865-1866.) ' Still to our gains our chief respect is had : Beward it is that makes us good or bad.' Heeeick. MENTION has been made of an address to working men at the Camberwell Institute, January 24th, 1865. This lecture was published in 1866, together with two others,* under the title of ' The Crown of Wild Olive'— that is to say, the reward of human work, a reward ' which should have been of gold, had not Jupiter been so poor,' as Aris- tophanes said. What work is thus rewarded ? the speaker asked. What reward is to be hoped for ? And how does it influence, how ought it to influence, the aims and the conduct of the various classes of men who make up the active world, the three great distinct castes of labourers, traders, and soldiers.? In fact, these three lectures, on Work, Trafiic, and War, — one before a suburban institute, one at a great manufacturing centre, and one addressed to the young soldiers of Woolwich,— sketch out Mr. Ruskin's political ethics in sequel to his economy and educational ideals. True work, he said, meant the production (taking the word production in a broad sense) of the means of life ; not the using of them as mere counters for gambling. So that a great part of commerce, as it is generally practised, is not * Republished in 1873, with a fourth lecture added, and a Preface and notes on the political growth of Prussia, from Carlyle's ' Frederick.' •THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE' 223 work, and deserves no consideration, still less justification, by political science. On the other hand, if true work were properly understood and its laws made plain, it would appear that every one ought to take some share in it, according to his powers: some working with the head, some with the hands ; but all acknowledging idleness and slavery to be alike immoral. And, as to the remuneration, he said, as he had said before in ' Unto this Last,' Justice demands that equal energy Upended should bring equal reward. He did not consider it justice to cry out for the equalization of incomes, for some are sure to be more diligent and saving than others ; some work involves a great preliminary expenditure of energy in qualifying the worker, as contrasted with unskilled labour. But he did not allow that the possession of capital entitled a man to unearned increment ; and he thought that, in a community where a truly civilized morality was highly de- veloped, the general sense of society would recognise an average standard of work and an average standard of pay for each class. Where all took their share, many hands would make light work. Where all received their fair reward, although absolute equality would be impossible, great in- equality could not prevail, and the struggle for life would be minimised. Such was his first suggestion for an organization of labour, extremely ridiculous thirty years ago ; not quite so ridiculous now. In the next two lectures he spoke of the two great forms of Play, the great Games of Money-making and War. He had been invited to lecture at Bradford, in the hope that he would give some useful advice towards the design of a new Exchange which was to be built ; in curious forgetfulness, it would appear, of his work during the past ten years and more. It might have been expected, after all he had written, that he wo '.d have remarks to make on the architecture of an ' Exchange,' of all places, which an unprepared audience would hardly welcome ; and indeed the picture he drew them of an ideal ' Temple to the Goddess of Getting-on ' was as daring a sermon as ever prophet preached. But when he 224 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN came to tell them that the employers of labour might b true captains and kings, the leaders and the helpers of their fellow-men, and that the function of commerce was not to prey upon society but to provide for it, there were many of his hearers whose hearts told them that he was right, and whose lives have shown, in some measure, that he did not speak in vain. Still stranger, to hearers who had not noted the conclusion of his third volume of ' Modern Painters,' was his view of war, in the address to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, in December 1865. The common view of war as destroyer of arts and enemy of morality, the easy acceptaneeiof the doctrine that peace is an unqualified blessing, the obviouB evils of battle and rapine and the waste of resources and life throughout so many ages, have blinded less clear-sighted and less widely-experienced thinkers to another side of the teaching of history, which Mr. Ruskin dwelt upon with unexpected emphasis. He showed that in Greece and Rome and in the Middle Ages, war had brought out the highest human faculties, and in doing so had stimulated the arts, This was not the case, he said, in civil wars, such as that waging in America ; though perhaps we may now see that even there the great war did eventually develop national virtues and powers hardly known before. But he showed that, as Bacon said, ' No Body can be healthful without Exercise, neither Naturall Body, nor Politique: and cer- tainly, to a Kingdom or Estate, a lust and Honourable Waire, is the true Exercise.'' As little John Ruskin had written in 1828, "'Tis vice, not war, that is the curse of man ' : but the aim of public morality was to limit war to 'just and honourable ' occasions, and to confine it to those on either side who had a direct interest in it, and could wage it in a just and honourable manner. It is curious that Ruskin the Goth, who had begun by attacking the ' Greek ' tradition in art, should now be of all men the most complete exponent of the Greek spirit in policy. They had permitted oidy their freemen, their 'THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE' 225 gentlemen, to fight ; their public morality called a slave a iiave, but did not expect him, or allow him, to share in the terrible, fascinating game. And Mr. Ruskin showed how that policy was rewarded. But modern war, horrible, not from its scale, but from the spirit in which the upper classes set the lower to fight like gladiators in the arena, he de- nounced; and called upon the women of England, with whom, he said, the real power of life and death lay, to mend it into some semblance of antique chivalry, or to end it in the name of religion and humanity. ■ *In the Ne-w Review for March 1892, there appeared a series of ' Letters of John Ruskin to his Secretary,' which, as the anonymous contributor remarked, illustrate ' Ruskin the worker, as he acts away from the eyes of the world; Ruskin the epistolographer, when the eventuality of the printing-press is not for the moment before him ; Ruskin the good Samaritan, ever gentle and open-handed when true need and a good cause make appeal to his tender heart; Ruskin the employer, considerate, generous — an ideal master.' Charles Augustus Howell became known to Mr. Ruskin (in 1864 or 1865) through the circle of theTre-Raphaelites ; and, as the editor of the letters puts it, ' by his talents and assiduity' became the too-trusted friend and jrrotig^ of Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Gabriel Rossetti and others of their acquaintance. It was he who proposed and carried out the exhumation, reluctantly consented to, of Rossetti's manuscript poems from his wife's grave, in October 1869 ; for which curious service to litei-ature let him have the thanks of pos- terity. But he was hardly the man to carry out Mr. Ruskin's secret charities, and long before he had lost Rossetti's con- fidence* he had ceased to act as Mr. Ruskin's secretary. From these letters, however, several interesting traits and incidents may be gleaned, such as anecdotes about the canary which was anonymously bought at the Crystal Palace Bird Show (February 1866) for the owner's benefit : about the * In the manner described by Mr. W. M. Eossetti at p. 351, vol. i., of ' D. G. Rossetti. his family letters,' to which the reader is referred. 1£ 226 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN shopboy whom Mr. Ruskin was going to train as an artist ; and about the kindly proposal to employ the aged and im- poverished Cruikshank upon a new book of fairy tales, and the struggle between admiration for the man and admission of his loss of power, ending in the free gift of the hunched pounds promised. In April 1866, after writing the Preface to ' The Crown of Wild Olive,' and preparing the book for publication, Mr. Ruskin was carried off to the Continent for a holiday with Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, her niece Miss Constance Hilliard (Mrs. Churchill), and Miss Agnew (Mrs. Severn), for a thorough rest and change after three years of uninter- mitting work in England. They intended to spend a couple of months in Italy. On the day of starting, Mr. Ruskin called at Cheyne Walk with the usual bouquet for Mrs. Carlyle, to learn that she had just met with her death, in trying to save her little dog, the gift of Lady Trevelyan. He rejoined his friends, and they crossed the Channel gaily, in spite of what they thought was rather a cload over him. At Paris they read the news. ' Yes,' he said, ' I knew. But there was no reason why I should spoil your pleasure by telling you.' After the proper interval he wrote to Carlyle. The letter of condolence brought the following reply, addressed ' Poste Restante, Milan ' : — ' CHELSE.^ ' London, ' 10 May, 1866. ' Dear Rpskin, 'Y' kind words from Dijon were welcome to me: thanks. I did not doubt y'' sympathy in what has come; but it is better that I see it laid before me. You are y''self very unhappy, as I too well discern ; heavy-laden, obstructed and dispirited ; but you have a great work still ahead ; and will gradually have to gird y'self up ag^' the heat of ike day, wh'^ is coming on for you, — as the night too is coming. Th'nk valiantly of these things.' ' THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE ' 227 After giving way to his grief—' my life all laid in ruins, and the one light of it as if gone out,' — he continues : — 'Come and see me when you get home; come oftener and see me, and speak mare frankly to me (for I am very true to y' highest interests and you) while I still rerpain here. You can do nothing for me in Italy; except come home im- proved,' — in health and spirits ; and so on. But before this letter reached Mr. Ruskin, he too had been in the presence of death, and had lost one of his most valued friends. Their journey to Italy had been undertaken chiefly for the sake of Lady Trevelyan's health, as the following extracts indicate : — ' Paeis, ' ^md May, 1866. ' Lady Trevelyan is much better to-day, but it is not safe to move her yet — till to-morrow. So I'm going to take the children to look at Chartres cathedral — we can get three hours there, and be back to seven o'clock dinner. We drove round by St. Cloud and Sevres yesterday; the blossomed trees being glorious by the Seine, — the children in high spirits. It reminds me always too much of Turner — every bend of these rivers is haunted by him.' ' Dijon, ' Sunday, ' 6th May, 1866. * Lady Trevelyan is much better, and we hope all to get on to Neufchatel to-morrow. The weather is quite. fine again though not warm ; and yesterday I took the children for a drive up the little valley which we used to drive through on leaving Dijon for Paris. There are wooded hills on each side, and we got into a sweet valley, as full of nightingales as our garden is of thrushes, and with slopes of broken rocky ground above, covered with the lovely blue milk-wort, and purple columbines, and geranium, and wild strawberry-flowers. The children were intensely delighted, and I took great care that Constance should not run about so as to heat herself, and we got up considerable bit of hill quite nicely, and with 15-2 228 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN greatly increased appetite for tea, and general mischief. They have such appetites that I generally call them " my two little pigs." There is a delightful French waiting-maid at dinner here — who says they are both " charmantes," but highly approves of my .title for them, nevertheless.' ' Neufchatel, ' 10th May, 1866. 'Lady Trevelyan is still too weak to move. We had (the children and I) a delightful day yesterday at the Pierre k Bot, gathering vetches and lilies of the valley in the woods, and picnic afterwards on the lovely mossy grass, in view of all the Alps — Jungfrau, Eiger, Blumlis Alp, Altels, and the rest, with intermediate lake and farmsteads and apple- blossoms — very heavenly.' Here, within a few days, Lady Trevelyan died. Through- out her illness she had been following the progress of the new notes on wild-flowers (afterwards to be 'Proserpina') with keen interest, and Sir Walter lent the help of an authority on botanical science to Mr. Ruskin's more poetical and artistic observations. For the sake of this work, and for the ' children,' and with a wise purpose of bearing up under the heavy blow that had fallen, the two friends continued their journey for a while among the mountains. From Thun, on May 21st, he could write to Howell, with the stoicism he affects when he least feels it : — '' Fve had a rather bad time of it at Neuchatel, what with death and the north wind ; both devil's inventions as far as I can make out. But things are looking a little better now, and I had a lovely three hours' walk by the lake shore, in cloudless calm, from five to eight this morning, under hawthorn and chestnut— here just in full blossom, and among other pleasantnesses — too good for mortals, as the north wind and the rest of it are too bad. We don't deserve either such blessing or cursing, it seems to poor moth me.' From Thun he went to Interlachen and the Giessbach, with his remaining friends : and he occupied himself closely •THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE' 229 in tracing Studer's sections across the great lake-furrow of central Switzerland — 'something craggy for his mind to break upon,' as Byron said when he was in trouble. At the Giessbach there was not only geology and divine scenery, enjoyable in lovely weather, but an interesting figure in the foreground, the widowed daughter of the hotel landlord, beautiful and consumptive, but brave as a Swiss girl should be. They all seem to have fallen in love with her, so to speak ; the young English girls as much as the impression- able art-critic : and the new human interest in her Alpine tragedy relieved, as such interests do, the painfulness of the circumstances through which they had been passing. Her sister Marie was like an AUegra to this Penserosa; bright and brilliant in native genius. She played piano-duets with the young ladies ; taught Alpine botany to the savants ; guided them to the secret dells and unknown points of view ; and with a sympathy unexpected in a stranger, beguiled them out of their grief, and won their admiration and gratitude. Marie of the Giessbach was often referred to in letters of the time, and for many years after, with warmly affectionate remembrances. A few bits from his letters to his mother, which I have been permitted to copy, will indicate the impressions of this summer's tour. 'H6tel du G-ibsbach, ' Qth JuTie, 1866. 'My dearest Mothek, ' Can you at all fancy walking out in the morning in a garden full of lilacs just in rich bloom, and pink hawthorn in masses; and along a little terrace with lovely pinks coming into cluster of colour all over the low wall beside it ; and a sloping bank of green sward from it — and below that, the Giesbach ! Fancy having a real Alpine waterfall in one's garden, — seven hundred feet high. You see, we are just in time for the spring, here, and the strawberries are ripening on the rocks. Joan and Constance have been just scrambling about and gathering them for me. Then there's the blue-green lake below, 230 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN and Interlaken and the lake of Thun in the distance. I think I never saw anything so beautiful. Joan will write to you about the people, whom she has made great friends with, already.' ' 1th June, 1866. ' I cannot tell you how much I am struck with the beauty of this fall : it is different from everything I have ever seen in torrents. There are so many places where one gets near it without being wet, for one thing ; for the falls are, mostly, not vertical so as to fly into mere spray, but over broken rock, which crushes the water into a kind of sugar-candy-like foam, white as snow, yet glittering ; and composed, not of bubbles, but of broken-up water. Then I had forgotten that it plunged straight into the lake ; I got down to the lake shore on the other side of it' yesterday, and to see it plunge clear into the blue water, with the lovely mossy rocks for its flank, and for the lake edge, was an unbelievable kind of thing ; it is all as one would fancy cascades in fairyland. I do not often endure with patience any cockneyisms or showings off at these lovely places. But they do one thing here so interesting that I can forgive it. One of the chief cascades (about midway up the hill) falls over a projecting rock, so that one can walk under the torrent as it comes over. It leaps so clear that one is hardly splashed, except at one place. Well, when it gets dark, they burn, for five minutes, one of the strongest steady fireworks of a crimson colour, behind the fall. The red light shines right through, turning the whole waterfall into a torrent of fire.' ' l\th June, 1866. ' We leave, according to our programme, for Interlachen to-day, — with great regret, for the peace and sweetness of this place are wonderful, and the people are good; and though there is much drinking and quarrelling among the younger men, there appears to be neither distressful poverty, nor deliberate crime : so that there is more of the sense I need, and long for, of fellowship with human creatures, than in any place I have been at for years. I believe they don't 'THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE' 231 so much as lock the house-doors at night ; and the faces of the older peasantry are really very beautiful. I have done a good deal of botany, and find that wild-flower botany is more or less exhaustible, but the cultivated flowers are infinite in their caprice. The forget-me-nots and milkworts are singularly beautiful here, but there is quite as much variety in English fields as in these, as long as one does not climb much — ^and I'm very lazy, compared to what I used to be.' 'Lauterbrunnen, ' 13th June, 1866. ' We had a lovely evening here yesterday, and the children enjoyed and understood it better than anything they have yet seen among the Alps. Constance was in great glory in a little walk I took her in the twilight through the upper meadows : the Staubbach seen only as a grey veil suspended from its rock, and the great Alps pale above on the dark sky. She condescended nevertheless to gather a great bunch of the white catchfly, — ^to make " pops " with, — her friend Marie at the Giesbach having shown her how a startling detonation may be obtained, by skilful management, out of its globular calyx. ' This morning is not so promising, — one of the provoking ones which will neither let you stay at home with resignation, nor go anywhere with pleasure. I'm going to take the children for a little quiet exploration of the Wengern path, to see how they like it, and if the weather betters — we may go on. At all events I hope to find an Alpine rose or two.' In June 1866 the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford was vacant; and Mr. Ruskin's friends were anxious to see him take the post. He, however, felt no especial fitness or inclination for it, and the proposal fell through. Three years later he was elected to a Professorship that at this time had not been founded. ' Tout vient a qui salt attendre.' After spending June in the Oberland, he went homewards 232 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN through Berne, Vevey and Geneva, to find his private secretary with a bundle of begging letters, and his friend Carlyle busy with the defence of Governor Eyre. In 1865 an insurrection of negroes at Morant Bay, Jamaica, had threatened to take the most serious shape, when it was stamped out by the high-handed measures of Mr. Eyre. After the first congratulations were over another side to the question called for a hearing. The Baptist missionaries declared that among the negroes who were shot and hanged in terrorem were peaceable subjects, respectable members of their own native congregations, for whose character they could vouch : they added that the gravity of the situation had been exaggerated by private enmity and jealousy of their work and creed : and sympathisers at home pointed out that the executions were not even 'judicial' murders, since Mr. Eyre was not governor of Jamaica, and really had no right to take extreme measures. A strong committee was formed under Liberal auspices, supported by such men as John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hughes, the author of ' Tom Brown's Schooldays ' — men whose motive was above suspicion — to bring Mr. Eyre to account. Carlyle, who admired the strong hand, and had no interest in Baptist missionaries, accepted Mr. Eyre as the saviour of society in his West Indian sphere ; and there were many, both in Jamaica and at home, who believed that, but for his prompt action, the white population would have been massacred with all the horrors of a savage rebellion. Mr. Ruskin had been for maijy years the ally of the Broad Church and Liberal party ; he had supported the candi^da- ture of Mr. Mill and Mr. Hughes in Westminster and Lambeth. But he was now coming more and more under the persoral influence of Carlyle; and when it came to the point of choosing sides, declared himself, in a letter to the Daili/ Telegraph (Dec. 20th, 1865) a Conservative and a sup- porter of order ; and joined the Eyre Defence Committee with a subscription of i'lOO. The prominent part he took, for example in the meeting of September 1866, was no doubt 'THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE' 233 forced upon him by his desire to save Carlyle, whose recent loss and shaken nerves made such business especially trying to him. Letters of this period remain, in which Carlyle begs Ruskin to ' be diligent, I bid you !' — and so on, adding ' I must absolutely shut wp in that direction, to save my sanity.' And so it fell to the younger man to work through piles of pamphlets and newspaper corre- spondence, to interview politicians and men of business, and — ^what was so very foreign to his habits — to take a leading share in a party agitation. But in all this he was true to his Jacobite instincts. He had been brought up a Tory; and though he had drifted into an alliance with the Broad Church and philosophical Liberals, he was never one of them. Now that his father was gone, perhaps he felt a sort of duty to own himself his father's son; and the failure of liberal philanthropy to realize his ideals, and of liberal philosophy to rise to his economic standards, combined with Carlyle to induce him to label himself Conservative. But his conservatism could not be accepted by the party so called. Fortunately, he did not need or ask their recognition. He took no real interest in party politics, and never in his life voted at a Parliamentary election. He only meant to state in the shortest terms that he stood for lo_) alty and order. CHAPTER VII. ' TIME AOT) TIDE.' (1867.) •Tea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched And their unlearned discontent, We must give it voice and wisdom, Till the waiting-tide be spent.' W. MoERis, Poems hy the Way. * TAEAR Ruskin,' writes Carlyle from Mentone* (Feb- J^ ruary 15th, 1867), 'if the few bits of letters I have written from this place had gone by the natural priority and sequence, this would have been the fii-st, or among the very first: — and indeed it is essentially so — ^the first that I have written except upon compulsion, or in answer to something written. My aversion to writing is at all times great. But I begin to feel a great want of having some news from you, at least of hearing that you are not fallen unwell ; and there is no other method of arousing you to. your duty.' He goes on to tell how ' the impetuous Tyndall tore me out from the sleety mud abysses of London, as if by the hair of the head ; and dropped me here ' : and then follows a long story about the place and the people. At last : — ' Often I begin to think of my route home ag", and what I shall next do then. . . . The only point I look forward to with any fixed satisfact" as yet, is that of having Ruskin * The letter mentioned in ' Time and Tide,' letter 6 : ' I heard from him last week at Mentone,' etc. 'TIME AND TIDE' 235 again evey Wedny eve, and tasting a little human conversat" once in the week, if oftener be not practicable ! . . . Adieu my Friend, I want a little Note from you quam prirnvm. I send many regards to the good and dear old lady, and am ever ' Y'^ gratefully, ♦ T. Carlyle.' One reason why Mr. Ruskin had not written was, perhaps, that he had already begun the series of letters published as ' Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne,' which is the same thing as saying that he was engaged upon a new and im- portant book. These letters were addressed* to Thomas Dixon, a working cork-cutter of Sunderland, whose portrait by Professor Legros is familiar to visitors at the South Kensington Museum. He was one of those thoughtful, self- educated working men in whom, as a class, Mr. Ruskin had been taking a deep interest for the past twelve years, an interest which had purchased him a practical insight into their various capacities and aims, and the right to speak without fear or favour. At this time there was an agitation for Parliamentary reform, and the better representation of the workinr; classes ; and it was on this topic that the letters were begun, though the writer went on to criticise the various social ideals then popular, and to propose his own. He had already done something of the sort in ' Unto this Last ' ; but ' Time and Tide ' is much more complete, and the result of seven years' farther thought and experience. His ' Fors Clavigera ' is a continuation of these letters, but written at a time when other work and ill health broke in upon his strength. ' Time and Tide ' is not only the statement of his social scheme as he saw it in his central period, but, written as these letters were — at a stroke, so to speak — condensed in exposition and simple in language, they deserve the most careful reading by the student of Ruskin. * During February, March and April, 1867, and published in the Manchester Examiner and Leeds Mercury. 236 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN The earlier letters are mainly a criticism of popular ideals, and the panaceas which were prescribed for the Body Politic. There was Parliamentary Reform, there was Co-operation, as popularly understood, and there was the Redistribution of Land, already beginning to be demanded ; all these he criticised as inadequate. The mere preaching of Thrift, of Education and of Religion he regarded as a delusion or a mockery. Competition and laissez-faire he denounced. Then he proceeded to construct his own ideal, as Plato had done in his ' Republic,' only within stricter limits. He points out repeatedly that this is an ideal, and not a suggestion for immediate adoption; and yet it differs from other people's Utopias in being far nearer realization. It is, indeed — though he does not definitely say so — based ort a system which has already worked well, the system by which the barbarian Teutonic tribes and degretded Latin races of the lower empire, were gradually developed into the great kingdoms of Europe, evolving the religion, laws, arts and sciences which the Renaissance found at its coming. And if it be true that we are now in much the same position, mutatis mutandis, as in Charlemagne's days — our degenerate ' upper classes' with their Renaissance culture and traditions re- presenting the Roman element, and our discontented ' lower classes,' with their restlessness and vitality and overwhelming preponderance representing the invaders — if the problem be to weld these into a new cohesion, and out of them to create a new civilization, then it was surely well thought of, to apply the ancient cure, mutatis mutandis, to the parallel case. To state the ideal constitution as shortly and conveniently as possible, we might put it under four heads, though the author does not so divide it ; but he seems to have adopted, and adapted, from the Middle Ages their guild system, their chivalry, their church, and something of their feudal scheme. To get entirely rid of competition, he proposed an organisation of labour akin to the ancient guilds, which he regarded as the combination, in each trade and in every kind 'TIME AND TIDE' 237 of manufacture, agriculture and art, of all the masters with all the men. But while the old guilds were local, he would have them universal. By their own rules, and for their own advantage, they would secure good workmanship, honest production ; they would fix fair wages for their men and provide against the bankruptcy of their members who were masters. Retail trade would be neither precarious nor de- grading if it were carried on by the salaried officers of the guild. The workman, holding a well-defined position, and possessing some share of control, through the trade council, over his work and his wages, would have no ground for discontent. And the masters, for Carlyle's Elisha had ' no idea of a world without masters, would be ' captains of labour,' the friends and not the enemies of their men ; with their superior talents recognised and used, not without a certain pecuniary advantage, but without that disproportion of income, and of responsibility, which is the plague of modem commerce and manufacture. Book-learning was not Mr. Ruskin's notion of education : and while he would have everybody educated, he would not make every boy and girl learned, for, as Sylvestre Bonnard says, he wished them well. The physical and moral education he proposed would make finer creatures of them ; would go a long way, of itself, to eradicate disease and stupidity and vulgarity. To do this more effectually he proposed to regulate marriage by permitting it only to those young people who had qualified themselves by attaining a certain standard of general physical and moral culture — ' bachelors ' and 'rosieres' they might be dubbed, on the analogy of chivalry. To ensure the sufficient and yet frugal bringing up of a family, he would secure them an income from the state, if necessary, for the first seven years ; or, if they were of the wealthier class, keep them down to that income, and reserve the surplus for their use later on. Indeed he would limit all incomes to some fixed maximum; on attaining which, if a man were independent, he might retire, to pursue his own hobbies or to serve the state. But, in his Polity, it 238 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN would be the part of gentlefolks — for some would still be unavoidably both wealthier and more refined than others— to set the example of plain living and high thinking. As to the church, that, as in the ' Notes on Sheepfolds,' was to be strictly a state-church, in the sense that such officers as it possessed would be salaried by the government ; and that their work would be in harmony with the state, not opposed to it, nor independent of it, in sects and schisms. These clergy would be confined to pastoral care, and have no right to preach their varying views of dogma. Names, of course, matter nothing in schemes of this sort ; but in calling these officers ' Bishops ^ and suggesting that they should have the oversight of a hundred families each, Mr. Ruskin points to the practice of the primitive church. Though at this time he had renounced any definite adhesion in orthodox religion, he did not think that human nature, as a whole, would or could become completely irreligious; but he leaves it quite open to the families of his ideal state whether they will admit the administrations of their bishops, or not. Finally, he adapted the feudalism of the Middle Ages in the sense that the whole body politic would be distinctly organic, and not anarchic : that its organisation would be based on a military scheme. He had said, in ' The Crown of Wild Olive,' that a military despotism is the only cure for a diseased society; and while minimising the occasions and opportunities for war, he felt that, to effect the development of the present ' Dark Age ^ into a more perfect civilisation, some use of force would be necessary in the administration. Believing strongly in human nature, he did not pretend that everybody is virtuous. Laws must be made, and laws must be administered : and to do this eff^ectively requires the strong hand. In his state every man would be a soldier (as in Switzerland) ; but just as in the guilds some would necessarily be diffisrentiated into mastership, so, in the whole of society, individuals and families would rise into eminence and take the lead. And as the captains, judges, bishops, and school- masters would be salaried state officials, so to these distin- ' TIME AND TIDE ' 239 guished men and families he would be glad to assign such moderate incomes as might keep them in the public service, with such estates in land as might afford them the means of exemplifying the arts and graces of life ; not to be landlords, but only the tenants of the state, just as the agriculturists, through their guild, are to have the use of the soil rent-free. Such, in rough outline, is the ideal commonwealth of ' Time and Tide.' The scheme has the support of historical analogy : it is in harmony with modern scientific views of the evolution of mankind ; it is elastic enough to give play to the varying aims of individuals and classes ; and since it does not premise universal virtue, nor promise universal happiness, it is not rightly described as Utopian. Before this work was ended, Carlyle had come back to Chelsea, and was begging his friend, in the warmest terms, to come and see him. Shortly afterward, a passage which Mr. Ruskin would not retract gave offence to Carlyle. But the diflFerence was healed, and later letters reveal the sage of Chelsea just as kindly and affectionate as ever. It is a poor friendship that is broken by a free speech : and this friend- ship, between the two greatest writers of their age, between two men, we may add, of vigorous individuality, outspoken opinions, and widely different tastes and sympathies, is a fine episode in the history of both. In May, Mr. Ruskin was invited to Cambridge to receive the honorary degree of LL.D., and to deliver the Rede Lecture. The Cambridge Chronicle of May 25th, 1867, says : ' The body of the Senate House was quite filled with M.A.'s and ladies, principally the latter, whilst there was a large attendance of undergraduates in the galleries, who gave the lecturer a most enthusiastic reception.' A brief report of the lecture was printed in the newspaper; but it was not otherwise published, and the manuscript seems to have been mislaid for thirty years. I take the liberty of copying the opening sentences as a specimen of that Academical oratory which Mr. Ruskin then adopted, and used habitually in his earlier lectures at Oxford. 240 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN The title of the discourse was ' The Relation of National Ethics to National Arts.' — ' In entering on the duty to-day entrusted to me, I should hold it little respectful to my audience if I disturbed them by expression of the diffidence which they know that I must feel in first speaking in this Senate House; diffidence which might well have prevented me from accepting such duty, but ought not to interfere with my endeavour simply to fulfil it. Nevertheless, lest the direction which I have been led to give to my discourse, and the narrow limits within which I am compelled to confine the treatment of its subject may seem in anywise inconsistent with the purpose of the founder of this Lecture — or with the expectations of those by whose authority I am appointed to deliver it, let me at once say that I obeyed their command, not thinking myself able to teach any dogma in the philosophy of the arts, which could be of any new interest to the members of this University : but only that I might obtain the sanction of their audience, for the enforcement upon other minds of the truth, which — after thirty years spent in the study of art, not dishonestly, however feebly — is manifest to me as the clearest of all that I have learned, and urged upon me as the most vital of all I have to declare.' He then distinguished between true and false art, the true depending upon sincerity, whether in literature, music or the formative arts : he reinforced his old doctrine of the dignity of' true imagination as the attribute of healthy and earnest minds ; and energetically attacked the commercial art-world of the day, and the notion that drawing-schools were to be supported for the sake of the gain they would bring to our manufacturers. ' Mr. Ruskin concluded his lecture,' says the Chronicle, ' with a very fine peroration, the first part of which he addressed to the younger members of the academic body, the second to the elder. On the younger men he urged the infinite importance of a life of virtue and the fact that the hereafter must be spent in God's presence or in darkness. Their time in this miracle of a universe was but as a moment ; with one brief astounded gaze of awe they looked on all 'TIME AND TIDE' 241 around them — saw the planets roll, heard the sound of the sea, and beheld the surroundings of the earth ; they were opened for a moment as a sheet of hghtning, and then instantly closed again. Their highest ambition during so short a stay should be to be known for what they were — to spend those glittering days in view of what was to come after them. Then on the Masters of this, which had for years been pre-eminent as the school of science, he urged that their continued prosperity must rest on their observance of the command of their Divine Master, in whose name they existed as a society — " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." . . . All mere abstract knowledge, indepen- dent of its tendency to a holy life, was useless. . . His concluding remarks were an eloquent exhortation to the seniors diligently to perform the solemn trust given to them in the proving of youth — " Lead them not into temptation, but deliver them from evil." 'Long and hearty cheers greeted the learned lecturer from all parts of the Senate House as he resumed his seat.' In this lecture we see the germ of the ideas, as well as the beginning of the style, of the Oxford Inaugural course, and the ' Eagle's Nest ' ; something quite different in type from the style and teaching of the addresses to working men, or to mixed popular audiences at Edinburgh or Manchester, or even at the Royal Institution. At this latter place, on June 4ith, Sir Henry Holland in the chair, he lectin-ed on ' The Present State of Modern Art, with reference to advis- able arrangement of the National Gallery,' repeating much of what he had said in ' Time and Tide ' about the taste for the horrible and absence of time feeling for pure and dignified art in the theatrical shows of the day, and in the admiration for Gustave Dore, then a new fashion. Mr. Ruskin could never endure that the man who had illustrated Balzac's 'Contes Drolatiques' should be chosen by the religious public of England as the exponent of their most sacred aspirations and ideals. In July he went to Keswick for a few weeks, from whence 16 242 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN he wrote the rhymed letters to his cousin at home, quoted (with the date wrongly given as 1857) in ' Praeterita ' to illus- trate his ' heraldic character ' of ' Little Pigs ' and to shock exoteric admirers. Like, for example, Rossetti and Carlyle, Mr. Ruskin was fond of playful nicknames and grotesque terms of endearment. He never stood upon his dignity with intimates; and was ready to allow the liberties he took, much to the surprise of strangers. He reached Keswick by July 4, and spent his time chiefly in walks upon the hills, staying at the Derwentwater Hotel. He wrote : — ' Keswick, ' 19th July, '67, ' Afternoon, J past 3. *My dearest Mother, 'As this is the last post before Sunday I send one more line to say Pve had a delightful forenoon's walk — since ^ past ten — ^by St. John's Vale, and had pleasant thoughts, and found one of the most variedly beautiful torrent beds I ever saw in my life ; and I feel that I gain strength, slowly but certainly, every day. The great good of the place is that I can be content without going on great excursions which fatigue and do me harm (or else worry me with problems ;) — I am content here with the roadside hedges and streams ; and this contentment is the great thing for health, — and there is hardly anything to annoy me of absurd or calamitous human doing ; but still this ancient cottage life — very rude, and miserable enough in its torpor — but clean, and calm, not a vile cholera and plague of bestirred pollution, like back streets in London. There is also much more real and deep beauty than I expected to find, in some of the minor pieces of scenery, and in the cloud effects.' 'I have the secret of extracting sadness from all things, instead of joy, which is.no enviable talisman. Forgive me if I ever write in a way that may pain you. It is best that you should know, when I write cheerfully, it is no pretended cheer- fulness ; so when I am sad — I think it right to confess it.' •TIME AND TIDE' 243 ' ZOth July. ' Downes* arrived yesterday quite comfortably and in fine weather. It is not bad this morning, and I hope to take him for a walk up Saddleback, which, after all, is the finest, to my mind, of all the Cumberland hills — ^though that is not saying much ; for they are much lower in effect, in proportion to their real height, than I had expected. The beauty of the country is in its quiet roadside bits, and rusticity of cottage life and shepherd labour. Its mountains are sorrow- fully melted away from my old dreams of them.' Next day he ' went straight up the steep front of Saddle- back by the central ridge to the summit. It is the finest thing Fve yet seen, there being several bits of real crag-work, and a fine view at the top over the great plains of Penrith on one side, and the Cumberland hills, as a chain, on the other. Fine fresh wind blowing, and plenty of crows. Do you remember poor papa's favourite story about the Quaker whom the crows ate on Saddleback ? There were some of the biggest and hoarsest-voiced ones about the cliff that I've ever had sympathetic croaks from ; — and one on the top, or near it, so big that Downes and Crawley, having Austrian tendencies in politics, took it for a " black eagle." Downes went up capitally, though I couldn't get him down again, because he would stop to gather ferns. However, we did it all and came down to Threlkeld — of the Bridal of Triermain, ' The King his way pursued By lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood,' in good time for me to dress and, for a wonder, go out to dinner with Acland's friends the Butlers.' As an episode in this visit to Keswick, ten days were given to the neighbourhood of Ambleside, 'to show Downes Windermere.' * The gardener at Denmark HilL 16— a 244 UFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN • Waterhead, ' Windermere, ' 10th August, 1867, ' Evening. ' I was at Coniston to-day. Our old Waterhead Inn, vrhere I W81S SO happy playing in the boats, exists no more. — Ws place is grown over with smooth Park grass — the very site of it forgotten ! and, a quarter of a mile down the lake, a vast hotel built in the railroad station style — making up, I suppose, its fifty or eighty beds, with coffee-room — smoking- room — and every pestilent and devilish Yankeeism that money can buy, or speculation plan. 'The depression, whatever its cause, does not affect my strength. I walked up a long hUl on the road to Coniston to-day (gathering wild raspberries) — ^then from this new Inn, two miles to the foot of Coniston Old Man ; up it ; down again — (necessarily !) — and back to dinner, without so much as warming myself — not that there was much danger of doing that at the top ; for a keen west wind was blowing drifts of cloud by, at a great pace ; and one was glad of the shelter of the pile of stones, the largest and oldest I ever saw on a mountain top. I suppose the whole mountain is named from it. It is of the shape of a beehive, strongly built, about 15 feet high (so that I made Downes follow me up it before I would allow he had been at the top of the Old Man) and covered with lichen and short moss. Liancaster sands and the Irish sea were very beautiful, and so also the two lakes of Coniston and Windermere, lying in the vastest space of sweet cultivated country I have ever looked o%-er, — a great part of the view fi-om the Rigi being merely over black pine forest, even on the plains. Well, after dirmer, the evening was very beautiful, and I walked up the long lull on the road back from Coniston — and kept ahead of the carriage for two miles; I was sadly vexed when I had to get in : and now — I don t feel as if I had been walking at all — and shall probably he awake for an hour or two — and feeling as if I had not had exercise enough to send me to sleep.' 'TIME AND TIDE' 245 < Langdale, 'ISth Attgwt, ' Evening. ' It is perfectly calm to-night, not painfully hot — and the full moon shining over the mountains, opposite my window, which are the scene of Wordsworth's " Excursion." It was terribly hot in the earlier day, and I did not leave the house till five o'clock. Then I went out, and in the heart of Lang- dale Pikes found the loveliest rock-scenery, chased with silver waterfalls, that I ever set foot or heart upon. The Swiss torrent-beds are always more or less savage, and ruinous, with a terrible sense of overpowering strength and danger, lulled. But here, the sweet heather and ferns and star mosses nestled in close to the dashing of the narrow streams ; — i-while every cranny of crag held its own little placid lake of amber, trembling with falling drops — but quietly trembling — not troubled into ridgy wave or foam — the rocks themselves, ideal rock, as hard as iron — no — not quite that, but so hard that after breaking some of it, breaking solid white quartz seemed like smashing brittle loaf sugar, in comparison — and cloven into the most noble masses ; not gi'otesque, but majestic and full of harmony with the larger mountain mass of which they formed a part. Fancy what a place ! for a hot afternoon after five, with no wind — and absolute solitude ; no creature — except a lamb or two — to mix any ruder sound or voice with the plash of the innumerable streamlets.' After spending September with his mother at Norwood under the care of Dr. Powell, he was able to return home, prepare 'Time and Tide^ for publication, and write the preface on Dec. 14th. On the 19th the book was out, and immediately bought up. A month later the second edition was issued. CHAPTER VIII. AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE. (1868.) ' And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale.' Longfellow. OF less interest to the general reader, though too im- portant a part of Mr. Ruskin's life and work to be passed over without mention, are his studies in Mineralogy. We have heard of his early interest in spars and ores ; of his juvenile dictionary in forgotten hieroglyphics ; and of his studies in the field and at the British Museum. He had made a splendid collection, and knew the various museums of Europe as familiarly as he knew the picture- galleries. In the 'Ethics of the Dust' he had chosen Crystallography as the subject in which to exemplify his method of education ; and in 1867, after finishing the letters to Thomas Dixon, he took refuge, as before, among the stones, from the stress of more agitating problems. * In the lecture on the Savoy Alps in 1863 he had referred to a hint of Saussure's, that the contorted beds of the lime- stones might possibly be due to some sort of internal action, resembling on a large scale that separation into concentric or curved bands which is seen in calcareous deposits. The con- tortions of gneiss were similarly analogous, it was suggested, to those of the various forms of silica. Mr. Ruskin did not adopt the theory, but put it by for examination in contrast AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE 247 with the usual explanation of these phenomena, as the simple mechanical thrust of the contracting surface of the earth. In 1863 and 1866 he had been among the Nagelfliih of Northern Switzerland, studying the pudding-stones and breccias. He saw that the diflFerence between these forma- tions, in their structural aspect, and the hand-specimens in his collection of pisolitic and brecciated minerals was chiefly a matter of size; and that the resemblances in form were very close. And so he concluded that if the structure of the minerals could be fiilly understood, a clue might be found to the very puzzling question of the origin of mountain- structure. Hence his attempt to analyze the structure of agates and similar banded and brecciated minerals, in the series of papers in the Geological Magazine ,-* an attempt which, though it was never properly concluded, and fails to come to any general conclusion, is extremely interestingf as an account of beautiful and curious natural forms too little noticed by ordinary scientific mineralogists. Mr. Ruskin began by naming the different ways in which solid rocks became fragmentary ; of which one was by homo- geneous segregation, as seen in oolites and pisolites ; and another, by segregation of distinct substances from a homo- geneous paste. He showed how this latter way might explain some curious conditions of jasper ; how an example of brec- ciated malachite proved that the banded structure was not prior to the fractures, but that both tendencies were at work together ; and how in many foims of agate the same pheno- mena made it impossible to believe that simple successive deposition, and violent concussion from without, wholly explained their origin. He thought that enough attention had not been drawn to the processes of segregation ; and * August and November, 1867, January, April and May, 1868, December, 1869, and January, 1870, illustrated with very fine mezzotint plates and -woodcuts. f See the testimony of Prot Rupert Jones, F.E.S., in the ' Proceed- ings of the Geologists' Association,' vol. iv., No. 7, 248 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN suggested that many conglomerates might not be merely a collection of pebbles, but concretionary, like orbiculai- granite (Napoleonite) and other nodule -structures in metamorpliic rock. On these analogies he suspected that some contortions and faults on a lai-ge scale might not be the result of mechanical violence, but colossal phenomena of retractation and con- traction; and even that many appai'ent strata had been produced by segregation. This idea, he said, had been suggested to him in a paper by ]Mr. George Maw, the son of the Mr. Maw who took him to task yeai-s before about • Reflections in Water.' I have not seen the paper- alluded to, and I should not like to fix Mr. Ruskin's heresies on its author, who is so well known in the world of science by his work in geology and botany, and to the public by the encaustic tiles and lustre pottery of his firm. But while palaeontology makes it evident that the great limestone strata of the Alps are the result of successive deposition, it does seem probable that Mr. Ruskin was right in his hesita- tion to accept the compression-theory of mountain origin.* In the following papers, written during 1868, he described the different states of semi-crystalline silica, and the two great families of agates, and drew attention to the com- plexity of the laws under which they had been formed, and the insufficiency of the old theory. Meanwhile the conditions of crystallisation were becoming the subject of a new school of research, led by Dr. Clifton Sorby, to which Mr. Ruskin looked with eagerness for the clearing up of his difficulties ; but his Oxford Professorship, with the many new enterprises of the next ten years, forced him to lay aside the agate- question as a serious study. And though from time to time the results of the new investigations were kindly communi- cated to him by Dr. Sorby and Mr. Clifton Ward, and followed by him in the published memoirs of the microscopic mineralogists ; though Professor Chandler Robei'ts helped * See ' The Origin of MouDtain- Ranges,' by T. Mellard Beade, C.£. F.G.S., etc. C1886). AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE 249 hi in In the chemistry of gelatinous states of silica, Mr. Henry Willett in the study of flints, and many others in various departments ; he never was able to bring himself to handle the modem microscope and work out the whole business afi'esh, from the modern point of view. He had to leave his pet study, very reluctantly, to younger men; not without parting cautions against hasty theorising, nor without claims fbr a wider scope in their view of the subject. The student who careS to make himself acquainted with the spirit in which Mr. Buskin approached one department of the subject, should take the 'Catalogue of a series of specimens in the British Museum (Natural History), illus- trative of the more common forms of Native Silica, arranged [presented for the most part] and described by John Ruskin, RG.S.,^ and spend a few hours at Cromwell Road with the pamphlet in his hand, ovei< the mineral cases, just as tourists in Venice are seen comparing his notes with the pictures in the Academy. And as the shilling catalogue is by no means abstruse, and the specimens are more beautiful than most picture-shows, the unscientific I'eader would not find his time lost in learning something new about Nature, and something new to most readei>s, I suspect, about Ruskin. One other outcome of the an&Iogy between minerals and mountains, was Mr. Ruskin's scepticism in the matter of deavage and jointing, which he thought insufficiently studied and explained by the holders of the mechanical theory, and suapected to be rather akin to crystalline cleavage, both in aspects and origin. Not to dwell on these details, I merely note that a great recent authority. Professor Pi-estwich,* says, after weighing the evidence : * The system of joints, therefore, seemo to me to be not a simple mechanical action, but one combined with a condition of crystallisation; and though, from the influences of other mechanical forces to which the rocks have been exposed, and from the varying proportions of their constituent ingredients, we cannot expect the angles to present the exact definition which a oi'ystal of the pure * Geology (1886), vol. i., p. 283. 250 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN mineral would have, still there is every appearance of the plane-lines of shrinkage and jointing having been guided in many cases, if not in all, by planes of crystalline cleavage, in consequence of these being those of least resistance.' We must now recover the thread of our story and carry it hastily over the year spent chiefly, though by no means wholly, in these mineral researches. And first to tell a characteristic anecdote, preserved in ' Arrows of the Chace.' ' The Daily Telegraph of January 21st, 1868, contained a leading article upon the following facts. It appeared that a girl, named Matilda Griggs, had been nearly murdered by her seducer, who, after stabbing her in no less than thirteen places, had then left her for dead. She had, however, still strength enough to crawl into a field close by, and there swooned. The assistance she met with in this plight was of a rare kind. Two calves came up to her, and disposing themselves on either side of her bleeding body, thus kept her warm and partly sheltered from cold and rain. Temporarily preserved, the girl eventually recovered, and entered into recognizances, under^ sum of forty pounds, to prosecute her mm-derous lover. But "she loved much," and, failing to prosecute, forfeited her recognizances, and was imprisoned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for her debt. " Pity the poor debtor," wrote the Daily Telegraph, and in the next day's issue appeared the following letter, probably not in- tended for the publication accorded to it. " Sir, — ^Except in ' Gil Bias,' I never read of anything Astraean on the earth so perfect as the story in your fourth article to-day. I send you a cheque for the Chancellor. If forty, in legal terms, means four hundred, you must explain the farther require- ments to your impulsive public. ' I am, Sir, ' Your faithful servant, 'J. RuSKIN."' The writer of letters like this naturally had a large cor- respondence, beside that which a circle of private friends and AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE 251 numberless admirers and readers elicited. About this time it grew to such a pitch that he was obliged to print a form excusing him from letter-writing on the ground of stress of work. And indeed this year, though he did not publish his annual volume, as usual, he was fully occupied with frequent letters to newspapers, several lectures and addresses, a preface to the reprint of his old friend Cruikshank's ' Grimm,' and the beginning of a new botanical work, 'Proserpina,' in addition to the mineralogy, and, I believe, a renewed interest in classical studies. Of the public addresses the most im- portant was that on ' The Mysteiy of Life and its Arts,' delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science, Dublin (May 13th), and printed in ' Sesame and Lilies.' After this visit to Ireland he spent a few days at Win- nington; and late in August crossed the Channel, for rest and change at Abbeville. For the past five years Mr. Ruskin had found very little time for drawing ; it was twenty years since his last sketching of French Gothic, except for a study (now at Oxford), of the porch at Amiens, in 1856. He took, up the old work where he had left it, after writing the 'Seven Lamps,' with fresh interest and more advanced powers of draughtsmanship, as shown in the picture engraved as frontispiece to his 'Poems,' and in the pencil study of the Place Amiral Courbet, now in the drawing school at Oxford. The following are extracts from the usual budget of home- letters ; readers of,' Fors' will need no further introduction to their old acquaintance, the talloW-chandler. • Abbeville, • Friday, • You seem to have a most uncomfortable time of it, with the disturbance of the house. However, I can only leave you to manage these things as you think best — or feel pleasantest to yourself. I am saddened by another kind of disorder. France is in everything so fallen back, so desolate 252 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN and comfortless, compared to what it was twenty years ago — the people so much rougher, clumsier, more uncivil — every- thing they do, vulgar and base. Remnants of the old nature come out when they begin to know you. I am drawing at a nice tallow-chandler's door, and to-day, for the first time had to go inside for rain. He was very courteous and nice, and warned me against running against the candle-ends — or bottoms, as they were piled on the shelves, saying — " You must take care, you see, not to steal any of my candles " — or " steal from my candles," meaning not to rub them off on my coat. He has a beautiful family of cats — ^papa and mamma and two superb kittens — half Angora.' ■ la.nd Sept. ' I am going to my cats and tallow-chandler. ... I was very much struck by the superiority of manner, both in him and in his two daughters who serve at the counter, to persons of the same class in England. When the girls have weighed out their candles, or written down the orders that are sent in, they instantly sit down to their needlework behind the counter, and are always busy, yet always quiet; and their father, though of course there may be vulgar idioms in his language which I do not recognize, has entirely the manners of a gentleman.' ' ZOth Sept. ' I have one advantage here I had not counted on. I see by the papers that the weather in England is very stormy and bad. Now, though it is showery here, and breezy, it has always allowed me at some time of the day to draw. The air is tender and soft, invariably — even when blowing with force ; and to-day, I have seen quite the loveliest sunset I ever yet saw, — one at Boulogne in '61 was richer; but for delicacy and loveliness nothing of past sight ever came near this.' Earlier on the same day he had written : — ' I am well satisfied with the work I am doing, and even with my own power of doing it, if only I can keep myself AGATES, AND ABBEVILLE 253 from avariciously trying to do too much, and working hiuriedly. But I can do very little quite well, each day: with that however it is my bounden duty to be content. ' And now I have a little piece of news for you. Our old Heme Hill house being now tenantless, and requiring some repairs before I can get a tenant, I have resolved to keep it for myself, for my rougher mineral work and mass of collection; keeping only my finest specimens at Denmark Hill. My first reason for this, is affection for the old house : — my second, want of room ; — my third, the incom- patibility of hammering, washing, and experimenting on stones, with cleanliness in my stores of drawings. And my fourth is the power I shall have, when I want to do anything very quietly, of going up the hill and thinking it out in the old garden, where yovu- greenhouse still stands, and the aviary — ^without fear of interruption from callers. ' It may perhaps amuse you, in hours which otherwise would be listless, to think over what may be done with the old house. I have ordered it at once to be put in proper repair by Mr. Snell ; but for the furnishing, I can give no directions at present : it is to be very simple, at all events, and calculated chiefly for museum work and for stores of stones and books : and you really must not set yoiu: heart on having it furnished like Buckingham Palace. ' I have bought to day, for five pounds, the front of the porch of the Church of St. James. It was going to be entirely destroyed. It is worn away, and has little of its old beauty ; but as a remnant of the Gothic of Abbeville — as I happen to be here — and as the church was dedicated to my father's patron saint (as distinct from mine) I'm glad to have got it. It is a low arch — with tracery and niches, which ivy, and the Erba della Madonna, will grow over beautifully, wherever I rebuild it.' At Abbeville Mr. Ruskin had with him as usual his valet Crawley ; and as before he sent for Downes the gardener, to give him a holiday, and to enjoy his raptures over every new 254 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN sight. Mr. C. E. Norton came on a short visit, and Mr. Ruskin followed him to Paris, where he met the poet Long- fellow (October 7). At last on Monday, IQth October, he wrote: — 'Only a line to-day, for I am getting things together, and am a little tired, but very well, and glad to come home, though much mortified at having failed in half my plans, and done nothing compared to what I expected. But it is better than if I were displeased with all I had done. It isn't Turner — and it isn't Correggio — ^it isn't even Prout — but it isn't bad.' Returning home, he gave an account of his autumn's work in the lecture at the Royal Institution, January 29th, 1869, on the ' Flamboyaiit Architecture of the Valley of the Somme.' This lecture was never published in full ; but part of the original text is printed in the third chapter of the work we have next to notice, ' The Queen of the Air.' CHAPTER IX. 'THE QUEEN OP THE AIR.' (18G9.) ' For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.'^ST. Paul (Rom. iL 14). IN spite of a 'classical education' and the influence of Aristotle upon the immature art-theories of his earlier works, Mr. Ruskin was known, in his yoimger days, as a Goth, and the enemy of the Greeks. When he began life, his sense of justice made him take the side of Modem Painters against classical tradition ; his sympathy, much wider than that of ordinary critics, led him to praise Gothic architecture, and his common sense prompted him to recom- mend it as a domestic style more convenient than the pseudo-classic of the decadent Renaissance. Later on, when considering the great questions of education and the aims of life, he entirely set aside the common routine of Greek and Latin grammar as the all-in-all of culture. But this was not because he shared Carlyle's contempt for classical studies. In ' Modern Painters,' vol. iii., he had followed out the indications of nature-worship, and tried to analyse in general terms the attitude of the Greek spirit towards landscape scenery, as betrayed in Homer and Aristophanes and the poets usually read. Since that time his interest in Greek hterature had been gradually increasing. He had made efforts to improve his knowledge of the language ; and he had spent many days in sketching and studying the terra- 256 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN cottas and vases and coins at the British Museum. He had also taken up some study of Egyptology, through ChampoUion and Bunsen and Birch, in the hope of tracing the origin of Greek decorative art. At that stage of archaeological discovery it was not so clearly seen as it is to-day that Egypt was only one factor in the development of Greece. The discoveries at Hissarlik and Mycenae, and in Cyprus and elsewhere, had not shown the Aryan and Assyrian parentage of many Greek customs and myths and forms of art. Comparative mythology, twenty-five years ago, was a department of philology, intro- duced to the English public chiefly by Professor Max Miiller. Under his influence Mr. Ruskin entered step by step upon an inquiry which afterwards became of singular importance in his life and thought. In 1865 he had told his hearers at Bradford that Greek Religion was not, as commonly supposed, the worship of Beauty, but of Wisdom and Power. They did not, in their great age, worship ' Venus,' but Apollo and Athena. And he regarded their mythology as a sincere tradition, effective in forming a high moral type, and a great school of art. In the ' Ethics of the Dust ' he had explained the myth of Athena as parallel to that of Neith in Egypt; and in his fable of Neith and St. Barbara he had hinted at a comparison, on equal terms, of Ancient and Maiiaeval mythology. He ended by saying that, though he would not have his young hearers believe 'that the Greeks were better than we, and that their gods were real angels,' yet their art and morals were in some respects greater, and their beliefs were worth respectful and sympathetic study. The ' Queen of the Air ' is his contribution to this study. Like much of his work, it is only a fragment indicating what he would have done, and began to do. Ever since he has been accumulating material for farther investigation of the vast, bewildering sphere which embraces, too amply for one man's review, the orbits of art, and science, and ethics, and religion, as they rise and set upon his limited horizon, and roll, in a mazy dance, by laws that elude his reckonings, •THE QUEEN OF THE AIR' 257 round some ' faf-ofF, divine event, to which the whole creation moves.' On March 9l:h, 1869, his lecture at University College, London, on ' Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm,' began with an attempt to explain in popular terms how a myth differs from mere fiction on the one hand and from allegory on the other, being ' not conceived didactically, but didactic in its essence, as all good art is.' He showed that Greek poetry dealt with a series of Nature-myths with which were inter- woven ethical suggestions; that these were connected with Egyptian beliefs, but that the full force of them was only developed in the central period of Greek history, and their interpretation was to be read in a sympathetic analysis of the spirit of men like Pinaar and Aeschylus. 'The great question,' he said, 'in reading a story is, always, not what wild hunter dreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it ; but what wise man first perfectly told, and what strong people first perfectly lived by it. And the real meaning of any myth is that which it has at the noblest age of the nation among whom it was current.' This, of course, is a higher view than that of the anthropological and archaeological specialist : but at the same time, the historical method is necessary as a preliminary and a check upon the tendency to fanciful interpretation, which Mr. E-uskin, in common with the whole philological school, does not escape. With certain sEitnendments, however, his work is most valuable, as an exposi- tion of the system of Greek religion, the worship of four groups of nature-powers, in earth, water, fire and air ; and rising out of a low animism and fetishism into high moral aind intellectual conceptions. He traced with appreciation the development of the notion of Athena, as the chief power of the air, from her character of actual atmosphere to that of the breath of human life ; and thence to the higher belief in a Divine spirit, indistinguishable at first, and among simple folk always, from the material breath in the nostrils of man ; but leading up to healthy views of morality and sincere faith in Omnipresent Deity, not far 17 258 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN remote in its practical outcome from that which we have received from the Hebrews. In the next chapter he worked out, as a sequel to his lecture, two groups of Animal-myths ; those connected with birds, and especially the dove, as type of Spirit, and those connected with the serpent in its various significances. These two studies were continued, more or less, in 'Love's Meinie ' and in the lecture printed in ' Deucalion,' as the third group, that of Plant-myths, was carried on in ' Proserpina.' The volume contained also extracts from the lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the Somme, and two numbers of the ' Cestus of Aglaia,' and closed with a paper on The Hercules of Camarina, read to the South Lambeth Art School on March 15th. This study of a Greek coin had already formed the subject of an address at the Working Men's College, and anticipated the second course of Oxford Lectures. For the rest, ' The Queen of the Air ' is marked by its statement, more clearly than before in Mr. Ruskin's writing, of the dependence of moral upon physical life, and of physical upon moral science. He speaks with respect of the work of Darwin and Tyndall ; but, as formerly in the Rede Lecture, and afterwards in the ' Eagle's Nest,' he claims that natural science should not be pinrsued as an end in itseK, paramount to all other conclusions and considerations ; but as a department of study subordinate to ethics, with a view to utility and instruction. In later times it was this principle which guided Mr. Ruskin in the view he took of Vivi- section, and other forms of scientific research. Premising that science was subordinate to ethics, when the two clashed, as he held they did in some cases, science, he thought, was to give way. Before this book was quite ready for publication, and after a sale of some of his less treasured pictures at Christie's, Mr. Ruskin left home for a journey to Italy, to revisit the subjects of ' Stones of Venice,' as in 1868 he had revisited those of the ' Seven Lamps.' At Vevey, on the way, he wrote his preface (May 1st). 'THE QUEEN OF THE AIR' 259 By quiet stages he passed the Simplon, writing from Domo d'Ossola, 5th May 1869 :— ' My dearest Mothee, * I never yet had so beautiful a day for the Simplon as this has been ; though the skin of my face is burning now all over — ^to keep me well in mind of its sunshine. I left Brieg at 6 exactly — flight clouds breaking away into perfect calm of blue. Heavy snow on the col — about a league — ^with the wreaths in many places higher than the carnage. Then, white crocus all over the fields, with Soldanelle and Primula farinosa. I walked about three miles up, and seven down, with great contentment ; the waterfalls being all in rainbows, and one beyond anything I ever yet saw ; for it fell in a pillar of spray against shadow behind, and became rainbow alto- gether. I was just near enough to get the belt broad, and the down part of the arch : and the whole fall became orange and violet against deep shade. To-morrow I hope to get news of you all, at Baveno.' 'Baveno, ' Thursday, 'GthMay, 1869. ' It is wet this morning, and very dismal, for we are in a ghastly new Inn, the old one being shut up; and there is always a re-action after a strong excitement like the beauty of the Simplon yesterday, which leaves one very dull. But it is of no use growling or mewing. I hope to be at Milan to-morrow — at Verona for Sunday. I have been reading Dean Swift's life, and 'Gulliver's Travels' again. Putting the delight in dirt, which is a mere disease, aside, Swift is very like me, in most things : — in opinions exactly the same.' At Milan, next day, he went to see the St. Catherine of Luini which he had copied, and found it wantonly damaged by the carelessness of masons who put their ladders up against it, just as if it were a bit of common, whitewashed wall. On the 8th he reached Verona after seventeen years' absence, and on the 10th he was in Venice. There, looking 17—2 260 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN at the works of the old painters with a fresh eye, and with feehngs and thoughts far different from those with which he had viewed them as a young man, in 1845, he saw beauties he had passed over before, in the works of a painter till then little regarded by connoisseurs, and entirely neglected by the public. Historians of art like Crowe and Cavalcaselle* had indeed examined Carpaccio's works and investigated his life, along with the lives and works of many another obscure master: artists like Mr. Hook and Mr. Bume-Jones had admired his pictures ; Mr. Ruskin had mentioned his back- grounds twice or thrice in ' Stones of Venice.' But no writer had noticed his extraordinary interest as an exponent of the mythology of the Middle Ages, as the illustrator of poetical folk-lore derived from those antique myths of Greece, and newly presented by the genius of Christianity. This was a discovery for which Mr. Ruskin was now ripe. He saw at once that he had found a treasure-house of things new and old. He fell in love with St. Ursula as, twenty-four years earlier, he had fallen in love with the statue of Ilaria at Lucca ; and she became, as time after time he revisited Venice for her sake, a personality, a spiritual presence, a living ideal, exactly as the Queen of the Air might have been to the sincere Athenian in the pagan age of faith. The story of her life and death became an example, the conception of her character, as read in Carpaccio's picture, became a standard for his own life and action in many a time of distress and liiscouragement. The thought of 'What would St. Ursula say.?' led him— not always, but far more often than his correspondents knew — to burn the letter of sharp retort upon stupidity and impertinence, and to force the wearied brain and oveistrung nerves into patience and a kindly answer. And later on, the playful credence which he accorded to the myth deepened into a renewed sense of the possibility of spiritual realities, when he learnt to look, with those mediasval believers, once more as a little child upon the unfathomable mysteries of life. * Their ' History of Painting in North Italy,' containing a detailed iiccount of Carpaccio, was published in 1871. •THE QUEEN OF THE AIR' 261 But this anticipates the story ; at the time, he «found in Carpaccio the man who had touched the full chord of his feelings and his thoughts, just as, in his boyhood, Turner had led him, marvelling, through the fire and cloud to the mountain-altar; and as, in his youth, Tintoret had inter- preted the storm and stress of a mind awakening to the terrible realities of the world. It was no caprice of a change- ful taste, nor love of startling paradox, that brought him to 'discover Carpaccio'; it was the logical sequence of his studies, and widening interests, and a view of art embracing far broader issues than the connoisseurship of 'Modern Painters,' or the didacticism of 'Seven Lamps,' or the historical research of ' Stones of Venice.' Soon after the 'Queen of the Air' was published Carlyle wrote : — ' Chelsea, 'Aug' nth, 1869. * Deak Riiskin, 'Y'^ excell* kind and loving little note from Vevey reached me; but nothing since, not even precise news at second hand, wh'' I much desired. The blame of my not answering and inciting was not mine, but that of my poor rebellious right-hand, — wh*" often refuses altog' to do any writing for me that can be read ; having already done too much, it probably thinks !* . . . ' what I wish now is to know if you are at home, and to see you instantly if so. Insf'^ ! For I am not unlikely to be oflF in a few days (by Steamer Some whither) and ag" miss you. Come, I beg, quam primum ! ' Last week I got y' " Queen of the Air," and read it. Euge, Euge. No such Book have I met with for long years past. The one soul now in the world who seems to feel as I do on the highest matters, and speaks mir aus dem Herzen, exactly what I wanted to hear ! — ^As to the natural -history of those old» myths I remained here and there a little uncert" ; but as * Carlyle was then losing the use of hia hand, and this letter ia scribbled in blue pencil. 262 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to the ijjeanings you put into them, never anywhere. All these things I not only " agree " with, but w* use Thor's Hammer, if I had it, to enforce and put in action on this rotten world. Well done, well done ! — and pluck up a heart, and continue ag" and ag". And don't say " most g' tho'' are dressed in shrouds'": many, many are the Phoebus Apollo celestial arrows you still have to shoot into the foul Pythons, and poisonous abominable Megatheriums and Plesiosaurians that go staggering ab', large as cathedrals, in our sunk Epoch CHAPTER X. VERONA AND OXFORD. (1869-1870.) ' A professorship At Basil ! Since you see so much in it, And think my life was reasonably drained Of life's delights to render me a match For duties arduous as such post demands, — Be it far from me to deny my power.' Browning's Paracelsus. THE main object of this journey was, however, not to study mythology, but to continue the revision of old estimates of architecture, and after seventeen years to look with a fresh eye at the subjects of ' Stones of Venice.' The churches and monuments of Verona had been less thoroughly studied than those of Venice, and now they were threatened with imminent restoration. On May 25th Mr. Ruskin wrote : — ' It is very strange that I have just been in time — after 17 years' delay — to get the remainder of what I wanted from the red tomb of which my old drawing hangs in the passage ' — (the Castelbarco monument ; the drawing is reproduced in 'Studies in Both Arts.') 'To-morrow they put up scaffolding to retouch, and I doubt not, spoil it for evermore.' He succeeded in getting a delay of ten days, to enable him to paint the tomb in its original state ; but before he went home it ' had its new white cap on and looked like a Venetian gentleman in a pantaloon's mask.' He brought away one of the actual stones of the old roof. On June 3 he wrote • — ' I am getting on well with all my 264 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN own work ; and much pleased with some that Mr. Bunney is doing for me; so that really I expect to carry off a great deal of Verona. . . . The only mischief of the place is its being too rich. Stones, flowers, mountains — all equally asking one to look at them ; a history to every foot of ground, and a picture on every foot of wall ; frescoes fading away in the neglected streets — like the colours of the dolphin.' As assistants in this enterprise of recording the monuments of Venice and Verona, and of recording them more fully and in a more interesting way than by photography, he took with him Arthur Burgess and John Bunney, his former pupils. Mr. Burgess was the subject of a memoir by Mr. Ruskin in the Century Guild Hobby Horse (April 1887), appreciating his talents and lamenting his loss. Mr. Bunney, who had travelled with Mr. Ruskin in Switzerland in 1863, and had lately lived near Florence, thenceforward settled in Venice, where he died in 1882, after completing his great work, the St. Mark's now in the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield. A memoir of him by Mr. Wedderburn appeared in the catalogue of the Venice Exhibition, at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in November 1882. At Venice Mr. Ruskin had met his old friend Mr. Rawdon Brown,* and Count Giberto Borromeo, whom he visited at Milan on his way home, with deep interest in the Luinis and in the authentic bust of St. Carlo, so closely resembling Mr. Ruskin himself. Another noteworthy encounter is recorded in a letter of May 4th. • As I was drawing in the square this morning, in a lovely, quiet, Italian light, there came up the poet Longfellow with his little daughter — a girl of 12 or 13, with ^pring^Z-curled flaxen hair, — curls, or waves, that wouldn't come out in damp, I mean. They stayed talking beside me some time. I don't think it was a very vain thought that came over me, that if a photograph could have been taken of the beautiful square of * Whose book on the English in Italy (from Venetian documents) was shortly to be published, with funds supplied by Mr. Buskin. VERONA AND OXFORD 265 Verona, in that soft light, with Longfellow and his daughter talking to me at my work — some people both in England and America would have liked copies of it.' Readers of ' Fors ^ will recognise an incident noted on the 18th of June. ' Yesterday, it being quite cool, I went for a walk ; and as I came down from a rather quiet hillside, a mile or two out of town, I past a house where the women were at work spinning the silk off the cocoons. There was a sort of whirrirg sound as in an English mill ; but at intervals they sang a long sweet chant, all together, lasting about two minutes — ^then pausing a minute and then beginning again. It was good and tender music, and the multitude of voices prevented any sense of failure, so that it was very lovely and sweet, and like the things that I mean to try to bring to pass.' For he was already meditating on the thoughts that issued in the proposals of St. George's Guild, and the daily letters of this summer are full of allusions to a scheme for a great social movement, as well as to his plans for the control of Alpine torrents and the better irrigation of their valleys. On the 2nd of June he wrote :■ — ' I see more and more clearly every day my power of showing how the Alpine torrents may be — not subdued — but " educated." A torrent is just like a human creature. Left to gain full strength in wantonness and rage, no power can any more redeem it : but watch the channels of every early impulse, and fence them, and your torrent becomes the gentlest and most blessing of servants.' His mother was anxious for him to come home, being persuaded that he was overworking himself in the continued heat which his letters reported. But he was loath to leave Italy, in which, he said, his work for the future lay. He made two more visits to Venice, to draw some of the sculp- tured details, now quickly perishing, and to make studies of Tintoret and Carpaccio. Among other friends who met him there was Mr. Holman Hunt, with whom he went round his favourite Scuola di San Rocco (1st August). Two days later he wrote : — 'You will never believe it; but I have" actually 266 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN been trying to draw — a baby. The baby which the priest is holding in the little copy of Tintoret by Edward Jones which my father liked so much, over the basin stand in his bed- room.* All the knowledge I have gained in these 17 years only makes me more full of awe and wonder at Tintoret. But it is so sad — so sad ; — no one to care for him but me, and all going so fast to ruin. He has done that infant Christ in about five minutes — and I worked for two hours in vain, and could not tell why in vain — the mystery of his touch is so great.' Final farewell was said to Verona on the 10th of August, for the homeward journey by the St. Gothard,and Giessbach, where he found the young friend of 1866 now near her end, — and Thun, where he met Professor C. E. Norton. On the way he wrote : — ' Lugano, ' Saturday, 'Uth August, 1869. ' My dearest Mother, 'Yesterday — exactly three months from the day on which I entered Verona to begin work, I made a concluding sketch of the old Broletto of Como, which I drew first for the 7 lampsf — I know not how many years ago, — and left Italy, for this time — ^having been entirely well and strong every day bf my quarter of a year's sojourn there. ' This morning, before breakfast, I was sitting for the first time before Luini's Crucifixion : for all religious-art qualities the greatest picture south of the Alps — or rather, in Europe. ' And just after breakfast I got a telegram from my cousin George announcing that I am Professor of Art — the first — at the University of Oxford. ' Which will give me as much power as I can well use — and would have given pleasure to my poor father — and therefore to me — once. It will make no difference in my general plans, * Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones had been in Venice in June, 1862 ; the artist, then young and comparatively unknown, with a commission to copy for Mr. Buskin. ■f ' Stones of Venice,' vol. i., plate 5. VERONA AND OXFORD 267 about travel etc. I shall think quietly of it as I drive up towards St. Gothard to-day. ' Ever, my dearest mother, ever your loving son, J. RCSKIN.' Six years earlier, while being examined before the Royal Academy commission, he had been asked : ' Has it ever struck you that it would be advantageous to art if there were at the universities professors of art who might give lectures and give instruction to young men who might desire to avail themselves of it, as you have lectures on geology and botany?' To which he had replied : ' Yes, assuredly. The want of interest on the part of the upper classes in art has been very much at the bottom of the abuses which have crept into all systems of education connected with it. If the upper classes could only be interested in it by being led into it when young, a great improvement might be looked for, therefore I feel the ex- pediency of such an addition to the education of our universities.' His interest in the first phase of University Extension, and his gifts of Turners to Oxford and Cambridge, had shown that he was ready to go out of his way to help in the cause he had promoted. His former works on art, and reputation as a critic, pointed to him as the best qualified man in the country for such a post. He had been asked by his Oxford friends, who were many and influential, to stand for the Professorship of Poetry, three years earlier. There was no doubt that the election would be a popular one, and creditable to the University. On the other hand, Mr. Ruskin as Professor would have a certain sanction for his teaching, he believed ; the title, and the salary of ■f'SSS a year were hardly an object to him; but the position, as accredited lecturer and authorised instructor of youth opened up new vistas of usefulness, new worlds of work to conquer ; and he accepted the invitation. On August 10th he was elected Slade Professor.* * The electors were the Very Eeverend Dr. Liddell, Dean of Ch. Ch., Dr. ^ eland, and the Rev. G. Eawlinson, being three of the curators of the University galleries, the Eev. H. O. Coxe, Bodley's Librarian, Sir 268 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN He retuined home by the end of August to prepare him- self for his new duties. During the last period he had been giving, on an average, half a dozen lectures a year, which amply filled his annual volume. Twelve lectures were required of the professor. Many another man would have read his twelve lectures and gone his way ; but Mr. Ruskin was not going to work in that perfunctory manner. He undertook to revise his whole teaching ; to write for his hearers a completely new series of treatises on art, beginning with first principles and broad generalisations, and proceeding to the different departments of sculpture, engraving, landscape- painting and so on ; then taking up the history of art : — an encyclopaedic scheme, for which, no doubt, he was qualified ; which he could have carried out if he had found nothing else to do. But he took this Oxford work not as a substitute for other occupation, exonerating him from farther claims upon his energy and time ; nor as a bye-play that could be slurred. He tried to do it thoroughly, and to do it in addition to the various work already in hand, under which, as it was, he used to break down, yearly, after each climax of effort. This autumn and winter, with his first and most important course in preparation, he was still writing letters to the Daily Telegraph ; being begged by Carlyle to come — ' the sight of your face will be a comfort/ says the poor old man — and undertaking lectures at the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, and at the Royal Institution, London. The Woolwich lecture, given on December 14th, was that added to later editions of the ' Crown of Wild Olive,' under the title of ' The Future of England.' The other, February 4th, 1870, on ' Verona and its Rivers,' involved not only a lecture on art and history and contemporary political economy, but an exhibition of the drawings which he and his assistants had made during the preceding summer. Four days later he opened a new period in his career with his inaugural Lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. Francis Grant, President of the Royal Academy of London, George Grote, Esq., President of University College, London, and K. Fisher, Esq., one of the executors of the will of the late Felix Slade, Esq., the donor, BOOK IV. PROFESSOR AND PROPHET. (1870-1899.) ' Essa h la luce etema di Sigieri, Che leggendo nel vice degli atrami 8illogizz5 mvidiosi veri.' Danxe, Parad-t x. 136. CHAPTER I. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES. (1870-1871.) • Cannot we hire some Abelard to lecture to us V Thoreatj, Walden. ON Tuesday, 8th February, 1870, the Slade Professor's lecture-room was crowded to overflowing with members of the University, old and young, and their friends, who flocked to hear, and to see, the author of 'Modem Painters.' The place was densely packed long before the time; the ante-rooms were filled with personal friends of Mr. Ruskin, hoping for some comer to be found them at the eleventh hour; the doors were blocked open, and besieged outside by a disappointed multitude. Professorial lectures are not usually matters of great excitement : it does not often happen that the accommoda- tion is found inadequate. After some hasty arrangements Sir Henry Acland pushed his way to the table, announced that it was impossible for the lecture to be held in that place, and begged the audience to adjourn to the Sheldonian Theatre. At last, welcomed by all Oxford, the Slade Professor appeared, to deliver his inaugural address. Those earlier courses are still fresh in the memory of many a young hearer who has forgotten, in the stress of busy life, much else of what he saw and learned at Oxford, twenty years ago. We undergraduates used to run out to the Museum or to the Drawing School, where the lectures were given, in a scrambling hiu-ry from our Ethics or Prose Class, 272 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN or of an afternoon leaving the hasty luncheon, — and giving up the river — grumbling at the awkward hours which, as the Professor often told us, he could never arrange to suit every- body. And when we reached the place it was to find half the seats taken by earlier comers, whose broad hats, then in the fashion, were completely in the way of seeing the lecturer and the illustrations he had brought. But still we went, crowds of us ; for there was always something to interest, and a dim sense that it was an opportunity which might soon be lost, of hearing one that spoke with authority, and not as the dons.* It was not strictly academic, the way he used to come in, with a little following of familiars and assistants, — exchange recognition with friends in the audience, arrange the objects he had brought to show, — fling off his long-sleeved Master's gown, and plunge into his discourse. His manner of delivery had not altered much since the time of the Edinburgh Lectures. He used to begin by reading, in his curious intonation, the carefully-written pEissages of rhetoric, which usually occupied only about the half of his hour. By-and-by he would break ofi^, and with quite another air extemporise the liveliest interpolations, describing his diagrams or specimens, restating his arguments, re-enforcing his appeal. His voice, till then artificially cadenced, suddenly became vivacious ; his gestures, at first constrained, became dramatic. He used to act his subject, apparently without premeditated art, in the liveliest pantomime. He had no power of voice-mimicry, and none of the ordinary gifts of the actor. A tall and slim figure, not yet shortened from its five feet ten or eleven by the habitual stoop, which ten years later brought him down to less than middle height ; a stiff, blue frock-coat ; prominent, half-starched wristbands, and tall collars of the Gladstonian type ; and the bright blue stock which every one knows for his heraldic bearing : no rings or gewgaws, but a long thin gold chain to his watch : — a plain old-English * The inaugural course was given Feb. 8, 16, 23 ; March 3, 9, 16 and 23, 1870. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 273 gentleman, neither fashionable bourgeois nor artistic mounte- bank. But he gave himself over to his subject with such unreserved intensity of imaginative power, he felt so vividly and spoke so from the heart, that he became whatever he talked about, never heeding his professorial dignity, and never doubting the sympathy of his audience. Lecturing on birds, he strutted like the chough, made himself wings like the swallow; he was for the moment a cat, in explaining that engraving was the art of scratching. If it had been an affectation of theatric display, we ' emancipated school-boys,' as the Master of University used to call us, would have seen through it at once, and scorned him. But it was so evidently the expression of his intense eagerness for his subject, so palpably true to his purpose, and he so carried his hearers with him, that one saw in the grotesque of the performance only the guarantee of sincerity. If one wanted more proof of that, there was his face, still young-looking and beardless ; made for expression, and sensitive to every change of emotion. A long head, with enormous capacity of brain, veiled by thick wavy hair, not affectedly lengthy but as abundant as ever, and darkened into a deep brown, without a trace of grey ; and short light whiskers growing high over his cheeks. A forehead not on the model of the heroic type, but as if the sculptor had beaped his clay in handfuls over the eyebrows, and then heaped more. A big nose, aquiline, and broad at the base, with great thoroughbred nostrils and the ' septum ' between thera thin and deeply depressed ; and there was a turn down at the comers of the mouth, and a breadth of lower lip, that reminded one of his Verona griffin, half eagle, half lion ; Scotch in original type, and suggesting a side to his character not all milk and roses. And under shaggy eyebrows, ever so far behind — KaT7)pe(l)ei<; — the fieriest blue eyes, that changed with changing expression, from grave to gay, from lively to severe; that riveted you, magnetised you, seemed to look through you and read your soul; and indeed, when they 18 274 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN lighted on you, you felt you had a soul of a sort. What they really saw is a mystery. Some who had not persuaded them to see as others see, maintained that they only saw what they looked for ; others, who had successfully deceived them, that they saw nothing. No doubt they might be deceived ; but I know now that they often took far shrewder measurements of men — I do not say of women — ^than anybody suspected. For the Inaugural Course, he was, so to speak, on his best behaviour, guarding against too hasty expression of indi- viduality. He read careful orations, stating his maturest views on the general theory of art, in picked language^ suited to the academic position. The little volume is most valuable as giving Ruskin on Art at his best. It is not discursive or entertaining, like ' Modem Painters,' and con- tains no pictures either with pen or pencil; but it is crammed full of thought, and of the results of thought; for any one whose general knowledge is equal to interpreting it, the most valuable guide. One understands why the public which loves its ' Modern Painters ' does not read the ' Lectures on Art,' but it is surely an oversight on the part of many would-be critics of Ruskinism to ignore the re- statement, in a serious course of lectures before an educated audience, of views which youthful works either failed to expound, or expounded in a loose and inadequate manner. The Slade Professor was also expected to organise and superintend the teaching of drawing ; and his first words in the first lecture expressed the hope that he would be able to introduce some serious study of Art into the University, which, he thought, would be a step toward realising some of his ideals of education. He had long felt that mere talking about Art was a makeshift, and that no real insight could be got into the subject without actual and practical dealing with it. He found a South Kensington School in existence at Oxford, with an able master, Mr. Alexander Macdonald; and though he did not entirely approve of the methods in use, tried to make the best of the materials to his hand, FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 275 accepting but enlarging the scope of the system. The South Kensington method had been devised for industrial designing, primarily ; Mr. Ruskin's desire was to get undergraduates to take up a wider subject, to familiarise themselves with the technical excellences of the great masters, to study nature, and the different processes of art, — drawing, painting and some forms of decorative work, such as, in especial, goldsmiths' work, out of which the Florentine school had sprung. He did not wish to train artists, but, as before in the Working Men's College, to cultivate the habit of mind that looks at nature and life, not analytically, as science does, but for the sake of external aspect and expression. Ry these means he hoped to breed a race of judicious patrons and critics, the best service any man can render to the cause of art. And so he got together a mass of examples in addition to the Turners which he had already given to the University galleries. He placed in the school a few pictures by Tintoret, some drawings by Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Rurne-Jones, and a great number of fine casts and engravings. He arranged a series of studies by himself and others, as ' copies,' fitted, like the Turners in the National Gallery, with sliding frames in cabinets for convenient reference and removal. After spending most of his first 'Lent Term in this work, he went home for a month to prepare a catalogue, which was published the same year: the school not being finally opened until October 1871. During these first visits to Oxford he was the guest of Sir Henry Acland; on April 29, 1871, Pro- fessor Ruskin, already honorary student of Christ Church, was elected to an honorary fellowship at Corpus, and enabled to occupy rooms, vacated by the Rev. Henry Fumeaux, who gave up his fellowship on marrying Mr. Aiihur Severn's twin- sister.* * In a charming paper (Pelican Record for June, 1894) Mr. J. W. Oddie gives some reminiscences of 'iluskin at Corpus'; describing the ceremony of his admission, his quaint and humorous conversation in the Common Boom, and his rooms (Fellows' buildings, No. 2 staircase, first floor right) with their Turners and Titian, Baphael portrait and Meissonier ' Napoleon.' 18—2 276 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN After this work well began, lie went abroad for a vacation tour with a party of friends — as in 1866 ; Lady Trevelyan's sister, Mrs. Hilliard, to chaperone the same young ladies, and three servants with them. They started on April 27th; stayed awhile at Meurice's to see Paris ; and at Geneva, to go up the Sal eve, twice, in bitter black east wind. Then across the Simplon to Milan and Venice, where he made the careful drawing given to the Oxford Schools (engraved in Cook's ' Studies in Ruskin '). This however was to be a com- plete holiday, and he devoted himself to his company. After a month at Venice and Verona, where he recurred to his scheme against inundation, then ridiculed by Punch, but afterwards taken up seriously by the Italians, they went to Florence, and met Professor Norton. In the end of June they turned homewards, by Pisa and Lucca, Milan and Como, and went to visit their friend Marie of the Giessbach. At the Giessbach they spent a fortnight, enjoying the July weather and glorious walks,* in the middle of which war was suddenly declared between Germany and France. The summons of their German waiter to join his regiment, brought the news home to them, as such personal examples do, more than columns of newspaper print ; and as hostilities were rapidly beginning, Mr. Ruskin, with the gloomiest fore- bodings for the beautiful country he loved, took his party home straight across France, before the ways should be closed. August was a month of feverish suspense to everybody ; to no one more than to Mr. Ruskin, who watched the progress of the armies while he worked day by day at the British Museum preparing lectures for next term. This was the course on Greek relief- sculpture, published as 'Aratra Pentelici.'f It was a happy thought to illustrate his subject from coins, rather than from disputed and mutilated fragments ; and he worked into it his revised theory 6f the origin of art — not Schiller's nor Herbert Spencer's, and yet * During one of which occurred the adventure of the snake that bhowed presence of mind, told in the ' Kagle's Nest,' § 101. t Delivered Nov. 24, 26, Dec. 1, 3, 8 and 10, 1870. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 277 akin to theirs of the ' Spieltrieb,' — involving the notion of doll-play ; — man as a child, re-creating himself, in a double sense ; imitating the creation of the world, and really creating a sort of secondary life in his art, to play with, or to worship. This book, too, the critics of Ruskin have unanimously over- looked ; except for the last lecture of the series (published separately) in which the Professor compared — as the outcome of classic art in Renaissance times — Michelangelo and Tintoret, greatly to the disadvantage of Michelangelo. This heresy against a popular creed served as text for some severe criticism of Mr. Ruskin's art teaching by followers of the academic school ; but as he said in a prefatory note to the pamphlet, readers ' must observe that its business is only to point out what is to be blamed in Michael Angelo, and that it assumes the fact of his power to be generally known,' and he refers to Mr. Tyrwhitt's ' Lectures on Christian Art ' for the opposite side of the question. Meanwhile the war was raging. Mr. Ruskin was asked by his friends to raise his voice against the ravage of France ; but he replied that it was inevitable. At last, in October, he read how Rosa Bonheur and Edouard Frere had been permitted to pass through the German lines, and next day came the news of the bombardment of Strasburg, with anticipations of the destruction of the Cathedral, library, and picture galleries, foretelling, as it seemed, the more terrible and irreparable ruin of the treasure-houses of art in Paris. His heart was with the French, and he broke silence in the bitterness of his spirit, upbraiding their disorder and showing how the German success was the victory of ' one of the truest monarchies and schools of honoiu- and obedience yet organised under heaven.' He hoped that Germany, now that she had shown her power, would withdraw, and demand no indemnity. But that was too much to ask. Before long Paris itself became the scene of action, and in January 1871 was besieged and bombarded. So much of Mr. Ruskin's work and affection had been given to French Gothic that he could not endure to think of his beloved 278 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Sainte Chapelle as being actually under fire — to say nothing of the horror of human suffering in a siege. He joined Cardinal (then Archbishop) Manning, Professor Huxley, Sir John Lubbock and Mr. James Knowles in forming a ' Paris Food Fund,' which shortly united with the Lord Mayor's committee for the general relief of the besieged. The day after writing on the Sainte Chapelle he attended the meeting at the Mansion House, and gave a subscription of ^£"50. He followed events anxiously through the storm of the Commune and its fearful ending, angered at the fratricide and anarchy which no Mansion-House help could avert or repair. It was no time for talking on art, he felt : instead of the full course, he could only manage three lectures on landscape, and these not so completely prepared as to make them ready for printing. Before Christmas he had been once more to Woolwich, where Colonel Brackenbury invited him to address the cadets at the prize-giving of the Science and Art depart- ment,* in which the Rev. W. Kingsley, an old friend of Mr. Ruskin's and of Turner's, was one of the masters. Two of the lectures of the ' Crown of Wild Olive ' had been given there, with more than usual animation, and enthusiastically received by crowded and distinguished audiences, among whom was Prince Arthur (the Duke of Connaught), then at the Royal Military Academy. This time it was the ' Story of Arachne,' an address on education and aims in life ; open- ing with reminiscences of his own childhood, and pleasantly telling the Greek myths of the spider and the ant, with in- terpretations for the times. The three lectures on landscape,"!" °^ rather, the contrast of the Greek and Gothic spirit as seen chiefly in landscape painters, were briefly reported in the Athenasum. In these he dwelt on the necessity of human and historic interest in scenery ; and compared Greek ' solidity and veracity ' with Gothic ' spirituality and mendacity,' Greek chiaroscuro and tranquil activity with Gothic colour and 'passionate rest.' Botticelli's ' Nativity ' (now in the National Gallery) was then * Dec. 13, 1870. t Given Jan. 20, Feb. 9 and 23, 1871. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 279 being shown at the Old Masters' Exhibition, and Mr. Ruskin took it, along with the works of Cima, as a type of one form of Greek Art. Rubens and Rembrandt he considered as less refined developments of the same spirit. In the greatest painters, he said, the excellences of the two schools were united: Titian and Tintoret were Gothic colourists approaching the Greek ideal : Holbein and Turner were chiaroscurists of the Greek tjrpe, blossoming into colour. In landscape, he said, there was little that perfectly illustrated the Gothic spirit. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their school tried to revive it, but they undervalued the difficulty of their art, and took refuge in dramatic sensation instead of making themselves the competent exponents of real beauty ; and failed. This 1871 was an eventful year in Mr. Ruskin's home life. In April his cousin. Miss Agnew, who had been seven years at Denmark Hill, was married to Mr. Arthur Severn, and left her friends as sheep without a shepherdess. Mr. Ruskin, who had added to his other work the additional labour of ' Fors Clavigera,' went for a summer's change to Matlock. July opened with cold, dry, dark weather, dangerous for out-of-door sketching. One morning early — for he was always an early riser — he took a chill while painting a spray of wild rose before breakfast (the drawing now in the Oxford Schools). He was already overworked, and it ended in a severe attack of internal inflammation which nearly cost him his life. He was a difficult patient to deal with. Though one of his best friends was a physician and another a surgeon he usually pre- ferred to be his own doctor, as long as he could, believing more in diet and exercise than in medicine. The local practitioner who attended him used to tell how he refused remedies, and in the height of the disease asked what would be worst for him. I was told at Matlock that the answer was 'sherry'; Mr. Ruskin himself said it was beef! Anyhow, he took it ; and to everybody's surprise, recovered.* * Mrs. Arthur Severn, in a note on the proof, says : ' It was a slice of cold roast beef he hungered for, at Matlock (to our horror, and dear 280 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN But it had been a painful scare to his friends — especially to those who could get no news. Carlyle, who had been in the Highlands, with his right hand useless, and his amanuensis, Miss Aitken, far away, was surprised and distressed at the silence of his friend, and at last wrote anxiously: — . . . ' There came the most alarming rumours of your illness at Matlock ; and both Lady Ashburton and myself (especially the latter party, for whom I can answer best) were in a state really deserving pity on your account, till the very newspapers took compassion on us, and announced the immediate danger to be past. . . . Froude has returned, and is often asking about you ; as indeed are many others, to whom the radiant qualities which the gods have given you and set you to work with, in such an element, are not unknown. Write me a word at once, dear Ruskin.' During the illness at Matlock his thoughts reverted to the old ' Iteriad ' times of forty years before, when he had travelled with his parents and cousin Mary from that same ' New Bath Hotel,' where he was now lying, to the Lakes ; and again he wearied for ' the heights that look adown upon the dale. The crags are lone on Coniston.'' If he could only lie down there, he said, he should get well again. He had not fully recovered before he heard that Mr. W. J. Linton, the poet and wood-engraver, wished to sell a house and land at the very place : ^1500, and it could be his. Without question asked he bought it at once; and as it Lady Mount Temple's, who were nursing him) : there was none in the hotel, and it was late at night ; and Albert Goodwin went off to get some, somewhere, or anywhere. All the hotels were closed ; but at last, at an eating-house in Matlock Bath, he discovered some, and came back triumphant with it, wrapped up in paper ; and J, B. enjoyed his late supper thoroughly ; and though we all waited anxiously till the morning for the result, it had done no harm I And when he was told pepper was bad for him, he dredged it freely over his food in defiance ! It was directly after our return to Denmark Hill he got Linton's letter offering him this place (Brautwood). There are, I believe, ten acres of moor belonging to Brantwood.' Mr. Albert Goodwin, E.W.S., the landscape painter, travelled, about this time, in Italy with Mr. Euskin. FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 281 would be impossible to lecture at Oxford so soon after his illness, he set oiF, before the middle of September, with his firiends the Hilliards to visit his new possession. They found a rough-cast country cottage, old, damp, decayed ; smoky chimneyed and rat-riddled ; but ' five acres of rock and moor and streamlet; and,' he wrote, 'I think the finest view I know in Cumberland or Lancashire, with the sunset visible over the same.'' The spot was not, even then, without its associations : Gerald Massey the poet, Mr. W. J. Linton, and his wife Mrs. Lynn Linton the novelist. Dr. G. W. Kitchin (Dean of Durham) had lived and worked there, and former inhabitants had adorned it outside with revolutionary mottoes — ' God and the people,' and so on. It had been a favourite point of view of Wordsworth's; his 'seat' was pointed out in the grounds. Tennyson had lived for a while close by: his ' seat,' too, was on the hill above Lanehead. But the cottage needed thorough repair, and that cost more than rebuilding, not to speak of the additions of later years, which have ended by making it into a mansion sur- rounded by a hamlet. And there was the furnishing ; for Denmark Hill, where his mother lived, was still to be head- quarters. Mr. Ruskin gave carte-blanche to the London upholsterer with whom he had been accustomed to deal ; and such expensive articles were sent that when he came down for a month next autumn, he reckoned that, all included, his country cottage had cost him not less than ^f^OOO. But he was not the man to spend on himself without sharing his wealth with others. On Nov. 22nd, Convocation accepted a gift from the Slade Professor of ^5000 to endow a mastership of drawing at Oxford, in addition to the pictures and ' copies ' placed in the schools ; he had set up a relative in business with ^15,000, which was unfortunately lost; and at Christmas he gave ^£7000, the tithe of his remain- ing capital, to the St. George's Fund ; of which more here- after. On November 23rd he was elected Lord Rector of St. 282 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Andrew's University by 86 votes against 79 for Lord Lytton. After the election it was discovered that, by the Scottish Universities Act of 1858, no one holding a professorship at a British University was ehgible. Professor Ruskin was dis- qualified, and gave no address ; and Lord Neaves was chosen in his place. Mrs. Ruskin was now ninety years of age : her sight was nearly gone, but she still retained her powers of mind, and ruled with severe kindliness her household and her son. Her old servant Anne had died in March. Anne had nursed John Ruskin as a baby, and had lived with the family ever since, devoted to them, and ready for any disagreeable task, ' so that she was never quite in her glory,' ' Praeterita ' says, ' unless some of us were ill. She had also some parallel speciality for saying disagreeable things, and might be relied upon to give the extremely darkest view of any subject, before proceeding to ameliorative action upon it. And she had a very credit- able and republican aversion to doing immediately, or in set terms, as she was bid ; so that when my mother and she got old together, and my mother became very imperative and particular about having her teacup set on one side of her little round table, Anne would observantly and punctiliously put it always on the other : which caused my mother to state to me, every morning after breakfast, gravely, that if ever a woman in this world was possessed by the Devil, Anne was that woman.' But this gloomy Calvinism was tempered with a bene- volence quite as uncommon. It was from his parents that Mr. Ruskin learned never to turn off a servant, and the Denmark Hill household was as easy-going as the legendary ' baronial ' retinue of the good old times. A young friend asked Mrs. Ruskin, in a moment of indiscretion, what such a one of the ancient maids did, — for there were several without apparent occupation about the house. Mrs. Ruskin drew herself up and said, ' She, my dear, puts out the dessert,' ' And yet, in her blindness, she could read character un- FIRST OXFORD LECTURES 283 hesitatingly. That was, no doubt, why people feared her. When Mr. Secretary Howell, in the days when he was still the oracle of the Ruskin-Rossetti circle, had been regaling them with his wonderful tales, after dinner, she would throw her netting down and say, ' How can you two sit there and listen to such a pack of lies?' She objected strongly, in these later years, to the theatre ; and when sometimes her son would wish to take a party into town to see the last new piece, her permission had to be asked, and was not readily granted, unless to Miss Agnew, who was the ambassadress in such affairs of diplomacy. But while disapproving of some of his worldly ways, and convinced that she had too much indulged his childhood, the old lady loved him with all the intensity of the strange fierce lioness nature, which only one or two had ever had a glimpse of. And when (Dec. 5th, 1871) she died, trusting to see her husband again — not to be near him, not to be so high in heaven, but content if she might only see him, she said — ^her son was left ' with a sur- prising sense of loneliness.' He had loved her truly, obeyed her strictly and tended her faithfully ; and even yet hardly realized how much she had been to him. He buried her in his father's grave, and wrote upon it, ' Here beside my father's body I have laid my mother's : nor was dearer earth ever returned to earth, nor purer life recorded in heaven.'* * This inscription was added about 1885 : the monument was Mr. Euskiu's design. The place had been chosen rather for its picturesque surroundings than for family associations ; Shirley being merely a favourite drive. Its name is now well known to garden- lovers from the Shirley poppy, first grown there by the clergyman of the place, Canon Wilkea CHAPTER II. •FOES' BEGUN. (1871-1872.) ' Nous ne reeevons I'existence Qu'afin de travailler pour nous, ou pour autrui ; De ce devoir sacr6 quiconque se dispense Est puni par la Providence, Par le besoin, ou par I'ennui.' Flokian. ON January 1st, 1871, was issued a small pamphlet, headed ' Fors Clavigera," in the form of a letter to the working men and labourers of England, dated from Denmark Hill, and signed ' John Ruskin.' It was not published in the usual way, but sold by the author's engraver, Mr. George Allen, at Heathfield Cottage, Keston, Kent. It was not advertised ; press-copies were sent to the leading papers ; and of course the author's acquaintance knew of its publication. Strangers, who heard of this curious proceeding, spread the report that in order to get Ruskin's latest, you had to travel into the country, with your sevenpence in your hand, and transact your business among Mr. Allen's beehives. So you had, if you wanted to see what you were buying ; for no arrangements were made for its sale by the booksellers : sevenpence a copy, carriage paid, no discount, and no abate- ment on taking a quantity. By such pilgrimages, but more easily through the post, the new work filtered out, in monthly instalments, to a limited number of buyers. After three years the price was raised to tenpence. In 1875 the first thousands of the earlier numbers 'FORS' BEGUN 285 were sold : — ' the public has a very long nose,' Mr. Ruskin once said, 'and scents out what it wants, sooner or later.' A second edition was issued, bound up into yearly volumes, of which eight were ultimately completed. Meanwhile the work went on, something in the style of the old Addison Spectator ; each part containing twenty pages, more or less, by Mr. Ruskin; with added contributions from various correspondents. 'Fors Clavigera' is practically a continuation of 'Time and Tide,' and addressed, not to ' working men ' only, but to the workers of England, those who, hke Thomas Dixon, had ears to hear, in whatever rank of life. Its name, like itself, is mystic, and changes content as it goes on. The Fate or Force that bears the Club, or Key, or Nail : that is, in three aspects, — as Following, or Fore-ordaining, Deed (or Courage), and Patience, and Laws, unknown or known, of nature and life ; so that the ' TTiird Fors,' that plays so large a part in this later period, is simply Fortune. The generdl sense of the title expresses the general drift of the work ; to show that life is to be bettered by each man's honest effort, and to be borne, in many things he cannot better, by his wise resignation ; but that above all, and through all, and in all, there works a Power outside of him, to will and to do, to reward and to punish, eventually, by laws which, if he choose, he may partially understand, and, for the remainder, may trust. To read ' Fors ' is like being out in a thunderstorm. At first, you open the book with interest, to watch the signs of the times. While you climb your mountain — shall we say the Old Man of Coniston ? — at unawares there is a darkening of the cloud upon you, and the tension of instinctive dread, as image after image arises of misery, and murder, and lingering death, with here and there a streak of sun in the foreground, only throwing the wildness of the scene into more rugged relief; and through the gaps you see broad fields of ancient history, like lands of promise left behind. By-and-by the gloom wraps you. The old thunder of the Ruskinian 286 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN paragraph, shortened now to whip-lash cracks, reverberates unremittingly from point to point, raising echoes, sounding deeps ; allusions, suggestions, intimations, stirring the realm of chaos, that ordinarily we are glad to let slumber, but now terribly discern, by flashes of thought, most unexpectedly arriving. Fascinated by the hammer-play of Thor, berserk- ing among Rime-giants — customs that ' hang upon us, heavy as frost ' — ^you begin to applaud ; when a sudden stroke rolls your own standpoint into^the abyss. But if you can climb forward, imdismayed, to the summit, the storm drifts by; and you see the world again, all new, beneath you — ^how rippling in Thor's laughter, how tenderly veiled in his tears ! The charm of ' Fors ' is neither in epigram nor in anecdote, but in the sustained vivacity that runs through the texture of the work ; the reappearance of golden threads of thought, glittering in new figures, and among new colours; and throughout all the variety of subject a unity of style unlike the style of his earlier works, where flowery rhetorical passages are tagged to less interesting chapters, separately studied sermonettes interposed among the geology, and Johnson, Locke, Hooker, Carlyle — or whoever happened to be the author he was reading at the time — frankly imitated. It was always clever, but often artificial ; like the composition of a Renaissance painter who inserts his iel corpo ignudo to catch the eye. In 'Fors,' however, the web is of a piece, all sparkling with the same life; though as it is gradually unwound from the loom it is hard to judge the design. That can only be done when it is reviewed as a whole — an easy task now, since the 96 letters have been printed in four small volumes. At the time, his mingling of jest and earnest was mis- understood even by friends. The author learnt too painfully the danger of seeming to trifle with cherished beliefs. He forswore levity, but soon relapsed into the old style, out of sheer sincerity : for he was too much in earnest not to be frankly himself in his utterances, without writing up to, or down to, any other person's standard. «FORS' BEGUN 287 With all the declamation, and all the wit, there was substance enough of solid and reasonable purpose to knit the work together. It was hardly, as one of his old friends saidj his mind's wastepaper basket ; but the unfolding of wrappings, perhaps unnecessary, round a definite proposal. He began by declining all connection with ordinary political life in any form ; he said that the existing order of things was wholly wrong, and just for that reason the existing methods of government could not set them right, by acts of a parliament which he simply declined to recognise as efficient to cope with the question. Instead of that, rescue was to come from in- dividuals, as it has always done before in times of barbarism and anarchy. If men would, each in his place, carry out the rudiments of justice and social morality — doing good work well, helping others, harming none, and showing themselves law-worthy — if such-minded men and women would withdraw from the struggle for success in the world and set the example of better things in a wholesome country life ; that, he felt, would really effect a change. It was like the old scheme of St. Benedict ; the formation of agricultural communities ; by which Europe was, even more than by the feudal and chivalric institutions imitated in ' Time and Tide,' founded and civilised out of swampy forests and lawless barbarism. Mr. Ruskin did not wish to lead a colony or to head a revolution. He had been pondering for fifteen years the cause of poverty and crime, and the conviction had grown upon him that modem commercialism was at the root of it all. Other men in other lands were being gradually led to the same conclusion by different ways ; and French Communism, German Socialism, Russian Anarchism, were the expressions of a kindred movement — ^but very differently developed. On the Continent the wrong was open and obvious, in the form of tyrannical government in church and state ; the remedy suggested by precedent was violent rebellion. Here, in England, with apparent liberty of conduct and opinion, the same evils took a more subtle shape ; and were practised by the kindliest men and women with the best intentions. The 288 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN slow and sure pace of our constitutional reforms accustomed us to a grumbling content, and a disinclination for extreme measures. Mr. Ruskin's attacks on commercialism — his analysis of its bad influence on all sections of society — ^were too vigorous and uncompromising for the newspaper editors who received ' Fors,' and even for most of his private friends. There were, however, some who saw what he was aiming at : and let it be remarked that his first encouragement came from the highest quarters. Just as Sydney Smith, the chief critic of earlier days, had been the first to praise ' Modern Painters,' in the teeth of vulgar opinion, so now Carlyle spoke for ' Fors.' •5, Cheyne Row, ' Chelsea, ' April 30tk, Wl. ' Dear Ruskin, ' This " Fors Clavigera," Letter 5th, which I have just finished reading, is incomparable ; a quasi-sacred consolation to me, which almost brings teeirs into my eyes ! Every word of it is as if spoken, not out of my poor heart only, but out of the eternal skies ; words winged with Empyrean wisdom, piercing as lightning, — and which I really do not remember to have heard the like of. Continue, wbile you have such utterances in you, to give them voice. They will find and force entrance into human hearts, whatever the "angle of incidence " may be ; that is to say, whether, for the degraded and inhuman Blockheadism we, so-called " men," have mostly now become, you come in upon them at the broadside, at the top, or even at the bottom. Euge, Euge ! — ' Yours ever, «T. Caelyle.' Others, like Sir Arthur Helps, joined in this encouragement." But the old struggle with the newspapers began over again. ' They united in considering the whole business insane, though they did not doubt his sincerity when Mr. Ruskin put down his own money, the tenth of what he had, as he ' FORS ' BEGUN 289 recommended his adherents to do. By the end of the year he had set aside dP7000 toward establishing a company to he called of ' St. George,' as representing at once England and agriculture. Sir Thomas Dyke Acland and the Right Hon. W. Cowper-Temple (afterwards Lord Mount Temple), though not pledging themselves to approval of the scheme, undertook the trusteeship of the fund. A few friends subscribed ; in June 1872, after a year and a half of 'Fors,' the first stranger sent in his contribution, and at the end of three years J'236 13*. were collected, to add to his ,£7000, and a few acres of land were given. A start was made, of which we shall have to trace the fortunes in the sequel. Meanwhile Mr. Ruskin practised what he preached. He did not preach renunciation; he was not a Pessimist any more than an Optimist. Sometimes he felt he was not doing enough; he knew very well that others thought so. I remember his saying, in his rooms at Oxford in one of those years : ' Here I am, trying to reform the world, and I suppose I ought to begin with myself. I am trying to do St. Bene- dict's work, and I ought to be a saint. And yet I am living between a Turkey carpet and a Titian, and drinking as much tea' — ^taking his second cup — ^'as I can swigF That was the way he put it to an undergraduate ; to a lady friend he wrote later on, ' I'm reading history of early saints, too, for my Amiens book, and feel that I ought to be scratched, or starved, or boiled, or something unpleasant; and I don't know if I'm a saint or a sinner in the least, in mediaeval language. How did the saints feel themselves, I wonder, about their saintship !' It is very easy to preach, and not so difficult to practise the great Renunciation. But what then ? It is very hard to see clearly, and infinitely hard to follow, the straight path of even-handed justice, and the fulfilment of duty to all the complex claims of life in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. If he had forsaken all and followed the vocation of St. Francis,— he has discussed the question candidly in ' Fors' 19 290 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN for May 1874, — would not his work have been more effectual, his example more inspiring ? Conceivably : but that was not his mission. His gospel was not one of asceticism ; it called upon no one for any sort of suicide, or even martyrdom. He required of his followers that they should live their lives to the full in ' Admiration, Hope and Love ': and not that they should sacrifice themselves in fasting and wearing of camels'- hair coats. He wished them to work, to be honest, and just, in all things immediately attainable. He asked the tenth of their living — not the widow's two mites ; and it was deeply painful to him to find, sometimes, that they had so interpreted his teaching : as when he wrote, later, to Miss Beever : — ' One of my poor " Companions of St. George " who has sent me, not a widow's but a parlour-maid's (an old schoolmistress) " all her living," and whom I found last night, dying, slowly and quietly, in a damp room, just the size of your study (which her landlord won't mend the roof of), by the light of a single tallow candle, — dying, I say, slowly of consumption, not yet near the end, but contemplating it with sorrow, mixed partly with fear lest she should not have done all she could for her children ! The sight of this and my own shameful comforts, three wax candles and blazing fire and dry roof, and Susie and Joanie for friends ! Oh me, Susie, what is to become of me in the next world, who have in this life all my good things !' — All ? No, not nearly all. But even of what he had no man was ever readier to spend and sacrifice. After carrying on 'Fors' for some time his attention was drawn by Mr. W. C. Sillar to the question of ' Usury.' At first he had seen no crying sin in Interest. He had held that the * rights of capital ' were visionary, and that the tools should belong to him that can handle them, in a perfect state of society ; but he thought that the existing system was no worse in this respect than in others, and his expectation of reform in the plan of investment went hand-in-hand with his hope of a good time coming in everything else. So he quietly accepted his rents, as he accepted his Professorship, for example, 'FOIIS' BEGUN 291 thinking it his business to be a good landlord and spend his money generously, just as he thought it his business to retain the existing South Kensington drawing school, and the Oxford system of education — not at all his ideal — and to make the best use of them. A lady who was his pupil in drawing, and a believer in his ideals of philanthropy. Miss Octavia Hill, undertook to help him in 1864 in efforts to reclaim part — though a very small part — of the lower-class dwellings of London. Half a dozen houses in Marylebone left by Mr. Ruskin's father, to which he added three more in Paradise Place, as it was euphemistic- ally named, were the subjects of their experiment. They were ridiculed at first; but by the noblest endeavour they succeeded, and set an example which has been followed in many of our towns with great results. They showed what a wise and kind landlord could do by caring for tenants, by giving them habitable dwellings, recreation ground and fixity of tenure, and requiring in return a reasonable and moderate rent. Mr. Ruskin got five per cent, for his capital, instead of twelve or more, which such property generally returns, or at that time returned. But when he began to write against rent and interest there were plenty of critics ready to cite this and other investments as a damning inconsistency. He was not the man to offer explanations at any time. It was no defence to say that he took less and did more than other landlords. And so he was glad to part with the whole to Miss Hill ; nor did he care to spend upon himself the £3500, which I believe was the price. It went right and left in gifts : till one day he cheerfully re- marked, ' It's a' gane awa' Like snaw afif a wa'.' ' Is there really nothing to show for it ?"" he was asked. ' Nothing,' he said, ' except this new silk umbrella.' The tea-shop was one of Mr. Buskin's ' experiments ' in connection with 'Fors.' He himself disliked the word, be- cause it savoured of failure. But words are what we make of 19—2 292 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN them; and in this case he made experiment mean success. He had talked so much of the possibiHty of carrying on honest and honourable retail trade, that he felt bound to exemplify his principles. He took a house, No. 19, Padding- ton Street, with a corner shop, near his Marylebone property, and set himself up in business as a teaman. Mr. Arthur Severn painted the .^'gn, in neat blue letters; the window was decked with fine old china, bought from a Cavaliere near Siena, whose unique collection had been introduced to notice by Professor Norton ; and Miss Harriet Tovey, an old servant of Denmark Hill, was established there, like Miss Mattie in ' Cranford,' or rather like one of the salaried officials of ' Time and Tide,' to dispense the unadulterated leaf to all comers. No advertisements, no self-recommendation, no catchpenny tricks of trade were allowed ; and yet the business went on, and, I am assured, prospered with legitimate profits. At first, various kinds of the best tea only were sold ; but it seemed to the tenant of the shop that coffee and sugar ought to be included in the hst. This was not at all in Mr. Ruskin's programme, and there were great debates at home about it. At last he gave way, on the miderstanding that the shop was to be responsible for the proper roasting of the coffee according to the best recipe. After some time Miss Tovey died. And when, in the autumn of 1876, Miss Octavia Hill proposed to take the house and business over and work it with the rest of the Marylebone property, the ofi'er was thankfully accepted. Another of his principles was cleanliness ; ' the speedy abolition of all abolishable filth is the first process of educa- tion.' Indeed, it was one of his chief differences with an iU world that fouled its own nest — with sewage in its rivers and smoke in its lungs. There was ' nothing so small and mean,' as his George Herbert had said, that it did not come into his province. If the prophet had bidden us do some great thing ! But his teaching was to attack the. enemy in detail, and carry on a guerilla warfare with all the powers of darkness. It was a very unimportant outpost of the Devil, it might 'FORS' BEGUN 293 appear, that he attacked when he undertook to keep certain streets, not crossings only, cleaner than the public seemed to care for, between the British Museum and St. Giles'. But that labour came to his hand, and he did it with his might. He took the broom himself, for a start, put on his gardener, Downes, as foreman of the job, and engaged a small staff of helpers. The work began, as he promised, in a humorous letter to the PaM Mall Gazette upon New Year's Day, 1872, and he kept his three sweepers at work for eight hours daily 'to show a bit of our London streets kept as clean as the deck of a ship of the line.' There were some difficulties, too. One of the staiF was an extremely handsome and lively shoeblack, picked up in St. Giles'. It turned out that he was not unknown in the world : he had sat to artists — to Mr. Edward Clifford, to Mi-. Severn ; and went by the name of 'Cheeky.' Every now and then Mr. Ruskin ' and party ' drove round to inspect the works. Downes could not be everywhere at once : and Cheeky used to be caught at pitch and toss or marbles in unswept Museum Street. Mr. Ruskin rarely, if ever, dismissed a servant; but street sweeping was not good enough for Cheeky, and so , he enlisted. The army was not good enough, and so he deserted ; and was last seen disappearing into the darkness, after calling a cab for his old friends one night at the Albert Hall. The Oxford diggings and St. George's farms afterwards claimed Downes' services. Enough however had been done to set the example, and to show that ' Who sweeps a — street — as for Thy laws, Makes that, and the action, fine.' One more escapade of this most unpractical man, as they called him. Since his fortune was rapidly melting away, he had to look to his works as an ultimate resource: they eventually became his only means of livelihood. One might suppose that he would be anxious to put his publishing busi- ness on the most secure and satisfactory footing ; to facilitate 294 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN sale, and to ensure profit. But he had views. He objected to advertising ; though he thought that in his St. George's Scheme he would have a yearly Book Gazette drawn up by responsible authorities, indicating the best works. He dis- trusted the system of unacknowledged profits and percentages, though he fully agreed that the retailer should be paid for his work, and wished, in an ideal state, to see the shopkeeper a salaried official. He disliked the bad print and paper of the cheap literature of that day, and knew that people valued more highly what they did not get so easily. He had changed his mind with regard to one or two things — religion and glaciers chiefly — about which he had written at length in earlier works. So he withdrew his most popular books — ' Modem Painters ' and the rest — from circulation, though he was per- suaded by the publisher to reprint ' Modem Painters ' and ' Stones of Venice '' once more — ' positively for the last time,' as they said the plates would give no more good impressions. He had his later writings printed in a rather expensive style ; at first by Smith & Elder, after two years by Messrs. Watson & Hazell (now Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd.), and the method of publication is illustrated in the history of ' Sesame . and Lilies,' the first volume of these ' collected works.' It was issued by Smith & Elder, May, 1871, at 7*., to the trade only, leaving the retailer to fix the price to the public. In September, 1872, the work was also supplied by Mr. George Allen, and the price raised to 9*. Qd. (carriage paid) to trade and public alike, with the idea that an extra shilling, or nearly ten per cent., might be added by the bookseller for his trouble in ordering the work. If he did not add the com- mission, that was his own affair; though with postage of order and payment, when only one or two copies at a time were asked for, this did not leave much margin. So it was doubled, by the simple expedient of doubling the price ! — or, to be accurate, raising it to 18*. (carriage paid) for 9,Qs. over the counter. It was freely prophesied by business men that this would not do : however, at the end of fifteen years the 'FORS' BEGUN 295 sixth edition of this work in this form was being sold, in spite of the fact that, five years before, a smaller reprint of the same book had been brought but at 5s., and was then in its fourth edition of 3,000 copies each. Compared with the enormous sale of sensational novels and school books, this is no great matter ; but for a didactic work, oifered to the public without advertisement, and in the face of the almost universal opposition of the book-selling trade, it means not only that, as an author, Mr. Ruskin had made a secure reputation, but also that he deserved the curious tribute once paid him by the journal of a big modem shop (Compton House, Liverpool) as a ' great tradesman.' His high prices were a stumbling block to most of his readers; and he finally withdrew his objection to cheap- ness, on finding that it need not mean bad printing, and that there are many people who, though they cannot aft'ord the old-fashioned scholar's library, have the old-fashioned scholar's respect for books. Formerly, when clerks from Glasgow or working men from Manchester wrote to say that they really wanted to read him, but really could not afford, he replied with a growl that if a child in the gutter wanted a picture book he would say, ' Come out of that, first !' Which, though a hard saying, truly represented his attitude. He distrusted people who lamented their dismal lot, and showed no courage to mend it : who protested a thirst for Nature and Art, and yet took no steps to enjoy what they could get, or to get what they could enjoy, — 'So here we sit sullen in the black slime ' — or ci attristiam nella belletta negra. If they bought anything of his, there was ' Fors,' in which he was giving his best, at the price, as he said, of two pots of beer a month 1 CHAPTER IIL OXFORD TEACHING. (1872-1875.) •How should he care what men may say, Who see no heaven day by day, And dream not of his hidden way ? * For though betwixt dull earth and him Such clouds and mists deceptive swim. That to his eyes life's ways look dim ; ' Yet when on high he lifts his gaze He sees the stars' untroubled ways And the divine of endless days.' To ' the Ethereal Euskin ' (Spectator, June 5th, 1875). EARLY in 1872, after bringing out 'Munera Pulveris,' the essays he had written ten years before for Fraser on economy; after getting those street-sweepers to work near the British Museum, where he was making studies of animals and Greek sculpture ; and after once more addressing the Woolwich cadets, this time* on the Bird of Calm (the mythology of the Halcyon), Professor Ruskin went to Oxford to give a course of ten lecturesf on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, afterwards published under the title of ' The Eagle's Nest.' He wrote to Professor Norton, ' I am, as usual, unusually busy. When I get fairly into my lecture work at Oxford I always find the lecture would come better some other way, just before it is given, and so work from hand to * January 13, 1872. t Feb. 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29 ; March 2, 7, and 9. OXFORD TEACHING 297 mouth. I am always unhappy, and see no good in saying so. But I am settling to my work here — recklessly — to do my best with it : feeling quite sure that it is talking at hazard, for what chance good may come. But I attend regularly 'in the schools as mere drawing-master, and the men begin to come in one by one, about fifteen or twenty already ; several worth having as pupils in any way, being of temper to make good growth of.' Why was he always unhappy ? — It was not that Mr. W. B. Scott criticised ' Mr. Ruskin's influence' in that March ; or that by Easter he had to say farewell to his old home on Denmark Hill, and settle ' for good ' at Brantwood. Nor that he could go abroad again for a long summer in Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Severn and the Hilliards and Mr. Albert Goodwin : though it was a busy time they spent. They started about the middle of April, and on the journey out he wrote, beside his ' Fors,' which always went on, a preface to the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitfs ' Christian Ai't and Symbo- lism.' He drew the Apse at Pisa, half-amused and half- worried by the little ragamuffin who varied the tedium of watching his work by doing horizontal-bar tricks on the rail- ings of the Cathedral green. Then to Lucca, where, to show kis friends something of Italian landscape, he took them for rambles through the olive farms and chestnut woods, among which Miss Hilliard lost her jewelled cross. Greatly to Mr. Ruskin's delight, as a firm believer in Italian peasant-virtue, it was found and returned without hint of reward. At Rome they visited old Mr. Severn, and then went homeward by way of Verona, where Mr. Ruskin wrote an account of the Cavalli monuments for the Arundel Society, and Venice, where he returned to the study of Carpaccio. At Rome he had been once more to the Sistine, and found that on earlier visits the ceiling and the Last Judgment had taken his attention too exclusively. Now that he could look away from Michelangelo he become conscious of the claims of Botticelli's frescoes, which represent, in the Florentine school, somewhat the same kind of interest that he had foxmd in 298 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Carpaccio. He became enamoured of Botticelli's Zipporah, and resolved to study the master more closely. On reaching home he had to prepare ' The Eagle's Nest ' for publication ; in the preface he gave special importance to Botticelli, and amplified it in lectures on early engraving, that autumn ;* in which he quoted with appreciation the passage on the Venus Anadyomene from Mr. Pater's 'Studies in the Renaissance' just published. This sudden enthusiasm about an unknown painter amused the Oxford public : and it became a standing joke among the profane to ask who was Ruskin's last great man. It was in answer to that, and in expression of a truer under- standing than most Oxford pupils attained, that BourdiUon of Worcester wrote on 'the Ethereal Ruskin,' — that was Carlyle's name for himf : — ' To us this star or that seems bright, And oft some headlong meteor's flight Holds for awhile our raptured sight. ' But he discerns each noble star ; The least is only the most far, Whose worlds, may be, the mightiest are.' The critical value of this course however, to a student of art- history, is impaired by his using as illustrations of Botticelli, and of the manner of engraving which he took for standard, certain plates which were erroneously attributed, and impres- sions of them which perhaps misrepresent their original con- dition, as intended by the artist. ' It is strange,' he wrote in despair to Professor Norton, ' that I hardly ever get anything stated without some grave mistake, however true in my main discourse.' But in this case a fate stronger than he had taken him unawares. The circumstances do not extenuate the error * 'Ariadne Florentina,' delivered on Nov. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 and Dec. V, and repeated on the following Thursdays. Mr. Buskin's first mention of Botticelli was in the course on Landscape, Lent Term, 1871. t In a copy of ' The Early Kings of Norway ' is this inscription : ' To my dear and ethereal Buskin, whom God preserve. Chelsea, 4 May 1875.' The signature alone is in Carlyle's hand. OXFORD TEACHING 299 of the Professor, but they explain the difficulties under which his work was done. For on his return to England this August, 1872, an event had happened, too important in its consequences to be left unnoticed, though too painful for more than a passing allusion. Many of his readers know, and many more must suspect, that there was some reason for his being ' always unhappy,' — that something at this period came to a crisis, that it turned out unfortunately, and wrecked, ' on a low lee shore,' a career which though stormy had been prosperous, and was now approaching the desired haven. The cloud that rested on his own life was, without doubt, the result of a strange and wholly unexpected tragedy in another's. It was an open secret — his attachment to a lady, who had been his pupil, and was now generally understood to be his fiancee. She was far younger than he ; but at fifty-three he was not an old man ; and the friends who fully knew and imderstood the affair favoured his intentions, and joined in the hope, and in auguries for the happiness which he had been so long waiting for, and so richly deserved. But now that it came to the point the lady finally decided that it was impossible. He was not at one with her in religious matters. He could speak lightly of her Evangelical creed — it seemed he scoffed in ' Fors ' at her faith. She could not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. To her, the alternative was plain ; the choice was terrible : yet, having once seen her path, she turned resolutely away. Three years after, as she lay dying, he begged to see her once more. She sent to ask whether he could yet say that he loved God better than he loved her ; and when he said ' No,' her door was closed upon him for ever. Meanwhile, in the bitterest despair he sought refuge, as he had done before, in his work. He accepted the lesson, though he, too, could not recant ; still he tried to correct his apparent levity in the renewed seriousness and more earnest tone of 'Fors,' speaking more plainly and more simply, but without 300 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN concession. He wrote on the next Christmas Eve to an Aberdeen Bible- class teacher : — ' If you care to give your class a word directly from me, say to them that they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble themselves about what they ought not to do, but about what they ought to do. The condemnation given from the Judgment Throne — most solemnly described — is all for the undones and not for the dories. People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong ; but unless they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and the degree does not matter. ' Make your young hearers resolve to be honest in their work in this life. Heaven will take care of them for the other.' That was all he could say: he did not Tenow there was another life : he hoped there was : and yet, if he were not a saint or a Christian, was there any man in the world who was nearer to the kingdom of heaven than this stubborn heretic? His heretical attitude was singular. He was just as far removed from adopting the easy antagonism of science to religion as from siding with religion against science. In a paper singularly interesting — and in his biography important — on the ' Nature and Authority of Miracle,' read to the Metaphysical Society (Feb. 11th, 1873), he tried to clear up his position. ' The phenomena of the universe,' he said, ' with which we are acquainted, are assumed to be, under general conditions, constant, but to be maintained in that constancy by a supreme personal mind ; and it is farther supposed that, under par- ticular conditions, this ruling Person interrupts the constancy of these phenomena, in order to establish a particular relation with inferior creatures.' He thought that the religious mind was sometimes hasty in claiming that miracles were worked for private advantage^but he believed that miracles have happened and do happen. 'A human act may be super- doggish, and a divine act super-human, yet all three acts absolutely natural. . . . We can only look for an imperfect OXFORD TEACHING 801 and interrupted, but may surely insist on an occasional, manifestation of miraculous credentials by every minister of religion. . . . " These signs shall follow them that believe " are words which admit neither of qualification nor misunder- standing ; and it is far less arrogant in any man to look for such Divine attestation of his authority as a teacher, than to claim, without it, any authority to teach. And assuredly it is no proof of any unfitness or unwisdom in such expectations that, for the last thousand years, miraculous powers seem to have been withdrawn from, or at least, indemonstrably pos- sessed by, a church which, having been again and again warned by its Master that Riches were deadly to Religion, and Love essential to it, has nevertheless made wealth the reward of theological learning, and controversy its occupation.' With that year expired the term for which he had been elected to the Slade Professorship, and in January 1873 he was re-elected. In his first three years he had given five courses of lectures designed to introduce an encyclopaedic review and reconstruction of all he had to say upon art. Beginning with general principles, he had proceeded to their application in history, by tracing certain phases of Greek sculpture, and by contrasting the Greek and the Gothic spirit as shown in the treatment of landscape, from which he went on to the study of early engraving. The application of his principles to theory was made in the course on Science and Art (' The Eagle's Nest '). Now, on his re-election, he proceeded to take up these two sides of his subject, and to illustrate his view of the right way to apply science to art, by a course on Birds, in Nature, Art and Mythology, and next year by a study of Alpine forms. The historical side was continued with lectiu-es on Niccola Pisano and early Tuscan sculpture, and in 1874< with an important, though unpub- lished, course on Florentine Art. It is to this cycle of lectures that we must look for that matured Ruskinian theory of art which his early works do not reach ; and which his writings between 1860 and 1870 do not touch. Though the Oxford lectures are only a frag- 302 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ment of what he ought to have done, they should be sufficient to a careful reader; though their expression is sometimes' obscured by diffuse treatment, they contain the root of the matter, thought out for fifteen years since the close of the more brilliant, but less profound, period of 'Modern Painters \ The course on Birds* was given in the drawing school at the University Galleries. The room was not large enough for the numbers that crowded to hear Professor Ruskin, and each of these lectures, like the previous and the following courses, had to be repeated to a second audience. Great pains had been given to their preparation — much greater than the easy utterance and free treatment of his theme led his hearers to believe. For these lectures and their sequel, pub- lished as 'Love's Meinie," he collected an enormous number of skins — to compare the plumage and wings of different species ; for his work was with the outside aspect and structure of birds, not with their anatomy. He had models made, as large as swords, of the different quill-feathers, to experiment on their action and resistance to the air. He got a valuable series of drawings by H. S. Marks, R.A., and made many careful and beautiful studies himself of feathers and of birds at the Zoological Gardens, and the British Museum ; and after all, he had to conclude his work saying, ' It has been throughout my trust that if death should write on these, " What this man began to build, he was not able to finish," God may also write on them, not in anger, but in aid, " A stronger than he cometh." ' Two of the lectures on birds were repeated at Etonf before the boys' Literary and Scientific Society and their friends; and between this and 1880 Mr. Ruskin often went to address the same audience, with the same interest in young people that had taken him in earlier years to Woolwich. After a long vacation at Brantwpod, the first spent there, he went up to give his course on Early Tuscan Art (' Val * March 15, May 2 and 9 ; repeated March 19, May 5 and 12, 1873. t May 10 and 17. OXFORD TEACHING 303 d'Amo ').* The lectures were printed separately and sold at the conclusion, and the first numbers were sent to Carlyle, whose unabated interest in his friend's work was shown in his letter of Oct. 31st: — 'After several weeks of eager expec- tation I received, morning before yesterday, the sequel to your kind little note, in the shape of four bright quarto lectures (forwarded by an Aylesbury printer) on the His- torical and Artistic Development of Val d'Arno. Many thanks to you for so pleasant and instructive a gift. The work is full of beautiful and delicate perceptions, new ideas, both new and true, which throw a brilliant illumination over that important piece of History, and awake fresh curiosities and speculations on that and on other much wider subjects. It is all written with the old nobleness and fire, in which no other living voice, to my knowledge, equals yours. Perge, jierge ; — and, as the Irish say, " more power to your elbow !" I have yet read this " Val d'Arno " only once. Froude snatched it away from me yesterday; and it has then to go to my brother at Dumfries. After that I shall have it back.'' . . . During that summer and autumn Mr. Ruskin suffered from nights of sleeplessness or unnaturally vivid dreams, and days of unrest and feverish energy, alternating with intense fatigue. The eighteen lectures in less than six weeks, a ' combination of prophecy and play-acting,' as Carlyle had called it in his own case, and the unfortunate discussion with an old-fashioned economist who undertook to demolish Ruskinism without understanding it, added to the causes of which we are already aware, brought him to New Year 1874!, in ' failing strength, care, and hope.' He sought quiet at the seaside, but found modem hotel-life intolerable ; he went back to town and tried the pantomimes for distraction, — saw Kate Vaughan in Cinderella, and Violet Cameron in Jack in the Box, over and over again, and found himself ' now hopelessly a man of the world ! — of that woeful outside one, I mean. It is now Sun- day ; half-past eleven in the morning. Everybody else is * On Mondays and Thursdays, Oct. 21, 23, 27, 30, Nov. 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, 20 ; repeated on the Wednesdays and Fridays following. 304 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN gone to church — and I am left alone with the cat, in the world of sin.' Thinking himself better, he went to Oxford, and announced a coiurse on Alpine form ; but after a week was obliged to retreat and go home to Coniston, still hoping to return and give his lectures. But it was no use. The gloom without deepened the gloom within ; and he took the wisest course in trying Italy, alone this time with his old servant Crawley. The greater part of 1874 was spent abroad — first travelling through Savoy and by the Riviera to Assisi, where he fell dangerously ill again, as at Matlock in 1871. He dreamt in his illness that they had made him a brother of the third degree of the order off St. Francis — a fancy that took strong hold of his mind ; and he wrote his ' Fors' for May under great temptation to follow St. Francis, not in adopting his creed, but in imitating his renunciation. But saving commonsense reminded him of his duties to his pupils at Oxford, and he contented himself with playing at monks with the last sur- vivors of the great Franciscan convent. He wrote to Miss S. Beever : — ' The Sacristan gives me my coffee for lunch in his own little cell, looking out on the olive woods ; then he tells me stories of conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the sacristy and have a reverent little poke-out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will ! Things that are only shown twice in the year or so, with fumigation ! all the congregation on their knees — and the sacristan and I having a great heap of them on the table at once, like a dinner service ! I really looked with great respect on St. Francis's old camel-hair dress.' Thence he went to visit Mrs. and Miss Yule at Palermo, deeply interested in Scylla and Charybdis, Etna and the metopes of Selinus. His interest in Greek art had been shown, not only in a course of lectures, but in active support to archaeological explorations. He said once, 'I believe OXFORD TEACHING 805 heartily in diggings, of all sorts.' Meeting General L. P. di Cesnola and hearing of the wealth of ancient remains in Cyprus then newly discovered, Mr. Ruskin placed J'lOOO at his disposal. In spite of the confiscation of half the treasure- trove by the local Government, General di Cesnola was able, in April 1875, to announce that he had shipped a cargo of antiquities, including many vases, teiTa-cottas, and fragments of sculpture, which proved most valuable as illustrations of the growth of Greek art from the earliest Egypto- Assyrian form into the later periods. The landscape of Theocritus and the remains of ancient glories roused him to energetic sketching — a sign of returning strength, which continued when he reached Rome, and enabled him to make a very fine copy of Botticelli's Zipporah, and other details of the Sistine frescoes. The account of this joiu'ney can be gathered in more detail than we can spare it here, in ' Hortus Inclusus ^ and ' Fors.' Late in October he reached England, just able to give the promised Lectures on Alpine forms,* — ^I remember his curious attempt to illustrate the ndve-masses by pouring flour on a model ; — and a second course on the Aesthetic and Mathe- matic schools of Florence jf and a lecture on Botticelli at Eton, of which tlie Literary and Sc^pntific Society's minute- book contains the following report : — ' On Saturday, Dec. 12th (1874), Professor Ruskin lectured before a crowded, influential and excited audience, which comprised our noble Society and a hundred and thirty gentle- men and ladies, who eagerly accepted an invitation to hear Professor Ruskin " talk " to us on Botticelli. ' It is utterly impossible for the unfortunate secretary of the Society to transmit to writing even an abstract of this address; and it is some apology for him when beauty of expression, sweetness of voice, and elegance in imagery defy the utmost efforts of the pen.' Just before leaving for Italy he had been told that the * Oct. 27, 30 ; Nov. 3 and 6, 1874. + Nov. 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27 ; Dec. 1 and 4, 1874 20 306 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Royal Institute of British Architects intended to present him with their Gold Medal in acknowledgment of his services to the cause of architecture ; and during his journey official announcement of the award reached him. He dictated from Assisi, where he was at the moment (June 12, 1874) seriously ill, a letter to Sir Gilbert Scott, explaining why he declined the honour intended him. He said in effect that if it had been offered at a time when he had been writing on architec- ture it would have been welcome ; but it was not so now that he felt all his efforts to have been in vain and the profession as a body engaged in work — such as the ' restoration ' of ancient buildings — with which he had no sympathy. ' That I have myself failed, I have, as you tell me, again and again confessed. That I have made the most fatal mistakes, I have also confessed. That I have received no help, but met the most scornful opposition in every effort I have ever made which came into collision with the pecuniary interests of modern builders, may, perhaps in a degree more than I know, have occasioned my failure.' It had been represented to him that his refusal to accept a Royal Medal would be a reflection upon the Royal donor. To which he replied, 'Having entirely loyal feelings towards the Queen, I will trust to her Majesty's true interpretation of my conduct ; but if formal justification of it be necessary for the public, would plead that if a Peerage or Knighthood may without disloyalty be refused, surely much more the minor grace proceeding from the monarch may be without impropriety declined by any of her Majesty's subjects who wish to serve her without reward, under the exigency of peculiar circumstances.' It was only the term before that Prince Leopold had been at Oxford, a constant attendant on Mr. Ruskin's lectures, and a visitor to his drawing school. The gentle Prince, with his instinct for philanthropy, was not to be deterred by the utterances of ' Fors ' from respecting the genius of the Pro- fessor ; and the Professor, with his old-world, cavalier loyalty, readily returned the esteem and affection of his new pupil. A sincere friendship was formed, lasting until the Prince's OXFORD TEACHING 807 death, which nobody lamented more bitterly than the man who had found so much in him and hoped so much from him. At the end of the next summer term (June 1875) Princess Alice and her husband, with Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, were at Oxford. Mr. Ruskin had just made arrangements com- pleting his gifts to the University galleries and schools. The Royal party showed great interest in the Professor and his work. The Princess, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and Prince Leopold acted as witnesses to the deed of gift ; and Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold accepted the trusteeship. With all the Slade Professor's generosity, the Ruskin draw- ing school, founded in these fine, galleries to which he had so largely contributed, in a palatial hall handsomely furnished, and hung with Tintoret and Luini, Bume-Jones and Rossetti, and other rare masters, ancient and modem ; with the most interesting examples to copy — at the most convenient of desks, we may add — ^yet in spite of it all, the drawing school was not a popular institution. When the Professor was per- sonally teaching, he got some fifteen or twenty — if not to attend, at any rate to join. But whenever the chief attrac- tion could not be counted on, the attendance sank to an average of two or three. The cause was simple. An under- graduate is supposed to spend his morning in lectures, his afternoon in taking exercise, and his evening in college. There is simply no time in his scheme for going to a drawing school. If it were recognised as part of the cm-riculum, if it counted in any way along with other studies, or contributed to a ' school ■■ akin to that of music, practical art might become teachable at Oxford; and Professor Ruskin's gifts and endowments — to say nothing of his hopes and plans — Would not be wholly in vain. It could not be hid, also, that Professor Ruskin's heart was elsewhere, though he put so much work — and money — into the foundation of a drawing school : as it were, to excuse his waning interest in art-teaching, and growing disbelief in the value of lectures. He found, as he said to a Glasgow man 20—2 808 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN who invited him to hold forth there, that everybody wanted to hear — nobody to read — nobody to think ; ' To be excited for an hour, and, if possible, amused ; to get the knowledge it has cost a man half his life to gather, first sweetened up to make it palatable, and then kneaded into the smallest possible pills — and to swallow it homoeopathically and be wise. ... It is not to be done. A living comment quietly given to a class on a book they are earnestly reading — this kind of lecture is eternally necessary and wholesome.' He really wanted to be the guide, philosopher and friend of some of those ' worth having in any way — of temper to make good growth of : ' and to attract — not the would-be amateurs and dilettanti, or the academically and profession- ally successful men — ^but those who were going to be the real thinkers and workers. As he could not make the undergraduates draw, he made them dig. He had noticed a very bad bit of road on the Hinksey side, and heard that it was nobody's business to mend it : meanwhile the farmers' carts and casual pedestrians were bemired. He sent for his gardener Downes, who had been foreman of the street-sweepers ; laid in a stock of picks and shovels ; took lessons in stone -breaking himself, and called on his friends to spend their recreation times in doing something useful. In spite of a good deal of ridicule, some- thing useful was actually done. More picks were broken and more time was lost than a regular business-contractor would have liked : but the men had their lesson and the cottagers their road. It was maliciously said that the 'Hinksey diggings' were abandoned because the rustics jeered at the diggers. The work was stopped when the work was finished ; it was no part of the scheme to take all the bad roads of the county off the Surveyor's hands. Of jeers, none were offered that I remembei- : I recollect an oration of encouragement and thanks from one of the farmers — who explained the reason why the road was neglected, and described the rights accruing to us by law or by custom, for keeping it up. I believe we were entitled to graze a cow on a common — or OXFORD TEACHING 809 something of the sort : at the time, however, we did not value the privilege as we ought, and I am afraid it was we who jeered at the rustic : the Professor being absent — ^be it imderstood. Many of the disciples met at the weekly open breakfasts at the Professor's rooms in Corpus ; and he was glad of a talk to them on other things beside drawing and digging. Some were attracted chiefly by the celebrity of the man, or by the curiosity of his humorous discourse ; but there were a few who partly grasped one side or other of his mission and character. The most brilliant undergraduate of the time, seen at this breakfast table, but not one of the diggers, was W. H. Mallock, afterwards widely known as the author of ' Is Life Worth Living!*' He was the only man, Professor Ruskin said, who really understood him — referring to ' The New Republic' But while Mallock saw the reactionary and pessimistic side of his Oxford teacher, there was a progr^sist and optimistic side which does not appear in his ' Mr. Herbert.' That was discovered by another man whose career, short as it was, proved even more influential. Arnold Toynbee was one of the Professor's warmest admirers and ablest pupils : and in his philanthropic work the teaching of • Unto this Last ' and ' Fors ' was illustrated — not exclusively — ^but truly. ' No true disciple of mine will ever be a Ruskinian ' (to quote ' St. Mark's Rest ';) ' he will follow, not me, but the instincts of his own soul, and the guidance of its Creator.' Like all energetic men, Mr. Ruskin was fond of setting other people to work. One of his plans was to form a little library of standard books (' Bibiiotheca Pastorum ') suitable for the kind of people who, he hoped, would join or work under his St. George's Company. The first book he chose was the ' Economist ' of Xenophon, which he asked two of his young friends to translate. To them and their work he would give his afternoons in the rooms at Corpus, with curious patience in the midst of pre-occupying labour and severest trial ; for just then he was lecturing at the London 810 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Institution on the Alps* — treading a paper to the Meta, physical Societyf — writing the Academy Notes of 1875, and ' Proserpina,' etc. — as well as his regular work at ' Fors,' and the St. George's Company was then taking definite form ; — and all the, while the lady of his love was dying under the most tragic circumstances, and he forbidden to approach her. At the end of May she died. On the 1st of June the Royal party honoured the Slade Professor with their visit — little knowing how valueless to him such honours had become. He went northj and met his translators at Brantwood to finish the Xenophon, — and to help dig his harbour and cut coppice in his wood. He prepared a preface ; but the next term was one of greater pressure, with the twelve lectures on Sir Joshua Reynolds to deliver. He wrote, after Christmas : — ' Now that I have got my head fairly into this Xenophon business, it has expanded into a new light altogether ; and I think it would be absurd in me to slur over the life in one paragra ph. A hundred things have come into my head as I arrange the dates, and I think I can make a much better thing of it — with a couple of days' work. My head would not work in town — merely turned from side to side — never nodded (except sleepily). I send you the proofs just to show you I'm at work. I'm going to translate all the story of Delphic answer before Anabasis : and his speech after the sleepless night.' Delphic answers — ^for he was just then brought into con- tact with ' spiritualism '; and sleepless nights — for the excite- ment of overwork was telling upon him — were becoming too frequent in his own experience; and yet he could stop to explain himself, with forbearance, in answer to remarks on the aforesaid proofs : — ' I had no notion you felt that flaw so * ' The Simple Dynamic Conditions of Glacial Action among the Alps,' March 11, 1875. t 'Social Policy based on Natural Selection,' May 11. J On a posting tour through Yorkshire. He made three such tours in 1875 — southward in January, northward in June and July, and southward in September : and another northward in April and May, 1876. OXFORD TEACHING 811 seriously, or would have written at once. I should never call inspired prophecy " Classical," — nor the Sermon on the Mount — nor the like of it. All inspired writing stands on a nohler authority. " Hail thou that art highly favoured " does not contain constant truth, for all, — ^but instant truth — ^for Mary. If we criticise it as language, or " Scripture ■" writing — we must do so in its Greek or Roman words. But " quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit Ab Dis plura feret " is classic, Eternal truth, in the best possible words. Whereas, " if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out " is not constant tinith unless received in a certain temper and admitting certain conditions. It is then much more than constant truth. Scripture and Writing — Picture and Painting are always used by me as synonymous terms.' The lectures on Reynolds went off with iclat,* in spite of less pains bestowed on their preparation. The brilliancy of rhetoric, the magic of oratory, the astonishing reaches of thought, were utterly unlike the teaching of the scribes or Pharisees of modem times. It was no imitable trick of in- tellectual power which transmuted the scribbled jottings of his MS. for this series into the magnificent flow of rolling paragraph and rounded argument, that thrilled a captious audience with unwonted emotion, and almost persuaded many a careless or cynic hearer to abjure his worship of muscle or of brain for the nobler gospel of ' the Ethereal Ruskin.' In spite of strangeness, and a sense of antagonism to his surroundings, which grew from day to day, he did useful work which none other could do in the University, and wielded an enormous influence for good. That this was then acknowledged was proved by his re-election, early in 1876 : but his third term of three years was a time of weakened health. The cause of it, the greatest sorrow of his life, we have just revealed. At the time, the public put it down to disappointed egotism, or whatever they fancied. But re- peated absence from his post and inability to fulfil his duties made it obviously his wisest course, at the end of that third term, to resign the Slade Professorship. * Nov. 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, and 27 ; 1875. CHAPTER IV. BT. GEORGE AND ST. MARK. (1875-1877.) ' A curious volume, patch'd and torn, That all day long, from earliest morn, Had taken captive her two eyes Among its golden broideries ; Perplexed her with a thousand things,— The stars of Heaven, and angels' wings, Moses' breastplate, and the seven Candlesticks John saw in Heaven, The winged lion of St. Mark, And the Covenantal Ark.' Keats. IN the book his Bertha of Canterbury was reading at twi- light on the Eve of St. Mark, Keats might have been describing 'Fors.'' Among its pages, fascinating with their golden broideries of romance and wit, perplexing with mystic vials of wrath as well as all the Seven Lamps and Shekinah of old and new Covenants commingled, there was gradually unfolded the plan of ' St. George's Work.' The scheme was not easy to apprehend ; it was essentially different from anything then known, though superficially like several bankrupt Utopias. Mr. Ruskin did not want to found a phalanstery, or to imitate Robert Owen or the Shakers. That would have been practicable — and useless. He wanted much more. He aimed at the gradual intro- duction of higher aims into ordinary life : at giving true refinement to the lower classes, true simplicity to the upper. He proposed that idle hands should reclaim waste lands; ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 313 that healthy work and country homes should be offered to townsfolk who would 'come out of the gutter.' He asked landowners and employers to furnish opportunities for such reforms ; — which would Involve no elaborate organization nor unelastic rules ; — simply the one thing needful, the refusal of Commercialism. As before, he scorned the idea that real good could be done by political agitation. Any government would work, he said, if it were an efficient government. No government was efficient unless it saw that every one had the necessaries of life, for body and soul ; and that every one earned them by some work or other. Capital — that is, the means and material of labour, should therefore be in the hands of the Government, not in the hands of individuals : this reform would result easily and necessarily from the forbidding of loans on interest. Personal property would still be in private hands; but as it could not be invested and turned into capital, it would necessarily be restricted to its actual use, and great accumulation would be valueless. This is, of course, a very sketchy statement of the ground- work of ' Fors,' but to most readers nowadays as comprehen- sible as, at the time of its publication, it was incomprehensible. For when, long after 'Fors' had been written, Mr. Ruskin found other writers advocating the same principles and calling themselves Socialists, he said that he too was a Socialist. But the Socialists of various sects have complicated, and sometimes confused, their simple fundamental principles with various ways and means; to which Mr. Ruskin could not agree. He had his own ways and means. He had his private ideals of life, which he expounded, along with his main doctrine. He thought, justifiably, that theory was useless without practical example ; and so he founded St. George's Company (in 1877 called St. George's Guild) as his illustration. The Guild grew out of his call, in 1871, for adherents: and by 1875 began to take definite form. Its objects were 314 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to set the example of a common capital as opposed to a National debt^and of co-operative labour as opposed to com- petitive struggle for life. Each member was required to do some work for his living — without too strict limits as to the kind — and to practise certain precepts of religion and morality, broad enough for general acceptance. He was also required to obey the authority of the Guild, and to contribute a tithe of his income to a common fund, for various objects. These objects were — first : to buy land for the agricultural members to cultivate, paying their rent, not to the other members, but to the company; not refusing machinery, but preferring manual labour. Next, to buy mills and factories, to be like- wise owned by the Guild and worked by members — using water power in preference to steam (steam at first not for- bidden) — and making the lives of the people employed as well spent as might be, with a fair wage, healthy work, and so forth. The loss on starting was to be made up from the Guild store, but it was anticipated that the honesty of the goods turned out would ultimately make such enterprises pay, even in a commercial world. Then, for the people employed and their families, there would be places of recrea- tion and instruction, supplied by the Guild, and intended to give the agricultural labourer or mill-hand, trained from infancy in Guild schools, some insight into Literature, Science and Art — and tastes which his easy position would leave him free to cultivate. So far the plan was simple. It was not a colony — but merely the working of existing industries in a certain way. Anticipating further development of the scheme, Mr. Ruskin looked forward to a guild coinage, as pretty as the Florentines had ; a costume as becoming as the Swiss : and other Platonic- ally devised details, which were not the essentials of the pro- posal, and never came into operation. But some of his plans were actually realised. The chief objects of 'St. George^ come under three heads, as we have just noticed : agricultural, industrial, and educa- tional. The actual schools would not be needed until the ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 815 farms and mills had been so far established as to secure a permanent attendance. But meanwhile provision was being made for them, both in literature and in art. The ' Biblio- theca Pastorum ' was to be a comprehensive little library — far less than the 100 books of the Pall Mall Gazette — and yet bringing before the St. George's workman standard and serious writing of all times. It was to include, in separate volumes, the Books of Moses and the Psalms of David and the Revela- tion of St. John. Of Greek, the Xenophon, and Hesiod, which Mr. Ruskin undertook to translate into prose. Of Latin, the first two Georgics and sixth .^Eneid of Virgil, in Gawain Douglas' translation. Dante ; Chaucer, excluding the ' Can- terbury Tales ' — but including the ' Romance of the Rose '; Gotthelf 's ' Ulric the Farmer,' from the French version which Mr. Ruskin had loved ever since his father used to read it him on their first tours in Switzerland ; and an early English history by an Oxford friend. Later were published Sir Philip Sidney's psalter, and Mr. Ruskin's own biography of Sir Her- bert Edwardes, under the title of ' A Knight's Faith.' These books were for the home library; reference works were bought to be deposited in central libraries, along with objects of art and science. It was not intended to keep the Guild property centralised ; but rather to spread it, as its other work was spread, broad-cast. A number of books and other objects were bought with the Guild money, and lent or given to various schools and colleges and institutions where work akin to the objects of the Guild was being done. But for the time Mr. Ruskin fixed upon Sheffield as the place of his first Guild Museum, — being the home of the typical English in- dustry — central to all parts of England, near beautiful hill- country, and yet not far from a number of manufacturing towns in which, if St. George's work went on, supporters and recruits might be found. The people of Sheffield were already, in 1875, building a museum of their own, and naturally thought that the two might be conveniently worked together. But that was not at all what Mr. Ruskin wished. Not only was his museum 316 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to be primarily the storehouse of the Guild, rather than one among many means of popular education; but the objects which he intended to place there were not such as the public expected to see. He had no interest in a vast accumulation of articles of all kinds. He wanted fo provide for his friends' common treasury a few definitely valuable and interesting examples, — interesting to the sort of people that he hoped would join the Guild or be bred up in it ; and valuable according to his own standard and experience. The complete sets of stuffed animals or fossils, for example, that are found in any provincial museum ; the ordinary books and pictures and casts of the town library and gallery : all that can be readily seen elsewhere — ^not to say all that is of doubtful ■ worth, — was to be excluded. Fine specimens of natural pro- ducts, such as precious stones and the more beautiful minerals ; casts from the best and least-known sculpture ; expensive reference books; a few genuine pictures by old masters; plenty of good copies, such as could now be pro- duced by artists whom he had trained, and records of archi- tecture which was rapidly passing away : — every separate object separately noteworthy — this was the kind of material which would interest the mind and stimulate the imagination, more than a wearisome multitude of mediocrities. In September 1875, while travelling by short stages from Brantwood to London, Mr. Ruskin stayed a couple of days at Sheffield to inspect a cottage at Walkley, in the outskirts of the town, and to make arrangements for founding the museum — humbly to begin with, but hoping for speedy in- crease. He engaged as curator, at a salary of ^£"40 a year and free lodging on the premises, his former pupil at the Working Men's College, Henry Swan, who had done occa- sional work for him in drawing and engraving. Swan was a Quaker, and a remarkable man in his way; enthusiastic in his new vocation, and interested in the social questions which were being discussed in ' Fors.' Under his care the Museum remained at Walkley, accumulating material in the tiny and hardly accessible cottage, — being so to speak in embryo, until ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 817 the way should be clear for its removal or enlargement, which took place in 1890. When Mr. Ruskin came back on his posting tour of April 1876, he stayed again at Sheffield, to meet a few friends of Swan's, — Secularists, Unitarians, and Quakers, who professed Communism. They had an interview (repoiied in the Shef- field Daily Telegraph, April 28th, 1876), which brought out rather curiously the points of difference between their opinions and his. They refused to join the Guild because they would not promise obedience, and help in its objects. Mr. Ruskin, however, was willing to advance theirs. A few weeks after- wards he invited them to choose a piece of ground for their Communist experiment. They chose a farm of over thirteen acres at Abbeydale, which the Guild bought in 1877 at a cost of ,iP2,287 16*. Qd. for their use, — ^the communists agree- ing to pay the money back in instalments, without interest, by the end of seven years : when the farm should be their own. When it was actually in their hands they found that they knew nothing of farming, — and besides, were making money at trades they did not really care to abandon. They engaged a man to work the farm for them : and then another. Tliey were told that the land they had chosen was — for farming purposes — worthless. Their capital ran short ; and they tried to make money by keeping a tea-garden. The original pro- poser of the scheme wrote to Mr. Ruskin, who sent ^100 : — • the others returned the money. Mr. Ruskin declined to take it back, and began to perceive that the Communists were trifling. They had made no attempt to found the sort of community they had talked about; neither their plans nor his were being carried out. So when the original proposer and a friend of his named Riley approached Mr. Ruskin again, they found little difficulty in persuading him to try them as managers. The rest, finding themselves turned out by Riley, vainly demanded ' explanations ' from Mr. Ruskin, who then was drifting into his first attack of brain fever. So they declined further connection with the farm ; the Guild accepted 318 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN their resignation, and undertook for the time nothing more than to get the land into good condition again. This was not the only land held by the St. George's Guild. It acquired the acre of ground on which the Sheffield Museum stood, and a cottage with a couple of acres near Scarborough. Two acres of rock and moor at Barmouth had been given by Mrs. Talbot in 1872 ; and in 1877 Mr. George Baker, then Mayor of Birmingham, gave twenty acres of woodland at Bewdley in Worcestershire, to which at one time Mr. Ruskin thought of moving the museum, before the present building was found for it by the Sheffield Corporation at Meersbrook Park. On the resignation of the original Trustees, in 1877, Mr. Q. Talbot and Mr. Baker were offered the trust : and on the death of Mr. Talbot the trust was accepted by Mr. John Henry Chamberlain. After he died it was taken by Mr. George Thomson of Huddersfield, whose woollen mills, trans- formed into a co-operative concern, though not directly in connection with the Guild, have given a widely known ex- ample of the working of principles advocated in ' Fors.' In the middle of 1876, Mr. Egbert Rydings, the auditor of the accounts which, in accordance with his principles of ' glass pockets,' Mr. Ruskin published in ' Fors,' proposed to start a homespun woollen industry at Laxey, in the Isle of Man, where the old women who formerly spun with the wheel had been driven by failure of custom to work in the mines. The Guild built him a water mill, and in a few years the demand for a pure, rough, durable cloth, created by this and kindred attempts, justified the enterprise. Mr. Ruskin set the example, and had his own grey clothes made of Laxey stuffs — whose chief drawback is that they never wear out. A little later a similar work was done, with even greater success, by Mr. Albert Fleming, another member of the Guild ; who introduced old-fashioned spinning and hand-loom weaving at Langdale. The new material was speedily taken up by the public, not only as a staple of domestic use, but as a fine material for embroidery and lace-work : and employment was found for a great number of idle hands. Later, the Ruskin ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 819 Linen Industry, as it is called, was earned on at Keswick under Miss Twelves ; the Langdale Linen, with headquarters at Elterwater, Ambleside, was taken over by Miss Mary Augusta Smith ; and similar enterprises are prosecuted in other places, with no signs of failure: showing that the seed of ' Fors ' where it fell on good ground was capable of bearing an abundant harvest. To return from Mr. Ruskin's work to his life. We left him at Sheffield, posting northwards, in April 1876, after his interview with the Communists. The story of that journey was told many years afterwai-ds, at the opening of the new Sheffield museum, by Mr. Arthur Severn, a famous raconteur, whose description of the adventures of their cruise upon wheels includes so bright a picture of Mr. Ruskin, that I must use his words as they were reported on the occasion in the magazine IgdrasU : — . . . ' With the Professor, who dislikes railways very much, it was not a question of travelling by rail. He said, " I will take you in a carriage and with horses, and we will drive the whole way from London to the North of England. And I will not only do that, but I will do the best in my power to get a postilion to ride, and we will go quite in the old- fashioned way." . . . The Professor went so far that he actually built a carriage for this drive. It was a regular posting carriage, with good strong wheels, a place behind for the luggage, and cunning drawers inside it for all kinds of things that we might require on the journey. We started off one fine morning from London — I must say without a postilion — ^but when we arrived at the next town, about twenty miles off, having telegraphed beforehand that we were coming, there was a gorgeous postilion ready with the fresh horses, and we started off in a right style, according to the Professor's wishes. ' After many pleasant days of travelling, we at last arrived at Sheffield, and I well remember that we created no small sensation as we clattered up to the old posting inn. I think it was the King's Head. We stayed a few days, and visited 820 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN the old Museum at Walkley ; and I remember the look lof regret on the Professor's face when he saw how cramped the space was there for the things he had to show. However, with his usual kindliness, he did not say much about it at the time, and he did not complain of the considerable amount of room it was necessary for the curator and his family to take up in that place. We stayed about two days looking at 'the beautiful country, — and I am glad to say there was a good deal still left, — and then the Professor gave orders that the carriage should be got ready to take us on our journey, and that a postilion should be forthcoming, if possible. I re- member leaving the luncheon table and going outside to see if the necessary arrangements were complete. Sure enough, there was the carriage at the door, and a still more gorgeous postilion than any we had had so far on our journey. His riding breeches were of the tightest and whitest I ever saw ; his horses were an admirable pair, and looked like going. A very large crowd had assembled outside the inn, to see what extraordinary kind of mortals could be going to travel in such a way. ' I went to the room where the Professor was still at luncheon, and told him that everything was ready, but that there was a very large Crowd at the door. He seemed rather amused ; and I said, " You know. Professor, I really don't know what the people expect — whether it is a bride and bridegroom, or what." He said, "Well, Arthur, you and Joan shall play at being bride and bridegroom inside the carriage, and I will get on the box." He got Mrs. Severn on his arm, and had to hold her pretty tightly as he left the door, because when she saw the crowd outside she tried to beat a retreat. At last he got her into the carriage, I was put in afterwards, and he jumped up on the box. The crowd closed in, and looked at us as if we were a sort of menagerie. I was much amused when I thought how little these eager people knew that the real attraction was on the box ; I felt inclined to put my head out of the window, and say, " My good people, there is the man you should look at, — not us." ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 821 I did not like to do so ; and the Professor gave the word to be off, the postilion cracked his whip, and we went off in grand style, amidst the cheers of the crowd. ' We very soon got to one of the steep hills which seem to abound here, and went up at a hand gallop. Towards the top of it one of the horses turned out to be very restless, and it was evidently a sort of jibber. The gorgeous postilion had great difficulty to control it ; and at last (I hardly like to mention such things), but in his efforts to control this wild Sheffield animal these gorgeous riding trousers went off " pop." They cracked like a sail in a gale of wind. The horse became still more restive, and at last the whole thing came to a standstill. We had to get out, and the Professor got down from the box. ' He treats any little accident like that with the utmost coolness, and he seemed glad of the delay, because it enabled him to look at the view, which he was pleased to show us. We turned furtively round every now and then to see how the postilion was going on and what he was doing. He took the saddle off the horse he was riding, and put it on the restive one. We were amused at his cleverness, for whenever he saw we were looking towards him he always managed to get a horse between us and the accident which had happened to his trousers. When everything was ready we got in again, and at last arrived at Brantwood, after a most delightful three weeks and a half of travelling, getting there one sunny afternoon, and hardly knowing how we had reached there, the journey had been so pleasant. The Professor took a chess-board on that occasion, and over some of the long, and to him rather dreary Yorkshire moors, we used to play games at chess.' On one of these posting excursions, they came to Hardraw. (Mrs. Alfred Hunt tells the story in her edition of Turner's ' Richmondshire '; Mr. Severn's account is somewhat different.) After examining the Fall, Mrs. Severn and Mr. Ruskin left Mr. Severn to sketch, and went away to Hawes to order their '21 322 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN tea. When they were gone, a man who had been standing by came up and asked if that were Professor Ruskin. ' Yes,' said Mr. Severn, ' it was ; he is very fond of the Fall, and much puzzled to know why the edge of the cliff is not worn away by the water, as he expected to find it after so many years.' ' Oh,' said the other, ' there are twelve feet of masonry up there to protect the rock. Fm a native of the place, and know all about it.' ' I wish,' said Mr. Severn, absently, as he went on drawing, ' Mr. Ruskin knew that ; he would be so interested.' And the stranger ran off. When the sketcher came in to tea he felt there was something wrong. ' You're in for it !' said his wife. ' Let us look at his sketch first,' said Mr. Ruskin ; and luckily it was a veiy good one. By and by it all came out ; — ^how the Yorkshire- man had caught the Professor, and eagerly described the horrible Vandalism, receiving in reply some very emphatic language. Upon which he took off his hat and bowed low : ' But, sir,' he faltered, ' the gentleman up there said I was to tell you, and you would be so interested !' The Professor, suddenly mollified, took off his hat in turn, and apologised for his reception of the news : ' but,' said he, ' I shall never care for Hardraw Waterfall again.' ' The Professor,' said Mr. Severn, ' dislikes railways very much :' and on his arrival at Brantwood after that posting journey he wrote a preface to ' A Protest against the Exten- sion of Railways in the Lake District,' by Mr. Robert Somervell. Mr. Ruskin's dislike of railways has been the text of a great deal of misrepresentation, and his use of them, at all, has been often quoted as an inconsistency. As a matter of fact, he never objected to main lines of railway communication ; but he strongly objected, in common with a vast number of people, to the introduction of rail- ways into districts whose chief interest is in their scenery ; especially where, as in the English Lake district, the scenery is in miniature, easily spoiled by embankments and viaducts, and by the rows of ugly buildings which usually grow up round a station ; and where the beauty of the landscape can ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 823 only be felt in quiet walks or drives through it. Many years later, after he had said all he had to say on the subject again and again, and was on the brink of one of his illnesses, he wrote in violent language to a correspondent who tried to 'draw 'him on the subject of another proposed railway to Ambleside. But his real opinions were simple enough, and consistent with a practicable scheme of life — as can be read in the preface to Mr. Somervell's tract, reprinted in ' On the Old Road,' vol. i., p. 682. In August 1876 he left England for Italy. He travelled alone, accompanied only by his new servant Baxter, who had lately taken the place vacated by Crawley, Mr. Ruskin's former valet of twenty years' service. He crossed the Simplon to Venice, where he was welcomed by an old friend, Mr. Rawdon Brown, and a new friend. Prof. C. H. Moore of Harvard. He met two Oxford pupils, Mr. J. Reddie Anderson, whom he set to work on Carpaccio ; and Mr. Whitehead — ' So much nicer they all are,' he wrote in a pri- vate letter, ' than I was at their age ;' — also his pupil Mr. Bunney, at work on copies of pictures and records of archi- tecture, the legacy of St. Mark to St. George. Two young artists were brought into his circle, during that winter — both Venetians, and both singularly interesting men : Giacomo Boni, the capo d' opera of the Ducal Palace, who was doing his best to preserve, instead of ' restoring,' the ancient sculp- tures ; and Angelo Alessandri, a painter of more than usual seriousness of aim and sympathy with the fine qualities of the old masters. Mr. Ruskin had been engaged on a manual of drawing for his Oxford schools, which he now meant to complete in two parts : ' The Laws of Fesole ' — ^teaching the principles of Flo- rentine draughtsmanship; and 'The Laws of Rivo Alto' — about Venetian colour. Passages for this second part were written. But he found himself so deeply interested in the evolution of Venetian art, and in tracing the spirit of the people as shown by the mythology illustrated in the pictures and sculptures, that his practical manual became a sketch of art history, 21—2 324 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ' St. Mark's Rest ' — as a sort of companion to ' Mornings in Florence,' which he had been working at during his last visit to Italy. His intention was to supersede ' Stones of Venice ' by a smaller book, giving more prominence to the ethical side of history, which should illustrate Carpaccio as the most im- portant figure of the transition period, and do away with the exclusive Protestantism of his earlier work. He set himself to this task, with Tintoret's motto — . ' Sempre si fa il mare maggiore,' and worked with feverish energy, recording his progress in letters home (with which the reader may compare letters to Miss Beever in ' Hortus Inclusus,' pages 36-46). ' 13 Nov. — I never was yet, in my life, in such a state of hopeless confusion of letters, drawings and work : chiefly because, of course, when one is old, one's done work seems all to tumble in upon one, and want rearranging, and everything brings a thousand old as well as new thoughts. My head seems less capable of accoimts every year. I can't fix my mind on a sum in addition — it goes off, between seven and nine, into a speculation on the seven deadly sins or the nine muses. My table is heaped with unanswered letters, — MS. of four or five different books at six or seven different parts of each, — sketches getting rubbed out, — others getting smudged in, — parcels from Mr. Brown unopened, parcels _/^ Mr. Moore unsent ; my inkstand in one place, — too probably upset, — my pen in another ; my paper under a pile of books, and my last carefully written note thrown into the waste- paper basket. ' 3 Dec. — I'm having nasty foggy weather just now, — ^but it's better than fog in London, — and I'm really resting a little, and trying not to be so jealous of the flying days. I've a most cumfy room [at the Grand Hotel] — I've gone out of the very expensive one, and only pay twelve francs a day; and I've two windows, one with open balcony and the other covered in with glass. It spoils the look of window dread- fully, but gives me a view right away to Lido, and of the whole sunrise. Then the bed is curtained off from rest of ST. GEORGE AND ST. MARK 325 room like that [sketch of window and room] with fine flour- ishing white and gold pillars — and the black place is where one goes out of the room beside the bed.' ' 9 Dec. — ^I hope to send home a sketch or two which yiH show I'm not quite losing my head yet. ... I must show at Oxford some reason for my staying so long in Venice.' Beside studies in the Chapel of St. George, he copied Car- paccio's 'Dream of St. Ursula' which was taken down — it had been ' skied ' at the Academy until then — and placed in the sculpture gallery; and he laboured to produce a facsimile. ' 24 Dec. — I do think St. Ursula's lips are coming pretty — and her eyelids — ^but oh me, her hair ! Toni, Mr. Brown's gondolier, says she's all right — and he's a grave and close looking judge, you know.' Christmeis Day was a crisis in his life. He was attacked by illness ; severe pain, followed by a dreamy state in which the vividly realized presence of St. Ursula mingled with memories of his dead lady, whose ' spirit ' had been shown him just a year before by a ' medium ' met at a country house. Since then he had watched eagerly for evidences of another life : and the sense of its conceivability grew upon him, in spite of the doubts which he had entertained of the immortality of the soul. At last, after a year's earnest desire for some such assurance, it seemed to come to him. What others call coincidences, and accidents, and states of mind flashed, for him, into importance ; times and seasons, names and symbols, took a vivid meaning. His intense despondency changed for a while into a singular happiness — it seemed a renewed health and strength: and instead of despair, he rejoiced in the conviction of guarding Providences and helpful influences. Readers of 'Fors' had traced for some years back the reawakening of a religious tone, now culminating in a pronoimced mysticism which they could not understand, and in a recantation of the sceptical judgments of his middle period. He found, now, new excellences in the early 326 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Christian painting ; he depreciated Turner and Tintoret, and denounced the frivolous art of the day. He searched the Bible more diligently than ever for its hidden meanings ; and in proportion as he felt its inspiration, he recoiled from the conclusions of modem science, and wrapped the prophet's mantle more closely round him, as he denounced with growing fervour the crimes of our uuhelieving age. CHAPTER V. DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA. (1877-1879.) ' Quam peene furvse regna Proserpinse .... vidimus.' Horace, Od. II. Is. THROUGHOUT Mr. Ruskin's life, but never more than in this period, we have had to trace different interests and lines of work, running at cross purposes, like the * cleavage planes ' he has described in the Alps. To render the mere quantity of detail by which alone, as he says, the size of a subject can be suggested — and yet to keep the breadth of effect, and choose the leading lines that will give the whole truth in its proper relations and perspective, would need a Turner in literary art. We must look back, now and then, to retrace lines of work which have been perforce omitted. In the summer of 1875, while his two pupils were harbour- digging and Xenophon-translating at Brantwood, Mr. Ruskin wrote : — ' I begin to ask myself, with somewhat pressing arithmetic, how much time is likely to be left me, at the age of fifty-six, to complete the various designs for which, until past fifty, I was merely collecting tnaterial. Of these materials I have now enough by me for a most interesting (in my own opinion) history of fifteenth century Florentine Art, in six octavo volumes ; an analysis of the Attic art of the fifth century B.C. in three volumes; an exhaustive history of northern thirteenth- century art, in ten volumes ; a life of Sir Walter Scott, with 328 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN analysis of modem epic art, in seven volumes; a life of Xeno- phon, with analysis of the general principles of education, in ten volumes ; a commentary on Hesiod, with final analysis of the principles of Political Economy, in nine volumes ; and a general description of the geology and botany of the Alps, in twenty-four volumes.' The estimate of volumes was — ^perhaps — in jest ; but the plans for harvesting his material were in earnest. ' Proserpina ' — so named from the Flora of the Greeks, the daughter of Demeter, Mother Earth, — grew out of notes already begun in 1866. It was little like an ordinary botany book ; — that was to be expected. It did not dissect plants ; it did not give chemical or histological analysis : but with bright and curious fancy, with the most ingenious diagrams and perfect drawings — beautifully engraved by Burgess and Allen — illustrated the mystery of growth in plants and the tender beauty of their form. Though this was not science, in strict terms it was a field of work which no one but Mr. Buskin had cultivated. He was helped by a few scientific men like Professor Oliver, who saw a value in his line of thought, and showed a kindly interest in it. ' Deucalion ' — from the mythical creator of human life out of stones — was begun as a companion work : to be published in parts, as the repertory of Oxford lectures on Alpine form, and notes on all kinds of kindred subjects. For instance, before that hasty journey to Sheffield he gave a lecture at the London Institution on 'Precious Stones' (February 17th, repeated March 28th, 1876. A lecture on a similar subject was given to the boys of Christ's Hospital on April 15th). For this lecture, as usual, he sought help from his pupils, and sent a pressing note by the college-messenger one morning to bid one of his younger friends run toi various professors, and make inquiries about etymological aad raineralogical details : — ' What else are the professors there for .?' he would say ; and he would be greatly impressed if we could answer his questions without appeal to the higher powers. The day after the first lecture he wrote : — DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 829 'Those French derivations are Hke them. No authorities on Heraldry are of the slightest value after the fifteenth century — even Guillim is only good for something in the first edition, the rest nowhere. My pearl is all right — I got it from the book of St. Albans, 1480 — but my shield is not absolutely in the old terms. I invent Colom- bin, for the old "plumby," and use "ecarlate" for tenne — mine is to be the norma for St. George's heraldry, not a merely historical summary. I hope to be back on Satur- day evening. . , . The lecture went well and pleased my audience — and pleased myself better than usual in that I really got everything said that I intended, of impor- tance. . . .' This lecture, called ' The Iris of the Earth,' stood first in Part III. of ' Deucalion ' : and the work went on, in studies of the forms of silica, on the lines marked out ten years before in the papers on Banded and Brecciated concretions ; now carried forward with much kind help from the Rev. J. Clifton Ward, of the Geological Survey, and Mr. Henry Willett, F.G.S., of Brighton. On the way home over the Simplon in May and June 1877, travelling first with Signor Alessandri, and then with Mr. G. Allen, Professor Ruskin continued his studies of Alpine flowers for ' Proserpina.' In the autumn he gave a lecture at Kendal (Oct. 1st, repeated at Eton College Dec. 8th) on ' Yewdale and its Streamlets.' * Yewdale 'r— reprinted as Part V. of 'Deucalion' — took an imusual importance in his own mind, not only because it was a great success as a lecture, — ^though some Kendalians complained that there was not enough ' information ' in it : — but because it was the first given since that Christmas at Venice, when a new insight had been granted him, as he felt, into spiritual things, and a new burden laid on him, to with- stand the rash conclusions of ' science falsely so called,' and to preach in their place the presence of God in nature and in man. Writing to Miss Beever about his Oxford course of that 330 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN autumn, 'Readings in Modem Painters,'* he said, on the 2nd December : — ' I gave yesterday the twelfth and last of my course of lectures this term, to a room crowded by six hundred people, two-thirds members of the University, and with its door wedged open by those who could not get in ; this interest of theirs being granted to me, I doubt not, because for the first time in Oxford I have been able to speak to them boldly of immortal life. I intended when I began the course only to have read ' Modem Painters ' to them ; but when I began, some of your favourite bitsf interested the men so much, and brought so much larger a proportion of undergraduates than usual, that I took pains to re-inforce and press them home ; and people say I have never given so useful a course yet. But it has taken all my time and strength.' He wrote again, on Dec. 16th, from Heme Hill : — ' It is a long while since I've felt so good-for-nothing as I do this morning. My very wristbands curl up in a dog's-eared and disconsolate manner ; my little room is all a heap of disorder. I've got a hoarseness and wheezing and sneezing and coughing and choking. I can't speak and I can't think ; I'm miserable in bed and useless out of it ; and it seems to me as if I could never venture, to open a window or go out of a door any more. I have the dimmest sort of diabolical pleasure in thinking how miserable I shall make Susie by telling her all this ; but in other respects I seem entirely devoid of all moral sentiments. I have arrived at this state of things, first by catching cold, and since trying to "amuse myself" for three days.' He goes on to give a list of his amusements — Pick- wick, chivalric romances, the Daily Telegraph, Staunton's games of chess, and finally analysis of the Dock Company's bill of charges on a box from Venice. * Nov. 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 27, 29 and Dea 1, 1877. These lectures were never prepared for publication as a course ;' the last lecture was printed in the Nineteenth Century for January, 1878. t Miss Beever had published early in 1875 the extracts from ' Modem Painters ' ao widely known as ' Frondes Agrestes.' DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 831 Ten days after he wrote from Oxford, in his whimsical style : — ' Yesterday I had two lovely services in my own cathedral. You know the Cathedral of Oxford is the chapel of Christ Church College, and I have my high seat in the chancel, as an honorary student, besides being bred there, and so one is ever so proud and ever so pious all at once, which is ever so nice you know : and my own dean, that's the Dean of Christ Church, who is as big as any bishop, read the services, and the psalms and anthems were lovely ; and then I dined with Henry Acland and his family . . . but I do wish I could be at Brantwood too.' Next day it was ' Cold quite gone.' But he was not to be quit so easily this time of the results of overwork and worry. He had been passing through the unpleasant experience of a misunderstanding with one of his most trusted friends and helpers. His work on behalf of the St. George's Guild had been energetic and sincere : and he had received the support of a number of strangers, among whom were people of re- sponsible station and position. But he was surprised to find that many of his personal friends held aloof. He was still more surprised to learn, on returning from Venice, full of new hope and stronger convictions in his mission, that the caution of one upon whom he had counted as a firm ally had dis- suaded an intending adherent from joining in the work. A man of the world, accustomed to overreach and to be over- reached, would have taken the discovery coolly, and accepted an explanation. But Mr. Ruskin was never a man of the world ; and now, much less than ever. He took it, not as an error, nor even so much as a personal attack, but as treason to the great work of which he felt himself to be the missionary. It chilled his hopes and dashed his zeal : and as it is always the most generous of men whose suspicions, once aroused, are fiercest, he was quite unable to forgive and forget. Throughout the autumn and winter the discovery rankled, and preyed on his mind. As for the sake of absolute candour he had published in ' Fors ' everything that related to the Guild work, — even his own private affairs and 332 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN confessions, whatever they risked,T-he felt that this too must out ; in order that his supporters might judge of his conduct and that nothing affecting the enterprise might be kept back. And so, at Christmas, he sent the correspondence to his printers. Years afterwards, by the intervention of friends, this breach was healed : but what suffiering it cost can be learnt from the sequel. To Mr. Ruskin it was the beginning of the end. His Aberdeen correspondent asked just then for the usual Christmas message to the Bible class : and instead of the cheery words of bygone years, received the couplet from Horace : — ' Inter spem curamque, tiraores inter et iras, Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum.' 'Amid hope and sorrow, amid fear and wrath, believe every Aa.y that has dawned on thee to be thy last.' From Oxford, early in January 1878, he went on a visit to Windsor Castle, whence he wrote : ' I came to see Prince Leopold, who has been a prisoner to his sofa lately, but I trust he is better ; he is very bright and gentle under severe and almost continual pain.' No less gentle, in spite of the severe justice he was inflicting upon himself even more than upon his friend, was the author of ' Fors,' as the letters of the time to his invalid neighbour, in ' Hortus Inclusus ' show. How ready to own himself in the wrong, — at that very moment when he was being pointed at as the most obstinate and egotistic of men, — how placable he really was and open to rebuke, he showed, when, from Windsor, he went to Hawarden. Nearly three years before he had written roughly of Mr. Gladstone ; as a Conservative, he was not predisposed in favour of the leader of the party to whom he attributed most of the evils he was combating. Mr. Gladstone and he had often met, and by no means agreed together in conversa- tion. But this visit convinced him that he had misjudged Mr. Gladstone ; and he promptly made the fullest apology in the current number of 'Fors,' saying that he had written DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 833 under a complete misconception of his character. In re- printing the old pages he not only cancelled the offending peissage, but he left the place blank, with a note in the middle of it, as ' a memorial of rash judgment.' He went slowly northward, seeking rest at Ingleton ; whence he wrote, January 17th : — ' I've got nothing done all the time I've been away but a few mathematical figures [crystallography, no doubt, for " Deucalion "], and the less I do the less I find I can do it ; and yesterday, for the ■ first time these twenty years, I hadn't so much as a " plan " in my head all day.' Arrived at Brantwood, as rest was useless, he tried work. Mr. Willett had asked him to reprint ' The Two Paths,' and he got that ready for press, and wrote a short preface. At Venice, Mr. J. R. Anderson had been working out for him the myths illustrated by Carpaccio in the Chapel of S. Giorgio de' Schiavoni ; and the book had been waiting for Mr. Ruskin's introduction until he was surprised by the publication of an almost identical inquiry by M. Clermont- Ganneau. He tried to fulfil his duty to his pupil by writing the preface immediately ; most sorrowfully feeling the in- adequacy of his strength for the tasks he had laid upon it. He wrote : ' My own feeling, now, is that everything which has hitherto happened to me, and been done by me, whether well or ill, has been fitting me to take greater fortune more prudently, and to do better work more thoroughly. And just when I seem to be coming out of school, — very sorry to have been such a foolish boy, yet having taken a prize or two, and expecting now to enter upon some more serious business than cricket, — I am dismissed by the Master I hoped to serve, with a — " That's all I want of you, sir." ' In such times he found relief by reverting to the past. He wrote in the beginning of Febiniary a paper for the University Magazine on ' My First Editor,' W. H. Harrison, and forgot himself — almost— in bright reminiscences of youthful days and early associations. Next, as Mr. Marcus Huish, who had shown great friendliness and generosity in providing prints for the Sheifield museum, was now proposing to hold an 334 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Exhibition of Mr. Ruskin's ' Turners ■■ at the Fine Art Gal- leries in New Bond Street, it was necessary to arrange the exhibits and to prepare the catalogue. For the next fort- night he struggled on with this labour, and with his last ' Fors ' — the last he was to write in the long series of more than seven years.* How little the thousands who read the preface to his catalogue, with its sad sketch of Turner's fate, and what they supposed to be its 'customary burst of ter- minal eloquence,' understood that it was indeed the cry of one who had been wounded in the house of his friends, and was now believing every day that dawned on him to be his last. He told of Turner's youthful picture of the Coniston Fells and its invocation to the mists of morning, bidding them '.in honour to the world's great Author, rise,' — and then how Turner's ' health, and with it in great degree his mind, failed suddenly with a snap of some vital chord,' after the sunset splendours of his last, dazzling efforts. . . . ' Morning breaks, as I write, along those Coniston Fells, and the level mists, motionless and grey beneath the rose of the moorlands, veil the lower woods, and the sleeping village, and the long lawns by the lake-shore. ' Oh that some one had but told me, in my youth, when all my heart seemed to be set on these colours and clouds, that appear for a little while and then vanish away, how little my love of them would serve me, when the silence of lawn and wood in the dews of morning should be completed ; and all my thoughts should be of those whom, by neither, I was to meet more !' The catalogue was finished, and hurried off to the printers. A week of agitating suspense at home, and then it could no longer be concealed. Rriends and foes alike were startled and saddened with the news of his ' sudden and dangerous illness.' It was some form of inflammation of the brain — ^the result of overwork, but still more immediately of the emotional * ' Fors ' was taken up agaiu, at intervals, later on ; but never with the same purpose and continuity. DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 835 strain from which he had heen suffering. It took him quite at unawares ; for though he knew as well as others that he had lost that peace and strength which he had found in Venice, and that his mind was alternately stimulated to un- wonted activity and depressed into helplessness, yet he had not received definite warning, as from any sort of headache — to which he had always been a stranger — nor from approach to the delirium which now was the chief feature of his disease. On March 4th, the Turner Exhibition opened, and day by day the bulletins from Brantwood announcing his condition were read by multitudes of visitors with eager and sorrowful interest. Newspapers all the world over copied the daily reports : even in the towns of the Far West of America the same telegrams were posted, and they say even a more demonstrative sympathy was shown. Nor was the feeling confined to the English-speaking public. The Oxford Proctor in Convocation pf April 24th, when the patient after the first burst of the storm was slowly drifting back into calmer waters, thought it worth while, in the course of his speech, to men- tion that in Italy, where he had lately been on an Easter vacation tour, he had witnessed a widespread anxiety about Mr. Ruskin, and prayers put up for his recovery : ' Nee multum abfuit quin nuper desideraret Academia morbo letali abreptum Professorem, in sua materie unicum, Joannem Ruskin. " Sed multse urbes et publica vota vicerunt." Neque id indignum memoratu puto quod nuperrime mihi in Italia commoranti contigit videre quanta sollicitudines ob ejus salutem, quantae preces moverentur, in ea terra cujus illeartes et monumenta tam disertissime illustraverit.' By May 10th he was so much better that he could com- plete the catalogue with some gossip about those Alpine drawings of 1842 which he regarded as the climax of Turner''s work. The first — and best in some ways — of the series was the Spliigen, which had been bought by Mr. Munro, of Novar, in the absence of Mr. Ruskin's father ; and now he believed it had been sold lately at Christie's. 836 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Without any word to him, the diligence of kind friends and the help of a wide circle of admirers traced the drawing, and subscribed its price — 1000 guineas, to which Mr. Agnew generously added his commission — and it was presented to Mr. Ruskin as a token of sympathy and respect. It was a timely and very welcome tribute. It showed him that he still had the heart of the public : that they cared for himself, if not for his schemes. He would have preferred support for St. George's work, but he was not insensible to the personal compliment implied, and by way of some answer he spent the first few days of his convalescence in arranging and anno^ tating a series of drawings by himself, and engravings, illus- trating the Turners, to add to his show during the remainder of the season. When they were sent off (early in June) to Bond Street, he left home with the Severns to complete his recovery at Malham. There was another reason why that spontaneous testimonial was welcome at the moment, for a curious and unaccustomed ordeal was impending for his claims as an art critic. On his return from Venice after months of intercourse with the great Old Masters, he found the Grosvenor Gallery just opened for the first time, with its memorable exhibition of the different extra-academical schools. It placed before the public, in sharp contrast, the final outcome of the Pre-Raphaelitism for which he had fought many a year before, and samples of the last new fashion from Paris. The maturer works of Mr. Burne-Jones had been practically unseen by the public, and Mr. Ruskin took the opportunity of their exhibition to write his praise of the youngest of the Old Masters in the current number of ' Fors,' and afterwards in two papers on the ' Three Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism ' (JVmeteenth Century Magazine, November and December 1878). But in the same ' Fors' he dismissed with half a paragraph of contempt Mr. Whistler's eccentric sketch of Fireworks. Long before, in 1863, when he was working with various artists connected with the Pre- Raphaelite circle, Mr. Whistler had made overtures to the great critic through Mr. Swinburne the poet ; but he had not DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 837 been taken seriously. Now he had become the missionary in England of the new French gospel of ' impressionism,' which to Mr. Ruskin was one of those half-truths which are ever the worst of heresies. Mr. Whistler appealed to the law. He brought an action for libel, which was tried on November 25th and 26th before Baron Huddleston, and recovered a farthing damages. Mr. Ruskin's costs — amounting to £386 12*. 4id. — were paid by a public subscription to which one hundred and twenty persons, including many strangers, contributed. By that time he was fully recovering from his illness, back at Coniston, after a short visit to Liverpool. It was for- bidden to him to attempt any exciting work. He had given up ' Fors ' and Oxford lecturing, and was devoting himself again to quiet studies for ' Proserpina ' and ' Deucalion.' On the first day of the trial the St. George's Guild was registered as a Company ; on the second day he wrote to Miss Beever : — 'I have entirely i-esigned all hope of ever thanking you rightly for bread, sweet odours, roses and pearls, and must just allow myself to be fed, scented, rose-garlanded and be- pearled, as if I were a poor little pet dog, or pet pig. But my cold is better, and I am getting on with this botany ; but it is really too important a work to be pushed for a week or a fortnight.' Then he goes into details about the plans for his botany, which occupied him chiefly for the rest of the autumn. Early in 1879 his resignation of the Slade Professorship was announced ; followed by what was virtually his election to an honorary doctor's degree ; or, as officially worded — 'the Hebdomadal Council resolved on June 9, 1879, to pro- pose to Convocation to confer the degree of D.C.L. honoris causa upon John Ruskin M.A., of Ch. Ch., at the encsnia of that year ; but the proposal, though notified in the Gazette of June 10, was not submitted to vote owing to the inabihty of Mr. Ruskin to be present at the encaenia.' The degree was conferred, in his absence, in 1893. He was now more free than ever to spend his time in the researches which had always interested him, and which, he 22 338 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN sometimes imagined, were his forte. The severe winter of 1878-9 was particularly favourable for watching the pheno- mena of icicles and ice-formation, and this study commended itself to him in a twofold sense. On the one hand it illus- trated the great problem of crystallisation in general, and on the other it touched the question of glaciers. Enough has been said (book iii., chap. 3) to show the attitude he had taken for fifteen years past, as a disciple of Forbes, against the ordinary theory of glacial action, to which he had assented in ' Modern Painters,' vol. iv. But he was now confirmed in his views of what he, and a group of Forbes' friends, con- sidered to be the unfair action of Professor Tyndall, whose contributions did not warrant, as they thought, his treatment of the pioneer, in this country, of Alpine investigations. Mr. Ruskin did not make the most of his position in the eyes of the public by inserting his remarks on Professor Tyndall, — > insufficiently supported with argument and illustration, — among very different kinds of matter in ' Fors,' and by allow- ing himself to write at moments when the ill-health of three years left him — ' the greatest gladiator of the age,' as he has been called — hardly a match for the cool fence of his op- ponent. But it was his wish now to go into the subject again, in ' Deucalion.' The following letter to a friend at Chamouni (July 25th, 1879) will show, at any rate, the kind of method upon which he was intending to work, smd the extreme views he had come to take : — ' Yes. Chamouni is as a desolated home to me — I shall never, I believe, be there more : I could escape the riffraff in winter, and early spring; but that the glaciers should have betrayed me, and their old ways know them no more, is too much. ' . . . I was gladly surprised to hear of your going to the aiguille du Tour, if the whole field round it is still pure ; but all's so wrecked ; perhaps it's all mud and stones by this time. ' However, the thing I want of you is to get as far up the old bed of the glacier des Bois as you can, and make a good DEUCALION AND PROSERPINA 339 graphic sketch for me of any bit of rock that you can find of the true bottom among the debris. Graphic, I say, — as opposed to coloury or shadowy ; show me the edges and ins and outs, well — with any notes of the direction and effect of former ice on it you can make for yourself. You know I don't believe the ice ever moves at the bottom of a glacier at all, — ^in a general way, but on so steep a slope as that of the Bois, it may sometimes have been dragged a little at the bottom, as it is ordinarily at the sides. Anyhow, sketch me a bit of the rocks and tell me how the boulders are lodged, whether merely dropped promiscuously, or driven into par- ticular lines or comers. ' Please give my love to the big old stone under the Breven, a quarter of a mile above the village, unless they've blasted it up for hotels.' A little later he planned to write a ' Grammar of Ice,' with the same pupil's hdp, and he plunged into the study of crys- tallisation. Somewhere at Brantwood there is a deep drawer fall of material for ' Deucalions ' that never were published, for the storm-cloud came down upon him just as he was beginning to find his way out of the wood. Whatever might have been the value of Mr. Ruskin's work on this subject after the serious study of his later years,, no reader of his can help regretting the abandonment of one book that he began. It was to be a manual of the actual forms, the phenomenology, of native gold and silver and other minerals which crystallise into fronds and twigs and tangles, and pretty, plant-like shapes, unregarded by the mathe- matician and quite unexplained by the elementary laws of crystallography. Illustrated from the beautiful specimens in his collection, with such exquisite drawings as he made of these tiny still-life subjects, it would have been a fairy-book of science. But the 'third Fors' was jealous; or perhaps 'Proserpine^ and ' Deucalion' quarrelled over these flowers of the under-world, and left them in the babies' limbo among the things that might have been. 22—2 CHAPTER VI. THE DIVERSIONS OF BEANTWOOD. (1879-1880.) ' In that Library I pass away most of the Days of my Life, and moat of the Hours of the Day. In the Night I am never there. There is within it a Cabinet, handsome and neat enough, with a very convenient Fireplace for the "Winter, and Windows that aiford a great deal of light, and very pleasant Prospects.' — Cotton's Montaigne. SIXTY years of one of the busiest lives on record were beginning to tell upon Mr. Ruskin. He would not confess to old age, but his recent illness had shaken him severely. The next three years were spent chiefly at Coniston, in comparative retirement ; but neither in despair, nor idle- ness, nor loneliness. He had always lived a sort of dual life, solitary in his thoughts, but social in his habits : liking company, especially of young people ; ready, in the intervals of work, to enter into their employments and amusements, and curiously able to forget his cares in hours of relaxation. Sometimes, when earnest admirers made the pilgrimage to their Mecca — ' holy Brant wood ' as a scoffing poet called it — they were surprised, and even shocked, to find the Prophet of ' Fors ' at the head of a merry dinner-table, and the Professor of Art among surroundings which a London or a Boston * assthete ' would have ruled to be in very poor taste. Shall I take you for a visit there, — to Brantwood as it was in those old times ? It is a weary way to Coniston, whatever road you choose. The inconvenience of the railway route was perhaps one reason of Mr. Ruskin's preference for driving, on so many THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 841 occasions. After changing and changing trains, and stopping at m,any a roadside station, at last you see, suddenly, over the wild undulating country, the Coniston Old Man and its crags, abrupt on the left, and the lake, long and narrow, on the right. Across the water, tiny in the distance and quite alone amongst forests and moors, there is Brantwood ; and beyond it everything seems uncultivated, uninhabited, except for one grey farmhouse high on the fell, where gaps in the ragged larches show how bleak and storm-swept a spot it is. To come out of the station after long travel, and to find yourself face to face with magnificent rocks, and white cottages among the fir-trees, is a surprise like walking for the first time down the High Street of Edinburgh to Holy- rood. And as you are whirled down through the straggling village, and along the shore round the head of the lake, the panorama, though not Alpine in magnitude, is almost Alpine in character. The valley, too, is not yet built up ; it is still the old-fashioned lake country, almost as it was in the days of the ' Iteriad '; still in touch with the past. You drive up and down a narrow, hilly lane, catching peeps of mountains and sunset through thick, overhanging trees ; you turn sharp up through a gate under dark firs and larches; and the carriage stops in what seems in the twilight a sort of court, — a gravelled space, one side formed by a rough stone wall crowned with laurels and almost precipitous coppice, the brant (or steep) wood above, and the rest is Brantwood, with a capital B.* You expect that Gothic porch you have read of in ' Lectures on Architecture and Painting,' and you are sur- prised to find a stucco classic portico in the comer, painted and grained, and heaped around Ivith lucky horseshoes, brightly blackleaded, and mysterious rows of large blocks of * The archway supporting a great pile of new buildings did not exist in the time when this visit is supposed to be made. Since that time new stables and greenhouses also have been built ; but the low, colour- washed and evergreen-covered front remains as it was in Mr. Buskin's working-days. 342 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN slate and basalt and trap — a complete museum of local geology, if only you knew it — very unlike an ideal entrance ; still more unlike an ordinary one. While you wait you can see through the glass door a roomy hall, lit with candles, and hung with large drawings by Bume-Jones and by the master of the house. His soft hat, and thick gloves, and chopper, lying on the marble table, show that he has come in from his afternoon's woodcutting. But if you are expected you will hardly have time to look round, for Brantwood is nothing if not hospitable. The honoured guest — and all guests are honoured there — after welcome, is ushered up a narrow stair, which betrays the original cottage, into the ' turret room.' It had been ' the Professor's ' until after his illness, and he papered it with naturalistic pansies, to his own taste, and built out at cue comer a projecting turret to command the view on all sides, with windows strongly latticed to resist the storms ; for Ruskin can say with Montaigne ' my House is built upon an Eminence, as its Name imports, and no part of it is so much expos'd to the Wind and Weather as that.' There is old- fashioned solid comfort in the way of furniture ; and pictures, — a Diirer engraving, some Prouts and Turners, a couple of old Venetian heads, and Meissonier's ' Napoleon,' over the fire- place — a picture which Mr. Ruskin bought for one thousand guineas, showed for a time at Oxford, and hung up here in a shabby little frame to be out of the way.* It gives you a curious sense of being in quite a new kind of place.' If you are a man, you are told not to dress ; if you are a lady, you may put on your prettiest gown. They dine in the new room, for the old dining-room was so small that one could not get round the table. The new room is spacious and lofty compared with the rest of the house ; it has a long window with thick red sandstone mullions — there at last is a touch of Gothicism — to look down the lake, and a bay window opens on the narrow lawn sloping steeply down to the road in front, and the view of the Old Man. The walls, Sold in 1882 for 5,900 guineas. THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 843 painted ' duck egg,' are hung with old pictures ; the Doge Gritti, a bit saved from the great Titian that was burnt in the fire at the Ducal Palace in 1574 ; a couple of Tintorets ; Turner and Reynolds, each painted by himself in youth; Raphael by a pupil, so it is said ; portraits of old Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin, and little John and his « boo hills.' There he sits, no longer little, opposite : and you can trace the same curve and droop of the eyebrows prefigured in the young face and preserved in the old, and a certain family likeness to his handsome young father. Since Mr. Ruskin's illness his cousin, Mrs. Arthur Severn, has become more and more indispensable to him : she sits at the head of the table and calls him ' the coz.' An eminent visitor was once put greatly out of countenance by this apparent irreverence. After obvious embarrassment, light dawned upon him towards the close of the meal. ' Oh !' said he, ' it's " the coz " you call Mr. Ruskin. I thought you were saying " the diss .'" ' There are generally two or three young people staying in the house, salaried assistants* or amateur, occasional helpers ; but though there is a succession of visitors from a distance, there is not very frequent entertainment of neighbours. A Brantwood dinner is always ample ; there is no asceticism about the place ; nor is there any affectation of ' intensity ' or of conversational cleverness. The neat things you meemt * The face most familiar at Brantwood in those times was 'Laurie's ' A strange, bright, gifted boy — admirable draughtsman, ingenious mechanician, marvellous actor ; the imaginer of the quaintest and drollest humours that ever entered the head of man ; devoted to boats and boating, but unselfishly ready to share all labours and contribute to all diversions; painstaking and perfect in his work, and brilliant in his wit, — Laurence Hilliard was dearly loved by his friends, and is still loved by them dearly. He was Mr. Buskin's chief secretary at Brant- wood from Jan. 1876 to 1882, when the death of his father, and ill- health, led him to resign the post. He continued to live at Coniston, and was just beginning to be famous as a painter of still life and land- scape when he died of pleurisy on board a friend's yacht in the.^gean, April 11th, 1887, aged thirty-two. 844 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN to say are forgotten, — you must be hardened indeed to say them to Mr. Raskin's face ; but if you were shy, you soon feel that there was no need for shyness; you have fallen among friends ; and before dessert comes in, with fine old sherry — the pride of your host, as he explains — ^you feel that nobody understands you so well, and that all his books are nothing to himself. It is not a mere show, this kindliness and consideration. Two young visitors, once staying at Brantwood with Mr. Ruskin alone, mistook the time and appeared an hour late for dinner. Not a hint or a sign was given that might lead them to suspect their error ; their himgry host was not only patient, but as charming as possible. Only next day they learnt from the servants that the dinner and the master had waited an hour for them. They don't sit over their wine, and smoking is not allowed. Mr. Ruskin goes off to his study after dinner — it is believed for a nap, for he was at work early and has been out all the afternoon. In the drawing-room you see pictures, — water- colours by Turner and Hunt, drawings by Prout and Ruskin, an early Burne-Jones, a sketph in oil by Gainsborough. The furniture is the old mahogany of Mr. Ruskin's childhood, with rare things interspersed, — like the cloisonne vases on the mantelpiece. Soon after nine Mr. Ruskin comes in with an armful of things that are going to the Sheffield museum, and while his cousin makes his tea and salted toast, he explains his last acquirements in minerals or missals, eager that you should see the interest of them ; or displays the last studies of Mr. Rooke or Mr. Fairfax Murray, copies from Carpaccio or bits of Gothic architecture. (Mr. Ruskin about this time was anxious to secure memorials of old buildings and sculpture before 'restoration.' -In 1880 he published an appeal for subscriptions towards work in St. Mark's, which -was being restored ; but he met with no response. Perhaps, in the opinion of the public, Ongania's great work partly forestalled the necessity.) Mr. Ruskin likes, you find, to talk about THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 345 the museum, then newly honoured by Prince Leopold's visit (October 23, 1879). He tells you why he put it at Sheffield, and why, after all, it is not at Sheffield, but so far out of the town — in order to entice workmen out of the smoke to study in a country retreat, where there will be always pretty things for them to see and light to read by. He hopes to get it filled with men who will add to scientific teaching the study of art and nature, and, in short, to make it ' a working-man's Bodleian library.' He plans also to join a school to the museum, where Sheffield girls and boys may be taught to ■ carve from the natural leaves, instead of the conventional pattern-drawing which he considers the fallacy of modem popular art-teaching. Then, sitting in the chair in which he preached his baby- sermon, he reads aloud a few chapters of Scott or Miss Edgeworth, or, with judicious omissions, one of the older novelists ; or translates, with admirable facility, a scene of Sciibe or George Sand. When his next work comes out you will recognise this evening's reading in his allusions and quotations, perhaps even in the subjects of his writing, for at this time he is busy on the articles of 'Fiction, Fair and Foul.' After the reading, music ; a bit of his own composition, 'Old iEgina's Rocks,' or 'Cockle-hat and Staff'; his cousin's Scotch ballads or Christy Minstrel songs ; and if you can sing a new ditty, fresh from London, now is your chance. You are surprised to see the Prophet clapping his hands to ' Camptown Races,' or the ' Hundred Pipers,' — chorus given with the whole strength of the company ; but you are in a house of strange meetings. By about half-past ten his day is over ; a busy day, that has left him tired out. You will not easily forget the way he lit his candle — no lamps allowed, and no gas — and gave a last look lovingly at a pet picture or two, slanting his candlestick and shading the light with his hand, before he went slowly upstairs to his own little room, literally lined with the Turner drawings you have read about in ' Modern Painters.' 346 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN You may be waked by a knock at the door, and ' Are you looking out?' And pulling up the blind, there is one of our Coniston mornings, with the whole range of mountains in one quiet glow above the cool mist of the valley and lake. Going down at length on a voyage of exploration, and turn- ing in perhaps at the first door, you intrude upon ' the Professor ' at work in his study, half sitting, half kneeling at his round table in the bay window, with the early cup of coffee, and the cat in his crimson arm-chair. There he has been working since dawn perhaps, or on dark mornings by candlelight. Like Montaigne, he does not pass the night in his study, but he takes ' to-day ' (his motto) by the forelock. And he does not seem to mind the interruption; after a welcome he asks you to look round while he finishes his paragraph, and writes away composedly. A long, low room, evidently two old cottage-rooms thrown into one ; papered with a pattern specially copied from Marco Marziale's ' Circumcision ' in the National Gallery ; and himg with Turners. A great early Turner* of the Lake of Geneva is over the fireplace. You are tempted to make a mental inventory. Polished steel fender, very unasthetic ; curious shovel — his design, he will stop to remark, and forged by the village smith. Red mahogany furniture, with startling shiny emerald leather chair-cushions ; red carpet and green curtains. Most of the room crowded with bookcases and cabinets for minerals, 'handsome and neat enough.'' Scales in a glass case ; heaps of mineral specimens ; books on the floor ; rolls of diagrams ; early Greek pots from Cyprus ; a great litter of things and yet not disorderly nor dusty. 'I don't under- stand,' he once said, ' why you ladies are always complaining about the dust ; my bookcases are never dusty !' The truth being that, though he rose early, the housemaid rose earlier. Before you have finished your inventory he breaks off work to show you a drawer or two of minerals, fairy-land in a cup- board ; or some of his missals. King Hakon's Bible, or the original MS. of the Scott he wa^ reading last night; or, * Since sold, and replaced by a della Bobbia Madonna. THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 847 opening a door in a sort of secretaire, pulls out of their sliding cases frame after frame of Turners, — the Bridge of Nami, the Falls of Temi, Florence, or Rome, and many more, — to hold in your hand, and take to the light, and look into with a lens, — quite a different thing from seeing pictures in a gallery. At breakfast, when you see the post-bag brought in, you understand why he tries to get his bit of writing done early. The letters and parcels are piled in the study, and after breakfast, at which, as in old times, he reads his last-written passages, — how much more interesting they will always look to you in print ! — after breakfast he is closeted with an assistant, and they work through the heap. Private friends, known by handwriting, he puts aside ; most of the morning will go in answering them. Business he talks over, and gives brief directions. But the bulk of the correspondence is from strangers in all parts of the world, — admirers' flattery; students' questions ; begging-letters for money, books, influ- ence, advice, autographs, criticism on enclosed MS. or accom- panying picture ; remonstrance or abuse from dissatisfied readers, or people who object to his method of publication, or wish to convert him to their own religion, whatever it happens to be. And so the heap is gradually cleared, with the help of the waste-paper basket ; the secretary's work cut out, his own arranged ; and by noon a long row of letters and envelopes have been set out to dry — Mr. Ruskin uses no blotting-paper, and, as he dislikes the vulgar method of fas- tening envelopes, the secretary's work will be to seal them all with red wax, and the seal with the motto ' To-day ' cut in the apex of a big specimen of chalcedony. If you take, as many do, an interest in the minutiae of portrait painting, and think the picture more finished for its details, you may notice that he writes on the flat table, not on a desk ; that he uses a cork penholder and a fine steel pen, though he is not at all a slave to his tools, and differs from others rather in the absence of the sine qua non from his conditions. He can write anywhere, on anything. 348 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN with anything ; wants no pen-wiper, no special form of paper, or other ' fad.' Much of his work is written in bound note- books, especially when he is abroad, to prevent the loss and disorder of multitudinous foolscap. He generally makes a rough syllabus of his subject, in addition to copious notes and extracts from authorities, and then writes straight off; not without a noticeable hesitation and revision, even in his letters. His rough copy is transcribed by an assistant, and he often does not see it again until it is in proof.* Formerly he set no store by his MSS. His cousin says that her early recollections of Denmark Hill include a vision of crumpled foolscap sticking out of the grate every morning ; Mr. Ruskin's copy and proofs kept the . housemaids in fire- lighting, until she begged the interesting sheets. But there are no important works of Ruskin complete in MS. as there are of Scott; only odd lectures and chapters of his later writings. Printers' proofs are always a trial to Mr. Ruskin, and he is glad to shift the work on to an assistant's shoulders, such as Mr. Harrison was, who saw all his early works through the press. But he is extremely particular about certain matters, such as the choice of type and arrangements of the page ; though his taste does not coincide with that of the leaders of recent fashions. Mr. Jowett (of Messrs. Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Limited) says, in HazeWs Magazine for September 1892, that Mr. Ruskin made the size of the page a care- ful study, though he adopted many varieties. The 'Fors' page is different from, and not so symmetrical as that of the octavo ' Works Series,' although both are printed on the same sized paper, — medium 8vo. Then there is the ' Knight's Faith ' and ' Ulric,' in both of which the type (pica modern — ' this delightful type,' wrote Mr. Ruskin) and the size of the page are different from any other ; yet both were his choice. The ' Ulric ' page was imitated from an old edition of Miss Edgeworth. The first proof he criticised thus, — ' Don't you think a quarter inch off this page, as * In later years he sometimes had his copy type-written. THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 349 enclosed, would look better ? The type is very nice. How delicious a bit of Miss Edgeworth's is, like this !' ' Ida ' was another page of his choice, and greatly approved. His title pages, too, were arranged with great care ; he used to draw them out in pen and ink, indicating the size and position of the lines and letters. He objected to ornaments and to any- thing like blackness and heaviness, but he was very particular about proportions and spacing, and about the division of words. Mr. Jowett tells that in issuing ' Ulric ■■ in parts, the word ' stockings ' happened to be divided ; ' and thus " stock-'" ended one part, and " ings " began the next ! In all my corre- spondence with him,' says Mr. Jowett, ' I never knew Mr. Ruskin so annoyed. — " Dear Jowett, — I'm really a little cross with you — ^for once — for doing such an absurd thing as jointing a word between the two parts. Did I really pass Part II. with half a word at the end .''" This unfortunately was followed by many weeks' silence, and ehtire abstinence from any kind of work. The Master had been seriously ill ! The silence was broken by the following : — " My dear Jowett, — ^that unlucky extra worry with ' Ulric ' was just the drop too much, which has cost me a month's painful illness again. . . ."' But to return to Brantwood in 1880. In the morning everybody is busy. There are drawings and diagrams to be made, MS. to copy, references to look up, parcels to pack and unpack. Someone is told off to take you round, and you visit the various rooms and see the treasures, inspect the outhouse with its workshop for carpentry, framing and mounting, casting leaves and modelling; one work or another is sure to be going on ; perhaps one of the various sculptors who have made Mr. Ruskin's bust is busy there. Down at the Lodge, a miniature Brantwood, turret and all, the Severn children live when they are at Coniston. Then there are the gardens, terraced in the steep, rocky slope, and some small hot-houses, which Mr. Ruskin thinks a superfluity, except that they provide grapes for sick neighbours. Below the gardens a path across a field takes you to the 350 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN harbour, begun in play by the Xenophon translators and finished by the village mason, with its fleet of boats, — chief of them the 'Jumping Jenny' (called after Nanty Ewarfs boat in ' Redgauntlet '), Mr. Ruskin's own design and special private water-carriage, which, you are told, one day in a big storm he insisted on rowing by himself up the lake, while all the household turned out on to the terrace to watch, in real terror. Laurie can imitate the cook to perfection : — ' Eh, dear, the Maister's gone ! . . . Eh, now, look ye, there he is, riding on t' white horses ! Eh, there, he's going ; he's going ; he's gone !' An hour or so afterwards he walked in, drenched, but triumphant in the seaworthy qualities of his ' Jump.' Outside the harbour the sail-boats are moored, Mr. Severn's Lily of Brantwood, Hilliard's boat, and his Snail, an uilfor- tunate craft brought from Morecambe Bay with great expec- tations that were never realized ; though Mr. Ruskin always professed to believe in her, as a real sea-boat (see ' Harbours of England ') such as he used to steer with his friend Huret, the Boulogne fisherman, in the days when he, too, was smitten with sea-fever. After luncheon, if letters are done, all hands are piped to the moor. With billhooks and choppers the party winds up the wood paths, ' the Professor ' first, walking slowly, and pointing out to you his pet bits of rock-cleavage, or ivied trunk, or nest of wild-strawberry plants. You see, perhaps, the ice-house — tunnelled at vast expense into the rock and filled at more expense with the best ice ; opened at last with great expectations and the most charitable intent — for it was planned to supply invalids in the neighbourhood with ice, as the hothouses supplied them with grapes ; and revealing, after all, nothing but a puddle of dirty water. You see more suc- cessful works, — the Professor's little private garden, which he is supposed to cultivate with his own hands ; various little wells and watercourses among the rocks, moss-grown and fern- embowered ; and so you come out on the moor. There great works go on. Juniper is being rooted up; THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD 851 fcoggy patches drained and cultivated ; cranberries are being planted, and oats grown ; paths engineered to the best points of view ; rocks bared to examine the geology, — though you cannot get the Professor to agree that every inch of his territory has been glaciated. These diversions have their serious side, for he is really experimenting on the possibility of reclaiming waste land ; perhaps too sanguine, you think, and not coimting the cost. To which he replies that, as long as there are hands unemployed and misemployed, a govern- ment such as he would see need never be at a loss for labourers. If com can be made to grow where juniper grew before, the benefit is a positive one, the expense only comparative. And so you take your pick with the rest, and ai-e almost persuaded to become a companion of St. George. Not to tire a new-comer, he takes you away after a while to a fine heathery promontory, where you sit before a most glorious view of lake and mountains. This, he says, is his ' Naboth's vineyard ' ;* he would like to own so fine a point of vantage. But he is happy in his country retreat, far happier than you thought him ; and the secret of his happi- ness is that he has sympathy with all around him, and hearty interest in everything, from the least to the greatest. Coming down from the moor after the round, when you reach the front door you must see the performance of the waterfall : everybody must see that. On the moor a reservoir has been dug and dammed, with ingenious flood-gates, — Mr. Ruskin's device, of course, — and a channel led down through the wood to a rustic bridge in the rock. Some one has stayed behind to let out the water, and down it comes ; first a black stream and then a white one, as it gradually clears ; and the rocky wall at the entrance becomes for ten minutes a cascade. This too has its uses ; not only is there a supply of water in case of fire (the exact utilisation of which is yet undecided), but it illustrates one of his doctrines about the simplicity with which works of irrigation could be carried out among the hills of Italy. * Since then become part of the Brantwood estate. 852 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN And so you go in to tea and chess, for he loves a good game of chess with all his heart. He loves many things, you have found. He is different from other men you know, just by the breadth and vividness of his sympathies, by power of living as few other men can live, in Admiration, Hope and Love. Is not such a life worth living, whatever its monu- ment be ? CHAPTER VII. ' FOES ' EESUMED. (1880-1881.) ' How can he give his neighbour the real ground, Hia own conviction ?' BEOWNiNa's Karshish. RETIREMENT at Brantwood, as the reader may suspect, was only partial. All Mr. Ruskin's habits of life made it impossible for him to be idle, much as he acknow- ledged the need of thorough rest. And he was a man with a mission. His work was not of the sort that could be laid aside and done with. He could not be wholly ignorant of the world outside Coniston ; though sometimes for weeks together he tried to ignore it, and refused to read a news- paper. The time when General Gordon went out to Khar- toum was one of these periods of abstraction, devoted to mediaeval study. Somebody talked one morning at breakfast about the Soudan. ' And who is the Soudan ? he earnestly inquired, connecting the name, as it seemed, with the Soldan of Babylon, in crusading romance. ' The man is apathetic, you deduce ? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds— how say I ? flowers of the field- As a wise workman recognises tools In a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb : Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin.' 354 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN 'Don't you know,' he wrote to a friend (January 8th, 1880), ' that I am entirely with you in this Irish misery, and have been these thirty years ? — only one can't speak plain without distinctly becoming a leader of Revolution ? I know that Revolution rmist come in all the world — but I can't act with Danton or Robespierre, nor with the modem French Republican or Italian one. I could with you and your Irish, but you are only at the beginning of the end. I have spoken, — and plainly too, — for all who have ears, and hear.' If he had spoken plainly about ' Landlordism,' as they call it, he had spoken plainly too "on the subject of Capital. Nowadays every well-informed person knows that a vast number of influential thinkers hold — rightly or wrongly — that the private exploitation of labour is an error, if not a crime. But even in 1880, the doctrine of Collectivism was too strange, even to educated people, to be heard with any- thing but the extremest impatience. The author of ' Fors " had tried to show that the nineteenth-century commercialist spirit was not new ; that the tyranny of capital was the old sin of usury over again; and he asked why preachers of religion did not denounce it, — why, for example, the Bishop of Manchester did not, on simply religious grounds, oppose the teaching of the ' Manchester School,' who were the chief supporters of the commercialist economy. Not until the end of 1879 had Dr. Fraser been aware of the challenge ; but at length he wrote, justifying his attitude. The popular and able bishop had much to say on the expediency of the com- mercial system and the error of taking the Bible literally ; but he did not seem to have any conception of Mr. Ruskin's standpoint ; he seemed unaware of the revolution in economical thought which ' Unto this Last ' and ' Fors ' had been pioneering. Tm not gone to Venice yet,' wrote Mr. Ru>kin to Miss Beever, ' but thinking of it hourly. Tm very nearly done with toasting my bishop ; he just wants another turn or two, and then a little butter.' The toasting and the buttering, both neatly done, appeared in the Contemporary Review for 'FORS' RESUMED 856 February 1880; reprinted in the 'Old Road' (vol. ii., pp. 202-238) ; and if the reader have insight into the course of modem thought, he will see that Mr. Ruskin's rejoinder was much more than a bit of clever persiflage. This incident led him to feel that the mission of ' Fors ^ was not finished. If bishops were still unenlightened, there was yet work to do. And so he gave up Venice, and resumed his crusade. Brantwood life was occasionally interrupted by short ex- cursions to London or elsewhere. In the autumn Mr. Ruskin had heard Professor Huxley on the evolution of reptiles ; and this suggested another treatment of the subject, from his own artistic and ethical point of view, in a lecture oddly called 'A Caution to Snakes,' given at the London Institution, March 17th, 1880 (repeated March 23rd, and printed in 'Deucalion,' part vii.). In the course of this address he gave some notes of his observations on the motion of snakes, and claimed to be the first to have explained how they did not creep or drag themselves along, but travelled by a sort of skating action. Whether he was right in believing this to be a discovery or no, it was the result of much watch- ing of the ways of adders in freedom on his moor, in addition to study at the Zoological Gardens, where he used to get the cases opened, to ' make friends ' with the snakes. Mr. Ruskin was not merely an amateur zoologist and F.Z.S., but a devoted lover and keen observer of animals. It would take long to tell the story of all his dogs, from the spaniel Dash, commemorated in his earliest poems, and Wisie, whose sagacity is related in ' Praeterita,' down through the long line of bulldogs, St. Bernards, and collies, to Bramble, the reigning favourite ; and all the cats who made his study their home, or were flirted with abroad. To Miss Beever, from Bolton Abbey (January 24th, 1875) he describes the Wharfe in flood, and then continues : ' I came home (to the hotel) to quiet tea, and a black kitten called Sweep, who lapped half my cream-jugful (and yet I had plenty), sitting on my shoulder.' Grip, the pet rook at Denmark Hill, is 28—2 856 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN mentioned in ' My First Editor,' as celebrated in verse by Mr. W. H. Harrison. Kindness to animals has often been noted as one of th© most striking traits of Mr. Ruskin, — a sympathy with them which went much deeper than benevolent sentiment, or the curiosity of science. He cared little about their organisa- tion and anatomy, much about their habits and characters. He had not Thoreau's powers of observation and intimate acquaintance with all the details of wild life, but his attitude towards animals and plants was the same ; hating the science that miu:ders to dissect ; resigning his Professorship at Oxford, finally, because vivisection was introduced into the University ; and supporting the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with all his heart. But, as he said at the Annual Meeting in 1877, he objected to the sentimental fiction and exaggerated statements which some of its members circulated. ' They had endeavoiu'ed to prevent cruelty to animals,' he said, * but they had not enough endeavoured to promote affection for animals. He trusted to the pets of children for their education, just as much as to their tutors.' It was to carry out this idea (to anticipate a little) that he founded the Society of Friends of Living Creatures, which he addressed, May 23rd, 1885, at the club, Bedford Park, in his capacity of^ — not president — ^but ' papa.' The members, boys and girls from seven to fifteen, promised not to kill nor hurt any animal for sport, nor tease creatures ; but to make friends of their pets and watch their habits, and collect facts about natural history. I remember, on one of the rambles at Coniston in the early days, how we found a wounded buzzard, — one of the few creatures of the eagle kind that our English mountains still breed. The rest of us were not very ready to go near the beak and talons of the fierce-looking, and, as we supposed, desperate bird. Mr. Ruskin quietly took it up in his arms, felt it over to find the hurt, and carried it, quite unresist- ingly, out of the way of dogs and passers-by, to a place where it might die in solitude or recover in safety. He often told 'FORS' RESUMED 857 his Oxford hearers that he would rather they learned to love birds than to shoot them ; and his wood and moor were harhours of refuge for hunted game or 'vermin'; and his windows the rendezvous of the little birds. He had not been abroad since the spring of 1877, ahd in August 1880 felt able to travel again. He went for a tour among the northern French cathedrals, staying at old haunts, — ^Abbeville, Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, Rouen, — and then returned with Mr. A. Severn and Mr. Brabazon to Amiens, where he spent the greater part of October. He was writing a new book — the ' Bible of Amiens ' — which was to be to the ' Seven Lamps ' what ' St. Mark's Rest ' was to ' Stones of Venice.' Before he returned, the secretary of the Chesterfield Art School had written to ask him to address the students. Mr. Ruskin, travelling without a secretary, and in the flush of new work and thronging ideas, put the letter aside ; he carried his letters about in bundles in his portmanteau, as he said in his apology, ' and looked at them as Ulysses at the bags of jEoIus.' Some wag had the impudence to forge a reply, which was actually read at the meeting in spite of its ob- viously fictitious style and statements : — •Haelesden (!), ' London, ' Friday. * My dear Sik, 'Your letter reaches me here. Have just returned [commercial English, not Ruskin] from Venice [where he had meant to go, but did not go] where I have ruminated (!) in the pasturages of the home of art (!) ; the loveliest and holiest of lovely and holy cities, where the very stones cry out, elo- quent in the elegancies of iambics' (!!) — and so forth. However, it deceived the newspapers, and there was a fine storm, which Mr. Ruskin rather enjoyed. For thoug'h the forgery was clumsy enough, it embodied some apt plagiarism 358 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN from a letter to the Mansfield Art School on a similar occa- # sion. Not long before, a forgery of a more serious kind had been committed by one of the people connected with St. George's Guild, who had put Mr. Ruskin's name to cheques. The bank authorities were long in tracing the crime. They even sent a detective to Brantwood to watch one of the assistants, who never knew — nor will ever know — that he was honoured with such attentions ; and certainly neither Mr. Ruskin nor any of his friends for a moment believed him guilty. He had sometimes imitated Mr. Ruskin's hand; a dangerous jest. The real culprit was discovered at last, and Mr. Ruskin had to go to London as a witness for the prosecution. ' Being in very weak health,' the Times report said (April 1st, 1879), ' he was allowed to give evidence from the bench.' He had told the Sheffield communists that ' he thought so strongly on the subject of the repression of crime that he dare not give expression to his ideas for fear of being charged with cruelty'; but no sooner was the prisoner released than he took him kindly by the hand and gave the help needed to start him again in a better career. Though he did not feel able to lecture to strangers at Chesterfield, he visited old friends at Eton, on November 6th, 1880, to give an address on Amiens. For once he forgot his MS., but the lecture was ,no less brilliant and interesting. It was practically the first chapter of his new work, the ' Bible of Amiens,' — itself intended as the first volume of ' Our Fathers have Told us : Sketches of the History of Christendom, for Boys and Girls who have been held at its Fonts.' The distinctly religious tone of the work was noticed as marking, if not a change, a strong development of a tendency which had been strengthening for some time past. He had come out of the phase of doubt, into acknowledgment of the real and wholesome influence of serious religion ; into an attitude * Printed as appendix to ' A Joy for Ever.' The Chesterfield letter and correspondence are given in exienso in ' Igdrasil ' (vol. i., pp. 215, 216). •FORS' RESUMED 859 of mind in which, without unsaying anything he had said against narrowness of creed and inconsistency of practice, without stating any definite doctrine of the after life, or adopting any sectarian dogma, he regarded the fear of God and the revelation of the Divine Spirit as great facts, as motives not to be neglected in the study of history, and the groundwork of civilisation and the guide of progress. Early in 1879 the Rev. F. A. Malleson, vicar of Broughton, near Coniston, had asked him to write, for the Fumess Clerical Society's Meetings, a series of letters on the Lord's Prayer. In them he dwelt upon the need of living faith in the Fatherhood of God, and childlike obedience to the com- mands of old-fashioned religion and morality. He criticised the English liturgy as compared with mediaeval forms of prayer; and pressed upon his hearers the strongest warnings against evasion, or explaining away of stem duties and simple faiths. He concluded : ' No man more than I has ever loved the place where God's honour dwells, or yielded truer alle- giance to the teaching of His evident servants. No man at this time grieves more for the damage of the Church which supposes him her enemy, while she whispers procrastinating pax vobiscum in answer to the spurious kiss of those who would fain toll curfew over the last fires of English faith, and watch the sparrow find nest where she may lay her young, around the altars of the Lord.' But if the Anglican Church refused him, Hie Roman Church was eager to claim him. His interest in medisevalism seemed to point him out as ripe for conversion. Cardinal Manning, an old acquaintance, showed him special attention, and in- vited him to charming tite-a-tete luncheons. It was com- monly reported that he had gone over, or was going. But two letters (of a later date) show that he was not to be caught. To a Glasgow correspondent he wrote in 1887 : ' I shall be entirely grateful to you if you will take the trouble to contradict any news gossip of this kind, which may be disturbing the minds of any of my Scottish friends. I was, am, and can be, only a Christian Catholic in the wide and 360 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN eternal sense. I have been that these five-and-twenty years at least. Heaven keep me from being less as I grow older ! But I am no more likely to become a Roman Catholic than a Quaker, Evangelical, or Turk.' To another, next year, he wrote : ' I fear you have scarcely read enough of " Fors " to know the breadth of my own creed or communion. I gladly take the bread, water, wine, or meat of the Lord''s Supper* with members of my own family or nation who obey Him, and should be equally sure it was His giving, if I were myself worthy to receive it, whether the intermediate mortal hand were the Pope's, the Queen's, or a hedge-side gipsy's.' At Coniston he was on friendly terms with Father Gibson, the Roman Catholic priest, and gave a window to the chapel, which several of the Brantwood household attended. But though he did not go to Church, he contributed largely to the increase of the poorly-endowed curacy, and to the charities of the parish. The religious society of the neighbourhood was hardly of a kind to attract him, unless among the reli- gious society should be included the Thwaite, where lived the survivors of a family long settled at Coniston, — Miss Mary Beever, scientific and political ; and Miss Susanna, who won Mr. Ruskin's admiration and affection by an interest akin to his own in nature and in poetry, and by her love for animals^ and bright, unfailing wit. Both ladies were examples of sincerely religious life, ' at once sources and loadstones of all good to the village,' as he wrote in the preface to ' Hortus Inclusus,' the collection of his letters to them since first acquaintance in the autumn of 1873. The elder Miss Beever died at an advanced age on the last day of 1883 ; Miss Susanna survived until October 29, 1893. In children he took a warm and openly-expressed interest. He used to visit the school often, and delighted to give them a treat. On January 13th, 1881, he gave a dinner to 315 Coniston youngsters, and the tone of his address to his young * Compare the lines in Longfellow's ' Golden Legend': — ' A holy family, that makes Each meal a Supper of the Lord.' ' FORS ' RESUMED 861 guests is noteworthy as taken in connection with the drift of his religious tendency during this period. He dwelt on a verse of the Sunday School hymn they had been singing : ' Jesu, here from sin deliver.' ' That is what we want,' he said ; ' to be delivered from oiu- sins. We must look to the Saviour to deliver us from our sin. It is right we should be punished for the sins which we have done ; but God loves us, and wishes to be kind to us, and to help us, that we may not wilfully sin.' Words like these were not lightly spoken : we must take them, with their full weight, to represent his real convictions. At this time he used to take the family prayers himself at Brantwood: preparing careful notes for a Bible -reading, which sometimes, indeed, lasted longer than was convenient to the household ; and writing collects for the occasion, still existing in manuscript, and deeply interesting as the prayers of a man who had passed through so many wildernesses of thought and doubt, and had returned at last — not to the fold of the Church, but to the footstool of the Father. T CHAPTER Vni. THE RECALL TO OXFORD. (1882-1883.) 'Craa ingens iterabimus sequor.' Horace. HIS Brantwood life came to an end with the end of 1881. Early in the next year Mr. Ruskin went for change of scene to stay with the Sevems at his old home on Heme Hill. He seemed much better, and ventured to reappear in public. On March 3rd he went to the National Gallery to sketch Turner's Python. On the unfinished draw- ing is written : ' Bothered away from it, and never went again. No light to work by in the next month.' An artist in the Gallery had been taking notes of him for a surreptitious portrait — an embarrassing form of flattery. He wrote : ' No — I won't believe any , stories about over- work. It's impossible, when one's in good heart and at really pleasant things. I've a lot of nice things to do, but the heart fails, — after lunch, particularly !' Heart and head did, how- ever, fail again ; and another attack of brain fever followed. Sir William Gull brought him through, and won his praise as a doctor and esteem as a friend. Mr. Ruskin took it as a great compliment when Sir William, in acknowledging his fee, wrote that he should keep the cheque as an auto- graph. By Easter Monday the patient was better again, and plunging into work in spite of everybody. ' He wrote : ' The moment I got your letter to-day recommending me not to THE RECALL TO OXFORD 863 write books (I finished it, however, with great enjoyment of the picnic, before proceeding to act in defiance of the rest), I took out the last proof of last " Proserpina'" and worked for . an hour and a half on it ; and have been translating some St. Benedict material since — with much comfort and sense of getting — as I said — head to sea again — (have you seen the article on modem rudders in the Telegraph? Anyhow I'll send you a lot of collision and other interesting sea-subjects by to-morrow's post). This is only to answer the catechism. ' Love and congratulations to the boys. Salute Tommy for me in an affectionate — and apostolic — manner — especially since he carried up the lunch ! — Also, kindest regards to all the other servants. I daresay they're beginning really to miss me a little by this time. ' What state are the oxalises in — anemones ? Why can't we invent seeing, instead of talking, by telegraph ? ' Fve just got a topaz of which these are two contiguous planes ! [sketch of sides nearly two inches long] traced as it lies — and the smaller plane is blindingly iridescent in sunshine with rainbow colours! I've only found out this in Easter Sunday light.' Again : ' I was not at all sure, myself, till yesterday, whether I would go abroad ; also I should have told you before. But as you have had the (sorrowful ?) news broken to you — and as I find Sir William Gull perfectly fixed in his opinion, I obey him, and reserve only some liberty of choice to myself — respecting, not only climate,-^but the general appearance of the — inhabitants, of the localities, where for antiquarian or scientific research I may be induced to prolong my sojourn. — Meantime I send you — to show you I haven't come to town for nothing, my last bargain in beryls, with a little topaz besides. . . .' But the journey was put off week after week. There was so much to do, buying diamonds for Sheffield museum, and planning a collection of models to show the normal forms of crystals, and to illustrate a subject which he thought many people would find interesting, if they could be got over its 864 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN first difficulties. Not only Sheffield was to receive these gifts and helps : Mr. Ruskin had become acquainted with the Rev. J. P. Faunthorpe, Principal of Whitelands College for Pupil Teachers, and had given various books and collections to illustrate the artistic side of education. Now he instituted there the May Queen Festival, in some sort carrying out his old suggestion in ' Time and Tide.' Mr. A. Severn designed a gold cross, and it was presented, with a set of volumes of Ruskin's works, sumptuously bound, to the May Queen and her maidens. The pretty festival became a popular feature of the school, * patronised by royalty,' and Mr. Ruskin con- tinued his annual gift to Whitelands, and kept up a similar institution at the High School at Cork. At last, in August, he started for the Continent, and stayed a while at Avallon in central France, a district new to him. There he met Mr. Frank Randall, one of the artists working for St. George's Guild, and explored the scenery and anti- quities of a most interesting neighbourhood. He drove over the Jura in the old style,, revisited Savoy, and after weeks of bitter bise and dark weather, a splendid sunset cleared the, hills. He wrote to Miss Beever : — ' I saw Mont Blanc again to-day, unseen since 1877 ; and was very thankful. It is a sight that always redeems me to what I am capable of at my poor little best, and to what loves and memories are most precious to me. So I write to you, one of the true loves left. The snow has fallen fresh on the hills, and it makes me feel that I must be soon seeking shelter at Brantwood and the Thwaite.' But he went forward, exhilarated by the drive through Savoy with a famous coachman, renowned for his whip- cracking and his dog Tom. He won the Professor's heart by his dashing style and kindliness to his beasts ; and on parting he gave the man twenty francs as a bonne main, and two francs over; as he said, for a bonne patte to Tom. At Annecy he was pleased to find the waiter at the Hotel Verdun remembered his visit twenty years before; — every- where he met old friends, and saw old scenes that he had THE RECALL TO OXFORD 865 feared he never would revisit. After crossing the Cenis and hastening through Tm-in and Genoa, he reached Lucca, to be awaited at the Albergo Reale delP Universo by a crowd, every one anxious to shake hands with Signor Ruskin. No wonder ! — for instead of allowing himself to be a mere Number-so-and-so in a hotel, wherever he felt comfortable — and that was everywhere except at pretentious modem hotels — he made friends with the waiter, chatted with the landlord, found his way into the kitchen to compliment the cook, and forgot nobody in the establishment, — not only in ' tips,' but in a frank and sympathetic address which must have contrasted curiously, in their minds, with the reserve and indifference of other English tourists. At Florence he met Mr. Henry Roderick Newman, an American artist who had been at Coniston and was working for the Guild. Kte introduced Mr. Ruskin to Mrs. and Miss Alexander. In these ladies' home he found his own aims, in religion, philanthropy, and art, realised in an unexpected way. Miss Alexander's drawing at first struck him by its sincerity. He had been always the enemy of that acquired skill and paraded cleverness which becomes so fatiguing to the ex- perienced critic. He had always called out for human interest, the evidence of sympathy, the poetry of feeling, in art : and he found this in Miss Alexander, — not professionally learned, but full of observation and the tokens of affectionate interest in her subject. Not only did she draw beautifully, but she also wrote a beautiful hand ; and it had been one of his old sayings that missal-writing, rather than missal-painting, was the admirable thing in mediasval art. The legends illustrated by her drawings were collected by herself, through an intimate acquaintance with Italians of all classes, from the nobles to the peasantry, whom she understood and loved, and by whom she was loved and understood. By such intercourse she had learned to look beneath the surface. In religious matters her American common-sense saw through her neighbours — saw the good in them as well as the weakness — and she was as friendly, not only in social intercourse, but in spiritual things, 366 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN with the worthy village-priest as with T. P. Rossetti,* the leader of the Protestant 'Brethren,' whom she called her pastor. And Mr. Ruskin, who had been driven away firom Protestantism by the poor AValdensian at Turin, and had wandered through many realms of doubt and voyaged through strange seas of thought, alone, found harbour at last with the disciple of a modem evangelist, the frequenter of the little meeting-house of outcast Italian Protestants. Ruskin''s art-criticism fought its way to the fi-ont long ago. His economy is now widely accepted. His religious teaching has hardly been hstened to. That must wait until the nine- teenth century — as he put it in IS-iS — ^'has, I cannot say breathed, but steamed its last.' One evening before dinner he brought back to the hotel at Florence a drawing of a lovely girl Ijdng dead in the sunset ; and a little note-book. ' I want you to look over this,' he said, in the way, but not quite in the tone, with which the usual MS. ' submitted for criticism ' was tossed to a secretary to taste. It was ' The True Story of Ida ; written by her Friend.'f An appointment to meet ]Mr. E. R, Robson, who was making plans for an intended Sheffield museum, took IVIr. Ruskin back to Lucca, to discuss Romanesque mouldings and marble facings. IMr. Charles Fairfax Murray also met Mr. Ruskin at Lucca with drawings commissioned for St. Greoise's Guild. But he soon returned to his new friends, and did not leave Florence finally until he had purchased the wonderfiil collection of 110 drawings, with beautifully written text, in * A cousin of the artist, and in his way no less remarkable a man. It is hardly too much to say that he did for evangelical i-eligion in Italy what Gabriel Bossetti did for poetical art in England : he showed the way to sincerity and simplicity. A short accoont of his life is given in ' D. G. Rossetti, his family letters,' vol. i., p. 34. The circnmstances of his death are touchingly related by Miss Alexander in ' Christ's Folk in the Apennine,' edited by Mr. Suskin. t This title was altered by Mr. Ruskin to 'The Story of Ida. Epitaph on an Etrurian Tomb. By Francesca.' THE RECALL TO OXFORD 867 which Miss Alexander had enshrined ' The Roadside Songs of Tuscany.' Returning homewards by the Mont Cenis he stayed a while at Talloires, a favourite haunt, extremely content to be among romantic scenery, and able to work steadily at a new edition of his books in a much cheaper form, of which the first volumes were at this time in hand. He had been making further studies, also, in history and Alpine geology ; but at last the snow drove him away from the mountains. So he handed over the geology to his assistant, who compiled ' The Limestone Alps of Savoy ' (supplementary to ' Deucalion ') ' as he could, not as he would,' while Mr. Ruskin wrote out the new ideas suggested by his visit to Citeaux and St. Bernard's birthplace. These notes he completed on the journey home, and gave as a lecture on ' Cistercian Architec- ture' (London Institution, December 4th, 1882), in place of the previously advertised lecture on crystallography. He seemed now to have quite recovered his health, and to be ready for re-entry into public life. What was more, he had many new things to say. The attacks of brain fever had passed over him like passing storms, leaving a clear sky. After his retirement from the Oxford Professorship, a sub- scription had been opened for a bust by Sir Edgar Boehm, in memorial of a University benefactor; and the clay model (now in the Sheffield Museum) was placed in the Drawing School pending the collection of the necessary ^^220. The Oitford University Herald, in its article of June 5th, 1880, no doubt expressed the general feeling, or at any rate the feeling of the clerical party, then still in the majority, in its praise as well as in its criticism of Pi'ofessor Ruskin. He himself claimed to have ' harked back ' to old standards of thought, in opposition to contemporary religious and scientific enlightenment ; and the reader, who has followed his course thus far, must judge his judges from a higher and more panoramic standpoint than perhaps was possible to them. But after reciting his benefactions to the University with becoming appreciation, the Herald continued : — 368 LIl'^ AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ' Mr. Ruskin has enjoyed renown and felt the breath of high reputation in every possible form, in the highest possible perfection, and with the highest desert. He has been famous while young, which is proverbially a thing for gods : he has been one of the best abused men in England ; he has been one of the best praised, and that in all forms — critically and passionately, wisely and fanatically — for his merits and for his frailties. He has been an acknowledged chief among the chiefs of literature; he has been adored by girls and under- graduates ; a large circle of friends has partly understood him, and still regards him with genuine admiration and affection ; he has laboured hard for labouring men, and dispersed abroad and given to the poor for more than fifty years of his life. His name and his work are indissolubly connected with Oxford, and it is a great pity he ever left us. He has of course suffered from his own powers, as all men, being human, must suffer. The intensity of his own perceptions always gave him difficulty in receiving any knowledge from others, and it has taken the form of subjectivity or egotism. He is unable to endure authority on any subject, or even to accept testimony. His life has been spoiled by his continual attempts to substitute a Christianity of his own for the Church of England ; he has his own political economy ; he has systema- tised an excellent botany of his own, a mineralogy of his own, a geology of his own, he has driven himself frantic by con- ducting a magazine of his own; he has separated himself from everybody whose mind is not a minute copy of his own. ' We know not what might have been the result if, during his residence here. Professor Ruskin had had the sympathy or genuine interest of men of his own age engaged in the work of the University, or if Art had been admitted to be a part of that work. But in any case he has done Oxford great honour, and made great sacrifices for her, and it is time that some acknowledgment should be made to the foremost name in modern English literature strictly so called : to an Oxonian who has attempted and achieved beyond others; to the THE RECALL TO OXFORD 869 kindest heart and keenest benevolence in England ; to the poet, painter, and interpreter of the Word of God in Nature, who is best worthy to succeed Wordsworth and Turner.' It was natural, therefore, that on recovering his health he should resume his post. Professor W. B. Richmond, the son of his old friend Mr. George Richmond, gracefully retired, and the Oxford University Gazette of January 16th, 1883, announced the re-election. On March 2nd he wrote that he was ' up the Old Man yesterday '; as much as to say that he defied catechism, now, about his health ; and a week later he gave his first lecture. The St. James's Budget of March 16th gave an account of it in these terms : — ' Mr. Ruskin's first lecture at Oxford attracted so large an audience that, half an hour before the time fixed for its delivery, a greater number of persons were collected about the doors than the lecture-room could hold. Immediately after the doors were opened the room was so densely packed that some undergraduates found it convenient to climb into the windows and on to the cupboards. The audience was composed almost equally of undergraduates and ladies ; with the exception of the vice-chancellor, heads of houses, fellows, and tutors were chiefly conspicuous by their absence. ' It is, no doubt, difficult to know what should be the plan of a lecture before such an audience. Mr. Ruskin's, if some- what unconnected, was at any rate interesting. He carried his audience with him to the end, as well in his lighter as in his more impassioned periods. Perhaps the most interesting part of his lecture was the beginning, in which he spoke of the late Mr. Rossetti, and compared his work with that of Holman Hunt.' — I omit an abstract of the lecture, which can be read in full in the ' Art of England.' The reporter con-' tinned : ' He had made some discoveries : two lads and two lasses, who, though not artists,* could draw in a way to * ' Though not artists ' was a slip on the reporter's part, and contra- dicted by the subsequent ' two young Italian artists.' The reference 24 870 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN ple&se even him. He used to say that, except in a pretty graceful way, no woman can draw ; he had now almost come to think that no one else can. (This statement the under- , graduates received with gallant, if undiscriminating, applause.) To many of his prejudices, Mr. Ruskin said, in the last few years the axe had been laid. He had positively found an American, a young lady, whose life and drawing were in every way admirable. (Again great and generous applause on the part of the undergraduates, stimulated, no doubt, by the knowledge that there were then in the room two fair Americans, who have lately graced Oxford by their presence.) At the end of his lecture Mr. Ruskin committed himself to a somewhat perilous statement. He had found two young Italian artists in whom the true spirit of old Italian art had yet lived. No hand like theirs had been put to paper since Lippi and Leonardo. ' Mr. Ruskin concluded by showing two sketches of his own, harmonious in colour, and faithful and tender in touch, of Italian architecture, taken from the Duomo of Lucca, to show that though he was growing older his hand had not lost its steadiness. And so he concluded a lecture which, though it seemed to lack some guiding principle, yet carried the audience with it throughout, and seemed all too short to those who were fortunate enough to hear it.' Three more lectures of the course were given in May, and each repeated to a second audience. Coming to London, Mr. Ruskin gave a private lecture on June 5th to some two hundred hearers at the house of Mrs. W. H. Bishop, in Ken- sington, on Miss Kate Greenaway and Miss Alexander. 'I have never, until to-day,' he said, ' dared to call my friends and my neighbours together to rejoice with me over any recovered good or rekindled hope. Both in fear and much thankfulness I have done so now ; yet, not to tell you of any poor little piece of upgathered silver of my own, but to show was to Misses Alexander and Greenaway, and Messrs. Boni and AlessandiL THE RECALL TO OXFORD 371 you the fine gold which has been strangely trusted to me, and which before was a treasure hid in a mountain- field of Tuscany.' The Spectator shared his enthusiasm for the pen and ink drawings of Miss Alexander's ' Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' and concluded a glowing account of the lecture by saying : ' All Professor Ruskin's friends must be glad to see how well his Oxford work has agreed with him. He has gifts of insight and power of reaching the best feelings and highest hopes of our too indifferent generation which are- very rare. Agree or disagree with some of his doctrines as we may, he constrains the least hopeful of his listeners to remember that man is not yet bereft of that "breath of life" which enables him to live in spiritual places that are not yet altogether depopulated by the menacing army of physical discoverers.' With much encouragement in his work, he returned to Brantwood for the summer, and resolved upon another visit bo Savoy for more geology, and another breath of health- giving Alpine air. But he found time only for a short tour in Scotland before returning to Oxford to complete the series of lectures on Recent English Art. During this term he was prevailed upon to allow himself to be nominated as a candi- date for the Rectorship of the University of Glasgow. He had been asked to stand in the Conservative interest in 1880, and , he had been worried into a rather rough reply to the Liberal party, when after some correspondence they asked him whether he sympathised with Lord Beaconsfield or Mr. Gladstone. ' What, in the devil's name,' he exclaimed, * have you to do with either Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone ? You are students at the University, and have no more busi- ness with politics than you have with rat-catching. Had you ever read ten words of mine with understanding, you would have known that I care no more either for Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone than for two old bagpipes with the drones going by steam, but that I hate all Liberalism as I do Beelze- bub, and that, with Carlyle, I stand, we two alone now in England, for God and the Queen.' After that, though he 24—2 872 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN might explain* that he never, under any conditions of provo- cation or haste, would have said that he hated Liberalism as he did Mammon, or Belial, or Moloch ; that he ' chose the milder fiend of Ekron as the true exponent and patron of Liberty, the God of Flies,' still the matter-of-fact Glaswegians were minded to give the scoffer a wide berth. He was put up as an independent candidate in the three-cornered duel ; and, as such candidates usually fare, he fared badly. The only wonder is that three hundred and nineteen students were found to vote for him, instead of siding, in political ortho- doxy, with Mr. Fawcett or the Marquis of Bute. At last a busy and eventful year came to a close at Coniston, with a lecture at the village Institute on his old friend Sir Herbert Edwardes (December 22nd), and in kindly intercourse with young friends in his mountain home and theirs. His interest in the school and the school- children was unabated, and he was always planning new treats for them, or new helps to their lessons. He had set one of the assistants to make a large hollow globe, inside of which one could sit and see the stars as luminous points pricked through the mimic ' vault of heaven,' painted blue and figured with the constellations. By a simple arrangement of cogs and rollers the globe revolved, the stars rose and set, and the position of any star at any hour of the year could be roughly fixed. But the inclement climate of Coniston, and the natural roughness of children, soon wrecked the new toy. About this time he was anxious to get the village children taught music with more accuracy of tune and time than the ordinary singing-lessons enforced. He made many experi- ments with different simple instruments, and fixed at last upon a set of bells, which he wanted to introduce into the school. But it was difficult to interfere with the routine of studies prescribed by the code ; and Mr. Ruskin's theories of education could have been carried out only in a completely independent school. Considering, too, that he scorned ' the three R's,' a school after his own heart would have been a * Epilogue to ' Arrows of the Chace.' THE RECALL TO OXFORD 373 very different place from any that earns the Government grant ; and he very strongly believed that if a village child learnt the rudiments of religion and morality, sound rules of health and manners, and a habit of using its eyes and ears in the practice of some good handicraft or art and simple music, and in natural philosophy, taught by object lessons — then book-learning would either come of itself, or be passed aside as unnecessary or superfluous. This was his motive in a well-known incident which has sometimes puzzled his public. Once, when new buildings were going on, the mason wanted an advance of money, which Mr. Ruskin gave him, and then held out the paper for him to sign the receipt. 'A great deal of hesitation and embarrassment ensued, somewhat to Mr. Ruskin''s surprise, as he knows a north-countryman a great deal too well to expect euribarrassment from him. At last the man said, in dialect : " Ah mun put ma mark !" He could not write. Mr. Ruskin rose at once, stretched out both hands to the astonished rustic, with the words : " I am proud to know you. Now I understand why you are such an entirely good workman." '* Unlike Wordsworth, who wrote about the peasantry with- out much direct intercourse with them (after his school-days), Mr. Ruskin was fond of visiting his neighbours in their homes and took a very genuine interest in their lives and affairs. Many of them who knew little or nothing about his life and affairs, and were puzzled at first by his manner — so different from anything they had known — came at last to regard him as a real friend ; to some of them he was as much of a hero as he was to the undergraduates at Oxford. At first they asked ' What is he ? where does he come from ?' with the northern distrust of a stranger. They found out that 'he stoodied a deal,' and that accounted for everything : and by-and-by one heard here and there a phrase that meant more than much newspaper eulogy: 'Eh! he's a grand chap, is Maisthcr Rooskin !' * From an article by Miss Wakefield in Murray's Magazine, Nov, 1890. CHAPTER IX. THE STORM-CLOUD. (1884r-lS88.) ' Ther saugh I suche tempeate aryse That every herte myght agryse To see hyt peynted on the walle.' Chaucer, House of Fame. ' /^F course I needn't wish you a happy Christmas,' wrote Vy Professor Ruskin (December 24th, 1883), ' Til wish you — what it seems to me most of us more need, and particularly my poor self — a wise one ! When are you coming — in search of wisdom of course — to see me? I ought to call first, oughtn't I ? but I don't feel able for long days out just now. Could you lock up house for a couple of days over there, and come and stay with me over here ? It seems to me as if it would be rather nice. The house is — as quiet as you please. I'd lock you both out of my study, and you might really play hide-and-seek in the passages about the nursery all day long. Will you come ?' His great improvement in health had seemed to justify his two chief assistants in feeling that their constant attendance was no longer necessary to him. One set up house at Coniston, the other not far away, both ready to give what help was called for ; while the main business-correspondence was under- taken by Miss S. D. Anderson. During the Sevems' absence Miss Anderson also was away for a holiday ; and the loneli- ness, though only temporary, was tedious to him, and not good for him. He was not very well : put off the visitors, and wrote again : ' I'm better, and hope to be presentable on THE STORM-CLOUD 375 Monday. — I'm sending the carriage for you. I wonder if the model* could come on the top of it .? I've got some very interesting junctions of schist and granite from Skiddaw, and a crystal or two for you to see.' Again : ' Mind, you're both due on Monday. Such colours ! Such brushes ! Such — everything waiting !' The truant, recaptured, was soon set to work with Messrs. Newman's extra-luminous water-colours, specially prepared for the great diagi-ams of sunsets to illustrate the lecture, shortly to be given, on ' The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century.' It had been a favourite subject of study with the author of 'Modem Painters.' His journals for fifty years past had kept careful account of the weather, and effects of cloud. He had noticed since 1871 a prevalence of chilly, dark bise, as it would be called in France ; but different in its phenomena from anything of his earlier days. The ' plague wind,' so he named it — ^tremulous, intermittent, blighting grass and trees — blew from no fixed point of the compass, but always brought the same dirty sky in place of the healthy rain-cloud of normal summers ; and the very thunder-storms seemed to be altered by its influence into foul and powerless abortions of tempest. Landscape painting, under its lurid light which blanched the sun instead of reddening it, seemed to be deteriorating by the mere physical impossibility of seeing and studying the blue skies of his youth. Nature and Art seemed to be suffering together — the times were out of joint ; and these were but signs and warnings of a more serious gloom. For, feeling as he did the weight of human wrong against which it was his mission to prophesy, believing in a Divine government of the world in all its literalness, he had the courage to appear before a London audience,f like any seer * A geological model of the neighbourhood of Coniston, which waa being made under his direction. + London Institution, February 4th, 1884 ; repeated with variations and additions a week later. The occupations of his remaining weeks in London are told in the following extracts from letters written to friend:) at Brantwood in February 1884: — 376 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of old, and to tell them that this eclipse of heaven was — if not a judgment — at all events a symbol of the moral darkness of a nation that had ' blasphemed the name of God deliber- ately and openly ; and had done iniquity by proclamation, every man doing as much injustice to his brother as it was in his power to do.' It sounded like a voice crying in the wilderness ; to those that sat at ease, a jest ; to many who, without his religious feeling and without his ardent emotional temperament, were yet working for the same ends of justice ,to the oppressed, it seemed like fanaticism, out of place in these latter days. But to him, growing old, and wearying for the Kingdom of Heaven which he despaired at last of seeing, there was but one reality — the great fact, as he knew it, of God above, and man either obeying or withstanding Him. Civilization, Art, Science, and all the pride of human progress, he weighed in the balance against the stern law of right and wrong, which ' I want to know all about the bells, and what the children [at the school] are making of them : 1 bought the compass (seaman's on card), and another of needle, for the big school, yesterday; and another on card for the infants, and I want to know how the bricks get on. What a blessed time it takes to get anything done ! ' I had. rather a day of it yesterday. Into National Gallery by halt- past eleven — went all over it, noting things for lecture to the Academy girls on Saturday. Then a nice half hour in a toy-shop, buying toys for the cabman's daughter [Miss Greenaway 's little model] — kaleidoscope, magnetic fish, and skippiug rope. Out to HoUoway — sate for my portrait to K. G. — cabman's daughter at four — had tea, muifins, magnetic fishing, skipping, and a game at marbles. Back across town to Sanger's Amphitheatre over Westminster Bridge. Saw pretty girl ride haute hole, and beginning of pantomime, but pantomime too stupid ; so I came away at half past ten, walked a mile homewards in the moonlight — shower coming on took cab up the hill, aud had pretty to boil eggs for my supper. ' I really shall be rather sorry to leave town ; but there's something to be said for the country, too. . . . 'Please find a catalogue of 108 or 110 minerals, written by me, of my case at the British Museum. You'll easily guess which it is among the MSS. in top drawer of study book-case, west side, farthest from fire. I want it here by Monday, for I'm going on Tuesday to have a THE STORM-CLOUD 877 • our fathers have told us.' It had always been the burden of his teaching ; and amidst all minor interests and occupations, the note sounded louder and deeper than before, now that he had shaken off the hesitancy of philosophic doubt, and saw the space narrowing between him and ' the earnest portal of eternity.' In the autumn, at Oxford, he took up his parable again His lectures on ' The Pleasures of England ' he intended as a sketch of the main stream of history from his own religious standpoint. It was a noble theme, and one which his breadth of outlook and detailed experience would have fitted him to handle; but he was already nearing the limit of his vital powers. He had been suffering from depression throughout the summer, unrelieved by the energetic work for St. George's Museum, which in other days might have been a relaxation from more serious thought. He had been editing Miss Alexander's ' Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' and recasting earlier works of his own, incessantly busy ; presuming upon long day at the case. They're going to exhibit the two diamonds and mby on loan, the first time they've done so. ' I had rather a day of it yesterday. Out at half-past ten, to china- shop in GroBvenor Place and glass-shop in Palace Eoad. Bought coffee- and tea-cups for Academy girls to-morrow, and a blue bottle for myself. Then to Boehm's, and ordered twelve medallions : flattest bas- relief size-of-life profiles, chosen British types— six men and six girls. Then to Kensington Museum, and made notes for to-morrow's lecture. Then to British Museum, and worked for two hours arranging agates. Then into city, and heard Mr. Gale's lecture on British Sports at London Institution. Then home to supper, and exhibited crockery and read my letters before going to bed. 'But I'm rather sleepy this afternoon— however, Pm going to the Princess's to see GLaudi'M (by the actor's request) — hope I shan't fall asleep.' These are only scraps, to show that his prophetic function was not all sackcloth and ashes. He was none the less a prophet for being Jonah's opposite. He took a deep interest in t'ne modern Niiieveh. The next letter ends : ' What is the world coming to 1 I wish I could stay to see P (Miss Kate Greenaway wishes it to be stated that the portrait, men- tioned in one of the above letters, was not completed.) 378 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN the health he had enjoyed, and taking no hints nor advice from anxious friends, who would have been glad to have seen the summer spent in change of scene and holiday-making. At Oxford he was watched with concern — ^restless and excited, too absorbed in his crusr-de against the tendencies of the modern scientific party, too vehement and unguarded in his denunciations of colleagues, too bitter against the new order of things which, to his horror, was introducing vivi- section in the place of the old-fashioned natural history he loved, and speculative criticism instead of * religious and useful learning.' He was persuaded to cancel his last three attacks on modem life and thought — ' The Pleasures of Truth,' of ' Sense,' and of ' Nonsense ^ — and to substitute readings from earlier works, hastily arranged and re-written ; and his friends breathed more freely when he left Oxford without another serious attack of brain-disease. He wrote on December 1st, 1884, to Miss Beever : ' I gave my fourteenth, and last for this year, lecture with vigour and effect, and am safe and well (D.G.) after such a spell of work as I never did before.' To another correspondent, a few days later : ' Here are two lovely little songs for you to put tunes to, and sing to me. You'll have both to be ever so good to me, for I've been dreadfully bothered and battered here. I've bothered other people a little, too, — which is some comfort !' Bat in spite of everything, the vote was passed to establish a physiological laboratory at the museum ; to endow vivi- section — which to him meant not only cruelty to animals, but a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of science, f>nd defiance of the moral law. He resigned his Professorship, with the sense that all his work had been in vain, that he was completely out of touch with the age, and that he had best give up the ur.squal fight. In former times when he had found himself beaten in his struggles with the world, he had turned to geology for a resource and a relief; but geology, too, was part of the field of battle now. The memories of his early youth and the THE STORM-CLOUD 379 bright days of his boyhood came back to him as the only antidote to the distresses and disappointments of his age, and he strove to forget everything in ' bygones ' — ' Praeterita.' It was Professor Norton who suggested that he should write his own life. He had begun to tell the story, bit by bit, in ' Fors.' On the journey of 1882 he made a point of revisiting most of the scenes of youthful work and travel, to revive his impressions ; but the meeting with Miss Alexander gave him new interests, and his return to Oxford, starting him, so to say, on a new lease of life, put the autobiography into the background. Now, at last, he collected the scattered notes, and com- pleted his first volume, which brings the account up to the time of his coming of age. It is not a connected and syste- matic biography ; it omits many points of interest, especially the steps of his early successes and mental development ; but it is the brightest conceivable picture of himself and his sur- roundings — ' scenes and thoughts perhaps worthy of memory,'' as the title modestly puts it — told with inimitable ease and graphic power. Readers who knew him as a landscape- painter in prose were surprised at his insight into human character, and his skill in portraiture. Nothing could be hvelier in anecdote, or happier in humorous expression, — the more surprising when one knows the difficult circumstances imder which the book was written. Above all, it reveals the pathetic side of the author's life, — ^his early limitations and struggles, — in a way which taught a new sympathy for the man whose position had been envied, whose self-reliance and gladiatorial energy had been admired and feared, by readers who little understood how much tenderness they masked, and how many trials they had surmounted. We have traced, even more fully than he has told, a life which was a battle with adversities from the beginning. Over-stimulus in childhood; intense application to work in youth and middle age, under conditions of discouragement, both public and private, which would have been fatal to many another man ; and this, too, not merely hard work, but work 380 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of an intense emotional nature, involving — in his view at least — wide issues of life and death, in which he was another Jacob wrestling with the angel in the wilderness, another Savonarola imploring reconciliation between God and man. Without a life of singular temperance — the evidence of which is seen in still undimmed clearness of eye and unfailing fulness of hair and beard — without unusual moral principle and self-command, he would long ago have fallen in the race, like other men of genius of his passionate type. He outlived ' consumptive ' tendencies in youth ; and the repeated indica-" tions of over-strain in later life, up to the time of his first serious break -down in 1878, had issued in nothing more than the depression and fatigue with which most busy men are familiar. He had been accustomed to hear himself called mad, — the defence of Tuimer was thought by the dUettanti of the time to be possible only to a lunatic ; the author of ' Stones of Venice,' we saw, was insane in the eyes of his critic, the architect ; it was seriously whispered when he wrote on Political Economy thd,t Ruskin was out of his mind ; and so on. Every new thing he put forward ' made Quintilian stare and gasp,' and soi-disant friends shake their heads, until a still newer nine-days'- wonder appeared from his pen : the fact being that all along he was simply ahead of his public, one of the very few men of broad outlook, of panoramic genius (to quote Carlyle on Goethe) in a hive of clever critics and myopic specialists. But the break-down of 1878, so difficult to explain to his public, made it appear that the common reproach might after all be coming true. The recurrence of a similar illness in 1881 and 1882 made it still more to be feared. It seemed as though his life's work was to be invalidated by his age's failure; it seemed that the stale, shallow reproach might only too easily be justifiable. We cannot but ask, How far was there ground for this fear? This is hardly the place to discuss the general question of the connection of insanity with genius. That some obscure rela- tion of the sort does exist, cannot be denied ; at any rate, THE STORM-CLOUD 881 that the busy brain of a great man is more liable than others to fail, partially or wholly, finally or transiently. The busi- ness of the public — and more especially of the critics who assume to lead the public's judgment — is to distinguish between the normal career of genius and its aberrations. The dividing line is sometimes easy to draw. Nobody doubts the value of Kanfs or Wordsworth's work, although there was a gloom over their later days. At other times the line is more difficult to lay down, as in the case of Turner. In some of his most brilliant work one feels the presence of morbid conditions long before they can be diagnosed with cer- tainty. But in the life of a thinker and leader of men, like Ruskin, the question becomes more than a matter of curiosity. We all admit him to be sincere ; but is he sound .'' Or, if infalli- bility be put out of the question, is he more — or less — logical, rational, coherent in mental development, than other men to whom we listen, and in whom we trust for opinion and advice ? To this there is only one answer. The more I study his life the more I see that his work is not irresponsible and eccentric. The careful student should be able to trace his genius, down to the end, in continuous and rational progres- sion. Passing over defined intervals of mental disease, and allowing for vehemence of expression — partly characteristic, partly the temporary effect of the pemmnbra of the storm- cloud — his mental development, I make bold to say, is normal and logical throughout his life. And I believe that when his work can be looked back upon as a whole, with proper under- standing of its environment and with full knowledge of its circumstances, the common reproach of insanity made against each new manifestation of his mind will then be scorned as an exploded prejudice. But these attacks of mental disease, which at his recall to Oxford seemed to have been safely distanced, after his resig- nation began again at more and more frequent intervals. Crash after crash of tempest fell upon him — clearing away 382 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN for a while only to return with fiercer fury, until they left him beaten down and helpless at last, to learn that he must accept the lesson and bow before the storm. Like another prophet who had been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, he was to feel tempest and earthquake and fire pass over him, before hearing the still small voice that bade him once more take courage, and live in quietness and in con- fidence, for the sake of those whom he had forgotten, when he cried, ' I, even I only, am left.' From one who has been out in the storm the reader will not expect a cool recital of its effects. The delirium of brain- fever brings strange things to pass ; and, no doubt, afforded ground for the painful gossip, of which there has been more than enough, — much of it absurdly untnie, the romancing of ingenious newspaper-correspondents ; some of it, the lie that is half a truth. For in these times there were not wanting parasites such as always prey upon creatures in disease, as well as weak admirers who misunderstood their hero's natural character, and entirely failed to grasp his situation. Let such troubles of the past be forgotten : all that I now remember of many a weary night and day is the vision of a great soul in torment, and through purgatorial fires the in- effable tenderness of the real man emerging, with his passion- ate appeal to justice and baffled desire for truth". To those who could not follow the wanderings of the wearied brain it was nothing but a horrible or a grotesque nightmare. Some, in those trials, learnt as they could not otherwise have learnt . to know him, and to love him as never before. There were many periods of health, or comparative health, even in those years. While convalescent from the illness of 1885 he continued 'Praeterita' and ' Dilecta,' the series of notes and letters illustrating his life. In connection with early reminiscences, he amused himself by reproducing his favourite old nursery book, ' Dame Wiggins of Lee.' He edited the works of one or two friends, wrote occasionally to newspapers — notably on books and reading, to the Pall Mall Gazette, in the ' Symposium ' on the best hundred books. He continued THE STORM-CLOUD 883 his attangements for the Museum, and held an exhibition (June 1886) of the drawings made under his direction for the Guild.* He was already drifting into another illness when he sent the famous reply to an appeal for help to pay oif the debt on a chapel at Richmond. The letter is often misquoted for the sake of raising a laugh, so that it is not out of place to reprint it as a specimen of the more vehement expressions of this period. The reader of his life must surely see, through the violence of the wording, a perfectly consistent and reasonable expression of Mr. Ruskin's views : — •Bkantwood, Coniston', ' Lancashire, 'May\^th, 1886. •Sir, ' I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing ! My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is " Don't get into debt. Starve and go to heaven — but don't borrow. Try first begging, — I don't mind, if it's really needful, stealing ! But don't buy things you can't pay for!" ' And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can't pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach and pray behind the hedges — or in a sandpit — or a coal-hole — first ? ' And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built, iron churches are the damnablest to me. * The Academy of June 12, 1886, noticing Mr. Albert Goodwin's drawings at the Fine Art Society, continues : — ' In the same room are a series of drawings made for St. George's Guild, under the direction of Mr. Ruskia — mostly studies of pictures and architecture in Italy. The artists are Sig. Alessandri and Messrs. Frank Bandall, Fairfax Murray, Thomas Eooke, and W. G. Colling- wood. They are, without exception, beautiful examples of thorough workmanship and true colour. Mr. Eooke's " Cottages at St. Martins, etc.," reminds us of the days of the Pre-Eaphaelites. Mr. Kobson's design for the proposed museum at Bewdley is also shown.' 384 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN 'And of all the sects of believers in any ruling spirit — Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolaters, and Muinbo Jumbo, Log and Fire worshippers, who want churches, your modern English Evangelical sect is the most absurd, and entirely objectionable and unendurable to me ! All which they might very easily have found out from my books — any other sort of sect would ! — before bothering me to write it to them. ' Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant, 'John Ruskin.' The recipient of the letter promptly sold it.* Only three days later, Mr. Ruskin was writing one of the most striking passages in ' Praeterita' (vol. ii., chap. 5.) — ^indeed, one of the daintiest landscape pieces in all his works, describing the blue Rhone as it flows under the bridges of Geneva. This energetic letter-writing made people stare ; but a more serious result of these periods between strength and helpless- ness was the tendency to misunderstanding with old friends. Mr. Ruskin had spoiled many of them, if I may say so, by too uniform forbearance and unselfishness : and now that he was not always strong enough to be patient, difficulties ensued which they had not always the tact to avert. ' The moment I have to scold people they say I'm crazy,' he said, piteously, one day. And so, one hardly knows how, he found himself at strife on all sides. Before he was fully recovered from the attack of 1886 there were troubles about the Oxford drawing school ; and he withdrew most of the pictures he had there on loan. How little animosity he really felt against Oxford is shown from the fact that early in the next year (February 1887) he was planning with his cousin, Mr. Wm. Richardson, to give 6^5000 to the drawing school, as a joint gift in memory of their two mothers. Mr. Richardson's death, and Mr. Ruskin's want of means, — for he had already spent all his capital, — put an end to the scheme. But the remaining * I was informed that this letter had fetched £lO. Mr. J. H. School- ing tells me that the recipient got only a guinea for it. THE STORM-CLOUD 885 loans, including important and valuable drawings by himself, he did not withdraw, and it is to be hoped they may stay there to show not only the artist's hand but the friendly heart of the founder and benefactor. In April 1887 came the news of Laurence Hilliard's death in the iEgean, with a shock that intensified the tendency to another recurrence of illness. For months the situation caused great anxiety. In August he posted with Mrs. A. Severn towards the south, and took up his quarters at Folkestone, moving soon after to Sandgate, where he remained, with short visits to town, until the following summer — better, or worse, from week to week — sometimes writing a little for ' Prasterita,' or preparing material for the continuation of unfinished books ; but bringing on his malady with each new effort. In June 1888 he went with Mr. Arthur Severn to Abbeville, and made his headquarters for nearly a month at the Tete de Boeuf. Here he was arrested for sketching the fortifications, and examined at the police station, much to his amusement. At Abbeville, too, he met Mr. Detmar Blow, a young archi- tect, whom he asked to accompany him to Italy. They stayed awhile at Paris, — drove, as in 1882, over the Jura, and up to Chamouni, where Mr. Ruskin wrote the epilogue to the reprint of 'Modem Painters'; then, by Martigny and the Simplon, they went to visit Mrs. and Miss Alexander at Bassano ; and thence to Venice. They returned by the St. Gotthard, reaching Heme Hill early in December. But this journey did not, as it had been hoped, put him in possession of his strength like the journey of 1882. Then, he had returned to public life with new vigour ; now, his best hours were hours of feebleness and depression ; and he came home to Brantwood in the last days of the year, wearied to -death, to wait for the end. 26 CHAPTER X. DATUR HORA QUIETI. (1889-1897.) ' But it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.'— Zbch. xiv. 7. IN the summer of 1889, at Seascale, on the Cumberland coast, Mr. Ruskin was still busy upon ' Praeterita.' He had his task planned out to the finish: in nine more chapters he meant to conclude his third volume with a review of the leading memories of his life, down to the year 1875, when the story was to close. Passages here and there were written, material collected from old letters and journals, and the contents and titles of the chapters arranged ; but the intervals of strength had become fewer and shorter, and at last, in spite of all his courage and energy, he was brought face to face with the fact that his powers were ebbing away, and that head and hand would do their work no more. He could not finish ^ Praeterita ' ; but he could not leave it without record of one companionship of his life, which wa^, it seemed, all that was left to him of the old times and the old folks at home. And so, setting aside the plans he had made, he devoted the last chapter, as his forebodings told him it must be, to his cousin, Mrs. Arthur Severn, and wrote the story of ' Joanna's Care.' In his bedroom at Seascale, morning after morning, he still worked, or tried to work, as he had been used to do on journeys farther afield in brighter days. But now he seemed lost among the papers scattered on his table ; he could not fix his mind upon them, and turned from one subject to DATUR HORA QUIETI 387 another in despair ; and yet patient, and kindly to those with him whose help he could no longer use, and who dared not show — though he could not but guess — how heart-breaking it was. They put the best face upon it, of course : drove in the afternoons about the country — ^to Muncaster Castle, to Calder Abbey, where he tried to sketch once more ; and when the proofs of ' Joanna's Care ' were finally revised, to Wastwater. But travelling now was no longer restorative. It added not a little to the misfortunes of the time that two of his best friends in the outside world were disputing over a third. By nobody more than by Mr. Ruskin was Carlyle's reputation valued, and yet he acknowledged that Mr. Fronde was but telling the truth in the revelations which so surprised the public ; and much as he admired Mr. Norton, he deprecated the attack on Carlyle's literary executor, whose motives he understood and approved. In August, after his return to Coniston, the storm-cloud came down upon him once more. It was only in the summer of 1890 that he was able to get about. But firmly con- vinced that his one chance lay in absolute rest and quiet, he has since wisely refused any sort of exertion, and has been re- warded by a steady improvement in health and strength. In the meantime he was obliged to hand over to others such parts of his work as others could do. The St. Greorge's Guild still continued in existence, though it natur- ally lost much of its interest, and the whole of its distinctive mission, when he ceased to be able to direct it on the lines marked out in 'Fors.' Contributions from the friends and companions of the Guild have, at a rough calculation from published accounts, nearly equalled the original ^£"7000 which he gave to start the fund. The agricultural schemes have been left in abeyance, but the educational side, less important though more attainable, has prospered. Very many schools and colleges have benefited by its gifts and loans, but the Museum at Sheffield is looked upon as its chief outward and visible sign. 25-2 388 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN It had quite, outgrown its cottage at Walkley, never in- tended for more than temporary premises ; and for ten years there had been talk of new buildings, at first on the spot, then on the Guild's ground at Bewdley, where, at one time, Mr. Ruskin planned a fairy palace in the woods, with cloistered hostelries for the wandering student. Such schemes were stopped less by his illness than by want of means. More careful of others' property than his own, he kept half the fund, and bought land and consols as a permanent endow- ment. The rest he spent on pictures, books, casts, coins, and minerals. If sometimes he bought objects that seemed ex- pensive, or paid liberally for work, it must be remembered that the rule of the Museum was to have only the best of everything, and the rule of the Guild was that the labourer is worthy of his hire. There was no waste in useless salaries or accumulated specimens. Mr. Ruskin's judgment as buyer was invaluable, and freely given ; after all, what he spent was his own gift, to which he added in kind as time went on. So there was no money for building. Sheffield, moreover, did not wish to lose the Museum, and oflFered to house it if the Guild would present it to the town. That was, of course, out of the question. But a new offer to take over the collection on loan, the Guild paying a curator, was another matter, and was thankfully accepted. The Cor- poration fulfilled their share of the bargain with generosity. An admirable site was assigned at Meersbrook Park, in a fine old hall surrounded with trees, and overlooking a broad view of the town and country. On April 15th, 1890, the Museum was opened by the Earl of Carlisle, in presence of the Cor- poration, the Trustees of the Guild, and a large assembly of Mr. Ruskin's friends and Sheffield townspeople. Since then the attendance of visitors and students shows that the col- lection is appreciated by the public ; and it is to be hoped that though nominally a loan it will remain there in per- petuity, and that it will be maintained and used with due regard to the intentions of the founder. Many other plans had to be modified, as Mr. Ruskin found DATUR HORA QUIETI 889 himself less able to work, and was obliged to hand over his business to others. With his early books he had been dis- satisfied, as expressing immature views. 'The Stones of Venice' had been recast into two small volumes, and 'St. Mark's Rest ' written in the attempt to supplement and cor- rect it. But the original book was obviously in demand, and a new edition was brought out in 1886. ' Modem Painters " had been also on the condemned list. The aggressive Protestantism and the geological theories in- volved in his descriptions of mountains he condemned as errors ; moreover, at the time of the last edition published by Messrs. Smith & Elder (1873), he had been told that the plates, which he considered a very important part of the work, would not stand another impression; and so he de- stroyed nine of them, in order that no subsequent edition might be brought out in the original form. He reprinted vol. ii. in a cheap edition, and began to recast the rest, with annotations and additions, as 'In Montibus Sanctis,' and ' Cceli Enarrant '; while Miss S. Beever's selections (' Frondes Agrestes ') found a ready sale. But this did not satisfy the public, and there was a continual cry for a reprint, to which, at last, he yielded. Early in 1889 the ' Complete Edition ' appeared ; with the cancelled plates reproduced. Sets of the original volumes had reached the price of .fSO, and their owners not unnaturally felt aggrieved at the deprecia- tion of their property. But the new edition was Hot an exact reproduction of the old. No connoisseur would accept photogravure reproductions and modern copies as equivalent in value to autograph etchings and old masterpieces of en- graving, and the edition of ' 1888 ' (as it is dated), however useful to the general reader, cannot replace the original on the shelves of the intelligent book-lover. Indeed, in spite of a rapid sale of two large issues, which shows the reality of the demand for the reprint, the original volumes maintain a con- siderable value in the market. While working at ' Praeterita,' Mr. Ruskin had looked up those old writings in verse with which he had made his first 390 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN reputation in his youth. He had been often pressed to reprint his volume of Poems ; and with a natural interest in his ' first-bom,' and in everything that recalled early days, he acceded to the demand — the more readily that American ' pirated ' editions were already in the field, and verses falsely attributed to him were in circulation, both in print and in. MS. Though he had never set great store by his verse- writing, he had never wished to destroy the evidences of his early industry. In 184(9 he printed a thin quarto containing the ' Scythian Guest,'* with a preface in which he said : ' However unwilling I might be to stand for public judgment as a poet by bringing together those uncollected productions, I cannot pretend to think them so wholly bad that no sample should be rescued and preserved.' Next year was printed a tolerably full collection. In ' The Queen of the Air ' he gave a specimen of his earliest attempts, and in ' Praeterita ' quoted others, and alluded to many more. Now at last he handed over the carefully preserved MSS. to one of his assistants, and the Poems of John Ruskin appeared in 1891. The volumes form an authentic record of the development of a remarkable mind. 'Praeterita" tells what the old man thought of his boyhood ; the Poems, without the self-con- sciousness of most diary-writers, reveal him as he really was. Taken in this light, they are unique in literary history ; and the plates, in photogravure facsimile of his drawings, illus- trate the progress of his artistic powers. These volumes were the first published by Mr. Ruskin after the passing of the American Copyright Act. He had always felt it a grievance that the enormous popularity of his works in America meant an enormous piracy. Towards the end of the ' Fifties,' Mr. Wiley of New York had begun to print cheap Ruskins ; not, indeed, illegally, but without proper acknowledgment to the author, and without any reference to the author's wishes as to form and style of production. An artist and writer on art, insisting on delicacy and refine- * Now excessively rare. I owe the notice to the kindness of Mr. T. J. Wise. DATUR HORA QUIETI 391 ment as the first necessity of draughtsmanship, and himself sparing no trouble or expense in the illustrations of his own works, was naturally dissatisfied with the wretched 'Arto- types ' with which the American editions caricatured his beautiful plates. Not only that, but it was a common practice to smuggle these editions, recommended by their cheapness, into other countries. Mr. Wiley sent, on an average, five hundred sets of 'Modem Painters 'to Europe every year, the greater number to England. His example was followed by other American publishers, so that in New York alone there came to be half a dozen houses advertising Ruskin''s works, and many more throughout the cities of the States. Mr. Wiley, the first in the field, proposed to pay up a royalty upon all the copies he had sold if Mr. Ruskin would recognise him as accredited publisher in America. The offer of so large a sum would have been tempting, had it not meant that Mr. Ruskin must condone what he had for years denounced, and sanction what he strongly disapproved. The case would have been different if proposals had been made to reproduce his books in his own style, under competent super- vision. This was done in 1890, when arrangements were made with Messrs. Charles E. Memll & Co., of New York, to bring out the ' Brantwood ' edition of Ruskin, under the editorship of Professor C. E. Norton. Though the sale of Mr. Ruskin''s books in America has never, until so recently, brought him any profit, his own business in England, started in 1871 with the monthly pamphlet of ' Fors,' and in 1872 with the volume of ' Sesame and Lilies,' has singularly prospered. Mr. George Allen, who, while building up an independent connection, still remains the sole publisher of Mr. Ruskin's works, says that the venture was successful from its earliest years. It was found that the booksellers were not indispensable, and that business could be done through the post as well as over the counter. In spite of occasional difficulties, such as the bringing out of works in parts, appearing irregularly or stopping outright at the author's illnesses, there has been 392 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN a steady increase of profit, rising of late years (according to Mr. Allen) to an average of ^"4000. Fortunate it was for Mr. Ruskin that his bold attempt succeeded. The d£'200,000 he inherited from his parents had gone, — chiefly in gifts and in attempts to do good. The interest he used to spend on himself; the capital he gave away until it totally disappeared, except what is repre- sented by the house he lived in and its contents. The sale of his books was his only income, and a great part of that went to pensioners to whom in the days of his wealth he pledged himself, to relatives and friends, discharged servants, in- stitutions in which he took an interest at one time or other. But he had suflicient for his wants, and no need to fear poverty in his old age. Though he no longer read proofs nor wrote business letters, he took an interest in all that went on. His desire, often expressed, was to see his works completely accessible to the public, and as cheap as possible consistent with good form. He deputed two of his nearest friends to manage the details of business, without giving him unnecessary trouble ; but his readers may be assured that those in charge were acting under his eye, and sincerely endeavouring to con- sult his wishes and interests, which constant intercourse gave them every opportunity of understanding. The 'Poems,' ' Poetry of Architecture,' ' Studies in Both Arts,' ' Ruskin Reader,' ' Selections,' ' Lectures on Landscape,' and cheap re- prints of nearly all his works, were published by his pennission and for his profit. 'Modem Painters' and 'Stones of Venice,' on account of their delicate illustrations, which cannot easily be reproduced, for a long time defied all attempts to cheapen them. But readers who still cry out for ' cheap Ruskin ' should consult Mr. Allen's list. In this quiet retreat at Brantwood the echoes of the outer world did not sound very loudly. Mr. Ruskin had been too highly praised and too roundly abused, during fifty years of public life, to care what magazine critics and journalists said of him. Other men of his standing could solace DATUR HORA QUIETI 393 themselves, if it be solace, in the consciousness that a grateful country has recognised their talents or their services. But civic and academic honours were not likely to be showered on a man who had spent his life in strenuous opposition to academicism in art and letters, and in vigorous attacks upon both political parties, and upon the established order of things. And yet Oxford and Cambridge awarded him the highest honours in their gift.* In 1873 the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours voted him honorary member, a recognition which gave him great pleasure at the time. At different dates he was elected to various societies — Geological, Zoological, Architectural, Horticultural, His- torical, Anthropological, Metaphysical ; and to the Athenasum and Alpine Clubs. But he did not seek distinctions, and he even declined them, as in the case of the medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Many years before, in his youth, he received the diploma of a great Italian academy. He was very busy at the moment, travelling, and not sure of his Italian or the prpper form of reply, — so he told me once, — and he put off his acknowledgment until he forgot all about it. Long after, he recollected the discourtesy with shame ; but it was too late, then, to repair the slip, and he was glad to hear no more of the onerous compliment. He appears however in 1877 as Hon. Associate of the Academy of VenicQ. His works have not been popularised abroad by transla- tions, to which he was opposed, feeling not only that his style would be difficult to render, but that the audiences they would address could hardly be open to the appeal he makes so distinctly to the mmd and associations of an English- speaking race. But his name is well enough known in Italy, and better known in France. In 1864! M. Joseph Milsand, * The Oxford Honorary D.C.L., ofiFered in 1879, waa conferred upon him Nov. 7, 1893, by a resolution of Convocation ' to dispense with his attendance in the House for admission to the degree with the customary formalities, any usage or precedent notwithstanding.' 394 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Browning's friend, in his ' Esthetique Anglaise,' more recently M. Ernest Chesneau in his ' Ecole Anglaise,'* M. Marcel Fouquier, M. Robert de la Sizeranne in a series of brilliant papers in the Revue des Deux Monies, and other French writers, have introduced him to their countrymen, so efficiently that ' le Ruskinisme ' has become quite the Paris fashion. The diplomas of honorary membership received in 1892 from the Royal Academies of Antwerp and Brussels show that he is not unknown in Belgium, and he was elected an honorary member of the American Academy. A more striking form of distinction than empty titles is the fact that Mr. Ruskin was the first writer whose con- temporaries, during his lifetime, formed societies to study his work. The first Ruskin Society was founded in 1879 at Manchester, and was followed by the Societies of London, Glasgow and Liverpool, still in working. In 1887 the Ruskin Reading Guild was formed in Scotland, with many local branches in England and Ireland, and a journal, subsequently re-named Igdrasil, to promote study of literary and social subjects in Ruskin, and in writers like Carlyle and Tolstoi taking a standpoint similar to his. In 1896, Ruskin Societies were formed at Birmingham and in the Isle of Man. Many classes and clubs for the study of Ruskin are also in operation throughout America. A number of other societies for philanthropic purposes — such as the Social Unions in some large cities — trace their motive power chiefly to Ruskin, through many able thmkers and workers who are making themselves a place in the front rank in modern life. For though he looked fondly back to old times for his personal ideals, Ruskin's teaching was essentially modern. Its atmosphere was that of the time coming; its ideas were those that commend themselves to the vanguard of progress, — not the ' progress ' of old-fashioned Liberalism, but of an age which has been born since Ruskin's voice began to * The English translation of which was edited by Mr. Ruskin. He commissioned M. Chesneau to write a life of Turner, which, after the expenditure of £250, was abandoned. DATUR HORA QUIETI 395 fail, and is now beginning to realize that he was its true father and pioneer. A curious indication of this is the fact that in the State of Tennessee there is a town, built and owned by Socialists, who are engaged in the printing and publication, on the most extensive scale, of literature devoted to the cause they re-, present. They proposed in 1896 to offer to ' a reading con- stituency of 100,000 per week a series of special articles by thoroughly representative Socialists of all nations, under the general title of " Ruskin Labor Letters to American Work- ing-men." ' Their organization calls itself ' the Ruskin Co- operative Association,' and the name they have chosen foi their town is ' Ruskin.' Not long since, talking over his ' failures,' Mr. Ruskin said it was some comfort to him that he was not without successors, and he instanced Count Leo Tolstoi' as one who was, in a way, carrying out the work he had hoped to do. About the same time, in the Cornhill Magazine,, in which 'Unto this Last' appeared over thirty years before, a contributor reported a talk with the great Russian : — ' Ruskin he thought one of the greatest men of the age ; and it pained him to notice that English people generally were of a different opinion. But " no man is a prophet in his own country," and the greatest men are seldom recognised in their own times for the very reason that they are so much in advance of the age. Their contemporaries are unable to understand them.' So Tolstoi speaks ; so all the best men of his time have spoken about Ruskin ; and after theirs, what testimony can be added ? ***** It is long since we travelled there together and shared the diversions of Brantwood. Shall we go once more to the place as it is to-day ? Or — ' that I may not piece pure truth with fancy ' — shall I set down simply some notes of a visit, written at the time ? It is New-year's-eve of 1897 ; midwinter in the north,— and yet not so far north but that our winters ai-e mostly 396 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN open and mild, and even their frosts are kindly. The Gulf Stream warms our coast, and the dales lie low and sheltered when snow shines keen on Helvellyn top and on the Coniston Old Man. You may find colder weather in Italy, for the time of year, and drearier scenes at Venice and Como. Our fields are richly green ; the waysides lovely with ivy-wreaths, and fringed polypody, and mosses rooted in the rain-washed rock. There is no landscape more finished in its detail. And we have wealth of evergreen trees among the brown copse ; this year, too, scarlet clouds of hips and haws blurring the woods with more than autumnal colour. The study-windows at Brantwood yesterday looked out upon a spread of grey lake, overflowing the low fields by Coniston hall, and ridged into foam under a strong south wind. Above the gleaming wet roofs of the distant village ranges of crag, russet with fern, rose abruptly into the soft grey ceiling of cloud, and along their precipices there stood white waterfalls, forked and zigzagged like fixed lightnings. Beside the window — you have seen him, if you know one portrait, compared with which the rest are almost caricatures. Many excellent attempts of good photographers have posed him in unwonted attitudes, or dragged him into groups, or failed, by unskilful lighting, to catch the modelling of the head. This one is Mr. Ruskin himself, as he sits in his accustomed seat of now-a-days. It used to be on the opposite side of the little octagon table in the bay window, where he always sat for light to write by, and bade his visitor take the armchair beside the fire, turning out the cat from her comfort- able place. But the days of his writing are over, and the time has come for him to rest in the shadowy comer among the bookshelves. This photograph by Mr. Hollyer* is ' a thing to wonder on,' almost reaching the imaginative portraiture of a Watts or a Tintoret in its seizure of essential characteristics — ^the face monumental in extremes of strength and refinement, * Eeproduoed, but inadequately, in The Commonwealth for July, 1896. DATUR HORA QUIETI 397 wandering white beard and ample wavy hair ; the repose of delicate folded hands, and the twilight of the curtained nook, with just the gleaming lights that Rembrandt or Velasquez would have noted and struck in from a loaded brush. But it is all the simple truth, as far as a photograph can show it. Yesterday there was more to see than any photograph can show ; for the weak winter twihght was not the only light, and the grey of the raincloud not the only colour in the room. Warm glow from the hearth, and the radiance of flowers in rich masses — anemones, cyclamen, primulas, grouped there by loving hands, on the table, round the window-sill, on every available standing-spot, made the place like a shrine on a feast-day. He looked up, and half rose, with outstretched hand, and the smile of old acquaintance ; pushing back a heap of books and letters at his elbow : — Christmas letters from friends all round the world, old favourite volumes of Carlyle, a Words- worth in its latest, daintiest dress, children's stories of the season, and on the top of the heap, with gold spectacles between its leaves, a booklet of religious thought. With such companions one travels gladly, approaching ' the earnest portals of eternity.' You would think him older than his years ; but so he must always have seemed. You remember that. he was already a writer, not without success, on the verge of celebrity, sixty years ago. If ' actions are epochs,' how many an age has passed over him. And the years of later trial have left their mark in the ageing of the bowed frame and quiet voice. But in this repose there is ihore restraint than feebleness ; now and again a word flashing waywardly out, or a gesture im- pulsive as ever, betrays the fund of latent strength, and health in some measure regained. He had been out for a walk in the morning, he said, — ' But the wind was too much for me ; and so I went into the garden, and took refuge in the greenhouse.' The afternoon was not tempting enough for the usual tramp along the lake- side or through the wood. So he sat talking over the doings 398 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN of the season, and such news^as the last few days had brought. There was a debate in the French Chamber of Leputies, in which M. Aynard, writer on art and representative of Lyons, had ended a brilliant speech on art-education with a reference to Ruskin, followed by ' vifs applaudissements.' There were messages from societies, and readers in America and else- where. There was the Peterborough ' restoration ' affair, for which he still has language at command, — it was only the other day that he dictated a letter to the Times about it, — Oh Ruskinian inconsistency ! — within an hour or so after declining personal answers to a budget of pressing correspon- dence, on the plea of needful repose. There are still many who fail to realize this need, and con- tinue to write to him as to a man in active life. After all these years there come frequent letters, demanding his advice, opinion, sympathy, money, influence, autograph, and so forth. In a word it may be said that such appeals are useless. To his personal friends Mr. Ruskin is always accessible, as they know. From his readers he is glad to get the kindly expression of their feeling for him. But for the rest, he has stated his thoughts and given his advice fully in print ; any influence he can use or gifts in his keeping have been, among so wide an acquaintance, long bespoken ; he declines to write any more autographs — ^though he takes pen in hand on occasion. 'I think I have done enough of that sort of thing,' he says. * I fee] that if I answer one, I may have to answer hundreds.' And all true friends must surely respect this feeling. Last summer, on the steamboat, there was a fine old gentle- man, who when we came over against Brantwood took off his hat and stood with his grey hair to the wind until the place was out of sight. That was a truer tribute than waylaying a celebrity on his private walks, and besieging his windows with the mockery of hero-worship. The talk at last fell on more homely topics, for Mr. Ruskin has always a kindly interest in his neighbours of the village. Lately, to forward the building of a Recreation-room, library and museum, to which he had already given a collection of DATUR HORA QUIETI 899 minerals, he sent a number of little sketches, looked out and signed for the purpose ; which found a ready sale and — ^this is not unworthy of note — purchasers, for the most part, among Coniston folk themselves. For he dwells among his own people. I doubt if there is a child in the dale but regards him with some mystery of reverence such as their forefathers gave to the gentle hermit and tutelary saint of the country- side. What more is there to say ? He dwells among his own people. Those who live with him are his by blood and by adop- tion. He sees their children growing up around him in the house that he has built for them : and lifting his eyes to the hills — ^behold — ^beyond — shall he not see of the travail of his soul ? For now the storm-cloud has drifted away,' and there is light in the west, a mellow light of evening time, such as Turner painted in his pensive Epilogue. 'Datur Hora Quieti': there is more work to do, but not to-day. The plough stands in the furrow ; and the labourer passes peace- fully from his toil, homewards. ONE WORD MORE. ... 'We shall rest, aud, faith, we shall need it.' . , . The Seven Seas. SO far I wrote while he was still with us, and seemed, for all that we could forecast, likely to enjoy many a year of the same repose. His mother, we used to say, lived to her ninetieth year ; and in spite of all he had come through he showed many signs of reserve strength. The absolute quiet and ease of circumstances, the watchful attendance of Mrs. Severn and of his faithful valet Baxter, husbanded the resources of life ; and he took kindly to the inaction which others feared for him. With his daily walk, his books and papers, and the small circle of intimates — for visitors were rare — he declared himself perfectly happy, and said, smiling, that he had earned a holiday. His eightieth birthday was the signal for an outburst of congratulations almost greater than even admirers had ex- pected. The post came late and loaded with flowers and letters, and all day long telegrams arrived from all parts of the world, until they lay in heaps, unopened for the time being. A great address had been prepared, with costly illu- mination on vellum, and binding by Mr. Cobden Sanderson. ' Year by year,' it said, ' in ever widening extent, there is an increasing trust in your teaching, an increasing desire to realize the noble ideals you have set before mankind in words which we feel have brought nearer to our hearts the kingdom of God upon earth. It is our hope and prayer that the joy and ONE WORD MORE 401 peace you have brought to others may return in full measure to your own heart, filling it with the peace which comes from the love of God and the knowledge of the love of your fellow- men.' Among those who subscribed to these sentiments were various people of importance, such as Royal Academicians, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, the Trustees of the British Museum and of the National Gallery, the St. George's Guild and Ruskin Societies, with many others ; and the address was presented by a deputation who reported that they had found him looking well ' and extremely happy.' A similar illuminated address from the University of Oxford ran thus: — 'We venture to send you, as you begin your «ighty-first year, these few words of greeting and good-will, to make you sure that in Oxford the gratitude and reverence with which men think of you is ever fresh. You have helped many to find in life more happiness than they thought it held ; and we trust there is happiness in the latter years of your long life. You have taught many to see the wealth of beauty in nature and in art, prizing the remembrance of it ; and we trust that the sights you have best loved come back to your memory with unfading beauty. You have encouraged many to keep a good heart through dark days, and we trust that the courage of a constant hope is yours.' The London Ruskin Society sent a separate address ; and to show that if not a prophet in his own country he was at any rate a valued friend, the Coniston Parish Council resolved * and carried unanimously,' says the local journal, ' with applause,' — 'That the congratulations of this council be oifered to Mr. John Ruskin, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, together with the warm thanks which they and all their neighbours feel for the kindness he has shown, and the many generous acts he has done to them and theirs during twenty-seven years of residence at Coniston, where his presence is most truly appreciated, and his name will always be most gratefully remembered.' But as the year went on he did not regain his usual summer 26 402 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN strength. Walking out had become a greater weariness to him, and he had to submit to the humiliation of a bath-chair. To save himself even the labour of creeping down to his study, he sat usually in the turret-room upstairs, next to his bed- chamber, but still with the look of health in his face, and the fire in his eyes quite unconquered. He would listen while Baxter read the news to him, following public events with interest, or while Mrs. Severn or Miss Severn read stories, novel after novel ; but always liking old favourites best, and never anything that was unhappy. Some pet books he would pore over, or drowse over, by the hoiu:. The last of these was one in which he had a double interest, for it was about ships of war, and it was written by the kinsman of a dear friend. Some of the artists . he had loved and helped had failed him or left him, but Bume-Jones was always true. One night, going up to bed, the old man stopped long to look at the photograph from Philip Burne-Jones's portrait of his father. ' That's my dear brother Ned,' he said, nodding good-bye to the picture as he went. Next night the great artist died, and of all the many losses of these later years this one was the hardest to bear. So when a little boy lent him ' A Fleet in Being ' he read and re-read it ; then got a copy for himself, and might have learnt it by heart, so long he pored over it. But when the little boy or his sisters went to visit the 'Di Pa' (Dear Papa), as he liked children to call their old friend, he had now scarcely anything to talk about. ' He just looked at us, and smiled,' they would report ; ' and we couldn't think what to say.' But he had his ' bright days,' when he would hear business discussed, though a very little of it was wearisome. It was impossible to bring before him half the wants and wishes of his correspondents, who could not yet realize his weakness, and besought the notice they fancied so easily given. Yet in that weakness one could trace no delusions, none of the mental break-down which was taken for granted. If he gave an opinion it was clear and sound enough ; of course with the ONE WORD MORE 403 old Ruskinian waywardness of idea which always puzzled his public. But he knew what he was about, and knew what was going on. He was just like the aged Queen Aud in the saga, who ' rose late and went to bed early, and if anyone asked after her health she answered sharply.' But all the love and care spent on him could not keep him with us. There came the Green Yule that makes a fat kirk- yard, and in January of 1900 hardly a house in the neighbour- hood was free from the plague of influenza. In spite of strictest precautions it invaded Brantwood, and we all said, ' If only he can be kept !' To some the 18th of January is a date of evil omen, but they hardly anticipated what evil it would bring them. That day he was remarkably well, as people often are before an illness — ' fey,' as the old Northern folk-lore has it. Towards evening, when Mrs. Severn went to him for the usual reading — ^it was Edna Lyall's ' In the Golden Days ' — his throat was irritable and he ' ached all over.' They put him to bed and sent for Dr. Parsons, his constant medical attendant, who found his temperature as high as 102°, and feared the con- sequences. But the patient, as he always did, refused to be considered ill, and ate his dinner, and seemed next day to be really better. There was no great cause for alarm, though naturally some for anxiety ; and in reasonable hopes of amend- ment, the slight attack was not made public. On Saturday morning, the 20th, all appeared to be going well until about half-past ten. Suddenly he collapsed and became unconscious. It was the dreaded failure of heart after in- fluenza. His breathing weakened, and through the morning and through the afternoon in that historic little room, lined with his Turners, he lay, falling softly asleep. No efibrts could revive him. There was no struggle; there were no words. The bitterness of death was spared him. And when it was all over, and those who had watched through the day turned at last from his bedside, 'sunset and evening star' shone bright above the heavenly lake and the clear-cut blue of Coniston fells. 26—3 404 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN But sweet as his setting out was for him, we were a sad little group in the twilight below. How marble-calm and dear the face was when I lifted the covering : how unbeliev- able that the great heart was still. Was it this I had feared, this lovely death, serenely arriving? Of all the thoughts that might — one remembers — have crowded to mind around Ruskin's deathbed, one only shaped itself into words, again and again repeating : ' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.' While we still talked in whispers round the fire the news was abroad. It could not have been wholly unexpected, but it came as a shock to many a reader of the Saturday evening paper, who was hoping or fearing far different tidings of death or victory at the war ; and even such great events, for many, seemed to stand still when they knew that we had lost the last of the great old men. Next morning brought messages of hurried condolence, and the Monday such a chorus from the press as made all the praises of his lifetime seem trifling and all its blame forgotten. If only, in his years of struggle and despair, he had known the place he should win ! On the Tuesday came a telegram offering a grave in West- minster Abbey, the highest honour our nation can give to its dead. But his own mind had long since been made plain on that point, and his wishes had not been forgotten. ' If I die here,' he used to say, ' bury me at Coniston. I should have liked, if it happened at Heme Hill, to lie with my father and mother in Shirley churchyard, as I should have wished, if I died among the Alps, to be buried in the snow.' And indeed to send Ruskin's dead body by rail, and drag it through London streets to a grave, however honourable, among strangers, would have been, to all who love him and his teaching, little short of a mockery. Another desire, strongly expressed, was for a cast of his face and hand, as, no doubt, has been not unusual when great men have died. But I remember too well his anger, at Lucca years ago, with an Italian who had dared so to profane ONE WORD MORE 405 a face he loved. Mr. Ruskin had asked at a shop whether they sold a cast of the effigy of Ilaria di Caretto, and was told ' No.' Next morning, going into the church, we found the dead lady's face — he always thought of that wonderful sculpture as the dead lady, and not mere lifeless marble— we found it wet and fouled, and knew what had been done. When the man came with the ghastly white mask,* trium- phant in anticipation of the Signor's gratitude, there was such a storm as few people would have anticipated or under- stood. Such being his feelings, who would dare to outrage them on his own person ? We earned him on Monday night down from his bed- chamber and laid him in the study. There was a pane of glass let into the coffin-lid, so that the face might be kept in sight; and there it lay, among lilies of the valley, and framed in the wreath sent by Mr. Watts, the great painter, a wreath of the true Greek laurel, the victor's crown, from the tree growing in his garden, cut only thrice before, for Tennyson and Leighton and Bume-Jones. It would be too long to tell of all such tokens of affection and respect that were heaped upon the coffin, — from the wreath of the Princess Louise down to the tributes of humble dependents, — above a hundred and twenty-five, we counted ; some of them the costliest money could buy, some valued no less for the feeling they expressed. I am not sure that the most striking was not the village tailor's, with this on its label — ' There was a man sent from God, and his name was John.' On the Wednesday we made our sad procession to the churchy through storm and flood. The village was in mourning, and round the churchyard gates men, women, and children stood in throngs. The coffin was carried in by eight of those who had been in his employ, and the church filled noiselessly with neighbours and friends, who after a hymn, and the Lord's Prayer, and a long silence, passed up the aisles for their last look, and to heap more offerings of wreaths and flowers wound the bier. At dusk tall candles were lit, and, so through the winter's night watch was kept. 406 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN Thursday, the 25th, brought together a great assembly, great for the remoteness of the place and the inclemency of the weather. The country folk have a saying ' Happy is the dead that the rain rains on^: and the fells were darkly clouded down and the beck roared by, swollen to a torrent. The church was far too small to hold the congregation, which included most of his personal friends and the representatives of many public bodies. A crowd stood outside in the storm while the service went on. It began with a hymn written for the occasion by Canon Rawnsley : — ' " Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day ? And he said, Yea, I know it." *The prophets cease from out the land, The counsellors are gone. The lips to kindle and command Are silent one by one. • Our master taken from our head, In sorrow, here we pray — Lord, teach ua in his steps to tread; Be Thou our guide and stay, ' Till all the righteousness he loved, The sympathy he sought. The truth by deed and word he proved, Be made our daily thought. • He gave us eyes, for we were blind ; He bade us know and hear ; By him the wonder of the mind Of God, on earth was clear. • We knew the travail of his soul. We thank Thee for his rest ; Lord, lead us upward to his goal— The pure, the true, the best !' Sung by all to the old tune all know, 'Dundee's wild warbling measure," it went straighter to the heart than any cathedral anthem. Canon Rawnsley and the Rev. E. W. Oak, Vicar of Hawkshead, Brantwood's parish church, read the Psalms. A hylnn, ' Comes at times a stillness as of even,' ONE WORD MORE 407 was sung by his friend Miss Wakefield ; and the lesson read by Canon Richmond, arrived officially to represent the Bishop of Carlisle, but to most of us representing with touching associations all the old times and comradeships of his youth and early manhood. The Rev. Charles Chapman, Vicar of Coniston, and the Rev. Reginald Meister, on behalf of 4;he Dean of Christ Church, also took part in the service. When the Dead March sounded the coffin was covered with a pall given by the Ruskin Linen Industry of Keswick, lined with bright crimson silk, and embroidered with the motto, ' Unto This Last,' and with his favourite wild roses showered over the gray field, just as they fall in the Primavera of Botticelli. There was no black about his burying, except what we wore for our own sorrow ; it was remembered how he hated black, so much that he would even have his mother's coffin painted blue ; and among the white and green and violet of the wreaths that filled the chancel, none was more significant in its sympathy than Mrs. Severn's great cross of red roses. As we carried him down the churchyard path, a drop or two fell from the boughs, but a glpam of sunshine, the first after many days, shot along the crags from under the cloud, and the wind paused. Standing there by the graveside, who could help being thankful that he had found so lovely a resting-place after so tranquil a falling to sleep .!* At his feet, parted only by the fence and the garden, is the village school ; and who does not know how he loved the children of Coniston .? At his right hand are the graves of the Beevers ; his last old friend. Miss Susan Beever, lies next to him. Over the spot hang the thick boughs of a fir-tree — who does not know what he has written of his favourite mountain- pine ? And behind the church, shut in with its dark yews, rise the crags of Coniston, those that he wearied for in his boyhood, and prayed, in mortal sickness, to lie down beneath : — ' The crags are lone on Coniston.' ****** It is his birthday once more. We have just been to take 408 LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN RUSKIN the children's posy of the year's first flowers, no longer to set on his table, but to hide in his tomb. It is a glorious day of frost and sun — ^bluest of skies, brightest of mountain-tops, with those noble brows of russet and purple crag overlooking the churchyard's golden green. All our wreaths lie still there, withering away, forlorn tributes of affection. But there are whiter wreaths on the grave than any we laid — garlands of snow, unsullied, from Heaven. BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Book-lover and collector of Editions will consult ' A Biblio- graphy of the Writings in Prose and Verse of John Ruskin, LL.D., edited by Thomas J. Wise, London. Printed for sub- scribers only, 1889 — 1893/ The general reader will be content with short notices, briefly recording Mr. Ruskin's literary activity. With permission from Mr. Wise and his co-editor, Mr. James P. Smart, Jun., to avail myself of their work, I have rearranged the titles of Mr. Ruskin's writings, whether issued separately or in periodicals, under the dates of their first appearance in print ; and I have omitted several mere compilations not actually edited by him, and reports of lectures not furnished by him, as well as minor letters given in ' Arrows of the Chace ' and ' Ruskiniana,' or mentioned in the great Bibliography as uncollected. The publisher's name is given in brackets after each work: English editions only are named. Works without name of magazine or publisher were printed for private circulation. 1834. — ' Enquiries on the Causes of the Colour of the Water of the Rhine '; ' Note on the Perforation of a Leaden Pipe by Rats': and 'Facts and Considerations on the Strata of Mont Blanc,' etc. (Loudon's 'Mag. of Nat. Hist.' for Sept., Nov., and Dec), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1835. — Saltzburg, and Fragments from a MetricalJoumal ('Friend- ship's Offering,' Smith, Elder and Co.).* * AH the poems — their titles are given in italics — were reprinted in 'The Poems of John Euskin ' 1891 (George Allen) ; and all except those of 1835 in ' Poems— J. R.,' 1850. 410 APPENDIX 1836. — 'The Induration of Sandstone'; 'Observations on the Causes which occasion the Variation of Temperature be- tween Spring and River Water ' (Loudon's ' Mag. Nat. Hist.' for Sept. and Oct.), reprinted in 'On the Old Road.' 1 836. — The Months (' Friendship's Offering '). 1837. — The Last Smile (' Friendship's Offering '). 1837. — 'Leoni, a legend of Italy' (' Friendship's Offering'), re- printed separately with preface in 1868. 1837-8. — 'The Poetry of Architecture'; a series of articles (Loudon's 'Architectural Magazine'), reprinted in 1892 (George Allen). 1838. — 'The Convergence of Perpendiculars,' five articles; and 'The Planting of Churchyards ' (Loudon's ' Arch. Mag.'). 1838. — The Scythian Grave, Remembrance, and Christ Church, Oxford (' Friendship's Offering '). 1839. — 'Whether Works of Art may, with Propriety, be combined with the Sublimity of Nature ; and what would be the most appropriate Situation for the Proposed Monument to the Memory of Sir Walter Scott, in Edinburgh' (Loudon's ' Arch. Mag.' for January). 1839. — Song — We care not what Skies: song — Though thou hast not a Feeling : and Horace — Iter ad Brundusium (' London Monthly Miscellany ' for January). 1839. — Memory, and The Name ('London Monthly Misc.' for Feb.). 1839. — Canzonet — The Winter's Chill : Fragments from a Meteoro- logical Journal : canzonet — There's a Change : and The Mirror (' London Monthly Misc.' for March). 1839. — Song of the Tyrolese ('London Monthly Misc.' for April). 1839. — Salsette and Elephanta (Newdigate prize poem), printed separately and in ' Oxford Prize Poems ' (J. Vincent), new edition, 1879 (Allen). 1839. — 'Remarks on the Present State of Meteorological Science ' (Trans. Met. Soc), reprinted in ' Monthly Met. Mag.' for April, 1870 ; and in 'On the Old Road.' 1839. — Scythian Banquet Song (' Friendship's Offering '). 1840. — The Scythian Guest ('Friendships Offering') reprinted with preface, 1849. BIBLIOGRAPHY 411 ISM-tS.—The Broken Chain ('Friendship's Offering'). 1840.— To [Adele] (' Friendship's Offering'). 1841.— 2%e Tears of Psammenitus : The Two Paths : The Old Watenvheel : Farewell : The departed Light ; and Agonia (' Friendship's Offering '). 1842. — The Last Song of Arum, and The Hills of Carrara (' Friend- ship's Offering'). 1843-. — 'Modern Painters/ Vol. I. Seven editions of this volume were published separately up to 1867 (Smith, Elder & Co.). For subsequent editions see under I860. 1 844. — The Battle of Montenotte, and A Walk in Chamouni (' Friend- ship's Offering '). 1845. — La Madonna dell' Acqtta (Heath's ' Book of Beauty'). 1845. — The Old Seaman s and The Alps, seen from Marengo (' Keepsake '). 1846. — ' Modem Painters/ Vol. II. Five editions of this volume were published separately up to 1869 (Smith, Elder). Also rearranged edition in 2 vols. (AUen^ For other editions see under I860. 1846. — Mont Blanc; and The Arve at Cluse ('Keepsake'), 1846. — Lines written among the Basses Alpes ; and The Glacier (Heath's ' Book of Beauty '). 1847.— 'Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art"' ('Quarterly Review' for June), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1848.— 'Eastlake's " History of Oil Painting" ' ('Quarterly Re view ' for March), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1849. — ' Samuel Prout ' ('Art Journal ' for March), reprinted separately 1870, and in ' On the Old Road.' 1849. — ' The Seven Lamps of Architecture,' two editions (Smith, Elder), and subsequent issues (Allen). Reprinted in a cheap form, with reduced plates (Allen). 1850. — ' Poems — J. R.' ; containing the above-mentioned, with additions. 1851.— 'The King of the Golden River' (written 1841), seven editions (Smith, Elder), and subsequent editions (Allen). 1851.— 'The Stones of Venice/ Vol. I., two editions of this volume published separately (Smith, Elder). For other editions see under 1853, 412 APPENDIX 1851. — ' Examples of the Architecture of Venice ' (Smith, Elder, & Co., and Colnaghi), reissued 1887 (Allen). 1851. — 'Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds': two editions (Smith, Elder), and subsequent reissues (Allen), also re- printed in ' On the Old Road.' With this may be named : — ' Two Letters concerning Notes, etc.,' addressed to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, 1851 : printed by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, 1889. 1851 — ' Pre-Raphaelitism,' two editions (Smith, Elder), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1852. — 'The National Gallery' (letters to 'The Times'), printed separately ; also in ' Arrows of the Chaoe.' 1853. — 'The Stones of Venice^' Vols. II. and III., two editions of each published separately (Smith, Elder). The three vols, were published together in 1874, the so-called 'Autograph' edition (Smith, Elder), and reprinted 1886 (Allen). In 1879 appeared the Travellers' edition, abridged (Allen). With this may be named : — ' On the Nature of Gothic, etc' (from ' Stones of Venice ') printed by F. J. Furnivall, 1854; two issues (Smith, Elder), and reprinted at the Kelmscott Press by William Morris, 1892 (Allen). 1853-60. — 'Giotto and his Works in Padua' in three parts; collected into one vol. 1877 (Arundel Society). 1854. — 'Lectures on Architecture and Painting' (Edinburgh, Nov., 1853) ; two editions (Smith, Elder), new edition, 1891 (Allen). 1 854. — ' Letters to " The Times " on the Principal Pre-Raphaehte Pictures in the Exhibition ': printed separately, reprinted 1876, also in 'Arrows of the Chace.' 1854.— 'The Opening of the Crystal Palace,' etc. (Smith, Elder); reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1855. — 'Notes on some of the Principal Pictures in . . . the Royal Academy '; three editions (Smith, Elder). 1856. — 'Notes on . . . the Royal Academy, etc' No. II., six editions (Smith, Elder). 1856.— 'Modern Painters,' Vols. III. and IV.: two editions of BIBLIOGRAPHY 413 each (Smith, Elder); for subsequent issues see under I860. 1856. — 'The Hai-bours of England/ two editions (E. Gambart & Co.) ; edition 3 (Day & Son) ; edition 4 (T. J. AUman) ; edition 5, dated 1877 (Smith, Elder). Reprinted with reduced plates, and preface by T. J. Wise, 1895 (Allen). 1857. — ' Notes on . . . the Royal Academy, «tc.,' No. III., two editions (Smith, Elder). 1857. — ' Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House '; five editions vmously revised (Smith, Elder). 1857. — ' Catalogue of the Turner Sketches in the National Gallery,' Part Iw ; also enlarged edition, 1857. 1857. — 'Catalogue of the Sketches and Drawings by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., exhibited at Marlborough House,' 1857-8; also enlarged edition, 1858. 1857. — 'The Elements of Drawing': eight 'thousands' (Smith, Elder) ; new edition, 1892 (Allen) ; partly reprinted in 'Our Sketching Club' by the Rev. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt ; four editions (Macmillan). 1857. — 'The Political Economy of Art,' three editions (Smith, Elder) ; reprinted in ' A Joy for Ever (and its price in the market) ' (Allen) : which includes the following pamphlets : — ' Education in Art,' 1858 (Trans, Nat. Assoc, for the Promotion of Social Science) ; ' Remarks addressed to the Mansfield Art Night Class,' 1873 ; and 'Social Policy,' etc. (a paper for the Metaphysical Society), 1875. 1858. — 'Notice respecting some artificial sections illustrating the Geology of Chamouni ' (Proc. Royal Soc. of Edinburgh). 1858. — 'Notes on . . . the Royal Academy,' etc. No. IV. (Smith, Elder). 1858. — 'Inaugural Address at the Cambridge School of Art' (Deighton, Bell & Co., and Bell & Daldy); another edition printed for the Committee of the School ; repub- lished separately, 1879 (Allen), and reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1859.— 'The Oxford Museum,' by Henry W. Acland, M.D., etc., and Johii Ruskin ; various issues forming four editions 414 APPENDIX (Parker, and Smith, Elder.) Mr. Ruskin's contributions were reprinted in 'Arrows of the Chace.' New edition, with portraits and additions, 1893 (Allen). 1859. — 'Notes on . . . the Royal Academy/ etc.. No. V. (Smith, Elder). 1859. — 'The Two Paths' (Smith, Elder) and subsequent editions (Allen). The work includes : — ' The Unity of Art ' (lecture at Manchester, Feb. 22, 1859), privately printed. 1859. — 'The Elements of Perspective ' (Smith, Elder). I860. — 'Sir Joshua and Holbein' (' Cornhill Mag.' for March); reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' I860.— 'Modern Painters,' Vol. V. (Smith, Elder). The five volumes of ' Modern Painters ' were published together in the issue known as the Autograph Edition in 1873 (Smith, Elder). They were reprinted with additions and index in 1888, and again in 1892 (Allen). With these may be named : — ' Frondes Agrestes ' (selections from ' Modern Painters ' by Miss Susanna Beever), edited by Mr. Ruskin, 1875 (Allen). 'In Montibus Sanctis, Studies of Mountain Form and its Visible Causes, collected and completed out of Modem Painters ': two parts only ap- peared, 1884-5 (Allen) ; and ' Cceli Enarrant, Studies of Cloud Form, etc.,' 1885 (Allen). The well-known 'Selections from the writings [above- named] of John Ruskin ' were first published in 1861 (Smith, Elder). In 1893 appeared a recast of 'Selections,' with the passages printed in ' Frondes Agrestes ' replaced by other extracts from the same works : also a companion volume containing selections from the later works of I860 onwards (Allen). With these may be mentioned ' The Ruskin Reader,' extracts from ' Modern Painters,' ' Stones of Venice,' and 'Seven Lamps,' 1895 (Allen). Also ' Studies in Both Arts,' ten plates from drawings by Mr. Ruskin, with illustrative extracts ; 1895 (Allen). I860. [Unto this Last,] four Essays on the first principles of Political Economy (' Cornhill Magazine ') ; reprinted as BIBLIOGRAPHY 415 'Unto this Last/ 1862 (Smith, Elder & Co.), and subse- quent editions (Allen). With this may be named : — ' The Rights of Labour according to John Ruskin,' arranged by Thomas Barclay (extracts from ' Unto this Last/ with a letter from Mr. Ruskin), 1887 (C. Merrick, Leicester); edition 2 (n.d.) ; edition 3, 1889 (W. Reeves). 1861. — 'Tree Twigs ' (Proceedings of the Royal Institution), re- printed separately ; also in ' On the Old Road. ' 1862-3. — [Munera Pulveris] : Essays in Political Economy ('Eraser's Magazine'); reprinted as 'Munera Pulveris'; other editions (Allen). 1863. — 'Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy' (Proceedings of the Royal Institution), reprinted separately : also reprinted with variations in 'The Geologist' for July, 1863; and reported fully in French in the ' Journal de Geneve,' Sept. 2nd, 1863 ; also in ' On the Old Road.' 1865. — 'Sesame and Lilies'; four editions (Smith, Elder); and many editions (Allen) in original form. Revised and en larged by the addition of lecture on ' The Mystery of Life ' (printed in Dublin Afternoon Lectures, 1869), in which form five editions have appeared (Allen). The Lecture on the Queen's Gardens was printed as a pamphlet in aid of the St. Andrew's Schools Fund, 1864. 1865. — ' Notes on the Shape and Structure of some parts of the Alps,' etc. (' Geol. Mag.' for Feb. and May). 1865-6. — 'The .Cestus of Aglaia'; nine papers in the 'Art Journal,' partly reprinted in ' On the Old Road ' and in ' The Queen of the Air.' 1866.— 'The Ethics of the Dust' (Smith, Elder), and subsequent editions (Allen). 1866.— 'The Crown of Wild Olive'; three editions (Smith, Elder), and subsequent editions (Allen). Of these lectures were printed separately : ' War,' 1866 ; and (' The Future of England ') a paper read at the Royal Artillery Insti- tution, Woolwich, 1869. 1867. — ' Report on the Turner Drawings in the National Gallery' (Annual Reports, Nat. Gall.). 1867. — 'Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne '; twenty-five 416 APPENDIX letters first published in the ' Manchester Examiner ' and the 'Leeds Mercury'; two editions (Smith, Elder), and subsequent editions (Allen). 1867-70. — 'On Banded and Brecciated Concretions'; seven papers in the ' Geol. Mag.' 1868. — Introduction to ' German Popular Stories,' illustrated by Cruikshank (John Camden Hotten). 1868. — (First) ' Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and Criminal Classes '; two issues in the same year. 1 869- — Catalogue of Pictures sold at Christie's. I869. — ^Catalogue of Pictures in Illustration of Lecture on the Flamboyant Architecture of the Valley of the Somme. I869. — 'The Queen of the Air'; two editions (Smith, Elder), and others subsequently (Allen). 1870. — 'Verona and its Rivers ' (Proceedings of the Royal Insti- tution), abstract reprinted in 'On the Old Road'; also at length in 'Verona, and other Lectures,' 1894 (Allen). 'Catalogue of Drawings and Photographs' (illustrating the above lecture), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1870. — 'Lectures on Art'; three editions (Clarendon Press), and small edition (Allen). 1870. — 'Catalogue of Examples arranged for Elementary Study in the University Galleries ' (Clarendon Press). With this may be named : ' Catalogue of the Reference Series ' (1871); 'Catalogue of the Educational Series' (1871 and 1874) ; and 'Instructions in Elementary Drawing' (1872), five editions. 1871. — 'The Range of Intellectual Conception proportioned to the Rank in Animated Life'; a paper for the Metaphysical Society ; also printed in the ' Contemporary Review ' for June, and in ' On the Old Road.' 1871-84. — 'Fors Clavigera.' Letters 1 — 84 published monthly from Jan. 1st, 1871 to Dec. 1st, 1877. Letters 85 — 96 (1 — 12 of the New Series) published at intervals from 1878-84 ; afterwards collected in eight volumes (Allen) and in four small volumes, uniform with the cheap editions of Mr. Ruskin's works, 1896 (Allen). f BIBLIOGRAPHY 417 With this may be named : — ' Index to Vols. I. and 11./ 1873 ; ' Index to Vols. III. and IV./ 1875 (Allen). Article on J. D. Forbes, chiefly from ' Fors ' No. 34, in Rendu's ' Glaciers of Savoy,' translated by Alfred Wills, Q.C. (Mac- millan). ' Letter to Young Girls,' from ' Fors ' Nos. 65 and 66 ; eighteen editions up to 1890 (Allen). Also the following publications relating to St. George's Guild: — 'Abstract of the Objects and Constitution,' 1878 ; 'Memor- andum and Articles of Association,' 1878 ; 'Master's Re- port' for 1879, 1881, 1884, 1885 ; 'General Statement ex- plaining the Nature and Purposes,' 1882, two editions (Allen) ; ' Contents of large sliding frames ' (in Museum), 1879 ; ' Catalogue of drawings made for the Guild and Ex- ' hibited at the Fine Art Society's Gallery,' 1886 ; and ' Catalogue of Minerals in the Museum.' 1872. — ' Aratra Pentelici,' several editions (Allen). 1872. — ' The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret.' several editions (Allen). 1872. — ' The Eagle's Nest,' several editions (Allen). 1872. — ' Monuments of the Cavalli Family, Verona ' (Arundel Society) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1872. — Preface to 'Christian Art and Symbolism' by the Rev. R. St. J. Tyrwhitt (Smith, Elder), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1873. — ' The Nature and Authority of Miracle ': A paper for the Metaphysical Society, reprinted privately ; published in the 'Contemporary Review' for March, 1873, and in 'On the Old Road.' 1873. — 'Love's Meinie,' Parts I. and II. published separately, two editions ; Part III. was issued in 1881. The complete volume in 1882 (Allen). 1873. — 'Ariadne Florentina,' six lectures issued separately ; sub- sequently as one volume, in several editions (Allen). ] 874. — ' Val d' Amo,' ten lectures issued separately ; subse- quently as one volume, in several editions (Allen). 1875. — 'Notes on . . . the Royal Academy,' four editions (Allen, and EUis & White). 1875-7. — 'Mornings in Florence'; six parts issued separately, in 27 418 APPENDIX several editions (Allen). With this may be named : — ' The Shepherd's Tower' (photographs of Giotto's Campanile), 1881 (Wilham Ward). 1875-86. — ' Proserpina/ ten parts in several editions ; collected into two volumes (Allen). 1875-83. — 'Deucalion/ eight parts, some of which ran to two editions; collected into two volumes (Allen). With this may be named i-^' Yewdale and its Streamlets,' reprinted from the 'Kendal Mercury,' 1877 ; 'The Limestone Alps of Savoy,' by W. G. Collingwood ; edited with introduction by Mr. Ruskin as supplement to ' Deucalion,' 1884 (Allen). 1876. — 'Modern Warfare' ('Eraser's Mag.' for July), reprinted in 'Arrows of the Chace.' 1876.— Preface and Notes to 'The Art Schools of Mediaeval Christendom,' by Miss A. C. Owen (Mozley & Smith) ; re- printed in ' On the Old Road.' 1876.— Preface to • A Protest against the Extension of Railways in the Lake District,' by Robert Somervell (J. Gamett, and Simpkin & Marshall) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1876. — 'Bibliotheca Pastorum, Vol. L; The Economist of Xenophon,' translated by A. D. O. Wedderbum, and W. G. Collingwood ; edited with preface by Mr. Ruskin (Ellis & White, and Allen). 1877. — 'Bibliotheca Pastorum, Vol. II., Rock Honeycomb'; Sir Philip Sidney's ' Psalter,' with Preface and Commentary by Mr. Ruskin (Ellis & White, and Allen). Vol. III. was not published. 1877. — ' Guide to the Principal Pictures in the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice,' in two parts ; two editions (Venice, and Allen). 1877-84. — 'St. Mark's Rest' in three parts; together with — Appendix, ' Sanctus, Sanqtus, Sanctus ' by A. D. O. Wed- derbum, 1882; First Supplement, 'The Shrine of the Slaves ' by Mr. Ruskin (also translated into Italian by Conte Cav. G. P. Zanelli, 1885) ; and Second Supplement, 'The Place of Dragons' by J. R. Anderson, 1879 (the above published by Allen) ; and ' Illustrative Photographs ' (Waiiam Ward). BIBLIOGRAPHY 419 1877-8. — 'The Laws of Fesole,' in four parts in various editions ; collected into one volume^ 1879 ; edition 2, 1882 (Allen). 1878. — 'An Oxford Lecture' ('Nineteenth Century' for Jan.), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1878. 'My First Editor' ('University Magazine' for April), re- printed in ' On the Old Road.' 1878. — ' Notes on the Turner Exhibition at the Fine Art Society's Galleries '; twelve issues and illustrated edition (Fine Art Society). 1878. — 'The Three Colours of Pre-Eaphaelitism ' ('Nineteenth Century ' for Nov. and Dec), reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1879-80. — 'Notes on the Prout and Hunt Exhibition'; four issues and illustrated edition (Fine Art Society). 1879-80. — 'Circular respecting Memorial Studies at St. Mark's'; three issues (Fine Art Society). 1879-80. — 'The Lord's Prayer and the Church': Letters, etc. Edited by the Rev. F. A. Malleson, M.A. Three editions, varying in contents (Strahan & Co.). Mr. Ruskin's ' Letters,' reprinted in ' The Contemporary Review ' for December, 1879 ; also in ' On the Old Road.' The original volume republished with additions, 1896 (Allen). 1880. — 'Usury, a Reply and a Rejoinder' ('Contemporary Re- view ' for February) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1880. — ' Elements of English Prosody ' (Allen). 1880. — " Letters on a Museum or Picture Gallery ' ('Art Journal ' for June and August) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1880. — ' Arrows of the ChacC '; letters to newspapers collected by A. D. O. Wedderburn, two vols. (Allen). With this may be mentioned ' Ruskiniana,' letters collected by A. D. O. Wedderburn and published in ' Igdrasil' magazine (Allen), and afterwards privately reprinted. 1880-81. — 'Fiction, Fair and Foul': five papers (in the 'Nine- teenth Century ') ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1880-85.—' The Bible of Amiens ': five parts, afterwards collected into one vol. ; separate travellers' edition of Chap. IV., 1881 (Allen). 1881.— 'Catalogue of the Drawings and Sketches of J. M. W. 27—3 420 APPENDIX Turner, R.A., at present in the National Gallery'; two editions and two special editions (Allen). 1883. — ' The Art of England ': seven lectures issued separately ; afterwards collected into one vol. ; two editions both of parts and vol. (Allen). 1883. — 'Catalogue of Siliceous Minerals given to St. David's School' (Rev. W. H. Churchill), Reigate. 1883. — Preface to 'The Story of Ida/ by Francesca Alex- ander ; several editions (Allen). 1883. — Introduction to 'The Study of Beauty and Art in Large Towns,' by T. C. Horsfall (Macmillan) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1884. — 'The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century'; issued in two parts, afterwards in one volume (Allen). 1884. — ' Catalogue of Minerals given to Kirkcudbright Museum.' 1884. — 'Catalogue of a series of Specimens in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), illustrative of the more common forms of native Silica ' (Allen). 1884-|5. — 'The Pleasures of England': four lectures issued separately (Allen). The course is reported in ' Studies in Ruskin,' by E. T. Cook, M.A., 1890 (Allen). 1885. — Preface and Notes to 'Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' by Miss Alexander (Allen). 1885. — Preface and Notes to 'The English School of Painting, by E. Chesneau, three editions (Cassell). 1885. — Introduction to 'Usury,' by R. G. Sillar, two editions (A. Southey) ; reprinted in ' On the Old Road.' 1885. — 'The Bishop of Oxford and Prof. Ruskin on Vivisection' (Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection). 1885. — 'On the Old Road' (reprint of magazine articles), edited by A. D. O. Wedderburn (Allen). 1885. — 'Bibhotheca Pastorum,' Vol. IV. 'A Knight's Faith' (life of Sir Herbert Edwardes) ; issued in three parts, collected into one volume (Allen). 1885-89. — ' Prseterita ' : twenty-eight parts, of which twenty- four are collected into two volumes ; Vol. I. has run to two editions (Allen). BIBLIOGRAPHY 421 1886-87. — 'Dilecta': correspondence, etc., illustrating 'Praete- rita '; two parts (Allen). 1886-88. — Preface and Notes to ' Ulric, the Farm Servant,' by Gotthelf, translated by Mrs. Firth (Allen). 1887.— 'Arthur Burgess' ('Century Guild Hobby Horse' for April). 1887. — 'Hortus Inclusus': letters to Misses Mary and Susanna Beever, edited by Albert Fleming, two editions (Allen). 1887-89. — ' Christ's Folk in the Apennine,' by Francesca Alex- ander, edited by Mr. Ruskin ; six parts issued (Allen). 1888. — Preface and Notes to 'A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery,' by E. T. Cook (Macmillan). 1888. — 'The Black Arts: a reverie in the Strand' ('Magazine of Art ' for January). 1897. — 'Lectures on Landscape, delivered in 1871 ' (Allen). To these may be added, though not published by or for Mr. Ruskin : — ' Three letters and an essay, by John Ruskin, 1836—1841 ; found in his Tutor's desk' (Allen), and 'Letters addressed to a College Friend during the years 1840 — 1845, by John Ruskin' (Allen). Also a series of volumes privately printed by Mr. T. J. Wise (1892—1896) of Letters to Messrs. F. S. Ellis, W. Ward (2 vols.), Ernest Chesneau, and the Rev. J. P. Faunthorpe (2 vols.), and a collection of ' Letters on Art and Literature ' to various correspondents. Since this list was compiled, ' Modem Painters ' and others of the larger works have been issued in reduced form, in the series of cheap editions. INDEX Abbeville, 251-254, 357, 385 Acland, Sir H. W., M.D., 58, 60, 141, 177, 179, 267 Acland, Sir T. D., 178, 289 Adairs and Agnews, 4, 5, 8 Agnew, Miss (Mrs. Arthur Severn), 8, 212, 226, 229, 279, 283 Alessandri, Angelo, 323, 329, 370 Alexander, Mrs., and Miss Fran- cesca, 365-367, 370, 377, 385 Alice, Princess, 307 Allen, Mr. George, 152, 155, 284, 294 391 Alps, '38-43, 76, 92, 95, 96, 102, 113-118, 200, 204-207, 229-231, 247, 259, 367 ' Amiens, Bible of,' 357, 358 Anderson, Mr. J. R., 323, 333 , Miss S. D., 374 Andrews, Dr., and family, 28, 29, 32, 35, 40 Animals, love of, 356, 378; see Dogs, Vivisection Anne, Nurse, 14, 26, 66, 112, 282 'Araohne,' 14,278 ' Aratra Pentelici,' 276 Architects, Royal Institute of British, 306 Architectural Association, lecture to, 169 Architecture, 61-65, 110, 140, 144, 146, 169, 251, 253, 263, 367; and see ' Seven Lamps,' ' Stones of Venice ' ' Ariadne Florentina,' 298 Armytage, J. C, 121 Art, 181, 213, 240, 267, 274, 277, 278 ; and see Architecture, Drawing, Painting Arthur, Prince, 278, 307 Assisi, 304 Avallon, 364 Baker, Mr. George, 318 Baxter, Mr. Peter, 323, 400 Beever, Miss Mary, 360 , Miss Susanna, 290, 304, 324, 329, 337, 354, 360, 364, 378, 389, 407 ' Bibliotheca Pastorum,' 309, 315 Bishop, Mrs. W. H., 370 Blow, Mr. Detmar J., 385 Boats, 159, 350 Boehm, Sir Edgar, 367, 377 Boni, Cav. G., 323, 370 Botticelli, 297, 305 Bourdillon, Mr. P. "W., 298 Boys, T., 121 Bradford lectures, 183, 223 Brantwood, 15, 281, 297, 302, 310, 340-351, 395-399 Brown, Dr. John, 145 , Rawdon, 264, 323 , Prof. Thomas, 7, 9, 80 , Rev. Walter, 55, 58 Browning, Robert and E. Barrett, 18, 162-167, 211 Buckland, Dr., 50, 58-61, 69, 109 Bunney, J. W., 152, 156, 207, 264, 323 Burgess, Arthur, 155, 264 Burne-Jones, Sir E., 163, 260, 266, 336, 342, 402 INDEX 423 Camberwell lectures, 144, 214, 222 Cambridge lectures, 180, 239-241 , gift of Turners, 197 , hon. LL.D., 239 Carlyle, Thomas, 74, 77, 84, 124, 126, 158, 197, 202, 208, 212, 220, 226, 232-235, 239, 261, 268, 280, 288, 298, 303, 387 Carpacoio, 103, 260, 261, 297, 323, 333 Carrick and VoHns, 162 Cesnola, Gen. L. P. di, 305 • Cestus of Aglaia,' 213, 220 Chamberlain, John Henry, 318 Chamouni, 39, 43, 84, 95, 116, 196, 338, 385 Chesneau, Ernest, 394 Chesterfield forgery, 357 Christ's Hospital lecture, 328 Ctteaux, 367 Collins, Charles AUston, 131, 132 Coniston, 37, 244, 280, 334, 340, 341, 346, 356, 373-375, 399 Coniston lecture, 372 Cooke, Mr. E., 150, 153, 155 Copley, J. S., E.A., 12 Cousen, J., 121 Coutet, Joseph, 95, 99, 102, 112- 117 Covenanters, 6 Oowper - Temple, Mr. and Mrs. (Lord and Lady Mount Temple), 124, 289 Cox family, 7, 8 Crawley, Mr. F., 243, 253, 304, 323 ' Crown of Wild Oliye,' 222-225, 268 Croydon, 7, 12, 19 Crnikshank, George, 33, 169, 226 Cuff, E. P., 121 Cyanometer, 42 Dale, Rev. T.; 40-50, 57, 66, 105 Dart, Henry, 66, 68 Darwin, Charles, 61 Denmark Hill, 94, 104, 253, 297 ' Deucalion,' 328, 329, 339, 355 Deverell, W. H., 137 Dickinson, Mr. Lowes, 150, 152, 210 Dixon, Thomas, 235 Dogs, 19, 355, 364 Domecq, Adele, 51-56, 69 , Peter, 9, 17, 51-54 Downes, David, 243, 253, 293, 308 Drawings by Mr. Buskin, 33-35, 38-40, 42, 45, 58, 61, 68, 75, 81-84, 95, 99, 111, 121, 122, 146, 181, 213, 251, 254, 263, 342 Dublin lecture, 251 ' Eagle's Nest,' 296 Edinburgh lectures, 141-145 Education, 177, 178, 218, 219, 237, 255, 372, 373 Edwardes, Sir Herbert, 315, 372 'Elements of Drawing,' 154 ' Ethics of the Dust,' 219-221 Eton lectures, 302, 305, 329, 358 Eyre, Governor, 232 [112 Fall, Richard, 36, 43, 50, 77, 91, Faunthorpe, Rev. J. P., 364 Fielding, Copley, 45 Fleming, Mr. Albert, 318 Florence, 102, 365 Forbes, J. D., 95, 338 'ForsClavigera,'4, 31, 265, 284- 290, 312, 332, 334, 336, 354 'Friendship's OfEering,' 42, 43, 52, 69 Friends of Living Creatures, Society of, 356 Froude, J. A., 201, 203, 387 Furneaux, Rev. H., 275 Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 149, 150 Gaisford, Dean, 58, 69, 71 Gale, Mr. Frederick, 377 Geneva, 77, 84, 99, 112 Geology, 41, 61, 204-209 ; and see Deucalion, Glaciers, Minerals Gibson, Father, 360 Giessbach, 228-230, 266, 276 Giotto, 102, 141 Glaciers, Theory of, 95, 338, 339 424 INDEX Gladstone, Mr., 178, 332, 371 Glasgow Bectorship contest, 371 Glenfarg, 23 Glenfinlas, 141 Globe models, 21, 372 Goodwin, Mr. Albert, R.W.S., 280, 297 Gordon, Rev. Osborne, 58, 79, 96, 104, 116 Gothic Revival, 69, 144 ; and see Architecture Gray, Mr. and Mrs. Richard, 14, 19,28 Greenaway, Miss Kate, R.I., 370, 376, 377 Griffith, Mr., 73, 174 GnU, Sir Wm., M.D., 362 Halle, Sir Charles, 217 Harding, J. D., 81-83, 93, 102 Hardraw Fall, 321, 322 Harlech Castle, 35, 73 Harrison, W. H., 69, 70, 92, 93, 122, 137, 144, 333, 356 ' Harry and Lnoy,' 20, 21, 24-26 Hastings, 21 Hazell, Watson and Viney, 294, 348 Helps, Sir Arthur, 288 Heme Hill, 15, 49, 77, 79, 87, 140. 253, 362 HUl, Miss Ootavia, 291, 292 HUUard, Mrs., 276, 297 , Miss Constance (Mrs.W. H-ChnrchiU), 226-231, 297 Hilliard, Laurence Jermyn, 343, 385 Hooper, W. H., 155 Howell, C. A., 225, 228, 283 Hunt, Holman, 130-132, 145, 169, 265, 369 Hunt, 'Old' William, 134, 136, 154 Haria di Caretto, 102, 260, 405 Jacobites, 4, 25, 233 Jameson, Mrs., 102, 145 JeflEery, W., 150, 162, 155, 210 Jephson, Dr., 77, 109 Jowett, Mr. H., 348 'KataPhnsin,' 62-65 Keble, 70 Kendal lecture, 329 Keswick, 17, 242, 243 ' King of the Golden River,' 78, 110, 122 King's College, London, 44, 49 Kingsley, Rev. W., 278 , Lake District, 17, 27, 30-32, 96, r 108, 200, 242-245, 322 • Laws of F&ole,' 323 Leamington, 77, 109 Lectures by Mr. RnsUn, 141-145, 168-171, 176, 180, 182, 183, 197, 201, 205, 212,214, 222-224,239- 241, 251, 254, 256-258, 268, 271, 272,276, 278, 296,298, 301-305, 310, 311, 328-330, 358, 367-370, 375-378 Le Kenx, J. H., 121 ' Leoni," 52, 76 Leopold, Prince, 306, 332, 345 Lewis, John F., R.A., 134, 183 Liddell, Dean, 58, 170, 267 Linen Industries, 318, 319 Lockhart, J. G., 107 London Institution lectures, 328, 367, 375 LongfeUow, 254, 264 [359 'Lord's Prayer, Letters on the,' London, J. C., and his Magazines, 41, 42, 61-65 ' Love's Meiuie,' 302 Lncca, 101, 297, 365, 366, 370 Luini, 201 Lnpton, Thomas, 121 Macdonald, Mr. Alex., 274 of St. Martin's, 109 Mallock, Mr. W. H., 101, 309 Manchester lectures, 170, 182, 212, 215 Manning, Cardinal, 359 ' Marcolini,' 53 Marks, H. Stacey, R.A., 302 Matlock, 31, 128, 278 INDEX 425 Matterhom, 116 Maurice, Rev. F. D., 124, 150 Maw, Mr. George, 248 May Queena, 364 MeisBonier's ' Napoleon,' 275, 342 Metaphysical Society, 300, 310 Meteorological Society, 50 Millais, Sir J. E., 130-132, 141, 144, 183 Milman, Dean, 40, 135, 172 Milsand, Joseph, 393 Minerals and Crystals, 32, 41, 80, 246-250, 328, 329, 339, 363, 376 ; see ' Dencalion,' Geology Mitford, Miss, 107, 141, 142 'Modern Painters,' 43, 48, 80, 88- 94, 102, 116, 121, 128, 158, 160, 180, 184, 224, 255, 330, 385, 389, 392 Moore, Prof. C. H., 323 , Rev. Daniel, 135 Momex, 192, 198-201 ' Mornings in Florence,' 324 ' Mnnera Palveris,' 201-203 Munro of Novar, 48, 335 Murray, Mr. 0. F., 344, 366 Mythology, 256-258 National Gallery, 105, 106, 172, 201, 241, 362. 376 Newman, Mr. H. R., 365 Newton, Sir Charles, 58, 137 Northcote, James, R.A., 12, 15 Norton, Prof. C. E., 158, 192, 193, 204, 254, 276, 296, 298, 379,387,391 'Notes on the Constrnction of Sheepfolds,' 125 Oliver, Prof., 328 Oxford, Mr. Ruskin at, 31, 48, 56, 57-61, 66-72, 79, 106, 108, 272-275, 309, 331, 368 Oxford, Professorship of Poetry, 231 Oxford, Slade Professorship, 266- 268, 301, 311, 369, 378 Oxford, Mr. Raskin's lectures, 177, 271, 272, 276, 278, 296, 298, 301-305, 311, 330, 369, 377, 378 Oxford Drawing School, 274, 275, 307, 384 Oxford, Hinksey diggings, 308 , gifts to, 197, 211, 281, 307, 384 Oxford Museum, 158, 176 , Mr. Ruskin's degrees, etc., 80, 178, 275, 337, 393 Oxford Bust, 367 , Proctor's speech, 335 Painting, 64, 130-134, 157 ; and see Art Palermo, 304 Paris, 17, 40, 51, 97, 227, 254, 277 Parsey's Perspective, 62-64 Patmore, Coventry, 29, 163 Pedigree of Mr. Ruskin, 8 Perth, 11, 12, 15, 17, 77, 110 Photography, Mr. Ruskin's early use of, 104 Pisa, 102, 297 Plague wind, 375 Poems by Mr. Ruskin, 22-28, 31, 32, 35-45, 48, 53, 54, 69, 74, 99, 100, 122, 218, 390 Poems, Newdigate, 66-71 ' Poetry of Architecture,' 62-65 Political Economy, 177, 191, 207, 213, 222-224, 354; and see ' Fors Clavigera,' ' Mnnera Pulveris,' St. George's Guild. ' Time and Tide,' ' Unto t^is Last ' ' Political Economy of Art,' 170 Politics, Mr. Ruskin's attitude, 233, 236, 354, 371 Posting tours, 16, 31, 183, 310, 319-321, 364 'PrsBterita,' 14, 31, 49, 193, 212, 242, 282, 379, 386 Pre-Raphaelitism, 130-134, 140, 146, 156, 183 Pringle, Thomas, 42, 43, 52 ' Proserpina,' 328, 363 Prout, Samuel, 38, 42, 75, 91, 93, 110, 134, 137 Publishing arrangements of Mr. Ruskin, 92, 93, 105, 135, 294, 295, 389-392 426 INDEX ' Queen of the Air,' 256-258, 390 Railways, 137, 322 Eandall, Mr. Frank, 364 Religious development, 18,52, 80, 100, 101, 120, 124, 125, 181, 238, 299-301, 325, 326, 358-361 Reynolds, lectures on, 311 Richardson families, 7, 8, 26 , Charles, 28, 42 , Jessie, 15, 23 , Mary (Mrs. Bolding), 26, 57, 112 Richardson, Dr. Wm., 158 , Mr. Wm., 384 Richmond, George, R.A., 75, 82, 88, 137, 172 Richmond, Sir W. B., R.A., 369 Roberts, David, R.A., 76, 183 Robson, Mr. E. R., 366 Rogers, Samuel, 38, 42, 82, 94, 124, 138 Rome, 75, 76, 82, 297 Rooke, Mr. T., R.W.S., 344 Ross family, 5, 8 Rossetti, D. G., 130, 150-153, 197, 225, 369 Rossetti, T. P., 366 Rowbotham, Mr., 35, 36 Royal Academy, 46, 131, 154 , Notes, 156, 183 Royal Institution lectures, 197, 241, 254, 268, 310 Runciman, Mr., 33-35 Ruskin family, 6-8, 44 , Mr. John James, 7-12, 16, 22, 38, 44, 45, 48, 68, 72, 93, 94, 105, 112, 118, 135-137, 144, 149, 160, 162, 174, 184, 201-203, 211 Ruskin, Mrs. (mother of John Ruskin), 9-15, 18, 20, 26, .'i2, 57, 144, 160, 171, 212, 282, 283 Ruskin Societies, 394, 401 ■ Ruskin, Tennessee,' 395 Rydings, Mr. E., 318 St. Andrew's Rectorship, 282 St. George's Guild, 289, 312-319, 331, 337, 383, 387 ' St. Mark's Rest,' 309, 389 St. Ursula, 260, 325 Sandgate, 385 Saussure, 41, 50, 246 Scottish orisin of Mr. Buskin, 3-12, 18, 23, 28 [327 Scott, Sir Walter, 23, 65, 108, Seascale, 386 Seddon, Thomas, 169 ' Sesame and Lilies,' 213, 294 'Seven Lamps,' 62, 110, 112 Severn, Mr. Arthur, R.L, 279, 292, 293, 297, 319, 364, 385 Severn, Mrs. Arthur (Miss Agnew), 343, 385, 386, 400, 403 Severn, Joseph, 52, 75, 103, 212, 297 Sheffield communists, 317 museum (St. George's), 96, 315-317, 344, 363, 366, 387, 388 Sillar, Mr, W. C, 290 Sizeranne, M. Robert de la, 394 Sraetham, James, 160 Smith, Elder and Co., 42, 93, 105, 135, 152, 196, 294 Smith, Sydney, 105 Socialism, 313, 395 >. Somervell, Mr. R., 322 Sorby, Dr. Clifton, 248 South Kensington Museum lecture, 176 Spurgeon, C. H., 124 Stanfield, Olarkaon, R.A., 91, 183 Stillman, Mr. W. J., 194 'Stones of Yenioe,' 119-128, 131, 135, 140, 263,' 389 Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 194 Street-sweeping, 293 ^ Swan, Henry, 316 Swiss Towns,proposed history of, 146, 181 Talbot, Mrs. and Mr. Q., 318 Talloires, 204, 367 Taylor, Sir Henry, 94 Tea-shop, 291 Telford, Mr. Henry, 9, 16, 38 Tennyson, 94, 281 Thackeray, 193 INDEX 427 Thackeray, Miss (Mrs. Eiohmond Ritchie), 55 Thomson, Mr. George, 318 Thornbory, Walter, 136 ' Time and Tide,' 235-239, 245 Tintoret, 103-105, 139, 266 Tolstoi, 395 Tovey, Harriet, 295 Toynbee, Arnold, 309 Trevelyan, Sir W. and Lady, 145, 226-228 Tnnbridge Wells, 27, 158, 176 Turner, death of, 129, 136 , Mr. Buskin's study of, 38-43, 45, 82, 87, 95, 99, 154, 171-176, 192, 227, 362, 394 Tomer, Mr. Buskin's defence of, 46-48, 88-93, 144 Turner, Mr. Buskin's acquaint- ance with, 73, 98, 128 Turner, Mr. Buskin's executor- ship, 136, 172-175 Turner, Mr. Buskin's exhibition, 334-336 Tweddale family, 6, 8 'Two Paths,' 183, 333 Tyrwhitt, Bev. E. St. J., 277, 297 TTniversity College, London, lecture, 257 ' Unto this Last,' 195, 223 'Vald'Amo,'303 Venice, 43, 48, 76, 102-104, 119- 121, 135-140, 259, 264, 297, 323- 325, 393 Vere, Mr. Anbrey de, 94 Verona, 43, 263-266 Vivisection, 258, 378 Waldensians, 181, 182, 366 Wales, 34, 35 Ward, Bev. J. Clifton, 329 , Mr. W., 152, 153, 155 Waterloo, 17, 27 Watts, G. F., R.A., 197, 405 Wedderburn, Mr. A. D. 0., 264 Whistler, Mr. J. McN., 336 Willett, Mr. Henry, 249, 329, 333 WinduB, Mr., 88 Winnington, 197, 215-221 Withers, Charlotte, 64 Woolwich lectures, 224, 268, 278, 296 Working Men's College, 150-155, 168, 201, 210 Wornnm, B. N., 172, 173 'Xenophon's Economist,' 309-311 ' Yewdale ' lecture, 329 Yule, Mrs. and Miss, 304 Zermatt, 96, 115 THE END.