,,transcriber',s ,,note ,italic text is denoted by underscores4 ,superscripts are denoted by eg #h;h4 ,obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources4 ,more detail can be found at the end of the book4 ,,ruskin ,,relics ,,ruskin ,,relics ,,by ,w4 ,g4 ,,collingwood ,,author ,,of ,,the ,,life ,,of ,,john ,,ruskin1 ,,etc4 ,,with ,,fifty ,,illustrations ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,,and ,,others ,,new ,,york ,t4 ,y4 ,,crowell ,,co4 ,,publishers #aijd ,twelve chapters are here reprinted1 with some additions1 from ,good ,words1 by the courtesy of the ,editor and ,publishers4 ,another1 on ,ruskin's ,drawings1 is adapted1 by permission1 from the author's ,prefatory ,notes to the ,catalogue of the ,ruskin ,exhibition at the ,gallery of the ,royal ,society of ,painters in ,water ,colours in #aija4 ,the first chapter is newly written for this book4 ,w4 ,g4 ,c4 ,coniston1 ,september #aijc ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,ruskin's ,chair #a ,,ii4 ,ruskin's ,jump #ac ,,iii4 ,ruskin's ,gardening #bi ,,iv4 ,ruskin's ,old ,road #de ,v4 ,ruskin's ,cashbook #fc ,,vi4 ,ruskin's ,ilaria #hc ,,vii4 ,ruskin's ,maps #aje ,,viii4 ,ruskin's ,drawings #aai ,,ix4 ,ruskin's ,hand #acc ,x4 ,ruskin's ,music #adi ,,xi4 ,ruskin's ,jewels #afe ,,xii4 ,ruskin's ,library #agi ,,xiii4 ,ruskin's ,bibles #aic ,,xiv4 ,ruskin's ,isola #bac ,index #bii ,,illustrations ,page ,ruskin's ,study at ,brantwood #e ,brantwood ,harbour in the ,seventies #ag ,coniston ,hall and ,boathouse #ah ,ruskin's ,jump adrift off ,brantwood #ai ,the ,ruskin ,museum1 ,coniston #bb ,trial ,model for the ,jumping ,jenny #be ,the ,waterfall at ,brantwood ,door #cc ,ruskin's ,reservoir1 ,brantwood #cg ,ruskin's ,moorland ,garden #da ,on ,ruskin's ,old ,road1 between ,morez and ,les ,rousses1 #ahhb #ec ,lake of ,geneva and ,dent d',oches under the ,smoke-cloud #eg ,the ,gorge of ,monnetier and ,buttresses of the ,saleve1 #ahhb #fa ,mont ,blanc clearing2 ,sallenches1 ,sept4 #ahhb #fg ,the ,head of the ,lake of ,annecy #ga ,the ,mont ,cenis ,tunnel in ,snow1 ,nov4 #aa1 #ahhb #ge ,a ,savoy ,town in ,snow1 ,nov4 #ahhb #gi ,the ,palace of ,paolo ,guinigi1 ,lucca #hg ,ilaria del ,carretto2 head of the ,effigy #ia ,thunderstorm clearing1 ,lucca #ie ,the ,marble ,mountains of ,carrara from the ,lucca ,hills #ii ,ruskin's first ,map of ,italy #ajh ,geology on the ,old ,road1 by ,john ,ruskin #aji ,sketch of ,spain1 by ,john ,ruskin #aab ,physical ,sketch of ,savoy1 by ,john ,ruskin #aac ,the ,history of ,france1 by ,john ,ruskin #aag ,early ,journal at ,coniston1 by ,john ,ruskin #acg ,ruskin's ,handwriting in #ahcf #aci ,ruskin's ,handwriting in #ahcg #ada ,notes for ,stones of ,venice1 by ,john ,ruskin #adc ,ruskin's ,handwriting in #ahge #ade ,ruskin's ,piano in ,brantwood ,drawing-room #aec ,john ,ruskin in the ,seventies1 by ,prof4 ,b4 ,creswick #aeg ,at ,marmion's ,grave2 air by ,john ,ruskin 7two pages of ,music7 #afj ,trust ,thou ,thy ,love1 facsimile of music by ,john ,ruskin #afc ,gold as it ,grows #afi ,native ,silver1 by ,john ,ruskin #agj ,page from an early ,mineral ,catalogue1 by ,john ,ruskin #aga ,letter on ,snow ,crystals1 by ,john ,ruskin #agd ,diamond ,diagrams1 by ,john ,ruskin #age ,ruskin's ,swiss ,figure #ahe ,his ,nuremberg ,chronicle and ,pocket ,horace #ahi ,the ,bible from which ,john ,ruskin learnt in ,childhood #aig ,sermon-book written by ,ruskin as a ,boy #aii ,greek ,gospels with ,annotations by ,ruskin #bja ,king ,hakon's ,bible1 owned by ,ruskin #bjc ,an ,illuminated ,page of ,king ,hakon's ,bible #bjg ,lady ,mount ,temple1 portrait by ,edward ,clifford #bag ,lady ,mount ,temple1 chalk drawing by ,g4 ,f4 ,watts1 ,r4,a #bba ,lady ,mount ,temple1 #ahhf #bbc ,lady ,mount ,temple1 #ahhi #bbd ,i ,,ruskin',s ,,chair ,i ,,ruskin',s ,,chair ,this is all very well1 said a visitor1 after looking over the sketches and books of the ,ruskin ,museum at ,coniston1 but what the public would prefer is to see the chair he sat in4 ,something tangible1 that brings before us the person1 rather than his work1 is what we all like2 for though successful workers are continually asking us to judge them by what they have done1 we know there is more4 ,we want to see their portraits2 their faces will tell us--better than their books--whether we can trust them4 ,we want to know their lives by signs and tokens unconsciously left1 before we fall down and worship them for what1 after all1 may be only a lucky accident of success4 ,they cry out indignantly that this should not be2 but so it is4 ,relics of heroes even the ancient ,romans treasured4 ,relics of saints our forefathers would fight for and die for4 ,relics of those who in modern times have made our lives better and brighter we need not be ashamed of preserving4 ,and among relics ,i count all the little incidents1 the by-play of life1 the anecdotes which betray character1 so long as they are truly told and lovingly1 as ,george ,richmond said about his portrait of ,ruskin4 ,have not you flattered him8 asked the severe parents4 ,no2 it is only the truth lovingly told4 ,in his study you see two chairs2 one1 half-drawn from the table1 with pen and ink laid out before it1 where he used to sit at his writing2 the light from the bay window coming broadly in at his left hand1 and the hills1 when he lifted his eyes1 for his help4 ,the other1 by the fireside1 was the arm chair into which he migrated for those last ten years of patience1 no longer with his own books but others' books before him4 ,then1 turning to the chapter on his ,music1 you can see the chair by the drawing-room table1 in which1 making a pulpit of it1 he preached his baby sermon--,people1 be dood6 ,illustration3 7,miss ,brickhill1 photographer7 ,,ruskin',s ,,study ,,at ,,brantwood ,but it is about another kind of chair that ,i have more to say in this first chapter1 if you will forgive the pun2 the metaphorical chair which professors are supposed to fill at the ,university4 ,ruskin's was nominally that of ,fine ,art1 but he was really a sort of teaching ,teufelsdroeckh1 ,professor of ,things in ,general4 ,his chair stood on four legs1 or even more1 like some antique settles of carved oak2 very unlike the ,swiss milking-stool of the modern specialist4 ,not that it stood more firmly2 good business-folk1 whose sons fell under his influence1 and dons with an eye to college successes in the schools1 thought his teaching deplorable2 and from their point of view much was to be said4 ,it cannot be denied1 also1 that like the born teacher he was1 he sometimes tried to make silk purses out of sows' ears4 ,he taught none of us to paint saleable pictures nor to write popular books4 ,a pupil once asked him outright to do so4 ,i hope you're not serious1 he replied4 ,to learn the artist's trade he definitely advised going to the ,royal ,academy schools2 his drawing school at ,oxford was meant for an almost opposite purpose--to show the average amateur that really ,fine ,art is a worshipful thing1 far beyond him2 to be appreciated 7and that alone is worth while7 after a course of training1 but never to be attained unless by birth-gift4 ,at the start this school1 provided by the ,professor at his own cost of time1 trouble and money1 was well attended2 in the second year there were rarely more than three pupils4 ,it was in #ahgb that ,i joined it1 having seen him before1 introduced by ,mr4 ,alfred ,w4 ,hunt1 ,r4,w4,s41 the landscape painter4 ,ruskin asked to see what ,i had been doing1 and ,i showed him a niggled and panoramic bit of lake-scenery4 ,yes1 you have been looking at ,hunt and ,inchbold4 ,i hoped ,i had been looking at ,nature4 ,you must learn to draw4 ,dear me6 thought ,i1 and ,i have been exhibiting landscapes4 ,and you try to put in more than you can manage4 ,well1 ,i supposed he would have given me a good word for that6 ,so he set me to facsimile what seemed like a tangle of scrabbles in charcoal1 and ,i bungled it4 ,whereupon ,i had to do it again1 and was a most miserable undergraduate4 ,but the nice thing about him was that he did not say1 ,go away2 you are no good2 but set me something drier and harder still4 ,i had not the least idea what it was all coming to2 though there was the satisfaction of looking through the sliding cases between whiles at ,liber ,studiorum plates--rather ugly1 some of them1 ,i whispered to myself--and little scraps of ,holbein and ,burne-,jones1 quite delicious1 for ,i had the pre-,raphaelite measles badly just then1 in reaction from the water-colour landscape in which ,i had been brought up4 ,only ,i was too ignorant to see1 till he showed me1 that the virtue of real pre-,raphaelite draughtsmanship was in faithfulness to natural form1 and resulting sensitiveness to harmony of line2 nothing to do with sham mediaevalism and hard contours4 ,by-and-by he promoted me to ,burne-,jones's ,psyche received into ,heaven4 ,what rapture at the start1 and what trials before that facsimile was completed6 ,and when all was done1 ,that's not the way to draw a foot1 said a popular artist who saw the copy4 ,but that was the way to use the pure line1 and who but ,ruskin taught it at the time8 ,later1 he set painful tasks of morsels from ,turner1 distasteful at first1 but gradually fascinating2 for he would not let one off before getting at the bottom of the affair1 whether it was merely a knock-in of the balanced colour-masses or the absolute imitation of the little wavy clouds1 an eighth of an inch long1 left apparently ragged by the mezzotinter's scraper4 ,all this does not make a professional picture-painter1 but such teaching must have opened many pupils' eyes to certain points in art not universally perceived4 ,that was one leg of the chair2 another was the literary leg4 ,he contemplated his ,bibliotheca ,pastorum1 anticipating in a different form the best hundred books1 only there were to be far less4 ,the first1 as suited in his mind for country readers on ,st4 ,george's farms1 was the ,economist of ,xenophon1 and two of his undergraduate friends undertook the translation4 ,of these1 ,wedderburn of ,balliol1 now ,k4,c41 and ,ruskin's literary executor1 was one2 and the other was ,montefiore of ,balliol1 who was already in weak health 7he did not live long after those days7 and passed on his share in the work to me4 ,that was the beginning of many interesting afternoons in ,ruskin's rooms1 where ,i read my bit of translation to him1 and he compared it with the ,greek1 revising and ,ruskinising the schoolboy exercise4 ,his method of translation was quite new to me4 ,the ,greek was not to be so turned into ,english as to lose its ,greek flavour2 one should know it for a rendering out of a foreign tongue4 ,the same word in ,greek was to be represented by the same word in ,english4 ,he would have no more freedom in this than in anything else4 ,but he came down heavily on all the catchwords and commonplaces dear to ,bohn's cribs1 and for a phrase like to boot had no mercy4 ,on the other hand1 he invented quaint renderings of his own1 such as courtesy for philanthropia4 ,the book is still in print for the curious to read2 he gave his translators the profits3 ,it will keep you in raspberry jam1 he said1 and ,i have had a postal order for my share regularly these nearly thirty years4 ,but the lesson one learns at school in ,latin1 how to make mosaic of words and decorative patterns of phrases1 no master ever tried to teach me in ,english1 as ,ruskin taught it over the tea-cups in those afternoons at ,corpus4 ,there was a third leg to the chair1 which we might call the dignity of labour4 ,when his first group of men would not draw1 he made them dig at ,hinksey4 ,i was slack at the ,hinksey diggings1 but he made me dig at ,coniston4 ,when the ,xenophon was nearly ready1 the translators were asked to ,brantwood in the summer of #ahge to finish it4 ,at my earliest visit1 two years before1 he had no harbour2 the boats were exposed to the big waves from the south-west storms1 and it was an almost daily task for the gardeners to keep them aground on the shore and to bale them4 ,in '#gd he began some harbour-works1 which we were set to complete4 ,we dug and built every afternoon1 and enjoyed it1 though we had not time to finish the job4 ,after us the local mason was called in1 so that the harbour you now see is professional work4 ,but he bade them leave three of my steps standing as a monument of that summer's doings1 and there they are to this day4 ,it seemed a kind of joke to make ,oxford men dig1 and ,i think the ,hinksey work was devised partly in despair of otherwise holding his class together4 ,but he had reasons for accustoming them to the labour by which far the greater part of humanity has to live4 ,not to make them into navvies1 but to give them a respect for the skilled use of a pick and a trowel1 was his intention2 just as the drawing school was not to make them artists1 but to show them how hard it was4 ,in his own undergraduate days the yokel and the mob were outside the pale of the gownsman's interests4 ,there was condescending charity1 of course1 and comradeship in sport with the keeper and the groom2 but your real gentleman1 said ,byron1 never perspires4 ,on the contrary1 said ,ruskin1 when ,adam delved1 in the sweat of his brow1 life was nearest to ,eden-gates4 ,to draw hard breath over ploughshare and spade was the glory of living4 ,and so1 to make these youngsters dig was an object-lesson in ethics1 the first rudiments of human fellowship1 which branched upward into all the moralities4 ,a fourth leg to his chair was nature study4 ,in those days science was supposed to be the only true natural history3 ,gilbert ,white was out of date4 ,ruskin's teaching was a protest1 and it has prevailed4 ,from any master we learn no more than we are capable of learning1 and he never gave me many of the tasks he put upon others of his pupils4 ,less for any use he made of it1 but always with the suggestion that it was for a practical end1 he set me to draw glaciers and glaciated rocks at ,chamouni2 on the ,coniston fells demonstrated his method of taking dip and strike from any bit of rock showing cleavage and stratification1 and on his own piece of moor made me survey and elaborate a model to scale4 ,it was treated as a form of sport1 enjoyable as any game2 but not to be scamped4 ,there was always the insistence on accuracy above all things1 and fulness of observation1 with care about trifles which ,i had not dreamed of before1 and never expected from him4 ,it was only much later that ,i understood1 from his note-books and sketch-books1 what an immense amount of dry1 hard work underlay the easy eloquence of his paragraphs4 ,for instance1 ,love's ,meinie seems to be a slight performance2 but to serve for it he had a vast collection of unstuffed bird-skins1 and to get at the secret of flight planned and commissioned from a skilled artificer sets of quill-feathers1 enormously magnified1 in exact imitation of the true forms and proportions in the bird's wing4 ,one of these is on view in the ,coniston museum1 which holds so many of his relics2 a complete set are still at ,brantwood4 ,to show the village children how the wheels of heaven go round1 and how the stars have been grouped into pictures of the world--old myths of nature1 he planned a revolving globe into which you could climb and see a blue sky pierced for the greater and the lesser lights1 and painted with the constellation figures4 ,the globe has perished1 but the object-lesson in education remains4 ,i have mentioned four lines of his teaching1 four legs to his chair4 ,other traits of his many-sided mind are given in the following chapters1 and even these are not exhaustive4 ,they will serve to show him as he was seen at close quarters1 not merely through the medium of print--the last of the sages1 lingering into an era of specialists4 ,i do not rate him as an infallible authority1 neither in taste1 nor in ethics1 nor in anything4 ,but he was a great teacher1 because he took you by the hand as he went on his voyage of discovery through the world2 he made you see what he saw1 and taught you to look for yourself4 ,one thing he never taught me was to keep a diary4 ,he used to lament how many beautiful sunsets he had not sketched1 and how many interesting facts he had lost for want of the scratch of a pencil4 ,in trying to recall these bygones one begins to perceive their loss3 so little one can save from the wreckage of time4 ,once1 when his talk was rather confidential1 ,i said1 ,never mind1 ,i'm not ,boswell taking notes4 ,i think1 he replied1 you might do worse4 ,,ii ,,ruskin',s ,,jump ,,ii ,,ruskin',s ,,jump ,jump was the ,brantwood vernacular for ,jumping ,jenny2 and she was ,ruskin's own private1 particular water sulky1 as the ,autocrat of the ,breakfast ,table put it4 ,there is hardly any need to say that she was named after the famous though somewhat disreputable brig1 commanded and partly owned by the late ,anthony ,ewart1 not unknown to readers of ,ruskin's favourite novel ,redgauntlet4 ,i do not mean to commit myself to any statement of literary criticism in calling ,redgauntlet his favourite novel1 or to imply that he thought it the best book ever written3 but it was one which he continually quoted in conversation and discussed with pleasure in his autobiography4 ,of all the novels he read in those evenings of auld lang syne1 when he pulled the four candles close to him at the drawing-room table1 and we sketched furtively in corners1 ,laurence ,hilliard and ,i1 and the ladies plied their needles--no novel was read with more delight and effect4 ,it was a pretty way of passing the evening1 but not so easy to imitate unless you have a ,ruskin to read to you4 ,he had a trick of suggesting the dramatic variety of the conversations without trying to be stagey1 and a skill in cutting the long paragraphs of ,scott's descriptions which made it all as good as a play4 ,he did not make you hot and ready to scream1 as many readers do in their anxiety to act the scene4 ,ruskin was no sailor1 and never went for a real voyage2 but he was very fond of boats and shipping1 and all that came from the sea4 ,one of his grandfathers had been a sailor4 ,as far as ,i can make out1 this grandfather was an ,east-coast skipper of small craft1 very much like one of the captains of ,many ,cargoes and ,sea ,urchins4 ,he had passed out of this world before ,john ,ruskin came into it1 and the little genius never had the luck to hear sea-stories and to learn the mysteries of reef-knots and clove-hitch from an old captain grandfather4 ,it would have been so good for him6 ,but one must not forget that in the making of ,john ,ruskin there was a quarter of the blood of a seafarer4 ,it is a rather curious fact1 also1 and one which has not1 ,i believe1 been mentioned in print1 that the earliest ,ruskin of all was a sea captain4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,hutton ,brayshay tells me that he has found in the ,record ,office a notice of the name in the fourteenth century2 this mediaeval ,ruskin was captain of one of ,edward ,,iii4's ships4 ,we cannot connect him with ,john ,ruskin's family1 any more than we can connect the ,ruskins of ,dalton-in-,furness in the sixteenth century2 but this identity of name suggests that they may have been ancestors4 ,it is a problem which can only be solved by research1 but it should be possible1 if one had time and money to work out the pedigree from wills and registers4 ,turner was his real teacher in seafaring matters1 giving him1 if nothing more1 a true interest in the look of waves and ships4 ,it was for ,turner's sake that he wrote the fine essay on the boat in art and poetry which forms the introduction to ,harbours of ,england2 and this glorification of the coast fishing-craft and the old ship of the line was not merely a literary man's concoction1 but the outcome of much study and sketching at ,deal1 where he spent the summer of #ahee to steep himself in the subject4 ,in the early sixties1 again1 he stayed for some time at ,boulogne in lodgings under the sandhills north of the pier1 and made friends with a ,french pilot and mackerel fisher who1 after due apprenticeship1 actually promoted him to the tiller--an honour of which he was really prouder than that election to the membership of a foreign ,academy which he forgot to answer until it was too late to say any more about it4 ,illustration3 7,sutcliffe1 photographer1 ,whitby7 ,,brantwood ,,harbour ,,in ,,the ,,seventies ,illustration3 7,herbert ,severn1 ,esq41 photographer7 ,,coniston ,,hall ,,and ,,boathouse ,so when he came to ,coniston1 and had his own house on his own lake1 he could not be without boats4 ,there was a landing-place on the shore beneath ,brantwood1 shown in our photograph as it was in the earlier stages of its development1 with ,mrs4 ,arthur ,severn and ,miss ,constance ,hilliard 7,mrs4 ,w4 ,h4 ,churchill7 on the first primitive breakwater1 and ,mr4 ,severn's sailboat in the distance4 ,ruskin did not care for lake-sailing2 a busy man hardly has time to wait for the moving of the water2 and he got one of the indigenous tubs for the diversion of rowing4 ,he did not fish1 and he had the greatest scorn for rowing as it is done at ,oxford4 ,that's not rowing2 that's galley-slaves' work6 he used to tell us4 ,to bend to the stroke1 and time your oars to the beat of the waves1 was his ideal3 he liked going out when there was a little sea on1 and white horses2 and he would paddle away before the wind with great enjoyment4 ,but when there is a little sea on1 at ,coniston1 it means a good deal of wind2 though the waves are not very high they gather a fair amount of force in their four or five miles' career up the long waterway2 and the fun of riding with them is quite different from the struggle of getting your boat home again4 ,now ,ruskin was a very practical man in some things4 ,when you have too much to do1 don't do it1 he used to say4 ,so after a wild water-gallop1 he simply landed and walked home4 ,when the wind changed he could bring back his boat4 ,there was no use in making a pain of a pleasure4 ,illustration3 7,from a ,sketch by ,w4 ,g4 ,collingwood7 ,,ruskin',s ,,jump ,,adrift ,,off ,,brantwood ,the ,lake district rowing-boat is built for the ,lake fisherman1 and it is as neatly adapted to its purpose as the ,windermere yacht which1 for the peculiar winds and waters of the place1 is pretty nearly perfect4 ,the fishers used to have two chief requirements1 whether they netted or trolled2 the boat must travel easily in lumpy but not violent water1 for the men had far to go in reaching their drawing-up spots1 and in taking their fish to market of an evening2 and it must carry a good deal of tackle4 ,in netting1 there were always two partners1 and so two thwarts and two pairs of sculls were used2 in trolling1 one went out alone1 but there were rods and lines which needed space for convenient stowage4 ,consequently the boats were rather long1 and rather low in the water2 the sculls were fixed on pins1 so that you could drop them when you got a bite1 or landed hastily to take the hair-rope at your end of the net in drawing up4 ,feathering the oar was quite unknown2 great speed unnecessary2 great stability desirable2 but not what a sailor would call seaworthiness4 ,on the whole1 for pleasure-boating on the lakes1 these boats are safe and convenient2 accidents are extremely rare1 though hundreds and perhaps thousands of hopelessly unskilled people every summer try their hands at rowing1 and do everything you ought not to do in a boat4 ,it is impossible to insist on an experienced boatman going out with every party1 and not always possible to prevent overcrowding4 ,local authorities have no powers1 except to hang life-buoys 7at their own personal expense7 on convenient points along the shore4 ,you will see one of the ,coniston parish council's buoys on the boathouse in our photograph of the ,hall3 but you will be glad to know that it has hung there for years without being wanted for a rescue4 ,illustration3 7,hargreaves1 photographer7 ,,the ,,ruskin ,,museum1 ,,coniston ,after some seasons' trial of the local boat1 ,ruskin thought he could improve upon it for his own purpose4 ,he wanted something less cumbrous and more seaworthy1 and he was always trying experiments1 uprooting notions to find how they grew1 planting them upside down to see what happened1 grafting one idea upon another1 to the bewilderment of onlookers4 ,in the matter of boats he had a very willing and capable helper in ,laurence ,hilliard1 who was the cleverest and neatest-fingered boy that ever rigged a model2 and many were the models he designed and finished with exquisite perfection of detail in the outhouse-workshop at ,brantwood4 ,laurie1 as every one called him1 was deep in ,scott ,russell at that time1 working away on the ponderous 7and now discredited7 folio as if he were getting it up for an examination1 and covering sheets of cartridge-paper with sections and calculations4 ,he was only too pleased to have a hand in a real job1 and turned out the drawings and the model for the new boat in workmanlike fashion4 ,this was in #ahgi or #ahhj4 ,just opposite ,brantwood1 across the lake1 is the old ,coniston ,hall1 built in the fifteenth century as the home of the ,flemings of ,coniston1 but nearly two hundred years ago abandoned and left to ruin4 ,mrs4 ,radcliffe1 who wrote the ,mysteries of ,udolpho--known to most readers nowadays less for itself than as the book that so excited the heroine of ,northanger ,abbey--about #agid came to ,coniston1 and mistook the old ,coniston ,hall for ,conishead ,priory1 as it seems3 and with an odd fallacy of romance described the solemn vesper that once swelled along the lake from those consecrated walls1 and awakened1 perhaps1 the enthusiasm of the voyager1 while evening stole upon the scene4 ,but she was right enough in being charmed with the spot1 as ,ruskin was in his boyish visits1 long before he dreamed of living--and dying--in view of the old round chimneys among the trees1 with the ripple of lake below and the peak of the ,old ,man rising above4 ,early in the nineteenth century the ruins were fitted up as a farm1 and1 somewhat later1 the boathouse close by came to be the workshop of the man who built ,ruskin's ,jump4 ,mr4 ,william ,bell was one of the celebrities of this dale4 ,in his youth he had been a sort of right-hand man of ,john ,beever of the ,thwaite1 brother to the ladies of ,hortus ,inclusus1 and author of ,practical ,fly-,fishing4 ,on the death of his father1 ,william ,bell became the leading carpenter of the place1 and the leading ,liberal1 and during ,mr4 ,gladstone's last ,administration he was nominated for a ,justice of the ,peace4 ,ruskin was told of his neighbour1 and sent word that he would like to come and have a talk about politics4 ,now the carpenter was used to ,conservative orators and ,liberal arguers1 but he knew that ,ruskin was a different sort of man2 and all day long before the hour fixed for the visit he was in a greatly perturbed state of mind1 walking up and down and wondering--a new thing for him--how he should tackle this unknown personality4 ,at last the distinguished guest arrived4 ,he was solemnly welcomed and shown into the parlour4 ,the door was shut upon the twain4 ,the son 7,mr4 ,john ,bell71 who felt he had brought into contact the irresistible force and the irremovable post1 waited about hoping it would be all right1 but in much trepidation as the sound of talk inside rose from a murmur to a rumble1 and from a rumble to a roar4 ,at last his father's well-known voice came through the partition in no trembling accents3 ,ye're wrong to rags1 ,mr4 ,ruskin6 ,then he knew it was all right1 and went about his work4 ,and after that ,ruskin and ald ,will ,bell were firm friends in spite of differences4 ,so ,will ,bell built the ,jump--or1 to be accurate1 was master-builder1 employing at this job ,mont4 ,barrow1 well known to boat-owners on ,windermere for one of the most skilful of craftsmen1 as his father was before him--and one fine day in spring she was launched at the boat-house with great ceremony4 ,a wreath of daffodils was hung round her bows1 and ,miss ,martha ,gale christened her1 with this little versicle which ,ruskin made for the occasion3 ,waves give place to thee6 ,heaven send grace to thee6 ,fortune to ferry ,kind hearts and merry6 ,there was one strange face in the group1 one uninvited visitor4 ,the people then at the ,hall were not successful managers1 though they had interested ,ruskin1 perhaps more through the idyllic prettiness of their homestead than otherwise4 ,he had helped to stave off the failure by lending them ,l#cjj1 which they proposed to pay in geese6 ,and the stranger at the launch was the man in possession4 ,alas6 for these consecrated walls1 and the disillusionments of our ,arcadia4 ,perhaps it is wise to add1 in plain words1 that twenty years have wrought changes at the ,hall1 and that the present tenants are quite different people4 ,illustration3 7,hargreaves1 photographer7 ,,trial ,,model ,,for ,,the ,,jumping ,,jenny ,the ,jump1 so launched at last1 was always ,ruskin's own boat1 for his private particular use4 ,sometimes as a special honour the favoured guest was sent across the lake in her1 rather than in a common boat2 but to say the truth1 if it wasn't for the honour of the thing1 as the ,irishman remarked when the bottom of the sedan-chair came out1 we had as soon walk round4 ,she rode the waves beautifully1 but you didn't seem to get forrarder with her4 ,perhaps it was the fallacy of the ,scott ,russell lines that made her heavy1 or must we put all the blame upon ,ruskin8 ,he tried to build a boat that would sail and row equally well1 and that is not easy4 ,she was never sailed1 though the model1 now in the ,coniston ,museum1 is rigged4 ,the ,jump1 still on the water and often used1 is treasured1 ,i think1 chiefly as a relic--,ruskin's flagship4 ,when she is repainted1 the old pattern round the gunwale1 his device1 and the brilliant blue1 his favourite colour1 are always reproduced1 and she looks sound enough to outlast us all4 ,at a later time1 when he was staying at ,sandgate 7#ahhg-hh71 he reverted to his fondness for boating1 and had several very beautiful models built and rigged by ,charles ,dalby1 of ,folkestone1 a past-master in the mystery4 ,these models--the old ,dover packet1 old-style cutter and yawl1 and so forth--are still at ,brantwood4 ,in the spring of #ahhb1 during a visit to ,london1 ,mr4 ,froude described to him the discovery of a ,viking ship1 which roused great interest4 ,writing home1 he sketched it endwise and sidewise1 with notes of its construction1 and--,froude told me she had a horse at the head4 ,to most of his readers ,ruskin has been exclusively the arm-chair philosopher1 the dilettante of prints and pictures2 but there was a vein of the old blood in him1 as in the rest of us1 which warmed to the rough sea-life that created ,venice 7read his prose poem thereon in ,modern ,painters1 vol4 v41 ,the ,wings of the ,lion71 and ,england3--,bare head1 bare fist1 bare foot1 and blue jacket4 ,if these will not save us1 nothing will4 ,he has told me of talks with ,carlyle1 who regretted he had not taken up the ,kings of ,norway earlier in life1 instead of ,frederick the ,great1 and spent his better strength upon the better subject2 and ,ruskin himself1 though too late for evidences of the taste to appear in his writings1 liked to hear of our seafaring ancestors of the ,north4 ,it was a touch of this feeling that made him so scornful of sailing-machines1 not calling them boats at all4 ,he would not even have a boat-house for his ,jump2 it would be too like yachting1 and she must lie on the beach1 in open harbour1 in the good old way4 ,when we used to laugh at ,laurence ,hilliard's ,snail1 a ,morecambe ,bay fisherman's craft that wouldn't go1 ,ruskin always took her part4 ,you boys can't be content unless you are going fast4 ,i won't have her called the ',snail'2 she is-- and this with his own peculiar lifting emphasis--a ,real ,sea ,boat4 ,,iii ,,ruskin',s ,,gardening ,,iii ,,ruskin',s ,,gardening ,there are two quite different sorts of garden lovers--those who raise flowers1 and those who look for the landscape effect4 ,i shall be scolded for saying so1 but the first often make their gardens into museums2 very interesting1 no doubt1 but not so pleasant to live with as the half-wild bit of ground--lawn1 trees and shrubbery1 without a pane of glass in evidence--where there are just enough flowers1 hardy perennials perhaps1 to give a touch of colour in their season1 but in the main a sense of green repose4 ,i think the garden which the ,lord planted eastward in ,eden was like that2 a pleasance1 where ,he could walk in the cool of the evening with ,adam1 and ,adam had no need to run away1 every minute1 to look for slugs4 ,ruskin1 though he wrote about botany1 and tried to be his own ,linnaeus1 and though he loved well enough to see flowers 7especially wild ones7 on his table and outside his window1 yet in his practical gardening was quite the landscapist4 ,he liked making paths and contriving pretty nooks1 building steps and bridges1 laying out beds1 woodcutting and so forth2 but ,i never remember him potting and grafting and layering and budding2 and as to the rarity of any plants in his garden1 ,i believe he took far more pleasure in the wood-anemone--,silvia1 he called it--than in anything buyable from the nurseryman's catalogue4 ,the ,brantwood gardens as they now are1 enlarged and tended by a mistress who loves and understands flowers1 and glorified by their charming position on the shore of a mountain lake1 are as near the perfect blend of detailed interest and picturesque beauty as anything can be in this northern climate4 ,but they are not ,ruskin's gardens4 ,when the first glass-house went up1 he used to apologise for it to his visitors2 it was to please ,mrs4 ,severn2 it was to grow a few grapes for his friends2 he did not believe in hot-houses3 and he would take you up the steps he had contrived at the back of the house and point out the tiny wild growths in their crannies1 as he led the way to his own private plot4 ,sir ,edwin ,arnold1 in a pleasant essay on ,japanese rock-gardens1 quoting ,ruskin on the beauty of stones1 wonders whether he would not have sympathised in these quaint tastes of the ,far ,east4 ,ruskin had little to say in praise of ,japanese art as he knew it1 because they could not draw pretty figures1 and he had no admiration for dwarfs or monsters2 but one cannot help thinking that if he had seen ,japan1 and if it is all that travellers tell us1 he might have written some enthusiastic passages on a people who love stones for their own sake and tub themselves daily4 ,to him1 his rock gardens were a joy for ever2 and in his working years he set an example of ,lake-district landscape-gardening which still1 for all ,i know1 remains unfollowed1 and is worth a few paragraphs of record4 ,you can see little of it now4 ,during that last decade1 when he wandered about his small domain like the ghost of his former self1 no one could carry on his work4 ,the paths he made and tended gradually became overgrown1 the rocky watercourses were choked with stones1 his private plot filled with weeds1 for he could no longer dig in it2 and now you can only trace what it has been in the little solitude left sacred to memory4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,waterfall ,,at ,,brantwood ,,door4 ,,by ,l4 ,j4 ,,hilliard1 #ahhe ,it was in the heart of the wood1 approached by the steps and winding path--not gravelled1 but true woodland track4 ,about as large as a cottager's kitchen-garden1 it was fenced on two sides with a wooden paling1 and an old stone wall1 mossy and ivied1 kept off the trees and their undergrowth on the higher side1 up the hill4 ,the trees1 when he came1 were the coppice of the country1 oak and hazel1 periodically cut down to the stubs1 and used for turning bobbins and burning charcoal4 ,this clearance is always a sad thing for the moment1 when the leafy thicket is rased away1 leaving bare earth and hacked stumps and the toppings strewn about to rot into soil2 but next spring there are sure to be galaxies of primroses1 if not daffodils and bluebells to follow1 and foxgloves as the summer goes on2 and so the kindness of nature heals the wound4 ,next year there are shoots from the stubs1 a miniature forest which might even attract a ,japanese2 and as the saplings grow the flowers thin out1 until in two or three seasons the children wonder why there are no primroses in the primrose-wood1 and cannot believe they are gone to sleep for ten years4 ,in the plantations of larch and timber trees the great bracken takes the place of this aftergrowth of flowerets1 shooting up six or eight feet high where a clearing gives it a chance1 and then again dwindles as the trees regain their strength1 until under a well-grown larchwood there is nothing but a soft1 deep1 tressy grass1 not rank and full tinted like the sward of the meadows1 but grey-green and delicate and dry1 though so thick and rich that there is no easier couch for a woodland dreamer4 ,when ,ruskin came to ,brantwood he would have his coppice cut no more4 ,he let it grow1 only taking off the weaker shoots and dead wood4 ,it spindled up to great tall stems1 slender and sinuous1 promising no timber1 and past the age for all commercial use or time-honoured wont4 ,neighbours shook their heads1 but they did not know the pictures of ,botticelli1 and ,ruskin had made his coppice into an early ,italian altar-piece4 ,among those slender-pillared aisles you would not be surprised to see goddesses appear out of the green depths2 and looking westward1 the sun-dazzle of the lake and the dark blue of the mountains gazed in between the leaves4 ,it was what the old ,venetians had seen in landward holidays and tried to remember for their backgrounds4 ,that in itself was one form of ,ruskin's gardening4 ,to keep his forest at this delightful point of mystery1 his billhook and gloves were always lying on the hall table1 and after the morning's writing he would go up to the ,brant 7steep7 ,wood and chop for half an hour before luncheon4 ,it was not the heroic axe-work of ,mr4 ,gladstone1 but such pruning as a ,garden of ,eden required to dress it and to keep it4 ,then in that private plot he had his espalier of apples and a little gooseberry patch and a few standard fruit-trees and some strawberries1 mixed with flowers4 ,in one corner there were beehives in the old-fashioned penthouse1 trailed over with creepers4 ,the fourth side was unfenced1 but parted from the wood by a deep and steep watercourse1 a succession of cascades 7unless the weather were dry1 which is not often the case at ,coniston7 over hard slate rock4 ,he used sometimes humorously to complain of the trouble it cost him to keep the beck clear of stones1 and he could deduce you many a lesson in geology on the way his rivulet filled1 rather than deepened1 its bed4 ,it was crossed by a rough wooden bridge4 ,i remember at the building of this bridge he was considerably annoyed because the workman1 thinking to please him with unusually rude lines1 had made the planks so flimsy that it was hardly safe4 ,he insisted on solidity and security1 though his stone steps were so irregular as to contradict all the rules which bid you make stairs in a flight equal1 for fear of tripping your passenger4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,reservoir1 ,,brantwood ,over the bridge and within the wood there were frequent hummocks and bosses of rock pushing through the soil1 and each with its special interest of fern or flower4 ,many a visitor must have recalled or repeated-- ,who loved the little rock1 and set ,upon its head the coronet8 while ,ruskin led the way1 pointing out each trail of ivy 7convolvulus not allowed for fear of strangling the stems7 and nest of moss1 as a gardener of the other species might point out his orchids4 ,then suddenly forth of the wood you came upon the tennis-lawn--another concession to youthful visitors1 for he played no athletic games4 ,but in the creation of this glade he took the keenest delight1 believing1 as he said1 in diggings of all sorts4 ,he was the engineer1 and the work was done in great part by the young people who were to play tennis on the ground when it was levelled--a rather distant hope1 but eventually fulfilled4 ,the tall1 thin saplings have run up higher and higher all round the green3 on one side you look through their veil to the long expanse of lake2 on the other1 up the dark1 wooded hill2 and on a sunny afternoon it has a curious touch of poetry4 ,there is no statue on a pedestal or fountain playing in a basin1 but on the mossy bank1 beneath the graceful lines of virginal forestry1 ,decamerons might have been told4 ,it is an oasis in the ,north-country farmer's neighbourhood1 this ,lake district which the tripper thinks just country as ,god made it1 quoting ,cowper1 and not dreaming of the native's view that the land is an unroofed mutton-factory1 with every inch of it proputty1 proputty1 proputty4 ,i do not mean to imply that ,ruskin's gardening was wilfully anti-utilitarian4 ,the charm of it was that it brought the natural advantages and local usages into a new light1 with just the refinement of feeling which made a flight of steps into a rock-garden and a tennis-ground into a ,purist painter's glade4 ,who but he would have planted his field with narcissus1 scattered thinly among the grass1 to surprise you with a reminiscence of ,vevey8 ,and in the old garden below1 though he did not create it1 you can trace his feeling in the terraced zigzag of paths1 hedged with apple and the cotoneaster which flourishes at ,coniston1 and filled in with sloping patches of strawberry and gooseberry4 ,the average proprietor would have levelled his walks and capped his dwarf walls with flat slabs4 ,this irregularity and cottage-garden business would have offended those new-comers who buy a bit of nature at the ,lakes and improve away all its beauties4 ,it was in the late 'seventies1 when the first illness had forced him to spend most of his time at ,brantwood1 and in the early 'eighties1 before final illness put an end to his activity1 that ,ruskin1 having completed his woodland paths and gardens1 and all the diggings at his harbour1 went higher up the hill for new worlds to conquer4 ,his bit of moor above the wood was opened out into a new sort of garden1 quite as charming in its way as any other4 ,it was a steep patch of hillside grandly overlooking the lake1 with a foreground of foliage below and a background of mountains above2 but as ,nature left it--or rather as ,nature made it after the original wild growth of oak and birch and holly had been cleared away by the charcoal-burners and sheep-farmers of past centuries4 ,strongly marked ridges of slate-rock cropped out slantwise1 across and across the slope1 their backs tufted over with heather and juniper1 and their hollows holding water in sodden quagmires4 ,down the slope1 from the bogs of the great moor behind1 rising to a thousand feet above the sea in some places1 there were two little streamlets which leapt the ridges and pooled in the hollows among ferns and mosses4 ,all the green fields and farms of the dalesmen were once made out of such ground1 and many of them at quite as great a height2 indeed the actual elevation of this plot nowhere reaches five hundred feet4 ,the problem was to take advantage of whatever useful features the site afforded without destroying its native charm4 ,to drain and clear an intake and put it under grass1 or to plant it outright1 had been done before2 but that was to do away with the moorland character altogether4 ,just as a portrait-painter studies to pose his sitter in such a light and in such an attitude as to bring out the most individual points and get the revelation of a personality1 so ,ruskin studied his moor1 to develop its resources4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,moorland ,,garden ,first1 there were the streams2 and his old theory of saving the water suggested impounding the trickle in a series of reservoirs2 it might be useful in case of drought or fire4 ,so we were marshalled with pick and spade every fair afternoon to the ,board of ,works1 as we called it2 and the old game of the ,hinksey diggings was played over again4 ,for what reason ,i never clearly understood1 juniper was condemned on the moor as convolvulus in the wood3 and every savin-bush1 as it is called in the district1 was to be uprooted1 while the heather was treasured1 in spite of the farmers' rule to burn the heather off1 now and then1 for the sake of the grass which grows1 for a while1 in its place4 ,ruskin always regretted these heather fires1 for they do not really make good grass-land1 while they ruin the natural garden of ling and bell-heather4 ,when the basins were formed he found to his regret that no mere earthen bank would hold the water2 and skilled labour had to be called in to build dams of stone and cement1 less pretty than the concealed dyke he had intended4 ,but there was some consolation in devising sluices and clever gates with long lever handles1 artistically curved1 to shut and open the slit4 ,one would have thought1 sometimes1 to see his eagerness over these inventions1 that he had missed his vocation2 and he had indeed a keen admiration for the civil engineer1 wherever the road and bridge1 mine and harbour1 did not come into open conflict with natural beauties which he thought just as essential to human life as the material advantages of business4 ,and when his reservoirs were made1 it was a favourite entertainment to send up somebody to turn the water on and produce a roaring cascade among the laurels opposite the front door4 ,next1 to illustrate his theory of reclaiming wastes1 he set about his moorland garden4 ,at the upper corner of this beck-course there was one ragged bit of ground against the fence wall4 ,from the more rocky parts we were set to carry the soil to make terraces1 which we walled up with the rough stones found in plenty under the surface4 ,one wetter patch was planted with cranberries1 and some apple- and cherry-trees were put in1 where the soil was deep and drainage provided4 ,no wall or wire parted this little space of tillage from the wilder moor and its rabbits1 for the design was to enlarge the cultivated area and make the moor a paradise of terraces like the top of the purgatorial mount in ,dante2 and since this fragment of an experiment was completed1 when strength no longer allowed him to stride up to this once favourite height1 the whole has been left to ,nature again4 ,the apple-trees grew1 but untended2 they still blossom4 ,the cherries have run wild and are left to the birds4 ,the rough steps from the rock-platform to the orchard terrace are disjointed1 and fern is creeping through the grass4 ,but yet from out the little hill ,oozes the slender springlet still1 as it did in those old ,brantwood days when we picked and shovelled together1 first unearthing its miniature ravine2 and as perhaps it may--for no one can foretell the fate of any sacred spot--when the pilgrim of the future tries to identify by its help alone the whereabouts of ,ruskin's deserted garden4 ,,iv ,,ruskin',s ,,old ,,road ,,iv ,,ruskin',s ,,old ,,road ,in the ,life of ,ruskin three pages are given to his tour abroad in #ahhb1 a journey of importance to him1 because at a critical moment it gave him a new lease of life1 and of unusual interest to his biographer1 who accompanied him as secretary1 which is to say man-jack-of-all-trades4 ,in such companionship much personality comes out2 and the gossip of this period1 at greater length than the proportions of a biography allowed1 may help to fill in some of the details of his portrait4 ,very much broken down in health1 despairing of himself and his mission1 he left ,london on ,thursday1 ,august #aj1 #ahhb4 ,calais ,tower roused none of the old enthusiasm2 he said rather bitterly1 ,i wonder how ,i came to write about it4 ,but even in his depression the habit of work made him sketch once more the tracery of the ,hotel de ,ville4 ,he found out the trick of its geometrical pattern1 and explained it1 delighted4 ,then the old chef at the ,hotel ,dessein was still in the flesh1 and remembered former visits and sent up a capital dinner2 so the first day on foreign soil augured hopefully4 ,on the ,saturday he woke up to sunshine at ,laon1 and took me round the town1 setting me to work on various points4 ,he began a drawing of the cathedral front1 which he finished on the ,monday before leaving4 ,it was always rather wonderful how he would make use of every moment1 even when ill-health and the fatigue of travelling might seem a good reason for idling4 ,at once on arriving anywhere he was ready to sketch1 and up to the minute of departure he went on with his drawing unperturbed4 ,in the afternoons he usually dropped the harder work of the morning1 and went for a ramble out into the country2 at ,laon the hayfields and pear orchards south of the town gave him1 it seemed1 just as much pleasure as ,chamouni4 ,reims bored him2 the cathedral he called confectioner's ,gothic1 and he could not get rid of the idea of champagne and all the vanities and vulgarities which hang on to the very word4 ,there was an ugly prison1 too1 put up next the cathedral2 and even ,st4 ,remi did not make amends4 ,so he hastened on to ,troyes1 spending a few hours between trains at ,chalons1 where we did the town in the regular tourist fashion1 finding1 however1 beautiful features of early ,gothic at ,notre ,dame and the ,madeleine4 ,at ,troyes he spent the #agth1 sketching hard at ,st4 ,urbain and the cathedral1 and next morning reached ,sens1 a place loved of old for associations with parents and friends1 and not less for its little gutter-brooks in the streets1 which he pointed out with a sort of boyish glee4 ,the afternoon walk in the valley of the ,yonne and up the chalk hills brought much talk of the geology of flints and the especial charm of coteau scenery1 which he said had never been cared for until ,turner saw it and glorified this comparatively humble aspect of mountains in the ,rivers of ,france4 ,he set me to draw the defaced statues on the porch of the cathedral1 the finest north of ,alps he declared2 but we were getting on rather too fast1 and he began to feel the reaction of fatigue4 ,the weather was sultry1 and on the #aith our journey to ,avallon was followed by distant thunder-storms4 ,at ,avallon he stayed till the end of the month4 ,the place was new to him1 but ,i think he was attracted to it by one of those obscure associations which so often ran in his mind--it must be interesting because it was named ,avallon--,avalon he called it always1 dominated by the idea of the island-valley of repose where ,king ,arthur found the immortality of fairyland4 ,the first morning's work at the early church of ,st4 ,ladre1 and the first afternoon's walk down the valley of the ,cousin1 with brilliant ling in blossom among bold red granite rocks1 fully justified his choice4 ,the town1 on its ,durham-like hill1 swept round by the deep river-course1 and unspoilt by modernisms1 and the wooded1 flowery1 rocky neighbourhood1 full of all that is most charming in ,french scenery--there are ,roman remains1 too1 but of these he took less note--and the curious details of the twelfth-century church all attracted him mightily4 ,the only drawback was the weather1 which broke down with the thunder and gave us cold east winds and dark haze1 in which sketching was a penance4 ,this told upon him at once2 he even dined alone1 wearied out of evenings1 and still trying to fix his mind on the writing work he always took with him--in this instance the new edition of ,sesame and ,lilies and the ,bible of ,amiens4 ,he burned the candle at both ends2 out early to draw elusive detail of battered sculptures1 walking far in the afternoon1 and writing hard at night1 impatient of remonstrance even from those who were much better qualified to order him about than a secretary4 ,to meet him here came ,mr4 ,frank ,randal1 who was employed on drawings for ,st4 ,george's ,work1 and making bright1 sunny sketches in which the neatest of outline was reconciled with the freshest of colouring4 ,also came his friend1 ,mr4 ,maundrell1 to whom ,i take this chance of offering an apology which makes me blush to record4 ,among ,ruskin's drawings was one1 much in his ,proutesque style1 of a chapel at ,rue1 near ,abbeville4 ,it had been passed as his1 when ,mrs4 ,severn went through the portfolios with him1 noting the subjects on the back of the mounts2 and--with some hesitation1 ,i confess1 and neglect of the good rule ,when in doubt1 don't--it was shown at both ,ruskin ,exhibitions as a work by the master1 and greatly admired4 ,too late for correction1 it was found to be ,mr4 ,maundrell's4 ,others have nearly caught ,ruskin's style at times--,bunney's1 not mine1 he has written on sketches by an assistant1 for this very reason2 but for all the more important drawings there is a good pedigree1 and most of the smaller bits which have been shown or published have come from his sketch-books4 ,one good excursion from ,avallon was to the church of ,vezelay1 the twelfth-century place elaborately restored by ,viollet-le-,duc1 and interesting for the meeting of ,richard ,coeur-de-,lion with the other leaders of the ,crusade famous in ,ivanhoe and ,the ,talisman4 ,to ,ruskin any restoration meant ruin2 but as he went round the aisles1 disdainful at first but gradually warming to the intelligence and skill of the great modern architect1 he confessed that if restoration might be done at all it could not be better done4 ,what pleased him much more was a hunt1 on the way back1 for the exact spot where the ,avallon granite joined the limestone2 he found the two rocks side by side in a hummock near the road1 and was triumphant4 ,montreal was another place of pilgrimage1 and there the church with quaint wood-carvings and the picturesque village gave him a happy day4 ,in his diary 7on which see the next chapter7 he scolded himself1 after this excursion1 for forgetting the good times2 of a walk in the rain to the little oratory of ,st4 ,jean des ,bons ,hommes he said3 ,i ought to vignette it for a title to my books6 and of the ,avallon neighbourhood he notes3 ,altogether lovely1 and like ,dovedale and the ,meuse and the glens of ,fribourg in all that each has of best1 and like ,chamouni in granite cleavage1 and like--itself1 in sweet ,french looks and ways4444 ,the miraculous fairy valley 444 one of the sweetest ever made by heaven4 ,the ,cyclopean walls1 of blocks seven and eight feet long1 and three feet thick--the largest--all averaging two and a half 7feet7 cube1 at a guess1 laid with their smooth cleavages to the outside1 fitted like mosaic--the chinks filled with smaller stones1 altogether peculiar to this district of cleaving1 and little twisting1 granite4 ,it was not only the scenery that he cared for1 but the evidences of happy pastoral life1 adapting ,nature's gifts to human needs4 ,but when1 off the kindly granite and on the cold1 grey limestone country1 we passed a forlorn homestead1 ruinous and dirty1 he shrank back in the carriage1 as if some one had thrown a stone at him4 ,on the last day of ,august he left ,avallon1 and with a short stay at ,semur reached his old quarters at the ,hotel de la ,cloche1 ,dijon4 ,he was already contemplating ,praeterita1 picking up the memories of early days1 and planning a drive by the old road through ,jura as his parents used to do it in the pre-railway period4 ,he began by showing me where he bit his ,seven ,lamps plate in the wash-hand basin1 and where ,nurse ,anne used to wake him of mornings4 ,meanwhile1 for the book to be called ,our ,fathers have told us1 continuing ,the ,bible of ,amiens1 he would spend two days with the monks4 ,citeaux1 the home of the ,cistercians1 was the first day's trip1 marred by the heat and dust1 and by finding all vestiges of the monks replaced by an industrial school of the ugliest1 which1 nevertheless1 he inspected with nicely restrained impatience4 ,a moated grange on the wayside homeward caught his eye1 and as he sketched it he tried to make me believe that this must at least be a bit of the monks' work1 and the journey not in vain4 ,but next day there were far more interesting experiences in a visit to ,st4 ,bernard's birthplace4 ,he has described this fully in his lecture called ,mending the ,sieve1 in the volume of ,verona1 c41 and ,i need only recall the surprise of a bystander not wholly unsympathetic1 when ,ruskin knelt down on the spot of the great saint's nativity1 and stayed long in prayer4 ,he was little given to outward show of piety1 and his talk1 though enthusiastic1 had been no preparation for this burst of intense feeling4 ,later on the same day 7,saturday1 ,september #b7 he left ,dijon for the ,jura drive4 ,we passed ,poligny1 a usual resting-place in bygone journeys1 by train1 and stayed at ,champagnole1 where the old ,hotel de la ,poste used to be one of his homes4 ,it had been splendid weather for the last few days1 after a cold ,august in ,central ,france2 and the first ,jura walk was across the hill to the gorge of the ,ain4 ,i had often been through the ,jura1 as a blind1 benighted modern1 but never before loitered from slab to slab of its fissured limestone summits1 looking for the foreground loveliness of nestling flowers which contrast so delicately with the quaint1 crannied rock2 there is nothing which gives the same lyrical feeling except some of ,nature's gardens in wild ,icelandic lava-fields4 ,how eager he was1 and delighted with this open upland6 ,you know there is only one place where he speaks of liberty as a good thing1 and there it means the liberty of this ,jura walk1 enjoyed that afternoon4 ,by-and-by we came to a wood4 ,he cast about a little for the way through the trees1 then bade me notice that the flowers of spring were gone3 ,you ought to have seen the wood-anemones1 and oxalis1 and violets2 and then1 picking his steps to find the exact spot by a twisted larch-tree1 and gripping my arm to hold me back on the brink of the abyss1 ,that's where the hawk sailed off the crag1 in one of my old books2 do you remember8 ,illustration3 ,,on ,,ruskin',s ,,old ,,road1 ,,between ,,morez ,,and ,,les ,,rousses ,,september #ahhb ,there were thunder clouds over the plain-country that evening1 and we made no stop to sketch4 ,on our drive next day up to the flat1 high country of ,st4 ,laurent1 with its pine forests and scattered cottages1 and down into ,morez1 the weather worsened4 ,thence the road climbs by the side of the valley to the highest back of ,jura at ,les ,rousses2 the road1 he says1 walked most of the way1 was mere enchantment4 ,at a halt ,i sketched1 when a break in the clouds gave sunbeams darting into the valley beneath1 and wisps of white wreathed the steep forests4 ,you see where he got that beautiful cadence to a fine passage1 after comparing the ,jura upland with a ,yorkshire moor1 and contrasting the becks of our fells with the enchanted silence of open ,jura4 ,the raincloud clasps her cliffs1 and floats along her fields2 it passes1 and in an hour the rocks are dry1 and only beads of dew left in the ,alchemilla leaves--but of rivulet or brook1 no vestige1 yesterday or to-day or to-morrow4 ,through unseen fissures and filmy crannies the waters of cliff and plain have alike vanished2 only far down in the depth of the main valley glides the strong river1 unconscious of change4 ,up at ,les ,rousses he pointed out the fort1 then in building or newly built1 with scorn--as if the ,swiss on the one side or the ,french on the other could be kept in their bounds by stone walls1 when real war comes2 and then crossing the frontier there was the elation of getting into ,switzerland4 ,why do you like it better than ,france8 he asked4 ,i was just trying to say why1 that it is a free country and some more innocent gush1 when the ,swiss ,customs officers ran up1 and insisted on overhauling us1 for they don't often see travellers as in the old days at ,les ,rousses4 ,i was mightily crestfallen and he not a little delighted at this exemplification of liberty2 but he did not make the incident a horrid example in ,praeterita4 ,here we diverged a little from the old road of his youth1 by going east a few miles to ,st4 ,cergues instead of making for the ,col de la ,faucille at once4 ,the clean inn delighted him2 pine boards on the floor1 scrubbed white1 and no needless furniture4 ,here he said we should stay a week and rest2 he had much to write--first ideas for ,praeterita1 you understand4 ,but the next days were wet1 and he sat in his bedroom writing diligently at first1 while ,i caught some bright intervals for a sketch1 though we never saw the line of the ,alps quite clear4 ,in the lecture on the ,storm ,cloud of the ,nineteenth ,century1 one of his least convincing though most sincerely meant utterances1 there are references to the strange weather of those days4 ,all the way up from ,morez he wanted me to come into the carriage and shut the window because of a treacherous east wind1 and in my sketch you can see a certain smoky1 not only thundery1 look in the clouds4 ,at ,st4 ,cergues this east wind haze was still more pronounced1 the ,lake of ,geneva ruffled and white1 with patches of shadow from small sailor-boy clouds1 while the whole range opposite was not exactly shrouded but veiled in a persistent thickness of air4 ,above1 the sky was bright1 with blue and streaky cirrus1 and between the showers the sun glittered on the trees4 ,that fitful wind with the brownish-grey haze he called the plague-wind1 and in all his lecture there is no very definite explanation of it1 but much declamation against it as the ruin of landscape1 and some vague hints of portent1 almost as if he had been a prophet of old seeing the burden of modern ,babylon in the darkened sun4 ,it is smoke4 ,any one who haunts our ,lake district hills knows it well4 ,on coronation night ,i saw it trailing from ,barrow and ,carnforth up the ,lune valley as far as ,tebay1 always low and level1 leaving the upper hills clear1 perfectly continuous and distinct from the mist of water4 ,this winter1 from the top of ,wetherlam on a brilliant frosty day1 ,i saw it gradually invade the ,lake district from the south-east2 the horizontal1 clean-cut1 upper surface at about #bjjj feet2 the body of it dun and semi-transparent2 its thick veil fouling the little cotton-woolly clouds that nestled in the coves of the ,kirkstone group1 quite separate from the smoke-pall2 and by sunset it had reached to ,dungeon ,gill1 leaving the ,bow ,fell valleys clear4 ,coming down by moonlight ,i found the dales in a dry1 cold fog1 and heard that there had been no sunshine at ,coniston that afternoon4 ,this is ,ruskin's plague-cloud1 and the real enemy of the weather not only in ,england but in the ,alps4 ,you will see it1 according to the wind1 on either side of ,zurich most notably1 and the distance this blight will travel is more than the casual reader might believe4 ,a strong wind carries it away1 but only to deposit it somewhere else1 cutting off the sun's rays1 and breeding rain and storm4 ,this was not understood twenty years ago1 but ,ruskin's observations of the weather were perfectly accurate and his regrets at the changed aspect of ,alpine landscape were only too justifiable4 ,illustration3 ,,lake ,,of ,,geneva ,,and ,,dent ,d',,oches ,,under ,,the ,,smoke-,,cloud1 ,,from ,,st4 ,,cergues ,,september #ahhb ,on ,thursday1 ,september #g1 he had tired of dull weather at ,st4 ,cergues1 and written up his notes for ,praeterita2 he proposed to climb the ,dole and get onward to ,geneva4 ,it is a very easy walk of about a couple of hours up the gently sloping backs of the ,helvellyn-like ,jura range2 and from its top one should get a grand view of the lake and the ,alps to ,mont ,blanc4 ,he walked up as briskly as ever2 there was a cold wind but sun overhead1 though the mountains to the south and east were still in the plague-cloud4 ,there was no sketching to be done1 and we followed the ridge down to the ,col de la ,faucille4 ,if you look at his map of the ,jura1 facsimiled at page #aji of this volume1 the ,col is where the road suddenly turns round into zigzags after going straight south-west behind the ,dole2 and you remember how he names the whole chapter from this one spot1 as a chief landmark in his memories1 for there he always used to get his first full view of the ,mount ,beloved4 ,few travellers know it1 he says2 but it is far from unknown to all who have lived in la ,suisse ,romande4 ,there1 they take school-children up mountains4 ,far better than ,helvellyn is known to the ,english school child1 the dear ,dole is known to every youngster who has learnt to sing 7to the tune of ,life let us cherish7 the song of ,la ,suisse est belle1 ,oh qu'il la faut cherir6 ,we were not quite without our view4 ,for a moment1 too short for a sketch1 ,mont ,blanc loomed through the dull haze1 red in the sunset1 brick red1 not ,alpine rose2 and then all was grey4 ,we found our carriage and drove down4 ,i was waked in the darkness by ,ruskin saying1 ,this is where ,voltaire lived4 ,oh1 indeed6 said ,i4 ,next morning1 from his old front rooms at the ,hotel des ,bergues1 where he had already begun a sketch of the houses opposite1 merely for love of them1 we went out in the heat to see the ,rhone4 ,all the haze had gone1 at least from the nearer view1 and he seemed never tired of looking at the water from the footbridge and wherever it was visible4 ,i wondered why he would not come on2 but now ,i know4 ,fifteen feet thick--of not flowing but flying water--,i will not quote the wonderful pages which every lover of ,ruskin1 of landscape1 and of ,english undefiled1 must know--the one mighty wave that was always itself1 and every fluted swirl of it constant as the wreathing of a shell2 and then the bit about its blue1 and the innocent way of it1 and its dancing and rippling and glittering1 and the dear old decrepit town as safe in the embracing sweep of it as if it were set in a brooch of sapphire--that was what he was thinking1 and storing up in his mind the famous description which showed that even so late1 in shattered health and1 as people said1 impaired powers1 he could talk and write as brilliantly as ever4 ,that afternoon in the glaring sunshine we drove out of ,geneva through suburban villadom--he much amused at the modern fashion of house-names1 ,mon ,repos1 ,chez ,nous1 and so forth--towards ,monnetier4 ,he was at the moment healthily interested in ,alpine structure1 the geology of scenery1 and could forget ,st4 ,george in his eagerness to expound his views on the cleavage of the ,saleve4 ,i made a slight note of the lines1 the cathedral-like buttresses which flank the level-bedded masonry of the great mountain-wall with masses of a different rock1 vertically cloven2 and the gorge of ,monnetier which cuts the range across with an unexpected breach2 and we went over his old debate with the ,genevese geologists4 ,then we climbed the ,echelle1 and from the top found the ,annecy ,alps fairly clear1 but ,i think the same heaviness over the greater snow-peaks4 ,at last we reached ,mornex1 his old home in the 'sixties1 when he was writing ,munera ,pulveris and first seriously grappling with the social problems which afterwards became his chief theme in so many lectures and books4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,gorge ,,of ,,monnetier ,,and ,,the ,,buttresses ,,of ,,the ,,saleve ,a letter he wrote that evening1 to describe the visit1 has recently been published2 how he found his old house a restaurant1 with people drinking on the terrace4 ,he was1 though he did not say so1 rather cast down by the change--he who always deplored changes2 but brightened when the landlord guessed who he must be1 and quite cheered up--with that last infirmity of noble minds--on hearing that the ,english sometimes came to see ,ruskin's house4 ,indeed1 it was more his home than many a house in ,england where he spent longer years1 for it was of choice1 not of necessity1 that he lived there1 and would have continued there to his own great advantage but for his father's death1 which recalled him to the care of his widowed mother4 ,one phrase in that letter as now printed seems to have pained and alarmed some of his friends2 but surely without cause4 ,he says to account for beginning his letter on the wrong side of the paper--as most people seem to do nowadays--that he had taken a glass too much ,burgundy4 ,the son of the sherry-merchant1 with old-fashioned notions on the fitness of things1 always took a glass or two of wine at dinner2 one of his sayings was1 ,a glass of good wine never hurt anybody4 ,but ,i am sure all his personal friends will bear me out that it never went beyond the glass or two4 ,he was no drinker1 and his very strong anti-teetotal attitude was simply the expression of his own habitual and easy temperance4 ,that evening's dinner ,i remember well4 ,after our walk from ,veyrier to ,pont d',etrembieres1 and more sauntering by the ,rhone in a beautiful red sunset1 we came in late4 ,at table we had some debate about the pictures on the walls of the hotel sitting-room1 and he would not have it that ,madame ,vigee ,lebrun's portrait of herself and her daughter was charming4 ,no decent woman1 he said1 would paint herself with bare arms1 like that6--which was quite his usual way of thinking about a much-discussed question of art4 ,and then we settled to a little after-dinner writing1 and you will not be surprised if we both nodded over our pens after that long hot day--and1 of course1 the ,burgundy4 ,v ,,ruskin',s ,,cashbook ,v ,,ruskin',s ,,cashbook ,so it is lettered on the back2 but his titles1 as every one knows1 are far-fetched4 ,there are some accounts in this volume1 but most of it is filled with a diary of the tour abroad in #ahhb1 and subsequent entries1 very neatly written2 the red lines for ,l s4 d4 serving to keep the manuscript within margins1 just like print4 ,ruskin's journals1 ,i understand1 are not to be published4 ,the bulk of their contents--landscape descriptions and various notes on natural history1 architecture1 and many different subjects--have been worked into his books4 ,the remainder consists of daily jottings about the weather1 always important to one whose chief pleasure was in scenery1 with fragmentary hints of his occupations or travels1 and still more fragmentary mention of persons4 ,they are not exactly memoranda2 still less the memoirs of a literary man1 written with one eye on the public4 ,they are mere soliloquies of the moment1 gossip of himself to himself before breakfast4 ,while he lived1 though ,i had often occasion to refer to these journals1 ,i never felt quite at liberty to open this ,cashbook1 with its private notes on a period when ,i was practically alone with him2 his valet1 ,baxter1 was also of the party1 but at meals and at work1 on walks and drives1 he had usually to put up with my company4 ,he was exceedingly and unfailingly kind1 but exacting2 it would have needed great self-confidence to be sure of his good opinion4 ,but now that these papers require it1 to paint his portrait as he was at that time1 ,i have taken advantage of ,mrs4 ,severn's kind leave2 and in continuing the story of the tour ,i can sometimes add to my reminiscences ,ruskin's impressions on the spot as recorded by himself4 ,from ,geneva we went up to ,sallenches 7,september #i1 #ahhb71 hoping to see the ,alps1 in spite of the smoke-cloud4 ,he was at the moment thinking and talking chiefly of artistic geology1 if one may coin a parallel to artistic anatomy--the old subject of his ,modern ,painters1 vol4 iv4 ,in the chapter on the ,old ,road ,i said healthily interested1 for any work on ,nature was good for him personally1 and this tour was for the sake of health after long and recurrent attacks of illness4 ,in those days1 and to the few who cared much more for himself than his mission1 ,st4 ,george and ,st4 ,benedict were the enemies2 his ,guild and all the worries connected with it1 and his ethico-socio-political meditations1 mixed with much wandering into ,greek and mediaeval mythology1 always meant mischief to him4 ,so after the visit to ,citeaux and the birthplace of ,st4 ,bernard1 it was good to see him eager for the mountains1 and looking out for well-known twists in the limestone strata1 and clefts and cascades1 points of view and distant glimpses1 all the way up the valley4 ,if only the smoke-cloud would lift1 and a spell of fair weather would tempt him to linger among the ,alps1 hammering rocks and sketching cottages1 the object of the journey would be gained4 ,there was a horrid new road being made high up on the flank of his favourite mountain1 the ,brezon1 whose top he had wanted to possess4 ,at ,cluses1 what were those sticks in the meadow8 ,i asked2 and learnt that they marked out the long-intended railway4 ,a railway in the valley of the ,arve6 ,it meant to him simply the end of all that made the glory and grandeur of this classic ground4 ,but he was partly comforted by the thought that after all it might not be1 or1 at least1 not in his time4 ,maglans and the ,nant d',arpenaz were still as ,turner painted them2 and though his old familiar resting-place at ,st4 ,martin was no longer open as an inn1 we could stay across the valley at ,sallenches1 within easy walks of many favourite haunts4 ,the next day was ,sunday1 which he usually spent more quietly than other days4 ,we took the walk his father and he used to take on many ,sundays passed in that neighbourhood1 up a glen to the south of the village4 ,in his diary that day he began an analysis of the ,psalms--he had been taking them for his morning ,bible-readings2 and ,i find that at ,st4 ,cergues1 on the #eth1 he had thankfully noted the arrival of a telegram with good news from home1 just as he was reading me the #ajdth ,psalm4 ,he did not hold family prayers as a habit1 but sometimes when he was delighted with a nice chapter he couldn't keep it to himself4 ,illustration3 ,,mont ,,blanc ,,clearing ,,sketched ,,with ,,ruskin ,,at ,,sallenches1 ,,september #ahhb ,early next morning ,mont ,blanc was clear1 though soon clouded 7the diary is quoted in the ,storm-cloud lecture72 and then1 in pursuance of the geology study he had begun he set to work to do a little ,deucalion1 but opened ,job instead1 at xi4 #af1 and read on with comfort the glorious natural history of the old book4 ,next day he noted the second speech of ,zophar as the leading piece of political economy which he ought to have quoted in ,fors4 ,in spite of the dull weather we had a good ramble up the valley he called ,norton's ,glen1 from the remembrance of walks there with ,professor ,charles ,eliot ,norton2 and though sketching was little use1 he was happy in the contemplation of boulders4 ,it was in coming down from that walk 7if ,i remember right2 the diary does not mention it7 that ,i got such a scolding for proposing to extract a fossil from a stone in a vineyard terrace-wall3 ,you bad boy6 ,have you no respect for property8 or words to that effect2 and ,i had to leave the specimen in situ4 ,but next day ,i scored with a careful drawing of the ,nant d',arpenaz1 disentangling the contorted beds of limestone2 and in the diary is a copy from my sketch1 a subject1 he said1 he had often tried in vain4 ,on the way back to ,sallenches we looked at the old ,hotel du ,mont ,blanc at ,st4 ,martin1 which gives a title to one of the chapters of ,praeterita1 and need not be described here2 but he was so taken with it and its memories that he asked whether it was for sale1 and really formed a plan of buying it1 and coming to live there4 ,the diary gives various reasons1 ending with one of the oddest2 ,i had made some verses about the place1 rather on the lines his talk had suggested1 but ending with more optimism1 and these1 too1 he notes1 contributed to the leadings which pointed him to a new home in ,savoy4 ,a little later there came a letter addressed to ,,mm4 ,ruskin et ,collingwood--,quite like a firm1 he said2 ,i wonder what they think we're travelling in2 but ,i hope we'll always be partners--the terms of the offer ,i forget1 but they did not seem practicable1 or ,coniston might have known him no more4 ,at least1 it was possible1 and it would have been good in many ways for him2 but there were ties to think of4 ,next day1 after rain in the valley and snow on the ,varens1 and swallows gathering in crowds along the eaves and cornices of the square1 there was a grand clearance at sunset1 and he wrote to ,miss ,beever the note printed in ,hortus ,inclusus about seeing ,mont ,blanc--a sight which always redeems me to what ,i am capable of at my poor little best1 and to what loves and memories are most precious to me4 ,so ,i write to you1 one of the few true loves left4 ,the snow has fallen fresh on the hills1 and it makes me feel that ,i must soon be seeking shelter at ,brantwood and the ,thwaite4 ,and yet he was greatly tempted to stay4 ,on the splendid morning which followed he wrote in his journal1 ,perfect light on the ,dorons1 and the ,varens a miracle of aerial majesty4 ,i--happy in a more solemn way than of old4 ,read a bit of ,ezra and referred to ,haggai ii4 #i--';,in this place will ,i give peace4' ,illustration3 ,,the ,,head ,,of ,,the ,,lake ,,of ,,annecy ,,sketched ,,with ,,ruskin ,,at ,,talloires1 ,,september #ahhb ,letters1 however1 were expected at ,geneva1 and with many plans for ,sixt and ,chamouni he turned his back on ,sallenches for the time and had a marvellous drive through the valley of ,cluse2 ,c---- sectionising 7making notes of limestone strata7 all the way4 ,divine walk to old spring under ,brezon4 ,then he reproves himself for his annoyance at the plague-wind and tiresome letters at ,geneva1 for ,i shall try to remember the ,aiguille de ,bionassay of the #acth at evening and the ,nant d',arpenaz looked back at yesterday morning--with my morning walk once more among the dew above ,sallenches--for ever and a day4 ,without keeping constantly before one's mind his passionate love of scenery it is impossible to put a right estimate on much that he has written4 ,there are comparatively few people whose chief pleasure is in taking a walk and looking at the country1 without any notion of sport or games to eke out the interest4 ,it is true that he sketched and wrote1 but his pleasure was in seeing4 ,it was his admiration of ,nature that had brought him to admire ,art in his youth1 and ,i think it is not too much to say that ,art was always a secondary thing to him personally4 ,the desire to see ,art healthily and nobly practised made him study the life of the craftsman and the craftsman's surroundings1 spiritual and material4 ,the material needs of ,victorian society pressed upon him ,unto this ,last and ,st4 ,george2 the spiritual needs drove him back upon ancient religious ideals1 ,the ,queen of the ,air and ,st4 ,benedict4 ,all these various strands of thought were closely woven together in his life1 but from the beginning to the end the love for natural scenery was the core of the cable4 ,you gather already from this ,cashbook that a few days among the ,alps had quite restored him to physical strength1 and given him hopes and happiness4 ,on ,saturday1 ,september #af1 we left ,geneva for ,annecy1 intending more limestone geology1 and thenceforward had many days' driving with the ,mephistopheles coachman and the ,black ,dog1 as he put it at first4 ,later on he became enthusiastic over the same coachman for his capital driving and care of his horses1 and because of the story of the dog ,tom1 whom1 the man said1 he had rescued from death at the hands of an ,american owner at ,nice4 ,tom1 with his spiked fur collar1 was usually absent at the start4 ,the driver said he was shut up so that he might not annoy ,messieurs2 but he always appeared1 was scolded1 and forgiven1 and petted for the rest of the way4 ,affection for animals appealed to ,ruskin1 and in ,france one sees much of it4 ,on one of these drives we stopped for lunch out of doors before a wayside inn4 ,to this lunch there came a little dog1 two cats1 and a pet sheep1 and shared our wine1 bread1 and ,savoy sponge-cakes4 ,the sheep at last got to putting its feet on the table1 and the landlady rushed out and carried him off in her arms into the house2 but ,ruskin1 ,i think1 would quite as soon have let the creature stay4 ,at ,annecy the landlord told me stories of his big ,st4 ,bernard dog1 how he was defended from other dogs by the cat1 and how sometimes they quarrelled1 and then the dog had to go and sit on the mat out of doors until the cat had forgiven him2 how the cat also was in the habit of catching swallows on the wing1 and bringing them in to show--as1 certainly1 cats do with the mice they catch--and then she would let them go uninjured4 ,this delighted ,ruskin at dinner1 and may have suggested the dream which ,i see he records in his ,cashbook--dreamt of a fine old lion who was quite good if he wasn't kept prisoner2 but when ,i had got him out1 ,i didn't know what to do with him4 ,the parting with ,tom and his master ,i have mentioned elsewhere--how he gave the man twenty francs for a bonne main and two francs over for a bonne patte1 he said1 to the dog6 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,mont ,,cenis ,,tunnel ,,in ,,snow ,,sketched ,,with ,,ruskin ,,at ,,modane1 ,,november #aa1 #ahhb ,at ,annecy1 in the pleasant ,hotel ,verdun1 he confessed himself already stronger1 and fit for anything but proofs and business letters2 but the plague-cloud still hung over the view4 ,he noted that the smoke from the factory chimneys could not be told from the clouds except by its density1 and mixed with the mist so as to throw a pall over the lake from the town to the ,tournette--the great mountain of the neighbourhood above ,talloires4 ,but still he did not see that the black1 ragged1 dirty weather was caused by the smoke1 though he compared it with a ,london ,november4 ,the nearer scenery was visible and beautiful4 ,the blue lake1 always blue1 with a light of its own1 and ,talloires1 with pleasant associations and unspoiled surroundings of most romantic character1 charmed him as of old4 ,we drove there the first ,sunday2 he took me up to ,eugene ,sue's house and then on to the cascade1 two and a half hours' walk1 and then sauntered among the vineyards and along the bay1 under the plane-tree avenues1 driving home in an open carriage1 and said he had not spent such an idle day for ten years4 ,next day we did the ,gorge of the ,fier1 and discussed the possible causes of this great ravine1 through which the river plunges so unexpectedly and1 one would think1 unnecessarily4 ,then to ,talloires again1 and planned return for work4 ,meanwhile he had made appointments in ,italy4 ,he talked of a rush to ,rome and hasty visits to ,lucca and ,florence1 coming back soon to the ,alps4 ,but this turned out to be a longer journey than he had meant4 ,his seal-motto was ,to-day1 and the business of the moment was always the most important with him2 and so the ,italian tour was prolonged to nearly two months4 ,it ended in his catching a thorough cold at ,pisa through sketching in ,november winds1 and in his longing for the clear air of the ,alps again1 before returning to ,london for the lecture he had promised to give in ,december4 ,this was the lecture announced as ,crystallography1 but delivered as ,cistercian ,architecture1 about which he said1 joking at his own expense1 that it would probably have come to much the same thing whatever the title had been4 ,i did not quite see why he should lecture on either2 but he declared himself quite well1 and as we had dropped crystallography--the chief subject before the tour--for cathedrals and abbeys in ,italy1 he shut himself up at ,pisa1 cold and all1 to write his lecture4 ,then having1 as he thought1 mastered it1 we ran north4 ,he wanted to stay at ,st4 ,michel1 a favourite place on the ,mont ,cenis line1 but high1 and likely to be bleak in ,november for a man with a bad cold1 ,i thought--very possibly mistaken4 ,i took tickets for ,aix-les-,bains1 and we had our only quarrel on that trip4 ,i felt particularly guilty as he recounted to me1 in an injured tone1 the horrors of ,aix1 the one place he abominated1 and the beauties of ,st4 ,michel1 while the train climbed the ,dora valley to ,bardonecchia in fairly fine weather4 ,on the ,french side it was deep snow and bitter weather as we ran down to ,aix4 ,the next day was delightful1 but ,i always shirked the recollection of my misdemeanour until ,i found how his diary-entries ignored it4 ,the cold's quite gone6 ,friday in glowing sunshine1 ,pisa to ,turin2 ,saturday in frightful damp and cold1 ,turin to ,aix2 but quite easy days both4 ,sun coming out now4 ,dent de ,bourget over mist and low cloud1 very lovely1 as ,i dressed4 ,the next entry ,i copy because it shows that he was not as entirely hostile to railways as the casual reader imagines4 ,writing of the ride to ,annecy he says in the ,cashbook3 ,an entirely divine railway-coupe drive from ,aix by the river gorges2 one enchantment of golden trees and ruby hills4 ,but it was a splendid day4 ,in clumsier phrasing ,i wrote home of all the prettiest autumn colours that ever were made out of remnants of old rainbows patched up into a gala dress for the world4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,savoy ,,town ,,in ,,snow ,at ,annecy we delayed only long enough for me to get rooms in the ,hotel de l',abbaye at ,talloires1 where we stayed from the #adth to the #bbnd in stormy1 snowy weather4 ,he was quite well at first1 and proud of leading the way down the steep mountain-tracks--well known to him--in the dark after long walks2 but some days we could not get out at all4 ,i sat writing by the log fire in the dining-room2 he preferring his bedroom1 with what glimpses could be got of the lake through snowstorms2 and in the night the wind howled through deserted corridors--for the place was once a real monastery--until it became quite uncanny4 ,his bad dreams had gone1 but he could not get exercise enough to sleep well4 ,the lecture was variously rewritten1 monks and myths chasing one another through his brain1 instead of the crystal-cleavages and rock-forms he had set out to study4 ,st4 ,benedict had been too strong for us1 and the ghost of ,st4 ,bernard of ,talloires 7or of ,menthon1 not the ,st4 ,bernard of his former pilgrimage1 but a tenth-century hermit1 whose cave is still shown7 who saw not the ,lake of ,annecy1 but the dead between ,martigny and ,aosta1 and founded the hospice that bears his name--as ,ruskin would fain have founded1 in another way1 a refuge for those who fall in the nineteenth-century struggle for life2 but fell himself in attempting it4 ,i did not know at the time that he was meditating a return to his ,professorship at ,oxford4 ,he kept that a secret1 and sent me off on a special mission to draw ,alps in snow4 ,rejoining him at ,geneva ,i found him in the depths of misery1 with the weather bad and his work going too slowly forward1 and the glamour all gone out of his mother town of ,geneva1 or what was once ,geneva1 he said1 ruined by touristry and luxury into a mere suburb of ,paris1 which was a suburb of hell4 ,so through cold and flooded ,france he took his way homeward4 ,at ,paris1 ,hotel ,meurice was no longer what it had been2 the pneumatic clock in his room1 with its minute-gun of a tick and a jerk1 got on his nerves1 and he demanded of the bewildered waiter that it should be stopped4 ,the ,tuileries were in ruins1 placarded for sale as building material4 ,in the bookshops he could not buy the books he sought1 but1 as it seemed1 only photographs of actresses4 ,the ,louvre1 even1 in such surroundings gave him only suggestions of irritation4 ,and it was a thankful secretary who saw him safely over the ,channel and back to ,herne ,hill on the first ,saturday in ,december4 ,but the journey was not a failure4 ,at ,lucca he made some of his best drawings1 and the descriptive passages in ,praeterita and elsewhere1 written on that tour1 or from notes then made1 are among his finest2 and he was able to write in his ,cashbook on ,december #c3 ,slept well1 and hope to be fit for lecture to-morrow2 very happy in showing our drawings and complete sense of rest after three months' tossing4 ,early in the next year he found himself able to take up his old work at ,oxford1 and for awhile--but only for awhile--it seemed that the storm-cloud of his life had cleared away4 ,,vi ,,ruskin',s ,,ilaria ,,vi ,,ruskin',s ,,ilaria ,on ,friday1 ,september #bb1 #ahhb1 we were at ,turin4 ,filthy city1 ,ruskin wrote in his diary4 ,one pestilence now of noise and smoke2 and ,i got fearfully sad and discouraged1 not only by this1 but by not caring the least any more for my old pets of pictures1 and not being able to see the minerals in close1 dark rooms4 ,but he adds1 ,note the unique white amianth1 and so forth1 and he seemed to know the collection by heart4 ,as to the pictures1 the way he pointed out how ,vandyck enjoyed the laying on of his colour1 in a portrait of ,king ,charles1 gloating over the horse's mane and the delicate dexterity of the armour1 makes me hope that even the steam tramways of ,turin had not utterly darkened his life4 ,once out of the town his spirits rose4 ,alps clear1 within twenty or thirty miles of ,monte ,viso2 then through sandhills of ,bra to ,montenotte1 down among the strange mounds and dells of the ,apennine gneiss1 to ,savona walled down to the sea1 beside a dismantled fortress which is certainly one of ,turner's late subjects4 ,then among the olives and palms1 and by the green serpentines1 under darkening clouds1 with constant boom and sigh of waves1 to ,cogoleto4 ,but at ,genoa the ,sunday was a day of disgust at all things4 ,proud palaces1 foolish little ,st4 ,georges over their doors4 ,duomo in my pet style1 not doing it credit2 and a long climb over rocks1 and road of black limestone veined with white1 commanding all the heaps1 rather than hills1 of the mouldering earth1 looking almost barren in its dull grass1 on which the suburbs of ,genoa1 hamlet and villa1 are scattered far and wide2 the vast new cemetery1 their principal object of view and glorification1 seen by the winding of the waterless river-bed4 ,to most of us there is nothing more exhilarating than the platform-shout when the south express starts--,parrr--tenza per ,spezia--,pisa--,livorno--,firenze--,civ itavecchia--,roooma6 and the clattering dash through tunnel after tunnel1 among the rocks and green breakers of that wonderful coast4 ,but it only worried and unnerved him4 ,it was not his old road4 ,it was dull weather at ,pisa after the first dewy morning for the ,campo ,santo2 and there were entirely diabolical trams and chimneys in the town since his last visit4 ,the streets1 every reach of them loved of old for some jewel of mellowed architecture1 were changing with modern progress4 ,the town was noisier and dirtier than in days of yore4 ,he had come to meet ,nicola ,pisano and company2 but the ghosts wouldn't rise4 ,penny whistles from the railroad perpetual1 and view of town from river totally destroyed by iron pedestrian bridge4 ,lay awake very sad from one to half-past four1 but when ,i sleep my dreams are now almost always pleasant1 often very rational4 ,a really rather beautiful one of consoling an idiot youth who had been driven fierce1 and making him gentle1 might be a lesson about ,italy4 ,but what is ,italy without her sky--or her religion8 ,so he broke off work in the ,baptistery on ,michaelmas ,day at noon1 and ordered the carriage for ,lucca4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,palace ,,of ,,paolo ,,guinigi1 ,,lucca ,every one knows the route2 over the ,maremma1 between the sea and the mountains4 ,peaks of ,carrara clouded to the north2 ruins of ,ripafratta frowning over the crags2 vines1 olives1 precipices4 ,at last you see a neat little town1 boxed up in four neat walls1 with rows of trees on the ramparts and towers looking over the trees2 it is just like the mediaeval town in the background of a triptych4 ,silk-mills there are1 but not in evidence--at least1 so it was twenty years ago4 ,as we drove up to the gate that afternoon the ,customs officers turned out1 and we laughed when the coachman shouted3 ,english family6 ,nothing to declare6 and the officers bowed1 unquestioning4 ,so much nicer1 isn't it8 said ,ruskin1 than being bundled about among trucks and all the hideous things they heap round railway stations2 and in a few minutes we were in front of the ,hotel ,royal of the ,universe4 ,signor ,ruskino was expected2 family and servants were at the door2 everybody shook hands4 ,the cook was busy with the dinner1 ,i think2 for when we had seen our rooms--he took the plainest of the tall1 partitioned suite with rococo decorations1 palatial but tarnished--,first1 he said1 ,i must go and see the cook2 and so away to the kitchen4 ,he was patient of life's little worries2 but he liked a good dinner when it was there4 ,i remember the serviette full of crumbly chestnuts1 and the ,hermitage--afternoon sun meanwhile beating through half-shut persianes in dusty air1 and a peep of greeny-blue hills over the square--,ruskin lifting his glass for a birthday toast4 ,there was a certain damsel1 whose own folk called her the ,michaelmas goose2 he put it more prettily3 ,here's to ,st4 ,michael1 and ,dorrie1 and ,all ,angels6 ,then he went out to see ,ilaria4 ,she was an early flame of his4 ,he must have seen ,ilaria before #ahde1 but it was in that eventful year he fell in love4 ,ilaria was1 of course1 the marble ,lady of ,lucca2 but falling in love is not too strong a word4 ,the ,forty-five in the nineteenth century had its ,rebellion almost as full of consequences as the ,forty-five of the century before4 ,the raid of ,prince ,charlie opened up the ,highlands1 and gave us ,ossian and ,scott and ,romanticism2 little else4 ,the raid of ,john ,ruskin1 in #ahde1 for the first time wandering free and working out his own thoughts among the ,old ,masters and mediaeval ruins of ,italy1 started the whole movement which made ,british art decorative and philanthropic4 ,there were others helping1 but he led the way2 and it was in that ,forty-five that he went up the ,three ,steps and in at the ,door4 ,the passage in which he first described ,ilaria is almost hackneyed4 ,she is lying on a simple couch with a hound at her feet4444 ,the hair is bound in a flat braid over the fair brow1 the sweet and arched eyes are closed1 the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet2 there is that about them which forbids breath2 something which is not death nor sleep1 but the pure image of both4 ,who or what the lady might have been in the flesh he hardly seems to have cared2 at least he never dwelt on the story4 ,she was daughter of a ,marquis of ,carretto1 and wife of ,paolo ,guinigi1 chief of a powerful family in ,lucca4 ,in #adje she died4 ,in #adac ,paolo was building that palace with the tower1 now a poor-house1 from which he ruled his fellow townsmen with a rod of iron4 ,she never saw the arcaded palace1 and the frowning1 machicolated tower2 she could never have had part or lot in the tyranny of his later rule4 ,we often read in history of a woman keeping within bounds the nascent fierceness of a man who--losing her--let himself go and became the scourge of his world4 ,but in all his pride ,paolo remembered the pretty wife1 untimely lost4 ,illustration3 ,,ilaria ,,del ,,carretto ,,head ,,of ,,the ,,effigy ,,by ,,jacopo ,,della ,,quercia ,,in ,,lucca ,,cathedral ,the very year he built his castle he tempted away the greatest sculptor of the age from his native town and thronging engagements to carve her a tomb4 ,jacopo della ,quercia came to ,lucca in #adac1 and six years later left after finishing this and other sculptures there4 ,he could hardly have known ,ilaria2 he must have worked from very insufficient materials in getting her portrait1 and it must have been a tiresome and delicate business to satisfy his patron1 his tyrant4 ,but then ,quercia was a most amiable and modest man1 and he had the secret of noble portraiture1 ,truth lovingly told4 ,the sort of critics who do not gush say of this work that it is the first masterpiece of the ,early ,renaissance4 ,it has all the best qualities of mediaeval art--its severe symbolism and decorative effect1 with all the best of the later classicism--its reality1 softness and sweetness4 ,paolo's enemies before long drove him out of ,lucca1 and the city wreaked vengeance on the tyrant by shattering his wife's tomb1 this masterpiece4 ,somehow the effigy itself was spared1 and set up again with bits of the wreck against the bare church wall4 ,it was this dead lady1 this marble lady1 with browned1 translucent cheeks1 and little nose just bruised away at the tip1 that took ,ruskin's imagination in his youth4 ,in his age he wrote1 ,it is forty years since ,i first saw it1 and ,i have never found its like4 ,for a month1 with an interval at ,florence1 he kept me pretty closely at work drawing ,ilaria--side-face1 full-face1 three-quarters1 every way2 together with bits of detail from the early thirteenth-century porch of ,st4 ,martin's and other churches1 and some copies in the picture gallery4 ,he painted hard himself1 and never did better work in his life4 ,two studies1 half-imperial1 of the facade of ,st4 ,martin's are especially well known2 one was at the ,academy 7winter #aija7 and one at the same time at the ,royal ,water-colour ,society's ,exhibition4 ,he used to sit in quaint attitudes on his camp-stool in the square1 manipulating his drawing-board with one hand and his paint-brush with the other2 ,baxter1 his valet1 holding the colour-box up for him to dip into1 and a little crowd of chatterers looking on4 ,he rather enjoyed an audience1 and sometimes used to bring back odd gleanings of their remarks when he came in to luncheon4 ,one ragged boy1 personally conducting a friend from the country1 was overheard enumerating the strangers' meals at the hotel3 ,they eat much1 much1 these ,english6 ,of course1 most in the crowd knew him1 or about him4 ,the dean and chapter came to approve1 the choir to grin1 and the gendarmes to patronise2 a few ,french tourists hovered round1 but no ,english that ,i remember4 ,after these long mornings of work--inside when it rained1 outside when it shone--we always went for a ramble or a drive4 ,one venturesome start in a thunderstorm ,i recollect1 for ,ruskin was not the least timid1 as you might expect from his highly-strung temperament4 ,he used to walk planks and look down precipices1 too1 like a regular steeple-jack1 and handle all sorts of animals fearlessly4 ,this thunderstorm gave us grand ,turneresque effects1 of which ,i have a sketch1 but no description2 but ,i have borrowed an old letter of the time which gives a fair sample of an afternoon with ,ruskin4 ,it is dated ,october #bh1 #ahhb4 ,a biting scirocco was blowing1 but we started in the usual carriage driven by the boy with the red tie4 ,as we left the hotel an army of beggars hailed the ,professor1 who solemnly distributed pence1 to lighten his pocket and his mind4 ,then we scampered through the streets1 which are all pavement1 and none broader than ,hanway ,street2 but everybody drives furiously in them as a point of ,lucchese and ,tuscan honour1 and nobody seems to be run over4 ,out through the city walls you are in the country at once4 ,indeed1 ,i can't help thinking of the town as a garden where houses are bedded out instead of flowers2 they are so close packed1 so varied and pretty4 ,but out at the gate it is a wide stretch of plain with mountains all round1 and bright cottages1 cadmium-yellow in the stubble-fields and cane-brakes1 for they thatch the maize-heads over the roofs by way of storage4 ,out of one quite decent-looking farm-house a decent-looking woman came rushing and gesticulating after the carriage4 ,the ,professor called on the driver to stop2 and the woman1 out of breath1 declared she was the mother of five and wanted charity4 ,he gave her a note2 notes1 you know1 can be a good deal less than five pounds in ,italy4 ,illustration3 ,,thunderstorm ,,clearing1 ,,lucca ,at the foot of the hills1 south of ,lucca1 we left the carriage and walked up the road2 ,baxter1 too1 with the umbrella1 coat1 camp-stool and geological hammer as usual4 ,the road goes up through chestnuts and under vines1 till you get to some farms and a church on the top of the buttress-hills1 with a splendid view of ,lucca and the valley1 behind rich slopes of autumn colours1 and a monastery with its cypresses in the middle distance4 ,then we dived into a valley and crossed a marble quarry1 for all the stones here are marble2 the road is mended with marble1 and the pigstyes are built of marble2 and then we scrambled up the main hill4 ,there is a sort of track through chestnut and myrtle and arbutus with scarlet fruit against the sky4 ,girls were gathering chestnuts and arbutus berries--such a picture6 ,so with an hour's scrambling we came out through a wood of stone pines to the top1 a sort of marble platform4 ,the scirocco had blown us up fine weather2 the ,carrara hills were clear1 and the ,apennines for miles2 fantastic peaks1 all sorts of gables1 pyramids1 cones1 and domes4 ,the sea was ridged and beating hard on the shore of the ,maremma2 the bay of ,spezia in the distance1 and little ,lucca1 tidy and square below1 tucked into its four walls like a baby in a cot with a patchwork quilt4 ,i stayed ten minutes to get a sketch1 while the ,professor and ,baxter howked out a particularly contorted bit of marble1 and then we plunged through the pines on the back of the ridge to get a view southward4 ,this1 you know1 is the wood where ,ugolino in ,dante dreamed he was hunting when they had shut him up to starve in the ,famine ,tower at ,pisa1 and it deserves its fame4 ,it is quite another world from the hot rich valleys below2 among the trees there are fresh1 ,english-looking meadows with daisies very big and very pink1 and beyond--the wonderful ,mediterranean coast1 rose colour in the sunset4 ,pisa far down there showed every detail distinct1 cathedral and leaning tower like toys2 even at ,leghorn we could see the ships in port4 ,it was like looking on the world from the angels' point of view2 a glimpse through the centuries4 ,but the sun was half-way below the sea1 and we turned and raced the darkness down to the valley1 along a path some six inches wide1 with a marble precipice below and a clay bank above4 ,then the moon rose2 a regular conventional ,italian moon1 chequering the path like sunshine1 lamping the cypresses and campaniles4 ,our driver was asleep2 we stirred him out and drove through misty by-roads to the town gates4 ,out came the ,customs officer4 ',have you anything to declare1 gentlemen8' ',nothing1 sir6' ',felice sera1 signori6' ',a happy evening1 sir6' ,the streets were very quiet though it was not late4 ,by the ,dominican convent1 in the moonlight1 there was a woman kissing the great crucifix2 few other folk about2 and we made the square ring again when we chased the moon into the plane-trees and rattled up to the hotel door4 ,one morning toward the end of ,october1 soon before we left ,lucca1 ,i went to work on a last drawing of ,ilaria 7since honoured by ,ruskin with a place in his ,sheffield museum7 and found the marble wet and fouled4 ,somebody had been taking a cast4 ,after long days in the quiet cathedral1 among so many haunting thoughts1 studying the face1 it had grown almost as alive to me as it always was to him4 ,even ,i felt a little shock4 ,it was a liberty1 somebody taking a cast6 ,at breakfast entered a not very prepossessing fellow carrying a plaster mask4 ,signor ,ruskin had asked at the shop2 one was now made4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,marble ,,mountains ,,of ,,carrara ,,and ,,the ,,valley ,,of ,,the ,,serchio ,,from ,,the ,,lucca ,,hills ,i never saw him more moved4 ,in a storm of anger he left the room1 crying out1 ,send him away4 ,fortunately we had with us ,henry ,r4 ,newman1 the ,american artist1 then working for ,ruskin at ,florence4 ,he could do the talking to the disappointed1 enraged ,italian1 and got rid of him--and a ,napoleon of mine--after awhile4 ,i was thankful to ,newman for getting rid of the cast as well2 and when the coast was clear ,ruskin looked in1 rather apologetic after his outburst4 ,i hope you didn't give the fellow anything1 he said1 and1 of course1 ,i was much too weak-minded to fight the case4 ,but ,i still think the object-lesson was well worth a ,napoleon4 ,that ghastly thing was not our ,ilaria2 any cast is a hard1 dead caricature if once you have really known the living1 ancient marble4 ,and the wrath of ,ruskin laid his secret bare4 ,do you think he could have stirred the world with mere flourishes from the pen8 ,falling in love was not too strong a word for the feeling that dictated1 over ,ilaria's marble portrait1 his plea for sincerity in art3 ,if any of us1 after staying for a time beside this tomb1 could see1 through his tears1 one of the vain and unkind encumbrances of the grave1 which1 in these hollow and heartless days1 feigned sorrow builds to foolish pride1 he would1 ,i believe1 receive such a lesson of love as no coldness could refuse1 no fatuity forget1 and no insolence disobey4 ,to gather up the threads it may be worth while noting briefly the chief incidents in this ,italian tour1 with a few comments from ,ruskin's unpublished diary1 showing how rapidly pleasure and pain alternated in his moods4 ,on arrival1 walking round the town1 first to ,ilaria and last to ,san ,romano1 he notes3 ,found all4 ,d4 ,g4 ,the next day he heard of the death of ,j4 ,w4 ,bunney1 who had done so much work for him at ,venice1 notably the large picture of ,st4 ,mark's now in the ,sheffield museum4 ,we often thought ,ruskin did not feel these losses1 and was a little hard when news came that old friends were gone4 ,but under the apparent stoicism there was much real emotion2 indeed1 some of his later attacks of mental illness followed such events4 ,i do not say they were the only causes1 but they contributed4 ,in ,april #ahhg1 the sudden death of ,laurence ,hilliard1 on board ship in the ,a,egean1 undoubtedly turned the balance1 and intensified weakness and worry into illness of many months' duration4 ,in this case he wrote3 ,a heavy warning to me1 were warning needed4 ,but ,i fear death too constantly1 and feel it too fatally1 as it is4 ,i think his fear of death was purely the dread of leaving his work undone1 with some shrinking of the possible pain2 his sense of death was in the growing limitation of his powers1 which he could only forget in the presence of beautiful landscape4 ,thus next day1 on the ,lucca mountains1 he sat long watching the soft sunlighted classic hills1 plumed and downy with wood1 the burning russet of fallen chestnuts for foreground1 thinking how lovely the world was in its light1 when given4 ,at ,florence on ,oct4 #d3 ,hotel ,gran ,bretagna once more2 good dinner and flask of ,aleatico4 ,nothing hurt of ,ponte ,vecchio or the rest4 ,next morning the pendulum swung the other way1 partly1 ,i am afraid1 because he could not get me to be ecstatic about the ,duomo1 and ,i almost argued him into a good word for ,bronzino's ,judith4 ,then1 again1 a drive to ,bellosguardo and a beautiful walk made it all right again1 and a visit to ,fiesole in sunshine redeemed the character of the neighbourhood4 ,but the great event was his introduction to ,mrs4 and ,miss ,francesca ,alexander1 brought about through ,mr4 ,newman1 and followed by a friendship which had a great and happy influence on his later life4 ,miss ,alexander's beautiful handwriting1 and the pathos of her manuscript ,story of ,ida1 and her pen-drawings to the ,roadside ,songs of ,tuscany1 which he then and there bought for ,st4 ,george and the world1 were a great discovery1 to him as if he had found the famous stone which turneth all to gold4 ,returning to ,lucca on the #aath he worked with zeal and power on his drawings of the ,duomo1 and wrote his diary with animation4 ,here is a vignette from it3 ,sat4 #adth4 ,wet afternoon2 bought cheese and hunted for honey4 ,found the only view from ramparts in the evening4 ,tanneries and cotton-mills spoil the north-west side4 ,girls singing in a milly1 cicadesque1 incomprehensible manner4 ,an old priest standing to hear them--thinking--,i would give much to know what6 ,during this ,october at ,lucca he was visited by ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,e4 ,r4 ,robson2 ,mr4 ,robson was then preparing 7or intended by the authorities to prepare7 plans for a museum at ,sheffield1 which should hold the collection belonging to the ,st4 ,george's ,guild4 ,mr4 ,charles ,fairfax ,murray also came to see him2 he1 like ,randal1 ,newman1 ,rooke1 ,alessandri and one or two others1 was employed by ,ruskin on drawings for this museum4 ,from the #bgth to the #bith he went alone to ,florence1 on a farewell visit to the ,alexanders1 returning to ,lucca for a couple of days' work before going to ,pisa1 where he had asked ,angelo ,alessandri1 the ,venetian painter1 and ,giacomo ,boni1 the ,venetian architect1 to meet him4 ,signor ,boni is now world-famous by his antiquarian work at ,rome2 one sees his name in the papers1 expounding the ,forum to our king in the ,king's ,english1 with a strange legend of his ,oxford pupilship to ,ruskin4 ,he and ,signor ,alessandri1 however1 were not strictly pupils of ,ruskin1 who had met them during the winter of #ahgf-gg at ,venice1 and1 so to say1 adopted them4 ,at this second meeting he liked them and their work more than ever4 ,his character of them is given in the first of his lectures on returning next year to ,oxford3 ,clever ones1 yes2 but not cleverer than a great many of you2 eminent only1 among the young people of the present day whom ,i chance to know1 in being extremely old-fashioned2 and--don't be spiteful when ,i say so--but really they are1 all the four of them--two lads and two lassies--quite provokingly good4 ,the two lads were ,boni and ,alessandri1 one of the lady artists was ,miss ,alexander4 ,but it was a compliment to his audience to call them cleverer than ,boni1 whose great power already showed itself in his keen eye and square shoulders4 ,napoleon ,bonaparte must have looked something like him1 ,i thought1 when he began to charm the fierce ,republic2 but there the comparison ends4 ,ruskin set him to measure ,pisa cathedral all over1 to see why it was so irregular2 and for a little holiday one heavenly morning before breakfast1 ,boni took me up the ,baptistery1 outside1 even to the skirts of the great ,st4 ,john on the top of the dome--all ,pisa beneath1 and the ,maremma in sheaves of mist as if angels were haymaking1 and the sea and the mountains bathed in blue atmosphere around4 ,these days of busy work and evenings of bright talk were too soon ended1 and on ,november #aj we took our first stage northward and homeward4 ,,vii ,,ruskin',s ,,maps ,,vii ,,ruskin',s ,,maps ,reading the map is as great a pleasure to some people as reading a story-book4 ,you will see them pore over the atlas for an hour together1 going on dream-journeys4 ,it is a cheap way of globe-trotting1 and gets rid of the discomforts2 only one must have imagination to turn the wriggling hair-lines into vistas of river scenery1 and the woolly-bear shading into forested crests and peaks against the sunset4 ,it needs a good deal of imagination to get over the ugliness of most modern maps2 but why should maps be ugly8 ,that is a question which ,ruskin often asked1 and he gave a great deal of trouble and time to the subject3 not enough to carry out such a reformation as his energetic preaching and teaching did effect in some other things1 but perhaps we have not quite come to the end of the story yet4 ,anyway1 the map-readers1 and all who have known the bliss of owning a ,bible with a ,palestine for solace during sermon-time in childhood1 or have realised the privileges of even ,bradshaw's ugly chart on a long journey--all these will not think it strange to be told that ,ruskin was a map-lover too1 and that he was nearly as fond of plans as of pictures4 ,indeed1 the old complaint against his art criticism was that he wanted pictures to be maps1 decoratively coloured diagrams of nature1 in which you could find your way about1 know the points of the compass1 latitude1 altitude1 geology1 botany1 fauna1 flora1 and the universal gazetteer4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,first ,,map ,,of ,,italy ,,at ,,seven ,,or ,,eight3 ,,size ,,of ,,the ,,original ,he says in the ,notes on his ,turner ,exhibition that he began to learn drawing by copying maps1 and only came to pictures later4 ,it is a biographical fact that his first use of a paint-box was to tint seas blue--not skies2 and to ornament his outline with a good full red and green and yellow4 ,here is his first map of ,italy1 facsimiled from the coloured original4 ,you see how he tried to be neat1 and how he knew1 without having to amend his lettering1 to put one ,d and two ,r's in ,,mediterranean4 ,about ,germany he was always antagonistic or inattentive2 here1 you see1 he thinks it is in ,austria6 ,it is hardly possible that he was really copying when he made that characteristic blunder4 ,illustration3 ,,geology ,,on ,,the ,,old ,,road ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,why do we refer to these childishnesses8 ,because he--the art critic and art teacher--began his art career not by sketching people or cottages or flowers1 but by copying maps2 and because he ended his career in bidding his hearers do likewise4 ,of course the value of advice entirely depends upon what you mean to do with it4 ,if you want to make colourable imitations of fashionable pictures1 don't take ,ruskin's word for anything4 ,if you want to be a scholar in the school of the ,old ,masters1 then you might do worse than listen to him4 ,they leant on a firm and determined outline--that is ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds2 they started with painstaking draughtmanship1 and added colour tint by tint2 and so he says1 ,i place map-making first among the elementary exercises1 and so forth1 and made his young pupils begin with simple facsimile--,if you can draw ,italy you know something about form--and then paint the globe with its conflicting shade and local colour4 ,afterwards1 in setting one at ,turner1 he would say1 ,i want you to make a map of the subject4 ,get the masses outlined1 and fill in the spaces with the main colours2 and that will do4 ,the next photograph is from a coloured drawing of the same size2 the pale spaces are pink and yellow and green1 and the ,lake of ,geneva1 which looks rather blotchy in the print1 is more pleasant in ultramarine4 ,this is one of a set of geological maps made to illustrate the course of the usual tour through ,france and the ,alps1 perhaps1 to judge by the handwriting1 for the journey of #ahce1 when he made special preparations to study geology4 ,he could hardly carry a bulky sheet or atlas1 and so extracted just what he required1 in a series of neat little pages1 put together into a home-made case1 ready for use at any moment4 ,youngsters who take this kind of trouble are likely to become men of weight2 at least1 they get to know how interesting the world is4 ,ruskin on a journey was never bored1 unless he was ill2 he looked out of window and poked you up3 ,now1 put away that book2 we are just coming to the chalk2 or1 ,are you looking out for the great twist in the limestone8 ,and the changes in the face of the country1 with new flowers and varying crops1 were a continual entertainment4 ,illustration3 ,,sketch ,,of ,,spain ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,another use of maps to ,ruskin was in writing the descriptive eloquence for which most readers chiefly admire him4 ,i remember a very good judge of pictures and books once choosing the best passage of ,ruskin--not that such bests come to much--and fixing on the bird's-eye-view passage in which he takes you with the stork and the swallow on their northward flight over the varying scenery of ,europe 7,stones of ,venice1 ,,ii41 vi41 ,sec4 #h2 ,selections1 ,i41 ,sec4 #bj74 ,now this has all the imaginative charm of ,hans ,christian ,andersen's ,snow ,queen1 or ,george ,macdonald's ,at the ,back of the ,north ,wind2 but it is nothing more nor less than notes on the map of ,europe--of course1 by a map-lover4 ,illustration3 ,,physical ,,sketch ,,of ,,savoy ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,to help in such work he collected maps wherever he went4 ,he kept them in a special set of drawers in his study1 some mounted on spent diagram-cards from his lectures1 and some dropping to pieces with wear and tear4 ,among these are still his first map of the ,lakes1 from ,jonathan ,otley's or ,wordsworth's ,guide1 and his old ,keller's ,switzerland of #ahdd1 which he used forty years later1 saying that he did not want the railways1 and no new map showed the roads better4 ,of favourite towns1 such as ,venice and ,amiens1 there are large scale plans1 the best that could be bought2 and of some ,swiss districts1 like ,neuchatel1 there is quite a library of cartology4 ,a highly detailed map of ,medoc1 from a wine advertisement1 was found useful2 likewise ,britain with the centres of ,trinity ,college1 ,london1 which he kept for its clearness4 ,philip's ,authentic ,map of ,england is endorsed good common use1 and he even kept close at hand a set of children's dissecting maps4 ,the ,ordnance ,survey is fully represented1 but because too much was put into these beautiful six-inch sheets1 he has coloured them fancifully and vigorously1 to get clear divisions of important parts4 ,clearness and distinctness1 every one must feel1 are not the strong points of modern cartography1 hence the use of sketch-maps3 such as this of ,spain1 scribbled on a sheet of foolscap to keep him in mind of the graceful1 swinging coastline and the proportions of the provinces4 ,the overloaded modern map is a work of reference--it is a dictionary1 not a book4 ,ruskin felt that it was useless for educational or literary purposes1 and he was continually trying to improve away the detail and to substitute graphic statistics4 ,one line of this attempt was in the direction of models4 ,beck's raised map of ,switzerland 7#ahec7 was often in use1 but it was spoilt for him by the shining surface1 which catches high lights and distracts the eye3 all models ought to be painted in dead colours1 except the water1 which needs the shine for the sake of transparency4 ,so1 in #ahha1 when he was working at the physical geology of the ,coniston neighbourhood1 he tried to make a model of the hills and dales1 to see how the strike and dip of strata and the faults and dykes in the rock came out in relation to ups and downs1 lake-basins and crags1 and so forth4 ,he found modelling too tedious to carry out himself1 and1 with characteristic oddness in his employment of means to ends1 he set his gardener1 the late ,dawson ,herdson1 on the job4 ,herdson made a very fair general sketch in clay of the ,old ,man1 and the main features as seen from the ,coniston side2 but he had not pegged out his distances1 and when ,dow ,crag was built up into emphatic gloom1 and ,leverswater hollowed into depth1 the smaller heights had no space left for them1 and the effect was altogether too willow-patterned4 ,then ,ruskin put another of his employes to work1 and after much labour the model now in the ,coniston ,museum was evolved4 ,this was intended to be photographed or engraved in a side-light1 as one of a series of physical maps4 ,another was to have been ,savoy1 for which ,ruskin made the sketch here shown4 ,the black ,lake of ,geneva is dark blue in his drawing2 the valleys are green1 and the mountains roughly knocked in with lamp-black and ,chinese white1 tinted over with yellow for limestone1 pink for ,mont ,blanc protogine1 and red for gneiss4 ,rough as the sketch is1 you see the structure of the ,alps1 the lie of the land1 at a glance4 ,towns1 roads1 and all the rest should be shown1 he said1 on separate plans4 ,towards this purpose he collected bird's-eye views in great variety1 from ,maclure and ,macdonald's lithograph of the ,soudan1 to quaint old panoramas1 of which one--the mountains seen from the ,buet--is quite like a ,william ,blake design of ,heaven and ,hell1 and fit to serve as a background to all the mythologies4 ,also1 for their pleasant picturesqueness1 he liked the queer productions of ancient cartographers1 such as ,edmund ,squib's funny map of ,china 7#afee71 and a seventeenth-century production called ,the ,new ,map of ,muscovy1 and ,the ,course of the ,great ,river ,wolga1 by ,a4 ,olearius2 with pictures of ,russian peasants along the banks1 and the camels of the ,tartar who dwells on the plains of ,thibet4 ,such maps have the charm of graphic expression2 they don't pretend to be gazetteers1 but they take you about the country with the entertainment of a traveller's tale4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,history ,,of ,,france ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,they are decorative also2 that was another appeal to ,ruskin4 ,william ,morris has shown in the illustrations to the ,saga ,library how maps can become picturesque designs1 and this was much on the lines that ,ruskin would have followed4 ,he might not have inserted dragons of the deep1 nor1 as in ,drayton's ,polyolbion1 nymphs and shepherds on the hills and lakes1 out of all proportion and possibility2 but he thought a map could be far more explanatory and ornamental than the usual school atlas4 ,his attempt at a diagrammatic history of ,france1 sketched on a page of note-paper1 was engraved for ,our ,fathers have ,told ,us--his projected school history of the ,nice ,things that have ,happened4 ,you see--and for lack of space ,i must leave it for your further insight--how he designed to show the roses of ,provence and the lilies of ,france in this garden of ,gaul1 at one time feebly struggling1 then blowing fully and freely spreading1 then broken in upon by the wild beast of war2 the lily bed trampled and ruined2 ,aquitaine wasted to blankness1 and so forth4 ,worked out completely1 an atlas of history on this plan might be as pretty as any picture-book4 ,a child accustomed to such maps would have little trouble in remembering the outlines of national growth1 and the whole tedious business of dates and uncouth names would be infinitely lightened4 ,perhaps1 some day1 ,ruskin's hint will be taken1 and his suggestions will bear fruit4 ,he never cared for worship and admiration1 when they did not mean the understanding of his aims1 and the carrying out of his work4 ,he knew his gift was to irrigate1 as he said--to suggest and stimulate4 ,people called him an egoist2 but how wise in its humility was the close of his preface to ,loves ,meinie6--,it has been throughout my trust1 that if ,death should write on these1 ',what this man began to build1 he was not able to finish1' ,god may also write on them1 not in anger but in aid1 ',a stronger than he cometh4' ,and for much that he has left to do1 no greater strength is needed1 but only the glory of going on4 ,,viii ,,ruskin',s ,,drawings ,,viii ,,ruskin',s ,,drawings ,in his introduction to the ,catalogue of a ,ruskin ,exhibition at ,boston1 ,u4,s4,a41 in #ahgi1 ,professor ,charles ,eliot ,norton wrote a paragraph which1 as the verdict of a severely discriminating--though friendly--critic1 is worth reading more than once again4 ,he said3 ,the character of this collection is unique4 ,these drawings are not the work of an artist by profession2 there is not a 'picture' among them4 ,they are the studies of one who1 by patience and industry1 by single-minded devotion to each special task1 and by concentrated attention upon it1 has trained an eye of exceptional keenness and penetration1 and a hand of equally exceptional delicacy and firmness of touch1 to be the responsive instruments of faculties of observation and perception such as have seldom been bestowed on artist or on poet4 ,few of these drawings were undertaken as an end in themselves1 but most of them as means by which to acquire exact knowledge of the facts of nature1 or to obtain the data from which to deduce a principle in art1 or to preserve a record of the work of periods in which art gave better expression to the higher interests and motives of life than at the present day4 ,these studies may consequently afford lessons to the proficients in art not less than to the fresh beginners4 ,the beauty of some of them will be obvious to an untrained eye2 but no one may hope to appreciate them at their worth who will not1 in a respectful and modest spirit1 give time and patience to their study4 ,in his childhood1 long before he thought of drawing from ,nature1 he had learnt great neatness of hand by amusing himself with copying out his juvenile verses to look like print1 by drawing maps and by making facsimiles of ,george ,cruikshank's etchings in his ,grimm's ,goblins4 ,his father used to sketch a little in the pre-historic style1 and was fond of pictures2 but they never dreamed of making ,john an artist4 ,at last1 when he was thirteen1 and his adopted sister1 ,mary1 was taking drawing lessons at school with much satisfaction to the family1 he1 too1 was allowed to learn drawing4 ,mr4 ,runciman1 his master1 gave him copies--the old1 bold pencil copies--which he tried to imitate in a kind of stipple1 at first1 but soon picked up the manner1 and in a year1 as we find from old letters1 was talking like a book about perspective and composition1 and going to begin painting on grey paper1 with a few of the simplest colours1 in order to learn the effects of light and shade4 ,mr4 ,runciman must have been a good teacher1 for this method of his1 on grey paper with a few simple colours1 to get light and shade1 is exactly what ,john ,ruskin learnt thoroughly after awhile1 and taught energetically in his turn all his life4 ,but ,mr4 ,runciman could not bring him to paint in oil1 and does not seem to have had much of a system2 for one of ,john ,ruskin's letters in verse to his father1 written early in #ahcd1 says3 ,i cannot bear to paint in oil4 ,c4 ,fielding's tints alone for me6 ,the other costs me double toil1 ,and wants some fifty coats to be ,splashed on each spot successively4 ,in his later years he used to say that the practical reason why he never went on with oil painting was that he had to draw--and to keep his drawings--among books and papers1 and oils were messy1 and did not smell nice4 ,but no doubt the real fact was that his drawings were mainly meant for book-illustration1 done for the engraver1 and intended1 on a small scale1 to get as much form as possible4 ,all his experiments in oil seem to have been suppressed2 though his water-colour practice1 especially in later times1 was to use ,chinese white1 and often a good deal of it1 very nearly as if it had been flake white4 ,after some feeble attempts by himself at sketching from ,nature1 in #ahca and #ahcb1 he went abroad with his parents for the summer of #ahcc1 and drew diligently4 ,he had received for a birthday present the volume of ,rogers's ,italy1 with ,turner's vignettes1 and intended to make something like it1 in a book of verses neatly copied out1 with vignettes reproduced in fine pen-work from his sketches on the spot4 ,whenever the carriage stopped he would snatch a sketch1 and whenever they put up for the night he would write up his poetical diary4 ,coming home1 he began his great work1 but school lessons interfered2 not before he had half filled the blank book1 and pasted in a number of neat and pretty vignettes1 of which the best is ,the ,jungfrau from ,lauterbrunnen1 reproduced in ,the ,poems of ,john ,ruskin1 on the same scale4 ,meanwhile1 he had come under the influence of ,samuel ,prout1 whose work his father admired2 and on the next tour1 in #ahce1 ,turner was forgotten in the attempt to be ,prout4 ,the drawings of this great year1 as he called it1 when they are put in order1 show a wonderful progress from the first stiff and timid studies1 fresh from the attempt to copy ,prout's lithographs1 to a free and quite masterly adaptation of ,prout's line and dot manner4 ,by the time he reached the ,oberland and ,venice1 he had got his hand in1 and the subject went down upon the paper with ease and decision1 always abstracted and mannered1 but with a feeling after style which was entirely ,ruskin4 ,both in drawing and in writing1 much as he talked of truth and simplicity1 he was1 first and foremost1 the stylist3 and through half his life the conscious imitator of other men's styles--,hooker or ,carlyle1 ,prout or ,turner4 ,but there was always more of ,ruskin than of his model2 and even in those juvenile essays1 when style so completely overwhelms fact1 as in some sketches at ,venice or ,innsbruck1 there is a precocious completeness and charm1 as in the art of youthful nations1 early ,greeks1 pre-,norman ,english1 or pre-,renaissance ,italians4 ,the pen-drawings of this year have less interest1 for they were made from the originals to illustrate another intended manuscript1 and the life1 of course1 went out of them4 ,some of these pen-drawings1 as well as some of the original and superior pencil-drawings1 are published in facsimile in the ,poems and ,poetry of ,architecture 7large editions of #ahia and #ahic74 ,other facsimiles are given in ,studies in ,both ,arts and ,verona4 ,the plates in these volumes very fairly represent ,ruskin's handiwork at different periods1 and are indispensable to any one who wishes to study it4 ,plates in ,modern ,painters and ,stones of ,venice1 nearly all by engravers after his work1 do not represent it in the same authentic manner4 ,before he had completed his new book he wanted more skill in colour1 and took lessons from ,copley ,fielding1 with no great result1 except that the style which he had gained by practice abroad was lost in trying after new models4 ,the sketches of his period as an ,oxford undergraduate are comparatively tame and commonplace 7#ahcf-ahci71 though he did some neat bits for ,mr4 ,loudon's wood engraver to spoil in the papers on ,the ,poetry of ,architecture1 in the ,architectural ,magazine1 which were his first published writings on art4 ,in #ahdj he broke down in health1 after winning the ,newdigate prize for poetry at ,oxford1 and before taking his degree4 ,his parents went with him in the autumn to spend the winter abroad1 as a cure for consumption4 ,he did the best for himself1 according to new lights on the subject of hygiene1 by spending nearly all his time sketching in the open air4 ,through ,france to the ,loire and ,auvergne1 round the ,riviera to ,pisa and ,florence and ,rome1 we can trace him by his drawings1 made now on a new method4 ,david ,roberts had been showing his ,syrian sketches1 hard pencil on grey paper1 with yellow lights in body colour1 and the new style caught young ,ruskin's attention before he started for his journey1 so that he set out with the resolve of being ,roberts now4 ,the same decision of line shows itself on this much larger scale2 he always seems to know what he wants1 and to get it without trouble2 though when one remembers that these half-imperial drawings were done by an ailing lad1 supposed to be within danger of death1 it is not a little remarkable to see in them such evidences of tenacity and pluck4 ,at the beginning of #ahda they moved on to ,naples1 and made excursions to ,salerno1 ,amalfi and the neighbourhood1 always with a drawing to bring back2 and when he was on his way home1 through ,north ,italy1 he wrote triumphantly to a friend that he had got forty-seven large and thirty-four small sketches4 ,but what he could do with the stimulus of travel he could not do again in the reaction after it was over4 ,he was not quite well yet1 and went to ,leamington to be under a doctor1 in dull lodgings1 and without any mountains4 ,still he drew4 ,by this time he had dropped ,david ,roberts1 and taken up ,turner1 whose art he had already thought of defending against the magazine critics4 ,it was in these circumstances that he made the ,amboise1 from a sketch of the year before1 and certain vignettes for engraving1 which were published in ,friendship's ,offering1 with his poems4 ,in the new ,library edition1 vol4 ii41 photographs from the original ,amboise1 and from the old engraving after it1 are given1 well worth comparing4 ,he was not naturally a colourist4 ,in later life he found out for himself the ways and means of producing bits of very sweet opalescent colour1 but at any time was capable of relapsing into gaudiness1 in hours of fatigue or ill-health2 and throughout his earlier life he was much more at home in light and shade1 or in work with the point4 ,it was not that he did not see and enjoy colour4 ,to judge by his writings1 one would think that he lived for it1 almost3 and the splendid passage in the first volume of ,modern ,painters1 so often quoted for its word-painting of colour1 was written from his diary-notes on the way back from ,naples in #ahda4 ,he made a drawing of the scene he described2 one would expect at least an attempt at purple1 and crimson1 and scarlet1 like the curtains of ,god's tabernacle2 but it is merely washed with faint tints over an elaborate outline of the architecture4 ,so the passing mood in sickness1 which had led him to try after ,turnerian colour1 left him in health1 for the more attainable method of ,turner's ,liber ,studiorum1 and he began1 in #ahdb1 to make this his own4 ,a slight pencil blocking out1 firm and emphatic quill-pen to represent the etched line1 and brushwork in brown1 rarely in black1 sometimes with a little colour1 over paper usually grey--this was after all the manner that suited him best1 and very nearly what ,mr4 ,runciman had talked about1 ten years before4 ,by degrees1 year after year1 the pen work became finer1 and the colour more predominant2 the solid white1 used at first for high lights1 invaded the tints and gave a mystery to the outline1 and in ten years more he had found out his central style1 a manner quite his own1 producing beautiful results but inimitable by engraving1 whether the old style of steel-plate or the new style of photographic process4 ,that style in turn developed into the delicate and often dainty water-colour painting of his later years--passing by the way through a phase in which the pencil took the place of the pen1 useful for getting notes of architectural detail and mountain form--and never quite abandoned1 though the pencil drawings of the later period became a distinct series1 free and emphatic and suggestive1 apart from the more laborious elaboration of his last paintings4 ,in #ahde he went alone1 unaccompanied by parents and family1 to ,italy1 and found adventures4 ,he made the acquaintance of the primitive masters at ,lucca and ,florence1 and copied a little2 then to the ,alps to look for ,turner's subjects in the ,alpine sketches of #ahdb1 which had so taken his heart4 ,turner did not like it2 it was dangerous to have a writing young man looking behind the scenes of imaginative picture production2 but ,ruskin found out ,turner1 and was all the more enthusiastic for the discovery4 ,he drew the ,pass of ,faido1 and saw what ,turner had seen1 and what he had invented1 more wonderful than any transcript from ,nature2 and afterwards filled half a volume with the endeavour to expound the same4 ,then1 with his versatility of sympathy1 he met ,j4 ,d4 ,harding1 who was not so much his teacher as a valued friend1 and together they went to ,venice4 ,one sketch-book leaf of this time is particularly interesting--with a pen and tint drawing of a mill at ,baveno on one side1 and a slapdash sunset on the other1 almost ,harding4 ,these are photogravured in the ,poems4 ,the drawings of #ahdf were the first serious mountain studies1 afterwards used for ,modern ,painters1 though many things intervened4 ,sickness at first1 and the visit to ,crossmount in the ,highlands1 recorded in some drawings1 not his best2 and then ,seven ,lamps of ,architecture1 for which he studied in ,normandy in #ahdh1 and etched the plates himself in soft ground--strong1 sketchy plates which were thought a failure at the time1 and re-engraved in a queer imitation of the originals by a professional engraver for the next edition4 ,then he set to work upon ,stones of ,venice4 ,he had already some material1 but most of the drawings were made in two winters1 ,november #ahdi to ,march #ahej1 and ,september #ahea to ,june #aheb4 ,many of the best have been dispersed1 some are in ,america1 but enough remain to show what a busy time it was1 and how much downright drawing went to the making of that book3 how much more drawing1 and of how much finer quality than one can guess at from reading the book4 ,the large plates in ,examples of the ,architecture of ,venice were not only from his sketches1 but from carefully prepared working drawings4 ,for a mezzotint1 like the ,st4 ,mark's ,portico or the ,arch of ,ca' ,contarini ,porta di ,ferro1 he drew the outline separately for etching1 and made another drawing with the tint for the completed engraving4 ,to do a subject over again seemed no grievance with him1 and there are many examples of his patience in trying the identical view in different aspects or lights1 or even redrawing it from ,nature without alteration1 merely to get a result more to his mind4 ,that the result was worth while in the end we need not stop to declare4 ,stones of ,venice was a revelation to architects and the public1 and for a long while exerted an enormous influence upon ,english taste4 ,suppose1 for a moment1 such a book had been written1 with all the enthusiasm and learning in the world1 by a man who could not draw6 ,the later volumes of ,modern ,painters1 which followed this1 owed their success in great measure to the same cause4 ,the engravings1 beautiful as they are1 hardly show the originals2 though from the book one knows that its author had dwelt upon the aspects of ,nature with more than a tourist's glance1 and that he had struggled with the problems of art with more than an amateur's attention4 ,his ,aiguilles and ,matterhorns1 his ,aspen and his mossy stones1 his repeated studies from ,turner and the ,old ,masters1 down to the enlargements from illuminated missals1 all tell the same tale of passionate interest in the subject and penetrative insight into the situation4 ,they are not1 as ,professor ,norton says1 pictures2 but incomplete as they are1 there is in them an appeal to which most of those who love pictures will respond4 ,during the progress of ,modern ,painters1 ,mr4 ,ruskin planned a ,history of ,swiss ,towns1 for which he spent several summers in gathering material4 ,his drawings for this series were more full of detail1 handled with extremest fineness in some parts and with great breadth1 often carelessness1 in others2 intended for completion and engraving when time should serve4 ,but this time never came4 ,he was led into the interests in political and social economy which1 in these later years1 with a public tired of hearing about ,ruskin and art1 have given him a place among the prophets4 ,he was led into further studies of the geology of scenery1 lightly touched in ,modern ,painters1 and1 during long residence in ,savoy and ,switzerland1 drew ,alps chiefly for their cleavages1 and threw the drawings aside4 ,he was led into botanical and mineral researches1 and ,egyptology and ,greek coins1 and other by-ways1 always1 however1 drawing as he went1 but drawing subjects less interesting to the general onlooker4 ,but from this backwater he emerged into a new and more developed style which began to show results in #ahff1 on a long summer tour in the ,oberland1 when he made the sketch ,on the ,reuss below ,lucerne1 in ,poetry of ,architecture--a combination of such breadth and delicacy as he had hardly attained before1 and much fine work with the point4 ,next year but one1 #ahfh1 his ancient love for ,french ,gothic took him to ,abbeville4 ,there the new style had full scope in the delicate drawings of that date1 a long way in advance of old ,seven ,lamps period3 and the same kind of work was continued in the next year at ,verona 7,may to ,september71 a summer of very busy painting in the company of his two assistants1 ,mr4 ,william ,ward and the late ,mr4 ,j4 ,w4 ,bunney4 ,the ,abbeville drawings were shown in a semi-public manner at a little exhibition to illustrate his lecture on the ,flamboyant ,architecture of the ,valley of the ,somme1 at the ,royal ,institution1 ,january #bi1 #ahfi2 and the ,verona drawings at a similar lecture at the same place on ,february #d1 #ahgj4 ,the catalogue of the latter is printed in ,on the ,old ,road1 vol4 i41 part #b1 with twenty pieces marked as his own4 ,in this year he entered on his duties as ,slade ,professor at ,oxford1 and before long had established a drawing-school there1 which took up a great part of his attention4 ,of this period is a sketch ,done with my pupils afield1 and he used sometimes to draw in the school1 and often to draw for the school4 ,a ,candle1 finely shaded1 and various botanical studies1 were meant as copies or as examples of the treatment he proposed to his students2 and the catalogue of the ,ruskin ,drawing ,school at ,oxford contains a very large number of items by himself1 from the great ,st4 ,catherine1 after ,luini1 to little memoranda of plant forms4 ,several of these examples of his hand have been engraved in ,mr4 ,e4 ,t4 ,cook's ,studies in ,ruskin4 ,in #ahgj and #ahgb he was again drawing at ,venice4 ,the elaborate beginning of the ,riva de' ,schiavoni1 and the effective ,rialto 7in the possession of ,miss ,hilliard1 ,coniston71 done one morning before breakfast1 are of the former year4 ,in #ahgd1 after a breakdown in health1 he visited ,assisi1 ,rome1 and ,sicily1 and beside the notes of ,mount ,etna and ,scylla he brought home a series of careful copies from parts of the ,botticelli frescoes at the ,sistine ,chapel1 and the fully realised1 though not completed1 ,glacier des ,bossons1 a remarkable piece of landscape work4 ,in #ahgf he went again to ,venice1 this time chiefly to copy ,carpaccio1 though some of his best later views of canals and palaces bear that date1 or the early part of #ahgg1 for he stayed on until ,may of that year4 ,casa ,foscari 7in the possession of ,mrs4 ,cunliffe1 ,ambleside7 may be named as a characteristic example of his daring point of view1 and success in giving the mass of building in steep perspective4 ,in #ahgh an exhibition of his drawings by ,turner was held at the ,fine ,art ,society's ,galleries in ,new ,bond ,street4 ,during the show he was taken seriously ill1 and while convalescent he amused himself by arranging a small collection of his own sketches to add to the exhibition4 ,his catalogue and remarks are given in the later editions of ,notes on his ,drawings by ,turner1 c41 #ahgh4 ,next year a number of his studies were shown in ,boston1 ,u4,s4,a41 under the management of ,professor ,charles ,eliot ,norton1 whose appreciative paragraph we have quoted4 ,it seemed as though his working life had come to an end at the time1 with that crisis of illness4 ,a visit to ,amiens in #ahhj1 with ,mr4 ,arthur ,severn and ,mr4 ,brabazon1 gave him the subject for writing the ,bible of ,amiens1 but his sketches were less vigorous and full4 ,but in #ahhb he was ordered away again for rest2 and1 as forty years before1 he took his rest--the best rest for a tired brain--in sketching4 ,he gradually warmed to work2 at ,avallon1 in ,central ,france1 he began with a few sketches of detail1 but in ,italy the ancient love of architecture took hold of him1 and he drew the ,porch at ,lucca assiduously4 ,his two chief drawings of this subject were shown in the next exhibition of the ,r4,w4,s41 and one of them at the ,r4,a4 in #aija4 ,he exhibited on many occasions at the ,royal ,society of ,painters in ,water ,colours1 having been elected an honorary member in #ahgc4 ,he said at the time to a visitor--,nothing ever pleased me more4 ,i have always been abusing the artists1 and now they have complimented me4 ,they always said ,i couldn't draw1 and it's very nice to think they give me credit for knowing something about art4 ,later than this there is little to chronicle4 ,ill-health came down upon him1 and his last drawings were done to amuse his friend of ,hortus ,inclusus in #ahhf1 though he made a few pencil notes of ,langdale ,pikes and ,calder ,abbey in #ahhi4 ,after his death an exhibition of his sketches1 with some personal relics and added examples of the art about which he had written1 was held at ,coniston in the summer of #aijj4 ,it attracted over #aj1jjj visitors to the village1 and to many was a revelation of ,ruskin in a new character1 and of a kind of art which charmed in spite of all they had been accustomed to look for in pictures4 ,in ,january and ,february #aija1 a similar exhibition was held at the ,royal ,society of ,painters in ,water ,colours1 ,london4 ,many of the drawings then shown1 with a large series of engravings after his work1 are on view in the ,ruskin ,museum at the ,institute1 ,coniston2 where1 in #aijc1 the ,fourth ,annual ,exhibition contained a further instalment of ,ruskin sketches not previously shown in public1 giving examples of his great variety in subject and treatment1 ranging from an early outline of ,dover 7#ahca71 to sketches at ,avallon and ,citeaux 7#ahhb2 see above1 pages #dh-ea72 from geological studies of ,alps to notes of lions and tigers at the ,zoo1 and the head of the ,venus de' ,medici1 elaborately shaded2 and from the carefully finished and daintily detailed pen and tint ,valley of ,lauterbrunnen1 in which the lens is needed to make out tiny chalets1 smaller than a letter of this type1 to large splashes of water-colour1 one of which 7on a sheet #db by #bc inches in size7 is identical in subject with the view by ,laurence ,hilliard given at page #cc of this volume4 ,one pair of sketches among these has a curious biographical interest4 ,when ,turner's ,sun of ,venice ,going out to ,sea was exhibited at the ,academy 7#ahdc71 ,ruskin was greatly impressed with its wonderful colour and truth1 but especially with the reflections and eddies of the calm water1 on which he wrote a well-known page in ,modern ,painters 7vol4 i4 p4 #ceg74 ,accustomed to write from notes with pen and pencil1 he forgot1 or ignored1 the rule forbidding visitors at the ,exhibition to copy the pictures4 ,these are the sketches he made1 and for making them was expelled from the ,exhibition4 ,,ix ,,ruskin',s ,,hand ,,ix ,,ruskin',s ,,hand ,it was only the other day that a friend showed me a bundle of old papers1 saying1 ,some of these are in his writing1 but ,i don't know what to make of the rest4 ,i turned them over and said1 ,second volume of ',modern ,painters'2 original manuscript6 ,he had just found them1 rolled up in brown paper1 in a cupboard1 where they had been for years4 ,my friend1 who was intimate with ,ruskin from his childhood1 and of course knew the ,professor's later handwriting well1 hardly believed me2 the difference between the early and later styles is so great4 ,there may be other letters and papers of ,ruskin's in existence and unrecognised2 not1 perhaps1 unprinted1 but still of great value1 even in hard cash4 ,correspondents who beg for a ,ruskin autograph and a bit of his writing from those whom they suppose to have plenty1 are often surprised to hear that others have been before them1 and that now the only way is through the dealers at a guinea a page or more4 ,he told me that he thought the manuscripts of his best-known works had been destroyed1 and no doubt had forgotten that many of them had been given away to those who treasured them4 ,since his death a considerable part has been brought to light1 but of the vast quantity of writing--notes1 rough copies1 fair copies1 and letters1 done in a busy life of sixty working years--there may be much more to find scattered through the world3 for ,ruskin's hand1 like ,nuremberg's1 goes through every land4 ,in #ahha a ,mr4 ,atkinson was sent to ,coniston to make a bust of ,ruskin4 ,with his usual good nature to every one who came personally into contact with him--the roughness was only that of his sharp pen--the ,professor treated the unknown as his visitor1 found him lodgings and a workshop1 and a place at his table for a great while1 during which the bust made but slow progress4 ,one reason1 perhaps1 for ,mr4 ,atkinson's difficulty was that ,ruskin had just grown a beard1 and the well-known face was no longer there to mould4 ,can't you treat the beard early ,greek fashion2 ,i should like to be a ,bearded ,bacchus6 he said4 ,in spite of the admitted failure1 he gave further work to the sculptor in casting leaves and other detail for ,st4 ,george's ,schools--that visionary object on which so much labour and thought were spent2 and this use of casts from natural leaves1 ,i am told by ,mr4 ,e4 ,cooke1 was really originated by ,ruskin in the ,working ,men's ,college days1 though now pretty widely known4 ,some of ,mr4 ,atkinson's casts1 ,i may add1 are on view in the ,coniston ,museum4 ,but the sculptor's chief personal wish was to get a mould of ,ruskin's hand4 ,he used to say that there was more in it than in his face2 at least1 it was the most characteristic feature1 and representable in solid form1 while the face1 depending on the bright blue eye and changeful expression1 evaded him as it evaded more celebrated sculptors4 ,but ,ruskin did not like being oiled and moulded1 and though ,mr4 ,atkinson made enticing demonstrations on less worthy fingers1 till we were all up to our elbows in plaster of ,paris1 he never to my knowledge won his point4 ,such a funny hand1 says ,browning's lover1 it was like a claw6 ,ruskin's was all finger-grip2 long1 strong talons1 curiously delicate-skinned and refined in form1 though not academically beautiful4 ,those whose personal acquaintance with him dated only from the later years never knew his hand1 for then it had lost its nervous strength2 and in cold weather--the greatest half of the year in the ,north--the hand suffered more than the head4 ,but his palm1 and especially the back of the hand1 was tiny4 ,when he rowed his boat he held the oars entirely in his fingers2 when he shook hands you felt the pressure of the fingers1 not of the palm4 ,in writing1 he held the pen as we are taught to hold a drawing-pencil1 and the long fingers gave much more play to the point than is usual in formed penmanship4 ,knowing that1 it is not surprising to find that his writing varies1 not only from one period to another1 but with passing moods4 ,everybody shows some of this variety1 but ,ruskin's hand was as flexible and as impressionable as his whole being4 ,illustration3 ,,coniston ,,written ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,,and ,,mary ,,richardson1 #ahcj ,he had an odd way1 down to the last1 of printing an inscription on the fly-leaf of a book or on the mount of a drawing1 in neat1 square ,roman type1 inked between double lines ruled in pencil4 ,sometimes giving a present to a favoured visitor he would say1 ,stay1 ,i must write your name in it2 and you expected the well-known autograph cheque-signature1 scribbled with a flourish4 ,but no6 ,spectacles1 and ruler1 and pencil first2 two carefully ruled lines1 an eighth of an inch apart2 then the cork-handled1 fine steel pen1 and laborious regularity of inscription2 till the onlooking recipient laughed outright at all this time and trouble spent on a trifle4 ,but ,ruskin was quite grave about it4 ,this was a reversion to early habits4 ,his juvenile ,,mss41 of which many were kept by his parents and still remain at ,brantwood1 contain many pages of similar calligraphy4 ,his first ,latin and ,french declensions are printed in pencil2 at the age of seven he wrote the first copies of his ,harry and ,lucy in this way1 pencilled first and penned over1 thinking he was an author making a book4 ,many children do1 but not with his tenacity and taste4 ,in #ahbh 7age nine7 he had brought this self-imposed education to something like perfection with the tiny print of ,eudosia1 page after page showing wonderful steadiness of hand and eye2 and at the end of that year he executed the masterpiece of childish ingenuity which he described in the autobiographical ,harry and ,lucy--the poem in double print1 all the down-strokes doubled3 ,and it was most beautifully done1 you may be sure1 says the saucy infant1 not untruly4 ,some of his early mineral catalogues1 begun at this time1 appear to have been continued later1 though the difference can hardly be told from any improvement in the penmanship4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,writing ,,in #ahcf2 ,,fair ,,copy ,,of ,a ,,poem ,meanwhile his ordinary running hand was a shocking scribble1 but in the middle of it he seems to have pulled himself up continually1 or he was pulled up by an overlooking mother1 and the wild scrawl becomes tidy and neat4 ,i suspect that his earlier home lessons did not include much copybook work4 ,he developed his own writing like other precocious boys and girls1 though there is some trace of teaching at the very start4 ,but after #ahcj he exchanged1 perhaps at the instance of superior orders1 his print for copperplate2 the ,iteriad 7#ahca7 is fair-copied in a large1 regular round-hand1 and the ,tour poems of #ahcc are in a smaller1 less anxious1 but more formed business style4 ,one sees the father's influence coming in1 and all his letters to the old-fashioned business man show the obvious desire to please4 ,my dear papa is flourished around in the most approved writing-master's manner1 and ,john ,ruskin at the end is in black letter1 finishing a sheet of impeccable commercial-hand1 in which the free-and-easy wording contrasts quite ludicrously with the formal writing4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,handwriting ,,in #ahcg ,it was only1 or chiefly1 to his father that such letters were written4 ,for his mother he had another hand2 for his friends and for himself an assortment of varying scribbles4 ,but there1 ,i think1 comes out one of the leading points in his character4 ,to be a man of strong thought and will1 innovator in art1 science1 politics1 morality1 and religion1 there never was such a chameleon1 always ready to colour his mind after his surroundings2 all things to all men4 ,to the opponent he was an opponent2 to the admirer an admirer1 without at once testing the sincerity of the admiration or the source of the opposition4 ,it was the cause of many regretted incidents in public life1 but in private life the ground of his charm4 ,nobody who approached him in kindness failed of being met more than half way1 while impertinence and rudeness1 however unintended1 struck a discord at once4 ,so much of a chameleon he was1 that he could persuade himself into liking1 for the moment1 and for the sake of his companion on the spot1 many a thing he had denounced or derided2 and sometimes he could do curious things out of the same unrecognised sympathy4 ,once after a lecture1 leading ,taglioni to her carriage in the midst of a crowd of onlookers1 ,i saw him cross the ,london pavement with an old-world minuet-step1 hardly conscious1 ,i am sure1 of the quaint homage he was paying to the great dancer he had admired in his boyhood4 ,those flourishes of the pen for his father's pleasure never appear in his own private scribble4 ,his ideas came too quickly to leave him time for ornament1 and he had no need to idle in dots and circles between the phrases4 ,his spelling was always good1 but he never stopped to punctuate2 a dash was enough for most kinds of stops4 ,letters of #ahde and #aheb are curious for the underlining or interlining of long passages1 not1 apparently1 for emphasis2 possibly to mark sections of these general epistles home for copying4 ,in all this early writing there is an effort to keep pace with the flow of thoughts1 even in the verse2 he wrote so much that mere economy of time must have driven him at speed to the shortest way of getting the matter down4 ,in diaries of the period are some shorthand notes which ,i take to be his2 but if he ever tried shorthand he dropped it soon4 ,illustration3 ,,notes ,,for ,,stones ,,of ,,venice ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin 7,,about #ahej7 ,the model upon which ,ruskin's usual handwriting was at last formed was his mother's4 ,it is perhaps a commonplace to say that we all betray in our writing the greatest personal influence of our earlier years4 ,while penning this very page1 a letter has just been brought to me which at first glance put me in mind of a friend long since dead3 it is from his school-master4 ,not ,ruskin's father nor any of his teachers appear to have influenced him like his mother4 ,her more deliberate writing was extremely elegant2 rather small1 moderately sloping1 with a pretty combination of curve and angle1 and capitals carefully formed4 ,in the note-book in which he composed verses from #ahca to #ahch you can see the development of his hand from a spiky and cramped boyish scribble to the more open and slightly more upright style of #ahce and #ahcf1 the year of his matriculation at ,oxford2 a neat and educated penmanship1 easy to read and regular1 though differing slightly from day to day in size and slope4 ,the backward switch of his y and forward toss of the tail to his angular t are already there2 and the dainty shaping of capitals1 based on ,italic or ,elzevir print1 like his mother's1 with suggestion of the serif in a little elegant curl to ,h and ,f4 ,instead of spasmodic reform1 as earlier1 there is perfect steadiness for page after page4 ,at ,oxford his writing became rather larger and looser1 perhaps from ,latin exercises1 in which indubitable distinctness is required4 ,the ,poetry of ,architecture fair copy can be seen in a facsimile in the new ,library ,edition2 the draft scribbled in a sketch-book during ,oxford vacation is reproduced 7p4 #ada72 you note the tendency to round the foot of the down-stroke and the length of the greater limbs of the letters4 ,he used to tell his secretary to take no notice of a letter in which h and l looked like n and e4 ,leaving ,oxford and writing hard at ,modern ,painters earlier volumes1 which cost a great deal of pen-work1 he went back to the smaller hand of voluminous authors1 and the constant attention to one subject gave it regularity4 ,but the letters of the time are naturally more impulsive2 indeed1 in #ahdi there are bits which prefigure his latest style in its upright and loose sketchiness4 ,from #ahdi or #ahej for some years the chief work was ,stones of ,venice1 and the note-books and studies for this are fairly represented by the page on ,sta4 ,maria dell' ,orto4 ,this is the earlier ,modern ,painters manner4 ,you see the growing freedom1 but it is not yet wild and whirling4 ,illustration3 ,,ruskin',s ,,handwriting ,,in #ahge ,the difference is shown at a glance in comparing this with the sample of his well-known later hand4 ,it was by the end of the 'fifties that the regular and tight spikiness began finally to disappear and give place to far-flung curves4 ,the great turn in his life which took place about #ahfj showed itself in his penmanship as well as in his thought1 and the final style became formed1 which1 with merely the differences of better or worse1 lasted until all writing was over4 ,after the summer of #ahhi it was at very rare intervals that he took pen in hand4 ,for some time before his death by mere disuse he seemed to have lost the very power of writing at all4 ,at last1 one day1 being asked for his signature1 he set down with shaking fingers the first few letters of it1 and broke off with ,dear me6 ,i seem to have forgotten how to write my own name6 ,and he wrote no more4 ,there have been authors and journalists whose printed work1 no doubt1 exceeds his in quantity2 but in reckoning the sum total of his penmanship we must not forget that every printed page meant1 for him1 several written pages1 especially in earlier books2 also1 that he was a conscientious correspondent1 and every day wrote many letters4 ,it may be set off against this that he sometimes used the help of an amanuensis1 though he rarely dictated1 and it was only when he had hammered his subject into shape that he had it copied for the printer4 ,occasionally in late years he let it be type-written1 but most of his work was done before the age of type-writers4 ,he would use the most unlikely copyists1 as when he got the little girls of his ,brantwood class to write out his notes4 ,all he asked was a distinct hand and a docile scribe4 ,his secretary1 like the secretary in ,gil ,blas1 did everything but write1 and sometimes was packing parcels or sweeping leaves while the valet was copying lectures on ,greek art4 ,some early ,,mss4 are in the hand of ,george ,hobbs2 many of the later were written by ,crawley2 none by ,baxter4 ,at other times he requisitioned the young ladies2 it was for this that ,mrs4 ,severn formed her large1 round1 upright hand1 and ,miss ,anderson had many a copying task1 as well as others whose work will be valued by collectors for its corrections from the master's pen1 like the quartz which holds the sparkle of gold4 ,but he taught them to write distinctly--that was his great requirement4 ,once1 on a sleepless night1 he called me1 with many apologies1 to write from dictation4 ,naturally ,i wrote fast to get my job done and return to my slumbers2 but he continually pulled me up with1 ,i'm sure you're scribbling4 ,let me see if ,i can read it4 ,out on the fells1 taking the dip and strike of strata1 or among the cathedrals making notes and measurements1 he would often warn his assistant of the folly of hasty scrawling4 ,i've lost so much time and trouble by my now bad writing1 he used to say4 ,it has been told already how he was struck at first by ,miss ,francesca ,alexander's handwriting before he had seen her drawing1 which afterwards he praised so highly4 ,the distinct neatness of her beautiful calligraphy appealed to his love for missals and the lost art1 as he feared1 of the true scribe4 ,but of queer and quaint writing he was impatient4 ,words were to be read1 not played with in decorative affectations4 ,the baser sort of business-hand roused him to scorn1 and he had a sharp eye for the characteristics of a cranky or insincere correspondent4 ,when postcards came in1 like many others he did not approve of them and never used them4 ,one of his household sometimes got postcards written in ,runes1 and1 seeing the mystic inscriptions1 he wanted to know why4 ,so that people may not read it1 was the answer4 ,what's the use of that8 replied ,ruskin4 ,isn't language given you to conceal your thoughts8 99 99 99 99 99 ,for further illustrations of his handwriting1 see his earliest printing at seven or eight1 with his latest current style1 actual size1 on page #ajh2 a pencil scribble at ten or eleven1 page #aga2 his neater writing of the same period1 on page #aii2 his ordinary careful penmanship about #ahce1 on page #aji2 and his looser final hand1 pages #afc and #agd4 ,x ,,ruskin',s ,,music ,x ,,ruskin',s ,,music ,it is well known1 says a recent newspaper writer1 that ,ruskin's ear was as deaf to musical sound as his eye was sensitive to natural beauty4 ,on the other hand1 ,miss ,wakefield1 the celebrated singer and the originator of country ,musical ,competitions1 has put together a volume of #aeh pages--most of them1 certainly1 in rather big type--under the title of ,ruskin on ,music4 ,the inference1 of course1 to an unbelieving world is that he wrote about what he did not understand4 ,but ,miss ,wakefield understands2 and she says1 what is to be admired in what he has said of the art is the beautiful way in which its spiritual meaning and teaching have been expressed by him1 in the short passages which he has devoted to it1 and in which no one has ever excelled him4 ,for his thoughts on music there is that book to read2 but for ,ruskin's quest of music1 for his lifelong attempts to qualify as a musician1 there is nothing to show4 ,the story has not yet been told1 because it has little bearing on his life's main work1 and--to put it roughly--it is the story of a failure4 ,perhaps there are admirers who would rather not know about the failure2 and yet--you shall judge when you have heard it6 ,there are still in existence the bound volumes of piano-pieces and operatic songs which he learnt when he was an undergraduate at ,oxford4 ,one of these volumes is open on the piano1 in our photograph of the ,brantwood drawing-room1 arranged as it used to be when he strummed a little before dinner and read at the four candles after dinner4 ,each piece is inscribed by the ,oxford music-master with the usual vague respect of ,town to ,gown in the formula1 -- ,ruskin1 ,esq41 ,ch4,ch4 ,the master does not seem to have known his ,christian name1 but he evidently dragged him through a great deal of ,bellini1 and ,donizetti1 and ,mozart2 and forty years on--shorter in wind1 though in memory long ,ruskin had a keen recollection of these pieces1 and liked to go over them with any young friend1 showing how they used to sing ,non piu andrai or ,prendero quel brunettino1 with all the flourishes4 ,there are his fingering exercises1 as elaborately annotated as all his old books are2 he must have spent much time and taken great pains1 in those early days1 over his music4 ,it was not for want of opportunity1 nor for lack of intention1 that he did not become a musician4 ,when he left ,oxford he still continued his lessons1 especially the singing4 ,i have never heard of his singing in company1 but ,i can hardly doubt that the lessons did much for his voice4 ,any one who has heard him lecture1 or read1 or even talk1 knows how resonant and flexible it was1 and how thoroughly under his command4 ,he had naturally a weak chest2 he caught cold easily1 and his throat was often affected2 but he always1 ,i think1 was able to lecture1 and his voice was the first thing that attracted an audience4 ,the singing lessons were not without result4 ,illustration3 7,photograph by ,a4 ,e4 ,brickhill7 ,,ruskin',s ,,piano ,,in ,,brantwood ,,drawing-,,room 7,,before ,,recent ,,alterations7 ,in later years his music-master was ,george ,frederick ,west1 who taught him--or tried to teach him--something of composition4 ,i can remember ,mr4 ,west coming to give him a lesson at ,herne ,hill1 but ,i don't think ,i was ever present at the ordeal4 ,you can imagine that ,dr4 ,ruskin1 as ,mr4 ,west always called him1 was a most difficult pupil1 wanting at every turn to know why2 incredulous of the best authority2 impatient of the compromises and conventions1 the wohl-temperirtes ,klavier2 and eager to upset everything and start afresh4 ,it is ,mrs4 ,severn who can describe these droll interviews and ,mr4 ,west's despairing appeal1 ,but you wouldn't be ungrammatical1 ,doctor ,ruskin8 ,i am not so sure about that2 but ,mr4 ,ruskin learnt what he wanted4 ,one thing he could do to perfection4 ,he could easily and readily transpose and copy a song that was too high or too low1 and he liked doing so4 ,it does not imply great scholarship1 but it is wonderful1 as ,dr4 ,johnson said of the performing dog1 that he should do it at all4 ,he might have been spending his time to better purpose1 you think8 ,music lessons went on1 at all available intervals1 down to the close of his active life4 ,at ,sandgate in #ahhg-hh he was learning from ,mr4 ,roberts4 ,in his lodgings1 besides the cottage piano already there1 he got a grand piano and a harmonium 7the last was afterwards given to a chapel in ,coniston71 and because he had few chances of hearing music in that retirement1 he engaged a young lady professional to play of evenings to himself and the friends who were staying with him4 ,in his books there are several hard hits at concerts and concert-goers2 but just as he wrote against railways and yet1 he said1 used them himself1 few people more1 so he was an energetic concert-goer4 ,on arriving at ,paris or any great foreign town his first question was1 ,what about the opera8 ,with classical ,italian opera he was familiar from his youth up4 ,he loved it1 indignant when pestilent modernism hurried the tempo or took liberties with the well-known score4 ,in ,london he usually had a season ticket for the ,crystal ,palace concerts--you remember how he abused the ,crystal ,palace6--and when he was driven away by the autumn cleaning1 a great business in old ,mrs4 ,ruskin's scrupulous housekeeping at ,denmark ,hill1 he would stay at the ,queen's ,hotel in ,norwood1 to be near the ,manns concerts4 ,he has just mentioned ,charles ,halle in ,ethics of the ,dust1 but in private letters comes out his real admiration of the great pianist4 ,john ,hullah was one of his friends2 his copy of ,hullah's ,manual is scribbled with devices for simplifying the teaching of the keyboard4 ,indeed1 being as he was a born teacher1 and counting as he did music an essential to education1 he even taught--or tried to teach--what he knew of it whenever there was a chance4 ,that class of little country girls at ,brantwood had to learn music too2 it was in his time of failing strength1 and the story is tragi-comic2 but in such times the real heart reveals itself through all weaknesses1 and it was a very kindly and earnest nature that made him write out neat cards of music-lore reduced to its lowest terms for the cottage lasses whose lives he tried to raise and brighten4 ,it was only on evenings of actual illness or serious trouble that he passed the time without music1 and he generally managed to have somebody in the house who could play and sing4 ,one of his admirations was ,claribel 7,mrs4 ,barnard71 whom he met at ,jean ,ingelow's2 she sang her own songs to his great delight4 ,later1 among many1 there were the ,misses ,bateman and ,miss ,wakefield2 in ,joanna's ,care he has told his readers about the charm of ,mrs4 ,severn's singing4 ,and it was not only comic songs and nigger ballads that he would listen to2 he liked fun1 as his readers ought to know by now1 and a good funny song1 if the tune was sound1 made him clap his hands in a quaint gesture and laugh all over--the more that there was much sadness in his thoughts4 ,i remember ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones's account of a visit to the ,christy ,minstrels2 how the ,professor dragged him there1 to a front seat1 and those burnt-corked people anticked and shouted1 and ,burne-,jones wanted to go1 and ,ruskin wouldn't1 but sat laughing through the whole performance as if he loved it4 ,an afternoon1 to him1 of oblivion to the cares of life2 an odd experience2 but he would not call it music4 ,now let us have something different1 he used to say when he had laughed enough4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,hargreaves1 photographer7 ,,john ,,ruskin ,,in ,,the ,,seventies ,,from ,a ,,bust ,,by ,,professor ,b4 ,,creswick ,the old songs were his delight1 old ,english and ,french and ,scotch4 ,german songs1 ,german music1 and everything ,german1 except ,duerer and ,holbein1 he could not abide2 ,german love-songs especially1 songs of seduction1 he called them4 ,he would just endure a bit of ,swiss carolling1 with its breezy reminder of the ,alps2 but the unlucky individual who tried him with ,fesca has cause to remember the event4 ,haydn and ,mozart he classed with the ,italians1 and ,handel with the good old standards2 but ,mendelssohn was not to be named4 ,worst of all he misliked execution without feeling3 the brilliant young lady pianist had no welcome from ,ruskin4 ,gaiety1 or else tenderness1 appealed2 even among the old songs there were those he cast out of the programme4 ,of ,charmante ,gabrielle he said once1 it might do when a king sang it4 ,corelli was one of his favourite composers2 that was another link with ,redgauntlet and ,wandering ,willie2 and though he was never a collector of rarities as such1 he bought all the ,corelli he could meet with1 as well as various old editions of early music at ,chappell's sales4 ,music illustration3 ,,at ,,marmion',s ,,grave ,,words ,,by ,,sir ,,walter ,,scott ,,air ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin1 #ahha ,but yet from out the lit-tle hill ,ooz-es the slen-der spring-let still1 ,and shep-herd boys re-pair ,to seek the wat-er- flag and rush1 ,and plait their gar-lands fair2 ,when thou shalt find the lit-tle hill ,with thy heart com-mune1 and be still4 ,from about #ahhj for some years he took to making little compositions of his own2 curious experiments4 ,it need hardly be said1 and it need never be regretted1 that these were not workmanlike performances4 ,the mere fact of his trying to compose is curious2 and though it is not part of his life's work1 it explains some passages and turns of his thought4 ,it would be really more wonderful if he had succeeded in learning to be a musician1 along with all the other things he attempted4 ,but look at his face1 in the truthful if not sentimental portrait by ,mr4 ,creswick4 ,i do not much believe in physiognomy1 and yet in the faces of those who have the gift of execution--quite a separate power from intellectual or emotional appreciation1 or even from composition--,i think you notice that the groove which marks off the wing of the nose1 ala nasi1 at the top is strongly developed2 sometimes it is so sharp as to be almost a deformity4 ,there is none in ,ruskin's face4 ,that trait may mean nothing2 but the fact remains that so able a man spent time and labour in vain over an art which many learn easily1 without a hundredth part of his general power4 ,in a word1 he had a great love for music1 and within certain limits a true taste1 but no talent4 ,there were1 however1 friends of his who could find his little tunes interesting and enjoyable1 and even pay him pretty compliments about them4 ,without attaching too much importance to it1 ,i venture to quote part of a letter from ,ernest ,chesneau 7author of ,the ,english ,school of ,painting7 to ,john ,ruskin1 dated ,oxford1 #ab juin1 #ahhd1 #h;h4 #a_/b a4m4 ,hier a #e heures1 nous sommes alles reclamer a miss ,macdonald junior la chanson de notre ,john4 ,l'aimable enfant n'a pas eu le temps encore de l'ecrire et me l'a promise pour demain2 mais pour me consoler de ma deception1 que son fin regard de fillette a bien lue sur mon visage1 elle m'en a chante une autre2 et je lui ai fait redire la premiere4 ,en ecoutant ces doux petits airs simples1 naifs et touchants1 ma memoire evoquait--sans que ma volonte y eut part--le souvenir d'une grande fugue du vieux ,bach que l'orgue de ,new ,college avait fort bien joue la veille4 ,et ma pensee inconsciement associait1 rapprochait la magnificence du ,bach et la timide delicatesse du ,ruskin4 ,et la douce petite chanson m'apparaissait comme ces exquises graminees dont la graine1 apportie par les oiseaux du ciel1 fleurit aux frontons de marbre des palais ou aux corniches de pierre des cathedrales4 ,et la fleurette apportee des champs voisins se perpetuera a travers les ages1 quand les somptuosites creees de main d'homme ne seront plus que des ruines ou s'arretera le regard curieux de l'artiste4 ,c'est que la petite fleur des champs et la naive chanson expriment l'ame des simples2 et que la fugue comme le temple ou le palais expriment les raffinements des scholastiques1 c'est a dire l'ephemere de l'art4 ,in ,elements of ,english ,prosody1 written #ahhj1 there is a good deal about his views on music1 made sadly unreadable1 not by the error of his ideas1 but by his perverse neglect of recognised technicalities4 ,among the rest is an attempt at a setting of ,ye ,mariners of ,england1 with bars inserted as if to mark the feet of the prosody instead of the beat of the melody1 which was part of his scheme1 though it naturally offends a musician4 ,music illustration3 ,,trust ,,thou ,,thy ,,love ,,facsimile ,,of ,,music ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,his little output of musical composition need never see the light4 ,once he had ,blow1 blow thou winter wind set up in type1 but it was discreetly blotted4 ,the manuscript page of ,on ,old ,a,egina's ,rocks is in the ,coniston ,museum for the curious to behold4 ,others were little rhymes for children--the words printed in his ,poems1 or fragments from ,scott and ,shakespeare1 ,how should ,i thy truelove know1 ,from ,wigton to the foot of ,ayr1 ,come unto these yellow sands1 ,from the east to western ,ind1 and so forth1 with a couple of odes of ,horace1 ,faune1 ,nympharum and ,tu ne quaesieris4 ,here1 as specimens1 it is enough to give a little scrap from ,marmion1 to which he set the air and sketched the accompaniment2 and his own rough draft of a songlet1 of which the words1 at any rate1 are lovely1 and intimately ,ruskin4 ,they might be the motto to the ,queen's ,gardens of ,sesame3 ,trust thou thy ,love2 if she be proud1 is she not sweet8 ,trust thou thy ,love2 if she be mute1 is she not pure8 ,lay thou thy soul full in her hands1 low at her feet2 ,fail1 ,sun and ,breath2--yet1 for thy peace1 she shall endure6 ,,xi ,,ruskin',s ,,jewels ,,xi ,,ruskin',s ,,jewels ,a standing treat for ,ruskin's visitors was to look at minerals4 ,some people1 it was known1 did not appreciate ,turners1 but everybody was sure to show emotion over the diamonds and nuggets4 ,it was not an ordinary collection1 with a bit of this and a bit of that1 samples of all the ores in the handbook2 there were only certain sorts1 but each specimen was the pick of the market and of many years' selection1 and every sort was a type of beauty4 ,ruskin was not a scientific mineralogist1 though he was an ,f4,g4,s4 from an early age1 and used the word science pretty freely in his writings4 ,he really knew a great deal about minerals1 too2 but his knowledge was that of the artist and collector1 taking little notice of the mathematics and chemistry which you read about1 yet finding deep and keen interest in the forms and colours1 the development1 the ,life of ,stones1 ,ethics of the ,dust1 as he put it1 about which science1 up to his time1 had nothing to say4 ,and yet1 as he showed his collection1 you could not but feel that this was a kind of ,nature-study not only fascinating1 but of real importance4 ,a standard work1 under the heading1 ,native ,gold1 tells us3 ,the octahedron and dodecahedron are the most common forms4 ,crystals sometimes acicular 444 also passing into filiform1 reticulated1 and arborescent shapes2 and occasionally spongiform1 c4 ,but it does not show you1 as ,ruskin could--pulling out drawer after drawer of his plush-lined cabinets1 and letting you handle and peer into the dainty things with a lens--what gold1 as ,nature makes it1 actually is4 ,the scientific book never asks why some gold is born in the shape of tiny1 solid1 squarish crystals1 as truly crystals as the uncut diamonds lying beside them1 or the quartz in which they nestle2 or why other samples are spun into hair1 or woven into wisps1 or ravelled into knots of natural gold lace2 or again1 why these have grown into the shape of exquisitely finished moss1 and those into seaweed leaves1 flat and curly1 and powdered with dust of gold crystals1 springing from the rough brown stone1 or semi-transparent spar1 inside of which you can see them like flower-stalks in water4 ,here is quite a new world of wonder and mystery1 and that is the kind of science he puzzled over4 ,some more solid masses1 not water-worn nuggets1 are like a tiny netsuke2 he had a miniature cobra1 chased with its scales--all by the art of ,nature2 and others so like early ,greek coins that one might fancy they had given suggestions to primitive mint-masters1 who like all good artists modelled their work on ,nature4 ,what a happy world1 he used to say1 if all the gold were in its native fronds2 and even for jewellery how much prettier these leaves of gold as it grew1 than anything the manufacturing goldsmith sells you4 ,i have drawn a group of eight such fronds1 arranged as a cross1 the centre piece with two tiny crystals of quartz naturally set into it1 a gift from his collection to a friend1 as an instance of what ,ruskin called a jewel3 and from his own rapid sketch in colour 7over leaf7 is a knot of natural silver wire1 for silver1 too1 has its arborescent filiform shapes4 ,illustration3 ,,gold ,,as ,,it ,,grows 7,,actual ,,size7 ,after gold and silver and diamonds you might think the interest of the mineral-drawers would begin to wane4 ,but no6 we come to richer colours and still more striking forms4 ,this big pebble1 rosy pink1 with hazy streaks inside which catch the light as you turn it about1 and reveal mysterious inner architecture--that is a ruby2 and this also1 a bit of frozen raspberry jam engraved with mystic triangles1 one inside another like a dwarf-wrought seal of a fairy king4 ,then hold up this slab of talc to the light2 the dark patch in it glows like a red lamp with the intense colour of the garnet4 ,lower down the cabinet there are bunches of beryls1 angelica stalks ,queen ,thyri would not have scorned2 or trimmed by ,nature into quaint likeness to those six-sided ,austrian pencils1 point and all3 emeralds in short and snapped-off sticks of mossy green2 pale pink rods of tourmaline2 clippings of a baby's hair1 but crimson1 and so fragile you must not breathe on them--that is ruby copper1 chalcotrichite2 black needles of rutile piercing through and through the solid1 glassy quartz-crystals2 amianthus1 plush on a stone1 tow on a distaff1 waving seaweed in a motionless aquarium of hard spar4 ,why were these dainty things created1 or how did they grow1 hidden away from all possible light for their colours to develop or sight of man to enjoy them1 until mining folk dug them up from their lurking-places8 ,and then there are those which even when found show little of their beauty until they are polished2 agates1 and ,labrador spar1 and malachites1 and fire opals2 what theory of ,nature accounts for this latent loveliness8 he would say2 how little this kind of beauty is known and enjoyed by people who are satisfied with jewellery from the price-list6 ,one of his plans was to form a jewel-museum in which the curator should exhibit1 with lens and leisurely explanations1 such treasures to admiring groups of visitors4 ,the place1 indeed1 was fixed1 at ,keswick2 the curator named4 ,but the curator designate shirked the too responsible honour4 ,illustration3 ,,native ,,silver ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,illustration3 ,,facsimile ,,of ,a ,,page ,,from ,,mineral ,,catalogue ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin 7,,about #ahca7 ,less for pure beauty but still wonderful were all the many forms of chalcedony and kindred minerals toward the end of his entertainment4 ,one is a specimen of hyalite--a sort of ropy1 waxy glass-bubble holding water inside4 ,he would tell how he wanted to know why the water was in it1 and what sort of mysterious liquid was so sealed up and treasured by the powers that be2 so he had it carefully sawn asunder and the sacred ichor collected and analysed4 ,it turned out to be just like ,thames water4 ,the page photographed from one of his earliest writings--the mineral dictionary he made at ten or eleven in a shorthand which1 later on1 he could not read himself--is now in the ,coniston ,museum4 ,it shows his very early interest and diligence1 at the time when he cared nothing for pictures or political economy1 but loved ,nature in all her ways4 ,this page begins his juvenile account of ,galena1 a word which in later days often brought out a smile and a story4 ,for years1 he said1 he was wretched because his great and glorious specimen of this same ,lead ,glance had a flaw in it1 an angular notch1 breaking the dainty exactitude of the big1 black1 shining crystal1 otherwise as regular as the most consummate art could plane and polish it4 ,one day1 with the lens1 he noticed that the form of the notch corresponded with the shape of a crystal of calcite embedded in another specimen4 ,his galena had not been damaged2 it was ,nature's work1 all the more wonderful now2 and life was still worth living4 ,few ,ruskin readers know his papers on ,agates in back numbers of the ,geological ,magazine1 with their fine coloured plates illustrating some of the best in his grand series2 but this was one of his pet studies1 and it was a great regret of his declining age that he had never carried it through4 ,by careful drawing he learned1 as any one must1 far more of the secrets of agate-structure than can be found by merely looking and talking1 and he thought that the usual explanation was quite insufficient2 agates were not made in layers poured one after another into the hollows of the rock1 but by some kind of segregation1 the withdrawal of different materials from a mixed mass4 ,this is not the place to discuss his theory2 but only to note that duplicates of his own set1 in illustration of his papers1 are now in the ,coniston ,museum1 which indeed was founded by his gift of a general mineral collection in #ahhg4 ,illustration3 ,,bit ,,of ,a ,,letter ,,with ,,sketch ,,of ,,snow ,,crystals ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,his ,catalogue of a series of specimens in the ,british ,museum 7,natural ,history7 illustrative of the more common forms of ,native ,silica 7,george ,allen1 #ahhd7 to a certain extent suggests his agate theory4 ,this is well worth looking through when a visit to the ,museum gives the reader an opportunity of comparing these beautiful stones1 many of them presented by ,ruskin1 who also gave the great jewels he called the ,colenso diamond and the ,edwardes ruby 7after his friend ,sir ,herbert ,edwardes1 whose life he wrote in ,a ,knight's ,faith74 ,illustration3 ,,diamond ,,diagram ,,by ,,john ,,ruskin ,another printed catalogue1 running to fifty pages1 was written to expound a collection given to ,st4 ,david's ,school1 ,reigate 7the ,rev4 ,w4 ,h4 ,churchill's1 now at ,stonehouse1 ,broadstairs7 in #ahhc4 ,a third collection1 similarly catalogued1 was given to ,kirkcudbright ,museum1 and others to ,whitelands ,college1 ,chelsea1 and the ,st4 ,george's 7now called the ,ruskin7 ,museum1 ,sheffield4 ,these do not exhaust the list of his gifts1 but serve to show how eager he was to share his interests with boys and girls1 working men and the big public1 who must surely1 he thought1 love these phases of ,nature's beauty when they had opportunity of seeing them4 ,after the illness of #ahgh which set him aside from ,oxford work1 he took to stones of all sorts with ardour4 ,even at ,oxford he had not quite forgotten them3 the lecture called ,the ,iris of the ,earth 7given in ,london1 ,february #ahgf7 is a poetical miscellany of jewel-lore4 ,while he was at work on this at ,oxford he sent the college messenger round with a pressing note for one of his pupils to come at once4 ,i want to know what gules means4 ,run to ,professor ---- and ,professor ---- and find out4 ,the books say it means gueule1 the red of a wild beast's throat1 but that is too nasty4 ,why not gul8 ,i think that is ,persian for rose1 said the pupil4 ,wonderful6 said he2 ,in the gardens of ,gul6 ,of course6 ,and down it went in the lecture4 ,at ,brantwood in the early 'eighties there was a busy time with minerals4 ,he was trying to get deeper into the secret1 and to look up the more scientific side of the question4 ,he even got a microscope1 and his secretary had to make drawings of diamond anatomy1 which ,i am afraid only confirmed him in his distrust of microscopes4 ,he pored over crystallography1 and tried to rub up his mathematics1 only to find that nothing of the sort explained why gold made itself into fronds1 and snow into stars1 and diamonds into marvellous domes built up of shield within shield1 round-sided triangles--not round-sided after all1 but mysteriously straight lines1 simulating curves1 and so blended and harmonised and perfected that a good uncut diamond is perhaps the most bewilderingly beautiful thing in ,nature4 ,here is one of his sketches giving a diagram of the big ,st4 ,george's diamond he bought for ,l#ajjj1 and studied1 and made his secretary study1 for weeks together4 ,it ought perhaps to be said that the diagram represents only one facet1 and that this is magnified fully two diameters2 the diamond is large1 but not so large as all that4 ,i cannot reproduce the best drawing made at the time1 too elaborate in its attempt at transparency and detail2 ,that style of drawing was too utter by far1 he said2 but his diagram may give some hint of the reason why he preached uncut diamonds as well as the jewellery of native gold4 ,he put his theory into practice more than once2 especially in a fine pendant he gave to ,mrs4 ,severn1 who designed the setting4 ,it is about two and three-quarter inches long1 not including the clasp4 ,two large moonstones en cabochon but irregular in outline are set in an arrangement of gold leaves and twigs2 among them are nine spikes of uncut sapphire each about half an inch long1 radiating from the moonstones1 which are joined by two uncut diamonds1 one round and one triangular2 a quantity of small rubies are dotted about the group to give contrast of colour4 ,the effect is most picturesque1 but of course it has not the glitter--the vulgar glitter1 ,ruskin called it--of ordinary jewellery4 ,to see the special charm you have to look close4 ,a much more entertaining and to him satisfactory line of research was in finding illustrations of crystal form and banded structure among the stones of the neighbourhood1 with which his porch became encumbered1 or in sugar and salt and coloured pastry1 or tracing the diffusion of cream in fruit-juice1 which makes a temporary agate4 ,it was more fun for the secretary too1 than working problems in the kitchen after bedtime1 the only chance for a smoke2 and who can tackle geometry of three dimensions without a pipe8 ,if ,ruskin had smoked he might have mastered his ,miller and ,cloiseaux2 but it was better that he should satisfy himself that their ways were not his ways4 ,the poetry of jewel-lore can't be stated in terms of h4 k4 l4 ,those pie-crust experiments were everybody's delight4 ,they are partly told in ,deucalion1 illustrated with drawings by ,laurence ,hilliard1 who became expert at bogus mineralogy on his own account4 ,after displays of nature's wonders and ,ruskin's eloquence1 the visitor at luncheon or tea 7tea was at the dining-room table7 often did not know whether to laugh or look shocked when ,laurie made minerals of bread and jam1 or anything handy1 irresistibly like2 and described them gravely in the very accents of the ,professor1 who found it entirely lovely1 and sometimes even suggestive4 ,he was always looking out for analogies1 and could make bogus minerals too4 ,one day1 showing his jewels to a very young lady1 he brought out of its purple plush nook in the glittering drawer a wonderful specimen1 ropy1 arborescent1 semi-transparent1 lustrous2 descanting the while on stalactitic growth1 chalcedony1 chrysoprase1 hyalite4 ,and what is this called8 she asked4 ,wax1 my dear2 ,i got it at the candle myself4 ,,xii ,,ruskin',s ,,library ,,xii ,,ruskin',s ,,library ,in any strange house1 while you wait for your host or hostess1 how much you gather of their tastes and ways from the books on the table and in the shelves6 ,you cannot help noticing either the presence or the absence of literature1 and you do not need to open the volumes to guess what sort of reading the good people like4 ,well-known bindings and styles of binding betray them at once2 and unless they are abnormally tidy their pet books are sure to be somewhere in the room they use4 ,of course1 one must discount the evidence of a cover which too obviously matches the furniture2 and if you are an author1 and expected to call1 be not too lifted up on spying your own book gracefully displayed4 ,you may assume that working books1 professional tools1 are in the workshop2 and there are few houses without a certain litter of ephemeral printing1 magazines and library volumes1 necessary for intelligent conversation4 ,but if the people read1 you will soon know it1 and learn at a glance much about their tastes and characters4 ,when you know your friends well enough to browse among their books you learn still more4 ,the way they cut their pages1 skipping or plodding2 and if they ever do scribble on the margins1 what they have marked2 and which books are much used1 and which are exiled to top shelves2 and how they are kept--unbound1 or perhaps all too beautifully bound2 these things tell you more than an autobiography would1 more than many years of ordinary acquaintance4 ,ruskin's library was scattered all over his house--and though he has been dead these three years1 and for many years earlier made little use of his books1 the bulk of them still remain pretty much as he left them4 ,at one time1 when he was busy upon literary work1 he was continually buying1 and every corner was heaped with new purchases and old lots weeded out to be given away or sold2 but the net result of his choice and taste1 what he personally cared for and kept1 can be seen by a visitor at ,brantwood--the books for constant use in the study1 and favourite reading in his bedroom1 and the rest dispersed about the place4 ,most of these books ,i remember in just these same places twenty-five years ago1 or more2 so that in taking you into his study ,i am showing you the workshop where he wrote ,oxford ,lectures and ,fors ,clavigera1 and handling the tools he used4 ,art and ,political ,economy were the main subjects of those lectures and letters1 and ,i suppose the public assumes that these were the subjects most interesting to him4 ,whether you are of those who think him great on ,art but astray on ,economics1 or of the later school who have resolved that he never knew anything of ,art1 but had real insight and foresight in matters social and political1 you would expect to find evidences of both--rows of reference volumes1 and all the standard works4 ,but they are not here2 ,art and ,political ,economy are conspicuous by their absence4 ,perhaps you will query my sweeping statement as you take down a volume of ,crowe and ,cavalcaselle from the history bookcase to the right of the fireplace3 but see1 it is only a stray volume6--and open it2 only a few pages are cut1 and those considerably bescribbled with dissent4 ,ought he to have known by heart these authorities on ,italian painting8 ,it might have saved him from an error or two1 and from some useless discussions2 but he knew the pictures themselves1 and his business was not to write handbooks1 but to bring his readers directly into touch with the generalised human view he took of painting4 ,there is1 however1 the ,dictionnaire de l',architecture of ,viollet-le-,duc1 much used in parts1 for he alternately admired the research and quarrelled with the conclusions of the great ,french architect1 whose name he persisted in spelling ,violet4 ,there are some very successful artists whose perspective is always wrong2 and others whose drawing can always be corrected by an art student2 but they can paint pictures6 ,ruskin's work is full of little faults2 de minimis non curat2 but he got at the root of the matter1 mostly1 and he could make you see it4 ,all the tinkering criticism about his mistakes only shows that he thought first-hand1 so to say1 and wrote with a full pen4 ,this bookcase is chiefly made up of ,carlyle1 ,gibbon1 ,alison1 ,milman1 and the old standards1 of course thickly annotated4 ,there are also some volumes of ,mr4 ,w4 ,s4 ,lilly1 but you may open them and find no sign of life2 ,ruskin may have read but he has not marked4 ,there is his old copy of ,lord ,lindsay's ,christian ,art 7#ahdg71 reviewed by him in the ,june ,quarterly of that year4 ,it is stamped with ,mr4 ,murray's compliments1 but that must refer to the previous owner4 ,you see his name in queer cramped pencil ,burgon3 ,oriel1 with ,greek e--,burgon of the ,greek vase1 the ,high ,churchman1 whose dark thin face and bright eyes1 and humorous contempt for all doxies but his own1 make him so well remembered by ,oxford men of the passing generation4 ,there is something odd in ,ruskin's early excursion into primitive ,italian art being1 as it were1 vice ,burgon1 resigned4 ,then there is ,roman ,antiquities1 by ,alexander ,adam1 ,,ll4,d41 #ahai1 doubly ear-marked by ,john ,j4 ,ruskin1 and kept for his father's sake1 and for the sake of his father's old school-master4 ,ruskin1 at all times1 was open to the appeal of associations2 all his judgments about men1 women and things must be corrected by the personal equation1 and without his biography one can never quite rightly appraise his works4 ,the ,bible of ,amiens and some passages in the latest lectures hint that he was really interested in ,anglo-,saxons and ,irish ,saints4 ,there is the ,venerable ,bede1 evidently studied1 and the life of ,st4 ,patrick--you know he was always respectful to the patron of ,ireland--but not a leaf cut6 ,there is ,j4 ,r4 ,green's ,making of ,england1 appreciatively annotated1 and ,sharon ,turner1 much marked and cut down in a reckless way to fit the shelf4 ,a much worse example of this chopping of books is ,westwood's ,miniatures and ,ornaments of ,anglo-,saxon and ,irish ,,mss41 a most valuable folio1 from which ,ruskin has sawn the top edge and ripped out all the best plates4 ,as in the case of his mediaeval missals1 scribbled on the margin by his irreverent pen1 he would say that his books were for use and not for curiosities4 ,these plates were ripped out1 not for wanton mischief or in vulgar carelessness1 but to show to his classes at lectures4 ,the margins were cut1 so that the books might be put away in shelves or cabinets1 clearing the workshop of a busy man1 instead of leaving them about to be mishandled and dog-eared2 for the best of housemaids cannot be expected always to treat the master's litter as if they loved it4 ,none of these volumes are so damaged that a little vamping would not set them right2 though of course they would not be the tall copies prized by bibliomaniacs4 ,but how many of these tall copies are read by their buyers8 ,illustration3 7,miss ,brickhill1 photographer7 ,,ruskin',s ,,swiss ,,figure ,on the other hand he bound some volumes much more sumptuously than they deserved4 ,on this shelf there is a very splendid tome1 lettered on the back ,,swisse ,,histor41 evidently bound abroad1 which on opening you find to be ,gaullieur's ,la ,suisse ,historique1 much used for intended work on ,swiss towns2 and another grand1 thick1 bevelled1 gilded1 crushed-morocco series lettered ,,hephaestus1 which turns out to be ,les ,ouvriers des ,deux ,mondes 7,paris1 #aheg7--the only sample we can find of the ,political ,economy we were looking for4 ,nor is there anything of the sort elsewhere in the room4 ,on the other side of the fireplace is a nest of shelves filling the corner2 you see it in the picture of ,ruskin's study1 above his armchair4 ,these shelves are full of maps and scraps1 presented poems at the top and other gleanings awaiting removal when he should next put his room in order2 old ,baedekers and chess-books lower down1 with the set of chessmen and the little travelling board handy for a game after tea2 and boxes filled with the ,british ,museum reproductions of those bonny ,greek coins1 thick1 rich and bossy1 like nuggets come to life or fossils in metal4 ,over the fire are no books1 but1 as many pictures of the ,brantwood study have shown1 a della ,robbia relief1 replacing the ,turner which once hung there2 and the stuffed kingfisher1 ,cyprus pottery and figurines1 a bit or two of colour in ,japanese enamel and ,broseley lustre1 and in the middle of the mantelpiece the ,swiss girl which we have photographed4 ,it is a brown old wood-carving1 nearly a foot high1 with the vineyard pruning-hook 7now broken away7 and the hotte or creel full of vine-leaves 7they use the word hot for a pannier or creel in the ,cumberland dialect also72 and though the drapery is commonplace--kerchief1 corset and skirt--there is something of the fine school of sculpture about the lines1 not unworthy of a good ,nuremberg bronze4 ,i do not know how or whence this figure came to the family1 but it was old ,mrs4 ,ruskin's before it was brought to ,brantwood1 and here it is1 so to say1 the very centrepiece of the house4 ,when he sat writing at his usual place and looked up1 his eye would light on it first of all1 before rising to the ,florentine ,madonna above or wandering to the ,turners on the wall to the right1 or out of window to the lake and mountains and ,coniston ,old ,hall opposite4 ,what has he not said about the beauty of the peasant-girl in the fields as compared with the proud ideals of classic art8--that the painting we most need is to paint cheeks red with health1 and so on8 ,here was always the reminder of that bedrock principle of his thought4 ,you know how ,george ,borrow describes a writer who used to find his inspiration in a queer portrait over the fireplace8 ,this1 ,i think--though ,i never heard ,ruskin say so1 and perhaps it is rather the symbol than the cause--gives us the keynote of his study and the work that went on in it4 ,the rest of his library represents not so much his professed occupation as what you might call his hobbies4 ,to the left1 within reach of the writing-table1 all is ,botany1 and not very modern botany either4 ,beyond the cases full of ,turners in sliding frames1 and drawers of business papers1 all is ,geology and ,natural ,history1 mostly out of date1 or shall we call it classical8 ,there is ,mineralogy1 old ,jameson1 and ,cloiseaux1 gorgeously bound1 and ,miller1 and perhaps a larger number of the handbook class1 in ,french and ,english1 and of more modern date1 than in any other department4 ,there are his old friends ,forbes and ,phillips on glaciers and geology1 and some more recent three-volume treatises with uncomplimentary scribblings on their margins4 ,there is ,yarrell's ,birds--he never could endure the cuts2 and three sets of ,bewick4 ,one of the most used is ,donovan's ,british ,insects1 eight volumes1 with coloured plates4 ,opposite you find more botany2 the nineteen massive folios of ,florae ,danicae ,descriptio1 the twenty-seven volumes of the old1 old ,botanical ,magazine1 with the beautiful plates of ,sowerby1 the three dozen volumes and index of ,sowerby's ,english ,botany1 the six volumes of ,baxter's ,island ,plants1 the nine volumes of ,lecoq's ,geographie ,botanique1 and so forth2 all showing his purely artistic and unscientific interest in natural history4 ,modern anatomy and evolution were nothing to him2 what he cared about was the beauty of the creatures and the sentiments that clustered round them in mythology and poetry4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,hargreaves1 photographer7 ,,two ,,books ,,of ,,ruskin',s--,a ,,nuremberg ,,chronicle ,,and ,,his ,,pocket ,,horace ,of poetry and belles-lettres he had a great assortment1 as might be expected1 and mostly in volumes interesting for their history1 though not chosen as rare editions4 ,he kept his grandfather's ,burns1 his father's ,byron1 his own college ,aristophanes1 with copious lecture-notes and sketches of the ,poetry of ,architecture in blank spaces4 ,he had ,morris's ,earthly ,paradise1 from his friend the author2 a ,linnaeus that had belonged to ,ray1 the great ,cumbrian botanist2 ,a ,dyaloge of ,syr ,thomas ,more ,knyghte 7#aecj71 with the neat autograph1 ffrancis ,bacons booke1 apparently that of the famous ,lord ,bacon2 and1 of course1 his ,scott manuscripts have been often described by visitors to ,brantwood4 ,one little token of unexpected reverence for a name which hasty readers might think was not to be spoken in ,ruskin's study1 is a tiny duodecimo in yellow silk--,dialogo di ,antonio ,manetti1 about the size1 form1 and measurements of ,dante's ,hell--inscribed apparently by the great artist di ,michelagnol ,buonarroti4 ,greek authors1 and a few translations like ,jowett's ,plato2 ,missals and ,bibles in mediaeval ,greek and ,latin2 a few old printed books--,danthe 7#adia71 and a couple more fourteeners--but only on subjects in which he was interested1 such as heraldry--,randle ,holmes 7#afhh71 and ,guillim 7#afch71 coloured by ,ruskin and much marked2 ,douglas's ,virgil 7#aeec71 ,chapman's ,homer1 the original ,cowley of #affh1 various copies of ,poliphilo1 together with standard poets1 complete what may be called the bric-a-brac of the shelves above the mineral collection4 ,some readers of ,omar ,khayyam may be interested in his dissent to stanza #cd1 and energetic assent to #ba1 #be1 #de and #df1 scored on the margins in the edition of #ahgi2 and some of his artistic readers1 will they be sympathetic or scandalised at his collection of ,rodolph ,toepffer's ,genevese caricatures8 ,there is very little about ,art in all these lines of books3 ,millingen's ,greek ,vases1 and the still greater work of ,lenormant and ,de ,witte are there indeed1 but the only other art books are those of two old friends1 ,prout's ,sketches at ,home and ,abroad1 and ,harding's ,elementary ,art4 ,some of the books he used for special work are in other parts of the house1 and many must have been sold or given away when they were done with4 ,a number of those he gave away are in a case at the ,coniston ,museum1 from which we photograph a fine ,nuremberg ,chronicle side by side with the tiny ,horace he used to carry in his pocket on journeys abroad4 ,in his bedroom he kept a great deal of favourite reading for wakeful nights--,carlyle and ,helps1 ,scott and ,byron1 ,shakespeare and ,spenser1 ,miss ,edgeworth and ,madame de ,genlis1 and the books of his youth1 a most curious collection of dingy antiquity1 with not a few ,french novels3 and elsewhere are the ponderous tomes from which he gleaned4 ,his work was not done without much reference to books2 but1 after all1 it was never compilation4 ,perhaps it is a truism1 but this look round ,ruskin's library gives it some freshness and force--that the writing which makes its mark in the world is not the second-hand1 patchwork sort1 however laborious and however learned4 ,he looked at ,nature1 and wrote down what he saw2 he felt deeply1 and wrote what he felt4 ,,xiii ,,ruskin',s ,,bibles ,,xiii ,,ruskin',s ,,bibles ,ruskin et la bible--who would have expected it8--is the title of a ,french book1 written by a science professor1 and published in ,paris4 ,we all know that his works1 from ,modern ,painters to ,praeterita1 are full of the ,bible4 ,sometimes his allusions and quotations are merely ornamental1 and sometimes his remarks are sharp enough to pain the reader2 for ,ruskin went through many phases of faith1 or1 rather1 through a long period of doubt1 from which he came1 in his later years1 into a new and very simple acceptance of the ,christian hope4 ,but at all times he took the ,bible seriously1 and in many a passage he has made its thoughts and stories live for us with marvellous reality4 ,hear him tell the ,death of ,moses or the ,call of ,peter in those well-known pages of his masterpiece1 or follow him in ,fors through unpalatable deductions from neglected commands1 and you cannot but feel that he was a great preacher1 a man of one book1 and that book was the ,bible4 ,how he was brought up upon it he tells us in his autobiography4 ,in ,coniston ,museum not the least interesting of the ,ruskin relics is the ,bible from which1 as he noted on the fly-leaf1 his mother taught him the paraphrases4 ,turning it over one sees how the parts he has named as especially studied1 ,psalm cxix4 above all1 have been soiled2 for even little ,john ,ruskin1 model of home-bred boys1 was like ,tommy ,grimes the scamp--he couldn't always be good--and continual thumbing embrowns the page4 ,it was his mother to whom he owed this youthful training in a close knowledge of the text1 without note or comment4 ,this was her ,bible in the earlier days4 ,later in life she laid the somewhat worn volume aside for a new one1 a nonpareil ,oxford ,bible with references1 #aheb1 with inscription in her husband's handwriting-- ,,margaret ,,ruskin ,,denmark ,,hill ,,bought ,,at ,,dover #ac ,,may1 #aheh --and a bearded thistle-head is fastened for a memento on the fly-leaf4 ,to the end of her life she read in it every day1 and every day learned two verses by heart2 she has pencilled on the margins the dates in her last two years1 #ahgj and #ahga2 and after the daily reading she always put the volume away in its yellow silk bag with purple strings4 ,this curious habit of dating came out also in her son's old age2 perhaps the modern psychologist will diagnose in it some form of degeneracy1 but in old times dates were important from a lingering respect for astrology1 which is betrayed--most likely unintended--in the precision with which ,john ,ruskin's father noted the exact hour of his birth4 ,it is in a ,baskett ,bible of #agda1 with engraved title-page1 and a pencil drawing1 probably by ,john in his boyhood1 stuck in as a sort of frontispiece--a copy from a picture of ,jesus ,mocked4 ,opposite to it is written3 ,john ,ruskin1 son of ,john ,james ,ruskin and ,margaret ,ruskin1 ,born #h ,february #ahai at #a_/d past #g o'clock ,morning4 ,babtized 7sic7 #bj ,feby #ahai by the ,revd ,mr4 ,boyd--the father1 ,i understand1 of ,a4,k4,h4,b4 ,to emphasise the ,scottish character of the family one may note that this volume has bound up with it at the end ,the ,psalms of ,david in ,meeter1 printed at ,edinburgh1 #agch4 ,it is most curious that ,mr4 ,j4 ,j4 ,ruskin1 a distinctly well-educated man1 should have made the mistake in spelling1 and carried on the old tradition of providing material for the horoscope4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,hargreaves1 photographer7 ,,the ,,bible ,,from ,,which ,,ruskin ,,learnt ,,in ,,childhood1 ,,and ,,his ,,greek ,,ms4 ,,psalter ,another ,baskett ,bible of #agdi1 nicely rebound in old red morocco1 handsomely tooled1 bears the family's earliest register4 ,it is written in a big1 unscholarly hand in the blank space of the last page of ,maccabees2 for this volume contained an ,apocrypha1 and the page becoming worn1 it was stuck down on the cover4 ,john ,ruskin1 ,baptized ,aprill #ith1 #agcb ,o4,s4 7i4e41 #agcc new style71 and then follow the children of this ,john1 with dates and hours of birth1 between #agef and #aggb--,margaret1 ,mary1 ,william1 ,john ,thomas1 ,elizabeth1 ,robert1 and ,james4 ,john ,thomas1 born ,october #bb1 #agfa1 was the father of ,john ,james1 the father of ,john4 ,like many other remarkable men who owed their fame to their powers rather than to their circumstances1 ,ruskin came of a line of decent1 respectable1 bourgeois folk1 who read their ,bibles1 feared ,god1 and took their own part when required4 ,his earliest literary training1 so to say1 was closely connected with ,bible study3 for every ,sunday he had to take notes of the sermon and write out a report of the discourse4 ,one of his childish sermon-books is preserved in the ,coniston ,museum1 and a page is reproduced here to show the care of writing and choice of wording insisted upon4 ,in the stories and verses with which he amused himself1 he learned a good deal of freedom and ease3 in these he learned dignity of style1 a corrective to boyish flippancy4 ,also he got the habit of thinking with his pen1 so that he nearly always scribbled when most people would only meditate4 ,his father's ,bible 7a small pica #hvo1 ,oxford edition of #ahdf1 on the fly-leaf ,margaret ,ruskin to her husband ,john ,james ,ruskin1 #ahej1 finely rebound in tawny leather1 gilt7 was used by him in later times1 and side-lined vigorously2 all the blank spaces are scribbled over with the thoughts that came as he read4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,brickhill1 photographer7 ,a ,,page ,,from ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,sermon-,,books ,,written ,,by ,,ruskin ,,as ,a ,,boy ,there is a grand ,old ,testament in ,greek ,,ms4 ,the back is lettered tenth century1 but ,dr4 ,caspar ,rene ,gregory1 who spent some time in examining the books at ,brantwood1 pointed out that the ,greek date for #adfc could be dimly seen printed off from the lost final leaf4 ,it was bound in vellum in or after #ahag1 to judge from the water-mark in the fly-leaves2 the binding alone is worm-eaten1 leaving the body of the book untouched4 ,the pages1 a little waterstained1 are written large and quaint with the reed pen1 and adorned with strips of painted pattern and ,byzantine portraits of the authors of the books--,solomon as a young king1 ,isaiah and the prophets in varying phases of grey-bearded dignity and elaborate robes of many colours1 rather coarsely but very richly painted4 ,such a book to most would be quite too sacred for anything but occasional turning with careful finger-tips1 or a paper-knife delicately inserted at the outer margin of the leaves2 not to say too crabbed in its contractions and old style calligraphy to be read with ease4 ,but ,ruskin read it1 and annotated as he read4 ,he did the same with the ,greek ,psalter in the ,coniston ,museum1 shown in the illustration on p4 #aig2 he did it still more copiously1 and in ink1 not merely in erasable pencil1 in his most valuable tenth-century ,greek ,gospels1 or rather ,book of ,lessons1 from which we have a page photographed4 ,i am very far from saying that this is a practice to be imitated2 but any one who wishes to follow ,ruskin in his more intimate thoughts on the ,bible1 at the time of crisis in #ahge when he was busy on this book1 and when he was beginning to turn from the agnostic attitude of his middle life to the old-fashioned piety of his age--any one who wants to get at his mind would find it here4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,brickhill1 photographer7 ,,the ,,greek ,,gospels1 ,,with ,,annotations ,,by ,,ruskin ,some of the remarks merely comment on the grammatical forms1 or the contractions1 or the style of writing4 ,where a page is written with a free hand1 evidently to the scribe's enjoyment1 he notes the fact2 and likewise where the scribe found it dull1 and penned perfunctorily4 ,that is quite like him1 to ask how the man felt at his work6 ,but there are many curious hints of questioning1 and then confessions of his doubts about the doubts1 that go to one's heart to read4 ,i have always profound sympathy for ,thomas1 he scribbles4 ,well questioned1 ,jude6 ,this reads like a piece of truth 7,john xviii4 #af74 ,how little one thinks of ,john's being by1 in that scene6 ,the hour being unknown1 as well as unlooked for 7,matt4 xxiv4 #db71 the ,lord comes1 and the servant does not know that ,he has--7and has his portion1 unknowingly874 ,to the cry for ,barabbas 7,matt4 xxvii4 #bj7 he adds1 ,remember6 it was not the mob's fault1 except for acting as a mob2 and to verse #bd 7,pilate washing his hands7--,how any popular electionist or yielding governor can read these passages of ,matthew and not shrivel6 ,on the parable of the vine1 the earlier note to the verse about the withered branch cast into the fire and burned is--,how useless6 and how weak and vain the whole over-fatigued metaphor6 ,but then--,i do not remember when ,i wrote this note1 but the 'over-fatigued metaphor' comes to me to-day1 #hth ,nov4 #ahgg1 in connection with the ,greek3 kathos egapese1 as the most precious and direct help and life4 ,you remember ,john xv4 #i3 ,as the ,father hath loved me1 so have ,i loved you2 continue ye in my love4 ,that word was the help and life he found4 ,illustration3 7,miss ,brickhill1 photographer7 ,,king ,,hakon',s ,,bible ,he used to read his ,latin ,bibles too1 but most of these were collected rather for their artistic value than otherwise4 ,of printed bibles there were few in his library2 one1 a ,latin version in three volumes1 purple morocco1 printed by ,fran4 ,gryphius1 #aeda1 and adorned1 as the title puts it1 with images suitable no less for their beauty than for their truth1 has the cuts resembling ,holbein's work in ,icones ,historiarum ,veteris ,testamenti 7,lyons1 apud ,joannem ,frellonium1 #aedg74 ,but he loved mediaeval illumination1 and owned too many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century ,bibles1 ,psalters1 and ,missals to be described in this chapter4 ,mention may be made of a few1 such as the big fourteenth-century ,latin ,bible1 splendidly written in double columns with stiff ,gothic patterns in red and blue1 and dainty little decorative initials1 each a picture4 ,some of these he used to set his pupils and assistants to enlarge2 and a very difficult job it was to get the curves to ,ruskin's mind4 ,if you made them too circular he would expound the spring of the lines until you felt that you had been guilty of all the vices of the vulgarest architect's draughtsman1 an awful character in the true ,ruskinian's eyes4 ,if you insisted on the infinite and hyperbolic sweep of the contour--and you can't magnify a sixpence into a dinner-plate without some parti pris--then you had the lecture on ,moderation and ,restraint4 ,but ,ruskin was always very good-humoured and patient in these lessons2 in the end a happy mean was found between ,licence and ,formality1 and such works as the ,noah's ,ark--now1 ,i believe1 in the ,sheffield museum--were elaborated4 ,perhaps photography would have been a shorter cut2 but it should have been capital training1 if one had known what use to make of it4 ,then there is a ,versio ,vulgata ,,ms4 of the thirteenth century1 poorly half bound in shabby boards1 with a pencil note--not by ,ruskin1 of course--bot at ,naples #ahbf for #ba_/-4 ,twice or thrice as many pounds would be cheap for it now1 ,i suppose4 ,a pleasant story is told by ,bishop ,nicolson in his diary of the year when ,queen ,anne came to the throne1 of his meeting the famous ,dr4 ,bentley on the ,queen's birthday 7,february #h1 #agjb71 and how the great ,cambridge scholar laughed at the mania for possessing rare editions--a fancy by no means exclusively of these latter days4 ,he ridicul'd ye ,expensive humour of purchaseing old ,editions of ,books at extravagant ,rates2 a ,vanity to wch ye present ,e4 of ,sunderland and ,b7ishop7 of ,n7orwich7 much subject4 ,the former bought a piece of ,cicero's works out of ,dr4 ,fr4 ,bernard's ,auction1 printed about #adhj1 at ye ,rate of #clb4 #bs4 #f;d4 which ,dr4 ,bentley himself had presented to yt physitian1 and wch cost him no more than the odd half ,crown4 ,the ,bishop of ,barrow-in-,furness in editing the diary has tried to trace the subsequent fortune of the book for which ,bentley thought ,l#c #bs4 #f;d4 too high a price4 ,there seem to have been two volumes1 each of which might answer to the description1 sold at the dispersal of the ,blenheim library in #ahha2 and of these one fetched ,l#ed1 and the other ,l#ch1 both prices greatly below their market value at the present time4 ,very like the last mentioned in ,ruskin's collection is his small thirteenth-century ,bible1 with minute double-columned writing1 as tiny as newspaper print1 but perfectly readable1 and lovely to look at4 ,this is an ,english-written book1 with a glossary of names at the end2 it came from the library of the ,hon4 ,archibald ,fraser1 son of the celebrated ,lord ,lovat4 ,another small thirteenth-century ,bible is ,italian work2 a ,german ,,ms4 ,latin prayer-book and psalter dating from about #abbj1 with rich bold pictures and ornament in broad bands of blue and burnished masses of gold1 bound in grey-green velvet1 was a great treasure4 ,his so-called ,st4 ,louis ,psalter and the prayer-book of ,yolande of ,navarre have been often mentioned by him1 but to go into these would take us away from our subject--his ,bibles4 ,illustration3 7,herr ,k4 ,koren1 photographer7 ,,an ,,illuminated ,,page ,,of ,,king ,,hakon',s ,,bible ,the one he prized most is known as ,king ,hakon's ,bible1 from a reference on the fly-leaf to ,king ,hakon ,v4 of ,norway4 ,it is a small volume 7shown in our illustration as standing in front of the embroidered cover in which his ,birthday ,addresses are kept7 with #fac leaves of the thinnest vellum1 measuring no more than #da_/d by #fa_/d inches1 and written in tiny black-letter1 double columned1 every page ornamented2 there are more than eighty delicately painted pictures1 and hundreds of daintily coloured initials1 a perfect treasury of decorative art4 ,the binding is of the sixteenth century1 and thought to be ,english2 boards covered with brown leather1 brass bosses and clasps1 and stamped with panels of griffins in relief1 and the motto repeated between them of ,jhesus help4 ,the book is ,french work of the middle of the thirteenth century1 and the black-letter inscription reads1 ,anno dni4 ,mo4 ,,ccco4 ,xo4 istum librum emit fr4 hanricus prior provicialis a conventu hathersleu4 de dono dni4 regis ,norwegie1 which is to say3 ,in #acaj brother ,henry1 provincial prior1 bought this book from the ,conventus 7whatever that means7 at ,haderslev 7in ,sleswig7 out of the gift of my lord the king of ,norway4 ,it hardly seems as though the king had owned the book1 as ,ruskin believed when he bought it1 but it is not surprising that the keepers of the ,national ,library at ,christiania were disappointed in finding that it had gone into his hands from ,quaritch's catalogue1 just too soon for them2 and that the ,norwegians sent a scholar to report upon it1 ,herr ,kristian ,koren1 and on ,ruskin's death again tried to become possessors1 though ,ruskin's heirs have1 so far1 not seen their way to part with the treasure he so much valued4 ,to ,herr ,koren ,i owe the photograph of one of its pages1 here reproduced4 ,these were all library ,bibles1 kept in his study1 and used there2 but in travelling he had various little testaments which he carried with him1 such as the set shown in the ,ruskin ,exhibition at ,coniston in #aijj4 ,in his bedroom1 for reading on wakeful nights1 he had the ,stereotype ,clarendon ,press ,bible1 ,printed by ,samuel ,collingwood and ,co4 in six volumes1 one being the ,apocrypha1 and this1 like others1 bears marks of much use in notes and pencillings4 ,he had more respect for the ,apocrypha than most ,protestant ,bible-readers4 ,at one time 7#ahha7 he presented several copies of this ,clarendon ,press edition1 bound just like his own1 to a few friends whom he hoped to interest in ,st4 ,george's work1 with the inscription1 ,from the ,master4 ,to the same he gave little squares of the pure gold1 beaten thin1 out of which he meant to strike his ,st4 ,george's coinage1 saying1 ,now you have taken ,st4 ,george's money2 and whether you call yourself one or no1 you are a member of my ,guild4 ,i have caught you with guile6 ,it is rather curious1 and characteristic of his old-fashioned ways1 that he used a bookmarker in his ,bible--a dark blue ribbon1 an inch wide1 sewn to a card1 on which was the text1 ,day by day we magnify ,thee1 written and painted with a fifteenth-century style of ornament4 ,quite at the end1 his eyesight failed him for smaller type1 and ,mrs4 ,severn bought him a larger-typed ,bible1 which he read1 or had read to him1 constantly1 up to his death4 ,the only bit of his writing in it is a note of his sadder moods1 ,the burden of ,london1 ,isaiah xxiv42 ,i suppose he refers to the words1 ,behold1 the ,lord maketh the earth empty 444 ,from the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs1 even glory to the righteous4 ,but ,i said1 ,my leanness1 my leanness1 woe unto me6444 ,those who read ,fors know how little he trusted our imperialistic optimism4 ,such a ,bible-reader1 one might think1 would have collected something in the way of a theological library1 what are called helps to ,bible-reading4 ,but no6 he read neither commentators nor modern critics1 and ,i believe he had no interest in anybody's views about exegesis or analysis4 ,he kept by him a few volumes of reference3 ,smith's ,bible ,dictionary1 ,cruden1 the ,englishman's ,greek ,concordance1 ,sharpe's ,translation of the ,hebrew ,scriptures 7he knew no ,hebrew71 and there were two copies of ,finden's ,landscape ,illustrations of the ,bible1 one for his study and one for his bedroom4 ,but even these few were little used2 to him the plain old text was the book he studied all through his eighty years1 and knew as not many in this generation know it4 ,once in his rooms at ,oxford ,i remember getting into a difficulty about the correct quotation of some passage4 ,haven't you a concordance8 ,i asked4 ,i'm ashamed to say ,i have1 he said4 ,i did not quite understand him4 ,well1 he explained1 you and ,i oughtn't to need ,cruden6 ,,xiv ,,ruskin',s ,,isola ,,xiv ,,ruskin',s ,,isola ,i gave her that name1 he said once1 because she is so unapproachable4 ,when he was a very young man he saw her first in ,rome4 ,he had been sent there for the winter because it was supposed he was going into a consumption4 ,he had certainly been working very hard at ,oxford--not only doing the necessary reading for honours1 which need kill nobody1 but all manner of literature1 art1 antiquities and science into the bargain1 as his manner was2 and he had taken terribly to heart the loss of the pretty ,french girl1 on whom his boyish affections had been set for years4 ,so he was in ,rome as an invalid1 restless and discontented2 and he didn't like ,raphael1 and he didn't like the other things people ought to like4 ,it must have been a difficult time for his parents2 but then one can't expect to bring up a genius without a certain amount of trouble4 ,in a while he took a turn1 and condescended to go with them to musical services4 ,they were energetic anti-,romanists2 but they went to ,st4 ,peter's to see the show1 and to hear the singing4 ,they thought he was beginning to develop an interest in music4 ,but it was just the old story4 ,there was a beautiful ,miss ,tollemache in ,rome that winter2 a fair ,english girl1 he says1 who was not only the admitted ,queen of beauty in the ,english circle of that winter in ,rome1 but was so1 in the kind of beauty which ,i had only hitherto dreamed of as possible1 but never yet seen living2 statuesque severity with womanly sweetness joined4 ,i don't think ,i ever succeeded in getting nearer than within fifty yards of her2 but she was the light and solace of all the ,roman winter to me1 in the mere chance glimpses of her far away1 and the hope of them4 ,it was very like ,ruskin1 and it says very much for the reality of the romantic ideal he preached1 that a few glimpses of a far-away beauty1 whom he had neither the chance nor the intention of approaching1 should have made a man of him1 out of a pining1 love-sick boy4 ,open-air sketching helped him out of his consumption1 or whatever the disease was2 but the moral stimulus and reawakening of healthy imagination and power to work were given him by this pure enthusiasm for a beautiful face1 fifty yards away4 ,illustration3 ,,lady ,,mount ,,temple1 ,,when ,,mrs4 ,,cowper-,,temple1 ,,under ,,the ,,beech-,,trees ,,at ,a ,,broadlands ,,conference ,,from ,a ,,painting ,,by ,,edward ,,clifford ,,about #ahgf ,he never saw her again for about ten years1 not until she was a wedded wife4 ,she had married a younger son of ,earl ,cowper and his wife1 daughter of ,lord and ,lady ,melbourne1 and by second marriage wife of ,lord ,palmerston4 ,the ,hon4 ,william ,cowper was one of the most shining examples of the type--one does not see much about it in newspapers or histories1 but private memoirs describe it in all ages1 and no doubt it exists even in this--the type of good men in great positions1 men who are in the world and very actively engaged in it1 but quite unspotted4 ,he began life as aide-de-camp to the ,lord-,lieutenant of ,ireland in #ahcj1 and went into ,parliament in #ahce2 he was a ,lord of the ,treasury in #ahde1 then a ,lord of the ,admiralty1 then ,president of the ,board of ,health1 ,vice-,president of the ,board of ,trade1 ,paymaster-,general1 ,chief ,commissioner of ,works1 ,vice-,president of the ,education ,department of the ,privy ,council1 ,chairman of ,mr4 ,fawcett's ,committee on the ,enclosure ,acts2 it was he who saved ,epping ,forest in #ahga1 and was prime mover in the preservation of open spaces and in granting allotments to the poor2 he passed the ,medical ,bill in #aheh1 the ,thames ,embankment ,bill in #ahfb-c1 and the ,courts of ,justice ,building ,bill in #ahfc2 the ,cowper-,temple ,clause1 to secure the reading of the ,bible in ,board ,schools1 was his2 he was the great reconstructor of the ,london ,parks and inventor of the scheme for distributing the ,park flowers to hospitals1 work-houses and schools4 ,it would be long to tell how he made politics philanthropic and brought art into the public service4 ,after #de years in ,parliament he was raised to the peerage as ,lord ,mount ,temple1 and died in #ahhh4 ,all these things are known1 or knowable1 to the public2 but what is more to the point1 ,histories of ,our ,own ,times don't tell us3 how the lively ,eton boy1 always in scrapes1 occasionally flogged1 had according to ,gladstone's reminiscence the stamp of purity1 modesty1 gentleness upon him in a peculiar degree3 how the dandy officer in the ,blues wanted to go into the ,church as a means of escaping1 he wrote1 the imminent dominion of the sins which it seemed so difficult to avoid3 how the busy ,m4,p4 and official1 ,palmerston's step-son and favourite1 kept through all distractions a perfectly holy and saintly life1 a sense of nearness to ,god and devotion to ,his will1 that should put much professional piety to shame4 ,for instance1 in his diary he noted ,queen ,victoria's coronation1 which1 of course1 he had attended--he had dined with the ,queen a couple of days before--and continued1 ,the main object to be pursued in life is communion with ,god4 ,it is a good method of testing any way of spending my time to ask1 does it render me more ready for communion with ,god8 ,at twenty-seven he had long known all that evangelical piety at its best can teach2 and he always kept the faith4 ,ten years later1 his young wife--the ,miss ,tollemache of ,ruskin's admiration1 and the ,lady ,mount ,temple laid in #aija to rest by her husband's side--asked him1 at a large party at the ,palmerston's1 what interested him most4 ,oh1 nothing1 he answered1 compares in interest with communion with my ,master1 and work for ,him4 ,this1 she added1 in her privately printed volume of ,memorials1 this was the spirit of his life1 through all the blessed years ,i lived with him4 ,so after a long interval during which ,ruskin had become a famous writer1 and the girl at ,rome had become the true helpmate of such a man1 they met once more4 ,it is rather curious to compare their two separate accounts of the meeting4 ,the lady says1 referring to the earlier part of her married life1 in the 'fifties and 'sixties1 ,another great delight to us at this time was going up occasionally to ,denmark ,hill for a happy day with ,mr4 ,ruskin4 ,it seems that1 quite unknown to myself1 he had noticed me when we were in ,rome together in #ahdj6 ,i was then eighteen4 ,it was rather humiliating that when we met again1 after about ten years1 he did not recognise me4 ,we became great friends3 ,i was fond of his cousin ,joan--,mrs4 ,arthur ,severn4 ,ruskin's way of putting it was rather different1 and the mere man doesn't quite see where the humiliation comes in4 ,he hated going to parties1 he says2 but one evening was introduced to a lady who was too pretty to be looked at and yet keep one's wits about one--that is very characteristic of him3 so he talked a little with his eyes on the ground4 ,presently1 in some reference to ,raphael or ,michael ,angelo1 or the musical glasses1 the word ',rome' occurred2 and a minute afterwards1 something about ,christmas in #ahdj4 ,i looked up with a start2 and saw that the face was oval--fair--the hair1 light brown4 ,after a pause ,i was rude enough to repeat her words1 ',christmas in #ahdj6--were you in ,rome then8' ',yes1' she said1 a little surprised1 and now meeting my eyes with hers1 inquiringly4 ,another tenth of a minute passed before ,i spoke again4 ',why1 ,i lost all that winter in ,rome in hunting you6' ,it was ,egeria herself6 then ,mrs4 ,cowper-,temple4 ,she was not angry2 and became from that time forward a tutelary power1 of the brightest and happiest4 ,egeria always had her own way everywhere1 thought that ,i also should have mine1 and generally got it for me4 ,illustration3 7,f4 ,hollyer1 photographer1 #i ,pembroke ,square1 ,w47 ,,lady ,,mount ,,temple ,,from ,a ,,chalk ,,drawing ,,by ,g4 ,f4 ,,watts1 ,r4,a41 #ahid ,illustration3 ,,lady ,,mount ,,temple ,,from ,a ,,photograph ,,taken ,,in #ahhf ,,by ,,rose ,,durrant ,,and ,,son1 ,,torquay ,by the kindness of ,mrs4 ,arthur ,severn ,i have by me the long series of ,ruskin's letters to ,lord and ,lady ,mount ,temple4 ,to any one who knew the people and circumstances touched upon1 they would be most interesting2 delightfully amusing for the most part1 but sometimes intensely painful1 where the fiery genius poured out his woes and disappointments1 public and private1 into their kindly ears4 ,she was his confidant in all that unhappy love-story which ended so tragically for his later life3 she was his sympathetic adviser in much of his work4 ,mr4 ,cowper-,temple1 too1 was a kindly and helpful friend4 ,in the early days he introduced ,ruskin to ,palmerston1 and smoothed the way for various plans connected with the ,national ,gallery and public art-works1 many of which owed their promotion to ,ruskin in the first instance4 ,i cannot trace his direct influence in the philanthropic labours of ,mr4 ,cowper-,temple and the politicians of his circle2 but ,ruskin was personally admired and loved by many of them1 and certainly had an indirect share in much that was done for the help of the people4 ,when he attempted to found his ,guild of ,st4 ,george1 ,mr4 ,cowper-,temple was one of the ,trustees2 not with great faith in the scheme1 but with much affection for the schemer4 ,illustration3 ,,lady ,,mount ,,temple ,,from ,a ,,photograph ,,taken ,,in #ahhi ,,by ,,rose ,,durrant ,,and ,,son1 ,,torquay ,after some years of ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,cowper the acquaintance warmed into a closer friendship4 ,they became ,ruskin's ,greek3 phile1 for he always nicknamed his intimates1 and often so whimsically that his letters are quite ludicrously unprintable4 ,to them he was ,st4 ,c4--,saint ,chrysostom1 the golden-mouthed2 and sometimes1 he liked to think1 ,st4 ,christopher4 ,when he was very ill at ,matlock in #ahga ,mrs4 ,cowper-,temple came to nurse him1 and from that time he was her ,loving little boy1 and his friends were his ,dearest ,mama and ,dear ,papa4 ,his view of life was that he grew younger as the years went on--and so from being ,dearest ,mama she became ,darling ,grannie1 and he signed ,ever your poor1 grateful little boy4 ,it is perhaps all very absurd2 but one certainly does not understand ,ruskin without knowing this queer side of his character1 part sentimental1 part grotesque1 which creeps out even in his most serious writing1 and makes it so impossible to take his every word for gospel message4 ,but very often he wrote to her and of her as ,isola--the island--,isola ,bella standing alone and unapproachable by all ordinary roads1 and yet open on all sides to the waifs of the waves1 claiming haven and rest in her sympathy4 ,here is the whole of a little note written in a dark time in his later years3 ,is there no ,isola indeed1 where we can find refuge--and give it8 ,i have never yet been so hopeless of doing anything more in this wide-wasting and wasted earth1 unless--we seize and fortify with love--a new ,atlantis4 ,ever your devoted ,st4 ,c4 ,there are very few bits in the letters of general interest4 ,of somebody's sketches sent for him to look at he wrote3 ,alas1 there's no genius in these drawings4 ,genius never exists without intense industry4 ,industry is not genius1 but is the vital element of it4 ,in ,bible reading--,i noticed1 curiously for the first time1 two most important mistranslations4 ,fancy never having noticed before that ',sufficient unto the day is its evil1' ought to be ',let the day's evil suffice for it4' ,and 'chasteneth' ought in several cases to be merely 'bringeth up1 teacheth6' ,here is what he urged upon his friends in all seriousness1 and most strangely if you think who the friends were3 ,you are compromising somehow between ,god and ,satan1 and therefore don't see your way4 ,satan appears to you as an angel of the most exquisite light--,i can see that well enough2 but how many real angels he has got himself mixed up with ,i don't know4 ,however1 for the three and fortieth time--in ,ireland or ,england or ,france1 or under the ,ara coeli perhaps best of all1 take an acre of ground1 make it lovely1 give what food comes of it to people who need it--and take no rent of it yourselves4 ',but that strikes at the very foundations of ,society8' ,it does2 and therefore1 do it4 ,for the ,foundations of ,society are rotten with every imaginable plague1 and must be struck at and swept away1 and others built in ,christ1 instead of on the back of the ,leviathan of the ,northern ,foam4 ,ever your affectionate ,st4 ,c4--not the ,professor4 ,it was to ,lady ,mount ,temple he wrote the pretty letter telling her to arrange her party just as if ,christ were coming to dinner--it is printed in ,fors ,clavigera--,i suppose ,him to have just sent ,gabriel to tell you ,he's coming1 but that you're not to make any alterations in your company on ,his account4 ,perhaps she hardly needed a ,ruskin to tell her that3 but she kept the letter1 and did what it bade4 ,those who know anything about the ,broadlands ,conferences1 those remarkable meetings of men and women in all ranks and of every shade of religious belief1 come together for the deepening of spiritual life1 know what singular influence was wielded by ,lady ,mount ,temple1 and how far-reaching that influence has become4 ,ruskin used sometimes to visit at ,broadlands4 ,one winter he spent several weeks there1 and ,lady ,mount ,temple says in the volume already quoted3 ,we found him1 as always1 most delightful and instructive company2 his talk full and brilliant1 and his kindness increasing to all the house1 giving a halo to life4 ,he set us all to manual work6 ,he himself undertook to clean out the fountain in the garden1 and made us all1 from ,juliet 7,madame ,deschamps1 ,lady ,mount ,temple's adopted daughter7 to ,mr4 ,russell ,gurney1 pick up the fallen wood and make it up into bundles of faggots for the poor6 ,his friends also came to see him at ,brantwood4 ,mrs4 ,arthur ,severn has a lively story of an excursion with them to the ,monk ,coniston ,tarn1 a pretty bit of water on the hills1 with a fine panorama of mountains all round1 the show-place of ,coniston4 ,it was a foggy morning1 but he hoped it would clear2 and they drove up through the woods in expectation1 but it was still foggy4 ,they got out of the carriage and walked to the finest point of view2 still the fog would not lift4 ,then ,ruskin waved his hand and pointed to the scene they ought to see2 and in his best eloquence1 and with growing warmth described the lakelet embosomed in its woods and moors1 ,helvellyn and the ,pikes1 ,bow ,fell and ,wetherlam1 and the ,coniston ,old ,man4 ,for a moment it seemed as if the whole was before their eyes2 and then they burst out laughing4 ,after all1 said ,lady ,mount ,temple1 is not this the best treat we could have8 ,and to me1 said ,ruskin1 with his old-fashioned courtliness1 what view could be so entirely delightful8 ,,index ,agates1 ,ruskin's theory of1 #agc ,aix-les-,bains1 #gh ,alessandri1 ,a41 #ajc ,alexander1 ,mrs4 and ,miss ,francesca1 #ajb1 #ajc1 #adf ,animals1 ,ruskin's love of1 #gd ,annecy1 #gd-gh ,apocrypha1 #baj ,arnold1 ,sir ,edwin1 #cb ,art-study under ,ruskin1 #d1 #g1 #aaa1 #bje ,atkinson1 ,mr41 #acf ,autographs of ,ruskin1 #ace1 #ade owned by him1 #ahc1 #ahi1 #aij ,avallon1 #dh-ea ,barrow-in-,furness1 ,bishop of1 #bjf ,barrow1 ,mont41 #bd ,bateman1 the ,misses1 #aef ,baxter1 ,mr41 #fe1 #ic1 #ig ,bell1 ,william1 ,j4,p41 #bc1 #bd ,beever1 ,john1 #bc ,miss ,susanna1 #gj ,bible of ,amiens1 #di1 #ea1 #aca ,bible-reading of ,ruskin1 #fi1 #gj1 #aie1 #bjb1 #baj1 #bbe ,bibliotheca ,pastorum1 #h ,bibliomania under ,queen ,anne1 #bjf ,boating experiences of ,ruskin1 #af1 #ah1 #bf ,boni1 ,signor ,g41 #ajc ,boyd1 ,rev4 ,mr41 #aif ,brabazon1 ,mr41 #aca ,brantwood gardens1 #ca1 #cb1 #cf1 #dc1 #dd harbour1 #i1 #ag library1 #ahb-aij1 #aif-baj moor1 #aj1 #dj woods1 #cb-ci ,brayshay1 ,mr4 ,w4 ,hutton1 #af ,bronzino's ,judith1 #ajb ,bunney1 ,j4 ,w41 #ej1 #aja1 #abi ,burne-,jones1 ,sir ,edward1 #aef ,calais1 #dg ,casts from natural leaves1 #acf sculpture1 #ih ,chair1 ,ruskin's1 #c1 #d ,chalons1 #dh ,champagnole1 #eb ,chesneau1 ,ernest1 #afb ,christy ,minstrels1 #aef ,churchill1 ,mrs4 ,w4 ,h41 #ag ,rev4 ,w4 ,h41 #age ,citeaux1 #ea ,claribel1 #aef ,cluses1 #ff ,col de la ,faucille1 #ei ,colouring of ,ruskin's drawings1 #ajh1 #abb1 #abe1 #abf ,coniston ,hall1 #ba1 #bc1 #bd ,coniston ,ruskin ,exhibitions1 #aca1 #acb ,museum1 #c1 #aj1 #be1 #aca1 #acf1 #agd1 #aie1 #aih1 #bja ,cook1 ,mr4 ,e4 ,t41 #acj ,cooke1 ,mr4 ,e41 #acf ,cowper-,temple1 ,mr4 and ,mrs41 #baf-bbe ,creswick1 ,prof4 ,b41 #aei ,crystallography1 #gg1 #agf ,cunliffe1 ,mrs41 #acj ,dalby1 ,charles1 #bf ,deschamps1 ,madame1 #bbf ,deucalion1 #agg ,diamonds1 #agd-agf ,digging1 #i ,dijon1 #ea ,dog stories1 #gd ,dole1 ,mt41 #ei ,drawings by ,ruskin1 #dg1 #di1 #ej1 #hb1 #ic1 #ajb1 #aba-acb ,engineering1 ,ruskin's turn for1 #dc ,exhibitions of ,ruskin's drawings1 #acj-acb ,fielding1 ,copley1 #abb1 #abd ,fiesole and ,florence1 #ajb ,froude1 ,j4 ,a41 #bf ,gale1 ,miss1 #bd ,galena1 story of ,ruskin's1 #agc ,gardens1 #ca1 #cb1 #dc1 #dd ,geneva1 #fj1 #ha ,geological ,magazine1 ,ruskin's papers1 #agc ,geology1 ,ruskin's interest in1 #aj1 #ej1 #fj1 #ff1 #ig1 #aaa1 #aaf ,globe of the stars1 #aj ,gold as it grows1 #afh ,gorge of the ,ain1 #eb ,fier1 #gg ,granite of central ,france1 #ej1 #ea ,gregory1 ,dr4 ,c4 ,r41 #aih ,guinigi of ,lucca1 #ij1 #ic ,gules and gul1 #agf ,hakon's ,bible1 #bjf-bji ,halle1 ,charles1 #aee ,hand of ,ruskin1 #acf ,handwriting1 development of ,ruskin's1 #ach-ade ,harbours of ,england1 #af ,harding1 ,j4 ,d41 #abg1 #aij ,herdson1 ,dawson1 #aaf ,hilliard1 ,laurence ,j41 #ae1 #bb1 #bf1 #aja1 #agg ,miss ,c41 #ag ,miss1 #acj ,hinksey1 #i ,history in graphic statistics1 #aah ,hortus ,inclusus1 #bc1 #gj1 #aca ,hullah1 ,john1 #aef ,hunt1 ,alfred ,w41 #g ,ilaria del ,carretto1 #hi-ic1 #ih ,iris of the ,earth1 #age ,isola1 #bae1 #bbe ,journals of ,ruskin1 #fe1 #abc quoted1 #ej1 #fi1 #gj1 #gc1 #gd1 #gh1 #hb1 #he1 #hf1 #aja1 #ajb ,jumping ,jenny1 #ae1 #bc-bf ,jura ,mts41 #eb-ei ,juvenile works of ,ruskin1 #ach1 #ada ,keswick1 intended jewel-museum #agj ,kirkcudbright1 ,ruskin's gift of minerals1 #age ,koren1 ,herr ,kristian1 #bji ,lake-district boats1 #ba ,laon1 #dg1 #dh ,lebrun1 ,madame ,vigee1 #fb ,les ,rousses1 #eb1 #ee ,liberty1 ,ruskin on1 #eb ,limestone country1 #ea1 #eb ,love's ,meinie1 #aj1 #aah ,lucca1 #hf-aja ,macdonald1 ,miss1 #afb ,manuscripts of ,ruskin1 #ace owned by him1 #ahi1 #aih-bji ,map-drawings by ,ruskin1 #ajh-aah ,maps used by him1 #aae1 #aaf ,maundrell1 ,mr41 #di ,mephistopheles coachman and dog ,tom1 #gc1 #gd ,minerals1 ,ruskin's interest in1 #he1 #afg-agh ,model of ,brantwood moor1 #aj ,coniston fells1 #aaf feathers1 #aj ,jumping ,jenny1 #bc1 #be ,south-coast boats1 #bf ,modern ,painters1 #bf1 #ff1 #abd1 #abf1 #abh1 #abi1 #ace1 #add1 #ade ,monk-,coniston tarns1 #bbg ,monnetier1 #fj ,mont ,blanc1 #ei1 #fi1 #gj ,montreal1 #ej ,moorland garden1 #dj-dd ,mornex1 #fj1 #fa ,morris1 ,william1 #aah1 #ahi ,mount ,temple1 ,lord and ,lady1 #baf-bbg ,munera ,pulveris1 #fj ,murray1 ,mr4 ,c4 ,f41 #ajc ,music1 compositions of ,ruskin1 #aei-afd lessons1 #aea-aee preferences of ,ruskin1 #aee1 #aef1 #aei ,nant d',arpenaz1 #fi1 #gj1 #gc ,natural history1 ,ruskin's interest1 #aj 7,and see ,geology1 c47 ,newman1 ,mr4 ,h4 ,r41 #ih1 #ajb1 #ajc ,nicknames of ,ruskin and his friends1 #bbd1 #bbe ,norton1 ,prof4 ,c4 ,e41 #fi1 #aba1 #abh ,notes on the ,turner ,exhibition1 #ajh ,oil-painting1 ,ruskin's attempts1 #abb ,omar ,khayyam1 ,ruskin on1 #aij ,our ,fathers ,have ,told ,us1 #ea1 #aah ,oxford ,drawing-school1 #d1 #g ,palmerston1 ,lord1 #baf1 #bbc ,paris1 #ha ,pedigree of ,ruskin1 contributions to1 #af1 #aif1 #aig ,pisa1 #gg1 #hf1 #ig1 #ajc1 #ajd ,plague-wind1 #ef1 #gc1 #gd ,poems of ,john ,ruskin1 #abc1 #abd1 #abg ,poetry of ,architecture1 #abd1 #abi1 #add ,praeterita1 #ea1 #ee1 #ei1 #gj1 #hb ,print-style writing1 #acg1 #ach ,prout1 ,samuel1 #abc1 #aij ,quercia1 ,jacopo della1 #ij ,railways1 ,ruskin on1 #ff1 #gh ,randal1 ,mr4 ,f41 #di1 #ajc ,reading aloud1 #ae ,redgauntlet1 #ae1 #aei ,reims1 #dh ,religion of ,ruskin1 #ea1 #fi1 #aie1 #bjb1 #baj1 #bbf ,reservoirs at ,brantwood1 #dc ,restoration of churches1 #ej ,rhone at ,geneva1 #fj ,richmond1 ,george1 #c ,roadside ,songs of ,tuscany1 #ajb ,roberts1 ,david1 #abe ,mr41 #aee ,robson1 ,mr4 ,e4 ,r41 #ajc ,rooke1 ,mr4 ,t4 ,m41 #ajc ,rowing1 ,ruskin on1 #ah ,royal ,academy1 ,ruskin exhibit1 #aca ,ruskin expelled1 #acb ,runciman1 ,mr41 #abb ,ruskin et la ,bible 7by ,h4 ,j4 ,brunhes71 #aie ,ruskin1 ,j4 ,j41 #abb1 #ada1 #adb1 #ahc1 #aif-aih ,mrs4 7,john ,ruskin's mother71 #adb1 #add1 #aee1 #ahg1 #aif1 #aih ,sailor ancestors of ,ruskin1 #af ,st4 ,benedict1 #ff1 #gc1 #ha ,st4 ,bernard of ,menthon1 #ha ,st4 ,bernard's birthplace1 #ea ,st4 ,cergues1 #ee-ei ,st4 ,george's ,guild and work1 #h1 #di1 #ff1 #gc1 #ajb1 #ajc1 #baj1 #bbc4 7,and see ,sheffield ,ruskin ,museum7 ,st4 ,martin1 ,sallenches1 #gj ,saleve1 #fj ,sallenches1 #ff-gc ,sea-studies of ,ruskin1 #af1 #bf ,sens1 #dh ,sermons reported by ,ruskin1 #aih ,sesame and ,lilies1 #di ,seven ,lamps of ,architecture1 #ea1 #abg1 #abi ,severn1 ,mr4 ,arthur1 #ag1 #aca ,mrs4 ,arthur1 #ag1 #cb1 #di1 #ff1 #adf1 #aee1 #aef1 #agf1 #baj1 #bbj1 #bbc1 #bbg ,sheffield ,ruskin ,museum1 #ih1 #aja1 #ajc1 #age1 #bje ,shorthand notes by ,ruskin1 #adc ,smoke-plague1 #ef1 #gd1 #gg ,snail 7sailboat71 #bf1 #bg ,stones of ,venice1 #abd1 #abg1 #abh1 #ade ,storm-cloud of the ,nineteenth ,century1 #ee1 #fi ,studies in ,both ,arts1 #abd ,swiss statuette1 #ahg ,swiss towns1 intended history1 #abh ,taglioni and ,ruskin1 #adb ,talloires1 #gg-ha ,to-day1 ,ruskin's motto1 #gg ,tollemache1 ,miss1 #bae ,translation1 ,ruskin's method1 #h ,troyes1 #dh ,turin1 #he ,turner and the sea1 #af ,coteau scenery1 #dh ,pass of ,faido1 #abg ,riviera subject1 #he ,sun of ,venice1 #acb ,ugolino's mountain1 #ig ,vandyck's enjoyment in painting1 #he ,verona and other ,lectures1 #ea1 #abd ,verses by ,ruskin1 #bd1 #afd ,vezelay1 #ej ,viking ship1 #bf ,viollet-le-,duc1 #ej1 #ahc ,wakefield1 ,miss1 #aea1 #aef ,ward1 ,mr4 ,w41 #abi ,wedderburn1 ,mr4 ,a41 ,k4,c41 #h ,west1 ,mr4 ,g4 ,f41 #aeb ,whitelands ,college1 #age ,wine1 ,ruskin on1 #fa ,writing from maps and sketches1 #aab1 #aae1 #acb ,xenophon's ,economist1 #h ,,transcriber',s ,,note ,italic text is denoted by underscores4 ,superscripts are denoted by eg #h;h4 ,obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources4 ,except for those changes noted below1 misspelling by the author1 inconsistent or archaic usage1 has been retained4 ,for example1 arm-chair1 arm chair1 armchair2 boathouse1 boat-house2 well known1 well-known4 p4 vii ',ruskin's ,isola' changed to ',ruskin's ,isola'4 p4 ix '#aji' changed to '#ajh'4 p4 ix '#aaj' changed to '#aji'4 p4 x '#aef' changed to '#aeg'4 p4 x '#bbj' changed to '#bba'4 p4 #age ',kircudbright' changed to ',kirkcudbright'4 p4 #aig 'writted' changed to 'written'4 p4 #bja 'erasible' changed to 'erasable'4 ,index3 ',omar-,khayyam' changed to ',omar ,khayyam'4 ,index3 ',rhone' changed to ',rhone'4