Chapter 12

[141]Mr. Street’s design for the New Law Courts was, after much discussion, selected, May 30, 1868, and approved by commission, August, 1870. The building was not, however, begun till February, 1874, and the hope expressed in this letter is therefore, unfortunately, no expression of opinion on the work itself.[142]Denmark Hill.[143]See “Arabian Windows in the Campo Santa Maria, Mater Domini,” Plate ii. of the “Examples of the Architecture of Venice,” selected and drawn to measurement from the edifice, 1851. And see, too, “Stones of Venice,” vol. ii., chap, vii., Gothic Palaces.[144]This letter was originally received by “a Liverpool gentleman,” and sent inclosed in a long letter signed “An Antiquarian,” to theLiverpool Daily Post.[145]An obvious misprint for “stone-layers.”[146]Ribbesford Church was finally closed after the morning service on Sunday, July 15, 1877. It was then restored, and was reopened and reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. TheKidderminster Timesof the 21st inst. contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners to consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this letter to “copying” the traceries.[147]This circular, which was distributed as above noted during the winter of 1879-80, is here reprinted by Mr. Ruskin’s permission, in connection with the preceding letters upon restoration in architecture. See the Notes on Prout and Hunt, 1879-80, p. 71.[148]In February, 1878; see the “Turner Notes” of that year, and “Fors Clavigera,” New Series—Letter the Fourth, March, 1880.[149]Count Alvise Piero Zorzi, the author of an admirable and authoritative essay on the restoration of St. Mark’s (Venice, 1877).[150]This drawing (No. 28 in the Exhibition) was of a small portion of the west front.[151]“Stones of Venice,” vol. ii., chapter 4, of original edition, and vol. i., chapter 4, of the smaller edition for the use of travellers.[152]In the first edition of this circular this sentence ran as follows: “In the mean time, with the aid of the drawing just referred to, every touch of it from the building, and left, as the color dried in the morning light of the 10th May, 1877, some of the points chiefly insisted on in the ‘Stones of Venice,’ are of importance now.”[153]Printed “Pan-choreion” in the first edition.[154]For “state,” the first edition reads “mind,” and for “have become, in some measure, able,” it has “have qualified myself.” So again for “am at this moment aided,” it reads “am asked, and enabled to do so.”[155]Early in 1879[156]Printed in the second edition only.[157]The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to the Notes, which runs as follows: “Athena, observe, of the Agora, or MarketPlace. And St. James of the Deep Stream orMarket River. The Angels of Honest Sale and Honest Porterage; such honest porterage being the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and of all other canals, rivers, sounds, and seas that ever moved in wavering morris under the night. And the eternally electric light of the embankment of that Rialto stream was shed upon it by the Cross—know you that for certain, you dwellers by high-embanked and steamer-burdened Thames. And learn from your poor wandering painter this lesson—for the sum of the best he had to give you (it is the Alpha of the Laws of true human life)—that no city is prosperous in the sight of Heaven, unless the peasant sells in its market—adding this lesson of Gentile Bellini’s for the Omega, that no city is ever righteous in the Sight of Heaven unless the Noble walks in its street.”—Notes on Prout and Hunt, p. 44.[158]See the “Notes on Prout and Hunt,” p. 78.[159]See theStandard(Dec. 3, 1879). M. Meduna was the architect who carried out the “restoration” of the South façade of the Cathedral.[160]TheReaderof October 15 contained an article “On the Conformation of the Alps,” to which in the following issue of the journal (October 22) Sir Roderick Murchison replied in a letter dated “Torquay, 16th October,” and entitled “On the Excavation of Lake Basins in solid rocks by Glaciers,” the possibility of which he altogether denied.[161]“On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy,” delivered on June 5, 1863. The subject was treated under three heads. 1. The material of the Savoy Alps. 2. The mode of their formation. 3. The mode of their subsequent sculpture. (See the report of the lecture in the “Proceedings of the Royal Institution,” 1863, vol. iv., p. 142. It was also printed by the Institution in a separate form, p. 4.)[162]In reply to this letter, theReaderof November 19, 1864, published one from a Scottish correspondent, signed “Tain Caimbeul,” the writer of which declared that, whilst he looked on Mr. Ruskin “as a thoroughly reliable guide in all that relates to the external aspects of the Alps,” he could not “accept his leadership in questions of political economy or the mechanics of glacier motion.”[163]See below, “Forbes: his real greatness,” pp. 187seqq., and the references given in the notes there.[164]Even in lower Apennine, “Dat sonitum saxis, et torto vertice torrens.”{*}{*} Virgil, Æneid, vii. 567.[165]See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 93.[166]There twice a day the Severn fills;The salt sea-water passes by,And hushes half the babbling Wye,And makes a silence in the hills.Tennyson, “In Memoriam,” xix.[167]See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 3 (Introduction).[168]Following this letter in the same number of theReaderwas one from the well-known geologist Mr. Joseph Beete Jukes, F.R.S., who, writing from “Selly Oak, Birmingham, Nov. 22,” described himself as “the originator of the discussion.” He therefore was no doubt the author of the article in theReaderalluded to above (p. 173, note). Mr. Jukes died in 1869.[169]The following is the sentence from Mr. Jukes’ letter alluded to: “Therefore when Mr. Ruskin says that ‘the forms of the Alps are quite visibly owing to the action of elevatory, contractile, and expansive forces,’ I would entreat him to listen to those who have had their vision corrected by the laborious use of chain and theodolite and protractor for many toilsome years over similar forms.”[170]The Battle of Sempach (?). See the letters on “The Italian Question,” at the beginning of the second volume.[171]To the effect that “the form of the ground is the result wholly of denudation.” For the “scheme,” consisting of ten articles, see the note 172 below.[172]Dr. William Buckland, the geologist, and at one time Dean of Westminster. He died in 1856. See “Fors Clavigera,” 1873, Letter 34, p. 19.[173]This and the following sentences allude to parts of the above-mentioned scheme. “The whole question,” wrote Mr. Jukes, “depends on the relative dates of production of the lithological composition, the petro-logical structure, and the form of the surface,” The scheme then attempts to sketch the “order of the processes which formed these three things,” in ten articles, of which the following are specially referred to by Mr. Ruskin: “1. The formation of a great series of stratified rocks on the bed of a sea.... 3. The possible intrusion of great masses of granitic rock” in more or less fluent state; and 6, 7, 8, 9, which dealt with alternate elevation and depression, of which there might be “even more than one repetition.”[174]See Herodotus, ii. 92; Plato, Critias, 112; and Horace, Od. i. 31.[175]The address was delivered by Mr. Jukes as President of the Geological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which met in 1862 at Cambridge. (See the Report of the Association, vol. xxxii. p. 54.)[176]Mr. Jukes’ letter had concluded by recommending English geologists to pursue their studies at home, on the ground that “a student, commencing to learn comparative anatomy, does not think it necessary to go to Africa and kill an elephant.” In the following number of theReader(Dec. 10) Mr. Jukes wrote, in answer to the present letter, that he had not intended to imply any hostility towards Mr. Ruskin, with whose next letter the discussion ended.[177]“M. A. C.” wrote “Concerning Stones,” and dealt—or attempted to deal—with “atmospheric pressure” in addition to the pressure of water alluded to in Mr. Ruskin’s letter of November 26. The letter signed “G. M.” was entitled “Mr. Ruskin on Glaciers;” see next note. Both letters appeared in theReaderof December 3, 1864.[178]Not in the “last letter,” but in the last but one—seeante, p. 177, “A stone at the bottom of a stream,” etc. The parts of “G. M.’s” letter specially alluded to by Mr. Ruskin are as follows:“It is very evident that the nearer the source of the glacier, the steeper will be the angle at which it advances from above, and the greater its power of excavation.... Mr. Ruskin gets rid of the rocks anddébrison the under side of the glacier by supposing that they are pressed beyond the range of action in the solid body of the ice; but there must be a limit to this, however soft the matrix.”[179]See “Modern Painters,” Part v., chap. 13, “On the Sculpture Mountains,” vol. iv. p. 174.[180]In connection with the question of glacier-motion, Mr. Ruskin’s estimate of Professor Forbes and his work is here reprinted from Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 205-207. For a passage on the same subject which was reprinted in the “Glaciers of Savoy,” in addition to the new matter republished here, and for a statement of the course of glacier-science, and the relation of Forbes to Agassiz, the reader is referred to “Fors Clavigera,” 1873, Letter 34, pp. 17-26. The “incidental passage” consists of a review of Professor Tyndall’s “Forms of Water” (London, 1872), and the “contemptible issue” was that of his position and Forbes’ amongst geological discoverers.[181]George Forbes, B.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Andersonian University, Glasgow, and editor of “The Glaciers of Savoy.”[182]This saying of Macaulay’s occurred in an address which, as M.P. for that city, he delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 1846 (Nov. 4). Forbes’ criticism of it and of the whole address may be found in a lecture introductory to a course on Natural Philosophy, delivered before the University of Edinburgh (Nov. 1 and 2, 1848), and entitled “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge;” under which title it was afterwards printed, together with a newspaper report of Macaulay’s address (London and Edinburgh, 1849). In the edition of Macaulay’s speeches revised by himself, the sentence in question is omitted, though others of a like nature, such as “The profundity of one age is the shallowness of the next,” are retained, and the whole argument of the address remains the same. (See Macaulay’s Works, 8 vol. ed., Longmans, 1866. Vol. viii. p. 380, “The Literature of Great Britain.”) For a second mention of this saying by Mr. Ruskin, see also “Remarks addressed to the Mansfield Art Night Class,” 1873, now reprinted in “A Joy for Ever” (Ruskin’s Works, vol. xi. p. 201).The following are parts of the passage (extending over some pages) in Forbes’ lecture alluded to by Mr. Ruskin:“How false, then, as well as arrogant, is the self-gratulation of those, who, forgetful of the struggles and painful efforts by which knowledge is increased, would place themselves, by virtue of their borrowed acquirements, in the same elevated position with their great teachers—nay, who, perceiving the dimness of light and feebleness of grasp, with which, often at first, great truths have been perceived and held, find food for pride in the superior clearness of their vision and tenacity of their apprehension!” Then, after quoting some words from Dr. Whewell’s “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” vol. ii. p. 525, and after some further remarks, the lecturer thus continued: “The activity of mind, the earnestness, the struggle after truth, the hopeless perplexity breaking up gradually into the fulness of perfect apprehension,—the dread of error, the victory over the imagination in discarding hypotheses, the sense of weakness and humility arising from repeated disappointments, the yearnings after a fuller revelation, and the sure conviction which attends the final advent of knowledge sought amidst difficulties and disappointments,—these are the lessons and the rewards of the discoverers who first put truth within our reach, but of which we who receive it at second hand can form but a faint and lifeless conception.” (See pp. 39-41 of “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge.”)[183]In the edition of Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” already alluded to.[184]Forbes died Dec. 31, 1868; Agassiz in 1873; and De Saussure in 1845.[185]The letter from Forbes to Mr. Ruskin (dated December 2, 1864) was presumably elicited by the allusions to Forbes in Mr. Ruskin’s letter to theReaderof November 26, 1874 (seeante, pp. 259 and 263). “Advancing years and permanently depressed state of health,” ran the letter, “have taken the edge off the bitterness which the injustice I have experienced caused me during many years. But ... the old fire revives within me when I see any one willing and courageous, like you, to remember an old friend, and to show that you do so.”—The second letter speaks of the writer’s“boyish enthusiasm”for Agassiz, an expression to which Mr. Ruskin appends this note: “The italics are mine.I think this incidental and naïve proof of the way in which Forbes had spoken of Agassiz to his class, of the greatest value and beautiful interest.—J. R.”[186]In the first edition of “Modern Painters” (vol. i. p. 330) it was stated that “the horizontal lines cast by clouds upon the sea are not shadows, but reflections;” and that “on clear water near the eye there can never be even the appearance of shadow.” This statement being questioned in a letter to theArt Union Journal(November, 1843), and that letter being itself criticised in a review of “Modern Painters” in theArtist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 262 (December, 1843), there appeared in the last-named periodical two letters upon the subject, of which one was from J. H. Maw, the correspondent of theArt Union, and the other—that reprinted here—a reply from “The Author of ‘Modern Painters.’ ”[187]The passages in “Modern Painters” referred to in this letter were considerably altered and enlarged in later editions of the work, and the exact words quoted are not to be found in it as finally revised. The reader is, however, referred to vol. i., part ii., § v., chap. i., “Of Water as painted by the Ancients,” in whatever edition of the book he may chance to meet with or possess.[188]See theArtist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 313, where the author of the letter, to which this is a reply, adduced in support of his views the following experiment, viz.: to put a tub filled with clear water in the sunlight, and then taking an opaque screen with a hole cut in it, to place the same in such a position as to intercept the light falling upon the tub. Then, he argued, cover the hole over, and the tub will be in shadow; uncover it again, and a patch of light will fall on the water, proving that water isnot“insusceptible of light as well as shadow.”[189]In the review of “Modern Painters” mentioned above.[190]Of the first edition of the first volume of “Modern Painters.” The size of the book (and consequently the paging) was afterwards altered to suit the engravings contained in the last three volumes.[191]It may be worth noting that the optical delusion above explained is described at some length by Mr. Herbert Spencer (“The Study of Sociology,” p. 191, London, 1874) as one of the commonest instances of popular ignorance.[192]Of course, if water be perfectly foul, like that of the Rhine or Arve, it receives a shadow nearly as well as mud. Yet the succeeding observations on its reflective power are applicable to it, even in this state.[193]It must always be remembered that there are two kinds of reflection,—one from polished bodies, giving back rays of light unaltered; the other from unpolished bodies, giving back rays of light altered. By the one reflection we see the images of other objects on the surface of the reflecting object; by the other we are made aware of that surface itself. The difference between these two kinds of reflection has not been well worked by writers on optics; but the great distinction between them is, that the rough body reflects most rays when the angle at which the rays impinge is largest, and the polished body when the angle is smallest. It is the reflection from polished bodies exclusively which I usually indicate by the term; and that from rough bodies I commonly distinguish as “positive light;” but as I have here used the term in its general sense, the explanation of the distinction becomes necessary. All light and shade on matter is caused by reflection of some kind; and the distinction made throughout this paper between reflected and positive light, and betweenrealand pseudo shadow, is nothing more than the distinction between two kinds of reflection.I believe some of Bouguer’s[194]experiments have been rendered inaccurate—not in their general result, nor inratioof quantities, but in the quantities themselves—by the difficulty of distinguishing between the two kinds of reflected rays.[194]Pierre Bouguer, author of, amongst other works, the “Traité d’Optique sur la Gradation de la Lumière.” He was born in 1698, and died in 1758.[195]The mercury must of course be perfectly clean.[196]Among other points, I have not explained why water, though it has no shadow, has a dark side. The cause of this is the Newtonian law noticed below, that water weakens the rays passing through its mass, though it reflects none; and also, that it reflects rays from both surfaces.[197]The review of “Modern Painters” had mentioned the Grotto of Capri, near Naples, as “a very beautiful illustration of the great quantity of light admitted or contained in water,” and on this Mr. J. H. Maw had commented.[198]TheLondon Reviewof May 4 contained a critique of the Exhibition of the Society of Water-colors, which included a notice of Mr. Duncan’s “Shiplake, on the Thames” (No. 52). In this picture the artist had painted a rainbow reflected in the water, the truth of which to nature was questioned by some of his critics. Mr. Ruskin’s was not the only letter in support of the picture’s truth.[199]The present letter is the earliest in date of any in these volumes.[200]See note to p. 182.[201]In the “Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House,” 1856 (p. 23), Mr. Ruskin speaks of the “pale ineffable azure” of the gentian. The present letter was written in reply to one signed “Y. L. Y.” in theAthenæumof February 7, 1857, in which this expression was criticised. In a subsequent issue of the same journal (February 21) Mr. Ruskin’s querist denied the ignorance imputed to him, and still questioned the propriety of calling the gentian “pale,” without at the same time distinguishing the two species.

[142]Denmark Hill.

[143]See “Arabian Windows in the Campo Santa Maria, Mater Domini,” Plate ii. of the “Examples of the Architecture of Venice,” selected and drawn to measurement from the edifice, 1851. And see, too, “Stones of Venice,” vol. ii., chap, vii., Gothic Palaces.

[144]This letter was originally received by “a Liverpool gentleman,” and sent inclosed in a long letter signed “An Antiquarian,” to theLiverpool Daily Post.

[145]An obvious misprint for “stone-layers.”

[146]Ribbesford Church was finally closed after the morning service on Sunday, July 15, 1877. It was then restored, and was reopened and reconsecrated on June 15, 1879. TheKidderminster Timesof the 21st inst. contained an account of a meeting of the Ribbesford parishioners to consider the restoration of the church. Hence the allusions in this letter to “copying” the traceries.

[147]This circular, which was distributed as above noted during the winter of 1879-80, is here reprinted by Mr. Ruskin’s permission, in connection with the preceding letters upon restoration in architecture. See the Notes on Prout and Hunt, 1879-80, p. 71.

[148]In February, 1878; see the “Turner Notes” of that year, and “Fors Clavigera,” New Series—Letter the Fourth, March, 1880.

[149]Count Alvise Piero Zorzi, the author of an admirable and authoritative essay on the restoration of St. Mark’s (Venice, 1877).

[150]This drawing (No. 28 in the Exhibition) was of a small portion of the west front.

[151]“Stones of Venice,” vol. ii., chapter 4, of original edition, and vol. i., chapter 4, of the smaller edition for the use of travellers.

[152]In the first edition of this circular this sentence ran as follows: “In the mean time, with the aid of the drawing just referred to, every touch of it from the building, and left, as the color dried in the morning light of the 10th May, 1877, some of the points chiefly insisted on in the ‘Stones of Venice,’ are of importance now.”

[153]Printed “Pan-choreion” in the first edition.

[154]For “state,” the first edition reads “mind,” and for “have become, in some measure, able,” it has “have qualified myself.” So again for “am at this moment aided,” it reads “am asked, and enabled to do so.”

[155]Early in 1879

[156]Printed in the second edition only.

[157]The reference is to the closing paragraph of the Preface to the Notes, which runs as follows: “Athena, observe, of the Agora, or MarketPlace. And St. James of the Deep Stream orMarket River. The Angels of Honest Sale and Honest Porterage; such honest porterage being the grandeur of the Grand Canal, and of all other canals, rivers, sounds, and seas that ever moved in wavering morris under the night. And the eternally electric light of the embankment of that Rialto stream was shed upon it by the Cross—know you that for certain, you dwellers by high-embanked and steamer-burdened Thames. And learn from your poor wandering painter this lesson—for the sum of the best he had to give you (it is the Alpha of the Laws of true human life)—that no city is prosperous in the sight of Heaven, unless the peasant sells in its market—adding this lesson of Gentile Bellini’s for the Omega, that no city is ever righteous in the Sight of Heaven unless the Noble walks in its street.”—Notes on Prout and Hunt, p. 44.

[158]See the “Notes on Prout and Hunt,” p. 78.

[159]See theStandard(Dec. 3, 1879). M. Meduna was the architect who carried out the “restoration” of the South façade of the Cathedral.

[160]TheReaderof October 15 contained an article “On the Conformation of the Alps,” to which in the following issue of the journal (October 22) Sir Roderick Murchison replied in a letter dated “Torquay, 16th October,” and entitled “On the Excavation of Lake Basins in solid rocks by Glaciers,” the possibility of which he altogether denied.

[161]“On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy,” delivered on June 5, 1863. The subject was treated under three heads. 1. The material of the Savoy Alps. 2. The mode of their formation. 3. The mode of their subsequent sculpture. (See the report of the lecture in the “Proceedings of the Royal Institution,” 1863, vol. iv., p. 142. It was also printed by the Institution in a separate form, p. 4.)

[162]In reply to this letter, theReaderof November 19, 1864, published one from a Scottish correspondent, signed “Tain Caimbeul,” the writer of which declared that, whilst he looked on Mr. Ruskin “as a thoroughly reliable guide in all that relates to the external aspects of the Alps,” he could not “accept his leadership in questions of political economy or the mechanics of glacier motion.”

[163]See below, “Forbes: his real greatness,” pp. 187seqq., and the references given in the notes there.

[164]Even in lower Apennine, “Dat sonitum saxis, et torto vertice torrens.”{*}{*} Virgil, Æneid, vii. 567.

[164]Even in lower Apennine, “Dat sonitum saxis, et torto vertice torrens.”{*}

{*} Virgil, Æneid, vii. 567.

[165]See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 93.

[166]There twice a day the Severn fills;The salt sea-water passes by,And hushes half the babbling Wye,And makes a silence in the hills.Tennyson, “In Memoriam,” xix.

[166]

There twice a day the Severn fills;The salt sea-water passes by,And hushes half the babbling Wye,And makes a silence in the hills.Tennyson, “In Memoriam,” xix.

[167]See “Deucalion,” vol. i. p. 3 (Introduction).

[168]Following this letter in the same number of theReaderwas one from the well-known geologist Mr. Joseph Beete Jukes, F.R.S., who, writing from “Selly Oak, Birmingham, Nov. 22,” described himself as “the originator of the discussion.” He therefore was no doubt the author of the article in theReaderalluded to above (p. 173, note). Mr. Jukes died in 1869.

[169]The following is the sentence from Mr. Jukes’ letter alluded to: “Therefore when Mr. Ruskin says that ‘the forms of the Alps are quite visibly owing to the action of elevatory, contractile, and expansive forces,’ I would entreat him to listen to those who have had their vision corrected by the laborious use of chain and theodolite and protractor for many toilsome years over similar forms.”

[170]The Battle of Sempach (?). See the letters on “The Italian Question,” at the beginning of the second volume.

[171]To the effect that “the form of the ground is the result wholly of denudation.” For the “scheme,” consisting of ten articles, see the note 172 below.

[172]Dr. William Buckland, the geologist, and at one time Dean of Westminster. He died in 1856. See “Fors Clavigera,” 1873, Letter 34, p. 19.

[173]This and the following sentences allude to parts of the above-mentioned scheme. “The whole question,” wrote Mr. Jukes, “depends on the relative dates of production of the lithological composition, the petro-logical structure, and the form of the surface,” The scheme then attempts to sketch the “order of the processes which formed these three things,” in ten articles, of which the following are specially referred to by Mr. Ruskin: “1. The formation of a great series of stratified rocks on the bed of a sea.... 3. The possible intrusion of great masses of granitic rock” in more or less fluent state; and 6, 7, 8, 9, which dealt with alternate elevation and depression, of which there might be “even more than one repetition.”

[174]See Herodotus, ii. 92; Plato, Critias, 112; and Horace, Od. i. 31.

[175]The address was delivered by Mr. Jukes as President of the Geological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which met in 1862 at Cambridge. (See the Report of the Association, vol. xxxii. p. 54.)

[176]Mr. Jukes’ letter had concluded by recommending English geologists to pursue their studies at home, on the ground that “a student, commencing to learn comparative anatomy, does not think it necessary to go to Africa and kill an elephant.” In the following number of theReader(Dec. 10) Mr. Jukes wrote, in answer to the present letter, that he had not intended to imply any hostility towards Mr. Ruskin, with whose next letter the discussion ended.

[177]“M. A. C.” wrote “Concerning Stones,” and dealt—or attempted to deal—with “atmospheric pressure” in addition to the pressure of water alluded to in Mr. Ruskin’s letter of November 26. The letter signed “G. M.” was entitled “Mr. Ruskin on Glaciers;” see next note. Both letters appeared in theReaderof December 3, 1864.

[178]Not in the “last letter,” but in the last but one—seeante, p. 177, “A stone at the bottom of a stream,” etc. The parts of “G. M.’s” letter specially alluded to by Mr. Ruskin are as follows:“It is very evident that the nearer the source of the glacier, the steeper will be the angle at which it advances from above, and the greater its power of excavation.... Mr. Ruskin gets rid of the rocks anddébrison the under side of the glacier by supposing that they are pressed beyond the range of action in the solid body of the ice; but there must be a limit to this, however soft the matrix.”

“It is very evident that the nearer the source of the glacier, the steeper will be the angle at which it advances from above, and the greater its power of excavation.... Mr. Ruskin gets rid of the rocks anddébrison the under side of the glacier by supposing that they are pressed beyond the range of action in the solid body of the ice; but there must be a limit to this, however soft the matrix.”

[179]See “Modern Painters,” Part v., chap. 13, “On the Sculpture Mountains,” vol. iv. p. 174.

[180]In connection with the question of glacier-motion, Mr. Ruskin’s estimate of Professor Forbes and his work is here reprinted from Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” (Macmillan, 1874), pp. 205-207. For a passage on the same subject which was reprinted in the “Glaciers of Savoy,” in addition to the new matter republished here, and for a statement of the course of glacier-science, and the relation of Forbes to Agassiz, the reader is referred to “Fors Clavigera,” 1873, Letter 34, pp. 17-26. The “incidental passage” consists of a review of Professor Tyndall’s “Forms of Water” (London, 1872), and the “contemptible issue” was that of his position and Forbes’ amongst geological discoverers.

[181]George Forbes, B.A., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Andersonian University, Glasgow, and editor of “The Glaciers of Savoy.”

[182]This saying of Macaulay’s occurred in an address which, as M.P. for that city, he delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 1846 (Nov. 4). Forbes’ criticism of it and of the whole address may be found in a lecture introductory to a course on Natural Philosophy, delivered before the University of Edinburgh (Nov. 1 and 2, 1848), and entitled “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge;” under which title it was afterwards printed, together with a newspaper report of Macaulay’s address (London and Edinburgh, 1849). In the edition of Macaulay’s speeches revised by himself, the sentence in question is omitted, though others of a like nature, such as “The profundity of one age is the shallowness of the next,” are retained, and the whole argument of the address remains the same. (See Macaulay’s Works, 8 vol. ed., Longmans, 1866. Vol. viii. p. 380, “The Literature of Great Britain.”) For a second mention of this saying by Mr. Ruskin, see also “Remarks addressed to the Mansfield Art Night Class,” 1873, now reprinted in “A Joy for Ever” (Ruskin’s Works, vol. xi. p. 201).The following are parts of the passage (extending over some pages) in Forbes’ lecture alluded to by Mr. Ruskin:“How false, then, as well as arrogant, is the self-gratulation of those, who, forgetful of the struggles and painful efforts by which knowledge is increased, would place themselves, by virtue of their borrowed acquirements, in the same elevated position with their great teachers—nay, who, perceiving the dimness of light and feebleness of grasp, with which, often at first, great truths have been perceived and held, find food for pride in the superior clearness of their vision and tenacity of their apprehension!” Then, after quoting some words from Dr. Whewell’s “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” vol. ii. p. 525, and after some further remarks, the lecturer thus continued: “The activity of mind, the earnestness, the struggle after truth, the hopeless perplexity breaking up gradually into the fulness of perfect apprehension,—the dread of error, the victory over the imagination in discarding hypotheses, the sense of weakness and humility arising from repeated disappointments, the yearnings after a fuller revelation, and the sure conviction which attends the final advent of knowledge sought amidst difficulties and disappointments,—these are the lessons and the rewards of the discoverers who first put truth within our reach, but of which we who receive it at second hand can form but a faint and lifeless conception.” (See pp. 39-41 of “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge.”)

The following are parts of the passage (extending over some pages) in Forbes’ lecture alluded to by Mr. Ruskin:

“How false, then, as well as arrogant, is the self-gratulation of those, who, forgetful of the struggles and painful efforts by which knowledge is increased, would place themselves, by virtue of their borrowed acquirements, in the same elevated position with their great teachers—nay, who, perceiving the dimness of light and feebleness of grasp, with which, often at first, great truths have been perceived and held, find food for pride in the superior clearness of their vision and tenacity of their apprehension!” Then, after quoting some words from Dr. Whewell’s “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” vol. ii. p. 525, and after some further remarks, the lecturer thus continued: “The activity of mind, the earnestness, the struggle after truth, the hopeless perplexity breaking up gradually into the fulness of perfect apprehension,—the dread of error, the victory over the imagination in discarding hypotheses, the sense of weakness and humility arising from repeated disappointments, the yearnings after a fuller revelation, and the sure conviction which attends the final advent of knowledge sought amidst difficulties and disappointments,—these are the lessons and the rewards of the discoverers who first put truth within our reach, but of which we who receive it at second hand can form but a faint and lifeless conception.” (See pp. 39-41 of “The Danger of Superficial Knowledge.”)

[183]In the edition of Rendu’s “Glaciers of Savoy” already alluded to.

[184]Forbes died Dec. 31, 1868; Agassiz in 1873; and De Saussure in 1845.

[185]The letter from Forbes to Mr. Ruskin (dated December 2, 1864) was presumably elicited by the allusions to Forbes in Mr. Ruskin’s letter to theReaderof November 26, 1874 (seeante, pp. 259 and 263). “Advancing years and permanently depressed state of health,” ran the letter, “have taken the edge off the bitterness which the injustice I have experienced caused me during many years. But ... the old fire revives within me when I see any one willing and courageous, like you, to remember an old friend, and to show that you do so.”—The second letter speaks of the writer’s“boyish enthusiasm”for Agassiz, an expression to which Mr. Ruskin appends this note: “The italics are mine.I think this incidental and naïve proof of the way in which Forbes had spoken of Agassiz to his class, of the greatest value and beautiful interest.—J. R.”

[186]In the first edition of “Modern Painters” (vol. i. p. 330) it was stated that “the horizontal lines cast by clouds upon the sea are not shadows, but reflections;” and that “on clear water near the eye there can never be even the appearance of shadow.” This statement being questioned in a letter to theArt Union Journal(November, 1843), and that letter being itself criticised in a review of “Modern Painters” in theArtist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 262 (December, 1843), there appeared in the last-named periodical two letters upon the subject, of which one was from J. H. Maw, the correspondent of theArt Union, and the other—that reprinted here—a reply from “The Author of ‘Modern Painters.’ ”

[187]The passages in “Modern Painters” referred to in this letter were considerably altered and enlarged in later editions of the work, and the exact words quoted are not to be found in it as finally revised. The reader is, however, referred to vol. i., part ii., § v., chap. i., “Of Water as painted by the Ancients,” in whatever edition of the book he may chance to meet with or possess.

[188]See theArtist and Amateur’s Magazine, p. 313, where the author of the letter, to which this is a reply, adduced in support of his views the following experiment, viz.: to put a tub filled with clear water in the sunlight, and then taking an opaque screen with a hole cut in it, to place the same in such a position as to intercept the light falling upon the tub. Then, he argued, cover the hole over, and the tub will be in shadow; uncover it again, and a patch of light will fall on the water, proving that water isnot“insusceptible of light as well as shadow.”

[189]In the review of “Modern Painters” mentioned above.

[190]Of the first edition of the first volume of “Modern Painters.” The size of the book (and consequently the paging) was afterwards altered to suit the engravings contained in the last three volumes.

[191]It may be worth noting that the optical delusion above explained is described at some length by Mr. Herbert Spencer (“The Study of Sociology,” p. 191, London, 1874) as one of the commonest instances of popular ignorance.

[192]Of course, if water be perfectly foul, like that of the Rhine or Arve, it receives a shadow nearly as well as mud. Yet the succeeding observations on its reflective power are applicable to it, even in this state.

[193]It must always be remembered that there are two kinds of reflection,—one from polished bodies, giving back rays of light unaltered; the other from unpolished bodies, giving back rays of light altered. By the one reflection we see the images of other objects on the surface of the reflecting object; by the other we are made aware of that surface itself. The difference between these two kinds of reflection has not been well worked by writers on optics; but the great distinction between them is, that the rough body reflects most rays when the angle at which the rays impinge is largest, and the polished body when the angle is smallest. It is the reflection from polished bodies exclusively which I usually indicate by the term; and that from rough bodies I commonly distinguish as “positive light;” but as I have here used the term in its general sense, the explanation of the distinction becomes necessary. All light and shade on matter is caused by reflection of some kind; and the distinction made throughout this paper between reflected and positive light, and betweenrealand pseudo shadow, is nothing more than the distinction between two kinds of reflection.I believe some of Bouguer’s[194]experiments have been rendered inaccurate—not in their general result, nor inratioof quantities, but in the quantities themselves—by the difficulty of distinguishing between the two kinds of reflected rays.

I believe some of Bouguer’s[194]experiments have been rendered inaccurate—not in their general result, nor inratioof quantities, but in the quantities themselves—by the difficulty of distinguishing between the two kinds of reflected rays.

[194]Pierre Bouguer, author of, amongst other works, the “Traité d’Optique sur la Gradation de la Lumière.” He was born in 1698, and died in 1758.

[195]The mercury must of course be perfectly clean.

[196]Among other points, I have not explained why water, though it has no shadow, has a dark side. The cause of this is the Newtonian law noticed below, that water weakens the rays passing through its mass, though it reflects none; and also, that it reflects rays from both surfaces.

[197]The review of “Modern Painters” had mentioned the Grotto of Capri, near Naples, as “a very beautiful illustration of the great quantity of light admitted or contained in water,” and on this Mr. J. H. Maw had commented.

[198]TheLondon Reviewof May 4 contained a critique of the Exhibition of the Society of Water-colors, which included a notice of Mr. Duncan’s “Shiplake, on the Thames” (No. 52). In this picture the artist had painted a rainbow reflected in the water, the truth of which to nature was questioned by some of his critics. Mr. Ruskin’s was not the only letter in support of the picture’s truth.

[199]The present letter is the earliest in date of any in these volumes.

[200]See note to p. 182.

[201]In the “Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House,” 1856 (p. 23), Mr. Ruskin speaks of the “pale ineffable azure” of the gentian. The present letter was written in reply to one signed “Y. L. Y.” in theAthenæumof February 7, 1857, in which this expression was criticised. In a subsequent issue of the same journal (February 21) Mr. Ruskin’s querist denied the ignorance imputed to him, and still questioned the propriety of calling the gentian “pale,” without at the same time distinguishing the two species.

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