CHAPTER VII

"PARIS,2nd May, 1866."Lady Trevelyan is much better to-day, but it is not safe to move her yet—till to-morrow. So I'm going to take the children to look at Chartres cathedral—we can get three hours there, and be back to seven o'clock dinner. We drove round by St. Cloud and Sèvres yesterday; the blossomed trees being glorious by the Seine,—the children in high spirits. It reminds me always too much of Turner—every bend of these rivers is haunted by him.""DIJON,Sunday, 6th May, 1866."Lady Trevelyan ismuchbetter, and we hope all to get on to Neufchatel to-morrow. The weather is quite fine again though not warm; and yesterday I took the children for a drive up the little valley which we used to drive through on leaving Dijon for Paris. There are wooded hills on each side, and we got into a sweet valley, as full of nightingales as our garden is of thrushes, and with slopes of broken rocky ground above, covered with the lovely blue milk-wort, and purple columbines, and geranium, and wild strawberry-flowers. The children were intensely delighted, and I took great care that Constance should not run about so as to heat herself, and we got up a considerable bit of hill quite nicely, and with greatly increased appetite for tea, and general mischief. They have such appetites that I generally call them 'my two little pigs.' There is a delightful Frenchwaiting-maid at dinner here—who says they are both 'charmantes,' but highly approves of my title for them nevertheless.""NEUFCHATEL,10th May, 1866."Lady Trevelyan is still too weak to move. We had (the children and I) a delightful day yesterday at the Pierre à Bot, gathering vetches and lilies of the valley in the woods, and picnic afterwards on the lovely mossy grass, in view of all the Alps—Jungfrau, Eiger, Blumlis Alp, Altels, and the rest, with intermediate lake and farmsteads and apple-blossom—very heavenly."

"PARIS,2nd May, 1866.

"Lady Trevelyan is much better to-day, but it is not safe to move her yet—till to-morrow. So I'm going to take the children to look at Chartres cathedral—we can get three hours there, and be back to seven o'clock dinner. We drove round by St. Cloud and Sèvres yesterday; the blossomed trees being glorious by the Seine,—the children in high spirits. It reminds me always too much of Turner—every bend of these rivers is haunted by him."

"DIJON,Sunday, 6th May, 1866.

"Lady Trevelyan ismuchbetter, and we hope all to get on to Neufchatel to-morrow. The weather is quite fine again though not warm; and yesterday I took the children for a drive up the little valley which we used to drive through on leaving Dijon for Paris. There are wooded hills on each side, and we got into a sweet valley, as full of nightingales as our garden is of thrushes, and with slopes of broken rocky ground above, covered with the lovely blue milk-wort, and purple columbines, and geranium, and wild strawberry-flowers. The children were intensely delighted, and I took great care that Constance should not run about so as to heat herself, and we got up a considerable bit of hill quite nicely, and with greatly increased appetite for tea, and general mischief. They have such appetites that I generally call them 'my two little pigs.' There is a delightful Frenchwaiting-maid at dinner here—who says they are both 'charmantes,' but highly approves of my title for them nevertheless."

"NEUFCHATEL,10th May, 1866.

"Lady Trevelyan is still too weak to move. We had (the children and I) a delightful day yesterday at the Pierre à Bot, gathering vetches and lilies of the valley in the woods, and picnic afterwards on the lovely mossy grass, in view of all the Alps—Jungfrau, Eiger, Blumlis Alp, Altels, and the rest, with intermediate lake and farmsteads and apple-blossom—very heavenly."

Here, within a few days, Lady Trevelyan died. Throughout her illness she had been following the progress of the new notes on wild-flowers (afterwards to be "Proserpina") with keen interest, and Sir Walter lent the help of botanical science to Ruskin's more poetical and artistic observations. For the sake of this work, and for the "children," and with a wise purpose of bearing up under the heavy blow that had fallen, the two friends continued their journey for a while among the mountains.

From Thun they went to Interlachen and the Giessbach. Ruskin occupied himself closely in tracing Studer's sections across the great lake-furrow of central Switzerland—"something craggy for his mind to break upon," as Byron said when he was in trouble. At the Giessbach there was not only geology and divine scenery, enjoyable in lovely weather, but an interesting figure in the foreground, the widowed daughter of the hotel landlord, beautiful and consumptive, but brave as a Swiss girl should be. They all seem to have fallen in love with her, so to speak the young English girls as much as the impressionable art-critic: and the new human interest in her Alpine tragedy relieved, as such interests do, the painfulness of the circumstances through which they had been passing. Her sister Marie was like an Allegra to this Penserosa; bright and brilliant in native genius. She played piano-duets with the young ladies; taught Alpine botany to the savants; guided them to thesecret dells and unknown points of view; and with a sympathy unexpected in a stranger, beguiled them out of their grief, and won their admiration and gratitude. Marie of the Giessbach was often referred to in letters of the time, and for many years after, with warmly affectionate remembrances.

A few bits from his letters to his mother, which I have been permitted to copy, will indicate the impressions of this summer's tour.

"HÔTEL DU GIESBACH,6th June, 1866,"MY DEAREST MOTHER,"Can you at all fancy walking out in the morning in a garden full of lilacs just in rich bloom, and pink hawthorn in masses; and along a little terrace with lovely pinks coming into cluster of colour all over the low wall beside it; and a sloping bank of green sward from it—and below that, the Giesbach! Fancy having a real Alpine waterfall in one's garden,—seven hundred feet high. You see, we are just in time for the spring, here, and the strawberries are ripening on the rocks. Joan and Constance have been just scrambling about and gathering them for me. Then there's the blue-green lake below, and Interlaken and the lake of Thun in the distance. I think I never saw anything so beautiful. Joan will write to you about the people, whom she has made great friends with, already.""7th June, 1866."I cannot tell you how much I am struck with the beauty of this fall: it is different from everything I have ever seen in torrents. There are so many places where one gets near it without being wet, for one thing; for the falls are, mostly, not vertical so as to fly into mere spray, but over broken rock, which crushes the water into a kind of sugar-candy-like foam, white as snow, yet glittering; and composed, not of bubbles, but of broken-up water. Then I had forgotten that it plunged straight into the lake; I got down to the lake shore on the other side of it yesterday, and to see it plunge clear into the blue water, with the lovely mossy rocks for its flank, and for the lake edge, was an unbelievable kind of thing; it is all as one would fancy cascades in fairyland. I do not often endure with patience any cockneyisms or showings off at these lovely places. But they do one thing here so interesting that I can forgive it. One of the chief cascades(about midway up the hill) falls over a projecting rock, so that one can walk under the torrent as it comes over. It leaps so clear that one is hardly splashed, except at one place. Well, when it gets dark, they burn, for five minutes, one of the strongest steady fireworks of a crimson colour, behind the fall. The red light shines right through, turning the whole waterfall into a torrent of fire.""11th June, 1866."We leave, according to our programme, for Interlachen to-day,—with great regret, for the peace and sweetness of this place are wonderful and the people are good; and though there is much drinking and quarrelling among the younger men, there appears to be neither distressful poverty, nor deliberate crime: so that there is more of the sense I need, and long for, of fellowship with human creatures, than in any place I have been at for years. I believe they don't so much as lock the house-doors at night; and the faces of the older peasantry are really very beautiful. I have done a good deal of botany, and find that wild-flower botany is more or less inexhaustible, but the cultivated flowers are infinite in their caprice. The forget-me-nots and milkworts are singularly beautiful here, but there is quite as much variety in English fields as in these, as long as one does not climb much—and I'm very lazy, compared to what I used to be,""LAUTERBRUNNEN, 13th June, 1866."We had a lovely evening here yesterday, and the children enjoyed and understood it better than anything they have yet seen among the Alps. Constance was in great glory in a little walk I took her in the twilight through the upper meadows: the Staubbach seen only as a grey veil suspended from its rock, and the great Alps pale above on the dark sky. She condescended nevertheless to gather a great bunch of the white catchfly,—to make 'pops' with,—her friend Marie at the Giesbach having shown her how a startling detonation may be obtained, by skilful management, out of its globular calyx."This morning is not so promising,—one of the provoking ones which will neither let you stay at home with resignation, nor go anywhere with pleasure. I'm going to take the children for a little quiet exploration of the Wengern path, to see how they like it, and if the weather betters—we may go on. At all events I hope to find an Alpine rose or two."

"HÔTEL DU GIESBACH,6th June, 1866,

"MY DEAREST MOTHER,

"Can you at all fancy walking out in the morning in a garden full of lilacs just in rich bloom, and pink hawthorn in masses; and along a little terrace with lovely pinks coming into cluster of colour all over the low wall beside it; and a sloping bank of green sward from it—and below that, the Giesbach! Fancy having a real Alpine waterfall in one's garden,—seven hundred feet high. You see, we are just in time for the spring, here, and the strawberries are ripening on the rocks. Joan and Constance have been just scrambling about and gathering them for me. Then there's the blue-green lake below, and Interlaken and the lake of Thun in the distance. I think I never saw anything so beautiful. Joan will write to you about the people, whom she has made great friends with, already."

"7th June, 1866.

"I cannot tell you how much I am struck with the beauty of this fall: it is different from everything I have ever seen in torrents. There are so many places where one gets near it without being wet, for one thing; for the falls are, mostly, not vertical so as to fly into mere spray, but over broken rock, which crushes the water into a kind of sugar-candy-like foam, white as snow, yet glittering; and composed, not of bubbles, but of broken-up water. Then I had forgotten that it plunged straight into the lake; I got down to the lake shore on the other side of it yesterday, and to see it plunge clear into the blue water, with the lovely mossy rocks for its flank, and for the lake edge, was an unbelievable kind of thing; it is all as one would fancy cascades in fairyland. I do not often endure with patience any cockneyisms or showings off at these lovely places. But they do one thing here so interesting that I can forgive it. One of the chief cascades(about midway up the hill) falls over a projecting rock, so that one can walk under the torrent as it comes over. It leaps so clear that one is hardly splashed, except at one place. Well, when it gets dark, they burn, for five minutes, one of the strongest steady fireworks of a crimson colour, behind the fall. The red light shines right through, turning the whole waterfall into a torrent of fire."

"11th June, 1866.

"We leave, according to our programme, for Interlachen to-day,—with great regret, for the peace and sweetness of this place are wonderful and the people are good; and though there is much drinking and quarrelling among the younger men, there appears to be neither distressful poverty, nor deliberate crime: so that there is more of the sense I need, and long for, of fellowship with human creatures, than in any place I have been at for years. I believe they don't so much as lock the house-doors at night; and the faces of the older peasantry are really very beautiful. I have done a good deal of botany, and find that wild-flower botany is more or less inexhaustible, but the cultivated flowers are infinite in their caprice. The forget-me-nots and milkworts are singularly beautiful here, but there is quite as much variety in English fields as in these, as long as one does not climb much—and I'm very lazy, compared to what I used to be,"

"LAUTERBRUNNEN, 13th June, 1866.

"We had a lovely evening here yesterday, and the children enjoyed and understood it better than anything they have yet seen among the Alps. Constance was in great glory in a little walk I took her in the twilight through the upper meadows: the Staubbach seen only as a grey veil suspended from its rock, and the great Alps pale above on the dark sky. She condescended nevertheless to gather a great bunch of the white catchfly,—to make 'pops' with,—her friend Marie at the Giesbach having shown her how a startling detonation may be obtained, by skilful management, out of its globular calyx.

"This morning is not so promising,—one of the provoking ones which will neither let you stay at home with resignation, nor go anywhere with pleasure. I'm going to take the children for a little quiet exploration of the Wengern path, to see how they like it, and if the weather betters—we may go on. At all events I hope to find an Alpine rose or two."

In June, 1866, the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford was vacant; and Ruskin's friends were anxious to see him take the post. He, however, felt no especial fitness or inclination for it, and did not stand. Three years later he was elected to a Professorship that at this time had not been founded.

After spending June in the Oberland, he went homewards through Berne, Vevey and Geneva, to find his private secretary with a bundle of begging letters, and his friend Carlyle busy with the defence of Governor Eyre.

In 1865 an insurrection of negroes at Morant Bay, Jamaica, had threatened to take the most serious shape, when it was stamped out by the high-handed measures of Mr. Eyre. After the first congratulations were over another side to the question called for a hearing. The Baptist missionaries declared that among the negroes who were shot and hangedin terroremwere peaceable subjects, respectable members of their own native congregations, for whose character they could vouch; they added that the gravity of the situation had been exaggerated by private enmity and jealousy of their work and creed. A strong committee was formed under Liberal auspices, supported by such men as John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hughes, the author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays"—men whose motive was above suspicion—to bring Mr. Eyre to account.

Carlyle, who admired the strong hand, and had no interest in Baptist missionaries, accepted Mr. Eyre as the saviour of society in his West Indian sphere; and there were many, both in Jamaica and at home, who believed that, but for his prompt action, the white population would have been massacred with all the horrors of a savage rebellion. Ruskin had been for many years the ally of the Broad Church and Liberal party. But he was now coming more and more under the personal influence of Carlyle; and when it came to the point of choosing sides, declared himself, in a letter to theDaily Telegraph(December20th, 1865), a Conservative and a supporter of order; and joined the Eyre Defence Committee with a subscription of £100. The prominent part he took, for example, in the meeting of September, 1866, was no doubt forced upon him by his desire to save Carlyle, whose recent loss and shaken nerves made such business especially trying to him. Letters of this period remain, in which Carlyle begs Ruskin to "be diligent, I bid you!"—and so on, adding, "I must absolutelyshut upin that direction, to save my sanity." And so it fell to the younger man to work through piles of pamphlets and newspaper correspondence, to interview politicians and men of business, and—what was so very foreign to his habits—to take a leading share in a party agitation.

But in all this he was true to his Jacobite instincts. He had been brought up a Tory; and though he had drifted into an alliance with the Broad Church and philosophical Liberals, he was never one of them. Now that his father was gone, perhaps he felt a sort of duty to own himself his father's son; and the failure of liberal philanthropy to realise his ideals, and of liberal philosophy to rise to his economic standards, combined with Carlyle to induce him to label himself Conservative. But his conservatism could not be accepted by the party so called. Fortunately, he did not need or ask their recognition. He took no interest in party politics, and never in his life voted at a Parliamentary election. He only meant to state in the shortest terms that he stood for loyalty and order.

NOTES:

Republished in 1873, with a fourth lecture added, and a Preface and notes on the political growth of Prussia, from Carlyle's "Frederick."

In the manner described by Mr. W.M. Rossetti at p. 351, Vol. I., of "D.G. Rossetti, his family letters," to which the reader is referred.

The series of letters published as "Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne" were addressed13to Thomas Dixon, a working cork-cutter of Sunderland, whose portrait by Professor Legros is familiar to visitors at the South Kensington Museum. He was one of those thoughtful, self-educated working men in whom, as a class, Ruskin had been taking a deep interest for the past twelve years, an interest which had purchased him a practical insight into their various capacities and aims, and the right to speak without fear or favour. At this time there was an agitation for Parliamentary reform, and the better representation of the working classes; and it was on this topic that the letters were begun, though the writer went on to criticise the various social ideals then popular, and to propose his own. He had already done something of the sort in "Unto this Last"; but "Time and Tide" is much more complete, and the result of seven years' further thought and experience. His "Fors Clavigera" is a continuation of these letters, but written at a time when other work and ill health broke in upon his strength. "Time and Tide" is not only the statement of his social scheme as he saw it in his central period, but, written as these letters were—at a stroke, so to speak—condensed in exposition and simple in language, they deserve the most careful reading by the student of Ruskin.

Before this work was ended, Carlyle had come back from Mentone to Chelsea, and was begging his friend, in the warmest terms, to come and see him. Shortly afterward, a passage which Ruskin would not retract gave offence to Carlyle. But the difference washealed, and later years reveal the sage of Chelsea as kindly and affectionate as ever. This friendship between the two greatest writers of their age, between two men of vigorous individuality, outspoken opinions, and widely different tastes and sympathies, is a fine episode in the history of both.

In May, Ruskin was invited to Cambridge to receive the honorary degree of LL.D., and to deliver the Rede Lecture. TheCambridge Chronicleof May 24th, 1867, says: "The body of the Senate House was quite filled with M.A.'s and ladies, principally the latter, whilst there was a large attendance of undergraduates in the galleries, who gave the lecturer a most enthusiastic reception." A brief report of the lecture was printed in the newspaper; but it was not otherwise published, and the manuscript seems to have been mislaid for thirty years. I take the liberty of copying the opening sentences as a specimen of that Academical oratory which Mr. Ruskin then adopted, and used habitually in his earlier lectures at Oxford.

The title of the discourse was "The Relation of National Ethics to National Arts."

"In entering on the duty to-day entrusted to me, I should hold it little respectful to my audience if I disturbed them by expression of the diffidence which they know that I must feel in first speaking in this Senate House; diffidence which might well have prevented me from accepting such duty, but ought not to interfere with my endeavour simply to fulfil it. Nevertheless, lest the direction which I have been led to give to my discourse, and the narrow limits within which I am compelled to confine the treatment of its subject may seem in anywise inconsistent with the purpose of the founder of this Lecture—or with the expectations of those by whose authority I am appointed to deliver it, let me at once say that I obeyed their command, not thinking myself able to teach any dogma in the philosophy of the arts, which could be of any new interest to the members of this University: but only that I might obtain the sanction of their audience, for the enforcement upon other mindsof the truth, which—after thirty years spent in the study of art, not dishonestly, however feebly—is manifest to me as the clearest of all that I have learned, and urged upon me as the most vital of all I have to declare."

He then distinguished between true and false art, the true depending upon sincerity, whether in literature, music or the formative arts: he reinforced his old doctrine of the dignity of true imagination as the attribute of healthy and earnest minds; and energetically attacked the commercial art-world of the day, and the notion that drawing-schools were to be supported for the sake of the gain they would bring to our manufacturers.

In this lecture we see the germ of the ideas, as well as the beginning of the style, of the Oxford Inaugural course, and the "Eagle's Nest"; something quite different in type from the style and teaching of the addresses to working men, or to mixed popular audiences at Edinburgh or Manchester, or even at the Royal Institution. At this latter place, on June 4th, Sir Henry Holland in the chair, he lectured on "The Present State of Modern Art, with reference to advisable arrangement of the National Gallery," repeating much of what he had said in "Time and Tide" about the taste for the horrible and absence of true feeling for pure and dignified art in the theatrical shows of the day, and in the admiration for Gustave Doré, then a new fashion. Mr. Ruskin could never endure that the man who had illustrated Balzac's "Contes Drôlatiques" should be chosen by the religious public of England as the exponent of their sacred ideals.

In July after a short visit to Huntly Burn near Abbotsford, he went to Keswick for a few weeks, from whence he wrote the rhymed letters to his cousin at home, quoted (with the date wrongly given as 1857) in "Præterita" to illustrate his "heraldic character" of "Little Pigs" and to shock exoteric admirers. Like, for example, Rossetti and Carlyle, Ruskin was fond of playful nicknames and grotesque terms ofendearment. He never stood upon his dignity with intimates; and was ready to allow the liberties he took, much to the surprise of strangers.

He reached Keswick by July 4, and spent his time chiefly in walks upon the hills, staying at the Derwentwater Hotel. He wrote:

"Keswick,19th July, '67, Afternoon, 1/2 past 3."My dearest Mother,"As this is the last post before Sunday I send one more line to say I've had a delightful forenoon's walk—since 1/2 past ten—by St. John's Vale, and had pleasant thoughts, and found one of the most variedly beautiful torrent beds I ever saw in my life; and I feel that I gain strength, slowly but certainly, every day. The great good of the place is that I can be content without going on great excursions which fatigue and do me harm (or else worry me with problems;)—I amcontenthere with the roadside hedges and streams; and this contentment is the great thing for health,—and there is hardly anything to annoy me of absurd or calamitous human doing; but still this ancient cottage life—very rude and miserable enough in its torpor—but clean, and calm, not a vile cholera and plague of bestirred pollution, like back streets in London. There is also much more real and deep beauty than I expected to find, in some of the minor pieces of scenery, and in the cloud effects.""July 16."I have the secret of extracting sadness from all things, instead of joy, which is no enviable talisman. Forgive me if I ever write in a way that may pain you. It is best that you should know, when I write cheerfully, it is no pretended cheerfulness; so when I am sad—I think it right to confess it.""30th July."Downes14arrived yesterday quite comfortably and in fine weather. It is not bad this morning, and I hope to take him for a walk up Saddleback, which, after all, is the finest, to my mind, of all the Cumberland hills—though that is not saying much; for they are much lower in effect, in proportion to their real height, than I had expected. The beauty of the country is in its quiet roadside bits, and rusticity of cottage life and shepherdlabour. Its mountains are sorrowfully melted away from my old dreams of them."Next day he "went straight up the steep front of Saddleback by the central ridge to the summit. It is the finest thing I've yet seen, there being several bits of real crag-work, and a fine view at the top over the great plains of Penrith on one side, and the Cumberland hills, as a chain, on the other. Fine fresh wind blowing, and plenty of crows. Do you remember poor papa's favourite story about the Quaker whom the crows ate on Saddleback? There were some of the biggest and hoarsest-voiced ones about the cliff that I've ever had sympathetic croaks from;—and one on the top, or near it, so big that Downes and Crawley, having Austrian tendencies in politics, took it for a 'black eagle.' Downes went up capitally, though I couldn't get him down again, because hewouldstop to gather ferns. However, we did it all and came down to Threlkeld—of the Bridal of Triermain,"'The King his way pursuedBy lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood,'"in good time for me to dress and, for a wonder, go out to dinner with Acland's friends the Butlers."As an episode in this visit to Keswick, ten days were given to the neighbourhood of Ambleside, "to show Downes Windermere.""Waterhead, Windermere,"10th August, 1867, Evening."I was at Coniston to-day. Our old Waterhead Inn, where I was so happy playing in the boats,existsno more.—Its place is grown over with smooth Park grass—the very site of it forgotten! and, a quarter of a mile down the lake, a vast hotel built in the railroad station style—making up, I suppose, its fifty or eighty beds, with coffee-room—smoking-room—and every pestilent and devilish Yankeeism that money can buy, or speculation plan."The depression, whatever its cause, does not affect my strength. I walked up a long hill on the road to Coniston to-day (gathering wild raspberries)—then from this new Inn, two miles to the foot of Coniston Old Man; up it; down again—(necessarily!)—and back to dinner, without so much as warming myself—not that there was much danger of doing that at the top; for a keen west wind was blowing drifts of cloud by at a great pace, andone was glad of the shelter of the pile of stones, the largest andoldestI ever saw on a mountain top. I suppose the whole mountain is named from it. It is of the shape of a beehive, strongly built, about 15 feet high (so that I made Downes follow me up it before I would allow he had been at the top of the Old Man) and covered with lichen and short moss. Lancaster sands and the Irish sea were very beautiful, and so also the two lakes of Coniston and Windermere, lying in the vastest space of sweet cultivated country I have ever looked over,—a great part of the view from the Rigi being merely over black pine forest, even on the plains. Well, after dinner, the evening was very beautiful, and I walked up the long hill on the road back from Coniston—and kept ahead of the carriage for two miles: I was sadly vexed when I had to get in: and now—I don't feel as if I had been walking at all—and shall probably lie awake for an hour or two—and feeling as if I had not had exercise enough to send me to sleep.""LANGDALE,13th August, Evening."It is perfectly calm to-night, not painfully hot—and the full moon shining over the mountains, opposite my window, which are the scene of Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' It was terribly hot in the earlier day, and I did not leave the house till five o'clock. Then I went out, and in the heart of Langdale Pikes found the loveliest rock-scenery, chased with silver waterfalls, that I ever set foot or heart upon. The Swiss torrent-beds are always more or less savage, and ruinous, with a terrible sense of overpowering strength and danger, lulled. But here, the sweet heather and ferns and star mosses nestled in close to the dashing of the narrow streams;—while every cranny of crag held its own little placid lake of amber, trembling with falling drops—but quietly trembling—not troubled into ridgy wave or foam—the rocks themselves,idealrock, as hard as iron—no—not quite that, butsohard that after breaking some of it, breaking solid white quartz seemed like smashing brittle loaf sugar, in comparison—and cloven into the most noble masses; not grotesque, but majestic and full of harmony with the larger mountain mass of which they formed a part. Fancy what a place! for a hot afternoon after five, with no wind—and absolute solitude; no creature—except a lamb or two—to mix any ruder sound or voice with the plash of the innumerable streamlets."

"Keswick,19th July, '67, Afternoon, 1/2 past 3.

"My dearest Mother,

"As this is the last post before Sunday I send one more line to say I've had a delightful forenoon's walk—since 1/2 past ten—by St. John's Vale, and had pleasant thoughts, and found one of the most variedly beautiful torrent beds I ever saw in my life; and I feel that I gain strength, slowly but certainly, every day. The great good of the place is that I can be content without going on great excursions which fatigue and do me harm (or else worry me with problems;)—I amcontenthere with the roadside hedges and streams; and this contentment is the great thing for health,—and there is hardly anything to annoy me of absurd or calamitous human doing; but still this ancient cottage life—very rude and miserable enough in its torpor—but clean, and calm, not a vile cholera and plague of bestirred pollution, like back streets in London. There is also much more real and deep beauty than I expected to find, in some of the minor pieces of scenery, and in the cloud effects."

"July 16.

"I have the secret of extracting sadness from all things, instead of joy, which is no enviable talisman. Forgive me if I ever write in a way that may pain you. It is best that you should know, when I write cheerfully, it is no pretended cheerfulness; so when I am sad—I think it right to confess it."

"30th July.

"Downes14arrived yesterday quite comfortably and in fine weather. It is not bad this morning, and I hope to take him for a walk up Saddleback, which, after all, is the finest, to my mind, of all the Cumberland hills—though that is not saying much; for they are much lower in effect, in proportion to their real height, than I had expected. The beauty of the country is in its quiet roadside bits, and rusticity of cottage life and shepherdlabour. Its mountains are sorrowfully melted away from my old dreams of them."

Next day he "went straight up the steep front of Saddleback by the central ridge to the summit. It is the finest thing I've yet seen, there being several bits of real crag-work, and a fine view at the top over the great plains of Penrith on one side, and the Cumberland hills, as a chain, on the other. Fine fresh wind blowing, and plenty of crows. Do you remember poor papa's favourite story about the Quaker whom the crows ate on Saddleback? There were some of the biggest and hoarsest-voiced ones about the cliff that I've ever had sympathetic croaks from;—and one on the top, or near it, so big that Downes and Crawley, having Austrian tendencies in politics, took it for a 'black eagle.' Downes went up capitally, though I couldn't get him down again, because hewouldstop to gather ferns. However, we did it all and came down to Threlkeld—of the Bridal of Triermain,

"'The King his way pursuedBy lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood,'

"in good time for me to dress and, for a wonder, go out to dinner with Acland's friends the Butlers."

As an episode in this visit to Keswick, ten days were given to the neighbourhood of Ambleside, "to show Downes Windermere."

"Waterhead, Windermere,

"10th August, 1867, Evening.

"I was at Coniston to-day. Our old Waterhead Inn, where I was so happy playing in the boats,existsno more.—Its place is grown over with smooth Park grass—the very site of it forgotten! and, a quarter of a mile down the lake, a vast hotel built in the railroad station style—making up, I suppose, its fifty or eighty beds, with coffee-room—smoking-room—and every pestilent and devilish Yankeeism that money can buy, or speculation plan.

"The depression, whatever its cause, does not affect my strength. I walked up a long hill on the road to Coniston to-day (gathering wild raspberries)—then from this new Inn, two miles to the foot of Coniston Old Man; up it; down again—(necessarily!)—and back to dinner, without so much as warming myself—not that there was much danger of doing that at the top; for a keen west wind was blowing drifts of cloud by at a great pace, andone was glad of the shelter of the pile of stones, the largest andoldestI ever saw on a mountain top. I suppose the whole mountain is named from it. It is of the shape of a beehive, strongly built, about 15 feet high (so that I made Downes follow me up it before I would allow he had been at the top of the Old Man) and covered with lichen and short moss. Lancaster sands and the Irish sea were very beautiful, and so also the two lakes of Coniston and Windermere, lying in the vastest space of sweet cultivated country I have ever looked over,—a great part of the view from the Rigi being merely over black pine forest, even on the plains. Well, after dinner, the evening was very beautiful, and I walked up the long hill on the road back from Coniston—and kept ahead of the carriage for two miles: I was sadly vexed when I had to get in: and now—I don't feel as if I had been walking at all—and shall probably lie awake for an hour or two—and feeling as if I had not had exercise enough to send me to sleep."

"LANGDALE,13th August, Evening.

"It is perfectly calm to-night, not painfully hot—and the full moon shining over the mountains, opposite my window, which are the scene of Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' It was terribly hot in the earlier day, and I did not leave the house till five o'clock. Then I went out, and in the heart of Langdale Pikes found the loveliest rock-scenery, chased with silver waterfalls, that I ever set foot or heart upon. The Swiss torrent-beds are always more or less savage, and ruinous, with a terrible sense of overpowering strength and danger, lulled. But here, the sweet heather and ferns and star mosses nestled in close to the dashing of the narrow streams;—while every cranny of crag held its own little placid lake of amber, trembling with falling drops—but quietly trembling—not troubled into ridgy wave or foam—the rocks themselves,idealrock, as hard as iron—no—not quite that, butsohard that after breaking some of it, breaking solid white quartz seemed like smashing brittle loaf sugar, in comparison—and cloven into the most noble masses; not grotesque, but majestic and full of harmony with the larger mountain mass of which they formed a part. Fancy what a place! for a hot afternoon after five, with no wind—and absolute solitude; no creature—except a lamb or two—to mix any ruder sound or voice with the plash of the innumerable streamlets."

It was during this tour that he looked at a site on the hill above Bowness-on-Windermere, where Mr. T. Richmond, the owner, proposed building him a house. He liked the view, but found it too near the railway station.

After spending September with his mother at Norwood under the care of Dr. Powell, he was able to return home, prepare "Time and Tide" for publication, and write the preface on Dec. 14th. On the 19th the book was out, and immediately bought up. A month later the second edition was issued.

NOTES:

During February, March and April, 1867, and published in theManchester ExaminerandLeeds Mercury.

The gardener at Denmark Hill.

Of less interest to the general reader, though too important a part of Ruskin's life and work to be passed over without mention, are his studies in Mineralogy. We have heard of his early interest in spars and ores; of his juvenile dictionary in forgotten hieroglyphics; and of his studies in the field and at the British Museum. He had made a splendid collection, and knew the various museums of Europe as familiarly as he knew the picture-galleries. In the "Ethics of the Dust" he had chosen Crystallography as the subject in which to exemplify his method of education; and in 1867, after finishing the letters to Thomas Dixon, he took refuge, as before, among the stones, from the stress of more agitating problems.

In the lecture on the Savoy Alps in 1863 he had referred to a hint of Saussure's that the contorted beds of the limestones might possibly be due to some sort of internal action, resembling on a large scale that separation into concentric or curved bands which isseen in calcareous deposits. The contortions of gneiss were similarly analogous, it was suggested, to those of the various forms of silica. Ruskin did not adopt the theory, but put it by for examination in contrast with the usual explanation of these phenomena, as the simple mechanical thrust of the contracting surface of the earth.

In 1863 and 1866 he had been among the Nagelflüh of Northern Switzerland, studying the puddingstones and breccias. He saw that the difference between these formations, in their structural aspect, and the hand-specimens in his collection of pisolitic and brecciated minerals was chiefly a matter of size; and that the resemblances in form were very close. And so he concluded that if the structure of the minerals could be fully understood a clue might be found to the very puzzling question of the origin of mountain structure.

Hence his attempt to analyze the structure of agates and similar banded and brecciated minerals, in the series of papers in theGeological Magazine;15an attempt which though it was never properly completed, and fails to come to any general conclusion, is extremely interesting as an account of beautiful and curious natural forms till then little noticed by mineralogists.

A characteristic anecdote of this period is preserved in "Arrows of the Chace."

"TheDaily Telegraphof January 21st, 1868, contained a leading article upon the following facts. It appeared that a girl, named Matilda Griggs, had been nearly murdered by her seducer, who, after stabbing her in no less than thirteen places, had then left her for dead. She had, however, still strength enough to crawl into a field close by, and there swooned. The assistance she met with in this plight was of a rare kind. Two calves came up to her, and disposing themselves on either side of herbleeding body, thus kept her warm and partly sheltered from cold and rain. Temporarily preserved, the girl eventually recovered, and entered into recognizances, under a sum of forty pounds, to prosecute her murderous lover. But 'she loved much,' and failing to prosecute, forfeited her recognizances, and was imprisoned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for her debt. 'Pity the poor debtor,' wrote theDaily Telegraph, and in the next day's issue appeared the following letter, probably not intended for the publication accorded to it. 'Sir,—Except in 'Gil Blas,' I never read of anything Astræan on the earth so perfect as the story in your fourth article to-day. I send you a cheque for the Chancellor. If forty, in legal terms, means four hundred, you must explain the farther requirements to your impulsive public."'I am, Sir, your faithful servant, 'J. RUSKIN.'"

"'I am, Sir, your faithful servant, 'J. RUSKIN.'"

The writer of letters like this naturally had a large correspondence, beside that which a circle of private friends and numberless admirers and readers elicited. About this time it grew to such a pitch that he was obliged to print a form excusing him from letter-writing on the ground of stress of work. And indeed, this year, though he did not publish his annual volume, as usual, he was fully occupied with frequent letters to newspapers, several lectures and addresses, a preface to the reprint of his old friend Cruikshank's "Grimm," and the beginning of a new botanical work, "Proserpina," in addition to the mineralogy, and a renewed interest in classical studies. Of the public addresses the most important was that on "The Mystery of Life and its Arts," delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science, Dublin (May 13th), and printed in "Sesame and Lilies."

After this visit to Ireland he spent a few days at Winnington; and late in August crossed the Channel, for rest and change at Abbeville. For the past five years he had found too little time for drawing; it was twenty years since his last sketching of French Gothic, except for a study (now at Oxford), of the porch at Amiens, in 1856. He took up the old work wherehe had left it, after writing the "Seven Lamps," with fresh interest and more advanced powers of draughtsmanship as shown in the pencil study of the Place Amiral Courbet, now in the drawing school at Oxford.

The following are extracts from the usual budget of home letters; readers of "Fors" will need no further introduction to their old acquaintance, the tallow-chandler.

"ABBEVILLE,Friday, 18th Sept., 1868."You seem to have a most uncomfortable time of it, with the disturbance of the house. However, I can only leave you to manage these things as you think best—or feel pleasantest to yourself. I am saddened by another kind of disorder, France is in everything so fallen back, so desolate and comfortless, compared to what it was twenty years ago—the people so much rougher, clumsier, more uncivil—everything they do, vulgar and base. Remnants of the old nature come out when they begin to know you. I am drawing at a nice tallow-chandler's door, and to-day, for the first time had to go inside for rain. He was very courteous and nice, and warned me against running against the candle-ends—or bottoms, as they were piled on the shelves, saying—'You must take care, you see, not to steal any of my candles'—or 'stealfrommy candles,' meaning not to rub them off on my coat. He has a beautiful family of cats—papa and mamma and two superb kittens—half Angora.""22nd Sept."I am going to my cats and tallow-chandler.... I was very much struck by the superiority of manner both in him and in his two daughters who serve at the counter, to persons of the same class in England. When the girls have weighed out their candles, or written down the orders that are sent in, they instantly sit down to their needlework behind the counter, and are always busy, yet always quiet; and their father, though of course there may be vulgar idioms in his language which I do not recognize, has entirely the manners of a gentleman."30th Sept."I have the advantage here I had not counted on. I see by the papers that the weather in England is verystormy and bad. Now, though it is showery here, and breezy, it has always allowed me at some time of the day to draw. The air is tender and soft, invariably—even when blowing with force; and to-day, I have seen quite the loveliest sunset I ever yet saw,—one at Boulogne in '61 was richer; but for delicacy and loveliness nothing of past sight ever came near this."

"ABBEVILLE,Friday, 18th Sept., 1868.

"You seem to have a most uncomfortable time of it, with the disturbance of the house. However, I can only leave you to manage these things as you think best—or feel pleasantest to yourself. I am saddened by another kind of disorder, France is in everything so fallen back, so desolate and comfortless, compared to what it was twenty years ago—the people so much rougher, clumsier, more uncivil—everything they do, vulgar and base. Remnants of the old nature come out when they begin to know you. I am drawing at a nice tallow-chandler's door, and to-day, for the first time had to go inside for rain. He was very courteous and nice, and warned me against running against the candle-ends—or bottoms, as they were piled on the shelves, saying—'You must take care, you see, not to steal any of my candles'—or 'stealfrommy candles,' meaning not to rub them off on my coat. He has a beautiful family of cats—papa and mamma and two superb kittens—half Angora."

"22nd Sept.

"I am going to my cats and tallow-chandler.... I was very much struck by the superiority of manner both in him and in his two daughters who serve at the counter, to persons of the same class in England. When the girls have weighed out their candles, or written down the orders that are sent in, they instantly sit down to their needlework behind the counter, and are always busy, yet always quiet; and their father, though of course there may be vulgar idioms in his language which I do not recognize, has entirely the manners of a gentleman."

30th Sept.

"I have the advantage here I had not counted on. I see by the papers that the weather in England is verystormy and bad. Now, though it is showery here, and breezy, it has always allowed me at some time of the day to draw. The air is tender and soft, invariably—even when blowing with force; and to-day, I have seen quite the loveliest sunset I ever yet saw,—one at Boulogne in '61 was richer; but for delicacy and loveliness nothing of past sight ever came near this."

Earlier on the same day he had written:

"I am well satisfied with the work I am doing, and even with my own power of doing it, if only I can keep myself from avariciously trying to do too much, and working hurriedly. But I can doverylittle quitewell, each day: with that however it is my bounden duty to be content."And now I have a little piece of news for you. Our old Herne Hill house being now tenantless, and requiring some repairs before I can get a tenant, I have resolved to keep it for myself, for my rougher mineral work and mass of collection; keeping only my finest specimens at Denmark Hill. My first reason for this, is affection for the old house:—my second, want of room;—my third, the incompatibility of hammering, washing, and experimenting on stones with cleanliness in my stores of drawings. And my fourth is the power I shall have, when I want to do anything very quietly, of going up the hill and thinking it out in the old garden, where your greenhouse still stands, and the aviary—without fear of interruption from callers."It may perhaps amuse you, in hours which otherwise would be listless, to think over what may be done with the old house. I have ordered it at once to be put in proper repair by Mr. Snell; but for the furnishing, I can give no directions at present: it is to be very simple, at all events, and calculated chiefly for museum work and for stores of stones and books: and you really must not set your heart on having it furnished like Buckingham Palace."I have bought to-day, for five pounds, the front of the porch of the Church of St. James. It was going to be entirely destroyed. It is worn away, and has little of its old beauty; but as a remnant of the Gothic of Abbeville—as I happen to be here—and as the church was dedicated to my father's patron saint (as distinct from mine) I'm glad to have got it. It is a low arch—withtracery and niches, which ivy, and the Erba della Madonna, will grow over beautifully, wherever I rebuild it."

"And now I have a little piece of news for you. Our old Herne Hill house being now tenantless, and requiring some repairs before I can get a tenant, I have resolved to keep it for myself, for my rougher mineral work and mass of collection; keeping only my finest specimens at Denmark Hill. My first reason for this, is affection for the old house:—my second, want of room;—my third, the incompatibility of hammering, washing, and experimenting on stones with cleanliness in my stores of drawings. And my fourth is the power I shall have, when I want to do anything very quietly, of going up the hill and thinking it out in the old garden, where your greenhouse still stands, and the aviary—without fear of interruption from callers.

"It may perhaps amuse you, in hours which otherwise would be listless, to think over what may be done with the old house. I have ordered it at once to be put in proper repair by Mr. Snell; but for the furnishing, I can give no directions at present: it is to be very simple, at all events, and calculated chiefly for museum work and for stores of stones and books: and you really must not set your heart on having it furnished like Buckingham Palace.

"I have bought to-day, for five pounds, the front of the porch of the Church of St. James. It was going to be entirely destroyed. It is worn away, and has little of its old beauty; but as a remnant of the Gothic of Abbeville—as I happen to be here—and as the church was dedicated to my father's patron saint (as distinct from mine) I'm glad to have got it. It is a low arch—withtracery and niches, which ivy, and the Erba della Madonna, will grow over beautifully, wherever I rebuild it."

At Abbeville he had with him as usual his valet Crawley; and as before he sent for Downes the gardener, to give him a holiday, and to enjoy his raptures over every new sight. C.E. Norton came on a short visit, and Ruskin followed him to Paris, where he met the poet Longfellow (October 7). At last on Monday, 19th October, he wrote:

"Only a line to-day, for I am getting things together, and am a little tired, but very well, and glad to come home, though much mortified at having failed in half my plans, and done nothing compared to what I expected. But it is better than if I were displeased with all Ihaddone. It isn't Turner—and it isn't Correggio—it isn't even Prout—but it isn't bad."

Returning home, he gave an account of his autumn's work in the lecture at the Royal Institution, January 29th, 1869, on the "Flamboyant Architecture of the Valley of the Somme." This lecture was not then published in full: but part of the original text is printed in the third chapter of the work we have next to notice, "The Queen of the Air."

NOTE:

August and November, 1867, January, April and May, 1868, December, 1869, and January, 1870, illustrated with very fine mezzotint plates and woodcuts.

In spite of a "classical education" and the influence of Aristotle upon the immature art-theories of his earlier works, Ruskin was known, in his younger days, as a Goth, and the enemy of the Greeks. When he began life, his sense of justice made him take the side of Modern Painters againstclassical tradition. Later on, when considering the great questions of education and the aims of life, he entirely set aside the common routine of Greek and Latin grammar as the all-in-all of culture. But this was not because he shared Carlyle's contempt for classical studies.

In "Modern Painters," Vol. III., he had followed out the indications of nature-worship, and tried to analyse in general terms the attitude of the Greek spirit towards landscape scenery, as betrayed in Homer and Aristophanes and the poets usually read. Since that time his interest in Greek literature had been gradually increasing. He had made efforts to improve his knowledge of the language; and he had spent many days in sketching and studying the terra-cottas and vases and coins at the British Museum. He had also taken up some study of Egyptology, through Champollion, Bunsen and Birch, in the hope of tracing the origin of Greek decorative art. Comparative mythology, at that time, was a department of philology, introduced to the English public chiefly by Max Müller. Under his influence Ruskin entered step by step upon an inquiry which afterwards became of singular importance in his life and thought.

In 1865 he had told his hearers at Bradford that Greek Religion was not, as commonly supposed, the worship of Beauty, but of Wisdom and Power. They did not, in their great age, worship "Venus," but Apollo and Athena. And he regarded their mythology as a sincere tradition, effective in forming a high moral type, and a great school of art. In the "Ethics of the Dust" he had explained the myth of Athena as parallel to that of Neith in Egypt; and in his fable of Neith and St. Barbara he had hinted at a comparison, on equal terms, of Ancient and Mediæval mythology. He ended by saying that, though he would not have his young hearers believe "that the Greeks were better than we, and that their gods were real angels," yet their art and morals were in some respects greater, and their beliefs were worth respectfuland sympathetic study. The "Queen of the Air" is his contribution to this study.

On March 9th, 1869, his lecture at University College, London, on "Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm," began with an attempt to explain in popular terms how a myth differs from mere fiction on the one hand and from allegory on the other, being "not conceived didactically, but didactic in its essence, as all good art is." He showed that Greek poetry dealt with the series of Nature-myths with which were interwoven ethical suggestions; that these were connected with Egyptian beliefs, but that the full force of them was only developed in the central period of Greek history, and their interpretation was to be read in a sympathetic analysis of the spirit of men like Pindar and Æschylus. "The great question," he said, "in reading a story is, always, not what wild hunter dreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it; but what wise man first perfectly told, and what strong people first perfectly lived by it. And the real meaning of any myth is that which it has at the noblest age of the nation among whom it was current."

In the next chapter he worked out, as a sequel to his lecture, two groups of Animal-myths; those connected with birds, and especially the dove, as type of Spirit, and those connected with the serpent in its various significances. These two studies were continued, more or less, in "Love's Meinie" and in the lecture printed in "Deucalion," as the third group, that of Plant-myths, was carried on in "Proserpina." The volume contained also extracts from the lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the Somme, and two numbers of the "Cestus of Aglaia," and closed with a paper on The Hercules of Camarina, read to the South Lambeth Art School on March 15th. This study of a Greek coin had already formed the subject of an address at the Working Men's College, and anticipated the second course of Oxford Lectures. For the rest, "The Queen of the Air" is marked byits statement, more clearly than before in Ruskin's writing, of the dependence of moral upon physical life, and of physical upon moral science. He speaks with respect of the work of Darwin and Tyndall; but as formerly in the Rede Lecture, and afterwards in the "Eagle's Nest," he claims that natural science should not be pursued as an end in itself, paramount to all other conclusions and considerations; but as a department of study subordinate to ethics, with a view to utility and instruction.

Before this book was quite ready for publication, and after a sale of some of his less treasured pictures at Christie's he left home for a journey to Italy, to revisit the subjects of "Stones of Venice," as in 1868 he had revisited those of the "Seven Lamps." At Vevey, on the way, he wrote his preface (May 1st).

By quiet stages he passed the Simplon, writing from Domo d'Ossola, 5th May, 1869:

"I never yet had so beautiful a day for the Simplon as this has been; though the skin of my face is burning now all over—to keep me well in mind of its sunshine. I left Brieg at 6 exactly—light clouds breaking away into perfect calm of blue. Heavy snow on the col—about a league—with the wreaths in many places higher than the carriage. Then, white crocus all over the fields, with Soldanelle and Primula farinosa. I walked about three miles up, and seven down, with great contentment; the waterfalls being all in rainbows, and one beyond anything I ever yet saw; for it fell in a pillar of spray against shadow behind, and became rainbow altogether. I was just near enough to get the belt broad, and the down part of the arch: and the whole fall became orange and violet against deep shade. To-morrow I hope to get news of you all, at Baveno.""BAVENO,Thursday, 6th May, 1869."It is wet this morning, and very dismal, for we are in a ghastly new Inn, the old one being shut up; and there is always a re-action after a strong excitement like the beauty of the Simplon yesterday, which leaves one very dull. But it is of no use growling or mewing. I hope to be at Milan to-morrow—at Verona for Sunday. I have been reading Dean Swift's life, and 'Gulliver'sTravels' again. Putting the delight in dirt, which is a mere disease, aside, Swift is very like me, in most things:—in opinions exactly the same."

"BAVENO,Thursday, 6th May, 1869.

"It is wet this morning, and very dismal, for we are in a ghastly new Inn, the old one being shut up; and there is always a re-action after a strong excitement like the beauty of the Simplon yesterday, which leaves one very dull. But it is of no use growling or mewing. I hope to be at Milan to-morrow—at Verona for Sunday. I have been reading Dean Swift's life, and 'Gulliver'sTravels' again. Putting the delight in dirt, which is a mere disease, aside, Swift is very like me, in most things:—in opinions exactly the same."

At Milan, next day, he went to see the St. Catherine of Luini which he had copied, and found it wantonly damaged by the carelessness of masons who put their ladders up against it, just as if it were a bit of common whitewashed wall.

On the 8th he reached Verona after seventeen years' absence, and on the 10th he was in Venice. There, looking at the works of the old painters with a fresh eye, and with feelings and thoughts far different from those with which he had viewed them as a young man, in 1845, he saw beauties he had passed over before, in the works of a painter till then little regarded by connoisseurs, and entirely neglected by the public. Historians of art like Crowe and Cavalcaselle16had indeed examined Carpaccio's works and investigated his life, along with the lives and works of many another obscure master: artists like Hook and Burne-Jones had admired his pictures; Ruskin had mentioned his backgrounds twice or thrice in "Stones of Venice." But no writer had noticed his extraordinary interest as an exponent of the mythology of the Middle Ages, as the illustrator of poetical folk-lore derived from those antique myths of Greece, and newly presented by the genius of Christianity.

This was a discovery for which Ruskin was now ripe, He saw at once that he had found a treasure-house of things new and old. He fell in love with St. Ursula as, twenty-four years earlier, he had fallen in love with the statue of Ilaria at Lucca; and she became, as time after time he revisited Venice for her sake, a personality, a spiritual presence, a living ideal, exactly as the Queen of the Air might have been to the sincere Athenian in the pagan age of faith. The story of her life and death became an example, the conception of her character, as read in Carpaccio'spicture, became a standard for his own life and action in many a time of distress and discouragement. The thought of "What would St. Ursula say?" led him—not always, but far more often than his correspondents knew—to burn the letter of sharp retort upon stupidity and impertinence, and to force the wearied brain and overstrung nerves into patience and a kindly answer. And later on, the playful credence which he accorded to the myth deepened into a renewed sense of the possibility of spiritual realities, when he learnt to look, with those mediæval believers; once more as a little child upon the unfathomable mysteries of life.

But this anticipates the story; at the time, he found in Carpaccio the man who had touched the full chord of his feelings and his thoughts, just as, in his boyhood, Turner had led him, marvelling, through the fire and cloud to the mountain-altar; and as, in his youth, Tintoret had interpreted the storm and stress of a mind awakening to the terrible realities of the world. It was no caprice of a changeful taste, nor love of startling paradox, that brought him to "discover Carpaccio;" it was the logical sequence of his studies, and widening interests, and a view of art embracing far broader issues than the connoisseurship of "Modern Painters," or the didacticism of "Seven Lamps," or the historical research of "Stones of Venice."

Soon after the "Queen of the Air" was published Carlyle wrote:

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