Puslapio vaizdai
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esteem as a friend. Mr. Ruskin took it as a great compliment when Sir William, in acknowledging his fee, wrote that he should keep the check as an autograph.

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By Easter Monday the patient was better again, and plunging into work in spite of everybody. He wrote: "The moment I got your letter to-day recommending me not to write books (I finished it, however, with great enjoyment of the picnic, before proceeding to act in defiance of the rest), I took out the last proof of last Proserpina and worked for an hour and a half on it; and have been translating some St. Benedict material since - with much comfort and sense of getting as I said head to sea again—(have you seen the article on modern rudders in the Telegraph'? Anyhow I'll send you a lot of collision and other interesting sea-subjects by to-morrow's post). This is only to answer the catechism.

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"Love and congratulations to the boys. Salute Tommy for me in an affectionate and apostolic

- manner, - especially since he carried up the lunch! — Also, kindest regards to all the other servants. I daresay they 're beginning really to miss me a little by this time.

"What state are the oxalises in anemones? WHY can't we invent seeing, instead of talking, by telegraph?

1 I quote the apparently irrelevant sentences as a specimen of a characteristic private letter. The reader will easily gather their meaning, and catch the kindliness of the writer and universal readi ness of sympathy, in the midst of illness and business.

"I've just got a topaz of which these are two contiguous planes! [sketch of sides nearly two inches long] traced as it lies-and the smaller plane is BLINDINGLY iridescent in sunshine with rainbow colors! I've only found out this in Easter Sunday light."

Again: "I was not at all sure, myself, till yesterday, whether I would go abroad; also I should have told you before. But as you have had the (sorrowful?) news broken to you — and as I find Sir William Gull perfectly fixed in his opinion, I obey him, and reserve only some liberty of choice to myself - respecting, not only climate, but the general appearance of the inhabitants, of the localities, where for antiquarian or scientific research I may be induced to prolong my sojourn.

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Meantime I send you - to show you I have n't come to town for nothing, my last bargain in beryls, with a little topaz besides."

But the journey was put off week after week. There was so much to do, buying diamonds for Sheffield museum, and planning a series of models to show the normal forms of crystals, and to illustrate a subject which he thought many people would find interesting, if they could be got over its pons asinorum. Not only Sheffield was to receive these gifts and helps; some time before, Mr. Ruskin had become acquainted with the Rev. J. P. Faunthorpe, Principal of Whitelands College for Pupil Teachers, and had given various books and collections to illustrate the artistic side of

education. Now he instituted there the May Queen Festival, in some sort carrying out his old suggestion in "Time and Tide" (see page 342 of this work). Mr. A. Severn designed a gold cross, and it was presented, with a set of volumes of Ruskin's works, sumptuously bound, to the May Queen and her maidens. The pretty festival became a popular feature of the school, “patronized by royalty," and Mr. Ruskin has continued his annual gift to Whitelands, and kept up a similar institution at the high school at Cork.

At last, in August, he started for the Continent, and stayed at first at Avallon in central France, a district new to him. There he met Mr. Frank Randall, one of the artists working for St. George's Guild, and explored the scenery and antiquities of a most interesting neighborhood. He drove over the Jura in the old style, revisited Savoy, and after weeks of bitter bise and dark weather, a splendid sunset cleared the hills. He wrote to Miss Beever: "I saw Mont Blanc again to-day, unseen since 1877; and was very thankful. It is a sight that always redeems me to what I am capable of at my poor little best, and to what loves and memories are most precious to me. So I write to you, one of the true loves left. The snow has fallen fresh on the hills, and it makes me feel that I must be soon seeking shelter at Brantwood and the Thwaite."

But he went forward, exhilarated by the drive through Savoy with a famous coachman, re

nowned for his whip-cracking and his dog Tom. He won the professor's heart by his dashing style and kindliness to his beasts; and on parting he gave the man twenty francs as a bonne main, and two francs, as he said, for a bonne patte to Tom.

At Annecy he was pleased to find the waiter at the Hotel Verdun remembered his visit twenty years before; everywhere he met old friends, and saw old scenes that he had feared he never would revisit. After crossing the Cenis and hastening through Turin and Genoa, he reached. Lucca, to be awaited at the Albergo Reale dell' Universo by a crowd, every one anxious to shake hands with Signor Ruskin. No wonder! for instead of allowing himself to be a mere Number-soand-so in a hotel, wherever he feels comfortable, -and that is everywhere except at pretentious modern hotels, he makes friends with the waiter, chats with the landlord, finds his way into the kitchen to compliment the cook, and forgets nobody in the establishment, not only in " - "tips," but in a frank and sympathetic address which must contrast curiously, in their minds, with the reserve and indifference of other English tourists.

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At Florence he met Henry Roderick Newman, an American artist who had been at Coniston and was working for the guild. He introduced Mr. Ruskin to Mrs. and Miss Alexander. In these ladies' home he found his own aims, in religion, philanthropy, and art, realized in an unexpected way. Miss Alexander's drawing at first

struck him by its sincerity. He had been always the enemy of that acquired skill and paraded cleverness which become so fatiguing to the experienced critic. He had always called out for human interest, the evidence of sympathy, the poetry of feeling, in art; and he found this in Miss Alexander, - not professionally learned, but full of observation and the tokens of affectionate interest in her subject. As to style, she fulfilled his own teaching of bygone years, — the combination of free point-work with the pure line (see ante, p. 314), without blotting and bungling; and her sense of color and texture compensated for any weakness in anatomy and composition. Not only did she draw beautifully, but she also wrote a beautiful hand; and it had been one of his old sayings that missal-writing, rather than missalpainting, was the admirable thing in mediæval art. The legends illustrated by her drawings were collected by herself, through an intimate acquaintance with Italians of all classes, from the nobles to the peasantry, whom she understood and loved, and by whom she was loved and understood. By such intercourse she had learned to look beneath the surface. In religious matters her American common-sense saw through her neighbors, saw the good in them as well as the weakness, and she was as friendly, not only in society but in spiritual things, with the worthy village-priest as with T. P. Rossetti,' the leader

1 A cousin of the artist, and in his way no less remarkable a

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