1854]

PLANS BY THE WAY

175

things as these. Men must have sorrow in this world, and it takes hard blows to make them sorrowful when they are good.

I should think you must often have read the verses for the twentieth Sunday after Trinity in the Christian Year1 as you were wandering among the Scotch hills. I had some times of painful feeling myself when I came abroad first, and I found that book very useful to me. I did not understand it before. But I have got over my distress and darkness now, thank God, and I am very full of plans, and promises, and hopes, and shall have much to talk to you about when I see you, though I do not think I shall be able to come north this autumn now. I have stayed so much longer than I intended in Switzerland, and I have been sadly idle, and want to do something. Not exactly idle either, for I have been learning a good many things, and have convinced myself of some things which I had long suspected; for instance, that most Raphaels are not worth ten pounds apiece-I settled that matter only yesterday in the Louvre; and you may tell Sir Walter I have great misgivings that the science of geology is good for very little. little. It never tells me anything I want to know.

I think that seems to be one of the wants of this age-people that will tell one what one wants to know, as you do about my flowers (I have a whole parcel for you dried-to find out-from Source of Arveron and the front of the Cathedral at Sion 2), and I am going to set myself up to tell people anything in any way that they want to know, as soon as I get home. I am rolling projects over and over in my head. I want to give short lectures to about 200 at once in turn, of the sign painters, and shop decorators, and writing masters, and upholsterers, and masons, and brickmakers, and glass-blowers, and pottery people, and young artists, and young men in general, and school-masters, and young ladies in general, and school-mistresses; and I want to teach Illumination to the sign painters and the younger ladies; and to have prayer books all written again (only the Liturgy altered first, as I told you), and I want to explode printing, and gunpowder-the two great curses of the age; I begin to think that abominable art of printing is the root of all the mischief-it makes people used to have everything the same shape. And I mean to lend out Liber Studiorums and Albert Dürers to everybody who wants them; and to make copies of all fine thirteenth-century manuscripts, and lend them out-all for nothing, of course; and to have a room

["Where is thy favoured haunt," etc.: compare Vol. V. p. xxxiv.; and for other references by Ruskin to the Christian Year, see Vol. XXVIII. p. 566, Vol. XXIX. pp. 117, 194, Vol. XXXIII. p. 449.]

2 [The Sion flowers are described and named in Modern Painters, vol. iv. (Vol. VI. p. 413 and n.)]

3

Compare Vol. XXVII. p. 264, Vol. XXIX. p. 205 and n.]

where anybody can go in all day and always see nothing in it but what is good, with a little printed explanatory catalogue saying why it is good; and I want to have a black hole, where they shall see nothing but what is bad, filled with Claudes, and Sir Charles Barry's architecture, and so on; and I want to have a little Academy of my own in all the manufacturing towns, and to get the young artists— Pre-Raphaelite always-to help me; and I want to have an Academy exhibition, an opposition shop, where all the pictures shall be hung on the line-in nice little rooms decorated in a Giottesque mannerand no bad pictures let in, and none good turned out, and very few altogether-and only a certain number of people let in each day, by ticket, so as to have no elbowing. And as all this is merely by the way, while I go on with my usual work about Turner, and collect materials for a great work I mean to write on politics-founded on the thirteenth century-I shall have plenty to do when I get home.

We stayed in the Alpine air, thinking it healthier than London air just now;-my father and mother waited for me at Geneva, and I went to the Montanvert and into the Valais, for a month. I have got rather beaten again by those big Alps-it is very ungenerous of them to take such advantage of their size. But I will take the conceit out of them yet, some day. Meantime I am enjoying a little of the Louvre. Nothing is more curious than the effect of perfect art upon one's mind, after being a long time among wild nature. I always go straight to Paul Veronese, if I can-after leaving Chamouni; this time I had very nearly cried: the great painting seemed so inexpressibly sublime-more sublime even than the mountains-owing to the greater comprehensibility of the power. The mountains are part of the daily, but far off, mystery of the universe-but Veronese's painting always makes me feel as if an archangel had come down into the room, and were working before my eyes. I don't mean in the piety of the painting, but in its power. I would go to Tintoret if I could, but there are no Tintorets in the Louvre except one-hung sixty feet from the floor-and after Tintoret there is nothing within a hundred miles of Veronese. The Titians and Giorgiones are all very well-but quite human. Veronese is superhuman.

I find Angelico's and Perugino's rather thin and poor work-after Alps. Or perhaps I am getting every day more fond of matter of fact, and don't care to make the effort of the fancy they ask of one. As I said, I have made up my mind that Raphael is a take-in; I must be a little cautious, however, before I communicate the discovery to the public. I am going to take three more days here, and then we go

1 [See Vol. XII. p. 411 and n.]

1854]

LINDLEY'S "BOTANY"

177 leisurely homewards by Amiens-we hope to be at Denmark Hill by the 2nd or 3rd August. Then I must run to Oxford on the 14th about Acland's museum, and stay two or three days; but shall after that, I hope, settle at D. Hill for the winter. Please write to tell me all about the drawing you have done. I shall want you to help me a great deal, when I get my plans organised, and with my flowers, directly. I have got a book by Lindley on Botany,1 which tells me larkspurs and buttercups are the same thing. I don't believe it, and won't—and of course it doesn't tell me the name of any of my flowers. I have got such a pretty blue one-for mosaic. I suppose you will say it isn't blue, but red, or yellow, or any colour but blue-at all events it appears to me Blue, and I mean to call it a blue flower. Please tell me how you liked Dunblane Abbey, and Doune—if you were there; but I suppose you have been there often. Mr. Hill 2 showed me some sketches of grand subjects about the Bridge of Allan.

My father and mother join in sincere regards to Sir Walter and you. Believe me always affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.

To DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 3

[DENMARK HILL. 1854.]

DEAR ROSSETTI,-I think you are mistaken respecting that play. I have read a great deal. Portions are good descriptively, and some Potiphar's wife is good; but as a whole it is wrong. But can you dine with us on Thursday at 6? (and not be too P.R.B. as Stanfield is coming too!)-but I've no other time for a chat.-Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.

To LOWES DICKINSON 4

[October, 1854.]

DEAR DICKINSON,-I think it will be best if you help Rossetti's men on with their birds, etc., playing into his hands as much as you can, so as to get as much done on the movable and corruptible models

1 [See Vol. XXV. p. 236 n.]

2 [See above, p. 61. Ruskin met him in Edinburgh in 1853, describing him as "a landscape painter, amiable and unobtrusive; must be attended to."]

[From Ruskin, Rossetti, and Pre-Raphaelitism, pp. 31-32. The play is Joseph and his Brethren, by Charles Jeremiah Wells, published by him in 1824 under the pseudonym of "H. L. Howard"; praised by Rossetti in his supplementary chapter to Gilchrist's Life of Blake; reprinted in 1876 by Swinburne with a eulogistic introduction.]

[No. 2 (pp. 5-6) in Letters on Art and Literature by John Ruskin, edited by Thomas J. Wise, privately printed, 1894. (The book is hereafter referred to as Art and Literature.) Mr. Lowes Dickinson, painter, assisted Ruskin at the drawingclasses of the Working Men's College. "I was proud and happy," he says, "to

XXXVI.

M

as may be. On the Thursdays I shall keep mostly to stones and leaves, not disturbing your models. I have no doubt the whole thing will go on better, if we all keep to this somewhat humbler material of study. Most truly yours and gratefully, J. RUSKIN.

To F. J. FURNIVALL 1

October 19th, 1854.

DEAR FURNIVALL,-I don't want to move in the matter of the chapter 2 myself, having been pamphleteering, etc., as much as I care to do lately, and they say I merely get up jobs for Smith and Elder. Print the chapter as you think best, just as it is-saying, if you like, "by the author's permission for the Workmen's College." If you lose by it, I will stand the loss; if you make anything, give it to the college funds.

3

I have your two notes to answer. I never said that I wanted people to believe in material hell; all I said was that eternal torment of some sort or other had been believed by all great men, and all great nations, from the beginning of time; by Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Italians, and Goths; and that I had little patience with the form of modern conceit which supposes itself more loving and compassionate than St. John.-Faithfully yours, J. RUSKIN.

I write to Smith and Elder to tell them to send you another second volume; you had better keep the new one, and tear up the old one for the printer when you get it back. I also write to ask Smith and Elder to send you the necessary wood blocks. Please send a line to work with him and under him during the four or five years he held the leadership, so ably, so courteously, so indefatigably. He was himself a very great artist. His aim was not to make great artists of working men-though, as might have been anticipated, more than one or two of the students did become professional artists of repute-but that all men should be taught and encouraged to note and observe, to perceive, and not merely to see, the wonder and beauty of this mysterious universe into which we are born. To teach under the great master was to learn, and I hope never to forget my indebtedness for all I learned from him as I stood by his side as assistant and student during those precious years of his work and sacrifice at the Working Men's College" (The Working Men's College, 18541904, edited by the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, pp. 24-35).]

66

1 [No. 12 in Furnivall, pp. 36-39.]

2 [Chapter vi. of vol. ii. of The Stones of Venice ("On the Nature of Gothic "). For particulars of its separate publication, see Vol. X. pp. lx., lxviii. Ruskin's pamphleteering" and other publications at this time had been Giotto and his Works in Padua, Lectures on Architecture and Painting, and The Opening of the Crystal Palace.]

3 [Presumably, either in conversation or at the Working Men's College; but see also vol. iii. of Stones of Venice, Vol. XI. p. 165, and the Preface to vol. iii. of Modern Painters, Vol. V. p. 8.]

1854]

BRITOMART

179

them saying where the blocks are to be sent and when. I want Mr. Burton's exact address—I can't read it on his letter.

I think you had better begin your chapter with "I shall endeavour " -missing the word therefore-line 12, p. 151. You must miss the 45th paragraph, beginning the next with What then, p. 184, line 2 from bottom; and you must miss from 17th line p. 224 to the beginning of CVIth paragraph.'-With best thanks for doing all this, yours always.

To J. J. LAING 2

DENMARK HILL, 1st November, Evening [? 1854].

MY DEAR LAING,-After a very fatiguing day, I can only-for it is near midnight-write you this line to say I accept your promise, and am about to pray for you that you may be enabled to keep it. Only remember that no human strength can keep it except by instant flight from all temptation-instantly turning the thoughts in another direction. No reasoning or resolution will stand. To turn away the eyes and thoughts is the only way.

If you have not been hitherto enabled to do this, you will find that in perfect chastity, of thought and body, there is indeed a strange power, rendering every act of the soul more healthy and spiritual, and giving a strength which otherwise is altogether unattainable. Spenser has set it forth perfectly under the image of the allconquering Britomart.3 When I say "no human strength can keep it except," etc., I mean not that even by flight human strength can conquer without perpetual help. But God has appointed that His help shall be given only to those who "turn their eyes from beholding vanity"; nay, it is by this help that those eyes are turned. I can only say a word on the question of your letter to which this leads. I never met with but one book in my life that was clear on the subject of works and faith, and that book is the Bible. Read it only on this subject. And I think you will come to the conclusion that though works are not the price of salvation, they are assuredly the way to it, and the only way. I do not mean the Way in the sense in which Christ is the Way, but the way in the sense of the Strait Gate. For Christ the Door is not strait, and Christ the Way

2

1 [For the omissions actually made in the separate reprint, see Vol. X. p. lxviii.] "Some Ruskin Letters," in the English Illustrated Magazine, August 1893, pp. 782, 784.]

["

3 [Compare Vol. X. p. 383.]

Psalms cxix. 37.]

[The Bible references here are: John xiv. 6; Matthew vii. 13; Luke xvii. 10; Matthew vii. 24; Philippians ii. 13; John vii. 17.]