Ross also wrote a series of wonderfully clever articles to accompany a set of drawings by E. G. Dalziel, which were strangely unlike the usual work of this artist—so much so, as to suggest the idea that he must have been under the influence of Gustave Doré at the time. Ross called them "Nursery Morals," which were of a fanciful character. After playfully rebuking "Little Bo-Peep" on her vanity, he concludes:
"I think the artist might as well have shown us the nose of one of the silly sheep peeping round a distant corner; but perhaps the sheep were all tired of her airs and graces, and had taken themselves off in disgust. I am not naturally of a malignant disposition, but I sincerely trust she never did find those sheep. Don't you?"
"On The Giant-Killer," he writes:
"I have every reason to believe that abnormally large men are comparatively harmless. There must be exceptions, of course, and I will give you 'Sir Roger' and Count Fosco. The Count, by the way, is a fictitious personage, and perhaps 'Sir Roger' was also rather that way inclined.
"These, however, were enormously fat men, not giants, and I have to do with giants. Now, we have it on good authority, that the intellect of a giant is generally as weak as his knees. We hear over and over again of giants in shows being awfully bullied by the 'smallest man in the world,' who travels with him, and who is exhibited outside on the parade in a largish-sized doll's house, through the roof of which he pokes out his head, whilst he rings a bell from the second-floor window, and rests his feet in the front parlour."
On Love as a Passion. By E. G. Dalziel.
"NURSERY MORALS" (JUDY).
Published by Mr. Gilbert Dalziel.