"Life, death, and that vast forever
One grand, sweet song"!
His wife remained for a little time to mourn his loss, although he believed at the time of his death that she would not live, and spoke of the supreme blessing of not being divided in the hour of death from her he had loved so well. She lived to tell to the world, in a touching and tender manner, the story of that life of "deep and strange sorrows," as he once expressed it; and then followed him, gladly, into the rest that remains for all who toil earnestly and worthily as he had done. It was proposed to bury him in Westminster Abbey, but agreeably to his own wishes in the matter he was buried in the little churchyard at Eversley, where he had familiar acquaintance with every tree and shrub, and where the poor, to whom he had been so much while living, could still feel him near to them though dead. Upon the white marble cross are carved the words, "God is Love,"—the words which had been the central thought of all his eloquent and effective preaching, and the words by which he had shaped his whole life; for, in imitation of that God he so reverenced, he had made his life one of active love and helpfulness toward the whole brotherhood of man. Few men of loftier aims, higher purposes, purer spirit, have ever lived; few men who fulfilled the priestly office in so high and conscientious a manner have been known in our day; few reformers who have been so aggressive, and yet so temperate in action; few men personally so loved by those who knew him intimately. Soft be the turf at Eversley upon him, and sweet the sighing of her summer winds about his grave!
JOHN RUSKIN.
In the very heart of the great city of London, shut in by dingy brick walls that closed upon him to such an extent that it was only by going into the middle of the street and looking up that he could ever see the sky, in the early part of the century, was born the man who has the finest eye for the beauties of the natural world, and the most eloquent pen in describing them, that the century has produced.
We will make no exception of poet or painter in this statement; for John Ruskin sees more and better than any poet of the day, and can give in words a more vivid picture of a scene he loves than any painter can produce. Indeed, few men have lived at any time who could color a landscape as Ruskin colors it, or who have so delicate an eye for the shyest and most sequestered beauties, as has this poet-painter. Probably Wordsworth comes nearer to Ruskin than any other modern writer in his love of the natural world, and he has given us the finest descriptions we have of some phases of Nature; but there is a glow and a depth of feeling about Ruskin's descriptions which even Wordsworth lacks. A real worship of Nature runs through all that he has written. Think of a child with such a nature as this brought up in a crowded city,—a city unlike many others, especially in this country and on the Continent, where lovely glimpses of Nature may be had from open squares, or streets leading out into lovely country roads. In New York one can hardly walk anywhere without catching glimpses of the water and the shores of New Jersey or Long Island. Most boys, we fancy, penetrate to the Battery and enjoy its superb outlook; or they have the run of Central Park, where they make a sort of acquaintance with Nature, which, if somewhat artificial, is much better than no knowledge at all. In Edinburgh the inhabitants live under the shadow of its two fantastic mountains, and from their windows can trace the windings of its glittering frith. Not even the lofty houses of the Canongate or the battlements of the castle afford the eye an equal pleasure. In Venice not even the Palace of the Doge, the most beautiful building in the world, or the matchless walls of fair St. Mark's, can keep the eye from seeking the blue waters of the Adriatic or the purple outlines of the Alps. Beautiful Verona has a broad and rushing river of deep blue sweeping through the heart of it; it has an environment of cliffs, where grow the cypress and the olive, and a far-away view of the St. Gothard Alps. Rome, from its amphitheatre of hills, has views of unrivalled loveliness, and its broad Campagna is a picture in itself. Paris even has its charms of external nature, as have all the cities of the New World; but London is grim and gray, and bare and desolate, wrapped in eternal fog. To be sure, it has the Thames, and there are lovely suburbs; but we mean that vast, densely crowded part of the city proper which we think of when we say London.
The father of John Ruskin was a London wine-merchant, who made and bequeathed to him a large fortune. But they were very plain people, and the youth knew nothing of ostentation or luxury. He says of his childhood:—