Sir: I am obliged by your letter, but can absolutely pay no regard to anything said or done by Mr. Bright's Committee beyond requesting my own committees to print for their inspection—or their use—in any way they like, every word of every letter I have written to my supporters, or non-supporters, or any other person in Glasgow, so far as such letters may be recoverable.
Faithfully yours,
(Signed) J. Ruskin.
Matt. P. Fraser, Esq.
V.[179]
[From "The Glasgow Herald," October 12, 1880.]
Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire.
My Dear Sir: What in the devil's name have you to do with either Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone? You are students at the University, and have no more business with politics than you have with rat-catching.
Had you ever read ten words of mine [with understanding] you would have known that I care no more [either] for Mr. D'Israeli or Mr. Gladstone than for two old bagpipes with the drones going by steam, but that I hate all Liberalism as I do Beelzebub, and that, with Carlyle, I stand, we two alone now in England, for God and the Queen.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin.
Alex. Mitchell, Esq., Avoch, by Inverness.
P.S.—You had better, however, ask the Conservatives for a copy of my entire letters to them.