To her Mother.
... Miss E. took us yesterday to the museum where the various statues, inscriptions, and urns have been placed; and it was wonderfully living and interesting to hear, in so living a way, what all the things were. It is marvellous to realise how the books explain the sculptures, and the sculptures illustrate the books.... We drove to Hadrian’s villa. It was lovely sunlight, I never saw such cypresses; they and the olive trees looked most beautiful among the stately ruins. Miss E. described Hadrian’s life and surroundings in the most living way.... We drove to an old convent purchased by a Mr. S. It stands on the edge of the gorge of the Arno, and just opposite the waterfall, and his grounds go down to the river. One enters a long old corridor, and the cells, from the bedrooms; the prior’s rooms are the principal rooms; one looks out on one side to the gorge and fall, on the other to the convent garden, great lemon trees covered with fruit, doves, trellis for vines, a cell where a hermit has lived since the 4th century. Nothing spoiled, only lived in by a noble sweet and sympathetic English family. On a floor below the entrance is the refectory which is their dining-room; the monks’ seats all round were set with lemons in tubs. Below this, but all opening out on level terraces on the steep declivity, Mr. S. has excavated a grand room with a Roman pavement.
OBJECTIONS TO RUSKIN MEMORIAL
August 22nd, 1900.
To the Treasurer,
Ruskin Memorial Fund.
Sir,
I am in receipt of the circular letter about the proposed memorial to Mr. Ruskin in Westminster Abbey. I am sorry not to see my way to unite with his friends in a scheme which is meant to do honour to one to whom England owes so much, and from whom I myself received teaching and help, which have greatly influenced my life and work. But Ruskin needs no memorial. His influence is deeply impressed on thousands; his memorial consists in his books, his life, his work.
What it seems to me that we, who knew him, should do, in memory of him, is to carry out more earnestly what he taught us that was good. If, in memory of him, a building were to be preserved in its ancient beauty, or a mountain top, or lake, or river side were to be kept in its loveliness for all to enjoy, I should gladly hail the scheme and care to see the place saved, not so much as a memorial to him—he needs none—as a fulfilment of a hope of his.
The erection in the Abbey appears to me to be at least a questionable good. It is one which he himself might have felt as jarring with the surroundings. He cared so much for untouched buildings handed down to us. I could not join in a scheme for touching them.