My own impression about the Library is that all books may be read rightly or idly; that, if the pupils are inclined to choose the latter course, they will not read “instructive books” and will get no good from wise ones. I should choose books by great authors, whether fiction, poetry or science; because they will repay earnest and careful reading; and any which seem to me likely to be delightful, because they treat truthfully anything that ought to interest people. I would suggest a few books; but they will probably be those which have taught me much, and which other people have been interested in, more because they knew them better than other books than because they were naturally suited to them. Longfellow, Wordsworth, Scott, George Herbert (too difficult?), Tennyson, Mrs. Gaskell’s “Moorland Cottage,” “Lizzie Leigh and other Tales” (cutting out “Lizzie Leigh”) and “Mary Barton” (perhaps). For the girls “Moral Courage” and “Steadfast Gabriel,” published by Chambers. The “Ocean Child,” “Birds and Flowers,” and some of Miss Martineau’s books are full of right and interesting thoughts. Miss Bremer’s “Strife and Peace” and “The Home” always seemed to me very beautiful books. If we might add one copy of the “Lectures on Great Men” to the Library and one of the “Feats on the Fiord” I think it would be well; the former would be a most valuable addition, and the more often it was read the better. I don’t know the price of Kingsley’s “Good News” nor whether it be much read, or if not whether or no it would be worth while to get it for Mary Moore’s benefit. I know very well the harm that would be done by any one reading these books only; and I would give you a far more serious list if I were able, provided always that they were great books of their kind. None of the books that I have read of a more studious kind seem to me the least suited to them; and of course you will remember that, where study is voluntary, it is begun because something has become living and interesting to us, as poets and writers of fiction often can make things, and people who love actual fact, like Ruskin and Carlyle, so seldom do. I don’t mean to exclude the two last from amongst the poets; but there is a great deal of simple fact and logic, untouched by feeling, in both. It often seems to me that, if we all had more of the poet nature, we should get people much more interested in all things near and far; and then, if we loved truth more, they would go thro’ much otherwise dry hard work to know facts. And one thing more, we mustn’t forget that reading forms but a small portion of a working woman’s life.

103, Milton St., Dorset Sq.,

May 29th, 1859.

To Miranda.

I have Ruskin’s notes ready to send you by the next opportunity; and they will tell you far more about the exhibition than I can. I saw him on Monday week; and he told me that he saw from all I had done that I had the power to become all he wanted of me, namely a thoroughly good copyist. He wants me to learn to copy in water-colours the great Venetian masters. He asked me if I could be quite happy to do this, and told me he could be quite happy to spend his life thus, if he were in circumstances to do it. He then said to me that he had thought of setting me this summer to copy things for Mod. Paint.; but that, as that would not teach me much, it would be better for him, if I could be happy not to do any work which was to be used by him at once; to get a greater power. “In the one case,” he said, “at the end of six or eight months I should have several useful drawings, but you would be of little more use than now; whereas, in the other, you would have attained considerable power.” ...

MORE WORK FOR RUSKIN

I believe it will be a real comfort to Ruskin, to feel that I am going to copy the pictures that he feels to be so precious, and that are being so destroyed. You see no one is taught to be humble enough to give up setting down their own fancies, that they may set down facts; and they deify these fancies and notions and imaginations of their own hearts, till they really think it a mean thing to represent nature, or other men’s works simply and faithfully: people hate copying because they do not copy simply, I believe. One tells me that when she copies, she is striving to appropriate the excellence of the picture; another that she is not wanting to copy the picture, but to sketch nature; she therefore will go so far off that she cannot see it clearly.... One lady assures me she should despise a person who paints exactly from nature, as she should a person who copies pictures: that Art has a higher function than either to delight or to teach; it has to remind us of our glory before the fall. Mr. D. informs me that in the time I take to copy a foreground, he would get the essence of every picture in the Dulwich collection. It sets me wondering what the essence of a picture is, that it can be got at so rapidly; and whether, if it is worth much, it may not also be worth much labour to gain it, and require much of the much talked of thought and spirit of man; whether faithful and earnest work may not be the only fit preparation for perception of truth in picture or in life; whether before we can understand, much less embody, noble truth, it may not be necessary firmly to believe day after day, when it is inconvenient, and when it is agreeable, that there really is a truth and a God of Truth, distinct from the imaginations of men’s hearts; whether simplicity is not much more necessary than excitement, even in art. So that I think one has reason to be very thankful to have been taught to look at real lines and colours and sizes, which one may not misrepresent; which don’t change when we change, nor depend for their power or beauty on our thoughts about them.

Milton Street,

June 26th, 1859.

To Florence.