January 29th, 1860.
To Miss Baumgartner.
Yesterday I saw Ruskin. “Do you come by appointment?” the servant asked me, “because Mr. Ruskin said he would see no one.” “Mr. Ruskin fixed the day, I named the hour; but if he is busy——.” The servant, however, seemed sure that I was to be admitted, and I was shown into the study, where Ruskin greeted me with the words, “I’m very glad to see you.” I saw he was ill, and found he had been suffering from toothache, and awake all night. I begged him, therefore, not to attend to my work. However he would do it. I shall not readily forget the afternoon. He was not busy, and showed me the loveliest things, exquisite copies of illuminations, wonderful sketches by Mr. Bunney (one of his College pupils), sketches which Ruskin said he had seen nothing like them except Turner.... And then Ruskin showed me two of Turner’s loveliest small drawings, one of Solomon’s pools, and beyond their square basins, and the battlements, amidst which the light gleamed, the sun was setting; and clouds gathered about him, because, Ruskin said, the clouds gathered about Solomon’s wisdom. Oh that sky palpitating with colour, changing on every thousandth inch!
Ruskin asked me if I’d been reading anything lately; and we talked about Tennyson. I said he was so very sad. He said, “You see far more to make you sad than I do; but I don’t think Tennyson a bit too sad. I haven’t found that he sees far enough.” “He knows, however,” Ruskin said, “how far he does see, and that is more than other people do.” I told him how years ago Tennyson’s words had distressed me, because I believed that good was then and always, and that we it is who mar it all; I forgot that what had distressed me most of all was Tennyson’s apparent uncertainty about the fact at all. “So runs my dream,” etc.
Ruskin said, “Do you think that good is coming now to bad people?” “Yes,” I replied, “and that their greatest sin is in refusing it.” “But how much more that is than most people see,” he went on. “Oh, yes, I see that now,” I agreed, smiling; “I am amused now that I did not know that then.”
We spoke about the wickedness of rich and poor people. Ruskin spoke of the little children like angels he saw running about the dirty streets, and thought how they were to be made wicked. I spoke about the frightful want of feeling in all classes; but added that I thought rich people were now waking up to a sense of their duties. “Yes,” he said, “I’m glad that you and I have probably a good deal of life still to come. I think we may live to see some great changes in society.” “I hope at least,” I said, “to see some great changes in individuals before I die.” “Oh, no,” he said, “that’s quite hopeless; people are always the same. You can’t alter natures.”
We talked a good deal about it; but not quite decisively. I see we quite agree that you can only call out and make living that which is in a nature. Ruskin meant a great truth when he said, “I can never alter myself. I think I had better make the best of myself as I am.” When I said, “I am very much altered during the last few years,” he laughed very kindly, saying, “Oh, no, you’re not; you’re just the same as ever; only you know more.”
But it does make all the difference in the world whether we are fully developing all that we are meant to be, conquering all bad passions, or not.
MISS JEX BLAKE
103, Milton Street,