Quite at the end, his eyesight failed him for smaller type, and Mrs. Severn bought him a larger-typed Bible, which he read, or had read to him, constantly, up to his death. The only bit of his writing in it is a note of his sadder moods, "The burden of London, Isaiah xxiv."; I suppose he refers to the words, "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty ... From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!..." Those who read "Fors" know how little he trusted our imperialistic optimism.
Such a Bible-reader, one might think, would have collected something in the way of a theological library, what are called helps to Bible-reading. But no! he read neither commentators nor modern critics, and I believe he had no interest in anybody's views about exegesis or analysis. He kept by him a few volumes of reference: Smith's "Bible Dictionary," Cruden, the "Englishman's Greek Concordance," Sharpe's "Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures" (he knew no Hebrew), and there were two copies of Finden's "Landscape Illustrations of the Bible," one for his study and one for his bedroom. But even these few were little used; to him the plain old text was the book he studied all through his eighty years, and knew as not many in this generation know it. Once in his rooms at Oxford I remember getting into a difficulty about the correct quotation of some passage. "Haven't you a concordance?" I asked. "I'm ashamed to say I have," he said. I did not quite understand him. "Well," he explained, "you and I oughtn't to need Cruden!"
[XIV]
RUSKIN'S "ISOLA"
XIV
RUSKIN'S "ISOLA"
"I gave her that name," he said once, "because she is so unapproachable."
When he was a very young man he saw her first in Rome. He had been sent there for the winter because it was supposed he was going into a consumption. He had certainly been working very hard at Oxford—not only doing the necessary reading for honours, which need kill nobody, but all manner of literature, art, antiquities and science into the bargain, as his manner was; and he had taken terribly to heart the loss of the pretty French girl, on whom his boyish affections had been set for years. So he was in Rome as an invalid, restless and discontented; and he didn't like Raphael, and he didn't like the other things people ought to like. It must have been a difficult time for his parents; but then one can't expect to bring up a genius without a certain amount of trouble.