The Life of John Ruskin

by W. G. Collingwood

If you take, as many do, an interest in the minutiæ of portrait painting, and think the picture more finished for its details, you may notice that he writes on the flat table, not on a desk; that he uses a cork penholder and a fine steel pen, though he is not at all a slave to his tools, and differs from others rather in the absence of the sine quâ non from his conditions. He can write anywhere, on anything, with anything; wants no pen-wiper, no special form of paper, or other "fad." Much of his work is written in bound notebooks, especially when he is abroad, to prevent the loss and disorder of multitudinous foolscap. He generally makes a rough syllabus of his subject, in addition to copious notes and extracts from authorities, and then writes straight off; not without a noticeable hesitation and revision, even in his letters. His rough copy is transcribed by an assistant, and he often does not see it again until it is in proof.[⁴⁵]

Printers' proofs are always a trial, and he is glad to shift the work on to an assistant's shoulders, such as Mr. Harrison was, who saw all his early works through the press. But he is extremely particular about certain matters, such as the choice of type and arrangements of the page; though his taste does not coincide with that of the leaders of recent fashions. Mr. Jowett (of Messrs. Hazell, Watson & Viney, Limited) said in Hazell's Magazine for September; 1892, that Ruskin made the size of the page a careful study, though he adopted many varieties. The "Fors" page is different from, and not so symmetrical as that of the octavo "Works Series," although both are printed on the same sized paper—medium 8vo. Then there is the "Knight's Faith" and "Ulric," in both of which the type (pica modern—"this delightful type," wrote Ruskin) and the size of the page are different from any other; yet both were his choice. The "Ulric" page was imitated from an old edition of Miss Edgeworth. The first proof he criticised thus: "Don't you think a quarter inch off this page, as enclosed, would look better? The type is very nice. How delicious a bit of Miss Edgeworth's is, like this!" "Ida" was another page of his choice, and greatly approved. His title pages, too, were arranged with great care; he used to draw them out in pen and ink, indicating the size and position of the lines and letters. He objected to ornaments and to anything like blackness and heaviness, but he was very particular about proportions and spacing, and about the division of words.

In the morning everybody is busy. There are drawings and diagrams to be made, MS. to copy, references to look up, parcels to pack and unpack. Someone is told off to take you round, and you visit the various rooms and see the treasures, inspect the outhouse with its workshop for carpentry, framing and mounting, casting leaves and modelling; one work or another is sure to be going on; perhaps one of the various sculptors who have made Ruskin's bust is busy there. Down at the Lodge, a miniature Brantwood, turret and all, the Severn children live when they are at Coniston. Then there are the gardens, terraced in the steep, rocky slope, and some small hot-houses, which Ruskin thinks a superfluity, except that they provide grapes for sick neighbours.

Below the gardens a path across a field takes you to the harbour, begun in play by the Xenophon translators and finished by the village mason, with its fleet of boats—chief of them the "Jumping Jenny" (called after Nanty Ewart's boat in "Redgauntlet"), Ruskin's own design and special private water-carriage. Outside the harbour the sail-boats are moored, Mr. Severn's Lily of Brantwood. Milliard's boat, and his Snail, an unfortunate craft brought from Morecambe Bay with great expectations that were never realized; though Ruskin always professed to believe in her, as a real sea-boat (see "Harbours of England") such as he used to steer with his friend Huret, the Boulogne fisherman, in the days when he, too, was smitten with sea-fever.

After luncheon, if letters are done, all hands are piped to the moor. With billhooks and choppers the party winds up the wood paths, "the Professor" first, walking slowly, and pointing out to you his pet bits of rock-cleavage, or ivied trunk, or nest of wild strawberry plants. You see, perhaps, the ice-house—tunnelled at vast expense into the rock and filled at more expense with the best ice; opened at last with great expectations and the most charitable intent—for it was planned to supply invalids in the neighbourhood with ice, as the, hothouses supplied them with grapes; and revealing, after all, nothing but a puddle of dirty water. You see more successful works—the Professor's little private garden, which he is supposed to cultivate with his own hands; various little wells and watercourses among the rocks, moss-grown and fern-embowered; and so you come out on the moor.

There great works go on. Juniper is being rooted up; boggy patches drained and cultivated cranberries are being planted, and oats grown; paths engineered to the best points of view; rocks bared to examine the geology—though you cannot get the Professor to agree that every inch of his territory has been glaciated. These diversions have their serious side, for he is really experimenting on the possibility of reclaiming waste land; perhaps too sanguine, you think, and not counting the cost. To which he replies that, as long as there are hands unemployed and misemployed, a government such as he would see need never be at a loss for labourers. If corn can be made to grow where juniper grew before, the benefit is a positive one, the expense only comparative. And so you take your pick with the rest, and are almost persuaded to become a companion of St. George.

Not to tire a new comer, he takes you away after a while to a fine heathery promontory, where you sit before a most glorious view of lake and mountains. This, he says, is his "Naboth's vineyard";[⁴⁶] he would like to own so fine a point of vantage. But he is happy in his country retreat, far happier than you thought him; and the secret of his happiness is that he has sympathy with all around him, and hearty interest in everything, from the least to the greatest.

Coming down from the moor after the round, when you reach the front door you must see the performance of the waterfall: everybody must see that. On the moor a reservoir has been dug and dammed, with ingenious flood-gates—Ruskin's device, of course—and a channel led down through the wood to a rustic bridge in the rock. Some one has stayed behind to let out the water, and down it comes; first a black stream and then a white one, as it gradually clears; and the rocky wall at the entrance becomes for ten minutes a cascade. This too has it uses; not only is there a supply of water in case of fire (the exact utilisation of which is yet undecided), but it illustrates one of his doctrines about the simplicity with which works of irrigation could be carried out among the hills of Italy.

And so you go in to tea and chess, for he loves a good game of chess with all his heart. He loves many things, you have found. He is different from other men you know, by the breadth and vividness of his sympathies, by power of living as few other men can live, in Admiration, Hope and Love.

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