The Life of John Ruskin

by W. G. Collingwood

CHAPTER VIII

THE RECALL TO OXFORD (1882-1883)

This Brantwood life came to an end with the end of 1881. Early in the next year he went for change of scene to stay with the Severns at his old home on Herne Hill. He seemed much better, and ventured to reappear in public. On March 3rd he went to the National Gallery to sketch Turner's Python. On the unfinished drawing is written: "Bothered away from it, and never went again. No light to work by in the next month." An artist in the Gallery had been taking notes of him for a surreptitious portrait—an embarrassing form of flattery.

He wrote: "No—I won't believe any stories about overwork. It's impossible, when one's in good heart and at really pleasant things. I've a lot of nice things to do, but the heart fails—after lunch, particularly!" Heart and head did, however, fail again; and another attack of brain fever followed. Sir William Gull brought him through, and won his praise as a doctor and esteem as a friend. Ruskin took it as a great compliment when Sir William, in acknowledging his fee, wrote that he should keep the cheque as an autograph.

By Easter Monday the patient was better again, and plunging into work in spite of everybody. He wrote:

"I was not at all sure, myself, till yesterday, whether I would go abroad; also I should have told you before. But as you have had the (sorrowful?) news broken to you—and as I find Sir William Gull perfectly fixed in his opinion, I obey him, and reserve only some liberty of choice to myself—respecting, not only climate,—but the general appearance of the—inhabitants, of the localities, where for antiquarian or scientific research I may be induced to prolong my sojourn.—Meantime I send you—to show you I haven't come to town for nothing, my last bargain in beryls, with a little topaz besides...."

But the journey was put off week after week. There was so much to do, buying diamonds for Sheffield museum, and planning a collection of models to show the normal forms of crystals, and to illustrate a subject which he thought many people would find interesting, if they could be got over its first difficulties. Not only Sheffield was to receive these gifts and helps: Ruskin had become acquainted with the Rev. J.P. Faunthorpe, Principal of Whitelands College for Pupil Teachers, and had given various books and collections to illustrate the artistic side of education. Now he instituted there the May Queen Festival, in some sort carrying out his old suggestion in "Time and Tide." Mr. A. Severn designed a gold cross, and it was presented, with a set of volumes of Ruskin's works, sumptuously bound, to the May Queen and her maidens. The pretty festival became a popular feature of the school, "patronised by royalty," and Ruskin continued his annual gift to Whitelands, and kept up a similar institution at the High School at Cork.

At last, in August, he started for the Continent and stayed a while at Avallon in central France, a district new to him. There he met Mr. Frank Randal, one of the artists working for St. George's Guild, and explored the scenery and antiquities of a most interesting neighbourhood. He drove over the Jura in the old style, revisited Savoy, and after weeks of bitter bise and dark weather, a splendid sunset cleared the hills. He wrote to Miss Beever:—"I saw Mont Blanc again to-day, unseen since 1877; and was very thankful. It is a sight that always redeems me to what I am capable of at my poor little best, and to what loves and memories are most precious to me."

At Annecy he was pleased to find the waiter at the Hôtel Verdun remembered his visit twenty years before;—everywhere he met old friends, and saw old scenes that he had feared he never would revisit. After crossing the Cenis and hastening through Turin and Genoa, he reached Lucca, to be awaited at the Albergo Reale dell' Universo by a crowd, every one anxious to shake hands with Signor Ruskin. No wonder!—for instead of allowing himself to be a mere Number-so-and-so in a hotel, wherever he felt comfortable—and that was everywhere except at pretentious modern hotels—he made friends with the waiter, chatted with the landlord, found his way into the kitchen to compliment the cook, and forgot nobody in the establishment—not only in "tips," but in a frank and sympathetic address which must have contrasted curiously, in their minds, with the reserve and indifference of other English tourists.

At Florence he met Mr. Henry Roderick Newman, an American artist who had been at Coniston and was working for the Guild. He introduced Ruskin to Mrs. and Miss Alexander. In these ladies' home he found his own aims, in religion, philanthropy, and art, realised in an unexpected way. Miss Alexander's drawing at first struck him by its sincerity. Not only did she draw beautifully, but she also wrote a beautiful hand; and it had been one of his old sayings that missal-writing, rather than missal-painting, was the admirable thing in mediæval art. The legends illustrated by her drawings were collected by herself, through an intimate acquaintance with Italians of all classes, from the nobles to the peasantry, whom she understood and loved, and by whom she was loved and understood. By such intercourse she had learned to look beneath the surface. In religious matters her American common-sense saw through her neighbours—saw the good in them as well as the weakness—and she was as friendly, not only in social intercourse, but in spiritual things, with the worthy village priest as with T.P. Rossetti,[⁴⁷] the leader of the Protestant "Brethren," whom she called her pastor. And Ruskin, who had been driven away from Protestantism by the poor Waldensian at Turin, and had wandered through many realms of doubt and voyaged through strange seas of thought, alone, found harbour at last with the disciple of a modern evangelist, the frequenter of the little meeting-house of outcast Italian Protestants.