The Life of John Ruskin

by W. G. Collingwood

"MY DEAREST FATHER,

"We got through gloriously, though at one place there was the most awkward crush I ever saw in my life—the pit at the Surrey, which I never saw, may perhaps show the like—nothing else. The floor was covered with the ruins of ladies' dresses, torn lace and fallen flowers. But Effie was luckily out of it, and got through unscathed—and heard people saying 'What a beautiful dress!' just as she got up to the Queen. It was fatiguing enough but not so awkward as I expected....

"The Queen looked much younger and prettier than I expected—very like her pictures, even like those which are thought to flatter most—but I only saw the profile—I could not see the front face as I knelt to her, at least without an upturning of the eyes which I thought would be unseemly—and there were but some two or three seconds allowed for the whole affair....

"The Queen gave her hand very graciously: but looked bored; poor thing, well she might be, with about a quarter of a mile square of people to bow to.

"I met two people whom I have not seen for many a day, Kildare and Scott Murray—had a chat with the former and a word with Murray, but nothing of interest...."

As one of the chief literary figures of the day, Ruskin could not avoid society, and, as he tells in "Præterita," he was rewarded for the reluctant performance of his duties by meeting with several who became his lifelong friends. Chief among these he mentions Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple, afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple. The acquaintance with Samuel Rogers, inauspiciously begun many years before, now ripened into something like friendship; Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) and other men of letters were met at Rogers' breakfasts. A little later a visit to the Master of Trinity, Whewell, at Cambridge, brought him into contact with Professer Willis, the authority on Gothic architecture, and other notabilities of the sister University. There also he met Mr. and Mrs. Marshall of Leeds (and Coniston); and he pursued his journey to Lincoln, with Mr. Simpson, whom he had met at Lady Davy's, and to Farnley for a visit to Mr. F.H. Fawkes, the owner of the celebrated collection of Turners (April, 1851).

In London he was acquainted with many of the leading artists and persons interested in art. Of the "teachers" of the day he was known to men so diverse as Carlyle—and Maurice, with whom he corresponded in 1815 about his "Notes on Sheepfolds"—and C.H. Spurgeon, to whom his mother was devoted. He was as yet neither a hermit, nor a heretic: but mixed freely with all sorts and conditions, with one exception, for Puseyites and Romanists were yet as heathen men and publicans to him; and he noted with interest, while writing his review of Venetian history, that the strength of Venice was distinctly Anti-Papal, and her virtues Christian but not Roman. Reflections on this subject were to have formed part of his great work, but the first volume was taken up with the à priori development of architectural forms; and the treatment in especial of Venetian matters had to be indefinitely postponed, until another visit had given him the opportunity of gathering his material.

Meanwhile, his wide sympathy had turned his mind toward a subject which then had received little attention, though since then loudly discussed—the reunion of (Protestant) Christians.

He put together his thoughts in a pamphlet on the text "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd," calling it, in allusion to his architectural studies, "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds." He proposed a compromise, trying to prove that the pretensions to priesthood on the high Anglican side, and the objections to episcopacy on the Presbyterian, were alike untenable; and hoped that, when once these differences—such little things he thought them—were arranged, a united Church of England might become the nucleus of a world-wide federation of Protestants, a civitas Dei, a New Jerusalem.

There were many who agreed with his aspirations: he received shoals of letters from sympathizing readers, most of them praising his aims and criticising his means. Others objected rather to his manner than to his matter; the title savoured of levity, and an art-critic writing on theology was supposed to be wandering out of his province. Tradition says that the "Notes" were freely bought by Border farmers under a rather laughable mistake; but surely it was no new thing for a Scotch reader to find a religious tract under a catching title. There were a few replies; one by Mr. Dyce, who defended the Anglican view with mild persiflage and the usual commonplaces. And there the matter ended, for the public. For Ruskin, it was the beginning of a train of thought which led him far. He gradually learnt that his error was not in asking too much, but in asking too little. He wished for a union of Protestants, forgetting the sheep that are not of that fold, and little dreaming of the answer he got, after many days, in "Christ's Folk in the Apennine."