xxxiv INTRODUCTION

in connection with Ruskin’s later “Notes” on the same artist; but we may here remark that the paper shows how full was the author’s mind at this period of the destruction of ancient buildings, and of the value, therefore, of all pictorial records of them. A time will come, he said, when Prout’s works “will be cherished with a melancholy gratitude, when the pillars of Venice shall lie mouldering in the salt shallows of her sea, and the stones of the goodly towers of Rouen have become ballast for the barges of the Seine.” A pen-picture of Ruskin at this time of eager activity has been drawn by Dr. Furnivall, who was invited to call at Park Street one Sunday afternoon:-

“After a short chat with the wife, I saw the door open, and John Ruskin walkt softly in. I sprang up at once to take the outstretcht hand, and then and there began a friendship which was for many years the chief joy of my life. Ruskin was a tall, slight fellow, whose piercing frank blue eye lookt through you and drew you to him. A fair man, with rough light hair and reddish whiskers, in a dark blue frock coat with velvet collar, bright Oxford blue stock, black trousers and patent slippers-how vivid he is to me still ! The only blemish in his face was the lower lip, which protruded somewhat: he had been bitten there by a dog in his early youth. But you ceast to notice this as soon as he began to talk. I never met any man whose charm of manner at all approacht Ruskin’s. Partly feminine it was, no doubt; but the delicacy, the sympathy, the gentleness and affectionateness of his way, the fresh and penetrating things he said, the boyish fun, the earnestness, the interest he showd in all deep matters, combined to make a whole which I have never seen equalld.”¹

In the case of The Seven Lamps, as in that of the second volume of Modern Painters,² the book took its author at once a long and a short time to write. It will have been seen from the foregoing pages that in one sense the book occupied Ruskin for three years; he had been thinking of the subject ever since 1846; he had been accumulating materials and sketches, and some sheets at least were written early in 1848.³ But in another sense the book was written, and the illustrations prepared, quickly and under pressure, during the months November 1848 to April 1849. In the first edition, the plates were not only all drawn by the author, but they were also etched by his own hand. It had been announced for publication on his father’s birthday (May 10, 1849), but before that time

¹ “Forewords” by F. J. Furnivall, to Two Letters concerning “Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds,” addressed to the Rev. F. D. Maurice in 1851, privately printed, 1890, p. 8.

² See Vol. IV. p. xxxix.

³ See below, p. 278.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]