INTRODUCTION xxix

joined Mr. Severn at the fall shortly afterwards, ‘how could you do such a cruel thing as make that man tell me about the waterfall? I shall never care for it again!’”¹

Entries in Ruskin’s diary, and letters to friends, showed how much he enjoyed the bright companionship of his cousin and her husband, in scenes which he had known since boyhood, and which comprised much of Turner’s country. The only drawbacks were “the storm cloud”² and evidences sometimes of vandalism:-

“August 13, 1875.-Another perfect day, and again to-day a perfect sunrise .... I am very thankful to have seen the windhover.³ It was approximately at a height of 800 feet, but being seen over the cliffs of Gordale, I had a standard of its motion, and when it passed, it was pause absolute; no bird fixed on a wire could have stood more moveless in the sky, so far as change of place was considered, but assuredly both wings and tail were in slight motion all the time. It had two modes of stopping-one, holding the body nearly horizontal with rapid quivering of wings; the other, holding the body oblique with very slight movement of wings and tail. Of course it stands to reason that the motion of these must be in exact proportion to the face of the wind, otherwise it would be blown back.”

“August 15.-On Monday I drew studies of leaves in exquisite calm sunshine in Malham Cove;⁴ and was studying the two geranium species in perfect peace at two o’clock, when suddenly, within five minutes, the whole air became misty and the sun dim. It cleared again in an hour, and was beautiful in evening, Arthur drawing his woodland evening sun subject. Then, yesterday windy, but sunny. I sheltered in Cove, drawing first geranium study in great happiness. At two it got blacker, and, as I walked to Malham Tarn, very cold; but in evening the most divine and intense moonlight prevailing over the drifted cloud of the black wind.”

“August 16.-An exquisite morning sky, all fretted with sweet white cloud, seen only here and there through miserable rack of the foul storm smoke. Why does, how can, God do it, and spoil

¹ Mrs. Alfred Hunt, in her edition of Turner’s Richmondshire, 1891, p. 29. Mr. Severn’s account of this slight, but characteristic, incident is somewhat different, and may be read in W. G. Collingwood’s Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1900, pp. 321-322. Mr. Severn was sketching, when he had his conversation with the mason, and as the sketch was a very good one, Ruskin was mollified.

² See the account of “the modern plague-cold” at Bolton Abbey, July 4, 1875, in The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, § 28.

³ See Deucalion, ii. ch. i. § 18, where Ruskin refers to the flight of the windhover.

⁴ Compare Fors Clavigera, Letter 58, § 6, and Vol. XXI. p. 145.

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