xxxii INTRODUCTION

entries fix the date of the meetings which have been described so sympathetically by Thackeray’s daughter:-

“Low Bank Ground, our own little farm ... had been the site of a priory once, and on this slope and in the shade of the chestnut trees, where monks once dwelt, the writer met Ruskin again after many years. He, the master of Brantwood, came, as I remember, dressed with some ceremony, meeting us with a certain old-fashioned courtesy and manner, but he spoke with his heart, of which the fashion doesn’t change happily from one decade to another; and as he stood in his tall hat and frock-coat upon the green, the clouds and drifts came blowing up from every quarter of heaven, and I can almost see him still, and hear the tones of his voice as he struck the turf with his foot, speaking with emphasis and true and hospitable kindness. Low Bank Ground is but a very little way from Brantwood ... ‘A dash of the oars and you are there,’ as Ruskin said, and accordingly we started in the old punt for our return visit.... That evening, the first we ever spent at Brantwood, the rooms were lighted by slow sunset cross-lights from the lake without. Mrs. Severn sat in her place behind a silver urn, while the master of the house, with his back to the window, was dispensing such cheer, spiritual and temporal, as those who have been his guests will best realise,-fine wheaten bread and Scotch cakes in many a crisp circlet and crescent, and trout from the lake, and strawberries such as grow only on the Brantwood slopes. Were these cups of tea only, or cups of fancy, feeling, inspiration? And as we crunched and quaffed we listened to a certain strain not easily to be described, changing from its graver first notes to the sweetest and most charming of vibrations... The text was that strawberries should be ripe and sweet, and we munched and marked it then and there; that there should be a standard of fitness applied to every detail of life, and this standard, with a certain gracious malice, wit, hospitality, and remorselessness, he began to apply to one thing and another, to one person and another, to dress, to food, to books. I remember his describing to my brother-in-law, Leslie Stephen, the shabby print and paper that people were content to live with, and contrasting with these the books he himself was then printing for the use of the shepherds round about. And among the rest he showed us Sir Philip Sidney’s paraphrase of the Psalms, which he has long since given to the world in the Bibliotheca Pastorum.... Listening back to the echoes of a lifetime we can most of us still hear some strains very clear, very real and distinct, out of all the confusion of past noise and chatter; and the writer (nor is she alone in this) must ever count the music of Brantwood oratory among such strains. Music, oratory-I know not what to call that wondrous gift which subjugates all who come within its reach.

‘God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out.’

If ever a man lent out his mind to help others, Ruskin is the man. From

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