xxxviii INTRODUCTION

between seven and nine, into a speculation on the seven deadly sins or the nine muses. My table is heaped with unanswered letters-MSS. of four or five different books at six or seven different parts of each-sketches getting rubbed out-others getting smudged in-parcels from Mr. Brown unopened, parcels for Mr. Moore¹ unsent; my inkstand in one place-too probably upset-my pen in another; my paper under a pile of books, and my last carefully written note thrown into the waste-paper basket!”²

Public affairs were not forgotten in the press of artistic studies, as may be seen from Fors Clavigera³ and the following letter to Burne-Jones, which refers, at the beginning, to the preparations for the “National Conference” on the Eastern Question, held at the St. James’s Hall on December 8. William Morris and Burne-Jones were both keenly interested on Gladstone’s side in opposition to Disraeli’s policy, and Ruskin had sent his name to be placed on the list of Conveners of the Conference:-

“VENICE, 8th Dec. ’76.

“MY DARLING NED,-All your letter is very precious to me. I am greatly amazed, for one thing, to find that I can be of use and value to you in this matter-supposing myself a mere outlaw in public opinion.

“I hope neither Morris nor you will retire wholly again out of such spheres of effort. It seems to me especially a time when the quietest men should be disquieted, and the meekest, self-assertive.

“But the great joy to me was the glimpse of hope of seeing you here in spring. It will soon be here; a few more dark days, and we shall be counting the gain of minutes in the grey of dawn, and I expect to be here far into the spring. I have scarcely begun my work yet on the old Stones, having been entirely taken up with St. Ursulas and trying my strength in old sketching, and I think we should have a fine little time again if you could come. I expect by then to be able to get the death of St. Ursula done, and we would mourn over her together, and then come away home, over the hills, quietly.

“Ever your loving Oldie.”

“You shan’t be bored with Alps, but you must wait a little among Italian chapels and budding vines, and perhaps a Swiss Hermitage or so.”⁴

¹ See below, p. xli.

² This letter has been printed in W. G. Collingwood’s Life and Work of John Ruskin, 1990, p. 324.

³ See Letter 74.

⁴ The first two paragraphs of this letter have been printed in the Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, vol. ii. p. 73.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]