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and that it was entirely proper for me to have it, and inexpedient that anybody else should.¹ I ought to have secured it instantly, and begged my father’s pardon, tenderly. He would have been angry, and surprised, and grieved; but loved me none the less, found in the end I was right, and been entirely pleased. I should have been very uncomfortable and penitent for a while, but loved my father all the more for having hurt him, and, in the good of the thing itself, finally satisfied and triumphant. As it was, the “Splügen” was a thorn in both our sides, all our lives. My father was always trying to get it; Mr. Munro, aided by dealers, always raising the price on him, till it got up from 80 to 400 guineas. Then we gave it up,-with unspeakable wear and tear of best feelings on both sides.

73. And how about “Thou shalt not covet,” etc.? Good reader, if you ask this, please consult my philosophical works.² Here, I can only tell you facts, whether of circumstance or law. It is a law that if you do a foolish thing you suffer for it, whatever your motive. I do not say the motive itself may not be rewarded or punished on its own merits. In this case, nothing but mischief, as far as I know, came of the whole matter.

In the meantime, bearing the disappointment as best I could, I rejoiced in the sight of the sketches, and the hope of the drawings that were to be. And they gave me much more to think of than my mischance. I saw that these sketches were straight impressions from nature,-not artificial designs, like the Carthages and Romes. And it began to occur to me that perhaps even in the artifice of Turner there might be more truth than I had understood. I was by this time very learned in his principles of composition; but it seemed to me that in these later subjects Nature herself was composing with him.

¹ [For the ultimate gift of the drawing to Ruskin by his friends, see Vol. XIII. p. 487.]

² [For disquisitions on avarice and covetousness, envious and innocent, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 62 (Vol. XXVIII. pp. 518 seq.), and the other passages there referred to (at p. 518, n.⁴).]

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