The Life of John Ruskin Part 26

"I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least likely to give you a farthing! My first word to all men and boys who care to hear me is 'Don't get into debt. Starve and go to heaven--but don't borrow. Try first begging,--I don't mind, if it's really needful, stealing! But don't buy things you can't pay for!'

"And of all manner of debtors, pious people building churches they can't pay for are the most detestable nonsense to me. Can't you preach and pray behind the hedges--or in a sandpit--or a coal-hole--first?

"And of all manner of churches thus idiotically built iron churches are the d.a.m.nablest to me.

"And of all the sects of believers in any ruling spirit--Hindoos, Turks, Feather Idolaters, and Mumbo Jumbo, Log and Fire worshippers, who want churches, your modern English Evangelical sect is the most absurd, and entirely objectionable and unendurable to me! All which they might very easily have found out from my books--any other sort of sect would!--before bothering me to write it to them.

"Ever, nevertheless, and in all this saying, your faithful servant,

"JOHN RUSKIN."

The recipient of the letter promptly sold it. Only three days later, Ruskin was writing one of the most striking pa.s.sages in "Praeterita"

(vol. ii., chap. 5)--indeed, one of the daintiest landscape pieces in all his works, describing the blue Rhone as it flows under the bridges of Geneva.

This energetic letter-writing made people stare; but a more serious result of these periods between strength and helplessness was the tendency to misunderstanding with old friends. Ruskin had spoiled many of them, if I may say so, by too uniform forbearance and unselfishness: and now that he was not always strong enough to be patient, difficulties ensued which they had not always the tact to avert. "The moment I have to scold people they say I'm crazy," he said, piteously, one day. And so, one hardly knows how, he found himself at strife on all sides.

Before he was fully recovered from the attack of 1886 there were troubles about the Oxford drawing school; and he withdrew most of the pictures he had there on loan. How little animosity he really felt against Oxford is shown from the fact that early in the next year (February, 1887) he was planning with his cousin, Wm. Richardson, to give 5,000 to the drawing school, as a joint gift in memory of their two mothers. Mr. Richardson's death, and Ruskin's want of means--for he had already spent all his capital--put an end to the scheme. But the remaining loans, including important and valuable drawings by himself, he did not withdraw, and it is to be hoped they may stay there to show not only the artist's hand but the friendly heart of the founder and benefactor.

In April, 1887, came the news of Laurence Hilliard's death in the Aegean, with a shock that intensified the tendency to another recurrence of illness. For months the situation caused great anxiety. In August he posted with Mrs. A. Severn towards the south, and took up his quarters at Folkestone, moving soon after to Sandgate, where he remained, with short visits to town, until the following summer--better, or worse, from week to week--sometimes writing a little for "Praeterita," or preparing material for the continuation of unfinished books; but bringing on his malady with each new effort. In June, 1888, he went with Mr. Arthur Severn to Abbeville, and made his headquarters for nearly a month at the Tete de Boeuf. Here he was arrested for sketching the fortifications and examined at the police station, much to his amus.e.m.e.nt. At Abbeville, too, he met Mr. Detmar Blow, a young architect, whom he asked to accompany him to Italy. They stayed awhile at Paris,--drove, as in 1882, over the Jura, and up to Chamouni, where Ruskin wrote the epilogue to the reprint of "Modern Painters"; then, by Martigny and the Simplon, they went to visit Mrs. and Miss Alexander at Ba.s.sano; and thence to Venice. They returned by the St. Gothard, reaching Herne Hill early in December.

But this journey did not, as it had been hoped, put him in possession of his strength like the journey of 1882. Then, he had returned to public life with new vigour; now, his best hours were hours of feebleness and depression; and he came home to Brantwood in the last days of the year, wearied to death, to wait for the end.

CHAPTER X

DATUR HORA QUIETI (1889-1900)

In the summer of 1889, at Seascale, on the c.u.mberland coast, Ruskin was still busy upon "Praeterita." He had his task planned out to the finish: in nine more chapters he meant to conclude his third volume with a review of the leading memories of his life, down to the year 1875, when the story was to close. Pa.s.sages here and there were written, material collected from old letters and journals, and the contents and t.i.tles of the chapters arranged; but the intervals of strength had become fewer and shorter, and at last, in spite of all his courage and energy, he was brought face to face with the fact that his powers were ebbing away, and that head and hand would do their work no more.

He could not finish "Praeterita"; but he could not leave it without record of one companionship of his life, which was, it seemed, all that was left to him of the old times and the old folks at home. And so, setting aside the plans he had made, he devoted the last chapter, as his forebodings told him it must be, to his cousin, Mrs. Arthur Severn, and wrote the story of "Joanna's Care."

In his bedroom at Seascale, morning after morning, he still worked, or tried to work, as he had been used to do on journeys farther afield in brighter days. But now he seemed lost among the papers scattered on his table; he could not fix his mind upon them, and turned from one subject to another in despair; and yet patient, and kindly to those with him whose help he could no longer use, and who dared not show--though he could not but guess--how heart-breaking it was.

They put the best face upon it, of course: drove in the afternoons about the country--to Muncaster Castle, to Calder Abbey, where he tried to sketch once more; and when the proofs of "Joanna's Care" were finally revised, to Wast.w.a.ter. But travelling now was no longer restorative.

It added not a little to the misfortunes of the time that two of his best friends in the outside world were disputing over a third. By n.o.body was Carlyle's reputation more valued, and yet he acknowledged that Froude was but telling the truth in the revelations which so surprised the public; and much as he admired Norton, he deprecated the attack on Carlyle's literary executor, whose motives he understood and approved.

In August, after his return to Coniston, the storm-cloud came down upon him once more. It was only in the summer of 1890 that he was able to get about. But firmly convinced that his one chance lay in absolute rest and quiet, he wisely refused any sort of exertion, and was rewarded by a temporary improvement in health and strength.

In the meantime he was obliged to hand over to others such parts of his work as others could do. The St. George's Guild still continued in existence, though it naturally lost much of its interest, and the whole of its distinctive mission, when he ceased to be able to direct it. The Museum had quite outgrown its cottage at Walkley, never intended for more than temporary premises; and for ten years there had been talk of new buildings, at first on the spot, then on the Guild's ground at Bewdley, where, at one time, Ruskin planned a fairy palace in the woods, with cloistered hostelries for the wandering student. Such schemes were stopped less by his illness than by want of means.

Sheffield, however, did not wish to lose the Museum, and offered to house it if the Guild would present it to the town. That was, of course, out of the question. But a new offer to take over the collection on loan, the Guild paying a curator, was another matter, and was thankfully accepted. The Corporation fulfilled their share of the bargain with generosity. An admirable site was a.s.signed at Meersbrook Park, in a fine old hall surrounded with trees, and overlooking a broad view of the town and country. On April 15th, 1890, the Museum was opened by the Earl of Carlisle, in presence of the Corporation, the Trustees of the Guild, and a large a.s.sembly of friends and Sheffield townspeople. Since then the attendance of visitors and students shows that the collection is appreciated by the public; and it is to be hoped that though nominally a loan it will remain there in perpetuity, and that it will be maintained and used with due regard to the intentions of the founder.

Many other plans had to be modified, as he found himself less able to work, and was obliged to hand over his business to others. With his early books he had been dissatisfied, as expressing immature views. "The Stones of Venice" had been recast into two small volumes, and "St.

Mark's Rest" written in the attempt to supplement and correct it. But the original book was obviously in demand, and a new edition was brought out in 1886.

"Modern Painters" had been also on the condemned list. The aggressive Protestantism and the geological theories involved in his description of mountains he condemned as errors; moreover, at the time of the last edition published by Messrs. Smith & Elder (1873), he had been told that the plates, which he considered a very important part of the work, would not stand another impression; and so he destroyed nine of them, in order that no subsequent edition might be brought out in the original form. He reprinted vol. ii. in a cheap edition, and began to recast the rest, with annotations and additions, as "In Montibus Sanctis," and "Coeli Enarrant", while Miss S. Beever's selections ("Frondes Agrestes") found a ready sale. But this did not satisfy the public, and there was a continual cry for a reprint, to which, at last, he yielded. Early in 1889 the "Complete Edition" appeared; with the cancelled plates reproduced.

He had always felt it a grievance that the enormous popularity of his works in America meant an enormous piracy. Towards the end of the "Fifties," Mr. Wiley of New York had begun to print cheap Ruskins; not, indeed, illegally, but without proper acknowledgment to the author, and without any reference to the author's wishes as to form and style of production. An artist and writer on art, insisting on delicacy and refinement as the first necessity of draughtsmanship, and himself sparing no trouble or expense in the ill.u.s.trations of his own works, was naturally dissatisfied with the wretched "Artotypes" with which the American editions caricatured his beautiful plates. Not only that, but it was a common practice to smuggle these editions, recommended by their cheapness, into other countries. Mr. Wiley sent, on an average, five hundred sets of "Modern Painters" to Europe every year, the greater number to England. His example was followed by other American publishers, so that in New York alone there came to be half a dozen houses advertising Ruskin's works, and many more throughout the cities of the States. Mr. Wiley, the first in the field, proposed to pay up a royalty upon all the copies he had sold if Ruskin would recognise him as accredited publisher in America. The offer of so large a sum would have been tempting, had it not meant that Ruskin must condone what he had for years denounced, and sanction what he strongly disapproved. The case would have been different if proposals had been made to reproduce his books in his own style, under competent supervision. This was done in 1890, when arrangements were made with Messrs. Charles E. Merrill & Co., of New York, to bring out the "Brantwood" edition of Ruskin, under the editorship of Professor C.E. Norton.

Though the sale of Ruskin's books in America had never, until so recently, brought him any profit, his own business in England, started in 1871 with the monthly pamphlet of "Fors," and in 1872 with the volume of "Sesame and Lilies," prospered singularly. Mr. George Allen, who, while building up an independent connection, still remained the sole publisher of Mr. Ruskin's works, said that the venture was successful from its earliest years. It was found that the booksellers were not indispensable, and that business could be done through the post as well as over the counter. In spite of occasional difficulties, such as the bringing out of works in parts, appearing irregularly or stopping outright at the author's illnesses, there was a steady increase of profit, rising in the author's later years (according to Mr. Allen) to an average of 4,000.

Fortunate it was that this bold attempt succeeded. The 200,000 he inherited from his parents had gone,--chiefly in gifts and in attempts to do good. The interest he used to spend on himself; the capital he gave away until it totally disappeared, except what is represented by the house he lived in and its contents. The sale of his books was his only income, and a great part of that went to pensioners to whom in the days of his wealth he pledged himself, to relatives and friends, discharged servants, inst.i.tutions in which he took an interest at one time or other. But he had sufficient for his wants, and no need to fear poverty in his old age.

In this quiet retreat at Brantwood the echoes of the outer world did not sound very loudly. Ruskin had been too highly praised and too roundly abused, during fifty years of public life, to care what magazine critics and journalists said of him. Other men of his standing could solace themselves, if it be solace, in the consciousness that a grateful country has recognised their talents or their services. But civic and academic honours were not likely to be showered on a man who had spent his life in strenuous opposition to academicism in art and letters, and in vigorous attacks upon both political parties, and upon the established order of things.

And yet Oxford and Cambridge awarded him the highest honours in their gift. In 1873 the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours voted him honorary member, a recognition which gave him great pleasure at the time.

At different dates he was elected to various societies--Geological, Zoological, Architectural, Horticultural, Historical, Anthropological, Metaphysical; and to the Athenaeum and Alpine Clubs. He was elected Hon.

Member of the Academy of Florence in 1862, of the Academy of Venice, 1877, of the Royal Academies of Antwerp and Brussels in 1892; and was also an Hon. Member of the American Academy. But he did not seek distinctions, and he even declined them, as in the case of the medal of the Royal Inst.i.tute of British Architects.

A more striking form of distinction than such t.i.tles is the fact that he was the first writer whose contemporaries, during his lifetime, formed societies to study his work. The first Ruskin Society was founded in 1879 at Manchester, and was followed by the Societies of London, Glasgow and Liverpool. In 1887 the Ruskin Reading Guild was formed in Scotland, with many local branches in England and Ireland, and a journal, subsequently re-named _Igdrasil_, to promote study of literary and social subjects in Ruskin, and in writers like Carlyle and Tolstoi taking a standpoint similar to his. In 1896, Ruskin Societies were formed at Birmingham and in the Isle of Man. Many cla.s.ses and clubs for the study of Ruskin were also in operation throughout America during his lifetime.

His eightieth birthday was the signal for an outburst of congratulations almost greater than even admirers had expected. The post came late and loaded with flowers and letters, and all day long telegrams arrived from all parts of the world, until they lay in heaps, unopened for the time being. A great address had been prepared, with costly illumination on vellum, and binding by Mr. Cobden Sanderson.

"Year by year," it said, "in ever widening extent, there is an increasing trust in your teaching, an increasing desire to realize the n.o.ble ideals you have set before mankind in words which we feel have brought nearer to our hearts the kingdom of G.o.d upon earth. It is our hope and prayer that the joy and peace you have brought to others may return in full measure to your own heart filling it with the peace which comes from the love of G.o.d and the knowledge of the love of your fellow-men."

Among those who subscribed to these sentiments were various people of importance, such as Royal Academicians, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, the Trustees of the British Museum and of the National Gallery, the St. George's Guild and Ruskin Societies, with many others; and the address was presented by a deputation who reported that they had found him looking well "and extremely happy."

A similar illuminated address from the University of Oxford ran thus:

"We venture to send you, as you begin your eighty-first year, these few words of greeting and good-will, to make you sure that in Oxford the grat.i.tude and reverence with which men think of you is ever fresh. You have helped many to find in life more happiness than they thought it held; and we trust there is happiness in the latter years of your long life. You have taught many to see the wealth of beauty in nature and in art, prizing the remembrance of it; and we trust that the sights you have best loved come back to your memory with unfading beauty. You have encouraged many to keep a good heart through dark days, and we trust that the courage of a constant hope is yours."

The London Ruskin Society sent a separate address; and to show that if not a prophet in his own country he was at any rate a valued friend, the Coniston Parish Council resolved "and carried unanimously," says the local journal, "with applause,"

"That the congratulations of this council be offered to Mr. John Ruskin, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, together with the warm thanks which they and all their neighbours feel for the kindness he has shown, and the many generous acts he has done to them and theirs during twenty-seven years of residence at Coniston, where his presence is most truly appreciated, and his name will always be most gratefully remembered."

But as the year went on he did not regain his usual summer strength.

Walking out had become a greater weariness to him, and he had to submit to the humiliation of a bath-chair. To save himself even the labour of creeping down to his study, he sat usually in the turret-room upstairs, next to his bed-chamber, but still with the look of health in his face, and the fire in his eyes quite unconquered. He would listen while Baxter read the news to him, following public events with interest, or while Mrs. Severn or Miss Severn read stories, novel after novel; but always liking old favourities best, and never anything that was unhappy. Some pet books he would pore over, or drowse over by the hour. The last of these was one in which he had a double interest, for it was about ships of war, and it was written by the kinsman of a dear friend. Some of the artists he had loved and helped had failed him or left him, but Burne-Jones was always true. One night, going up to bed, the old man stopped long to look at the photograph from Philip Burne-Jones's portrait of his father. "That's my dear brother, Ned," he said, nodding good-bye to the picture as he went. Next night the great artist died, and of all the many losses of these later years this one was the hardest to bear.

So when a little boy lent him "A Fleet in Being" he read and re-read it; then got a copy for himself, and might have learnt it by heart, so long he pored over it. But when the little boy or his sisters went to visit the "Di Pa" (Dear Papa), as he liked children to call their old friend, he had now scarcely anything to talk about. "He just looked at us, and smiled," they would report; "and we couldn't think what to say."

He had his "bright days," when he would hear business discussed, though a very little of it was wearisome. It was impossible to bring before him half the wants and wishes of his correspondents, who could not yet realise his weakness, and besought the notice they fancied so easily given. Yet in that weakness one could trace no delusions, none of the mental break-down which was taken for granted. If he gave an opinion it was clear and sound enough; of course with the old Ruskinian waywardness of idea which always puzzled his public. But he knew what he was about, and knew what was going on. He was like the aged Queen Aud in the saga, who "rose late and went to bed early, and if anyone asked after her health she answered sharply."

But all the love and care spent on him could not keep him with us. There came the Green Yule that makes a fat kirkyard, and in January of 1900 hardly a house in the neighbourhood was free from the plague of influenza. In spite of strictest precautions it invaded Brantwood.

On the 18th of January he was remarkably well, as people often are before an illness--"fey," as the old Northern folk-lore has it. Towards evening, when Mrs. Severn went to him for the usual reading--it was Edna Lyall's "In the Golden Days"--his throat was irritable and he "ached all over." They put him to bed and sent for Dr. Parsons, his constant medical attendant, who found his temperature as high as 102, and feared the consequences. But the patient, as he always did, refused to be considered ill, and ate his dinner, and seemed next day to be really better. There was no great cause for alarm, though naturally some for anxiety; and in reasonable hopes of amendment, the slight attack was not made public.

On Sat.u.r.day morning, the 20th, all appeared to be going well until about half-past ten. Suddenly he collapsed and became unconscious. It was the dreaded failure of heart after influenza. His breathing weakened, and through the morning and through the afternoon in that historic little room, lined with his Turners, he lay, falling softly asleep. No efforts could revive him. There was no struggle; there were no words. The bitterness of death was spared him. And when it was all over, and those who had watched through the day turned at last from his bedside, "sunset and evening star" shone bright above the heavenly lake and the clear-cut blue of Coniston fells.

Next morning brought messages of hurried condolence, and the Monday such a chorus from the press as made all the praises of his lifetime seem trifling and all its blame forgotten. If only, in his years of struggle and despair, he had known the place he should win!

On the Tuesday came a telegram offering a grave in Westminster Abbey, the highest honour our nation can give to its dead. But his own mind had long since been made plain on that point, and his wishes had not been forgotten. "If I die here," he used to say, "bury me at Coniston. I should have liked, if it happened at Herne Hill, to lie with my father and mother in Shirley churchyard, as I should have wished, if I died among the Alps, to be buried in the snow."

We carried him on Monday night down from his bed-chamber and laid him in the study. There was a pane of gla.s.s let into the coffin-lid, so that the face might be kept in sight; and there it lay, among lilies of the valley, and framed in the wreath sent by Mr. Watts, the great painter, a wreath of the true Greek laurel, the victor's crown, from the tree growing in his garden, cut only thrice before, for Tennyson and Leighton and Burne-Jones. It would be too long to tell of all such tokens of affection and respect that were heaped upon the coffin,--from the wreath of the Princess Louise down to the tributes of humble dependants,--above a hundred and twenty-five, we counted; some of them the costliest money could buy, some valued no less for the feeling they expressed. I am not sure that the most striking was not the village tailor's, with this on its label--"There was a man sent from G.o.d, and his name was John."