lx INTRODUCTION

in another form. The story has been told by the prime mover in the matter, Dr. Furnivall:-

“The first reprint of this grand chapter of The Stones of Venice, and its sub-title, ‘And Herein of the True Functions of the Workman in Art,’ were due, not to the ‘Master’ himself, but to his humble disciple and friend-myself. Through my sending him a prospectus of our Working Men’s College, Ruskin kindly offered to help us, and take the art classes. We were to hold our opening meeting in Hullah’s Hall, in Long Acre, at the corner of Endell-Street, where the big coach factory now is. I felt that we wanted some printed thing to introduce us to the working men of London, as we knew only the few we had come across in our co-operative movement, and all our Associations had failed. F. D. Maurice had written nothing good enough for this purpose, but Ruskin had. So I got leave from him and his publisher, Mr. George Smith, to reprint this grand chapter, ‘On the Nature of Gothic’; and I had to add to it the sub-title, ‘And Herein of the True Functions of the Workman in Art,’ to show working men how it touches them. I had ‘Price Fourpence’ put on the title; but we gave a copy to everybody who came to our first meeting-over 400-and the tract well served its purpose. Afterwards an orange wrapper and a folding woodcut from the Stones were added to the reprint, and it was sold at 6d. for the benefit of the college.”¹

It is not often that the preacher of a new gospel finds his words taken up thus promptly as the text for practical effort. Through these cheap reprints some of the central and most characteristic passages of Ruskin’s teaching found opportunities of influence in a wide circle. The Kelmscott reprint of 1892 is described below (p. lxix.); it was an expensive book, intended for the few; but the chapter was again issued at a cheap price, in 1899, with Morris’s preface, and has once more had a large popular sale.

In its original form this volume, as also that of the succeeding volume, had for some years only a slow sale. They were both issued, as we have seen, in 1853; there was no second edition of them till 1867. A new edition of the whole work followed in 1874, and then, again, there was a long interval, the book in this case being allowed to go out of print. Ruskin had come to feel the same dislike to some of it that he entertained towards The Seven Lamps.² He had so outgrown the narrow Protestantism of his early years that he felt he could not re-issue the early books without many omissions.³ The religious teaching was, he said, “all the more for the sincerity of it, misleading-sometimes even

¹ The Daily News, April 4, 1899. For further particulars of this reprint, see below, Bibliographical Note, p. lxviii.

² See Vol. VIII. p. xlvi.

³ Sesame and Lilies, preface to edition of 1871, § 2.

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