xxiv INTRODUCTION

Rousses (August 11), “the delight I have out of the two with me; they never let me pass a dull moment.” It seems to have been a merry party, and Ruskin enjoyed himself thoroughly.¹ His pleasure was increased by falling in at Champagnole with some other friends, Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard,² who attached themselves to the party for some days. Mr. Moore, he writes to his father (Geneva, August 12), was “delighted with everything, and is a most agreeable companion therefore. Newton is here too, and they are delighted with each other.” At Chamouni Ruskin took them to his favourite points-to the wood of the Pélerins, for instance, where they had a picnic, Newton declaring that they were now “in search, not of the picturesque, but of the picnicturesque.” There was only one drawback: Ruskin acted as courier and kept all the accounts. “I assure you,” he wrote, “it is not a little puzzling to a person who rarely adds a sum twice with the same result.” But his personally conducted party were appreciative and in high spirits. They were in raptures with the Pass of the Great St. Bernard, though they teased him by abusing Chamouni in comparison. At the Hospice they “had a pleasant evening-Effie made the monks play and sing not Gregorian chants merely, but very merry and unclerical tunes. I was afraid we should have more banishments to the Simplon.”³

Another happy day was spent at Aosta:-

“We soon forgot Cretinism and everything else in the fields outside the walls. Newton was up at four o’clock to see the sunrise, and led the way in the afternoon among the vines and chestnuts, which shade the sloping banks of pasture on the northern side of the valley-terrace above terrace of trellised vine, and mossy rocks burning in the full sunshine, alternating with deep groves of chestnut; and on three sides the snowy mountains which I had never before seen properly-Mont Combin especially, a great culminating point of the chain between Mont Velan and the Matterhorn. Nor was this all, for in the town itself we found one of the most interesting Lombard

¹ The itinerary of Ruskin’s sojourn abroad, 1851-1852, was as follows:-Boulogne (Aug. 4), Paris (Aug. 5), Sens (Aug. 7), Dijon (Aug. 8), Champagnole (Aug. 9), Les Rousses (Aug. 10), Geneva (Aug. 11), Chamouni (Aug. 13), Montanvert (Aug. 14), Chamouni (Aug. 15), St. Martin’s (Aug. 17), Geneva (Aug. 19), Vevay (Aug. 20), Martigny (Aug. 21), Great St. Bernard (Aug. 22), Aosta (Aug. 23), Ivrea (Aug. 25), Vercelli (Aug. 26), Milan (Aug. 27), Brescia (Aug. 29), Verona (Aug. 30), Venice (Sept. 1), Verona (Jan. 26, to a ball at Marshal Radetsky’s), Venice (Jan. 28), Verona (Feb. 23, again to a ball at the Marshal’s), Venice (Feb. 24), Verona (June 1), Venice (June 4), Verona (June 29), Bergamo (June 30), Como (July 1), Bellinzona (July 2), Airolo (July 3), Fluelen (July 4), Lucerne (July 6), Strassburg (July 8), Paris (July 10).

² Mrs. Pritchard was a sister of his Christ Church friend and tutor, Osborne Gordon.

³ The Hospice of the Simplon is conducted by three or four brothers of the community of the Great St. Bernard.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]