xxxvi INTRODUCTION

Then, too, there were the varying moods of sea and sky to note and record:-

“November 2.-We had a superb high tide this morning, in all over our courtyard and over the greater part of St. Mark’s Place, and nothing could be more exquisite than the appearance of the church from the other end, with the reflection of its innumerable pillars white and dark-green and purple, thrown down over the square in bright bars, fading away in confused arrows of colour, with here and there a touch of blue and gold from the mosaics. Had there been sunshine it would have been like a scene in the Arabian Nights.

“November 10.-A sunny morning at last, very beautiful to behold. It is high time-the distress in the country being very great, but I am very glad to have seen the stormy weather; there were pieces of scenery thoroughly noble; and among them, the way the top of the Tower of St. Mark’s entangled itself among the rain cloud, not the least interesting. It is the Venetian Aiguille Dru....”

The book progressed; but the more Ruskin did, the more he found to do:-

“14th January [1852].-... Touching my writing I hope the difference you feel depends chiefly on your getting the sheets as I write them, before they get any retouching or cutting out. When I get into a thorough writing humour I can do a good deal nearly in current hand, but when I write only for two hours each morning-and that partly with the desire only to secure facts rather than to set them in the best light-the result needs a great deal of squeezing and lopping before it comes right. I have no doubt as I go over the sheets you are now receiving, that at least one-third of their bulk will be evaporated, and the remaining two-thirds re-arranged and enriched, but I cannot do this till the whole matter of the book is before me, or in my head. Much of the Seven Lamps was written three times over, some of it five times. Besides this, which is enough to account for considerable inferiority, the very contents of this book are by no means the same; they are in great part mere accounts of buildings in the most complete terms I can use, seeing that they are soon likely to be destroyed, and the facts that columns are so high, and so far apart, and that a triangle is not a square, cannot be made very piquant-though some time hence, people will thank me more for them than for all the fine writing in the world. You may say that other people than I could do this. Yes, but other people won’t with the requisite care.¹ Even I find myself now more accurate than I was two years ago, and yet not so accurate as I want to be.”

¹ Compare the letter of February 18, and another extract from that of January 18, in Vol. IX. pp. xxxv., xxxvi.

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