INTRODUCTION xxxvii

“January 18, 1852.-... This six months in Venice has been little enough for what I desired to do. Take all the time that I have had here, about twelve months in all, in which I have had to examine piece by piece buildings covering five square miles of ground-to read, or glance at, some forty volumes of history and chronicles-to make elaborate drawings-as many as most artists would have made in the time, and to compose my book, what of it is done (for I do not count the first volume anything), and you will not, I think, wonder that I grudge the losing of a single day.”

Stray leaves were sent home to his father to read, who-perhaps because they were disconnected-did not always think them equal to his son’s best work. To some such expression of opinion, Ruskin replies:-

“January 18.-I was reading over some passages of the Seven Lamps this evening, and I certainly do not wonder at your feeling considerable inferiority in the text I am now sending you. I took great pains with most of the Seven Lamps, and I recollect, as I read the passages, the labour they cost me-some of them being as highly finished as it is, I believe, possible for me to finish prose. I remember, for instance, that the last half page of the ‘Lamp of Beauty’ cost me a whole forenoon-from ten to two, and that then I went out to walk quite tired, and yet not satisfied with the last sentence, and turned and returned it all the way to Dulwich. Now, as I told you, I do not like to tire myself, and I still less like to give the time. If half a page takes me an hour I get angry, and say to myself: This will never do; I shall never be done; and run it off any way it will come; and if I get out to walk, I see something, the first step I take, which brings a new subject into my head, and it is all over with the difficult sentence. The feeling of Time running away from me operates very unfortunately on writing, for I am firmly persuaded that neither writing nor drawing can be well done against time. There is also something burdensome in the vast breadth of the subject at present. It is all weighing on my brains at once, and I cannot devote my full mind to any part of it. As soon as I have it all down on paper-out of danger, as it were, and well in sight-I can take up any part and finish it as highly as I like....

“January 31.-... George has written the enclosed much too close. ... The pieces of evidence referred to in the text will be intelligible references to passages which I can expand afterwards, if I have time. In fact, the whole sheet, chiefly written on the spot to secure the necessary points, may be much concentrated and better expressed. But what a dream this human life is, and how fast it goes. I am getting rather jealous of time spent in turning sentences musically.

“February 25.-... I am glad to say that I now see the way to the

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