INTRODUCTION liii

especially the upper classes; that the perception of it is limited to a few unheard-of artists and amateurs; that it has been the same for three centuries; and that it will need a century more, with hard work from all the men who know anything about the matter, merely to make the people of Europe understand their position, and begin properly. I don’t know if the world is to last so long, but I shall work and write as if it were.”

In a later letter Ruskin launched out at his critics more angrily:-

“September 28.-... When I read those reviews of Pre-Raphaelitism, I was so disgusted by their sheer broad-faced, sheepish, swinish stupidity, that I began to feel, as I wrote in the morning, that I was really rather an ass myself to string pearls for them. It is not the malice of them-that, when it is clever, is to be met boldly and with some sense of its being worth conquering. But these poor wretches of reviewers do, in their very inmost and most honest heart, Misunderstand every word I write, and I never could teach them any better.”

The reader of Ruskin’s books will admit, however, that the author did not weary in instructing a perverse generation, and was very well able to give, as well as to receive, hard blows. Meanwhile a private appreciation of the pamphlet came from a distinguished artist and an old friend of his father, and gave Ruskin much pleasure:-

“VEVAY, August 20, 1851.-I am deeply grateful for George Richmond’s letter, both to himself and to you for copying it. Such a letter is indeed enough reward for much labour; but I am at a loss to understand the depth of the feeling he expresses, for there is nothing in the pamphlet but common sense, and he, of all men, has no reason to wish that his genius had been otherwise employed. To how many human souls has he given comfort, companionship, memory; of how many noble intellects has he preserved the image! What could [he] have done better and have looked back to with greater delight?”

Pre-Raphaelitism had even more to say about Turner than about the Pre-Raphaelites, and its history from this point of view remains to be noticed. It may, indeed, apart from its title, be called the first of Ruskin’s many pamphlets on that painter. It was written after a visit to Farnley. Mr. Walter Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, had been one of the oldest and staunchest of Turner’s friends, a warm admirer of his

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