lxiv INTRODUCTION

are indeed all that separate the merriment from the misery.” The time was presently to come, when in words of yet more poignant appeal he was to call upon his generation to “raise the veil boldly” and “face the light”;¹ and when, having made his appeal to others, he was himself to embark on direct schemes of social amelioration.

The pamphlet on The Opening of the Crystal Palace, was written, as might be concluded from its tone of burning enthusiasm, quickly and under strong emotion. His diary enables us to fix the middle of June as the time at which the first suggestion occurred to him as he was journeying from Vevay to the Simmenthal (below, p. 417); he must have written it at his next stopping-places, and sent the MS. immediately to England-trusting, no doubt, to his old friend W. H. Harrison to see it through the press, for it was published on July 22.² But though written quickly, it was composed carefully. The manuscript of the greater part of it is in Pierpont Morgan’s possession, having been bound up by Ruskin together with the MSS. of Modern Painters (Vol. III. p. 682). It shows once more how carefully Ruskin “worked up” his writings (above, p. xxxi.). The facsimile of a page of it will enable the reader to note the process (p. 429).

In an Appendix to Part II. of this volume, some minor notes on Art are given. First comes a series of Letters written by Ruskin in 1844 to his friend, Mr. Edmund Oldfield, on the subject of Painted Glass. They refer primarily to a stained-glass window which was erected at the east end of St. Giles’ Church, Camberwell, from designs by Oldfield and Ruskin. Oldfield had been a fellow pupil with Ruskin at Mr. Dale’s (Vol. I. p. xlix.), and his family and the Ruskins were neighbours at Denmark Hill. The artistic tastes of the two young men were known in the parish, and they were commissioned to prepare designs for a window in the new church, erected (1841-1843) in the Early Decorated Style, from designs by Gilbert Scott.³ “They seem to desire,” writes Ruskin in his diary for 1844 (May 3), “to put in my design for the window; hope they may like it if they do, but it will make me very anxious.” In the first instance designs for the window-head only were to be submitted. These were prepared by Ruskin, and approved by the Committee, but a fresh design by Oldfield was substituted

¹ Unto this Last, § 85.

² Reviews of the pamphlet appeared in the Athenæum, August 12, 1854, No. 1398, pp. 998-999 (very hostile, praising the architecture of the Palace and ridiculing Ruskin’s ideas about restoration); Builder, August 12, vol. 12, p. 421 (leading article); New Quarterly Review, 1854, vol. 3, p. 515.

³ A description of the church is given in C. L. Eastlake’s History of the Gothic Revival, pp. 220-223.

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