xxvi INTRODUCTION

gradually into clear, glowing brown-into the black space of eddying pool, streaked with foam. But presently, as we look more carefully, we shall see there is a cold and gloomy colour mingled among this golden brown (which we shall feel has a strange power in giving the stream its . ...¹)-at least we shall think it gloomy in contrast with the gold-but when we examine it carefully, we shall find it is reflection of pure blue sky, deepened and dulled a little by the brown of the water, but still visibly and sweetly blue, and in reality of infinite beauty as it breaks among the brown waves. Looking a little longer, we shall find that the deep brown, which at first we thought was one colour, owes its appearance of lustre to the mingling of two; and on watching these, we shall find that instead of brown, one half of this part of the water is deep green-being the reflection of the trees on the bank, and the rest a brown which in its various gradations expresses all the shadows and lights of the rocks on the bank, and that there is no blackness without such a reflection. Finally, we shall find part of the water in a kind of light which quite keeps us from seeing the bottom even in shallow places, or white playing unintelligible light, which will puzzle us at first considerably, but at last we shall find it to be the reflection of pieces of white cloud.”

Ruskin himself made many drawings at Glenfinlas, one of which is here given as a companion to the picture of Millais, done at the same time and place. But his chief work at this time was the preparation of the lectures to be given under the auspices of the Philosophical Institution at Edinburgh, in the autumn, on Architecture and Painting. The suggestion that he should give these lectures came from his friend J. F. Lewis, the painter, and it pleased him-both as a sign that his work was beginning to make an impression, and as an opportunity for widening his circle of influence. But his father and mother did not like the idea. They seem to have thought that there was something derogatory in appearing on a platform as a public lecturer; or perhaps, though they put it in that way, they were afraid of their son over-straining his powers; and Ruskin’s father, who was already beginning to wonder whether Modern Painters would ever be resumed and finished, saw in this new departure a fresh danger of dissipation of energies. In his replies to such remonstrances, Ruskin tried to reassure his parents on all points:-

“(August 18.)-I do not mean at any time to take up the trade of a lecturer; all my real efforts will be made in writing, and all that I intend to do is merely, as if in conversation, to say to these

¹ The space here is left blank in the MS. diary.

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