INTRODUCTION xxxi

most kind compliments on my lecture, but begged me to give them a passage or two of the highly-worked kind, so I must write a little bit for them. I find them all so inclined to hear what I have to say that I must really work up the lectures to a little higher mark, and am going to bed to meditate over a passage or two. Guthrie asked me to tell him whether I worked up my writing or not; I told him, of course, the truth in a moment, that whenever I thought a piece worth working out, I wrote it over four or five times. He said ‘he was sure of it, but as people had disputed it with him he wanted to have it from my own mouth; that Macaulay did the same, and that, in fact, it couldn’t be done in any other way.’ He thanked me also earnestly for the tone of my lecture, and for its closing application, which he said every one agreed was magnificent. You had not seen this: I enclose it, but it was made a good deal better in delivering than it can possibly read.”

The remark that Ruskin here makes about his “working up” and polishing has been already illustrated abundantly by the notes and facsimiles in this edition. But in the case of these Edinburgh lectures he trusted a good deal to extempore delivery, though in this respect (as the letter indicated) the later lectures were more fully written out than the earlier. This fact is noted in a contemporary critique of the lectures, which is further interesting as giving an account of the lecturer’s appearance and manner:-

“The door by the side of the platform opens, and a thin gentleman with light hair, a stiff white cravat, dark overcoat with velvet collar, walking, too, with a slight stoop, goes up to the desk, and looking round with a self-possessed and somewhat formal air, proceeds to take off his great-coat, revealing thereby, in addition to the orthodox white cravat, the most orthodox of white waistcoats. ... ‘Dark hair, pale face, and massive marble brow-that is my ideal of Mr. Ruskin,’ said a young lady near us. This proved to be quite a fancy portrait, as unlike the reality as could well be imagined. Mr. Ruskin has light sand-coloured hair; his face is more red than pale; the mouth well cut, with a good deal of decision in its curve, though somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength; an aquiline nose; his forehead by no means broad or massive, but the brows full and

manner as you may think fittest for the good of his native city. I have added slightly to my father’s trust. I wish I could have done so more largely, but my profession of fault-finding with the world in general is not a lucrative one.-Always respectfully and affectionately yours,

“J. RUSKIN.”

This letter is reprinted from John Ruskin: A Study, by the Rev. R. P. Downes, 1890, pp. 22-23.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]