INTRODUCTION xxxiii

in the lecture-room; but those who have heard his later lectures will recognise some familiar traits. The contrast, of which the reporter seems to complain, between more rhetorical and more familiar parts of the lecture, was maintained by Ruskin in most of his Oxford discourses. In the lecture-room, again, he cultivated and developed the manner which the reporter well describes as “apt, easy, and often humorous.” In the preparation and display of his diagrams and drawings Ruskin was often studious of humorous effect. The reader will notice that two of the Plates in this volume are furnished with covering flaps; a feature reproduced here from the first edition of the Lectures. The flaps are provided so that the reader may in each case examine the figure at the top before seeing the one at the bottom. Ruskin adopted some similar device when showing the original illustrations, and the humorous effect of incongruity was thus enhanced.

The description of his lectures, just cited, appeared at the conclusion of the course; we must return to Ruskin’s letters for particulars of them. The second lecture (Nov. 4) was equally successful:-

“(November 5.)-I got on capitally again last night; at least everybody says so. I was not so well satisfied myself, for the lecture was longer, and I had not a thorough command of it, and had to read a good deal; and I had a sense of sham in speaking the fine bits learned by heart, which kept me from being at my ease. The odd thing is that everybody tells me I seemed more at my ease than in my first lecture, and spoke far better. The lobbies were filled with people standing.”

The old people at home thirsted, however, for further and more detailed accounts:-

“EDINBURGH, Sunday, 6th November.- ... I should have given you more explicit accounts of time of lectures, etc., had I considered the thing of any importance. ... But from the beginning I looked on this as merely a bye-way sort of thing, being quite sure, as far as I could be sure of anything, that I should not prove quite ‘Stickit’; but not intending to make any effort at eloquence or effect-but merely to say plain things plainly. I did not think a lecture at all like a sermon. I did not consider its delivery as a critical period in my life, but merely as a compliance with John Lewis’s request; a compliment to him, and a thing likely certainly to do some good to my cause in general. When, however, I heard that Lady Trevelyan and others of my friends were coming hundreds of miles to hear me, and found how much importance the Edinburgh people attached to the thing themselves, I saw that I must do more than I at first intended; and now when I find that I have to address a thousand people

XII. C

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