VII. PAPA AND MAMMA 129

household wherein the common ways were all of pleasantness, and its single and strait path, of perfect peace.¹

149. My father’s failure of health, following necessarily on the long years of responsibility and exertion, needed only this repose to effect its cure. Shy to an extreme degree in general company, all the more because he had natural powers which he was unable to his own satisfaction to express,-his business faculty was entirely superb and easy: he gave his full energy to counting-house work in the morning, and his afternoons to domestic rest. With instant perception and decision in all business questions, with principles of dealing which admitted of no infraction, and involved neither anxiety nor concealment, the counting-house work was more of an interest, or even an amusement, to him, than a care. His capital was either in the Bank, or in St. Catherine’s Docks, in the form of insured butts of the finest sherry in the world; his partner, Mr. Domecq, a Spaniard as proud as himself, as honourable, and having perfect trust in him,-not only in his probity, but his judgment,-accurately complying with all his directions in the preparation of wine for the English market, and no less anxious than he to make every variety of it, in its several rank, incomparably good. The letters to Spain therefore needed only brief statement that the public of that year wanted their wine young or old, a pale or brown, and the like; and the letters to customers were as brief in their assurances that if they found fault with their wine, they did not understand it, and if they wanted an extension of credit, they could not have it. These Spartan brevities of epistle were, however, always supported by the utmost care in executing his correspondents’ orders; and by the unusual attention shown them in travelling for those orders himself, instead of sending an agent or a clerk. His domiciliary visits of this kind were always conducted by him

¹ [See Proverbs iii. 17, a passage frequently quoted by Ruskin (see General Index).]

XXXV. 1

[Version 0.04: March 2008]