I. OF AGE 249

to efface her sense of inferiority in education and position, took this somewhat in pique. But among the fateful chances of my own life in her endeavours to do something for me, and somehow break the shell of me, she one day asked me to dine with Lockhart, and see his little harebell-like daintiness of a daughter. I suppose Mrs. Cockburn must have told him of my love of Scott, yet I do not remember manifesting that sentiment in any wise during dinner: I recollect only, over the wine, making some small effort to display my Oxonian orthodoxy and sound learning, with respect to the principles of Church Establishment; and being surprised, and somewhat discomfited, by finding that Mr. Lockhart knew the Greek for “bishop” and “elder” as well as I did. On going into the drawing-room, however, I made every effort to ingratiate myself with the little dark-eyed, high-foreheaded Charlotte, and was very sorry,-but I don’t think the child was,-when she was sent to bed.¹

8. But the most happy turn of Fortune’s wheel for me, in this year ’39, was the coming of Osborne Gordon² to Herne Hill to be my private tutor, and read with me in our little nursery. Taking up the ravelled ends of yet workable and spinnable flax in me, he began to twist

¹ [For Miss Charlotte Lockhart, see again, below, §§ 192, 198 (pp. 422, 428).]

² [See above, pp. 192, 198; and for later references, see below, pp. 333, 414, 436, 522 n. The Rev. Osborne Gordon (1813-1883) was censor at Christ Church and reader in Greek; a prominent member of the University till presented to the living of Easthampstead, Berks, in 1860. Ruskin’s father gave £5000 for the augmentation of poor Christ Church livings, as a tribute to Gordon; and Ruskin himself wrote his epitaph (Vol. XXXIV. p. 647). There is also a memorial to him (by C. Dressler) in the cloisters of Christ Church. A Memoir with a Selection of his Writings (by G. Marshall) was published in 1885. There is reference in Sir Algernon West’s Recollections (vol. i. pp. 64-65) to his “overpowering love for a lord,” which Dean Kitchin dismisses as too harsh. He was, says the latter writer, “a Shropshire student, lean and haggard, with bright eyes, long reddish nose, untidy air, odd voice, and uncertain aspirates. Of quaint wit, exquisite scholarly tastes, extraordinary mathematical gifts, and a very kind heart. He always depreciated what he knew, and pretended to take no interest in the subjects in which he excelled. We all wondered how he would do as a country parson. When, however, he died, one of his Berkshire farmers said at his funeral, ‘Well, we have lost a real friend; we’ve had before parsons who could preach, and parsons who could varm; but ne’er one before who could both preach and varm as Mr. Gordon did’” (Ruskin in Oxford and other Studies, p. 24).]

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