380 PRÆTERITA-II

sunny path by the field, which was gladdened on its other side in springtime by flushes of almond and double peach blossom. Scarce all the hyacinths and heath of Brantwood redeem the loss of these to me, and when the summer winds have wrecked the wreaths of our wild roses, I am apt to think sorrowfully of the trailings and climbings of deep purple convolvulus which bloomed full every autumn morning round the trunks of the apple trees in the kitchen garden.¹

150. The house itself had no specialty, either of comfort or inconvenience, to endear it; the breakfast-room, opening on the lawn and farther field, was extremely pretty when its walls were mostly covered with lakes by Turner* and doves by Hunt; the dining and drawing-rooms were spacious enough for our grandest receptions,-never more than twelve at dinner, with perhaps Henry Watson and his sisters in the evening,-and had decoration enough in our Northcote portraits, Turner’s Slave-ship, and, in later years, his Rialto, with our John Lewis, two Copley Fieldings, and every now and then a new Turner drawing. My own work-room, above the breakfast-room, was only distinct, as being such, in its large oblong table, occupying so much of the-say fifteen by five-and-twenty-feet of available space

* Namely, Derwentwater; Lake Lucerne, with the Righi, at sunset; the Bay of Uri, with the Rothstock, from above Brunnen; Lucerne itself, seen from the lake; the upper reach of the lake, seen from Lucerne; and the opening of the Lake of Constance, from Constance. Goldau, St. Gothard, Schaffhausen, Coblentz, and Llanthony, raised the total of matchless Turner drawings in this room to eleven.²

¹ [On Plate XXVII. the front and back of the house are shown. The top middle window on the left at the back of the house was that of Ruskin’s bedroom (the side windows were blocked up). Immediately below was Ruskin’s study (in this case the two side windows were clear, and the middle one blocked up). The top window on the right was that of Ruskin’s “mineral room.”]

² [Particulars of these drawings, as also of the “Slave-ship” and the “Rialto” (“Venice: the Grand Canal”), will be found in the “List of Works by Turner at any time in the Collection of Ruskin,” Vol. XII. p. 597. For the “doves by Hunt,” see Vol. XIV. pp. 443-444. The “Northcote portraits” are Plates II., III., and VII. in the present volume. The “John Lewis” is one of the two, reproduced as Plates XVI. and XVII. in Vol. XII. For the “two Copley Fieldings,” see Vol. XIII. p. 572 (comparing Vol. XXXIII. p. 379 n.).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]