502 PRÆTERITA-III

day-I think-he leaped it, and along two miles of Parisian Boulevard came back to Meurice’s.

I do not believe there was ever a more wonderful piece of instinct certified. For Macdonald received him, in astonishment,-and Wisie trusted Macdonald to bring him to his lost master again. The Schehallion chief brought him to Denmark Hill; where of course Wisie did not know whether something still worse might not befall him, or whether he would be allowed to stay. But he was allowed, and became a bright part of my mother’s day, as well as of mine, from 1852 to 1858, or perhaps longer.¹ But I must go back now to 1854-1856.

28. 1854. The success of the first volume of Modern Painters of course gave me entrance to the polite circles of London; but at that time, even more than now, it was a mere torment and horror to me to have to talk to big people whom I didn’t care about. Sometimes, indeed, an incident happened that was amusing or useful to me;-I heard Macaulay spout the first chapter of Isaiah, without understanding a syllable of it;-saw the Bishop of Oxford taught by Sir Robert Inglis to drink sherry-cobbler through a straw;²-and formed one of the worshipful concourse invited by the Bunsen family, to hear them “talk Bunsenese” (Lady Trevelyan), and see them making presents to -each other-from their family Christmas tree,³ and private manger of German Magi. But, as a rule, the hours given to the polite circles were an angering penance to me,-

¹ [It appears from an unused piece of proof for Præterita that Ruskin intended to connect the history of his various dogs with “the dearest of his friends, Dr. John Brown.” For notices of other dogs than Wisie, see above, pp. 87, 467, and Vol. XXVIII. p. 256. “Of my cats,” continues the piece of proof, “I fear there will be no space to say all they deserve; but they are meant to be connected with the expression of my loving respect for the poet Gray, and the story of the Cat’s Cradle in Redgauntlet.” See Letter xi.]

² [The incident belongs to an earlier date than 1854; it is mentioned in a letter of 1847 to W. H. Harrison, see Vol. XXXVI. The Bishop of Oxford was Wilberforce; for Sir Robert Inglis, see Vol. III. p. xliv., Vol. IV. p. 38 n., and Vol. XIV. p. 18.]

³ [Baron Christian Bunsen (1791-1860), German Ambassador in London, 1841-1854; his Christmas festivals are mentioned in the Memoirs of Baron Bunsen, by his wife, 1869, vol. i. pp. 98-99.]

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