INTRODUCTION xli

not mind coming to his bedroom. As the departing guests came into the room to say good-bye, a look came over Mr. Ruskin’s face as though he had expected something more than the ordinary leave-taking. There was a moment’s silence. Then the Bishop, quickly understanding what was passing in the other’s mind, raised his hands over him, and said, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you, and give you peace both now and evermore. Amen.’”¹

There were times, however, even during these dark and silent years, when Ruskin recovered something of his old zest for life, and enjoyed the gift of peace. As late as 1893 he appeared in public at Coniston, attending a concert of the Choral Society, and applauding the performers.² It was in the same year that his old friend Sir Henry Acland visited him. Ruskin was still fond of his game of chess or a rubber of whist; but “as the two sages talked the whole time de omni scibili, and showed one another their hands for purposes of comparison and advice, the game was scarcely up to the standard of the late Mrs. Martha Battle.”³ It was on this occasion that Ruskin gave to Acland the short message to Oxford which has already been printed,⁴ and that Miss Acland took the photograph of her father and Ruskin, here by her kindness reproduced. He could still garden a little, and he took frequent walks, when he would sometimes be waylaid by curious admirers.⁵ His valet, Baxter, the “Irish servant” sometimes referred to,⁶ read the newspapers to him, and he still took some interest in passing affairs, as is shown by an occasional letter written for him by Mrs. Severn in 1890, 1895, 1896.⁷ He was still fond both of reading aloud and of being read to, and made acquaintance during these years with books by S. R. Crockett and Rudyard Kipling. With A Fleet in Being he was intensely interested, reading it over and over again. Sometimes books were put into his hands, and he was coaxed into saying something about them. A letter from Mr. Arthur Severn to F. T. Palgrave, whose Landscape in Poetry had been sent to Brantwood, describes the scene:-

“(BRANTWOOD, June 1, 1897.)-DEAR PALGRAVE,-I found your book to-day, and put it into the Professor’s hands. It had been rather

¹ Life of Harvey Goodwin, by the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, pp. 325-326.

² Duly recorded in the Westminster Gazette, April 8, 1893.

³ J. B. Atlay’s Memoir of Acland, p. 316 n. Vol. XVI. p. 240.

⁵ See, for instance, notes in the Westminster Budget, October 21, 1894, and in various American journals.

⁶ See Vol. XXXIV. p. 592.

⁷ See Vol. XXXIV. pp. 620-622.

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