xlii INTRODUCTION

mislaid with other books, and he had not seen it. Many books come here for the Professor to see, but he will hardly ever look at any. He demurred at yours even! But I explained about it, etc., etc.... I put the book into his hands, open at the second chapter, put on his spectacles, drew up his blind, then sat like a mouse, waiting for any pearls of criticism! which might come. Some did come, and I took down as well as I could what I thought of interest and not too unpearl-like! ... The following are some of the remarks:-

“‘The range from Dante to Blake and Wordsworth is so curious.’

“‘Keeps spelling Virgil with an E, which bothers me.’

“‘Immensely clever in its way.’

“‘Who is Sellar?’ (I told him this.)

“‘I am amazed at the quantity he gets out of Wordsworth.’

“‘Quintilian, a person I know nothing about: they always speak of him as a great Latin critic.’

“‘He seems to have almost every modern poet.’

“‘It goes in among people one has never heard of.’

“‘Nothing left from Dryden and Pope!’

“‘I can’t even read their Latin as they write it now.’”¹

It was the old favourites, however, that he loved best, and he was never weary of Scott and Miss Edgeworth.

Ruskin himself was in seclusion, but his books were becoming more and more widely known throughout the world. His scheme of publishing had completely justified itself in the end; he had created his market, and edition after edition of his books was called for. The fortune he inherited from his father had been dispersed in his in-numerable gifts to friends, relations, pensioners, and institutions; but the income from his books was now large and steadily maintained. His publisher, Mr. Allen, had many schemes to suggest. Ruskin assented, and cheaper re-issues of old books, and issues of hitherto unpublished lectures, etc., were put forth. He assented, but no longer read proofs or transacted any business-the editorial work in connexion with the publications of these years being entrusted either to Mr. Collingwood or to Mr. Wedderburn. “I’m afraid,” Ruskin said to a friend, “the public take more interest in my books than I do now myself.”² The public which thus took interest was becoming international. In France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Scandinavia, translations,

¹ Francis Turner Palgrave: his Journals and Memories of his Life, by Gwenllian F. Palgrave, 1899, pp. 254-255.

² Daily Chronicle, September 21, 1898.

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