xlviii INTRODUCTION

the bottom show the labourers in the vineyard receiving each his penny from the master-the text of Unto this Last.¹ Immediately above is a mingled device of Sesame and Lilies. The middle space is filled by the Angel of Fate, Fors Clavigera, holding club, key, and nail. The Crown of Wild Olive comes next; and at the top is St. George and the Dragon, to symbolise the St. George’s Guild. The design of the narrow face towards the south is to signify Ruskin’s love of nature. His favourite blossom, the wild rose, is combined with animals of which he wrote familiarly, the squirrel, the robin, and the kingfisher. On the opposite edge is a simple interlaced pattern-symbolical of the mystery of life, even as his own closed in years of weakness and weariness. The stone is surmounted by a cross of four equal arms; bearing on one side a globe symbolising the Sun of Righteousness, and on the other the fylfot, or revolving cross, the emblem of eternity. The cross was set up for Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Severn on Ascension Day, 1901.²

In Westminster Abbey the memorial of Ruskin took the form of a bronze medallion, showing his face in profile, surrounded with a branch of Wild Olive. The monument, executed by Onslow Ford, R. A., was erected by a body of subscribers, and was unveiled by Mrs. Severn and the Dean on February 8, 1902.³ The medallion is placed in Poets’ Corner, immediately above the bust of Sir Walter Scott.

Of local memorials there were several. One, very simple and beautiful, is a monolith, with a medallion portrait, which now stands on Friar’s Crag, Derwentwater. This has already been described (Vol. II. p. 294 n.). It was unveiled by Mrs. Arthur Severn on October 6, 1900.⁴ At Coniston itself the memorial to Ruskin took the form, first, of a “Ruskin Exhibition” held from July to September 1900. Various gifts and loans made to this exhibition, and the sale of several of Ruskin’s

¹ See Vol. XVII. p. 13.

² Further details may be found in The Ruskin Cross at Coniston described and illustrated (Ulverston: W. Holmes), 1902. An interesting appreciation of this admirable monument was printed in Scribner’s Magazine for March 1902, vol. xxxi. pp. 381-384. The carving, it may be noticed, is purposely kept low and flat-a treatment of the hard material which accords with a paragraph in Aratra Pentelici (§ 161, Vol. XX. p. 315).

³ The Committee for this memorial consisted of the Earl of Carlisle, the Dean of Christ Church, Mr. Lionel Cust, Dr. Dawtrey Drewitt, Mr. Frederic Harrison, the Bishop of London (Dr. Creighton), Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, Mr. C. E. Norton, Mr. Edmund Oldfield, Sir Edward Poynter, P. R. A., Mr. Arthur Severn, and Mrs. A. Murray Smith; with Mr. Wedderburn as Hon. Treasurer, and Mr. Cook as Hon. Secretary.

⁴ Among the subscribers were Mrs. A. Severn, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Mr. H. S. Luxmore, the Master of Balliol, Lord Elgin, and Mr. T. C. Horsfall.

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