INTRODUCTION xxix

endeavouring to work out in relation to the association of form, sound, and colour; but after a while this was dropped, and Ruskin was content to listen while the favourite operas of his youth were played to him. He reverted to his fondness for boating, and had several very beautiful models built and rigged by Charles Dalby, of Folkestone, a past-master in the mystery. These models-the old Dover packet, old-style cutter, yawl, and so forth-are still at Brantwood.¹

In the early spring of 1888 Ruskin paid some flying visits to London; visiting the galleries and museums, and seeing some of his friends. Alarming reports of his condition had found their way into the newspapers from Sandgate, and he was anxious to give tangible disproof of them. “I had great joy,” he wrote to a friend from Morley’s Hotel in April, “and sense of being in my right place to-day in the Turner room, and am going to stay in London till people have been taught that they can’t make my skin into gloves yet.” And to the same friend a day or two later (April 22):-

“I went to the private view of the Old Water-Colour yesterday, and there were people there glad to see me, Robert Browning among others. And I’ve been to the British Museum, and am staying very contentedly within reach of it and some other places. And I’m not going to the theatres, and altogether I’m as good just now as I know how to be.”²

Similarly to Mrs. Arthur Severn he wrote (April 26):-

“I’ve had such a day. Only to think of the state I was in when you began to pick me up last year, and of what I can do now! I had a lovely time with Arfie³ at the Institute-two hours, looking at every picture, and I thought Arfie’s much more tender and refined than ever before, and that most of the artists were doing their very best. Then Arfie took me to the panorama of Niagara, which astonished and delighted me. Then I took Arfie to British Museum,⁴ and showed him the diamond, ruby, and my case of agates, and had a nice talk with Fletcher. Then we looked at all the birds’ nests. Then I set Arfie down at Kensington station and went on to Miss Ingelow’s, who was glad to see me, and we had a

¹ Ruskin Relics, p. 26.

² These two letters are printed from “John Ruskin in the ‘Eighties” in the Outlook, October 21, 1899; they were reprinted in Scribner’s Magazine, November 1906, p. 571.

³ Mr. Arthur Severn.

⁴ The Natural History branch at South Kensington: see Vol. XXVI.

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