INTRODUCTION xxxi

journeyed over “the old road” to Dijon, the Jura, Geneva, and Sallenches. The little scraps of diary which he sent in daily notes to Mrs. Severn show him yet once more in recovered powers of enjoyment:-

“(DIJON, 29th Aug. ‘88.)-I had the most wonderful day yesterday I ever had here-such a drive up the hills in crystal clear sunshine-seeing Jura-by St. Bernard’s birthplace, La Fontaine, and down through one of those dingles you heard the nightingales sing in! Also discovered no end of wonderful things in the town, and wrote finish of the fine Præterita, introducing Norton!¹ It goes to Jowett to-day.”

“(MOREZ, JURA, Auntie’s² Birthday, 1888, September 2nd.)-That ever I should have such a happy birthday morning again! Quite well, as far as I know, all round-enjoying the mountains as I never did before-and drawing better than ever. Detmar sketched a Jura cottage, and I painted it for him yesterday at St. Laurent, ... and I saw such loveliness of pines in my afternoon walk as never yet in all my days. And this is all your doing, my Joanie, giving me strawberry teas and comfort when I was in utter despair of myself. Heaven keep you and yours happy.”

“(ST. CERGUES, 4th Sept.)-Just a scrap-must get out this lovely morning. Yesterday, entirely clear above, for Detmar, and all the Alps clear-but basin of lake filled with smoke, as if Geneva were London. The perpetual trains and steamers-none consuming their smoke, but all wasting fuel at will-destroy every glory and grace of the fairest district of the world....

“I had the loveliest walk here, where the smoke cannot rise, and the afternoon more intensely bright than I ever had in Jura. But I feel my age in not being able to climb. At Paris I can walk as far as I like-level-and don’t feel old a bit.”

“(SALLENCHES, 11th Sept.-You can’t think the joy it is to me being at this old inn-and to-day it was, for the first time, fine like old times, and I’ve been up far among the granite boulders of the torrent, breaking stones in my old way. Life given back to me. And the stone-crop, and the ragged robin, on the granite among the moss. And I sent orders that II. Præterita³ should be sent to you, and first of all-proof copies.”

Of his sojourn at Sallenches we have already had a pleasant glimpse,⁴ and it was there that he wrote the last chapter but one of Præterita.

¹ Chap. ii. of vol. iii. (see below, p. 519). “Jowett” was the printer.

² Ruskin’s mother: see Præterita, iii. § 63 (below, p. 538).

³ That is, ch. ii. of vol. iii., published on September 28.

⁴ Vol. XXXIV. pp. 174-176.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]