Despite Ruskin 's ridicule for the cheap effects of Scott 's romances, he considered Scott the 'great representative of the mind of the age in literature,' distinguished by his humility, unselfishness, lack of pretension, the apparent ease with which he composed, and the simplicity and 'truth' of his efforts ( Works, 5.330-33). Ruskin characterized Scott as a 'Seer' unaffected by the pathetic fallacy:
The true Seer always feels as intensely as any one else; but he does not much describe his feelings. He tells you whom he met, and what they said; leaves you to make out, from that, what they feel, and what he feels, but goes into little detail. ( Works, 5.334-35)
Ruskin believed that Scott accurately reflected his own age in his ignorance of 'Art', in his faithlessness and sorrow and in a corresponding nostalgia for past ages, but that he was able to transcend the falseness of his romantic antiquarianism when he sketched from 'present nature' ( Works, 5.337). Ruskin also commended Scott's pure passion for nature, his interest in the past, his love of liberty, and his patriotism, numbering him with Maria Edgeworth, Dickens, and Thackeray as one of the four great contemporary English 'tale-tellers' ( Works, 27.562). Ruskin praised Scott for the beneficial effect on the public of his writings while deploring the 'commercialism' which he believed had spoiled many of his works ( Works, 34.274).