For much of his life Ruskin was a voluminous writer of diary entries, letters, memoranda and biblical commentaries - a torrent of writing which was not for publication, but to which he devoted inordinate care. There is a sense in which Ruskin's working up of ideas and drafts for publication was only part of an ongoing project of reflection and observation that he was free to pursue, being economically independent of publishers, and that went on throughout his life. (See method of composition of Modern Painters I.)