Chapter I

BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
LANCASHIRE, _20th June, 1879_.

DEAR MR. MALLESON,--I could not at once answer your important letter: for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing to address such an audience as you proposed, I am unwilling to fail in answering to any call relating to matters respecting which my feelings have been long in earnest, if in any wise it may be possible for me to be of service therein. My health--or want of it--now utterly forbids my engagement in any duty involving excitement or acute intellectual effort; but I think, before the first Tuesday in August, I might be able to write one or two letters to yourself, referring to, and more or less completing, some passages already printed in _Fors_ and elsewhere, which might, on your reading any portions you thought available, become matter of discussion during the meeting at some leisure time, after its own main purposes had been answered.

At all events, I will think over what I should like, and be able, to represent to such a meeting, and only beg you not to think me insensible of the honour done me by your wish, and of the gravity of the trust reposed in me.

Ever most faithfully yours,

J. RUSKIN.

THE REV. F. A. MALLESON.