Chapter IV: "stones of Venice" (1849-1851)

A book about Venice had been planned in 1845, during Ruskin's first long working visit. He had made so many notes and sketches both of architecture and painting that the material seemed ready to hand; another visit would fill up the gaps in his information; and two or three months' hard writing would work the subject off, and set him free to continue "Modern Painters." So before leaving home in 1849, he had made up his mind that the next work would be "The Stones of Venice," which, on the appearance of "The Seven Lamps," was announced by the publishers as in preparation.

He left home again early in October; by the end of November he was settled with his wife at Hôtel Danieli, Venice, for the winter. He expected to find without much trouble all the information he wanted as to the dates, styles and history of Venetian buildings; but after consulting and comparing all the native writers, it appeared that the questions he asked of them were just the questions they were unprepared to answer, and that he must go into the whole matter afresh. So he laid himself out that winter for a thorough examination of St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace and the other remains--drawing, and measuring, and comparing their details.

His father had gone back to England in September out of health, and the letters from home did not report improvement. His mother, too, was beginning to fear the loss of her sight; and he could not stay away from them any longer. In February, 1850, he broke off his work in the middle of it, and returned to London. The rest of the year he spent in writing the first volume of "Stones of Venice," and in preparing the illustrations, together with "Examples of the Architecture of Venice," a portfolio of large lithographs and engravings in mezzotint and line, to accompany the work. It was most fortunate for Ruskin that his drawings could be interpreted by such men as Armytage and Cousen, Cuff and Le Keux, Boys and Lupton, and not without advantage to them that their masterpieces should be preserved in his works, and praised as they deserved in his prefaces. But these plates for "Stones of Venice" were in advance of the times. The publisher thought them "caviare to the general," so Mr. J.J. Ruskin told his son; but gave it as his own belief that "some dealers in Ruskins and Turners in 1890 will get great prices for what at present will not sell."

Early in 1850, his father, at his mother's desire, and with the help of W.H. Harrison, collected and printed his poems, with a number of pieces that still remained in MS., the author taking no part in this revival of bygones, which, for the sake of their associations, he was not anxious to recall--though his father still believed that he _might_ have been a poet, and _ought_ to have been one. This is the volume of "Poems J.R., 1850," so highly valued by collectors.

Another resurrection was "The King of the Golden River," which had lain hidden for the nine years of the Ars Poetica. He allowed it to be published, with woodcuts by the famous "Dicky" Doyle. The little book ran through three editions that year. The first issue must have been torn to rags in the nurseries of the last generation, since copies are so rare as to have brought ten guineas apiece instead of the six shillings at which they were advertised in 1850.

A couple of extracts from letters of 1850 will give some idea of Ruskin's impressions of London society and the Drawing Room:

"MY DEAREST MOTHER,

"Horrible party last night--stiff--large--dull--fidgety--strange,
--run-against-everybody-know-nobody sort of party. Naval people.
Young lady claims acquaintance with me--I know as much of her as
of Queen Pomare--Talk: get away as soon as I can--ask who she
is--Lady (----);--as wise as I was before. Introduced to a black
man with chin in collar. Black man condescending--I abuse
different things to black man: chiefly the House of Lords. Black
man says he lives in it--asks where I live--don't want to tell
him--obliged--go away and ask who he is--(----); as wise as I was
before. Introduced to a young lady--young lady asks if I like
drawing--so away and ask who she is--Lady(----). Keep away, with
back to wall and look at watch. Get away at last. Very sulky this
morning--hope my father better--dearest love to you both."

"PARK STREET, _4 o'clock, (May, 1850)_.

"MY DEAREST FATHER,

"We got through gloriously, though at one place there was the most
awkward crush I ever saw in my life--the pit at the Surrey, which I
never saw, may perhaps show the like--nothing else. The floor was
covered with the ruins of ladies' dresses, torn lace and fallen
flowers. But Effie was luckily out of it, and got through
unscathed--and heard people saying 'What a beautiful dress!' just
as she got up to the Queen. It was fatiguing enough but not so
_awkward_ as I expected....

"The Queen looked much younger and prettier than I expected--very
like her pictures, even like those which are thought to flatter
most--but I only saw the profile--I could not see the front face as
I knelt to her, at least without an upturning of the eyes which I
thought would be unseemly--and there were but some two or three
seconds allowed for the whole affair....

"The Queen gave her hand very graciously: but looked bored; poor
thing, well she might be, with about a quarter of a mile square of
people to bow to.

"I met two people whom I have not seen for many a day, Kildare and
Scott Murray--had a chat with the former and a word with Murray,
but nothing of interest...."

As one of the chief literary figures of the day, Ruskin could not avoid society, and, as he tells in "Præterita," he was rewarded for the reluctant performance of his duties by meeting with several who became his lifelong friends. Chief among these he mentions Mr. and Mrs. Cowper-Temple, afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple. The acquaintance with Samuel Rogers, inauspiciously begun many years before, now ripened into something like friendship; Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) and other men of letters were met at Rogers' breakfasts. A little later a visit to the Master of Trinity, Whewell, at Cambridge, brought him into contact with Professer Willis, the authority on Gothic architecture, and other notabilities of the sister University. There also he met Mr. and Mrs. Marshall of Leeds (and Coniston); and he pursued his journey to Lincoln, with Mr. Simpson, whom he had met at Lady Davy's, and to Farnley for a visit to Mr. F.H. Fawkes, the owner of the celebrated collection of Turners (April, 1851).

In London he was acquainted with many of the leading artists and persons interested in art. Of the "teachers" of the day he was known to men so diverse as Carlyle--and Maurice, with whom he corresponded in 1815 about his "Notes on Sheepfolds"--and C.H. Spurgeon, to whom his mother was devoted. He was as yet neither a hermit, nor a heretic: but mixed freely with all sorts and conditions, with one exception, for Puseyites and Romanists were yet as heathen men and publicans to him; and he noted with interest, while writing his review of Venetian history, that the strength of Venice was distinctly Anti-Papal, and her virtues Christian but not Roman. Reflections on this subject were to have formed part of his great work, but the first volume was taken up with the _à priori_ development of architectural forms; and the treatment in especial of Venetian matters had to be indefinitely postponed, until another visit had given him the opportunity of gathering his material.

Meanwhile, his wide sympathy had turned his mind toward a subject which then had received little attention, though since then loudly discussed--the reunion of (Protestant) Christians.

He put together his thoughts in a pamphlet on the text "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd," calling it, in allusion to his architectural studies, "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds." He proposed a compromise, trying to prove that the pretensions to priesthood on the high Anglican side, and the objections to episcopacy on the Presbyterian, were alike untenable; and hoped that, when once these differences--such little things he thought them--were arranged, a united Church of England might become the nucleus of a world-wide federation of Protestants, a _civitas Dei_, a New Jerusalem.

There were many who agreed with his aspirations: he received shoals of letters from sympathizing readers, most of them praising his aims and criticising his means. Others objected rather to his manner than to his matter; the title savoured of levity, and an art-critic writing on theology was supposed to be wandering out of his province. Tradition says that the "Notes" were freely bought by Border farmers under a rather laughable mistake; but surely it was no new thing for a Scotch reader to find a religious tract under a catching title. There were a few replies; one by Mr. Dyce, who defended the Anglican view with mild persiflage and the usual commonplaces. And there the matter ended, for the public. For Ruskin, it was the beginning of a train of thought which led him far. He gradually learnt that his error was not in asking too much, but in asking too little. He wished for a union of Protestants, forgetting the sheep that are not of _that_ fold, and little dreaming of the answer he got, after many days, in "Christ's Folk in the Apennine."

Meanwhile the first volume of "Stones of Venice" had appeared, March, 1851. Its reception was indirectly described in a pamphlet entitled "Something on Ruskinism, with a 'Vestibule' in Rhyme, by an Architect" complaining bitterly of the "ecstasies of rapture" into which the newspapers had been thrown by the new work:

"Your book--since reviewers so swear--may be rational,
Still, 'tis certainly not either loyal or national;"

for it did not join in the chorus of congratulation to Prince Albert and the British public on the Great Exhibition of 1851, the apotheosis of trade and machinery. The "Architect" finds also--what may surprise the modern reader who has not noticed that many an able work has been thought unreadable on its first appearance--that he cannot understand the language and ideas:

"Your style is so soaring--and some it makes sore--
That plain folks can't make out your strange mystical lore."

He will allow the author to be quite right, when he finds something to agree upon; but the moment a sore point is touched, then Ruskin is "insane." In one respect the "Architect" hit the nail on the head: "Readers who are not reviewers by profession can hardly fail to perceive that Ruskinism is violently inimical to _sundry existing interests_."

The best men, we said, were the first to recognise Ruskin's genius. Let us throw into the opposite scale an opinion of more weight than the "Architect's," in a transcript of the original letter from Carlyle.

"CHELSEA, _March_ 9, 1851.

"DEAR RUSKIN,

"I did not know yesterday till your servant was gone that there was
any note in the parcel; nor at all what a feat you had done! A loan
of the gallant young man's Memoirs was what I expected; and here,
in the most chivalrous style, comes a gift of them. This, I think,
must be in the style _prior_ to the Renaissance! What can I do but
accept your kindness with pleasure and gratitude, though it is far
beyond my deserts? Perhaps the next man I meet will use me as much
below them; and so bring matters straight again! Truly I am much
obliged, and return you many hearty thanks.

"I was already deep in the 'Stones'; and clearly purpose to hold on
there. A strange, unexpected, and I believe, most true and
excellent _Sermon_ in Stones--as well as the best piece of
schoolmastering in Architectonics; from which I hope to learn much
in a great many ways. The spirit and purport of these critical
studies of yours are a singular sign of the times to me, and a very
gratifying one. Right good speed to you, and victorious arrival on
the farther shore! It is a quite new 'Renaissance,' I believe, we
are getting into just now: either towards new, _wider_ manhood,
high again as the eternal stars; or else into final death, and the
(marsh?) of Gehenna for evermore! A dreadful process, but a needful
and inevitable one; nor do I doubt at all which way the issue will
be, though which of the extant nations are to get included in it,
and which is to be trampled out and abolished in the process, may
be very doubtful. God is great: and sure enough, the changes in the
'Construction of Sheepfolds' as well as in other things, will
require to be very considerable.

"We are still labouring under the foul kind of influenza here, I
not far from emancipated, my poor wife still deep in the business,
though I hope past the deepest. Am I to understand that you too are
seized? In a day or two I hope to ascertain that you are well
again. Adieu; here is an interruption, here also is the end of the
paper.

"With many thanks and regards."

[Signature cut away.]

As soon as the first volume of "Stones of Venice" and the "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds" were published, Ruskin took a short Easter holiday at Matlock, and set to work at a new edition of "Modern Painters." This was the fifth reprint of the first volume, and the third of vol. ii. They were carefully and conscientiously revised, and the Postscript indulged in a little triumph at the changed tone of public criticism upon Turner.

But it was too late to have been much service to the great artist himself. In 1845--after saying good-bye and "Why _will_ you go to Switzerland? there will be such a _fidge_ about you when you're gone"--Turner lost his health, and was never himself again. The last drawings he did for Ruskin (January, 1848), the "Brünig" and the "Descent from the St. Gothard to Airolo," showed his condition unmistakably; and the lonely restlessness of the last, disappointing years were, for all his friends, a melancholy ending to a brilliant career. Ruskin wrote:

"This year (1851) he has no picture on the walls of the Academy;
and the _Times_ of May 3 says: 'We miss those works of
INSPIRATION'!"

"_We_ miss! Who misses? The populace of England
rolls by to weary itself in the great bazaar of Kensington,[3]
little thinking that a day will come when those veiled vestals and
prancing amazons, and goodly merchandise of precious stones and
gold, will all be forgotten as though they had not been; but that
the light which has faded from the walls of the Academy is one
which a million Koh-i-noors could not rekindle; and that the year
1851 will, in the far future, be remembered less for what it has
displayed, than for what it has withdrawn."

[Footnote 3: The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.]