_April 30th, 1881._
DEAR MALLESON,--It will be many a day before I recover yet--if ever--but with caution I hope not to go wild again, and to get what power belongs to my age slowly back. When were you in the same sort of danger? Let me very strongly warn you from the whirlpool edge--the going down in the middle is gloomier than I can tell you.
But I shall thankfully see you and your friend here. Visiting is out of the question for me. I can bear no fatigue nor excitement away from my home. I pay visits no more--anywhere (even in old times few). It is always a great gladness to me when young students care about old books--and I remember as a duty the feeling I used to have in getting a Missal, even after I was past a good many other pleasures. You made such good use of that book too, that I am happy in yielding to any wish of yours about it, so your young friend[37] shall have it if he likes. The marked price is quite a fair market one for it, though you might look and wait long before such a book came _into_ the market. The British Museum people were hastily and superciliously wrong in calling it a common book. It is not a _showy_ one; but there are few more interesting or more perfect service books in English ma.n.u.script, and the Museum people buy cart-loads of big folios that are not worth the shelf room.
Ever affectionately yours, J. RUSKIN.
[37] Rev. J. R. Haslam, now Vicar of Thwaites, c.u.mberland. See Appendix.--ED.
42.
_April 23rd, 1881._
MY DEAR MALLESON,--These pa.s.sages of description and ill.u.s.tration of the general aspect of Ephesus in St. Paul"s time seem to me much more forcibly and artistically written than anything you did in the "Life of Christ"; and I could not suggest any changes to you which you could now carry out under the conditions of time to revise, except a more clear statement of the Ephesian G.o.ddess.
[I really do not think Mr. Ruskin would wish that _all_ he wrote in the next sentence about the Ephesian Diana should be placed before the public eye. But I resume in the middle of a sentence.]
... practically at last and chiefly of the Diabolic Suction of the Usurer; and her temple, which you luckily liken to the Bank of England, was in fact what that establishment would be as the recognised place of pious pilgrimage for all Jews, infidels, or prost.i.tutes in the realm of England. You could not conceive the real facts of these degraded worships of the mixed Greek and Asiatic races, unless you gave a good year"s work to the study of the decline of Greek art in the 3rd and 4th centuries B.C.
Charles Newton"s pride in discovering Mausolus, and engineers" whistling over his Asiatic mummy, have entirely corrupted and thwarted the uses of the British Museum Art Galleries. The Drum of that Diana Temple is barbarous rubbish, not worth tenpence a ton; and if I shewed you a photograph of the head of Mausolus without telling you what it was, I will undertake that you saw with candid eyes in it nothing more than the s.h.a.ggy poll of a common gladiator. But your book will swim with the tide. It is best so.
43.
_July...._
I"m not in the least anxious about my MS., and shall only be glad if you like to keep it long enough to read thoroughly. There must surely be published copies of such extant, though, and worth enquiring after?
Partly the fine weather, partly the heat, partly a fit of Scott and Byron have stopped the Epilogue utterly for the time! You cannot be in any hurry for it surely? There"s plenty to go on printing with.
I don"t think you will find the n"s and m"s much bother; the contractions are the great nuisance. But I do think this development of Gothic writing one of the oddest absurdities of mankind.
The illumination of "the fool hath said in his heart," snapping his fingers, or more accurately making the indecent sign called "the fig" by the Italians, is a very unusual one in this MS., and peculiarly English.
44.
There is not the least use in my looking over these sheets: you probably know more about Athens than I do, and what I do know is out of and in Smith"s Dictionary, where you can find it without trouble.
For the rest you must please always remember what I told you once for all, that you could never interest _me_ by writing about people, either at Athens or Ephesus, but only of those of the parish of Broughton-in-Furness.
That new translation could not come out well; that much I know without looking at it. One must believe the Bible before one understands it, (I mean, believe that it is understandable) and one must understand before one can translate it. Two stages in advance of your Twenty-Four Co-operative Tyndales!
45.
_26th May._
DEAR MALLESON,--I should be delighted to see Canon Weston and you any day: but I want J---- to be at home, and she is going to town next week for a month, and will be fussy till she goes. She promises to be back faithfully within the week after that--within the Sunday, I mean. Fix any day or any choice of days if one is wet after the said Sunday, and we shall both be in comfort ready.
If Canon Weston or you are going away anywhere, come any day before that suits you.
In divinity matters I am obliged to stop--for my sins, I suppose. But it seems I am almost struck mad when I think earnestly about them, and I"m only reading now natural history or nature.
Never mind Autograph people, they are never worth the scratch of a pen.
Ever affectionately yours, J. R.
46.
_August 26th, 1881._
I"m in furious bad humour with the weather, and cannot receive just now at all, having had infinitely too much of indoors, and yet unable to draw for darkness, or write for temper. But I will see Mr. ---- if he has any other reason than curiosity for wishing to see me--what does he want with me?
47.
_21st October._
I am fairly well, but have twenty times the work in hand that I am able for; and read--Virgil, Plato, and Hesoid, when I have time! But a.s.suredly no modern books; least of all my friends", lest I should have either to flatter or offend. Still less will I have to say to young men proposing to become clergymen. I have distinctly told them their business is at present--to dig, not preach.
Let your young friend read his Fors. All that he needs of me is in that.
48.