The Life and Work of John Ruskin Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...(1847--1849-) "They dreamt not of a perishable home Who thus could build." Wordsworth. OF the leading men who acknowledged the rising star, it was natural that the foremost in their recognition should be Scotsmen. Hogg and Pringle had been the boy-poet's first encouragers; and now the art-critic was hailed by Sydney Smith, a former Edinburgh professor; patronised by John Murray, who got him to write notes on pictures for his " Guide"; and employed by Lockhart on the staff of the Quarterly. " The happiest lot on earth is to be born a Scotchman," says R. L. Stevenson; and it is certainly convenient for the aspirant to artistic or literary fame. Lockhart was a person of great interest to young Ruskin, who so worshipped Scott: and Lockhart's daughter, even without her personal charm, would have attracted him, as the actual grandchild of the great Sir Walter. It was for her sake, rather than for the honour of writing in the famous Quarterly, that he went, after a fatiguing winter in London society, to Ambleside, to get peace and quiet for his review of Lord Lindsay V Christian Art." It was not only society that had fatigued him. He had never quite recovered from the tendency to consumption which had sent him down from Oxford; and a weakness of the spine was now keeping him always more or less of an invalid. The writing of his second volume, during several months of mental tension and emotional excitement, had wearied him out, and the tour that followed had not sufficed for relaxation--chiefly because he was beginning to find himself drifting away from that earlier happy confidence in his parents' beliefs, and reliance on their sympathy. His father and he pulled different ways--not openly, not admitting such a thing even to themselves; for, some years...