II.

BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, _Oct._ 23, 1878.

DEAR MR. SHEPHERD: I am very deeply grateful to you, as I am in all duty bound, for this very curious record of myself. It will be of extreme value to me in filling up what gaps I can in this patched coverlid of my life before it is draped over my coffin--if it may be.

I am especially glad to have note of the letters to newspapers, but _most_ chiefly to have the good news of so earnest and patient a friend.

Ever gratefully yours, J. RUSKIN.

[From the "First Annual Report" of the "Ruskin Society" (of the Rose), Manchester 1880.]

_THE SOCIETY OF THE ROSE._[175]

"No, indeed, I don't want to discourage the plan you have so kindly and earnestly formed, but I could not easily or decorously promote it myself, could I? But I fully proposed to write you a letter to be read at the first meeting, guarding you especially against an 'ism,' or a possibility of giving occasion for one; and I am exceedingly glad to receive your present letter. Mine was not written because it gave me trouble to think of it, and I can't take trouble now. But without thinking, I can at once assure you that the taking of the name of St. George _would_ give me endless trouble, and cause all manner of mistakes, and perhaps even legal difficulties. We must not have that, please.

"But I think you might with grace and truth take the name of the Society of the Rose--meaning the English wild rose--and that the object of the society would be to promote such English learning and life as can abide where it grows. You see it is the heraldic sign on my books, so that you might still keep pretty close to me.

"Supposing this were thought too far-fetched or sentimental by the promoters of the society, I think the 'More' Society would be a good name, following out the teaching of the Utopia as it is taken up in 'Fors.' I can't write more to-day, but I dare say something else may come into my head, and I'll write again, or you can send me more names for choice."

FOOTNOTES:

[175] This letter was written early in 1879 to the Secretary _pro tem_ of the Ruskin Society of Manchester, in reply to a request for Mr. Ruskin's views upon the formation of such a Society.

[From "The Autographic Mirror," December 23 and 30, 1865.]

_LETTER TO MR. W. H. HARRISON._[176]

DEAR MR. HARRISON: The plate I send is unluckily merely outlined in its principal griffin (it is just being finished), but it may render your six nights' work a little more amusing. I don't want it back.

Never mind putting "see to quotations," as I always do. And, in the second revise, don't look to all my alterations to tick them off, but merely read straight through the new proof to see if any mistake strikes you. This will be more useful to me than the other.

Most truly yours, with a thousand thanks, J. RUSKIN.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] A facsimile of this letter, from a collection of autographs in the possession of Mr. T. F. Dillon Croker, appeared in the above-named issue of the _Autographic Mirror_. The subject of the letter will be made clearer by the following passages from Mr. Ruskin's reminiscence of Mr. William Henry Harrison, published in the _University Magazine_ of April, 1878, under the title of "My First Editor."--"_1st February_, 1878. In seven days more I shall be fifty-nine; which (practically) is all the same as sixty; but being asked by the wife of my dear old friend, W. H. Harrison, to say a few words of our old relations together, I find myself, in spite of all these years, a boy again--partly in the mere thought of, and renewed sympathy with, the cheerful heart of my old literary master, and partly in instinctive terror lest, wherever he is in celestial circles, he should catch me writing bad grammar, or putting wrong stops, and should set the table turning, or the like.... Not a book of mine, for good thirty years, but went, every word of it, under his careful eyes twice over--often also the last revises left to his tender mercy altogether on condition he wouldn't bother me any more."--The book to which the letter refers may be the "Stones of Venice," and the plate sent the third ("Noble and Ignoble Grotesque"), in the last volume of that work; and if this be so, the letter was probably written from Herne Hill about 1852-3.

[From the "Journal of Dramatic Reform," November, 1880.]

DRAMATIC REFORM.[177]