Reflections from a Visiting Scholar: Arnold at the Armstrong Browning Library

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Jennifer Borderud

By Rose Sneyd, PhD Candidate, Dalhousie University, Canada

Rose Sneyd, Dalhousie University, Canada

While the Armstrong Browning Library’s (ABL’s) trove of EBB- and RB-related resources is a magnet for scholars of both poets, I was drawn to Waco, TX, by the library’s distinct collection on Matthew Arnold. As a doctoral candidate writing my dissertation on the connections between the great Victorian poet-critic and the Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi, I was very fortunate to receive a two-week fellowship to explore the ABL’s intriguing holdings on Arnold last winter.

One of several highlights of this collection is those unpublished letters of Arnold that are held by the ABL. These include, among others, an 1865 letter to Sir Theodore Martin – one of the earliest translators of Leopardi’s poetry – who sent his translation of Goethe’s Faust to Arnold, who seems to have approved of it; letters (1866, 1873) to an American journalist and acquaintance of Emerson, Charles F. Wingate, to whom Arnold makes fascinating comments about English reviewers and their tendency to “lose[… themselves] in a number of personal and secondary questions”; and a refusal to produce an entry on Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Chambers Encyclopaedia (1888-92) sent to David Patrick in 1887. Such letters provide vital nuggets of information on Arnold’s network of friends and acquaintances on both sides of the Atlantic.

Letter from Matthew Arnold to Charles F. Wingate, dated 13 September 1873, page 2

Letter from Matthew Arnold to Charles F. Wingate, dated 13 September 1873, page 1

Another fascinating element of the Arnold author collection is the many editions of Arnold’s works that were owned by prominent Victorian writers, for example: a copy of Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy that he presented to Robert Browning; an 1852 edition of Empedocles on Etna, also given to Browning; John Ruskin’s copy of Merope (1858); and Charles Kingsley’s New Poems (1867). Of peculiar interest are the markings made by some of the owners of these volumes – particularly by the latter two – that provide a delightful insight into how they read Arnold’s work. Ruskin, for instance, took issue with Arnold’s preface to Merope (Arnold’s most concerted attempt to revive the art of Greek tragedy in mid-19^th century England). Here, Arnold suggests that the role of the chorus in Greek tragedy is merely to summarise, but Ruskin contends that the chorus’s role is autonomous – not reliant on the drama’s action. “[B]ut surely,” Ruskin protests in imaginary debate with Arnold, “the actors were (at least in Sophocles and Aeschylus) dependent on and subordinate to the actions of the chorus. Not vice-versa” (xliii). Shortly afterwards, Ruskin pursues this marginal disagreement with Arnold. Where Arnold writes that the chorus is “the relief and solace in the stress and conflict of the action,” Ruskin comments: “or an uncomfortable spasm of poetic inspiration” (xliv)! Perusing his copy of New Poems, the reader discovers that Kingsley was greatly interested by Empedocles’s prosaic-monotonous monologue atop Etna – a fact to which his highlighting more than a third of its stanzas testifies – but he also loaded the philosophically antithetical “Rugby Chapel” with strokes of his pencil.

Marginalia by John Ruskin in his copy of Matthew Arnold’s Merope: A Tragedy, London, 1858 (ABLibrary 19thCent PR4022 .M3 1858 c.3)

But perhaps the most valuable aspect of the Arnold collection are those 100+ volumes from Arnold’s personal library, which were purchased after the death of his grandson Arnold Whitridge. These were acquired by past ABL director Roger Brooks and include, as Brooks put it in a PR release at the time, “Many of the works [that] were well-known influences upon Arnold during his most formative years as a poet and critic.” Thus, there are editions of Aeschylus’s and Euripides’s tragedies (1843, 1855), Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1848), Arnold’s copy of Madame de Stael’s De L’Allemagne, as well as a number of his volumes on Goethe. While library staff have not yet confirmed that the marks and marginalia were written in Arnold’s hand, Brooks was convinced of it: “[Arnold’s] marginalia, underscoring, and indexing are in many of the volumes along with his well-known book plate,” he writes in the same release. Furthermore, the passages highlighted in these volumes are marked in a manner that is consistent across the books in Arnold’s library and there is a letter in an edition of Poems (1881) held by the library against which his handwriting can be compared. It does, then, seem highly likely that the illuminating “marginalia, underscoring, and indexing” are Arnold’s own.

Mathew Arnold’s markings in his copy of J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Le Bouddha et sa religion, Paris, 1860 (ABL Matthew Arnold Lib X 294.3 B285b 1860)

Perhaps the two volumes that were of most interest to my research – in terms of their insight into Arnold’s stoic-pessimism – were his copies of J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Le Bouddha et sa religion (1860) and of George Long’s translation of Epictetus: The Discourses of Epictetus; with the Encheiridion and fragments (1877). What particularly struck me about Arnold’s underscoring in Saint-Hilaire’s Le Bouddha was his evident interest both in Siddartha’s emphasis on the abandoning of desire: “la pauvreté et la restrictions des sens” (as Saint-Hilare puts it – 21), and in Siddartha’s insistence on the imperative of sharing the knowledge of “truth” that he has gained with men and women (26). The first element – the abandonment of desire – is reminiscent of Epictetus’s stoic tenant that one should be resigned to whatever happens that is beyond our control. Arnold’s interest in this doctrine of salvation – whether espoused in ancient Eastern thought or in ancient Western thought – is something that he shared with Leopardi. The Romantic Italian poet believed that “pleasure” was an impossible, elusive goal for humans, and that it was better for all of us to confront this bitter truth and to ally ourselves against a cruel and indifferent Nature.

Annotations by Matthew Arnold in his copy of The Discourses of Epictetus, translated by George Long, London, 1877 (ABL Matthew Arnold Lib X 188 E64d 1877 )

Similar themes in Epictetus appear to be of much interest to Arnold. In the back of Long’s translation, Arnold has noted an index of those elements which, presumably, interested him most, including, enigmatically, the “fallacy.” On following the page references that Arnold includes alongside this term in his text, you realise that he actually has reservations about the stoic doctrine that I outlined (in very broad terms) above. Thus, when Epictetus writes of “learn[ing] to wish that every thing may happen as it does” (1.12.42), Arnold comments in the margin: “fallacy.” Similarly, when Epictetus poses the rhetorical question: “And will you be vexed and discontented with the things established by Zeus, which he with the Moirae (fates) who were present and spinning the thread of your generation, defined and put in order?” (1.12.44), Arnold writes “fallacy.” However, Arnold seems sympathise more with Epictetus when the philosopher suggests that human beings can overcome the desire to control those “things” in their life that are actually beyond their control: “Do you not rather thank the gods that they allowed you to be above these things which they have not placed in your power, and have made you accountable only for those which are in your power?” (1.12.45). Here, Arnold writes: “between the truth and the fallacy,” and one can only wish that he had elaborated a little on what he meant here!

Despite the enigmatic nature of some of Arnold’s comments, tracing his interests through the markings and marginalia that he left behind in these books is a fascinating enterprise, and one that I hope to pursue at a later date.

Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Jennifer Borderud

In fall 2016, students in Dr. Kristen Pond’s upper-level English course, “Literary Networks in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” explored the relationships between writers of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist Periods and the influences they had on each other’s works. “Authors did not, in fact, work alone,” Dr. Pond argued, “but often collaborated, either directly by each person contributing something to the final piece or indirectly through the influence of conversations, interactions, or from reading one another’s works.” Utilizing the letters, manuscripts, rare books, and other collection materials at the Armstrong Browning Library, the students ended their semester by curating an exhibition that uncovered connections between one particular literary figure and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning—the centers of the literary network for the course—or another significant literary figure.

The exhibition Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries is on display in the Hankamer Treasure Room, Armstrong Browning Library, until April 21, 2017.

The Armstrong Browning Library would like to thank Dr. Kristen Pond and the students who made this exhibition possible:

Marcus Appleyard, Rebecca Causey, Victoria Corley, Annie Dang, Taylor Ferguson, Casey Froehlich, Madelynn Lee, Mollie Mallory, Anne McCausland, Emily Ober, Shannon Ristedt, Chris Solis, Alexander Stough, Alex Ueckert, Baylee Versteeg, and Jonathan White.

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Lilias Trotter

Posted on November 10, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The article, “Women Artists in Ruskin’s Circle,” written by Jane Garnett, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography continues:

The other woman discussed by Ruskin [in the first Slade Lecture], (Isabella) Lilias Trotter (1853–1928), was completely unknown, and was not an artist by profession but a committed evangelical, at that point working for the YWCA in London. She was born on 14 July 1853 at Devonshire Place House, Marylebone, the seventh child of Alexander Trotter (1814–1866) of Dreghorn, Midlothian, a businessman, and the eldest of his second wife, Isabella Strange. She was educated at home in London by French and German governesses and was encouraged by her father in scientific and artistic pursuits; in the summer the family travelled on the continent. After the death of her father in 1866, she developed a new seriousness, and in the mid-1870s she attended with her mother evangelical conventions at Broadlands and Oxford; she sang in a choir during the Moody and Sankey revival of 1875. It was on a visit to Venice in October 1876 that she met Ruskin. Discovering that Ruskin was staying at the same hotel, her mother asked whether she could show him some of her daughter’s watercolours. As Ruskin recounted in the Slade lecture: ‘I saw there was extremely right-minded and careful work, almost totally without knowledge. I sent back a request that the young lady might be permitted to come out sketching with me.’ He commented on her learning ‘everything the instant that she was shown it—and ever so much more than she was taught’, and went on to display her drawings of peasant life in Norway, commended for conveying the same attributes of Christian simplicity which Francesca Alexander was doing in Tuscany (Complete Works, 33.280–81). Her Norwegian notebooks were to form part of Ruskin’s gift to the University of Oxford. She visited Brantwood regularly with her brother and sometimes her sister, and drew under Ruskin’s encouragement. But in 1879 she was to decide that she could not commit herself to painting ‘in the way he means, and continue still to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”’ (Stewart, 19). She worked for the YWCA, took a Bible class at the Welbeck Institute, and began to hold meetings at her own home in Montagu Square for women in the business houses of Oxford and Regent streets. In 1886 she bought a nightclub to convert into a restaurant for such women; and she worked at night among prostitutes. She continued to paint and to send sketches to Ruskin, who felt, however, that her work was deteriorating:

The power in these drawings is greater than ever—the capacity infinite in the things that none can teach; but the sense of colour is gradually getting debased under the conditions of your life … Technically you are losing yourself for want of study of the great colour masters. (ibid., 22–3)

In 1888 Trotter went to Algeria as a missionary, where she worked until her death, publishing Arabic translations of the gospels and organizing conferences for the missionaries of north Africa. At the same time she responded passionately both as an artist and as an evangelical to the landscape and colours of Algeria. Fascinated by the vivid sapphire blue of Kabylian berries growing deep under matted grass, she tried to paint them ‘to show what God can do with the very feeblest ray; but the blue is an unattainable colour’ (Master of the Impossible, 19). In 1926 she published a little story, Focussed, written for the YWCA, in which she used a similar image of a dandelion, catching a shaft of sun in a dark wood: from this she developed the metaphor of the lens to press the need for everyone to choose on what to focus and not to dissipate energy. Her aesthetic comments on detail and line, in Africa and on trips in Switzerland and north Italy, continued to show a strong Ruskinian sensibility. Until her death she sent watercolours of people, places, and plants—often in a bold and independent style—to him among others. She died in Algiers on 27 August 1928.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns one letter from John Ruskin to Lilias Trotter.

Letter from John Ruskin to Lilias Trotter. 15 August 1879.

In this letter, Ruskin invites Lilias to come to Brantwood on Thursday, the 21st.

I am very glad and thankful you are back again—and eager to see you and the ‘play’.—but the little nest of a house is full till next Thursday—the 21^st—can you come then?—and stay as long as ever you like.—If you can’t then tell me when you could—and I’ll arrange for it—you know ‘hours’ are no manner of use.

The ABL also owns the proof pages of Lectures on English Art : Rossetti and Holman Hunt, [The ODNB says they are Rossetti and Burne-Jones] which Ruskin has inscribed to “Lilias./ First proof./ With the Author’s love./ 27th March, 1883.”

John Ruskin. Inscription on cover page of Lectures on Art.

John Ruskin. Inscription on cover page of proof pages of Lectures on English Art.

John Ruskin. Proof pages of Lectures on Art.

John Ruskin. proof pages of Lectures on English Art.

John Ruskin. Proof pages for Lectures on English Art. Pages 3 and 4.

John Ruskin. Proof pages for Lectures on English Art. Pages 24 and 25.

In the lecture Ruskin describes his first meeting with Lilias:

When I was at Venice in 1876—it is almost the only thing that makes me now content in having gone there,—two English ladies, mother and daughter, were staying at the same hotel, the Europa. One day the mother sent me a pretty little note asking if I would look at the young lady’s drawings. On my some what sulky permission, a few were sent, in which I saw there was extremely right-minded and careful work, almost totally without knowledge. I sent back a request that the young lady might be allowed to come out sketching with me. I took her over into the pretty cloister of the church of La Salute, and set her, for the first time in her life, to draw a little piece of gay marble with the sun upon it, rightly. She may have had one lesson after that—she may have had two : the three, if there were three, seem to me, now to have been only one ! She seemed to learn everything the instant she was shown it—and ever so much more than she was taught.

The Ruskin Museum has made available to the Armstrong Browning Library several drawings and paintings by Lilias Trotter. Among the images is a drawing of a capital of a column. Perhaps this is the sketch to which Ruskin referred in his lecture.

Lilias Trotter. Column. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns a page on which is mounted Ruskin’s handwritten notes from “Stones” in Modern Painters, Volume 6 (Chapter 18, Page 817). At the bottom of the page are sketches of Stonehenge, a stone frieze, and the Toad Rock.

John Ruskin. Drawings from Stones of Venice.

In the lecture, Ruskin tells of Lilias’s trip to Norway and her little sketchbook of drawings—“They can only be seen . . .with a magnifying glass, and they are patterns to you therefore only of pocket-book work ; but what skill is more precious to a traveller than that of minute, instantaneous, and unerring record of the things that are precisely best?”

Those drawings from the Norwegian sketchbook are now located at the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford. The sketches measures 2 in. X 4 in. A facsimile of Lilias Trotter’s 1876 Sketchbook: Scenes from Lucerne to Venice and Lilias Trotter’s 1889 Sketchbook: Scenes From North Africa, Italy & Switzerland are available for purchase. This illustration from her 1889 sketchbook of an ironwork cross illustrates the “pocket-book work” Ruskin described.

Lilias Trotter. "Cross" from Lilias Trotter's Sketchbook of 1879.

Lilias Trotter. “Cross” from Lilias Trotter’s Sketchbook of 1889. 2 in. X 4 in.

Following are the images of a few other drawings and paintings provided to the ABL from The Ruskin Library at Lancaster University:

Lilias Trotter. Figure Studies. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

Lilias Trotter. Mountain Range and Desert. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

Lilias Trotter. Image from Sketchbook-3. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

Lilias Trotter. Image from Sketchbook-15. Courtesty of Ruskin Library.

Lilias Trotter. Daisies. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

Lilias Trotter. Desert Flowers. Courtesy of Ruskin Library.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Francesca Alexander

Posted on November 9, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The following paragraph appears in the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography in an article entitled “Women Artists in Ruskin’s Circle,” written by Jane Garnett:

In his first lecture in the Slade series Ruskin had already surprised his audience by turning from a discussion of Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones to praise of two women artists, prefacing his comments with the statement: ‘For a long time I used to say … that, except in a graceful and minor way, women could not paint or draw. I am beginning, lately, to bow myself to the much more delightful conviction that nobody else can’ (Complete Works, 33.280). Both of these women lived out Ruskin’s principles of profound religious engagement with nature. One of them was the American Francesca Alexander (1837–1917), to whom Ruskin had been introduced in Florence in 1882. She was at this point forty-five and had been a professional artist for twenty years, although Ruskin was to talk of her as if she were a young girl, and addressed her as ‘lassie’ and as his ‘sweetest Sorel’. She had been brought up by her artist father in Ruskinian ways of looking at nature, and as a devout evangelical. At the age of seven she was said to have announced that she wanted to be an artist and to work for poor children. She collected stories and songs from the Tuscan peasantry, which she wrote and illustrated with figure drawings of the poor, many of whom gathered regularly in her studio, and whom she supported with the proceeds of sales of her work. For Ruskin her work—in both its form and its subject matter—embodied an ideal Christian and artistic simplicity and sincerity. He was to focus on this ideal in remembering—and transfiguring from its religious narrowness—the character of Rose La Touche. He bought and published Francesca Alexander’s The Story of Ida, Roadside Songs of Tuscany, and Christ’s Folk in the Apennine. In his third Slade Lecture he read passages from her preface to the Roadside Songs, and showed some of her drawings; and in June 1883 he gave a drawing-room lecture in London at which he showed twenty of her drawings. The Spectator review, commending their excellence, saw them as exemplars of Ruskin’s teaching.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns two letters from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 1.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 2.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 3.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 4.

In this letter Francesca tells Ruskin about the discussion in which her little group of Bellosguardo friends had participated regarding the drawings of flowers in her book, Roadside Songs of Tuscany:

I must tell you though what some of them said about the Road Side Songs, (which they nearly all saw before it went to you) you may be pleased, now that the book belongs to you, to have the favourable opinion of such distinguished judges as meet in the “brilliant society” of my Sky-parlour. They all seemed principally interested in the pictures of flowers, which brought about a discourse on flowers in general, causing Edwige to remark, what I believe she thinks she has discovered, and what really I don’t believe people think so much about as they might . . . that each flower has just the leaves that are most becoming to it. Then, taking the Easter flowers on the table for a text, poor gentle Bice, with tears in her eyes, improvised a little sermon, (better than many that I have heard in church) on their variety and wonderful contrivances for beauty, as showing the hand of the Creator. “And only think,” said a Contadina woman, contemptuously, “that now-a-days people try to make out that it is only nature who does it all!” At which Edwige said, yet more contemptuously: “It is all very well; and I hear a good deal about inventions in these times . . . but it is my belief that they will wait a good while before anybody makes another invention like those flowers: and if they think it is so easy, they had better try themselves!” Then the Contadina returned to the flowers of the Road side Songs, which she said “Seemed to have all the colours of the real ones, and yet were made of nothing but ink!” And she did not believe I could have done it by myself: probably the angels came and showed me how. And finally Edwige ended the discourse by saying triumphantly: “you will never see any more books born, like that!”

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 1.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 2.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 3.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 4.

This letter expresses Francesca’s concern for Ruskin’s well-being. She says:

Some things in your letter trouble me: you seem dissatisfied with Joanie, and . . . I hope I am wrong, but I keep thinking about that miserable time two years ago, when there came about a separation between you, and you suffered more than ever, since I have know you, (as you told me afterwards yourself) and she fell dangerously ill, and as for me . . . Well, I don’t like to think about it! The end of it was, that it half killed you both; and, if you knew the terror that comes over me at the thought of any difference between you and her, you would have patience with whatever I say! You don’t explain what the trouble is, and I ask no questions. You speak as if she worried you . . . But do remember that she is worn out now, with her anxiety during your illness, and is probly [sic] weak and nervous, and worried all the time for fear of your hurting yourself in some way. But I dare say it is foolish in me to be so frightened. Only I am so far away, and have suffered much for my fiends, in these last years; and now I am always dreading some harm coming to you, or to her, whom you have taught me to love.

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns three copies of Roadside Songs of Tuscany in various forms. However, none of the editions contain parts 9 and 10.

Francesca Alexander and John Ruskin. Roadside Songs of Tuscany, 1884.

The Alexanders, who lived near Florence are mentioned several times in the Brownings’ letters.

In 1897 Francesca Alexander published an edition of Tuscan Songs that did not include John Ruskin’s notes but did include the music of the folk songs that she had collected, along with her lovely illustrations of the flowers from along the roadsides of Tuscany.

Francesca Alexander. Tuscan Songs, 1897.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Travels

Posted on November 7, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

John Ruskin’s extensive and privileged travel experiences began as a child. His father, a wine merchant, visited his business clients in the Lake District of England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Strasbourg, Schaffhausen, Milan, Genoa, Turin, the Alps, and Venice. Ruskin returned to many of these places throughout his lifetime to study and sketch his impressions of landscapes and buildings. These two letters record some of those experiences.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Page 4.

This letter, written while the Ruskins were wintering in Venice, was addressed to Mr. W. H. Harrison. The letter thanks Mr. Harrison for his “epigram on friendship” and accepts his invitation for a meeting. The remainder of the letter discusses the restoration of a gondola. An illustration of the gondola is included in the letter. Ruskin comments that the parasol on the gondola was granted to the Doge by Pope Alexander III.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to [Jane O’Meara] Simon. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to [Jane O’Meara ] Simon. 1 March 1863. Pages 2 and 3.

This letter, written from Mornex, Switzerland to Jane O’Meara Simon, describes in great detail his lodgings and the landscapes he views from his lodgings. Mrs. Simon was a close family friend of John Ruskin and the Severns and wife of Dr. John Simon, Ruskin’s physician. Ruskin describes the view from his lodgings in Mornex:

. . . in the morning I get a little Greek and geology done – and perhaps some drawing – none well – but yet enough to give slight [show] of progress. I live in that room you were in, chiefly. –the [day] goes all round it, and I get from corner to corner as it chases me; sitting mostly however at the window next the fireplace . . . I can see the [Salève] slope out of the near window, and the grander [Jorasses] out of the other by turning my head . . . In the morning, I can see Mont Blanc / on my bed – and, sleeping, have the [entire] view from the [Urins] to the [Stanery] [mountains] unbroken.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Friends, Family, and Employees

Posted on November 5, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The following small group of John Ruskin’s letters are not particularly concerned with art, social issues, or criticism. They focus instead on social engagements, the death of a long-time employee, the design of a dress for a friend, a Christmas wish, and a friend’s memorial, and give us a glimpse into Ruskin’s personal life.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Charles Kingsley. [ca. 1862]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Charles Kingsley. [ca. 1862]. Pages 2 and 3.

The watermark on this letter suggests this letter to Charles Kingsley, broad church priest of the Church of England, university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist, may have been written around 1862. During that time Kingsley was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. A few years later, in 1869, Ruskin would became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. Both Ruskin and Kingsley were becoming more focused on social issues at this time. Kingsley published The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a tale about a chimney sweep in 1863. Ruskin had just published Unto This Last is an essay and book on economy in 1860.

However this letter is much more lighthearted. Ruskin laments missing his hoped for music that morning and engagements at Colonel Elwyn’s and Mr. Booth’s. He chastises Kingsley for not planning to stay with him that evening and informs him that dinner will be at six.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Henry Ritchie. 3 February 1865.

Ruskin to Henry Ritchie. 3 February 1865. Envelope.

This letter to Henry Ritchie, John James Ruskin’s clerk, expresses Ruskin’s shock at hearing of the death of Henry Watson, his father’s head clerk. Ruskin’s father, who had died the previous year, had been very successful in the wine-importing business, employing two clerks, Henry Watson and Henry Ritchie to assist him with clerical duties. Ruskin says that he expected Watson to have died before his Master, “but Death and Time play strange tricks with the little cracked clay pitchers they juggle with.” Ruskin wishes Ritchie and his new partner “all prosperity & peace.”

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Miss Rudkin. 29 October 1875. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Miss Rudkin. 29 October 1875. Page 2.

This letter, addressed to Miss Rudkin, expresses a desire to find “a pretty, quiet, thoroughly strong, and not fussy nor catchy sort of dress for Ethel Hilliard,” daughter of Rev. J. C. Hilliard. Ruskin was staying at the Hilliard’s home at Cowley Rectory. He often sought refuge from London at their home. Hilliard’s son, Laurence, became Ruskin’s secretary in the 1870s. We know nothing of Miss Rudkin, other than that Ruskin paid her £14 14s for a silk frock presented to his pet, presumably Ethel Hilliard, on Ruskin’s own birthday, according to Fors Clavigera, Volume VI.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Margaret. 22 December 1878.

With this letter Ruskin sends a Christmas gift to his cousin Margaret, thankful that he has “been preserved through so grave an illness to see another Christmas.” He expresses the hope that the bright frost in Brantwood “may neither be dark nor unhealthy in London, and that you may yourself have stronger health in the coming year.”

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Emma Sidney Edwardes. 2 May 1886.

This letter is addressed to Emma Sidney Edwardes, the step-daughter of Dr. Grant, the physician of Ruskin’s father, and wife of Sir Herbert Edwardes, administrator, soldier, and statesman active in the Punjab, India. Her book, paying tribute to her husband’s life, Memorials of the Life and Letters of Major General Sir Herbert Edwardes was published in 1886. In the letter, Ruskin says:

I am so very glad and thankful that book is done. Heaven knows how thankful I shall read every word of it—no wife ever had better right to love her husband to the uttermost—and you have love him, worthily. I think you will be beloved by the way you & he come in gradually in Praeteita.

Emma is described in Chapter 1 of Volume 2 of Praeterita as a nice and clever daughter. On December 22, 1883, Ruskin had delivered as lecture, “The Battle of Kineyree.” The lecture was published as A Knight’s Faith, and two years later, inn 1885, published as A Knight’s Faith : Passages in the Life of Sir Herbert Edwardes, in Bibliotheca Pastorum, Volume 4. Ruskin describes his work in the preface:

The following pages are in substance little more than grouped extracts of some deeply interesting passages in the narrative published by Sir Herbert Edwardes, in 1851, of his military operations in the Punjaub during the winter of 1848–1849 [A Year on the Punjab Frontier]. The vital significance of that campaign was not felt at the time by the British public, nor was the character of the commanding officer rightly understood. This was partly in consequence of his being compelled to encumber his accounts of real facts by extracts from official documents; and partly because his diary could not, in the time at his disposal, be reduced to a clearly arranged and easily intelligible narrative. My own abstract of it… reduced the events preceding the battle of Kineyree [18 June 1848] within the compass of an ordinary lecture, which was given here at Coniston in the winter of 1883; but in preparing this for publication, it seemed to me that in our present relations with Afghanistan, the reader might wish to hear the story in fuller detail, and might perhaps learn some things from it not to his hurt”

Ruskin presented The Edwardes Ruby to the British Museum in honor of Sir Herbert Edwards in 1887. The inscription reads:

The Edwardes Ruby
Presented in 1887 by John Ruskin
‘In Honour of the
Invincible Soldiership
And loving Equity
Of Sir Herbert Edwardes’ Rule
By the Shores of Indus’.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Social and Political Letters

Posted on October 28, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

In addition to his importance as an art critic, Ruskin was also a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. The Armstrong Browning Library owns several letters from Ruskin to correspondents who shared his social and political concerns.

John Ruskin to Octavia Hill. 4 Oxtover 1888

John Ruskin to Octavia Hill. 22 November 1865.

John Ruskin to Octavia HIll. 22 November 1865.

In this letter to Octavia Hill, artist and social reformer, Ruskin gives his permission for Hill to “make her offer.” He warns her “not to be rash and to be as sure as good counsel can make you of your game,” advising her that he “had much rather go very slowly, than have failures to your account or to others.” Based on the date of the letter, Ruskin is probably referring to his lease of three houses of six rooms each in Paradise Place, Marylebone as residences for the poorest of the working class. Ruskin placed these houses under the management of Hill, who had a deep concern for housing for the poor.

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John Ruskin to Elizabeth Gaskell. [ca. 1865].

This letter from John Ruskin to Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist and short story writer, is likely a response to Gaskell’s letter of February 1865. In that letter Gaskell asked Ruskin to pull whatever political strings that he could to make sure that her friend, Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Assize Courts, had his name among those to be considered as architects for the new Law Courts in London, a position to be appointed by William Cowper. The appointment was prolonged and contentious. The judges wanted George Edmund Street to design the exterior, with the interior designed by Charles Barry. A special committee of lawyers favored Alfred Waterhouse’s designs, Elizabeth Gaskell’s choice. The appointment was eventually won by George Edmund Street, who died in 1881 before the project was completed. This letter suggests that Ruskin had contacted William Cowper and was able to assure Gaskell, “you will see by the enclosed the affair is not so petulantly forward yet, then men of course never make any promises—but I have good hope that he means at least as much as he says.”

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John Ruskin to John Henry Chamberlain. 6 December 1869.

Ruskin apologizes for not thanking John Henry Chamberlain, architect from Birmingham, for his kind note. Ruskin later chooses Chamberlain to be a trustee of St. George’s Guild. St. George’s Guild is an Educational Trust created by John Ruskin to oppose modern, industrial capitalism and the ugliness, poverty, and pollution it produced. He hoped to establish communities that would oppose profit-driven industry and provide alternatives to mass production.

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John Ruskin to John Pakenham Stilwell. 14 February [ny].

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns eight letters of correspondence between Ruskin to John Pakenham Stilwell, British banker, Navy Agent, and Chairman of the Board of Management of the London Homeopathic Hospital. In the letters Ruskin thanks Stilwell for his gifts to St. George’s Guild and apologizes for his mistakes in accounting. In this letter Ruskin laments the plight of the poor:

I am truly helped by your kind letter, and entirely feel with you as to the quantity of good heart left in England. But as far as I have seen in history the innocent suffer with the guilty . . . . And when Revolution comes, as it must, distress will be everywhere.

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John Ruskin to William Cowper-Temple. 23 July 1876.

Ruskin had appointed William Cowper-Temple, a British Liberal Party statesman and politician and family friend, as trustee for St. George’s Guild. In this letter he thanks Cowper-Temple for his note and cheque. “Grannie,” referred to in the letter, is Lady Georgiana Cowper-Temple. He variously addressed her as “Phile,” “Isola,” “Mama,” and “Grannie.” In the letter Ruskin tells William to tell Grannie he is working on an edition of Sir Philip Sidney’s psalter, which was published the next year as Rock Honeycomb: Broken Pieces of Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalter. Laid Up in Store for English Homes. Ellis and White, 1877.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Letters About Art

Posted on October 27, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, an active art patron, an accomplished draftsman, and a gifted water-colorist and painter. Several of the letters owned by the Armstrong Browning Library mention topics related to art.

Letter from John Ruskin to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. [1855]

In this brief note to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, [1855], Ruskin says: “I like my picture[s] & mightily—but want you to order the frame and try any experiment you like on it thoroughly.” It is not possible to clearly determine which picture or pictures Ruskin is talking about. He bought several paintings from Rossetti and from Elizabeth Siddal, Rossetti’s wife.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Alfred Harris. 6 May [1864]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Alfred Harris. 6 May [1864]. Page 2 and 3.

Letter from John Ruskin to Alfred Harris. 6 May [1864]. Page 4.

In this letter to Alfred Harris, Ruskin recounts a humorous conversation he had overheard about himself while riding in a carriage. In the conversation Ruskin was described as “cracked,” and it was conjectured that “All them genius’s have something wrong about them you know.” Ruskin then tells Harris that he has “been looking for the pretty Princess portrait I told Miss Ella of” with “the blue eyes.” He said he had purchased it and sent it to Mr. Harris for Ella, possibly, his daughter.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Albert Goodwin. [ca. 1870]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Albert Goodwin. [ca. 1870]. Page 2.

In this letter Ruskin critiques Goodwin’s painting, offers to buy it at a reduced price, and asks for it to be loaned to him for a lecture. Goodwin was a close friend and protégé of Ruskin. Although he describes the painting as beautiful, Ruskin critiques Goodwin’s perspective on his drawing of pots, his “blundered dog,” “slurred arabesques,” and “lost curls of ample hair” in the painting. Although the painting is not named, the descriptive clues suggest a possible identification.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Sidney Colvin. 19 March 1873. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Sidney Colvin. 19 March 1873. Page 2.

Sidney Colvin, a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, became a fellow of his college in 1868. In 1873, when this letter was written, he was Slade Professor of Fine Art, and was appointed to the directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum the following year. Ruskin himself was appointed the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University in August 1869, and continued to teach at Oxford until 1879. He taught there again from 1883-1884. In this letter Ruskin tells Colvin that “that book of drawing will be left for some days yet in Mr. Reid’s charge—and I have asked him to let you look over it at your leisure, whenever you wish.” George William Reid was curator of the Print Room in the British Museum.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Sidney Miles. 24 September 1879.

In this faded letter Ruskin informs Miles that his engagements prevent him from the verification of pictures. However, he submits “this general recommendation—never to buy pictures unless you enjoy them—and if you enjoy them—never to mind whose they are.”

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Letter from John Ruskin to [William] Kingsley. 18 February 1886. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to [William] Kingsley. 18 February 1886. Page 2.

Ruskin thanks Kingsley for loaning him the delightful sketchbook belonging to Kingsley’s wife, saying that “the light and colour of some bits [of her landscapes] were exactly true and the character perfect.” William Kingsley, Rector of South Kilvington, near Thirsk, was a close personal friend of both John Ruskin and J. M. W. Turner. An account of their association can be found in Yorkshire Remembrances, by Marmaduke Charles Frederic Morris (1922). Kingsley lived to be 101; his wife died the following year at the age of ninety. Mrs. Kingsley’s sister was married to Tom Taylor, the dramatist and editor of Punch.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Tom Taylor. [Undated].

Although the signature of this letter is excised, the heading and the handwriting suggest it to be Ruskin’s. The letter is Ruskin’s refusal to buy the sketches that Taylor has offered. He says:

I had much rather give you ten pounds for any body in distress, than buy what I do not want—I have bought sketches like them —or better—for fifteen or twenty shillings—in the old times, and would not buy many, then.—at first rate thing is always worth—what one must give for it—a second rate thing—worth only what it is worth however the market may be—

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Letter from John Ruskin to [Unknown]. [Undated].

In this letter to an unknown correspondent, Ruskin gives drawing instructions to a student. He says:

“Begin any other of the pencil subject like that you have just done, which seems easiest to you. … Practice, at home, a quantity of pencil shading thus [six columns of lines drawn back and forth from left to right] And lines, thus, straight and thick and upright lines [eleven diagonal lines that appear to be smudged at the bottom and seven straight lines] thus.”

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Joseph Milsand

Posted on October 25, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Robert Browning (on left) and Joseph Milsand (on right).

Joseph Milsand (1817-1886) was a French critic, philosopher, theologian, and close friend of Robert Browning. The Joseph Milsand Archive, now owned by the Armstrong Browning Library, contains over 4,000 autograph letters as well as numerous rare books, pamphlets, journals, photographs, drawings, newspapers, and albums. It includes original manuscripts of nearly all of Milsand’s known writings, together with a large number of annotated proofs and most of his printed works, documenting his career from the age of twenty until his death. Over 62,000 manuscript pages of Milsand’s articles, essays, study notes, and personal journals (mostly handwritten in French) record his thoughts and observations relating to the Brownings, the Milsand family, and the Anglo-French literary scene from the 1860s to 80s.

Milsand, who often wrote for the French journal, Revue des Deux Mondes, published two articles about Ruskin in that periodical, “Nouvelle theories de l’art, en Angleterre” 1 July 1860, and “De l’influence de la littérature,” 15 August 1861. The two articles, along with a preface, were published as a book, L’Esthétique anglaise, étude sur John Ruskin, in June 1864.

Shown below is Milsand’s copy of his first publication on John Ruskin, “Nouvelle theories de l’art en Angleterre.”

Revue des Deux Mondes. 1860.

“Nouvelles theories de l’art en Angleterre” in Revue des Deux Mondes. 1 July 1860.

Several pages of Milsand’s notes on John Ruskin can be found in this journal kept from 1850-65.

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns twenty-four pages of heavily revised galley proofs of the article, “Nouvelles theories de l’art en Angleterre,” which was published in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 July 1860.

Milsand collected this article about Ruskin, “Nouvelles theories de l’art en Angleterre,” and another article also published in Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 August 1861, “De l’influence de la littérature,” written the next year, and added a preface to complete a book on John Ruskin, L’Esthétique anglaise, étude sur John Ruskin (1864). The following is a contract Milsand signed with Germer Baillière for the publication of L’Esthétique anglaise, étude sur John Ruskin (1864), dated 6 June 1864.

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns two letters written from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand related to Milsand’s critique of Ruskin’s Modern Painters in his book, L’Esthétique anglaise, étude sur John Ruskin.

On 12 February 1865, John Ruskin wrote to Joseph Milsand, offering him thanks for the “deep and careful” praise given in Milsand’s review of Modern Painters. Ruskin tells Milsand that he accepts “his strictures as heartily and frankly as I do your praise,” affirming that “nothing has given me so much encouragement—or so much of the rare happiness which comes of a discovered sympathy, as your review of me.”

Letter from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 12 February 1865. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 12 February 1865. Page 2 and 3.

Envelope from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 12 February 1865.

Envelope from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 12 February 1865. Verso.

In the following letter, 28 February [1865], Ruskin thanks Milsand for his letter of response. He says that Browning had written to him saying that he thought Milsand would think Ruskin would have been angry about his criticism. However, Ruskin says this about praise and censure:

“…how could you think that? Unless indeed you have found as I have found so often that however much praise or sympathy you give people if you give them even the least bit of blame if it’s only enough to hold the praise on, like a cherry stone—they suck all the praise off—and spit the stone back in your face—or, if its big enough—throw it at you like the Merchant under the date tree in Arabian nights…. I’m very thankful for yours—blame & praise alike & much the better for it.”

Letter from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 28 February [1865]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Joseph Milsand, 28 February [1865]. Page 2.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Printing Plates and Woodcut Blocks

Posted on October 21, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The Armstrong Browning Library owns a collection of printing plates and woodcut blocks engraved from sketches by John Ruskin.

These printing plates were used in illustrating Ruskin’s The Two Paths and Aratra Pentelici. Prints of the plates have been made by the Baylor Press to illustrate the designs.

Ruskin, John. The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9. London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1859.

Angel in The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9. London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1859, 27.

Print of Angel from printing plate and woodcut block.

Serpent Beguiling Eve in The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9. London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1859, 30.

Print of Serpent Beguiling Eve from woodcut block and printing plates.

Blob, Stick Man, and Handkerchief in The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9. London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1859, 110-111.

Print of Stick Man from printing plate and woodcut block.

Print of Handkerchief from printing plate and woodcut block.

House (Fig. 1.) in The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9. London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1859, 260.

Print of House (Fig. 1.) from printing plate.

Ruskin, John. Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891. Print.

Breakfast Plate (Fig. 1.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 9.

Print of Breakfast Plate (Fig. 1.) from printing plate.

Spirit of Agriculture (Fig. 3.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 57.

Print of the Spirit of Agriculture (Fig. 3.) from printing plate.

Zeus and Hephaestus (Fig. 4.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 62.

Print of Zeus and Hephaestus (Fig. 4.) from printing plate.

Angel (Figure 5.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 66.

Print of Angel (Figure 5.) from printing plate.

Owl (Figure 6.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 69.

Print of Owl (Figure 6.) from printing plate.

Fish (Figure 7.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 69.

Print of Fish (Figure 7.) from printing plate.

Branched Iron Bar (Figure 8.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 135.

Print of Branched Iron Bar (Figure 8.) from printing plate.

XII Branch of Phillyrea in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, before 151.

Outline of Branch of Phillyrea (Figure 9.) in Aratra Pentelici. Six Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture, Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1891, 151.

Print of Outline of Branch of Phillyrea from printing plate.

Armstrong Browning Library & Museum

A blog that explores the work of Robert & Elizabeth Browning and 19th-century Victorian literature and culture

Tag Archives: John Ruskin

Reflections from a Visiting Scholar: Arnold at the Armstrong Browning Library

Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Lilias Trotter

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Francesca Alexander

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Travels

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Friends, Family, and Employees

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Social and Political Letters

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Letters About Art

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Joseph Milsand

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Printing Plates and Woodcut Blocks