Читать книгу Life of Octavia Hill as Told in Her Letters онлайн

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Mr. Edwards will give us a large order for a skirting board of marble if we can do it for 8d. a foot; also an order for a painted glass conservatory.

If any of you love me, see if you can’t send me a piece of Indian ink and a paint brush, and “The Land we live in,” and look out for some toys, or books that you don’t want—the latter two for the little child at the needlewoman’s.

November 27th, 1853.

To Gertrude.

About Ruskin, it matters very little to me what The Times, or anything else, says of him. I see much, very very much, to admire in him, and several things which I could wish different. If, as I suppose, The Times accuses him of affectation of style and want of humility, I entirely deny the first charge; as I think there is never a single word he writes, which could have been left out without loss, or changed without spoiling the idea; and, if it means that each sentence of his has a beauty of sound as well as of meaning, I say that it is to me all the more right for that; and that to be able to reproduce that sound is a gift not to be neglected.... As to the second objection I say, if Ruskin sees a truth which is generally denied, he is right to proclaim it with his whole strength. He says not “I see it is so because I am a higher creature than you,” but “I see it, because I have gone to God, and His works for it. You may all see it, if you will look, using the powers He has given you; only look in sincerity and humility. It is only because I am humble, because I am content to give up my own ideas and notions, to take the truth because it is God’s, to believe that it is good and right. It is only so I can discover harmony in this universe, and I am sent (he says) with a loud voice to proclaim this to you.”