Farther, I have now put into Mr. Ward's hands a photograph from a practice-sketch of my own at Oxford,1 in pure lead pencil, on grey paper secured with ink, on the outlines, and touched with white on the lights. It is of a stuffed Kingfisher, (one can't see a live one in England nowadays), and done at full speed of hand: and it is to be copied for a balance practice to the slow spiral lines."

1 [Rudimentary Series, No. 202: see Vol. XXI. p. 227, and Plate LVIII. (ibid., p. 262).]

2 [With this letter was issued another of Mr. Girdlestone's pamphlets-namely, Our Misdirected Labour considered as a Grave, National, and Personal Question, in regard to its Amount, Consequences, and Causes. A Paper read at a Meeting of the Westonsuper-Mare Social Science Club. By E. D. Girdlestone, B. A. Price one Penny. 1876.]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE

22. (I.) AFFAIRS of the Company.

I have given leave to two of our Companions to begin work on the twenty acres of ground in Worcestershire,1 given us by Mr. George Baker, our second donor of land (it was all my fault that he wasn't the first). The ground is in copsewood; but good for fruit trees; and shall be cleared and brought into bearing as soon as the two Companions can manage it. We shall now see what we are good for, working as backwoodsmen, but in our own England.

I am in treaty for more land round our Sheffield museum; 2 and have sent down to it, for a beginning of the mineralogical collection, the agates on which I lectured in February at the London Institution. This lecture I am printing, as fast as I can, for the third number of Deucalion; but I find no scientific persons who care to answer me any single question I ask them about agates; and I have to work all out myself; and little hitches and twitches come, in what one wants to say in print. And the days go.

Subscriptions since March 14th to April 16th. I must give names, now; having finally resolved to have no secrets in our Company,-except those which must be eternally secret to certain kinds of persons, who can't understand either our thoughts or ways:

[In September 1871 Mr. Baker offered to give seven acres (Vol. XXVII. p. 160). Subsequently he enlarged his offer to twenty acres, but Ruskin in October 1875 had delayed his inspection of the land (above, p. 424). Hence the gift of Mrs. Talbot in August 1875 was the first, formally accepted (above, p. 395).]

2 [See below, p. 658.]

3["Precious Stones: And the Gold of that Land is good: there is Bdellium and the Onyx Stone.' Delivered at the London Institution on February 17, and March 28, 1876. Included in Deucalion (part iii.) as ch. vii. of vol. i. (Vol. XXVI. pp. 165-196), where references to the places of the specimens in the Museum are given.]

23. (II.) Affairs of the Master.

March 16. Balance.

April

21. Miss O. Hill, 14 year's rent on Marylebone Freehold
28. R. Forsyth (tea-shop).

7. Dividend on £7000 Bank Stock .

8. Petty cash (Dividends on small shares in Building
Societies and the like) .

March 21. Jackson.

£50 0

25 0
25 0 0

45 0

50

0

53 0

444 16 3

Balance, April 16.

. £1511 10 1

24. (III.) I have promised an answer this month to the following pretty little letter; and will try to answer fully, though I must go over ground crossed often enough before. But it is often well to repeat things in other times and words:1

"16th March, 1876.

"SIR,-Being very much interested in the St. George's Society, we venture to write and ask you if you will be so kind as to send us the rules, as, even if we could not join it, we should so like to try and keep them. We hope you will excuse our troubling you, but we do not know how else to obtain the rules. We remain, yours truly."

My dear children, the rules of St. George's Company are none other than those which at your baptism your godfather and godmother promised to see that you should obey-namely, the rules of conduct given to all His disciples by Christ, so far as, according to your ages, you can understand or practise them. But the Christian religion being now mostly obsolete (and worse, falsely professed) throughout Europe, your godfathers

* For accounts in London, to save drawing small cheques. I have not room for detail this month,2 the general correspondence being lengthy.

1 [§§ 24 and 25 were reprinted in the Letter to Young Girls (see Bibliographical Note, above, p. xxvi.). In lines 1 and 2 "this month" was omitted, and "initialsigned petition was substituted for "letter." Some other revisions made by Ruskin in the Letter are here followed, viz. in lines 6 and 7, "godfathers and godmothers" for "godfather and godmother"; line 14, the italicising of He"; in

66

§ 25, line 10, one" was italicised; in § 25, line 11, the transposition of "is" from after "mind"; for an alteration in line 1 of "6th," see p. 610 n.]

2 [For the details, see below, p. 631.]

and godmothers, too probably, had no very clear notion of the Devil or his works, when they promised you should renounce them; and St. George hereby sends you a splinter of his lance, in token that you will find extreme difficulty in putting any of Christ's wishes into practice, under the present basilisk power of society.

1

Nevertheless, St. George's first order to you, supposing you were put under his charge, would be that you should always, in whatever you do, endeavour to please Christ (and He is quite easily pleased if you try), but in attempting this, you will instantly find yourself likely to displease many of your friends or relations; and St. George's second order to you is that in whatever you do, you consider what is kind and dutiful to them also, and that you hold it for a sure rule that no manner of disobedience to your parents, or of disrespect and presumption towards your friends, can be pleasing to God. You must therefore be doubly submissive; first in your own will and purpose to the law of Christ; then in the carrying out of your purpose, to the pleasure and orders of the persons whom He has given you for superiors. And you are not to submit to them sullenly, but joyfully and heartily; keeping nevertheless your own purpose clear, so soon as it becomes proper for you to carry it out.

25. Under these conditions, here are a few of St. George's orders for you to begin with:

:

1st. Keep absolute calm of temper, under all chances; receiving everything that is provoking and disagreeable to you as coming directly from Christ's hand: and the more it is like to provoke you, thank Him for it the more; as a young soldier would his general for trusting him with a hard place to hold on the rampart. And remember, it does not in the least matter what happens to you,-whether a clumsy schoolfellow tears your dress, or a shrewd one laughs at you, or the governess doesn't understand you. The one thing needful is that none of these things should vex you. For your mind, at this time of your youth, is crystallizing like sugar-candy; and the least jar to it flaws the crystal, and that permanently.

2nd. Say to yourselves every morning, just after your prayers: "Whoso forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be My disciple." 2 That is exactly and completely true: meaning that you are to give all you have to Christ to take care of for you. Then if He doesn't take care of it, of course you know it wasn't worth anything. And if He takes anything from you, you know you are better without it. You will not indeed, at your age,

[In "Recollections of Ruskin at Oxford," by "Peter" (St. George, vol. vi. p. 107), the following passages are given from "a letter to Mrs. Hilliard

:

"The plan of a refined education, founded on agriculture and seamanship, cannot be sketched out with charcoal instantaneously. Still, the slow and provoking way in which I go on is that the enemy may not be able to get hold of any assailable point till I have taken my ground thoroughly.

"Love to Connie; and tell her, in Utopia young ladies won't think of imitating Christ, but of imitating wiser young ladies than themselves, and street sweepers won't think of imitating Christ, but of saving pence enough to keep them from pawning their boots."

The references are to the present passage in Fors.]

2 [Luke xiv. 33.]

XXVIII.

2 Q

have to give up houses, or lands, or boats, or nets; but you may perhaps break your favourite teacup, or lose your favourite thimble, and might be vexed about it, but for this second St. George's precept.

3rd. What, after this surrender, you find entrusted to you, take extreme care of, and make as useful as possible. The greater part of all they have is usually given to grown-up people by Christ, merely that they may give it away again: but school-girls, for the most part, are likely to have little more than what is needed for themselves: of which, whether books, dresses, or pretty room-furniture, you are to take extreme care, looking on yourself, indeed, practically, as a little housemaid set to keep Christ's books and room in order; and not as yourself the mistress of anything.

4th. Dress as plainly as your parents will allow you: but in bright colours (if they become you), and in the best materials,—that is to say, in those which will wear longest. When you are really in want of a new dress, buy it (or make it) in the fashion: but never quit an old one merely because it has become unfashionable. And if the fashion be costly, you must not follow it. You may wear broad stripes or narrow, bright colours or dark, short petticoats or long (in moderation), as the public wish you; but you must not buy yards of useless stuff to make a knot or a flounce of; nor drag them behind you over the ground. And your walking dress must never touch the ground at all. I have lost much of the faith I once had in the common-sense and even in the personal delicacy of the present race of average English women, by seeing how they will allow their dresses to sweep the streets, if it is the fashion to be scavengers.

5th. If you can afford it, get your dresses made by a good dressmaker, with utmost attainable precision and perfection: but let this good dressmaker be a poor person, living in the country; not a rich person living in a large house in London. "There are no good dressmakers in the country." No: but there soon will be if you obey St. George's orders, which are very strict indeed, about never buying dresses in London. "You bought one there, the other day, for your own pet!" Yes; but that was because she was a wild Amorite, who had wild Amorites to please; not a Companion of St. George.

6th. Learn dressmaking yourself, with pains and time; and use a part of every day in needlework,2 making as pretty dresses as you can for poor people, who have not time nor taste to make them nicely for themselves. You are to show them in your own wearing what is modestly right, and graceful; and to help them to choose what will be prettiest and most becoming in their own station. If they see that you never try to dress above yours, they will not try to dress above theirs. Read the little scene between Miss Somers and Simple Susan, in the draper's shop, in Miss Edgeworth's Parent's Assistant; and by the way, if you have not that book, let it be the next birthday present you ask papa or uncle for.

7th. Never seek for amusement, but be always ready to be amused.

[See above, p. 559; author's note (d).]

[In the reprint (Letter to Young Girls) this reads: "6th. Devote a part of every day to thorough needlework, in making In line 4 of "6th" "most was corrected to "modestly," and the correction is here followed, as "most" was probably a misprint.]