LUCCA, 21ST SEPTEMBER. I found your dear little note [Norton's omission, as editor] I had been writing in the morning a piece a little making amends to Giotto, as I hope you will think, about four frescoes I have found, which nobody knows anything of, in a back cloister of Santa Maria Novella [Norton's omis sion, as editor]. The next year, in his Mornings in Florence, Ruskin records an estimate of Giotto and Cimabue which shows that he has come to have the "two great instead of one," with the preference given to Giotto: If there be one artist, more than another, whose work it is desirable that you should examine in Florence, supposing that you care for old art at all, it is Giotto. You can see work of his at Assisi; but it is not likely you will stop there to any purpose. Cimabue Etruscan born, gave, we saw, the life of the Norman to the tradition of the Greek: eager action to holy contemplation. And what more is left for his favorite shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, except to paint with ever increasing skill? We fancy he only surpasses Cimabue-eclipsed by greater brightness. He had in the meantime discussed Cimabue and Giotto in a brilliant course of Oxford lectures on The Aesthetic and Mathematic Schools of Florence, where he classed them as the aesthetic masters. In several ways, Norton exerted an extraordinary influence on Ruskin's work. For one thing, he prevented the publication of what would have been one of the most interesting books ever issued. To appreciate this fact, we need to recall something of the love of Ruskin and his art pupil, the beautiful and brilliant Irish girl, Rose La Touche. In the painful conflict between her love for him and what she conceived to be her religious duty, she alternately held out hope and withdrew it. Their unhappy love had much to do with Ruskin's mental trouble, and with her mental disorder and early death. His letters to her were doubtless the most beautiful writings that ever came from his gifted pen. The brilliance and sweetness of hers may be seen from the two or three which exist-from the following, for instance, one of the first, written when she was only thirteen: I got your letter just as we were going out riding. So I could only give it one peep, and then tucked it into my riding-habit pocket and pinned it down, so that it could be talking to me while I was riding. I had to shut my mouth so tight when I met Mamma, for she would have taken it and read it if I'd told her, and it wouldn't have gone on riding with me. As it was, we ran rather a chance of me and pocket and letter and all being suddenly lodged in a stubble-field, for Swallow (that's Emily's animal that I always ride now) was in such tremendous spirits about having your handwriting on his back that he took to kicking and jumping in such a way, till I felt like a Stormy Petrel riding a great wave, so you may imagine I could not spare a hand to unpin my dear pocket, and had to wait in patience, till Swallow had done "flying, flying South", and we were safe home again. This remarkable correspondence continued for thirteen years after the date of this letter-until her death. While he lived, Ruskin kept her letters to him, and his to her, in a rosewood box-except one, which he carried in his breast pocket, between plates of fine gold. After Ruskin's death, Norton and Mrs. Severn, Ruskin's cousin, took these letters to the garden and gave them to the flames. No one who knows Norton's feelings in such matters can doubt that, whatever the other literary executors may have done, he insisted on this step. The man who regretted that he had not destroyed Ruskin's letters to him as he received them, to prevent so intimate a friendship from being paraded before the world; who, when forced to publish the correspondence, struck out the passages in which Ruskin had given him greatest praise and credit,1 and destroyed most of his own letters to Ruskin; and who protested bitterly against Froude's publication of Carlyle's private correspondence and diaries— this man, characterized always by a deep reserve, felt that the love-letters of his dead friend were too sacred for publication. 14 It was William James who first observed this (see his letter to Norton in Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, II: 348); but it does not require a great psychologist to see it. But if we blame Norton for keeping this section of Ruskin's writings from the world, we have him to thank for three of the most delightful volumes in the English language. After Ruskin had had a nervous collapse, Norton, both for the sake of the book which would be produced, and because he feit that such occupation would be better for his friend than exciting social and political work, advised him to occupy his time with writing reminiscences of his own life. Autobiographical sketches began to appear in Fors Clavigera.15 Then Norton suggested that the autobiography be made into a separate book. This was undertaken. The work proved soothing to the jangled nerves of the great writer; and its product was-Praeterita. Finally, in 1890, Norton rendered Ruskin a great service and exerted no small influence on his writings, by introducing his works into America. Previous to that time Ruskin's books were issued here only in pirated editions. As Ruskin laughingly said, "They got themselves published in America." The result was that Ruskin was robbed of the fruits of his labor, not only in this country, but also, to a considerable extent, at home, for large numbers of these pirated editions were smuggled into England. One American publisher, indeed, Wiley of New York, offered Ruskin a large sum of money, covering royalties on all past as well as on all future editions, provided Ruskin would designate him as his only authorized American publisher. But Wiley made no arrangements to reproduce the books in Ruskin's own style and under competent supervision, and Ruskin refused to sanction the Wiley editions. In 1890, about the time of our international copyright law, Norton undertook to supervise the 15 See in Letters of John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton Ruskin's letter of September 11, 1868. It shows Ruskin, at this early date, promising Norton to write an autobiography. "Some day," he says, "but not now, I will set down a few things, but the more you understand, the less you will care for me," etc. See Collingwood's Life of Ruskin, II: 540. Collingwood's statement that Norton caused Ruskin to begin this autobiographical work, was read and approved by Ruskin's cousin, Mrs. Severn, who lived in the Ruskin home until her marriage, after which Ruskin made his home with her. See also E. T. Cook's Life of Ruskin, Frederic Harrison's John Ruskin, in English Men of Letters, the Dictionary of National Biography, etc. publication of Ruskin's books in this country, and to introduce them to the American public. He edited the "Brantwood" edition, published by C. E. Merrill and Co., of New York. It proved in every way satisfactory. There was no one else whose introduction of Ruskin's works into America could have been so influential. Because of his known integrity, his knowledge of Mr. Ruskin, his large circle of cultured friends and acquaintances, and his prestige as traveller and art student, as Professor of Fine Art in Harvard University, as an editor, translator, and author of books, and as a contributor to the North American Review and the Atlantic Monthly-because of these things, I say, Norton spoke with authority and was heard with confidence. To each book Norton gave a separate, signed introduction. These numerous introductions do three important things: they give considerable information concerning the life of the author and the circumstances under which the various books were written; they appeal to the American public to give Mr. Ruskin fair treatment; and they interpret Mr. Ruskin's works to American readers, condemning frankly what seems wrong, praising freely what is worthy of praise, and explaining how a given book may be used to the greatest advantage. Thus did Norton, at one stroke, exert an important influence on all of Ruskin's works. CHARACTER-PORTRAYAL IN THE WORK OF HENRY JAMES WILLIAM B. CAIRNS No question raised by the work of Henry James elicits greater difference of opinion than that regarding the "reality" of the characters in his novels. In the comments that appeared on the occasion of his death may be found praise for the creation of a gallery of vivid, almost tangible men and women, and the denial that any of his people have a semblance of actual life. While the matter is one on which critics have often contented themselves with dogmatic assertion, it at first sight seems strange that even unconsidered impressions should differ so widely. The people in James's stories are surely more important than his plots, and his devices for characterization, whether successful or not, are among the most distinctive of his literary methods. Almost in the beginning of his work he learned that it is persons of different training and standards who most clearly see each other's peculiarities. It was rather this fact than any fondness for describing sights and scenes of travel that led him to write the so-called "international novel." He placed his Americans abroad because in a foreign setting their virtues and weaknesses stood out more distinctly, and because it was useful to see European civilization through their eyes. For a similar reason he made free use, in planning his settings, of pensions catering to cosmopolitan patronage, of English country-house parties, and of other scenes where heterogeneous groups of people are brought together. His method appears in its nakedness in sketches like A Bundle of Letters and The Point of View, where persons of different nationalities and social position record in letters and diaries their frank impressions of one another. It is little more dis |