lyle. 'You must take care,' said the old man; 'you will be making yourself ill once more.' Ruskin quite simply stopped short like a child. 'You are right, master,' he said, and went on to talk of something else. At a later period, however, he sank into deep depressions, and longed even for the visions to return. 'They were mostly visions of hell, it is true,' he said, 'but sometimes visions of heaven.' In the spring of 1887 he was again seized with brain trouble. He went in the autumn of that year to Sandgate, where he remained, with short visits to London, until the following summer—sometimes able to write, at others in a state bordering on insanity. In 1888 he made his last foreign journey—to France, Switzerland, and Italy. On 18 Sept., by way of a short epilogue for a reissue of 'Modern Painters,' he wrote 'beneath the cloudless peace of the snows of Chamouni what must be the last words of the book which their beauty inspired and their strength guided.' His foreign tour brought him no renewal of strength. In the following summer he spent some time at Seascale, and there he wrote a chapter of 'Præterita.' It is dated 19 June 1889, and marks the close of his literary career. From that time forward infirmities of mind and body grew steadily upon him. Physically he enjoyed fairly good health for some years; but his brain was in decay, leading sometimes to disordered violence, more often to listless calm. 'Poor finger!' he said to one of his old friends, 'it will never hold pen again. Well, it has got me into much trouble; perhaps it is better so.' At times he recovered some of his old brightness, and talked of things and places and persons that he loved; sometimes also playing chess, a game of which he was very fond. 'That's my dear brother Ned,' he said one night, as he passed a portrait of his friend, Burne-Jones, on the stairs. The artist died the next day, and Ruskin was grievously affected. As outdoor air and exercise became distasteful, his hold on the world, alike of current affairs, of thought, and of imagination, grew weaker and weaker. He would sit still for hours, sometimes looking from his window upon his favourite view of lake and fell; at other times, with head bent listlessly, seeing and hearing his friends, but hardly joining at all in any general conversation. On his eightieth birthday he was presented with illuminated addresses from the university of Oxford, and from a body of admirers, including most of the leading men in art and literature. On 18 Jan. 1900 he was seized by influenza, the heart failed, and on 20 Jan., at 2 P.M., he passed peacefully away. The dean and chapter of Westminster offered a grave in the Abbey, but this was declined on the ground that he had expressed a wish to be buried wherever he might happen to die. He was laid in the churchyard of Coniston on 25 Jan. In Poets' Corner there is to be a medallion of him (by Mr. Onslow Ford, R.A.), immediately above the bust of Sir Walter Scott.
Ruskin was about 5 feet 10 inches in height, and as a young man he gave the appearance of being taller owing to his slight build. In later years his shoulders were bent, and his whole frame seemed shrunk. His smile was always radiant. He had piercing blue eyes under full brows. In middle life he grew side-whiskers; from the year 1879 a beard which, in his old age, was allowed to grow to its full length, giving him a very venerable appearance. His hair was brown, which never to the last turned completely grey. A light-brown spun tweed, a double-breasted waistcoat, an ill-fitting blue frock-coat with velvet collar, unstarched wristbands, and amplitude of blue necktie worn as a stock, reflected something of the quaintness of his mind and talk. If it were not for the peculiarly delicate hands and tapering fingers, denoting the artistic gifts, 'the Professor' (as he was habitually called) might have been taken for an old-fashioned country gentleman. Ruskin was an indefatigable worker. He always rose with the sun, and much of his literary work was done before his friends or the rest of his household were awake. He had the genius for friendship, and his private correspondence, no less than his public, was large. To innumerable friends he wrote in the charming vein which is to be seen in 'Hortus Inclusus' and other collections, and always in the same exquisitely neat and beautiful handwriting. To strangers who sought his help he would often write the most painstaking letters of counsel and encouragement. He was at his best when showing to a sympathetic friend his collections of pictures and drawings, his precious stones and minerals, his manuscripts and missals at Denmark Hill or Brantwood, for he took the keenest delight in sharing his treasures and his pleasures with others. He was sometimes momentarily hot-tempered, and was not averse from the use of strong language. But of the arrogance and intolerance often displayed in his writings when he assumed the prophet's mantle, there was in his private intercourse no trace. His written denunciations of classes of his fellow-countrymen and of particular persons
