ompanion. Her son, though he did not leave home yet awhile
for any long journeys, could not be always with her. Only six weeks
after the funeral he was called away for a time to fulfil a
lecture-engagement at Bradford. Before going he brought his pretty young
Scotch cousin. Miss Joanna Ruskin Agnew, to Denmark Hill for a week's
visit. She recommended herself at once to the old lady, and to Carlyle,
who happened to call, by her frank good-nature and unquenchable spirits;
and her visit lasted seven years, until she was married to Arthur
Severn, son of the Ruskins' old friend, Joseph Severn, British Consul at
Rome. Even then she was not allowed far out of their sight, but settled
in the old house at Herne Hill: "nor virtually," said Ruskin in the last
chapter of "Praeterita," "have she and I ever parted since."

All through that year he remained at home, except for short necessary
visits, and frequent evenings with Carlyle. And when, in December, he
gave those lectures in Manchester which afterwards, as "Sesame and
Lilies," became his most popular work, we can trace his better health of
mind and body in the brighter tone of his thought. We can hear the echo
of Carlyle's talk in the heroic, aristocratic, Stoic ideals, and in the
insistence on the value of books and free public libraries,[10]--Carlyle
being the founder of the London Library. And we may suspect that his
thoughts on women's influence and education had been not a little
directed by those months in the company of "the dear old lady and ditto
young" to whom Carlyle used to send his love.

[Footnote 10: The first lecture, "Of Kings' Treasuries," was given,
December 6th, 1864, at Rusholme Town Hall, Manchester, in aid of a
library fund for the Rusholme Institute. The second, "Queens' Gardens,"
was given December 14th, at the Town Hall, King Street, now the Free
Reference Library, Manchester, in aid of schools for Ancoats.]

In 1864 a new series of papers on Art was begun, the only published
work upon Art of all these ten years. The papers ran in _The Art
Journal_ from January to July, 1865, and from January to April. 1866,
under the title of "The Cestus of Aglaia," by which was meant the
Girdle, or restraining law, of Beauty, as personified in the wife of
Hephaestus, "the Lord of Labour." Their intention was to suggest, and to
evoke by correspondence, "some laws for present practice of art in our
schools, which may be admitted, if not with absolute, at least with