ball-dresses. But
afterwards he played Home, sweet Home, with three
variations--_quite_ the most wonderful thing I have ever heard in
music. Though I was close to the piano, the motion of the fingers
was entirely invisible--a mere _mist_ of rapidity; the _hands_
moving slowly and softly, and the variation, in the ear, like a
murmur of a light fountain, far away. It was beautiful too to see
the girls' faces round, the eyes all wet with feeling, and the
little coral mouths fixed into little half open gaps with utter
intensity of astonishment."

Ruskin could not be idle on his visits; and as he was never so happy as
when he was teaching somebody, he improved the opportunity by
experiments in education permitted there for his sake. Among other
things, he devised singing dances for a select dozen of the girls, with
verses of his own writing; one, a maze to the theme of "Twist ye, twine
ye," based upon the song in "Guy Mannering," but going far beyond the
original motive in its variations weighted with allegoric thought. Deep
as the feeling of this little poem is, there is a nobler chord struck in
the Song of Peace, the battle-cry of the good time coming; in the
faith--who else has found it?--that looks forward to no selfish victory
of narrow aims, but to the full reconciliation of hostile interests and
the blind internecine struggle of this perverse world, in the clearer
light of the millennial morning.

Ruskin's method of teaching, as illustrated in "Ethics of the Dust," has
been variously pooh-poohed by his critics. It has seemed to some absurd
to mix up Theology, and Crystallography, and Political Economy, and
Mythology, and Moral Philosophy, with the chatter of school-girls and
the romps of the playground. But it should be understood, before reading
this book, which is practically the report of these Wilmington talks,
that it is printed as an illustration of a method. It showed that
play-lessons need not want either depth or accuracy; and that the
requirement was simply capacity on the part of the teacher.

The following letter from Carlyle was written in acknowledgment of an
early copy of the book, of which the preface is dated Christmas, 1865.

"CHELSEA,

"_20 Decr, 1865._

"The 'Ethics of the Dust,' wh'h I devoured with't pause, and intend
to look at ag'n, is a most shining Performance! Not for a long
while have I read anything tenth-part s