aching of history, which Ruskin dwelt
upon with unexpected emphasis.

But modern war, horrible, not from its scale, but from the spirit in
which the upper classes set the lower to fight like gladiators in the
arena, he denounced; and called upon the women of England, with whom, he
said, the real power of life and death lay, to mend it into some
semblance of antique chivalry, or to end it in the name of religion and
humanity.

In the _New Review_ for March 1892, there appeared a series of "Letters
of John Ruskin to his Secretary," which, as the anonymous contributor
remarked, illustrate "Ruskin the worker, as he acts away from the eyes
of the world; Ruskin the epistolographer, when the eventuality of the
printing-press is not for the moment before him Ruskin the good
Samaritan, ever gentle and open-handed when true need and a good cause
make appeal to his tender heart; Ruskin the employer, considerate,
generous--an ideal master."

Charles Augustus Howell became known to Ruskin (in 1864 or 1865) through
the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites; and, as the editor of the letters
puts it, "by his talents and assiduity" became the too-trusted friend
and _protege_ of Ruskin, Rossetti and others of their acquaintance. It
was he who proposed and carried out the exhumation, reluctantly
consented to, of Rossetti's manuscript poems from his wife's grave, in
October, 1869; for which curious service to literature let him have the
thanks of posterity. But he was hardly the man to carry out Ruskin's
secret charities, and long before he had lost Rossetti's confidence[12]
he had ceased to act as Ruskin's secretary.

[Footnote 12: In the manner described by Mr. W.M. Rossetti at p. 351,
Vol. I., of "D.G. Rossetti, his family letters," to which the reader is
referred.]

From these letters, however, several interesting traits and incidents
may be gleaned, such as anecdotes about the canary which was anonymously
bought at the Crystal Palace Bird Show (February 1866) for the owner's
benefit: about the shopboy whom Ruskin was going to train as an artist;
and about the kindly proposal to employ the aged and impoverished
Cruikshank upon a new book of fairy tales, and the struggle between
admiration for the man and admission of his loss of power, ending in the
free gift of the hundred pounds promised.

In April, 1866, after writing the Preface to "The Crown of Wild Olive,"
and preparing the book for publication, Ruskin was carried off to the
Con