thropic
work the teaching of "Unto this Last" and "Fors" was illustrated--not
exclusively--but truly. "No true disciple of mine will ever be a
Ruskinian" (to quote "St. Mark's Rest"); "he will follow, not me, but
the instincts of his own soul, and the guidance of its Creator."

Like all energetic men, Ruskin was fond of setting other people to work.
One of his plans was to form a little library of standard books
("Bibliotheca Pastorum") suitable for the kind of people who, he hoped,
would join or work under his St. George's Company. The first book he
chose was the "Economist" of Xenophon, which he asked two of his young
friends to translate. To them and their work he would give his
afternoons in the rooms at Corpus, with curious patience in the midst of
pre-occupying labour and severest trial; for just then he was lecturing
at the London Institution on the Alps[34]--reading a paper to the
Metaphysical Society[35]--writing the Academy Notes of 1875, and
"Proserpina," etc.--as well as his regular work at "Fors," and the St.
George's Company was then taking definite form;--and all the while the
lady of his love was dying under the most tragic circumstances, and he
forbidden to approach her.

[Footnote 34: "The Simple Dynamic Conditions of Glacial Action among the
Alps," March 11, 1875.]

[Footnote 35: "Social Policy based on Natural Selection," May 11.]

At the end of May she died. On the 1st of June the Royal party honoured
the Slade Professor with their visit--little knowing how valueless to
him such honours had become. He went north[36] and met his translators
at Brantwood to finish the Xenophon,--and to help dig his harbour and
cut coppice in his wood. He prepared a preface; but the next term was
one of greater pressure, with the twelve lectures on Sir Joshua Reynolds
to deliver. He wrote, after Christmas:

[Footnote 36: "On a posting tour through Yorkshire". He made three such
tours in 1875--southward in January, northward in June and July, and
southward in September: and another northward in April and May, 1876.]

"Now that I have got my head fairly into this Xenophon business, it
has expanded into a new light altogether; and I think it would be
absurd in me to slur over the life in one paragraph. A hundred
things have come into my head as I arrange the dates, and I think I
can make a much better thing of it--with a couple of days' work. My
head would not work in town--merely tur