The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hortus Inclusus, by John Ruskin

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Title: Hortus Inclusus
Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days
to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston

Author: John Ruskin

Release Date: August 3, 2007 [EBook #22230]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORTUS INCLUSUS ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David T. Jones and the
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THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

JOHN RUSKIN

VOLUME XXIV

* * * * *

OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US

STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

HORTUS INCLUSUS

* * * * *

HORTUS INCLUSUS

MESSAGES FROM THE WOOD TO
THE GARDEN,

SENT IN HAPPY DAYS TO THE
SISTER LADIES OF THE THWAITE, CONISTON.

DEDICATED

WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO MY DEAR FRIENDS

PROFESSOR RUSKIN

AND

ALBERT FLEMING.

S. B.

* * * * *

PREFACE.

The ladies to whom these letters were written have been, throughout
their brightly tranquil lives, at once sources and loadstones of all
good to the village in which they had their home, and to all loving
people who cared for the village and its vale and secluded lake, and
whatever remained in them or around of the former peace, beauty, and
pride of English Shepherd Land.

Sources they have been of good, like one of its mountain springs, ever
to be found at need. They did not travel; they did not go up to London
in its season; they did not receive idle visitors to jar or waste
their leisure in the waning year. The poor and the sick could find
them always; or rather, they watched for and prevented all poverty and
pain that care or tenderness could relieve or heal. Loadstones they
were, as steadily bringing the light of gentle and wise souls about
them as the crest of their guardian mountain gives pause to the
morning clouds: in themselves, they were types of perfect womanhood in
its constant happiness, queens alike of their own hearts and of a
Paradise in which they knew the names and sy