but having been the case in the only volumes of his Handbooks I had ever possessed. On all occasions, any little literary success I met with excited bitter animosity from Mr. Murray.
Another curious attack was made upon me by the eccentric Mr. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest. He had published in the Saturday Review a series of short articles on the Italian cities, which I always felt had never received the attention they deserved, their real interest having been overlooked owing to the unpopularity of the dogmatic and verbose style in which they were written. Therefore, really with the idea of doing Mr. Freeman a good turn, I had rather gone out of my way to introduce extracts from his articles where I could, that notice might thus be attracted to them—an attention for which I had already been thanked by other little-read authors, as, whatever may be the many faults of my books, they have always had a large circulation. But in the case of Mr. Freeman, knowing the singular character of the man, I begged a common friend to write to his daughter and amanuensis to mention my intention, and ask her, if her father had no objection to my quoting from his articles, to send me a list of them (as they were unsigned), in order that I might not confuse them with those of any other person. By return of post I received, without comment, from Miss Freeman, a list of her father’s articles, and I naturally considered this as equivalent to his full permission to quote from them. I was therefore greatly surprised, when Mr. Freeman’s articles appeared soon afterwards in a small volume, to find it introduced with a preface, the whole object of which was, in the most violent manner, to accuse me of theft. I immediately published a full statement of the circumstances under which I had quoted from Mr. Freeman in sixteen different newspapers. Mr. Freeman answered in the Times by repeating his accusation, and in the Guardian he added, “Though Mr. Hare’s conduct was barefaced and wholesale robbery, I shall take no further notice of him till he has stolen something else.”[187]
Mr. Freeman made himself many enemies, but he did not make me one; he was too odd. His neighbour, the Dean of Wells, Johnson, could not bear him. When there was an Archæological Meeting at Wells, it was thought that peace might be made if the Dean could be persuaded to propose the historian’s health at the dinner. The Dean was quite willing, but he began his speech unfortunately with—“I rise with great pleasure to propose the health of our eminent neighbour, Mr. Freeman the historian, a man who—in his own personal characteristics—has so often depicted for us the savage character of our first forefathers.”
But in spite of these little catastrophes attending its publication, I am certain that “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” which cost me far more pains and labour, and which is more entirely original, than all my earlier books put together, was by far the best of my writings, up to that time.
Before the book was out, I was already devoted to a new work, suggested by the great delight I had long found in London, and by the desire of awakening others to an enjoyment of its little-known treasures. A set of lectures delivered at Sir John Shaw-Lefevre’s house in Seymour Street, and a series of articles in Good Words, laid the foundation for my “Walks in London.” When employed in this work, as in all my others, I felt all those portions of life to be the most interesting which were spent in following out any one single purpose.
Journal.
“Jan. 18, 1876.—I went to Cobham for three days last week. Deep snow was on the ground, but the visit was delightful. I was delighted to find Lady Pelham there, always so radiant and cordial, and so perfectly simple. Of the other guests, the most interesting were Lord and Lady Harris. There were also a great many Kentish men, hunting clergy, who dressed in top-boots, &c., during their visit, but departed in ecclesiastical attire.”
“Jan. 19.—Yesterday I went to Lady Taunton. She has a beautiful portrait of her daughter by young Richmond—a sort of play upon every possible tone of yellow—a yellow gown, a yellow background, a great cushion worked with yellow sunflowers, yellow hair looped up with pearls, only a great white living lily to throw it all back. It is a most poetical picture.
“In the evening I went to a supper at the house of young F. P. to meet a whole society of young actors, artists, &c. Eden was there, known in the stage world as Herbert, a name he took to save the feelings of his episcopal uncle, Lord Auckland. His is a fine and a charming face, but rather sad. … There were about fourteen men present, very good singing, and then supper, much kindness and cordiality, and not a word which all their mothers and sisters might not have heard. It would not have been so at college or in a mess-room: so much for maligned actors.”
“Jan. 21.—To see Frederick Walker’s pictures. It is an interesting collection, as being the written mind of one man. You see the same picture over and over again, from its first sketch of an idea—merely a floating idea—to its entire completion, and it is interesting to know how slow a growth of thought was required to lead up to something, which, after all, was not so very wonderful in the end. The pictures are not beautiful, but the man who did them must have been charming, such a simple lover of farmhouse life, apple-orchards, and old-fashioned gardens, with a glory of flowers—all the right kinds of flowers blooming together.
“It poured, so I sat some time with R. on one of the seats. He talked long and openly of all the temptations of his life, and endlessly about himself. I urged that the best way of ennobling his own nature must be through others, that self-introspection would never do, and could only lead to egotism and selfishness, but that in trying to help others he would unconsciously help himself. I find it most difficult to say anything of this kind without making illustrations out of my own life, which I have certainly no right to think exemplary.
“As we were going away, a lady who had stared long and hard at us, and whom I thought to be some waif turned up from my Roman lectures, came up to me. ‘I think, sir, that you were standing close to my sister just now, and she has lost her purse.’—‘I am very sorry your sister has lost her purse; it is very unfortunate.’—‘Yes, but my sister has lost her purse, and you, you were standing by her when she lost it.’—‘I think after what you have said I had better give you my card.’—‘Oh, no, no, no.’—’ Oh, yes, yes, yes: after what you have said I must insist upon giving you my card.’ What an odd experience, to be taken for a pickpocket! R. thought the lady had really picked my pocket, but she had not.”
“Jan. 22.—An anonymous letter of apology from the lady of the picked pocket; only she said that if I had been as flurried as she was, and had been placed in the same circumstances as she was, I should have acted exactly as she did; in which I do not quite agree with her.”
“Monk’s Orchard, Jan. 23.—This is a fine big house, be-pictured, be-statued, with a terraced garden, a lake, and a great flat park. A Mr. and Mrs. Rodd are here with their son Rennell, a pleasant-looking boy, wonderfully precocious and clever, though, as every one listens to him, he has—not unnaturally—a very good opinion of himself: still one feels at once that he is the sort of boy who will be heard of again some day.
“Our host, Mr. Lewis Loyd, is in some ways one of the most absent men in the world. One day, meeting a friend, he said, ‘Hallo! what a long time it is since I’ve seen you! How’s your father?’—‘Oh, my father’s dead.’—‘God bless me! I’m very sorry,’ &c. The next year he met the same man again, and had forgotten all about it, so began with, ‘Hallo! what a long time since I’ve seen you! How’s your father?’-‘Oh, my father’s dead still!’
“We have been to church at Shirley—one of Scott’s new country churches. In the churchyard is a cross to poor Sir John Anson, and beside it a granite altar-tomb with an inscription saying that it is to Ruskin’s father—‘a perfectly honest merchant,’ and that ‘his son, whom he loved to the uttermost, and taught to speak the truth, says this.’
“69
