Allen's encouragement, and cheered by the valuable assistance and co-operation of another friend, Mr. T. J. Wise, I agreed to carry forward this Third Edition with the full approbation and consent of Mr. Ruskin himself, though it should be said that on account of the state of his health, I have been unable to consult him on any of the details of the publication.

But it will not be exactly the same volume. Mr. Allen and Mr. Wise, having gone over much of my correspondence with Mr. Ruskin, were good enough to express a desire that some of those letters addressed to myself as a friend should be embodied in the present volume, as being strongly illustrative of his views on the subjects dealt with in his more formal Letters to the Clergy. I may claim pardon for a feeling of great satisfaction with the circumstance that in the course of so long and so delicate a correspondence as is contained in this volume, never has a cloud overshadowed our paths in this matter, never has a cold blast from the east sent a shiver through my system, nor, I presume, his. For had Mr. Ruskin felt any resentment at anything I wrote, with his usual downright frankness he would not have been backward for an hour in expressing in vehement language what he felt. But from first to last my intercourse with that kind and eminently distinguished friend has been kept bright and happy by his unvarying serenity.

The Letters from Clergy and Laity in this Third Edition occupy much less space than in the original one. It was Mr. Ruskin's wish that they should be subjected to some process of abridgment; besides which the allowing of space for the new feature of additional Ruskin Letters made a curtailment in another direction necessary. The plan which seemed to me the least discourteous to my numerous correspondents of that time has been to make a selection of passages from a certain number of the Letters.

The Vicarage,
Broughton-in-Furness,
January 1896.

CONTENTS

MR. RUSKIN'S LETTERS

I

Dear Mr. Malleson,—I could not at once answer your important letter: for, though I felt at once the impossibility of my venturing