RUSKIN, John (1819-1900). Author, artist & social reformer.
Fine series of 13 Autograph Letters Signed (11 'J Ruskin', 1 'John Ruskin', 1 'JR') to Charles H L Woodd, in all 20 pages 8vo with 8 envelopes, 1857-1879 where dated. From Denmark Hill, Brantwood and Oxford, where noted, to a man who embodied the unusual combination of Hampstead wine merchant and evangelical Christian. The letters do not always show the respect due to an old family friend.

'... The geological question of the loss of spring interests me exceedingly. I wish I could get at the facts of the intervening years with a good section of the ground. As for saving anything near London, or near any of our great cities, I take no more interest in it than in the antiquities of ?Admal & Zeborin.
 I wonder when you religious people will begin to believe your Bible and obey it in good earnest? Creditable to piety this Glasgow bank business, isn't it? ...'
'... May I ask, for it is a matter of grave importance to me, how far you are satisfied with the state of your hill people: satisfying themselves, it ought not to be interfered with, unless with extreme caution; but have you any idea of leading them into a more vivid and refined state of equally contented life? - or of removing causes of unnecessary hardship? ...'
'... I am obliged to specify hours for I have literally until a fortnight ago had no available weather and I have only 12 days left to do the work of fifty. ...' [Evidently written from Venice, though no envelope survives.]
'... Don't let Mrs Woodd get anything for me to eat, for I shall only want to talk & look at the Colonna and I shall dine early here ...'
'... I did not write to you when your distress came upon you, because I was in no wise able to help you. I am not so far advanced as you are in any religious feeling; you have a better perception than I of all that can comfort you, or enable you to live without comfort, the only motive I had to write to you was to assure you of my sympathy, but I could not even have done that without adding to your distress, of what use would it have been to tell you that I could understand what you had lost, and that, though so nearly a stranger to your late wife, I had seen enough to make my pity for your desolation strangely poignant. What you tell me - from her lips, touches me exceedingly, touches me closely. ... It remains I think, questionable only how far a larger and more perfectly protected llery or arcade might be built round the school, for the children in days of rain and storms. Your design as it stands at present, admits I think too little light to the sculpture ...'

Also included are a letter of Woodd to his wife describing in interesting detail a visit to Brantwood (4 pages 8vo, the first page cross-hatched, with envelope, 26 August 1886); and an Autograph Letter Signed from Ruskin's father, inviting Woodd to dine with Turner, a meeting which family history relates ended in Woodd buying one of Turner's paintings (1 page 8vo, undated).
[No: 21603]