nd have nothing to be astonished at; but
that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick Square in the
least more pleasantly habitable to pull Warwick Castle down. And at
this day, though I have kind invitations enough to visit America,
I could not, even for a couple of months, live in a country so
miserable as to possess no castles."

Again he says:--

"For the best and truest beginning of all blessings, I had been
taught the perfect meaning of Peace, in thought, act, and word.
Angry words, hurry, and disorder I never knew in the stillness of
my childhood's home. Next to this quite priceless gift of Peace, I
had received the perfect understanding of the natures of Obedience
and Faith. I obeyed word or lifted finger of father or mother,
simply as a ship her helm; not only without idea of resistance, but
receiving the direction as a part of my own life and force,--a
helpful law, as necessary to me in every moral action as the law of
gravity in leaping. And my practice in Faith was soon complete;
nothing was ever promised me that was not given, nothing ever
threatened me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever told me that
was not true."

Ruskin's father began to read Byron to him soon after he entered his
teens, the first passage being the shipwreck in "Don Juan."

"I recollect that he and my mother looked across the table at each
other with something of alarm, when on asking me a few _festas_
afterwards what we should have for after-dinner reading, I
instantly answered, 'Juan and Haidee.' My selection was not
adopted, and feeling there was something wrong somewhere, I did not
press it, attempting even some stutter of apology, which made
matters worse. Perhaps I was given a bit of 'Childe Harold'
instead, which I liked at that time nearly as well; and, indeed,
the story of Haidee soon became too sad for me. But very certainly
by the end of this year, 1834, I knew my Byron pretty well all
through. . . . I never got the slightest harm from Byron; what harm
came to me was from the facts of life and from books of a baser
kind, including a wide range of the works of authors popularly
considered extremely instructive,--from Victor Hugo down to Dr.
Watts."

Byron became a great favorite with the young student, as will be seen
from the following passage:--