he lay hauled up, a
distance of four feet, which, as the boat has four hundred-weight
of iron upon her keel, gives a wind-gust, or force, not easily
measured by instruments.

Believe me, dear Mr. Ruskin,
Yours sincerely,
ROBT. C. LESLIE."

I am especially delighted, in this letter, by my friend's
vigorously accurate expression, eyes "unmuzzled by brass or glass."
I have had occasion continually, in my art-lectures, to dwell on
the great law of human perception and power, that the beauty which
is good for us is prepared for the natural focus of the sight, and
the sounds which are delightful to us for the natural power of the
nerves of the ear; and the art which is admirable in us, is the
exercise of our own bodily powers, and not carving by sand-blast,
nor oratorizing through a speaking trumpet, nor dancing with spring
heels. But more recently, I have become convinced that even in
matters of science, although every added mechanical power has its
proper use and sphere, yet the things which are vital to our
happiness and prosperity can only be known by the rational use and
subtle skill of our natural powers. We may trust the instrument
with the prophecy of storm, or registry of rainfall; but the
conditions of atmospheric change, on which depend the health of
animals and fruitfulness of seeds, can only be discerned by the eye
and the bodily sense.

Take, for simplest and nearest example, this question of the stress
of wind. It is not the actual _power_ that is immeasurable, if only
it would stand to be measured! Instruments could easily now be
invented which would register not only a blast that could lift a
sailing boat, but one that would sink a ship of the line. But,
lucklessly--the blast won't pose to the instrument! nor can the
instrument be adjusted to the blast. In the gale of which my friend
speaks in his next letter, 26th January, a gust came down the hill
above Coniston village upon two old oaks, which were well rooted in
the slate rock, and some fifty or sixty feet high--the one, some
twenty yards below the other. The blast tore the highest out of the
ground, peeling its roots from the rock as one peels an
orange--swept the head of the lower tree away with it in one ruin,
and snapped the two leader branches of the upper one over the
other's stump, as one would break one's cane over some people's
heads, if one got t