...."

As one of the chief literary figures of the day, Ruskin could not avoid
society, and, as he tells in "Praeterita," he was rewarded for the
reluctant performance of his duties by meeting with several who became
his lifelong friends. Chief among these he mentions Mr. and Mrs.
Cowper-Temple, afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple. The acquaintance
with Samuel Rogers, inauspiciously begun many years before, now ripened
into something like friendship; Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) and
other men of letters were met at Rogers' breakfasts. A little later a
visit to the Master of Trinity, Whewell, at Cambridge, brought him into
contact with Professer Willis, the authority on Gothic architecture, and
other notabilities of the sister University. There also he met Mr. and
Mrs. Marshall of Leeds (and Coniston); and he pursued his journey to
Lincoln, with Mr. Simpson, whom he had met at Lady Davy's, and to
Farnley for a visit to Mr. F.H. Fawkes, the owner of the celebrated
collection of Turners (April, 1851).

In London he was acquainted with many of the leading artists and persons
interested in art. Of the "teachers" of the day he was known to men so
diverse as Carlyle--and Maurice, with whom he corresponded in 1815 about
his "Notes on Sheepfolds"--and C.H. Spurgeon, to whom his mother was
devoted. He was as yet neither a hermit, nor a heretic: but mixed freely
with all sorts and conditions, with one exception, for Puseyites and
Romanists were yet as heathen men and publicans to him; and he noted
with interest, while writing his review of Venetian history, that the
strength of Venice was distinctly Anti-Papal, and her virtues Christian
but not Roman. Reflections on this subject were to have formed part of
his great work, but the first volume was taken up with the _a priori_
development of architectural forms; and the treatment in especial of
Venetian matters had to be indefinitely postponed, until another visit
had given him the opportunity of gathering his material.

Meanwhile, his wide sympathy had turned his mind toward a subject which
then had received little attention, though since then loudly
discussed--the reunion of (Protestant) Christians.

He put together his thoughts in a pamphlet on the text "There shall be
one fold and one Shepherd," calling it, in allusion to his architectural
studies, "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds." He proposed a
compromise, trying to prove that the pretensions to priesthood on t