basket; the secretary's work cut out,
his own arranged; and by noon a long row of letters and envelopes have
been set out to dry--Mr. Ruskin uses no blotting-paper, and, as he
dislikes the vulgar method of fastening envelopes, the secretary's work
will be to seal them all with red wax, and the seal with the motto
"To-day" cut in the apex of a big specimen of chalcedony.

If you take, as many do, an interest in the minutiae of portrait
painting, and think the picture more finished for its details, you may
notice that he writes on the flat table, not on a desk; that he uses a
cork penholder and a fine steel pen, though he is not at all a slave to
his tools, and differs from others rather in the absence of the _sine
qua non_ from his conditions. He can write anywhere, on anything, with
anything; wants no pen-wiper, no special form of paper, or other "fad."
Much of his work is written in bound notebooks, especially when he _is_
abroad, to prevent the loss and disorder of multitudinous foolscap. He
generally makes a rough syllabus of his subject, in addition to copious
notes and extracts from authorities, and then writes straight off; not
without a noticeable hesitation and revision, even in his letters. His
rough copy is transcribed by an assistant, and he often does not see it
again until it is in proof.[45]

[Footnote 45: In later years he sometimes had his copy type-written.]

Printers' proofs are always a trial, and he is glad to shift the work on
to an assistant's shoulders, such as Mr. Harrison was, who saw all his
early works through the press. But he is extremely particular about
certain matters, such as the choice of type and arrangements of the
page; though his taste does not coincide with that of the leaders of
recent fashions. Mr. Jowett (of Messrs. Hazell, Watson & Viney, Limited)
said in _Hazell's Magazine_ for September; 1892, that Ruskin made the
size of the page a careful study, though he adopted many varieties. The
"Fors" page is different from, and not so symmetrical as that of the
octavo "Works Series," although both are printed on the same sized
paper--medium 8vo. Then there is the "Knight's Faith" and "Ulric," in
both of which the type (pica _modern_--"this delightful type," wrote
Ruskin) and the size of the page are different from any other; yet both
were his choice. The "Ulric" page was imitated from an old edition of
Miss Edgeworth. The first proof he criticised thus: "Don't you think a
quarter in