ty of the neighbourhood
was hardly of a kind to attract him, unless among the religious society
should be included the Thwaite, where lived the survivors of a family
long settled at Coniston--Miss Mary Beever, scientific and political;
and Miss Susanna, who won Mr. Ruskin's admiration and affection by an
interest akin to his own in nature and in poetry, and by her love for
animals, and bright, unfailing wit. Both ladies were examples of
sincerely religious life, "at once sources and loadstones of all good to
the village," as he wrote in the preface to "Hortus Inclusus," the
collection of his letters to them since first acquaintance in the autumn
of 1873. The elder Miss Beever died at an advanced age on the last day
of 1883; Miss Susanna survived until October, 29, 1893.

In children he took a warm and openly-expressed interest. He used to
visit the school often, and delighted to give them a treat. On January
13th, 1881, he gave a dinner to 315 Coniston youngsters, and the tone of
his address to his young guests is noteworthy as taken in connection
with the drift of his religious tendency during this period. He dwelt on
a verse of the Sunday School hymn they had been singing: "Jesu, here
from sin deliver." "That is what we want," he said; "to be delivered
from our sins. We must look to the Saviour to deliver us from our sin.
It is right we should be punished for the sins which we have done; but
God loves us, and wishes to be kind to us, and to help us, that we may
not wilfully sin."

At this time he used to take the family prayers himself at Brantwood:
preparing careful notes for a Bible-reading, which sometimes, indeed,
lasted longer than was convenient to the household; and writing collects
for the occasion, still existing in manuscript, and deeply interesting
as the prayers of a man who had passed through so many wildernesses of
thought and doubt, and had returned at last--not to the fold of the
Church, but to the footstool of the Father.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RECALL TO OXFORD (1882-1883)

This Brantwood life came to an end with the end of 1881. Early in the
next year he went for change of scene to stay with the Severns at his
old home on Herne Hill. He seemed much better, and ventured to reappear
in public. On March 3rd he went to the National Gallery to sketch
Turner's Python. On the unfinished drawing is written: "Bothered away
from it, and never went again. No light to work by in the next month."
An art