Meanwhile he continued busily to
educate himself for whatever profession he might choose or drift into,
supplemented by such fitful periods of schooling as his delicate health
permitted, as well as by many jaunts with his parents to the English
lakes and other parts of the kingdom, and by frequent tours on the
Continent, especially in Italy and Switzerland. Before he arrived at his
teens, young Ruskin had composed much, both in prose and verse, and he
early manifested an aptitude for drawing, as well as a decided taste for
art, which, it is said, was in some measure incited by the gift, from a
partner of his father, of a copy of the poet Rogers' "Italy," with
engravings by Turner. Nor, early in manhood, did he escape a youth's
fond dream of love, for as a worshipper of beauty, and an enthusiast of
the "Wizard of the North," we find him drawn tenderly to a daughter of
Lockhart, editor of the "Quarterly Review," a grandchild of his famous
countryman, Sir Walter Scott. The affair, however, though encouraged by
his parents, who longed to see their son settled in life, came to
nought, chiefly owing to the young lover's weak physical frame and
uncertain health. Later on, unhappily, he was caught in the toils of
another Scottish lass, for whom, it is related, he had written "The King
of the Golden River" (1841), and whose rare beauty had readily attracted
him. With her, in 1848, he made an ill-assorted marriage, only to find,
some years afterwards, his heart riven and a bitter ingredient dropped
into his life's chalice by a fatal defection on the wife's part, she
having become enamoured of the then rising young painter, Millais, whom
Ruskin had trustingly invited to his house to paint her portrait. The
sequel of the affair is a pitiful one, which Ruskin ever afterward hid
deep in his heart, though at the time, finding that the woman was unable
to live at the intellectual and spiritual altitude of her loyal husband,
the latter, with a magnanimity beyond parallel, pardoned both Millais
and the erring one, consented to a divorce, and actually stood by her at
the altar as the faithless one took upon herself new vows unto a new
husband. The estrangement and loss of a wife gave Ruskin afresh to
Art,--his true and fondly cherished bride.

At this period, as we know, English painting was at a low ebb, mediocre
and conventional, though with a show of artificial brilliance. Ruskin,
with his scorn of the artificial and scholastic, threw h