9th Jul, 2025 10:00
DREAMS | A Unique Private Collection
229
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
a signed letter, addressed to Mrs Collins, Paris 21st September 80, encouraging her in her writing: 'tell me what your new children's book is to be about, and write it as you would like to write it - not consulting the Christian Knowledge people's notions more than you choose to' and offering sympathy in her troubles: 'I have not forgotten you, although more often as I remembered, -- the thought of your difficulties and their cruel causes, make me still helplessly silent. Indeed I don't, and never have thought, that our wills can conquer anything, and I am the last to tell any delicate woman she ought to live hardly - many things I may have said against common idlers and useless luxury, -- but nothing [?] of severe in expectation from people who are in hundreds of cases, already living an anchorites life, compared to mine', adding that her letters deeply touch and interest him and that he will assuredly 'keep you at present from feeling yourself in servitude for the sake of fifteen pounds', in a postscript, he offers to send a cheque for £20, with further instalments of money, although he is not sure that she would like that kind of help often ('...But there are times for it...), and
a letter addressed to Mr Ruskin, from J R Lowell, 22nd Nov 1859, expressing his delight that Ruskin should admire his work: 'My dear Mr Ruskin,/ to have made one man happy in a lifetime is worth living for, & you have made me happy and proud too in writing to Norton that you counted me among your friends. That you may take for granted, but I must go farther & say, among your debtors as well. My proportion of a debt which I share with all who speak or read the English tongue may be small as far as it concerns you, but to me it is great & lifelong. We all quarrel with you sometimes, but what good could we get from a man who prophesied smooth things? & I am sure that I am not assuming too much when I say that in giving you my hearty thanks for what you have done, I am only doing what all the men whose opinion you would care for in America would gladly do if they had the same pretext for it that I have. I offer you my hand with all my heart, & I pay you my fealty also as to the man who has done for Art what Wordsworth wished to do for Poetry', and asking him if he could contribute an article to the Atlantic Monthly, ending in the persona and feigned hand of Hosea Biglow: 'i go in for the A buv like all git eout/ Hosea Biglow' (2)
Browse the selection of John Ruskin Letters featured in our 9 July 'Dreams | A Unique Private Collection' auction.
£400 - £600
Buyer's premium: 30.00% (inclusive of VAT, where applicable)
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Auction: DREAMS | A Unique Private Collection, 9th Jul, 2025
Viewing
Stansted Viewing | Auction
Viewing will be held at our Stansted Auction Rooms, Cambridge Road, Stansted Mountfitchet CM24 8GE, as follows:
Friday 4 July, 10am - 4pm
Sunday 6 July, 10am - 1pm
Monday 7 July, 10am - 4pm
Tuesday 8 July, 10am - 4pm
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