Hortus Inclusus Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston

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THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

JOHN RUSKIN

VOLUME XXIV


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OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US

STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

HORTUS INCLUSUS


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HORTUS INCLUSUS

MESSAGES FROM THE WOOD TO
THE GARDEN,


SENT IN HAPPY DAYS TO THE
SISTER LADIES OF THE THWAITE, CONISTON.




DEDICATED

WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO MY DEAR FRIENDS

PROFESSOR RUSKIN

AND

ALBERT FLEMING.

                                  S. B.


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PREFACE.


The ladies to whom these letters were written have been, throughout
their brightly tranquil lives, at once sources and loadstones of all
good to the village in which they had their home, and to all loving
people who cared for the village and its vale and secluded lake, and
whatever remained in them or around of the former peace, beauty, and
pride of English Shepherd Land.

Sources they have been of good, like one of its mountain springs, ever
to be found at need. They did not travel; they did not go up to London
in its season; they did not receive idle visitors to jar or waste
their leisure in the waning year. The poor and the sick could find
them always; or rather, they watched for and prevented all poverty and
pain that care or tenderness could relieve or heal. Loadstones they
were, as steadily bringing the light of gentle and wise souls about
them as the crest of their guardian mountain gives pause to the
morning clouds: in themselves, they were types of perfect womanhood in
its constant happiness, queens alike of their own hearts and of a
Paradise in which they knew the names and sympathized with the spirits
of every living creature that God had made to play therein, or to
blossom in its sunshine or shade.

They had lost their dearly-loved younger sister, Margaret, before I
knew them. Mary and Susie, alike in benevolence, serenity, and
practical judgment, were yet widely different, nay, almost contrary,
in tone and impulse of intellect. Both of them capable of
understanding whatever women should know, the elder was yet chiefly
interested in the course of immediate English business, policy, and
progressive science, while Susie lived an aerial and enchanted life,
possessing all the highest joys of imagination, while she yielded to
none of its deceits, sicknesses, or errors. She saw, and felt, and
believed all good, as it had ever been, and was to be, in the reality
and eternity of its goodness, with the acceptance and the hope of a
child; the least things were treasures to her, and her moments fuller
of joy than some people's days.

What she had been to me, in the days and years when other friendship
has been failing, and others' "loving, mere folly," the reader will
enough see from these letters, written certainly for her only, but
from which she has permitted my Master of the Rural Industries at
Loughrigg, Albert Fleming, to choose what he thinks, among the
tendrils of clinging thought, and mossy cups for dew in the Garden of
Herbs where Love is, may be trusted to the memorial sympathy of the
readers of "Frondes Agrestes."

                                                            J. R.

    BRANTWOOD,
      _June, 1887_.




INTRODUCTION.


Often during those visits to the Thwaite which have grown to be the
best-spent hours of my later years, I have urged my dear friend Miss
Beever to open to the larger world the pleasant paths of this her
Garden Inclosed. The inner circle of her friends knew that she had a
goodly store of Mr. Ruskin's letters, extending over many years. She
for her part had long desired to share with others the pleasure these
letters had given her, but she shrank from the fatigue of selecting
and arranging them. It was, therefore, with no small feeling of
satisfaction that I drove home from the Thwaite one day in February
last with a parcel containing nearly two thousand of these treasured
letters. I was gladdened also by generous permission, both from
Brantwood and the Thwaite, to choose what I liked best for
publication. The letters themselves are the fruit of the most
beautiful friendship I have ever been permitted to witness, a
friendship so unique in some aspects of it, so sacred in all, that I
may only give it the praise of silence. I count myself happy to have
been allowed to throw open to all wise and quiet souls the portals of
this Armida's Garden, where there are no spells save those woven by
love, and no magic save that of grace and kindliness. Here my pleasant
share in this little book would have ended, but Mr. Ruskin has desired
me to add a few words, giving my own description of Susie, and
speaking of my relationship to them both. To him I owe the guidance of
my life,--all its best impulses, all its worthiest efforts; to her
some of its happiest hours, and the blessings alike of incentive and
reproof.