Having been urged to bring out a new edition of the volume first edited
by me in 1880, and having willingly accepted the invitation to do so, it
will naturally be expected that I should give some account of the
circumstances which have led me to take the somewhat unusual step of
reviving a book which has for twelve years been lying in a state of
suspended animation.
On the first conception of this volume I applied to Messrs. Strahan, to
produce it before the reading and thinking world. I should have done
more wisely, no doubt, had I offered the publication to Mr. George
Allen, Mr. Ruskin's well-known publisher. It avails not to explain why I
chose a different course, of which subsequent events only too soon
showed me the error; for after the first edition had been sold off in a
week, and while the second was partly sold and partly in preparation,
Messrs. Strahan's failure was announced, greatly to my surprise; my
somewhat isolated position in the north country so far from London
keeping me very imperfectly informed as to what was passing in the
literary world.
Reasonable, business-like people would ask, why did I not make an effort
to rescue my little barque out of the general wreckage, and why did I
not, remembering that Mr. Ruskin had with much kindness freely bestowed
the copyright on me, save the second edition and arrange with another
publisher to carry the work on? But I was failing at the time with the
illness which was effectually cured only by a long sojourn amidst or
very near to the ice and snow of the Alps. I was incapable of much
exertion, and, in fact, did not much care. Besides which I am not a
professed literary man, being chiefly interested in the work of my rural
parish on the borders of the Lake District, and should not think it
fair, or even possible, if I may use an equestrian metaphor, to attempt
to ride two horses at once.
So Mr. Ruskin's letters, etc., as edited by the present writer, came to
be entirely laid by, though not forgotten by the hosts of Mr. Ruskin's
friends, followers, and admirers, who regretted the suspension of so
valuable a work and so rich in great thoughts, teachings, and
suggestions.
So things remained until August 1895, when a new friend, Mr. Smart, gave
me the pleasure of a visit, and we talked over the circumstances just
narrated. Passing over several very pleasant meetings in London, let it
be sufficient to mention that under the impulse of Mr. George Allen's
encouragement, and cheered by the valuable assistance and co-operation
of another friend, Mr. T. J. Wise, I agreed to carry forward this Third
Edition with the full approbation and consent of Mr. Ruskin himself,
though it should be said that on account of the state of his health, I
have been unable to consult him on any of the details of the
publication.
But it will not be exactly the same volume. Mr. Allen and Mr. Wise,
having gone over much of my correspondence with Mr. Ruskin, were good
enough to express a desire that some of those letters addressed to
myself as a friend should be embodied in the present volume, as being
strongly illustrative of his views on the subjects dealt with in his
more formal Letters to the Clergy. I may claim pardon for a feeling of
great satisfaction with the circumstance that in the course of so long
and so delicate a correspondence as is contained in this volume, never
has a cloud overshadowed our paths in this matter, never has a cold
blast from the east sent a shiver through my system, nor, I presume,
his. For had Mr. Ruskin felt any resentment at anything I wrote, with
his usual downright frankness he would not have been backward for an
hour in expressing in vehement language what he felt. But from first to
last my intercourse with that kind and eminently distinguished friend
has been kept bright and happy by his unvarying serenity.
The Letters from Clergy and Laity in this Third Edition occupy much less
space than in the original one. It was Mr. Ruskin's wish that they
should be subjected to some process of abridgment; besides which the
allowing of space for the new feature of additional Ruskin Letters made
a curtailment in another direction necessary. The plan which seemed to
me the least discourteous to my numerous correspondents of that time has
been to make a selection of passages from a certain number of the
Letters.