All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and bravely told; but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until the right relation exists again between the father and the mother and their son. To deserve his confidence, to keep it as the chief treasure committed in trust to them by God: to be the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still teach in Oxford the "philosophy," forsooth, of that poor cretinous wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavoring to open other "careers" to English women than that of the Wife and the Mother, you won't make your men chaste by recommending them to leave off tea.[141] FOOTNOTES: [141] I have to state that this expression regarding Stuart Mill was not intended for separate publication; and to explain that in a subsequent but unpublished letter Mr. Ruskin explained it to refer to Mill's utter deficiency in the powers of the imagination.--The last words of this letter will be made clearer by noting that the pamphlet dealt with physical, as well as mental, diet. VENICE, _11th February_. MY DEAR----: I would say much more, if I thought any one would believe me, of the especial calamity of this time, with respect to the discipline of youth--in having no food any more to offer to their imagination. Military distinction is no more possible by prowess, and the young soldier thinks of the hurdle-race as one of the lists and the field--but the noble temper will not train for that trial with equal joy. Clerical eminence--the bishopric or popular pastorship--may be tempting to men of genial pride or sensitive conceit: but the fierce blood that would have burned into a patriarch, or lashed itself into a saint--what "career" has your modern philosophy to offer to _it_? The entire cessation of all employment for the faculty, which, in the best men of former ages, was continually exercised and satisfied in the realization of the presence of Christ with the hosts of Heaven, leaves the part of the brain which it employed absolutely vacant, and ready to suck in, with the avidity of vacuum, whatever pleasantness may be presented to the natural sight in the gas-lighted beauty of pantomimic and casino Paradise.