[161] This and the next letter were written in answer to Mr. Furnivall, who, upon being questioned what appearance in the clouds was intended by the word "fret" in the above passage, referred the point to Mr. Ruskin, whose answers were subsequently read at the forty-fifth meeting of the Society, Oct. 11, 1878. [162] In modern English "chasing" has got confused with it, but it should be separated again. _NOTES ON A WORD IN SHAKESPEARE._ II. EDINBURGH, _29th Sept._, 1878. DEAR FURNIVALL: Your kind letter comes to me here, and I must answer on this paper, for, if that bit of note is really of any use to you, you must please add this word or two more in printing, as it wouldn't do to let it be such a mere fret on the vault of its subject. You say not one man in 150 knows what the line means: my dear Furnivall, not one man in 15,000, in the 19th century, knows, or ever can know, what _any_ line--or any _word_ means, used by a great writer. For most words stand for things that are seen, or things that are thought of; and in the 19th century there is certainly not one man in 15,000 who ever looks at anything, and not one in 15,000,000 capable of a thought. Take the intelligence of this word in this line for example--the root of the whole matter is, first, that the reader should have seen what he has often heard of, but probably not seen twice in his life--"Daybreak." Next, it is needful he should think what "break" means in that word--what is broken, namely, and by what. That is to say, the cloud of night is Broken up, as a city is broken up (Jerusalem, when Zedekiah fled), as a school breaks up, as a constitution, or a ship, is broken up; in every case with a not inconsiderable change of idea and addition to the central word. This breaking up is done by the Day, which breaks--_out_, as a man breaks, or bursts _out_, from his restraint in a passion; breaks _down_ in tears; or breaks _in_, as from heaven to earth--with a breach in the cloud-wall of it; or breaks _out_, with a sense of _outward_--as the sun--out and out, farther and farther, after rain. Well; next, the thing that the day breaks up is partly a garment, _rent_, more than broken; a _mantle_, the day itself "in russet mantle clad"--the blanket of the dark, _torn_ to be peeped through--whereon instantly you get into a whole host of new ideas; _fretting_ as a moth _frets_ a garment; unravelling at the edge, afterwards;--thence you get into _fringe_, which is an entirely double word, meaning partly a thing that guards, and partly a thing that is worn away on the ground; the French _Frange_ has, I believe, a reminiscence of φρασσω in it--our "fringe" runs partly toward _frico_ and friction--both are essentially connected with _frango_, and the fringe of "breakers" at the shores of all seas, and the breaking of the ripples and foam all over them--but this is wholly different in a northern mind, which has only seen the sea