[176] A facsimile of this letter, from a collection of autographs in the possession of Mr. T. F. Dillon Croker, appeared in the above-named issue of the _Autographic Mirror_. The subject of the letter will be made clearer by the following passages from Mr. Ruskin's reminiscence of Mr. William Henry Harrison, published in the _University Magazine_ of April, 1878, under the title of "My First Editor."--"_1st February_, 1878. In seven days more I shall be fifty-nine; which (practically) is all the same as sixty; but being asked by the wife of my dear old friend, W. H. Harrison, to say a few words of our old relations together, I find myself, in spite of all these years, a boy again--partly in the mere thought of, and renewed sympathy with, the cheerful heart of my old literary master, and partly in instinctive terror lest, wherever he is in celestial circles, he should catch me writing bad grammar, or putting wrong stops, and should set the table turning, or the like.... Not a book of mine, for good thirty years, but went, every word of it, under his careful eyes twice over--often also the last revises left to his tender mercy altogether on condition he wouldn't bother me any more."--The book to which the letter refers may be the "Stones of Venice," and the plate sent the third ("Noble and Ignoble Grotesque"), in the last volume of that work; and if this be so, the letter was probably written from Herne Hill about 1852-3. [From the "Journal of Dramatic Reform," November, 1880.] DRAMATIC REFORM.[177] I. MY DEAR SIR: Yes, I began writing something--a year ago, is it?--on your subject, but have lost it, and am now utterly too busy to touch so difficult and so important a subject. I shall come on it, some day, necessarily. Meantime, the one thing I have to say mainly is that the idea of making money by a theatre, and making it educational at the same time, is _utterly_ to be got out of people's heads. You don't make money out of a Ship of the Line, nor should you out of a Church, nor should you out of a College, nor should you out of a Theatre. Pay your Ship's officers, your Church officers, your College tutors, and your Stage tutors, what will honorably maintain them. Let there be no starring on the Stage boards, more than on the deck, but the _Broadside_ well delivered. And let the English Gentleman consider with himself what _he_ has got to teach the people: perhaps then, he may tell the English Actor what _he_ has to teach them. Ever faithfully yours, (Signed) J. RUSKIN. BRANTWOOD, _July 30th_, 1880. II. MY DEAR SIR: I am heartily glad you think my letter may be of some use. I wish it had contained the tenth part of what I wanted to say.