He was really the most tolerant and agreeable man in society. He could discover beauty where no one else could see it, and make allowance where others saw no excuse. I remember him as diffident as a young girl, full of questions, and grateful for any information. Even on art topics I have watched him listening almost deferentially to others who laid down the law in his presence. His voice was always most winning, and his language simply perfect. He was one of the few Englishmen I knew who, instead of tumbling out their sentences like so many portmanteau, bags, rugs, and hat-boxes from an open railway van, seemed to take a real delight in building up their sentences, even in familiar conversation, so as to make each deliverance a work of art. Later in life that even temperament may have become somewhat changed. He had suffered much, and one saw that his wounds had not quite healed. His public lectures as Professor of Fine Art were most attractive, and extremely popular at first. But they were evidently too much for him, and on the advice of his medical friends he had at last to cease from lecturing altogether. Several times his brain had been a very serious trouble to him. People forget that, as we want good eyes for seeing, and good ears for hearing, we want a strong, sound brain for lecturing. I have seen much of such brain troubles among my friends, and who can account for them? It is not the brain that thinks, nor do we think by means of our brain; but we cannot think without our brain, and the slightest lesion of our brain in any one of its wonderful convolutions is as bad as a shot in the eye. If ever there was an active, powerful brain, it was Ruskin’s. No doubt he worked very hard, but I doubt whether hard work by itself can ever upset a healthy brain. I believe it rather strengthens than weakens it, as exercise strengthens the muscles of our body. His was, no doubt, a very sensitive nature, and an overwrought sensitiveness is much more likely to cause mischief than steady intellectual effort. And what a beautiful mind his was, and what lessons of beauty he has taught us all. At the same time, he could not bear anything unbeautiful; and anything low or ignoble in men revolted him and made him thoroughly unhappy. I remember once taking Emerson to lunch with him, in his rooms in Corpus Christi College. Emerson was an old friend of his, and in many respects a cognate soul. But some quite indifferent subject turned up, a heated discussion ensued, and Ruskin was so upset that he had to quit the room and leave us alone. Emerson was most unhappy, and did all he could to make peace, but he had to leave without a reconciliation. It is very difficult to make allowance for these gradual failures of brain power.