But he was wounded by his fears, as we most of us are, not only through his vanity but through his finest emotions. He felt his impotence and his failure. He had thought of his gift of language as one might think of a magic wand which one can wave, and thus compel duller spirits to do one's bidding. Ruskin began by thinking that there was not much amiss with the world except a sort of pathetic stupidity; and he thought that if only people could be told, clearly and loudly enough, what was right, they would do it gladly; and then it dawned upon him by slow degrees that the confusion was far deeper than that, that men mostly did not live in motives but in appetites. And so he fell into a sort of noble rage with the imperfection of mortal things; and one of the clearest signs, as he himself knew, that he was drifting into one of the mind-storms which swept across him, was that in these moods everything that people said or wrote had power to arouse his irritation, to interrupt his work, to break his sleep, and to show him that he was powerless indeed. What he feared was derision, and the good-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision, and the knowledge that, with all his powers and perceptions, his common-sense, which was great, and his sense of responsibility, he was treated by the world like a spoilt child, charming even in his wrath, who had full license to be as vehement as he liked, with the understanding that no one would act on his advice. I often go to Brantwood, which is a sacred place indeed, and see with deep emotion the little rooms, with all their beautiful treasures, and all the great accumulations of that fierce industry of mind, and remember that in that peaceful background a man of exquisite genius fought with sinister shadows, and was worsted in the fight, for a time; because the last ten years of that long life were a time of serene waiting for death, a beguiling by little childish and homely occupations the heavy hours: he could uplift his voice no more, often could hardly frame an intelligible thought. But meanwhile his great message went on rippling out to the world, touching heart after heart into light and hope, and doing, insensibly and graciously, by the spirit, the very thing he had failed to do by might and power.