[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN FROM THE SEMI-ROMANTIC PORTRAIT OF SIR
JOHN E. MILLAIS]
Ruskin's books are not to be read continuously. Many dreary passages
may be found in all of them, which the judicious reader skips. But his
best works are more full of intellectual stimulus than those of any
writer of his time with the single exception of Carlyle. _Modern
Painters_ overflows with the enthusiasm of a lover of art and of
nature who preaches the gospel of sincerity and truth. It is marked,
like all his work, by eloquent digressions on human life and conduct,
for Ruskin held that the finest art was simply the flowering of a
great soul nurtured on all that was highest and best. _The Seven
Lamps_ does for architecture what his first work did for painting. The
book is written in more ornate style than any other, but he who loves
impassioned prose will find many specimens here that can only by
equaled in De Quincey's best work. Read the peroration of the "Lamp
of Sacrifice" and you will not need to be told that this is the finest
tribute to the work of the builders of the mediaeval cathedral. Here is
a part of this eloquent passage:
It is to far happier, far higher exaltation that we owe those
fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with wild fancies
and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter than ever
filled the depth of midsummer dream; those vaulted gates,
trellised with close leaves; those window labyrinths of
twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of
multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only witnesses,
perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear of nations.
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