Hortus Inclusus

Hortus Inclusus, by John Ruskin

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Title: Hortus Inclusus Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in
Happy Days to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston
Author: John Ruskin
Release Date: August 3, 2007 [EBook #22230]
Language: English
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INCLUSUS ***

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THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN

VOLUME XXIV
* * * * *
OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US
STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
HORTUS INCLUSUS
* * * * *

HORTUS INCLUSUS
MESSAGES FROM THE WOOD TO THE GARDEN,
SENT IN HAPPY DAYS TO THE SISTER LADIES OF THE
THWAITE, CONISTON.

DEDICATED
WITH GRATEFUL THANKS TO MY DEAR FRIENDS
PROFESSOR RUSKIN
AND
ALBERT FLEMING.
S. B.
* * * * *

PREFACE.

The ladies to whom these letters were written have been, throughout
their brightly tranquil lives, at once sources and loadstones of all good
to the village in which they had their home, and to all loving people
who cared for the village and its vale and secluded lake, and whatever
remained in them or around of the former peace, beauty, and pride of
English Shepherd Land.
Sources they have been of good, like one of its mountain springs, ever
to be found at need. They did not travel; they did not go up to London
in its season; they did not receive idle visitors to jar or waste their
leisure in the waning year. The poor and the sick could find them
always; or rather, they watched for and prevented all poverty and pain
that care or tenderness could relieve or heal. Loadstones they were, as
steadily bringing the light of gentle and wise souls about them as the
crest of their guardian mountain gives pause to the morning clouds: in
themselves, they were types of perfect womanhood in its constant
happiness, queens alike of their own hearts and of a Paradise in which
they knew the names and sympathized with the spirits of every living
creature that God had made to play therein, or to blossom in its
sunshine or shade.
They had lost their dearly-loved younger sister, Margaret, before I
knew them. Mary and Susie, alike in benevolence, serenity, and
practical judgment, were yet widely different, nay, almost contrary, in
tone and impulse of intellect. Both of them capable of understanding
whatever women should know, the elder was yet chiefly interested in
the course of immediate English business, policy, and progressive
science, while Susie lived an aerial and enchanted life, possessing all
the highest joys of imagination, while she yielded to none of its deceits,
sicknesses, or errors. She saw, and felt, and believed all good, as it had
ever been, and was to be, in the reality and eternity of its goodness,
with the acceptance and the hope of a child; the least things were
treasures to her, and her moments fuller of joy than some people's days.
What she had been to me, in the days and years when other friendship
has been failing, and others' "loving, mere folly," the reader will
enough see from these letters, written certainly for her only, but from

which she has permitted my Master of the Rural Industries at
Loughrigg, Albert Fleming, to choose what he thinks, among the
tendrils of clinging thought, and mossy cups for dew in the Garden of
Herbs where Love is, may be trusted to the memorial sympathy of the
readers of "Frondes Agrestes."
J. R.
BRANTWOOD, June, 1887.

INTRODUCTION.
Often during those visits to the Thwaite which have grown to be the
best-spent hours of my later years, I have urged my dear friend Miss
Beever to open to the larger world the pleasant paths of this her Garden
Inclosed. The inner circle of her friends knew that she had a goodly
store of Mr. Ruskin's letters, extending over many years. She for her
part had long desired to share with others the pleasure these letters had
given her, but she shrank from the fatigue of selecting and arranging
them. It was, therefore, with no small feeling of satisfaction that I drove
home from the Thwaite one day in February last with a parcel
containing nearly two thousand of these treasured letters. I was
gladdened also by generous permission, both from Brantwood and the
Thwaite, to choose what I liked best for publication. The letters
themselves