For he was already meditating on the thoughts that issued in the proposals of St. George’s Guild, and the daily letters of this summer are full of allusions to a scheme for a great social movement, as well as to his plans for the control of Alpine torrents and the better irrigation of their valleys.  On the 2nd of June he wrote:—­“I see more and more clearly every day my power of showing how the Alpine torrents may be—­not subdued—­but ‘educated.’  A torrent is just like a human creature.  Left to gain full strength in wantonness and rage, no power can any more redeem it:  but watch the channels of every early impulse, and fence them, and your torrent becomes the gentlest and most blessing of servants.”

His mother was anxious for him to come home, being persuaded that he was overworking himself in the continued heat which his letters reported.  But he was loath to leave Italy, in which, he said, his work for the future lay.  He made two more visits to Venice, to draw some of the sculptured details, now quickly perishing, and to make studies of Tintoret and Carpaccio.  Among other friends who met him there was Mr. Holman Hunt, with whom he went round his favourite Scuola di San Rocco (1st July).  Two days later he wrote: 

“You will never believe it; but I have actually been trying to draw—­a baby. The baby which the priest is holding in the little copy of Tintoret by Edward Jones which my father liked so much, over the basin stand in his bedroom.[19] All the knowledge I have gained in these 17 years only makes me more full of awe and wonder at Tintoret.  But it is so sad—­so sad;—­no one to care for him but me, and all going so fast to ruin.  He has done that infant Christ in about five minutes—­and I worked for two hours in vain, and could not tell why in vain—­the mystery of his touch is so great.”

[Footnote 19:  Mr. and Mrs Burne-Jones had been in Venice in June, 1862; the artist, then young and comparatively unknown, with a commission to copy for Ruskin.]

Final farewell was said to Verona on the 10th August, for the homeward journey by the St. Gothard, and Giessbach, where he found the young friend of 1866 now near her end—­and Thun, where he met Professor C.E.  Norton.  On the way he wrote: 

     “Lugano, Saturday, 14th August, 1869.

     “My Dearest Mother,

“Yesterday—­exactly three months from the day on which I entered Verona to begin work, I made a concluding sketch of the old Broletto of Como, which I drew first for the 7 lamps[20]—­I know not how many years ago,—­and left Italy, for this time—­having been entirely well and strong every day of my quarter of a year’s sojourn there.

     [Footnote 20:  “Stones of Venice,” Vol.  I., plate 5.]

     “This morning, before breakfast, I was sitting for the first time
     before Luini’s Crucifixion:  for all religious-art qualities the
     greatest picture south of the Alps—­or rather, in Europe.