And yet Oxford and Cambridge awarded him the highest honours in their gift.  In 1873 the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours voted him honorary member, a recognition which gave him great pleasure at the time.  At different dates he was elected to various societies—­Geological, Zoological, Architectural, Horticultural, Historical, Anthropological, Metaphysical; and to the Athenaeum and Alpine Clubs.  He was elected Hon. Member of the Academy of Florence in 1862, of the Academy of Venice, 1877, of the Royal Academies of Antwerp and Brussels in 1892; and was also an Hon. Member of the American Academy.  But he did not seek distinctions, and he even declined them, as in the case of the medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

A more striking form of distinction than such titles is the fact that he was the first writer whose contemporaries, during his lifetime, formed societies to study his work.  The first Ruskin Society was founded in 1879 at Manchester, and was followed by the Societies of London, Glasgow and Liverpool.  In 1887 the Ruskin Reading Guild was formed in Scotland, with many local branches in England and Ireland, and a journal, subsequently re-named Igdrasil, to promote study of literary and social subjects in Ruskin, and in writers like Carlyle and Tolstoi taking a standpoint similar to his.  In 1896, Ruskin Societies were formed at Birmingham and in the Isle of Man.  Many classes and clubs for the study of Ruskin were also in operation throughout America during his lifetime.

His eightieth birthday was the signal for an outburst of congratulations almost greater than even admirers had expected.  The post came late and loaded with flowers and letters, and all day long telegrams arrived from all parts of the world, until they lay in heaps, unopened for the time being.  A great address had been prepared, with costly illumination on vellum, and binding by Mr. Cobden Sanderson.

“Year by year,” it said, “in ever widening extent, there is an increasing trust in your teaching, an increasing desire to realize the noble ideals you have set before mankind in words which we feel have brought nearer to our hearts the kingdom of God upon earth.  It is our hope and prayer that the joy and peace you have brought to others may return in full measure to your own heart filling it with the peace which comes from the love of God and the knowledge of the love of your fellow-men.”

Among those who subscribed to these sentiments were various people of importance, such as Royal Academicians, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, the Trustees of the British Museum and of the National Gallery, the St. George’s Guild and Ruskin Societies, with many others; and the address was presented by a deputation who reported that they had found him looking well “and extremely happy.”

A similar illuminated address from the University of Oxford ran thus: