But his father wanted to see “Modern Painters” completed, and so he began his third volume at Vevey, with the discussion of the grand style, in which he at last broke loose from Reynolds, as was inevitable, after his study of Pre-Raphaelitism, and all the varied experiences of the last ten years.  The lesson of the Tulse Hill ivy had been brought home to him in many ways:  he had found it to be more and more true that Nature is, after all, the criterion of art, and that the greatest painters were always those whose aim, so far as they were conscious of an aim, was to take fact for their starting-point.  Idealism, beauty, imagination, and the rest, though necessary to art, could not, he felt, be made the object of study; they were the gift of heredity, of circumstances, of national aspirations and virtues; not to be produced by the best of rules, or achieved by the best of intentions.

What his own view of his own work was can be gathered from a letter to an Edinburgh student, written on August 6, 1854: 

“I am sure I never said anything to dissuade you from trying to excel or to do great things.  I only wanted you to be sure that your efforts were made with a substantial basis, so that just in the moment of push your footing might not give way beneath you; and also I wanted you to feel that long and steady effort made in a contented way does more than violent effort made from some strong motive and under some enthusiastic impulse.  And I repeat—­for of this I am perfectly sure—­that the best things are only to be done in this way.  It is very difficult thoroughly to understand the difference between indolence and reserve of strength, between apathy and severity, between palsy and patience; but there is all the difference in the world; and nearly as many men are ruined by inconsiderate exertions as by idleness itself.  To do as much as you can heartily and happily do each day in a well-determined direction, with a view to far-off results, with present enjoyment of one’s work, is the only proper, the only essentially profitable way.”

CHAPTER VII

THE WORKING MEN’S COLLEGE (1854-1855)

Philanthropic instincts, and a growing sense of the necessity for social reform, had led Ruskin for some years past towards a group of liberal thinkers with whom he had little otherwise in common.  At Venice, in 1852, he had written several articles on education, taxation, and so forth, with which he intended to plunge into active politics.  His father, like a cautious man of business who knew his son’s powers and thought he knew their limitations, was strongly opposed to this attempt, and used every argument against it.  He appealed to his son’s sensitiveness, and assured him that he would be “flayed” unless he wrapped himself in the hide of a rhinoceros.  He assured him that, without being on the spot to follow the discussions of politicians, it was useless