Letter from Juliana Ewing, London, to John Ruskin, 1879 December 1 : autograph manuscript signed.

Thanking him for a book, commenting on their "new" friendship and discussing, at length and in detail, issues of war as they relate to the letters of William Napier and Samuel Gurney; saying "I am more proud of your 'beautifully dressed' gift than I can at all properly tell you; but much as my vanity is flattered I hope you will forgive my somewhat uncouth candour in confessing that I am yet more impressed by your courtesy & kindness to so 'new' a friend - being, despite the said vanity, too well aware, that though to me it is a great pleasure & profit to know you at last - I can return nothing in all the offices of friendship but the absorbing some of your time & teasing you for help anent my own scribblings! Knowing the scores of people you know - the scores of things you must have to remember - & the pretty plentiful claimants on your kindness - I do think it kind indeed of you to have given me such a keepsake. And I am vy vy grateful. I fear you will think me grateful after the manner of that type of old woman who invokes Heaven's choicest blessing on your head for a warm petticoat, & turns back to inquire if you have not got a pair of old boots for 'their Bill'! - When I say that I am not so speechless with gratitude but that I have voice left to beg you to write your name in the book : & to threaten that if you won't come & do it here, I shall don the sandal shoon of pilgrimage & bring the Volume to Herne Hill!!!!!! I hope you will come - I have read the end of 'War' now (I only read part of it at your house-) You are very severe on us! (N.B. Deep [illegible] is terribly becoming - If we can mould the Gertschakoffs & Bismarks of the world into peaceful mood by looking ugly when they fight - I think uniform dresses of a speckly grey, with many flowers & piped with a coarse blue, - a favourite Sunday best of English domestics - would be the most self mortifying & soul abasing gear I can think of! Forgive me!) Talking of War - I wonder if you happen to remember a strange passage of arms between William Napier & [Samuel] Gurney the Quaker - in the shape of letters? Gurney having said that our foreign wars came from employing soldiers as Governors - who took up the sword to settle all disputes - & hinc illae lachrymae. With the madcap wit - & the not perfect taste - of the Napiers - the soldier replied in a letter couched in Quaker wording - theeing and thouing his opponent, & asking him whether it was men of war or men of peace who sold the munitions of war to the Kafirs &c &c - Gurney's next letter was vy fine & temperate & putting all the blessings of peace & prosperity, & all the sins of soldiers & soldier-lovers - all the hideousness of war so well, that when I read it I thought - the Napier rhetoric - & chaff - could never meet this! - But the General had the best of it! No reproaches Gurney heaped on a class seeking the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth with a false patriotism that robbed the country of peace & prosperity - could compare with Napier's return challenge of the commercial class, from 'that factory on the banks of the Hooghly' which was the germ of all East Indian wars, to the unscrupulous selfishness, bad faith & worse example by which our traders have made the wars which the soldiers have to fight - in every corner of the globe. One brief picture of what the most successful soldier ever earns by war, is a fine specimen of pathos. Altogether a grand bit of passionate rhetoric. And then at the end - P.S. 'And thou has not yet told me, 'Friend Gurney', what manner of men be they who sell muskets to the Kaffirs." Forgive me this cantor on my hobby! And you probably know the letters far better than I - for I quote from memory - & my memory is shaky enough of late. To go to another subject - may I say how that courageous & true bit on Taste in 'Traffic' charmed me just now as I was reading. But I will not bore you with gratitude; pleased as I am to have a book of yours from you! I wonder if Charley ever told you how often I have given the Rules for Composition - of a picture - in the Elements of Drawing, to people who have consulted me on literary composition! - Mrs. Severn's letter just came - We are vy sorry we may not see you - & delighted to see them. My love to her please, & to Paton! She is the best dressed person in London just now! Major Ewing got here on Sunday safe & sound, leaving summer behind him (& also fever!!)."