Letter from John Ruskin, London?, to Robert Horn, 1860? : autograph manuscript signed.

Ruskin wishes that Horn wouldn't write such absurd letters, as they're equally difficult to answer or to leave unanswered. There is a right and wrong in literature, as there is in painting, and when Horn says that he likes Ruskin's first volume better than his last, or compares either with the exquisite finish and power of Tennyson, it merely means that he doesn't know bad english from good and has not been making any intellectual progress in these last twenty years. Perhaps it is better that he hasn't, as Horn is very happy, simple, energetic, and up to his work, and one can't be anything much better. Nevertheless a little serious work on any good writer--Plato, Dante, Bacon, Goethe--is good for every human creature, and it would soon show Horn the difference between his youth's work and his man's work. It's a funny thing to see a man of his power remain at one point for half a lifetime. Ruskin wishes that Horn would write him what he does think of and work at when he is not at professional work. He wants to understand the British public mind, if he can, and Horn is a favorable specimen of it. Horn and his friend Smith call a dislike of vermin "think-skinned." An old lady in Yorkshire made pets of her rats; they had the run of the house, and ate up one of the most valuable libraries of manuscripts in England. Ruskin is just exactly as thin-skinned as a wire-haired terrier is and has not the least patience with either rats or fleas. Says that it is a dishonor to the name and office of pity to use it towards some people.