Letter from John Ruskin, Coniston, to Julia Stephen, 1880 August 2 : autograph manuscript signed.

A letter to Julia Stephen about her daughter Vanessa Stephen [Vanessa Bell], born in the spring of 1879. Salutation is "Dear Madonna." Ruskin says that he has much in his head about her and her pretty baby but can't get it worded today. He is weary beyond utterance and yet hopes for her the strange hope that one day the baby also may be weary and wish for a school holiday like her Godmother's Di Pa [Julia Marshall was the baby's Godmother, and Ruskin used "Di Pa," Dear Pa, as a pet name for himself]. He can lend her his Diddie [his secretary Sara Anderson] for the day but wants her in the evening. Asks her to say to Ms. Marshall [Julia Marshall] (rather than Victor [Marshall], who will be too happy to come for anything that he could say), that he hopes that Victor will come over for a quiet talk at the end of the week about their Sheffield plans. [Presumably concerning the ongoing expansion of the Museum of St. George in Sheffield.] Building is certain, and he hopes, decoration. Neither the place nor the power will be wanting to show what they can do.