Autograph letter signed : London, to John Ruskin, [1884] Nov. 13.

Commenting on his [Ruskin's] lecture at Oxford saying "what shall I say? Something very unlike any utterance of modern Oxford. Vox clamantis but you would have me believe not in deserto;" commenting on the impression he has made on his disciples who "will do what you tell them;" relating his own hopelessness "most of all about myself: for I see all through my life that when I have ever done what my reason & conscience tell me to be right--I have done it always in the wrong way, or what seems to be the wrong way, by the effects produced. The constitution of things in this blessed modern world says to all of us Do Steadily in all cases what is most to your own interest, of course in an enlightened manner and on the lines which we approve and we shall understand and praise you. Act in any other way and we shall consider you a fool and probably a rogue;" ending by saying " One moment I feel as if I would never write another line while I lived. The next says very well then 'Die of Ennui'. I have a sort of notion of getting a cabin in an Australian steamer and sailing around the globe."