Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Fragment of an autograph letter : place not specified, to [John Ruskin], [1884].

BIB_ID
313793
Accession number
MA 7795.18
Creator
Froude, James Anthony, 1818-1894.
Display Date
[1884].
Credit line
Bequest of Helen Gill Viljoen, 1974.
Description
1 item (2 p.) ; 17.9 cm + envelope
Notes
Part of a large collection of letters from James Anthony Froude to John Ruskin and Joan Severn. Letters in this collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see collection-level record for more information.
Recipient inferred from contents of fragment and from the inscription on the envelope; the first page(s) of the letter are missing and the final page ends abruptly and with no signature; Helen Gill Viljoen conjectures that this may be a postscript "since it is unsigned even though there is ample room for the usual complimentary conclusion."
This collection was part of Helen Gill Viljoen's large bequest of John Ruskin-related material (formerly MA 3451).
Year of writing from a penciled notation by Helen Gill Viljoen at the top of p. 1.
Provenance
Bequest of Helen Gill Viljoen in 1974.
Summary
Describing Carlyle's intellect by saying "His eye was a perfect optical instrument which saw things & people as they were & not as they were supposed to be. When he said that Newman [John Henry Newman] had not the intellect of a rabbit, he meant that no intellect was worth the name which could look for truth in these days on the road back to Popery. An eye is not a good eye, however bright or limpid which sees crooked things as straight or square things as round. An intellect is not a good one which can find you 50 reasons for going wrong while you can only give one for going right."