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.

Letter from John Ruskin, Coniston, to an unidentified recipient, 1884 August 1 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
435354
Accession number
MA 14340
Creator
Ruskin, John, 1819-1900, sender.
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Description
1 item (1 pages) ; 17.9 x 11.4 cm
Notes
Written on printed letterhead stationery reading: Brantwood, / Coniston, Lancashire.
Ruskin refers to a project that he had undertaken in 1872 (announced in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette on December 28, 1871), of assuming responsibility for the cleaning of streets near the British Museum. Ruskin's gardener David Downs suprvised a small crew of street sweepers hired by Ruskin.
Provenance
Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Ruskin asks where and when he has given his correspondent any ground in imagining that he would help to build iron churches, or iron anythings, anywhere? Or churches at all? Or to spend money in anything at the East End but bread and clothes? His correspondent should do what he himself has done--sweep the gutters down with his own brooms and preach as you sweep.