Now he had become the missionary in England of the new French gospel of “impressionism,” which to Ruskin was one of those half-truths which are ever the worst of heresies.  Mr. Whistler appealed to the law.  He brought an action for libel, which was tried on November 25th and 26th before Baron Huddleston, and recovered a farthing damages.  Ruskin’s costs—­amounting to L386 12s. 4d.—­were paid by a public subscription to which one hundred and twenty persons, including many strangers, contributed.

By that time he was fully recovering from his illness, back at Coniston, after a short visit to Liverpool.  It was forbidden to him to attempt any exciting work.  He had given up “Fors” and Oxford lecturing, and was devoting himself again to quiet studies for “Proserpina” and “Deucalion.”  On the first day of the trial the St. George’s Guild was registered as a Company; on the second day he wrote to Miss Beever: 

“I have entirely resigned all hope of ever thanking you rightly for bread, sweet odours, roses and pearls, and must just allow myself to be fed, scented, rose-garlanded and be-pearled, as if I were a poor little pet dog, or pet pig.  But my cold is better, and I am getting on with this botany; but it is really too important a work to be pushed for a week or fortnight.”

Early in 1879 his resignation of the Slade Professorship was announced; followed by what was virtually his election to an honorary doctor’s degree; or, as officially worded—­“the Hebdomadal Council resolved on June 9, 1879, to propose to Convocation to confer the degree of D.C.L. honoris causa upon John Ruskin, M.A., of Ch.  Ch., at the enaenia of that year; but the proposal, though notified in the Gazette of June 10, was not submitted to vote owing to the inability of Mr. Ruskin to be present at the encaenia.”  The degree was conferred, in his absence, in 1893.

CHAPTER VI

THE DIVERSIONS OF BRANTWOOD (1879-1881)

Sixty years of one of the busiest lives on record were beginning to tell upon Ruskin.  He would not confess to old age, but his recent illness had shaken him severely.  The next three years were spent chiefly at Coniston, in comparative retirement; but neither in despair, nor idleness, nor loneliness.  He had always lived a sort of dual life, solitary in his thoughts, but social in his habits; liking company, especially of young people; ready, in the intervals of work, to enter into their employments and amusements, and curiously able to forget his cares in hours of relaxation.  Sometimes, when earnest admirers made the pilgrimage to their Mecca—­“holy Brantwood” as a scoffing poet called it—­they were surprised and even shocked, to find the prophet of “Fors” at the head of a merry dinner-table, and the Professor of Art among surroundings which a London or a Boston “aesthete” would have ruled to be in very poor taste.