THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN


CHAPTER I

HIS ANCESTORS


If origin, if early training and habits of life, if tastes, and
character, and associations, fix a man's nationality, then John Ruskin
must be reckoned a Scotsman. He was born in London, but his family was
from Scotland. He was brought up in England, but the friends and
teachers, the standards and influences of his early life, were chiefly
Scottish. The writers who directed him into the main lines of his
thought and work were Scotsmen--from Sir Walter and Lord Lindsay and
Principal Forbes to the master of his later studies of men and the means
of life, Thomas Carlyle. The religious instinct so conspicuous in him
was a heritage from Scotland; thence the combination of shrewd
common-sense and romantic sentiment; the oscillation between levity and
dignity, from caustic jest to tender earnest; the restlessness, the
fervour, the impetuosity--all these are the tokens of a Scotsman of
parts, and were highly developed in John Ruskin.

In the days of auld lang syne the Rhynns of Galloway--that
hammer-headed promontory of Scotland which looks towards Belfast
Lough--was the home of two great families, the Agnews and the Adairs.