Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It is with reluctance and question that I have brought myself to publish these letters. I had contemplated leaving them in such condition that, perhaps, some of them might be printed after my death. In my judgment Ruskin himself published, or permitted to be published, far too many of his letters, – some of them, as it seemed to me, such as should never have been printed. In his later years much even of what he wrote for publication could not but cause regret to every reader of sensitive appreciation, as affording evidence of weakened faculty of judgment by its lack of self-control and becoming reticence.