DAWS IN THE WEST COUNTRY 81 



Ruskin, one of our greatest prose writers, is 

 usually at his best in the transposition of 

 pictures into words, his descriptions of what 

 he has seen, in nature and art, being the most 

 perfect examples of "word painting" in the 

 language. Here his writing is that of one 

 whose vision is not merely, as in the majority 

 of men, the most important and intellectual 

 of the senses, but so infmitely more important 

 than all the others, and developed and trained 

 to so extraordinary a degree, as to make him 

 appear like a person of a single sense. We may 

 say that this predominant sense has caused, or 

 fed upon, the decay of the others. This is to 

 me a defect in the author I most admire ; for 

 though he makes me see, and delight in seeing, 

 that which was previously hidden, and all things 

 gain in beauty and splendour, I yet miss some- 

 thing from the picture, just as I should miss 

 light and colour from a description of nature, 

 however beautifully written, by a man whose 

 sense of sight was nothing or next to nothing 

 to him, but whose other senses were all de- 

 veloped to the highest state of perfection. 



No doubt Ruskin is, before everything, an 



