Post-Prandial Philosophy by Grant Allen

A certain story is told about Mr. Ruskin, no doubt apocryphal, but at any rate characteristic. A young lady, fresh from the Abyss of Bayswater, met the sage one evening at dinner -- a gushing young lady, as many such there be -- who, aglow with joy, boarded the Professor at once with her private art-experiences. "Oh, Mr. Ruskin," she cried, clasping her hands, "do you know, I hadn't been two days in Florence before I discovered what you meant when you spoke about the supreme unapproachableness of Botticelli. " "Indeed? " Ruskin answered. "Well, that's very remarkable; for it took me, myself, half a lifetime to discover it."

The answer, of course, was meant to be crushing. How should _she_, a brand plucked from the burning of Bayswater, be able all at once, on the very first blush, to appreciate Botticelli? And it took the greatest critic of his age half a lifetime! Yet I venture to maintain, for all that, that the young lady was right, and that the critic was wrong -- if such a thing be conceivable. I know, of course, that when we speak of Ruskin we must walk delicately, like Agag. But still, I repeat it, the young lady was right; and it was largely the unconscious, pervasive action of Mr. Ruskin's own personality that enabled her to be so.