Chapter Five - Dreams and Nightmares: 1878–81

Summary

This chapter is bookended by two important events at Brantwood. The first, Ruskin's mental illness of February 1878, incapacitated him for over a month, leaving him a shell of his former self, less able than ever to sustain commitment to Guild activities, but nonetheless unwilling to relinquish his crusade. Fragile and prone to extreme moods, he became by turns weak and courageous, vulnerable and insensitive, solicitous and cruel. Hoping to avoid the mental disquiet Guild work caused, he sought able seconds to run projects, and told Companions in the 1879 Master's Report of his limitations:

The Master, to his great regret, must also beg the members of the Guild to remember that his knowledge does not qualify him, nor do the nature of his general occupations permit him, to undertake the personal direction of any farming operations, or management of any of the retainers of the Guild, in residence on their lands. Nor was it ever proposed by him, in the constitution of the Guild, that such duties should be entrusted to its Head.

(30.18)

The reluctant Master of 1879 was a far cry from the confident progenitor of grand Rhone schemes, and his decision to eschew ‘personal direction of any farming operations’ would condemn those ‘retainers of the Guild’ to neglect. Maintaining consistent interest only in the museum, Ruskin increasingly withdrew from activities, imploring Companions to cease enquiries and think of him as though he were dead, but by refusing to close the Guild or relinquish his position, he shifted the organisation into lockstep with his own gradual decline.