tions of your letter-on which I only fear But there is no question at all. Any land, to presume too far. any building, offered me I would take, but these are just the kind and in the kind of place I should like best. But I am en- strangely out of sorts and unable for my work this Christmas, and have been more like taking to my bed, like Canon Kingsley, than coming to begin the St. George's work. And I am resolved on one thing now in my advanced time of life-never to overstrain when I'm tired. My dear M- -I have been able now to read Mrs. Talbot's letter-it seems the kindest, and most wonderful, and most pretty beginning for us that could be and there's not the slightest fear of the St. George's Company ever parting with an inch of anything they get hold of!-if that is indeed the only fear in the question-but do I rightly understand this letter as an offer to us of a piece of freehold land, with cottages on it-as a gift! Don't send this note if I misunderstand-but if I am right please enclose it to Mrs. Talbot with yours -for there is no spot in England or Wales I should like better to begin upon in any case. The next may be given in full: December 15, '74 Herne Hill, S.E. London. My dear Madam,-Again I have been, to my great vexation, prevented from at once replying to your most kind and important letter. The ground and houses which you offer me are exactly the kind of property I most wish to obtain for the St. George's Company: I accept them at once with very glad thanks, and will endeavor soon to come and see them, and thank you and your son in person. No cottagers shall be disturbed-but, in quiet and slow ways, assisted-as each may deserve or wish to better their own houses in sanitary and comfortable points. My principle is to work with the minutest possible touches-but with steady end in view-and by developing as I can the energy of the people I want to help. I will write more to your son if possible to-morrow, but am still heavily overworked. Always gratefully yours, A letter under date "29th Jan., '75," is chiefly occupied with legal arrangements, but the following passage also of interest: is If indeed any doubt could exist respecting the usefulness to us of your gift, I would myself at once follow your kind sug. gestion and come down to Barmouth. The feeling of exhaustion is thus so complicated with quite inevitable form of sorrow or disappointment that I scarcely know how far to receive it as definite warning-but I will assuredly rest all I can-without proclaiming myself invalid. Your solicitor will, I doubt not, require explanation of the nature of St. George's Company, such as can be put in legal documents. If no simple form-such as "The St. George's Company, formed under the direction or directorship of J. R., of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for the education of English peasantry"—will stand in law, you must just transfer the land straight to me without verbal restraint, and trust me to do right with it. The last sentence I shall quote is from a letter dated July 18, 1875: I am profoundly grateful for your kind letter-and have great pleasure in receiving-signed with your name the first monies paid as rental to the St. George's Company. This matter of rental was one upon which Mr. Ruskin's law was inflexible. In the seventy-ninth number of "Fors" he says: It is taken first as the acknowledgment of the authority of the society over the land, and in the amount judged by the master to be just, according to the circumstances of the person and place, for the tenant to pay as a contribution to the funds of the society. The tenant has no claim to the return of the rent in improvements on his ground or his house; and I order the repairs at Barmouth as part of the company's general action, not as return of the rent to the tenants. Punctuality of payment (except in urgent cases of sickness or distress) is always insisted upon; and it is interesting to state that since the passing of this rule, when the cottages were given to the Guild, only one tenant has been dismissed in consequence of unpunctuality in paying rent. Many of the tenants are the same now as in 1875; and it is pleasant to hear the pride with which they will speak of "my cottage" as a home-not as a mere temporary dwelling-place. wife. From some resemblance to the Italian hero this old man was commonly known as "Garibaldi." He was proud of the name, and called his cottage "Caprera." He was a scholar, and had read some of Mr. Ruskin's books, once passing judgment upon them in the following words: "Yes, Mr. Ruskin says some very good things. But it is a pity he does not write better English, for then I could understand it better." His widow lives on alone in the old cottage. A smaller one would do better for her; but she tells you, with tears in her eyes, that she loves the little place where William and she lived for twenty-eight years, and it would break her heart to leave it. It stands quite alone, on a circular ledge of rock. A low wall in front of the tiny bit of ground cuts against the sea when you are in the kitchen and look through the deep-set window; and when the old woman sits outside with her sewing on sunny afternoons or if her sailor son comes to see her, and does a bit of mending or patching on the bench under the window-it is as private as in an enclosed garden. A little lower than this cottage is a one-roomed dwelling. It looks very pretty sometimes, when the window is open, the sea and the mountains filling up the space, the sunshine falling across the plant in the broad windowsill, and lighting the open cupboard in Mrs. Talbot is, by the master's wish, in absolute control of the property. Year by year, any little improvement which can add to the comfort of the cottagers is carried out under her orders; a larger window here, a new fireplace there, an extra room contrived, as the children begin to grow up. But the chief aim is to keep the cottagers at the original low rentals, so that the poor may be able to stay in their old homes; and nothing is done to change the entirely cottage character of the dwellings. Of course, no tenant would be accepted unless of good character; and the knowledge that rent must be paid punctually, that no real discomfort or inconvenience will be overlooked-if it can be remedied-and the corner with its brilliant array that each one is personally known, of cared for in sickness and helped in any of difficulty, is an immense incentive to good conduct. The pretty warm gifts of clothing and coal at Christmas, and the tea and cake to celebrate the master's birthday on February 8, are trifles in themselves, but they help to "ring out the feud of rich and poor," and bring on the golden age. All the tenants have heard of Mr. Ruskin; most of them saw him when he came to Barmouth to visit his new property in the summer of 1876. A portrait of him hangs on the wall of one of the prettiest of the cottages, where, at the time of his visit, lived an old man and his ney china cups and jugs. In front the large old-fashioned chimcorner stands a little round table; and probably the tenant herself is seated by it, knitting (sewing I should have said a few months ago, but her sight is failing), and is delighted to have a chat with a visitor, and proud when her neat little home is admired. There is much kindliness of heart in these hot-tempered Welsh people. It was a real joy to this poor woman to give away a blue-andwhite china plate, which she said was one of the first china "sets" that ever came into Barmouth, and had been brought by her grandfather, a seaman; and an old pair of sugar-tongs (age being the test of value in her eyes) which had belonged to her mother. But the most interesting tenant of St. George's Cottages was M. Auguste Guyard, who, at the time of Mr. Ruskin's visit to Barmouth, was living at Rock Terrace, in the house now occupied by Mr. A. J. Hewins, the artist, M. Guyard was a remarkable mau, and had an eventful life. It was a strange fate which brought him from Paris, from a circle of literary and philosophical friends, to end his days in a remote Welsh village, doctoring his poor neighbors, teaching Welsh peasant women to make vegetable soups, and trying by experiments to discover which herbs and trees would grow best in his rocky mountain ground, and best resist the storms from the Atlantic that often swept across his terraced gardens. He had been a reformer, an experimenter, a philanthropist, all his life. In the "gentil petit village" of Froteylez-Vesoul, where he was born, he had tried to carry out a plan of social reform, and to establish a "commune modèle," which in conception and motive, and often even in small details, closely resembled the ideal Mr. Ruskin set before himself in the Guild of St. George, many years later. M. Guyard's best-known and most charming work, "Lettres aux Gens de Frotey," describes these social experiments. Unfortunately they met with the usual fate of social experiments. Somehow the world has a trick of working out its social evolution in its own blundering way-not in the way philanthropists and idealists prescribe for it. M. Guyard-who was an educationalist first of all, though he was much more—soon roused the jealousy and hostility of the Roman Church, and it became impossible for him to continue the beneficent work he had begun in face of the implacable enmity of the priesthood. After two years' labor, during which brief time very remarkable results had been accomplished towards the formation of the "model commune," the opposition the priests put an end to the "Euvre de Frotey," from which he had hoped so much. M. Guyard was intimate with all the eminent men of his time and country. Men of letters, poets, painters, politicians, and even bishops formed the circle of his associates; while such men as Lamartine, Alexandre Dumas (père), Victor Hugo, Jérome, Emile Deschamps, could be counted among his close friends. His daughter remembers being taken as a child to see Lamartine-on his weekly reception day. He was then an invalid, and was lying on a couch, surrounded by numerous cats, and seven or eight greyhounds of all sizes. The fact that most impressed the child about the great man was that he had most beautiful white hands. Love of animals has almost invariably been a characteristic of notable men. When Victor Hugo went into exile he left to the tender care of M. and Mme. Guyard his well-beloved white Persian cat, which they treasured for many years-M. Guyard, as will be seen, having a remarkable power of sympathizing with and gaining the confidence of animals. It was not only in his own country that M. Guyard was known and appreciated by those whose appreciation is worth having. When living at Barmouth he kept up a friendly correspondence with Dean Stanley and Lady Augusta. Dean Stanley was greatly interested in many of his ideas; and though the two men never met, frequent letters passed between them up to the time of the dean's death. Being so widely known, and having so many influential friends in the highest circles of Parisian life, it seems strange that M. Guyard's enlightened and philanthropic work failed to receive the rewards which France is so ready to bestow upon her publicspirited sons. But the air was full of troubles. Educational movements were looked upon with suspicion by both Church and State. Napoleon III. was no friend to "model communes" and of Utopian dreamers; and then, as ever, funds were required to reform ever so small a corner of the world. In 1865 M. Guyard seems to have been compelled to give up active work for Frotey; and in 1870 the war between France and Germany broke out. When Paris was besieged the women and old people were requested to leave the city if possible, and M. Guyard and his daughters came to England. The cottage at Barmouth, No. 2 Rock Terrace, was offered to him as a refuge, and gladly accepted; and there he lived until his death in 1882. M. Guyard, with the wisdom of the true philosopher, quickly adapted himself to his new environment. He knew scarcely any English, but soon established pleasant relations with his neighbors, and is still gratefully remembered for his kindness and skill in cases of illness, medicine being one of his many hobbies. his Behind the narrow terrace where the two best houses belonging to the Guild stand looking out seawards over chimney-pots and roofs, rise a series of tiny terraced gardens, connected by steps cut in the rock, or built of rough stones, from one level to another. To cultivate these gardens soon became the chief occupation and delight of the old exile. Day by day his tall, thin figure could be seen, clad in a long, grey coat, with a red fez upon white hair, as he climbed the steep steps from one terrace to another, accompanied by his devoted dog "Cara" -a lovely, gentle creature of the collie tribe, with long, brown-and-white hair, small in size, of a loving nature and marvellous intelligence. So great was the affection between master and dog, that M. Guyard's daughters-who had left home-used to speak of "their sister Cara" as the favorite. M. Guyard had a wonderful gift of taming animals. One summer he had tamed a hawk and a jackdaw. They used to roost together at night on a perch he had fixed up inside his bedroom window, and fly about during the day. When he went out and clapped his hands they would quickly answer the signal. It was wonderful what the skill and industry of the philosopher-gardener produced out of the various little plots of ground under his care. Vegetables never failed, in plenty, all the year round. Willows still wave their graceful branches where he planted them on ledges of the mountain-side; here and there a little copse of thorn and birch trees relieves the bare rock; patches of wild strawberry and beds of sweet violets show traces of his handiwork. His knowledge of the herbs of the field was as that of Solomon. One knew that if any question arose about plant or animal, geological, physiological, or etymological dispute-it might be referred to him for settlement. It has never chanced to me to meet any one possessed of such varied and extensive knowledge. He was a born teacher, too, and was patient and gentle with the ignorant. The good of humanity was his ideal, and he never lost his enthusiasm for the deep convictions to which he had given the best of his life. It will be easily understood that when Mr. Ruskin visited the newly acquired property of St. George, the French philosopher and philanthropist won his heart. The two had much in common: belief in the high destiny of mankind; the generous enthusiasms and aspirations that prompt to selfdevotion; and, above all, the practical conviction that in flying from cities and luxurious lives, and in leading laborious days combined with the education of heart and mind, the perfect way was to be found. "These things which I am but now discovering and trying to teach, you knew and taught when I was a child," exclaimed the master, happy to find in one of his new tenants a sympathetic and appreciative admirer. When Mr. Ruskin was leaving Barmouth it happened that M. Guyard was ill in bed, and he was asked to go to the bedroom to bid farewell. After some talk, they parted, the English professor affectionately bending down to kiss the French reformer-akin in soul, though so far apart in circumstance, these two men, who never met again. Soon afterwards Mr. Ruskin was struck down by illness, and never took any further practical steps towards carrying out his schemes of social reform. But M. Guyard lived his theory in daily practice, working with his hands to enrich and beautify the earth; teaching whenever or wherever he could, and setting forth the true philosophic life. He did not return to Paris, except to bring away his longings; and after some years obtained a promise that when his work was over he might be laid in a spot he had chosen on the mountain, enclosed by Mrs. Talbot's boundary wall, one hundred and fifty feet above his little house. From this spot one looks down over the steep, half-wild gardens, where he had toiled, far away to the be wide stretch of sea-to the long, level headland of Llwyngwril-to the allembracing sky-typical, he may have thought, of his laborious life swallowed up in the vastness of eternity. And when the time came, hither he was carried, one summer's day, up the difficult hill-side-the little procession only able to walk one by one along the narrow path. A clergyman of the Church of England who had been his pupil willingly conducted the simple service, and a small group of villagers and strangers, gathered upon the open mountain above the enclosed ground, looked down upon the scene as the mourners laid him "in sure and certain hope" in the grave hewn out of the solid rock. Huge blocks of stone were afterwards placed upon the grave, and over them grow trailing ivy, periwinkle, and cotone aster, tended by friendly hands. At the head of the grave on a stone are inscribed, under his name and the dates of his birth and death, the following lines, which he dictated for this purpose to his daughter, the day before his death: Ci-gît un Semeur qui Sema jusqu'au tombeau Le Vrai, le Bien, le Beau A travers mille combats A thorn hedge, blown out of shape by the rough winds from the sea, protects the headstone, and beyond spread sea and sky. Looking landwards, a magnificent crag of hoary, heather-clad rock rises immediately outside the wall, and all round break away the fine mountain masses, as grand in their way as the wide seascape. Nowhere could a great soul feel more in harmony with nature. Low-growing willows and birches, planted by his own hand, make a little shelter about the exile's grave, and beneath them, in springtime, all the ground is starred with daffodils and primroses; later, with wild strawberry blossom and the blue dog-violet; while later still, the heather bursts into purple bloom, the blackberries hang in clusters against the old stone wall, and the bramble leaves burn scarlet and gold in the autumn sunshine. Lofty designs must close in like effects: suspects, Living and dying. And as we stand by the grave of one who was well content to be laid in foreign earth, the truth is borne to us on the voice of sea and wind-that all who love their fellow-creatures are linked in one bond, stronger than that of creed and race and the belief is strengthened that no generous impulse either of him who undertook to change a French village into a “commune modèle," or of the master of St. George's Guild, who hoped to save England by an ideal scheme of social life -is fruitless in the final sum of things. BLANCHE ATKINSON. |