” Note these three great divisions—essentially those of all men's lives, but singularly separate in his,—the days of youth, of labour, and of death. Youth is properly the forming time—that in which a man makes himself, or is made, what he is for ever to be. Then comes the time of labour, when, having become the best he can be, he does the best he can do. Then the time of death, which, in happy lives, is very short; but always a time. The ceasing to breathe is only the end of death.”—So Ruskin had written in Fors Clavigera of Sir Walter Scott. He had marked the passage in his copy of the book, upon rereading it at some later date. His own “time of death” lasted nearly eleven years.

The attack of brain-fever which followed Ruskin's return to Brantwood from Seascale in August 1889 was severe, and it was not till the following summer that he was able to leave his room. He now recognised perforce that absolute rest and quiet were essential, and gradually even the will to exert himself passed away. It is needless to follow in any detail these years of waiting for the end—years in which times of mental storm were intermingled with the peace of old age. He wrote nothing more, and spoke very little, and with hardly any voice. He sat, and listened, and sometimes smiled, but even for children and for old friends he had few words.