Under the accumulation of work described in the last chapter, Ruskin felt the need of change and rest. He broke off abruptly the papers in theArt Journal, and leaving W. H. Harrison to seeThe Crown of Wild Olive through the press, he started, on April 24, 1866, for a holiday in Switzerland.

On this tour, he took with him his cousin Joan and another young girl, Miss Constance Hilliard, a niece of Lady Trevelyan, who also, with her husband, Sir Walter, was of the party. Lady Trevelyan was keenly interested in wild flowers; Sir Walter also was a botanist, and he and Ruskin looked forward to many a ramble together. The journey was undertaken partly for the sake of Lady Trevelyan's health, and Ruskin's letters to his mother record alternate hopes and fears:—

“ Paris,2nd May 1866.—Lady Trevelyan is much better to-day, but it is not safe to move her yet—till to-morrow. So I'm going to take the children to look at Chartres Cathedral—we can get three hours there, and be back to seven o'clock dinner. We drove round by St. Cloud and Sevres yesterday; the blossomed trees being glorious by the Seine, —the children in high spirits. It reminds me always too much of Turner—every bend of these rivers is haunted by him.”