© 2004 by Oxford University Press
Ruskin the reluctant conchologist
John Ruskin saw the natural world as though it was a moral being obeying moral laws. In three books about plants, birds and geology he tended to worship natural phenomena and natural objects rather than to analyse them scientifically. Molluscan shells fascinated him and he accumulated a miscellaneous collection of them. He found them difficult subjects for his pencil and brush, but some of his watercolour drawings of them, including one or two reproduced here, are beyond praise. Late in his life conchology was the main subject of a correspondence with an early member of the St George's Guild, Henrietta Carey of Nottingham. Afterwards, he became friends with the young Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, then an enthusiastic conchologist, and their friendship revived the old man's interest in shells, if only briefly. During the few remaining years of Ruskin's troubled life it is possible that his shell collection provided some solace.
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