sculpture of Erring Sin, is carved the angel Raphael, leading Tobias, and his dog.1

Not Tobit, and his dog, observe. It is very needful for us to understand the separate stories of the father and son, which gave this subject so deep a meaning to the mediaval Church. Read the opening chapter of Tobit,' to the end of his prayer. That prayer, you will find, is the seeking of death rather than life, in entirely noble despair. Erring, but innocent; blind, but not thinking that he saw,-therefore without sin.

To him the angel of all beautiful life is sent, hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all right and happy ways of life, explaining to him, and showing to all of us who read, in faith, for ever, what is the root of all the material evil in the world, the great error of seeking pleasure before use. This is the dreadfulness which brings the true horror of death into the world, which hides God in death, and which makes all the lower creatures of God -even the happiest, suffer with us, even the most innocent, injure us.*

3

But the young man's dog went with them—and returned, to show that all the lower creatures, who can love, have passed, through their love, into the guardianship and guidance of angels.

And now you will understand why I told you in the last Fors for last year that you must eat angels' food before you could eat material food."

* Measure,-who can,-the evil that the Horse and Dog, worshipped before God, have done to England.

[For an earlier description of this sculpture, see Stones of Venice, vol. ii. (Vol. X. pp. 363-364); and for the story of Tobias and the dog, ibid., p. 364 n., and compare Vol. XXIII. p. 377.]

2 [Ruskin writes from memory. It is not "the opening chapter" that he refers to, but ch. iii. 1-6.]

[Compare Letter 61, § 16 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 502).] • [See Letter 72, § 8 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 763).]

Tobit got leave at last, you see, to go back to his dinner.

8. Now, I have two pretty stories to tell you (though I must not to-day) of a Venetian dog,' which were told to me on Christmas Day last, by Little Bear's special order. Her own dog, at the foot of her bed, is indeed unconscious of the angel with the palm, but is taking care of his mistress's earthly crown; and St. Jerome's dog, in his study, is seriously and admiringly interested in the progress of his master's literary work, though not, of course, understanding the full import of it.3

2

The dog in the vision to the shepherds, and the cattle in the Nativity, are always essential to these myths, for the same reason; and in next Fors, you shall have with the stories of the Venetian dog, the somewhat more important one of St. Theodore's horse,'-God willing. Finally, here are four of the grandest lines of an English prophet, sincere as Carpaccio, which you will please remember :

"The bat that flits at close of eve,

Hath left the brain that won't believe."

"Hurt not the moth, nor butterfly,

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh." 5

And now, Tobit having got back to his dinner, we may think of ours: only Little Bear will have us hear a little reading still, in the refectory. Take patience but a minute or two more.

9. Long ago, in Modern Painters, I dwelt on the, to

1 [See Letter 75, § 11 (p. 67).]

2 [For the picture of St. Ursula, see Plate VIII. in Vol. XXVII. (p. 344).]

3 [For the picture of St. Jerome, see Plate LXVI. in Vol. XXIV. (p. 354), and for an engraving of the dog, ibid., p. 230.]

4 [See Letter 75, §§ 9, 11 (pp. 66-69).]

5 [William Blake, Auguries of Innocence; referred to also in Cestus of Aglaia, § 4 (Vol. XIX. p. 56), and see Appendix 18 (below, p. 577). Blake wrote

not "Hurt.”]

66

Kill,"

6 [See in this edition Vol. V. pp. 80-81.]