But while the incident that marks the baby Browning is the aside, _a propos_ of a whimpering sister, "Pew-opener, remove that child," the baby Ruskin is seen in his sermon: "People, be dood.

If you are dood, Dod will love you; if you are not dood, Dod will not love you.

People, be dood." At the age of four he had begun to read and write, refusing to be taught in the orthodox way--this is so accurately characteristic--by syllabic spelling and copy-book pothooks.

He preferred to find a method out for himself, and he found out how to read whole words at a time by the look of them, and to write in vertical characters like book-print, just as the latest improved theories of education suggest.

His first letter may be quoted as illustrating his own account of his childhood, and as proving how entirely Scotch was the atmosphere in which he was brought up.