It is natural perhaps, but this evil will pass like other evils, and I wish you from my heart a good clear noble year, with plenty of work, and God consciously over all to give you satisfaction.

What would this life be, dear Mr.Ruskin, if it had not eternal relations?
For my part, if I did not believe so, I should lay my head down and die.

Nothing would be worth doing, certainly.

But I am what many people call a 'mystic,' and what I myself call a 'realist,' because I consider that every step of the foot or stroke of the pen here has some real connection with and result in the hereafter.
'This life's a dream, a fleeting show!' no indeed.

That isn't my '_doxy_.' I don't think that nothing is worth doing, but that everything is worth doing--everything good, of course--and that everything which does good for a moment does good for ever, in _art_ as well as in morals.