'74 MARCEL PROUST
not only his opinion of the true nature of Ruskin's gospel but,
what is still more important, describes the crucial effect of the
revelation of Ruskin on his own view of art and human life.
The validity of Proust's opinion of Ruskin rests partly on the
extent of his knowledge of English and of his acquaintance with
Ruskin's works. His competence in both has been generally
underestimated, not only by his critics but by his friends. "How
on earth do you manage, Marcel," asked Constantin de Branco-
van, "seeing that you don't know English?" 'He would have been
hard put to it to order a cutlet in an English restaurant,' wrote
Georges de Lauris, though he rightly added: 'he knew no
English but Ruskin's, but he understood that in its most subtle
shades of meaning.' Proust himself was under no illusions as to
have written himself, kept it, 'tom between the friendship he felt for me
personally and the horror inspired in him by my writings', until 'the death
of Ruskin made it no less admirable in news-value than it seemed detestable
in prose-style'. Even so, Ganderax could not bring himself to use the article,
and gave the same 'uniform, affectionate and regretful reason' as he had
given for his rejection long ago of the group of sonnets and a short story later
included in Les Plaisirs et les Jours: that he 'hadn't enough spare time to
rewrite it'. In view of the improbability of Proust's having written a long
study of Ruskin before the first onset of his enthusiasm in the summer of
1899, his words to Vaudoyer: 'the excellent Ganderax kept my verses, a short
story and a study of Ruskin (commissioned!) waiting for years' need not all
be taken literally. 'For years' no doubt refers to the sonnets and the story,
but not to the Ruskin study, which Ganderax can hardly have kept for more
than six months. Proust also expresses himself loosely when he tells
Vaudoyer: 'this essay later became the preface to La RiMe d' Amiens', since
of the four sections of the preface the first is a foreword written last of all,
the second is the Mercure de France article on Amiens written after his visit
to the cathedral in October 1899, the latter half of the third describes his visit
to Rouen in February '900, and the fourth is based on his holiday in Venice
in May 1900. The article written for Ganderax, therefore, can only be the
first half of the thitd section, that is, the article in the Garette des Beaux-Arts
for 1 April '900, reprinted in Pastiches et Melanges, p. '49, line '7-P' 161,
line 3. Even this, however, must have been considerably revised to make it
topical, as it contains numerous allusions to the death of Ruskin on 2.0
January 1900. Perhaps Ganderax's procrastination suggested the Narrator's
long wait for the appearance in Le Figaro of the article which he submitted
soon after his first visit to Balbec, but which was not published until after
the death of Albertine. No other article of Proust's was so long delayed; and
both his first article in Le Figaro (Pelerinages Ru.rlciniens of '3 February
1900) and the essay which corresponds to the Narrator's on the spires of
Martinville (Impressions de route en automobile of '9 November 19"7)
appeared within a few weeks after they were written.