Another old friend, Joseph Severn, had in 1843 gained one of the prizes at the Westminster Hall Cartoons Competition; and a letter from Ruskin, referring to the work there, shows how he still pondered on the subject that had been haunting him in the Alps: "With your hopes for the elevation of English art by means of fresco I cannot sympathize....

It is not the material nor the space that can give us thoughts, passions, or power.

I see on our Academy walls nothing but what is ignoble in small pictures, and would be disgusting in large ones....

It is not the love of fresco that we want; it is the love of God and His creatures; it is humility, and charity, and self-denial, and fasting, and prayer; it is a total change of character.

We want more faith and less reasoning, less strength and more trust.