Runciman soon put a stop to that, and took pains with a pupil who took such pains with himself--taught him, at any rate, the principles of perspective, and remained his only drawing-master for several years.
A sample of John Ruskin's early lessons in drawing, described by him in letters to his father, may be not without interest.

On February 20, 1832, he writes: "...

You saw the two models that were last sent, before you went away.

Well, I took my paper, and I fixed my points, and I drew my perspective, and then, as Mr.Runciman told me, I began to invent a scene.

You remember the cottage that we saw as we went to Rhaidyr Dhu (_sic_), near Maentwrog, where the old woman lived whose grandson went with us to the fall, so very silently?
I thought my model resembled that; so I drew a tree--such a tree, such an enormous fellow--and I sketched the waterfall, with its dark rocks, and its luxuriant wood, and its high mountains; and then I examined one of Mary's pictures to see how the rocks were done, and another to see how the woods were done, and another to see how the mountains were done, and another to see how the cottages were done, and I patched them all together, and I made such a lovely scene--oh, I should get such a scold from Mr.Runciman (that is, if he ever scolded)!" After the next lesson he wrote, February 27, 1832: "You know the beautiful model drawing that I gave you an account of in my last.