John Ruskin's Correspondence with Joan Severn: Sense and Nonsense Letters (Legenda Main Series)

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Gordon decided to go to Denmark Hill for a short break 4-5 October 1869 soon after Ruskin's return from abroad. Such was their degree of friendship and so relaxed was their relationship that it was understood that Gordon could visit and stay any time he wished. This is exactly what he did! On this occasion Ruskin was obliged to explain, in advance to Mrs Cowper, Gordon's presence at the very special private dinner, on 5 October. The letter reveals much about Gordon's character and the absolute trust between the two men:

Cf. Swett, 51, and, for the italicized passage, Boston Public Library (hereafter, BPL) Mss. Acc. 2500 (I) 37 a+b. This part of the letter was excised from the printed version, likely by Lucia Grey Swett, editor of a book containing a carefully chosen portion of the correspondence. Examination of the holographs shows that many of Ruskin’s letters were bowdlerized before publication; others, their content deemed too sensitive, were left out entirely.May "Into town. Call at Mr Pritchard’s – found riding school! (Con and Mrs H[illiard] at lunch)" ( Diaries, II, 617). PML MA 2250. The letter appears in Bradley: 167-8; cf. Burd, Ruskin and Rose: 114-116. In it, Ruskin compares himself to Rousseau who, in his Confessions, admitted to masturbation: for more, see Simpson, esp. 33-5. But it was not simply to relieve some of his despondency that this play was chosen. Ruskin had a very special interest in it; he knew both the leading lady, his "much-regarded friend" Mrs Madge Kendal (née Robertson) and the co-playwright Tom Taylor, his erstwhile rival for the Slade Professorship at Oxford and a witness on his behalf at the Whistler trial in 1878. Madge Kendal, playing Lilian Vavasour, was already the leading lady at this grand theatre at the age of twenty-one; Jeffrey Richards has described her as "an actress of great verve and charm" ( 92). But there were other reasons for his interest. The word "Ruskinism" had been coined and became a catchword. In the play, Lilian says of another girl that "in spite of her Ruskinism-run-mad she isn’t half a bad sort" (36.328, note 1). We know of Ruskin’s fascination with reptiles; snakes and serpents were often present in his dreams along with an attractive female presence. New Men and Old Acres provided a memorable example compressed in the short line, "And his wife – well, she’s a caution for snakes!", uttered by Lilian Vavasour. It was not quite a dream, but not quite reality, for here on stage was a beautiful inaccessible woman being linked with venomous reptiles. Ten years later, Ruskin’s lecture at the Royal Institution on 17 March 1880 was entitled "A Caution to Snakes"; he explained to his audience that he had chosen the title "partly in play, and partly in affectionate remembrance of the scene in New Men and Old Acres, in which the phrase became at once so startling and so charming, on the lips of my much-regarded friend, Mrs Kendal" (36.327-28). * During those times when his wits were not fully about him, Ruskin would often say and do odd things in Coniston (and elsewhere). Observing these, his neighbors in Coniston were tolerant and forgiving. Among themselves, however, not infrequently they would refer to him in this way. Although Robson presents a plausible central argument that some young boys of Ruskin’s class were socialized into much closer identification with girls than their own sex (hence her subtitle, “The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman”), no evidence whatever is offered in support of her bizarre claim that “we have [now] learned enough to find the appearance of girls in Ruskin’s autobiography, as in his life, is no laughing matter” (96). Similarly, she presents no evidence which would justify her labeling him a “sexual adventurer,” someone whose story is one of “sexual irregularity” (97). Given the thinness of argument and paucity of evidence offered to buttress this claim of worrisome disturbance, especially when (as we shall soon see) the examples she does provide are set beside other original documents pertaining to the same events—documents which, had she consulted them, would have afforded a much more benign interpretation—what Robson provides hardly suffices for her conclusion that her subject harbored a life-long, unhealthy attraction to pre-pubescent girls!

Among these accounts (all of which are empathetic to Effie while impugning Ruskin) are: “The Countess” (a play by Gregory Murphy), “Modern Painters” (an opera by David Larg and Manuela Hoelterhoff), “Effie Gray” (a film written by Emma Thompson and directed by Richard Laxton), and a six-part BBC television series, “Desperate Romantics” (written by Peter Bowden and directed by Paul Gay and Diamund Lawrence). Exempted from such a remark would be the subjects of his published criticism—some artists, some other writers, especially those who championed the theory of laissez-faire economics which he regarded as the ideology legitimating the unbridled greed motivating most of his contemporaries. After Whitehouse’s death in 1955, Brantwood came under the care of his successor, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. In 1973, the nature trail was opened, and in 1982, the Linton building was renovated.

Arthur Severn

Going forward, Hilton and Robson will be my principal references for the argument that Ruskin was a pedophile. While (as noted) other biographers accept the allegation, they have made the case most assertively. Brant’ is old norse for steep, and so our gardens and woodland have varying levels of gradient, appropriate footwear for a walk in the countryside is recommended. Seasonal Opening Hours At the beginning of 1866, Ruskin was planning, or at least hoping, to remarry. He had become deeply attached to a young Irish girl, Rose La Touche (1848-1875) whom he had first met in 1858; she was then aged ten, he was thirty-nine. His proposal of marriage was neither accepted nor rejected by the eighteen-year-old; she kept him in suspense, asking him to wait three years for an answer. Rose's parents vehemently opposed the marriage; at one point, Effie Millais intervened and objected on the grounds that her former husband was not free to remarry under the terms of the annulment of 1854. In any case, Ruskin himself agonised over what Rose's decision would eventually be. He became more and more distraught. Rose's feelings oscillated between obsession and hatred. At a casual meeting in the Royal Academy on 7 January 1870, she rebuffed him: her ostensible reason was religious incompatibility.