RUSKIN'S LOVE STORY -.
• [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Having seen, Dr. MaeDonald's letter about Ruskin Jtt your issue of February 9th, I am anxious to add my testimoiik with regard to hit absolute 'purity and -delicacy of feeling. It was partly their sense of this that attracted the best women towards him. His tender sympathy led- him to- shrink from giVing pain to the silly girls who shovied exaggerated admira- tion for him, but he shrank from their attentions; and avoided them as much as possible.
I am very sorry that the question of his love affairs should be again brought before the.public, who ought not to pry into such matters: Of course, at an earlier time it Was necessary to explain that his mind had been unhinged by his sorrows and disappointments, in order to explain some of the things- he wrote, but there is no occasion-for that now,- and I have been careful to destroy all his letters to my sister Octavia Hill, which alluded td the matter. As to what he wrote about her in Fore, he recanted entirely and expressed sorrow that hehad ever written it. I have a letter from him to her to this effect, —I am, Sir, &c., EMILY SOUTHWOOD MAURICE:
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