23 DECEMBER 1932, Page 6

I am interested to see that Mr. J. H. Whitehosue,

president of the Ruskin Society, repeats in the London Mercury the protest he made in the daily press against Sir Henry Newbolt's comments on John Ruskin's mar- riage tragedy. In his memoirs Sir Henry relates a story which he had from Holman Hunt as to Ruskin's refusing to enter the bride's carriage after the wedding, the implication being, of course, that husband and wife were • completely estranged from the start. Mr. Whitehouse, after noting that Holman Hunt, unknown at- the time to Ruskin, was not present at the wedding, gives conclusive documentary evidence as to the affectionate intercourse of the pair. Meanwhile Dr. Greville MacDonald, son of the once popular author of David Elginbrod, gives in his reminiscences a physician's version of the broken marriage. It is simply that Ruskin and Euphie Gray had no romantic feeling for one another and that "he was not the man to claim intimate relations, to him most sacred, without the only justification for them." Sir Henry Newbolt so far has not replied to Mr. White- house, but he can hardly leave the matter where it is.