RUSKIN'S LOVE AFFAIR
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—I recently published a biography of Ruskin which you were good enough to review in your Centenary Number. Among a number of pleasant letters I have had some violent criticism of my opinion as to the relations between Rose La Touche (the girl with whom Ruskin was in love in middle-age) and Mrs. La Touche, Rose's mother.
Ruskin had been free of Mrs. La Touche's nursery ever since Rose was nine years old. By the time she was seventeen he had fallen in love with her, and when she was eighteen he • formally proposed for her hand. At this juncture the parents stepped in, and with the girl irresolute, tipped the scale against Ruskin, whom it would no doubt have been easy to discourage a year or two before. Rose was forbidden to see Ruskin. The affair dragged on, with Rose still irreso- lute, and it ended only with her death at the age of twenty eight. She died; and I see that I am supported by Mr. T. P. O'Connor in suggesting that it was the worry of the affair with Ruskin that killed her.
The motive of the parents' sudden turning against Ruskin is obscure. It is possible that they began to make inquiries as soon as Ruskin talked of marriage, and that in answer to these inquiries they were told of physical infirmities which made it impossible for them to consent to his marriage with Rose. Another reason, however, suggested itself to me. Mrs. La Touche was herself a beautiful and accomplished woman, married to a man who seems to have had a touch of religious melancholy : she was herself five or six yeadi younger than Ruskin, and openly revered and esteemed him. I suggested in my book that this may have been the cause of the sudden change of attitude. " Who knows what un- acknowledged dreams and fancies were spoilt when Mrs. La Touche found herself to be without equivocation the mother of the woman whom Ruskin loved ? . . . "
' I had arrived at the general conclusion before speaking to Dr. Greville MacDonald ; and when I mentioned it to him as a poSsible explanation, he at once told me that he had evidence in his possession which supported my view, that it was
jealousy that made Mrs. La Touche suddenly hostile. Nov I receive letters from Mrs. -La Touche's biographer, com- plaining of my " extraordinary misrepresentations."- I am said by her and .by surviving nephews and nieces to have . slandered one of whom I evidently knew nothing. Ruskin is said to have " behaved badly all through " ; though his lode for Rose has been remembered as a -beautiful romance, that is not now the view held by any -member of the La Touche
family. - _ .
--On-this latter point Mr. T. P. O'Connor seems to take some- what-the same view, though on different grounds. - He sug- gests that Rose was in-love with Mr. Swift MacNeill; though he thinks it was the love affair with Ruskin which killed -her. These two views seem to me incompatible. Be the truth what it may, it would surely be worth arriving at. We are confronted with a psychological situation which was suffi- ciently intense to result in the death of one party to it, the life-long grief of another, and the breaking of a long friendship. is there any • chance that Dr. Greville MacDonald, or some - other who is in possession of further evidence, will come for- ward and tell us, as far as is known, the truth about this obscure situation ? Every one agrees that Rose was a beau- tiful and exquisite being, talented and intelligent. Why did she die of grief at the age of twenty-eight ?—I am Sir, &c.,
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