The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-08-12
RusxIN's. ROMANCE.
How the Eccentric Critic Was W edded
and Divorced.

! and Divorced.
John Ruskin did a strangely way
ward thing when he consented to
I get married. He did a most erratic,
and, to the public, most inexpli-
cable thing when he arranged for
his dovorce.
| He had accepted some of the loft
lest traditions about womanhood
that men sometimes read and talk
about, and he looked for his ideal
companion. One night he met her
in the drawingroom of a London
friend, who, without his knowing it,
had brought the young lady to meet
the eyes of the great writer.
It was a June night; he was 30,
and she looked like Greek goddess.
He was dazzled. She was tall,
graceful girl Of 10, with a face and
figure as faultless as one of the
statues of old. No one ever expected
Ruskin to fall in love, and he did
not. She was poor, needed home
and its comforts, and so they were
married.
Their welded life was peaceful,
friendly, kindly>to the highest de-
gree, but there was not a spark OF
affection to enlighten their exist
ence. She admired the great man
she had married and was grateful
for the wealth and comfort he show
cred on her. He worshipped her as
he would the marble made life-like
by the sculptor's chisel.
There was nothing human about
the life they led as husband and
wife, and she was woman who, IN
her heart, like all true women,
; laughed at the traditions that made
her sex love distant worship.
, One day Ruskin brought an artist
to paint his wife's picture. And
the man was Millais, and be was a
, bright, CHEEKY, handsome fellow,
human every inch of him, with a
!. great and absorbing love for the
beautiful and a willingness to tell
of his love.
He began to paint the portrait OF
, the magnificent woman, and when
he had finished he was in love with
i, his friends wife.
, Woman-like she saw it, and per-
! haps she was not full of sorrow and
] reproach. It was the first tribute
. of real manly love that had ever
: lain at her feet.
And Ruskin! His wide eyes saw
!, the romance that was weaving round
= those two lives, and his heart real
E lied how little affection he had to
lavish on the woman he had made
his wife.
How~he told her the story of his
S pride in her and the sacrifice he
o was to make for her, while she lay
! prone at his feet, is one of the things
). which only he or she could tell.
J. 1t is very difficult to obtain di-
r vorce in England, but John Ruskin
: secured it for her, and one bracing
|. morning in the early winter, a
!. month after the divorce was grant
j ed, Ruskin stood beside the couple
in one of London's quiet churches
}. and saw them made man and wife
t That was a good many years ago
e and since then Millais has become
n rich and famous and is now Sir John
J. and his wife is my Lady Millais.
e The warmest, sturdiest friend the
e struggling painter had in his toiling
d days was the man whose wife he
e had married, and through all the
years of Millais later success and
0 greater honor ohm Ruskin has been
t the welcome guest and almost daily
e visitor to the man and woman
# whose lives he SO unseltishly
s crowned with happiness.
t It is a strange story, and the
d world knows little about it, and
t some men have condemned him, as
q some women have censured her
e But the two men and that one wo
S man who knew best have been hap
s py and contented with the change
J. that John Ruskin's pure unselfish
J. ness brought into their live. And sc
n the world should not complain
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