The Waco evening news. [volume] (Waco, Tex.) 1891-1894, 1893-07-14
RUSKlN'S ROMANCE.
How the Poet Laureate We'd
ded and Was Divorced.


St. Louis Repub ic.
John Rupkin did strangely
wayward thing when he consented
to get married. He did a most er.
ratio, and to the public, a most in
applicable thing when ne arranged
for his divorce.
He had accepted some of the
Hottest traditions about womauhood
that men sometimes read and talk
about, and he looked for his ideal
companion. One night he met her
in the drawing.room of London
friend, who, without his knowing it,
had brought the young lady to meet
the eyes of the great writer.
1t was June night; he was So,
and she looked like Greek god
dess.
He was dazzled. She was a tall,
graceful girl of is, with face and
figure az faultless as one of the
statues of old. No one ever ex.
pected 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 e1is.
tence. She admired the great man
she had married and was grateful
for the wealth and comfort he
showered on her. He worshipped
her as he wouli the marble made
life like by the sculptor's chisel.
There waa 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 Mlllsis, and he was a
bright, cherry, handsome fellow,
human every inch of him, with
great and absorbing love for the
beautiful and 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
his friends wife.
Woman.like, she saw it, and per.
haps she was not full of sorrow and
reproach. 1t was the first tribute
of real manly love that had ever
lain at her feet.
And R1skin! His wide eyes saw
the romance that was weaving
around those two lives, and his
heart realized how little affection he
had to lavish on the woman W HON
he had made his wife.
How he told her the story of his
pride in her and the sacrifice he was
to make for her, while she lay prone
at his feet, is one of the things
which only he or she could tell.
1t is difficult to obtain a divorce
in England, but John Ruskin
secured it for her, and one bracing
morning in the early winter, a
month after the divorce had been
granted, Ruskin stood beside the
couple in one of London's quiet
churches aud saw them made man
and wife.
That was a good many years ago,
and since then Millias has become
rich and famous, and is now Sir
John and his wife is my Lady NIL
lais.
The warmest, sturdiest friend the
struggling painter had in his toiling
days was the man whose wife he
had married, and through all the
years OF Millais' later success and
greater honor, John Ruskin has
been the welcome gust and almost
daily visitor to the man and woman
whose lives he so unsslhshly crown
ed with happiness.
1t is strange story and the world
knows little about it, and some mer
have condemned him as some wo
men have censured her. But Tho
two men and that one woman VINO
knew best have been happy anc
contented with the change thai
John Ruskin's pure unselfishnesl
brought into their lives. And 81