The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1893-08-28
RusKlN's WEDDING ROMANCE.
Tho Story of the E~occntric Critics Mar.
riaKe and Divorce.


riaEe and Divorce.
John Ruskin did a strangely waywart
Thing when he consented to get married
He did a most erratic and, 10 the public, 1
most inexplicahe thing when he Arranged
for his divorce. He had accepted some o.
The loftiest traditions abouN womanhoot
that men sometimes read and talk about
and he looked for his ideal companion. On
night he met her in the drawing room OF q
London friend, who, without his knowing
II, had brought tho young lady to meet the
eyes Of the great writer.
It was a June night. He was IS, and she
looked like q Gseek goddess. He was daz-
sled. She was . tall, graceful girl of 10,
witt a face aud figure a. faultleas a. one of
the statues of old. No one ever expected
Rusl5in to fall In love, and he did not. She
was poor, needed a home and Its comforts,
and SO they were married.
Their welded life was peaceful, friendly,
kindly to the highest degree, but there was
not a spark of affection to enlighten their
existence. She admired the great man she
had married and was grateful for the wealth
and comfort he showered on her. He wor-
SHIPPED her as he would the marble made
lifelike 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 ar artist to
paint his wife's picture. And the man was
Millais, aud he was a bright, CHEEKY, hand
some fellow, human every inch of him, with
n 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 fin
ished he was i'll love with his friends wife.
Womanlike she saw it, and perhaps she
was not full of sorrow and reprosch. 1t
was the first tribute of real manly love that
had ever laid at her feet.
And Ruskin! His wide eyes saw the ro-
nance that was weaving around those two
lives, and his heart realized how little af-
lection he had to lavish on the woman he
had made his wife. How he told her tho
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 Eng
land, but John Ruskin secured it for her,
and one bracing morning in the early win
ter, a month after the divorce was granted,
Ruskin stood beside the couple in one of
London's quiet churches and saw them
made man and wife.
That was a good many years ago. and
since then Millais has become rich and IA
nous and is now Sir John, and his wife is
my Lady Millais. Tn 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
Ruskin has been the welcome guest
and daily visitor TO the man and woman
whose lives he SO unselfishly crowned with
happiness.
1t is a strange story, and the world knows
little about it, and some men have con-
demned him, as some women have censured
her. But the two men and that one woman
who knew best have been happy and con
tented with the change that John Ruskin's
pure unselfishness brought into their lives.
And so the world hould not complain
Chicago News.