J. Ruskin.’
Mr. Ruskin permitted the reprint of a few extracts from his own writings in the Magazine, on which his criticism as a whole was not very encouraging. One of his letters, indeed, called forth a protest from Miss Beale, to which he replied thus:—
‘June 15, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—I am grieved very deeply to have written what I did of your dear friend’s verses. If you knew how full my own life has been of sorrow, how every day of it begins with a death-knell, you would bear with me in what I will yet venture to say to you as the head of a noble school of woman’s thought, that no personal feelings should ever be allowed to influence you in what you permit your scholars either to read or to publish.’
And again a few days later:—
‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, June 19, 1887.
‘Dear Miss Beale,—So many thanks, and again and again I ask your pardon for the pain I gave you. I had no idea of the kind of person you were, I thought you were merely clever and proud.
‘These substituted verses are lovely.—Ever gratefully (1) yrs.,
‘J. R.
‘(1) I mean, for the way you have borne with my letters. You will not think it was because I did not like my own work to have the other with it that I spoke as I did.’