JOHN RUSKIN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31339, 8 April 1967, Page 4

JOHN RUSKIN

The Professor. Arthur Severn’s Memoir of John Ruskin. Edited by James S. Dearden. Allen and Unwin. 158 pp. Index.

Arthur Severn was the youngest son of Joseph Severn, remembered today as the friend of Keats. Like his father he was an aecompUshed artist—his fine watercolour of Ruskin in his old age is reproduced in this bookthrough he never succeeded in making a Uving from his painting. In 1867, Arthur began courting a distant cousin of Ruskin’s, Joan Agnew, who at that time was employed as a companion to Ruskin’s eighty-three-year-old mother. Ruskin did not at first encourage the match. "I think I can do better for her,” he wrote frankly to Severn. “I think I may get her as worthy a husband in a better worldly position only you need not fear that I shall let her be bought by anyone who does not deserve her.” Severn remained persistent, however, and, in 1871, the couple were married. Afterwards they spent much of their married life at Brantwood, which Ruskin had enlarged to accommodate their family, and they cared for him there during his last enfeebled years.

Severn began writing his memoir about 1892, but unfortunately never finished it. As It stands, it consists of a series of recollections of incidents connected with Ruskin, together with some random

observations of his character and tastes. Severn was evidently something of a raconteur, and many of his anecdotes have considerablecharm. They also exemplify some typical aspects of Ruskin’s nature: his petulance and arrogance, his child-like qualities and immense generosity, and a gaiety of spirit that one would certainly not associate with the somewhat aloof figure of popular legend. Severn describes a dinnerparty, for instance, at which one of the younger guests suddenly sat down at the piano and struck up some lively dance tunes. The hostess “couldn’t resist i£ and holding out her dress, executed a delightful dance of her own. The Professor, throwing away his coat, clapped hto hands, and, shouting for joy, began to dance himself. The young man, taking in the situation, struck up the most frantic dance music. The Professor bounded into the air and did the most wonderful twirls to the highstepping and pirouetting of Madame Searle. ..

Reading such passages, one can forgive the suggestion of rancour which, in some of the more unkindly anecdotes, makes Ruskin appear a

slightly ridiculous figure. But, it has to be remembered that the Severns, dependent as they were on Ruskin’s generosity for their material well-being, were in a difficult situation. Both men were self-opinionated, and there were inevitable frictions. Ruskin was not an easy man to live with, and his relationship to those Uving under his roof, whether guests or servants, was somewhat similar to that of the lord of the manor and his retinue. “What he Uked was absolute obedience, and in return he would pet or flatter. His ideal was a ‘kind feudal system,’ everyone round him willing to help, to obey and to love him.”

In its present incomplete form, the memoir la Inevitably disappointing. Severn has nothing to say, for Instance, about the last 10 years of Ruskin’s life, a period which has been little documented.

Nor has he anything of value to say about Ruskin's relationship with Rose la Touche, although he must have been in a unique position for throwing Ught upon ft.... “Writers and critics always dwell on this friendship, but there was really nothing much in it,” is all he can find to say about a friendship which was to profoundly affect Ruskin’s later years.

However, if Severn was no Boswell, his reminiscences are on the whole good enough to make one wish that he had been industrious enough to complete them.