{"id":1152,"date":"2019-03-14T08:38:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T08:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2019-03-14T08:38:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T08:38:55","slug":"john-ruskin-the-wildes-and-imaginations-reign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/2019\/03\/14\/john-ruskin-the-wildes-and-imaginations-reign\/","title":{"rendered":"John Ruskin, the Wildes, and Imagination\u2019s Reign"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog, by Rebecca Mitchell, University of Birmingham, draws on new research to reveal a previously undocumented link between John Ruskin and Constance and Oscar Wilde. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Oscar Wilde\u2019s connection with Ruskin is well known but surprisingly under-explored.[1]<\/a> One famous episode from their shared past, a story on which Wilde dined out for decades, was the young man\u2019s participation, while an undergraduate at Oxford, in Ruskin\u2019s Hinksey road effort. But the Slade Professor\u2019s influence was by no means confined to Wilde\u2019s Oxford years, and scholars including John Unrau have called for more attention to be paid to the role that Ruskin played throughout Wilde\u2019s adult life, a role that extended to friendship with Wilde\u2019s wife Constance.[2]<\/a> As Unrau has detailed, in April 1888 Ruskin suggested that Constance present an award on his behalf at the Whitelands Training College. In a letter to the Reverend J. P. Faunthorpe, principal of the college, Ruskin wrote, \u201cI think perhaps Mrs Oscar Wilde might like to do it\u00a0 Oscar has always been a most true friend to me, and she<\/em>, more than I knew.\u201d[3]<\/a> Ruskin\u2019s enduring friendship with Constance was built in part on mutual acquaintances from beyond Oscar\u2019s circle: in February 1895, to give one example, Constance and Georgina Mount-Temple\u2014confidante of Ruskin as well as Constance\u2014hosted a party for Ruskin\u2019s 76th<\/sup> birthday.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Constance
Constance Wilde, c. 1887. Public domain image via Creative Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another instantiation of their friendship has escaped scholarly scrutiny. In the months before his letter to Faunthorpe, Constance apparently saw Ruskin in Sandgate, where he moved in August 1887 and lived through the following spring. The visit is documented by an inscription in Constance Wilde\u2019s visitor\u2019s book, now held in the Eccles Bequest at the British Library.[5]<\/a> In her biography of Constance, Franny Moyle writes that Wilde\u2019s wife, \u201cever the collector, and impressed by fame and success\u2026made sure that she captured the signatures of some of her visitors\u201d in the book.[6]<\/a> It must be noted that in 1888, Constance and Oscar were still a united couple, well on the way to fame and socializing in rarefied literary and artistic circles. Indeed, signatories of the book comprise a who\u2019s who of Oscar\u2019s friends, colleagues, mentors, and idols, including Walter Pater, Robert Browning, George Meredith, James McNeill Whistler, and Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts. Constance\u2019s acquaintances, cultural luminaries, and passers-through also make appearances: George Grossmith, G. F. Watts, John Bright, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mark Twain, Marie Corelli, and Vernon Lee all signed the book, among many others. Even Pablo de Sarasate penned the first few bars of his \u201cZigeunerweisen\u201d above his signature.<\/p>\n

Ruskin\u2019s contribution is comfortably situated among such starry company. It appears a few pages after A. C. Swinburne\u2019s contribution\u2014a holograph copy of \u201cOf such is the kingdom of heaven,\u201d here titled \u201cChildren\u201d\u2014and a page featuring the signatures of William and Jane Morris. [7]<\/a> Morris\u2019s inscription seems wholly representative of his longstanding ethos: \u201cThe secret of happiness | To take pleasure in all the details of Life and not to live vicariously.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Constance
John Ruskin\u2019s entry in Constance Wilde\u2019s Autograph Book, Eccles Bequest. Vol. CXXXVII A; British Library Add MS 81755, p. 22. Used with permission.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Written in a clear hand, and occupying its own page, Ruskin\u2019s entry is in many ways similarly typical:<\/p>\n

It is thought that Imagination reigns in a
\nworld lovelier than we have known.
\nBut no imagination is clear or bright enough
\nto conceive the glory of the world we see,
\nyet know not.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 John Ruskin<\/p>\n

Sandgate 28th<\/sup> Jany
\n<\/sup>\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/sup>1888[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

Ruskin engages (albeit briefly) with the analyses of the imagination that extended throughout his long career.[10]<\/a> An 1849 diary entry captures an early iteration of this theme. Considering the impact of ignorance and knowledge on the imagination\u2014in particular, the impact of his geological knowledge on his ability to experience the sublimity of the Alps\u2014he muses on \u2018two things\u2019 that determine the relationship:\u00a0 \u201cfirstly whether this knowledge, carried out or accompanied by further knowledge of God\u2019s works (astronomy, &c.) would not, in the end, open still nobler fields to the imagination; and secondly, supposing it would not, how much the ignorant Imagination is really worth.\u201d[11]<\/a> Nearly fifty years later, writing in Constance\u2019s book, Ruskin seems still to conclude that imagination alone is insufficient to know the \u201cglory\u201d of the world around us.<\/p>\n

Ruskin\u2019s line might cast into relief Oscar\u2019s own relationship to the imagination, the complexity of which far exceeds the limits of this blogpost. Perhaps the most Ruskin-appropriate touchstone from this period is Wilde\u2019s children\u2019s story \u201cThe Remarkable Rocket\u201d (1888), in which he skewers James McNeill Whistler\u2014represented by an insufferably pompous firework rocket\u2014whose famous altercation with Ruskin over his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold\u2014the Falling Rocket <\/em>was still a familiar memory. The self-deluded rocket insists, \u201cWhy, anybody can have common sense, provided they have no imagination. But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different.\u201d[12]<\/a> For the rocket, complete disregard of fact (namely his arrogance and uselessness) leads to his ruin. Elsewhere in Wilde\u2019s writing, his full-throated embrace of \u201cbeautiful, untrue things,\u201d and his insistence that truth was not necessarily allied to fact, suggest that his notion of the imagination and its role in artistic vision was not the same as Ruskin\u2019s.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

What Constance might have made of Ruskin\u2019s entry is even less clear. Her limited published writing of this period\u2014primarily children\u2019s stories and a few articles for periodicals\u2014does not address imagination; Moyle\u2019s biography has precious little to say about Ruskin. There is an unfortunate tendency of among some of Oscar\u2019s biographers to regard all moments of his life as leading inevitably to his trial and imprisonment, and in this vein, it might be tempting to read Ruskin\u2019s inscription as an ominous foreshadow: Constance would likely have been unable, even with a clear and bright imagination, to conceive of the realities of the devastation awaiting her family just a few years later.\u00a0 But it was clearly the overlooked glories<\/em> of one\u2019s time that concerned Ruskin, not its potential miseries, and his inscription is better understood as an artefact of what was still a promising time in the Wildes\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rebecca N. Mitchell is Reader of Victorian Literature and Culture and Director of the Nineteenth-Century Centre at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on Oscar Wilde, Victorian realism, print culture, and fashion. Her recent books include\u00a0Fashioning the Victorians: A Critical Sourcebook\u00a0<\/em>(Bloomsbury Academic, 2018),\u00a0Drawing on the Victorians: The Palimpsest of Victorian and Neo-Victorian Graphic Texts\u00a0<\/em>(co-edited with Anna Maria Jones, Ohio UP 2017) and\u00a0Oscar Wilde’s Chatterton: Literary History, Romanticism, and the Art of Forgery\u00a0<\/em>(co-authored with Joseph Bristow, Yale UP 2015). She is currently co-editing Wilde\u2019s\u00a0Unpublished, Incomplete, and Miscellaneous Works<\/em>\u00a0for the Oxford English Text edition of the\u00a0Complete Works of Oscar Wilde<\/em>.<\/p>\n

…………………………….<\/strong><\/p>\n

The author wishes to thank Merlin Holland and the British Library for permission to quote from and use the image from Constance Wilde\u2019s autograph book, and to Lucy Evans and Hannah Francis for research assistance.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> e.g. John Unrau, \u201cRuskin and the Wildes: The Whitelands Connection,\u201d Notes and Queries<\/em> 29, no. 4 (1982): 316-317.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Lot \u201c98 Ruskin\u2019s Modern Painters, vol. 2, and other books, Juvenal with plates, &c.\u201d and Lot \u201c102 Five vols. of Ruskin\u2019s Works, blue calf, Ruskin\u2019s Elements of Drawings, and other vols. Ruskin, etc.\u201d Bullock Auction House, Catalogue of the Library of Valuable Books\u2026Wednesday April 24th<\/sup>, 1895, <\/em>reprinted in A. N. L. Munby, Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons,<\/em> vol. 1, Poets and Men of Letter<\/em> (London: Mansell, 1971), p. 381, 382.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Quoted in Unrau, p. 316. Punctuation and italics as in Unrau. At the time of the article\u2019s writing, the then-unpublished letter was held in the Wellesley College Library.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Franny Moyle, Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde<\/em> (London: John Murray, 2011), p. 253. Later that month, Oscar received the accusatory calling card from the Marquess of Queensbury that ultimately led to Wilde\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Unrau mentions the autograph book (p. 317), citing Hesketh Pearson\u2019s biography of Wilde (Life of Oscar Wilde<\/em> [London: Metheun, 1952] p. 262). Ian Small also records its existence in Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials & Methods of Research<\/em> (ELH Press, 1993), p. 110.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Moyle, Constance<\/em>, p. 126-127.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Swinburne\u2019s poem first appeared in Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems<\/em> (London: Chatto & Windus, 1882) as poem XXII of \u201cA Dark Month\u201d, p. 341. It appears as \u201cChildren\u201d in the 1887 collection Select Poems <\/em>(London: Chatto & Windus), p. 97. Though undated, context suggests the page was written in April 1887, when Wilde\u2019s sons Cyril and Vyvyan would have been nearly two and six months old, respectively. \u00a0Constance Wilde, Autograph book, Eccles Bequest. Vol. CXXXVII A; British Library Add MS 81755, p. 16. Used with permission.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Jane offered lines from FitzGerald\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t: \u201cMy tomb shall be in a spot where the | north wind may scatter roses over it.\u201d The entry is dated 23 March, 1888. C. Wilde, Autograph book, p. 23.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> C. Wilde, Autograph book, p. 22. As far as I know, the lines are published here for the first time.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> W. G. Collingwood, The Life of John Ruskin<\/em> (London: Methuen, 1893), vol. II, p. 316. Neither Collingwood\u2019s nor John Dixon Hunt\u2019s biography of Ruskin mentions a visit from Constance at or around this time. Oscar Wilde\u2019s published correspondence from the period shows him based in their family home on Tite Street in London, but letters from January 1888 are sparse and there certainly could have been time for travel. Constance\u2019s biographers also do not detail a visit around this time, though there are records that the couple did respond to Ruskin\u2019s invitations in March of the same year. Again, Unrau is the lonely source who recounts the episode.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> The Diaries of John Ruskin 1848-1873<\/em>, Joan Evans and John Howard Whitehouse, eds., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958) p. 416.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Oscar Wilde, \u201cThe Remarkable Rocket,\u201d in The Happy Prince and Other Tales<\/em> (London: David Nutt, 1888), p. 100.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Oscar Wilde, \u201cThe Decay of Lying\u201d Nineteenth Century <\/em>25 (January 1889), p. 55-56.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog, by Rebecca Mitchell, University of Birmingham, draws on new research to reveal a previously undocumented link between John Ruskin and Constance and Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde\u2019s connection with Ruskin is well known but surprisingly under-explored.[1] One famous episode from their shared past, a story on which Wilde dined out for decades, was the … Continue reading John Ruskin, the Wildes, and Imagination\u2019s Reign<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9OdOv-iA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1089"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/the-ruskin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}