RUSKIN, John (1819-1900). Critic and reformer /repositories/5/archival_objects/889799 1 box 1878 October 4 Fine autograph letter signed, to 'My dear Mary' (presumably Mary Gladstone): 'I will come when you bid and do as you bid, and for me it is certainly better that I should be at your command and at those childrens' [sic]. For what good they can find in me, than that I should be led into the track of my own special work & thought by my friend's overwhelming strength at present - besides that, much as we love each other, there are points of essential difference in feeling between us, which I sometimes hurt Mr. Jones by showing'. He further refers to an apparent death: 'I never heard anything so instantly terrible - except in the grief of war - but yet how infinitely in the full sense of the word - better to suffer such grief, than - as son many times it chances in this terrible age - never to have loved enough to be capable of it'. Brantwood, Coniston /repositories/5/archival_objects/889989 1 box 1878 October 4 2