Supporting Documents

SD1889.  John Ruskin to Ellen Heaton

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 265 (in part).

[London]

[late November 1855]

Dear Miss Heaton

Your note about Bolton woods comes curiously to my purpose. I was going to write to you to get …

It is so odd—(my correction of press is cutting out all my so s—so I send them you—)—that we all should like that poem of the Arab physician best.

—Fancy my indorsing the Athenaeum! Every word in that Athenaeum critique I agree with—for I am very stupid in making things out in poetry; and that Men & Women is to me simply a set of 50 Conundrums, of the most amazing & tormenting kind. …

Text: Sublime & Instructive: Letters from John Ruskin, ed. Virginia Surtees (London, 1972), pp. 177–178.

___________________

National Endowment for the Humanities - Logo

Editorial work on The Brownings’ Correspondence is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This website was last updated on 7-25-2026.

Copyright © 2026 Wedgestone Press. All rights reserved.

Back To Top