This does not sound like the Ruskin who was tolerant and agreeable in conversation, who simply wrote, and did not say, his bitter things. It is almost impossible to fancy any man, diffident as a young girl, or bumptious as a freshman, who would quarrel with Emerson on any subject and refuse to be reconciled.
Ruskin's rooms at Corpus, occupied by the Dean in the summer of 1899, were "No. Two Fellow's Building. One Pair, Left." They are opposite the rooms of the Bursar. And they have a quiet, restful tone to them, with an outlook on to green fields. Curiously enough there were at least two men in the College who knew where they were! Ruskin was Slade Professor of Arts from 1869 to 1879; and again from 1883 to 1885.
In a printed letter Dean Liddell thus described Ruskin when he became Slade Professor: "He is a very strange fellow, always dressing in a great-coat with a brown velvet collar, and a large neck-cloth tied over his mouth, and living quite in his own way among the old set of hunting and sporting men that Gentlemen Commoners usually are. ... I am glad to say they do not bully him, as I should have been afraid they would."
Ruskin's influence over the undergraduates must have been extraordinary, if, as Max Miiller said, he could persuade the men to take up spade
