Dear Keith,
I need to remark on a few of your comments the other night.

First, as regards your view of my involvement with NINES. It was you who pointed out a few years ago that the most glaring omission in my plans was the inclusion of some person to advise the project with regard to editorial theory. I believed that to be sound advice and took it to heart. If the consultation of Jerome McGann and others involved with the NINES project fails to satisfy that requirement, it is hard to see who or what ever would satisfy you. To turn around and complain about McGann as a skirt-chaser, simplifier, and so on, after such an attempt to meet your requirements, is simply perverse and unfair to me and perhaps libelous to McGann. In gay circles--but of course you're not a member of those circles, so I supply this only as a point of interest--we refer to such a person as a bitch.

Second, as regards the form of publication. This is what is open to me. For several years in a row, I have applied for grants to make this scholarship, such as it is, available to Ruskin scholars. The struggle to make this happen has cost me money and a great deal of time and energy. When I apply for major grants, it puts me behind in the three courses I teach on top of editing a journal (which I do without an associate editor or even a managing editor in whose direction I can loftily wave my hand as taking care of those matters with which I don't care to be bothered). I do not, did not, complain of this. But after finally achieving the funding, to be snubbed with the Clarendon diaries is ungentlemanly. The same term is used in gay circles, but there is I believe an even choicer term I will not name here.

Third, to immediately--IMMEDIATELY--interpret my plans as competitive with the Ruskin Programme flies in the face of my record as a scholar, editor, and colleague. I have worked as hard as I can to draw into this project everyone whose interest I could prod and somehow repay--from Louisiana to Lancaster, from the US to Australia--and I have so far repaid others' involvement honorably. As the project begins to take real shape and grow in sophistication, it will become increasingly difficult for me to repay people adequately for the expertise they are supplying. So to suggest that I am in any way attempting an end run around the Ruskin Programme possibly harms these ongoing efforts by dishonoring my intentions and doing an injustice to my record.

I do appreciate the legal efforts you are making on the behalf of all Ruskin scholars against the likes of Jim Dearden's embittered maneuvers. I did expect, however, from the director of the Ruskin Programme some congratulation, perhaps an offer of support in however limited a way, and not all this carping and oneupmanship. No doubt some of this was meant in fun; some of it issued from a desire to make me mindful of the "future of the humanities." I do not guess at motives, and I don't actually believe you to be, at heart, a bitch or the other thing. But you need to be made aware that your behavior came close enough to be taken for the real thing.