Staring into the Soundless Dark: On the Trouble Lurking in Poets’ Bedrooms (themillions.com)

> An animal-lover and vegetarian, Byron also kept a pet bear, Bruin, while a student at Cambridge, and according to some accounts the bear lived with him in his lodgings, a sentry while he slept.

uh, ok, heck, I'd like to know the line of reasoning that led to that idea and its subsequent execution

Byron said that nobody in Venice fought duels over women, at least not with their husbands. I am interested to learn that he was a vegetarian.

As for Ruskin, he had been a medical student, so shock over pubic hair seems unlikely.