such books can be found written by any other
man, search they never so widely. He has always been a wrong-headed
man, entirely out of accord with the world around him, and consequently
almost sure to be on the wrong side of every practical political
question. He and Carlyle had much in common in all this, and it would
have been a rich treat to have heard Ruskin proclaiming his political
creed, "I am a King's man, and no mob's man;" and to have heard Carlyle
answer with denunciations of his millions of fellow-countrymen, "mostly
fools."

Ruskin lives in one of the most beautiful of London suburbs,--on Denmark
Hill, at the south side of the river, near Dulwich and the exquisite
Sydenham slopes, where the Crystal Palace stands. His home is beautiful,
filled with wonderful art treasures and numberless books, with many rare
and costly editions. He has lectured much at Oxford; and of late years
his lectures have been so crowded that tickets had to be procured to
attend them. This, when the lectures of the most learned professors of
the university are often given to a beggarly array of empty boxes.

He has given away during his lifetime the greater part of his large
fortune,--not always wisely, but always in a manner characteristic of
the man. He has acted upon the belief that it is wrong to take interest
in excess of the principal, and has made the property over to his
debtors whenever he has had interest to this extent. He gave seventeen
thousand pounds to his poor relations as soon as he came into his
fortune; and fifteen thousand pounds more to a cousin, tossing it to him
as one would a sugar-plum; fourteen thousand pounds to Sheffield and
Oxford; and numberless other gifts to different charities, mostly of an
eccentric nature. He retained for himself three hundred and sixty pounds
a year, upon which he says "a bachelor gentleman ought to live, or if he
cannot, deserves speedily to die." Of course such a royal giver has been
besieged during his whole life by an innumerable company of beggars for
every conceivable object; but he has always chosen to select for himself
his beneficiaries, and has often sent sharp answers to appeals; like
the following to the secretary of a Protestant Blind Pension Society:
"To my mind, the prefix of 'Protestant' to your society's name indicates
far stonier blindness than any it will relieve." And in reply to a
letter asking aid in paying off a church debt he replies:--

"I am sorrowful