ure,
and unselfish.

Of the unexampled manner in which he gave up his beautiful wife to his
friend--how he quietly secured a divorce that she might become the
wife of the man she loved--electing to pass the rest of his life alone
rather than destroy her happiness,--these facts are well known, and
Mr. Ruskin has been severely criticised for not holding his wife in
unwilling bondage. But he was so constituted that it was impossible
for him to endure the thought of being directly or indirectly the
cause of another's misery.

Another striking illustration of his unselfishness is seen in the
manner in which he has disposed of his fortune, which at the time of
his father's death amounted to a million dollars. With this money he
set about doing good. Poor young men and women who were struggling to
obtain an education were helped, homes for working men and women were
established, and model apartment-houses were erected. He also promoted
a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This land was used
for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again from the state
into which they had fallen through cruel social conditions and their
own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General Booth
his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in aiding
poor artists, and has done much to encourage the artistic taste among
the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings
by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in public schools of London.

By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides
all the income from his books. But the calls of the poor and the plans
which he wished to put into operation looking toward education and
ennobling the toilers, and giving to their gloomy lives something more
of sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all
the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him
fifteen hundred dollars a year on which to live.

Of all English writers of our century no one has left a more valuable
literary legacy than has John Ruskin, but the splendid and voluminous
works of his brain are even less priceless than the example of his
wonderful life. That he is in the shadow in his old age is by no means
strange; a nature so sensitive, so finely strung, so keenly alive to
the sufferings of others on every hand, has necessarily felt what the
well-kept and self-engrossed animals around him knew nothing of.
Indeed, just he