Mr. Ruskin demands whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. “Luxury is indeed possible in the future—innocent and exquisite; luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold.”
Gibbon records to the honour of at least one Pontiff’s temporal government of Rome, that he—Gregory the Great—relieved by the bounty of each day, and of every hour, the instant distress of the sick and needy—his treasurers being continually summoned to satisfy, in his name, the requirements of indigence and merit. “Nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to some objects deserving of his compassion.” A non possumus this, in its beneficent nisi prius scope, more appreciable by Protestants at least than that of some other Holy Fathers. A sovran’s interest in the sufferings of his or her subjects is always of exceptional interest in the eyes of fellow-subjects. Leigh Hunt knew this, when he pictured, in her early happy wifehood, our Sovran Lady the Queen of these realms,
“Too generous-happy to endure
The thought of all the woful poor
Who that same night lay down their heads
In mockeries of starving beds,
In cold, in wet, disease, despair,
In madness that will say no prayer;
With wailing infants some; and some
By whom the little clay lies dumb;