“I paint, take my mother for a drive, dine with friends, or answer these correspondents,” he said, as he pulled out some letters from his pocket, “but one longs to be doing something more satisfying.”
“Most of us feel like that at times,” ventured the devoted pupil.
“Well, what would you like to be doing?” was Ruskin’s reply.
“Something to provide better homes for the poor,” was the girl’s answer.
Ruskin wheeled sharply about in his chair.
“Have you a business plan?” was his challenge.
Then and there Octavia Hill’s life-work was born.
Ruskin told her he had no time to attend to the details of management as landlord, but he said he would buy a tenement house if she would run it for him.
He wanted five per cent. on his investment. He didn’t care for the money, he said, but he thought others would be far more likely to follow the example set if the enterprise were put on a business basis from the start.
“Who will ever hear of what I do?” exclaimed Octavia.