Brantwood,
3rd Nov. or 4th (?), Friday.
"Dear Wright,
My telegram will, I hope, enable you to act with promptness about the golds, which will be of extreme value to me; and its short saying about the proustites will, I hope, not be construed by you as meaning that I will buy them also. You don't really suppose that you are to be paid interest of money on minerals, merely because they have lain long in your hands.
"If I sold my old arm-chair, which has got the rickets, would you expect the purchaser to pay me forty years' interest on the original price? Your proustite may perhaps be as good as ever it was, but it is not worth more to me or Sheffield because you have had either the enjoyment or the care of it longer than you expected!
"But I am really very seriously obliged by the sight of it, with the others, and perhaps may make an effort to lump some of the new ones with the gold in an estimate of large purchase. I think the gold, by your description, must be a great credit to Sheffield and to me; perhaps I mayn't be able to part with it!
Ever faithfully yours,
J. Ruskin."
Herne Hill, S.E., 6 May '84.