The great Englishman is also too clear-sighted to accept the fallacious doctrines of the money-changers in regard to the medium of exchange. He is too honest to hold his peace in the presence of a great wrong, hence his definition of money is far more nearly correct than the false and essentially injurious definitions so industriously promulgated by special pleaders for an interested class. “The final and best definition of money,” says Ruskin, “is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or find a certain quantity of labor on demand.”
In 1873 our author carried on a spirited discussion with some conventional economists regarding the money of the rich. One writer undertook to defend the lavish and reckless expenditures of the wealthy by calling to his aid the well-worn plea that money thus paid out finds its way into the pockets of poor families, and that thus through the bounty of the rich the starving are blest. Ruskin, in the course of his reply, observed that, were he a poor man instead of a moderately rich one, he would be sure that the paper referred to would suggest the question:
These means of living, which this generous and useful gentleman is so fortunately disposed to bestow on me—where does he get them himself?… These are the facts. The laborious poor produce “the means of life” by their labor. Rich persons possess themselves by various expedients of a right to dispense these means of life, and, keeping as much means as they want for themselves, and rather more, dispense the rest usually only in return for more labor from the poor, expended in producing various delights for the rich dispenser. The idea is now gradually entering poor men’s minds, that they may as well keep in their own hands the right of distributing “the means of life” they produce; and employ themselves, so far as they need extra occupation, for their own entertainment or benefit, rather than that of other people.
The conventional economist replied to the question relating to how the rich man got his wealth by stating that it was obtained by the possessor or his ancestors through a “mutually beneficent partnership” between the rich and the poor by which the poor had their share of the joint returns advanced to them. Mr. Ruskin in his reply stated the question again, and then proceeded to answer it by a telling personal illustration. He says:
“Where does the rich man get his means of living?” I don’t myself see how a more straightforward question could be put! so straightforward, indeed, that I particularly dislike making a martyr of myself in answering it, as I must this blessed day—a martyr, at least, in the way of witness; for if we rich people don’t begin to speak honestly with our tongues, we shall, some day soon, lose them and our heads together, having for sometime back, most of us, made false use of the one and none of the other. Well, for the point in question, then, as to means of living: the most exemplary manner of answer is simply to state how I got my own, or rather how my father got them for me. He and his partners entered into what your correspondent mellifluously styles “a mutually beneficent partnership” with certain laborers in Spain. These laborers produced from the earth annually a certain number of bottles of wine. These productions were sold by my father and his partners, who kept nine-tenths, or thereabouts, of the price themselves, and gave one-tenth, or thereabouts, to the laborers. In which state of mutual beneficence my father and his partners naturally became rich, and the laborers as naturally remained poor. Then my good father gave all his money to me.
Space forbids a more extended notice of Mr. Ruskin’s broad and thoughtful views on economic problems, but before closing this paper, I wish to notice how the life of this great philanthropist has touched and brightened other lives. Many men think noble thoughts and at times are stirred by the loftiest aspirations, but in actual everyday life they sadly fail to live up to their teachings; but he who can and does master himself, he who gives his life for justice and thinks of the welfare of others before he considers himself, has reached a far higher summit than have the most gifted intellects who, while apprehending the beauty of goodness, fail to express that beauty in their daily lives. John Ruskin’s life has been at once earnest, pure, 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 here we find the chief reason why the finest natures suffer so keenly in this age of heartless greed, self-absorption, and gold madness, of wanton extravagance and biting poverty, of widespread misery and growing discontent. Sensitive natures who are spiritually alive to the misery around them must suffer while they sow the seed-thoughts of a new day—suffer uncomplainingly until the waiting-time of this great transition period has passed.