I am a little ashamed of my accounts this time, having bought a missal
worth £320 for myself, and only given one worth £50 to Sheffield. I
might state several reasons, more or less excusing this selfishness;
one being that the £50 Bible is entirely perfect in every leaf, but
mine wants the first leaf of Genesis; and is not, therefore, with all
its beauty, fit for the first volume of the library. But it is one of
my present principles of action not at all to set myself up for a
reformer, and it must be always one not to set up for a saint; and I
must beg my severely judging readers, in the meantime, rather to look
at what I have done, than at what I have left undone, of the things I
ask others to do. To the St. George’s Fund I have given a tenth of my
living,—and much more than the tenth of the rest was before, and is
still, given to the poor. And if any of the rich people whom we all
know will do as much as this, I believe you may safely trust them to
discern and do what is right with the portion they keep, (if kept
openly, and not Ananias-fashion,) and if you press them farther, the
want of grace is more likely on your part than theirs. I have never,
myself, felt so much contempt for any living creature as for a
miserable Scotch woman—curiously enough of Burns’ country, and of the
Holy Willy breed,—whom I once by mischance allowed to come and stay in
my house; and who, asking, when I had stated some general truths of the
above nature, “why I kept my own pictures;” and being answered that I
kept them partly as a national property, in my charge, and partly as my
tools of work,—said “she liked to see how people reasoned when their
own interests were touched;”—the wretch herself evidently never in all
her days having had one generous thought which could not have been
smothered if it had touched ‘her own interest,’ and being therefore
totally unable to conceive any such thought in others.
Farther, as to the price I ask for my books, and my continuing to take
rent for my house property, and interest from the Bank, I must request
my readers still for a time to withhold their judgment;—though I
willingly insert the following remonstrance addressed to my publisher
on the subject by an American Quaker gentleman, whose benevolent
satisfaction in sending Mr. Sillar’s three shillings to St. George’s
Fund, has induced him farther to take this personal interest in the
full carrying out of all my principles.
33, Oak Street, Rochester, N.Y., U.S.A.,
11th mo. 4th, 1875.
George Allen.
Respected Friend,—I have paid to the Post Office here, to be paid to
thee in London, the equivalent of three shillings, which I have been
requested to forward to thee for the St. George’s Fund, in payment for
W. C. Sillar’s pamphlets on Usury.
Thy friend,
Edward Rushmore.
P.S.—I am a constant reader of Fors Clavigera, and was by it put in the
way to obtain W. C. Sillar’s pamphlets. I have abandoned the practice
of usury, and take pleasure in the thought that the payment for the
pamphlets, though trifling, goes to St. George’s Fund. I sincerely wish
Mr. Ruskin could feel it his duty to act promptly in withdrawing his
money from usury. I think it would increase tenfold the force of his
teaching on the subject. Please show this to him, if convenient.—E.
Rushmore.
I am partly, indeed, of my correspondent’s way of thinking in this
matter; but I must not allow myself to be dazzled by his munificence
into an undue respect for his opinion; and I beg to assure him, and one
or two other religious gentlemen who have had the goodness to concern
themselves about my inconsistency, that the change in my mode of life
which they wish me to carry out, while it would cause no inconvenience
to me, seeing that I have before now lived in perfect comfort, and
could now live in what is much more to me than comfort—peace—on a
couple of guineas a week; plaguing myself no more either with
authorship or philanthropy, and asking only so much charity from the
Bursar of Corpus as to take charge for me of the sum of £2,000
sterling, and dole me out my guineas from that dead capital
monthly,—the surplus, less burial expenses, to be spent in MSS. for
Corpus library at my death;—while, I say, this would be an entirely
satisfactory arrangement, and serenely joyful release from care, to
myself, it would be an exceedingly inconvenient arrangement to a number
of persons who are at present dependent on me for daily bread, and who,
not sharing my views about Interest, would have no consolation in their
martyrdom. For which, and sundry valid reasons besides, I once for all
assure my conscientious correspondents that the time is not yet come
for me to do more than I have done already, and that I shall receive
without cavilling, or asking for more, the tenth part of their own
fortunes for St. George, with extreme pleasure.