they were young? have they never more when they are old? Certainly some shells have periodical passion of progress, and variously decorative stops and rests; but these little white continuities, down to this woeful time of their Christmas emptiness, seem to have deduced their spiral caves in peace.1 But it's of no use to waste time in "thinking." I shall go and ask some pupil of my dear old friend Dr. Gray at the British Museum,2 and rejoice myself with a glance at the volutes of the Erectheium-fair home of Athenian thought. 1 [See Letter 63, §§ 17 seq. (pp. 551-555).] 2 [Dr. Gray himself had recently died: see Letter 52, § 19 (above, p. 308 n.).] 3 [See Vol. XVIII. p. 317.] NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 17. (I.) I AM surprised to find that my Index to Vols. I. and II. of Fors does not contain the important article "Pockets"; and that I cannot therefore, without too much trouble, refer to the place where I have said that the Companions of St. George are all to have glass pockets;1 so that the absolute contents of them may be known of all men. But, indeed, this society of ours is, I believe, to be distinguished from other close brotherhoods that have been, or that are, chiefly in this, that it will have no secrets, and that its position, designs, successes, and failures, may at any moment be known to whomsoever they may concern. More especially the affairs of the Master and of the Marshals, 2 when we become magnificent enough to have any, must be clearly known, seeing that these are to be the managers of public revenue. For although, as we shall in future see, they will be held more qualified for such high position by contentment in poverty than responsibility of wealth; and, if the society is wise, be chosen always from among men of advanced age, whose previous lives have been recognized as utterly without stain of dishonesty in management of their private business, the complete publication of their accounts, private as well as public, from the day they enter on the management of the Company's funds, will be a most wholesome check on the glosses with which self-interest, in the minds even of the honestest people, sometimes may colour or confuse their actions over property on a large scale; besides being examples to the accountants of other public institutions. 18. For instance, I am myself a Fellow of the Horticultural Society; and, glancing the other day at its revenue accounts for 1874, observed that out of an expenditure of eleven thousand odd pounds, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-two went to pay interest on debts, eleven hundred and ninety to its "salaries "-two hundred to its botanical adviser, a hundred and fifty to its botanical professor, a hundred and twenty-six to its fruit committee, a hundred and twenty to its floral committee, four hundred and twenty to its band, nine hundred and ten to its rates and taxes, a hundred and eighty-five to its lawyers, four hundred and thirty-nine to its printers, and three pounds fifteen shillings to its foreign "importations" account (being interest on Cooper's loan): whereupon I wrote to the secretary expressing some dissatisfaction with the proportion borne by this last item to the others, and asking for some further particulars respecting the "salaries"; but was informed that none could be had. Whereas, whether wisely or foolishly directed, the expenditure of the St. George's Company will be always open, in all particulars, to the criticism not only of the Companions, but of the outside public. And Fors has so arranged matters that I cannot at all, for my own part, invite such criticism to-day with feelings of gratified vanity; my own immediate position (as I generally stated in last letter1) being not in the least creditable to my sagacity, nor likely to induce a large measure of public confidence in me as the Company's Master. Nor are even the affairs of the Company itself, in my estimate, very brilliant, our collected subscriptions for the reform of the world amounting, as will be seen, in five years, only to some seven hundred and odd pounds. However, the Company and its Master may perhaps yet see better days. 19. First, then, for the account of my proceedings in the Company's affairs. Our eight thousand Consols giving us £240 a year, I have appointed a Curator to the Sheffield Museum, namely, Mr. Henry Swan, an old pupil of mine in the Working Men's College in London; and known to me since as an estimable and trustworthy person, with a salary of forty pounds a year, and residence. He is obliged at present to live in the lower rooms of the little house which is to be the nucleus of the museum:-as soon as we can afford it, a curator's house must be built outside of it.2 I have advanced, as aforesaid, a hundred pounds of purchase-money,3 and fifty for current expenses; and paid, besides, the lawyers' bills for the transfer, amounting to £48, 16s. 7d.; these, with some needful comments on them, will be published in next Fors; I have not room for them in this.4 I have been advised of several mistakes in my subscribers' list, so I reprint it below, with the initials attached to the numbers, and the entire sum (as far as I can find out) hitherto subscribed by each; and I beg of my subscribers at once to correct me in all errors. The names marked with stars are those of Companions. The numbers 10, 17, 36, 43, and 48 I find have been inaccurately initialled, and are left blank for correction. 1 [See Letter 61, § 3 (above, p. 485).] 2 [For particulars of Mr. Swan and the Walkley Museum, see Vol. XXX.] 3 See Letter 60, § 7 (p. 468).] [Not in the next Fors, but in Letter 64, § 22 (p. 579).] XXVIII. 2 L 20. (II.) Affairs of the Master. When I instituted the Company by giving the tenth of my available property to it, I had, roughly, seventy thousand pounds in money or land, and thirty thousand † in pictures and books. The pictures and books I do not consider mine, but merely in my present keeping, for the country, or the persons I may leave them to. Of the seventy thousand in substance, I gave away fourteen thousand in that year of the Company's establishment (see above, Letter 49, § 2), and have since lost fifteen thousand by a relation whom I tried to support in business. As also, during my battle with the booksellers, I have been hitherto losing considerably by my books (last year, for instance, paying three hundred and ninety-eight pounds to + An under-estimate, at present prices for Turner drawings, and I have hitherto insured for full thirty thousand, but am now going to lower the insurance, for no money would replace the loss of them, and I less and less regard them as exchangeable property. 1 [For a subsequent correction in the amount of D. A.'s subscriptions, see below, p. 557.] [Here, again, see below, ibid.] 3 [Compare above, p. 486; and Letter 76, § 18 (Vol. XXIX. p. 101).] my assistant, Mr. Burgess, alone, for plates and woodcutting, and making a profit, on the whole year's sales, of fifty pounds), and have been living much beyond my income besides, my seventy thousand is reduced to certainly not more than thirty; and it is very clear that I am too enthusiastically carrying out my own principles, and making more haste to be poor than is prudent, at my present date of possible life, for, at my current rate of expenditure, the cell at Assisi, above contemplated as advisably a pious mortification of my luxury, would soon become a necessary refuge for my "holy poverty." The battle with the booksellers, however, is now nearly won; and the publishing accounts will soon show better balance; what changes in my mode of living may, nevertheless, be soon either exemplary or necessary will be better understood after I have given account of it for a year. Here are my opening expenses, then, from 1st January to 20th, and in each following Fors 2 they will be given from 20th to 20th of the month. I content myself, being pressed for space in this number, with giving merely the sums of cheques drawn; somewhat lengthy gossiping explanation of items being also needed, which will come in due place. The four first large sums are, of course, payments of Christmas accounts. Balance in Bank, 1st Jan. 1876 Paid by cheque : Jan. 1. Jackson (outdoor Steward, Brantwood) 1. Kate Smith (indoor Stewardess, Brantwood) 1. David Fudge (Coachman in London) 4. Frederick Crawley, in charge of school-rooms at Oxford 1 [See Letter 61, § 2 (p. 485).] 27 10 0 190 0 110 0 0 10 0 0 3 10 0 2 [Letter 74 is the last with any details of expenditure; in Letter 75 Ruskin explains that he had decided to discontinue the accounts, but there is a general statement at the end of Letter 76: see Vol. XXIX. pp. 50, 74-75, 99-104.] 3 [This was a posting carriage built for the driving tour described by Mr. Arthur Severn: see Vol. XXIV. p. xxvii.] ["Margaret's Well" see Vol. XXII. p. xxiv.] 5 [The landlady of the "Crown and Thistle."For Ruskin's interest in the poor of Abingdon, see Vol. XX. p. xl.; and below, p. 661.] [This copy-of the picture which is the subject of Lesson Photograph, No. 1— is in the Sheffield Museum: see Vol. XXX.] |