If he had forsaken all and followed the vocation of St. Francis,—­he has discussed the question candidly in “Fors” for May, 1874—­would not his work have been more effectual, his example more inspiring?  Conceivably:  but that was not his mission.  His gospel was not one of asceticism; it called upon no one for any sort of suicide, or even martyrdom.  He required of his followers that they should live their lives to the full in “Admiration, Hope and Love”:  and not that they should sacrifice themselves in fasting and wearing of camels’-hair coats.  He wished them to work, to be honest, and just, in all things immediately attainable.  He asked the tenth of their living—­not the widow’s two mites; and it was deeply painful to him to find, sometimes, that they had so interpreted his teaching:  as when he wrote, later, to Miss Beever: 

“One of my poor ‘Companions of St. George’ who has sent me, not a widow’s but a parlour-maid’s (an old schoolmistress) ’all her living,’ and whom I found last night, dying, slowly and quietly, in a damp room, just the size of your study (which her landlord won’t mend the roof of), by the light of a single tallow candle,—­dying, I say, slowly of consumption, not yet near the end, but contemplating it with sorrow, mixed partly with fear lest she should not have done all she could for her children!  The sight of this and my own shameful comforts, three wax candles and blazing fire and dry roof, and Susie and Joanie for friends!  Oh me, Susie, what is to become of me in the next world, who have in this life all my good things!”

After carrying on “Fors” for some time his attention was drawn by Mr. W.C.  Sillar to the question of “Usury.”  At first he had seen no crying sin in Interest.  He had held that the “rights of capital” were visionary, and that the tools should belong to him that can handle them, in a perfect state of society; but he thought that the existing system was no worse in this respect than in others, and his expectation of reform in the plan of investment went hand-in-hand with his hope of a good time coming in everything else.  So he quietly accepted his rents, as he accepted his Professorship, for example, thinking it his business to be a good landlord and spend his money generously, just as he thought it his business to retain the existing South Kensington drawing school, and the Oxford system of education—­not at all his ideal—­and to make the best use of them.

A lady who was his pupil in drawing, and a believer in his ideals of philanthropy, Miss Octavia Hill, undertook to help him in 1864 in efforts to reclaim part—­though a very small part—­of the lower-class dwellings of London.  Half a dozen houses in Marylebone left by Ruskin’s father, to which he added three more in Paradise Place, as it was euphemistically named, were the subjects of their experiment.  They were ridiculed at first; but by the noblest endeavour they succeeded, and set an example which has been followed in many of our towns with great results.  They showed what a wise and kind landlord could do by caring for tenants, by giving them habitable dwellings, recreation ground and fixity of tenure, and requiring in return a reasonable and moderate rent.  He got five per cent. for his capital, instead of twelve or more, which such property generally returns, or at that time returned.