Like a great orator he was swayed by the passion of
convincing his audience, and the very extravagance of his language and
the ardor of his nature served to make a profound impression upon
readers who are not usually affected by such appeals as his.
Ruskin was one of the most impractical men that ever lived, but in the
exuberance of his nature and in his rare unselfishness he started a
dozen social reforms in England, any one of which should have given
fame to its founder. He gave away a great fortune in gifts to the
public and in private generosity. He founded museums, established
scholarships, tried to put into practical working order his dream of a
New Life founded on the union of manual labor and high intellectual
aims, labored to induce the public to read the good old books that
help one to make life worth living.
[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON JULY 20,
1882, BY MESSRS. ELLIOTT & FRY]
That much of his good work was neutralized by his lack of common sense
detracts nothing from the world's debt to Ruskin. The simple truth is
that he was a reformer as well as a great writer, and the very fervor
of his religious and social beliefs, his contempt of mere money
getting, his hatred of falsehood, his boundless generosity and his
childlike simplicity of mind--all these traits at which the world
laughed lifted Ruskin above the other men of genius of his time and
placed him among the world's great reformers.
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