Ruskin did not wish to lead a colony or to head a revolution. He had been pondering for fifteen years the cause of poverty and crime, and the conviction had grown upon him that modern commercialism was at the root of it all. But his attacks on commercialism--his analysis of its bad influence on all sections of society--were too vigorous and uncompromising for the newspaper editors who received "Fors," and even for most of his private friends. There were, however, some who saw what he was aiming at: and let it be remarked that his first encouragement came from the highest quarters. Just as Sydney Smith, the chief critic of earlier days, had been the first to praise "Modern Painters," in the teeth of vulgar opinion, so now Carlyle spoke for "Fors." "5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, _April 30th_, 1871. "Dear Ruskin, "This 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter 5th, which I have just finished reading, is incomparable; a quasi-sacred consolation to me, which almost brings tears into my eyes! Every word of it is as if spoken, not out of my poor heart only, but out of the eternal skies; words winged with Empyrean wisdom, piercing as lightning,--and which I really do not remember to have heard the like of. _Continue_, while you have such utterances in you, to give them voice. They will find and force entrance into human hearts, _whatever_ the 'angle of incidence' may be; that is to say, whether, for the degraded and _in_ human Blockheadism we, so-called 'men,' have mostly now become, you come in upon them at the broadside, at the top, or even at the bottom. Euge, Euge!--Yours ever, "T. Carlyle." Others, like Sir Arthur Helps, joined in this encouragement. But the old struggle with the newspapers began over again. They united in considering the whole business insane, though they did not doubt his sincerity when Ruskin put down his own money, the tenth of what he had, as he recommended his adherents to do. By the end of the year he had set aside £7,000 toward establishing a company to be called of "St. George," as representing at once England and agriculture. Sir Thomas Dyke Acland and the Right Hon. W. Cowper-Temple (afterwards Lord Mount Temple), though not pledging themselves to approval of the scheme, undertook the trusteeship of the fund. A few friends subscribed; in June, 1872, after a year and a half of "Fors," the first stranger sent in his contribution, and at the end of three years £236 13s. were collected, to add to his £7,000, and a few acres of land were given.