To carry out his principles practically, Ruskin established for a short time a tea shop in the Marylebone Road, where nothing but the best tea was sold at a fair price, and he founded the St George's Guild with a view of showing "the rational organisation of country life independent of that of cities;" or in other words, the restoration of the peasantry to the soil of England. One of the conditions of membership was that every member should give one-tenth of his property to the guild for carrying out its work. Ruskin led the way, his property being then estimated at £70,000. He has told us in "Fors" that out of the £157,000 left him by his parents he has spent £153,000. Much of this must have gone to the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield. It is, however, in following Carlyle as a bracing, invigorating influence that Ruskin has most claim on the gratitude of the present generation. If Carlyle taught us to be content with this "miserable actual," with such environment as may have fallen to our lot, his disciple has given the impulse which has led to the beautifying of that environment. The more refined taste in dress, furniture, and in dwelling-houses which has characterized the later Victorian era, and, side by side therewith, a greater simplicity of life on the part of the more cultured rich, are in an especial degree due to the influence of Ruskin. "What is chiefly needed in England at the present day," he says, "is to show the quantity of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek--not greater wealth, but simpler pleasures; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace." In the "Crown of Wild Olive," "Time and Tide," and "Sesame and Lilies," he emphasizes this teaching with his customary eloquence. Of these books, by far the most important is "Sesame and Lilies," which was written, he says, "while my energies were still unbroken and my temper unfretted, and if read in connection with 'Unto this Last,' contains the chief truths I have endeavoured through all my life to display, and which, under the warnings I have received to prepare for its close, I am chiefly thankful to have learnt and taught." It treats of "the majesty of the influence of good books and of good women, if we know how to read them and how to honour." How to read books he shows by analyzing the well-known passage from Milton's "Lycidas" on "The Pilot of the Galilean Lake," and explaining the deep meaning of its every word. How to honour women, how women may become worthy of honour, he shows by taking us to Shakspere and to Scott, whose Portias and Rosalinds, Catherine Seytons and Diana