The Works of John Ruskin Volume 32 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ... she seems from the people who make a business of gaiety I think sometimes they end by losing it altogether. But I can never understand why the very happy people, and those who give thanks all the time, are usually the ones that we should think the least fortunate. Did I ever tell you about Persiede? (I suppose she must have been christened Prassede, but Persiede is what she calls herself, and what everybody else calls her.) Her husband was a street-sweeper, and he was a very good man, who used to rise early, in the dark, on winter mornings, to go to church before he went to work. One very cold winter he fell ill, through exposure to the cold, and after two months he died. Persiede hurt herself by overwork in his illness, and has been herself an invalid ever since. She is old now, and feeble, and very poor, and can work little; but a kind-hearted contadino, whom she used to work for when she was strong, lets her come to him, and pack fruit for the market, and gather vine-leaves to cover it, and do such other easy work as she is still capable of, that she may not feel herself an absolute beggar. You would not call Persiede a fortunate person, would you? One day a lady gave me a dress of the noslrale flannel, woven at Prato, telling me to give it to some poor woman. Persiede came to see me about that time, thinly clad and looking half frozen, so I gave the dress to her. I remember that she thanked me in a lost, amazed sort of way, and slipped out of the room very quickly. I was alone at the time; but a little later, Edwige, coming up to my room, found poor old Persiede in a corner, on the stairs, crying in such a way as quite frightened her to see She stopped to ask what was the matter; and, indeed, one might have thought that the poor woman had enough to c...