Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time.”
- Date
- 1867
Meaning of “the crippling of my temper, and waste of…”
Ruskin distinguishes financial cost from the cost imposed on temperament and finite time, recognizing that obligations can consume attention and working capacity as well as money.
Where does it come from?
Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, Letter XIX, “Broken Reeds,” paragraph 117, printed page 77 in Project Gutenberg #31196. Ruskin distinguishes the financial cost of repeated charitable appeals from “the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time,” then explains his own limits and distress. The retained fragment remains autobiographical Victorian social-reform context rather than general advice against helping others or modern mental-health guidance.
