Fortunes Refused.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 6 November 1914, Page 2

Fortunes Refused.

It is said tliat when it became known that the letters of the great It isd leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, w"ere to be published, otters to purchase them were received from all over the world, and that one great newspaper proprietor in the United States sent Mrs. Parnell an open cheque, upon which she might inscribe her own price. The offer was refused. Robert Browning constantly refused "to write for the magazines and reviews. He only departed from his self-denying ordinance on one occasion, and that was in aid of charity. In his Inter days, when' Browning societies were springing up all over Britain and America, fabulous prices were offered to him even for a. short poem. He put all thi-so tempting offers aside, and "stuck to his text >; to his dying day. Hut this determination to refuse money when it is offered is evidently not the attribute of the well-to-do only, for a labourer in Pennsylvania has just refused two fortunes amounting to £.20,000. which actually await him in Wales. It seems that when Mr. Enoch E. T. Evans was a boy his father refused to allow him to learn dancing, and generally brought him up | very strictly. When he was able to shift for himself he left home, that he might kick a free leg, and, cutting himself off from his Welsh relations, has become an American citizen and arrived at. the age of ! fifty-two. Nevertheless, Mr. Evans is the only heir to £10,000 left by his father and a similar amount left by an uncle. He declines to touch the money, saying that he can leave it in Wales for his children when they are grown up and he is dead. He is determined to support himself and his seven children on his earnings as a common laborer. He says, "If I have lived all these years without the money, I can get along the rest of my days without i it." That great painter, George Frederick Watts, made up his mind pretty early in his career as a painter to paint his best pictures for love only, and at his death to bequeath them to the nation. It is more than probable that if the pictures 'by that distinguished artist which are hung in the Tate Gallery were to be put up to auction at Christie's they would fetch at least .£150,000, and it is not improbable that they would fetch more. Even when they were first painted picture collectors besieged the famous artist, entreating him to part with his splendid canvases. He was adamant, however. He m.ido his living by painting portraits, but his imaginative pictures he would not part with at any price.

The immortal Turner was just as bad. Wealthy men besieged him with cheques which lie would not take, and his studio was littered with hundreds of paintings and water-colour sketches, all of which he mighty have sold fifty times over had he so desired. It is said of him that he appeared on a cold, miserable morning in an inn yard when the coach was about to start in which two of his friends were to travel. They were amazed and gratified to see him. although their pleasure was somewhat spoiled when they found that he had come to demand the repayment of twopence which he had lent one of them the week before. Yet he refused at least £200,000 in his lifetime, left £1/10,000 to provide a fund for the support of poor artists, and his matchless pictures to the National Gallery !—"Tit Bits."