Charity Done Right

This short piece by Charles Moore in the Spectator contains a great quote about money:

He has thought about his own wealth, and he sees it as neither good nor bad in itself: ‘I earn in a week just about the annual median wage. I don’t see this as a disgrace. I see it as an absurdity. The disgrace comes when you see it as your own.’

The "he" in the story is Jonathan Ruffer, a British money manager. The occasion for the story is an act of philanthropy of a very unusual kind:

[Ruffer] is buying the 12 Zurbaran paintings of Jacob and his Brothers at Auckland Castle, the palace of the Bishop of Durham. And when he has bought them from the Church of England, he will give them back, keeping them in the castle, thus bestowing them upon the people of the north-east in perpetuity. The price is £15 million.

Ruffer has never actually seen the pictures he rescued, although he owns a copy of one of them. (By Gainsborough, so it may be worth more than the original.) Giving to the Church of England is not exactly fashionable in Britain these days. Ruffer's explanation of his actions?

[He] says he is useless ‘talking to prostitutes or dealing with needles, but what I am good at is encouraging people. I want to help the helpers,’ such as clergy and charity workers. ‘In a rough society,’ he thinks, ‘the real heroes are those who stay put’ and do not desert the bits of cities where people don’t want to live.

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