Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO

DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

Octavia Hill.
From a photograph enlarged by an American artist.

LIFE OF
OCTAVIA HILL
AS TOLD IN HER LETTERS

EDITED BY

C. EDMUND MAURICE

“The Holy Supper is kept indeed

In what so we share with another’s need.

Not what we give, but what we share;

For the gift without the giver is bare.”

Vision of Sir Launfal.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1913

Copyright

PREFACE

It was but a short time before the death of Miss Octavia Hill that one of her sisters succeeded, with much difficulty, in convincing her that some account of her life would be necessary to satisfy the public demand.

On realising this fact, she expressed a strong wish that the family should keep the details of such a memoir in their own hands; and she afterwards made a special request that the final decision as to what should be published, and what suppressed, should rest with me.

It will, therefore, be understood that I am rather the editor than the author of this book. The most important part of this Memoir will be found in the letters; and it is by my express wish that they are printed in larger type than the explanations which link them together.

But even those explanations are only in a limited sense my own work. All I have done is to weave together statements made by my wife and her sisters, a paper left by their Mother, and, in the very early part, the recollections of Octavia’s early playmate, Miss Margaret Howitt.

Only in those chapters which cover the period from 1866 to 1877 have I trusted, to any considerable extent, to my own memory; for it was in those years that I was most closely associated with some parts of Octavia’s work.

With regard to the letters, there are two points to note. First, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to arrange them chronologically; not separating the special subjects, in which Octavia was interested, from each other, but rather suggesting the variety of interests which were occupying her mind at the same time. Secondly, I have endeavoured to emphasise the human and family sympathy, and not merely her business capacity.

There was an outcry in the papers a little time ago, with regard to Florence Nightingale, which took a rather peculiar form. These writers said that there had been too much sentimental talk about the “lady of the lamp” bending over the sick bed; and that this picture had obscured Miss Nightingale’s real power of organisation and practical reform. Perhaps twentieth century hardness may be as blinding as nineteenth century sentiment. At any rate, the danger with regard to Octavia Hill is precisely of the opposite kind to that which was supposed to threaten the fame of Florence Nightingale.

Octavia’s power of organisation, and her principles of discipline, have been allowed by many critics to thrust into the background her human sympathies. The figure of the landlady sternly exacting her rents seems to stand rather on the opposite side to the “lady of the lamp.”

“Miss Hill,” said a critic in the early days of her fame, “I was puzzled to make out how you succeeded in your work, till I realised that the broker was always in the background.”

This statement represents the view of her work which was always most distasteful to Octavia. She disliked extremely the phrase “rent collector” as summing up the essential character of that work. She maintained, as strongly as did Carlyle, that “cash payment was not the sole nexus between man and man,” not, as another critic supposed, because she held that “the poor were there for the rich to do good to”; but because she realised that each had to learn from the other by common sympathy with each other’s needs, and not by a hard enforcement of claims, or a careless belief in the power of money giving. It is this wider and more human aspect of her life, which I hope these letters will bring home to their readers. Perhaps the point of view, on which I am insisting, can be best summed up in Canon Barnett’s words, “She brought the force of religion into the cause of wisdom, and gave emotion to justice.”

I need only add my most hearty thanks to the friends who have helped me, either by sending Miss Hill’s letters, or by hints derived from their own recollections, or by enabling us to use the pictures which appear in this volume.

C. E. MAURICE.

1913.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL

CHAPTER I
PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD

Early in the nineteenth century Mr. James Hill was carrying on in Peterborough a business as corn merchant which his father had made very successful, and to which was added a banking business. Later on he removed to Wisbeach with his brother Thomas. James Hill showed much of his father’s business capacity, though sometimes carried away by an oversanguine temperament. Both his ability and his hopefulness were to be put to a severe test, when in 1825 England suffered from a general banking panic, and Mr. Hill failed in company with other bankers of greater note. But he roused himself to meet the emergency, and to a great extent retrieved his fortunes, for a time.

His troubles, however, were increased in 1832 by the loss of his second wife; and, as a widower with six children, he found himself in an anxious and difficult position. He had always been a very affectionate husband and father; and he was most desirous to find some one who would help him in the care of his children. While thinking over this problem, his attention was attracted by some articles on education, which had lately appeared in The Monthly Repository; with these articles he was so much impressed that he obtained from the Editor the name and address of the writer. She proved to be Miss Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, the celebrated Sanitary Reformer.

Mr. Hill called on the writer at Wimbledon, and found that she was already engaged in teaching in a private family. When that engagement had ended, Mr. Hill persuaded Miss Smith to undertake the teaching of his children. How heartily they responded to her care will be shown by two letters given later on: and when, in 1835, she became the wife of Mr. Hill, she received a welcome from her step-children such as few step-mothers can have experienced. The marriage took place at St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate.

She assisted her husband in every way, and entered most sympathetically into his patriotic efforts to reform public abuses. He had been most successful in reforming the corruption in the Wisbeach municipal government, and had succeeded in excluding any claim for church rates from his parish. The extraordinary physical energy which he threw into all his work is well illustrated by his riding fifty miles to secure the pardon of the last man who was condemned to death for sheep stealing. This excessive energy was facilitated by a life of great self-restraint and devotion to study. He read much and accumulated a very fine library. Nor even in this matter did he limit his aims to mere self-improvement. He wished to extend to others, as far as possible, his own advantages, and he founded in Wisbeach an Infant School, which should introduce sounder methods of education. It was one of the first Infant Schools built. With a characteristic audacity he chose for the motto of this school the words in which Wordsworth embodied the advice which he sarcastically suggests that Rob Roy would have given to Napoleon, had they been contemporaries:

“Of old things all are over-old,

Of good things none are good enough;

We’ll try if we can help to mould

A world of better stuff.”[^[1]]

He also started a penny paper to advocate various reforms, and at one time he bought the local theatre and invited celebrated actors to perform there. Later on he co-operated most earnestly with the advocates of Free Trade.

Wisbeach in 1840.
House on right side of bridge where Octavia was born December 3rd, 1838.

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD

Into this energetic life at Wisbeach three daughters were born:

Miranda, January 1st, 1836,

Gertrude, July 28th, 1837,

Octavia, December 3rd, 1838.

The name given to the third child marks the close connection always recognised between Mr. Hill’s different families. Octavia was his eighth daughter, and the half-sisters welcomed the new-comers as heartily as they had done their mother. Octavia’s elder sisters were Julia and Louisa, the children of Mr. Hill’s first wife, Margaret, Ida, and Kate, daughters by the second wife. There was only one son, Arthur, who proved himself a most affectionate and generous brother. Later on he built up a business for himself in Reading, where, as Mayor, he did much for the improvement of the town, showing the same public spirit which animated his father. And when he became a rich man, he welcomed to his beautiful grounds on many occasions the poor people in whom Octavia was interested.

But in 1840 a great change fell on the outward life of the family. There came another bank panic; and, though Mr. Hill tried to struggle against his difficulties, they proved too much for him. The house at Wisbeach was given up and the children of the earlier marriage were taken by their maternal grandmother; and Gertrude was adopted by her grandfather, Dr. Southwood Smith. Mrs. Hill was complimented by the Bankruptcy Commissioners on the economical way in which she had managed the household expenses, which had facilitated a settlement of her husband’s affairs; and Mr. Hill tried for some years to fulfil all his obligations to his creditors.

In the year of the bankruptcy, another daughter, Emily Southwood, was born in her grandfather’s cottage in Epping Forest, and in 1843 Florence the youngest child was born at Leeds.

For some years the family moved about from place to place. At one time they were in lodgings in Pond Street, Hampstead, where the house was discovered by an artist friend who was convinced that the children dancing round a rose-bush must be the daughters of Mrs. Hill.

At last the strain of anxiety became too much for Mr. Hill. He broke down physically and mentally, and became incapable of supporting his family. Under these circumstances, Dr. Southwood Smith became responsible for the care of his daughter and her children, and placed them in a little cottage at Finchley. Mrs. Hill maintained that it had been a great advantage to her daughters and herself that poverty had deprived her of the help of servants, and compelled her to do everything for the children herself; and they heartily responded to her care. Her daughter Miranda in later years wrote as follows. “It is difficult to express to those who never knew Mrs. Hill what her influence was on those who came in contact with her. On her children it left an indelible impression as deep as life itself, and as lasting. From her book ‘Notes on Education’ it will be seen how entirely she felt the spirit to be everything in education. She seldom gave a distinct order or made a rule; but her children felt that she lived continually in the presence of God, and that in her there was an atmosphere of goodness, and that moral beauty was a delight to her in the same way that outward beauty is to so many people. She was ardent and yet so serene that to come into her room was like entering a haven of peace where evil and bitterness could not live. Her children also learned from early infancy, from her attitude of mind, that if a thing was right it must be done; there ceased to be any question about it, and how great a help that feeling is to timid natures or weak wills only those know who have experienced it.”

The children spent nearly all their time out of doors in the meadows, and on the common, and were described by one of the villagers as “the young ladies who are always up in the hedges.”

Octavia early developed presence of mind and resourcefulness. One day she and Emily were sailing walnut-shell boats in a large water butt, when Emily fell in head foremost. Octavia instantly ran back to the other end of the garden to give impulse to her jump, and then, leaping on to the butt, pulled it over, so that she was able to drag her sister out. At an even earlier age, she saved another sister, who had fallen into a deep stream in Epping Forest. The nurse-maid ran away screaming, but Octavia stepped down the bank and held out a stick to her sister and so pulled her out. She was always overflowing with energy which showed itself in various ways. When about eight years old she was climbing on a high fence and fell on the back of her head; so that for some time she was forbidden to do any lessons; but her mother found that she was playing at keeping a school, and was learning long pieces of poetry, French grammar, and doing sums for the pretence children, so that she was working her brain more than she would have done in the school room.

Her love of learning and writing poetry was great; and it was about this time that she wrote the following elegy on a young pigeon:

“Little one thou liest deep,

Buried in eternal sleep,

And we oft for thee repine,

While thy grave with flowers we twine.

Thou didst not live to see the sun,

For thy short life was but begun,

When silent death took all away,

Thou lovely little flower of May.”[^[2]]

As some of the letters given in this book will show, Octavia was somewhat inclined to exaggerate the practical as opposed to the imaginative part of her nature. As a fact the imaginative and even fanciful side of her was apparent at an early age; for on one occasion she was found to have left a party at her grandfather’s and to have seated herself on the steps in the garden. When asked what she was doing, she answered, “I am looking for the fairies!” “Have you seen any?” asked her friend, “No,” replied Octavia, and added with the cheery confidence which distinguished her, “but I am sure I shall see them.”

This imaginative side of her must have been greatly stimulated by the only young companions with whom she and her sisters were brought into contact. These were the younger son and daughter of William and Mary Howitt, the well-known writers. Miss Margaret Howitt writes, “The kind wish of my elder sister Anna Mary to afford pleasure to her small brother and sister led to a children’s party being given to celebrate her twenty-second birthday on January 15th, 1846. The five little grandchildren of Dr. Southwood Smith were amongst the guests, henceforward to become our cherished friends for life. It was simply owing to suitability of age that Octavia became immediately the chosen playmate of my brother Charlton and myself; she was his junior by eleven months, my senior by eight. Although she was a very ardent, eager child, with a quick sense of the ludicrous that was partially hidden under a precise determined manner, she never forgot a smile of sympathy or a word of kindness bestowed upon her.... On her two playmates, though quite unconsciously to herself, Octavia enforced an exacting discipline of high aims and self-improvement, against which, I, being of a more ordinary mould than Charlton, often chafed; and more especially because her lofty standard was coupled with a quite startling humility.

“I had secretly parcelled out the house to spirits both good and bad; and I think now it must have been to humour me that Octavia joined in my daily rites of propitiation to those invisibles. I can see her now in the dim light of the cellar, the domain of hob-goblins, following Charlton who led the way, whilst I brought up the rear, with an awe-inspiring countenance either induced by some preoccupation, or by the thoroughness with which she would join in any pastime.

“When Octavia visited us later on, her sense of humour was as keen as ever, but life seemed already to have for her a set purpose.... At the beginning of the ’fifties, awakening one night, I saw by the light of a lamp in the road a young statuesque figure seated with folded hands in the sister bed.

“‘What are you about, Ockey?’ I said.

“‘Praying for Poland,’ was the reply.”

This last story was, in one way, less characteristic of Octavia than it would have been of Miranda, but the wave of feeling about such subjects, which passed over her friends and relations, was often reflected in Octavia both then and in later times.

At this time, however, her chief contact with those problems of public life which were afterwards most to interest her was confined to her visits to her grandfather, where she occasionally assisted Gertrude in copying Dr. Smith’s papers on Sanitary Reform.[^[3]] It was in connection with this work that she gave a remarkable proof of that power of concentrating her mind on, and utilising effectively any important fact affecting the matter with which she was concerned, which afterwards stood her in good stead. Among the papers which she copied was an Order in Council, freeing tenement houses from a certain tax which had hitherto been exacted from them. Years after, when she was beginning the work of superintending the houses, she remembered this Order in Council. She made inquiries and found that it was still in force, but that it was entirely unknown to many owners of tenement houses. She was therefore able to free the tenants under her care from an undue burden.

Her visits to her grandfather also brought her into touch, unconsciously sometimes, with several distinguished men, one of whom remembered the meeting at a later period. Long after the time of which I am writing, on meeting the poet Browning at dinner, he informed her that he had seen her as a child at Highgate. She remarked that it was probably her sister Gertrude. “I remember her too,” said Browning. “I was calling on R. H. Horne, the author of Orion, who was on a visit there; and, when you and your sister had left the room, he said, ‘Those are wonderful children; you can talk to them about anything.’”

The training which Mrs. Hill gave her children produced a certain independence and originality which was noticed at a later time of life, when a friend, commenting on a special little device, produced in an emergency, remarked, “I knew it must be done by a Hill; all you do is so original.”

But this bright and free country life was soon to be exchanged for new experiences, the account of which needs another chapter.

Letter from Louisa Hill to her Stepmother.

Norwich, July 19th, 1840.

My Darling Mama,

I am so delighted to know that you will soon be well and strong again, and able to lend the strength and assistance which you always have in trying circumstances.

How happy you will be, when the little ones are older, when you get beyond the merely physical part of their education. I am sure your children will all be beautiful, good and wise, for they come into the world finely organized and are watched and trained under your gentle and elevating influence.

I heartily rejoice that the baby is a girl; you will give her strength to endure and struggle with the evils which are the birthright of her sex. She will add to the number of well educated women, who, I am afraid form but a very small portion of humanity. But I forget the difference in age. This little baby belongs almost to the third generation. She will be in her bloom, when we shall be old women, if not dead. Great changes may take place before she attains womanhood.

Very affectionately yours,

Louisa Hill.

Mrs. Hill to her little daughter Gertrude.

81, St. Mark’s Place, Leeds.

September 1st, 1843.

Ockey can now read quite well, and spends a great deal of time every day in reading to herself. Do you know she can scarcely walk, she goes leaping as if she were a little kangaroo—that is because she is such a merry little girl.

James Hill.
Father of Octavia Hill.

(Undated, probably 1843).

Ockey speaks to everything that is said to her and corrects or makes fun of any mistake. She is always ready for a joke. To-day her Papa said, “Take care or you will have a downfall.” “That I should not mind,” said Ockey, “if the down was there when I fell,” and then she laughed.

Leeds, 1843.

Ockey learns to read very nicely. She is a very funny little girl; this is the way she talks. “Mama, I am as hot as if I were on the fire.” “Mama, I shall never button this shoe if I were to try till the world is knocked down.” She says things are as ugly as coal. The other day she told Minnie that she should “like to have a field so large that she could run about in it for ever.”

From Octavia (at the age of four).

This letter shows her early love of colour, especially red.

We have a box full of silks. I gave Miranda a beautiful piece, it was velvet and the colours were black, purple, yellow and white and green. Miranda gave me a beautiful piece of crimson plush. Miranda has a book called The Peacock at Home and it has three stories in it.

Mrs. Hill to Gertrude.

November, 1845.

On Monday it is Ockey’s birthday. She will be seven years old. She intends to give me a patchwork bag on that day—and she sits on a play box placed on a window-board, and looks so pretty, sewing earnestly away, never thinking that I am watching her. Every now and then she looks out at the passers by: they know every boy and girl, cat, dog, and donkey in the village by sight, and a good many of them by name, and for those whose name they do not know they invent one.

From Mrs. Howitt to Mrs. Hill.

February, 1846.

I am quite anxious to hear something about Maggie. I hope she has been as good a child, and may have left half as sweet a memory as dear Ockey.

Mrs. Howitt to Miss Mary Gillies.[^[4]]

1846.

Ockey goes on beautifully. We are all charmed with her; and know not how we shall part with her again.

In another letter about February, 1846.

I brought Miranda home with Maggie yesterday. We are all greatly pleased with her. She is a dear sweet creature; different from Ockey, but, in her way, quite as lovable. We find Maggie much improved by Mrs. Hill’s kind care of her, and by her intercourse with those dear little children.

In March, 1846, Mrs. Howitt writes again:

Miranda and Maggie go on charmingly. Miranda is very sweet and much more cheerful than I expected to find her. She is full of life and fun, and has the same kind of ringing joyous laugh as Ockey. The same in spirit, though not in degree. Ockey’s laugh is the happiest, sweetest I ever heard.

About 1849.

Octavia to her Mother.

June 10th, no year

(evidently a very early one).

We had a delicious sail yesterday. We were out for two hours, and it was so lovely; the sun shone warm and clear upon the calm blue waters; and the waves, and the bells were very pretty and made sweet music.

It is so delicious bathing; we stay in so long, and try to float and splash and dash and prance and dance.

I am so happy; you don’t know how happy. They are all so sweet and kind to me, and it is so beautiful here.

Give my love to the little ones, and tell them (be sure to tell them) that I did mean to bid them good-bye. It was not out of anger; but I forgot in my hurry; and though that was bad enough it was not as bad as they thought it was.

Ponney wants you and we all want you to try to get Mrs. Bugden to allow Miranda to come to the carting of the hay at Hillside, which will be about Thursday week.

From Kate Hill to Miranda.

Uttoxeter,

February 2nd, 1850.

I shall have great pleasure in working for the Peace Society; but I want you to tell me when the Bazaar is to be held, because if soon, I must not make anything too large to be sent in a letter. I hope it will not be before my holidays for I like best to do coarse work. Will you tell me, too, what are the doctrines of the Peace Society? I know very little about it though still enough to engage my sympathies.

Will you give the enclosed collar to dear Mamma with my love, and ask whether I shall make some like it for the bazaar?

But Mamma is to be sure and keep this one for herself because I have made it for her, and I like my work to be round her neck, as my arms cannot be there.

Octavia Hill as a Child.
From an Oil Painting by Margaret Gillies.

CHAPTER II
EARLY WORK IN LONDON
1851—APRIL, 1856

Through all the bright and free life at Finchley, Mrs. Hill had never forgotten that her daughters would have to earn their living. Miranda, indeed, at the age of thirteen, had begun to earn as a pupil teacher in the private school of a friend; and her sister Margaret mentions in a letter the characteristic fact that Miranda had wished to give some of her first earnings to her half-sisters, who were starting a school. When, then, these sisters realised that Mrs. Hill was considering Octavia’s future work, they, in their turn, offered to give her a free education, as a start in life. On the other hand, Octavia’s artistic talent had already attracted the attention of Mrs. Hill’s friend, Miss Margaret Gillies; and she offered to train Octavia in her studio. Both these offers attracted Octavia herself; but Mrs. Hill did not wish to part with her. Whilst she was still hesitating, her attention was drawn to the notice of an Exhibition, to be held at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, of special preparations of painted glass, consolidated so as to make it suitable for tables and other purposes. She found that Miss Wallace, the patentee, was promoting the Exhibition, partly to secure work for some Polish exiles, in whom she was interested, partly with the more general aim of finding regular suitable paying employment for ladies.

Mrs. Hill mentions that her first thought was that Miranda, whose overflowing fancy seemed to her dangerously unpractical, might be roused to more steady work by such an occupation as this. But it was natural that it soon occurred to her that Octavia’s admitted artistic talent might also be utilised in this way. So she applied for admission for both her daughters to this work. But, as Miss Wallace was unable to carry on the business, Mr. Vansittart Neale most generously came forward with the capital, in order to carry it on on a co-operative basis. He asked Mrs. Hill to become the manager, which she very gladly consented to do, as she was much interested in co-operation and in the employment of women.

Such was Octavia’s first introduction to London. The change from the healthy open-air life at Finchley, and from the beauty of the country, to the ugliness of her new surroundings told heavily on her spirits; and this depression was increased by the sudden sense of the evil and misery in the world. Among the workers at the Guild was a Miss Joanna Graham, who rapidly became a warm friend of Miranda’s. She introduced both sisters to the “London Labour and the London Poor,” then just brought out by Mayhew; also to the pamphlets and other essays written by the Christian Socialist leaders of the movement with which Mr. Neale had already brought them into contact. The pictures given by Mayhew of the life of the London poor, and the desire awakened by the Christian Socialists to struggle against evils, which seemed to her irresistible, produced in Octavia such a state of mind that she began to think that all laughter or amusement was wicked. Miranda, always able to see the humorous side of a question, tried to laugh her out of this extreme depression; and, when Octavia persisted, the elder sister composed an imaginary epitaph on herself, supposed to be written by Octavia:

“Her foibles were many, her virtues were few;

And the more that she laughed, the more stern the world grew.”

This produced a most startling letter of stern remonstrance from Octavia; so stern that one is relieved to find it closed by a loving message and followed by a P.S. “Love to all. Thank you for the apples.”

Of course, this extreme gloom, unnatural in any young girl, was especially out of keeping with anyone of Octavia’s buoyant temperament, and the happy busy life at the Ladies’ Guild soon had its effect.

THE LADIES’ GUILD

The following account given by Mrs. Hill in April, 1856, shows somewhat of the social life. “The ladies used to go to lectures together. In this case, the subject of the lecture became, next day, that of the conversation in the workroom. The conversation in general fell on interesting subjects, the favourite subjects being politics, religion, art, news, the country and its scenery, poverty and wages, etc. A very favourite subject was the derivation and definition of words; then the ladies would join their voices in chorus, taking different parts. Indeed a merrier company, ‘within the limits of becoming mirth,’ the writer never chanced to see. There was generally some joke in hand. In the winter, they often assembled in the evening at the Guild. Sometimes they drank tea together, and afterwards sang and danced joyously.”

The artistic work at the Guild brought Octavia into contact with the Rogers family. Mr. G. Rogers was wood carver to the Queen, and produced some very interesting work. All his family had artistic leanings; but it was his daughter, who is best known by her writings on Palestine, who specially attracted Octavia, and for whom she formed one of those enthusiastic friendships which exercised so marked an influence on her life. A younger friend, whose name was afterwards to be so closely associated with Octavia’s, was Miss Emma Cons. She, like Octavia, was much interested in art; and, on the other hand, her high girlish spirits called out in Octavia again the old love of exercise and fun that had shown itself so strongly in the Finchley days. Indeed Miss Cons was so much given to romps that Octavia’s fellow workers (including her sisters) were rather startled at the attraction which her new friend had for her. But it is clear from the letters, produced here, that Octavia saw the real power concealed for the time under these hoydenish ways; and she marked her as one on whom she could rely, and from whom she expected much.

But it must not be forgotten that among the most important of these influences, then at work on Octavia, were the characters and teaching of the Christian Socialist leaders. Soon after joining the Guild she had begun to attend the lectures at the Hall of Association; and her attendance at Lincoln’s Inn Chapel brought her in 1852 under the influence of my father, Rev. F. D. Maurice. She and Emily attended the daily morning service; and, after a time, my father used often to let them walk back with him, and he would answer many of Octavia’s difficulties about religious and social questions. On one occasion she asked him if it would not be very nice if one could get rid of all responsibility. He laughed and said it would indeed be very comfortable. But that she did not shirk responsibility is shown by the following incident. It was in the early days of the Guild, when Octavia was only about fourteen, that she was alone in the house with the exception of Mrs. Horne,[^[5]] who was at the top of the house. It was Sunday; and everyone else had gone to Church. On coming out of a second-floor room she saw a man standing near the door of a large cupboard, in which she supposed he must have hidden. “How did you come up here?” she asked. “I came up the stairs,” replied the man. “Then you will please to walk down again,” said Octavia in a quiet tone. He obeyed her, and she walked behind him down three long flights of stairs, and saw him out at the front door. Her sense of responsibility was the greater because some money, belonging to the Guild, had been paid late on Saturday and was in the office.

After the Guild had been carried on for some time, Mr. Neale was asked to take over a new kind of work, which a lady had started in order to employ some Ragged School children. This was the making of a special kind of toy which she had invented; and Mr. Neale appointed Octavia head of the workroom. The following account is given by my wife and her sister Miranda. The management of the toy-making helped to “develop Octavia’s business faculties. She had to pass the children’s work, which was paid by the piece, to assign the various processes to each child, to choose the shapes and colours of the toy furniture, to price it, and to see that, when the suites were finished, they were neatly packed in boxes and sent over to the show room, where the ladies’ glass work was also exhibited. From time to time she had to take stock, and to see if the sales justified the expenditure.

TOY-WORKERS

“Her daily intercourse with the girls taught her to know intimately the life of the poor. Most of the children came from very poor homes, and had, though so young, experienced great hardships. There was Louisa, an emotional, affectionate girl who had lost both parents, and helped to support herself and the aunt with whom she lived. She had worked at artificial flower-making, and told us how, when trade was busy, she had been kept late into the night, and had had to run frightened through the streets in the small hours of the morning, and tap at the window to wake her aunt. There was poor Denis whose face and neck were terribly disfigured with burns; but who had such a sweet pathetic voice that, when she sang, one forgot her ugliness. There was Clara, a tall, over-grown girl from a dirty home, who was half-starved and cruelly treated. She wore a low dress and short sleeves, and one could see her bones almost coming through her skin. On one occasion when her work was too slovenly to be passed, she burst into tears, and said that her mother would beat her if she did not take back the money expected of her. There was little Elizabeth, a stunted child of about nine, with so fierce a look that Octavia, in loving raillery, called her her little wild beast. She had never come with us on the Saturday-afternoon walks to Hampstead, but used to look wistfully after us. Once we pressed her very much to come, and then she exclaimed ‘I cannot, I have to nurse the baby.’

“Another child was R. who was lost sight of, and later on was found in a dark cellar into which one descended by a ladder, where she sat all day to sell pennyworths of coal. She was half-starved and unkindly treated, but she seemed to take that as a matter of course; what she did resent was that her cat was starved. Later on Octavia sent her to an Industrial School; and after some years she emigrated, and wrote to tell of her happy married life.

“Harriet and her sister were of a higher class, and had a clean, respectable home. They were earnest Methodists. We lost sight of Harriet for forty years, and then found her very happily married. She had remembered Octavia with the deepest affection, and had preserved all her letters.

“The girls were in the habit of bringing their dinners to eat in the workroom, and what they brought was very poor fare. Octavia suggested that they should club together to buy their food, and that each girl in turn should cook it. The long table was cleared, and a white cloth laid, and the food served nicely. Octavia brought over her own luncheon to eat with the girls, and, after the Grace had been sung, it was a pretty sight to see the sad, careworn faces of the children light up, as they sat round the table while she talked to them. Among other things, she learnt to scrub the floor, in order to teach the children to keep the workroom clean.

“A good many of the girls were older than Octavia and inclined to be insubordinate, but she very soon established order, and that without recourse to punishment. The girls had been accustomed to be fined for offences, and they were quite amazed when they found this was no longer the case. On one occasion they refused to scrub the work-tables, which was part of their daily duty. Immediately Octavia and her two younger sisters set to work to do the scrubbing, and soon the girls gave in. They had been fined for swearing, but the swearing soon ceased, and they sang hymns or nice songs. Octavia was their leader and companion in all that they did, and this sharing in their work, and yet leading the way, won them all to obey as well as to love her. Sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon, she would take her little group of workers for a walk to Hampstead Heath or Bishop’s Wood. Her sister Gertrude remembers walking in Highgate Lane on a spring afternoon with Professor Owen, who was quietly explaining something about the mosses on Lord Mansfield’s fence—all being very still—when, to her surprise, the hedge was broken open, and, with a burst of joy, who should leap down from the bank with a staff in her hand and a straw hat torn by the thicket but Octavia, followed by a troop of ragged toy-workers, happy and flushed, each with a lap full of blue-bells. Octavia stayed for a minute to speak to her sister and the Professor; then off they all went back into the wood and away towards Finchley.

“Schools were not what they are now, and Octavia was amazed at the ignorance of these girls. They quite believed that wolves and bears might be lurking in the woods; and they did not know the names of any of the flowers. It was afterwards arranged that Miranda should give the girls lessons for an hour or so each afternoon.”[^[6]]

In 1854 Dr. Southwood Smith left Hillside and moved to Weybridge, where his grandchildren were always welcomed in the same loving way that they had been at Highgate.

But, before he could move, he was seized with a severe illness which necessitated an operation. A few weeks later his granddaughter Emily was attacked by scarlet fever, and her life was despaired of by two doctors. Then her grandfather, in spite of his weak state, came back to London, and saved her life; and when she could be removed, took her to Weybridge to watch over her convalescence. This of course withdrew her from the toy work, and threw more of the burden on Octavia. A year later her youngest sister Florence was also withdrawn from the work by ill-health, and taken to Italy by her aunt, Miss Emily Smith, who gave her loving care for six years. It was in the summer of 1855 that an expedition of the toy-workers into the country led to the formation of some important friendships. Mrs. Harrison, to whose house at Romford they were invited, was the sister of Mrs. Howitt, and she and her family became warm friends of Octavia’s. Some of the letters given further on were written to Mary, the eldest daughter, who was very artistic.

EARLY FRIENDSHIPS

But even more important was the friendship then formed with Miss Mary Harris, a member of the Society of Friends, who was a great deal older than Octavia, and whose calm, loving nature was a great rest to her. From the time they first met till 1893, when Miss Harris died, Octavia poured out more of her secret thoughts to her than to anyone else, and when they were away from each other wrote to her constantly.

On the occasion of this visit to Romford another guest was Mr. Ellis Yarnall, the American, whose letters to Lord Coleridge have lately been published. He recorded in his diary the following description of Miranda and Octavia.

“Some young ladies were expected, and with them about twenty children, girls to whom they are teaching some decorative arts. The children played in the grounds; the young ladies (Miranda and Octavia) were with us at luncheon; and we had a great deal of talk about Mr. Ruskin, who is a friend of theirs. They described his eloquence as a speaker, his earnestness of manner, his changing countenance, even when he was silent, as though thoughts grave and gay were passing through his mind. It was plain to me that his strong intellect and bright fancy were having their true influence on these young persons, themselves highly gifted and altogether like-minded, eighteen and sixteen or thereabouts—sisters. I was astonished at the strength of intellect which they displayed. The talk of the elder one especially was, I think, more striking than that of any person of her age I ever knew. She reminded me of Corinne and other women of renown. What a pleasure it was to look at her fine face with the glow of enthusiasm upon it, and to wonder whether gifts like hers would not one day produce fruits which the world would value. Her description of the effect which the hearing of Beethoven’s music on some late occasion had had upon her was an utterance of passionate feeling showing true poetic susceptibility.

“They are the granddaughters of Dr. Southwood Smith.”

Towards the end of 1855 an important event took place, which led to Mrs. Hill’s withdrawal from the Ladies’ Guild. My father had been interested in Octavia’s work for the Toy-workers, and offered to take a Bible Class for them. The Theological Essays controversy was just then at burning point; and the ladies who had handed over the business part of the toy work, still considered that they had a right to interfere about the religious instruction of the children. These ladies were very Evangelical (as Evangelicalism went in those days) and they threatened to withdraw all pecuniary help and the support of the Ragged School Union, if my father was allowed to teach the girls. The managers of the business were so much alarmed at this threat that they asked my father to withdraw his offer. Mrs. Hill and her daughters were naturally very indignant at this; and Mrs. Hill’s protests led to her losing the post of Manager at the Guild. She and Emily went to Weybridge. Miranda and Octavia continued to work for a time; but when it seemed likely that the Guild would fail, Miranda obtained daily teaching and Octavia applied to Ruskin to learn from him if there would be any chance of her supporting herself by painting. He replied most kindly, and asked her to let him have a table-top designed and painted by herself. This design[^[7]] was a spray of bramble leaves in all their brilliant autumn colours, encircling the centre space which formed a background that was dark at one part and gradually grew lighter, and finally changed into soft blue, suggesting storm clouds passing away, and leaving a bright sky. Round the edge, among the leaves, were the words of the Psalm, “He brought them out of darkness and out of the shadow of death, and brake their bonds in sunder.”

This led to Ruskin’s undertaking to train Octavia and give her work. Soon after this came the final crisis at the Guild; and Octavia obtained the appointment mentioned in the last letter of this chapter.

EARLY WORK IN LONDON

June 14th, 1852.

To Miranda.

Thank you many many times for your sweet letter. It was such a comfort to me.

I am very well indeed now. I do not know when I have been better, except that I am rather weak. I am at Finchley with Minnie. I long dreadfully to go to town; but I think I can wait patiently till Wednesday.

I have been very unfortunate in being away from the Guild just at this time. Do you know Mr. Walter Cooper has been there? and Mr. Lewis and the trustees (Mr. Furnivall) go there so often; and all the bustle, and trying to feel Christian-like to Mr. and Miss ——. O, would it not have been delightful!

I have Miss Graham’s books here; they are so interesting. I am so very happy when I am reading them. My interest gets deeper and stronger every day. I wish, oh! I so long, to do something, and I cannot. Andy! do you think I ever shall be able to do anything really useful?

I do not at all like Mr. ——, or rather I entirely despise and dislike his opinions. I will tell you all about it when I see you. I will only tell you now that he likes “the subordination of the employed to the employer”; and he thinks “there is no tribunal so proper as the discretion of the employer to decide those delicate questions of the personal conduct of the employed.” Did you ever hear of such a thing? Is it not horrible?

Mr. Furnivall I admire more and more the more I know and read of him; and, as to Mr. Ludlow, certainly there is not (excepting Mr. Furnivall) such a person in the whole world. He has the largest, clearest, best-balanced mind joined to the truest most earnest wish to help the working classes I ever met with (of course excepting Mr. Furnivall’s).

I have read to-day his “Christian Socialism and its Opponents.” All I can say of it, and all he writes is that it is grand, and that I never can forget it, or cease to be grateful for it. His lectures have sunk deeper into my heart than anything else; one reason is, I dare say, that they were the first; but they were most noble and grand; his own great soul seemed to breathe itself into his works. But I forget—I shall get no sympathy from you. I must tell Miss Graham. Andy, do you think Mr. Furnivall will bring him to the Guild? Do you think he meant it; or, if not, do you think we ever shall know him?

The Festival will be on Monday. I am looking forward to it with such pleasure. I do so long to see you; it seems ages since I did; I want to know what you think about the ‘Guild’; I do so want your advice, too, upon a thousand subjects. I have a good deal to read to you, which I have written since you were away. Give my dearest love to Miss Graham. Tell her I never can thank her enough for all the noble and beautiful books she has lent me; that, as to the Christian Socialist, I never never before read anything which inspired such earnest longing to do something for the cause of association; and it interested me so very much that the hours I have spent in reading that are never to be forgotten; they were unequalled in pleasure to any that I have ever spent in reading; and that, if I live years and years, I shall never forget, or cease to remember with gratitude that it was to her that I owe the great happiness of first reading a Socialist book, which I consider one of the greatest happinesses any one can have. Thank her, also, for the other books; tell her the “Cheap Clothes and Nasty” and “Labour and the Poor” are some of the most dreadful things I ever read. They have made a deep impression on me. How delightful the History of the Working Tailors’ Association is!

Do you know I have a post at the Guild? I have to give out the stores and am responsible for them. The ladies have all sent me a book as a testimony of their gratitude to me for reading to them. How very kind it is of them! Dear Laura has written me such a sweet letter. I love to think of you among those lovely scenes by the beautiful sea, with dear Miss Graham....

Your own loving little sister, Ockey.

I am sadly afraid the Journal[^[8]] will stop at Midsummer. What is to become of me???

Ladies’ Guild,

July 27th, 1852.

Miranda to Joanna Graham,

We all declare that we have never spent a more glorious evening. I think I never saw such a face as Mr. Kingsley’s. That face was the chief pleasure of all, though there was a most splendid collection of people there. We went a party of six, Ockey, Mama, Mary, I, Mr. Rogers, and Miss Cons. We met Walter Cooper at the door, and he was very kind and seemed glad to see us. The Hall was very crowded but he got seats for us. Mama and I were together. We looked round and got glimpses of the Promoters.[^[9]] Mary fixed on Mr. Neale at once and was delighted with him. She noticed his head among all the rest and admired it almost more than any.... Suddenly, amongst a great crowd of faces, Mary pointed out one to me and asked if that was Mr. Kingsley, and it was. Mary thought it noble. Mr. Neale introduced Kingsley to Mama, and he talked to her for some time ... and Mr. Neale introduced Mr. Ludlow to Mama, much to Ockey’s delight.... I think Mr. Kingsley’s face extremely suffering and full of the deepest feeling. But there is such a sublime spirituality; he looks so far above this earth, as if he were rapt up in grand reveries; one feels such intense humility and awe of him. I hardly dared look at him; and the more I looked, the more I felt what a grand thing the human soul is when developed as it is in him. Professor Maurice was called to the chair, and he made a nice speech. He seemed as if he felt a great deal more than he could express, and therefore left feelings rather than ideas in one’s mind. He said a great deal about self-sacrifice; though he said he felt almost ashamed to speak of self-sacrifice to working men, while he himself was in possession of all the comforts of life. He had to leave after he had made his speech; and, just as he was about to leave the platform, Mr. Cooper said that the Manager of the Builders’ Association, Mr. Pickard, would read an address to Professor Maurice as an embodiment of the sentiments of the Associations, and that the Manager of the Printers would present him with a testimonial, the exclusive gift of the working men. The address of thanks was very nicely expressed; and then the testimonial, a silver inkstand, was presented. It was so touching to think of all those poor working men, who had worked so hard to earn the money to make the testimonial, and the beautiful spirit of gratitude. I could not restrain my tears. Professor Maurice answered the address and thanked them in the most heartfelt manner. After he left, Mr. Hansard was put in the chair, and Lloyd Jones spoke on Co-operative Stores. Mr. Newton spoke on Mechanics’ Institutes, and said they were not at all satisfactory as far as they professed to educate the working men. Someone in the Hall got up and said that he knew of one gentleman on the Committee of these Institutes, who, in opposition to the majority of the Committee, threatened to resign if “Alton Locke” was allowed in the Library. I could not see Mr. Kingsley’s face.... The next subject was the Industrial and Provident Societies Bill which had just been passed. Mr. Kingsley then made a short speech; one knew at once that it was a poet who was speaking.... Gerald Massey’s is a very fine face. He has dreamy eyes and wild looking hair; but, after the others, he’s not to be thought of.

Ladies’ Guild,

October 22nd, 1852.

To Gertrude.

Oh Gertrude! I am so happy, so very very happy. I wish you were with me. You would so love all my beautiful things. I will tell you about them when you come. I have a little room, all to myself. When anything is wrong or unjust down stairs, I have only to come up into my own little room, and it is so still. It is full of such happy recollections. I have my nice books; all my great soul-inspiring books are here. Then I have all my writing things. I write a great deal now. I have such a beautiful book of extracts that I have made. I have usually some flowers; for the ladies are very kind in bringing me them. I have a few poor little plants that I am fond of. Then I have eleven dear little snails. They are such darlings. And then, Gertrude, I have my drawing things. I do not let anyone see my drawings. I do not do much. It is sad to think, after I have done anything, “And, after all your visions of grandeur and beauty, is this all you can produce?” I believe I am very wrong about my drawing; I never draw things for the sake of learning. I try things above me. I have such dreams, both day and night, of what I would do, and when I try what do I see? A little miserable scrap that is not worth looking at. Once I tried a figure. Of course it was frightful.... We have returned Ruskin. I do so miss it. It was so very beautiful. This evening I have found such an extract from “Modern Painters” that I shall copy it for you.

Do you go on with your drawing? I hope you do. Oh Gertrude! is it not a glorious thing to think that a divine thought should descend for ages and ages? Think of Raphael and Michael Angelo! (though I know but little of them).—To think that every grand feeling they had they could preserve for centuries! Oh what an influence they must have! Think of the thousands of great thoughts they must have created in people’s minds; the millions of sorrow that one great picture (one truly great picture) would calm and comfort. Will that never be painted again? Do you think there will? And when? I am going to see the Dulwich Gallery soon. Is it not glorious? I wish you could see a bit of hawthorn I have here, such colours! I am writing a curious letter; just what comes foremost in my mind.... When I have finished work and go up to tea, if any one is out of spirits, it makes me so; and I feel (do you know what I mean?) a tear in my throat.

Ladies’ Guild,

July 13th, /53.

To Gertrude.

I write to you because I wish to give you a happier impression of me than you can have from Tuesday. I am all alone; it is so still; and I am very happy; now I will try and account for the strange state I was in last night.

When I got into the country I felt that, if I stayed looking at sky and trees and flowers,[^[10]] my friends would think me dull and become dull themselves and spoil all enjoyment. So all the day my whole energies were “stretched” to be merry and lively. I felt that if I waited one moment to look at anything, I should never tear myself away, and I got into a wild state. I did enjoy very much the mere exercise, and the mirth, and happiness of every one. I hardly thought all this; I only felt it. Then, at the singing class, the strain being over, and having nothing to sustain me, I sank into low spirits. As we were singing “Oh come ye into the summer woods,” a longing came over me to be there; a dim recollection of tops of the trees with the evening sun upon them, a panting desire to sit there, and cry myself quiet....

But it is all too beautiful now; I could almost fancy myself at home.... As to my drawing, whether I will or no I must go on with that; and, though I do not hope, I trust....

September 18th, /53.

Dear Sisters,

I fully intended to come over to you to-day, but I have a sore foot, and can only limp to the classes. Private. On Wednesday evening I went to see Miss Cooper, and spent the whole evening there. Just as I was going William Cooper came in and told me (don’t tell anyone) that they have discovered heresy in Professor Maurice’s last book, and he will probably be expelled from the Church. I had not time to ask any questions, as Miss Cooper returned, and she is not to know. Professor Maurice came to town on Monday night, went to Walter Cooper on Tuesday before Miss Cooper was out of bed, and returned to the country in the evening.... On Thursday there was a Council. Walter Cooper looks very grave and rather ill and anxious. What all this betokens, I cannot guess; but I fear something sad.

I have been reading “The Message of the Church to the Labouring Men”; it is so beautiful; also “The Duty of the Age.” I did not think Lord Goderich[^[11]] was so nice; it would just suit Andy.

Mr. Edwards will give us a large order for a skirting board of marble if we can do it for 8d. a foot; also an order for a painted glass conservatory.

If any of you love me, see if you can’t send me a piece of Indian ink and a paint brush, and “The Land we live in,” and look out for some toys, or books that you don’t want—the latter two for the little child at the needlewoman’s.

November 27th, 1853.

To Gertrude.

About Ruskin, it matters very little to me what The Times, or anything else, says of him. I see much, very very much, to admire in him, and several things which I could wish different. If, as I suppose, The Times accuses him of affectation of style and want of humility, I entirely deny the first charge; as I think there is never a single word he writes, which could have been left out without loss, or changed without spoiling the idea; and, if it means that each sentence of his has a beauty of sound as well as of meaning, I say that it is to me all the more right for that; and that to be able to reproduce that sound is a gift not to be neglected.... As to the second objection I say, if Ruskin sees a truth which is generally denied, he is right to proclaim it with his whole strength. He says not “I see it is so because I am a higher creature than you,” but “I see it, because I have gone to God, and His works for it. You may all see it, if you will look, using the powers He has given you; only look in sincerity and humility. It is only because I am humble, because I am content to give up my own ideas and notions, to take the truth because it is God’s, to believe that it is good and right. It is only so I can discover harmony in this universe, and I am sent (he says) with a loud voice to proclaim this to you.”

Ladies’ Guild,

December 5th, 1853.

To Gertrude.

Ruskin has been here. All went as well as I could possibly wish. He was most delighted with the things, as showing the wonderful power we possess of introducing and preserving colour. He gave us some most interesting and useful hints about colour, and ordered five slabs to be painted for him; adapting two of the designs he wanted from some we had, which Mr. Terry was to go to his house to do on Monday. He offered to lend us some things to copy. If you had seen the kind, gentle way in which he spoke, the interest he showed, the noble way in which he treated every subject, the pretty way in which he gave the order, and lastly, if you had seen him as he said on going away, his eyes full of tears, “I wish you all success with all my heart,” you would have said with me that it was utterly wonderful to think that that was the man who was accused of being mad, presumptuous, conceited and prejudiced. If it be prejudice to love right and beauty, if it be conceited to declare that God had revealed them to you, to endeavour to make your voice heard in their defence, if it be mad to believe in their triumph, and that we must work to make them triumph, then he is all four, and may God make us all so!... All my sisters, Kitty and Mama, have given me Mr. Maurice’s “Ancient Philosophy” and have written in it “From her sisters in affection and work.” This sentence makes me very happy. I know it is true. I know our work has bound us together.... Another thing happened on Sunday which pleased me very much. Mr. Neale heard Miranda talking about my birthday; and he said he was going to give me Mr. Maurice’s “Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament.” He came on Sunday on purpose to bring it. It seems such a glory that he does look upon us as related to him, not merely as receivers of wages, that he considers us workers with him. All that I have struggled to accomplish, so long and so wearily, seems just now to be succeeding, all fruitless as the work has seemed; the seeds buried, dead as I thought them, have sprung above the ground.

Ladies’ Guild,

January 10th, 1854.

To Gertrude.

Mr. Cooper gave me last night a copy of the Address of the congregation at Lincoln’s Inn to Mr. Maurice. He had asked Mr. Ludlow for it on purpose for me, and Mr. Ludlow had written my name on it.

I got “Yeast” for Miranda. Have you ever read it, and do you remember that Barnakill forbids Launcelot to be an artist? It has made a great impression on me.

Hillside,

February 10th, 1854.

Miranda to Miss Joanna Graham.

You have not heard yet that there is great thought of enrolling the Guild as an Industrial Society, under the new Act. Would it not be very nice? Mr. Neale had drawn out a set of rules; and he sent them to Mama for her to approve or make her remarks upon. There are however some difficulties in the way.

I have not yet been able to write a recollection of that very beautiful class at Mr. Maurice’s; but I hope to do it.

Ladies’ Guild,

June 11th, 1854.

To Gertrude.

(Speaking of Hillside.)

I hope that I may never, as long as I live, forget the sunny, bright happy hours I have passed there. There remains in my mind a recollection, a vision of beauty connected with it, which can never be effaced....

Mr. Maurice has been speaking to-day of sacrifice as the link between man and man, and man and God. It was such a sermon! One feels as if all peace and quiet holiness were around one; everything appears to have a beauty and calm in it, to which we can turn back in times of storm and wild noisy rivalries, as to the memory of sunny days, and to shed a light on all dark and difficult things, on sorrow and loneliness....

It is so still! A garnet coloured glass is on the table full of bright golden buttercups, and grass; now the door is open they tremble in the wind, carrying one back to slopes of long grass full of buttercups and sorrel, as the evening wind sweeps over it.

INFLUENCE OF RUSKIN AND F. D. MAURICE

September 17th, 1854.

To Miranda.

(In the Lake Country.)

I have spent three happy evenings with Miss Rogers. I have had a very interesting conversation on religion with Charlie Bennett, Harry and Mr. Rogers.... You cannot think what pleasure your notes have been, telling us, as they do, of a life of rest and beauty. One doesn’t seem to know much about that sort of thing, and yet they seem to speak of home to you, as not many things do. One thing will be that you will be able to understand Ruskin infinitely better than you would have done. I imagine that some of the descriptions, that appear to us bright images of things almost vague at times (they are so far off), will remind you of actual beauties that you have really seen, memories connected with life. Ruskin has done something to rescue many things from vagueness. He has embodied them in words which will convey these impressions they gave you, as nobody else ever has, I believe....

I have been to Westminster Abbey with Miss Cons, have I ever spoken about her to you? It seems to me that she is capable of a very great deal. She said something the other day about Mr. Maurice and Walter Cooper that made me very angry. I told her I would never tell her anything again; however, instead of that, I told her a great deal more than I ever did before. I told her that it was he who had led me to the Church, who had shown me a life in the creeds, the services and the Bible; who had interpreted for me much that was dark and puzzling in life; how the belief in a Father, a Son and a Holy Ghost might be the most real faith, not a dead notion; that I might believe, not only that God was manifesting himself to each man in the inward consciousness of light and beauty in himself and all around; that those had led to infinite perplexities and doubts, but that a real person had come amongst us, who had known the Father, whose will had been brought into harmony with His; that He was stronger than doubts and sorrow and had overcome them; that He had declared that we might have life, that life was knowledge of God. From this conversation came a determination that Miss Cons and I should read the Theological Essays together.

... Oh if you could but see my ferns and all my things here. I have so many things I want to do in this room, but they all want money, sometimes as little as threepence, sometimes several pounds. It is perfect, because everything is progressing. The ivy will some day creep around the windows. I shall some day know my books better, and perhaps at last the room will be all grey stone, the window Gothic, and there may be pictures of my own painting; and the stony walls may be covered with wild masses of leaves standing out boldly in the sunlight, with their shadows sharp and dark on the grey background.

I began this letter to-day, as the first sunbeam fell on my flowers. Nobody could have been happier. Now I have run up from work to finish it, feeling very cross. Kitty has complained to Mama that Miss Cons and I make a great deal of noise. We never do anything but talk. Never mind! she’ll find me silent enough.

INFLUENCE OF RUSKIN

Ladies’ Guild,

March 14th, 1855.

To Emily.

I find on reflection that it will be a rather more difficult undertaking than I imagined to write to you every two days. However I will do my best.

You will have seen, by this time, what a wonderful event is about to take place in my life, and will, no doubt, have realized what it will be to me. But, however wonderfully you may all enter into my feelings, or even discover them, I do not think any of you can really understand what this is to me, unless you could have looked into my heart continually for three years, and seen how at first he was only a friend of Mr. Furnivall’s[^[12]]; then how his books were everything and he nothing; then how his name suggested a vision of vague beauty and distant and indefinite glory.... Still he was distant, almost unreal. He might be in Italy, or Palestine, or he might be passing me at that moment.... Perhaps in a year or two hence I may tell you what my thoughts were, and are at this period;—but, all this time I was learning to admire him more and more, and now leave the rest till after Friday.

I send you a prospectus of the College, which I beg you will return. Walter Cooper was with us last night; but I don’t think we heard any news.

Anna Mary (Howitt) has fulfilled her promise to lend me “Modern Painters.” She sent them yesterday; I leave you to put in all the marks of admiration and the “oh how delightfuls!” according to your own fancies; working people have no time for anything but facts, (not that the delight of reading “Modern Painters” is less a fact than that the book is in this house), but——

I am very bright to-night, as you may perceive, and am writing this in the most comfortable way, in bed. Tell F. that I expect she is quite a woman, and is quite independent of my letters, and, as I promised to write to you, she must not expect letters from me; but she must accept my kindness to Pussie, and my care of her plants, as the affectionate proof of my remembrance and friendship. Will you, dear children, think of me very earnestly on Friday at two; and try to see poor Mansfield’s[^[13]] grave? I suppose there is not a single fern. You know how much I want them.

I’m getting a toothache with sitting up in the cold; so I must lie down and read. I’ve written to accept Ruskin’s invitation.

Ladies’ Guild,

March 16th, 1855.

To Emily.

There is only one thing to speak about just now, Ruskin. I have been,—fancy! We could not get an omnibus which would pass the door, without waiting till it would be too late. We took one which brought us to Camberwell Gate; we tore along, thinking we were late, and too much engrossed by that idea, to see or think of anything else. At last we arrived at a green gate with a lodge. We asked for Mr. Ruskin, and were sent on to the house. Imagine a handsome mansion or large villa, a broad sweep of gravel road leading to it, bordered by a lawn, on which stood an immense cedar of Lebanon, on the other a bank covered with golden celandines in full flower, and shaded by immense elms. Ascending a flight of steps leading to a glass door, we looked into a handsome hall; a footman came and showed us upstairs; we entered Mr. Ruskin’s study, and he was there. He received us very warmly, asked us about our journey there, and about the weather, which I then for the first time perceived. The room was lofty, the furniture dark, the table covered with papers, the walls rich with pictures, a cabinet full of shells, with a dead fern or two; and looking out of the window over a garden (I never looked at it) on to a field which sloped very gently, more like a bit of park, large trees on it, with their shadows strongly marked by the bright sun, and very still; beyond, slopes of meadow and woodland, over which the shadows of large white clouds kept passing. Mr. Ruskin was very kind, and showed us numbers of manuscripts, which I admired more than I had any idea of, and sketches. He evidently thought my design well done, admired the fir and bramble, blamed my not knowing exactly what colours I should put everywhere, and illustrated these things—that in a fine design each thing is of importance, that the effect of the whole would be spoilt by the alteration of any part; that simplicity of form is needful to show colour; that no colour is precious till it is gradated; that grass is more yellow than we think; that holly is not green (made only with blue and yellow) (sic) but with crimson and white in it; that it is impossible to have colour on paper so light and so living as in nature; that, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, work becomes coarser, more floral, less grotesque than in the thirteenth. We had a delightful conversation about one thing. I remarked what a world of beauty he was surrounded with; and he answered that, if I could change places with him, I should be no happier than I am now. I said I knew that very well; but I affirmed there was a positive pleasure in a beautiful thing. He said he was very covetous, always wanting more; and that he desired happiness, but from the success of what he was doing; that he would part with all he possessed, if he could thereby insure that some real illuminators would arise. We then, though quite consistent, appeared to change sides in the argument. I said that there was as much pleasure to be found in London as in the country; that the beauties were more valued when seen, and the scraps of beauty more loved. He said that man was not meant to be in a constant state of enthusiasm (of which by the way we stand in no danger); that the blessing of the country was more negative; that brick walls were a positive pain. I said that I was very glad to say that, although sometimes feeling crushed by the ugliness, I could forget it. He ended by saying that, as I was fond of the country, he hoped after May, when the weather was warm, I should often go down there; and then, altering the reason of the invitation, he said that, if I wanted to refresh my memory and come to see his MSS., I could come any day and chance finding him at home; or, if I would send a line the day before, he would try and be at home. This is not half of this conversation, and we had several others, to say nothing of illustrations and propositions.

And now, M., do you, or do you not wish to hear what I think of it; that that which is asked for is given; that, well-used, this friendship (?), so happily begun, may be a long and growing one; that I have seen a world of beauty; and that this might be the opening to a more glorious path; and that I would give years, if I could bring to Ruskin “the peace which passeth all understanding”?

WORK FOR RUSKIN

Ladies’ Guild,

March 19th, 1855.

To Emily.

I ought to have written yesterday; but, as I cannot write on Saturdays, I thought it was well to get to the right days again. You must not think it unkind, if I do not write to you again, as Mr. Ruskin has lately sent us some work to do. Of course I wish to do it; so, as there is other work wanted, I shall have to do it in the evening. Mr. Maurice also will be home on Wednesday; and I am not sure that we shall not be admitted to two meetings there are to be.... Tell F. her kettle mourns day and night at its loneliness, and muses over its utter uselessness; and the book-case looks sadly dejected, but it has not told me the reason.

Don’t expect a merry letter to-night. I am rather dejected.... I often wish now I were quite free and could work at what I liked.... It requires a strong heart to go on working, without anyone caring whether you are longing to do anything else. I am going to work all the Fast[^[14]] day at Ruskin’s things; and God give me a brave heart, for I am sure nothing else can.

Dear child, I hope you are happy and enjoying the country very much. I long to see Mr. Maurice again. When I do, I shall have more to tell you, if I have time to write. I am very wretched. I am not to begin Ruskin’s work to-morrow.... I am trying very hard not to complain. If I have attained so far thro’ all obstacles of three long years, surely I shall be helped to go farther; and surely there is a reward, there is a use in all the long hours I have worked, all the energy I have given; surely there is a brighter day coming. He who works for man must look to man for his reward; but we have worked for God, and He will reward us.

Ladies’ Guild,

March 21st, 1855.

To Emily.

Thank you very much for your letter. I am very much interested by your account of that clergyman. I should think from what you say, that his influence must be very good. The mere fact of the congregation being so poor and degraded would seem to shew it. It is very difficult to tell what the doctrines of a man are from one sermon; and very likely you heard the worst side of them.

I have been to Lincoln’s Inn to-day, and have heard Mr. Maurice, and have seen Mr. Hughes, Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Ludlow. Mr. Cooper advises me to go and see whether we shall be admitted at the meeting. Mr. Kingsley will preach at Bethnal Green on Sunday evening. I am in the very heart of painting Ruskin’s designs, really enjoying it.

SERMON BY F. D. MAURICE

I have a copy of the form of prayer for to-day, which you will like to read when you return. Mr. Maurice preached such a beautiful sermon about it.[^[15]] The text was the 1st to 8th verses of 1st Chapter of S. Luke. He said that, three weeks ago all England was startled by the news that the man[^[16]] whom she had looked upon as her most deadly enemy was dead; that whatever hopes statesmen or merchants might entertain of the result, had proved wrong; that many people said there must be a purpose in this event; that however sinful it might be to rejoice over it, they could not but believe that it was working towards some good end. To such people, he continued, I would answer, “assuredly not an emperor falls (because not a sparrow falls) without our Father in Heaven; and to Him who wills it every event will bring a blessing.” And what should we learn from this? In the first place, we have all of us fancied that we were fighting against a man; whereas the fact is we are fighting against a principle, which is represented, perhaps in a nobler form than usual, in this man. People objecting to this say, “no, we are fighting against flesh and blood; we leave all abstractions to philosophers.” I agree with them thus far. We are engaged with realities; if a principle be a mere theory, to be disputed about in books, it is nothing to living men; but, if it be that which gives energy and motive to action, then it has everything to do with them. We are fighting against that arbitrary power, which treats men as mere machines or tools, and is utterly indifferent to national life. There is great danger connected with the belief that our enemies are men, not principles. We are likely, we are almost sure, not to see the same enemy at home. We are all too much inclined to think that we live only to carry on our separate trades and professions. We happen, indeed, to carry them on together in a certain geographical position, which has been for some years called the island of Great Britain. We have, it is true, a common language. It is very convenient it should be so, just as it is very convenient to have a medium of exchange. It would hinder our buying and selling very much, if it were not so. It is also very important to have laws to punish those who injure their neighbours. These laws must be general, lest one class should gain the ascendency. We must also have a doctrine preached about future rewards and punishments. Of course about such an uncertain subject there can be little agreement; and therefore, if all compete in preaching, it will suit all tastes. We do not want a sense of national life. It is this indifference to it which we have been striving against thro’ all generations. This common enemy unites us to all past ages; if we have lost sight of it, we lose the meaning of history. And this is the meaning of a Fast day. It speaks to us all as members of a nation; it tells us of a stronger bond than that of possessing a common enemy; that we possess a common Father; this gives prayer a meaning, and national life a reality. And this speaks to us individually. So long as we look upon the Emperor of Russia as our enemy we cannot expect to have to conquer him; (sic), and we cannot ask for help to do so.... Thank you for the promise of ferns. Bring several. Numbers here will be glad of them. We are having the garden dug, and shall be glad of all contributions. Can you bring a stone and a root from Mr. Mansfield’s grave?... It is very late, past twelve (long).

Ladies’ Guild,

March 27th, 1855.

To Emily.

Thank you for your two dear letters. They interested me very much indeed. Have you read “Brave Words”?[^[17]] I think G. and you might like to read it together. Mr. Maurice preached at Lincoln’s Inn on Sunday morning. I did not know of it. Since I have known him[^[18]] I have missed hearing him four times, Stepney, Whitechapel, lecture on Newspapers, and last Sunday. It was a funeral sermon for Mr. Mansfield; and all his friends met together afterwards. They are going to have it every year. Mama went with me in the afternoon. The text was the 27th verse of the fourteenth of St. John. Mr. Maurice began by saying that these words were not understood at the time they were spoken. The events which followed them seemed the most awful contradiction of them; for even He who had spoken them appeared to have lost then the gift which He promised. The question was, What peace was it which He gave? It could not be peace in the world; the wars, the contentions showed that that had not been given. The Gospel which they brought to the world seemed to bring divisions not unity, strife not peace. It could not be peace in the Church; for a few weeks it seemed as if this might be the gift which Christ had left. They had all things in common; and then arose contentions, people pretending to have sold their possessions, and given the whole value of them to the Church, when they had retained half. Paul rebuking Peter; discussions about circumcision. Was it outward peace for themselves? Never had any set of men experienced so little as the Apostles. Was it inward peace, a cessation of all fierce war with evil, of all conflict? Surely not. For that which Christ promised He must have realised Himself. They had heard the cry on the Cross, and seen the agony in the garden; surely there never was a more awful fight with evil than that which He had carried on. Above all, they had forsaken Him themselves. If anything would add to their sense that they had no peace, it would be that when they thought they were ready to die for Him, they had left Him; the cross and death did not divide Him from them so much as their unfaithfulness. But all this showed that the peace which He promised could be no outward peace; that it could not be felt till they were ready to give up that. The sense of a friend, a deliverer, the revelation of a Father, would give them really a peace which the world did not give, and could not take away. I forget how it came in, but Mr. Maurice mentioned Christ’s look to Peter which made him weep, and contrasted that with Judas’s remorse. I would give you a better account of this sermon, but I ought to have written it before. It is now confused in my mind with Kingsley’s, the one I heard on Wednesday, and with several things I have been reading.

We are not to execute our own designs for Ruskin, at any rate yet. I have been doing his letters in the work hours.... About what you and G. have been saying, I should answer, that I think you are quite right in maintaining that, if the war is right, we must be right in praying to God to help us in it; but I think there is a certain cowardice, a shrinking from looking facts in the face, when people say that they are not asking God to help them to kill men. That is not the end, but it is the means. What I think we want to see is that all things are as nothing in comparison with right; that we have no business to calculate results; that we are to give up comfort, homes, those who are dearest to us, life, everything, to defend right. I wish very much to have time to think what a nationality is, that it should be worth so much. I feel that it is worth everything. I suppose every nation has a separate work to do, which would be left undone were it extinct. I think a nation can never perish till it has so far neglected its mission that its existence has no more meaning. If it has fulfilled its work it will be given more to do; so with the Jews; they had borne witness to a living Ruler, a King of the people; they had had glimpses that the King would be more fully revealed; they believed that it was He who had brought them out of captivity, had strengthened them in battle. They had forgotten Him, and asked for a visible king like the other nations, when their glory was to be different from them, those other nations. The king was given; the prophet saw that there was a divine meaning in the cry for one; but Saul was the representative of the people, he was a mere general. He was wrecked; and yet there was a meaning in the offer. The earthly king might set himself up, might tyrannize over the people; but he was the continual witness of a power, which he might recognize and bow before; life was as nothing to the Israelites, nationality everything. And they did not fall because they thought so little of life; they thought too much of it, if you look upon life as merely the breath. But if life is the light of men, we have no evidence, we can have none, that it is in the power of man to take it away. They did not give it, and they cannot destroy it. If in Him was the life, in Him it is, and ever will be; we may surely trust to Him those whom He has made. The light which shined in the darkness was surely that which has been in our soldiers, in the long-suffering they have had; their breath, their bodies man can destroy; but that which has given them strength is still theirs, when their last struggle on earth has ended, and they go perhaps to a more awful fight; but with a peace which cannot leave them. The Jews fell; they thought they were different from all the world, when they were most like it. They were boasting of their privileges, trusting in themselves; they evidently thought the highest sign of godliness was utter selfishness. They would have thought it a triumph for Christ, if He had saved Himself. He died that death might have no more darkness for us, no more loneliness; for He was light and life, that He might bear witness that breath is not the most precious thing; that there is One Who is always trying to destroy that higher life, but that it is His gift and He will preserve it....

Mr. Maurice preaches next Sunday at Mile End.

It is very late, so good night.... Mr. Maurice asked very kindly how you were. He does not appreciate the noble patience with which you are waiting at Weybridge; but, if he does not understand it, we do sympathise.

Ladies’ Guild,

April 19th, 1855.

Emily to Florence.

VISIT TO RUSKIN

I have such a great deal to tell you that I don’t know what to put first. You must know that Ruskin appointed to see Mr. Pickard[^[19]] at 2 o’clock at his house; and he was to take the letters that they have done as specimens at about half past twelve. Ockey came running into the workroom, half crying, half laughing, and came and whispered something to Miranda who left the room with her. Presently Miranda came back laughing, and saying that she had succeeded.... It came out that this was the case.... Ockey had wanted very much to go with Mr. Pickard; but he was going in his cart; and Ockey could not go in an omnibus and meet him there, because it would offend him; so Miranda persuaded Mama to let Ockey go in the cart. She says that she enjoyed it so much; Mr. Pickard was so kind and thoughtful. He did not drive up to the door in the cart, but left it at some distance. Ruskin received them very kindly and was very much pleased with the letters, and has given an order for two more to be done. When they left Ruskin, Mr. Pickard seemed determined that they should enjoy themselves. He wanted to explore a pretty road that there was; and soon he set his heart on going to the Crystal Palace; so he took Ockey there, and showed her all over the gardens which she had never seen before, and led her about from room to room.... At last Ockey began to fear that he would never leave, and that she should be late for the meeting at the Agency. However, she got back in time.

Ladies’ Guild,

July 6th, 1855.

To Miss Harrison.

We shall be very happy to see your friends and your uncle, who I think I have had the pleasure of meeting at Mrs. Howitt’s.

It gives us very great pleasure to see anyone who is really interested in our work. Sympathy is very precious, and the knowledge that we are not working utterly alone; it is a wonderfully interesting work, at times a difficult one; thrown so much together as we all are, we have to ask ourselves what it is that unites us, now that we have at last broken thro’ the wall of ice that has surrounded these children’s hearts, threatening to shape them into machines, not to educate them as human beings, having individuality, powers of perception and reflection; tho’, thank God! it never could have achieved its work entirely because they would always have had power of loving, however blunted it might have been.... I do not think the influence that the rich and poor might have upon one another has been at all understood by either. I think we have all taken it too much for granted—a great deal more than we should have done—that the giving is all on one side, the receiving on the other.... I have had a great success to-day, in destroying, I trust for ever, a six years’ quarrel between two of the children. But a long work lies before us; and to-day’s victory is but a small emblem of what must be. There must be many a cloud, and many a storm, and many an earthquake; and yet we must rise victorious, to lead these children to love truth, to realize it as more eternal, more real than any material substances; to teach them that in the principle of a sacrifice lies all strength; to open their hearts and eyes to all beauty; to bring out the principle of obedience and sacrifice, as opposed to selfishness and lawlessness. This is not a small work, and they must learn to do that which lies before them, to look upon the fulfilment of the duties which God has given them, in whatever position they may be, as that which will open to them the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a work which we must ask to be able to undertake in all humility, all energy, all earnestness, all faith; feeling that our only strength, our sufficient strength is that God is working with us.

I do not know whether I ought to apologise for writing such a long letter; but I hardly remembered what I was doing.

CHILDREN’S CONSCIENCES

Ladies’ Guild,

4, Russell Place,

Fitzroy Square,

July 16th, 1855.

To Miss Harrison.

It has given me much pleasure to receive your very kind letter. I thank you in my own name and in that of the children for your welcome invitation. It will give us very great pleasure to accept it.... Your letters have given me much pleasure because they are assurances that we are not working utterly alone; because we want this assurance; because the evil which is so great, and so near, is almost crushing, without a consciousness of having fellow labourers. It is such a very small number that can come within our reach; our influence is so limited even on those with whom we have most to do; there is so much in ourselves that hinders us from understanding and loving these children as we should do; so much in them that hinders them from caring for our love. Fancy appealing to a child’s sense of duty to do something which will delay her work, prevent her earning so much as she would otherwise have done, perhaps deprive her of a meal, very often of a new pair of shoes! How strong her sense of duty must be, how real right must seem to her (if she is to prevail), to counterbalance the reality of the dinner and clothes! How dare I hope, I very often ask myself, to awaken this sense? And yet I do go on acting as if it were existing; appealing to it, and receiving proofs of its existence continually. I dare not hope that I shall have the power of creating it. I dare not disbelieve that I ought to be the agent in awakening it. It is a very wonderful work in which we are engaged. It is a very awful work, when you feel how easily you can reach their hearts, how hard it is to reach their consciences; they will do anything for you, they will do hardly anything because it is right. And tho’ this is dangerous, because so false a ground to stand upon, yet this inclination testifies of a precious truth. It might teach us, if we would only learn, how much all human beings must crave for personality; how cold, how dead, how distant are all abstractions. A soul diffused thro’ nature, an ideal, an essence, a principle, may seem to satisfy a comfortably situated philosopher. It is sufficient to dream and speculate about; it is not enough to live upon. Even in his most easy moments, there will be strange questionings in him as to what connection this God of his bears to life; and there will come a time when the ground beneath him shall be shaken; when he shall ask what he is standing upon; when evil shall rise before him as something very real, very near; then he will have to ask whether there is nothing nearer, nothing more real; yes! in his old creeds (if they deserve the name) there is an essence pervading all things. An essence, when this is a real battle, when evil is gathered up in some person, is felt to be most terribly personal. If evil is all vague, all mysterious, and yet most real, is there no Person stronger than it, mysterious through His divinity? Yes! then all history, all life will testify there is such a one. Man has been trying to bow down even to himself; he has longed to worship, but it must be something definite, something eternal; such a one has been shown. Every man is to act as if it were so. You are all to speak to those around you, as if they had that in them which would recognise and reverence this Conqueror, this Knight; and yet as if they knew that He could only be God’s warrior, because He came not to crush but to raise; and yet that, just because of this, He was bound to fight with evil, bound to destroy; and I do hope we may be able to awaken in the hearts of these children a knowledge that they are called soldiers of Christ, in whatever place they may find themselves; that it is their duty not to speak or act or think as if there were no evil; that it is no proof of trust in God to shut their eyes. They do see evil, they do feel it in themselves, they are bound to testify that God is stronger than the devil, light than darkness, life than death. There is all danger of our disbelieving this. I feel it in myself. I am frequently inclined to act as if I believed that another than a righteous God was ruling, especially in the hearts of others; as if there was nothing so strong as selfishness, nothing so mighty as self interest; and yet I am bound to claim for these children, to claim for all of us, the name of Christians, children of God, inheritors of His Kingdom.

Ladies’ Guild,

July 24th, 1855.

To Miss Harrison.

... And now I must thank you all very very much for your kindness, which I am sure we shall never any of us forget. I am sure you will be glad to hear how much we all enjoyed the whole day. I am sure that it was to many of us a revelation not only of beauty and comfort, but of gentleness and generosity, which we have cause to be very grateful for. The children have never ceased talking about it; the boat, the water, the garden, the flowers are continual sources of delight. I asked them to-day if they had any message to you, as I was going to write. They seemed oppressed by a sense of wanting to say something. One of them said she had plenty to say, if she was going to write herself. There was an eager discussion in one corner as to whether it would be proper to send their love; but they ended by asking me to thank you all for them, as they did not know how. I felt very much inclined to tell them how very little I knew how; except that I thought the very love, which they seemed to think it would be shocking to express, was the only thanks which you would care anything about.

I have had a very sad day to-day. A scene with the children, bringing up old quarrels, repeating unkind things which should have been forgotten long ago; a recommencement of a feud, which I had so rashly hoped was destroyed for ever. I spoke to them very earnestly; there was not a dry eye in all the room; but I fear that very little lasting good has been done. I do not see what to do about it.

HOW TO FIND OUR WORK

I went yesterday to Epping Forest with both the Tailors’ Associations. There were eighty of us at tea; and, as they sat in the long room, covered with beech boughs, some of us were called upon to sing “Now pray we for our Country!” and I could not help thinking how real the prayers of the workers are, because their lives are so much together. With no doubt that the prayer would be answered, I could sing “Who blesseth her is blessed,” and think of all those dear children at home, who are trying, and will, I trust, try more to Bless England; and I could thank God for such as you, because I am sure that, if England has not devoted children, and faithful servants, she must perish; and I could ask that such days as this may not be very rare, because the only meaning of our life, like the only meaning of her life, is union.

On Saturday the children were talking about their visit to you; and one of them said: “Ah! I should like to live there always.” “So should I!” and “Oh that would be nice!” echoed round the room. They then said to me, “Should you not like to live there always?”

I was conscious of a very strong impulse urging me to answer “Yes.” An idea of quiet (which has lately been occasionally my ideal of happiness) came over me, more especially a vision of your uncle’s face, which always seemed to me to possess a divine expression of rest. I saw the danger; I yielded to the fear too much; I feared I was shrinking from work; and I said: “Do you want me to go? Do not you see there is work to be done here? I am of use.” I saw the mistake in a moment; but something interrupted me, and I forgot the conversation. In about half an hour, I felt a little hand slide into mine, and hold it very tight. Harriet’s large eyes fixed themselves on me, and she said in a trembling voice: “But, Miss Ockey, isn’t there work to be done there, if one is willing to do it?”

I felt the rebuke very much. It spoke to a very strong tendency in me; and I told her that there was in all positions some work to be done, for which the world would be nobler; that we must all try to see the good which others were doing; but that I was sure we never could do any work well, until we were content to do our own well; that, until we had cultivated to the utmost the little garden in which our house stood, we must not cry for acres of distant land; that no change of circumstances, before death or after it, could ever make us conscientious or zealous, or gentle; and that I was quite sure that, if any one of them could have done more good in any other position, they would have been there.

Mama has asked me to be sure to say that Mr. Vansittart Neale is very much interested in your uncle’s plan, and that he is here on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.... I am very sorry that I cannot send the plan of the Ladies’ College in this letter; I will do so on the first opportunity. I send you two addresses which I wish you would read, as I should like you to know something of Mr. Maurice. If you could know, as I know, the unwearied energy, the untiring devotion with which he works; how he has established the Associations, the Working Men’s College, and now the College for Working Women, you could not fail to respect him. But, if to this was added the consciousness that he had been the agent of showing you the ground on which you were standing, the sun by whose light alone you could work! It has been my very earnest prayer that I may be able to prevent some from living on speculations, even as long as I lived on them. When first I met your uncle, I had just begun to know Mr. Maurice, apart from the band with whom he was working,—just begun to long for the certainty of which he spoke;—to be utterly weary of conjecturing; and I think I owe a great deal to the impression of your uncle’s face and voice. They seemed so calm, so fixed; but nothing except real work, real intercourse with people who needed comfort, could ever have given me strength. Again, after three years, we have met; and I am still crying for more earnest faith, but only for others now. I do thank him. I do thank you and every one who has helped me to make their lives more blessed and happy. I hope they may learn to work for one another in fellowship.

NAMES AND THEIR MEANINGS

Ladies’ Guild,

August 1st, 1855.

To Miss Harrison.

Thank you very much for your long, kind letter. It did my heart good to receive it.

You may indeed call me “Miss Ockie” if it pleases you; but I shall be glad if you will leave out the “Miss” altogether, if you like.

“Ockie” is a very familiar name associated in my mind with most of my sisters, and with the times when I ran wild in the country; a name which binds the past and the present together, which bears a continual protest against my tendency to forget my childhood.

“Loke” is my name with which is associated all my strength; it is Florence’s own invention; whenever my sisters call me their brother, then I am “Loke.” “Octavia” is Mama’s name for me, whenever I am working with her. Whenever I am steady, I have a right to it. “Miss Hill” is bound up with very precious recollections, very happy associations. Mr. Maurice, Mr. Ruskin, and one or two others use it principally.

But I now think I see in the children’s name for me the union of all, the gathering up of the essence of each,—the casting away of its evil. It must bear witness, as the first does, that, however changed, I was once passionate, lonely. It must remind me of scenes long past; it must comprehend the strength of the second, the energy and perseverance of the third; it can do so because it is a working name; because there is no motive of strength or energy, without affection; it must be connected with the last name, because there is no sure ground for it, except in the words “This is My commandment that ye love one another.”

This name is indeed dear to me now. I never can forget (I do not think the recollection will ever grow fainter) the way they received me on Saturday. I had been ill, but insisted upon working. One of them suggested that they should be quiet; and I never had such complete silence, although I did not once tell them to be quiet, because I thought it hard to cramp them simply because I chose to work; and the next morning when I returned from my early walk, they were all over the house, to catch the first sight of me. Four of them had been here since before seven, nine being their usual time. Those who lived near together arranged that whoever woke early should go to call all the others. Every one had something for me—flowers, books, fruit; they brought me the footstool; they anticipated every want that I had. I never saw such bountiful unconscious love and attention.... I should never have done telling you how kind they are.... I began reading out to them to-day; it succeeded admirably. I only wish I knew more people to do it. I can only give them three hours in a week, and that only during the autumn.

August 5th.

I do not know what you will say to me, dear Miss Harrison, for not sending this letter, but I have been very busy and much excited.

I have been, since I wrote it, to Mr. Ruskin’s for the third time. But still it is a very wonderful event for me; and, I think, always will be; for not only is everything which he says precious—all opening new fields of thought and lighting them,—but also his house is full of the most wonderful pictures that I ever dreamed of. Not fifty Royal Academies could be worth one rough sketch in that house; and he is so inexpressibly kind, so earnest to help everyone, and so generous that one comes home inclined to say to everything, “Hush while I think about it”; and then to continue, “Whirl on! for I have a quietness, which has another Source than you, and which is given to influence you.”

THE BASIS OF SOCIETY

I go to-day to see the Sunday School, which most of my children attend; they press me very much to teach in it. Would to God that I could show them the deeper, mightier foundation than that they are standing on! I believe I am doing so in a way. I believe that, when I first came to them, I took the right ground. I was bound to assume, and I have assumed, that justice, truth, and self-sacrifice, are the principles that hold Society together; that its existence testifies to their strength; that what is true of Society at large is true of our Society; that it does not and cannot stand, except in proportion to their strength. I believe that this is the great Christian principle—that there is no might nor greatness in Christ’s life, no saving power in His death, no triumph in His resurrection, unless it is the eternal witness that obedience and self-sacrifice give to victory over lawlessness and selfishness.

I believe that, in so far as I am acting as if this were true, I am teaching them to be followers of Christ. What I wish I could teach them is to have a more personal religion. This I believe to be the great work that Sunday schools have done; they have little scope for teaching the other truths, even if they recognise them. Daily life must teach that. We are teaching it to one another here. They are making it a much more living faith for me than it has ever been before. May the God of England strengthen us all, to trust that He is King and that He is righteous.

Thank your sisters very much for the prospect of the leaves; they will indeed be treasures to all of us.

Ladies’ Guild,

4, Russell Place,

September 21st, 1855.

Margaret—a toy-worker—to Emily Hill.

I hope you are enjoying yourself.... We had such a beautiful lesson to-day about the world. I miss you very. I wish you would come back again. It is now twenty-five minutes to eight; it was very dark, and I and Harriet put a farthing together, and sent L. and S. out for a halfpenny candle.... Oh! our gardens are getting on so badly! We had an Irish stew for dinner to-day. Do come back as soon as you can; and I daresay you see numbers of snakes and snails, and glow-worms, and beautiful caterpillars and all sorts of insects. I daresay the leaves are falling fast. I daresay you are very happy together. When you went away, Louisa, Sarah, and Dennis did sob and cry so. I daresay when you are alone by yourself you are thinking of home, and it makes you very sad; but never mind; cheer up. S. earned two shillings and a farthing, and L. two shillings and two pence; and I earned two and twopence yesterday. Were we not good girls? and Miss Ockey was very pleased with us. We have finished that splendid, oh beautiful! book, “Steadfast Gabriel”; and I never saw such a beautiful book in my life. Sarah is always thinking of you, and I too. The account this week comes to £19 all but fourpence. We have most splendid boxes of toys in the show room, beautiful, elegant.

I am writing the poetry that you like very much in my copy book. Good night. I must depart from the workshop.

ENJOYMENT OF BEAUTY

Marshals, Romford,

October 16, 1855.

To Emily.

Tell Miss Cons that I often wish she were here; she would appreciate so much the beauty of everything. She would rejoice to look at the gigantic trees holding themselves so still, with, here and there, a branch all gold or copper coloured, and the brilliant berries; to trace the light wreaths of briony not yet transformed into streams of gold, but just changed enough from their summer green to tell you their own individual story, how they grew deep down in the hedge, and then climbed up clinging for strength even to thorny branches, even to leafless ones; they tell how they trust themselves, and tangle and knot themselves closer and closer; one wreath only impatient for light and sunlight, running up some spray of rose or bramble; and then, as if content to be made more and more like that sun, rests on its thorny pillar and stretches down its golden arms to its friends below, every leaf telling the same story as the whole plant; beginning in darkness, ending in light; beginning in life, ending in glorified death; beginning in green, ending in gold; beginning in massive strength, ending in spiritual power. But it is of you and A. I think, when, gathered round the fire in an evening, we talk of the Guild, of Ruskin, of the poor, of education, of politics and history.

Marshals,

October 19th, 1855.

To Miss Howitt.

Will you tell your Mama that I shall have great pleasure in writing to Maggie.... How many days we have spent together! She remembers them, I find, with as much pleasure as I do. I do wonder whether we shall ever know each other better! Has she many friends of her own age? I have not very much time. Still there are some things (and this certainly one of them) which are well worth devoting time to.

I am very happy here. The country is very beautiful. The gold and red and purple leaves are very precious—partly because of their rarity. There are, as yet, no masses of colour,—no leaves of autumn foliage,—only single boughs, and sprays and leaves, standing out from among the green. The sunlight comes and goes, like one who knows the innermost soul of those around him, and loves to pierce into their mystery. The purple distance is, however, so far, so lovely, that it seems as if the sun even could not penetrate it;—like those sad, solitary beings whom one sometimes meets, who have no fellowship with those around;—still, in the darkness of night, there is union between them and the world that is nearer; and, as the sun is leaving the earth, and the twilight gathers in the East, the whole earth will be lighted by a wonderful mist of light—lighted and wrapped in it.

I must thank you again for the “Modern Painters.” It has been a very great pleasure to me to have it. I grow to value it more and more every day.

As I daresay you would have heard from Charlton, we acted the “Bondmaid” yesterday. All the children came to see it. It was the only play that they had ever seen. I have not seen them since, and am very anxious to hear what they thought of it. It must have been a wonderful event in their lives. They are (as indeed I think we all are) a great deal too much wrapped up in our own affairs; and it must be very much because we know ourselves so much better than others. Therefore I do not fear to give way to what I know is a preference that the children feel for story-books. They have even expressed it; and I reserve to myself the choice of books.

INFLUENCE OF BOOKS

I would rather that they had a strong sympathy with men than with birds; therefore I would prefer them to read about men, particularly if they will learn to study the characters more than the events. Yet I value all natural history, all science, as bringing them to realities, saving them from dreams and visions. But I would have them to look upon all strong feeling, love, hate, gentleness, reverence, as being as real as stones and trees and stars. They are very suspicious. Now in books there can be no suspicion. All is declared to be good or evil. Deceit may be shown indeed, but devotion is shown also. I would not have them to believe all around them to be what it appears; for it is not so; but I must get them to believe that, in the deep souls of those even who appear the worst, there is a spark of nobleness, which it is in their power to reach, with which they are to claim fellowship, which they are to look upon as the only eternal part of men. It is for this reason that I do not fear, day after day, to read stories to those who are in the midst of hard work, poverty, sickness, hundreds of people, trials, hopes and deaths. Therefore I have asked you for those books, which are among the very few which I would let these dear children read.

Ladies’ Guild,

December 2nd (1855?).

To Emily.

I am writing with my consolidated[^[20]] table before me. I do hope you will be able to see it before it goes to Ruskin’s. Mama will I daresay tell you how I intend to spend my birthday. Do think of me at half past one, if you know in time.

Mr. Maurice asks how you are continually, and is very kind. He is gone to Cambridge, and will not be at Lincoln’s Inn to-morrow. Is it not a pity? All goes on very well here; the children are very dear. I wish you could be with us to-morrow. I want you to see Ruskin. I trust it will be a fine day.... I have undertaken to teach the two C.’s writing and arithmetic. It is so nice. I am very happy, everyone is so kind. I am delighting in the thought of to-morrow. I do not know whether any other day would be the same, if one thought about it; but it does seem to me as if one’s birthday held the same relation to other days that Mr. Maurice says a ruler does to his people,—as if it gathered up all the meaning of those other days, embodied the meaning of all of them; and so, if things happen, as it seems probable they will, I shall feel that, as, last year, I had to learn the value of the Church service read by Mr. Maurice, so this year I have to learn how precious it is when read by anyone, now that he is away; as last year I was to feel what a blessed thing a home was, where all members of it were together, so this year I must learn how much of the real spirit of home, unity, cheerfulness, may be brought out when many members of a family are scattered.... Many of the workers are coming to Lincoln’s Inn. If I do not see Ruskin I shall think that it represents the past year. I have had intercourse with him on all subjects connected with art. If I do see him, I shall hope that it is emblematic of the coming year;... it is a strange thing that the sad, hard-working, selfish should cling to the bright, radiant, generous.

SOURCE OF CONFIDENCE

Ladies’ Guild,

December 3rd, 1855.

To Miss Harris.

Miss Harrison tells me that she thinks I may write to you.—I need not tell you how much pleasure it gives me to do so, especially to-day, as it is my birthday.

All is quiet, everyone asleep, the room empty, the fire out; but I never knew a more cheerful scene. Everything seems bright and blessed, to-day, for me. I trust that it is so, and always will be, for you; that, after many dark shadows, fearful changes, hard work, (if you ever know such) there shall come calm joy like this. And not only after, but in the darkness. You have heard about those last strange changes that have taken place among us. In the very heart of them, I felt most deeply conscious how very mighty all good must be; how little our weakness would hinder God’s work. This conviction gave me whatever strength, courage, power, I have had. In proportion as I lost light of it, I have been weak, timid, and wavering. They may chain our tongues and hands to a great degree, forbid us to read the Bible together, &c., but no human power can check the influence which continual sacrifice has; no one can hinder the conviction that these children are gaining,—all Love can overcome Evil. This is a Gospel which will prepare them for that more personal one, which these people will teach!

You ask what Miranda and I intend to do. Andy is teaching in the morning, and teaching my children in the afternoon. I am working here, where I will continue, as long as ever I have any strength, or as long as I am permitted to do so. My whole life is bound in with this Society. Every energy I possess belongs to it. If I leave here, I intend to continue to support myself if possible, if I can keep body and soul together. I have just completed some work for Ruskin. When I take it home, I intend to learn whether he thinks it of any use for me to go on drawing; whether there is any hope of employment; if so, I shall devote all spare time to it. If not, I intend to begin to study with all energy, to qualify myself as a governess; resting sure that whatever work offers itself may be done well, may become a blessed, noble, occupation.

I wish I could convey to you any impression of the picture[^[21]] I have seen to-day. Yes, if I could impart to anyone my own perception of the picture, could only let them have an opportunity of looking at it for as long as I did, I should have done something worth living for. That union of the truth with the ideal is perfect, solemn, glorious, awful and mighty. It will I trust never fade from my memory.

MORAL GROWTH OF THE CHILDREN

December 4th, 1855.

Thank you for all kind messages about us, or to us. I wish I could tell you about my children, of the blessed spirit which they are beginning to show continually. I wish I could tell you of the kindness of all our friends; above all I hope that you do possess that strong confidence in a great spirit of love, that you do see the effects of its strength in those, whoever they may be, for whom and with whom you have worked, a confidence not based on fiction or fancy, but on experience, on a clear perception of motives. I have had that faith for some years; but I am sure we shall all look back to this crisis as to a time which has tried, proved, and strengthened it. No one need suspect us of blinding ourselves to the existence of selfishness; our life would not permit it; but oh the joy, after a life of many sorrows, many changes, in which either no friends did stand by us, or we had not the power to see that they did, to see at last the time arrived when numbers of arms are stretched out to save us,—this is glorious! But, above and beyond the delight of gratitude for sympathy, what a blessing it is to feel how much there is in men that is generous, affectionate, sympathetic; to know that, if you are no longer to encourage this spirit among those with whom you have lived so long, God can and will strengthen it. If you may no longer bow before those with whom you live, when you see their wonderful nobleness, struggling with adverse circumstances, no longer learn humility from them, God himself will teach you in other places, and by other means. You dare leave all your labour to Him, because He has given you whatever of a right spirit you have exercised in it.

VISIT TO RUSKIN

Ladies’ Guild,

December 7th, 1855.

To Emily.

I have been trying to write to you every night, but have been too sleepy. It is now luncheon time, so I must not write much.... I did indeed spend a glorious day on Monday. Emma Cons and I walked to Dulwich. Oh the delight of the frosty morning! the beautiful leaves as they peeped out from the banks! As we passed Ruskin’s house, it seemed wrapped in mist; just as we came up, the sun broke out behind the house, which, however, quite shaded the garden, except that one ray darted thro’ the glass doors of the hall, and pierced the darkest depths of the steady cedars; then on to Dulwich, where we met Miss Harris. I wrote a letter asking Ruskin to let us see his pictures. We drove to his house, sent the letter in; the answer was that the ladies were to be shown in. “Crawley” took us into the dining-room and stirred the fire; the room was papered with red flock paper, and there were a number of almost purple leather chairs and a number of pictures. Crawley led us up to one saying, “This is the Slave Ship.” Oh, you do not know how often I have read Ruskin’s description of this picture, and have hoped that it was in his possession: I had not remembered it, however, since I had heard of this promised visit. It was such a surprise. I looked at it for some time; then I just looked at the other pictures in the room; one was the “Grand Canal at Venice” by Turner, which I hardly saw. There was a sketch by Tintoret of a doge at his prayers, very beautiful, with a picture of the second coming of Christ; the large picture, for which this was a study, is now in Venice. There were two or three William Hunts, two or three by Prout, who you know now paints architecture so beautifully. Crawley said, “Perhaps you can find enough to amuse (!!!) you for twenty minutes, until our other rooms are disengaged.” Of course I was delighted; but, having once really looked at the Slave Ship, it was impossible to turn to anything else. I must not attempt to describe it, Ruskin having done so;... Crawley returned but too soon; told us about the other pictures, pointed out a figure of “our Saviour which Mr. Ruskin thinks a great deal of.” Had he not done so, I should be standing before the Slave Ship now. Ruskin sent down a very kind message. I did not hear whether it was “his kind regards” as I was thinking; but the end of the message was “he would have been very glad to have come down to shew us the pictures himself, were it not that he was correcting his book, and had been much delayed by a severe cold.” And then we went thro’ three more rooms, and the hall full of pictures, which I had not time to see properly, but which remain in my memory like a bright vivid dream; quiet lakes with a glow of colour, cities in moonlight, and lighted with a wonderful glow of furnace light; emerging, wild, fantastically shaped grey clouds, blown by evening winds leaving the sky one glow of sunset light; fairs all bright; with an old cathedral quietly watching impetuous waves dancing against lonely rocks; solemn bays of massy rocks with a darkened line of evening sun against the sky; the sweep of the river beside rounded hills; but all done by an eye which sought for true beauty, not a line out of harmony, or that does not tell some precious tale. When I reached home W. said that Miss Sterling had called.... “She said she was very glad you had taken a holiday.” Well what do you suppose I did? I had dinner and set off to Queen’s Square, where I was most kindly received. Mr. Maurice had just returned from Cambridge and had four gentlemen with him; so I did not see him or Mrs. Maurice. Kate[^[22]] was busy making ornaments for a Christmas-tree “for the boys.” I was there a long time, and it was a complete success. Miss Sterling grows every day kinder.

(Then follows a list of the little presents given to her on her birthday by the toy-workers)....

Ladies’ Guild,

December 19th, 1855.

To her Mother.

I have received your letter and will attend to the business.... About coming to Weybridge.... Mr. Maurice tells me that he will preach at Lincoln’s Inn on Tuesday morning. Of course I cannot miss that; but I will, if necessary, as a great sacrifice, give up the morning service, on one condition, that it is not made a precedent for expecting it again.... I very much wish to spend some part of Christmas with you, and to see you again; but I very much wish you would all be contented, if I spent Christmas Eve with you, as I would much value to do so. See how people feel about it, and let me know.

DANGER OF TOO MUCH CONFIDENCE

Ladies’ Guild,

4, Russell Place,

December 24th, 1855.

To Miss Harris,

I know very well that you will like to hear of my little darlings. For some time past I have written but little about them, because I have been much interested about other things; and they have been but little to me, except that I have treasured their affection much. I know now how much I have neglected them, and am at last thoroughly awakened from my dream. But I very much regret to say that a spirit has entered into the workroom which I do not think healthy. When I was with you, I think I must have spoken of the hardness of working when one is suspected, and not steadily cared for. Now I have a far different cause of complaint;—an exaggerated admiration, an immovable belief that all I do is perfect, a dislike of anyone who even tells me to do anything which they see I do not wish to do. But I trust soon to bring this also to reason. I care little for what is called a merry Christmas; but it made me very sad to hear all last week calculations about puddings, discussions as to whether they could not manage to come in for two Christmas dinners, mixed with laments that they should have to nurse a baby all day; no real pleasure to look forward to, with a very strong feeling that they had a right to some. I could bear it no longer. I proposed that we should have a snapdragon all together some evening. They were overjoyed. We found we could have a grand one by paying twopence each. Still I found that it was but little, as it would last so short a time. I then thought of a Christmas tree. I am going to Grandpapa’s to-morrow, and shall endeavour to get a little fir or holly. All the children bought small things for it last Saturday, and will I daresay, do so next;—tapers, apples, oranges, nuts, &c. I then asked them to bring all their sisters, and all their brothers under twelve. Many did not wish for the trouble of taking care of the little ones; but I have insisted, and I believe prevailed. Of course we shall have grand games, sea’s rough, hunt the slipper, old coach, frog in the middle, blind man’s buff, &c. The children must all have tea before they come. Fortunately there is no ice to break. We all know one another. Andy is going to write a little play for them to act; and I shall teach them it during work. This is a great delight to them. Another thing which I anticipate great pleasure from is dancing. They will enjoy it much. Really the spirit shown has been beautiful. One of the girls has asked her mother to make a cake and send it. One great distress is that some of them have nothing but heavy boots, and so will not be able to dance. Poor little things! I wish I could do for them all which I have it in my heart to do. It will be a strange party; there will be no hostess; or rather, we shall all be hostesses. Each will have contributed what she could. Another thing which I mean to do, if I find it possible without bringing ourselves into bondage, is to ask for contributions from the richer members of the Guild. I am sure it will do both them and us good. But I trust to show to others and to myself, how much of what is precious in a party is entirely independent of any expenditure, and eating; how possible it is to have much fellowship and gaiety without large outlay of money. I have renounced parties myself. There is no longer any pleasure to be found in them, which may not be found better elsewhere. This love of immense gatherings is unmeaning. The love of show is detestable. There is no time for conversation, no place for affection, no purpose in them, or none which I can understand. And yet I do feel that this party will be a very nice one. I do believe it will succeed. I have renounced parties, above all I have renounced Christmas parties. It is now certainly a time for rejoicing. I believe it; but, as one grows and lives, above all as year follows year, and there is removed from one’s side one whose blessed smile has lighted our Christmas hearth, as the vacant chair becomes a witness of the lost one, as one is conscious of the “one mute presence watching all,” when one has said in one’s heart, “Why should we keep Christmas at all; witness as it is of change?” and one has answered, “Would the sense of change forsake you if you had no such time? Do you wish that it should leave you? Or has it taught you to put all trust in One who is unchanging, Who gives to all their work, Who binds all in one?” When one has felt all this, the mirth of Christmas is gone but not its value; witness, as it is, of that inward union of which we vainly strive to hold the outward symbol. We may spend it in the truest sense with those who have been called to other lands.

VALUE OF CHRISTMAS TO THE CHILDREN

But these, my children, to whom care and anxiety are so familiar, and to whom all the beauty and poetry of life are so strange, so new,—I must bring home to them some of the gladness which they see around them; their only Christmas trees must not be those in confectioners’ windows, at which they gaze with longing eyes. There is time enough for Christmas to become solemn, when it has become joyful and dear.

I thought that I loved these children when I was with you. I did not know how much it was possible to love them. I am very much pleased about another person, with whom I have been so long,—Miss Cons. She has now thoroughly established herself, and has begun to study, walk, think, draw, be entirely independent of me. More than this, when she came here, she had not a single person in the world to love or be loved by except her own family.... Our Miss Cons, however, has got to know friends; and whoever cares to break through her shell will be well rewarded. I am most pleased to find that there are several who have done so, and that she is gaining warm friends. I find in her a strength and energy which is quite refreshing, and consign to her much which I should otherwise undertake myself. I feel, in Miss Cons, whose growth I have watched eagerly, an amazing perseverance, a calmness, a power, and a glorious humility before which I bow, and which I feel may be destined to carry out great works more nobly. I am particularly glad that she has friends, as I find that now instead of giving her my society, I can only give her my friendship and sympathy.

Now dear Miss Harris good night. I do most fervently hope that you may have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

January 11th, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

It is on loving, infinitely more than on being loved, that happiness depends. I feel how little the reception of one’s services or love has to do with their power of giving joy. However, yesterday the children were particularly kind, dear little things! To-morrow the College begins again. Oh I am so glad the holidays are over! I have not heard from Ruskin. Perhaps I shall find a letter to-day. Shall I, I wonder, go to him to-morrow?

I am reading aloud to the children a very beautiful book by Miss Gillies; and it was so strange to meet with real things that had done and said and heard said, long, long ago, when I used to stay there.

The Men’s College is to be moved to Great Ormond Street; but whether our classes are going too I do not know. I hear that at one meeting it was proposed that women should be admitted to the General Meeting. The idea was laughed at. Someone then proposed that the women’s classes should be held in the evening; and the question was referred to the Council.

“TOY CHILDREN” MANAGEMENT

Ladies’ Guild,

January 27th, 1856.

Miranda to Joanna Durrant née Graham.

Ockey is so accurate and so certain in her statements that she has been able to refute all aspersions; and her excellent management of the toy work is so evident; all the details are so perfect, which is what Mr. Neale thinks so much of, that it is clear he is entirely on Ockey’s side in the matter; though she has a good deal of pain, and has still some anxiety about it. As for her influence over the children, it strengthens day by day; those who have been constantly with us are so much impressed.

Ladies’ Guild,

February 18th, 1856.

To Emily.

... My own plans are very uncertain; my own wish is to find such work as can be done in the workroom, so that I may superintend the children without receiving remuneration, but which may at the same time be sufficiently remunerative to allow me to earn more, and yet continue my studies. I shall speak to D. to-morrow to find out whether colouring photographs would meet these conditions, and whether I can get work at it. Another plan is to learn watch engraving. Bennett promises work to us, but cannot teach. I cling to the idea, as it affords a prospect of establishing a Guild gradually; the objection is the time which would probably intervene before I should acquire skill. I do not at all enter into D.’s plan of designing. I do not believe in it as remunerative; and it would separate me from that social work which I have learned to prize so highly. One other path is open. I have to write to Ruskin this week, and you will hear from me after I have done so. I ought to say that I told Mr. Neale my plans on Saturday; and he said he was very glad that I should get other work, the employment here being so uncertain....

I speak (perhaps it may seem indifferently) of the utter failure of that for which we have all struggled so long and so hard. I do so, partly because I believe that what we have asked for has not failed; but I am not to speak of that now. I do so, because, although at present I am much bent upon securing a living for ourselves, I intend to accept no work however delightful, however remunerative (except as a temporary thing), which would deprive me of the power of working for others. I care but little for any system of division of profits, although it may bear witness for a great truth, and be the means of equalising remunerations, and avoiding disputes. That which I do care for is the intercourse, sympathy, self-sacrifice, and mutual help which are called out in fellow-workers; and this I believe to be worth striving for; this I mean to work for. I may seem to turn out of the path in this wearying wood; but it will only be a walk round a thicket, which hindered my progress; and free from debt, and with a clear conscience, I will work, even if I have (which, however, I do not believe) to work in another way for a short time.

RELIGIOUS TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN

Ladies’ Guild,

February 27th, 1856.

Miranda to Mrs. Durrant.

There are many events going on here; but I do not wish to speak of them till they are certain. It is indeed delightful that Mama has found some one to take her articles. I long to read them.

Thank you for the present for the Scripture prints. I have refrained from at all touching on the subject of religion with the children, since Miss C.’s affair; because I thought Mr. Neale would not wish it introduced as a lesson. Miss C. did not approve of my reading the Bible with the children. They have often begged me to do so since; but I felt I had no right to do it in lesson time without Mr. Neale’s permission; but I shall ask him now whether he objects.... Ruskin is delighted with Ockey’s table, and means to give her employment in illumination, if she will learn it, and if she has the powers he believes she has; and she means to give an hour or two to the Toy superintendence, and the rest to illumination. Is not this very very good news? Ruskin has been so exceedingly kind to Ockey about it. She received to-day a present of a beautiful paint-box and all other materials she can want. I think she must be very happy. She has just completed some work. I mean the moral training of the Industrial children; so she can now leave the chief superintendence to another person, in the full confidence that all will go well, and she is just beginning another work that is delightful to her. And she has so many friends. The Sterlings, Mr. Maurice, Miss Rogers, Ruskin and nice Miss Harrison all seem so fond of her. She is very successful and deserves to be so, for she does everything so well.

Ladies’ Guild.

March 18th, 1856.

To Emily.

We shall indeed be glad to see you. Come as early as ever you can on Thursday. I have succeeded in avoiding going to Pentonville. At present the arrangement is that Mr. P. has no connection with us, except that Kitty or any of us can cut and inlay for him in a workroom at our own house; that our house is to be entirely separate from the children’s workroom; the former being cheaper if situated nearer Camden Town, and it being essential that the latter should be easy of access for Mr. Neale and others. We shall probably get it somewhere near Red Lion Square, Queen’s Square and Lincoln’s Inn. Hurrah! This morning all was doubtful, to-night all is going right....

Dear Minnie, think well before you decide to come, whether you will choose to do so now, while all is bustle, change, confusion, and contention, or after we are settled. We long very much to see you; and you would be of great use, and it would be a great comfort to have you with me to “baffle” everyone. Could you manage to stay till Tuesday, and go with me to Ruskin’s? We would stay afterwards and see his pictures; and I could leave you at the Waterloo Station as we passed, coming home? You will hear Mr. Maurice too. I never can find time to-night to tell you all or one half of that which has happened only to-day. How much less then, that which has happened during the last week! Already I have more to do this week, than I could possibly do, if it were not absolutely necessary that it should be done. Mr. Neale has found a house, which he thinks would suit us; it must, however, be taken on lease; of course we can be neither legally nor morally bound to remain there. Our work may call us in other directions. I go to look for a toy-room to-morrow. Do come, darling.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK

Tell my own Mamma that we feel with her how terribly painful this scene would be to her; but we hope she will soon come to us. Ask her not to think me unkind or thoughtless for not writing oftener. I really cannot. I work almost without intermission, giving up Lincoln’s Inn[^[23]] even, continually. Also when one has some great purpose to carry out, some great struggle to go through, or some things troubling one, one cannot write to any to whom it would seem strange—not to mention that which is going on within one. If she could see what we go through, at every crisis of such a change as this, how one is one day triumphant, another uncertain, a third uneasy; and if there is momentary rest, the reaction is so strong that one is bound down by it, she would not wonder. Give my dear love to her.

Harry Rogers has been here to-night, to tell me about gold, outlines, brushes, pens, burnishing, etc.

I trust soon to send Mamma my first balance sheet! Do come, come early, but be prepared, if you come, to work.

If I find that I have time on Saturday or Monday to go to Ruskin, without an appointment, we will perhaps run the risk of not seeing him, as we can probably see the pictures.

Give my dear love to Mamma; tell her I hope not to fail, and ask her to believe me to be for ever her fellow-worker and disciple.

March 29th, 1856.

To Miss Harris.

I have seen your cousin to-day, as perhaps you may have heard, and am very much pleased with him and all that he says. I am very, very sorry now that we did not keep to the subject, in which I suppose his principal interest lies, the employment of women. But somehow one so naturally speaks of that which one is doing; and so the conversation naturally turned to the employment and education of children; though I think you may have seen how conscious I have been lately of the intimate connection between the two subjects; principally because, unless you can develop the minds of your workers, they never can become intelligent, or qualify themselves to fill better situations.

Have you (and has Mrs. Simpson) seen Mrs. Jameson’s “Sisters of Mercy”? It is a book in which I feel a great interest; and which I value, particularly as showing how women and men ought to work together.

Octavia to Miss Harris.

I am out of spirits to-day; because we had already succeeded in making a profit of twelve shillings a week—instead of a loss of two pounds—when Mr. —— came to-day and gave orders for really unnecessary fittings which will cost a good deal. It is more than any mortal (or at least, more than I) can bear; it is really no use working. Yes it is though.

13, Francis Street,

April 6th, 1856.

Mrs. Hill to Emily.

SECRETARYSHIP OF WOMEN’S CLASSES

I write to tell you what I am sure you will consider very good news. Mr. Maurice has given Ockey the Secretaryship at the Women’s College at a salary of £26 a year. She has to be there two hours only every afternoon; and, as the children[^[24]] cannot be left, you are to come and take her place in her absence. It is all settled; but you must come on Monday, that you may go on Tuesday to Ruskin with Ockey....

Now are you not a happy child?...

Mr. Neale is so glad you are coming.

CHAPTER III
WORKING WOMEN’S CLASSES AND ART TRAINING
APRIL, 1856—DECEMBER, 1858

The appointment mentioned in the last letter of the previous chapter must have been surprising to some of those interested in the classes. It was certainly a most responsible position for a girl not much over seventeen. Not only had Octavia to superintend the business arrangements of the classes, but also to advise the women attending as to the subjects that would be most useful to them. And she was even expected to step into the place of any teacher who happened to be absent from her class. This was a sufficiently trying demand, even when the class dealt with subjects with which she was tolerably well acquainted; but on one occasion, at any rate, she found herself required to teach botany; and, as she explained to her sister Gertrude, “I knew nothing of botany, but a great deal about flowers; and as there happened to be a bunch of flowers in the room, I talked to the women about them, and I do not think the time was wasted.” When the Ladies’ Guild was broken up the toy work was continued by Mr. Neale for a time, in a room at Devonshire Street, which, being near the working women’s classes, was convenient for Octavia. She and her mother and sisters were in lodgings at Francis Street, and then moved back to 4, Russell Place, which was let out in furnished apartments, after the Guild left.

In 1857 a scholarship at Queen’s College, Harley Street, was founded in honour of Mr. Maurice, who was given the choice of the first scholar, in recognition of the time and money that he had devoted to the College. He knew that Emily was very anxious to become a teacher; and he offered the scholarship to her, partly out of sympathy with this wish, and partly out of regard to Octavia. Thus when, later on, the school was started, Emily was able to help Octavia in a way she could not possibly have done otherwise.

In 1868, Miranda’s health began to fail. She had begun work very early, and had found the strain of so many hours’ teaching, added to the long walk, and exposure to weather, more than she could bear. It was therefore arranged that she should join her aunt and Florence in Italy, and obtain teaching there, while Mrs. Hill took over her English pupils.

LETTER FROM TOY-WORKER

May 1st, 1856.

From one of the Toy-workers.

Dearest Miss Ockey,

I hope you arrived at Plaistow quite safely on Monday. Dear Miss Ockey I hope you are quite well and very happy; but I suppose that you are very happy with your dear friends.

Dear Miss Ockey we do miss you so dreadfully. I do so long to see you and hear your voice again. The place is so dull without you, and to me seems like a prison. I have been agoing to say so often—“Miss Ockey repeat some poetry (sic) or talk about birds, or do something.”

Dear Miss Ockey, will you, if you please if it will not be too much trouble, get me a furn (sic); only gather it yourself, or else it will not do. Dear Miss Ockey I have thought so often of what you said on Saturday that two people could hardly work for one year without owing each other something; and I am ashamed and very very sorry to be obliged to come to the conclusion that all you owe me is the recollection of many unhappy days, and the great trouble and anxiety that I have been to you; for you said yourself that, when you were in bed of a night you used to think what could you do to me to alter me; while on my part I owe you that no one on earth can ever repay you. Dear Miss Ockey your Mama as been reading to us out of Howitt’s “Boys’ Country Book,” and teaching us poetry. I hope you are not working, for I am sure Mr. Ruskin would not wish you.

How is dear little Emma?[^[25]] I hope you have some fun with her, and you will be able to tell us of the fun which you had with her. How does the beautiful celandine and violets and primroses look? On Tuesday I saw Mr. Morris running so quickly. Dear Miss Ockey do you know that I knew a person who was afraid to speak to there (sic) friends, what do you think of them? Do please come home on Saturday, and if you write to anyone will you tell them at what time you will be there dear Miss Ockey. I do not mean this for a hint, but if you take it for one I shall be very glad indeed. Will you give my love to the flowers?

I am yours ever truly and affectionately,

Louisa.

No date (1856).

To Miss Margaret Harrison.

Well! if I had power, I certainly would write or draw something very bitter, sad, and severe about people; but it ought to go hand in hand with something deep, pathetic, and reverent about them. I wish I could draw or write; for I believe that I feel people’s characters to my very fingers. I long to draw them as I see them, both when my spirit mourns over them, and when it bows before them. I say I feel their characters; and so I do, just as one feels the beauty or harshness of a colour or line.

LETTER ABOUT A TOY-WORKER

39, Devonshire Street, Queen’s Square,

July 5th, 1856.

To the Mother of one of the Toy-makers.

Dear Mrs. J.,

I regret to have to tell Harriet not to return to work till Thursday next, as I have said that those children who do not earn five shillings in a week should lose three days’ work. I am very sorry to be obliged to say this, but I hope it, or a sense of the necessity of being industrious, will soon render any such law unnecessary. I shall be as pleased as proud when the day arrives, when I see all the children steady, earnest, and eager to do all they can to help those near and dear to them. I am sure their idleness results more from want of thought than anything else; but they must try to overcome this; and if they fail to do this because it is right to do so, they must be taught to do so by other means.

However, I ought to say that Harriet has improved very much indeed lately; she has been so much more gentle and steady, and more earnest about her lessons. It is therefore with much pleasure that I give her Mr. Neale’s invitation to spend a day at his house, and hope that she may grow more and more good, gentle, generous, and earnest, working for you, herself and all whom she can benefit, not only willingly but unceasingly; and I am sure she will find in quiet earnest work a happiness and peace which are far more joyous than giddiness. I ought to tell you how much I love her, and how much life and pleasure she gives to all here. I am pleased to see her take a deeper interest in things, because I am sure we all care too little, and not too much for things; and rightly directed, her love for all she cares for may be a constant source of joy to herself and others. I wish she would draw more. I am sure she would do it well.

With many thanks to you for all the pleasure she has given us, believe me, dear Mrs. J., yours very truly,

Octavia Hill.

The Cedars,

July 24th, 1856.

“Let earnest work for ever show

Our willing service to our God;

Let peace and grace like flowers grow,

Beside the path that we have trod.

Let them be watered by that rain

Which from strong trees is wont to fall;

Which they themselves receive again

From Heaven which bendeth over all.

For not so much a flower depends

Upon the rain on which it lives,

As men do on the love of friends,—

The trust, the hope, which that love gives.

Yet if the rain is like man’s love,

Like God’s love is the blessed earth;

The one refreshing from above,

The other giving beings birth.

That which on God’s love does not stand

No might of human love can plant.

God grant us rain! oh let us stand!

A root in Thee to all men grant!”

For dear little Harriet from her friend Octavia Hill, with earnest hope that neither summer drought nor winter frost may ever deprive her of the rain, and that her trust, like the roots of the flowers she loves, may ever take more firm hold of God, as their little fibres do of the strong nourishing dear old earth.

VISIT FROM FORMER TOY-WORKER

31, Red Lion Square,

August 19th, 1856.

To Miss Annie Harrison.

Do you remember a long time ago when you were at Marshals, taking a great interest in all that I told you of a little girl, called Elizabeth. I had not been able to find her house, and so had not seen or heard anything of her for many months—last night, however, as we were sitting expecting Mr. Simpson, some one came up and said, “Miss Ockey a little girl of the name of Elizabeth wants you.” I ran down and led up the little girl. She is not much grown, has still a pale but pretty face; and her dark hair and eyelashes make her look quite southern; she speaks in a raised voice, and like a child; she is very small, but is, I believe, thirteen years old. She was so glad to see us. I asked her how she found us out. She had been first to the Guild, and was told, as she said, “That no such name lived there.” She then determined to go to the other children’s houses, to which she had been once last summer. She went to Clara’s. She had moved; she went to Margaret’s, she was out; but her mother directed her to Harriet’s, and she is one of the girls who now works for us, so she told Elizabeth we now worked in Devonshire Street. “I told her she had better tell me your residence; for that Devonshire Street was such a long way. I thought so because of its name, but I must have come by the end of it, if it leads into Theobald’s Road. I said the number of the house all the way for fear I forgot it.” She said she has “been at service in a large gentleman’s family at King’s Cross where I did all the washing; I kep’ it (meaning the situation) six months but I was forced to give it up, it was too hard, for I had all the work to do, they didn’t keep no other servant.” “Have you seen anything of the country lately?” I asked. “Oh no Miss, I haven’t seen it since you took me; oh, don’t I remember Romford!” I had seen her large bright eyes looking earnestly at a bunch of glorious purple flowers I had brought with me, and I could not help giving her one piece to carry back to the miserable home she had left. Her father has lost his work through drinking, her mother has but little washing to do, and has two children younger than Elizabeth, and a baby. The eldest boy has work at 4/6 a week but he has to walk an immense way to it. They lived in Clerkenwell, over a rag-shop, where this little girl used to sleep in a back-parlour, but could not go to bed till after eleven or later, because the girl she slept with always kept the key; “for there was lots of rags there.” And this is a child who seems meant to live wherever beauty may be found, comparatively without affection, utterly indifferent to home. She is hardly touched by kindness; but at the sight of flowers her face lights up, her eyebrows rise, her whole being seems expanded. I never, never shall forget her in the fields at Hampstead. She is high-spirited; and I trust she may not be crushed by sorrow. Energetic and persevering to the extreme, I think she will make herself master of events by submitting to their laws. She, alone of all my children, worked beautifully when I doomed her to do anything. “It is no use, it must be done,” said in an unsympathetic tone, acted like magic. Indeed, she was altogether indifferent to sympathy. When I had to go and help and teach and encourage others, Elizabeth struggled on alone. She is gloriously proud, can stand alone, and say candidly to us what she thinks. There is not one-half the feeling about equality in classes in any of the others, notwithstanding all their talk, that there is in her, with her free, independent spirit. Twice, and twice only, have I seen it broken, and then but for a short time; once because she came late and I ordered her to leave work. Her mother it seems would not let her come without breakfast; her father had been out all night drinking, and had not returned with the money. And again when she heard she was to leave, she cried as though her little strong heart would break;—still, unlike the others, not complaining, but passionately. When the last day of work came, and the others were all miserable, she was laughing, calling it the day of judgment, and hopping about like a little spirit of evil. And, when the last moment came, she only made a bow, and said good-bye like a little cockatoo, and left us. Left us; and went where no mother’s love was strong enough to call forth love which ought to direct that strong will, and mighty energy,—to Clerkenwell, where no gleam of beauty should gladden, and so soften, her little heart; where the angel face, that I have seen smile forth from below wreaths of flowers instinctively arranged, and most beautifully so, should cease to be beautiful because children’s faces are often like deep water, reflecting only the images of what they see. The strength of her nature will not leave her; but to what will it be applied? who will direct the strong will? who will cultivate the latent powers? who will call forth the spirit of love?

I have written more than I intended, I only meant to let you know we had seen Elizabeth as you seemed to take an interest in her. She is coming to me on Thursday at Devonshire Street.

September 10th, 1856.

Louisa to Emily.

It was such a pretty little cottage where I went. It has a thatched roof with pretty green creepers all over it, and the birds come and build their nests there, and bees and wasps make nests there. At the back of this house there are some beautiful fields, and into these I went, and all round was the garlands of bright nightshade. The field looked one glow of scarlet berries, and of course I gathered some for my dear Miss Ockey, and I put some nightshade and some of Miss Ockey’s own thistles and some buttercups together. The buttercups always remind me of dear Miss Florence. I never see one without thinking of the day I first went with her in the fields, how she jumped up those banks! I think she sprang up them like the silvery-footed Antelope does about the rocks. Miss Ockey was at Miss Harris’s on Sunday and Monday and she did some photographs of leaves, and Miss Harris is agoing to do us each one of our favourite leaves. Mr. Furnivall came on Saturday to see the drawing class given, was not that a gloriously beautiful thing?... Mr. Evans the toy dealer has gave us an order of a pound’s worth of things, and when they were taken in, he gave another order for another nine shillings’ worth of things. Is not that good news? I think we all go on better with our work. Last week I earned ten shillings at ring stands, which I think was wonderful, because I never did any before.... Please come back soon. You have got four weeks longer to stay now. It seems as if you had been away two years.

“TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS”

October, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

Oh, about Tom Brown! No it is not by Arthur Hughes, the artist, but by Thos. Hughes, the barrister, the friend of Mr. Maurice, teacher of gymnastics at the College, co-worker with Mr. Furnivall in establishing social meetings, etc.; one of the brightest, best men in the world. I think the book one of the noblest works I have read, possessing the first element one looks for in a great book, namely progress—a book, too, opposed to the evil of the age, as I think, sadness. I know you may say, “Oh! that is the fault of the bit of the world you see as a worker, one who sees the poor, and who knows earnest people.” There is a sorrow which I honour; and I believe Mr. Hughes would too; but I speak of that sorrow which eats into their warmest heart, and fights ever against their energy, urging them to hopelessness and despair, the selfish sadness that asks itself continually, “What have I of joy?” I speak of the sadness pervading all classes, which rushes with sickening force on the young lady who has danced most gaily at the ball, when she begins to unfasten her sash in her own room; which weighs heavily on the comfortable old lady as she sits in her drawing-room, to receive guests; which makes the worker gaze in gloomy despondency on the long long wearying days of toil, and makes the poor man say, “Nothing but care and trouble, and hard work, and the workhouse at last,”—each and all saying, “What is the end and purpose of all this?”—I feel the book is a healthy blow at all this way of looking at things; and, as such, I hold it to possess the second element of a great book, namely fitness, for the age in which it is written. Then I feel that shadow of Dr. Arnold thro’out the book, the presence and work felt, the form so rarely seen, both beautiful and life-like. Then I think the instance of the ennobling influence of having someone depending on one is most valuable. Then see how the truly great nature gathers good from all things thro’ life. And imagine how I delight in the athletic games, and try to feel how I prize the book. I know you will feel all the objections to it quite strongly enough; and I won’t try to say anything about them except; Don’t hastily believe that the author advocates all he paints. There are few things in the world (are there any?) from which a great nature won’t glean some good.

4, Russell Place,

October 21st, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

Oh, Mary, money is very powerful. I have just came in from paying several people for some work done, for the execution of an order which we accepted to give them employment. Many of them are old Guild people, who arranged to wait till the things were paid for; the payment has been a little delayed, and so it was unexpected by them; and there they were, educated and uneducated, living in nice streets renting the whole house, or in little back attics in small streets,—all glad to see me; but still more so when I told my errand; and the relieved look that for a few moments lighted up their careworn faces touched me very much. To think of the power of those small pieces of money, to think of the thankfulness they caused! But what struck me especially was that to one the shilling was of as much importance as the pound to another; and so it was; one set had learned by hard experience not to expect the little luxuries of eating. Butter, sugar, and even meat are rarely used by them; but, more than that, they have less of an appearance to keep up. Are they better for it? Does that effort to appear something not help to keep up self-respect? I rather think it does. But in all classes there is the same care; all thought bent upon that which must be paid for, whether to-morrow’s dinner, or neat gloves in which to go to church next Sunday. But God be thanked for English home life! say I, whenever I come in from visiting anywhere. See how, if one is ill, all the calculations are gone and forgotten in a moment; and the full ardour of love is given with a depth of tenderness that withers in a moment all worldly considerations.—I saw Louisa to-night set out to walk about four miles home, after coming from Notting Hill this morning,—walking twice from here to Devonshire Street, and I do not know how many miles yesterday. I stood and watched her among the hurrying crowd. She was walking slowly, for her feet were terribly sore, and as she was lost to view, I noticed how the gas-light flared in the foggy night on the worn faces near me.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE CHILDREN’S LIVES

October 27th, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

I am so much disappointed not to finish the illumination. But what a day I have had! One continual whirl of doing and remembering, taking addresses, examining pupils, covering books, sorting copy-books, but (most tiring of all) trying to attend to fifty people at once, with the knowledge that at least five of them will be offended if they think themselves the least in the world slighted, and that they think I have no right to be indifferent to what they think. I am so glad to-morrow night I shall see Mr. Maurice. Oh! Mary, think of that!

I don’t know what there is in the word “lady” which will connect itself with all kinds of things I despise and hate; first and most universally it suggests a want of perseverance, and bending before small obstacles, a continual “I would if——”

October 29th, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

I can scarcely see because of the terrible fog, but I must tell you what I know you will be very glad to hear;—all my immediate fear about the toys is over, as I have this morning received an order from the same wholesale house to which we had furnished specimens of the toys some time ago. This will not, I think, necessitate my taking an additional worker, as the Bazaar gets on so very badly just now; but only fancy how delightful it would be to have the business steadily increase. These wholesale dealers, too, are so delightful to do business with, as they always pay ready money, order things in large quantities, and never change their minds when things are half done.

4, Russell Place,

November 4th, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

I have left off learning my Latin as I walk to Devonshire Street, and get a little time to think. I wish the children were better. They have not at all gone back, but I should like to be able to try them by a higher standard. I think they grow mentally and morally lazy. They care about history, natural history, geography and many other things, if once I begin to talk till they are thoroughly interested, and go on without giving them trouble; and I—yes the fault always finds its way home—I get lazy and would rather dream and think, rather be silent than sing or talk; and so we very often stagnate, except as far as our hands are concerned. I must study something for them—but when?... Andy says she is quite as ignorant about dress as you can possibly be. She thanks you very much for the lace, which she thinks beautiful. I say she because I know nothing about it, but do thank you very heartily, as far as I am capable of thinking on the subject.

EFFECT OF SPIRITUAL BEAUTY

November 9th, 1856.

To Mary Harris, who was visiting in Newgate.

If you knew or could imagine what effect the presence of a noble soul can have on those usually surrounded by a hurrying struggling crowd; what it is to be taught to look at spiritual beauty; what to a much worn care-pressed being it is to know at last that, shut out tho’ she has seemed from all the best and most honourable around her, borne downwards as she has been by the weight of many sorrows, much anguish and inward evil, there is yet left, even on this earth, one who will take her as she is, and love her because she has that in her which is God given. This last she will learn afterwards, and I know that, deep in those hearts hardened by crime and degraded, there yet is human feeling to be called out by nothing so much as trust and love.

39, Devonshire Street,

November 9th, 1856.

To Mary Harris.

I thank God for work, and for so blessing our work. I believe I might often say with Ruskin the first clause of the sentence, certainly always the last, “I am happy while I work; when I play I am miserable.”

Is it not strange that tho’ I have an unusually clear idea of the sermon, the only impression last Sunday afternoon is one of complete quiet? It was no effort to understand, nor was I, as usual, dreadfully tired in church; but I had the consciousness, not of peace nor of rest, but of quiet, such as when one sits out of doors in the country, not thinking, only seeing.

4, Russell Place,

January 17th, 1857.

To Mary Harris.

ABSENCE OF ART IN SCOTLAND

On Wednesday evening we went to hear Ruskin give a lecture on the occasion of the presentation of some money offered by him as a prize; but, owing to the imperfection of the work, the money was divided between the competitors, as some compensation for their loss of time. Their failure, he explained, was mainly owing to his having set them to work which was not possible for them to do well;—the carving of a panel, the subject to be taken from some historical event of the year. Apparently both parties took it for granted that it was to be about the Crimean War; for Ruskin said that he had overlooked the fact that no one could represent that which he had never seen; and, when the old builders lived, happily for art, but unhappily for the nations, wars were continually fought within sight, their scenes were present with the workman; they haunted him; he dreamed of them by night, and could not help carving them. Ruskin had expected better things of the workmen, because he saw with what spirit cheap periodicals were illustrated; really we see quite wonderful things in them. He had expected, too, that there would have been many competitors, and there were only two. He felt sorry for the failure; but not so sorry as he would have been, had he not noticed that things which begin too swimmingly do not always succeed so well as those which fail at first. The workmen would not be altogether pleased that instead of a prize, he gave them a lecture. “Last year,” he said, “while travelling in the North of Scotland I was very painfully impressed by the absence of any art—amongst grand natural scenery; the inhabitants seem to be utterly without any art-expression of their perception of it; no buildings rise, no pictures are painted; truly the huts of grey stone are roofed with the peat, set picturesquely in oblique lines, which seem to have been marked by the stroke of some gigantic claymore. The only evidence of any power of design among them is the arrangement of the lines of colour in the tartan. And in Inverness, a city built on the shore of the most beautiful estuary in the world, at the foot of the Grampians, set as it were like a jewel to clasp the folds of the mountains to the blue zone of the sea—the only building which has evidence of any recognition of art is the modern decorated prison.”

4, Russell Place,

March 19th, 1857.

To Mary Harris.

Some time ago Miss Sterling had a very long conversation with me on the way I am ruining my health, but especially about Sunday work; and I told her just what I have felt about it—that to leave off working was a privilege, to continue a duty—that I dared not claim any time as my own; that I had sometimes felt as if I had earned a time to rest or enjoy leisure; and then had been convinced that all time was God’s and to be used for Him.

Miss Sterling mentioned it to Mr. Maurice, and in consequence he asked me to go to his house this evening, to talk to him about it. He spoke very beautifully indeed about it, and of course very kindly to me. He thought that rest was as much a part of God’s order as work was; that we have no right to put ourselves out of that order, as if we were above it. He told me that the division of things into duties and privileges was an arbitrary one; there is no such broad distinction, every privilege involves a duty; our highest privilege is to perform our duty; rest is as much a duty as work; it is very self-willed to try to do without it; it is really hopeless to try to exist, if one is for ever giving out, and never receiving; nor does he think that the doing of actions rightly, brings with it enough of this receiving. He also advised that I should go to church every Sunday morning[^[26]] with Mama, as he believed it would be a great bond of union.

And, Mary, I could not help the tears coming into my eyes, and my voice being choked at feeling so cared for by one so noble, so infinitely strong, so perfectly calm; and a strange sense of perfect peace, such as I have not felt since I saw you, stole over me. And yet I was so hard, so unconvinced, and so strangely bitter; bitter with myself in feeling how much of pride had made me think I could stand without help; and we sat quite silent for a few moments. At last Mr. Maurice spoke in a deep full voice, you felt what a depth of human sympathy was in it: “Will you think about it then, Miss Hill?”

I felt how I trusted him; and told him that I did not see clearly about it, but would do what he advised, and then perhaps all would be plainer to me. “I am quite sure it will,” he said; and wishing him good-bye I came away.

45, Great Ormond St.,

July 1st, 1857.

To Emily.

IMPRESSION OF ROSSETTI

I did not go to Mr. Neale’s and the children made a horrid mess of it. Miss C. forgot the name of the station; and they went to Beddington and had to walk eight miles, and other absurdities.

I saw Rossetti last night, and learned that Ruskin is not going abroad, but to Manchester, Oxford, etc., to lecture. He starts to-day. He was at Russell Place, to see the pictures; but did not see any of us. Rossetti was so friendly, I could not hate him, with his bright bright eyes, and recalling, as he did, dear people; and he was so kind too.... Miss R. has heard of our being confirmed.[^[27]] ... Mr. Maurice has been lecturing on Milton before the Royal Society.

45, Great Ormond St.,

July 8th, 1857.

To Florence.

... What fine efforts you are making about the toys! They quite put me to shame. How nice it is tho’, that we can work together, tho’ we are so far apart, is it not?... I hope you will get to know Mrs. Browning some day. How glorious that thunderstorm must have been! Do you know I am to teach all the classes this autumn, except singing,—(all is not many—reading, writing and arithmetic). The ladies are all going out of town.... Do you know I so enjoyed my visit to Weybridge last April. I have never enjoyed a visit there so much. I enjoyed the riding so, and how beautiful the country is!... (Of a visit to Buckinghamshire she writes): You know there are acres and acres and acres of beech woods, valleys and hills clothed and covered with them, and there are rounded hills with most beautiful slopes; and from little cleared spaces in the woods one catches a glimpse of far-off purple hills, and nearer hills covered with wood, and farm-houses with their great barns golden-roofed, with lichen lying in a sheltered hollow; and the great bare head of some uncovered hill, cut with clear outline against the sky; and then perhaps we plunged into the depths of the woods again, where the sunlight fell between the fan-like branches of the beeches and thro’ their leaves like a green mist, on to the silver stems, and on to the ground russet with last year’s fallen leaves, perhaps upon the crest of some tall fern, or upon a sheet of blue speed-wells, or on some little wood sorrel plant, or a grey tree stump, touched with golden lichen, or gold-green moss. And then the larks, cuckoos, and nightingales seemed hardly to stop by night or day, but kept up a glad sweet chorus.—The classes will be over in a minute, and then I must go. Forgive this short letter. I will try to write more next time. I often think of you, dear dear little Flo, and love to see “Loke” at the beginning of a letter. It is your own name, and no one else uses it, so it always reminds me of you.

4, Russell Place, Fitzroy Square,

July 17th, 1857.

To Gertrude.

If you could bring me anything at any time to draw I should be so glad. I am so tired of privet, and dusty hornbeam,—especially when I have drawn one piece several times, and don’t the least know when I shall get a fresh one; and if, moreover, the things you brought told me a little about far, fair places, where they grew, they would help me.

The following letter refers to the building of a school at All Saints’, Suffolk.

4, Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, W.,

August 14th, 1857.

To Emily.

ARCHITECTURE OF A SCHOOL

I return the tracings. I decidedly prefer No. 3 to any which you can choose. I mean I approve of your choice entirely, under the circumstances. At the same time, I enclose a small extract from Ruskin, bearing on the subject. Now I should not propose altering any but the entirely square windows. But, if that were possible, they would be much more beautiful. I am afraid they would have to be a little lower down, to make room for the shield, as they call it (namely, you understand, the solid block of stone), which need not, I think, necessarily be carved at all, though it would be more beautiful, of course. One or two words, or even letters, that were appropriate, might perhaps be found and placed on the shields. At any rate the Committee could hardly object, could they? The opening, you understand, would be square as ever. I suppose each window would require three little shields. I think you will quite understand about them from the drawing I send you. It is the window Ruskin refers to (thirteenth century, Oakham Castle). I could not resist doing a little towards beginning to shade it; but, in spite of that, I think you’ll understand it. I leave it entirely to you to apply the suggestion, if practicable. Tell Mr. Durrant I admire the arrangement of large square panes very much. I think I even prefer it to the quarries. I am very glad indeed to have influenced, in the least degree, his wish to have Gothic windows. I’ll make a finished drawing, or clear tracing of this window, if you want it; but yours will be so simple that this will not be of any use, I think, except to explain the plan, which my rough sketch will do.

I have seen Ruskin’s manager to-day, and had a long talk about Ruskin, which I enjoyed much....

P.S.—There is not the smallest necessity for the aperture of the window being of a pointed shape. Make the uppermost arch pointed only, and make the top of the window square, filling the interval with a stone shield, and you may have a perfect school of architecture, not only consistent with, but eminently conducive to every comfort of your daily life. The window in Oakham Castle is an example of such a form actually employed in the thirteenth century.

4, Russell Place, W.,

September 22nd, 1857.

Mrs. Hill to Emily.

SUPERVISION OF THE TOY-WORKERS

Amelia[^[28]] has taken the toys, and in a rather different spirit from Mr. P. She said to Miranda, “Well, Miss Miranda, I shall expect of course to be paid for my time bye and bye; but more than that I don’t want for myself. If I fail, I shall think others have failed before me; and I may perhaps have done a little good.” This being her tone, I am proud of her, and look upon her as a fellow-worker in the cause, who has come in by God’s providence to relieve Ockey of a burden, and so setting her free to work her higher influence all the more. I am to go and teach as usual; and Ockey will keep the accounts for Amelia. Amelia said to M., “You know, Miss M., I shall want your Mamma to come and give the spirit.” The debt on the toys is £25, which Amelia is to repay, as she can—half to us and half to Mr. Neale. He did not wish to take any, and entered with zeal into the new plan. Ockey seemed quite touched.... He seemed most anxious that the teaching should go on. The children are quite in love with his Geography lessons, and won’t hear a word against him. On the morning of the day it was all settled, Ockey received the sweetest letter from Miss Harris, asking what sum it would require to carry on the toys for another year; but dear O. very properly, I believe, was firm to carry out the change. We must give all our influence now to the new phase of things, since the spirit is the same.... Ockey begins to-morrow to work at home. I mean to read some nice book to her, and do all I can to make her happy. She is my own brave, beautiful, good tender Ockey; and it’s a hard trial to lose one’s post in a Cause; but the Cause itself (that being God’s) can never be lost.

November 22nd, 1857.

To Florence.

I don’t know whether you will receive this letter, or the box that was despatched yesterday, first. So I must tell you that in it you will find a very few drawings of mine. I will tell you a little about them. I have selected them from a great many that I have done, for I have been at work at that kind of drawing all the summer. I am speaking of the flowers. You will see we chose to send you the water forget-me-not, cranesbill and lady’s finger, all of which were old favourites of yours. There is one page of virginian creeper and creeping jenny which I send, partly because they are of London growth; and when I had no fresh bright wild country things, day after day did I persevere in drawing the dirty little fellows from the black wall and dirty earth; so they seem to me rather characteristic of my work. The dear buglos is one of my friends; the bramble you know I always loved; and so I have sent you a little piece shaded. I am rather proud of the stalk of the highest leaf; indeed I like it all. Then those drawings on note-paper are copies from Albert Dürer. Is not that a beautiful little piece with the thistle and grass, and stones? How do you like my old donkey’s head? It is nearly the first animal I have ever drawn. In the picture, which is one of Joseph and Mary taking Christ, when a little child, down into Egypt, the donkey is being led by Joseph, and he is just looking out of the corner of his eye in that odd way at the thistle, evidently thinking if his rein is long enough for him to snatch at it; but he is nearly past it, and clearly will have to go without the treat. Down below two little lizards are at play; on a log a little bird is perched. I hope you will receive the drawings on my birthday. They are the only things I have to give you, dear one; but I like to think you know what I have been doing.—I had not seen Ruskin all the summer and autumn, but he just came, on Friday, in time to see my work; so that I could send it to you. He is busy in town every day, so that he could not see me at Denmark Hill; but he came here. You do not know how pleased he was with all I had done, or how happy I was that he was pleased. He said I had done an immense quantity of work, and that I was far more accurate than any of his men at the College, whom, you know, he teaches every week. He said of one of my drawings, “This is quite a marvellous piece of drawing, Octavia.” And when I showed him one of my Albert Dürers he exclaimed, “Is that yours? I was going to say you had been cutting up my print.”

RUSKIN’S CRITICISMS

“Ah,” I said, “you won’t find it so accurate when you look nearer.” He then said that it was as accurate as it was possible to be without absolutely tracing it. He told me he saw with what spirit I had worked. He is going to take me to Marlboro’ House on Friday, and give me a student’s ticket; for he wants me to copy some Turners for him in outline. He says he must give me more teaching, which he can do when I am working at Marlboro’ House, where he will come and superintend me, when he has time. I felt altogether so delighted. Ruskin is so kind and beautiful. You know he is coming to keep my birthday with us.... He has been very busy, so that his looking over my work has been delayed. He sent me the Albert Dürer four weeks ago, saying, “Copy this, bit by bit, till I see you.” At last I had done it so long that I was sure he could not want me to go on longer. So I hit on this odd plan. I wrote to him something in this style: “My dear Mr. Ruskin, there was once a shepherd’s dog, who was ordered by his master to watch a flock of sheep. His master forgot to call him away, and went home. Surprised at the dog’s absence, he returned after two days, and found the poor fellow still watching his sheep. And the dog, who now addresses you, would be very glad to be thus patient and obedient, if she were sure that she was really doing the work her master most wanted done; but a great doubt has arisen in her mind as to it. She would not venture to set up her ideas of what is best or most necessary above her master’s. If he does want her to go on with the work, well and good. If not, can he write? If he cannot, she has done all she could, and will remain obedient to his words.” Was it not fun? He answered by return of post beginning, “My poor little doggie, I really will come to-morrow.” We are going to Lincoln’s Inn to-morrow, and then I am going to hear Spurgeon. Do you know who he is?

4, Russell Place,

November 22nd, 1857.

Emily to Florence.

I told you that Ruskin had promised to come the evening before Ockey’s birthday. She wanted to give him some present, so this is what we have thought of. Do you remember a little stand Ockey was going to paint for a chamois with the words[^[29]]:—

“We see our skies thro’ clouds of smoke.

Theirs bends o’er wastes of sunlit snow.

God leads us all in different ways,

His hand to see, His will to know.”

We have just thought that she might finish that for him. But we were at a loss how to get a Swiss chamois. Well! you remember you had one given to you by Joanna, and they appealed to me as to whether I thought you would like to give it to Ruskin; and, as it is only ten days before the time, we could not hear from you; so I have ventured to take the responsibility of Ockey’s giving it, feeling sure what you would say if you were here. I hope I have done right, but I cannot bear that you should not join us in doing nice things of the kind, because you are at a distance. I know that your heart is in them. If she has an opportunity, Ockey means to say that it is your chamois. Ruskin will be pleased at its coming from you too. He always asks so kindly and sympathetically about you. When he was here on Friday he asked about you, before he looked at any of Ockey’s work.... Our reading in the evenings goes on delightfully. We have finished that beautiful book of Myers, “Lives of Great Men,” and are reading Mr. Maurice’s “Philosophy.”

4, Russell Place,

November 27th, 1857.

To Gertrude.

I have been to Marlboro’ House to-day with Ruskin, and of course greatly enjoyed it. He showed me the work he wants done; but he wishes me to copy, this week, an etching of Turner’s, that he may see if I can do the work. It is not what you would call high art, I think. I do not yet at all know if he still means me for an illuminator or not. He does not say; but wishes me to copy these sketches in pen and ink, because they will be of use to him too. He wants me, after that, to copy some pencil drawings of Turner’s, but says it may possibly be six months before I can do them. I don’t think he still does mean me for an illuminator; but I feel, as Dawie[^[30]] says, it is altogether his doing, and I have no responsibility. He was so kind to-day. We are looking forward to his visit with great delight. He has lent me 3rd and 4th vols. of “Modern Painters” to read aloud in the evenings, at my request.

December 10th, 1857.

Emily to Florence.

Ruskin came a little before his time. Mama, Ockey and I were in the room ready to receive him. He came in, looking kind and bright; and the first thing he asked, before he sat down, was, how you were. Mama read him Aunt Emily’s letter about you, and one of your letters. Andy soon came in, and we had a great deal of most interesting conversation—on the respective influences of town and country—on French, English, and Americans—on animals, of which Ruskin is very fond—on Reserve and Cordelia. When Ruskin said something about reserve, Andy and Ockey exclaimed, laughing, “Oh you should ask Minnie,” which made me feel very hot and blush. Ruskin took my part and was very kind. He agrees with me in thinking it so much more easy to write than to speak about anything one feels. Andy and Ockey disagreed about it. He agreed very much with all Mama’s remarks. After tea we sang to Ruskin, which he liked, I think; and it was very interesting to hear his remarks on the different songs. He always chose out some point which he liked and which he could praise, which was very pretty of him.

RUSKIN ON POETRY AND SCENERY

After that we spoke about poetry. He does not think anyone but a great poet, who gives up his life to it, should attempt to write any. He says there is always a good deal of vanity in it; and it spoils one’s ear for good poetry to compose bad. Mama had been speaking of our poetry; Ruskin asked Andy to repeat some, saying it would be very pretty of her to do so, after all he had been saying against it. She did so, and I think he was pleased with it, and the more so when he heard it had taken a long time to write. He said that he could not judge of it by hearing it in that way, and he should like a copy.

Ockey is drawing at Marlboro’ House, and Ruskin is at work in another room; so he comes up once or twice to look at her work.

January 5th, 1858.

Ruskin to Octavia.

My dear Octavia,

I am very glad you and your sisters and friend enjoyed the pictures, and that you see how beautiful they are. They are quite infinite. I cannot understand how any human work can possess so much of the inexhaustibleness of nature.

Do not be sorry that you cannot see beautiful places at present. The first sensation is a thing to look forward to with hope. It cannot be had twice—it does not not much matter whether it comes sooner or later.

My lecture is at Kensington on the 13th of this month. If you find difficulties in getting admission, write to me, and I will get you a ticket or two.

I send you a new etching, and the print finished.

I only want the etching copied, but thought you would like to see how Turner prepares in it for his light and shade.

Yours always most truly,

J. Ruskin.

Kind regards to Mama, Miranda, and Minnie.

That story about the Fisherman always puzzled me sadly to know who the Fish was. How could he do so many things for the Fisherman?

Florence,

January 9th, 1858.

Florence to Octavia.

I have spent an evening with Mrs. Browning. I will tell you all about it; but first I must say how delighted I am with her. I felt from the first minute how simpatica she was to me, a woman one could love dearly and admire. Last Tuesday B.[^[31]] met Browning (who is always very friendly), and he said “Will you come and take tea with us to-morrow night?” Of course she accepted, and I was most delighted. Accordingly the next evening we went. As we went in, I felt so excited; it is so long that I have wanted to see her, and I said to myself that I should be disappointed. Mr. Browning came forward cordially to welcome us; and then came Mrs. Browning. She is very short indeed; but one does not observe the shortness. She has long black curls, and large eyes; one can hardly say what colour; in some lights they look a beautiful brown; in others a dark grey; as for the other features they are not pretty; in fact I suppose she would not be considered at all pretty; but to me she is a great deal more. She shook hands very kindly and made me sit on the sofa by her. There was also Mrs. Jameson. She is quite an old lady with mild blue eyes. There was also Mr. Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson’s brother. There was a good deal of small talk, and there was a discussion about places. Mrs. Jameson asked a good deal about Viareggio. At last the conversation turned towards England. It is evident neither Mrs. Browning nor her husband like England much.

MRS. BROWNING ON ENGLAND

She began abusing it, saying she always felt so downcast when there, that the sky felt as if it was falling down, and the rooms were so small; she finished by saying, “I do not sympathise with those who have yearnings after England.” Then she turned to me and said, “Perhaps you can tell me something about yearnings after England. Do you yearn after it?” “Oh yes,” I said, “very much indeed; I love England, and would not live out of it for long for anything.” “Why not?” said Mrs. Jameson in her quiet yet energetic way. So I said, “Firstly Mama and all my sisters are there,” and I was going to say more, when other visitors were announced and there was a general stir. Mrs. Browning said to me, with a very sweet smile, “I am sure it is a very good reason.” ... There was a great deal of very interesting conversation about women, with regard to their right to property when married. Mrs. Jameson was very energetic about it, though I did not think her reasoning was good; also Mrs. Browning talked very nicely about it; but I could not hear all that she said, because I had changed places, and was not near her; and she has such a small voice, that it is difficult to hear what she says. They wanted to get Mr. Browning to sign a petition to Parliament, showing the injustice done to women, according to the present law, about their property. I liked what he said very much. He has very liberal ideas about it, and was quite willing to sign; only he did not know how the law could be altered without entailing other greater injustices. However, at the end, he said he would sign. I think he does everything that his wife wishes. It is so nice to see them together; they are so exceedingly fond of one another, and he is so attentive to her. There was a great deal of merry conversation. When we were leaving Mrs. Browning said, “This is the first time you have spent the evening here; but I hope it won’t be the last.”

April 21st, 1858.

To Mrs. Howitt.

My dearest Mrs. Howitt,

How glorious this weather is! To-day I saw, in a little back street near Soho, two little golden-haired children, leaning out of a window in the early sunlight, gazing intently into a bird’s cage, hanging on the wall;—the poor little prisoner singing as if his little heart would break. Just so, I thought, the children here may want us; but we must break our hearts in longing for the distant glories of hill and wood. In a moment, one felt that it ought rather to teach that even here Spring brought joys—that we have visions and witnesses of brighter lands and fairer lives than we can see around us.

Derwent Bank,

July 4th, 1858.

To a Friend.

To me the whole world is so full of things crying out to be done, each one of which would be sufficient for a lifetime’s heart and thought, I think. In fact each work seems to be interesting in almost exact proportion to the amount I can devote to it, capable of infinite expansion in breadth or depth. For my part I would always rather choose the latter, would rather take up wholly a few individuals or pictures or books, and love and know and study them deeply, than have any more superficial (though wider) sympathies; and my trial is, and has always been, that I have to tear myself away from this intense grasp and absorbing interest, to love and know and help in fresh and fresh directions. I have often felt like a perpetually uprooted plant. Only somehow in looking back, I find continuity and deep inner relation between the various works and times of my life, and always find the past a possession because in memory I have it still....

DEPTH BETTER THAN BREADTH

I am so glad you will not turn the ignorant ones out of the class, at any rate yet. I know well one weakens one’s hands by not keeping one distinct aim before one; but then one never likes not to meet any effort, however small, on the part of people under one’s charge. I have not always the courage to give myself pain of that kind, I believe.

How very beautiful the lines on the Supper are!

4, Russell Place,

August 1st, 1858.

To Miranda and Emily.

Take dearest Mama under your special care, for she will not take care of herself under her own. Send her back stronger, I charge you. Also think of your old sister here, and how she loves you both, and thinks of you. You won’t think her unkind not to come, knowing what prevents her, and she hopes her previous consent proves to you that work and whims wouldn’t have detained her. Be merry, be happy, be free; send for anything conveyable that you want, and trust to Aladdin’s lamp. See what grand things it has done already, and have faith.

August 8th, 1858.

To Gertrude.

If we were all less self-occupied, what a depth of beauty and order we should see in the influence of persons and things on people, traced in the momentary lighting up of an eye, or the slight quiver of a lip, which we lose perhaps in a fit of self-contemplation; and that revelation of God’s purpose and way of work passes unnoticed, a cause of praise and power lost to us. And then I would wish most lovingly to grasp the whole purpose of each life, and influence of details on it, to see all the strong impulses leading to selfishness or pride, or any form of evil; to watch, not unaiding, the struggle with them; to contemplate with intense sympathy and reverence every purifying affection, stimulating hope, earnest purpose, self-control, and every form of good; to look at all, not as one standing aloof or above; but as fellow-worker, fellow-sufferer; to trace the same tendency to evil and good in myself; to find the point or points, as one always does, in which everyone is so much greater than oneself, that one bows before it in joy and cries, “Thank God for it.”

4, Russell Place,

August 15th, 1858.

To Mrs. Hill.

R.[^[32]] went on Wednesday. Her mother was much nicer at the last. I hear from Brighton that the child is very happy. It would have done you good to see her delight at her new clothes, and the care with which she went to a clean crossing, tho’ the roads were not very muddy. Her indifference about leaving home was, of course, very sad. But just as we were going away, one of those immense Irish women one sometimes sees, who was selling apples in the Old Bailey, called her back, and giving her a kiss said, “God bless you, child. Be a good girl.”

INVITATIONS AND HOLIDAYS

I have wished Mary good-bye.... We spoke about my going back with her, which is a relief. I don’t like a thing which both people know the other is thinking of not spoken of and explained, and so I was very glad she mentioned it.... Private. Would you ferret out for me whether A. is looking forward to her half holiday for going to see people? and if she is, say nothing; but, if she isn’t, ask her not to make any engagements to go away, at first, out of charity or acquiescence, as I shall like very much to have her at home. Public again. I have some more flowers which are a great pleasure. Everyone is very kind, that is to say everyone I hear of or see; there are not many.

It seems so strange to feel the piano had not been opened for so long. This morning I sang all our sacred music,—some that I am fond of and did not know, I spelt out on the piano. It reminded me, by contrast more than by likeness, of the Sunday music we sometimes used to have. I have invitations from Margaret and Gertrude which I shall accept, if I can, after I know that Mary is gone; but next week my College opens. However, considering that I have Wednesday free, I hope to get away. I do not seem of any use to anyone, but I hope I shall do all the better when work begins.... Thank you for all your long, most welcome, letters.... In constant thought of you, Yours Octavia.

August 19th, 1858.

To Emily.

(Tho’ this is for all of you.) It is but right and nice that, having known of my long waiting, you should know now that I am quite satisfied. Dear Mary has been here; and really, I don’t know how to be thankful enough for having seen her so long and so delightfully. I waited all the morning, getting more distracted and disappointed every quarter of an hour; for I knew she must be back at Elmhurst at 6.30, and leave Camden Road at 4.30; and 1, 2, 3 o’clock came. Before 3, however, I had quite made up my mind to it. I did this the more easily, because I was sure that, when she did come, if I had been repining and longing before, I should be selfish and covetous then. Well, at 3.10 she arrived with such a headache she could hardly stand.... In a very few minutes her head grew better, and she resolved to go by the 5.50 train. And oh! we had such an afternoon! It is worth more than many weeks with her in society.... She asked to hear Andy’s song “Wilt Thou not visit me?”... She promises that if she comes to London next year she will come to stay here, if we still want her! At last we parted, not at all sadly. She is so sweet and good.... Her heart was open as usual to hear all about everyone,—Ruskin, Mr. Maurice and the children, in fact every person and thing we care for.

August 17th, 1858.

To Miranda.

Tell Minnie I have just finished Maurice’s “Ecclesiastical History.” I am so very much interested in it, and think she would be even more so, knowing so much about all the people. I should very much like to have a talk with her about them, especially Polycarp, Clemens of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Ignatius. I should like to know if she has been taught to like Tertullian or not.... Ruskin’s work seems to take nearly all day. My own needlework has hardly been touched since Mama left. Certainly I have despatched R. I think singing and reading have flourished most. I can’t consider Ruskin’s work has got on, because I was not at Marlboro’ House last week, tho’ in other respects it’s all right. I think, most of my time seems spent in putting the room neat.

WORK FOR RUSKIN

4, Russell Place,

August 26th, 1858.

To Miss Harris.

Margaret[^[33]] has been kindness itself.... She urges that Andy should take a resident situation on account of her health. But Andy’s heart is so clinging, and wound so fast round her home, her health even would suffer.... Her influence on the children is the fruit of three years’ work.... Andy is the sunshine of her home.

4, Russell Place,

December 3rd, 1858.

Emily to Miranda.

Mr. Maurice talked to Ockey a good deal about the Bible Class at the College. He wanted to know who some of the pupils were; and Ockey said it was so interesting to hear his descriptions of the people, and see the kinds of things he had noticed. One woman he said he met very often; he fancied she was a milliner; and then he was so distressed lest this little theory of his should have misled Ockey in any way; and he said he was sure he did not know why he thought so.

45, Great Ormond Street,

December 8th, 1858.

To Miranda, who was in Italy.

I am doing some work for “Modern Painters.” Ruskin is coming on Friday to spend the evening with us. Dearest thing, I wish you knew how much I feel your sweetness. Now I must tell you some news. Ruskin is most kind. He called the Prouts “quite admirable,” the tones so even and pure; “some of them,” he continued, “I like better than the originals. But I think you might make your work more accurate!” Is not the last an odd remark? He was so delighted with the progress of my Portman Hall pupils, quite astonished. He writes: “I wish I had seen Miranda before she went. But I can’t do a tenth of the things I want to do.”

4, Russell Place,

December 12th, 1858.

Emily to Florence.

When Ockey saw Ruskin, he said that he should be sure to come, unless his father should propose for them to go to the play that night, in which case, he must put off almost any engagement.

On Friday we got all the room beautifully neat, and decorated with sprays and leaves that dear Gertrude had sent us from Weybridge. Ockey and I were in white with black ribbons, and dear Mama looked very nice in her black dress with white collar and sleeves. There was a splendid fire, and tea very prettily set out, and all looked cheerful and nice. When we were all ready and seven o’clock came, Ockey and I began to get very anxious lest he should not come; listening most intently to all the carriages, and sitting with the door open, and candle ready to light him upstairs. A quarter past seven came, and Ockey said, “Well at half past I shall give up all hope and begin to cry. The only thing that makes me think he is coming is, that the lamp burns so remarkably well.” A carriage stopped; a knock at the door came. Ockey, much to my surprise, would run down to meet him. Mama and I sat demurely on the sofa, and waited till he came in. He had brought a number of sketches to show us—all his summer’s work. Was it not kind? When we were all seated, he asked directly about Andy. How she had got on, on her journey, and how she had found you. When Mama began talking about you both, he said so sweetly and sympathetically, “I hope it does not pain you to talk about these things.”

VISIT FROM RUSKIN

He explained to Ockey, one of the first things, that he had not brought her any birthday present; that it must be a Christmas present, as he had wanted to know what books she had. Ockey said something about “Oh no! he did so much”; and Mama said that when we were children, she had introduced the practice of our giving presents on our birthdays, rather than receiving them, because she had wished to impress on us that we were born to give, rather than to receive. Ruskin said that he thought it was very ungracious that friends should come to a person, and expect them to give them presents, because it was their birthday, as much as to say, “You came into the world to give to us. Prove to us that you are of some good.”

Then Ruskin made a remark about the cream and said that the difficulty people had in getting cream in London was a proof that it was growing too large. Ockey said that so much milk and cream came from the country, and asked Mama if she remembered the cans they had seen the morning they came from Cambridge. This led to their speaking of the pleasure of their visit, and, among other things, Ockey spoke of the sunlight dying away from the stained glass windows in King’s College chapel, when they were at the service there. Ruskin said there was hardly anything more solemnly impressive than the death of a stained glass window; and then he said how very little influence the beauty of the Universities had on the men. He says they are proud of them, but nothing more; that when he first went to College he thought it very grand and fine; but soon lost all the impression of solemnity, and looked on the gowns as so many black rags, and the service in the chapel as a daily punishment; and he found that it was the case with all the young men he met. Only perhaps Tennyson or other poets care for it. Ockey said, “Well! people don’t feel it at the time, I think they do afterwards. I know many people who speak with such great pleasure of their University. I am sure it is quite beautiful to hear Mr. Maurice speak of it.” Ruskin said, “Well! but Mr. Maurice is a poet.” At which Mama and Ockey said they thought him anything but that. Mama said how very seldom he made any similes; Ruskin said, “But I do not look upon it that a poet’s work is to make similes; but to make things.” He said he did not know much about Mr. Maurice; he had not read much of his, he found it such hard work. He could not follow him. He seemed like a man who did not see clearly, and was always stretching out, moving on in the right direction, but in a fog.

OCTAVIA AND RUSKIN ON F. D. MAURICE

Ockey said, “No! I don’t believe it is so at all. Mr. Maurice quite understands what he means himself; and the difficulty which people find in understanding him, arises partly from his style, and partly that people require to understand his way of putting things.” Ruskin said, “I’m very glad to hear you say that you think Mr. Maurice knows what he means himself; but I had always thought that the very greatest men were essentially simple. The only great man I know who is not, Dante, throws out a word or two quite knowing what he means, and says, ‘Think out that,’ and people do not know which end of the thing they have got, and so quarrel over what he does mean. But when he says anything directly, it is very clear and simple. And so with all really great men.”

RUSKIN ON THE DANGER OF UNSELFISHNESS

I said that Mr. Maurice had a wonderful power of understanding his pupils’ answers, of finding out what they meant by confused answers, of getting at the truth they wished to bring out, and of putting it so clearly to them. Ruskin replied that that was a very great thing. Ockey said yes it was very beautiful; and that she could not understand how it was he had such a knowledge of human nature, when he had no knowledge of individuals. I said, “Perhaps he has more than you think.” Ockey said, “Of course you would solve the matter in that way.” Ruskin asked why, and O. said, “Because Minnie has such an admiration for Mr. Maurice.”—Ruskin said, “Well, Minnie, as you admire Mr. Maurice so much, can you explain why it is that he is so pained at being misunderstood?” Ockey answered for me, to my relief and said, “Oh, you refer to the Preface of the ‘Doctrine of Sacrifice.’ I think it is because he longs so much for Union.” Ruskin said that was a very good answer. He repeated again that he was glad we thought Mr. Maurice knew what he meant. O. said, “O yes, and I would engage to make anyone who took the trouble to read a small piece of his writing carefully, master the style and understand him, in three-quarters of an hour.” Ruskin said he would take her at her word; for he wished to understand Mr. Maurice, and that he would make out clearly, as his tutor used to say, what he did and what he did not understand, and ask her about any difficulty he had. So O. said, would he read the sermon on Mr. Mansfield’s death? And he said he did not want to read anything about death; it made him so very sad. O. said she did not think it would make him sad to read what Mr. Maurice said about death, and explained who Mr. Mansfield was. When Ruskin remembered, he was interested, and took the sermon. They were talking about the want of music in Mr. Maurice’s writings; and O. asked Ruskin what he thought of Kingsley’s poems. Ruskin had not read them; but he did not like hexameters, he could not read them, even for the sake of a fine thought; for perhaps the thought would make him remember the hexameter, which would be too great a punishment. O. said she thought the ballads very beautiful,—R. said he only knew the poems in “Alton Locke,” and he liked those very much. Mama asked if he knew the “Three Fishers,” and asked us to sing it, which we did, without the music of course. Ruskin was pleased both with words and music. But he said that in general he thought Kingsley too sad, and that he injured the purpose for which he wrote by being exaggerated and not correct in his facts. We were talking about happiness, and Kingsley’s suffering so much when he came to town. Ruskin said for his part he was never happy except when he was selfish, when he shut himself up, and read only the books he liked, or enjoyed the sunshine and nature. He did not know how it was that, whenever he did what he believed to be right, he suffered for it; that it seemed like his unlucky star. O. said, “Don’t talk about stars. What do you mean by it?” R. said, “Well, I will give you a small crumb of an instance. When I was travelling a great many years ago, at a time my father was ill, I met with a picture of Turner’s, one of the finest he ever did. I did not quite know the value of it myself; and I knew that it would vex my father if I bought it without his leave; so I wrote back to him. Meanwhile the picture was bought by some one, who utterly destroyed it. Now if I had bought it, it might have made my father lose his appetite for a day, but nothing more. And this is only one small instance. It is always the way when I do right. Miss Edgeworth would have made the picture go to a round of people, converting them to Turner, and come back to me crowned with laurel. I was brought up on Miss Edgeworth’s principles; but I have not found them at all true in my case.” Mama said there was a truth in them, but that in some respects they were very false; that she believed that every one had to suffer very much in doing right; that she had felt it so particularly about Ruskin himself; that the brave and true things he said were often misunderstood; but that she always felt her heart warm towards him, and she thought to herself,—if only people would receive them as they were meant. “But,” she said, “I think you may be very happy that you do excite the kind of admiration that you do, in many people; and that you have the power of exciting the noble and beautiful emotions which your words and writings do.” Ruskin said that he would wish his word about art to be taken just in the same way that a physician’s or lawyer’s would be about medicine or law. O. said she was sure it was so, more than he thought; and that it was a growing thing. That a lady had said to her the other day, that a word from him would be enough to ruin her; and O. added, “At which I felt very proud.” She said that she thought when people did right, the good they expected very often did not come, because they were not perfectly wise, as well as perfectly right; but that, tho’ they had to suffer for want of judgment, in the end they were always blessed; but in different ways from those they had expected; that, as long as people calculated results, they could not do right; they must do right for right’s sake.

Ruskin said, “Do you mean to say that a man, who had been very selfish, and thought he would make himself happy by going out and giving to all the beggars he met, would not succeed?” O. said, “No! he might at first, but he would find afterwards that he had gathered around him many people who only cared for his money. Whereas, if a man did the same thing from a sincere love for his fellow creatures, he would not have the pain of suspecting the motives of all around him, and he would have the sympathy of those engaged in the same good work.” They were speaking of the blessing of having the sympathy of people, and R. said he had some people who understood him. O. said, with a very bright smile, “Oh have you?” R. said, “Yes. I think you do pretty well.”

Then Mama read Miranda’s letter about her voyage from Marseilles, with which R. was much pleased, and said it recalled all the scenery to him; and when she came to the part about the red sail, he told O. to remind him to show her a small Turner in the National Gallery which showed the wonderful beauty of a red sail. He asked if there were part of another letter he might hear, and anything about Florence. I brought Andy’s to me, and while it was being read I turned my face away for fear of its telling too much, as I could hardly bear it; but when the thought of you both changed into joy, I lifted my face and met such a look of tenderness and sympathy. When the letter was finished, R. said to Mama, “How happy you must be in them all!” “Thank you. It is very beautiful.”

RUSKIN’S CONVERSATION

Then he showed us the sketches. I don’t think I shall ever forget them. I see them constantly at night when I shut my eyes. They have given me most beautiful visions of lovely scenery. One of the things which gave me the most pleasure was to hear R. talk about them with such perfect humility, condemning or praising them, just as if they had been another person’s work, no false shame in admiring them, and entering with such hearty sympathy into our pleasure in them. Then came a quiet talk, which I think R. quite enjoyed. I felt as if we had come nearer to him than ever; as if he were opening something of his heart, and asking for help. He said once, “I do not say any of these things to make you sad, but because I think you may say something to make me happier.” He was regretting that the colours of a sunset faded; and I said I thought the changefulness of nature was one of its greatest beauties. At first he agreed; and then he said, “No, it reminded him how all things must pass away.” Then we had a very solemn talk about good being continued in another world, and the purpose of sorrow. I said that it was most comforting to me to look back, and see how things which had seemed so sad turned out as blessings. R. said, “It may be so with you good people; but if I look back it is to find blunders. To remember the past is like Purgatory.” O. said that the past interpreted the present, and made her hopeful for the future. I think some of the things we said (especially what Mama said) may have made him happier. When he heard that his carriage had come, he said something about its being sad that evenings went so fast. Indeed he stayed long after his carriage had come, and when he was half down stairs, returned to look at O.’s pupils’ drawings of his own accord, and said he was in no hurry if she had anything else to tell him. When we thanked him for coming, he said that he ought not to be thanked, as he had so much enjoyed himself.

December 19th, 1858.

Emily to Miranda.

Dear Ockey has had rather a disappointment lately about her work,—that is to say she has been awakened to the sense of its not being as accurate as she had hoped it was. She wrote to Ruskin to ask about his employing a young artist. He wrote back very kindly saying he could employ two or three girls, supposing they could copy accurately; but accuracy meant so much. “Even you are nothing near the mark yet, tho’ the Claude foreground is a step in advance.” Of course O. knew that the things she had done in water colour were very far from right; but she had thought that her pencil and pen work was very nearly so. In the same letter he said that he always had a chivalrous desire to help women, but he began to think his old lady friends were right when they cautioned him against it, as he had found all his girl protegés, with the exception of Ockey, “very sufficiently troublesome.” She met him the same day at Dulwich, and he was very kind; and if she can have a little bright weather, so as to get on with her Dulwich work, she will be in good spirits again, I think.

RUSKIN’S SKETCHES

4, Russell Place,

December 19th, 1858.

To Miranda.

Now for Ruskin. Minnie has told you something about the evening; but nothing about the sketches. The first we saw was one of an old walled and fortified town in Switzerland, with little arched gateway guarded by towers and wall; the moat is dried up and filled up; long grass and buttercups grow there. Then he showed us a view of the cliffs which form the banks of Lake Lucerne; their tops are for the most part inaccessible, quite lonely, haunted only by the eagle. “Fancy, Octavia,” Ruskin said, “walking up there, where one can get among chestnut glades, along winding paths, bringing you suddenly to the edge, and looking down on the blue water.” He showed us two sketches of Morgarten. Then he showed us exquisite sketches of Bellinzona, where the three Forest Cantons had each a castle built on a high rock. He has done the whole thing in the loveliest way, making a kind of plan of the whole, and sketching large and carefully in colour each bit of it, even the little rows of leaves on a bank. But nothing can explain to you the sense of size and space and grandeur conveyed by the drawing of hundreds of pines, chestnuts and poplars, yet each seen as part of an enormous whole. The sketch of Bellinzona Ruskin had drawn from the priest’s garden, a lovely spot on a rock near the chapel and house, on the side of a steep craggy cliff, the little posts carefully bricked up to support a patch of mould here and there, on one of which was planted corn. Among it grew white lilies seen against a further piece of brightest green grass; beyond lay the ravine of the Ticino, and beyond again the mountains.... Miss B. has been offered the Secretaryship of the Children’s Hospital; but her father and mother say that no daughter ought to leave home except to be married, or to earn her own living, witness Florence Nightingale, who has returned a mere wreck. Why if ever there was an example fitted to stir up heroism it might be hers! I wonder if her mother were asked whether she was prouder and fonder of her before her work or after? or whether she grudged the health which she herself has sacrificed so willingly? I am going daily to Dulwich. It is a long walk even if I take omnibus between Charing Cross and Camberwell Gate.

CHAPTER IV
MILTON STREET, DORSET SQUARE
DECEMBER, 1858—APRIL, 1861.

When Miranda went to Italy, in 1858, Octavia suggested to her grandfather that it would be more economical, as well as more comfortable, if she and her mother and Emily could move into unfurnished rooms. Octavia said that, if he would lend the money for furniture, she would be able to repay him out of what would be saved on rent. He kindly undertook to lend the required amount; and, after the rooms had been secured, Octavia made out a list of necessary furniture, with approximate prices. Then after her day’s work, she visited various shops, and with Gertrude’s and Emily’s help chose what was required. If she spent more on one thing, she took the amount off something else; and she determined that she would keep to the fixed sum. This was achieved. Then she planned and cut the carpet, and each evening she and Emily sat on the floor sewing it. One night they worked till 12 o’clock. All this time Octavia was going each morning to Dulwich, where she stood drawing for about four hours, then she went to Great Ormond Street to the Women’s Classes, and walked from there to Milton Street, Dorset Square. Yet she was as merry as possible, and sang and repeated poetry while she and Emily were at work. And in due time she repaid the money that she had borrowed.

103, Milton St., Dorset Sq.,

January 4th, 1859.

Mrs. Hill to her daughter Miranda.

I only came to this house to-day. It is so very pretty; you and Florence would be enchanted with it. Dear Ockey and Minnie must have worked so hard; they would not let me have any trouble, but arranged it all, and beautiful indeed it looks: the crimson table cover and chair cover and green carpet and white muslin curtains and white walls with roses, make such a lovely combination, and I enjoy the nice square high rooms. Miss Sterling, who called yesterday, exclaimed, “What a dainty room you have.” It certainly does give one a most pleasant sense of simplicity, cleanliness, and beautiful colour.

January 25th, 1859.

Octavia to Miranda.

... I think you will like our dear new home; the prettiness of it is a continual delight to me, and I am most thankful for its order and cleanliness.... I am so fond of it.... I was amazed to find how much you had all thought of Ruskin’s statement about my accuracy. Of course I was disappointed, because I thought the battle was won; but you see it referred to pencil and colour sketches, in which I had not tried mainly for accuracy, believing that I need not try, that the amount of measurement I gave it secured it; and I had other things to aim at. It was not colour or pencil sketches that he ever praised for accuracy. (Oh yes, the first coloured one; but then it had so little colour). I never thought for a moment my eye was accurate about anything, unless it were matching colours. I only thought that, by some miracle, the things I had done were as accurate as human work need be; and that all would continue so, if I worked in the same way. Now that I know where I am, I don’t doubt I can win the battle in time by steady work; and I have not been the least cast down about it, since the first hour I knew it. I am very impatient to get home and see how Minnie is. I didn’t like leaving the darling all alone.

CONVALESCENCE

To her Sisters.

... Don’t let anyone frighten you about my health; I think they none of them are frightened now; but, whether or no, I am resolved to take the most immense care; for I think it probable this will be required for a little time, and that it is very important that I should preserve both health and strength.... I enjoy Dulwich[^[34]] extremely; you know it is so nice to see a little country. I only go three days in the week now, because of fatigue and expense.... I have such lovely walks home past trees with rooks’ nests, you remember them. Our home is in such exquisite order; for dear M. has the housekeeping and everything is as orderly and noiseless and comfortable as can be. I hope she won’t find it too much for her ... the rooms are very pretty and comfortable. For my part I greatly fear I’m growing idle, I never seem hard worked now, and I never seem to do needlework or anything. I take it however very quietly, and don’t mean to exert myself just now unless I need.... Ruskin was so kind when he heard I had been ill. He wrote to tell me to write and let him know whether I ought not to stop working for some time....

February 7th.—We went to a Pre-Raph. Exhib., and saw the loveliest wood in Spring, full of harebells, a thorn tree casting a shadow over some of the flowers.

February 27th, 1859.

Emily to her sister Miranda.

... Ockey has just received another Veronese to copy for her work at home. She has begun doing it so beautifully. She is distressed at only working three hours on Dulwich days; so she has begun working in her spare time at the College, and by that she will manage six hours every day....

We are very regular with our reading three evenings a week from nine to ten. Mama reads and Ockey and I work.... I think Ockey is becoming converted to Shakespeare. Dear Mama reads it so beautifully.

February, 1859.

My dear Mr. Ruskin,

I thank you for your letter. “What has been the matter?” you ask. Physically, only this, I have severe pains in walking distances that I used to manage easily. But you would quite laugh if you saw me, to hear me speak of want of strength.

But the truth is that, if enough is as good as a feast, too little must be as bad as a famine; and I feared that I had just too little for my work. But everyone agrees that it isn’t fatigue that has made me ill, but responsibility and worry and want of change. It’s my own fault. I ought to take things more quietly and not think that so very much depends on my deciding wisely, and not nearly break my heart if things go wrong for a time.

I think you’re mistaken about the teaching, which is hopeful and refreshing. As to sentiment there are few people who have not stronger feelings than I have. I assure you, I am considered the person in the family, who is without imagination, poetry, feeling, affection. Good only to do a sum, carry a weight, go a long walk in the rain, or decide any difficult question about tangible things. You happen to know the other side of me. All that’s kept in, that I may do my work; and you don’t know what a life of calculation and routine and steadiness mine is. I’m told that the best developed organ that I have is that of caution.

ESTIMATE OF HER OWN CHARACTER

However, thank you, I hope I haven’t “come to a smash.” I’m gloriously well to-day, and I’ve done my full work; perhaps I may manage five days at Dulwich after all. I think I wrote too seriously, and I beg your pardon. You can imagine the horror of being ill, to a person whose whole heart is in what they do, and who has never been obliged to calculate strength, but only time.

Never mind, I’m in glorious spirits now. The Salvator is going on well. I’m not the least afraid of anything. I will conscientiously take care of my health; and, if I lose it then, I can’t help it. I should like to leave them all comfortable, and learn to love them, and to live to do some drawing worth doing and to see the Alps; and then I’d leave the world in God’s hands who made it. In the meantime I’ll order the dinners, and try to be quiet and sensible, if you will go on having patience with me. You’ll see me rational and quiet some day. You mustn’t expect a great deal of wisdom, in spite of my having begun with hard experiences so young. You know I’m only a little more than twenty; and it takes a long time and a great deal to teach me anything. I assure you I try to be calm and sensible about all things, and if I say foolish things, I don’t often do them, as our condition here shows. I never, but for two days in my life, felt so strongly about anything as to prevent my working and both times I think you would admit that I had sufficient cause. So neither feelings nor excitement do anyone very much harm.

Most sincere thanks for your letter. You won’t forget the out of the way ways that I can help you. I will be sure not to overwork myself; and it would be a great pleasure to me to help you more.

I am,

Yours affectionately,

Octavia Hill.

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square,

March 6th, 1859.

To Miranda.

... Ruskin has written me such a kind letter telling me to take as long a holiday as I like.... I am to do “such a difficult thing from Turner” at South Kensington soon. I was much puzzled, knowing that would prevent my beginning work till ten o’clock any day; so after much thought I meant to give up the College. I mentioned it to Miss Sterling, who seemed quite dismayed, said I must know they could not possibly supply my place; it was impossible; the whole flourishing or decay of the classes depended on whom they had in my place; my value could not be calculated in £. s. d., or in any number of mechanical performances. So after calculating that I could get at the worst thirty or thirty-three hours’ work weekly, I resolved to remain. I had no idea Miss Sterling cared so much about it.... To-morrow we have a grand tea-meeting at the Young Women’s; Lord Shaftesbury will be there.... I draw at the College daily now. I have such nice expeditions to Dulwich, I go over the fields, and now the leaves are coming out it is most lovely.

Minnie and I never sing here now at all, we haven’t time.

HER PUPILS IN DRAWING

March 27th, 1859.

To Miranda.

I really could not write last Sunday. I am now writing in the lovely early morning, before setting off to go to the eight o’clock Communion service at Lincoln’s Inn. We shall think of you both.... I have nearly finished the cloud I have been copying at Dulwich, and am anxiously expecting Ruskin’s criticism on it. You know I am going to Normandy on or about the 16th; fortunately I do not yet realise it, except as a point before which certain works must be done and preparations made; but when I am fairly off I suppose I shall believe it; and not until then. I think you would be very much interested in some of my drawing pupils. One little boy, James, is my great favourite. He is ten years old, and tells me he has lived in Worcestershire until last September; but he is not like a country child, he is so intelligent. He has bright beautiful eyes, and I like to see his queer little figure in his pretty white blouse waiting for me at the door. He is so earnest and interested in his drawing, and works so very hard at it, it is quite delightful to teach him. Then there is a little girl, Annie, who is now so good and attentive. I like to see her dear pretty little head, bent down over her drawing. She has a beautifully fair skin, and when I find fault with her, all her face colours; and she has large blue eyes with long lashes and soft fair hair. She hasn’t special talent for drawing like James, but I like her personally so much. My women are progressing surely and steadily. They’re getting the right spirit and aims. I take them leaves and sprays to show them their beauties and teach them their names.... I am reading the first volume of “Modern Painters.” I thought you would like to look at these pictures in the light of his words.... I am so very much wrapped up in my drawing I seem to think of little else; and yet I do manage somehow to remember and dwell on a great deal besides. I often think of you both.

103, Milton Street,

April 3rd, 1859.

To Miranda.

I have been suffering with severe pains in my back, but else I am quite well and I hope Normandy will set me up in health. It will seem very strange to you, but I dread it. I have been working so long, I don’t feel as if I knew how to stop. I am afraid I shall be in everyone’s way, and do everything awkwardly and ill. Mary[^[35]] will forgive me however. Dear Mary! Mrs. Harrison writes that she is looking forward to my visit most eagerly; and she thinks it will do her a great deal of good.

You will know how thankful I am that we shall stay in this dear little home. I need not tell you how kind everyone is, you know they always were, but it seems to me as if people even increased in kindness wherever I go, from the old man who takes care of the pictures at Dulwich, and brings me his first wallflowers and spray of sweet-briar, to Mr. Maurice’s ready advice; poor and rich, learned and unlearned, old foe and new friend seem to help us; when I am good and humble and walk home watching the sunset or rooks’ nests against the night sky, I often repeat the Magnificat and think thankfully of all people’s kindness. Sometimes I look back thro’ the strange long years and trace the growth of things and people. Then, dears, I think of you both.

ITALIAN WAR OF LIBERATION

Via della Scala,

April 5th, 1859.

Florence to Octavia.

You ask me if there is any danger for English at Florence. Everyone says that as long as the English minister is here, we are perfectly safe; but, if England takes any decided part in the war, if the minister goes, and it is not safe for the English to remain, they will be ordered to go, and a certain time allowed them; but people seem to think it very unlikely.... There is a great deal of excitement among the Italians, and a great deal of fine feeling. I heard an anecdote the other day which pleased me very much, particularly as it was about a Leghorn boatman, which I had always thought to be the most horrid class possible. There were two young men volunteers, who had to cross in a boat to go somewhere; on landing, they gave the boatman 5 pauls; he still held out his hand; they thought he was not contented, and gave him a Napoleon; he continued to hold out his hand, “What is it?” they said.—“Take your money back,” he replied. “I never have taken any from volunteers, and hope never to do so; but if you would shake hands with me, I should like to shake hands with any one who is going to fight for Italy.”

45, Great Ormond St.

April 16th, 1859.

Emily to her sister Miranda.

You will be glad to hear that Ockey has really gone to Dieppe ... It seemed a great pity to shorten her holiday by two days, because of her college work this afternoon, which I was fortunately able to take.... She saw Ruskin yesterday. She went to Dulwich and took her work from there to Denmark Hill. Ruskin had said in his letter that he had only a quarter of an hour to spare; so of course she was careful to go away after a quarter of an hour; but altho’ her visit was so very short, it seems to have been very nice. Ruskin was very pleased with all her work. The cloud is to be left till his return in the autumn; and O. is to draw other things at Dulwich, which Ruskin wants for the “Modern Painters.” She is also to copy Turners at South Kensington, directly the pictures go there from Marlborough House; so this summer she will have three days at Dulwich and three at Kensington.

In speaking of the cloud, O. said that it was all wrong; why did Ruskin praise it? And he said he knew it was wrong, but that it was very difficult indeed. Salvator had a great deal of power, and what he blamed him for was for misdirecting it.

The Veronese which O. had been doing at home, Ruskin was delighted with. He said he wanted to keep it, to show some people what girls could do. You may think what a state of excitement dear Ockey was in yesterday with seeing Ruskin and with the thought of her journey.... Her costume looked so pretty and suitable. Gertrude made her a present of such a beautiful black silk dress, so nicely made that it has disclosed to me, what I did not know before, that Ockey has an extremely pretty figure.

EXPERIENCES OF TRAVEL

27, Faubourg de la Barre, Dieppe.

April 18th, 1859.

To her Mother.

I am quietly, splendidly happy; everyone is kindness itself. I had a very rough passage indeed, but the wind was favourable and never shall I forget the vanishing of the cliffs of England in a deep intense blue mist of cloud, as the storms came on. I stayed on deck all the six hours we were on board, standing on a bench looking over the changing space of waters; the fresh free wind blowing delightfully. The old look of all things is enchanting; high flint walls are built up the hills, out of which grow hundreds of wallflowers. The large old church, with its time-eaten stones and boldly carved gargoyles, delights me more than anything; its pinnacles rise up in the sunny air; and its lovely flying buttresses against the blue sky, all crested and crowned with wallflowers and ferns; and all the grey stone mellowed and toned by thousands of gold and silver lichens.

I hope you are all comfortable and have all that you want. Tell Minnie that, though I gave her directions about what she was to do, she is not to think that I mean to bind her to do these things if circumstances alter. She will use her own judgment.

I took a vehement determination to have nothing to do with a short stout repulsive foreigner, who sat in the railway carriage opposite to me, and who, to my consternation, was most polite and attentive.

Tell Minnie this, it will amuse her. He was a man of immense curiosity; and, I must in justice allow, he gave me no cause whatever for my aversion to him unless it were that, though he was willing enough to discourse about France, Switzerland, etc., or open and shut windows when he had nothing else to do, he took good care to keep all his energies for himself at any time of bustle; and, after chattering nearly three hours to me, directly we reached Dieppe he never even looked round to see if I’d met my friends, or told or showed me anything, though he knew the regulations of the city well—which would have surprised me if I’d trusted his nasty eye, and would have made me feel desolate, if I hadn’t been who I am, and in a state of happy and independent resolution (which, perhaps, I ought to give him credit for perceiving). I was really glad of his chatter at last, for I thought the voyage long.

April 24th, 1859.

To Emily.

It has seemed to me so wonderful really to see large spaces of almost uninhabited country; they give me a sense of loneliness and quiet, quite unequalled and delightful. We came to a large lonely château, surrounded with firs, just as the sun sank behind a low hill, towards which it looked. The hill, the firs, the birches opposite stood up dark against the sunset. Oh! it was so lovely! That night (Thursday) we slept at Houden in a room with great whitewashed beams, looking out over the yard. We didn’t sleep, we were so cold; and we got up only just in time for the diligence to Rambouillet. The country was flattish, and very like Weybridge in soil and trees and plants; only the poplars were exquisitely graceful. I never knew what avenues were till now. They are lovely, and seem to me to be particularly interesting in being so orderly; yet the order was only discerned, the beauty only felt, from one spot....

We could hardly bear the suspense of climbing the hill, on which it[^[36]] stood. We wanted to see the carving, and could hardly have borne the time, but that we saw its spires. At last we stood at its foot, and saw the great thing towering in the sunlighted blue vault. We could not tear ourselves away from the rich old porches at the north end; tho’ we were sinking with hunger;—one exclaiming, “Oh this is St. Peter—his key! look!” Another discovering, with delight, that there was the Virgin, or there was the Righteous Judgment. At last we went and had dinner, and on returning, entered.

I think you will be greatly amused to hear of our adventures, and all the people we have seen. I have to do all the talking to people, I’m getting quite ready to ask questions, and it increases the fun very much.[^[37]] We have been in the most complete country and among quite rustic things; and I have laughed more since I came to France, than I have done for years, I think. I can’t say that I think the people very nice; they are extremely polite, except the soldiers, but are wretched beggars.... I hope, dear people, that all goes on well with you, and that all is comfortable. Pray tell me if it is not.

Via della Scala,

Tuesday, April 24th, 1859.

Florence to Octavia.

There is great excitement in the town; a great many people about, and a great many gens d’armes. It seems the troops here want to go off to the war; and the Grand Duke does not know what to do; the soldiers are in great excitement, and it was said if he did not let them go there would be a revolution, or something or other to-day.

The poor old Hyena does not know what to do, he has too many keepers. I believe the end will be he will abdicate, and leave the management of affairs to his sons. Many people are going: and still more are talking about it, because of the war and the unsettled state of affairs. I cannot say I feel at all afraid, I feel so perfectly safe. I am in the hands of One who knows what is best. In case of a revolution, everyone seems to think there would be no danger for private individuals. The Italians, especially the Florentines, are a good people, passionate, but not bloodthirsty and savage like the French. It would certainly be very shocking to be among scenes of violence; and I do hope the French will not come here, on any excuse. Of course there is no knowing.

Wednesday, April 25th, 1859.

Well here we are without a government! Old Hyena has decamped, and all the family. The accounts at present are rather confused; but it seems the troops said they would go to the war, and it would be the worse for the Grand Duke if he did not let them; so he was obliged to consent: but then the people wanted a constitution, and he was to tell them his decision at the Pitti Palace this afternoon; I do not know if he appeared; but at six he was gone. To-morrow General something or other from the King of Sardinia comes. You have no idea of the happy wild excitement the town has been in all day; everywhere the Italian colours, troops of men, with bright coloured flags, going about the streets, crying “Viva l’Italia!” “Viva il re Vittorio Emanuele!” “Viva l’independenza Italiana!”; at the cafés and hotels great flags up, and hardly a man without a bow or feather or something of Italian colours. It is very impressive and exciting; there is something so beautiful in unity, in men forgetting for a time their petty cares and dislikes, enmities, passions, interests, uniting in the great common feeling. Coachmen seem especially patriotic. I have not seen one without the Italian colours; perhaps it may be that, being mezza festa, and many people wanting carriages, in the present state of feeling a coachman who had the colours would be preferred. M. would call it very wrong of me to be suspicious, and attribute bad motives to people.

THE TUSCAN REVOLUTION

I cannot help pitying poor old Hyena; I hope he is pretty comfortable. No doubt he has been sending his things off for a long time. He would not have been bad, if he had been a private gentleman, poor fellow; he was out of his place, like a poor old dog having to draw a great cart. There were great placards up saying that the Grand Duke had gone, and that General —— from Piedmont would come, and in the meanwhile begging of the people to behave properly, and not to make any disturbance. But they were as peaceable as possible; seemed as if they would like to shake hands with everyone. I never saw such a happy expression on the Florentine faces; it was quite pleasant; even the little dust-heap boys had the colours on their ragged hats. I wonder how it will all end. What a terrible thing war is. A thing for the ninth and not the nineteenth century....

B.[^[38]] told me to say we have had a most peaceable revolution; and there is no danger. It seems the Grand Duke first refused everything that was demanded; but afterwards said he would do anything; but the people would not accept then.

Milton Street,

May 12th, 1859.

Octavia to Gertrude.

I’ve enjoyed all. It is right to let people hear of joy in this world. We were so delighted with Mortain, where there are immense grey granite rocks, and soft green dells of richest grass, bright with millions of flowers.... I saw showers of rain in the distance changed to bright mist, as they were between me and the sun, and the mist swept over the waves of blue hills, and from higher still among wastes of moor desolate with wind, tho’ bright with furze and cranberry, to which I climbed with hands and feet. I saw the sea, nine miles away, one golden blaze, on which the motionless grey rock of Mt. St. Michel stood faint and clear and firm. I delighted in the diligences. We always took the coupé, and there we were almost always alone.... The view from the top of the castle of Mt. St. Michel was magnificent, rising suddenly 300 feet out of the flat sand. This granite rock is very impressive; it had a wonderful tendency to become deep purple and has a look of solemn solitude which is rather increased than diminished by its one neighbour Tombe-lame.... Light and shadow passed quickly over the immense space now turning the grey sand to dazzling yellow white, now lighting a silver thread of some far-off, before unnoticed, stream; now leaving some space of water the brightest green, or purest blue; while far in the distance a long white line tells of the approach of the tide of dashing waves and rushing waters, and of the deep unfathomed ocean.

HOW TO CHOOSE BOOKS FOR A LIBRARY

1859.

To Miss Sterling.

My own impression about the Library is that all books may be read rightly or idly; that, if the pupils are inclined to choose the latter course, they will not read “instructive books” and will get no good from wise ones. I should choose books by great authors, whether fiction, poetry or science; because they will repay earnest and careful reading; and any which seem to me likely to be delightful, because they treat truthfully anything that ought to interest people. I would suggest a few books; but they will probably be those which have taught me much, and which other people have been interested in, more because they knew them better than other books than because they were naturally suited to them. Longfellow, Wordsworth, Scott, George Herbert (too difficult?), Tennyson, Mrs. Gaskell’s “Moorland Cottage,” “Lizzie Leigh and other Tales” (cutting out “Lizzie Leigh”) and “Mary Barton” (perhaps). For the girls “Moral Courage” and “Steadfast Gabriel,” published by Chambers. The “Ocean Child,” “Birds and Flowers,” and some of Miss Martineau’s books are full of right and interesting thoughts. Miss Bremer’s “Strife and Peace” and “The Home” always seemed to me very beautiful books. If we might add one copy of the “Lectures on Great Men” to the Library and one of the “Feats on the Fiord” I think it would be well; the former would be a most valuable addition, and the more often it was read the better. I don’t know the price of Kingsley’s “Good News” nor whether it be much read, or if not whether or no it would be worth while to get it for Mary Moore’s benefit. I know very well the harm that would be done by any one reading these books only; and I would give you a far more serious list if I were able, provided always that they were great books of their kind. None of the books that I have read of a more studious kind seem to me the least suited to them; and of course you will remember that, where study is voluntary, it is begun because something has become living and interesting to us, as poets and writers of fiction often can make things, and people who love actual fact, like Ruskin and Carlyle, so seldom do. I don’t mean to exclude the two last from amongst the poets; but there is a great deal of simple fact and logic, untouched by feeling, in both. It often seems to me that, if we all had more of the poet nature, we should get people much more interested in all things near and far; and then, if we loved truth more, they would go thro’ much otherwise dry hard work to know facts. And one thing more, we mustn’t forget that reading forms but a small portion of a working woman’s life.

103, Milton St., Dorset Sq.,

May 29th, 1859.

To Miranda.

I have Ruskin’s notes ready to send you by the next opportunity; and they will tell you far more about the exhibition than I can. I saw him on Monday week; and he told me that he saw from all I had done that I had the power to become all he wanted of me, namely a thoroughly good copyist. He wants me to learn to copy in water-colours the great Venetian masters. He asked me if I could be quite happy to do this, and told me he could be quite happy to spend his life thus, if he were in circumstances to do it. He then said to me that he had thought of setting me this summer to copy things for Mod. Paint.; but that, as that would not teach me much, it would be better for him, if I could be happy not to do any work which was to be used by him at once; to get a greater power. “In the one case,” he said, “at the end of six or eight months I should have several useful drawings, but you would be of little more use than now; whereas, in the other, you would have attained considerable power.” ...

MORE WORK FOR RUSKIN

I believe it will be a real comfort to Ruskin, to feel that I am going to copy the pictures that he feels to be so precious, and that are being so destroyed. You see no one is taught to be humble enough to give up setting down their own fancies, that they may set down facts; and they deify these fancies and notions and imaginations of their own hearts, till they really think it a mean thing to represent nature, or other men’s works simply and faithfully: people hate copying because they do not copy simply, I believe. One tells me that when she copies, she is striving to appropriate the excellence of the picture; another that she is not wanting to copy the picture, but to sketch nature; she therefore will go so far off that she cannot see it clearly.... One lady assures me she should despise a person who paints exactly from nature, as she should a person who copies pictures: that Art has a higher function than either to delight or to teach; it has to remind us of our glory before the fall. Mr. D. informs me that in the time I take to copy a foreground, he would get the essence of every picture in the Dulwich collection. It sets me wondering what the essence of a picture is, that it can be got at so rapidly; and whether, if it is worth much, it may not also be worth much labour to gain it, and require much of the much talked of thought and spirit of man; whether faithful and earnest work may not be the only fit preparation for perception of truth in picture or in life; whether before we can understand, much less embody, noble truth, it may not be necessary firmly to believe day after day, when it is inconvenient, and when it is agreeable, that there really is a truth and a God of Truth, distinct from the imaginations of men’s hearts; whether simplicity is not much more necessary than excitement, even in art. So that I think one has reason to be very thankful to have been taught to look at real lines and colours and sizes, which one may not misrepresent; which don’t change when we change, nor depend for their power or beauty on our thoughts about them.

Milton Street,

June 26th, 1859.

To Florence.

INFLUENCE OF MRS. BROWNING ON OCTAVIA

... I quite trust Ruskin about his plans for me; only I wonder why he should speak so despisingly of all copies, and yet set me to do them; but some day I shall understand it. I haven’t any doubt that Mrs. Browning feels passionately and intensely; but probably her passion is both controlled and concealed. I think her turning away, when you spoke of England, simply showed she saw you were feeling a great deal, and she meant to help you to conceal it. Ruskin says of her that she is the only entirely perfect example of womanhood he knows. You will see her again? I wish it were possible, or would be of any use, to thank her thro’ you for all she has taught me. You know sometimes as I walk to Dulwich in the scorching sun and am doubtful, or as tiredly I return up the New Road, the sunset or moonlight speaking less to me than haunting uncertain fears about those I love, I begin repeating “Isabel’s Child” to myself. The wonderful power of contrast of wild storm without, and dream within, the glory of the child’s vision, the almost awful infinity of thought in every verse, the perfect reality of the whole, are fresh delights to me, and yet I forget them all in the perfect rest of the last verse.

“Oh you

Earth’s tender and impassioned few!

Take courage to entrust your love

To Him so named, Who guards above

Its ends, and shall fulfil,

Breaking the narrow prayers that may

Befit your narrow hearts, away

In His broad loving will.”

And numbers of other lines and verses and poems teach me day by day. Well! you ask what I mean about not singing. Simply that I sing out of tune and haven’t time to learn not to do so, having a bad ear; and so I think I’d better make up my mind to the fact.

Thanks, dearest, for all your sympathy; but don’t be unhappy about me for any reason. I am so happy; and more so day by day. Miss Rogers returns this week. Mrs. Yarnall[^[39]] has a little daughter.

103, Milton Street,

July 24th, 1859.

To Miranda.

I want to ensure giving you some account of a speech of Kingsley’s. An Association of ladies has been formed to help sanitary reform; they have published tracts, etc. Their first public meeting was held on Thursday at Willis’s Rooms. Lord Shaftesbury made a speech as chairman, and urged ladies to attend to all the details of the question, as men could not. The legislative and theoretical was to be done only by them; the minute and much of the practical by ladies. Mr. Kingsley said: “After the excellent résumé of your intentions which we have just heard in your report, there seems nothing left for me to say, except to ask you to consider what will be the result, if you succeed in accomplishing your aims. Now just consider! very great aims, very important aims—very dangerous aims some people would tell you that they are; nothing less than saving alive of some four out of every five (?) children that die annually. If you believe the teaching of many great political economists, who think that England is in great danger of being over-populated, and who advocate preventive checks on the increase of population, you had better pause and think whether it wouldn’t be better on the whole, just to let the children die; whether we mayn’t have difficulty in finding work and food for them. But if you hold, as I confess I do, that a human being is precisely the most precious thing the earth can have; if you think that the English race is the very noblest race the world contains; that it has, moreover, a greater power of adapting itself to every kind of climate and mode of life than any other, except the old Roman, ever had; that, besides all this, it is, on the whole, a young race, showing no signs of decay; you will see that it is worth while for political economists to look on the map, and see that at least four-fifths of the world is uninhabited, and not cultivated even in the most ordinary way.”

KINGSLEY ON SANITARY REFORM

I ought to tell you that, before this he had shown us how he expected women principally to be of use, by saying that he looked upon this Association most thankfully because, for reasons which he wasn’t going to explain here, he looked upon the legislative part of sanitary reform with something more like despair than ever. They were not reasons connected with this Government, or with any possible Government, but resulted from his consideration of the character of the individuals, into whose possession small houses were passing more and more. He was not going into the question here; it would have to be attended to, but it seemed a great way off. Therefore he hoped women would go, not only to the occupiers, but to the possessors of the house, and influence people of “our own class.” “And it’s so easy,” he said; “there isn’t a woman in this room who couldn’t save the lives of four or five children within the next six months; and this, without giving up one of your daily duties, one of your pleasures, one even of your frivolities, if you choose.

“You ask me what is more terrible than a field of battle, and I tell you outraged nature. Nature issues no protocols, nor warning notes to bid you be on your guard. Silently, and without stepping out of her way, by the same laws by which she makes the grass grow, she will kill and kill and kill and kill. And more than this, we have our courtesies of war and our chivalries of war; a soldier will not kill an unarmed man, a woman or a child; but nature has no pity. By an awful law, but for some blessed purpose, she is allowed to have none; and she will strike alike the child in its cradle, the strong man or woman. I wish to God someone had pictorial power to set before the mothers of England what that means—100,000 (?) preventable deaths! Oh be in earnest. Remember that, as a live dog is better than a dead lion, so one of those little children in the kennel out there is worth saving. Try to remember that it is not the will of our Father that one of these little ones should perish.”

103, Milton St., Dorset Sq.,

August 14th, 1859.

To Emily.

I hope you haven’t thought me unkind, which indeed I haven’t meant to be, but only very busy, as assuredly I do mean to be all my life long, if I can contrive it. Thanks for your sweet and welcome letters. You will have received the French lines, without accents. I will neither vouch for spelling nor grammar, but you must treat them as if they were exercises in Chapsall.

FURNIVALL’S SUNDAY WALKS

The event of my life since I last saw you has been, as you know, an expedition last Sunday of which I would wish to speak reasonably and calmly if I can succeed. Indeed it was glorious! I never saw a better friendship than that between the men and him (Mr. Furnivall). I’m a little weary of thinking over the Sunday question, and yet—lest you cast me off utterly, and Mr. Durrant ceases to send me kind messages, and Mary be shocked indeed—I must tell you a little how we stand here about it. Of course I told Mr. F. that I should never dream of entering into a plan involving habitual absence from church; tho’ I didn’t tell him how much I can sympathise with the spirit of some people who do. He goes with the men every Sunday; they, some of them at least, remain at home to go to church each alternate Sunday; but that is no part of his plan. His own faith is just as deep and living as ever; but he has evidently been disappointed with the amount or kind of union the church gives. They go regularly and very happily all together; he is ever ready to sympathise and enter into all kinds of happiness from the greatest to the least. He showed me where they walked, he told me when we were coming to the loveliest groups of trees, when to the creek where they bathe, how the park looked at moonlight, and how they all enjoyed it. He wants us to join them in an excursion to Leith Hill or Box Hill in September. I asked if it must be a Sunday, and he thought much about it, but says the men can’t get holidays. He talked about Rossiter, told me he heard one of my sisters was down with Durrant. He amused me vastly by saying, “Hoets, whom you saw at Cambridge, wants people to go and see his wife and children, as he’s thinking of going to Australia.” As if one could go and call on Mrs. Hoets without introduction, on such a plea! Oh, Minnie, but it was so glorious! As we walked through the park at Richmond at night, we sang hymns, “No! never part again,” “There is a happy land,” “Here we suffer grief and pain.” In the chorus of the last, a number of working, or rather loitering, men in Richmond joined very earnestly. We saw the pictures at Hampton Court with which I was much pleased. The men were very nice; they are so learned about flowers, etc., so respectful, so thoroughly happy. Several of our own pupils were there; everyone behaved well.

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square,

August 20th, 1859.

To Rev. F. D. Maurice.

I hope that you will, in your great kindness, forgive my troubling you by asking whether you can give me a few words of advice on questions that are troubling me practically very much indeed.

1st. I have been very much impressed by the good and joy Mr. Furnivall’s Sunday excursions seem to be giving to the men and to their wives, sisters, and friends, who from time to time accompany them. I have rarely seen a more respectful, intelligent, and happy party than they. Of course I shouldn’t approve of members of the Church missing service habitually; but that doesn’t seem to me to be at all necessary to the plan. I know some people, to whom such a refreshment after their week’s work would be an inestimable good. It would give me a great delight to accept invitations for them; and have this opportunity of seeing them, and helping them; nor can I see any rule which can make it right for me to go and see my friends on Sunday, or go into the country, and yet makes it wrong for them to go all together. Ought I to give up my only day for seeing relations and friends? I shouldn’t have hesitated about it, but that I imagine, perhaps incorrectly, that you disapprove of those excursions. May I ask if it is so? I have been trying to enter into the full purpose of Sunday, as you told me, quite giving up work, and, as you told me, everything that was an effort (except writing to my sisters, which ought to be none), and I do at last understand Sunday as a duty as well as privilege; but is not refreshment by seeing friends and change of scene right?

THE SUNDAY QUESTION

I wanted to ask two still more difficult questions but really ought not to trouble you more. Oh that you were in London that I might ask you! No! I am glad you are resting. And truly too, I don’t depend on your advice, but I know our Father has thousands of ways to teach me, if only my stubborn will and foolish fancies don’t blind me.

God bless you all. I hope Mrs. Maurice is better. Please don’t answer if you are busy or tired. Is it really difficult to tell what is right? Or is it only that one will not see the truth? Or does one not pray trustfully enough?

The classes are going on steadily and well. I am very well too; and dear Mama and Minnie are having happy holidays. I am all alone.

Octavia to Rev. F. D. Maurice.

I cannot attempt to express the thankfulness I feel for your kindness in answering my letter, perhaps most of all for the first words, “You should never apologise for asking my opinion,” because it seems as if it might be understood to have reference to our baptism; and although I quite feel the help you would give to everyone to be the most precious, and don’t want any special right to more than you would give to others, yet I often feel as if I very much wanted to be sure that I was not wrong in asking you questions about our own life, which I do not feel wise enough, or old enough, to decide myself, and which I cannot trust, though I sometimes do leave, to the decision of others. It is not about questions referring to faith that I feel this most. I know always about this to Whom I can go, and thank God! for some years (until this question of Sunday) have felt His help all sufficient; and it has been, except for my own sin and weakness, but one long blessed revelation of His love, of the meaning of prayer and sacraments. It was not about them that I feel as if I wanted any more help than I have; seldom now (tho’ most deeply when I feel it at all) about home life; for we have learnt a good deal now about where we have been wrong about it; it is principally about the application of principles to other social questions; it is all very well for people to tell me not to trouble myself about them, but they are involved in every action of daily life. Earnest thought, life itself, and some words of your own and others, for whom I have a great respect, have led me to convictions which, as I say, would lead me to actions differing widely from yours, and, I suppose, proceeding from some difference in principle. Sometimes I act for a little while on my own convictions, and am very happy, till the recollection of how wrong I was, and how sure I was about other things which you have taught me, principally by advising my giving up a course of action and adopting another, or some partial failure, make me think I am arrogant and self-willed; and yet when I take the other course I am oppressed with a sense of neglected duties, fear of my own honesty, and confusion about how far I ought to trust people, and you specially. This produces inconsistency in action; tho’, on the whole, I adopt the latter course for the questions relating principally to work at the College; I feel my position there implies very complete obedience. When I can see you (but that is so seldom now), I so try (indeed I try always) to understand the grounds on which you act; and I own myself fairly puzzled. It was to this I referred.

Your letter has shown me a much deeper meaning in Sunday than I had ever perceived in it; and I see the difficulty about the excursions very clearly, as not speaking to people as spiritual beings, called to full rest in trust in God: I am not sure that I do not think that, after the Church service has done this, the rest of the day would not be better passed among God’s works in the country, and in friendly intercourse; but I am less sure of having entered into the teaching of the Bible on the subject, than of setting a sufficient value on mere cessation from toil and recreation; and so I shall decidedly give up these excursions, till I have thought more about them. And even then I hope I am not wrong in feeling that I do not think, especially as College people are concerned, I could feel it right to go to them, when you feel as you do about it.

I am afraid this letter will give you the impression that I am trusting far too much to you, far too little in God; tho’ I have stated very frankly (it reads to me almost unkindly), how fears that you may be wrong about some things mingle with my sure knowledge how wonderfully you have been proved right about others. I accept both reproaches. I am often tempted to trust too much to you; not, I think, to believe your wisdom, and gentleness, and patience, and faith to be greater than they are, but to think too much that I was to trust to them in you, instead of in God, because I have not felt Him to be an ever-present guide, not only into the mysteries of His own Love, not only into the meaning of past wants, but into the grounds of all right and all wise action. This and this only has confused me; all has been ordered to teach me, all to strengthen me; and I alone am wrong. Only with these thoughts others mingle; I must not, in order to recover faith in a Director, give up the direction He places in my way; I must not mistake self-will for conscience, nor impatience for honesty. No one on earth can distinguish them for me; but He will. It so often seems to me as if two different courses of action were right or might be right; and this is what puzzles me, even tho’ it is a blessing as binding me to people of widely different opinions. Thank you once more, dear Sir, for all teaching, given now and before.

(Undated, probably August, 1859.)

To Miranda.

Thanks for your sweet letter received yesterday. What have I been thinking and feeling about? Dear me, that is a question. Well, dear, of extra things, first and foremost of a delightful dance Mr. Furnivall gave to his friends among the men and their friends, and to which he invited me. I went with Louisa[^[40]] and Henrietta;[^[41]] and a glorious evening we had! Before that, I had been one of their Sunday excursions with them.... I received, however, a letter from Mr. Maurice in answer to my enquiries (oh such a beautiful letter!), which makes me feel I have much to learn about Sunday, and at any rate I could not go with College people, his feeling being so strong on the subject, I think. This has been, as you may imagine, a great effort to me; for really my day refreshed me so entirely; and I was so happy. Do you know perhaps I’m going down to Godmanchester (where Cromwell was born) to visit a new friend, Miss Baumgartner, during my next holidays.

MORE ART WORK

103, Milton Street,

September 11th, 1859.

To Miranda.

... I have just begun the most wonderful piece of drapery, black and gold, copied from a Rubens at Dulwich. Neither Jupiter, nor any of my other Dulwich work, is finished; they are waiting for Ruskin.... Last night I had the glorious delight of looking over a sketch book of his, which Mr. Ward brought to Margy’s. It was called “Notes by the Wayside, 1845–46.” The things were exquisite; some of Florence specially interested me of course. The original coloured sketches of the two engravings of sunset clouds behind mountains, and St. George of the Seaweed at Venice, which are published in the “Modern Painters,” were there too. Oh so lovely!—Miss Sterling is now in Ireland. I begin to long dreadfully for their return.... While Gertrude is in Scotland, I have the use of her Library subscription. I have been revelling in Oliver Cromwell, and Ludlow’s “India,” and look forward to several delightful books, if only I can get a little time.... My drawing class for the Portman Hall children is going on so very well. I have had it all alone since July. Oh! and they begin to draw so well! T. is I think very pleased. I am teaching Mrs. W. and a new lady, illumination; that is to say they come and draw here, while I am at work, two hours weekly. I’ve been writing an article for the College Magazine, at Mr. Litchfield’s request.

103, Milton Street,

September 25th, 1859.

To Miranda.

Decidedly take lessons from Kraus.... As to sending money home, dearest, don’t think of it; we have ample, as my balance sheet next week will show you; spend it in any way that will be most useful to you in promoting health, rest, and knowledge; we are getting, one way, or another, an immense amount of change and rest here, and I earnestly hope you will do the same to the best of your power.... I do indeed sympathise with you about church; it is a quite inexpressible blessing, and must be specially so to you.... I have read Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King.” I consider the whole book glorified by Arthur’s last speech to Guenevere. Tennyson takes the view that, if she had been pure and worked with Arthur, his noble efforts and reforms would have lived and triumphed. He goes away to fight his best knight, all his hopes and successes blighted. I always did like Launcelot, in spite of everything; and I do still. There is a lovely character too, called Enid. But the whole book is painfully impressed on my mind, as written by a man, so vividly and perpetually conscious of sensuality, tho’ of so much that is noble; but I should love to possess the book. Oh it is so real! I am reading, too, Carlyle’s “Cromwell” with intensest interest. Mama[^[42]] is so very very happy in her life, it is quite delightful. I have answered your question briefly, because I’m so sure of the answer.... We want to see that we and our work are not essential to the world; that, if we do our work imperfectly, so that we love Him, that is what He asks. He can save and teach people without us.... My own dearest, God will lead us all, will He not? We know how our blunders of judgment, and want of power can never hinder His work; that He asks us, not for great works, but self-forgetting peaceful hearts; that our wisdom at best can fathom little of His purposes; but that He reigns and sends His spirit to us. I fancy, if we saw God working and resting, instead of our own working, our faces would shine like that of Moses; and we should care very little that we could not speak, but would trust Him to fill us with such love that it would breathe in all we did.

WORK FOR RUSKIN

October 10th, 1859.

To Miranda.

I have a good deal to tell you to-day. On Saturday I saw Ruskin. I think he was very well satisfied with my work, tho’ it was none of it finished, and none of it right; still it was very satisfactory to me to find that it had none of the faults my work had last year, i.e., not being dark enough, nor massed enough. I returned, in spite of all this, in a horrid state of wretchedness; but this I have got over now, as I will tell you....

I believe what made me so wretched was the sudden vivid thought of how very little pleasure I could ever give Ruskin, even by the most conscientious work; that one stanza of Tennyson’s was better to him, would teach more that he wanted to teach, than all my life’s work. I had thought that, by earnestness and humility, and sacrifice of other works and thoughts, I might really help him considerably. I have no doubt that an immense deal of thought of self is mixed with this notion; but it has its root deeper than that; and now I come to think over all Ruskin said, I see no reason to alter my conviction that I can do this work. The fact is, if one sits down to make a plan, it is often foolish and impracticable; but the plans life reveals to us, which are unfolded to us, and which we are hardly conscious of,—these, I think, are usually God’s plans, and He helps us to carry them out. If this is not what He means me to do, may He, for He alone can, help me to give it up; but if, as now I think, He has been preparing me by multitudes of things, childhood in the country, girlhood in town, hard work, most precious and direct teaching of drawing, sympathy with people round, affection for and gratitude to Ruskin, and an ever deepening admiration for him, and knowledge of his plans,—if, I say, God has been preparing me by this, and much more, first to love Nature and Art, second, to care that all should love Nature and Art, and third to see how to help them to do so; will He not too give me humility to take the place He ordains for me in this great work, tho’ it be the lowest of all,—faith to believe I can help, and oh such energy and earnestness? I am very happy indeed now.... Ruskin was particularly pleased with the bull’s head.... I believe one of the things that made me so unhappy on Saturday was that I had been reading the “Political Economy of Art”; and I could not help thinking of the passage about the great man, beginning, “He can be kind to you, but you can never more be kind to him.” And then too I had wanted to take home a very good account to dearest Mama and Minnie; and he did not criticise it altogether; and in spite of all the praise he gave it, I felt how miserably incomplete it was. But I am sure I have progressed; and perhaps the dissatisfaction is also a gain. But this they could not feel, and all the way home, and even now, I can’t help crying at the thought of it; and the less they show they’re disappointed, the more I feel it; and sometimes Mama seems to think Ruskin capricious; and I am certain he is not. Well it is all over now.

POSSIBILITIES IN ALL POSITIONS

Chivery, near Tring,

October 10th, 1859.

To Harriet, a former toy-worker.

I had been thinking a good deal of our conversation about teaching.... I will just tell you a very little what I think of it,—I believe most people render their position a blessing, or otherwise, themselves good or wretched; and that the post becomes one of interest and usefulness, according to the estimate of it held by her who occupies it; in fact that all work done as routine without love, whether it be a queen’s or a chimney-sweep’s, is quite despicable, and all done with love most honourable. I know some works have greater responsibilities, and call for higher, or rather more, powers; some works (writing poems for instance) are in themselves greater; but I believe the noblest faculties of every human being are called for in her work. Conscientiousness—for instance—is wanted everywhere. Much intellect is not. But that which equalises the dignity of various works is, that all, or all that I can think of, are exercised either with people or for people. And people, being God’s children, may be taught and influenced, unconsciously often to themselves, by every part of those round them. I believe this teaching to be the most precious part of all our lives. Those of us who are called to be teachers may, I believe, thank God that it is so with them so clearly, so definitely; but I often think that the influence over us by those who are not definitely set to teach us is the most powerful. Love and mercy and gentleness and humility and thoughtfulness each of us needs equally in her work. And, as I said at first, people give us the work they find we can do. A nurse may wash and dress children for many years in love and faithfulness; but she can do more besides, sometimes. She can tell them stories and teach them, and in a thousand ways call out their powers. No one expects this in a nurse, because they cannot get it; but once give it them, and you raise your position, probably in their eyes, at any rate in our Father’s. We are not half ambitious enough; we struggle for little honours, seldom for the far more difficult and far nobler ones....

With most affectionate wishes for your future, dear, and love to Sarah and yourself, and in remembrance of old days, I am

Ever your loving friend,

Octavia Hill.

I don’t know when I felt so proudly pleased as when I gathered that you were trying to be cheerful and useful in your present work.

Godmanchester,

October 15th, 1859.

To Emily.

Here I am, all safe and well. This is the loveliest, dearest old house. I never was in such a one before. Miss Baumgartner met me at the station, and we walked here. The house stands in a long old street, almost opposite the church. It is (the house is) old red brick, not very pretty, but quite old. The dining-room is like a grand old hall; the staircase, which is in the centre of the house, faces it, and is separated from it by three Gothic doors; low steps, broad banisters, and a kind of gallery landing make it feel quite ancient; the hall is hung with old pictures. The garden is not large, it consists of a glorious lawn of smooth bright green grass, a few brilliant flower borders, and a long bright old brick wall, a small cedar on the lawn; but it is bounded at the bottom by the Ouse, a deep clear stream, across which is a pretty bridge leading to an embowered island, belonging to this house; a water mill is above; below the view of Hinchinbrook where Cromwell’s uncle lived. The boathouse contains several boats; one Miss B. pointed out to me as hers. She will teach me to row. She is very kind and interesting; her mother, a nice old lady of whom I am rather afraid and rather fond. Her father very old. Her brother very fond of flowers, very nice, I think. They have lived here for years. It is very nice.

MISS BAUMGARTNER’S HOUSE

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square,

October 23rd, 1859.

To Miranda.

Your letter of delight about the music lessons gives me great pleasure. I received it one morning in a large wood-panelled dining-room, looking out to a smooth field set with large elms. I had just entered the room thro’ one of three Gothic doors, after descending a low-stepped staircase with massive oaken banisters, into a large wood-panelled hall hung with old pictures. Just as I had finished your note, an old lady entered by another door, whom you would not at all have known, if you had been watching in a magic mirror; a tall stately old lady dressed all in black, with a quick step and very kind face, holding in one hand a basket of keys, and in the other some scented-leaved verbena and heliotrope, some of which she gave to me; and some was laid on the bright breakfast table for someone who had not yet arrived. The door opened, and there came in with springing step, and upright carriage, someone whom you would have felt inclined now to call girl—now woman. Her cheerfulness, and the air of one who has long been the youngest of the house, and the darling of many brothers, as well as of father and mother,—her slight figure,—all seemed to give her the first name; but when you looked at her, there were older lines about her face that made you say “30”; and, as you knew the face better, you would trace, under all that glad manner, lines of deeply felt suffering; and certain looks in the deep softness of her grey eyes,—a certain calmness, even in her enthusiasm, would have made you feel that the best of womanhood and of girlhood were combined in her. I suppose you have guessed long ago that I am describing Emma Baumgartner, my new and very dear friend. As I went down there a perfect stranger, having only seen her twice, and her mother once, knowing nothing about who they were, and we had no mutual friends, we had to be specially communicative; and so, I suppose, our friendship sprang up more quickly than otherwise it could have done. Then, except at meals, we were quite alone, drawing, walking, rowing or resting. But the principal thing that drew us together was my delight in finding in her a great nobleness of judgment and of sympathy, right views about work, and all religious and social questions; and I think she found a great pleasure in my companionship. We taught her night-school for men and boys together. We attended her men’s reading-room. We taught in the Sunday school. We drew. We talked of Ruskin and Mr. Maurice, as well as of her brothers, my sisters, architecture, and all kinds of things. I have had a delightful visit; and she says she does not know when she has enjoyed a week so much. She has no friends in London now, and greatly longs to come up in the spring, to see the exhibitions, or earlier in order to see Ruskin.

When you can, will you look carefully at the tracery of the head window of the Campanile of Giotto at Florence, if you have an opportunity. I have the most splendid engraving by me in the “Seven Lamps.” Also an arch from the façade of the Church of San Michele at Lucca. How you would delight in the book! I have not yet read it. He says the Gothic of Verona is far nobler than that of Venice, and that of Florence nobler than that of Verona. He says, that, in Italian traceries the whole proportion and power of the design is made to depend upon the dark forms.

WORK FOR RUSKIN

November 20th, 1859.

To Miranda.

Thanks for your sweet sympathetic letter. I think Ruskin is right. First, about work in general, I think he wishes us to perceive the wide difference between that which shows moral rightness in the worker, and that which shows peculiar intellectual and other greatness. Then as to my work, Ruskin has set me to one which he believes to be the right training for an artist; and he would be glad that at present I did not look beyond it; first, because one must be contented to do a work before one can do it, and secondly, because he would then be sure I loved art, not only my own ambitious notions; in addition to which he really longs to have things well copied. This is what I think on the subject; but your letter was very delightful, dearest....

Dearest Andy, how heartily I wish you all success in your work. It is just a year to-day since that terrible parting at London Bridge—a year not lost to any of us. I think we can feel something at least has been done, since then. We feel a little stronger, surer, better, fuller of hope, more able to bear patiently any shock or storm that may come....

My love to little Florence, for whose dear sake I am kind to every dog and cat I see, and even love them a little. I protected a little cat from some teasing children on Tuesday, by nursing her for an hour!

November 21st, 1859.

To Miss Baumgartner.

You must not (in charity please, you must not) contrast your letters with mine. Depend on it, those whose minds are most healthily toned write, more often, true and sympathetic accounts of facts than about faiths, principles and theories. It is so invigorating to be brought in contact rather with God’s facts than with men’s fancies; and, though the question “What do all these things mean?” “What should they teach us?” is indeed a deeper one than “What are they?” yet one is too apt, if one asks the question too often, to lose sight of the facts in their simple existence; to see only their relation to men, at last only to oneself.

VISIT TO A PUPIL’S HOME

I spent an hour last Tuesday evening at the house of one of my pupils (W.M. College pupils). Her mother had begged that I would go. They live at the very top of a house near one of the London markets, rather a wretched neighbourhood. Sarah, my pupil, a quiet girl of fourteen, walked with me. Her mother, prettily dressed, opened the door, carrying in her arms the baby, dressed in its little white frock, and coral fastening its little shoes. I had never been there before; and I was conducted up the dark staircase to the attics. Here I saw by the furniture that they had seen “better days.” One tiny room was their sitting-room, comfortably furnished; a bright clean fire, tea set, and the children’s grandmother sitting primly attired to receive me. All this I saw, and it made me understand something more of the people at once. It would have done anyone’s heart good to see the self-forgetfulness of these people; the five tiny little girls, the eldest only seven, each delighted to give place to one another; and as to Sarah, who is their half-sister, it was lovely to see how quietly she served everyone. They are earnest High-Church people; the baby is called Amy Herbert, after Miss Sewell’s heroine, and also because Mrs. —— is so fond of George Herbert’s poems. The tiny children all sang some hymns, “O let us be joyful,” and others.

Sarah comes to my drawing class, and we had much talk about her lessons. Her mother means to read aloud to her these winter evenings, while she draws; and then she will read while her mother works. It is a brave faithful little home, and such as one loves to come upon; and I was much touched by their hospitable cordial reception of me. I thought you would like to hear thus much.

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square,

November 27th, 1859.

To Miss Baumgartner.

Mrs. Browning has taught me so very much, or rather has been such a friend to me, saying precisely what I wanted to hear (first expressing my own feelings so completely, and then carrying me on to the only hopes and thoughts that can satisfy one at such times), that it seems to me as if I knew her, and that she really had suffered and thought with me....

Why is entering into other people’s feelings, even sad, so restful? Is it not because we are meant to bear one another’s burdens? So I’ve been reading authors who don’t echo my own feelings so much, and trying more than ever to understand all kinds of people....

I always feel so solemnly about my own birthday; ... Your way of spending yours makes me ashamed, for ... in the evening we shall have friends, who are far from being among the sad and poor.... I never have seen any but specially nice people on my birthday.

On the 5th, I shall take my drawing class to South Kensington which I shall consider also a kind of celebration of my birthday. About Arthur, I believe that the duty of a wife, even of a friend, is, with regard to a man’s work, so terribly misunderstood. Mr. Ludlow says, “He sacrificed his wife to his Round Table,” not seeing that, as he loved her, had she been anything worthy of the name of wife, her highest joy and duty should have been to work for it with him; and that it was his great glory that he expected this of her.... And this is true, in part, of all relations and friends, the glory of each is not in demanding attention, but in love, sympathetic fellow-work, ready sympathy....

Tried by the precious test of facts near home, I say my theory is right; and I think you, of all people, believe it.

December 5th, 1859.

To Margaret Howitt.

Dear Miranda is deeply interested in her little Italian pupils, and longs much for nice English stories for them. She just wrote to beg us to send her all that remained of our childhood’s stock. I never read them now; they would be of real use there; and I conquered my selfishness at last; but I couldn’t help a great pain in packing the dear books which Mrs. Howitt had given me so long ago. I remember well the night she gave me “Fireside Verses,” and the many many happy hours it gave us as children. And now the books are gone, to do a little more blessed work; but I have instructed Miranda to bring them carefully back with her.

BIRTHDAYS

Milton Street,

December 5th, 1859.

To Miss Baumgartner.

I am glad you have redeemed your birthday from melancholy, and consecrated it to charity, which, after all, is one of the most surely joyous things. I must read the St. Andrew’s Day carefully; but now I must give you an account of my birthday. It was a cold, bright day. I woke late; it was post time as I left my room, no letters; time went on, no letters. I was fairly disappointed; but, half an hour too late, owing to frost, your letter and one from Miss Harris arrived. I was leaving the house for Dulwich, and so read them in the omnibus with thankful delight. I enjoyed my walk much; the snow lay white on the long finger-like boughs of Ruskin’s cedar, as I passed, and prayed God’s blessing might rest on the house. I worked well, and then went to the College and did the same, thinking of many things. Dear Miss Sterling was most kind, and allowed me to leave early. When I reached home thro’ long damp-aired gas-lighted windy streets, all looked bright and warm. Gertrude had arrived bringing presents,—one a pair of quaint, delightful, old silver bracelets from an old lady, a friend of grandpapa’s, whom I had never seen, but who has heard of me. When I entered the room I was amazed. It was brightly lighted, and decorated with ivy a friend had sent; another dear old lady had herself gathered me the last roses and lauristinus, myrtle leaves and chrysanthemums from her garden. One long table was set for tea, but the other was covered with presents. Mary Harris had sent me the “Idylls” and the “Two Paths.” One dear lady, whom I have never seen but often written to (Mrs. Robins), had sent eleven volumes of poems—Scott (who will be very valuable to me) and Crabbe whom I don’t yet know. I tell you of the books, because they are such very precious things to possess.... Miss Rogers read us the loveliest Arab story. Gertrude, Minnie, and I sang; and all my best available friends were here, and were delighted to make one another’s acquaintance. I was proudly delighted with them all, and most humbly delighted by all their kindness which I felt I had so very little deserved. It was almost too much to bear. Once or twice I dwelt thankfully on the thought that, except Mr. Maurice, who was ill, I had seen or heard from everyone I cared for specially, except Ruskin. When nearly everyone had left, Gertrude rushed upstairs, handed me a parcel saying, “Someone thinks it’s from Mr. Ruskin.” “No,” I said quietly, looking at the unformed handwriting. “Then what made the servant say so?” I sat down on the stairs and tore it open. It was! I enclose his letter, which specially pleased me, for its sympathy with my work among people. The books are by Souvestre, an author whom I love already, from the little I know of him. It was very sweetly thoughtful of Ruskin to remember me.... Do you know the old Spanish proverb, “To him that watches, everything is revealed.” It certainly is true; and how glorious it is to gaze backward upon the past, which, be it ever so dark, is fact and therefore God-permitted. And as one gazes one sees gradually the unbroken way in which our Father leads us towards Him, unbroken save by our own rebellious wills and by many sharp rocks which seemed hindrances; but now we see that they bridged for us many a dark gulf.

BIBLE WOMEN

I have been reading the most beautiful book called “The Missing Link.” It is an account of the Bible women of whom you may have heard. They are quite poor women, sent by ladies to sell Bibles, to teach and help and cheer the very poorest people. It is wonderful what they have done, and what lovely things they have seen. They have reached the very lowest class, seen and helped them in their homes. They give nothing away, but get people to buy beds and clothes, for which they pay gradually. They encourage women to take a pride in keeping their children and homes neat; and, living among them, can do so much. Mr. and Mrs. Maurice are so deeply interested in the plan, that they have lent me the book, to see if we cannot help at all.

December 10th, 1859.

Emily to Miranda.

You cannot think how affectionately everyone at the Shaws[^[43]] took leave of Mama, and how sorry Emily and Willy were to lose their lessons. Willie said, “Well, Baby, what shall we do without lessings? It’s horrid!”

103, Milton Street,

December 18th, 1859.

To Miss Baumgartner.

... Last night we had the second practice of our men’s and women’s advanced singing class at the College. It was very delightful; the mere singing was that; and then it was nearly the first united thing we have had, and so full of promise. When I contrasted the nervous shamefaced way our ladies behaved, seeming to think it would kill them if they happened to open the door of a room where there were only men, etc., etc., with the natural, free noble way in which you work among them, I was proud of you, and thankful too....

We go down to Grandpapa’s at Weybridge. But many other things are Christmas celebrations too. On the 28th, I am to be at a “Musical Evening” at the Boys’ Home, where are about 50 destitute boys. The singing will delight them, I’ve no doubt. Then on the 5th we shall have a social party at the College; Mr. Maurice and Mr. Hughes will be there and many other good and great people. Have you ever read Crabbe’s life? I think nothing can be nobler than Burke’s behaviour; and how fine Crabbe’s letter to him is!

The Pines, Weybridge,

Christmas Day, 1859.

To Miranda.

... I am particularly happy about my work. Ruskin is so pleased with it all. My four Dulwich drawings are now right and ready for use; in fact he wants them at once that they may be put into the hands of the engraver. I am to do four more, small, but, Ruskin says, difficult examples of inferior work—and one bit from Turner.... I had a quite delicious hour and a quarter at Ruskin’s on Friday. We talked on many interesting subjects....

Dr. Southwood Smith.
Grandfather of Octavia Hill.
From a Chalk Drawing by Margaret Gillies.

Snowball fell down yesterday when I was riding him. Mama and Minnie were being driven by Gertrude just behind. If anyone else had been driving, I must have been run over; but G., with her grand calmness and power, stopped Ariel at once, turning her to one side. I am only shaken, not hurt at all. I was not thrown, but fell with Snowball.

A VISIT TO RUSKIN

Christmas, 1859.

To Miss Baumgartner.

On Friday I was shown into Ruskin’s study. One window had the shutters shut; the table was covered with books and papers; the fire burned brightly; at one window Ruskin sat drawing from a Turner, all squared over that it might be reduced. With his own exquisite elegance and ease, which enables him to do the oddest things in a way that one can’t feel rude, instead of rising, he threw himself back in his chair and shook hands with me, as I stood behind; then he rose and giving me his chair walked to the fire—and then, Emma, he produced the loveliest drawings of boughs of oak to show me, one beautifully foreshortened, and explained the growth of it to me; how every leaf sends down a little rib that thickens the stems—how the leaves grow in spirals of five. He got a bit, and showed me the section. They were lovely. Then he told me that he wanted me to do an example of good work for “Modern Painters,” one he had meant to do himself but for which he will not now have time—a bit of the fir boughs in Turner’s “Crossing the Brook,” now at South Kensington.

I told him about you, about my visit, about your work among the men—how lovely I thought it, and how fresh. He was very much pleased, and told me about the daughter of a friend of his, who does much the same—to whom it seems he has sent several of my drawings for her men to use.

We got at last upon the subject of the education of working women; and he asked much about it, seemed greatly interested. I told him many anecdotes, and something of what I said in my article on the subject. He was much interested about the question of fiction. He hopes to publish the fifth volume in the spring. I was with him an hour and a quarter. When I came away he said, “We’d quite a nice chat”; he “wasn’t so horridly busy as usual.”

January 8th, 1860.

To Miss Baumgartner.

In a description of a gathering at the Working Men’s College she says: “I was much interested in an earnest young countryman of the name of Cooke, who had presented a collection of butterflies and moths, etc., to the College. As every scrap of natural history is eagerly learnt by me, to be repeated wherever I go, and lovingly remembered, I got him to tell me some of their names and habits....

“I was delighted to hear Mr. Dickinson (whose portrait of Mr. Maurice you may remember) praising Mr. Ward’s drawings.... It was very nice to see old faces back again and to feel as if I never should have done shaking hands ... its joy consisted so much in the momentary grasp of a hand, in the sudden sight of a face which owed all its preciousness to the thought of natures I had learnt to know in sad moments or hard-working days.... Does it not seem to you one of the main things we long for in heaven that every strong affection for visible things will have some answer?... I often feel so sure that the love of places, employments, books, as well as people, is not to perish, but to be justified.”

RUSKIN AND MR. BUNNEY

January 29th, 1860.

To Miss Baumgartner.

Yesterday I saw Ruskin. “Do you come by appointment?” the servant asked me, “because Mr. Ruskin said he would see no one.” “Mr. Ruskin fixed the day, I named the hour; but if he is busy——.” The servant, however, seemed sure that I was to be admitted, and I was shown into the study, where Ruskin greeted me with the words, “I’m very glad to see you.” I saw he was ill, and found he had been suffering from toothache, and awake all night. I begged him, therefore, not to attend to my work. However he would do it. I shall not readily forget the afternoon. He was not busy, and showed me the loveliest things, exquisite copies of illuminations, wonderful sketches by Mr. Bunney (one of his College pupils), sketches which Ruskin said he had seen nothing like them except Turner.... And then Ruskin showed me two of Turner’s loveliest small drawings, one of Solomon’s pools, and beyond their square basins, and the battlements, amidst which the light gleamed, the sun was setting; and clouds gathered about him, because, Ruskin said, the clouds gathered about Solomon’s wisdom. Oh that sky palpitating with colour, changing on every thousandth inch!

Ruskin asked me if I’d been reading anything lately; and we talked about Tennyson. I said he was so very sad. He said, “You see far more to make you sad than I do; but I don’t think Tennyson a bit too sad. I haven’t found that he sees far enough.” “He knows, however,” Ruskin said, “how far he does see, and that is more than other people do.” I told him how years ago Tennyson’s words had distressed me, because I believed that good was then and always, and that we it is who mar it all; I forgot that what had distressed me most of all was Tennyson’s apparent uncertainty about the fact at all. “So runs my dream,” etc.

Ruskin said, “Do you think that good is coming now to bad people?” “Yes,” I replied, “and that their greatest sin is in refusing it.” “But how much more that is than most people see,” he went on. “Oh, yes, I see that now,” I agreed, smiling; “I am amused now that I did not know that then.”

We spoke about the wickedness of rich and poor people. Ruskin spoke of the little children like angels he saw running about the dirty streets, and thought how they were to be made wicked. I spoke about the frightful want of feeling in all classes; but added that I thought rich people were now waking up to a sense of their duties. “Yes,” he said, “I’m glad that you and I have probably a good deal of life still to come. I think we may live to see some great changes in society.” “I hope at least,” I said, “to see some great changes in individuals before I die.” “Oh, no,” he said, “that’s quite hopeless; people are always the same. You can’t alter natures.”

We talked a good deal about it; but not quite decisively. I see we quite agree that you can only call out and make living that which is in a nature. Ruskin meant a great truth when he said, “I can never alter myself. I think I had better make the best of myself as I am.” When I said, “I am very much altered during the last few years,” he laughed very kindly, saying, “Oh, no, you’re not; you’re just the same as ever; only you know more.”

But it does make all the difference in the world whether we are fully developing all that we are meant to be, conquering all bad passions, or not.

MISS JEX BLAKE

103, Milton Street,

February 5th, 1860.

To her sisters Miranda and Florence.

I am afraid that it is long since I wrote to you; but of course I am always thinking of you both, dears, and longing to have you home again, that you may really know all our doings and lives. Mine lately you would assuredly consider rather of the dissipated kind. I’ve been giving some book-keeping lessons to Miss J. B. She is a bright, spirited, brave, generous young lady living alone in true bachelor style. It took me three nights to teach her, and she begged me to come to dinner each time.... She has a friend, who is killing herself by hard work to support her younger sisters.... I gather she would gladly give her friend help, for she speaks most sadly of the “modern fallacy” “that the money must be earned.” She thinks it might be given when people are dear friends; she says they’ve given the most precious thing; and what difference can a little money make? I am so very happy about my work, now that I’ve finished nine drawings altogether for the “Modern Painters.” Oh, you old Mirry, what a person you are for a joke! I’ve found you out! How came you to write that I’d received 6d. from Lord Palmerston, and spent 6d. in seven birds’ nests! Impertinent old thing! I came upon the entries in looking thro’ my cash book; and I think Mama will never forget it.

February 26th, 1860.

Mrs. Hill to Miranda.

Gertrude, Octavia and Minnie went to a party at Mrs. Shaw’s. Gertrude and Minnie say Octavia looked “perfectly lovely.” She had a high white dress, a grand scarlet sash and scarlet net.... Ockey, tho’ looking so ill, is unusually nice, genial and merry. She has met with some amusing people lately, and it is as good as a play to hear her relate her dealings with them. She attracts an unusual share of confidence. Even strangers go to her for advice. Ladies at S. Kensington[^[44]] read their letters to her—tell her their history. She could not help laughing one day; she said a lady, a perfect stranger, told her all about herself, even to the time she went to bed.

April 1st, 1860.

To Miss Howitt,

My dearest Maggie,

As to those old days—I owe more to those visits than I can ever express. I remember now that strange imagination of yours that peopled the world for us with wonderful and beautiful beings, and I am sure we always went on happily together.

(She also speaks of the impression of Mrs. Howitt’s loving, cheerful look.)

RUSKIN ON LOUIS NAPOLEON

April 15th, 1860.

Emily to Miranda.

Yesterday we took Miss Baumgartner to see Ruskin’s Turners.... Ruskin says he does not mean to write any more for ten years, but to teach more.... He said he did not want to write any letters to people. He wanted Ockey’s advice, as to what excuse he should make. She said he should think what was the truth, and try if he could not say that. Then he began talking about truth, saying it was difficult to speak the truth; but to convey a truthful impression was almost impossible. That those who speak the truth are often the most misunderstood. O. asked him if he had read Mrs. Browning’s new poems. He called them beautiful but absurd. O. said, “Why absurd? Because she trusts Louis Napoleon?” “No,” he said; “I hold it is right to trust a man till he does something which proves him wrong. But mind, you’re not to say I’m wrong if he turns out treacherous.” Ruskin said that the taking of Savoy did not implicate Napoleon’s character, because it was no pecuniary advantage to him, “not much larger than my garden and very poor.” Do you think an ambitious man would spend thousands of men and money for that? He takes it just to pacify the French, who want some substantial proof that they were conquerors. To me personally it was a great blow, because it was so nice and dirty and tumble-down, and those wretched French will go and put it all to rights. It will be much better for the people, but I shall get no more sketching.

103, Milton Street,

April 29th, 1860.

To Miranda.

At last I’ve returned to my old proper habit of writing once a fortnight to you, I hope. I’ve been gadding about in the idlest way possible, and yet with my time quite full. You ask me about Good Friday. My dear sister, I’m far more afraid of your plaguing and torturing your conscience than of your doing wrong.

Mr. Maurice and Mr. Davies seem to me decidedly to think it a mistake to treat going to church as always a duty; of course you must do whatever you think right. I shouldn’t hesitate to give up going to church on one day, or even fifty, for one of you. You dear old thing, I wish I had you here to give you a thorough good rest, and rousing, and refreshing. How I should enjoy it! I’m as merry as a grig. I greatly enjoyed Miss Baumgartner’s visit. Miss J. B. and I are great companions. I’m always doing things with her. You know she’s teaching me Euclid. We went to see Holman Hunt’s picture. It is very wonderful, in some respects extremely beautiful, exquisitely beautiful as to colour. But I don’t feel as if the picture had thrown much light on the subject for me. I have taken a class in the night-school for girls here for three weeks, during the absence of Miss C. S. I am so glad at last to get into parish work. Miss Sterling and Miss J. B. give me almost unlimited money help for poor people; the only question is how to use it wisely....

We have been twice to Spitalfields and seen much poverty there among the weavers, besides making the acquaintance of a most nice Ragged School master there. He went round with us to the people’s houses quite gladly, after his hard day’s work; and it was so very nice to see the welcome all the people gave him, but especially the children. He told us such an interesting story about a pupil of his, a very desperate bad character, about 16, who gambled in school, and only came with the avowed intention of having “a lark,” i.e., pouring out the ink, and upsetting the forms. At last this schoolmaster spoke to him, told him he had no children of his own, and that he should be one to him, if he would. The boy was deeply touched. He always sat by the master and studied hard. To quote Mr. S., “I assure you, and I’m not ashamed to own it, he distanced me out and out. He was a first-rate mathematician; he solved some of the greatest problems of the age (?). ‘There, old ’un,’ he used to say, showing me his slate in triumph, ‘do you know anything about that?’”

A RAGGED SCHOOL MASTER

“And what became of him at last?” we asked. “He died at twenty-one,” Mr. S. answered, his eyes filling with tears as he went on. “He died a peaceful and triumphant Christian. My wife and I never left his bed for three days and nights. That’s his portrait; he’d long promised it to me, and on the Thursday (he died on Tuesday) he said, ‘Old fellow, if you don’t have it now, you’ll never have it.’ I never could break him of his rough way of speaking. He’d come in here to the last and say, ‘Well, old ’un, have you got anything to eat?’ He wanted to come over from his father’s house, and die in my easy chair; and the little wife and I would have given him his wish. But the doctor forbade it. Yes, I do miss him.”

Maggie Yarnall is now on her voyage to England, which gives me the faintest most precious hope that Mary Harris may possibly come to London.

103, Milton Street, Dorset Square,

August 16th, 1860.

To Miranda.

SUGGESTIONS TO MIRANDA

Your sweet and kind letter gave me a great deal of pleasure. I have written to Florence, as you will probably see. I am glad that you asked me to do so. I have a great deal to tell you. I do not know how you think or feel about Portman Hall school. You know that I do not think the omission of all religious teaching a sufficient reason, for disapproval to counterbalance the immense good which I consider they are doing there, especially as the teacher and three of the monitors are earnest believers in our Lord; and I do believe more is taught indirectly than directly. I teach my drawing class there, and heartily wish the school success; tho’ I confess I look to a day when we shall have as liberal views about education carried out by members of the Church. I would not give my whole or main strength to the school unless I were obliged; but I would and do very willingly help. You will wonder why I write all this. It is because they are trying to find a lady to help there; and I have mentioned you to them. They could not meet with what they wanted, and had just made arrangements for extra lessons instead until spring, when my note proposing your taking the work next spring arrived. I mentioned Mrs. Malleson as able to say what she thought of your fitness for the post; and, since communicating with her, Mme. Bodichon is very anxious to arrange it in the spring when she again returns from Algiers. They first wanted a person’s entire time for £100; but now they have resolved to divide their fund, and would probably like to have you for about two or three hours daily except Saturday. I do think that a permanent work of this sort, and among that class of children, would be deeply interesting; that it would make a nice change from private pupils; that you would find Mme. Bodichon and Mrs. Malleson delightful people to work under; you would have such power to carry out what you thought best;—and, dearest Andy, it is not the least part of the pleasure of the thought to me that it does seem to me it would make it so safe for you both to return, so certain that you would, if you had the prospect of this daily work. I must tell you that Miss Sterling appears, from the short talk we have had, to think that it is not a good thing to do, only a nice thing to have a certainty; but she herself confesses, and I am sure it is true, she does not know about it. Nothing has to be, or can be, settled yet, but I should like to know how you feel about it. I mean to learn what Mr. Maurice thinks. Oh, darling, you must come home in spring somehow. We are on Mr. Davies’ side of the street, two doors nearer to the New Road. I am doing such a glorious illumination round a photograph of Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola, with the words, “For unto us a child is born, etc.” It reminds me of the glorious chorus.

Milton Street,

August 19th, 1860.

To Miss Baumgartner.

Yes, I am really back again, and so hard at work that our glorious tour[^[45]] only comes to me at moments as a precious bright possession that nothing can take away, and interpreting splendidly one passage after another in this glorious volume of Ruskin (which I have at last obtained to read)....

If you had any notion of my state of mind just now! Everything I want to do seems delayed. One girl, a darling protegée of mine, says her mistress starves her, will not try another place, insists upon going home. Oh such a home! irreligious, dirty, cruel, impoverished; and the girl has just had two years’ training. Well! she must just try her home, and God bring her safe out of it.... We hope to have my dearest sisters home next spring. I have been offered some delicious teaching for Andy, in a school near here, just the kind of work, and among the class of children that she would enjoy; and the supporters of the school are earnest generous people. There is, however, no religious teaching given in the school; wherefore, say many wise people to me, you as a Christian should not accept it at all. So I have not thought; but I suppose I hardly feel sure enough about whether I ought to give my sister advice, however strong my conviction may be, when wise good people think differently.... I never have stopped, I hope I never shall stop, to consider what set or sect of people are at work, if I thoroughly and entirely approve of the work. I may think the work incomplete; but, if it comes in my way, and I think it good, as far as it goes, I do help it with the little power I have. Above all I would not, in this age, refuse help to a society because it did not state that it was working in Christ’s cause. I do believe we want all generous and good work recognised as Christ’s, whether conscious or unconscious. I think the tendency is very much for doubters to think the best work is done by benevolent unbelievers; to think our faith cramps our labours and narrows our hearts. I would like, so far as in me lies, to show them we care for men as men, we care for good as good. I never would deny faith. I care very little to express it anywhere but in life.... How much these people lose by their omission I believe they will one day know. I think the time will come when all this round world will seem to them mainly precious, because it was made by a Father and redeemed by His Son.

ON JOINING A NEW SOCIETY

October 30th, 1860.

To Miss M. Howitt.

In these days, when so many conscientious people seem to be seeking over the whole world for some new good work, and cannot see the holiness of that which lies near them, it is very delicious to find people owning their home work as first and most blessed. At the same time, I cannot feel that I should join your Society further than I have joined it already. It feels to me that all people who are obeying the best part of the nature that has been given them, do, more or less, belong to it;—that those, who know from Whom the light proceeds “that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” know themselves to be bound into a society by that gift, by being children of God and heirs of Christ.

Do, dear Maggie, believe that I feel it the greatest honour to have been asked to join your Society, and have great sympathy with you about it.

To Mary Harris.

How the real bond of family re-asserts itself, dominant over fancy, attraction, yes even perhaps, in a measure, over friendship itself! as tho’ it would teach us how tremendous is the bond of duty. Certainly we have duties to our friends too; but they seem to have more relation to what we feel instinctive longing to do, innate capacity for doing,—to stand more by virtue of relations we have chosen for ourselves, than solely, wholly on the command of God. I suppose it must be because He is our Father.

November 15th, 1860.

To Miranda.

I have spoken to Mr. Maurice about Portman Hall; and he decidedly thinks you ought not to undertake it. He says, what one sees at once, that you could not bind yourself not to speak to the children in any way that seemed best to you. He said that he believes those who are acting up to all they know will learn more; but those who habitually ignore what they know, lose it. He was so good, and took a great interest in all our plans.

November, 1860.

To Gertrude.

I begin not to wonder that men of business look forward to leaving off work, when they get old. I think it would be very delicious to have done with the bustle, and be able to see people one loves, and think a little in peace. However, I daresay it’s all right; and it certainly is a glorious life; but lists of things one has to do, and machinery to keep things going, never can be as interesting as writing to my darling sister.

December 17th, 1860.

To Miss Baumgartner,

Account of the taking of the lease of 14, Nottingham Place.

My own dearest Emma,

All has been arranged about the house at last. I am very thankful indeed about it; and we are all thoroughly pleased with the house.... Ruskin was very kind indeed about it.

TAKING 14, NOTTINGHAM PLACE

We had a delicious talk afterwards about my life and life in general, and cultivated affection, its duties, practicability; whether or not the cultivation of it deteriorated natures and how.

Ruskin spoke of his own father and mother. He quite willingly wrote what he imagined would satisfy Mr. Harlowe,[^[46]] and so did Mr. Maurice; but in the meantime Miss Wodehouse had most kindly offered a guarantee. She was perfectly convinced of the success of the plan, and was anxious that Miss Jex Blake should have her rooms.

I had such a glorious talk with Ruskin, stayed till 2.20; had to take a cab, and to drive furiously to College, where I was ten minutes late, and recovered from shame and remorse for it, by finding everyone in a state of alarm about me; only so thankful I was safe, my unpunctuality being unprecedented. I was a little proud, and vastly amused.

CHAPTER V
1860—1870
NOTTINGHAM PLACE SCHOOL. BEGINNING OF HOUSING WORK.

The removal to 14, Nottingham Place was one of the great crises in Octavia’s life. The housing work, with which her name is specially connected, was organised in this new home; and here began the regular co-operation of the sisters in the educational work, which they felt to be so important in itself, and which, as will be seen from the letters, linked itself on so happily to the work among the poor tenants of the Marylebone courts.

On the other hand, this period was marked by special troubles; which, however, led to the formation of new friendships, and the strengthening of old. Thus the value of her friendship with Mr. William Shaen, which had been realised many years earlier, was yet more fully appreciated, in consequence of the difficulties connected with the purchase of Ruskin’s houses; and the help, then begun, continued throughout his life. Her friendship with Mrs. Nassau Senior, the sister of Mr. Thomas Hughes, was increased by the ability which she brought to bear in the arrangement of the accounts for the houses.[^[47]] A time of great despondency and pain, during Octavia’s first visit to Italy, led her to appreciate the sympathy of her friend, Miss Mayo; and the rather dreary, commonplace life in the hydropathic establishment at Ben Rhydding, brought her in contact with Mr. Cockerell, who became one of her most helpful fellow-workers; while the need of assistance, caused by the turbulence of the children in the playground, made specially valuable the staunch fellow-work of Miss Harriet Harrison and her sister Emily.

FIRST THOUGHT OF HOUSING-REFORM

Another friend, who came forward to help, when Octavia was obliged to go to Italy and Ben Rhydding on account of her health, was Mrs. Godwin, the sister-in-law of George MacDonald. The management of the houses had devolved on Emily, who found in Mrs. Godwin’s firm and gentle influence the greatest assistance in those early difficult days in Freshwater Place. With regard to the housing problem, my wife gives the following account of the incident which first fixed Octavia’s mind on the subject:

“When we went to Nottingham Place, Octavia arranged to have a weekly gathering in our kitchen, of the poor women whom we knew, to teach them to cut out and make clothes. One night, one of the women fainted; and we found out that she had been up all the previous night washing, while she rocked her baby’s cradle with her foot. Next day, Octavia went to the woman’s home, and found her living in a damp, unhealthy kitchen. Octavia was most anxious to help her to move into more healthy quarters, and spent a long time hunting for rooms; but could find none where the children would be taken. Then all she had heard as a child about the experiences of her grandfather, Dr. Southwood Smith, in East London, and all she had known of the toy-workers’ homes, rushed back on her mind; and she realised that even at her very doors there was the same great evil. With this in her mind, she went to take her drawings to Ruskin, not long after the death of his father. He was burdened by the responsibility of the fortune that he had just inherited, and told Octavia how puzzled he was as to the best use to make of it. She at once suggested the provision of better houses for the poor. He replied that he had not time to see to such things; but asked whether, if he supplied the capital for buying a tenement house, she could undertake the management. He should like to receive five per cent. on his capital; not that he cared for the money; but that, if the scheme were placed on a business footing, others might follow the example. Upon which, Octavia exclaimed, ‘Who will ever hear of what I do?’ Nevertheless, she admitted the justice of his criticism, and promised to use her best efforts to make the scheme a paying one; and so actually began the work which was to spread so far.

“When Octavia was searching for a suitable house to turn into tenements for the poor,—she was most anxious to find one with a garden. We spent many days looking at empty houses, and seeing landlords and agents; but, whenever the purpose for which the house was required was understood, difficulties were at once raised. At last, after one of these refusals, Octavia exclaimed, ‘Where are the poor to live?’ Upon which the agent replied coldly. ‘I don’t know; but they must keep off the St. John’s Wood Estate.’”

With regard to the school, which was to supply so many zealous and sympathetic helpers for Octavia’s work, it will be noted that all of the four sisters had shown an early interest in education; and while Octavia and Emily carried on the teaching at Nottingham Place, in which Florence afterwards shared, Miranda was managing a day school for the children of small tradesmen and artizans. The Nottingham Place school was originally intended only for a few children of intimate friends. But the growth of the numbers, and Octavia’s additional work in the management of the houses, induced Miranda, in 1866, to give up her separate teaching, and to become the head of the Nottingham Place school.

OCTAVIA’S EDUCATIONAL POWER

As will be seen from one or more of the letters, Octavia was disposed to emphasise the difference between her stern ideas of discipline, and Miranda’s gentle persuasiveness; and, though this difference may have been exaggerated in Octavia’s mind, something of the same feeling seems to be reflected in the accounts given by early pupils. On the other hand, that Octavia’s readiness of resource and helpfulness in emergencies was specially impressed on the memories of the scholars, seems proved by an amusing story, which I remember hearing from one of the pupils.

One night, some of the girls suddenly awoke to the impression that some intruder had come into the room. Whether the newcomer was a ghost or a burglar, they were, of course, uncertain. (I forget whether a chest of drawers or a towel-horse was the real offender.) But after trying all sorts of remedies, one girl cried out triumphantly, “I’ll tell Miss Octavia”; and this form of defiance seemed to restore the courage of the most timid.

But one would rather mention as the distinctive part in the management of the Nottingham Place school, not so much the differences of quality between any of the sisters as the way in which they all worked into each other’s hands. Another old pupil, writing since Octavia’s death, says, “I feel what a privilege I had in being one amongst you all—the little I do was first put into me in Nottingham Place days. I so admired you all, and the separate work you did.”

Nor was Octavia’s power over the young limited to those who were officially recognised as her pupils. Dr. Greville MacDonald, who has since made his mark in such different ways, writes:—“Miss Octavia Hill had an extraordinary influence upon me in my boyhood, though she could have known nothing of it. She was the first person who taught me how to learn, and how to love learning. In my youth, when I began to know a little of her social power and her personal sacrifice, she had more to do, I think, than even my father, in giving me a steadfast faith; which, thanks to her heart and life, became established amidst the ruins of conflicting questions, and has ever grown in steadfastness.”

But, besides the assistance which the school supplied in the development of Octavia’s work among the poor, the home at Nottingham Place was connected in a more material way with the inhabitants of the Marylebone courts. The stables at the back of the house were turned into a room for the tenants’ parties; the rooms above were let to a blind man and his family in whom Octavia was much interested; and, in order to prepare the place for habitation, Octavia and Miss Cons whitewashed and painted the rooms, and even glazed the windows. This practical knowledge of such work was a great help to her in carrying out the repairs of the houses, and training unskilled men, whom she wished to employ.

The rest of the development of this period may be gathered from the letters. There is one to Mrs. Shaen, dwelling on her difficulties with the playground; and at first they were very great. When the ground was being enclosed, the wall was twice pulled down. And, when Octavia and Emily went into the court, they were pelted. At the time of the opening, to which I and my father went, we were warned by a policeman that the court was too bad for us to go down. How great a change was wrought the following letters will show.

14, Nottingham Place, W.

December 13th, 1860.

Emily to Miranda.

We came here on Saturday; and very delighted we are with our new quarters. Poor Ockey had such difficulty about getting the house, because of being a lady without property, and so young; they thought it mere speculation. Mr. Maurice and Ruskin, who were her references, were so kind about it. Ruskin saw the landlord at the College about it; and Ockey received a letter to the effect that Mr. Ruskin had borne testimony to her “energy and every estimable quality,” and, if he and Mr. Maurice would, without giving a formal guarantee, say as much in writing as that they believed Ockey capable of managing the affair, it would be sufficient. These letters were written; but, before they were both received, Miss Wodehouse had given a formal guarantee; and O., to her delight, found that Mr. Shaen had arranged the matter. Was it not nice of Miss Wodehouse? She heard from Miss J. B. of the difficulty, and said that she had perfect confidence in O. and perfect confidence in the plan; and she would give the guarantee in a minute.... We did not know till nine o’clock that morning that we were to move; so you may think what a bustle we were in.... Ockey is immensely busy, and quite in her element, buying things, and reading over schedules of fixtures, and examining the plans, and carpentering. We have not yet fixed what rooms we are to keep; it must depend on the lodgers.... We are close to the park; so the air is very good; and we are about ten minutes’ walk from Queen’s College. The back of the house is delightfully quiet, because it looks out on Marylebone church and schools. The rooks in your favourite tree are so near that we often hear them cawing.

The Pines,

Christmas Day, 1860.

Emily to Miranda.

... Ockey came from Brighton yesterday. On Monday evening she proposes to start for Cumberland. She has to go up to town to-morrow, for Ruskin is going to attend to her work. She is much better than last week; and I never knew her sweeter. I can hardly bear her to leave the room, I have seen so little of her for so long, and I feel she is so soon going away.

MOVE TO 14, NOTTINGHAM PLACE

14, Nottingham Place,

January 20th, 1861.

You need not be anxious about the house, everyone calculates to lose the first quarter. Ockey has all the money put aside for her first quarter’s rent, in case we should not let....

Is it not delightful that Ockey is so happy with Miss Harris? She seems not able to express half her joy; her letters are full of such expressions as “Oh, I am so happy!” “Oh, it is so delicious!”—and she thinks she shall go back there again and again.

Weybridge,

January 1st, 1861.

To Miranda.

... I am just going to Cumberland for three weeks. Think of the glory of that! To-morrow I am to see Ruskin about my work. We had a very delightful evening on my birthday; you know he sent me “The Angel in the House” and “Faithful for Ever.” Ruskin and I had a delightful long talk on the 5th about all sorts of things.... This bright, beautiful Christmas, with all its glorious thoughts, makes one hope that next year we shall all be together. Dearest Andy, you know I would not urge you lightly to leave a work you had undertaken; but I do feel that we ought to be all together again. Life is too short and precious for us to spend much of it separate; and we do want all our strength for work here.... It’s a miserable fact that I never write to you except about business; but I should have liked to tell you about our new home, with its wide stone stairs, and large, light, quiet rooms. I am looking forward to your return with great longing.... It’s striking twelve, so I must not write more; but, dearest Andy, I do wish you all good birthday wishes, and that this year may be brighter than any before it. Give darling Flo a kiss for me; how delicious it will be to see her again!

Hurstpierpoint,

Sussex.

May 18th, 1861.

To Miranda.[^[48]]

MRS. HILL’S HOLIDAY

... I wish, dear Mir., that you were having a holiday; it seems really hard for you alone to be working. I wonder when you will get some change and refreshment.... I am grieved that Mama refused to go to Cromer; I am really anxious about her getting away somehow this summer; she seems to me to be living too monotonous a life; so if you see anything she would like to do, pray encourage it, regardless of expense, and write and tell me about it at once. I don’t consider it an open question whether, if it is in our power, we should send her anywhere she fancies going. And will you remember that often the only way to do this is to enter heart and soul into some pleasure with her?

Written from Derwent Bank (undated, 1861).

To Miranda.

.... How well I remember coming suddenly in upon you that last dreadful night, and finding you hard at work on my skirt (which, by the way, has met with unqualified admiration, darling), and how good you were in never opposing my coming. Well, I’ve had such a summer as I never shall forget. The unbroken peace of it, like one long unclouded day! The merry home life, and exquisite redundance of the perpetual beauty. If I raise my eyes I see the mountains, perhaps crowned and veiled in lighted cloud; if I walk round the garden, the long sprays of rose, or delicate green ferns, delight me; if, in the night, or rather early dawn, I come into this room which adjoins mine, I see the moonlight lying over the river, field and hills, or the long cold level lake of mist lying in the valley, breaking under the first ray of the sun, and rising in wreathed pillars, covering the lowest end of the village of Broughton, as it rises, but never, I understand, rising as high as this house. Then we’ve read so; the ignorant old thing is getting some glimmerings about history. I’ve left off walking again; after the first fortnight I got more and more tired with it, but I persevered till the fever came, and have never resumed it; but the terrace here is my continual haunt.

Ambleside,

June 10th, 1861.

To Florence.

I want to tell you something of all I have seen and felt, because ... I fear you have had a sad house. I have been to Keswick. We spent several delicious days there, sitting up on lovely hills overlooking Derwent Water, with all its wooded islands, and the blue valleys that part ridge beyond ridge of mountains; and rowing in the evening on the smooth water watching the sun set, and mists gathering on the mountains, gathering in intensity of colour, minute by minute; or driving far over the mountain passes to Buttermere, and Crummock, and learning about ferns and flowers. Then we drove to a lovely little village called Eamont Bridge; it is rich in historic memories.... We saw a large Druid circle called Mayborough (of which Turner has made a lovely picture). Then we went to Lord Brougham’s place, Brougham Hall. It is an old building which belonged to his ancestors generations back. It is kept in the best possible taste; there are fine old Norman rooms, with a well under one bed for supplying the castle in times of siege. There are beautiful pictures by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Holbein,—a most interesting collection of portraits. Then we saw a grand old ruined castle. Then the village where the rebels were taken in the rebellion against George, in favour of Charles Edward. Mary’s aunt, a dear old lady who lived at Eamont Bridge, was the child of a man whose father has written a most interesting letter giving an account of their capture. The Duke of Cumberland came to his house; and Mrs. Mason’s father, then a youth, was sent out to him to give him notice of an ambush. His mother hid in a wardrobe for fear.

We drove to the foot of Ullswater, and then rowed up it—nine miles; but it poured, which we thought fun.

TIME WITH MISS HARRIS

Flimby, Maryport,

July 15, 1861.

To Emily.

I wrote a few words to you to All Saints, as I didn’t like your birthday to pass without one word from me; but now I write in answer to your dear little letter....

We are so happy here, sitting out on the beach. Bathing, reading, and going to church are, I believe, our only employments, for I am often very very weary. The children[^[49]] are running wild, as they always do here, it seems; so Mary and I sit in the sunlight in great peace. The children heard it was your birthday to-morrow; and, dear little things, they have come running in with their little treasures of seaweed and flowers begging me to send them; several offers have been made of various things which it was impossible to send by post; so I enclose lavender and heartsease, and some seaweed from them all, and my best love to you, darling. Shall I send the balance sheets to you in future, or will it be useless? Does A. understand them? I speak of returning in September, because A. cannot do my work and hers too; also because I thought I’d like to see you quietly before Sophy’s return; but I don’t want the report spread; besides, it’s quite uncertain whether I shall be well enough to return. Do tell me whether it could be anyhow easily arranged about the double work without me till October.

Derwent Bank,

August 15, 1861.