CHAPTER IV.
A DIFFICULT YEAR AND A TIME OF WAITING.
“Difficulties are the stones out of which all God’s houses are built.”—Archbishop Leighton.
All readers of “Jane Eyre” will remember the school, Lowood, to which Jane was sent, and her terrible experiences, especially at the beginning of her time there. The foundation in actual life of this school of fiction, coloured by the Brontë temperament, with its evils exaggerated for the purposes of art, is known by all to be the Clergy Daughters’ School at Casterton. As we have seen in the last chapter, it was to this school that Dorothea Beale had somewhat hastily resolved to go after sending in her resignation to the Head of Queen’s College. Probably she looked upon the offer of this post as an indication that she was to sever her connection with the college in London. If in her decision she was to blame, she certainly paid the price of her mistake.
Casterton is near Kirkby Lonsdale, in a somewhat lonely district, within sight of the rounded height of Ingleborough. Dear to the heart of north-country people is this glorious wild country, but it must have seemed terribly out of the world to a girl accustomed to the life of London, to its libraries and lectures, and the many interests of the metropolis.
From the first Dorothea Beale felt herself oppressed and hindered by numbers of things which she did not approve, and could not alter. The girls wore a uniform which she found terribly depressing: the rules of the school were extremely rigid, and the restrictions so many that she felt the girls had no room for growth. To her, the whole organisation of the place seemed wrong in principle, and the effect on the character of the girls of a too rigid discipline appears to have been pernicious. To one whose views on education were already clearly defined, the having to “carry on” without any power to change what was wrong, must have been an extremely trying experience.
Nor was there much compensation in her own work of teaching: rather the opposite. She found herself compelled to teach many subjects, far more than she could do justice to: Scripture, Arithmetic, Mathematics, Ancient and Modern Church History, Physical and Political Geography, English Literature, Grammar and Composition, French, German, Italian, and Latin. Holding such strong views as she did about the preparation of lessons and the careful correction of children’s work, she must have found this undue multiplication of subjects very unsatisfactory. There can be, I suppose, for natures like Dorothea Beale’s, few things so trying as circumstances which make a high standard of work impossible. Her father’s letters to her at this time reveal the strong friendship that existed between the two. She wrote home that she found the work hard and her father replied, evidently with the idea of cheering her:—
“Employment is a blessed state, it is to the body what sleep is to the mind.... I cannot be sorry when I hear that you are fully employed. I am sure it will be usefully.... I feel I can bear your being so far and so entirely away with some philosophy, and I am delighted that your letters bear the tone of content, and that you have been taken notice of by people who seem disposed to be kind to you.... Give an old man’s love to all your pupils and may they make their fathers as happy as you do.”
The difficulties at Casterton, however, did not grow less, but tended rather to increase. Her parents began to have some inkling of these, and to feel very doubtful whether she ought to stay at Casterton. On her birthday, March 21, her father wrote again:—
“God bless you and give you many birthdays. I fear the present is not one of the most agreeable: it is spent at least in the path of what you consider duty, and so will never be looked back upon but with pleasure.... Do not, however, my dear girl, think of remaining long in a position which may be irksome to you, for thus, I think, it will hardly be profitable to others, and indeed I question whether you would maintain your health where the employment was so great and duty the only stimulus to action. You have heard me often quote: ‘The hand’s best sinew ever is the heart’.”
Two months later Mr. Beale wrote:—
“I long to see you again very much. I cannot get reconciled to your position and feel satisfied that it is your place.... God bless you, my dear girl, and blunt your feelings for the rubs of the world, and quicken your vision for the beautiful and unseen of the world above you.”
The sensitiveness her father alludes to in this letter was one of Dorothea Beale’s leading characteristics to the end of her life. Though she welcomed and considered the criticism of competent people and often acted on it she had a curiously sensitive shrinking from adverse judgment: and this often cut her off from valuable advice. Her shyness, too, kept her from the friendship of those who, like herself, were too diffident to make advances. In it, however, lay one of her chief powers, the subtle perception that enabled her to see almost into the very souls of the girls she taught. Once, at Cheltenham, a child refused to admit that she had done wrong. One morning Dorothea Beale sent for the class teacher. “Send So-and-So to me,” she said, “I can see from her face this morning that she will tell me all.” And she was right.
It was at Casterton that she adopted the simple style of dress that she always preferred. One of her pupils thus describes her:—
“Her appearance, as I remember it then, was charming. Her figure was of medium height. The rather pale oval face, high, broad forehead, large, expressive grey eyes, all showed intellectual character. Her dress was remarkable in its neatness. She wore black cashmere in the week, and a pretty mouse-coloured grey dress on Sundays.”
Possibilities of making improvements at Casterton now began to weigh on her mind. Unless things were changed she felt she could not stay, but she was not inclined to give up without an effort at amelioration. She determined to take a very bold step and to appeal to the Committee. Her father was kept in touch with all her plans at this time and wrote:—
“I think we must be content to wait, at any rate for the present, and see if any good comes from your interview with the Committee. You notice two points chiefly—the low moral tone of the school and the absence of prizes [distinctions, responsibilities, etc.]. The want of sympathy and love (the great source of woman’s influence in every condition of life) was the prominent feature of the establishment in my mind after talking it over with you. But nothing can flourish if love be not the ruling incentive....”
He goes on to say that he realises how much love and devotion she puts into her work, but how useless it is when she is unsupported.
“Weigh the matter well before this Christmas,” he continues, “and if you find no changes are made, the same cold management continued, send in your resignation.”
Then the affectionate father concludes:—
“I cannot contemplate your not coming up at Christmas. As we grow older each year makes us more desirous of the company of those we love; perhaps, because we feel how soon we shall part with it altogether; perhaps, because we are become more selfish, but such is the fact.”
The six members of the Committee apparently consented with some reluctance to hear Dorothea, but she did get a hearing and brought her chief objections before them. The experience was not so trying as she had anticipated, and the Committee appeared fairly conciliatory. She explained—in speaking of the absence of prizes—that by this term she meant rather distinctions, privileges, and opportunities of doing good. She offered to resign, but the Committee said, “Oh, no, certainly not”. And she came away feeling that her efforts might have some good result.
Few people, whether individuals or collective bodies, can endure criticism, and Dorothea Beale’s complaints seem to have caused a great deal of discomfort in her relationship with those connected with Casterton. This was increased very much by a suspicion that she was not orthodox according to the evangelical low-church point of view. She was considered “high,” and was suspected of holding extreme views about baptismal regeneration, one of the storm centres of religious controversy at this time. This caused even one of her chief friends on the Committee to wish her to leave.
With the tenacity of purpose that characterised her through life, she tried to believe that it was right for her to stay and fight the difficulties at Casterton. Gradually, however, the impossibility of doing so became evident, and she wrote to her father:—
“I do not see how it is possible to do much good. I may work upon a few individuals, but the whole tone of the school is unhealthy, and I never felt anything like the depression arising from the constant jar upon one’s feelings caused by seeing great girls professing not to care about religion.”
She suggested that she should send in her resignation, and her father replied at length, giving her advice as to how to approach the Committee, and again writing words of cheer:—
“Above all things take care of your health.... I am quite sure that you have a long course of usefulness before you. The flattering regard in which you are held at Queen’s College, and the constant means you always have in London of constantly improving yourself, must teach you somewhat of your own value. Though I would not indeed presume upon it further than to give you confidence to act rightly.”
It was near the end of November before Dorothea made her final decision to send in her resignation. She had not time to carry out this decision before she received the following note from the Committee:—
“On your last interview with the Committee you implied an intention of resigning in case certain alterations should not be made by the Committee....
“The Committee are of opinion that, under the circumstances, it would be better that your connection with the school should cease after Christmas next, they paying you a quarter’s salary in advance.”
This note was received shortly before the Christmas holidays.
It is easier to imagine than to describe the effect of this summary dismissal on a highly sensitive girl, whose actions had throughout been prompted by a sincere desire for the good of the school. It is difficult to endure the sense of failure in youth before one has had assurance of one’s own powers. Again at this time her father’s sympathetic letters, reminding her of the high motives with which she had undertaken this work, were a great comfort to her. In after years Dorothea Beale acknowledged the value of this year at Casterton. No life is perhaps complete without its times of failure, as she must have felt her year at Casterton to be. For the world is full of men and women who fail, and it is only by personal knowledge of their experience that we can sympathise with them and help them to rise above it.
Many, however, appreciated the good work Dorothea Beale did at Casterton, and her quiet and steady persistence in what she felt to be right were not without their permanent influence on the school. Her remembrance of this school was a source of pain to her, and yet, as the years went on, she felt how much she owed to her experiences there. In The Times of November 19, 1906, there is an extract from a letter by Canon A. D. Burton, Casterton Vicarage, Kirkby Lonsdale.
“I have read with interest your account of Miss Beale’s life. I think, however, it is possible that it may give an erroneous impression with regard to her connection with Casterton, and it may be of interest if I mention that I happen to know something of the feelings she entertained towards the school. Rather more than a year ago she wrote to say that it had long been in her mind to do something for the school in grateful remembrance of the benefit which her connection with it had been to her, and this wish finally took shape in the founding of a scholarship to Cheltenham, and the first Casterton-Beale Scholar is at the present time in residence at that college.
“The Casterton Clergy Daughters’ School, like most other schools of long standing, has a past which is not to be compared with its present. That is no disparagement to it, but the reverse. Its present state is one of high efficiency, but it is interesting that it was not on this account only that Miss Beale wished her name to be always connected with it, but because she felt herself in debt to it. ‘I owe much to it,’ were her words. A few months ago she also presented to the school an oil-painting of herself which was hung in the entrance hall.”
She did not leave Casterton, however, without some acknowledgment on the part of the authorities and others that her work and character had been appreciated. It must also have been a solace to her when Dr. Plumptre, hearing of her resignation, at once wrote and spoke of the possibility of a mathematical tutorship at Queen’s College.
It was characteristic of Dorothea Beale that after she returned home from Casterton with one part of her work finished and no other in view, she did not idly waste her time but began a definite piece of work—the writing of her history, “The Student’s Text-book of English and General History”. The need of such a book was felt very strongly at this time, partly because of the outcry against the papistical doctrine inserted into Ince’s history, one of the most popular text-books of the day. This book must have involved an enormous amount of work, though it dealt only in outline with this vast subject. In the preface she makes it clear to the student that no real knowledge of history can be built upon such a slender foundation, and urges the need for filling in the outlines by wide and thorough reading. Her history was not her only occupation at this time; she did some visiting teaching—Latin and Mathematics—at Miss Elwell’s school at Barnes.
She realised the difficulty of working steadily at home, knowing the thousand distractions, social and domestic, that come to divert a girl from any definite pursuits. So she adopted the plan of writing her history in a large empty room at the top of the house. Here she would work without a fire on cold winter days. Whether this was an expression of the desire for Spartan simplicity of life which she always had, or was done simply to keep away members of the family who might wish to come and chat, one cannot say.
Dorothea Beale had evidently undertaken some work as secretary and collector for the Church Penitentiary Association and for a Diocesan Home at Highgate, working with Mrs. Lancaster. The latter greatly appreciated her and her conscientious work, and realised what a valuable helper she would be, if she could enlist her in this great service. She approached her with the suggestion that she should take the headship of the Home. Dorothea Beale considered the offer but refused. This must have been a great test of faith in her own judgment. Behind her were two experiences, both of which had ended in apparent failure because of her inability to agree with the authorities. No educational work was in view, and she must have questioned her own wisdom in refusing this opportunity of service which came to her. Yet it seems as if at this time there dawned on her mind the deep conviction that she was called to educational work among her own class: that with her temperament and ideas so much in advance of her own time a headship was the only post that would give her the scope and freedom that she needed if she was to do her best work. And so she waited, not with idle hands and brain, but fully occupied with her history, her teaching, and home duties.
It was probably about this time that she began her Diary, which she kept with some intervals until the year 1901. The purpose of it seems to have been to keep a record not of outward events but rather of her moral and spiritual life. In it we have one of the many evidences of that sternness towards herself which she maintained in all circumstances of life, even in illness. Earlier, perhaps, than most people, she seems to have realised that her influence on others would depend entirely on what she herself was. One or two quotations from her journal will illustrate the purpose of it.
March 6.—History. Aunt E. came. Cross at not getting my own way. Some idleness. Impatient manner.
April 14.—History. Elizabeth. Called on the Blenkarnes. Dined at Chapter House. Idle. Indulgence in reading story at my time for evening prayer. Unpunctual in morning. Thoughtless about Mama.
April 20.—History, 16th Century. Felt terribly cross. O grant me calmness.
June 4.—Saw Mrs. Barret. Copied. Neglected prayer greatly. Very worldly.
June 7.—Wrote letters. A terrible blank of worldliness. Idle.
June 9.—Wrote to Miss Elwell. Letter from Cheltenham. Copied certificates. Worldly. Spoke angrily to A.
At this time there are many allusions in her journal to crossness. Probably it was the result of that supreme test of the active, energetic mind—the enduring of uncertainty. In 1901 she wrote to a friend about this period of her life:—
“Once I had an interval of work, and I thought perhaps God would not give it me again—but after that interval He called me here. I think now I can see better how I needed that time of comparative quiet and solitude, and a time to think over my failures, and a time to be more helpful to my family.”
Whilst still young, Dorothea Beale formed the habit of frequent attendance at early Communion, which she maintained all through her busy life. Like the saintly men and women of all ages, she felt that the more strenuous and exacting her work, the more she needed these hours of Communion. The Sacraments of the Church as generally necessary to salvation she believed to be two—Baptism and Holy Communion—but the whole of life to her was sacramental. More and more as years passed by did outward and visible things become to her the signs of inward and spiritual realities: to her, and to those of her school of thought, sacramentalism meant “the discovery of the river of the water of life flowing through the whole desert of human existence”.
But Dorothea Beale was no dreamy, unpractical mystic, holding herself aloof from the practical difficulties of life. She realised that there is little value in a religion that cannot find expression in the life of every day; and little strength in the soul that is not continually fortified by the struggle of work and the carrying out of duty.
“The religion of Dorothea Beale,” says Mrs. Raikes, “was far indeed from being a mere succession of beautiful and comforting thoughts. It meant authority. It involved all the difficulties of daily obedience, it meant the fatigue of watching, the pains of battle, sometimes the humiliation of defeat. Intense as was her feeling on religious subjects, it was never permitted to go off in steam, as she would term it, but became at once a practical matter for everyday life.”