I hope to find these examinations quite consistent with real education of body, soul, and spirit. I would not give up an hour’s rowing weekly, nor a single bit of reading to a blind old woman, nor any deeper study than would be tested in the examination, for the privilege of attending and passing; but I believe the intellectual stimulus will be most valuable, and need interfere with nothing; and I quite expect to send up our pupils regularly, if you are able to obtain the privilege for us. But there is a still greater value in these examinations. Some such plan must be adopted before the education of our girls will improve. It is next to impossible for ladies to know what their governesses know; there is no recognised system of examining pupils. I am sure the want is a very great one, and very generally felt. I have had very much to do with finding governesses for people; and I feel the difficulty myself keenly, so keenly that I would not myself undertake pupils here, until I had organised a plan by which their parents might see something of their progress. I provided each girl with a book, in which her answers to the examination questions, each half-year, might be written; and then her parents can see her progress. But of course this plan is clumsy. The questions are given by the teachers, who must necessarily know where the pupils are likely to fail, and who examine, in fact, on their own course of instruction; and we want just such a standard as this offers. I write in haste, but hope you will be able to understand, though I have expressed myself so badly.
As to myself, I can only say that every year adds more and more to the number of blessings I have to be thankful for,—friends, and knowledge, or rather sight, and power, and hope, all increasing steadily; rich and poor, young and old, teachers and taught, forming so bright a band of friends round us here. I don’t think anyone can be richer, and all our work opens before us calling for fresh energy and hope, while as I look back over the past years of those I love, as well as of mine, I see ever fresh proofs of a guiding love and wisdom. I am so happy!
Florence is coming back to us after the Easter holidays. Will you be interested to know that I have got to know Holman Hunt very well, through the Hughes’s, to whom I often go now? Two of their children come to us to learn drawing, arithmetic, and Latin. I like Mr. Hughes more and more.
We heard Kingsley the other day, such a splendid sermon.
Mary Eliza passed the Cambridge Local Examination, though two years under the age, and with six weeks’ preparation. I have my certificate (i.e. from Queen’s College) signed, amongst others, by Stanley.
I have long been wanting to gather near us my friends among the poor, in some house arranged for their health and convenience, in fact a small private model lodging-house, where I may know everyone, and do something towards making their lives healthier and happier; and to my intense joy Ruskin has promised to help me to work the plan. You see he feels his father’s property implies an additional duty to help to alleviate the misery around him; and he seems to trust us about this work. He writes, “Believe me, you will give me one of the greatest pleasures yet possible to me, by enabling me to be of use in this particular manner, and to these ends.” So we are to collect materials, and form our plans more definitely; and tho’ we shall begin very quietly, and I never wish the house to be very large, yet I see no end to what may grow out of it. Our present singing and work will, of course, be open to any of our tenants who like to come. We shall take the children out, and teach the girls; and many bright friendships, I hope, will grow up amongst us. The servants and children here are trained for the work and longing to co-operate. I saw Ruskin on Monday, and felt that the suggestion might be a blessing to him; so I wrote on Wednesday, and received the grand promise of help by return of post, showing how entirely it met his own wishes. So now we are deep in studying details of model lodging-houses, and are so very happy.
Yes, it will delight me to help you in this; but I should like to begin very quietly and temperately, and to go on gradually. My father’s executors are old friends, and I don’t want to discomfort them by lashing out suddenly into a number of plans,—in about three months from this time I shall know more precisely what I am about: meantime, get your ideas clear—and, believe me, you will give me one of the greatest pleasures yet possible to me, by enabling me to be of use in this particular manner, and to these ends.
Thank you for notes upon different people. I’ve got the plates for Miss B.
I write expecting your warm sympathy in a much beloved plan that now Ruskin promises to help me to carry out. We are to have a house near here (with a little ground to make a playground and drying ground), and this house is to be put to rights, for letting to my poor friends among the working-class women. We are to begin very quietly, and go on gradually; but I see such bright things that may (that almost must) grow out of it. I hope much from the power the association of several families will give us of teaching and help. The large circle of helpful friends around us will be invaluable. I am so happy that I can hardly walk on the ground.
I think you will be interested to hear that we went to West Wickham church yesterday. It is the loveliest village church I ever saw, I think, standing near an old castle-like house, and far from the village. Evidently, at some time the chaplain of the lord of the manor has been the clergyman; and the chapel has been an appendage to the great house.... We had not long sat down, when I saw Mr. Neale very near. His wife and two daughters were with him. He does not look one bit changed to me.... The service was very beautiful and set me thinking much about him, and his life, and its apparent failures and real successes. There was something very touching in the sight and thought of him. I had such a sense of his being looked upon by many people, if not as foolish, at least as having utterly failed. As if that unbounded, because entirely unselfish, generosity could fail to leave its impression on the world! His own retreat from all the people who would have reverenced his spirit seems, too, as if he himself had a sense of utter failure. I would give a great deal, if I could know what may, indirectly, or rather untraced, grow out of such work as his.
The purchase of the house has been delayed by legal difficulties; but, at last, Ruskin has placed the whole affair in my hands; and when I am satisfied about the house, he will at once send me a cheque for the whole amount required. This enables me to employ our own lawyer,[53] who is, heart and soul, in the plan; but, since I saw Ruskin, I could not attend to the matter at all; for every moment of light time has been occupied by a drawing for the Society of Antiquaries; and the dark has been little enough for teaching, accounts, and all my various extra work. This drawing I should like you to see; it is a copy of the earliest dated portrait of an Englishman,—1446. It is of an ancestor of Lord Verulam; one of the Grimstones; such a quiet, stedfast face, looking out from under a perfectly black hat, with quiet thoughtful eyes, like a person who went slowly and steadily on his way, without either hurry or doubt. I should never have done, were I to tell you of all the importance attached to his shield and chain and necklace, and all the accessories of the picture; how the antiquaries glory in each detail, and understand from them each, who and what he was. To me his quiet face comments in its silence on our hurry and uncertainty; and, as I sit drawing him, I hope to gather reproach enough from his still eyes to teach me to live quietly. It is rather a grand piece of work; and is to be kept in the gallery of the Society, after being sent to Germany, to be chromo-lithographed for publication in their “Archæologia.” The Secretary of the National Gallery had noticed my work, and recommended me to the Secretary of the National Portrait Gallery, to do the work. It is expected by them, and by the Director of Antiquaries, to lead to much more, and would really make me rich, in spite of myself; but there is small chance of time to do it in. I have also two portraits waiting to be done, miniatures; but happily I do them at home at odd half-hours.
I am also much interested in my large drawing class at the Working women’s College. Eighteen hard-working, intelligent women attend regularly. Our daily pupils have increased to six, which, with six residents, are as much as we can manage well, and we have refused any more, daily or resident. When we once get the tone up, the new pupils will fall into it naturally; but, after increasing our number and parting from some, we have had hard work this term to battle with the schoolgirl element, which was strong in new-comers, and gained strength from numbers. Our old pupils have come out finely; but the experience has made it a difficult term.
And now for another side of our lives. We are every moment expecting Mr. Maurice. He comes in now we are such near neighbours, and sits and talks so very delightfully. We hope he will spend an evening here, while Mrs. Maurice is at Bath, and we should not be robbing her of him. MacDonald is so kind and nice. I am going there on Tuesday, when he gives a lecture on Sacred Poetry. Mr. Maurice is to be there. I have twice lately heard MacDonald read Chaucer and lecture on it.
Ruskin, whose lecture at Manchester you will probably hear, is coming to us on his return. He wrote such a delightful little note about it, and I had such a grand talk with him, quietly, just before he went.
Our great event of the term has been the actual purchase for fifty-six years of three houses in a court close to us, which Ruskin has really achieved for us. We buy them full of tenants; but there is in each house at present a landlord, who comes between us and the weekly lodgers, and of whom we cannot get rid till Midsummer. All we can do, therefore, is to throw our classes open to the tenants, and to do much small personal work among them, so that we may get to know them. But all repairing, and preventing of over-crowding, and authority to exclude thoroughly disreputable lodgers, must wait till Midsummer. At that time we are to begin the alteration of our stables into one large room, which will enable us to get the tenants together for all sorts of purposes, much more easily than at present. I am taking my holidays now, that I may do with short ones after this additional work begins.... I feel that the work will be invaluable to my own girls here. They have each chosen one little child to work for. We are hoping to improve all the children’s health by taking them to row, when we go into the park, and we are to try to get a playground for them. The plan promises to pay; but of this I say very little; so very much depends on management, and the possibility of avoiding bad debts. Did I tell you of the purchase of a chest of tea for selling to the women? They save much, and get very good tea. My hope is, however, not in this, nor any other outward arrangement; but in these as a means of knowing and training the people to work and to trust. It is with me entirely a question of education. My whole hope is in that. I do care immensely, however, for just sufficient material power to be able to meet any efforts of theirs to manage better; and for the children to secure their health in some degree; but this, so much having been given, I confidently expect to receive, if there be a real need. My conscience smites me for calling the possession of these houses the event of the term for us. I ought to have spoken of Gertrude’s marriage.[54] They are now in Florence, very bright and happy. We were all at the wedding; and very solemn and beautiful and bright it was.
I am much obliged by, and interested in, your letter. That Friar’s Crag! I was thankful to hear it is still there with its roots. Did I ever tell you my first memory of all life is looking down into the water there, holding my nurse’s hand?
All that about the quiet children liking old things is delightful to me.
Is any part of the lakes likely to be left in any human quiet? and do you think there might be any possible chance of finding a purchaseable fragment of earth and ripple of stream anywhere? Sometimes I feel horror at calling this, or any place like it among these accursed suburbs, “home”—for ever.
My mother was saying—just before your letter came, “I wish you would ask Miss Hill if she has time to come out and sit with me for an hour—and talk to me.”
So I said I thought you would when you came back. It will be nice—for I’m not well and I’m going away for a few weeks, to try if I can get just one more glance at Venice and Verona—before I am utterly old; but I haven’t yet left my mother for any time since my father’s death, and I shall be grateful to you if you can come to see her sometimes.
That is very lovely about your friend; it rejoices me to hear of your being so happy and having this utter peace, after your utter toil. But it is too soon over.
The money part is very regular and simple, just so much paid into Ruskin’s bank each quarter; but to me the work is of engrossing interest. We have three houses, each with six rooms; and we have managed gradually to get the people to take two rooms, in many cases.... When it was well started, we looked round for some opportunity to complete the original plan, by getting a playground, which we had failed to do with any available houses. I was so very happy at finding a bit of freehold ground, covered with old stables, to be sold with five cottages, in a very populous district near us, and a large house and pretty garden besides. Ruskin has bought it, and it is this which just now is taking every thought and power that is available, to plan and bring into order. I dare not tell anyone the difficulty of this. When it is over, I may venture to speak of it; now I should lose hope and courage if I dwelt on it much.... We have made eighteen additional rooms available for the poor, and have given orders for four cottages, which are Ruskin’s, but still in the hands of the middlemen, to be thoroughly repaired.... The children seen to have so few joys, and to spring to meet any suggestion of employment with such eagerness, instead of fighting and sitting in the gutter, with dirty faces and listless vacant expression. I found an eager little crowd threading beads, last time I was in the playground. We hope to get some tiny gardens there; and Ruskin has promised some seats. I hope to teach them to draw a little; singing we have already introduced. On the whole, I am so thankful, so glad, so hopeful in it all; and, when I remember the old days when I seemed so powerless, I am almost awed.
Everything is so lovely here. Dear Miss Sterling! is it not like her to give us all the opportunity for such a rest?
This place may be considered as fairly started on a remunerative plan. I daresay you will be as pleased as I that this is so.
I told the tenants how difficult I found it to pay for all the use of the money,—an expense that they never realise; and explained how the less they broke the more they would have. I told them what sum I set apart for repairs; and that they were freely welcome to the whole, and might have safes and washing-stools and copper-lids, if the money would buy them—since which time not one thing has been broken in any house.
My work grows daily more interesting. Ruskin has bought six more houses, and in a densely populated neighbourhood. Some houses in the court were reported unfit for human habitation, and have been converted into warehouses; the rest are inhabited by a desperate and forlorn set of people, wild, dirty, violent, ignorant as ever I have seen. Here, pulling down a few stables, we have cleared a bit of ground, fenced it and gravelled it; and on Tuesday last, opened it as a playground for quite poor girls. I worked on quite alone about it, preferring power and responsibility and work, to committees and their slow, dull movements; and when nearly ready I mentioned the undertaking, and was quite amazed at the interest and sympathy that it met with. Mr. Maurice and Mr. L. Davies came to the meeting; and numbers of ladies and gentlemen; and the whole plan seems to meet with such approval that subscriptions are offered, and I hope to make the place really very efficient. My girls are of course very helpful....
My dear old houses contribute the aristocracy to all our entertainments. We took twenty of the children from them, to make a leaven among the wilder ones on Tuesday; and I hope much from them hereafter....
Often it grieves me to find how much they preserve peace because they know I feel their disputes so sadly; but I try to console myself, and to hope that beginning from this, they may at last learn how bitterly all their sin pains God who loves them better than I do, and works for them so much more wisely. I never speak to them of Him. I think too much, not too little, is said about Him, to the poor especially; but sometimes I do break through my rule, when I am urging them to do better, to live a little more nearly in accordance with the teaching of their hearts....
Ruskin has lent me a Rossetti and two William Butts and a John Lewis for some weeks; the colour of the first is a perpetual joy.
My work promises to lead to some drawing again now. I have commissions to make four large pictures from the old Masters to be fixed on the walls of a room like frescoes; and Lady Ducie, to whose daughter I gave a few lessons, wants me to go down there some weeks in the autumn, to teach her again. As I should be living in their house, I should give all my time to drawing.
Perhaps Harriet will have told you that Andy is coming back to help us instead of teaching her own school; and we are to take additional pupils. Until they come, Andy’s return gives me time to draw.
I hope that, for the children, Andy’s return may be an unmitigated gain; for I hope much from her gentleness and tenderness, and her great power of interesting them in study; and all the strong stern rule may be in my hands still; and, whatever else I feel I can do best for them, I shall continue to do. I should like to write to you of each of them, for the thought of them all haunts me continually; they seem such a bright, strong, dear band of young things, better knit to me just now, on the whole, than ever they were before.
Last week we gave a concert to upwards of a hundred poor people, eighty of whom were blind. It was a very pathetic sight; but their great delight in the music, and the beautiful expressions of many of their faces, redeemed it. Some of the faces were continually turned upwards, and seemed as if they were drinking in every sound. One of the blind people, in speaking of music, said: “Why you know it is like meat and drink to us blind.” Some of them had never had such an evening; and did not even know what the word concert meant. We admitted a great number of guides this time, which we had not done before. The blind people seemed to care so much about having them, that we thought it better to let them come, even tho’ it excluded more of the blind. One man spoke so nicely about it; and said, “You see we feel so grateful to our guides; they are like eyes to us, and we don’t half enjoy it if they are shut out.”
One of the blind men we know is teaching a poor crippled boy chair-mending; and, when we asked how the boy was getting on, the man answered “Why he ought to learn to do it by feeling; for it stands to reason his sight don’t help him much. I don’t think much of sight.” The boy enjoys his work so much, and he says he dreams of it; and if he had a chair at home he would practise all day.
There are great signs of cholera coming to London. I have been administering Battey right and left with great efficiency. I was very sorry to leave at such a time, for one really was of use. I compiled a beautiful thing for Ruth, with Gertrude, from the cholera reports, and sent her the lecture on epidemics. What a good thing it is that they have the house to house visitation!... Mama, A. and O. all seem to me gloomy; they declare they are not. Ockey is rather like a man taking a holiday; she thinks it her duty to be idle, and does not quite know what to do with herself; but I am going to worry her down to the rocks to hunt for zoophites; and she has promised to read “Modern Painters.”
... We are all very happy here. A. and Octa bathe every day, and read Virgil together after breakfast.... After early dinner we all sit out of doors, and the others work while I read Spenser.... Octa paints the sunset every night from the field above the house.... at 9.30 we sing a hymn and read prayers and then separate, some to bed. F. and I perhaps walk by starlight;—some read in their own room till bedtime. They all go out at low tide to find things which have “suffered a sea change into something rich and strange” on the rocks; and have been very successful, to F.’s great delight.... We are very merry. O. thinks she has laughed more this week than in a year at home; but I don’t think she knows what a frequent occurrence that is.... A. has written such a beautiful essay on contentment for the Essay Meeting, and Octa a very good one on tact.... Did you know Hugh[56] had fought at Waterloo and in four battles in the Peninsular War. He has medals for them.... Mr. Maurice took away twenty-four photographs of him, so I suppose he liked him—but Kattern[57] is my favourite. Hugh told us “there was a very pretty chapter—Titus—it gave advice to old men and young people—and was very solemn at the end.” He groans at prayers—but poor fellow, I suppose he feels, and does not know how to express that feeling.
To-morrow I return home, after a most happy visit.
I go to take possession of the four very worst houses of any I have ever had to deal with.
My dear pupils become more and more to me. I cannot even express what their love and helpfulness is to me.
To Mrs. Shaen.
I return home on the 12th, to a very interesting meeting at Mr. Maurice’s, about forming an Industrial School.[58]
Gardening is to me a great joy. I hate the trouble of going out, but when I am once there, I am as happy as it is possible to be. What a quantity one learns when one tries to do nothing.
I am very sorry indeed to hear such a bad account of Mr. Hill. I hope, if this bright warm weather continues, it may do him good. It is sad for the Clifton time to have been spent in nursing instead of nice society.
About the reader, or about anything else, you need never think that I should ever suspect you or your sister of shrinking from effort, or of being anything but brave and generous; but one has to be brave in refusing as well as in accepting; and considerate towards those whose whole lives God has bound up with our own most nearly; as well as to the many pathetically forlorn of the great world family who cross our path. Each case can but be decided on its own merits. I quite see how in this one there may be many difficulties. If I did not, as I say, I should feel quite sure you had decided it as rightly as you could, and quite unselfishly. Do you not often feel (I do) as if people were often selfish in yielding to feeling instead of ruling it?
This brings me to the most interesting question about gifts, to which you allude. It is to me a puzzling one, not so much as regards the poor (there I can see my way some distance, I think, and have written a few words on the subject, which I hope some day to print). I think that when gifts are given and received by the same person, they are ennobling. It is the greediness of the recipient that is the awful result at present; and the helpless indolence of expectant selfishness. Call the man out of himself by letting him know the joy of receiving and giving, and you may pour your gifts upon him, even lavishly, and not corrupt him. Besides this, let us give better things; sympathy, friendship, intercourse; let us be friends, and then we can give with comparative impunity. For the hearts of people always feel the spiritual gift to be the greater if it be genuine at all. Where a material gift comes as a witness of real love, it is the love that is the all-absorbing thought, not the gift, be it ever so much needed. All presents, too, should depend to some degree on character; we do not to one another select those calculated to deepen any tendency we disapprove, rather to awake fresh admiration of what is noble.
I cry out to myself in the courts every day, “What a frightful confusion of chances we have here as to how or whether there is to be food or not!” A man accepts underpaid work; a little is scraped up by one child, a little begged by another; a gigantic machinery of complicated charities relieves a man of half his responsibilities, not once and for all clearly and definitely, but—probably or possibly—he gets help here or there. There is no certainty, no quiet, no order in his way of subsisting. And he has an innate sense that his most natural wants ought to be supplied if he works; so he takes our gifts thanklessly; and then we blame him or despise him for his alternate servility and ingratitude; and we dare not use his large desires to urge him to effort; and, if he will make none, let him suffer; but please God one day we shall arrange to be ready with work for every man, and give him nothing if he will not work; we cannot do the latter without the former, I believe.
Then, at last, will come the day when we shall be able to give at least to our friends among them as we give to one another, and not confuse still more hopelessly the complication of chances about the means of support,—nor have any doubt the giver is more than the gift, and be sure that he who gladly receives to-day will to-morrow give more gladly.
It is not often that I turn away from the very engrossing detail of work here, to think much about general questions; and I am afraid I have expressed myself very badly, and that you will hardly make out what I mean. It is with me here almost as with the poor themselves, a kind of fight for mere existence;—references, notices, rents, repairs, the dry necessary matters of business, take up almost all time and thought; only as, after all, we are human beings, and not machines, the people round, and all we see and hear, leave a kind of mark on us, an impression of awe, or pity and wonder, or sometimes love; and when we do pause, the manifold impressions start into life, and teach us so much, and all the business has to be arranged in reference to these various people; and how hard it is to do justly and love mercy, and walk humbly.
They’ve just announced that there is space for half a sheet in this letter, but that it must be written now or never; and indeed I am not fit to write to a Christian. Here I am, head and ears deep in notices about dustmen, requests for lawyers to send accounts, etc., etc.; and yet I am so glad to say a few words to you, even if they’re not of the brightest; and that they can’t be, for I’ve just come in from a round of visits to the nine houses; and somehow it’s been a day of small worries about all sorts of repairs, and things of that kind. I was thinking when I came in that really it would be a small cost in real value to pay any sum, however tremendous, to get rid of this annoying small perpetual care, if the work could be done as well; but then it couldn’t: it is only when the detail is really managed on as great principles as the whole plan, that a work becomes really good. And so, I suppose, being really the school of training the tenants most effectually, I must still keep it, and hope that it will not finally make one either mean, or small or bitter.... I think the playground is going very well now. Did I tell you we have opened it during school hours as a drying ground? Oh, Florence, the court is so improved! I think you would be so pleased. We have broken out windows on all the staircases, and cleaned all the rooms, and put in a large clean cistern; and oh! it is so fresh and neat compared with what it was. Do you hear about our Girls’ Home? I hope it will soon be started. God bless you, dear child!
... I have asked Miranda to send you a copy of “All the Year Round” in which there is a short article on the Playground. It seems Ruskin read an extract from it at the lecture, of which I am not a little proud. It is however sadly cut up by the editor, which I am the more sorry for as there were parts with which I had taken the greatest pains, in order to express as clearly and concisely as possible my principles and experience about gifts. I cannot readily do the thing again; and they have only printed a sentence here and there! That they have made the construction most awkward does not really matter.... I enjoy reading very much, and tho’ I would rather read on the old subjects, and the dear old authors over again, I try to choose those newer ones, and get a little general information, to know a little about matters in which my whole heart is not bound up.
On Florence’s birthday we are going to have a concert and reading for the tenants, and I thought that it would be so nice if you would write a letter to them which we could read aloud. I think it so important that they should feel your sympathy and influence near them as much as possible.
The little Martins are going to school to-morrow. We have been very busy making their clothes. Isabel and Eliza (two of the Nottingham Place pupils) have been most helpful about it; I sent for Mrs. Martin to speak to her about it; and Mrs. Simeon said she set off to come and then turned back, saying that she could not go; it seemed so much was being done for her that she felt like a regular cadger. She is a woman with a strong love of independence.
Then follows Octavia’s letter to the tenants mentioned in the preceding letter.
As you will be all together I take the opportunity of writing a few words to tell you how much I am thinking of you. I remember the many times we have met on such occasions before, and I long to be amongst you. I should so like to have a little chat with each of you, to hear how all the little ones are, and how you have been getting on all this long time. My sisters write and tell me how you are, more than once a week; but you know this is never quite the same as talking to you. Those are, however, my happiest days when I hear good news of you; and the best news I could hear is that you are trying to do what is right. You and I, my friends, each know how difficult this is; we have each our different temptations, but we will strive to do better than we have done. You will all know how I look for good news of you, how I have wished to see you make your homes better and happier, how I have felt that the places I possessed were given me to make them better; how I have loved my work, and now that I have only left it in the full hope of going back to it far better able to do it than I was. So you will understand that I hope we have a great deal to do together, in the glad time to come, when I shall be among you again.
I am in such a beautiful place, among such very kind people; and it is all so quiet and restful; how often I wish each of you could have a long complete rest.
And now I can only once more wish you God speed! thanking you for all the many kind things you did for me while I was with you, and asking you to help all those who are so very kindly doing my work for me, and to make their work easy, as you so often did mine.
There is little or nothing I can do for you now; the old days of work are over for the present; but I have a home for which I worked long ago, almost as hard as some of you have worked for yours, and which I love more than I could ever tell anyone; and now I cannot help my sisters any more. Will you try, for my sake, to make their work happy and easy? This you can do; and you know, as well as I do, how happy helping people is.
I do not desire for myself, or you, or my sisters, pupils, servants, or any of the dear circle I have left, any better blessing than to have the joy of helping others. Oh! my dear people, pray and hope for me that I may have it again soon amongst you all.
Octavia is starting on a three days’ tour among the lakes with Miss Harris. On Monday evening we had a concert and reading for the tenants; and a letter from Octavia was read to them, which they all responded to most beautifully; one of the men made a most touching little speech in reply. Many of them said they had never enjoyed an evening so much in their lives; and I have been so much touched and delighted at several little acts of kindness and consideration towards me; their silent answer to Octavia’s appeal that they would try to make the work easier for those who are carrying it on for her.