I had written to Stansfeld[66] before your letter arrived, but have only just received his reply. I want you to meet him before we enter upon the question of your fitness in any detail. I have therefore told him nothing but that I think I know someone who will do. He is coming to the party on the 28th, as he has long wanted to come to one; and I shall introduce you to one another there, if all be well. I am sure that you are the very person; and if he has any sense, he will feel this. We shall see....
Thank you all the same for the offer to take the responsibility. I have really very little to do at this set of parties: my only duty is to bring the entertainers and keep them happy and harmonious. It is not as when my own dear poor are the guests. If you are there, and keeping all going, I shall just rest happily in seeing all go well.
I had a triumphant interview with Longley[67] and the guardians this morning, obtained all, more than all I had hoped.
I somehow believe, dear, that we shall get this appointment under Stansfeld managed. It seems so entirely the right thing. I am sure it would be the greatest interest to you to have such a work, and it might even tell as a rest. I am sure that you would do it splendidly.
Octavia’s mumps at present are nothing but a subject of joy to her; for she stays at home and gets thro’ quantities of work with the most gladsome spirit. She gave me a delightful impression of her visit to you; but of course her fatigue, which had been rapidly accumulating for a week reached its climax in that 7 mile walk in the cold and dark. She said the petting she received made up for everything.
It seems the tenants have so completely taken it for granted they are to come here on O.’s birthday on December 3rd, that Miss Cons thinks they would arrive on that evening even without invitation. Octa clings very much to you and Edmund being here....
Octa is so interested in the Sanitary Committee of the C.O.S.... All the men who have worked from the beginning are there and many others besides. It is not wonderful that Octa should be among them, and able continually to say a word in season. Dear child, the mantle has fallen on her.[68]
As to the points on which you and I equally differ from so many clergymen and churchmen, if we think Maurice’s interpretation of the creeds the true and simple one, is it not doubly incumbent upon us to uphold it in the Church? Leaving it would be like saying we could not honestly stay in it. Then does not all the best, most thorough, most convincing, most peaceful reform of any body come from within? in family, in business, in nation, in Church? Does not all growth and reform come from those who remain with the company in which they find themselves? Is there not almost always a right at the root of the relationship, which may be asserted and vindicated, and on the recognition of which reform depends? That body must be corrupt indeed, which must be left by earnest members of it. Surely there are abundant signs of growing healthy life and reform in the Church; all the vigorous and new things nearly are signs of good. Why should you set up the decidedly old-fashioned interpretation of doctrine, and that held by a certainly decreasing number in the Church, and feel hardly honest in differing from it and remaining in the Church?
Don’t think I am special-pleading. Except for the sake of the Church, I don’t care where you are. While you are what you are, you are safe everywhere; for you will find grace and goodness in all things; and God’s Church certainly comprehends those not in the Church of England. If you are sure that the services do not speak to and with you in words that help; if there is a lurking sense of want of courage or candour in remaining, which is real, not fancied; if you have a sense of antagonism and alienation, not support and fellowship, why not leave the Church? Those who love and know you would never feel you further from them; and, if you found support and peace greater from other teaching and other services, why not go where you would have it? To me, of course, the old services, which first opened to me the sight of how things are, and how they should be, come home to me with a gathered force almost weekly. To me there open continually new visions of how our Church will expand and adapt itself to the large comprehensiveness and new needs of the time. I believe the men who are now in her will cling on, with passionate affection, to the creeds and services; but that they will link themselves more with the outer world, and see with clearer eyes; and that the Church will insensibly grow with and by their growth.
I see in such movements as Mr. Fremantle’s Church Council, open to people of all creeds by election, a sign of much deeper and wider faith than churchmen have hitherto recognised as possible in the Church. I see in it, also, much ground of hope in the added responsibility and interest possessed by laymen. The new permission to use churches for lectures on secular subjects seems to me another sign of the breaking down of formal distinctions, and recognition of life as holy.
You slipped out so that I did not see when you went; and I do not seem one-half to have thanked you for all your help; it was of a kind I never can forget. Neither do I seem to have told you how very happy the news of the arrangement with Stansfeld made me.
I hope you were not damped by the hitch about the “Public.” I am so accustomed to this kind of thing, and to its coming all right, that I seem to see beyond the difficulty. Will you, when you are seeing or writing to your friends, tell them of the delay in the immediate starting of the plan? It shall be done soon somehow, and might come to an issue any day; but I feel a little anxious lest any contributor should begin to think we did not intend to try the plan, if they hear nothing for some little time. You will know best to whom this temporary pause had better be explained.
Did I tell you that Mr. Barnett, the curate who has worked with Octavia so admirably in St. Mary’s, has just married Miss Henrietta Rowland, one of Octavia’s best workers; and now they are going to live and work in the East End? Octavia thinks it such a splendid thing to have such a man at work down there—she thinks it quite a nucleus of fresh life; and Mrs. Barnett, of whom Octavia is very fond, is admirably fitted for the work too. The wedding was very touching—the church was crowded with poor people; even the galleries were filled with them. He was so much beloved—one of those men with strong individual sympathies and an intimate personal knowledge of the people in their homes—a strong Radical too, with a horror of class distinctions, and practical disregard of them, which you don’t find in all Radicals.
No rumours nor published statements, or chattering remarks would ever confuse me, or weigh for a moment against the quiet assurance of anyone whom I trusted. The facts which really concern one about one’s friends are not those of their business or circumstances, but of themselves; and I think one knows a little when and how one may trust. When one does feel confidence, much more confusing circumstances than these have ever been do not touch one’s trust. I think one often has to hold two truths apparently utterly inconsistent, side by side in one’s mind, knowing that, both being proved true, there must be some possibility of reconciling them by some unknown third truth, which time may reveal. And I am sure that trust in anyone, known to be good, could not be shaken by merely outward appearances. One likes to know how things are. One objects to be puzzled, and to have no word of explanation about how things are; but trust in human beings is no more to be determined by want of sight, than the trust in God Himself is by the impossibility of seeing why He leads us by certain ways we cannot understand for the moment. For the human trust is based on that which is part of His nature, and as such is quite firmly planted.... We read half a controversy, and largely resolve that the truth lies somewhere between the two correspondents. We do not long for judgment, but “hush matters up,” or let them “blow over”; and do not bring them out to the light, and choose between them.
I am in a frantic state of excitement (which I fear will be dashed very completely) as to the public-house. Mr. Fremantle handed me a slip of paper at a meeting yesterday to say that the licence of the “Walmer Castle” had been refused, and asking if he should see Sir J. Hamilton (who is chairman, I think he said, of the Bench), about granting one to us.... Since which, tho’ I have written and sent messengers, I cannot get any answer.... To-morrow I purpose going myself and waiting till I can see him....
I wonder why you enjoy Jason “immensely.” It is marvellously real, and so old-world as to be a refreshment to those mixed up with nineteenth-century things. The images are lovely, and the music of the verse soft; but the sustained melancholy of the whole poem is very terrible, I have always thought, a certain measure being put on all joy by the belief that it has no outcome, no fulfilment anywhere beyond itself. You have not, I daresay, finished the book to see how, with all his fortitude, just because he misses the highest joy of all, he chooses so low a one as to reject all that had made the majesty of life, the companion at once of pain and of his greatness too. I have always longed to see how Morris would treat a distinctly Christian story, and was full of regret that he withdrew—or never wrote—his promised “St. Dorothea.”
How strangely people do come to me, Mary! I cannot make it out. There is something in the work which strongly attracts them. Mr. —— seemed perfectly engrossed, and could hardly tear himself away. What it is, I cannot tell; but either pity, or some other feeling, is gathering round me a company of allies so kind and so zealous that I ought to achieve a great deal. It is well for me that I am served so willingly, for I would rather do anything at any cost than have it done for me unreadily.
We have heard to-day a sermon of Kingsley’s for the Girls’ Home. It was almost wholly about Mr. Maurice, and gave him fully the place one believes he has. It was a sermon full of Kingsley’s own peculiar power; and there was not a word in it that was not true and beautiful. It was to us a sight of deepest solemnity. The church,—that where we were baptised, and confirmed and where Minnie was married—was crammed with people, and one knew every second face. It was filled with the old Lincoln’s Inn and Vere St. people, and with their spiritual inheritors of all that teaching. Mr. Davies, grave and intense, was the moving spirit there....
We had a very good meeting on Wednesday at Willis’s Rooms. I was the only lady on the platform, and in the ante-room had such interesting talk with all the people. Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Westminster and Lord Lichfield and Mr. Hughes, Mr. Andrew Johnston, Mr. Longley, and hosts of people were there. Mr. Hughes stayed by me all the time and was so kind. Did I tell thee about dining at the Cowper Temples and meeting Kingsley and Lord and Lady Ducie? It is all very interesting; but thou knows how often the loveliest and best things one meets are not among the celebrities at all, but by piercing below the surface of those who are supposed to be commonplace. I cannot tell thee how often this happens to me.
I have stores of lovely memories, to last for many a day.... We drove to the foot of a steep ascent, and then climbed the steep slope,—such a road. It was by smooth slopes set with fir and larch and sycamore, by mountain walls covered with ivy, till at length we got to where the lake lay far beneath us. Then we left the road and went on to a central point, where the peaks stood round us like a great company of spirits; and one ridge beyond another showed their great blue flanks; past a mountain tarn, and wild stream, which flowed to the valley, by cascades and dark deep brown pools, and banks set with primrose, anemone, and wood sorrel.... It ended very brightly and sweetly after all, quite to my heart’s content.
The cupboard[69] is come and is fairly established in my room. You cannot tell what a rest and delight it is to me. For, first, it looks quite at home and gives a solemn old-world feeling to the room which is in itself a rest. But, secondly, the carved frieze on which are date and initials, is thrown forward and its projection throws a great quiet space of shade which the eye cannot penetrate. It is like some of those old Byzantine palaces, or the shadow below the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. The recess panels, old knobs, even the keyholes, give sharp shadows much smaller, but full of beauty. I did not the least anticipate the beauty of this while the cupboard stood in the hall. The double light was very unbecoming, while the height of this window and the nearness of the cupboard to it makes the shadows beautifully steep. The shade it throws on the door is very nice. As to the Doge, he looks quieter than ever up above the dark oak. The room looks perfectly beautiful to my mind. I need hardly say the cupboard stands behind the door, the sofa with its end towards door. I sit in my green chair and gaze at the cupboard with greatest delight.
I have bought a house in ——, certainly the worst Court left untouched by us on this side of the parish.
Mr. Longley writes to me from the Local Government Board, to say they are really thinking of appointing Mr. Barnett a Guardian. I am just going to St. Jude’s (Whitechapel) to spend the evening.
We are deeply interested about the rebuilding in B. Court. I wish we could pause a very little, and reinforce ourselves in our old positions, before extending further. I almost tremble when I see how little power of growth any of our schemes have, where I withdraw myself. However, I say to myself, “Courage! it will the more bring out the character and power of your fellow-workers.” I often and often pray heart and soul as I go in and out, that someone with wisdom and zeal would arise, and take my place or part of it. The Store is doing very badly, and I wish you would send me a prospectus of the Manchester Store. Dearest Lady Ducie is more and more in —— Court. It is a great blessing.
I shall be delighted to see Dr. Mouat as well as the others, on Wednesday. I only ought to point out to you that in going through the courts, especially if we go into any rooms, we must divide. Five of us could not well invade a small room unexpectedly; also that in areas, yards, and courts, one can’t talk so well to a large party, to point out what has been done, or tell what was. It might be well managed in this way. You might all come here; and we might sit and have a nice talk before we start. We might appoint that Miss Cons should meet us in the Court; and two might go with her, and three with me, to see what is to be seen. She can and does tell and show as well or better than I. Wednesday is by no means a hard day, thank you, for me; especially as they have determined that the Dwellings Committee at the Council should not sit this week. I shall enjoy dining with you very much; it would do me all the good in the world; as to meeting Mr. Bosanquet, it would be a great pleasure. He is a man who lives up to his Christianity, moment by moment, and in silence teaches it more powerfully than almost anyone I know. He is just a touch conventional, and alarms me in proportion; but I like him thoroughly. I wonder how you are. You say nothing of that. It will be so nice to see you again.
I have had a great delight this week. Browning has been reading his last volume at Lady D——’s. The intense fervour of the man dominated the company into a hush of awe.
The MacDonalds are home and so kind. Mr. James Cropper of Kendal has asked me to go and stay with him.
I never realised till this moment that I had not written to tell you how very glad we shall all be to have Miss C. here. I think it may help us all to get on better together. I wish I were gentler, and better able to let people see what I feel. In one way I can conceal nothing. Everyone knows what I think, right or wrong, which passes; but few know how much I care for them. Sometimes people almost make me wonder whether I love in some other, poorer way than most people after all; one cannot measure one’s own love by that of others; but I feel as if I loved very deeply, rejoiced in natures, would serve people thankfully, never forsake them; but it seems to be very difficult for any but a few to know this. I daresay little thoughtfulnesses and gentle gracious acts are worth a great deal more; and these I miss doing very disgracefully. Well, I do try to amend; and where I fail, people must forgive me, and take what they can get from me, hoping to find what they need most from others.
It will be very delightful to see you to-morrow night. There is a kind of piano at the Club; we shall want plenty of songs. Probably you know the kind; simple ones, that will do them real good, and especially “Angels ever bright and fair.” The room is tiny, and very close; but we will do our best to air it; you said you perferred meeting us there. The hour is 8 o’clock.
To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
As to me I am as well as it is possible to be, and very happy. We had magnificent weather for our journey; and here the weather is very nice, tho’ we have hardly a day without some rain. We don’t pay any attention to it, but manage to be out seven or eight hours daily. The sea is so grand just now; there have been storms out at sea; and the swell sends the waves rolling in, and breaking in masses of foam about the rocks. There was a revival here among the fishermen twelve years ago; the effects of it seem really to have lasted; and everyone dates all the reforms from that. The fishermen are a splendid race here; vigorous and simple. Mr. MacDonald seems so at home with them; and we often get into nice talks with them on the beach. The sea-town, as they call it, and another tiny village called Port Nochie contain nothing but fishermen; they hardly intermarry at all with the land population; but are a distinct race, tho’ within a few yards of us here. They have only about six surnames in the place; every man is known by a nick-name. We spent the day on Wednesday at an old castle on a promontory of rock, washed on three sides by the sea itself. The position and plan remind me forcibly of Tintagel. It is called Finlater Castle, and is now nothing but a ruin. The family is merged in that of the present Lord Seafield, who is the head of the clan Grant; and bears for his motto, “Stand fast Craig Ellachie!” Do you remember Ruskin’s allusion to it in “The Two Paths”? Lord Seafield’s house is close to here. They are away; but have lent Mr. MacDonald keys to the garden and house.... I am delighted that you got the girl that situation.... How very nice about the Work Class tea. I do so much like to hear of things like that when I am away.
.... The number of people whom I saw who were interested in the work was very great. Among others, Mr. F. Myers, the poet, offered me £500 for houses. Mr. Crowder did the same. Did I tell thee that his father is dead? He comes into a large fortune, and is full of schemes of his future work. He has two friends, clergymen, with them he hopes to work; but they seem to me set on the country, and he on London work. If he comes alone to London he says that it would be to me; but I should try to transfer him to Mr. Barnett.
They all got up at five o’clock, drove some miles, and came by train to Rugby to talk over matters with me. They are such a splendid trio.
Can you interest anyone in the plan described in the enclosed? And will Mr. Fitch give his name to the North Marylebone Committee?
I shall never forget Mr. Haweis’s action in this matter, and shall respect him all my life. He saw the magnitude of the undertaking, but never paused, for fear he should be leading a forlorn hope; he resolutely and earnestly took the matter up. He has got us a worker as Honorary Secretary, at once, and thinks we are certain “to succeed if we do the thing well,” as we only want money.
Hope is the one article which is deficient; but, though I have always the smallest imaginable supply of it myself, I feel as if, for the sake of securing air and light and beauty for the hundreds I see up in those fields, when I take my own people there, I had resolution enough to nerve every one else in London for the effort. We have nearly £4,000 promised, and have only been at work a few days; but the provoking thing is that so many people say they will help, if the scheme is carried out, instead of seeing that it depends on them, and such as they, to say what they will give, before we can tell whether it will be carried out.
Perhaps I am impatient; but I wish small people would build like the ants, and believe the heap will grow bigger, if they persevere; and that big people would take pattern from Mr. Haweis, and be a little more courageous, even if it should turn out that they lead a forlorn hope; and that they would not hang back, till they see if others of their kind come in a flock.
These fields are within the four miles radius,—are within a stone’s throw of a station of the Metropolitan; their view can’t be built out because they are on a hill; the houses are rapidly creeping round their fourth side; they are within an easy walk of Lisson Grove and its crowded courts, to say nothing of our people here. Of course they are not central, yet no one can make a park, when a place has become central. Let them try in St. Giles or Clerkenwell; we must a little precede the builders, if we are to have central places. I have one idea at this moment,—“the fields.” Laugh at me as much as ever you feel inclined; but get Mr. Fitch to help us.
A special extra letter to fellow-workers about a proposed inscription on Freshwater Place.
I should have liked to have written to each, because I should like to have recalled the special thanks, which makes me anxious you should each consent to help me in a piece of work that I have in hand. Some of you have worked side by side with me in the court which it will benefit; some of you have helped me with money and with sympathy never to be forgotten, in difficult undertakings, before the world smiled on them, or success crowned them; some of you stood by me when my work was unpopular, and seemed to many cruel; some of you have knelt with us in daily prayer, lived among us, learnt things from us, cheered us with your glad young lives, and are now gone back to other homes. Perhaps you were interested in our work, when you were among us; perhaps you understood and cared little for it then; but it may look more important and useful as you look back to it. Some of you have never lived or worked with us at all, but have entered into the deeper fellowship of sympathy, have hoped for the same bright things, prayed for them, and feel (though separated by space) “one of us,” in a deeper sense than that in which some of you have used the phrase.
I cannot write to each of you; but, if, on any of these grounds, you would care to help in a plan that I have much at heart, I earnestly wish you would.
You all know Freshwater Place, our first freehold, Mr. Ruskin’s court, where we have our playground,—which is mixed up with May festival memories for many of you.
You know something of how hard I worked for it long ago; my difficulties in building the wall, and in contending with the dirt of the people; how gradually we reduced it to comparative order, have paved it, lighted it, supplied water cisterns, raised the height of rooms, built a staircase, balcony, and additional storey; how Mr. Ruskin had five trees planted for us, and creepers, and by his beautiful presents of flowers, helped to teach our people to love flowers. You know, or can imagine, how dear the place is to me.
For some six years now, I have thought that, if ever I could afford it, I should like to put up along the whole length of the four houses which face the playground on the east side, some words, which have been very present to me many a time, when my plans for improving the place for the tenants were either very unsuccessful for the moment, or very promising or very triumphant, or very bright, but far away in the future.
The words are these:—“Every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God.” They have been present to me when I have been at work in putting to rights visible, tangible things there; they have been no less present to me, when I have been trying to build up anything good in the people. They have reproached any presumption in me; but they have revealed to me the sure ground for the very brightest hope that I have ever cherished for the worst of them; for it is indeed but a very limited sense in which we build anything; we only work as His ministers; but all that is built, or shall be built and established, He doeth it Himself.
How much of all this meaning the passers by may see one does not know, nor very much care. The words would assuredly be a blessing to some people when they come suddenly upon them, in a city full of places, that almost make one think that God did not build them,—has forgotten them,—and does not mean to rebuild them in the years to come, when we listen to His voice more.
Now will you help me to place the words there? I am not likely ever to be able to afford to do it myself; but I was talking one day lately to a friend about my six years’ wish to do it; and he suggested that many people might like to help. There are fifty-six letters; if each letter is a foot square, the inscription will occupy the full length of the four houses; each letter will cost nearly 8/–. If any of you will give a letter, you may like to feel that you have helped to write a sentence that will speak when you are far away, and after you are dead.
I want to make the sentence very lovely in colour, that the mere brightness of it may be a joy to every one that sees it. It will be done in tiles, so that every shower of rain may keep them clean and bright. I want them to be done in blues, purples and greens, and very bright; for, though the loveliest effect comes from a subdued glow with sparks of brilliant colour gleaming out, our inscription, costly as it will be, and though it will run the length of four houses, will be a little space compared with the dingy spaces of wall in the court, and but a spot compared to the still dingier spaces of all London; so we must treat it as the spark, and let it glow with bright colours.
She ends by two long quotations from Ruskin, of which she says:—“They, no doubt, taught me to care for permanent decoration, which should endear houses to men, for external decoration which should be a common joy.”
Thank you very much for the nice rent book. It is such a pleasure to me to see things nice; and I am sure it has a good influence on everyone concerned. Just because I do so little to put them right myself, it gives me quite a thrill of gratitude and pleasure when anyone else does.... Miss —— is sure to consider it quite thrown away labour. Why is this in her, I often wonder? She would do a thing of the kind any day to spoil me, but she would think me quite mad to care, all the time. I went to Mr. De Morgan’s studio. I think the things lovely; and I think I mean to decide the matter according to my desire, partly because I care very much, partly because the thing will last; and I think the world is coming round towards such colour and design almost every year; so I shall feel only a little in advance of it, not out of harmony. But I am quite sure that the dim subdued solemn colour, and blurred uncertain suggestive outline, will not seem to people in general half so pretty, or so good, as the clearly defined edge and crude but gay colour of some other tiles. There is an artistic loveliness about the one, which one must watch to care for; while the vulgar completeness of the other commends itself to modern taste. So far, I know you personally will agree with me; and we must prepare other people to be disappointed. But, in my next decision, I don’t know that I shall carry even you with me. The more I thought out the question, and the more I saw of the tiles, the more I felt as if blue, and blue only, would look best. I can’t see how we can get a look of unity in the inscription, if we introduce other colour. I dislike a distinction between capitals and other letters in colour, when one has no difference in height. I dislike the idea of a line round the inscription; besides, it would decrease the size. I therefore strongly urged blue only, but gradated blue, such as I saw there. I know in his heart Mr. De Morgan agreed with me. He has, however, a lovely copper lustre, which gleams like a fish’s back, and tells now as light, now as dark, like gold, according to how the rays fall on it; and he sorely wants to see this; also he has a deep crimsony red which he is fond of. I never wavered, however, in my adherence to the blue, except in sight of one plate,—green blue and purple shot like a peacock’s tail, but in a lighter key. I really decided nothing; first, because I had not the money, but I might have decided provisionally, and let a postcard finish the business with the one word “now,” when all the tiles are promised; but Mr. De Morgan, like a true artist, pressed so hard for leave to try different colours and designs, on his own responsibility, and for his own pleasure, that I agreed at last that he should do a few letters in the next kiln. Of course it is all gain to us; and I was most decided that none of the money subscribed should go in experiments.
Mr. Shaen’s repeated help, again and again, has alone carried us through difficult crises in the work. It is not only his power and thoroughness nor only the amount of heart with which he has entered into its objects, but the blessed sense of quiet and assurance it gives to feel how completely one can trust him, that makes me know that we owe more to him than to almost anyone else who has helped us. I shall never forget his help at times of difficulty, and uniform kindness always.
I have not felt at all like a friend in not answering you before, as I often do when people do or write loving things, and I never utter a word. But I did not feel so—for I knew that you knew quite well much that it was in my heart to say. Only now I do delightedly seize the time for writing.
I do see very distinctly indeed how ladies might be enrolled in the service of the Poor Law, just as we do it here. I think that the plan has immense advantages, so long as we have out-door relief; and that it might help to break down the system very much. If I were doing the thing, I would enrol not ladies, but volunteer men and women. They must have a definite head and centre. That centre might be either paid or unpaid. I think our relieving officers and guardians would report well of the scheme, even as it works now; though, after it has been longer on foot, of course we could prove more results. We could be used to any extent for an extension of the scheme, if it were decided on, and if the time had arrived for extending it. It is very different from the larger questions which Stansfeld asked you to grapple with, and comes down to the individual work, and would fit on therefore with ours here. I will delightedly see you about it, at any time or place that you arrange. This, of course, touches nothing but the question of out-door relief. I don’t think that I have anything practical to suggest about the in-door poor, among whom, no doubt, women’s work is much needed. One sees a great many principles, which ought to be brought to bear in the workhouse, if only one went there in power; but I have neither experience nor time to help in this direction.
I see certain definite lines of work, in which I shall be particularly glad of help; but of course it would never do to break in upon a definite course of reading.
Miss Peters,[71] my new assistant, has not come yet unfortunately. I almost pray that she may stay, as she seems so exactly all that I have so long wanted.
Mr. Barrington is so good that I grow much interested in him, and am very grateful to him.
The following letter refers to a testimonial presented to Mr. Cockerell by the members of a Workmen’s Club.
Surely the recognition of and approval of good work depends on the degree of the perfection of the perceiving and measuring power of onlookers. There is much glittering meretricious work which everyone sees and applauds; there is much of the noblest work which few, if any, see; but surely, while we have spirits and hearts, we must sometimes catch a glimpse of the good things done among us, and of their value. You must indeed have a low opinion of your poor club friends, if you think that, because they see it, and respect it, and delight in your work, it must be bad. There was no oppressive sense of obligation among them; there was no flattery, expectant of returned compliments; there was no thought of your expecting word or token of thanks; but so far as I could see, a happy over-brimming sense of help, joyfully given and joyfully received. Nothing delighted me more than the earnest, intense way in which when the speaker poured out his epithets of “liberal,” “gracious,” “generous,” the noun that had to come was (rather, I thought, to his own surprise) “advice.” It seemed to me quite beautiful that, with the wide class gulf between you, the relation was so manly, so happy, so independent; and that the adjectives were so evidently hearty and sincere and the gift so pure from all taint. When you read the end of Brook Lambert’s letter, or Lowell’s Sir Launfal, you will know why the relationship between you seemed to me so real, even tho’ their sense that the only thing they could give you was not a thing at all, but a few words to tell you what they felt. Did you feel so “dumb”? Well! it did not strike me so. I believe I anticipated that; I do not think people can do otherwise than as their nature prompts them, especially when suddenly tried. But do not be uneasy; your life has not been “dumb” to them, and will not be; perhaps will speak none the less deeply for that very dumbness....
Yes! I suppose you too would have shut yourself out from the inscription, if I had been foolish enough to mean, and you had known me so little as to think I meant, that you should measure the amount and form of your faith, before helping us. I never meant it. It is good to be wholly honest, and to say the difficult and unpopular thing, when one has to answer a question, and to be cautious not to confuse a feeling with an opinion, nor a hope with a logically proved conviction. But I should be the last person to ask the question, especially in that way, or to desire to shut out anyone in the cold, who had not clearly thought out their belief, or to whom gigantic problems loomed terrible between themselves and the desired belief....