We had such a day yesterday! We came sleighing fifty miles. We came by Unter Tauern down to Radstadt, and then it being only 3.30 o’clock, and as we had only driven forty miles, we thought, after dining and asking for a chance post card, we would go nine and a half miles to Wagram, as we wanted to see the winter sunset over the snow, and it would give us more time at Gastein. We drove off, still all in sledges; and a splendid sunset it was. It was quite dark when we drove into Wagram, which appears in large letters on the map; but, as Baedeker mentions no inn, we had enquired at Radstadt which was the best. It was a rough place indeed, but the woman took us upstairs, promising a room, when suddenly, whether it was that in the light she saw we were quite unlike the country people, or what, I can’t say, but she turned resolutely downstairs, took us into a kind of top room to parley; and nothing could induce her to give us a room. Moreover, she declared that there was no horse in the village which would take us on. The master, our coachman, and all the men in the room supported her. Miss Y. really believed them, she is so very disinclined to suspicion; they seemed to send and see, but became more positive. “Oh,” I said, “get a room; they’ll send us on to-morrow.” “There was no room,” they said. I thought they looked simple people frightened at us, so I said, “Ask her what she advises us to do.” Go back to Radstadt, two hours’ drive in the utter dark. However, there was nothing for it, and laughing we agreed. We still stood talking. “Tell her we’re English,” I suggested, “and have many railways in England, and no sledges”; for I saw one of the great causes of suspicion was that we hadn’t gone round by railway. |MISS YORKE’S DIPLOMACY| Miss Y. told them; and they became interested. She was very gentle, and, I think, touched them; for suddenly the men made a sign to her to accompany them. I followed their flaring tallow candle thro’ great barns, out into the stable yard, where in solemn circle they showed her a sledge, such as peasants use, just a platform of boards on runners. “Would that do?” “Certainly, perfectly.” So persistently truthful was she that she thought they meant a man would drag it, and said pleasantly, “Oh, it didn’t matter about a horse at all.” Horse! they’d a beautiful horse, she must really see it; so she was conducted thro’ great barns to the stable. She admired duly the great animals, but still clinging to her belief in their truth, said, “But they can’t go in the snow.” “Oh, beautifully!” they exclaimed. So all was settled. The good woman, touched by her gentleness, couldn’t do enough for her, and fetched her own great slippers lest her feet should be wet, and they all took us under their wings. They would make us go into the hot tap-room, and there kept us for two hours, while they prepared our room. We were made to draw up to the common table, and saw the moderate drink and food, the strong young women walkers who came in for their dry bread and beer, laid down their bundles, and set off again to walk all night. We saw the men drinking, and they looked with much interest at our maps. Meantime we saw them wash our sheets and bring them in to dry; and we felt the preparations the women were making above, while the men did the honours below. We hinted our fatigue; but it was all of no use. At last we got the man to take us up to our room. The woman was giving it a final sweeping, and wasn’t very pleased; but we admired the room and won her heart. A long low room with beams showing fine tiny latticed windows, a great massive wooden door with such a carved pediment, a long shelf running all round the room under the ceiling, set all round with shining pewter plates, two feet in diameter, against which hung numerous glass tankards. The beds were very small, but quite comfortable. The man asked the woman if she had given us water, “Oh yes, sehr viel”—very much—she replied. We found it a decanter full, and we had one towel between us; but evidently her very best, all embroidered at the end. They did their utmost for us. They seemed a little relieved, and very much pleased when Miss Y. paid them this morning. The man showed it to the woman, as much as to say, “I told you they would pay all right”; and she nodded a self-controlled, satisfied little nod. We all shook hands; and we drove off, sitting back to back on the sledge, our feet down at each side; they could be put into a ring like a stirrup when we chose; our luggage tied on near us, and we came merrily on here thro’ the snow. Now we are going on to Lind.
I hope you will receive safely a letter I posted from Innsbruck to tell you that I am coming home for a very short time, and that I expect to arrive on Saturday evening, November 30th, but may be as late as Monday 2nd (evening).
We drove here from Imst to-day, forty-one miles thro’ the Ober-Inn-Thal, and passed all along the defile of the Finstermunster. It has been the worst day we have had for seeing the scenery; still I thought it very grand, and was glad to see what threatening snow looks like. The great swirls of wild white cloud, breaking and clinging against the mountain sides, and lying level in narrow ravines, were very grand. The Finstermunster is very impressive, the Inn threads its way 500 feet below the road; and the craggy cliffs above the road were stupendous. We hope the snow may fall heavily to-night, and leave it clear for the Engadine to-morrow. Yesterday, when we drove thirty-seven miles from Innsbruck to Imst, it was quite fine nearly all day. Here we are in our old quarters at Nauders, at the old-fashioned inn we liked; but we have had to come to the other side of the house to secure a room with a stove, very necessary with snow deep round everywhere.
I shall turn up in a very forlorn condition, as to dress fit for London.... I try not to think of coming back; I daren’t.
I was so pleased by your sending me the little bunch of roses in Mama’s letter. I was glad to hear of your moving to Elm Cottage. I fancy it is very pretty. I hope you and Maud like being there.
I suppose you very often go to see Aunt Margaret. You would be interested to see the way we travel here. There is thick snow on the ground; and we go on sledges,—that is carriages that have no wheels, but go easily in the snow. They go very fast.
The other day we started before it was light. The moon was shining brightly; there was a little light in the sky where the sun would rise. Miss Yorke and I sat in a sledge, which is so low that one feels almost on the ground.
The driver had on a great fur coat, a fur cap, and great fur gloves. He looked like a picture of a Laplander; but we had a horse, not a reindeer, to draw us. There was another sledge behind us with our luggage. I couldn’t think why the white horse that was drawing it kept coming and rubbing his nose against my shoulder; and I thought, too, that it was a little frisky sometimes. When it got excited, it seemed to prance about a good deal; and I wondered why the driver let it.
But soon we saw that the good little creature was being trusted to follow without any driver at all.
He followed for twelve miles, till we changed horses, over the mountain and over the wide tracts of snow, where the road was only marked by posts which stood up from the snow; and through the quiet little mountain villages, where the people were just waking and coming out to cut a way through the snow to their cow-houses or wood-sheds.
Every now and then the driver of our sledge turned back and called, “Cieco, Cieco” to the horse; and he trotted up, and rubbed his nose against my shoulder. We met the peasants walking. It was hard work in the snow; even where our horse had been, it was over their knees. One boy had a little dog with him; he wanted to keep it out of the snow, and had buttoned it into his coat in front; its little head looked so funny, wagging in front of his chest. We went up over the mountains where there were no more houses, and hardly any peasants to be seen, only just snow-covered mountains, and fir trees loaded with snow, and all the streams were covered or edged with icicles, some of them as tall as a cottage.
There used to be wolves there; but I suppose there are none now. It was strangely solitary; so much so that we saw two pretty chamois going over the snow together into a fir wood. They left pretty footprints in the snow. There wasn’t another road going in the same direction for a hundred miles; so, though it was so high and cold and snowy, the people have to go over it all the winter. It was very beautiful to see the sun rise, and the snow on them looked quite rose-coloured in the light. We drove fifty miles in sledges that day. The people here all have a little ground, and they plant what they want to eat and to wear too: and they hardly ever buy anything in shops. Their cows and goats and fowls give them milk and eggs and cheese and milk; and their sheep provide them with wool; and they have flax and hemp, and the women spin and weave it; and they make it in the winter; and they make even the leather for their shoes at home from the skins of animals. Very little corn ripens here; it is not warm enough; but they make great racks, like gigantic towel rails, with numbers of rails twice as high as the houses; and there the little corn that they have and their hay are placed, that they may get sun and wind and ripen and dry.
They are very fond of their country, and have fought for it several times.
I mustn’t write you more of a letter to-day. With love and kisses to Maud and baby and Papa and Mama.
Thank you very much for your letter.
Please don’t think about me. If in anything you ever did or thought there is anything you would wish otherwise, forget it, as if it had never been. Never mind telling me, or even telling yourself, whether there was anything, or nothing, or if anything how much, or what it was; just, if it occurs to you, put it from you like an unreal thing; never let it trouble you. You know this is what I wish always.
Be sure not to trouble, so far as I am concerned, about any painful thoughts of me, which remain to you, if such there be. They are either true and will abide, or false and will vanish—it can but be for a little time.
There’s a thing I am anxious about; and that is I fear I’ve led you into what may be troublesome, as it turns out, and that is the Kyrle Open Spaces Committee.... You never said or felt or implied that you’d time for a great new work, which this kindling would be; and I write to say to you that I quite realise this, and shall not be surprised or disappointed that the K. S. C. becomes a very different thing from what we three talked of that morning, or even what I wrote of from Paris. I daresay you and E. will manage to make it a most useful opening up of the Open Space Kyrle work in London; and this will indirectly help the wilder commons slowly; in fact there need be no difference in programme; but I think you ought at once to know that I see a wide difference in expectation. It is clear there is no large or zealous body to gather together; you can’t even get an Hon. Sec., but the effort will be good as far as it goes.... It is the want of general interest, without a fire in the midst, that is telling. But never mind; only don’t think I expect much, nor strain yourself to do anything you don’t see your way to. Take it very quietly; go on till it grows into more life, if it may be, before all the commons are gone....
I hear you were interested by my other letter. Now I am in quite another country. I am in France, and very near Spain. We meant to have ridden to-day a little way up the mountain and looked down into Spain; but there is still a little too much snow. They have no sledges here, as they had in Tyrol. The snow soon melts here. All the carts are drawn by great oxen. They draw them with their heads, not with collars as horses do. They have their heads harnessed, because their necks are so very strong. They have great sheepskins fastened on their horns, partly to look pretty, and partly, I think, to prevent the harness rubbing them. On Wednesday, we were driving in a carriage with two fine horses. We began to go up a hill, and we passed a cart with a heavy block of granite, and twelve strong oxen to draw it. We went on a very little way, and then our naughty horses didn’t like going up-hill; and, instead of going on, they went back; and they wouldn’t press against the collar; and, the more the coachman tried to drive them on, the more they went back. This is called “jibbing”; and it is very dangerous, because they can’t see where they are pushing the carriage; and they might send it off the road, down a precipice. Miss Yorke and I got out, as well as we could. The coachman, who had been very proud of his horses, and who had driven past the twelve oxen very dashingly (the oxen go very slowly), now said very meekly, “I must get two cows.” So he called the driver of the oxen to lend him two; and they fastened these in front of the horses. It looked so funny to see how the patient things pulled slowly and steadily up the hill; and the naughty horses couldn’t help coming, though once, when the rope broke which fastened the oxen, the horses again tried to go backwards. The man talked to the oxen all the way; they seemed to know all he meant them to do when he shouted. We couldn’t tell what he said, for the people here don’t talk French among themselves, but an old language that their neighbours can understand. They wear bright handkerchiefs tied round their heads, instead of hats or bonnets, and their boots are not made of leather, but all of wood; they are turned up at the toes, and oh! they make such a noise on the floor! Besides the oxen they use a great many mules; and they carry the milk to market in bottles slung on each side of the mules. It is much warmer here than in England, and many flowers are out already. The snowdrops grow wild in the woods.
Miranda gave your message to Mrs. Hollyer[90] whilst she was doing my grate. When she had left Mrs. Hollyer said, “Paradise Place is so quiet now; there are such nice respectable people. We are all so comfortable there”; then she looked up in my face with such a nice expression, and added, “Will you tell Miss Octavia so?” I did think it such a delicate way of returning your sympathy in her illness.
Did you see dear Mr. Howitt’s death? We found him dying, when we came here. He was one of my oldest friends. I remember their house as one of the happiest and best I knew as a child. He used to take me for walks, when I was six years old. Mrs. Howitt looks so clearly thro’ to the meeting in the future, and has none but holy and happy recollections and the human grief is so natural, and yet the peace of trust so great. It is beautiful and helpful to me. I was almost a daughter to her, and her son who died in Australia one of my earliest companions; so she lets me slip in there, and there seems more life in the house of death than in all the sunlighted hills, for God seems so near her, and she feels that so.
I am very sorry you are having so much trouble about the name; perhaps now that the real work is so abundant, and must be so engrossing, this question may die down. I do feel that the name, be it what it may, ought to mark the much larger work you propose to yourselves than the C.P.S. does; else you may hereafter have difficulty in getting all the work recognised as yours; and also people will be puzzled continuously and practically by your not being a branch of the C.P.S. Remind Mr. Haweis that you have to encourage gift and purchase and beautifying as well as “preservation”; that you have to do with private land as well as commons, and that you have to do with Metropolitan as well as rural open spaces. A name never includes all objects; but a narrower one belonging to a somewhat analogous society would be very confusing. So I feel.... Mr. Barnett you have probably seen.[91] His letter strikes me as depressed, and I am sorry. I realise what he says about throwing stones, but such practices often die down, after a little; and tar paving is such uninteresting London stuff; you can’t plant, or even have a may-pole in it; nor feel as if it were the earth. I hope they won’t put it, and certainly wouldn’t give a farthing to help; but I’m so sorry the burden of that and the Pensions is on him.... How splendid all the life of the movement you describe is. I have no fear if the people now interested can only be kept working with some result, enough to keep up their hope; if so, the things must grow.
I got two nice little letters from children, when I was away. I heard they took my answers, and read them to the other children in the Playground. Wasn’t it nice of them? I send you my little neighbour’s artistic efforts; he is only a little chap. They had trained my scarlet runners, and left everything just as it was in my room, and welcomed me back so tenderly, saying the place had felt empty and dull without me. A girl, who has a lot of sisters to mother, came to tell me she had found the motto she liked best, “Love is the greatest force,” evidently learnt from experience; for they are all so fond of her. She and four sisters, and other little and big neighbours, came yesterday to work for an industrial exhibition we are going to have; and whilst they did needlework and pasting, etc., we read the “Fairy Spinner.”[92] I think M. H. was really the only one who could listen to it, as she has been ill and didn’t feel the excitement of the novelty so much as the others. Some of the dear little tots kept running past crying to the swallows and butterflies painted on the wall, “I’ll catch you bird,” “I’ll catch you butterfly,” almost as happy, dear, as if they were real ones, I think.... We came home to that dear Haven named Miranda, looking so sweet and rested and full of delightful sayings and doings of other people. Can’t you see her upturned face telling them, and a twinkle in her eyes at something funny?
Oh if one could but have a penny botanical garden in the Marylebone Road for the hot little children and weakly old people!
“Now I hope you’ll enjoy yourself,” with a hearty grasp of the hand, as much as to say, “You must now,” was the last word I heard at Freshwater Place.
I didn’t at all like leaving it. The children enjoyed their field day very much, I think, and kept asking, “Wasn’t it nice on Saturday?” with such a little hug of your hand! I was so pleased with one child, who, I knew, in the midst of amusing herself, simply to give me pleasure, came away to me with, “Won’t Miss like to have a game of six acres of land?” and the girl with the dreadful face behaved splendidly, and carried poor little Shannon all the way home to Swiss Cottage; for we nearly killed the poor little fellow. The cab-door burst open, and he was shot out, and I expected him to be killed on the spot. But on Sunday he was on his legs again—quite a hero; and instead of pitching into me, his parents were so kind; only too anxious to reassure me, and show how well he could walk. In fact, Johnny has come into notice ever since. I had a nice talk with grave Mrs. Wilson, who is going to lend books, and to honour me by getting me a cup of tea there; and I went to say, “How d’ye do?” and “Good-bye!” to B. Court Club, and found Mrs. Lewes there.
She was so pleased to get her rents all right; but also disappointed at many things. It seems that it is when everything looks like failure that courage comes from some bright spot, or something to start you afresh.
The cobbling class that I have superintended since the 2nd of December has kept up, as well as I could expect, in some respects, and very much better in others; for, though it has not increased in numbers, some boys have never missed coming. They have really learnt to mend well, and have improved so wonderfully in their manners to each other and to me, that, in three or four cases, we have got really fond of each other, and that is my hope for the future. Good, I like to think, may result. Nine boys attended the last evening, and seemed very sorry that it was the last, asking if, next winter, the class would be again; and, as they have once or twice hinted their hope of my taking them for something else in an evening, I am going to try; and we shall read English History to begin with, and talk, and so on; for we are really so comfortable with each other that just to be together is a pleasure to us now. They are only young. But I found that they and older boys did not do well together.... The boy beyond all the others whom I care for is James ——; and as I fear you may have heard anything but good of him—for I am the only one of your ladies who has any liking for him, except, I think, Miss Leighton,—perhaps it may be a mistake to like James as much as I do, and to hope that he will do so well. But I am quite sure that if you, dear Miss Hill, had the same cause as I have to admire all his ways and work that I can see, you would also care little for what is said about his mother and father. The first evening that he came he did nothing but watch me, and stand, rather rudely, with his cap on all the time. Also he had brought no halfpenny; and I told him that just for that evening he might stay, but that another time he could not without paying.
His large head and the powerful expression of his face made me think how bad, or how good, he might be, according to the way he turns. I heard that evening that he was one of the worst (English “troublesome”) boys in the Court. To my surprise he came the next time with his halfpenny; and, when I said that Lush the cobbler was late, he offered very civilly to go for him. I thanked him, and made much of him. During the evening he worked more steadily than any of them; and ever since he has been my best boy, both as regards working, and coming even when he has nothing to mend, just because he seems so happy to be there and to do any little thing that he possibly can for me. Mrs. Jales says that he is now much better in the Court too. To say I like him says little, for I do a great deal more than that. A woman would be strangely made who did not get to feel him as somewhat her own property, and, even if he goes wrong afterwards, not to lose her affection for him easily.
In an age when doubt assails so many young spirits with its light destruction of belief in the eternal and intangible, will not the possession of such a brother be perhaps to the elder ones something no other possession could be? Those who have never loved and lost may think of the dead as buried and done with; those whose lost ones had nothing noble or specially characteristic which was good about them, may think of them as having lived; but whoever has seen and loved a being with peculiar beauty and nobleness, will have moments, and those the best and deepest in life, when the certainty that that being still lives, will be quite quietly triumphant over all clever talk or brilliant flippancy. I think to you all Frank will be always a blessing—in spite of pain.
On the attempt to save the site of Horsemonger Lane Gaol as an Open Space.
I think we could get the Archbishop to hold a meeting. In fact I have no fear about getting money, if dear E. can only get it into a working shape where that only is needed. After all, even if Government did give it, that only means all being taxed; and surely, so long as riches exist, there is need to call upon those who have them to give of their abundance freely and heartily to such places as Southwark; even without asking them, to make it possible for those of them who want to give to give helpfully, and, so long as there are even quite poor people with any surplus, it is a pity they should not have the joy of giving freely. Is it to be all compulsory taxes, and no free-will offering?
Mr. Blyth asked to come to see me on purpose to know what I thought about things. He is very hopeful, much pleased at the quiet dignified way in which the (Temperance) Lodges men behaved. They asked the old men (who are chiefly boys) what they meant to do about the debt, and their reply was that, if they could not meet it otherwise, they must sell the furniture, billiard tables, etc.! So, finally, the teetotalers have formally taken the debts (now said to be £5) upon themselves, and have also taken the tables, etc., as part of the club belongings.
There were, last week, forty-five new teetotal members, and there are twenty-four non-total abstainers—sixty-nine in all. Seventeen and threepence was paid in entrance fees, the whole room cleaned and put in order; and Grimmins’s first act was to fasten up with his own hands, in the renewed room, the tablet to Mr. Cockerell’s memory. They want it to be just as it all was at first, and to have a penny subscription and no ballot at election.
We went to the opening of Walmer Castle, which was a great success. There were large crowds both of rich and poor. Among others Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hart, Mr. Davies, Mr. Diggle, General Gardiner, Charles and Gertrude. After the “public” had been admitted to the tap-room, and before they began making their purchases, speeches were made by one or two people. Mr. Hughes made a very nice speech, and so did Mr. Diggle, who was much applauded. He came up and asked very warmly after you, and said you would be glad to hear that all the work in St. Mary’s was going on well, and some of it was being carried on with more vigour than ever. Miss Cons looked very happy, and was busy talking to everybody. The whole place looked very clean and comfortable, and all the food very nice; there were decorations of flowers, and bright flags flying outside. We went over the house, and saw the beautiful dining-room upstairs and the smoking-room, and some very comfortable furnished little bedrooms for respectable men. General Gardiner turned to a friend and said, “We should some of us have been very glad of as good a bedroom as this at the University.” My fear about the bedrooms is that they are too dear. A shilling a night is not much to pay for so nice a little furnished room; but, if a working man has to pay seven shillings a week for his room, I fear he will think it too much. Downstairs there is a nice large room to be used for the Boys’ Club. It is to be decorated by the Kyrle Society.
I don’t know whether Minnie will write and give you any account of the Kyrle Committee Meeting yesterday; but, in case she does not, I think you will be glad to know that all went, I think, very satisfactorily. Your letter was received with pleasure, and your offer of transferring the St. Christopher work to the Kyrle was received with warm thanks. Somebody is to be found to undertake the drawing.... Can you tell me where your large St. Christopher is? I was asked to show it yesterday, that the Committee might see how much needed completing.
The money was voted for the choir without any difficulty. We have two applications to decorate rooms for working girls.
Minnie asked, on behalf of the O.S. Committee, whether they were at liberty to appeal to the public for funds without consulting the General Committee on the subject. It was decided that they could not. Mr. N. said that he thought they never ought to take any public action without consulting the General Committee. We explained how impossible it would be to work at all, if no public action could be taken without reference to the General Committee; for all the work is dealing with public bodies, vestries, etc., and, when Minnie pointed out that in any doubtful case like Burnham Beeches, the O.S. Committee always had, and always would, consult the General Committee, Mr. N. was satisfied.
In order to bind the work in the Court (not the collecting, to which this letter does not refer at all) and to make the arrangements simpler and more organised, it is proposed to unite the teachers of the evening classes into a little Committee.
I hope you will be able to join this Committee. I do not think that it will involve you in any labour which will not be very easy, even to so busy a person as you; while it would, in many ways, save you trouble in making arrangements a little more organised and easy to deal with. I think you would all enjoy the little reason for meeting from time to time.
Unless any unforeseen business presents itself, I should think two meetings in the year would be ample; one to settle summer and one winter arrangements, for it is proposed to leave everyone utterly free to do on their evening precisely what seems good to them, so that the only questions that the Committee would have to deal with would be those which might clash with or influence other workers, or in which they would wish to have a voice. My sister, Mrs. Edmund Maurice, will be Secretary of the little Committee. There would be five members, including yourself; but if large questions of general interest were coming before the Committee, it would be well to invite the other workers in the Court to attend and vote, as the landlord is anxious for the room to be as generally useful as possible, especially as Lady Ducie has given up hers to the general use of the Court so entirely by giving the use of it to the Club. I am not without hope that I may have the great pleasure of seeing the Committee meet just once here, after Xmas, before I go. I hope rather great things from it, do you know? I feel how much the life of the Court has developed since I left. All of you seem to me stronger and quite knowing your own strength, which is an immense help. The work is more individual, more living, more firmly rooted; but I don’t like to think that you should lose anything by my absence; and I sometimes dare to hope that this little Committee might, while leaving to each of you full, free scope, give you each the little connecting link you seem as if you might lose in losing me. I mean the power of all meeting for common work, of gathering strength each from the other, of adding power and life each to the other’s work, of knowing and meeting one another, of understanding each what the other means, of pausing for a moment to see if there is anything to learn, to accept, to use in the other’s work, the sense of a common cause and of being one body to interpret that common cause in the noblest way in which it can be conceived, and to sink all little narrow views in the broadest and deepest ones.
What an interesting account you give of Mr. Clifford’s discussions! I believe few people will grasp what he meant the main point of the discussion to be; but I do believe they will be very useful, if they show people who are doing tangible good, or good less spiritual, that distinct teaching about God Himself may be needed. I think the reaction from doing that only has been too great, and that I and many people need to be reminded of that deepest way of work; tho’ I think we always take it up when we have the power, but we hardly look out for, or abundantly use, the people who have the power, nor cultivate it in ourselves. I think it is the next thing we have to aim at. In fear of undue pressure, we hardly appeal bravely enough to the indwelling power of response there must be in every one.
... I am glad you like the Diary of an Old Soul. I think MacDonald singularly excels in that quaint, simple, deeply religious poetry. Somehow he has naturally the habit of making those queer comparisons, and sudden leaps from great to small things which one finds in the old poets; and, in the same way, his deep faith atones for the strangeness. There is even something captivating in it. I think the book very beautiful. I went to see Mrs. Grey in Rome. She was so very kind and nice, and so interesting too. We talked of old times, and of the Public Day Schools, and the Kindergarten work. We also saw the Marshes.... Yesterday we came from Beneventum here. The day was wild, and there was even rain; but it was very interesting, first to cross the watershed between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas, then to traverse the great plain lying round Foggia, where four and a half million sheep used to graze, returning in winter by three great roads called the Strade dei Pecore. The merino sheep used to be there, now the plain is gradually being cultivated; but there are still half a million sheep, and one sees herds of great grey cattle, and droves of 40 or 60 horses, looking almost wild, grazing among the glades of oak trees, or on the open ground.
One of the lady workers was talking of giving food to one of the B. Crt. men, who has been ill; but I found he had just got into work, so I suggested he could get on for himself now. I then explained to her that your plan was to let St. Thomas’s Relief Committee do any absolute relief, and then to strengthen them with gifts, if you can make any. She was so much interested, and very glad to know it. She said that she had no idea you worked with the Church authorities to that extent. She knew you were a member of the Church, but had no idea you co-operated with the clergy to that extent. So many people thought you chose to be independent. I explained how anxious you were that the clergy should be willing to be co-operated with, and told her that your desire was to work with them and so was that of the C.O.S. if they would but be worked with.... Mr. E. writes: “Will Mr. M. contribute to the Thirlmere Defence Fund? He may be induced to do so when he remembers Miss Octavia Hill’s words” (evidently some words you spoke some time ago).
We reached here on Saturday. We found no post left here for England till to-day; I hope you will not have thought it very long before you heard. We had a splendid passage here.... I lay on the deck nearly all day, and saw the wild, blue, beautiful Albanian shore, such a land of bare wild mountain-land. The name of the people means “Highlander.” Then we floated past the islands and into the narrow sea between Corfu and Albania, where the Venetians and Turks had their last sea fight, and the Turks tried no more to advance into Europe. It was a glorious light as we floated into Corfu about half past. When we had passed thro’ 13 miles of this forest country with the mountains in view, and here and there, but very far between, a village or two, we came out on a cliff over the sea, along which we drove three miles. The road had been made by the English soldiers, but it is now all going gradually to pieces; the arches which support the bridges over the little streams (which, by the way, are now quite dry) are all cracking, their keystones protruding; the well-built walls supporting the road on the slope of the hills are crumbling gradually down, taking the road with them. Great hollows are appearing in the road, and large stones in thousands rolling down upon it. The driver said, “Il governo non fa niente per la strada.” And there it is crumbling to decay. It does seem a pity.
We are going on board the Greek boat to-day en route for Athens. We hear the “roughness” only consists in the want of good food; that the boat and arrangements are good. There is at any rate much less open sea, and the scenery is finer. An English lady who sat by me last night said she had been both ways and much preferred ours, but the gentlemen here make a great talking about the food. I daresay it will do for us. I am doing very little drawing and no good with it; but it is possible I may later, and this sea could not be attempted without emerald green.