My new life on Durdham Down, though solitary, was a very happy one. I had two nice rooms in Belgrave House (then the last house on the road opening on the beautiful Downs from the Redland side), wherein a bright, excellent, pretty widow, Mrs. Stone, kept several suites of lodgings. It is not often, alas! that the relations of lodger and landlady are altogether pleasant, but in my case they were eminently so, and resulted in cordial and permanent mutual regard. My little bedroom opened by a French window on a balcony leading to a small garden, and beyond it I had an immense view of Bristol and the surrounding country, over the smoke of which the rising sun often made Turneresque pictures. My sitting room had a front and a corner view of the delightful Downs as far as “Cook’s Folly” and the Nightingale Valley; and often, over the “Sea Wall,” the setting sun went down in great glory. I walked down every week-day into Bristol (of course I needed more than ever to economise, and even the omnibus fare had to be considered), and went about my various avocations in the schools and workhouse till I could do no more, when I made my way home as cheaply as I could contrive, to dinner. I had my dear dog Hajjin, a lovely mouse-coloured Pomeranian, for companion at all times, and on Sundays we generally treated ourselves to a good ramble over the Downs and beyond them, perhaps as far as Kings’-Weston. The whole district is dear to me still.

The return to fresh air and to something like country life was delightful. It had been, I must avow, an immense strain on my resolution to live in Bristol among all the sordid surroundings of Miss Carpenter’s house; and when once in a way in those days I left them and caught a glimpse of the country, the effort to force myself back was a hard one. One soft spring day, I remember, I had gone across the Downs and sat for half an hour under a certain horse-chestnut tree, which was that day in all the exquisite beauty of its young green leaves. I felt this was all I wanted to be happy—merely to live in the beauty and peace of Nature, as of old at Newbridge; and I reflected that, of course, I could do it, at once, by breaking off with Miss Carpenter and giving up my work in hideous Bristol. But, per contra, I had concluded that this work was wanted to be done and that I could do it; and had seriously given myself to it, believing that so I could best do God’s will. Thus there went on in my mind for a little while a very stiff fight, one of those which leave us either stronger or weaker ever after. Now at last, without any effort on my part, the bond which held me to live in Red Lodge House, was loosened, and I was able both to go on with my work in Bristol and also to breathe the fresh air in the morning and to see the sun rise and set, and often to enjoy a healthful run over those beautiful Downs. By degrees, also, I made several friendships in the neighbourhood, some most dear and faithful ones which have lasted ever since; and many people were very kind to me and helped me in various ways in my work. I shall speak of these friends in another chapter.

One of my superstitions has long been that if any particular task seems to us at the first outlook specially against the grain, it will continually happen that in the order of things it comes knocking at our door and practically saying to our consciences: “Are you going to get up and do what is wanted, or sit still and please yourself with something else?” In this guise of disagreeability, workhouse visiting first presented itself to me. Miss Carpenter frequently mentioned the workhouse as a place which ought to be looked after; and which she believed sadly wanted voluntary inspection; but the very name conveyed to me such an impression of dreary hopelessness that I shrank from the thought. When St. Paul coupled Hope with Faith and Charity he might have said “these three are one,” for without the Hope of achieving some good (or at least of stopping some evil) it is hard to gird ourselves to any practical exertion for our fellow-creatures. To lift up the criminal and perishing classes of the community and cut off the root of crime and vice by training children in morality and religion, this was a soul-inspiring idea. But to bring a small modicum of cheer to the aged and miserable paupers, who may be supposed generally to be undergoing the inevitable penalties of idle or drunken lives, was far from equally uplifting! However, my first chance-visit to St. Peter’s in Bristol with Miss Elliot, showed me so much to be done, so many claims to sympathy and pity, and the sore lack of somebody, unconnected officially with the place, to meet them, that I at once felt that here I must put in my oar.

The condition of the English workhouses generally at that period (1859) was very different from what it is now. I visited many of them in the following year or two in London and the provincial towns, and this is what I saw. The sick lay on wretched beds, fit only for able-bodied tramps, and were nursed mostly by old pauper women of the very lowest class. The infirm wards were very frequently placed in the worst possible positions. I remember one (in London) which resounded all day long with din from an iron-foundry just beneath, so that one could not hear oneself speak; and another, of which the windows could not be opened in the hottest weather, because carpets were taken to be beaten in the court below. The treatment of the pauper children was no less deplorable. They were joyless, spiritless little creatures, without “mothering” (as blessed Mrs. Senior said a few years later), without toys, without the chance of learning anything practical for use in after life, even to the lighting of a fire or cooking a potato. Their poor faces were often scarred by disease and half blinded by ophthalmia. The girls wore the hideous workhouse cotton frocks, not half warm enough to keep them healthy in those bare, draughty wards, and heavy hob-nailed shoes which acted like galley-slaves’ bullets on their feet when they were turned to “play” in a high-walled, sunless yard, which was sometimes, as I have seen, six inches deep in coarse gravel. As to the infants, if they happened to have a good motherly matron it was so far well, though even she (mostly busy elsewhere) could do but little to make the crabbed old pauper nurses kind and patient. But how often, we might ask, were the workhouse matrons of those days really kind-hearted and motherly? Of course they were selected by the gentlemen guardians (there were no ladies then on the Boards) for quite other merits; and as Miss Carpenter once remarked to me from the depth of her experience:—

“There never yet was man so clever but the Matron of an Institution could bamboozle him about every department of her business!”

I have sat in the Infants’ ward when an entire Board of about two dozen gentlemen tramped through it, for what they considered to be “inspection”; and anything more helpless and absurd than those masculine “authorities” appeared as they glanced at the little cots (never daring to open one of them) while the awakened babies screamed at them in chorus, it has seldom been my lot to witness.

On one occasion I visited an enormous workhouse in a provincial town where there were nearly 500 sick and infirm patients. The Matron told me she had but lately been appointed to her post. I said, “It is a tremendously heavy charge for you, especially with only these pauper nurses. No doubt you have gone through a course of Hospital training, and know how to direct everything?”

“O, dear. No! Madam!” replied the lady with a toss of her cap-strings; “I never nursed anybody I can assure you, except my ’usband, before I came here. It was misfortune brought me to this!”

How many other Masters and Matrons throughout the country received their appointments with as little fitness for them and simply as favours from influential or easy-going guardians, who may guess?

I had at this time become acquainted with the friend whose comradeship—cemented in the dreary wards of Bristol Workhouse more than 30 years ago—has been ever since one of the great pleasures of my life. All those who know Miss Elliot, daughter of the late Dean of Bristol, will admit that it would be very superfluous, not to say impertinent, to enlarge on the privileges of friendship with her. Miss Elliot was at that time living at the old Deanery close to Bristol Cathedral, and taking part in every good work which was going on in the city and neighbourhood. Among other things she had been teaching regularly for years in Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, regardless of the prejudice against her unitarianism; and one day she called at Miss Carpenter’s house to ask her what was to be done with Kitty, who had been very naughty. Miss Carpenter asked her to see the lady who had come to work with her; and we met for the first time. Miss Elliot begged me to return her visit, and though nothing was further from my mind at that time than to enter into anything like society, I was tempted by the great attractions of my brilliant young friend and her sister and of the witty and wide-minded Dean, and before long (especially after I went to live alone) I enjoyed much intercourse with the delightful household.

Miss Elliot had been in the habit of visiting a poor old woman named Mrs. Buckley, who had formerly lived close to the Deanery and had been removed to the workhouse; and one day she asked me to accompany her on her errand. This being over, I wandered off to the various wards where other poor women, and also the old and invalid men, spent their dreary days, and soon perceived how large a field was open for usefulness in the place.

The first matter which occupied us was the condition of the sick and infirm paupers; first of the women only; later of both men and women. The good Master and Matron admitted us quite freely to the wards, and we saw and knew everything which was going on. St. Peter’s was an exceptional workhouse in many respects. The house was evidently at one time (about A.D. 1600, like Red Lodge) the mansion of some merchant prince of Bristol, erected in the midst of the city. The outer walls are still splendid specimens of old English wood and stonework; and, within, the Board-room exhibits still a magnificent chimney-piece. The larger part of the building, however, has been pulled about and fashioned into large wards, with oak-beamed rafters on the upper floor, and intricate stairs and passages in all directions. Able-bodied paupers and casuals were lodged elsewhere (at Stapleton Workhouse) and were not admitted here. There were only the sick, the aged, the infirm, the insane and epileptic patients and lying-in women.

Here are some notes of the inmates of this place by Miss Elliot:—

“1. An old woman of nearly 80, and as I thought beyond power of understanding me. Once however when I was saying ‘good-bye’ before an absence of some months, I was attracted by her feeble efforts to catch my attention. She took my hand and gasped out ‘God bless you; you wont find me when you come back. Thank you for coming.’ I said most truly that I had never been any good to her, and how sorry I was I had never spoken to her. ‘Oh, but I see your face; it is always a great pleasure and seems bright. I was praying for you last night. I don’t sleep much of a night. I thank you for coming.’... 2. A woman between fifty and sixty dying of liver disease. She had been early left a widow, had struggled bravely, and reared her son so well that he became foreman at one of the first printing establishments in the city. His master gave us an excellent character of him. The poor mother unhappily had some illness which long confined her in another hospital, and when she left it her son was dead; dead without her care in his last hours. The worn-out and broken-down mother, too weak and hopeless to work any longer, came to her last place of refuge in the workhouse. There, day by day, we found her sitting on the side of her bed, reading and trying to talk cheerfully, but always breaking down utterly when she came to speak of her son. 3. Opposite to her an old woman of ninety lies, too weak to sit up. One day, not thinking her asleep, I went to her bedside. I shall never forget the start of joy, the eager hand, ‘Oh, Mary, Mary, you are come! Is it you at last?’ ‘Ah, poor dear,’ said the women round her, ‘she most always dreams of Mary. ’Tis her daughter, ladies, in London; she has written to her often, but don’t get any answer.’ The poor old woman made profuse apologies for her mistake, and laid her head wearily on the pillow where she had rested and dreamed, literally for years, of Mary.

“4. Further on is a girl of sixteen, paralyzed hopelessly for life. She had been maid-of-all-work in a family of twelve, and under her fearful drudgery had broken down thus early. ‘Oh, ma’am,’ she said with bursts of agony, ‘I did work; I was always willing to work, if God would let me; I did work while I could, but I shall never get well; Never!’ Alas, she may live as long as the poor cripple who died here last summer, after lying forty-six years in the same bed, gazing on the same blank, white wall. 5. The most cheerful woman in the ward is one who can never rise from her bed; but she is a good needlewoman, and is constantly employed in making shrouds. It would seem as if the dismal work gave her an interest in something outside the ward, and she is quite eager when the demand for her manufacture is especially great!

“In the Surgical Ward are some eight or ten patients; all in painful diseases. One is a young girl dying of consumption, complicated with the most awful wounds on her poor limbs. ‘But they don’t hurt so bad,’ she says, ‘as any one would think who looked at them; and it will soon be all over. I was just thinking it was four years to-day since I was brought into the Penitentiary,’ (it was after an attempt to drown herself after a sad life at Aldershot); ‘and now I have been here three years. God has been very good to me, and brought me safe when I didn’t deserve it.’ Over her head stands a print of the Lost Sheep, and she likes to have that parable read to her. Very soon that sweet, fair young face, as innocent as I have ever seen in the world, will bear no more marks of pain. Life’s whole tragedy will have been ended, and she is only just nineteen!”

[A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday morning when the rising sun was shining into the curtainless ward, the few patients who were awake saw this poor girl, who had not been able to raise herself or sit upright for many weeks, suddenly start forward, sitting straight up in bed with her arms lifted and an expression of ecstacy on her face, and something like a cry of joy on her lips. Then she fell back, and all was over. The incident, which was in every way striking and affecting, helped me to recall the conviction (set forth in my Peak in Darien), that the dying do, sometimes, catch a glimpse of blessed friends waiting for them on the threshold.]

“A little way off lies a woman dying in severest sufferings which have lasted long, and may yet last for weeks. Such part of her poor face as may be seen expresses almost angelic patience and submission, and the little she can say is all of gratitude to God and man. On the box beside her bed there stands usually a cup with a few flowers, or even leaves or weeds—something to which, in the midst of that sickening disease, she can look for beauty. When we bring her flowers her pleasure is almost too affecting to witness. She says she remembers when she used to climb the hedge rows to gather them in the ‘beautiful country.’”

Among the few ways open to us of relieving the miseries of these sick wards and of the parallel ones on the other side occupied by male sufferers, were the following:—The introduction of a few easy chairs with cushions for those who could sit by the fire in winter, and whose thinly-clothed frames could not bear the benches. Also bed-rests,—long knitted ones, fastened to the lower posts of the bed and passed behind the patient’s back, so as to form a kind of sitting hammock,—very great comforts where there is only one small bolster or pillow and the patient wants to sit up in bed. Occasionally we gave little packets of good tea; workhouse tea at that time being almost too nauseous to drink. We also brought pictures to hang on the walls. These we bought coloured and cheaply framed or varnished. Their effect upon the old women, especially pictures of children, was startling. One poor soul who had been lying opposite the same blank wall for twenty years, when I laid one of the coloured engravings on her bed preparatory to hanging it before her, actually kissed the face of the little child in the picture, and burst into tears.

Further, we brought a canary in a cage to hang in the window. This seems an odd gift, but it was so successful that I believe the good visitors who came after us have maintained a series of canaries ever since our time. The common interest excited by the bird brought friendliness and cheerfulness among the poor old souls, some of whom had kept up “a coolness” for years while living next to one another on their beds! The sleepless ones gloried in the summer-morning-song of Dicky, and every poor visitor, daughter or granddaughter, was sure to bring a handful of groundsel to the general rejoicing of Dicky’s friends. Of course, we also brought flowers whenever we could contrive it; or a little summer fruit or winter apples.

Lastly, Books, magazines, and simple papers of various kinds; such as Household Words, Chambers’ Magazine, &c. These were eagerly borrowed and exchanged, especially among the men. Nothing could be more dreary than the lives of those who were not actually suffering from any acute malady but were paralysed or otherwise disabled from work. I remember a ship-steward who had been struck with hemiplegia, and had spent the savings of his life time—no less than £800,—in futile efforts at cure. Another was a once-smart groom whom my friend exhorted to patience and thankfulness. “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied promptly, “I will be very thankful,—when I get out!”

As an example of the kind of way in which every sort of wretchedness drains into a workhouse and of what need there is for someone to watch for it there, I may record how we one day perceived at the far end of a very large ward a figure not at all of the normal workhouse stamp,—an unmistakeable gentleman,—sitting on the side of his bed. With some diffidence we offered him the most recent and least childish of our literature. He accepted the papers graciously, and we learnt from the Master that the poor man had been found on the Downs a few days before with his throat cut; happily not irreparably. He had come from Australia to Europe to dispute some considerable property, and had lost both his lawsuit and the friendship of all his English relatives, and was starving, and totally unable to pay his passage back to his wife and children at the Antipodes. We got up a little subscription, and the good Freemasons, finding him to be a Brother, did the rest, and sent him home across the seas, rejoicing, and with his throat mended!

But the cases of the incurable poor weighed heavily on us, and as we studied it more, we came to see how exceedingly piteous is their destiny. We found that it is not an accidental misfortune, but a regular descent down the well-worn channels of Poverty, Disease and Death, for men and women to go to one or other of the 270 hospitals for curable patients which then existed in England (there must be many more now), and after a longer or shorter sojourn, to be pronounced “incurable,” destined perhaps to linger for a year or several years, but to die inevitably from Consumption, Cancer or some other of the dreadful maladies which afflict human nature. What then becomes of them? Their homes, if they had any before going into the hospital, are almost sure to be too crowded to receive them back, or too poor to supply them with both support and nursing for months of helplessness. There is no resource for them but the workhouse, and there they sink down, hopeless and miserable; the hospital comforts of good beds and furniture and carefully prepared food and skilled nurses all lost, and only the hard workhouse bed to lie, and die upon. The burst of agony with which many a poor creature has told me: “I am sent here because I am incurable,” remains one of the saddest of my memories.

Miss Elliot’s keen and practical mind turned over the problem of how this misery could be in some degree alleviated. There was no use in trying to get sufficient Hospitals for Incurables opened to meet the want. There were only two at that time in England, and they received (as they do now) a rather different class from those with whom we are concerned; namely, the deformed and permanently diseased. At the lowest rate of £30 a year it would have needed £900,000 a year to house the 30,000 patients whom we should have wished to take from the workhouses. The only possible plan was to improve their condition in the workhouses; and this we fondly hoped might be done (without burdening the ratepayers) by our plan, which was as follows:—

That the incurables in workhouses should be avowedly distinguished from other paupers, and separate wards be allowed to them. That into those wards private charity be freely admitted and permitted to introduce, with the sanction of the medical officer, such comforts as would alleviate the sufferings of the inmates, e.g., good spring beds, or air beds; easy-chairs, air-cushions, small refreshments such as good tea and lemons and oranges (often an immense boon to the sick); also snuff, cough lozenges, spectacles, flowers in the window, books and papers; and, above all, kindly visitors.

The plan was approved by a great many experienced men and women; and, as it would not have added a shilling anywhere to the rates, we were very hopeful that it might be generally adopted. Several pamphlets which we wrote, “The Workhouse as a Hospital,” “Destitute Incurables,” and the “Sick in Workhouses,” and “Remarks on Incurables,” were widely circulated. The newspapers were very kind, and leaders or letters giving us a helping hand were inserted in nearly all, except the Saturday Review, which refused even one of its own regular contributors’ requests to introduce the subject. I wrote an article called Workhouse Sketches for Macmillan’s Magazine, dealing with the whole subject, and begged that it might be inserted gratuitously. To my delight the editor, Mr. Masson, wrote to me the following kind letter which I have kept among my pleasant souvenirs:—

“As soon as possible in this part of the month, when there is much to do with the forthcoming number, I have read your paper. Having an almost countless number of MSS. in hand, I greatly feared I might, though very reluctantly, be compelled to return it, but the reading of it has so convinced me of the great importance of arousing interest in the subject, and the paper itself is so touching, that I think I ought, with whatever difficulty, to find a place for it....

“In any case accept my best thanks for the opportunity of reading so admirable and powerful an experience; and allow me to express my regret that I had not the pleasure of meeting you at Mrs. Reid’s.

“Should you object to your name appearing in connexion with this paper? It is our usual practice.”

The paper appeared and soon after, to my equal astonishment and delight, came a cheque for £14. It was the first money I had ever earned and when I had cashed the cheque I held the sovereigns in my hand and tossed them with a sense of pride and satisfaction which the gold of the Indies, if gained by inheritance, would not have given me! Naturally I went down straight to St. Peter’s and gave the poor old souls such a tea as had not been known before in the memory of the “oldest inhabitant.”

We also printed, and ourselves directed and posted circulars to the 666 Unions which then existed in England. We received a great many friendly letters in reply, and promises of help from Guardians in carrying out our plan. A certain number of Unions, I think 15, actually adopted it and set it going. We also induced the Social Science people, then very active and influential, to take it up, and papers on it were read at the Congresses in Glasgow and Dublin; the latter by myself. The Hon. Sec. (then the young poetess Isa Craig) wrote to me as follows:

“The case of the poor ‘incurables’ is truly heartrending. I cried over the proof of your paper—a queer proceeding on the part of the Sub-editor of the Social Science Transactions, but I hope an earnest of the sympathy your noble appeal shall meet with wherever our volume goes, setting in action the roused sense of humanity and justice to remedy such bitter wrong and misery.

A weightier testimony was that of the late Master of Balliol. The following letters from him on the subject are, I think, very characteristic and charming:—

“I am very much obliged to you for sending me the extract from the newspaper which contains the plan for Destitute Incurables. I entirely agree in the object and greatly like the touching and simple manner in which you have described it.

“The only thing that occurs to me in passing is whether the system of outdoor relief to incurables should not also be extended? Many would still require to be received into the house (I do not wish in any degree to take away from the poor the obligation to support their Incurables outdoors, and it is, perhaps, better to trust to the natural human pity of a cottage than to the better attendance, warmth, &c., of a workhouse). But I daresay you are right in sticking to a simple point.

“All the world seems to be divided into Political Economists, Poor Law Commissioners, Guardians, Policemen, and Philanthropists, Enthusiasts, and Christian Socialists. Is there not a large intermediate ground which anyone who can write might occupy, and who could combine a real knowledge of the problems to be solved with the enthusiasm which impels a person to devote their life to solving them?

“The way would be to hide the philanthropy altogether as a weakness of the flesh; and sensible people would then be willing to listen.

“I entirely like the plan and wish it success....

“I am afraid that I am not likely to have an opportunity of making the scheme known. But if you have any other objects in which I can help you I shall think it a great pleasure to do so.

“Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his daughters. I thought they were not going to banish themselves to Cannes. Wherever they are I cannot easily forget them.

“I hope you enjoy Garibaldi’s success. It is one of the very few public events that seem to make life happier.

“I write a line to thank you for the little pamphlet you have sent me which I read and like very much.

“There is no end of good that you may do by writing in that simple and touching style upon social questions.

“But don’t go to war with Political Economy. 1st. Because the P. E.’s are a powerful and dangerous class. 2nd. Because it is impossible for ladies and gentlemen to fill up the interstices of legislation if they run counter to the common motives of self-interest. 3rd. (You won’t agree to this) Because the P. E.’s have really done more for the labouring classes by their advocacy of free trade, &c., than all the Philanthropists put together.

“I wish that it were possible as a matter of taste to get rid of all philanthropic expressions, ‘missions, &c.,’ which are distasteful to the educated. But I suppose they are necessary for the Collection of Money. And no doubt as a matter of taste there is a good deal that might be corrected in the Political Economists.

“The light of the feelings never teaches the best way of dealing with the world en masse and the dry light never finds its way to the heart either of man or beast.

“You see I want all the humanities combined with Political Economy. Perhaps, it may be replied that such a combination is not possible in human nature.

“Excuse my speculations and believe me in haste,

About the same time that we began to visit the Bristol work house, Miss Louisa Twining bravely undertook a systematic reform of the whole system throughout the country. It was an enormous task, but she had great energy, and a fund of good sense; and with the support of Lord Mount-Temple (then Hon. William Cowper-Temple), Mrs. Tait, and several other excellent and influential persons, she carried out a grand reformation through the length and breadth of the land. Her Workhouse Visiting Society, and the monthly Journal she edited as its organ, brought by degrees good sense and good feeling quietly and unostentatiously to bear on the Boards of Guardians and their officials all over the country, and one abuse after another was disclosed, discussed, condemned, and finally, in most cases abolished. I went up for a short visit to London at one time on purpose to learn all I could from General Twining (as I used to call her), and then returned to Bristol. I have been gratified to read in her charming Recollections published last year (1893), that in her well-qualified judgment Miss Elliot’s work and mine was really the beginning of much that has subsequently been done for the sick and for workhouse girls. She says:

“In 1861^[16] began the consideration of ‘Destitute Incurables,’ which was in its results to bring forth such a complete reform in the care of the sick in Workhouses, or at least I am surely justified in considering it one of the good seeds sown, which brought forth fruit in due season. One of the first to press the claims of these helpless ones on the notice of the public, who were, almost universally, utterly ignorant of their existence and their needs, was Frances Power Cobbe, who was then introduced to me; she lived near Bristol, and with her friend Miss Elliot, also of that place, had long visited the workhouse, and become acquainted with the inmates, helping more especially the school children, and befriending the girls after they went to service. This may be said to be one of the first beginnings of all those efforts now so largely developed by more than one society expressly for this object.