Chapter II (3)

I know very well that you will like to hear of my little darlings. For some time past I have written but little about them, because I have been much interested about other things; and they have been but little to me, except that I have treasured their affection much. I know now how much I have neglected them, and am at last thoroughly awakened from my dream. But I very much regret to say that a spirit has entered into the workroom which I do not think healthy. When I was with you, I think I must have spoken of the hardness of working when one is suspected, and not steadily cared for. Now I have a far different cause of complaint;—an exaggerated admiration, an immovable belief that all I do is perfect, a dislike of anyone who even tells me to do anything which they see I do not wish to do. But I trust soon to bring this also to reason. I care little for what is called a merry Christmas; but it made me very sad to hear all last week calculations about puddings, discussions as to whether they could not manage to come in for two Christmas dinners, mixed with laments that they should have to nurse a baby all day; no real pleasure to look forward to, with a very strong feeling that they had a right to some. I could bear it no longer. I proposed that we should have a snapdragon all together some evening. They were overjoyed. We found we could have a grand one by paying twopence each. Still I found that it was but little, as it would last so short a time. I then thought of a Christmas tree. I am going to Grandpapa’s to-morrow, and shall endeavour to get a little fir or holly. All the children bought small things for it last Saturday, and will I daresay, do so next;—tapers, apples, oranges, nuts, &c. I then asked them to bring all their sisters, and all their brothers under twelve. Many did not wish for the trouble of taking care of the little ones; but I have insisted, and I believe prevailed. Of course we shall have grand games, sea’s rough, hunt the slipper, old coach, frog in the middle, blind man’s buff, &c. The children must all have tea before they come. Fortunately there is no ice to break. We all know one another. Andy is going to write a little play for them to act; and I shall teach them it during work. This is a great delight to them. Another thing which I anticipate great pleasure from is dancing. They will enjoy it much. Really the spirit shown has been beautiful. One of the girls has asked her mother to make a cake and send it. One great distress is that some of them have nothing but heavy boots, and so will not be able to dance. Poor little things! I wish I could do for them all which I have it in my heart to do. It will be a strange party; there will be no hostess; or rather, we shall all be hostesses. Each will have contributed what she could. Another thing which I mean to do, if I find it possible without bringing ourselves into bondage, is to ask for contributions from the richer members of the Guild. I am sure it will do both them and us good. But I trust to show to others and to myself, how much of what is precious in a party is entirely independent of any expenditure, and eating; how possible it is to have much fellowship and gaiety without large outlay of money. I have renounced parties myself. There is no longer any pleasure to be found in them, which may not be found better elsewhere. This love of immense gatherings is unmeaning. The love of show is detestable. There is no time for conversation, no place for affection, no purpose in them, or none which I can understand. And yet I do feel that this party will be a very nice one. I do believe it will succeed. I have renounced parties, above all I have renounced Christmas parties. It is now certainly a time for rejoicing. I believe it; but, as one grows and lives, above all as year follows year, and there is removed from one’s side one whose blessed smile has lighted our Christmas hearth, as the vacant chair becomes a witness of the lost one, as one is conscious of the “one mute presence watching all,” when one has said in one’s heart, “Why should we keep Christmas at all; witness as it is of change?” and one has answered, “Would the sense of change forsake you if you had no such time? Do you wish that it should leave you? Or has it taught you to put all trust in One who is unchanging, Who gives to all their work, Who binds all in one?” When one has felt all this, the mirth of Christmas is gone but not its value; witness, as it is, of that inward union of which we vainly strive to hold the outward symbol. We may spend it in the truest sense _with_ those who have been called to other lands.

[Sidenote: VALUE OF CHRISTMAS TO THE CHILDREN]

But these, my children, to whom care and anxiety are so familiar, and to whom all the beauty and poetry of life are so strange, so new,—I must bring home to them some of the gladness which they see around them; their only Christmas trees must not be those in confectioners’ windows, at which they gaze with longing eyes. There is time enough for Christmas to become solemn, when it has become joyful and dear.

I thought that I loved these children when I was with you. I did not know how much it was possible to love them. I am very much pleased about another person, with whom I have been so long,—Miss Cons. She has now thoroughly established herself, and has begun to study, walk, think, draw, be entirely independent of me. More than this, when she came here, she had not a single person in the world to love or be loved by except her own family.... Our Miss Cons, however, has got to know friends; and whoever cares to break through her shell will be well rewarded. I am most pleased to find that there are several who have done so, and that she is gaining warm friends. I find in her a strength and energy which is quite refreshing, and consign to her much which I should otherwise undertake myself. I feel, in Miss Cons, whose growth I have watched eagerly, an amazing perseverance, a calmness, a power, and a glorious humility before which I bow, and which I feel may be destined to carry out great works more nobly. I am particularly glad that she has friends, as I find that now instead of giving her my society, I can only give her my friendship and sympathy.

Now dear Miss Harris good night. I do most fervently hope that you may have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

January 11th, 1856.

TO MARY HARRIS.

It is on loving, infinitely more than on being loved, that happiness depends. I feel how little the reception of one’s services or love has to do with their power of giving joy. However, yesterday the children were particularly kind, dear little things! To-morrow the College begins again. Oh I am so glad the holidays are over! I have not heard from Ruskin. Perhaps I shall find a letter to-day. Shall I, I wonder, go to him to-morrow?

I am reading aloud to the children a very beautiful book by Miss Gillies; and it was so strange to meet with real things that had done and said and heard said, long, long ago, when I used to stay there.

The Men’s College is to be moved to Great Ormond Street; but whether our classes are going too I do not know. I hear that at one meeting it was proposed that women should be admitted to the General Meeting. The idea was laughed at. Someone then proposed that the women’s classes should be held in the evening; and the question was referred to the Council.

[Sidenote: “TOY CHILDREN” MANAGEMENT]

Ladies’ Guild,
January 27th, 1856.

MIRANDA TO JOANNA DURRANT _née_ GRAHAM.

Ockey is so accurate and so certain in her statements that she has been able to refute all aspersions; and her excellent management of the toy work is so evident; all the details are so perfect, which is what Mr. Neale thinks so much of, that it is clear he is entirely on Ockey’s side in the matter; though she has a good deal of pain, and has still some anxiety about it. As for her influence over the children, it strengthens day by day; those who have been constantly with us are so much impressed.

Ladies’ Guild,
February 18th, 1856.

TO EMILY.

... My own plans are very uncertain; my own wish is to find such work as can be done in the workroom, so that I may superintend the children without receiving remuneration, but which may at the same time be sufficiently remunerative to allow me to earn more, and yet continue my studies. I shall speak to D. to-morrow to find out whether colouring photographs would meet these conditions, and whether I can get work at it. Another plan is to learn watch engraving. Bennett promises work to us, but cannot teach. I cling to the idea, as it affords a prospect of establishing a Guild gradually; the objection is the time which would probably intervene before I should acquire skill. I do not at all enter into D.’s plan of designing. I do not believe in it as remunerative; and it would separate me from that social work which I have learned to prize so highly. One other path is open. I have to write to Ruskin this week, and you will hear from me after I have done so. I ought to say that I told Mr. Neale my plans on Saturday; and he said he was very glad that I should get other work, the employment here being so uncertain....

I speak (perhaps it may seem indifferently) of the utter failure of that for which we have all struggled so long and so hard. I do so, partly because I believe that what we have asked for has not failed; but I am not to speak of that now. I do so, because, although at present I am much bent upon securing a living for ourselves, I intend to accept no work however delightful, however remunerative (except as a temporary thing), which would deprive me of the power of working for others. I care but little for any system of division of profits, although it may bear witness for a great truth, and be the means of equalising remunerations, and avoiding disputes. That which I _do_ care for is the intercourse, sympathy, self-sacrifice, and mutual help which are called out in fellow-workers; and this I believe to be worth striving for; this I mean to work for. I may seem to turn out of the path in this wearying wood; but it will only be a walk round a thicket, which hindered my progress; and free from debt, and with a clear conscience, I will work, even if I have (which, however, I do not believe) to work in another way for a short time.

[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN]

Ladies’ Guild,
February 27th, 1856.

MIRANDA TO MRS. DURRANT.

There are many events going on here; but I do not wish to speak of them till they are certain. It is indeed delightful that Mama has found some one to take her articles. I long to read them.

Thank you for the present for the Scripture prints. I have refrained from at all touching on the subject of religion with the children, since Miss C.’s affair; because I thought Mr. Neale would not wish it introduced as a lesson. Miss C. did not approve of my reading the Bible with the children. They have often begged me to do so since; but I felt I had no right to do it in lesson time without Mr. Neale’s permission; but I shall ask him now whether he objects.... Ruskin is delighted with Ockey’s table, and means to give her employment in illumination, if she will learn it, and if she has the powers he believes she has; and she means to give an hour or two to the Toy superintendence, and the rest to illumination. Is not this _very very_ good news? Ruskin has been so exceedingly kind to Ockey about it. She received to-day a present of a beautiful paint-box and all other materials she can want. I think she must be very happy. She has just completed some work. I mean the moral training of the Industrial children; so she can now leave the chief superintendence to another person, in the full confidence that all will go well, and she is just beginning another work that is delightful to her. And she has so many friends. The Sterlings, Mr. Maurice, Miss Rogers, Ruskin and nice Miss Harrison all seem so fond of her. She is very successful and deserves to be so, for she does everything so well.

Ladies’ Guild.
March 18th, 1856.

TO EMILY.

We shall indeed be glad to see you. Come as early as ever you can on Thursday. I have succeeded in avoiding going to Pentonville. At present the arrangement is that Mr. P. has no connection with us, except that Kitty or any of us can cut and inlay for him in a workroom at our own house; that our house is to be entirely separate from the children’s workroom; the former being cheaper if situated nearer Camden Town, and it being essential that the latter should be easy of access for Mr. Neale and others. We shall probably get it somewhere near Red Lion Square, Queen’s Square and Lincoln’s Inn. Hurrah! This morning all was doubtful, to-night all is going right....

Dear Minnie, think well before you decide to come, whether you will choose to do so now, while all is bustle, change, confusion, and contention, or after we are settled. We long very much to see you; and you would be of _great_ use, and it would be a great comfort to have you with me to “baffle” everyone. Could you manage to stay till Tuesday, and go with me to Ruskin’s? We would stay afterwards and see his pictures; and I could leave you at the Waterloo Station as we passed, coming home? You will hear Mr. Maurice too. I never can find time to-night to tell you all or one half of that which has happened only to-day. How much less then, that which has happened during the last week! Already I have more to do this week, than I could possibly do, if it were not absolutely necessary that it should be done. Mr. Neale has found a house, which he thinks would suit us; it must, however, be taken on lease; of course we can be neither legally nor morally bound to remain there. Our work may call us in other directions. I go to look for a toy-room to-morrow. Do come, darling.

[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK]

Tell my own Mamma that we feel with her how terribly painful this scene would be to her; but we hope she will soon come to us. Ask her not to think me unkind or thoughtless for not writing oftener. I really cannot. I work almost without intermission, giving up Lincoln’s Inn[23] even, continually. Also when one has some great purpose to carry out, some great struggle to go through, or some things troubling one, one cannot write to any to whom it would seem strange—not to mention that which is going on within one. If she could see what we go through, at every crisis of such a change as this, how one is one day triumphant, another uncertain, a third uneasy; and if there is momentary rest, the reaction is so strong that one is bound down by it, she would not wonder. Give my dear love to her.

Harry Rogers has been here to-night, to tell me about gold, outlines, brushes, pens, burnishing, etc.

I trust soon to send Mamma my first balance sheet! Do come, come early, but be prepared, if you come, to work.

If I find that I have time on Saturday or Monday to go to Ruskin, without an appointment, we will perhaps run the risk of not seeing him, as we can probably see the pictures.

Give my dear love to Mamma; tell her I hope not to fail, and ask her to believe me to be for ever her fellow-worker and disciple.

March 29th, 1856.

TO MISS HARRIS.

I have seen your cousin to-day, as perhaps you may have heard, and am very much pleased with him and all that he says. I am very, very sorry now that we did not keep to the subject, in which I suppose his principal interest lies, the employment of women. But somehow one so naturally speaks of that which one is doing; and so the conversation naturally turned to the employment and education of children; though I think you may have seen how conscious I have been lately of the intimate connection between the two subjects; principally because, unless you can develop the minds of your workers, they never can become intelligent, or qualify themselves to fill better situations.

Have you (and has Mrs. Simpson) seen Mrs. Jameson’s “Sisters of Mercy”? It is a book in which I feel a great interest; and which I value, particularly as showing how women and men ought to work together.

OCTAVIA TO MISS HARRIS.

I am out of spirits to-day; because we had already succeeded in making a profit of twelve shillings a week—instead of a loss of two pounds—when Mr. —— came to-day and gave orders for really unnecessary fittings which will cost a good deal. It is more than any mortal (or at least, more than I) can bear; it is really no use working. Yes it _is_ though.

13, Francis Street,
April 6th, 1856.

MRS. HILL TO EMILY.

[Sidenote: SECRETARYSHIP OF WOMEN’S CLASSES]

I write to tell you what I am sure you will consider very good news. Mr. Maurice has given Ockey the Secretaryship at the Women’s College at a salary of £26 a year. She has to be there two hours only every afternoon; and, as the children[24] cannot be left, you are to come and take her place in her absence. It is all settled; but you must come on Monday, that you may go on Tuesday to Ruskin with Ockey....

_Now_ are you not a happy child?...

Mr. Neale is so glad you are coming.