THE LAST TERM
‘And, when the day was done, relieved at once.’
BROWNING, _How it strikes a Contemporary_.
At the beginning of the year 1905 Miss Beale sought to induce Bishop
Ellicott, who had then resigned his see of Gloucester, to continue to
visit the Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, as he had done for upwards of
thirty years. He declined on the ground of ill-health, saying, ‘Among the
many things that I regret being unable to attend to, I regret none more
than the addresses to the bright-eyed attentive hearers I always secured
at the College. But all things must have an end.’ This was written but a
few months before the Bishop’s death.
Miss Beale, happily for her active spirit, was not thus summoned to
retire from work owing to age or feeble health. She had expressed more
than once the wish that she might die in harness, and her letters since
1900 had frequently breathed the wonder that she should still last on,
and up to the summer of 1906 there was nothing to suggest that the end
was really drawing near.
The last Christmas holidays were happy. Miss Beale made a round of
visits. At Lindfield she stayed with Miss Keyl, an old Gloucestershire
friend, in London with Mrs. Tallents, an old pupil. Lastly, having been
joined by Miss Alice Andrews, she went for a few days to Miss Wedgwood,
whose sister, Lady Farrer, was also staying with her. Miss Beale greatly
enjoyed her time with these old friends whom she had first known as
pupils at Queen’s College. She was singularly active. ‘I dare say you
would like to do just one thing each day,’ said one hostess to her,
little realising the vitality which would carry her on through a long
series of events such as would tire out most younger people.
The spring passed with little special incident, but for Miss Beale it was
saddened by the death of Mrs. Charles Robinson in March.
In the Easter holidays Miss Beale much enjoyed a visit to Miss Mellish,
Head-mistress of the Ladies’ College, Guernsey. Here she made many new
acquaintances, took drives, saw places of interest, and kept an account
of all in her diary. But the draft of a letter to some friend during this
visit shows, that in spite of her courageous spirit, she felt her own
term of work in this world to be practically over.
‘GUERNSEY, _April 1906_.
‘I arrived here yesterday. I am staying with a very nice old
girl who is Head-mistress of the College here. I have long
wished to see this beautiful island where I have many friends.
I have one of our staff with me who is a geologist, and is
enjoying rambles. I don’t go about now without some one, a
“lady-in-waiting,” to take care of me.
‘The revolutionary changes make one anxious, the Bill to
legalise “peaceful persuasion” especially. Perhaps the German
conquest may change all. That a contest must come there seems
no doubt, but it is better not to prophesy till after the
event....
‘There are problems enough for our successors on this planet. I
wonder what we shall find to do,—what battles to fight when we
pass out of sight.... I don’t think we shall want only _rest_.’
In the summer, having at first declined the invitation, Miss Beale
was persuaded to address the Head-mistresses’ Conference, which met
on June 8 and 9 at the Clapham High School. In spite of the deafness,
which made her dread committee meetings, she took her share in the
discussions. Speaking on a resolution concerning the suffrage she said:
‘The underpayment of women went to the heart of all as a crying evil, and
made every one earnest about the extension of the suffrage.’ She also
in a later discussion expressed her emphatic disapproval of afternoon
compulsory school, and related the history of the change made at
Cheltenham in 1864.
The address to the assembled head-mistresses on the following morning,
Miss Beale’s last public utterance, may well find a place here. Full of
the tenderest regard for the past, appreciating as no younger worker
could the ideals and conflicts of her own generation, that utterance
showed a front of marvellous courage and hope to the anxieties of the
present and future.
‘I feel a sorrowful pride as I remember some of the Heads of
the great Schools, who have passed out of sight, but whose
works follow them. We were happy in our founder:[97] with such
a leader one felt ashamed of any evil spirit of competition:
she always wanted to impart any good gift and introduce
improved methods of teaching: to recommend new books, and to
propose arrangements for the better organisation of schools,
for the training of teachers, for extending the sphere of
women’s work, for relieving them of the pressure of anxiety
about old age: these things occupied her thoughts while she was
still herself bearing the burden of financial responsibility,
and generously caring for those bound to her by strong ties of
family affection.... It was the celestial light which shone
inwardly that irradiated her outward life. Of external work
she undertook perhaps more than she ought to have done. She
was on the Governing Body of the Church Schools Company, a
member of our Governing Body, and of that of several other
schools. She spared no pains in labouring for others, always
sympathising and sustaining, fighting for the best good. Above
all, actuating her, and enabling her to go on bravely, was that
optimism which came from the belief that God had given her
this work to do, and that His Spirit would sustain her. Most
gracefully did she descend from her throne when the end came. I
shall not forget our last interview, when she playfully alluded
to the fact that she had now to become again as a little child,
to obey where she had ruled, and she was content to pass on the
work into the hands of one so able, so beloved, so trusted as
Mrs. Bryant.
‘Another early member was Miss Benson, the first Head-mistress
of the Girls’ Public Day Schools Company’s School at Oxford,
and afterwards, for a few months, at Bedford; she was a burning
and a shining light, unsparing in her demands upon herself and
others;—she might have been called Zelotes.
‘Of her successor, our own beloved Miss Belcher, it is hard
for me to speak. She was the soul of honour. I remember
one day she and her friend[98] came to me and said one of
them would like to apply for a good post, at a time when
head-mistress-ships did not abound. I said, “I think I ought
to tell you that events are impending which may shake our
College to its foundations.” Some would have said, “Let us
seek another shelter.” Their answer was, “We shall not apply.”
Sometimes one thinks that if she could have had a less onerous
work than the rule over the great school at Bedford, which
left but little leisure for exercise, she might be at work
now. But we will put aside “Might-have-beens,” as we see how
her spirit lives in her school. One of the Bedford Council
thought when a salary of over £1000 was offered, there would
be many applications—thought we might send a second Head as
her successor, but not one of our staff would apply, for Miss
Belcher had chosen.
‘This year has taken from us one of my best-beloved pupils, the
late Head-mistress of Truro High School, afterwards the wife of
Canon Charles Robinson; all who knew her regarded her as indeed
a saint.
‘I may not speak of the living—none are happy till their
death—but it is a joy to me (now the most ancient grandmother
of all) to see with intimate knowledge the good work being
done by those whom I have learned to know as friends and
fellow-workers. Specially close ties bind me to those
Head-mistresses whom we ourselves have sent forth. Of these in
the Association there are now twenty presiding over important
schools, and ten who are no longer Heads, not to name many who
for various reasons do not belong to our Association.
‘To turn to less personal matters, we who belong to Secondary
Schools have been happy in escaping the troubles which beset
those schools which receive Government grants. So far,
Secondary Schools have been allowed some individuality. I
think we may give thanks for the liberty of “prophesying,”
that we have hitherto enjoyed. I rather dread the result of
the absorption into Trusts of the great School Companies. “Wha
dare meddle wi’ me?” has been the cry of some of us, and the
prickles have protected the flower.
‘Then we have escaped payment by results, and interference from
inspectors, some of whom are able to see the body but not the
soul which moves it.
‘The present troubles bring us into closer sympathy with those
who have been enduring what seemed to us an Egyptian bondage,
but who were doing grand work in disciplining and drilling the
masses. Many of those who are now to take up the management of
Council schools are now brought into closer relation with ours.
‘ ... And now what is the main issue before us? When the
Secondary Schools are absorbed into the national system, and
orders are issued to us from the Education Department, shall
we be told that we also are to give only secular instruction,
and forbidden to give definite teaching regarding the creeds
and ritual which express the truths by which we live;—shall
we be forbidden to ask any questions about the fitness of the
teachers whom we wish to appoint? These are matters which seem
to press for answers.
‘Only a few thoughts can I throw out to-day on this subject.
First, it seems inconceivable that there should be any such
limitations of the realms of knowledge as is implied in the
word “secular.” Man’s thoughts cannot be shut in by space or
time, he must seek the real beneath the phenomenal, he must
search for the ultimate; more than any earthly or secular
good he desires to know and live for the things which belong
to an eternal world,—the true, the beautiful, the good.
All literature, all history, attests this. Whence then the
discordant cries, some demanding secular teaching only, others
fearing it?
‘I think we are confused sometimes, because we do not
remember or recognise sufficiently that there are two ways
of approaching the subject of religious teaching and of all
subjects of thought. Take for an illustration the subject now
occupying the scientific world. Can we retain the conception
of the atom as formulated in the last century? Is matter an
aggregate of impenetrable, indivisible nodules, or is an atom
merely a centre of force? Have we nothing that we should call
solid, only vortices? Is solidity a flux of ions? These are
all matters on which the wisest may differ, but there are
certain fundamental facts on which all are agreed—the fact
that there must be one all-embracing medium through which
relations are realised. So in the world of spirit, the fact
is indisputable that we are conscious of forces affecting us
and on which we individually react, indisputable that we can
interpret facts of sensation, and this necessitates a belief
in the correspondence of our mind with one all-embracing
spirit; it seems impossible to doubt that in interpreting
the universe we are corresponding with and holding communion
with an infinite mind revealed in Nature, and we repeat
with inner conviction the first article of our Creed—“God
created,”—we pass on to the second half—“God created man in
His own image,” and so we go on to speak of other articles of
faith. Philosophy, which has so large a place in the Bible
teaching and which is always based on the facts of our inner
consciousness and our moral sense, ought, I believe, to have
a larger space in our teaching, but we should endeavour more
to build on foundations which cannot be shaken. The mystery of
our own being, the distinction of the “I” and the “Me,” the
facts of conscience, the συνείδησις which lifts us out of the
mere individual or animal, and speaks of the relation of the
true self to the eternal, the kingdom of righteousness,—the
evolution of human thought through the ages,—leads on to the
faith that man is indeed the child of God, that His Spirit is
inspiring us.
‘What seem to us present troubles are perhaps intended to
make us dig deeper in the field wherein the great treasure
of spiritual truth is hidden, so that we may say with fuller
conscious conviction, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”—“is
within you.”’
On her way to Paddington after the Head-mistresses’ Conference, the cab
which contained Miss Beale and Miss Andrews was run into by another, a
shaft shattering the window beside Miss Beale.
She did not realise her danger or that her shawl was full of bits of
broken glass. The accident is alluded to in the letter she afterwards
wrote to Mrs. Woodhouse, whose guest she had been at Clapham.
‘I am so glad I was able to be present. It was a most
interesting meeting; and very glad to see your beautiful
school....
‘Lord Aberdeen [once] complimented me on not suffering from
“train fever”; I am afraid I seemed to do so at lunch. It was
well that we allowed a little spare time to be run into. One
needs to allow for motors!’
It was the year of the Guild meetings. A very large number of old
pupils, larger than ever before, came to Cheltenham in June, for every
year saw additions to the roll of members and no falling off among the
elder ones, who felt each time might be the last occasion on which the
beloved Principal would preside. The subject chosen for the play was the
very unusual one of a story from Egyptian history. No pains were spared
to render it truthfully; Dr. Budge was consulted, the Book of the Dead
studied; Miss Beale herself gave a lecture on the history of Egypt, a
subject she had never worked up before. The story of the great queen
whose life was given up to her country, ordered wholly for their good,
with no private interests; whose marriage was an act of sacrifice; who
ruled her people with large-minded beneficence, and under whom they
prospered; who finally, as age came upon her, resigned for their sake,
seemed strangely appropriate for the close of Miss Beale’s long work for
Cheltenham. The very remoteness of the story, its gravity, the absence
from it of such didacticism as abounded in Miss Beale’s interpretation
of Britomart and Griselda, made it all the more forcible. It was in no
way premeditated. Miss Beale herself said she did not much care for it,
as it contained so little spiritual teaching. But as the curtain fell
upon Hatshepset’s resignation and death, the crowded audiences of past
and present pupils palpably realised that for them the inevitable change
awaiting the College had been, if unconsciously, foreshadowed.
The Guild arrangements, which generally included an address from Miss
Beale on Saturday morning and a closing one on Monday from some speaker
invited for the purpose, were altered in 1906 to suit the convenience
of the Bishop of Stepney. The earlier address was given by the Bishop
after the College prayers, which Miss Beale herself read as usual. His
subject was the work of St. Hilda’s East and the needs of East London.
He held his hearers enthralled as he spoke to them of those other girls
and women whom they were meant to help. But even more striking than the
strong words of the young Bishop was the sight of the frail and aged form
of her, so long their teacher and inspirer, to whom most of those present
were consciously and deeply indebted for much that was best in their
lives. Miss Beale, with the familiar smile which marked her enthusiastic
approval, stood the whole time close to the Bishop, straining to hear
every word, her eye alert to trace the effect of what he was saying
on his audience. Many who saw her thus saw her for the last time, as
they had to leave Cheltenham when the morning Guild meetings were over.
Miss Beale herself left before the end, unequal to the long strain they
involved.
On Sunday the usual admission of new members took place. On Monday Miss
Beale addressed the Guild for the last time. It was not unnatural that
she should speak on this occasion as one who looked back on the changes
and progress of fifty years. Miss Beale conveyed to her hearers the
suggestion that it was not with unmixed satisfaction that she surveyed
matters from this standpoint. In the midst of advantages, such as the
last generation could not know, their eyes opened to the needs of others,
needs they could supply, many women remained not serious, not devoted.
She appealed for more earnestness in all, that there might be none
wearing the Guild badge who should not be able to use the motto of St.
Hilda’s, Oxford: _Non frustra vixi_.
So passed this great gathering of friends. It was only afterwards that it
came to be known that below her joyous affectionate welcome, her ready
sympathy and quick memory for her children and their concerns, lay a deep
reason for personal anxiety, that she was beginning to suspect herself
to be the victim of a serious malady. Only once was there a sign of
uneasiness, when she seemed much distressed not to have seen again an old
pupil and Guild member, Dr. Aldrich-Blake, who had been obliged to leave
Cheltenham without saying good-bye to her.
The summer holidays were again spent at Oeynhausen. She wrote in the
course of them that she was deriving benefit from the treatment, but
certainly it was far less effective than before. Nor did she give herself
a chance of throwing off the cares of work. In the ordinary sense of the
word, indeed, Miss Beale could never rest, and though physically less
strong her brain seemed inexhaustibly active. She corrected the Magazine
proofs, engaged new teachers, and wrote many letters to the College
secretary, going as usual into all kinds of details about arrangements
for new pupils. Nor did she even rest from study. She wrote to Cheltenham
for a table of German genders; while from Mr. Worsley she asked the
Scripture examination papers, which he had as usual undertaken. Her
letter shows this continued activity of mind:—
‘_September 12, 1906._
‘Thanks for your note. I think I should like to have all the
papers; we can better show the girls where they have failed to
enter into the full meaning. I looked at mine, and thought they
had kept to very outside things.
‘Have you seen Montague Owen’s record of the Sewell family?
It is privately printed, but I can lend you my copy. They
certainly were a wonderful and original people. Now Elizabeth
is gone at the age of ninety-one. You were, I think, at Radley.
‘We re-open next week with one hundred and fifty new pupils to
fill our vacancies.’
She was glad to get back to Cheltenham, but those who knew her best saw
that it was only by a stern effort of will that she nerved herself to
begin her work in the ordinary way. They began to hope that she might not
much longer be called upon to make what was visibly a tremendous effort.
Nothing was left undone.
School began on September 22. Miss Beale, as usual on the first day of
term, gave a short address after prayers to the assembled teachers and
children. She spoke, as often before, of the parable of the Talents, but
mainly of the joy of the Lord—the joy and reward of being fellow-workers
with God. Strangely fitting did her words afterwards seem for the last
time she addressed the College as a body.
In the month which followed only a few saw signs of the weakness and
illness which had really begun. She had undertaken the usual courses of
lectures, and missed none. The College numbers were very large, the life
as full and vigorous as ever. There was even a new department started for
the first time that term, in the arrangement—the revolution of Time’s
wheel having been made—of courses of lessons in cookery.
On October 16 the annual Council meeting was held in London. In order
to spare herself fatigue, Miss Beale did not as usual accompany Miss
Alice Andrews to the Oxford meeting on the previous evening, but went
up alone from Cheltenham the next morning. It meant a long day and an
early start, earlier than ever before, as the time of departure had been
altered. This Miss Beale only learned the same morning, but with her
habit of being ready long beforehand she was able to catch the train.
This, by the new arrangement, did not wait for the Oxford train by which
Miss Andrews went up. Consequently, when Miss Andrews arrived at the
Paddington Hotel, Miss Beale had already gone to see her doctor, Miss
Aldrich-Blake. Probably she preferred to make this visit alone.
To Miss Aldrich-Blake she owned that she was tired, that she felt her
much impaired hearing and sight to be a hindrance to work; but she
made light of the malady which was her real and undefined dread. Miss
Aldrich-Blake, however, advised an immediate operation, in spite of the
annual general meeting fixed for November 16,[99] on account of which
Miss Beale wished to put it off for the present. On leaving the doctor’s
house Miss Beale went on alone to keep one or two appointments. At the
Council meeting in the afternoon she showed no fatigue, but read her
report with animation. Miss Andrews then joined her for St. Hilda’s
committee meeting. They left this meeting in time to catch the afternoon
train back to Cheltenham. Miss Beale generally slept for part of this
journey; that day she was wakeful and tired, but she said nothing then to
Miss Andrews of what the doctor had told her. She did, however, shortly
tell Miss Rowand, who persuaded her to see Dr. Cardew. He confirmed Dr.
Aldrich-Blake’s opinion, and Miss Beale then made up her mind to enter a
nursing home, hard by the College, on Monday, October 22. During these
intervening days she went on with her usual work, and silently made
preparation for what might be a final parting from it. On Sunday, which
she spent alone but for a visit from Fräulein Grzywacz, she wrote a large
number of letters. One was to the Vice-Principal, Miss Sturge:—
‘I have been feeling very unwell since my return from Germany,
and two doctors whom I have consulted say I must have a few
weeks away. I am sorry to throw any of my work on others, but
I thought the week in which our half-term holiday comes my
absence would be less felt. Also, as the Bishop gives five
lectures, these would take the place of mine on Saturdays.... I
thought some one who has taught the Fairy Queen could take [my
literature lesson]. The doctor who knows me best fixed three
weeks as the date of my return.’
One to Miss Gore:—
‘I have not told any one but Miss Rowand the reason why I
shall have to be absent, perhaps for a few weeks—perhaps for
ever—from my beloved College. I want you to come and stay in
the house till we see which way things will go. I hope you will
manage to come, and that you will put on a cheerful countenance
and not let any one suspect that there is so serious a cause
for my absence. I am very grateful for having been allowed
to do so many years of work, very grateful for the loyal
and affectionate support of my colleagues and our Council,
specially the Chairman. I think I feel content whichever way
things may be ordered for me by Him who doth not willingly
afflict, but chastens for our profit.—Yours affectionately,
D. BEALE.’
On Monday, October 22, Miss Beale read prayers as usual, choosing a hymn
by Miss Fermi from the collection of school hymns she herself had made:—
‘All the way our Father leadeth,
Whether dark or bright.’
After prayers she gave her last Scripture lesson—the usual Monday lesson
to the assembled First Division. The subject was the Healing of the Body,
in connection with thoughts suggested by St. Luke’s Day, and the Gospel
for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. It was a remarkable lesson. One
who had not been present said that, when she entered the Hall after it
was over, people were talking of Miss Beale’s wonderful Scripture lesson.
In it she dwelt, as often before, on the duty of the care of health; and
yet it was not to be the first consideration. She showed why sickness of
the body is often for our profit. Then, having touched on wrong teachings
about the body, as, for instance, those of Buddhism, she showed that the
Incarnation brought unity of the whole being, at-one-ment of body, soul,
and spirit. She concluded with the words: ‘The Body of our Lord Jesus
Christ preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.’
After the lesson Miss Beale read the weekly class marks, as usual on
Mondays. In the course of the morning she discussed a paper she had
written, for the American National Educational Association, with Miss
Alice Andrews. Miss Andrews told her that a member of the staff had lost
her mother, and during the day Miss Beale wrote a note of sympathy. In
a second interview that morning Miss Beale told Miss Andrews that the
doctor had told her she must lie up for some weeks. ‘But I am not going
away, I shall be amongst you all.’
Miss Sturge noticed that Miss Beale lingered in the Hall when school was
over, as if unwilling to leave. She seemed pathetically anxious to leave
nothing undone. Finally, after discussing several small matters, she
said, ‘Good-bye; I hope to come back in three weeks, and you can just
say I am resting. I will not tell you where, and then if you are asked
you will not know.’ Then she added wistfully, ‘Perhaps I may never come
back.’ On that afternoon, accompanied by Miss Rowand, she went to the
nursing home.
The operation took place next day. Miss Beale found it hard just at
first to reconcile herself to the position of patient, and the absolute
obedience and dependence it involved. But in the charge of Miss Lane and
her staff she was surrounded with loving care, to which she was most
responsive, once pointing out to a friend the nurse who was standing by
as ‘the one who spoils me so.’ Miss Gore and Miss Rowand saw her from
time to time. The mid-term holiday was approaching, and she spoke of
arrangements for it, and begged Miss Rowand to send her party for their
usual expedition in charge of the house-governesses, and to remain at
home herself.
Up to the morning of Sunday the 28th all seemed to go well. Very early
that day she seemed ill, and wandering in mind, getting up and saying she
must go to early service. In the afternoon she was quiet and calm, and
saw one or two friends. To Miss Gore she spoke of the coming All Saints’
Day, saying how much the Communion of Saints meant to her.
On this day also, by the hand of Miss Lane—but she signed it herself—she
wrote a last letter to Miss Amy Giles[100]:—
‘I went up to a Council Meeting, and afterwards consulted Dr.
Aldrich-Blake. I had had my suspicions for some time, and she
at once confirmed them. I went on to Paddington, as we had a
meeting of our Council, and returned at three o’clock. Then
after a few days we decided to enter a Home, and here I am....
They say I am going on very well, but I had to leave my work.
My doctor says I can come back probably at the end of three
weeks, which I am anxious to do, as I have a General Meeting
(annual) on the 16th November. I am very contented, and the
Head of the Home takes great care of me. The only people I
allow to know are Miss Rowand and Miss Gore, who are coming
to see me to-day. I have had a not very cheerful Sunday, and
I wonder whether I shall get right, sometimes I hope not. I
wonder if we shall meet again. I hope some day. I need not say
how dear you are to me. We have lost many friends this last
year. At least, I ought not to say that, they have passed out
of sight. I think you have not heard that both Mr. and Mrs.
Rix, who came to our first Retreat, have passed away within the
month, so those three friends have met once more.[101] ... I
have been talking to the Head of this Home, who is very anxious
to have a Home for six ladies, I have promised her £100. What
do you think of a site? I know your father built one in the
Isle of Wight, but it is an expensive place. There, I don’t
think I have any more to say.—Yours very affectionately,
DOROTHEA BEALE.’
On Monday came the change for the worse; nervous prostration, from which
she never rallied, although one day there seemed a gleam of hope, and
during the brief improvement she dictated to Miss Lane, at the doctor’s
request, some details of the days before the operation:—
‘On Tuesday (the 16th October) I went up to London hurriedly
at 6.37, full of the thought of what was before me. I went
straight to Dr. Aldrich-Blake, an old pupil. She condemned me.
Then I saw, as I had arranged, a new attendant. I looked into
shops and felt giddy, and went on to the place of meeting,
where I saw two others, and lastly several friends, and those
who were to dine together to attend the meeting of our Council,
and next a meeting of our St. Hilda’s Council, and then came
down to Cheltenham, thinking of course of what I should do. The
following Tuesday you know I decided and you arranged for the
operator to come from Birmingham, and you can report further.
I gave all my lessons as usual, and corrected all my exercises
until the evening of Monday. Whatever my work was I did it.
My last lesson was on Monday morning. I had planned to give a
Confirmation lesson on Tuesday, but this the doctor forbade.’
Once after this she recognised the doctor. Once she asked for her
Prayer-book and spectacles, but before they could be brought she had
lapsed again into unconsciousness. When her sister addressed her by
name, she turned her head, but did not open her eyes. Then on November
8 appeared more alarming bulletins, and on the 9th the fatal notice,
‘Miss Beale is sinking.’ ‘We went through the morning,’ says Miss Sturge,
‘feeling like Elisha. “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy
master from thy head to-day? Yea, I know it, hold ye your peace.”’
Not in Cheltenham only, but far and wide her children were praying for
her; watching for news, remembering and repeating to each other things
she had said. It was stormy weather, and more than one thought of
Wordsworth’s lines—lines which she had often read to her class—written
when he was expecting to hear of the death of Charles James Fox:—
‘A power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature’s dark abyss.’
Miss Beale died on Friday, November 9, at 12.15, during College hours. It
was thought best that the girls should hear of her death before leaving.
When all were assembled in the Princess Hall the Vice-Principal said:
‘It has pleased God to take from us our beloved Principal.’ In a few
words she told the history of the last few days, and then said: ‘We feel
that it is what she would have desired,—no long waiting in suffering or
helplessness, but to go home straight from her work with her splendid
powers scarcely impaired.
“Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.”
‘“The readiness is all.” Let us bear our grief with calmness and dignity.
We know that it would be her wish that work should go on as usual.... We
believe that love lasts on, and that the noble work she did for fifty
years has done much for England and for womanhood, and that not only we
who have been blessed by her gracious presence, but generations also to
come shall reap the fruit of her toil, and rise up and call her blessed.
Let us pray.’ Then followed a thanksgiving, adapted from the form of
memorial service issued by authority in January 1901 after the death of
Queen Victoria.
Of the days immediately following Miss Beale’s death, Miss Sturge wrote:
‘Many of the staff and elder pupils were privileged to see the beloved
form as it lay in the peace and majesty of death. Though not one of the
thousand workers at College can have been unconscious of the mighty
change that had come for all, the work went on as usual, and the College
was closed only on November 16, the day of the funeral.’
The paper which Miss Beale intended should be read at College prayers on
her death was not found at the time. This was well. She certainly had not
weighed what the effect of her words, written with calm deliberate detail
years before, would be if read to assembled numbers at the very moment of
shock and loss.
In this paper she first explained the directions she had left in her will
about the funeral:—
‘First let me say I have put in my will two things, which have
to do with the disposal of this perishable body.
‘(1) I desire that it should be cremated. It seems so wrong to
place in the ground the disease germs which may injure others,
when they could be destroyed. No feeling of sentiment should
hinder our doing what is reasonable or right.
‘(2) I have asked, and I hope my wish may be respected by all,
that no flowers should be bought for my funeral. They are
beautiful emblems, and if any could gather a few wild flowers
or bring a few from their own gardens, it would be good, but
I should not like any wholesale destruction, any waste of
life, even with wild flowers, and it seems to me quite wrong
to spend large sums in decking a grave, when there is so much
to be done for the living. If the present pupils and teachers
were to give only sixpence each it would come to about £30, and
if we take in old pupils and friends, and those who give much
more, I fear a large sum would be wasted, which, wisely spent,
would not perish like cut flowers, but bear real fruit. Still,
flowers are all beautiful things, and gifts of our Father to
teach and cheer us: they are patterns of things in the heavens,
and flowers speak to us of ἀνάστασις, rising. I often said to
you I do not like the word resurrection because it means rising
again, and gives the impression that the body that rises is the
same that was buried; whereas St. Paul has taught that we sow
not that body that shall be.’
But this was only a preface. She spoke chiefly of rising through death to
fuller and higher life,—of the purification which all who would see God
must desire. Finally she asked:—
‘Shall I pray for my children who are now on earth, for this
College which I have loved, and which has, I dare hope, been a
means of blessing to some? Has it through my fault hidden the
spiritual instead of revealing it, like the trees of Paradise?
Will you see that the sunshine of Heaven, the love and holiness
which can dwell only in souls, may light up the school-rooms
and boarding-houses, and kindle hearts and send forth many
light-bearers? And will you ask sometimes for me that I may be
purified of the evil that obscured the heavenly light that yet
burned feebly within the earthly pitcher? May He send you a
worthier teacher! May you, above all things, hear the Voice of
Him who stands at the door and knocks, may you open your eyes
to the Blessed Spirit, the Paraclete!’
On Monday, November 12, the body was cremated at Perry Barr, the Reverend
Dr. Magrath reading the committal service. Next day came the offer
from the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester of ‘a tomb in the Cathedral to
Dorothea Beale,’ and on the 16th the funeral took place. Everything
that could lend dignity and honour to the occasion was done. Those who
were present can never forget the impression of that day. The sombre
beauty of the Cathedral in the November rain, the music, the well-ordered
procession, the crowds, produced a sense of fitness for an occasion which
was not merely one of grief. Rather was it an act of solemn thanksgiving
for the long, faithful labours ended, an act of resignation through the
heart and will of thousands of the life which had blessed them, to the
continuous love of a merciful Creator. Many were there who held high
position, in educational or municipal life, many friends and parents of
pupils, many former teachers, and of course the whole staff. But the
crowd which filled the great nave from end to end was made up for the
most part of pupils past and present. Eight hundred girls still at the
College came voluntarily, walking in grave silence in pairs from the
station to the Cathedral. Only a small proportion of this crowd could
be present in the Lady Chapel for the latter part of the service, but
all when it was over filed quietly past the open grave surrounded by its
home-made wreaths of flowers and laurel.
Meanwhile, in Cheltenham, those who were unable to come to Gloucester
filled St. Matthew’s Church, where a service was held simultaneously with
that in the Cathedral. At St. Paul’s Cathedral at the same time the dome
was filled for a memorial service, which included a short address from
the Bishop of Stepney. An old pupil present wrote of this:—
‘A memorial service in St. Paul’s Cathedral is an honour
accorded to very few women, and befitting but very few. But to
the great throng assembled in the wide spaces of the dome on
November 16, there was a profound sense of congruity in this
mourning for a woman whose real distinction was described on
that occasion by the Bishop of Stepney when he called Miss
Beale “great.”
‘Miss Beale’s greatness—that indefinable, unmistakable,
inestimable quality so rare in her sex—gave her a right to be
commemorated there, at the very heart of the world of the
living, in presence of the memorials of the nation’s mighty
dead. Listening to the mysterious, hope-inspiring sentences,
and to the lesson from 1 Corinthians xv., so often chosen
by her at College prayers, it seemed that but a very slight
veil divided us from that eager, unquenchable, quickening
spirit, then exploring the “vasty halls of Death.” And the
reverberating thunders of the “Dead March in Saul” have an
appropriateness for every strenuous life. Effort in growth and
development, conflict with difficulties, the surmounting of
obstacles, were certainly of the very essence of Miss Beale’s
nature.’
Services were also held at Bowdon Parish Church and at Sunderland. At
Bakewell, on the Sunday after she died, thanks were offered for the life
and work of Dorothea Beale.
There was widespread appreciation both spoken and written of Miss Beale’s
life and work, with barely a discordant note. Many of the notices[102]
gave a really striking impression both of herself and of what she had
done for the cause of education. Apart from that work she did not care to
be known; it is but an obvious truth that its greatness was dependent on
the greatness of her character.
A number of old Cheltenham pupils were once asked what they considered
the special result of the teaching they had received at the College.
Their replies were to the most part to the effect that they had learned
the worth of the strenuous life. They would perhaps have been nearer
a complete statement of the truth had they said ‘an idea of Duty.’
For it was surely this—a consciousness of responsibility, a sense of
stewardship, some perception of the ‘thanks and use’[103] owing for
each excellence that had been lent out to them—which was brought home
by the teaching, both of word and life, of Dorothea Beale to all,
even the youngest and least clever, who came within the circle of her
influence. Through such knowledge of duty Miss Beale’s own idea of the
‘strenuous life’ might be perceived. Among the words most often on her
lips, especially when speaking to teachers, were such as vivifying,
energising, quickening, inspiration. She did not hesitate to say that to
her all forms of life were a manifestation of God. Work was to her mind
a privilege,—the active will, a Divine gift,—slothfulness was death. It
was the defect of a great quality that she sometimes hasted overmuch,
that she found it hard to wait in trifling matters, that she seemed even
to exaggerate the importance of the College. She was not spared—she
would not have asked to be spared—the inevitable sacrifice demanded of
all genius, of all lives devoted to a cause. It was the sign of her
self-consecration that in any great emergency, before any important
decision, she was calm and full of patience. It should be remembered
also that each generation has its own mission. To that of Dorothea Beale
belonged especially the duty of crying to the careless daughters of
England, ‘Rise up ye women that are at ease.’ To another it may be given
to serve by waiting.
What, it is often asked, was the secret of her really marvellous
influence? Personal magnetism she undoubtedly possessed, and that of a
rare and abiding quality, a quick eye to perceive, and a touch which
could evoke the best even in the most unlikely. But her influence and
power for good came surely as much from what she would not do as from
what she actually did for her children. Her strength lay in what she
would herself call ‘passive activity.’ It was her claim not to teach
them so much as to lead them to the One Teacher, to bring them into
such relationship with Him that they could hear His Voice. For that
inner Voice which must at all costs be obeyed she bade them listen, with
pure and undefiled conscience,—the ear of the soul. Thus each who tried
to follow her teaching left the College not merely as a devoted pupil
of Miss Beale, possibly even indifferent to her, but with a clearer
consciousness of the ‘Light that lighteth every man,’ and the paramount
necessity of walking in it.
Was the strenuous life all they learned at Cheltenham? It was doubtless
not easy to tell the whole. The strength and greatness of their Head lay
not alone in devising and carrying out important and detailed work. It
lay also—though this was less readily seen—in an unwearied watchfulness
of affection, in a sympathy never estranged, in active thoughtfulness, in
a memory for all that was hopeful and fair in the lives and characters
which came under her care. Remembering these, there comes ultimately to
the mind the thought of how little she really cared for human judgment,
just or unjust; how she would say that there was but one Voice to listen
for, one word of approval worth earning, since the Lord Himself had said
about a woman’s work, ‘She hath done what she could.’