CHELTENHAM.
In the autumn of 1857 my husband was invited to fill the post of
Vice-Principal of the Cheltenham College. He accepted the invitation,
and we went to Cheltenham the same year. He here entered upon his
long course of assiduous and untiring work as a schoolmaster—a work
which covered a quarter of a century, beginning at Cheltenham in 1857,
and continued at Liverpool from the winter of 1865-66 until 1882. We
gained much at Cheltenham in an improved climate, and in the cessation
of material difficulties and anxieties. We lived in a large house,
in which, for some years, we received a number of pupils. It was
characteristic that it should have supplied some of the best athletes
of the College, and many successful competitors in the school games, in
feats of strength, activity and skill. My husband considered physical
training to be an essential part of the education of youth.
Our summer vacations continued to be spent largely at Dilston; we went
however one year to Switzerland with our eldest son. We visited Lucerne
and its neighbourhood, and afterwards the Rhone Valley, Chamounix,
and the great St. Bernard, passing a night at the hospice, where we
profited much by our intercourse with the beautiful dogs, one of whom,
a veteran called Bruno, the forefather of many a noble hound, attached
himself to us, and made himself our cicerone among the rocks in the
desolate surroundings of the monastery. Another summer excursion was,
with two of our children, to the Lakes of Killarney, including a visit
to my brother, Charles Grey, who lived then in a house of Lord Derby,
at Ballykisteen, in the “golden vale” of Tipperary. In both these
years my husband brought home many sketches. The grey rocks skirting
the borders of Killarney lakes, with their richly-coloured covering
of arbutus and other flowering trees and evergreens, were tempting
subjects for water-colours.
My father had been a friend of Clarkson, and a practical worker in
the movement for the abolition of the slave trade. When the War of
Secession in America broke out, my husband’s sympathies were warmly
enlisted on behalf of those who desired the emancipation of the
slaves, and he perceived that that was indeed the question, the vital
question of justice, which lay at the root of all that terrible
struggle. This was one of several occasions in our united life in
which we found ourselves in a minority; members of a group at first so
insignificant that it scarcely found a voice or a hearing anywhere,
but whose position was afterwards fully justified by events. It was a
good training in swimming against the tide, or at least in standing
firm and letting the tide go by, and in maintaining, while doing so,
a charitable attitude towards those who conscientiously differed, and
towards the thousands who float contentedly down the stream of the
fashionable opinion of the day. In this case the feeling of isolation
on a subject of such tragic interest was often painful; but the
discipline was useful, for it was our lot again more emphatically in
the future to have to accept and endure this position for conscience’
sake.
I recollect the sudden revulsion of feeling when the news was
telegraphed of the assassination of President Lincoln; the
extraordinary rapidity of the change of front of the “leading journal;”
and the self-questionings among many whose intelligence and goodness
had certainly given them the right to think for themselves, but who
had not availed themselves of that right. I remember the penitence of
_Punch_, who had been among the scoffers against the abolitionists
of slavery, and who now put himself into deep mourning, and gave to
the public an affecting cartoon of the British Lion bowed and weeping
before the bier of Lincoln. A favourite scripture motto of my husband’s
was, “_Why do ye not of yourselves judge that which is right_?” But
he was not argumentative. He loved peace, and avoided every heated
discussion. His silence was, perhaps, sometimes not less effectual by
way of rebuke or correction of shallow judgments than speech would have
been. Goldwin Smith, one of the few at Oxford who saw at that time the
inner meanings of the American struggle, paid us a visit. It occurred
to us, while listening to some pointed remarks he was making on the
prevalent opinion of the day, to ask him to write and publish something
in reply to the often-repeated assertion that the Bible itself favours
slavery. “The Bible,” he replied, “has been quoted in favour of every
abomination that ever cursed the earth.” He did not say he would
write; but the idea sank into his mind, and not long after he sent us
his able and exquisite little book, entitled _Does the Bible sanction
Slavery?_—a masterly and beautiful exposition of the true spirit of
the Mosaic law, and of the Theocratic government and training of the
ancient Hebrew people in relation to this and other questions. This
book was naturally not popular at the time, and I fear it has long been
out of print. (It was published in 1863.)
In this connection it is interesting to record, that two other notable
books owed their inspiration in a large measure to Josephine Butler.
_The Patience of Hope_, by Dora Greenwell, published in 1859, was
dedicated to J. E. B., with the inscription—_A te principium, tibi
desinet_ (from thee begun with thee my work shall close). _Te sine
nil altum mens inchoat_ (without thee nothing high my mind essays).
Frederic Myers, who had been at school at Cheltenham College, in his
_Fragments of Inner Life_,[1] tells how“Christian conversion came to
me in a potent form—through the agency of Josephine Butler, _née_
Grey, whose name will not be forgotten in the annals of English
philanthropy. She introduced me to Christianity, so to say, by an
inner door; not to its encumbering forms and dogmas, but to its heart
of fire. My poems of _St. Paul_ and _St. John the Baptist_, intensely
personal in their emotion, may serve as sufficient record of those
years of eager faith.” _St. Paul_, published in 1867, was dedicated to
J. E. B., with the inscription—[Greek: ᾗ καὶ τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχην ὀφείλω]
(to whom I owe my very soul). In 1869 Myers gave up a Lectureship
at Trinity in order to devote himself to the promotion of the higher
education of women, and he was one of the small band of university
men, who worked hard with Josephine Butler and her colleagues on the
North of England Council, to which we shall refer later on.
[1] _Fragments of Prose and Poetry_, by Frederic W. H. Myers, 1904
(Longmans, Green & Co.), p. 22.
Among the public events which interested us most during these years
was the revolution in Naples, the change of dynasty, and Garibaldi’s
career. Our interest was in part of a personal nature, as my sister,
Madame Meuricoffre, and her husband were in the midst of these events.
She had succeeded Jessie White Mario in the care of the wounded
Garibaldians in the hospitals, and was personally acquainted with some
of the actors in the dramatic scenes of that time. Having told her
that my husband had set as a subject for a prize essay—to be competed
for in the College at Cheltenham—“The unification of Italy,” my sister
mentioned it to Garibaldi, in expressing to him our sympathy for him
and his cause. He immediately wrote a few lines, signing his name at
the end, to be sent, through her, to the boy who should write the best
essay on the subject so near to his heart.
A part of the summer holidays of 1864 were spent at Coniston in the
house of Mr. James Marshall, which he lent to us. His sister, Mrs.
Myers, had been our kind and constant friend at Cheltenham. It was a
beautiful summer. We had returned to Cheltenham only a few days when
a heavy sorrow fell upon our home, the brightest of our little circle
being suddenly snatched away from us. The dark shadow of that cloud
cannot easily be described. I quote part of a letter written some
weeks after our child’s death to a friend.
CHELTENHAM, _August, 1864_.
These are but weak words. May you never know the grief which they hide
rather than reveal. But God is good. He has, in mercy, at last sent
me a ray of light, and low in the dust at His feet I have thanked
Him for that ray of light as I never thanked Him for any blessing in
the whole of my life before. It was difficult to endure at first the
shock of the suddenness of that agonising death. Little gentle spirit!
the softest death for her would have seemed sad enough. Never can I
lose that memory—the fall, the sudden cry, and then the silence. It
was pitiful to see her, helpless in her father’s arms, her little
drooping head resting on his shoulder, and her beautiful golden hair,
all stained with blood, falling over his arm. Would to God that I had
died that death for her! If we had been permitted, I thought, to have
one look, one word of farewell, one moment of recognition! But though
life flickered for an hour, she never recognised the father and mother
whom she loved so dearly. We called her by her name, but there was no
answer. She was our only daughter, the light and joy of our lives.
She flitted in and out like a butterfly all day. She had never had a
day’s or an hour’s illness in all her sweet life. She never gave us a
moment of anxiety, her life was one flowing stream of mirth and fun
and abounding love. The last morning she had said to me a little verse
she had learned somewhere—
Every morning the warm sun
Rises fair and bright;
But the evening cometh on,
And the dark, cold night.
There is a bright land far away,
Where tis never-ending day!
The dark, cold night came too soon for us, for it was that same
evening, at seven o’clock, that she fell. The last words I had with
her were about a pretty caterpillar she had found; she came to my
room to beg for a little box to put it in. I gave it her and said,
“Now trot away, for I am late for tea.” What would I not give now for
five minutes of that sweet presence? The only discipline she ever had
was an occasional conflict with her own strong feelings and will.
She disliked nothing so much as her little German lessons. Fräulein
Blümke had called her one day to have one. She was sitting in a low
chair. She grasped the arms of it tightly, and, looking very grave and
determined, she replied, “Hush, wait a bit, I am fighting!” She sat
silent for a few moments, and then walked quickly and firmly to have
her German lesson. Fräulein asked her what she meant by saying she was
fighting, and she replied, “I was fighting with myself” (to overcome
her unwillingness to go to her books). I overheard Fräulein say to
her in the midst of the lesson: “Arbeit, Eva, arbeit!” To which Eva
replied with decision, “I am _arbeiting_, Miss Blümke, as hard as ever
I can.”
One evening last autumn, when I went to see her after she was in bed
and we were alone, she said: “Mammy, if I go to heaven before you,
when the door of heaven opens to let you in I will run so fast to meet
you; and when you put your arms round me, and we kiss each other,
_all the angels will stand still to see us_.” And she raised herself
up in her ardour, her face beaming and her little chest heaving
with the excitement of her loving anticipation. I recall her look;
not the merry laughing look she generally had, but softened into an
overflowing tenderness of the soul. She lay down again, but could not
rest, and raising herself once more said, “I would like to pray again”
(she had already said her little prayer); and we prayed again, about
this meeting in heaven. I never thought for a moment that she would
go first. I don’t think I ever had a thought of death in connection
with her; she was so full of life and energy. She was always showing
her love in active ways. We used to imagine what it would be when
she grew up, developing into acts of mercy and kindness. She was
passionately devoted to her father, and after hugging him, and heaping
endearing names upon him, she would fly off and tax her poor little
tender fingers by making him something—a pincushion or kettle-holder.
She made him blue, pink, white and striped pincushions and mats, for
which he had not much use. But now he treasures up her poor little
gifts as more precious than gold. If my head ached, she would bathe
it with a sponge for an hour without tiring. Sweet Eva! Well might
the Saviour say, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” She was so
perfectly truthful, candid and pure. It was a wonderful repose for me,
a good gift of God, when troubled by the evils in the world or my own
thoughts, to turn to the perfect innocence and purity of that little
maiden. But that joy is gone now for us. I am troubled for my husband.
His grief is so deep and silent; but he is very, very patient. He
loves children and all young creatures, and his love for her was
wonderful. Her face, as she lay in death, wore a look of sweet, calm
surprise, as if she said, “Now I see God.” We stood in awe before her.
She seemed to rebuke our grief in her rapt and holy sleep. Her hair
had grown very long lately, and was of a deep chestnut brown, which in
the sun flashed out all golden:—
Hair like a golden halo lying
Upon a pillow white;
Parted lips that mock all sighing,
Good night—good night!
Good night in anguish and in bitter pain;
Good morrow crowns another of the heavenly train.
This sorrow seemed to give in a measure a new direction to our lives
and interests. There were some weeks of uncomforted grief. Her flight
from earth had had the appearance of a most cruel accident. But do the
words “accident” or “chance” properly find a place in the vocabulary
of those who have placed themselves, and those dear to them, in a
special manner under the daily providential care of a loving God? Here
there entered into the heart of our grief the intellectual difficulty,
the moral perplexity and dismay which are not the least terrifying
of the phantoms which haunt the “Valley of the shadow of Death”—that
dark passage through which some toil only to emerge into a hopeless
and final denial of the Divine goodness, the complete bankruptcy
of faith; and others, by the mercy of God, through a still deeper
experience, into a yet firmer trust in His unfailing love.
One day, going into his study, I found my husband alone, and looking
ill. His hands were cold, he had an unusual paleness in his face, and
he seemed faint. I was alarmed. I kneeled beside him, and, shaking
myself out of my own stupor of grief, I spoke “comfortably” to him,
and forced myself to talk cheerfully, even joyfully, of the happiness
of our child, of the unclouded brightness of her brief life on earth,
and her escape from the trials and sorrows she might have met with had
she lived. He responded readily to the offered comfort, and the effort
to strengthen him was helpful to myself. After this I often went to
him in the evening after school hours, when, sitting side by side,
we spoke of our child in heaven, until our own loss seemed to become
somewhat less bitter.
The following is from a brief diary of the close of that sad year—
_October 30th._—Last night I slept uneasily. I dreamed I had my
darling in my arms, dying; that she struggled to live for my sake,
lived again a moment, and then died. Just then I heard a sound, a low
voice at my door, and I sprang to my feet. It was poor Stanley (our
second son), scarcely awake, and in a fever. I took him in my arms,
and carried him back to his bed, from which he had come to seek my
help. In the morning he could not swallow, and pointed to his throat.
Dr. Ker came and said he had diphtheria. My heart sank. I wondered
whether God meant to ask us to give up another child so soon.
His illness was very severe, and for some days he hovered between life
and death. But we were spared the added sorrow we dreaded. When he was
sufficiently recovered, it was thought better that I should go with him
abroad, to escape the winter’s cold, and for a change of scene from
that house round which clung the memory of such a tragic sorrow. My
husband and other sons came to London with us, and a pleasant and able
courier was engaged, who accompanied me and my little convalescent to
Genoa, where we had been invited by kind relatives living there.
At the end of this visit it was arranged that I should accompany my
sister to Naples, when we learned that the railway and roads were
flooded, and that travelling by land would be difficult and even
dangerous. Being unwilling to give up the long-cherished hope of a
visit to my sister’s home, I proposed that we should go by sea. My
sister, though fearing a sea voyage for me in winter, assented to the
arrangement, and as the weather was then very calm we started with good
hopes. I had not, however, realised the gravity of the shock which my
health had sustained before leaving England.
On this voyage she was taken very seriously ill, nigh unto death. “I
was kneeling,” writes her sister, “and rubbing her hands and feet,
trying to warm them; and while my imagination was realising all the
terrors, my heart was praying desperately to God that He would make a
way of escape, that He would work a miracle for us. _And He did._ The
three boys went away and all prayed to God to save her. After a time
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the captain. He said: ‘I saw the
other mail vessel coming north, and I have signalled her. If she sees
us you shall go on board and return to Leghorn. Make haste!’ I drew a
long breath and said: ‘Thank God, I think we are saved!’ I felt the
horror melting away in a measure, and hope springing up. We rolled
her up, and I went for the weeping children, and found the kind young
Sicilian officer comforting them. I thanked him. He said, in Italian,
something about the love of Christ, so kindly. I had said very little
about her. People must have been impressed with her look, and thought
her dying, to take such extreme measures as to stop the two Government
steamers on the high seas.”