Growing Old Gracefully
GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 70.
LONDON, WVov. 25, 1902 I remember grandpa Whitall used to say, '" Short visits make long friends," and I believe he was right in most cases.
I have always-found that long visits seemed to exhaust my powers of affection.
Not of course in the case of relatives who are congenial, but _ of outside friends, let them be ever so congenial.
There is something in blood that helps you to put up with things.
Nov. 28, 1902 I do hope thee won't take those feckless T.s on thy shoulders.
'Thee will have to learn to be content to see people make muddles of their lives in their own way.
My experience has taught me that you cannot play Providence successfully, outside of your own family.
Thy letters about X have been a most valuable education, to the children, and I do not believe they will ever forget the lessons they have taught.
Itisa capital plan to teach children from the faults of other people, as it is entirely impersonal, and instead of arousing anger, it arouses a spirit of emulation.
Dec. 15, 1902 Alas! we cannot find any key for thy unfortunate trunk!
I expect thee has it.
Why did not one of us
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
think of it sooner?
If all the bother caused by trunk keys since the world began could be brought together and piled up in a heap, I believe it would make a pyramid that would reach the clouds.
And we none of us ever learn how to take care of them, and have them on hand when they are wanted!!
What real idiots we are at bottom, beneath all our Art culture and our religious attainments !
Dec. 31, 1902 We are greatly enjoying a rich scandal about Mrs.
X's servants, who appear to have been having high jinks while she and her husband were away.
The great question is whether we shall tell her or not.
Prudence says not, for of course she won't believe it, but the pleasure of " telling tales", hidden under a mask of duty, says "' Tell', so I do not know which will conquer.
July 19, 1903 Has thee got my small box I loaned thee? ...
Never was a woman of 71 worse off for trunks than I am, thanks to the depredations of my children.
To her daughter, Alys Russell Aet. 70.
LONDON, jan. 24, 1903 P.1 was here last evening.
He has seen some very striking spirit materialisations, when the spirits walked about and talked with one another.
He was entirely 1A spiritualist named Podmore.
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
convinced, and firmly believes that Cardinal Newman. and Napoleon appeared to him!
He said it convinced him of the reality of another world, and I told him, then he had better hurry and get ready for it.
Logan is getting ready to go. On account of Rose's [the housemaid's] absence I have not been able to see about his underclothes, etc., as she always looked them over and told me what was lacking.
So I think thee had better see if he does not need stockings at least.
But do not tell him I asked thee to look.
Men are Kittle-Kattle at their best.
Kate [the parlourmaid] is still in bed.
Rose is still away.
Mrs. Rollings [the maid] is still utterly disabled.
Mrs. Tomlin [the charwoman] is still dead.
And yet the work has still to be done!
I feel as if I should almost make a feast to celebrate -Rose's return.
What saints our servants are to wait onus as they do!
We never know how valuable they are to us until we can't get any.
They have seemed to me lately the very hub of the universe!
If God's servants are as valuable to Him as mine are to me, we may begin to think a good deal of ourselves !
To her friends'
Aet. 70.
LONDON, Jan. 31, 1903 We are in 1903 and I am nearly 71 years old.
I always thought I should love to grow old, and I find it is even more delightful than I thought.
It is so delicious to be done with things, and to feel no need any longer to concern myself much about earthly affairs.
I seem on the verge of a most delightful journey to a place of aninown j joys and Bless and
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
things here seem of so little importance, compared to things there, that they have lost most of their interest for me.
I cannot describe the sort of done-with-the-world feeling I have.
It is not that I feel as if I was going to die at all, but simply that the world seems to me nothing but a passage way to the real life beyond ; and passage ways are very unimportant places.
It is of very little account what sort of things they contain, or how they are furnished.
One just hurries through them to get to the places beyond.
My wants seem to be gradually narrowing down, my personal wants, I mean, and I often think I could be quite content in the Poor-house!
I do not know whether this is piety or old age, or a little of each mixed together, but honestly the world and our life in it does seem of too little account to be worth making the least fuss over, when one has sucha magnificent prospect close at hand ahead of one ; and I am tremendously content to let one activity after another go, and to await quietly and happily the opening of the door at the end of the passage way, that will let me in to my real abiding place.
So you may think of me as happy and contented, surrounded with unnumbered blessings, and delighted to be 71 years old.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Ae. 71.
LONDON, Feb. 22, 1903 I have just come in from an enormous meeting of poor '" Mothers".
It was pitiful to see such an accumulation of trouble as my mind's eye saw behind all their stolid, stupid, care-worn faces.
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
Last evening the children were lamenting that Lent was so near, and I said, "' Well now you must tell me what you like to have to eat instead of meat.'
'' Oh, Grandma," exclaimed Ray, "that is not the way.
Lent is meant to teach us self-denial, and you must not hunt up nice things."
(All the same I shall !
But I confess it 7s a bother, which bother, I suppose, is my Lent.) .
I am thinking of you to-day as free at last from your champion Bore.
I suppose none of you have been philanthropic enough to tell her what an awful Bore she is.
It seems a shame to let a human being go on like that, but I do not suppose it would have done the least good.
She has served one purpose, however, and that is she has been the text for some powerful lessons to Ray and Karin on the subject of becoming
Bores. nod If Ray can learn to play games now without losing her temper, she will know how later to play the game of life ditto.
She and Karin have decided to give up all birthday treats and presents this year for the sake of giving the money to Father Brown for a pair of candles for his new church.
I thought the gift ought to involve a little self-denial on their part, and they seem quite willing.
But imagine Grandpa Whitall's great-grandchildren laying up treasure in Heaven by giving candlesticks to a Roman Catholic High Altar !
I wonder if their great-grandchildren will be tearing down High Altars and breaking candlesticks.
I find I simply cannot go about, except just in the house, and into Rollings' old four-wheeler for my daily outing.
My sprees are really over at last.
My next spree will be Heaven, and that will be a spree worth having !
GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY
To her friends Aér. 7%.
LONDON, May 25, 1903 I must tell you of a funny experience I have had since I last wrote you, and which is not ended yet.
With a great deal of apparent mystery a lady whom I did not know asked if she might call on me, stating that she had read my books and thought I could help her, and said she would like to bring a little invalid daughter.
Of course, I arranged a time, and they came.
The daughter was blind, and deformed, and only just able to walk on two crutches, but with a sweet intelligent face.
_ I supposed, of course, they had come for spiritual help for the poor cripple, so after a few preliminary remarks about the weather, etc., in order to make things easy, I began speaking about her trials and said that I hoped she had the comfort of saying " Thy will be done " about it all.
She said very shortly " Yes"', but looked utterly uninterested and I felt quite nonplussed.
An awkward pause followed, and I was wondering what I should say next, when the Mother said, '' We came to see you, Mrs. Smith, about a very strange matter.
We have an Arabian Prince living with us, and we want you to find him a wife."
"A wife," I said aghast, "' why how on earth am I to do that, and why do youcome tome?"
"' We thought," said the Mother, '' that you were such a good Christian woman, and that you knew so many people, that when you heard the story you would be sure to be able to help us."
And she then proceeded to unfold the story.
It seems that a wealthy Arabian Sheik, a Mahommedan, of course, conceived the desire to have his son
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
brought up as an English gentleman, and gave him as a little boy into the care of an English lady, the sister of an explorer he had met, with a large income to support and educate the boy.
Before the boy was of age the father died, and a powerful relative usurped the Sheikship, and brought influence to bear to induce the true heir to remain in England, granting him a large income, and letting him do what he pleased.
Up to the age of 40, he lived a luxurious and dissipated life, and then, for some reason I could not discover, the family wanted him to come back to Arabia and to marry a Mahommedan cousin, and take possession of his property over there.
But meanwhile he has become so thoroughly English that he does not want to go back, and moreover he declares he has become a Christian and could not be a Mahommedan again.
In order to force him to accede to their wishes, his family have stopped his allowance, and he is left penniless and starving.
'This lady took him in as an act of Christian charity, feeling sure the family would soon give way, and the Prince, as she calls him, would repay.
But time passes and nothing is done, and she begins to fear she is to be permanently saddled with him.
Finally the family have sent over an emissary to say that if the Prince will give up his wandering life and will marry an upper class English woman, one who has never done anything to earn her own living, and will settle down as an English gentleman, they will then restore him his income, and will settle the sum of £25,000 on his wife; and it is this wife I am asked to find !
The Prince's name is Hafiz Abicedes.
No question of love seems to enter into the proceedings ; all he asks is for a woman who is a lady, and who has never worked for her living.
It iseno matter how poor she
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
may be, provided this taint of earning money by her work has never touched her.
So you see I am asked to be a Matrimonial Agent in a private way!
Perhaps somebody who reads this letter may feel inclined to become a Princess, and to secure the dower of £25,000, and let the Prince be thrown in as part of the bargain !
Needless to say, no wife has fallen to the bait yet, and I do not know where to find one.
The one matter of public interest that is absorbing all thoughts just now is the: new Education
Bill.
Personally I cannot join the Passive Resisters because I seem to see both sides of the question, which is a thing that often happens in old age, and although I consider the Bill most unfair and in fact on some accounts really iniquitous, I shall still go on paying my taxes, until I get a stronger conviction as to what is right to do.
; The next thing proposed, and this was something in which I could heartily join, was a great Hyde Park
Demonstration.
I thought, however, that I was too lame to think of accompanying it, but when the day came, May 23rd, the impulse was so strong that I determined to make an effort, andby dint of being pushed and pulled by my kind friends, I found myself seated in a high brake, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was a grand Demonstration, at least 100,000 people : and a tremendous body of conscientious conviction.
I do not suppose, however, that anything will come of it.
To Balfour (if he hears of it at all, which I doubt) it will seem nothing more than a demonstration of poodle dogs, and it will not affect him in the slightest.
It is hopeless to try and fight against people who do not know that you exist.
When the Resolution condemning the Bill had been put there was a moment's hush, and then a deafening
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL emphatic "Aye!
Aye!" thundered out from a 100,000 throats in a simultaneous roar of applause and — approval.
It almost seemed as if Balfour on his golf links must have heard it and trembled !
I have sent in my resignation as the Secretary of the British Women's Temperance Association.
I told them last year I intended to do so on account of my age, as it is a fixed principle with me that after people are
70 they have no right to continue occupying official positions, but are in duty bound to step out and leave room for the next generation.
I might have found it hard to carry out my purpose in face of the urgent entreaties I have had to continue at least a year longer in office ; but Providence has stepped in to my rescue by letting my lameness become so much worse during the past year that now it is almost a matter of physical impossibility for me to get about to the meetings, and this, if nothing else, would force me to resign.
I look upon my lameness therefore as a mark of the Divine approval of my intended laying aside of the duties I have so long tried faithfully to perform.
I have loved the work, and have loved the women, and I think they have loved me, and we have been very happy together.
Of course I shall still keep up my interest in the Association and shall do what I can to help, but my day for meetings is pretty much over.
If I stand up to speak, I seem to turn into a stone image, and find it almost impossible to bend enough to sit down again.
And the exertion of getting up the stairs to a meeting or even on to the platform is really more than I am equal to.
I was able, as I have told you, to make a tremendous spurt, and be pushed and pulled up into the Brake for the Hyde Park Demonstration, but one cannot go through such pushing and pulling operations | in meetings before congregations, and this week's meet-
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
ings are my last.
Otherwise I feel very well and very happy, and in many ways quite as young as ever, so I am well content.
To her son, Logan Pearsall Smith Aet. 71.
LONDON, May 28, 1903 I took my leave of the British Women's Temperance Association to-day, and they gave me an IJluminated
Address—a most flattering one—(I would not let them give anything else) and speeches were made equally flattering, and I responded flattering them, and we had a universal flattering time, and everyone was happy, and not a tear was shed.
I have had a delightful time in the work, and now I shall have a delightful time out of it.
; To her daughter, Mary Berenson Agi. 41.
; LONDON, july 7, 1903 I am just off now with the youngsters and Grace to see " In Dahomey "—a Play with real Darkies and a real Cake Walk.
But Madam Ray refuses to go, for she says she knows it will be vulgar, and she doesn't like vulgar things!
Grace and I feel quite sat upon, but we love Darkies, in their proper place, and mean to enjoy it.
Ray heard, as usual, a long dissertation about Westminster School from Val, who seems to have no other idea in his head.
I asked Ray if she had had a chance to bring in anything about Kensington School, but she said he would not listen to a word. I tell her that is the way with men, and that if you want to get at their
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
hearts, you must let them talk about themselves and. their interests, and say nothing about your own interests.
It makes me perfectly indignant to have the girls forced to keep on at school during all this hot weather.
If I were only younger, I would make such a stir that for peace sake the High School Council would have to change it.
But my time for reforming the world has passed, although I have just done something that I do not dare to tell anyone about for a while yet.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 71.
LONDON, July 9, 1903 What I have been "' up to" is this.
At Westminster School there is a system by which big boys are not only allowed but encouraged to beat the younger boys, just as they please, without the intervention of any of the Masters ; and as a consequence, it is done for every little trivial pretext, and often most unjustly, and sometimes very brutally.
It simply makes me furious! I know what boys of 17 and 18 are, and to put into their hands such irresponsible power seems to me a sure and certain education in brutality.
Finally I got so worked up about it that I wrote a severe letter to Dr. Gow, the Head Master, telling him just what I thought, and asserting that such a system was the direct cause of '' ragging "' in the British Army, and ending with a threat that unless some change was made, the matter would have to be aired in the Public
Press.
I wrote anonymously as an " old inhabitant of Westminster ", and had the letter typewritten.
Thee must not speak of it, as it would get Val into trouble if it was known to be me. I hope it gave old Gow a bad quarter of an hour.
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
I shall follow it up with another letter, if the thing goes on.
It is an outrage on civilisation.
My old *"mush spoon"? still has life in it!
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Act. 7%.
LONDON, Dec. 27, 1903 Well, the children all got off to the country this morning, but it was a work.
Owing to the fact of the three holidays, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, no supplies could be purchased either in London or at Haslemere, so I had to go off before breakfast in Rollings to get them vegetables and meat.
They were going down at 11.15, so there was no time to spare.
I also had to get eggs, as Mrs. Venes wrote me that none could be got down there for love or money, and also cake for their teas.
However, everything was got and packed, and they caught their train, and then at 11
_ o'clock I had my breakfast in peace, with a well-earned appetite. é Jan. 2, 1904 .
No word of any sort from the wretches!
But they are too full of their fun to'have time for letters.
I have noticed that letters are generally the outcome of being bored by everything else, so I always think, no letters, no boredom.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 71.
LONDON, Jan. 21, 1904 Ellie confided to her aunt that when the girls were alone in the country they got up at 3 o'clock in the
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL morning and went out for a walk in the woods!
Ray had not told me that!
Perhaps if they are allowed to do it unmolested two or three times, they will get enough of it, as they have of camping out.
It is generally the forbidden thing that human nature enjoys most.
Why is this?
There was hockey this afternoon, although the ground is still muddy.
Then at 6 came the " Religious Instructor", and the children begged me to be sure to go.
Thee may imagine that I banged it for all I was worth !
To-day I ventured to say to Ray, not that she was growing older, oh no, but only that she was less childish than she used to be ; but she would not listen to me for a moment, and declared that if we said such things, she would go right back and be a baby again.
But she really zs quite grown up ; and she is too pretty for anything.
It almost frightens me when I think of the dreadful men.
I must tell thee that she seems to be very high-principled, and we must all be careful not to shock her with our adult, easy-going principles.
She is at the age when compromises are inadmissible.
Petty little savings in the kitchen are not going to effect much, and life is not worth living if you have got to weigh your meat and measure your milk; and I strongly advise thee not to undertake it.
Servants always cheat—not necessarily from dishonesty, but generally, I believe, from the sort of carelessness that is inevitable to human nature when dealing with the property of their employers.
It is really only their own things that average human nature can be trusted to take honest care of. And no amount of watching can protect you from, this inevitable carelessness.
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aét. 72.
LONDON, April 15, 1904 I cannot help thinking how dreadful it is for old people to go on living as we all are, doing no good to ourselves or anybody else, and being nothing but a bother and a care to everybody around us.
For myself there is an excuse in the need of having a home for the children, but there is no excuse whatever for the others.
Alas! there is nobody else to take the care of old Mrs. H. but her daughter, and she has simply got to stand it, and die of it if she must.
May I be preserved from ever being such a drag on anyone!
Why are such old people allowed to live on anyhow?
It has given me a horror of all old people, myself included.
I am thankful that thee can enjoy being with me.
Thy too flattering letter came last evening, and I felt quite bashful about reading it out to the children.
Well, while you think me nice, perhaps you will mind- 'cure me into being nice. I feel as ifeverybody ought to avoid old people as if they were the plague!
Sometime thee must tell me just what old people ought to do to make themselves agreeable.
To me thy visit was heavenly.
Karin amused me greatly at lunch to-day by telling me all about how she and Mary Worthington are beginning all of a sudden to feel grown up. I tried to find out what the symptoms are and finally she said,
"Well, for one thing we are beginning to think the river looks beautiful in moonlight and to like to look at it, and a little while ago we should have thought it was all rot."
What a speech about her hat for Mrs. B. to make at her child's funeral!
Not but what other people someaN
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL times think of their clothes at funerals, but everybody else has the sense to keep their thoughts to themselves.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 72.
MORPETH MANSIONS, LONDON, Oct. 4, 1904
'We have got along wonderfully in moving to this flat without thee, though of course thee would have been a great help.
Alys is a perfect magician in moving.
I cannot imagine that a troop of angels could have done it better.
To think of it—she has emptied Friday's Hill and 44, Grosvenor Road, and got me all settled in here, and all in 10 days!
It seems like a miracle!
I have the most delicious corner, far nicer than the one in Grosvenor Road, and to be all on one floor is perfectly delightful.
I can never thank thee enough for bringing it toa point.
Tell B. B. it was one of the best jobs of thy life.
Thee did thy share in making things easy for me; and I do not believe any Mother ever had two better daughters.
Not having any ructions of any kind has made it easier, and not having any man to please has conduced to this! !
In contrast to poor Mrs. B., I sit and chuckle over the deliverance from care and from the necessity of doing anything which my lameness gives me, and rejoice at the happy prospect ahead of me.
She has all the misery of old age and none of the fun, while I am determined to get all the fun out of it I can, and I find plenty.
We had such a funny talk yesterday on Art.
N. expressed her admiration of a certain picture, and Ray and Karin sniffed.
I told N. not to mind their sniffs, as they had been taught by their mother not to enjoy the things natural to their age, but only things old students enjoyed, and I thought it was a pity.
"' Yes,"
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
said Karin, "I often think mother makes a mistake in not letting us enjoy things suited to our youngness, and in making us stretch up to things we are really too young to enjoy!"
And then she added, "' But when she once says anything, we can't help thinking the same.
For instance, she once said that pictures were like holes' in the wall, and now whenever I look at pictures I only see great holes in the walls, and it seems a pity."
I advise thee to consider this youthful bit of wisdom.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 72.
LONDON, Oct. 27, 1904 I see thee expresses sentimental feelings of melancholy over our leaving our house in Grosvenor Road!
Iam glad to say I have not a feel, except the feeling of thankfulness at having got away from that incubus of a house, which my lameness made only a burden.
Somehow ; in looking back, I seem to see myself a poor lame turtle so weighed down by an enormous shell, that I could not twist my poor head around to see properly, let alone to keep in order as it should be kept.
But what exactly are thy feelings?
I am really curious to know.
Be sure to tell me, and maybe I can get them up.
But define them and let me see whether they are really genuine, or only some of A. L.'s sentimentalities.
I feel thankful every minute that I am in this flat, and that I have gotrid of 44 forever.
Mynew shell can never be such a burden.
In fact it feels very light and most easy to manage.
But it really seems as if one could hardly turn around without paying somebody for it.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL Nov. 10, 1904 Ray says to tell thee that Oscar Wilde's article could not have any influence on her as it is so evidently intended for ridiculous nonsense, but it is very funny.
I do not think she is old enough to be really hurt by it.
I have read it, and cannot get much out of it except that some sort of an idea seems to glimmer through it that if one could keep young always and could people the world with Dragons and Fairies, and all sorts of impossible things, it would make a splendid world of it.
And I believe that is what religion does for people.
It fills life with delicious things, unseen by the multitude and impossible to their comprehension.
I wonder if Oscar Wilde did not have a glimpse of this sometimes ?
One of my greatest " openings" into the mystery of religion came from something I heard him say in Philadelphia, dressed in shorts with a big sunflower in his buttonhole.
He said, " You can conquer a city, by force, but you can only conquer the Art of that city by submission to its rules."
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 72.
LONDON, Nov. 12, 1904.
The children and I were very much interested at breakfast this morning by thy description of the " feelings " about the house in Grosvenor Road, and Karin said, '' But, grandma, even if you don't feel those feelings, you ought to sympathise with them.'
I could only say that I considered them a useless bother, and consequently never encouraged them.
The truth is I am like the Apostle—always reaching out towards the
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
_ Tey things that are before, and forgetting the things that are behind.
(See Phil. III. 13, 14.) And I always find new things so much better than old ones that it seems pure waste of time to mourn over the old.
This room is so light and airy compared to my old room at 44, that that one seems like a sort of prison cell from which I have made a happy escape, and to waste my energies regretting it, would seem to me the height of folly.
And nothing suits me better than to say of things that they are done with forever.
Life seems to me like a pilgrimage to a longed-for country, and I welcome the passage of every stage as so much gained towards the blissful end, and cannot be sorry that they have passed.
I wonder if thee can understand my feelings any better than I can understand thine ?
This morning I asked Ray and Karin if they had any "* feelings " about No. 44, and Ray said most emphatically, '' No, not the least scrap."
'' But,' she added, "if you were to ask me about Friday's Hill, I had and still have oceans and I could weep tears of sorrow any minute over having to leave it."
Then Karin joined in and said she sometimes felt a little sentimental about No. 44, but when she thought of Friday's Hill, all her sentiments left No. 44, and went over in a body to Friday's Hill.
Has thee any feelings about Friday's Hill?
I have none.
At breakfast this morning Karin said, " Grandma, I have discovered at my age that the expectation of a thing is generally nicer than the thing itself.
Somehow the thing itself never seems to come up to one's expectations."
I said, '' Thee is growing older, Karin."
'' Yes," she said, "' I am afraid I am, and I keep making that kind of discovery ; and it can't all be my getting into the Sixth Form ; it must be age as well."
Ty2
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL To Miss Olive Seward * LONDON, Nov. 28, 1904.
I am indeed proud of being an American, although I must confess to a little weakness towards being an American living in London!
Did I tell thee that we are living right alongside of the Westminster Cathedral? It is delightful for Ray and Karin, and I can hear the singing up through my windows, and can see the Holy Fathers taking their exercise on the flat roofs of the various buildings connected with the Cathedral.
It gives quite an air of sanctity to the whole atmosphere, for they do look so good.
_ To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 72.
LONDON, Jan. 1, 1905 I shall be glad to see thee back, daughter, for I miss thee dreadfully.
IwishIdidnot!
Iwas taking a nap in my chair to-day, and I thought I heard thee rustling thy papers, and I looked over at thy table expecting to see thee, and alas! thee was not vinie and it was dreadful.
I consider the burden of debt is\an almost unbearable one, and if I could once get free from it, I feel as if I should hide myself in some little cottage in the depths of a forest where it would be impossible for me ever to make another debt all my life long.
A horrid demand for taxes has just come in.
It is harrowing.
Tell B. B. that my most successful book | The Christzan's Secret] was written so to speak at the point of the | 1The adopted daughter of William Henry Seward, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State.
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
bayonet, without one ray of enthusiasm, and hating to do it all the time.
So he may be encouraged.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73.
LONDON, Feb. 22, 1905 Yes, we did rejoice in the assassination of the Grand Duke,! and we only hope there will be some more !
I have always said that Quaker or no Quaker, if I had lived in Russia, I should have been a Nihilist!
It is the only voice the people have. I will get that National Review and read that article, but I am afraid it will make me more furious than is comfortable.
Feb. 25, 1905 I must repeat that I did write 'The Christian's Secret " at the point of the bayonet, as it were.
I did not want to write it at all, and only did it at father's earnest entreaties.
He had started a Paper, which I thought was a great mistake, and I declared I would not write a line for it.
But he begged so hard that at last I said I would write one article and no more, if he would give up drinking wine at dinner.
Then _ when that article was published everybody clamoured for another, and father begged, and I was goodnatured and went on, but under a continual protest.
And the best chapter of all was written on a voyage ever from America to England, when I was sea-sick all the time, and as near cursing as a person who had experienced the "' blessings of holiness *? could dare to be!
So tell B. B. books can be successful even if they s 1'The reactionary Grand-duke Sergius who, during the Russian troubles, had been assassinated on Feb. 4.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL are ground out with groans and curses, and I feel very hopeful of his book.
The great point is to have something to say, and this he has.
I enclose thee a sample of Ray's Mathematics that thee may get a little idea of what the child is doing.
It seems incredible that this is the child of whom thee and I felt very doubtful whether she could ever learn
— to eat a bun!
I wish I could give thee my philosophy of life which has carried me through my 70 years without any serious quarrels with anyone, and has given me the universal reputation of being a peacemaker.
Even through all the mazes of theological controversy, which is quite as quarrelsome a matter as "' Kunst-fussing ",
I always managed to be at peace with my opponents, and I cannot remember ever having had what I considered an enemy, although others might have thought
I ought to have considered them as such.
And as a fact some of my apparently worst enemies have become in the end my warmest friends.
I came across a book that taught that the true secret of the philosophy of Jesus was to become a King by being the Servant of all, and it carried such profound conviction to my soul that I have always tried to act onit.
It struck me as being not so much religion as the most profound common-sense.
. And such it has proved to be throughout my whole life.
Even through all the fights in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the British Women's, it has worked with almost magical power.
The girls went to Confession last evening, so had to get up early to go to Church before breakfast this morning.
It seems a bother, but I feel it is more of a comfort than a bother, for to have your conscience cleared and all your sins cast into the depths of oblivion
\ GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
175, once a month would certainly be very conducive to one's peace of mind, if one could only believe in it, as no doubt they do.
And fortunately there is nothing contrary to my religion in it, although it does not quite go to the length of mine.
For I believe you 'can do the same thing every day, or every hour, or whenever you feel a need, and that too without the intervention of any Confessional Box or any Holy Father.
To me the Box and the Father would be nothing but a hindrance, but to many people no doubt a tangible Box and a materialised Father are genuine helps, and I have no fault to find with them.
Babies are fun, but I am done with them, thank goodness.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73.
LONDON, April 26, 1905 Being lifted in and out of the motor will be a work, but as I am not sure I can see Alys's new home by looking over the ramparts of Heaven, I think I must try and do it while-I am down here.
Thy letter made me shake in my shoes a little.
Human nature is human nature, even in such exceedingly young specimens as Ray and Willy.
And when I cast my mind back to the year 1850, and remember what a silly ignorant creature J was, and how Cupid entrapped me, I cannot consider any amount of youthfulness or ignorance a safeguard.
And when I think of THEE!
! Words are wanting to express my fears !
How lovely of Ray to be so appreciative of me and of the love by which they have been surrounded.
I »
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL certainly am on their side more than I am on my own, and this I believe is the real nature of true love.
If people only could realise that this is the nature of God's love !
, It is very funny, but now that Ray is away, I keep looking out for all the girls of about her age, and with frocks about as long as hers, as I drive along in old
Rollings, and my heart goes out to every one.
Thee has my hearty sympathy in thy discovery of the fact that young people do not care, as a general thing, for the things that interest their elders.
Ray is where she always has been and where we have known her to be, frankly indifferent to sight-seeing, and making no pretence to be anything different.
But for any awkward reserve to come between thee and Ray would be grievous.
And there is not the-slightest _ need, if only you will both be frank.
If thee wants Ray to look at anything, tell her so, and, if she doesn't want to look at it, let her say so frankly, and then thee let it drop.
When you go to Venice ask her plump out whether she would rather see Churches, or swim at the Lido, and, as no doubt she will choose the Lido, the Lido let it be.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73.
LONDON, May 22, 1905 Hurrah for Ray!
She is a girl after my own heart !
As to thee with thy match-making propensities, I can only say it is a mercy thee has a daughter who can outwit thee !
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
May 24, 1905 | I actually begin to suspect that thee did look upon Willy in the light of a " parti" for Ray !!
It seems impossible that thee could have wanted her to be * caught " at this early age, after thy own experiences in the matter, and above all that thee could want her to go out to Pittsburgh to live!
Do tell me whether I am Libelling thee by suey suspicions.
But I dobelieve that thy flirting tendencies are now turned into flirtations for thy daughter, and that if Ray was not endowed with some of my good sense, acquired by sore experience, she would surely be entrapped.
I quite enjoyed a visit from the three Pearsall aunts but_you with your subtleties of conversation, would have been bored to extinction.
I warned Alys not to come near us to-day, as there is no reason she should be drawn into such a boring net.
June 7, 1905 How I should have enjoyed your trip to Lucca myself ! But I mean to make up for what I have missed in this line by going off on a Star or astride the tail of a Comet when I get to Heaven, and exploring the circumambient Universe!
Ha, Ha!
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73. pait LONDON, Sepi. 19, 1905 The journey up to Town from High Buildings was satisfactorily accomplished.
Edmund's van took me beautifully in my chair, and we had an old door of the
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
barn to roll me up on, with Edmund and Logan pushing on each side.
When I think of my old activities it really seems incredible that it should be for me that such arrangements were necessary. I felt as if I were some other decrepit old individual who had no business to take journeys anyhow.
Then at the station I was lifted into the luggage van, and Alys and Ray took turns keeping me company.
At Vauxhall they carried me to a cab in a carrying chair and I managed with Alys's help to get in, and felt at home in Rolling's old 4wheeler.
The porter gave me a welcome, and we were soon up in our flat, and my table was all ready for me to be wheeled straight to it.
At last I begin to feel settled, and my sacred disorder begins to look like itself.
We miss thee more than words can say, but it is not profitable to enlarge on this topic.
I am dipped into sympathy with thee over the dress question.
I confess it does seem to be a dreadful waste of time and money, and, worse still, of brains and of temper too, to turn your mortal frame, into a dressmaker's block, and I cannot help thinking it must be deteriorating to the character.
Do assert thy independence and cut loose from it all.
Suppose I had devoted my life to such things, what sort of a creature would I: be now?
Personally I could not endure such boring visits as you suffer a single day ; but then I am not good at standing bores, my legs get into such dreadful fidgets, and nearly everybody bores me nowadays, all except my own family and Grace.
GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73.
LONDON, Oct. 16, 1905 Of all hateful occupations, housekeeping is to my mind the most hateful.
Nurse was just like poor Mrs. Truilzi in this, that she would parade all the faults and all the peculiarities of the other servants before me day after day; and therefore I know well how thoroughly disagreeable it is. "Logan's attitude is the right one, "'If the house is on fire, don't tell me."
But alas ! the housekeeper must not say this, but must watch every spark, and must trample it out, and it is not agreeable.
But I hope things will brighten with thee in a few days, or at any rate thee will get on a rhinoceros skin that won't care.
Thank goodness I have no man to cater for !
I am dressed up in my best now, awaiting the coming of poor weeping Lady Low, and two of her friends who have read my books and are igen to see my wings.
If thee could sete settle down to noises as being part of the ordained order of things, they would not disturb thee.
I hear no noises here at night at all when thee is not here, but, as'soon as thee comes, I am so afraid of thy being disturbed, that I hear them all the time.
Or rather I should say that I hear them but do not notice them in the least except when thee is here.
Do put thy will 'power into this, and when noises come, just say to thyself not "" How can I stop it', or " how annoying it is", or anything, except just "It is none of my business", and turn over and ignore it. I know that can be done.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL Nov. 15, 1905 Our dressmaker, poor Miss Larby's, love affair, which has experienced various ups and downs, has come to an end this evening, by a letter from the man saying it was only a flirtation, and she must not think of it any more.
It is a disappointment, but I tell her he probably has a wife somewhere else, and it is a happy escape for her.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 73.
LONDON, Nov. 17, 1905 Almost any school with a lot of girls would be more fun for Karin than your grown-up (not to say middleaged) atmosphere.
Look at Ray, what bliss all the nonsensical fun they have at Newnham is to her.
It is evidently the divine order, and there is no getting out of it.
They must have their fun just as kittens must, and not with their mothers, but with other kittens.
I tremble in my bed at the thought of thy sleeping arrangements here.
The Flat over\us is taken by an American Actress and her mother.
They seem to me very quiet, but I suppose to thee they will seem like raging bulls.
I do wonder if a procession of all the people I have helped will come to meet me when I enter Heaven !
Or will they have discovered that I had got everything wrong and had only hindered them instead of helping, and so come to try and persuade Peter to shut the gate against me!
It will be rather interesting to see.
I have just had sent me a translation of one of my tracts, and the title is '' All bugsvalelses
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
Gad ", meaning " The God of all Comfort".
What a language!
It is Swedish.
What do those barbarians mean by a "fat nose"?
It cannot be the same meaning we would have.
Thee need not feel the slightest delicacy about always telling me how B. B. feels.
My experience of life has taught me to look upon the vagaries of the male portion of our race as one looks upon avalanches or earthquakes—things that cannot be stopped nor altered, but must simply have way made for them, with as little personal inconvenience to one's self as possible.
And just as one would always be glad to know when avalanches or earthquakes are coming, so I always like to know what the men of my acquaintance feel about things, or what they want, in order that I may get out of the way.
I am afraid Willie's continual smoking has so undermined his moral nature that he really does not know right from wrong, poor fellow.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 74.
LONDON, Feb. 15, 1906 I send thee a belated birthday present—a telescope Cigarette holder.
Thee need not advertise that it is a present from the author of the " Christian's Secret of a Happy Life"!
But I think it may save thee from a little of the poison of thy cigarettes, of which I have a few fears.
I sympathise with thee from the bottom of my heart over your guests, for I know it well from many experiences of incompetent Missionaries with their still more incompetent wives, who were foisted on me by
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL poor father's unthinking hospitality, and all their burdens rolled over off his shoulders on to mine.
But Mother Smith showed me the way out at last, and that was never to take them into our own house, to upset everything and make everybody uncomfortable, but to arrange for them to go into lodgings near by, where I could see them as often as necessary, but from where I could escape to the peace and quiet of my own home.
| It is really kinder to the people themselves too ; whereas, while they are in your house, they will simply lie back and depend altogether on you.
At present thee is pauperising those poor dear people, and it is thy duty to force them to work for their own living.
I think thee ought to find them lodgings and tell them thee cannot get a villa for them, nor a servant, nor oversee their affairs, as thee makes it a rule not to do things like that for other people. (Make the rule quick, now, as thee reads this letter.)
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 74.
LONDON, feb. 22, 1906 I do not wonder thee was "jiggered""' over that cigarette case.
I felt rather jiggered myself.
But as thee is too old for me to forbid thee to smoke, and so I am entirely delivered from responsibility, I want, since thee will smoke, to help thee to do it as comfortably as possible.
I do not understand it, unless it is that the mother in me gets the better of the reformer sometimes!
And I happened to see that little holder at one of those moments.
Such are the frailties of poor human nature !
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
I feel quite awed at the thought of Ray being nineteen so soon.
When I was 1g I got married, like the ignorant idiot I was.
And what worries me is that I had no more thought of doing such a thing than she has, and had not the slightest fondness for men.
It all came on me like the earthquake on San Francisco last week, and in one day my life was overturned.
And why may it not be the same with Ray?
It would be too awful !
We have all been Suffra-ging this morning.
I went in Rollings with placards on each door, " Votes for Women "', and a badge fastened on to my bonnet in front, and Alys and Grace and Mary and Mrs. Rollings and Miss Larby all walked in the procession alongside.
~ Grace and I felt the greatest sympathy with thy wail this morning.
I have long wondered how thee can stand the boring visitors thee has.
I could not possibly do it, I have kept clear cf bores all my life long by judiciously pulling out my watch, when the boring stage was reached, and saying, "I am afraid I shall have to go to my work," or "I am afraid I must go out," or something.
This gets you up a character for being hard at work, and people are impressed rather than annoyed.
Your trip sounds heavenly.
Would that such things had happened in my day!
Still, I have had a good share of fun in my life, and one region I have at least partly explored that beats all of yours, and that when once you have got into it, becomes your permanent residence, and no man can take it from you!
But I myself am having so many visitors just now that I can hardly get time to write.
It is my last book that has stirred them to come for help.
It is to be hoped I give them sound teaching!
At any rate it is comfortable teaching.
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
July 23, 1906 My stream of company goes on streaming.
Somebody especial for private interviews is coming every afternoon until I go to the country.
Yesterday Lady Rosslyn was here, and Gertrude Mallet came.
Whenever I get anyone who professes to believe the Bible, I give them no quarter until they really do accept it as true, or else deny it altogether.
It is absurd to keep saying they believe God loves them, and all the while thinking He doesn't.
Any idiot can be made to see this.
But here comes another—and I must close.
This one is a Missionary from America.
Karin can go,to Confession on Saturday night and to early Mass on Sunday, and so be free for a month.
(To think that Hannah Whitall Smith should have to write such words !) To her granddaughter, Ray Costelloe Aet. 74.
COURT PLACE, IFFLEY, Wov. 14, 1906
I hae to know, eae whether thy yellow dress filled up a "long felt want ", or whether it turned to ashes on thy back.
In thy Debate in favour of Motoring, thee can extinguish thy opponents by gently reminding them of the opposition railroads met with at first.
They were considered a wicked tempting of Providence.
And thee can tell them when sewing machines first came in they were looked upon as the offspring of Hell.
Even thy grandmother (myself) had to hide one she bought in her attic and keep it a profound, secret, because her friends thought it' was such a sinful machine.
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
And in thy great-grandmother's day suspenders to hold up men's trousers were believed to be invented by Satan !
I left London forever without a pang, na to tell the whole truth, without a single " feel" of any sort or description.
To Miss Olive Seward Aet. 74.
IFFLEY, fan. 27, 1907 Thy letter of December was a great joy to me, and it was answered in my heart at once.
But my writer's cramp makes writing very difficult, and my hand so soon tires that I find myself unable to do more than attend to my necessary correspondence, and all else has to wait.
To-day I feel a little more limber than usual, and must try and send thee at least a few lines.
It was delightful to get into touch with thee again, and to know something of thy whereabouts and of thy life.
And it is a joy to know that, no matter how far separated nor how long our silences, we always meet on the same old terms and find ourselves unaltered towards one another.
I include dear mystical Sara} in this, and I love to think of her mystical musings and of the beatific visions I am sure she has; although I alas! cannot share them.
I say alas, because they have always been unattainable experiences to me for, like thee, the practical, and what William James calls the * pragmatical " side of religion has always seemed to suit me best.
Thee and I, beloved Olive, were rather choked off, I think, by the strong doses we shared together in the long ago years, and now I can heartily unite with thee in feeling that plain simple
1Sara Lipton, who lived with Olive Seward.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL common-sense faith is the strongest staff upon which one can safest lean.
But I must tell thee about my move here.
The occasion of it was that my two granddaughters who had always lived with me, had grown up and were away, one at College and one at school, and I was left alone ; and as neither Mariechen nor Alys could be with me, and Logan greatly preferred Oxford to London, we decided that I had far better take up my abode with him there, especially as he seems destined to be an old bachelor.
He found this place on the banks of the river, next door to the beautiful Iffley
Church, which I am sure thee must have seen.
We have about eight acres and some splendid old trees, among the rest a magnificent Cedar of Lebanon.
Out of the window where I am sitting to write, I look across green lawns to the river, and can see a little white footbridge over which Alys bicycles almost every day to see me.
I am very happy here, and although I am confined to my wheeled chair and cannot get out much, yet the views out of our windows are so lovely, and the river is so shining, and the grass is so green, that I feel the lines have indeed fallen to me in pleasant places.
I often have a feeling as if I were living in a novel, and this is a distinct charm of entering into the life of another country from your own. I have it here, whenever I stop to realise that I am Hence on the banks of the river Thames.
To her daughter, aes Berenson Act. 74.
IEFLEY, Feb. 2, 1907 I wonder if you ought to urge B. B. to write when he feels so unable to do it.
If you spur him on too
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
far, all his machinery may give out, and thee may have him a helpless invalid on thy hands.
Let him lie absolutely fallow for awhile ; and then, if he has anything to say, and any power to say it, he will feel an inspiration, and it will be easy.
I read a very striking story once of a man with a great deal of brain power, whose wife urged him on and on to do a certain piece of work when he felt unequal to it, and as a result his brain gave way, and he was a semi-idiot the rest of his life—I advise thee to be careful, but do not tell B. B. all this.
Mar. 5, 1907 I am dreadfully distressed by thy attack of shingles.
Do ask Mr. Cannon whether he suffered with neuralgia after his attack.
If he did probably his present sufferings have been caused by it.
Doctor Osler says in his Medical book that that sort of neuralgia sometimes lasts for years.
How old was Mr. Cannon when he had his attack?
As for thee, thee is far too young for such an infliction.
And just here let me advise thee not to talk of thyself as being old.
There is something in Mind Cure, after all, and, if thee continually talks of thyself as being old, thee may perhaps bring on some of the infirmities of age.
At least I would not risk it if I were thee.
The drawing-room blinds have come, and are a lovely light green, and harmonise beautifully with the greenish tinge of the walls.
I receive my callers in there now, and I feel myself exactly like a fasting man in a glass case, on show.
Thee suggests that Logan and I are becoming "County " people, but thee is very much mistaken.
The " County " never call on the Iffley " gentry "
(so-called).
No, we are only middle class, perhaps !
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL upper, but I don't know yet.
But, County, Upper, or Lower, I feel perfectly indifferent, for my world is apart from them all.
And my only desire is not to be bothered with any of them, except when they have had Shingles.
I believe when you are tempted to be cross it is a great help just to say to your friends, ''I know I am going to be cross, but you must not mind it, for it is only disease."
Somehow this seems to relieve the strain.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
IFFLEY, May 30, 1907 Another caller!
It really is dreadful to be so the prey of callers.
I do not see how I am going to stand it.
It was very different in London, for all my visitors there came for religious talks in which I was really interested, and here it is all surface talk which I hate.
The invitations for our garden party have gone out ; and now comes the problem of what is to become of me ; for, according to present appearances, I shall have to spend all my time wheeling back and forth to and from my Commode, and I do not exactly see how that is going to fit into a Garden Party!!
Perhaps I had better receive my guests enthroned on it in state ! !
I shall not expect you, as there really is no need, and there is certainly no enjoyment.
I have all my life long found social functions an unmitigated bore.
June 5, 1907 My Shingles are developing more and more sores, and I think the prospects are that when the Garden
Party arrives, Mrs. Pearsall Smith will have to be
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
hidden upstairs.
I could not stand the " gay world " 1 here, if I had to visit; and I am thankful for my wheeled chair every day of my life.
June 20 My sores are much better, and I think I can appear at the Garden Party without causing a shudder of disgust to sweep through the company.
But it does seem a pity I cannot look my prettiest.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
IFFLEY, Sept. 21, 1907 I have just heard that Edward Clifford is dead !
- It is a great shock, as, although I knew he was gradually failing, I had no idea he was so near death.
He was my faithful and quite devoted friend for 40 years, and I shall miss him a good deal, but I am awfully glad for him.
I do hope that B. B. will not succeed in turning thee into a milliner's block.
You cannot dress in the height of fashion without one of two things :—either you must pour out money like water, or else you must give all your time and energies to it; and I should hate to see thee doing either of these things.
It seems — to me such an ignoble pursuit for anyone with good sense.
I am not the least lonely, honest Injun.
1To her daughter the word "gay" would have an overtone of particular and moral significance:
"By 'gay' we meant anything that was not Quakerly.
Quakers were ' plain' and all the rest of the world, and even of the Church, was 'gay'."
(The Unselfishness of God, p. 51.) This special sense of the word 'might cover anything almost, from the Lord's Prayer to the use of sewing machines.
I i
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
IFFLEY, Oct. 15, 1907 Well, I accomplished my eulogy of Edward Clifford yesterday afternoon, and feel enormously relieved.
But I had no idea I was as " pious " as I found myself to be, for I could not remember any of my intercourse with him except that on the spiritual plane.
All our intercourse on the earthly plane seems to have faded away into a misty distance, while the other is as fresh and vivid as possible.
It is cold and rainy this morning, and I have put on under-vest no. 3—one of those knitted woollen ones, and feel in consequence lovely and warm.
When it gets colder, I will put on no. 4, and with four undervests, a pair of corded corsets, a corset cover, a dress waist, and a velveteen bolero jacket, altogether eight coverings, to say nothing of my rolls of fat, I shall, I trust, be able to defy the winter.
See how sensible I am, and take example thereby.
If I should still feel the cold, I shall not hesitate to put on no. g and no. 10 for warm and comfortable I intend to be! I feel like an animated cushion, as if pins might be stuck into me anywhere, and never succeed in pricking me.
Again callers have hindered my writing.
I believe Iffley people spend their lives paying calls!
However, I nearly converted one of my callers to Suffrage for women, and Logan and the other lady had a free fight about Free Trade.
I do not feel as well up in Free Trade as in Suffrage.
There may be two sides to the first, but to the last there is and can be only one.
Of that I am sure.
This evening Logan is going into Oxford to hear
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
IQI Bertie Russell lecture on Pragmatism.
I wish I could hear him.
I expect he will tear it to pieces.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
IFFLEY, Wov. 15, 1907 Poor dear Emily—her illness is too dreadful, and I am afraid she has no religion to comfort her.
You people without religion have no idea what a dreadful loss it is.
Instead of its being meritorious on the part of anyone to believe in the God of the New Testament, it is the greatest piece of self-indulgence possible, for there is no comfort in the universe to equal it.
We are eager to hear the details of the Cyclopean quarrel between the Thorolds and the Hapgoods.
What a place Florence is for quarrels!
I begin to think it is some sort of microbe.
Do watch that you don't become infected.
I am going to read Logan's Life of Sir Henry Wotton! sometime when I can find time to do it leisurely, and see if I can discover its beauties.
. If only it would ever be possible for thee and me to read it together, we might stir each other up to a greater admiration than we have at present.
But do not say anything to Logan about this.
My nausea is all right again to-day.
It was evidently the green corn I had been eating.
(But it was good !) I do seem to have a great press of business just now.
Bessie Taylor has applied to me to help her prepare a life of grandpa Whitall for young Friends.
Lady Henry has applied to help her with her life of Miss Willard.
My publisher has applied to know whether 1 The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, in two volumes, by Logan
Pearsall Smith.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL a gentleman may print one of the chapters of the *€ Christian's Secret' as a tract.
A lady from South Africa writes to know whether she has committed the unpardonable sin etc. etc.
Lady Rosslyn writes to ask me to read an article on Socialism by her daughter, Lady Warwick, and tell her what I think of it. And so on and so on, until I hardly get time to read my papers.
/ To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75. | IFFLEY, Dec. 1, 1907 I confess I have had a great many secret misgivings as to your settling down in an English country house, on account of the loneliness and dreariness of winter.
It struck me like a pall when we went to see Wood Eaton.
I did not say anything, because I did not want to discourage any chance of getting you over here, but I inwardly decided that it would take a house full of interesting people to make it a pleasant winter home.
I am very much afraid you would not like it over here for long ; and your having a home in Italy would not prevent your taking a house in England, either in the country or in London, for as long or short a time as you might like.
Of course it would be lovely to have you near me, but it would be unwise to count on that, for I do not intend to live any longer than I can help, and at any moment I might get dotty, and be anything but a pleasure to be with.
And as I say, you can always take a house near me while I am at all desirable as a companion.
But in spite of my Bladder trouble, I have not felt at all weak or sick to-day.
It does not seem to affect
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
my general health at all, which is discouraging from the point of view of Heaven, and just at present, although it would be delicious to have thee, I do not really need thee ; and I should be so afraid of upsetting thee by my discomforts and my miseries that I should have to pretend there was nothing the matter.
I am really freer to groan and grumble when I am all alone ; and, a good deal of the time, I can go on with my usual pursuits.
I have plenty of odd jobs to keep me busy and plenty of odd naps to take between times.
I am thankful thee did not tell Karin about Mme von H.
It is a disastrous thing to weaken the moral sense in young people by familiarity with delightful immoral people ; and I confess that I dread Italy for Ray and Karin more on this account than on any other.
Older people, whose moral nature is already more or less settled, may not be hurt by it perhaps, though even this is doubtful ; but young people, whose moral character is being formed are almost certainly bound to be deteriorated by it, and can hardly pep coming to grief.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
; IFFLEY, Jan. 31, 1908 I have been wondering, in view just now of the fact that you are so enthusiastic over the " young", why it is that you exalt youth on such a high pedestal.
I do not remember ever feeling it was such a great achievement to be young, and such a matter of deep regret to be growing old ; and I have never been able to understand your feelings in the matter.
But I think I have solved it at last.
It is because to you this life is all, you do not believe in a future life that
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
is to be the crown and fulfilment of this ; and naturally to grow old is to you a disaster that has no alleviations ; while to me growing old in this life only means
. a day by day nearer approach to the entrance upon another life far higher and grander than this life is or ever could be ; and naturally I am in a hurry to get there.
} Feeling as good for nothing as I do, and the certainty that all earthly things must nécessarily one by one fall away from me, I should indeed be miserable if this life were all.
I seem to have got a glimpse into the misery and desolation of a life without God and without a future, that fills me with the most profound sympathy for you.
Whatever thee does, darling daughter, do not, I entreat of thee, deprive thy daughters of whatever faith they may have, even though it should be the narrowest Catholicism, by any influence of thine.
The Zangwills have just come.
They seem very nice, but I am going to take advantage of my invalidism, and see very little of them.
Feb. 1, 1908 I am delighted to know that thee realises the absolute necessity of keeping Ray and Karin as ignorant of the evils in the world as thee can ; and I must say that I rejoice that Ray zs a little priggish.
It will need some priggishness to keep her straight in the atmosphere of Italy.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 75.
IFFLEY, Feb. 5, 1908 Alas for maternity—how it hurts, and what agonies for mothers lie hidden in the fate of our children !
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
Here are both Ray and Karin not well at Newnham, and I feel as if I would like to upset the whole order of the universe to make them well again.
I had a worshipper here to-day, a lady who came out to see about taking Grace's cottage.
She found out that I was the Mrs. Pearsall Smith, and she begged so hard to be allowed just to look on my face, that Logan had to bring her into my sitting-room, and then what did she do but actually kneel down and seize my hand and kiss it, and weep, so speechless with emotion that she could only ejaculate, "' To think I should have this inestimable privilege!" etc. etc. till I was ready to shake her.
It was most embarrassing.
I really began to feel a sympathy with God for the worship He has to put up with so often!
Logan fled from the room ; and I managed to get the poor dear soul up on to a chair, and quieted her down a little.
But I felt a wretch for being so unsympathetic, and I expect she felt sadly disappointed not to see more signs of a halo and wings!
I shall have to protect myself from her adorations somehow, but I am afraid she will set me wild.
You will all have to protect me.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 76.
IFFLEY, Feb. 14, 1908 This is a happy anniversary for me, thy birthday.
Love, as thee feels it for Ray and Karin, is purely heavenly and does smooth out everything.
But passion is purely material or earthly, what the Bible calls carnal, and it truly does confuse everything.
It is a horrid (although sometimes entrancing) element.
We are all absorbed this afternoon in the fall of the
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
big tree we are having cut down. I told thee yesterday that they were at work on it, and the critical moment of its final fall has now arrived.
When it is down, it . will give us a splendid view of the Cedar of Lebanon.
It is down—hurrah !
The wild life at Sandgate suits Karin exactly, and she thinks it would be bliss to get once more into that "Pirate Band", and roam the country at night unhindered.
This Pirate Band is composed of four young men, and Margaret, and Hester, and Karin, each one wilder than the other, except that I have no doubt our beloved Karin is the wildest of all, with her wild Irish blood, the darling.
I should like to see Karin dressed as Byron.
Does she know his poetry?
Does thee?
I do not think I ever read a line, for when I was young and cared for poetry, Byron was considered too. "' gay" for young
Quakers to read.
Is it not rather immoral in its tendencies ?
I should love to be present at one of your Santa Conversaziones.
I wonder if I could understand you, or is my outlook so widely different from yours that all your talk would be worse than Greek to me that did understand what thee said about the secret of — successful novel writing to Ray—namely that the making of real characters is the one essential.
I know from experience that the novels I have really enjoyed, and that have left the strongest impression on me are those that have made me acquainted with a real person, and have given me an actual new friend.
I would carry it further and say that to make a place real, or the circumstances of the story real are also most important.
I know some of Mrs. Oliphant's books have done this for me, and have left me with a sort of inner consciousness that I have made a new
GROWING
OLD GRACEFULLY
friend and have visited a new country, and shall always have them both in remembrance.
I have never yet seen, either indoors or out, a pretty woman in Oxford.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 76.
IFFLEY, April 15, 1908 I should be only too delighted if I could believe thee really did adore B. B.1
It is such a rare trait in a wife that I could hardly believe it ; but, if it is true, thee could not have a more secure foundation for happiness.
But I must confess that the sort of life you lead, with such a continual procession of visitors, would be weariness beyond words to me, and it is a continual amazement to me that you stand it.
The talk must necessarily be mostly on the surface of things, and to me nothing is more wearisome.
That is why I hate the English calling business so much.
It certainly is an utter waste of life.
But I suppose you could not easily get out of it, so you must try and make it profitable somehow, either to yourselves or to your friends.
My plan of life has been to avoid as far as possible all useless efforts, and to have real enjoyment or real profit for somebody in all that I go in for.
But you have to keep out of the mere conventionalities to accomplish this.
And if I was in a position where I had to return the attentions of our neighbours here, I would have to move away. I simply could not stand
1 This observation, of course, has no bearing on Mr. Berenson's character, or on his mother-in-law's opinion of him (they got on well together) ; it was merely the result of a constitutional disbelief that any woman could become happy because of her marriage.
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL it.
I have an unfailing fortress of invalidism in which I can shut myself up.
I am sitting to-day at my table with my window open enjoying the primroses and the tulips, and thinking if all this is so lovely, how much more lovely will the life beyond be, when I am so happy as to get there.
There will be no bothersome Bladder to trouble me then !
The girls decided to play Demon in my sitting-room, and asked if I would let them say "" Damn " now and then, and what could a poor foolish grandmother say but, "Yes"!
(But do not put this in my Memoirs, I beg of thee !) P.S.
I must add a line to say that I want thee to impress on B. B. and Carlo Placci 1-that they must try to keep from waking thee up if thee should happen to fall asleep at any time.
The reason I say this is because I remember thy telling me how they sometimes blew trumpets in thy ears for a joke when thee fell asleep ; and this is too great a risk for thee to run, both on account of thy vital need of sleep, and also on account of the danger of injuring thy ears by the loud' noise.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 76.
IFFLEY, May 23, 1908 William James and his wife have been here to lunch, and Logan has just taken them to Oxford in his launch
—I asked him a little about his " views ", but did not get hold of anything very satisfactory.
I could not * An Italian friend of the Berensons.
A portrait of him by Mr.
Berenson was published in Horizon for June, 1946, under the title of A Latin Profile.
GROWING OLD
GRACEFULLY
find that he had any real foundation for his beliefs, and he certainly had no God to offer me that I could
| depend on.
He said that I was only the second person who had said a word to him about his work since he came to Oxford four weeks ago.
He longs to talk his philosophy over with the thinkers here, but they are all too shy to introduce the subject, and he does not like to do it himself.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson, and her granddaughters, Ray and Karin Costelloe wer. 70.
IFFLEY, Sept. 10, 1908 It was with a heavy heart I saw you go off to America yesterday, and wheeled back after each departure, to my bright sitting-room, feeling very weepy, but quite determined to be happy in the thought of the interesting new experiences you are going into, and of the interesting life that lies before you.
I confess I felt like a hen seeing its tenderly cherished chickens paddling off into unknown waters; and I could not help asking myself whether I had been as faithful as I ought to my trust, and had prepared you to my best ability to meet the life that lies before you.
But of one thing I am sure, and that is that I tried, and where I failed I can only commit you to your Heavenly
Father and trust Him to make up my deficiencies.
If I had given you any parting advice it would I think all have been comprised in this one sentence ¢o live up always to the best and highest you know.
The grandest Christian I ever met told me that the one single rule of his life had been always to let his obedience keep pace with his light, and it had led him
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL into a life of victory.
I could enlarge for pages, but do not want to bore you, so enough said.
I mean all this especially for you two young things, but my heart includes your mother also.
Great cleanings up are going on to-day.
The Drawing-room is all turned out, the beds are all made up clean, the large dining table has gone out to the Coach House, and the small one has taken its place, and in a day or two Logan and I shall be reduced to our lives of dual loneliness.
How we shall miss you all no words can say!
But at any rate no oceans or continents can deprive me of the joys I have had in your sweet and beloved companionship in the past, nor of the hope of its renewal in the future.
You all three have certainly given me more happiness in my life than ever I could tell you, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.