The Grandmother
THE GRANDMOTHER
To her friends Aet. 61.
/ Oct. 17, 1893 It is lovely having Frances Willard in one's house.
She is really the most charming and delicious of women, something absolutely unique in woman-kind, or mankind either.
I cannot describe what her charm is, but it arises partly, I am sure, from the singular simplicity of her nature, and the other-world way in which she looks at everything.
She realises more than anyone I ever knew one's idea of being " seated in Heavenly places', without, however, the slightest trait of a morbid ivcne, or of dogmatic assertion.
Her optimism is perfectly contagious.
She believes that God is in the world He has made, and that, in spite of all the "'seemings"' to the contrary, He is working out for the whole human race a glorious destiny when all sin shall be done away, and every sinner shall be brought into conformity with the image of Christ, and shall be made one with Him.
To her friends Aet. 62.
LONDON, Jan. 20, 1894 I always feel content when I get a chance to sow a seed of thought i in anyone's mind, even though they may at first reject it ; because I am sure, if it is a seed
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that has any life in it, it will be sure to germinate and grow and bear fruit sometime.
I have had many seeds sown in my own soul that I rejected at first with scorn or horror, which however, have found a lodgement in spite of me, and which afterwards have brought forth an abundant harvest, to my own great surprise.
We have had a most interesting meeting here on Women's Trade Unions, addressed by Miss Clementina
Black.
I was Chairman, and made my maiden Trade Union speech on opening.
Little did I think twenty years ago that I should ever find myself making a speech in favour of Trade Unions!
But this is only another illustration of the growth and spread of ideas.
And one of my objects in writing about it all is to sow some seeds in some of your minds, that will sooner or later bring forth the same fruit as has been brought forth in mine.
You may remember in one of my ie letters my telling you about the great coal strike, and the victory of the miners on the principle of the " living wage "
Some extracts from this letter were printed in the Union Signal, and as a result I have a letter from a Tory lady, whose views are such a good illustration of the sort of arguments the '" Classes" use, that I will send you a few extracts.
She says she was greatly grieved at seeing my letter, and adds—" I know that the living wage means in the minds of the miners, champagne, hot beef soup, prime joints, immense waste in bread, cold meat thrown away, and above all plenty of gambling.
"JT admit there was suffering during the strike, but it was all brought on by the Leaders of the Unions, who get large salaries and live on the fat of the land, and who are obliged to order strikes every little while in order to justify their continuance in office.
These
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REBEL wicked men are covetous and ambitious, huditing their own pockets at the expense of their misguided followers.
The miners had no cause of complaint.
In fact I know for a certainty that they often drive to the Pit's mouth in cabs.
All this agitation is only got up to create a bitter feeling in the minds of the poor against the rich ; and I am sorry to see that _you endorse it."
You can see from this letter how little the working people have to hope from the upper classes, who will persist in believing and declaring, as this lady does, that the bloated poor man lives on champagne and beef, and rides to his work in cabs!
You can make no headway against such pigheadedness !
To her friends Aet. 62.
LONDON, March 16, 1894 The coming generation are not going to see things as we have seen them, that is very clear ; and the food that has satisfied us will not satisfy them.
But this does not trouble me.
We did not see things as the generation before us did.
We could not, as each one of us individually knows, and we must let this make us tolerant of the generation that is to follow us.
And one thing is very manifest, and that is that this coming generation is inspired with very high ideals and is filled with a generous impulse for the uplifting of humanity that is far ahead of what was known when we were young.
If I were to express the difference broadly, I think I would say that our great concern in those days was to save our own souls, while the great concern of the coming generation now is to save the souls of others.
By " saving the soul " I do not mean
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only a saving that/is to affect eternity, but the saving that affects life now and here—that makes out of human beings good men and women, good citizens, good neighbours, good politicians, good workmen, and good employers of labour ; the saving that limits the hours of labour, and that builds sanitary dwellings for the poor ; the saving that gives each man and woman that works, a living wage for their work, and that equalises the laws between rich and poor and puts women on an equal plane of privilege and rights with men.
What did we think of any of these things when we were young?
And yet the young generation now are full of them.
And for my part I think they are ahead of us, and I personally mean to do all I can to help and not hinder their work.
I do not believe the Christianity of Christ meant a selfish absorption in the future salvation of one's own soul, nor an introverted watching of one's internal '"' experiences".
I believe we were meant to '' commit the keeping of our souls to Him as to a faithful Creator '"' and were to bend all our energies in trying to make His kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven. «And the young people of the present day are doing this last, whether they have consciously done the first or not.
I can joyfully commit them to the Divine Master whom they are thus serving, though it may be unconsciously, and can leave it with Him to lead them by the right paths to a knowledge of Himself.
Christianity to my mind does not exclude them that are '' weak in the faith", but rather throws its arms around them and includes them ; and we who profess to share the spirit of Christ must do the same.
The next matter of interest is that Ray and Karin got me up on top of a haystack! I tell you this to show you to what lengths grandmothers 62 years old can be induced to go by their grandchildren!
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REBEL are having splendid crops of hay off of our meadows this year, and Robert has it all put, as is the English custom, in great stacks.
This one was covered with a tent cloth, until there was time to thatch it with straw, and the children used it for an aerial play-house, the tent cloth being stretched high enough from the top to make a delightful sort of house.
We climbed up a ladder against the side.
It was great fun to the children to get grandma up there, but I confess it was a mixed cup for me!
Ray said to her mother afterwards, '' Mother, I think a great deal of what an advantage it is to us children to live near such a kind grandma as grandma Smith.
It would be so dreadful if she was not kind.""
You can imagine how pleased I was with this speech!
And then she added after a moment's thought, "' I don't believe there is any other grandma in the world who would climb up on top of a haystack when her chickies asked her."
I confess I am rather inclined to this last opinion myself!
I seem to be hale and hearty still.
But I have lots of delightful little reminders that I am growing old, such as rheumatic twinges, and stiff joints, and a growing sense that the burdens of this generation are no longer on my shoulders.
My dear friend, Lady Mount Temple, feels the approach of old age to be very sad.
While I was staying with her at Torquay, we had a visit from a most saintly Roman Catholic priest,
Father Vaughan, a brother of Cardinal Vaughan, and he very nearly made a Catholic of her!
He assured her that all her spiritual troubles arose from the fact that she had never been baptised, and he promised her if she would only allow him to baptise her, all her doubts and difficulties would vanish never to return!
She was very much tempted to try it, "' like a new medicine "
I told her; and she declares that it was only my
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influence that withheld her!+ I told him that she had been baptised, as an infant, in the English Church but he said he was sure it had not been rightly done and therefore was not valid, or she would not be hungering so for the water of life.
I asked him what constituted a valid baptism, and he said the one vital thing was that the words " In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost"? should be pronounced at the identical moment when the water touched the forehead of the person being baptised ; that if there was a moment of time between the two things the baptism was not valid ;
_and he said that in baptisms in the English Church these fatal moments did continually intervene through carelessness or ignorance of the vital point at issue, and consequently most of their baptisms were invalid !
To her friends Aet. 63.
PARIS, April 15, 1895 We find Logan's Apartment such a delightful place to stop athere.
This French way of living in the Latin Quarter is so simple and so cheap, and one feels so virtuously economical, that every day is a fresh delight.
Everybody is absorbed in their studies or their work, and the whole atmosphere is one of earnest purpose and eager thought.
At every turn you meet the girls walking to their studios or their Art Schools with their canvasses under their arms and a camp stool in their hands, and nobody seems to be aimless or idle.
The one thing that troubles me about it is the fearful waste of enthusiasm and effort that goes on from year to year ; for of course most of all this Art studying comes to absolutely nothing.
I shudder to think of the 1See Note I at end of Chapter.
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REBEL thousands of wretched daubs that are being turned out year after year in these Paris Aleliers; each one representing a whole world of enthusiasm and earnest work, and often an infinity of sacrifice on the part of parents and friends ; and all to end in hopeless failure.
It seems to me a never ending tragedy.
What effect it all has upon the character and future lives of these thousands of mediocre Art Students I do not know, but I should fear that they would be utterly unfitted for any sort of quiet home life in the future.
But perhaps . they go out West somewhere and astonish the natives with their creations, and adorn the walls of frame farmhouses and country inns with the latest fashions in French Impressionist Art!
Let us hope that they find appreciation somewhere at last.
To Mrs. Lawrence Aet. 63.
LONDON, May 12, 1895 I had a prophecy from a " Palmist " the other day, that I am to die at 67.
Of course I place no faith in it, but I cannot tell thee what a real inward spring of joy it gives me every now and then to think—* Suppose it should be true ! "
To Mrs. Lawrence Aet. 64.
LONDON, july 4, 1896 We have just had a regular " Opening" of Lady Henry Somerset's Inebriate Farm Home at Duxhurst by Princess Mary, the Duchess of Teck.
Nothing in England is "opened" right unless it is opened by Royalty, so we were most thankful to be able to secure
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GRANDMOTHER
— the Princess Mary of Teck for ours.
It is certainly most self-sacrificing of the Royalties to do it, for drearier or more boring functions I cannot well imagine, that is for the Royalties.
For those of us who will endure any moment of dreariness and boredom for the sake of catching glimpses of a Royal person, (and this I grieve to say includes the whole English nation) such functions are not so bad.
I never saw one before, and I never want to see one again.
I can imagine all future ones, without having to stand in the broiling sun for hours, and then see nothing but a fat old lady, who looked like any other old lady, patting some mortar on a stone with a silver trowel !
Alas ! how little we can do at our best in bearing one another's burdens.
One finds this out more and more as one grows older.
I used to feel a capacity for relieving everyone of their burdens in the most successful and triumphant manner, and did not hesitate to rush in boldly even into the most delicate and 'critical affairs.
But row all this desire has vanished and I am glad, instead of interfering with other people's burdens, to shift my own off on to younger and stronger shoulders.
I suppose this is partly old age, and partly experience which has taught me how easy it is to do more harm than good by interfering.
But in one direction I do not believe you can often go wrong, and that is in giving your hearty sympathy to everybody you come in contact with.
I believe sympathy is one of the most helpful helps one can bestow upon one's fellow creatures ; and it seems a great pity that so many people feel it their duty to criticise rather than sympathise.
\ I am sure this is where old people oftenest fail in their relations with the young.
They think that their duty to the young requires that they should keep a sharp look-
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'out for their faults and mistakes, and should never fail to reprove them.
Whereas I feel sure the contrary method is by far the most effectual, and that what we old people ought to do is to keep a sharp lookout for the virtues and the wise actions of the young, andnever fail to commend them.
It is a universal law of human nature that what we are commended for we like to repeat, and a judicious system of sympathetic appreciation is to my thinking the most effective
** discipline " the world knows.
And this reminds me that I have just had | published a revised edition of my little book about mothers.
I say I have had it published but the fact is that Nisbets, who published the "Secret"? asked permission to publish it, and of course I was nothing loth, for I like my " wise " ideas about true motherhood to be spread as widely as possible for the sake of the precious children everywhere.
I think, speaking of children, I must repeat to you the greatest compliment I ever had paid to me, that was given me by my little granddaughters the other day.
We were going out in a cab together to buy some Christmas things, and one of them said, "I expect
Grandma you have just got some of your income from America, so you will buy us whatever we want."
I assented to this; and then Ray said, evidently trying to adjust this ready assent to such a sweeping system of purchase with her ideas of economy,—" I suppose you might as well use up your income while you are alive, for when you die that will be the end of it."
'Oh, no," I replied, ' that will not be the end.
It will go on just the same, only it will be divided into 3 portions, between your Mother, and Uncle Logan, and Aunty
Loo ; and then I expect your Mother will buy things for you just as I do."
'' Oh, no,"' said Ray with an air
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Ig! of great conviction, " she won't doit like you.
Nobody could do things like you do; there could not be anybody like you in all the world!"
" Why not?" I asked.
'' Oh, because you are different,"' replied Ray, ** anybody can see you are different by just looking at you."
'' Yes," chimed in Karin, "the corners of your mouth are always turned up in a smile; and even your nose turns up in a smiling way."
'" Yes," added Ray, "' and even your wrinkles have a smiling turn at their ends."
Could flattery rise higher?
But I think if one can make one's wrinkles smile for little children, the secret of a happy old age is on the fair way to discovery.
Ray and Karin, I must say it, are little angels of goodness ; and in fact are never naughty unless some grown-up person makes them so.
Their one greatest enjoyment in life is having me read to them stories of adventure.
For a long time, Fairy stories were what they most enjoyed, but now these are second, and the wildest tales of adventure by land and sea are all they care for.
Every morning I go in and sit with them while they have their breakfasts, and then I must pick out of the morning paper all the accounts of shipwrecks, and wonderful discoveries, and inventions, and important political events.
I must tell you of another speech of Ray's that does not perhaps reflect quite so much crediton me!
They were in here to tea, and I gave Karin a little reproof for some fault of table manners, when Ray said, "' Now,
Grandma, please don't make any moral remarks.
We have plenty of morals at home, and we come in here for sprees ! "
Some of you say my pictures look too old, but I assure you I do not consider this the least of a compliment.
Nothing pleases me better than to be called the " old
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lady' ; and when the cabmen or the navwvies in the street call me "' mother "', as they often do, I am delighted.
I am like the Chinese, who consider it a sign of wisdom to be old, and who always say, when told the age of a visitor, '' Oh, I should have thought that you were much older," considering this the greatest compliment they can pay.
Meanwhile, however, I keep up all my old activities, and act, I am afraid, more like a young woman than an old one, in the way of work and meetings of all sorts.
I have made up my mind to go on till I drop in my traces, as long as I can put one foot before the other.
But I am, I admit, a little stiff with rheumatism, and sometimes find it difficult to get about.
One of my troubles is that I can only lift my feet a certain height, and often, when
_ the step of the bus or cab is a little higher than usual, I have to ask some kind passer-by to lift one foot for me, sO you can imagine that it is rather awkward.
Since I last wrote we have all been greatly stirred up about the County Council Elections, which took place on March gnd.
The whole city was agitated over them for weeks, and our Temperance women were working like slaves night and day to stir up the women voters to a sense of responsibility.
To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 64.
LONDON, Oct. 3, 1896 Mrs. Tollemache had a stroke of paralysis, and is lying unconscious ; and through it all Lady Mount
Temple raves against God one minute, and does not believe there is any God the next minute.
I must tell thee a little piece of personal news, which need not be published, and that is that I have discarded
THE GRANDMOTHER
Pyjamas forever, and have taken to the old-fashioned nightgowns to my great satisfaction.
I have stuffed my old Pyjamas in the Mission Bag.
To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 64.
LONDON, Oct. 29, 1896 I am just off to Canterbury for some meetings which I promised 6 months ago.
It is dreadful the way I get entangled up,in meetings without meaning to.
There seems to be something occult about it.
Lady Henry can gaily give her engagements up when the time comes, but an uncompromising Quaker fidelity to engagements makes me stick faithfully to mine, alas !
To her daughter, Mary Costelloe (Berenson) Aet. 64.
LONDON, WVov. 5, 1896 How delicious about Edith Burroughs!
But alas ! how little she knows about the prose side of having a baby.
As for taking a day off for it, she is far more likely to have to take a month, and be thankful if she gets off with that...
I used to think babies were the one supreme thing to be desired, but I shrink from the thought of them now.
To her daughter, Alys Russell Aet. 64.
LONDON, JVov. 19, 1896 This evening Miss X (of Boston) is going to dine with Lord Russell.
She wanted to know if I thought it would be proper for her to dine alone with him at an
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hotel, especially as his Trial is on hand. I told her I was the very last person in the world to ask if anything was proper,—that I had not the least idea of the proprieties.
So after a little humming and hawing she decided to go.
Later.
After all Miss X did not dine with Lord Russell.
After accepting, she got a letter from him to say that his Solicitor said it would not do without a chaperone. . She and I do not know whether to be provoked, or amused, or mortified !
Nov. 24, 1896 Last night when we were playing whist in the drawing-room, a smell of tobacco smoke came meandering up the stairs, and I went down to blow William up.
But lo and behold, I found Lord Russell in my room, writing a note to Miss X with a cigar in his mouth.
He was writing an apology for putting her off from the dinner the other evening, and was asking her to another dinner tomorrow with Santayana and Marsh, but she does not mean to go.
To her daughter, Alys Russell Aet. 64.
LONDON, Dec. 1, 1896 Father took a drive today in Battersea Park, but not with me.
He would not let me go with him, said we were too fat tosit comfortably togetherin ahansom!
. . .
Thee did stir up a commotion at Bryn Mawr!
But what an idiot that Professor Norton was!
I daresay a little of my judicious pruning would have been an advantage to thy lecture [on the Payment of Motherhood]. ...
You can say things in England that cannot be understood in America, and it is always well
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GRANDMOTHER
to keep this in mind.
When I was young it was con- ' sidered indecent to have a baby, and I myself was made to feel as if I was a prostitute when I had my first baby ! And I was awfully shocked when I came over to England the first time, and heard Edward
Clifford talk freely and with an open face of somebody going to have a baby.
It took me a long time to be convinced that he was really a decent man! ...
How strange it is that men get so entrapped with women of a lower class than themselves.
I suppose they flatter them.
To her son, Logan Pearsall Smith Aet. 65.
PARIS, jan. 1, 1897 I do not preach much, as I am sure thee will give me credit for, but I just want to say that but for my unwavering faith in a God of love and wisdom, and my absolute certainty that He cares for me and mine, I should have been crushed with despair long ago.
Life has not contained much trouble for thee yet, darling son, but when it comes, remember that thy
Mother has assured thee that there is comfort and peace in the grand fact that God 1s.
To her friends Aet. 65.
LONDON, April 5, 1897 | Paramount above all others has been the burning question of Greece and Crete.
No doubt you are following this question with deep interest, but with you it is not a personal question ; and, after the shameful action of the U.S. Government in regard to the
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~ Arbitration Treaty, I daresay you are not sorry to see the English Government acting in such a wicked manner towards Crete.
Here it is a matter of personal concern to every man, woman and child, and we hardly think or talk of anything else.
Even Ray and Karin are all stirred up about it, and ask me every morning when I go in to their breakfast, what is the last news, and whether the English ships are firing on Crete, and what Lord Salisbury has done since the day before.
Nothing would do but they must send the following telegram to "Lord Salisbury, Foreign Office—We beg you not to let the English Fleet coerce Greece.
Ray and Karin, two little girls."
We are all wearing little buttons with the Greek flag on, and we are holding meetings and Demonstrations without number.
And meanwhile the Government, through the mouth of Mr.
George Curzon, sneers and jokes, and prevaricates, and the accursed work of upholding the great Assassin goes calmly on.
I confess my Quaker testimony against war has become very unstable of late.
There seems no way in which this matter can be settled but by a war that will exterminate Turkey ; and I wish from the bottom of my heart that America would step in and support the Greeks, and give the wicked '"' Concert of Europe " an object lesson in what a free nation is willing to do to help another nation to be free!
I can assure you that I have actually wished I was a man and young enough to go over to Greece to help them fight ; and I almost wondered at some of the meetings, where I have been stirred to the very depths, that I did not come out with a helmet on my head!
I never had the slightest idea before of what an overpowering enthusiasm for freedom is like, and I do not wonder now that people have died to secure it.
THE
GRANDMOTHER
To her friends Aet. 65.
FRIDAY'S HILL, Aug. 4, 1897
Just now the children are occupied in building a grand Fort in a tree at the bottom of our meadows, and the sound of their voices comes up over the green grass, through the open windows as I sit and write, filling my old grandmotherly heart with happy content.
We have quite a little colony around us this summer, and generally have a crowd of young and old daily to tea.
As they all belong to the younger generation Robert and I sit placidly on one side and listen to their " clash-ma-clavers " with the indulgent tolerance of old age, and chuckling inwardly to think that some day they in their turn will have to listen to the clashma-clavers of the generation after them with the same indulgence.
I cannot say that we agree with all they say but I am thoroughly convinced that each generation, whether we like it or not, is bound to have its own way of looking at things and its own problems and ways of working them out, and it is folly for the older generation to think they can make the young ways conform to the old ones.
But the younger generation around us are all so good and right-minded that I do not feel any anxiety ; and as I know that God loves them as He does us, and cares for them as tenderly,
I feel sure He will lead them by the right way into His fold, perhaps by the South gate, while our entrance was by the Worth gate, but none the less safely into its green pastures and beside its still waters.
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REBEL To her friends Aet. 65.
VENICE, Wov. 4, 1897 On November ist and 2nd it was the feasts of " All Saints " and " All Souls', and the whole population of Venice seemed to flock over to the island of San
Michele, which is occupied with the Cemetery of Venice, to adorn the graves of their friends with wreaths and flowers and candles, and to weep over them.
We got into our gondola on the afternoon of the 2nd and joined in the long procession of gondolas that was taking the crowd across the Lagoon for this yearly function.
It was a most picturesque and interesting occasion.
The whole island is enclosed asa Cemetery, and the graves are all in rows, marked mostly by a tiny stone with the name on, but sometimes by an iron cross bearing elaborate wreaths of flowers or beads.
Little groups were gathered about the graves here and there, arranging the flowers or placing the candles among the grass, and then saying a few prayers, and cheerfully hurrying away to join the strollers over the grass, and to have some congenial gossip about their living friends, who were evidently much more interesting to them than their dead ones.
Among all the groups I only saw one where any tears were shed, and even they were soon done with.
It was a vivid commentary to me on the fact that when we go out of this life, our places are quickly filled up, and our friends are speedily consoled.
And of course this is asit should be, for the blessed Gospel f Christ teaches us that to depart and be with the Lord
1s such a boon that only selfishness can mourn over it when it comes to those we love.
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GRANDMOTHER
To Miss Olive Seward Act. 66.
LONDON, Mar. 28, 1898 What a wonderful ovation at Miss Willard's death !
It has been more than even I expected, and yet I have always known she was greatly beloved.
Personally the loss to myself is simply irreparable.
But I do not mourn. I think rather of what'it must be to her to have got to the blessed peace where all secrets are revealed, and where, every hindrance being removed, her spirit can break forth into its fullest development.
My sympathy in her delight will not suffer me to think of my side of it. And then too I shall so soon join her !
At least I hope so, for it seems to me one of the greatest of boons to be allowed to say farewell to this earth life while one is in the midst of one's activities, rather than linger on to be a cumberer of the ground and a burden to oneself and to all around.
God chose the right moment for Frances, and I am glad.
I would not have detained her for a single hour.
My two little grandchildren are great darlings, and make us very happy. They are devout little Catholics, and seem to enjoy their religion, and I am glad of it.
I daresay they will be saved a good many of the perplexities and difficulties that so often beset Protestant children.
I belong to a Committee called " The Friends of Armenia", and I am appalled at the condition of things.
It appears that as soon as the Armenians begin to be a little prosperous, the tax gatherers swoop down upon them and rob them of all their earnings.
It is altogether a most difficult and perplexing question.
There almost seems some occult power at work against
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REBEL the Armenians, for everything connected with them seems invariably to get into some sort of a snarl.
Armenian Committees seem nearly always to quarrel, Armenian Homes end in failure, Armenian workers become disgusted and throw it all up, and nothing connected with the subject seems to prosper.
I do not understand it.
To her daughter, Alys Russell Ast: 67.
LONDON, Feb. 23, 1899 I saw Canon Wilberforce open Parliament yesterday, and then stayed up in the Cage, and heard John
Morley's speech, which was very anti-Jingo.
I expect just the kind of talk as is going on in the United States Senate at the present time.
He was against extending the Empire by taking in the Soudan, and theirs is against taking in the Philippines, but both using the same arguments.
I wanted to shout down out of the Cage, "It is the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race— their mission to the World!"
But John Morley would have pooh-poohed at such stuff as that.
I had to content myself with unloosing a screw in that uncivilised "Cage", and bringing it away as my contribution towards the civilising of England itself !
May 21 Aunt Margaret and I were not at all pleased with "La Belle Otero".
She was not particularly handsome, and her dancing was a whirl of legs and skirts that to my thinking was really ugly.
We are done with Music Halls !
THE GRANDMOTHER
To her friends Aet. 67.
; FRIDAY'S HILL, July 31, 1899 We have been busy with the unexpected By Election 1 in East St. Pancras, for which Mr. Costelloe was the Liberal Candidate, and Alys and I had to work for him.
The first evening of the campaign the Chairman introduced me as the mother-in-law of the Candidate, and said when a man's mother-in-law vouched for him no one could doubt his worthiness.
So when I got up to speak, I began with, " Yes, I am his mother-in-law '', and the whole audience roared and cheered in the wildest kind of way.
After the meeting, a crowd collected around the door as I came out and shouted, '' Well, mother-in-law!
Hurrah, mother-in-law ! We'll put him in, Mother-in-law ! " etc. etc.
And all through the campaign (which fortunately lasted only ten days) whenever I appeared in the constituency I was greeted everywhere with cries of "Hey, mother-in-law!
There she is!
Hurrah for mother-in-law !"?
And the women all pointed and grinned, and held up their babies for me to see.
The day of the Election we had a Coach and Four with red-coated outriders blowing their horns, and several landaus following, all covered with placards, " Vote for Costelloe, The People's Friend ", and the occupants wearing red favours, which were his colours, and I carrying a red parasol.
1For the London County Council.
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To her friends Aet. 67.
AIX-LES-BAINS, Aug. 26, 1899
To my unqualified amazement, on August 1gth I was whisked off here to take the " Cure" for my stiffness.
I consented to come on one condition, namely, that, if this fails to help me, I shall hereafter be left in peace to stiffen up at my own good pleasure.
Of course we have all heard of the "' gay and wicked world " that congregated at Aix, and I expected to be shocked and horrified at every step.
But I confess thus far my expectations have been disappointed.
Aix seems to be taken possession of by fat, rheumatic, lame, middle-aged Matrons,—French, German, English and Americans, and wherever we go these are the people we meet.
; We even went to the " Casino "', where we supposed the " gay and wicked world' would certainly congregate, but even there the same limping, frumpy but eminently respectable procession passed before us, each rheumatic mother attended by a daughter who seemed to be a pattern of filial piety.
Perhaps our eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, or else we have not yet found out where to look, for certain it is as yet no "gay and wicked world" has come within our ken.
Mary, however, who is taking French lessons, says her French teacher tells her that the '"' Demi-Monde " have taken possession of the Hotels down in the Town, and that all the respectable visitors are obliged to go to the Hotels up the sides of the mountains, where we are.
There was to be a " Battle of Flowers" one day, and my niece Carey Thomas and her friend Mary
Garrett took Mary and myself in their landau adorned \
THE
GRANDMOTHER
with great bunches of Gladiolus tied on each lamp, and with a basket of fifty small bouquets all ready to join in the "Battle".
I had read so many accounts of these Battles of Flowers, describing them as being so transcendently beautiful and bewitching, that I confess I expected great things.
But it turned out to be a most second-rate sort of an affair, with a few carriages rather prettily trimmed with flowers, and a good many, like our own, with only enough flowers to make them presentable.
_ We went round and round a large field in a procession, throwing our little bouquets of flowers at the people in the stands, and being pelted by them in return, and it seemed to us the silliest sort of child's play.
An old friend of mine used to say that it was always a gain when one found out what one did not! want to do, and I certainly found out that day that I did not want to go to any more " Batailles des Fleurs'.
I wondered whether it could be possible that the Papers would give the same enthusiastic description of this stupid affair as I had seen of other
" Batailles", and sure enough, you might have supposed from their enthusiastic reports that it had been one of the most beautiful and bewitching functions.
So'I conclude the other descriptions that so beguiled me, must have been equally misleading.
Sept. 10.
After writing the above, we had a glimpse of the " gay and wicked world " after all.
We went one evening to the "Cercle", I felt it necessary to dress up to the part, so I put on a bonnet of Mary's with red velvet trimmings and looked quite
"say! and there we saw enough to convince us that there was in very truth a gay and wicked world in Aix.
The gaming tables were crowded, and were a sickening spectacle, and gaily dressed women thronged
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL through the Halls and Gardens.
Except the gambling we saw nothing especially wicked, but we saw the possibilities of it, and were convinced by ocular proof that there were other people besides rheumatic fat old matrons congregating in Aix.
To her friends Aet. 69.
LONDON, Feb. 18, 1901 There is one thing which the death of my son-inlaw, Frank Costelloe, has accomplished and which I do not believe anything else could, and that is it has made me WANT To Live! I feel as if I should be really needed for 9 or 10 more years, in order to make an English home for my grandchildren and to avoid the complications that would inevitably arise in regard to their guardianship if I should die.
As it is I am appointed by the Court of Chancery the acting Guardian,+ and the custody of the children is given to me, and for their sakes I feel it is important for me to live until they are of age.
So I have put on one side my eager desire to " depart and be with Christ " and am content to defer the joys of the other life until I am not needed any longer to protect my precious grandchildren here.
I confess it feels very funny to want to live, after having for so long looked forward with such an eager desire to go.
However, so it is, and I give you liberty + When Costelloe died, his wife having left him, he set down in his will that the two daughters should be brought up, on the small income he had bequeathed them, by a Roman Catholic lady.
H.W.S. managed to get the two girls appointed wards in chancery, to be brought up under her care, in her more comfortable and affluent home.
She covenanted that they should be educated as Roman Catholics, and she kept, as her letters reveal, strictly to her promise.
THE
GRANDMOTHER
T45 to wish me many happy returns of my future birthdays, or rather I should say zo happy returns, for in 10 years both Ray and Karin will be of age, and will be free from the Chancery Court, and from all danger of interference by any opposing guardian.
If you had only known this when you wrote me those lovely letters on my 69th birthday, you might have freely wished me these 10 happy returns.
It was a great joy to me to receive your letters.
Most of them arrived on the very birthday itself.
I had been away from home for two or three days attending some of our Temperance meetings in Boston, Lincs., and got home on my birthday, and in the evening came all your delightful letters, to my great surprise, for I had actually forgotten myself that it was my birthday, and had never dreamed that anyone else would. remember
Iv:
I wish you could all have been here to see me open one letter after another, and hear my exclamations of delight and surprise as each fresh loving message revealed itself.
Of course I knew well enough that I was not half as good and nice as you made out, but then I am awfully glad you think I am, and it spurred me up to try and come up to your estimate of me more
_and more.
If you will not think it too egotistical I will quote an extract from the Boston papers showing what some people thought of me there.
'' Mrs. Pearsall Smith was the shining light among the speakers, for a more charming, amusing and at the same time sweet old lady has rarely been heard in Boston." I shall put all your letters away in an envelope marked " Letters on my 69th birthday "', so that my future descendants may know, if they come across them, what dear and kind friends their old ancestor had !
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL Not long ago I was speaking at a meeting on this question of children going to the Public Houses, and when I sat down, a Clergyman got up and said, '' Why
I never knew that children did go, and I think the speaker must be mistaken."
And he was a baldheaded clergyman too, and must have lived in the world several years.
Why the fact is that you never see a Public House anywhere without seeing a child, either going in or coming out, with a jug or a can of liquor, and very often tasting it as they go along.
Not to be outdone by the younger generation, I too am preparing something for publication.
It is a part of my autobiography, and I call it '' How I discovered God".
It is the story of my soul life from my early Quaker days, on through all the progressive steps of my experience until I reach that peace which cannot fail to come to the soul who has " discovered God " !
—I am putting all my heresies into my story, and am trying to show the steps that have led to them; and I flatter myself that it is going to be very convincing !
So if you feel afraid of becoming heretics, I advise you not to read it.
For my part, I always did love being a heretic as some of you know.
What fun it was in those old days when our little flock of '' Mystic Birds " used to be taking our mystic flights higher and higher into the unexplored regions of God's love, and how restful it is now, in our old age, to have folded our wings in the blessed haven of absolute certainty that God is enough!
All religion is enfolded for me now in these three words.
God is enough for me, and for everybody, and for all the néeds of all the limitless universe He has created !
THE
GRANDMOTHER
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 69.
LONDON, Sept. 8, Igo!
Karin and Ray made up this poem while they were dressing this morning, and came dancing downstairs exclaiming, '' Oh, grandma, we have made up such a wicked song about the Prefects at school!
It is dreadfully wicked.
If they were to hear of it at school, we would be expelled.""
What dear innocent wickedness it is !
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 69.
LONDON, Oct. 26, 1901 The children pity thee profoundly for being bored, and say, now thee knows how they feel when the stupid old people 'are around and they have to sit still and listen.
It almost makes me sick not to pay my bills when they are due.
\ Lady Mount Temple's deathbed was a scene of strife—Juliet kept lighting candles, and one of the dear
Lady's nieces kept blowing them out.
Then Juliet kept trying to moisten the Lady's parched lips, and * Uncle Augustus" kept snatching the sponge from her and saying no one should touch his sister but himself.
I believe, however, that Juliet conquered in both cases. I tell Alys I shall engage a policeman to be present at my death-bed, so that if Ray lights candles and Alys blows them out, he may interfere to preserve order.
Nov. 28, 1901 I spoke last evening to a congregation of the very ugliest people I ever laid eyes on.
They sang " We
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL are marching to Heaven"', and it seemed impossible such ugly beings could ever get any entrance there ; and then I had a Quaker " opening " on the absolute independence of the soul from the body, and I saw behind a face that was the double distilled essence of ugliness, a really beautiful soul, and could actually have kissed her !
What a regular free Pension. you keep for out-ofelbow people!
I should hate it.
Thee is like thy father.
I used to say of him that he stood at the corner of the street, and rang a bell to call in every disreputable religious tramp that was within hearing.
Yours are hardly religious, but artistic tramps are as bad.
And the way we were imposed on was something awtul.
Nov. 26, 1901 The whole secret of comfort in cold weather is very simple—to put on two or even three complete suits of underclothes, two pairs of woollen stockings, warm woollen gloves (not kid), warm coats, a warm rug or even two, and a foot warmer.
Also have a knit shawl to wrap around thy head.
With this armour, I do not think the cold on the journey will be at all formidable.
Have a hot bottle, that can be filled at the stopping places, to hold in thy lap or to put at thy feet.
Feb. 16, 1902 /Thy letter about Carlyle and Emerson interests me very much.
It shows that after all your " top eyes " are not entirely closed, and your spirits are not altogether earthbound. I often and often wonder how it is that people so fundamentally good as you are can be so content. without any real link with God, and
THE
GRANDMOTHER
even, I fear, without any certainty that there is a God to be linked to.
My soul was always so full of aspirations, that a God was a necessity to me.
I was like a bird with an instinct of migration upon me, and a country to migrate to was as essential as it is to the bird.
But you have seemed content to sit on a branch and merely flap the wings that were meant for flying, and to let your horizon be bounded by the fences of one little field, with no longings for the great spaces of the eternities.
But thy letter gives a glimpse into ee and higher needs of your natures, and I am delighted to see that you would like to fly, if you knew where the beautiful islands lie for which your spirits long.
I feel hopeful somehow that the cocoons will at last open and let out the imprisoned butterfly.
Religion has been to me the most " fascinating background "', as thee expresses _it, to all my life.
Without it, everything would have been dull and uninteresting in the extreme.
I can only trust that you may come sooner or later to know its fascinations ! I remember well when Carlyle did for me just what thee describes, and I revelled in it, but religion did it even more deeply and vividly.
I have tried to show this in my autobiography, but words seem rather powerless to express spiritual realities.
Even in my extreme evangelical days, what I got at was the fact of God's forgiveness, although I hung it on a hook that I had afterwards to discard.
And all through, the one thing I was really finding out was that the Creator was doing His work of creation in an adequate and satisfactory way, and was going to make a good job of it in the end.
The various hooks upon which I hung this fact at the different stages of my progress was entirely immaterial after all.
The
A RELIGIOUS
REBEL bottom fact is the only thing.
And I fully believe that this bottom fact of a good Creator, can be got at through all sorts of religious beliefs and all sorts of religious ceremonies, and that it does not matter what these are, provided the soul is honest in regard to them.
Mar. 6, 1902 I am a little better, but the nasty influenza still hangs on, and makes me feel like the dregs of creation.
It has left me with. a cough that digs the very insides out of me.
I shall certainly after this have more sympathy for the rest of you when you have colds.
But sickness is a perfect nuisance.
I feel tempted to be provoked with everybody who is sick, myself included.
Yes, there are dreadful possibilities all around us, but generally I think life goes on pretty quietly, and especially if we learn how to take it quietly.
Somehow even tragedies seem less tragical, when you are the actors in them, than they look to outsiders.
| Mar. 17, 1902 Thee may tell Aunt Janet from me that she might as well try to stop the stars in their courses as to try to stop a love affair.
To her friends Aet. 70.
LONDON, April 7, 1902 I have employed a good deal of the last two months in having an attack of Influenza, and I can truly say
I have not been so ill for years and years.
Of course most of my public work has had to be stopped, but
THE
GRANDMOTHER
15! this has delighted me, as my lameness makes it very difficult for me to undertake meetings ; and moreover
I am 70 years old, and it has long been a principle of mine that when people have arrived at the Bible limit of three score years and ten, they ought to retire altogether from active life, and give the next generation a perfectly free field.
In my opinion one of the greatest hindrances to each generation is the undue influence and interference of the old people of the previous generation ; and I am fully determined not to be one of these hindrances.
So I look at the blank spaces in my engagement book with a delightful sense of duty fulfilled, and with a most comfortable approving conscience.
To her daughter, Mary Berenson Aet. 70.
LONDON, April 11, 1902 Beg the doctor to tell the exact truth and to say just what B. B.1 ought to do for his health.
I do not suppose he will do it. Nobody in the process of breaking down ever does do what they ought.
But it does seem a pity.
Only beg him, instead of walking, to lie out under your cypress trees and simply rest.
— But why do I waste my breath, for of course he won't do it.
But my convictions are so strong that I must write it.
\ Why don't you let those ignorant Americans enjoy their bogus pictures in peace?
It will be ail the same in a few years, and it spreads the enjoyment of the "' Old Masters " over so much wider an area!
If you confine the Old Masters to the few genuine ones, what are most of the Americans to admire? I believe in generosity !
1 Mr. Bernard Berenson.
A RELIGIOUS REBEL
May 3, 1902 The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
That has been my secret, and I have never had any quarrels.
What if people are fools or knaves, it is not your housekeeping and you had far better leave them to their fate.
The more you try to prove yourselves in the right and D. in the wrong, the more you will confirm him in his own views.
Nothing makes people more furious than being proved to be in the wrong ; and even if you convince D. he will always hate you.
July 29, 1902 Aunt Margaret and I are very dissipated—we are going to " Caste" this afternoon, and have tickets for two things next week.
Aunt Margaret never goes in Birmingham, so I am glad to give her the pleasure here.
In fact, she never goes out of the house there, but here we are on the go all day long.
There is the cab and we old sinners must be off.
Later.
Aunt Margaret and I did not care for "Caste" this afternoon.
There was too much what I call " horse-play".
We are dainty old ladies, for all we are so gay!
We have been to a Prayer Meeting for the King this afternoon, but it was a dreadfully cut-and-dried affair
—no real feeling appropriate to the crisis at all.
I saw tremendous possibilities if only there had been a magnetic leader who realised the real esoteric voice of the occasion.
I almost felt as if I could have done it myself! ! Instead I took furtive naps between the droning speeches and prayers.
But it was an occasion
THE GRANDMOTHER
of a thousand, for Queen's Hall was packed, and there was an overflow meeting, and all hearts were ready to respond to any voice of real conviction.
Logan will meet thee at Oxford, as he wants to take his MS 1 to the University Press there.
What a_ literary family we are!
And what fun it is.
To her daughter, Alys Russell Aet. 70.
FRIDAY'S HILL, Aug. 25, 1902
We are expecting Roger Fry tonight, and the Vicar is coming to dinner.
So Logan and Mariechen ? are to be told off to entertain the Vicar while Roger Fry is taken off by Berenson to Bertie Russell's Study.
The Vicar confided to Grace that he was going to try | and convert all the Friday's Hill household !
NOTE I (p. 127) H.W.S. would often take successfully a matter-of-fact line with those who were troubled in their religion.
In her most famous book, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, she suggests a plan for dealing with the sin of doubt, which she curiously likens to another sin:
"TI believe myself the only effective remedy is to take a pledge against it, as you would urge a drunkard to do against drink "'; and, later in the same chapter, she proposes a formal declaration against doubt:
"If you cannot do this by word of mouth, write it in a letter .
. take up your pen and write out your determination never to doubt again."
This odd device was more effective than might be supposed ; Logan Pearsall Smith used to tell of a way she followed with a Roman Catholic lady, a convert who was vexed by doubts about some dogma of the Church—the Real Presence, I think it was.
H.W.S. wrote out on a piece of paper, "I undertake never to have any more doubts about the Real Presence"? (or whatever it was), and brought it to her, and made her sign it.
After that the troubled spirit was utterly at rest.
1 This was probably the MS. which he had discovered at Burley on the Hill, and which contained table-talk of Sir. Henry Wotton's, and some unpublished letters by Donne.
2 Mary Berenson ; the name was originally given to her by a German nurse.