“I can but judge others by myself, and I know that it was not till I had left school, and had been out here some time, that I realized more fully what a great blessing had been mine that I had been allowed to know Miss Buss; that, while I was at the age when girls most need loving, firm guidance, I should have had Her for a kind teacher and friend. It will always be to me one of the best and happiest remembrances of my life, for I truly feel it a great honour bestowed on me.”
There will always be the two kinds of girl—the one who is content with the life of the present moment, and the one who “looks before and after,” to whom the present moment is only a fixed point between past and future. In speaking for herself, one of the first kind speaks for many more, as she naïvely says, “I fancy we were too much occupied with ourselves to think much about Miss Buss while we were at school!” The second class speak for themselves in every variety of intensity, but all to the same purpose: “No one can ever know what she was to me. All that I am, and all that I have, I owe to her influence or to her help!” Over and over comes the same cry, in which the blank of present loss foretells the future loneliness bereft of the strength and comfort of the past.
From one of the younger pupils we have again the growing sense of what she had less kindly felt at the moment—
“I feel that there are so many women, not in England only, but all over the world, who will rise up to call her ‘blessed.’ As time goes on I more appreciate the training I had under her, and it seems to me now, that but for her influence I could not possibly have fulfilled the home and public duties that have fallen to my lot, and that it has been a pleasure to me to undertake.”
And yet another—
“We who were with her in the impressionable days of our youth must all feel how much we owe her, in the view of life she gave us, and the tone of healthy energy she brought into our lives. I am sure her loss will be as widely felt as that of Arnold by his old pupils long ago.”
To give the experience of all who come back year by year to give a record of their work in hospital ward or East End slum, in home workhouses or foreign missions, would be too heavy a task; but, as illustrative of the wide range of influence exercised in matters social and philanthropic, we may give a letter from one in whom the “Gospel of Work” found an apt disciple.
Mrs. Heberden, one of the first three ladies elected as lady guardians in St. Pancras, was, as Sarah Ward Andrews, one of the pupils of the second decade, dating from 1861, but she has the same record of delight in the teaching and the same devotion to the teacher as those of earlier date. What most impressed her, however, she gives as follows:—
“During my stay Miss Buss’ mother died, and though in great sorrow, she continued all her work. I remember her remark that, ‘Work, originally a curse to mankind, was now a blessing, not permitting us to dwell on our trials and losses.’ From that time Miss Buss was a great factor for all that is best and highest in my life; and when, in 1873, I lived near her in Hampstead, I was brought into active public life by her request. She asked me to help in the School Board election of that year, when Miss Chessar and Mrs. Cowell were returned for Marylebone.
“All the great interest I have taken in women’s work began then, encouraged by Miss Buss’ earnest sympathy and advice.