Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast: no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame: nothing but well and fair
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
‘The readiness is all.’ Let us bear our grief with calmness and dignity. We know that it would be her wish that work should go on as usual.... We believe that love lives on, and that the noble work she did for fifty years has done much for England and for womanhood, and that not only we who have been blessed by her gracious presence, but generations also to come shall reap the fruit of her toil and rise up and call her blessed. Let us pray.”
Then followed a thanksgiving adapted from the form of Memorial Service issued by authority in January, 1901, after the death of Queen Victoria.
Dorothea Beale had prepared for death as she had prepared for life and had left instructions that her “perishable body” should be cremated so as not to be a source of disease to others, and that those who loved her should not buy any flowers for her funeral, but could if they wished, bring a few wild flowers or some from their own gardens, but she did not wish any wholesale destruction of life.
Her body was buried in Gloucester Cathedral, where the funeral took place on November 16. Eight hundred girls then at the College came voluntarily and walked silently in twos from the station to the Cathedral, which was crowded largely with former pupils.
At the same time a Memorial Service was held in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
In other churches in different parts of the country thanks were offered for the life and work of Dorothea Beale. Many newspapers published true and beautiful appreciations of her work, life, and character, and all felt that a great leader had gone from the earth.
So in honour passed away one whose work had small beginnings: who through difficulty, misunderstanding and prejudice pursued the vision she saw in youth and lived to see, as perhaps few do see, her dream realised. Such as Dorothea Beale can never die. She lives still in her College at Cheltenham, and in the great work carried on there: in her “children,” who in many lands and many spheres of work still live in the spirit of their great Head: and in the grateful remembrance of all women who have been able without hindrance to quench their thirst at the fount of knowledge.
CHAPTER XII.
THE VOCATION OF TEACHING.
“The power of any life lies in its expectancy.”—Phillips Brooks.