Miss Beale might be unacademic to a fault in these lectures, but she had that power of inspiration which made every poem she prized, every character she admired, live immortally for those who heard her speak of them. The actual reading—specially of poetry—was a delight to both reader and hearers. Miss Beale had a strong dramatic instinct, a keen enjoyment of poetry and the right use of words. She had also a wonderful voice, which she managed well, and though always quiet and restrained in manner carried her audience with her unweariedly. The literature lesson was long, specially in the early days when, owing to short distances and small numbers, no time was occupied by arrangements for prayers. For thirty or forty minutes corrected notes were returned and criticised, then the lecture proper would begin and go on for a full hour. Sometimes the whole time, an hour and a half, was taken up by the lecture. It was certainly very unusual for any one to find it too long.
A further interest in these lectures lay in an effort to make them language lessons. As a matter of fact, though much interested in language herself, Miss Beale did little more than inspire a wish to study it further. Perhaps this was her aim in touching upon it at all. She would often bring to her lesson a table of Grimm’s Law, explain it very rapidly, and appear to expect that it should be as rapidly remembered.
Miss Beale’s literature was by no means confined to Shakspere’s plays. All the greatest and many lesser works in the English tongue were taken in their turn. But she would seldom take the works of any whose thought seemed to her inferior; would have little, for instance, to do with Dryden and Pope. Style in itself had no attraction, and the growth of literary form, unless accompanied by the development of noble thought, was of little interest. No subject, perhaps, was more after her own choice than the poems of Spenser. She would dwell with unfailing delight on the complicated allegories of the Faëry Queene, or on the Hymns to ‘Heavenly Love’ and ‘Heavenly Beauty.’ Nor was a school year ever allowed to pass without her introducing the higher classes in the College to some of Browning’s works. How many must have learned to know his greater short poems by hearing her read them.[70]
But the subject with which the name of Dorothea Beale as a teacher will ever be associated is that of Holy Scripture. For this her greatest force was reserved. This was the soul of her work, as any who listened to her lessons with a hearing ear, or who marked the deep reverence prevailing in her class, could not fail to observe. Trammelled she was in many ways, at first by the narrowness which had almost prevented her coming to Cheltenham; increasingly, as time went on, by the numbers of her hearers who held opposing views on religion or who had no views at all; much always by her own dread of ‘offending’ or of hindering an earnest seeker for truth by a positive assertion. These causes made it inevitable that her teaching should seem to many vague or insufficient, since she could not bear to miss putting herself beside those who were as babes, unable to venture a step into the untried. An old pupil has well described this attitude:—
‘She did not go very much into every sort of detail, but I wonder what use can be made of doctrinal details by people whose general scheme of things is one into which they don’t fit? and that, I suppose, is the trouble of most people who are puzzled by such things at all. Whereas Miss Beale, in anticipation of this difficulty, always seemed to me to set forth a spiritual construction of the universe, into which no spiritual truth learned afterwards could possibly fail to fit, supposing it to be a truth in very deed. I do not see how any teacher can possibly do a greater work; though I do not say for a moment that she did no more.’
Certainly in the weekly lesson to the whole First Division of the school she did a great deal more. Another old pupil may be quoted here:—
‘Speaking for myself, I can say without hesitation that it was from her that I learned the truth of the sacramental life. One thing she said to me, and she repeated it with emphasis at the time of my Confirmation, is as fresh in my mind to-day as the day she said it. Again, I can say for myself, and my reading has been fairly wide, that her influence has been entirely against any weakening of faith. Knowing something at least of her character and intellectual power, it was natural to feel that where she was steadfast one need not be afraid. More than that, her direct teaching by its sympathetic insight into the deepest aspects of life was always, and always will be inspiring. If it is true that there was something vague in her utterances, I believe it was because she had reached a plane of thought where the words which have become the current thought of everyday life are inadequate forms of expression.’
If, in order to seek some erring spirit, Miss Beale did at times seem to neglect others, it must be remembered that in teaching the Bible, more than at any other time, she really took up the humble position of simply bringing her hearers to think and listen for themselves. This was the intention which lay below the reverent behaviour exacted from a Scripture class. By means of this she strove to impress the importance to the hearer of being still, ready, attentive, free from selfish or idle thought. She prepared not only the lesson, but also herself to give it, with a devotion and self-denial which she never allowed to become relaxed by pressing business, age, or infirmity.
Not only was Friday evening strictly kept for the final preparation of the lesson, but the ordinary details of school business attended to before prayers were put aside on the day it was given. No one in the College would have thought on those days of speaking to Miss Beale beforehand except on some urgent matter. Writing to a young teacher in 1880, she said: ‘I used to prepare my lessons on my knees, (don’t say this to others). You would find it a help, I think, to do this sometimes.’