‘God bless you and give you many happy birthdays. I fear the present is not one of the most agreeable; it is spent at least in the path of what you considered duty, and so will never be looked back upon but with pleasure.... Do not, however, my dear girl, think of remaining long in a position which may be irksome to you, for thus I think it will hardly be profitable to others, and indeed I question whether you would maintain your health where the employment was so great and duty the only stimulus to action. You have heard me often quote: “The hand’s best sinew ever is the heart.”’
In May another letter is evidently called forth by some expression of a longing to be at home, and perhaps by hints of difficulties from Dorothea.
‘May 1857.
‘I think I feel the weeks go more slowly than you do. I long to see you again very much. I cannot get reconciled to your position and feel satisfied that it is your place.... God bless you, my dear girl, and blunt your feelings for the rubs of the world, and quicken your vision for the beautiful and unseen of the world above us.’
The last words show how well her father knew the sensitive nature hurt even by trifles, and prone to take small matters too seriously.
So the long half wore on, and we know, from some of the few who remain to tell, that Miss Beale was making her mark at Casterton. There were many there who could appreciate her careful work and inspiring lessons. Some found especially valuable her accurate teaching of Latin and mathematics, and the enormous pains she took to make her lessons intelligible to the dullest; never content to let them merely accept a given fact or explanation, but leading them on step by step to see and comprehend. Her literature classes, again, led some into a new world of ideas and thoughts, and they responded to the thrill of some noble and beautiful line which would cause their teacher’s eyes to fill with tears as she read. One, who was Miss Beale’s pupil in the first class at Casterton at this time, speaks of it with extreme gratitude:—
‘I was seventeen, and had only had home teaching before. Great was the delight to be taught by one whom you felt to be complete mistress of any subject she undertook. I was a dunce at Arithmetic and Euclid. She cut slips of paper to illustrate the Pons Asinorum, etc., and with her aid I mastered the first book of Euclid, which has always been useful to me. Latin grammar we also learned from Miss Beale. She instilled strict accuracy by making us write verbs and declensions from memory. Out of class she showed us much friendliness, inviting us to her room in the evening, when sometimes she would read aloud to us, sometimes tell us about the students at Queen’s. It interested us to hear of those not very young ones who wore caps. Her appearance, as I remember it then, was charming. Her figure was of medium height. The rather pale oval face, high, broad forehead, large, expressive grey eyes, all showed intellectual character. Her dress was remarkable in its neatness. She wore black cashmere in the week, and a pretty, mouse-coloured grey dress on Sundays.’
A little notebook remains to show how she prepared her lessons; how little she was content with repetition acquired by rote. There are also one or two little books of Scripture notes belonging to this time, interesting as the first of an immense series, marking the beginning of the work which was to be her great means of influence. One of these is on the Book of Proverbs, a book she never read again with a class; it was probably not her own choice at this time. The lessons she drew from it were of the most practical nature for daily life, and contain much teaching on true and false unworldliness. She had even then the satisfaction of knowing that her Bible teaching was acceptable to many. She wrote home: ‘Several of the first class make a practice of taking notes and afterwards copy them out into a book. This I never tell them to do, nor do I so far encourage it as to look at the notes after they are written. In the lower part of the school I do not allow them to take notes without special permission.’
Some notes on the Church services show traces of the pain she felt over instances of irreverence which she had seen in the school. Those who remember the almost awful silence in which Miss Beale’s Scripture lessons at Cheltenham were given, how she wished it to signify the humility and reverence of spirit necessary for those who would study God’s Word, can understand how she must have suffered when she saw flippant and careless behaviour at prayers and Bible classes.
Amongst the numbers of children, many who had been comparatively untaught before they were brought into this continual round of religious exercise, it is not surprising to find that there were some who disliked the appeal made to heart and conscience, and who found this strict sense of reverence irksome. There was even one naughty girl who in these first days refused to attend Miss Beale’s classes.