‘January 15, 1906.
‘One afternoon I spent with Mrs. Benson, and Miss Benson lent me the book recounting her digging up of the Temple of Mut. Arthur Benson too was there, and Miss Tait and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick.
‘What a revolution we have! If we had stood still things might have been as they are in Russia. One could not be satisfied with the late government, but one dreads violent changes; it is well there are a few strong men in the Ministry. Mr. Balfour deserves his fate for not bringing in a re-distribution Bill, and for tyrannising—but one feels sorry for him too.
‘PS.—Think of us on Tuesday’ (the opening day of term), ‘I feel so weak.’
The weakness to which Miss Beale alluded was destined to continue, but amid the decay of natural health long-rooted hopes grew strong and blossomed afresh. But a few weeks before her own death she wrote to a friend who had recently lost her mother:—
‘You will miss your beloved mother, but it is well. I suppose none of us desire to live after our faculties fail.... I am feeling old age is creeping on.... Well, we shall soon all meet—Behind the veil, behind the veil!’
FOOTNOTES
[1] MS. Autobiography.—D. Beale.
[2] MS. autobiography.