Trübsal, Schmerzen, Angst, und Noth,
Im Gebet auch oft gestritten
Mit dem hochgelobten Gott.’
Theodor Schenk.
Dorothea Beale—largely owing to her sensitive nature and high ideals—had had her full share of the sufferings and disappointments of youth. And when she had gained the experience and habits of more mature years, when she had schooled herself to bear, when her position was assured, when she was free to associate largely with those most sympathetic to her, her zeal for the best ever caused a pressing sense of effort and strain. Certain commonplace troubles she had not known, as, for example, the want of money—a need which in fact she never experienced, and never really understood in others. And on the whole her health had been good. She regarded it as one of her first duties to consider this, and except for the fact that she had an inherent indifference to the character of the food she ate, the duty was not neglected. But in 1878 she was called upon to go through a period of weakness and anxiety which limited her powers for the time. In spite of her great self-control she was obliged to relax a little, to take more rest, while the effort to preserve that self-control made her seem, to some who knew nothing of it, hard and unsympathetic. Very little indeed did she say of what she went through at this time, because she thought it best for others that she should be reserved and silent on the subject. The College and Miss Beale seemed to have a stability which could not be touched or changed, and she knew the value of this characteristic to her work. Probably no one in the College, and hardly any one outside it, perhaps none except her sisters and Miss Clarke, knew how near she was at this time to an absolute breakdown. The diary, still persistently kept, continued to be little more than a record of struggle against particular faults; yet here, from an occasional word and expression, the weariness and anxiety of the time may be gauged.
The year opened for Miss Beale with a special renewal of effort. Canon Body’s addresses at a Retreat she attended in Warrington Crescent in the first days of January were full of inspiration to her. This meant actively fresh effort, keener self-scrutiny, more watchfulness. ‘I remember,’ she wrote on January 24, the opening day of College, ‘I remember with grief the many neglects of the past. Forsake me not, neither reward me after my deserts.’
The next few weeks show a pathetic struggle against a growing sense of weakness. At first she blamed herself if duty was neglected, then as she knew herself to be ill, still felt that more might have been done, refusing to take sickness as an excuse. There are many living who were at College at this period, and to them the picture of this effort and suffering going on in the background of all that then seemed unfailingly vital and positive must have a double interest,—increasing tenderness for the memory of her who for their sakes was bearing a daily burden of pain, encouraging to fresh zeal by showing what a brave spirit may do even in weakness and depression. A few extracts to show this follow:—
So ended a term of great anxiety. One medical opinion, doubtless referred to in her diary of March 20, was of such a nature, that Miss Beale thought she must resign her work at once. At Hyde her sisters persuaded her to rest and to see another doctor, who took a more hopeful view, which was wholly justified by her gradual return to health.
Among the few who knew of this sorrow was the old pupil and friend, Miss Margaret Clarke. To her Miss Beale wrote from Hyde before she had received the second medical opinion, and the reply shows, far more than the diary can tell us, how deep was the gloom which hung over her way at this time. It might well have been written three years later, when Miss Beale was called upon to undergo greater suffering than any bodily pain alone can give, and suggests to those who read it now, that the darkness of that later time was shadowing her spirit even as early as this. The interest of it is the greater because it shows another who like Dorothea Beale, while faithful to her work, unsparing in care and thought for her children, had been called upon personally to know spiritual anguish. Such suffering, such loss, such deeper realisation of Divine love as are read in this letter are surely the portion of those who, having given much and helped many, are called to some further work of sympathy, needing perhaps ‘heart’s blood.’