Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind

by Frances Martin

"As to the dinner part I managed very well. I had it all by heart. What I was to have was all settled in the morning, so that I had very little else to do but to talk, and that I did so much that I was really almost ashamed. Mr. —— took me down, and pleased mamma uncommonly by praising me to her in the evening. I cannot think why."

A little later Bessie is at Culham, and writes to Mary at Chichester.

Now don't make any more excuses about not writing. For my part I have forgiven you, at least since this delicious weather, for we have been out almost all day lately. Yesterday we walked to Abingdon, did some shopping, and came back before breakfast. [Inquiries about friends follow, and then:] Question upon question; but no matter, answer another, who sent me the violets? though I think my guess is right. If it was Mr. Ashworth it was very kind, for I think they were the first he had found this spring. Take care what you put in your letters to grandpapa. The last but one was pronounced by a judge whose opinion I am sure you will agree with, because you will think it right, to be very dignified and a perfect specimen of epistolography. There were cries of "It won't do" all through the letter. Do you think you shall come here soon? I begin to want to see some of you.

Bessie, as usual, had charge of one of the little girls. She writes: "I think Katie is improved since we have been here, but I cannot get her to get up; so please ask mamma to say what time she is to get up, for now it is not much before eight and often some time after."

Now to an elder sister who wants to do her shopping at Abingdon before breakfast, Miss Katie must have been a trial. But Bessie herself was by no means perfect in this respect. Some years later she and a sister about her own age paid a visit to an old lady, cousin of their father's, in Yorkshire. This cousin rose early, was very punctual, and expected her guests to be the same; but, "Say what I would," writes her sister, "I could not get Bessie up in the morning, not even though I represented that it made me appear to disregard Miss Dawson's wishes as well as herself, and was not fair. The only answer I could get was, 'I say nothing;' and the next morning she was as late as ever." Whether Mrs. Gilbert was in this case also appealed to "to fix the hour" we are not told.

In the autumn Bessie is at home again, and, writing to her faithful Mary, she says: "The week after next our house must stretch a slight degree. There will be the Halls, the Churtons, the Woods from Broadwater (it was Mrs. Wood who fought for the teaching of reading in St. George's Schools thirteen years previously), the two Archdeacons, Mr. Garbett, Mr. Simpson, and another gentleman, all in the house; and Mr. Wagner, if he comes, will have a room at the inn. This will be something like—won't it? I think mamma liked her visit to——."

The Bishop, his wife, and one daughter, had been paying short visits to influential people in the county. The young lady sends home letters which show close and minute powers of observation and no small insight into character. The rooms, the pictures, the plate and china, all are described, and she ends by saying:

I suppose you will expect a comparison of the two families. The gentlemen are far superior at A——; and though B—— is more fascinating, and makes one feel for her as if one could do anything, yet A—— seems to me to be superior to her in strength of mind and also in acquirements. Lady C. is much younger than Lady D., much more in awe of her mother, and being plain, has not the appearance of being used to the homage of all around her like Lady D. So ends my long story of a short but pleasant time, and if it has tired your patience, at least you cannot complain of my not having given you a full account.

Looking over these letters, taken back into the past by the yellow paper, the faded ink, the old-fashioned writing, all angular and sloping, letters fresh and vivid with youth, intelligence, and goodness, one cannot but wonder if those written by a girl of seventeen, in these days of high pressure, will be such pleasant reading forty years hence.