CHAPTER XIV
EVERYDAY LIFE
"Ce que peut la vertu d'un homme ne se doit pas mesurer par ses efforts, mais par son ordinaire."—Pascal.
In January 1859 Bessie, with a younger sister, paid a ten days' visit to Fir Grove, Eversley, the home of her friend Miss Erskine. It was at this time that she became personally acquainted with Charles Kingsley. She heard him preach in his own church, and the sermon was one that she always referred to with gratitude as having helped and strengthened her.[7]
Miss Erskine remembers that Bessie walked and talked with Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley, and that they learnt to love her dearly. They quickly recognised the brave and faithful nature of the blind lady. "When you have medicine to take you drink it all up," said Charles Kingsley.[8] Never was there a truer remark.
She might, in the diary she was then keeping, have recorded many interesting incidents connected with that visit. But she merely makes a note of work done on behalf of the Association, and there is one solitary mention of Mr. Kingsley's name—"talked to Mr. Kingsley about the Museum." That she talked about the Association it is unnecessary to add, and as a proof of it we find in the spring that Mr. Kingsley asked the Rev. Llewelyn Davies either to preach or to lend his pulpit in aid of her work.
On her return to Chichester the remainder of January was spent in writing letters to ask for anecdotes concerning the blind, and in obtaining material for her proposed book.
An autograph letter soliciting patronage was written at this time to the blind King of Hanover. She tells how she first dictated, then copied it herself, and also wrote herself to enclose it to Miss Boyle, by whom it was to be forwarded. "Seems little enough," she adds, "but took a long time."
With regard to her biographies, Levy writes as follows:
"I think Mr. Taylor would lend any work he has; the best he has I think are all German. The translations which I have heard from them remind me of the efforts which have been made to discover the North-West Passage, you are continually boring through ice, and if perchance you do meet with a piece of clear water you are no sooner aware that it is such than you are hemmed in with ice again.