“I have read your letter with much interest, and have at once forwarded it to Mrs. Wellesley, asking her to show it to Princess Christian, and also to speak to Mrs. Gladstone.
“I have no doubt that a large sum of money would be better expended on an Incurable than on a Convalescent Hospital. It would be wiser not to congregate so many Convalescents. For Incurables, under good management and liberal Christian teaching, it would not signify how many were gathered together, provided the space were large enough for the work.
“By ‘liberal Christian teaching’ I mean, that, while I presume Mr. Holloway would make it a Church of England Institution, Roman Catholics ought to have the comfort of free access from their own teachers.
“An Incurable Hospital without the religious element fairly represented, and the blessing which Religion brings to each individually, would be a miserable desolation. But there should be the most entire freedom of conscience allowed to each, in what, if that great sum were expended, must become a National Institution.
“I earnestly hope Mr. Holloway will take the subject of the needs of Incurables into consideration. In our own Hospital, at St. Andrew’s, and St. Raphael’s, Torquay, we shrink from turning out our dying cases, and yet it does not do to let them die in the wards with convalescent patients. Few can estimate the misery of the incurable cases; and the expense connected with the nursing is so great, it is not easy for private benevolence to provide Incurable Hospitals on a small scale. Besides, they need room for classification. The truth is, an Incurable Hospital is a far more difficult machine to work than a Convalescent; and so the work, if well done, would be far nobler.
“Believe me, Madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“H. Monsell.
“June 23rd, 1874.”
In concluding these observations generally on the Sick in Workhouses I should like to offer to humane visitors one definite result of my own experience. “Do not imagine that what will best cheer the poor souls will be your conversation, however well designed to entertain or instruct them. That which will really brighten their dreary lives is, to be made to talk themselves, and to enjoy the privilege of a good listener. Draw them out about their old homes in ‘the beautiful country,’ as they always call it; or in whatever town sheltered them in childhood. Ask about their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, everything connected with their early lives, and tell them if possible any late news about the place and people connected therewith by ever so slight a thread. But before all things make THEM talk; and show yourself interested in what they say.”