“You may not know that a very fair account of the address appeared in the Times of Saturday, and also in at least twenty other papers, so my fame! has gone evidently through the land. I also had addresses from the Women’s Suffrage people, with Lady Frances Balfour at their head, and from the A.V. (German) Society at Dresden, Ragged School, etc.... I am greatly enjoying the visits of many literary men and women, old friends and new—people interested in theology and ethics and Egypt, and all things which interest me....”
“December 24th.
“Only think that I am booked to make an address on Women Suffrage to a ladies’ club, five doors off, on the 2nd.... The trouble you must have taken (about the address) really overwhelms me! You certainly succeeded in doing me a really great honour, and in cheering me. I confess I was very downhearted when I came here, but I am better now. I feel like the man who ‘woke one morning and found himself famous.’”
“January 4th.
“I like to hear of your fine walk on the mountain. How good such walks are for soul and body! I miss them dreadfully—for my temper as well as my health and strength. Walking in the streets is most disagreeable to me, especially now that I go slower than other people, so that I feel myself an obstacle, and everybody brushes past me. I sigh for my own private walks, small as they are, where nobody has a right to come but myself, and my thoughts can go their ways uninterrupted. But oh, for the old precipice walk and Moel Ispry solitudes! You will be amused to hear that I actually gave an hour’s address to about 100 ladies at a new club, five doors from me in this crescent, on Friday.... I was not sorry to say a word more on that subject, and, of course, to bring in how I trusted the votes of women to be against all sorts of cruelty, including Vivisection. I found I had my voice and words still at command.... They were nice, ladylike women in the club. One said she would have seven votes if she were a man. I do believe that it would be an immense gain for women themselves to have the larger interest which politics would bring into their cramped lives, and to cease to be de-considered as children.”
Miss Cobbe was too human, too full of sympathy with her fellow-creatures, to know anything of the self-esteem which makes one indifferent to the affection and admiration of others. She was simply and openly pleased by this address, as the words I have quoted show; and more than a year later, only a few days before her death, she wrote to an old friend on her 80th birthday:—
“My own experience of an 80th birthday was so much brightened by that address ... that it stands out as a happy, albeit solemn, day in my memory.”
While in Clifton, Miss Cobbe presided at the committee meetings of the Bristol Branch of the British Union; and she even considered the possibility of taking up the work once more in London. But a brief visit, when she occupied rooms in Thurloe Gardens, proved too much for her strength. The noise at night prevented her from sleeping, and she was reluctantly—for she enjoyed this opportunity of seeing old friends—obliged to return to North Wales. One Sunday morning when in London, she told me that she walked to Hereford Square to see the little house in which she and Miss Lloyd had spent the happiest years of their lives. But the changed aspect of the rooms in which they had received most of the distinguished men and women of that time distressed her, and she regretted her visit. On February 21st, she wrote to me from Hengwrt:—
“Dearest Blanche,
“As you see I have got home all right, and this morning meant to write to announce my arrival.... I have heaps of things to tell you, but to-day am dazed by fatigue and change of air. It was quite warm in London, and the cold here is great. But oh, how glad I am to be in the peace of Hengwrt again—how thankful that I have such a refuge in my old age! You will be glad, I know, that I can tell you I am in a great deal better health than when I left.”