We have an entire change of Ministry at Darmstadt, the first since 1848, which fills all with hopes for an improvement in all the affairs of the Grand Duchy.
Kranichstein, September 25th.
* * * All sympathize with you, and feel what a loss to you darling Aunt[107] must be—how great the gap in your life, how painful the absence of that sympathy and love which united her life and yours so closely.
Darling, kind Mama, I feel so acutely for you, that my thoughts are incessantly with you, and my prayers for comfort and support to be granted you in the heavy trial are warm indeed. You have borne so many hard losses with courage and resignation, that for darling Aunt’s sake you will do so again, and knowing her at rest and peace will in time reconcile you to the loss—all the more as her passing from this world to another was so touchingly peaceful. Dear Augusta [Stanley] wrote to me, which was a great consolation, and we intend going to Baden to pay our last token of respect and love.
Darmstadt, October 13th.
* * * A few words about our doings here may be of interest to you. The meeting went off well, was very large, the subjects discussed were to the purpose and important, and not one word of the emancipated political side of the question was touched upon by any one. Schools (those of the lower, middle, and higher classes) for girls was the principal theme; the employment of women for post and telegraph offices, etc.; the improvement necessary in the education of nursery-maids, and the knowledge of mothers in the treatment of little children; the question of nurses and nursing institutes.
The committees of the fifteen Associations met Wednesday afternoon, and in the evening thirteen of the members came to us to supper.
The public meeting on the following day lasted from nine to two with a small interruption; a committee meeting in the afternoon; and that evening all the members and guests came to us—nearly fifty in number. The following day the meetings lasted even longer, and the English ladies were kind enough to speak—only think, old Miss Carpenter, on all relating to women’s work in England (she is our guest here). Her account of the Queen’s Institute at Dublin was most interesting. Miss Hill (also our guest), about the boarding-out system for orphans. Miss C. Winkworth, about higher education in England. She mentioned also the new institution to which Louise now belongs, and is a member of it herself. The ladies all spoke very well; the German ones remarkably so.
There was a good deal of work to finish afterward, and a good many members to see. They came from all parts of Germany—many kind-hearted, noble, self denying women. The presence of the English ladies—above all, of one such as Miss Carpenter, who has done such good works for the reformation of convicts—greatly enhanced the importance of the meeting, and her great experience has been of value to us all. She means still to give a lecture on India and the state of the native schools there, before leaving us.