The money part is very regular and simple, just so much paid into Ruskin’s bank each quarter; but to me the work is of engrossing interest. We have three houses, each with six rooms; and we have managed gradually to get the people to take two rooms, in many cases.... When it was well started, we looked round for some opportunity to complete the original plan, by getting a playground, which we had failed to do with any available houses. I was so very happy at finding a bit of freehold ground, covered with old stables, to be sold with five cottages, in a very populous district near us, and a large house and pretty garden besides. Ruskin has bought it, and it is this which just now is taking every thought and power that is available, to plan and bring into order. I dare not tell anyone the difficulty of this. When it is over, I may venture to speak of it; now I should lose hope and courage if I dwelt on it much.... We have made eighteen additional rooms available for the poor, and have given orders for four cottages, which are Ruskin’s, but still in the hands of the middlemen, to be thoroughly repaired.... The children seen to have so few joys, and to spring to meet any suggestion of employment with such eagerness, instead of fighting and sitting in the gutter, with dirty faces and listless vacant expression. I found an eager little crowd threading beads, last time I was in the playground. We hope to get some tiny gardens there; and Ruskin has promised some seats. I hope to teach them to draw a little; singing we have already introduced. On the whole, I am so thankful, so glad, so hopeful in it all; and, when I remember the old days when I seemed so powerless, I am almost awed.
Everything is so lovely here. Dear Miss Sterling! is it not like her to give us all the opportunity for such a rest?
About 1865.
To Mr. Ruskin.
This place may be considered as fairly started on a remunerative plan. I daresay you will be as pleased as I that this is so.
I told the tenants how difficult I found it to pay for all the use of the money,—an expense that they never realise; and explained how the less they broke the more they would have. I told them what sum I set apart for repairs; and that they were freely welcome to the whole, and might have safes and washing-stools and copper-lids, if the money would buy them—since which time not one thing has been broken in any house.
OPENING OF THE PLAYGROUND
May 19th, 1866.
To Miss Baumgartner.
My work grows daily more interesting. Ruskin has bought six more houses, and in a densely populated neighbourhood. Some houses in the court were reported unfit for human habitation, and have been converted into warehouses; the rest are inhabited by a desperate and forlorn set of people, wild, dirty, violent, ignorant as ever I have seen. Here, pulling down a few stables, we have cleared a bit of ground, fenced it and gravelled it; and on Tuesday last, opened it as a playground for quite poor girls. I worked on quite alone about it, preferring power and responsibility and work, to committees and their slow, dull movements; and when nearly ready I mentioned the undertaking, and was quite amazed at the interest and sympathy that it met with. Mr. Maurice and Mr. L. Davies came to the meeting; and numbers of ladies and gentlemen; and the whole plan seems to meet with such approval that subscriptions are offered, and I hope to make the place really very efficient. My girls are of course very helpful....