March 23rd, 1873.
To Mary Harris.
We have heard to-day a sermon of Kingsley’s for the Girls’ Home. It was almost wholly about Mr. Maurice, and gave him fully the place one believes he has. It was a sermon full of Kingsley’s own peculiar power; and there was not a word in it that was not true and beautiful. It was to us a sight of deepest solemnity. The church,—that where we were baptised, and confirmed and where Minnie was married—was crammed with people, and one knew every second face. It was filled with the old Lincoln’s Inn and Vere St. people, and with their spiritual inheritors of all that teaching. Mr. Davies, grave and intense, was the moving spirit there....
We had a very good meeting on Wednesday at Willis’s Rooms. I was the only lady on the platform, and in the ante-room had such interesting talk with all the people. Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Westminster and Lord Lichfield and Mr. Hughes, Mr. Andrew Johnston, Mr. Longley, and hosts of people were there. Mr. Hughes stayed by me all the time and was so kind. Did I tell thee about dining at the Cowper Temples and meeting Kingsley and Lord and Lady Ducie? It is all very interesting; but thou knows how often the loveliest and best things one meets are not among the celebrities at all, but by piercing below the surface of those who are supposed to be commonplace. I cannot tell thee how often this happens to me.
A VISIT TO RUSKIN
Brantwood, Coniston,
April 27th, 1873.
To Mary Harris.
I have stores of lovely memories, to last for many a day.... We drove to the foot of a steep ascent, and then climbed the steep slope,—such a road. It was by smooth slopes set with fir and larch and sycamore, by mountain walls covered with ivy, till at length we got to where the lake lay far beneath us. Then we left the road and went on to a central point, where the peaks stood round us like a great company of spirits; and one ridge beyond another showed their great blue flanks; past a mountain tarn, and wild stream, which flowed to the valley, by cascades and dark deep brown pools, and banks set with primrose, anemone, and wood sorrel.... It ended very brightly and sweetly after all, quite to my heart’s content.
14, Nottingham Place, W.,