They all got up at five o’clock, drove some miles, and came by train to Rugby to talk over matters with me. They are such a splendid trio.
SWISS COTTAGE FIELDS MOVEMENT
1873 (?).
To Mrs. Fitch.
Can you interest anyone in the plan described in the enclosed? And will Mr. Fitch give his name to the North Marylebone Committee?
I shall never forget Mr. Haweis’s action in this matter, and shall respect him all my life. He saw the magnitude of the undertaking, but never paused, for fear he should be leading a forlorn hope; he resolutely and earnestly took the matter up. He has got us a worker as Honorary Secretary, at once, and thinks we are certain “to succeed if we do the thing well,” as we only want money.
Hope is the one article which is deficient; but, though I have always the smallest imaginable supply of it myself, I feel as if, for the sake of securing air and light and beauty for the hundreds I see up in those fields, when I take my own people there, I had resolution enough to nerve every one else in London for the effort. We have nearly £4,000 promised, and have only been at work a few days; but the provoking thing is that so many people say they will help, if the scheme is carried out, instead of seeing that it depends on them, and such as they, to say what they will give, before we can tell whether it will be carried out.
Perhaps I am impatient; but I wish small people would build like the ants, and believe the heap will grow bigger, if they persevere; and that big people would take pattern from Mr. Haweis, and be a little more courageous, even if it should turn out that they lead a forlorn hope; and that they would not hang back, till they see if others of their kind come in a flock.
These fields are within the four miles radius,—are within a stone’s throw of a station of the Metropolitan; their view can’t be built out because they are on a hill; the houses are rapidly creeping round their fourth side; they are within an easy walk of Lisson Grove and its crowded courts, to say nothing of our people here. Of course they are not central, yet no one can make a park, when a place has become central. Let them try in St. Giles or Clerkenwell; we must a little precede the builders, if we are to have central places. I have one idea at this moment,—“the fields.” Laugh at me as much as ever you feel inclined; but get Mr. Fitch to help us.
14, Nottingham Place,