August 3rd, 1875.
To Mrs. Senior.
I feel as if you ought to know what we are doing and deeply thinking of; yet I have been afraid to write to you for fear you should tire yourself by helping us. Now, however, that “Macmillan” is out, I fancy you are sure to hear of our work; and also I have increasing longing for the sense of your sympathy. Do you not know how one turns with longing for such sympathy, when vistas of effortful work look interminable, and when so many people “begin to make excuse.” I send you then the papers with my love; and I hope you will see “Macmillan”; but do not help, except with loving sympathy, this time, please.
I came down here last night. It is infinitely peaceful, and Lady Ducie is very sweet and loving; and all is so very quiet. But I feel leaving my fields so that I could almost cry.[[75]]
We have got on very well, better than anyone could have expected. We have collected £9,500 in little more than three weeks; but the vacation has come upon us with its inevitable pause; and it becomes a question whether the owners will give us time to try, after it.
How strange it seems to me (does it not to you?) that the momentary difficulty is to persuade the owners that there is a chance of anyone (any body of people in London or England), being in the least likely to be inclined to give the money for a place which must be a blessing to hundreds now, and hundreds yet to come—a great free gift to their city, and the chief city of their country. Fields reminding men and women long lost in the whirl of London, of child days and places near where they were born; fields where little children can see the wild flowers grow, as they are beginning to do once more on Hampstead Heath, but nearer their homes. Let other people look, if they know where, for the millionaire to do it all at once. Happy for him, if he be honoured to do such a thing! say I; he will find his buttercups more abidingly powerful and blessed than his sovereigns; but, as to me, I believe in the hearts of our poorer people, professional men, ladies with limited incomes, who know what homes, and families, and the poor are; and who will make for once an effort and sacrifice, to give £25 or £50 to save a bit of green hilly ground near a city, where fresh winds may blow, and where wild flowers still are found, and where happy people can still walk within reach of their homes. These have come forward, are coming forward; but I begin to realise how many of them it takes to contribute £1,000.
PEOPLE OF LIMITED INCOMES BEST HELPERS
Please God, when October comes, if time is given us, we will begin in full force. Meantime I must write many letters.
Tortworth Court,
August 9th, 1875.