Sunday, August 3rd, 1884.
To her Mother.
... I have read a good deal of Mr. Maurice’s life. How very beautiful it is, specially, I think, the letter written in 1871, on “Subscription no Bondage”! I have also been poring over “Thomas à Kempis,” of which I never tire. To-day at Hillside I read Ruskin’s “Story of Ida.” It reminds me, in its perfect simplicity of narrative, with quiet undercurrent of unobtrusive feeling, of the very early painters’ work. It goes right to one’s heart; and one utterly forgets everything and everyone but the subject. I have read, too, a little of Bret Harte, and liked him better. There was one poem of his about a lost child, found after prayer, and the speaker’s conviction that the angels had taken care of the child, which ends with a quaint, but very natural statement that they were better so employed than “loafing about the throne.” It makes one feel how much more one real memory of an actual deliverance goes home to a man than fanciful descriptions....
October 21st, 1884.
To Miss Barter.
I was much interested by your letter. Thank you for it. I have always made the houses under my charge pay 5 per cent.; but it would be a great responsibility to accept for their purchase the entire capital of anyone, and specially of a young lady probably unaccustomed to business. Such undertakings are necessarily subject to the possible variations in value, hitherto certainly advancing, but not necessarily always so, of house property let to working people.
But thank you all the same for thinking of it. The spirit in which you do so makes me think that possibly there might be some other way in which you could help us. I wonder whether you would care to come any day and talk this over with me, so that I could realise the facts; but I assure you the responsibility of even considering your generous project, seeing it relates to your whole capital, is one I could not take.
1885.
Letter to Fellow Workers.
I have, since I last wrote to you, been successful in establishing my work in South London, according to the long-cherished wish of my heart. In March of 1884, I was put in charge, by the owner, of forty-eight houses in Deptford. In May of the same year, I undertook the care of several of the courts in Southwark for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In November of the same year, the Commissioners handed over to me an additional group of courts. In January of 1885 I accepted the management of seventy-eight more houses in Deptford. A friend is just arranging to take forty-one houses in Southwark on lease from the Commissioners. But I hope to retain trained workers and a portion of the tenants in a considerate and responsible way, which is quite independent of me or my advice. I ought, however, to repeat here once more that there is much which is technical, and which must be thoroughly learnt; and that unless intending workers set aside a time to learn their business thoroughly with us or others who have experience, they will do more harm than good by undertaking to manage houses.