To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
We have been having much busy and interesting work of various kinds. No. 8 B. Ct. has been handed over to us in an awful state of dirt and dilapidation, and we are busy with estimates and workmen. Miss J.’s new houses in Southwark will be ready at Xmas; and the company which owns the new blocks there have made repeated application to us to manage for them. Miss J. seems inclined to get a group of workers round her, and do this....
The Hampstead Heath meeting was in some respects satisfactory.... Still the money needed is so large, and only the Met. Bd. can do it, and there isn’t a sign they will; so I have next to no hope, or rather expect something to turn up, if success is to come.... I have been more successful than I at one time feared about the dilapidation money at Pn. Street; but it is still bad enough.... I am just back from Deptford. I really do think it is getting on.... The houses are filling slowly. We are getting much more local co-operation....
Interrupted. (Undated) probably November, 1885.
I dined at Lord Hobhouse’s on Friday. Mr. Ghose, an Indian gentleman, and his wife were there, Mr. Ghose’s brother is standing for Deptford. Lord H. says he would not have a chance with a middle-class or rich constituency; but that there is a strong feeling among the working men that he ought to get in.... We have a group of co-operators, who have taken Miss Y.’s hall for a monthly gathering. The tenants’ plays, one for grown up people and two for children, are in full swing.
VISIT TO GEORGE MACDONALD
Casa Coraggio, Bordighera,
December 10th, 1885.
To her Mother.
Thank you for your sweet birthday letter.... To-night we are having some charades in honour of Mr. MacDonald’s birthday. The house is large and full and happy, and I think very good for Edmund. To-day we have rain.