You will be interested to see the great Latrigg[[103]] success! I fancy you may like to have a copy of the speech that I made at the perilous juncture, now happily no more needed for distribution.
Larksfield,
September 2nd, 1888.
To her Mother.
I think of you, dearest Mama, a great deal, and long for the time when you will be nearer us; meantime I never feel far away at all, I am so sure of your sympathy about all I am thinking of and working for. I do not think you know MacDonald’s “Diary of an Old Soul,” do you? There is a very beautiful part of the August portion of it, about forgetfulness of God, and His memory of us, and the nearness to Him, which I think you would like. The last verse always naturally makes me think of you; but I think there never could have been any mother, of whom it was so true that she desired no personal nearness, so that she was entirely one with what her children did. Your love seems entirely free from a touch of self in it; and I always feel as near you away as when I am by you.
14, Nottingham Place, W.,
September 23rd, 1888.
To her Mother.
We had the first evening performance at Red Cross Hall yesterday of “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” The hall looked beautiful, lighted up. It was a moonlight night, and the cottages and gardens looked lovely. I found the Committeemen very busy and happy and important. Everything was ready, and the curtain up and looking very pretty. The hall was full. Many of the workers were there and very happy. One of the Committeemen said to me, “Considering the neighbourhood, you couldn’t have a more respectable audience!” The MacDonalds seemed happy and busy. When the play began it was most beautiful. It is wonderful they can act it as they do, with the blanks in their company death has made; but it only seems to have made it to them truer and more solemn. Some of the scenes—notably that in the Valley of Humiliation—seem to me more beautiful than ever; so is the grouping. Also, in the dark valley, when the little boy asks Great Heart to draw his sword against the shadow, and he tells him that no weapon avails there but All Prayer, and they fall into a short procession, Great Heart first, alone, then the two couples of little boys in their red and black little dresses, then Christiana and Mercy, the one in a lovely old black dress, and the other in the fairest blue and white, and they troop off chanting, all their hands raised. It is most beautiful. The working men, I hear, felt the play most. I fancy they followed the sense best.
PERFORMANCE OF PILGRIM’S PROGRESS