We went to see the Poors’ Land at Bethnal Green on Tuesday. You know it was left to trustees 200 years ago with an emphatic clause prohibiting all building. It has been let to a lunatic asylum built on adjoining land, which has used it for a huge garden, six-and-a-half acres. The authorities there are strong against the proposed building.... We went to Oxford House the same day to meet some members of the Poors’ Land Committee. They showed us a workmen’s club there, numbering 600 members, to which is attached a co-operative store, doing £10,000 a year business. It is all under the wing of Mr. and Mrs. B., who used to go backwards and forwards from Hampstead to work, but now have taken a large old house adjoining the club, and live there entirely.... They have a sacred-looking little chapel, where they have family prayers, which opens from their house and from the club, so that any who like can join. They say few do; “but they know there is prayer going up for them in all their troubles, and in what strength and hope we work.” ... At night we went to Bethnal Green to be present at a meeting of the local committee. They met in the first floor room over a cheesemonger’s shop, the cheesemonger being himself one of the trustees. The committee was all composed of tradesmen of the neighbourhood, except that there was one very young but very capable lawyer from Oxford House. Then there was a negro, who, they say, has been most helpful. He has a wonderful gift of oratory, and has addressed numbers of open-air meetings. It was a strange and interesting sight, but oh! so difficult to get any business done, tho’ they were all very zealous and touchingly eager to do all which would enable us to take up the matter. Then yesterday, by way of contrast, we drove over to a farm ... to see Mr. S., who, we heard, would give us information we wanted to record by way of protection for (a) common. He is said to have fought in old days for common rights.... He was a very fine, upright, noble-looking man, and spoke out in a quiet, independent way. The table cloth was laid, and I saw neatly marked in red marking cotton on it E ... S ... 1822; and one felt the care bestowed, and the dignity, by the continuity, of the life.
SLIGHT DISTURBANCE IN DEPTFORD
September 1st, 1890.
To Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
... Everyone has been so very loving and helpful that indeed I have had a sense of blessing about the time.... Nor was I much concerned about the Queen St. matter,[[118]] except that I could not take it on my own shoulders from dear Miss Chase. I know how little such things mean, and how real a blessing the quiet people feel in our rule; they dare not but pretend sympathy at the moment, but in their hearts they are thankful. We had a perfectly calm day to-day; everyone specially bright and friendly to Miss Chase. Mrs. W.[[119]] got tea ready for her, she says, on Thursday, but dare not offer it in the street; she meant to send it to the station, but thought Charlotte would be tracked. Miss Chase was as bright as a sunbeam; and all seems as past as if it were a century ago.... I hear two of the White Cross cottages are let, tho’ they are not finished. I am so glad. I was a little nervous, because Miss I. says the street is such a difficulty.
September 10th, 1890.
To Rev. Ingham Brooke.
I cannot defer writing to tell you how entirely and heartily I hope that a very happy and full and noble life may be opening out for you both. I have not the pleasure of knowing Miss Wallick, but I trust she is all you deserve; and, if she be, she must be good indeed. As to sacrifice, I don’t know; perhaps there is no great good possible without it; but what one feels is the immensely deeper meaning and joy which comes, when, as Ruskin says, one gets the equality “not of likeness,” but of giving and receiving; the souls that are unlike, and the nations that are unlike, and the natures that are unlike, each receiving something from, and of, the other’s gifts and the other’s glory. And of such interchange all noble love has much.
That a great new gift has come to you, all your friends will greatly rejoice. You, who have done so abundantly much for the poor, you who have thought so little of self, best of all seem to deserve such graciousness of blessing as a wife will be. I am so very, very glad, and earnestly hope all good things for you both.... Whatever change it makes in the work, in which you have been the main stay, indeed which you alone have made possible, I trust you know that I shall feel it all right. Such changes ought to come; you have worked long and hard; and, wherever you are, you will work; but, besides this, all we are working for is to make individual life noble, homes happy, and family life good; and so all foundation of noble married life is a gain to what we are working for, tho’ our small schemes of philanthropy may crumble away....
The deep affections which gather round places, and the immense power for good among men which their knowledge and love of us give, make me often feel that the continuity of work in one place is a great blessing and duty.