CHAPTER XTHE GUILD

‘Nel mezzo cammin di nostra vitaMi ritrovai per una selva oscuraChe la diritta via era smarrita.’

‘Nel mezzo cammin di nostra vita

Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

Che la diritta via era smarrita.’

To write of it is to turn a page of soul-history so intimate, and for a moment so painful, that it may well be thought it should be passed over in silence. But to omit it would not be wholly faithful to the memory of one who wished certainly that this story of her inner life should be known to all who could be helped by it. To tell it, moreover, is to use her own words, for she wrote of it herself, more than once or twice. She felt, when she looked back on it afterwards, that she was obliged to go through this time of suffering in order that she might be better fitted to do the work given her, in order that others who had lost faith and hope might be helped to regain them, by knowing how she herself had passed from destruction and despair to hope and rebuilding.

The diary of this whole period is more than ever indicative of inward strife and unrest from which she would not by her own will escape to any comfort other than the highest. Among the entries, which are for the most part self-analytical and depressed, it is curious to find this: ‘Letter from —— Some vanity perhaps in the refusal.’

It was an offer of marriage from an old friend.

Once or twice there is a hint of coming sorrow before she was conscious what its nature would be. Once, when marking the anniversary of a friend’s death, she noted herself as ‘perplexed with the Incomprehensible.’ On June 27, 1881, a year before the darkness closed in, she wrote: ‘A great dread of coming sorrow, as of a calvary before me. If some bitter cup is to be poured out, Thy will be done. Only forsake me not!Salvator Mundi!’

The new year (of 1882) opened as usual with renewed self-dedication; but she mentions that she came back to Cheltenham on January 14, after the annual Retreat, ‘very broken.’ Though a persistent effort to keep up her religious rule was maintained, the clear shining of faith was much clouded. One who went to her for help at that time writes of it thus:—

‘I went to her in sore trouble at the beginning of 1882, in one of the overwhelming griefs of extreme youth, when the whole aspect of life has suddenly changed from a lovely rose-garden ... to a hideous waste. The very things which made it lovely seemed to be shining and horrible shams, with undreamed-of treachery and horror lurking behind everything. It was the culminating disillusionment to turn to her who had been such a tower of patient strength all through school-life, and findnothing, no help, no comfort, no explanation, no hope to give! Yet while there were many at that time whom I could not endure to see, or do with because of the feeling of betrayal all round, there was never that with her. It never dawned on mymindfor a moment that she was herself in the horrible mire, but I understood, I suppose, in my heart. I felt sorry for her and loved her better than ever before, and I never understood till now the reason of the tender intimacy of that time, which lay under the apparent disappointment of finding no help or comfort where I had made sure of it.’

This powerlessness to help those who turned to her in their spiritual need made more poignant the sense ofloss to one who loved to give freely as a mother to her children. ‘Then others came,’ she wrote afterwards of this time, ‘and one felt like the starving mother who saw the babe at her empty breast. I had no simple truths, no milk of the word to give them that they might grow thereby.’

A letter to a friend mentions books which had a destructive effect as read at this time. It was not Miss Beale’s habit deliberately to read a book which was likely to disturb or weaken faith. To an old pupil who once wrote to her of Strauss’s book,The Old Faith and the New, she had replied:—

‘September 1873.‘I feel sorry you have read Strauss, but, of course, if you felt it your duty to do so, youwereright. Still, I do not think one is bound to read everything, any more than one is to listen to all that can be said against all one’s friends. I mean a person might be ever so good, yet if we were constantly to listen to insinuations against them, if we were frequentlywiththose who disbelieved in their goodness, and looked contemptuous when we trusted, a most well-founded confidence might result in doubt and distrust. I think we should act in religious matters as we ought in a case of friendship—refuse to hear insinuations, but ask for the grounds, arguments—not let our mind be biassed against our will and better judgment. I believe with many that these doubts are “spectres of the cave,” that if we have courage to face them, we shall see them fade away. But then we must be very much in earnest, spend time and labour and much thought upon this, as upon other subjects, and pray for the spirit of truth. I have not read Strauss, I know the general line of his arguments, but as you say he gives none here, I need not get the book to meet them.’

‘September 1873.

‘I feel sorry you have read Strauss, but, of course, if you felt it your duty to do so, youwereright. Still, I do not think one is bound to read everything, any more than one is to listen to all that can be said against all one’s friends. I mean a person might be ever so good, yet if we were constantly to listen to insinuations against them, if we were frequentlywiththose who disbelieved in their goodness, and looked contemptuous when we trusted, a most well-founded confidence might result in doubt and distrust. I think we should act in religious matters as we ought in a case of friendship—refuse to hear insinuations, but ask for the grounds, arguments—not let our mind be biassed against our will and better judgment. I believe with many that these doubts are “spectres of the cave,” that if we have courage to face them, we shall see them fade away. But then we must be very much in earnest, spend time and labour and much thought upon this, as upon other subjects, and pray for the spirit of truth. I have not read Strauss, I know the general line of his arguments, but as you say he gives none here, I need not get the book to meet them.’

Now, in this period of doubt and anxiety, books by any whom Miss Beale thought to be earnest seekers for truth, whether they were orthodox or not, were freely read.

The sense of loss and discomfort seems to have grown gradually all the year. ‘Poor lesson because depressed,’she notes on a day in February. A fortnight later in church she was ‘wrestling like Jacob; Tell me Thy Name.’ Palm Sunday, however, brought some peace. ‘I think I touched His garment’s hem.’ Each day in that Holy Week she was at an early service before school hours began, and on Easter Day wrote: ‘This Lent has been blessed.’ In Easter week she notes that she finished reading Jukes’sNew Man, ‘a beautiful book.’

But before the holidays were over there was ‘a dread of coming sorrow,’ a renewed feeling of deadness and want of devotion, only ‘passive following the inward guide.’ ‘Much troubled this morning,’ she wrote on Whit-Sunday, and the need for a ‘new life-pulse’ grew larger as the summer term wore on. Yet she persisted in striving to keep her devotional rules, and for her apparent want of zeal blamed only herself. At the end of that busy term, so full of work and interests and anxieties, she wrote: ‘Be with me in the holidays. I fear them.’

Of the suffering of that time she afterwards wrote fully, tracing the steps by which she was gradually led to think that the historical evidence on which she thought her faith rested was of no value. An extract from one account is given:—

‘Even if historical evidence were there, it could not be for all. And was it there?‘No, [only] fragments by nobodies, inconsistent versions. If God gave a perfect Man, He could not be for an age, but for all time, and how if His life passed, and we have no writing, only untrustworthy accounts? Surely, then, the life was worthless which God did not care to save for us. He stored up coal and light, our physical life, but He cared not to preserve Jesus, the spiritual life, He who had been called the Light of the world. Then it must be a delusion that He was, and God has deceived us, and we were deceived. The Pharisees were right in testingHis claims. They watched Him on the Cross and there bade Him cry to the God Whom He had claimed as Father,—and He cried as the fabled prophet of old, Eli! Eli! and God disowned Him, and the words followed which proved that He was forsaken, that the thirst of soul was unappeased and His life was indeed over. And so the darkness gathered round the Cross, ever darkening as I listened to the cry. Was God indeed mocking our hopes? The old pagan vision rose before me. The symbols of the Christ were confounded with grotesque forms. I could not utter the Creeds of the Church. Yet strange to say I yet clung to a consciousness of a Father of the visible. In my troubled dreams, which haunted me day and night, I still seemed to feel there was a God, though no voice was heard for me among the trees of the garden.[50]‘I said I will not give up my trust in God, I must reconstruct. I will not, as some who have lost faith in Christ and the eternal, give away the trust in a Father. This I thought would survive without, but with that (my faith in Christ) went all belief in the existence of any other. As I listened to the voice of creation unharmonised by the interpretation of generous love proceeding from the soul, it seemed simply horrible: the martyr slowly consuming in the fire, God looking on, refusing to interfere with natural causes. I had seen this before, but, as in that beautiful parable of the Septuagint, I had seen God was with him, and the joy overpowered the pain, and the true life was purified, and they thanked God in the fires. Now I saw no immortal hope, no resurrection; all was dark horror and amazement. No; could I keep belief in a God who had deceived mankind? Should I trust Him, pray “to Him”?[51]‘For months I read and thought of nothing else; whenever the pressing claims of work left me for a moment, I felt the light was gone from my life. Sometimes a deeper sympathy filled me,—as I seemed like a gladiator standing with my fellows.Morituri te salutant.But generally I felt myself growing hardened by the want of power to find sympathy in my sorrow, nor could I pray. I did not often, and when I did, it was one cry—“Why, why hast Thou left us, O God—without answer to our cries? Why hast Thou uttered no word of consolation to all the groans of earth? If Thou hast not heard Jesus, none of us need pray.” He trusted in God that He would deliver Him, and was forsaken, and men have waited through the ages, as a little child would wait, shut up in prison by some cruel father, and would not at first believe that he wasto be starved to death. And at last they realised that God for them was not,—only the prison-house He had built, in which they passed away their lives, in which, like a starving man, they dreamed of palaces and feasts, the delusions of their fevered brain.‘How that old passage came home to one’s fevered soul,—“the desert shall blossom as the rose”—as the thought of one’s old Christian faith came back. What would one not give, I thought, to believe it true once more! For that lighted up the whole world, then there were living waters, consolation in every sorrow, a well-spring of divine sympathy, inexhaustible,—wells from which one could drink for ever, and pour out of one’s abundance.‘Sometimes one did look up to the parched heavens, and though no rain fell, each time there was a little refreshing dew, as if God were answering when one let Him speak, instead of running into desert places, crying with Io, forsaken and maddened by a cruel God. Sometimes the words came then, “I will see you again.”‘But the vision of green pasture, of waters that would quench the parching thirst of the desert, it seemed a mirage,—and no good Shepherd waded out to me in my desert. Sometimes I found other wanderers, who asked of me the waters, and this seemed to fill my heart with deeper anguish; like Hagar, I could die in the wilderness, but I could not see my child die. So I tried to escape, but I could not, and I was obliged to lift my eyes to Heaven for their sakes. I did not tell them that what I took for mirage was real,—I did not try to turn stones into bread, I could only tell them of what I felt must be the creed of Goethe, that creation is the garment of God, and these shores of earth could not be all; there must be something true and substantial behind the phenomenal. The philosophy of St. John interpreted by Browning, the consciousness of love in my own nature, bore witness to the greater love of God. The Spirit within bore witness that there was a Father of spiritual life, and therefore that a divine sonship was possible for us. And as in our desolation we looked up together, it seemed as if the old truthwascoming back to us, but in a new way. Jesus had taught it, only we had not seen it before.... If we felt the witness of the Spirit prompting us to cry, Abba Father, and if there was a Father, this prompting must come from Him. And so I listened once more for this Voice. And I was not left alone in the desert, as I waited in my first grief. God sent to me messengers when I had lain down there in the stupefaction of spiritual sleep. They offered me angels’ food. I watered itwith tears, but I took it,—I ate it, whilst praying that God would take away my life,—take it, lest I should tempt others into the stony desert. Yes, I, who had refused to take others to the Lord’s Table, because they were faint and hungry, and in the highways of the world,—I, who had thought it profane, thought now that my mere hunger gave me a right to come. If He was indeed there, He might fill the empty cruse with oil. He might hear me as I said, “We have no wine.” And I remembered as I dared to come in my unbelief, the words I had been taught, of the hungry being filled. I thought I had once been of the mighty and rich, now I knew I was weak and hungry, so I came. But I saw not the Master, only a stranger whom I knew not, for my eyes were holden, and I did not recognise Him.‘Oh how often did I pine for death, not but that I could have taken the suffering. I thought that was possible, if I could have borne it alone. The grief was to feel that I should lead others away, whether I spoke or was silent. This only was right, never to say an untrue word, to teach what truth I had. But I was pledged like a clergyman. Still I did not yet know what I thought. I might read a little, for if I must find Christ was dead, I hoped, begged, God would take my life, that others might not die through me. With what joy did I see sickness come, and what disappointment there was when it was not unto death.‘Sometimes I thought I would take some spiritual opiate,—think no more, but try to kill self into a state in which probability should content me. But I could not work nor pray by such means. And if I could content myself by a sedative, could I my children? No; I must go on till I could feel the truth of those words ever recurring to me, “And dying rise, and rising with Him, raise His brethren, ransomed by His own dear life.”‘In darkness, I thought, “He descended into hell,” and I felt I would not rise unless I could bring my children too with me.‘What was the state of thought [at that time]? One could only look and read and see amongst the most intellectual the loss of hold on Christianity, and with those who believed, one felt it had been as with oneself, the belief would not bear the strain that would come; the tints were put on, were not our life through assimilation.’[52]

‘Even if historical evidence were there, it could not be for all. And was it there?

‘No, [only] fragments by nobodies, inconsistent versions. If God gave a perfect Man, He could not be for an age, but for all time, and how if His life passed, and we have no writing, only untrustworthy accounts? Surely, then, the life was worthless which God did not care to save for us. He stored up coal and light, our physical life, but He cared not to preserve Jesus, the spiritual life, He who had been called the Light of the world. Then it must be a delusion that He was, and God has deceived us, and we were deceived. The Pharisees were right in testingHis claims. They watched Him on the Cross and there bade Him cry to the God Whom He had claimed as Father,—and He cried as the fabled prophet of old, Eli! Eli! and God disowned Him, and the words followed which proved that He was forsaken, that the thirst of soul was unappeased and His life was indeed over. And so the darkness gathered round the Cross, ever darkening as I listened to the cry. Was God indeed mocking our hopes? The old pagan vision rose before me. The symbols of the Christ were confounded with grotesque forms. I could not utter the Creeds of the Church. Yet strange to say I yet clung to a consciousness of a Father of the visible. In my troubled dreams, which haunted me day and night, I still seemed to feel there was a God, though no voice was heard for me among the trees of the garden.[50]

‘I said I will not give up my trust in God, I must reconstruct. I will not, as some who have lost faith in Christ and the eternal, give away the trust in a Father. This I thought would survive without, but with that (my faith in Christ) went all belief in the existence of any other. As I listened to the voice of creation unharmonised by the interpretation of generous love proceeding from the soul, it seemed simply horrible: the martyr slowly consuming in the fire, God looking on, refusing to interfere with natural causes. I had seen this before, but, as in that beautiful parable of the Septuagint, I had seen God was with him, and the joy overpowered the pain, and the true life was purified, and they thanked God in the fires. Now I saw no immortal hope, no resurrection; all was dark horror and amazement. No; could I keep belief in a God who had deceived mankind? Should I trust Him, pray “to Him”?[51]

‘For months I read and thought of nothing else; whenever the pressing claims of work left me for a moment, I felt the light was gone from my life. Sometimes a deeper sympathy filled me,—as I seemed like a gladiator standing with my fellows.Morituri te salutant.But generally I felt myself growing hardened by the want of power to find sympathy in my sorrow, nor could I pray. I did not often, and when I did, it was one cry—“Why, why hast Thou left us, O God—without answer to our cries? Why hast Thou uttered no word of consolation to all the groans of earth? If Thou hast not heard Jesus, none of us need pray.” He trusted in God that He would deliver Him, and was forsaken, and men have waited through the ages, as a little child would wait, shut up in prison by some cruel father, and would not at first believe that he wasto be starved to death. And at last they realised that God for them was not,—only the prison-house He had built, in which they passed away their lives, in which, like a starving man, they dreamed of palaces and feasts, the delusions of their fevered brain.

‘How that old passage came home to one’s fevered soul,—“the desert shall blossom as the rose”—as the thought of one’s old Christian faith came back. What would one not give, I thought, to believe it true once more! For that lighted up the whole world, then there were living waters, consolation in every sorrow, a well-spring of divine sympathy, inexhaustible,—wells from which one could drink for ever, and pour out of one’s abundance.

‘Sometimes one did look up to the parched heavens, and though no rain fell, each time there was a little refreshing dew, as if God were answering when one let Him speak, instead of running into desert places, crying with Io, forsaken and maddened by a cruel God. Sometimes the words came then, “I will see you again.”

‘But the vision of green pasture, of waters that would quench the parching thirst of the desert, it seemed a mirage,—and no good Shepherd waded out to me in my desert. Sometimes I found other wanderers, who asked of me the waters, and this seemed to fill my heart with deeper anguish; like Hagar, I could die in the wilderness, but I could not see my child die. So I tried to escape, but I could not, and I was obliged to lift my eyes to Heaven for their sakes. I did not tell them that what I took for mirage was real,—I did not try to turn stones into bread, I could only tell them of what I felt must be the creed of Goethe, that creation is the garment of God, and these shores of earth could not be all; there must be something true and substantial behind the phenomenal. The philosophy of St. John interpreted by Browning, the consciousness of love in my own nature, bore witness to the greater love of God. The Spirit within bore witness that there was a Father of spiritual life, and therefore that a divine sonship was possible for us. And as in our desolation we looked up together, it seemed as if the old truthwascoming back to us, but in a new way. Jesus had taught it, only we had not seen it before.... If we felt the witness of the Spirit prompting us to cry, Abba Father, and if there was a Father, this prompting must come from Him. And so I listened once more for this Voice. And I was not left alone in the desert, as I waited in my first grief. God sent to me messengers when I had lain down there in the stupefaction of spiritual sleep. They offered me angels’ food. I watered itwith tears, but I took it,—I ate it, whilst praying that God would take away my life,—take it, lest I should tempt others into the stony desert. Yes, I, who had refused to take others to the Lord’s Table, because they were faint and hungry, and in the highways of the world,—I, who had thought it profane, thought now that my mere hunger gave me a right to come. If He was indeed there, He might fill the empty cruse with oil. He might hear me as I said, “We have no wine.” And I remembered as I dared to come in my unbelief, the words I had been taught, of the hungry being filled. I thought I had once been of the mighty and rich, now I knew I was weak and hungry, so I came. But I saw not the Master, only a stranger whom I knew not, for my eyes were holden, and I did not recognise Him.

‘Oh how often did I pine for death, not but that I could have taken the suffering. I thought that was possible, if I could have borne it alone. The grief was to feel that I should lead others away, whether I spoke or was silent. This only was right, never to say an untrue word, to teach what truth I had. But I was pledged like a clergyman. Still I did not yet know what I thought. I might read a little, for if I must find Christ was dead, I hoped, begged, God would take my life, that others might not die through me. With what joy did I see sickness come, and what disappointment there was when it was not unto death.

‘Sometimes I thought I would take some spiritual opiate,—think no more, but try to kill self into a state in which probability should content me. But I could not work nor pray by such means. And if I could content myself by a sedative, could I my children? No; I must go on till I could feel the truth of those words ever recurring to me, “And dying rise, and rising with Him, raise His brethren, ransomed by His own dear life.”

‘In darkness, I thought, “He descended into hell,” and I felt I would not rise unless I could bring my children too with me.

‘What was the state of thought [at that time]? One could only look and read and see amongst the most intellectual the loss of hold on Christianity, and with those who believed, one felt it had been as with oneself, the belief would not bear the strain that would come; the tints were put on, were not our life through assimilation.’[52]

Probably those to whom Miss Beale turned at first realised little of the distress that prompted her questions.

‘I said, “Surely there must be some one who can help where I am too weak and ignorant,” so I went to a distinguished [teacher] whom I thought so able and strong, and his concluding words sounded like a knell. “Nothing can be done.”’[53]

The darkest hour came during the early days of August when staying with friends, from whom she vainly hoped to conceal her sorrow.

‘At first I was silent, but as I could only weep day and night, I was obliged to tell them.... They kept me when I could not pay other visits. Whilst wondering at my misery they tried to help me by getting [books].’[54]

It was perhaps some relief—as of one who faces the worst—to note in her diary each fresh incoming wave of sorrowful thought.

‘1882, August 6, Sunday.At church. A nice sermon on the parable of the Unjust Steward. Talk of Newman’s books. J. said A. had some. I, thinking of J. H. N., asked to borrow. [The book] proved to be by the brother, F. Newman.‘Monday, August 7.Read some [of F. Newman’s book]. Pitied him much.‘Tuesday, August 8.6A.M.-8, read more. Miserable. After breakfast walked alone. No letter. Could not go to dinner. Terrible neuralgia. Wept nearly all day.‘Wednesday, August 9.Awake at 4A.M.Not up to breakfast. Decided must write [my resignation]. All is dark. “Such clouds of nameless sorrow cross, All night before my darkened eyes.” The light has gone out of the heavens. Why [does] God leave us without one word, His children orphans? Can He have left us to delusions? Tears are my meat day and night. I cannot live an untrue life. If Jesus be what I once believed Him, He would not wish it. “Every one that is of the truth heareth My Voice.” Tried to pray harder. Woke [as] in a dreary pine forest with beautiful ferns. Felt there must be a presence behind them. Then the trouble revived once more.‘Thursday, August 10.Wrote my resignation. May my children never know this sorrow. Christian teaching spiritualised, as I have seen it, is the holiest and purest. Their souls need not be orphaned as mine. [I] cannot stay [with them]. I could not play the hypocrite, I should hate myself. Without Christ, I should not be what I was. If I could attempt to go on, which I could not for a moment contemplate since it is untrue, think if I were found out, the moral blow for my children. They would think I had been false when teaching them my deepest faith,—the joy of my life,—that which made all the suffering bearable, and all gladness double, the love of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I would suffer the loss of all things if I might win Christ and be found in Him.‘O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.’

‘Monday, August 7.Read some [of F. Newman’s book]. Pitied him much.

‘Tuesday, August 8.6A.M.-8, read more. Miserable. After breakfast walked alone. No letter. Could not go to dinner. Terrible neuralgia. Wept nearly all day.

‘Wednesday, August 9.Awake at 4A.M.Not up to breakfast. Decided must write [my resignation]. All is dark. “Such clouds of nameless sorrow cross, All night before my darkened eyes.” The light has gone out of the heavens. Why [does] God leave us without one word, His children orphans? Can He have left us to delusions? Tears are my meat day and night. I cannot live an untrue life. If Jesus be what I once believed Him, He would not wish it. “Every one that is of the truth heareth My Voice.” Tried to pray harder. Woke [as] in a dreary pine forest with beautiful ferns. Felt there must be a presence behind them. Then the trouble revived once more.

‘Thursday, August 10.Wrote my resignation. May my children never know this sorrow. Christian teaching spiritualised, as I have seen it, is the holiest and purest. Their souls need not be orphaned as mine. [I] cannot stay [with them]. I could not play the hypocrite, I should hate myself. Without Christ, I should not be what I was. If I could attempt to go on, which I could not for a moment contemplate since it is untrue, think if I were found out, the moral blow for my children. They would think I had been false when teaching them my deepest faith,—the joy of my life,—that which made all the suffering bearable, and all gladness double, the love of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I would suffer the loss of all things if I might win Christ and be found in Him.

‘O Lord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.’

The immediate sequel to the story of these few days was told in a letter to a friend:—

‘August 1882.‘I was engaged to attend a religious conference at the end of a week. I did not quite like to give it up, for there mightpossiblybe some hope of help, though I felt there was none. My friends begged me to go,—there was just a chance. I went,—but almost turned back after I had started, for I was so broken down I could not restrain my tears, and I was ashamed to be seen. Well, I met there [some] men of powerful mind, leaders of thought in their different departments, who had gone through periods of darkness, but had waited for the dawn, and now they believed.... After two days I told my grief to a sympathising friend, who was surprised at my wretchedness, and her calm faith gave me a little calmness too. So the day before we were to leave I ventured to tell all my trouble to the clergyman who had invited me. I think I may dare to say that my faith has come back—not as it was before, but more spiritual; once more I can say the Creed, and I think I shall be able to teach again....’

‘August 1882.

‘I was engaged to attend a religious conference at the end of a week. I did not quite like to give it up, for there mightpossiblybe some hope of help, though I felt there was none. My friends begged me to go,—there was just a chance. I went,—but almost turned back after I had started, for I was so broken down I could not restrain my tears, and I was ashamed to be seen. Well, I met there [some] men of powerful mind, leaders of thought in their different departments, who had gone through periods of darkness, but had waited for the dawn, and now they believed.... After two days I told my grief to a sympathising friend, who was surprised at my wretchedness, and her calm faith gave me a little calmness too. So the day before we were to leave I ventured to tell all my trouble to the clergyman who had invited me. I think I may dare to say that my faith has come back—not as it was before, but more spiritual; once more I can say the Creed, and I think I shall be able to teach again....’

The ‘religious conference’ was at Stoke, a little village in Shropshire, where the rector, the Rev. Rowland Corbet, was in the habit of gathering some who were earnestly studying the difficult questions of the day.Miss Beale wrote of these gatherings in the letter already quoted:—

‘There are only about twelve staying in the house. No one is put out of the synagogue for not seeing the truth, and they are not afraid to ask questions, but none are invited who are not supposed to be seeking for the light.’

That a door to the light was at this conference quickly opened for Miss Beale may be seen in the letters she wrote, on her return to Cheltenham after it was over, to the friends who had helped her so much:—

‘August 19, 1882.‘Dear Mr. Corbet,—I could not say one word of thanks this morning: I think you understood.‘It is good for us tempest-tossed people to see the restful faith of the veterans who come to help us. Certainly the old ship in which I have somehow sailed upon the waves for so many years is a wreck. I must try to believe He will set my feet upon a rock.‘Yesterday things began to get clearer: your kind and patient explanations of the alphabet of the spiritual made me follow the discussion better afterwards, and I felt I could begin again to join in the Church’s Creed with a deeper meaning than before. I suppose one can’t expect to come out of the grave at once,—but how different is this Saturday from last, it seems as if some æon had gone by. I don’t know yet what I think, except that I believe I shall see the light and rise and always remain, yours very gratefully,D. Beale.’

‘August 19, 1882.

‘Dear Mr. Corbet,—I could not say one word of thanks this morning: I think you understood.

‘It is good for us tempest-tossed people to see the restful faith of the veterans who come to help us. Certainly the old ship in which I have somehow sailed upon the waves for so many years is a wreck. I must try to believe He will set my feet upon a rock.

‘Yesterday things began to get clearer: your kind and patient explanations of the alphabet of the spiritual made me follow the discussion better afterwards, and I felt I could begin again to join in the Church’s Creed with a deeper meaning than before. I suppose one can’t expect to come out of the grave at once,—but how different is this Saturday from last, it seems as if some æon had gone by. I don’t know yet what I think, except that I believe I shall see the light and rise and always remain, yours very gratefully,

D. Beale.’

To Mrs. Russell Gurney:—

‘August 27, 1882.‘Dear Mrs. Russell Gurney,—I have had such a happy Sunday,—I can hardly believe it is the same earth that seemed to me so dead the week before, when I could not go to Church, but wandered about quite desolate.‘Three weeks ago, if any one had spoken, as I am doing now, I should have thought it superstitious, and I don’t think it will be well either for myself or others to speak much of it now, only to one who, like you, understands—and who helped to take off the “grave-clothes.”‘I want to use my limbs first, to get back to my old worknow, and see if there is really a new life; I want to see if I can help some for whom I could do nothing before.‘I am with delightful people. Mr. Webb is just a living picture of Chaucer’s Good Parson and well known in the scientific world: his special field is astronomy. He showed us a wonderful gas-nebula on Saturday night. He quite believes in spiritual manifestations, and seems to think with Professor Barrett about the ether.‘I have to thank you much, dear Mrs. Gurney, for your sympathy. It was such a help to me to be able to speak to you. I meant to say nothing toany one, but I could not help it. The story of your own vision helped me, as it was something like my own: it is so much what Browning describes at the end of “Saul,” when David has realised the Divine love, and feels the living pulse beating in all nature. Everybody helped me in some way, but especially Mr. Corbet’s teaching, which seems wonderfully beautiful.‘I dare say it was the same last year; but different to me, because I was comparatively satisfied then, not poor and needy (as I came this time), and therefore ready to understand.‘“I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice”: my text for to-day.’

‘August 27, 1882.

‘Dear Mrs. Russell Gurney,—I have had such a happy Sunday,—I can hardly believe it is the same earth that seemed to me so dead the week before, when I could not go to Church, but wandered about quite desolate.

‘Three weeks ago, if any one had spoken, as I am doing now, I should have thought it superstitious, and I don’t think it will be well either for myself or others to speak much of it now, only to one who, like you, understands—and who helped to take off the “grave-clothes.”

‘I want to use my limbs first, to get back to my old worknow, and see if there is really a new life; I want to see if I can help some for whom I could do nothing before.

‘I am with delightful people. Mr. Webb is just a living picture of Chaucer’s Good Parson and well known in the scientific world: his special field is astronomy. He showed us a wonderful gas-nebula on Saturday night. He quite believes in spiritual manifestations, and seems to think with Professor Barrett about the ether.

‘I have to thank you much, dear Mrs. Gurney, for your sympathy. It was such a help to me to be able to speak to you. I meant to say nothing toany one, but I could not help it. The story of your own vision helped me, as it was something like my own: it is so much what Browning describes at the end of “Saul,” when David has realised the Divine love, and feels the living pulse beating in all nature. Everybody helped me in some way, but especially Mr. Corbet’s teaching, which seems wonderfully beautiful.

‘I dare say it was the same last year; but different to me, because I was comparatively satisfied then, not poor and needy (as I came this time), and therefore ready to understand.

‘“I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice”: my text for to-day.’

She felt like one set free from prison, but the newly recovered liberty was used with caution. ‘You will like to know,’ she wrote to a friend in the following year, ‘that the fitful gleams of sunlight, which used to come after the dark night, have become now something like a steady shining. I was able to get a few quiet days at Christmas, and then first I began to feel that I should be able to give thanks for this terrible experience, and the thankfulness has grown ever since.’

As she said, the thankfulness grew. But in the very heart of the fire she had felt no regret, known no complaining. She was willing to suffer, if by that means she might help the more. On August 15, just a week after the day she always remembered as ‘Tuesday the 8th,’ she wrote of one whose calling in life was to teach others: ‘You say he has been reading sceptical books;I want him to go on doing so. He must know how deep the questions go, or he will be fighting windmills, as I have done.’

It will be asked by what steps the ascent was made, and what the height from which the new spiritual horizons were discerned; what was the train of thought which brought back the possibility of saying the Church’s Creed? The mental process, if it can be disentangled from an exercise which engaged all the faculties of soul and spirit, was probably that suggested in the words of Amiel: ‘Chacun ne comprend que ce qu’il retrouve en soi.’ But the research and the retrieval were not simply individual and within, they involved the scrutiny of widespread religious instincts, cravings and needs. They were aided above all by the contemplation of martyr deaths and martyr lives, which in their continuous and abiding witness to the faith are seen to constitute a claim to authority.

Miss Beale herself strove to show how the doubting spirit was silenced by an answer of faith, in a little paper called ‘Building,’ which is dated September 8. Here she wrote:—

‘Sweep away external proofs, we must believe in a God and in His love.‘We see He speaks to His children through the wondrous language of Nature, drawing them to His Heart and teaching ever new trust through it.‘He shows His Father Heart in the love of the human, ignorant,—for the child.‘In all ages He has made man feel His Presence in the heart and yearn after Him.‘There is a long witness down the ages that to those who long for His Presence and follow holiness, He gives the great reward of His conscious sympathy, speaking in their hearts, so that they know it is His Voice. In different ages, in different ways, as men need the language they understand.‘To Abraham and the prophets, to Socrates, to Buddha teachingthe Karma, to Moses the divine writing,—to saints who sought Him in later times.‘Why impeach the testimony of Christendom as to the Resurrection, if it is what we must believe in, if it is just the good news for which the world was then dying? We know Paul and John believed it, and men believed them then; and the miracle of the Christian Church which is before our eyes, and the teaching of the Christ is found to be the food of the soul, and in prayer as men drink it in, they hand on Sacramental life, which is its own witness. We want that!‘We can believe that for some inscrutable reason the Eternal educates His children in time.‘Perhaps we have to go through these depths of blankness that we may not bottle up the spiritual to one time or church or country, but believe God is really eternal, omnipresent; that He does dwell with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, and who trembles at His Presence felt in the darkness. We have to learn to see the Spirit of Christ dwelling in each man, regenerating him to the true and higher life.‘We have to see it is God’s method to work through the man,—therefore the treasure is in earthen vessels,—the light is dimmed by the medium. But if it were given whole and complete by angels, the moral nature could no more be drawn out than the intellect could have been, had God revealed the kalendars and Kepler’s Laws.‘So through the Man Christ Jesus, Who emptied Himself ere He could speak to man, Who, as His wondrous teaching, life and resurrection testify, stood in some different relation to God than other men, God has spoken to the whole world.’

‘Sweep away external proofs, we must believe in a God and in His love.

‘We see He speaks to His children through the wondrous language of Nature, drawing them to His Heart and teaching ever new trust through it.

‘He shows His Father Heart in the love of the human, ignorant,—for the child.

‘In all ages He has made man feel His Presence in the heart and yearn after Him.

‘There is a long witness down the ages that to those who long for His Presence and follow holiness, He gives the great reward of His conscious sympathy, speaking in their hearts, so that they know it is His Voice. In different ages, in different ways, as men need the language they understand.

‘To Abraham and the prophets, to Socrates, to Buddha teachingthe Karma, to Moses the divine writing,—to saints who sought Him in later times.

‘Why impeach the testimony of Christendom as to the Resurrection, if it is what we must believe in, if it is just the good news for which the world was then dying? We know Paul and John believed it, and men believed them then; and the miracle of the Christian Church which is before our eyes, and the teaching of the Christ is found to be the food of the soul, and in prayer as men drink it in, they hand on Sacramental life, which is its own witness. We want that!

‘We can believe that for some inscrutable reason the Eternal educates His children in time.

‘Perhaps we have to go through these depths of blankness that we may not bottle up the spiritual to one time or church or country, but believe God is really eternal, omnipresent; that He does dwell with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, and who trembles at His Presence felt in the darkness. We have to learn to see the Spirit of Christ dwelling in each man, regenerating him to the true and higher life.

‘We have to see it is God’s method to work through the man,—therefore the treasure is in earthen vessels,—the light is dimmed by the medium. But if it were given whole and complete by angels, the moral nature could no more be drawn out than the intellect could have been, had God revealed the kalendars and Kepler’s Laws.

‘So through the Man Christ Jesus, Who emptied Himself ere He could speak to man, Who, as His wondrous teaching, life and resurrection testify, stood in some different relation to God than other men, God has spoken to the whole world.’

Another paper of this period, entitled ‘Of my Religious Opinions,’ concludes thus:—

‘Yes, it was this. The consciousness of a universal life of God in man which lifted me up once more to see God in Christ, to see the New Man coming to the birth in all for whom Christ lived, and the whole world existed that this might be, that the whole being of the creature might be lifted into responsive sympathy with a sympathetic Father, and those followers of Christ Who was ever preaching the religion of Humanity were to lift the imperfect yet real Church of Christ to a higher life. Upon a world which seemed dead, which no prophet staff could restore, they were to stretch themselves, heart to heart, their own warm palpitating life was to rouse, and the power of love could raisethe dead. We must learn that old lesson that no creature is common or unclean. We must enter as never before into the full meaning of the Name by which God was known to Abraham—I AM,—the Eternal. Ours has been a God of time, He is the Living God, lighting every man that cometh into the world. But here, light is struggling with darkness. There shall be no night there in that day dawn beyond the tomb.‘Have you not been taught that the written word is imperfect without the heavenly interpretation, and does not your own experience confirm this, and the history of the records of the Christ bear it out? Enough we have as a foundation, but we must build thereon, or there will be no home for our soul. This is the method of God, revealing to us that we can onlyhelpone another. God mustteachus all. They shall be all taught of God, here and hereafter.‘Here the phenomenal and the imperfect is the only possible revelation to man, but through these he is being educated for the real, the actual. He will one day know God.’

‘Have you not been taught that the written word is imperfect without the heavenly interpretation, and does not your own experience confirm this, and the history of the records of the Christ bear it out? Enough we have as a foundation, but we must build thereon, or there will be no home for our soul. This is the method of God, revealing to us that we can onlyhelpone another. God mustteachus all. They shall be all taught of God, here and hereafter.

‘Here the phenomenal and the imperfect is the only possible revelation to man, but through these he is being educated for the real, the actual. He will one day know God.’

The writer of these words might indeed have sung, ‘Thou hast set my feet in a large room.’ But the daily journal shows no trace of exultation, far less of relaxing watchfulness. It is surely impossible to exaggerate the importance of the jealous care with which devotional rules were guarded. More than all the high thoughts and noble imaginings with which she was so wonderfully gifted, this lifelong obedience came to her aid in the great crisis. Habits of prayer, daily acts of self-sacrifice and self-consecration, had been maintained even when their meaning seemed to be clouded. When sight was restored, when a greater sense of spaciousness came into her life, they were there to protect her in the newly found liberty. The tale of them remains to show that the doubts of this dark year were akin to that thirst for God which in all ages has been the portion of the saints.

May it not be said that they were the outcome of a passionate desire to help; that this descent into darkness as of the grave was necessary to one who yearned to giveherself utterly to aid others to find the way to the light? ‘Can ye drink indeed?’ was asked of those who willed to share the divine work and joy, and in all times it has been given to a few to be brought through suffering into that region of consciousness in which they are made ‘able.’

‘We have a picture which gives the ideal of a College—the Golden Staircase—whence each should go forth into the great world carrying some beautiful instrument with which to utter the music which is in her heart.’—D. Beale, Guild Address, 1894.

Miss Beale’s circle of influence definitely widened beyond the College itself in 1880 when the first number of the Magazine appeared. It opened with a characteristic introduction from the Lady Principal, who up to her death remained the editor.

The Magazine was started, said Miss Beale, in order that past and present members of the College might enrich each other by interchange of thoughts. Mere information concerning the temporary doings of one’s friends was a secondary consideration, the value of which was, however, fortunately seen by sub-editors and others. A column of births, deaths, and marriages became established in the Magazine as early as the second number. This naturally in time developed in interest. The obituary column came to include all who had the slightest connection with the College; newspaper accounts of those who were in any way distinguished were also added.

In 1887 the first Chronicle of passing events belonging to the College and its old members was inserted, though the space for it was grudgingly afforded by theeditor, who could not bear to limit her space for the budding ideas she loved to foster. Soon, however, she came to value what was practically a contemporary history of the College, and as her pride in her old pupils increased with years, it became a great pleasure to notice all their doings in varied walks of life. Engaged in philanthropic work, in literature, in art or society, they were all of interest to her, and not among the least dear were those whose homes lay in foreign parts, those closely connected with the diplomatic service and the growth of the British Empire.[55]The Chronicle was a portion of the Magazine sure of finding readers, but there was no page more welcome to all than the brief but pithy preface in which the editor named the chief contents, touched on some matter of note to the readers, or urged forward the lagging subscriber.

As the College interest widened with the ever-increasing number of old pupils, the Chronicle became too limited a record to stand alone. When the Magazine was about seventeen years old ‘Parerga’ appeared for the first time, telling of activities which lay outside the immediate scope of College work, yet were due in part to the influence of the Alma Mater, to ‘the spiritual force, the higher volition and action.’ Miss Beale, who found in the Magazine a strong link with her large scattered family, also in later years freely printed letters she received from various members abroad. She did not care much for articles on travel, writing on one occasion that she received too many descriptions, and would like in their place to have more records of observation in the fields ofnatural history and other sciences. But she treasured letters, and showed them widely. Indeed, it was sometimes startling for the writer of a private letter to Miss Beale to find whole extracts published in the Magazine for all the world to see.

Almost from the beginning there were reviews of books. These were generally written by the editor. There were also notices of books by old pupils. Of these Miss Beale was proud, and she never failed to mention them, often reprinting portions of reviews by the press; but she would not review them herself, saying, ‘Books by old pupils claim ournotice; we must leave criticism to those less interested in the writers.’

Fortunately Miss Beale was not content with merely reviewing and editing. Many a number of the Magazine contained a long contribution from herself, such as an article reprinted from another periodical, an address given at a gathering of old pupils, or at some more general meeting. The first two editions of theHistory of the Collegewere also printed here. Of her articles which were not of special College interest, the most notable were those upon Browning. One of these, written in spring 1890, shortly after the poet’s death, contains a brief clear statement of the value of his philosophy. The other writers of the Magazine have been chiefly old pupils, some of whose names, as, for example, those of Jane Harrison, Beatrice Harraden, Bertha Synge, May Sinclair, are known in wider fields of literature. But any who made a sincere effort were welcomed, encouraged, and—edited. Present pupils have rarely written, but of late an attempt has been made to secure more contributions from these. Members of the Council, and others connected with the College by the ties of friendship or work, frequently helped the Magazine with papers orverses. For years every number was enriched with a poem or article from the pen of Mrs. James Owen, that friend whose keen intellectual interests and strong sympathy were put so largely at Miss Beale’s service when this literary venture was first made.

To find contributors Miss Beale went even beyond the outer circle of the College. ‘We always hope to have some good writing in our Magazine, thus to maintain a high standard,’ she had said at the beginning. She liked to gain the notice of those who were eminent in literature or science for this dearly loved literary child, and as occasion brought her in contact with any who were distinguished for the things she appreciated she would send them the Magazine, often asking for a paper. Letters from people of widely differing thought and position, acknowledging the receipt of the Magazine, are now in the College archives. They vary in warmth and interest. The late Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol wrote in 1889: ‘However busy I may be, I always find time to read portions of [the Magazine], and I am always thankful to recognise not merely the cultivated, but the wise and—what we men specially value—the womanly tone that characterises it. I read with much interest your article on the Sorbonne gathering.’ Bishop Westcott in 1890 wrote, on receiving the number containing Miss Beale’s ‘In Memoriam’ article on Browning: ‘May I confess that when the copy of the Ladies’ College Magazine came this morning with the letters, my correspondence was at once interrupted? I felt constrained to read your words on Browning, just and wise and helpful and suggestive.’ Some notes are little more than the acknowledgment of a polite friend who had ‘already cut the pages.’ The request for contributions was not always granted;sometimes it was won by a little importunity. It brought about rather an amusing incident with Mr. Ruskin, whose letters on the subject and on some of Miss Beale’s own Magazine articles are too characteristic to be omitted.

Miss Beale sent him the number containing her paper on ‘Britomart.’ He replied at once:—

‘March 12, 1887.‘Have you not yet to add to your Britomart, at p. 219, due justification of Feminine—may we not rather call it Disguise—than Lie? And, for myself, may I say that I think Britomart should have sung to the Red Knight, not he to Britomart.—Ever faithfully yours,J. Ruskin.’

‘March 12, 1887.

‘Have you not yet to add to your Britomart, at p. 219, due justification of Feminine—may we not rather call it Disguise—than Lie? And, for myself, may I say that I think Britomart should have sung to the Red Knight, not he to Britomart.—Ever faithfully yours,

J. Ruskin.’

Five days later he wrote:—

‘But I much more than like your essay on Britomart.‘I am most thankful to have found the head of a Girls’ College able to do such a piece of work, and having such convictions and aspirations, and can only assure you how glad I shall be to find myself capable of aiding you in anything.... I trespass no further on you to-day, but have something to say concerning ball-play as a Britomartian exercise, before saying which, however, I will inquire of the Librarian whatgroundspaces the College commands, being so limited in its bookshelves.—And believe me, ever your faithful servt.,John Ruskin.’

‘But I much more than like your essay on Britomart.

‘I am most thankful to have found the head of a Girls’ College able to do such a piece of work, and having such convictions and aspirations, and can only assure you how glad I shall be to find myself capable of aiding you in anything.... I trespass no further on you to-day, but have something to say concerning ball-play as a Britomartian exercise, before saying which, however, I will inquire of the Librarian whatgroundspaces the College commands, being so limited in its bookshelves.—And believe me, ever your faithful servt.,

John Ruskin.’

Miss Beale replied to this by sending her paper on ‘Lear,’ to which came this response:—

‘March 22, 1887.‘I am entirely glad to hear of the Oxford plan, which seems faultless, and am most happy to get the King Lear, though I hope you have never learned as much of human life as to be able to read him as you can Britomart. What I want to know is whether Cordelia was ever so little in love—withanybody, except her Father.’

‘March 22, 1887.

‘I am entirely glad to hear of the Oxford plan, which seems faultless, and am most happy to get the King Lear, though I hope you have never learned as much of human life as to be able to read him as you can Britomart. What I want to know is whether Cordelia was ever so little in love—withanybody, except her Father.’

Two days later came the following:—

‘March 24, 1887.‘I have been reading your Lear with very great interest. It is one of the subtlest and truest pieces of Shakespeare criticism I ever saw, but just as I guessed—misses the key note. Younever enter on the question what it is that drives Lear mad! And throughout you fall into the fault which women nearly always commit if they don’t err on the other side,—of always talking of love as if it had nothing to do with sex.... I am extremely glad to note your interest in and knowledge of music.—Ever faithfully and respectfully yours,J. Ruskin.’

‘March 24, 1887.

‘I have been reading your Lear with very great interest. It is one of the subtlest and truest pieces of Shakespeare criticism I ever saw, but just as I guessed—misses the key note. Younever enter on the question what it is that drives Lear mad! And throughout you fall into the fault which women nearly always commit if they don’t err on the other side,—of always talking of love as if it had nothing to do with sex.... I am extremely glad to note your interest in and knowledge of music.—Ever faithfully and respectfully yours,

J. Ruskin.’

After this letter there was a pause in a correspondence which had been kept up pretty briskly on various subjects. In June, however, Miss Beale wrote again,—the purport of her letter may be gathered from the answer.

‘June 8, 1887.‘I never have been ill this year; the reports you heard or saw in papers were variously malicious or interested. But I have been busy, in very painful or sorrowful business—at Oxford or at home—nor even in the usual tenor of spring occupation could I have answered rightly the different questions you sent me. Especially, I could not tell you anything of your paper on Lear, because I think women should never write on Shakespeare, or Homer, or Æschylus, or Dante, or any of the greater powers in literature. Spenser, or Chaucer, or Molière, or any of the second and third order of classics—but not the leaders. And you really had missed much more in Lear than I should like to tell you.‘I really thought I had given the College my books—but if I haven’t, I won’t—not even if you set the Librarian to ask me; for it does seem to me such a shame that a girl can always give her dentist a guinea for an hour’s work, and her physician for an opinion; and she can’t give me one for what has cost me half my life to learn, and will help her till the end of hers to know.‘Please go on with your book exactly as you like to have it. I have neither mind nor time for reading just now.—Ever most truly yrs.,J. Ruskin.’

‘June 8, 1887.

‘I never have been ill this year; the reports you heard or saw in papers were variously malicious or interested. But I have been busy, in very painful or sorrowful business—at Oxford or at home—nor even in the usual tenor of spring occupation could I have answered rightly the different questions you sent me. Especially, I could not tell you anything of your paper on Lear, because I think women should never write on Shakespeare, or Homer, or Æschylus, or Dante, or any of the greater powers in literature. Spenser, or Chaucer, or Molière, or any of the second and third order of classics—but not the leaders. And you really had missed much more in Lear than I should like to tell you.

‘I really thought I had given the College my books—but if I haven’t, I won’t—not even if you set the Librarian to ask me; for it does seem to me such a shame that a girl can always give her dentist a guinea for an hour’s work, and her physician for an opinion; and she can’t give me one for what has cost me half my life to learn, and will help her till the end of hers to know.

‘Please go on with your book exactly as you like to have it. I have neither mind nor time for reading just now.—Ever most truly yrs.,

J. Ruskin.’

Mr. Ruskin permitted the reprint of a few extracts from his own writings in the Magazine, on which his criticism as a whole was not very encouraging. One of his letters, indeed, called forth a protest from Miss Beale, to which he replied thus:—

‘June 15, 1887.‘Dear Miss Beale,—I am grieved very deeply to havewritten what I did of your dear friend’s verses. If you knew how full my own life has been of sorrow, how every day of it begins with a death-knell, you would bear with me in what I will yet venture to say to you as the head of a noble school of woman’s thought, that no personal feelings should ever be allowed to influence you in what you permit your scholars either to read or to publish.’

‘June 15, 1887.

‘Dear Miss Beale,—I am grieved very deeply to havewritten what I did of your dear friend’s verses. If you knew how full my own life has been of sorrow, how every day of it begins with a death-knell, you would bear with me in what I will yet venture to say to you as the head of a noble school of woman’s thought, that no personal feelings should ever be allowed to influence you in what you permit your scholars either to read or to publish.’

And again a few days later:—

‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,June 19, 1887.‘Dear Miss Beale,—So many thanks, and again and again I ask your pardon for the pain I gave you. I had no idea of the kind of person you were, I thought you were merely clever and proud.‘These substituted verses are lovely.—Ever gratefully (1) yrs.,‘J. R.‘(1) I mean, for the way you have borne with my letters. You will not think it was because I did not like my own work to have the other with it that I spoke as I did.’

‘Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire,June 19, 1887.

‘Dear Miss Beale,—So many thanks, and again and again I ask your pardon for the pain I gave you. I had no idea of the kind of person you were, I thought you were merely clever and proud.

‘These substituted verses are lovely.—Ever gratefully (1) yrs.,

‘J. R.

‘(1) I mean, for the way you have borne with my letters. You will not think it was because I did not like my own work to have the other with it that I spoke as I did.’

Mr. Shorthouse also once contributed to the Magazine, sending a little story called ‘An Apologue.’

The work entailed by the Magazine was, on the whole, pleasant and interesting to its editor. But she was grieved sometimes if she thought old pupils did not appreciate it, or if contributions fell short. It was not always easy to get enough articles of the kind she desired, and the difficulty was increased by the severe censorship she exercised. ‘About one hour wasted in fretting over Magazine,’ runs the diary of April 2, 1891.

The Magazine was not without its faults. ‘How bad the best of us!’ saysPunch, according to Ruskin. But it had the conspicuous merit of offering encouragement to young writers, of promoting a spirit of unity, and fostering sympathetic interest among those whose lives were necessarily far apart. ‘We hope,’ Miss Beale had said in her first preface, ‘that the papers on work maybe helpful in suggesting ways of usefulness.’[56]This hope was practically realised. How far the young writers profited by each other’s thoughts can be less easily gauged; but doubtless some learned at least one lesson the Magazine was meant to teach, that if they intended to work, they ‘must not shrink from the hardest and most fruitful work, i.e.thinking.’[57]

Miss Beale’s influence was again extended in manifold and ever-developing ways when, in 1883, the first meeting of former pupils was held in the College.

At this date the number of regular pupils was five hundred. Only six years before a proposal had been made to limit the numbers to three hundred, but each year saw an increase, and a consequent addition to the ranks of those who carried the influence of the College into the larger world outside.

It had been felt for some time by the Principal and others to whom the College was dear, that an association of old pupils should be formed, but of what nature and name could not be determined without a representative meeting. A suitable occasion for this presented itself in 1883, which was a sort of Jubilee year for the College, Miss Beale having then been its Principal for twenty-five years. Many old pupils expressed a wish to mark the great occasion by a personal gift to Miss Beale; she, as was to be expected, asked that it might be given to her ‘husband,’ the College. It was a moment of almost unsullied prosperity, as could be seen by the buildings which were constantly growing more stately and suitable. In the previous year they had been much enlarged, and the whole College life benefited by the addition of the Music and Art wing. The old music-rooms were little better than cupboards, thenew ones contained light, air, and space, as well as the necessary pianoforte. The first drawing-room was but an insufficient classroom, in which a cast of any size could not be placed. The new studio was spacious and properly lighted. Both additions at this period spoke of Miss Beale’s method in educational development, also of the order in which her own full mental life unfolded. First she would have the exact, the severe, the discipline of grammar and rule, then the expansion of beauty in thought and symbol.

And the gift of the old pupils could not have been better chosen. It took the form of an organ for what was then the largest hall, the First Division Room. Here the daily prayers of the three divisions took place. Sir Walter Parratt settled the specifications for the organ, which was placed above the Lady Principal’s dais.

The choir, which up to this time had been dependent on the aid of a harmonium, was augmented and improved, and the daily music at the school prayers became a feature of College life in which Miss Beale took delight. Occasionally her directions to the choir were embarrassing. She liked music to be verypiano, and required a great deal of expression to bring out the full meaning of the words sung.

Mr. Ruskin was also momentarily interested by it. He was as suggestive and dogmatic on the subject as on any other that he touched. Once he wrote to Miss Beale, ‘All music properly so called is of the Celestial Spheres. It aids and gives law to Joy, or it ennobles and comforts Sorrow.’ On hearing of the organ and ‘girl-organist,’ he hoped ‘to be able to work out some old plans with her,’ and unfolded them thus:—

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