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In the autumn of 1857 my husband was invited to fill the post of Vice-Principal of the Cheltenham College. He accepted the invitation, and we went to Cheltenham the same year. He here entered upon his long course of assiduous and untiring work as a schoolmaster – a work which covered a quarter of a century, beginning at Cheltenham in 1857, and continued at Liverpool from the winter of 1865-66 until 1882. We gained much at Cheltenham in an improved climate, and in the cessation of material difficulties and anxieties. We lived in a large house, in which, for some years, we received a number of pupils. It was characteristic that it should have supplied some of the best athletes of the College, and many successful competitors in the school games, in feats of strength, activity and skill. My husband considered physical training to be an essential part of the education of youth.

Our summer vacations continued to be spent largely at Dilston; we went however one year to Switzerland with our eldest son. We visited Lucerne and its neighbourhood, and afterwards the Rhone Valley, Chamounix, and the great St. Bernard, passing a night at the hospice, where we profited much by our intercourse with the beautiful dogs, one of whom, a veteran called Bruno, the forefather of many a noble hound, attached himself to us, and made himself our cicerone among the rocks in the desolate surroundings of the monastery. Another summer excursion was, with two of our children, to the Lakes of Killarney, including a visit to my brother, Charles Grey, who lived then in a house of Lord Derby, at Ballykisteen, in the “golden vale” of Tipperary. In both these years my husband brought home many sketches. The grey rocks skirting the borders of Killarney lakes, with their richly-coloured covering of arbutus and other flowering trees and evergreens, were tempting subjects for water-colours.

My father had been a friend of Clarkson, and a practical worker in the movement for the abolition of the slave trade. When the War of Secession in America broke out, my husband’s sympathies were warmly enlisted on behalf of those who desired the emancipation of the slaves, and he perceived that that was indeed the question, the vital question of justice, which lay at the root of all that terrible struggle. This was one of several occasions in our united life in which we found ourselves in a minority; members of a group at first so insignificant that it scarcely found a voice or a hearing anywhere, but whose position was afterwards fully justified by events. It was a good training in swimming against the tide, or at least in standing firm and letting the tide go by, and in maintaining, while doing so, a charitable attitude towards those who conscientiously differed, and towards the thousands who float contentedly down the stream of the fashionable opinion of the day. In this case the feeling of isolation on a subject of such tragic interest was often painful; but the discipline was useful, for it was our lot again more emphatically in the future to have to accept and endure this position for conscience’ sake.

I recollect the sudden revulsion of feeling when the news was telegraphed of the assassination of President Lincoln; the extraordinary rapidity of the change of front of the “leading journal;” and the self-questionings among many whose intelligence and goodness had certainly given them the right to think for themselves, but who had not availed themselves of that right. I remember the penitence of Punch, who had been among the scoffers against the abolitionists of slavery, and who now put himself into deep mourning, and gave to the public an affecting cartoon of the British Lion bowed and weeping before the bier of Lincoln. A favourite scripture motto of my husband’s was, “Why do ye not of yourselves judge that which is right?” But he was not argumentative. He loved peace, and avoided every heated discussion. His silence was, perhaps, sometimes not less effectual by way of rebuke or correction of shallow judgments than speech would have been. Goldwin Smith, one of the few at Oxford who saw at that time the inner meanings of the American struggle, paid us a visit. It occurred to us, while listening to some pointed remarks he was making on the prevalent opinion of the day, to ask him to write and publish something in reply to the often-repeated assertion that the Bible itself favours slavery. “The Bible,” he replied, “has been quoted in favour of every abomination that ever cursed the earth.” He did not say he would write; but the idea sank into his mind, and not long after he sent us his able and exquisite little book, entitled Does the Bible sanction Slavery?– a masterly and beautiful exposition of the true spirit of the Mosaic law, and of the Theocratic government and training of the ancient Hebrew people in relation to this and other questions. This book was naturally not popular at the time, and I fear it has long been out of print. (It was published in 1863.)

In this connection it is interesting to record, that two other notable books owed their inspiration in a large measure to Josephine Butler. The Patience of Hope, by Dora Greenwell, published in 1859, was dedicated to J. E. B., with the inscription —A te principium, tibi desinet (from thee begun with thee my work shall close). Te sine nil altum mens inchoat (without thee nothing high my mind essays). Frederic Myers, who had been at school at Cheltenham College, in his Fragments of Inner Life,1 tells how“Christian conversion came to me in a potent form – through the agency of Josephine Butler, née Grey, whose name will not be forgotten in the annals of English philanthropy. She introduced me to Christianity, so to say, by an inner door; not to its encumbering forms and dogmas, but to its heart of fire. My poems of St. Paul and St. John the Baptist, intensely personal in their emotion, may serve as sufficient record of those years of eager faith.” St. Paul, published in 1867, was dedicated to J. E. B., with the inscription – ᾗ καὶ τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχην ὀφείλω (to whom I owe my very soul). In 1869 Myers gave up a Lectureship at Trinity in order to devote himself to the promotion of the higher education of women, and he was one of the small band of university men, who worked hard with Josephine Butler and her colleagues on the North of England Council, to which we shall refer later on.

Among the public events which interested us most during these years was the revolution in Naples, the change of dynasty, and Garibaldi’s career. Our interest was in part of a personal nature, as my sister, Madame Meuricoffre, and her husband were in the midst of these events. She had succeeded Jessie White Mario in the care of the wounded Garibaldians in the hospitals, and was personally acquainted with some of the actors in the dramatic scenes of that time. Having told her that my husband had set as a subject for a prize essay – to be competed for in the College at Cheltenham – “The unification of Italy,” my sister mentioned it to Garibaldi, in expressing to him our sympathy for him and his cause. He immediately wrote a few lines, signing his name at the end, to be sent, through her, to the boy who should write the best essay on the subject so near to his heart.

A part of the summer holidays of 1864 were spent at Coniston in the house of Mr. James Marshall, which he lent to us. His sister, Mrs. Myers, had been our kind and constant friend at Cheltenham. It was a beautiful summer. We had returned to Cheltenham only a few days when a heavy sorrow fell upon our home, the brightest of our little circle being suddenly snatched away from us. The dark shadow of that cloud cannot easily be described. I quote part of a letter written some weeks after our child’s death to a friend.

Cheltenham, August, 1864.

These are but weak words. May you never know the grief which they hide rather than reveal. But God is good. He has, in mercy, at last sent me a ray of light, and low in the dust at His feet I have thanked Him for that ray of light as I never thanked Him for any blessing in the whole of my life before. It was difficult to endure at first the shock of the suddenness of that agonising death. Little gentle spirit! the softest death for her would have seemed sad enough. Never can I lose that memory – the fall, the sudden cry, and then the silence. It was pitiful to see her, helpless in her father’s arms, her little drooping head resting on his shoulder, and her beautiful golden hair, all stained with blood, falling over his arm. Would to God that I had died that death for her! If we had been permitted, I thought, to have one look, one word of farewell, one moment of recognition! But though life flickered for an hour, she never recognised the father and mother whom she loved so dearly. We called her by her name, but there was no answer. She was our only daughter, the light and joy of our lives. She flitted in and out like a butterfly all day. She had never had a day’s or an hour’s illness in all her sweet life. She never gave us a moment of anxiety, her life was one flowing stream of mirth and fun and abounding love. The last morning she had said to me a little verse she had learned somewhere —

The dark, cold night came too soon for us, for it was that same evening, at seven o’clock, that she fell. The last words I had with her were about a pretty caterpillar she had found; she came to my room to beg for a little box to put it in. I gave it her and said, “Now trot away, for I am late for tea.” What would I not give now for five minutes of that sweet presence? The only discipline she ever had was an occasional conflict with her own strong feelings and will. She disliked nothing so much as her little German lessons. Fräulein Blümke had called her one day to have one. She was sitting in a low chair. She grasped the arms of it tightly, and, looking very grave and determined, she replied, “Hush, wait a bit, I am fighting!” She sat silent for a few moments, and then walked quickly and firmly to have her German lesson. Fräulein asked her what she meant by saying she was fighting, and she replied, “I was fighting with myself” (to overcome her unwillingness to go to her books). I overheard Fräulein say to her in the midst of the lesson: “Arbeit, Eva, arbeit!” To which Eva replied with decision, “I am arbeiting, Miss Blümke, as hard as ever I can.”

One evening last autumn, when I went to see her after she was in bed and we were alone, she said: “Mammy, if I go to heaven before you, when the door of heaven opens to let you in I will run so fast to meet you; and when you put your arms round me, and we kiss each other, all the angels will stand still to see us.” And she raised herself up in her ardour, her face beaming and her little chest heaving with the excitement of her loving anticipation. I recall her look; not the merry laughing look she generally had, but softened into an overflowing tenderness of the soul. She lay down again, but could not rest, and raising herself once more said, “I would like to pray again” (she had already said her little prayer); and we prayed again, about this meeting in heaven. I never thought for a moment that she would go first. I don’t think I ever had a thought of death in connection with her; she was so full of life and energy. She was always showing her love in active ways. We used to imagine what it would be when she grew up, developing into acts of mercy and kindness. She was passionately devoted to her father, and after hugging him, and heaping endearing names upon him, she would fly off and tax her poor little tender fingers by making him something – a pincushion or kettle-holder. She made him blue, pink, white and striped pincushions and mats, for which he had not much use. But now he treasures up her poor little gifts as more precious than gold. If my head ached, she would bathe it with a sponge for an hour without tiring. Sweet Eva! Well might the Saviour say, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” She was so perfectly truthful, candid and pure. It was a wonderful repose for me, a good gift of God, when troubled by the evils in the world or my own thoughts, to turn to the perfect innocence and purity of that little maiden. But that joy is gone now for us. I am troubled for my husband. His grief is so deep and silent; but he is very, very patient. He loves children and all young creatures, and his love for her was wonderful. Her face, as she lay in death, wore a look of sweet, calm surprise, as if she said, “Now I see God.” We stood in awe before her. She seemed to rebuke our grief in her rapt and holy sleep. Her hair had grown very long lately, and was of a deep chestnut brown, which in the sun flashed out all golden: —

This sorrow seemed to give in a measure a new direction to our lives and interests. There were some weeks of uncomforted grief. Her flight from earth had had the appearance of a most cruel accident. But do the words “accident” or “chance” properly find a place in the vocabulary of those who have placed themselves, and those dear to them, in a special manner under the daily providential care of a loving God? Here there entered into the heart of our grief the intellectual difficulty, the moral perplexity and dismay which are not the least terrifying of the phantoms which haunt the “Valley of the shadow of Death” – that dark passage through which some toil only to emerge into a hopeless and final denial of the Divine goodness, the complete bankruptcy of faith; and others, by the mercy of God, through a still deeper experience, into a yet firmer trust in His unfailing love.

One day, going into his study, I found my husband alone, and looking ill. His hands were cold, he had an unusual paleness in his face, and he seemed faint. I was alarmed. I kneeled beside him, and, shaking myself out of my own stupor of grief, I spoke “comfortably” to him, and forced myself to talk cheerfully, even joyfully, of the happiness of our child, of the unclouded brightness of her brief life on earth, and her escape from the trials and sorrows she might have met with had she lived. He responded readily to the offered comfort, and the effort to strengthen him was helpful to myself. After this I often went to him in the evening after school hours, when, sitting side by side, we spoke of our child in heaven, until our own loss seemed to become somewhat less bitter.

The following is from a brief diary of the close of that sad year —

October 30th.– Last night I slept uneasily. I dreamed I had my darling in my arms, dying; that she struggled to live for my sake, lived again a moment, and then died. Just then I heard a sound, a low voice at my door, and I sprang to my feet. It was poor Stanley (our second son), scarcely awake, and in a fever. I took him in my arms, and carried him back to his bed, from which he had come to seek my help. In the morning he could not swallow, and pointed to his throat. Dr. Ker came and said he had diphtheria. My heart sank. I wondered whether God meant to ask us to give up another child so soon.

His illness was very severe, and for some days he hovered between life and death. But we were spared the added sorrow we dreaded. When he was sufficiently recovered, it was thought better that I should go with him abroad, to escape the winter’s cold, and for a change of scene from that house round which clung the memory of such a tragic sorrow. My husband and other sons came to London with us, and a pleasant and able courier was engaged, who accompanied me and my little convalescent to Genoa, where we had been invited by kind relatives living there.

At the end of this visit it was arranged that I should accompany my sister to Naples, when we learned that the railway and roads were flooded, and that travelling by land would be difficult and even dangerous. Being unwilling to give up the long-cherished hope of a visit to my sister’s home, I proposed that we should go by sea. My sister, though fearing a sea voyage for me in winter, assented to the arrangement, and as the weather was then very calm we started with good hopes. I had not, however, realised the gravity of the shock which my health had sustained before leaving England.

On this voyage she was taken very seriously ill, nigh unto death. “I was kneeling,” writes her sister, “and rubbing her hands and feet, trying to warm them; and while my imagination was realising all the terrors, my heart was praying desperately to God that He would make a way of escape, that He would work a miracle for us. And He did. The three boys went away and all prayed to God to save her. After a time I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the captain. He said: ‘I saw the other mail vessel coming north, and I have signalled her. If she sees us you shall go on board and return to Leghorn. Make haste!’ I drew a long breath and said: ‘Thank God, I think we are saved!’ I felt the horror melting away in a measure, and hope springing up. We rolled her up, and I went for the weeping children, and found the kind young Sicilian officer comforting them. I thanked him. He said, in Italian, something about the love of Christ, so kindly. I had said very little about her. People must have been impressed with her look, and thought her dying, to take such extreme measures as to stop the two Government steamers on the high seas.”