Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind Part 10

Throughout 1856 Bessie was mainly occupied in writing letters to all and sundry. She wanted money, and more even than money, she wanted custom.

From the very first she saw that customers were of greater importance to her than subscribers, for it was customers who could ensure the stability and permanence of her scheme. If the blind were to be employed, there must be a sale for the articles produced; and the greater the sale the larger would be the number of workmen required.

Hence the sale of goods, the appointment of agents in country towns, and the sending out of price lists, were important matters.

She received help and encouragement from many friends. Letters, which came from those who had known and loved her as a child, gave her great pleasure, and were carefully preserved.

The following is from a former fellow of Brasenose, the Rev. J. Watson:

OXFORD, _2d June 1856_.

MY DEAR BESSIE--I fear I shall not quite respond to your wishes exactly in the way you desire. But I will do something; I am not fond of annuals, I forget them; and arrears are discreditable. Nor indeed am I sure but that the enclosed (10) may be more effectual than an annual 1. _Vita brevis._

All nations have some prudential maxims about present possession.

La Fontaine has a fable to the point, but I cannot call it up.

There is our own famous English proverb, the very Magna Charta of prudential security. A bird actually in grip is worth the more abundant but doubtful contingencies of the distant bush. I am glad, however, of the opportunity of being able to do so much in the way of donation, following in a modest way the example of our most gracious Queen and governor.

Thankful too I hope that, being reduced myself to almost a state of helplessness by the same calamity, I am not obliged to appeal to the charity of others; and have even something to give to relieve the necessities of fellow-sufferers.

So much for request second. As to request first, I will do what I can. But I am a bad beggar, and people are not very easily persuaded (far from it); 6d. in the pound property tax, poor rates, champagne, lighting, anything will do to stop the mouth of a pet.i.tioner. I doubt not in the range of your philanthropical experience you have met with many a cold shoulder. I believe you might disperse a mob more effectually by the exhibition of a subscription list than by reading the Riot Act. It is very useful in clearing your room of officious visitors. Produce a list for the conversion of somebody to some thing which he was not before (to wit, the Pope to a coadjutor of Dr. c.u.mming or Lord John Russell to an honest statesman), and, presto! the whole scene changes. "Well, Watson," says one, "I must be off, I have several calls to make."

"Bless me," says another, taking out his watch, "it's getting on to half-past five (the clock has just struck three) and it's my week to read in Chapel." Helter-skelter away they go, like Leonora pursued by the ghosts.

Der Mond scheint h.e.l.l, Hurrah! die Todten reiten schnell.

Well, Bessie, you have called up old times. Merry days they were, and have left no sting. I sometimes see Mary. I go occasionally to Didcot, where there are nice children; but Milton Hill is just a mile and a half too far off. I can't walk as I could in those days when we used to saunter through the scented glades of the happy valley, or penetrate the mysterious horrors of Bagley. The last fragment of those excursions was with f.a.n.n.y and Henrietta to Headington and round by Marston (as intended), but time was getting on, and your good uncle would be waiting for his dinner. So in an evil hour we made a short cut across the fields and verified the proverb,--Hedges without a gap; ditches without a plank; gates guarded with _chevaux de frise_ of p.r.i.c.kly thorns. It was then that Henrietta, madly pushing at an impracticable pa.s.sage, uttered that famous parody:

I'll brave the scratching of the thorn, But not a hungry uncle.

But I am spinning out a double-thrummed homily, and you have better things to attend to. My love to you all. Believe me, my dear Bessie, _vuestros hasta la muerte_, J. WATSON.

Bessie had sent as a Christmas present to Dr. Kynaston a silk watch-chain of her own make, a favourite gift of hers to dear friends.

In his reply the doctor proposes to make an appeal to the public on behalf of the blind. He writes:

ST. PAUL'S, _26th December 1856_.

MY DEAR BESSIE--Your pleasing remembrance both of me and of old times was a happy and early beginning to me of yesterday's holy celebrations. I think you over-rate my love of flowers. Till we used to pick them together, I fear I was but a Peter Bellish sort of being, of whom it is said that

A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.

I seldom look at wild flowers now but I think how you used then to take them in your hands and feel them, and exclaim, "How beautiful they are," admiring and loving them far more than any of us, I always believed.

The chain, too, is highly prized, and I am delighted to show it to my friends, and both to tell them that you could work it, and that it was worked for me.

I feel almost inclined to draw up a short account of your inst.i.tution, with a little memoir of the foundress, appending some of the verses suggested in former years to my mind by your cheerful and happy contentedness in the midst of those sad privations which you now seek to alleviate in others.

Circulated together with the more official and, of course, less affectionate "statement" which was lately sent about, a little memoir of this kind might do good to the cause. I should ent.i.tle it "G.o.d's Fondness to the Blind," and it need not exceed many pages.

If you approve I will set about it at once, and let you have the results of my labour of love in the shape of proof sheets in a few days.

We join heartily in wishing you and all your home party a happy Christmas, and with much affection, I am always, my dear Bessie, most truly yours, H. KYNASTON.

Miss Gilbert, Chichester.

Dr. Kynaston's suggestion was not carried out, it must have been most distasteful to Bessie.

Just in proportion to her desire to make known the cause for which she worked was her dislike to personal notoriety. She felt keenly moreover, and at all times, the pain of becoming remarkable through a calamity or a defect. She could appreciate the writer's motive, and would answer kindly and gratefully; but the proposal was at once put firmly aside.

Her eldest brother, Mr. Wintle (he had taken his grandfather's name), gave her much valuable a.s.sistance during 1856. He and Mr. Henry Bathurst, brother of her friend Caroline Bathurst, acted somewhat informally as auditors during the year, compared vouchers, examined bills, and no doubt enlightened her as to the method of book-keeping which would have to be adopted so soon as the Committee was fairly established, and had taken over the management of the inst.i.tution. This was not done until January 1857. Bessie was probably anxious to draw up rules for the inst.i.tution which should embody her own views; but during the infancy of the scheme she saw that she had not adequate knowledge upon which to establish them. She had still much to learn as to the powers as well as the defects of the blind, and she shrank from legislation until she understood "her people."

Mr. Wintle opened an account at Drummond's, a "Fund for employing the Blind," to which donations and subscriptions were paid. In reply to her own appeals, as well as in consequence of newspaper accounts and sermons, she received many letters.

From all parts of the United Kingdom persons interested in the blind applied to her for advice, or wrote on behalf of men who professed a desire to learn a trade and earn their own living. Some of these were really in earnest, but many were not. When arrangements had been made to send them to work in London they drew back. Bessie was not discouraged.

She became more than ever convinced that the life of a beggar is demoralising; but she knew that already, and had long seen that old people will not give up begging, and that all efforts to improve their condition must be made on behalf of the young. An extract from a single letter will suffice to show the frequent result of a prolonged correspondence and of final arrangements to receive a blind man as pupil:

I was delighted to see Miss Gilbert's letter, and immediately had a talk with him [the blind man] which was not satisfactory, for he said that, even if we should succeed in getting him the employment, he is sure he could not support himself by work, as he was a much shorter time under instruction than is usually the case.... He seems to think he can do better by making a basket occasionally and carrying it about the streets for sale, and begging of the few people who know him. I am sorry it ends so for the present, for I think his case a very distressing one. He was born in New York, and has no parish in England; he has one tiny child here who leads him about. His wife, with, I think, two more children, is in the Bristol Union.

Many similar cases helped Bessie to understand those on whose behalf she laboured; but they never closed her heart to the appeal of a blind person who was in need. The area of her work was enlarged, as well as that of the aid which enabled her to carry it on. Not all those who clamoured for employment really wanted it. They meant _alms_ when they said _wages_, and drew back in disgust from the offer to teach them a trade and make them self-supporting. They were often even more degraded and vicious than poor.

To see and know this, and yet not to lose heart, to "hold fast to that which is good" when evil abounds, is a difficult task. Bessie did not shrink from it, and she did not misunderstand her work. She was merciful and compa.s.sionate to those who had fallen, felt for them in the solitude, the poverty, the despair that had driven them to evil courses, would relieve them in actual want, but she soon learnt that nothing could be done with or for them in the workroom. They might be reached, and indeed must be reached by other agencies, but the _teacher_ could do nothing.

The practical outcome of this experience was extreme care in selecting the persons to be taught and employed, and a very tender compa.s.sion in reference even to the hopeless and abandoned. Their lonely, sad condition was never overlooked.

Bessie was very cautious in the selection of members of the Committee who would henceforth govern the Inst.i.tution, and a letter written about this time on her Foucault frame to an old Oxford friend will be read with interest. She not only wrote many of her own letters at this time, but addressed her own envelopes, and very puzzling the postman must have sometimes found them.

PALACE, CHICHESTER, _16th January 1857_.

MY DEAR MRS. B.--I hope you will not think this letter very troublesome, but I know not in what other way I can gain the information I wish than by troubling you with these lines. I remember you have heard of my undertaking for employing blind workmen. I have now formed an a.s.sociation under the t.i.tle of "The a.s.sociation for promoting the general welfare of the Blind," in order to extend its usefulness, and to place it upon a more permanent footing than it could have had when in the hands of one individual. Now my object in writing to you is to ask whether Mr.

A., who is, I believe, a clergyman at C., knows or could find out anything about a Mr. D., living, I believe, at C. He is a very large fur dealer, very rich; he is blind, and I am anxious to have him on the Committee of the a.s.sociation, but must know more about him before this can be done. He has a warehouse in the city, I think, in Cannon Street or Cannon Street West. I want all the information I can get with regard to his character and principles, etc. I thought perhaps you would be able to get this for me through Mr. A.'s family, or direct from himself if you would kindly write to him on the subject. I send you some of the present price lists.

Brushes, ha.s.socks, and servants' kneelers are now made, besides mats and baskets.

By far the greater number of the blind become so after the age at which they can be admitted into inst.i.tutions, so that in most cases these have not even the opportunity of learning anything by which they can earn a living. I am anxious to have this want supplied, and six are now being taught trades who would not be admitted into other inst.i.tutions, and this branch will, I hope, be gradually very much extended. Then there is a circulating library in raised books to which the poor can belong free of charge, and others by paying the subscription required by the Committee. If you think it would be well, and will tell me so, I will write to Mr. A., but as I thought you knew him, or, at all events, his family, I thought perhaps you would be able, and would kindly undertake the matter, which is only one of inquiry. We are a large family party now. M.

with her husband and three children, and E. with her two children, are all here. Robert is gone back to London and law. Papa and mamma are really very well, and would send kind messages did they know I was writing. I hope you can give a good account of Mr. B. With very kind New-Year greetings from us all to him and yourself--I am most sincerely yours, BESSIE GILBERT.

During the whole of 1856 the possibility of giving employment to women as well as men had been occupying Bessie's close attention, and it was one of the things she wished to arrange whilst the management was in her own hands. She found that the ordinary work of blind women, knitting, crochet, etc., could not be relied upon as a means of livelihood.

Experiments had to be made in brush making, chair caning, basket work, wood chopping, and the trades that were being opened up for blind men.

These unremunerative experiments might not be sanctioned by a Committee; and in fact the greater number of those made and the decision with regard to them date back to the time when Bessie was the supreme and ultimate authority; and they were made at her own cost.