Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/284

 their movement, and that a friendly enquiry into her methods would strengthen their hands. She disliked the thought of greater publicity, but reluctantly consented to submit her books and papers to the Special Committee appointed for this enquiry. Though they were friendly in tone, Octavia greatly disliked the visits of these gentlemen; and, when they wished to examine the tenants of the courts to find out the moral effects produced on them by the changes, Octavia put her foot down, and declined to allow this interference between herself and her "friends."

I have given what some may think an undue prominence to this attack on her by the Marylebone officials; but I have two grounds for that course. One is that it was the first important exhibition of that officialism which increased in Octavia her strong dislike of State or Municipal management. The other is that the intensity of her feeling on the matter brings out a point in her character of which many were unaware. I remember well that when Mrs. Nassau Senior was smarting under the attacks on her report on Workhouse Reform, two men remarked that "Miss Octavia Hill would not have felt such attacks, as Mrs. Senior did." Both were intelligent men, and both had some personal acquaintance with Octavia. But both were mistaken.

It was in the middle of these difficulties and struggles that her attention was partly diverted from her own work by her interest in the affairs of a friend; and, for what I believe to have been the only time in her life, she took an active share in an attempt to return a Member to Parliament. This was in 1874 when Mr. Thomas Hughes came forward as a candidate for Marylebone. Her personal admiration for him, dating from the old Christian Socialist days, and strengthened by her experiences as teacher to his children, decided her to abandon her general indifference to Parliamentary work; and she declared with her usual vehemence that they would return him. Canvassers went out from 14 Nottingham Place with electioneering circulars; and all friends whom Octavia could influence were pressed into the service. Unfortunately, for reasons which do not concern this biography, the effort failed; and, by a curious combination of circumstances, several people were led to