Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/286

 than from those carefully considered reasons which guided her in the work identified with her name.

Of course in the biography of any original thinker or actor one must record apparent contradictions; and it is rather curious that this same period, which contains her one interference in a Parliamentary election, is marked also by her one active attempt to assist in the framing of an Act of Parliament, the Artizans' Dwellings Bill, which brought her into some opposition to more extreme individualists than herself. The main part of her action in this matter will be best brought out by the letters which follow; but there is one point which may be overlooked, and on which I should specially like to insist. In the very period when she was enduring such harsh treatment from the medical officer and the Vestry, she helped in promoting a measure which increased the power both of medical officers and of local councils, in dealing with houses like those under her charge. Thus she made it clear that she could see the general advantage of machinery, which had been, and might be, turned against herself.

It must be remembered that all this trying work was carried on while she was still engaged in teaching the pupils at the Nottingham Place School; and many of her friends had felt, for some time, that the effort, needed for the two kinds of work, was too great a strain on her strength. An offer of pecuniary assistance by a friend a few years before this time had been gently, but firmly, refused; but, under Mr. William Shaen's guidance, a number of wealthy friends succeeded, without her knowledge, in organising a fund which should make her free for the further development of the housing-reform schemes. As this plan had been brought into a definite form before Octavia was aware of it, and as she remembered that one break down in her health had recently occurred, she felt bound to accept the offer, under the limitations mentioned in the letter to Mr. Shaen given in this chapter. And thus she was placed for the rest of her life in a position which raised her out of the struggles, which had hampered her early years.

In 1875 Miss Louisa Schuyler, President of the State Charity Aid Association, collected five of Octavia's Magazine articles,