Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/375

 the great powers and interests you are now exciting in so many minds, will indeed go on from the remedial to the radical cure of social evils : and that you have been taking the right method of attack all along. . ..

Ever affectionately and gratefully yours,

Derwent Bank, Great Broughton, Carlisle, March 21st, 1877.

Did you know Mrs. Nassau Senior ? ... I sit waiting for the telegram that shall tell me that she is gone from among us. I feel stunned ; for I had large hope from her vigorous constitution ; and now this relapse is strange. She was, among my many friends, one of the noblest, purest-hearted, bravest to accept, for herself and all she loved, pain, if pain meant choice of highest good ; with an ardent longing to serve, a burning generosity, which put us all to shame. More- over she loved me, as few do ; and I her ; and, when I think that I can go to her no more, I dare not think of what the loss will be. But neither dare I grieve ; she seems too high, too near, too great, to grieve for or about ; the silence will be terrible, but if one keeps one's spirit true and quiet, and in tune with the noblest part of the absent loved ones, strange voices come across the silence, convictions of how they feel, and what they would say, if they could, to our listening hearts ; only I know this and all things come straight to us from One Who cares for us ; that His truth, somehow, the fact He has allowed to be, is best ; and it is a help so to have loved Truth thro' all one's life, that, when she veils herself in darkest guise, we dare not turn from her.