Harrogate,
August 25th, 1880.
To MRS. SHAEN.
I have been very much delighted lately with
some correspondence with some of my fellow-workers
about the Artizans' Dwellings Acts. We had a great
blow about the work itself just as I left town, one
likely to create dissension and call up bad feeling ; and
somehow the correspondence about it has, instead,
shown how nobly men respond, when they manage to
find the right way to look at things. I often wonder
how men manage to get into such messes, when human
hearts ring so true if struck rightly. It has been really
quite beautiful to see how men will put temptation and
bad feeling (even when almost justified) under their
feet, when reminded of the cause for which they should
work. I don't even know that it is a question of
reminding. The good men see nobly and act ac-
cordingly. I am obliged to keep very much out of
all (even thought of) work. The home claims are
very strong just now, and my own strength not very
great. It is very strange to have to put the old things
so wholly second. I do not know, however, how to
be entirely sad about it. I often think that now
people want more to see how noble private life should
be, and can be, than to take up public work, at any.
rate exclusively.
Harrogate,
September 4th, 1880.
MRS. HILL TO MRS. EDMUND MAURICE.
If you were to spend all your time from now till
Christmas in guessing what Octavia was doing last
Friday afternoon you would never guess aright, so I
Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/466
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
438
LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL
CHAP.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Life_of_Octavia_Hill_as_told_in_her_letters.djvu/page466-1024px-Life_of_Octavia_Hill_as_told_in_her_letters.djvu.jpg)