Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/52

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32
LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL
chap.

under the new Act. Would it not be very nice? Mr. Neale had drawn out a set of rules; and he sent them to Mama for her to approve or make her remarks upon. There are however some difficulties in the way.

I have not yet been able to write a recollection of that very beautiful class at Mr. Maurice's; but I hope to do it.


Ladies' Guild,
June 11th, 1854.

To Gertrude.
(Speaking of Hillside.)

I hope that I may never, as long as I live, forget the sunny, bright happy hours I have passed there. There remains in my mind a recollection, a vision of beauty connected with it, which can never be effaced. …

Mr. Maurice has been speaking to-day of sacrifice as the link between man and man, and man and God. It was such a sermon! One feels as if all peace and quiet holiness were around one; everything appears to have a beauty and calm in it, to which we can turn back in times of storm and wild noisy rivalries, as to the memory of sunny days, and to shed a light on all dark and difficult things, on sorrow and loneliness. …

It is so still! A garnet coloured glass is on the table full of bright golden buttercups, and grass; now the door is open they tremble in the wind, carrying one back to slopes of long grass full of buttercups and sorrel, as the evening wind sweeps over it.