Part 10 (1/2)

Throughout 1856 Bessie wasletters to all and sundry She wanted money, and more even than money, she wanted custoreater importance to her than subscribers, for it was customers who could ensure the stability and permanence of her scheme If the blind were to be employed, there reater the sale the larger would be the nuoods, the appoint out of price lists, were iement from many friends Letters, which caave her great pleasure, and were carefully preserved

The following is from a former fellow of Brasenose, the Rev J Watson:

OXFORD, _2d June 1856_

MY DEAR BESSIE--I fear I shall not quite respond to your wishes exactly in the way you desire But I will do soet them; and arrears are discreditable Nor indeed am I sure but that the enclosed (10) may be more effectual than an annual 1 _Vita brevis_

All nations have some prudential maxims about present possession

La Fontaine has a fable to the point, but I cannot call it up

There is our own fana Charta of prudential security A bird actually in grip is worth the encies of the distant bush I a able to do soin a overnor

Thankful too I hope that, being reduced myself to almost a state of helplessness by the saed to appeal to the charity of others; and have even soive to relieve the necessities of fellow-sufferers

So much for request second As to request first, I will do what I can But I aar, and people are not very easily persuaded (far frone, lighting, anything will do to stop the e of your philanthropical experience you have ht disperse a mob more effectually by the exhibition of a subscription list than by reading the Riot Act It is very useful in clearing your room of officious visitors Produce a list for the conversion of so which he was not before (to wit, the Pope to a coadjutor of Dr cu or Lord John Russell to an honest stateses ”Well, Watson,” says one, ”I must be off, I have several calls toout his watch, ”it's getting on to half-past five (the clock has just struck three) and it's o, like Leonora pursued by the ghosts

Der Mond scheint hell, Hurrah! die Todten reiten schnell

Well, Bessie, you have called up old ti I soo occasionally to Didcot, where there are nice children; but Milton Hill is just a mile and a half too far off I can't walk as I could in those days e used to saunter through the scented glades of the happy valley, or penetrate the ment of those excursions ith fanny and Henrietta to Headington and round by Marston (as intended), but ti for his dinner So in an evil hour we made a short cut across the fields and verified the proverb,--Hedges without a gap; ditches without a plank; gates guarded with _chevaux de frise_ of prickly thorns It was then that Henrietta, e, uttered that fa of the thorn, But not a hungry uncle

But I a out a double-thrus to attend to My love to you all Believe me, my dear Bessie, _vuestros hasta la muerte_, J WATSON

Bessie had sent as a Christmas present to Dr Kynaston a silk watch-chain of her own ift of hers to dear friends

In his reply the doctor proposes to make an appeal to the public on behalf of the blind He writes:

ST PAUL'S, _26th Dece remeinning to me of yesterday's holy celebrations I think you over-rate ether, I fear I was but a Peter Bellish sort of being, of whom it is said that

A primrose by the river's bri more

I seldom look at wild flowers now but I think how you used then to take them in your hands and feel the them far more than any of us, I always believed

The chain, too, is highly prized, and I ahted to show it to my friends, and both to tell them that you could work it, and that it orked for me

I feel almost inclined to draw up a short account of your institution, with a little ested in former years to my mind by your cheerful and happy contentedness in the midst of those sad privations which you now seek to alleviate in others