Читать книгу Life of Octavia Hill as Told in Her Letters онлайн

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VALUE OF CHRISTMAS TO THE CHILDREN

But these, my children, to whom care and anxiety are so familiar, and to whom all the beauty and poetry of life are so strange, so new,—I must bring home to them some of the gladness which they see around them; their only Christmas trees must not be those in confectioners’ windows, at which they gaze with longing eyes. There is time enough for Christmas to become solemn, when it has become joyful and dear.

I thought that I loved these children when I was with you. I did not know how much it was possible to love them. I am very much pleased about another person, with whom I have been so long,—Miss Cons. She has now thoroughly established herself, and has begun to study, walk, think, draw, be entirely independent of me. More than this, when she came here, she had not a single person in the world to love or be loved by except her own family.... Our Miss Cons, however, has got to know friends; and whoever cares to break through her shell will be well rewarded. I am most pleased to find that there are several who have done so, and that she is gaining warm friends. I find in her a strength and energy which is quite refreshing, and consign to her much which I should otherwise undertake myself. I feel, in Miss Cons, whose growth I have watched eagerly, an amazing perseverance, a calmness, a power, and a glorious humility before which I bow, and which I feel may be destined to carry out great works more nobly. I am particularly glad that she has friends, as I find that now instead of giving her my society, I can only give her my friendship and sympathy.