Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/270

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248
LIFE OF OCTAVIA HILL
chap.

the world—to be purified to a higher point than we, until the last sorrow shall be put under your feet.

Any way and every way, God bless and keep you.


14, Nottingham Place,
November 29th, 1868.

To Miss Baumgartner.

We are all assembled again, and very happy. We have a very large number of pupils, as many as we could take in; but these are mainly under my sisters' care, who enjoy the work, and thrive in it. I only teach the girls a few things, and rejoice in their bright young life. I give a few drawing lessons, and am managing my dear houses, which are getting into such excellent order as to be a great joy, and but little painful care. I am drawing again at last, too, to my great delight, and am able to see a good deal of my friends, and to bind up all the links of knowledge of the details of their lives, broken by my illness and absence. So it is a quiet, beautiful, thankful, busy, but not oppressed, life.


14, Nottingham Place,
March 7th, 1869.

To Miss Harris.

My dearest Mary,

I have had a most delightful week. The crowning day was last Sunday, when I dined at Ruskin's. It was exceedingly interesting. I had been determined to ask him a little about Greek mythology, literature and art; and how, without knowledge of Greek, one might enter into some comprehension of all these; for I have lived long enough to remember the passionate revolt of our then young thinkers against