“And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.” When we think of the vivid impressions of men and things that we might have had from one who enjoyed such varied experience, we cannot but regret that the press and hurry of her life made a diary an impossibility for Miss Buss.
In the early years of her work she succeeded in filling some small volumes, but when they were sought after her death, nothing remained but a few pages with notes of the childhood of her nephews and nieces.
From the fairly continuous record in her Journal-letters from 1870–79, and from Miss Fawcett’s Diary during her residence at Myra (1868–88), as well as from the letters to the Rev. Francis F. Buss (1884–88), sufficient indications may be gathered to show us what we have lost. From Miss Fawcett we get glimpses of the variety and breadth of interests shared by Miss Buss with the inmates of her house. Lectures on every topic from the best lecturers, concerts, soirées, dances, charades and tableaux vivants, excursions and picnics to interesting places, interviews with celebrated persons, all go to make the reader imagine what the interest of a full record might have been. Life certainly must 337have been very far from dull in those days, however full of work it may have been. And this was still more true of the last ten years, to which we have so little clue, when she went out even more among the leaders of the educational movement.
Here are a few notes that we should like expanded—
“Miss Buss went to lunch at the Deanery, and afterwards had a quiet drive with Lady Augusta Stanley.”
“On Jubilee Day Miss Buss was invited to the Abbey by Dean Bradley, and was seated next to Professor Max Müller. At night she told us all about the ceremony. She had been intensely interested in the greetings between the Queen and the Royal Family, an emotional scene that went to her heart.”
“Miss Buss had an interview with the Crown Princess (the Empress Frederick), and talked of education.”
“Miss Buss has been to the Prize-giving at the Richmond School. She had a chat with the Princess Mary of Teck.”
On another of these occasions she was photographed, sitting beside the Duchess of Albany.
Mrs. Hill notes a characteristic point—
“She was never satisfied to enjoy anything by herself, and living at Myra, as I did, I have been with her at different times to all kinds of things, the Indian Soirées, the Bishop of London’s garden-parties, the Royal Society’s Ladies’ Evenings, and big soirées at West End houses in the season. In the same spirit, if she had bouquets on Prize Day, etc., she would send them in old days to Mrs. Laing, and, later on, to people who would care to have them. If she had a carriage to make calls, she would take some one for the drive.”
Then from her letters to her nephew at Cambridge—
“April 16, 1884.
“On Friday I lunched at St. Mark’s Vicarage, Surbiton, with Archdeacon Burney, lineal descendant of the famous musical Dr. Burney, friend of Johnson, Burke, Garrick, etc., and father of Frances, author of ‘Evelina,’ and ‘Diary of Madame D’Arblay,’ 338the fashionable authoress of the day, on whom Macaulay afterwards conferred immortality in his essay. Do you know her diary? It is so minute that as one reads it one is transported into another age, and moves among the great men and women of the 18th century. I can never forget the delight with which I read it, in my twentieth year, just as it was published.
“Archdeacon Burney’s walls are covered with family portraits, heirlooms, Sir Joshua’s well-known Dr. Burney, and Garrick; Gainsborough’s portrait of Paul Sanday and his lady-love; of Dr. Johnson, from the Thrale collection; of Madame D’Arblay (Fanny Burney), and the next generation of Burneys by Romney and Laurence.
“And there are some lovely Turners, and also a fine collection of autographs.... The visit was very interesting.... And then there is an invalid daughter, with a most lovely face and spiritual expression. She can only be moved from her couch to bed and back, and yet is full of brightness and good works.
“There has been a discussion lately as to the author of the lines ‘To love her was a liberal education,’ either by Steele or Congreve. Well, to see the invalid Miss Burney is a Christian education! How wonderful it is! Our heavenly Father seems to lift some weak ones of earth into a supernatural strength that makes them more powerful from their sick couch than the strong and healthy.”
“Feb. 21, 1885.
“I was in Cambridge yesterday ... it is not nearly so dear to me as when I had a beloved boy there! But still it is always delightful. Girton has been very gay—a ball, some theatricals (the ‘Ladies’ Battle’), and last night the inter-collegiate debate on Hero-worship; seventy Newnham girls were going to Girton, to lead in favour. Girton was to oppose by pointing out how it injured worshipped and worshipper.
“I spent the morning at Newnham, called at King’s, to see Mr. C. Ashbee’s new rooms; lunched at Girton, and had afternoon tea there, and went to ‘Potts,’ to see Willie B. He asked O. Ashbee to meet me.”
“Feb. 15, 1885.
“On Friday I went to a meeting at the Mansion House about the Parkes Museum, and then to the Vicarage. Mother, who was expecting Prof. Stuart, M.P., made me stay and dine with them. He is very bright, and I liked him. Besides, he is a Cambridge 339man, and that is a passport to me. He told us some stories of exam. mistakes, etc.”
“Feb., 1885.
“I have been out twice this week, once to Mrs. Dacre Craven’s (née Florence Lees), wife of the Rector of St. George’s, Bloomsbury. There were many interesting things to be seen, among others a series of photographs of Mecca, also of Medina. They must have been done by a Mahommedan, as it is death to a Christian to enter these sacred places.
“Another evening I went to the Countess D’Avigdor’s. She is a most beautiful old lady. The ladies were flashing with diamonds, and there was some splendid music. But most of the men were Conservative, and were abusing Gladstone in a most shameful way.
“Did I tell you I met Mr. Guthrie (vice versa Guthrie)? He is very simple and unaffected. I saw him at Mrs. Ashbee’s. Sir Spencer Wells was also there, the famous doctor.”
“June 6, 1886.
“I go to Oxford on Friday, to stay till Tuesday, and a most splendid programme of University sights, luncheons, dinners, meetings, etc., is arranged for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I am to be the guest of Mr. Thomas and his sister; I think he is a Master of Queen’s, but am not sure of the college. Friday and Saturday I must give to the Head-mistresses’ meetings, but I shall see a good deal of Oxford life. It will be grand to be in Oxford on Whit-Sunday.”
“June 29, 1890.
“Every day this week is full of engagements, and I find it difficult to escape them. I like to accept some. I should much have liked to go to Mrs. Gladstone’s garden-party, and also to the Duke of Westminster’s garden-party (I was asked as a subscriber to the Church House), but I could not manage either, in consequence of previous plans—Rugby, for instance.
“For the first time, yesterday, I went to the Rugby Speech Day, at the invitation of Dr. Percival, the Head-master. ‘Tom Brown’ was there, and when Dr. Percival announced him the cheers were deafening. Mr. Hughes has aged since I last saw him. He has made Rugby known to every civilized country, as well as live for ever in the memory of Rugbeians.
“Our own Prize Day was quite the best we have had for several years. The Bishop of Rochester made an excellent speech, in 340perfect taste, and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, daughter to our early friend, the late Countess of Hardwicke, also delivered a good speech, which was liked by parents and girls. She is a thorough-going Temperance speaker, accustomed to large audiences.”
Cheltenham was another very attractive social centre. There she met Mrs. Frances Owen, whose exquisite lecture on Wordsworth, given at the North London Collegiate School, introduced her to the circle there. Mr. and Mrs. Middleton and their son were dear friends of the same period, and Miss Buss delighted in telling the stories of Mr. Middleton’s wonderful cat; especially that of waking its master at early dawn one morning that it might display five rats, laid in a row at the door; or the still more strange story of its taking Mr. Middleton into the library, after a fortnight’s absence, and there telling him a long tale, which the maid explained by saying that the cat, shut up in this room, had met in fierce combat and slain another of the enemy.
In Mr. Henry Middleton Miss Buss found artistic sympathy, and also gave it, for her drawing-room was one of the first decorated by Mr. Middleton in the new fashion which superseded the old white and gold of the first half of the century. I remember being taken by Miss Buss to see Mrs. Middleton, “that saintly woman,” as her friends called her, and bringing away a memory of peace and joy. She had come to try London advice for the complaint which proved fatal. And Mrs. Owen did not long survive her.
But Cheltenham, first and last, meant Miss Beale. It is a joy to think of the meetings—happily frequent—between these two kindred workers, who could give each other so rare a sympathy. The North London Collegiate and Camden Schools and the Cheltenham Ladies’ College are two great creations, original works of genius; and when we think of the continuous stream, 341scarcely less than a thousand persons, pupils and teachers, always passing through both places, we find a power and influence simply incalculable. The meeting between the two heads suggests a tête-à-tête between two queens, who for a brief bright respite may escape from the loneliness of royalty.[20]
20.  As an instance of the “true word spoken in jest,” we find this separateness of the two leaders emphasized, at a very early period of their career, in the often-quoted nonsense-rhyme, at which they laughed with the rest—
“Miss Buss and Miss Beale
Cupid’s darts do not feel;
They are not like us,
Miss Beale and Miss Buss!”
The authorship of this quatrain is uncertain, being attributed either to a master of Clifton, or to a boy of Cheltenham College. It is quite certain that they were not written by one of Miss Buss’ pupils, nor were they ever (as reported) found on the blackboard of any class-room in the North London Collegiate School for Girls.
Miss Beale was some years the younger, and in fullest vigour when her friend was feeling the stress and strain of work. But Miss Buss took the deepest interest in all the later developments at Cheltenham, and could rejoice in seeing at last the full realization of her own early dream, in an institution where a child may now enter the Kindergarten at the age of three—there is a lovely school full of these happy mites—and, after going through all the course, may finally leave the Training School as B.A. or B.Sc., fully competent to teach what she has so thoroughly learned.
It was wonderful how many different interests were packed into that full life. Besides all her private visiting, and educational and philanthropic meetings, there were the meetings of literary societies. She often went to those of the Royal Institution, and of the Royal Geographical, taking her girls. She belonged to the Wordsworth Society, and I remember her keen delight 342in an address by James Russell Lowell, in the library at Lambeth Palace, and again the satisfaction in the beautiful simplicity with which Mr. Lowell, in an address to the Browning Society, took the Christian side in the discussions which were a marked feature of that society. Even for the Society of Psychical Research she could keep an open mind, though in general she did not care for things abstract or vague. For fun she was always ready, and I well remember how we enjoyed Mark Twain’s subtle nonsense, in his lecture on “Our Fellow-savages of the Sandwich Islands.”
She had by nature and early association a great love of the drama, and indulged occasionally in a visit to the theatre, especially enjoying a French play, as she says—
“I ............