From collection Frances Willard Journal Transcripts
I have been 2 weeks at Haslemere-500 ft higher than Reigate-have given up tea, milk &c & take my regular 3 meals at field hours-9,1:30,7.15 & am out in the carriage amid delightful scenery 3 hours per day-go to bed at 9 & sleep till between 5 and 6. Diet eggs, fowl, fish, vegetables, nuts. I have been able to think of my beloved nearest two-Isabel & Anna-my "young friends" of 42 & 40!-as investing their bright powers for all they are worth, at the 2 Conventions in which have centered my life's work for 20 years. I have felt it was Heavenly Father's will that they should be there & I here; have had a feeling as if Mother, Yolande & Mary West were aware & a-help in it all. The considerateness of my dear ones there over sea has caused seven cablegrams to come in 7 days; the kindness here is giving me the best conditions of recuperation; little Bess is a spiritual power & Hannah & Robert are good as gold; little Edith enables me to do good work I had promised, without fatigue; Esther's ministries are faithful; the Autumn weather golden & my heart says "Who am I to have such loving kindness lavished; 0 God make me truer & kinder" for Christ's sake."
October 26 & 27, 1893
The days "go on, go on" & I keep saying "soon-she-will be here"; every turn of the great screws brings nearer the dear, bright, loving face of the Heroine who in 24 days took two Atlantic voyages, conducted or was a central figure in our two great conventions at the World's Fair, Chicago, and came booming "Home again" to her poor old "Conk."
We took beautiful rides, sent off no end of "docs" & letters, heard good news from all along the line-results of Convention most encouraging; Anna's accounts of Rob most cheering and all the rest of it. These three weeks at Haslemere have taught me more of English lanes and dingles, hights & hedgerows than I ever saw or dreamed of seeing. And I have learned a lot about folks and human natures ways & manners & the like o' that. Bess Gordon is a first rate little writer-she reads me her letters to The Union Signal & I enjoy them hugely. I would, with all my heart, that her life had been less harrowed in these later years.-I had a tender letter from my dear "Aunt Sarah" 80 years old-the last of Mother's sisters, all of them so good, gifted and helpful.
May. '93
Mem. To have a shelf of "nature books including Walton's Angler" White, "'Selborne"-Thoreau's, Burroughs', Emerson's, Whitman's, Wordsworth' s etc.
________________Got it. Oct. '93.
Also (from Messrs Cassell) Prof Bonney's [..gu.lar] Description of the Earth's History & Sir Robert Ball's "Story of the Heavens" (same pubs.) Got 'em. [last 2 words written in different ink.]
