WCP6758

[1]

Parkfield, Haslemere

Surrey

Aug 14, 1893.

Dear Misses¹ Shore²,

Your esteemed note has just reached me in this highland Surrey home of Tennyson, where I am likely to be with my invalid wife and daughter during the next 4 weeks or so, as we are planning a Cottage to be built on some lands I am styled the owner of on Hindhead. Our main evidence at present is a Cottage known as Charmel View, Clive Vale, Hastings.

As to your work of love, and your query as to my association with it, — pray do whatever you may prefer in the matter of name or initial. Whatever my personal feeling might be if I were among the best known & honored of the world, I could state no more than leave your good judgement quite free. Had I known in time of your intended publication, I might perhaps have submitted to you some notes relating to the experiences of your brother³ & myself but probably the form of letters which you are adopting would so have been unwisely interfered with. I could not, moreover, get at any of the memoranda for some weeks, &, during my so called holiday, pressing work [2] accumulates & thus it might be two months ere I could submit anything to your consideration.

I will at once write to Dr. Wallace as to his permission which I feel sure he will gladly give you. I will also ask him about the axe-head of which I have not heard anything since he wrote to the Govt. Geologist ( at Melbourne, I believe) as to the age of the drift below which your brother found it. From the enclosed note — which I send, as you are, or were, I think, an autograph collector — it may be that Dr. Wallace has not yet returned from the Lake district in which case there can[?], so far be a little delay. Just before your note arrived, I was thinking of sending a line to Mr. Fisher Unwin⁴ to enquire if he has yet pub[ishe]^d Olive Shreiner's⁵ new book⁶. I have just been reading her "Dreams⁷" with a Serviceable interest. These Dreams suggest the Spiritual side of life, TW. Stead's⁸ new venture Borderland⁹, which I hope you have. You may in it see some of the experiences of our friends & selves, though our name is not mentioned. I have just sent some Spirit photographs to Dr. Wallace, taken in a friends[sic] house under test conditions & if you were to see the collection that we have [3] I think you would not be among the sceptics in the matter.

I am pained to hear that you are so weakly, and hope due care, within the laws of health may at least free you from pain, though I know the wish & will to do, whilst so much requires doing, without the power, is necessarily painful.

The most cheering note I have received, at any time, came to me recently from Francis, William, Newman¹⁰, now in his 89th year. He says "I do indeed give thanks for the strange privilege of having no memento of age from any sensible pain or lap of a faculty. I am thankful that I have lived to see the changes of the last fifty years which give me the bright hope that the future is not to be a mere reproduction of the past with its crimes and miseries. The Millenia[sic] of prophets are not literally coming as perhaps in early life we hoped, but a nobler manhood for the human race, and a more loving of each Nation to each is now a manifest -striving, and is foretaste of a new humanity, though many a new crusade has to be fought, and will be fought, by the soldiers of righteousness. England, and her American progeny as is still a mighty upholder [4] of old abuses, but manifestly the victory, and the strength of the right from God, and each new year, shows the the right is the stronger and must prevail. I hope that you, and all yours are in good heart["]. James[?] Earnesy. [?]

I am glad that you sympathise with our Land Tenure reform cause — the vital one to save us from degeneration, & secure us a life worthy of our better nature.

If you saw either the Echo or the D Chronicle you would realise better how cheering is the progress that some 13 years of incessant toil, with with very scanty means, have — apart from the laws of evolution — appeared[?]. When we started our supporters in the Hofcommons[?] was confined to 3 or 4, non & it was not deemed respectable to even name the freedom of Gods[?] Earth among the majority of the powers that rule this Nation. Now we have 75 thoroughgoing supporters in the House & the Liberal Party — in pledges to the principle.

Believe me, with the best wishes of a friend to yourself & sister & for the wide circulation of y[ou]^r memorial

Ever Sincerely | AC Swinton¹¹ [signature]