selves; a thousand problems to solve;
an ideal to work towards capable of infinite expansion. But we should
not strain the limits while the centre still lacks order and form, and
depends upon the wisdom with which it is guided for permanence.
We have made some dreadful blunders,... but ideals are not stones in
the street; they are stars in the sky. They are always beyond us; we
cannot wear them as breast-pins but we can work towards them...
Yours faithfully,
J. C. CROLY.
82 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE,
LONDON, W.C., April 10, 1901.
My very dear Friend and President:
How good it was of you to send me the beautiful souvenirs of the
thirty-third Annual Breakfast. They took me straight back to you all
through a mist of tears that were half pleasure, half pain; pleasure
that I was not forgotten, pain that I was not there to see the loving
glance, and share the hand-clasp. It is true I have many friends here,
but none that seem quite like the old friends; and there is only one
Sorosis--God's blessing be upon it for evermore! Yet wherever I go,
God's blessing and His Spirit seem to me to have descended upon women.
They show the most wonderful goodness and insight. They seem each one
to be specially made; not the kind that are kept in stock, so to
speak. Oh, I feel sometimes as if all my life had been partly a test,
partly an experience of their goodness, and that it is a sufficient
blessing, for nothing else has been left me.
A writer remarked the other day, in an article on the South African
war, that the best results of war were ties--the spirit of good
comradeship that it established among men. This is what we
preeminently get out of our club life, and without paying so fearful a
price for it. I hope to see you all when you come together in the
autumn.
With loving remembrance,
J.C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (London)
11 BARTON STREET, WEST KENSINGTON,
Jan. 15, 1889.
My Dear Mrs. Stopes:
It is very kind of you to take this trouble to give us a pleasure, and
I would not miss it on any account. But it is a little difficult for
me to name the day. I am in the hands of the dentist this week; I
shall hardly get through to go to the Writers' Club on Friday. These
two circumstances have postponed my visit to Miss Genevieve Ward to
whom it is now arranged that I go a week from to-morrow. I could make
it any afte
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