Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Octavia Hill.
From a photograph enlarged by an American artist.
LIFE OF
OCTAVIA HILL
AS TOLD IN HER LETTERS
PREFACE
It was but a short time before the death of MissOctavia Hill that one of her sisters succeeded, with muchdifficulty, in convincing her that some account of herlife would be necessary to satisfy the public demand.
On realising this fact, she expressed a strong wishthat the family should keep the details of such amemoir in their own hands; and she afterwards madea special request that the final decision as to whatshould be published, and what suppressed, should restwith me.
It will, therefore, be understood that I am rather theeditor than the author of this book. The most importantpart of this Memoir will be found in the letters;and it is by my express wish that they are printed inlarger type than the explanations which link themtogether.
But even those explanations are only in a limitedsense my own work. All I have done is to weavetogether statements made by my wife and her sisters,a paper left by their Mother, and, in the very earlypart, the recollections of Octavia’s early playmate, MissMargaret Howitt.
Only in those chapters which cover the period from1866 to 1877 have I trusted, to any considerableviextent, to my own memory; for it was in those yearsthat I was most closely associated with some parts ofOctavia’s work.
With regard to the letters, there are two points t