I do not know whether Gilbert would yet have actually called himself a Christian. He was certainly tending towards the more Christian elements in his surroundings. It seems pretty clear from all he wrote and said later that he did not hold that transformation to have been fully effected until after his meeting with Frances, to whom he wrote many years later:
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you Who brought the Cross to me.
These papers are undated and are arranged in no sequence. It is possible this last one was written after their first meeting. Certain it is that in it he had begun feeling after a more Christian arrangement of society than Socialism offered--and particularly after an arrangement better suited to the nature of man. This thought of man's nature as primary was to remain the basis of his social thinking to the end of his life.
IN THE NOTEBOOK may be seen Gilbert's occasional thoughts about his own future love story.
Suddenly in the midst of friends, Of brothers known to me more and more, And their secrets, histories, tastes, hero-worships, Schemes, love-affairs, known to me Suddenly I felt lonely. Felt like a child in a field with no more games to play Because I have not a lady to whom to send my thought at that hour that she might crown my peace.
About her whom I have not yet met I wonder what she is doing Now, at this sunset hour, Working perhaps, or playing, worrying or laughing, Is she making tea, or singing a song, or writing, or praying, or reading Is she thoughtful, as I am thoughtful Is she looking now out of the window As I am looking out of the window?
You are a very stupid person. I don't believe you have the least idea how nice you are.
F.B. was Frances, daughter of a diamond merchant some time dead. The family was of French descent, the name de Blogue having been somewhat unfortunately anglicised into Blogg. They had fallen from considerable wealth into a degree of poverty that made it necessary for the three daughters to earn a living. Frances was never strong and Gilbert has told how utterly exhausted she was at the end of each day's toil--"she worked very hard as secretary of an educational society in London."* The family lived in Bedford Park, a suburb of London that went in for artistic housing and a kind of garden-city atmosphere long before this was at all general. Judging by their photographs the three girls must all have been remarkably pretty, and young men frequented the house in great numbers, among them Brimley Johnson who was engaged to Gertrude, and Lucian Oldershaw who later married Ethel. Some time in 1896, Oldershaw took Gilbert to call and Gilbert, literally at first sight, fell in love with Frances.