A LIVINGlli 
 WITNESS 
 
 ^<y*'-''^^ 
 
 PAtESEIPPEL 
 
T 1915 ) 
 
 BX 9459 .K2 S4 1914 
 Seippel, Paul, 1858-1926. 
 A living witness, the life 
 of Ad ele Kamm / by Paul 
 
A LIVING WITNESS 
 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
Life and death are alike joy to meS 
 

i 
 
 A LIVING WITNESS ^m^J^ 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 ADELE KAMM 
 
 paul'^seippel 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 
 MCMXIV 
 
TRANSLATED BY 
 OLIVE WYON 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION 
 
 ' One of the greatest needs of the present day,' 
 said Adele Kamm, * is for a succession of living 
 witnesses.' And the fact that this Httle book has 
 received such an unexpectedly warm welcome in 
 all quarters, and from so many types of mind, 
 proves that the number of those who feel 
 the need for this kind of living apologetic 
 is indeed large. Adele Kamm herself was, and 
 still is, one of these ' living witnesses ' whose in- 
 fluence is far greater than the most convincing 
 arguments. In the radiance shed by such a life, 
 carping criticism fades away like morning mists 
 in the splendour of the dawn. We feel that we 
 are in the presence of a self-evident truth, with 
 which we instinctively agree. 
 
 During her lifetime it was the young invalid's 
 kindly custom to gather in her room a circle 
 of visitors holding widely divergent views, whom 
 
Vi THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 she drew together by the force of her own per- 
 sonaHty. And since she left us the number has 
 been daily increasing of those to whom she is the 
 most helpful of friends. Her gentle influence is 
 felt by all who come within her reach, and those 
 who would otherwise spend their time in profit- 
 less controversies are being united by her spirit of 
 love. 
 
 We have received the most touching letters 
 from all kinds of people — ill and well, behevers 
 and sceptics, Protestants and Roman Catholics. 
 We wish it were possible to thank each of these 
 correspondents (many of whom we do not know) 
 for their kind appreciation, which has given us 
 great pleasure. At the same time we should 
 like to remind them that the author disclaims 
 any share in the chorus of admiration evoked by 
 such a saintly life. To be allowed to witness the 
 development of such a character, and then to 
 record it for the good of others, is, in his opinion, 
 a sufficiently high honour. 
 
 In this connection perhaps the author may be 
 allowed to quote a sentence which, it seems to 
 him, admirably sums up the general tone of these 
 letters, and of the various articles which have 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 appeared in newspapers and reviews of all shades 
 of opinion. The writer is Victor Giraud, a 
 Roman Cathohc of strong convictions and liberal 
 views. This eminent critic of the Revue des 
 Deux Mondes would have been better pleased if 
 the author had not called Adele Kamm ' a Pro- 
 testant saint.' ' In my opinion,' he wrote (in a 
 -letter to the author), 'in the presence of such 
 a life ecclesiastical differences should disappear 
 altogether. We ought simply to bow in rever- 
 ence before it, and adore the great miracle of 
 the Christian Faith.' 
 
 Agreed ; but let us go a step further and say, 
 * Such lives belong, not to any particular Church, 
 but to Humanity at large.' Indeed, it has been 
 abundantly proved that Adele Kamm's example 
 has helped many thoughtful people who are not 
 professing Christians. 
 
 Surely, as we gaze at all this suffering, and see 
 the way in which it was transmuted into glorious 
 joy, we must confess that the power of the will to 
 live is as great to-day as it has ever been in the 
 past ! Our thoughts travel back to that critical 
 moment when the young and unknown sufferer 
 wrestled alone through the silent hours of many 
 
viii THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 a sleepless night against the tragedy which 
 threatened to overwhelm her life. To understand 
 the wonderful effect of good example, let us 
 measure the result of the victory which she gained 
 over herself. One thing stands out with ever- 
 increasing clearness : by reason of her victory 
 she will set free many a captive soul bound by the 
 fetters of that ' ungodly sorrow,' which, instead 
 of leading the soul upwards towards the light, 
 drags it down into the depths of bitterness and 
 rebellion. 
 
 We are dealing here with incontrovertible 
 facts. Similar proofs lie all around us, and we 
 should make it our concern to look for them in 
 our everyday life, for they will give us an inward 
 certainty far beyond the power of any creed or 
 dogma. They show us to what heights of char- 
 acter man may attain. P. S. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 She was a very modest girl. As long as we had 
 the joy of her presence she would never have 
 wished us to speak of her publicly. Who indeed 
 would have thought of doing so ? There are 
 sacrifices which must be made for the welfare of all, 
 in silence and retirement. There are lives whose 
 gentle beauty shrinks from all semblance of self- 
 advertisement. Death, the deliverer, strikes the 
 hour when we may and should speak of them, for 
 it is right that they should be widely known, since 
 they are given to enrich the common inheritance 
 of humanity with fresh examples of heroism and 
 of holiness. 
 
 Adele Kamm made Beethoven's pregnant 
 phrase her own : Durch Leiden Freude. She 
 climbed the steep pathway which leads through 
 pain to joy, the joy which nothing can disturb. 
 Even through her sufferings, which she accepted 
 with a smile, she gave joy to others. 
 
X THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 The example is all the more inspiring, because 
 the victory was gained, not by one of those heroes 
 of whom M. Romain Rolland has written, to 
 strengthen us for the darker experiences of hfe, 
 but by a young girl chained to a bed of pain. 
 Each of us should feel better able to follow it, at 
 least at a distance. 
 
 For the sake of those who are called to suffer — 
 and which of us is not ? — I wish to tell as simply 
 as possible the story of this short and fruitful life. 
 Putting aside my personal convictions, which 
 have no place here, I shall try to give a clear 
 picture of Adele Kamm's experiences, and of the 
 religious faith by which she was upheld. 
 
 I wish to make her voice heard, and not my 
 own. She will bear her own witness on almost 
 every page, thanks to the letters which her mother, 
 her sister, her friends, and the members of the 
 Society of the ' Coccinelles ' have kindly lent me. 
 To them all, and particularly to Madame Kamm- 
 Borgeaud, and M. le Pasteur Hoffet, I wish to 
 make my grateful acknowledgments. Without 
 their help I could not have brought this work to 
 a satisfactory conclusion. They have under- 
 stood that, whatever may have been Adele's 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 desire to remain unknown, it was necessary when 
 she was withdrawn from our sight that her 
 gracious personaUty should be allowed to shine 
 as far and as brilliantly as possible. 
 
 May this little book help to make her known 
 as she really was. It was not so much by her 
 clear understanding, by her quick and practical 
 intelligence, that she differed from many other 
 simple girls of our country. Her value lay in 
 another direction, in her will-power and in her 
 heart. If we would estimate her aright, we must 
 lay aside all intellectual pride and confess, with 
 Pascal, that the supreme greatness of man lies 
 dans Vordre de la charitL 
 
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 
 
 The Translator desires to offer her thanks to the 
 following friends, from whom she has received 
 generous help and valuable counsel : 
 
 The Rev. R. A. Aytoun, M.A., Dr. Rendel 
 Harris, Mr. Basil Mathews, M.A., and the Rev. 
 E. Shillito, M.A. ; especially to one of them, 
 who has translated the French poems into 
 English verse. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 pace: 
 PREFACE TO THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION , , . V 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT ..... I 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY GIRLHOOD .... 7 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 THE EARLY STAGES OF THE ILLNESS . . . , I J 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE MOUNTAINS ....... I^ 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN ..... 27 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PACE 
 IN THE SOUTH ....... 39 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 A SPIRITUAL CRISIS ....... 49 
 
 CHAPTER vni 
 
 GLEAMS OF LIGHT 61 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A SUMMONS TO ACTION ...... 69 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A WIDENING CIRCLE ...... 80 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOUISE DEVENOGE ....... 9I 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SOCIETY OF THE ' COCCINELLES ' .... I02 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DISTANT FRIENDS . . . . . I16 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT . . . I27 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PACE 
 THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS . . . . -137 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING . . . , . I 54 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 DARK HOURS ........ 165 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE CROSS , . . . . . . . l8o 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE DIVINE WILL TO SUFFERING . I9I 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY ..... 2O9 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF AD^LE KAMM's RELIGIOUS 
 
 LIFE ........ 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 LAST DAYS . . . . . .235 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT 
 
 'The great triumph of Christianity is to produce a few 
 saints. They raise our ideal of humanity. They make us 
 restless and discontented with our own lives as long as they 
 are lived on a lower plane.' — Forbes Robinson. 
 
 AdI:le Kamm came of soldier stock. From her 
 ancestors, on both sides, she inherited a healthy 
 and energetic temperament. Her father was 
 descended from a family which inhabited the 
 mountain region of Glarus, many of whose 
 members had reached a great age. The grand- 
 father, Jean-Melchior Kamm, was a non-com- 
 missioned officer in the army of Napoleon I., who 
 made the extremely wearisome march from 
 Naples to Moscow with his regiment. He fought 
 at Beresina by the side of a certain Vaudois officer, 
 Captain Rey. Fearing that they would never see 
 their country again, the two friends vowed they 
 would never separate. They kept their word. 
 Rey having been wounded, Kamm remained with 
 
2 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 him instead of joining the retreat, and both were 
 taken prisoners. This, however, saved their Hves, 
 for their whole company perished from cold, 
 hunger, or from the attacks of the Cossacks. 
 After five years' imprisonment at Riga, where 
 they worked in the harbour, the Vaudois captain 
 and the Glaronais sergeant, still inseparable, set 
 their faces homewards, and settled down at 
 Lausanne. Kamm bought the Hotel * de I'Etoile,' 
 which prospered under his able management, and 
 eventually became the best-patronised house in 
 Lausanne under the name of the Hotel of the 
 * Grand Pont.' At his death he left the business 
 to his three children, two sons and a daughter, 
 and for a time all three carried it on together. 
 Thus Adele Kamm was descended on the paternal 
 side from one of those excellent families of hotel- 
 keepers, of whom there are so many in Switzer- 
 land ; people who are both hard-working and 
 endowed with business capacity. We shall see 
 that she inherited some of their practical qualities. 
 Many inhabitants of Lausanne still remember 
 her father, Henri Kamm, an upright and gracious 
 character, who had preserved the courteous 
 manners of olden times. He had a passionate 
 
ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT 3 
 
 love of mathematics, and willingly gave up his 
 share in the hotel to his brother and sister, in order 
 to be able to devote himself entirely to his beloved 
 studies. At the age of fifty-eight he married the 
 daughter (who was much younger than himself) 
 of his intimate friend, the old ' Colonel Federal ' 
 Borgeaud, Curator of the Cantonal Library. 
 The ancestors of the Borgeauds are said to 
 have been Huguenots from Savoy, who fled into 
 Vaud after the successful Counter-Reformation 
 of St. Francis de Sales. In this family also occur 
 remarkable instances of longevity. 
 
 It will be seen that Adele had no mean inheri- 
 tance. Her strong vitality, added to a spiritual 
 power which lifted her above herself, enabled 
 her to resist disease with unwonted energy. 
 
 It is said that she most resembled her grand- 
 father, Constant Borgeaud, particularly in char- 
 acter. He was one of the most original and 
 popular figures in that charming little half-rural 
 city of Lausanne which we used to know and 
 love. How much it has changed since then ! The 
 ' colonel,' as we called him, was a racy local 
 character of a type one scarcely ever meets in 
 larger towns, where personalities lose their dis- 
 
4 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 tinctness of outline like coins which pass innumer- 
 able times across shop counters. He was a soldier 
 in every sense, and was of a generous and chival- 
 rous disposition. In his youth he had had a great 
 love of adventure, and in 1848, at the time when 
 the Italians rose against the Austrian rule, he 
 spent his entire fortune in raising a company of 
 volunteers at Lausanne. At the head of his men 
 he gallantly met the Austrian attack at the Col 
 du Tonal, and kept the enemy at bay until, after 
 the defeat of Custozza, he received orders to 
 evacuate the position. It is doubtless from the 
 colonel that Adele Kamm inherited both her 
 enthusiastic disposition and her almost masculine 
 energy. She was fond of military metaphors. 
 Her mother and her sister laughingly called her the 
 * Old Trooper,' and she herself, after each fresh 
 attack of illness, would say gaily, ' I am an old 
 soldier who has returned, wounded, from many 
 a campaign.' 
 
 After having tried widely different professions, 
 the colonel taught mathematics to the schoolboys 
 of Aubonne. It was through his taste for in- 
 genious problems and for chess that he came to 
 know Henri Kamm. After their marriage Kamm 
 
ANCESTRY AND ENVIRONMENT 5 
 
 and his wife were unremitting in their thoughtful 
 and affectionate care for the old man. The 
 colonel took all his meals with them while they 
 lived in Lausanne. Later on the whole family 
 settled near Celigny, where the colonel passed 
 away suddenly on the i8th of January 1905, at 
 the age of eighty-five, surrounded by those whom 
 he loved best in the world, his daughter and his 
 two granddaughters. 
 
 Adele Kamm far surpassed her ancestors by 
 the greatness of her moral personality, while 
 carrying on the family traditions in other ways. 
 We must make some allowance for the influence 
 of heredity, in order to understand the nature of 
 her physiological temperament and certain traits 
 in her disposition ; but we believe it would be an 
 error to attribute them entirely to the elements 
 provided by heredity, environment, and education. 
 Adele Kamm was one of those beautiful excep- 
 tions which unexpectedly emerge, no matter 
 where, to demonstrate the latent possibilities 
 which lie concealed in humanity. One must 
 consider her as a splendid example of the spon- 
 taneous fruition of religious genius. We believe 
 that these exceptions do not spring from the 
 
6 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 mechanical order of the universe, but that through 
 them the Divine enters into the world. ^ 
 
 ' ' Religious genius is always individualistic in its origin and 
 social in its aim,' says M. Theodore Flournoy. * It is individualistic 
 in its origin : it is well to emphasise this in face of a sociology much 
 in vogue to-day, which maintains that everything in religion may 
 be traced to the working out of social forces, to solidarity of action, 
 etc. This, I believe, does violence to the facts. Without under- 
 valuing the suggestive and stimulating influence of environment, 
 education, and race, we must still lay stress on the deeply individual, 
 original, unexpected, and after all inexplicable character of religious 
 genius ' (Tht^odore Flournoy, Le Genie religieux. Foyer Solidariste). 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY GIRLHOOD 
 
 *I would have gone ; God bade me stay. 
 
 I would have worked j God bade me rest. 
 He broke iny will from day to day. 
 He read my yearnings unexpressed, 
 And said them nay.' — C. Rossetti. 
 
 AdJile Kamm was born at Lausanne on the 1st of 
 October 1885. The principal companions of her 
 childhood were her father and her grandfather ; 
 she grew up in quiet, serious surroundings, in an 
 atmosphere which was highly moral but not dis- 
 tinctively religious. She was a pretty child, with 
 large dark eyes and golden hair, for she was fair 
 at this period : it was difficult to realise it in 
 later years, when we saw her beautiful brown hair. 
 Adele was already a serious little person, in spite 
 of her outbursts of gaiety ; she had a clear, 
 practical turn of mind, and was by no means a 
 dreamer. Towards the close of her short life, 
 returning in thought to the years of her child- 
 
8 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 hood, she wrote to an intimate friend : ' I have 
 nothing German in my temperament, cither 
 physically or mentally. When I read Freytag's 
 Soil und Haben, I feel that I am just like Sabina, 
 who was so fond of her piles of sheets, her table- 
 napkins, and her old china. . . . When I was 
 quite little, I did not care for playing with other 
 children, and would often go away by myself to 
 work and read, so that, by the time I was seven, 
 I had already begun my trousseau by making 
 yards and yards of crochet-lace, which I did while 
 reading Jules Verne, Maryan, Freytag, etc. Those 
 zvere happy afternoons, and how good my friends 
 were to me ! ' 
 
 Adele Kamm looked the picture of health until 
 she was eight years old, when she had an attack 
 of bronchitis which slightly affected her lungs ; 
 the mischief, however, seemed to disappear quickly 
 without leaving any trace. She was able to attend 
 the Vinet school regularly, and thus came under 
 the excellent influence of the headmistress. Miss 
 S. G.^ Adele was never at any period of her 
 
 * In a letter to Mrs. F. G., written some years later, Adele said : 
 'Miss S. G. was the person who influenced me most during my 
 childhood and early girlhood.' 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY GIRLHOOD 9 
 
 life a scholar, but music was her passion. She 
 studied it with that ardent enthusiasm with 
 which she took up everything that interested her. 
 It was one of her bitterest disappointments later 
 on that she was obliged to give up her beloved 
 piano. Looking back on the happy hours which 
 she had spent in this pursuit, she wrote in 1909 
 to a friend : ' I am thinking about my musical 
 studies, which were so suddenly interrupted at 
 the Conservatoire a year before I could win that 
 much-desired diploma. How I loved it all, and 
 yet it has been taken right out of my life, along 
 with the sweetness, happiness, and inward in- 
 spiration which were bound up with it. It cer- 
 tainly led me to overtax my physical strength, 
 but at the same time it taught me the value of 
 quiet meditation, which means so much in illness.' 
 About the time when she had finished her 
 course of religious instruction under M. de Loes, 
 a clergyman of the Established Church, she 
 suddenly fell ill. On the day of her first Com- 
 munion she looked deadly pale in her white dress, 
 was shivering with fever, and hardly knew what 
 she was doing. ' I did not hear the pastor's words,' 
 she told me, ' I was so terribly giddy. I only 
 
10 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 remember praying fervently that God would let 
 me make good use of the remainder of my life.' 
 How richly was this prayer to be answered ! It 
 showed even at that early age the unselfish dis- 
 position of this practical little Huguenot, so en- 
 tirely free from that religious selfishness which 
 thinks only of its personal salvation. 
 
 A somewhat suspicious abscess appeared in the 
 nape of her neck, but in spite of a bacteriological 
 examination it was impossible to discover its 
 exact nature, and little by little it disappeared. 
 Adele was considered cured. She resumed her 
 ordinary life, and became engaged, without any 
 objection being raised by the doctors. At that 
 tirne she was a beautiful, fascinating, and happy 
 girl, who loved pretty clothes, dancing, and all 
 the pleasures of her age. Nevertheless, she was 
 by no means frivolous, and already felt the 
 seriousness of life. 
 
 She was sent to England to complete her educa- 
 tion, and her stay there left many happy memories. 
 The house where she boarded closed during the 
 summer months, and she applied for a temporary 
 situation through a governesses' agency. The 
 secretary gave her a position of trust. She had 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY GIRLHOOD ii 
 
 to take charge of a family of young children 
 during the absence of their mother, Mrs. MacA., 
 the wife of a member of parHament, who had to 
 attend the coronation festivities of Edward vii. 
 with her husband. Attracted by the pretty face 
 of the young Swiss girl, and by her air of decision, 
 Mrs. MacA. carried her off at once, and took her 
 to her estate at Pirbright in Surrey. There had 
 been no time to inform her parents at Lausanne, 
 and they were much surprised when they heard 
 about this adventure. 
 
 For a young girl of seventeen, who knew very 
 little English, the task devolving upon Adele was 
 not easy. She was not at all shy. She showed 
 herself in her true light : a little person pos- 
 sessing a strong will, plenty of tact, and so much 
 playful charm that every one fell in love with 
 her. The following year it was her turn to be a 
 guest at Pirbright. From July 1904 to January 
 1905 she paid a third visit to her English friends, 
 and travelled with them in Scotland. She then 
 seemed to have almost regained her health, but, 
 after a lull of more than two years, the dread 
 disease was about to appear in a form so serious 
 that it could no longer be mistaken. In the 
 
12 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 middle of winter she rejoined her family, which 
 had settled at some distance from Celigny, at 
 Vallon, and later at Petit Bois. She often went 
 into Geneva for her piano lessons, and became 
 closely attached to Miss M. B., a mistress at the 
 Conservatoire, with whom, in spite of the differ- 
 ence in their ages, she had much in common. It 
 was the first of those ardent feminine friendships 
 which played such a large part in the life of 
 Adele Kamm.^ 
 
 As the result of a chill she had an attack of 
 pleurisy, and tubercular symptoms appeared. 
 A cure at Weissenbourg was tried for her during 
 the course of the summer. The resident doctor 
 
 * Later, during her long illness, Adele Kamm carried on a 
 regular correspondence with Miss M. B., from which we shall have 
 occasion to quote more than once. In 1908 she wrote to her 
 thus : 
 
 ' I bless the day when I learnt to know you. I seemed already 
 conscious of the influence you would -have upon me. . . . You help 
 me more than you have any idea. Every one has her own atmo- 
 sphere, and, at the end of the day, mine is distinctly influenced by 
 that of my visitors. When you come, you inspire me with new 
 strength for the future, and people who possess such a power are 
 only too rare. You are my ideal ... it is my great desire, if you 
 will help me, to have a good influence, to spread a spirit of peace and 
 contentment in my own circle; that is indeed one of the best things 
 on earth. ... I feel that you have struggled and conquered, and 
 that in spite of all the difficulty, fatigue, and annoyance, which enter 
 into your daily experience your peace is untroubled. . . .' 
 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY GIRLHOOD 13 
 
 recognised the seriousness of her illness. He ex- 
 plained it without hesitation to the young invalid. 
 This is often done on principle by German- Swiss 
 doctors. They wish their patients to face the 
 danger, in order that they may at once do all in 
 their power to ward it off. Sometimes they do 
 not quite realise that the unvarnished truth may 
 have a very depressing effect upon nervous 
 patients. 
 
 Fortunately Adele's character was strong enough 
 to bear the truth, even when it was told her in an 
 almost brutal manner. The doctor said to her : 
 * You have only one chance of recovery. Would 
 you like me to try some injections with the 
 tuberculin of Dr. Denis of Louvain ? ' The use 
 of this vaccine, which had just been discovered, 
 was then considered to be attended with a certain 
 amount of risk. Adele did not hesitate. She 
 wrote a very tender letter to her parents. ' I am 
 ready,' she said, ' to try these injections for your 
 sake.' Mme. Kamm went off at once to join her 
 daughter. The treatment was tried, but without 
 success. Adele had to be brought back to Petit 
 Bois in the middle of August 1905, not so well as 
 when she left it. In the autumn the family^moved 
 
14 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 to the villa La Bergeronnette, at Grange-Canal, 
 near Geneva. It was easier there to give the 
 invalid the care she needed, for she was rapidly- 
 getting worse. After having had the hope of 
 restoration to health, and the prospect of radiant 
 happiness in the future, Adele Kamm was to be 
 shut out from that active life in which she longed 
 to share with all the ardour of her tender and 
 passionate heart, with all the energy of her will, 
 already so strong and so ready for a woman's 
 highest duties. Suddenly all her hopes were 
 shattered, and this beautiful and courageous girl 
 was henceforth a complete invahd. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE EARLY STAGES OF THE ILLNESS 
 
 ' Does the road wind uphill all the way ? 
 Yes, to the very end. 
 Will the day's journey take the whole long day ? 
 From morn to night, my friend.' — C. Rossetti. 
 
 Adele Kamm has described the spiritual phases 
 of her illness with absolute precision. * During 
 the first weeks of my illness,' she wrote, ' no in- 
 ward relief was possible. Not only was my family 
 as despairing as I was myself, but the chaos was 
 too complete, the storm too violent, to let me hear 
 even a message of comfort . . . the building had 
 to fall, and the ruins had to remain ruins for a 
 certain length of time.' 
 
 Then followed a second phase, when despair 
 and acute suffering gave way to an ' aching stupor.' 
 Weakened by the terrible crisis through which 
 she had passed, she was in danger of falling an 
 easy prey to any of the influences, good or bad, 
 which might fight for her. Writing about it later 
 
i6 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 on, she said: 'This is the solemn moment when the 
 future may be decided. May we then hear words 
 which rouse and invigorate ; and if we have not 
 yet learnt submission, may we still be able to say, 
 like Jesus in Gethsemane, " O My Father, if it be 
 possible, let this cup pass from Me : nevertheless, 
 not as I will, but as Thou wilt." ' 
 
 Adele Kamm's energetic, loving spirit shone 
 out clearly even through this dark time. So far 
 as she herself was concerned she accepted the 
 situation, but she was grieved beyond measure 
 for her dear ones. ' I saw them crying about me,' 
 she wrote ; ' I read weariness on those dear faces, 
 pale with anxiety, distress, and the strain of con- 
 stant nursing, and then I felt : " Can I remain 
 a useless spectator of all this extra press of work, 
 caused by my forced inactivity . . . and look on 
 at it all unmoved ? . . . No," I cried inwardly, 
 " at all costs I must get up ; I will see whether 
 I cannot conquer by force of will ; I will smile 
 when I feel ill ; I will walk about even when I 
 am feverish ; I will do my best to keep going as 
 long as ever I can." ' 
 
 So she struggled with all her might and main. 
 She dressed herself, went downstairs, and out into 
 
THE EARLY STAGES OF THE ILLNESS 17 
 
 the garden. The Ulac and wistaria bushes were 
 in bloom. Ail nature was holding high festival. 
 For the moment she felt new life pulsing through 
 her. She drank in the fresh air and sunshine 
 with real delight. * Surely,' she thought, ' this 
 dreadful illness is only a bad dream after all, 
 which the broad light of day has dispelled 1 ' 
 But suddenly she began to shiver, her teeth 
 chattered, her limbs began to tremble and give 
 way under her. ' My head swam with giddiness, 
 and yet outwardly nothing was changed ; the sun 
 was still shining, the birds went on singing, and 
 the insects were buzzing as happily as ever. . . .' 
 * With difficulty,' wrote Adele Kamm, ' I 
 reached the house ; I felt that I could no longer 
 resist this overwhelming sense of physical misery ; 
 I wanted to hide myself like a sick animal, and my 
 bed was the only refuge for my failing strength. 
 Alas, the desired relief did not come ! I was racked 
 with fever ; all night long I was tormented by 
 weird dreams, followed by horrible nightmares in 
 which I seemed to be struggling against an enor- 
 mous weight which oppressed and stifled me. 
 Morning came at last, and with it calmness . . . 
 but it was an awful calm, a quiet charged with 
 
1 8 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 electricity. ... I realised that I was conquered 
 by illness, and that it would be a long time before 
 I could hope for any improvement.' 
 
 At this stage she said still, ' For a long time.' 
 It was only much later that she dared to say, ' For 
 ever.' With remarkable clearness Adele Kamm 
 continues (for several pages of her booklet) this 
 analysis of the spiritual phases of her illness. And 
 we might almost imagine that she had passed 
 through them rapidly. In reality she had to 
 tread a very painful road for years before she 
 reached the third stage, that of cold reality, when 
 all illusions had been dispelled. It was in the 
 spring of 1908, during a long stay at Cannes, that 
 the brave girl, physically conquered by disease, 
 accepted the fact that she must take her place 
 among the incurables of the world. And this 
 defeat, as we shall see, was to be the signal for a 
 decisive victory. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 ' The man who most nearly approaches success is he whose 
 spirit is not broken under pressure, whose faith is not 
 quenched by clouds, whose purpose from first to last is not 
 deflected by threat or allurement. High aspiration always 
 leads into the thick of trouble ; there is no roundabout way 
 to the goal.' — Bishop Brent. 
 
 Ad^le Kamm spent two winters — 1905 to 1907 — 
 at the sanatorium at Leysin. I can remember, 
 when I was a small hoy in knickerbockers, clamber- 
 ing up one evening to this pretty little Alpine 
 village in order to climb the Tour d'Ai on the fol- 
 lowing day. There was no hotel, not even an inn : 
 we had to sleep on the hay in a barn. Forty years 
 later I spent two glorious days up there. What 
 a change ! The general outline is the same, with 
 its cottages huddled together on a strip of level 
 ground, and the squat old church tower in the 
 centre. But on the slope of the mountain, whose 
 wooded summit shelters Leysin from the piercing 
 
20 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 breath of the north wind, there has sprung up a 
 whole town of sanatoria, big hotels, villas, and 
 shops. There are fifteen hundred patients and 
 seventeen doctors ! And building is always going 
 on, for there is never room enough to take in those 
 who flock to Leysin from all directions, in the hope 
 of regaining their health in the pure mountain 
 air. 
 
 The first impression is not sad, as I had imagined 
 it would be. That air of exaggerated attention to 
 hygiene, so much affected in other places, has 
 been avoided in the hotels. In fact, the rooms 
 are really attractive, and do not in the least re- 
 semble the wards of a hospital. At night the 
 dinner-table presents an animated appearance ; 
 many faces are tanned from exposure to sun and 
 air ; at times the gaiety becomes almost noisy, and 
 there is not a solitary cough to be heard. The 
 patients are only allowed to cough in their own 
 apartments. And when they have been three 
 days in the place, they all learn to submit to this 
 rule. Those who are more seriously ill are not 
 visible. They remain lying out on their invalid- 
 chairs, sometimes till half-past nine at night. 
 These open-air wards are everywhere, even on 
 
IN THE MOUNTAINS 21 
 
 the roofs of the hotels, and they all face south. 
 The stronger patients go out of doors as soon as 
 the sun has appeared over the peak of the Chamos- 
 saire. They skate, toboggan, and go for walks 
 in that warm sunshine, which sometimes, in shel- 
 tered spots, sends the temperature up to more 
 than 104 degrees without melting the snow. 
 They lead the merry life of a holiday resort. 
 
 At a very short distance from the village one 
 can be quite alone. The snow-laden branches 
 of the pines soon form a screen which hides the 
 hotels. Everything is silent and motionless. How 
 strange is this absolute silence among the snows ! 
 The wonderful Alpine winter throws its spell 
 over everything it touches. Even the familiar 
 Chaussy and Chamossaire put on a royal dignity 
 in their ermine mantle. The glen slopes down 
 to the Rhone valley in a steep descent to where 
 the Simplon trains can be seen passing to and 
 fro, the only reminder of the feverish life led by 
 active humanity below. But our gaze does not 
 linger there. We look further and higher, up 
 to the beautiful pyramid of the Dent du Midi, the 
 glory of French Switzerland. From Leysin three- 
 fourths of it can be seen in all its majesty. Its 
 
22 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 tremendous size is very imposing. One never 
 tires of admiring the sublime boldness with which, 
 rising from massive foundations, its ' seven mystic 
 spires ' pierce the ether. For two whole winters, 
 therefore, Adele Kamm, bound by physical in- 
 firmity, gazed upon this unique mountain, which 
 seems made to inspire fainting souls with heroic 
 courage and passionate aspiration. 
 
 And before her there was Henry Warnery. 
 How quickly are we forgotten ! How little is his 
 name known up there ! Leysin is a wayside 
 rest-house for invalids. They arrive, they spend 
 some months there, and then they pass on to fulfil 
 their destiny, and their places are taken by others. 
 Which of them has any interest in the fact that 
 a poet, their fellow-sufferer, spent two winters 
 there; that through much sorrow and renun- 
 ciation he discovered ' The Way of Hope ' ; and 
 that, while there, he wrote a book. In the Alps, 
 a poem describing his struggle and his victory ? 
 
 ' Happy the days when as a pilgrim walks 
 Devoutly bowed above the holy way, 
 I come again to plunge my soul within 
 The holy waters ; for 'tis there its wing 
 Has broken through the net that held it fast 
 far from the summits blue : 
 
IN THE MOUNTAINS 23 
 
 'Tis there its eyes re-opened to the light. 
 Those eyes that, closed so long, knew not 
 As once theji knew that in the world of men 
 The only happy souls are they who love.' 
 
 Adele Kamm discovered at Leysin some traces 
 of the poet who had preceded her. She trod 
 the self-same path; for this secluded spot, over 
 three thousand feet above the mists and tumult 
 of the valley, seems destined to be a battleground 
 where the soul must meet with victory or defeat. 
 Perhaps life is more intense there than any- 
 where else, just because it is a fight against the 
 forces of destruction. 
 
 Certainly, it does not do to talk to doctors 
 about the novel Les EmbrasSs. They smile at it. 
 But is it not true that often, at the beginning of 
 tubercular trouble, there is a kind of nervous ex- 
 citement which may lead to extreme lack of self- 
 restraint ? It is not necessary to recall here the 
 desperate deed of that wretched madman, who, 
 for no reason at all, by one shot, cut short Dr. 
 Burnier's useful life. Fortunately, that is an 
 isolated instance. It might have happened any- 
 where else. Still, I believe that in such a small 
 cosmopolitan circle, where idleness is practically 
 
24 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMA! 
 
 the rule, it is easy to carry everything to extremes 
 — heroic renunciation, as we have seen, and also 
 the vain attempt to blind oneself to the true 
 state of things ; the desire to enjoy to the full 
 what remains of a short life; and, above all, the 
 cynical selfishness only too often developed by 
 illness. 
 
 In this little world, so new to her, Adele Kamm 
 had an opportunity of seeing much that was 
 interesting, and of widening her knowledge of 
 life. Her eyes were indeed too pure to mark 
 the evil. And it was quite natural that those 
 who possessed a like nobility of spirit should be 
 attracted by her. In connection with her first 
 visit to Leysin, Adele has paid a touching tribute 
 to the influence of a young Brazilian girl, Isalina 
 Lead, whose invalid-chair was placed beside hers 
 in the open-air ward. She was tall, slender, 
 and graceful, with dark eyes which ' shone like 
 diamonds in a face with a complexion so deli- 
 cately pink and white, that the contrast was 
 striking.' 
 
 The young foreigner sat opposite Adele Kamm 
 at meals. 
 
 ' A certain unspoken sympathy sprang up 
 
IN THE MOUNTAINS 25 
 
 between us,' says Adele,i * owing to the difficulty 
 which we both found in getting our food down. 
 I saw her bosom heaving with sighs, her head 
 drooping forward, her eyes gazing at me, with 
 such a sorrowful and yet peaceful expression, that 
 this look was imprinted for ever on my memory. 
 This gaze changed my rebellion into submission ; 
 it said so gently, " Suffering exists, we cannot 
 alter that, but we must trust." And this faith 
 sustained her during the two years of life which 
 yet remained, through months of acute suffering, 
 and right up to death itself, and the atmosphere 
 around her was so full of peace that she was able 
 to comfort her dear ones in their sorrow.' 
 
 The two young invalids became very intimate. 
 
 1 At the time of Isalina Leao's death Adele Kamm wrote from 
 Geneva to a friend : ' My poor dear Isalina Leao passed away yester- 
 day at Leysin, where she had just arrived from Brazil with her 
 whole family. . . . She was my first invalid friend ; we mutually 
 encouraged each other, and we were so intimate and so much alike 
 in temperament and in suffering that it seems strange to me that 
 she should have gone away alone, and that I should be left behind. 
 I do not grieve unduly, for I believe that her spirit is nearer to me 
 now than when the ocean separated us, and, were it not for her 
 poor family, I would rejoice with her to-day. . . . She struggled 
 and suffered so much, and now at last she has conquered ; she is at 
 rest in the gloiy of heaven, a rest well merited indeed . . . she must 
 be a very radiant angel, for in spite of her disease she made a 
 wonderful impression of purity and peace.' 
 
26 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Isalina told the story of her life and troubles to 
 her new friend, without ever allowing a com- 
 plaint or a murmur to pass her lips. ' Only once, 
 says Adele Kamm, ' one hot tear fell on my hand. 
 And she adds : ' I wept. What was my suffering 
 my force of character, compared with hers 
 And up to that time I had been murmuring. . . 
 I felt ashamed of my rebellion and ingratitude 
 ... I saw what it meant to bear sorrow nobly 
 . . . and now my heart is full of the spirit of joy 
 and peace and gratitude, which I hope I may 
 never lose any more ! ' 
 
 When the spring came, and Adele left the 
 sanatorium to return to the plain, she was very 
 far from being cured in body, but she had re- 
 gained her spiritual vigour. And, following the 
 example of Isalina Lea6, she was ready to tread 
 with a firm step the steep road which was to lead 
 her to such a height. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 
 
 'John, do you see that bed of resignation ? ' — 'It's doin' 
 bravely, sir.' — 'John, I will not have it in my garden; it 
 flatters not the eye and comforts not the stomach ; root it 
 out.' — ' Sir, I ha'e seen o' them that rase as high as nettles ; 
 gran' plants ! ' — ' What then ? Were they as tall as Alps, if 
 still unsavoury and bleak, what matters it ? Out with it 
 then; and in its place put Laughter, and a Good Conceit 
 (that capital home evergreen), and a bush of Flowering 
 Piety — but see it be the flowering sort — the othtr species is 
 no ornament to any gentleman's Back Garden.' 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 As we have already seen the Kamm family had 
 moved into a country house in the neighbourhood 
 of Geneva, which bore a charming name : ' La 
 Bergeronnette ' (The little Shepherdess). It 
 was there that Adele spent the summer of 1906. 
 The walks she loved were forbidden. But the 
 weather that year was particularly fine, and on 
 warm days she could still come down and lie out 
 in the garden on a reclining chair, in the shade 
 of some pine-trees. Her quick observant mind 
 
28 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 found plenty of occupation. She was keenly 
 interested in the quiet life of Nature which she 
 could watch from her couch. Sometimes she 
 had pleasant visitors ; wrens, tomtits, or a couple 
 of redstarts, whose conjugal disputes were a source 
 of much amusement to her. Then she made 
 friends with the squirrels. ' These delightful 
 creatures,' ^ she writes, ' took no notice whatever 
 of my presence, but settled themselves comfort- 
 ably on a branch just above my head, and began 
 picking nuts with their front paws and sharp 
 teeth. Their long tails waved gracefully to and 
 fro, while I had to put up with a shower of empty 
 nutshells which they threw down on me in the 
 cheekiest style. But when I tired of the game, 
 I had only to clap my hands, and away they would 
 scamper, some taking refuge in neighbouring 
 pine-trees, while others darted off to a fence 
 where they performed acrobatic feats, swaying 
 from side to side without once losing their balance, 
 while I lay and laughed at them with all my 
 heart.' 
 
 Adele began to spread around her the peace 
 which she had won at Leysin. Her own family 
 
 1 Joyful in Tribulation,^. 25. 
 
THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 29 
 
 circle was the first to reap the benefit. * That 
 summer,' she writes, ' I felt a deep sense of in- 
 ward contentment and thankfulness in being able 
 to live at home again. Every one had accepted 
 the fact of my illness, and everything seemed to 
 go on as happily as it used to do.' She would 
 not allow her physical suffering to cloud her 
 own happiness, and still less that of those she 
 loved. Even then this little Stoic was severe 
 towards herself and thoughtful for others. ' My 
 plan has been a good one,' she wrote to a friend, 
 * to be hard on myself, to allow no self-pity, 
 nothing which weakens and thus obscures the 
 purpose of trial, which ought to have a bracing 
 effect. That is the reason why, even in little 
 things, such as keeping a light burning at night, 
 I will not give way. I ought to be as strong and 
 able to be alone at night as in the day. But I do 
 love clear nights when I can see a star shining 
 through my open window. . . .' 
 
 When she went up to Leysin again, in the autumn 
 of 1906, she was ready to begin her ministry among 
 her fellow-sufferers. Though this second visit 
 brought her no improvement of health, yet it 
 left a ' glorious memory ' behind it. ^ It proved,' 
 
30 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 she writes, ' more inwardly helpful than I had ever 
 expected, for it gave me a new and wonderful 
 insight into the kindness of humanity.' This 
 kindness, which the young invalid experienced 
 so abundantly, was above all the reflection of that 
 which filled her own heart. Henceforth she was 
 in a position to give even more than she received. 
 
 In spite of every care that was taken of her the 
 disease made rapid strides. It was not long 
 before she was obliged to keep entirely to her 
 room in the Grand Hotel. At first, on sunny 
 days, she was allowed to lie out for a few hours 
 on her balcony, then even this pleasure was for- 
 bidden. ' I am still in bed,' she wrote on the 
 1 2th of December. ' At present I am not allowed 
 to get up at all, although I have no fever, and I 
 amuse myself by watching the snowflakes which 
 float right in on to the counterpane. The snow 
 is nearly three feet deep, and as I lie I can see the 
 people with their bobsleighs and skis.' 
 
 Her room was on the fifth story. She liked it 
 for its quietness and for the beautiful view from 
 the balcony. Sometimes she received inter- 
 esting visitors, and she had a new friend who 
 played henceforth a great part in her life. Miss 
 
THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 31 
 
 O. dc J. was not ill. She had come to Leysin to 
 look after her brother. This girl, as unselfish 
 and generous as Adele, exerted a deeply helpful 
 influence upon those around her ' by her sym- 
 pathetic, sensitive, and trustful disposition, in 
 which there was no room for suspicion, doubt, or 
 coldness . . . then, also, by her great desire to 
 give happiness to those around her, in which she 
 never spared herself any trouble or fatigue . . . 
 and, lastly, by her sweet cheeriness and by the 
 love and energy and seriousness, and the gentle, 
 comforting words which she gave so freely to all 
 those with whom she came into contact.' ^ 
 
 Adele Kamm also became very intimate with 
 the resident chaplain, Mr. H., and his wife. 
 They paid her frequent visits, and were very fond 
 of her. Later on Adele took a keen interest in 
 a fine project started by Mr. H., a hostel and 
 employment bureau for poorer patients. The 
 long and serious conversations which she had 
 with him stimulated and helped her greatly. We 
 shall see more of this at a later stage. Nor did 
 she forget her friends in the valley, with whom 
 she corresponded regularly. Some letters to 
 
 1 JqyJ'ul in Tribulation, p. 33. 
 
32 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Miss M. B., her former music-mistress at Geneva, 
 give us a glimpse of her daily life at Leysin : 
 
 'Leysin, zoth February 1907. 
 
 ' . . . My friend is intensely sympathetic, and 
 words fail to describe the blessing she is to many. 
 What a variety of character there is around us ! 
 Some have been embittered by their long and 
 hopeless illness, they have no happy memories to 
 cheer them, they simply live dully from one day 
 to another, and it is pitiful to see them. O. finds 
 much to do among these sufferers, and sees her 
 endeavours crowned with success. For instance, 
 there is X., the most misanthropic person in the 
 hotel. Well, by freely offering him her friend- 
 ship and confidence, she has succeeded in making 
 him come out of his shell, and he is gradually 
 mixing with others again. A few days ago he 
 actually left his room, and talked with some 
 friends, and the other day he even asked my 
 friend to think of him in church, and to pray for 
 him. It is nothing short of a miracle, and I 
 was very much touched when she told me about 
 it. I beheve that only a woman has the requisite 
 
THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 33 
 
 delicacy for such a task, for all the doctors' efforts 
 to help him were unavailing. 
 
 ' Others again stir us to feelings of admiration, 
 mingled with sadness, when we remember that 
 in a short time their course will be over. There 
 are two people who interest us specially in this 
 respect. One is a young man, talented, weU- 
 educated, and of a rare and beautiful spirit. He 
 manages all the acting, and every one admires 
 and loves him, for he never thinks of himself, but 
 spends all his remaining strength on this work of 
 charity. At the most he can only live a few 
 months longer, and we cannot help wondering 
 why such people, who can do so much good, are 
 taken away so soon. He is so patient and resigned 
 that it makes people feel very bad when they see 
 him directing this comedy, knowing as they do 
 that it is his last piece of work. The other is a 
 girl from the Argentine, a delightful creature, 
 most attractive and gracious. This poor thing 
 will also die very soon, and she has asked to be 
 allowed to have one more bit of fun, and wants 
 to take part in the bobsleigh Flower Carnival. 
 Many eyes filled with tears at the sight of this 
 lovely girl, so pink and white, in a veritable cradle 
 
34 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 of roses and carnations. The second doctor 
 simply could not stand it, and came up to visit 
 me, sick of life and of his profession. There are 
 so many others too to study, for we number more 
 than two hundred. 
 
 ' I tell you all this, dear friend, to help you to 
 realise the effect music has not only for me, but 
 for all of us here. It is a sore trial to me that I 
 cannot play any more, for the piano has been my 
 great joy since I was quite little. Though at 
 home I loved to hear music, here I simply cannot 
 bear it ; it excites me too painfully. Personally, 
 it does me good, but I dare not think of these 
 unhappy people at the same time ; it touches me 
 too deeply. And when I think of the sad life- 
 histories of every one, the disappointments and 
 despair hidden under this apparent gaiety, and 
 realise that all this is drawn together into a secret 
 and subtle harmony, I must confess myself beaten, 
 and I can't listen any more. Every one is like 
 me, that is why we generally have so few con- 
 certs. . . .' 
 
 At Christmas time Adele had a dehghtful sur- 
 prise. Some friends had decorated several Httle 
 Christmas trees, which they lit up and placed 
 
THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 35 
 
 round her room to remind her of other happy 
 Christmas Days. Her own relatives had sent 
 her a present of a bedspread and various indoor 
 garments, all of which were pink, and so well 
 had they managed it that her room was trans- 
 formed into a rose-pink bower. It was a happy 
 scene. She had a constant stream of visitors. 
 One after another the other patients came in to 
 tell her of their own happiness or suffering ; they 
 sat by her in a chair which soon became known 
 as ' The Armchair of Confidences.' Thus Adele 
 found full scope for her delicate psychological 
 sense, and for that great gift of sympathy which 
 enabled her to enter into the inmost life of 
 others and bring them comfort and encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 ' I was inwardly much exercised,' she tells us. 
 ' How could I find a means to respond to this 
 confidence, not merely by sympathy, but also by 
 giving the right spiritual relief in each instance ? 
 This inward travail led me to the purest, sweetest 
 joy that we can experience, that of living for 
 the happiness of others. I fully understood the 
 object of those trials and difficulties which seem 
 to give us a better understanding of this present 
 
36 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 life. How can we attempt to console if we have 
 not suffered ourselves ? ' ^ 
 
 Adele Kamm had one great qualification for 
 this mission which she had adopted — cheerfulness. 
 Every one who had the privilege of intercourse 
 with her was impressed by it. Her Christian 
 faith was of a robust and healthy type. She had 
 a horror of the moralising, gloomy, or sentimental 
 attitude in religion. Her life was gracious and 
 radiant. Her gaiety never forsook her, not even 
 when she was at her worst ; she was as jolly as a 
 schoolboy. Even in her close confinement to 
 bed she found all sorts of unexpected ways of 
 amusing herself. On Boxing Day she wrote to 
 Miss M. B. : 
 
 ' I am surprised to find that half of my time 
 here is already over. I should so like to get 
 strong enough to go back to Chene, but a snail's 
 pace describes my progress at present, and there 
 are days, like yesterday, when I cannot even sit 
 up in bed. There 's nothing for it but patience ! 
 Fortunately I am never dull, and am perfectly 
 cheerful, at least when I am not suffering too 
 acutely. What do you think I am doing to pass 
 
 1 J oj fill in 'Tribulation, P- 29. 
 
THE SECOND VISIT TO LEYSIN 37 
 
 the time ? I am learning to — whistle ! My 
 next-door neighbour whistles all sorts of airs 
 ever so nicely, and she is teaching me the art . . . 
 after a good many futile attempts I get quite out 
 of breath, but that doesn't matter; it is great 
 fun. . . .' 
 
 It was in this place of suffering that she learnt, 
 or rather learnt afresh, * the lesson of cheerful- 
 ness, which is no less necessary,' she says, ^ ' than 
 that of submission.' Her new friend. Miss O. 
 de J., set her the example. Through her Adele, 
 who was doubtless an apt pupil in this respect, 
 learnt to appreciate ' the value of a bright smile 
 in a sickroom, and the blessing of that serenity 
 which turns despondency and sadness into whole- 
 some contentment.' And Adele adds : ' A genial 
 disposition is really the outward sign of the inward 
 grace of love and endurance, and it may be a 
 source of strength and peace, not only to its 
 possessor, but to a whole family circle. Gratitude 
 blossoms into joy, and this joyful spirit overflows 
 in steady cheerfulness, till the whole of life is 
 transformed by this sweet influence. Happi- 
 ness, indeed, is a pure ray of heavenly sun- 
 
 1 Joyful in Tribulation, p. 31. 
 
38 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 shine, or the earthward reflection of an unseen 
 glory.' 
 
 We have seen this Divine Light shining in the 
 eyes of the young invahd, and we who are well 
 and prosperous have been cheered by its radiance. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN THE SOUTH 
 
 'Let us make no mistake. The cleverest weavers of 
 romance must always be the foremost pupils in the school of 
 suffering. And without pain there is no glory. It is wise 
 ... to sit down and quietly reckon with this certainty.' 
 
 Bishop Brent. 
 
 The quiet life at La Bergeronnette was resumed 
 and followed its usual course, but Adele Kamm 
 found the inactivity very trying. She could not 
 get accustomed to it. Her friends did their 
 best to try to supply her with work similar to 
 that which she had done at Leysin. * You have 
 divined my longing exactly,' she wrote to Miss 
 M. B., ' in offering to bring some of your friends 
 to see me. I should be so delighted if I could 
 be of any use to them, but I am afraid that it will 
 only be by allowing them to have the feeling of 
 cheering an invalid, rather than by my example ; 
 for, alas, it takes me all my time to try to live up 
 to my own ideals ! I am always fighting against 
 
40 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 my bad tendencies, but things are very difficult 
 sometimes. ... I am longing for my fellow- 
 sufferers at Leysin, and O. de J. wrote to me the 
 other day saying she couldn't think what she was 
 doing, enjoying herself in Paris, when there was 
 so much to do up there. . . . These long illnesses 
 entail a great variety of suffering, and many things, 
 which we cannot talk about, become more and 
 more painful as time goes on, so that you really 
 must personally have gone through them if you 
 want to be able to give true sympathy and com- 
 fort to these embittered, hardened, and cynical 
 hearts. ... It is a delicate and often a difficult 
 ministry, but it gave me a sacred joy, which I 
 miss here, in spite of my present happy surround- 
 ings. I learnt precious lessons from it, for, 
 behind many an unpromising exterior, I found 
 that a little tenderness and affection would unlock 
 the door to a perfect treasure-house of unselfish- 
 ness and loving devotion.' 
 
 Adele Kamm felt that she had found her 
 vocation in this personal ministry. She looked 
 forward to taking it up in the future with renewed 
 strength and energy, for she did not yet consider 
 herself incurable. She thought that her illness 
 
IN THE SOUTH 41 
 
 was a temporary trial through which she would 
 pass, and then emerge disciplined and ready for 
 active life. * I am looking forward with hope,' 
 she wrote, ' and trust that this long education 
 will not be in vain.' At that time she did not 
 dream that in the experience of complete help- 
 lessness and unceasing physical suffering she would 
 find her spiritual strength renewed for activity. 
 The future was still hidden from her eyes. 
 
 But she had to pass through many a dark hour 
 first. She had to drain the bitter cup to the last 
 drop, and see all her dreams of personal happiness 
 pass away. Her doctors gave her to understand 
 that she could never marry. In these circum- 
 stances we can only say that the strength and 
 nobility of her character shone forth more clearly 
 than ever. 
 
 When the winter came round again she did not 
 return to Leysin. It was thought that a change 
 to the south might be beneficial, and the whole 
 family migrated thither at the beginning of 
 February 1^08. Rooms had been engaged in a 
 hotel at Taggia, near San Remo. But the hotel 
 proved to be badly situated, for it looked on to 
 a dusty square, and another arrangement had to 
 
42 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 be made. They found a furnished house at 
 Cannet, which stood far back from the dusty 
 road in a garden full of blossoming mimosa. 
 Adele bore the journey well. She was delighted 
 to have the chance of seeing the * C6te d'Azur.' 
 But this visit to the south which she had antici- 
 pated with so much pleasure was doomed to be 
 full of disappointment. Her mind had pictured 
 lawns gay with anemones ; she had had visions 
 of delightful times of rest under the shade of the 
 olive-trees. But as soon as she tried to go down 
 to the garden she became so exhausted that her 
 pain grew worse. She saw her thirteenth doctor ! 
 
 * I go in for collecting them ! ' she said. Like the 
 others he could only give one piece of advice — 
 
 * Lie absolutely still.' 
 
 It was bitterly cold. The temperature was 
 nearly down to freezing-point in the mornings. 
 A violent south wind blew almost all the time. 
 It was scarcely fine for as much as two or three 
 hours in the day. Then it was difficult to heat 
 the house. Already the young invalid sighed for 
 La Bergeronnette and her pretty pink room, 
 where she could at least keep warm ! At the end 
 of March she wrote : ' My people still have to 
 
^IN THE SOUTH 43 
 
 wear winter garments indoors, and put on thick 
 coats when they go out. I have three blankets 
 and two thick quilts on my bed, and am always 
 wrapped up like a mummy in a thick white shawl, 
 and of course I have a hot-water bottle ! And I 
 really am not a chilly moi-tal. At Chene I never 
 needed so much. But can you wonder at it when 
 I tell you that I can see three inches of daylight 
 between the boards of the doors, the window- 
 frames, and the floor ! And when the wind 
 rushes in it plays a fine tune on the carpet. . . . 
 And this is the Sunny South . . . well, it will 
 never see me here again. . . . ' 
 
 Sometimes her natural high spirits got the 
 upper hand. She found it very amusing to watch 
 her poor father seated in an arm-chair hugging a 
 hot-water bottle, and vainly trying to get warm ! 
 But more often she was in a state of depression 
 most unusual to her. She longed sometimes for 
 the gay life which she could have enjoyed so 
 heartily, though when her young sister went off 
 to see the Battle of Flowers she was as delighted 
 as if she had been going herself. Never, even 
 when her spirits were at their lowest ebb, did she 
 betray any sign of selfish envy. It was a great 
 
44 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 satisfaction to her to see her family enjoying their 
 visit, and ' having a good time.' But she could 
 have so thoroughly enjoyed the sea-air, and the 
 sunshine, and the flowers ! It was trying to 
 catch the faint echo of all this ' sheer joy of living,' 
 and yet to be shut out from it all ! She said, and 
 how very natural it was, ' I feel quite lost when 
 girls of my own age come to see me ; I can't help 
 feeling a little sad that I can't go about and enjoy 
 myself as they do. It 's very foolish of me, I 
 know, but the old spirit will come up now and 
 again, and that often when I am cheerful and 
 under the impression that I had vanquished it 
 long ago. It distresses me very much.' They 
 racked their brains for ways of diverting her. A 
 good friend from Lausanne, Mr. G. H. (who 
 was spending the winter at Cannet for the health 
 of one of his family), paid her a long daily visit, 
 and read aloud Le Comm.issaire Potterat, by Ben- 
 jamin Vallotton, imitating the Vaudois accent to 
 perfection. She laughed very heartily over it. 
 But the effect of a ' diversion,' however good it 
 may be, is not permanent, and depression only 
 returns and settles down more deeply than before. 
 And, what was quite extraordinary for her, Adele 
 
IN THE SOUTH 45 
 
 even let her melancholy mood appear in her 
 letters. She wrote to Miss M. B. thus : 
 
 * Le Cannet, 2U/ February 1908. 
 
 * . . . Perhaps you will be surprised to get 
 another letter so soon after my last one, but the 
 days are so long that I am glad to divert my 
 thoughts by writing, especially to you, my dear 
 friend, on whom I depend more than any one 
 when I am cast down, for I know that you are so 
 brave, and have such strength of character, that 
 the very thought of you makes me stronger too. 
 Some people have the power of doing good even 
 at a distance, and when they themselves know 
 nothing about it. 
 
 * Well, I may as well own up — I am downright 
 dull, and homesick for La Bergeronnette and for 
 all my friends. You will be astonished to hear 
 this, I am sure, seeing that I have never been 
 dull in my life before ! I shall not be so again 
 either, and I am more surprised and humiliated 
 at the discovery than any one else. My cheerful- 
 ness and good spirits have stayed behind at Chene, 
 and I long to be back there. I fight as hard as 
 ever I can, I pray, I read all my good books ; they 
 
46 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 help me for a little while, and then, soon after- 
 wards, all their power seems to have vanished. 
 
 ' Why is it, then ? I am very comfortable here, 
 I am with my own dear family. It is unpardon- 
 able, and I blame myself very much, but there 
 are two things which help to account for it : 
 
 * First, the want of society, which is quite as 
 necessary to me as . . . my dreams, seeing that 
 visitors do not tire me at all. ... I could not 
 have believed that I should have felt this depriva- 
 tion so much, and you understand the reason as 
 well as I do. It is not a question of the passing 
 interest of a visit, but of that deep affection, that 
 constant watching of all the various lives, whose 
 joys and sorrows I knew so well that they almost 
 became my own. And this interchange of 
 thought and sympathy is a sort of daily nourish- 
 ment which I find it very difficult to do without. 
 
 ' The second reason is a kind of disappointment 
 and disillusionment. While people at home kept 
 on telling me that the South would do me so 
 much good, part of my mind refused to believe it, 
 but another part of me, whose secret power I 
 realise only now, took its flight into the future, 
 giving me visions of lovely walks in groves of 
 
IN THE SOUTH 47 
 
 olive and orange-trees, and even of a life of com- 
 parative health. I let myself dwell on it too 
 much, and it has cost me weeks of hard spiritual 
 conflict to regain my usual serenity of spirit, 
 which is based on trustful and resolute submission, 
 the only foundation for real happiness and good 
 spirits. For some time ago I came to the con- 
 clusion that the only one way to be happy during 
 a long illness is to allow no self-deception in any 
 shape or form, and that means that we may 
 harbour no illusions which may let us drop all 
 of a sudden into a pessimism as illogical as are 
 the illusions themselves.' 
 
 During her stay at Cannes Adele Kamm passed 
 through a painful crisis. Physically she suffered 
 more and more. With redoubled violence the 
 disease attacked first her neck, giving her intoler- 
 able pain, then the internal organs, and again 
 her lungs. Every morning about ten o'clock 
 ague, fever, and palpitations came on. She could 
 not see properly, and it seemed as though a 
 veil were stretched before her eyes. She was 
 confined entirely to bed. Towards five o'clock 
 her temperature dropped to normal, but it was 
 then far too late to go out into the garden. 
 
48 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 It was indeed trying to have taken this long 
 journey, and then be shut up altogether in a cold, 
 uncomfortable room with nothing to do ! For 
 three months of her time at Cannet the poor 
 child suffered almost without relief. And there 
 it was that she came to realise that her sentence 
 was final, and gave up all hope of recovery with 
 that brave clearness of vision and stoicism so well 
 expressed in the letter from which we have just 
 quoted. 
 
 After so many years of suffering bravely borne, 
 after the peaceful hours of serenity and hope at 
 Leysin and La Bergeronnette, Adele Kamm had 
 reached what she calls the third stage in illness, 
 that of ' cold reahty.' 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 
 
 ' All which I took from thee I did but take, 
 Not for thy harms, 
 
 But just that thou inight'st seek it in My arms. 
 All which thy child's mistake 
 Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home. 
 Rise, take My hand, and come.' 
 
 Francis Thompson. 
 
 As he travels along his difficult way the invalid 
 comes to a point where the road descends ; he 
 must go downhill for a time before making the 
 last ascent ! Now he needs all his courage. His 
 future ' hangs on a thread ' ^ (to quote Adele 
 Kamm). He is in danger of being overwhelmed, 
 as so many have been, by floods of bitterness and 
 rebellion. He has come to the moment when he 
 must face his illness with all the strength of mind 
 he possesses, and this involves a recognition of 
 its serious nature, and a willing acceptance of the 
 
 ' 7o>ya/ i/i Tribulation, p. 4 1 . 
 D 
 
50 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 fact. To be true to oneself is the first step 
 towards victory. 
 
 ^ I believe,' wrote Adele Kamm,^ ' that un- 
 certainty about our state of health, or those 
 illusions which we harbour for ourselves, or are 
 fostered by those around us, only lead to one 
 disappointment after another ; they cause untold 
 bitterness, and perhaps even loss of faith in others, 
 and in ourselves. Oh, what a sad shipwreck, and 
 how difficult it is to get afloat again ! It is 
 much better to view our condition in as detached 
 a manner as possible, and form our own opinion 
 upon it. In this way we shall be saved from 
 much disappointment, and we shall be able to 
 plan our life with a view to quiet usefulness.'^ 
 
 ' Quiet usefulness ' ! that is Adele Kamm all 
 over ! It is the echo of the prayer at her first 
 Communion which she oftered continually, not 
 with her lips, nor in any moment of sudden 
 emotion, but by working out its answer in her 
 daily life. ' But,' she asked herself, * how can 
 I help others now ? ' She felt so weak. Did she 
 not rather need help herself ? No human being 
 could give it to her. She turned to God. And 
 
 * Joyful in Tribulation, p. 41. 
 
A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 51 
 
 her one petition was that He would use her in 
 some way : 
 
 'Le Cannet, 2nd March 1908. 
 
 * ... I have not been out of bed for a fort- 
 night, and yesterday the doctor told me he did 
 not think I should be able to go out often during 
 my stay here, for every step would cost too much 
 effort, and even getting up to sit in the sunshine 
 would mean loss of strength, overtaxed breathing, 
 and a relapse. I see that he is right, and just now 
 I have no desire to budge an inch ! I am quieter 
 and happier than I have been during the past 
 weeks, at least I am so during the daytime, and 
 I have recovered my inward peace and outward 
 serenity. 
 
 ' But the nights must be got through somehow, 
 and they are really pretty bad ! I suffer much, 
 and feel very weak. Then the wind which roars 
 incessantly, and makes everything rattle, not only 
 keeps me awake, but adds to my distress, and I 
 have to redouble my efforts of will to wrestle 
 through. Sometimes I am literally covered with 
 perspiration afterwards. But then I am so pleased 
 at having conquered that I fall asleep for a few 
 hours at any rate. 
 
52 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 ' Every night I wonder however people get on 
 who do not ask God to help them through such 
 difficult times ! I can see that this month was 
 quite necessary. I was so happy at La Bergeron- 
 nette, and so contented that trial had lost its 
 sting. I was getting into a rut. I needed a fresh 
 shock, and the loss of certain pleasures, to force 
 mc to throw myself more completely into the 
 Divine Arms. Sometimes when I look back at 
 this long road which I have travelled for some 
 years now, I am so sorry that I cannot pass on 
 the result of my reflections to those who do not 
 believe. Everything is so splendidly planned, 
 that I am often struck with amazement ; each 
 part of my discipline fits in so exactly, nothing 
 is hurried, but plenty of time is allowed me to 
 accept it and adjust myself without too much 
 suffering, that I feel only a Father full of the 
 tenderest love could act in such a delicate way. 
 The further I go the more I understand the 
 meaning of certain mysteries, and I learn to be 
 grateful for the happiness which is granted 
 me. 
 
 * My field of usefulness seems to be more Hmited 
 than ever, but I have been pondering over it a 
 
A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 53 
 
 lot lately, for there lies the way to pure joy. I 
 have been thinking of the things I used to do 
 which made me so happy. ... I could then 
 work for others with my hands, and that helps to 
 make the days in bed seem shorter. Such little 
 trifles are useful after all, and they are tokens of 
 love and affection as well. What a blessing work 
 is ! But during the last few months I have been 
 able to do nothing except write letters, and even 
 that is diflScult, for I can't sit up, and my back 
 gets so painful from always lying on it. Writing 
 letters seems such a little thing, and yet even 
 that becomes tiring. But I must shake oif this 
 dreadful feeling of becoming useless. 
 
 * I have been so depressed by it that I set myself 
 to get rid of the idea by thinking of all the girls 
 who were in like case, and of what they can do 
 for others, just where they are. I have been 
 surprised to find a good many ways. Sometimes 
 I find it makes things clearer to think myself into 
 some one else's circumstances ! First of all there 
 is the personal atmosphere, which may mean so 
 much for good or for evil. Of course I knew of 
 that before, and I do try to keep a watch over 
 myself, though I fear there is a good deal of 
 
54 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 egotism in this, for I love to see every one round 
 me cheerful and happy. Then comes the gift of 
 loving sympathy. And there is always another 
 thing, the power of giving joy to others, to 
 inspire courage and hope, to call forth a smile ; 
 this is a happy task, and we needn't sit up to do 
 that ! Prayer is another form of service. Those 
 we love have so much need of remembrance, for 
 there are so many hearts burdened by the anxieties, 
 difficulties, and bitter experiences of life ; so many 
 who are ill, like myself, who pass through the 
 same trials of body and spirit. These thoughts 
 have comforted me. . . . Joy and peace have 
 come back, and I feel that I have something to 
 do during all the time that it may please God to 
 keep me in this state. So I am very happy as I 
 write to you this evening, and after these weeks 
 of inward storm and stress, I am looking forward 
 with joy to a time of quiet happiness.' 
 
 No eye can penetrate the sacred mystery of a 
 deeply devout soul. I do not know the intimate 
 secrets of the inward life of Adele Kamm. 
 
 I do not suppose that any one does. We catch 
 but the glowing reflection of a hidden fire. As 
 far as I can judge from her letters, she never was 
 
A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 55 
 
 * converted ' in the ordinary sense of the word. 
 She does not belong, in psychological language, 
 to the order of the ' Twiceborn.' We trace in her 
 the slow religious development, apart from any 
 violent upheaval, of a well-balanced spiritual 
 nature. But I believe that, after the day of her 
 first Communion, those weeks at Cannes mark the 
 most decisive experience of her religious life. 
 There she passed through her Gethsemane. 
 When she had presented to God as a * willing 
 sacrifice ' the ruin of her earthly hopes, and the 
 entire destruction of her physical frame, she 
 entered into a holy and intimate communion with 
 Him, which might know fluctuations but would 
 never more desert her. 
 
 In a letter written some time afterwards to her 
 intimate friend. Miss Lily Schlumberger,^ she 
 thus refers to that critical time : 
 
 ' My last great spiritual conflict took place at 
 Cannes, when, after a trying journey, I realised 
 that I must remain in bed altogether, that the 
 longed-for recovery was not to be, and when to 
 crown everything two vertebrae began to swell, 
 and were so painful that I had to lie on my back 
 
 • 14th February 1909. 
 
56 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 entirely. . . . For a month I was just about as 
 rebellious as any one could be, and I used to cry 
 my heart out every night, till one day our clergy- 
 man sang me a beautiful hymn called "The 
 Cross," ^ which I have quoted in my booklet. 
 These beautiful words touched me. I grew calmer 
 as I meditated on the sufferings of Jesus Christ, 
 which were so much greater than my own, and 
 were borne willingly out of love to us, and 
 especially as I thought of His sublime, glorious 
 love on the Cross. Oh ! how I prayed that God 
 would help me to accept my cross, and begin a 
 new life of pure love to God and man. And God 
 did answer me. I am not a bit good, not in the 
 least what I ought to be, but these dreadful 
 conflicts are over, and for a whole year now I 
 have not had any of those dark times which nearly 
 drove me to despair, when a cloud seemed to 
 come between my soul and God.' 
 
 Towards the end of March there was a kind of 
 lull in the storm. The disease allowed her a brief 
 respite. She became more cheerful. Visitors 
 came who gave her genuine pleasure. The Prin- 
 cesses of L. from Livonia were Protestants, and 
 
 1 Hymn by O, Kane : ' It is at the Cross that the way begins.' 
 
A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 57 
 
 they had grown very much attached to her.^ 
 They often visited her. Sometimes they ar- 
 ranged religious gatherings in her room. ' Last 
 Tuesday,' she wrote on the 6th of April, ' the 
 Princesses of L. came here with the clergyman, 
 and two other gentlemen who sang well. They 
 sang some beautiful revival hymns together. It 
 was glorious, and I was in the seventh heaven ! 
 Then afterwards we all took Communion in my 
 room, which I was very glad to do, for it was so 
 long since I had been able to go to church for 
 that service. I shall never forget the touching 
 appeal of the ceremony.' 
 
 If I may give my personal opinion, it seems to 
 me that the revivahst spirit of the Princesses of 
 L. was not really in harmony with the delicately 
 reserved nature of Adele Kamm. If she ap- 
 peared to respond to it for a time, just when she 
 was specially needing comfort and uplifting, I 
 should look upon it as a passing and almost acci- 
 dental phase in her life. Later on she was to 
 find her own expression of truth along another 
 
 ' 'Mr. M. has introduced me to two young Russian princesses 
 (of the name of L.) They have become Protestants, and live with 
 their family in the most beautiful villa here ,• they are models of 
 simplicity, kindness, and fervent Christian taith.' 
 
58 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 line altogether. Just then she had a fit of prosely- 
 tising zeal, which came to an untimely end. She 
 describes the incident herself with a quaint 
 mixture of humour and regret. 
 
 The Kamms had at that time a maidservant, 
 an honest soul, who was originally a native of 
 Luchon near Lourdes. The miracles at that 
 place seem to have affected her differently from 
 the majority of the pilgrims. Perhaps she saw 
 them at too close quarters ; at any rate the poor 
 thing believed in neither God nor devil. She 
 was very unhappy. In the goodness of her heart 
 Adele prayed that she might be able to comfort 
 her. One day she was reading from the chapter 
 containing the Beatitudes, when the maid burst 
 into tears, and exclaimed with true southern 
 vehemence : ' Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! I am so 
 miserable ! ' and began to pour out the whole 
 story of her domestic woes. 
 
 Muph embarrassed by this delicate situation, 
 Adele went on reading. Then she talked very 
 simply about the Parable of the Good Shepherd, 
 and thought that the poor woman seemed some- 
 what comforted. As she said that her sight was 
 too poor to read the Bible in small print, Adele 
 
A SPIRITUAL CRISIS 59 
 
 conceived the touching idea of copying out some 
 hymns and psalms for her in large characters, in 
 a strongly bound notebook. She had begun to 
 write out a whole Gospel, when one day the maid 
 came into the room, and asked her to read to her 
 a postcard she had just received, and it then came 
 out that she could neither read nor write, no 
 matter how clear the type might be ! She had 
 been ashamed to say so at first, and had thus 
 allowed her young mistress to do all this work 
 for nothing ! 
 
 A certain kind of religious zeal was quite im- 
 possible to Adele Kamm. She never dreamt of 
 making this girl a Protestant. But she thought 
 that the possession of a bound note-book with- 
 out any title would be less compromising than 
 a French Bible. Having seen her mistake, she 
 quietly readjusted herself, and simply tried to 
 exert an influence by her example 'and her kind- 
 ness. * So all my plans about X. have fallen 
 through,' she wrote at the end of this story. 
 ' Happily she improves every day, and this is a 
 great joy to us all. . , . She often says that she 
 will never forget the stay at Villa K., and her 
 husband has offered to take me out in a rubber- 
 
6o THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 tyred invalid chair, in which I could lie down. 
 But I cannot leave my bed.' 
 
 The time at Cannes was nearly over. They 
 were getting ready to go back to La Bergeron- 
 nette, greatly to Adele Kamm's satisfaction. She 
 still found the inactivity very trying, although 
 this quiet time had not been wasted. She had 
 passed through a deep inward experience. 
 
 Adele was not one of those people who spend a 
 great deal of time in introspection, either about 
 the state of their conscience and their hopes of 
 salvation, or about their spiritual state and the 
 exact nature of their relation with God. Once 
 she had seen that her physical condition was 
 hopeless, and had accepted it with all that it 
 involved, including the prospect of death — which 
 might be near — she did not look back on the wreck 
 of all her hopes. Henceforth her one aim was 
 to make the most of her life. And we shall see 
 how wonderfully her activity grew in scope and 
 intensity as her physical strength declined. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GLEAMS OF LIGHT 
 
 • A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a 
 ^5 note. He or she is a radiating focus of good-will : and 
 their entrance into a room is as though another candle had 
 been lighted.' — R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 With her happy disposition and natural optimism 
 Adele Kamm never brooded over difficulties. 
 Did she feel that return of hope, so often experi- 
 enced by consumptive patients even when death 
 is not far off ? We think not, but would rather 
 believe that, knowing that her condition was 
 hopeless, she meant to make the most of any 
 brief respite which might be granted her. Like 
 M. Seguin's brave little goat ^ when the wolf 
 was drawing near, she ran from one side to 
 another, eager to enjoy some fragrant morsels 
 before lying down in her white robe to die. 
 Between her return from Cannes and the autumn 
 of 1908 she had some delightful hours, which she 
 
 1 See Letlres de Mon Moulin, by Alphonse Daudet. 
 
 61 
 
62 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 enjoyed with all the energy of her abundant 
 vitality. 
 
 ' During the last two weeks,' she wrote on the 
 9th of June, * I have had much less pain. I am 
 still sore and throbbing all over, but I am so 
 thankful that I feel easier. Pain no longer takes 
 up all my attention. My mind is freer. Spirit 
 and intellect alike feel braced and strengthened. 
 I seem to see everything from a saner, calmer 
 point of view. . . . These few days or weeks of 
 respite which I enjoy from time to time help 
 me to pull up with marvellous elasticity. Then 
 when the bad days return I have fresh strength 
 and courage to bear them. At Cannes I had 
 three months of pain without a single good day ; 
 that really was too much, but now I feel as though 
 I can breathe again. . . . 
 
 ' No words can express how much I am enjoy- 
 ing life just now. . . . What a delightful feeling 
 it is to live in the present, to enjoy everything 
 just as it comes, to wake with the sense that a 
 quiet day lies before me full of inward peace, 
 freedom from anxiety and regret, and luminous 
 with the certainty that I am in the right path.' 
 
 Adele Kamm's doctors, the famous surgeon of 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT 63 
 
 Lausanne, Mr. R., and Dr. V. of Geneva (who 
 also was much attached to her), were not so well 
 satisfied with her condition as she was herself, 
 and gave her the strictest orders about keeping 
 still. But ' going slowly ' was not at all her 
 strong point. She loved to kick over the traces 
 sometimes, and play tricks on the doctors. Even 
 when these outbursts had cost her rather dear, 
 she delighted to describe them with mischievous 
 pleasure. 
 
 * La Bergeronnette, 5M October 1908. 
 
 * I have tried going out of doors in an invalid- 
 chair. All my doctors had forbidden it, but I 
 had been so unwell during the whole of the week 
 before that my patience got exhausted. And on 
 Monday afternoon, to the amazement of friends 
 and neighbours, I left my gilded cage in a com- 
 fortable little carriage, where I could partly 
 recline, feeling as happy as a queen. What a joy 
 it was to see the traffic, and to get another view 
 than that from La Bergeronnette. I wasn't the 
 least bit self-conscious, and just enjoyed the little 
 trip to the full, though four years ago I would 
 rather have died than appear on the Chene Road 
 in an invalid-chair. We went round by the 
 
64 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 " Ermitage " on to the promenade, where I 
 watched a wedding-party going into the church. 
 Then I spent the whole afternoon in Mr. G.'s 
 pretty garden, and had tea there. It was my 
 first visit after two years. Mont Blanc looked so 
 beautiful in the sunset. 
 
 ' All had gone well, even including the violent 
 jerks of the chair, which I had not minded 
 particularly. I was radiant. But — in the even- 
 ing, when I was back in bed, I began to feel rather 
 bad, and the next morning I was in much pain 
 either from the spine, or from the lower part of 
 the body, which looked as though I had had an 
 injection of tuberculin. 
 
 ' But I wanted to make the experiment thor- 
 oughly, and not be a mollycoddle ! So the next 
 day, taking advantage of the fine weather, I went 
 to the G's., who were horror-struck when I arrived. 
 It was such a lovely afternoon, and I look back 
 on it with great pleasure. But it was my last 
 expedition in the chair. For three days I have 
 had acute pain from an open abscess, caused by 
 the jolting on those two outings. . . .' 
 
 In spite of this vexatious experience Adele 
 would not give in. On the Friday, being in less 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT 65 
 
 pain, she went off in a motor-car to visit some 
 friends near Chene, ' in order to test at once the 
 difference between the jolting of the bath-chair 
 and of the motor, and then see the result.' This 
 long drive was very enjoyable, almost like a dream 
 of the Arabian Nights ! And, to add to the 
 piquancy of the whole adventure, Dr. V., sus- 
 pecting nothing, came to La Bergeronnette and 
 found ' the cage empty and the bird flown.' As 
 the harm was done, he thought it best to laugh 
 at the escapade, especially as his original little 
 patient told him quite seriously, ' I never thought 
 I was so delicate.' However, the doctor's final 
 verdict was this : ' You may have a short motor- 
 drive once in three months, but there must be 
 no more going out in the bath-chair.' ' I have 
 definitely given up the idea of going out either 
 on foot or in a bath-chair,' she wrote, ' and I can 
 say that I have done so bravely and without tears, 
 although it is a great disappointment. I have 
 begged them to take the chair away without my 
 knowing anything about it.' 
 
 But she had not made any promise about 
 motoring, and had certainly not given her word 
 to play no more tricks on the doctors. Three 
 
 E 
 
66 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 months was too long for her to wait. A fortnight 
 later some friends from Naples came to fetch her 
 in a beautiful limousine, and carried her off for a 
 two hours' drive. They took her through all the 
 chief streets of Geneva. She loved the noise of 
 traffic, the rush of life in a big town. She was 
 taken six times over the Mont Blanc bridge. 
 She had not seen the lake for two years. We can 
 imagine how much she enjoyed it. 
 
 Two days later the friends from Naples came 
 again. And what did they do this time ? They 
 began dancing the tarentella ! The dance was 
 at its height, when they suddenly heard the sound 
 of a motor-horn, as threatening as the trumpet 
 of Hernani ! It was Dr. V., arriving at the usual 
 hour. ' He came into the drawing-room,' said 
 Adele Kamm, *^ amazed at all this upset, for we 
 had turned up the carpet for the dance, and 
 people and furniture crowded up the room, and 
 overflowed on to the verandah. He had managed 
 to get a seat somehow, when suddenly a voice 
 exclaimed : " Time for the train ! " And every 
 one had to get up and rush off. The doctor was 
 quite bewildered, and it was all he could do to 
 take leave of the guests in proper style. When at 
 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT 67 
 
 last every one had gone, and we found ourselves 
 alone in this sudden quiet, amid all this dis- 
 order, we looked at each other, and then burst 
 out laughing.' 
 
 But there were still more surprises in store for 
 the doctor. He had come in a new car, which he 
 was showing off to his patient, when the latter — 
 impatient for the moment of all restrictions — 
 jumped into the car, and went off for a turn with 
 the chauffeur. When she came back she had to 
 go straight to bed. Then followed the sound- 
 ing process, accompanied hy grave looks on the 
 doctor's part. And then — what a lecture ! ' Fear- 
 ing a storm,' said she, ' I took his hand, and gently 
 asked him not to be cross, as that gave me pal- 
 pitations. . . . (What diplomacy !) He talked 
 to me quite nicely and quietly, but he forbade 
 me a great many things. I am not to go to 
 Lausanne in a motor to see Dr. R. (Ahem !) ; I 
 must not move from my invalid-chair without 
 being lifted ; I am not to raise my arms or move 
 suddenly ; in short, I am to live as though I were 
 ninety and crippled with rheumatism. I had 
 great difficulty in keeping my face straight, for 
 I know that I can never carry out all that. To 
 
68 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 look ill is worse than being ill. And Dr. V. knows 
 that he is wasting his breath on this subject.' 
 And, indeed, unless Adele Kamm were literally 
 in agony, she never allowed herself to look like 
 an invalid. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A SUMMONS TO ACTION 
 
 'It must be that when the Lord took from me one faculty, 
 He gave me another; which is in no way impossible. I 
 think of the beautiful Italian proveib : " When God shuts a 
 door He opens a window.'" — Helen Keller. 
 
 At the end of 1908 the disease took a more viru- 
 lent form than ever before. When the doctors 
 were asked to locate the root of the mischief, they 
 could only reply, ' It is everywhere.' They were 
 powerless, and were deeply distressed in conse- 
 quence. No surgical skill could relieve her. 
 Every part of the body suffered, the neck, back, 
 chest, internal organs, and heart. If the pain 
 grew easier in one place, it only became worse in 
 another. ' It is a regular labyrinth of threads 
 which tug in all directions,' said Adele, with 
 quiet philosophy. And when the abscesses gave 
 her great pain, she tried to take comfort in the 
 fact that her back was a little easier, and that she 
 
70 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 could lie for a time on her side, a position which 
 was generally out of the question. 
 
 During the last few days of the year the pain 
 became unbearable. After having held out for 
 a long time, Adele at last consented to have an 
 injection of morphia, but she could not stand it. 
 The 1st of January 1909 was one of the worst 
 days that she had ever had. 
 
 ' I have spent a dreadful New Year's Day,' she 
 wrote. * The attack which had been coming on all 
 through the Christmas week reached a crisis on 
 New Year's Day, and I could not see any one, but 
 spent my time groaning. That was lively, wasn't 
 it ? I thought I should have a worse attack 
 than usual, for my nights have been so bad lately, 
 that I have finished up regularly by crying at mid- 
 night, and you know that I do not cry easily. But 
 the strain was too intense.' 
 
 But this same New Year's Day, which was 
 marked by such terrible suffering, was to bring 
 her a great joy. There were many other similar 
 coincidences in her life. Unexpected help would 
 come at the very moment when it was most 
 needed ; or a difficulty, apparently insurmount- 
 able, would be cleared away in the happiest and 
 
A SUMMONS TO ACTION 71 
 
 most unlooked-for manner. In all these circum- 
 stances Adele Kamm traced a Divine Hand. 
 
 ' On this New Year's Day,' she said, ' I realised 
 more clearly than ever before the vast gulf which 
 separates the physical from the spiritual realm. 
 The former was a perfect chaos, and the latter 
 was so happy that the contrast was striking.' 
 She had received a letter from Mr. H., the 
 chaplain at Leysin, suggesting a method of carry- 
 ing out one of her long-cherished desires, and 
 of doing useful work. There was nothing she 
 wanted more. Her thoughts were constantly 
 occupied with those who were chronic sufferers 
 like herself, and especially with those at Leysin. 
 She could so weU understand what they were 
 enduring in body and mind, and she felt that she 
 had the power to enter into their lives very fully, 
 and to give just the right words of comfort and 
 encouragement out of the treasure of her own 
 spiritual experience. But how could she come 
 into actual contact with them, now that she was 
 so entirely cut off from the world ? This was 
 the question she had put to Mr. H. in a letter 
 dated the 30th of December : 
 
 * I often think of the great work you are doing 
 
72 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 up there. My heart is overflowing with love for 
 those who suffer, whether they be rich or poor, 
 for they all need fellowship with others who can 
 help and strengthen them as well as sympathise. 
 I should so like to help you in your work. . . . 
 But I am shut up in my room, and I can assure 
 you, dear friend, that the only sorrow I cannot 
 overcome is that of being unable to help these 
 suffering ones, towards whom my heart goes out 
 daily. But, 
 
 '" If I cannot realise my ideal 
 I can at least idealise my real." ^ 
 
 The little writing I can do is one of the few ways 
 left in which I can be of any use. If you should 
 know of any friends who are ill like me, and would 
 welcome a letter, please tell me. . . .' 
 
 And Adele added : 
 
 ' I keep thinking of prisoners, shut up as I am, 
 but in a cell instead of a pretty pink room, with 
 strength instead of weakness of body, their only 
 memory a guilty past, and with a hopeless future 
 before them. If they do not know the Saviour, 
 
 ' Adele Kamin had these lines printed as a motto on the cover of 
 her booklet, Joyful in Tribulation. 
 
A SUMMONS TO ACTION 73 
 
 what a terrible life ! If only I were strong 
 enough to visit them ! . . .' 
 
 We shall see later how Adele Kamm found a 
 way to send a message of love to prisoners. We 
 shall also see how she managed to work out her 
 idea of a Pavilion for Open-air Treatment for 
 patients living in large towns. In his letter 
 Mr. H. asked Adele to put down her reflections 
 on suffering, and to send her notes to him that 
 he might make use of them in his ministry.^ This 
 letter was quite enough to help her to forget the 
 terrible pain. It made her ' wild with joy ' ; that 
 is the very expression she used. She saw a radiant 
 path opening up before her, leading out of the 
 cavern in which she was imprisoned. It was a 
 summons to action, and she felt that once more 
 she had an object in life. She need no longer 
 suffer from the painful sense of being nothing 
 but a poor wounded soldier, laid aside as useless, 
 and depending entirely upon others. She would 
 now be able to do something for them. Even 
 
 1 Adele Kamm had been much touched by a little book written 
 by a young invalid at Montreux : To Ihose Who are Shut-in -. The 
 Message of an Inualid to other Sufferers. — Lausanne, George Bridel. 
 
74 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 she could make her influence felt. Feverishly 
 she began to write, working through the long 
 hours of sleeplessness ; ^ and these notes, into 
 which she poured her whole loving heart, without 
 the least straining after literary effect, became 
 the booklet to which we have referred more than 
 once already. 
 
 I pity the man who reads Joyful in Tribulation 
 in a critical spirit, who cannot see behind the 
 artless simpHcity of the style the radiant beauty 
 of a soul which reveals its inmost secrets for the 
 sake of those who have to follow the same painful 
 course that she had already travelled, before 
 reaching the haven of peace. And I would like 
 to say to this ultra-refined reader, ' If ever you 
 in your turn should be chained down to a bed of 
 pain, take up this booklet again, and you will 
 then appreciate its value ! ' It is written for 
 sufferers first and foremost, and hundreds and 
 even thousands of them have welcomed it eagerly 
 as a refreshing draught to cool their spiritual 
 thirst. It has gone as a messenger of peace into 
 
 1 ' God Himself,' she wrote to a friend, ' gave me strength to write 
 this booklet, and even dictated its language. For I wrote it at 
 night during high fever, without any preconceived plan, just as it 
 
 came. 
 
A SUMMONS TO ACTION 75 
 
 many a darkened room, where the body is racked 
 with pain, and the spirit seethes with rebelHon. 
 It has brought with it a breath of heaven, and 
 a hfe-giving warmth. To some, as we know, 
 it has opened up a new Hfe. O httle book, 
 hardly deserving the name of ' book ' (what does 
 that matter ?). How many books would I not 
 give for you ! 
 
 The booklet. Joyful in Tribulation, begun at a 
 time when Adele Kamm seemed to have reached 
 a condition of absolute helplessness, when she 
 would need all her strength to support the crush- 
 ing weight of her own suffering, proved to be 
 the first step on a path of redoubled activity and 
 growing influence in all directions. Henceforth 
 she had a powerful interest outside herself, a 
 definite outlet for all her energy. And from the 
 beginning she found it quite amusing (once the 
 vexed question of literary style was settled) to 
 learn the technical side of the profession of letters, 
 to ' see herself in print,' to choose paper and type, 
 to discuss business with printers, and to correct 
 proofs ! Adele corresponded busily with Mr. H., 
 who helped her with his advice, while at the same 
 
76 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 time he left her quite free to work out her ideas 
 as she chose. The booklet is her own work right 
 through, from the first page to the last. And not 
 only did this enterprising little person launch out 
 as an ' authoress,' but she was her own publisher 
 as well, her object being to earn money that she 
 might give the profits to the scheme for a 
 ' Pavilion for Open-air Treatment.' ^ She soon 
 displayed remarkable financial and administrative 
 ability. We have a good many women in Switzer- 
 land who are gifted in this direction. I know 
 one, a beautiful and attractive girl, who, at the 
 age of twenty-two, managed a hotel at the Cape 
 during the Boer War, when the whole country 
 was swarming with adventurers. Adele Kamm 
 would have been quite equal to such a task. At 
 the age of fifteen she would often help her mother 
 to finish up difficult accounts. She managed her 
 booklet so well that the profits were substantial. 
 I told her one day that all the literary people in 
 French Switzerland might envy her financial 
 success ! 
 
 * Adele Kamm wished to pay the printing expenses out of her 
 own savin<^s. She used a small sum which she had put aside for the 
 purchase of invalid-chairs for poor patients. 
 
A SUMMONS TO ACTION 77 
 
 And what a pleasure it was to receive the 
 requests which poured in from all quarters, and 
 to see the piles of booklets disappearing at such 
 a rate that new editions had to be ordered.^ 
 The goal had been reached at one bound. The 
 gentle voice issuing from this sickroom was to 
 awaken an echo in many hearts. Every post 
 brought fresh letters from unknown correspond- 
 ents ; once she had as many as fifty-seven in one 
 week, and she made it a duty to answer each one 
 personally. What a task for a girl whom the 
 doctors considered to be in the last stage of 
 disease ! But in doing this she found new strength 
 and joy. She took on a new lease of life. Goethe 
 liked to assert that a man cannot die until he gives 
 his consent. Adele Kamm did not consent to 
 die, although she had no fear of death.^ At the 
 
 * The booklet is known abroad as well as in Switzerland. A 
 German edition has been published, with a preface by the Rev. E. 
 Hoffet, entitled Frohlich im Tr'uhsal. Strassburger Druckerei und 
 Verlagsanstalt, Filiale Colinar. 
 
 2 Letter of" 9th July 1909 to Mrs. F. G. : 'I am under no 
 delusion on this point. I know that I have extraordinary vitality, 
 but I am getting gradually weaker, and all I ask of God is to let me 
 live another year or two in spite of my pain, for the sake of my dear 
 ones, who are feeling the loss of my father very keenly. ... I love 
 life, I enjoy it intensely, but I also love the thought of death, of 
 being nearer to God, of knowing at last the joy and glory of that 
 
78 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 beginning of her illness, when her Hfe seemed 
 useless, and her sufferings were almost beyond 
 endurance, she certainly did desire to be set free 
 by death, for she was full of the sure and certain 
 hope of immortality. But now that she felt that 
 she had a definite work to do, she determined to 
 live as long as she possibly could. ' As far as I am 
 concerned,' she wrote on the ist of April 1910 
 to Mr. H., ' I should be quite glad to be freed 
 from suffering and to be with God. Nevertheless 
 I struggle hard to remain here as long as I can, 
 for there is so much work to do, and this makes 
 me very happy. Above all, I must live for my 
 dear mother's sake, for she would be very lonely 
 without me. So I am taking care of myself, and 
 I am fighting against this terrible disease as hard 
 as I can, disputing every inch of the way, and I 
 quite hope that the extraordinary physical vitality 
 which characterises our family will help me to 
 offer a prolonged resistance. But that means 
 that I must suffer a great deal, and never leave 
 my bed.' 
 
 So Adele Kamm did not consent to die until 
 
 "Eternal Life" promised and realised by Christ. Life and death 
 are alike joy to me, so my heart is confident and at peace.' 
 
A SUMMONS TO ACTION 79 
 
 she could literally hold out no longer. For more 
 than two years yet she was to live and work with 
 renewed energy, in spite of the fact that according 
 to all the well-established laws of medical science 
 it was impossible for her to be alive at all. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A WIDENING CIRCLE 
 
 'Joy is a most contagious catching thing. But of all joys, 
 joy in the midst of trouble . . . nothing persuades the world 
 of the reality of religion more than the deep rest it brings to 
 the believing heart. A mind at perfect peace — that is the 
 mystery of Christian living, that is the secret of communion 
 with God.' — Barbour. 
 
 The inward life of Adele Kamm came to its full 
 development in the year 1909, and her character 
 ripened in a most beautiful way. It was also 
 the most active period of her life. A little while 
 before her death she said : ' That was the 
 happiest year of my life.' Nevertheless, as we 
 shall see, it proved the beginning of a period 
 of yet more painful limitation — that of entire 
 confinement to bed. In the early part of this 
 year she passed into the shadow of a great sorrow, 
 for on the 22nd of February 1909 her father, 
 then aged eighty-four, died after an attack of 
 apoplexy. Adele was deeply attached to him, 
 and the bond which united*^ father and child was 
 
A WIDENING CIRCLE 8i 
 
 very close and tender. It was his delight to 
 instruct her in mathematics, for Adele was a very- 
 apt pupil. He had also taken the keenest interest 
 in her little book, Joyful in Tribulation?- 
 
 After her father's death Adele felt an increased 
 sense of responsibility. One of her intimate 
 friends told me that from that moment her 
 character deepened visibly. At one bound the 
 young girl, accustomed to depend on the shelter- 
 ing affection of others, leapt into womanhood. 
 A certain disciphned maturity added dignity to 
 her natural charm, while with loving wisdom she 
 
 1 Letter to Mrs. F. G., 29th July 1909 : 'All the work connected 
 with my little book had to be done last spring when I was so ill, 
 besides being terribly shaken by the death of my dear father ; he 
 passed away after an attack of apoplexy, and I was only able to see 
 him twice before he died. This little book was my father's last 
 real pleasure 5 he only saw it in manuscript, but he helped me so 
 much by his encouraging advice and sympathy.' 
 
 Out of respect to her father's memory Adele Kamm refused to 
 make any corrections in the MS. which he had read through with 
 her. Her friends at Leysin particularly wished her to leave out the 
 following passage : * This is one of the most beautiful things I have 
 ever seen : two hundred people living together for a whole winter in 
 absolute harmony, free from gossip and scandal or any kind of dis- 
 agreement — the spirit of friendship binding all into one large 
 family.' 
 
 Adele Kamm was certainly mistaken on this point. In her quiet 
 room peace and charity reigned supreme ; but otherwise the 
 sanatorium life went on as before, excepting that her presence was 
 an additional influence for good. 
 
 F 
 
82 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 guided and encouraged all who came into touch 
 with her. She exercised this growing influence 
 with so much delicate tact that no one could 
 possibly resent it. The young invalid was now 
 in a position to give a hundred times more than 
 she received. 
 
 Her own family came first, for she did not 
 belong to the class of people who reserve their 
 gracious manners for the outside world. She 
 began her ministry of joy among those whom 
 she loved best, and upon them she lavished the 
 tenderest and most delicate affection. In all 
 the small difficulties of daily life she tried to make 
 things run smoothly, until little by little her 
 contented, happy spirit infected the whole family. 
 She did not wish her illness to prevent her younger 
 sister from enjoying herself ; indeed, she was 
 quite anxious to see her sharing in all the innocent 
 gaiety of girls of her age, and her soHcitude was 
 quite maternal. As for her mother, who during 
 this long illness nursed her with unbounded 
 tenderness and devotion, Adele's one thought was 
 to save her as much trouble as possible. Gradu- 
 ally she succeeded in leading her dear ones along 
 the same path that she herself had trodden, from 
 
A WIDENING CIRCLE 83 
 
 anguish and rebellion to submission, and from 
 submission to joy. No incurable invalid ever had 
 a happier home circle. 
 
 She had the same gracious welcome for all, 
 and made no distinction of class or creed. The 
 necessity for looking the essential facts of life and 
 death in the face had placed her above all that 
 was petty and small in her daily life. Among her 
 most frequent visitors were a Roman Catholic 
 lady-doctor and a well-known Agnostic. The 
 latter came twice a week to give Adele a zoology 
 lesson. But it would seem that the positions 
 were reversed, and as far as spiritual things were 
 concerned the pupil became the teacher. ' On 
 Saturday,' she wrote in January 1909, ' Mr. X. 
 happened to be here at the same time as one of 
 my friends, who had asked me to read my little 
 book ^ aloud to her, which I did in fear and 
 trembling, not daring to look at Mr. X., who was 
 sitting at one end of the sofa. When I had 
 finished reading (I was secretly surprised that 
 he had not interrupted me) I looked up . . . 
 and you may imagine my astonishment when I 
 tell you that both Mrs. G. and Mr. X. were too 
 
 1 Joyful in Tiikulation. 
 
84 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 much affected to speak ! . . . When Mrs. G. 
 had left he came up to me, took both my hands 
 in his, and said, *' You write beautifully, but I do 
 not wish you to overtire yourself ; you ought not 
 to copy all that out just now. I wonder whether 
 . . . you would mind . . . letting me copy out 
 those pages for Leysin. ..." I was deeply 
 touched, and all day long I kept on repeating in 
 my heart, *' Thank God for this change in Mr. X. ! " 
 Of course he is not yet a believer, but at least he 
 has learnt that real religion is a thing of living 
 significance, and he respects it in consequence. 
 And that is more than I had dared to expect. . . . 
 Some days later Mr. X. came back with a most 
 beautifully written copy. And he read it all 
 through to me, even the hymn : 
 
 "It is at the Cross that the way begins . . .'" 
 
 It is indeed a delightful scene, and one which 
 breathes an atmosphere of unconscious dignity 
 and elevation of character. 
 
 The little book, Joyful in Tribulation, roused a 
 widespread feeling of interest in the brave young 
 invalid. All over Switzerland people were stirred 
 by an eager desire to know her personally. Letters 
 
A WIDENING CIRCLE 85 
 
 and visitors from near and far began to pour into 
 La Bergeronnette, and it was a wonder that the 
 admiration and praise which every one lavished 
 upon her, and the pubHc role which she was more 
 and more called upon to play, did not affect 
 her character. It was very dangerous for a 
 young girl to attract so much attention, especially 
 as many of her visitors were clergymen, who looked 
 upon her as a remarkable ' case,' and held her up 
 as an example to others. It was indeed the 
 greatest moral danger which had threatened her. 
 The slightest shade of unreaHty would have ruined 
 for ever the influence of this splendid life ! 
 
 She certainly did not suffer from lack of good 
 advice ! People were constantly admonishing her 
 thus : ' My child, be a modest girl ; take care 
 that you do not become vain ! . . . May God 
 keep you from the sin of pride, and preserve you 
 in true Christian humility ! ' . . . More than 
 once the poor girl cried bitterly about it. 
 
 On every hand she heard the words, repeated 
 in varying tones of warning and reproof, * Hu- 
 mility, humiliation . . . freedom from pride and 
 vanity.' 
 
 * These words,' she wrote to Mr. H., ' and 
 
86 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 above all what they imply, are beginning to hurt 
 me very much indeed. Please tell me frankly 
 if people really think I am proud and vain ! 
 Perhaps I am a little unwise in letting people see 
 how pleased I am about this work, but that surely 
 cannot be wrong, for God knows that it costs me 
 a great deal, and that I do it gladly for love of 
 Him. . . . But I do find it so difficult to hide my 
 feelings. 
 
 * I am only sorry that people cannot read my 
 inmost thoughts; they would then see how free 
 I am from pride and self-sufficiency. Sometimes 
 the thought of my imperfections and shortcomings 
 almost drives me to despair ! That is why I 
 admire and appreciate all my visitors, even the 
 Agnostics, because I feel that they are better than 
 I am. It is this feeling which makes me shrink 
 from doing anything that is not quite usual. For 
 some time I hesitated about writing my little book 
 lest I should seem to be setting myself up as an 
 example ; and even after I had begun it, more 
 than once I laid down my pen and felt as though 
 I could not go on. It is just because I am humble 
 that I have dared to write down the story of my 
 feehngs, my struggles, my revolts, and the pro- 
 
A WIDENING CIRCLE 87 
 
 gress which I made under the influence of God 
 and my friends, and not by my own strength. 
 You will understand that it cuts me to the quick 
 when I hear that some of my friends are dubious 
 about me ; perhaps only God and those nearest 
 me know my real spiritual state.' 
 
 Over and over again, to various correspondents, 
 she dilated upon the embarrassment she felt in 
 being almost forced into a public life. The un- 
 expected success of her booklet overwhelmed her. 
 She would often exclaim, ' Oh, how I should like 
 to hide myself and become a private individual 
 once more ! ' But she was sustained by the con- 
 viction that she had not chosen this work for her- 
 self, but that God had given it to her ; and her 
 sense of vocation deepened as she found that 
 He enabled her to fulfil her ministry in spite 
 of extreme and sometimes prostrating physical 
 weakness. 
 
 In November 1909 the vertebrae of her neck 
 were so badly affected that she thought that 
 she would have to give up writing altogether. 
 The following letter on this subject to Mr. H. 
 expresses nothing but the most joyful sub- 
 
88 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 'zij/ November 1909. 
 
 * . . . God has lavished upon me such a multi- 
 tude of utterly unmerited blessings ; He has 
 turned every hour of my affliction into such deep 
 pure joy that I feel absolutely ready to accept 
 whatever He sends in a spirit of quiet confidence. 
 He gave me the power to write in the first instance, 
 and if He takes it away from me it only means that 
 He does not wish me to continue this sweet and 
 precious ministry. Or, perhaps, it may be that 
 He has heard the secret sigh of my heart. You 
 know that I am very happy, and yet sometimes 
 my spirit faints within me, for I am finding the 
 burden of popularity almost too heavy for me to 
 bear. I am for ever being torn between the joy 
 of working for God in the sweet ministry of con- 
 solation, and the desire to retire into privacy, 
 and live in quiet communion with God. I feel 
 that if I can no longer write it will be a great 
 blessing which God has sent me, and I await 
 it with confidence.' 
 
 This ' popularity,' which often tried her spirit, 
 only increased as time went on. When her family 
 actually settled down in Geneva, there was such 
 an influx of visitors that sometimes her room was 
 
A WIDENING CIRCLE 89 
 
 never empty from nine in the morning till seven 
 at night ! Adele Kamm's tact never deserted 
 her, though on some days she would have several 
 visitors at the same time who belonged to very 
 different circles of society, and who held widely 
 divergent opinions. She knew exactly how to 
 choose the fitting word for each, and how to avoid 
 awkward subjects of conversation. 
 
 I said to her one day : * Do you not find all 
 this work very exhausting ? ' ' Never,' she 
 answered, ' I need it. It is my life, though if I 
 do any little unimportant thing, just for myself, 
 I am tired out in a few minutes. But I must 
 confess that I would like to have a little more 
 time for meditation and prayer. At present 
 solitude is impossible excepting at night, when the 
 pain is bad and keeps me awake. Otherwise I 
 sleep perfectly well. I am not at all a nervous 
 person. . . .' Her doctors did not agree with 
 her on the last point, and this used to vex her. 
 ' If she had not had a nervous temperament,' said 
 one of them to me, ' she would have died long 
 ago. She could not have lived through those 
 long attacks of fever when the only nourishment 
 she could take was less than a glass of milk a day.' 
 
90 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 So I suppose that we must conclude that she had 
 a nervous temperament, but that by steady self- 
 control she turned it into a servant instead of an 
 enemy. She could throw herself so blindly into 
 a scheme as to lose all sense of proportion. For 
 the time being she would literally see nothing 
 else ! If she had been self-centred or introspec- 
 tive, she could just as easily have suffered from 
 a violent reaction in the opposite direction ; she 
 might have given way to profound depression 
 when her hopes were disappointed, or when the 
 burden of the suffering of others became too 
 heavy for her to bear. But she did not do so. 
 She was always strong and self-contained. She 
 possessed a strong will and a simple faith, and 
 this combination made her a powerful influence 
 for good. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOUISE DEVENOGE 
 
 * It is Love which has a passion for giving, for ministry, 
 for service. . . . Life, real, free, irrepressible, bursts into 
 action, has its very being in bestowment from its own ful- 
 ness.' — Fairbairn. 
 
 As time went on Adele Kamm's doctors insisted 
 more and more strongly on the necessity for 
 absolute rest. When the fine weather returned 
 this enforced inactivity tried her greatly. ' I 
 have been rather low-spirited lately,' she wrote 
 to Mr. H. in May 1909, ' but it is all right again 
 now. Every spring I let myself mope for a 
 fortnight ! When the warm days come, and I 
 know that the outside world is full of singing and 
 of bursting buds and new life, I feel my weak- 
 ness more than ever, and an almost irresistible 
 longing comes over me to get up and go out, 
 and move about freely ! For the last fortnight 
 I have been somewhat out of tune. But that 
 is over, and I am quite happy and serene.' 
 
92 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 She had been obliged to give up going down 
 to the garden ; and as it was difficult to give her 
 the requisite care in the country, the family moved 
 into Geneva, to a comfortable flat in the upper 
 part of the new municipal buildings of Eaux-Vives 
 (a suburb of the city), where Adele could have a 
 sunny room looking out over the Pre I'Eveque. 
 
 The journey from La Bergeronnette to her new 
 home was made by ambulance. It was very 
 painful, and Adele arrived feeling thoroughly 
 weary and ill. But she was delighted with her 
 pretty pink room, which was very bright and 
 cheerful, and still more with the verandah which 
 opened out of it ; this was so gay with flowers 
 that it looked like a veritable hanging garden ! 
 On warm afternoons she could be wheeled in 
 there on a movable bed. Certainly the Pre 
 I'Eveque is no longer what it used to be — a green 
 meadow encircled by giant elm-trees. The elms 
 have either been cut down to make way for stiflF 
 avenues, or else they have been so clipped and 
 pruned that they look like maimed beggars raising 
 their stumps to heaven in despair ! And all 
 around this open space are gloomy and pre- 
 tentious-looking houses. But Adele did not 
 
LOUISE DEVENOGE 93 
 
 appear to notice these blots on the landscape. 
 She was not hypercritical in aesthetic matters ; 
 illness alone compelled her to lead the life of a 
 recluse. Her natural aspirations were all directed 
 towards the life of action and command. 
 
 ' During the four years we spent in the country,' 
 she wrote on the 14th of August 1909, ' I was out 
 of everything, and since we moved here in May 
 I seem to have come back to civilisation, and I 
 am enjoying it immensely ! ' From her window 
 she never tired of watching the rush of traffic in 
 the street below, or of listening to the mighty 
 hum of the life of the city. The constant rumble 
 of passing tramcars, motors, and wagons did not 
 annoy her in the least. She loved to catch the 
 distant echo of popular rejoicings. The following 
 year, when the great Musical Festival was held, 
 she was delighted with the sound of the trumpets, 
 which floated up to her from afar. But at night 
 a noisy crowd streamed out on to the Square, and 
 drunken cries and snatches of ribald songs were 
 wafted into her quiet room, over which a 
 holy peace was always brooding. Instinctively 
 her pure spirit shrank from the unaccustomed 
 sounds of evil revelry ; to her it was the painful 
 
94 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 reminder of an unknown world, a world of sin 
 and shame. ' During this Musical Festival,' she 
 wrote on the 20th of August, ' there has been such 
 an outbreak of drunkenness that the streets of 
 Geneva have resounded all night long with wild 
 beast shouts and cries. . . . When the bells 
 began to ring on Sunday morning, filling the air 
 with their clear and joyful melody, a melody 
 which harmonised so exquisitely with the beauty 
 of the summer morning, and with the purest 
 aspirations of the soul, I was almost overwhelmed 
 by the sense of the havoc made by sin.' 
 
 Adele Kamm spent a few radiantly happy 
 afternoons upon her verandah, but this pleasure 
 was of brief duration. She soon became seriously 
 ill, and was obliged to remain altogether in her 
 room, and in bed. She accepted this fresh 
 deprivation without a murmur. Nevertheless 
 it cost her a great deal. She wrote thus on the 
 14th of August 1909 : ' I could not have believed 
 that it would have made things so difficult, or 
 that fresh air was such a necessity both for body 
 and mind ! For a fortnight I had been carried 
 each morning on to the flowery verandah which 
 adjoins my room, and it was such a delicious rest 
 
LOUISE DEVENOGE 95 
 
 and relief ! . . . But I have not been able to 
 continue this practice. The fact that the disease 
 has broken out more violently than ever, accom- 
 panied by high fever, shows me that Adele Kamm 
 ought to be in her bed and in her room instead 
 of lying out among the flowers ! ... It has been 
 rather a hard lesson, but I have accepted it, 
 and now I am enjoying that delightful sense of 
 repose which is the fruit of spiritual victory ! ' 
 
 At that time she was tormented by constant 
 pain in the neck, so much so that she could no 
 longer bear the weight of her head. As she had 
 trouble in swallowing, a specialist examined her 
 and discovered that a diseased bone was piercing 
 through the flesh. Some way of supporting the 
 head had to be found, and with a good deal of 
 difficulty a plaster impression was taken, and in 
 November a kind of celluloid support was made 
 to cover the neck and shoulders. She could not 
 bear this instrument for very long. While she 
 wore it she used to be propped up in a half- 
 sitting position. Though her head was motion- 
 less upon the pillows, she looked as bright and 
 sweet as usual, and her restless dark eyes gave her 
 face a great deal of animation. 
 
96 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 She was radiantly happy now, for a new field 
 of usefulness had just opened up before her, 
 which provided an outlet for all her energies. 
 We have seen that her thoughts went out con- 
 stantly to all incurable sufferers, and that she 
 corresponded regularly with many of them. The 
 number of those who depended on her was con- 
 stantly increasing. When she grew worse she 
 feared that she would have to give up the attempt 
 to answer (in the way she wished to do) all the 
 letters she received, some of which were from 
 entire strangers. The day that she was moved 
 to the flat in Eaux-Vives she had a letter from 
 Miss Louise Devenoge, suggesting that she should 
 start a society for invalids similar to those existing 
 in the United States. 
 
 The name of Louise Devenoge should not be 
 separated from that of Adele Kamm. The 
 Society of the * Coccinelles ' is their united 
 enterprise. They died within two days of each 
 other,^ leaving behind them the same courageous 
 example. The circumstances of their lives were 
 
 * Louise Devenoge died on the i6th of March 191 1, on the day 
 of Adcle Kamm's funeral. The two young invalids, who had done 
 so much for the same object, met only once. Louise Devenoge was 
 on one occasion carried to the Mairie des Eaux-Vives. 
 
LOUISE DEVENOGE 97 
 
 very similar, excepting that Louise Devenoge had 
 to fight against poverty as well as against disease. 
 She was born at Geneva on the 15th of June 
 1877, in humble circumstances, and she lost her 
 mother when she was only three years old. She 
 was a delicate child, who did not receive the care 
 she required. She never knew the tenderness 
 which her affectionate nature needed ; so her 
 childhood and girlhood passed by in an atmo- 
 sphere of grey monotony. She picked up a 
 meagre education at an elementary school, where 
 her attendance was irregular, owing to her fragile 
 health. As soon as she left she was apprenticed 
 to a waistcoat-maker. Unfortunately, her mis- 
 tress thought she was lazy, and urged her on 
 when she was really suffering from exhaustion. 
 When at last they realised that she was ill, she was 
 sent to the Dollfus Hospital at Cannes. Later 
 on she was boarded out with peasant families at 
 Pressy, Choulex, and in the Canton of Vaud. For 
 some time she was under treatment in the hospitals 
 of Geneva and Lausanne. Both legs were para- 
 lysed, and finally she was pronounced incurable. 
 
 Instead of retarding her inward progress, suffer- 
 ing only seemed to refine her character and in- 
 
98 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 tensify her spiritual vigour. We are told that 
 she had large intelligent dark eyes, a trifle restless 
 in expression, which shone out strangely in her 
 pale, thin face. Her religious hfe was deepened 
 by the courageous manner in which she accepted 
 her affliction. Intelligent above the average, she 
 developed her powers of mind by reading and 
 reflection, as well as by thoughtful conversation 
 with the clergymen and other educated people 
 who visited her. She had heard of the Hospital 
 for Cripple Children, founded by Dr. Edward 
 Martin at Pinchat, and she asked to be received 
 as a patient, although she was then more than 
 twenty years of age. There she spent the best 
 years of her life. From her bed, which was 
 placed at an angle of the large ward, she could see 
 the whole room ; from that point of vantage 
 she was able to act as elder sister to the little 
 patients ; she devoted herself entirely to their 
 interests, keeping them happily employed for 
 hours together, either in learning hymns and 
 poems, or in various kinds of handiwork. Thanks 
 to her influence a very happy spirit prevailed in 
 the Home, and the sense that she was actively and 
 usefully employed cheered her greatly. 
 
LOUISE DEVENOGE 99 
 
 When her helplessness increased, and she needed 
 more attention than they could give her in a 
 Children's Hospital, she was taken to Dr. Martin's 
 Private Nursing Home at Champel. The last 
 years of her life were spent there. Practically 
 every patient came under the spell of her in- 
 fluence.^ Her strong brave spirit was a lasting 
 inspiration, and her whole life was a silent sermon 
 on patience and submission. ' She was never 
 selfish,' wrote one of her friends ; ' in her weakness 
 she was always thinking of what she could do for 
 others. I used to admire the way she would 
 manage to make little articles of needlework, 
 though the effort tired her very much. It is not 
 exactly easy to sew when you cannot move your 
 head, and when it tumbles about in all directions 
 
 ^ After her death one of her fellow-sufferers paid her the following 
 tribute: 'When I became ill myself I found the first rays of 
 comfort, and later on a constant support, in Louise's wonderful 
 patience and serenity. For nine years her love was always the same, 
 ready to enfold me in its healing warmth on bad and good days 
 alike. I can never express what I owe to her . . . she has opened 
 my eyes to so much. . . .' 
 
 Mr. Arthur Masse, a member of the Society of the * Coccinelles,' 
 wrote an article on Louise Devenoge in the Semaine Religteuse of the 
 25th of March 1 9 1 1 . ' She had only one idea,' wrote Mr. Masse, ' to 
 do all in her power to comfort the sick, and to help them to accept 
 their suffering in that spirit of submission of which she was a living 
 witness, through a life of unusual trial and pain.' 
 
loo THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 unless it is propped up. ... I would often find 
 her in a most critical position, her head having 
 rolled off the pillow. She just waited patiently 
 until some one came to her aid. ... In this 
 condition of complete helplessness she had learnt 
 to be content with her lot, and she was always 
 cheerful, though she knew that there was no 
 hope of recovery for her. She mapped out her 
 time in such a way that each hour was usefully 
 employed — that is to say, when she had sufficient 
 respite from pain. . . .' 
 
 Louise Devenoge was just the person to work 
 with Adele Kamm. In action she also had found 
 not only strength to bear her own suffering, but 
 power to transform it into blessing both for her- 
 self and for others. Her energy was wonderful. 
 When she lost the use of her right hand she 
 learnt to write with her left, and carried on her 
 work to the last. She taught herself English, 
 and used to read regularly the magazine issued 
 by an Invalids' Union in America. It was this 
 which suggested to her mind the thought of 
 starting a similar society in Switzerland. Adele 
 Kamm took up the idea with enthusiasm, and this 
 new interest intensified her joy in life. With her 
 
LOUISE DEVENOGE loi 
 
 usual promptitude and decision she at once began 
 to work it out, but she made it quite clear that 
 Louise Devenoge was the real founder of the new 
 society. At its inception she wrote to her, in the 
 first circular letter of the ^ Coccinelles,' in the 
 following terms : ' I want the first message in this 
 paper to be addressed to you, that I may express 
 to you, in the name of all present and future 
 members of the Society of the " Coccinelles," our 
 deep gratitude for this work of love which has 
 issued from your sickroom ; especially do we 
 appreciate your spirit of absolute understanding 
 of the inward trials of your invalid sisters.' 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SOCIETY OF THE ' COCCINELLES ' 
 
 ' Whatever multiplies the bonds which attach man to man 
 makes him better and happier.' — Joueert. 
 
 In addition to physical suffering and inward con- 
 flicts, invalids are often oppressed by a sense of 
 ineffectiveness and uselessness, which is caused 
 by their inability to enter into ordinary life. 
 They are shut away from the world in a room 
 which may become almost a prison, unless they 
 have some resource which will inspire them with 
 a definite, healthy interest in life. However 
 lovingly they may be tended, those who nurse 
 them are often incapable of understanding them 
 properly, because they have never passed through 
 the same experiences. If only they could have 
 fellowship with other sufferers who have gone 
 through the same difficulties, and who have to 
 fight the same daily battle ! It was the sense of 
 this need that led Adele Kamm, with the help of 
 Louise Devenoge, to form the Society of the 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE * COCCINELLES ' 103 
 
 * Coccinelles.' ^ Her aim was to bind together 
 into one sacred fellowship all lonely sufferers, 
 recognising no distinctions of age or sex, class or 
 creed. This association, whose members, in the 
 nature of things, could never see each other, 
 prospered from the outset. When Adele died 
 there were already a hundred members,^ who 
 lived in the principal towns of French Switzer- 
 land and at Berne. Adele Kamm formed them 
 into branches, each branch having a membership 
 of ten. The method of intercourse is very simple : 
 a circular letter is sent by post from one home to 
 another, and each member adds his or her thoughts 
 or feelings, accounts of inward struggles, records 
 of spiritual experience, or quotations from books. 
 A spirit of friendly intimacy springs up among the 
 members, and personal relationships are formed 
 between those who feel specially drawn to each 
 other. In this way they emerge from their 
 isolation ; and this, in itself, is a great blessing ; 
 to some it has proved the beginning of a new 
 spiritual era. 
 
 1 Ladybirds. 
 
 2 The membership has increased since then, for the Society is 
 still in a flourishing condition. 
 
104 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Adele Kamm was no mere visionary enthusiast. 
 She was a capable and intelligent girl. Her mind 
 was clear and practical, her mental grasp of the 
 realities of life was altogether remarkable under 
 the circumstances, and she was pre-eminently a 
 good organiser. I used to see in her a parallel to 
 the notable women saints of the Roman Catholic 
 Church (those who founded Orders), but I never 
 dared to say so, even in fun, for her extreme 
 modesty would have been distressed by such a 
 comparison. Was she not after all the ' Mother 
 Superior ' of the Lay Order of the ' Coccinelles,' 
 the life and soul of the large family she had formed, 
 and which she inspired with her own courage ? 
 She exercised her authority with gentle firmness. 
 She was indefatigable ; each branch had its own 
 secretary, who, in her turn, corresponded with 
 Adele Kamm, and received written instructions 
 from her, which were models of clearness and pre- 
 cision. She belonged to every group, and wrote 
 in each circular letter, trying to give real spiritual 
 guidance to the members by encouraging them 
 in a way which was all the more valuable in that 
 it sprang out of her own experience, and had 
 been tested in her own life. 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE * COCCINELLES ' 105 
 
 The Society of the ' Coccinelles ' bears the 
 indehhle impression of Adele Kamm's personality. 
 She has breathed into it an atmosphere of love 
 and intimacy, whereas a similar Association in 
 America (which has a large membership) issues an 
 important subscription list and a printed magazine. 
 However, Adele felt strongly that all the pro- 
 ceedings of her Society should be kept as private 
 as possible. It is with some hesitation that I 
 mention those modest ' Coccinelles,' who would 
 perhaps prefer to remain concealed among the 
 grass and the flowers, like the cricket in the fable. 
 I am sure that they will forgive me, knowing that 
 I cannot give an accurate picture of their leader 
 without speaking of them. It is impossible to 
 pass over such an important part of her work, for 
 it is more especially where she gives herself so 
 freely that she is seen at her best. I may add that 
 she herself (making an exception in my favour 
 to a rule which she had laid down for the general 
 good of the Society) lent me some of the circular 
 letters, which she thought would give me the best 
 conception of the aims of the Union, and of the 
 spirit in which it was carried on. 
 
 This spirit is everywhere the same, not that of 
 
io6 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 sad and passive resignation, but of active courage. 
 There is always the underlying thought of giving 
 the invalids the idea that they could still be 
 useful. * Have we any right to give way to self- 
 pity, or to envy the activity of others,' she 
 would say to them, ' to regard our lives as blighted, 
 or as burdensome and useless ? ' 
 
 She speaks to sufferers with the tact and insight 
 born of personal experience. She knows their 
 inward need, she understands their suffering. 
 She enters into detailed descriptions of their long 
 inactive days, of their weary sleepless nights, of 
 little private difficulties unknown to the well and 
 strong, and, above all, that sense of dependence 
 which is so hard to bear. It is evident that she 
 had an extraordinary gift of sympathy ; she seems 
 to have known exactly how to get ' alongside ' 
 others, and to give them the fitting word of com- 
 fort. In order to avoid discouraging any one, 
 she tried not to make herself out stronger than 
 she was. She freely acknowledged her moments 
 of weakness ; she almost gives us the impression 
 that she was glad to emphasise them ! On the 
 2 1 St of July 1 910 she writes : * I have gone 
 through a great many struggles lately, arising out 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE* COCCINELLES' 107 
 
 of physical weakness ; I mean moods of un- 
 reasonable elation or depression, when I either 
 felt like crying for nothing, or else was so extrava- 
 gantly happy that it was almost like heaven on 
 earth ! ' She also confesses her spiritual lapses. 
 We shall see this later on, when we gather up the 
 various precious glimpses which she gives of her 
 own religious experience. After all, what do 
 defeat, pain, and distress matter ? Difficulties 
 are there to be faced and overcome ! Life 
 assumes a different aspect when met in this spirit ; 
 a new light dawns, and the invalid enters into a 
 different relation with those around him. He 
 realises that new powers of pure love have been 
 born within his soul. ' For the invalid who has 
 understood his mission,' said Adele Kamm, ' the 
 longer and more painful his trial the more wonder- 
 fully will his sympathy for his brothers and sisters 
 in affliction be enriched and deepened. . . .' 
 
 AU sorts of answers reached her ; sometimes 
 the poor handwriting was very shaky and painfully 
 contorted. Some of the letters were beautiful, 
 some were naive, all were touching. Adele Kamm 
 received each one with the same loving welcome. 
 ' Brother Sparrow may sing in the birds' concert 
 
io8 THE LIFE OF ADIELE KAMM 
 
 as well as any one else,' she would say in her pretty 
 playful way. And so the circular letters went out 
 on their mission, to be received with eager delight, 
 for their message was one of inspiration, saying 
 to the weary, ' Courage ! you are not alone ! ' 
 In spite of the great variety of character, educa- 
 tion, and opinion represented, we feel that the 
 whole is welded into a spiritual unity under 
 the watchful direction of one mind. And when 
 we know whose mind this was, we understand 
 Emerson's meaning when he says : ' Communion 
 ... I mean that spirit of living fellowship by 
 which the purest souls attract the humbler and 
 weaker, and lead them up to a higher level ; this 
 is a fountain of vital energy of the most powerful 
 order.' 
 
 In her messages to the * Coccinelles ' Adele 
 Kamm expressed her opinions on religion and 
 Christianity with the ardent sincerity of a con- 
 viction won by experience. But she never tried 
 to force them upon others, and she had no desire 
 to propagate any special ecclesiastical views. The 
 religious basis of the Invalids' Union was of a 
 strictly neutral character. In point of fact I 
 believe that the majority of the members were 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE ' COCCINELLES ' 109 
 
 Protestant ; but the same welcome was extended 
 to Roman Catholics, Jews, and Agnostics. Adele 
 Kamm exerted all her authority to uphold this 
 principle, and with the consent of the Secretary 
 of each branch she inserted in every circular letter 
 repeated and definite explanations of this point. 
 Every Sunday the members were asked to read 
 certain chosen portions of the Bible, and to pray 
 for one another, but it was expressly stipulated 
 that Agnostics need not fall in with this arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 The vigilance of the Mother Superior never 
 relaxed. She would not allow it to become the 
 monopoly of any one sect. Conciliatory in every 
 other respect, on this point she was immovable. 
 She did not agree with those who believed in 
 Faith-heaHng. She admitted that this particular 
 tenet was useful for those who found comfort in 
 it, but she would not allow a dogma to be forced 
 upon her (or upon those whom she loved) which 
 did not tally with her own experience. ' I do 
 not doubt,' she wrote on the 27th of November 
 to Mrs. F. G., ' that God can heal us, but if He 
 does not do so He is only acting for our highest 
 good, and, personally, I cannot understand this 
 
no THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 terrible struggle which destroys all the spiritual 
 peace and blessing flowing from the entire accept- 
 ance of the will of God. Thus, as my prayers, 
 and those of my family, have not been answered, 
 we have accepted the situation, and in doing so 
 we have found wonderful compensations. I tear 
 up all the tracts on Faith-healing which are sent 
 to me, for I am firmly convinced that God will 
 not allow me to suffer in vain, and I know only 
 too well that I have so much yet to learn that 
 recovery would not be good for me.' 
 
 On the 8th of June 1910 she wrote again : ' I 
 am having a regular controversy just now with all 
 the prayer unions in Switzerland and in England 
 which pray for physical healing, and for mine in 
 particular. My little book has comforted all 
 those who trust God in trouble, but it has given 
 offence to all who cannot see God's hand in trial 
 and sickness, and who, in consequence, do not 
 submit to Him. I am bombarded with letters 
 and tracts which are intended to convert me ! . . . 
 They do not come from ordinary Faith-healing 
 folk only, but even from this new sect in America ! 
 I cannot help smiling as I write my decided 
 refusals, for my peace and joy are so firmly estab- 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE ' COCCINELLES ' 1 1 1 
 
 lished, and my opinions likewise, that I cannot 
 help resisting these attacks with all the energy I 
 possess, though sometimes they really are very 
 amusing ! ! However, I dread their effect on 
 certain invalids, whose convictions are not yet 
 quite settled, and who run the risk of losing their 
 peace and confidence in a constant mental conflict. 
 On the other hand I know that some sufferers 
 may find in this form of piety all the peace and 
 happiness they require. The human mind is so 
 mysterious, so infinitely varied in character, that 
 it is not easy to do good in this delicate spiritual 
 sphere ; perhaps it is just there that I see most 
 clearly the presence of the Divine Spirit in that 
 inspiration which leads us to choose exactly the 
 right words of cheer and encouragement for 
 hundreds of needy souls. It is still more wonderful 
 when we reflect that each individual soul holds a 
 different opinion, and that these opinions are 
 being constantly modifled, to such an extent that 
 no one could ever be sure of striking the right 
 chord unaided ! ' 
 
 We shall see that this spirit of tolerance, or 
 rather this gift of sympathetic understanding 
 with all who differed from her in opinion, only 
 
112 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 grew larger and deeper as time went on. One 
 thing however tried her sorely, and that was 
 conventional religious phraseology ! She found 
 it hard to bear with people whose piety wore a 
 melancholy aspect. She actually accused herself 
 of ' sin ' in her impatience in this respect. And 
 if, in her letters, she occasionally expresses her 
 religious ideas in somewhat conventional language 
 it is simply due to inexperience. More and more 
 she managed to free herself from those phrases 
 which cast a shadow over the radiant beauty of 
 the inward life. Her naturally high spirits kept 
 her mind sane and vigorous. Her letters to in- 
 valids are often very amusing, and breathe a 
 delightful sense of humour. Would you like an 
 example ? Well, here is the memorable story of 
 the rat, as she related it to Mrs. F. G. : 
 
 * zoth August 1909. 
 
 ' . . . Yesterday evening a frightful noise 
 nearly made us jump out of our skins ! We had 
 just settled down in my room to read and work 
 by the light of the electric lamp ... it was such 
 an awful crash that mother and Henrietta simply 
 flew to the drawing-room to see what had 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE ' COCCINELLES ' 113 
 
 happened . . . and . . . oh, horrors ! . . . that 
 big and valuable picture of the Villa Tivoli, which 
 covered a large part of the wall, lay on the floor 
 . . . broken right in two ! The lamps on the 
 piano were smashed, picture-frames and ornaments 
 were shattered to atoms. . . . Whatever was it ? 
 The picture-cord was cut right through, although 
 it was very strong and thick, yet there were no 
 signs of wear, and as this gave way suddenly, down 
 came this big heavy picture upsetting and break- 
 ing everything in its way ! And who was the 
 evil-doer ? . . . A rat ! Yes, my dear friend, 
 I mean what I say, a rat, a dreadful, horrible 
 RAT ! ! ! Some days ago we had found little 
 heaps of sawdust, which made us fear that some- 
 how a rat had managed to get into our well- 
 ordered household. It was the first time in her 
 life that Mother had ever had to deal with such 
 creatures, so she put down poison in the passages 
 and in all the cupboards. But what else could she 
 do ? Well, the naughty beast took up his abode in 
 our piano ! in that beautiful instrument on which 
 I used to practise, and which I value so much. My 
 sister had gone into the room a few minutes before 
 to try over a song, and this frightened the animal, 
 
 H 
 
114 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 who in his excitement cHmbed up behind the 
 picture, and in anger he bit the cord clean in two 
 just after my sister had left the room ! If she 
 had stayed a few minutes longer she must have 
 been killed ; and the thought of her narrow 
 escape has comforted us amid all this upset ! But 
 what a shock it has been ! ! Mother and Hen- 
 rietta have gone into Savoy this afternoon to 
 calm their nerves ! I am delighted for them to 
 have this little outing, for the day had really been 
 too full of excitement ! ' 
 
 She used to write gaily to the ' Coccinelles ' 
 about anything which she thought might interest 
 or divert them. She encouraged them to write 
 about everything that affected their lives, as well 
 as their reflections on life and suffering. Her one 
 aim was to establish loving bonds of intimacy 
 between the members of the spiritual family she 
 had brought into being. She wanted each one 
 to enter as fully as possible into the lives of the 
 others, and through this interchange of thought 
 and sympathy to radiate courage and joy. ' Joy 
 is a duty ' was her inspiring motto. And the 
 following quotation admirably expresses what 
 she had discovered, both for herself and for others, 
 
THE SOCIETY OF THE * COCCINELLES '115 
 
 of the blessing concealed in suffering. (It has 
 been copied out hy one of the members of the 
 Invalids' Union ^) : 
 
 * Often when I am carving a block of marble,' 
 said a sculptor one day, ' and when I see the chips 
 flying in all directions, I feel a kind of compassion 
 for the stone, and I try to comfort it by saying, 
 " Yes, I am wounding and hurting you now, but 
 my purpose is to fashion you into a thing of eternal 
 beauty." There is One who is a greater Sculptor 
 than I, greater than Michael Angelo, or Phidias — 
 God. Humanity is His marble . . . pain is His 
 chisel . . . and when I pass through suffering, 
 and see the way in which sorrow shatters my most 
 lovely dreams, I softly murmur, " God Himself is 
 at work in my soul, and in His infinite mercy He 
 is about to enrich and deepen my life far beyond 
 my own imaginings ! I thank Thee, my God ! " ' 
 
 1 We cannot trace the author. In his lines on the death of his 
 daughter Alexander Vinet expresses the same thought: 
 
 ' Under Thy chisel. Divine Sculptor of my soul, 
 Let all my happiness fly into fragments.'' 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DISTANT FRI-ENDS 
 
 ' We cannot make relationships too spiritual. Wc cannot 
 be too careful to see them in God, and God in them.' — 
 Forbes Robinson. 
 
 The ruling passion of Adele Kamm's secluded life 
 was friendship. To her it was ever a source of 
 the purest joy. It would seem as though those 
 who have been refined by suffering are better 
 fitted for pure spiritual fellowship than others. 
 Their inward life becomes more intense as their 
 physical strength declines, and the material veil 
 woven by much activity is rent and destroyed. 
 They learn to apprehend subtle spiritual realities, 
 which are hidden from the strong and active. 
 We might almost fancy that they are endowed 
 with a special gift of discernment which leads them 
 to discover by intuition the deepest feelings of 
 those they love. If they are not self-centred 
 their sympathy becomes exquisitely delicate, and 
 leads them into regions where they experience 
 
DISTANT FRIENDS 1 1 7 
 
 joys so intense as to compensate them for the 
 pleasures from which ill-health has debarred them. 
 
 Adele Kamm had not seen the intimate friend, 
 whose example had taught her the infinite value 
 of cheerfulness/ since her second visit to Leysin. 
 But when Miss O. de J. was staying at Aix-les- 
 Bains she came over to see Adele for a few hours. 
 This visit was a great joy ; Adele wrote to Mr. H. 
 about it afterwards in the following terms : 
 
 ' . . . I have had such a treat lately ... a 
 visit from O. de J. We found that the spiritual 
 bond between us was as strong as ever, and that 
 we were in absolute harmony with each other. 
 It all seemed so natural that we said nothing 
 whatever about it until the evening, when, as 
 we looked up into the starlit sky, we fell into a 
 conversation which I shall never forget. . . . The 
 things which are unseen and eternal alone seemed 
 real and vivid. . . . We became conscious of 
 perfect spiritual union. Oh, it was a beautiful 
 experience, so quietly, gloriously solemn ! . . . 
 Suddenly we seemed to realise the progress we had 
 made during the two years of separation. At 
 Leysin such a talk would have been impossible, 
 
 1 Chapter v. pp. 31 and following. 
 
ii8 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 and this discovery almost overwhelmed us. But 
 what was more wonderful still, we found that we 
 had both developed along the same lines. . . . 
 We met each other at the same point on the road, 
 speaking the same language, and this after two 
 years of wholly different experiences. My pro- 
 gress, of course, was explained by my illness, but 
 O.'s case was very different. We were both re- 
 minded of the words of the psalmist : " The way 
 of the Lord is perfect." O. has become a veritable 
 fountain of peace, tranquillity, and joy. Since 
 she was here I have been under the spell of a 
 new influence which flows from her unconsciously, 
 and can only be explained by the fact that she 
 has won complete self-mastery, and has passed 
 through a great inward change. . . . She has 
 willingly taken the course into which I have been 
 forced by illness, and this path has led us both 
 into perfect peace and joy. This evening has been 
 the most beautiful we have ever spent. It is just 
 what I meant when I wrote in my little book : ^ 
 " What can be more beautiful than the union of 
 two souls who are both aiming at a high ideal ? " 
 God Himself has blessed our union ; it is all His 
 
 1 Speaking of Miss O. de J. 
 
DISTANT FRIENDS 119 
 
 doing, and our hearts are overflowing with grati- 
 tude. Silently we gazed at the stars, but the 
 whole atmosphere seemed to vibrate with songs 
 of gladness and heavenly joy.' 
 
 Adele Kamm had several intimate friends, 
 chronic invalids like herself, whom she could 
 never meet. She filled her room with their 
 photographs. If any of their relations came to see 
 her she would inquire minutely into all the circum- 
 stances of their lives. She even liked to know 
 the colour of their eyes, in order that she might 
 make an accurate picture of them in her mind. 
 Her thoughts went out to them constantly, and 
 with such an intensity, that she would enter into 
 every detail of their daily life, their pain, their 
 joys and anxieties. In a sense the physical 
 separation was no hindrance to this kind of friend- 
 ship. Even when she was overwhelmed by work, 
 or was herself in terrible suffering, she would 
 always manage to write to those whom she 
 specially loved some of those long letters, from 
 which I have quoted more than once. 
 
 She was very intimate with Miss Cecile Schlum- 
 berger, who belonged to a well-known Alsatian 
 family, and who was obliged to spend ten years 
 
120 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 of her life at Leysin. Both girls were there at 
 the same time, but they never met. They were 
 not in the same building. Mr. H. brought them 
 into touch with each other later on. They 
 began to correspond, and gradually they became 
 more and more intimate. Miss Schlumberger 
 was very different from her friend. She was 
 highly educated, and had a veritable thirst for 
 knowledge. In order to occupy her hours of 
 leisure she used to read works of science and 
 philosophy. Mr. Hoffet said about her : ' Her 
 logical mind craved for a solution of the problems 
 of life as well as of those of the speculative realm 
 . . . she longed to see things clearly. . . . 
 Naturally, with such a temperament, she passed 
 through difficult seasons of inward rebellion. 
 She had to wage a constant warfare between 
 reason and faith, between thought and feeling. 
 Above all, she was haunted by the problem of 
 pain ; she pondered over it long and earnestly, 
 but without finding any real solution. . . . She 
 felt its anguish in her own body ; she saw its 
 shadow all around her at Leysin, where it wore a 
 distressing and apparently pitiless aspect. " Why, 
 oh why," was her wistful question, " must we 
 
DISTANT FRIENDS 121 
 
 suffer so much in this world ? " And then there 
 were those ten years of illness which sapped her 
 Hfe away, which were never explained, which 
 shook her faith in God, and so sorely perplexed 
 her logical mind, which panted after perfection ! 
 Ten years of illness out of a life that closed at 
 twenty-six ! Her beauty-loving eager spirit chafed 
 tinder the physical limitations imposed by her 
 illness, and the sum-total of all these hard and 
 painful experiences (so sadly familiar to us at 
 Leysin) formed a burden which her intense nature 
 felt with twofold force, and her youthful spirit 
 refused to accept.' ^ 
 
 Adele Kamm exercised the best possible in- 
 fluence over her friend. She treated her in 
 accordance with her own invariable principle, 
 a principle which was almost always entirely suc- 
 cessful : she set her to work, and thus diverted the 
 melancholy current of her thoughts. Miss Cecile 
 Schlumberger joined the Society of the ' Coccin- 
 elles.' She organised and directed the Leysin 
 branch from the very beginning. And in this 
 work her active and generous nature found ample 
 
 • In memory of Cecile Schlumberger, Miihlhausen, Dessaulles- 
 Gluck. 
 
122 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 scope for development. ' Do you not find,' she 
 wrote to Adele Kamm, ' that too much thinking 
 may be a great snare in illness ? I must confess, 
 dear friend, that you have been a great help to 
 me in this difficult struggle. Since I learnt to 
 know you I have become more trustful and cour- 
 ageous. The work you have given me to do has 
 done me good. In trying to help others we are 
 helped ourselves ... no victory is devoid of 
 meaning ... no loss is vain. ... I spoke about 
 you to my doctor the other day. He was 
 looking at your photograph, and I said, " That is 
 Adele Kamm." And his answer was, " I thought 
 it must be, from her radiant expression." . . . 
 You do not know how many people you are 
 helping. It does cheer me so when I look at you 
 and realise that, in spite of everything, good is 
 stronger than evil, and that its gentle rays pene- 
 trate the darkest corners of the world.' 
 
 Miss Schlumberger, on her side, by her strong 
 personality and enlightened mind, had a distinctly 
 good influence on Adele Kamm. She gave her 
 a broader conception and a wider outlook on life. 
 She taught her to see the value of opinions with 
 which she did not agree. To this chosen friend 
 
DISTANT FRIENDS 123 
 
 Adele Kamm used to write with entire freedom. 
 In her letters to her she would often dwell on 
 the danger of an Invalids' Union becoming 
 * goody-goody.' At other times, in order to 
 encourage her beloved ' Lily,' she freely confessed 
 that she too had to fight through difficult times. 
 * Just because I feel myself so imperfect,' she 
 vvrote to her on the 8th of July 1909, * I believe 
 in God with all my heart, for I need an all- 
 powerful Being to forgive me. If I were without 
 this comforting certainty I should never have a 
 moment's peace ! Then my weakness makes me 
 so dependent on my friends, for I need some one 
 to set me an example, and to encourage me on the 
 uphill journey. And so, my dear, dear friend, 
 the reason I love you so much is that I know that 
 you feel the same as I do, and I can speak to you 
 quite frankly, and ask you to help me. ... If 
 you were perfect (or thought you were !) I should 
 be afraid to treat you thus, and your influence 
 over me would be nil ! But your high courage, 
 and your pitiful compassion for all who suffer, 
 makes you a real spiritual help to me. You can 
 have no idea of what your letters and the books 
 you have lent me have done for me. They have 
 
124 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 surrounded me with an atmosphere of protec- 
 tion, in which my timidity has vanished and my 
 nature has had freedom to develop along lines 
 of usefulness.' 
 
 Miss Schlumberger made full use of her intel- 
 lectual gifts in the work with which Adele Kamm 
 had entrusted her. She threw herself with 
 enthusiasm into the activities of the Invalids' 
 Union, paid visits, wrote letters, and spent her- 
 self freely for the members. * I am so happy,' 
 she told Mr, H. one day, ' now I see that my life 
 can still be useful.' She began to enjoy life to the 
 full, and at one time it almost seemed as though 
 she were cured ; but the disease was only in 
 abeyance. Then came the last, long, painful 
 illness, during which her courage never once 
 faltered. All her doubts had melted away, and 
 her Christian faith had become clear and strong. 
 A few days before she died she said to Mr. H. : 
 ' I have no more time or strength for intellectual 
 argument. I have put my hand in His, and I 
 am content ! ' She passed away at Leysin on the 
 7th of April 1910. Shortly before the end she 
 dictated a few farewell words to her friend. 
 Adelc wrote on the 8th of April : ' It almost 
 
DISTANT FRIENDS 125 
 
 seemed as though my dear friend had sent me a 
 message from the " other side " itself, a glorious 
 farewell, and the assurance that her faith was 
 entirely victorious. ... I have suffered terribly 
 during this last month of her distressing suffering, 
 but I am calmer now. ... I realise that I shall 
 never see that much-loved handwriting again. 
 But as I have never seen Lily in the flesh, our 
 friendship was already eternal in its character, 
 and she always seemed to me an ideal immaterial 
 being, living in the very Presence of God, so her 
 departure does not hinder our communion. I 
 feel her nearness whether she is at Leysin or in 
 heaven. I shall go on sharing my joys and 
 sorrows with her in my mind, just as I used to 
 do. . . .' 
 
 Later on, however, Adele felt this loss very 
 keenly. On the loth of October she wrote thus 
 to Mrs. H. R. (on whom she now lavished a great 
 deal of that passionate affection which she used to 
 give to Miss Cecile Schlumberger) : ' Dear Lily ! 
 How we loved each other ! I do thank God for 
 you, Helene, for I really believe that the loss of 
 Lily would otherwise have killed me. I love 
 passionately . . . my affections are like yours, 
 
126 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 part of my very being.' But she was not the kind 
 of girl to brood over sorrow. She felt that a great 
 work yet remained for her to do. She knew that 
 her days were numbered, and that it could not 
 be so very long before she would rejoin that friend, 
 about whom she had spoken in terms which might 
 be most truly applied to herself : 
 
 * It is a beautiful and comforting thought that 
 the value of life lies not in length of days, but in 
 intensity and quality.' 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT 
 
 *In pure universal chanty, there is nothing fitful or inter- 
 mittent. ... Its springs are deep and constant, its rising is 
 like that of a mighty river, its very overflow calm and steady, 
 leaving life and fertility behind it.' 
 
 For an invalid who, according to medical opinion, 
 had scarcely any right to be alive at all, Adele 
 Kamm did not exactly suffer from lack of 
 occupation ! But the visits she received from 
 morning till night, the constant burden of 
 correspondence, and the exacting labour of 
 supervising the Society of the * Coccinelles,' did 
 not satisfy her active mind. She evolved a new 
 scheme for helping invalids in poorer circum- 
 stances, and threw all her energies into this fresh 
 form of service. 
 
 She had been brooding for some time over the 
 difficulties of their lives. When she compared 
 their lot with her own, she felt almost ashamed 
 of herself. This mental attitude was habitual 
 
128 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 to her, and is expressed over and over again in her 
 letters : 
 
 * I cannot help thinking,' she wrote to Mrs. 
 F. G., 'of some poor sufferer living in a gloomy- 
 room in one of our large towns — a room 
 with bare and dingy walls, into which no sun- 
 shine ever penetrates, and from which even 
 the sky is shut out. In addition to physical 
 suffering there may be anxiety about rent and 
 food, and perhaps he may even have to go hungry 
 if he cannot go on working. . . . Oh ! what 
 a sad life it must be ! . . . And then sometimes 
 when I am dwelling on these thoughts, I get a 
 letter from a person like that, just radiant with 
 faith in the midst of distress and misery . . . 
 and it is a lesson to me. I wonder whether you 
 will understand ? . . . I often feel ill at ease in 
 my pretty pink room where I have everything 
 I need, and a great deal more besides ; where 
 I am always being cheered by the love of mother 
 and sister, and by the visits of countless friends ! 
 And I reason with myself like this : all these 
 mercies seem so natural to me, that I am tempted 
 to forget those who suffer just as much as I do, 
 and have none of these things. I owe an enor- 
 
PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT 129 
 
 mous debt of gratitude to God and to society. 
 . . . How can I make any acknowledgment ? My 
 heart always gives the same answer : Accept 
 humbly every trial that God sends you, and lavish 
 joy on others in return for your many mercies ! ' 
 
 Adele rejoiced in the thought that she also had 
 to suffer loss, and that this experience brought her 
 into living touch with the ' deposed, discrowned, 
 and disinherited ' of the world. 
 
 ' You are like me,' she wrote to the same friend ; 
 ' it is a real comfort to us to enter in some measure 
 into the life of the " common " people, through 
 the experience of deprivation. We can better 
 understand their rebellious feelings, and our 
 sympathy then is not merely a thing of words 
 but of actual life, for even the very poorest can 
 still enjoy the fresh air, and the pleasures of steady 
 work. Anyhow, I am sure that most of them 
 live better than I do ! I find that there is a 
 peculiar joy in falling out of the ranks of the 
 privileged folk ! And now I do not envy them 
 any more. I really believe that there are many 
 things that I could not appreciate now, since I 
 have tasted the sweetness of inward joy and have 
 lived a life of deprivation.' 
 I 
 
130 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Adele Kamm was the kind of girl who could 
 not help translating her sympathy into action. 
 She set to work to think out the whole problem. 
 ' Yes,' she pondered, ' a mountain sanatorium is 
 all very well, but many people can only go there 
 for a short time, and others cannot afford it at all. 
 Some come back only half-cured. If they return 
 to their poor, badly ventilated rooms, it may 
 undo all the good they have gained from the 
 mountain air. Would it not be splendid if they 
 could have a sort of garden in a sheltered spot 
 just outside the town, where they could live out 
 of doors for several hours every day ? ' Adele 
 kept on turning over this idea in her mind, and 
 then an opportunity occurred of propounding 
 her scheme to one of the medical officers of the 
 Anti-Tuberculosis Dispensary of Geneva, Dr. M. 
 Much to her delight she found that this specialist 
 had been thinking along the same lines for some 
 time past. He had even prepared a tentative 
 plan for an Open-air Treatment Pavilion. Funds, 
 and above all a good initiative, were all that were 
 lacking to set the enterprise in motion. 
 
 With her usual enthusiasm and decision Adele 
 went straight ahead with the work. At that 
 
PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT 131 
 
 time she was still hesitating, from modesty, about 
 publishing her little book, Joyful m Tribulation. 
 But the thought that she could devote the profits 
 to the ' Open-air Pavilion Scheme ' decided her 
 to do so, and she waited no longer. In a short 
 time she was able (from her profits as author) to 
 subscribe liberally to the fund. She directed the 
 whole campaign from her bed with remarkable 
 energy, perseverance, and womanly tact. She 
 knew how to ' make things hum ' ! Doctors, 
 clergymen, business-men. Members of Parliament, 
 journalists . . . not one of them could refuse 
 her any favour. They would do anything to 
 please her. One influential business man, Mr. 
 A. R., took the matter up with great keenness, 
 and contributed largely to the success of the 
 scheme by his daily visits of help and counsel. 
 
 Adele insisted on managing everything herself, 
 from the collecting of money (£^So was required) 
 to all the details connected with plans, estimates, 
 organisation, and furnishing. Nothing appeared 
 trifling to her ; she ordered comfortable reclin- 
 ing-chairs at the basket-work depot at Leysin 
 (which had been started by Mr. H.), and had 
 a specimen brought into her room for approval. 
 
132 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 But people were critical in Geneva, and a 
 certain amount of opposition had to be encoun- 
 tered. However, this is nearly always the case 
 when a good work is first launched. Various 
 objections were raised. Some people quibbled 
 over minor points. ' Would it not be better to do 
 this or that ? . . . For instance, might not each 
 patient be provided with a garden of his own 
 where he could grow cabbages ? ' ' Gardening ! 
 . . . Planting vegetables ! ' wrote Adele Kamm 
 in great indignation. * Have they no idea of what 
 such illness means ? ' There was a prolonged 
 controversy. Adele threw herself into it with all 
 the ardour of her intense nature. For her at that 
 time the universe was centred in that little strip of 
 land where already in imagination she could see 
 the patients lying out in the sunshine, enjoying 
 the fragrant beauty of the roses. For, with the 
 thoughtfulness of a woman, she wanted them to 
 be surrounded by roses. 
 
 At last every difficulty was overcome. The 
 government provided a site near the hospital, on 
 the Pre Jer6me, which had been presented to 
 the municipality of Geneva in the fourteenth 
 century by a wealthy philanthropist. The position 
 
PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT 133 
 
 is good. It is easily accessible, and is sheltered 
 from cold winds. Indeed, it is almost a shade 
 too warm in the heat of summer. A very simple 
 building was erected, consisting of a central 
 pavilion with a kitchen and a room for the Sister 
 in charge. On either side are two wings or 
 covered balconies, each having room for nine 
 chairs, one hall being reserved for men and the 
 other for women. As the hospital lies behind 
 them, the patients have a fine view on their left 
 of richly wooded Champel and the distant outline 
 of the Saleve against the sky. The Pavilion was 
 formally opened in June 1910. It was a very 
 happy day for Adele Kamm, though it seemed 
 sad that she could not be motored over to the 
 Pre Jer6me for the afternoon ! 
 
 But she had the great satisfaction of seeing the 
 work prosper just as she desired. It is under the 
 control of the Anti-Tuberculosis Association 
 (which had already opened a special dispensary 
 in the city). The patients soon settled down in 
 their new quarters. Indeed, the Pavilion has 
 become a kind of club for invalids ! They like 
 it so much that they have asked that it may also 
 be kept open all through the winter. Their 
 
134 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 request has been granted, and as the funds are in 
 good condition it has been possible to provide 
 not merely hot milk (as had been suggested at 
 first), but a good midday dinner as well. The 
 last report of the Association states that excellent 
 results have already been obtained.^ ' We sent 
 nine men and five w^omen to the Pavihon for 
 Open-air Treatment,' writes Dr. Cramer of the 
 Dispensary at Plainpalais. ' Thanks to the fresh 
 air and sunshine which they have been able to 
 enjoy, and to the good food which is given them, 
 their general health is much better, and we also 
 consider that the condition of their lungs has 
 improved.' Dr. H. Mallet of the ' City of 
 Geneva ' Dispensary is not less eulogistic. He 
 quotes authentic examples of remarkably success- 
 ful cases.2 
 
 Adele Kamm's idea is already being taken up 
 
 1 Anti-Tiiberculosis Dispensary of Geneva, Fifth Report, 
 I St January to the 31st December 191 1. 
 
 2 Case S. was at the Pavilion for 228 days (850 hours). During 
 this time he gained 21 lbs. Case Sor. was at the Pavilion for 102 
 days (548 hours), from September 1910 to July 191 1 5 during this 
 period he gained 27 lbs. 8 ozs. A little girl R. attended for 186 
 days (1125 hours), and gained 13 lbs. 3 ozs. During 191 1 the 
 number of patients at the Pavilion may be classified as under: 
 
 22 men, 17 women, i boy, and 9 girls. 
 
PAVILION FOR OPEN-AIR TREATMENT 135 
 
 in other places ; many towns in Switzerland, as 
 well as in other countries, have asked to see the 
 plans for the Open-air PaviHon, that they may 
 build similar institutions. Lady Aberdeen, Vice- 
 reine of Ireland, had heard of the young 
 invalid at Geneva, and of her work. She called 
 on her at the * Mairie des Eaux-Vives,' and was 
 delighted with her charming ways and natural 
 manner. On her return to Ireland she published 
 a detailed account of her visit, full of the warmest 
 sympathy for Adele Kamm herself, for the 
 Invalids' Union, and for the Open-air Pavilion 
 scheme.^ Just as she was taking leave she said to 
 Adele : ' Have you any message to send to the 
 working people and invalids of Ireland ? ' * Oh, 
 madame,' she answered, ^ tell them how happy 
 I am ! . . . tell them that there is no joy like that 
 of working for others, and that I shall die rejoicing 
 in the thought that, by the grace of God, the worst 
 foe of mankind can be swept off the face of the 
 earth if all men everywhere will work together 
 for God and humanity.' 
 
 ' Slainte, The Journal of the Women s National Health Association 
 of Ireland, edited by the Countess of Aberdeen, September 1910, 
 pp. 165 and following. 
 
136 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 The Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign, to which 
 Lady Aberdeen has devoted herself with so 
 much energy, was always in Adele's mind. Her 
 desire to help in this movement was rendered all 
 the more intense by the fact, as we shall see, that 
 she did not believe that disease was in the direct 
 line of the Divine Will. Having accepted her 
 own affliction, she intended to do all that lay in 
 her power to preserve others from infection. In 
 planning for the Pavilion for Open-air Treat- 
 ment she was thinking not only of the good that 
 would accrue to the patients themselves, but also 
 of the lessened danger for others. She was think- 
 ing of the children who play in the streets, and 
 often romp round the public seats where poor 
 consumptives may be resting, children who are 
 just as healthy as she was herself when the terrible 
 disease first attacked her. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 
 
 ' Let your cry be for free souls, rather even than for free men. 
 Moral liberty is the one vitally important liberty.' — Joubert. 
 
 From her bed, which was placed near the window, 
 Adele Kamm could no longer see what was going 
 on in the street below, but she could still hear 
 the roar of the traffic, and even this interested 
 her deeply. The echo of the city's noise and 
 bustle kept her in touch with everyday life, with 
 that life of strain and activity led by those who 
 must work hard for their daily bread. But all 
 she could now see was a broad expanse of sky, 
 where, as evening faded into night, the stars, 
 those shining companions of her sleepless hours, 
 began to come out one by one. Far away on the 
 horizon she could just distinguish the irregular 
 outline of the Jura Mountains, ethereally blue and 
 unsubstantial in the misty distance ; against this 
 dreamlike background the massed roofs of the old 
 
 137 
 
138 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 town, overshadowed by the towers of St. Peter, 
 stood out in clear relief ; and, still nearer, a 
 silent, compelling presence, was the prison, a 
 gloomy building whose sombre walls were pierced 
 by long rows of narrow slits — the barred windows 
 of the convicts' cells. 
 
 Blue sky and distant mountains, church and 
 prison : to a thoughtful mind this view was most 
 suggestive. From the purity of the sky she turned 
 incessantly, drawn by an irresistible fascination, 
 to contemplate the gloomy gaol. Every evening 
 at the same hour the narrow windows were lit 
 up from within, and just as regularly the lights 
 disappeared at the hour of curfew. Adele Kamm 
 lay silently gazing at these rows of twinkling lights, 
 but her thoughts were busy. And as she pondered 
 she began to realise that each ray of light stood 
 for a poor human life, banished from sight as 
 unworthy, and burdened with the knowledge of its 
 guilt. With her ever active sympathy she was 
 constantly trying to penetrate in spirit into the 
 life concealed behind those sombre walls. ' What 
 are the prisoners doing now ? ' she would wonder. 
 * What are they thinking about ? Their hearts 
 are doubtless full of bitterness and rebellion. 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 139 
 
 And while I lie here in the peace of my pretty 
 pink room, surrounded by so much loving care, 
 they are sitting alone within the four bare walls 
 of their cells.' As she never would allow her 
 thoughts to degenerate into useless dreams, she 
 used to cogitate every evening over some way of 
 reaching these men. ' How can I help them ? ' 
 she pondered ; ' they are as closely confined as I 
 am, and so very much more miserable ! How can 
 I send them some loving message, which might 
 even open the way to a new life for some of 
 them ? ' 
 
 In July 1910 she had an attack of double 
 pleurisy, and her bed had to be moved away from 
 the window. She could not see the lights of the 
 prison from this new position, but she knew the 
 ' lighting-up time,' and her thoughts were as busy 
 as ever. Her breathing was difficult, and she had 
 to remain in a sitting posture all night long, 
 which made sleep an impossibility. To fill up 
 these long sleepless watches she began writing to 
 the prisoners, for their condition weighed on her 
 mind more heavily than ever. 
 
 * Dear prisoners,' she wrote, ' we who are 
 chronic invahds feel that a strong bond of sym- 
 
140 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 pathy unites us to you who are prisoners. It is 
 the fact of this secret bond which has made me 
 long to tell you the thoughts which have been 
 gathering in my mind during the long years that 
 I have been shut up in my room.' Then she 
 explained to the prison-inmates how she began 
 to think about them when she saw their windows 
 being lit up every night. ' At that hour of the 
 evening,' she added, ' my thoughts used to fly 
 over the intervening space and in through the 
 little windows to the prisoners themselves, whom 
 I pictured sitting in their cells at that moment, 
 and my heart went out to you, for I am sure, 
 that for you as for us, the hour when twilight 
 fades into night is the most difficult of the whole 
 day, awakening even sadder and more poignant 
 memories than the dawn.' 
 
 ' The hour when for each soul one hope there needs must be. 
 The hour when gloomy night has spread its veil afar. 
 When in its skies each sad heart loves to see 
 The flashing of a star.' 
 
 ' Then when the windows receded into the 
 night, and the darkness seemed blacker than ever, 
 and in the sky above the stars shone out with 
 greater brilliance, while the curtain of sleep was 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 141 
 
 drawn gently for a space around those suffering 
 lives . . . my thoughts went out in deep sym- 
 pathy to all prisoners and captives and sleepless 
 sufferers. . . .' 
 
 According to the principle by which she was 
 invariably guided she tried to find out how 
 prisoners, as well as invalids, could be freed from 
 that depressing sense of uselessness and of ex- 
 clusion from life. How could they in their im- 
 prisonment escape from spiritual bondage ? By 
 doing good. There alone is true liberty to be 
 found, a freedom which no man can lose, for 
 its source is in the depths of his inward life. 
 ' We may be free in heart, free in soul . . . yes, 
 even we who are captives, if we can only realise 
 that liberty is a spiritual thing, and independent 
 of outward circumstances. . . . Liberty ! What 
 is it ? Surely it is self-forgetfulness with this 
 glorious end in view : to do good ! . . . But how 
 can we, invahds and prisoners, do any good in the 
 world ? Our lives are so much more restricted 
 than those of others, it seems almost impossible 
 that we can be of any use ! But then how are 
 we to discover this priceless treasure of moral 
 freedom ? This was the question I asked my- 
 
142 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 self five years ago when I became an invalid, and 
 when instead of being able to work, and help my 
 family, I became entirely dependent on them for 
 everything ; more dependent even than you, my 
 friends, dependent on others for every trifling 
 daily need ; if I want a book, or a handkerchief, 
 or a pen, or something to eat, it is all the same, 
 my helplessness is complete ; I depend entirely on 
 those who wait on me. . . . Oh, what bitter 
 tears I used to shed over this at night ! . . . Yet, 
 for the past five years I have been quite happy, 
 for at last I have become free. So I think we may 
 speak openly to each other on the subject of that 
 mysterious liberty which can exist in such seem- 
 ingly adverse circumstances, and which contains 
 the secret of real happiness, of that happiness 
 which all men desire, and which they seek in so 
 many different directions ! 
 
 ' I have discovered this precious secret ; I found 
 it out quite unexpectedly. Suffering opened my 
 eyes to its beauty, that blessed suffering without 
 which we could not help being selfish. Gradu- 
 ally it dawned on me that the people among whom 
 I was living were all suffering in some way or other, 
 and that every one of them needed love and sym- 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 143 
 
 pathy, inspiration and cheer ! . . . When I made 
 this discovery I at once made another : that I 
 must ask God Himself to fill me with love, and 
 to give me strength to do good, to fulfil this 
 ministry which seemed so strangely new to me ; 
 for you know how very much easier it is to see 
 other people's faults than one's own ! 
 
 * But, after all, once we have grasped the idea 
 nothing is simpler than to resolve that, in a very 
 quiet way, we will try by personal example and 
 by love to save some poor friend of ours who is 
 drifting further and further away from good 
 things. Perhaps he is sinking daily deeper into 
 the misery of hate and bitterness of spirit, or into 
 the drink habit, or into an attitude of settled 
 and gloomy defiance ! Well, there is our oppor- 
 tunity ! We may try to help him to face life with 
 fresh courage, to break the chains of vice ; or we 
 may try to breathe into him, perhaps very slowly, 
 a spirit of patience and of trust. . . . That in 
 itself would be an advance which would bring you 
 great joy. . . . Then you might go a step further, 
 and in quiet, friendly conversation you might 
 remind him that if he really and truly repents 
 he will be free . . . free to begin an altogether 
 
144 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 new life ... a life of well-doing. . . . Well- 
 doing ! . . . the very words breathe magical 
 inspiration ; life becomes very beautiful when 
 they are woven into its texture. We ought to 
 do good without any thought of reward, simply 
 for its own sake, for that is the only way to real 
 joy and happiness. Perhaps your efforts to help 
 your friend will be unsuccessful ; you may have to 
 persevere for years before his heart will be touched. 
 Never mind, go on just the same, no effort is ever 
 wasted ; and who can estimate the spiritual value 
 of a loving smile, or an affectionate gesture, given 
 either to our companions, or to those who wait 
 on us, and who are often very tired from their 
 monotonous labour ! With such a purpose in 
 life you are free indeed ! ' 
 
 But in true freedom there is one indispensable 
 element, even for those who wear prison garb, 
 and that is moral dignity and self-respect. These 
 must at all costs be preserved, and when spiritual 
 help is offered it must not be as from a superior 
 height. With exquisite delicacy Adele Kamm 
 managed to avoid any appearance of pitying con- 
 descension in her letter to the prisoners. She 
 came ' alongside ' them in a very beautiful way ; 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 145 
 
 the help she proposed to render was of a mutual 
 character. 
 
 * Yes, it was in the school of pain, deprivation, 
 and loss that I was led to think of you, my dear 
 comrades in suffering ; and this bond of sympathy 
 urges me to ask you to remember those who are 
 ill, to pray for those who are also prisoners, and 
 who need your sympathy and affection. In the 
 morning as you go to your work, please think 
 sometimes of us who can do nothing with our 
 hands, and yet who long to work ; and in the 
 evening remember us once more, in our pain, for 
 there is no good night's rest in store for us. And 
 if you are alone in your little room, think of us 
 then, those of us who are never alone for a minute, 
 who have to be watched and tended night and 
 day, though sometimes we would love to have 
 a little solitude ; and if you are able to go out 
 of doors even for a few moments, think of us who 
 can never stretch our cramped and weary limbs, 
 and can never get a breath of fresh air. 
 
 ' And on our side, as we look at the flowers and 
 at all the comforts by which we are surrounded, 
 at the affection of relatives and friends, we feel 
 how privileged we are, and we wish wc could 
 
 K 
 
146 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 share these blessings with you ! So we must 
 strengthen each other ; may we all be gallant 
 soldiers fighting for the Right, remembering those 
 words which have so often comforted me and 
 many others too : 
 
 " Where God has planted us, there must wc learn to bloom." ' 
 
 When the letter was written there arose the 
 difficulty of getting it sent to its destination. 
 This was not quite so easy as Adele Kamm, in the 
 simplicity of her heart, had imagined. She had 
 to correspond with various officials. The Prison 
 Board met her request very coldly, saying that 
 they ' supposed that she alone considered herself 
 fit to look after the prisoners' moral welfare ! ' 
 Still, though the letter was marked ' unfavour- 
 able ' it was sent in due form to the Home Office. 
 ' My intimate message,' wrote Adele to a friend, 
 * where I poured out my heart in a most artless 
 fashion, is being bandied about from one official 
 to another in the Home Office. 
 
 * Ugh ! It gives me cold shivers all down my 
 back to think of it ! ' 
 
 She had no hope that her request would be 
 granted, and was deeply distressed in consequence. 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 147 
 
 When a long yellow official envelope arrived she 
 would not open it at first. Greatly to her sur- 
 prise, however, the answer was favourable, and a 
 small number of copies of the ' Message to 
 Prisoners ' was printed and sent to the prison to 
 be distributed in the cells. 
 
 Did these simple, touching words, the natural 
 overflow of a loving, compassionate heart, ever 
 reach some of these hardened lives ? We cannot 
 tell. We would like to think they did. At any 
 rate Adele Kamm herself was much comforted 
 by this act of love and of faith in the power of 
 goodness. She had just been passing through a 
 particularly trying time. On the 25th of August 
 she wrote thus to Mr. T. F. : * I must tell you 
 that though this year has brought me great joy, 
 it has also been full of outward and inward trials. 
 The lack of fresh air, the nervous strain caused 
 by such close confinement, the effort to drive 
 away boredom become more intensely difficult 
 to bear as time goes on. Then, since May I have 
 not known a day's relief from pain, to give me a 
 chance of pulling myself together, and of gathering 
 up fresh courage. 
 
 * Sometimes, I must confess, I have even given 
 
148 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 way to tears, a thing I very rarely do ; but it has 
 distressed me deeply to find that I am so depend- 
 ent on my body. I have grown so terribly sensi- 
 tive to noise, and things I used to bear quite 
 cheerfully I find heavy and difficult. I have to 
 struggle very hard to keep my head above water 
 at all ! Oh, what weak creatures we are ! and 
 how frail I am ! This summer's experience has 
 at least taught me that. But, after all, I am not 
 surprised that God has permitted it ; it is quite 
 natural that He should test the faith of His 
 children by laying upon them heavier trials as 
 time goes on. And even if I have sometimes 
 failed in temper (which I bitterly regret), there 
 has been a deep undercurrent of joy all the time 
 in the sense that my will is in complete harmony 
 with the will of God, and this peace is so beautiful 
 and rich that no trouble or pain can disturb its 
 serenity. 
 
 ' How I did long for heaven in the days that 
 followed my attack of pleurisy ! I had to force 
 myself to wish to live, like a faithful soldier who 
 will not desert his post. But there was one thing 
 which helped me very much, and that was writing 
 a letter to prisoners ; I did it during the nights 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 149 
 
 when I was so ill that I had to sit up in order to 
 breathe. During that time of acute suffering my 
 heart went out in deeper sympathy than ever 
 towards those who suffer, or who are shut out 
 from active life (although I know that prisoners 
 deserve it) ; and it was such a joy to me to write 
 this message, and to find out how much we had 
 in common, for I believe that in all probability 
 we deserve our confinement just as much as they 
 do ! In spite of all the spiritual vision which 
 has been granted me, and all the love that has 
 been lavished upon me, I have stumbled badly 
 lately, and am very much ashamed of certain 
 words and movements of impatience. So I am 
 sure you will understand how much it helped me 
 to write down just what I felt, quite simply, and 
 without any effort after literary style, for I was 
 too ill to think of such things. I found that the 
 attempt brought me wonderfully near to Christ, 
 for I drew all my inspiration from Him. 
 
 ' While I am on this subject I must tell 
 you something that interests me tremendously. 
 During these last few months I have been in 
 constant communion with God, receiving from 
 Him all the strength and wisdom I need for my 
 
150 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 work . . . but I had insensibly drifted away 
 from Christ. That did not, however, disturb 
 me at all, for I remembered the words, " I and 
 the Father are One." Then it seemed as though 
 a veil were being drawn around my spirit, dimming 
 the spiritual brightness in which I lived. I found 
 that I had lost something of the sweetness of 
 inward peace, something of the luminous radiance 
 of vision which I used to possess, and I vaguely 
 wondered why it was ! But when I was writing 
 the letter to the prisoners, which, as I told you, 
 brought me into such close touch with Christ,^ 
 I was astonished to find that everything grew 
 bright again. The mists were dispelled, and now 
 I am once more on the mountain-top, daily 
 rejoicing in the clear sunshine of His Love and 
 Peace. So I have discovered that the blessings 
 and influence which flow from God and from 
 Christ are different in character, and that we 
 need to pray to both sides of God, if I may put 
 it so, if our spiritual hunger is to be satisfied. I 
 
 ' In her little book Adcle Kamin had found it necessary to 
 appeal to the influence of Jesus Christ. Among other things she 
 said: 'You will tell him (your prodigal friend) that God loves His 
 children, and that our Saviour came to seek those who are wander- 
 ing, and who want to find the Way.' 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 151 
 
 am glad to have made this discovery for myself, 
 for I like to found my faith on actual experience 
 rather than on any kind of dogma.' 
 
 Adele Kamm wrote another letter on the same 
 subject to one of her most intimate friends, who 
 was also a great sufferer, and, like Adele, had 
 gained her own experience. She responded in 
 one of those rare letters, ' which transcend the 
 usual order of things, and fill the heart with new 
 hope and courage.' 
 
 ' You do not know how much you have helped 
 me,' wrote Adele Kamm in reply, * and, dearest, 
 I knew very well that your spiritual life centred 
 in God rather than in Christ before you told me 
 so. It is this inward attitude of yours which 
 makes me love you better than others, and I used 
 to have the same feeling about Lily Schlumberger ; 
 whereas, in spite of everything, I do not feel the 
 same sense of fellowship with those who see 
 Christ only, and who so easily become narrow- 
 minded. However, it is good for us to come into 
 contact with them, for they supply what we lack. 
 I have learnt much from them during the last 
 few years, and I am trying to overcome my inward 
 shrinking from their habits of expression. I am 
 
152 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 deeply conscious of the fact that I should never 
 have had the courage to write my little book, 
 or to believe as firmly as I do, apart from their 
 influence. 
 
 ' I wonder whether you understand what I 
 mean ? Perhaps I express myself too strongly, 
 but I am sure that you speak just as hotly about 
 some of Mrs. Prentiss's books ! I am so delighted 
 to see that you feel exactly as I do on this subject. 
 We understand each other absolutely, and so we 
 are united in a holy fellowship. I think that one 
 great advantage of the Union is that it teaches 
 us to appreciate so many different minds, and to 
 gain from each what we ourselves lack. I think 
 that if we, on our side, need to make more of 
 Christ, others may learn from us to see God more 
 clearly, and so their faith will become more 
 robust as they see more of God our Saviour, the 
 Father of all mankind, not merely of a little band 
 of believers.' 
 
 In this letter we catch the distinctive accent of 
 Adele Kamm's Christian faith. She had not been 
 brought up in the Revivalist school. Certainly 
 she had a deep sense of sin, which led her to 
 regard as serious the trifling faults of her child- 
 
THE MESSAGE TO PRISONERS 153 
 
 hood, or those outbursts of temper and nervous 
 irritation from which all invalids suffer at times. 
 But the thought of individual salvation did not 
 interest her particularly. If she made much of 
 the Cross, it was because, as we shall see, she 
 sought in it the explanation of her own suffering. 
 The joy and strength of her life lay in the fact 
 that she was always in intimate communion with 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING 
 
 'Redemption is the raising up of man from the evil condi- 
 tion in which he feels sacrifice as pain, into a condition in 
 which it is felt as joy, a condition of true and perfect life.' — 
 
 J. HiNTON. 
 
 ' I have had a happy hfe ! ' said Adele Kamm to 
 me one day. The remark struck me almost dumb 
 with astonishment. I could not help contrasting 
 this gallant spirit with that of so many healthy 
 people who are incessantly grumbling, though 
 they appear to have everything that life can offer ; 
 and I must honestly confess, and that not without 
 shame, that I thought upon my own moods of 
 depression, and then gazed in mute wonder at this 
 contented invalid who so thoroughly enjoyed 
 life ! ' Such a happy life ! ' I repeated to myself. 
 ' Does she really mean it, or is it merely bra- 
 vado ? ' But I saw that it was no brave pretence, 
 for she said it so naturally and merrily ; and her 
 
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING 155 
 
 dark eyes were dancing with an expression of 
 gaiety almost like that of a happy child ! 
 
 Adele Kamm regarded her illness as a privilege.^ 
 She was never tired of emphasising this view in 
 her writings and in her conversation, with an 
 unmistakable accent of sincerity. She declared 
 that the whole structure of her faith was based 
 upon this conviction. ' Happiness is more pre- 
 cious,' she said,2 * when it has been mingled 
 with anguish ; the profoundest peace comes after 
 storm ; the light breaks out more radiantly from 
 behind dark clouds. God gives special grace to 
 those who pass through deep waters. . . . Do 
 we not find that the darkest experiences of our 
 lives force us, by their very poignancy, to throw 
 ourselves upon the Everlasting Mercy ? . . . 
 Trouble alone brings out the strength and quality 
 of our faith, whereas happiness often has the 
 opposite effect. Pain is the supreme touchstone ; 
 we need renewing not merely on the surface of our 
 lives, but in the depths of our being, and that is 
 why suffering is inevitable. . . . Such pain becomes 
 
 ^ This thought of the privilege of suffering is found in St. 
 Teresa's writings, CEwvres Mystiques, vol. iii., T/ie fVaj of Perfec- 
 tion, pp. 20 1 and following. 
 
 2 Joyful in Tribulation, pp. 22 and i'ollowing. 
 
156 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 a privilege when it leads us into the great fellow- 
 ship of suffering ; indeed, the wider outlook which 
 opens up before us transforms our sorrow into a 
 sublime form of joy.' 
 
 From the very beginning of her illness she 
 looked upon herself as one who was specially 
 honoured. When she left Leysin she wrote thus 
 to Mr. H. : 
 
 ' It is so good to think that it is not we who 
 choose our ministry, but that God leads us into it 
 by a long chain of unforeseen events. I am so 
 glad and thankful that God Himself sustains me 
 in the restricted circumstances of my life, and 
 I love to feel that He has chosen my place of 
 communion with Him, and my sphere of service 
 too, for otherwise I should be too weak to be of 
 any use at all ! I must confess that even though 
 I have been shown that God does use my life for 
 Him under present conditions, I should want to 
 run away and hide myself from everybody if ever 
 I got back the use of my legs ! God knows my 
 temperament, and that is why He has given me 
 a life of happiness, which I enjoy to the fill, 
 although I suffer at the same time, as I feel my- 
 self blessed in comparison with the thousands of 
 
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING 157 
 
 people who are not happy ! ^ Oh, it is good to 
 be alive ! even at Leysin and shut up in one room, 
 when there is perfect harmony between one's 
 work and one's conscience, between one's soul 
 and God. This inward harmony is the secret of 
 pure joy ; but I find it so difficult to explain this 
 to most of my visitors. I spent over an hour 
 yesterday discussing the point with a lady who 
 could not understand that I could be happier 
 now that I am ill than I ever used to be when 
 I was well.' 
 
 At every step of the way Adele Kamm felt that 
 an unseen Hand was leading her along the right 
 path. Every attack of illness which increased 
 her suffering only served to intensify her joy. 
 The awful pain which tortured her body was 
 turned into glorious blessing. She counted it 
 a light thing compared with ' the many years of 
 perfect happiness which she had spent in her 
 pretty pink room ! ' When she thought of all 
 those who suffer without these alleviations, of those 
 * unknown heroes labouring ceaselessly for the 
 cause of God in the solitude of unhealthy regions, 
 and surrounded by the hatred of suspicious 
 
 1 The italics are the author's. 
 
158 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 savages,' ^ she longed to deny herself some little 
 pleasure, and it was a real comfort to her to suffer 
 pain, because then she felt that ' the balance was 
 even again.' But at the same time she enjoyed 
 every moment of respite from pain. At one time 
 the neck vertebrae were so badly diseased that 
 they pierced the alimentary canal. To relieve 
 her Dr. V. tried putting an ice-bag on the nape of 
 her neck. She wrote on the 12th of July to her 
 friend Mrs. R. : ' So I am resting on my little ice- 
 pillow, and it is such a relief that I am sure you 
 will be glad to hear about it too . . . the pain 
 was simply terrible before. And then it is a 
 comfort to mother and Dr. V. that the pain is 
 at least bearable now that I have the ice. Oh, 
 if you only knew how happy I am ! I feel a new 
 and deeper sense of freedom and joy and gratitude ; 
 above all I am so thankful for this illness which 
 has taught me the secret of real deep happiness ! 
 And I can say with conviction that through this 
 trial my life has been the happiest I know of, and 
 1 would, not change it now for any other, so wonder- 
 fully have I been blessed.^ ^ 
 
 * Letter to Miss Schlumberger, loth October 1909. 
 2 The italics are the author's. 
 
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING 159 
 
 She wrote on the same topic to another corres- 
 pondent : ' I have at last learnt to love my illness. 
 ... It does not seem an enemy any longer, but 
 rather an inseparable companion, who teaches me 
 many precious lessons by the way.' Surely no 
 one ever carried the art of being an invalid to such 
 perfection ! But then no one was ever more 
 determined than she that illness should not make 
 her life either useless or unhappy. Although 
 she had learnt to love her affliction for the sake of 
 all the good she gained from it, yet at the same 
 time she fought against it with all her might, and 
 would not allow it to subdue her spirit. Long 
 ago she had determined its limits : ' You may 
 destroy my body bit by bit,' she said, ' and, even- 
 tually, you may kill me, but in the meantime you 
 shall not prevent me from living ! ' Life means 
 work, and in action she renewed her strength. We 
 have seen that she was constantly impressing this 
 truth upon other invalids ; she did so because 
 she had proved the value of this principle in her 
 own life. 
 
 We who are strong and healthy can have no idea 
 of what it costs those who are physically weak to 
 put forth the will-power needed to keep them in 
 
i6o THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 touch with ordinary Hfe. It involves a conscious 
 effort which must be renewed day by day. After 
 the consultation at which the doctors decided 
 that she must not be moved from her room under 
 any circumstances, not even on to the balcony, she 
 suffered much from the lack of that fresh air so 
 necessary for her diseased lungs. It distressed 
 her still more that she could no longer see the 
 unknown passers-by in the street below, and 
 she felt that the time had come for her to re- 
 double her efforts to maintain her intellectual 
 and spiritual vigour. On the i8th of February 
 1910 she wrote thus to Mrs. H. R. : 
 
 * I feel that there is real danger in living entirely 
 in one room ; I mean the danger of becoming 
 warped and narrow in outlook, and of losing our 
 sense of proportion, which is sure to lead us into 
 some error or another, and ultimately to an arti- 
 ficial view of life. For some years I did not feel 
 this so much, because the memories of ordinary 
 life were still sufficiently vivid to keep my outlook 
 healthy and normal. But that is now no longer 
 the case — those memories have become confused 
 in my mind, and I only live on the recollections 
 of my abnormal invalid life. I suppose I must 
 
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING i6i 
 
 try to make up for this lack of experience hy will- 
 power, and I might even add hy the use of 
 common sense and intelligence. It is only by 
 seeing all sorts of people, and hearing all kinds of 
 opinions, that I can in any way keep in touch 
 with ordinary life, and prevent my faculties 
 from becoming either warped or stunted. That 
 is why I try to take a keen interest in all sorts of 
 things, even in balls, and sport, and fashions ! 
 I am trying to fight against the weakness which 
 might make me lazy ; and if I am stronger in 
 the spring I mean to begin learning Esperanto. 
 So you see that I am doing all I can not to rust 
 out!' 
 
 In the sentences just quoted we see quite 
 plainly that Adele Kamm was endowed with 
 plenty of good common sense. She was a Jille 
 (Tescient, as Philip Monnier would have put it. 
 She knew from experience that ' invalids are often 
 tempted for various reasons to lower their ideals : 
 by the long years of seclusion, by all kinds of diffi- 
 culties arising out of their helpless condition, or, 
 on the other hand, by the unwise indulgence of 
 those around them, but chiefly by that state of 
 mental stagnation which leads them to be entirely 
 
 L 
 
i62 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 absorbed in their physical condition, and to forget 
 that they too have a duty to fulfil in the world.' 
 At all costs invalids must learn to maintain their 
 sense of proportion, ' knowing that the body 
 must be properly cared for, for it is not right to 
 ignore it; and also reaHsing that life has no 
 meaning unless it is used in the service of others, 
 and that the example of our invalid life ought to 
 be the means of bringing numbers of sufferers 
 who have lost the freshness of their early ideals 
 to a saner view of life.' 
 
 Adele Kamm never allowed illness to rob her 
 of her youthful charm. She was the most attrac- 
 tive invalid I ever saw. I shall never forget my 
 first visit to her. I was ushered into a room 
 flooded with bright spring sunshine, where she lay 
 in bed, for she had not been able to get up for a 
 long time. Above her head a little canopy of some 
 diaphanous material softened the effect of the 
 light, and showed up her pale complexion. She 
 was very prettily dressed. A pale pink shawl was 
 thrown carelessly round her shoulders. She loved 
 rose-colour, and liked to see her room gay with it. 
 She once gave this delightful piece of advice to 
 her comrades in suffering : ' Make your rooms 
 
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUFFERING 163 
 
 as attractive as possible, and turn out everything 
 that even suggests illness.' She certainly carried 
 it out herself ; her brave spirit saw its necessity 
 both for her own sake, and that of her family, as 
 well as for the visitors to whom she was always 
 ready to give a cordial welcome. 
 
 In my own case this pleasant reception put me 
 at my ease at once, and I was much surprised to 
 see nothing of a painful nature. And as she talked, 
 sometimes with a childlike expression of happiness, 
 and again, when the subject lay very close to her 
 heart, with an almost feverish intensity, I was 
 struck by her beautiful white hands, whose 
 delicately graceful movements reminded me of 
 the lovely saints in Memling's pictures. 
 
 Her room overflowed with happiness ; we used 
 to realise this fact when we had to take our leave, 
 for we left it regretfully. The young sufferer was 
 a radiant influence for good. No one could 
 come into contact with her without being im- 
 pressed by her joyful serenity. As one of her 
 friends said to me : ' She always draws the best 
 out of every one who comes into touch with her.' 
 On the threshold of that charming room, always 
 as gay with flowers as though its occupant were 
 
i64 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 on the eve of a festival, every visitor laid down 
 the burden of sordid care or of ignoble feeling. 
 She could only see the good in those who came 
 to her. Believing implicitly in their goodness 
 she made people long to be worthy of her opinion. 
 From all quarters a constant tide of sympathy 
 flowed into her quiet chamber. No one could 
 help loving her ; she was so appealing in her 
 purity and innocence. Such a beautiful expres- 
 sion of simple goodness shone in those steadfast 
 eyes, which had never beheld the world's sore 
 evil. Unsullied as a vestal virgin she had been set 
 apart by pain, far from all that was low, degrading, 
 or mean. She was shut out also from the dusty 
 tumult of life's battle, and through this separation 
 she had indeed won the highest victory : she had 
 transformed her suffering into a glorious privilege. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 DARK HOURS 
 
 * We cannot kindle when we will 
 
 The fire which in the heart resides ; 
 The spirit bloweth and is still, 
 In mystery our soul abides. 
 
 But tasks in hours of insight wlll'd 
 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfilTd.' 
 
 M. Arnold. 
 
 In the spiritual realm there is no such thing as 
 absolute and conclusive victory. We must not 
 imagine that xA.dele Kamm spent her latter years 
 in undisturbed tranquillity and peace. Like an 
 Alpine climber, who before he can reach the 
 topmost peak must make his toilsome way along 
 the edge of a precipice, she had to strain every 
 nerve in order to keep her footing. It is not 
 surprising to learn that she had to fight many 
 a hard and lonely conflict, and though she nearly 
 always managed to meet her visitors with a smile, 
 yet when night came, and she was alone, the 
 almost intolerable suffering would sometimes 
 
i66 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 wring from her bitter tears. Either from stoicism 
 or pride she would hide this feeling from those 
 whom she did not know well ; and she never 
 spoke of it to those who depended on her brave 
 example for inspiration. But if she knew that 
 any of her correspondents were ready to faint 
 under a heavy and well-nigh unbearable burden 
 of suffering, she would then unveil her own pain 
 and her own weakness, as though she would say, 
 ' Do you suppose that life is a bed of roses to 
 me ? ' She would never allow her triumphant 
 faith to be a source of discouragement to weaker 
 souls. 
 
 She did not attempt, however, to conceal her 
 feelings from the little circle of intimate friends 
 to whom she was bound by every tie of fellowship 
 in thought and feeling and in the experience of 
 suffering. On the 9th of November 1909 she 
 wrote thus to Miss Schlumberger : 
 
 ' . . . O Lily, you do not know how your 
 sweet words have helped me ! Then the 
 " Coccinelles " help me too ; and the intense 
 love that I feel for my own dear ones, for my 
 friends, and for all the poor hungry souls who 
 crave for affection, all this makes me struggle 
 
DARK HOURS 167 
 
 with all my might to live a little longer if possible. 
 But I am sorry to say that only yesterday selfish- 
 ness, ugly, horrid selfishness, got the upper hand, 
 and I was very unhappy in consequence. I had 
 had three consecutive attacks, and such bad ones 
 that it was impossible either to sleep or eat, and 
 I felt so utterly spent and weary that yesterday 
 afternoon, about four o'clock, I did something 
 I have scarcely ever done before — I asked them 
 to turn on my little electric lamp, and to leave 
 me alone, alone with my pain and with God. 
 
 ' Shortly afterwards the doctor came, and he 
 was terribly distressed to see me in such suffering. 
 I would like to have sent him away too ; and per- 
 haps it would have been the best thing to do. 
 He was so concerned and grieved that he could 
 not relieve the pain, and so after he had chatted 
 for a while about his little girls, and had promised 
 that they should come and see me soon, he sat by 
 me for some time in silence. At last he got up, 
 took my hand, and just said, " My poor child ! " 
 Then, unable to control myself any longer, I 
 burst out : " O doctor ! how long can I go on 
 living in this pain ? I cannot bear any more ! " 
 " I don't know," he answered, and went away. 
 
1 68 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Oh ! how his sympathy did comfort me, but I 
 felt so vexed with myself, for I had distressed him, 
 my good, kind friend, and I was also grieved that 
 he should carry away such a poor impression of 
 my faith and joy in suffering ; though, after all, 
 I was not feeling rebellious, but only longing to 
 go home.' 
 
 Adele soon noticed how much it tried her 
 mother and sister to see her in this state of 
 depression and weariness and pain. 
 
 * At last, when they had all gone to bed,' she 
 added, ' I was very miserable, for by my selfishness 
 I had succeeded in making every one around me 
 unhappy, and myself into the bargain. I re- 
 minded myself of all the confusion that my death 
 would cause, and what I still could do to make 
 my dear ones happy ; and then I began to pray 
 very earnestly for strength to go on fighting, and 
 to conquer my selfishness, so that I might again 
 be able to give out joy, instead of making every 
 one around me miserable. My prayer was 
 answered, and towards morning I was able to sleep, 
 and to-day I seem to have taken a turn for the 
 better. I feel much braver, and have even been 
 able to take some food. 
 
DARK HOURS 169 
 
 ' This evening I feel quite set up by the brief 
 respite, and I am taking advantage of it to have 
 a chat with you, darhng, for I cannot tell whether 
 the lull will be long or short. If you only knew, 
 Lily, how strange it seems to me to have to 
 struggle to live, when all the time I feel an irre- 
 sistible longing to be with Jesus Christ. From 
 month to month He becomes more wonderfully 
 attractive to me, His Light seems more radiant, 
 His words more living and deeper in meaning, 
 and I feel so trustful, so happy, so joyful, that 
 it is with real difficulty that I make myself stay 
 here when I want to fly away, to throw off the 
 burden of this suffering body, and to penetrate 
 into that mysterious Beyond, to enter fully into 
 the wonder of that intense Divine Love ! Still, 
 I am a very ordinary little mortal, and it has been 
 my habit ever since I was a child to put duty 
 before inclination, and this view of things helps 
 me more than I can say at this critical moment. 
 Duty first ! Those are my orders I and I must 
 stick to my post and not neglect anything for that ; 
 I believe that I can live for a good while longer 
 if only I am brave, but I do need a stimulus, and 
 the " Coccinelles " supply just the kind I want.' 
 
I70 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Adele Kamm lived in constant communion with 
 God, but like all the mystics — for she was a mystic, 
 though she did not realise it herself — she had her 
 moments of weakness and even of rebellion. She 
 used to distinguish three distinct phases in her 
 spiritual state : the anguish of rebellion, the 
 intermediate state of passive submission, free 
 from all bitterness, and then ' the blessed experi- 
 ence of willing and joyful surrender which floods 
 the soul with such pure and beautiful spiritual 
 joys that trial, in these circumstances, becomes 
 a source of profound blessing and happiness.' 
 On the 23rd of February 19 10, in a message to the 
 ' Coccinelles,' she confessed that she had had * a 
 terrible fall, and a most unexpected one,' from 
 entire tranquillity to rebeUion, without stopping 
 at the intermediate phase of passive submission. 
 However, even in that which she calls rebellion, 
 her love to her neighbour is still the prevailing 
 sentiment : 
 
 ' . . . Conflicts and tears have again been my 
 portion,' she wrote, * and I have realised afresh 
 what it is to be among the number of those who 
 faint under their burden of suffering, and, can 
 you believe it, in spite of my distress, I felt a deep 
 
DARK HOURS 171 
 
 inward satisfaction in sharing the experience of the 
 saddest portion of humanity ^ . . . I rose again 
 soon to the higher level of resignation, where I did 
 not feel so unhappy. But it is a curious thing, and 
 one I was very glad to prove for myself, that during 
 those two weeks of passive submission I received 
 no message from above for others, and I was unable 
 to give out anything at all. The saddest and 
 most touching letters did not move me in the 
 least, and I did not try to answer them, as I had 
 nothing to give in the way of spiritual help. I 
 felt as though I could not give up my own way, and 
 joyfully accept the prospect of spending another 
 summer in my room and in bed. No, I could not, 
 and then I sounded the depths of my spiritual 
 weakness. Happily for us Christianity is a positive 
 thing. As M. Monod remarks in that book of 
 his which I like so much, Silence and Prayer, a 
 Christian must not say, " If only I might be helped 
 from on high," but, " I know that my help comes 
 from Above ! " So I repeated that sentence in 
 all humility of soul, and it certainly gave me fresh 
 patience and trust. At length, on Saturday last, 
 without any special preparation in the way of 
 
 * The italics are the author's. 
 
172 THE LIFE OF AD^LE KAMM 
 
 prayer or meditation, I felt a sudden inrush of 
 joy, that joy which I had so completely lost. 
 Without any kind of struggle, and, in consequence, 
 without victory, I was back in my habitual sphere, 
 saying with joy : " Yes, Lord, my life belongs to 
 Thee ; use it just in the very best way for my 
 own good, for that of others, and for Thy Glory ! " 
 Since then I have again been the happiest creature 
 alive. I threw myself into work with fresh joy. 
 . . . This experience has been a salutary lesson 
 to me, and has taught me to sympathise more 
 fully with those who struggle, and with those who 
 are ready to faint and fail, and for whom one 
 needs to have words of cheer which have been 
 learnt in recent trouble and not merely in years 
 gone by.' 
 
 The thought of all the sufferers, and others 
 who depended on her, was a great stimulus to 
 Adele Kamm. ' In healing the wounds of others 
 we are ourselves healed, comfort comes to us as 
 we try to bring comfort to others. . . . Invalids 
 have a much greater influence than people who 
 are well. They have many more ways of helping 
 others ; I am sure it is so from my own sweet and 
 happy experience.' 
 
DARK HOURS 173 
 
 She was so deeply attached to her ministry of 
 sympathy, that when she reflected on her ap- 
 proaching death she could only grieve that the 
 ' pink room ' would no longer be open for those 
 who came there to seek peace and refreshment. 
 When her suffering increased, and she felt herself 
 on the verge of giving up the struggle, she would 
 think of those who looked to her for inspiration, 
 just as when in battle a leader knows that the least 
 wavering on his part will cause a panic among his 
 followers his courage rises to the demands made 
 upon it. But this was a very heavy responsibility 
 for a young invalid girl ! Her beloved ' Coccin- 
 elles ' were not the only people whom she inspired 
 with courage by her letters and messages. More 
 and more her room became, as Huysmans de- 
 scribed that of St. Lydwinia, a 'Hospital for 
 Souls.' And her example exerted even greater 
 influence than her words. 
 
 ' Invalids have a great influence over healthy 
 people,' she wrote on the 5 th of July 1909 to 
 Mrs. H. R. ; ' the latter sympathise with them, 
 and eagerly watch to see what faith can do in trial. 
 If faith is triumphant then no sermon, no address, 
 will come anywhere near it for convincing power 
 
174 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 and value. In these days of scepticism we need 
 living witnesses to the power of Christ, and this 
 particular kind of witness impresses every one. 
 For some months past I have felt a greater re- 
 sponsibility than ever about the power of faith in 
 suffering. I pray very often that God will up- 
 hold me and direct all my words, for scores of 
 visitors are watching me, ready to falter if I seem 
 to weaken, or to beHeve with all their heart if I 
 am full of peace and of confidence in God's love. 
 I am not referring just now to my correspondence, 
 which is a work in itself, but to the people who 
 come to see me in my pretty room with the one 
 desire of gaining spiritual help. 
 
 ' And you, dear friend, who know my nature 
 to be so simple, so faulty, so uncertain of itself, 
 and, I might say, almost worldly, you can under- 
 stand that I feel quite overwhelmed sometimes, 
 and long to be once more the unknown girl of 
 former days. But that does not seem to be the 
 will of God. Every life has an influence for good 
 or evil. I have gone through a great deal of 
 painful inward experience ever since I was quite 
 little. I am sure that God has ordered my life 
 for a very definite purpose, as my present con- 
 
DARK HOURS 175 
 
 dition shows ; and He has done it with such 
 tenderness and exquisite gentleness, bringing 
 each trial gradually to me, that now I lie here in 
 my helplessness a willing instrument in the hands 
 of God. I take up the task He sets me, even 
 though I would have preferred to remain un- 
 noticed. I will be brave, and shoulder even that 
 responsibility which seems almost too much for 
 my spiritual and physical powers. And since it is 
 my life-work to witness to the power of faith 
 in suffering, I accept it very gratefully, and I 
 thank God for it every day, asking Him to sustain 
 me in this most beautiful path of service — that 
 of glorifying Him by suffering, and so, by this 
 means, of leading many souls to trust Him too.' 
 
 Putting her own troubles aside Adele was some- 
 times called upon to listen to the complaints of 
 perfectly healthy people, and even to practise 
 the difficult art of mind-healing. ' A lady came 
 the other day,' she wrote to a friend, ' to ask me 
 point-blank to comfort her soul ! ' And the poor 
 girl, strong in faith as she was, was quite worn out 
 by the Jeremiad to which she had to listen. On 
 the 15 th of November 1909 she wrote to Miss 
 Schlumberger : ' Sometimes I faint under the 
 
176 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 burden of all these varied confidences, which are 
 sometimes so intimate that I am astonished by 
 them. And why, why is all this confidence 
 poured into my ear alone ? I know perfectly well 
 that it is not because I have anything striking to 
 say, but simply because my heart is overflowing 
 with compassion for all who suffer ; and therefore 
 I do not hesitate to break through my natural 
 reserve to speak of my sufferings and of my deepest 
 feelings, in the hope of soothing some of these 
 poor souls by letting them know that they are 
 loved. Yes, love — everything lies in that word.' 
 ' Yes, love — everything lies in that word.' Adele 
 Kamm possessed the gift of love to such a degree 
 that it almost amounted to genius. This is the 
 impression we get from reading her letters. We 
 must not expect to find, as she herself said, charm 
 of style or originality of thought, — the tone is 
 rather that of the most artless sincerity. I 
 have tried to let her own voice be heard, just as 
 she used to speak, for this little book has not been 
 written for those cultured people who value 
 nothing but literary elegance, but for ' weary and 
 heavy-laden souls,' who are in search of spiritual 
 comfort and refreshment. Adele Kamm was 
 
DARK HOURS 177 
 
 guided by one thought and one only, and it 
 determined the character of all her correspond- 
 ence : to radiate a holy influence, to find words 
 of comfort for the sick, to encourage those who 
 were bravely fighting the battle of life, to raise 
 up the faint-hearted by lavishing on them that 
 wise and tender affection which seeks the highest 
 good of those on whom it is bestowed. She was 
 infinitely tender to those who gave her their 
 confidence. She surrounded them with the 
 most loving thoughtfulness. She knew exactly 
 what each one needed. Even when she spoke of 
 herself she was always thinking of others. Her 
 whole life was a sermon. She was never tired of 
 saying, ' The peace which I, weak and unworthy 
 as I am, have won, may be your experience too.' 
 She longed that the example of her own life 
 should be one of those ' living witnesses ' which 
 she (most rightly) considered so necessary in the 
 life of these days. We ought to receive this 
 witness with care and reverence, for it is of more 
 value in our eyes than all the creeds and texts 
 in the world ; we must bow before the super- 
 natural power which can so transfigure a young 
 life. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 It seems scarcely credible, especially if we know 
 anything of the miseries of insomnia, and yet it is 
 true that Adele Kamm's happiest time was at 
 night when she could not sleep for pain. Even 
 when she felt most ill she never wanted any one 
 to sit up with her. She loved to be quite alone 
 in her room, where silence reigned at last after 
 all the noise and bustle of the day. Sometimes, 
 far on in the night, she would light her electric 
 lamp, and write to her friends ; at other times 
 she would lie in the darkness watching a solitary 
 star shining in at her window, seeing its brilliance 
 fade away until it vanished in the greyness of the 
 dawn. That was the hallowed moment when 
 she could pray best. In July 1910, when it 
 seemed probable that death was not far off, she 
 wrote to Mrs. H. R. : ' My left lung is now 
 quite useless, and the right is so badly affected 
 that I suffer much distress from difficulty of 
 breathing, especially at intervals, when my heart 
 goes wrong as well. These are my worst times, 
 and I find it hard to be patient then. At night I 
 get on much better spiritually, because I have such 
 a deHghtful sense of being upheld . . . and I 
 long to go joyfully home to God, without having 
 
DARK HOURS 179 
 
 to witness the distress of those I love so dearly. 
 I enjoy being alone, even when I feel very ill, 
 because I am not in the least afraid ; but if any one 
 sits up with me my peace is disturbed. I suppose 
 because I am depending on other people instead 
 of on God and on myself.' Her prayer was no 
 formal utterance. In the stillness of the night a 
 heavenly peace enfolded her. In the hush of the 
 Divine Presence her suffering was soothed like that 
 of a sick child in its mother's arms. She gave 
 herself into God's care with loving trust. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE CROSS 
 
 ' It is not enough that Christ died once ; He must be 
 dying always.' 
 
 ' . , . Knowest thou,' said Christ, ' what it is that I have done 
 unto thee ? I have given thee the Stigmata, that are the signs 
 of My Passion, to the end that thou mayest be My standard- 
 bearer.' — (From T/ie Little Floivers of St. Francis of Assiii.) 
 
 The secret of Adele Kamm's abiding and triumph- 
 ant joy lay in the fact that it was constantly 
 renewed in the hidden depths of the unfailing 
 fountains of pain. In the crucible of Christian 
 faith her sorrow was turned into a wonderful joy. 
 Her faith was of an essentially living and indi- 
 vidual type. ' In my opinion,' said Miss S. G. 
 in a letter to me, ' that peculiarly vital and 
 radiant element in her piety was the result of an 
 entirely spontaneous religious development, free 
 from all extravagance or undue pressure from 
 outside influences ; her spiritual growth was 
 natural and unforced ; she was allowed to develop 
 along her own lines, without being either checked 
 
THE CROSS i8i 
 
 or hastened by the zeal of well-meaning relatives, 
 or by the care of a spiritual director. The 
 atmosphere of truth pervaded it from the very 
 beginning ; there was an entire absence of all 
 scrupulous rigidity, or of artificial and imaginary 
 experience, and her whole inward life was guided 
 by the Inner Light, loyally followed by an 
 upright and noble soul, whose nature had been 
 deepened and purified by suffering.' 
 
 She is quite right. Adele Kamm owed very 
 little to human teaching. She grew up in her 
 own way, educated in the severe but wholesome 
 school of suffering. We must therefore attach 
 but secondary importance to the influences which 
 did affect her. She was susceptible only to those 
 which were of assistance to her in the path which 
 she knew she was meant to follow. And if we 
 may mention any one book which, read at the 
 right moment, brought heavenly light to her 
 soul, we do so knowing that it had this effect on 
 her simply because she found in it the reflection of 
 her own personality ; and because it gave her 
 intense joy to find her own thoughts set forth 
 with absolute clearness, thoughts which up till 
 that moment had been confused, vague, and semi- 
 
i82 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 articulate. Such was her experience on reading 
 the book entitled Studies on the Value of Suffering, 
 by Mr. Ernest Rostan/ which had been lent her 
 in August 1909 by Mr. M. 
 
 ' You cannot imagine,' she wrote to Mr. M., 
 ' my feelings of profound surprise and satisfaction 
 when, on opening the unknown book which you 
 had so kindly lent me, I discovered that I was 
 reading an exact interpretation of all my thoughts, 
 whether clearly defined or only half-conscious 
 (even to myself), and indeed the expression of my 
 deepest feelings ; and all without the slightest 
 discord, without a jarring word or phrase which 
 could in any way spoil the impression left on me 
 by this splendid book, Studies on the Value of 
 Suffering. 
 
 * It is not the kind of book to read through 
 quickly, and yet in five hours I had completely 
 mastered every part of the argument, and even 
 Rostan's modes of expression as well, which shows 
 you that my own point of view exactly coincides 
 with that of Rostan ; and that this book simply 
 sums up, in a very beautiful and perfect manner, 
 
 1 A new edition of this book has just been published by George 
 Bridel, Lausanne. 
 
THE CROSS 183 
 
 the gist of my thoughts, whether consciously 
 defined or not, for a long time past. 
 
 ' Just at first the introduction to the book made 
 me feel a little apprehensive, for Mr. Philip Bridel 
 seemed rather uneasy because certain chapters, 
 such as " Expiation through Suffering," had been 
 included in the volume. But the beauty, the 
 sublime spirituality of that chapter gave me the 
 deepest joy. Bridel cannot understand it as 
 Rostan and I can, because, as he himself says, he 
 has not passed through the fiery trial of long 
 physical suffering. He has not known those 
 sleepless nights when our thoughts try to pene- 
 trate insoluble mysteries . . . and when, if faith 
 does not come to our aid, we may so easily lapse 
 into sheer unbelief. No, for those who have not 
 suffered much the chapter on " Expiation through 
 Suffering " ^ may well seem very mysterious and 
 almost unreal. That is why, until now, I have 
 always taken care to hide the secret of my joy 
 in suffering in the deepest recesses of my soul. 
 Faith and the love of God in Christ can give the 
 only consolation to those in affliction, but I believe 
 
 ^ There is no chapter bearing this title in Mr. Rostan's book, 
 but there are two chapters entitled respectively: 'The Necessity 
 for Expiation,' and 'The Mystery of Expiation.' 
 
i84 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 the source of abiding joy in constant suffering 
 lies in a somewhat vague, confused, but real sense 
 of vicarious sacrifice. Even when this feeling 
 becomes more definite, we cannot go to our 
 neighbour and say, " I am in a state of heavenly- 
 bliss unknown to the majority of men and women, 
 because I know that I am suffering a direct 
 chastisement inflicted by God, not only for my 
 own sins but also for the sins of the whole world, 
 for that burden of guilt which would overwhelm 
 us altogether were it not for the atoning sacrifice 
 of Jesus Christ, and that of the members of His 
 Church." This holy joy would be misunderstood, 
 criticism would soon extinguish the sacred flame 
 which burns in the depths of the soul, and I have 
 never mentioned the subject to any one ; indeed, 
 I even suppressed the Hnes that I had written 
 about it, in the MS. of my little book, under the 
 heading of "Joy." ' 
 
 The reason why Adele Kamm could enter into 
 such full sympathy with Mr. Rostan was that 
 he too was a comrade in suffering. He had 
 trodden the same path and had reached the same 
 goal. Mr. Philip Bridel tells us in his preface 
 that these beautiful and touching Studies on the 
 
THE CROSS 185 
 
 Value of Suffering first came into being as a series 
 of simple Sunday meditations addressed by Mr. 
 Rostan to his fellow-sufferers at Leysin in 1899. 
 This book, the fruit of mature thought and 
 experience, cannot be summed up in a few sen- 
 tences. Mr. Rostan bases his whole argument 
 upon the words of St. Paul : ^ ' I ... fill up 
 on my part that which is lacking of the aflEictions 
 of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which 
 is the Church,' the word ' Church ' being taken 
 in its broadest sense, and covering the whole of 
 regenerate humanity. Mr. Rostan's view is that 
 when a Christian accepts undeserved suffering 
 he shares in the sufferings of His Master.^ His 
 pain becomes a kind of crucifixion through which 
 he also, in his imperfect way, may atone for sins 
 which are not his own. 
 
 ' But,' some one will say, ' is not this a very 
 dangerous doctrine ? does it not lead to spiritual 
 pride ? is it not sacrilegious to put oneself in the 
 place of the Son of God ? ' And Mr. Rostan fore- 
 saw this objection. ' Our expiatory sufferings,' 
 he says,^ ' do not, of themselves, achieve the 
 
 ^ Col. i. 24. 2 See pp. 173 and following. 
 
 3 See pp. 177 and following. 
 
i86 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 salvation of any one, but they have a moral value 
 flowing from the redemptive power of Christ, 
 and which acts in the same manner. . . . We 
 do not take the place of Jesus Christ, we manifest 
 Him. . . . We do not add to the power of His 
 redemption, but we release it for the good of 
 others.' Any one can see in what way Mr. Ros- 
 tan's doctrine differs from the Roman Catholic 
 teaching concerning transference of merit. How- 
 ever, it is not our business to enter into de- 
 tails about this view of Mr. Rostan's, much less 
 to discuss it fully. All we wish to do is to make 
 clear the part it played in Adele Kamm's experi- 
 ence. We may call it the glowing centre of all 
 her religious thinking, the oft-renewed source 
 of her strength and joy. It is evident that the 
 perusal of Studies on the Value of Suffering acted 
 as a great help and stimulus to her. 
 
 * I know you will be glad to hear that I am 
 having a good week,' she wrote to Mrs. F. G. on 
 the 20th of August. ' I am sure you would like 
 to see me now ; my face has filled out ; I look more 
 like myself again. Several good nights have given 
 my eyes a brighter expression, and I feel that 
 it is good to be alive ! I am so thankful for this 
 
THE CROSS 187 
 
 time of respite, which I am enjoying with all 
 my heart, for I know that I do not deserve it in the 
 least. I regard suffering as an integral part of 
 life, owing to the fact of sin, not of our individual 
 sins in particular, but the great mass of human 
 guilt, which would overwhelm us utterly were it 
 not for the great love of God and the sacrifice 
 of Christ. I feel that it is already such a glorious 
 thing to know that we can be forgiven, and that 
 we may one day enter into the bliss of heaven, 
 that every happy experience in this present life 
 seems almost too good to be true, and fills me with 
 overflowing gratitude. 
 
 ' For a long time now I have cherished, deep 
 down in my heart, a certain conviction, which, 
 though at first somewhat vague and elusive, has 
 become clearer during the last two years, and is 
 really the source of all the joy which I experience 
 in my affliction. I beHeve that suffering, accepted 
 with submission, may be a means of great blessing 
 to us ; but I also beHeve that we may go a step 
 further, and that by the voluntary acceptance of 
 our cross in the Spirit of Christ (that is, in union 
 with the Will of God) we may help, in some 
 measure, to bring about the final victory of good 
 
i88 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 over evil. This ultimate triumph of Goodness, 
 foretold in the New Testament, and confirmed 
 hy all the highest aspirations of our spiritual 
 nature, is an aim so beautiful and sublime that 
 the thought that we may hasten the final de- 
 struction of sin hy the glad and willing uniting 
 of our sufferings with those of the Master is an 
 incredibly powerful motive and inspiration, as 
 I am finding out, to my great joy, every day I 
 live.' 
 
 Adele Kamm looked upon the whole of man- 
 kind as one family whose members were indis- 
 solubly united to each other, forming one body. 
 But it seemed to her that, owing to the fact of 
 sin, humanity had missed the way, and lost itself 
 in a maze of bewildered confusion. This ac- 
 counted for the ' problem ' of suffering. For, 
 since we have ' wandered ' away, why should 
 suffering, even of an intensely painful nature, 
 cause us any surprise ? Surely it would have 
 been unnatural had it been otherwise. 
 
 ' And we also suffer with, and on behalf of, each 
 other,' she adds ; ' that is to say we make atone- 
 ment for each other. All of us suffer in some 
 way, but some have to bear a double portion, 
 
THE CROSS 189 
 
 for the sake of those who suffer less — the innocent 
 child for the criminal, the elect for the depraved. 
 . . . We continue the work of Christ in minia- 
 ture : He, the Holy and Just One, consented to 
 suffer and become the Son of Man, in order that 
 He might be one with us, and make atonement 
 for His brethren and save them . . . and should 
 not we human beings, who are bound to each other 
 by the ties of common brotherhood, be glad and 
 willing to give ourselves to suffer for each other ? 
 When sin has been conquered, and good has 
 triumphed, when we have gained the final victory 
 through Christ, and when He comes in great 
 glory, then, oh, then . . . what joy it will be 
 for those who for this glorious end have suffered 
 willingly, and united their efforts to those of 
 Christ ! There, my dear friend, you have the 
 secret of the faith which strengthens me to go 
 forward with courage, and which makes my 
 present life of suffering far happier than the 
 former one. I am so grateful that I am allowed 
 to suffer in a noble cause, and I rejoice to know 
 that, in a quiet way, my life is being used for the 
 good of the race.' 
 
 It was such a comfort to her to have reached 
 
190 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 absolute clearness of thought on this point, and, 
 consequently, to dare to express it freely, that 
 she at once began to share this joy with all her 
 correspondents. ' We may do on a small scale 
 what Christ has done on a sublime one,' she 
 wrote on the 28th of August to Mr. H., ' and so 
 we enter into fellowship with Him. Only, we 
 must not forget that Christ chose this life of 
 suffering, and we do not choose it, we submit to it, 
 for we are sinful : our sole act of moral value is to 
 suffer willingly instead of merely passively sub- 
 mitting, and in this surrender of the will we may, 
 as I believe from the bottom of my heart, hasten 
 the victory of good in that awful struggle between 
 the powers of good and evil.' It is precisely this 
 willing surrender which, far surpassing the state 
 of neutral and gloomy resignation, turns pain 
 into joy and makes sickness a privilege — a privilege 
 and a glorious honour, since it allows the sufferer 
 to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ and in 
 His redemptive work. In this manner Adele 
 Kamm has been able to explain to us the secret 
 of that joy which appeared to us little short of 
 miraculous. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE DIVINE WILL TO 
 SUFFERING 
 
 *. . . It is no argument against the love of God that the 
 world is a world of pain, provided, as we know to be the 
 case, that God Himself has elected to suffer more than the 
 greatest sufferer, and that there is a worthy end to it all. . . .' 
 
 Bishop Brent. 
 
 Suffering, however, is not confined to the realm 
 of human existence. The whole universe is under 
 her inexorable sway. A modern French writer ^ 
 has thrown out the suggestion that, if we could 
 penetrate the mystery of the stars, we should find, 
 even in these, the same process going on, we should 
 have to contemplate the same awful spectacle of 
 ' Nature, red in tooth and claw,' carrying out her 
 pitiless design. And, indeed, if those countless 
 worlds of whose existence we are aware, but which 
 lie far beyond our ken — if they also throb with 
 
 1 Anatole France, through one of his characters, M. Bergeret. 
 
 191 
 
192 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 life, then we may be sure that death will be there 
 too ; for death is the shadow cast by life, assum- 
 ing the proportions of a giant spectre, hounding 
 on her prey to a certain doom. 
 
 Taking up the thought of Pascal that our 
 human existence is poised midway between * two 
 spheres of infinity,' we see that this whole realm 
 is under her control. Examine a drop of water 
 under a microscope, and you will observe the same 
 phenomenon. Look at the very ground upon 
 which you tread, and you will there see the same 
 law at work. Every tuft of grass is a battlefield 
 in miniature, and the scene of many a ruthless 
 massacre. We destroy life by the mere fact of 
 our existence. We often kill living creatures 
 quite thoughtlessly, apart from any personal 
 considerations of comfort or utility. What pur- 
 pose can be served by the suffering of yonder 
 insect, crushed by a careless heel ? The sight of 
 the dumb agony of a few shell-fish, left stranded 
 on the shore by the receding tide, and slowly 
 scorching to death in the sunshine, made such a 
 profound impression upon a sensitive, thoughtful 
 woman, Mme. Theodore Flournoy, that she 
 began to doubt the all-pervading goodness of 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 193 
 
 that Providence of whom Racine speaks in the 
 following terms : 
 
 'By God's provision new-born birds are fed, 
 And o'er all nature is His kindness spread.' 
 
 ' Why is it ? ' she mused, ' that this Beneficent 
 Power which broods over Nature is every- 
 where found lacking ? Why does He permit so 
 much cruelty, so many horrors, so much useless 
 suffering ? ' 
 
 At a later period in her life Mme. Flournoy had 
 to pass through terrible personal sorrows. Her 
 much-loved brother. Dr. Henry Burnier, a useful 
 and able man, who was working at Leysin with 
 great devotion, was one day shot by an unhappy 
 lunatic. The question then arose in her mind, 
 ' Ought I to see the hand of God in this event ? ' 
 She felt that she could not do so ; and, being a 
 poet, she poured out the perplexity of her soul 
 in the following burning stanzas : ^ 
 
 'Insensate, hateful Death, why wilt thou take 
 Thy cruel pleasure only in our pains ? 
 Of thy dread might are these the gains. 
 These broken flowers, these tears from hearts that break? 
 
 1 Recollections of Marie Flournoy- Burnier, 1 8 56-1 909 (for private 
 circulation), p. 50. 
 
 N 
 
194 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Eternal Father, God whose tender care 
 And all unresting mercy overflows 
 Our blackest, vilest sins, are these our woes 
 
 Thy doing then ? Thy will — this dread despair ? 
 
 O Holy God ! upon the Cross Thy Son 
 
 Died as the guilty die. Was that from Thee ? 
 Was that the only price to set us free ? 
 
 Were we not sad enough, till that was done ? 
 
 O God of Life and Grace, exalted high. 
 
 If I blaspheme Thy name wilt Thou forgive? 
 But if as Thy dear child I still would live, 
 
 In evil hands must I Thy Hand descry ? 
 
 When in the shadow plots the murderous heart, 
 Is Thy pure will at work within his hate ? 
 When battle-fields are swept and desolate 
 
 And ships return no more, hast Thou a part ? 
 
 " Thou shalt not curse thy brother " Thou hast taught, 
 And wilt Thou curse Thy child ? May God forbid. 
 'Tis Thou in hearts the life and light hast hid . . . 
 
 No God of shadows. Thou, nor Lord of naught.' 
 
 Other cruel bereavements fell to Mme. Flour- 
 noy's lot. She longed with growing intensity 
 for a satisfying conception of God, which would 
 free Him from the responsibility for the incompre- 
 hensible suffering which threatened to overwhelm 
 her on every side. 
 
 * That period of her life was a time of unspeak-' 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 195 
 
 able anguish, for the loss of her faith added 
 poignancy to the bitterness of her grief,' says 
 Mr. Theodore Flournoy in the preface to the 
 Recollections.'^ ' She feared that hope was gone 
 for ever, but a sincere religious faith can arise 
 even out of the dead ashes of such a devastating 
 fire, rendered stronger and purer by having 
 passed through the crucible of sorrow. After 
 fifteen months of terrible mental and spiritual 
 distress, peace came at last. Marie regained 
 balance and calmness of mind when she per- 
 ceived that in the Christianity of the Gospels 
 there is nothing to lead us to attribute suffering 
 to the Will of God, since Jesus Christ Himself, 
 differing widely in this respect from so many 
 Christian people, and even from many clergymen 
 of our day, never ascribed to our Heavenly Father 
 the miseries that He met and relieved, but He 
 attributed them to the Evil One alone. 
 
 ' She stated her new position in the phrase : 
 " God is absent from the world." Of course this 
 expression must not be taken too literally, nor 
 its meaning pressed too closely. She only meant 
 it to shadow forth her deep conviction that God 
 
 1 Page 7. 
 
196 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 is not vitally connected with the bodily and 
 mental ills from which we suffer.' 
 
 Thus Marie Flournoy found herself on the 
 horns of that formidable dilemma which has 
 tortured so many devout souls : Touched by the 
 insistent cry of a suffering world, how can any 
 thoughtful person maintain that the Creator is 
 both All-powerful and All-loving ? If He is 
 Love, how can He endure the sight of so much 
 terrible and often useless suffering, and that not 
 only of mankind, but of all living creatures ? If 
 He is All-Powerful, why does He allow it ? In 
 common with many present day Protestant 
 thinkers, such as William James, Wilfred Monod, 
 Charles Wagner, and Stephen Secretan, she tried 
 to solve the problem by giving up the conception 
 of God's Omnipotence in order to be able to keep 
 her belief in His Love. And along these lines she 
 regained her faith. ^ It was exactly the opposite 
 conclusion from that to which Adele Kamm had 
 been led. We have no right however to infer 
 from this fact that one of the two was necessarily 
 
 1 See the detailed description of this experience in 'Notes on 
 Religious Psychology,' by Mr. Theodore Flournoy (^Archhves dt 
 Fsychologie, vol. ii. p. 327. October 1903). 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 197 
 
 in the wrong, as our reason, objecting to all 
 logical contradictions, would lead us to suppose. 
 
 Never more plainly than in this insoluble 
 problem do we see that our views are but the 
 imperfect reflection of our own personality upon 
 an evershifting screen. Whether for good or 
 for evil, our ideas are moulded into logical form 
 by the pressure of some powerful feeling. In- 
 tellectual pride dims the vision of truth ; reason 
 considers herself the supreme guide, when in 
 reality she is obeying the will of another. She 
 is like an unscrupulous lawyer who has under- 
 taken to defend a cause with plausible argu- 
 ments, but whose speech, however clever it may 
 be, can never convince any excepting those who 
 wish to be convinced. 
 
 Does this attitude of mind force us into 
 thoroughgoing scepticism ? Must we then con- 
 clude that our search for Truth is utterly in vain ? 
 Since conflicting ideas may be of equal value, 
 must we infer that their value is nil ? On the 
 contrary, religious ideas and convictions are not 
 so easily adaptable that they can be fitted in to 
 any kind of brain, like machine-made wheels which 
 will fit any watch of a certain type made at a good 
 
198 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 factory. They cannot be manufactured at will 
 out of a mass of lifeless material. They are, and 
 ought to be, an integral part of life itself. If we 
 cannot work them out for ourselves, at least let 
 us not accept any which our minds cannot assimi- 
 late. Our criterion is not objective ; rather it 
 is subjective, and consists in that deep sense of 
 inward harmony which, according to William 
 James, is the mystic token by which we may 
 recognise Truth. The common saying that 
 ' Every one takes his pleasure where he finds it ' 
 receives a deeper meaning in this connection. 
 The obligation is laid upon each one of us of 
 persevering in the search for Truth, until we find 
 that part of it which we can make our own, and 
 which we may infallibly recognise by the sense 
 of abiding peace which will gradually enfold us. 
 And when we are quite certain that we have seen 
 ' the Star ' — the right one, and no meteor — we 
 must continue our journey in the darkness, in an 
 unknown land, guided by its light alone. This 
 was the course pursued by the Wise Men on their 
 way to Bethlehem, Perhaps the seeker after 
 the Ideal, as in the case of Marie Flournoy, will 
 have to quit the beaten track along which kindly 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 199 
 
 hands have led him in his childhood. He may- 
 find it necessary to break away from many accepted 
 traditions. This utter sincerity may involve 
 suffering, not only to himself, but to those he 
 loves. This is the price he must pay in order 
 to learn the inward meaning of those words, 
 * The truth shall make you free.' For each soul 
 the discovery of Truth involves self-knowledge 
 and freedom from all external restraint. 
 
 The question about which Adele Kamm and 
 Marie Flournoy (as is so often the case among 
 decided Christians) held such divergent views 
 is one of such vital significance that each of us 
 ought to take up a definite position with regard 
 to it. But, at the same time, we have no right 
 to say that either one or the other was mistaken. 
 Each lived up to the light which was given her, 
 and both of them finally reached the goal. We 
 ought to bear this fact in mind, that their 
 suffering was very different in character, and I 
 incline to believe that there we may discover the 
 underlying reason for their divergence of opinion. 
 The one suffered bodily pain, and for her the 
 way to victory lay in accepting her trial as a gift 
 from God, and in being able to bless Him for it. 
 
200 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Mme. Flournoy, on the other hand, suffered from 
 seeing the anguish of those she loved, and, in 
 consequence, she felt a sense of bitter resentment 
 at the apparent injustice of life. Selfish people 
 may find the troubles of others more bearable 
 than their own ; but generous, sensitive, and loving 
 souls like Mme. Flournoy are cast in a finer mould. 
 She would have considered it blasphemous to 
 thank God for having allowed her brother to 
 perish at the hands of an ordinary murderer. 
 This is a striking instance of the way in which 
 psychological justification can be found for the 
 most conflicting opinions. 
 
 We ought to take pains to acquire this point 
 of view, though it may involve a lessened con- 
 fidence in our own judgment and in the in- 
 fallibility of our arguments, or even in the value 
 of that which we have hitherto accepted as true 
 beyond all dispute. Adele Kamm felt this 
 necessity very strongly ; and she expressed it 
 with the tactful delicacy of a loving heart in a 
 beautiful letter written to Mr. Flournoy on the 
 19th of June 1 910, acknowledging his gift of a 
 copy of the Recollections : 
 
 ' I am keenly interested in the position which 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 201 
 
 Mme. Flournoy takes up on this great question. 
 I cannot help thinking how much I should have 
 enjoyed talking over the problem of pain with 
 her ; for the whole subject is one which troubles 
 some minds to such an extent that a solution of 
 some kind is really indispensable if they are to 
 maintain their faith, and to suffer wiUingly, 
 without bitterness and rebelHon. I cannot say 
 how much I admire Mme. Flournoy for her 
 profound love of God, which, I take it, is the 
 reason why she tries to shift the responsibility for 
 the problem of suffering away from God, think- 
 ing that it dishonours Him to bring Him in any 
 way in touch with the burdens of the " creation 
 which groaneth and travaileth in pain." It is 
 a great mystery, and one which, viewed at a dis- 
 tance^ would have probably led me to the same 
 conclusion as Mme. Flournoy^ for I cannot bear 
 to see either people or animals suffer. But, in 
 the realm of personal experience, I am forced 
 to see the hand of God in every detail of my 
 long trial. 
 
 ' This brings us out of the region of theory, 
 and into that of actual fact, which is full of in- 
 
 1 The Italics are the author's. 
 
202 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 finite variety. I hardly like to tell you what I 
 feel about suffering, because I do not suppose 
 that my private opinion will carry any weight ; 
 the only thing I can say for it is that it helps me 
 to suffer intelligently as well as trustfully, at those 
 times when my physical pain is so agonising, that 
 I feel that there simply must be a worthy end 
 to it all if I am to accept it. Every one must for- 
 mulate his or her own ideas on the subject and, must 
 consider them all valuable^ if they help us to make 
 the best of life a fid to hear our sufferings with 
 courage.'' 
 
 In the same letter Adele Kamm goes on to 
 expound her views on expiatory suffering in terms 
 very similar to those which she used in the letter 
 to Mr. F. G., which I quoted in the last chapter, 
 and then she adds : 
 
 ' . . . For people like me, who are confirmed 
 invalids with no hope of recovery, this religious 
 point of view has the advantage of giving us 
 strength and even joy in bearing the pain, the 
 sleepless nights, and the thousand and one 
 deprivations of our lot ; and it further teaches 
 us to see material pleasures in the right light, a 
 process which makes them appear very hollow. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 203 
 
 and sometimes positively harmful. The reason 
 why I am so happy is that I do not envy any 
 one ; I have found the secret of pure joy, for I 
 suffer with Christ in the holy cause of the redemp- 
 tion of humanity. Then I have other sources of 
 joy as well, which are more beautiful and fragrant 
 than any of the ordinary pleasures of health, and 
 which I would like every one to possess, even if it 
 involved their being ill for years. Fortunately, 
 however, this is not an indispensable condition 
 for those who want to comfort and help all who 
 are fallen and out of the way, and who would 
 show them the radiant glories of eternity in the 
 midst of the shadows of this earthly life. 
 
 * Sometimes I feel that I am so much happier 
 than those whom the world reckons the most 
 fortunate, that I am almost ashamed of myself, 
 and I am quite glad when from time to time my 
 spirit fails me, and I realise my oneness in suffering 
 with all who struggle and rebel. Oh, how well 
 I understand them, when I think of all the bless- 
 ings that I have received and how I have fallen ! 
 I feel then that I am sister to all these unhappy 
 souls, and my heart goes out to them, and I long 
 to take them by the hand and dry their tears, 
 
204 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 and show them Him who is the Saviour and the 
 Life. 
 
 ' But there is one thing that shadows my happi- 
 ness : how can I be perfectly happy when I think 
 of all these brothers and sisters of mine who are 
 well-nigh overwhelmed by their burdens, and 
 who must suffer in this life if the love of God is 
 to save them for a glorious future ? But here 
 again we must believe in God with all our hearts, 
 and remember that life has a high and worthy aim 
 when it is dedicated to the holy cause of doing 
 good. Therefore, it is worth while to be born to 
 suffer, and to die. Two years ago I thought 
 that I had reached the highest experience of the 
 spiritual life in welcoming the thought of death ; 
 but I have learnt something more since then, 
 and now I shall be grateful for life as long as I 
 have an atom of strength left. I am looking 
 forward with intense hopefulness to the life 
 beyond, not only for the radiant joy of the nearer 
 vision of God, but because I am sure that we shall 
 not be at rest, but that we shall go on working 
 for God just the same, only in a much higher and 
 purer fashion. I suffer so much from my weak- 
 nesses and from the various hindrances which 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 205 
 
 constantly arise in work for God down here. 
 Oh, it will be good, it will be glorious, to be 
 able to serve Him without sinning ! ' 
 
 It is quite clear that Adele Kamm's views on 
 suffering cannot possibly be reconciled with those 
 of Marie Flournoy. The mind can scarcely con- 
 ceive of God as a capricious Being who is some- 
 times absent from the world, and sometimes 
 present in it, a God who has nothing to do with 
 certain kinds of suffering, but who sends us 
 others for the sake of discipline. But, if the 
 mental instrument which we call logic rules in- 
 exorably over our limited intellects, it does not 
 govern the world ; and a very happy thing it is 
 that this is the case, for the world would be a very 
 dull place if it did. It would lack the essential 
 element of spontaneity. 
 
 It is very instructive to note this apparently 
 irreconcilable difference of opinion between two 
 earnest Christian women. It only shows us that 
 people who hold widely diverging intellectual 
 views may yet be one in spiritual fellowship, for 
 in that realm alone can we find the solution of 
 many a logical contradiction. It is the same in 
 the world of thought as in the planet on which 
 
2o6 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 we live ; if two travellers set out in exactly 
 opposite directions to go round the world, they 
 may, if they persevere, cross each other at the 
 Antipodes, and meet at the end of the journey. 
 Thus Adele Kamm and Marie Flournoy set out 
 in opposite directions in their quest for Truth, 
 and, after following many devious paths, they 
 finally arrived at the same point, the same accept- 
 ance of suffering, the same simple trust in the 
 infinite love of God. One of them could say in 
 the words of the poet : 
 
 ' Blessed be thou, my God, who suffering giv'st 
 Thy medicine for our impurity.' 
 
 While the other expressed herself thus : ' Blessed 
 be Thou, my God, for this, that though Thou 
 dost not inflict upon us unmerited sufferings, yet 
 Thou dost come near us to help and console.' 
 Both were faithful to the supreme Truth, which 
 is nothing else but Love. 
 
 I care very little for the opinion of others 
 concerning the theological value of Adele Kamm's 
 creed. I see clearly that, as far as she was con- 
 cerned, she abundantly proved its worth, and 
 that is enough for me. She carried out her 
 conception of vicarious suffering in her own life. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL AND SUFFERING 207 
 
 and it is evident that the very fact of the manner 
 in which she accepted and bore her pain had a 
 redemptive influence upon those who came into 
 touch with her. In a very real sense she was 
 ' crucified with Christ,' and by virtue of this 
 surrender she drew many of her fellow-sufferers 
 to herself. She was the source of life to the sick 
 and the rebellious, who imagined themselves 
 banished from the company of the living. 
 
 Her gift of spiritual insight led her to discover 
 something of rehgious value in the most un- 
 orthodox people. She remembered the words of 
 Christ : ' In my Father's house are many man- 
 sions,' and she was in nowise disturbed when 
 others chose a different one from that which she 
 loved. After reading the Memoirs of Marie 
 Flournoy she wrote to me thus : ' I should so 
 much like either to see Mr. Flournoy or to write 
 to him, for I want to tell him how much good 
 this book has done me, in spite of the fact that 
 Mme. Flournoy and I look at suffering from an 
 entirely different standpoint. But the conclusion 
 to which she came is one with which I heartily 
 agree (for it always helps me so much), namely, 
 that dogmas are only really valuable when they 
 
2o8 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 draw our souls upwards to God, and impart an 
 energy for purity and holiness. In this way the 
 most divergent views become not only valuable 
 but true . . . and so our spiritual horizon is 
 enlarged, our convictions become more living, 
 more truly our own, since their truth has been 
 tested and proved; above all, the rich variety 
 of method which God employs to win souls to 
 Himself awakens within us a deeper sense of 
 His power. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 
 
 'For when God has all that He should have of thy heart, 
 when thou art wholly given up to the obedience of the light 
 and spirit of God within thee . . . then it is that everything 
 thou dost is a song of praise, and the common business of thy 
 life is a conforming to God's Will on earth as angels do in 
 heaven/ — William Law. 
 
 As the end of her life drew near, Adele Kamm 
 seemed to enter into a ' far-stretching land,' 
 where her vision was purified, and her eyes were 
 opened to see much that had hitherto been con- 
 cealed. It would be understating the case to say 
 that she grew absolutely tolerant towards those 
 whose opinions differed from her own : tolerance 
 is a negative virtue, and may very easily take on 
 a shade of slight contempt. She had such an 
 open mind, and such a loving heart, that, without 
 any apparent effort, she had acquired the rare 
 grace of intellectual charity. A firm believer in 
 her own creed, which meant so much to her, she 
 
210 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 could yet quite well understand that an entirely 
 different form of faith might be more acceptable 
 to other minds. * The longer I live,' she wrote 
 to Mr. H., ' the more I perceive that every ex- 
 pression of religious truth is imperfect, and that 
 the most elementary form has a value of its own 
 as well as the most enlightened. I see that there 
 is really only one religion, i.e. that which Christ 
 instituted when He said : " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself " ; Agnostics, Protestants, Roman 
 Catholics, all are one in my sight. We are all 
 brethren, weak and sinful creatures, for whom 
 Christ died ! ' 
 
 An interesting visitor came to see her one day : 
 a young man of twenty-three years of age, who 
 had belonged to a society of free-thinkers, but 
 who had resigned his connection with it owing to 
 the disgust he felt at the bigoted spirit displayed 
 by the other members. About that time a copy 
 of Adele Kamm's pamphlet. Joyful in Tribulation, 
 fell into his hands ; he read it, and was so much 
 impressed by it, that he wrote to the young 
 authoress, and requested the favour of a personal 
 interview. 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 211 
 
 * Poor hoy, he has been an orphan since he was 
 twelve years old, and has had no other moral 
 guidance than that of some philosophical free- 
 thinkers, whose one aim was to rob him of his 
 only treasure, his faith,' wrote Adele Kamm to 
 Mrs. H. R. on the 19th of May 1910. 'Oh, 
 if they could only have heard the broken, agonised 
 cries of this wounded spirit, they might then have 
 realised the havoc they had wrought ! We talked 
 for two hours, alone in my room, overshadowed 
 by the Presence of God. To me it was indeed 
 a red-letter day ! It was most beautiful to see 
 a young man making the decision to turn his 
 back on sin, impelled by an earnest desire to 
 become a power for good and an example to others, 
 and I could not help thinking how glad his parents 
 would have been to see this day. . . . Indeed, 
 yesterday I felt that I was in the place of both 
 mother and sister to this poor lad, and I know 
 that he felt it too. He was so unhesitating in 
 his confidence, and so resolute in his decision. 
 Speaking of faith he told me that he found it im- 
 possible to believe with his reasoning faculty, but 
 that after he had read my little book he threw 
 his whole heart into a supreme act of faith ; that 
 
212 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 is to say, his restless conscience drove him to seek 
 the Saviour's forgiveness, and the power to rise 
 up and begin a new Hfe. He was deeply dis- 
 tressed by intellectual doubts, but I told him 
 that a faith based on instinct was just as valuable 
 as one which could be confirmed by reason, and 
 that the latter was rather to be considered a 
 supreme blessing, a gift of God to those who had 
 spent many years in His service. 
 
 ' I did not try to prove to him in any cut-and- 
 dried fashion that Christ is the Son of God, and 
 that the Bible is fully inspired. I simply said that 
 no human being, either sceptic or believer, could 
 assert or deny these things, but that every belief 
 which raises us above ourselves, which strengthens 
 us in the struggle between good, and, evil, is a dogma 
 before which we must bow in reverence, a sure re- 
 fuge which we should never desert, though we must 
 remember that this same tenet may be of no value 
 to another person, but that some entirely different 
 form may suit him better?- When I saw the ex- 
 pression of intense relief which came over his face 
 as I said this, I understood how wrong it would 
 have been to have tried to prove to him the truth 
 
 * The italics are the author's. 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 213 
 
 of the Creeds. There comes a time when the 
 disciples of " Free Thought " rebel against its 
 narrowness, and turn to faith that they may be 
 able to breathe freely. If they find the same 
 restrictions in the other direction they will be 
 chilled and thrown back on themselves. Oh, 
 our responsibility is indeed great ! The only 
 safety lies in broad-mindedness, and there again 
 the dangers are many. . . . How far may we be 
 tolerant ? It is a difficult ministry, difficult on 
 account of the responsibility which we tacitly 
 assume, whichever way we look at it ; and when 
 we reflect that the guidance of souls is in our 
 hands, we should indeed feel quite overwhelmed 
 were it not that we realise that we are only the 
 instruments of the Divine Will.' 
 
 On the margin of that beautiful book by 
 Mr. Wilfred Monod, Silence and Prayer, in which 
 she found the echo of some of her most precious 
 thoughts, among other remarks Adele Kamm 
 wrote on page 28 : ' Oh, how divine a word is 
 " Love " ! It gathers up into itself the whole 
 life of Christ, and the religion of which He is the 
 Founder. Amid all kinds of conflict and struggle, 
 social, economic, political, and religious, this 
 
214 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 watchword rings out more insistently and more 
 searchingly than ever : " Love God. Love one 
 another." . . . There is one God in heaven, one 
 family on earth ! Let us cast down everything 
 that hinders love, above all every ecclesiastical 
 barrier, and we shall find that all human beings 
 are united in the bonds of brotherhood ; by their 
 sufferings and their aspirations, by their sorrowful 
 failure, their undying hope, they form one sacred 
 family ... a fellowship drawn together by the 
 longing for affection, for love ... if we can only 
 learn to touch the sensitive place in every heart, 
 our life will be useful and full of blessing ! ' 
 
 Further on again, in a comment on the remark 
 of Mr. Wilfred Monod that ' the modern world 
 of to-day is being drawn into a wonderful unity,' 
 she said : ' I feel the truth of this thought very 
 deeply, for it is the spring of all my feeling and 
 all my thinking, and I am really very indignant 
 with those Christians who think themselves more 
 advanced than others ! In my opinion the world 
 is divided into two classes : believers and un- 
 believers. May God pardon and illuminate the 
 latter, but the former are all on the same level, 
 from the one who has the simplest and most ele- 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 215 
 
 mentary form of faith, up to the one who Hves 
 in habitual communion with God. Much will 
 be required of him to whom much has been 
 given, and God alone will make the balance right. 
 It is quite possible that those who think them- 
 selves the first will find that they are the last, and 
 vice versa. I am always afraid, since the publica- 
 tion of my booklet, that people will set me upon 
 a pedestal which I do not deserve.' 
 
 Conscious that the only work which endures 
 is that which is wrought in the spirit of love, she 
 quietly set aside every kind of controversy which 
 leads to bitterness and division of opinion. We 
 have already seen with what energy the Superior 
 of the ' Coccinelles ' fought against the sects 
 which tried to take possession of the lay Order 
 which she directed, and how she insisted that 
 this union of invalids should not fall into the 
 hands of any one school of thought, but that each 
 member, whether believer or sceptic, Roman 
 Catholic, Protestant, or Jew, should be free to 
 express his or her own views with absolute sin- 
 cerity. She became quite hot with vexation one 
 day when some one suggested to her that she 
 might hint to a certain member of the Union 
 
2i6 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 that her ' message ' was not viewed with approval 
 in certain quarters ; she repHed that she did not 
 see that she had ^ any right to criticise the mes- 
 sages, and that the right to guide our convictions 
 belonged to God alone.' 
 
 Sectarianism was hateful to her. She agreed 
 with Miss Schlumberger on this point, and wrote 
 thus to her on the 5 th of July 1910 : 
 
 * I am somewhat afraid lest our Invahds' Union 
 should be considered at Leysin as a form of 
 exaggerated piety, and this thought grieves me 
 sorely, and makes me almost angry. No, our one 
 aim is to comfort people who are ill, and if you 
 take up the secretaryship of the Leysin branch, 
 dear friend, you are absolutely free to help the 
 patients in any way you like, even if you do not 
 mention the subject of rehgion in the circular 
 letters. It is our custom here to speak freely of 
 religious matters because our members are so 
 depressed, and ask us to help them to regain their 
 faith, and to sustain them in their struggle. We 
 find too in our personal experience that joy in 
 suffering springs from one source alone : perfect 
 peace, the result of entire trust in God. But I 
 would on no account see our union become a kind 
 of fanatical sect ; for, so far as I am personally 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 217 
 
 concerned, I belong to the Established Church, 
 and besides, I respect every one, whether they be 
 fanatics, agnostics, Roman Catholics, Jews, or 
 members of the EstabHshed Church. I think we 
 ought all to belong to one church, that of love, 
 both of God and of our brethren, and that there 
 is nothing beyond that worth a moment's notice ! 
 This is our great desire for the Invalids' Union ; 
 and those who like to write about the love of God 
 are welcome, and those who prefer not to speak 
 of that subject at all are left quite free, and can 
 help the invalids in some other way.' 
 
 The thought that she could be looked upon as a 
 little fanatic vexed her to such a degree that she 
 protested her innocence most vigorously, and 
 wrote the following day in a second letter to Miss 
 Schlumberger : 
 
 ' I was quite bewildered and heart-broken at the 
 idea that the Leysin people could consider me, 
 and our beloved Union, at all fanatical. No 
 indeed, I feel I am unworthy, worldly, and full 
 of faults, and very far from the state of gloomy 
 perfection which usually accompanies that type of 
 exaggerated piety.'' ^ 
 
 There may be, in her writings rather than 
 
 1 The italics are the author's. 
 
2i8 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 in her letters, among much that is charmingly 
 natural and spontaneous, an occasional trace of 
 the stereotyped phraseology of our religious 
 literature ; or again, she may now and then use 
 some of those unavoidable metaphors drawn from 
 the pastoral life of the Hebrew people, but this 
 is only because one would need to be a genius 
 to find new and living expressions for present- 
 day religious experience. Certainly it would be 
 too much to expect from a young girl who was 
 unversed in the art of literature. We must learn 
 to understand that when she used conventional 
 religious phrases she was trying to pour out the 
 fervent and glowing experiences with which her 
 heart was overflowing. 
 
 Indeed, the sanctimonious religious phraseology 
 of the fanatic never came naturally to her. You 
 only had to hear her speak, or to see her smile, to 
 feel convinced of that ! She greeted all her 
 visitors with a radiant smile. She even smiled at 
 God, and that was one of her methods of prayer. 
 She said one day, * We must smile at God through 
 our tears ; we ought to smile up at Him in the 
 hour of death ! ' She faced the problems of life 
 and death with steadfast gravity, but after all 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE MINISTRY 219 
 
 she was still a young and merry girl, full of play- 
 fulness, brimming over with innocent fun. As 
 we have seen she insisted that gaiety was an 
 invalid's duty, and she carried out this principle 
 in the happiest and most natural manner. This 
 is by no means the least profitable element in the 
 example she has left behind her. Winsome Chris- 
 tianity is a great blessing, and it would be good for 
 us to learn to smile at God and at man. We 
 profess to desire to live up to the apostolic injunc- 
 tion, ' Rejoice evermore ! ' but, alas, the atmo- 
 sphere around us is so gloomy that our influence 
 is rather that of the proverbial wet blanket ! If 
 a duty is not disagreeable we wonder whether it 
 can be a duty at all ! Too often we live on the 
 marshy levels where the dank mists of depression 
 are for ever brooding. We give way to tedium, 
 under the impression that we are leading a 
 religious life. Never were we more mistaken ; 
 stuck fast in the Slough of Despond, a radiant 
 faith is impossible. Beyond dispute, dulness is 
 utterly inconsistent with the spirit of our holy 
 religion. In the midst of her suffering Adele 
 Kamm vanquished it completely, and this was 
 not the least of her achievements. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF ADELE KAMm's 
 RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 'The end of all God's dealings with us is to make us more 
 purely human, and he is most human who has the largest 
 fellowship, the most open soul.' — Alexander Mackennal. 
 
 When the physician Godfried van Haga was 
 summoned to the bedside of Lydwinia of Schiedam, 
 who at the age of fifteen was attacked by a mys- 
 terious disease, he dechned to prescribe for her 
 in any way. All he said was : * The hand of God 
 is upon this child. He will work miracles through 
 her. Would to Heaven that she were my 
 daughter ! I would gladly give the weight of 
 her head in gold for this favour were it for sale ! ' ^ 
 Something of the same sort might have been said 
 of Adele Kamm. The doctors of Lausanne and 
 Geneva were powerless to help her ; they were 
 
 * J. K. Huysmans, Sainte LyJ-winie de Schiedam, p. 77 5 Paris, 
 Plon. In the above-mentioned work, on p. 294, Huysmans gives a 
 list of the saints who have found their vocation in suffering. 
 220 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 221 
 
 amazed at the energy with which she resisted the 
 attacks of a malady which usually carries off the 
 strongest people after a short illness. They too 
 might have exclaimed, ' The hand of God is upon 
 this child ! ' We cannot fail to recognise the 
 close connection between Adele Kamm and the 
 saintly women whom Huysmans describes as 
 having ' a vocation for expiatory suffering.' 
 Particularly is this the case when we compare 
 the life of Adele Kamm with that of Lydwinia ; 
 and the analogy would be still more com- 
 plete could we eliminate from the biography of 
 the Dutch saint of the fourteenth century that 
 element of the miraculous with which either 
 tradition, or the imagination of pious chroniclers, 
 has surrounded her pallet. In both lives there 
 is the same triumphant faith in the midst of 
 agonising suffering, the same abiding communion 
 with God, the same gift of spiritual attraction and 
 power to heal the diseases of the soul. 
 
 Adele Kamm's spiritual state during the last 
 years of her life exactly resembles the description 
 given by St. Teresa of those souls who, after long 
 and toilsome ascent along the path of pain and 
 sanctification, have at last reached the seventh 
 
222 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 circle of the ' Interior Castle.' These blessed 
 spirits live a renewed life. They have been 
 purified from every vestige of selfishness. They 
 accept suffering with joy, and long for it as a 
 privilege. They have risen above the stage of 
 fervent longing for death and for the immediate 
 enjoyment of eternal felicity. 
 
 * Now,' says St. Teresa, ' they are so filled with 
 a burning desire to serve our Lord, to glorify His 
 name, to be of use to some soul, that, far from 
 desiring death, they long to live for years, even 
 in the midst of the most terrible suffering, happy 
 to procure at that price some of that praise and 
 glory which He alone is worthy to receive. Even 
 if they knew that on being released from the body 
 they would at once enjoy the immediate vision 
 of God, or if the thought of the bliss of the 
 departed came into their minds, none of these 
 things would move them, for they do not pant 
 after this vision and this glory. Their highest 
 honour is to be able to render some service to the 
 Crucified.' ^ They do not seek to penetrate the 
 regions of mystical rapture and inward ecstasy, 
 
 * Saint Teresa, (Eu'-vres Mystiques, published by Father Marcel 
 Bouix, vol. iii. p. 525. 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 223 
 
 for they have the satisfying Presence of Christ 
 in their hearts. They can remain in the world, 
 and live and work there, like St. Teresa herself, 
 who, right up to the end of her career, carried on 
 so much practical activity. 
 
 It is clear that Adele Kamm reached this 
 ' seventh heaven ' without passing through all 
 the intermediate stages described by St. Teresa. 
 Her religious life developed in a simple and 
 straightforward manner. Though she was pain- 
 fully aware of her faults, she was never paralysed 
 by a morbid conscience. * Forward ! ' was her oft- 
 repeated watchword. ' If I did badly yesterday, I 
 will try to do better to-morrow.' The question 
 of her personal salvation did not trouble her at 
 all. She thought so much about other people 
 that she had no time to be constantly examining 
 the state of her own soul, or of her hopes for 
 eternity. She was not given to morbid intro- 
 spection, though she knew how to retire within 
 herself. She never sought to penetrate the 
 mysteries of solitary religious ecstasy. She had 
 no desire for spiritual delights which she could 
 not share with others, and she took as much 
 trouble to keep in touch with the life of her 
 
224 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 day as a nun does to live apart from it ! Forced 
 by necessity to lead a secluded life, by an effort 
 of will she became free in spirit. We have seen 
 how much it cost her to keep in close touch 
 with life. All the strength and fervour of her 
 soul was thrown into action. She was more like 
 Martha than Mary ; she was indeed a saint, but 
 a saint of the Protestant order. 
 
 Even her prayer took the form of action. She 
 did not need to put it into words. In her humility 
 she thought that this was a weakness ; she con- 
 fessed it in a long letter written on the 14th of 
 March 1910, just a year to a day before her death. 
 In a spiritual sense this letter was her ' last will 
 and testament.' When she wrote it for her family 
 and friends, knozv?t and unknown, she thought that 
 it would be read after she had passed away. ' I am 
 writing these pages (perhaps they will be only a 
 few lines, for I feel very weak) without any very 
 special purpose, excepting that I want to say this 
 one thing : I want to tell all who, whether far or 
 near, have helped to cheer me in my helplessness, 
 how very very grateful I am to them ! Yes, to 
 you all, poor and rich, old and young, Protestants, 
 Roman CathoHcs, Jews, and Agnostics, invahds 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 225 
 
 and strong folk, to you all I say, " Thank you, 
 thank you," from the bottom of my heart for aU 
 that you have given me ! You have all helped 
 me more than you can imagine during these years 
 of painful discipline ; I know that I have said 
 this to many of you in the course of conversation, 
 but during these days of outward inaction I want 
 to allow myself the luxury of talking to you on 
 paper about all the human aid I have received 
 in my life, and I am writing it down on purpose, 
 for I want you to read it after I am gone, and to 
 find it a means of cheer and encouragement.' 
 
 This ' testament ' of Adele Kamm's is divided 
 into short chapters, one of which is headed 
 * Prayer.' With her usual humility she confesses 
 her ' inability to pray,' without seeming in the 
 least to realise that her way of praying by doing 
 good to others was the highest form of prayer 
 which can be conceived. 
 
 Prayer 
 * It is to you, my dear jr tends, that I owe my 
 experience of habitual communion with God} I 
 have a confession to make to you : I am but a 
 
 1 The italics are the author's. 
 P 
 
226 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 little child in the realm of prayer which leads us 
 into the deepest secrets of the spiritual kingdom. 
 I have gone only a few steps along this road, and 
 I must frankly confess that I do not know how to 
 use this great power which lies within the reach of 
 us all. It often distresses me that I have neither 
 inchnation nor, I might say, physical strength, nor 
 the time to give myself up to prayer as I ought ; 
 for I feel very deeply that it is a great lack 
 in my spiritual life. In the feverish, strenuous 
 life of the present day, when the claims of activity 
 are all engrossing, it is very rare to find people 
 who are willing to give time to prayer, and I am 
 sure that this omission explains much of the 
 spiritual poverty and lack of " grip " in the life 
 of the Church. I think that it would be almost 
 ideal to be deprived of the power of writing and 
 of speech so that I might have a deeper inward 
 experience, and especially that I might give myself 
 to prayer, to learning its hidden beauty, and in 
 this way to be of more use to humanity than by 
 all my activity. But I seem utterly unable to pray 
 in set forms at all, either mefitally or aloud, and so 
 sometimes I have to comfort myself by thinking 
 that God uses me in other ways, for after all I 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 227 
 
 am always working for Him, and the days are 
 never long enough for the service I would like to 
 render. 
 
 * But God has very graciously met my need, and, 
 as I am incapable of observing set times and forms of 
 devotion, He has led me into almost unbroken com- 
 munion with Himself. I would not exactly call 
 it prayer, but rather the Holy Spirit, working so 
 powerfully in my heart, that all my thoughts and 
 actions, whether of a trifling nature, or guided 
 by a serious, loving, and spiritual purpose, are 
 wrought in an atmosphere in which the spiritual 
 and material are so wonderfully blended together 
 that they can no longer be clearly distinguished 
 from each other, and I myself can really hardly 
 tell which is which ! This experience brings me 
 so much inward joy and peace, and also success 
 in my work, that it quite consoles me for my 
 inability to pray, for I feel and know that the 
 Holy Spirit unites me closely to God. 
 
 ' As the Holy Spirit is always guiding and 
 inspiring me, it is not surprising that a blessing 
 rests upon my work, and that all my most beauti- 
 ful dreams have been exceeded by reality. For 
 the last year I have been living in such an atmo- 
 
228 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 sphere of miracles that I can only bless and adore 
 God for His wonderful works ; to describe them is 
 impossible. I feel that I cannot grasp all this 
 joy and blessing ; it is too rich and too varied. 
 It seems as though everything were bursting into 
 blossom ; it is a kind of spiritual awakening — suc- 
 cess crowns everything, my desires, my aspira- 
 tions, my work, my friendships, every single thing 
 I have desired for my family and for my friends. 
 I think of each one every day, and the more their 
 number increases, the more intense is my joy, and 
 I feel as though I were being borne aloft, supported 
 by a garland of beautiful flowers. . . . Your love 
 and thought and prayer uphold me. I realise it 
 more fully than ever before. Oh, I must say 
 thank you, thank you, with all my heart ! and do 
 remember that each one of you has a warm corner 
 in my hearty and, also in my communion with God. 
 I want to say that this applies even to those to 
 whom I cannot write, and who cannot come to 
 see me. For it is you who help me to live so near 
 to heaven. If I had to lead a solitary existence 
 I should be far too weary to live an intense 
 spiritual life.' 
 
 ' To you all, dear friends, I owe this sense of 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 229 
 
 abiding communion with God . . . remember 
 that each of you has a warm place in my heart, 
 and therefore in my communion with God.' 
 
 These words are very suggestive, for they show 
 us that the second part of the Supreme Law, 
 ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' was, 
 in Adele Kamm's mind, so intimately connected 
 with the first, * Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God with all thy heart,' that she made no distinc- 
 tion between them. Surely in this she attained 
 the height of the Christian ideal. 
 
 Although Adele Kamm was much attached to 
 the different clergymen who came to see her 
 regularly, yet she loved to tease them, just as 
 she teased her doctors. One day one of them was 
 urging her to pray aloud with the young free- 
 thinker of whom we have already spoken, and she 
 replied, smiling gaily : ' I really could not do it ; 
 I leave all that sort of thing to the clergy ! ' How- 
 ever, it is not necessary to be a clergyman in order 
 to offer set prayer to God, either mentally or 
 aloud. There are many Christian people to 
 whom this kind of prayer comes quite naturally, 
 but others find it impossible. Are they there- 
 fore wrong ? God knows our inmost thoughts 
 
230 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 better than we, and does He not understand us 
 before we have said a word to Him ? When we 
 turn to Him, wearied with all the sorrow and 
 struggle of our earthly life. He lifts us on the wings 
 of prayer into that eternal region of peace and 
 mystery, where all human speech is stilled. From 
 this point of view prayer is a brief vision of ' the 
 things which are unseen and eternal.' Such an 
 experience is sufficient to assure us of the reality 
 of the inward life, and to enable us to return to 
 the level of ordinary daily duty, quickened and 
 restored in spirit. 
 
 But there is another method of prayer open 
 to those who, like Adele, have reached the ' seventh 
 heaven,' from which all anxiety and undisciplined 
 longing, all regret, and even the disquiet caused 
 by the most refined selfishness, have been for ever 
 banished. In that region, inhabited only by 
 elect souls, prayer is an undying fire ; it is offered 
 without ceasing ; and so closely is it blended with 
 life that these pure souls find it so natural that 
 they are scarcely conscious of its presence. It 
 permeates the humblest actions and fills them 
 with the atmosphere of eternity. It does not so 
 much bring Divine help to a fainting, dispirited 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 231 
 
 soul, as come into living touch with a soul already- 
 radiant with the eternal glory, a life so generous 
 that it can hold back no spiritual blessings for its 
 own use. It shines through the soul, as a sunbeam 
 shines through a prism of finest crystal, breaking 
 up the light into the most glorious colours. The 
 soul which prays on this wise is a mediator. All 
 that it receives is at once given out to others, 
 lavished on them out of the rich treasures of a 
 loving heart. The self-life has been destroyed, 
 and the one concern is to pray for others. Adele 
 Kamm's prayer was of this character. It would 
 indeed be difficult to imagine a higher or more 
 perfect expression of communion with the Unseen. 
 Her strength lay in her attitude of faith. She 
 believed in God, she believed in man. This spirit 
 sustained her in all her work and activity. She 
 said so herself in her last message to her friends. 
 
 Faith 
 ' If any one were to ask me, " What is the thing 
 in your Hfe that gives you the purest happiness ? " 
 I should answer, " Faith in God, and faith in 
 humanity." But I am sure that this reply would 
 cause a slight shade of amusement to flicker over 
 
232 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 your face. " Yes, indeed," you would say, " that 
 is all very well for a child who is sheltered from 
 the world, away from all its strain and stress ! " 
 And sometimes it has made me smile to hear 
 people talk like that, but I have never tried to 
 answer them, for we alone know (each of us in 
 our own way) how strange and wonderful the 
 circumstances of our lives have been. No other 
 soul knows that inward history of lonely conflicts, 
 of crushing blows received and borne in silence, 
 or perhaps of painful discipline, anguish, and 
 disappointment, which has made up our secret 
 life by the time we have reached the age of 
 twenty or twenty-four ! It is indeed quite 
 unnecessary that these facts should be known, the 
 one thing that does matter is to find out whether 
 we are making progress in the school of faith or 
 not ..." that is the question." Well, as far 
 as I am concerned, my chief happiness Hes in 
 this : I am always able to trust more and more. 
 For a long time I have been rejoicing in the 
 experience of absolute trust in God, as He is 
 revealed in Jesus Christ, and for the last two 
 years I have learnt to feel the same towards 
 mankind. 
 
FEATURES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE 233 
 
 ' Every human soul needs warmth. How many 
 frozen hearts there are in the world who really 
 long for warm_th, but who, miserable at not 
 finding it, freeze up other people as well as 
 themselves by chilling all their warm impulses 
 of faith and trust ! And this accounts for that 
 cold and formal spirit which we sometimes find 
 prevailing among a whole nation, or in a certain 
 section of society, or perhaps in a single family 
 circle. Often, however, it is the other way 
 round, and then the result is truly wonderful. 
 All kinds of things may be infectious, but the 
 infection of faith is the best and happiest and 
 most beautiful of all. Christ's spirit of love is 
 catching, for men's hearts were cold beyond 
 belief until He came " with healing in His wings." 
 You, dear people, my relatives and friends, who 
 have filled my invalid life with warmth and 
 brightness, either consciously or unconsciously, 
 you have been obeying Christ's law of love, and 
 so you have made me the happiest soul alive ! ' 
 
 The grace of a trustful spirit is exceedingly 
 rare in these days. How many vigorous and 
 healthy young people are full of distrust towards 
 themselves, other people, and Hfe in general ! 
 
234 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 Can they be surprised that the Hfe in which they 
 do not beHeve trembles beneath their feet, and 
 they feel themselves sinking in the quicksands of 
 hopeless doubt ? Adele Kamm doubted nothing. 
 She believed in the work of her hands. She 
 believed in the power of goodness. She believed 
 in the good-will of all those with whom she had 
 to do in such a way that they found it impossible 
 to betray her confidence. As her physical 
 strength declined the inward forces of her faith 
 and hope renewed her vigour on another plane. 
 She was borne along by the fervour with w^hich 
 she threw herself into her work. And her en- 
 thusiasm was infectious. ' It is worth while 
 lying in bed for years,' wrote one of her corre- 
 spondents to me, ' to come into touch with such 
 a saintly soul. She has made our invalid lives so 
 rich and fruitful ! ' When we look at this trans- 
 figuration of disease we may well pause and 
 wonder whether it is sickness at all ! Indeed, 
 this helpless invalid overflowed with the most 
 abundant spiritual health that we can imagine. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 LAST DAYS 
 
 ' After this, I beheld until they were tome Into the land of 
 Beulah, where the sun shineth night and day. Here, because 
 they were weary, they betook themselves awhile to rest. . . . 
 Then the pilgrims got up, and walked to and fro. But how 
 were their ears now filled with heavenly noises, their eyes 
 delighted with celestial visions ! ' — Ihe Pilgrim s Progress. 
 
 During the summer of 1910 Adele Kamm's con- 
 dition grew worse. She had an attack of dry- 
 pleurisy which affected both lungs, and on the 
 1 8th of July she wrote to Mrs. H. R. : * I am 
 unable to move an inch, and I have great diffi- 
 culty in breathing ; but my heart is holding out 
 well, and they think that I shall get over this 
 illness, for I do not feel very weak in spite of a 
 temperature of 104°. Every one is amazed at 
 my vitality, and I wonder myself how much it 
 will take to kill me ! However, I feel so tranquil, 
 so freed from earthly distractions, so wonderfully 
 upheld through these days of suffering (though 
 
236 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 I believe no one could bear more !), that yester- 
 day, as I listened to the hum of life outside, I felt 
 there was still so much to be done, that in spite 
 of being so ill I had no moral right to desert my 
 post.' 
 
 Goethe has said that a man cannot die until he 
 is willing to do so, and as far as Adele Kamm was 
 concerned this paradoxical saying seemed to be 
 literally true. For a long time her doctors had 
 been completely baffled by this extraordinary 
 ' case.' According to all the well-established 
 laws of medical science she should have died long 
 before ! She only kept herself alive by sheer 
 force of will, by the fixed determination to live 
 for others, to fulfil her task right up to the very 
 end. When she had pulled through this attack 
 of pleurisy she declared she was quite satis- 
 fied. It had been suggested that she should 
 have a trained nurse, but she had not agreed to 
 this, for she dreaded losing the sweet privacy of 
 her rose-coloured room, and above all ^ the 
 precious soHtude of the night.' ' At night I 
 enjoy much inward peace,' she wrote, ' for I feel 
 so wonderfully upheld, and I hope to pass away 
 when I am quite alone, and full of the joy of going 
 
LAST DAYS 237 
 
 home to God, without seeing the sorrow of those 
 whom I love better than myself. And I love to 
 be alone even when I feel very ill, for I have no 
 fear; whereas if any one sits up with me my 
 peace is disturbed, as I depend then on other 
 people rather than upon God and myself.' 
 
 During the acute stage of this illness she had 
 been obliged to sit up in bed day and night, 
 which was an almost intolerable strain for the 
 vertebrae of the neck, which were affected by the 
 disease. As she grew better she was able to lie 
 down without feeling choked, and the relief was 
 intense. Her throat, however, had become in- 
 flamed owing to the weakening of the neck 
 vertebrae, but she said that she had found ' a 
 splendid way ' of easing that by inhaling menthol 
 from time to time. Then the disease broke out 
 in fresh places. She had several internal abscesses, 
 but these she called * quite ordinary troubles,' 
 and she did not pay much attention to them. 
 * In fact,' she wrote in all seriousness, ' I am 
 scarcely ill just now.' 
 
 However, this period of comparative respite 
 from acute suffering did not last long, and on the 
 1st of August she wrote to Mrs. H. R. : 
 
238 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 ' This morning Dr. M. came to see me ; he is 
 acting as locum tenens for my own doctor, Dr. 
 v., who went away yesterday for a fortnight's 
 hohday. Dr. M. had attended me for my neck 
 trouble, but he had never sounded my lungs. 
 He was very bright and cheerful until after he 
 had sounded me, but then he looked so sad that 
 I felt quite touched by his expression. After he 
 had gone I found out indirectly that he said as 
 he was leaving that considering the state of my 
 chest, he could not understand what kept me 
 alive, unless it was energy, and that at any 
 moment my breathing might stop altogether. 
 I am so glad to know that ; it has given me fresh 
 courage}- It only confirms what I had guessed 
 myself ; and as I do not feel at all weak I may 
 expect to be active up to the last. I don't 
 think my energy will be exhausted yet, for I 
 feel overflowing with life. Evidently it is in- 
 voluntary, or else it has become so habitual that 
 I am scarcely conscious of exerting it. What I 
 do feel is that the pain is almost unbearable, but 
 I think that I am getting used to this extremely 
 acute kind, and I am learning to bear it better, 
 
 1 The italics are the author's. 
 
LAST DAYS 239 
 
 and above all I think it is affecting my temper 
 less ! 
 
 * However, I do suffer very much at times, 
 particularly when, for hours or even for whole 
 days, I feel as though I were poisoned right 
 through ; and, try as I will, I cannot shake off 
 these most disagreeable sensations. When I am 
 like this I can't see properly. I tremble all over, 
 and feel great distress, and I am not myself at 
 all. I have tried everything I can think of, 
 moving and talking, but nothing does any good ; 
 and then, suddenly, in a minute or two, every- 
 thing gets right again, and I wonder whether I 
 can have been dreaming ! I feel much depressed 
 at these times and terribly overwrought and nerv- 
 ous, but rather than let myself go, or give way to 
 tears, which would only increase my misery, I 
 find that the best thing to do is to write, and so 
 to force my thoughts into a useful channel. It 
 is the only relief I have discovered as yet. So, 
 dearest, you see why I have sent you such long 
 letters, and how much you help me. I often 
 write at night for the same reason. I have got 
 piles of MSS. which have helped me over these 
 difficult places. On the same day on which I last 
 
240 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 wrote to you, I began to think about a promised 
 Christmas letter/ and the following night I wrote 
 it straight off. I was delighted to find that the 
 entire Committee was pleased with it, and Mrs. N. 
 insisted on coming to see me herself, to tell me 
 of their gratitude. She is an angel ! We have 
 worked together a good deal over various plans 
 for helping sick people. 
 
 * Now that I am better visitors venture into 
 my room more often, and I don't know what to 
 do, for I should like a little quiet time to finish 
 off some of the things which are still on my mind. 
 All my friends, whom I love so dearly, and who 
 have given me such long-continued affection, 
 want to see me now that the attack of pleurisy 
 has passed, for they know that I am very ill. 
 I scarcely know how to manage it, for there are 
 such a lot of them ! I think I shall try to see two 
 or three a day. If you could see me now, you 
 would almost wonder whether I am ill after all ! 
 There is nothing around me to suggest illness, 
 and the room is rose-coloured, bright, and gay 
 with flowers. I have not changed at all, save 
 
 1 Adele Kamm had been asked to write this letter (which ought 
 to be printed) for the patients in the hospitals. 
 
LAST DAYS 241 
 
 that I am thinner.^ The worst of it is that 
 I still love to laugh and chatter nonsense, and 
 that is bad for my chest and for my mouth, but 
 that doesn't matter i Just fancy, Helene, how 
 fortunate it is that my tongue is all right ; that 
 and my stomach are the two parts which are in 
 order ! Sometimes I can't help laughing when 
 I think what my visitors must feel when they look 
 at , this smiling, pink-beribboned doll, and she 
 suddenly begins to talk about the gravest problems, 
 and discourses to them about heaven ! It must 
 be very funny ! What a pity, Helene, that you 
 can't see me ! ' 
 
 The heart trouble grew worse at the beginning 
 of September. The pulsations were so irregular 
 that the doctors thought death must be very 
 near. Adele had to sit up and lean forward, 
 and this position increased the inflammation 
 of the vertebrae, and an abscess formed in the 
 neck. ^ It is very dilhcult to die,' she wrote on 
 the 7th of September to Mrs. R. Then she 
 
 * Till then indeed Adele, though much emaciated in body, had 
 scarcely changed in appearance. Her features still looked wonder- 
 fully young and fresh ; we see this in her last photograph, a full- 
 face one, taken by Mr. H. It is the one which forms the 
 frontispiece to this book. Her face did not change much until just 
 before the end. 
 
242 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 added : ' If you could only imagine how quiet 
 and happy I feel. ... I am already on the other 
 side of the dark river. I do not believe the pass- 
 ing will be difficult, but if it is, this beautiful 
 peace will accompany me. I suffer much from 
 the internal abscesses which give me constant 
 pain, and my neck hurts me very much, owing 
 to the fact that I am obliged to sit up day and 
 night. . . . My mother and sister are angels ! 
 They nurse me so well that I am positively 
 spoiled. ... I think much of you, my darling, 
 and love you ! You know that I am not writing 
 letters at all now, and so I want to express all my 
 tender love for you in this one, which may be 
 the last I shall be able to send you, and to tell 
 you, what you already know very well, that you 
 have made this last year of my life very beautiful, 
 and that you will do the same for many other 
 sufferers, if God spares you. . . . Then we shall 
 meet again where there is no more pain, no more 
 separation.' 
 
 As soon as ever she had rallied slightly she took 
 the opportunity of writing an encouraging mes- 
 sage in one of the circular letters of the Invalids' 
 Union. 
 
LAST DAYS 243 
 
 '■ zznd September 19 10. 
 
 * . . . For weeks I have been terribly ill with 
 an attack of arythmia of the heart, and then I 
 had a succession of abscesses, the pain of which 
 exhausted me to such an extent that I looked like 
 a ghost when I began to get better about a week 
 ago. This accounts for my silence. I have 
 enjoyed the relief of being able to lie down for 
 the last week, and I am in less pain. For the 
 first time since the ist of July I do not need to 
 fight for my life, and I cannot tell you what a 
 comfort it is ! People say that I look better 
 already, and I have picked up enough strength 
 to write the most pressing letters.' 
 
 This partial recovery was not much to boast 
 of. Poor child, she was easily satisfied, and she 
 added : 
 
 ' You will be amazed to learn that during this 
 good week {sic!) I have had a temperature of 
 102° to 104°, and I have had shivering fits every 
 two hours (caused by the state of the lungs). 
 However, this fever has exhilarated rather than 
 depressed me, for I am seeing the bright side of 
 everything, and I feel happy and good-tempered, 
 which was not the case during the preceding 
 
244 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 weeks. Oh ! it is delightful to feel sweet- 
 tempered again, it makes everything run smoothly. 
 My mind is full of all sorts of happy memories, 
 and this beautiful autumn weather has a charm 
 all its own. I feel so grateful for these few days 
 of respite.' 
 
 ' A few days of respite ' ; she could not expect 
 more than that in such a condition of health. 
 No one could imagine what kept her alive ! On 
 the 1 2th of October she wrote to Mrs. H. R. : 
 ' It is true that I cannot swallow anything solid — 
 I can only drink. . . . But I am gaining strength, 
 I look better, and perhaps, after all, I may still 
 live through the winter. ... I believe that I 
 shall get along quite well, right up to the very 
 end.' 
 
 Sure of entire sympathy from Mrs. R., who 
 agreed with her about the necessity of facing 
 ' cold reality,' and of allowing no charming 
 illusions to bHnd her to the truth, Adele con- 
 fided to her all her weakness. The knowledge 
 that she was absolutely understood gave her great 
 comfort. When she had to deal with people who 
 were less brave than herself she showed the same 
 gallant front, and she found real pleasure in 
 
LAST DAYS 245 
 
 copying out the following poem by Mme. M. 
 Melley, which was partly the echo of her own 
 private feelings : 
 
 ' I would have the heart be brave — the soul be strange to fear, 
 I would have each man support his cross unbent, 
 And if faith reel, I would have the Lord incline His 
 ear, 
 And none but He, to cries of grief long-pent. 
 
 Whate'er the vulture be that gnaws our heart within. 
 Let not the face the hidden anguish prove. 
 
 And God will pardon us this sorrow's crafty sin. 
 If He can spare a sigh for those we love. 
 
 And is the load they lift on earth so light that we 
 Must give to them as well our griefs to bear? 
 
 If some gay smile of ours can make their darkness flee. 
 Should we not give the smile and hide the tear? 
 
 I would have the heart be brave — the soul be strange to fear, 
 I would have each man support his cross unbent, 
 
 And if faith reel, I would have the Lord incline His 
 ear, 
 And none but He, to cries of grief long-pent.' 
 
 Time after time during October and November 
 it seemed as though the end had come. Adele's 
 body appeared to be poisoned in every part. On 
 the 4th of November she wrote : ' On the Friday 
 evening of last week my condition was critical, 
 and I felt that I was very near the last conflict, 
 
246 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 unless I could rally. During the night I felt 
 easier, and since then I have been able to breathe 
 much better. I am very weak, but somewhat 
 rested. . . . That is what I have to report, and 
 I am finding that I need plenty of courage. I 
 should not wish any one to have a similar power 
 of resistance, but God knows how much we ought 
 to bear. ... I am full of deep peace, I am able 
 to laugh whenever I feel a little better, and I am 
 so thankful that my life has been like this. Oh ! 
 I love God more than ever, but I feel rather 
 weary, both for myself and for my dear ones who 
 are more tired out by these crises than by any 
 amount of hard work. I shall be glad when the 
 Saviour takes me in His arms to welcome me into 
 that land, which is the only true Fatherland. . . . 
 Nevertheless, I am very happy here.' 
 
 She refused as long as she could to take anything 
 to deaden the pain. Narcotics had a bad effect 
 upon her, with the exception of veronal. She had 
 a dose of this, on the evening of November the 7th. 
 The next morning every one thought that she 
 was sinking. Later on, she managed to give a 
 cheerful description of the incident : ' I had 
 such a bad night that I could not sleep, nor did 
 
LAST DAYS 247 
 
 the veronal take effect till 6 a.m. Helped by the 
 fatigue of the preceding night I fell into such 
 a deep sleep that I did not wake until 10 a.m. 
 For two hours I had been conscious that there 
 were people in the room, and that perhaps I 
 ought to open my eyes, but I really had no 
 strength left. So, when I did open them, it 
 was a great surprise to see Dr. V. preparing a 
 caffeine injection, and mother and Henrietta 
 leaning over me and crying. It appears that I 
 was so very pale that they thought that I should 
 not wake again. Really I almost wanted to 
 laugh, for the good sleep had refreshed me ; and 
 I did not feel in the least inclined to die from 
 exhaustion, for the constant fever keeps my pulse 
 going quite pleasantly.' 
 
 She knew, however, that this false strength 
 would not keep her going for long, and she made 
 all her final preparations. On the 14th of Nov- 
 ember, in her clearest handwriting, she wrote a 
 last word of farewell to her beloved ' Coccinelles ' : 
 
 • My very dear Friends, — I can only write a 
 few lines, to send my love to you all, and to tell 
 you my news. I have been very ill since the last 
 
248 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 circular letter was sent off, and then last week 
 I had four better days, during which I had the 
 great joy of seeing a few friends, and of writing 
 in the circular letters. Since yesterday, however, 
 I have been feehng very weary, and this morning 
 my lungs were in such a state that I was very 
 ill again. I have been thinking of all the sufferers, 
 known and unknown, whom God will soon take 
 to Himself, and who know this peculiar kind of 
 weariness, which is after all very soothing, for it 
 softens all pain and sensation. I feel now how 
 unwise people are who wait to think of God 
 until they are seriously ill. On the whole, we 
 live at such times as these on our past experience, 
 for the least effort, especially of an abstract nature, 
 is too much for us ; reading becomes impossible, 
 and we ought to have the Presence of God in our 
 hearts before we reach such a state ! I think 
 this is the immediate earthly reward for having 
 sought God when we were in full vigour and 
 prosperity. This capital has been accumulating 
 in a safe place, and now it yields a high rate of 
 interest ! . . . Poor, poor unhappy souls, who wait 
 for a catastrophe before they raise their eyes to 
 Heaven ! I am not saying this to the members 
 
LAST DAYS 249 
 
 of our Union, who are exemplary in their faith 
 and patience, but I am thinking of all those who 
 are indifferent to these things. 
 
 * i$t/} November. 
 ' I will finish off this evening, as I am very ill, 
 and extremely weak. My warmest love to you 
 all, my dear friends. — Your AdI;le Kamm.' 
 
 She was indeed ' very ill ' ; her condition defied 
 description ! The invisible forces which for so 
 many years had been sapping her life away now 
 united their efforts and attacked her everywhere 
 at once. On the 5th of December she wrote to 
 her intimate friend. It was the last letter she 
 penned ; it is a pitiful document, scarcely legible, 
 where we can almost trace, in the shape of the 
 contorted, twisted characters, the terrible pain 
 which she endured with such heroic patience. 
 
 Even in these depths of suffering she thought 
 only of others. After having given her friend 
 details as to her health, and having said good-bye 
 to her, she added : ' Now I quite hope to live 
 through the holiday season, and I shall hold out 
 as long as I can, for I would not like to leave 
 mother and Henrietta alone just now. However, 
 
250 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 I have grown so much weaker that we do not 
 look beyond the day. As for me, Helene, Heaven 
 is close at hand, coming ever nearer, in all its 
 glory. You will think of your sister Adele as 
 one who has been wonderfully fortunate and 
 blest, who has been privileged to arrive quickly 
 at the end of this life and its burdens, and who 
 has been very happy during these last three 
 years.' 
 
 It is a striking picture : the heroic girl suffering 
 a martyrdom of pain, sustained by the sense that 
 ' Heaven is close at hand,' and yet struggling 
 with all her might against the merciful release of 
 death, because she did not wish to leave her dear 
 ones sorrowing. She struggled on for more than 
 three months, with her poor body in a condition 
 beyond description. She managed to preserve 
 a flicker of life by keeping absolutely still, but 
 the whole of the right side (on which she had to 
 lie on account of the state of the vertebrae) was 
 an open wound. 
 
 During this period of long-drawn-out agony 
 she never once faltered. She lay there in a state 
 of heavenly peace. As her body succumbed 
 little by little to the ravages of illness so her soul 
 
LAST DAYS 251 
 
 shone out with soft radiance. For her Heaven 
 was indeed * close at hand.' She was already 
 nearly there. Once she thought that her last 
 hour had come after an attack of arythmia. 
 
 * What a beautiful day it will be for me,' she said, 
 
 * for I am at length going to see so many of those 
 I love, for I have more friends in Heaven than on 
 earth.' 
 
 Her mother never left her now, fearing the end 
 might come in her absence. Adele was always 
 fully conscious, and she followed her about the 
 room with her eyes, murmuring a loving word 
 now and again ; sometimes she even managed to 
 joke a little in order to comfort her. ' If the 
 doctors wanted to mend me,' she said one day, 
 
 * where would they find any sound parts ? I 
 have two arms and two legs. Nothing else ! ' 
 And her mother replied, ' There is your heart, my 
 darling, and your eyes ! ' Indeed, all the life 
 that still remained was concentrated in her 
 luminous eyes, which looked so terribly big in her 
 poor thin, white face. On the 3rd of March I 
 was allowed to see her once more, and I was 
 happy enough to be able to give her some news 
 which pleased her. With an effort she lifted her 
 
252 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 transparent hand and held it out to me. In a 
 few touching words she told me how glad she 
 was ; her voice sounded very happy, and she 
 looked at me with an expression which I shall 
 never forget. 
 
 At last, on Thursday the 9th of March, she 
 entered on the last agony, but her iron constitution 
 held out five more days. She suffered terribly ; 
 for two whole nights she groaned without inter- 
 mission. Otherwise she lay in a half-comatose 
 condition. She was given powerful injections 
 of pantopon, but as soon as she awoke after the 
 narcotic she was fully conscious. On the Monday, 
 as the pain was beyond endurance, they gave her 
 a still stronger injection. Adele herself thought 
 that she would not wake again. * Are you ready ? * 
 she said to her mother, ' I am ; I shall wake up 
 in Heaven. Promise me you will not cry, think 
 of my joy ! ' And then she added : ' Kiss me 
 once more . . . but on my forehead ! ' A few 
 hours later, however, she woke again, and was 
 almost disappointed at finding that she was still 
 on earth. She did not wish to hurt her dear 
 ones, and said, * You must not think that I am 
 not glad to be with you a little longer ' On the 
 
LAST DAYS 253 
 
 Tuesday morning ^ she was sleeping heavily under 
 the influence of a sedative, and for a moment it 
 looked as though she were going to wake again. 
 Her mother, feeling that she could not endure 
 to see her suffering, prayed God to put an end to 
 her martyrdom. Suddenly towards eleven o'clock 
 the drawn features relaxed, she smiled with one 
 last look of ineffable sweetness, then the peace 
 of death enfolded her. All was over. 
 
 1 14th March 191 1. 
 
* O Death, where is thy sting? 
 O Grave, where is thy victory ? ' 
 
 All was over. The long struggle had come to 
 an end at last. The victory was won. This 
 death had been so long expected, and, one might 
 almost add, so much desired, by those who loved 
 Adele Kamm, that when it came it was surrounded 
 by an atmosphere of triumphant peace. For days 
 and months we had watched her as she hovered 
 between life and death like a lily whose short life is 
 over, and who droops gently towards her mother- 
 earth. The merest breath of air will be enough 
 to carry off the faded white blossom ; but as long 
 as it is untouched it retains its graceful beauty. 
 
 What was the mighty hidden power which 
 bound this frail girl to life with a firmness which 
 was little short of miraculous ? She still tried 
 to smile, and spoke nothing but loving, courageous 
 words when it seemed as though every breath she 
 drew must be her last. She was among us, and 
 
LAST DAYS 255 
 
 yet already we felt that she was infinitely above 
 us. We waited and watched her drifting away 
 into Eternity, and upon her face we caught the 
 reflection of the Eternal Dawn. 
 
 And now the last link has been broken. But is 
 it true that she has left us ? No ! our blessed 
 dead do not leave us ; they live on in our lives. 
 We feel their influence more fully when they are 
 no longer with us in the body. Adele Kamm still 
 lives for all who loved her. Her pure gaze follows 
 us, and draws us upwards. Her hand is in ours 
 to lead us into the Light. Her life is even now 
 an example of goodness. She has overcome the 
 fever of unsatisfied desire, the bitterness of regret, 
 and every kind of suffering and anxiety — every- 
 thing, in short, which has power to harass and 
 torment us in this world. Her deliverance from 
 fear was so complete that henceforth nothing 
 could disturb her serenity. She was free, abso- 
 lutely free. And which of us can say that of 
 ourselves ? Humbly, and we might even say 
 unconsciously, she fulfilled her sacred task. She 
 proved that we are not the creatures of circum- 
 stance, nor the sport of Destiny, since the weakest 
 of human beings, in simple reHance upon God, can 
 
256 THE LIFE OF ADELE KAMM 
 
 triumph over the most tragic fate. Adele Kamm 
 has taught us that we may meet the mysteries of 
 pain and life and death with joyful courage. 
 * Life and death,' she said once, * are alike joy 
 to me.' 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press