I have lived through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the coming of the railway, and the dawn of the photograph.
I have lived through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the coming of the railway, the abolition of the slave trade, and the dawn of the photograph. No prior baroness saw so much change in one lifetime.\n\nMy advice to you — who, I suspect, lives through changes I cannot imagine — is this: tradition is not the opposite of progress. Tradition is the trellis upon which progress climbs. Tear down the trellis and the vine collapses; refuse to let the vine grow and the trellis stands ornamental and dead.\n\nWhen the railway came, my husband's father refused it passage across our land. I overruled him after his death, and the village prospered. When women were told to remain quiet, I wrote three pamphlets and corresponded with Wilberforce. When the chapel needed repair, I funded it with my own settlement, not the estate's.\n\nKeep what is good. Discard what is cruel. Build what is needed. Do not be the generation that congratulates itself for cleverness while the roof falls in.\n\nAnd remember: I was the second woman to govern this house in nine generations. There should be many more after me.
Keep what is good, discard what is cruel, and govern with both kindness and clarity.