Museum of Hartlepool, A Helping Hand

“I wonder if you ever read Dickens’ Christmas books?…I have only read two of them yet, and feel so good after them and would do anything, yes and shall do everything, to make it a little better for people. I wish I could lose no time; I want to go out and comfort some one…”

—Letter from Robert Louis Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell (September, 1874)