Lidia wrote many long letters to Mr Foulds revealing in detail her own thoughts and telling him of her own spiritual search. 'I remember', she wrote, 'that when I took my first steps in that new Faith, my interest, like the waves ofthe sea, rose and seemed to fall, but just like waves of the sea it flowed over my soul always more and more. Now I am like a person who, after great thirst and suffering, has reached the shores of a sea of sweet water, an ocean full of the water of life - and fears thirst no more.'
Mr Foulds once wrote Lidia that he had begun to correspond with 'Auntie' Victoria Bedikian. Lidia gently reminded him: 'She and I are only "crutches", so to speak, for you. When you truly attain the Source of spiritual health and courage you will be able to walk by yourself on the bright path, toward the Sun, and you won't need crutches any more. I ask you, continue courageously and steadfastly your study of the Baha'i Teaching and turn to the Source itself, to the Writings of Baha'u'llah and of'Abdu'1-Baha. When the great Teacher speaks, the little teachers must be silent, or open their mouths only to repeat Their words of wisdom. When the Sun shines brightly, one puts out the candles, and when the Nightingale bursts into song, one doesn't listen to the chirping of sparrows.'
Most anxiously Lidia awaited the arrival of letters from Shoghi Effendi. 'The letters from the Guardian always bring new strength,' she told Della. Lidia had received her answer as to whether she must formally resign from the Jewish community of Warsaw: '. . . the Guardian feels', his secretary wrote, 'that in view of the fact that such membership, as you say, has a rather social and legal significance and does not involve necessarily any definite religious implication, it would not be necessary for you to formally resign from that body at present. He hopes later on conditions will develop to a point that would make it advisable for you to take further action in this matter.
'With the renewed assurances of his prayers for the confirmation of your labours on behalf of the Cause, and with his best wishes for your health and protection . . .'
In a postscript Shoghi Effendi had added: 'May the almighty hand of Baha'u'llah guide and sustain you in your marvellous and historic services to the Faith in America, and enable you to enhance the splendid record ofyour intemational unforgettable services. Your true and grateful brother, Shoghi.' Lidia was relieved. She would not be asked to forsake the beleaguered Jewish community.
Although for Lidia Shoghi Effendi's letters brought 'new strength', in January Horace Holley sent Lidia a copy of a letter from the Guardian which unsettled her. It was addressed to George Winthrop Lee, of Boston, who had been an Esperantist since 1906. For some time, Mr Lee had been trying to interest the Baha'1's in Esperanto. Although he was not a Baha'i, he occasionally wrote to Shoghi Effendi, he explained to Lidia, 'proposing that he for example, leam our dear language, but the answer through his secretary is always that he is too busy'.
The4etter he had received frorn Haifa said: 'You complain that the believers in America do not attach sufficient importance to the study of the Esperanto; this may be true, and is partly due to the fact that they do no longer believe that it will necessarily develop into the international auxiliary language of the future. The interest which the Baha'fs have and should have in this language is essentially because of the vital significance of the idea it represents rather than the belief in its inherent worth as a suitable and adequate intemational medium of expression.
'The Baha'is indeed welcome Esperanto as the first experiment of its kind in modern times. They are in full sympathy with the Esperantists in so far as they stress the absolute necessity for the creation of an international language to be studied by all the peoples of the world in addition to their respective national languages.
'The Guardian himself would have leamed it, but his occupations are so manifold and overwhelming that he cannot possibly find the time to do so.
'It is his hope that Miss Lidia Zamenhof, the distinguished daughter of the creator of Esperanto, will through her contact with the friends in America help in stimulating afresh the spread of that language among various Baha'i individuals and centers. You should certainly make every effort to meet her while she is in the States.'
Lidia was somewhat dismayed by a passage in the letter, but was unsure she understood the English correctly, and wrote Della asking her to clarify it. Did the Baha'fs once believe Esperanto would become the international language, but no longer believed so? Why? she wondered.
Concealing her distress, she wrote Mr Lee: 'I met the Guardian ofthe Baha'f Faith, beloved to all us Baha'is, eight years ago, when I visited Haifa. I saw myselfthat his obligations are so many, so diverse, and so pressing that he cannot devote his time to language study. But it is he himself who first suggested that I come to America, and by whose suggestion I was invited to this land by the National Spiritual Assembly, which made this joumey possible. Without their help I certainly could not have come.'
In any case, it was clear from the Guardian's letter that Shoghi EfFendi still felt that the Baha'i's should learn and use Esperanto; he did not only hope that, while in America, Lidia would interest the Esperantists in the Baha'i Faith, but that she would also interest the Baha'fs in Esperanto.
Although Lidia was suffering her share of difficulties and disappointments in America, she wrote Harold Foulds not to become discouraged in his own spiritual quest, 'even if the Goal sometimes disappears from before your eyes and seems to retreat, even if earthly clouds sometimes hide from you the brilliance of the eternal sun, and those earthly clouds are now heavier than at any other time. All the forces of the night seem to exert their power to bar the way to the Sun. Those night powers can still triumph, but not for long. There is no darkness which the Sun cannot conquer.' And on another occasion: 'Dear Samideano, every seeker encounters difficulties along the way. If you also meet them, don't lose heart. Difficulties are our tests. They show us the strength or weakness of our spirit, the intensity and ardor of our search, and they temper us and make us stronger and stouter.'
By the end of her stay in Philadelphia, Lidia came to feel that the course was not such a failure after all. Although the number of students, thirty-four, was far below the number she usually had in France, for America perhaps it was not so bad. She felt encouraged because a talk and demonstration lesson she had given at the Drexel Technical Institute seemed to have generated great interest among students and teachers there. 'Sowing seeds', she wrote a friend, 'is never in vain.'
TWENTY-THREE
The Gray House and the Garden
At the end of February 1938 Lidia left Philadelphia for Detroit, Michigan. Although there were only two dozen active Esperantists in that city, they worked hard on publicity for Lidia's course, sending out thousands of leaflets and arranging interviews, broadcasts and lectures. A heavy speaking schedule had been planned for her and she addressed a variety of groups including the Baha'is, the Women Lawyers' Association, Zonta Club, the Vegetarian Society, two Masonic auxiliary organizations, and she gave a talk and demon- stration lesson to 120 at the YMCA. While in Michigan she also traveled to address gatherings in Ann Arbor, Marysville, Flint and Roseville. TheBaha'fsofMaywood, Illinois, arranged for her to speak before an audience of 200 at Irving School, where the principal was an Esperantist and a number of teachers were studying the language. She gave a speech in English over WWJ, the Detroit News' radio station (i hope my bad accent was itself propaganda for Esperanto', she said afterward), and two broadcasts in Polish over station WJBK, where her speaking ability drew very favorable comments from Polish radio station operators, and a Polish paper in Toledo picked up the broadcast and published an article about it. In all, in Detroit a remarkable thirty- two articles were published about her in nineteen periodicals in seven languages including Polish, Bulgarian, German, Ukrainian and Yiddish.