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diff --git a/17085.txt b/17085.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0365514 --- /dev/null +++ b/17085.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10374 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books +by Horatia K. F. Eden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books + +Author: Horatia K. F. Eden + +Release Date: November 17, 2005 [EBook #17085] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JULIANA HORATIA EWING *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Juliana Horatia Ewing] + + JULIANA HORATIA EWING + + AND HER BOOKS. + + + + BY + + HORATIA K.F. EDEN + (_nee_ GATTY). + + + + + + SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, + LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. + 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. + BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET. + NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO. + + + [Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.] + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In making a Selection from Mrs. Ewing's Letters to accompany her +Memoir, I have chosen such passages as touch most closely on her Life +and Books. I found it was not possible in all cases to give references +in footnotes between the Memoir and Letters; but as both are arranged +chronologically there will be no difficulty in turning from one to the +other when desirable. + +The first Letter, relating Julie's method of teaching a Liturgical +Class, should be read with the remembrance that it was written +thirty-two years ago, long before the development of our present +Educational System; but it is valuable for the zeal and energy it +records, combined with the common incident of the writer being too ill +to appear at the critical moment of the Inspector's visit. + +In a later letter, dated May 28, 1866, there are certain remarks about +class singing in schools, which are also out of date; but this is +retained as a proof of the keen sense of musical rhythm and accent +which my sister had, and which gave her power to write words for music +although she could play no instrument. + +It is needless to add that none of the letters were intended for +publication; they were written to near relatives and friends _currente +calamo_, and are full of familiar expressions and allusions which may +seem trivial and uninteresting to ordinary readers. Those, however, +who care to study my sister's character I think cannot fail to trace +in these records some of its strongest features; her keen enjoyment of +the beauties of Nature,--her love for animals,--for her Home,--her +_lares_ and _penates_;--and her Friends. Above all that love of +GOD which was the guiding influence of everything she wrote +or did. So inseparable was it from her every-day life that readers +must not be surprised if they find grave and gay sentences following +each other in close succession. + +Julie's sense of humour never forsook her, but she was never +malicious, and could turn the laugh against herself as readily as +against others. I have ventured to insert a specimen of her fun, which +I hope will not be misunderstood. In a letter to C.T.G., dated March +13, 1874, she gave him a most graphic picture of the erratic condition +of mind that had come over an old friend, the result of heavy +responsibilities and the rush of London life. Julie had no idea when +she wrote that these symptoms were in reality the subtle beginnings of +a breakdown, which ended fatally, and no one lamented the issue more +truly than she; but she could not resist catching folly as it flew, +and many of the flighty axioms became proverbial amongst us. + +The insertion of Bishop Medley's reply to my sister, April 8, 1880, +needs no apology, it is so interesting in itself, and gives such a +charming insight into the friendship between them. + +The _List of Mrs. Ewing's Works_ at the end of the Memoir was made +before the publication of the present Complete Edition; this, +therefore, is only mentioned in cases where stories have not been +published in any other book form. All Mrs. Ewing's Verses for +Children, Hymns, and Songs for Music (including two left in MS.) are +included in Volume IX. + +Volume XVII., "Miscellanea," contains _The Mystery of a bloody hand_ +together with the Translated Stories, and other papers that had +appeared previously in Magazines. + +In Volume XII., "Brothers of Pity and other tales of men and beasts," +will be found _Among the Merrows_; _A Week spent in a Glass Pond_; +_Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks_; _The Owl in the Ivy Bush, and +Owlhoots I. II._, whilst _Sunflowers and a Rushlight_ has been put +amongst the Flower Stories in Vol. XVI., _Mary's Meadow_, etc. + +The Letter with which this volume concludes was one of the last that +Julie wrote, and its allusion to Gordon's translation seemed to make +it suitable for the End. + +After her death the readers of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ subscribed +enough to complete the endowment (L1000) of a Cot at the Convalescent +Home of the Hospital for Sick Children, _Cromwell House, Highgate_. +This had been begun to our Mother's memory, and was completed in the +joint names of _Margaret Gatty_ and _Juliana Horatia Ewing_. So +liberal were the subscriptions that there was a surplus of more than +L200, and with this we endowed two L5 annuities in the _Cambridge Fund +for Old Soldiers_--as the "Jackanapes," and "Leonard" annuities. + +Of other memorials there are the marble gravestone in Trull +Churchyard, and Tablet in Ecclesfield Church, both carved by Harry +Hems, of Exeter, and similarly decorated with the double lilac +primrose,--St. Juliana's flower. + +In Ecclesfield Church there is also a beautiful stained window, given +by her friend, Bernard Wake. The glass was executed by W.F. Dixon, and +the subject is Christ's Ascension. Julie died on the Eve of Ascension +Day. + +Lastly, there is a small window of jewelled glass, by C.E. Kempe, in +St. George's Church, South Camp, Aldershot, representing St. Patrick +trampling on a three-headed serpent, emblematical of the powers of +evil, and holding the Trefoil in his hand--a symbol of the Blessed +Trinity. + +HORATIA K.F. EDEN. + +_Rugby_, 1896. + + * * * * * + +_The frontispiece portrait of Mrs. Ewing is a photogravure produced by +the Swan Electric Engraving Company, from a photograph taken by Mr. +Fergus of Largs_. + +_All the other illustrations are from Mrs. Ewing's own drawings, +except the tail-piece on p. 136. This graceful ideal of Mrs. Ewing's +grave was an offering sent by Mr. Caldecott shortly after her death, +with his final illustrations to "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire."_ + + All hearts grew warmer in the presence + Of one who, seeking not his own, + Gave freely for the love of giving, + Nor reaped for self the harvest sown. + + Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude + Of generous deeds and kindly words: + In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, + Open to sunrise and the birds! + + The task was thine to mould and fashion + Life's plastic newness into grace; + To make the boyish heart heroic, + And light with thought the maiden's face. + + * * * * * + + O friend! if thought and sense avail not + To know thee henceforth as thou art, + That all is well with thee forever, + I trust the instincts of my heart. + + Thine be the quiet habitations, + Thine the green pastures, blossom sown, + And smiles of saintly recognition, + As sweet and tender as thy own. + + Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow + To meet us, but to thee we come; + With thee we never can be strangers, + And where thou art must still be home. + + "_A Memorial_."--JOHN G. WHITTIER. + + + + +JULIANA HORATIA EWING +AND HER BOOKS. + + + + +PART I. + + + In Memoriam + + JULIANA HORATIA, + + SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. ALFRED GATTY, D.D., + AND MARGARET, HIS WIFE, + BORN AT ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 1841, + MARRIED JUNE 1, 1867, TO ALEXANDER EWING, + MAJOR, A.P.D., + DIED AT BATH, MAY 13, 1885, + BURIED AT TRULL, SOMERSET, MAY 16, 1885. + + +I have promised the children to write something for them about their +favourite story-teller, Juliana Horatia Ewing, because I am sure they +will like to read it. + +I well remember how eagerly I devoured the Life of my favourite +author, Hans Christian Andersen; how anxious I was to send a +subscription to the memorial statue of him, which was placed in the +centre of the public Garden at Copenhagen, where children yet play at +his feet; and, still further, to send some flowers to his newly-filled +grave by the hand of one who, more fortunate than myself, had the +chance of visiting the spot. + +I think that the point which children will be most anxious to know +about Mrs. Ewing is how she wrote her stories. Did she evolve the +plots and characters entirely out of her own mind, or were they in any +way suggested by the occurrences and people around her? + +The best plan of answering such questions will be for me to give a +list of her stories in succession as they were written, and to tell, +as far as I can, what gave rise to them in my sister's mind; in doing +this we shall find that an outline biography of her will naturally +follow. Nearly all her writings first appeared in the pages of _Aunt +Judy's Magazine_, and as we realize this fact we shall see how close +her connection with it was, and cease to wonder that the Magazine +should end after her death. + +Those who lived with my sister have no difficulty in tracing +likenesses between some of the characters in her books, and many whom +she met in real life; but let me say, once for all, that she never +drew "portraits" of people, and even if some of us now and then caught +glimpses of ourselves under the clothing she had robed us in, we only +felt ashamed to think how unlike we really were to the glorified +beings whom she put before the public. + +Still less did she ever do with her pen, what an artistic family of +children used to threaten to do with their pencils when they were +vexed with each other, namely, to "draw you ugly." + +It was one of the strongest features in my sister's character that she +"received but what she gave," and threw such a halo of sympathy and +trust round all with whom she came in contact, that she seemed to see +them "with larger other eyes than ours," and treated them accordingly. +On the whole, I am sure this was good in its results, though the pain +occasionally of awakening to disappointment was acute; but she +generally contrived to cover up the wound with some new shoot of Hope. +On those in whom she trusted I think her faith acted favourably. I +recollect one friend whose conscience did not allow him to rest quite +easy under the rosy light through which he felt he was viewed, saying +to her: "It's the trust that such women as you repose in us men, which +makes us desire to become more like what you believe us to be." + +If her universal sympathy sometimes led her to what we might hastily +consider "waste her time" on the petty interests and troubles of +people who appeared to us unworthy, what were we that we should blame +her? The value of each soul is equal in God's sight; and when the +books are opened there may be more entries than we now can count of +hearts comforted, self-respect restored, and souls raised by her help +to fresh love and trust in God,--ay, even of old sins and deeds of +shame turned into rungs on the ladder to heaven by feet that have +learned to tread the evil beneath them. It was this well-spring of +sympathy in her which made my sister rejoice as she did in the +teaching of the now Chaplain-General, Dr. J.C. Edghill, when he was +yet attached to the iron church in the South Camp, Aldershot. "He +preaches the gospel of Hope," she said--hope that is in the latent +power which lies hidden even in the worst of us, ready to take fire +when touched by the Divine flame, and burn up its old evil into a +light that will shine to God's glory before men. I still possess the +epitome of one of these "hopeful" sermons, which she sent me in a +letter after hearing the chaplain preach on the two texts: "What +meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God"; "Awake, thou that +sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." + +It has been said that, in his story of "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap," +Hans Andersen recorded something of his own career. I know not if this +be true, but certainly in her story of "Madam Liberality"[1] Mrs. +Ewing drew a picture of her own character that can never be surpassed. +She did this quite unintentionally, I know, and believed that she was +only giving her own experiences of suffering under quinsy, in +combination with some record of the virtues of One whose powers of +courage, uprightness, and generosity under ill-health she had always +regarded with deep admiration. Possibly the virtues were +hereditary,--certainly the original owner of them was a relation; but, +however this may be, Madam Liberality bears a wonderfully strong +likeness to my sister, and she used to be called by a great friend of +ours the "little body with a mighty heart," from the quotation which +appears at the head of the tale. + +[Footnote 1: Reprinted in "A Great Emergency and other Tales."] + +The same friend is now a bishop in another hemisphere from ours, but +he will ever be reckoned a "great" friend. Our bonds of friendship +were tied during hours of sorrow in the house of mourning, and such as +these are not broken by after-divisions of space and time. Mrs. Ewing +named him "Jachin," from one of the pillars of the Temple, on account +of his being a pillar of strength at that time to us. Let me now quote +the opening description of Madam Liberality from the story:-- + + It was not her real name; it was given to her by her brothers and + sisters. People with very marked qualities of character do + sometimes get such distinctive titles to rectify the indefiniteness + of those they inherit and those they receive in baptism. The + ruling peculiarity of a character is apt to show itself early in + life, and it showed itself in Madam Liberality when she was a + little child. + + Plum-cakes were not plentiful in her home when Madam Liberality was + young, and, such as there were, were of the "wholesome" + kind--plenty of breadstuff, and the currants and raisins at a + respectful distance from each other. But, few as the plums were, + she seldom ate them. She picked them out very carefully, and put + them into a box, which was hidden under her pinafore. + + When we grown-up people were children, and plum-cake and + plum-pudding tasted very much nicer than they do now, we also + picked out the plums. Some of us ate them at once, and had then to + toil slowly through the cake or pudding, and some valiantly + dispatched the plainer portion of the feast at the beginning, and + kept the plums to sweeten the end. Sooner or later we ate them + ourselves, but Madam Liberality kept her plums for other people. + + When the vulgar meal was over--that commonplace refreshment + ordained and superintended by the elders of the household--Madame + Liberality would withdraw into a corner, from which she issued + notes of invitation to all the dolls. They were "fancy written" on + curl-papers, and folded into cocked hats. + + Then began the real feast. The dolls came and the children with + them. Madam Liberality had no toy tea-sets or dinner-sets, but + there were acorn-cups filled to the brim, and the water tasted + deliciously, though it came out of the ewer in the night-nursery, + and had not even been filtered. And before every doll was a flat + oyster-shell covered with a round oyster-shell, a complete set of + complete pairs which had been collected by degrees, like old family + plate. And, when the upper shell was raised, on every dish lay a + plum. It was then that Madam Liberality got her sweetness out of + the cake. She was in her glory at the head of the inverted + tea-chest, and if the raisins would not go round the empty + oyster-shell was hers, and nothing offended her more than to have + this noticed. That was her spirit, then and always. She could "do + without" anything, if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to + her. + + When one's brain is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much + confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I + have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a + virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or love of approbation, + benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the lust of + power, or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with + much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as the + doctors say, "an effort of nature" to make her live outside + herself, and be happy in the happiness of others? + +All my earliest recollections of Julie (as I must call her) picture +her as at once the projector and manager of all our nursery doings. +Even if she tyrannized over us by always arranging things according to +her own fancy, we did not rebel, we relied so habitually and entirely +on her to originate every fresh plan and idea; and I am sure that in +our turn we often tyrannized over her by reproaching her when any of +what we called her "projukes" ended in "mulls," or when she paused for +what seemed to us a longer five minutes than usual in the middle of +some story she was telling, to think what the next incident should be! + +It amazes me now to realize how unreasonable we were in our +impatience, and how her powers of invention ever kept pace with our +demands. These early stories were influenced to some extent by the +books that she then liked best to read--Grimm, Andersen, and +Bechstein's fairy tales; to the last writer I believe we owed her +story about a Wizard, which was one of our chief favourites. Not that +she copied Bechstein in any way, for we read his tales too, and would +not have submitted to anything approaching a recapitulation; but the +character of the little Wizard was one which fascinated her, and even +more so, perhaps, the quaint picture of him, which stood at the head +of the tale; and she wove round this skeleton idea a rambling romance +from her own fertile imagination. + +I have specially alluded to the picture, because my sister's artistic +as well as literary powers were so strong that through all her life +the two ever ran side by side, each aiding and developing the other, +so that it is difficult to speak of them apart.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Letter, May 14, 1876.] + +Many of the stories she told us in childhood were inspired by some fine +woodcuts in a German "A B C book," that we could none of us then read, and +in later years some of her best efforts were suggested by illustrations, +and written to fit them. I know, too, that in arranging the plots and +wording of her stories she followed the rules that are pursued by artists +in composing their pictures. She found great difficulty in preventing +herself from "overcrowding her canvas" with minor characters, owing to her +tendency to throw herself into complete sympathy with whatever creature she +touched; and, sometimes,--particularly in tales which came out as serials, +when she wrote from month to month, and had no opportunity of correcting +the composition as a _whole_,--she was apt to give undue prominence to +minor details, and throw her high lights on to obscure corners, instead of +concentrating them on the central point. These artistic rules kept her +humour and pathos,--like light and shade,--duly balanced, and made the +lights she "left out" some of the most striking points of her work. + +[Illustration: POST MILL, DENNINGTON.] + +But to go back to the stories she told us as children. Another of our +favourite ones related to a Cavalier who hid in an underground passage +connected with a deserted Windmill on a lonely moor. It is needless to +say that, as we were brought up on Marryat's _Children of the New +Forest_, and possessed an aunt who always went into mourning for King +Charles on January 30, our sympathies were entirely devoted to the +Stuarts' cause; and this persecuted Cavalier, with his big hat and +boots, long hair and sorrows, was our best beloved hero. We would +always let Julie tell us the "Windmill Story" over again, when her +imagination was at a loss for a new one. Windmills, I suppose from +their picturesqueness, had a very strong attraction for her. There +were none near our Yorkshire home, so, perhaps, their rarity added to +their value in her eyes; certain it is that she was never tired of +sketching them, and one of her latest note-books is full of the old +mill at Frimley, Hants, taken under various aspects of sunset and +storm. Then Holland, with its low horizons and rows of windmills, was +the first foreign land she chose to visit, and the "Dutch Story," one +of her earliest written efforts, remains an unfinished fragment; +whilst "Jan of the Windmill" owes much of its existence to her early +love for these quaint structures. + +It was not only in the matter of fairy tales that Julie reigned +supreme in the nursery, she presided equally over our games and +amusements. In matters such as garden-plots, when she and our eldest +sister could each have one of the same size, they did so; but, when it +came to there being _one_ bower, devised under the bending branches of +a lilac bush, then the laws of seniority were disregarded, and it was +"Julie's Bower." Here, on benches made of narrow boards laid on +inverted flower-pots, we sat and listened to her stories; here was +kept the discarded dinner-bell, used at the funerals of our pet +animals, and which she introduced into "The Burial of the Linnet."[3] +Near the Bower we had a chapel, dedicated to St. Christopher, and a +sketch of it is still extant, which was drawn by our eldest sister, +who was the chief builder and caretaker of the shrine; hence started +the funeral processions, both of our pets and of the stray birds and +beasts we found unburied. In "Brothers of Pity"[4] Julie gave her hero +the same predilection for burying that we had indulged in. + +[Footnote 3: "Verses for Children, and Songs for Music."] + +[Footnote 4: "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men."] + +She invented names for the spots that we most frequented in our walks, +such as "The Mermaid's Ford," and "St. Nicholas." The latter covered a +space including several fields and a clear stream, and over this +locality she certainly reigned supreme; our gathering of violets and +cowslips, or of hips and haws for jam, and our digging of earth-nuts +were limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted to +exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we +caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy _Batrachospermum_ in its clear +depths, we plunged in to secure it for Mother, whether Julie or any +other Naiad liked it or no! But "the splendour in the grass and glory +in the flower" that we found in "St. Nicholas" was very deep and real, +thanks to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood she +must have felt, and imparted to us, a great deal of what she put into +the hearts of the children in "Our Field."[5] To me this story is one +of the most beautiful of her compositions, and deeply characteristic +of the strong power she possessed of drawing happiness from little +things, in spite of the hindrances caused by weak health. Her fountain +of hope and thankfulness never ran dry. + +[Footnote 5: "A Great Emergency, and other Tales."] + + Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment. + + From her earliest years it had been a family joke, that poor Madam + Liberality was always in ill-luck's way. + + It is true that she was constantly planning; and, if one builds + castles, one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now + and then. But, besides this, her little hopes were constantly being + frustrated by Fate. + + If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed + was sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When + a picnic or a tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not + catch cold, so as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to + have a quinsy from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a + treat, she paid for the pleasurable excitement by a head-ache, just + as when she ate sweet things they gave her toothache. + + But, if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good + spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about + the treat when she had forgotten the head-ache. + + One side of her face would look fairly cheerful when the other was + obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole + was redolent of every possible domestic remedy for toothache, from + oil of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No + sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the + hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue would not hurt her "this + time." + + In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her quinsy she + would amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition, on a + larger and possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time + when she should be out again. + + It is a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a + cork rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had + swallowed up her hopes. + + Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each + mischance or malady as ready and hopeful as ever. + +Some of the indoor amusements over which Julie exercised great +influence were our theatricals. Her powers of imitation were strong; +indeed, my mother's story of "Joachim the Mimic" was written, when +Julie was very young, rather to check this habit which had early +developed in her. She always took what may be called the "walking +gentleman's" part in our plays. Miss Corner's Series came first, and +then Julie was usually a Prince; but after we advanced to farces, her +most successful character was that of the commercial traveller, +Charley Beeswing, in "Twenty Minutes with a Tiger." "Character" parts +were what she liked best to take, and in later years, when aiding in +private theatricals at Aldershot Camp, the piece she most enjoyed was +"Helping Hands," in which she acted Tilda, with Captain F.G. Slade, +R.A., as Shockey, and Major Ewing as the blind musician. + +The last time she acted was at Shoeburyness, where she was the guest +of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, and when Captain +Goold-Adams and his wife also took part in the entertainment. The +terrible news of Colonel Strangways' and Captain Goold-Adams' deaths +from the explosion at Shoebury in February 1885, reached her whilst +she was very ill, and shocked her greatly; though she often alluded to +the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' unselfishness, +courage, and submission during his last hours, and trying to bear her +own sufferings in the same spirit. She was so much pleased with the +description given of his grave being lined with moss and lilac +crocuses, that when her own had to be dug it was lined in a similar +way. + +But now let us go back to her in the Nursery, and recall how, in spite of +very limited pocket-money, she was always the presiding Genius over +birthday and Christmas-tree gifts; and the true 'St. Nicholas' who filled +the stockings that the "little ones" tied, in happy confidence, to their +bed-posts. Here the description must be quoted of Madam Liberality's +struggles between generosity and conscientiousness;-- + + It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should ever have been + accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his + head at her and say, "You're the most meanest and the _generousest_ + person I ever knew!" And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, + although her brother was then too young to form either his words or + his opinions correctly. + + But it was the touch of truth in it which made Madam Liberality + cry. To the end of their lives Tom and she were alike, and yet + different in this matter. Madam Liberality saved, and pinched, and + planned, and then gave away, and Tom gave away without the pinching + and the saving. This sounds much handsomer, and it was poor Tom's + misfortune that he always believed it to be so; though he gave away + what did not belong to him, and fell back for the supply of his own + pretty numerous wants upon other people, not forgetting Madam + Liberality. Painful experience convinced Madam Liberality in the + end that his way was a wrong one, but she had her doubts many times + in her life whether there were not something unhandsome in her own + decided talent for economy. Not that economy was always pleasant to + her. When people are very poor for their position in life, they can + only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting + is very painful to a liberal spirit. And it requires a sterner + virtue than good nature to hold fast the truth that it is nobler to + be shabby and honest than to do things handsomely in debt. + + But long before Tom had a bill even for bull's-eyes and Gibraltar + rock, Madam Liberality was pinching and plotting, and saving bits + of coloured paper and ends of ribbon, with a thriftiness which + seemed to justify Tom's view of her character. The object of these + savings was twofold,--birthday presents and Christmas-boxes. They + were the chief cares and triumphs of Madam Liberality's childhood. + It was with the next birthday or the approaching Christmas in view + that she saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so + seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity. + Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would + "do for a boy;" but it was easy to please Darling, and "Mother's" + unabated appreciation of pin-cushions, and of needle-books made out + of old cards, was most satisfactory. + +Equally characteristic of Julie's moral courage and unselfishness is +the incident of how Madam Liberality suffered the doctor's assistant +to extract the tooth fang which had been accidentally left in her jaw, +because her mother's "fixed scale of reward was sixpence for a tooth +without fangs, and a shilling for one with them," and she wanted the +larger sum to spend on Christmas-tree presents. + +When the operation was over, + + Madam Liberality staggered home, very giddy, but very happy. + Moralists say a great deal about pain treading so closely on the + heels of pleasure in this life, but they are not always wise or + grateful enough to speak of the pleasure which springs out of pain. + And yet there is a bliss which comes just when pain has ceased, + whose rapture rivals even the high happiness of unbroken health; + and there is a keen pleasure about small pleasures hardly earned, + in which the full measure of those who can afford anything they + want is sometimes lacking. Relief is certainly one of the most + delicious sensations which poor humanity can enjoy! + +The details which can be traced in Julie's letters after undergoing +the removal of her tonsils read very much like extracts from Madam +Liberality's biography. During my sister's last illness she spoke +about this episode, and said she looked back with surprise at the +courage she had exercised in going to London alone, and staying with +friends for the operation. Happily, like Madam Liberality, she too +earned a reward in the relief which she appreciated so keenly; for, +after this event, quinsies became things of the past to her, and she +had them no more. + +On April 14, 1863, she wrote-- + + "MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I could knock my head off when I + think that _I_ am to blame for not being able to send you word + yesterday of the happy conclusion of this affair!! * * I cannot + apologize enough, but assure you I punished myself by two days' + suspense (a letter had been misdirected to the surgeon which + delayed his visit). I did intend to have asked if I might have + spent a trifle with the flower-man who comes to the door here, and + bring home a little adornment to my flower-box as a sugar-plum + after my operation * * now I feel I do not deserve it, but perhaps + you will be merciful! + + "It was a tiresome operation--so choking! He (Mr. Smith, the + surgeon) was about an hour at it. He was more kind and considerate + than can be expressed; when he went I said to him, 'I am very much + obliged to you, first for telling me the truth, and secondly for + waiting for me.' For when I got 'down in the mouth,' he waited, and + chatted till I screwed up my courage again. He said, 'When people + are reasonable it is barbarous to hurry them, and I said you were + that when I first saw you.'" + + April 16, 1863. "Thank you so much for letting me bring home a + flower or two! I do love them so much." + +As Julie emerged from the nursery and began to take an interest in our +village neighbours, her taste for "projects" was devoted to their +interests. It was her energy that established a Village Library in +1859, which still remains a flourishing institution; but all her +attempts were not crowned with equal success. She often recalled, with +great amusement, how, the first day on which she distributed tracts as +a District Visitor, an old lady of limited ideas and crabbed +disposition called in the evening to restore the tract which had been +lent to her, remarking that she had brought it back and required no +more, as--"My 'usband does _not_ attend the public-'ouse, and we've no +unrewly children!" + +My sister gave a series of Lessons[6] on the Liturgy in the +day-school, and on Sunday held a Class for Young Women at the +Vicarage, because she was so often prevented by attacks of quinsy from +going out to school; indeed, at this time, as the mother of some of +her ex-pupils only lately remarked, "Miss Julie were always cayling." + +[Footnote 6: Letter, August 19, 1864.] + +[Illustration: SOUTH SCREEN, ECCLESFIELD CHURCH.] + +The first stories that she published belong to this so-to-speak +"parochial" phase of her life, when her interests were chiefly divided +between the nursery and the village. "A Bit of Green" came out in the +_Monthly Packet_ in July 1861; "The Blackbird's Nest" in August +1861; "Melchior's Dream" in December 1861; and these three tales, with +two others, which had not been previously published ("Friedrich's +Ballad" and "The Viscount's Friend"), were issued in a volume called +"Melchior's Dream and other Tales," in 1862. The proceeds of the first +edition of this book gave "Madam Liberality" the opportunity of +indulging in her favourite virtue. She and her eldest sister, who +illustrated the stories, first devoted the "tenths" of their +respective earnings for letterpress and pictures to buying some +hangings for the sacrarium of Ecclesfield Church, and then Julie +treated two of her sisters, who were out of health, to Whitby for +change of air. Three years later, out of some other literary earnings, +she took her eldest brother to Antwerp and Holland, to see the city of +Rubens' pictures, and the land of canals, windmills, and fine +sunsets.[7] The expedition had to be conducted on principles which +savoured more of strict integrity and economy than of comfort; for +they went in a small steamer from Hull to Antwerp, but Julie feasted +her eyes and brain on all the fresh sights and sounds she encountered, +and filled her sketch-book with pictures. + +[Footnote 7: Letters, September 1865.] + +[Illustration: IN OWNING A GOOD TURN] + +"It was at Rotterdam," wrote her brother, "that I left her with her +camp-stool and water-colours for a moment in the street, to find +her, on my return, with a huge crowd round her, and before--a baker's +man holding back a blue veil that would blow before her eyes--and she +sketching down an avenue of spectators, to whom she kept motioning +with her brush to stand aside. Perfectly unconscious she was of _how_ +she looked, and I had great difficulty in getting her to pack up and +move on. Every quaint Dutch boat, every queer street, every peasant in +gold ornaments, was a treasure to her note-book. We were very happy!" + +I doubt, indeed, whether her companion has experienced greater +enjoyment during any of his later and more luxurious visits to the +same spots; the _first_ sight of a foreign country must remain a +unique sensation. + +It was not the intrinsic value of Julie's gifts to us that made them +so precious, but the wide-hearted spirit which always prompted them. +Out of a moderate income she could only afford to be generous from her +constant habit of thinking first for others, and denying herself. It +made little difference whether the gift was elevenpence +three-farthings' worth of modern Japanese pottery, which she seized +upon as just the right shape and colour to fit some niche on one of +our shelves, or a copy of the _edition de luxe_ of "Evangeline," with +Frank Dicksee's magnificent illustrations, which she ordered one day +to be included in the parcel of a sister, who had been judiciously +laying out a small sum on the purchase of cheap editions of standard +works, not daring to look into the tempting volume for fear of +coveting it. When the carrier brought home the unexpectedly large +parcel that night, it was difficult to say whether the receiver or the +giver was the happier. + +My turn came once to be taken by Julie to the sea for rest (June +1874), and then one of the chief enjoyments lay in the unwonted luxury +of being allowed to choose my own route. Freedom of choice to a +wearied mind is quite as refreshing as ozone to an exhausted body. +Julie had none of the petty tyranny about her which often mars the +generosity of otherwise liberal souls, who insist on giving what they +wish rather than what the receiver wants. + +I was told to take out Bradshaw's map, and go exactly where I desired, +and, oh! how we pored over the various railway lines, but finally +chose Dartmouth for a destination, as being old in itself, and new to +us, and really a "long way off." We were neither of us disappointed; +we lived on the quay, and watched the natives living in boats on the +harbour, as is their wont; and we drove about the Devon lanes, all +nodding with foxgloves, to see the churches with finely-carved screens +that abound in the neighbourhood, our driver being a more than +middle-aged woman, with shoes down at heel, and a hat on her head. +She was always attended by a black retriever, whom she called "Naro," +and whom Julie sketched. I am afraid, as years went on, I became +unscrupulous about accepting her presents, on the score that she +"liked" to give them!--and I only tried to be, at any rate, a gracious +receiver. + +[Illustration: "THE LADY WILL DRIVE!"] + +There was one person, however, whom Julie found less easy to deal +with, and that was an Aunt, whose liberality even exceeded her own. +When Greek met Greek over Christmas presents, then came the tug of war +indeed! The Aunt's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever plums +were given to her was quite amazing, and she generally managed to +baffle the most careful restrictions which were laid upon her; but +Julie conquered at last, by yielding--as often happens in this life! + +"It's no use," Julie said to me, as she got out her bit of cardboard +(not for a needle-book this time!)--"I must make her happy in her own +way. She wants me to make her a sketch for somebody else, and I've +promised to do it." + +The sketch was made,--the last Julie ever drew,--but it remained +amongst the receiver's own treasures. She was so much delighted with +it, she could not make up her mind to give it away, and Julie laughed +many times with pleasure as she reflected on the unexpected success +that had crowned her final effort. + +I spoke of "Melchior's Dream" and must revert to it again, for though +it was written when my sister was only nineteen, I do not think she +has surpassed it in any of her later _domestic_ tales. Some of the +writing in the introduction may be rougher and less finished than she +was capable of in after-years, but the originality, power, and pathos +of the Dream itself are beyond doubt. In it, too, she showed the +talent which gives the highest value to all her work--that of teaching +deep religious lessons without disgusting her readers by any approach +to cant or goody-goodyism. + +During the years 1862 to 1868, we kept up a MS. magazine, and, of +course, Julie was our principal contributor. Many of her poems on +local events were genuinely witty, and her serial tales the backbone +of the periodical. The best of these was called "The Two Abbots: a +Tale of Second Sight," and in the course of it she introduced a hymn, +which was afterwards set to music by Major Ewing and published in +Boosey's Royal Edition of "Sacred Songs," under the title "From +Fleeting Pleasures." + +The words of this hymn, and of two others which she wrote for the use +of our Sunday school children at Whitsuntide in the respective years +1864 and 1866 have all been published in vol. ix. of the present +Edition of her works. + +Some years after she married, my sister again tried her hand at +hymn-writing. On July 22, 1879, she wrote to her husband: + +"I think I will finish my hymn of 'Church of the Quick and Dead,' and +get thee to write a processional tune. The metre is (last verse)-- + + 'Church of the Quick and Dead, + Lift up, lift up thy head, + Behold the Judge is standing at the door! + Bride of the Lamb, arise! + From whose woe-wearied eyes + My God shall wipe all tears for evermore.'" + +My sister published very few of the things which she wrote to amuse us +in our MS. "Gunpowder Plot Magazine," for they chiefly referred to +local and family events; but "The Blue Bells on the Lea" was an +exception. The scene of this is a hill-side near our old home, and Mr. +Andre's fantastic and graceful illustrations to the verses when they +came out as a book, gave her full satisfaction and delight. + +In June 1865 she contributed a short parochial tale, "The Yew Lane +Ghosts," to the _Monthly Packet_, and during the same year she gave a +somewhat sensational story, called "The Mystery of the Bloody +Hand,"[8] to _London Society_. Julie found no real satisfaction in +writing this kind of literature, and she soon discarded it; but her +first attempt showed some promise of the prolific power of her +imagination, for Mr. Shirley Brooks, who read the tale impartially, +not knowing who had written it, wrote the following criticism: "If the +author has leisure and inclination to make a picture instead of a +sketch, the material, judiciously treated, would make a novel, and I +especially see in the character and sufferings of the Quaker, +previous to his crime, matter for effective psychological treatment. +The contrast between the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite +might be powerfully worked up; but these are mere suggestions from an +old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see things as +veterans do." + +[Footnote 8: Vol. xvii. "Miscellanea."] + +In May 1866 my Mother started _Aunt Judy's Magazine for Children_, and +she called it by this title because "Aunt Judy" was the nickname we +had given to Julie whilst she was yet our nursery story-teller, and it +had been previously used in the titles of two of my Mother's most +popular books, "Aunt Judy's Tales" and "Aunt Judy's Letters." + +After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of her own, many +mistakes occurred as to the authorship of these books. It was supposed +that the Tales and Letters were really written by Julie, and the +introductory portions that strung them together by my Mother. This was +a complete mistake; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the +books were three brief tales, in imitation of Andersen, called [9]"The +Smut," "The Crick," and "The Brothers," which were included in "The +Black Bag" in "Aunt Judy's Letters." + +[Footnote 9: These have now been reprinted in vol. xvii. +"Miscellanea."] + +Julie's first contribution to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ was "Mrs. +Overtheway's Remembrances," and between May 1866 and May 1867 the +three first portions of "Ida," "Mrs. Moss," and "The Snoring Ghosts," +came out. In these stories I can trace many of the influences which +surrounded my sister whilst she was still the "always cayling Miss +Julie," suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the +intervals, reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam Liberality, +and frequently going away to pay visits to her friends for change of +air. + +We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she lived within +a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different soil to ours. +Ecclesfield stands on clay; but Grenoside, the village where our +friend lived, is on sand, and much higher in altitude. From it we have +often looked down at Ecclesfield lying in fog, whilst at Grenoside the +air was clear and the sun shining. Here my sister loved to go, and +from the home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, she +drew (though no _facts_) yet much of the colouring which is seen in +Mrs. Overtheway--a solitary life lived in the fear of God; enjoyment +of the delights of a garden; with tender treasuring of dainty china +and household goods for the sake of those to whom such relics had once +belonged. + +Years after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better +home, and had bequeathed her egg-shell brocade to my sister, Julie had +another resting-place in Grenoside, to which she was as warmly +welcomed as to the old one, during days of weakness and convalescence. +Here, in an atmosphere of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, +she spent many happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their +picturesque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or amusing +herself in other ways. [10]This home, too, was broken up by Death, but +Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great affection, and when, at the +beginning of her last illness, whilst she still expected to recover, +she was planning a visit to her Yorkshire home, she sighed to think +that Grenoside was no longer open to her. + +[Footnote 10: Letters, Advent Sunday, 1881, 25th November, 1881, +January 18, 1884.] + +On June 1, 1867, my sister was married to Alexander Ewing, A.P.D., son +of the late Alexander Ewing, M.D., of Aberdeen, and a week afterwards +they sailed for Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was to be +stationed. + +A gap now occurred in the continuation of "Mrs. Overtheway's +Remembrances." The first contributions that Julie sent from her new +home were, "An Idyl of the Wood," and "The Three Christmas Trees."[11] +In these tales the experiences of her voyage and fresh surroundings +became apparent; but in June 1868, "Mrs. Overtheway" was continued by +the story of "Reka Dom." + +[Footnote 11: Letter, 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1867.] + +In this Julie reverted to the scenery of another English home where +she had spent a good deal of time during her girlhood. The winter of +1862-3 was passed by her at Clyst St. George, near Topsham, with the +family of her kind friend, Rev. H.T. Ellacombe, and she evolved Mrs. +Overtheway's "River House"[12] out of the romance roused by the sight +of quaint old houses, with quainter gardens, and strange names that +seemed to show traces of foreign residents in days gone by. "Reka Dom" +was actually the name of a house in Topsham, where a Russian family +had once lived. Speaking of this house, Major Ewing said:--On the +evening of our arrival at Fredericton, New Brunswick, which stands on +the river St. John, we strolled down, out of the principal street, and +wandered on the river shore. We stopped to rest opposite to a large +old house, then in the hands of workmen. There was only the road +between this house and the river, and, on the banks, one or two old +willows. We said we should like to make our first home in some such +spot. Ere many weeks were over, we were established in that very +house, where we spent the first year, or more, of our time in +Fredericton. We _called_ it "Reka Dom," the River House. + +[Footnote 12: Letter, February 3, 1868.] + +[Illustration: THE RIVER HOUSE. +VIEW FROM THE WINDOW OF REKA DOM.] + +For the descriptions of Father and Mother Albatross and their island +home, in the last and most beautiful tale of "Kerguelen's Land," she +was indebted to her husband, a wide traveller and very accurate +observer of nature. + +To the volume of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ for 1869 she only sent "The +Land of Lost Toys,"[13] a short but very brilliant domestic story, the +wood described in it being the "Upper Shroggs," near Ecclesfield, +which had been a very favourite haunt in her childhood. In October +1869, she and Major Ewing returned to England, and from this time +until May 1877, he was stationed at Aldershot. + +[Footnote 13: Letter, December 8, 1868.] + +Whilst living in Fredericton my sister formed many close friendships. +It was here she first met Colonel and Mrs. Fox Strangways. In the +society of Bishop Medley and his wife she had also great happiness, +and with the former she and Major Ewing used to study Hebrew. The +cathedral services were a never-failing source of comfort, and at +these her husband frequently played the organ, especially on occasions +when anthems, which he had written at the bishop's request, were sung. + +To the volume of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ for 1870 she gave "Amelia and +the Dwarfs," and "Christmas Crackers," "Benjy in Beastland," and +eight[14] "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales." "Amelia" is one of her +happiest combinations of real child life and genuine fairy lore. The +dwarfs inspired Mr. Cruikshank[15] to one of his best water-colour +sketches: who is the happy possessor thereof I do not know, but the +woodcut illustration very inadequately represents the beauty and +delicacy of the picture. + +[Footnote 14: Letter, Sexagesima, 1869.] + +[Footnote 15: Letters, August 3, 1880.] + +[Illustration: IN THE DEAR OLD CAMP. NO. 1 HUT, X LINES, SOUTH CAMP.] + +Whilst speaking of the stories in this volume of _Aunt Judy's +Magazine_, I must stop to allude to one of the strongest features in +Julie's character, namely, her love for animals. She threw over them, +as over everything she touched, all the warm sympathy of her loving +heart, and it always seemed to me as if this enabled her almost to get +inside the minds of her pets, and know how to describe their +feelings.[16] + +[Footnote 16: October 20, 1868.] + +Another Beast Friend whom Julie had in New Brunswick was the Bear of +the 22nd Regiment, and she drew a sketch of him "with one of his pet +black dogs, as I saw them, 18th September, 1868, near the Officers' +Quarters, Fredericton, N.B. The Bear is at breakfast, and the dog +occasionally licks his nose when it comes up out of the bucket." + +[Illustration: CAN HANG NO WEIGHT UPON MY HEART.] + +The pink-nosed bull-dog in "Amelia" bears a strong likeness to a +well-beloved "Hector," whom she took charge of in Fredericton whilst +his master had gone on leave to be married in England. Hector, too, +was "a snow-white bull-dog (who was certainly as well bred and as +amiable as any living creature in the kingdom)," with a pink nose that +"became crimson with increased agitation." He was absolutely gentle +with human beings, but a hopeless adept at fighting with his own kind, +and many of my sister's letters and note-books were adorned with +sketches of Hector as he appeared swollen about the head, and subdued +in spirits, after some desperate encounter; or, with cards spread out +in front of him, playing, as she delighted to make him do, at "having +his fortune told."[17] But, instead of the four Queens standing for +four ladies of different degrees of complexion, they represented his +four favourite dishes of--1. Welsh rabbit. 2. Blueberry pudding. 3. +Pork sausages. 4. Buckwheat pancakes and molasses; and "the Fortune" +decided which of these dainties he was to have for supper. + +[Illustration: THE BULLDOGUE's FORTUNE] + +[Footnote 17: Letter, November 3, 1868.] + +Shortly before the Ewings started from Fredericton they went into the +barracks, whence a battalion of some regiment had departed two days +before, and there discovered a large black retriever who had been left +behind. It is needless to say that this deserted gentleman entirely +overcame their feelings; he was at once adopted, named "Trouve," and +brought home to England, where he spent a very happy life, chiefly in +the South Camp, Aldershot, his one danger there being that he was such +a favourite with the soldiers, they over-fed him terribly. Never did a +more benevolent disposition exist, his broad forehead and kind eyes, +set widely apart, did not belie him; there was a strong strain of +Newfoundland in his breed, and a strong likeness to a bear in the way +his feathered paws half crossed over each other in walking. Trouve +appears as "Nox" in "Benjy," and there is a glimpse of him in "The +Sweep," who ended his days as a "soldier's dog" in "The Story of a +Short Life." Trouve did, in reality, end his days at Ecclesfield, +where he is buried near "Rough," the broken-haired bull-terrier, who +is the real hero in "Benjy," Amongst the various animal friends whom +Julie had either of her own, or belonging to others, none was lovelier +than the golden-haired collie "Rufus," who was at once the delight +and distraction of the last year of her life at Taunton, by the tricks +he taught himself of very gently extracting the pins from her hair, +and letting it down at inconvenient moments; and of extracting, with +equal gentleness from the earth, the labels that she had put to the +various treasured flowers in her "Little Garden," and then tossing +them in mid-air on the grass-plot. + +A very amusing domestic story, called "The Snap Dragons," came out in +the Christmas number of the _Monthly Packet_ for 1870. + +"Timothy's Shoes" appeared in AUNT JUDY'S volume for 1871. +This was another story of the same type as "Amelia," and it was also +illustrated by Mr. Cruikshank. I think the Marsh Julie had in her +mind's eye, with a "long and steep bank," is one near the canal at +Aldershot, where she herself used to enjoy hunting for kingcups, +bog-asphodel, sundew, and the like. The tale is a charming combination +of humour and pathos, and the last clause, where "the shoes go home," +is enough to bring tears to the eyes of every one who loves the patter +of childish feet. + +The most important work that she did this year (1871) was "A Flat-Iron +for a Farthing," which ran as a serial through the volume of _Aunt +Judy's Magazine_. It was very beautifully illustrated by Helen +Paterson (now Mrs. Allingham), and the design where the "little +ladies," in big beaver bonnets, are seated at a shop-counter buying +flat-irons, was afterwards reproduced in water-colours by Mrs. +Allingham, and exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in +Water-Colours (1875), where it attracted Mr. Ruskin's attention.[18] +Eventually, a fine steel engraving was done from it by Mr. Stodart.[19] +It is interesting to know that the girl friend who sat as a model for +"Polly" to Mrs. Allingham is now herself a well-known artist, whose +pictures are hung in the Royal Academy. + +[Footnote 18: The drawing, with whatever temporary purpose executed, is +for ever lovely; a thing which I believe Gainsborough would have given +one of his own pictures for--old-fashioned as red-tipped daisies are, +and more precious than rubies.--Ruskin, "Notes on some of the Pictures +at the Royal Academy." 1875.] + +[Footnote 19: Published by the Fine Art Society, Bond-street.] + +The scene of the little girls in beaver bonnets was really taken from +an incident of Julie's childhood, when she and her "duplicate" (my +eldest sister) being the nearest in age, size, and appearance of any +of the family, used to be dressed exactly alike, and were inseparable +companions: _their_ flat-irons, I think, were bought in Matlock. +Shadowy glimpses of this same "duplicate" are also to be caught in +Mrs. Overtheway's "Fatima," and Madam Liberality's "Darling." When "A +Flat-Iron" came out in its book form it was dedicated "To my dear +Father, and to his sister, my dear Aunt Mary, in memory of their good +friend and nurse, E.B., obiit 3 March, 1872, aet. 83;" the loyal +devotion and high integrity of Nurse Bundle having been somewhat drawn +from the "E.B." alluded to. Such characters are not common, and they +grow rarer year by year. We do well to hold them in everlasting +remembrance. + + + + +PART II. + + The meadows gleam with hoar-frost white, + The day breaks on the hill, + The widgeon takes its early flight + Beside the frozen rill. + From village steeples far away + The sound of bells is borne, + As one by one, each crimson ray + Brings in the Christmas morn. + Peace to all! the church bells say, + For Christ was born on Christmas day. + Peace to all. + + Here, some will those again embrace + They hold on earth most dear, + There, some will mourn an absent face + They lost within the year. + Yet peace to all who smile or weep + Is rung from earth to sky; + But most to those to-day who keep + The feast with Christ on high. + Peace to all! the church bells say, + For Christ was born on Christmas day. + Peace to all. + + R.A. GATTY, 1873. + + +During 1871, my sister published the first of her Verses for Children, +"The Little Master to his Big Dog"; she did not put her name to it in +_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, but afterwards included it in one of her Verse +Books. Two Series of these books were published during her life, and a +third Series was in the press when she died, called "Poems of Child +Life and Country Life"; though Julie had some difficulty in making up +her mind to use the term "poem," because she did not think her +irregular verses were worthy to bear the title. + +She saw Mr. Andre's original sketches for five of the last six +volumes, and liked the illustrations to "The Poet and the Brook," +"Convalescence," and "The Mill Stream" best. + +To the volume of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ for 1872 she gave her first +"soldier" story, "The Peace Egg," and in this she began to sing those +praises of military life and courtesies which she afterwards more +fully showed forth in "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life," and +the opening chapters of "Six to Sixteen." The chief incident of the +story, however, consisted in the Captain's children unconsciously +bringing peace and goodwill into the family by performing the old +Christmas play or Mystery of "The Peace Egg." This play we had been +accustomed to see acted in Yorkshire, and to act ourselves when we +were young. I recollect how proud we were on one occasion, when our +disguises were so complete, that a neighbouring farmer's wife, at +whose door we went to act, drove us as ignominiously away, as the +House-keeper did the children in the story. "Darkie," who "slipped in +last like a black shadow," and "Pax," who jumped on to Mamma's lap, +"where, sitting facing the company, he opened his black mouth and +yawned, with ludicrous inappropriateness," are life-like portraits of +two favourite dogs. + +The tale was a very popular one, and many children wrote to ask where +they could buy copies of the Play in order to act it themselves. These +inquiries led Julie to compile a fresh arrangement of it, for she knew +that in its original form it was rather too roughly worded to be fit +for nursery use; so in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ (January 1884) she +published an adaptation of "The Peace Egg, a Christmas Mumming Play," +together with some interesting information about the various versions +of it which exist in different parts of England. + +She contributed "Six to Sixteen" as a serial to the Magazine in 1872, +and it was illustrated by Mrs. Allingham. When it was published as a +book, the dedication to Miss Eleanor Lloyd told that many of the +theories on the up-bringing of girls, which the story contained, were +the result of the somewhat desultory, if intellectual, home education +which we had received from our Mother. This education Miss Lloyd had, +to a great extent, shared during the happy visits she paid us; when +she entered into our interests with the zest of a sister, and in more +than one point outstripped us in following the pursuits for which +Mother gave us a taste. Julie never really either went to school or +had a governess, though for a brief period she was under the kind care +of some ladies at Brighton, but they were relations, and she went to +them more for the benefit of sea breezes than lessons. She certainly +chiefly educated herself by the "thorough" way in which she pursued +the various tastes she had inherited, and into which she was guided by +our Mother. Then she never thought she had learned _enough_, but +throughout her whole life was constantly improving and adding to her +knowledge. She owed to Mother's teaching the first principles of +drawing, and I have often seen her refer for rules on perspective to +"My Childhood in Art,"[20] a story in which these rules were fully laid +down; but Mother had no eye for colour, and not much for figure +drawing. Her own best works were etchings on copper of trees and +landscapes, whereas Julie's artistic talent lay more in colours and +human forms. The only real lessons in sketching she ever had were a +few from Mr. Paul Naftel, years after she was married. + +[Footnote 20: Included in "The Human Face Divine, and other Tales." By +Margaret Gatty. Bell and Sons.] + +One of her favourite methods for practising drawing was to devote +herself to thoroughly studying the sketches of some one master, in +order to try and unravel the special principles on which he had +worked, and then to copy his drawings. She pursued this plan with some +of Chinnery's curious and effective water-colour sketches, which were +lent to her by friends, and she found it a very useful one. She made +copies from De Wint, Turner, and others, in the same way, and +certainly the labour she threw into her work enabled her to produce +almost facsimiles of the originals. She was greatly interested one day +by hearing a lady, who ranks as one of the best living English writers +of her sex, say that when she was young she had practised the art of +writing in just the same way that Julie pursued that of drawing, +namely, by devoting herself to reading the works of one writer at a +time, until her brain was so saturated with his style that she could +write exactly like him, and then passing on to an equally careful +study of some other author. + +The life-like details of the "cholera season," in the second chapter +of "Six to Sixteen," were drawn from facts that Major Ewing told his +wife of a similar season which he had passed through in China, and +during which he had lost several friends; but the touching episode of +Margery's birthday present, and Mr. Abercrombie's efforts to console +her, were purely imaginary. + +Several of the "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales" which Julie wrote during +this (1872) and previous years in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, were on +Scotch topics, and she owed the striking accuracy of her local +colouring and dialect, as well as her keen intuition of Scotch +character, to visits that she paid to Major Ewing's relatives in the +North, and also to reading such typical books as _Mansie Wauch, the +Tailor of Dalkeith_, a story which she greatly admired. She liked to +study national types of character, and when she wrote "We and the +World," one of its chief features was meant to be the contrast drawn +between the English, Scotch, and Irish heroes; thanks to her wide +sympathy she was as keenly able to appreciate the rugged virtues of +the dour Scotch race, as the more quick and graceful beauties of the +Irish mind. + +[Illustration: AMESBURY] + +The Autumn Military Manoeuvres in 1872 were held near Salisbury +Plain, and Major Ewing was so much fascinated by the quaint old town +of Amesbury, where he was quartered, that he took my sister afterwards +to visit the place. The result of this was that her "Miller's +Thumb"[21] came out as a serial in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ during 1873. +All the scenery is drawn from the neighbourhood of Amesbury, and the +Wiltshire dialect she acquired by the aid of a friend, who procured +copies for her of _Wiltshire Tales_ and _A Glossary of Wiltshire Words +and Phrases_, both by J.Y. Akerman, F.S.A. She gleaned her practical +knowledge of life in a windmill, and a "Miller's Thumb," from an old +man who used to visit her hut in the South Camp, Aldershot, having +fallen from being a Miller with a genuine Thumb, to the less exalted +position of hawking muffins in winter and "Sally Lunns" in summer! +Mrs. Allingham illustrated the story; two of her best designs were Jan +and his Nurse Boy sitting on the plain watching the crows fly, and +Jan's first effort at drawing on his slate. It was published as a book +in 1876, and dedicated to our eldest sister, and the title was then +altered to "Jan of the Windmill, a Story of the Plains." + +[Footnote 21: Letter, August 25, 1872.] + +Three poems of Julie's came out in the volume of _Aunt Judy's +Magazine_ for 1873, "The Willow Man," "Ran away to Sea," and "A Friend +in the Garden"; her name was not given to the last, but it is a +pleasant little rhyme about a toad. She also wrote during this year +"Among the Merrows," a fantastic account of a visit she paid to the +Aquarium at the Crystal Palace. + +In October 1873, our Mother died, and my sister contributed a short +memoir of her[22] to the November number of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_. To +the December number she gave "Madam Liberality." + +[Footnote 22: Included in "Parables from Nature." By Mrs. Alfred Gatty. +Complete edition. Bell and Sons.] + +For two years after Mother's death, Julie shared the work of editing +the Magazine with me, and then she gave it up, as we were not living +together, and so found the plan rather inconvenient; also the task of +reading MSS. and writing business letters wasted time which she could +spend better on her own stories. + +At the end of the year 1873, she brought out a book, "Lob +Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," consisting of five stories, three +of which--"Timothy's Shoes," "Benjy in Beastland," and "The Peace +Egg,"--had already been published in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, whilst +"Old Father Christmas" had appeared in _Little Folks_; but the first +tale of "Lob" was specially written for the volume.[23] + +[Footnote 23: Letter, August 10, 1873.] + +The character of McAlister in this story is a Scotchman of the Scotch, +and, chiefly in consequence of this fact, the book was dedicated to +James Boyn McCombie, an uncle of Major Ewing, who always showed a most +kind and helpful interest in my sister's literary work. + +He died a few weeks before she did, much to her sorrow, but the +Dedication remained when the story came out in a separate form, +illustrated by Mr. Caldecott. The incident which makes the tale +specially appropriate to be dedicated to so true and unobtrusive a +philanthropist as Mr. McCombie was known to be, is the Highlander's +burning anxiety to rescue John Broom from his vagrant career. + +"Lob" contains some of Julie's brightest flashes of humour, and ends +happily, but in it, as in many of her tales, "the dusky strand of +death" appears, inwoven with, and thereby heightening, the joys of +love and life. It is a curious fact that, though her power of +describing death-bed scenes was so vivid, I believe she never saw any +one die; and I will venture to say that her description of McAlister's +last hours surpasses in truth and power the end of Leonard's "Short +Life"; the extinction of the line of "Old Standards" in Daddy Darwin; +the unseen call that led Jan's Schoolmaster away; and will even bear +comparison with Jackanapes' departure through the Grave to that "other +side" where "the Trumpets sounded for him." + +In order to appreciate the end, it is almost necessary, perhaps, to +have followed John Broom, the ne'er-do-weel lad, and McAlister, the +finest man in his regiment, through the scenes which drew them +together, and to read how the soldier, who might and ought to have +been a "sairgent," tried to turn the boy back from pursuing the +downward path along which he himself had taken too many steps; and +then learn how the vagrant's grateful love and agility enabled him to +awaken the sleeping sentinel at his post, and save "the old soldier's +honour." + + John Broom remained by his friend, whose painful fits of coughing, + and of gasping for breath, were varied by intervals of seeming + stupor. When a candle had been brought in and placed near the bed, + the Highlander roused himself and asked: + + "Is there a Bible on yon table? Could ye read a bit to me, laddie?" + + There is little need to dwell on the bitterness of heart with which + John Broom confessed: + + "I can't read big words, McAlister!" + + "Did ye never go to school?" said the Scotchman. + + "I didn't learn," said the poor boy; "I played." + + "Aye, aye. Weel ye'll learn when ye gang hame," said the + Highlander, in gentle tones. + + "I'll never get home," said John Broom, passionately. "I'll never + forgive myself. I'll never get over it, that I couldn't read to ye + when ye wanted me, McAlister." + + "Gently, gently," said the Scotchman. "Dinna daunt yoursel' ower + much wi' the past, laddie. And for me--I'm not that presoomtious to + think I can square up a misspent life as a man might compound wi's + creditors. 'Gin He forgi'es me, He'll forgi'e; but it's not a + prayer up or a chapter down that'll stan' between me and the + Almighty. So dinna fret yoursel', but let me think while I may." + + And so, far into the night, the Highlander lay silent, and John + Broom watched by him. + + It was just midnight when he partly raised himself, and cried: + + "Whist, laddie! do ye hear the pipes?" + + The dying ears must have been quick, for John Broom heard nothing; + but in a few minutes he heard the bagpipes from the officers' mess, + where they were keeping Hogmenay. They were playing the old year + out with "Auld Lang Syne," and the Highlander beat the time out + with his hand, and his eyes gleamed out of his rugged face in the + dim light, as cairngorms glitter in dark tartan. + + There was a pause after the first verse, and he grew restless, and + turning doubtfully to where John Broom sat, as if his sight were + failing, he said: "Ye'll mind your promise, ye'll gang hame?" And + after a while he repeated the last word "Hame!" + + But as he spoke there spread over his face a smile so tender and so + full of happiness, that John Broom held his breath as he watched + him. + + As the light of sunrise creeps over the face of some rugged rock, + it crept from chin to brow, and the pale blue eyes shone tranquil, + like water that reflects heaven. + + And when it had passed it left them still open, but gems that had + lost their ray. + +Death-beds are not the only things which Julie had the power of +picturing out of her inner consciousness apart from actual experience. +She was much amused by the pertinacity with which unknown +correspondents occasionally inquired after her "little ones," unable +to give her the credit of describing and understanding children unless +she possessed some of her own. There is a graceful touch at the end of +"Lob," which seems to me one of the most delicate evidences of her +universal sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men,--and women! +It is similar in character to the passage I alluded to in "Timothy's +Shoes," where they clatter away for the last time, into silence. + + Even after the sobering influences of middle age had touched him, + and a wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of home, he + had (at long intervals) his "restless times," when his good + "missis" would bring out a little store laid by in one of the + children's socks, and would bid him "Be off, and get a breath of + the sea air," but on condition that the sock went with, him as his + purse. John Broom always looked ashamed to go, but he came back the + better, and his wife was quite easy in his absence with that + confidence in her knowledge of "the master," which is so mysterious + to the unmarried. + + * * * * * + + "The sock 'll bring him home," said Mrs. Broom, and home he came, + and never could say what he had been doing. + +In 1874 Julie wrote "A Great Emergency" as a serial for the Magazine, +and took great pains to corroborate the accuracy of her descriptions +of barge life for it.[24] I remember our inspecting a barge on the +canal at Aldershot, with a friend who understood all its details, and +we arranged to go on an expedition in it to gain further experience, +but were somehow prevented. The allusions to Dartmouth arose from our +visit there, of which I have already spoken, and which took place +whilst she was writing the tale; and her knowledge of the intricacies +of the Great Eastern Railway between Fenchurch Street Station and +North Woolwich came from the experience she gained when we went on +expeditions to Victoria Docks, where one of our brothers was doing +parochial work under Canon Boyd. + +[Footnote 24: Letter, July 22, 1874.] + +During 1874 five of her "Verses for Children" came out in the +Magazine, two of which, "Our Garden," and "Three Little Nest-Birds," +were written to fit old German woodcuts. The others were "The Dolls' +Wash," "The Blue Bells on the Lea," and "The Doll's Lullaby." She +wrote an article on "May-Day, Old Style and New Style," in 1874, and +also contributed fifty-two brief "Tales of the Khoja,"[25] which she +adapted from the Turkish by the aid of a literal translation of them +given in Barker's _Reading-Book of the Turkish Language_, and by the +help of Major Ewing, who possessed some knowledge of the Turkish +language and customs, and assisted her in polishing the stories. They +are thoroughly Eastern in character, and full of dry wit. + +[Footnote 25: "Miscellanea," vol. xvii.] + +I must here digress to speak of some other work that my sister did +during the time she lived in Aldershot. Both she and Major Ewing took +great interest in the amateur concerts and private musical +performances that took place in the camp, and the V.C. in "The Story +of a Short Life," with a fine tenor voice, and a "fastidious choice in +the words of the songs he sang," is a shadow of these past days. The +want that many composers felt of good words for setting to music, led +Julie to try to write some, and eventually, in 1874, a book of "Songs +for Music, by Four Friends,"[26] was published; the contents were +written by my sister and two of her brothers, and the Rev. G.J. +Chester. This book became a standing joke amongst them, because one of +the reviewers said it contained "songs by four writers, _one_ of whom +was a poet," and he did not specify the one by name. + +[Footnote 26: H. King and Co.] + +During 1875 Julie was again aided by her husband in the work that she +did for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_. "Cousin Peregrine's three Wonder +Stories "--1. "The Chinese Jugglers and the Englishman's Hand"; 2. +"The Waves of the Great South Sea"; and 3. "Jack of Pera"[27]--were a +combination of his facts and her wording. She added only one more to +her Old-fashioned Fairy Tales, "Good Luck is Better than Gold," but it +is one of her most finished bits of art, and she placed it first, when +the tales came out in a volume. + +[Footnote 27: "Miscellanea," vol. xvii.] + +The Preface to this book is well worth the study of those who are +interested in the composition of Fairy literature; and the theories on +which Julie wrote her own tales.[28] + +[Footnote 28: Letter, Septuagesima, 1869.] + +She also wrote (in 1875) an article on "Little Woods," and a domestic +story called "A very Ill-tempered Family." + +The incident of Isobel's reciting the _Te Deum_ is a touching one, +because the habit of repeating it by heart, especially in bed at +night, was one which Julie herself had practised from the days of +childhood, when, I believe, it was used to drive away the terrors of +darkness. The last day on which she expressed any expectation of +recovering from her final illness was one on which she said, "I think +I must be getting better, for I've repeated the _Te Deum_ all through, +and since I've been ill I've only been able to say a few sentences at +once." This was certainly the last time that she recited the great +Hymn of Praise before she joined the throng of those who sing it day +and night before the throne of God. The German print of the +Crucifixion, on which Isobel saw the light of the setting sun fall, is +one which has hung over my sister's drawing-room fire-place in every +home of wood or stone which she has had for many years past. + +The Child Verse, "A Hero to his Hobby-horse," came out in the Magazine +volume for 1875, and, like many of the other verses, it was written to +fit a picture. + +One of the happiest inspirations from pictures, however, appeared in +the following volume (1876), the story of "Toots and Boots," but +though the picture of the ideal Toots was cast like a shadow before +him, the actual Toots, name and all complete, had a real existence, +and his word-portrait was taken from life. He belonged to the mess of +the Royal Engineers in the South Camp, Aldershot, and was as +dignified as if he held the office of President. I shall never forget +one occasion on which he was invited to luncheon at Mrs. Ewing's hut, +that I might have the pleasure of making his acquaintance; he had to +be unwillingly carried across the Lines in the arms of an obliging +subaltern, but directly he arrived, without waiting even for the first +course, he struggled out of the officer's embrace and galloped back to +his own mess-table, tail erect and thick with rage at the indignity he +had undergone. + +"Father Hedgehog and his Friends," in this same volume (1876), was +also written to some excellent German woodcuts; and it, too, is a +wonderfully brilliant sketch of animal life; perhaps the human beings +in the tale are scarcely done justice to. We feel as if Sybil and +Basil, and the Gipsy Mother and Christian, had scarcely room to +breathe in the few pages that they are crowded into; there is +certainly too much "subject" here for the size of the canvas!--but +Father Hedgehog takes up little space, and every syllable about him is +as keenly pointed as the spines on his back. The method by which he +silenced awkward questions from any of his family is truly delightful: + + "Will the donkey be cooked when he is fat?" asked my mother. + + "I smell valerian," said my father, on which she put out her nose, + and he ran at it with his prickles. He always did this when he was + annoyed with any of his family; and though we knew what was coming, + we are all so fond of valerian, we could never resist the + temptation to sniff, just on the chance of there being some about. + +Then, the following season, we find the Hedgehog Son grown into a +parent, and, with the "little hoard of maxims" he had inherited, +checking the too inquiring minds of his offspring: + + "What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "What is + brandy?" asked the other four. + + "I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven + noses, and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an + Encyclopaedia on all fours must adopt _some_ method of checking the + inquisitiveness of the young. + +One more quotation must be made from the end of the story, where +Father Hedgehog gives a list of the fates that befell his children: + + Number one came to a sad end. What on the face of the wood made him + think of pheasants' eggs I cannot conceive. I'm sure I never said + anything about them! It was whilst he was scrambling along the edge + of the covert, that he met the Fox, and very properly rolled + himself into a ball. The Fox's nose was as long as his own, and he + rolled my poor son over and over with it, till he rolled him into + the stream. The young urchins swim like fishes, but just as he was + scrambling to shore, the Fox caught him by the waistcoat and killed + him. I do hate slyness! + +It seems scarcely conceivable that any one can sympathize sufficiently +with a Hedgehog as to place himself in the latter's position, and +share its paternal anxieties,--but I think Julie was able to do so, +or, at any rate, her translations of the Hedgepig's whines were so +_ben trovati_, they may well stand until some better interpreter of +the languages of the brute creation rises up amongst us. As another +instance of her breadth of sympathy with beasts, let us turn to "A +Week Spent in a Glass Pond" (which also came out in _Aunt Judy's +Magazine_ for 1876), and quote her summary of the Great Water-beetle's +views on life: + + After living as I can, in all three--water, dry land, and air,--I + certainly prefer to be under water. Any one whose appetite is as + keen, and whose hind-legs are as powerful as mine, will understand + the delights of hunting, and being hunted, in a pond; where the + light comes down in fitful rays and reflections through the water, + and gleams among the hanging roots of the frog-bit, and the fading + leaves of the water-starwort, through the maze of which, in and + out, hither and thither, you pursue and are pursued, in cool and + skilful chase, by a mixed company of your neighbours, who dart, and + shoot, and dive, and come and go, and any one of whom, at any + moment, may either eat you or be eaten by you. And if you want + peace and quiet, where can one bury oneself so safely and + completely as in the mud? A state of existence without mud at the + bottom, must be a life without repose! + +I must here venture to remark, that the chief and lasting value of +whatever both my sister and my mother wrote about animals, or any +other objects in Nature, lies in the fact that they invariably took +the utmost pains to verify whatever statements they made relating to +those objects. Spiritual Laws can only be drawn from the Natural World +when they are based on Truth. + +Julie spared no trouble in trying to ascertain whether Hedgehogs _do_ +or do not eat pheasants' eggs; she consulted _The Field_, and books on +sport, and her sporting friends, and when she found it was a disputed +point, she determined to give the Hedgepig the benefit of the doubt. +Then the taste for valerian, and the fox's method of capture, were +drawn from facts, and the gruesome details as to who ate who in the +Glass Pond were equally well founded! + +This (1876) volume of the Magazine is rich in contributions from +Julie, the reason being that she was stronger in health whilst she +lived at Aldershot than during any other period of her life. The sweet +dry air of the "Highwayman's Heath"--bared though it was of +heather!--suited her so well, she could sleep with her hut windows +open, and go out into her garden at any hour of the evening without +fear of harm. She liked to stroll out and listen to "Retreat" being +sounded at sundown, especially when it was the turn of some regiment +with pipes to perform the duty; they sounded so shrill and weird, +coming from the distant hill through the growing darkness. + +[Illustration: OUR LATEST PET--A REFUGEE PUP, WHOM WE HAVE SAVED FROM +THE COMMON HANGMAN.] + +We held a curious function one hot July evening during Retreat, when, +the Fates being propitious, it was the turn of the 42nd Highlanders to +play. My sister had taken compassion on a stray collie puppy a few +weeks before, and adopted him; he was very soft-coated and fascinating +in his ways, despite his gawky legs, and promised to grow into a +credit to his race. But it seemed he was too finely bred to survive +the ravages of distemper, for, though he was tenderly nursed, he died. +A wreath of flowers was hung round his neck, and, as he lay on his +bier, Julie made a sketch of him, with the inscription, "The Little +Colley, Eheu! Taken in, June 14. In spite of care, died July 1. +_Speravimus meliora_." Major Ewing, wearing a broad Scotch bonnet, +dug a grave in the garden, and as we had no "dinner-bell" to muffle, +we waited till the pipers broke forth at sundown with an appropriate +air, and then lowered the little Scotch dog into his resting-place. + +During her residence at Aldershot Julie wrote three of her longest +books--"A Flat Iron for a Farthing," "Six to Sixteen," and "Jan of the +Windmill," besides all the shorter tales and verses that she +contributed to the Magazine between 1870 and 1877. The two short tales +which seem to me her very best came out in 1876, namely, "Our Field" +(about which I have already spoken) and "The Blind Man and the Talking +Dog." Both the stories were written to fit some old German woodcuts, +but they are perfectly different in style; "Our Field" is told in the +language and from the fresh heart of a Child; whilst the "Blind Man" +is such a picture of life from cradle to grave--aye, and stretching +forward into the world beyond,--as could only have come forth from the +experiences of Age. But though this be so, the lesson shown of how the +Boy's story foreshadows the Man's history, is one which cannot be +learned too early. + +Julie never pictured a dearer dog than the Peronet whom she originated +from the fat stumpy-tailed puppy who is seen playing with the children +in the woodcut to "Our Field." + + People sometimes asked us what kind of a dog he was, but we never + knew, except that he was the nicest possible kind.... Peronet was + as fond of the Field as we were. What he liked were the little + birds. At least, I don't know that he liked them, but they were + what he chiefly attended to. I think he knew that it was our field, + and thought he was the watch-dog of it; and whenever a bird settled + down anywhere, he barked at it, and then it flew away, and he ran + barking after it till he lost it; by that time another had settled + down, and then Peronet flew at him, all up and down the hedge. He + never caught a bird, and never would let one sit down, if he could + see it. + +Then what a vista is opened by the light that is "left out" in the +concluding words:-- + + I know that Our Field does not exactly belong to us. I wonder whom + it does belong to? Richard says he believes it belongs to the + gentleman who lives at the big red house among the trees. But he + must be wrong; for we see that gentleman at church every Sunday, + but we never saw him in Our Field. + + And I don't believe anybody could have such a field of their very + own, and never come to see it, from one end of summer to the other. + +It is almost impossible to quote portions of the "Blind Man" without +marring the whole. The story is so condensed--only four pages in +length; it is one of the most striking examples of my sister's +favourite rule in composition, "never use two words where one will +do." But from these four brief pages we learn as much as if four +volumes had been filled with descriptions of the characters of the +Mayor's son and Aldegunda,--from her birthday, on which the boy +grumbled because "she toddles as badly as she did yesterday, though +she's a year older," and "Aldegunda sobbed till she burst the strings +of her hat, and the boy had to tie them afresh,"--to the day of their +wedding, when the Bridegroom thinks he can take possession of the +Blind Man's Talking Dog, because the latter had promised to leave his +master and live with the hero, if ever he could claim to be perfectly +happy--happier than him whom he regarded as "a poor wretched old +beggar in want of everything." + +As they rode together in search of the Dog: + + Aldegunda thought to herself--"We are so happy, and have so much, + that I do not like to take the Blind Man's dog from him"; but she + did not dare to say so. One--if not two--must bear and forbear to + be happy, even on one's wedding-day. + +And, when they reached their journey's end, Lazarus was no longer "the +wretched one ... miserable, poor, and blind," but was numbered amongst +the blessed Dead, and the Dog was by his grave: + + "Come and live with me, now your old master is gone," said the + young man, stooping over the dog. But he made no reply. + + "I think he is dead, sir," said the gravedigger. + + "I don't believe it," said the young man, fretfully. "He was an + Enchanted Dog, and he promised I should have him when I could say + what I am ready to say now. He should have kept his promise." But + Aldegunda had taken the dog's cold head into her arms, and her + tears fell fast over it. + + "You forget," she said; "he only promised to come to you when you + were happy, if his old master was not happier still: and perhaps--" + + "I remember that you always disagree with me," said the young man, + impatiently. "You always did so. Tears on our wedding-day, too! I + suppose the truth is, that no one is happy." + + Aldegunda made no answer, for it is not from those one loves that + he will willingly learn that with a selfish and imperious temper + happiness never dwells. + +The "Blind Man" was inserted in the Magazine as an "Old-Fashioned +Fairy Tale," and Julie wrote another this year (1876) under the same +heading, which was called "I Won't." + +She also wrote a delightfully funny Legend, "The Kyrkegrim turned +Preacher," about a Norwegian Brownie, or Niss, whose duty was "to keep +the church clean, and to scatter the marsh marigolds on the floor +before service," but, like other church-sweepers, his soul was +troubled by seeing the congregation neglect to listen to the preacher, +and fall asleep during his sermons. Then the Kyrkegrim, feeling sure +that he could make more impression on their hardened hearts than the +priest did, ascended from the floor to the pulpit, and tried to set +the world to rights; but eventually he was glad to return to his +broom, and leave "heavier responsibilities in higher hands." + +She contributed "Hints for Private Theatricals. In Letters from Burnt +Cork to Rouge Pot," which were probably suggested by the private +theatricals in which she was helping at Aldershot; and she wrote four +of her best Verses for Children: "Big Smith," "House-building and +Repairs," "An Only Child's Tea-party," and "Papa Poodle." + +"The Adventures of an Elf" is a poem to some clever silhouette +pictures of Fedor Flinzer's, which she freely adapted from the German. +"The Snarling Princess" is a fairy tale also adapted from the German; +but neither of these contributions was so well worth the trouble of +translation as a fine dialogue from the French of Jean Mace called +"War and the Dead," which Julie gave to the number of _Aunt Judy_ for +October 1866.[29] "The Princes of Vegetation" (April 1876) is an +article on Palm-trees, to which family Linnaeus had given this noble +title. + +[Footnote 29: These translations are included in "Miscellanea," vol. +xvii.] + +The last contribution, in 1876, which remains to be mentioned is +"Dandelion Clocks," a short tale; but it will need rather a long +introduction, as it opens out into a fresh trait of my sister's +character, namely, her love for flowers. + +It need scarcely be said that she wrote as accurately about them as +about everything else; and, in addition to this, she enveloped them in +such an atmosphere of sentiment as served to give life and +individuality to their inanimate forms. The habit of weaving stories +round them began in girlhood, when she was devoted to reading Mr. J.G. +Wood's graceful translation of Alphonse Karr's _Voyage autour de mon +Jardin_. The book was given to her in 1856 by her father, and it +exercised a strong influence upon her mind. What else made the +ungraceful Buddlaea lovely in her eyes? I confess that when she pointed +out the shrub to me, for the first time, in Mr. Ellacombe's garden, it +looked so like the "Plum-pudding tree" in the "Willow pattern," and +fell so far short of my expectation of the plant over which the two +florists had squabbled, that I almost wished that I had not seen it! +Still I did not share their discomfiture so fully as to think "it no +longer good for anything but firewood!" + +Karr's fifty-eighth "Letter" nearly sufficed to enclose a declaration +of love in every bunch of "yellow roses" which Julie tied together; +and to plant an "Incognito" for discovery in every bed of tulips she +looked at; whilst her favourite Letter XL., on the result produced by +inhaling the odour of bean flowers, embodies the spirit of the ideal +existence which she passed, as she walked through the fields of our +work-a-day world: + + The beans were in full blossom. But a truce to this cold-hearted + pleasantry. No, it is not a folly to be under the empire of the + most beautiful--the most noble feelings; it is no folly to feel + oneself great, strong, invincible; it is not a folly to have a + good, honest, and generous heart; it is no folly to be filled with + good faith; it is not a folly to devote oneself for the good of + others; it is not a folly to live thus out of real life. + + No, no; that cold wisdom which pronounces so severe a judgment upon + all it cannot do; that wisdom which owes its birth to the death of + so many great, noble, and sweet things; that wisdom which only + comes with infirmities, and which decorates them with such fine + names--which calls decay of the powers of the stomach and loss of + appetite sobriety; the cooling of the heart and the stagnation of + the blood a return to reason; envious impotence a disdain for + futile things;--this wisdom would be the greatest, the most + melancholy of follies, if it were not the commencement of the death + of the heart and the senses. + +"Dandelion Clocks" resembles one of Karr's "Letters" in containing the +germs of a three volumed romance, but they _are_ the germs only--and +the "proportions" of the picture are consequently well preserved. +Indeed, the tale always reminds me of a series of peaceful scenes by +Cuyp, with low horizons, sleek cattle, and a glow in the sky +betokening the approach of sunset. First we have "Peter Paul and his +two sisters playing in the pastures" at blowing dandelion clocks: + + Rich, green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, which + stretched--like an emerald ocean--to the horizon and met the sky. + The cows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the cud, the clouds + sailed slowly over it to the sea, and on a dry hillock sat Mother, + in her broad sun-hat, with one eye to the cows, and one to the + linen she was bleaching, thinking of her farm. + +The actual _outlines_ of this scene may be traced in the German +woodcut to which the tale was written, but the _colouring_ is Julie's! +The only disturbing element in this quiet picture is Peter Paul's +restless, inquiring heart. What wonder that when his bulb-growing +uncle fails to solve the riddle of life, Peter Paul should go out into +the wider world and try to find a solution for himself? But the +answers to our life problems full often are to be found within, for +those who will look, and so Peter Paul comes back after some years to +find that: + + The elder sister was married and had two children. She had grown up + very pretty--a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked + as if they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an + inch beyond the farm. Anna was a very plain copy of her in body; in + mind she was the elder sister's echo. They were very fond of each + other, and the prettiest thing about them was their faithful love + for their mother, whose memory was kept as green as pastures after + rain. + +Peter Paul's temperament, however, was not one that could adapt itself +to a stagnant existence; so when his three weeks on shore are ended, +we see him on his way from the Home Farm to join his ship: + + Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. She was very + fond of him, and she had a woman's perception that they would miss + him more than he could miss them. + + "I am very sorry you could not settle down with us," she said, and + her eyes brimmed over. + + Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks. + + "Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few more of + my whims into the sea. I'll come back yet, Leena, and live very + near to you, and grow tulips, and be as good an old bachelor-uncle + to your boy as Uncle Jacob is to me." + + * * * * * + + When they got to the hillock where Mother used to sit, Peter Paul + took her once more into his arms. + + "Good-bye, good sister," he said, "I have been back in my childhood + again, and GOD knows that is both pleasant and good for one." + + "And it is funny that you should say so," said Leena, smiling + through her tears; "for when we were children you were never happy + except in thinking of when you should be a man." + +And with this salutary home-thrust (which thoroughly commonplace +minds have such a provoking faculty for giving) Leena went back to her +children and cattle. + +Happy for the artistic temperament that can profit by such rebuffs! + + + + +PART III. + + Yet, how few believe such doctrine springs + From a poor root, + Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, + And hath no wings + To raise it to the truth and light of things; + But is stil trod + By ev'ry wand'ring clod. + + O Thou, Whose Spirit did at first inflame + And warm the dead, + And by a sacred incubation fed + With life this frame, + Which once had neither being, forme, nor name, + Grant I may so + Thy steps track here below, + + That in these masques and shadows I may see + Thy sacred way; + And by those hid ascents climb to that day + Which breaks from Thee, + Who art in all things, though invisibly, + "_The Hidden Flower_." + + HENRY VAUGHAN. + + +One of the causes which helped to develop my sister's interest in +flowers was the sight of the fresh ones that she met with on going to +live in New Brunswick after her marriage. Every strange face was a +subject for study, and she soon began to devote a note-book to +sketches of these new friends, naming them scientifically from +Professor Asa Gray's _Manual of the Botany of the Northern United +States_, whilst Major Ewing added as many of the Melicete names as he +could glean from Peter, a member of the tribe, who had attached +himself to the Ewings, and used constantly to come about their house. +Peter and his wife lived in a small colony of the Melicete Indians, +which was established on the opposite side of the St. John River to +that on which the Reka Dom stood. Mrs. Peter was the most skilful +embroiderer in beads amongst her people, and Peter himself the best +canoe-builder. He made a beautiful one for the Ewings, which they +constantly used; and when they returned to England his regret at +losing them was wonderfully mitigated by the present which Major Ewing +gave him of an old gun; he declared no gentleman had ever thought of +giving him such a thing before! + +Julie introduced several of the North American flowers into her +stories. The Tabby-striped Arum, or Jack-in-the-Pulpit (as it is +called in Mr. Whittier's delightful collection of child-poems[30]), +appears in "We and the World," where Dennis, the rollicking Irish +hero, unintentionally raises himself in the estimation of his +sober-minded Scotch companion Alister, by betraying that he "can +speak with other tongues," from his ability to converse with a squaw +in French on the subject of the bunch of Arums he had gathered, and +was holding in his hand. + +[Footnote 30: _Child Life._ Edited by J.G. Whittier. Nesbitt and Co.] + +This allusion was only a slight one, but Julie wrote a complete story +on one species of Trillium, having a special affection for the whole +genus. Trilliums are amongst the North American herbaceous plants +which have lately become fashionable, and easy to be bought in +England; but ere they did so, Julie made some ineffectual attempts to +transplant tubers of them into English soil; and the last letter she +received from Fredericton contained a packet of red Trillium seeds, +which came too late to be sown before she died. The species which she +immortalized in "The Blind Hermit and the Trinity Flower," was _T. +erythrocarpum_. The story is a graceful legend of an old Hermit whose +life was spent in growing herbs for the healing of diseases; and when +he, in his turn, was struck with blindness, he could not reconcile +himself to the loss of the occupation which alone seemed to make him +of use in the world. "They also serve who only stand and wait" was a +hard lesson to learn; every day he prayed for some Balm of Gilead to +heal his ill, and restore his sight, and the prayer was answered, +though not in the manner that he desired. First he was supplied with a +serving-boy, who became eyes and feet to him, from gratitude for +cures which the Hermit had done to the lad himself; and then a vision +was granted to the old man, wherein he saw a flower which would heal +his blindness:-- + +[Illustration: TRILLIUM ERYTHROCARPUM.] + + "And what was the Trinity Flower like, my Father?" asked the boy. + + "It was about the size of Herb Paris, my son," replied the Hermit. + "But, instead of being fourfold every way, it numbered the mystic + Three. Every part was threefold. The leaves were three, the petals + three, the sepals three. The flower was snow-white, but on each of + the three parts it was stained with crimson stripes, like white + garments dyed in blood." + +A root of this plant was sent to the Hermit by a heavenly messenger, +which the boy planted, and anxiously watched the growth of, cheering +his master with the hope--"Patience, my Father, thou shalt see yet!" + +Meantime greater light was breaking in upon the Hermit's soul than had +been there before: + + "My son, I repent me that I have not been patient under affliction. + Moreover, I have set thee an ill example, in that I have murmured + at that which God--Who knoweth best--ordained for me." + + And, when the boy ofttimes repeated, "Thou shalt yet see," the + Hermit answered, "If God will. When God will. As God will." + +And at last, when the white bud opens, and the blood-like stains are +visible within, he who once was blind sees, but his vision is opened +on eternal Day. + +In _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ for 1877 there is another Flower Legend, but +of an English plant, the Lily of the Valley. Julie called the tale by +the old-fashioned name of the flower, "Ladders to Heaven." The scenery +is pictured from spots near her Yorkshire home, where she was +accustomed to seeing beautiful valleys blackened by smoke from +iron-furnaces, and the woods beyond the church, where she liked to +ramble, filled with desolate heaps of black shale, the refuse left +round the mouths of disused coal and iron-stone pits. I remember how +glad we were when we found the woolly-leaved yellow Mullein growing on +some of these dreary places, and helping to cover up their nakedness. +In later years my sister heard with much pleasure that a mining friend +was doing what he could to repair the damages he had made on the +beauty of the country, by planting over the worked-out mines such +trees and plants as would thrive in the poor and useless shale, which +was left as a covering to once rich and valuable spots. + +[Illustration: ST. MARY'S CHURCH, ECCLESFIELD.] + +"Brothers of Pity" (_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, 1877) shows a deep and +minute insight into the feelings of a solitary child, which one +fancies Julie must have acquired by the process of contrast with her +own surroundings of seven brethren and sisters. A similar power of +perception was displayed in her verses on "An Only Child's Tea-party." + +She remembered from experiences of our own childhood what a favourite +game "funerals" is with those whose "whole vocation" is yet "endless +imitation"; and she had watched the soldiers' children in camp play at +it so often that she knew it was not only the bright covering of the +Union Jack which made death lovely in their eyes, "Blind Baby" enjoyed +it for the sake of the music; and even civilians' children, who see +the service devoid of sweet sounds, and under its blackest and most +revolting aspect, still are strangely fascinated thereby. Julie had +heard about one of these, a lonely motherless boy, whose chief joy was +to harness Granny to his "hearse" and play at funeral processions +round the drawing-room, where his dead mother had once toddled in her +turn. + +The boy in "Brothers of Pity" is the principal character, and the +animals occupy minor positions. Cock-Robin only appears as a corpse on +the scene; and Julie did not touch much on bird pets in any of her +tales, chiefly because she never kept one, having too much sympathy +with their powers and cravings for flight to reconcile herself to +putting them in cages. The flight and recapture of Cocky in "Lob" were +drawn from life, though the bird did not belong to her, but her +descriptions of how he stood on the window-sill "scanning the summer +sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze,... bowed +his yellow crest, spread his noble wings, and sailed out into the +aether";... and his "dreams of liberty in the tree-tops," all show the +light in which she viewed the practice of keeping birds in +confinement. Her verses on "Three Little Nest-Birds" and her tale of +the Thrush in "An Idyll of the Wood" bear witness to the same feeling. +Major Ewing remembers how often she used to wish, when passing +bird-shops, that she could "buy the whole collection and set them all +free,"--a desire which suggests a quaint vision of her in Seven +Dials, with a mixed flock of macaws, canaries, parrots and thrushes +shrieking and flying round her head; but the wish was worthy of her in +(what Mr. Howells called) "woman's heaven-born ignorance of the +insuperable difficulties of doing right." + +In this (1877) volume of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ there is a striking +portrait of another kind of animal pet, the "Kit" who is resolved to +choose her own "cradle," and not to sleep where she is told. It is +needless to say that she gets her own way, since,-- + + There's a soft persistence about a cat + That even a little kitten can show. + +She has, however, the grace to purr when she is pleased, which all +kits and cats have not! + + I'm happy in ev'ry hair of my fur, + They may keep the hamper and hay themselves. + +There are three other sets of verses in the volume, and all of them +were originally written to old wood-cuts, but have since been +re-illustrated by Mr. Andre, and published by the S.P.C.K. + +"A Sweet Little Dear" is the personification of a selfish girl, and +"Master Fritz" of an equally selfish boy; but his sister Katerina is +delicious by contrast, as she gives heed to his schemes-- + + And if you make nice feasts every day for me and Nickel, and never + keep us waiting for our food, + And always do everything I want, and attend to everything I say, I'm + sure I shall almost always be good. + And if I'm naughty now and then, it'll most likely be your fault: and + if it isn't, you mustn't mind; + For even if I seem to be cross, you ought to know that I meant to be + kind. + +An old-fashioned fairy tale, "The Magician turned Mischief-maker," +came out in 1877; and a short domestic tale called "A Bad Habit"; but +Julie was unable to supply any long contributions this year, as in +April her seven-years home at Aldershot was broken up in consequence +of Major Ewing being ordered to Manchester, and her time was occupied +by the labour and process of removing. + +She took down the motto which she had hung over her hearth to temper +her joy in the comfort thereof,--_Ut migraturus habita_,--and moved +the scroll on to her next resting-place. No one knew better than she +the depth of Mrs. Hemans' definition,--"What is home,--and where,--but +_with the loving_--" and most truly can it be said that wherever Julie +went she carried "Home" with her; freedom, generosity, and loving +welcome were always to be found in her house,--even if upholstery and +carpets ran short! It was a joke amongst some of her friends that +though rose-coloured curtains and bevelled-edged looking-glasses could +be counted upon in their bed-rooms, such commonplace necessities as +soap might be forgotten, and the glasses be fastened in artistic +corners of the rooms, rather than in such lights as were best adapted +for shaving by! + +Julie followed the course of the new lines in which her lot was cast +most cheerfully, but the "mighty heart" could not really support the +"little body"; and the fatigue of packing, combined with the effects +of the relaxing climate of Bowdon, near Manchester, where she went to +live, acted sadly upon her constitution. She was able, however, after +settling in the North, to pay more frequent visits to Ecclesfield than +before; and the next work that she did for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ +bears evidences of the renewal of Yorkshire associations. + +[Illustration: SOUTH CAMP, ALDERSHOT.] + +This story, "We and the World," was specially intended for boys, and +the "law of contrast" in it was meant to be drawn between the career +which Cripple Charlie spent at home, and those of the three lads who +went out into "the world" together. Then, too, she wished, as I +mentioned before, to contrast the national types of character in the +English, Scotch, and Irish heroes, and to show the good contained in +each of them. But the tale seemed to have been begun under an unlucky +star. The first half, which came out in the first six numbers of the +Magazine for 1878, is excellent as a matter of art; and as pictures of +North-country life and scenery nothing can be better than Walnut-tree +Farm and Academy, the Miser's Funeral, and the Bee-master's Visit to +his Hives on the Moors, combined with attendance at Church on a hot +Sunday afternoon in August (it need scarcely be said that the church +is a real one). But, good though all this is, it is too long and "out +of proportion," when one reflects how much of the plot was left to be +unravelled in the other half of the tale. "The World" could not +properly be squeezed into a space only equal in size to that which had +been devoted to "Home." If Julie had been in better health, she would +have foreseen the dilemma into which she was falling, but she did not, +and in the autumn of 1878 she had to lay the tale aside, for Major +Ewing was sent to be stationed at York. "We" was put by until the +following volume, but for this (1878) one she wrote two other short +contributions,--"The Yellow Fly, a Tale with a Sting in it," and +"So-so." + +To those who do not read between the lines, "So-so" sounds (as he +felt) "very soft and pleasant," but to me the tale is in Julie's +saddest strain, because of the suspicion of hopelessness that pervades +it;--a spirit which I do not trace in any of her other writings. + + "Be sure, my child," said the widow to her little daughter, "that + you always do just as you are told." + + "Very well, mother." + + "Or at any rate do what will do just as well," said the small + house-dog, as he lay blinking at the fire. + + * * * * * + + "For the future, my child," said the widow, "I hope you will always + do just as you are told, whatever So-so may say." + + "I will, mother," said little Joan. (And she did.) But the + house-dog sat and blinked. He dared not speak, he was in disgrace. + + "I do not feel quite sure about So-so. Wild dogs often amend their + ways far on this side of the gallows, and the Faithful sometimes + fall, but when any one begins by being only so-so, he is very apt + to be so-so to the end. So-so's so seldom change." + +Before turning from the record of my sister's life at Manchester, I +must mention a circumstance which gave her very great pleasure there. +In the summer of 1875 she and I went up from Aldershot to see the +Exhibition of Water-Colours by the Royal Society of Painters, and she +was completely fascinated by a picture of Mr. J.D. Watson's, called "A +Gentleman of the Road." It represented a horseman at daybreak, +allowing his horse to drink from a stream, whilst he sat half-turned +in the saddle to look back at a gallows which was visible on the +horizon against the beams of rising light. The subject may sound very +sensational, but it was not that aspect of it which charmed my sister; +she found beauty as well as romance in it, and after we returned to +camp in the evening she became so restless and engrossed by what she +had seen, that she got up during the night, and planned out the +headings of a story on the picture, adding--characteristically--a +moral or "soul" to the subject by a quotation[31] from Thomas a +Kempis--_Respice finem_. "In all things _remember the end_." + +[Footnote 31: Letter, March 22, 1880.] + +This "mapped-out" story, I am sorry to say, remains unfinished. The +manuscript went through many vicissitudes, was inadvertently torn up +and thrown into the waste-paper basket, whence it was rescued and the +pieces carefully enclosed in an envelope ready for mending. It was +afterwards lost again for many months in a box that was sent abroad, +but the fragments have been put together and copied, as they are +interesting from the promise that lies in the few words that remain. + + A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD. + + The old schoolmaster sat on a tombstone, an ancient altar-shaped + tomb which may have been reared when the yew tree above it was + planted. Children clustered round him like bees upon a branch, and + he held the book wide open so that, if possible, all might see into + it at once. It was not a school-book, it was a picture book, the + one out of which he told tales to the children on half-holidays. + The volume was old and the text was in Latin, a language of which + the schoolmaster had some little knowledge. + + He could read the dial motto pat,--_Via crucis via lucis_. The Way + of the Cross is the Way of Light. + + He understood the Latin headings to the Psalms and Canticles better + than the clerk, for he could adjust the words to their English + equivalents. The clerk took them as they stood, _Nunc dimittis_, or + the Song of Simeon. It was put down so in the rubric, he said, as + plain as "Here endeth the first lesson." + + The schoolmaster made no such blunders. He could say the Lord's + Prayer in Latin, and part of the Creed, and from his seat in church + he could make out most of the virtues credited to the last account + of one Roger Beaufoy, who in this life had been entitled to write + Esquire after his name. The name kept the title after + it--_Armiger_--though the man himself had long departed to a life + with other distinctions. If the tablet were to be believed, he had + been a gentle squire too. The schoolmaster was wont to murmur the + list of his qualities over to himself: + _fortis_--_mitis_--_suavis_--_largus_--_urbanus_:--_desideratissimus_ + too, and no marvel!--_nobili genere natus_--and _tam corpore quam + vultus praeclarus_! + + It was a goodly list that the schoolmaster muttered over, and when + it was done he would add--"His very portrait, every line, every + word of it!" And then he would sigh. + + Old as he was, the schoolmaster was not bearing testimony to the + truth of the inscription as regarded the man he referred to; that + Roger Beaufoy had gone back with all his virtues and his vices to + the Maker of Souls long before the schoolmaster could read what had + been written of him by the maker of epitaphs. It was to the + character of another Roger--the great-grandson of this squire--that + the old man adapted the graceful flattery of the epitaph. It fitted + in every fold, and yet he sighed. For in this Roger, as in that, + the sterner virtues were lacking. They had not even been supplied + upon the marble, though that is a charity not uncommonly granted + to the dead. But when the genial virtues abound, the world misses + the others so little! + +[Here the sheet of paper is torn, but from the words on the part left +it is evident that there was a description of the frontispiece in the +schoolmaster's book. Apparently the subject of the picture was +allegorical, and the figures of "monstrous beasts" were interspersed +with "devices" and "scrolls with inscriptions," together with figures] + + of kneeling saints, or pilgrims treading the Via Vitae with + sandalled shoes and heavy staves; and between the lips of dolorous + faces in penal fires issued the words _O AEternitas! AEternitas!_ + + All these things the schoolmaster duly interpreted, but the rest of + the story he made up out of his own head, a custom which had this + among other advantages, that the stories were not always the same, + which they must have been had the good man been a merely fluent + translator. + + At the schoolmaster's elbow nestled his little granddaughter. By + herself she could not have secured so good a place, for she was + fragile and very gentle, and most of the other children were rough + and strong. "First come first served" was the motto of their play. + First-come was served first because he helped himself, and the only + exception to the rule was when Second-come happened to be stronger + and took his place. + +This fragment at any rate serves to show what a strong impression the +picture had made upon Julie's mind, so it will readily be imagined how +intensely delighted she was when she unexpectedly made the +acquaintance, at Manchester, of Mr. Galloway, who proved to have +bought Mr. Watson's work, and he was actually kind enough to lend the +treasure to her for a considerable time, so that she could study it +thoroughly, and make a most accurate copy of it. Mr. Galloway's +friendship, and that of some other people whom she first met at +Bowdon, were the brightest spots in Julie's existence during this +period. + +In September 1878 the Ewings removed to Fulford, near York, and, on +their arrival, Julie at once devoted herself to adorning her new home. +We were very much amused by the incredulous amazement betrayed on the +stolid face of an elderly workman, to whom it was explained that he +was required to distemper the walls of the drawing-room with a sole +colour, instead of covering them with a paper, after the manner of all +the other drawing-rooms he had ever had to do with. But he was too +polite to express his difference of taste by more than looks;--and +some days after the room was finished, with etchings duly hung on +velvet in the panels of the door,--the sole-coloured walls well +covered with pictures, whence they stood out undistracted by gold and +flowery paper patterns--the distemperer called, and asked if he might +be allowed, as a favour, to see the result of Mrs. Ewing's +arrangements. I forget if he expressed anything by words, as he stood +in the middle of the room twisting his hat in his fingers--but we had +learned to read his face, and Julie was fully satisfied with the fresh +expression of amazement mixed with admiration which she saw there. + +One theory which she held strongly about the decoration of houses was, +that the contents ought to represent the associations of the inmates, +rather than the skill of their upholsterer; and for this reason she +would not have liked to limit any of her rooms to one special period, +such as Queen Anne's, unless she had possessed an old house, built at +some date to which a special kind of furniture belonged. She contrived +to make her home at York a very pretty one; but it was of short +duration, for in March 1879 Major Ewing was despatched to Malta, and +Julie had to begin to pack her _Lares_ and _Penates_ once more. + +It may, perhaps, be wondered that she was allowed to spend her time +and strength on the labour of packing, which a professional worker +would have done far better,--but it is easier to see the mistakes of +others than to rectify our own! There were many difficulties to be +encountered, not the least of these being Julie's own strong will, and +bad though it was, in one sense, for her to be physically over-tired, +it was better than letting her be mentally so; and to an active brain +like hers, "change of occupation" is the only possible form of "rest." +Professional packers and road and rail cars represent money, and +Julie's skill in packing both securely and economically was +undeniably great. This is not surprising if we hold, as an old friend +does, that ladies would make far better housemaids than uneducated +women do, because they would throw their brains as well as muscles +into their work. Julie did throw her brains into everything, big or +little, that she undertook; and one of her best and dearest +friends,--whose belief in my sister's powers and "mission" as a writer +were so strong that she almost grudged even the time "wasted" on +sketching, which might have been given to penning more stories for the +age which boasts Gordon as its hero,--and who, being with Julie at her +death, could not believe till the very End came that she would be +taken, whilst so much seemed to remain for her to do here,--confessed +to me afterwards she had learned to see that Julie's habit of +expending her strength on trifles arose from an effort of nature to +balance the vigour of her mind, which was so much greater than that of +her body. + +During the six months that my sister resided in York she wrote a few +contributions for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_. To the number for January +1879 she gave "Flaps," a sequel to "The Hens of Hencastle." + +The latter story was not written by her, but was a free adaptation +which Colonel Yeatman-Biggs made from the German of Victor Bluethgen. +Julie had been greatly amused by the tale, but, finding that it ended +in a vague and unsatisfactory way, she could not be contented, so took +up her pen and wrote a _finale_, her chief aim being to provide a +happy ending for the old farm-dog, Flaps himself, after whom she named +her sequel. The writing is so exactly similar to that of "The Hens," +that the two portions can scarcely be identified as belonging to +different writers. Julie used often to reproach me for indulging in +what John Wesley called "the lust of finishing," but in matters +concerning her own art she was as great an offender on this score as +any one else! + +Julie gave a set of verses on "Canada Home" to the same number as +"Flaps," and to the March (1879) number she gave some other verses on +"Garden Lore." In April the second part of "We and the World" began to +appear, and a fresh character was introduced, who is one of the most +important and touching features of the tale. Biddy Macartney is a real +old Irish melody in herself, with her body tied to a coffee-barrow in +the Liverpool Docks, and her mind ever wandering in search of the son +who had run away to sea. Jack, the English hero, comes across Biddy +in the docks just before he starts as a stowaway for America, and his +stiff, crude replies to her voluble outpourings are essentially +British and boy-like:-- + + "You hope Micky 'll come back, I suppose?" + + "Why wouldn't I, acushla? Sure, it was by reason o' that I got + bothered with the washin' after me poor boy left me, from my mind + being continually in the docks instead of with the clothes. And + there I would be at the end of the week, with the captain's jerseys + gone to old Miss Harding, and _his_ washing no corricter than + _hers_, though he'd more good-nature in him over the accidents, and + iron-moulds on the table-cloths, and pocket-handkerchers missin', + and me ruined intirely with making them good, and no thanks for it, + till a good-natured sowl of a foreigner that kept a pie-shop larned + me to make the coffee, and lint me the money to buy a barra, and he + says, 'Go as convanient to the ships as ye can, mother: it'll ease + your mind. My own heart,' says he, laying his hand to it, 'knows + what it is to have my body here, and the whole sowl of me far + away.'" + + "Did you pay him back?" I asked. I spoke without thinking, and + still less did I mean to be rude; but it had suddenly struck me + that I was young and hearty, and that it would be almost a duty to + share the contents of my leather bag with this poor old woman, if + there were no chance of her being able to repay the generous + foreigner. + + "Did I pay him back?" she screamed. "Would I be the black-hearted + thief to him that was kind to me? Sorra bit nor sup but dry bread + and water passed me lips till he had his own again, and the heart's + blessings of owld Biddy Macartney along with it." + + I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I could, and turned the + conversation back to her son. + + "So you live in the docks with your coffee-barrow, mother, that you + may be sure not to miss Micky when he comes ashore?" + + "I do, darlin'! Fourteen years all but three days! He'll be gone + fifteen if we all live till Wednesday week." + + "_Fifteen?_ But, mother, if he were like me when he went, he can't + be very like me now. He must be a middle-aged man. Do you think + you'd know him?" + + This question was more unfortunate than the other, and produced + such howling and weeping, and beating of Biddy's knees as she + rocked herself among the beans, that I should have thought every + soul in the docks would have crowded round us. But no one took any + notice, and by degrees I calmed her, chiefly by the + assertion--"He'll know you, mother, anyhow." + + "He will so, GOD bless him!" said she. "And haven't I gone + over it all in me own mind, often and often, when I'd see the + vessels feelin' their way home through the darkness, and the coffee + staymin' enough to cheer your heart wid the smell of it, and the + least taste in life of something betther in the stone bottle under + me petticoats. And then the big ship would be coming in with her + lights at the head of her, and myself would be sitting alone with + me patience, GOD helping me, and one and another strange + face going by. And then he comes along, cold maybe, and smells the + coffee. 'Bedad, but that's a fine smell with it,' says he, for + Micky was mighty particular in his aitin' and drinkin'. 'I'll take + a dhrop of that,' says he, not noticing me particular, and if ever + I'd the saycret of a good cup he gets it, me consayling me face. + 'What will it be?' says he, setting down the mug. 'What would it + be, Micky, from your mother?' says I, and I lifts me head. Arrah, + but then there's the heart's delight between us. 'Mother!' says he. + 'Micky!' says I. And he lifts his foot and kicks over the barra, + and dances me round in his arms. 'Ochone!' says the spictators; + 'there's the fine coffee that's running into the dock.' 'Let it + run,' says I, in the joy of me heart, 'and you after it, and the + barra on the top of ye, now Micky me son's come home!'" + + "Wonderfully jolly!" said I. "And it must be pleasant even to think + of it." + +There is another new character in the second part of "We," who is also +a fine picture:--Alister the blue-eyed Scotch lad, with his respect +for "book-learning," and his powers of self-denial and endurance; but +Julie certainly had a weakness for the Irish nation, and the tender +grace with which she touches Dennis O'Moore and Biddy shines +conspicuously throughout the story. In one scene, however, I think she +brings up her Scotch hero neck-and-neck, if not ahead, of her +favourite Irishman. + +This is in Chapter VII., where an entertainment is being held on board +ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon in turn to amuse the +company with a song. Dennis gets through his ordeal well; he has a +beautiful voice, which makes him independent of the accompaniment of a +fiddle (the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes his +_simpatico_ rendering of "Bendemeer's Stream" from the way in which +she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. He had learned it by +ear on board ship from a fellow-passenger, and she was never tired of +listening to the melody. When this same brother came to visit her +whilst she was ill at Bath, and sang to her as she lay in +bed,--"Bendemeer's Stream" was the one strain she asked for, and the +last she heard. + +Dennis O'Moore's performance met with warm applause, and then the +boatswain, who had a grudge against Alister, because the Scotch +Captain treated his countryman with leniency, taunted the shy and +taciturn lad to "contribute to the general entertainment." + + I was very sorry for Alister, and so was Dennis, I was sure, for he + did his best to encourage him. + + "Sing 'GOD Save the Queen,' and I'll keep well after ye + with the fiddle," he suggested. But Alister shook his head. "I know + one or two Scotch tunes," Dennis added, and he began to sketch out + an air or two with his fingers on the strings. + + Presently Alister stopped him. "Yon's the Land o' the Leal?" + + "It is," said Dennis. + + "Play it a bit quicker, man, and I'll try 'Scots, wha hae.'" + + Dennis quickened at once, and Alister stood forward. He neither + fidgeted nor complained of feeling shy, but, as my eyes (I was + squatted cross-legged on the deck) were at the level of his knees, + I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the less that I was + doubtful as to what might not be before _me_. Dennis had to make + two or three false starts before poor Alister could get a note out + of his throat, but when he had fairly broken the ice with the word + "Scots!" he faltered no more. The boatswain was cheated a second + time of his malice. Alister could not sing in the least like + Dennis, but he had a strong manly voice, and it had a ring that + stirred one's blood, as he clenched his hands and rolled his R's to + the rugged appeal-- + + Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, + Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; + Welcome to your gory bed, + Or to victory! + + Applause didn't seem to steady his legs in the least, and he never + moved his eyes from the sea, and his face only grew whiter by the + time he drove all the blood to my heart with-- + + Wha will be a traitor knave? + Wha can fill a coward's grave? + Wha sae base as be a slave? + Let him turn and flee! + + "GOD forbid!" cried Dennis impetuously. "Sing that verse + again, my boy, and give us a chance to sing with ye!" which we did + accordingly; but, as Alister and Dennis were rolling R's like the + rattle of musketry on the word _turn_, Alister did turn, and + stopped suddenly short. The Captain had come up unobserved. + + "Go on!" said he, waving us back to our places. + + By this time the solo had become a chorus. Beautifully unconscious, + for the most part, that the song was by way of stirring Scot + against Saxon, its deeper patriotism had seized upon us all. + Englishmen, Scotchmen, and sons of Erin, we all shouted at the top + of our voices, Sambo's fiddle not being silent. And I maintain that + we all felt the sentiment with our whole hearts, though I doubt if + any but Alister and the Captain knew and sang the precise words-- + + Wha for Scotland's King and law + Freedom's sword will strongly draw, + Freeman stand, or freeman fa'? + Let him on wi' me! + +The description of Alister's song, as well as that of Dennis, was to +some extent drawn from life, Julie having been accustomed to hear +"Scots, wha hae" rendered by a Scot with more soul than voice, who +always "moved the hearts of the people as one man" by his patriotic +fire. + +My sister was greatly aided by two friends in her descriptions of the +scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the +waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter +XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her +nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of +the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the +materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more +than enough characters and incidents to have developed into a couple +of tales. + +Julie had often said how strange it seemed to her, when people who had +a ready pen for _writing_ consulted her as to what they should _write +about_! She suffered so much from over-abundance of ideas which she +had not the physical strength to put on paper. + +Even when she was very ill, and unable to use her hands at all, the +sight of a lot of good German wood-cuts, which were sent to me at +Bath, suggested so many fresh ideas to her brain, that she only longed +to be able to seize her pen and write tales to the pictures. + +Before we turn finally away from the subject of her liking for Irish +people, I must mention a little adventure which happened to her at +Fulford. + +There is one parish in York where a great number of Irish peasants +live, and many of the women used to pass Julie's windows daily, going +out to work in the fields at Fulford. She liked to watch them trudging +by, with large baskets perched picturesquely on the tops of their +heads, but in the town the "Irishers" are not viewed with equal favour +by the inhabitants. One afternoon Julie was out sketching in a field, +and came across one of these poor Irish women. My sister's mind at the +time was full of Biddy Macartney, and she could not resist the +opportunity of having a chat with this suggestive "study" for the +character. She found an excuse for addressing the old woman about some +cattle which seemed restless in the field, but quickly discovered, to +her amusement, that when she alluded to Ireland, her companion, in the +broadest brogue, stoutly denied having any connection with the +country. No doubt she thought Julie's prejudices would be similar to +those of her town neighbours, but in a short time some allusion was +inadvertently made to "me father's farm in Kerry," and the truth +leaked out. After this they became more confidential; and when Julie +admired some quaint silver rings on her companion's finger, the old +woman was most anxious to give her one, and was only restrained by +coming to the decision that she would give her a recipe for "real +Irish whisky" instead. She began with "You must take some barley and +put it in a poke--" but after this Julie heard no more, for she was +distracted by the cattle, who had advanced unpleasantly near; the +Irish woman, however, continued her instructions to the end, waving +her arms to keep the beasts off, which she so far succeeded in doing, +that Julie caught the last sentence-- + +"And then ye must bury it in a bog." + +"Is that to give it a peaty flavour?" asked my sister, innocently. + +"Oh, no, me dear!--_it's because of the excise-man_." + +When they parted, the old woman's original reserve entirely gave way, +and she cried: "Good luck to ye! _and go to Ireland!_" + +Julie remained in England for some months after Major Ewing started +for Malta, and as he was despatched on very short notice, and she had +to pack up their goods; also--as she was not strong--it was decided +that she should avoid going out for the hot summer weather, and wait +for the healthier autumn season. Her time, therefore, was now chiefly +spent amongst civilian friends and relations, and I want this fact to +be specially noticed, in connection with the next contributions that +she wrote for the Magazine. + +In February 1879, the terrible news had come of the Isandlwana +massacre, and this was followed in June by that of the Prince +Imperial's death. My sister was, of course, deeply engrossed in the +war tidings, as many of her friends went out to South Africa--some to +return no more. In July she contributed "A Soldier's Children" to +_Aunt Judy_, and of all her child verses this must be reckoned the +best, every line from first to last breathing how strong her +sympathies still were for military men and things, though she was no +longer living amongst them: + + Our home used to be in the dear old camp, with lots of bands, and + trumpets, and bugles, and dead-marches, and three times a day + there was a gun, + But now we live in View Villa, at the top of the village, and it + isn't nearly such fun. + +The humour and pathos in the lines are so closely mixed, it is very +difficult to read them aloud without tears; but they have been +recited--as Julie was much pleased to know--by the "old Father" of +the "Queer Fellows" to whom the verses were dedicated, when he was on +a troopship going abroad for active service, and they were received +with warm approbation by his hearers. He read them on other occasions, +also in public, with equal success. + +The crowning military work, however, which Julie did this year was +"Jackanapes." This she wrote for the October number of _Aunt Judy_: +and here let me state that I believe if she had still been living at +Aldershot, surrounded by the atmosphere of military sympathies and +views of honour, the tale would never have been written. It was not +aimed, as some people supposed, personally at the man who was with the +Prince Imperial when he met his death. Julie would never have sat in +judgment on him, even before he, too, joined the rank of those Dead, +about whom no evil may be spoken. It was hearing this same man's +conduct discussed by civilians from the standard of honour which is +unhappily so different in civil and military circles, and more +especially the discussion of it amongst "business men," where the rule +of "each man for himself" is invariable, which drove Julie into +uttering the protest of "Jackanapes." I believe what she longed to +show forth was how the _life_ of an army--as of any other +body--depends on whether the individuality of its members is _dead_; a +paradox which may perhaps be hard to understand, save in the light of +His teaching, Who said that the saving of a man's life lay in his +readiness to lose it. The merging of selfish interests into a common +cause is what makes it strong; and it is from Satan alone we get the +axiom, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his +life." Of "Jackanapes" itself I need not speak. It has made Julie's +name famous, and deservedly so, for it not only contains her highest +teaching, but is her best piece of literary art. + +There are a few facts connected with the story which, I think, will be +interesting to some of its admirers. My sister was in London in June +1879, and then made the acquaintance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for +whose illustrations to Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" and "Old +Christmas" she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his Toy +Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when "Jackanapes" was +still simmering in Julie's brain, if he would supply a coloured +illustration for it. But as the tale was only written a very short +time before it appeared, and as the illustration was wanted early, +because colours take long to print, Julie could not send the story to +be read, but asked Mr. Caldecott to draw her a picture to fit one of +the scenes in it. The one she suggested was a "fair-haired boy on a +red-haired pony," having noticed the artistic effect produced by this +combination in one of her own nephews, a skilful seven-year-old rider +who was accustomed to follow the hounds. + +This coloured illustration was given in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, with +the tale, but when it was republished as a book, in 1883, the scene +was reproduced on a smaller scale in black and white only. + +"Jackanapes" was much praised when it came out in the Magazine, but it +was not until it had been re-issued as a book that it became really +well known. Even then its success was within a hair's-breadth of +failing. The first copies were brought out in dull stone-coloured +paper covers, and that powerful vehicle "the Trade," unable to believe +that a jewel could be concealed in so plain a casket, refused the work +of J.H.E. and R.C. until they had stretched the paper cover on boards, +and coloured the Union Jack which adorns it! No doubt "the Trade" +understands its fickle child "the Public" better than either authors +or artists do, and knows by experience that it requires tempting with +what is pretty to look at, before it will taste. Certainly, if praise +from the public were the chief aim that writers, or any other workers, +strove after, their lives for the most part would consist of +disappointment only, so seldom is "success" granted whilst the power +to enjoy it is present. They alone whose aims are pointed above +earthly praise can stand unmoved amidst neglect or blame, filled with +that peace of a good conscience which the world can neither give nor +take away. + + + + +PART IV. + + I shall know by the gleam and glitter + Of the golden chain you wear, + By your heart's calm strength in loving, + Of the fire they have had to bear. + Beat on, true heart, for ever; + Shine bright, strong golden chain; + And bless the cleansing fire, + And the furnace of living pain! + +ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. + + +Towards the end of October 1879, Julie started for Malta, to join +Major Ewing, but she became so very ill whilst travelling through +France that her youngest sister, and her friend, Mrs. R.H. Jelf (from +whose house in Folkestone she had started on her journey), followed +her to Paris, and brought her back to England as soon as she could be +moved. + +Julie now consulted Sir William Jenner about her health, and, seeing +the disastrous effect that travelling had upon her, he totally forbade +her to start again for several months, until she had recovered some +strength and was better able to bear fatigue. This verdict was a +heavy blow to my sister, and the next four years were ones of great +trial and discomfort to her. A constant succession of disappointed +hopes and frustrated plans, which were difficult, even for Madam +Liberality, to bear! + +She hoped when her husband came home on leave at Christmas, 1879, that +she should be able to return with him, but she was still unfit to go; +and then she planned to follow later with a sister, who should help +her on the journey, and be rewarded by visiting the island home of the +Knights, but this castle also fell to the ground. Meantime Julie was +suffering great inconvenience from the fact that she had sent all her +possessions to Malta several months before, keeping only some light +luggage which she could take with her. Amongst other things from which +she was thus parted, was the last chapter of "We and the World," which +she had written (as she often did the endings of her tales) when she +was first arranging the plot. This final scene was buried in a box of +books, and could not be found when wanted, so had to be rewritten and +then my sister's ideas seem to have got into a fresh channel, for she +brought her heroes safely back to their Yorkshire home, instead of +dropping the curtain on them after a gallant rescue in a Cornish mine, +as she originally arranged. Julie hoped against hope, as time went on, +that she should become stronger, and able to follow her _Lares_ and +_Penates_, so she would not have them sent back to her, until a final +end was put to her hopes by Major Ewing being sent on from Malta to +Ceylon, and in the climate of the latter place the doctors declared it +would be impossible for her to live. The goods, therefore, were now +sent back to England, and she consoled herself under the bitter trial +of being parted from her husband, and unable to share the enjoyment of +the new and wonderful scenes with which he was surrounded, by +thankfulness for his unusual ability as a vivid and brilliant +letter-writer. She certainly practised both in days of joy and sorrow +the virtue of being _laetus sorte mea_; which she afterwards so +powerfully taught in her "Story of a Short Life." I never knew her +fail to find happiness wherever she was placed, and good in whomsoever +she came across. Whatever her circumstances might be they always +yielded to her causes for thankfulness, and work to be done with a +ready and hopeful heart. That "lamp of zeal," about which Margery +speaks in "Six to Sixteen," was never extinguished in Julie, even +after youth and strength were no longer hers:-- + + Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations + of our own devising; private codes, generally kept in cipher for + our own personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for + the employment of our time in joint duties--lessons, parish work, + and so forth. + + I think we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too + often. I make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more + alone. I wonder if I really keep them better? But if not, may + GOD, I pray Him, send me back the restless zeal, the + hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives us in early + youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in conscience, + more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one's + own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in leaving + high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that + one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those + good works, those great triumphs over evil which single hands + effect sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, + whatever we may have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and + enthusiasts for good, as if some special gifts were made to them in + middle age which are withheld from other men. Is it not rather that + some few souls keep alive the lamp of zeal and high desire which + GOD lights for most of us while life is young? + +In spite, however, of my sister's contentment with her lot, and the +kindness and hospitality shown to her at this time by relations and +friends, her position was far from comfortable; and Madam Liberality's +hospitable soul was sorely tried by having no home to which she could +welcome her friends, whilst her fragile body battled against +constantly moving from one house to another when she was often unfit +to do anything except keep quiet and at rest. She was not able to +write much, and during 1880 only contributed two poems to _Aunt Judy's +Magazine_, "Grandmother's Spring," and "Touch Him if You Dare." + +To the following volume (1881) she again was only able to give two +other poems, "Blue and Red; or the Discontented Lobster," and "The +Mill Stream"; but these are both much longer than her usual Verses for +Children--and, indeed, are better suited for older readers--though the +former was such a favourite with a three-year-old son of one of our +bishops that he used to repeat it by heart. + +In November 1881, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ passed into the hands of a +fresh publisher, and a new series was begun, with a fresh outside +cover which Mr. Caldecott designed for it. Julie was anxious to help +in starting the new series, and she wrote "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot" for +the opening number. All the scenery of this is drawn from the +neighbourhood of Ecclesfield, where she had lately been spending a +good deal of her time, and so refreshed her memory of its local +colouring. The story ranks equal to "Jackanapes" as a work of literary +art, though it is an idyll of peace instead of war, and perhaps, +therefore, appeals rather less deeply to general sympathies; but I +fully agree with a noted artist friend, who, when writing to regret my +sister's death, said, "'Jackanapes' and 'Daddy Darwin' I have never +been able to read without tears, and hope I never may." Daddy had no +actual existence, though his outward man may have been drawn from +types of a race of "old standards" which is fast dying out. The +incident of the theft and recovery of the pigeons is a true one, and +happened to a flock at the old Hall farm near our home, which also +once possessed a luxuriant garden, wherein Phoebe might have found +all the requisites for her Sunday posy. A "tea" for the workhouse +children used to be Madam Liberality's annual birthday feast; and the +spot where the gaffers sat and watched the "new graft" strolling home +across the fields was so faithfully described by Julie from her +favourite Schroggs Wood, that when Mr. Caldecott reproduced it in his +beautiful illustration, some friends who were well acquainted with the +spot, believed that he had been to Ecclesfield to paint it. + +[Illustration: ECCLESFIELD HALL] + +Julie's health became somewhat better in 1882, and for the Magazine +this year she wrote as a serial tale "Laetus Sorte Mea; or, the Story +of a Short Life." This was not republished as a book until four days +before my sister's death, and it has become so well known from +appearing at this critical time that I need say very little about it. +A curious mistake, however, resulted from its being published then, +which was that most of the reviewers spoke of it as being the last +work that she wrote, and commented on the title as a singularly +appropriate one, but those who had read the tale in the Magazine were +aware that it was written three years previously, and that the second +name was put before the first, as it was feared the public would be +perplexed by a Latin title. The only part of the book that my sister +added during her illness was Leonard's fifth letter in Chapter X. This +she dictated, because she could not write. She had intended to give +Saint Martin's history when the story came out in the Magazine, but +was hindered by want of space.[32] Many people admire Leonard's story +as much as that of Jackanapes, but to me it is not quite so highly +finished from an artistic point of view. I think it suffered a little +from being written in detachments from month to month. It is, however, +almost hypercritical to point out defects, and the circumstances of +Leonard's life are so much more within the range of common experiences +than those of Jackanapes, it is probable that the lesson of the Short +Life, during which a V.C. was won by the joyful endurance of +inglorious suffering, may be more helpful to general readers than that +of the other brief career, in which Jackanapes, after "one crowded +hour of glorious life," earned his crown of victory. + +[Footnote 32: Letter, Oct. 5, 1882.] + +On one of Julie's last days she expressed a fear to her doctor that +she was very impatient under her pain, and he answered, "Indeed you +are not; I think you deserve a Victoria Cross for the way in which you +bear it." This reply touched her very much, for she knew the speaker +had not read Leonard's Story; and we used to hide the proof-sheets of +it, for which she was choosing head-lines to the pages, whenever her +doctors came into the room, fearing that they would disapprove of her +doing any mental work. + +In the volume of _Aunt Judy_ for 1883 "A Happy Family" appeared, but +this had been originally written for an American Magazine, in which a +prize was offered for a tale not exceeding nine hundred words in +length. Julie did not gain the prize, and her story was rather spoiled +by having to be too closely condensed. + +She also wrote three poems for _Aunt Judy_ in 1883, "The Poet and the +Brook," "Mother's Birthday Review," and "Convalescence." The last one +and the tale of "Sunflowers and a Rushlight" (which came out in +November 1883) bear some traces of the deep sympathy she had learned +for ill health through her own sufferings of the last few years; the +same may, to some extent, be said of "The Story of a Short Life." +"Mother's Birthday Review" does not come under this heading, though I +well remember that part, if not the whole of it, was written whilst +Julie lay in bed; and I was despatched by her on messages in various +directions to ascertain what really became of Hampstead Heath donkeys +during the winter, and the name of the flower that clothes some parts +of the Heath with a sheet of white in summer. + +In May 1883, Major Ewing returned home from Ceylon, and was stationed +at Taunton. This change brought back much comfort and happiness into +my sister's life. She once more had a pretty home of her own, and not +only a home but a garden. When the Ewings took their house, and named +it Villa _Ponente_ from its aspect towards the setting sun, the +"garden" was a potato patch, with soil chiefly composed of refuse left +by the house-builders; but my sister soon began to accumulate flowers +in the borders, especially herbaceous ones that were given to her by +friends, or bought by her in the market. Then in 1884 she wrote +"Mary's Meadow," as a serial for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, and the story +was so popular that it led to the establishment of a "Parkinson +Society for lovers of hardy flowers." Miss Alice Sargant was the +founder and secretary of this, and to her my sister owed much of the +enjoyment of her life at Taunton, for the Society produced many +friends by correspondence, with whom she exchanged plants and books, +and the "potato patch" quickly turned into a well-stocked +flower-garden. + +Perhaps the friend who did most of all to beautify it was the Rev, J. +Going, who not only gave my sister many roses, but planted them round +the walls of her house himself, and pruned them afterwards, calling +himself her "head gardener." She did not live long enough to see the +roses sufficiently established to flower thoroughly, but she enjoyed +them by anticipation, and they served to keep her grave bright during +the summer that followed her death. + +Next to roses I think the flowers that Julie had most of were primulas +of various kinds, owing to the interest that was aroused in them by +the incident in "Mary's Meadow" of Christopher finding a Hose-in-hose +cowslip growing wild in the said "meadow." My sister was specially +proud of a Hose-in-hose cowslip which was sent to her by a little boy +in Ireland, who had determined one day with his brothers and sisters, +that they would set out and found an "Earthly Paradise" of their own, +and he began by actually finding a Hose-in-hose, which he named it +after "Christopher," and sent a bit of the root to Mrs. Ewing. + +The last literary work that she did was again on the subject of +flowers. She began a series of "Letters from a Little Garden" in the +number of _Aunt Judy_ for November 1884, and these were continued +until February 1885. The Letter for March was left unfinished, though +it seemed, when boxes of flowers arrived day by day during Julie's +illness from distant friends, as if they must almost have intuitively +known the purport of the opening injunction in her unpublished +epistle, enjoining liberality in the practice of cutting flowers for +decorative purposes! Her room for three months was kept so +continuously bright by the presence of these creations of GOD +which she loved so well:-- + + "DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, + + "A garden of hardy flowers is pre-eminently a garden for cut + flowers. You must carefully count this among its merits, because if + a constant and undimmed blaze outside were the one virtue of a + flower-garden, upholders of the bedding-out system would now and + then have the advantage of us. For my own part I am prepared to say + that I want my flowers quite as much for the house as the garden, + and so I suspect do most women." The gardener's point of view is + not quite the same. + + "Speaking of women, and recalling Mr. Charles Warner's quaint idea + of all his 'Polly' was good for on the scene of his conflicts with + Nature, the 'striped bug' and the weed 'Pusley,'--namely, to sit on + an inverted flower-pot and 'consult' him whilst he was hoeing,--it + is interesting to notice that some generations ago the garden was + very emphatically included within woman's 'proper sphere,' which + was not, in those days, a wide one." + +The Letters were the last things that my sister wrote; but some brief +papers which she contributed to _The Child's Pictorial Magazine_ were +not published until after her death. In the May number "Tiny's Tricks +and Toby's Tricks" came out, and in the numbers for June, July, and +August 1885, there were three "Hoots" from "The Owl in the Ivy Bush; +or the Children's Bird of Wisdom." They are in the form of quaint +letters of advice, and my sister adopted the _Spectator's_ method of +writing as an eye-witness in the first person, so far as was possible +in addressing a very youthful class of readers. She had a strong +admiration for many of both Steele and Addison's papers. + + * * * * * + +The list that I promised to give of Julie's published stories is now +completed; and, if her works are to be valued by their length, it may +justly be said that she has not left a vast amount of matter behind +her, but I think that those who study her writings carefully, will +feel that some of their greatest worth lies in the wonderful +condensation and high finish that they display. No reviewer has made a +more apt comparison than the American one in _Every other Saturday_, +who spoke of "Jackanapes" as "an exquisite bit of finished work--a +Meissonier, in its way." + +To other readers the chief value of the books will be in the high +purpose of their teaching, and the consciousness that Julie held her +talent as a direct gift from GOD, and never used it otherwise +than to His glory. She has penned nothing for which she need fear +reproach from her favourite old proverb, "A wicked book is all the +wickeder because it can never repent." It is difficult for those who +admire her writings to help regretting that her life was cut off +before she had accomplished more, but to still such regrets we cannot +do better than realize (as a kind friend remarked) "how much she has +been able to do, rather than what she has left undone." The work which +she did, in spite of her physical fragility, far exceeds what the +majority of us perform with stronger bodies and longer lives. This +reflection has comforted me, though I perhaps know more than others +how many subjects she had intended to write stories upon. Some people +have spoken as if her _forte_ lay in writing about soldiers only, but +her success in this line was really due to her having spent much time +among them. I am sure her imagination and sympathy were so strong, +that whatever class of men she was mixed with, she could not help +throwing herself into their interests, and weaving romances about +them. Whether such romances ever got on to paper was a matter +dependent on outward circumstances and the state of her health. + +One of the unwritten stories which I most regret is "Grim the +Collier"; this was to have been a romance of the Black Country of +coal-mines, in which she was born, and the title was chosen from the +description of a flower in a copy of Gerarde's _Herbal_, given to her +by Miss Sargant:-- + + _Hieracium hortense latifolium, sine Pilosella maior_, Golden + Mouseeare, or Grim the Colliar. The floures grow at the top as it + were in an vmbel, and are of the bignesse of the ordinary + Mouseeare, and of an orenge colour. The seeds are round, and + blackish, and are carried away with the downe by the wind. The + stalks and cups of the flours are all set thicke with a blackish + downe, or hairinesse, as it were the dust of coles; whence the + women who keepe it in gardens for novelties sake, have named it + Grim the Colliar. + +I wish, too, that Julie could have written about sailors, as well as +soldiers, in the tale of "Little Mothers' Meetings," which had been +suggested to her mind by visits to Liverpool. The sight of a baby +patient in the Children's Hospital there, who had been paralyzed and +made speechless by fright, but who took so strange a fancy to my +sister's sympathetic face that he held her hand and could scarcely be +induced to release it, had affected her deeply. So did a visit that +she paid one Sunday to the Seamen's Orphanage, where she heard the +voices of hundreds of fatherless children ascending with one accord in +the words, "I will arise and go to my Father," and realized the Love +that watched over them. These scenes were both to have been woven into +the tale, and the "Little Mothers" were boy nurses of baby brothers +and sisters. + +Another phase of sailor life on which Julie hoped to write was the +"Guild of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol." She had visited their +quaint Hall, and collected a good deal of historical information and +local colouring for the tale, and its lesson would have been one on +mercantile honour. + +I hope I have kept my original promise, that whilst I was making a +list of Julie's writings, I would also supply an outline biography of +her life; but now, if the Children wish to learn something of her at +its End, they shall be told in her own words:-- + + Madam Liberality grew up into much the same sort of person that she + was when a child. She always had been what is termed old-fashioned, + and the older she grew the better her old-fashionedness became her, + so that at last her friends would say to her, "Ah, if we all wore + as well as you do, my dear! You've hardly changed at all since we + remember you in short petticoats." So far as she did change, the + change was for the better. (It is to be hoped we do improve a + little as we get older.) She was still liberal and economical. She + still planned and hoped indefatigably. She was still tender-hearted + in the sense in which Gray speaks-- + + "To each his sufferings: all are men + Condemned alike to groan, + The tender for another's pain, + The unfeeling for his own." + + She still had a good deal of ill-health and ill-luck, and a good + deal of pleasure in spite of both. She was happy in the happiness + of others, and pleased by their praise. But she was less + head-strong and opinionated in her plans, and less fretful when + they failed. It is possible, after one has cut one's wisdom-teeth, + to cure oneself even of a good deal of vanity, and to learn to play + the second fiddle very gracefully; and Madam Liberality did not + resist the lessons of life. + + GOD teaches us wisdom in divers ways. Why He suffers some + people to have so many troubles, and so little of what we call + pleasure in this world, we cannot in this world know. The heaviest + blows often fall on the weakest shoulders, and how these endure and + bear up under them is another of the things which GOD + knows better than we. + +Julie did absolutely remain "the same" during the three months of heavy +suffering which, in GOD'S mysterious love, preceded her death. Perhaps it +is well for us all to know that she found, as others do, the intervals of +exhausted relief granted between attacks of pain were not times in which +(had it been needed) she could have changed her whole character, and, what +is called, "prepare to die." Our days of health and strength are the ones +in which this preparation must be made, but for those who live, as she did, +with their whole talents dedicated to GOD'S service, death is only the gate +of life--the path from joyful work in this world to greater capacities and +opportunities for it in the other. + +I trust that what I have said about Julie's religious life will not +lead children to imagine that she was gloomy, and unable to enjoy her +existence on earth, for this was not the case. No one appreciated and +rejoiced in the pleasures and beauties of the world more thoroughly +than she did: no one could be a wittier and brighter companion than +she always was. + +Early in February 1885, she was found to be suffering from a species +of blood-poisoning, and as no cause for this could then be discovered, +it was thought that change of air might do her good, and she was +taken from her home at Taunton, to lodgings at Bath. She had been +three weeks in bed before she started, and was obliged to return to it +two days after she arrived, and there to remain on her back; but this +uncomfortable position did not alter her love for flowers and animals. + +The first of these tastes was abundantly gratified, as I mentioned +before, by the quantities of blossoms which were sent her from +friends; as well as by the weekly nosegay which came from her own +Little Garden, and made her realize that the year was advancing from +winter to spring, when crocuses and daffodils were succeeded by +primroses and anemones. + +Of living creatures she saw fewer. The only object she could see +through her window was a high wall covered with ivy, in which a lot of +sparrows and starlings were building their nests. As the sunlight fell +on the leaves, and the little birds popped in and out, Julie enjoyed +watching them at work, and declared the wall looked like a fine +Japanese picture. She made us keep bread-crumbs on the window-sill, +together with bits of cotton wool and hair, so that the birds might +come and fetch supplies of food, and materials for their nests. + +Her appreciation of fun, too, remained keen as ever, and, strange as +it may seem, one of the very few books which she liked to have read +aloud was Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"; the dry +humour of it--the natural way in which everything is told from a boy's +point of view--and the vivid and beautiful descriptions of river +scenery--all charmed her. One of Twain's shorter tales, "Aurelia's +unfortunate Young Man," was also read to her, and made her laugh so +much, when she was nearly as helpless as the "young man" himself, that +we had to desist for fear of doing her harm. Most truly may it be said +that between each paroxysm of pain "her little white face and +undaunted spirit bobbed up ... as ready and hopeful as ever." She was +seldom able, however, to concentrate her attention on solid works, and +for her religious exercises chiefly relied on what was stored in her +memory. + +This faculty was always a strong one. She was catechized in church +with the village children when only four years old, and when six, +could repeat many poems from an old collection called "The Diadem," +such as Mrs. Hemans' "Cross in the Wilderness," and Dale's "Christian +Virgin to her Apostate Lover"; but she reminded me one day during her +illness of how little she understood what she was saying in the days +when she fluently recited such lines to her nursery audience! + +She liked to repeat the alternate verses of the Psalms, when the +others were read to her; and to the good things laid up in her mind +she owed much of the consolation that strengthened her in hours of +trial. After one night of great suffering, in which she had been +repeating George Herbert's poem, "The Pulley," she said that the last +verse had helped her to realize what the hidden good might be which +underlaid her pain-- + + Let him be rich and weary; that, at least, + If goodness lead him not, yet weariness + May toss him to My breast. + +During the earlier part of her illness, when every one expected that +she would recover, she found it difficult to submit to the +unaccountable sufferings which her highly-strung temperament felt so +keenly; but after this special night of physical and mental darkness, +it seemed as if light had broken upon her through the clouds, for she +said she had, as it were, looked her pain and weariness in the face, +and seen they were sent for some purpose--and now that she had done +so, we should find that she would be "more patient than before." We +were told to take a sheet of paper, and write out a calendar for a +week with the text above, "In patience possess ye your souls." Then as +each day went by we were to strike it through with a pencil; this we +did, hoping that the passing days were leading her nearer to recovery, +and not knowing that each was in reality "a day's march nearer home." + +For the text of another week she had "Be strong and of a good +courage," as the words had been said by a kind friend to cheer her +just before undergoing the trial of an operation. Later still, when +nights of suffering were added to days of pain, she chose--"The day is +Thine, the night also is Thine." + +Of what may be termed external spiritual privileges she did not have +many, but she derived much comfort from an unexpected visitor. During +nine years previously she had known the Rev. Edward Thring as a +correspondent, but they had not met face to face, though they had +tried on several occasions to do so. Now, when their chances of +meeting were nearly gone, he came and gave great consolation by his +unravelling of the mystery of suffering, and its sanctifying power; as +also by his interpretation that the life which we are meant to lead +under the dispensation of the Spirit who has been given for our +guidance into Truth, is one which does not take us out of the world, +but keeps us from its evil, enabling us to lead a heavenly existence +on earth, and so to span over the chasm which divides us from heaven. + +Perhaps some of us may wonder that Julie should need lessons of +encouragement and comfort who was so apt a teacher herself; but +however ready she may always have been to hope for others, she was +thoroughly humble-minded about herself. On one day near the end, when +she had received some letter of warm praise about her writings, a +friend said in joke, "I wonder your head is not turned by such +things"; and Julie replied: "I don't think praise really hurts me, +because, when I read my own writings over again they often seem to me +such 'bosh'; and then, too, you know I lead such a useless life, and +there is so little I _can_ do, it is a great pleasure to know I may +have done _some_ good." + +It pleased her to get a letter from Sir Evelyn Wood, written from the +Soudan, telling how he had cried over _Laetus_; and she was almost more +gratified to get an anonymous expression from "One of the Oldest +Natives of the Town of Aldershot" of his "warm and grateful sense of +the charm of her delightful references to a district much loved of its +children, and the emotion he felt in recognizing his birthplace so +tenderly alluded to." Julie certainly set no value on her own actual +MSS., for she almost invariably used them up when they were returned +from the printers, by writing on the empty sides, and destroying them +after they had thus done double duty. She was quite amused by a +relation who begged for the sheets of "Jackanapes," and so rescued +them from the flames! + +On the 11th of May an increase of suffering made it necessary that my +sister should undergo another operation, as the one chance of +prolonging her life. This ordeal she faced with undaunted courage, +thanking God that she was able to take chloroform easily, and only +praying He would end her sufferings speedily, as He thought best, +since she feared her physical ability to bear them patiently was +nearly worn out. + +Her prayer was answered, when two days later, free from pain, she +entered into rest. On the 16th of May she was buried in her parish +churchyard of Trull, near Taunton, in a grave literally lined with +moss and flowers;--so many floral wreaths and crosses were sent from +all parts of England, that when the grave was filled up they entirely +covered it, not a speck of soil could be seen; her first sleep in +mother earth was beneath a coverlet of fragrant white blossoms. No +resting-place than this could be more fitting for her. The church is +deeply interesting from its antiquity, and its fine oak-screen and +seats, said to be carved by monks of Glastonbury, whilst the +churchyard is an idyllically peaceful one, containing several +yew-trees; under one of these, which over-shadows Julie's grave, the +remains of the parish stocks are to be seen--a quaint mixture of +objects, that recalls some of her own close blendings of humour and +pathos into one scene. Here, "for a space, the tired body lies with +feet towards the dawn," but I must hope and believe that the active +soul, now it is delivered from the burden of the flesh, has realized +that Gordon's anticipations were right when he wrote: "The future +world must be much more amusing, more enticing, more to be desired, +than this world,--putting aside its absence of sorrow and sin. The +future world has been somehow painted to our minds as a place of +continuous praise, and, though we may not say it, yet we cannot help +feeling that, if thus, it would prove monotonous. It cannot be thus. +It must be a life of activity, for happiness is dependent on activity: +death is cessation of movement; life is all movement." + +If Archbishop Trench, too, was right in saying; + + The tasks, the joys of earth, the same in heaven will be; + Only the little brook has widen'd to a sea, + +have we not cause to trust that Julie still ministers to the good and +happiness of the young and old whom she served so well whilst she was +seen amongst them? Let her, at any rate, be to us one of those who +shine as the stars to lead us unto God: + + God's saints are shining lights: who stays + Here long must passe + O'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep ways + As smooth as glasse; + But these all night, + Like Candles, shed + Their beams, and light + Us into bed. + + They are, indeed, our pillar-fires, + Seen as we go; + They are that Citie's shining spires + We travel to. + A sword-like gleame + Kept man for sin-- + First _out_, this beame + Will guide him _In_. + +[Illustration: Memorial.] + + +"If we still love those we lose, can we altogether lose those we +love?" + +"_The Newcomes_," Chap. vii. + +(_The last entry in J.H.E.'s Commonplace Book._) + + +LIST OF MRS. EWING'S WORKS. + + ++-------------------+------------------------+-------------------+------------+ +| TITLE. | FIRST PUBLISHED IN: | SUBSEQUENTLY. | PUBLISHER. | ++-------------------+------------------------+-------------------+------------+ +|A Bit of Green |_Monthly Packet_, |"Melchior's Dream, |Bell & Sons,| +| |July, 1861 | and other Tales" | 1862 | +| | | | | +|The Blackbird's |--August, 1861 | " | " | +| Nest | | | | +| | | | | +|Melchior's Dream |--December, 1861 | " | " | +| | | | | +|Friedrich's Ballad | ---- | " | " | +| | | | | +|The Viscount's | ---- | " | " | +| Friend | | | | +| | | | | +|The Mystery of the |_London Society_, |"Miscellanea," | S.P.C.K. | +| Bloody Hand |January and February, |vol. xvii. | | +| |1865 | | | +| | | | | +|The Yew Lane Ghosts|_Monthly Packet_, |"Melchior's Dream, |Bell & Sons,| +| | June, 1865 |and other Tales" | 1885. | +| | | | | +|The Brownies |_Monthly Packet_, |"The Brownies, | " | +| |1865 |and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Mrs. Overtheway's | | | | +| Remembrances-- | | | | +| Ida |_Aunt Judy's |"Mrs. Overtheway's | " | +| |Magazine_,May, 1866 |Remembrances" | | +| Mrs. Moss |--June and July, 1866 | " | " | +| | | | | +|The Promise |--July, 1866 |"Verses for |S.P.C.K. | +| | |Children" vol. ix. | | +| | | | | +|The Burial of the |--September, 1866 { |"Songs for Music, |H. King & Co| +| Linnet | { |by Four Friends" | | +| | { |"Papa Poodle, |S.P.C.K. | +| | { |and other Pets" | | +| | | | | +|Christmas Wishes |--December, 1866 |"Verses for | " | +| | |Children" vol. ix. | | +| | | | | +|Mrs. Overtheway's | | | | +| Remembrances-- | | | | +| The Snoring|--December, 1866; Jan. |"Mrs. Overtheway's |Bell & Sons.| +| Ghosts | and February, 1867 | Remembrances" | | +| | | | | +|An Idyll of the |--September, 1867 |"The Brownies, | " | +| Wood | |and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Three Christmas |--December, 1867 | " | " | +| Trees | | | | +| | | | | +|Mrs. Overtheway's | | | | +| Remembrances-- | | | | +| Reka Dom |--June, July, August, |"Mrs. Overtheway's | " | +| |September, and Oct. 1868|Remembrances" | | +| Kerguelen's|--October, 1868 | " | " | +| Land | | | | +| | | | | +|The Land of Lost |--March and April, 1869 |"The Brownies, |Bell & Sons.| +| Toys | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Kind William and |--November, 1869 |"Old-fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| the Water Sprite | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Christmas Crackers |--December, 1869; |"The Brownies, |Bell & Sons.| +| | Jan. 1870 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Amelia and the |--February and March, | " | " | +| Dwarfs | 1870 | | | +| | | | | +|The Cobbler and |--February, 1870 |"Old-fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| the Ghosts | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Nix in |--April, 1870 | " | " | +| Mischief | | | | +| | | | | +|Benjy in |--May and June, 1870 |"Lob Lie-by-the- |Bell & Sons.| +| Beastland | | Fire and other | | +| | | Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Hillman and |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"Old-Fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| the Housewife | May, 1870 | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Neck |--June, 1870 | " | " | +| | | | | +|Under the Sun |--July, 1870 | ---- | ---- | +| | | | | +|The First Wife's |--August, 1870 |"Old-fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| Wedding Ring | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Magic Jar |--September, 1870 | " | " | +| | | | | +|Snap Dragons |_Monthly Packet_, |"Snapdragons" | " | +| | Christmas Number, | | | +| | 1870 | | | +| | | | | +|Timothy's Shoes |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"Lob Lie-by-the- |Bell & Sons.| +| | November, December, | Fire, and other | | +| | 1870; January, 1871 | Tales" | | +| | | | | +|A Flat Iron for |--November, 1870, to |"A Flat Iron | " | +| a Farthing | October, 1871 | for a Farthing" | | +| | | | | +|The Widow and |--February, 1871 |"Old-fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| the Strangers | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Laird and |--April, 1871 | " | " | +| the Man of Peace | | | | +| | | | | +|The Blind Hermit |_Monthly Packet_, |"Dandelion Clocks" | " | +| and the Trinity | May, 1871 | | | +| Flower | | | | +| | | | | +|The Ogre Courting |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"Old-fashioned | " | +| | June, 1871 | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Six Little |--August, 1871 | ---- | ---- | +| Girls and the | | | | +| Five Little Pigs | | | | +| | | | | +|The Little Master |--September, 1871 |"Papa Poodle, and |S.P.C.K. | +| to his Big Dog | | other Pets" | | +| | | | | +|The Peace Egg |--December, 1871 |"Lob Lie-by-the- |Bell & Sons.| +| | | Fire, and other | | +| | | Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Six to Sixteen |--January to October. |"Six to Sixteen" | " | +| | 1872 | | | +| | | | | +|Murdoch's Rath |--February, 1872 |"Old-fashioned |S.P.C.K. | +| | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Magician's |--March, 1872 | " | " | +| Gifts | | | | +| | | | | +|Knave and Fool |--June, 1872 | " | " | +| | | | | +|The Miller's Thumb |--November, 1872 to |"Jan of the |Bell & Sons.| +| | October, 1873 | Windmill. A Story | | +| | | of the Plains" | | +| | | | | +|Ran Away to Sea |--November, 1872 |"Songs for Music, |King & Co. | +| | | by Four Friends" | | +| | | | | +|Among the Merrows |--November, 1872 |"Brothers of Pity, |S.P.C.K. | +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Willow Man |--December, 1872 |"Tongues in Trees" | " | +| | | | | +|The Fiddler in |--January, 1873 |"Old-fashioned | " | +| the Fairy Ring | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|A Friend in |--January, 1873 |"Verses for | " | +| the Garden | | Children," | | +| | | vol. ix. | | +| | | | | +|In Memoriam |--November, 1873 |"Parables from |Bell & Sons.| +| --Margaret Gatty | | Nature." | | +| | |(Complete edition) | | +| | | | | +|Madam Liberality |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"A Great | " | +| |December, 1873 | Emergency, | | +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Old Father |_Little Folks_ { |"Lob Lie-by-the- | " | +| Christmas | { | Fire, and other | | +| | { | Tales, 1873 | | +| | { | (Illustrated by | | +| | { | R. Caldecott.) | | +| | { | | | +|Lob Lie-by-the- | ---- { | " | " | +| Fire | { | | | +| | | | | +|Our Garden |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"Our Garden" |S.P.C.K. | +| | March, 1874 | | | +| | | | | +|Dolly's Lullaby |--April, 1874 |"Baby, Puppy, | " | +| | | and Kitty" | | +| | | | | +|The Blue Bells |--May, 1874 |"The Blue Bells | " | +| on the Lea | | on the Lea" | | +| | | | | +|May Day, Old Style |--May, 1874 |"Miscellanea," | " | +| and New Style | | vol. xvii. | | +| | | | | +|A Great Emergency |--June to October, |"A Great Emergency,|Bell & Sons.| +| | 1874 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Dolls' Wash |--September, 1874 |"The Dolls' Wash" |S.P.C.K. | +| | | | | +|Three Little |--October, 1874 |"Three Little | " | +| Nest-Birds | | Nest-Birds" | | +| | | | | +|A very Ill- |--December, 1874, to |"A Great Emergency,|Bell & Sons.| +| tempered Family | March, 1875 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Songs for Music, | | | | +| by Four Friends | | | | +| | | | | +| Ah! Would I | | | | +| Could Forget | | | | +| | | | | +| The Elleree. A | | | | +| Song of | | | | +| Second Sight | | | | +| | | | | +| Faded Flowers | | | | +| | | | | +| Fancy Free. A | | | | +| Girl's Song | | | | +| | | | | +| From Fleeting | | | | +| Pleasures. A | | | | +| Requiem for | | | | +| One Alive | | | | +| | | | | +| How Many Years |"Songs for Music, by |"Verses for |S.P.C.K | +| Ago? | Four Friends," H. | Children, and | | +| | | | | +| The Lily of | King & Co., 1874. | Songs for Music,"| | +| the Lake | | vol. ix. | | +| | | | | +| Madrigal | | | | +| | | | | +| Maiden with | | | | +| the Gipsy | | | | +| Look | | | | +| | | | | +| My Lover's | | | | +| Gift | | | | +| | | | | +| Other Stars | | | | +| | | | | +| The Runaway's | | | | +| Return, or | | | | +| Ran Away to | | | | +| Sea | | | | +| | | | | +| Serenade | | | | +| | | | | +| Speed Well | | | | +| | | | | +| Teach Me |(From the Danish.) | | | +| With a | | | | +| Difference | | | | +| | | | | +| Anemones (left | | | | +| in MS.) | | | | +| | | | | +| Autumn Leaves | | | | +| (left in | | | | +| MS.) | | | | +| | | | | +|Cousin Peregrine's |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, |"Miscellanea," vol.|S.P.C.K. | +| Wonder Stories. | | xvii. | | +| | | | | +| The Chinese | --March, 1875 | | | +| Jugglers | | | | +| | | | | +|Waves of the |--May, 1875 | " | " | +| Great South Sea | | | | +| | | | | +|Jack of Pera |--July, 1875 | " | " | +| | | | | +|Little Woods |--August, 1875 | " | " | +| | | | | +|Good Luck is Better|--August, 1875 |"Old-fashioned | " | +| than Gold | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|A Hero to his |--October, 1875 |"Little Boys and | " | +| Hobby Horse | | Wooden Horses" | | +| | | | | +|The Kyrkegrim |--November, 1875 |"Dandelion Clocks" | " | +| turned Preacher | | | | +| | | | | +|Hints for Private |--November and |"The Peace Egg," | " | +| Theatricals |--December, 1875; | vol. x. | | +| |--February, 1876 | | | +| | | | | +|Toots and Boots |--January, 1876 |"Brothers of Pity, | " | +| | | and other Tales | | +| | | of Beasts and | | +| | | Men" | | +| | | | | +|The Blind Man |--February, 1876 |"Dandelion Clocks" | " | +| and the Talking | | | | +| Dog | | | | +| | | | +|The Princes of |--April, 1876 |"Miscellanea," | S.P.C.K. | +| Vegetation | | vol. xvii | | +| | | | | +|I Won't |--April, 1876 |"Old-fashioned | " | +| | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Father Hedgehog and|--June to August, 1876 |"Brothers of Pity, | " | +| His Neighbours | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|House Building |--June, 1876 |"Doll's | " | +| and Repairs | | Housekeeping" | | +| | | | | +|An Only Child's |--July, 1876 | " | " | +| Tea-Party | | | | +| | | | | +|Dandelion Clocks |--August, 1876 |"Dandelion Clocks, | " | +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Our Field |--September, 1876 |"A Great Emergency,|Bell & Sons.| +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Papa Poodle |--September, 1876 |"Papa Poodle, and | S.P.C.K. | +| | | other Pets" | | +| | | | | +|A Week Spent in a |--October, 1876 |"A Week Spent in a |Wells, | +| Glass Pond | | Glass Pond" |Darton & Co.| +| | | | | +|Big Smith |--October, 1876 |"Little Boys and | S.P.C.K. | +| | |Wooden Horses" | | +| | | | | +|The Magician turned|--November, 1876 |"Old-fashioned | " | +| Mischief-Maker | | Fairy Tales" | | +| | | | | +|A Bad Habit |--January, 1877 |"Melchior's Dream, |Bell & Sons,| +| | | and other Tales" | 1885. | +| | | | | +|Brothers of Pity |--April, 1877 |"Brothers of Pity, | S.P.C.K. | +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Kit's Cradle |--April, 1877 |"Baby, Puppy, and | " | +| | | Kitty" | | +| | | | | +|Ladders to Heaven |--May, 1877 |"Dandelion Clocks,"| " | +| | | &c. | | +| | | | | +|Boy and Squirrel |--June, 1877 |"Tongues in Trees" | " | +| | | | | +|Master Fritz |--August, 1877 |"Master Fritz" | " | +| | | | | +|A Sweet Little |--September, 1877 |"A Sweet Little | " | +| Dear | | Dear" | | +| | | | | +|We and the World |--November, 1887, to |"We and the World" |Bell & Sons.| +| | June, 1878, and | | | +| | April to October, | | | +| | 1879 | | | +| | | | | +|The Yellow Fly |--December, 1877 |"Baby, Puppy, and | S.P.C.K. | +| | | Kitty" | | +| | | | | +|So-so |--September, 1878 |"Dandelion Clocks,"| " | +| | | &c. | | +| | | | | +|Flaps |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_ |"Brothers of Pity, | " | +| |January, 1879 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Canada Home |--January, 1879 |"Verses for | " | +| | | Children," &c. | | +| | | vol. ix. | | +| | | | | +|Garden Lore |--March, 1879 | " | " | +| | | | | +|A Soldier's |--July, 1879 |"A Soldier's | " | +| Children | | Children" | | +| | | | | +|Jackanapes |--October, 1879 |"Jackanapes" | " | +| | | | | +|Grandmother's |--June, 1880 |"Grandmother's | S.P.C.K. | +| Spring | | Spring" | | +| | | | | +|Touch Him if You |--July, 1880 |"Touch Him if you | " | +| Dare | | Dare" | | +| | | | | +|The Mill Stream |--August, 1881 |"The Mill Stream" | " | +| | | | | +|Blue and Red; or, |--September, 1881 |"Blue and Red," | " | +| the Discontented | | &c. | | +| Lobster | | | | +| | | | | +|Daddy Darwin's |--November, 1881 |"Daddy Darwin's | " | +| Dovecote | | Dovecote" | | +| | | | | +|Laetus Sorte Mea: |--May to October, 1882 |"The Story of a | " | +| or, the Story | | Short Life" | | +| of a Short Life | | | | +| | | | | +|Sunflowers and a |--November, 1882 |"Mary's Meadow." | " | +| Rushlight | | &c., vol. xvi. | | +| | | | | +|The Poet and the |--January, 1883 |"The Poet and the | " | +| Brook | | Brook" | | +| | | | | +|Mother's Birthday |--April, 1883 |"Mother's Birthday | " | +| Review | | Review" | | +| | | | | +|Convalescence |--May, 1883 |"Convalescence" | " | +| | | | | +|A Happy Family |--September, 1883 |"Melchior's Dream, |Bell & Sons.| +| | | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Mary's Meadow |--November, 1883, to |"Mary's Meadow, | S.P.C.K. | +| | March, 1884 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|The Peace Egg. |--January, 1884 |"The Peace Egg," | " | +| A Christmas | | &c. | | +| Mumming Play | | | | +| | | | | +|Letters from a |--November, 1884, to |"Mary's Meadow, | " | +| Little Garden | February, 1885 | and other Tales" | | +| | | | | +|Tiny's Tricks and |_Child's Pictorial |"Brothers of Pity, | " | +| Toby's Tricks |Magazine_ | and other | | +| |May, 1885 | Tales," vol. xii.| | +| | | | | +|The Owl in the |--June, 1885 | " | " | +| Ivy Bush; or, | | | | +| the Children's | | | | +| Bird of Wisdom | | | | +| --Introduction | | | | +| --Owlhoot I. |--July, 1885 | " | " | +| --Owlhoot II. |--August, 1885 | " | " | ++-------------------+------------------------+-------------------+------------+ + + +TRANSLATIONS. + + ++----------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------+ +|A Child's Wishes |From the German of |_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, | +| | R. Reinick | 1866. | +| | | | +|War and the Dead |From the French of |--October, 1866. | +| | Jean Mace | | +| | | | +|Tales of the Khoja |From the Turkish |--April to December, 1874.| +| | | | +|The Adventures of an |Adapted from the German|--November and | +| of an Elf | | December, 1875. | +| | | | +|The Snarling Princess |Adapted from the German|--December, 1875. | +| | | | +|The Little Parsnip |Adapted from the German|--January, 1876. | +| Man | | | ++----------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------+ + + + + +LETTERS + + +TO MISS E. LLOYD + +_Ecclesfield._ August 19, 1864. + + +MY DEAREST ELEANOR + +It is with the greatest pleasure that I "sit down" and square my +elbows to answer one question of your letter. The one about the +Liturgical Lessons. Nothing (I find) is more difficult in this short +life than to emulate John's example--and "explain my meaning!" but I +will do my best. Beloved! In the first place I am going to do what I +hope will be more to your benefit than my credit! Send you my rough +notes. If you begin at the first page and read straight ahead to where +allusion is made to the Apocryphal Lessons, you will have my first +Course, and you will see that I was working by degrees straight +through the Morning Prayer. But then (like the Turnip Tom-toddies!) we +found that "the Inspector was coming"--and though the class was pretty +well getting up "Matins"--it knew very little about the +Prayer-book--so then I took a different tack. We left off minutiae and +Bible references and took to a sort of general sketch of the whole +Prayer-book. For this I did not make fresh notes at the time--but when +the Inspector came and I being too ill to examine them--M. did it--I +wrote out in a hurry the questions and answers that follow the +Apocrypha point for her benefit. My dear old Eleanor--I am such a bad +hand myself--that I feel it perfectly ludicrous to attempt to help +you--but here are a few results of my limited experience which are +probably all wrong--but the best I have to offer! + +Don't teach all the school. + +Make up a "Liturgical Class" (make a favour of it if possible) of +mixed boys and girls. + +Have none that cannot read. + +Tell them to bring their Prayer-books with them on the "Liturgy Day." + +If any of them say they have none--let nothing induce you to supply +them. + +Say "Well, you must look over your neighbour, but you ought to have +one for yourself--I can let you have one for _2d._, so when you go +home, 'ask Papa,' and bring me the _2d._ next time." + +Never give the Prayer-book "in advance"--! (I never _pressed_ the +Prayer-books on them, or insisted on their having them. But gradually +they all wanted to have them, and I used to take them with me, and +they brought up their _2d._'s if they wanted any. The class is chiefly +composed of Dissenters, but they never have raised any objection, and +buy Prayer-books for children who never come to Church. The first +prize last time was very deservedly won by the daughter of the +Methodist Minister.) + +If you know any that cannot afford them, give them in private. + +Deal round the School Bibles to the Class for reference. + +One's chief temptation is to attempt too much. The great art is to +make a good _skeleton_ lesson of the leading points, and fill in +afterwards. + +_Wait_ a long time for your answers. + +Repeat the question as simply as possible, and keep saying--Now +_think_--_think_. One generally gets it in time. + +Lead up to your answer: thus-- + +_Eleanor._ "S. Augustine was a missionary Priest from--now answer all +together?" + +_The whole Class._ Rome. + +_Eleanor._ "Now who was S. Augustine?--All together." + +The result probably will be that one or perhaps two will give the +whole answer--and then you can say-- + +"That's right. But I want you all to say it. Now all together. Who was +S. Augustine?" + +Then you will get it from all. + +If you don't mind it, the black board is often of great use. In this +way-- + +[_Sketch._] X represents the black board. + +Suppose you have undertaken for the day's lesson (a _long_ one!) to +begin at the question of whether we know the exact date of the first +introduction of Christianity into England and to go on to S. +Augustine's Consecration. When you first arrive take your chalk and +write-- + + S. PAUL + and draw a line; + ---------------------------- +then + ARLES . . . . . 314 + NICAEA . . . . . 323 + ---------------------------- + AUGUSTINE + ROME + ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY + 597 + ---------------------------- + +Make them read everything as you write it, telling them the words till +they are familiar. Then "lead up to" the written words in your +questions and point with the stick, so that they will finish the +answer by reading it _all together_. Thus--"The Council of ---- (stick +to Aries) in the year ---- (stick to 314)." + +When you are _teaching_ a thing, make them answer all together. When +you are examining what you have taught before, let those answer who +can. + +Of course my _notes_ give no idea of the way one teaches, I mean of +course one has perpetually to use familiar examples, and go back and +back--and _into_ things. + +Put the more backward children _behind_ the others, and never let any +of the _front row_ answer till the back row have tried. + +If they are very young or backward, perhaps before you attempt +anything like Church History, you might _familiarize_ them with the +Prayer-book services--by making them find the places in their proper +rotation--turn quickly to the Psalms for the Day. Make them find the +Lessons for the Day, for Holy-days--Collect for the week--Baptism +Service. In fact I should advise you to _begin_ so. Say for the first +Lesson you take a CHRISTMAS DAY Service--make them look out +everything in succession. Ask them what a Collect is--where the +Lessons come from--who wrote the Psalms, etc. Make them understand how +the Holy Communion is administered--suppose a Baptism--and make them +explain--the two Sacraments in the words of the Catechism. (Never mind +whether they understand it--one can't explain everything at once!) + +Indeed I strongly advise you to go on this tack for some time. + +Say that for the first lesson or two (the above is too advanced) you +take _the Psalms_. Ask them what Book they were taken from, etc.--make +them find them for the day, and show them where and how to find the +Proper Psalms. In succeeding lessons, if you like, you can explain +that the Psalms are translations--and why the Bible and Prayer-book +versions are different--show which are the seven Penitential--(the +three Morning and three Evening for Ash Wednesday and the 51st). Point +out the latter as used as a general confession in the Commination +Service--having been written on the occasion of David's fall. Also the +Psalms of Degrees (the most exquisite of all I think!), which were +used to be sung as the Jews came up from all parts of the land to +Jerusalem--"I was glad when they said unto me," etc. + +Tell them of any Psalms authentically connected with History--and any +anecdotes or traditions that you can meet with connected with them. +How S. Augustine and his band of missionaries first encountered the +King with his choristers carrying the Cross and chanting Psalms to +those Gregorians that Gregory (birch in hand!) had taught him in Rome, +etc., etc. + +I find they like stray anecdotes--and they are _pegs_ to hang things +on. (Trevor says that our Blessed Lord is supposed to have repeated +the _whole_ of the twenty-second Psalm on the Cross.) The "Hymn" sung +before they went out after the Last Supper was a Psalm. (See marginal +Bible notes.) You can do no greater kindness than give them an +appreciation and interest in that inexhaustible store of "Prayer and +Penitence and Praise"--that has put words into the mouth of the whole +Church of God from the days of David to the present time, which is +used by every Church (however else divided) in common--and rejected by +no sect however captious! + +Point out what Psalms are used in the course of the services--(like +the _Venite_, etc.) + +Don't be alarmed if the Psalms last you for months! you can't do +better--and you must go over and over unless your bairns are Solomons! +Make them understand that they were intended, and are adapted for +singing. + +_Get up_ your lessons beforehand--but teach as familiarly and as much +with no book but the Prayer-book and Bible as you can. + +Then you might take the Lessons in a similar fashion, and the +Collects, etc. + +Excuse all this ramble. I have no doubt I have bored you with a great +deal of chaff--but I hardly know quite what you want to know. As to +the subject--it is a Hobby with me--so excuse rhapsodies! + +I don't believe you can confer a greater kindness than to make them +well acquainted with their Prayer-books. I believe you may teach every +scrap of necessary theology from it--the Life of Jesus in the +Collects, and special services from Advent to Trinity--Practical +duties and the _morale_ of the Gospel in the twenty-five Sundays of +Trinity. Apostles--Martyrs--the Communion of Saints--and the Ministry +of Angels in the rest. As to the History of Liturgies--it is simply +the History of the Church. I believe the Prayer-book contains Prayer, +Praise, Confession, Intercession and Ejaculation fitted to every need +and occasion of all conditions of men!--with very rare if any +exceptions. I believe in _ignorance_ of the Prayer-book the poor lose +the greatest fund of instruction and consolation next to the Bible +(and it is our best Commentary on that!) that is to be got at. And +people's ignorance of it is _wonderful_! You hear complaints of the +shifting of the services--the arrangement of the Lessons--and a +precious muddle it must seem to any one who does not know--that Isaiah +is skipped in the reading of the Old Testament--that as the +Evangelical Prophet he may be read at the Advent and Nativity of +Christ--that we dip promiscuously into the Apocrypha on Saints' +Days--because those books are read "for example of life and +instruction of manners"--and not to establish doctrine, etc., etc. +Somebody has compiled a straight ahead Prayer-book, and I fancy it +will be found very useful--about the same time that we get a royal +road to learning--or that services compiled on the most comprehensive +and comprehensible system by men of the highest and devoutest +intellect for every age, class, sex, and succeeding generations of the +Church of a whole country, can be made at the same time to fit the +case of every ignoramus who won't take the trouble to do more than +lick his thumb and turn over a page!!! If people would but understand +that the shortest way to anything is to get at the first principles!! +When one humbles oneself to learn those, the arrangement of the +Liturgy becomes as beautiful and lovable a piece of machinery as that +of Nature or God's Providence almost! and is just as provocative of +ignorant complaint and sarcasm if one doesn't. + +Oh! Eleanora! What _will_ you say to this sermon!!--My "lastly" +is--teach your bairns the "why" their great-great-great-(very great!) +Grandfathers put all these glorious Prayers together in their present +order--and "when they are old they will not" ... need any modern +wiseacres to help them to get blindfold from the _Venite_ to the +Proper Psalms. + +Adieu, beloved. Post time almost--and another letter to write. I have +had a sort of double quinsy--but am better, thank God. + +Your devoted and prosy, + +JULIANA HORATIA GATTY. + +The Books I have used are _Wheatley on the Common Prayer_, Hook's +_Lives of the Archbishops_, and _Church Dictionary_, and anything I +could get hold of. Get any decent book on the Psalms--compare the two +versions--read the _prefaces_, _rubrics_, etc.--above all. Have you +the Parker Society edition of Edward VI. Prayer-book? + + +To H.K.F.G. + +_Hotel de l'Europe, Anvers._ +September 22, 1865. + + +MY DEAREST D----, + +"Here we are again!" at the Hotel Dr. Harvey recommended. The Captain +of our boat said it was cheaper and better than S. Antoine. You must +excuse a not very lively letter, for I am still so ill from the +voyage. I can't get over it somehow at present, but shall be all right +to-morrow. We enjoyed our day in Hull immensely! you will be amused to +hear. At night we went to the Harvest Thanksgiving service at S. +Mary's. Nice service, capital sermon, and crammed congregation. The +decorations were scarlet geraniums, corn, evergreen, and grapes. The +_Alster_ wasn't to time, but they said she would sail at four, so we +slept on board. We "turned over" an awful night. R. and I wandered +over the ship, and finally settled on the saloon benches. Then, +however, the Captain came, and said he couldn't allow us to sleep +there, so we sat up, for I couldn't breathe in the berth, and at last +I think the Captain saw I really couldn't stand it, and told me to lie +down again. At six we went on deck, and it was awfully jolly going up +the Humber. At eight we got into the sea, and I didn't get my "shore +legs" again till we got into the Scheldt this morning. At about three +this morning I went on deck, and R. and I enjoyed it immensely, +splendidly starlight, and we were just off Flushing, and the lights +looked wonderful with the flat shore and a black windmill. Then the +Captain gave me tea and packed me up in the saloon, and I slept till +six, when T. came out and woke me, and we went "aloft." We were going +down the Scheldt, and R. was in fits of delight because every tree you +see is exactly like the trees in boxes of toys. Not a bit like English +trees. The flat green banks and odd little villages (of which you can +only see the _tops_ of the houses) were charming. + + +To M.S.G. + +_Hotel de l'Europe, Antwerp._ +Sunday, September 24, 1865. + + +MY DEAREST M., + +We are getting on capitally, and enjoying it immensely. I hope T. got +home pretty well. I miss him dreadfully, tell him--especially +to-day--for both Churches and pictures bore R. However, I have only +taken him into one Church to-day, that of S. Jacques, where he really +was pleased to see the tomb of Rubens. I have found the whereabouts of +two other celebrated ones, and shall try to slip off without him. He +is utterly happy when he has got a cigar, "tooling" up and down the +streets, turning in at a cafe, or buying a peach, and doing "schneeze" +with the "Flams." He does a little French now and then with people in +the streets. I got into the Cathedral just in time to see the glorious +Descent from the Cross, and (which I admire less) the Elevation ditto +by Rubens. I must tell you this morning I went to high mass in the +Cathedral. In fact I heard two masses and a _sermon in Flemish_. It +was wonderful. A very intelligent-looking old priest in surplice and +stole, in the huge carved pulpit, preached with the most admirable +dramatic force, in a language that one can _all but_ understand. It is +so like English and German. Every now and then I could catch a word. +If you want to have an idea of the congregation, imagine the _nave_ of +York Minster (the side aisles rather filled up by altars, +etc.)--covered like a swarm of bees, with a congregation with really +rare exceptions of Flemish poor. Flam women, men, and children, and a +great many common soldiers. The women are dressed in white caps, and +all have scarves (just like funeral scarves) of fine ribbed black +silk; and, Flemish prayer-books in hand, they sit listening to the +sermon. Then it comes to an end with some invocation of something, at +which there is a scraping of chairs and everybody goes round to the +Altar. Then organ, fiddles, all sorts of instruments, and a splendid +"company" of singers--the musical Mass began. + + * * * * * + +It is all wonderful, and I feel laying up a store of happiness in +going over it at home. How I wish some of you were here! I know my +letters are very dull, and I am _so_ sorry. But though I have a famous +appetite, and can walk and "sight-see" like anything, I have not got +back my _nerve_. Somehow I can't describe it, but you must excuse my +stupidity. I hope R. is happy. He says he is, and dreads it coming to +an end!!! I am very glad, for I feel a heavy weight on _him_ and _he_ +feels like reposing on a floating soap-bubble! We are as jolly as +possible really, and nothing is left in me, but a rather strained +nervous feeling, which will soon be gone. You would have laughed to +see R. buying snuff to-day, and cigars. He goes in, lays his finger on +the cigars, and says--"Poor wun frank?" To which the woman +replies--"trieze," and he buys six and sneezes violently, on which she +produces snuff, fills his box, and charges a trifle, and he abuses her +roundly in English, with a polite face, to his own great enjoyment. We +mean to make the cash hold out if possible to come home in the +_Alster_. If it runs short, we shall give up Ghent and Bruges--this +place alone is worth coming for. + +Your ever loving sister, J.H.G. + + +To H.K.F.G. + +_Hotel de Vieux, Doellen, The Hague._ +September 27, 1865. + + +DEAREST D----, + +This morning we had a great treat! We took an open carriage and drove +from the Hague to Scheveningen on the coast. All the way you go +through an avenue of elms, which is lovely. It is called "the Wood," +and to the left is Sorgoliet, where the Queen mother lives, and which +was planted, the man says, by Jacob Cats. He lived there. Scheveningen +is a bare-looking shore, all sand, and bordered with sandbanks, or +Dunes. It was _fiercely_ hot, scorching, and not an atom of shade to +be had; but in spite of sun, slipping sandbank-seat, sand-fleas, and a +hornet circling round, I did make a sketch, which I hope to finish at +home. Both Regie and I bathed, and it was _delicious_--an utterly calm +sea, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The bathing machines seem to be a +Government affair. They and the towels are marked with a _stork_, and +you take a ticket and get your gown and towels from a man at a +"bureau" on the sands. I must tell you, this morning when we came +down, we found breakfasting in the _salle-a-manger_ our Dutch friend, +the bulb merchant. We had our breakfast put at his table, and had a +jolly chat. It was so pleasant! Like meeting an old friend. He has +gone, I am sorry to say, but I have made great friends with +Stephanie's father; he cannot speak a word of English, so we can only +talk in such French as I can muster; but he is very pleasant, and his +children are so nice! eight--four boys and four girls. The wife is +Dutch, and I do not think can speak French, so I do not talk to her. +After dinner the _maitre d'hotel_ asked us if we would not go to "the +Wood" (on the road to Scheveningen), and hear the military band--so we +went. I can't describe it. It was like nothing but scenes in a +theatre. Pitch dark in all the avenues, except for little lamps like +tiny tumblers fixed on to the trees, and so [_Sketch_] on to the +Pavilion, which was lighted up by chains of similar lamps like an +illumination--[_Sketch_]--and round which--seated round little green +tables--were gathered, I suppose, about two thousand people. Their +politeness to each other--the perfect good-behaviour, the quiet and +silence during the music, and the buzz and movement when it was over, +were wonderful. The music was very good. R. and I had each a tiny cup +of coffee, and a little brandy and water, for it was very cold!! Now I +have come in, and he has gone back, I think. Stephanie was there, and +lots of children. As I lay awake last night I heard the old watchman +go round. He beats two pieces of wood together and calls the hours of +the night. I saw a funeral too, this morning, and the coachman wears a +hat like this--[_Sketch_]. In the streets we have met men in black +with cocked hats. They are "Ansprekers," who go to announce a man's +death to his friends. The jewellery of the common women is marvellous; +Mr. Krelage (our Dutch friend) says they have sometimes L400 of gold +and jewels upon them!!! A common market woman I saw to-day wore a +plate of gold under her cap of this shape--[_Sketch_]. Then a white +[_Sketch_] lace cap. Then a bonnet highly-trimmed with flowers, and a +white feather and green ribbons; and on her temples filagree gold and +pearl, pins, brooches and earrings; round her neck three gold +chains--one of many little ones together clasped by a gorgeous +clasp--the next supporting a highly-elaborate gold cross--a longer one +still supporting a heart and some other device. She had rings also, +and a short common purple stuff dress which she took up when she sat +down for fear of crushing it; no shawl and a black silk apron!! + +_Thursday._ We have been to the Museum. Below is the "Royal Cabinet" of +curiosities, and above are the pictures. Some of the former were _very_ +interesting. The hat, doublet, etc. in which William the Silent was +murdered--the pistol, two bullets, etc., and a copy of Balthazar +Geraardt's condemnation, and his watch, on which were some beautiful +little paintings. Admiral Ruiter's sabre, armour, chain and medal; +Admiral Tromp's armour; Jacqueline of Bavaria's chair, and locks of her +hair. Also a very curious model--a large baby-house imitating a Dutch +_menage_, intended by Peter the Great as a present to his wife. A +wonderful toy!! R. was quite at home among the "relics." Besides +historical relics, the cabinet contains the most marvellous collection +of Japanese things. It is a most choice collection. There were some such +funny things--a _fiance_ and _fiancee_ of Japan in costume were killing! +and made-up monsters like life-sized mummies of the most hideous demons! +Besides indescribably exquisite workmanship of all sorts. The pictures +are not so charming a collection as those at Antwerp, but there are some +grand ones. Tell Mother--Paul Potter's Bull is too indescribable! His +nose, his hair, and a frog at his feet are wonderful! There is a +portrait by Rubens of his second wife that would have charmed T.; she is +_lovely_, and the picture has that _sunshiny_ beauty he will remember in +"S. Anne teaching the B.V.M." I suspect she was the model for his most +lovable faces. There is a large and wonderful Rembrandt--a splendid +collection of Wouvermans--the most charming Ruisdael I ever saw. Some +beautiful Vandykes--a Van de Velde of Scheveningen, Teniers, Weenix, +Snyders, etc. I do so wish M. could see the pictures, she would enjoy +them so, and get more out of them than I can. The collection is _free_ +to the public, and the utmost good behaviour prevails. After that R. +went into the town, and I sat down to a hurried sketch on the +"Vyfeiberg," a quiet sort of promenade. But gradually the populace +collected, till I was nearly smothered. My veil blew over my face, and I +suddenly felt it seized from behind, and looking round, found that a +young baker in white had laid hold of it, but only to fasten it out of +my way, as he began volubly to explain in Dutch! I couldn't speak, so +remonstrance was impossible, and I let them alone. Soldiers, boys, +women, etc.! I could hear them recognizing the various places. They were +very polite, kept out of my line of sight, and decided that it was +"Photogeraphee" like the people in Rotterdam! When we parted, I bowed to +them and they to me!!! To-morrow we go back to Rotterdam for one night, +the next day to Antwerp. + +_Friday night. Michaelmas Day._ Hotel Pay Bas, Rotterdam.--Back again! +and to-morrow at 8.15 a. m. we go back to dear old Antwerp. For the +solemn fact has made itself apparent, that the money will not hold out +till to-morrow week, as we intended. So we must give up our dear +Captain, and come home in the _Tiger!!_ We shall be with you D.V. on +Saturday week, starting on Wednesday from Antwerp. We have been to the +Poste Restante, and got dear Mother's letter, to my infinite delight. +I am so glad Miss Yonge likes "the Brownies." + +Your ever loving, JUDY + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +_Sevenoaks_. January 12, 1866. + + +MY DEAR, DEAR MOTHER, + +I do humbly beg your pardon for having written such scrappish, +snappish, selfish letters! The tide of comfort has begun to set in +from Ecclesfield to my infinite delight. So far from being vexed at +your being so careful--I earnestly hope you will never be less so. If +you had been, _I_ should have been dead long ago. I have no more doubt +than of my present well-being. And as it is--taking care is so little +in my line--that if _you_ took to _ignoring_ one's delicacy, or +fancying it was fancy--I know I should merely (by instinct) hold out +to the last gasp of existence, and do _what_ I could, _while_ I +could!!... + +I am cheered beyond anything with these critiques on "The Brownies." I +must tell you I have read Aunt Mary the beginning of my new story, and +she likes it very much. It will be longer than "The Brownies." ... I +am writing most conscientiously--it will not be a bit longer than it +should be, but naturally of itself will spread into a good deal. In +fact, it is several stories together--a _Russian_ one among them +("Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances"). + + +TO A.E. + +_Ecclesfield_. May 28, 1866. + + +I send you a song,[33] "which is not very long"--and that is about its +only merit. I am utterly disgusted with it myself for producing +nothing better.... However, here it is, and now I must explain it. + +I have endeavoured to bear in mind three things--simplicity of idea, +few verses, and a musical swing. I have constructed it so that one +child's voice may sing for the Child, another child's voice for the +Bird, and as many children as you please in the Chorus. + +The "Hush! hush! hush!" I thought ought to have a piano effectiveness, +and it is a word children enjoy. + +[Footnote 33: "The Promise": "Verses for Children." Vol. ix. Set to +music by Alexander Ewing.--_Aunt Judy's Magazine_, July 1866.] + + THE PROMISE. + + _Child._ + + Five blue eggs hatching, + With bright eyes watching, + Little brown mother, you sit on your nest. + + _Bird._ + + Oh! pass me blindly, + Oh! spare me kindly, + Pity my terror, and leave me to rest. + + _Chorus of Children._ + + Hush! hush! hush! + 'Tis a poor mother thrush. + When the blue eggs hatch, the brown birds will sing-- + This is a promise made in the spring. + + _Child._ + + Five speckled thrushes, + In leafy bushes, + Singing sweet songs to the hot summer sky. + In and out twitting, + Here and there flitting, + Happy in life as the long days go by. + + _Chorus._ + + Hush! hush! hush! + 'Tis the song of the thrush: + Hatched are the blue eggs, the brown birds do sing-- + Keeping the promise made in the spring. + +If you liked, one voice, or half the party, might sing, "When the blue +eggs hatch," and the other, "The brown birds will sing." Some are +doubtful about the last lines, but the word "promise" had a jubilant +musical rhythm in my head. However, you can alter it; if it has not +the same in yours.... I don't set up for a versifier, and you may do +what you please with this. + +There is a certain class of child's song which is always taught in the +National system by certificated infant school mistresses. They are +semi-theatrical, very pretty, and serve at once as music, discipline, +and amusement. Such as "The Clock," in which they beat the hours, +swing for the pendulum, etc. There are certain actions in these songs +which express listening.... I am very fond of the National system for +teaching children, and it has struck me that this song is a little of +that type.... I am doubly vexed it is so poor, because your next thing +to "Jerusalem the Golden" ought to be very good. If you can, make your +Processional Hymn very grand, and I will do my very best. I have more +hope of that. Would the metre of Longfellow's "Coplas de Manrique" be +good for music? It would be a fine hymn measure.... Don't hamper +yourself about the metre. I will fit the words to the music. + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +_S.S. China._ June 10, 1867. + + +I staggered up yesterday morning to have my first sight of an +iceberg.... The sea was dark-blue, a low line of land (Cape Race) was +visible, and the iceberg stood in the distance dead white, like a lump +of sugar.... I think the first sight of Halifax was one of the +prettiest sights I ever saw. When I first came up there was no +horizon, we were in a sea of mist. Gradually the horizon line +appeared--then a line of low coast--muddy-looking at first--it soon +became marked with lines of dark wood--then the shore dotted with grey +huts--then the sun came out--the breeze got milder--and the air became +strongly redolent of pine-woods. Nearer, the coast became more +defined, though still low, rather bare, and dotted with brushwood, and +grey stones low down, and crowned always with "murmuring pines." As we +came to habitations, which are dotted, and sparkle along the shore, +the effect was what we noticed in Belgium, as if a box of very bright +new toys had been put out to play with, red roofs--even red +houses--cardboard-looking churches--little bright wooden houses--and +stiffish trees mixed everywhere. It looks more like a quaint +watering-place than a city, though there are some fine buildings.... +We took a great fancy to the place, which was like a new child's +picture book, and I was rather disappointed to learn it is not to be +our home. But Fredericton, where we are going, has superior advantages +in some respects, and will very likely be quite as pretty. + + +_Halifax._ June 19, 1867. + + + * * * * * + +Rex and I went down to the fish-market that I might see it. Coming +back we met an old North American Indian woman. Such a picturesque +figure. We talked to her, and Rex gave her something. I do not think +it half so degraded-looking a type as they say. A very broad, queer, +but I think acute and pleasant-looking face. Since I came in I have +made two rather successful sketches of her.[34] She wore an old common +striped shawl, but curiously thrown round her so that it looked like a +chief's blanket, a black cap embroidered with beads, black trousers +stuffed into moccasins, a short black petticoat, and a large +gold-coloured cross on her breast, and a short jacket trimmed with +scarlet, a stick and basket for broken victuals. She said she was +going to catch the train! It sounded like hearing of Plato engaged for +a polka!... + +[Footnote 34: See pages 175, 176.] + +[Illustration: Indian.] + +[Illustration: Indian.] + + + +TO MISS E. LLOYD. + +[_Sketch._] +_Cathedral Church of Fredericton, New Brunswick._ + +August 23, 1867. + + +MY DEAREST OLD ELEANORA, + +I have been a wretch for not having written to you sooner. It seems +strange there should remain any pressure of business or hurry of life +in this place, where workmen look out of the windows of the house (our +house and a fact!); they are repairing nine at a time, and boys swing +their buckets and dawdle to the well for water, as if Time couldn't be +lounged and coaxed off one's hands!! And yet busy I have been, and +every mail has been a scramble. Getting into our house was no joke, +attending sales and shops, buying furniture--ditto, ditto--as to +paying and receiving calls on lovely days with splendid sketching +lights--they have been thorns in the flesh--and, worst of all, regular +colonial experiences of servants--one went off at a day's notice--and +for two or three days we had _nobody_ but Rex's _orderly_, such a +handy, imperturbable soldier, who made beds, cooked the dinner, hung +pictures, and blew the organ with equal urbanity. He didn't know +much--and in the imperfect state of our cuisine had few +appliances--but he affected to be _au fait_ at everything--and what he +had not got, he "annexed" from somewhere else. One of our maids +uniformly set tumblers and wine-glasses with the tea set, and I found +"William" the Never-at-fault cleaning the plate with knife-powder, and +brushing his own clothes with the shoe brush. However, we have got a +very fair maid now, and are comfortable enough. Our house is awfully +jolly, though the workmen are yet about. The drawing-room really is +not bad. It is a good-sized room with a day window--green carpet and +sofa in the recess--window plant shelf--on one long side of the +wall--a writing-table between two book-shelves--and oh! my dear, I +cannot sufficiently say the _pleasure_ as well as _use_ and _comfort_ +all my wedding presents have been to me. You can hardly estimate the +comforting effect of these dear bits of civilization out here, +especially at first when we were less comfortable. But the +_refinements_ of comfort, you know, are not to be got here for love or +money as we get them at home. Your dear book and inkstand and weights +(uncommonly useful at this juncture of new postage), etc., look so +well on my writing-table--on which are also the Longleys' Despatch +Box--Frank Smith's blotting book--my Japanese bronzes, Indian box, +Chinese ditto, Japanese candlestick and Chinese shoes, etc. of +Rex's--our standing photos, table book-stand, etc., etc. You can't +imagine how precious any knick-knacks have become. My mother's +coloured photo that Brownie gave me is propped in the centre--and we +have bought a mahogany bracket for my old Joan of Arc!! We have hired +a good harmonium. Altogether the room really looks pretty with a +fawn-coloured paper and the few water colours up--round table, etc., +etc. Our bedroom has a blue and white paper, is a bright, airy, +two-windowed room, with a _lovely_ eastward view over the river--the +willows--and the pine woods. Our abundant space mocks one's longing to +invite a good many dear old friends to visit one! We have much to be +thankful for--which excellent sentiment brings me to the Cathedral. +It would be a fine, well-appointed Church even in Europe. It stands +lovelily looking over the river, surrounded by maples, etc., etc. (and +to the left a beautiful group of the "feathered elms" of the country). +There is daily Morning Prayer at 7.30, to which we generally go, and +where the Bishop always appears. There is a fair amateur choir, and a +beautiful organ built by a man who died just when he had completed it. +But, my dear, in addition to these privileges, we weekly "sit under" +the most energetic, quaint-looking, and dignified of Bishops--who has +a clear, soft, penetrating voice that rings down the Cathedral in the +Absolution and Benediction, and who preaches such fine, able, +practical, learned, and beautiful sermons--as I really do not think +Oxon, or Vaughan, or any of our great men much excel. This would be +nearly enough, even if one did not know him; but when we dined at +Government House the other night--rather to my surprise, I was sent in +with him, and found him very amusing, and full of funny anecdotes of +the province. Since when we have rapidly become fast friends. He is +very musical, and when he and Rex get nobbling over the piano and +organ--there they stick!! Rex is appointed supplementary organist, and +to-morrow (being their Annual Festival) he is to play. Last night we +had a grand "practice" at the Bishop's, and it felt wonderfully like +home. He has lots of books, and has put them at our disposal--and, to +crown all, has offered to teach us Hebrew if we will teach him German +this winter. His wife is _very_ nice too.... She is a good practical +doctor, kind without measure, and being a great admirer of Mother's +writings, has taken me under her wing--to see that I do nothing +contrary to the genius of the climate! People are wonderfully kind +here. They really keep us in vegetables, and I have a lovely nosegay +on my table at this moment. There is a very pleasant Regiment (22nd) +here, with a lovely band. On my birthday Rex gave me Asa Gray's +_Botany_, a book on botany generally, and on North American plants in +particular. Some of the wild-flowers are lovely. One (Pigeon Berry) +[_sketch_] has a white flower amid largish leaves--thus. It grows +about as large as wild anemone, in similar places and quantities. When +the flower falls the stamens develop into a thick _bunch_ of +_berries_, the size and colour of holly berries, only _brighter_ +brilliant scarlet, and patches of pine wood are covered with them. + +My dear, you _would_ like this place! My best love to all your people. +Isabel's fan could have no more appropriate field for its exhibition +than summer here! Adieu, beloved. (I say nothing about home news. Z.'s +affair bewilders me. I am awfully anxious for news, but it's useless +talking at this distance.) (See Lamb's Essay on Distant Correspondents +in the Elia!!!!!) + +Your ever loving, +J.H. EWING. + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +_Fredericton._ September 21, 1867. + + +MY DEAREST MOTHER, + +The room being rather warm (with a fire!) and having been very busy +all day sketching, etc., etc., and having just done my Hebrew lesson +in a sleepyish sort of manner--I have turned lazy about working at +Mrs. Overtheway to-night, and am going to get on with my letter +instead. Rex is mouthing Hebrew gutturals at my elbow, so don't be +astonished if I introduce the "_yatz_, _yotz_, _yomah_," etc., that +sound in my ears! I must tell you we have actually despatched a small +parcel to Ecclesfield. We crossed early one day by the ferry, and went +to the Indian settlement, where we bought a small and simple basket of +a squaw which she had just made, and which shows their work, and will +hold a few of your odds and ends. We send M. a little card-case of +Indian work, and R. a cigar-case. These two things are worked by Huron +Indians in stained moose hair. The Melicites who are _here_ work in +basket-work and in coloured beads. I got two strips of their coloured +bead-work, and Sarah and I "ran up" two red velvet bags and trimmed +them with these strips for tobacco bags for A. and S. I thought you +would like to see the different kinds of work. The MicMacs work in +stained porcupine, but I have not sent any of their work. They are +only very little things, but they come from _us!_ We have had so much +to do, I have got on very badly with my botanizing, but I have sent +one or two ferns for you. We were late for flowers. Tell S. the +_Impatiens Fulva_ is a wonderful flower. When you touch (almost when +you _shake_ with approaching) the seed vessels, they burst and curl up +like springs, and fling the seed away. I mean to try to preserve seed. +The _Chelone Glabra_ as pressed by me gives no idea of the beautiful +dead-white flower, something like a foxglove only more compact. I have +told you what the parcel contains that you may not expect greater +things than will appear from our little Christmas Box!... + +To-day has been lovely and we have enjoyed it. Rex has been with me +all day, though when I speak of his being with me I speak of his +bodily presence only. In spirit he is with the conjugations Kal, +Highil, etc., etc. He has bought Gesenius' Grammar, and a very fine +one it seems. He lives with Gesenius, and if he doesn't take it to +bed, it is not that he leaves Hebrew in the drawing-room. He undresses +to the tune of the latest exercise, and puts me through the imperfect +and perfect of [Hebrew: khatah] before we get up of mornings! (He has just +discovered that Eden was about the same latitude as Fredericton!) +There is always Morning Prayer and Holy Communion here on Saints' +Days, and to-day being S. Matthew, we went to the 11 service. After +Church we went a little way up the road, and I did a sepia sketch of +"our street," Rex sitting by me and groaning Hebrew. It was gloriously +sunny, and such a lovely sky, and such an exquisitely calm river with +white-sailed boats on it. I have enjoyed it immensely.... + + +_Fredericton._ 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1867. + + * * * * * + +I wonder if I send it by next mail, whether you would have room for a +very short Christmas sort of prose Idyll suggested to me by a scene I +saw when we were hunting for a sketch the other day. If I can jot it +down, I don't suppose it would be more than two or three pages. If I +send it at all it will come by the Halifax mail. It will be called +"The Two Christmas Trees."... + + +TO H.K.F.G. + +September 29, 1867. + + +... I have fallen head over ears in love with another dog. Oh! bless +his nose!... His name is Hector. He is a _white_ pure bull-dog. His +face is more broad and round--and delicious and ferociously +good-natured--and affectionately ogreish--than you can imagine. The +moment I saw him I hugged him and kissed his benevolence bump, and he +didn't even _gowly powl_.... + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +[_Fredericton_, 1867?] + + +... Talking of stories, if I only can get the full facts of his history, +I think I shall send A.J.M. a short paper on a Fredericton Dog. Did I +ever tell you of him? He has the loveliest face I ever saw, I think, _in +any Christian_. He knows us quite well when we go up the High Street +where he lives. When he gets two cents (1_d._) given him, he takes it in +his mouth to the nearest store and buys himself buscuits. I have seen +him do it. If you only give him _one_ cent he is dissatisfied, and tries +to get the second. The Bishop told me he used to come to Church with his +master at one time; he would come and behave very well--TILL the +offertory. Then he rose and _walked after the alms-collectors_, wagging +his tail as the money chinked in, because he wanted his penny for his +biscuits!!! He is a large dog--part St. Bernard, and has magnificent +eyes. But (my _poor_!) they shaved him this summer like a poodle! There +is a bear in the officers' quarters here--he belongs to the regiment. I +have patted him, but he catches at one's clothes. To see him _patting_ +at my skirts with his paw was delicious--but I don't like his _head_, he +looks very sly! + + +January 2, 1868. + + +... Indeed it is hard not to be able to see each other at any moment +and to be "parted" even for a time. But to us all, who all enjoy +everything to be seen and heard, and heard of in new places and among +other people; the fact that I have to lead a traveller's life gives us +certain great pleasures we could not have had if Rex had been a curate +at Worksop (we'll say), and we couldn't even afford a trip to the +Continent! Also if I have any gift for writing it really _ought_ to +improve under circumstances so much more favourable than the narrowing +influence of a small horizon.... I only wish my gift were a little +nearer _real_ genius!! As it is, I do hope to improve gradually; and +as I _do_ work slowly and conscientiously, I may honestly look forward +with satisfaction to the hope of being able to turn a few honest +pennies to help us out: and it _is_ a satisfaction, and a blessing I +am thankful for. I only wish I could please myself better! However, +small writers are wanted as well as big ones, and there is no reason +why donkey-carts shouldn't drive even if there are coaches on the +road!... + + +[_Fredericton_.] February 3, 1868. + + * * * * * * + +I am so infinitely obliged to you for your wisdom _in re_ Reka Dom, +and very thankful for the criticisms, to which I shall attend. I mean +to compress it very much. I will keep the river part, though that is +really the shadow of some of my best writing, I think, in the _Dutch_ +tale describing that scene at Topsham. I wrote a good bit last night, +and was much wishing for the returned MS. But the sight of the proof +will help me more than anything. I lose all judgment of my own work in +MS. I feel as if it must be as laborious to read as it has been to +write. Whereas in print it comes freshly on me, and I can criticize it +more fairly. It will not be very long when all is done, I think, and I +am so anxious to make it good, I hope it will be satisfactory. A +little praise really does help one to work, and I don't think makes +one a bit less conscientious. + +It has been a very jolly mail this time, though the Lexicon has not +come. The Bishop's is getting worn with use, for Rex does his daily +chapter with unfailing regularity, and is murmuring Hebrew at my elbow +at this moment as usual. Mr. James McCombie, the uncle who lives in +Aberdeen, the lawyer, has sent me such a pretty book of photographs of +Aberdeen! with a kind message about my letter to the poor old Mother, +and asking me to write to them. I had asked for a photo of the old +Cathedral graveyard where Rex's parents and brother and sister are +buried, and there is a lovely one of it, but it is a set of views of +Aberdeen, very good photos, and a very pretty book. All Rex's old +haunts. Isn't it nice? + +[_Sketch of Old Machar Cathedral._] + + * * * * * * + + +[_Fredericton._] April 4, 1868. + + +I hoped to have sent you the whole of Reka Dom this mail. But a most +unexpected fall of snow has made the travelling so insecure that it is +considered a risk to wait till Monday, and I must send off what I can +to-day. It is so nearly done that I am not now afraid to send off the +first part (which will be more than you will want for May), and you +may rely on the rest by next mail; and the remainder of Mrs. O. as +rapidly as possible. It has certainly given me a wonderful amount of +bother this time, and I was disappointed in the feeling that Rex did +not think it quite up to my other things. But to-day in reading it +all, and a lot that he had not seen before, I heard him laughing over +it by himself, and he thinks it now one of my best, so I am in great +spirits, and mean to finish it with a flourish if possible. I have cut +and carved and clipped till I lost all sense of what was fit to +remain, and Rex has insisted on a good deal being replaced. + + * * * * * * + + +_Fredericton._ April 17, 1868. + + * * * * * * + +The Squaw has been making the blotting-case, and Peter brought it +to-day, and I am very much pleased with it and hope M. will like it. I +would like to have got an envelope case and a canoe, but they are so +difficult to pack, and it would be so aggravating to have them broken, +so we got a few flat things. The blotting-case and moccasins, and a +cigar-case for F., and a tiny pair of snow-shoes. The blotting-case is +a good specimen, as it is made of the lovely birch bark; and they were +all got direct from Indians we know. A squaw with a sad face of +rather a nigh type called to beg the other day. She could hardly +speak English. She said, "Sister, me no ate to-day;" so I gave her +some bread-and-butter, which she gave at once to the boy with her, and +went away. + +We have had some splendid Auroras lately. They are not _rosy_ here, +but very beautiful otherwise, and very capricious in shape, long grand +tongues of light shooting up into the sky. + + * * * * * + +We are beginning now to talk of "Mayflower expeditions." I think I +shall give one to a few select friends. I had thought of a child's +one, but a nice old school-mistress here gives one for children, and I +think one raid of the united juvenile population on the poor lovely +flowers is enough. The Mayflower is a lovely wax-like ground creeper +with an exquisite perfume. It is the first flower, and is to be found +before the snow has left the woods.... + + +May 12, 1868. + + +... I have a wonderful lot of gardening on my shoulders, for we have +no _gardener_--only get a soldier to work in the kitchen garden--so I +have had to make my plans and arrange my crops for the kitchen garden, +as well as look after my own. We have really two _charming_ bits--a +little, hot, sunny, good soil, vegetable plot--and quite away from +this--by the house, my flower garden. Two round beds and four borders, +with a high fence and two little gates, I have nearly got this tidy. +The last occupant had never used it. It is a _great_ enjoyment to me, +and does me great good, I think, by keeping me out of doors. Rexie has +given me a dear little set of tools--French ones, like children's +toys, but quite enough for me. They form the subject of one of the +little rhymes that Hector and I make together, and that I croon to the +bull-doge to his great satisfaction. + + "The little Missus with the little spade + Two little beds in the little garden has made. + The Bull-doge watches (for he can't work) + How she turns up the earth with her little fork. + Then she takes up the little hoe + And into the weeds doth bravely go, + At last with the smallest of little rakes + Quite smooth and tidy the beds she makes." + +Another that was made in bed on the occasion of one of his _raids_ on +my invalid breakfast was-- + + "'Tis the voice of the Bull-doge, I hear him complain, + 'You have fed me but lately: I must grub again.' + As a pauper for pudding--so he for his meat-- + Gapes his jaws, and there's nothing a Bull-doge can't eat." + +We sing these little songs together--and then I let him look in the +glass, when he gowly powls and barks dreadfully at the rival +_doge_.... + + +TO H.K.F.G. + +May 18, 1868. + + +... I am awfully busy with my garden, and people are very kind in +giving me things. To-morrow we go to the Rowans, and I am to ransack +_his_ garden! I do think the exchange of herbaceous perennials is one +of the joys of life. You can hardly think how delicious it feels to +_garden_ after six months of frost and snow. Imagine my feelings when +Mrs. Medley found a bed of seedling bee larkspurs in her garden, and +gave me at least two dozen!!! I have got a whole row of them along a +border, next to which I _think_ I shall have mignonette and scarlet +geraniums alternately. It is rather odd after writing Reka Dom, that I +should fall heir to a garden in which almost the only "fixture" is a +south border of lilies of the valley!... + + +TO MISS E. LLOYD. + +_Fredericton, N.B._ June 2, 1868. + + +MY DEAREST ELEANOR-- + + * * * * * + +I can hardly tell you what a pleasure it is to me to have a garden. +The place has never felt so like a home before! I went into my little +flower garden (a separate plat from the other--fenced round, and +simply composed of two round beds, and four wooden-edged borders and +one elm tree) [_sketch_] early this morning, and it seemed so jolly +after the long winter. My jonquils are just coming out, and one or two +other things. In the elm tree two bright yellow birds were cheeping. I +mean to plant scarlet-runners to attract the humming birds. It is +something to see fireflies and humming birds in the flesh, one must +admit! + + * * * * * + +I cannot echo your severe remarks on the Queen, though I am _quite_ +willing to second your praise of the Prince Consort. Her Most Gracious +Majesty is--excuse me--a subject I feel rather strongly about. We are +not--as an age--guilty of much weakness in the way of over loyalty to +anything or any person, and I cannot help at times thinking that it must +be a painful enough reflection to a woman like Queen Victoria, who at +any rate is as well read in the history and constitution of England as +most of us, to know what harvests of love and loyalty have been reaped +by Princes who lived for themselves and not for their people, who were +fortunate in the accidents of more power and less conscience, and of +living in times when you couldn't get your sovereign's portrait for a +penny, or suggest to the loyal and well-behaved Commons that if the +King's health was not equal to all that you thought fit, you would +rather he abdicated. When one thinks of all that noble hearts bled and +suffered and held their peace for--to prop up the throne of Stuart--of +all the vices that have been forgiven, the weaknesses that have been +covered, the injustice that has been endured from Kings--when one +thinks--if _she_ thinks!--of all that has been suffered from successive +mistresses and favourites of royalty a thousand times more easily than +she can be forgiven for (grant it!) a weak and selfish grief for a noble +husband--it is enough to make one wonder if nations are not like +dogs--better for beating. If the Queen could cut off a few more heads, +and subscribed to a few less charities, if she were a little less +virtuous, and a little more tyrannical, if she borrowed her subjects' +plate and repudiated her debts, instead of reducing her household +expenses, and regulating court mournings by the interests of trade, I am +very much afraid we should be a more loyal people! If we had a +slender-limbed Stuart who insisted upon travelling with his temporary +favourite when the lives and livelihoods of the best blood of Britain +were being staked for his throne whilst he amused himself, I suppose we +should wear white favours, and believe in the divine right of Kings. It +must be impossible for her to forget that the Prince, whom death has +proved to be worthy of the praise most people now accord him, was far +from popular in his lifetime, and the pet gibe and sport of _Punch_. I +suppose when she is dead or abdicated we shall discover that England has +had few better sovereigns--and one can only hope that the reflection may +not be additionally stimulated by the recurrence of her successor to +some of the more popular--if not beneficial--peculiarities of former +reigns. It is true that then we might kick royalty overboard altogether, +but, judging by the United States, I don't know that we should benefit +even on the points where one might most expect to do so. In truth, I +believe that the virtue of loyalty is extinct and must be--except under +one or two conditions. Either more royal prerogative than we have--or in +the substitution of a loyal affection that shall in each member of the +commonwealth cover and be silent over the weak points which the +publicity of the present day exposes to vulgar criticism--for the spirit +which used to give the blood and possessions which are not exacted of +us. This is why the Queen's books do not trouble _my_ feelings about +her. She is no great writer certainly, and has perhaps made a mistake in +thinking that they would do good. I think they will do good with a +certain class, perhaps they lower her in the eyes of others. I do think +myself that the virtues she (and even her books incidentally) display +are so great, and her weaknesses comparatively so small, that one's +loyalty must be little indeed if one cannot honour her. "Them's my +sentiments." I am ashamed to have bored you with them at such length. + +I wonder whether you thought of us yesterday? But I know you did! We +had planned a Johnny Gilpin out for the day, but it proved impossible. +So we spent it thus--A.M. Full Cathedral Service with the Holy +Communion, which was very nice, though, as it was a Feast Day, the +service was later than usual, so it took all our morning. Rex played +the organ. We spent most of the afternoon in tuning the organ, and +then R. went off to mesmerize a man for neuralgia, and I went up town +to try and get something good for dinner! + +I am very happy, though at times one _longs_ to see certain faces. But +GOD is very good, and I have all that I can desire almost. + +The Spring flowers are very lovely, some of them. I must go out. +Adieu. + +_Best_ love to your Mother and all, to Lucy especially. + +Your ever affectionate, J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +_Fredericton._ June 8, 1868. + + +MY DEAREST MOTHER, + +Does the above sketch give you the faintest idea of what it is to +paddle up and down these lovely rivers with their smaller tributaries +and winding creeks, on a still sunny afternoon? It really is the most +fascinating amusement we have tried yet. Mr. Bliss took us out the +other day, it being the first time either of us was in a canoe, and +Rex took one of the paddles, and got on so well that we intend to have +a canoe of our own. Peter Poultice is building it, and I hope soon to +send you a sketch of Rex paddling his own canoe! Of us, I may say, for +I tried a paddle to-day, and mean to have a little one of my own to +give _my_ valuable assistance in helping the canoe along. Next month +when Rex can get away we think of going up the river to "Grand Falls" +(the next thing to Niagara, they say) by steamer, taking our canoe +with us, and then paddling ourselves home with the stream. About +eighty miles. Of course we should do it bit by bit, sleeping at +stopping-places. One art Rex has not yet acquired, and it _looks_ +awful! A sort of juggler's trick, that of _carrying_ his canoe. +Imagine taking hold of the side of a canoe that would hold six people, +throwing it up and overturning it neatly on your head, without +injuring either your own skull or the canoe's bottom.... This canoeing +is really a source of great pleasure to us, and will more thaw double +the enjoyment of summer to me. With a canoe Rex can "pull" me to a +hundred places where a short walk from the shore will give me +sketching, botanizing, and all I want! Moreover, the summer heat at +times oppresses my head, and then to get on the water gives a cool +breeze, and _freshens one up_ in a way that made me think of what it +must be to people in India to get to "the hills." I have never wished +for some of you more than on this lovely river, gliding about close to +the water (you sit on the very bottom of the canoe), all the trees +just bursting into green, and the water reflecting everything +exquisitely. Kingfishers and all kinds of birds flitting about and +singing unfamiliar songs; bob-o-links going "twit-twit," little yellow +birds, kingbirds, crows, and the robin-thrushes everywhere. I landed +to-day at one place, and went into a wood to try and get flowers. I +only got one good one, but it was very lovely! Two crows were making +wild cries for the loss of one of their young ones which some boys had +taken, and as I went on I heard the queer chirrup (like a bird's note) +of Adjidaumo the squirrel! and he ran across my path and into a hollow +tree. It is a much smaller squirrel than ours, about the size of a +water rat, and beautifully striped. + +The only drawback to the paddling is that the beloved Hector cannot go +with us. He would endanger the safety of the canoe. One has to sit +very still.... + + +June 16, 1868. + + +MY DEAREST MOTHER, + +We sent off the first part of "Kerguelen's Land" yesterday.... Rex is +so much pleased with the story that _I_ am quite in spirits about it, +and hope you may think as favourably. He thinks if you read the end +bit before you get the rest you will never like it, and yet I am very +anxious to take the chance of the first part's having gone, as I want +a proof--so if you do not get the first part, please put this by till +you do, and don't read it. + +Would it be possible for Wolf to illustrate it? If he knows the +breeding islands of the Albatross he would make a lovely thing of it. +This is the last _story_. There will only be a _conclusion_ now. I +have got my "information" from Rex, and "Homes without Hands."--The +only point I am in doubt about is whether the parent birds would have +remained on the island so _long_--I mean for _months_. Do you know any +naturalist who would tell you this? When they are not breeding they +seem to have no home, as they follow ships for weeks. + +How we miss Dr. Harvey, and his _fidus Achates_--poor old Dr. +Fisher!--I so often want things "looked up"--and we do lack books +here!... + + +_Fredericton_. November 3, 1868. + + +... I _must_ tell you what Mrs. Medley said to me this evening as we +came out of church. She said, "It is an odd place to begin in about +it, but I must thank you for the end of Mrs. Overtheway. The pathos of +those old Albatrosses! The Bishop and I cried over them. I suppose +it's the highest compliment we can pay you to say it is equal to +anything of your Mother's, and that you are a worthy daughter of your +Mother." Wasn't that a splendid bit of praise to hear all these miles +away from one's dear old wonderful old Mother?... + + +To H.K.F.G. + +_Fredericton N.B._ +Tuesday, December 8, 1868. + + +... Tell the dear Mother, please, that I got dissatisfied with my +story, and _recast it_ and began again--and got on awfully well, and +was very well satisfied with it. But Rex read what was done and +doesn't care for it a bit--in fact quite the reverse, which has rather +upset my hopes. However, he says he cannot properly judge till it is +finished, so I am going to finish it off, and if he likes it better +then, I shall send it next mail. It is a regular child's story--about +Toys--not at all sentimental--in fact meant to be amusing; but as Rex +read it with a face for a funeral, I don't know how it will be. I +don't somehow think the idea is bad. It is (roughly) this: A pickle of +a boy with a very long-suffering sister (I hope you won't object to +her being called Dot. You know it's a very common pet name, and it +"shooted" so well) gets all her toys and his own and makes an +"earthquake of Lisbon" in which they are all smashed. From which a +friend tells them the story of a dream she is supposed to have had +(but I flattered myself the dream was rather neatly done up) of +getting into fairyland to the Land of Lost Toys--where she meets all +her old toys that she destroyed in her youth. Here she is shown in a +kind of vision Dutch and German people making these toys with much +pains and industry, and is given a lot of material and set to do the +like. Failing this she is condemned to suffer what she inflicted on +the toys, each one passing its verdict upon her. Eventually a doll +(MY Rosa!!!!) that she had treated very well rescues her, and +the story reverts to the sister and brother, who takes to amusing +himself by establishing himself as toy-mender to the establishment, +instead of cultivating his bump of destructiveness. I sketch the idea +because (if the present story fails) if you think the _idea_ good I +would try to recast it again. If I send it as it is, it is pretty sure +to come by the Halifax mail next week.... I do miss poor dear old Dr. +Fisher, so! I very much wanted some statistics about toy-making. You +never read anything about the making of common Dutch toys did you?... + +_Fredericton_, December 8, 1868. + + * * * * * + +Tell Mother I think she ought to get _Henry_ Kingsley to write for +_Aunt Judy's Magazine_. The _children_ and the _dogs_ in his novels +are the best part of them. They are utterly first rate! I am sure he +would make a hit with a child and dog story. + +I told you that Bishop Ewing had written me such a charming letter, +and sent me a sermon of his? This mail he sent us a number of the +_Scottish Witness_ with "Jerusalem the Golden" in Gaelic in it.... + + +To MRS. GATTY. + +_Fredericton, N.B._ + +Easter Monday, 1869, + + * * * * * + +You are very dear and good about our ups and downs, and it makes me +doubly regret that I cannot reward you by conveying a perfectly +truthful _impression_ of our life, etc. here to your mind, I trace in +your very dearness and goodness about it, in your worrying more about +discomfort for me in our moves than about your own hopes of our +meeting at Home, how little able one is to do so by mere letters, I +wish it did not lead you to the unwarrantable conclusion that it is +because you are "weak and old" that you do not appreciate the +uncertainties of our military housekeeping, and can only "admire" the +coolness with which I look forward to breaking up our cosy little +establishment, just when we were fairly settled down. You can hardly +believe how well I understand your feelings for me, _because I have so +fully gone through them for myself_. I never had D.'s "spirit" for a +wandering life, and it is out of the fulness of my experience that I +_know_ and wish unspeakably that I could convey to you, how very much +of one's shrinking dread has all the _unreality_ of fear of an +_unknown_ evil. When I look back to all I looked forward to with fear +and trembling in reference to all the strangenesses of my new life, I +understand your feelings better than you think. I am too much your +daughter not to be strongly tempted to "beat my future brow," much +more so than to be over-hopeful. Rex is given that way too in his own +line; and we often are brought to say together how inexcusable it is +when everything turns out so much better than we expected, and when +"God" not only "chains the dog till night," but often never lets him +loose at all! Still the natural terrors of an untravelled and not +herculean woman about the ups and downs of a wandering, homeless sort +of life like ours are not so comprehensible by him, he having +travelled so much, never felt a qualm of sea-sickness, and less than +the average of home-sickness, from circumstances. It is one among my +many reasons for wishing to come Home soon, that one chat would put +you in possession of more idea of our passing home, the nest we have +built for a season, and the wood it is built in, and the birds (of +many feathers) amongst whom we live, than any _letters_ can do.... You +can imagine the state of (far from blissful) ignorance of military +life, tropical heat, Canadian inns, etc., etc., in which I landed at +Halifax after such a sudden wrench from the old Home, and such a very +far from cheerful voyage, and all the anecdotes of the summer heat, +the winter cold, the spring floods, the houses and the want of houses, +the servants and the want of servants, the impossibility of getting +anything, and the ruinous expense of it when got! which people pour +into the ears of a new-comer just because it is a more sensational and +entertaining (and _quite_ as stereotyped) a subject of conversation as +the weather and the crops. The points may be (isolatedly) true; but +the whole impression one receives is alarmingly false! And I can only +say that my experience is so totally different from my fears, and from +the cook-stories of the "profession," that I don't mean to request Rex +to leave Our Department at present!... + + +TO MRS. GATTY, + +_Fredericton._ Septuagesima, 1869. + + +... I am sending you two fairy stories for your editorial +consideration. They are not intended to form part of "The Brownies" +book--they are an experiment on my part, and _I do not mean to put my +name to them_. + +You know how fond I have always been of fairy tales of the Grimm type. +Modern fairy tales always seem to me such _very_ poor things by +comparison, and I have two or three theories about the reason of this. +In old days when I used to tell stories to the others, I used to have +to produce them in considerable numbers and without much preparation, +and as that argues a _certain_ amount of imagination, I have +determined to try if I can write a few fairy tales of the genuine +"uninstructive" type by following out my theories in reference to the +old traditional ones. Please _don't_ let out who writes them (if you +put them in, and if any one cares to inquire!), for I am very anxious +to hear if they elicit any comments from your correspondents to +confirm me in my views. In one sense you must not expect them to be +original. _My aim is_ to imitate the "old originals," and I mean to +stick close to orthodox traditions in reference to the proceedings of +elves, dwarfs, nixes, pixies, etc., and if I want them to use such +"common properties of the fairy stage"--as unscrupulous foxes, stupid +giants, successful younger sons, and the traditional "fool"--with much +wisdom under his folly (such as Hans in Luck)--who suggests the court +fools with their odd mixture of folly and shrewdness. _One_ of my +theories is that all real fairy tales (of course I do not allude to +stories of a totally different character in which fairy machinery is +used, as your Fairy Godmothers, my "Brownies," etc., etc.), that all +real "fairy tales" should be written as if they were oral traditions +taken down from the lips of a "story teller." This is where modern +ones (and modern editions of Grimm, _vide_ "Grimm's Goblins," +otherwise a delicious book) fail, and the extent to which I have had +to cut out reflections, abandon epithets, and shorten sentences, since +I began, very much confirms my ideas. I think the Spanish ones in +_Aunt Judy's Magazine_ must have been so obtained, and the contrast +between them and the "Lost Legends" in this respect is marked. There +are plenty of children who can appreciate "The Rose and the Ring," +"The Water Babies," your books, and the most poetical and suggestive +dreams of Andersen. But (if it can be done) I think there is also a +strong demand for new combinations of the Step-mother, the Fox, the +Luck Child, and the Kings, Princesses, Giants, Witches, etc. of the +old traditions. I say combinations advisedly, for I suppose _not_ half +of Grimm's Household Stories have "original" plots. They are palpable +"_rechauffees_" of each other, and the few original germs might, I +suspect, be counted on one's fingers, even in fairy-lore, and then +traced back to a very different origin. Of course the market is +abundantly stocked with modern versions, but I don't think they are +done the right way. This is, however, for the Editorial ear, and to +gain your unbiased criticism. But, above all, don't tell any friends +that they are mine for the present. Of course if they DID +succeed, I would republish and add my name. But I want to be incognito +for the present--1st, to get free criticism; 2nd, to give them fair +play; 3rd, not to do any damage to my reputation in another "walk" of +story-writing. I do not in the least mean to give up my own style and +take to fairy tale-telling, but I would like to try this +experiment.... + + +Monday, April 19, 1869. + + +... I have two or three _schemes_ in my head. + +"Mrs. Overtheway" (_2nd series_), "Fatima's Flowers," etc. + +"The Brownies (and other Tales)." + +"Land of Lost Toys," "Three Christmas Trees," "Idyll," etc. + +"Boneless," "Second Childhood," etc., etc. + +"The Other Side of the World," etc., etc. + +"Goods and Chattels" (quite vague as yet). + +"A Sack of Fairy Tales" (in abeyance). + +"A Book of _weird queer_ Stories" (none written yet). + +"Bottles in the Sea," "Witches in Eggshells," "Elephants in +Abyssinia," etc. + +And (a dear project) a book of stories, chiefly about Flowers and +Natural History associations (_not scientific, pure fiction_), + +"The Floating Gardens of Ancient Mexico," the "Dutch Story," +"Immortelles," "Mummy Peas," etc., etc. (none even planned yet!)... + + +To H.K.F.G. + +[Undated, _Fredericton_.] + + +... How well I know what you say about the truth of Mother's sayings +of the soothing effects of Nature! I used to feel it about gardening +also so much. Visions of three yellow, three white, and three purple +crocuses blooming in one pot beguile the mind from less happy +fancies--perhaps too the _largeness_ and _universality_ of Nature +disperse the selfishness of personal cares and worries. Then I think +the smell of _earth_ and _plants_ has a physical anodyne about it +somehow! One cannot explain it.... + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +_Fredericton, N.B._ +5th Sunday after Trinity, 1869. + + +... We have another "dogue."... _Trouve_ is the name of Hector's +successor. 'Cos for why, we found him locked up in one of the barrack +rooms, when I was with Rex on one of his inspections. He is a "left +behind" either of the 1st Battalion 22nd, or the 4th Battalion 60th +Rifles, we do not know which. He has utterly taken to us, and is +especially fond of me I think. He is a big, black fellow, between a +Newfoundland and a retriever. In the "Sweep" line, but not so big. He +is wonderfully graceful and well-mannered (barring a trifling incident +yesterday, when he got into my little cupboard, ate about two pounds +of cheese and all the rolls, and _snuffed_ the butter). And another +trifling occurrence to-day. We chained him to the sofa, which, during +our absence, he _dragged_ (exactly as the dogs dragged _Mons. Jabot's +bed_) across the room, upset the ink on to the carpet, threw my +photo-book down by it, and established himself in Rex's arm-chair. It +was most ludicrous, for the other day he slipped his collar, and +_chose the sofa_ to lie on, but because he was tied to the sofa, with +full permission to use it, he chose the chair! and must nearly have +lugged his own head off. He does wonderfully little damage with his +pranks; there were wine-glasses, bottles, pickles, &c., in the +cupboard when he got the cheese; but he extracted his supper as +daintily as a cat, and not a thing was upset! Oddly enough, when we +are with him, he never thinks of getting into cushions and chairs like +that blessed old sybarite the Bull-dogue. But if we leave him tied up, +he plays old gooseberry with the furniture. I had been fearing it +would be rather a practical difficulty in the way of his adoption, the +question of where he should sleep; but he solved it for himself. He +walks up-stairs after us, flops on to the floor, gives two or three +sighs, and goes gracefully to sleep.... I wish you could have seen him +lying in perverse dignity in the arm-chair, with the sofa attached to +the end of his chain like a locket!!! + + +To H.K.F.G. + +12th Sunday after Trinity. +_Fredericton, N.B._ August 16, 1869. + + +... We had a great scene with Peter yesterday. Rex has two guns, you +must know--a rifle, and an old fowling-piece--good enough in its way, +but awfully _old-fashioned_ (not a breech-loader), and he determined +to make old Peter a present of this, for he is a good old fellow, and +does not _cheat_ one, and we had resolved to give him something, and +we knew this would delight him. I wish you _could_ have seen him. He +burst out laughing, and laughed at intervals from pure pleasure, and +went away with it laughing. But with the childlike _enjoyment_ (which +negroes have also), the Indians have a power and grace in "expressing +their sentiments" on such an occasion which far exceeds the attempts +of our "poor people," and is most dignified. His first _speech_ was +an emphatic (and _always slow_) "_Too_ good! Too much!" and when Rex +assured him it was very old, not worth anything, etc., etc., he +hastily interrupted him with a _thoroughly_ gentlemanlike air, almost +Grandisonian, "Oh! oh! as good as new to me. Quite as good as new." +They were like two Easterns! For not to be outdone in courtesy, Rex +warned him not to put too large charges of powder for fear the barrel +should burst--being so old. A caution which I believe to be totally +unnecessary, and a mere hyperbole of depreciation--as Peter seemed +perfectly to understand! He told me it was "The first present I ever +receive from a gentleman. Well--well--I never forget it, the longest +day I live." The graceful candour with which he said, "I am very +thankful to you," was quite pretty. + + +TO MRS. GATTY. + +[_Aldershot._] February 23, 1870. + + +MY DARLING MOTHER, + +I was by no means sensible of your iniquities in not acknowledging my +poor Neck,[35] for I had entirely forgotten his very existence! Only I +was thinking it was a long time since I heard from you--and hoping you +were not ill. I am _very_ glad you like the Legend--I was doubtful, and +rather anxious to hear till I forgot all about it. The "Necks" are +Scandinavian in locality, and that desire for immortal life which is +their distinguishing characteristic is very touching. There is one +lovely little (real) Legend in Keightley. The bairns of a Pastor play +with a Neck one day, and falling into disputes they taunt him that he +will never be saved--on which he flings away his harp and weeps +bitterly. When the boys tell their father he reproves them for their +want of charity, and sends them back to unsay what they had said. So +they run back and say, "Dear Neck, do not grieve so; for our father says +that your Redeemer liveth also," on which the Neck was filled with joy, +and sat on a wave and played till the sun went down. He appeared like a +boy with long fair hair and a red cap. They also appear in the form of a +little old man wringing out his beard into the water. I ventured to give +my Neck both shapes according to his age. All the rest is _de +moi-meme_.... + +[Footnote 35: The Neck in "Old-fashioned Fairy Tales."] + + +[_Aldershot._] March 22, 1870. + + +MY DARLING MOTHER, + +I am so very much pleased that you think better of Benjy[36] now. As I +have plenty of time, I mean to go through it, and soften Benjy down a +bit. He is an awful boy, and I think I can make him less repulsive. +The fact is the story was written _in fragments_, and I was anxious to +show that it was not a little boyish roughness that I meant to make a +fuss and "point a moral" about--nor did I want to go into fine-drawn +questions about the cruelties of sport, and when I came to join the +bits into a whole and copy out, I found I had overproved my point and +made Benjy a _fearful_ brute. But there _are_ some hideously cruel +boys, and I do think a certain devilish type of cruelty is generally +combined with a certain _lowness_ and _meanness_ of general +style--even in born gentlemen--and though quite curable, I would like +to hear what the boys think of it, if it would not bore them to read +it. But I certainly shall soften Benjy down--and will attend to all +your hints--and put in the "Mare's Nest" (many thanks!). Tell D. I do +not know how I could alter about Rough--unless I take out his death +altogether--but beg her to observe that he was not the least neglected +as to food, etc.; what he died of was joy after his anxiety.... + +[Footnote 36: Included in "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," vol. +vii.] + + +[_Aldershot._] May Day, 1870. + + +... I have got some work into my head which has been long seething +there, and will, I think, begin to take shape. It is about +_flowers_--the ancestry of flowers; whether the flowers will tell +their own family records, or what the _plot_ will be I have not yet +planned, and it will take me some time to collect my data, but the +family histories of flowers which came originally from old Mexico in +the days of Montezuma, and the floating gardens, and the warriors who +wore nosegays, and the Indians who paddled the floating gardens on +which they lived up the waters of that gorgeous city with early +vegetables for the chiefs--would be rather weird! And then the strange +fashions and universal prevalence of Japanese gardening. The wistaria +rioting in the hedges, and the great lilies wild over the hills. Ditto +the camellias. With all the queer little thatched Japanese huts that +always have lumps of _iris_ on the top, which the Japanese ladies use +for bandoline. Then the cacti would have queer legends of South +America, where the goats climb the steep rocks and dig them up with +their horns and roll them down into the valley, and kick and play with +them till the _spines_ get rubbed off, and then devour them at +leisure. I give you these instances in case anything notable about +flowers comes in your way, "when found to make a note of" for me.... + + +TO MRS. ELDER. + +_Ecclesfield_, October 25, 1871. + + +MY DEAREST AUNT HORATIA, + +Your letter _was_ shown to me, and I cannot tell you how much obliged +to you I am for the prospect of the gold thimble, _a thing I have +always wished to possess_. + +I--(if it fits!!! But, as I told Charlie, if it is too big I _can_ +wrap a sly bit of rag round my finger, but if it's too small, unless I +cut the tip, as Cinderella's sisters cut their heels, I don't know how +I can secure it!) shall additionally value it as a testimony of your +approval of my dear old Hermit[37], for that is one of my greatest +favourites amongst my efforts. Miss Yonge prefers it, I believe, to +anything I have ever done, and Rex nearly so.... + +Your loving niece, J.H.E. + +[Footnote 37: "The Blind Hermit and the Trinity Flower," vol. xvi.] + + +TO C.T. GATTY. + +_Aldershot_. Holy Innocents, 1871, + + +... I had the very latest widow here for two days "charring." She is +the lady alluded to by Rex when he told Stephen that she had been +weighed, and was found wanting. In justice to her physique, I must say +that this was not according to avoirdupois measure!! but figurative. +She whipped about as nimbly as an elephant. She was rather given to +panting and groaning. You can fancy her. [_Sketch_.] "Mrs. Hewin, +ma'am, _don't_ soil your 'ands! _Let_ me! As I says to the parties at +the 'Imperial' at Folkstone, ladies thinks an elderly person can't get +through their work, but they can do a deal more than the young ones +that has to be told every--Using the table-cloth to wipe the dishes am +I? Tst, tst! so I ham! M'm! Hemma! where's your kitchen cloths? I +don't know where things his yet, Mrs. Hewin. But I've 'ad a 'Ome of my +own, Mrs. Hewin, and been use to take care of things"--("Take care, +Mrs. Plumridge")--"Well now! 'owever did _that_ slip through my +fingers now? Tst! tst! tst! There must have been a bit of butter on +the hunder side I think. Eh! deary dear! Ah--! Oh--!" Pause--Solo +recitative--"Eh, dear! If my poor 'usband was but alive, I shouldn't +be wanting now! I Ope I give you satisfaction, Mrs. Hewin. If I'm +poor, I'm honest. I ope I give satisfaction in hevery way, Mrs. Hewin, +Your property is safe in _my_ 'ands, Mrs. Hewin! What do you think of +my papers, Mrs. Hewin? One lady as see them said she didn't know what +more _hany_ one could require." (Said papers chiefly consisting of +baptism registers of the little Plumridges. Marriage lines of Mrs. P., +and forms in reference to the late Mr. P., a pensioner.) + + +SEQUEL. + +"Emma, where's the water-can?" + +"Please 'm, Mrs. Plumberridge, she left it outside of the door +yesterday, and some one's took it." + +There is yet a later widow, but I do _not_ think of taking her into +the house. The Widow Bone has taken to _boning_ her daughter's +clothes, so _she_ is forbidden the house.... + + +To A.E. + +_Brighton_. April 17, 1872. + + +... I got here all right, and wonderfully little tired, though the +train shook a good deal the latter part of the way. + +Oh! the FLOWERS! The cowslips, the purple orchids, the kingcups, the +primroses! And the grey, drifting cumuli with gaps of blue, and the +cinnamon and purple woods, broken with yellowish poplars and pale +willows, with red farms, and yellow gorse lighted up by the sun!!! The +oaks just beginning to break out in yellowish tufts, [_Sketch._] I +can't tell you what lovely sketches I passed between Aldershot and +Redhill! + +On to Brighton I took charge of a small boy being sent by a fond +mother to school. When I mention that he was nine years old,--and +informed me--that he had got "a jolly book," which proved to be _A +School for Fathers_, that his own school wasn't _much of a one_, and +he was going to leave, and ate hard-boiled eggs and crystallized +oranges by the way--you will see how this generation waxes apace!! + + +_Ecclesfield_. May 27, 1872. + + +... The weather is very nice now. I stayed till the end of the Litany +in church yesterday, and then slipped out by the organ door and sat +with Mother. I sat on the Boy's school side of the chancel, where a +little lad near me was singing _alto_ (not a "second" of thirds!) +strong and steady as a thrush in a hedge!! The music went very well. + +The country looks lovely, _but for the smoke_. If it had but our blue +distance it would be grand. But the + + "wreathed smoke afar + That o'er the town like mist upraised + Hung, hiding sun and star," + +gets worse every year! And when I think of our lovely blue and grey +folds of distance, and bright skies, and tints, I feel quite +_Ruskinish_ towards mills and manufactories. + + +TO C.T. GATTY. + +_X Lines, South Camp, Aldershot._ +August 10, 1873. + + +MY VERY DEAR OLD CHARLIE, + +Don't you suppose your sister is forgetting you. Two causes have +delayed your drawings. + +1. I have been working--oh _so_ hard! It was because Mr. Bell +announced that he wanted a "volume," and that for the Xmas Market one +must begin at once in July! + +Such is competition! + +He had an idea that something which had not appeared in any magazine +would be more successful than reprints. _So_ I have written "Lob +Lie-by-the-Fire, or the Luck of Lingborough," and you will recognize +your _Cockie_ in it! I have taken no end of pains with it, and it has +been a matter of seven or eight hours a day lately. I mean the last +few days. Rather too much. It knocked me off my sleep, and reduced "my +poor back" to the consistency of pith. But I am picking up, partly by +such gross material aid as _bottled stout_ affords! and any amount of +fresh air blowing in full draughts over my bed at night!! + +2. I _have_ been at work for you, but I get so horribly dissatisfied +with my things. No; I must do some real steady _work_ at it. One can't +jump with a little "nice feeling" and plenty of theories into what can +give any lasting pleasure to oneself or any one else. I will send you +shortly (I hope) a copy of one of Sir Hope Grant's Chinnerys, and +perhaps a wee thing of Ecclesfield. The worst of drawing is, it wants +mind as well as hands. One can't go at it _jaded_ from head work, as +one could "sew a long white seam" or any mechanical thing!... + +When D---- was with me, we went to a _fete_ in the North Camp Gardens, +and I was talking to Lady Grant about the Chinnerys, and the "happy +thought" struck her to introduce me to a Mr. Walkinshaw. They live +somewhere in this country, and Mrs. Walkinshaw came up afterwards to +ask if she might call on me, as they have a Chinnery collection +(gathered in China), and Mr. Walkinshaw would show them to me!... I +mean to collect all possible information on the subject, and either to +write myself, or _prime you_ to write an article on him some day! + + +TO C.T. GATTY. + +_X Lines._ August 20, 1873. + + +DEAR OLD BOY, + +... I enjoyed your letter very much, and am so glad you keep "office +hours." It is very good of you not to be angry with my good advice! +"Experientia does it," as Mr. 'Aughton would say.... _I_ break down +about once in three months like clockwork--from sheer overwork. I +certainly am never happy idle; but I have too often to sit in sackcloth +in the depths of my heart--whilst everybody is beseeching me to be +"idle"--from a consciousness that, not from doing nothing, but by doing +B when I should have done A, and C when I should have done B, a kind of +indolence at the critical moment, I have _wasted_ my strength and time, +not MERELY overworked myself. Also that on _many_ things--drawing, +languages, etc.--I have spent in my life a great deal of labour with +little result, because it has not been consecutive and methodical. One +would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping-stones. I +_may_ say too that I have an excuse which, thank GOD, you can't plead +now--ill-health. It is not always easy, even for oneself, to judge when +languor at the precise instant of recurring duty is spine-ache from +brain work, and the sofa is the remedy,--or when it is what (in +reference to an unpublished--indeed unwritten--story on this head) I +call Boneless on the spine! MY back is apt to ache in any case!... I am +trying to teach myself that if one _has_ been working, one has not +necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste +strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time! + +Curious that _you_ and D---- should both have quoted that saying of J.H. +Newman to me in one week! I also will adopt it! Indeed "bit by bit" is +the only way _I_ feel equal to improve in _anything_, and I do think it +is GOD's way of teaching and leading us all as a rule, and it is the +principle on the face of all His creation--_Gradual_ growth. The art of +being happy was never difficult to me. I think I am permitted an unusual +_intensity_ of joy in common cheap pleasures and natural beauties--fresh +air, colour, etc., etc., to compensate for some ill-health and +deprivations. + +Herewith comes my "Portrait by Spoker," and a copy of a Chinnery. The +first-fruits of "regular" work at drawing an hour a day!!! + +Farewell, Beloved.... Ever your very loving old sister, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + +TO A.E. + +_Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield_. +Sunday, Oct. 5, 1873. + + +... It is all over. She _is_ with your Father and Mother, and the dear +Bishop, and my two brothers, and many an old friend who has "gone +before." Had she been merely a friend she is one of those whose loss +cannot but be felt more as years and experience make one realize the +value of certain noble qualities, and their rarity; but if +GOD has laid a heavy cross upon us in this blow,--which seems +such a blow in spite of long preparing!--He has given us every +comfort, every concession to the weaknesses of our love in the +accidents of her death.... It was an ideal end. GOD Who had +permitted her to suffer so sorely in body, and to be often visited in +old times--by dread of death and of "death-agonies," parted the waves +of the last Jordan, and she "went through dryshod!"... The sense of +her higher state is so overwhelming, one _cannot_ indulge a _common_ +sorrow. For myself I can only say that I feel as if I were a child +again in respect of her. She is as much with _me_ now, as with any of +her children, even if I am in Jamaica or Ceylon. _Now_ she knows and +sees my life, and I have a feeling as if she were an ever-present +_conscience_ to me (as a mother's _presence_ makes a child alive to +what is right and what is wrong), which I hope by GOD's grace +may never leave me and may make me more worthy of having had such a +Mother.... + + +TO C.T. GATTY, + +_R Lines; South Camp._ January 4, 1874. + + +DEARLY BELOVED, + +What _would_ I give to have a visit from you! I fear you did not get +home at Xmas! Thank you a thousand times for your card--I think it +almost the very prettiest I ever saw! + +... As I am not prompt _to time_ with my Xmas Box I may as well be +appropriate in kind. Is there any trifle you are "in want" of? + +"Price ner object," as Emmanuel Eaton (the old Nursery man) (very +appropriately) named his latest Fuchsia, when he saw us children +turning down the Wood End Lane in the Donkey Carriage on a birthday, +flush of coppers--and bashful about abating prices! + +... I was on the border of sending you a nice collection of +poetry--and a shadow crossed my brain that you have said you "don't +care about poetry"--"Lives there a man with soul so dead"--or does the +great commercial whirl weary out the brain?--If I am wrong and you +like it--will you have (if you don't possess) Trench's fine collection +of poems of all dates? + +Your ever devoted +J.H.E. + + +TO C.T. GATTY, + +_X Lines, South Camp._ March 13, 1874. + + +MY DEAREST CHARLIE, + +I am _quite a brute_ not to have written before. I didn't, because (to +say the truth!) I had a "return compliment" in the Valentine line in +my head, and I never got time to do it! You know what the _pressure_ +of work is, and I have had a lot in hand, and been _very_ far from +well. + +It was VERY good of you to send me a Val., and much appreciated. + +I also owe you thanks for a copy of the "fretful" Porcupine [_Sketch_] +duly received. I was very glad to get it--for you have greatly, +wonderfully improved in your writing. I liked your article extremely, +and was so very glad to see the marked improvement.... + +I am _not_, when I speak of improvement in the art of English +composition, alluding solely to the time when you wrote as follows +(italics and caps your own): + +"Mr. Gatty thinks that Messrs. Fisher & Holmes has sent more than he +desired _he said 2s._ or _2s. 6d._ and he thinks there is here more +than that he hopes he will answer and tell me what price the +LOT is and how many plants I may take for _2s._ or _2s. 6d._ +by return of post or by Cox which will be better Ecclesfield June +1866." + +I wouldn't part with the original of the above under a considerable +sum of money! It always refreshes my brain to go back to it--and I +laugh as often as one laughs, and re-laughs at Pickwick!--the way the +pronouns become entangled and after making an imperfectly distinctive +stand at "_he said_," jump desperately to the pith of the matter in +"what price the LOT is." All difficulties of punctuation +being disposed of by the process of omitting stops entirely--like old +Hebrew--written without points! + +(What an autograph for collectors if ever you're the "King Cole" of +Liverpool!) + + * * * * * + +... I have been staying with M.M. I wish I could impart my mental +gleanings. I made several experiments on her intellect. I tried to +_pin her_ again and again--but QUITE without success--or (on +_her_ part) sense of failure. I tried to remember what she had said +afterwards--and I could not succeed. I couldn't carry a single +sentence. + +Generally speaking I gather that-- + +"The Kelts are destroying themselves--the Teuton Element MUST +prevail--one feels--genius--the thing--Herr Beringer--Dr. Zerffi--but +whatever one may FEEL--so it is! Every other nation COMMENCED where we +LEAVE OFF. WE BEGAN with the DRAMA and left off with the +Epic--Milton's--what-is-it? But there you have Hamlet--where do you find +a character like Hamlet?--NOWHERE! That's the beauty of it. The young +lady's maid never reads anything--but Macbeth. ANNE I _can_ trust with +Faust. I read Lessing myself--and the Greek Testament (not the +Epistles--don't let me exaggerate)--with a bit of dry toast and a cup of +tea without a saucer or anything. I never sit down till the Easter +holidays--before breakfast--I ought to feel--what is it--PROUD. Dr. +Zerffi says he'll show A.B.'s papers at any University against the +first-class men--and they won't understand a word of them. What were +those girls when they came? There's the Duchess of Somerset's 15th coz +twice removed. _Its all blood._ My father drove four-in-hand down this +very hill in the old _coaching_ days (!!!)--and there's not another +school in England where the young ladies read Bopp before breakfast. But +the Vedas are a mine of--you know what--_Sanskrit_ is _English_--change +the letters and I could make myself understood by a Parsee better than +by half the young ladies of this establishment. We're all Indians!" + +If her conversation is what it was--and _more so_, her hospitality, +her generosity--and her admirable management of the girls and the +house is as A1 as ever. I never saw a prettier, jollier, nicer set of +girls. H---- is growing _very_ charming, I think. I believe the secret +of her success, in spite of that extraordinary fitful intellect of +hers, is that one never learns anything _well_ but what one learns +_willingly_, and that she makes life so much more pleasant and +reasonable that the girls work themselves, and so get on. + +It's getting late! Good-night. I wish we met oftener! + +Ever your very loving sister, +J.H.E. + +Have you seen March _A.J.M._? I particularly want you to read a thing +of mine called "Our Garden." I'll send it if you can't get it. + + + +_For Private Circulation Only._ + +(Oh, Charles! Charles!) + + +Time, 2 p.m. Julie in bed for the sake of "perfect quiet." M.M. +"without a moment to spare." + +"I SEE I'm tiring you--I shall NOT stop--I haven't a moment--I can't +speak--I've given lessons on the mixed Languages this morning--and paid +all my bills--Mr. B---- has called--he's better-looking than I thought, +but too much hair--and the BREWER all over--you look very white--you're +killing yourself--why DO you DO it?--and U----'s as bad--I mean D----. +Dear me! what a pleasure it has been! When I THINK of Ecclesfield!!!! +You are NOT to kill yourself--I forbid it--why should you work for daily +bread as I have to do?--Our bread bill doesn't exceed L4 a week--I mean +a month--TEN pounds a month for groceries and wine--spirits we never +have in the house--you've seen all that we have--when I was senseless +and Dr. F---- called--when the other doctors came he left his card and +retired, but we've employed him since--he ordered gin cloths--they sent +out--when the bill came in I said Brown! BROWN! BROWN!!--_what's this?_ +GIN! GIN! GIN! WHO'S 'ad GIN! They said YOU! Such is life! + +"Dear, dear, IT is a pleasure to see you--but I see your head's bad and +I'm going--I MUST dress.--May I ring your bell for the maid--a black +silk, Julie, good and well cut is economical, my dear. No _underground +to Whiteley's_ for me! Lewis and Allenby--they dress me--I order +nothing--I know nothing--I haven't a rag of clothing in the world--they +line the bodices with silk and you can darn it down to the last--I eat +nothing--I drink nothing--I only _work_--I never sleep--I read German +classics in bed--Lessing--and the second part of Schiller's _Faust_--I +give lessons on it before breakfast in my dressing-gown--this morning +the young ladies hung on my lips--I _know_ the lesson was a good one--It +was the Sorrows of Goethe. Last week Dr. Zerffi said--'All religions are +one and one religion is all--particularly the Brahmas.' It was splendid! +and none of the young ladies knew it before they came. But Poor Mrs. +S----! She didn't seem one bit wiser. I sent him a Valentine on the +14th--designed by the young ladies. He said 'I _knew_ where it came +from--by the word BOPP. Zis is ze only establishment in England where +the word BOPP is known.' He's a great man--and the Teutonic element +_must_ prevail. The Kelts are very charming, but they will GO. We've the +same facial angle as the Hindoo, but poor Mrs. S---- can't see it. Dr. +A---- says I must have some sleep--so I've given up Sanscrit--You can't +do everything even in bed. And it's _English_ when all's done--and Brown +speaks it as well as I do!! _Go_ to India, Julie, if ever you have the +chance, and talk to the natives--they'll understand you. They understand +me. Signor Ricci sometimes does NOT. But then he speaks the modern--the +base--Italian, and _I_--the _classic_. He said, 'I do not understand +you, Mees M----.' I said, 'E vero, Signor--I know you don't. But that's +because I speak _classic_ Italian. All the organ-boys understand me.' +And he smiled. Dear, dear! How pleasant it is to see a Gatty--but I wish +you didn't look so white--when I see other people suffer, and think of +all the years of health I've enjoyed, I never can be thankful +enough--and when I've paid my monthly bills I'm the happiest woman in +England. When I think of how much I have and how little I deserve, I +don't know what to do but say my prayers. Dear, I'm sorry I told you +that story about X----. If she sent this morning for L10 I must let her +have it, if I had to go out and borrow it. I am going out--the Dr. says +I must. In the holidays I go on the balcony--and look down into the +street--and see the four-in-hands--and the policemen--and the han(d)som +cabmen (they're most of them gentlemen--and some of them Irish +gentlemen), and I say--'Such is life!' And poor Mrs. S---- says '_Is +it_, Miss M----?' and I know I speak sharply to her, which I should _not +do_. And I go into Kensington Gardens--and see the Princess--and the +Ducks in the water--and the little ragged boys going to bathe--and I say +'This is a glorious world!' I saw Lord--Lord--dear me! I know his name +as well as my own--Lord--Lord--Oh Lord! he believes in Tichborne--K----, +that's it--Lord K---- in the Row. He always asks after me. HE married a +woman--well. No more about that. He couldn't get a divorce. HER sister +married a parson. SHE was the mother of that poor woman--you know--who +was murdered by those people--THEY lived two streets off Derby +House--the brother--a handsome man--lived opposite Gipsey Hill Station. +You know _that_? _Well._ His wife had a bunch of curls behind (I hate +curls and bunches behind--keep your hair clean and put it up simply). +SHE--got off and so did HE. THEY--that's the parson and his wife--wrote +to Lord K---- and said 'Lady K---- is dead,' He said 'Then bury her.' +and he married again at once. SHE was a Miss A., and she said--'I marry +him because I've been told to'--but that's neither here nor there, and +these things occur. ANN! is that you? My dear, how black you are under +the eyes--DO, Julie, try and take better care of yourself--and _keep +quiet_. If I were Major Ewing I'd _thrash_ you if you didn't. Coming, +Ann!--What was it?--Oh, Lord K---- and Tichborne--well--just let me shut +the door. He IS Tichborne--but _he murdered him_. That's the secret. + +"ANN! My black silk--go to my room--murdered who? why--_Castor_. + +"Now try and get some sleep. If I find you with papers I'll _burn +them_. Oh! there go all the drags and Mr. M---- on the box--and there +go the 4.45, 5.15, and 5.25 to Baker St.--The days fly! But it's a +glorious life. Work! Work!--Keep quiet, dear--I shall be back +directly." + + +TO A.E. + +_"Sheffield House," New Quay, Dartmouth._ +June 4, 1874. + + +... The above I find is our _correct_ address, though what I sent you +is all-sufficient, especially as you can't land without our seeing you +out of our window, as we are almost within speaking distance of the +steamer.... + +From Exeter here the line is lovely. Half the way you run along the +shore. The fields ploughed and meadowed, and with trees, and cattle +come down to the shore. [_Sketch._] + +TORBAY is in this line. The cliffs are a deep red sandstone, +the sky deep blue, and the fields deep green!! [_Sketch._] + +At Dawlish, Torquay, etc. the jutting rocks of worn-away sandstone +mark the points of the little bays with fantastic looking shapes, like +petrified giants. [_Sketch._] + +Looking back from Teignmouth is a very curious one on which the +sea-birds sit. Bless their noses! and their legs! How they do enjoy +the waves! [_Sketch._] + +Those lazy ripples damp their boots so nicely! + +In the Exeter Station sat a ---- [_Sketch_] Bull Dogue. O dear! He +looked so "savidge," and was so nervous; every train made him tremble +in every limb! I bought him a penny bun, but he was too nervous to +eat, though he looked very grateful. The porter promised me to give +him plenty of water, and as I gave the porter plenty of coppers I hope +he did! + +Tell Stephen the flowers on the railway banks give you quite a turn! +Crimson, pale pink, and dead-white Valerian against a deep blue sky in +hot sunshine make one not know whether to PAINT or press! + +As to Dartmouth itself it is a mixture of Matlock, Whitby and +Antwerp!!! The defect is it is really oil the river, not on the sea, +but the neighbouring bays are so get-at-able we have settled here. The +town is very old. Some of the streets, or rather terraces--if a +perfectly irregular perching and jumbling of houses up and down a +steep lull can be called a terrace--are very curious. [_Sketch._] + +Flowers everywhere.... + + +TO H.K.F.G. + +July 12, 1874. + + +Dr. Edghill preached a fine sermon this morning on "Friend! wherefore +art thou come?" Terribly didactic on the fate of Judas, but the +practical application was wonderful and _so_ like him! It being +chiefly on the "patient love of Christ." Quite merciless on Judas, and +on the coarseness, coldness and brutalness of betrayal by the +tenderest sign of human love. "But" (plunging head-first among the +Engineers!) "if there's any man sitting here with a heart and +conscience every bit as black as Judas's _in that hour_: to thee, +Brother, in this hour--in thy worst and vilest hour--Jesus +speaks--'_Friend!_--You may have worn out human love, you may try your +hardest to wear out Mine'"--(parenthesis to the A.S.C. and a nautical +_hitch_ of half his surplice)--("and we all try hard enough, _that's_ +certain!)--'but _you never can_--Friend, still My Friend!'" (Pull up, +and obvious need of bronchial troches. Tonsure mopped and a +re-commencement.) "Then there's the appeal to the _conscience_ as well +as to the _heart_. _Wherefore art thou come?_ what art thou +about--what is thy object? I tell you what, I believe if Judas had +answered this in plain language to himself he would have stopped short +even then. And we should stop short of many a sin if we'd _face_ what +we're going to do" (Dangerous precipitation of the whole Chaplain at +the heads of the privates below.) "Some of you ask yourselves that +question to-day--this evening _as you're walking to Aldershot_, +'Wherefore am I come?' And don't let the Devil put something else into +your head, but just _answer it_," etc. etc. + +He's not exactly an _equal_ or a _finished_ preacher for highly +educated ears, but that sort of transparent candour which he has makes +him _very_ affecting when on his favourite topic, the inexhaustible +love of God. His face when he quotes--"The Son of God Who loved _Me_ +and gave Himself for _Me_," is like a man showing the Rock he has +clung to himself in shipwreck. + + +TO C.T.G. + +_X Lines._ July 22, 1874. + + +DEAREST CHARLIE, + +It was a _great_ disappointment not to see you! Now don't fail me next +week--you scoundrel! I want you _most_ particularly for most selfish +reasons. I am just taking my hero[38] into Victoria Docks, and want to +dip my brush in _Couleur locale_ with your help. Do come, and we'll go +up to London by _barge_ and sketch all the way!!! I know an A1 +Bargemaster, and we can get beds at the inns _en route_. A two days' +voyage! Or we can go for a shorter period and come home by rail. It +won't cost us much. + +[Footnote 38: "A Great Emergency," vol. xi.] + +I am so glad to think of you in the dear _Old_--_New_ Forest. + + * * * * * + +Now mind you come--if only to see my Nelson (bureau) Relic!! It is +such a comfort to me and _my papers_! + +Ever your most loving sister, +J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. ELDER. + +_X Lines, South Camp._ August 7, 1874. + + +MY DEAR AUNT HORATIA, + +I have begged the Tiger Tom for you! + +He is the handsomest I ever saw, with such a head! His name is +_Peter_. [_Sketch._] + +Nothing--I assure you, can exceed his beauty--or the depth of his +stripes.... + +If I had not too many cats already I should have adopted Peter long +ago. We always quote William Blake's poem to him when we see him +prowling about our garden. + + "Tiger! Tiger! burning bright, + In the forest of the night, + What immortal Hand and Eye + Framed thy fearful symmetry?" + +Do you remember it? + +I feel _quite a wretch_ not to like your "Ploughman"[39] as well as +usual. There is always poetry in your things, but TO ME the +_spirit_ of this one has not quite that reality which is the highest +virtue of "a sentiment"--or at least its greatest strength. But I may +be wrong. Only that kind of constant lifting of the soul from the +labour of daily drudgery to the Father of our spirits seems to me one +of the highest, latest, and most refined Christian Graces in natures +farthest removed from "the ape and tiger," and most at leisure for +contemplative worship. I know there are exceptions. Rural +contemplative saints among shepherds and ploughmen. But that the +agricultural labourer as a type seeks "Nature's God" at the +plough-tail and in the bosom of his family I fear is _not_ the +case--and it would be very odd if poverty and ignorance did lead to +such results, even in the advantages of an "open-air" life. Perhaps +Burns knew such a Cottar on Saturday Nights as he painted--he wasn't +_sick_ himself! unless you interpret _a neet wi' Burns_ by that +poem!--and there has been one contemplative Shepherd on Salisbury +Plain--though the proverb says-- + + "Salisbury Plain + Is seldom without a thief or twain." + +--_not_ I believe supposed to refer to highwaymen!! and agricultural +labourers stand (among trades) statistically high (or low!) for the +crime of murder. + +[Footnote 39: Sonnet by H.S. Elder, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_.] + +But I won't inflict any more rigmarole on you, because of an obstinate +conviction _in my inside_ that dear Mother was right in the idea that +it is the learned--not the ignorant--who wonder, and that the +ploughman feels no wonder at all in the glory of the rising +sun--though YOUR mind might overflow with awe and admiration. +As to the last verse--that a "cot" should ever be "cheerful" which +"serves him for" washhouse, kitchen, nursery and all--is a triumph of +the "softening influence of use"--and I concede it to you! But where +"he reigns as a king his toils forgot" is, I am convinced, at the +Black Bull with highly-drugged beer!!!!!! + +Now am I _not_ a Brute? + +And yet it is _very_ pretty, and--strange to say--the class to whom I +believe it would be acceptable, is the class of whom I believe it is +not (typically) true, and PERHAPS it is good for every class +to have an _ideal_ of its own circumstances before its eyes. But I +don't think it is good for rich people's children to grow up with the +belief that twelve shillings a week, and cider and a pig, are the +wisest and happiest earthly circumstances in which humanity with large +families can be placed for their temporal and spiritual progress. I +don't think it ever leads to a wish in the young Squire to exchange +with Hodge for the good of his own soul, but I think it fosters a +fixed conviction that Hodge has nothing to complain of, _plus_ being +placed at a particular advantage as to his eternal concerns. + +Will you ever forgive me? I like the descriptive parts so much, the +"rival cocks at dawn"--the "autumn's mist and spring's soft rain," the +team that "turn in their trace in the furrow's face," and the +life-like descriptions in verse 4. It is as true to one's observation +as it is graceful.... + +Your loving niece, +J.H.E. + + +TO A.E. + +_Ecclesfield._ May 14, 1876. + + +[_Sketch._] Do you remember Whitley Hall? I used to be so fond of the +place when I was a child, and no one lived there but an old woman--old +Esther Woodhouse--with a face like an ideal witch--at the lodge. As +you know I always hated _writing down_--but long before I accomplished +a tale on paper I wrote a novel _in my head_ to Whitley Hall, and used +to walk about in the wood there, by the pond--_to think it_! + + +_York._ February 23, 1879. + + +... Yesterday was sunny though cold, and I had a delicious drive to +Escrick and Naburn. Oh, it _does_ send thrills of delight through me, +when the hay-coloured hedge-grass begins to mix itself with green, and +the hedges have a very brown-madderish tint in the sun, and all the +trunks of all the old trees are far greener than the fields, and the +earth is turned over, and the rooks hold Parliaments. + + * * * * * + + +[_York._] Easter Day, 1879. + + +... I went to Church at S. John's, Mr. Wilberforce's Church; I had +never been in it. That window with S. Christopher, and those strange +representations of the Trinity, and the five Master Yorkes kneeling +all in blue on one side, and their four sisters on the other, is very +wonderful. One of the most wonderful. How fascinating these dear old +churches are! Mr. Wilberforce has a fine voice, a most rich and +flexible baritone, and sings ballads with a great deal of taste and +expression. I shall for ever love York and its marble-white walls and +dear old churches, but "Benedetta sia 'l giorno e 'l mese e 'l anno," +when you set your face with your black poodle towards the island +called Melita! This north-east wind which still blows _cruelly_ would +have made you very ill, I think.... + +I must tell you of another thing. On Thursday I went to the Blind +School to a concert. I went rather against my will, for you know I was +sadly impressed before by their _very_ unhealthy and miserable look, +but oh, dear, they do sing well! and it was very affecting. One of the +Barnbys teaches them. They have a good organ, and one of the blind men +played very well. They sang very refinedly. No doubt they are well +taught, but no doubt also the sense of hearing is delicate with +them.... + + +_Frimhurst._ April 18, 1879. + + +I got here safely yesterday, though I had a horrid headache on +Wednesday, and expected to arrive here in very bad condition. I felt +rather bad yesterday morning, but as I drew near, marvellous to +relate, my headache went away! Oh! I thought so much of you, as the +misty network of pines against the sky--the stretches of moor--the +flashes of the canal--and all the dear familiar Heimath Land came +nearer and nearer.... + +It is still "chill April" even here, but wonderfully different from +Yorkshire. Sunshine--and green things so much more forward--and birds +singing their very throats out. + +"Lion," the mastiff, I am rather frightened of, but he loves me and +gives me paws over and over again. He is pawing me now and will +interrupt. + + +April 22. + + +The weather is intensely cold again, though nothing can make this +country quite dreary--but cold it is! Still there are all the dear old +features, I did not know the Mitchett side (of the Frimhurst bridge) +of the canal; but I have been a good way down getting water-weeds--but +of course you know it well. It is curiously like bits of the S. John +[New Brunswick] River. One could almost see birch-bark canoes at +points. + +To-day the Jelfs came. It was an affecting meeting, our first since +he was so ill in Cyprus, and he said, "It used to seem so little +likely one would ever again see the old faces."... He spoke at once +about your calling this country Heimath Land, saying it seemed the +very word. + +I am going on Thursday to stay with the Jelfs till Monday; I shall be +so thankful to get a Sunday in the old Tin Tabernacle. + + +_K Lines, South Camp, Heimath Land._ +April 25. + + +It is a sunny sweet day, so that I have been strolling about in the +garden without a jacket. It is strangely pleasant being here, the old +scenes without, and all Sir Howard Elphinstone's pretty things within. +The Jelfs are staying in the Elphinstones' hut. In the matter of +pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative +taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of +the world are delightful. "Et ego, etc." We have things and things as +it is, and shall pick up more! He is so very ingenious, and has made a +dado over the mantelpiece, with a white or coloured border on which he +puts pictures and photographs; in the centre is a square of coloured +material with other things mounted on it. I foresee making a similar +design for our Malta mantelpiece, with a gold Maltese cross in the +centre and tiles round illustrating the eight Beatitudes.... + +I am intensely enjoying this bit here. Yesterday the Jelfs and the +boys and I had a long wander by the canal where the larches and the +birches are getting their tenderest tints on.... On Thursday evening I +went to the Tin Church, with the old bell _tankling_ as I went in, and +the mess bugles tootling afar as I came out. Bell the schoolmaster and +baritone started as if I were a ghost, and sent me a book for the +special hymn. Not a soul in the officers' seats--but a good choir and +a very fair congregation of men and barrack families. Said I to +myself, "I've been living in wealthy Bowdon and in ecclesiastical +York, and not had this. Well done--the Tug of War and the Tin +Tabernacle and the Camp! and unpaid soldiers and their sons to sing +the Lord's Song in the land of their pilgrimage!" + +To-day I went with Mrs. Jelf to a meeting at the Club House about +"Coffee Houses." When we got in a "rehearsal" (dramatic) was going on, +and the chaff was "Have you come for the rehearsal or the +coffee-house?" We "Coffee-housers" adjourned to the Whist Room. Sir +Thos. Steele in the chair. I had a long chat with him. He says Music +and the Drama have declined dreadfully. The meeting was full of +friends. "Mat Irvine" nearly wrung my hand off, and I sat by poor +Knollys, who is heart-broken at the death of that dear little soul, +Captain Barton. It was a first-rate meeting, mixed military and +Aldershot tradesmen--a very "nice feeling" displayed--altogether it +was wonderfully pleasant. + + +_Exeter._ May 16, 1879. + + +... The weather alternates here between North-Easters and mugginess, and +I have never slept without fires yet. All the same I have had some +lovely _drives_, which you know are so good for me. When Mrs. Fox +Strangways couldn't go the Colonel has taken me alone 12 or 14 miles in +the dog-cart with a very "free-going" but otherwise prettily-behaved +little mare named Daphne. The tumbledown of hills and dales is very +pretty here, and the deep red of the earth, and the whitewashed and +thatched cottages. Very pretty bits for sketching if it had been +sketching-weather.... + +I hope to get several things done in London. Jean Ingelow has burst +out rather about my writings, and wants me to do something "in the +style of Madam Liberality," and let her try to get it into _Good +Words_, as she thinks I ought to try for a wider audience. I shall +certainly go and see her, and talk over matters.... I was _very_ much +pleased Sir Anthony Home had been so much pleased with "Jan." To draw +tears from a V.C. and a fine old Scotch medico is very gratifying! +Capt. Patten said their own Dr. Craig had also been delighted with it. +When "We and the World" is done I mean to rest well on my oars, and +then try and aim at something to give me a better footing if I +can.... + + +June 14, 1879. + + +... I am getting as devoted to Browning as you. It is very funny--this +sudden and simultaneous light on him! + + +May 23, 1879. + + +[_Sketch._] + +Forty-four of these aquatic plant tubs stand in one part of the back +premises of Clyst S. George Rectory, full of truly wondrous varieties. +The above is a thing like white tassels and purple-pink buds. Fancy +how I revel in them, and in the garden, which holds 1640 species of +herbaceous perennials all labelled and indexed!! The old Rector (he is +89) is as hard at it as ever. He is so pleased to be listened to, and +it is enormously interesting though somewhat fatiguing, and leaves me +no time whatever for anything else! My brain whirls with tiles, +mosaics, tesserae, bell-castings, bell-marks, and mottos, electros, +squeezes, rubbings, etc., etc. His latest plant fad is Willows and +Bamboos, of which he has countless kinds growing and flourishing!!! He +is infirm, but it is very grand to see life rich with interests, and +with work that will benefit others--so near the grave! + +We'd a funny scene this morning when I went over the church with him, +and had to write my name in the book. + +Very testily--"The _date_, my dear, put the date!" + +"I have put it." + +More testily at being in the wrong--"Then put your address, put your +address." + +I hesitated, and he threw up his hands: "Bless me! you've not got one. +It has always puzzled me so what made _you_ take a fancy to a +soldier." + +He had been very full of all kinds of ancient Church matters--a +wonderful bell dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in a very remarkable +inscription, etc.,--so I seized the pen and wrote--_Strada Maria +Stella, Malta_--and "I du thenk" (as they say here) it will +considerably puzzle the old sexton!!!!! + +Soon after sunrise on Ascension Day I was woke clear and clean by the +bells _breaking into song_. You know campanology is his great hobby. +They rang changes, with long pauses between. Bells often try me very +much, at Ecclesfield _par exemple_, but I really enjoyed these.... + + +May 24, 1879. + + +... A very pathetic bit of private news of poor little MacDowell. He +was sent by the General to tell them to strike the tents, and was +urging on the ammunition to the front, and encouraging the bandsmen to +carry it, when a Zulu shot him. A good and not painful end--God bless +him! The Capt. Jones who told this, said also that one little bugler +killed three big Zulus with his side-arms before he fell! Also that a +private of the 24th saved Chard's life at Rorke's Drift by pushing his +head down, so that a bullet went over it! + + +_Woolwich._ Whit Monday, 1879. + + + * * * * * + +Don't think you have all the picturesque beggars to yourself! Out in a +street of Woolwich with Mrs. O'Malley the other day I saw +this--[_Sketch._] The eyes though very clear and intense-looking +decided me at once the man was blind, though he had no dog, and was +only walking solemnly on, with a _carved fiddle_ of white wood under +his arm! I ran back after him, and went close in front of him. He +gazed and saw nothing. Then I touched him and said, "Are you blind?" +He started and said, "Very nearly." I gave him a penny, for which he +thanked me, and then I asked about the fiddle. He carved and made it +himself out of firewood in the workhouse! The _handle part_ (forgive +my barbarism!) is "a bit of ash." It was much about the level of North +American Indian _art_, but very touching as to patient ingenuity. He +asked if anybody had told me about him. I said, "No. But I've a +husband who plays the fiddle," and I gave him the balance of my loose +coppers! He said, "Have you? He plays, does he? Well. This has been a +lucky day for me." He was a shipwright--can play the piano, he +says--lives in the workhouse in winter and comes out in summer--with +the flowers--and his fiddle! I knew you would like me to give +something to that _povero fratello_. + + +_Woolwich._ June 6, 1879. + + +... _The_ painter of the Academy this year is Mrs. Butler!! I do hope +some day somewhere you may see _The Remnants of an Army_ and _Recruits +for the Connaught Rangers_. The first is in the _Academy Notes_, which +I send you. The second is at least as fine. [_Sketch._] The landscape +effect is the opal-like sky and bright light full of moisture after +rain--heavy clouds hang above--the mountains are a leaden blue--and +the sky of all exquisite pale shades of bright colour. Down the wet +moor road comes the group. Two very tall, dark-eyed Connaught +"boys"--one with a set face and his hands in his pockets looking +straight out of the picture--the other with a yearning of Keltic +emotion looking back at the hills as if his heart was breaking. The +strapping young sergeant looks very grave; but an "old soldier" behind +is lighting his pipe, and a bugler is holding back a dog. One of the +best faces is that of the drummer who walks first, and whose +13-year-old face is so furrowed about the brow with oppressive +anxiety--very truthful! + +_The Remnants of an Army_ is of course overpowering by the mere +subject, and it is nobly painted. The man and his horse are wonderful +alike. There is nothing to touch these two. But I _would_ like to +steal Peter Graham's _The Seabirds' Resting-Place_. Such penguins +sitting on wet rocks with wet Fucus _growing on_ them! Such myriads +more in the _sea-mist_ that hides the horizon-line--sitting on distant +rocks!--and _such_ green waves--by the light of a sunbeam into one of +which you see Laminaria fronds and lumps of Fucus tossing up and down. +You feel wet and ozoney to come near it! There are some very fine +men's portraits, and Orchardson's _Gamblers Hard Hit_ is the best +thing of his, I think, that I know.... + +... There is a very beautiful old gun in the Arsenal upon a +gun-carriage with wheels thus [_Sketch_], and with bas-reliefs of St. +Paul and the Viper. It is needless to say the gun came from the island +called Melita! But for cunning workmanship and fine bold designs and +delicate execution the Chinese guns are the ones! I am taking rubbings +of the patterns for decorative purposes! They were taken in the war. + +There is yet one picture I must tell you of--"_A Musical Story by +Chopin_"--the boy playing to a group of lads and a tutor. His utterly +absorbed face is _admirable_. It is a very pretty thing. Not +marvellous, but very good. + + +August 5, 1879. + + + * * * * * + +I must tell you that it is _on the cards_ that Caldecott is going to +do a coloured picture for me _to write to_, for the October No. of +_A.J.M._ (so that it will bind up with the 1879 volume and be the +Frontispiece). He is so fragile he can't "hustle," but he wants to do +it. D---- and he became great friends in London, and I think now he +would help us whenever he could. We have been bold enough to "speak +our minds" pretty freely to him, about wasting his time over +second-rate "society" work for _Graphic_, etc., etc., when he has such +a genius to interpret humour and pathos for good writers, and no real +writing gifts himself. (He has done some things called _Flirtation in +France_, supplying both letter-press and sketches!--that are terrible +to any one who has gone heart and soul into his House that Jack +built!!!) I've told him frankly if he "_draws down to me_" in the +hopes of making _my_ share easy by making his commonplace, and gives +me a "rising young family in sand-boots and frilled trousers with an +over-fed mercantile mamma," my "few brains will utterly congeal," but +I have made two suggestions to _him_, so closely on his own lines that +if hints help him I think he would find it easy. You know _horses_ are +really his specialite. I have asked him to give me a coloured thing +and one or two rough sketches, Either + + An Old Coaching Day's Idyll +or--A Trooper's Tragedy. + +The same beginning for either: + +Child learning to ride on + hobby-horse + rocking-horse + donkey + pony + etc. etc. + +Then (if coaching) an old haunted-looking posting-house on a coaching +road (Hog's Back!)--a highwayman--a broken-down postilion--a girl on a +pillion, etc., etc. + +Or, if military: + +A yokel watching a cavalry regiment in Autumn Manoeuvres over a +bridge. + +A Horse and Trooper--Riding for life (here or Hereafter!) with another +man across his saddle. + +Of course it may only hamper him to have hints (I've not heard yet), +but I hope anyhow he'll do something for me. + + * * * * * + + +August 9, 1879. + + + * * * * * + +I was reading again at _Robert Falconer_ the other day. What _grand_ +bits there are in it? With such _bosh_ close by. So like Ruskin in +that, who is ever to me a Giant, half of gold and half of clay! + +When G, Macdonald announces (by way of helping one to help the +problems of life!) that the Gospel denounces the sins of the rich, but +nowhere the sins of the poor, one wonders if he "has his senses," or +knows anything about "the poor." "The Gospel" is pretty plain about +drunkards, extortioners, thieves, murderers, cursers, and revilers, +false swearers, whoremongers, and "all liars"--I wonder whether these +trifling vices are confined to the Upper Ten Thousand! + +But oh, that description to the _son_ of what it sounded like when +_his father_ played the _Flowers of the Forest_ on his fiddle, isn't +to be beaten in any language I believe! All the Scotch lasses after +Flodden doing the work of an agricultural people in the stead of the +men who lay on Flodden Field!--"Lasses to reap and lasses to +bind--Lasses to stook." etc., etc., and "no a word I'll warrant ye, to +the orra lad that didna gang wi' the lave"!!!![40] and the lad's +outburst in reply, "I'd raither be gratten for nor kissed!" + +[Footnote 40: _Robert Falconer_, chap. xix.] + +Poor Z----! They don't teach that at Academies and Staff Colleges, nor +in the Penny-a-line of newspaper correspondents and the like--but he +should get some woman to soak it into his brains that the men women +will love are men who would rather be "gratten for" in honour than be +kissed in shame. + + * * * * * + + +_Ecclesfield._ August 23, 1879. + + + * * * * * + +Talking of drawings, what do you think? Caldecott has done me the most +_lovely_ coloured thing to write a short tale to for October _A.J.M._ +It is very good of him. He has simply drawn what I asked, but it is +quite lovely! + +A village Green, sweet little old Church, and house and oak tree, +etc., etc. in distance, a small boy with aureole of fair hair on a +red-haired pony, coming full tilt across it blowing a penny trumpet +and scattering pretty ladies, geese, cocks and hens from his path. His +dog running beside him! You will be delighted! + + * * * * * + + +September 1, 1879. + + +I have done my little story to Caldecott's picture, and I have a +strong notion that it will please you. It is called "Jackanapes."... I +shall be so _disappointed_ if you don't like "Jackanapes." But I think +it is just what you will like!! I think you will cry over him! + + +September 19, 1879. + + +Isn't it a great comfort that I have finished the serial story, and +"Jackanapes"?--so that I am now quite free, and never mean to write +against time again. I know you never cared for the serial; however, it +is done, and tolerably satisfactory I think. "Jackanapes" I do hope +you will like, picture and all. C---- sent Mr. Ruskin "Our Field," and +I am proud to hear he says it is not a mere story--it's a poem! Great +praise from a great man! + + +October 11, 1879. + + + * * * * * + +I was knocked up yesterday in a good cause. We went to see Mr. Ruskin +at Herne Hill. I find him _far_ more _personally_ lovable than I had +expected. Of course he lives in the incense of an adoring circle, but +he is absolutely unaffected himself, and with a GREAT charm. +So much gentler and more refined than I had expected, and such clear +Scotch turquoise eyes. + +He had been out to buy buns and grapes for _me_ (!), carrying the buns +home himself very carefully that they might not be crushed!! We are so +utterly at one on some points: it is very delightful to hear him talk. +I mean it is uncommonly pleasant to hear things one has long thought +very vehemently, put to one by a Master!! _Par exemple._ You know my +mania about the indecent-cruel element in French art, and how the +Frenchiness of Victor Hugo chokes me from appreciating him: just as we +were going away yesterday Mr. Ruskin called out, "There is something I +MUST show Aunt Judy," and fetched two photos. One, an old +court with bits of old gothic tracery mixed in with a modern +tumbledown building--peaceful old doorway, wild vine twisting up the +lintel, modern shrine, dilapidated waterbutt, sunshine straggling +in--as far as the beauty of contrast and suggestiveness and form and +(one could fancy) colour could go, perfect as a picture. (R---- didn't +say all this, but we agreed as to the obvious beauty, etc.) Then he +brought out the other photo, and said, "but the French artist cannot +rest with that, it must be heightened and stained with blood," and +there was the court (photo from a French picture), with two children +lying murdered in the sunshine. + +Another point we met on was my desire to write a tale on Commercial +Honour. He was delighted, and will I think furnish me with "tips." His +father was a merchant of the old school. And then to my delight I +found him soldier-mad!! So we got on very affably, and I hope to go +and stay there when I go home next summer. + + * * * * * + + +November 7, 1879. + + +Friends are truly kind. Miss Mundella sent two season tickets for the +Monday "Pop." to D---- and me. I managed to go and stay for most of +it. Norman Neruda, Piatti, and _Janotha_--have you heard Janotha play +the piano? I think she is _very_ wonderful. It is so absolutely +without affectation, and so _selfless_, and yet such a mastery of the +instrument. Her _rippling_ passages are like music writ in water, and +she has a singing touch too, and when she accompanies, the +subordination and sympathy are admirable. She is not pretty, nor in +any way got up, but is elfish and quaint-looking, and quite young. We +sat quite near to Browning, who is a nice-looking old man, +delightfully _clean_. He seemed to delight in Neruda and Piatti, and +followed the music with a score of his own. + + +_Ecclesfield._ Saturday, January 31, 1880. + + +How beautiful a day is to-day I cannot tell you! It does refresh +me!... Head and spine very shaky this morning so that I could not get +warm; but I wrapped in my fur cloak, and went out into the sunshine, +up and down, up and down the churchyard flags. A sunny old kirkyard is +a nice place, I always think, for aged folk and invalids to creep up +and down in, and "Tombstone Morality" isn't half as wearing to the +nerves as the problems of _life_!... + + * * * * * + + +_Greno House_, Tuesday. + + +Harry Howard drove me up yesterday. It was _just_ as much as I could +bear; but I lay on the sofa till dinner, and went to bed at eight, and +though my head kept me awake at first, I did well on the whole. +Breakfast in bed, a bigger one than I have eaten for three weeks, and +since then I have had an hour's drive. The roughness of the roads is +unlucky, but the air _divine_! Such sweet sunshine, and Greno Wood, +with yellow remains of bush and bracken, and heavy mosses on the +sandstone walls, and tiny streams trickling through boggy bits of the +wood, and coming out over the wall to overflow those picturesque stone +troughs which are so oddly numerous, and which I had in my head when I +wrote the first part of "Mrs. Overtheway." + + * * * * * + + +January 11, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +Very dear to me are all your "tender and true" regards for the old +home--the grey-green nest (more grey now than green!) a good deal +changed and weatherbeaten, but not quite deserted--which is bound up +with so much of our lives! It is one of the points on which we feel +very much alike, our love for things, and places, and beasts!!! +Another chord of sympathy was very strongly pulled by your writing of +the "grey-green fields," and sending your love to them. No one I ever +met has, I think, _quite_ your sympathy with exactly what the external +world of out-of-doors is to me and has been ever since I can +remember. From days when the batch of us went-out-walking with the +Nurses, and the round moss-edged holes in the roots of gnarled trees +in the hedges, and the red leaves of Herb Robert in autumn, and all +the inexhaustible wealth of hedges and ditches and fields, and the +Shroggs, and the brooks, were happiness of the keenest kind--to now +when it is as fresh and strong as ever; it has been a pleasure which +has balanced an immense lot of physical pain, and which (between the +affectation of the sort of thing being fashionable--and other people +being destitute of the sixth sense to comprehend it--so that one feels +a fool either way)--one rarely finds any one to whom one can +comfortably speak of it, and be _understanded_ of them. It is the one +of my peculiarities which you have never doubted or misunderstood ever +since we knew each other! I fancy we must (as it happens) _see_ those +things very much alike. That grey-green winter tone (for which I have a +particular love) has been "on my mind" for days, and it was odd you +should send your love to it. Don't think me daft to make so much of a +small matter, I am sure it is not so to me. It is what would make me +_content_ in so many corners of the world! And I thought when I read +your letter, that if we live to be old together, we have a common and +an unalienable source of "that mysterious thing felicity" in any small +sunny nook where we may end our days--so long as there is a bit of +yellow sandstone to glow, or a birch stem to shine in the sun!... + + +[_Grenoside._] February 21, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +I whiled away my morning in bed to-day by going through the _Lay of +the Last Minstrel_. There are lovely bits in it. + +Reading away at Mrs. Browning lately has very much confirmed my notion +that the fault of her things is lack of condensation. They are almost +without exception too long. I doubt if one should ever leave less than +fifty per cent. of a situation to one's readers' own imagination, if +one aims at the highest class of readers. That swan song to Camoeens +from his dying lady would have been very perfect in FIVE +verses. As it is, one gets tired even of the exquisite refrain +"Sweetest eyes, were ever seen" (an expression he had used about her +eyes in a song, and which haunts her). + +The other night we had Sergeant Dickinson up. He has lately settled in +the village. He was in the Light Cavalry Charge at Balaklava (17th +Lancers), and also at Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. He has also the +Mutiny Medal and Good Conduct and Service one, so he is a good +specimen. Curious luck, he never had a _scratch_ (!). Says he has had +far "worse wounds" performing in Gyms., as he was a good swordsman, +etc. He told us some _dear_ tales of old Sir Colin Campbell. He said +his men idolized him, but their wives rather more so, and if any of +them failed to send home remittances, the spouses wrote straight off +to Sir Colin, who had up "Sandy or Wully" for remonstrance, and +stopped his grog "till I hear again from your wife, man." + +On one occasion he saw a drummer-boy drunk, and a sergeant near. Sir +Colin: "Sergeant, does yon boy belong to your company?" + +Sergeant: "He does not, sir." + +"Does he draw a rum allowance?" + +"He does, sir." + +"Well, away to the Captain of his company, and say it's my orders that +the oldest soldier in this bairn's company is to draw his rum, till he +feels convinced it's for the lad's benefit that he should tak it +himsel'--and that'll not be just yet awhile I'm thinking." + +Some brilliant tales too of the wit and gallantry of Irish comrades, +several of whom wore the kilt. And almost neatest of all, a story of +coming across a fellow-villager among the Highlanders: + +"But I were fair poozled He came from t' same place as me, and a +clever Yorkshireman too, and he were talking as Scotch as any of 'em. +So I says, 'Why I'm beat! what are YOU talking Scotch for, +and you a Knaresborough man?' 'Whisht! whisht! Dickinson,' he says, +'we mun A' be Scotch in a Scotch regiment--or there's no +living.'"... + + +February 19, 1880. + + +I have been re-reading the _Legend of Montrose_ and the _Heart of +Midlothian_ with _such_ delight, and poems of both the Brownings, and +Ruskin, and _The Woman in White_, and _Tom Brown's Schooldays_, etc., +etc.!!! I have got two volumes of _The Modern Painters_ back with me +to go at. + +What a treat your letters are! Bits are _nearly_ as good as being +there. The sunset you saw with Miss C----, and the shadowy groups of +the masquers below in the increasing mists of evening, painted itself +as a whole on to my brain--in the way _scenes_ of Walter Scott always +did. Like the farewell to the Pretender in _Red Gauntlet_, and the +black feather on the quicksand in _The Bride of Lammermuir_. + + +March 1, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +The ball must have been a grand sight, but I think, judging from the +list, that your dress as Thomas the Rhymer stands out in marked +_individuality_. Nothing shows more how few people are at all +_original_ than the absence of any thing striking or quaint in most of +the characters assumed at a Fancy Ball. This, however, is Pampering +the Pride of you members of the Mutual Admiration Society. You must +not become cliquish--no not Ye Yourselves!!!! + +Above all _you_ must never lose that gracious quality (for which I +have so often given you a prize) of patience and sympathy with small +musicians and jangling pianos in the houses of kind and hospitable +Philistines. Besides, I like you to be largely gracious and popular. +All the same I confess that it is a grievance that music (and sherry!) +are jointly regarded as necessary to be supplied by all hosts and +hostesses--whether they can give you them good or not! People do not +cram their bad drawings down your throats in similar fashion, Still +what is, is--and Man is more than Music--and I have never felt the +real mastership you hold in music more than when you have beaten a +march out of some old tub for kindness' sake with a little gracious +bow at the end! Don't you remember my telling you about that wisp of +an organist whom Mr. R---- petted till he didn't know his shock head +from his clumsy heels, and the insufferable airs he gave himself at +their party over the piano, and the audience, and the lights, and +silence, and what he would or would not play to the elderly merchants. +And of all the amateur-and-water performances!!! I have heard enough +good playing to be able to gauge him!... + +Incapacity for every other kind of effort is giving me leisure for a +feast of reading and _re-reading_ such as I have not indulged for +years. Amongst other things I have read for the first time Black's +_Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_--it is _very_ charming indeed, and +if you haven't read it, some time you should. As a rule I detest +German heroes _to English books_, but Von Rosen is irresistible! and +the refrain outbreaks of his jealousy are really high art, when he +unconsciously brings every subject back to the original motif--"but +that young man of Twickenham--he is a most pitiful fellow--" you feel +Dr. Wolff was never more simply sincere and self-deluded, than Von +Rosen's belief that it is an abstract criticism. Also you know how +tedious broken English in a novel is, as a rule. But Black has very +artistically managed his hero's idioms so as to give great effect. And +as we have a brain wave on about Womanhood you may like, as much as I +have, V. Rosen's sketch of English women (to whom he gives the palm +over those of other nations). Speaking of some others--"very nice to +look at perhaps, and very charming in their ways perhaps, but not +sensible, honest, frank like the English woman, _and not familiar with +the seriousness of the world, and not ready to see the troubles of +other people_. But your English-woman _who is very frank to be +amused_, and can enjoy herself when there is a time for that, who is +_generous in time of trouble and is not afraid_, and can be firm and +active and yet very gentle, and who does not think always of herself, +but is ready to help other people, and can look after a house and +manage affairs--that is a better kind of woman I think--more to be +trusted--more of a companion--oh, there is no comparison!" + +It is very good, isn't it?--and he is mending the fire during this +outburst, and keeps piling coal on coal as he warms with his subject. + +I must also just throw you two quotations from Macaulay's most +interesting _Life and Letters_. Quotations within quotations, for they +are extracts. + + "Antoni Stradivari has an eye + That winces at false work and loves the true." + + (BROWNING.) + + "There is na workeman + That can both worken wel and hastilie + This must be done at leisure parfaitlie." + + (CHAUCER.) + +By the bye, the italics in Black's quotations are _mine_. Good wording +I think. + +But how one does go back with delight to Scott! I confess I think to +have written the _Heart of Midlothian_ is to have put on record the +existence of a moral atmosphere in one's own nation as grand as the +ozone of mountains. WHAT a contrast to that of French novels +(with no disrespect to the brilliant art and refreshing brain +quickness of the latter); but Ruskin's appeal to the responsibility of +those who wield Arts instead of Trades recurs to one as one under +which Scott might have laid his hand upon his breast, and looked +upwards with a clear conscience.... + + +March 16, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +I quite agree with you about an artlessness and roughness in Scott's +work. I thought what I had dwelt on was the magnificent _tone_ of the +_H. of Midlothian_. Also he has two of the first (first in rank and +order if not first in degree) qualifications for a writer of +fiction--Dramatism and individuality amongst his characters. He had +(rather perhaps one should say), the quality which is _nascitur non +fit_--Imagination. It is the great defect, _I think_, of some of our +best modern writers. They are marvellously FIT and terribly +little NASCITUR. It is why I can never concede the highest +palm in her craft to G. Eliot. Her writing is glorious--Imagination +limited--Dramatism--nil! + +She draws people she has seen (Mrs. Poyser) like a photograph--she +imagines a Daniel Deronda, and he is about "as natural as waxworks." + +"I've been reading Jean Ingelow's _Fated to be Free_ lately, and it is +a marvellous mixture of beauty and failure. But _lovely_ passages. +Incisive as G. Eliot, and from the point of view of a tenderer mind +and experience. This is beautiful, isn't it? + +"Nature before it has been touched by man is almost always beautiful, +strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given +it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and +helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it +and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity, +and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by +his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it +cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully +and as well as it did before." + +The double edge of the sentiment is very exquisite, and the truth of +the natural fact very perfect as observation, and the book is full of +such writing. But oh, dear! the confusion of plot is so maddening you +have a delirious feeling that everybody is getting engaged to his +half-sister or widowed stepmother, and keep turning back to make sure! +But the dramatism is very good and leads you on.... + + +March 22, 1880. + + +... I am getting you a curious little present. It is Thos. A Kempis's +_De Imitatione Christi_ in Latin _and Arabic_. A scarce edition +printed in Rome. I think you will like to have it. That old Thomas was +much more than a mere monk. A man for all time, his monasticism being +but a fringe upon the robe of his wisdom and _honest_ Love of God. It +will be curious to see how it lends itself to Arabic. Well, I fancy. +Being in very proverbial mould. Such verses as this (I quote roughly +from memory): + +"That which thou dost not understand when thou readest thou shalt +understand in the day of thy visitation: for there be secrets of +religion which are not known till they be felt and are not felt but in +the Day of a great calamity!" (a piece of wisdom with application to +other experiences besides religious ones). I think this will read well +in the language of the East. As also "In omnibus rebus Respice Finem," +etc..... + + * * * * * + + +Tuesday. + + +I am quite foolishly disappointed. The A Kempis is gone already! It is +a new Catalogue, and I fancied it was an out-o'-way chance. It seems +Ridler has no other Arabic books whatever. He may not have known its +value. It "went" for six shillings!!! + + * * * * * + + +TO THE BISHOP OF FREDERICTON. + +_131, Finborough Road, South Kensington._ +March 23, 1880. + + +MY DEAR LORD, + +I thank you with all my heart for the gift of your book,[41] and yet +more for the kindly inscription, which affected me much. + +[Footnote 41: _The Book of Job_, translated from the Hebrew Text by +John, Bishop of Fredericton.] + +As one gets older one feels distance--or whatever parts one from +people one cares for--worse and worse, I think!--However, whatever +helps to remedy the separation is all the dearer! + +I had devoured enough of your notes, to have laughed more than once +and almost to have heard you speak, before I moved from the chair in +which the book found me, and had read all the Introduction. I could +HEAR you say that "Bildad uttered a few trusims in a pompous +tone"! + +What I have read of your version seems to me grand, bits here and +there I certainly had never felt the poetical power of before. Rex +will be delighted with it! + +I fully receive all you say about Satan and the Sons of God. But I +think a certain painfulness about such portions of Holy Writ--does not +come from (1) Unwillingness to lay one's hand upon one's mouth and be +silent before God. (2) Or difficulty about the Personality of Satan. I +fancy it is because in spite of oneself it is painful that one of the +rare liftings of the Great Veil between us and the "ways" of the +Majesty of God should disclose a scene of such petty features--a sort +of wrangling and experimentalizing, that it would be _pleasanter_ to +be able to believe was a parable brought home to our vulgar +understandings rather than a real vision of the Lord our Strength. + +I am, my dear Lord, +Your grateful and ever affectionate old friend, +J.H.E. + + +TO J.H.E. + +_Fredericton._ April 8, 1880. + + +MY DEAR MRS. EWING, + +I will not let the mail go out without proving that I am not a bad +correspondent, and without thanking you for your delightful letter. +Oh! why don't you squeeze yourself sometimes into that funny little +house opposite Miss Bailey's, and let me take a cup of tea off the +cushions, or some other place where the books would allow it to be +put? And why don't you allow me to stumble over my German? And why +doesn't Rex, Esq. (for Rex is too familiar even for a Bishop) correct +my musical efforts? How terrible this word _past_ is! The past is at +all events _real_, but the future is so shadowy, and like the ghosts +of Ulysses it entirely eludes one's grasp. I speak of course of things +that belong to this life. It was (I assure you) a treat to lay hold of +you and your letters, and (a minor consideration) to find that even +your handwriting had not degenerated, and had not become like spiders' +legs dipped in ink and crawling on the paper, as is the case of some +nameless correspondents. There was only one word I could not make out. +In personal appearance the letters stood thus, _[Greek: us]_. It looks like +"us," or like the Greek _[Greek: un]_, which being interpreted is +"pig." But M----, who is far cleverer than I am, at once oracularly +pronounced it "very," and I believe her and you too.... + +I was greatly tickled in your getting _amusement_ out of "Job," the +last book where one would have expected to find it; but stop--I +recollect it is out of _me_, not the patriarch, that you find +something to smile at, and no doubt you are right, for no doubt I say +ridiculous things sometimes. _Au serieux_, it pleases me much that you +enter into my little book, and evidently have _read_ it, for I have +had complimentary letters from people who plainly had not read a word, +and to the best of my belief never will. I wish you had been more +critical, and had pointed out the faults and defects of the book, of +which there are no doubt some, if not many, to be found. I flatter +myself that I have made more clear some passages utterly +unintelligible in our A.V., such as, "He shall deliver the island of +the innocent, yea," etc., chap. xxii. 30, and chap, xxxvi. 33, and the +whole of chap. xxiv. and chap. xx. What a fierce, cruel, hot-headed +Arab Zophar is! How the wretch gloats over Job's miseries. Yet one +admires his word-painting while one longs to kick him! I am glad to +see the _Church Times_ agrees with me in the early character of the +book. There is not a trace in it of later Jewish history or feeling. +The argument on the other side is derived from Aramaic words only, +which words are not unsuitable to a writer who either lived, _or had +lived_ out of Palestine, and scholars agree now that they may belong +either to a very late or a very early time, and are used by people +familiar with the cognate languages of the East. + +A word about your very natural feeling on the subject of Satan. I +suppose that Inspiration does not interfere with the character of mind +belonging to the inspired person. The writer thinks Orientally, within +the range of thought common to the age, and patriarchal knowledge, so +that he could neither think nor write as S. Paul or S. John, even +though inspired. We criticize his writing (when we do criticize it) +from the standpoint of the nineteenth century, _i.e._ from the +accumulated knowledge, successive revelations, and refined +civilization of several thousand years. + +Its extreme simplicity of description may appear to us trivial. But is +not the fact indubitable that God tries us as He did Job, though by +different methods? And is not our Lord's expression, "whom Satan hath +bound, lo! these eighteen years," and S. Paul's, "to deliver such an +one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh," analogous to the +account in Job? One has only to try to transfer oneself to the +patriarchal age, when there was no Bible, no Lord Jesus come in the +flesh, but when at intervals divine revelations were given by personal +manifestations and then withdrawn, and to take out of oneself all one +has known about God from a child, to view the account as an Oriental +would look at it, not as a Western Christian. The "experiment" (so to +speak) involves one of the grandest questions in the world--Is +religion only a refined selfishness, or is there such a thing as real +faith and love of God, apart from any temporal reward? The devil +asserts the negative and so (observe) do Job's so-called friends; but +Job proves the affirmative, and hence amidst certain unadvised +expressions he (in the main) speaks of God the thing that is right. + +I do not know that there is in the early chapters anything that can be +called "petty," more than in the speech of the devils to our Lord, +and His suffering them to go into the swine. + +We must, however, beware that we do not, when we say "petty," merely +mean at bottom what is altogether different from our ordinary notions, +formed by daily and general experience of life, as we ourselves find +it. + +All this long yarn, and not a word about your health, which is +shameful. We both do heartily rejoice that you are better, and only +hope for everybody's sake and your own, you will nurse and husband +your strength.... + +Your affectionate old friend, +JOHN FREDERICTON. + + +TO A.E. + +April 10, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +The night before last I dined with Jean Ingelow. I went in to dinner +with Alfred Hunt (a water-colour painter to whose work Ruskin is +devoted). A _very_ unaffected, intelligent, agreeable man; we had a +very pleasant chat. On my other side sat a dear old Arctic Explorer, +old _Ray_. I fell quite in love with him, and with the nice Scotch +accent that overtook him when he got excited. Born and bred in the +Orkneys, almost, as he said, _in the sea_; this wild boyhood of +familiarity with winds and waves, and storms and sports, was the +beginning of the life of adventure and exploration he has led. He told +me some very interesting things about Sir John Franklin. He said that +great and good as he was there were qualities which he had not, the +lack of which he believed cost him his life. He said Sir John went +well and gallantly at his end, if he could keep to the lines he had +laid down; but he had not "fertility of resource for the unforeseen," +and didn't _adapt_ himself. As an instance, he said, he always made +his carriers _march_ along a given line. If stores were at A, and the +point to be reached B, by the straight line from A to B he would send +the local men he had _hired_ through bog and over boulder, whereas if +he said to any of them, "B is the place you must meet me at," with +the knowledge of natives and the instinct of savages they would have +gone with half the labour and twice the speed. He said too that +Franklin's party suffered terribly because none of his officers were +_sportsmen_, which, he said, simply means starvation if your stores +fail you. We had a long talk about scientific men and their +_deductions_, and he said quaintly, "Ye see, I've just had a lot of +rough expeerience from me childhood; and things have happened now and +again that make me not just put implicit faith in all scientific +dicta. I must tell you, Mrs. Ewing, that when I was a young man, and +just back from America and the Arctic Regions, where I'd lived and +hunted from a mere laddie, I went to a lecture delivered by one of the +verra _first_ men of the day (whose name for that reason I won't give +to ye) before some three thousand listeners and the late Prince +Consort; and there on the table was the head and antlers of a male +reindeer--beasts that, as I'm telling ye, I knew _sentimately_, and +had killed at all seasons. And this man, who, as I'm telling ye, was +one of the verra furrrst men of the day (which is the reason why I'm +not giving ye his name) spoke on, good and bad, and then he said, +'Ladies and gentlemen, and your Royal Highness, be good enough to look +at the head of this Reindeer. Here ye see the antlers,' and so forth, +'and ye'll obsairve that there's a horn that has the shape of a shovel +and protrudes over the beast's eyes in a way that must be horribly +inconvenient. But when ye see its shape, ye'll perceive one of the +most beautiful designs of Providence, a _proveesion_ as we may say; +for this inconvenient horn is so shaped that with it the beast can +shovel away the deep winter snow and find its accustomed food.' + +"And when I heard this I just shook with laughing till a man I knew +saw me, and asked what I was laughing at, and I said, 'Because I +happen to know that the male reindeer _sheds its antlers_ every year +in the beginning of November, _snow shovel_ and all, and does not +resume them till spring.'"!!!!!! + + * * * * * + + +April 26, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +Curious your writing to me about Dante's Hell--and Lethe. Two books in +my childhood gave the outward and visible signs of that inward and +spiritual interest in Death and the Life to Come which is one of the +most vehement ones of childhood (and which breaks out QUITE +as strongly in those who have been carefully brought up apart from +"religious convictions" as in those whose minds have been soaked in +them). One was Flaxman's _Dante_, the other Selous's illustrations in +the same style to the _Pilgrim's Progress_. I do not know whether I +suffered more in my childhood than other children. Possibly, as my +head was a good deal too big for my body! But I remember two troubles +that haunted me. One that I should get tired of Eternity. Another that +I couldn't be happy in Heaven unless I could _forget_. And in this +latter connection I loved indescribably one of Flaxman's best designs. +[_Sketch._] I can't remember it well enough to draw decently, but this +was the attitude of Dante whom Beatrice was just laving in the Waters +of Forgetfulness before they entered Paradise. + +And even more fond was I of the passing of the great river by +Christiana and her children, and by that mixed company of the brave +and the weak, the young and the old, the gentle and the +impatient,--and that grand touch by which the "Mr. Ready-to-Halt" of +the long Pilgrimage crossed the waters of Death without fear or +fainting. + + * * * * * + +Why should you think I should differ with Dante in his estimate of +sin? I doubt if I could rearrange his Circles, except that "Lust" is a +wide word, as = Passion I should probably leave it where it is; but +there are hideous forms of it which are inextricably mingled, if not +identical with Cruelty,--and Cruelty I should put at the lowest round +of all. + + +_Clyst S. George._ April 30, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +We have had rather a chaff with Mr. Ellacombe (who in his ninety-first +year is as keen a gardener as ever!) because he has many strange sorts +of _Fritillary_, and when I told him I had seen and gone wild over a +sole-coloured pale yellow one which I saw exhibited in the +Horticultural Gardens, he simply put me down--"No, my dear, there's no +such thing; there's a white Fritillary I can show you outside, and +there's _Fritillaria Lutea_ which is yellow and spotted, but there's +no such plant as you describe." Still it evidently made him restless, +and he kept relating anecdotes of how people are always sending him +_shaves_ about flowers. "I'd a letter the other day, my dear, to +describe a white Crown Imperial--a thing that has _never been_!" Later +he announced--"I have written to Barr and Sugden--'Gentlemen! Here's +another White Elephant. A lady has seen a sole-coloured Yellow +Fritillary!'" + +This morning B. and S. wrote back, and are obliged to confess that "a +yellow Fritillary has been produced," but (not being the producers) +they add, "It is not a good yellow." _Pour moi_, I take leave to judge +of colours as well as Barr and Sugden, and can assure you it is a very +lovely yellow, pale and chrome-y. It has been like a chapter out of +Alphonse Karr! + +One of the horticultural papers is just about to publish Mr. +Ellacombe's old list of the things he has grown in his own garden. +Three thousand species! + + * * * * * + +I hope you liked that _Daily Telegraph_ article on the Back Gardener I +sent you? It is really fine workmanship in the writing line as well as +being amusing. I abuse the Press often enough, but I will say such +Essays (for they well deserve the name) are a great credit to the +age--in Penny Dailies!!! + +"The Nursery Nonsense of the Birds," "A Stratified Chronology of +Occupancies," "Waves of Whims," etc., etc., are the work of a man who +can use his tools with a master's hand, or at least a _skilled_ +worker's! + +I am reading another French novel, by Daudet, _Jack_. So far (as I +have got) it is marvellous _writing_. "Le petit Roi--Dahomey" in the +school "des pays chauds" is a Dickenesque character, but quite +marvellous--his fate--his "gri-gri"--his final Departure to the land +where all things are so "made new" that "the former" do not "come into +mind"--having in that supreme hour _forgotten_ alike his sufferings, +his tormentors, and his friends--and only babbling in Dahomeian in +that last dream in which his spirit returned to its first earthly home +before "going home" for Good!--is superb!!! The possible meanness and +brutality of civilized man in Paris--the possible grandeur and obvious +immortality of the smallest, youngest, "gri-gri" worshipping nigger of +Dahomey oh it is wonderful altogether, and I should fancy +SUCH a sketch of the _incompris_ poet and the rest of the +clique!! "_C'est_ LUI." + + * * * * * + + +_Ecclesfield, Sheffield._ July 23, 1880. + + +MY DEAR MR. CALDECOTT, + +I am sending you a number of "Jackanapes" in case you have lost your +other. + +I have made marks against places from some of which I think you could +select easy scenes; I mean easy in the sense of being on the lines +where your genius has so often worked. + +I will put some notes about each at the end of my letter. What I now +want to ask you is whether you _could_ do me a few illustrations of +the vignette kind for "Jackanapes," so that it might come out at +Christmas. Christmas _ought_ to mean October! so it would of course be +very delightful if you could have completed them in September--and as +soon as might be. But do not WORRY your brain about dates. I +would rather give it up than let you feel the fetters of Time, which, +when they drag one at one's work, makes the labour double. But if you +will begin them, and _see_ if they come pretty readily to your +fingers, I shall only too well understand it if after all you can't +finish in time for this season! + +In short I won't press _you_ for all my wishes!--but I do feel rather +disposed to struggle for a good place amongst the hosts of authors who +are besetting you; and as I am not physically or mentally well +constituted for surviving amongst the fittest, if there is _much +shoving_ (!) I want to place my plea on record. + +So will you try?-- + + * * * * * + +It was very kind of you and your wife to have us to see your sketches. +I hope you are taking in ozone in the country. + +Yours ever, +J.H.E. + + +[NOTES.] + +Respectfully suggested scenes to choose from. + +Initial T out of the old tree on the green, with perhaps _to secure +portrait_ the old POSTMAN sitting there with his bag _a la_ +an old Chelsea Pensioner. + +1. A lad carrying his own long-bow (by regulation his own height) and +trudging by his pack-horse's side, the horse laden with arrows for +Flodden Field (September 9, 1513). Small figures back view (!) going +westwards--poetic bit of moorland and sky. + +2. If you _like_--a portrait of the little Miss Jessamine in Church. + +3 to 5. You may or may not find some bits on page 706, such as the +ducking in the pond of the political agitator (very small figures +including the old Postman, ex-soldier of Chelsea Pensioner type). Old +inn and coach in distance, geese (not the human ones) scattered in the +fray. + +The Black Captain, with his hand on his horse's mane, bigger--(so as +to secure portrait) and vignetted if you like; or _small_ on his horse +stooping to hold his hand out to a child, Master Johnson, seated in a +puddle, and Nurses pointing out the bogy; or standing looking amused +behind Master Johnson (page 707). + +6. Pretty vignetted portrait of the little Miss J., three-quarter +length, about size of page 29 of _Old Christmas_. Scene, girl's +bedroom--she with her back to mirror, face buried in her hands, +"crying for the Black Captain"; her hair down to just short of her +knees, the back of her hair catching light from window and reflected +in the glass. Old Miss Jessamine (portrait) talking to her "like a +Dutch uncle" about the letter on the dressing-table; aristocratic +outline against window, and (as Queen Anne died) "with one finger +up"!!!!! (These portraits would make No. 2 needless probably.) + +7. Not worth while. I had thought of a very small quay scene with +slaves, a "black ivory"--and a Quaker's back! (Did you ever read the +correspondence between Charles Napier and Mr. Gurney on Trade and +War?) + +8. A very pretty elopement please! Finger-post pointing to +Scotland--Captain _not_ in uniform of course. + +9 or 10--hardly; too close to the elopement which we _must_ have! + +11. You are sure to make that pretty. + +12. Might be a very small shallow vignette of the field of Waterloo. I +will look up the hours, etc., and send you word. + +13. As you please--or any part of this chapter. + +16. I mean a tombstone like this [_Sketch of flat-topped tombstone_], +very common with us. + +17, 18. I leave to you. + +19 or 20, might suit you. + +21. Please let me try and get you a photo of a handsome old general!! +I think I will try for General MacMurdo, an old Indian hero of the +most slashing description and great good looks. + +22. I thought some comic scene of a gentleman in feather-bed and +nightcap with a paper--"Rumours of Invasion" conspicuous--might be +vignetted into a corner. + +23 might be fine, and go down side of page; quite alone as vignette, +or distant indication of Jackanapes looking after or up at him. + +24. Should you require military information for any scene here? + +25-26. I hope you could see your way to 26. Back view of +horses--"Lollo the 2nd" and a screw, Tony lying over his holding on by +the neck and trying to get at his own reins from Jackanapes' hand. +J.'s head turned to him in full glow of the sunset against which they +ride; distant line of dust and "retreat" and curls of smoke. + +The next chapter requires perhaps a good deal of "war material" to +paint with, and strictly soldier-type faces. + +27. The cobbler giving his views might be a good study with an +advertisement somewhere of the old "souled and healed cheap." + +28. This scene I think you might like, and please on the wall have a +hatchment with "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (excuse my bad +Latinity if I have misquoted). + +29 would make a pretty scene, I think, and + +30 would make me too happy if you scattered pretty groups and back +views of the young people, "the Major" and one together, in one of +your perfect bits of rural English summer-time. + +If there _were_ to be a small vignette at the end, I should like a +wayside Calvary with a shadowy Knight in armour, lance in rest, +approaching it from along a long flat road. + +Now please (it is nearly post time!) forgive how very badly I have +written these probably confusing suggestions. I am not very well, and +my head and _thumb_ both fail me. + +If you can do it, do it as you like. I will send you a photo of an +officer who will do for the Black Captain, and will try and secure a +General also. If you could lay your hands on the Illustrated Number +that was "extra" for the death of the Prince Imperial--a R.A. officer +close by the church door, helping in one end of the coffin, is a very +typical military face. + +Yours, J.H.E. + + +TO A.E. + +July 30, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +Oh, with what sympathy I hear you talk of Shakespeare. Nay! not Dante +and not Homer--not Chaucer--and not Goethe--"not Lancelot nor another" +are really his peers. + +Here blossom sonnets that one puts on a par with his--there, _in +another man's_ work the illimitable panorama of varied and life-like +men and women "merely players," may draw laughter and tears (Crabbe, +and much of Dickens and other men, and Don Quixote). His coarse wit +and satire and shrewdness, when he is least pure, may I suppose find +rivals in some of the eighteenth or seventeenth century English +writers, and in the marvellous brilliancy of French ones. When he is +purest and highest I cannot think of a Love Poet to touch him. +Tennyson perhaps nearest. But _he_ seems quite unable to fathom the +heart of a noble woman with any _strength_ of her own, or any +knowledge of the world. "Enid" is to me intolerable as well as the +degraded legend it was founded on. Perhaps the brief thing of Lady +Godiva is the nearest approach, and Elaine faultless as the picture of +a maiden-heart brought up in "the innocence of ignorance." But he can +write fairly of "fair women." Scott runs closer, but his are paintings +from without. "Jeanie Deans" is bad to beat!! + +Shelley comes to his side when _weirdness_ is concerned. + + "Five fathom deep thy father lies," etc., + +is run hard by-- + + "Its passions will rock thee + As the storms rock the ravens on high: + Bright reason will mock thee, + Like the sun from a wintry sky. + + From thy nest every rafter + Will rot, and thine eagle home + _Leave thee naked to laughter, + When leaves fall and cold winds come._" + +But I will not bore you with comparisons. My upshot is that no one of +the many who may rival him in SOME of his perfections, COMBINE them all +in ONE genius. In all these philosophizing days--who touches him in +philosophy? From the simplest griefs and pleasures and humanity at its +simplest--Macduff over the massacre of his wife and children--to all +that the most delicate brain may search into and suffer, as Hamlet--or +the ten thousand exquisite womanish thoughts of Portia, a creature of +brain power and feminine fragility-- + +"By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world." + + * * * * * + + +TO C.T.G. + +_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._ +Aug. 3, 1880. + + + * * * * * + +_A propos_ of my affairs ... next year we might do something with some +of my "small gems." Don't _you_ like "Aldegunda" (Blind Man and Talking +Dog)? D. does so much. Do you like the "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher," +"Ladders to Heaven," and "Dandelion Clocks"?... + +... As you know, these _little_ things are the chief favourites with +my more educated friends, whose kindness consoles me for the much +labour I spend on so few words (The "Kyrkegrim turned Preacher" was +"in hand" two years!!!), and I think their only chance would be to be +so dressed and presented as to specially and downrightly appeal to +those who would value the Art of the Illustrator, and perhaps +recognize the refinement of labour with which the letter-press has +been ground down, and clipped, and condensed, and selected--till, as +it would appear to the larger buying-public, there is _wonderfully +little left you for your money_!!... + +Poor old Cruikshank! How well--and willingly--he would have done +"Kyrkegrim turned Preacher." He said, when he read my things, "the +Fairies came and danced to him"--which pleased me much. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday I pulled myself together and wrote straight to the printers, +to the effect that the suffering the erratic and careless printing of +"We and the World" cost me was such that I was obliged to protest +against X. and Sons economizing by using boys and untrained incapables +to print (printing from print being easier, and therefore adapted for +teaching the young P.D. how to set up type), pointing out one sentence +in which (clear type in _A.J.M._) the words "insist on guiding my fate +by lines of their own ruling" was printed to the effect that they +wouldn't insist on _gilding_ my _faith_, etc., _their_ being changed +to _there_. All of which the _reader_ had overlooked--to concern +himself with my Irish brogue--and certain _reiterations of words_ +which he mortally hates, and which I regard the chastened use of, as +like that of the _plural of excellence_ in Hebrew! + +(He would have put that demoniacal mark [symbol: checkmark] +against one of the summers in "All the fragrance of summer +when summer was gone"!!!) + +I sent SUCH a polite message PER X. to his reader, +thanking him much for trying to mend my brogue (which had already +passed through the hands of three or four Irishmen, including Dr. +Todhunter and Dr. Littledale), but proposing that for the future we +should confine ourselves to our respective trades,--That the printer +should print from copy, and not out of his own head--that the reader +should read for clerical errors and bad printing, which would leave me +some remnant of time and strength to attend to the language and +sentiments for which I alone was responsible. My dear love, I must +stop. + +Ever your devoted, +J.H.E. + + +TO A.E. + +_Farnham Castle, Surrey._ +Oct. 10, 1880. + + +DIARY OF MRS. PEPYS. + +"_Oct. 9._--Passed an ill night, and did early resolve to send a +carrier pigeon unto the Castle to notify that I must lie where I was, +being unable to set forward. But on rising I found myself not so ill +that I need put others to inconvenience; so I did but order a cab and +set forth at three in the afternoon, in pouring rain. My hostess sent +with me David her footman, who saved me all trouble with my luggage, +and so forth from Frimley to Farnham. A pause at the South Camp +Station, dear familiar spot, a little before which the hut where my +good lord lay before we were married loomed somewhat drearily through +the mist and rain. At Farnham the Lord Bishop's servitor was waiting +for me, and took all my things, leading me to a comfortable carriage +and so forth to the Castle. + +Somewhat affrighted at the hill, which is steep, and turns suddenly; +but recovered my steadfastness in thinking that no horses could know +the way so well as these. + +The Bishopess and her daughter received me on the stair-case, and we +had tea in the book-gallery, a most pleasing apartment. + +Thence to my room to rest till dinner. It is a mighty fine apartment, +vast and high, with long windows having deep embrasures, and looking +down upon the cedars and away over the whole town, which is a pretty +one. + +Methinks if I were a state prisoner, I would fain be imprisoned in an +upper chamber, looking level with these same cedar-branches, whereon, +mayhap, some bird might build its nest for mine entertainment. + +Dinner at 8.15. Wore my ancient brocade newly furbished with +olive-green satin, and tinted lace about my neck, fastened with a +brooch made like to a Maltese Cross, green stockings and shoes +embroidered with flowers. + +Was taken down to dinner by Sir Thos. Gore Browne, an exceeding +pleasant old soldier, elder brother to the Bishop,--having before +dinner had much talk with his Lordship, whom I had not remembered to +have been the dear friend of our dear friend the Lord Bishop of +Fredericton, when both prelates were curates in Exeter." + + * * * * * + +I am very much enjoying my visit to this dear old Castle. They are +superabundantly kind! After the evening yesterday everybody, visitors +and family, all trooped into the dimly-lighted chapel for Evening +Prayer. They sang "Jerusalem the Golden," and Gen. Lysons sang away +through his glass, in his K.C.B. star, and came up to compliment me +about it afterwards.... + + +October 22, 1880. + + +Yesterday was Trafalgar Day. About half-a-dozen old Admirals of ninety +and upwards met and dined together! I don't know what I would not have +given to have been present at that most ghostly banquet! How like a +dream, a shadow, a bubble, a passing vapour, and all the rest of it, +must life not have seemed to these ex-midshipmen of the _Victory_ and +the _Temeraire_! muffling their poor old throats against this sudden +frost, and toddling to table, and hobnobbing their glass in +old-fashioned ways to immortal memories, + + "here in London's central roar, + Where the sound of those, he wrought for, + And the feet of those he fought for, + Echo round his bones for Evermore!" + +The cold is sudden and most severe. I fear it will hustle some of +those dear old Admirals to rejoin their ancient comrade--the "Saviour +of the silver-coasted isle." + + * * * * * + + +May 1881. + + + "The Harbour Bay was clear as glass-- + So smooth--ly was it strewn! + And on--the Bay--the moonlight lay + And--the--Shad--ow of--the Moon!" + +--thus was it at 11 p.m. on the night of the 4th of May, when I looked +out of my bedroom window at Place Castle, Fowey, on the coast of +Cornwall!!!!--(and we must also remember that Isolde was married to +the King of Cornwall, and lived probably in much such a place as +Place!) + + * * * * * + +I caught a train on to Fowey, which I reached about 5. There I found a +brougham and two fiery chestnuts waiting for me, and after some +plunging at the train away went my steeds, and we turned almost at +once into the drive. There is no park to Place that I could see, but +the drive is _sui generis_! You keep going through _cuttings_ in the +rock, so that it has an odd feeling of a drive _on the stage_ in a +Fairy Pantomime. On your right hand the cliff is _tapestried_, almost +hidden, by wild-flowers and ferns in the wealthiest profusion! +Unluckily the wild garlic smells dreadfully, but its exquisite white +blossoms have a most aerial effect, with pink campion, Herb Robert, +etc., etc. On the left hand you have perpetual glimpses of the harbour +as it lies below--oh, _such_ a green! I never saw such before--"as +green as em-er-ald!"--and the roofs of the ancient borough of +Fowey!--I hope by next mail to have photographs to send you of the +place. It perpetually reminded me of the Ancient Mariner. As to Place +(P. Castle they call it now), the photographs will really give you a +better idea of it than I can. You must bear in mind that the harbour +of Fowey and a castle, carrying artillery, have been in the hands of +the Treffrys from time immemorial.... We went over the Church, a fine +old Church with a grand tower, standing just below the Castle. The +Castle itself is chiefly Henry VI, and Henry VII. I never saw such +elaborate stone carving as decorates the outside. There are beautiful +"Rose" windows close to the ground, and the Lilies of France, of +course, are everywhere. The chief drawing-room is a charming room, +hung with pale yellow satin damask, and with beautiful Louis Quinze +furniture. The porphyry hall is considered one of _the_ sights, the +roof, walls, and floor are all of red Cornish porphyry.... + + +_Frimhurst_, May 10, 1881. + + +I have been into the poor old Camp. I will tell thee. Did you ever +meet Mr. F., R.E.? a young engineer of H.'s standing, and his chief +friend. A Lav-engro (Russian is his present study) with a nice taste +in old brass pots and Eastern rugs, and a choice little book-case, and +a terrier named "Jem "--the exact image of dear old "Rough." He asked +us to go to tea to see the pictures you and I gave to the Mess and so +forth. So the General let us have the carriage and pair and away we +went. It _is_ the divinest air! It was like passing quickly through +BALM of body and mind. And you know how the birds sing, and +how the young trees look among the pines, and the milkmaids in the +meadows, and the kingcups in the ditches, and then the North Camp and +the dust, and Sir Evelyn Wood's old quarters with a new gate, and then +the racecourse with polo going on and more dust!--and then the R.E. +theatre (where nobody has now the spirit to get up any theatricals!), +and the "Kennel" (as Jane Turton called it) where I used to get flags +and rushes, and where Trouve, dear Trouve! will never swim again! And +then the Iron Church from which I used to _run_ backwards and forwards +not to be late for dinner every evening, with the "tin" roof that used +to shake to the "Tug of War Hymn,"--and then more dust, and (it must +be confessed) dirt and squalor, and _back views_ of ashpit and +mess-kitchens and wash-houses, and turf wall the grass won't grow on, +and rustic work always breaking up! and so on into the R.E. Lines! Mr. +F. was not quite ready for us, so we drove on a little and looked at +No. 3. N. Lines. T.'s hut is nearly buried in creepers now. An _Isle +of Man_(do you remember?) official lives there, they say; but it +looked as if only the Sleeping Beauty could. Our hut looks just the +same. Cole's greenhouse in good repair. But through all the glamour of +love one could see that there _is_ a good deal of dirt and dust, and +refuse and coal-boxes!!! + +Then a bugle played!-- + + "The trumpet blew!" + +I _think_ it was "Oh come to the Orderly Room!" _We_ went to the +Mess. The Dining-Room is much improved by a big window, high pitched, +opposite the conservatory. It is new papered, prettily, and our +pictures hang on each side of the fireplace. Mr. G. joined us and we +went into the Ante-Room. Then to the inevitable photo books, in the +window where poor old Y. used to sit in his spotless mufti. When G. +(who is not _spirituel_) said, turning over leaves for the young +ladies, "that and that are killed" I turned so sick! Mac G. and Mac +D.! Oh dear! There be many ghosts in "old familiar places." But I have +no devouter superstition than that the souls of women who die in +childbed and men who fall in battle go straight to Paradise!!! +Requiescant in Pace. + +Then to tea in Mr. F.'s quarters next to the men. Then--now mark you, +how the fates managed so happy a coincidence--G. said casually, "I saw +Mrs. Jelf in the Lines just now!" I nearly jumped out of my boots, for +I did not know she had got to England. Then F. had helped to nurse +Jelf in Cyprus and was of course interested to see her, so out went G. +for Mrs. J., and anon, through the hut porch in she came--Tableau--! + +Then I sent the girls with Messrs F. and G. to "go round the stables," +and M. and _Jem_ and I remained together. Jem went to sleep (with one +eye open) under the table, and the sun shone and made the roof very +hot, and outside--"The trumpets blew!" + +It was an afternoon wonderfully like a Wagner opera, thickset with +recurring _motifs_.... + + +_Frimhurst._ June 15, 1891. + + + * * * * * + +The old editions of Dickens are here, and I have been re-reading +_Little Dorrit_ with keen enjoyment. There is a great deal of poor +stuff in it, but there is more that is first-rate than I thought. I +had quite forgotten Flora's enumeration of the number of times Mr. F. +proposed to her--"seven times, once in a hackney coach, once in a +boat, once in a pew, once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells, and the rest +on his knees." But she is very admirable throughout. + +I've also been reading some more of that American novelist's work, +Henry James, junior,--_The Madonna of the Future_, etc. He is not +_great_, but very clever. + +Used you not to like the first-class Americans you met in China very +much? It is with great reluctance--believing Great Britons to be the +salt of the earth!!--but a lot of evidence of sorts is gradually +drawing me towards a notion that the best type of American Gentleman +is something like a generation ahead of our gentlemen in his attitude +towards women and all that concerns them. There are certain points of +view commonly taken up by Englishmen, even superior ones, which always +exasperate women, and which seem equally incomprehensible by American +men. You will guess the sort of things I mean. I do not know whether +it is more really than the _elite_ of Yankees (in which case we also +have our _ames d'elite_ in chivalry)--but I fancy as a race they seem +to be shaking off the ground-work idea of woman as the lawful +PREY of man, who must keep Mrs. Grundy at her elbow, and +_show cause why she shouldn't be insulted_. (An almost exclusively +_English_ feeling even in Great Britain, I fancy. By the bye, what odd +flash of self-knowledge of John Bull made Byron say in his will that +his daughter was not to marry an Englishman, as either Scotch or +Irishmen made better husbands?)... + + +July 6, 1881. + + + * * * * * + +The Academy this year is very fine. Some truly beautiful things. But +before one picture I stood and simply laughed and shook with laughing +aloud. It is by an Italian, and called "A frightful state of things." +It is a baby left in a high chair in a sort of Highland cottage, with +his plate of "parritch" on his lap--and every beastie about the place, +geese, cocks, hens, chicks, dogs, cats, etc., etc., have invaded him, +and are trying to get some of his food. The painting is exquisite, and +it is the most indescribably funny thing you can picture: and so like +dear Hector, with one paw on little Mistress's eye eating her +breakfast!!!... + + * * * * * + + +_Ecclesfield._ August 24, 1881. + + +... Andre has made the "rough-book" (water colours) of "A week spent +in a Glass Pond, By the Great Water Beetle." I only had it a few +hours, but I scrambled a bit of the title-page on to the enclosed +sheet of green paper for you to see. It is entirely in colours. The +name of the tale is beautifully done in letters, the initials of which +_bud and blossom_ into the Frogbit (which shines in white masses on +the Aldershot Canal!) [_Sketch._] To the left the "Water Soldier" +(_Stratiotes Aloides_) with its white blossoms. At the foot of the +page "the Great Water Beetle" himself, writing his name in the +book--_Dyticus Marginalis_. There is another blank page at the +beginning of the book, where the beetle is standing blacking himself +in a penny ink-pot!!!! and another where he is just turning the leaves +of a book with his antennae--the book containing the name of the +chromolithographers. He has adopted almost all my ideas, and I told +him (though it is not in the tale) "I should like a _dog_ to be with +the children in all the pictures, and a cat to be with the old +naturalist,"--and he has such a dog (a white bull terrier) [_sketch_], +who waits on the woodland path for them in one picture, _noofles_ in +the colander at the water-beasts in another, examines the beetle in a +third, stands on his hind legs to peep into the aquarium in a fourth, +etc. But I cannot describe it all to you. I have asked to have it +again by and by, and will send you a coloured sketch or two from it. I +am so much pleased!... Perhaps the best part of the book is _the +cover_. It is very beautiful. The Bell Glass Aquarium (lights in the +water beautifully done) carries the title, and reeds, flowers, newts, +beetles, dragon-flies, etc., etc., are grouped with wondrous fancy! +This entirely his own design.... + + +_Jesmond Dene, Newcastle-on-Tyne._ +August 30, 1881. + + + * * * * * + +The four Jones children and their nurse are in lodgings at a place +called Whitley on the coast, not far from here. Somebody from here +goes to see them most days. To-day Mrs. J. and I went. As we were +starting dear "Bob" (the collie who used to belong to the +Younghusbands) was determined to go. Mrs. Jones said No. He bolted +into the cab and crouched among my petticoats; I begged for him, and +he was allowed. At the station he was in such haste he _would_ jump +into a 2nd class carriage, and we had hard work to get him out. (This +_is_ rather funny, because she usually goes there 2nd class with the +children: and he looked at the 1st and would hardly be persuaded to +get in.) Well, the coast is rather like Filey, and such a wind was +blowing, and _such_ white horses foamed and fretted, and sent up +wildly tossed fountains of foam against the rocks, and such grey and +white waves swallowed up the sands! I ran and played with the children +and the dog--and built a big sand castle ("Early English if not Delia +Cruscan"!!), and by good-luck and much sharp hunting among the +storm-wrack flung ashore among the foam, found four cork floats, and +made the children four ships with paper sails, and had a glorious dose +of oxygen and iodine. How strange are the properties of the invisible +air! The air from an open window at Ecclesfield gives me neuralgia, +and doubly so at Exeter. To-day the wild wind was driving huge tracts +of foam across the sands in masses that broke up as they flew, and +driving the sand itself after them like a dust-storm. I could barely +stand on the slippery rocks, and yet my teeth seemed to _settle in my +jaws_ and my face to get PICKLED (!) and comforted by the +wild (and very cold) blast.... Now to sweet repose, but I was obliged +to tell you I had been within sound of the sea, aye! and run into and +away from the waves, with children and a dog. This is better than a +Bath Chair in Brompton Cemetery!... + + +_Thornliebank, Glasgow._ September 8, 1881. + + +... "It is good to be sib to" kindly Scots! and I am having a very +pleasant visit. You know the place and its luxuries and hospitalities +well. + +I came from Newcastle last Friday, and (in a good hour, etc.) bore more +in the travelling way than I have managed with impunity since I broke +down. I came by the late express, got to Glasgow between 8 and 9 p.m., +and had rather a hustle to to get a cab, etc. A nice old porter (as +dirty and hairy as a Simian!) secured one at last with a cabby who +jabbered in a tongue that at last I utterly lost the running of, and +when he suddenly (and as it appeared indignantly!) remounted his box, +whipped up, and drove off, leaving me and my boxes, I felt inclined to +cry(!), and said piteously to the porter, "What _does_ he say? I +_cannot_ understand him!" On which the old Ourang-Outang began to pat me +on the shoulder with his paw, and explain loudly and slowly to my +Sassenach ears, "He's jest telling ye--that 't'll be the better forrr +ye--y'unnerstan'--to hev a caaaab that's got an i(ro)n railing on the +top of it--for the sake of yourrr boxes." And in due time I was handed +over to a cab with an iron railing, the Simian left me, and so friendly +a young cabby (also dirty) took me in hand that I began to think he was +drunk, but soon found that he was only exceedingly kind and lengthily +conversational! When he had settled the boxes, put on his coat, argued +out the Crums' family and their residences, first with me and then with +his friends on the platform, we were just off when a thought seemed to +strike him, and back he came to the open window, and saying "Ye'll be +the better of havin' this ap"--scratched it up from the outside with +nails like Nebuchadnezzar's. Whether my face looked as if I did not like +it or what, I don't know, but down came the window again with a rattle, +and he wagged the leather strap almost in my face and said, "there's +_hoals_ in't, an' ye can jest let it down to yer own satisfaction if ye +fin' it gets clos." Then he rattled it up again, mounted the box, and +off we went. Oh, _such_ a jolting drive of six miles! Such wrenching +over tramway lines! But I had my fine air-cushions, and my spine must +simply be another thing to what it was six months back. Oh, he was +funny! I found that he did NOT know the way to Thornliebank, but having +a general idea, and a (no doubt just) faith in his own powers, he swore +he did know, and utterly resented asking bystanders. After we got far +away from houses, on the bleak roads in the dark night, I merely felt +one must take what came. By and by he turned round and began to retrace +his steps. I put out my head (as I did at intervals to his great +disgust; he always pitched well into me--"We're aal right--just +com--pose yeself," etc.), but he assured me he'd only just gone by the +gate. So by and by we drew up, no lights in the lodge, no answer to +shouts--then he got down, and in the darkness I heard the gates grating +as if they had not been opened for a century. Then under overhanging +trees, and at last in the dim light I saw that the walls were broken +down and weeds were thick round our wheels. I could bear it no longer, +and put out my head again, and I shall never forget the sight. The moon +was coming a little bit from behind the clouds, and showed a court-yard +in which we had pulled up, surrounded with buildings in ruins, and +overgrown with nettles and rank grass. We had not seen a human being +since we left Glasgow, at least an hour before,--and of all the places +to have one's throat cut in!! The situation was so tight a place, it +really gave one the courage of desperation, and I ordered him to drive +away at once. I believe he was half frightened himself, and the horse +ditto, and never, never was I in anything so nearly turned over as that +cab! for the horse got it up a bank. At last it was righted, but not an +inch would my Scotchman budge till he'd put himself through the window +and confounded himself in apologies, and in explanations calculated to +convince me that, in spite of appearances, he knew the way to +Thornliebank "pairfeckly well." "Noo, I do beg of ye not to be +narrrr-vous. Do NOT give way to't. Ye may trust me entirely. Don't be +discommodded in the least. I'm just pairfectly acquainted with the road. +But it'll be havin' been there in the winter that's just misled me. But +we're aal right." And all right he did eventually land me here! so late +J. had nearly given me up. + + * * * * * + + +TO MRS. ELDER. + +_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._ +October 26, 1881. + + +DEAREST AUNT HORATIA, + + * * * * * + +D. says you would like some of the excellent Scotch stories I heard +from Mr. Donald Campbell. I wish I could take the wings of a swallow +and tell you them. You must supply gaps from your imagination. + +They were as odd a lot of tales as I ever heard--_drawled_ (oh so +admirably drawled, without the flutter of an eyelid, or the quiver of +a muscle) by a Lowland Scotchman, and queerly characteristic of the +Lowland Scotch race!!!! Picture this slow phlegmatic rendering to your +"mind's eye, Horatia!" + +A certain excellent woman after a long illness--departed this life, +and the Minister went to condole with the Widower. "The Hand of +affliction has been heavy on yu, Donald. Ye've had a sair loss in +your Jessie." + +"Aye--aye--I've had a sair loss in my Jessie--an' a heavy ex-pense." + + * * * * * + +A good woman lost her husband, and the Minister made his way to the +court where she lived. He found her playing cards with a friend. But +she was _aequus ad occasionem_--as Charlie says!-- + +"Come awa', Minister! Come awa' in wi' ye. Ye'll see _I'm just hae-ing +a trick with the cairds to ding puir Davie oot o' my heid_." + + * * * * * + +I don't know if the following will _read_ comprehensibly. _Told_ it +was overwhelming, and was a prime favourite with the Scotch audience. + +Hoo oor Baby was _burrrned_. +(How our Baby was burnt.) + +(You must realize a kind of amiable bland _whine_ in the way of +telling this. A caressing tone in the Scotch drawl, as the good lady +speaks of _oor wee Wullie_, etc. Also a roll of the r's on the word +burned.) + +"Did ye never hear hoo oor wee Baby was burrrned? Well ye see--it was +_this_ way. The Minister and me had been to _Peebles_--and we were +awfu' tired, and we were just haeing oor bit suppers--when oor wee +Wullie cam doon-stairs and he says--'Mither, Baby's _burrrning_.' + +"--Y'unerstan it was the day that the Minister and me were at Peebles. +We were _awful_ tired, and we were just at oor suppers, and the +Minister says (very loud and nasal), '_Ca'll Nurrse_!'--but as it +rarely and unfortunitly happened--Nurrse was washing and she couldna +be fashed. + +"And in a while our WEE Wullie cam down the stairs again, and +he says--'Mither! Baby's burning.' + +"--as I was saying the Minister and me had been away over at Peebles, +and we were in the verra midst of oor suppers, and I said to him--'Why +didna ye call Nurse?'--and off he ran. + +"--and there was the misfirtune of it--Nurrse was washing, and she +wouldn't be fashed. + +"And--in--a while--oor weee Wullie--came doon the stairs again--and +he says 'Mither! Baby's burrrned.' And that was the way oor poor woe +baby was burnt!" + + * * * * * + +Now for one English one and then I must stop to-day. I flatter myself +I can tell this with a nice mincing and yet vinegar-ish voice. + +"When I married my 'Usbin I had no expectation that he would live +three week. + +"But Providence--for wise purposes no doubt!--has seen fit to spare +him three years. + +"And there he sits, all day long, a-reading the _Illustrious News_." + +Now I must stop.... + +Your loving niece, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + +TO A.E. + +_Grenoside._ Advent Sunday, 1881. + + + * * * * * + +On one point I think I have improved in my sketching. I have been long +wanting to get a _quick style_ sketching not painting. Because I shall +never have the time, or the time and strength to pursue a more +finished style with success. Now I have got paper on which I can make +no corrections (so it forces me to be "to the point"), and which takes +colour softly and nicely. I have to aim at very correct drawing _at +once_, and I lay in a good deal both of form and shade with a very +soft pencil and then wash colour over; and with the colour I aim at +blending tints as I go on, putting one into the other whilst it is +wet, instead of washing off, and laying tint over tint, which the +paper won't bear. I am doing both figures and landscape, and in the +same style. I think the nerve-vigour I get from the fresh air helps me +to decision and choice of colours. But I shall bore you with this +gallop on my little hobby horse!... + + +November 30. + + +... I have sketched up to to-day, but it was cold and sunless, so I +did some village visiting. I am known here, by the bye, as "_Miss +Gatty as was_"! I generally go about with a tribe of children after +me, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin! They are now fairly trained to +keeping behind me, and are curiously civil in taking care of my traps, +pouring out water for me, and keeping each other in a kind of rough +order by rougher adjurations! + +"Keep out o' t' _leet_ can't ye?" + +"Na then! How's shoo to see through thee?" + +"Shoo's gotten t' Dovecot in yon book, and shoo's got little Liddy +Kirk--and thy moother wi' her apron over her heead, and Eliza Flowers +sitting upo' t' doorstep wi' her sewing--and shoo's got t' +woodyard--and Maester D. smooking his pipe--and shoo's gotten _Jack_." + +"Nay! Has shoo gotten Jack?" + +"Shoo _'as_. And shoo's gotten ould K. sitting up i' t' shed corner +chopping wood, and shoo's bound to draw him and Dronfield's lad +criss-cross sawing." + +"Aye. Shoo did all Greno Wood last week, they tell me." + +"Aye. And shoo's done most o' t' village this week. What's shoo bound +to do wi' 'em all?" + +"_Shoo'll piece 'em all together and mak a big picter of t' whole +place._" (These are true bills!) + +Mr. S---- brings in some amusing _ana_ of the village on this subject. + +A.W., a nice lad training for schoolmaster, was walking to Chapeltown +with several _rolls of wall paper_ and a big wall paste-brush, when he +was met by "Ould K." (a cynical old beggar, and vainer than any girl, +who has been affronted because I put Master D. into my foreground, and +not him), who said to him--"Well, lad! I see thou's _going out +mapping_, like t' rest on 'em." This evening Mr. S---- tells me his +landlord told him that some men who work for a very clever file-cutter +here, who is _facile princeps_ at his trade, but _mean_, and keeps +"the shop" cold and uncomfortable for his workmen--devised yesterday +the happy thought of going to their Gaffer and telling him that I had +been sketching down below (true) and was coming up their way, and that +I was sure to expect a glint of fire in the shop, which ought to look +its best. According to N. he took the bait completely, piled a roaring +fire, and as the day wore on kept wandering restlessly out and peering +about for me! When they closed for the night he said it was strange I +hadn't been, but he reckoned I was sure to be there next day, and he +could wish I would "tak him wi' his arm uplifted to strike." (He is a +very powerful smith.) I think I _must_ go if the shop is at all +picturesque.... + + +Nov. 25, 1881. + + + * * * * * + +Be happy in a small round. But, none the less, all the more does it +refresh me to get the wave of all your wider experience to flood my +narrow ones--and to enjoy all the _calm_ bits of your language study +and the like. And oh, I am _very_ glad about the Musical Society! +Though I dare say you'll have some _mauvais quarts d'heure_ with the +strings in damp weather!... + +I have really got some pretty sketches done the last few days. Not +_finished_ ones, the weather is not fit for long sitting; but H.H. has +given me some "Cox" paper, a rough kind of stuff something like what +_sugar_ is wrapped up in, and with a very soft black pencil I have +been getting in quick outlines--and then tinting them with thin pure +washes of colour. I have been doing one of the Clog-shop. This quaint +yard has doors--old doors--which long since have been painted a most +charming red. Then the old shop is red-tiled, and an old stone-chimney +from which the pale blue smoke of the wood-fire floats softly off +against the tender tints of the wood, on the edge of which lie fallen +logs with yellow ends, ready for the clog-making, and all the bare +brown trees, and the green and yellow sandstone walls, and Jack the +Daw hopping about. The old man at the clog-yard was very polite to me +to-day. He said, "It's a pratty bit of colour," and "It makes a nicet +sketch now you're getting in the _dit_tails." He went some distance +yesterday to get me some india-rubber, and then wanted me to keep it! +He's a perfect "picter card" himself. I must try and get _his_ +portrait. + + * * * * * + + +_Ecclesfield._ Dec. 23, 1881. + + +... I cannot tell you the pleasure it gives me that you say what you +do of "Daddy Darwin." No; it will not make me overwork. I think, I +hope, nothing ever will again. Rather make me doubly careful that I +may not lose the gift you help me to believe I have. I have had very +kind letters about it, and Mrs. L. sent me a sweet little girl dressed +in pink--a bit of Worcester China!--as "Phoebe Shaw."... + +Aunt M. sent "Daddy Darwin" to T. Kingdon (he is now Suffragan Bishop +to Bishop Medley), and she sent us his letter. I will copy what he +says: "'Daddy Darwin' is very charming--directly I read it I took it +off to the Bishop--and he read it and cried over it with joy, and then +read it again, and it has gone round Fredericton by this time. The +story is beautifully told, and the picture is quite what it should be. +When I look at the picture I think nothing could beat it, and then +when I read the story I think the story is best--till I look again at +the picture, and I can only say that _together_ I don't think they +could be beaten at all in their line. I have enjoyed them much. There +is such a wonderful fragrance of the Old Country about them." + +I thought you would like to realize the picture of our own dear old +Bishop crying with joy over it! What a young heart! tenderer than many +in their teens; and what unfailing affection and sympathy.... + + +January 17, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +Mrs. O'M. is delighted with "Daddy Darwin." I had a most curious +letter about it from Mrs. S., a very clever one and very flattering! +F.S. too wrote to D., and said things almost exactly similar. It seems +odd that people should express such a sense of "purity" with the "wit +and wisdom" of one's writing! It seems such an odd reflection on the +tone of other people's writings!!! But the minor writers of the +"Fleshly school" are perhaps producing a reaction! Though it's +_marvellous_ what people will read, and think "so clever!" Some novels +lately--_Sophy_ and _Mehalah_, deeply recommended to me, have made me +aghast. I'm not very young, nor I think very priggish; but I do +decline to look at life and its complexities solely and entirely from +a point of view that (bar Christian names and the English language) +would do equally well for a pig or a monkey. If I _am_ no more than a +Pig, I'm a fairly "learned" pig, and will back myself to get some +small piggish pleasures out of this mortal stye, before I go to the +Butcher!! But--IF--I am something very different, and very much +higher, I won't ignore my birthright, or sell it for Hog'swash, +because it involves the endurance of some pain, and the exercise of +some faith and hope and charity! _Mehalah_ is a well-written book, +with a delicious sense of local colour in nature. And it is (pardon +the sacrilege!) a LOVE _story_! The focus point of the hero's +(!) desire would at quarter sessions, or assizes, go by the plain +names of outrage and murder, and he succeeds in drowning himself with +the girl who hates him lashed to him by a chain. In not one other +character of the book is there an indication that life has an aim +beyond the lusts of the flesh, and the most respectable characters are +the tenants whose desires are summed up in the desire of more suet +pudding and gravy!! To any one who KNOWS the poor! who knows +what faiths and hopes (true or untrue) support them in consumption and +cancer, in hard lives and dreary deaths, the picture is as untrue as +it is (to me!) disgusting. + + * * * * * + + +March 22, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +On Saturday night I went down with A. and L. to Battersea, to one of +the People's Concerts. I enclose the programme. It is years since I +have enjoyed anything so much as _Thomas's_ Harp-playing. (He is not +Ap-Thomas, but he _is_ the Queen's Harper.) His hands on those strings +were the hands of a _Wizard_, and form and features nearly as quaint +as those of Mawns seemed to dilate into those of a poet. It was very +marvellous. + +Did I tell you that Lady L. has sent _me_ a ticket this year for her +Sunday afternoons at the Grosvenor? We went on Sunday. The paintings +there just now are Watts's. Our old blind friend at Manchester has +sent a lot. It is a very fine collection. I think few paintings do +beat Watts's 'Love and Death'--Death, great and irresistible, wrapped +in shrowd-like drapery, is pushing relentlessly over the threshold of +a home, where the portal is climbed over by roses and a dove plays +about the lintel. You only see his back. But, facing you, Love, as a +young boy, torn and flushed with passion and grief, is madly striving +to keep Death back, his arms strained, his wings crushed and broken in +the unequal struggle. + +Beside the paintings it was great fun seeing the company! Princess +Louise was there, and lots of minor stars. And--my Welsh Harper was +there! I had a long chat with him. He talks like a true artist, and +WE must know him hereafter. When I said that when I heard him +play the 'Men of Harlech,' I understood how Welshmen fought in the +valleys if their harpers played upon the hills (_most true!_), he +seized my hand in both his, and thanked me so excitedly I was quite +alarmed for fear Mrs. Grundy had an eye round the corner!!! + + * * * * * + + +_Amesbury_, May 28, 1182. + + +... 'Tis a sweet, sweet spot! Not one jot or one tittle of the old +charm has forsaken it. Clean, clean shining streets and little +houses, pure, pure air!--a changeful and lovely sky--the green +watermeads and silvery willows--the old patriarch in his smock--the +rushing of the white weir among the meadows, the grey bridge, the big, +peaceful, shading trees, the rust-coloured lichen on the graves where +the forefathers of the hamlet sleep (oh what a place for sleep!), the +sublime serenity of that incomparable church tower, about which the +starlings wheel, some of them speaking words outside, and others +replying from the inside (where they have no business to be!) through +the belfry windows in a strange chirruping antiphon, as if outside +they sang: + +"Have you found a house, and a nest where you may lay your young? + +(and from within): + +Even Thy altars, O Lord of Hosts! my King and my God!" + +D. and I wandered (how one _wanders_ here) a long time there yesterday +evening. Then we went up to the cemetery on the hill, with that +beautiful lych-gate you were so fond of. I picked you a forget-me-not +from the old Rector's grave, for he has gone home, after fifty-nine +years' pastorship of Amesbury. His wife died the year before. Their +graves are beautifully kept with flowers. + +_Whit-Monday_, 9.30 p.m. We are in the upper sitting-room to-day, the +lower one having been reserved for "trippers." It is a glorious +night--beyond the open window one of several Union Jacks waves in the +evening breeze, and one of several brass bands has just played its way +up the street. How these admirable musicians have found the lungs to +keep it up as they have done since an early hour this morning they +best know! Oh, how we have laughed! How _you_ would have laughed!! It +has been the most good-humoured, civil crowd you can imagine! Such +banners! such a "gitting of them" up and down the street by ardent +"Foresters" and other clubs in huge green sashes and flowers +everywhere! Before we were up this morning they were hanging flags +across the street, and seriously threatening the stability of that +fine old window! + +When I was dressed enough to pull up the blind and open the window +some green leaves fluttered in in the delicious breeze. I went off +into raptures, thinking it was a big _Vine_ I had not noticed before, +creeping outside!! + +It was a maypole of sycamore branches, placed there by the +Foresters!!! + +Frances Peard laughed at me much for something like to this I said at +Torquay! She said, "You are just like my old mother. Whenever we pass +a man who has used a fusee, she always becomes knowing about tobacco, +and says, _There_, Frances, my dear--there IS a fine cigar.'" + + * * * * * + +... We came here last Thursday. When I got to Porton D. had sent an +air-cushion in the fly, and though I had a five miles drive it was +through this exquisite air on a calm, lovely evening, and by the time +we got to a spot on the Downs where a little Pinewood breaks the +expanse of the plains, the good-humoured driver and I were both on our +knees on the grass digging up plots of the exquisite Shepherd's Thyme, +which carpets the place with blue! + +Yesterday we drove by Stonehenge to Winterbourne Stoke. It was +glaring, and I could not do much sketching, but the drive over the +downs was like drinking in life at some primeval spring. (And this +though the wind did give me acute neuralgia in my right eye, but yet +the air was so exquisitely refreshing that I could cover my eye with a +handkerchief and still enjoy!) The charm of these unhedged, unbounded, +un-"cabined, cribbed, confined" _prairies_ is all their own, and very +perfect! And _such_ flowers _enamel_ (it _is_ a good simile in spite +of Alphonse Karr!) the close fine grass! The pale-yellow rock cistus +in clumps, the blue "shepherd's thyme" in tracts of colour, sweet +little purple-capped orchids, spireas and burnets, and everywhere "the +golden buttercup" in sheets of gleaming yellow, and the soft wind +blows and blows, and the black-nosed sheep come up the leas, and I +drink in the breeze! Oh, those flocks of black-faced lambs and sheep +are TOO-TOO! and I must tell you that the old Wiltshire +"ship-dog" is nearly extinct. I regret to say that he is not found +equal to "the Scotch" in business habits, and one see Collies +everywhere now.... + + +_London._ June 29, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +I had a great treat last Sunday. One you and I will share when you +come home. D., U., and I took Jack to church at the Chelsea Hospital, +and we went round the Pensioners' Rooms, kitchen, sick-wards, etc. +afterwards, with old Sir Patrick Grant and Col. Wadeson, V.C. (Govr. +and Lieut.-Govr.), and a lot of other people. + +It is an odd, perhaps a savage, mixture of emotions, to kneel at one's +prayers with some _pride_ under fourteen French flags--_captured_ +(including one of Napoleon's while he was still Consul, with a red cap +of Liberty as big as your hat!), and hard by the FIVE bare +staves from which the FIVE standards taken at Blenheim have +rotted to dust!--and then to pass under the great Russian standard +(twenty feet square, I should say!) that is festooned above the door +of the big hall. If Rule Britannia IS humbug--and we are mere +Philistine Braggarts--why doesn't Cook organize a tour to some German +or other city, where we can sit under fourteen captured British +Colours, and be disillusioned once for all!!! Where is the Hospital +whose walls are simply decorated like some Lord Mayor's show with +trophies taken from us and from every corner of the world? (You know +Lady Grant was in the action at Chillianwallah and has the medal?) We +saw two Waterloo men, and Jack was handed about from one old veteran +to another like a toy. "Grow up a brave man," they said, over and over +again. But "The Officer," as he called Colonel Wadeson, was his chief +pride, he being in full uniform and cocked hat!! + +And I must tell you--in the sick ward I saw a young man, fair-curled, +broad-chested, whose face seemed familiar. He was with Captain +Cleather at the Aldershot Gym., fell, and is "going home"--slowly, and +with every comfort and kindness about him, but of spinal paralysis. +It _did_ seem hard lines! He was at the Amesbury March Past, and we +had a long chat about it. + + * * * * * + + +July 21, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +I cannot tell you how it pleases me that you liked the bit about +Aldershot in "Laetus." I hope that it must have _grated_ very much if I +had done it badly or out of taste, on any one who knows it as well as +you do; and that its moving your sympathies does mean that I have done +it pretty well. I cannot tell you the pains I expended on it! All +those sentences about the Camp were written in scraps and corrected +for sense and euphony, etc., etc., bit by bit, like "Jackanapes"!!! +Did I tell you about "Tuck of Drum"? Several people who saw the proof, +pitched into me, "Never heard of such an expression." I was convinced +I knew it, and as I said, as a _poetical_ phrase; but I could not +charge my memory with the quotation: and people exasperated me by +regarding it as "camp slang." I got Miss S. to look in her +_Shakespeare's Concordance_, but in vain, and she wrote severely, "My +Major lifts his eyebrows at the term." I was in despair, but I sent +the proof back, trusting to my instincts, and sent a postcard to Dr. +Littledale, and got a post-card back by return--"Scott"--"Rokeby." + + "With burnished brand and musketoon, + So gallantly you come, + I rede you for a bold dragoon, + That lists the tuck of drum."-- + "I list no more the tuck of drum, + No more the trumpet hear; + But when the beetle sounds his hum, + My comrades take the spear." + +And I copied this on to another postcard and added, _Tell your Major!_ +and despatched it to Miss S.! She said, "You _did_ Cockadoodle!"-- + +But isn't it _exquisite_? _What_ a creature Scott was! Could words, +could a long romance, give one a finer picture of the ex-soldier +turned "Gentleman of the Road"? The touch of regret--"I list no more +the tuck of drum," and the soldierly necessity for a "call"--and then +_such_ a call! + +When the Beetle _sounds his hum_-- + +The Dor Beetle!-- + +I hope you will like the tale as a whole. It has been long in my head. + + * * * * * + +Oh! how funny Grossmith was! Yesterday I was at the Matinee for the +Dramatic School, and he did a "Humorous Sketch" about Music, when he +said with care-carked brows that there was only one man's music that +_thoroughly_ satisfied him (after touching on the various +schools!)--and added--"my own." It was inexpressibly funny. His +"Amateur Composer" would have made you die! + +Ah, but THE treat, such a treat as I have not heard for +years--was that old Ristori RECITED the 5th Canto of the +_Inferno_. I did not remember which it was, and feared I should not be +able to follow, but it proved to be "Francesca." Never could I have +believed it possible that reciting could be like that. I could have +gone into a corner and cried my heart out afterwards, the tension was +so extreme. And oh what power and WHAT refinement! + + * * * * * + + +July 28, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +Last Saturday D. and I went down to Aldershot to the Flat Races!!! As +we went along, tightly packed in a carriage full of ladies in what may +be termed "dazzling toilettes," pretty girls and Dowager Mammas +everywhere!--and as we ran past the familiar "Brookwood North Camp," +where white "canvas" shone among the heather (and the heather, the cat +heather, oh SO bonny! with here and there a network of the +red threads of the dodder, so thick that it looked like red flowers), +and all the ladies, young and old, craned forward to see the tents, +etc., I really laughed at myself for the accuracy of my own +descriptions in "Laetus"! P. met us at the R.E. Mess, where we had +luncheon. After lunch we went to the familiar stables, and inspected +the kit for Egypt. Then P. drove us to the Race Course. I met a lot of +old friends. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught were there. It all +looked very pretty, the camp is so much grown up with plantations now. +The air was wondrous sweet. P. drove us back to the Mess for tea, and +then down to the station. It was a great pleasure, though rather a sad +one. Everybody was very grave. A sort of feeling, "What will be the +end?"... + + +_The Castle, Farnham._ +Aug. 17, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +It is one of the sides of X.'s mind which makes me feel her so +_limited_ an artist that she seems almost to take up a school as she +takes up a lady-friend--"one down another come on." I think her abuse +of Wagner now curiously _narrow_. I can't see why one should not feel +the full spell and greater purity of Brahms without dancing in his +honour on Wagner's bones!! It seems like her refusing to see any merit +in, or derive any enjoyment from modern pictures because she has been +"posted" in the Early Italian School. So from year to year these good +people who have been to Florence will not even look at a painting by +Brett or Peter Graham, though by the very qualities and senses through +which one feels the sincerity, the purity, the nobleness, and the fine +colour of those great painters, the photographs of whose pictures even +stir one's heart,--one surely ought also to take delight in a +landscape school which simply did not exist among the ancients. If sea +and sky as GOD spreads them before our eyes are admirable, I +can't think how one can be blind to delight in such pictures as 'The +Fall of the Barometer,' 'The Incoming Tide,' or Leader's 'February +Fill-dyke.' Things which no Florentine ever approached, as transcripts +of Nature's mood apart from man.... + +Yesterday we had a most delicious drive through the heather and pines +to Crookham. Ah, 'tis a bonny country, and I _did_ laugh when I said +to Mr. Walkinshaw, "How glorious the heather is this year!" and he +said, "Yes. If only it was growing on its native heath." For a minute +I couldn't tell what he meant. Then I discovered that he regards +heather as the exclusive property of bonnie Scotland!!! + +I think you will be pleased to hear that I did, what I have long +wanted, yesterday. Thoroughly made Mrs. Walkinshaw's acquaintance, and +thanked her for that old invitation we never accepted to go there to +see the Chinnerys' sketches. How Scotch and _kindly_ she is! She +insisted on bringing her husband and daughters to be introduced, and +sent _warmest_ messages to you. She said she feared you must have +quite forgotten her; but I told her she was quite wrong there! She +says she has a little Chinnery she meant to give me long ago, and she +insists on sending it.... + + +Sept. 1, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +I must tell you that I had such a mixture of pain and pleasure at +Britwell in the nearest approach to Trouve I have ever known. A larger +dog, and not quite so "Moecent," but in character and ways his living +image. The same place on his elbow (which his Aunt was always wanting +to gum a bit of astrachan on to); he "took" to his Aunt at once! +_Nero_ by name. The sweetest temper. I have kissed the nice soft +places on his black lips and shaken hands by the hour!!! Yesterday the +others went to a garden-party, so I went on to the Downs to sketch, +and when the dogs saw me, off they came, Nero delighted, and little +Punch the Pug. They came with me all the way, and lay on the grass +while I was sketching, and Nero kept sitting down to save a corner, +and watch which way I meant to go, just like dear True! [_Sketch._] +They were very good, sitting with me on the downs, but they roamed +away into the woods after game a good deal on the road home!... + + +_Grenoside._ Oct 5, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +I do so long to hear how you like the end of "Laetus." As F.S.'s tale +turned out seven pages longer than was accounted for, I had to cut out +some of _my_ story, and so have missed the point of its being S. +Martin's Day on which Leonard died. S. Martin was a soldier-saint, and +the Tug-of-War Hymn is only sung on Saints' Days. + +I have completed a tale[42] for the November No., and gave a rough +design to Andre for the illustration, which will be in colours. I hope +you will like _that_. There is not a tear in it this time! "Laetus" was +too tragic! + +[Footnote 42: "Sunflowers and a Rushlight," vol. xvi.] + + * * * * * + +Will we or will we not have a Persian Puss in our new home by the name +of--Marjara?--It is quite perfect! Do Brahmans like cats? I must +have a tale about Marjara!!!-- + +Karava is grand too! + + Oh Karava! + Oh the Crier! + Oh Karava! + Oh the Shouter! + Oh Karava, oh the Caller! + Very glossy are your feathers, + Very thievish are your habits, + Black and green and purple feathers, + Bold and bad your depredations!!! + +Doesn't he sound like a fellow in _Hiawatha_? + +Oh, it's a fine language, and must have fine _lils_ in it! + + * * * * * + + +TO MRS. JELF. + +_Ecclesfield._ Oct. 10, 1882. + + +MY DEAREST MARNY, + +Your dear, kind letter was very pleasant sweetmeat and encouragement. +I am deeply pleased you like the end of "Laetus"--and feel it to the +point--and that my polishings were not in vain! I polished that last +scene to distraction in "the oak room" at Offcote! + +I should _very_ much like to hear how it hits the General. I think +"_Pav_ilions" (as my Yorkshire Jane used to call civilians!) may get a +little mixed, and not care so much for the points. Some who have been +rather extra kind about it are--Lady W---- (but yesterday she +amusingly insisted that she _had_ lived in camp ---- at +Wimbledon!!)--the Fursdons and "Stella Austin," author of _Stumps_, +etc.--(literary "civilians" who think it the best thing I have ever +done), and two young barristers who have been reading it aloud to each +other in the Temple--with tears. And yet I fancy many non-military +readers may get mixed. P. vouchsafes no word of it to _me_, but I hear +from D. (under the veil of secrecy!) that he and Mr. Anstruther read +it together in Egypt with much approval. I am more pleased by military +than non-military approval. Old Aldershottians would so easily spot +blunders and bad taste!!! Mrs. Murray wrote to me this morning about +it--and of course wished they were back in dear old Aldershot! + +You make me very egotistical, but I DO wish you to tell me +what you, _and_ Aunty, _and_ Madre think of "Sunflowers and a +Rushlight," when you read it. I fear it has rather scandalized my +Aunt, who is staying with us. She is obviously shocked at the +plain-speaking about drains and doctors, and thinks that part ought to +have been in an essay--not in a child's tale. I am a little troubled, +and should _really_ like (what is seldom soothing!) a candid opinion +from _each of you_. You know how I think the riding _some_ hobbies +takes the _fine edge_ off the mind, and if you think I am growing +coarse in the cause of sanitation--I beseech you to tell me! As to +putting _the teaching_ into an essay--the crux there is that the +people one wants to stir up about sanitation are just good family folk +with no special literary bias; and they will read a tale when they +won't read an essay! But do tell me if any one of you feel that the +subject _grates_, or my way of putting it. + +Now, my darling, I must tell you that I have got a telegram from my +goodman--the Kapellmeister!--to say he IS to be sent home in +"early spring." This is a great comfort. I would willingly have let +him stay two months longer to escape spring cold; but he has got to +_hate_ the place so fiercely, that I now long for him to get away at +any cost. It must be most depressing! The last _letter_ I got, he had +had a trip by sea, and said he felt perfectly different till he got +back to Colombo, when the oppression seized him again. He has been to +Trincomalee, and is charmed with it, and said he could read small +print when he got there, but his eyes quite fail in the muggyness of +Colombo. However he will cheer up now, I hope! and Nov. and Dec. and +Jan. are good months. + +Now good-bye, dear. My best love to Aunty and Madre. + +Your loving, +J.H.E. + + +TO A.E. + +_Ecclesfield._ October 24, 1882. + + +... It was very vexatious that the Megha Duta came just too late for +last mail. It is a beautiful poem. Every now and then the local colour +has a weird charm all its own. It lifts one into another land (without +any jarring of railway or steamship!) to realize the _locale_ in which +rearing masses of grey cumuli suggest elephants rushing into combat! +And the husband's picture of his wife in his absence is as noble, as +sympathetic, and as perceptive as anything of the kind I ever read. +So full of human feeling and so refined. I enjoyed it very much. It +reminded me, oddly enough, more than once of Young's _Night Thoughts_. +I think perhaps (if the charm of another tongue, and the wonder of its +antiquity did not lead one to give both more _attention_ and more +_sympathy_ than one would perhaps bestow on an English poem) that the +poem does not rank much higher than a degree short of the first rank +of our poets. But it is very charming. And oh, what a lovely text! It +is a _most beautiful_ character.... + + +TO MRS. MEDLEY. + +_Ecclesfield, Sheffield._ +November 17, 1822. + + +MY VERY DEAR MRS. MEDLEY, + +There has been long word silence between us! I made a break in it the +other day by sending you my new "Picture Poem"--"A Week Spent in a +Glass Pond." + +It was a sort of repayment of a tender chromolithographic (!) debt. + +Do you remember, when Fredericton was our home, and when everything +pretty from Old England did look so very pretty--how on one of those +home visits from which he brought back bits of civilization--the +Bishop brought _me_ a "chromo" of dogs and a fox which has hung in +every station we've had since? + +Now--as a friend's privilege is--I will talk without fear or favour of +myself! The last real contact with you was the Bishop's too brief peep +at us in Bowdon--a shadowy time out of which his Amethyst ring flashes +on my mind's eye. No! Not Amethyst--what IS the name? Sapphire!--(I have +a little mental confusion on the subject. I have a weak--a very weak +corner--in my heart for another Bishop, an old friend of your +Bishop's--Bishop Harold Browne; and have had the honour now and again of +wearing his rings on my thumb--a momentary relaxation of discipline and +due respect, which I doubt if your Bishop would admit!!! though I hope +he has a little love for me, frightened as I now and then am of him!!!! +The last time but one I was at Farnham, I was asked to stay on another +two days to catch the Brownes' fortieth wedding-day. Just as we were +going down to dinner I reproached the Bishop for not having on his +"best" ring! Very luckily--for he said he always made a point of it on +his wedding-day--left me like a hot potato in the middle of the stairs +and flew off to his room, and returned with _the_ grand sapphire!) + +Well, dear--that's a parenthesis--to go back to Bowdon. I was not to +boast of there, and after the move to York, and I had fitted up my +house and made up for lost time in writing work, I was a very much +broken creature, keeping going to Jenner and getting orders to +rest!--and then came the order to Malta, not six months after we were +sent to York, and I stayed to pack up and sent out all our worldly +goods and chattels, and then started myself, and was taken ill in +Paris and had to come back, and have been "of no account" for three +years. + +Well. My news is now far better than once I hoped it ever could be. +I'm not strong, but I can work in moderation, though I can't "rackett" +the least bit. And--Rex is to come home in Spring!--the season of hope +and _nest-building_--and I am trying not to wonder my wits away as to +what part of the British Isles it will be in which I shall lay the +cross-sticks and put in the moss and wool of our next nest!! There is +every reason to suppose we shall be "at home" for five years, I am +thankful to say.... + +Rex loved Malta, and _hates_ Ceylon. But he has been _very_ good and +patient about it. + +Latterly he has consoled himself a good deal with the study of Sanscrit, +which he means me also to acquire, though I have not got far yet! It is +a beautiful character. He says, "Of all the things I have tried Sanscrit +is the most utterly delicious! Of the alphabet alone there are (besides +the ten vowels and thirty-three simple consonants) rather more than two +hundred compound consonants," etc., etc.! He adds, "[Sanskrit: aayi] +are my detached initials, but I could write my whole name in +'Devanagiri,' or 'Writing of the Gods.'" + + +TO A.E. + +_Ecclesfield._ December 8, 1882. + + +... I got back from Liverpool on Monday. When I called at the Museum +on that morning a Dr. Palmer was there, who said, "I was in Taku Forts +with your husband," and was very friendly. He gave me a prescription +for neuralgia! and sent you his best remembrances. + +First and last I have annexed one or two nice "bits of wool for our +nest." For _8s._ (a price for which I could not have bought _the +frame_, a black one with charming old-fashioned gold-beading of this +pattern) [_sketch_] I bought a real fine old soft mezzotint, after Sir +Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Richard Burke. Oh, such a lovely face! +Looking lovelier in powder and lace frill. But a charming thing, with +an old-fashioned stanza in English deploring his early death, and a +motto in Latin. It was a great find, and I carried it home from the +Pawnbroker's in triumph!-- + +I have got a very nice Irish anecdote for you from Mr. Shee: + +Two Irishmen (not much accustomed to fashionable circles) at a big +party, standing near the door. After a long silence: + +Paddy I.--"D'ye mix much in society?" + +P. II.--"Not more than six tumblers in the evening." + + * * * * * + + +S. John Evangelist, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +C. "dealt" for me for the old Japanese Gentleman (pottery) on whom I +turned my back at L1. He has got him for _15s._ You will be delighted +with him, and I have just packed him (and a green pot lobster!) in a +box with sawdust. + +Do you remember how your 'genteel' clerk's wife came (starving) from +Islington, or some such place, to us at Aldershot, and told me she had +_sold_ all her furniture (as a nice preparation to coming to free but +empty quarters) EXCEPT _her parlour pier-glass and fire-irons_? + +I sometimes feel as if I bought house plenishing that packed together +about as nicely as that!!! Witness my pottery old gentleman, and my +bronze Crayfish.... + + +December 20, 1882. + + + * * * * * + +I am so glad you like "Sunflowers and a Rushlight." It was very +pleasurable work, though hard work as usual, writing it. It was +written at Grenoside, among the Sunflowers, and generally with dear +old Wentworth, the big dog, walking after me or lying at my feet. + +You may, or may not, have observed, that the _Times_ critic says, that +"of one thing there can be no doubt"--and that is--"_Miss_ Ewing's +nationality. No one but a Scotchwoman bred and born _could_ have +written the 'Laird and the Man of Peace.'" + +It is "rich in pawky humour." But if I can get a copy I'll send it to +you. It is complimentary if not true! + +I am putting a very simple inscription over our dear Brother. Do you +like it? + + TROUVE +commonly and justly called + TRUE. +FOUND 1869; LOST 1881, +by A.E. and J.H.E. + + +TO H.K.F.G. + +_Eccelsfield._ December, 1882. + + +... I rather HOPE to have a story for you for March, which +will be laid in France. Will it do if you have it by February 8?... + +It is a terribly close subject, and I shall either fail at it, or make +it I hope not inferior to "Jackanapes." I don't _think_ it will be +long. The characters are so few, I have only plotted it. It will be +called-- + +"THE THINGS THAT ARE SEEN": AN OLD +SOLDIER'S STORY. + +_DRAM. PERS._ + +MADAME. +HER MAID. +THE FATHER OF MADAME. +THE FATHER OF THE SERGEANT. +THE MOTHER OF THE SERGEANT. +THE SERGEANT. +THE PRIEST. +THE MURDERER. +A POODLE. + +Soldiers, Peasants, Priests, Gendarmes, a Rabble, Reapers--but you +know I generally overflow my limits. I hope I can do it, but it tears +me to bits! and I've walked myself to bits nearly in plotting it this +morning,--a very little written, but I believe I could be _ready_ by +February 8. I don't think it will be as long as "Daddy Darwin," not +nearly. + +Please settle with Mr. B. what you will do about an illustration. The +first scene is that of the death-bed of the sergeant's father. I think +it would be quite as good a scene for illustration as any, and will, I +trust, be ready in a day or two. Is it worth Mr. B.'s while to see if +R.C. would do it in shades of brown or grey? (a very chiaroscuro scene +in a tumble-down cottage, light from above). All _I_ must have is a +good illustration or none at all. (I would send copy of scene to R.C. +and ask him.) I think it might pay, because I am certain to want to +_re_publish it, and whoever I publish it with will pay half-price for +the old illustration. I do myself believe that it might be +_colour-printed_ in (say seven instead of seventeen) shades of colour +(blues, and browns, and black, and yellow, and white) at much less +cost than a full-coloured one, but that I leave to Mr. B.: only I have +some strong theories about it, and when I come to town I mean to make +Edmund Evans's acquaintance. + +Strange to say, I believe I _could_ make the tale illustrate the +"Portrait of a Sergeant" if it were possible to get permission to have +a thing photoed and reduced from _that_!!!--Goupil would be the +channel in which to inquire--but the artist would not be a leading +character, as far as I can see, so it might not be all one could wish. +But it is worth investigating.... + +Or again, I wonder what Herkomer would charge for an _etching_ of the +dying old Woodcutter, and his kneeling son? I believe THAT +would be the thing!--But the plate must be surfaced so that _A.J.M._ +mayn't exhaust all the good impressions. If Herkomer would etch that, +and add a vignette of a scene I could give him with a beautiful +peasant girl--or of the old sergeant and the portly and worldly +"Madame," we SHOULD "do lovely!" Will you try for that, +please? + +No more today for + + "I am exhaust + I can not!" + +Your devoted, J.H.E. + +Remember _I_ wish for Herkomer. He will be the right man in the right +place. R.C. is for dear old England, and this is French and Roman +Catholic--and Keltic peasant life. + + +TO A.E. + +January 4, 1883, + + + * * * * * + +Caldecott says his difficulty over my writing is that "the force and +finish" of it frightens him. It is painted already and does not need +illustration; and he has lingered over "Jackanapes" from the +conviction that he could "never satisfy me"!! This difficulty is, I +hope, now vanquished. He is hard at work on a full and complete +edition of "Jackanapes," of which he has now begged to take the entire +control, will "submit" paper and type, etc. to me, and hopes to +please. "But you are _so_ particular!" + +I need hardly say I have written to place everything in his hands. I +am "not such a fool as" to think I can teach _him_! (though I am +insisting upon certain arrangements of types, etc., etc., to give a +_literary_--not Toy Book--aspect to the volume). + +Andre I _know I help_. But then only a man of real talent and mind +would accept the help and be willing to be taught. The last batch of +_A Soldier's Children_ that came had three pages that grated on me. + +1. "They mayn't have much time for their prayers on active service, +_and we ought to say them instead_." The first part of this line is +splendidly done by a brush with Zulus among mealies, but the second +part (as underlined) was thus. Nice old church (good idea) and the +officer's wife and children at prayer. BUT--the lady was like +a shop-girl, in a hat and feathers, tight-fitting jacket with skimpy +fur edge (inexpressibly vulgar cheap finery style!), kneeling with a +highly-developed figure backwards on to the spectator! and with her +eyes up in a theatrical gaze heavenwards. Little boy _sitting_ on +seat, with his hat on. + +2. For "GOD bless the good soldiers like old father and +Captain Powder and the men with good conduct medals, and please let +the naughty ones be forgiven,"--he had got some men being released out +of prison cells. + +3. For "There are eight verses and eight Alleluias, and we can't sing +very well, but we did our best. + +"Only Mary would cry in the verse about 'Soon, soon to faithful +warriors comes their rest'!"-- +--he had got a very poor thing of three children singing. + +Now these were all highly-finished drawings. Quite complete, and I +know the man is _driven_ with work (for cheap pay!). So I hesitated, +and worried myself. At last I took courage and sent them back, having +faith in the "thoroughness" which he so eminently works with. + +For 1, I sent him a sketch! said the lady must wear a bonnet in +church, and her boys must take off their hats! That she must kneel +_forwards_, be dressed in a deep sealskin with heavy fox edge, and +have her eyes _down_, and the children must kneel _imitating her_, and +I should like an old _brass_ on the wall above them with one of those +queer old kneeling families in ruffs. + +For 2, I said I could not introduce child readers to the cells, and I +begged for an old Chelsea Pensioner showing his good conduct medal to +a little boy. + +3. I suggested the tomb of a Knight Crusader, above which should fall +a torn banner with the words, "In Coelo Quies." + +Now if he had kicked at having three pictures to do utterly over +again, one could hardly have wondered, pressed as he is. But, back +they came! "I am indeed much indebted to you," the worst he had to +say! The lady in No. 1 now _is_ a lady; and as to the other two, they +will be two of the best pages of the book. Old Pensioner first-rate, +and Crusader under torn banner just leaving "Coelo Quies," a tomb +behind "of S. Ambrose of Milan" with a little dog--and a +snowy-moustached old General, with bending shoulders and holding a +little girl by the hand, paying _devoir_ at the Departed Warrior's +tomb in a ray of rosy sunlight!! + +This is the sort of way we are fighting through the Ewing-Andre books. + + * * * * * + + +_Ecclesfield._ January 10, 1883. + + + * * * * * + +Fancy me "learning a part" again! _That_ has a sort of sound like old +times, hasn't it? + +I feel half as if I were a fool, and half as if it would be very good +fun! R.A. theatricals at Shoeburyness. The FoxStrangways have asked +me. Major O'Callaghan is Stage Manager I believe. Then there is a +Major Newall, said to be very good. He says he "has a fancy to play 'A +Happy Pair' with me!" It is his _cheval de bataille_ I believe. + +I think it is best to try and do what one is _asked_ over parts +(though they were very polite in offering me a choice), so I said I +would try, and am learning it. I think I shall manage it. They now +want me to take "A Rough Diamond" as well, _Margery_. I doubt its +being wise to attempt both. It will be rather a strain, I think. + + * * * * * + + +_Shoeburyness._ January 25, 1883. + + + * * * * * + +I am playing Mrs. Honeyton in "A Happy Pair" with Major Newall. He +knows his work well, is a good coach, and very considerate and kind. + +In my soul I wish that were all, but they have persuaded me also to +take Margery in "A Rough Diamond," and getting THAT up in a +week is "rough on" a mediocre amateur like myself! + +This is a _curious_ place. Very nice, bar the east winds. I have been +down on the shore this morning. The water sobs at your feet, and the +ships and the gulls go up and down. Above, a compact little military +station clusters together, and everywhere are Guns, Guns, Guns; old +guns lying in the grass, new guns shattering the windows, and only +_not_ bringing down the plaster because the rooms are ceiled with wood +"for the same purpose."... + + +TO MRS. JELF. + +Sunday, April 1883. + + +MY DEAREST MARNY, + +I must write a line to you about your poor friends! It is THE +tragedy of this war! Very terrible. I hope the bitterness of death was +_short_, and to gallant spirits like theirs hope and courage probably +supported them till the very last, when higher hopes helped them to +undo their grasp on this life. + +In the dying--they suffered far less than most of us will probably +suffer in our beds--but to be at the fullest stretch of manly powers +in the service of their country among the world's hopes and fears and +turmoils, and to be suddenly called upon to "leave all and follow +Christ"--when the "all" for them had most righteously got every force +of mind and body devoted to it--must be at least one hard struggle. +And death away from home does seem so terrible! + +Richard will feel it very much. That Nottingham election seems so +short a time ago. + + * * * * * + +Back from Church! Great haste. We have had that grand hymn with-- + +"Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest." + +I did not forget the poor souls. + +Prayers for the dead is one of those things which always seems to me +the most curiously obvious and simple of duties! + +Your most loving, J.H.E. + + +71, _Warwick Road_. April 9, 1883. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +I write a line to tell you that D. was at S. Paul's yesterday +afternoon to Evensong, and to hear Liddon preach. + +I know you will like to hear how very gracefully he alluded to your +poor friend as "the accomplished Engineer," and to Charrington and +Palmer. Of the last--he spoke very feelingly--as to his great loss +from the learning point of view. He said--or to this effect--"We laid +them here last Friday in the faith of Him who died for their sins and +ours, and this is the first Sunday when above their ashes we +commemorate that Resurrection through which we hope that they and we +shall rise again." The "Drum Band" was duly played after the service, +and D. says that crowds remained to listen. + +I know you will like to hear this, though I have given a bad +second-hand account. + +I hope my Goodman gets to Malta to-day or to-morrow! + + * * * * * + +Ever, dearest Marny, +Your loving J.H.E. + + +TO A.E. + +April 24, 1883. + + +... I sent you a telegram this morning to make you feel quite happy in +your holiday. "Real good times" (a Yankeeism I hate, but it is +difficult to find its brief equivalent!) are not so common in "this +wale" that you should cut yours short. I rather hope this may be in +time to catch you (it is not _my_ fault that you will be without +letters). If you would like to linger longer--Do. You are not likely +to find "the like of" your present surroundings on leave in Scotland, +least of all as to sunshine and flowers. One doesn't go to Malta every +day. I wish I was there! But I can't be, and ten to one should catch +typhoid where you only smell orange-blossoms, and I don't think my +sins run in the Dog-in-the-manger line, and I hope you'll quaff your +cup of content as deeply as you can. + +For one thing winter has returned. We had snow yesterday, and the east +wind, the Beast Wind! through which I went this morning to send your +telegram was simply killing; dust like steel filings driving into your +skin, waves of hard dust with dirty paper foam.--Ugh!!--Spend as much +of your leave as you and your friends think well where you are. I've +waited three years. I can wait an odd three weeks and welcome! +Especially as I am up to my eyes in packing and arranging matters for +our new home. What I do hope is you will be happy _there_! But I +believe in laying in happiness like caloric. A good roast keeps one +warm a long time! + +How often I have thought that philosophers who argue from the premiss +of the fleeting nature of pleasure, might give pause if they had had +my experience. A body so frail that _nearly_ every pleasure of the +senses has had to be enjoyed chiefly after it had "fleeted"--by the +memory. Pictures (one of my chiefest pleasures), the theatre, any +great sight, sound, or event, being a pleasure after they (and the +_headache_!) have passed away. The "passing pleasures" of life are +just those which this world gives very capriciously, but cannot take +away! They are possessions as real as ... marqueterie chairs! Of +which--more anon,--when you return to the domestic hearth. + + * * * * * + +I had such a round in Wardour Street the other day! I do wish for a +Dutch marqueterie chest of drawers with toilet glass attached, but he +is L8! Too much. But (I _must_ let it out!) I got two charming Dutch +marqueterie chairs for my drawing-room for 35/- each. You will be +surprised to find what nice things we have!... + + +TO MRS. JELF. + +_7, Mount Street, Taunton._ +June 3, 1883. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +I know you forgive a long silence--especially as I have "packed in +spite of you "! + + * * * * * + +I took lots of time over it all. All my "remains" are piled in cases +in the attics, and I have arranged "terms" with the Great Western, and +hope to do my moving very cheaply. + +We had need economize somewhere, for, my dear! we have been +VERY extravagant over our house!!! I should like to hear if +you and your dear ladies (I know Auntie would be candid!) think we +have been wisely so!--Our predecessor had a cottage and garden for +L35--the Col. Commanding only paid L55--and we are paying L70!!! + +It is a question of _three things_: 1st, higher and healthier +situation--2nd, modern appliances and drains unconnected with the old +town sewers--3rd, my Goodman took a wild fancy to the house--and +picked his own den--and said he could "live and be at peace" there: +and this means life and death to _me_! + +So we have boldly taken this other house! A mile _above_ the town--on +high ground, built by one of the sanitary commission (!), brand +new--and with a glorious view. Not a stick in the garden! but things +grow fast here. I shall have a charming drawing room 24 feet long (so +it will hold me!!!), with two quaint little fire-places with blue +tiles. Rex has a very nice den with French doors into the garden, +where he seems to hope to "attain Nirwana"--and live apart from the +world. Small as I am, I have an odd liking for large rooms (the oxygen +partly--and partly that I "quarterdeck" so when I am working--and +suffer so in my spine and head from close heat). Now it is _very_ hot +here. There's no doubt about it! So, on the whole, I hope we've done +well to house ourselves as we have. And we _can_ give a comfortable +bedroom to a friend! My dear Marny--you _must_ come and see me! It's +really a quaint old town--with a rather foreign-looking cloistered +"Place"--and a curious Saturday Market--with such nice red pottery on +sale!! + +Now to go back--and tell you about my Goodman. He had three weeks of +"real high time" in Malta. Then he came home--to Warwick Road. At +first I thought him much _hot-climatized_, and was worried. But he is +now looking as well as can be. We had a few very happy days at +Ecclesfield. It is a most tender spot with me that he is so fond of my +old home! They know his ways--he says he is at peace--and he rambles +about among the old books--and the people in the village are so glad +to see him--and it is very nice. + +He took up his duties here on our 16th wedding day! + +The place suits him admirably. I felt sure it would. But I did not +hope _I_ should feel as well in it as I do. It IS hot--and +not VERY dry--but it is _much_ less relaxing than I thought, +and where we have got our house it is high and breezy--and very, very +nice. I am most thankful, and only long to get settled and be able to +work! + +We are in lodgings close to--next door to--the very fine barracks. Our +room looks into the barrack-yard, and the dear bugles wake and send us +to sleep! + +Your loving +J.H.E. + +Caldecott has done _seventeen_ illustrations to "Jackanapes." + + +TO MRS. A.P. GRAVES. + +June 15, 1883. + + +MY DEAR MRS. GRAVES, + +Once more I thank you for lovely flowers! including one of my chief +favourites--a white Iris. It is very good of you. You do not know what +pleasure they give me! If you continue to bless me with an occasional +nosegay when I move into my house, I shall not so bitterly suffer from +the barrenness of the garden. + +This is suggestive of the nasty definition of gratitude that it is a +keen sense of favours to come! + +I have been meaning to write to you to express something of our +delight with the "Songs of Old Ireland." + +Major Ewing is charmed by the melodies, on which his opinion is worth +something and mine is not! and _I_ can't "read them out of a printed +book" without an instrument. But--we are equally charmed by the +words!! + +It is a very rare pleasure to be able to give way to unmitigated +enjoyment of modern verse by one's friends. Don't you know? But we +have fairly raved over one after the other of these charming songs! + +I do hope Mr. Graves does not consider that friendly criticisms come +under the head of "personal remarks" and are offensive! + +I cannot say how truly I appreciate them. Anything absolutely +first-rately done of its kind is always very refreshing, and I do not +see how such national songs could be done much better. They are Irish +to the core! + +Irish in local colour--in wealth of word variety--in poetry of the +earliest and freshest type--in shallow passion like a pebbly +brook!--and in a certain comicality and shrewdness. Irish--I was going +to say in refinement, but that is not the word--modern literature is +full of refinements--but Irish in the surpassingly Irish grace of +purity, so rare a quality in modern verse! + +How we have laughed over Father O'Flynn! Kitty Bawn is perfect of its +kind--and No. 1 and No. 2. + +It is a most graceful collection. Will it be published soon? My +husband says this copy is only a proof. + +I am unjustifiably curious to know if Mr. Graves has given much labour +and polishing to these fresh impetuous things. It is against all my +experiences if he has _not_!--but then it would be an addition to my +experiences to find they were "tossed off"! + +They have been a pleasant interlude amid the sordid cares of driving +the workmen along! I am getting terribly tired of it! + +Yours very sincerely, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + +TO MRS. GOING. + +_Villa Ponente, Taunton._ July 11, 1883. + + +DEAR MADAM, + +Your letter was forwarded to me last month, when I was (and to some +extent am still) very very busy in the details of setting up a new +home--of the temporary nature of military homes!--as Major Ewing has +been posted to Taunton. + +As yet there are many things on which I cannot "lay my hand," and a +copy of the Tug of War Hymn is among them! + +When I can find it--I will lend it to you. Should I omit to do +so--please be good enough to jog my memory! + +It is a rather "ranting" tune-but has tender associations for my +ears. + +The soldiers of the Iron Church, South Camp, Aldershot, used to "bolt" +with it in the manner described, and some dear little sons of an R.E. +officer always called it the "Tug of War Hymn." + +With many thanks for your kind sayings, I am, dear Madam, + +Yours very truly, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + +TO THE REV. J. GOING. + +October 11, 1883. + + +DEAR MR. GOING, + +I append a rough plan of my small garden. We do not stand dead E. and +W., but perhaps a little more so than the arrows show. We are very +high and the winds are often high too! The walls are brick--and that +south bed is very warm. I mean to put bush roses down what is marked +the Potato Patch--it is the original soil with one year's potato crop +where I am mixing vegetables and flowers. The borders are given up to +flowers--mixed herbaceous ones. And on my south wall I have already +planted a Wistaria, a blue Passion-flower--and a Rose of Sharon! I am +keeping a warm corner for "Fortune's Yellow"--and now looking forward +with more delight and gratitude than I can express to "Cloth of Gold"! + +I have sent to order the "well-rotted"--and the Gardener for Saturday +morning! + +Now will you present my grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. Going, and +say that with some decent qualms at my own greediness--I "too-too" +gratefully accept her further kind offers. I deeply desire some +"Ladders to Heaven"--(does she know that old name for Lilies of the +Valley?)--and I am devoted to pansies and have only a scrap or two. A +neighbour _has_ given me a few Myosotis--but I am a daughter of the +horse-leech I fear where flowers are concerned, and if you really have +one or two TO SPARE I thankfully accept. The truly Irish +liberality of Mrs. Going's suggestions--emboldens me to ask if you +happen to have in your garden any of the Hellebores? I have one good +clump of Xmas Rose--but I have none of those green-faced varieties for +which I have a peculiar predilection. + +(I do not expect much sympathy from you! In fact I fear you will think +that any one whose taste is so grotesque as to have a devotion for +Polyanthuses--Oxlips--Green Hellebores--every variety of Arum (including +the "stinking" one!)--Dog's-tooth violets--Irises--Auriculas--coloured +primroses--and such dingy and undeveloped denizens of the flower +garden--is hardly worthy to possess the glowing colours and last results +of development in the Queen of flowers!) + +But I DO appreciate roses I assure you. + +And I am most deeply grateful to you for letting me benefit by--what +is in itself such a treat! your--enthusiasm. + +Mrs. Going seems to think that my soil and situation are better than +yours. + +Could it be possible that you might have any rose under development +that you would care to deposit here for the winter and fetch away in +the spring? I don't know if change of air and soil is ever good for +them? + +I fear you'll think mine a barren little patch on which to expend your +kindness! But you are a true _Ama_--teur--and will look at my Villa +Garden through _rose_-coloured spectacles! + +Yours gratefully, J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. JELF, + +October 19, 1883. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + + * * * * * + +One bit more of egotism before I stop! + +You know how I love my bit of garden!--An admirer--specially of +"Laetus"--whom I had never seen--an Irishman--and a Dorsetshire +Parson. (But who had worked for over twenty years in the slums of +London--which it is supposed only the Salvation Army venture to +touch!)-- + +--arrived here last Saturday with nineteen magnificent climbing roses, +and has covered two sides of my house and the south wall of my +garden!--but one sunny corner has been kept sacred to Aunty's +Passion-flower, which is doing well--and one for a rose Mrs. Walkinshaw +has promised me. He is a very silent Irishman--a little +alarming--possibly from the rather brief, authoritative ways which men +who have worked big parishes in big towns often get. When Rex said to +him, at luncheon--"How did you who are a Rose Fancier and such a flower +maniac--LIVE all those years in such a part of London?" in rather a +muttered sort of way he explained, + +"Well, I had a friend a little out of town who had a garden, and his +wife wanted flowers, and they knew nothing about it: so I made a +compact. I provided the roses--I made the soil--I planted them--and I +used to go and prune them and look after them. They were +_magnificent_". + +"Oh, then you _had_ flowers?" + +"Well, I made a compact. They never picked a rose on Saturday. On +Saturday night I used to go and clear the place. I had roses over my +church on Sundays--and all Festivals. The rest of the year his wife +had them." + +It struck me as a most touching story--for the man is Rose Maniac. +What a sight those roses must have been to the eyes of such a +congregation! The Church should have been dedicated to S. Dorothea! He +is of the most modest order of Paddies--and as I say a little +alarming. I was _appalled_ when I saw the _hedge_ of the +"finest-named" roses he brought, and it was very difficult to "give +thanks" adequately!--I said once--"I really simply cannot tell you +the pleasure you have given me." He said rather grumpily--"You've +given me pleasure enough--and to lots of others." Then he suddenly +_chirped_ up and said--"Laetus cost me _2s. 6d._ though. My wife bet +me _2s. 6d._ I couldn't read it aloud without crying. I thought I +could. But after a page or two--I put my hand in my pocket--I +said--There! take your half-crown, and let me cry comfortably when I +want to!!!" + +My dear, what a screed I have written to you!! + +But your letter this morning _was_ a pleasure. There is something so +nice in your getting the very hut where--as I think--"Old Father" +first began to recover after Cyprus-fever. I wish you had had F. to +stride about the old lines also--and knock his head against your +door-tops!--Best love to R., F., and the Queers-- + +Your loving, J.H.E. + + +Dec. 3, 1883. + + +MY DEAREST MARNY, + +You are always so forbearing!--and I have been driven to a degree by +work which I had promised, and have just despatched! Some day it may +appeal to "the Queers." For it is a collated (and Bowdlerized!) +version of the old Peace Egg Mumming Play for Christmas. I have been +often asked about it: and the other day a Canon Portal wrote to me, +and he urged me to try and do it, and it is done! + +But it was a much larger matter than I had thought. The version I have +made up is made up from five different versions, and I hope I have got +the cream of them. It will be in the January number, which will be out +before Xmas. + +I have also been trying to see my way--I SHOULD so like to go +to you--and if I can't yet awhile I hope you'll give me another +chance. + +This week I certainly cannot--thank you, dear! And I _don't_ see my +way in December at all. I will _post-card_ you in a day or two again. + +I am yours always lovingly, +J.H.E. + +My garden is great joy to me. Even you, I think, would allow me a +moderate amount of "grubbing" in between brain work. + + +TO MRS. GOING. + +Thursday (December 1883). + + +MY DEAR MRS. GOING, + +You are too profusely good to me. Have you really _given me_ Quarles? +I have never even seen his _School of the Heart_, and am charmed with +it. The Hieroglyphics of the life of Man were in the very old copy of +_Emblems_ belonging to my Mother which I have known all my life. + +Thank you a thousand times. + +I write for a seemingly ungracious purpose, but I know you will +comprehend my infirmities! I am not at all well. I had hoped to be +better by the time your young ladies came--but luck (and I fear a +little chill in the garden!) have been against me. I tried to get +_Macbeth_ deferred but it could not be--and I think my only hope of +enduring a long drive, and appearing as Lady Macbeth on Saturday +evening with any approach to "undaunted mettle"--is to shut myself up +in absolute silence and rest for several hours before we start. This, +alas! means that it would be better for your young ladies (what is +left of them, after brain fag and fish dinners!) to return to you by +an earlier train, as I could be "no account" to them on Saturday +afternoon. + + * * * * * + +_I'll take care_ of _the poor students_ though I _am_ not at my best! +Their fish is ordered. We will spend a soothing evening on sofas and +easy chairs--and go early to bed! They shall have breakfast in bed if +they like. This does not sound amusing but I think it will be +wholesome for their relics! + +Again thanking you for the dear little book--which comes in so nicely +for Advent! + + +TO MRS. R.H. JELF. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +The Queers' letters are VERY nice. Thank them with my love. + + * * * * * + +Forgive pencil, dear--I'm in bed. Got rid of my throat--and now all my +"body and bones" seem to have given way, I thought it was lumbago or +sciatica--but Rex said--"Simply nerve exhaustion from over-writing"--so +I took to bed (for I couldn't walk!), high living and quinine! I hope +I'll soon be round again. The vile body is a nuisance. I've got a story +in my head--and that seems to take the vital force out of my legs!!! + +Apropos to Richard's _Churchwarden's_ conscience, does he remember the +(possibly churchwarden!) "soul long hovering in fear and doubt"--in A +Kempis, who prostrated himself in prayer and groaned--"Oh if I only +_knew that I should persevere_!" To whom came the answer of God--"If +thou _didst_ know it, what wouldst thou do then? Continue to _do that_ +and thou shalt be safe." + +His letter and yours were _very_ comforting. I was just feeling very +low about my writing. I always do when I have to re-read for new +editions! It does seem such twaddle--and so unlike what I want to say! + +Thank you greatly for believing in me! + + * * * * * + +Your loving, J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. HOWARD. + +_Villa Ponente, Taunton._ +Jan. 18, 1884. + + +MY DEAR MRS. HOWARD, + +In this Green Winter (and _you_ know how I love a Green Winter!) you +and all your kindness comes back so often to my mind. "Grenoside" is a +closed leaf in my life as well as in yours, but it is one that I shall +never forget so long as I can remember any of the things that have +mitigated the pains of life for me, or added to its pleasures!--The +bits of Green Winter I enjoyed with you did both--I hardly know which +the most! For the pleasure was very great, and the benefit +immeasurable--though now a fair amount of strength and "all my +faculties" have come back to me, I feel what a very tedious companion +I must have been when _vegetating_ was all I was fit for, and I did +such delightful vegetating between your sofa--and Greno Wood. + +I want to tell you that I have some bits of you in what does the work +of Greno Wood for me here--namely, my little patch of garden, looking +out upon, what I call _my_ big fields. For some time I feared the said +bits were not going to live, but they have now, I really think, got +grip of the ground. They are those offshoots of your American Bramble +which you gave to me. And, ere long, I hope to sow a little paper of +your poppy seed, and--if two years' keeping has not destroyed its +vitality--I may, perchance, send you some of your own poppies to deck +your London rooms. You cannot think--or rather I have no doubt that +you can!--the refreshment my bit of garden is to me. It has become so +dear, that (like an ugly face one loves and ceases to see plain!)--I +find it so charming that it is _with a start_ that I recognize that +new friends see no beauty in-- + +[_Sketch._] + +This four-square patch!! + +But A and B are "beds," and there are borders under the brick walls, +and a rose-growing admirer of "Laetus" made a pilgrimage to see +me!--and brought me nineteen grand climbing roses--and wall S faces +_nearly quite_ south, and on it grow Marechal Niel, and Cloth of Gold, +and Charles Lefebvre, and Triomphe de Rennes, and a Banksia and +Souvenir de la Malmaison, and Cheshunt Hybrid, and a bit of the old +Ecclesfield summer white rose--sent by Undine--and some Passion +Flowers from dear old Miss Child in Derbyshire--and a _Wistaria_ which +the old lady of _the lodgings_ we were in when we first came, tore up, +and gave to me, with various other _oddments_ from her garden! +and--the American Bramble! And also, by the bye, a very lovely rose, +"Fortune's Yellow,"--given to me by a friend in Hampshire. + +Major Ewing declares my borders are "so full _there is no room for +more_" which is very nasty of him!--but I have been very lucky in +preserving, and even multiplying, the various contributions my bare +patch has been blessed with! D. sent me a _barrel_ of bits last autumn +from the Vicarage, and Reginald sent me an excellent hamper from +Bradfield, and Col. Yeatman sent me a hamper from Wiltshire, and +several friends here have given me odds and ends, and our old friend +Miss Sulivan, before she went abroad, sent me a farewell memorial of +sweet things--Lavender, Rosemary, Cabbage Rose, Moss Rose, and +Jessamine!!!--Oh! talking of sweet things, I must tell you--I went +into the market here one day this last autumn, and of a man standing +there--I bought a dug-up clump of BAY _tree_--for 2/6. + +You know how you indulged my senses with bay leaves when I was far +from them? Well, I put my clump and myself into a cab and went +home--where I pulled my clump to pieces and made eight nice plants of +him--and set me a bay hedge, which has thriven so far very well!!! But +then--'tis a Green Winter! + +Now I want to know if there is a chance of tempting you down here for +a little visit? I have thought that perhaps some time in the Spring +the School might be taking holiday, and Harry might be striding off on +a week or 10 days' country "breathe,"--and perhaps you would come to +me? Or if he were inclined for fresh fields and pastures new, that you +would come together, and he might make his head-quarters here, and go +over to Glastonbury, etc., etc., etc., whilst we took matters more +quietly at home? + +I feel it is a long way to come, but it would be so very pleasant to +me to welcome you under my own roof! + +If you cannot get away in Spring, I _must_ persuade you when London +gets hotter and less pleasant! + +You _must_ miss your country home--and yet I envy you a few things! +London has cords of charm to attract in many ways! I wish I could _fly +over_, and see the Sir Joshuas and one or two things. + +(I am stubbornly indifferent to the _Spectator's_ dictum that we like +"Sir Joshuas" because we are a nation of snobs!!!) + +Ever affectionately yours, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + +Do tell me what hope there is of seeing you--and showing you your own +bramble on my own wall! + + +TO MRS. GOING. + +March 11, 1884. + + +MY DEAR MRS. GOING, + +I do not think you will ever let me have my Head Gardener here again! + +I CAN'T take care of him! + +I really could have sat down on the door-step and cried--when our old +cabby--"the family coachman" as we call him, arrived and had missed +Mr. Going. How _he_ did not miss his train, I cannot conceive! He must +have run--he must have flown--he _must_ be a bit uncanny--and the +flap-ends of the comforter must have spread into wings--or our clocks +must have been beforehand--or the trains were behindhand-- + +Obviously luck favours him!! + +But where was his great-coat?-- + +He got very damp--and there was no time to hang him out to dry! + +Tell him with my love--I have been nailing up the children in the way +they should go--and have made a real hedge of cuttings! + +I wish the Weeding Woman could see my old Yorkshire "rack." It and its +china always lend themselves to flowers, I think. The old English +coffee-cups are full of primroses. In a madder-crimson Valery pot are +Lent lilies--and the same in a peacock-blue fellow of a pinched and +selfish shape. The white violets are in a pale grey-green jar (a +miniature household jar) of Marseilles pottery. The polyanthuses +singularly become a pet _Jap_ pot of mine of pale yellow with white +and black design on it--and a gold dragon--and a turquoise-coloured +lower rim. + +I am VERY flowery. I must catch the post. I do hope my Head +Gardener is not in bed with rheumatic fever!!!! I trust your poor back +is rather easier? + +Please most gratefully thank the girls for me. + +Yours gratefully and affectionately, +J.H.E. + + +TO THE REV. J. GOING. + +All Fools, 1884. + + +MY DEAR HEAD GARDENER, + +You are too good, and--as to the confusion of one's principles is +sometimes the case--your virtues encourage my vices. You make me +greedy when I ought only to be grateful. + +I've been too busy to write at once, and also somewhat of set purpose +abstained--for those bitter winds and hard-caked soil were not suited +for transplantation, and still less fit for you to be playing the part +of Honest Root-gatherer without your Cardigan Waistcoat!!!! + +To-day + + "a balmy south wind blows." + +I feel convinced some poet says so. If not I do, and it's a fact. + +Moreover by a superhuman--or anyhow a super-frail-feminine--effort +last Saturday as ever was I took up all that remained of the cabbage +garden--spread the heap of ashes, marked out another path by rule of +line (not of thumb, as I planted those things you took up and _set +straight_!), made my new walk, and edged it with the broken tiles that +came off our roof when "the stormy winds did blow"--an economy which +pleased me much. Thus I am now entirely flower-garden--and with room +for more flowers!! + +Now to your kind offer. I think it will take rather more than 50 +bunches of primroses to complete the bank according to your +plan--though not 100. Say 70: but if there are a few bunches to spare +I shall put them down that border where the laurels are, against the +wall under the ivy. They flower there, and other things don't. + +Now about the wild daffodils--indeed I _would_ like some!!! I fear I +should like enough to do this: [_Sketch._] + +These be the Poets' narcissus along the edge of the grass above the +strawberry bank, and I don't deny I think it would be nice to have a +row of wild Daffys (where the red marks are) to precede the same +narcissus next spring if we're spared! The Daffys to be planted _in +the grass_ of the grass-plat. + +I doubt if less than two dozen clumps would 'do it handsome'!!!!!!!! + +Now I want your good counsel. This is my back garden: [_Sketch._] + +Next to Slugs and Snails (to which I have recently added a specimen +of) + + Puppy Dog's Tails-- + +my worst enemy is--WIND! + +The laurels are growing--for that matter, Xmas is coming!--but still +we are very shelterless. I think I would like to plant in Bed A, +_inter alia_--some shrubby things. Now I know your views about moving +shrubs are somewhat wider than those of the every-day gardener's--but +do you think I dare plant a bush of lauristinus now? It would have to +travel a little way, I fancy. There is no man actually in Taunton, I +fear, with good shrubs. I mean also to get some Japanese maples. I +think I would like a copper-coloured-leaved _nut tree_. Are nuts +hardy? I fear Gum Cistus is coming into flower--and unfit to move! How +about rhododendrons? The soil here is said to suit them wonderfully. I +could not pretend to buy peat for them--but I know hardy sorts will do +in a firm fair soil, and I should like to plant a lilac one--a +crimson--a blush--and a white. I think they would do fairly and +shelter small fry. + +_Can I risk it now?_ and how about hardy azaleas--things I love! If +you say--we are too near summer sun for them to get established--I +must wait till Autumn. + +How has Mrs. Going stood the biting winds? Very unfavourable for one's +aches and pains? + +Tell her I have got one of those rather queer yellow flowers you +condescended to notice!--to bring to her after Easter. + +Is it not terrible about Prince Leopold? That poor young wife--and the +Queen! What bitter sorrow she has known; also I do regard the loss as +a great one for the country, he was so enlightened and so desirous of +use in his generation. + +Yours, J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. JELF. + + +MY DEAREST MARNY, + +Thank you, dear, with much love for your Easter card. It is +LOVELY (and Easter cards are not very beautiful as a rule). +It is on a little stand on my knick-knack table--and looks so well! + +I send you a few bits from my garden as an Easter Greeting. They are +not much--but we are in a "nip" of bitter N.E. winds--and nothing will +"come out." + +Also I rather denuded my patch to send a large box to Undine to make +the Easter wreaths for my Mother's grave. I was really rather proud of +what I managed to scrape together--every bit out of my very own +patch--and consequently of my very own planting! + +I've got neuralgia to-day with the wind and a fourteen-miles drive for +luncheon and two sets of callers since I got back!--so I can't write a +letter--but I want you to tell me when you think there's a chance of +your taking a run to see me! I seem to have such lots to say! I have +found another charm (besides red pots) of our market. If one goes +_very early_ on Saturday--one gets such nice old-fashioned flowers, +"roots," and big ones too--very cheap! It's a most fascinating +_ruination by penny-worths_! + +Good luck to you, dear, in your fresh settling down in the Heimath +Land. + +Mrs. M---- (where we were _lunching_) asked tenderly after my large +young family--as strangers usually do. Then she said, "But you write +so sympathetically of children, and 'A Soldier's Children' is so +real--I thought they MUST be yours." On which I explained the +Dear Queers to her. To whom be love! and to Richard. + +Ever, dear, yours lovingly, +J.H.E. + + +TO MRS. GOING. + +Midsummer Day, 1884. + + +MY DEAR MRS. GOING, + +Not a moment till now have I found--to tell you I got home safe and +sound, and that your delicious cream was duly and truly appreciated! + +The last of it was merged in an admirable Gooseberry Fool! + +The roses suffered by the hot journey--but even the least flourishing +of them received great admiration--from their size--as the skeletons +of saurians make a smaller world stand aghast!!! + +This last sentence smacks of Jules Verne! I don't care much for +him--after all. It is rather _bookmaking_. + +But I have had a lot of hearty laughs over "the Heroine"! It is very +funny--if not _very_ refined. Some of the situations admirable. There +is something in the girl's calling her father "Wilkinson" all the way +through--quite as comic as anything in _Vice Versa_--a book which I +never managed to get to the end of. + +I hope your wedding went well to-day. My sister's--is postponed till +the 28th--for the convenience of the best man. If _by Thursday_ (you +must be a full two days' post from a Yorkshire country place) the +Master had _one or two_ Bouquet D'Or or other white or yellow roses +not very fully blown--and your handy Meta would wind wet rags about +their stalks and put them in an empty coffee-tin and despatch them by +parcels post to Miss Gatty, Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield, Yorks, +they would be greatly welcomed to eke out the white decorations of my +Mother's grave for the wedding-day. I am wildly watering my Paris +Daisies--and hope to get some wild Ox-eye daisies also--as her name +was Margaret (and her pet name Meta!). I am applying prayers and +slopwater in equal proportions--like any Kelt!--to my Bouquet D'Or and +other white and yellow roses! I shall have some double white +Canterbury Bells, etc.--but there is coming a _lull_ in the flowers, +and they won't re-bloom much till we have rain. + +Please give my love to all your party, not forgetting the house dove +and the dog-- + +I reproach my Rufus with his tricks and talents! + +I have had great benefit in a fit of neuralgia from your chili paste. + +Yours, dear Mrs. Going, +Sincerely and affectionately, +JULIANA HORATIA EWING. + + +TO MRS. JELF. + +November 3, 1884. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +Enclosed is "Daddy Darwin"--for Richard!--and two of the Verse Books +for the two dear Queers I had so many luncheons with! + +You know I risked printing 20,000 D.D.D. on my own book to cheapen +printing--so you'll be glad to hear that after ordering 10,000 at the +beginning of last week--S.P.C.K. have ordered another 10,000 at the +end of it!! But I've been having _such_ "times" with the printers' and +publishers' daemons!! + +I must not write, however, for I have been ill also!! A throat attack. +We were afraid of diphtheria--but if it were that I should not be +writing to you as you'll guess. There has been another outbreak of it +just round us, and a good many throats of sorts in its train, but Dr. +L---- does not seem to think mine due to much more than +exhaustion--and he seemed to think nursing the dog had not been very +good for me. He says distemper is typhoid fever! + +We had a very jolly little visit from Colonel C----. He was at his +_very_ funniest. Mimicked us both to our faces till we yelled again! +As Rex said--"Not a bit altered! The old man! _Would any other play +the bones about his bedroom in his night-shirt?_" + +He went off waving farewells and shouting--"We'll _both_ come next +time--and rouse ye well." + +Your loving, J.H.E. + + +Saturday. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +You have indeed the sympathy of my whole heart! + +God bless and prosper "Old Father" on the war-path and bring him home +to his Queers and to you full of honour and glory and interesting +experiences! + +I know Mr. Anstruther--he is charming. I cannot say how I think it +softens one's fears if Richard's strength were still a bit unequal to +the strain--to know that he has such a subaltern--adjutant--and C.R.E. +He could not have gone arm-in-arm with better comrades--unless the +Giant had been ready as sick-nurse in case of need! + +But I do feel for you, dear--you are very gallant. + +I am not fit to write yet--my head _goes_ so--but I will write you +next week about Gordon Browne (a thousand thanks!) and see if _I_ +possibly could. Thank you so much. + +The drummer's letter is charming. I must copy the bit about tip-toe +for Sir Evelyn Wood! I got the enclosed from him--also from Wady +Halfa--and I wanted you and R---- to hear the weird drum-band drunkard +tale! and see how he likes "Soldier's Children." + +Can you kindly return it, dear? + +Your most loving, J.H.E. + + +[_In pencil._] + +Where does R---- sail from? + +I see by to-day's _Times_ the others have sailed from Dartmouth. My +dear Marny--can't you and R---- come here _en route_ if only for a +night? It _would_ be so nice! It would be such a pleasure to Rex and +me to Godspeed him--and he would feel _quite like Gladstone_ if he had +an ovation at every stopping point on the Flying Dutchman! + + +TO COLONEL JELF. + +November 18, 1884. + + +DEAR RICHARD, + +I wish you _could_ have paused here--I wish that you were even likely +to run through Taunton station in the Flying Dutchman, and that we +could have run down to head a cheer for you!--But Gravesend is handier +for Marny. + +She's a real Briton--and it is that "undaunted mettle" that does +"compose" the sinews of "peace with honour" for a country as well as +war! + +Indeed I'm glad you have your chance--or make a very respectable +assumption of that _virtus_! and I take leave to be doubly glad that +it is in a fine climate and with good shoulder to shoulder comrades. + +Tell Marny, Colonel Y. B---- in a letter about "Daddy Darwin" is very +sympathetic. Another "old standard"--Jelf, he says--is going, and +"Mrs. J---- puts a good face on it." + +What will the theatricals and the Institute do?-- + +"Do without," I suppose! I am a lot better the last two days--and +struggled off to the town to-day to a missionary meeting! It was a +most unusually interesting one about the South American Missions. I +must tell Marny about it.--However--at some tea afterwards, I was +"interviewed" by one or two people--and one lady asked to introduce a +"Major"--whose name I did not catch--as being so devoted to "Soldier's +Children." I created quite a sensation by saying that "Old Father" was +ordered to Bechuanaland--"Oh, how old are the Queers? Are they really +losing Old Father again so soon?" + +I feel, by the bye, that it is part of that fatality which besets you +and me, that I should have stereotyped you in printers' ink as _Old_ +Father!!! + +Good-bye.--Godspeed and Good luck to you. + +Your affectionate old friend, +J.H.E. + + +TO THE REV. J. GOING. + +December 3, 1884. + + +DEAR "HEAD GARDENER," + +I think there is a blessing on all your benevolences to me which +defies ill luck! + +After I wrote to Mrs. Going we'd a frost of ten degrees--and I got +neuralgia back--and made a dismal picture in my own mind of your good +things coming to an iron-bound border--and an Under Gardener deeply +_died down_ under eider down and blankets--(even my old labourer being +laid up with sore throat and scroomaticks!--but lo and behold, on +Monday the air became like new milk--I became like a new Under +Gardener--and leave was given to go out. (I am bound to confess that I +don't think rose-planting was medically contemplated!) Fortunately the +border was ready and well-manured--I only had to dig holes in very +soft stuff--but I am very weak, and my stamping powers are never on at +all a Nasmyth Hammer sort of scale--but--good luck again!--Major +Ewing's orderly arrived with papers to sign--a magnificent individual +over six foot--with larger boots than mine and a coal-black +melodramatic moustache! Had the Major been present--I should not have +dared to ask an orderly in full dress and on duty to defile his boots +among Zomerset red-earth, but as I caught him alone I begged his +assistance. He looked down very superbly upon me (swathed in fur and +woollen shawls, and staggering under a full-sized garden fork) with a +twinkle in his eye that prepared me for the least taste of brogue +which kept breaking through his studied fine language--and consented +most affably. I wish you'd seen him--balancing his figure with a +consciousness of maids at the kitchen window, his cane held out, +_toeing_ and _heeling_ your roses into their places!! He assured me he +understood all about it, and he trode them in very nicely! + +How good of you to have sent me such a stock,--and the pansies I +wanted. The flower of that lovely mauve and purple one is on the table +by me now. _One_ (only one) of your other roses died--the second +Gloire near the front door--so when I saw it was hopeless I had that +border "picked" up--a very rockery of rubbish came out--good stuff was +put in, and one of the Souvenirs de Malmaison is now comfortably +established there I hope. This wet weather keeps me a prisoner +now--but it is good luck for the roses to settle in. I have had some +nice scraps and remains of flowers to cheer me indoors--there are one +or two late rosebuds yet! + +They are such a pleasure to me--and I am indeed grateful to you for +all you have done for my garden! Some of those roses I bought have +thrown up hugely long shoots. They were all small plants as you +know--so I cut none of them in the autumn. I suppose in the spring I +had better cut off these long shoots from the bushes in the open +border away from the hedge? + +I must not write more--only my thanks afresh. With our best regards. + +I am very gratefully yours, +J.H.E. + + +[_Written with a typewriter._] + +TO MRS. JELF. + +_Taunton._ December 23, 1884. + + +DEAREST MARNY, + +My right arm is disabled with neuralgia, and Rex is working one of his +most delightful toys for me. He says I brought my afflictions on +myself by writing too prolix letters several hours a day. I've got +very much behindhand, or you'd have heard from me before. I must try +and be highly condensed. Gordon Browne has done some wonderful +drawings for "Laetus." Rex was wild over a "Death or Glory" Lancer, and +I think he (the Lancer) and a Highlander would touch even Aunty's +heart. They will rank among her largest exceptions. I can't do _any_ +Xmas cards this year; I can neither go out nor write. I hoped to have +sent you a little Xmas box, of a pair of old brass candlesticks such +as your soul desireth. D. and I made an expedition to the very +broker's ten days ago, but when I saw the dingy shop choke-full of +newly-arrived dirty furniture, and remembered that these streets are +reeking with small-pox--as it refuses to "leave us at present"--I +thought I should be foolish to go in. D. knows of a pair in +Ecclesfield, and I have commissioned her to annex them if possible; +but they can't quite arrive in time. In case I don't manage to write +Xmas greetings to Aunty and Madre, give them my dear love; and the +same to yourself and the Queers. I am proud to tell you that I have +persuaded my Admiral to put the Soldiers' Institute on his collecting +book of Army and Navy Charities; and when I started it with a small +subscription he immediately added the same. + +Dear Xmas wishes to you all, and a Happy New Year to Richard also from +us both. + +Your loving, J.H.E. + + +[_In typewriting._] + +TO MISS K. FARRANT. + +_Taunton._ January 4, 1885. + + +DEAREST KITTY, + +I should indeed not have been silent at this season if I had not been +ill, and I should have got Rex to print me a note before now, but I +kept hoping to be able to write myself, and I rather thought that you +would hear that I was laid up, either from D. or M. I have not been +very well for some time more than yourself, and I am afraid the root +of this breakdown has been overwork. But the weather has been very +sunless and wretched, and I have had a fortnight in bed with bad, +periodic neuralgia, which has particularly disabled my right arm and +head--two important matters in letter-writing. It put an entire stop +to my Christmas greetings. I made a little effort for the nephews one +day, and had a terrible night afterwards. The lovely blue (china) Dog, +who reminds me of an old but incomprehensible Yorkshire saying, "to +blush like a blue dog in a dark entry,"--which is what _I_ do when I +think that I have not yet said "thank you" for him--is most +delightful. You know how I love a bit of colour, and a quaint shape. +He arrived with one foot off, but I can easily stick it on. Thank you +so much. I must not say more to-day, except to hope you'll feel a +little stronger when we see more of the sun; and, thanking you and +Francie for your cards--(I was greatly delighted to see my friends the +queer fungi again)--and with love to your Mother--who I hope is +getting fairly through the winter. + +Yours gratefully and affectionately, +J.H. EWING. + + +TO MRS. JELF. + +January 22, 1885. + + +DEAREST M., + +I am _so_ pleased you like the brazen candlesticks. + +I have long wanted to tell you how _lovely_ I thought all your Xmas +cards. Auntie's snow scene was exquisite--and your Angels have adorned +my sick-room for nearly a month! Most beautiful. + +I know you'll be glad I had my first "decent" night last night--since +December 18!--No very lengthy vigils and no pain to _speak_ of. No +pain to growl about to-day. A great advance. + +Indeed, dear--I should not only be glad but _grateful_ to go to you by +and by for a short _fillip_. Dr. L---- would have sent me away now if +weather, etc. were fit--or I could move. + +After desperate struggles--made very hard by illness--I hope to see +"Laetus" in May at _one shilling_. Gordon Browne doing well. Do you +object to the ending of "Laetus"--to Lady Jane having another son, +etc.? Do the Farrants? My dear love to them. This bitter--sunless, +lifeless weather must have tried Kitty very much. + + * * * * * + +Your loving, +J.H.E. + + +[_In typewriting._] + +_Taunton._ February 16, 1885. + + +MY DEAREST MARNY, + +Rex is "typing" for me, but my own mouth must thank you for your +goodness, for being so ready to take me in. By and by I shall indeed +be grateful to go to you. But this is not likely to be for some weeks +to come. You can't imagine what a Greenwich pensioner I am. I told my +doctor this morning that he'd better send me up a wood square with +four wheels, like those beggars in London who have no limbs; for both +my legs and my right arm were _hors de combat_, and to-day he has +found an inflamed vein in my left, so _that_ has gone into +fomentations too. + +But in spite of all this I feel better, and do hope I shall soon be up +and about. But he says the risk of these veins would be likely to come +if I over-exerted myself, so--anxious as I am to get to purer air, I +don't think it would do to move until my legs are more fit. May I +write again and tell you when I am fit for Aldershot? Dr. L---- highly +approves of the air of it, but at present he thinks lying in bed the +only safe course. Do thank dear Aunty next time you write to her for +her goodness, and tell her that in my present state I should make her +seem quite spry and active. A thousand thanks for the _Pall Mall_. I +do _not_ neglect one word of what you say; but I need hardly say that +I can't work at present. + +The illustrations for "Laetus" are going on very well. I hope to send +Richard a copy for perusal on the homeward voyage. + +I daren't write about Gordon. Certainly not the least strange part of +his wondrous career is this mystery which persists in clouding his +close. I feel as if he would be like Enoch or Moses--that we shall never +be permitted to know more than that--having walked with GOD--he "was +not--for GOD took him," and that his sepulchre no man shall know. + +Your loving, +J.H.E. + + + + +_The present Series of Mrs. Ewing's Works is the only authorized, +complete, and uniform Edition published._ + +_It will consist of 18 volumes, Small Crown 8vo, at 2s. 6d. per vol., +issued, as far as possible, in chronological order, and these will +appear at the rate of two volumes every two months, so that the Series +will be completed within 18 months. The device of the cover was +specially designed by a Friend of Mrs. Ewing._ + +_The following is a list of the books included in the Series_-- + + +1. MELCHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES, + +2. MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. + +3. OLD-FASHIONED FAIRY TALES. + +4. A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING. + +5. THE BROWNIES, AND OTHER TALES. + +6. SIX TO SIXTEEN. + +7. LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, AND OTHER TALES. + +8. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. + +9. VERSES FOR CHILDREN, AND SONGS. + +10. THE PEACE EGG--A CHRISTMAS MUMMING PLAY--HINTS FOR PRIVATE +THEATRICALS, &c. + +11. A GREAT EMERGENCY, AND OTHER TALES. + +12. BROTHERS OF PITY, AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN. + +13. WE AND THE WORLD, Part I. + +14. WE AND THE WORLD, Part II. + +15. JACKANAPES--DADDY DARWIN'S DOVE-COTE--THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. + +16. MARY'S MEADOW, AND OTHER TALES OF FIELDS AND FLOWERS. + +17. MISCELLANEA, including The Mystery of the Bloody Hand--Wonder +Stones--Tales of the Khoja, and other translations. + +18. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS, with a selection from Mrs. +Ewing's Letters. + + +S.P.C.K., NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books +by Horatia K. F. Eden + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JULIANA HORATIA EWING *** + +***** This file should be named 17085.txt or 17085.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/0/8/17085/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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