THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
Ex Libris
C. K. OGDEN
FROM AN ISLAND
A STORY
AND SOME ESSAYS.
BY
MISS THACKERAY, (^
^ -.vn ^<c b* n* ;
AUTHOR OK "THE STORY OF ELIZABETH," ETC.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
LEIPZIG
BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ
[877.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
PI ■
TO
ALFRED & EMILY TENNYSON
AT FARRINGFORD, ISLE OF WIGHT.
Your name is loved and honoured in a Kingdom
which extends far beyond the sleepy silver confines
of the little Island where we have all been so happy
at times, living round about your home. Allegiance
to you comes as an inheritance to me and mine from
one who was himself much loved, much honoured.
The most generous and the greatest can render best
tribute unto Ctesar; others whose tribute is less worth,
but who have lived under his kind and noble rule
during long years of unchanging countenance and
friendship, can at least love the name of Tennyson
and write it with gratitude and tenderest respect.
. 29. 1S77.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
FROM AN ISLAND 9
AN EASTER HOLIDAY 109
A COUNTRY SUNDAY "5
IN FRIENDSHIP . . 121
JANE AUSTEN 13°
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS .... 161
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER . . - 184
OUT OF THE SILENCE 2l6
TOILERS AND SPINSTERS 22 9
FIVE O'CLOCK TEA 2 4'
CLOSED DOORS 2 4S
MAIDS OF ALL WORK AND BLUE HOOKS 2 S3
FROM AN ISLAND.
PART I.
The long room was full of people sitting quietly in
the twilight. Only one lamp was burning at the far
end. The verandah outside was dim with shadow;
between each leafy arch there glimmered a line of sea
and of down. It was a grey still evening, sad, with
distant storms. St. Julian, the master of the house,
was sitting under the verandah, smoking, with William,
the eldest son. The mother and Mrs. William were
on a sofa together, talking in a low voice over one
thing and another. Hester was sitting at the piano
with her hands in her lap, looking music, though she
was not playing, with her white dress quivering in the
gloom. Lord Ulleskelf, who had come over to see us,
was talking to Emilia, the married daughter, and to
Aileen, the youngest of the three; while I and my own
little girl and the other little ones were playing at
the end of the room at a sort of twilight game of beat-
ing hands and singing sing-song nursery-rhymes, — hay-
making the children called it.
"Are there any letters?" said St. Julian, looking
in at them all from his verandah. "Has Emmy got
hers?"
10 FROM AN ISLAND.
"I have sent Rogers into Tarmouth to meet the
post," said the mother; and as she spoke the door
opened, and the post came in.
Poor Emmy's face, which had lighted up eagerly,
fell in an instant: she saw that there was^ no foreign
letter for her.
It was a small mail, not worth sending for, Mrs.
St. Julian evidently thought as she looked at her
daughter with her kind, anxious eyes. "Here is some-
thing for you, Emmy," she said; "for you, Queenie"
(to me). "The other letter is from Mr. Hexham; he is
coming to-morrow."
My letter was from the grocer: — "Mrs. Campbell is
respectfully informed by Mr. Tiggs that he has sent
different samples of tea and coffee for her approbation,
for the use of Mr. St. Julian's household and family:
also a choice assortment of sperms. Mr. Tiggs regrets
extremely that any delay should have arisen in the
delivery of the preserved cherries and apricots. He
forwards the order this day, as per invoice. Mr. T.
trusts that his unremitting exertions may meet with
Mrs. C.'s approval and continued recommendation and
patronage.
"Albert Edward House, September 21."
This was not very interesting, except to the house-
keeper (Mrs. St. Julian had set me to keep house for
her down here in the country). The children, how-
ever, who generally insisted upon reading all my cor-
respondence, were much excited by the paragraph in
which Mr. Tiggs mentioned cherries and dried apricots.
"Why did Mr. Tiggs forget them?" said little Susan,
the grand-daughter, solemnly. "Oh, I wish they would
FROM AN ISLAND. I I
come," said ray little missy. "Greedy, greedy!" sang
George, the youngest boy. Meanwhile the ciders were
discussing their correspondence, and the mother had
been reading out Mr. Hexham's note: —
" l.yndhurst, September si.
"Have you room for me, my dear Mrs. St. Julian,
and may I come to-morrow for a few days with my
van? I find it is a most delightful mode of conveyance,
and I have been successful enough to take some most
lovely photographic views in the New Forest. I now
hope to explore your island, beginning with the
'Lodges,' if you are still in the same hospitable mind
you were when I last saw you.
"With best remembrances to your husband and the
young ladies,
"Your devoted,
"G. Hexham."
"I like Mr. Hexham. I am glad he is coming,"
said Mrs. St. Julian by way of postscript.
"This is an official-looking missive," said Lord
Ulleskelf, holding out the large square envelope, with
a great red seal, which had come for Emmy.
"What a handwriting!" cried Aileen. She was
only fifteen, but she was taller already than her married
sister, and stood reading over her shoulder. "What a
letter! Oh, Emmy, what a "
But Mrs. St. Julian, seeing Emmy flush up, inter-
posed again: —
"Aileen, take these newspapers to your father.
What is it, my dear?" to Emilia.
"It is from my sister-in-law," Emilia said, blushing
12 FROM AN ISLAND.
in the light of the lamp. "Mamma, what a trouble I
am to you. . . . She says she is — may she come to
stay? . . . And — and — you see she is dear Bevis's
sister, and "
"Of course, my dear," said her mother, almost re-
proachfully. "How can you ask?"
Emilia looked a little relieved, but wistful still.
"Have you room? To-morrow?" she faltered.
Mrs. St. Julian gave her a kiss, and smiled and
said, "Plenty of room, you goose." And then she
read, —
"To the Hon. Mrs. Bevis Beverley, The Island,
Tarmouth, Broadshire.
"Scudamore Castle, September 21.
"My dear Emilia, — Bevis told me to be sure and
pay you a visit in his absence, if I had an opportunity,
and so I shall come, if convenient to you, with my
maid and a man, on Saturday, across country from
Scudamore Castle. I hear I must cross from Helming-
ton. I cannot imagine how people can live on an
island when there is the mainland for them to choose.
Yours is not even an island on the map. Things have
been very pleasant here till two days ago, when it
began to pour with rain, and my stepmother arrived
unexpectedly with Clem, and Clem lost her temper,
and Pritchard spoilt my new dress, and several plea-
sant people went away, and I, too, determined to take
myself off. I shall only stay a couple of days with
you, so pray tell Mrs. St. Julian that I shall not, I hope,
be much in her way. Do not let her make any
changes for me; I shall be quite willing to live exactly
FROM AN ISLAND. I 3
as you arc all in the habit of doing. Any room will
do for my man. The maid need only have a little
room next to mine. You won't mind, I know, if I go
my own gait while I stay with you, for I am an odd
creature, as I dare say you may have often heard from
Bevis. I expect to feel dreadfully small with all of
you clever artistic people, but I shall be safe from my
lady and Clem, who would never venture to come
near you.
"My father is all alone at home, and I want to get
back to him if I can steal a march on my lady. She
is so jealous that she will not let me be alone with
him for one hour if she can help it, in her absence.
Before she left Castlerookham she sent for that odious
sister of hers to play picquet with him, and there was
a general scene when I objected. My father took part
against me, so I started off in a huff, but he has
managed to shake off the old wretch, I hear, and so I
do not mind going back. I must say it is very plea-
sant to have a few halfpence that one can call one's
own, and to be able to come and go one's own way.
I assure you that the said halfpence do not last for
ever, however. Clem took 50/. to pay her milliner's
bill, and Bevis borrowed 100/. before he left, but I
dare say he will pay me back.
"So good-by, my dear Emilia, for the present.
"Yours ever,
"Jane Beverley."
Mrs. St. Julian did not offer to show Lady Jane's
letter to St. Julian, but folded it up with a little sup-
pressed smile. "I think she must be a character,
Emmy," she said. "I dare say she will be very happy
14 FROM AN ISLAND.
with us. Queenie (to me), "will you see what can be
done to make Lady Jane comfortable?" and there was
an end of the matter. Lord Ulleskelf went and sat
out in the verandah with the others until the storm
burst which had been gathering, through which he
insisted on hurrying home, notwithstanding all they
could say to detain him.
We had expected Lady Jane by the boat which
brought our other guest the next day, but only Mr.
Hexham's dark close-cropped head appeared out of
the carriage which had been sent to meet them. The
coachman declared there was no lady alone on board.
Emilia wondered why her sister-in-law had failed: the
others took Lady Jane's absence very calmly, and after
some five o'clock tea St. Julian proposed a walk.
"Perhaps I had better stay at home," Mrs. Beverley
said to her mother.
"No, my dear, your father will be disappointed.
She cannot come now," said Mrs. St. Julian, decidedly;
"and if she does, I am here to receive her. Mr.
Hexham, you did not see her on board? A lady
alone? . . ."
No. Hexham had not seen any lone lady on
board. There was a good-looking person who might
have answered the description, but she had a gentle-
man with her. He lost sight of them at Tarmouth, as
he was looking after his man, and his van, and his
photographic apparatus. It was settled Lady Jane
could not possibly come till next day.
FROM AN ISLAND. I 5
II.
Lady Jane Beverley had always declared that she
hated three things- islands, clever people, and inter-
ference. She knew she was clever, but she did not
encourage this disposition. It made people bores and
radical in her own class of life, and forward if they
were low. She was not pretty. No; she didn't care
for beaut}-, though she confessed she should be very
sorry if she was not able to afford to dress in the last
fashion. It was all very well for artists and such
people to say the contrary, but she knew that a plain
woman well dressed would look better than the love-
liest dowdy that ever tied her bonnet-strings crooked.
It was true her brother Bevis had thought otherwise.
He had married Emilia, who was not in his own rank
of life; but Lady Jane supposed he had taught her to
dress properly after her marriage. She had done her
very best to dissuade him from that crazy step: once
it was over she made the best of it, though none of
them would listen to her; and indeed she had twice
had to lend him sums of money when his father stop-
ped his allowance. It is true he paid her back, other-
wise she really did not know how she could have paid
her bills that quarter. If she had not had her own
independence she scarcely could have got on at all or
borne with all Lady Mountmore's whims. However,
thanks to old aunt Adelaide, she need not think of
anybody but herself, and that was a very great comfort
to her in her many vexations. As it was, Clem was
for ever riding Bazook, and laming her ponies, and
1 6 FROM AN TST.AND.
borrowing money. Beverley and Bevis, of course,
being her own brothers, had a right to expect she
would be ready to lend them a little now and then;
but really Clem was only her step-sister, and consider-
ing the terms she and Lady Mountmore were on . . .
Lady Jane had a way of rambling on, though she was
a young woman still, not more than six or seven and
twenty. It was quite true that she had had to fight
her own battles at home, or she would have been
utterly fleeced and set aside. Lord Beverley, her
eldest brother, never quite forgave her for being the
old aunt's heiress, and did not help her as he should
have done. Bevis was always away on his missions
or in disgrace. Old Lord Mountmore was feeble and
almost childish. Lady Mountmore was not a pleasant
person to deal with, and such heart as she possessed
was naturally given to Lady Clem, her own child.
Lady Jane was fortunately not of a sensitive dis-
position. She took life calmly, and did not yearn for
the affection that was not there to get, but she made
the best of things, and when Bevis was sent to South
America on a mission, she it was who brought about
a sort of general reconciliation. She was very much
pleased with herself on this occasion. Everybody
looked to her, and consulted her. "You will go and
see Emmy sometimes, won't you, Jane?" said poor
Bevis, who was a kind and handsome young fellow.
Lady Jane said, "Most likely," and congratulated her-
self on her own tact and success on this occasion , as
well as on her general ways, looks, style, and position
in life. She thought poor Emmy was not certainly
worth all this fuss, but determined to look after her.
Lady Jane was rather Low Church, slightly suspicious,
FROM AN ISLAND. I 7
but good-natured and not unamenable to reason. She
cultivated an abrupt frankness and independence of
manner. Her frankness was almost bewildering at
times, as Lady Jane expected her dictums to be re-
ceived in silence and humility by the unlucky victims
of her penetration. But still, as I have said, being a
true-hearted woman, if she was once convinced that
she was in the wrong, she would always own to it.
Marriage was rather a sore subject with this lady.
She had once notified to a young evangelical rector
that although his prospects were not brilliant, yet she
was not indisposed to share them, if he liked to come
forward. To her utter amazement, the young man got
up in a confused manner, walked across the room,
talked to Lady Clem for the rest of his visit, and never
called again. Lady Jane was much surprised; but, as
her heart was not deeply concerned in the matter, she
forgave him on deliberation. The one softness in this
strange woman's nature lay in her love for children.
Little Bevis, her brother's baby, would coo at her, and
beat her high cheek-bones with his soft little fat hand,
she let him pull her hair, the curls, and frills, and
plaits of an hour's erection, poke his fingers into her
eyes, swing her watch violently round and round. She
was still too young to have crystallised into a regular
old maid. She had never known any love in her life
except from Bevis, but Bevis had been a little afraid
of her. Beverley was utterly indifferent to an) body
but himself.
Lady Jane had fifteen hundred a year of her own.
She was not at all bad-looking. Her thick reddish
hair was of the fashionable colour. She was a better
woman than some people gave her credit for being,
/' •>/ an Island, 2
1 8 FROM AN ISLAND.
seeing this tall over-dressed and over-bearing young
person going about the world with her two startled
attendants and her hunters. Lady Jane had not the
smallest sense of humour or feeling for art: at least,
this latter faculty had never been cultivated, though
she had furnished her boudoir with bran new damask
and sprawling gilt legs, and dressed herself in the
same style; and had had her picture taken by some
travelling artist — a pastille all frame and rose-coloured
chalk — which hung up over her chimney, smirking at
a rose, to the amusement of some of her visitors.
Lady Jane's notion of artists and art was mainly formed
upon this trophy, and by what she had seen of the
artist who had produced it. Lady Clem used to say
that Jane was a born old maid, and would never
marry; but everybody was not of that opinion. Lady
Jane had been made a great deal of at Scudamore
Castle, especially by a certain Captain Sigourney, who
had been staying there, a nephew of Lady Scudamore's,
— tall, dark, interesting, in want of money, notwith-
standing his many accomplishments. Poor Tom Sigour-
ney had been for many years a hanger-on at Scudamore.
They were extremely tired of him, knew his words,
looks, tones by heart. Handsome as he undoubtedly
was-, there was something indescribably wearisome
about him after the first introduction — a certain gentle
drawl and prose that irritated some people. But Lady
Jane was immensely taken by him. His deference
pleased her. She was not insensible to the respectful
flattery with which he listened to every word she spoke.
Tom Sigourney said she was a fine spirited girl, and
Lady Scudamore seized the happy occasion — urged
Tom forward, made much of Lady Jane. "Poor girl!
FROM AN ISLAND. I 9
she needs a protector," said Lady Scudamore gravely
to her daughters. At which the young ladies burst
out laughing. "Can you fancy Tom Sigourney taking
care of anybody?" they cried.
Lady Mountmore arrived unexpectedly, and the
whole little fabric was destroyed. Sigourney, who had
not much impudence, was driven off the field by the
elder lady's impertinences. Lady Jane was indignant,
and declared she should not stay any longer under
the same roof as her step-mother. Lady Scudamore
did not press her to remain. She had not time to
attend to her any longer or to family dissensions; but
she did write a few words to Tom, telling him of Lady
Jane's movements, and then made it up with Lady
Mountmore all the more cordially that she felt she had
not been quite loyal to her in sending off this little
missive.
The little steamer starts for Tarmouth in a crowd
and excitement of rolling barrels and oxen driven and
plunging sheep in barges. The people come and look
over the side of the wooden pier and talk to the cap-
tain at his wheel. Afternoon rays stream slant, and
the island glistens across the straits, and the rocks
stand out in the water; limpid waters beat against the
rocks, and toss the buoys and splash against the busy
little tug; one or two ' oil-barges make way. Idlers
and a child or two in the way of the half-dozen pas-
sengers are called upon by name to stand aside on
this occasion. There are two country dames returning
from market; friend Hexham in an excitement about
his van, which is to follow in a barge: and there is a
languid dark handsome gentleman talking to a grandly
2*
20 FROM AN ISLAND.
dressed lady whose attendants have been piling up
wraps and "Times" and dressing-cases and umbrellas.
"Let me hold this for you, it will tire you," said
the gentleman, tenderly taking "The Times" out of
her hand; "are you resting? I thought I would try and
meet you, and see if I could save you from fatigue.
My aunt Scudamore told me you were coming this
way. There, that is where my people live; that white
house among the trees."
"It is a nice place," said Lady Jane.
The rocks were coming nearer, and the island was
brightening to life and colour, and the quaint old
bricks and terraces of Tarmouth were beginning to
show. There was a great ship in the distance sliding
out to sea, and a couple of gulls flew overhead.
"Before I retired from the service," said Sigourney,
"I was quartered at Portsmouth. I knew this coast
well; that is Tarmouth opposite, and that is — ah, 'm —
a pretty place, and an uncommon pretty girl at the
hotel."
"How am I to get to these people if they have not
sent to meet me, I wonder?" interrupted Lady Jane,
rather absently.
"Leave that to me," said Captain Sigourney; "I
am perfectly at home here, and I will order a fly.
They all know me, and if they are not engaged they
will always come for me. You go to the inn. I order
you a cup of tea, and one for your maid. I see a
fast horse put up into a trap, and start you straight
off."
"Oh, Captain Sigourney, I am very much obliged,"
said Lady Jane; and so the artless conversation
went on.
FROM AN ISLAND. 21
At Tarmouth the ingenious captain would not let
her ask whose was a carriage she saw standing there,
nor take one of the two usual flys in waiting, but he
made her turn into the inn until a special fast horse,
with whose paces he was well acquainted, could be
harnessed. This took a long time; but Lady Jane,
excited by the novelty of the adventure, calmly enjoyed
her afternoon tea and devotion, and sat on the horse-
hair sofa of the little inn, admiring the stuffed carp
and cuttle-fish on the walls, and listening with a
charmed ear to Tom's reminiscences of the time when
he was quartered at Portsmouth.
The fast horse did not go much quicker than his
predecessors, and Lady Jane arrived at the Lodges
about an hour after Hexham, and at the same time as
his great photographic van.
III.
They were all strolling along the cliffs towards the
beacon. It stood upon the summit of High Down, a
long way off as yet, though it seemed close at hand,
so clearly did it stand out in the still atmosphere of
the sunset. It stood there stiff and black upon its
knoll, an old weather-beaten stick with a creaking
coop for a crown, the pivot round which most of this
little story turns. For when these holiday people
travelled away out of its reach, they also passed out
of my ken. We could see the beacon from most of
our windows, through all the autumnal clematis and
ivy sprays falling and drifting about. The children
loved the beacon, and their little lives were one per-
22 FROM AN ISLAND.
petual struggle to reach it, in despite of winds, of
time of meals, of tutors and lessons. The elders, too,
loved it after their fashion. Had they not come and
established themselves under the shadow of High
Down, where it had stood as long as the oldest in-
habitant could remember! Lord Ulleskelf, in his yacht
out at sea, was always glad to see the familiar old
stubby finger rising up out of the mist. My cousin,
St. Julian the R.A., had made a strange rough sketch
of it, and of his wife and her eldest daughter sitting
beneath it; and a sea, and a cloud horizon, grey,
green, mysterious beyond. He had painted a drapery
over their heads, and young Emilia's arms round the
stem. It was a terrible little picture Emilia the mother
thought when she saw it, and she begged her husband
to turn its face to the wall in his studio.
"Don't you see how limpid the water is, and how
the mist is transparent and drifting before the wind?"
St. Julian said. "Why do you object, you perverse
woman?"
The wife didn't answer, but her soft cheeks flushed.
Emilia the daughter spoke, a little frightened.
"They are like mourners, papa," she whispered.
St. Julian shrugged his shoulders at them. "And
this is a painter's wife!" he cried; "and a painter's
daughter!" But he put the picture away, for he was
too tender to pain them, and it lay now forgotten in a
closet. This was two years ago, before Emilia was
married, or had come home with her little son during
her husband's absence. She was carrying the child in
her arms as she toiled up the hill in company with
the others, a tender bright flush in her face. Her
little Bevis thinks it is he who is carrying "Mozzer,"
FROM AN ISLAND. 2$
as he clutches her tight round the neck with his two
little arms.
I suppose nobody ever reached the top of a high
cliff without some momentary feeling of elation, — so
much left behind, so much achieved. There you stand
at peace, glowing with exertion, raised far above the
din of the world. They were gazing as they came
along (for it is only of an island that I am writing) at
the great sight of shining waters, of smiling fertile
fields and country; and of distant waters again, that
separated them from the pale glimmering coast of the
mainland. The straits, which lie between the island
and Broadshire, are not deserted as is the horizon on
the other side (it lies calm, and tossing, and self-suf-
ficing); but the straits are crowded and alive with
boats and white sails: ships go sliding past, yachts
drift, and great brigs slowly travel in tow of the tiny
steamer that crosses and recrosses the water with
letters and provisions, and comers and goers and
guests to Ulles Hall and to the Lodges, where St.
Julian and his family live all through the summer-
time; and where some of us indeed remain the whole
year round.
The little procession comes winding up the down,
Lord Ulleskelf and the painter walking first, in broad-
brimmed hats and coats fashioned in the island, of a
somewhat looser and more comfortable cut than Lon-
don coats. The tutor is with them. Mr. Hexham,
too, is with them; as I can see, a little puzzled by the
ways of us islanders.
As St. Julian talks his eyes flash, and he puts out
one hand to emphasize what he is saying. He is not
calm and self-contained as one might imagine so great
24 FROM AN ISLAND.
a painter, but a man of strong convictions, alive to
every life about him and to every event. His cordial
heart and bright artistic nature are quickly touched and
moved. He believes in his own genius, grasps at life
as it passes and translates it into a strange quaint re-
velation of his own, and brings others into his way of
seeing things almost by magic. But his charm is almost
irresistible, and he knows it, and likes to know it.
The time that he is best himself is when he is at his
painting; his brown eyes are alight in his pale face,
his thick grey hair stands on end; he is a middle-
aged man, broad, firmly-knit with a curly grey beard,
active, mighty in his kingdom. He lets people in to
his sacred temple; but he makes them put their shoes
off, so to speak, and will allow no word of criticism
except from one or two. In a moment his thick
brows knit, and the master turns upon the unlucky
victim.
The old tutor had a special and unlucky knack of
exciting St. Julian's ire. He teaches the boys as he
taught St. Julian in bygone days, but he cannot forget
that he is not always St. Julian's tutor, and constantly
stings and irritates him with his caustic disappointed
old wits. But St. Julian bears it all with admirable
impatience for the sake of old days and of age and
misfortune.
As they all climb the hill together on this special
day, the fathers go walking first, then comes a pretty
rout of maidens and children, and Hexham's tall dark
head among them. Little Missie goes wandering by
the edge of the cliff, with her long gleaming locks
hanging in ripples not unlike those of the sea. The
two elder girls had come out with some bright-coloured
FROM AN ISLAND. 2$
scarves tied round their necks; but finding them op-
pressive, they had pulled them off, and given them to
the boys to carry. These scarves were now banners
streaming in the air as the boys attacked a tumulus,
where the peaceful bones of the bygone Danish in-
vaders were lying buried. The gay young voices echo
across the heather calling to each other.
Hester comes last with Mrs. William — Hester with
the mysterious sweet eyes and crown of soft hair. It
is not very thick, but like a dark yet gleaming cloud
about her pretty head. She is quite pale, but her
lips are bright carnation red, and when she smiles she
blushes. Hester is tall, as are all her sisters. Aileen
is walking a little ahead with Mrs. William's children,
and driving them away from the edge of the cliff,
towards which these little moths seem perpetually
buzzing.
The sun begins to set in a strange wild glory, and
the light to flow along the heights; all these people
look to one another like beatified men and women.
Ulleskelf and St. Julian cease their discussion at last,
and stand looking seawards.
"Look at that band of fire on the sea," said Lord
Ulleskelf.
"What a wonderful evening," said St. Julian.
"Hester, are you there?"
Hester was there, with sweet, wondering, sunset
eyes. Her father put his hand fondly on her shoulder.
There was a sympathy between the two which was
very touching; they liked to admire together, to praise
together. In sorrow or trouble St. Julian looked for
his wife, in happiness he instinctively seemed to turn
to his favourite daughter.
26 FROM AN ISLAND.
Hester's charm did not always strike people at first
sight. She was like some of those sweet simple tunes
which haunt you after you have heard them, or like
some of those flowers of which the faint delicate
scent only comes to you when you have waited for an
instant.
Hexham, for instance, until now had admired Mrs.
Beverley infinitely more than he did her sister. He
thought Miss St. Julian handsome certainly, but charm-
less; whereas the sweet, gentle young mother, whose
wistful eyes seemed looking beyond the sunset, and
trying in vain to reach the distant world where her
husband would presently see it rise, appealed to every
manly feeling in his nature. But as the father and
daughter turned to each other, something in the girl's
face — a dim reflex light from the pure bright soul
within — seemed to touch him , to disclose a something,
I cannot tell you what. It seemed to Hexham as if
the scales had fallen suddenly from his eyes, and as
if in that instant Hester was revealed to him. She
moved on a little way with two of the children who
had joined her. The young man followed her with
his eyes, and almost started when some one spoke to
him. . .
As St. Julian walked on, he began mechanically to
turn over possible effects and combinations in his
mind. The great colourist understood better than any
other, how to lay his colours, luminous, harmonious,
shining with the real light of nature, for they were in
conformity to her laws; and suddenly he spoke, turn-
ing to Hexham, who was a photographer, as I have
said, and who indeed was now travelling gipsy fashion,
in search of subjects for his camera. . .
FROM AN TST.AND. 2"]
"In many things," he said, "my art can equal
yours, but how helpless Ave both are when we look at
such scenes as these. It makes me sometimes mad
to think that I am only a man with oil-pots attempting
to reproduce such wonders."
"Fortunately they will reproduce themselves whe-
ther you succeed or not," said the tutor. St. Julian
looked at him with his bright eyes. The old man
had spoken quite simply , he did not mean to be
rude, — and the painter was silent.
"My art is 'a game half of skill, half of chance,'"
said Hexham. "When both these divinities favour me
1 shall begin to think myself repaid for the time and
the money and the chemicals I have wasted."
"Have you ever tried to photograph figures in a
full blaze of light?" Lord Ulleskelf asked, looking at
Aileen, who was standing with some of the children
by Hester. They were shading their eyes from a
bright stream that was playing like a halo about their
In .ids. There was something unconscious and lovely
in the little group, with their white draperies and
flowing locks. A bunch of illumined berries and
trailing creepers hung from little Susan's hair: the
light of youth and of life, the sweet wondering eyes,
all went to make a more beautiful picture than graces
or models could ever attain to. St. Julian looked and
smiled with Lord Ulleskelf.
Hexham answered, a little distractedly, that he
should like to show Lord Ulleskelf the attempt he had
once made. "Nature is a very uncertain sort of
assistant," he added; "and I, too, might exclaim, 'Oh,
that I am but a man, with a bit of yellow paper
28 FROM AN ISLAND.
across my window, and a row of bottles on a shelf,
trying to evoke life from the film upon my glasses !" :
"I think you are all of you talking very profanely,"
said Lord Ulleskelf, "before all these children, and in
such a sight as this. But I shall be very glad to come
down and look at your photographs, Mr. Hexham, to-
morrow morning," he added, fearing the young man
might be hurt by his tone.
The firebrand in the still rippled sea turned from
flame to silver as the light changed and ebbed. The
light on the sea seemed dimmer, but then the land
caught fire in turn, and trees and downs and distant
roof-tops blazed in this great illumination, and the
shadows fell black upon the turf.
Here Mrs. William began complaining in a plain-
tive tone of voice that she was tired, and I offered to
go back with her. Everybody indeed was on the
move, but we two took a shorter cut, while the others
went home with Lord Ulleskelf, turning down by a
turn of the down towards the lane that leads to Ulles
Hall.
And so, having climbed up with some toil and
effort to that beautiful height, we all began to descend
once more into the everyday of life, and turn from
glowing seas and calm sailing clouds to the thought of
cutlets and chickens. The girls had taken back their
scarves and were running down hill. Aileen was
carrying one of Mrs. William's children, Emilia had
her little Bevis in her arms, Hester was holding by
her father's arm as they came back rather silent, but
satisfied and happy. The sounds from the village be-
low began to reach us, and the lights in the cottages
and houses to twinkle; the cliffs rose higher and
FROM AN ISLAND. 20,
higher as we descended our different ways. The old
beacon stood out black against the ruddy sky: a moon
began to hang in the high faint heaven, and a bright
star to pierce through the daylight.
Ulles Hall stands on the way from Tarmouth to the
Lodges: it is a lovely old house standing among woods
in a hollow, and blown by sea-breezes that come
through pine-stems and sweet green glades, starred
with primroses in spring, and sprinkled with russet
leaves in autumn. The Lodges where St. Julian lives
are built a mile nearer to the sea. Houses built on
the roadside, but inclosed by tall banks and hedges,
and with long green gardens running to the down.
They have been built piece by piece. It would be
difficult to describe them: a gable here, a Avooden
gallery thatched, a window twinkling in a bed of
ivy, hanging creepers, clematis and loveliest Virginian
sprays reddening and drinking in the western light
and reflecting it undimmed in their beautiful scarlet
veins — scarlet gold melting into green: one of the
rooms streams with light like light through stained
windows of a church.*
* A little child passing by in the road looked up one day at the Lodges,
and said , "Oh, what pretty leaf houses I Oh, mother, do let us live there,
I think the robins must have made them." "I think that is where we arc
going to, Missie," said the mother. She was a poor young widowed cousin
of St. Julian's. She came for a time , but they took her in and never let her
go again out of the leaf house. She stayed and became a sort of friend,
chaperone, governess, and housekeeper of these kind and tender-friends and
relations; if she were to attempt to set down here all that she owes to them,
to their warm, cordial hearts, and bright , sweet natures, it would make a
story apart from the one she has in her mind to write to-day.
30 FROM AN ISLAND.
IV.
As I reached the door with Mrs. William, I saw a
bustle of some sort, a fly, some boxes, a man, a maid,
a tall lady of about seven or eight and twenty, dressed
in the very height of fashion, with a very tall hat and
feather, whom I guessed at once to be Lady Jane.
Mrs. William, who has not the good manners of the
rest of the family, shrunk back a little, saying,— "I
really cannot face her: it's that Lady Jane;" but at
that moment Lady Jane, who was talking in a loud
querulous tone, suddenly ceased, and turned round.
"Here is Mrs. St. Julian," said the fly-man; "she
always give somethin' for the driver;" and my dear
mistress came out into the garden to receive her
guest.
"I am so glad you have come," I heard her say
quietly; "we had given you up — are you tired? Come
in. Let the servant see to your luggage." She put
out her white gentle hand, and I was amused to see
Lady Jane's undisguised look of surprise: she had ex-
pected to meet with some bustling, good-humoured
housekeeper. Bevis had always praised his mother-
in-law to her, but Lady Jane had a way of not always
listening to what people said, as she rambled on in
her own fashion: and now, having fully made up her
mind as to the sort of person Mrs. St. Julian would be,
Lady Jane felt slightly aggrieved at her utter dissimi-
larity to her preconceptions. She followed her into
the house, with her high hat stuck upon the top of her
tall head, walking in a slightly defiant manner.
FROM AN IST.AND. 3 I
"I thought Emilia would have been here to receive
me," said Lady Jane, not over pleased.
"I sent her out," the mother said. "I thought you
would let me be your hostess for an hour. Will you
come up into my room?"
Mrs. St. Julian led the way into the drawing-room,
where Lady Jane sank down into a chair, crossing her
topboots and shaking out her skirts.
"I am afraid there was a mistake about meeting
you," said the hostess; "the carriage went, but only
brought back Mr. Hexham and a message that you
were not there."
"I fortunately met a friend on board," said Lady
Jane, hurriedly. "He got me a fly; thank you, it did
not signify."
Lady Jane was not anxious to enter into par-
ticulars, and when Mrs. St. Julian went on to ask how
it was she had had to wait so long, the young lady
abruptly said something about afternoon tea, asked to
see her room and to speak to her maid.
"Will you come back to me when you have given
your orders?" said Mrs. St. Julian. "My cousin, Mrs.
Campbell, will show you the way."
Lady Jane, with a haughty nod to poor Mrs. Camp-
bell, followed with her high head up the quaint wooden
stairs along the gallery, with its odd windows and slits,
and china, and ornaments.
"This is your room; I hope you will find it com-
fortable," said the housekeeper, opening a door, through
which came a flood of light.
"Is that for my maid?" asked Lady Jane, pointing
to a large and very comfortably furnished room just
opposite to her own door.
2,2 FROM AN ISLAND.
"That room is Mr. Hexham's," said Mrs. Campbell;
"your maid's room leads out of your dressing-room."
The arrangement seemed obvious, but Lady Jane was
not quite in a temper to be pleased.
"Is it comfortable, Pritchard? Shall you be able
to work there? I must speak about it if you are not
comfortable."
Pritchard was a person who did not like to commit
herself. Not that she wished to complain, but she
should prefer her ladyship to judge; it was not for her
to say. She looked so mysterious that Lady Jane ran
up the little winding stair that led to the turret, and
found a little white curtained chamber, with a pleasant,
bright look-out over land and sea.
"Why, this is a delightful room, Pritchard," said
Lady Jane. "I should like it myself; it is most com-
fortable."
"Yes, my lady, I thought it was highly comfort-
able," said Pritchard; "but it was not for me to ven-
ture to say so."
Lady Jane was a little afraid of Mrs. St. Julian's
questionings. To tell the truth, she felt that she had
been somewhat imprudent; and though she was a
person of mature age and independence, yet she was
not willing to resign entirely all pretensions to youth-
ful dependence, and she was determined if possible
not to mention Sigourney's name to her entertainers.
Having frizzed up her curling red locks, with Mrs.
Pritchard's assistance, shaken out her short skirts,
added a few more bracelets, tied on a coroneted locket,
and girded in her tight silver waistband, she prepared
to return to her hostess and her tea. She felt exces-
sively ill-used by Emilia's absence, but, as I have said,
FROM AN ISLAND. $$
dared not complain for fear of more questions as to
the cause of her delay.
All along the passage were more odds and ends,
paintings, pictures, sketches framed, a cabinet or two
full of china. Lady Jane was too much used to the
ways of the world to mistake the real merit of this
heterogeneous collection; but she supposed that the
artists made the things up, or perhaps sold them again
to advantage, and that there was some meaning which
would be presently explained for it all. What most
impressed Lady Jane with a feeling of respect for the
inhabitants of the house was a huge Scotch sheep-dog,
who came slowly down the gallery to meet her, and
then passed on with a snuff and a wag of his tail.
The door of the mistress's room, as it was called,
was open; and as Lady Jane followed her conductress
in, she found a second five-o'clock tea and a table
spread with rolls and country butter and home-made
cake. A stream of western light was flowing through
the room and out into the gallery beyond, where the
old majolica plates flashed in the glitter of its sparkle.
The mistress herself was standing with her back turned,
looking out through the window across the sea, and
trying to compose herself before she asked a question
she had very near at heart.
Lady Jane remained waiting, feeling for once a
little shy, and not knowing exactly what to do next,
for Mrs. Campbell, who was not without a certain
amount of feminine malice, stood meekly until Lady
Jane should take the lead. The young lady was not
accustomed to deal with inferiors who did not exactly
behave as such, and though inwardly indignant, she
did not quite know how to resent the indifference with
From an Island. 3
34 FROM AN ISLAND.
which she considered she was treated. She tossed her
head, and at last said, not in the most conciliatory-
voice, "I suppose I may take some tea, Mrs. St. Julian?"
The sight of the sweet pale face turning round at her
question softened her tone. Mrs. St. Julian came
slowly forward, and began to push a chair with her
white feeble hands, evidently so unfit for such work
that Jane, who was kind-hearted, sprang forward,
lockets, top boots, and all, to prevent her. "You had
much better sit down yourself," said she, good-
naturedly. "I thought you looked ill just now, though
I had never seen you in my life before. Let me pour
out the tea."
Mrs. St. Julian softened, too, in the other's unex-
pected heartiness and kindness. "I had something to
say to you. I think it upset me a little. I heard — I
feared" — she said, nervously hesitating. "Lady Jane,
did you hear from your brother — from Bevis — by the
last mail? . . . Emmy does not know the mail is
in. ... I have been a little anxious for her," and Mrs.
St. Julian changed colour.
"Certainly I heard," said Lady Jane; "or at least
my father did. Bevis wanted some money raised.
Why were you so anxious, Mrs. St. Julian?" asked
Lady Jane, with a slightly amused look in her face. It
was really too absurd to have these people making
scenes and alarms when she was perfectly at her ease.
"I am thankful you have heard," said Mrs. St.
Julian, with a sudden flush and brightness in her wan
face, which made Lady Jane open her eyes in wonder.
"Do you care so much?" said she, a little puzzled.
"I am glad that I do not belong to an anxious family.
I am very like Bevis, they say; and I know there is
FROM AN ISLAND.
35
nothing that he dislikes so much as a fuss about no-
thing."
"I know it," said Mrs. St. Julian. "He is very
good and kind to bear with my foolish alarms, and I
wonder, — could you, — would you too, — forgive me for
my foolishness, Lady Jane, if I were to ask you a great
favour? Do you think I might see that letter to your
father? I cannot tell you what a relief it would be to
me. I told you Emilia does not know that the mail
is in; and if — if she might learn it by seeing in his
own handwriting that Bevis was Avell, I think it would
make all the difference to her, poor child."
There was something in the elder lady's gentle
persistence which struck the young one as odd, and
yet touching; and although she was much inclined to
refuse, from a usual habit of contradiction, she did not
know how to do so when it came to the point.
"I'll write to my father," said Lady Jane, with a
little laugh. "I have no doubt he will let you see the
letter since you wish it so much."
"Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Julian, "and for
the good news you have given me; and I will now
confess to you," she added, smiling, "that I sent Emmy
out on purpose that I might have this little talk. Are
you rested? Will you come into the garden with me
for a little?"
Lady Jane was touched by the sweet maternal man-
ner of the elder woman, and followed quite meekly and
kindly. As the two ladies were pacing the garden-
walk they were joined by the housekeeper and by' Mrs.
William, with her little dribble of small talk.
Many of the windows of the Lodges were alight.
The light from without still painted the creepers, the
3'
36 FROM AN ISLAND.
lights from within were coming and going, and the
gleams were falling upon the ivy-leaves here and there.
One-half of the place was in shadow, and the western
side in daylight still. There was a sweet rush of scent
from the sweet-briars and clematis. It seemed to hang
in the still evening air. Underneath the hedges, bright-
coloured flowers seemed suddenly starting out of the
twilight, while above, in the lingering daylight, the red
berries sparkled and caught the stray limpid rays.
There was a sound of sea-waves washing the not
distant beach; a fisherman or two, and soldiers from
the little fort, were strolling along the road, and peer-
ing in as they passed the bright little homes. The
doors were wide open, and now and then a figure
passed, a servant, Mrs. Campbell, who was always
coming and going; William, the eldest son, leaving the
house; he had been at work all day.
The walking-party came up so silently that they
were there in the garden almost before the others had
heard them: a beloved crowd, exclaiming, dispersing
again. It was a pretty sight to see the meetings: little
Susan running straight to her father, William St. Julian.
He adored his little round-eyed daughter, and imme-
diately carried her off in his arms. Little Missie, too,
got hold of her mother's hand, while Lady Jane was
admiring Bevis, and being greeted by the rest of the
party, and introduced to those whom she did not al-
ready know.
"We had quite given you up, dear Jane," said
Emilia, wistfully gazing and trying to see some look of
big Bevis in his sister's face. "How I wish I had
stayed; but you had mamma."
prom \\ island: 37
"We gave you up," said Hester, "when Mr. Hexham
came without you . . ."
"I now find I had the honour of travelling with
Lady Jane," said Hexham, looking amused, and making
a little bow.
Lady Jane turned her back upon Mr. Hexham. She
had taken a great dislike to him on board the boat;
she had noticed him looking at her once or twice, and
at Captain Sigourney. She found it a very good plan
and always turned her back upon people she did not
like. It checked any familiarity. It was much better
to do so at once, and let them see what their proper
place was. If people of a certain position in the world
did not keep others in their proper places, there was
no knowing what familiarity might not ensue. And
then she ran back to little Bevis again, and lifted him
up, struggling. Bevis would gladly have turned his
back if he could.
"Lady Jane Beverley has something military about
her," said Hexham to Mrs. Campbell.
As he spoke a great loud bell began to ring, and
with a gentle chorus of exclamations, the ladies began
to disperse to dress for dinner.
"You know your way, Mr. Hexham," said Mrs.
Campbell, pointing. "Go through that side-door, and
straight up and along the gallery."
Mrs. St. Julian had put her ami into her hus-
band's, and walked a little way with him towards the
house.
"Henry," she said, "thank heaven, all is well. Lord
Mountmore heard from his son by this mail. Lady Jane
has promised to show me the letter: she had heard
nothing of that dreadful report."
38 FROM AN ISLAND.
"It was not likely," St. Julian said; "Ulleskelf only
saw the paper by chance. I am glad you were so dis-
creet, my dear."
"I should like to make a picture of them," said
Hexham to the housekeeper, looking back once more
before he hurried into the house.
The two were standing at the threshold of their
home, Mrs. Julian leaning upon her husband's arm:
the strong keen-faced man with his bright gallant
bearing, and the wife with her soft and feminine looks
fixed upon him as she bent anxiously to catch his
glance. She was as tall as he was: for St. Julian was
a middle-sized man, and Mrs. St. Julian was tall for a
woman.
Meanwhile Hexham, who was not familiar with the
ways of the house, and who took time at his toilet,
ran upstairs, hastily passed his own door, went along
a passage, up a staircase, down a staircase. . . He
found himself in the dusky garden again, where the
lights were almost put out by this time, though all the
flowers were glimmering, and scenting, and awake still.
There was a red streak in the sky; all the people had
vanished, but turning round he saw — he blinked his
eyes at the sight — a white figure standing, visionary,
mystical, in the very centre of a bed of tall lilies, in a
soft gloom of evening light. Was it a vision? For the
first time in his life Hexham felt a little strangely;
and as if he could believe in the super-nature which
he sometimes had scoffed at, the young man made
one step forward and stopped again. "It is I, Mr.
Hexham," said a shy clear voice. "I came to find
some flowers for Emilia." It was Hester's voice. Surely
some kindly providence sets true lovers' way in plea-
FROM AN ISLAND. 39
sant places; and all they do and say has a grace of
its own which they impart to all inanimate things. The
evening, the sweet stillness, the trembling garden
hedges, the fields beyond, the sweet girlish tinkle of
Hester's voice, made Hexham feel for the first time
in his life as if he was standing in a living shrine,
and as if he ought to fall down on his knees and
worship.
"Can I help you?" he. said. "Miss Hester, may I
have a flower for my button-hole?"
"There are nothing but big lilies," said the voice.
40 FROM AN ISLAND.
PART II.
V.
In writing this little episode I have tried to put to-
gether one thing and another — to describe some
scenes that I saw myself, and some that Avere described
to me. My window looks out upon the garden, and
is just over the great bed of lilies. I shut it down,
and began to dress for dinner, with a dim feeling al-
ready of what the future might have in store, and a
half-conscious consciousness of what was passing in
the minds of the people all about.
For some days past Mrs. St. Julian's anxious face
had seemed to follow me about the room. Emilia,
Hexham, Hester, even Lady Jane, each seemed to
strike a note, in my present excited and receptive
state of mind. It is one for which there is no name,
but which few people have not experienced. I dressed
quickly, the dark corners of my room seemed looming
at me, and it was with an odd anxious conviction of
disturbance at hand that I hurried down along the
gallery to the drawing-room, where we assembled be-
fore dinner. On my way I met Emilia on the stairs,
in her white dinner dress, with a soft white knitted
shawl drawn closely round her. She slid her little
chill hand through my arm, and asked me why I
FROM AN ISLAND. 4 I
looked so pale. Dear soft little woman, she seemed
of us all the most tender and disarming. Even sor-
row and desolation, I thought, should be vanquished
by her sweetness. And perhaps I was right when I
thought so.
We were not the last. Hester followed us. She
was dressed in a floating gauze dress, and she had
one great white lily in her dark hair. "It is a great
deal too big, Hester," cried Mrs. William; but I thought
I had never seen her more charming.
"How much better mamma is looking," Hester said
that evening at dinner, and as she spoke she glanced
at her mother sitting at the head of the long table in
the tall carved chair.
When the party was large, and the sons of the
house at home, we dined in an old disused studio of
St. Julian's: a great wooden room, unpapered and
raftered, with a tressel-table of the painter's designing,
and half-finished frescos and sketches hanging upon
the walls. There was a high wooden chimney and an
old-fashioned glass reflecting the scene, the table, the
people, the crimson drugget, of which a square covered
the boards. In everything St. Julian touched there
was a broad quaint stamp of his own, and his room
had been inhabited and altered by him. Two rough
hanging lamps from the rafter lit up the long white
table, and the cups of red berries and green leaves
with which I had attempted to dress it. There was
something almost patriarchal in this little assembly:
the father at the end of the table, the sons and daugh-
ters all round. William and his wife by Mrs. St.
Julian, and pretty Hester sitting by her father. Lady
Jane was established at her other hand. St. Julian
42 FROM AN ISLAND.
had taken her in. He had asked her a few questions
at first, specially about the letter she had received
from Bevis, but carefully, so that Emilia should not
overhear them.
"He seemed to be enjoying himself," said Lady
Jane. "He was talking of going on a shooting-party
a little way up the river if he could get through his
work in time."
She did not notice St. Julian's grave look as she
spoke, and went on in her usual fashion. I remember
she was giving him one person's views on art and an-
other's, and her own, and describing the pastille she
had had done. St. Julian looked graver and graver,
and more impatient as she went on. Patience was not
his strong point.
"How long does it take you to paint a picture,
Mr. St. Julian?" Lady Jane asked. "I wish I could
paint, and I'm sure I wish Beverley could, for he can-
not manage upon his allowance at all. How nice it
must be to take up a brush and — paint cheques, in
fact, as you do. Clem can sketch wonderfully quickly;
she took off Lord Scudamore capitally. Of course she
would not choose to sketch for money, but artists have
said they would gladly offer large sums for her paint-
ings. Do your daughters help you?" enquired poor
Lady Jane, affably feeling that she was suiting her
conversation to her company. "Do you ever do cari-
catures?"
"We will talk about painting, Lady Jane, when
you have been here some days longer," said St. Julian.
"You had better ask the girls any questions you may
wish to have answered, and get them, if possible, to
give you some idea of the world we live in."
FROM AN ISLAND, 43
To poor Lady Jane's utter amazement, St. Julian
then began talking to Hexham across the table, and
signed to his wife to move immediately after dinner
was over. We all went back walking across the
garden to the drawing-room, for the night was fine,
and the little covered way was for bad weather.
Some of us sat in the verandah. It was a bright
starry evening. A great bright planet was rising from
behind the sweeping down. The lights from the
wooden room were shining too. Lady Jane presently
seemed to get tired of listening to poor Mrs. William's
nursery retrospections — Mary Amies, and Sarahs, and
tea and sugar, and what Mrs. Mickleman had said
when she parted from her nursery-maid; and what
Mrs. William herself meant to say to the girl when she
got home on Monday; not that Mrs. William was dis-
posed to rely entirely upon Mrs. Mickleman, who was
certainly given to exaggerate, <xx. The girls were in
the garden. Emilia had gone up to little Bevis. Lady
Jane jumped up from her place, with the usual rattle
of bracelets and necklaces, and said she should take a
turn too, and join the young ladies in the garden.
Mrs. William confessed, as Lady Jane left the
verandah, that she was glad she was not her sister-
in-law.
"She has such a strange abrupt manner," said the
poor lady. "Don't you find it very awkward, Queenie?
1 never know whether she likes me to talk to her or
not — do you?"
"I have no doubt about it," I said, laughing.
The evening was irresistible: starlit, moonlit, soft-
winded.
A few minutes later I, too, went out into the
44 FROM AN ISLAND.
garden, and walked along the dark alley towards the
knoll, from whence there is a pretty view of the sea
by night, and over the hedge and along the lane.
From where I stood I saw that the garden-gate was
open, for the moon was shining in a broad silver
stream along the lane that led to the farm. The farm
was not really ours, but all our supplies came from
there, and we felt as if it belonged to us. Missie
knew the cows and the horses, and the very sheep
enclosed in their pen for the night. As I was stand-
ing peaceful and resting under the starlit dome, some-
thing a little strange and inexplicable happened, which
I could not at all understand at the time. I saw some
one moving in the lane beyond the hedge. I cer-
tainly recognised Lady Jane walking away in the
shadow that lay along the banks of that moonlight
stream; but what was curious to me was this: it
seemed to me that she was not alone, that a dark tall
figure of a man was beside her. It was not one of
our men, though I could not see the face — of this I
felt quite sure. The two went on a little way, then
she turned; and I could have declared that I saw the
gleam of his face in the distance through the shadow.
Lady Jane's hand was hanging in the moonlight, and
her trinkets glistening. Of her identity I had no
doubt. There is a big tree which hangs over the
road, and when they, or when she, reached it, she
stopped for a moment, as if to look about her, and
then, only Lady Jane appeared from its shadow — the
other figure had vanished. I could not understand it
at all. I have confessed that I am a foolish person,
and superstitious at times. I had never seen poor
Bevis. Had anything happened? Could it be a vision
FROM AN ISLAND. 45
of him that I had seen? I got a little frightened, and
my heart began to beat. It was only for an instant
that 1 was so absurd. I walked hastily towards the
garden-door, and met Lady Jane only a few steps off,
coming up very coolly.
"How lovely this moonlight is, Mrs. Campbell!"
she cried, more affably than usual.
"Who was that with you? Didn't I see someone
with you, Lady Jane?" I asked hurriedly.
Lady Jane looked me full in the face.
"What do you mean?" said she. "I went out for
a stroll by myself. I am quite alone, as you see."
Something in her tone reassured me. I felt sure
she was not speaking the truth. It was no apparition
I had seen, but a real tangible person. It was no
affair of mine, though it struck me as a singular pro-
ceeding. We both walked back to the house together.
The girls' white dresses were gleaming here and there
upon the lawn. Hexham passed us hastily and went
on and joined them. William was taking a turn with his
cigar. As we passed the dining-room window I hap-
pened to look in. St. Julian was sitting at the table,
with his head resting on his hands, and beside him
Mrs. St. Julian, who must have gone back to the room
after dinner. A paper was before them, over which
the two were bending.
We found no one in the drawing-room, and only a
lamp spluttering and a tea-table simmering in one
corner, and Mrs. William, who was half asleep on the
sofa. "Don't let us stay indoors. Let us go back to
the others," said Lady Jane.
What a night it was! Still, dark, sweet, fragrant
shadows quivering upon the moon-stream; a sudden,
46 FROM AN ISLAM ».
glowing, summer's night, coming like a gem set in the
midst of grey days, of storms, swift gales, of falling
autumnal leaves and seasons.
The clear three-quarter moon was hanging over
the gables and roofs of the Lodges; the high stars
streamed light; a distant sea burnt with pale radiance;
the young folks chattered in the trembling gleams.
"Look at that great planet rising over the down,"
said Hexham. "Should you like that to be your star,
Miss St. Julian?"
"I should like a fixed star," Hester answered, gravely.
"I should like it to be quite still and unchanging, and
to shine with an even light."
"That is not a bit like you, Hester," said William,
who had come up, and who still had a schoolboy trick
of teasing his sisters; "it is much more like Emilia, or
my wife. You describe them, and take all the credit to
yourself."
"Oh, William! Emilia is anything but a fixed star,"
cried Aileen. "She would like to jump out of her orbit
to-morrow, and go off to Bevis, if she could. Margaret
is certainly more like."
"You shall have the whole earth for your planet,
Miss Hester," said Hexham. Then he added less
seriously, "They say it looks very bright a little way
off."
Moonlight gives a strange, intensified meaning to
voices as well as to shadows. No one spoke for a
minute, until Lady Jane, who was easily bored, jumped
up, and said that people ought to be ashamed to
talk about stars now-a-days, so much had been said
already; and that, after all, she should go back for
some tea.
FROM AN ISLAND. 47
I left her stirring her cup, with Mrs. William still
half asleep in her corner, and I myself went up to my
room. Mrs. St. Julian was sitting with her husband in
the studio, the parlour-maid told me. Outside was the
great burning night, inside a silent house, dark, with
empty chambers and doors wide open on the dim stair-
case and passages. I would gladly have stayed out
with the others, but I had a week's accounts to over-
look on this Saturday night. The odd anxiety I had felt
before dinner came back to me again now that I was
alone. 1 tried to shake off the feeling which oppressed
me, and I went in and stood for a moment by my little
girl's bedside. Her sweet face, her quiet breath, and
peaceful dreams seemed to me to belong to the stars
outside. As I looked at the child, I found myself once
more thinking over my odd little adventure with Lady
|ane, and wondering whether it would be well to speak
of it, and to whom? I had lived long enough to feel
some of the troubles and complications both of speech
and of silence. Once more my heart sank, as it used
to do when difficulties seemed to grow on every side
before I had come to this kind house of refuge. I pulled
my table and my lamp to the window: the figures were
still wandering in the garden; I saw Hester's white dress
flit by more than once. Such nights count in the sum
of one's life.
VI.
Missie was standing ready dressed in her Sunday
frills and ribbons by my bedside when I awoke next
morning.
48 FROM AN ISLAND.
"It is raining, mamma," she said. "We had wanted
to go up to the beacon before breakfast."
It seemed difficult to believe that this was the same
world that I had closed my eyes upon. The silent,
brilliant, mysterious world of stars and sentiment was
now grey, and mist-wreathed, and rain-drenched. The
practical result of my observations was to say, "Missie,
go and tell them to light a fire in the dining-room."
St. Julian, who is possessed by a horrible stray
demon of punctuality, likes all his family to assemble
to the sound of a certain clanging bell, that is poor
Emilia's special aversion. Mrs. St. Julian never comes
down to breakfast. I was only just in time this morning
to fulfil my duties and make the tea and the coffee.
Hester came out of her room as I passed the door.
She, too, had come back to every-day life again, and
had put away her white robes and lilies for a stuff
dress, — a quaint blue dress, with puffed sleeves, and a
pretty fanciful trimming of her mother's devising, gold
braid and velvet round the wrists and neck. Her pretty
gloom of dark hair was pinned up with golden pins.
As I looked at her admiringly, I began to think to my-
self that, after all, rainy mornings were perhaps as com-
patible with sentiment as purple starry skies. I could
not help thinking that there was something a little shy
and conscious in her manner: she seemed to tread
gently, as if she Avere afraid of waking someone, as if
she were thinking of other things. She waited for me,
and would not go into the dining-room until she had
made sure that I was following. Only Hexham was
there, reading his letters by the burning fire of wood,
when we first came in. He turned round and smiled:
. — had the stars left their imprint upon him too? He
FROM AN ISLAND. 49
carried his selection of eggs and cutlets and toasted
bread from the side -table, and put himself quietly
down by Hester's side: all the others dropped in by
degrees.
"Here is another French newspaper for you, papa,"
said Emilia, turning over her letters with a sigh.
St. Julian took it from her quickly, and put it in his
pocket.
Breakfast was over. The rain was still pouring in
a fitful, gusty way, green ivy-leaves were dripping,
creepers hanging dully glistening about the windows,
against which the great fresh drops came tumbling.
The children stood curiously watching, and making
a play of the falling drops. There was Susy's rain-
drop, and George's on the window-ledge, and Mr.
Hexham's.
"Oh, Mr. Hexham's has won!" cried Susy, clasping
her little fat hands in an agony of interest.
I looked out and saw the great gusts of rain beat-
ing and drifting against the hedgerows, wind-blown
mists crossing the fields and the downs. It was a
stormy Sunday, coming after that night of wonders.
But the wind was high; the clouds might break. The
church was two miles (iff, and we could not get there
then; later we hoped we might have a calmer hour to
walk to it.
The afternoon brightened as we had expected, and
most of us went to afternoon service snugly wrapped
in cloaks, and stoutly shod, walking up hill and down
hill between the bright and dripping hedges to the
little white-washed building where we Islanders are ex-
horted, buried, christened, married by turns. It is al-
ways to me a touching sight to see the country folks
From art Island. 4
50 FROM AN ISLAND.
gathering to the sound of the jangling village bells, as
they ring their pleasant calls from among the ivy and
birds'-nests in the steeple, and summon — what a strange,
toil-worn, weather-beaten company! — to prayer and
praise. Furrowed faces bent, hymn-books grasped in
hard crooked fingers, the honest red smiling cheeks of
the lads and lasses trudging along side by side, the
ancient garments from lavender drawers, the brown old
women from their kitchen corners, the babies toddling
hand-in-hand. Does one not know the kindly Sunday
throng, as it assembles, across fields and downs, from
nestling farm and village byways? Mrs. William's
children came trotting behind her, exchanging cautious
glances with the Sunday-school, and trying to imitate
a certain business-like, church-going air which their
mother affected. Hexham and the others were follow-
ing at some little distance. Emilia never spoke much,
and to-day she was very silent; but though she was
silent I could feel her depression, and knew, as well as
if she had put it all into words, what was passing in
her mind. Once during the service, I heard a low
shivering sigh by my side, but when I glanced at her,
her face looked placid, and as we came away the light
of the setting sun came shining full upon it. A row of
boys were sitting on the low churchyard wall in this
western light, which lit up the fields and streamed
across the homeward paths of the little congregation.
I must not forget to say that, as we passed out, it
seemed to me that, in the crowd waiting about the
door, I recognised a tall and bending figure that I
had seen somewhere before. Somewhere — by moon-
light. I remembered presently where and when it
was.
FROM AN ISLAND. 51
"Who was that?" asked Emilia, seeing me glance
curiously.
"That is what I should like to know," said I. "Shall
we wait for Lady Jane? I have a notion she could tell us."
We waited, but no Lady Jane appeared.
"She must have gone on," said Emilia. "It is get-
ting cold; let us follow them, dear Queenie."
I was still undecided as to what I had better do.
It seemed that it would be better to speak to Lady
Jane herself than to relate my vague suspicions to any-
body else. Little Emilia of all people was so innocent
and unsuspecting that I hesitated before I told her what
I had seen. I was hesitating still, when Emmy took my
arm again.
"Come!" she said; and so we went on together
through the darkening village street, past the cottages
where the pans were shining against the Avails as the
kitchen fires flamed. The people began to disperse
once more: some were at home, stooping as they crossed
their low cottage thresholds; others were walking away
along the paths and the hills that slope from the vil-
lage church to cottages by the sea. We saw Hester
and Aileen andHexhum going off by the long way over
the downs; but no Lady Jane was with them. We were
not far from home when Emilia stopped before a little
rising mound by the roadside, on which a tufted holly-
tree was standing, already reddening against the
winter.
"That is the tree my husband likes," said she. "It
was bright red with holly-berries the morning we were
married. Little Bevvy watches the berries beginning
to burn, as he calls it. I often bring him here."
Some people cannot put themselves into words, and
4*
52 FROM AN ISLAND.
they say, not the actual thing they are feeling, but
something quite unlike, and yet which means all they
would say. Some other people, it is true, have words
enough, but no selves to put to them. Emilia never
said a striking thing, rarely a pathetic one; but her
commonplaces came often more near to me than the
most passionate expressions of love or devotion. Some-
thing in the way she looked, in the tone with which
she spoke of the holly-tree, touched me more than there
seemed any occasion for. I cannot tell what it was;
but this I do know, that silence, dulness, everything
utters at times, the very stones cry out, and, in one
way or another, love finds a language that we all can
understand.
We stood for a few minutes under the holly-tree,
and then walked quickly home. I let Emilia go in. I
waited outside in the dim grey garden, pacing up and
down in the twilight. Lady Jane, as I expected, ar-
rived some ten minutes after we did; but I missed the
opportunity I had wished for, for Hexham and the two
girls appeared almost at the same minute, with bright
eyes and fresh rosy faces, from their walk, and we all
went up to tea in the mistress's room.
This was the Williams' last evening. Only one little
incident somewhat spoilt its harmony.
"Who was that Captain Sigourney, who called just
after we had gone to church?" Mrs. William asked, in-
nocently, during a pause in the talk at dinner.
This simple question caused some of us to look up
curiously.
"Captain Sigourney," said Lady Jane, in a loud,
trumpet-like tone, "is a friend of mine. I asked him
to call upon me."
FROM AN ISLAND. 53
St. Julian gave one of his flashes, a look half-
amused, half-angry. He glanced at his wife, and then
at Lady Jane, who was cutting up her mutton into long
strips, calmly excited and prepared for battle. St. Julian
was silent, however, and the engagement, if engage-
ment there was to be, did not take place until later in
the evening. I felt very glad the matter was taking
this turn and that the absurd mystery, whatever it
might be, should come to an end without my being
implicated in it. It was no affair of mine if Lady Jane
liked to have a dozen Captains in attendance upon her,
but it seemed to me a foolish proceeding. I had reason
to conclude that St. Julian had said something to Lady
Jane that evening. 1 was not in the drawing-room
after dinner. One of the servants was ill, and I was
obliged to attend to her; but as I was coming down
to say good-night to them all I met Lady Jane — I met
a whirlwind in the passage. She gave me one look.
Her whole aspect was terrible; her chains and many
trinkets seemed rattling with indignation. She looked
quite handsome in her fury; her red hair and false
plaits seemed to stand on end, her eyes to pierce me
through and through, and if 1 had been guilty 1 think
I must have run away from this irate apparition. Do
I dream it, or did I hear the two words, "impertinent
interference," as she turned round with the air of an
empress, and shut her door loud in my face? Mrs. St.
Julian happened to be in her room, and the noise
brought her kind head out into the passage, and, nut
I am afraid very calmly or coherently, 1 told her what
had happened.
"I must try and appease her. I suppose my hus-
band has spoken to her," said Mrs. St. Julian; and she
54 FROM AN ISLAND.
boldly went and knocked at the door of Lady Jane's
room, and, after an instant's hesitation, walked quietly
in. I do not know what charm she used, but some-
what to my dismay, a messenger came to me in the
drawing-room presently to beg that I would speak to
Lady Jane. I saw malicious Aileen with a gleam of
fun in her eyes at my unfeigned alarm. I found Lady
Jane standing in the middle of the room, in a majestic
sort of dressing-gown, -with all her long tawny locks
about her shoulders. Mrs. St. Julian was sitting in an
arm-chair near the toilet-table, which was all glittering
with little bottles and ivory handles. This scarlet ap-
parition came straight up to me as I entered, with three
brisk strides. "I find I did you an injustice," she said,
loftily relenting, though indignant still. "Mrs. St. Julian
has explained matters to me. I thought you would be
glad to know at once that I was aware of the mistake
I had made. I beg your pardon. Good evening, Mrs.
Campbell," said Lady Jane, dismissing me all of a
breath. I found myself outside in the dark passage
again, with a curious dazzle of the brilliantly lighted
room, with its odd perfume of ottar of roses, of that
weird apparition with its flaming robe and red hair and
burning cheeks.
I was too busy next morning helping Mrs. William
and her children and boxes to get off by the early
boat, to have much time to think of apparitions or my
own wounded feelings. Dear little Georgy and Susy
peeped out of the carriage-window with many farewell
kisses. The three girls stood waving their hands as
the carriage drove past the garden. The usual break-
fast-bell rang and we all assembled, and Lady Jane,
whose anger was never long-lived , came down in
FROM AN ISLAND. 55
pretty good-humour. To me she was must friendly.
There was a shade of displeasure in her manner to St.
Julian. To Hexham she said that she had quite de-
termined upon an expedition to Warren Hay that after-
noon, and to the castle next day, and she hoped he
would come too. Lady Jane bustled off after breakfast
to order a carriage.
VII.
From "the mistress's" room, with its corner win-
dows looking out every way, we could see downs, and
sea, and fields, and the busy road down to the shore.
Mrs. St. Julian was able to be out so little that she
liked life at second-hand, and the sight of people pass-
ing, and of her children swinging at the gate, and of
St. Julian as he came and went from his studio some-
times, with his pipe and his broad-brimmed hat — all
this was a never-failing delight to her. Hester sal
writing for her mother this morning. It was the Mon-
day after Lady Jane's arrival, and I established myself
with my work in the window. Suddenly the mother
asked, "Where is Emilia?"
"Emilia is in the garden with Bevis," said Hester;
"they were picking red berries off the hedge when I
came up."
"And where is Lady Jane?" said Mrs. St. Julian.
"She is gone to look at a pony-carriage, with her
maid," said Hester.
"Poor Lady Jane was very indignant last night.
You will be amused to hear that I am supposed to be
encouraging a young man at this moment, for purposes
56 FROM AN TSLAND.
of my own, to carry her off," said Mrs. St. Julian. "I
am afraid Henry is vexed about it. Look here." As
she spoke she gave me a satiny, flowingly-written note
to read.
" Castle Scudamore , Saturday.
"Dear Mrs. St. Julian, — I have been made aware
that my stepdaughter has been followed to your house
by a person with whom I and her father are most anx-
ious that she should have no communication whatever.
Whether this has happened with your cognizance I
cannot tell, but I shall naturally consider you respon-
sible while she is under your roof, and I must beg you
will be so good as not to continue to admit Captain
Sigourney's visits. He is a person totally unsuitable in
every respect to my step-daughter, and it is a marriage
her father could not sanction.
"I hope Emilia is well, and that she has had satis-
factory accounts by this last mail. We received a few
lines only, on business, from Bevis.
"Believe me, Yours truly,
"E. Mountmore."
"The whole thing is almost too absurd to be vexed
about," said Mrs. St. Julian, smiling.
"Why was Lady Jane so angry with you, Queenie?"
Hester asked; and then it was I confessed what I had
seen that evening on the Knoll.
"Lady Jane told me all about it," my mistress con-
tinued. "She says Captain Sigourney's only object in
life is to see her pass by. To tell you the truth, I do
not think she cares in the least for him. She found
him at the gate that evening, she says." Mrs. St. Julian
FROM AN ISLAND. 57
hesitated, and then went on. "She must be very at-
tractive. She tells me that she believes Mr. Hexham
admires her very much, and that, on the whole, she
thinks he is more the sort of person to suit her." Mrs.
St. Julian spoke with a little gentle malice; and yet I
could see she half believed, and that there was pru-
dence, too, in what she was saying.
There was a pause. Hester looked straight be-
fore her, and I stitched on. At last the mother spoke
again —
"I wish you would go to Emilia, my Hester," she
said, a little anxiously. "I am afraid she is fretting
sometimes when she is by herself."
"You poor mamma," cried Hester, jumping up and
running to her, and kissing her again and again: "you
have all our pain and none of our fun."
"Don't you think so, my dear," said the mother;
"I think I have both." Then she called Hester back
to her, held her hand, and looked into her face tenderly
for a minute. "Go, darling! — but — but take care," she
said, as she let her go.
"Take care of what, mamma?" the girl asked, a
little consciously; and then Hester ran off, as all young
girls will do, nothing loth to get out into the sun-
shine.
I stitched on at my work, but presently looking up
I saw that Hester and Emilia were not alone; Mr.
Hexham, who had, I suppose, been smoking his cigar
in the garden, had joined them. He was lifting Bevis
high up over head, to pick the berries that were shin-
ing in the hedge. The Lodges seemed built for pretty
live pictures; and the mistress's room, most specially
of all the rooms in the house, is a peep-show to see
58 FROM AN ISLAND.
them from. Through this window, with its illuminated
border of clematis and ivy and Virginian creeper, I
could see the bit of garden lawn, green still and sunlit;
the two pretty sisters, in their flowing dresses, straight
and slim, smiling at little Bevis; the high sweetbriar
hedge, branching like a bower over their heads; and
the swallows skimming across the distant down. This
was the most romantic window of the three which
lighted her room, and I asked my cousin to come and
see a pretty group. She smiled, and then sighed as
she looked. Poor troubled mother!
"I cannot feel one moment's ease about Bevis,"
she said. "My poor Emmy! And yet Lady Jane was
very positive."
"We shall know to-morrow. You are too anxious,
I think," I answered cheerfully; and then I could not
help asking her if she thought she should ever be as
anxious about George Hexham.
She did not answer except by a soft little smile.
Then she sighed again.
Lady Jane's expected letter had not come that
Monday evening, but Mrs. St. Julian hoped on. Emilia
was daily growing more anxious; she said very little,
but every opening door startled her, every word seemed
to her to have a meaning. She began to have a clear,
ill-defined feeling that they were hiding something from
her, and yet, poor little thing, she did not dare ask,
for fear of getting bad news. Her soft, wan, appealing
looks went to the very hearts of the people looking
on. Lady Jane was the only person who could resist
her. She was, or seemed to be, ruffled and annoyed,
that anyone should be anxious when she had said
there was no occasion for fear. Mrs. St. Julian would
FROM AN ISLAND. 59
have quietly put off a certain expedition which had
been arranged some time before for the next day; but
Lady Jane, out of very opposition, was most eager and
decided that it should take place. An invitation came
for the girls to a ball; this the parents decidedly re-
fused, though Hexham, and Hester too, looked sorely
disappointed. Of course Lady Jane knew no reason
for any special anxiety, any more than Emilia, and
perhaps her confidence and cheerfulness were the best
medicine for the poor young wife; who, seeing the
sister so bright, began to think that she had over-
estimated dangers which she only dimly felt and
guessed at. So the carriages were ordered after lun-
cheon; but the sun was shining bright in the morning,
and Hexham asked Hester and Aileen (shyly, and
hesitating as he spoke), if they would mind being
photographed directly.
"Why should you not try a group?" said St. Julian.
"Here are Hester, Lady Jane, Missie and Emilia, all
wanting to be done at once."
Emilia shrank back, and said she only wanted baby
done, not herself.
"I was longing to try a group," said Hexham, "and
only waiting for leave. How will you sit?" And he
began placing them in a sort of row, two up and one
down, with a property-table in the middle. He then
began focussing, and presently emerged, pale and
breathless and excited, from the little black hood into
which he had dived. "Will you look?" said he to St.
Julian.
"I think it might be improved upon," said St. Julian,
getting interested. "Look up, Missie — up, up. That
60 FROM AN ISLAND.
is better. And cannot you take the ribbon out of your
hair?"
"Yes, uncle St. Julian," said Missie; "but it will all
tumble down."
"Never mind that," said he; and with one hand
Missie pulled away the snood, and then the beautiful
stream came flowing and rippling and falling all about
her shoulders.
"That is excellent," said the painter. "You, too,
Hester, shake out your locks." Then he began send-
ing one for one thing and one for another. I was
despatched for some lilies into the garden, and Lady
Jane came too, carrying little Bevis in her arms. When
we got back we found one of the prettiest sights I
have ever yet seen, — a dream of fair ladies against an
ivy wall, flowers and flowing locks, and sweeping gar-
ments. It is impossible to describe the peculiar
charm of this living, breathing picture. Emilia, after
all, had been made to come into it: little Bevis
clapped his hands, and said, "Pooty mamma," when he
saw her.
"I don't mind being done in the group," said Lady
Jane, "if you will promise not to put any of those
absurd white pinafores on me."
Neither of the gentlemen answered, they were both
too busy. As for me, I shall never forget the sweet
child wonder in my little girl's face, Hester's bright
deep eyes, or my poor Emilia's patient and most
affecting expression, as they all stood there motionless;
while Hexham held his watch, and St. Julian looked
on, almost as excited as the photographer. As Hex-
ham rushed away into his van, with the glass under
his arm, we all began talking again.
FROM AN ISLAND. 6 I
"It takes one's breath away," said St. Julian, quite
excited, "to have the picture there, breathing on the
glass, and to feel every instant that it may vanish or dis-
solve with a word, with a breath. I should never have
nerve for photography."
"I believe the great objection is that it blackens
one's fingers so," said Lady Jane. "I should have
tried it myself, but I did not care to soil my hands."
As for the picture, Hexham came out wildly ex-
claiming from his little dark room: never had he done
anything so strangely beautiful, — he could not believe
it; it was magical. The self-controlled young man was
quite wild with delight and excitement. Lord Ulles-
kelf walked up, just as we were all clustering round,
and he, too, admired immensely.
Hexham rushed up to St. Julian. "It is your
doing," he said. "It is wonderful. My fortune is
made." He all but embraced his precious glass.
St. Julian was to be the next subject. What a
noble wild head it was! There was something human
and yet almost mysterious to me in the flash of those
pale circling eyes with the black brows and shaggy
grey hair. But Hexham's luck failed him, perhaps
from over-excitement and inexperience in success.
Three or four attempts failed, and we were still at it
when the luncheon-bell rang. Hexham was for going
on all day; but St. Julian laughed and said it should
be another time. This sentiment was particularly ap-
proved by Lady Jane, who had a childish liking for
expeditions and picnickings, and who had set her
heart upon carrying out her drive that afternoon.
62 FROM AN TSLAND.
VIII.
Hexham had known scarcely anything before this
of home life or home peace. He had carefully trea-
sured his liberty, and vowed to himself that he would
keep that liberty always. But now that he had seen
Hester, fair and maidenly, and serene, he could not
tell what mysterious sympathy had attracted him. To
speak of her, to hear her shy tender voice, affected
him strangely. George Hexham did not care to give
way to sentimental emotion; he felt that his hour had
come. He had shared the common lot of men. It was
a pity, perhaps, to give up independence and freedom
and peace of mind, but no sacrifice was too great to
win so dear a prize. So said the photographer to him-
self as he looked at the glass upon which her image
was printed, that image with the wondering eyes. He
must get one more picture, he thought, eating his
luncheon thoughtfully, but with a good appetite, — one
more of Hester alone. He determined to try and keep
her at home that afternoon.
He followed her as she left the room.
"You are not going? Do stay," said Hexham, im-
ploringly: "I want you; I want a picture of you all to
myself. I told my man we should come back after
luncheon."
Hester coloured up. Her mother's warning was
still in her ears.
"I — I am afraid I must go," she said shyly.
"What nonsense!" cried Hexham, who was perfectly
unused to contradiction, and excited by bis success.
FROM AN ISLAND. 63
"I shall go and tell your mother that it is horrible
tyranny to send you off with that corvee of children
and women, and that you want to stay behind. Lady
Jane would stay if I asked her."
Hester did not quite approve of this familiar way
of speaking. She drew herself up more and more
shyly and coldly.
"No, thank you," she said; "mamma lets me do
just as I like. I had rather go with the others."
"In that case," said Hexham, offended, "I shall not
presume to interfere." And he turned and walked
away.
What is a difference? A word that means no-
thing, — a look a little to the right or to the left of an
appealing glance. I think that people who quarrel are
often as fond of one another as people who embrace.
They speak a different language, that is all. Affection
and agreement are things quite apart. To agree
with the people you love is a blessing unspeakable.
But people who differ may also be travelling along the
ine road on opposite sides. And there are two sides
to every road that both lead the same way.
Hexham was so unused to being opposed that his
indignation knew no bounds. He first thought of re-
maining behind, and showing his displeasure by a
haughty seclusion. But Lady Jane happened to drive
up with Aileen in the pony-carriage she had hired,
leathers flying, gauntleted, all prepared to conquer.
"Won't you come with us, Mr. Hexham?" she said,
in her most gracious tone.
After a moment's hesitation, Hexham jumped in,
for he saw Hester standing not far off, and he began
immediately to make himself as agreeable as he pos*
64 FROM AN ISLAND.
sibly could to his companion. It was not much that
happened this afternoon, but trifles show which way
the wind is blowing. Lady Jane and her cavalier
went first, the rest of us followed in Mrs. St. Julian's
carriage. We were bound for a certain pretty bay
some two miles off. The way there led across a wide
and desolate warren, where sand and gorse spread on
either side to meet a sky whose reflections always
seemed to me saddened by the dark growth of this
arid place. A broad stony military road led to a
building on the edge of the cliff — a hotel, where the
carriages put up. Then we began clambering down
the side of the cliff, out of this somewhat dreary
region, into a world brighter and more lovely than I
have words to put to it — a smiling plain of glassy blue
sea, a vast firmament of heaven; and close at hand
bright sandy banks, shining with streams of colour re-
flected from the crystals upheaved in shining strands;
and farther off the boats drifting towards the opal
Broadshire Hills.
I do not suppose that anybody seeing us strolling
along these lovely cliffs would have guessed the odd
and depressing influence that was at work upon most
of us. As far as Lady Jane and Hexham and Aileen
were concerned, the expedition seemed successful
enough; they laughed and chattered, and laughed
again. Emilia and her sister followed, listening to
their shrieks, in silence, with little Bevis between them.
Missie and I brought up the rear. Lady Jane seemed
quite well pleased with her companion, and evidently
expected his homage all to herself. I could have
shaken her for being so stupid. Could she not see
that not one single word he spoke was intended for
FROM AN ISLAND. 6j
her. Every one of Hexham's arrows flew straight to
the gentle heart for which they were intended. It was
not a very long walk — perhaps half an hour in dura-
tion — but half an hour is long enough to change a
lifetime, to put a new meaning to all that has passed,
and to all that is yet to come. People may laugh at
such a thing as disillusionnement, but it is a very real
and very bitter thing, for all that people may say. To
some constant natures certainty and unchangeableness
are the great charm, the whole meaning of love.
Hester, suddenly bewildered and made to doubt, would
freeze and change, and fly at a shadow where Hester,
once certain, would endure all things, bear and hope,
and forgive. I could see that Hexham did not dis-
like a little excitement; Vimprevu had an immense
charm for him. He was rapid, determined; so sure of
himself that he could afford not to be sure of others.
Hexham's tactics were very simple. He loved Hester*
* (Fragment of a letter found in Mr. Hexham's room after his depar-
ture :— )
.... A little bit of the island is shining through my open glass-pane. I
see a green field with a low hedge, a thatched farm, woods, flecks of shade, a
line of down rising from the frill of the muslin hlind to the straggling branch of
clematis that has been put to grow round my window. It is all a nothing com-
pared to really beautiful scenery, and yet it is everything when one has once
been conquered by the charm of the place, — the still , sweet influence of its
tender lights, its charming humility and unpretension , if one can so speak of
anything inanimate. It is six o'clock; the sky is patched and streaked with
grey and yellowish clouds upon a faint sunset aquamarine : a wind from the
sea is moving through the clematis and making the light tendrils dance and
swing: a sudden unexpected gleam of light has worked enchantment with the
field and the farmstead, the straw is a-llame, the thatch is golden, the dry
stubble is gleaming. A sense of peace and evening and rest comes over me as
I write and look from my window. This sort of family-life suits me. I do not
find time heavy on my hands. St. Julian is a lucky fellow to lie the ruler of
such a pleasant dominion. 1 never saw anything more charmingly pretty than
its boundaries Studded with scarlet berries, and twisted twigs, with birds start-
ing and flying across the road, almost under our horse's feet, as we cam •
along. I am glad I came. Old St. Julian is as ever capital company, and the
most hospitable of hosts. Mrs. St. Julian is an old love of mine : she isa
sweet and gracious creature, This is more than 1 can say of my fellow-guest,
From an Island. 5
66 FROM AN ISLAND.
Of this he had no doubt, but he had no idea of loving
a woman as Shakspeare, for instance, was content to
love, or at least to write of it — "Being your slave,
what should I do but wait?" This was not in Hex-
ham's philosophy. Hester had offended him, and he
had been snubbed; he would show her his indifference,
and punish her for his punishment.
We were all on our way back to the carriages when
Hester stopped suddenly at a little zigzag path leading
down to the sands, down which Missie and I had been
scrambling. "Do you think Bevvy could get down
here?" she asked. "Do let us go down, Emilia. I
think we have time; the carriages are not yet ready."
Emilia, although frightened out of her wits, instantly
assented, and Missie and I watched Hester springing
from rock to rock, and from step to step. She lifted
Bevis safe down the steep side; little falling stones,
and shells, and sands went showering on to the shingle
below: a seagull came out of a hole in the sand, and
flew out to sea. Bevvy screamed with delight. Hester's
quick light step seemed everywhere: she put him safe
Lady Jane Beverley, who is the most overpowering of women. I carefully
keep out of her way, but I cannot always escape her. Hester St. Julian is
very like her mother, but with something of St. Julian's strength of character
— she has almost too much. She was angry with me to-day. Perhaps I de-
served it. I hope she has forgiven me by this time, for I, ,'to tell the truth,
cannot afford to quarrel with her.
Lord Ulleskelf is here a good deal ; his long white hair is more silvery
than ever; he came up this morning to see my photography; I wish you had
been standing by to see our general eagerness and excitement; the fact is,
that here in this island , the simplest emotions seem intensified and magnified.
Its very stillness and isolation keep us and our energies from overpassing ils
boundaries. I have been here two days, — I feel as if I had spent a lifetime in
the place, and were never going away any more, and as if the world all about
was as visionary as the grey Broadshire Hills that we see from High Down.
As for certain old loves and interests that you may have known of, I do not
believe they ever existed, except upon paper. If I mistake not, I have found
an interest here more deep than any passing fancy. . . .
FROM AN ISLAND. 67
down below, and then sprang up again to her sister's
help. The little excitement acted like a tonic: "How
pretty it is here," she said.
We had sat for some ten minutes under the wing
of the great cliff, in an arch or hollow, lined with a
slender tracery of granite lines close following one
another. The arching ridge of the cliff cut the high
line of blue sea sharply into a curve.
"It was like a desert island," Hester said, looking
at the little cove enclosed in its mighty walls, with the
smooth un furrowed crescent of shingle gleaming and
shining, and the white light little waves rushing against
the stones; "an island upon which we had been
wrecked."
"An island," I thought to myself, "that no Hexham
had as yet discovered." I wondered how long it would
be deserted.
Missie, tired of sitting still, soon wandered off, and
disappeared beyond the side of the cliff. I do not
know how long we should have stayed there if little
Bevis, who had never yet heard of a desert island, and
who thought people always all lived together, and that
it was naughty to be shy, and that he was getting very
hungry, and that he had better cry a lit tie, had not
suddenly set up a shrill and imperious demand for Ins
dinner, his "ome," as he called it, Tarah his nurse,
and his rocking-horse. Emilia jumped up, and Hester
too.
"It must be time for us to go," said Mrs. Beverley.
It is generally easier to climb up than to descend,
and so it would have been now for Hester alone. I
do not know why the sun-beaten path seemed so hard,
the blocks of stone so loose and crumbling. Hester
5'
68 PROM AN ISLAND.
went first, with Bevis in her arms, and at first got on
pretty well; but for some reason or other — perhaps
that in coming down we had disturbed the stones —
certainly as she went on her footsteps seemed less
rapid and lucky than they usually were. She stumbled,
righted herself, took another step, Bevis clinging tight
to her neck. Emilia cried out, frightened. Hester, a
little nervous, put Bevvy on a big stone, and stood
breathless for an instant. "Come up, Emmy," she
said; "this way — there, to that next big step. Emmy
did her best, but before she could catch at Hester's
extended hand her foot slipped again, and she gave
another little scream.
"Hester, help me!"
I was at some little distance. I had tried a little
independent track of my own, which proved more im-
practicable than I had expected. It was in vain I tried
to get to Emilia's assistance. There was no real
danger for Emilia, clinging to a big granite boulder
fixed in the sand, but it was absurd and not pleasant.
The sun baked upon the sandy paths. Hester told
Bevvy to sit still while she went to help mamma. "No,
no, no," cried little Bevis when his aunt attempted to
leave him, clutching at her with a sudden spring,
which nearly overset her. It was at this instant that I
saw, to my inexpressible relief, two keen eyes peering
over the edge of the cliff, and Hexham coming down
the little path to our relief.
"I could not think where you had got to," he said;
"I came back to see. Will you take hold of my stick,
Mrs. Beverley; I will come back for the boy, Miss St.
Julian." Hexham would have returned a third time
for Hester, but she was close behind him, and silently
FROM AN ISLAND. 6g
rejected his proffered help. George Hexham turned
away in silence. Hester was already scarcely grateful
to him for coming back at all. He had spoken to her,
hut her manner had been so cold, his voice so hard,
that it seemed as if indeed all was over between them.
Hester was no gentle Griselda, but a tender and yet
imperious princess, accustomed to confer favours and
to receive gratitude from her subjects. Here was one
who had revolted from his allegiance.
IX.
The day had begun well and brightly, but there
was a jar in the music that evening which was evident
enough to most of us. We had all been highly wrought
from one cause and another, and this may have ac-
counted for some natural reaction. For one thing, Ave
missed William and his family; tiresome as Mrs. Wil-
liam undoubtedly was, her placid monotone harmonised
with the rest of the performance, for though she was
prosy, she was certainly sweet-tempered, and the
children were charming. It had seemed like the be-
ginning of the summer's end to see them drive off;
little hands waving and rosy faces smiling good-by.
Poor Missie was in despair, and went to bed early.
Lady Jane sat in her corner, looking black and still
offended with her host; something had occasioned a
renewed access of indignation. Mrs. St. Julian did her
very best to propitiate her indignant guest, but the
poor lady gave up trying at last, and leant back in
her chair wearily, and closed her eyes. I myself was
haunted by the ill-defined feeling u( something amiss,
70 FROM AN ISLAND.
— of trouble present or at hand. Hester, too, was out
of spirits. It was evident that she and Mr. Hexham
had not quite forgiven each other for the morning's
discussion. Altogether it was a dismal disjointed
evening, during which a new phase of Hexham's cha-
racter was revealed to us, and it was not the best or
the kindest. There was a hard look in his handsome
face and sceptical tone in his voice. He seemed pos-
sessed by what the French call V esprit moqueur. Hester,
pained and silenced at last, would scarcely answer him
when he spoke. Her father with an effort got up and
took a book and began to read something out of one
of Wordsworth's sonnets. It is always delightful to me
to hear St. Julian read. His voice rolled and thrilled
through the room, and we were all silent for a mo-
ment:
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart,
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea.
"I hate Wordsworth. He is always preaching,"
said Hexham, as St. Julian ceased reading. "I never
feel so wicked as when I am being preached at."
"I am sorry for you," said St. Julian drily. "I
have never been able to read this passage of Words-
worth without emotion since I was a boy, and first
found it in my school-books."
Hester had jumped up and slipped out of the room
while this discussion was going on; I followed pre-
sently, for I remembered a little bit of work which St.
Julian had asked us to see to that evening."
He used sometimes to give me work to do for him,
although I was not so clever as Hester in fashioning
and fitting the things he wanted for his models; but I
did my best, and between us we had produced some
FROM AN ISLAND. 7 I
very respectable coiffes, wimples, slashed bodices, and
o l .her bygone elegancies. We had also concocted an
Italian peasant, and a mediaeval princess, and a dear
little Dutch girl — our triumph. I found I had not my
materials at hand, and I went to the studio to look for
them. I was looking for a certain piece of silken stuff
winch I thought I had seen in the outer studio, and
which my cousin had asked me to stitch together so
as \o make a cloak. I turned the things over and
over, but I could not discover what I was in quest of
among the piles and heaped-up properties that were
kept there. I supposed it must be in the inner room,
and 1 lifted the curtain and went in. I had expected
to find the place dark, and silent, and empty. But the
room was not dark. The wood-fire was burning; the
tall candles were lighte'd; the pictures on the walls
were vivid with the light, and looking almost alive,
with those strange living eyes that St. Julian knew so
well how to paint; there was the statesman in his
robe; the musician leaning against the wall, draAving
his bow across the strings of his violin. As I looked
at him ia the stream of the fire-flame, I almost expected
to hear 'he conquering sound of the melody. But he
did not play; he seemed to be waiting, and looking
out, and listening to other music than his own. All
these pictures were so familiar to us all as we came
and went, that we often scarcely paused to look at
them. Bit to-night in the firelight, they impressed
me anew with a sense of admiration for the wonderful
power of the man who had produced them. Over the
chimney hung a poet, noble and simple and kingly, as
St. Julian had painted him. Next to the poet was the
head of a calm and beautiful woman, bending in a
72 FROM AN ISLAND.
stream of light. It was either Emilia or her mother
in her youth. . . An evangelist, with a grand, quiet
brow and a white flood of silver beard, came next;
and then warriors, and nobles, and maidens with flow-
ing hair. There was someone in the room. Hes:er
was standing underneath the picture of the evangelist,
a real living picture. Her head was leaning wearily
against the wall. She had come in before me, a.nd
seemed standing in a dreary way, and lost in thought.
The silk stuffs she had collected were on the ground
at her feet and the pattern cloak was hanging frcm a
chair; but she had thrown her work away. I don't
know why, unless it was that her eyes were full of
great tired tears that she was trying vainly to keep
back.
"My dear," I said, frightened; "my dear, what is
it? What has happened? Has he vexed yoa?" I
hated myself next instant. I had spoken hastily and
without reflection. My question upset her; she struggled
for a minute, and then burst out crying, though she
was a brave girl — courageous and not given to useless
complaints. Then she looked up, flushing crimson re-
proach at me. "It is not what you seem tc think,"
she said. "Don't you know me better? It is some-
thing — I don't know what. How foolish I am." And
this time, with an effort, she conquered her tears. " Oh,
Queenie!" she said, "I know there is something wrong;
some terrible news. I don't dare ask, for they have
not told me; and I don't, don't dare ask," she repeated.
I was silent, for she was speaking the thought which had
been in my own heart of late. At last I said, "One
has foolish, nervous frights at times. What makes you
so afraid, Hester?"
FROM AN ISLAND. 73
Hester smiled, with her tear-dimmed face.
"There has been another absurd and provoking
scene," she said, "with Lady Jane. Something she
said of anxiety, and a letter, and — and — I don't know
what frightened me," said Hester, faltering. "She said
she would go immediately, that she should marry,
meet, write, invite anybody she chose, and that if it
were not for this anxiety for Emilia — some letter she
expected — she would leave us that instant; and then
my mother stopped her, and that is all I know," said
Hester, with a great sigh. "It is not worth crying for,
is it, Queenie?"
As she spoke the door opened and St. Julian and
Hexham came in to smoke their evening pipes. Hester
drew herself up with bright flushed cheeks and said a
haughty good-night to Hexham as she passed him.
But in my heart I thought more than one doubt had
caused Hester's tears to flow that night.
Hexham seemed unconscious enough. "I shall be
quite ready for sitters to-morrow morning, Miss Hester,"
said the provoking young man cheerfully. "You won't
disappoint me again?"
Hester did not answer, and walked out of the
room.
Hexham tried to persuade himself next day that
he had made it all right with Hester over-night. He
had come down late and had missed her at breakfast,
but he made sure she would not fail him, and he got
ready his chemicals and kept telling himself that she
would come. The glasses were polished bright, and
in their places. Everything was as it should be, he
thought; tiie sun was shining as photographers wish it
to shine. Once hearing steps Hexham turned hastily,
74
FROM AN ISLAND.
but it was only St. Julian on his way to his studio;
Lady Jane went by presently; then Lord Ulleskelf
passed by; and each time Hexham felt more aggrieved
and disappointed. Hexham came to me twice as I
sat at work in the drawing-room window, but I did
not know where Hester had gone, or if she meant to
sit to him. Little Missie went by last of all. The
child had her hands full of grasses that I had sent her
to gather. She went wandering on between the garden
beds with a little busy brain full of pretty fancies,
strange fairy dreams and stories of a world in which
she was living apart from us all. The tall pampas
grasses waved over my little maiden's head and bowed
their yellow flowers in the wind. The myrtles glimmered
mysteriously, the tamarisks drooped their fringed stems,
wind-blown shrubs shivered and shook, while a wood-
pecker from the outer world who had ventured into
fairy realms was laboriously climbing the stem of a
slender elm-tree. Hexham asked Missie if she knew
where Hester was, and the child, waking up, pointed
to the house: "She was there, at work for uncle Henry,
in the housekeeper's room, as I passed," said she.
Hexham was, as I have said, a young man of an
impatient humour. He was a little hard as young men
are apt to be. But there was something reassuring in
his very hardness and faith in himself and his own
doings. It was reassuring because it was a genuine
expression of youthful strength and power. No bad
man could have had that perfect confidence which
marked most of George Hexham's sayings and doings.
His was, after all, the complacency of good intentions.
He had taken it as a matter of course, not only
that Hester would come, but that she would come with
FROM AN ISLAND. 75
a feeling not unlike the feeling with which he was ex-
pecting her. He could not understand her absence,
her continued coldness. What did it mean? did it,
could it mean that she was unconscious of his ad-
miration? It had suddenly become a matter of utter
consequence to the young man that he should find
her now, reproach her, read her face, and discover why
she had thwarted him. He might see her all day and
at any hour, and yet this was the hour he had set
apart as his own — when he wanted her — the hour he
had looked forward to and counted on and longed for.
He came to me a third time, and asked me if I would
lake a message for him. I was a little sorry for him,
although I thought he deserved this gentle punish-
ment.
"If you will come with me we will go and look for
her," I said.
"You are doing me an immense kindness," cried
Hexham gratefully.
The housekeeper's room could be entered by the
court-yard: it was next to the outer studio, into which
it led by a door. It was used for models and had
been taken from the servants. As Missie had said,
Hester was sitting in the window at work when we
came in; the door into the studio was open, and I
heard voices of people talking within.
Hester's needle flew along in a sort of rhythmic
measure. She knew Hexham had come in with me,
but she did not look up, only worked on. Poor Hester!
her heart was too heavy for blushes or passing agita-
tions. Hexham had wounded her and disappointed
her, but, young as she was, the girl had a sense of the
fitness of things which kept her from betraying all she
76 FROM AN ISLAND.
felt; and, indeed, this great unaccountable feeling of
anxiety now occupied most thoughts and feelings, ex-
cept those to which she would not own. George Hex-
ham stood with a curious face, full of anger and sym-
pathy and compunction, watching her stitches as they
flew. One, two, three, he counted, and the quaint
little garment turned and twisted in her pale hands.
Once she looked up at him. It would have been bet-
ter if she had looked reproachful; but no, it was a
grave cold glance she gave, and then her head bent
down once more over her work. I left them to their
own explanations, and went back to my drawing-room
window.
Afterwards Hester told me how angry she was with
me for bringing him.
"Have you nearly done? May I talk to you when
you have finished that stitching?" he said to her
presently.
"I can listen while I work," said Hester, still sew-
ing, and if she paused it was only to measure the
seams upon the little model for whom they were in-
tended.
That needle flying seemed to poor Hexham an
impassable barrier — a weapon wielded by this Amazon
that he could not overcome. It kept him at arms'
length; it absorbed her attention; she scarcely listened
to what he said as she stuck and threaded and travelled
along the strange little garment. He found himself
counting the stitches — one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, — it was absurd; it was like an enchant-
ment.
"Hester," cried Hexham, "you won't understand
me!" Hester worked on and did not answer. His
FROM AN ISLAND. 77
voice was quick, passionate, and agitated. "You are
so calm," he cried. "I do not believe the common
weaknesses of life touch you in the least, or that you
ever know how to make any allowance for others."
"I can make allowance," faltered Hester, as with
trembling hands she stooped and began tying on the
child's little garment.
To Hexham's annoyance, at that moment St. Julian
appeared.
"You here, Hexham? Come and see Lord Ulles-
kelf. Is the child ready?" he asked. "That is right;"
and he led off the little girl, in her funny Velasquez
dress, trotting along to his long quick strides. Hexham
followed them to the door, and then turned back
slowly.
Hester had sunk wearily in the chair in which she
had been sitting, leaning her head upon her hand.
She thought it was all over; Hexham was gone. "She
did not care," she said to herself; as people say they
do not care, when they know in their heart of hearts
that they have but to speak to call a welcome answer-
ing voice, to put out their hand for another hand to
grasp. They do not say so when all is really gone,
and there is no answer anywhere. Sometimes she
softened, but Hester was indignant to think of the
possibility of having been laughed at and made a play
of when she herself had come with a heart trusting
and true and tender. He could not care for Lady
Jane, but he had ventured to say more than he really
felt to Hester herself. Now it seemed to her that the
whole aim and object of her behaviour should be to
prevent Hexham from guesssing what she had foolishly
fancied — Hexham, who had come back, and who was
78 FROM AN ISLAND.
standing looking with keen doubtful glances into her
face. She turned her two clear inscrutable eyes upon
him once more, and tried to meet his gaze quietly,
but her eyes fell beneath his.
"Hester," he said once again, and stopped short,
hearing a step at the door. Poor Hester blushed up
crimson with blushes that she blushed for again. Had
she betrayed herself? Ah, no, no! She started up.
"I must go," she said. Ah! she would go to her
father. There was love, tender and generous love, to
shield, to protect, to help her; not love like this, that
was but a play, false, cruel, ready to wound.
"Dear Hester, don't go! Stay!" Hexham entreated,
as she began to move towards the door leading to her
father's studio. He had not chosen his time well, poor
fellow, for Lady Jane, who was still in the outer studio,
hearing his voice, came to the door, looked in for one
instant, and turned away with an odd expression in her
face and a brisk shrug of the shoulders. They both
saw her. Hester looked up once again, with doubtful,
questioning eyes, and then there was a minute's
silence. Hexham understood her: a minute ago he
had been gentle, now her doubts angered him.
"Why are you so hard to me?" he burst out at
last, a little indignantly, and thoroughly in earnest.
"How can you suppose I have ever fancied that odious
woman? Will you believe me, or not, when I tell you
how truly and devotedly I love and admire you? You
are the only woman I have ever seen whom I would
make my wife. If you send me away you will crush
all that is best and truest in my nature, and destroy
my only chance of salvation."
"This is not the way to speak," said Hester,
FROM AN ISLAND. 79
gravely, with a beating heart. His hardness frightened
her, as her coldness and self-control angered him; and
yet he could not quite forget her sudden emotion of a
moment before. It was a curious reluctant attraction
that seemed to unite these two people, who loved each
other, and yet were cold; and who were playing with
their best chance of happiness, and wilfully putting it
away. They stood looking at each other, doubtful
still, excited, at once angry and gentle.
"How can I trust you," said proud Hester, "after
yesterday? — after No, you do not really care for
me, or "
It was, I think, at that moment that they heard a
sort of low stifled scream from outside, and then
hasty footsteps. Hester started. "Was that Lady
Jane?" she said. "Oh, what is it? Oh, has it come?"
Unnerved, excited, she put up her two hands nervously,
and instinctively turning to Hexham for help.
"My dearest," said Hexham, melting, utterly for-
getting all her coldness, thinking only of her — "what
is it — what do you fear?" and as he spoke he kept
her back for one instant by the two trembling hands,
grasping them firmly in his own. . . .
No other word was spoken, but from that moment
they felt that they belonged to each other.
"I don't know what I fear," she said. "Oh, come,
come!"
8o FROM AN ISLAND.
PART III.
X.
Lady Jane had walked angrily out through the
studio door into the garden. Her temper had not
been improved by a disagreeable scolding letter from
Lady Mountmore which had just been put into her
hand. It contained the long-looked-for scrap from
Bevis, which his father had forwarded. Lady Jane was
venting a certain inward indignation in a brisk walk
up and down the front of the house, when Lord
Ulleskelf came towards her.
"Are you coming this afternoon to explore the
castle with us?" she asked. "I believe we are all
going — that is, most of us. Aileen and Missie have
gone off with my maid in the coach."
He shook his head. "No," he said. "And I think
if it were not for the children's sake you none of you
would much care to go. But I suppose it is better to
live on as usual and make no change to express the
hidden anxieties which trouble us all at times."
"Well, I must say I think it is very ridiculous,"
said Lady Jane, who was thoroughly out of temper.
"These young wives seem to think that they and their
husbands are of so much consequence, that every con-
vulsion of life and nature must combine to injure them
and keep them apart."
FROM AN ISLAND. 8 1
Lord Ulleskelf had spoken forgetting that Lady
Jane was quite ignorant of their present cause for
ahum. He was half indignant at what he thought
utter want of feeling, half convinced by Lady Jane's
logic. He had first known St. Julian at Rome, years
before, and had been his friend all his life. He ad-
mired his genius, loved the girls, and was devoted to
the mother: any trouble which befell them came home
to him almost as a personal matter. . . .
"It is perfectly absurd," the young lady went on.
"We have heard at home all was well! and I cannot
sympathise with this mawkish sentimentality. I hate
humbug. I'm a peculiar character, and I always dis-
liked much ado about nothing. I am something of a
stoic."
"You heard by this mail?" said Lord Ulleskelf,
anxiously.
"Of course we did," said Lady Jane. "I had
written to my father to send me the letter. Here it is."
And she put it into his hand.
They had walked on side by side, and come almost
in front of the house, with its open windows. Lady
Jane was utterly vexed and put out. Hexham's look
of annoyance when she had burst in a minute before
was the last drop in her cup, and she now went on,
in her jerky way, —
"Emilia is all very well; but really I do pity poor
Bevis if this is the future in store for him — an anxious
Avife taking fright at every shadow. Mrs. St. Julian
only encourages her in her want of self-control. It is
absurd."
Lord Ulleskelf, who had been examining the letter
with some anxiety, folded it up. He was shocked and
u an Island,
82 FROM AN ISLAND.
overcome. He confessed to me afterwards that he
thought there was no necessity for sparing the feelings
of a young lady so well able as Lady Jane to bear
anxiety and to blame the over-sensitiveness of others.
The letter was short, and about money affairs. In a
postscript to the letter, Bevis said, — "Da Costa and
Dubois want me to join a shooting expedition; but I
shall not be able to get away." This was some slight
comfort, though to Lord Ulleskelf it only seemed a
confirmation of his worst fears.
"It is not a shadow," he said, gravely. "If you
like to look at this" — and he took a folded newspaper
out of his pocket — "you will see why we have been so
anxious for poor Emmy. Someone sent me a French
paper, in which a paragraph had been copied from
the Rio paper, containing an account of an accident
to some young Englishman there. I have now, with
some difficulty, obtained the original paper itself, with
fuller particulars. You will see that this translation is
added. I need not ask you to spare Mrs. Bevis a
little longer, while the news is uncertain. The ac-
cident happened on the 2nd, four days before the
steamer left. This letter is dated the 30th August,
and must have been written before the accident hap-
pened."
He turned away as he spoke, and left her standing
there, poor woman, in the blaze of sunshine. Lady
Jane never forgot that minute. The sea washed in
the distance, a flight of birds flew overhead, the sun
poured down. She stamped upon the crumbling gravel
and then, with an odd, choked sort of cry — hearing
some of them coming — fairly ran into the house and
FROM AM ISLAND. 83
upstairs and along the passage into the mistress's room,
of which the door happened to be open.
This was the cry which brought Hester and Hex-
ham out into the yard. I was in the drawing-room,
when Lord Ulleskelf came in hurriedly, looking very
much disturbed.
"Mrs. Campbell, for heaven's sake go to Lady
Jane!" he cried. "Do not let her alarm Emilia. I
have been most indiscreet — much to blame. Pray go."
I put down my work and hurried upstairs as he
told me. As I went I could hear poor Lady Jane's
sobs. I had reached the end of the gallery when I
saw a door open, and a figure running towards the
mistress's room. Then I knew I was too late, for it
was Emmy, who from her mother's bedroom had also
heard the cry.
"Mamma, something is wrong," said Emilia, "hold
Bevvy for me!" And before her mother could prevent
her she had put the child in her arms and run along
the passage to see what was the matter.
How shall I tell the cruel pang which was waiting
for her, running up unconscious to meet the stab.
1 ,ady Jane was sitting crying on Mrs. St. Julian's little
sofa. When she saw Emmy she lost all presence of
mind: she cried out, "Don't, don't come, Emmy! — not
you — not you!" Then jumping up she seized the
newspaper and ran out of the room; but the transla-
tion Lord Ulleskelf had written out fell on the floor as
she left, and poor frightened Emilia fearing everything
took it up eagerly.
I did not see this — at least I only remembered it
afterwards, for poor Lady Jane, meeting me at the
door, seized hold of my arm, saying, "Go back, go
6*
84 FROM AN ISLAND.
back! Oh take me to St. Julian!" The poor thing
was quite distraught for some minutes. I took her to
her room and tried to quiet her, and then I went, as
she asked me, to look for my cousin. I ran down by
the back way and the little staircase to the studio. It
was empty, except that the little model and her mother
were getting ready to go. The gentleman was gone,
the child said: he had told her to come back next
day. She was putting off her little quaint cloak, with
her mother's help, in a corner of the big room. I
hurried back to the house. On the stairs I found
Hester, with her companion, and my mistress at the
head of the stairs. Hester and Hexham both turned
to me, and my mistress eagerly asked whether I had
found St. Julian. I do not know how it was— certainly
at the time I could not have described what was hap-
pening before my eyes; but afterwards, thinking things
over, I seemed to see a phantasmagoria of the events
of the day passing before my eyes. I seemed to see
the look of motherly sympathy and benediction with
which, in all her pain for Emilia, Mrs. St. Julian turned
to her Hester. I don't know if the two young folks
had spoken to her. They were standing side by side,
as people who had a right to one another's help; and
afterwards, when I was alone, Hester's face came be-
fore me, sad, troubled, and yet illumined by the radi-
ance of a new-found light.
I suppose excitement is a mood which stamps
events clearly-marked and well-defined upon our minds.
I think for the most part our lives are more wonderful,
sadder, and brighter, more beautiful and picturesque,
than we have eyes to see or ears to understand, ex-
cept at certain moments when a crisis comes to stir
FROM AN [SI VND. 85
slow hearts, to brighten dim eyes to sight, and dull
cars to the sounds that vibrate all about. So it is
with happy people, and lookers-on at the history of
others: for those who are in pain a merciful shadow
falls at first, hiding, and covering, and tempering the
cruel pangs of fear and passionate regret.
XI.
Emmy read the paper quite quietly, in a sort of
dream: this old crumpled paper, lying on the table, in
which she saw her husband's name printed. Her first
thought was, why had they kept it from her? Here
was news, and they had not given it. Bevis Beverley!
She even stopped for an instant to think what a pretty,
strange name it was; stopped wilfully, with that sort of
instinct we all have when we will not realise to our-
selves that something of ill to those we love is at
hand. Then she began to read, and at first she did
not quite understand. A shooting-party had gone up
the Parana River; the boat Avas supposed to have over-
turned. The names, as well as they could gather,
were as follows: — Don Manuel da Costa, Mr. P.Dubois,
Mr. Bevis Beverley of the English Embassy, Mr. Stan-
more, and Sefior Antonio de Caita, — of whom not one
had been saved. Emilia read it once quietly, only her
heart suddenly began to beat, and the room to swing
round and round; but even in the bewildering circles
she clutched the paper and forced herself to read the
dizzy words again. At first she did not feel very
much, and even for an instant her mind glanced off
to something else — to her mother waiting down below
86 FROM AN ISLAND.
with little Bevis in her lap — then a great dark cloud
began to descend quietly and settle upon the poor
little woman, blotting out sunlight and landscape and
colour. Emilia lost mental consciousness as the dark-
ness closed in upon her, not bodily consciousness.
She had a dim feeling as if someone had drawn a
curtain across the window, so she told me afterwards.
She was sitting in her mother's room, this she knew;
but a terrible, terrible trouble was all about her, all
around, everywhere, echoing in the darkness, and cold
at her heart. Bevis, she wanted Bevis or her mother:
they could send it away; and with a great effort she
cried out, "Mamma! mamma!" And at that instant
somebody who had been talking to her, but whom she
had not heeded, seemed to say, "Here she is," and in
a minute more her mother's tender arms were round
her, and Emilia coming to herself again looked up
into that tender, familiar face.
"My darling," said the mother, "you must hope,
and trust, and be brave. Nothing is confirmed; and
we must pray and love one another, and have faith in
a heavenly mercy. If it had been certain, do you
think I should have kept it from you all this time!"
"How long?" said the parched lips; and Emilia
turned in a dazed way from Mrs. St. Julian to Lady
Jane, who had come back, and who was standing by
with an odd, startled face, looking as pale almost as
Emmy herself.
"Oh, Emmy, dear, dear Emmy, don't believe it:
we have had a letter since. I shall never forgive my-
self as long as I live — never! I left it out; that hate-
ful paper. Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!" sobbed poor
FROM AN ISLAND. 87
Lady Jane, once more completely overcome, as she
sank into a chair and hid her face in her hands.
Little Emilia made a great effort. She got up
from her seat with a piteous look; she went up to her
sister-in-law and put her hand on her shoulder. "Don't
cry, Jane," she said, trembling very much. "Mamma
says there is hope; and Bevis said I was to try and
make the best of things. 1 had rather know," said
poor Emilia, turning sick and pale again. "May I see
your letter?"
Lady Jane was almost overawed by the gentle
sweetness of these two women.
"How can you think of me just now? Oh, Emilia!
I — I don't deserve it!" And she got up and a second
time rushed out of the room.
Emmy's wonderful gentleness and self-control
touched me more than 1 can express. She did not
say much more, but went back to her mother, and
knelt down and buried her face in her knees in a
childish attitude, kneeling there still and motionless,
while all the bright light came trembling and shining
upon the two bent heads, and the sound of birds and
of bleating sheep and shouting children came in at
the open windows. I thought they were best alone,
and left them, shutting the door. The house was silent
and empty of the life which belonged to it, only it
seemed to me crowded to suffocation by this great
trouble and anxiety. This uncertainty was horrible.
How would the time pass until the next mail came
due? I was thankful from my heart to think that half
the time had passed. Only I felt now at this moment
that I must breathe, get out upon the downs, shake off
the overpowering sense of sorrow, I could not but feel
88 FROM AN ISLAND.
when those so dear and so near to me were in so
much pain; but on my way, as I passed Lady Jane's
door, some compunction made me pause for a mo-
ment, and knock and go in. Poor Lady Jane! She
was standing at the toilette-table. She had opened
her dressing-case to get out the letter which she had
hidden away there only a few minutes before, and in
so doing she seemed to have caught sight of her own
face in the glass, frightened and strange, and unlike
anything she had ever seen before. And so she stood
looking in a curious stupid way at the tears slowly
coursing down her cheeks. She started as I came in,
and turned round.
"I — I am not used to this sort of thing," said she.
"I have been feeling as if I was somebody else, Mrs.
Campbell. I don't know what I ought to do. What
do you think? Shall I take this in? Will it be of any
comfort?"
"It will be of no comfort, I fear. It was written
before — before that happened. But I fear it is of no
use trying to keep anything from her now," I said, and
then together we went back to the door of the mistress's
little room. Mrs. St. Julian put out her hand for the
letter, and signed to us to go. Only as we walked away
along the passage I heard a great burst of sobbing, and
I guessed that it was occasioned by the sight of poor
Bevis's well-known hand-writing. Poor Lady Jane be-
gan to cry too, and then jerked her tears impatiently
away, beginning to look like herself again.
"It's too absurd," she said. "All about nothing.
Dear old Bevis! I am sure he will come back all
safe. I have no patience with such silly frights. I am
FROM AN ISLAND. 89
frightened too now; but there is no more danger than
there was yesterday."
I could not help thinking there was some sense in
Lady Jane's cheerful view of things: after all it was the
barest uncertainty and hint of evil, when all round, on
every side, dangers of every sort were about each one
of those whom we loved, from which no loving cares
or prayers could shield them: a foot slips, a stone
falls, and a heart breaks, or a life is ended, and what
then? ... A horrible vision of my own child — close,
close to the edge of the dreadful cliff, came before me.
1 was nervous and infected too, with sad terrors and
presentiments which the sight of the poor sweet young
wife's misery had suggested.
Lady Jane, in her odd, decided way, said she must
come out too. She could not bear the house, she could
not bear to see the others.
She walked beside me with firm, even footsteps,
occasionally telling me one thing and another of her
favourite brother. Her flow of talk was interrupted:
the real true heart within her seemed stirred by an un-
affected sympathy for the trouble of the people with
whom she was living. Her face seemed kindled, the
hard look had gone out of it; for the first time I could
imagine a likeness between her and her brother, and
I becran to feel a certain trust and reliance in this
O
strange, wayward woman. After a little she was quite
silent. We had a dreary little walk, pacing on to-
gether along the lane: how long the way seemed, how
dull the hedges looked, how dreary the road! It
seemed as if our walk had lasted for hours, but we
had been out only a very little time. When we came
in there was a three-cornered note addressed to Lady
90 FROM AN ISLAND.
Jane lying on the hall table. "A gentleman brought
it," said the parlour maid; and I left Lady Jane to her
correspondence, while I ran up to see how my two
dear women were going on.
The day lagged on slowly: Emmy had got her little
Bevis with her, and was lying-down in her own room
while he played about. Mrs. St. Julian came and went,
doing too much for her own strength; but I could not
prevent her. She put me in mind of some bird hover-
ing about her nest, as I met her again and again
standing wistful and tender by her daughter's door,
listening, and thinking what she could do more to
ease her pain.
In the course of the afternoon St. Julian, who had
been out when all this happened — having suddenly
dismissed his model, and gone off for one of the long
solitary tramps to which he was sometimes accustomed
—came home to find the house in sad confusion. I
think his presence was better medicine for Emmy than
her mother's tender, wistful sympathy.
"I don't wonder at your being very uncomfortable,"
he said; "but I myself think there is a strong pro-
bability that your fears are unfounded. Bevis says
most distinctly that he has refused to join the expedi-
tion. His name has been talked of: that is enough to
give rise to a report that he is one of the party. . . .
I would give you more sympathy if I did not think
that it won't be wanted, my dear." He pulled her
little hand through his arm as he spoke, and patted it
gently. He looked so tender, so encouraging, so well
able to take care of the poor little thing, she clung to
him closer and closer.
"Oh, my dearest papa," she said, "I will try, in-
FROM AN ISLAND. Q I
i
deed I will!" And she hid her face, and tried to choke
down her sobs.
1 had prepared a beautiful tea for them, but
neither Mrs. St. Julian nor Emilia appeared. Lady
Jane came down, somewhat subdued, trying to keep
up a desultory conversation, as if nothing had hap-
pened, which vexed me at the moment. Even little
Bevis soon found out that something was wrong,
and his little voice seemed hushed in the big wooden
room.
And then the next day dawned, and another long
day lagged on. St. Julian would allow no change to be
made in the ways of the house. He was right, for any
change would but have impressed us all more strongly
with the certainty of misfortune. On Thursday we
should hear our fate. It was but one day more to
wait, and one long, dark interminable night. Hexham
did not mean to leave us: on the contrary, when St.
Julian made some proposal of the sort, he said, in true
heart-tones, "Let me stay; do not send me away. Oh!
St. Julian, don't I belong to you? I don't think I need
tell you now that the one great interest of my life is
here among you all." The words touched St. Julian
very much, and there could be no doubt of their
loyalty. "Let him stay, papa," said Hester, gently.
In his emotion the young man spoke out quite openly
before us all. It was a time which constrained us
all to be simple, from the very strength of our sym-
pathy for the dear, and gentle, and stricken young wife
above.
Little Bevis came down before dinner, and played
about as usual. I was touched to see the tenderness
which they all showed to him. His grandfather let
92 FROM AN ISLAND.
•
him run into his studio, upset his colour-pots, turn
over his canvasses — one of them came down with a
great sound upon the floor. It was the picture of the
two women at the foot of the beacon waiting together
in suspense. Bevis went to bed as usual, and we
dined as usual, but I shall never forget that evening,
how endless and interminable it seemed. After dinner
St. Julian, who had been up to see Emmy in her room,
paced up and down the drawing-room, quite unnerved
for once. "My poor child," he kept repeating; "my
poor child!"
The wind had arisen: we could hear the low roar
of the sea moaning against the shingle; the rain sud-
denly began to pour in the darkness outside, and the
fire burnt low, for the great drops came down the
chimney. Hexham did his best to cheer us. He was
charming in his kindness and thoughtfulness. His
manner to Hester was so tender, so gentle, at once
humble and protecting, that I could only wonder that
she held out as she did against its charm. She scarcely
answered him, scarcely looked at him. She sat grow-
ing paler and paler. Was it that it seemed to her
wrong, when her sister was in such sorrow and anxiety,
to think of her own happiness, or concerns? It was
something of this, for once in the course of the even-
ing I heard her say to him, —
"I cannot talk to you yet. Will you wait?"
"A lifetime," said Hexham, in a low moved voice.
Hexham went away to smoke with St. Julian. I
crossed the room and sat down by Hester, and put my
arms round her. The poor child leant her head upon
my shoulder. Lady Jane was with Emilia, who had
sent for her. Long after they had all gone up sad
FROM AN" ISLAM). 93
and wearily to their rooms, I sat by the fire watching
the embers burn out one by one, listening to the
sudden gusts of wind against the window-pane, to
the dull rush of the sea breaking with loud cries and
sobs.
All the events of the day were passing before me,
over and over again: first one troubled face, then an-
other; voice after voice echoing in my ears. Was there
any hope anywhere in Hester's eyes? I thought; and
they seemed looking up out of the fire into my own,
as I sat there drowsily and sadly.
It was about two o'clock, I think, when I started;
for I heard a sound of footsteps coming. A tall white-
robed woman, carrying a lamp, came into the room,
and advanced and sat down beside me. It was poor
Lady Jane. All her cheerfulness was gone, and I saw
now what injustice I had done her, and how she must
have struggled to maintain it; she looked old and hag-
gard suddenly.
"I could not rest," she said. "I came down — I
thought you might be here. I couldn't stay in my
room listening to that dreadful wind." Poor thing, I
felt for her. I made up the fire once more, and we
two kept a drean- watch for an hour and more, till the
wind went down and the sea calmed, and Lady Jane
began to nod in her arm-chair.
Q4 FROM AN ISLAND.
XII.
I awoke on the Thursday morning, more hopeful
than I had gone to bed. I don't know why, for there
was no more reason to hope either more or less than
there had been the night before. On Thursday or on
Friday the French mail would come with news: that
was our one thought. We still tried to go on as usual,
as if nothing was the matter. The bells rang, the ser-
vants came and went with stolid faces. It is horrible
to say, but already at the end of these few interminable
hours it seemed as if we were getting used to this new
state of things. Emilia still kept upstairs. Lady Jane
paced about in her restless way: from one room to an-
other, from one person to another, she went. Some-
times she would burst out into indignation against
Lady Mountmore, who had driven poor Bevis to go.
She had influenced his father, Lady Jane declared, and
prevented him from advancing a certain sum which he
had distinctly promised to Bevis before his marriage.
"A promise is a promise," said Lady Jane, "The poor
boy was too proud to ask for his rights. He only
went, I do believe, to escape that horrid Ephraim. We
behaved like brutes, every one of us. I am just as
bad as the rest," said the poor lady.
It was as she said. One day in June, when 'the
Minister had sent to Mr. F., of the Foreign Office, to
ask who was next on the list of Queen's messengers,
it was found that the gentleman first in order had
been taken ill only the day before; the second after
him was making up his book for the Derby next
year.
FROM AN ISLAND. 95
Poor Bevis — who was sitting disconsolately wonder-
ing how it would be possible to him to take up that
bill of Ephraim's, which was daily appearing more ter-
rible and impossible to meet — had heard St. Gervois
and De Barty, the two other men in his room, discuss-
ing the matter, and announcing in very decided lan-
guage their intention of remaining in London for the
rest of the season, instead of starting off at a moment's
notice with despatches to some unknown President in
some unknown part of South America.
Bevis said nothing, but got up and left the room.
A few minutes after he came back looking very pale.
"You fellows," he said, "I shall want you to do a few
things for me. I start for Rio to-morrow."
"Mr. St. Gervois told me all about it," poor Lady
Jane said, with a grunt, as she told me the story.
This sudden determination took the Mountmores
and Mr. Ephraim by surprise, and as I have said, it
was on this occasion that Lady Jane spoke up on her
brother's behalf, and that Emilia, after his departure,
was formally recognised by his family. "If he, — when
he comes back," cried Lady Jane, in a fume, "my
father, in common decency, must increase his allow-
ance." A sudden light came into her face as she spoke.
The thought of anything to do or to say for Bevis was
a gleam of comfort to the poor sister.
All that day was a feverish looking for news. St.
Julian had already started off to London that morning
in search of it. Once I saw the telegraph-boy from
Tarmouth coming along the lane. I ran down eagerly,
but Lady Jane was beforehand, and had pocketed the
despatch which the servant had brought her. "It is
nothing," she said, "and only concerns me." A certain
0,6 FROM AN ISLANT3.
conscious look seemed to indicate Sigourney. But I
asked no questions. I went on in my usual plodding
way, putting by candles and soap, serving out sugar.
Sometimes now when I stand in the store-closet I re-
member the odd double feeling with which I stood
there that Thursday afternoon, with my heart full of
sympathy, and then would come a sudden hardness of
long use to me, looking back at the storms of life
through which I had passed. A hard, cruel feeling, of
the inevitable laws of fate came over me. What great
matter was it: one more life struck down, one more
innocent happiness blasted, one more parting; were we
not all of us used to it, was anyone spared ever? . . .
One by one we are sent forth into the storm, alone to
struggle through its fierce battlings till we find another
shelter, another home, where we may rest for a little
while, until the hour comes when once more we are
driven out. It was an evil frame of mind, and a thank-
less one, for one who had found friends, a shelter, and
help when most in need of them. As I was still stand-
ing among my stores that afternoon, Aileen came to
the door, looking a little scared. "Queenie," she said,
"Emilia is not in her room. Lady Jane, too, has been
out for ever so long. Her maid tells me that she had
a telegraphic message from that Captain Sigourney. Is
it not odious of her now, at such a time? Oh, she
can't have — can't have "
"Eloped?" I said, smiling. "No, Aileen, I do not
think there is much fear."
As time went on, however, and neither of them re-
appeared, I became a little uneasy. Lady Jane's maid
when questioned knew nothing of her mistress's inten-
tions. Bevis was alone with his nurse, contentedly
FROM AN ISLAND. 97
stocking a shop in his nursery out of her work-box.
But it was not for Lady Jane that I was anxious — she
could take care of herself; it was Emilia I was looking
for. I put on my bonnet, and set off to try and find
her. Hester and Hexham said they would go towards
Ulleshall, and see if she was there.
I walked up the down, looking on every side. I
thought each clump of furze was Emilia; but at last,
high up by the beacon, I saw a dark figure against the
sky.
Yes, it was Emilia up there, with beaten garments
and with wind-blown hair. She had unconsciously
crouched down to escape the fierce blast. She was
looking out seawards, at the dull tossing horizon. It
seemed to me such an image of desolation that it went
to my heart to see her so. I called her by her name,
and ran up and put my hand upon her shoulder.
"My dear," I said, "we have been looking for you
everywhere."
Emilia gave a little start. She had not heard me
call.
"I could not rest at home," she said. "I don't
know what brought me here. I think I ran almost all
the way."
She spoke with a trembling desperateness that
frightened me. Two nights of sleeplessness, and these
long maddening hours, were enough to daze the poor
child. If she were to break down? But gentle things
like Emilia bend and rise again.
"Come home now, dear Emilia," I said; "it is
growing dark. Your mother will be frightened about
you."
From an Island. 7
g8 FROM AN ISLAND.
"All! people are often frightened when there is no-
thing to fear," said Emilia, a little strangely.
I could see that she was in a fever. Her cheeks
were burning, while I was shivering: for the cold winds
came eddying from the valley, and sweeping round
and round us, making the beacon creak as they passed.
The wind was so chill, the sky so grey, and the green
murky sea so dull at our feet, that I longed to get her
away. It seemed to me much later than it really was.
The solitude oppressed me. There was no life any-
where — no boats about. Perhaps they were lost in
the mist that was writhing along from the land, and
spreading out to sea. I cannot say why it was so
great a relief to me at last to see one little dark speck
coming across the straits where the mist was not drift-
ing. The sight of life — for boats are life to people
looking out with lonely eyes — this little dark grey
speck upon the waters seemed to me to make the blast
less dreary, and the lonely heights less lonesome.
We began our walk back in silence. Emilia's long
blue cloak napped in the wind, but I pulled it close
about her. She let me do as I liked. She didn't
speak. Once I said to her, — "Emilia, do you know,
when I came up just now, I thought you looked
like the picture your father painted. Do you remember
it?"
"I — I forget," said poor Emilia, turning away her
face suddenly. All her strength seemed to have left
her; her limbs seemed scarcely able to drag along;
her poor little feet slipped and stumbled on the turf
and against the white chalk-stones. I put my arm
round her waist and helped her along as best I could,
as we crept down the side of the hill.
FROM AN ISLAND. 99
"I think I cannot walk because my heart is so
heavy," said Emilia once in her childish way, and her
head dropped on my shoulder. I hardly can tell
what I feared for her, or what I hoped. Sleeplessness
and anxiety were enemies too mighty for this helpless
little frame to encounter.
I was confused and frightened, and I took a wrong
turning. It brought us to the end of a field where a
gate had once stood, which was now done away with.
We could not force through the hedges and the palings:
there was nothing to do but to turn back. It seems
childish to record, but when I found that we must
retrace so many of our weary steps, stumbling back all
the way, in one of those biting gusts of wind, I burst
out crying from fatigue, and sympathy, and excite-
ment. It seemed all so dreary and so hopeless. Emilia
roused herself, seeing me give way. Poor child, her
sweet natural instincts did not desert her, even in her
own bewildered pain. She took hope suddenly, trying
to find strength to help me.
"Oh, Queenie," she said. "Think if we find, to-
morrow, that all is well, and that all this anxiety has
been for nothing. But it could not be for nothing,
could it?" she said.
It is only another name for something greater and
holier than anxiety, I thought: but I could not speak,
for I was choking, and I had not yet regained com-
mand of my own voice. Our walk was nearly over;
we got out on to the lane, and so approached our
home. At the turn of the road I saw a figure standing
looking for us. A little figure, with hair flying on the
gale, who, as we appeared, stumbling and weary,
sprang forward to meet us; then suddenly stopped,
7*
IOO FROM AN ISLAND.
turned, and fled, with fluttering skirts and arms out-
stretched, like a spirit of the wind. I could not under-
stand it, nor why my little Missie (for it was her)
should have run away. Even this moment's sight of
her, in the twilight, did me good and cheered me.
How well I remember it all. The dark rustling hedges,
a pale streak of yellow light in the west shining be-
yond the hedge, and beyond the stem of the hawthorn-
tree. It gleamed sadly and weirdly in the sky, among
clouds of darkness and vaporous shadows; the earth
reflected the light faintly at our feet, more brightly in
the garden, which was higher than the road. Emilia
put out her hand, and pulled herself wearily up the
steps which led to the garden. It was veiy dark, but
in the light from the stormy gleam she saw something
which made her cry out. I myself pulled Emilia back,
with some exclamation, being still confused and not
knowing what dark figure it was standing before me
in the gloaming; but Emilia burst away from me with
a cry, with a low passionate sob. She flew from me
straight into two arms that caught her. My heart was
beating, my eyes were full of tears, so that I could
scarcely see what had happened.
But I heard a low "Bevis! Oh, Bevis!" For a
moment I stood looking at the two standing clinging
together. The cold wind still came in shrill gusts,
the grey clouds still drifted, the sun-streak was dying:
but peace, light, love unspeakable were theirs, and
the radiance from their grateful hearts seemed to over-
flow into ours.
FROM AN ISLAM). IOl
XIII.
"Where is Lady Jane?" interrupted Hexham,
coming home in the twilight, from a fruitless search
with Hester, to hear the great news. It was so great,
so complete, so unexpected, that we none of us quite
realised it yet. We were strangely silent; we looked
at each other: some sat still; the younger ones went
vaguely rushing about the house, from one end to the
other. Aileen and Missie were like a pair of mad
kittens, dancing and springing from side to side. It
was pretty to see Hester rush in, tremulous, tender,
almost frightened by the very depth of her sympathy.
The mother was holding Emilia's hand, and turning
from her to Bevis.
"Oh, Bevis, if you knew what three days we have
spent," said Hester, flinging her arms round him.
"Don't let us talk about it any more," said he,
kissing her blooming cheek, and then he bent over
the soft mother's hand that trembled out to meet his
own.
It was not at first that we any of us heard very
clearly what had happened, for Emilia turned so pale
at first when her husband began speaking of that fatal
expedition in the boat up the Parana River, that he
abruptly changed the subject, and began describing
the road from London to Tarmouth, instead of dwelling
on his escape from the accident, or the wonders of
that country from whence he had come- an unknown
land to us all, of mighty streams and waving verdure;
of great flowers, and constellations, and mysterious
102 FROM AN ISLAND.
splashings and stirrings along the waters: Emmy
turned pale, and Bevis suddenly began to describe
his journey from Waterloo to Tarmouth, and his com-
panion from London.
"A fellow gets suspicious," said honest Bevis, re-
counting his adventure. "But I can't understand the
fellow now. He seemed dodging me about, and I
only got away from him by a chance. I don't mind
so much now that I have seen you, little woman.
Ephraim may have a dozen writs out against me, for
all I know. I thought there was something uncom-
fortable about the man the moment I saw him; and I
asked the porter at the Foreign Office not to tell him
anything about me. I may have been mistaken,"
Bevis ended, shrugging his shoulders, "since here I
am. But if not to-day, that confounded old Ephraim
will have me to-morrow. I only put off the evil day
by running away. Well, I've brought back Jane's
hundred pounds, and I have seen my little woman
again, and the boy, and all of you, and now I don't
care what happens."
"Hush," said Mrs. St. Julian: "my husband must
help you. Your father has written to him. You
should have come to us."
"I believe I acted like a fool," said Beverley,
penitently. "Perhaps I fancied things worse than they
were. I couldn't bear to come sponging on St. Julian,
and I was indignant at the things they said at home,
and — is Jane here, do you say?"
We were all getting seriously uneasy? Lady Jane
had disappeared. Her maid brought in a telegram
she had found in her room, which seemed to throw
some vague light upon her movements.
FROM AN ISLAM i. I03
"Captain Sigourney, Waterloo Station, to Lady Jane
Beverley, Tarmouth, Broadshire.
"I implore you to meet me at Tarmouth. I come
by the four o'clock boat. I have news of your
brother.
("Signed) Sigourney."
"Sigourney!" cried Bevis, "who the devil is
Sigourney?"
There was a dead silence, and nobody knew ex-
actly what to say next. All our anxiety and specula-
tion were allayed before dinner by the return of the
pony-carriage with a hasty note from Lady Jane her-
self!
"Dearest Mrs. St. Julian, — Kind Captain Sigourney
has been to London enquiring for us. He has heard
confidentially, from a person at the Foreign Office,
that my brother has been heard of by this mail. He
thought it best to come to me straight, and I have
decided to go off to London immediately. I shall
probably find my father at home in Bruton Street.
I will write to-morrow. Fond love to dearest Emilia.
"Your affectionate, anxious
"Jane Beverley."
"But what does it all mean?" cried Bevis, in a
fume. "What business has Captain Sigourney with
my safety?" And it was only by degrees th.it he
could be appeased at all.
104 FROM AN ISLAND.
"This fire won't burn!" cried Missie.
There is a little pine-wood growing not far from
the Lodges, where Aileen and Missie sometimes boil
a kettle and light a fire of dry sticks, twigs, and fir-
cones. The pine-wood runs up the side of a steep
hill that leads to the down. In the hollow below lie
bright pools glistening among wet mosses and fallen
leaves and pine-twigs; but the abrupt sides of the
little wood are dry and sandy, and laced and overrun
by a network of slender roots that go spreading in
every direction. In between the clefts and jagged
fissures of the ground the sea shines, blue and gleam-
ing, while the white ships, like birds, seem to slide in
between the branches. The tea-party was in honour
of Bevis's return , the little maidens said. They had
transported cups and cloths, pats of butter and brown
loaves, all of which good things were set out on a
narrow ledge; while a little higher, the flames were
sparkling, and a kettle hanging in the pretty thread
of smoke. Missie, on her knees, was piling sticks
and cones upon the fire; Aileen was busy spreading
her table; and little Bevis was trotting about picking
up various little shreds and stones that took his fancy,
and bringing them to poke into the bright little flame
that was crackling and sparkling and growing every
moment more bright.
Bevis and Emilia were the hero and heroine of the
entertainment. Hexham was fine, Aileen said, and
would not take an interest, and so he was left with
Hester pasting photographs in the dining-room, while
the rest of us came off this bright autumnal afternoon
to camp in the copse. The sun still poured unwearied
over the country, and the long delightful summer seemed
FROM AN ISLAND. 105
unending. It was during this picnic tea-drinking that I
heard more than I had hitherto done of Mr. Beverley's
adventures.
"This kettle won't boil!" said Missie.
And while Bevis was good-naturedly poking and
stirring the flames, Emilia began in a low, frightened
voice: — "Oh, Queenie, even now I can hardly believe
it. He has been telling me all about it. He finished
his work sooner than he expected. The poor General
was shot with whom he was negotiating: he found that
there was nothing more for him to do, and that he
might as well take his passage by the very next ship.
And then, to pass the time, he went off with those other
poor men for a couple of days' shooting, and then they
met a drove of angry cattle swimming across the stream,
and they could not get out of the way in time, and two
were drowned," faltered Emilia; "but when dear Bevis
came to himself, he had floated a long way. down the
stream. He had been unconscious, but bravely cling-
ing to an oar all the time . . . and then he scrambled
on shore and wandered on till he got to a wooden
house belonging to two young men, who took him in, —
but he had had a blow on the head, and he was very
ill for three days, and the steamer was gone when he
got back to Rio — and that was how it was."
As she ceased she caught hold of little Bevis, who
was trotting past her, and suddenly clutched him to
her heart. How happy she was! a little frightened still,
even in her great joy, but with smiles and lights in her
radiant face, — her very hair seemed shining as she sat
under the pine-trees, sometimes looking up at her hus-
band, or with proud eyes following Bevvy's little dump-
ling figure as he busily came and went.
106 FROM AN ISLAND.
"Here is Hexham, after all," cried big Bevis
from the heights, looking down as he spoke, and Hex-
ham's head appeared from behind a bank of moss and
twigs.
"Why, what a capital gipsy photograph you would
all make," cried the enthusiastic Hexham as he came
up. "I have brought you some letters. Hester is
coming directly with William St. Julian, who has just
arrived."
"I really don't think we can give you all cups,"
said Aileen, busily pouring from her boiling kettle into
her teapot. "You know I didn't expect you."
Bevis took all the letters and began to read them
out: —
I.
"Lord Mountmore to the Hon. Bevis Beverley.
"Friday.
"My dear Boy, — The news of your safe return from
Rio has relieved us all from a most anxious state of
mind. You have had a providential escape, upon which
we most warmly and heartily congratulate you. With
regard to the subject of your letter, I am willing to
accede to your request, and to allow you once more
the same sum that you have always had hitherto. I
will also assist you to take up the bill , if you will give
me your solemn promise never to have anything more
to do with the Jews. Jane has pleaded your cause
so well that I cannot refuse her. My lady desires her
love. "Your affectionate father,
"M .
FROM AN ISLAM >. IO7
"Jane is writing, so I send no message from her.
She arrived, poor girl, on Thursday in a most distressed
state of mind. I hope we shall see you here with your
wife before long."
II.
Unknown Friend, Ch. Coll., Cambridge, to George Hex-
ham, Esq., The Island, Tarmouth.
"My dear George, — I have been expecting this
letter ever since I received your last, from which, by
the bye, one page was missing. Farewell, O friend of
my bachelorhood. Seriously, I long to see you, and to
hear all about it. I must also beg to congratulate the
future Mrs. Hexham upon having secured the affections
of one of the best and truest-hearted of men. I have
no doubt she fully deserves her good fortune.
"Ever, my dear fellow, affectionately yours,
III.
Mrs. William St. Julian, Kensington Square,
to Mrs. St. Julian, Tarmouth.
"My dearest Mrs. St. Julian, — I send this by William,
who cannot rest until he has seen you all and told you
how heartfelt are our sympathies and congratulations.
How little we thought, as we drove off on Monday
morning, of all that was at hand. It seems very unfeel-
ing as I look back now. I shall feel quite nervous
108 FROM AN ISLAND.
until William comes back, but he has promised to take
a return-ticket to reassure me. I am quite surprised
by the news you send me this morning of Hester's en-
gagement. I always had my own ideas, though I did
not speak of them (we quiet people often see a good
deal more than people imagine), and I quite expected
that Lady Jane would have been the lady. However,
it is much better as it is, and Mr. Hexham is, I have
no doubt, all you could wish for dear Hester. Do give
my best and kindest congratulations to dear Emilia.
How delighted she must have been to get the good
news of her husband's safety. I hope it was not too
much for her, — excitement is very apt to knock one up.
The children send a hundred loves and kisses.
"Believe me,
"Your affectionate daughter,
"Margaret St. Julian."
"P.S. — I have had a visit from a very delightful
Captain Sigourney. He called upon me to ask for news
of you all. It seems he escorted Lady Jane to town,
and that in consequence of information he had received
at the Foreign Office he was able to be of great ser-
vice to her, although the information afterwards turned
out incorrect. A person there had assured him that
Mr. Beverley had been in town some time, and had re-
turned to South America for good. What strange re-
ports get about! One should be very careful never to
believe anybody."
AN EASTER HOLIDAY.
Is that enchanted moan only the swell
Of the long waves that roll in yonder hay?
And hark ! the clock within, the silver knell
Of twelve sweet hours, that past in bridal white
And died to live. . . . — Maud.
It is late to begin to write of Easter holidays and
holiday makers when Easter is past and the holidays
are rapidly coming to an end — when all the people
who only yesterday, in a glamour of sunshine and
laziness, were to one another distant figures dotting
the cliffs, groups upon the beach, couples strolling on
the smooth lawn of the hotel, or voices calling from
unseen places through the clear spring air, are
common-place, uninteresting men and women again,
packing up their portmanteaus and bags, disputing
over their bills, and driving away in flys and breaks
to the platform, where the same railway carriages and
steamers which conveyed so many to ease and pleasant
hours, now wait, remorseless and unrelenting, to carry
unwilling victims back to desks, pulpits, pupil-rooms,
consultations, household duties, social cares, clerks,
dust, office paper, and red tape.
For the last week or so it has seemed to some of
us as if a sort of millennium had set in in many
places. Lawyers have been disporting themselves, sud-
denly freed, as if by magic, from the blue bags and
110 AN EASTER HOLIDAY.
tin boxes to which they are usually chained , Prome-
theus-like, by strings of red tape. Clergymen, without
their pulpits, have been climbing the cliffs with sur-
prising agility, their white neckcloths gleaming in the
sun and marking them distinct from other men. Pupils
have ceased to be altogether in this happy hour,
and are transformed into the well-loved Toms and
Harrys of home and domestic life. Illnesses and
patients have also vanished out of sight; although the
doctors do not quite put aside their professional man-
ner with their practice, and walk in a brisk and busi-
ness-like way along the seashore, or alertly read the
"Times," cross-legged, upon the benches in front of
their hotels. Here at F , if one may be allowed
to instance one place among the rest, there have been
students from Oxbridge and Camford. Two mighty
dons have come down from their high places, and
may be seen looking at the primroses in the lane;
while in the adjoining field a painter, whose name is
reckoned high among his compeers, is with some boys,
leaping over a cat-gallows; and a councillor who has
forgotten the cares of empire for a while, is strolling
in the shade of a hedgerow, and repeating odes of
Horace to a young companion.
Horace would have most certainly written an ode
or two if he had come to F . He would have
liked the pine-wood on the hillside, where the river
bubbles from its source, and where you climb among
trees, across mosses starred with primroses and tiny
dog-violets, and as you climb you see the horizon be-
tween the flaked stems of the pines, until at last you
come out upon a wide down which reaches to the
summit of the hill.
AN EASTER HOLIDAY. I I I
But, in truth, we have no need of Horace here to
tell us of "groves of pine on either hand," to teach us
how to look for "the shining steps." For the Lord of
the Manor of Faringford has written of these full-toned
seas and breaking waves, "these happy blossoming
shores," and "thymy promontories," "where the rain-
bow lives in the curve of the land," "and the golden
chords run up the ridged sea."
Only yesterday, I think, two countrymen who were
driving stakes, ceased their work for a while to tell us,
"They were a-putten up of a fence to keep Misterr
Tennyson's sheep from strayen — for he wer Lord of
the Manor, he wer, and the sheep wer always goen
astray."
It seems almost as if the song of poets came to
life upon some spring days and took visible form and
voice and being. Rhythm, music, the great flow of
their melodies, the secrets of their philosophy, are
vibrating all round and about. One seems to learn
the meaning of many a poem by heart as one lies on
the hill-side in the sunshine. A bumble-bee buzzes
by and floats away down the slope over sweet gorse,
thrift, wild thyme, rock-roses, violets, and soft green
grass. A chorus of piping, whistling, thrilling, chir-
ruping, twittering mounts from all the hedges and
copses at our feet, a soft wind from the sea comes
blowing into our faces, while the distant sound of the
waves washing against the shore down below seems to
flow like an accompaniment to the concert of the
birds. Townbred folks cannot tell the different notes
and instruments of the concerts, but there is a very
sweet piping to the measure of "Come hither! come
hither!" and then among the many, one clear note (a
112 AN EASTER HOLIDAY.
nightingale's most likely) struck over and over again
with wonderful vivacity and sweetness. Meanwhile the
sun streams over the country; far away, water and
landscape, towers and villages, are tender with sudden
lights, and everything thrills in answer to the first
touch of spring; the leaves are budding, and black-
thorn blossoms flowering on the bare branches, and
rivers of tender green go flooding over the land, and
reaching even into dark city courts where the grass
sprouts greenly between the stones, and the poor little
flower in the garret windows begins to put out its
feeble shoots.
And as this season comes on beneficent, silent,
and bountiful for us, another also begins in London
far away. Cabs, flys, and carriages go quicker and
quicker and in more bewildering circles; linkmen sud-
denly emerge like gnomes out of the earth, with
lanterns in their hands; the doors of the houses fly
open; the ladies and gentlemen get excited, spring
out from the carriages, tear off their cloaks, and begin
in their turn to go whirling round and round, and as
they go they drag invisible circles in their train of
servants, milliners, children, governesses, tradespeople
and what not, and the talk will hum on and the music
jangle until the night is nearly over, and the stars
begin to wane over the waking city, as they do here
w T hen the last light has been extinguished in the lattice
window, and country folks lie peacefully dreaming,
with their dogs whining in their sleep.
But London is four hours off, the sun is not yet
set, nor the holidays quite over, and we are still safe
on the hill. One tries to climb the steep flanks, slip-
ping over the smooth turf. It is so smooth that the
AN EASTER HOLIDAY. I I 3
furze bushes seem gliding over the precipitous sides
of the down, and one wonders that the very shadows
do not slide away. As we climb on, the browsing
sheep first appear against the clear sky, then comes
more yellow gorse, and then at last the sea from the
summit of the cliff.
It lies quite calm, a pale-blue ocean, streaked with
straight and solemn lines where the currents flow.
The ships seem sailing in the air, for you cannot tell
where the horizon finishes or where the sky begins.
We stand on the edge of the cliff, listening to the
strange stillness of far-away sound, to the song of the
waves and the birds. All the air is swept with sun-
light and the sweet smell of gorse bushes. There are
no words to tell of such silence and sweetness and
greatness. A gull swoops over the cliff at our feet
with a sudden cry; the sheep straggle away, tinkling
their bells, stopping now and then to browse the grass
and the wild thyme. Faint tender scents, faint cries,
wide colours flowing. A sudden awe and wonder
overcome one — a thrill of exquisite calm and gratitude
and comfort, like an unspoken psalm of wonder and
of praise. A week ago the churches were done out
for Easter with flowers and graceful garlands: now it
is the whole world which seems decked and garlanded
in season. Along the lanes, scattered across our path,
under our feet, hanging from the branches in the
woods below, flowers, and green and white blossoms
are scattered. An Easter hymn is in the air.
P.S. — The councillor to whom I happened to read
the beginning of the essay had not patience to hear
the end, but interrupted me by quoting two verses
H4
AN EASTER HOLIDAY.
from his favourite poet. Mr. Martin has translated
them into English.
Whether thy days go down
In gloom and regrets,
Or, shunning life's vain struggle for renown,
Its fevers and its frets,
Stretched on the grass, with old Falernian wine,
Thou givest the thoughtless hours, a rapture all divine . .
Where the tall spreading pine
And white-leaved poplar grow,
And, mingling their broad boughs in leafy twine,
A grateful shadow throw,
Where runs the wimpling brook in its slumberous tune,
Still murmuring, as it seems, to the hushed ear of noon.
A COUNTRY SUNDAY.
I am always well pleased with a country Sunday, and think if keeping
holy the seventh day were only a human institution it would have heen the
hest method that could he thought of for the polishing and civilising of man-
kind. . . . Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it re-
freshes in their minds the notion of religion, but a* it puts hoth the sexes upon
appearing in their most agreeahle forms, and exerting all such qualities as are
apt to give them a figure in the eyes of the village. — Spectator.
This does not seem less applicable now than it
did in Addison's time, when perhaps men and women
did not work so hard as they do now-a-days, or need
the day of rest so greatly; when the village where
Addison wrote was smaller than it is now; Avhen Pic-
cadilly was a single line of houses, looking out on
fields at the back; when all the painful information,
and the army of recollections and allusions which are
expected from well-informed persons at every turn,
were still in the future, and did not exist to trouble
the lazy and haunt the ignorant; when the weeks did
not come laden with letters to read and to answer,
with "Times," with "Telegraphs," with "Saturday
Reviews;" when there were a hundred thousand less
books to cut, a hundred thousand less people coming
and going, each in turn to be seen, visited, attended to,
conciliated, solicited, as the case might be; when
whole streets and districts round which we now labori-
ously ply in the dusty east wind were unbuilt and un-
8«
I 1 6 A COUNTRY SUNDAY.
thought of; when one single little welcome sheet,
brought in with the tea-equipage by Betsy (who knew
her mistress's tastes so well that when breakfast de-
layed it was because the "Spectator" had not yet
come, but the water boiled, and she expected it every
minute), was all that anybody was required to master
before the teapot was drained.
That small sheet, short, well considered, written by
the wisest penmen of the day, who took so great an
interest in its little moralities, and quirks, and kindly
conceits, suggested, perhaps, another publication
which is at this moment in the reader's hands: but
anyhow it is to be feared that a few pleasant reflec-
tions on Sir Roger de Coverley's household, or the
story of Theodosius and Constantia, or a paper on
the abuse of metaphors, would scarcely suffice to us
jaded beings who are in pursuit of the latest intel-
ligence from India, Asia, China, and Abyssinia, besides
particulars of the American war, the speeches in the
two Houses, the accidents on the railways, and the
latest abuses of the day. A law should be passed
to compel such people to spend at least one Sunday
out of every seven in the country, where Sundays in
England seem to dawn with a sweet peace and tran-
quillity that are inexpressibly quieting and comfort-
ing to the weary. In France people try hard to follow
this advice, but we may all of us possibly remember,
as a vision, the long straight roads leading from the
gates of Paris, with the sun beating fierce upon the
dust and the stone-heaps and the stunted trees
(acacias, and such like) along the arid wayside, the
grey flat horizon, the city with its white stone houses
and glittering placards in the distance, the contented
A COUNTRY SI ND \\ . I I 7
people pouring out of its many barriers, and straggling
along the road, or resting on the stone-heaps under
their sunshades and umbrellas, while the children fill
their little blouses and white pinafores with pebbles
and with dust instead of flowers and grass. At the
time one could not help being touched by the cheer-
ful content of the sun-baked little groups. Father in
Sunday blouse; mother in smart ribbons; grandmother
in her country cap, producing the basket with the
provender and sour bread; and, perhaps, a friendly
gendarme with his lass coming up to join the party.
Then there are Roman Sundays, steaming with in-
cense; Scotch Sundays, when the gardener refuses to
pluck fresh vegetables, and the children go to church
three times; there are Sundays at sea But it seems
to me that there can be no Sundays in the world like
an English country Sunday, such as that which most
of us, let us hope, can look back to at some time in
our lives.
Lord Bacon in his essays used to like to describe
castles in the air with commodious galleries, and
servants' offices and gardens laid out to his fancy, all
of which good things were far removed from many of
his readers, who yet liked to read of the great man's
conceits. In a humble way I too would like to de-
scribe an ideal of which most of the component parts
are within anybody's reach.
The ideal Sunday should be spent at a country
house not many miles from London. We will call it
Pleasance. You should come to it through fresh
country lanes and commons, and across broad fields
where the cows are browsing Pleasance should have a
great hall through which the garden might show, and
I I 8 A COUNTRY SUNDAY.
from which the doors should lead into a library, a
dining-room, a drawing-room, all with windows looking
across the lawns and fields and green distant slopes
and acres far away gently rising and falling. There
should be scattered here and there flocks and herds,
to give life and animation to the green pastures and
the still waters, and close at hand a few great trees
under which one or two people are strolling and en-
joying the early spring. All the mists and shadows of
London life are left behind, and lie in wait for them
when they cross the river; here is only a bright win-
ter's morning, the song of birds piping, among the
bare branches and bushes, with sudden notes and
cadences of exceeding sweetness. In the ideal country
houses there should be a farm-yard, with the live toys
for grown-up children: cocks that crow, hens sitting
with their little bead-eyed yellow brood nestling round
them. There should be cows that moo and shake
their heads, and crop the grass with a pleasant crunch
as you watch them in the meadow, or stand meekly
in their stalls when milking-time has come, with their
names, such as Cowslip, Daisy, Bluebell, painted over
each pair of horns.
In the morning, instead of hurrying through the
streets and past the closed shops and gin-palaces to a
crowded church with high square pews and dingy
windows and dust, and a fierce-looking pew-opener in
a front, you wend your way quietly across the fields,
where the air is sweet with coming spring, and you
pass by narrow swinging gates and under elm-trees to
the church door. As you enter, though it seems dim
at first, and the stained glass windows temper the
light, yet you have a sense of the pleasant sights
A COUNTRY SUNDAY. I I 9
and sounds beyond the walls, of the great arch of the
sky over head, of the birds joining in the chant, of
the preacher without, telling in silent language of new
hope, new life; of courage and endurance, of peace,
and beneficence, and wisdom. There are still Sir
Roger de Coverleys, thanks be to Heaven! now-a-days,
though perhaps they do not stand up and publicly
rebuke the sleepy and inattentive, and as soon as
Lady de Coverley sees you (for our Sir Roger is a
married man), she finds room for you in her big pew
with a welcoming look, and makes you quite com-
fortable, with hassocks, and hymn-books, and psalters.
Coming out of church, Lady de Coverley greets her
acquaintance, and nods to the village children. There
is a certain Amelia I know of, in little hob-nailed
shoes, who turns her back upon the congregation, and
stands stock-still, tied up in a little flannel cape. There
is also a delightful little fat plough-boy in a smock,
who smiles so pleasantly that we all begin to laugh in
return.
You cross the fields again on your way back to
Pleasance. The cows have scarcely moved. A huge
pig that was grazing under a tree has shifted a little,
and instead of a side view now presents its tail. The
farmyard, as you pass on your way to the house, is
all alive in the midday sunshine. The Cochin-Chinu
cocks and hens, looking like enchanted princes and
princesses, come ambling up to meet you, shaking out
their soft golden plumage. The Spanish population,
and the creve-coeurs, black-robed, with crimson crests,
are all in their respective countries, with beautiful
sunset tints, purple, violet, green, and golden, showing
among their feathers in the sunshine. There is a great
120 A COUNTRY SUNDAY.
discussion going on among the Poles. Gallant generals,
with spurs and cocked-hat and feathers, impatiently
pace their confines; fiery young captains and aides-de-
camp seem to be laying down the law; while the
ladies, who also look very important, and are dressed
in a semi-military costume, evidently join in the pro-
ceedings with the keenest interest. As for the white
ducks, what do they care for anything that is going
on? their Sunday is spent squatting on the grass in
the field with the young Alderney calves. They see
both sides of the world at once with their bright eyes,
and do not trouble themselves for anybody.
Some people like to go to church a second time;
some go for a long walk in the afternoon: they have only
to choose. Park, and lawn, and common, hills and
dales lie before them; and though the distance begins
to fade into the soft grey mist of an English March,
yet even the mist is gentle and beautiful, and the air
is moist and refreshing, and the brown turf yields
under foot with a delightful spring. I seem to forget
myself, and to fancy that these are the days of the
Spectator come back to us, when I venture to write
thus at length of ducks and of brown turf, and it is
time I should cease.
IN FRIENDSHIP.
II 'Hit dans ce bas monde aimer beaucoup de choses,
Pour snvoir apres tout ce qu'on aime le mieux. . . .
II faut fouler aux pieds des lleurs a peine coloses;
II faut beaucoup plcurer, dire beaucoup d'adieux. . .
De ces biens passagers que Ton goute a demi
Le meilleur qui nous reste est un ancitn ami. —
So says Alfred de Musset, in his sonnet to Victor
Hugo: and as we live on we find out who are in truth
the people that we have really loved, which of our
companions belongs to us, linked in friendship as well
as by the chances of life or relationship. Sometimes
it is not until they are gone that we discover who and
what they were to us — those "good friends and true"
with whom we were at ease, tranquil in the security
of their kind presence.
Some of us, the longer Ave live, only feel more and
more that it is not in utter loneliness that the greatest'
peace is to be found. A little child starts up in the
dark, and finding itself alone, begins to cry and toss
in its bed, as it holds out its arms in search of a pro-
tecting hand; and men and women seem for the most
part true to this first childish instinct as they awaken
suddenly: (how strange these awakenings are, in what
incongruous places and seasons do they come to us!)
People turn helplessly, looking here and there for pro-
122 IN FRIENDSHIP.
tection, for sympathy,* for affection, for charity of
human fellowship; give it what name you like, it is
the same cry for companionship, and terror of the
death of silence and absence. Human Sympathy, re-
presented by inadequate words, or by clumsy exaggera-
tion, by feeble signs or pangs innumerable, by sudden
glories and unreasonable ecstacies, is, when we come
to think of it, among the most reasonable of emotions.
It is life indeed; it binds us to the spirit of our race
as our senses bind us to the material world, and
makes us feel at times as if we were indeed a part of
Nature herself, and chords responding to her touch.
People say that as a rule men are truer friends
than women — more capable of friendship. Is this the
result of a classical education? Do the foot-notes in
which celebrated friendships are mentioned in brackets
stimulate our youth to imitate those stately togas,
whose names and discourses come travelling down to
us through two thousand years, from one country to
another, from one generation to another, from one
language to another, until they flash perhaps into the
pages of Bonn's Classical Library, of which a volume
has been lent to me from the study-table on the hill?
It is lying open at the chapter on friendship. "To
me, indeed, though he was snatched away, Scipio still
lives, and will always live; for I love the virtue of a
man, and assuredly of all things that either fortune or
nature has bestowed upon me, I have none which I
can compare with the friendship of Scipio." So says
Cicero, speaking by the mouth of Lselius and of Bohn,
* "I felt nobody to have existence at all until existing in the minds of
other people, and positivism without sympathy between people to be like a
religion without its devotion." — A Correspondent.
IN I HIP. 123
and the generous thought still lives after many a
transmigration, though it exists now in a world where
perhaps friendship is less thought of than in the days
when Scipio was mourned.* Some people have a
special gift of their own for friendship; they transform
a vague and abstract feeling for us into an actual
voice and touch and response. As our life flows on —
"a torrent of impressions and emotions bounded in by
custom," a writer calls it — the mere names of our
friends might for many of us almost tell the history of
our own lives. As one thinks over the roll, each
name seems a fresh sense and explanation to the past.
Soi nc, which seem to have outwardly but little in-
fluence on our fate, tell for us the whole hidden story
of long years. One means perhaps passionate emo-
tion, unreasonable reproach, tender reconciliation; an-
other may mean justice, forgiveness, remorse; while an-
other speaks to us of all that we have ever suffered,
all that we hold most sacred in life, and gratitude
and trust unfailing. There is one name that seems
to me like the music of Bach as I think of it, and
another that seems to open at the Gospel of St. Mat-
* Grimoald , " chaplain to Bishop Ridley," quoted by Robert Bell in his
edition of Knglish poets, has left some quaint hobbling verses which seem to
have pie-written my little article —
Friendship, flower of flowers, oh ! lively sprite of life !
Oh! sacred bond of blissful peace, the stalworth staunch of strife!
Scipio with Lselius, didst thou conform in care
At home, in wars, for weal and woe with equal faith to fare?
Gisippus eke with Tyte, Damon with Pythias,
And with Menethus' son Achill, by thee combined was.
EurialtlS and Nisus gave Virgil cause to sing;
< If Pylades do many rhyme and of Orestes ring.
Down Theseus went to bell, Pereth his friend to I'm 1.
Oh ! that the wives in these our days were to their mates so kind.
Cicero the friendly man to AttictlS his friend
Of friendship wrote . . .
124 IN FRIENDSHIP.
thew. "My dearest friend," a young man wrote to his
mother only yesterday, and the simple words seemed
to me to tell the whole history of their lives.
"After these two noble fruits of friendship, peace
in the affections, and support of the judgment, fol-
loweth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate,
full of many kernels. I mean aid and bearing a part
in all actions and occasions," says Lord Bacon, writing
in the spirit of Cicero three hundred years ago.
To be in love is a recognised state; relationship
without friendship is perhaps too much recognised in
civilised communities; but friendship, that best blessing
of life, seems to have less space in its scheme than
almost any other feeling of equal importance. Of
course it has its own influence; but the outward life
appears, on the whole, more given to business, to ac-
quaintance, to ambition, to eating and drinking, than
to the friends we really love: and time passes, and
convenience takes us here and there, and work and
worry (that we might have shared) absorb us, and one
day time is no more for our friendship.
One or two of my readers will understand why it
is that I have been thinking of friendship of late, and
have chosen this theme for my little essay, thinking
that not the least lesson in life is surely that of human
sympathy, and that to be a good friend is one of the
secrets that comprise most others. And yet the sacri-
fices that we usually make for a friend's comfort or
assistance are ludicrous when one comes to think of
them. "One mina, two miliar; are there settled values
for friends, Antisthenes, as there are for slaves? For
of slaves one is perhaps worth two minae, another not
even half a mina, another five mina;, another ten."
;n i'rii Ni.-iin . 125
Antisthenes agrees, and says that some friends are not
even worth half a mina; "and another," he says, "I
would buy for my friend at the sacrifice of all the
money and revenues in the world."
I am afraid that a modern Antisthenes would think
a month's income a serious sacrifice. If a friend is in
trouble we leave a card at his door, or go the length
of a note, perhaps. And when all is well, we go our
way silent and preoccupied. We absent ourselves for
months at a time without a reason, and yet all of this
is more want of habit than of feeling; for, notwith-
standing all that is said of the world and its pompous
vanities, there are still human beings among us, and,
even after two thousand years, true things seem to
come to life again and again for each one of us, in
this sorrow and that happiness, in one sympathy and
another; and one day a vague essay upon friendship
becomes the true story of a friend.
In this peaceful island from whence I write we
hear Cicero's voice, or listen to /;/ Manor iam, as the
Friend sings to us of friendship to the tune of the
lark's shrill voice, or of the wave that beats away our
holiday and dashes itself upon the rocks in the little
bay. The sweet scents and dazzles of sunshine seem
to harmonise with emotions that are wise and natural,
and it is not until we go back to our common life that
wo realise the difference between the teaching of noble
souls and the noisy bewildered translation into life of
that solemn printed silence.
Is it, then, regret for buried time.
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
Ami meets the year, and gives anil takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
126 IN FRIENDSHIP.
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry through the scene to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.
Here, then, and at peace, and out of doors in the
spring-time, we have leisure to ask ourselves whether
there is indeed some failure in the scheme of friend-
ship and in the plan of that busy to-day in which our
lives are passed; over-crowded with people, with repe-
tition, with passing care and worry, and unsorted
material. It is perhaps possible that by feeling, and
feeling alone, some check may be given to the trivial
rush of meaningless repetition by which our time is
frittered away, our precious power of love and pas-
sionate affection given to the winds.
Sometimes we suddenly realise for the first time the
sense of kindness, the treasure of faithful protection
that we have unconsciously owed for years, for our
creditor has never claimed payment or reward, and we
remember with natural emotion and gratitude that the
time for payment is past; we shall be debtors all oui
lives long — debtors made richer by one man's gene-
rosity and liberal friendship, as we may be any day
made poorer in heart by unkindness or want of truth.
Only a few weeks ago a friend passed from among
us whose name for many, for the writer among the
rest, spoke of a whole chapter in life, one of those
good chapters to which we go back again and again.
This friend was one of those who make a home of life
for others, a home to which we all felt that we might
come sure of a wise and unfailing welcome. The door
opens, the friend comes in slowly with a welcoming
smile on his pale and noble face. Where find more
delightful companionship than his? We all know the
IN FRIENDSHIP, 12J
grace of that charming improvised gift by which he
seemed able to combine disjointed hints and shades
into a whole, to weave our crude talk and ragged sug-
gestions into a complete scheme of humorous or more
serious philosophy. In some papers published a few
years ago in the "Cornhill Magazine," called "Chapters
on Talk," a great deal of his delightful and pleasant
humour appears.
But it was even more in his society than in his
Writing that our friend showed himself as he was. His
talking was unlike that of anybody else; it sometimes
put me in mind of another voice out of the past.
There was an earnest wit, a gentle audacity and sim-
plicity of expression, that made it come home to us
all. Of late, E. R. was saying he spoke with a quiet
and impressive authority that we all unconsciously
acknowledged, although we did not know that the end
of pain was near.
Of his long sufferings he never complained. But if
he spoke of himself, it was with some kind little joke
or humorous conceit and allusion to the philosophy of
endurance, nor was it until after his death that we
knew what his martyrdom had been, nor with what
courage he had borne it.
He thought of serious things very constantly, al-
though not in the conventional manner. One of the
last times that we met, he said to me, "I feel more
and more convinced that the love of the Father is not
unlike that of an earthly father; and that, as an earthly
father, so He rejoices in the prosperity and material
well-doing of his children." Another time, quoting
from the "Roundabout Papers," he said suddenly
128 IN FRIENDSHIP.
"'Be good, my dear.' Depend upon it, that is the
v whole philosophy of life; it is very simple."
Speaking of a friend, he said, with some emotion,
"I think I love M. as well as if he were dead."
He had a fancy, that we all used to laugh over
with him, of a great central building, something like
the Albert Hall, for friends to live in together, with
galleries for the sleepless to walk in at night.
Perhaps some people may think that allusions so
personal as these are scarcely fitted for these pages;
but what is there in truth more unpersonal than the
thought of a wise and gentle spirit, of a generous and
truthful life? Here is a life that belongs to us all;
we have all been the better for the existence of the
one man. He could not be good without doing good
in his generation, nor speak the truth as he did without
adding to the sum of true things. And the lesson that
he taught us was — "Let us be true to ourselves; do
not let us be afraid to be ourselves, to love each other,
and to speak and to trust in each other."
Last night the moon rose very pale at first, then
blushing flame-like through the drifting vapours as they
rose far beyond the downs; a great blackbird sat watch-
ing the shifting shadowy worlds from the bare branch
of a tree, and the colts in the field set off scampering.
Later, about eleven o'clock, the mists had dissolved
into a silent silver and nightingale-broken dream — in
which were vaporous downs, moonlight, sweet sudden
stars, and clouds drifting, like some slow flight of silver
birds. L— —took us to a little terrace at the end of
his father's garden. All the kingdoms of the night lay
spread before us, bounded by dreams. For a minute
we stood listening to the sound of the monotonous
IN FRIENDSHIP. 129
wave, and then it ceased — and in the utter silence a
cuckoo called, and then the nightingale began, and
then the wave answered once more.
It will all be a dream to-morrow, as we stumble
into the noise, and light, and work of life again.
Monday comes commonplace, garish, and one can
scarce believe in the mystical Sunday night. And yet
this tranquil Sunday night is more true than the
flashiest gas-lamp in Piccadilly. Natural things seem
inspired at times, and beyond themselves, and to carry
us upwards and beyond our gas-lamps; so do people
seem revealed to us at times, and in the night, when
all is peace.
from an Island.
JANE AUSTEN.
A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes originaux.
Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de difference entre Ies homines.
Pascal.
"I did not know that you were a studier of cha-
racter," says Bingley to Elizabeth. "It must be an
amusing study."
"Yes; but intricate characters are the most amusing.
They have at least that advantage."
"The country," said Darcy, "can in general supply
but few subjects for such a study. In a country neigh-
bourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying
society."
"But people themselves alter so much," Elizabeth
answers, "that there is something new to be observed
in them for ever."
"Yes, indeed!" cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by
Darcy's manner of mentioning a country neighbour-
hood; "I assure you that we have quite as much of
that going on in the country as in town."
"Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking
at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet,
who fancied she had gained a complete victory over
him, continued her triumph."
These people belong to a whole world of familiar
JANE AUSTEN, 13 I
acquaintances, who arc, notwithstanding their old-
fashioned dresses and quaint expressions, more alive
to us than a great many of the people among whom
we live. We know so much more about them to begin
with. Notwithstanding a certain reticence and self-
control which seems to belong to their age, and with
all their odd graces and ceremonies, the ladies and
gentlemen in "Pride and Prejudice" and its companion
novels seem like living people out of our own acquain-
tance transported bodily into a bygone age represented
in the half-dozen books that contain Jane Austen's
works. Dear books! bright, sparkling with wit and
animation, in which the homely heroines charm, the
dull hours fly, and the very bores are delightful.
Could we but study our own bores in the spirit in
which Miss Austen must have contemplated hers in her
country village, what a delightful world this might be!
— A world of Norrises; economical, great walkers, with
dining-room tables to dispose of; of Lady Bertrams on
sofas, with their placid "Do not act anything improper,
my dears; Sir Thomas would not like it;" of Bennets,
Goddards, Bateses; of Mr. Collinses; of Rushbrooks,
with Uv< Kind-forty speeches apiece — a world of Mrs.
Kltons. . . . Inimitable woman! she must be alive at
this very moment, if we but knew where to find her,
her basket on her arm, her nods and all-importance,
with Maple Grove and the Sucklings in the background.
She would be much excited were she aware how highly
she is said to be esteemed by the late Chancellor of
the Exchequer, who is well acquainted with Maple
Grove and Selina too. It might console her for Mr.
Knightly's shabby marriage.
All these people nearly start out of the pages, so
9'
132 JANE AUSTEN.
natural and unaffected are they; and yet they never
lived except in the imagination of one lady with bright
eyes, who sat down some seventy years ago to an old
mahogany desk in a quiet country parlour, and evoked
them for us. Of her ways and belongings we read for
the first time in this little memoir written half a cen-
tury after her death. For the first time we seem to
hear the echo of the voice, and to see the picture of
the unknown friend who has charmed us so long —
charmed away dull hours, created neighbours and com-
panions for us in lonely places, and made harmless
mirth. Someone said just now that many people seem
to be so proud of seeing a joke at all, that they im-
press it upon you until you are perfectly wearied by
it. Jane Austen was not of these; her humour flows
gentle and spontaneous, it is no elaborate mechanism
nor artificial fountain, but a bright natural little stream,
rippling and trickling and sparkling every here and
there in the sunshine. We should be surprised now-
a-days to hear a young lady announce herself as a
studier of character. From her quiet home in the
country lane this one reads to us a real page from that
great absorbing pathetic humorous book of human na-
ture — a book that we can most of us understand when
it is translated into plain English, but of which the
quaint and illegible characters are often difficult to de-
cipher for ourselves. It is a study which, with all re-
spect for Darcy's opinion, must require something of
country-like calm and concentration, and freedom of
mind. It is difficult, for instance, for a too impulsive
student not to attribute something of his own moods
to his specimens instead of dispassionately contem-
plating them from a critical distance, or for a cold-
iam; VUSTl \. 133
hearted observer to throw himself sufficiently into the
spirit of those whose actions he would like to inter-
pret.
So we gladly welcome one more glimpse of an old
friend come back with a last greeting. All those who
love her name and her work will prize this addition,
small as it is, to their acquaintance with her. "Lady
Susan" is a short story complete in itself. It is very
unlike her later works in many respects, and not at all
equal to them; but the "Watsons" is a delightful frag-
ment, which might belong to any of her other histories.
It is bright with talk and character and animation. It
is a story which is not "Emma," and which is not
"Pride and Prejudice," but something between the two,
and which was written — so the Preface tells us — some
years before either of them was published. In this
story vague shadows of future friends seem to be pass-
ing and repassing, conversing with each other, sitting
down to cards, or "jogging along the muddy road"
that led to D in Surrey. The anteghosts, if such
things exist, of a Mrs. Elton, of an Elizabeth Beimel,
of a Dairy, meet us (only they are not ghosts at all)
with just so much resemblance to their successors as
would be found, no doubt, between one generation and
another. A cup of gruel is prepared for the master of
the house: perhaps that very cup — "thin, but not too
thin"- — was destined in a different metempsychosis to
immortality; at least such immortality as a cup of gruel
might reasonably expect. Emma, sweet, intelligent,
with an open countenance, and bright "lively" eyes,
such as Miss Austen loved to give her heroines, comes
home to live with her family, in consequence of the
aunt who had brought her up. She is to make her first
134 J ANE AUSTEN.
appearance in the neighbourhood at the D ball,
under the chaperonage of the Edwardses. "The Ed-
wardses were people of fortune, who lived in the town
and kept their coach. The Watsons inhabited a village
about three miles off, were poor, and had no close
carriage; and ever since there had been balls in the
place the former were accustomed to invite the latter
to dine, dress, and sleep at their home, on every
monthly return throughout the winter." Elizabeth, the
heroine's elder sister, "whose delight in a ball was not
lessened by a ten years' enjoyment," had some merit
in cheerfully undertaking to drive her and all her finery
over in the old chair to D .
As the sisters go along, the eldest describes the
family with a good deal of frankness. Two sisters are
away. There is the peevish Margaret, who is staying
Avith her brother at Croydon; and the scheming Pene-
lope, who has given up a great deal of time, to no
purpose as yet, to a certain asthmatic old doctor at
Chichester. Elizabeth proceeds to warn her young
sister against the fascinations of a certain Tom Mus-
grave, who has trifled with all the family affections in
turn. Then she comes to her brother Sam's hopeless
devotion for Mary Edwards. " 'A young man must
think of someone,' says this philosophic Elizabeth;
'and why should he not be as lucky as Robert, who
has got a good wife and six thousand pounds?'
'"We must not all expect to be individually lucky,'
replies Emma, with still truer philosophy. 'The luck
of one member of a family is luck to all.'
"'Mine is all to come,' says Elizabeth, giving an-
other sigh to the remembrance of Purvis. 'I have been
unlucky enough; and I cannot say much for you, as
JANE AUSTEN. 135
my aunt married again so foolishly. Well, you will
have a good ball, I daresay. The next turning will
bring us to the turnpike; you may see the church
tower over the hedge, and the "White Hart" is close
by it. I shall long to know what you think of Tom
Musgrave.'
"Such were the last audible sounds of Miss Wat-
son's voice before they passed through the turnpike
gate, and entered on the pitching of the town, the
grumbling and noise of which made further conversa-
tion most thoroughly undesirable. The old mare
trotted heavily along, wanting no direction of the reins
to take the right turn, and making only one blunder,
in proposing to stop at the milliner's, before she drew
up towards Mr. Edwards's door. Mr. Edwards lived
in the best house in the street, and the best in the
place, if Mr. Tomlinson, the banker, might be indulged
in calling his newly-erected house at the end of the
town, with a shrubbery and a sweep, in the county.
"Mr. Edwards's house was higher than most of its
neighbours, with four windows on each side of the
door. The windows were guarded by posts and
chains, and the door approached by a flight of stone
steps."
Elizabeth thinks the Edwardses have "a noble
house and live quite in style;" and on being admitted
they are received by the lady of the house of that day
as well as her daughter — "a genteel-looking girl, with
her hair in papers." The papers, however, are taken
off in time for the ball. Then the carriages begin to
drive up, and Emma and her new friends are intro-
duced to the assembly-room.
In passing along a short gallery to the assembly-
136 JANE AUSTEN.
room, brilliant in light before them, they had been
accosted by a young man, "in a morning dress and
boots," standing in the doorway of a bedchamber, ap-
parently on purpose to see them go by.
"'Ah, Mrs. Edwards! how do you do? How do you
do, Miss Edwards?' he cried, with an easy air. 'You
are determined to be in good time, I see, as usual.
The candles are but this moment lit.'
"T like to get a good seat by the fire, you know,
Mr. Musgrave,' replied Mrs. Edwards.'
"T am this moment going to dress,' said he. T
am waiting for my stupid fellow. We shall have a
famous ball. The Osbornes are certainly coming. You
may depend upon that, for I was with Lord Osborne
this morning.' "
And in the course of the evening the party arrives
from the Castle — Lord Osborne, his mother, his tutor
Mr. Howard, and others of the party, ushered in by an
obsequious landlord, and attended by Mr. Tom Mus-
grave.
Emma resents the family wrongs by a calm curtsey
later in the evening, when she is fortunate enough to
attract the hero's attention. Lord Osborne and his
tutor also admire her; even Lady Osborne gives her a
look of complacency. Before the end of the evening
the Osbornes and their train are on the move. Tom
Musgrave will not remain after they have left, and
announces his intention of "retreating to a remote
corner of the house, ordering a barrel of oysters, and
being famously snug." As he is seen no more, the
authoress says we may suppose his plan to have suc-
ceeded, and may imagine him "mortifying with his
barrel of oysters in dreary solitude, or gladly assisting
JANE AUSTEN. I 37
the landlady in her bar to make fresh negns for the
happy dancers above."
This is a happy touch, and completes the picture.
Tom Musgrave , with his love of effect , his good looks,
his flourishes, and his easinesses and uneasinesses, is
a capital character. We might, perhaps, prosecute our
studies on him in the present age, where, under some
different name and in other circumstances, we have
certainly met him at more than one house. Emma is
very uncompromising, and allows him scant measure.
"'But you must have liked him,' says Elizabeth; 'you
must have been struck with him altogether.'
"'I do not like him, Elizabeth. I allow his person
and air to be good, and that his manners, to a certain
point, — his address rather, — is pleasing. But I see
nothing else to admire in him. On the contrary, he
seems very vain, very conceited, and absurdly anxious
for distinction.' "
To which her surprised sister cries out, "'My
dearest Emma, you are like no one else.' "
Notwithstanding Emma's calm curtsey, both Lord
Osborne and Tom Musgrave call upon her at Stanton,
and one evening Tom Musgrave drops in unexpectedly
upon the Watson party. The brother from Croydon
is there with his bride, who certainly must have been
fust-cousin to Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Suckling of Maple
Grove. Tom Musgrave loves to take people by sur-
prise. He appears in the doorway in a traveller's
wrap, "having come from London, and half a mile out
of his road, merely to call for ten minutes at Stanton.
In the present instance he had the additional motive
of being able to tell the Miss Watsons, whom he
depended on finding sitting quietly employed after
138 JANE AUSTEN.
tea, that he was going home to an eight-o'clock
dinner."
To please Margaret, Miss Watson invites him for
the following day.
"'With the greatest pleasure,' was the first reply.
In a moment afterwards, — 'That is, if I can possibly
get here in time. I shoot with Lord Osborne, and
therefore must not engage. You will not think of me
unless you see me.' And so he departed, delighted in
the uncertainty in which he had left them."
One can imagine what Miss Austen would have
made of Tom Musgrave. But, indeed, the character is
there complete, indicated in a few happy touches, and
requiring no further amplification. A note at the end
states that "when the author's sister, Cassandra, showed
the manuscript of the work to some of her nieces, she
also told them something of the intended story. Mr.
Watson, for whom the original cup of gruel was made,
was soon to die, and Emma to become dependent for
a home on her sister-in-law and brother. She was to
decline an offer of marriage from Lord Osborne, and
finally to marry Mr. Howard, the tutor."
Emma Watson, and Tom Musgrave, and the whole
town of D in Surrey belong, without a doubt, to
the whole generation of Miss Austen's heroes and
heroines. One would scarcely recognise Lady Susan's
parentage if it were not so well authenticated. It must
have been written early in life, when the author was
still experimentalising (as young authors, and alas!
some old authors are apt to do) with other people's
characters and creations, making them talk, walk, and
rehearse the play, until the real actors come on the
stage; and yet even this unpublished novelette pos-
JANE AUSTEN. I 39
sesses one special merit which gives so great a charm
to Miss Austen's art. She has a gift of telling a story
in a way that has never been surpassed. She rules
her places, times, characters, and marshals them with
unerring precision. Her machinery is simple but com-
plete; events group themselves so vividly and naturally
in her mind that, in describing imaginary scenes, we
seem not only to read them, but to live them, to see
the people coming and going: the gentlemen courteous
and in top-boots, the ladies demure and piquant; we
can almost hear them talking to one another. No
retrospects; no abrupt flights; as in real life, days and
events follow one another. Last Tuesday does not
suddenly start into existence all out of place; nor does
1790 appear upon the scene when we are well on in
'21. Countries and continents do not fly from hero to
hero, nor do long and divergent adventures happen to
unimportant members of the company. With Miss
Austen days, hours, minutes succeed each other like
clock-work; one central figure is always present on the
scene, that figure is always prepared for company,
Miss Edward's curl-papers are almost the only ap-
proach to dishabille in her stories. There are post-
chaises in readiness to convey the characters from
Bath or Lyme to Uppercross, to Fullerton, from Grace-
church Street to Meryton, as their business takes them.
Mr. Knightly rides from Brunswick Square to Hartfield,
by the very road that Miss Austen must have travelled
in the curricle with her brother, driving to London on
a summer's day. We know that it was a wet ride for
Mr. Knightly, to be followed by that never-to-be-for-
gotten afternoon in the shrubbery, when the wind had
changed into a softer quarter, the clouds were carried
I4O JANE AUSTEN.
off, and Emma Woodhouse, walking in the sunshine,
with spirits freshened, and thoughts a little relieved,
and thinking of Mr. Knightly as sixteen miles away,
meets him at the garden door; and there is not one
of us, I think, that must not be the happier, for the
happiness that one half-hour gave to Emma and her
"indifferent" lover.
There is a little extract from one of Miss Austen's
letters to a niece, which shows that this careful mar-
shalling of people and circumstances was not chance,
but careful workmanship.
"Your Aunt C," she says, "does not like desultory
novels, and is rather fearful that yours will be too
much so — that there will be too frequent a change
from one set of people to another, and that circum-
stances will be sometimes introduced of apparent con-
sequence, which will lead to nothing. It will not be
so great an objection to me. I allow much more
latitude than she does, and think nature and spirit
cover many sins of a wandering story. . ."
But, though the sins of a wandering story may be
covered, the virtues of a well-told one make them-
selves felt unconsciously, and without an effort. Some
books and people are delightful, we can scarce tell
why, yet they are not so clever as others that weary
and fatigue us. It is a certain effort to read a story,
however touching, that is disconnected and badly told.
It is like an ill-drawn picture, of which the colouring
is good. Jane Austen possessed both gifts of colour
and of drawing. She could see human nature as it
was; with near-sighted eyes, it is true; but, having
seen, she could combine her picture by her genius,
and colour it from life.
JANE AUSTIN. I4I
In this special gift for organisation she seeing
almost unequalled. Her picnics are models for all
future and past picnics; her combinations of feelings,
of gentlemen and ladies, are so natural and life-like
that reading to criticise is impossible to some of us —
the scene carries us away, and we forget to look for
the art by which it is recorded. How delightful the
people are who play at cards, and pay their addresses
to one another, and sup, and discuss each other's
affairs! Take Sir Walter Elliot compassionating the
navy and Admiral Baldwin — "nine grey hairs of a side
and nothing but a dab of powder at top — a wretched,
example of what a seafaring life can do, for men who
are exposed to every climate and weather until they
are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not
knocked on the head at once, before they reach
Admiral Baldwin's age. . . ."
The charm of friends in pen-and-ink is their un-
changeableness. We go to them when we want them.
We know where to seek them; we know what to ex-
pect from them. They are never preoccupied; they
are always "at home;" they never turn their backs nor
walk away as people do in real life, nor let their
houses and leave the neighbourhood, and disappear
for weeks together; they are never taken up with
strange people nor suddenly absorbed into some more
genteel society, or by some nearer fancy. Even the
most volatile among them is to be counted upon. We
may have neglected them; and yet when we meet
again there are the familiar old friends, and we seem
to find our own old selves again m their company.
For us time has, perhaps, passed away; feelings have
I42 JANE AUSTEN.
swept by, leaving interests and recollections in their
place; but at all ages there must be days that belong
to our youth, hours that will recur so long as men for-
bear and women remember, and life itself exists. Per-
haps the most fashionable marriage on the tapis no
longer excites us very much, but the sentiment of an
Emma or an Anne Elliot comes home to some of us
as vividly as ever. It is something to have such old
companions who are so young. An Emma, blooming
Avithout a wrinkle or a grey hair, after twenty years'
acquaintance (she was, in truth, sixty years old when
we first knew her); an Elizabeth Bennet, sprightly and
charming, at over eighty years of age. . . .
"In the "Roundabout Papers" there is a passage
about the pen-and-ink friends my father loved:—
"They used to call the good Sir Walter the 'Wizard
of the North.' What if some writer should appear who
can write so enchantingly that he shall be able to call
into actual life the people whom he invents? What if
Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are
alive now (though I don't say they are visible), and
Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe were to step in at that
open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose
Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to
glide in silent? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
should enter, with a noiseless swagger, curling their
moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle
Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse, with his hair dyed
green; and all the Crummies company of comedians,
with the Gil Bias troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley;
and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of
La Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I
look rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon
JANE AUSTEN. 1 43
these people. Were any of them to enter, I think I
should not be very much frightened. Dear old friends,
what pleasant hours I have had with them! We do not
see each other very often, but when we do we are ever
happy to meet. . . ."
Are not such friends as these, and others unnamed
here, but who will come unannounced to join the goodly
company, creations that, like some people, do actually
make part of our existence, and make us the better
for theirs? To express some vague feelings is to make
them alive for us. Have we any one of us a friend in
a Knight of La Mancha, a Colonel Newcome, a Sir
Roger de Coverley? They live for us even though they
may have never lived. They are, and do actually make
pari of our lives — one of the best and noblest parts.
To love them is like a direct communication with the
great and generous minds that conceived them.
It is difficult, reading the novels of succeeding
generations, to determine how much each book reflects
of the time in which it was written; how much of its
< haracter depends upon the mind and the mood of the
writer. We know how a landscape changes as the day
goes on, and how the scene brightens and gains in
beauty as the shadows begin to lengthen. The clearest
eyes must see by the light of their own hour. Jane
Austen's hour must have been a midday hour: bright,
unsuggestive, with objects standing clear, without relief
or shadow. She did not write of herself, but of the
manners of her time. Ours is essentially an age of
men and women of natural emotion; little remains to
us of starch, of powder, or courtly reserve. What we
have lost in calm, in happiness, in tranquillity, we have
gained in velocity. Our danger is now, not of ex-
144 J ANE AUSTEN.
pressing and feeling too little, but of expressing more
than we feel, going beyond our mark.
It almost seems within the last fifty years as if
feelings had changed so rapidly as to turn many of the
butterflies back into cocoons again, wrapping them
round and round with self-involved, self-inflicted ex-
periences, from which, perhaps, some higher form of
moth may start in time, if such a metempsychosis were
possible in natural history.
The living writers of to-day lead us into distant
realms and worlds undreamt of in the placid and easily
contented gigot age. People are gifted with wider ex-
periences, with aspirations and emotions that were
never more sincerely spoken than they are now. Cha-
racters in novels are certainly more intimate with us
and on less ceremonious terms than in Miss Austen's
days. Jane Austen's heroines have a stamp of their
own. They have a certain gentle self-respect and hu-
mour and hardness of heart in which modern heroines
are a little wanting. Whatever happens they can for
the most part speak of gaily and without bitterness.
Love with them does not mean a passion so much as
an interest — deep, silent; not quite incompatible with
a secondary flirtation. Marianne Dashwood's tears are
evidently meant to be dried. Jane Bennet smiles, sighs,
and makes excuses for Bingley's neglect. Emma passes
one disagreeable morning making up her mind to the
unnatural alliance between Mr. Knightly and Harriet
Smith. It was the spirit of the age, and, perhaps, one
not to be unenvied. It was not that Jane Austen her-
self was incapable of understanding a deeper feeling.
In the last-written page of her last-written book there
is an expression of the deepest and truest experience.
JANE AUSTEN. 1 45
Aiine Elliot's talk with Captain Benfield is the touch-
ing utterance of a good woman's feelings. They are
speaking of men and of women's affections. "'You
are always labouring and toiling," she says, "exposed
to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends,
all united; neither time nor life to be called your own.
It would be too hard, indeed (with a faltering voice) if
a woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'"
Farther on she says, eagerly: "'I hope I do justice
to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble
you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm
and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures. I
should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose
that true attachment and constancy were known only
by woman. No! I believe you capable of everything
good and great in your married lives. I believe you
equal to every important exertion and to every domestic
forbearance so long as — if I may be allowed the ex-
pression — so long as you have an object; I mean while
the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the
privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very en-
viable one, you need not court it) is that of loving longest
xvhen existence or when hope is gone."
"She could not immediately have uttered another
sentence — her heart was too full, her breath too much
oppressed."
Dear Anne Elliot! — sweet, impulsive, womanly,
tender-hearted — one can almost hear her voice, plead-
ing the cause of all true women. Jane Austen had
reached the very end of her life when she wrote thus.
Her words seem to ring in our ears after they have
been spoken. Anne Elliot must have been Jane Austen
herself, speaking for the last time. 'There is something
From an Island, JO
I46 JANE AUSTEN.
so true, so gentle about her, that it is impossible not
to love her. She is the bright-eyed heroine of the
earlier novels, matured, chastened, cultivated, to whom
fidelity has brought only greater depth and sweetness
instead of bitterness and pain.
What a difficult thing it would be to sit down and
try to enumerate the different influences by which our
lives have been affected — influences of other lives, of
art, of nature, of place and circumstance — of beautiful
sights passing before our eyes, or painful ones: seasons
following in their course — hills rising on our horizons
— scenes of ruin and desolation — crowded thorough-
fares — sounds in our ears, jarring or harmonious — the
voices of friends, calling, warning, encouraging — of
preachers preaching — of people in the street below,
complaining, and asking our pity! What long proces-
sions of human beings are passing before us! What
trains of thought go sweeping through our brains ! Man
seems a strange and ill-kept record of many and be-
wildering experiences. Looking at oneself — not as
oneself, but as an abstract human being — one is lost
in wonder at the vast complexities which have been
brought to bear upon it; lost in wonder, and in disap-
pointment perhaps, at the discordant result of so great
a harmony. Only we know that the whole diapason is
beyond our grasp: one man cannot hear the note of
the grasshoppers, another is deaf when the cannon
sounds. Waiting among these many echoes and mys-
teries of every kind, and light and darkness, and life
and death, we seize a note or two of the great sym-
phony, and try to sing; and because these notes hap-
pen to jar, we think all is discordant hopelessness.
Then come pressing onward in the crowd of life, voices
JANE AUSTEN. 1 47
with some of the notes that are wanting to our own —
voices tuned to the same key as our own, or to an ac-
cordant one; making harmony for us as they pass us
by, Perhaps this is in life the happiest of all expe-
rience, and to few of us there exists any more com-
plete ideal.
And so now and then in our lives, when we learn
to love a sweet and noble character, we all feel hap-
pier and better for the goodness and charity which is
not ours, and yet which seems to belong to us while
we are near it. Just as some people and states of
mind affect us uncomfortably, so we seem to be true
to ourselves with a truthful person, generous-minded
with a generous nature; the world seems less disap-
pointing and self-seeking when we think of the just
and sweet and unselfish spirits, moving untroubled
among dinning and distracting influences. These are
our friends in the best and noblest sense. We are the
happier for their existence — it is so much gain to us.
They may have lived at some distant time, we may
never have met face to face, or we may have known
them and been blessed by their love; but in either
case their light shines from afar; distant are their
graves, green in some foreign land: their life is for us
and with hn, its generous example; their song is for
our ears, and we hear it and love it still, though the
singer may be lying dead.
Some women should raise and ennoble all those
who follow after — true, gentle and strong and tender,
whom "to love is a liberal education," whom to have
known is a blessing in our past Is not the "cry of
the children" still ringing in our ears as it did when
io*
I48 JANE AUSTEN.
the poet first uttered her noble song? Is there not a
Jane of our own, whose presence is among us still?
This little book, which has come out within the last
few months, tells with a touching directness and simpli-
city the story of this good and gifted woman, the
familiar writer and companion of us all, of whose
history nothing was known until this little volume ap-
peared. It only tells the story of a country lady, of
days following days tranquilly, of common events; and
yet the history is deeply interesting to those who loved
the writer of whom it is written; and as we turn from
the story of Jane Austen's life to her books again, we
feel more than ever that she was one of those true
friends who belong to us inalienably — simple, wise,
contented, living in others, one of those whom we seem
to have a right to love. Such people belong to all
human-kind by the very right of their wide and gene-
rous sympathies, of their gentle wisdom and loveable-
ness. Jane Austen's life, as it is told by her nephew,
is very touching, sweet, and peaceful. It is a country
landscape, where the cattle are grazing, the boughs of
the great elm-tree rocking in the wind: sometimes, as
we read, they come falling with a crash into the sweep;
birds are flying about the old house, homely in its
simple rule. The rafters cross the whitewashed ceil-
ings, the beams project into the room below. We can
see it all: the parlour with the horsehair sofa, the scant,
quaint furniture, the old-fashioned garden outside, with
its flowers and vegetables combined, and along the
south side of the garden the green terrace sloping
away.
One may read the account of Catherine Morland's
home with new interest, from the hint which is given
•JANE AUSTEN. 149
of its likeness to the old house at Steventon, where
dwelt the unknown friend whose voice we seem to
hear at last, and whose face we seem to recognise, her
bright eyes and brown curly hair, her quick and grace-
ful figure. One can picture the children who are play-
ing at the door of the old parsonage, and calling for
Aunt Jane. One can imagine her pretty ways with
them, her sympathy for the active, their games and
imaginations. There is Cassandra. She is older than
her sister, more critical, more beautiful, more reserved.
There is the mother of the family, with her keen wit
and clear mind; the handsome father — "the handsome
proctor," as he was called; the five brothers, and the
cousins driving up the lane. Tranquil summer passes
by, the winter days go by; the young lady still sits
writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, per-
haps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with
her papers at the sound of coming steps. Now, the
modest papers, printed and reprinted, lie in every
hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in
the wisest brains.
It must have been at Steventon — Jane Austen's
earliest home — that Mr. Collins first made his appear-
ance (Lady Catherine not objecting, as we know, to
his occasional absence on a Sunday, provided another
clergyman was engaged to do the duty of the day),
and here, conversing with Miss Jane, that he must
have made many of his profoundest observations upon
human nature; remarking among other things, that re-
signation is never so perfect as when the blessing
denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our
estimation, and propounding his celebrated theory
about the usual practice of elegant females. It must
I50 JANE AUSTEN.
have been here, too, that poor Mrs. Bennet declared,
with some justice, that once estates are entailed, one
can never tell how they will go; that Mrs. Allen's
sprigged muslin and John Thorpe's rodomontades were
woven; that his gig was built, '"curricle-hung lamps,
seat, trunk, sword-case, splashboard, silver moulding,
all, you see, complete. The ironwork as good as new,
or better. He asked fifty guineas .... I closed with
him directly, threw down the money, and the carriage
was mine.'
'"And I am sure,' said Catherine, T know so little
of such things, that I cannot judge whether it was
cheap or dear."
'"Neither the one nor the other,' says John
Thorpe."
Mrs. Palmer was also born at Steventon — the good-
humoured lady in "Sense and Sensibility" who thinks
it so ridiculous that her husband never hears her when
she speaks to him. We are told that Marianne and
Ellinor have been supposed to represent Cassandra
and Jane Austen; but Mr. Austen Leigh says that he
can trace no resemblance. Jane Austen is not twenty
when this book is written, and only twenty-one when
"Pride and Prejudice" is first devised. There is a
pretty description of the sisters' devotion to one an-
other; of the family party; of the old place where Jane
Austen spends the first five-and-twenty years of her
life — Steventon, where there are hedgerows winding,
with green shady footpaths within the copse; where
the earliest primroses and hyacinths are found. There
is the wood-w r alk, with its rustic seats, leading to the
meadows; the church -walk leading to the church,
-which is far from the hum of the village, and within
jam: AUSTEN. 151
sight of no habitation, except a glimpse of the grey
manor-house through its circling screen of sycamores.
Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abund-
ance beneath its south wall. Large elms protrude
their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blos-
soms over the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be
at least coeval with the church."
Cousins presently come on the scene — a young,
widowed Comtesse de Feuillade, flying from the Revo-
lution to her uncle's home. She is described as a
clever and accomplished woman, interested in her
young cousins, teaching them French (both Jane and
Cassandra knew French), helping in their various
schemes, in their theatricals in the barn. She even-
tually marries her cousin, Henry Austen. The simple
family annals are not without their romance; but there
is a cruel one for poor Cassandra, whose lover dies
abroad, and his death saddens the whole family-party.
Jane, too, "receives the addresses" (do such things as
addresses still exist?) "of a gentleman possessed of
good character and fortune, and of everything, in short,
except the subtle power of touching her heart." One
cannot help wondering whether this was a Henry Craw-
ford or an Elton or a Mr. Elliot, or had Jane already
seen the person that even Cassandra thought good
enough for her sister?
Here, too, is another sorrowful story. The sisters'
fate (there is a sad coincidence and similarity in it)
was to be undivided; their life, their experience was
the same. Someone without a name takes leave of
Jane one day, promising to come back. He never
comes back: they hear of his death. The story seems
even sadder than Cassandra's in its silence and un-
152 JANE AUSTEN.
certainty, for silence and uncertainty are death in life
to some people. . . . And yet to Jane Austen there
can have been no death in life. Her sunny temper
and loving heart, even though saddened, must have
reflected all the love and all the sunshine in her
way.
There is little trace of sentimental grief in Jane
Austen's books — not one morbid word is to be found,
not one vain regret. Hers was not a nature to fall
crushed by the overthrow of one phase of her manifold
life. Hers seems to have been a natural genius for
life, if I may so speak; too vivid and genuinely unself-
ish to fail her in her need. She could gather every
flower, every brightness, along her road. Good spirits,
content, all the interests of a happy and observant
nature, were hers.
It is impossible to calculate the difference of the
grasp by which one or another human being realises
existence and the things relating to it, nor how much
more vivid sensations seem to some than to others.
Jane Austen, while her life lasted, realised it, and
made the best use of the gifts that were hers. Yet,
when all was ending, then it was given to her to realise
the change that was at hand; and as willingly as she
had lived, she died. Some people seem scarcely to
rise to their own ideal. Jane Austen's life, as it is
told by her nephew, is beyond her work, which only
contained one phase of that sweet and wise nature—
the creative, observant, outward phase. For her home,
for her sister, for her friends, she kept the depth and
tenderness of her bright and gentle sympathy. She is
described as busy with her neat and clever fingers
sewing for the poor, working fanciful keepsakes for her
JANE AUSTEN. 153
friends. There is the cup and ball that she never
failed to catch; the spillikens lie in an even ring where
she has thrown them; there are her letters, straightly
and neatly folded, and fitting smoothly in their creases.
There is something sweet, orderly, and consistent in
her character and all her tastes — in her fondness for
Crabbe and Cowper, in her little joke that she ought
to be a Mrs. Crabbe. She sings of an evening old
ballads to old-fashioned tunes with a low sweet voice.
Further on we have a glimpse of Jane and her
sister in their mob-caps, young still, but dressed soberly
beyond their years. One can imagine "Aunt Jane,"
with her brother's children round her knee, telling her
delightful stories or listening to theirs, with never-fail-
ing sympathy. One can fancy Cassandra, who does
not like desultory novels, more prudent and more re-
served, and somewhat less of a playfellow, looking
down upon the group with elder sister's eyes.
Here is an extract from a letter written at Steventon
in 1800. The vision seems to speak as one reads the
old letters quaint with the accent of near a century
ago:—
"I have two messages: let me get rid of them, and
then my paper will be my own. Mary fully intended
writing by Mr. Charles's frank, and only happened
entirely to forget it, but will write soon; and my father
wishes Edward to send him a memorandum of the
price of hops.
"Sunday evening.
"We have had a, dreadful storm of wind in the fore
part of the day, which has done a great deal of mis-
154 JANE AUSTEX.
chief among our trees. I was sitting alone in the
drawing-room when an odd kind of crash startled me.
In a moment afterwards it was repeated. I then went
to the window. I reached it just in time to see the
last of our two highly-valued elms descend into the
sweep ! ! !
"The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first
crash, and which w r as nearest to the pond, taking a
more easterly direction, sank among our screen of
chestnuts and firs, knocking down one spruce-fir, break-
ing off the head of another, and stripping the two
corner chestnuts of several branches in its fall. This
is not all: the maple bearing the weathercock was
broke in two; and what I regret more than all the rest
is, that all three elms that grew in Hall's Meadow, and
gave such ornament to it, are gone."
A certain Mrs. Stent comes into one of these let-
ters "ejaculating some wonder about the cocks and
hens." Mrs. Stent seems to have tried their patience,
and will be known henceforward as having bored Jane
Austen.
They leave Steventon when Jane is about twenty-
five years of age and go to Bath, from whence a couple
of pleasant letters are given us. Jane is writing to her
sister. She has visited Miss A., who, like all other
young ladies, is considerably genteeler than her parents.
She is heartily glad that Cassandra speaks so com-
fortably of her health and looks : could travelling fifty
miles produce such an immediate change? "You were
looking poorly when you were here, and everybody
seemed sensible of it. Is there any charm in a hack
postchaise? But if there were, Mrs. Craven's carriage
JAM. Al - 1 I.N. 155
might have undone it all." Here Mrs. Stent appears
again. "Poor Mrs. Stent, it has been her lot to be
always in the way; but we must be merciful, for per-
haps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves,
unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody."
Elsewhere she writes, upon Mrs. 's mentioning that
she had sent the "Rejected Addresses" to Mr. H., "I
began talking to her a little about them, and expressed
my hope of their having amused her. Her answer
was, 'Oh, dear, yes, very much; very droll indeed; the
opening of the house and the striking up of the fiddles!'
What she meant, poor woman, who shall say?"
But there is no malice in Jane Austen. Hers is
the charity of all clear minds; it is only the muddled
who are intolerant. All who love Emma and Mr.
Knightly must remember the touching little scene in
which he reproves her for her thoughtless impatience
of poor Miss Bates's volubility.
"'You, whom she had known from an infant, whom
she had seen grow up from a period when her notice
was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits
and in the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble
her. . . . This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it
is very far from pleasant to me, but I must, I will, I
will tell you truths while I am satisfied with proving
myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trust-
ing that you will some time or other do me greater
justice than you can do me now."
"While they talked they were advancing towards
the carriage: it was ready, and before she could speak
again he had handed her in. He had misinterpreted
the feeling which kept her face averted and her tongue
motionless."
I56 JANE AUSTEN.
Mr. Knightly's little sermon, in its old-fashioned
English, is as applicable now as it was when it was
spoken. . . . What a gentleman he is, how true his
voice rings, and with what grace and spririt they play
their parts — all these people who were modestly put
away for so many years!
Mr. Austen died at Bath, and his family removed to
Southampton. In 1 8 1 1 , Mrs. Austen , her daughters,
and her niece, settled finally at Chawton, a house belong-
ing to Jane's brother, Mr. Knight (he is adopted by
an uncle, whose name he takes), and from Chawton
all her literary work was given to the world. "Sense
and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," were already
written; but in the next five years, from thirty-five to
forty, she set to work seriously, and wrote "Mansfield
Park," "Emma," and "Persuasion." Anyone who has
written a book will know what an amount of labour
this represents. . . . One can picture to oneself the
little family scene which Jane describes to Cassandra.
"Pride and Prejudice" just come down in a parcel
from town; the unsuspicious Miss B. to dinner; and
Jane and her mother setting to in the evening and
reading aloud half the first volume of a new novel sent
down by the brother. Unsuspicious Miss B. is delighted.
Jane complains of her mother's too rapid way of get-
ting on; "though she perfectly understands the cha-
racters herself, she cannot speak as they ought. Upon
the whole, however," she says, "I am quite vain enough
and well-satisfied enough." This is her own criticism
of "Pride and Prejudice": — "The work is rather too
light, and bright, and sparkling. It wants shade. It
wants to be stretched out here and there with a long
chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn
JANE AUSTEN. 157
specious nonsense about something unconnected with
the story — an essay on writing, a critique on Walter
Scott or the 'History of Bonaparte.' "
And so Jane Austen lives quietly working at her
labour of love, interested in her "own darling children's"
success; "the light of the home," one of the real living
children says afterwards speaking in the days when
she was no longer there. She goes to Loudon once
or twice. Once she lives for some months in Hans
Place, nursing a brother through an illness. Here it
was that she received some little compliments and
messages from the Prince Regent, and some valuable
suggestions from Mr. Clarke, his librarian, respecting a
very remarkable clergyman. He is anxious that she
should delineate one who "should pass his time be-
tween the metropolis and the country, something like
Beatrice's minstrel, entirely engaged in literature, and
no man's enemy but his own." Failing to impress
this character upon the authoress, he makes a different
suggestion, and proposes that she should write a
romance illustrative of the august house of Coburg.
"It would be interesting," he says, "and very properly
dedicated to Prince Leopold."
To which Miss Austen replies: "I could no more
write a romance than an epic poem. I could not
seriously sit down to write a romance under any other
motive than to save my life; and if it were indispen-
sable for me to keep it up, and never relax into laugh-
ing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be
hung before the first chapter."
There is a delightful collection of friends' sug-
gestions which she has put together, but which is too
I58 JANE AUSTEN.
long to be quoted here. She calls it, "Plan of a Novel,
as suggested by various Friends."
All this time, while her fame is slowly growing, life
passes in the same tranquil way in the old cottage at
Chawton. Aunt Jane, with her young face and her
mob-cap, makes play-houses for the children, helps
them to dress up, invents imaginary conversations for
them, supposing that they are all grown up the day
after a ball. One can imagine how delightful a game
that must have seemed to the little girls. She built
her nest, did this good woman, happily weaving it out
of shreds, and ends, and scraps of daily duty, patiently
put together: and it was from this nest that she sang
the song, bright and brilliant, with quaint trills and
unexpected cadences, that reaches us even here through
fifty years. The lesson her life seems to teach us is
this: Don't let us despise our nests — life is as much
made of minutes as of years; let us complete the
daily duties; let us patiently gather the twigs and the
little scraps of moss, and dried grass together; and see
the result! — a whole, completed and coherent, beauti-
ful even without the song.
We come too soon to the story of her death. And
yet did it come too soon? A sweet life is not the
sweeter for being long. Jane Austen lived years
enough to fulfil her mission. It was an unconscious
one; and unconscious teachers are the highest. They
teach by their lives, even more than by their words,
and their lives need not reach threescore years and
ten to be complete. She lived long enough to write
six books that were masterpieces in their way — to
make a thousand people the happier for her industry.
One cannot read the story of her latter days with-
JANE AUSTEN. I 59
out emotion; of her patience, her sweetness, and grati-
tude. There is family trouble, we are not told of what
nature. She falls ill. Her nieces find her in her
dressing-gown, like an invalid, in an arm-chair in her
bed-room; but she gets up and greets them, and,
pointing to seats which had been arranged for them
by the fire, says: "There is a chair for the married
Lady, and a little stool for you, Caroline." But she is
too weak to talk, and Cassandra takes them away.
At last they persuade her to go to Winchester, to
a well-known doctor there.
"It distressed me," she says, in one of her last,
dying letters, "to see Uncle Henry, and William Knight,
who kindly attended us, riding in the rain almost the
whole way. We expect a visit from them to-morrow,
and hope they will stay the night, and on Thursday,
which is a confirmation and a holiday, we hope to get
Charles out to breakfast. We have had but one visit
from him, poor fellow, as he is in the sick room. . . .
God bless you, dear E.; if ever you are ill, may you
be as tenderly nursed as I have been. . . ."
Nursing does not cure her, nor can the doctor save
her to them all, and she sinks from day to day. To
the end she is full of concern for others.
"My dearest sister, my tender watchful inde-
fatigable nurse, has not been made ill by her exer-
tions," she writes. "As to what I owe her, and the
anxious affection of all my beloved family on this oc-
casion, I can only cry over it, and pray God to bless
them more and more."
One can hardly read this last sentence with dry
eyes. It is her parting blessing and farewell to those
she had blessed all her life by her presence and her
l6o JANE AUSTEN.
love. And as we think of others whose lives have
been like hers, we thank God that love is beyond
death; and its benediction, always with us, not only
spoken in words, but by the signs and the love of
those lifetimes, that do not end for us as long as we
ourselves exist.
They asked her when she was near her end if
there was anything she wanted.
"Nothing but death," she said. Those were her
last words. She died on July 18, 1817, and was
buried in Winchester Cathedral, where she lies not un-
remembered.
HEROINES AND THEIR
GRANDMOTHERS.*
Fantasio. Qui sait? Un calembour console de bien des chagrins ,_ et
jouer avec les mots est un moyen comme un autre de jouer aves les pensees,
les actions et les etres. Tout est calembour ici-bas , et il est ainsi difficile de
comprendre le regard d'un enfant de quatre ans, que le galimatias de trois
drames modernes.
Ehbeth. Tu me fais l'effet de regarder le monde a travers un prisme tant
soil peu changeant.
Fantasio. Chacun a ses lunettes, mais personne ne sait au juste de quelle
couleur en sont les verres. Qui est-ce qui pourra me dire au juste si je suis
heureux ou malheureux, bon ou mauvais, triste ou gai, bete ou spirituel?
Why do we now-a-days write such melancholy
novels? Are authoresses more miserable than they
used to be a hundred years ago? Miss Austen's hero-
ines came tripping into the room, bright-eyed, rosy-
cheeked, arch, and good-humoured. Evelina and Cecilia
would have thoroughly enjoyed their visits to the opera,
and their expeditions to the masquerades, if it had not
been for their vulgar relations. Valancourt's Emily was
a little upset, to be sure, when she found herself all
alone in the ghostly and mouldy castle in the south of
France; but she, too, was naturally a lively girl, and on
the whole showed a great deal of courage and presence
of mind. Miss Edgeworth's heroines were pleasant and
easily pleased; and to these may be added a blooming
rose-garden of wild Irish girls, and of good-humoured
* Too Much Alone. City and Suburb. George GV.'.,i.— Mrs. Riddell,
/•><■;>/ a:. II
102 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
and cheerful young ladies, who consented to make the
devoted young hero happy at the end of the third volume,
without any very intricate self-examinations; and who
certainly were much more appreciated by the heroes of
those days, than our modern heroines with all their
workings and deep feelings and unrequited affections
are now, by the noblemen and gentlemen to whom they
happen to be attached.
If one could imagine the ladies of whom we have
been speaking coming to life again, and witnessing all
the vagaries and agonising experiences and deadly
calm and irrepressible emotion of their granddaughters,
the heroines of the present day, what a bewildering
scene it would be! Evelina and Cecilia ought to faint
with horror! Madame Duval's most shocking expressions
were never so alarming as the remarks they might now
hear on all sides. Elizabeth Bennett would certainly
burst out laughing, Emma might lose her temper, and
Fanny Price would turn scarlet and stop her little ears.
Perhaps Emily of Udolpho, more accustomed than the
others to the horrors of sensation, and having once
faced those long and terribles passages, might be able
to hold her own against such a great-granddaughter as
Aurora Floyd or Lady Audley. But how would she
deal with the soul-workings and heart-troubles of a
modern heroine? Emily would probably prefer any
amount of tortuous mysteries, winding staircases and
passages, or groans and groans, and yards and yards
of faded curtains, to the task of mastering these intri-
cacies of feeling and reality and sentiment.
Are the former heroines women as they were, or
as they were supposed to be in those days? Are the
women of whom women write now, women as they
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. i".,
are, or women as they are supposed to be? Does
our modern taste demand a certain sensation feeling,
sensation sentiment, only because it is actually experi-
enced ?
This is a question to be answered on some other
occasion; but, in the meantime, it would seem as if all
the good humours and good spirits of former genera-
tions had certainly deserted our own heart-broken
ladies. Instead of cheerful endurance, the very worst
is made of every passing discomfort. Their laughter is
forced, even their happiness is only calm content, for
they cannot so readily recover from the two first volumes.
They no longer smile and trip through country-dances
hand-in-hand with their adorers, but waltz with heavy
hearts and dizzy brains, while the hero who scorns them
looks on. Open the second volume, you will see that,
instead of sitting in the drawing-room or plucking roses
in the bower, or looking pretty and pleasant, they are
lving on their beds with agonising headaches, walking
desperately along the streets they know not whither, or
staring out of window in blank despair. It would be
curious to ascertain in how great a degree language
measures feeling. People, with the help of the penny-
post and the telegraph, and the endless means of com
munication and of coming and going, are certainly able
to care for a greater number of persons than they could
have done a hundred years ago; perhaps they are also
able to care more, and to be more devotedly attached,
to those whom they already love; they certainly say
more about it, and, perhaps, with its greater abundance
and opportunity, expression may have depreciated in
value. And this may possibly account for some of the
difference between the reserved and measured language
I64 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
of a Jane Bennett or an Anne Elliot, and the tempes-
tuous confidences of their successors.
Much that is written now is written with a certain
exaggeration and an earnestness which was undreamt
of in the placid days when , according to Miss Austen,
a few assembly balls and morning visits, a due amount
of vexation reasonably surmounted, or at most "smiles
reined in, and spirits dancing in private rapture," a
journey to Bath, an attempt at private theatricals or a
thick packet of explanations hurriedly signed with the
hero's initials, were the events, the emotions, the as-
pirations of a lifetime.
They had their accomplishments, these gigot-sleeved
ladies: witness Emma's very mild performances in the
way of portrait taking; but as for tracking murderers,
agonies of mystery, and disappointed affections, fling-
ing themselves at gentlemen's heads, marrying two
husbands at once, flashing with irrepressible emotion,
or only betraying the deadly conflict going on within
by a slight quiver of the pale lip — such ideas never
entered their pretty little heads. They fainted a good
deal, we must confess, and wrote long and tedious
letters to aged clergymen residing in the country.
They exclaimed "La!" when anything surprised them,
and were, we believe, dreadfully afraid of cows, not-
withstanding their country connection. But they
were certainly a more amiable race than their suc-
cessors.
It is a fact that people do not unusually feel the
same affection for phenomenons, however curious, that
they do for perfectly commonplace human creatures.
And yet at the same time we confess that it does seem
somewhat ungrateful to complain of these living and
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 1 65
adventurous heroines to whom, with all their vagaries,
one has owed such long and happy hours of amuse-
ment and entertainment and comfort, and who have
gone through so much for our edification.
Analysis of emotion instead of analysis of character,
the history of feeling instead of the history of events,
seems to be the method of the majority of penwomen.
The novels that we have in hand to review now are
examples of this mode of treatment; and the truth is,
that, except in the case of the highest art and most
consummate skill, there is no comparison between the
interest excited by facts and general characteristics,
as compared with the interest of feeling and emotion
told with only the same amount of perception and
ability.
Few people, for instance, could read the story of
the poor lady who lived too much alone without being
touched by the simple earnestness with which her
sorrows are written down, although in the bare details
of her life there might not be much worth recording.
But this is the history of poor Mrs. Storn's feelings
more than that of her life — of feelings very sad and
earnest and passionate, full of struggle for right, with
truth to help and untruth to bewilder her, with power
and depth and reality in her struggles, which end at
last in a sad sort of twilighl that seems to haunt one
as one shuts up the book. In "George Geith," of which
we will speak more presently, there is the same sadm
and minor key ringing all through the composition. In-
deed, all this author's tunes are very melancholy — so
melancholy that it would seem almost like a defect if
they were not at the same time very sweel as well as
very sad. Too Much Alone is a young woman who
1 66 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
marries a very silent, upright, and industrious chemical
experimentalist. He has well-cut features, honourable
feelings, a genius for discovering cheap ways of pro-
ducing acids and chemicals, as well as ideas about
cyanosium, which, combined with his perfect trust in
and utter neglect of his wife, very nearly brings about
the destruction of all their domestic happiness. She is
a pale, sentimental young woman, with raven-black hair,
clever, and longing for sympathy — a femme incomprise,
it must be confessed, but certainly much more charm-
ing and pleasant and pathetic than such people usually
are. Days go by, lonely alike for her, without occupa-
tion or friendship or interest; she cannot consort with
the dull and vulgar people about her; she has her little
son, but he is not a companion. Her husband is ab-
sorbed in this work. She has no one to talk to, no-
thing to do or think of. She lives all alone in the
great noisy life-full city, sad and pining, and wistful
and weary. Here is a little sketch of her: —
"Lina was sitting, thinking about the fact that she
had been married many months more than three years,
and that on the especial Sunday morning in question
she was just of age. It was still early; for Mr. Storn,
according to the fashion of most London folks, bor-
rowed hours from both ends of the day, and his wife
was sitting there until it should be time for her to get
ready and to go to church alone. Her chair was placed
by the open window; and though the city was London,
and the locality either the ward of Eastcheap or that
of Allhallows, Barking (I am not sure which), fragrant
odours came wafted to her senses through the case-
ment; for in this, as in all other things save one,
Maurice had considered her nurture and her tastes, and
HEROINES AM> THEIR GRANDMOTHEB 1 67
covered the roof of the counting-house with flow
But for the distant roll of the carriages, she might just
as well have been miles away from London. . . . She
was dressed in a pink morning dress, with her dark
hair plainly braided upon her pale fair check, and she
had a staid sober look upon her face, that somehow-
made her appear handsomer than in the days of old
before she married. . . ."
This very Sunday Lina meets a dangerous fascinat-
ing man of the world, who is a friendly, well-meaning
creature withal, and who can understand and sympathise
with her sadness and solitude only too well for her
peace of mind, and for his own; again and again she
appeals to her husband: "I will find pleasure in the
driest employment if you will only let me be with you,
and not leave me alone." She only asks for justice,
for confidence — not the confidence of utter desertion
and trust and neglect, but the daily confidence and
communion, which is a necessity to some women, the
permission to share in the common interests and efforts
of her husband's life; to be allowed to sympathise, and
to live, and to understand, instead of being left to pine
away lonely, unhappy, half asleep, and utterly weary
and disappointed. Unfortunately Mr. Storn thinks it
is all childish nonsense, and repulses her in the most
affectionate manner; poor unhappy Lina behaves as
well as ever she can, and devotes herself to her little
boy, only her hair grows blacker, and her face turns
paler and paler, day by day; she is very good and
struggles to be contented, and will not. allow herself to
think too much of Herbert Clyne; and so things go on
in the old way for a long, long time; and we turn
page after page, feeling that each one may bring some
1 68 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
terrible catastrophe. At last a crisis comes — troubles
thicken — Maurice Storn is always away when he is
most wanted; little Geordie, the son, gets hold of some
of his father's chemicals, which have cost Lina already
so much happiness and confidence, and the poor little
boy poisons himself with something sweet out of a little
bottle. All the description which follows is very power-
fully and pathetically told — Maurice Storn's silence and
misery, Lina's desperation and sudden change of feel-
ing. After all her long struggles and efforts she sud-
denly breaks down, all her courage leaves her, and her
desperate longings for right and clinging to truth.
"She said in her soul, 'I have lost the power either
to bear or to resist. I have tried to face my misfortune,
and I feel I am incapable of doing it . . . why should
I struggle or fear any more? I know the worst that
life can bring me; I have buried my heart and my
hopes with my boy. Why should I strive or struggle
any more? And Lina had got to such a pass that
she forgot to answer to herself, Because it is right —
Right and wrong, she had lost sight of them both."
Poor Mrs. Storn is unconscious that already people
are beginning to talk of her, first one and then an-
other. Nobody seems very bad. Everybody is going
wrong. Maurice abstracted over his work, Lina in a
frenzy of wretchedness; home-fires are extinct, outside
the cold winds blow, and the snow lies half melted on
the ground. The man of the world is waiting in the
cold, very miserable too — waiting for Lina, who has
almost made up her mind now; their best impulses
and chances seem failing them; all about there seems
to be only pain, and night, and trouble. But at last,
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 1 69
when the night is blackest, the morning dawns, and
Lin a is saved.
Everything is then satisfactorily arranged, and
Maurice is ruined, and Lina's old affection for him
returns. The man of the world is also ruined, and
determines to emigrate to some distant colony. Mr.
and Mrs. Storn retire to an old-fashioned gabled house
at Enfield, where they have no secrets from each other;
and it is here that her husband one day tells Lina
that he has brought an old friend to say good-bye to
her, and then poor Herbert Clyne, the late man of the
world, comes across the lawn, and says farewell for
ever to both his friends in a veiy pathetic and touch-
ing scene.
Lina Storn is finally disposed of in "Too Much
Alone;" but Maurice Storn reappears in disguise, and
under various assumed names, in almost all the author's
subsequent novels. We are not sorry to meet him ovet
and over again; for although we have never yet been
able to realise this stern-cut personage as satisfactorily
as we should have liked to do, yet we must confess to
a partiality for him, and a respect for his astounding
powers of application. Whether he turns his attention
to chemistry, to engineering, to figures, to theology, the
amount of business he gets through is almost bewilder-
ing. At the same time something invariably goes
wrong, over which he has no control, notwithstanding
all his industry and ability; and he has to acknowledge
the weakness of humanity, and the insufficiency of the
sternest determination, to order and arrange the events
of life to its own will and fancy. To the woman or
women depending upon him he is invariably kind,
provoking!}- reserved, and faithfully devoted. He is of
I/O HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
good family and extremely proud, and he is obliged
for various reasons to live in the city. All through the
stories one seems to hear a suggestive accompanying
roll of cart-wheels and carriages. Poor Lina's lone-
liness seems all the more lonely for the contrast of the
busy movement all round about her own silent, sad
life. "At first it seemed to give a sort of stimulus to
her own existence, hearing the carts roll by, the cabs
rattle past, the shout and hum of human voices break
on her ear almost before she was awake of a morn-
ing. . . . But wear takes the gloss off all things, even
off the sensation of being perplexed and amused by
the whirl of life."
In "City and Suburb," this din of London life, and
the way in which city people live and strive, is capitally
described; the heroine is no less a person than a Lady
Mayoress, a certain Ruby Ruthven, a beauty, capricious
and wayward and impetuous, and she is perhaps one
of the best of Mrs. Riddell's creations. For old friend-
ship's sake, we cannot help giving the preference to
"Too Much Alone;" but "City and Suburb" is in many
respects an advance upon it, and "George Geith" is in
its way better than either.
It seems strange as one thinks of it that before
these books came out no one except Mr. Dickens had
ever thought of writing about city life. There is cer-
tainly an interest and a charm about old London, its
crowded busy streets, its ancient churches and build-
ings, and narrow lanes and passages with quaint names,
of which we dwellers in the stucco suburbs have no
conception. There is the river with its wondrous
freight, and the busy docks, where stores of strange
goods are lying, that bewilder one as one gazes. Vast
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. I/I
horizons of barrels waiting to be carted, forests of cin-
namon-trees and spices, of canes, of ivory, thousands
and thousands of great elephant tusks, sorted and
stored away, workmen, sailors of every country, a great
unknown strange life and bustle. Or if you roam
from the busy highway, you find silence, solitude, grass
growing between the stones, old courts, iron gateways,
ancient squares where the sunshine gathers quietly, a
glint of the past, as it were, a feeling of what has been,
and what still lingers among the old worn stones and
bricks, and traditions of the city. Even the Mansion
House, with its kindly old customs and welcome and
hospitality, has a charm and romance of its own, that
is quite indescribable, from the golden postilion stand-
ing behind the Lord Mayor's high chair of state, to the
heavy little mutton-pies, which are the same as they
were hundreds and hundreds of years ago. All this
queer sentiment belonging to old London, the author
feels and describes with great cleverness and appre-
ciation.
" George Geith " * is the latest and the most popular
of Mrs. Riddell's novels, and it deserves its popularity.
It is the history of the man whose name it bears — a
man "to work so long as he has a breath left to draw,
who would die in his harness rather than give up, who
would fight against opposing circumstances whilst he
had a drop of blood in his veins, whose greatest virtues
are untiring industry and indomitable courage, and
who is worth half-a-dozen ordinary men, if only be-
cause of his iron frame and unconquerable spirit."
Here is a description of the place in which he lived,
* Written in 1865.
I72 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
on the second floor of the house which stands next
but one to the old gateway on the Fenchurch Street
side: —
"If quietness was what he wanted, he had it; ex-
cept in the summer evenings when the children of the
Fenchurch Street housekeepers brought their marbles
through the passage, and fought over them on the
pavement in front of the office-door, there was little
noise of life in the old churchyard. The sparrows in
the trees or the footfall of someone entering or quitting
the court alone disturbed the silence. The roar of
Fenchurch Street on the one side, and of Leadenhall
Street on the other, sounded in Fen Court but as a
distant murmur; and to a man whose life was spent
among figures, and who wanted to devote his undivided
attention to his work, this silence was a blessing not
to be properly estimated save by those who have
passed through that maddening ordeal which precedes
being able to abstract the mind from external in-
fluence For the historical recollections associated
with the locality he had chosen George Geith did not
care a rush."
George Geith lives with his figures, "climbing Alps
on Alps of them with silent patience, great mountains
of arithmetic with gold lying on their summits for him
to grasp;" he works for eighteen hours a day. People
come up his stairs to ask for his help —
"Bankrupts, men who were good enough, men who
were doubtful, and men who were (speaking commer-
cially) bad, had all alike occasion to seek the accoun-
tant's advice and assistance; retailers, who kept clerks
for their sold books, but not for their bought; whole-
EROJNES AKD I HEIR GRANDMOTHERS. 173
sale dealers, who did not want to let their clerks see
their books at all; shrewd men of business, who yet
could not balance a ledger; ill-educated traders, who,
though they could make money, would have been
ashamed to show their ill-written and worse-spelled
journals to a stranger; unhappy wretches, shivering on
the brink of insolvency; creditors, who did not think
much of the cooking of some dishonest debtor's ac-
counts; — all these came and sat in George Geith's
office, and waited their turn to see him."
And among these comes a country gentleman, a
M. Molozane, who is on the brink of ruin, and who
has three daughters at home at the Dower House, near
Wattisbridge.
There is a secret in George Geith's life and a
reason for which he toils; and although early in the
stoiy he makes a discovery which relieves him from
part of his anxiety and need for money, he still works
on from habit, and one day he receives a letter from
this M. Molozane, begging him to come to his assis-
tance, and stating that he is ill and cannot come to
town. George thinks he would like a breath of country
air, and determines to go. The description of Wattis-
bridge and the road thither is delightful; lambs, cool
grass, shaded ponds and cattle, trailing branches,
brambles, roses, here a house, there a farm-yard,
gently-sloping hills crowned with clumps of trees,
distant purple haze, a calm blue sky and fleecy clouds,
and close at hand a grassy glade with cathedral
branches, a young lady, a black retriever and a white
poodle, all of which George Geith notices as he walks
along the path, "through the glade, under the shadow
I 74 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
of the arching trees, straight as he can go to meet his
destiny."
Beryl Molozane, with the dear sweet kindly brown
eyes that seemed to be always laughing and loving, is
as charming a destiny as any hero could wish to meet
upon a summer's day, as she stands with the sunshine
streaming on her nut-brown, red golden hair. She
should indeed be capable of converting the most rabid
of reviewers to the modern ideal of what a heroine
should be, with her April moods and her tenderness
and laughter, her frankness, her cleverness, her gay
innocent chatter, her outspoken youth and brightness.
It is she who manages for the whole household, who
works for her father, who protects her younger sister,
who schemes and plans, and thinks, and loves for all.
No wonder that George loses his heart to her; even
in the very beginning we are told, when he first sees
her, that he would have
"Taken the sunshine out of his own life to save
the clouds from darkening down on hers. He would
have left her dear face to smile on still, the guileless
heart to throb calmly. He would have left his day
without a noon to prevent night from closing over
hers. He would have known that it was possible
for him to love so well that he should become un-
selfish
One cannot help wondering that the author could
have had the heart to treat poor pretty Beryl so
harshly, when her very creation, the stern and selfish
George himself, would have suffered any pain to spare
her if it were possible.
It is not our object here to tell a story at length,
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. I 75
which is interesting enough to be read for itself, and
touching enough to be remembered long after the last
of the three volumes is closed. To be remembered,
but so sadly, that one cannot but ask oneself for what
reason are such stories written. Are they written to
cheer one in dull hours, to soothe, to interest, and to
distract from wear}' thoughts, from which it is at times
a blessing to escape? or is it to make one sad with
sorrows which never happened, but which are told
with so much truth and pathos that they almost seem
for a minute as if they were one's own? Is it to fill
one's eyes with tears for griefs which might be, but
which have not been, and for troubles that are not,
except in a fancy, for the sad, sad fate of a sweet and
tender woman, who might have been made happy to
gladden all who were interested in her story?
A lady putting down this book the other day, sud-
denly burst into tears, and said, "Why did they give
me this to read?" Why, indeed! Beryl might have
been more happy, and no one need have been the
worse. She and her George might have been made
comfortable together for a little while, and we might
have learnt to know her all the same. Does sorrow
come like this, in wave upon wave, through long sad
years, without one gleam of light to play upon the
waters? Sunshine is sunshine, and warms and vivifies,
and brightens, though the clouds are coming too, sooner
or later; but in nature no warning voices spoil the
happiest hours of our lives by useless threats and ter-
rifying hints of what the future may bring forth. Hap-
piness remembered is happiness always; but where
would past happiness be if there was someone always
standing by, as in this book, to point with a sigh to
I76 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
future troubles long before they come, and to sadden
and spoil all the pleasant spring-time and all the sport
and youth by dreary forebodings of old age, of autumn,
and winter snow, and bitter winds that have not yet
begun to blow? "So smile the heavens upon that holy
act," says the Friar, "that after sorrow chide us not."
"Amen, amen," says Romeo; "but come what sorrow
can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one
short minute gives me in her sight." And we wish
that George Geith had been more of Romeo's way of
thinking.
A tragic ending is very touching at the time, and
moves many a sympathy; but who ever reads a melan-
choly story over and over and over as some stories are
read? My father used to say that a bad ending to a
book was a great mistake; that he never would make
one of his own finish badly. What was the use of it?
Nobody ever cared to read a book a second time when
it ended unhappily.
There is a great excuse in the case of the writer
of "George Geith," who possesses in no common
degree the powers of pathos. Take for instance the
parting between George and Beryl. She says that it
is no use talking about what is past and gone; that
they must part, and he knows it.
"Then for a moment George misunderstood her.
The agony of her own heart, the intense bitterness of
the draught she was called upon to drink, the awful
hopelessness of her case, and the terrible longing she
felt to be permitted to live and love once more, sharp-
ened her voice and gave it a tone she never in-
tended.
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. I 77
"'Have you grown to doubt me?' he asked. 'Do
you not know I would marry you to-morrow if I could?
Do you think that throughout all the years to come,
be they many or be they few, I could change to you?
Oh, Beryl! do you not believe that through time and
through eternity I shall love you and none other?'
"'I do not doubt; I believe,' and her tears fall
faster and her sobs become more uncontrollable
" What was she to him at that moment? More than
wife; more than all the earth; more than heaven; more
than life. She was something more, far more, than any
poor words we know can express. What he felt for
her was beyond love; the future he saw stretching away
for himself without her, without a hope of her, was in
its blank weariness so terrible as to be beyond despair.
Had the soul been taken out of his body, life could
not have been more valueless. Take away the belief
of immortality, and what has mortality left to live
for?
"At the moment George Geith knew, in a stupid,
dull kind of way, that to him Beryl had been an earthly
immortality; that to have her again for his own had
been the one hope of his weary life, which had made
the days and the hours endurable unto him.
"Oh! woe for the great waste of love which there
is in this world below; to think how it is filling some
hearts to bursting, whilst others are starving for the
lack thereof; to think how those who may never be
man and wife, those who are about to be parted by
death, those whose love can never be anything but a
sorrow and trial, merge their own identity in that of
From an hiantf. *~
I78 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
one another, whilst the lawful heads of respectable
households wrangle and quarrel, and honest widows
order their mourning with decorous resignation, and
disconsolate husbands look out for second wives!
"Why is it that the ewe-lamb is always that selected
for sacrifice? Why is it that the creature upon which
man sets his heart shall be the one snatched from
him? Why is it that the thing we prize perishes? That
as the flower fades and the grass withereth, so the ob-
ject of man's love, the delight of his eyes and the
desire of his soul, passeth away to leave him desolate?
"On George Geith the blow fell with such force
that he groped darkly about, trying to grasp his trouble ;
trying to meet some tangible foe with whom to grapple.
Life without Beryl; days without sun; winter without a
hope of summer; nights that could never know a dawn.
My reader, have patience, have patience with the des-
pairing grief of this strong man, who had at length
met with a sorrow that crushed him.
"Have patience whilst I try to tell of the end that
came to his business and to his pleasure; to the years
he had spent in toil; to the hours in which he had
tasted enjoyment! To the struggles there had come
success; to the hopes fruition; but with success and
with fruition there had come likewise death.
"Everything for him was ended in existence. Liv-
ing, he was as one dead. Wealth could not console
him; success could not comfort him; for him, for this
hard, fierce worker, for the man who had so longed
for rest, for physical repose, for domestic pleasures,
the flowers were to have no more perfume, home no
more happiness; the earth no more loveliness. The
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHER 179
first spring blossoms, the summer glory on the trees
and fields, the fruits and flowers, and thousand tinted
leaves of autumn, and the snows and frosts of winter,
were never to touch his heart, nor stir his senses in
the future.
"Never the home he pictured might be his, never,
ah, never! He had built his dream-house on the
sands, and, behold, the winds blew and the waves
beat, and he saw it all disappear, leaving nought but
dust and ashes, but death and despair! Madly he
fought with his sorrow, as though it were a living thing
that he could grasp and conquer; he turned on it
constantly, and strove to trample it down."
No comment is needed to point out the power
and pathos of this long extract. The early story of
George Geith is in many respects the same as the
story of Warrington in "Pendennis," but the end is far
more sad and disastrous, and, as it has been shown,
pretty bright Beryl dies of her cruel tortures, and it is,
in truth, difficult to forgive the author for putting her
through so much unnecessary pain and misery.
One peculiarity which strikes us in all these books
is, that the feelings are stronger and more vividly alive
than the people who are made to experience them.
Even Beryl herself is more like a sweet and tender
idea of a woman than a living woman with substance
and stuff, and bone and flesh, though her passion and
devotion are all before us as we read, and seem so
alive and so true thai they touch us and master us by
their intensity and vividness.
The sympathy between the writer and the reader
of a book is a very subtle and strange one, and there
12*
l8o HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
is something curious in the necessity for expression on
both sides: the writer pouring out the experience and
feelings of years, and the reader, relieved and
strengthened in certain moods to find that others have
experienced and can speak of certain feelings, have
passed through phases with which he himself is ac-
quainted. The imaginary Public is a most sympathising
friend; he will listen to the author's sad story; he does
not interrupt or rebuff him, or weary with impatient
platitudes, until he has had his say and uttered all
that was within him. The author perhaps writes on
good and ill, successes, hopes, disappointments, or
happier memories, of unexpected reprieves, of un-
hoped-for good fortunes, of old friendships, long-tried
love, faithful sympathies enduring to the end. All
this, not in the words and descriptions of the events
which really happened, but in a language of which he
or she alone holds the key, or of which, perhaps, the
full significance is scarcely known even to the writer.
Only in the great unknown world which he addresses
there surely is the kindred spirit somewhere, the kind
heart, the friend of friends who will understand him.
Novel- writing must be like tears to some women, the
vent and the relief of many a chafing spirit. People
say, Why are so many novels written? and the answer
is, Because there are so many people feeling, thinking,
and enduring, and longing to give voice and ex-
pression to the silence of the life in the midst of which
they are struggling. The necessity for expression is a
great law of nature, one for which there is surely some
good and wise reason, as there must be for that natural
desire for sympathy which is common to so many.
There seems to be something wrong and incomplete
HERl >INES AND Tl VNDMOTHERS. 1 8 1
in those natures which do not need it, something in-
human in those who are incapable of understanding
the mystical and tender bond by which all humanity
is joined and bound together. A bond of common
pain and pleasure, of common fear and hope, and
love, and weakness.
Poets tell us that not only human creatures, but
the whole universe, is thrilling with sympathy and ex-
pression, entreating, uttering, in plaints or praise, or in
a wonder of love and admiration. Wha1 do the sounds
of a bright spring day mean? Cocks crow in the farm-
yards and valleys below; high up in the clear heavens
the lark is pouring out its sweet passionate thrills;
shriller and sweeter, and more complete as the tiny
speck soars higher and higher still, "flow the profuse
strains of unpremeditated art." The sheep baa and
browse, and shake their meek heads; children shout
for the very pleasure of making a sound in the sun-
shine. Nature is bursting witli new green, brightening,
changing into a thousand lovely shades. Seas washing
and sparkling against the shores, streaks of faint light
gleam in distant horizons, soft winds are blowing about
tin- landscape* what is all this but an appeal for sym-
pathy, a great natural expression of emotion?
And perhaps, after all, the real secret of our com-
plaint against modern heroines is not so much tli.it
they are natural and speak out what is in them, and
tell us of deeper and more passionate feeling than
ever stirred the even tenour of their grandmothei
narratives, but that they are morbid, constantly occu-
pied with themselves, one-sided, and ungrateful for
the wonders and blessings of a world which is not less
beautiful now than it was a hundred years ago, where
1 82 HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS.
perhaps there is a less amount of pain than at the
time when Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier said their
say.
Jane Austen's own story was more sad and more
pathetic than that of many and many of the heroines
whom we have been passing in review and complain-
ing of, and who complain to us so loudly; but in her,
knowledge of good and evil, and of sorrow and anxiety
and disappointment, evinced itself, not in impotent
railings against the world and impatient paragraphs
and monotonous complaints, but in a delicate sym-
pathy with the smallest events of life, a charming ap-
preciation of its common aspects, a playful wisdom
and kindly humour, which charm us to this day.
Many of the heroines of to-day are dear and tried
old friends, and would be sorely missed out of our
lives, and leave irreparable blanks on our bookshelves;
numbers of them are married and happily settled down
in various country-houses and parsonages in England
and Wales; but for the sake of their children who are
growing up round about them, and who will be the
heroes and heroines of the next generation or two, we
would appeal to their own sense of what is right and
judicious, and ask them if they would not desire to
see their daughters brought up in a simpler, less
spasmodic, less introspective state of mind than they
themselves have been? Are they not sometimes
haunted by the consciousness that their own ex-
periences may have suggested a strained and affected
view of life to some of their younger readers, instead
of encouraging them to cheerfulness, to content, to a
moderate estimate of their own infallibility, a charity
for others, and a not too absorbing contemplation of
HEROINES AND THEIR GRANDMOTHERS. I 83
themselves, their own virtues and shortcomings? "Avant
tout, le temps est poseur" says George Sand, "et toi
qui fais la guerre a cc truvers, tu en es penetre de la
tete aux pieds."
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
When he was a very little boy, Edwin Landseer
used to ask his mother to set him a copy to draw from,
and then — so his sisters have told me — complain that
she always drew one of two things, either a shoe or a
currant pudding, of both of which he was quite tired.
No wonder that this was insufficient food for the eager
young spirit for whose genius in after life two king-
doms were not too wide a range. The boy, when he
was a little older, and when his bent seemed more
clearly determined, went to his father and asked him
for teaching. The father was a wise man, and told
his son that he could not himself teach him to be a
painter, that Nature was the only school, Observation
the true and only teacher. He told little Edwin to
use his own powers; to think about all the things he
saw; to copy everything: and then he turned the boy
out with his brothers — they were all three much of
an age — to draw the world as it then existed Upon
Hampstead Heath. There seem to have been then, as
now, little donkeys upon the common, old horses
grazing the turf and gorse, and children and chickens
at play, though I fear that now, alas! no curly-headed
boy is there storing up treasures for the use of a
whole generation to come.
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 1 85
Day after day the children used to spend upon the
Heath in the fresh air, at their sports and their flights,
but learning meanwhile their early lesson. Their elder
sister used to go with them, a young mentor to keep
these frolicsome spirits within bounds. One can imagine
the little party, buoyant, active, in the full delightful
spring of early youth. Perhaps youth is a special at-
tribute belonging to artistic natures, to those whom the
gods have favoured, and the old fanciful mythology is
not all a fable. When I last saw Sir Edwin Landseer,
something of this indescribable youthful brightness si ill
seemed to be with him, although the cloud which dim-
med his later years had already partially fallen. But
the cruel cloud is more than half a century distant at
the time of which I am writing, and, thanks be to
Heaven, the whole flood of life, and work, and achieve-
ment lies between.
Young Edwin painted a picture in these very early
days, which was afterwards sold. It was called the
"Mischief-makers:" a mischievous boy had tied a log
of wood to the tail of a mischievous donkey. The
ass's head in the South Kensington Museum may have
been drawn upon Hampstead Heath — a careful black-
lead donkey, that cropped the turf and looked up one
day, some sixty years ago, with a puzzled face. Per-
haps it was wondering at the size of the artist stand-
ing opposite, with his little sympathetic hand at work.
The thawing is marked "E. Landseer, five years old."
This little donkey, of the line of Balaam's ass, had al-
ready found out the secret and knew how to speak in
his own language to the youthful prophet. Our prophet
needs no warning on his journey; he is not about to
barter his sacred gift, and from Hampstead Heath, and
I 86 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
from many a wider moor, he will honestly give his
blessing to the tribes as they come up in turn. The
tribe of the poor; the tribe of the hard-working rich;
the tribe of Manchester; the tribe of Belgravia. There
are other sketches in the frame at the Kensington
Museum; a policeman pointed them out to me. "He
knew Sir Edwin's pictures well, and his sketches, too;
why, he was only six years old when he drew that
dog," said the policeman, kindly. The dog is a pointer
curling its tail; there is the household cat, too, with
broad face and feline eyes. There is a more elaborate
sketch done at the age of fifteen, and probably repre-
senting the same pointer grown into an ancient model
now, and promoted from black-lead to water-colour.
The painter himself must have been starting in life by
this time: born with his fairy gift, the time was come
to reveal it.
Little Edwin was eight years old when he first en-
graved a plate of etchings; asses' heads, sheep, donkeys
all were there, and then came a second plate for lions
and tigers. He was always drawing animals. When
he was thirteen he exhibited the portrait of a pointer
and puppy, and also the portrait of Mr. Simpson's
mule, by "Master E. Landseer," as mentioned in the
catalogue. In this year his father took him to Hay-
don, the painter. There is a notice in Haydon's
"Diary":—
"In 18 1 5 Mr. Landseer, the engraver, had brought
me his sons, and said: 'When do you intend to let
your beard grow and take pupils?' I said, 'If my in-
structions are useful or valuable, now.' 'Will you let
my boys come?' I said, 'Certainly.' Charles and
Thomas, it was immediately arranged, should come
SIR KDW1N LA.VDSEER. I 87
every Monday morning, when I was to give them work
for the week. Edwin took my dissections of the lion,
and I advised him to dissect animals as the only mode
of acquiring a knowledge of their construction.
"This very incident generated in me the desire
to form a school, and as the Landseers made rapid
progress, I resolved to communicate my system to
others."
In 18 1 7 Landseer exhibited a picture of "Brutus,"
the family friend. After "Brutus" comes a picture
called "Fighting Dogs getting Wind," which was his
first real success. It was, 1 believe, bought by that
friendly umpire of art, Sir George Beaumont. In 1818
Wilkie writes approvingly to Hay don, saying: "Geddes
has a good head, Etty a clever piece, and young Land-
seer's jack-asses are also good." Most of these facts I
have read in a helpful little biography in the South
Kensington Museum, which contains a list of Sir Ed-
u in's early works. The list is a marvel of length and
industry. There are many etchings mentioned, and
among them "Recollections of Sir Walter and Lady
Scott." When Sir Edwin gave up etching, it was
Thomas Landscrr who engraved his pictures. And here
I cannot help adding that, looking over the etchings of
that early time, and of later date, my admiration has
not been alone for Sir Edwin, but for his brother's
work as well.
Haydon's advice about depicting lions seems to
have stood the young student in good stead. There is
mention made of roaring and prowling lions, of a lion
disturbed at his meal, on a canvas six feet by eight.
Haydon, as we know, was for extremes of canvas and
other things. Leslie, in his autobiography, has his ap-
1 88 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
preciative word for Hay don: "I was captivated with
Hay don's art," he writes, "which was then certainly at
its best, and tried, but with no success, to imitate the
richness of his colour and impasto At a much
later period I was struck with his resemblance to
Charles Lamb's 'Ralph Bigod, Esq.,' that noble type of
the great race of men — 'the men who borrow.' I even
thought, before Lamb declared Fenwick to be the pro-
totype of Bigod, that Haydon was the man, and I am
not sure that Lamb did not think of him as well as of
Fenwick. All the traits were Haydon's. Bigod had an
undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open
exterior, a quick, jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched
with grey, cana fides. He anticipated no excuse, and
found none. When I think of this man — his fiery glow
of heart, his swell of feeling — how magnificent, how
■di al he was, how great at the midnight hour, and when
I compare him with the companions with whom I have
associated since, I grudge the saving of a few idle
ducats, and think that I have fallen into the society of
lenders and little men."
In 1822 Landseer received a premium from the
British Institution for a picture called "The Larder In-
vaded." In 1842 he paints the celebrated "Catspaw:
the monkey's device for eating hot chestnuts." It was
sold for 100/., and would fetch near 3,000/. now.
Then he is made A.R.A.; and in 1826 the scene
changes from lions' dens and monkeys' pranks to the
well-loved moors and lakes — to the misty, fresh, silent
life of the mountain that he has brought into all our
homes.
Some of his earliest paintings are illustrations out
of Walter Scott's romances. He loved Scott from the
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, 1 89
beginning to the very end of his life, and kept some
of his books and some of Shakespeare's plays by his
bed-side, to read when he could not sleep. One of his
very first oil pictures, however, was not out of a book:
it was the portrait of his sister as a little baby girl,
toddling about in a big bonnet.
There is a pretty little paragraph in Leslie's auto-
biography, about Landseer after he became a student
at the Royal Academy. "Edwin Landseer," he says,
"who entered the Academy very early, was a pretty
little curly-headed boy, and he attracted Fuseli's atten-
tion by his talents and gentle maimers. Fuseli would
look round for him and say, 'Where is my little dog-
hoy?'"
The few words tell their story, and at the same
time reveal the kind heart of the writer, who all his
life seems to have admired and loved his younger
companion, of whom there is frequent mention in his
books. "Art may be learnt, but can't be taught," says
Leslie, as the elder Landseer had said. "Under Fuseli's
wise neglect Wilkie, Mulready, Etty, Landseer, and
Flaydon distinguished themselves, and were the better
for not being made all alike by teaching, if indeed that
could have been done."
Fuseli's system seems to have been to come in with
a book in his hand and to sit reading nearly the
whole time lie remained with the students; and here I
cannot help saying that Leslie himself followed a very
different method. It is true that when he taught young
painters he used to say very hide, but '-he would take
the brushes and pallet himself and show them a great
deal,*' says his son George.
It is now about ht't\ years since tie little dog-boy
I go SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
(who was only some nineteen years old) set up in life
for himself, hired a tiny cottage with a studio in St.
John's Wood. The district even now is silent and un-
enclosed in many places. In those days it must have
been almost a country place. A garden paling divided
the painter and his young household from friendly
neighbours; and Mrs. Mackenzie, his sister and house-
keeper in those youthful days, has told us of pleasant
early times and neighbourly meetings; while the young
man works and toils at his art, and faces the early
difficulties and anxieties that oppress him, and that
even his fairy gift cannot altogether avert.
In one of the notices upon his pictures it is said
that as a boy and a youth he haunted shows of wild
beasts with his sketch-book, and the matches of rat-
killing by terriers. Cannot one picture the scene, the
cruel sport; the crowd looking on, stupid or vulgarly
excited, and there, among coarse and heavy glances
and dull scowling looks, shines the bright young face,
not seeing the things that the dull eyes are watching,
but discerning the something beyond — the world within
the world — that life within common life that genius
makes clear to us?
What are the old legends worth if this is not what
they mean? Our Sir Orpheus plays, and men and
animals are brought into his charmed circle. Qualities
delicate, indescribable, sympathies between nature and
human nature are revealed.
A description in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Transfor-
matton of Donatello and the animals recalls Edwin
Landseer as one reads it.
There is a world to which some favoured spirits
belong by natural right; others, who are more distant
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. igi
from its simple inspiration, want the interpreter who is
to tell them the meaning of those sudden brown lights
and wistful glances; those pricking ears and tails a-
quiver; those black confiding noses, humorous and
simple, snuffing and sniffing the heathery breezes. It
is he who has summoned those little feet for us, com-
ing, as in Donatello's charm, suddenly scampering down
the mountain pass; we seem to hear the gentle flurry;
or again, we are on the mountain itself; the figures lie
motionless wrapped in their plaids, the stag is uncon-
scious and quietly grazing, in branching dignity; it is
the little doe, watchful, with sweet, up-pricked head,
who is turning to give the alarm; or again it may be
a tranquil mist through which the light forms are
passing; or a stag wounded and trailing across the
sunset waters to die.
Who does not know the picture called "Suspense":
the noble hound watching at his master's closed door?
The painter has painted a whole heart, tender re-
proach, silence, steady trust, anxious patience. The
theme is utterly pathetic, and tells its story straight to
the bystander; the door is closed fast and will never
open; the frayed feather from the master's plume has
fallen to the ground. He must have been carried by,
for there is a drop of blood upon the feather and an-
other on the floor beyond, and the helpless tender
friend has been shut out. I can hardly imagine any
picture more tranquil, more pathetic. Who that has
ever been shut out but will understand the pang?
And then, again, what home-like glimpses do we
owe to Landseer? Has he not painted warmth, content,
and fidelity for us? Look at that fireside party; the
tender contentment of the colley, whose faithful nose
ig2 SIR EDWIN LAKDSEER.
is guarding the old shepherd's slippers; or the High-
land breakfast scene, with its gentle, almost maternal,
humours; the baby, the proud mother, the little fat
puppies that are a pleasure to behold. In the well-
known painting of the "Shepherd's Last Mourner," the
pathos consists as much in that which is not as in
that which is there. The dog with silent care rests his
head upon the lonely coffin. He does not understand
very much about it all: life he can understand, not
death. His feeling is more touching in its incomplete-
ness than if he could grasp anything beyond the
present strange wistful moment. Is there aspiration in
such a picture? There is natural religion most cer-
tainly, as there must be in all true nature. No saint
depicted in agony, no painted miracle, could give a
more vivid realisation of simple natural feeling, of the
mysterious love and fidelity which is in life, and which
the very dog can understand, as he silently watches by
his old master's coffin.
As I write a friend is saying that some people com-
plain, and not without justice, that Landseer in some
instances makes his animals almost too human. The
picture of Uncle Tom and his wife in chains has been
instanced. In the "Triumph of Comus" the blending
of animal and human nature is most painful to look
at, and it is a relief to turn from its nightmare-like
vividness to those peaceful cliffs hanging on the wall
beyond, where the fresh daylight comes over the crisp-
ing waters, where the children are at play and the
sheep grazing at the cannon mouth.
One can recognise in some of the earlier paintings
of Sir Edwin the impression of the mental companion-
ship of those who influenced the school of art at the
SIR EDWIN LAXDSEER. I 93
beginning of this century. Regarding this, the school
of Wilkie, of Mulready, I can only turn once more to
Leslie's temperate criticisms. "Every great painter,"
he says, "carries us into a world of his own, where, if
we give ourselves up to his guidance, we shall find
much enjoyment; but if we cavil at every step, we may
be sure there is a greater fault in ourselves than any
we can discover in him."
We do not lower our individuality because we sub-
mit for a time and learn to see life from different
points of view.
The school which preceded Edwin Landseer was a
placid and practical school, looking for harmonies rather
than for contrasts, somewhat wanting in emotion and
vividness of feeling. The meteor-like Turner blazed
across the path of these quiet students without inspir-
ing them with his own dazzling and breathless grasp
of time and light. Leslie, writing of art, looks back
wistfully to the times of Stothart, Fuseli, of Wilkie,
Lawrence, Etty, and Constable; but, with all their har-
mony of colour and merits of natural expression, they
do not strike the chords that Sir Edwin has struck in
his highest moments of inspiration. This much one
cannot deny that his pictures are unequal, sometimes
over-crowded, sometimes wanting in tone and colour;
there are subjects too which seem scarce worthy of hi>
consummate pencil. His very popularity is a hard test,
and the constant reproduction of his pictures on every
wall must needs blunt their fresh interest. But this is
hypercriticism. How many blank front parlours, how
many long dull passages and tiresome half hours of life
has he changed and illuminated. Remembering some
of these half hours, one could almost wish that none
m an Island. 'j
I Q4 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
but pleasant associations might belong to those familiar
apparitions of playful paws and trustful noses. A
pretty little page returning from the chase was the
playfellow of our own early life; the sun fell on his
innocent head as he hung on the wall of our high-
perched Paris home. Here, by a foggier fireside, the
children grow up companionably with the dear big dog
that is saving the little child from the sea. It was the
beneficent painter himself who sent this big dog to
live with us with a friendly cypher in a corner of the
frame.
A friend has told us the story of another dog be-
stowed by the same kind hand: "About ten years ago
Sir Edwin wished me to keep a dog, thinking that
when I came home I should not be so lonely; he also
said that he would look for one for me himself. I told
him that my business occupations would not allow me
to give a dog proper attention, and although Sir Edwin
mentioned the subject more than once I still refused.
About a month afterwards he came to dine with me
one day, and when he arrived brought a beautifully
finished picture of a dog, saying, 'Here H., I have
brought you a parlour boarder; I hope you won't turn
him out of doors.' "
A writer in the "Daily News," in a charmingly
written notice, describes Sir Edwin's manner of work-
ing:—
"His method of composition was remarkably like
Scott's, except in the point of the early rising of the
latter. Landseer went late to bed and rose very late
— coming down to breakfast at noon; but he had been
composing perhaps for hours. Scott declared that the
most fertile moments for resources, in invention especi-
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. I 95
ally, were those between sleeping and waking, or rather
before opening the eyes from sleep, while the brain was
wide awake. This, much prolonged, was Landseer's
time for composing his pictures. His conception once
complete, nothing could exceed the rapidity of his
execution. In his best days, before his sense of failing
eyesight and the rivalship of rising pre-Raphaelite art
aggravated his painful fastidiousness, his rapidity was
quite as marvellous as Scott's. The speed was owing
to decision, and the decision was owing to the thorough
elaboration of the subject in his mind before he com-
mitted it to the management of his masterly hand." The
stories are numberless of the rapidity with which he
executed his work. There are two little King Charles'
in the South Kensington Museum, wonders of com-
pleteness and consummate painting, whose skins are
silk, whose eyes gleam with light. They are said to
have been painted in two days. I have read some-
where also the melancholy fact in addition that both
the poor little creatures died by violent deaths.
The "Daily News" quotes a rabbit picture ex-
hibited in the British Gallery under which Sir Edwin
wrote, "painted in three-quarters of an hour."
The first time I was ever in Sir Edwin's studio was
about twelve years ago, when we drove there one sum-
mer's day with my father to see a picture of the "High
land Flood" just then completed. We came away talk-
ing of the picture, touched by the charm and the kind-
ness of the master of the house, laden with the violets
from the garden, which he had given us. Another
time the master was no longer there, but his house
still opened hospitably with a greeting for old days'
sake from those who had belonged to him and who
13*
I96 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
had known my father. We were let in at the side gate.
There stood the great white house that we remembered;
we crossed the garden, where the dead leaves were
still heaped, and some mist was hanging among the
bare branches of the trees, and so by an entrance lined
with pictures we came into the great studio once more,
where all the memories and pictures were crowded,
hanging to the walls, piled against the easels. We
seemed to be walking into the shrine of a long life,
and one almost felt ashamed, and as if one were sur-
prising its secrets. All about the walls and on the
ceiling were time stains spreading in a dim veil; he
used to say that he hated whitewash, and that he
would never allow any workman but himself about the
place. It seemed to me at first as if the cloud of his
later days still hung about the room, where he had
suffered so many cruel hours; but, looking again, there
were his many bright and sweet fancies meeting us on
every side, and the gloom suddenly dispelled. Every-
where are beautiful and charming things, that strike
one as one looks. Perhaps it is a tender little calfs
head tied by its nose, perhaps a flock of sheep against
a soft grey sky. There are old companions over the
chimney, Sir Roderick and David Roberts looking out
of a gloom of paint; there is a lion roaring among the
rocks that seems to fill the room with its din.
As we look round we see more pictures and
sketches of every description. There is a little princess,
in green velvet, feeding a great Newfoundland dog;
there is the picture of the young man dying in some
calm distant place, with a little quivering living dog
upon his knee looking up into his face; near to this
stands a lovely little sketch about which Miss Landseer
SIR EDWIN T.AXDSEER. 197
told us a little story. One clay the painter was at work
when they came hurriedly to tell him that the Queen
was riding up to his garden-gate, and wished him to
come out to her. He was to see her mounted upon
her horse for a picture he was to paint. It seemed to
me like some fanciful little story out of a fairy tale, or
some old-world legend. The young painter at his art;
the young queen cantering up, followed by her court,
and passing on, and the sketch remaining to tell the
story. He has painted in the old archway at Windsor
Castle; the lighl and queenly figure is drifting from
beneath it, other people are following, the sun is shin-
ing. Many of these sketches are hasty, but there is
not one that does not bear traces of the master's
hand.
We all know Sir Joshua's often-quoted answer to
Lord Holland, when he asked him how long he had
been painting his picture.
"All my life," is written in many a picture, as it is
written indeed in many a face. Take the likeness of
Gibson, with his keen downcast head, simple, manly,
and refined. Is not his whole life written there? With
the thrill of this noble portrait rises a vision within a
vision of another studio miles and years away. The
click of the workman's hammer comes echoing through
Roman sunshine — the marble dust is lying in a heap
at our feet — there stands the sculptor in his working
dress, pointing to the band of colour in the Venus
w aving hair.
There is another portrait in the room, to which the
painter has given all his best and noblest work. He
lias opened his magic box — Pandora's was nothing to
it — and there stands a lady with a child in her arms,
198 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
endowed with a gentle might of grace, of womanly in-
stinct and beauty. The baby's little foot is caught in
the lacework of the shawl; the mother's face is turned
aside. It is a charming group, refined, full of senti-
ment. But for all women Edwin Landseer had this
courteous feeling of manly deference. There is a
Highland mother sitting with a little Highland baby in
her arms among limpid grays and browns; there is a
lovely marchioness with a dear little chubby innocent-
eyed baby upon her knee. It is all the same feeling,
the same grace and tenderness of expression.
Ruskin describes somewhere the attitude of mind
in which a true artist should set to work. Sham art
concocts its effect bit by bit; it puts in a light here,
a shade there; piles on beauties, rubs in sentiment.
The true painter will receive the impression straight
from the subject, and then, keeping to that precious
impression, works upon it with all his skill and power
of attention. Anybody can understand the difference.
Even great artists like Landseer sometimes paint pic-
tures out of tune with their own natures, where the
painter's skill is evident, and his industry, but his
heart is not.
But here is his heart in many a delightful sketch
and completed work: in the "loveable dogs' heads,"
that my companion liked so much, with eyes flashing
and melting from the canvas; in the pointer's creeping
along the ground; in the sportsmanlike eagerness and
stir of the "otter-hunt;" in the tender uplifted paw of
the little dog talking to Godiva's horse; in many a
sketch and completed picture.
When Landseer first became intimate with Mr.
Jacob Bell, he was not a rich man, nor had he ever
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. I 99
been able to save any money, but under his excellent
and experienced good advice and management, the
painter's affairs became more flourishing. When Mr.
Bell died, his partner devoted himself, as he had
done, to Sir Edwin's interests. The little old cottage
had been added to and enlarged meanwhile, the great
studio was built, the park was enclosed, the pictures
and prints multiplied and spread, the painter's popu-
larity grew.
One wonderful —never to be forgotten — night my
father took us to see some great ladies in their dresses
going to the Queen's fancy ball. We drove to
House (it is all very vague and dazzlingly indistinct in
my mind). We were shown into a great empty room,
and almost immediately some doors were flung open,
there came a blaze of light, a burst of laughing voices,
and from many a twinkling dinner-table rose a com-
pany that seemed, to our unaccustomed eyes, as if all
the pictures in Hampton Court had come to life. The
chairs scraped back, the ladies and gentlemen ad-
vanced together over the shining floors. I can re-
member their high heels clicking on the floor: they
were in the dress of the court of King Charles II.;
the ladies, beautiful, dignified, and excited. There
was one, lovely and animated, in yellow; I remember
her pearls shining. Another seemed to us even more
beautiful, as she crossed the room all dressed in black
— but she, I think, was not going to the ball; and
then somebody began to say, "Sir Edwin has promised
to rouge them," and then everybody began to call out
for him, and there was also an outer)- about his
200 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
moustaches that "really must be shaved off," for they
were not in keeping with his dress. Then, as in a
dream, we went off to some other great house, Bath
House perhaps, where one lady, more magnificently
dressed than all the others, was sitting in a wax-
lighted dressing-room, in a sumptuous sort of conscious
splendour, and just behind her chair stood a smiling
gentleman, also in court dress, and he held up some-
thing in one hand and laughed, and said he must go
back to the house from whence we came, and the
lady thanked him and called him Sir Edwin. We
could not understand who this Sir Edwin was, who
seemed to be wherever we went. Nor why he should
put on the rouge. Then the majestic lady showed us
her beautiful jewelled shoe. Then a fairy thundering
chariot carried off this splendid lady, and the nose-
gays of the hanging footmen seemed to scent the air
as the equipage drove off under the covered way.
Perhaps all this is only a dream, but I think it is
true: for there was again a third house where we
found more pictures alive, two beautiful young pic-
tures and their mother, for whom a parcel was brought
in post-haste, containing a jewel all dropping with
pearls. Events seem so vivid when people are name-
less, are only faces not lives, when all life is an im-
pression. That evening was always the nearest ap-
proach to a live fairy tale that we ever lived, and that
ball more brilliant than any we ever beheld.
No wonder Edwin Landseer liked the society of
these good-natured and splendid people, and no won-
der they liked his. To be a delightful companion is
in itself no small gift. Edwin Landseer's company
was a wonder of charming gaiety. I have heard my
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 201
father speak of it with the pride he used to take in
the gifts of others.
I see a note about nothing at all lying on the
table, which a friend has sent among some others of
sadder import; but it seems to give a picture of a
day's work, written as it is with "the palette in the
other hand," at the time of Sir Edwin's health of
labour and popularity.
"I shall like to be scolded by you," he writes.
"This eve I dine with Lord Hardinge, and have to go
to Lord Landesborough's after the banquet, and then
to come back here to R. A. Leslie, who has a family
hop — which I am afraid will entirely fill up my time,
otherwise I should have been delighted to say yes.
Pray give me another opportunity.
"Written, with my palette in the other hand, in
honest hurry."
Perhaps Edwin Landseer was the first among
modern painters who restored the old traditions of a
certain sumptuous habit of living and association with
great persons. The charm of manner of which kind
Leslie spoke, put him at ease in a world where charm
of manner is not without its influence, and where his
brilliant gifts and high-minded scrupulous spirit made
him deservedly loved, trusted, and popular. To artistic
natures especially, there is something almost irresistible
in the attraction of beauty and calm leisure and refine-
ment. These things seem to say more perhaps than
they are really worth in themselves.
Lords and ladies have to thank the intelligent
classes for many of the things that make their homes
delightful and complete: for the noble pictures on
202 SIR EDWIN LAND SEER.
their walls, the books that speak to them, the arts that
move them; and, perhaps, the intelligent classes might
in their turn learn to adorn their own homes with
something of the living art which belongs to many of
these well-bred people, who sometimes win the best-
loved of the workers away from their companions and
make them welcome. No wonder that men not other-
wise absorbed by home ties are delighted and charmed
by a sense of artistic fitness and tranquillity, which
after all might be more widely spread, and which is
no mysterious secret only taught by prosperity, it is
the gentleness of goodwill and the self-respecting de-
ference of generous interest in others.
A friend has sent me the following pages, which
describe Sir Edwin at this time, and I cannot do
better than give them here as they have come to me.
'"The world knows nothing of its 'greatest men,'
was not applicable to Landseer. Though not one of
its greatest men, he was a man of acknowledged
genius, and was courted, admired, made much of, by
all who knew him. 'Landseer will be with us,' was
held out as an inducement to join many a social
board, where his wit, gaiety, and peculiar powers of
mimicry rendered him a delightful guest. But I am
speaking of him as he appeared before the fine spirit
was darkened by one of the heaviest of calamities !
" Landseer' s perceptions of character were remark-
ably acute. Not only did he know what was passing
in the hearts of dogs, but he could read pretty closely
into those of men and women also. The love of
truth was an instinct with him; his common phrase
about those he estimated highly was that 'they had
SIR EDWIN LAXDSEER. 203
the true ring.' This was most applicable to himself;
there was no alloy in his metal; he was true to him-
self and to others. This was proved in many passages
of his life, when nearly submerged by those disap-
pointments and troubles which are more especially
felt by sensitive organisations such as that which it
was his fortune — or misfortune to possess. It was a
pity that Landseer, who might have done so much
for the good of animal-kind, never wrote on the sub-
ject of their treatment. He had a strong feeling
against the way some dogs are tied up, only allowed
their freedom now and then. He used to say a man
would fare better tied up than a dog, because the
former can take his coat off, but a dog lives in his for
ever. He declared a tied-up dog, without daily ex-
ercise, goes mad, or dies, in three years. His won-
derful power over dogs is well known. An illustrious
lady asked him how it was that he gained this know-
ledge? 'By peeping into their hearts, ma'am,' was
his answer. I remember once being wonderfully struck
with the mesmeric attraction he possessed with them.
A large party of his friends were with him at his
house in St. John's Wood; his servant opened the
door; three or four dogs rushed in, one a very fierce-
looking mastiff. We ladies recoiled, but there was no
fear; the creature bounded up to Landseer, treated
him like an old friend, with most expansive demon-
strations of delight. Someone remarking, 'how fond
the dog seemed of him,' he said, T never saw it be-
fore in my life.'
"Would that horse-trainers could have learnt from
him how horses could be broken in or trained more
easily by kindness than by cruelty. Once when visit-
204 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
ing him he came in from his meadow looking some-
what dishevelled and tired, 'What have you been
doing?' we asked him. 'Only teaching some horses
tricks for Astley's , and here is my whip ,' he said,
showing us a piece of sugar in his hand. He said
that breaking-in horses meant more often breaking
their hearts, and robbing them of all their spirit.
"Innumerable are the instances, if I had the space,
I could give you of his kind and wise laws respecting
the treatment of the animal world, and it is a pity
they are not preserved for the large portion of the
world who love, and wish to ameliorate, the condition
of their 'poor relations.'
"There were few studios formerly more charming
to visit than Landseer's. Besides the genial artist
and his beautiful pictures, the habitues of his workshop
(as he called it) belonged to the elite of London
society, especially the men of wit and distinguished
talents — none more often there than D'Orsay, with his
good-humoured face, his ready wit, and delicate flat-
tery. 'Landseer,' he would call out at his entrance,
'keep the dogs off me' (the painted ones), 'I want to
come in, and some of them will bite me — and that
fellow in de corner is growling furiously.' Another
day he seriously asked me for a pin, and when I
presented it to him and wished to know why he
wanted it, he replied, 'to take de thorn out of dat
dog's foot; do you not see what pain he is in?' I
never look at the picture now without this other pic-
ture rising before me. Then there was Mulready, still
looking upon Landseer as the young student, and
fearing that all this incense would spoil him for future
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 205
work; and Fonblanque, who maintained from first to
last that he was on the top rung of the ladder, and
when at the exhibition of some of Landseer's later
works, he heard it said, 'They were not equal to his
former ones,' he exclaimed in his own happy manner,
'It t is hard upon Landseer to flog him with his own
laurels.'
"But, dear A , I am exceeding the limits of a
letter; you asked me to write some of my impressions
about Landseer, and I am sure you and all his friends
will forgive me for being verbose when recalling, not
only the great gifts, but delightful qualities of our lost
friend."
"My worn-out old pencil will work with friendly
gladness in an old friend's service," he writes to my
father, who had asked him to draw a sketch for the
Cornhill Magazine.
"I quite forgot that I dined with a group of doctors
(a committee) at two o'clock. R.A. business after
dinner. This necessity prevents me kissing hands be-
fore your departure. Don't become too Italian; don't
speak broken English to your old friends on your re-
turn to our village, where you will find no end of us
charmed to have you back again; and amongst them,
let me say, you will find old E. L. sincerely glad to
see his unvarying K. P. once more by that old fire-
side."
So he writes in '63 to the friend to whom I owe
the notes already given here. There is the "true
ring," as he himself says, in these faithful greetings
continued through a lifetime. And now that the lite
206 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
is over, the friend still seems there, and his hand
stretches faithfully from the little blue page.
He writes again September 2, 1864: —
"Do you think you could bring Mrs. Brookfield to
my lion studio to-morrow between five and six o'clock?
I have forgotten her address, or would not trouble
you. Have you still got that cruel dagger in your
sleeve? If you can also lasso my friend Brookfield I
shall be grateful, and beg you to believe me your used-
up old friend,
"E. L."
A little later I find a note written in better spirits.
His work is done, and those great over- weighing
sphinxes are no longer upon his mind. "The colossal
clay," he says, "is now in Baron Marochetti's hands,
casting in metal. When No. 2 is in a respectable
condition remind me of Colonel Hamley's kind and
highly flattering desire to see my efforts. We can, on
the 3rd, discuss pictures, lions, and friends.
"Yours always, E. L."
What efforts his work had cost him, and what a
price he paid for that which he achieved, may be
gathered from a letter to another correspondent, which
was written about this time: —
"Dear H.," he says, "I am much surprised by your
note. The plates, large vignettes, are all the same size.
The sketches from which they were engraved for the
deer-stalking work being done in a sketch-book of a
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 207
particular shape and size. Those of the O form all
the same, as also the others. I have got quite trouble
enough; ten or twelve pictures about which I am tor-
tured, and a large national monument to complete
If I am bothered about everything and anything, no
matter what, I know my head will not stand it much
longer."
"I cannot even leave off to read Gosling's letter,"
he says, writing to this same T. H. "If you will call
at three you will find me." Then comes, "the matter
which you are kind enough to express willingness to
look into;" it is one long record of good advice
rendered and gratitude freely given. Elsewhere Land-
seer writes to this same correspondent. "I have just
parted from your friend P. He strongly urged me
going to 45, where I have been so kindly received of
late. I told him you were an object for plunder in
this world, and that I was ashamed of living on you
as others do." This letter is written in a state of
nervous irritation which is very painful: he Avishes to
make changes in his house; to build, to alter the ar-
rangements; he does not know what to decide or
where to go; the struggle of an over-wrought mind is
beginning to tell. It is the penalty some men must
pay for their gifts; but some generous souls may not
think the price of a few weary years too great for a
life of useful and ennobling work.
The letters grow sadder and more sad as time
goes on. Miss Landseer has kindly sent me some,
written to her between 1866 and 1869. The first is
written from abroad: —
"I have made up my mind to return, to face the
ocean! The weather is unfriendly — sharp wind and
2o8 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
spiteful rain. There is no denying the fact, since my
arrival and during my sojourn here I have been less
well. The doctors keep on saying it is on the nerves;
hereafter they may be found to be in error. Kind
Lady E. Peel keeps on writing for me to go to Villa
Lammermoor, and says she will undertake my re-
covery. I desire to get home. With this feeling, I
am to leave this to-morrow, pass some hours in Paris
(with W. B., in a helpless state of ignorance of the
French language); take the rail to Calais at night, if it
does not blow cats and dogs; take the vessel to Dover;
hope to be home on the 6th before two o'clock. If
C. L. had started to come here he might have enjoyed
unlimmitted amusement and novelty. B. M. and I wrote
to that effect; he leaving on Sunday night would
have found me and B. M. waiting his arrival to bring
him here to dinner."
The next is a letter from Balmoral, dated June
1867:—
"The Queen kindly commands me to get well
here. She has to-day been twice to my room to show
additions recently added to her already rich collection
of photographs. Why, I know not, but since I have
been in the Highlands I have for the first time felt
wretchedly weak, without appetite. The easterly winds,
and now again the unceasing cold rain, may possibly
account for my condition, as I can't get out. Drawing
tires me; however, I have done a little better to-day.
The doctor residing in the castle has taken me in
hand, and gives me leave to dine to-day with the
Queen and the 'rest of the royal family.'... Flogging
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 200,
would be mild compared to my sufferings. No sleep,
fearful cramp at night, accompanied by a feeling of
faintness and distressful feebleness All this means
that I shall not be home on the 7th."
He seems to have returned to Scotland a second
time this year, and writes from Lochlinhart, Ding-
wall: —
"I made out my journey without pausing, starting
on the eve of Thursday the 3rd, arriving here the even-
ing of Friday (700 miles) the 4th. I confess to feeling
jaded and tired. The whole of hills here present to
the eye one endless mass of snow. It is really cold
and winterly. Unless the weather recovers a more
generous tone I shall not stay long, but at once return
south to Chillingham. I was tempted yesterday to go
out with Mr. Coleman to the low ground part of the
forest, and killed my first shot at deer. I am paying
for my boldness to-day, Sunday. All my joints ache;
the lumbago has reasserted its unkindness; a warm
bath is in requisition, and I am a poor devil. Unless
we have the comfort of genial sunshine, I shall not
venture on getting out I am naturally desirous to
hear from you, and to receive a report of the progress
of goings on at my home. We have here Mr. C. M.
and a third gentleman, just arrived. Mr. Coleman has
returned to London on account of his mother's ill-
health. I have written to H., but in case he has
not received my note, let him know my condition; say
I shall be very glad to hear from him when he goes to
Paris, and how long he remains in foreign pails. I
From an Island, 1 4
210 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
hope you have found Mr. B. and the maids respect-
fully attentive.
"My dear Jessy, affectionately yours,
"E. Landseer."
The years seem to pass slowly as one reads these
letters written in snow and rain and depression. Here
is another dated Stoke Park, July, 1868: —
"Dear Jessy, — Strange enough, but I have only just
found at the bottom of the bag your little package of
letters. Many thanks for your pale green note, so far
satisfactory. I believe it is best to yield to Mr. C.'s
advice, and remain here another day or two. It is on
the cards that I try my boldness by a run up to my
home and back here the same day. It is quite a trial
for me to be away from the meditation in the old
studio — my works starving for my hand."
The next letter is written in 1869 from Chilling-
ham Castle, where he seems to have been at home
and in sympathy, although he writes so sadly: —
"Very mortifying are the disappointments I have
to face; one day seeming to give hope of a decided
turn in favour of natural feeling, the next knocked
down again. If my present scheme comes off, I shall
not be at home again for ten days. If on my return
I find myself a victim to the old impulsive misery, I
shall go on to Eastwell Park, as the Duchess of Aber-
corn writes she will take every care of me. Since I
last wrote I have been on a visit to the Dowager
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 211
Marchioness of Waterford, Ford Castle, a splendid old
edifice, which C. L. would enjoy. Love to all."
I go on selecting at hazard from the letters before
me: —
"Again accept my gratitude for your constant kind-
ness," he writes to his faithful T. H. H. "The spell is
broken in a mild form, but the work is too much for
me. The long long walk in the dark, after the shot is
fired, over rocks, bog, black moss, and through torrents,
is more than enough for twenty-five!
"Poor C. has been very ill rewarded for his High-
land enterprise. Fifteen hundred miles of peril on the
rail; endless bad weather whilst he was here, without
killing one deer; finally obliged to hurry off. ... I have
begged him not to think of undertaking another long
journey on my account, even in the event of his being
able to leave home. ... It is like you to think of my
request touching medicines for the poor here. . . . We
have a dead calm after the wicked weather; not a
dimple in the lake. I am not bold yet. Possibly
reaction may take place in the quiet of the studio. I
shall not start on great difficulties, but on child's
play."
Here is another note, written in the following
spring: —
"March u. 1869.
"I know you like water better than oil; but in spite
of your love of paper-staining, I venture to beg your
acceptance of these oil studies, which you will receive
as old friends from the Zoo.
2 12 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
"In some respects they will recall the interest you
took in my labours for the Nelson lions, and I hope
will always remind you of my admiration for your
kindly nature, to say nothing of my endless obligations
to your unceasing desire to aid a poor old man, nearly
used up.
"Dear T. H. H., ever sincerely yours.
"E. Landseer."
Here is a note which is very characteristic: —
"Saturday Eve, 5th June.
"Dear H, — I am not quite content with myself
touching the proposed suggestion of our taking ad-
vantage of an offer made by for the two pictures.
He has not put his desire to have the pictures in
writing, has he? We must talk it over to-morrow if
you come up at four o'clock, or sooner. . . . The en-
closed letters are most friendly, as you will see. Read
them, and bring them up to-morrow. I am anything
but well; botherations unfit me for healthy work. You
must pat me on the back to-morrow; at the same time,
if anything has turned up more attractive don't bind
yourself to me.
"I should not dislike a drive or a walk to-morrow
before dinner."
He writes once again: —
"I have a great horror of the smell of a trick, or a
money motive."
" My dear Hills, — My health (or rather condition) is
a mystery quite beyond human intelligence. I sleep
SIR EDWIN* LAKDSEER. 2 I 3
well seven hours, and awake tired and jaded, and do
not rally till after luncheon. J. L. came down yester-
day and did her very best to cheer me. She left at
nine I return to my own home, in spite of a
kind invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone to meet
Princess Louise at breakfast.
"I wonder if you are free to-morrow. I shall try
and catch you for a little dinner with me, tho' I am
sure to find you better engaged.
"Dear H., ever thine,
"E. L."
Then comes the sad concluding scene — the long
illness and the anxious watch. Was ever anyone more
tenderly nursed and cared for? Those who had loved
him in his bright wealth of life now watched the long
days one by one, telling away its treasure. He was
very weak in body latterly, but sometimes he used to
go into the garden and walk round the paths, leaning
on his sister's arm. One beautiful spring morning he
looked up and said, "I shall never see the green
leaves again;" but he did see them, Mrs. Mackenzie
said. He lived through another spring. He used to
lie in his studio, where he would have liked to die.
To the very end he did not give up his work; but he
used to go on, painting a little at a time, faithful to
his task.
When he was almost at his Avorst — so someone
told me — they gave him his easel and his canvas, and
left him alone in his studio, in the hope that he might
take up his work and forget his suffering. When they
came back they found that he hail painted the picture
of a little lamb lying beside a lion. The Queen i^
214 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
the owner of one of the last pictures he ever painted.
She wrote to her old friend and expressed her ad-
miration for it, and asked to become the possessor.
Her sympathy brightened the sadness of those last
days for him. It is well known that he appealed to
her once, when haunted by some painful apprehensions,
and that her wise and judicious kindness came to the
help of his nurses. She sent him back a message:
bade him not be afraid, and to trust to those who
were doing their best for him, and in whom she her-
self had every confidence.
Sir Edwin once told Mr. Browning that he had
thought upon the subject, and come to the conclusion
that the stag was the bravest of all animals. Other
animals are born warriors, they fight in a dogged and
determined sort of way; the stag is naturally timid,
trembling, vibrating with every sound, flying from
danger, from the approach of other creatures, halting
to fight. When pursued its first impulse is to escape;
but when turned to bay and flight is impossible it
fronts its enemies nobly, closes its eyes not to see
the horrible bloodshed, and with its branching horns
steadily tosses dog after dog, one upon the other,
until overpowered at last by numbers it sinks to its
death . . .
It seems to me, as I think of it, not unlike a pic-
ture of his own sad end. Nervous, sensitive, high-
minded, working on to the last, he was brought to bay
and overpowered by that terrible mental rout and
misery.
He wished to die in his studio — his dear studio
for which he used to long when he was away, and
where he lay so many months expecting the end, but
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. 215
it was in his own room that, lie slept away. His
brother was with him. His old friend came into the
room. He knew him, and pressed his hand . . .
As time goes on the men are born, one by one,
who seem to bring to us the answers to the secrets of
life, each coming in his place, and revealing in his
turn according to his gift. Such men belong to nature's
true priesthood, and among their names not forgotten,
will be that of Edwin Landseer.
OUT OF THE SILENCE.
Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam : break its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise.
Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak
Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek;
Only by Dumbness adequately speak,
As favoured mouth could never, thro' the eyes.
R. Browning.
There is a certain crescent in a distant part of
London — a part distant, that is, from clubs and parks
and the splendours of Rotten Row — where a great
many good works and good intentions carried out,
have taken refuge. House-rent is cheap, the place is
wide and silent and airy; there are even a few trees
to be seen opposite the windows of the houses, al-
though we may have come for near an hour rattling
through the streets of a neighbourhood dark and
dreary in looks, and closely packed with people and
children, and wants and pains and troubles of every
tangible form for the colonists of Burton Crescent to
minister to.
We pass by the Deaconesses' Home: it is not with
them that we have to do to-day; and we tell the car-
riage to stop at the door of one of the houses, where
a brass-plate is set up, with an inscription setting forth
OUT OF THE SILENCE. 2 I J
what manner of inmates there are within, and we get
out, send the carriage away, and ring the bell for ad-
mission.
One of the inmates peeped out from a doorway at
us as we came into the broad old-fashioned passage.
This was the little invalid of the establishment, we
were afterwards told; she had hurt her finger, and was
allowed to sit down below with the matron, instead of
doing her lessons with the other children upstairs.
How curious and satisfactory these lessons are,
anyone who likes may see and judge by making a
similar pilgrimage to the one which F. and I under-
took that wintry afternoon. The little establishment is
a sort of short English translation of a great con-
tinental experiment of which an interesting account
was given in the "Cornhill Magazine," under the title
of "Dumb Men's Speech." Many of my friends were
interested in it , and one day I received a note on the
subject.
"Dumb men do speak in England," wrote a lady
who had been giving her help and countenance to a
similar experiment over here; and from her I learnt
that this attempt to carry out the system so patiently
taught by Brother Cyril was now being made, and
that children were being shown how to utter their
wants, not by signs, but by speech, and in English, at
the Jewish Home for Deaf and Dumb Children in
Burton Crescent.
The great difference in this German system as op-
posed to the French, is that signs are as much as pos-
sible discarded after the beginning, and thai the pupils
are taught to read upon the lips of others, and to
speak in words, what under the other system would
2 I 8 OUT OF THE SILENCE.
be expressed in writing or by signs. The well-known
Abbe de l'Epee approved, they say, of this method,
and wrote a treatise on the subject, and his successor,
the Abbe Sicard, says (I am quoting from a quota-
tion), "Le sourd-muet n'est done totalement rendu a
la societe que lorsqu'on lui a appris a s'exprimer de
vive voix et de lire la parole dans les mouvements
des levres." This following very qualified sentence of
his is also quoted in a report which has been sent me :
"Prenez garde, que je n'ai point dit que le sourd-muet
ne peut pas parler, mais ne sait pas parler. H est
possible que Mapuiz apprit a parler si j'avais le temps
de le lui apprendre."
Time, hours after hours of patience, good-will, are
given freely to this work by the good people who
direct the various establishments in the Netherlands
where the deaf and dumb are now instructed.
How numerous and carefully organised these in-
stitutions are may be gathered from a little pamphlet
written by the great Director Hirsch of Rotterdam,
who first introduced this system into the schools, and
who has lately made a little journey from school to
school, to note the progress of the undertaking he has
so much at heart. Brussels and Ghent and Antwerp
and Bruges, he visited all these and other outlying
establishments, and was received everywhere with open
arms by the good brothers who have undertaken to
teach the system he advocates. Dr. Hirsch is delighted
with everything he sees until he comes to Bruges,
where he says that he is struck by the painful con-
trast which its scholars present as compared to the
others he had visited on his way. "They looked less
gay (moins enjoue) than any of those he had seen."
OUT OF THE SILENCE. 210,
But this is explained to him by the fact that in this
school the French method is still partly taught, and he
leaves after a little exhortation to the Director, and a
warning that public opinion will be against him if he
continues the ancient system as opposed to the newer
and more intelligible one. It is slower in the begin-
ning, says the worthy Doctor; it makes greater de-
mands upon our patience, our time, our money, but
it carries the pupil on far more rapidly and satis-
factorily after the early steps are first mastered, until,
when at last the faculty of hearing with the eyes has
been once acquired, isolation exists no longer, the
sufferer is given back to the world, and everyone he
meets is a new teacher to help to bring his study to
perfection.
1873. The Jewish Home for Deaf and Dumb
Children in Burton Crescent was only started as an
experiment. The lady who wrote to me guaranteed the
rent and various expenses for a year, after which the
experiment was to stand upon its own merits. Since
the opening of the home modifications have taken place
in its arrangements, and finally it has been determined
to open a second school for the education of any little
Christians who, as well as the little Jews, might come
as day-scholars there, to be taught with much labour
and infinite patience and pains what others learn almost
unconsciously and without an effort.
F. and I have been going upstairs all this time,
and come into a back-room or board-room, opening
with folding-doors into the schoolroom, where the chil-
dren are taught. As we went in the young master.
M. von Praagh (he is a pupil, I believe, of Dr. Hirsch's)
220 OUT OF THE SILENCE.
came forward to receive us, and welcomed us in the
most friendly way. The children all looked up at us
with bright flashing eyes — little boys and little girls in
brown pinafores, with cheery little smiling faces peep-
ing and laughing at us along their benches. In the
room itself there is the usual apparatus — the bit of
chalk, the great slate for the master to write upon, the
little ones for the pupils, the wooden forms, the pina-
fores, the pictures hanging from the walls, and, what
was touching to me, the usual little games and frolics
and understandings going on in distant corners, and
even under the master's good-natured eye. He is there
to bring out, and not to repress, and the children's
very confidence in his kindness and sympathy seems
to be one of the conditions of their education and
cure.
He clapped his hands, and a little class came and
stood round the big slate — a big girl, a little one, two
little boys. "Attention," says the teacher, and he be-
gins naming different objects, such as fish, bread,
chamois, coal-scuttle. All these words the children
read off his lips by watching the movement of his
mouth. As he says each word the children brighten,
seize the idea, rush to the pictures that are hanging
on the wall, discover the object he has named, and
bring it in breathless triumph. "Tomb," said the
master, after naming a variety of things, and a big
girl, with a beaming face, pointed to the ground and
nodded her head emphatically, grinning from ear to
ear. But signs are not approved of in this establish-
ment, and, as I have said, the great object is to get
them to talk. And it must be remembered that they
are only beginners, and that the home has only been
OUT OF THE SILENCE. 221
opened a few months. One little thing, scarcely niore
than a baby, who had only lately come in, had spoken
for the first time that very day — "a, a, a," cried the
little creature. She was so much delighted with her
newly-gotten power that nothing would induce her to
leave off exercising it. She literally shouted out her
plaintive little "a". It was like the note of a little
lamb, for, of course, being deaf, she had not yet learnt
how to modulate her voice, and she had to be carried
off into a distant corner by a bigger girl, who tried to
amuse her and keep her still.
"It is an immense thing for the children," said M.
von Praagh, "to feel that they are not cut off hope-
lessly and markedly from communication with their
fellow-creatures; the organs of speech being developed,
their lungs are strengthened, their health improves.
You can see a change in the very expression of their
faces, they delight in using their newly-acquired power,
and won't use the finger-alphabet even among them-
selves." And, as if to corroborate what he was saying,
there came a cheery vociferous outbreak of "a's" from
the corner where the little girl had been installed with
some toys, and all the other children laughed.
I do not know whether little Jew boys and girls
are on an average cleverer than little Christians, or
whether, notwithstanding their infirmity, the care and
culture bestowed upon them has borne this extra fruit;
but these little creatures were certainly blighter and
more lively than any dozen Sunday-school children
taken at hazard. Their eyes danced, their faces worked
with interest and attention, they seemed to catch light
from their master's face, from one another's, from ours
as we .spoke; their eagerness, their cheerfulness and
2 22 OUT OF THE SILENCE.
childish glee, were really remarkable; they laughed to
one another much like any other children, peeped over
their slates, answered together when they were called
up. It was difficult to remember that they were deaf,
though, when they spoke, a great slowness, indistinct-
ness, and peculiarity was of course very noticeable.
But these are only the pupils of a month or two, be it
remembered. A child with all its faculties is nearly
two years learning to talk.
One little fellow with a charming expressive face
and eyes like two brown stars, came forward, and
ciphered and read to us, and showed us his copy-book.
He is beginning Hebrew as well as English. His voice
is pleasant, melancholy, but quite melodious, and, to
my surprise, he addressed me by my name, a long
name with many letters in it. M. von Praagh had said
it to him on his lips, for of course it is not necessary
for the master to use his voice, and the motion of the
lips is enough to make them understand. The name
of my companion, although a short one, is written with
four difficult consonants, and only one vowel to bind
them together, and it gave the children more trouble
than mine had done; but after one or two efforts the
little boy hit upon the right way of saying it, and a
gleam of satisfaction came into his face as well as his
master's. M. von Praagh takes the greatest possible
pains with, and interest in every effort and syllable.
He holds the children's hands and accentuates the
words by raising or letting them fall; he feels their
throats and makes them feel his own. It would be
hard indeed if so much patience and enthusiasm pro-
duced no results to reward it.
"What o'clock is it?" M. von Praagh asked.
OUT OF THE SILENCE. 22$
"Four o'clock," said the little boy, without look-
ing up.
"How do you know?" asked the master.
"Miss is come," said the little fellow, laugh-
ing. This was a lady who came to give the girls their
sewing lesson so many times a week.
I need not describe the little rooms upstairs, with
the usual beds in rows, and the baths, the play-room —
the arrangements everywhere for the children's comfort
and happiness. If the school is still deaf and dumb
for most practical purposes, yet the light is shining in;
the children are happy, and understand what is wanted
of them , and are evidently in the right way. For the
short time he has been at work as yet, M. von Praagh
has worked wonders.
Babies, as I have just said, with all their faculties
are about two years learning to speak. There is a
curious crisis, which anyone who has had anything to
do with children must have noticed, a sort of fever of
impatience and vexation which attacks them when they
first begin to find out that people do not understand
what they say. I have seen a little girl burst into
passionate tears of vexation and impatience because
she could not make herself immediately understood.
I suppose the pretty croonings and chatterings which
go before speech are a sort of natural exercise by
which babies accustom themselves to words, and which
they mistake at first for real talking. Real words come
here and there in the midst of the baby-language —
detaching themselves by degrees out of the wonderful
labyrinth of sound — real words out of the language
which they are accustomed to hear all about them,
224 0UT 0F ™ E SILENCE.
and something in this way, to these poor little deaf
folks, the truth must dawn out of the confusion of
sights and signs surrounding them.
This marvellous instinctive study goes on in secret
in the children's minds. After their first few attempts
at talking they seem to mistrust their own efforts. They
find out that their pretty prattle is no good; they listen,
they turn over words in their minds, and whisper them
to themselves as they are lying in their little cribs, and
then one day the crisis comes, and a miracle is worked,
and the child can speak.
When children feel that their first attempts are
understood they suddenly regain their good temper
and wait for a further inspiration. They have generally
mastered the great necessaries of life in this very be-
ginning of their efforts: "pooty," "toos," "ben butta,"
"papa," "mama," "nana" for "nurse," and "dolly," and
they are content. Often a long time passes without
any further apparent advance, and then comes perhaps
a second attack of indignation. I know of one little
babe who had hardly spoken before, and who had
been very cross and angry for some days past, and
who horrified its relations by suddenly standing up in
its crib one day, rosy and round-eyed, and saying
Bess my soul exactly like an old charwoman who had
come into the nursery.
A friend of mine to whom I was speaking quite
bore out my remarks. He said his own children had
all passed through this phase, which comes after the
child has learned to think and before he is able to
speak. One's heart aches as one thinks of those whose
life is doomed to be a life of utter silence in the full
PUT OF THE SILENCE. 225
stream of the mighty flow of words in which our lives
are set, to whom no crisis of relief may come, who
have for generations come and gone silent and alone,
and set apart by a mysterious dispensation from its
very own best blessings and tenderest gifts.
I was thinking of this yesterday as we went walk-
ing across the downs in the Easter-tide. I could hardly
tell whether it was sight or sound that delighted us
most as we went along upon the turf: the sound of
life in the bay at the foot of the downs, the flowing of
the waves just washing over the low-ridged rocks with
which our coast is set: the gentle triumphant music
overhead of the larks soaring and singing in the sun-
shine. The sea and the shingle were all sparkling,
while great bands like moonlight in daylight lay white
and brilliant on the horizon of the waters. The very-
stones seemed to cry out with a lovely Easter hymn
of praise; and sound and sight to be so mingled that
one could scarcely tell where one began or the other
ended.
If by this new system the patient teachers cannot
give everything to their pupils, the ripple of the sea,
the song of the lark, yet they can do very much to-
wards it, by leading the children's minds to receive
the great gifts of nature through the hearts and sym-
pathy of others, and give them above all that best and
dearest gift of all in daily life, without which nature
itself fails to comfort and to charm, the companionship
of their fellow-creatures and of intelligences answering
and responding to their own.
Front an Island.
2 26 OUT OF THE SILENCE.
P.S. 1873. M. von Praagh is now the director of an
institution in Fitzroy Square, for teaching teachers, as
well as the children themselves, the art of lip-reading.
This institution is not for Jews, but for anyone who
likes to come. The system is absolutely the same as
that already described in the article. The children
seemed very eager, good, and attentive; they could
speak to one another, and evidently greatly preferred
this plan to the finger-sign system to which we are all
accustomed. M. von Praagh told us that his pupils
came from various parts of the country — from Ireland,
from Birmingham, from Scotland. He is very much
against their boarding together in one establishment,
thinking it far better for them to live as other people
do, and to mix with others habitually. The children
are therefore only day scholars; they board out in the
neighbourhood. The room is large; there is plenty of
light, and sound too; they are taught all the usual
branches of education , in addition to the habit of ut-
terance. Those children I saw five years ago, he told
me, are some of them already out in the world, and
earning their living. One is a watchmaker, another a
line-engraver. They have a certificated drawing mis-
tress in the school to teach them, who showed us a
really admirable drawing by one of them, and pointed
with pride to a tall boy in the window, a pupil a head
and shoulders taller than herself, who had gained a
prize at the South Kensington Museum.
Our conversation, it must be confessed, was some-
what laborious, but some allowance must be made for
the natural shyness of a visitor confronted with so
many pairs of bright and eager eyes.
"Come a-gain," said the children, in voices and
OUT OF THE SILENCE. 227
accents as different as though they could hear. It was
indeed very difficult to realise that they did not hear;
they gave one more the impression of little foreigners
imperfectly acquainted with English than of victims of
so sad a fate; and I think the best testimony we can
bear to the success of M. von Praagh's system is that
it did not occur to us to pity anyone of them, except,
perhaps, a boy and girl who did not come forward nor
attempt to speak.
Teachers begin upon 50/. a year, and, if the system
were once established, might make a comfortable liveli-
hood. The director told us, however, that he had great
difficulty in finding such pupils.
In a very interesting lecture given at the Society of
Arts, Dr. Dasent speaks of the great superiority of the
system practised by M. von Praagh over the French
course, in which children were "taught by signs, and
consequently unfitted to enter upon the duties of life
and to communicate freely with their fellows. If all
the world were an institution for educating the deaf
and dumb, one might be satisfied with such a result;
but as it is not , we must necessarily pronounce any
system which contents itself with educating its pupils
for life in the institution, and in the institution alone,
sel f-condemned."
Elsewhere Dr. Dasent says:
"So perfectly has this process of education been
carried out in individual cases, that persons thus edu-
rated are able to carry away with them a sermon or a
speech by only observing the motion of the lips and
the play of the countenance of the speaker or preacher,
and in one case that 1 have heard of, the preai her,
15*
2 28 OUT OF THE SILENCE.
ignorant of the infirmity under which a regular attend-
ant at his church was suffering, sent to beg that so
and so would not stare at him so hard as it put him
out in his sermon."
TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
Je garde In fidclile a tout Ie monde, j'essaye d'etre toujours [veritable,
sincere , et fidele a tons les hommes , et j'ai line tendresse de cceur pour ceuv
a qui Dieu m'a tini plus litroitement, et soit que je sois seul on a la vue de tons
]es hommes, j'ai en toutes mes actions la vue de Dieu, qui les doit juger et h.
qui je les ai toutes consacrees. — Pascal.
If one is to believe some people, there are a cer-
tain number of unmarried ladies whose wail has of late
been constantly dinning in the ears of the public, and
who, with every comfort and necessary of life provided,
arc supposed to be pining away in lonely gloom and
helplessness. There are a score of books written for
their benefit with which they doubtless wile away their
monotonous hours. Old Maids, spinsters, the solitary,
heart-broken women of England, have quite a literature
of their own, which demands a degree of public sym-
pathy for this particular class which would be insulting
almost in individual cases, except, indeed, that there
are not individual cases, and very few, who, while de-
siring such commiseration for others, would not quite
decline to present themselves as its deserving objects.
To come forward, for instance, and say, "Oh, alas,
alas! what a sad, dull, solitary, useless, unhappy, un-
occupied life is mine! I can only see a tombstone at
the end of my path, and willows and cypresses on
either side, and flowers, all dead and faded, crumbling
2$Q TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
beneath my feet; and my only companions are memo-
ries, and hair ornaments, and ghosts, prosy, stupid old
ghosts, who go on saying the same things over and
over and over again, and twaddling about all the years
that are gone away for ever." This is no exaggeration.
This is what the "thoughtful" spinster is supposed to
say in her reflective moments. There are Sunsets of
spinster life, Moans of old maids, Words to the wasted,
Lives for the lonely, without number, all sympathising
with these griefs, such as they are, urging the despon-
dent to hide their sufferings away in their own hearts,
to show no sign, to gulp their bitter draught, to cheer,
tend, console others in their need, although unspeak-
ably gloomy themselves. One book, I remember, after
describing a life passed in abstract study, in nursing
sick people, in visiting unhappy ones, in relieving the
needy, exclaims (or something very like it): — "But, ah!
what at best is such a life as this, whose chief plea-
sures and consolations are to be found in the cares
and the sorrows of others? Married life, indeed, has
its troubles;" these single but impartial critics gene-
rally go on to state; "but then there is companionship,
sympathy, protection" — one knows the sentence by
heart. "Not so is it with those whose lonely course
we should be glad to think that we had cheered by
the few foregoing remarks, whose sad destiny has been
pointed out by a not unfeeling hand. Who knows but
that there may be compensation in a lot of which the
blank monotony is at least untroubled by the anxieties,
and fears, and hopes of the married?"
These are not the exact words, but it is very much
the substance, of many of the volumes, as anybody who
chooses may see. Where there really seems to be so
TOILERS AM) SPINSTERS. 23 I
much kindness and gentle-heartedness, one is the more
impatient of a certain melancholy, desponding spirit,
which seems to prevail.
But what have the ladies, thus acknowledging their
need, been about all these years? Who has forced them
to live alone? Is there nobody to come forward and
give them a lift? What possible reason can there be
to prevent unmarried, any more than married, people
from being happy (or unhappy), according to their cir-
cumstances — from enjoying other pleasures more lively
than the griefs and sufferings of their neighbours? Are
unmarried people shut out from all theatres, concerts,
picture-galleries, parks, and gardens? May not they
walk out on every day of the week? Are they locked
up all the summer time, and only let out when an east
wind is blowing? Are they forced to live in one par-
ticular quarter of the town? Does Mudie refuse their
subscriptions? Are they prevented from taking in "The
Times," from going out to dinner, from match-making,
visiting, gossiping, drinking tea, talking, and playing
the piano? If a lady has had three husbands, could
she do more? May not spinsters, as well as bachelors,
give their opinions on every subject, no matter how
ignorant they may be; travel about anywhere, in any
costume, however convenient; climb up craters, publish
their experiences, tame horses, wear pork-pie hats,
write articles in the "Saturday Review"? They have
gone out to battle in top-boots, danced on the tight-
rope, taken up the Italian cause, and harangued the
multitudes. They have gone to prison for distributing
tracts; they have ascended Mont Blanc, and come
down again. They have been doctors, lawyers, clergy-
women, squires — as men have been milliners, dress-
2 $2 TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
makers, ballet-dancers, ladies' hair-dressers. They have
worn waistcoats, shirt-collars, white neckcloths, wide-
awakes. They have tried a hundred wild schemes,
pranks, fancies; they have made themselves ridiculous,
respected, particular, foolish, agreeable; and small
blame to them if they have played their part honestly,
cheerfully, and sincerely. I know of no especial ordi-
nance of nature to prevent men, or women either, from
being ridiculous at times; and we should hate people
a great deal more than we do, if we might not laugh
at them now and then. To go back to our spinsters,
they have crossed the seas in shoals, been brave as
men when their courage came to be tried; they have
farmed land, kept accounts, opened shops, inherited
fortunes, played a part in the world, been presented at
Court. What is it that is to render life to them only
one long regret? Cannot a single woman know tender-
est love, faithful affection, sincerest friendship? And if
Miss A. considers herself less fortunate than Mrs. B.,
who has an adoring husband always at home, and
10,000/. a year, she certainly does not envy poor Mrs.
C, who has to fly to Sir Cresswell Cresswell to get rid
of a "life companion" who beats her with his umbrella,
spends her money, and knocks her down instead of
"lifting her up."
With all this it is dismally true that single women
many, and many of them, have a real trouble to com-
plain of; and one which is common also to married
people, that is, want of adequate means; and when the
barest necessaries are provided, life can only be to
many a long privation; from books, from amusement,
from friendly intercourse, from the pleasure of giving,
and from that social equality which is almost impos-
TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 2$$
sible without a certain amount of money; but then
surely it is the want of money, and not of husbands,
which brings such things to this pass. Husbands, the
statistics tell us, it is impossible to provide; money,
however, is more easily obtained.
For mere sentimental griefs for persons whose com-
forts are assured, and whose chief trouble is that they
do not like the life they lead, that they have aspirations
and want sympathy, I think fewer books of consolation
might suffice. The great "Times" newspaper alone, as
it turns its flapping page, contains many an answer to
our questions; and it might supply more than one
need for each separate want, and change how many
vague things, dull dreams, hopeless prayers, into facts
and human feelings, into boys and girls, into work,
into pains and sympathy, into old shoes, and patches,
and rags, and darns, into ignorance and dawning know-
ledge and gratitude. The whole clamour is so much
mixed up together that it is very difficult to separate
even facts and feelings from one another. It is not
the sorrow of others which makes the happiness of
those who are able to find out some means for lessen-
ing that sorrow, but the relief of their relief which can
only be truly earned and felt by those who have
worked for it. And the best work and the most grateful
surely. No one can witness the first-fruits of such
good labour without coming away, for a little time at
least, more Christian and gentle-hearted.
But it can only be by long patience and trouble
that such things can be achieved. For to sympathise,
I suppose people must know sorrow in equal measure;
to help they must take pains; to give they must deny
234 TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
themselves; to know how to help others best they must
learn themselves.
And the knowledge of good and of evil, as it is
taught to us by our lives, is a hard lesson indeed;
learnt through failure, through trouble, through shame
and humiliation, forgotten, perhaps neglected, broken
off, taken up again and again.
With pauses oft a many and silence strange,
And silent oft it seems when silent it is not;
Revivals, too, of unexpected change ....
This lesson taught with such great pains has been
sent to all mankind — not excepting old maids, as some
people would almost have it: such persons as would
make life one long sentimental penance, during which
single women should be constantly occupied, dissecting,
inspecting, regretting, examining themselves, living
among useless little pricks and self-inflicted smarts,
and wasting wilfully, and turning away from the busy
business of life, and still more from that gracious gift
of existence, and that bounty of happiness and content,
and gratitude, which all the clouds of heaven rain
down upon us.
When one sees what some good women can do
with great hearts and small means, how bravely they
can work for others and for themselves, how many
good chances there are for those who have patience to
seek and courage to hold, how much there is to be
done — and I do not mean in works of charity only,
but in industry, and application, and determination —
how every woman in raising herself may carry along a
score of others with her — when one sees all this, one
is ashamed and angry to think of the melancholy,
moping spirit within us which, out of sheer dulness
TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 235
and indolence, would tempt some of us to waste so
many hours of daylight in gloomy sentiment and
inertness.
Homes, husbands, sons, and daughters, such sacred
ties are sweet, but they are not the only ones nor the
only sacred things in life, and some examples seem
indeed to show us that love may be strong enough and
wide enough to take the world itself for a home, and
the deserted for children, and the sick and the sorrow-
ful for a family. Married or unmarried, such lives are
not alone.
There is certainly a different feeling about educa-
tion now from that which formerly existed. The
London Association of Schoolmistresses, established for
the purpose of meeting and talking over matters con-
cerned with education, indicates a new spirit and
interest in the work. The Cambridge scheme for local
examination has been of real and practical benefit,
and there is also the system for education by cor-
respondence. One friend, whom I will not name, has
given leisure, energy, and resource to the work, and
has sown his seed broadcast in the endeavour to raise
the aim and widen the span of the ordinary school-
girl mind. It is not so much at the onset of life, in
the earl)' spring-time, that the result of such teaching
will tell; but a little later, when the time for the
harvest comes round, and the fields are ripening, then
the sheaves may be reaped and sorted, and the work
of the labourer and the effort of the soil repaid.
In education, that mighty field, as you sow the
seed, that strange incongruous seed of human intel-
ligence cast forth hour by hour in books and words, in
the secret meditations and works of the dead as well
236 TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
as the deeds of the living', so it grows again, new,
revivified, gathering life from every breath of air and
ray of light. But, nevertheless, it happens not un-
frequently that while some good soil is utilised and
worked and turned to good and useful ends, other soil
not less good and fruitful is neglected or ill-treated
and scantily supplied, diluted with platitude, planted
with parsley and cucumbers and with asparagus, when
under more favourable circumstances it might have
grown wheat or wholesome crops in bountiful measure.
What Arnold did for schoolboys and schoolmasters,
inventing freedom for them and a rescue from the
tyranny of commonplace and opposition, and bringing
in the life of truth and commonsense to overwhelm
schoolroom fetishes and opposition, some people have
been trying to do for home-girls, schoolgirls, and their
teachers, for whom surely some such revolution has
long been needed. Of late years a very distinct im-
pression has grown up (by the efforts of the people I
am alluding to) that even schoolgirls and governesses
are human beings, with certain powers of mind which
are worthy of consideration, and for whom the best
cultivation, as well as the worst, might be provided
with advantage.
The College for Ladies has proposed to itself some
such aim of good teaching and intelligent apprehension.
There is also a home at Cambridge for the use of
ladies who wish to attend the professors' lectures.
When the home began, with Miss Clough as its prin-
cipal, it only consisted of eight or nine pupils; there
are now more than twenty, and the numbers are
steadily increasing. The little home has moved from
Regent Street, where it was first opened, to an old
TOILER> AND SPINSTERS. 237
house in a green garden not far from the river, where
the very elms and gables seem to combine in a tranquil
concentration. The girls meet together, they are taught
by people who do it from interest in the teaching it-
self; they come into contact with cultivated minds,
perhaps for the first time in their lives.
"We teach the girls first for the examination which
the university has instituted specially for women,"
writes a friend; "then if they like to stay on, we teach
them further, just what we teach the young men.
About half of them are preparing to be teachers; the
rest come for pure love of learning. We do not want
to have only the professional ones, though we are spe-
cially anxious to aid these. . . .
"I am glad that you hear people speak favourably
of the results of our examination. What we want to
do is just what you describe — to aid in the great
stimulus that is everywhere being given to girls' edu-
cation. This is good for all, while for the few to
whom the acquisition of knowledge can be the pleasure
or even the business of life, we want to provide guid-
ance and encouragement, and a little material evidence
if possible. . . ."
"I have taught some of the girls. It was an in-
structive change from teaching men. Most of them
insist on understanding what they learn, and won't
take words for thoughts. Even the stupider ones that
I have met with in my teaching do not write the ab-
solute rubbish which stupid men write. I mention this
because most people would expect the opposite."
What is it, then, that we would wish for, for our-
selves and for the younger selves who are growing up
around us? Eyes to see, ears to hear, sincerity and
238 TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
the power of being taught and of receiving the truth;
and thus, as I hear A. F. saying, by being taken out
of ourselves, and farthest removed from this narrow
domain into the world all about us, do we most learn
to be ourselves and to fulfil the intention of our being.
All nature comes to our help, all arts, all sciences.
What is there that does not contribute to the divine
reiteration? The problem of education is merged into
that of life itself, when people begin to sort themselves
out and to fall into their places, and then for the
women who do not marry comes a further question to
solve; and some write books, and some write articles,
and some put on long black cloaks, and some wear
smart chignons, and the business of living goes on.
For the motherly woman, those who have homely hearts,
there are real joys and fulfilments undreamt of perhaps
in earlier life, when no compromise with perfect happi-
ness seemed to be possible.
The rest of the human race is not so totally devoid
of all affection and natural feeling that it does not
respond to the love and fidelity of an unmarried friend
or relation. There are children to spare and to tuck
up in their little beds, young people to bring their
sunshine and interest into autumn; there are friend-
ships lifelong and unchanging, which are among a
single woman's special privileges; as years go by she
finds more and more how truly she may count upon
them. Nor are her men friends less constant and reli-
able than the women with whom she has passed her
life. Some amount of sentiment clings to these old
men and women friendships: and some sentiment, per-
haps, belongs to every true feeling; it is the tint that
gives life to the landscape.
TOILERS AND SPINSTERS. 239
As for work, whichever way we turn are the things
that we have left undone. "Come, pluck us! come,
pluck us!" cry the fruits as they hang from the branches.
There are a thousand plans, schemes, enterprises, fitted
to their different minds. Some go into sisterhoods and
ptlt their lives into the hands of others, who may or
may not be wiser than themselves; others wander into
the wide realms of art and worship at aesthetic altars;
others are nurses, administrators. We need not despair
of seeing women officially appointed as guardians of
the poor. Regarding the much debated question of
religious and secular organisation, I cannot refrain from
quoting a passage from a book, * that speaks straightly
and wisely in solution of a problem that has occurred
to many hundreds of women before this: —
"Secular associations do not undertake to discipline
the souls of their members, nor to afford them any
special opportunity of expressing their devotion to God
.is the common Father, but they can no more hinder
the expression of such feelings than they can hinder
the growth of the soul. On the contrary, they give all
the scope that naturally belongs to charitable action,
for the expression of such feelings in deed as well as
in word. They neither seek for nor value pain and
humiliation as a means of proving devotion; on the
contrary, they avoid all that might injure health, or
distract attention, or encourage spiritual vanity as in-
terruptions to the one main object — the good of the
poor. Those who wish to see charitable organisations
organised upon a purely secular basis wish it not only
because they believe singleness of aim to be the first
condition of perfect success; not only because the poor
* T/u Service of the Poor, by C. E. Stephen.
24O TOILERS AND SPINSTERS.
will probably be most effectually served by those who
do it from pure love of them, without thought of their
own spiritual interests; not only because secular asso-
ciation breaks none of the domestic interests and social
ties which they believe to be divinely appointed, and
full both of blessing and power for all good ends; but
also because they think that to provide an organisation
for the systematic cultivation and exhibition of love
and devotion r is to depart from Christian simplicity,
and must tend in the long run to injure true humility,
sincerity, and even the love and devotion themselves
which are thus artificially stimulated."
"L'homme n'est ni ange ni bete," says Pascal;
"et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la
bete."
But the angels and the beasts, far apart though
they may be, come together both toiling in the field of
life, each doing their part in the work: the beasts cul-
tivate the ground, the angels reap and store the good
grain. The bread of life itself cannot come to fruition
without labour, and the sacrament of brotherly love,
union, and faithful promise must be kneaded with
toil.
FIVE O'CLOCK TEA.
For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned!
On shining Altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze :
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China's earth receives the smoking tide.
At once they gratify their scent, and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
Rape of the Lock.
Five o'clock tea is rarely good. It is either strongly
flavoured with that peculiar bitter taste which shows
that the tea has been kept waiting and neglected too
long, or else it is cold, weak, and vapid. These re-
marks apply strictly to the tea itself; for, as a general
rule, it is the pleasantest hostess who provides the
worst tea, and it would almost seem, notwithstanding
a few noticeable exceptions, that a lively conversation
and a pleasant wit are incompatible with boiling water,
and a sufficient supply of cream, and sugar, and
souchong. But, fortunately, the popularity of five
o'clock tea does not depend upon its intrinsic merits.
Five o'clock friendship, five o'clock gossip, five o'clock
confidence and pleasant confabulation, arc what people
look for in these harmless cups; a little sugar dexter-
ously dropped in, a little human kindness, and just
enough pungency to give a flavour to the whole con-
From an Island. I(J
242 FIVE O'CLOCK TEA.
coction, is what we all like sometimes to stir up to-
gether for an hour or so, and to enjoy, with the addi-
tion of a little buttered muffin, from five to six o'clock,
when the day's work is over, and a pleasant, useless,
comfortable hour comes round.
Everybody must have observed that there are cer-
tain propitious hours in the day when life appears
under its best and most hopeful aspects. Five o'clock
is to a great many their golden time, when the cares
which haunt the early rising have been faced and sur-
mounted; when the mid-day sun is no longer blazing
down and exhibiting all the cracks and worn places
which we would fain not see; Avhen the labours of the
day are over for many, and their vigils have not yet
begun; and when a sense of soon-coming rest and re-
freshment has its unconscious effect upon our spirits.
Whether for work or for play, five o'clock is one of
the hours that could be the least spared out of the
twenty-four we have to choose from. Two o'clock
might be sacrificed; and I doubt whether from ten
o'clock to eleven is not a difficult pass to surmount
for many: neither work nor play comes congenially just
after breakfast, but both are welcome at this special
five o'clock tea-time. A painter told me once that
just a little before sunset, at the close of a long day's
toil, there comes a certain light which is more beauti-
ful and more clear and still than any other, and in
which he can do better work than at any other time
during the day. It is so, I believe, with some people
who make writing their profession, and who often find
that after wrestling and struggling with intractable
ideas and sentences all through a long and wearisome
task, at the close, just as they are giving up in despair,
1 IVK CLOCK TEA.
a sudden inspiration comes to them, thoughts and
suggestions rush upon them, words fall into their
places, and the pen flies along the paper, Miss Mar
tineau says in one of her essays that after writing for
seven hours, the eighth hour is often worth all the
others put together.
There is no comparison, to my mind, between
the merits of luncheons and breakfasts and five o'clock
tea, in a social point of view. People sometimes ex-
perimentalise upon the practicabilities of the minor
meals, but pleasant as luncheons or breakfasts may be
at the time, a sense of remorse and desolation when
the entertainment is over generally prevents anything
like an agreeable reminiscence. One has wasted one's
morning; one has begun at the wrong end of the day;
what is to be the next step on one's downward career?
Is one to go backwards all through one's usual avoca-
tions, and wind up at last by ordering dinner just be-
fore going to bed? The writer can call to mind several
such meetings, where persons were present whom it was
an honour and a delight to associate with, and where
the talk was better worth listening to than commonly
happens when several remarkable people are brought
together; and yet, when all was over, and one came
away into the mid-day sunshine, an uncomfortable
feeling of remorse and general dissatisfaction, of not
knowing exactly what to do next or how to get through
the rest of the day, seemed almost to overpower any
pleasant remembrances. It was like the afternoon of
a wedding-breakfast , without even a wedding. No
such subtle Nemesis attends the little gathering round
the three-legged five o'clock tea-tables. You know
exactly the precise right thing to do when the tea-
i6»
244 FIVE o'clock tea.
party is over. You go home a little late, you hurriedly
dress for dinner with the anticipation of an agreeable
evening, to which your own spirits, which have been
cheered and enlivened already, may possibly contri-
bute; and the knowledge that each other member
of the party is also hurrying away with a definite ob-
ject, instead of straggling out into the world all uncer-
tain and undecided, must unconsciously add to your
comfort.
Two o'clock is much more the hour of friendship
than of sentiment. Sentimental scenes take place (it
would seem) more frequently in the morning and even-
ing, or out of doors in the afternoon. One can quite
imagine that after breakfasts or luncheons the stranded
guests might fly to sentiment to fill up the ensuing
blank vacancy. But although one has never heard of
an offer being made at five o'clock tea, the story of
the engagement — more or less interesting — and all the
delightful particulars of the trousseau, and settlements,
and wedding presents, are more fully discussed then
than at any other time. What is not discussed at five
o'clock tea, besides the usual gossip and chatter of the
day? How much of sympathy, confidence, wise and
kindly warning and encouragement it has brought to
us, as well as the pleasure of companionship in one of
its simplest forms! It is now the fashion in some
houses to play at whist at five o'clock, but this seems
a horrible innovation and interruption to confidence
and friendship. If the secret which Belinda has to
impart is that she happens to hold four trumps in her
hand, if the advice required is whether she shall play
diamonds or hearts; if Florio is only counting his
points, and speculating on his partner's lead, then,
FIVE O'CLOCK TEA. 2 | 5
indeed, all this is a much ado about nothing. Let
us pull down the little three-legged altars, upset the
cream jugs and sugar-basins, and extinguish the sacred
flames of spirits of wine with all the water in the tea-
kettle.
I do not know whether to give the preference to
summer or winter for these entertainments. At this
time of the year one comes out of the chill tempests
without to bright hearths, warmth, comfort, and kindly
welcome. The silver kettle -boils and bubbles, the tea-
table is ready spread, your frozen soul melts within
you, you sink into a warm fireside comer, and perhaps
one of the friends that you love best begins with a
familiar voice to tell you of things which mutually con-
cern and interest you both, until the door opens and
one or two more come in, and the talk becomes more
general. In summer time Lady de Coverley has her
tea-table placed under the shade of the elm trees on
the lawn. There is a great fragrance of flowering aza-
leas and rhododendrons all about; there are the low
seats and the muslin dresses in a semicircle under the
bright green branches; shadows come flickering, and
gusts of summer sweetness; insects buzzing ami sailing
away, silver and china wrought in bright array, and
perhaps a few vine-leaves and strawberries to give
colour to the faint tints of the equipage. You may
almost see the summer day spreading over the fields
and slopes, where the buttercups blaze like a cloth of
gold, and the beautiful cattle are browsing.
Five o'clock is also the nursery tea-time, when a
little round-eyed company, perched up in tall chairs,
struggles with mugs, and pinafores, and large slices of
bread and butter. I must confess that the nursery ar-
246 FIVE O'CLOCK TEA.
rangements have always seemed to me capable of im-
provement, and I have never been able to understand
why good boys and girls should be rewarded with such
ugly mugs, or why the bread and butter should always
pervade the whole atmosphere as it does nowhere else.
It is curious to note what very small things have an
unconscious influence upon our comfort at times, and
I could quite understand what a friend meant the other
day when she told me that whenever anybody came to
see her with whom she wished to have a comfortable
talk, she was accustomed to move to a certain corner
in her drawing-room, where there was a snug place for
herself and an easy chair which her guest was certain
to take. Those who have been so fortunate as to oc-
cupy that easy chair can certify to the complete suc-
cess of the little precaution.
Of the sadder aspect of my subject, of the tea-parties
over and dispersed for ever, of old familiar houses now
closed upon us, of friends parted and estranged, who
no longer clink their cups together, I do not care to
Avrite.
The readers of "Pendennis" may remember Mrs.
Shandon and little Maiy at their five o'clock tea, and
the extract with which I conclude: —
"So Mrs. Shandon went to the cupboard, and in
lieu of a dinner made herself some tea. And in those
varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part
of confidante has that poor tea-pot played ever since
the kindly plant was introduced among us! What my-
riads of women have cried over it, to be sure! what
sick-beds it has smoked by! what fevered lips have
received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant
five o'clock tea. 247
very gently by women when she made that tea-plant;
and with a little thought, what a series of pictures and
groups the fancy may conjure up, and assemble round
the tea-pot and cup."
CLOSED DOORS.
E'en tho' temptation press thee hard and sore,
And strength is failing, and that prayer for grace
Was thy last effort, and thou canst no more.
Now, on some week-day, if thy heart he hot
Within thee to thank Him for mercy given,
Towards His sanctuary go thou not!
Its doors are shut, and back thou wilt be driven!
And if wide from thy gracious Lord thou'st erred,
Yet late repentant to thine heart are cut,
Repent elsewhere: for here no vows are heard :
God's ears are open, but his church is shut!
Closed Doors— Hon. Mrs. Knox.
To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Sir,- — I am writing to you very early on a Sunday
morning, and as I write the bell is ringing of a little
whitewashed chapel standing by a wooden bridge and
a rushing torrent, and down from the high green Alps,
stream-crossed and pine-scented, the peasants are com-
ing at its call. All round about this plateau are white,
dazzling snow mountains and green slopes, where, on
week days, the peasants are at work early and late reap-
ing the grasses, and the grey oxen come down the
precipitous sides of the mountains, dragging the sledges
upon which the sweet dry hay is piled, or it may be
the household goods of some little family flitting from
CLOSED DOORS. 249
its high Alpine home to its chalet in the village down
below. The husband goes first, with his arm round the
broad-horned head; the mother follows with steady-
step, through the pine trees, carrying a little Italian
peasant baby in her arms. In the valley where we are
staying there are perhaps three or four little wooden
houses by the stream, but a good many seem to have
flown up right out of the valley and perched upon the
mountains, all about our low stone house with the
stone-piled roof, which has been erected for those who
come to drink the waters that flow from the iron spring
in the valley.
Among the company are some Milanese ladies, con-
vent-bred, who go often to the little whitewashed chapel,
and whose many questions as to the ways of our Church,
its beliefs, its consolations, I sometimes find it difficult
to answer. To them their Church means religion it-
self, to us it is (or should be) but an expression of
something higher. They ask me if it is to our Church
we go for consolation in trouble, for daily sustainment
and advice. "Ah, no," cries the youngest of the party,
"your Church is not a friend to you as ours is to us."
Practically, perhaps, she is in the right , if a Protestant
may concede so much.
These are days of change, of eager debate of words
th.it do not spare; on every side people are looking
out for the fall of superstructures erected by our pre-
decessors, at whose traditions this impatient age not
unnaturally rebels, just as men of forty sometimes
rebel at the professions made for them by men of
t \\rnt\- three. We see beacons destroyed or tottering
(in truth they are beacons no longer, for the harbour
is closed and the tide i^ sweeping elsewhere), pre-
250 CLOSED DOORS.
visions are evaded, professions turned into protests.
To some consciences, perhaps, Faith in spiritual mat-
ters may mean love; to others it may mean hope; but
not to many, is it Faith any longer; and such as these,
who would not willingly desert the ancient edifice,
hear gladly on every side what is being done to open
wide the ways, to enlarge the spirit of a grand old
community, which may be narrow-minded and incon-
sequent at times, but which recognises honour as a
part of its creed, and to which votaries cling from
traditions that have almost become a part of their very
natures. One point after another is stretched, one
tenet after another is tacitly abandoned, things are
cried in the market-place now which in my youth were
scarcely whispered. I have been told of a sect now
existing at Geneva so wide and comprehensive in its
views that many who thought themselves excluded
from all communities now find that they can con-
scientiously belong to this.
Some of the best and wisest spirits of our time are
anxiously trying to do all they can to counteract the
cry that the Church as a Church is no living institu-
tion, excluding as it does many of the most honest
and scrupulous of its members from holy orders, and
appealing to the uneducated in a very limited and
partial degree; and while these reformers, preserving
as far as they can the spirit of the creed of England,
are attempting to enlarge the profession of its doctrines,
and allowing to every man more and more liberty to
determine for himself that inscrutable point of connec-
tion between the known and the unknown, the spiritual
and the material, another class are in a very simple
and effectual manner closing the doors of the Church
CLOSED DOORS. 25 I
(and I am speaking no metaphor) in the faces of its
votaries, and doing more by that turn of the key in
the too well-greased lock to abolish in the minds of
those who are thus excluded all realisation of a living
actual sympathy in the community, than all the doubts,
expressed and non-expressed, of honest sceptics, or
the railings of fanatics and scoffers have ever done.
Why are church doors closed, bolted, and barred? why
are pew-openers and sightseers the only people who
are allowed to enter from one week's end to another?
Why am I at this minute — it is about nine o'clock on
Sunday morning — the member of an established
church, which is shut up, with drawn blinds, into
which there is no admittance for two hours at least?
Here in this little village, high up among the
Rhcetian Alps, a bell is ringing, as I have said, and
the peasants are coming over the mountains and down
the green slopes that lead to the little chapel by the
torrent. It is only a low white shed, a little larger
than the neighbouring chalets, or baitas, as they call
them here. It is quite shabby and humble, and white-
wash is falling from its walls, but the bell rings even-
ing after evening for the "Ave," the people go in and
come out and walk away quietly by the torrent or
along the narrow mountain paths that travel by rock
and waterfall and by fragrant scent of thyme and
through fresh pine woods to higher Alps near the
snow peaks that encircle our valley; and all day long,
on Sundays and week days, the worm-eaten door of the
chapel is open, and one lamp burns dimly. Whenever
you look into the humble little place the lamp is burn-
ing, and one or other kneeling figure is there, peasant
or traveller. On Sundays the country people come in
252 CLOSED DOORS.
full dignity of knee-breeches, and wives and sweet-
hearts, and huge red umbrellas, and streaming out
after the mass sit in a row on the low wall in front of
the establishment, while the little children run about
and peep through the wooden planks of the bridge at
the boiling waters below.
This seems a long round-about way of entering my
protest, and petitioning for leave to enter the church
to which I belong, but the contrast between our own
system and that which I see here has struck me very
much. Not long ago, at Oxford, one day I remember *
walking from one noble old chapel to another and
wondering at the barred doors: in one place a shutter
had been left a little open, showing a glimpse of
aisle and lofty arch and peaceful light, but the outer
gate was safely locked, for fear any passer-by should
enter.
It seems a small thing to ask for — leave to go in
now and then out of the busy street of life to a quiet
place hallowed by association, and to stay there for
a little while among surroundings which should bring
peaceful and holy things before us. To some natures
and temperaments such minutes, coming, maybe, at a
moment of doubt or loneliness, would count more than
even a whole three hours' service and sermon all
complete, and perhaps unsuited to their need, and
coming when the stress was over and help no
longer of any avail. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Out of Season.
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE
BOOKS.
Farewell rewards and fairies,
Good housewifes now may say,
For now foule slutts in dairies
Doe fare as well as they ;
And tho' they sweepe their hearths no less
Than maydes were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
We have all heard of a benevolent race of little
pixies who live underground in subterranean passages
and galleries. While people are asleep in their beds
these friendly little creatures will come up from their
homes in the depths of the earth and dust, and sort
and put our houses in order, and repair the damages
and waste of the day, light the fires, fill the cans, milk
the cows. There is no end to their good offices. They
rejecl all thanks, and are apt to disappear and give
warning upon small provocation. Sir Walter Scott has
written their history, and as one reads one might some-
times almost fancy that an allegory is being told of
some little servant-maid of modern times — I do not
mean the comfortable, respectable upper house and
parlour-maid of villa and crescent-life, bul of the little
2 54 MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
struggling maid-of-all-work dwelling under our feet or
in the narrow passages and defiles of our great city.
Do they when their work is finished sometimes emerge
from their subterranean haunts, sit by flowing streams,
float along upon lily leaves, or sport in moonlit fields,
dancing in circles? I am afraid no such pleasant
recreation is reserved for our poor little household
drudges.
Most people who have ever rung bells, found their
hot water ready set for their use, their breakfast wait-
ing their convenience, will be interested in a Report
recently laid before the House of Commons — the Blue
Book which concerns these little maids.
It is written in the simplest way. Its rhetoric is
made up of a few dates and numbers. Its phrases
represent so much work done rather than words strung
together. It has romance enough in its pages, and
pathos and tragedy. They are classed a, b, and c for
convenience. This remorseless record of life as it
exists for a certain number of people is tabulated for
easy reference; so are the sorrows and indifferences of
which it treats in a few quiet words. The history of
these 650 girls will be found in an appendix, says one
sentence. No wonder that reviewers hesitate to pro-
nounce upon such a literature.
"In January, 1873, you told me," says Mrs. Senior,
"that you wished to have a woman's view as to the
effect on girls of the System of Education at Pauper
Schools. You asked me if I would undertake to visit
the workhouse schools and report to you the conclu-
sions at which I arrived
"I have given my attention almost exclusively to
questions affecting the physical, moral, and domestic
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKfii -'55
training at the schools. I have not attempted to judge
of the scholastic work, as I required all the time
allowed me for looking into the matters on which I
knew that you more especially desired the judgment
of a woman. I divided the enquiry into two parts:
"i. As to the present working of the system in
schools.
"2. As to the after career of girls who have been
placed out in the world."
This first part means many months of ceaseless
investigation into metropolitan schools, country schools,
orphanages, reformatories, &c; the boarding-out system,
as carried out in Cumberland and the North, &c.
The second division represents no less labour of a
different kind.
"My next endeavour was to ascertain the history of
the girls who had been placed in service from the
schools during the last two years. I obtained the names
and addresses, more or less exact, of about 650 girls
who had been placed out in service in the years 187 1 — 2
in all parts of London and its suburbs, and the history
of each girl, as derived from the books or otherwise,
was sought to be verified by personal investigation. The
very great number of visits to be made, and enquiries
to be set on foot, involved in this first investigation,
could not within the time allowed be undertaken by
myself personally, but the work was effectually carried
out by the help of several indefatigable friends.
"I enquired myself personally into the cases of fifty
of these girls," says Mrs. Senior, who has not been con-
tent with merely writing a report. She has lived it,
heard it speak, gone straight to the human beings
concerned in her Tables. Her own personal investi-
256 MAIDS-OF- ALL- WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
gations are contained in Appendix G; in Appendix F
are the histories investigated by her assistants.
"In order to ascertain the school history of each
child," she continues, "I have usually found it necessary
to consult, besides admission and discharge books, five
enormous alphabetical registers, numerous volumes of
relief lists, creed registers, service register, and chaplain's
visiting books."
This is but a small part of the labour to be under-
taken in writing a report of which every detail almost
is a living figure in the great and terrible sum which is
set before us all to work out as best we can, not only
in Blue Books and pamphlets. Anybody may supply
a running commentary upon the text, by looking
about and using that useful power of common sense
with which we are more or less gifted. The facts and
data are not past things and distant conclusions — they
are now, and round about us. The children are there,
the schools are there, the maid-servants are in the
kitchens, the report is published, and anyone may read
it who chooses.
II.
We should be indeed ungrateful to the work of
those wise and far-seeing people who first turned their
attention to the crying evils which existed in workhouse
schools, and who first insisted upon separate schools
for the children, if we did not begin by acknowledging
that whatever is done now, and whatever further im-
provement may be found possible, theirs was the first
and decisive step in the abolition of a great abuse. The
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK. AND BLUE BOOKS. 257
workhouses are necessarily refuges for every species of
failure in life, in conduct, in mind, in body. Such de-
pressing and contaminating influence is the very last to
which young children should ever be subjected. States
of mind are as catching, especially at an early age, as
some states of body. To see people who have neglected
their opportunities, deserted their duties, succumbed to
every sort of temptation, provided for by the state in a
sort of semi-Hades of apathetic discontent, must cer-
tainly have no good effect upon the younger genera-
tion, already inheriting, perhaps, many of the pro-
clivities that have brought this dismal fate upon their
seniors.
The children, seeing their father a willing prisoner
in fustian, their mother plodding doggedly along the
ward in her blue-striped liver}', come to look upon this
unsatisfying place as a future to look to. Apathy seems
to them a natural condition, low talk and common ways
will be familiar sounds, they insensibly imbibe the fetid
influence of the condition to which all these people
have been brought; by misfortune was it? — or by wrong-
doing? — who shall say, or whose the wrong-doing that
has doomed these poor souls.
"The atmosphere of a workhouse that contains adult
paupers is tainted with vice," says Mr. Tufnell, in his
Report on the training of pauper children. "No one
who regards the future happiness of the children would
ever wish them to be educated within its precincts."
A matron of thirty years' experience to whom I
once spoke, shook her head and said that she found
it practically impossible to prevent ill effects from the
contact of children and adults in the workhouse under
her care.
From an Island, 1 7
258 MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
Miss Cobbe says, speaking of the state of work-
houses so lately as 1861 — "Whatever may be our judg-
ment of the treatment of the male able-bodied paupers,
very decidedly condemnatory must be our conclusion
as regards the management of female adults, for whom
it may be said that a residence in the workhouse is
commonly moral ruin. The last rags and shreds of
modesty which the poor creature may have brought in
from the outer world, are ruthlessly torn away by the
hideous gossip over the labour of oakum picking, or in
the idle lounging about the women's yard." And in a
note we read — "In one metropolitan union it was found
on enquiry, that of eighty girls who had left the work-
house and gone to service, not one had continued in
a respectable condition of life."*
The commissioners appointed to enquire into the
system felt that nothing but evil could come to the
children if things were allowed to continue in the state
in which they found them. They worked with uninter-
mitting energy and decision, and it was at their sugges-
tion that separate and district schools were first insti-
tuted; separate schools being schools attached to one
workhouse only, and built at a distance from the
house; district schools being peopled by the children
from three or four different workhouses, all brought
together for greater convenience in teaching and or-
ganising.
Great sums of money have been spent. Fine build-
ings have been erected. Hundreds and hundreds of
little paupers are now being struck off, taught, drilled,
and educated by good teachers, with careful superin-
tendents, in large houses, costing large sums of money.
* This statement applies to twelve years ago.
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS. 259
There can be no comparison between the present and
the past, and there is not one of these children thai
does not owe gratitude to those who first laboured to
deliver them from the house of bondage to which they
seemed condemned. But it does not follow that be-
cause money has been spent, no further improve-
ment is possible ; and because some people have
been wise and devoted, that no further good is to be
done.
It seems as if every fact and theory of life had to
be rediscovered by each of us practitioners of life in
turn. We read about things, see them happen, listen
to advice, give it more or less intelligently; but we each
have to find out for ourselves what relations such things
bear to ourselves — what is human in all this printers'
ink, which of the figures come to life in our own case,
instead of being units or statistics — which among
our fellow-creatures are actually living persons for us;
duties and claims, wants, necessities, possibilities.
The writer happened to come across a living sta-
tistic on the side of good and hopeful things, a bright-
faced little creature in a Sunday bonnet, who gave her
some account of her experience in her first place. She
had been brought up in a separate school and had
gone out about thirteen.
"Oh, I've been a servant for years!" said the little
thing, who was ready enough to tell us all about her-
self. "I learnt ironing of the lady; I didn't know no-
thing about it. I didn't know nothing about anything.
I didn't know where to buy the wood for the fire,"
exploding with laughter at the idea. "I run along the
street and asked the first person I sor where the wood-
shop was. J was frightened — oh, I was. They wasn't
17*
260 MAIDS OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS,
particular kind in my first place. I had plenty to eat
— it wasn't anything of that. They jest give me an
egg, and they says, 'There, get your dinner,' but not
anything more. I had to do all the work. I'd no one
to go to: oh! I cried the first night. I used to cry so,"
exploding again with laughter. "I had always slep in
a ward full of other girls, and there I was all alone,
and this was a great big house — oh, so big! and they
told me to go down stairs, in a room by the kitchen
all alone, with a long black passage. I might have
screamed, but nobody would have heard. An archytec
the gen'lman was. I got to break everything, I was so
frightened; things tumbled down I shook so, and they
sent me back to Mrs. , at the schools. They said
I was no good, as I broke everything; and so I did—
oh, I was frightened! .... Then I got a place in a
family where there was nine children. I was about
fourteen then. I earned two shillings a week. I used
to get up and light the fire, bath them and dress them,
and git their breakfasts, and the lady sometimes would
go up to London on business, and then I had the baby
too, and it couldn't be left, and had to be fed. I'd take
them all out for a walk on the common. There was
one a cripple. She couldn't walk about. She was about
nine year old. I used to carry her on my back. Then
there was dinner, and to wash up after; and then by
that time it would be tea-time agin. And then I had
to put the nine children to bed and bath them, and
clean up the rooms and the fires at night; there was
no time in the morning. And then there would be the
gen'lman's supper to get. Oh! that was a hard place.
I wasn't in bed till twelve, and I'd be up by six. I
stopped there nine months. I hadn't no one to help
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLTJE BOOKS. 26 1
me. Oh, yes, I had; the baker, he lold me of another
place. I've been there three year. I'm cook, and they
are very kind; but I tell the girls there's none 'on 'em
had such work as me. I'm very fond of reading; but
I ain't no time for reading." ....
She was a neat, bright, clever, stumpy little thing,
with a sweet sort of merry voice.
"You would think Susy a giant if you could see
some of them; you have no notion what little creatures
they all are," said Mrs. , when I made some re-
marks about the child's size — and almost immediately
( ime another visitor, smaller, shorter, paler than the
first. This little maid had come to talk over the
chances of a friend, to whom she seemed much at-
tached.
"There is one thing about her," said this mite,
with some dignity; "she don't come up to my shoulder.
It's aginst her getting a good place."
This little woman had been single-handed in a
school where there were 50 pupils to let in twice
a-day, as well as two sets of lodgers to attend to.
The owners of the house were very kind, but too busy
themselves to help, and the poor pixie had struggled
until her health had broken down. Her feet were
swelled; she could no longer hold out when Mrs. —
found her. It is a terrific battle if one comes to think
of it. One little soldier single-handed against a house
and its wants, and the dust and the smuts, and the
food and the inmates, and the bells, and the beds,
and the fire and water to be served up in cans and
stoves and plates. Atlas could carry the world on his
shoulder, but what was his task compared to poor little
Betty's?
2(32 MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
III.
The writer has a friend among District Schools,
who has more than once admitted her into the wards
under his direction. At the time when he and his
wife were appointed to their present position, the
schools were in a bad and unsatisfactory state; not-
withstanding all advantage of situation and arrange-
ment, and liberal support, the health of the school-
children was not what it should have been ! Regularity,
economy, uniformity — all these things seem desirable
enough; but there is a point where we must all ac-
knowledge that such things are intended for men's
use, and not for their constraint alone, and my friends
have made it their business to find out where that
point exists.
Mrs. Senior suggests, among other things, some
sort of home life in the schools: wards broken up, if
possible, into divisions, which might rectify their weary
uniformity — some system of home government; the
nurse, perhaps, acting as mother, and the elder girls
attending to the little ones and babies. "The children
want mothering " says the Blue Book, in the natural
tones of a woman's voice.
About some necessities there can be but one opinion
— air, water, room, change, well-cooked food, ease,
backs to the forms — all these things our Blue Book
recommends, not in official language, but in a voice
that speaks far more truly the real feeling which is
now abroad. Judging from signs we see daily (per-
haps even more among the rulers than among the
MA1DS-0F- ALL-WORK. AND BLUE BOOKS. 26
J
ruled), the great age of red tape seems coming to a
close. The good goddess Hygeia must be smiling as
she sees her temples rising, her votaries assembling,
singing her praises in public and in private, and wor-
shipping her with many ablutions and ceremonies of
mighty import!
My friends, Mr. and Mrs. , who have partially
tried one of Mrs. Senior's plans in the establishment
under their direction, say that their experiment has
had a most excellent result. They began of their own
accord by creating a nursery, without any idea of the
good effects which were to follow, but they very soon
found that the girls allowed to attend to the children
delighted in the work, softened to the little ones, and
the children themselves got on better than when they
were lost in the great body of the house. The nursery
is detached from the main building, and when we
walked in, it was broad day-light — eight o'clock — June
bed-time. The little paupers were going to bed in the
great bright wards. All the windows were open; the
children were taking off their blue stockings and heavy
little boots. We met one three-year-old pattering ad-
venturously down a passage, and earning its shift in
its hand. There were about a dozen little creatures
in one room, where an elder girl was undressing
them. They could take off their thick boots for them-
selves; one ambitious Jenny was tugging at a string
with a serious flushed face; a friend about her own
size was looking on with deep interest. We said
"Good-night" to Jenny, who was too much absorbed to
respond, but the little friend stuffed her hand into
mine. It was a pretty sight in the next room to come
upon all the babies toddling round their tub and plash-
264 MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
ing the water with their hands. They were plump, com-
fortable little bodies, waiting their turn to be scrubbed,
and they certainly did credit to kind Mrs. 's efforts
for their comfort.
I don't think they spoke, these small nymphs in
blue stockings and unbleached calico; they looked up
at us with sweet, innocent faces; one said "Coo-bye;"
one laughed and showed us her bed behind the door;
another, a little baby boy, toddled forward half naked
from the group — he was the youngest, and accustomed
to be noticed; and so the kindly waters of the tub —
that tepid evening stream that floats so many babes,
that sparkles to so many little plashing hands — came
flowing with its kind, refreshing depths into the work-
house nursery. The setting sun was shining through
the tall open windows, and soft June breaths were
blowing in.
For many years all these windows had been care-
fully filled in, the master told us; but now at last they
have removed the ground glass, and let in the sight
of the green, and the sunset and the summer-time.
In the schoolroom especially the difference was very
noticeable.
It was a Sunday evening, and while I was talking
to Mrs. I had heard a distant sort of hymn in
the air. The girls were singing as we came into the
great schoolroom, about fifty girls were sitting upon
the benches, and a music-master was at a harmonium
playing and beating time.
They sang very sweetly, with very shrill and touch-
ing voices, one little class apart chaunted the hymn,
and the others joined in. It was something about sob
diers of the cross, with a sort of chorus.
MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS. 265
As I stood by the superintendent he pointed to
the window, through which we could see a dazzle of
June and green and distant hills, and a great field,
across which a long procession of these young soldiers
went winding and rewinding in the sweet basking even-
ing. One thought of the battle before them — all the
hard work, the troubles, and friendlessness of their
poor little lives. They were not abashed, and chaunted
on with all the might of their young throats, an un-
conscious prayer for safety, for help, for courage, and
defence. While the hymn lasts they are safe enough.
Then one day it breaks off for each of them. "At six-
teen," says the Board, they are free, and the little
soldiers struggle off to meet the world. They can
cater for themselves; come, go, loiter as they will;
they have had experience enough, advice enough; or,
for a change, there is the workhouse, where they will
find a new teaching, and a new code of morality.
IV.
Perhaps to the general reader it may not be the
details, or the classifications, or the results of the en-
quiries contained in this Blue Book, that will seem
most interesting, but the feeling which is unconsciously
shown by its very statistics — the unaffected goodness
of heart and womanly mothership for all that is young,
childish, foolish, and suffering. No one can deny facts
and the inevitable fatality of causes, of which the effects
are, in this instance, the little stunted beings that
crowd our schools and educational establishments. But
such Reports as these do at least suggest a sort of
266 MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS,
law leading both to good and to evil — a fatality of
good as well as of wrong doing — and make one be-
lieve that the genuine interest which some people are
feeling, and which has already shown itself in such
satisfactory and practical details, may reach many a
poor child, by signs more and more comfortable, and
tangible, and cheerful.
Where a book ends and the reader begins is as
hard to determine as any other of those objective and
subjective problems which are sometimes set. Here,
as we read, the paragraphs turn into every day; into
the writer, into the children, into one's own conscience,
into other people's — into work, trouble, necessity, into
the influences by which people affect one another.
Books teach us to think; then comes action to inter-
pret thinking into signs and ceremonies; then come
human beings who enact the signs, who are our con-
sciences, revealed, perhaps, our thoughts, responsive,
who are in themselves hope fulfilled, who combine in
some strange way all the moods, questions, facts, that
we see tangibly spread out before us. It is almost as
if one could look round at times and see the whole
secret history of conscience mapped out in actual
things, and doings; some of them stupid, jealous,
shamefully incomplete; others gentle, and generous,
and effective.
Two facts Mrs. Senior wishes us to bear in mind,
if we try to draw some conclusion from that view of
life which her report presents to us. One is, that the
schools have to deal with bad material. The poor
little heroines of this epic are stunted, stupid, un-
receptive for the most part, though some people may
well ask, Why should they be clever? How can they
MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS. 26/
grow tall? and What is it that they have to receive?
They come to the schools because there is no home
in the world outside for them, because their parents
have come to grief, or to trouble of some sort. They
have to go out into the world again with their un-
satisfactory little bodies and minds, because the schools
can keep them no longer, at an age when other more
fortunate children are shielded and loved and cared
for, to struggle for themselves with difficulties, mis-
tresses, incapacities, and dangers of every description.
So much for the second division of Mrs. Senior's re-
port. As regards that which applies to the changes
she would wish to see in the schools, she says these
apply to the system itself, and not to the working of
it. She says, "I believe that, as a class, there are few
people so painstaking, kind-hearted, and indefatigable,
as the present lot of officials connected with pauper
and district schools." It is, perhaps, because of this
that, for some years past, some of these officials and
managers have been dissatisfied with the results of
their hard and constant work — of all this money and
trouble given. In district schools, as elsewhere, ex-
perience had to be paid for; and when such vast
numbers are collected together, every trifling experi-
ment must necessarily count a thousand-fold, and be
multiplied again and again. The evil is gigantic, and
almost impossible to grapple with.
268 MAEDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
At present, one great difficulty consists in the
classification of the children to be provided for. There
are the orphans, whose only home is the parish and
the school; the deserted children, whose parents may
reappear to claim them, as well as those whose parents
are incapacitated temporarily or otherwise; and there
are, thirdly, the casuals, who are sometimes taken in
and out by their parents as often as eight times in a
year, and for whom, under existing circumstances, any
legislation must be very indefinite.
The real body of the school consists of the children
who have no other home to turn to, and no personal
ties to lean upon, and whose welfare, as Mrs. Senior
says, should, in any doubtful question, be made the
main consideration.
Some masters say that, were the classes divided,
and the good influence of the permanent scholars re-
moved from the casuals, these poor little creatures
would become so demoralised that they would not
have a chance for improvement. Speaking in a general
way, Mrs. Senior says that in large schools the officers
hold that more good than harm is done by mixing the
children; while the officers in smaller schools (who
have perhaps better means of judging of individual
cases) hold the contrary.
She goes on to say — "The difficulties of managing
the pauper schools, even under the present system, are
so great that one can heartily sympathise with the
MA1DS-0F-ALL-W0RK. AND BLUE BOOKS. 26Q
dread expressed by some officers of a change which,
it appears to them, would add to their difficulties. We
arc none the less bound, however, to look simply at
the question whether the presence of the casual chil-
dren does or does not cause any moral deterioration
to the permanent children, whose interests are chiefly
at stake."
Here is a picture of the state of things that might
occur, with every careful endeavour for right doing.
"To the eye of the visitor the outward order of the
schools is in most respects perfect, and it seems
generally agreed that the presence of a mass of chil-
dren already drilled into order has the best effect on
new comers. We cannot, however, judge by external
order of the real effect of the presence of the casuals.
Whatever evil they may have learnt during their vagrant
life, they know that it is for their interest to submit to
discipline while at school, to conceal what could bring
them into discredit with their superiors, and to avoid
conduct and language that would entail punishment.
Whatever discipline may exist in the school, the chil-
dren in the playground and dormitories are under
little supervision."
"In one school I saw a child of six years old whose
language was so horrible that the matron was obliged
to send her, as soon as lessons were over, to one of
the dormitories in order to get her away from the
other children. She was probably too young to know-
that it was to her interest to hold her tongue in the
presence of officers. In a few years she would be
more cunning, and keep her bad language for the
playground and dormitories. Another matron told me
of a family of sisters who used to go in and out and
2 JO MAIDS- OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
return each time more and more versed in sin. From
another I heard, among many examples, of a family of
children who were constantly on the tramp, sleeping
like animals in sheds, wandering about the country;
children who were at first good and tractable, but who
returned each time with more and more knowledge of
evil."
"Among many officers I found one who spoke
even more strongly than the rest, and whose opinion I
consider of great value. She fully recognised the large
amount of mischief which can be done in a school
even by one child, and felt that the least important
duty of a mistress is the supervision of children during
school hours."
Many of the changes Mrs. Senior recommends are
simple, feasible, and will apply to our own children in
our own homes as well as to those in this strange cos-
mopolitan refuge which the necessity of the times has
imposed upon our citizens.
If our children have round shoulders, shorn heads,
weak eyes — if a certain number of them seem dull,
stupid, and incapable of the common duties of life- —
if their nurses and teachers complain of their bad
temper, untruthfulness, apathy, we must feel that for
these special children, much as we have done already,
we have not yet done enough.
Suppose they are ill, with long and chronic ail-
ments, if we leave them for hours and hours un-
occupied in a bare room learning a habit of idleness
and dullness only too easy to acquire, and sometimes
impossible to forget, we must feel that in one sense
only we are doing our duty. You cannot inculcate
moral qualities by word of command; intelligence, self-
MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS. 2 7 I
reliance, trust, sympathy — these things can't be dealt
out in copy-books or written upon a slate.
Teachers and managers of schools have themselves
raised the standard of that which is expected; and as
the standard is raised, there will be less and less
machinery, and more and more of natural feeling in-
troduced, if it pleases Heaven to give us all more wis-
dom and knowledge of the laws which govern life
and human beings, — from members of the Cabinet
down to little pauper children.
A wise and experienced person writes: —
"We teach them indeed to read and write, and
read and sing hymns. All that part of their education
is probably quite as good as what is given in the day-
schools of the ordinary poor. Also we teach them
that part of religion which may be conveyed in the
form of question and answer. But it is only the sum
of all that makes human nature, more emphatically wo-
man's nature, beautiful, useful, or happy. Her moral
being is left wholly uncultivated. She possesses no-
thing of her own, not even her clothes or the hair on
her head. How is she to go out inspired with respect
for the rights of property, and accustomed to control
the natural impulses of childish covetousness? Worse
than all, the human affections of the girl are all
checked, and with them, almost inevitably, those religious
ones which naturally rise through the earthly parents'
love to the Father in Heaven. The workhouse girl is
the child of an institution. She is driven about with
the rest of the flock, from dormitory to schoolroom,
and from schoolroom to workhouse yard, not harshly
or unkindly, but always as one of a herd, whether well
z-jz
or ill cared for. She is nobody's Mary or Kate, to be
individually thought of."
VI.
Having gone carefully into the details of the
management of these schools, Mrs. Senior, as I have
said, proceeded to follow up the results of this manage-
ment; and her figures, as compared to those in the
note of Miss Cobbe's article, are less discouraging than
they might seem at a first glance.
"Following out the scheme already stated, we took
some trouble to trace out the careers of the girls
brought up in the great amalgamated schools and in
the separate schools, and, with the help of some ex-
perienced persons, to compare them together and
divide them into classes. The result was as follows: —
Girls brought up in Girls brought up in
District Schools. Separate Schools.
Good ... 28 ... 51
Fair ... 64 ... 82
Unsatisfactory . ic6 ... 78
Ead ... 47 ... 35
245 246
Some idea may be formed of the difficulty and
trouble which these few numbers have given to those
who compiled them, and who have tried to add up
this sum in human nature, by a glance at the Appen-
dix, where will be found a history of each one of these
cases traced out from records in school books, to the
endless streets, suburban roads, lines of brick and rail
MA1DS-0F-ALL-W0RK AND BLUE COOKS. 273
and humanity along which these little entries drift to.
their fate. The girls themselves have been produced
from their back kitchens, and the mistress encountered
in their parlours. Out of complaints and cross-com-
plaints, and good sense and moderate judgment, the
daily story becomes a figure again counting in its
place.
It is not long ago since I heard someone (with a
right than which there is none greater) speaking of the
force of contained power and of simple statement as
compared to that of vehemence and picturesqueness of
language. Here, in the Appendix of Mrs. Senior's
Report, are histories, of which I have selected two or
three at random. They are not very eventful, and
their force most assuredly consists in this power of
facts, tending towards the same results; uneventful
units, whose histories count in the great sum just as
surely as those of the others for whom they rub and
scrub and toil.
I might multiply examples, but they are but repe-
titions of one another and all in the same way seem
to point more or less to two necessities — that of some
greater individuality of training when in the schools,
and of more complete system of supervision when the
school has become daily life.
Here is poor C. D., whose career, as it is traced
from book to book, seems typical enough. She is
clever, with "high" notions, and goes to service; and
then she loses her places again and again, reappears in
one book and another, "admission, dismissal, read-
mission." Here she is under the heading of "distress
from service," sent to a home: then follow six ad-
missions, six discharges; lastly, she goes to Highgate
From an Island, ***
2J4 MA1DS-0F-ALL-W0RK AND BLUE BOOKS.
Infirmary, and there comes the last entry of all, "Died
June 22, 187 1, of phthisis, aged eighteen."
There are naughty girls, and a certain number of
good ones, in the lists published by Mrs. Senior.
G. goes from place to place, has fainting fits, hates
going to her aunt between places, as relations don't
like being at expense. First place — too hard, not in
bed till past twelve sometimes. J. M. S., one eye, half
witted, no friends, twenty years of age. J. T., deserted
child, no friends, whitlow, round shoulder.
As specimens of the class which may well be
termed unsatisfactory, come —
No. 1. Pilferer, untruthful, idle, incorrigibly dirty.
No. 2. Very dishonest, dirty. Mistress, a kind
person, keeps her because she cannot give her a cha-
racter.
No. 4. Being refused leave to go out, howls till a
crowd is collected.
No. 5. Improving, but throws herself on the ground
when people attempt to teach her.
No. 12. Clean, destructive, curiously apathetic.
No. 20. Very bad temper, unkind to children, dis-
honest, untruthful, dirty. Two mistresses give an
equally bad account.
Finally come the girls who have absconded with or
without valuables, who are known to be leading im-
moral lives.
By 15 Vict. capt. n. sec. 3 & 4, the guardians are
required, so long as the servant is under sixteen, and
resides within five miles of the workhouse, to visit
the person at least twice in every year, and report in
writing if the person is subjected to cruel treatment in
any respect.
MABDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOO: . 275
At some of the schools the chaplains keep up with
the girls in their places after the official hour has
struck for them. But when one remembers the average
length of a man's life, and the number of girls that
pass through the schools, it will be seen how impos-
sible a task this must be for any single person to ac-
complish thoroughly.
"We have found," says the Report, "many really
admirable mistresses, homely women, taking a maternal
interesl in the girls; sparing no pains to teach and
inspect personally the work of the house, and who un-
derstood thai the little servant needed some pleasure
and relaxation. Without any parade we have often
heard from a mistress of a shilling given now and then
to the girl to be spent in her own pleasure, of little
presents to her subscribed for by the children." But at
the same time the statistics show how many there are
among them who disappear entirely, and in the case
of workhouse girls we know too well what this disap-
pearance means.
A friend of Mrs. Senior, writing to her, says: —
"The answers given to me by the mistresses of
girls sent to service from the metropolitan pauper
schools were so uniform in character that I think t he-
system of training must be in a great measure an-
swerable for characteristics so general and so strongly
marked. I have made enquiries as to 40 girls.
"The girls were all without exception well taughl
in reading and writing; in arithmetic, as far as I could
ascertain, they were fairly competent.
"All without exception were well taught in needle-
work, as regards the mere execution of stitches; and
276 MA1DS-0F- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
all wilh one exception were tmable to arrange or do any
sort of needlework without constant supervision.*
"All without exception are well taught in the elements
of religious knowledge.
"All without exception are curiously apathetic in
temperament, described to me as not caring for any-
thing, taking no interest, not enjoying, seeming like
old people. All with one exception were stunted in
growth and physical development, even where the
health was good.
"If we compare the girls in pauper schools with
girls kept at home by family necessity, or sent to
service at fourteen or fifteen, I think we shall find the
following differences: — The house girls have infinitely
more life and energy, and it is much easier to teach
them their work. They are often very troublesome to
learn at first, but at least half of them are fairly good
tempered; those with defective tempers are seldom in-
vincibly stubborn or outrageous, and there is no dif-
ference between their physical development and that of
all other classes."
A matron of a workhouse said to me the other
day — "I knew a nice, good girl who was dismissed
then and there by her mistress for what do you think,
ma'am? for falling asleep in the day-time. I say it is
not natural for a girl of sixteen to go fast asleep in
the day-time, unless she is tired out and can't keep up
any longer."
"People turn them off and let them go, without a
thought," she continued. "I myself met a poor child
wandering about in the street, not knowing where to
* This seems an excellent illustration of the defect of too much system
in education.
MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK ANT) BLUE BOOKS. 2jJ
turn. I took her home, and she is now my servant;
but there is no knowing where she might be if I hadn't
chanced to meet her."
Three girls, who were just going out to service from
a district school, came into the superintendent's parlour
the other day while I happened to be there; they were
girls of sixteen, but they looked scarcely thirteen in
their crops and pinafores. One of them appeared ut-
terly stupid, and seemed to stare at my questions in-
stead of answering them. The second was silent but
intelligent, with wondering blue eyes and a very sweet
expression. The third girl talked a good deal, but only
by rote; she had been out already, but had been sent
back by her mistress, she said. When I asked her
what she had done in her place, she wandered off into
some housemaid's catechism.
"What did you think about the first morning when
you awoke?" said Mrs. .
"I couldn't think where I was," said the girl; "it
was so small all round, with paper on the walls."
"And what happened next?" said Mrs. .
Here the little housemaid started off rapidly. "Rise
at 'alf-past five, throw open the window, light the
kitching fire, then do the parlour, carefully turning
down the 'earth rug for fear it should be spiled,
then sweep and dust the sitting-room, scattering tea-
leaves," &c.
Perhaps the little thing's practice had not been
equal to her precept; happily for herself she was still
of an age to be received into the school and into her
pinafore again. If she breaks down a second time,
she will only have the workhouse for a refuge.
I have been told in one district school that the
278 MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
most troublesome and unmanageable girls are those
who have, by the desire of the guardians, passed
through a workhouse, and remained there for some
time before being despatched to the school.
VII.
Women are, perhaps, naturally more suspicious and
nervously impressionable than men, and for this very
reason are better able to observe those details which
so greatly concern little children and young girls.
Surely it is a wise and far-seeing legislature that allows
for this difference; that attempts to suit the intelligence
at its command to the work to be accomplished.
Here we find a woman doing woman's work,
patiently following out detail after detail, minutely in-
specting wards, and clothes, and apparatus of every
kind, reporting conscientiously, and bringing forward
her long year's work. It is for other minds to gene-
ralise and legislate again upon this work, which seems
to have been honestly carried out, and unweariedly
pursued to its end.
Miss Cobbe describes an experiment that was tried
by some ladies at Bristol not long ago. They acquainted
themselves with the addresses of the girls going into
service, called on each mistress, expressed their interest
in the little servant, and asked permission for her to
attend a Sunday afternoon class. Invariably it has been
found that the mistresses take in good part such visits,
made with proper courtesy.
Mrs. Senior would further add to this a system of
.MA1DS-0F- ALL- WORK AND BLUE COOKS. 2 JO,
Government supervision. The scheme, which is simple
enough, consists of a certain Dumber of paid agents to
visit the young servants in their places; a certain
number of ladies to befriend them; a certain number
of post-cards ready addressed for the girls to post upon
leaving their situations: one central office, or registry,
where their names might be entered into books; and
lastly, a certain number of small homes for them to go
to in the intervals of service, where they may find help
and advice. It is nothing new; but after all it is not
anything new that any of us want; only the old blessing
of asking and receiving, of friends and helpful succour
answering to the call of our forlorn voices.
And what prayer, in words, in works, in goodwill,
was ever prayed that was not answered in one way or
another? We look life in the face, and hear of the laws
that seem to rule its progress; we watch years go by,
read Reports, see people in every sort of trouble,
failure, and flurry, trying to regulate and order the
disorder. Some are praying to God, others praying to
men. As we watch the rout go by, as we travel along
it ourselves, we cannot but be struck by the importance
of every day, as well as by its profanity, by the mean-
ing of its trivialities, amenities, and co-operations, all
dominated by a law of which we dimly recognise the
rule — a law to which we may open our hearts if we
will, as it reaches us in this our common every day,
our sacred every day. And by this supreme law each
one of us in turn is touched. You are responsible to
it, you wretched orphans flung upon evil shores; you
are responsible, wise matrons, safe in port, anchored
and sheltered from storm; you children, awakening in
rows in the wards of the great refuges; you rulers and
280 MAIDS-OF- ALL-WORK AND BLUE BOOKS.
overseers, looking out afar; you critics and penny-a-
liners and young men, maidens and old maids, accord-
ing to your light and your power of life.
And besides this solemn law of the duty, varying
in degree for each of us, there is also a gift, divine
though we call it human, a multiplying, renovating
charity, of pity and goodwill. It does not fail though
the multitude is so great, and though the bread and
the fishes that have been given by the Master to dis-
pense among the hungry crowd seem so inadequate to
their wants.
THE END.
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