Horatia K. F. Eden - Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books

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[Illustration: Juliana Horatia Ewing]

JULIANA HORATIA EWING

AND HER BOOKS.

BY

HORATIA K.F. EDEN
(_nee_ GATTY).

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.

[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]

PREFACE.

In making a Selection from Mrs. Ewing's Letters to accompany her
Memoir, I have chosen such passages as touch most closely on her Life
and Books. I found it was not possible in all cases to give references
in footnotes between the Memoir and Letters; but as both are arranged
chronologically there will be no difficulty in turning from one to the
other when desirable.

The first Letter, relating Julie's method of teaching a Liturgical
Class, should be read with the remembrance that it was written
thirty-two years ago, long before the development of our present
Educational System; but it is valuable for the zeal and energy it
records, combined with the common incident of the writer being too ill
to appear at the critical moment of the Inspector's visit.

In a later letter, dated May 28, 1866, there are certain remarks about
class singing in schools, which are also out of date; but this is
retained as a proof of the keen sense of musical rhythm and accent
which my sister had, and which gave her power to write words for music
although she could play no instrument.

It is needless to add that none of the letters were intended for
publication; they were written to near relatives and friends _currente
calamo_, and are full of familiar expressions and allusions which may
seem trivial and uninteresting to ordinary readers. Those, however,
who care to study my sister's character I think cannot fail to trace
in these records some of its strongest features; her keen enjoyment of
the beauties of Nature,--her love for animals,--for her Home,--her
_lares_ and _penates_;--and her Friends. Above all that love of
GOD which was the guiding influence of everything she wrote
or did. So inseparable was it from her every-day life that readers
must not be surprised if they find grave and gay sentences following
each other in close succession.

Julie's sense of humour never forsook her, but she was never
malicious, and could turn the laugh against herself as readily as
against others. I have ventured to insert a specimen of her fun, which
I hope will not be misunderstood. In a letter to C.T.G., dated March
13, 1874, she gave him a most graphic picture of the erratic condition
of mind that had come over an old friend, the result of heavy
responsibilities and the rush of London life. Julie had no idea when
she wrote that these symptoms were in reality the subtle beginnings of
a breakdown, which ended fatally, and no one lamented the issue more
truly than she; but she could not resist catching folly as it flew,
and many of the flighty axioms became proverbial amongst us.

The insertion of Bishop Medley's reply to my sister, April 8, 1880,
needs no apology, it is so interesting in itself, and gives such a
charming insight into the friendship between them.

The _List of Mrs. Ewing's Works_ at the end of the Memoir was made
before the publication of the present Complete Edition; this,
therefore, is only mentioned in cases where stories have not been
published in any other book form. All Mrs. Ewing's Verses for
Children, Hymns, and Songs for Music (including two left in MS.) are
included in Volume IX.

Volume XVII., "Miscellanea," contains _The Mystery of a bloody hand_
together with the Translated Stories, and other papers that had
appeared previously in Magazines.

In Volume XII., "Brothers of Pity and other tales of men and beasts,"
will be found _Among the Merrows_; _A Week spent in a Glass Pond_;
_Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks_; _The Owl in the Ivy Bush, and
Owlhoots I. II._, whilst _Sunflowers and a Rushlight_ has been put
amongst the Flower Stories in Vol. XVI., _Mary's Meadow_, etc.

The Letter with which this volume concludes was one of the last that
Julie wrote, and its allusion to Gordon's translation seemed to make
it suitable for the End.

After her death the readers of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ subscribed
enough to complete the endowment (L1000) of a Cot at the Convalescent
Home of the Hospital for Sick Children, _Cromwell House, Highgate_.
This had been begun to our Mother's memory, and was completed in the
joint names of _Margaret Gatty_ and _Juliana Horatia Ewing_. So
liberal were the subscriptions that there was a surplus of more than
L200, and with this we endowed two L5 annuities in the _Cambridge Fund
for Old Soldiers_--as the "Jackanapes," and "Leonard" annuities.

Of other memorials there are the marble gravestone in Trull
Churchyard, and Tablet in Ecclesfield Church, both carved by Harry
Hems, of Exeter, and similarly decorated with the double lilac
primrose,--St. Juliana's flower.

In Ecclesfield Church there is also a beautiful stained window, given
by her friend, Bernard Wake. The glass was executed by W.F. Dixon, and
the subject is Christ's Ascension. Julie died on the Eve of Ascension
Day.

Lastly, there is a small window of jewelled glass, by C.E. Kempe, in
St. George's Church, South Camp, Aldershot, representing St. Patrick
trampling on a three-headed serpent, emblematical of the powers of
evil, and holding the Trefoil in his hand--a symbol of the Blessed
Trinity.

HORATIA K.F. EDEN.

_Rugby_, 1896.

* * * * *

_The frontispiece portrait of Mrs. Ewing is a photogravure produced by
the Swan Electric Engraving Company, from a photograph taken by Mr.
Fergus of Largs_.

_All the other illustrations are from Mrs. Ewing's own drawings,
except the tail-piece on p. 136. This graceful ideal of Mrs. Ewing's
grave was an offering sent by Mr. Caldecott shortly after her death,
with his final illustrations to "Lob Lie-by-the-Fire."_

All hearts grew warmer in the presence
Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving,
Nor reaped for self the harvest sown.

Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude
Of generous deeds and kindly words:
In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers,
Open to sunrise and the birds!

The task was thine to mould and fashion
Life's plastic newness into grace;
To make the boyish heart heroic,
And light with thought the maiden's face.

* * * * *

O friend! if thought and sense avail not
To know thee henceforth as thou art,
That all is well with thee forever,
I trust the instincts of my heart.

Thine be the quiet habitations,
Thine the green pastures, blossom sown,
And smiles of saintly recognition,
As sweet and tender as thy own.

Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow
To meet us, but to thee we come;
With thee we never can be strangers,
And where thou art must still be home.

"_A Memorial_."--JOHN G. WHITTIER.

JULIANA HORATIA EWING
AND HER BOOKS.

PART I.

In Memoriam

JULIANA HORATIA,

SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. ALFRED GATTY, D.D.,
AND MARGARET, HIS WIFE,
BORN AT ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 1841,
MARRIED JUNE 1, 1867, TO ALEXANDER EWING,
MAJOR, A.P.D.,
DIED AT BATH, MAY 13, 1885,
BURIED AT TRULL, SOMERSET, MAY 16, 1885.

I have promised the children to write something for them about their
favourite story-teller, Juliana Horatia Ewing, because I am sure they
will like to read it.

I well remember how eagerly I devoured the Life of my favourite
author, Hans Christian Andersen; how anxious I was to send a
subscription to the memorial statue of him, which was placed in the
centre of the public Garden at Copenhagen, where children yet play at
his feet; and, still further, to send some flowers to his newly-filled
grave by the hand of one who, more fortunate than myself, had the
chance of visiting the spot.

I think that the point which children will be most anxious to know
about Mrs. Ewing is how she wrote her stories. Did she evolve the
plots and characters entirely out of her own mind, or were they in any
way suggested by the occurrences and people around her?

The best plan of answering such questions will be for me to give a
list of her stories in succession as they were written, and to tell,
as far as I can, what gave rise to them in my sister's mind; in doing
this we shall find that an outline biography of her will naturally
follow. Nearly all her writings first appeared in the pages of _Aunt
Judy's Magazine_, and as we realize this fact we shall see how close
her connection with it was, and cease to wonder that the Magazine
should end after her death.

Those who lived with my sister have no difficulty in tracing
likenesses between some of the characters in her books, and many whom
she met in real life; but let me say, once for all, that she never
drew "portraits" of people, and even if some of us now and then caught
glimpses of ourselves under the clothing she had robed us in, we only
felt ashamed to think how unlike we really were to the glorified
beings whom she put before the public.

Still less did she ever do with her pen, what an artistic family of
children used to threaten to do with their pencils when they were
vexed with each other, namely, to "draw you ugly."

It was one of the strongest features in my sister's character that she
"received but what she gave," and threw such a halo of sympathy and
trust round all with whom she came in contact, that she seemed to see
them "with larger other eyes than ours," and treated them accordingly.
On the whole, I am sure this was good in its results, though the pain
occasionally of awakening to disappointment was acute; but she
generally contrived to cover up the wound with some new shoot of Hope.
On those in whom she trusted I think her faith acted favourably. I
recollect one friend whose conscience did not allow him to rest quite
easy under the rosy light through which he felt he was viewed, saying
to her: "It's the trust that such women as you repose in us men, which
makes us desire to become more like what you believe us to be."

If her universal sympathy sometimes led her to what we might hastily
consider "waste her time" on the petty interests and troubles of
people who appeared to us unworthy, what were we that we should blame
her? The value of each soul is equal in God's sight; and when the
books are opened there may be more entries than we now can count of
hearts comforted, self-respect restored, and souls raised by her help
to fresh love and trust in God,--ay, even of old sins and deeds of
shame turned into rungs on the ladder to heaven by feet that have
learned to tread the evil beneath them. It was this well-spring of
sympathy in her which made my sister rejoice as she did in the
teaching of the now Chaplain-General, Dr. J.C. Edghill, when he was
yet attached to the iron church in the South Camp, Aldershot. "He
preaches the gospel of Hope," she said--hope that is in the latent
power which lies hidden even in the worst of us, ready to take fire
when touched by the Divine flame, and burn up its old evil into a
light that will shine to God's glory before men. I still possess the
epitome of one of these "hopeful" sermons, which she sent me in a
letter after hearing the chaplain preach on the two texts: "What
meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God"; "Awake, thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

It has been said that, in his story of "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap,"
Hans Andersen recorded something of his own career. I know not if this
be true, but certainly in her story of "Madam Liberality"[1] Mrs.
Ewing drew a picture of her own character that can never be surpassed.
She did this quite unintentionally, I know, and believed that she was
only giving her own experiences of suffering under quinsy, in
combination with some record of the virtues of One whose powers of
courage, uprightness, and generosity under ill-health she had always
regarded with deep admiration. Possibly the virtues were
hereditary,--certainly the original owner of them was a relation; but,
however this may be, Madam Liberality bears a wonderfully strong
likeness to my sister, and she used to be called by a great friend of
ours the "little body with a mighty heart," from the quotation which
appears at the head of the tale.

[Footnote 1: Reprinted in "A Great Emergency and other Tales."]

The same friend is now a bishop in another hemisphere from ours, but
he will ever be reckoned a "great" friend. Our bonds of friendship
were tied during hours of sorrow in the house of mourning, and such as
these are not broken by after-divisions of space and time. Mrs. Ewing
named him "Jachin," from one of the pillars of the Temple, on account
of his being a pillar of strength at that time to us. Let me now quote
the opening description of Madam Liberality from the story:--

It was not her real name; it was given to her by her brothers and
sisters. People with very marked qualities of character do
sometimes get such distinctive titles to rectify the indefiniteness
of those they inherit and those they receive in baptism. The
ruling peculiarity of a character is apt to show itself early in
life, and it showed itself in Madam Liberality when she was a
little child.

Plum-cakes were not plentiful in her home when Madam Liberality was
young, and, such as there were, were of the "wholesome"
kind--plenty of breadstuff, and the currants and raisins at a
respectful distance from each other. But, few as the plums were,
she seldom ate them. She picked them out very carefully, and put
them into a box, which was hidden under her pinafore.

When we grown-up people were children, and plum-cake and
plum-pudding tasted very much nicer than they do now, we also
picked out the plums. Some of us ate them at once, and had then to
toil slowly through the cake or pudding, and some valiantly
dispatched the plainer portion of the feast at the beginning, and
kept the plums to sweeten the end. Sooner or later we ate them
ourselves, but Madam Liberality kept her plums for other people.

When the vulgar meal was over--that commonplace refreshment
ordained and superintended by the elders of the household--Madame
Liberality would withdraw into a corner, from which she issued
notes of invitation to all the dolls. They were "fancy written" on
curl-papers, and folded into cocked hats.

Then began the real feast. The dolls came and the children with
them. Madam Liberality had no toy tea-sets or dinner-sets, but
there were acorn-cups filled to the brim, and the water tasted
deliciously, though it came out of the ewer in the night-nursery,
and had not even been filtered. And before every doll was a flat
oyster-shell covered with a round oyster-shell, a complete set of
complete pairs which had been collected by degrees, like old family
plate. And, when the upper shell was raised, on every dish lay a
plum. It was then that Madam Liberality got her sweetness out of
the cake. She was in her glory at the head of the inverted
tea-chest, and if the raisins would not go round the empty
oyster-shell was hers, and nothing offended her more than to have
this noticed. That was her spirit, then and always. She could "do
without" anything, if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to
her.

When one's brain is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much
confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I
have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a
virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or love of approbation,
benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the lust of
power, or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with
much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as the
doctors say, "an effort of nature" to make her live outside
herself, and be happy in the happiness of others?

All my earliest recollections of Julie (as I must call her) picture
her as at once the projector and manager of all our nursery doings.
Even if she tyrannized over us by always arranging things according to
her own fancy, we did not rebel, we relied so habitually and entirely
on her to originate every fresh plan and idea; and I am sure that in
our turn we often tyrannized over her by reproaching her when any of
what we called her "projukes" ended in "mulls," or when she paused for
what seemed to us a longer five minutes than usual in the middle of
some story she was telling, to think what the next incident should be!

It amazes me now to realize how unreasonable we were in our
impatience, and how her powers of invention ever kept pace with our
demands. These early stories were influenced to some extent by the
books that she then liked best to read--Grimm, Andersen, and
Bechstein's fairy tales; to the last writer I believe we owed her
story about a Wizard, which was one of our chief favourites. Not that
she copied Bechstein in any way, for we read his tales too, and would
not have submitted to anything approaching a recapitulation; but the
character of the little Wizard was one which fascinated her, and even
more so, perhaps, the quaint picture of him, which stood at the head
of the tale; and she wove round this skeleton idea a rambling romance
from her own fertile imagination.

I have specially alluded to the picture, because my sister's artistic
as well as literary powers were so strong that through all her life
the two ever ran side by side, each aiding and developing the other,
so that it is difficult to speak of them apart.[2]

[Footnote 2: Letter, May 14, 1876.]

Many of the stories she told us in childhood were inspired by some fine
woodcuts in a German "A B C book," that we could none of us then read, and
in later years some of her best efforts were suggested by illustrations,
and written to fit them. I know, too, that in arranging the plots and
wording of her stories she followed the rules that are pursued by artists
in composing their pictures. She found great difficulty in preventing
herself from "overcrowding her canvas" with minor characters, owing to her
tendency to throw herself into complete sympathy with whatever creature she
touched; and, sometimes,--particularly in tales which came out as serials,
when she wrote from month to month, and had no opportunity of correcting
the composition as a _whole_,--she was apt to give undue prominence to
minor details, and throw her high lights on to obscure corners, instead of
concentrating them on the central point. These artistic rules kept her
humour and pathos,--like light and shade,--duly balanced, and made the
lights she "left out" some of the most striking points of her work.

[Illustration: POST MILL, DENNINGTON.]

But to go back to the stories she told us as children. Another of our
favourite ones related to a Cavalier who hid in an underground passage
connected with a deserted Windmill on a lonely moor. It is needless to
say that, as we were brought up on Marryat's _Children of the New
Forest_, and possessed an aunt who always went into mourning for King
Charles on January 30, our sympathies were entirely devoted to the
Stuarts' cause; and this persecuted Cavalier, with his big hat and
boots, long hair and sorrows, was our best beloved hero. We would
always let Julie tell us the "Windmill Story" over again, when her
imagination was at a loss for a new one. Windmills, I suppose from
their picturesqueness, had a very strong attraction for her. There
were none near our Yorkshire home, so, perhaps, their rarity added to
their value in her eyes; certain it is that she was never tired of
sketching them, and one of her latest note-books is full of the old
mill at Frimley, Hants, taken under various aspects of sunset and
storm. Then Holland, with its low horizons and rows of windmills, was
the first foreign land she chose to visit, and the "Dutch Story," one
of her earliest written efforts, remains an unfinished fragment;
whilst "Jan of the Windmill" owes much of its existence to her early
love for these quaint structures.

It was not only in the matter of fairy tales that Julie reigned
supreme in the nursery, she presided equally over our games and
amusements. In matters such as garden-plots, when she and our eldest
sister could each have one of the same size, they did so; but, when it
came to there being _one_ bower, devised under the bending branches of
a lilac bush, then the laws of seniority were disregarded, and it was
"Julie's Bower." Here, on benches made of narrow boards laid on
inverted flower-pots, we sat and listened to her stories; here was
kept the discarded dinner-bell, used at the funerals of our pet
animals, and which she introduced into "The Burial of the Linnet."[3]
Near the Bower we had a chapel, dedicated to St. Christopher, and a
sketch of it is still extant, which was drawn by our eldest sister,
who was the chief builder and caretaker of the shrine; hence started
the funeral processions, both of our pets and of the stray birds and
beasts we found unburied. In "Brothers of Pity"[4] Julie gave her hero
the same predilection for burying that we had indulged in.

[Footnote 3: "Verses for Children, and Songs for Music."]

[Footnote 4: "Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men."]

She invented names for the spots that we most frequented in our walks,
such as "The Mermaid's Ford," and "St. Nicholas." The latter covered a
space including several fields and a clear stream, and over this
locality she certainly reigned supreme; our gathering of violets and
cowslips, or of hips and haws for jam, and our digging of earth-nuts
were limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted to
exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we
caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy _Batrachospermum_ in its clear
depths, we plunged in to secure it for Mother, whether Julie or any
other Naiad liked it or no! But "the splendour in the grass and glory
in the flower" that we found in "St. Nicholas" was very deep and real,
thanks to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood she
must have felt, and imparted to us, a great deal of what she put into
the hearts of the children in "Our Field."[5] To me this story is one
of the most beautiful of her compositions, and deeply characteristic
of the strong power she possessed of drawing happiness from little
things, in spite of the hindrances caused by weak health. Her fountain
of hope and thankfulness never ran dry.

[Footnote 5: "A Great Emergency, and other Tales."]

Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment.

From her earliest years it had been a family joke, that poor Madam
Liberality was always in ill-luck's way.

It is true that she was constantly planning; and, if one builds
castles, one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now
and then. But, besides this, her little hopes were constantly being
frustrated by Fate.

If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed
was sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When
a picnic or a tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not
catch cold, so as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to
have a quinsy from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a
treat, she paid for the pleasurable excitement by a head-ache, just
as when she ate sweet things they gave her toothache.

But, if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good
spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about
the treat when she had forgotten the head-ache.

One side of her face would look fairly cheerful when the other was
obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole
was redolent of every possible domestic remedy for toothache, from
oil of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No
sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the
hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue would not hurt her "this
time."

In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her quinsy she
would amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition, on a
larger and possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time
when she should be out again.

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