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

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_Frimhurst_, May 10, 1881.

I have been into the poor old Camp. I will tell thee. Did you ever
meet Mr. F., R.E.? a young engineer of H.'s standing, and his chief
friend. A Lav-engro (Russian is his present study) with a nice taste
in old brass pots and Eastern rugs, and a choice little book-case, and
a terrier named "Jem "--the exact image of dear old "Rough." He asked
us to go to tea to see the pictures you and I gave to the Mess and so
forth. So the General let us have the carriage and pair and away we
went. It _is_ the divinest air! It was like passing quickly through
BALM of body and mind. And you know how the birds sing, and
how the young trees look among the pines, and the milkmaids in the
meadows, and the kingcups in the ditches, and then the North Camp and
the dust, and Sir Evelyn Wood's old quarters with a new gate, and then
the racecourse with polo going on and more dust!--and then the R.E.
theatre (where nobody has now the spirit to get up any theatricals!),
and the "Kennel" (as Jane Turton called it) where I used to get flags
and rushes, and where Trouve, dear Trouve! will never swim again! And
then the Iron Church from which I used to _run_ backwards and forwards
not to be late for dinner every evening, with the "tin" roof that used
to shake to the "Tug of War Hymn,"--and then more dust, and (it must
be confessed) dirt and squalor, and _back views_ of ashpit and
mess-kitchens and wash-houses, and turf wall the grass won't grow on,
and rustic work always breaking up! and so on into the R.E. Lines! Mr.
F. was not quite ready for us, so we drove on a little and looked at
No. 3. N. Lines. T.'s hut is nearly buried in creepers now. An _Isle
of Man_(do you remember?) official lives there, they say; but it
looked as if only the Sleeping Beauty could. Our hut looks just the
same. Cole's greenhouse in good repair. But through all the glamour of
love one could see that there _is_ a good deal of dirt and dust, and
refuse and coal-boxes!!!

Then a bugle played!--

"The trumpet blew!"

I _think_ it was "Oh come to the Orderly Room!" _We_ went to the
Mess. The Dining-Room is much improved by a big window, high pitched,
opposite the conservatory. It is new papered, prettily, and our
pictures hang on each side of the fireplace. Mr. G. joined us and we
went into the Ante-Room. Then to the inevitable photo books, in the
window where poor old Y. used to sit in his spotless mufti. When G.
(who is not _spirituel_) said, turning over leaves for the young
ladies, "that and that are killed" I turned so sick! Mac G. and Mac
D.! Oh dear! There be many ghosts in "old familiar places." But I have
no devouter superstition than that the souls of women who die in
childbed and men who fall in battle go straight to Paradise!!!
Requiescant in Pace.

Then to tea in Mr. F.'s quarters next to the men. Then--now mark you,
how the fates managed so happy a coincidence--G. said casually, "I saw
Mrs. Jelf in the Lines just now!" I nearly jumped out of my boots, for
I did not know she had got to England. Then F. had helped to nurse
Jelf in Cyprus and was of course interested to see her, so out went G.
for Mrs. J., and anon, through the hut porch in she came--Tableau--!

Then I sent the girls with Messrs F. and G. to "go round the stables,"
and M. and _Jem_ and I remained together. Jem went to sleep (with one
eye open) under the table, and the sun shone and made the roof very
hot, and outside--"The trumpets blew!"

It was an afternoon wonderfully like a Wagner opera, thickset with
recurring _motifs_....

_Frimhurst._ June 15, 1891.

* * * * *

The old editions of Dickens are here, and I have been re-reading
_Little Dorrit_ with keen enjoyment. There is a great deal of poor
stuff in it, but there is more that is first-rate than I thought. I
had quite forgotten Flora's enumeration of the number of times Mr. F.
proposed to her--"seven times, once in a hackney coach, once in a
boat, once in a pew, once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells, and the rest
on his knees." But she is very admirable throughout.

I've also been reading some more of that American novelist's work,
Henry James, junior,--_The Madonna of the Future_, etc. He is not
_great_, but very clever.

Used you not to like the first-class Americans you met in China very
much? It is with great reluctance--believing Great Britons to be the
salt of the earth!!--but a lot of evidence of sorts is gradually
drawing me towards a notion that the best type of American Gentleman
is something like a generation ahead of our gentlemen in his attitude
towards women and all that concerns them. There are certain points of
view commonly taken up by Englishmen, even superior ones, which always
exasperate women, and which seem equally incomprehensible by American
men. You will guess the sort of things I mean. I do not know whether
it is more really than the _elite_ of Yankees (in which case we also
have our _ames d'elite_ in chivalry)--but I fancy as a race they seem
to be shaking off the ground-work idea of woman as the lawful
PREY of man, who must keep Mrs. Grundy at her elbow, and
_show cause why she shouldn't be insulted_. (An almost exclusively
_English_ feeling even in Great Britain, I fancy. By the bye, what odd
flash of self-knowledge of John Bull made Byron say in his will that
his daughter was not to marry an Englishman, as either Scotch or
Irishmen made better husbands?)...

July 6, 1881.

* * * * *

The Academy this year is very fine. Some truly beautiful things. But
before one picture I stood and simply laughed and shook with laughing
aloud. It is by an Italian, and called "A frightful state of things."
It is a baby left in a high chair in a sort of Highland cottage, with
his plate of "parritch" on his lap--and every beastie about the place,
geese, cocks, hens, chicks, dogs, cats, etc., etc., have invaded him,
and are trying to get some of his food. The painting is exquisite, and
it is the most indescribably funny thing you can picture: and so like
dear Hector, with one paw on little Mistress's eye eating her
breakfast!!!...

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ August 24, 1881.

... Andre has made the "rough-book" (water colours) of "A week spent
in a Glass Pond, By the Great Water Beetle." I only had it a few
hours, but I scrambled a bit of the title-page on to the enclosed
sheet of green paper for you to see. It is entirely in colours. The
name of the tale is beautifully done in letters, the initials of which
_bud and blossom_ into the Frogbit (which shines in white masses on
the Aldershot Canal!) [_Sketch._] To the left the "Water Soldier"
(_Stratiotes Aloides_) with its white blossoms. At the foot of the
page "the Great Water Beetle" himself, writing his name in the
book--_Dyticus Marginalis_. There is another blank page at the
beginning of the book, where the beetle is standing blacking himself
in a penny ink-pot!!!! and another where he is just turning the leaves
of a book with his antennae--the book containing the name of the
chromolithographers. He has adopted almost all my ideas, and I told
him (though it is not in the tale) "I should like a _dog_ to be with
the children in all the pictures, and a cat to be with the old
naturalist,"--and he has such a dog (a white bull terrier) [_sketch_],
who waits on the woodland path for them in one picture, _noofles_ in
the colander at the water-beasts in another, examines the beetle in a
third, stands on his hind legs to peep into the aquarium in a fourth,
etc. But I cannot describe it all to you. I have asked to have it
again by and by, and will send you a coloured sketch or two from it. I
am so much pleased!... Perhaps the best part of the book is _the
cover_. It is very beautiful. The Bell Glass Aquarium (lights in the
water beautifully done) carries the title, and reeds, flowers, newts,
beetles, dragon-flies, etc., etc., are grouped with wondrous fancy!
This entirely his own design....

_Jesmond Dene, Newcastle-on-Tyne._
August 30, 1881.

* * * * *

The four Jones children and their nurse are in lodgings at a place
called Whitley on the coast, not far from here. Somebody from here
goes to see them most days. To-day Mrs. J. and I went. As we were
starting dear "Bob" (the collie who used to belong to the
Younghusbands) was determined to go. Mrs. Jones said No. He bolted
into the cab and crouched among my petticoats; I begged for him, and
he was allowed. At the station he was in such haste he _would_ jump
into a 2nd class carriage, and we had hard work to get him out. (This
_is_ rather funny, because she usually goes there 2nd class with the
children: and he looked at the 1st and would hardly be persuaded to
get in.) Well, the coast is rather like Filey, and such a wind was
blowing, and _such_ white horses foamed and fretted, and sent up
wildly tossed fountains of foam against the rocks, and such grey and
white waves swallowed up the sands! I ran and played with the children
and the dog--and built a big sand castle ("Early English if not Delia
Cruscan"!!), and by good-luck and much sharp hunting among the
storm-wrack flung ashore among the foam, found four cork floats, and
made the children four ships with paper sails, and had a glorious dose
of oxygen and iodine. How strange are the properties of the invisible
air! The air from an open window at Ecclesfield gives me neuralgia,
and doubly so at Exeter. To-day the wild wind was driving huge tracts
of foam across the sands in masses that broke up as they flew, and
driving the sand itself after them like a dust-storm. I could barely
stand on the slippery rocks, and yet my teeth seemed to _settle in my
jaws_ and my face to get PICKLED (!) and comforted by the
wild (and very cold) blast.... Now to sweet repose, but I was obliged
to tell you I had been within sound of the sea, aye! and run into and
away from the waves, with children and a dog. This is better than a
Bath Chair in Brompton Cemetery!...

_Thornliebank, Glasgow._ September 8, 1881.

... "It is good to be sib to" kindly Scots! and I am having a very
pleasant visit. You know the place and its luxuries and hospitalities
well.

I came from Newcastle last Friday, and (in a good hour, etc.) bore more
in the travelling way than I have managed with impunity since I broke
down. I came by the late express, got to Glasgow between 8 and 9 p.m.,
and had rather a hustle to to get a cab, etc. A nice old porter (as
dirty and hairy as a Simian!) secured one at last with a cabby who
jabbered in a tongue that at last I utterly lost the running of, and
when he suddenly (and as it appeared indignantly!) remounted his box,
whipped up, and drove off, leaving me and my boxes, I felt inclined to
cry(!), and said piteously to the porter, "What _does_ he say? I
_cannot_ understand him!" On which the old Ourang-Outang began to pat me
on the shoulder with his paw, and explain loudly and slowly to my
Sassenach ears, "He's jest telling ye--that 't'll be the better forrr
ye--y'unnerstan'--to hev a caaaab that's got an i(ro)n railing on the
top of it--for the sake of yourrr boxes." And in due time I was handed
over to a cab with an iron railing, the Simian left me, and so friendly
a young cabby (also dirty) took me in hand that I began to think he was
drunk, but soon found that he was only exceedingly kind and lengthily
conversational! When he had settled the boxes, put on his coat, argued
out the Crums' family and their residences, first with me and then with
his friends on the platform, we were just off when a thought seemed to
strike him, and back he came to the open window, and saying "Ye'll be
the better of havin' this ap"--scratched it up from the outside with
nails like Nebuchadnezzar's. Whether my face looked as if I did not like
it or what, I don't know, but down came the window again with a rattle,
and he wagged the leather strap almost in my face and said, "there's
_hoals_ in't, an' ye can jest let it down to yer own satisfaction if ye
fin' it gets clos." Then he rattled it up again, mounted the box, and
off we went. Oh, _such_ a jolting drive of six miles! Such wrenching
over tramway lines! But I had my fine air-cushions, and my spine must
simply be another thing to what it was six months back. Oh, he was
funny! I found that he did NOT know the way to Thornliebank, but having
a general idea, and a (no doubt just) faith in his own powers, he swore
he did know, and utterly resented asking bystanders. After we got far
away from houses, on the bleak roads in the dark night, I merely felt
one must take what came. By and by he turned round and began to retrace
his steps. I put out my head (as I did at intervals to his great
disgust; he always pitched well into me--"We're aal right--just
com--pose yeself," etc.), but he assured me he'd only just gone by the
gate. So by and by we drew up, no lights in the lodge, no answer to
shouts--then he got down, and in the darkness I heard the gates grating
as if they had not been opened for a century. Then under overhanging
trees, and at last in the dim light I saw that the walls were broken
down and weeds were thick round our wheels. I could bear it no longer,
and put out my head again, and I shall never forget the sight. The moon
was coming a little bit from behind the clouds, and showed a court-yard
in which we had pulled up, surrounded with buildings in ruins, and
overgrown with nettles and rank grass. We had not seen a human being
since we left Glasgow, at least an hour before,--and of all the places
to have one's throat cut in!! The situation was so tight a place, it
really gave one the courage of desperation, and I ordered him to drive
away at once. I believe he was half frightened himself, and the horse
ditto, and never, never was I in anything so nearly turned over as that
cab! for the horse got it up a bank. At last it was righted, but not an
inch would my Scotchman budge till he'd put himself through the window
and confounded himself in apologies, and in explanations calculated to
convince me that, in spite of appearances, he knew the way to
Thornliebank "pairfeckly well." "Noo, I do beg of ye not to be
narrrr-vous. Do NOT give way to't. Ye may trust me entirely. Don't be
discommodded in the least. I'm just pairfectly acquainted with the road.
But it'll be havin' been there in the winter that's just misled me. But
we're aal right." And all right he did eventually land me here! so late
J. had nearly given me up.

* * * * *

TO MRS. ELDER.

_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._
October 26, 1881.

DEAREST AUNT HORATIA,

* * * * *

D. says you would like some of the excellent Scotch stories I heard
from Mr. Donald Campbell. I wish I could take the wings of a swallow
and tell you them. You must supply gaps from your imagination.

They were as odd a lot of tales as I ever heard--_drawled_ (oh so
admirably drawled, without the flutter of an eyelid, or the quiver of
a muscle) by a Lowland Scotchman, and queerly characteristic of the
Lowland Scotch race!!!! Picture this slow phlegmatic rendering to your
"mind's eye, Horatia!"

A certain excellent woman after a long illness--departed this life,
and the Minister went to condole with the Widower. "The Hand of
affliction has been heavy on yu, Donald. Ye've had a sair loss in
your Jessie."

"Aye--aye--I've had a sair loss in my Jessie--an' a heavy ex-pense."

* * * * *

A good woman lost her husband, and the Minister made his way to the
court where she lived. He found her playing cards with a friend. But
she was _aequus ad occasionem_--as Charlie says!--

"Come awa', Minister! Come awa' in wi' ye. Ye'll see _I'm just hae-ing
a trick with the cairds to ding puir Davie oot o' my heid_."

* * * * *

I don't know if the following will _read_ comprehensibly. _Told_ it
was overwhelming, and was a prime favourite with the Scotch audience.

Hoo oor Baby was _burrrned_.
(How our Baby was burnt.)

(You must realize a kind of amiable bland _whine_ in the way of
telling this. A caressing tone in the Scotch drawl, as the good lady
speaks of _oor wee Wullie_, etc. Also a roll of the r's on the word
burned.)

"Did ye never hear hoo oor wee Baby was burrrned? Well ye see--it was
_this_ way. The Minister and me had been to _Peebles_--and we were
awfu' tired, and we were just haeing oor bit suppers--when oor wee
Wullie cam doon-stairs and he says--'Mither, Baby's _burrrning_.'

"--Y'unerstan it was the day that the Minister and me were at Peebles.
We were _awful_ tired, and we were just at oor suppers, and the
Minister says (very loud and nasal), '_Ca'll Nurrse_!'--but as it
rarely and unfortunitly happened--Nurrse was washing and she couldna
be fashed.

"And in a while our WEE Wullie cam down the stairs again, and
he says--'Mither! Baby's burning.'

"--as I was saying the Minister and me had been away over at Peebles,
and we were in the verra midst of oor suppers, and I said to him--'Why
didna ye call Nurse?'--and off he ran.

"--and there was the misfirtune of it--Nurrse was washing, and she
wouldn't be fashed.

"And--in--a while--oor weee Wullie--came doon the stairs again--and
he says 'Mither! Baby's burrrned.' And that was the way oor poor woe
baby was burnt!"

* * * * *

Now for one English one and then I must stop to-day. I flatter myself
I can tell this with a nice mincing and yet vinegar-ish voice.

"When I married my 'Usbin I had no expectation that he would live
three week.

"But Providence--for wise purposes no doubt!--has seen fit to spare
him three years.

"And there he sits, all day long, a-reading the _Illustrious News_."

Now I must stop....

Your loving niece,
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

TO A.E.

_Grenoside._ Advent Sunday, 1881.

* * * * *

On one point I think I have improved in my sketching. I have been long
wanting to get a _quick style_ sketching not painting. Because I shall
never have the time, or the time and strength to pursue a more
finished style with success. Now I have got paper on which I can make
no corrections (so it forces me to be "to the point"), and which takes
colour softly and nicely. I have to aim at very correct drawing _at
once_, and I lay in a good deal both of form and shade with a very
soft pencil and then wash colour over; and with the colour I aim at
blending tints as I go on, putting one into the other whilst it is
wet, instead of washing off, and laying tint over tint, which the
paper won't bear. I am doing both figures and landscape, and in the
same style. I think the nerve-vigour I get from the fresh air helps me
to decision and choice of colours. But I shall bore you with this
gallop on my little hobby horse!...

November 30.

... I have sketched up to to-day, but it was cold and sunless, so I
did some village visiting. I am known here, by the bye, as "_Miss
Gatty as was_"! I generally go about with a tribe of children after
me, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin! They are now fairly trained to
keeping behind me, and are curiously civil in taking care of my traps,
pouring out water for me, and keeping each other in a kind of rough
order by rougher adjurations!

"Keep out o' t' _leet_ can't ye?"

"Na then! How's shoo to see through thee?"

"Shoo's gotten t' Dovecot in yon book, and shoo's got little Liddy
Kirk--and thy moother wi' her apron over her heead, and Eliza Flowers
sitting upo' t' doorstep wi' her sewing--and shoo's got t'
woodyard--and Maester D. smooking his pipe--and shoo's gotten _Jack_."

"Nay! Has shoo gotten Jack?"

"Shoo _'as_. And shoo's gotten ould K. sitting up i' t' shed corner
chopping wood, and shoo's bound to draw him and Dronfield's lad
criss-cross sawing."

"Aye. Shoo did all Greno Wood last week, they tell me."

"Aye. And shoo's done most o' t' village this week. What's shoo bound
to do wi' 'em all?"

"_Shoo'll piece 'em all together and mak a big picter of t' whole
place._" (These are true bills!)

Mr. S---- brings in some amusing _ana_ of the village on this subject.

A.W., a nice lad training for schoolmaster, was walking to Chapeltown
with several _rolls of wall paper_ and a big wall paste-brush, when he
was met by "Ould K." (a cynical old beggar, and vainer than any girl,
who has been affronted because I put Master D. into my foreground, and
not him), who said to him--"Well, lad! I see thou's _going out
mapping_, like t' rest on 'em." This evening Mr. S---- tells me his
landlord told him that some men who work for a very clever file-cutter
here, who is _facile princeps_ at his trade, but _mean_, and keeps
"the shop" cold and uncomfortable for his workmen--devised yesterday
the happy thought of going to their Gaffer and telling him that I had
been sketching down below (true) and was coming up their way, and that
I was sure to expect a glint of fire in the shop, which ought to look
its best. According to N. he took the bait completely, piled a roaring
fire, and as the day wore on kept wandering restlessly out and peering
about for me! When they closed for the night he said it was strange I
hadn't been, but he reckoned I was sure to be there next day, and he
could wish I would "tak him wi' his arm uplifted to strike." (He is a
very powerful smith.) I think I _must_ go if the shop is at all
picturesque....

Nov. 25, 1881.

* * * * *

Be happy in a small round. But, none the less, all the more does it
refresh me to get the wave of all your wider experience to flood my
narrow ones--and to enjoy all the _calm_ bits of your language study
and the like. And oh, I am _very_ glad about the Musical Society!
Though I dare say you'll have some _mauvais quarts d'heure_ with the
strings in damp weather!...

I have really got some pretty sketches done the last few days. Not
_finished_ ones, the weather is not fit for long sitting; but H.H. has
given me some "Cox" paper, a rough kind of stuff something like what
_sugar_ is wrapped up in, and with a very soft black pencil I have
been getting in quick outlines--and then tinting them with thin pure
washes of colour. I have been doing one of the Clog-shop. This quaint
yard has doors--old doors--which long since have been painted a most
charming red. Then the old shop is red-tiled, and an old stone-chimney
from which the pale blue smoke of the wood-fire floats softly off
against the tender tints of the wood, on the edge of which lie fallen
logs with yellow ends, ready for the clog-making, and all the bare
brown trees, and the green and yellow sandstone walls, and Jack the
Daw hopping about. The old man at the clog-yard was very polite to me
to-day. He said, "It's a pratty bit of colour," and "It makes a nicet
sketch now you're getting in the _dit_tails." He went some distance
yesterday to get me some india-rubber, and then wanted me to keep it!
He's a perfect "picter card" himself. I must try and get _his_
portrait.

* * * * *

_Ecclesfield._ Dec. 23, 1881.

... I cannot tell you the pleasure it gives me that you say what you
do of "Daddy Darwin." No; it will not make me overwork. I think, I
hope, nothing ever will again. Rather make me doubly careful that I
may not lose the gift you help me to believe I have. I have had very
kind letters about it, and Mrs. L. sent me a sweet little girl dressed
in pink--a bit of Worcester China!--as "Phoebe Shaw."...

Aunt M. sent "Daddy Darwin" to T. Kingdon (he is now Suffragan Bishop
to Bishop Medley), and she sent us his letter. I will copy what he
says: "'Daddy Darwin' is very charming--directly I read it I took it
off to the Bishop--and he read it and cried over it with joy, and then
read it again, and it has gone round Fredericton by this time. The
story is beautifully told, and the picture is quite what it should be.
When I look at the picture I think nothing could beat it, and then
when I read the story I think the story is best--till I look again at
the picture, and I can only say that _together_ I don't think they
could be beaten at all in their line. I have enjoyed them much. There
is such a wonderful fragrance of the Old Country about them."

I thought you would like to realize the picture of our own dear old
Bishop crying with joy over it! What a young heart! tenderer than many
in their teens; and what unfailing affection and sympathy....

January 17, 1882.

* * * * *

Mrs. O'M. is delighted with "Daddy Darwin." I had a most curious
letter about it from Mrs. S., a very clever one and very flattering!
F.S. too wrote to D., and said things almost exactly similar. It seems
odd that people should express such a sense of "purity" with the "wit
and wisdom" of one's writing! It seems such an odd reflection on the
tone of other people's writings!!! But the minor writers of the
"Fleshly school" are perhaps producing a reaction! Though it's
_marvellous_ what people will read, and think "so clever!" Some novels
lately--_Sophy_ and _Mehalah_, deeply recommended to me, have made me
aghast. I'm not very young, nor I think very priggish; but I do
decline to look at life and its complexities solely and entirely from
a point of view that (bar Christian names and the English language)
would do equally well for a pig or a monkey. If I _am_ no more than a
Pig, I'm a fairly "learned" pig, and will back myself to get some
small piggish pleasures out of this mortal stye, before I go to the
Butcher!! But--IF--I am something very different, and very much
higher, I won't ignore my birthright, or sell it for Hog'swash,
because it involves the endurance of some pain, and the exercise of
some faith and hope and charity! _Mehalah_ is a well-written book,
with a delicious sense of local colour in nature. And it is (pardon
the sacrilege!) a LOVE _story_! The focus point of the hero's
(!) desire would at quarter sessions, or assizes, go by the plain
names of outrage and murder, and he succeeds in drowning himself with
the girl who hates him lashed to him by a chain. In not one other
character of the book is there an indication that life has an aim
beyond the lusts of the flesh, and the most respectable characters are
the tenants whose desires are summed up in the desire of more suet
pudding and gravy!! To any one who KNOWS the poor! who knows
what faiths and hopes (true or untrue) support them in consumption and
cancer, in hard lives and dreary deaths, the picture is as untrue as
it is (to me!) disgusting.

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