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

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"Wonderfully jolly!" said I. "And it must be pleasant even to think
of it."

There is another new character in the second part of "We," who is also
a fine picture:--Alister the blue-eyed Scotch lad, with his respect
for "book-learning," and his powers of self-denial and endurance; but
Julie certainly had a weakness for the Irish nation, and the tender
grace with which she touches Dennis O'Moore and Biddy shines
conspicuously throughout the story. In one scene, however, I think she
brings up her Scotch hero neck-and-neck, if not ahead, of her
favourite Irishman.

This is in Chapter VII., where an entertainment is being held on board
ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon in turn to amuse the
company with a song. Dennis gets through his ordeal well; he has a
beautiful voice, which makes him independent of the accompaniment of a
fiddle (the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes his
_simpatico_ rendering of "Bendemeer's Stream" from the way in which
she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. He had learned it by
ear on board ship from a fellow-passenger, and she was never tired of
listening to the melody. When this same brother came to visit her
whilst she was ill at Bath, and sang to her as she lay in
bed,--"Bendemeer's Stream" was the one strain she asked for, and the
last she heard.

Dennis O'Moore's performance met with warm applause, and then the
boatswain, who had a grudge against Alister, because the Scotch
Captain treated his countryman with leniency, taunted the shy and
taciturn lad to "contribute to the general entertainment."

I was very sorry for Alister, and so was Dennis, I was sure, for he
did his best to encourage him.

"Sing 'GOD Save the Queen,' and I'll keep well after ye
with the fiddle," he suggested. But Alister shook his head. "I know
one or two Scotch tunes," Dennis added, and he began to sketch out
an air or two with his fingers on the strings.

Presently Alister stopped him. "Yon's the Land o' the Leal?"

"It is," said Dennis.

"Play it a bit quicker, man, and I'll try 'Scots, wha hae.'"

Dennis quickened at once, and Alister stood forward. He neither
fidgeted nor complained of feeling shy, but, as my eyes (I was
squatted cross-legged on the deck) were at the level of his knees,
I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the less that I was
doubtful as to what might not be before _me_. Dennis had to make
two or three false starts before poor Alister could get a note out
of his throat, but when he had fairly broken the ice with the word
"Scots!" he faltered no more. The boatswain was cheated a second
time of his malice. Alister could not sing in the least like
Dennis, but he had a strong manly voice, and it had a ring that
stirred one's blood, as he clenched his hands and rolled his R's to
the rugged appeal--

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

Applause didn't seem to steady his legs in the least, and he never
moved his eyes from the sea, and his face only grew whiter by the
time he drove all the blood to my heart with--

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!

"GOD forbid!" cried Dennis impetuously. "Sing that verse
again, my boy, and give us a chance to sing with ye!" which we did
accordingly; but, as Alister and Dennis were rolling R's like the
rattle of musketry on the word _turn_, Alister did turn, and
stopped suddenly short. The Captain had come up unobserved.

"Go on!" said he, waving us back to our places.

By this time the solo had become a chorus. Beautifully unconscious,
for the most part, that the song was by way of stirring Scot
against Saxon, its deeper patriotism had seized upon us all.
Englishmen, Scotchmen, and sons of Erin, we all shouted at the top
of our voices, Sambo's fiddle not being silent. And I maintain that
we all felt the sentiment with our whole hearts, though I doubt if
any but Alister and the Captain knew and sang the precise words--

Wha for Scotland's King and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?
Let him on wi' me!

The description of Alister's song, as well as that of Dennis, was to
some extent drawn from life, Julie having been accustomed to hear
"Scots, wha hae" rendered by a Scot with more soul than voice, who
always "moved the hearts of the people as one man" by his patriotic
fire.

My sister was greatly aided by two friends in her descriptions of the
scenery in "We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the
waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter
XII., and she owed to the same kind helpers also the accuracy of her
nautical phrases and her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of
the tale is full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the
materials had been made into two books instead of one. There are more
than enough characters and incidents to have developed into a couple
of tales.

Julie had often said how strange it seemed to her, when people who had
a ready pen for _writing_ consulted her as to what they should _write
about_! She suffered so much from over-abundance of ideas which she
had not the physical strength to put on paper.

Even when she was very ill, and unable to use her hands at all, the
sight of a lot of good German wood-cuts, which were sent to me at
Bath, suggested so many fresh ideas to her brain, that she only longed
to be able to seize her pen and write tales to the pictures.

Before we turn finally away from the subject of her liking for Irish
people, I must mention a little adventure which happened to her at
Fulford.

There is one parish in York where a great number of Irish peasants
live, and many of the women used to pass Julie's windows daily, going
out to work in the fields at Fulford. She liked to watch them trudging
by, with large baskets perched picturesquely on the tops of their
heads, but in the town the "Irishers" are not viewed with equal favour
by the inhabitants. One afternoon Julie was out sketching in a field,
and came across one of these poor Irish women. My sister's mind at the
time was full of Biddy Macartney, and she could not resist the
opportunity of having a chat with this suggestive "study" for the
character. She found an excuse for addressing the old woman about some
cattle which seemed restless in the field, but quickly discovered, to
her amusement, that when she alluded to Ireland, her companion, in the
broadest brogue, stoutly denied having any connection with the
country. No doubt she thought Julie's prejudices would be similar to
those of her town neighbours, but in a short time some allusion was
inadvertently made to "me father's farm in Kerry," and the truth
leaked out. After this they became more confidential; and when Julie
admired some quaint silver rings on her companion's finger, the old
woman was most anxious to give her one, and was only restrained by
coming to the decision that she would give her a recipe for "real
Irish whisky" instead. She began with "You must take some barley and
put it in a poke--" but after this Julie heard no more, for she was
distracted by the cattle, who had advanced unpleasantly near; the
Irish woman, however, continued her instructions to the end, waving
her arms to keep the beasts off, which she so far succeeded in doing,
that Julie caught the last sentence--

"And then ye must bury it in a bog."

"Is that to give it a peaty flavour?" asked my sister, innocently.

"Oh, no, me dear!--_it's because of the excise-man_."

When they parted, the old woman's original reserve entirely gave way,
and she cried: "Good luck to ye! _and go to Ireland!_"

Julie remained in England for some months after Major Ewing started
for Malta, and as he was despatched on very short notice, and she had
to pack up their goods; also--as she was not strong--it was decided
that she should avoid going out for the hot summer weather, and wait
for the healthier autumn season. Her time, therefore, was now chiefly
spent amongst civilian friends and relations, and I want this fact to
be specially noticed, in connection with the next contributions that
she wrote for the Magazine.

In February 1879, the terrible news had come of the Isandlwana
massacre, and this was followed in June by that of the Prince
Imperial's death. My sister was, of course, deeply engrossed in the
war tidings, as many of her friends went out to South Africa--some to
return no more. In July she contributed "A Soldier's Children" to
_Aunt Judy_, and of all her child verses this must be reckoned the
best, every line from first to last breathing how strong her
sympathies still were for military men and things, though she was no
longer living amongst them:

Our home used to be in the dear old camp, with lots of bands, and
trumpets, and bugles, and dead-marches, and three times a day
there was a gun,
But now we live in View Villa, at the top of the village, and it
isn't nearly such fun.

The humour and pathos in the lines are so closely mixed, it is very
difficult to read them aloud without tears; but they have been
recited--as Julie was much pleased to know--by the "old Father" of
the "Queer Fellows" to whom the verses were dedicated, when he was on
a troopship going abroad for active service, and they were received
with warm approbation by his hearers. He read them on other occasions,
also in public, with equal success.

The crowning military work, however, which Julie did this year was
"Jackanapes." This she wrote for the October number of _Aunt Judy_:
and here let me state that I believe if she had still been living at
Aldershot, surrounded by the atmosphere of military sympathies and
views of honour, the tale would never have been written. It was not
aimed, as some people supposed, personally at the man who was with the
Prince Imperial when he met his death. Julie would never have sat in
judgment on him, even before he, too, joined the rank of those Dead,
about whom no evil may be spoken. It was hearing this same man's
conduct discussed by civilians from the standard of honour which is
unhappily so different in civil and military circles, and more
especially the discussion of it amongst "business men," where the rule
of "each man for himself" is invariable, which drove Julie into
uttering the protest of "Jackanapes." I believe what she longed to
show forth was how the _life_ of an army--as of any other
body--depends on whether the individuality of its members is _dead_; a
paradox which may perhaps be hard to understand, save in the light of
His teaching, Who said that the saving of a man's life lay in his
readiness to lose it. The merging of selfish interests into a common
cause is what makes it strong; and it is from Satan alone we get the
axiom, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his
life." Of "Jackanapes" itself I need not speak. It has made Julie's
name famous, and deservedly so, for it not only contains her highest
teaching, but is her best piece of literary art.

There are a few facts connected with the story which, I think, will be
interesting to some of its admirers. My sister was in London in June
1879, and then made the acquaintance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for
whose illustrations to Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" and "Old
Christmas" she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his Toy
Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when "Jackanapes" was
still simmering in Julie's brain, if he would supply a coloured
illustration for it. But as the tale was only written a very short
time before it appeared, and as the illustration was wanted early,
because colours take long to print, Julie could not send the story to
be read, but asked Mr. Caldecott to draw her a picture to fit one of
the scenes in it. The one she suggested was a "fair-haired boy on a
red-haired pony," having noticed the artistic effect produced by this
combination in one of her own nephews, a skilful seven-year-old rider
who was accustomed to follow the hounds.

This coloured illustration was given in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, with
the tale, but when it was republished as a book, in 1883, the scene
was reproduced on a smaller scale in black and white only.

"Jackanapes" was much praised when it came out in the Magazine, but it
was not until it had been re-issued as a book that it became really
well known. Even then its success was within a hair's-breadth of
failing. The first copies were brought out in dull stone-coloured
paper covers, and that powerful vehicle "the Trade," unable to believe
that a jewel could be concealed in so plain a casket, refused the work
of J.H.E. and R.C. until they had stretched the paper cover on boards,
and coloured the Union Jack which adorns it! No doubt "the Trade"
understands its fickle child "the Public" better than either authors
or artists do, and knows by experience that it requires tempting with
what is pretty to look at, before it will taste. Certainly, if praise
from the public were the chief aim that writers, or any other workers,
strove after, their lives for the most part would consist of
disappointment only, so seldom is "success" granted whilst the power
to enjoy it is present. They alone whose aims are pointed above
earthly praise can stand unmoved amidst neglect or blame, filled with
that peace of a good conscience which the world can neither give nor
take away.

PART IV.

I shall know by the gleam and glitter
Of the golden chain you wear,
By your heart's calm strength in loving,
Of the fire they have had to bear.
Beat on, true heart, for ever;
Shine bright, strong golden chain;
And bless the cleansing fire,
And the furnace of living pain!

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.

Towards the end of October 1879, Julie started for Malta, to join
Major Ewing, but she became so very ill whilst travelling through
France that her youngest sister, and her friend, Mrs. R.H. Jelf (from
whose house in Folkestone she had started on her journey), followed
her to Paris, and brought her back to England as soon as she could be
moved.

Julie now consulted Sir William Jenner about her health, and, seeing
the disastrous effect that travelling had upon her, he totally forbade
her to start again for several months, until she had recovered some
strength and was better able to bear fatigue. This verdict was a
heavy blow to my sister, and the next four years were ones of great
trial and discomfort to her. A constant succession of disappointed
hopes and frustrated plans, which were difficult, even for Madam
Liberality, to bear!

She hoped when her husband came home on leave at Christmas, 1879, that
she should be able to return with him, but she was still unfit to go;
and then she planned to follow later with a sister, who should help
her on the journey, and be rewarded by visiting the island home of the
Knights, but this castle also fell to the ground. Meantime Julie was
suffering great inconvenience from the fact that she had sent all her
possessions to Malta several months before, keeping only some light
luggage which she could take with her. Amongst other things from which
she was thus parted, was the last chapter of "We and the World," which
she had written (as she often did the endings of her tales) when she
was first arranging the plot. This final scene was buried in a box of
books, and could not be found when wanted, so had to be rewritten and
then my sister's ideas seem to have got into a fresh channel, for she
brought her heroes safely back to their Yorkshire home, instead of
dropping the curtain on them after a gallant rescue in a Cornish mine,
as she originally arranged. Julie hoped against hope, as time went on,
that she should become stronger, and able to follow her _Lares_ and
_Penates_, so she would not have them sent back to her, until a final
end was put to her hopes by Major Ewing being sent on from Malta to
Ceylon, and in the climate of the latter place the doctors declared it
would be impossible for her to live. The goods, therefore, were now
sent back to England, and she consoled herself under the bitter trial
of being parted from her husband, and unable to share the enjoyment of
the new and wonderful scenes with which he was surrounded, by
thankfulness for his unusual ability as a vivid and brilliant
letter-writer. She certainly practised both in days of joy and sorrow
the virtue of being _laetus sorte mea_; which she afterwards so
powerfully taught in her "Story of a Short Life." I never knew her
fail to find happiness wherever she was placed, and good in whomsoever
she came across. Whatever her circumstances might be they always
yielded to her causes for thankfulness, and work to be done with a
ready and hopeful heart. That "lamp of zeal," about which Margery
speaks in "Six to Sixteen," was never extinguished in Julie, even
after youth and strength were no longer hers:--

Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regulations
of our own devising; private codes, generally kept in cipher for
our own personal self-discipline, and laws common to us both for
the employment of our time in joint duties--lessons, parish work,
and so forth.

I think we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too
often. I make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more
alone. I wonder if I really keep them better? But if not, may
GOD, I pray Him, send me back the restless zeal, the
hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives us in early
youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in conscience,
more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one's
own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in leaving
high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that
one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those
good works, those great triumphs over evil which single hands
effect sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done,
whatever we may have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and
enthusiasts for good, as if some special gifts were made to them in
middle age which are withheld from other men. Is it not rather that
some few souls keep alive the lamp of zeal and high desire which
GOD lights for most of us while life is young?

In spite, however, of my sister's contentment with her lot, and the
kindness and hospitality shown to her at this time by relations and
friends, her position was far from comfortable; and Madam Liberality's
hospitable soul was sorely tried by having no home to which she could
welcome her friends, whilst her fragile body battled against
constantly moving from one house to another when she was often unfit
to do anything except keep quiet and at rest. She was not able to
write much, and during 1880 only contributed two poems to _Aunt Judy's
Magazine_, "Grandmother's Spring," and "Touch Him if You Dare."

To the following volume (1881) she again was only able to give two
other poems, "Blue and Red; or the Discontented Lobster," and "The
Mill Stream"; but these are both much longer than her usual Verses for
Children--and, indeed, are better suited for older readers--though the
former was such a favourite with a three-year-old son of one of our
bishops that he used to repeat it by heart.

In November 1881, _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ passed into the hands of a
fresh publisher, and a new series was begun, with a fresh outside
cover which Mr. Caldecott designed for it. Julie was anxious to help
in starting the new series, and she wrote "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot" for
the opening number. All the scenery of this is drawn from the
neighbourhood of Ecclesfield, where she had lately been spending a
good deal of her time, and so refreshed her memory of its local
colouring. The story ranks equal to "Jackanapes" as a work of literary
art, though it is an idyll of peace instead of war, and perhaps,
therefore, appeals rather less deeply to general sympathies; but I
fully agree with a noted artist friend, who, when writing to regret my
sister's death, said, "'Jackanapes' and 'Daddy Darwin' I have never
been able to read without tears, and hope I never may." Daddy had no
actual existence, though his outward man may have been drawn from
types of a race of "old standards" which is fast dying out. The
incident of the theft and recovery of the pigeons is a true one, and
happened to a flock at the old Hall farm near our home, which also
once possessed a luxuriant garden, wherein Phoebe might have found
all the requisites for her Sunday posy. A "tea" for the workhouse
children used to be Madam Liberality's annual birthday feast; and the
spot where the gaffers sat and watched the "new graft" strolling home
across the fields was so faithfully described by Julie from her
favourite Schroggs Wood, that when Mr. Caldecott reproduced it in his
beautiful illustration, some friends who were well acquainted with the
spot, believed that he had been to Ecclesfield to paint it.

[Illustration: ECCLESFIELD HALL]

Julie's health became somewhat better in 1882, and for the Magazine
this year she wrote as a serial tale "Laetus Sorte Mea; or, the Story
of a Short Life." This was not republished as a book until four days
before my sister's death, and it has become so well known from
appearing at this critical time that I need say very little about it.
A curious mistake, however, resulted from its being published then,
which was that most of the reviewers spoke of it as being the last
work that she wrote, and commented on the title as a singularly
appropriate one, but those who had read the tale in the Magazine were
aware that it was written three years previously, and that the second
name was put before the first, as it was feared the public would be
perplexed by a Latin title. The only part of the book that my sister
added during her illness was Leonard's fifth letter in Chapter X. This
she dictated, because she could not write. She had intended to give
Saint Martin's history when the story came out in the Magazine, but
was hindered by want of space.[32] Many people admire Leonard's story
as much as that of Jackanapes, but to me it is not quite so highly
finished from an artistic point of view. I think it suffered a little
from being written in detachments from month to month. It is, however,
almost hypercritical to point out defects, and the circumstances of
Leonard's life are so much more within the range of common experiences
than those of Jackanapes, it is probable that the lesson of the Short
Life, during which a V.C. was won by the joyful endurance of
inglorious suffering, may be more helpful to general readers than that
of the other brief career, in which Jackanapes, after "one crowded
hour of glorious life," earned his crown of victory.

[Footnote 32: Letter, Oct. 5, 1882.]

On one of Julie's last days she expressed a fear to her doctor that
she was very impatient under her pain, and he answered, "Indeed you
are not; I think you deserve a Victoria Cross for the way in which you
bear it." This reply touched her very much, for she knew the speaker
had not read Leonard's Story; and we used to hide the proof-sheets of
it, for which she was choosing head-lines to the pages, whenever her
doctors came into the room, fearing that they would disapprove of her
doing any mental work.

In the volume of _Aunt Judy_ for 1883 "A Happy Family" appeared, but
this had been originally written for an American Magazine, in which a
prize was offered for a tale not exceeding nine hundred words in
length. Julie did not gain the prize, and her story was rather spoiled
by having to be too closely condensed.

She also wrote three poems for _Aunt Judy_ in 1883, "The Poet and the
Brook," "Mother's Birthday Review," and "Convalescence." The last one
and the tale of "Sunflowers and a Rushlight" (which came out in
November 1883) bear some traces of the deep sympathy she had learned
for ill health through her own sufferings of the last few years; the
same may, to some extent, be said of "The Story of a Short Life."
"Mother's Birthday Review" does not come under this heading, though I
well remember that part, if not the whole of it, was written whilst
Julie lay in bed; and I was despatched by her on messages in various
directions to ascertain what really became of Hampstead Heath donkeys
during the winter, and the name of the flower that clothes some parts
of the Heath with a sheet of white in summer.

In May 1883, Major Ewing returned home from Ceylon, and was stationed
at Taunton. This change brought back much comfort and happiness into
my sister's life. She once more had a pretty home of her own, and not
only a home but a garden. When the Ewings took their house, and named
it Villa _Ponente_ from its aspect towards the setting sun, the
"garden" was a potato patch, with soil chiefly composed of refuse left
by the house-builders; but my sister soon began to accumulate flowers
in the borders, especially herbaceous ones that were given to her by
friends, or bought by her in the market. Then in 1884 she wrote
"Mary's Meadow," as a serial for _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, and the story
was so popular that it led to the establishment of a "Parkinson
Society for lovers of hardy flowers." Miss Alice Sargant was the
founder and secretary of this, and to her my sister owed much of the
enjoyment of her life at Taunton, for the Society produced many
friends by correspondence, with whom she exchanged plants and books,
and the "potato patch" quickly turned into a well-stocked
flower-garden.

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