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Title: Kate Greenaway
Author: Spielmann, M. H. (Marion Harry), Layard, George Somes
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Kate Greenaway" ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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KATE GREENAWAY
[Illustration: OFF TO THE VILLAGE.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of Her Grace the
Duchess of Bedford._]
KATE
GREENAWAY
BY
M. H. SPIELMANN
AND
G. S. LAYARD
[Illustration: FROM LADY VICTORIA HERBERT’S BOOK-PLATE]
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1905
THIS BOOK
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF
KATE GREENAWAY
IS DEDICATED
TO
JOHN GREENAWAY
HER ONLY BROTHER AND LIFE-LONG COMPANION
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
_“K.G”
Nov. vi. 1901._
_Farewell; Kind heart. And if there be
In that unshored Immensity,
Child-Angels, they will welcome thee.
Clean-souled, clear-eyed, unspoiled, discreet;
Thou gav’st thy gifts to make Life sweet;—
These shall be flowers about thy feet!_
]
Preface
Apart from her work, full record of which is made in the following
pages, there was in the life of Kate Greenaway one outstanding
feature—her friendship with John Ruskin. To this, without the
permission of the great critic’s legal representatives, no sort of
justice could have been done. It is therefore our first duty and
pleasure to put on record our great indebtedness to Mrs. Arthur
Severn, Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C., and Mr. George Allen, for
their liberality in allowing us to make copious extracts from Ruskin’s
side of the vigorous correspondence which was carried on between
him and Kate Greenaway for so many years; this generous permission
is only accompanied by the proviso that, in accordance with the
undertaking announced by the editors and publisher of the Library
Edition of Ruskin’s complete work, all of his published letters shall
ultimately be included in that noble issue. These letters have here
been printed with the strictest adherence to Ruskin’s peculiar method
of punctuation—long and short dashes in place of commas, semicolons,
and the like. From Kate Greenaway’s side of the correspondence abundant
drafts have also been made, for they reveal the writer’s character
and method of thought better than any independent estimate could do.
That no violence has been done to her native modesty is proved by the
following letter kindly communicated to us by Mrs. Severn. It was
written at the time when the preparation of the ultimate _Life of
Ruskin_ was under discussion:—
_8th June 1900._
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.
My dearest Joanie— ... I feel it is very kind of you to consider my
wishes about the letters, as I know of course you could do as you wished
about them. In the later letters, I think, there is nothing I should
object to any one reading—in the early ones nothing I should mind you
reading; but there might be things in some one would feel perhaps better
not published....
I have a great many letters of his—one for nearly every day for three
years, but they are all of the time of my early letters, before his
great illness. Since—he has never written—as you will remember. I
should like to have any letters in the Life, if one is written, that
were thought desirable.
I am not sure the later ones of mine are much in a literary way; but he
did say some of the earlier ones ‘ought to exist as long as the most
beautiful of my drawings should—because they were also beautiful.’ I
tell you this because you know how great was the affection between us
that you will not think it conceit. I feel so honoured by it, that I can
only feel honoured for my name ever to appear near his. My dearest love
to you.
KATIE.
From the facsimile letter given in the following pages, it will be
observed that Kate Greenaway later on developed a habit of frequently
employing capital letters in unusual places. These, as a mere
eccentricity, have been corrected in transcription.
Our gratitude—may we say the gratitude of our readers also?—is
due to the several ladies and gentlemen who have supplied us with
reminiscences, correspondence, and other information duly acknowledged
in the text; indeed, with but one or two exceptions, we have been
favoured with the most obliging responses. Mrs. Arthur Severn, Lady
Maria and the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson, Mr.
Austin Dobson, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. William Marcus Ward, the
Rev. W. J. Loftie, Mr. Edward Jones, Mr. Ernest G. Brown, and the late
Mr. Edmund Evans, whose death at the age of seventy-nine occurred as
this book was passing through the press, all have shown an interest and
have extended a friendly help which cannot be too highly appreciated or
too cordially recognised.
A word must be said concerning the illustrations. The published
works of Kate Greenaway are known, and ought to be found, in every
house where children live and are loved. We have therefore confined
ourselves, with a few rare and intentional exceptions, to work quite
unknown to the public, such as early drawings of the cottage at
Rolleston where her career, undreamed of as yet, was being determined,
thumb-nail sketches with which she embellished her letters, and
more important drawings done for sale to picture-buyers or for
presentation to friends. About half a hundred have been reproduced
with particular care by the ‘three-colour process,’ for the most part
with extraordinary success, the rest by other methods suited to the
exigencies of the case. For the use of the originals we are indebted
to the kindness of many owners—to Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford,
to Mr. Ernest G. Brown, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. Alfred Emmott,
M.P., Mr. W. Finch, Mr. Campbell S. Holberton, Mr. Charles P. Johnson,
Mrs. W. Levy, the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mr. John Riley, Mr. Stuart
M. Samuel, M.P., Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Henry Silver, the Hon. Mrs.
W. Le Poer Trench, Mr. Harry J. Veitch, Mr. Wm. Marcus Ward, and Mr.
Creeser, as well as to Mr. John Greenaway. Other illustrations come
from the collections of Miss Evans, Lady Victoria Herbert, Mrs. F.
Locker-Lampson, Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A., Lady Pontifex, and Mr.
B. Elkin Mocatta. To all of them we express our hearty thanks, and
to Messrs. Cassell & Co. our indebtedness for having permitted the
publication of the border illustration with Mr. Austin Dobson’s ‘Home
Beauty,’ the copyright of which they hold; and to Messrs. M’Caw,
Stevenson & Orr, Ltd., of Belfast, similar acknowledgments must be
made for according their consent in respect of the three famous
Christmas cards which appear in colour. Our thanks are also due to
Messrs. Frederick Warne & Co. for their courtesy in allowing us to
reproduce the illustrations of ‘Bubbles’ and ‘The Bubble’ as well as
the end-papers. The last-named are based upon the nursery wallpaper to
which, with the artist’s permission, the illustrations of one of her
_Almanacks_ were adapted by Mr. David Walker. Messrs. Warne are the
present holders of the bulk of Kate Greenaway’s published copyright
work as well as of the stock of books which were originally issued by
Messrs. G. Routledge & Sons, and from them nearly all the books dealt
with in the following pages are still to be obtained.
Contents
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Introductory 1
CHAPTER II
Early Years: Birth—Autobiography of Childhood—First Visit to
Rolleston—Love of Flowers—Family Trouble—Evening Parties and
Entertainments 8
CHAPTER III
Childhood in Rolleston: Early Reading—Adventures in London
Streets—A Community of Dolls—Buckingham Palace—Life in
Rolleston—Education—Brother and Father 21
CHAPTER IV
Student Days and Early Success: Early Promise and Art
Classes—South Kensington Prizes—Lady Butler—Dudley Gallery—Rev.
W. J. Loftie and Messrs. Marcus Ward—_Amateur
Theatricals_—Toy-Books and Fairy Tales—Progress 41
CHAPTER V
1877-1878
The Triumph of _Under the Window_: Royal Academy—Mr. and Mrs.
Edmund Evans—Mr. Evans’s Colour-printing—John Ruskin on Kate
Greenaway—_Topo_—Randolph Caldecott, and Mr. Walter Crane 55
CHAPTER VI
1879-1880
Christmas Cards and Books—H. Stacy Marks, R.A., John Ruskin,
and Frederick Locker-Lampson 73
CHAPTER VII
1881-1882
The Empress Frederick, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Ruskin, and
Mr. Punch—_A Day in a Child’s Life_—_Little Ann_ and
_Mother Goose_ 98
CHAPTER VIII
1882 (_continued_) and 1883
The Ruskin and Severn Friendship ripens—At Brantwood—_The Art
of England_—Ruskin’s Advice—Kate Greenaway’s First _Almanack_—A
Greenaway ‘Boom’—Mr. Austin Dobson 109
CHAPTER IX
1884-1885
_Language of Flowers_—_Mavor’s Spelling-Book_—_Dame Wiggins
of Lee_—Ruskin Correspondence—His Tuition and Plans for
Co-operation—Intimacy with Mrs. Severn and her Children 127
CHAPTER X
1885 AND 1886
The Move to Frognal—Ruskin: Letters and Confidences, Praise
and Blame, his Illness—Mrs. Allingham 142
CHAPTER XI
1887-1890
Kate Greenaway as a Correspondent—Her Letters to Ruskin—Her
Friends—Learning Perspective—Ruskin’s Last Letters—_The Pied
Piper of Hamelin_—Mrs. Allingham, R.W.S.—The _Book of
Games_—Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in
Water-Colours—Paris Exhibition—Death of Mr. John Greenaway, Sr. 163
CHAPTER XII
1891-1895
Kate Greenaway’s First Exhibition—The Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby—_Almanacks_—Contributions to the Columbian Exposition,
Chicago—Book-plates—Lady Maria Ponsonby—Works Sold—_The Ladies’
Home Journal_—Death of Mrs. Greenaway—Lady Mayo—Brantwood
again—Kate Greenaway’s Criticism of Modern Art—Marie
Bashkirtseff—Friendship with Miss Violet Dickinson—Religious
Opinions—Ruskin—Views on Mr. George Meredith, etc. 179
CHAPTER XIII
1896-1897
The Last of the Almanacks—Opinions on Books, Pictures, the New
Woman, and Eternal Man—Her Defence of Ruskin 201
CHAPTER XIV
1898-1901
Kate Greenaway’s Third Exhibition—Correspondence with John
Ruskin, and Mr. and Mrs. Stuart M. Samuel—Her Views on Art,
Religion, and Books—Her Oil-painting—Death of Ruskin—Illness
and Death of Kate Greenaway—Posthumous Exhibition—The Kate
Greenaway Memorial 224
CHAPTER XV
Verse-writing: Kate Greenaway’s Feeling for Poetry—Problem,
Tragedy, and Resignation—Charm of her Verses for Children—On
Death 257
CHAPTER XVI
The Artist: A Review and an Estimate 265
LIST OF BOOKS, etc., illustrated wholly or in part by Kate
Greenaway 285
INDEX. 291
List of Illustrations
IN COLOUR
OWNER OF ORIGINAL PAGE
1. Off to the Village _Duchess of Bedford_ _Frontispiece_
2. Sisters _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 4
3. In the Chappells’ Cottage _John Greenaway, Esq._ 10
at Rolleston—The Kitchen
4. The Kitchen Pump and Old _John Greenaway, Esq._ 12
Cheese Press, Rolleston
5. Winter, 1892 _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 20
6. The Open Door _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 26
7. The Chappells’ Cottage, _John Greenaway, Esq._ 36
Farm, and Croft at
Rolleston
8. Thomas Chappell (‘Dadad’) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 38
9. Kate Greenaway’s _Nat. Art Library, Victoria and 42
Student-work Albert Museum, S. Kensington_
10. The Elf Ring _John Greenaway, Esq._ 48
11. The Little Model _Mrs. J. St. G. Whitly_ 58
12. ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 62
13. Bubbles:—
(1) The Bubble }_The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ between
(2) Bubbles } pp. 64 and 65
14. Christmas Cards _Wm. Marcus Ward, Esq._ 74
15. The Little Go-cart _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 80
16. Pink Ribbons _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 88
17. A Calm in a Teacup _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 94
18. Out for a Walk _Ernest G. Brown, Esq._ 100
19. ‘Lucy Locket lost her _W. Finch, Esq._ 104
Pocket’
20. Two Girls going to School _John Riley, Esq._ 114
21. The Old Farm-house _Campbell S. Holberton, Esq._ 122
22. The Red Boy _Charles P. Johnson, Esq._ 130
23. Many Happy Returns of the _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 136
Day
24. The Naughty Little Girl _Miss Violet Severn_ between pp. 140
(4 pages) and 141
25. The Cherry Woman _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 150
26. Taking in the Roses _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 160
27. The Garden Seat _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 166
28. Happy Returns of the Day _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 170
29. Cottages _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 172
30. Portrait of a Lady _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 180
31. Joan Ponsonby, 1891 _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 182
32. Brother and Sister _Charles P. Johnson, Esq._ 188
33. The Bracken Gatherers _The Hon. Mrs. W. Le Poer Trench_ 194
34. A Surrey Cottage _Alfred Emmott, Esq., M.P._ 198
35. The Pink Sash _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 204
36. The Peacock Girl _John Greenaway, Esq._ 210
37. Vera Evelyn Samuel _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 212
38. Two Girls in a Garden _John Riley, Esq._ 216
39. The Dancing of the _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 218
Felspar Fairies
40. A Baby in White _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 222
41. Book-plate of Miss Vera _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 226
Evelyn Samuel
42. Kate Greenaway before _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 230
the Fates
43. The Fable of the Girl _W. Finch, Esq._ 236
and her Milk Pail
44. The Muff (unfinished) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 240
45. The Stick Fire _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 244
46. Two at a Stile _Mrs. W. Levy._ 246
47. Waiting _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 250
48. Springtime _Henry Silver, Esq._ 256
49. Swansdown _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 260
50. ‘Dead’ _John Greenaway, Esq._ 264
51. The May Dance _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 272
52. Alfy (unfinished) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 274
IN BLACK AND WHITE
1. John Greenaway (Father of _John Greenaway, Esq._ 40
Kate Greenaway). By Birket
Foster, R.W.S.
2. Kate Greenaway’s _Nat. Art Library, Victoria and_ 44
Student-work _Albert Museum, S. Kensington_
3. Kate Greenaway at the ages ...... 46
of 16 and 21. (From
Photographs)
4. Pencil Sketches of _The Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._ 50
‘Tragedy’
5. John Greenaway (Brother _John Greenaway, Esq._ 52
of Kate Greenaway)
6. Pencil Sketches _The Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._ 66
7. Kate Greenaway, 1880. ...... 84
(From a Photograph by
Elliott & Fry)
8. Frederick Locker-Lampson _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 86
9. The Twins } _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_
} between pp. 90
10. Little Dinky } and 91
11. Water-colour Drawings _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 92
on Letters
12. Water-colour Drawing on _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 96
Letter
13. Letter from John Ruskin _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 111
to Kate Greenaway,
27th Dec. 1882
14. ‘Home-Beauty’ _Mrs. Croft_ 125
15. Kate Greenaway’s Home, ...... 142
39, Frognal, Hampstead.
(From a Photograph)
16. Tea Room leading out from ...... 144
the Studio, 39, Frognal,
Hampstead. (From a
Photograph)
17. The Studio, 39, Frognal, ...... 146
Hampstead. (From a
Photograph)
18. Letter from John Ruskin _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 157-159
to Kate Greenaway,
8th Nov. 1886
19. ‘Rover.’ (From a ...... 164
Photograph)
20. Pencil and Tint Drawing _B. Elkin Mocatta, Esq._ 174
21. Kate Greenaway in her ...... 178
Studio, 1895. (From a
Private Photograph by
Mrs. Wm. Miller)
22. Mabel Ponsonby _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 184
23. Eileen Ponsonby _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 186
24. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 192
Miss Violet Dickinson,
8th July 1896
25. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 193
Miss Violet Dickinson,
10th Dec. 1896
26. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 194
Miss Violet Dickinson,
19th Jan. 1897
27. Letter from Kate _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 217
Greenaway to John
Ruskin (‘Kate Nickleby’)
28. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 225
Miss Violet Dickinson
29. ‘Ronald’s Clock’ _Mrs. M. H. Spielmann_ 248
30. Sketch-design for the _Mrs. Arthur Lasenby Liberty_ 255
Plate affixed above
the Kate Greenaway Cot
in the Gt. Ormond
St. Hospital
31. Pencil Study from Life _M. H. Spielmann, Esq._ 276
32. Letter from Kate _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 278
Greenaway to John
Ruskin
33. The Picnic _John Greenaway, Esq._ 280
34. Pen Sketch _John Greenaway, Esq._ 282
35 to 90. Fifty-six Thumb-nail and other Sketches with Pen and Pencil,
throughout the Text, viz.:
26 on Letters to John Ruskin, in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn (pp. 1, 8, 18, 21, 23, 116, 152, 162, 163, 165, 179, 197,
199, 202, 207, 222, 232, 233, 237, 239, 241, 243, 247, 277, 283,
284).
5 from Pencil Sketches, in the possession of M. H. Spielmann, Esq.
(pp. 5, 55, 123, 131, 245).
5 from the MS. of Kate Greenaway’s Autobiography, in the possession
of John Greenaway, Esq. (pp. 26, 30, 33, 35, 40).
5 from Book-plates, etc., in the possession of Mrs. Frederick
Locker-Lampson (pp. 20, 54, 72, 88, 97).
4 on Letters to Miss Violet Dickinson, in the possession of Miss
Violet Dickinson (pp. 63, 210, 213, 221).
4 Early Rough Sketches for Christmas Cards and Valentines, in the
possession of Wm. Marcus Ward, Esq. (pp. 45, 75, 279, 280).
2 from Pencil Sketches, in the possession of Lady Pontifex (pp. 6
and 108).
1 from a Book-plate, in the possession of Lady Victoria Herbert
(p. 7).
1 on a Letter to Miss Lily Evans, in the possession of Miss Lily
Evans (p. 107).
1 Skit by Randolph Caldecott, in the possession of John Greenaway,
Esq. (p. 69).
1 Poem by Austin Dobson, Esq., in the album of Ernest G. Brown,
Esq. (p. vii.).
1 Sketch-plan of Kitchen at Rolleston (p. 11).
_The Illustrations in colour in this volume have been engraved and
printed by The Menpes Press._
KATE GREENAWAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
About the name of Kate Greenaway there floats a perfume so sweet and
fragrant that even at the moment of her death we thought more of the
artist we admired than of the friend we had lost. Grateful for the
work she had produced, with all its charm and tender cheerfulness, the
world has recognised that that work was above all things sincere. And,
indeed, as her art was, so were her character and her mind: never was
an artist’s self more truly reflected in that which her hand produced.
All the sincerity and genuine effort seen in her drawings, all the
modesty, humour, and love, all the sense of beauty and of charm, all
the daintiness of conception and realisation, the keen intelligence,
the understanding of children, the feeling for landscape, with all the
purity, simplicity, and grace of mind—all those qualities, in short,
which sing to us out of her bright and happy pages—were to be found
in the personality of the artist herself. All childhood, all babyhood,
held her love: a love that was a little wistful perhaps. Retiring, and
even shy, to only a few she gave her friendship—a precious possession.
For how many are there who, gifted as she was, have achieved a triumph,
have conquered the applause and admiration of two hemispheres, and yet
have chosen to withdraw into the shade, caring for no praise but such
as she might thankfully accept as a mark of what she was trying to
accomplish, never realising (such was her innate modesty) the extent
and significance of her success?
Here was a fine character, transparently beautiful and simple as her
own art, original and graceful as her own genius. Large-hearted and
right-minded, Kate Greenaway was gentle in her kindness, lofty and firm
in principle, forgiving to the malevolent, and loyal to her friends—a
combination of qualities happily not unrivalled among women, but rare
indeed when united to attributes of genius.
It is true that what Kate Greenaway mainly did was to draw Christmas
cards, illustrate a score or two of toy-books, and produce a number
of dainty water-colour drawings; and that is the sum of her work.
Why, then, is her name a household word in Great and Greater Britain,
and even abroad where the mention of some of the greatest artists of
England of to-day scarcely calls forth so much as an intelligent glance
of recognition? It is because of the universal appeal she made, almost
unconsciously, to the universal heart.
All who love childhood, even though they may not be blessed with the
full measure of her insight and sympathy, all who love the fields and
flowers and the brightness of healthy and sunny natures, must feel
that Kate Greenaway had a claim on her country’s regard and upon the
love of a whole generation. She was the Baby’s Friend, the Children’s
Champion, who stood absolutely alone in her relations to the public.
Randolph Caldecott laboured to amuse the little ones; Mr. Walter
Crane, to entertain them. They aimed at interesting children in their
drawings; but Kate Greenaway interested us in the children themselves.
She taught us more of the charm of their ways than we had seen before;
she showed us their graces, their little foibles, their thousand little
prettinesses, the sweet little characteristics and psychology of their
tender age, as no one else had done it before. What are Edouard Frère’s
little children to hers? What are Fröhlich’s, what are Richter’s?
She felt, with Douglas Jerrold, that ‘babes are earthly angels to
keep us from the stars,’ and has peopled for us a fairy-world which
we recognise nevertheless for our own. She had a hundred imitators
(from whom she suffered enough), but which of them is a rival on her
own ground? M. Boutet de Monvel was inspired by her; but with all his
draughtsman’s talent and astonishing invention and resource, he has
not what she has: he has given us the _insouciance_ of childhood, but
at what sacrifice of touch; he has given us some of the beauty, but at
what surrender of nearly all the lovableness and charm. And not babies
and school-girls only, but maidens who are past the ignorance though
not the innocence of childhood; not roses only, but all the flowers of
the garden; not the fields only, but the fair landscape of the English
country-side,—all these things Kate Greenaway has shown us, with
winning and delightful quaintness, and has made us all the happier for
her own happiness in them; and, showing us all these things, she has
made us love them and her drawings the more for the teaching and the
loveliness in them, and herself as well for having made them.
The children who welcomed her work when it first appeared are grown up
now and are looking rather old, and those who bought the picture-books
‘for the little ones’ (as they said) but enjoyed them so much
themselves, are mostly wearing spectacles. And all the while Kate
Greenaway worked hard, making hundreds, and thousands, of her little
pictures, and doing more for the pleasure and happiness of the little
folks than most little folks know. So that now when her pencil and her
brush are laid aside for ever, and herself has been called away, her
life-task being done, it is surely well that we should remember her
in affection, and wrap up the memory of her name in a little of the
lavender of her love that filled her heart and welled over into her
work.
One of the charms, as has been said, most striking in the character of
‘K. G.’ (as she was called by her most intimate friends and relatives)
was her modesty. A quiet, bright little lady, whose fame had spread all
over the world, and whose books were making her rich, and her publisher
prosperous and content—there she was, whom everybody wanted to know,
yet who preferred to remain quite retired, living with her relatives
in the delightful house Mr. Norman Shaw had designed for her—happy
when she was told how children loved her work, but unhappy when people
who were not her intimate friends wanted to talk to her about it. She
was, therefore, so little seen in the world that M. Arsène Alexandre
declared his suspicion that Kate Greenaway must really have been an
angel who would now and then visit this green earth only to leave a
new picture-book for the children, and then fly away again. She has
flown away for ever now; but the gift she left behind is more than the
gift of a book or of a row of books. She left a pure love of childhood
in many hearts that never felt it before, and the lesson of a greater
kindness to be done, and a delight in simple and tender joys. And to
children her gift was not only this; but she put before them pictures
more beautiful in their way and quaint than had ever been seen, and
she taught them, too, to look more kindly on their playmates, more
wisely on their own little lives, and with better understanding on the
beauties of garden and meadow and sky with which Heaven has embellished
the world. It was a great deal to do, and she did it well—so well that
there is no sadness in her friends’ memory of her; and their gratitude
is tinged with pride that her name will be remembered with honour in
her country for generations to come.
What Kate Greenaway did with her modest pencil was by her example to
revolutionise one form of book-illustration—helped by Mr. Edmund
Evans, the colour-printer, and his wood-blocks, as will be shown later
on. And for a time she dressed the children of two continents. The
smart dress with which society decks out its offspring, so little
consonant with the idea of a natural and happy childhood, was repellent
to Kate Greenaway. So she set about devising frocks and aprons, hats
and breeches, funnily neat and prim, in the style of 1800, adding
beauty and comfort to natural grace. In the first instance her
Christmas cards spread abroad her dainty fancy; then her books, and
finally her almanacks over a period of fifteen years, carried her
designs into many countries and made converts wherever they were seen.
An Englishman visiting Jules Breton, in the painter’s country-house in
Normandy, found all the children in Greenaway costumes; for they alone,
declared Breton, fitted children and sunshine, and they only were
worthy of beautifying the _chef-d’œuvres du bon Dieu_.
[Illustration: SISTERS.
‘Girl with blue sash and basket of roses, with a baby.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
Indeed, Kate Greenaway is known on the Continent of Europe along with
the very few English artists whose names are familiar to the foreign
public—with those of Millais, Leighton, Burne-Jones, Watts, and Walter
Crane—being recognised as the great domestic artist who, though her
subjects were infantile, her treatment often elementary, and her little
faults clear to the first glance, merited respect for originality of
invention and for rare creative quality. It was realised that she was
a _tête d’école_, the head and founder of a school—even though that
school was but a Kindergarten—the inventor of a new way of seeing and
doing, quite apart from the exquisite qualities of what she did and
what she expressed. It is true that her personal identity may have
been somewhat vague. An English customer was once in the shop of the
chief bookseller of Lyons, who was showing a considerable collection of
English picture-books for children. ‘How charming they are!’ he cried;
‘we have nothing like them in France. Ah, say what you like—Walter
Crane and Kate Greenaway are true artists—they are two of your
greatest men!’ It was explained that Kate Greenaway was a lady. The
bookseller looked up curiously. ‘I can affirm it,’ said the visitor;
‘Miss Greenaway is a friend of mine.’ ‘Ah, truly?’ replied the other,
politely yet incredulous. Later on the story was duly recounted to
Miss Greenaway. ‘That does not surprise me,’ she replied, with a gay
little laugh. ‘Only the other day a correspondent who called himself
“a foreign admirer” sent me a photograph of myself which he said he
had procured, and he asked me to put my autograph to it. It was the
portrait of a good-looking young man with a black moustache. And when I
explained, he wrote back that he feared I was laughing at him, as Kate
is a man’s name—in Holland.’
[Illustration]
But if her personality was a ‘mystification’ to the foreigner, there
was no doubt about her art. In France, where she was a great favourite,
and where her extensive contribution of drawings to the Paris
Exhibition of 1889 had raised her vastly in the opinion of those who
knew her only by her picture-books, she was cordially appreciated. But
she had been appreciated long before that. Nearly twenty years earlier
the tribute of M. Ernest Chesneau was so keen and sympathetic in its
insight, and so graceful in its recognition, that Mr. Ruskin declared
to the Oxford undergraduates that no expressions of his own could vie
with the tactful delicacy of the French critic. But in his lecture on
‘The Art of England’ (_Fairyland_) Ruskin found words to declare for
himself that in her drawings ‘you have the radiance and innocence of
reinstated infant divinity showered again among the flowers of English
meadows.’ And privately he wrote to her: ‘Holbein lives for all time
with his grim and ugly “Dance of Death”; a not dissimilar and more
beautiful immortality may be in store for you if you worthily apply
yourself to produce a “Dance of Life.”’
The touchstone of all art in which there is an element of greatness is
the appeal which it makes to the foreigner, to the high and the low
alike. Kate Greenaway’s appeal was unerring. Dr. Muther has paid his
tribute, on behalf of Germany, to the exquisite fusion of truth and
grace in her picture-books, which he declared to be the most beautiful
in the world; and, moreover, he does justice to her exquisite feeling
for landscape seen in the utmost simplicity—for she was not always
drawing children. But when she did, she loved the landscape setting
almost, if not quite, as much as the little people whom she sent to
play in it.
[Illustration: From a Pencil Sketch in the possession of Lady Pontifex.]
In speaking of Kate Greenaway as a ‘great’ artist, we do not, of
course, mean that she was technically accomplished in the sense
or degree that a great picture-painter or a sculptor may be. Her
figure-drawing was by no means always impeccable; and the fact of the
design and composition being generally ‘right’ arose, we imagine, as
much from intuition as from the result of scholarly training. And that
is the chief thing. As he grows older, even the artist who is primarily
technician and purist is apt to ask, ‘What does technical excellence
matter so long as the gist of the thing is there? Is not that a finer
thing which convinces us from the instinct of the painter than that
which satisfies us from his knowledge of it?’ Yet Kate could draw an
eye or the outline of a face with unsurpassable skill: firmness and a
sense of beauty were among her leading virtues. The painter with whom
she had most affinity was perhaps Mr. G. D. Leslie, for her period
and treatment are not unlike. Her sense of humour is allied to that
of Stacy Marks; and her sentiment to that of Fred Walker. Yet she was
wholly personal (as will be shown later on when the details of her art
come to be discussed), and full of independence, courage, and fixity
of purpose. And just as G. F. Watts in his portraits of men and women
invariably sought out the finest and most noble quality in his constant
search for beauty in the sitter, not only in features but in character,
so did Kate Greenaway in her quiet little drawings show us all that was
sweet and pleasant and charming in children’s lives of days gone by in
country-side and village, and left out all that was ugly, wrong, or bad.
[Illustration: Book-plate designed for Lady Victoria Herbert.]
The life and progress of the fascinating artist lie here before the
reader, with their quaint beginning and logical development.
CHAPTER II
EARLY YEARS: BIRTH—AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHILDHOOD—FIRST VISIT TO
ROLLESTON—LOVE OF FLOWERS—FAMILY TROUBLE—EVENING PARTIES AND
ENTERTAINMENTS.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
Kate Greenaway was born at 1, Cavendish Street, Hoxton, on the 17th
day of March 1846. She was the daughter of John Greenaway and of his
wife, Elizabeth Jones. John Greenaway was a prominent wood-engraver
and draughtsman, whose work is to be found in the early volumes of the
_Illustrated London News_ and _Punch_, and in the leading magazines and
books of the day. His paternal grandfather was also the forebear of the
artist, Mr. Frank Dadd, R.I., whose brother married Kate’s sister.
The family consisted of (1) Elizabeth Mary (‘Lizzie’), afterwards Mrs.
Frank Coxall, born in 1841; (2) Catherine (‘Kate’), born in 1846; (3)
Frances Rebecca (‘Fanny’), afterwards Mrs. Edward Martin Dadd, born
in 1850; and (4) Alfred John, born in 1852. It was the intention of
the parents that the second child should bear the name of Kate, but by
a blunder Catherine was substituted. Kate she called herself all her
life, and so entirely was Catherine dropped that she always had to be
reminded of her real name before she put her signature to any document
in which strict accuracy was required.
Kate’s early life was, in the general acceptance of the term,
uneventful. Unimportant, childhood never is; but what is important in
it is generally hard to come at. The reason is that we are rarely able
to recall the trivial yet very material events which make up the sum
of child-experience; and the biographer is commonly left to ferret out
the more salient points of the little one’s surroundings, and dress
out his own conjectures of the effect they may have exercised upon the
subject of his memoir. In the case of Kate Greenaway we are in a better
position, for there are in existence certain records from the pen of
the artist herself, candid and direct, and as particular in detail as
if they had been studied, as it were, with her eye at the microscope of
memory. These records, however, are not the best that could be desired,
either in kind or in form, so that their proper presentation is not
without some difficulty.
A few years before her death Miss Greenaway conceived the idea of
writing the autobiography of her childhood. This she did not live to
accomplish, nor did she succeed in producing what can properly be
called a complete rough draft of her nursery days. What she left behind
is the long detailed record of undigested recollections and sensations
as she recalled them, marked by discursiveness and lacking in literary
form. In the desire to render acceptable such of them as are here
reproduced, we have deemed it wise to substitute, in the main, the
third for the first person singular.
No apology need be offered for dwelling upon the trifling personal
details with which character is built up, more particularly when they
are revealed by a searching observation reinforced by an unusually
retentive memory. These things come to be of peculiar interest and,
combining to form a study of child-life, may be said to possess real
value and importance. A certain lack of sequence and cohesion may be
apparent in the record of these early days; but the events happened
and the impressions were created, and from them there arose the Kate
Greenaway who was destined to be beloved of two continents. The reader
is therefore prepared, so far as the early years are concerned, for a
cumulative effect rather than for a rigidly consecutive narrative.
Kate’s own ideas on the relative merits of biography and autobiography
may be gathered from the following quotations from letters written to
her friend, Miss Violet Dickinson, in 1897:—
What an interesting thing nearly every one’s life would be if they
could put it all down; but it is only the horrid ones who will, like
Marie Bashkirtseff or Rousseau—but if nice people could tell all their
mind it would be charming. Did you ever read Goethe’s _Life_—the
autobiography? All the early part is so charming,—only there you feel
he also was very heartless. And he was, but it is so charmingly told.
Sometimes frankness is curious. I once met a young man who told me
he was a coward and a liar—and it turned out _he was_, to my great
surprise. It isn’t often people know themselves so truthfully, or, if
they know, they don’t say.
And again:
I am longing to read the Tennyson _Life_—shall send for it next week. I
don’t know, I’m sure, who is best to write a Life—outsiders don’t know
half what any one is like, and relations often get a wrong idea of you
because they are cross at little points in your character that annoy
them. I feel an autobiography or diary is best. A person must reveal
himself most in that.
Kate was a precocious child. We have it on her authority that when she
was eight months old she could walk alone, and while still an infant
criticised the pronunciation of her sister Lizzie, who was five years
her senior. She was not a year old when she was taken by her mother to
visit her great-aunt, Mrs. Wise, the wife of a farmer at Rolleston, a
village some five miles from Newark and fourteen from Nottingham. And
Aunt Aldridge, her mother’s sister, lived in the neighbourhood, at a
lonely farm, weirdly called the ‘Odd House.’
[Illustration: IN THE CHAPPELLS’ COTTAGE AT ROLLESTON—THE KITCHEN.
_An early drawing by Kate Greenaway._
(See No. 1 on Sketch Plan.)]
At Aunt Wise’s house Mrs. Greenaway was taken seriously ill, and it
was found necessary to put little Kate out to nurse. Living on a small
cottage farm in Rolleston[1] was an old servant of Mrs. Wise’s, Mary
Barnsdale, at this time married to Thomas Chappell. With the Chappells
lived Mary’s sister, Ann. It was of this household that Kate became
an important member, and forthwith to the child Mary became ‘Mamam,’
her husband ‘Dadad,’ and her sister Ann ‘Nanan.’ This was as soon as
she found her tongue. Among her earliest recollections came a hayfield
named the ‘Greet Close,’ where Ann carried Kate on one arm, and on
the other a basket of bread and butter and cups, and, somehow, on a
third, a can of steaming tea for the thirsty haymakers—which tells us
the season of the year. Kate was sure that she had now arrived at the
age of two, and for the rest of her life she vividly remembered the
beauty of the afternoon, the look of the sun, the smell of the tea, the
perfume of the hay, and the great feeling of Happiness—the joy and the
love of it—from her royal perch on Ann’s strong arm.
[Illustration: SKETCH OF THE KITCHEN AT ROLLESTON.
Showing the disposition of the apartment pictured in the three
coloured illustrations.]
Another remembrance is of picking up tiny pebbles and putting them
into a little round purple-and-white basket with another little girl
named Dollie, who was engaged in the same serious business with another
purple-and-white basket. Kate was dressed in a pink cotton frock and a
white sun-bonnet—she would have sworn, she tells us, to the colours
half a century later, under cross-examination if necessary. Indeed, she
seems never to have forgotten the colour of anything her whole life
long.
But great as was the joy of tiny pebbles and of playmate Dollie, far
greater was the happiness inspired by the flowers, with which she
struck up friendships that were to last to her life’s end. There was
the snapdragon, which opened and shut its mouth as she chose to pinch
it. This she ‘loved’; but the pink moss rose, which grew by the dairy
window, she ‘revered.’ It grew with the gooseberry bushes, the plum
tree, and the laburnum in the little three-cornered garden near the
road. Then there was a purple phlox on one side of the gate and a
Michaelmas daisy on the other side; and outside the gate (she put this
into a picture years afterwards, and to her indignation was laughed
at for it) grew a wallflower. But though she loved and revered the
garden flowers, they were never to her what those were which grew of
their own free will in the fields and hedgerows. There were the large
blue crane’s-bill, the purple vetch, and the toad-flax, and, above all
others, the willow-herb, which to her sisters and brother was ‘Kitty’s
flower.’ These were the prime favourites, and, in the absence of the
most elementary botanical knowledge, had to be christened ‘my little
blue flower,’ ‘yellow dragon’s-mouth,’ or what not, for private use.
Farther away were the more rarely visited fairylands of the Cornfield
and the Flower-bank, only to be reached under Ann’s grown-up escort
when she was free of a Sunday. In the first, where the corn-stalks grew
far above Kate’s head, the enchanted vistas reached, so it seemed,
away for ever and ever, and the yellow avenues were brilliant with
pimpernels, pansies, blue and white veronica, tiny purple geraniums,
the great crimson poppies, and the persistent bindweed, which twined up
the stems of the wheat. But the Flower-bank was better still—a high
raised pathway which sloped down to a field on the one side and what
was to her a dark, deep stream on the other, with here and there stiles
to be climbed and delightfully terrifying foot-planks to be crossed;
then through a deep, shady plantation until a mill was reached, and
right on, if one went far enough, to the river Trent itself. Then, in
the plantation grew the large blue crane’s-bill, the purple vetch, and
the large white convolvulus, which with the vetch trailed over the sloe
and blackberry bushes. And up in the trees cooed wood-pigeons; and,
in the autumn, all sorts of birds were gathered in view of flights
to warmer lands. Round the mill wound the little river Greet, with
forget-me-nots on the banks and overhanging apple trees, from which
apples, falling off in the autumn, would float away and carry with
them Kate’s baby thoughts on and on to the sea, and so to the new and
wonderful world of the imagination which was to be her heritage, and
which she was to share with children yet unborn.
[Illustration: THE KITCHEN PUMP AND OLD CHEESE PRESS, ROLLESTON.
_Early drawings by Kate Greenaway._
(See Nos. 2 and 3 on Sketch Plan.)]
One thing only marred her pleasure, one note of melancholy discord
on these Sunday morning walks—the church bells, which from earliest
childhood spoke to her of an undefined mournfulness lying somewhere
in the background of the world of life and beauty. She had heard them
tolled for the passing of some poor soul, and ever after that they took
the joy out of her day for all their assumption of a gayer mood.
As Kate grew a year or two older, another prime entertainment was to
rise at five o’clock in the morning and go off with Ann to the ‘Plot’
to fetch the cows. The ‘Plot’ was a great meadow to which all the
Rolleston cottagers had the right to send their cows, the number of
beasts being proportioned to the size of the cottage. The Chappells
sent three, Sally, Strawberry, and Sarah Midgeley, and the sight was
to see Ann running after them—Ann, tall and angular, running with
great strides and flourishing a large stick which she brought down
with sounding thwacks on to tough hides and protruding blade-bones.
The cows were evil-minded and they resented uncalled-for interference
with their morning meal. They were as determined to stay in the plot as
Ann was to get them out of it; sometimes, indeed, so determined were
they on defiance that they would wander into the ‘High Plot,’ and then
their disgrace and punishment were terrible to behold. ‘Get along in,
ye bad ‘uns,’ she would cry in her shrill voice, and down the stick
would come; until at last, hustling each other from where the blows
fell thickest, and running their horns into each other’s skin, while
little Kate grew sick with terror, they were at last marshalled to the
milking-place, and peace would reign once more.
After a year or two at Rolleston, Kate was taken back to London, to
Napier Street, Hoxton, whither the Greenaways had now moved.
Up to this time the family had been in easy circumstances, but trouble
was now to come. Mr. Greenaway had been engaged to engrave the
illustrations for a large and costly book. The publishers failed and
he never received a penny of his money. There was nothing for it but
to make the best of a bad job, and Mrs. Greenaway was not one to be
daunted. The family was removed to Upper Street, Islington, opposite
the church, and while her husband sought further work, Mrs. Greenaway
courageously set up shop and sold lace, children’s dresses, and all
kinds of fancy goods. The venture was successful, and the children
found nothing to complain of in their new surroundings.
Fashioned out of the middle portion of an old Elizabethan country
house, the wings being likewise converted into two other small shops
and the rooms apportioned accordingly, the new home was a very castle
of romance. To the Greenaways fell the grand staircase and the first
floor, with rambling passages, several unused rooms, too dilapidated
for habitation, and weird, mysterious passages which led dreadfully to
nowhere. At the back was a large garden, the use of which was held in
common by the three families.
It was in Islington that Kate had her first taste of systematic
education, from Mrs. Allaman, who kept an infants’ school—an old
lady with a large frilly cap, a frilly muslin dress, a scarf over her
shoulders, and a long apron. Here she learned her letters and how to
use needle and cotton. On the whole, she liked the old lady, but all
her life long she could feel the sounding tap of her admonitory thimble
on her infant head in acknowledgment of a needle negligently and
painfully presented point first to the mistress’s finger.
Of all her relations Kate loved best her mother’s mother, ‘Grandma
Jones,’ who lived in Britannia Street, Hoxton, in a house of her own.
She was a bright, clever old lady, with a sharp tongue, fond of shrewd
sayings and full of interesting information. Not her least charm was
that she always had Coburg loaves for tea, beautiful toast, raspberry
jam, and honey. Of Grandfather Jones, Kate writes:
My mother’s father was a Welshman. She used to tell us he belonged to
people who were called Bulldicks because they were big men and great
fighters, and that they used as children to slide down the mountains
on three-legged milking-stools. He was very bad-tempered and made
them often very unhappy, but he was evidently intellectual and fond
of reading. My mother has often told me how he read _Sir Charles
Grandison_, and she used to stand behind his chair unknown to him and
read it also over his shoulder.
On her twentieth birthday he insisted upon giving a party, because he
said he should die before she was twenty-one, and he did.
Other relations of whom the little Greenaways saw a great deal were
their aunts Rebecca, a bookbinder, and Mary, a wood-engraver. Aunt Mary
was a great favourite because she always had bread and treacle or bread
and butter and sugar for tea. But on Sundays there were oranges and
apples, cakes and sweets, with _The Pilgrim’s Progress_, _John Gilpin_,
or _Why the Sea became Salt_ to follow. Especially from Aunt Mary,
later on, did Kate derive her deep love of poetry.
It was in Aunt Mary’s company that a certain disastrous walk was taken
up the City Road one enchanted night, dimly lighted by the stars
overhead and by the red and blue chemist’s-bottles in the windows
below. Sister Fanny was of the company, and both the little girls,
overcome by the splendours of the scene, tumbled off the curb into the
road, and arrived home muddy and disgraced. And the whole was the more
terrible because Fanny was resplendent—(for there seems no limit to
Kate’s sartorial recollection)—Fanny was resplendent in ‘a dark-red
pelerine, with three rows of narrow velvet round the cape, and a drab
plush bonnet, trimmed with chenille and red strings; and Kate in a
dark-red frock, a bonnet like her sister’s, and a little grey cloth
jacket scalloped at the edge, also bound and trimmed with red velvet.
And each had a grey squirrel muff.’ From which particularity we see how
the artist _in posse_ was already storing her mind with matters which
were to be of use to her in garment-designing in time to come. As we
proceed, we shall more and more realise how important a factor in her
artistic development was this early capacity for accurate observation,
ravenously seizing upon and making her own the infinitely little
details of her childish experiences. It was the vividness of these
playtime impressions that made their recall possible at such period as
her life-work had need of them.
There was another aunt, Mrs. Thorne, Mrs. Greenaway’s youngest sister,
who lived at Water Lane, near the River Lee, of whom Kate by no means
approved, for hers was an extremely ill-ordered household. But though
visits there left a very disagreeable impression, they were big with
something of delightful import which had its development many years
later. It illustrates well how impressions absorbed in early years
coloured the artist’s performances in far-off days to come.
Aunt Thorne’s garden was overrun with a glory of innumerable
nasturtiums. They were, in Kate’s own words, the ‘gaudiest of the
gaudy,’ and she ‘loved and admired them beyond words.’ She was
possessed by their splendour, and finally got them visualised in
a quite wonderful way in a dream with a background of bright blue
palings. For many a long year she bore the entrancing vision about
with her, and then gave it permanent expression for the delight of
thousands in her picture of Cinderella fetching her pumpkin. The
visits, therefore, which were so distasteful at the time were neither
without result nor unimportant. Moreover, the nasturtium dream brought
to Kate, who as a child was a great dreamer, a new experience. Two or
three years before she had dreamed that she had come to a cottage in a
wood and knocked at the door. It was opened by an old woman whose face
suddenly assumed an expression so awful that she awoke frightened and
trembling. In the nasturtium dream there was just such another cottage
with just such another door, at which, after she had passed through
the garden and had absorbed its beauties, she also knocked. Then in a
moment she knew that the door would be opened by the old woman with the
horrible face of three years before. A deadly faintness seized upon her
and she again woke in horror. This was her first experience of a dream
within a dream.
Many of her dreams were recurrent and are common enough to childhood.
One constantly repeated vision, she tells us, brought to her her
dearly loved father. She would dream that, gazing into his face, the
countenance would change and be, not his face, but another’s. With
this change would come an agony of misery, and she would desperately
tear off the false face, only to be confronted by another and yet
another, but never his own, until in mercy she awoke and knew that
the terrible mutations were as unreal as they were terrifying. Again,
an often-repeated dream was of falling through water, down, down past
the green weeds, slowly, slowly, sink, sink, with a sort of rhythmic
pause and start until the bottom was reached, and she gently awoke. Or
something would be in pursuit, and just as capture was imminent, she
would feel that she could fly. Up, up she would soar, then float down
over a steep staircase, out at one window and in at another, until she
found herself lying in an ecstasy awake and wanting the delightful
experience all over again.
Kate’s childhood seems, on the whole, to have been happy enough, not so
much in consequence of her surroundings as of her temperament. Writing
to Miss Violet Dickinson forty years later, she says:
Did you ever know Mr. Augustus Hare? I find his book so very
interesting. I once was at the Locker-Lampsons’ when he was there. I did
not feel very sympathetic then, but now I read his Life, I feel so very
sorry for the poor unhappy little child he was. And the horrid stern
people he lived with—it makes me feel I don’t know what, as I read....
I can’t think _how_ people can be hard and cruel to children. They
appeal to you so deeply. I had such a very happy time when I was a
child, and, curiously, was so very much happier then than my brother
and sister, with exactly the same surroundings. I suppose my imaginary
life made me one long continuous joy—filled everything with a strange
wonder and beauty. Living in that childish wonder is a most beautiful
feeling—I can so well remember it. There was always something
more—behind and beyond everything—to me; the golden spectacles were
very very big.
Late on in life, too, she used to compare the ‘don’t-much-care’
attitude of the modern child with the wildness of her own enjoyments
and the bitterness of her own disappointments. It was a complaint with
her that the little girl in Jane Taylor’s poems who cried because
it rained and she couldn’t go for a drive was a child of the past,
whereas her modern representative, surfeited with treats, takes her
disappointments stoically, or at least apathetically, and never sheds
a tear. There may have been some grounds for the comparison, but
probably what she missed in the modern child was the latent artistic
emotion with which she had been endowed at birth. For this power of
joyful realisation had its necessary converse: the very intensity of
anticipation which made it necessary for treats to be concealed from
her until the morning of their occurrence, and her wild abandonment to
pleasure when it came, found its counterpart in fits of depression and
gloom, such as do not come to the humdrum and unimaginative child. At
such times she would make up her mind not only to be not happy, but to
be aggressively gloomy. One day, indeed, she went so far as to announce
at breakfast that she did not intend to smile the whole day long, nor
indeed to utter a single word. The announcement was received with
derisive laughter, for the others knew it was only Kate’s way, and that
at the afternoon party which was imminent she would be the gayest of
the gay. And the worst of it was that Kate knew in her heart of heart
that they were right, and that when the time came she would laugh and
be happy with the rest.
One of these well-remembered gatherings was the B.’s party, an annual
affair, held in a long rambling furniture shop, full of dark corners,
weird shadows, and general mystery. Here it was, year in, year out,
that they met the little Miss C.’s, who, full of their own importance,
seeing that they were much better dressed than the other children,
annually sat silent, sulky, and superior. Here too disported himself
the debonnaire Johnny B., a very wild boy, who generally managed to
break some furniture, and had such dexterity in the lancers that he
could shed his shoes as he went round and get into them again without
stopping. Fate claimed him for the Navy, and he passed out of their
lives in a midshipman’s uniform.
Another was Mr. D.’s annual Twelfth Night party, notable for its
very big Twelfth cake, its drawing for king and queen, and its
magic-lantern. Kate never became queen, but at Miss W.’s party, quite
the most important of the year, she once had her triumph. According to
her own account—
It was some way off; even now I remember the shivery feeling of the
drive in the cab, and the fear that always beset me that we might have
gone on the wrong day. There was Miss W., Miss W.’s brother, Miss W.’s
aunt, and Miss W.’s mother. Miss W. taught my eldest sister Lizzie
music, and all her pupils were invited once a year to this party, their
sisters also, but no brothers—at least, two brothers only I ever
remember seeing there.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
There was one big tomboy sort of girl, with beautiful blue eyes and
tangled fair hair, who used to have a grown-up brother come to fetch
her; this girl I loved and admired intensely, and never spoke to her in
my life. She had merry ways and laughing looks, and I adored her. The
other brother was the cause of my one triumph. One party night there
was just this little boy—among all the girls—and tea over and dancing
about to begin, the boy was led to the middle of the room by Miss W.,
and told out of all the girls to choose his partner for the first dance.
He took his time—looked slowly round the room, weighing this and
that, and, to my utter discomfiture and dire consternation, he chose
me—moment of unwished triumph—short-lived also, for he didn’t remain
faithful, but fell a victim later on to the wiles of some of the young
ladies nearly twice his age. I remember I was much relieved, became
fast and devoted friends with a nice little girl, passed an agreeable
evening, and remember at supper-time surreptitiously dropping an
apple-tart I loathed behind a fender. I daresay it was good really, but
it was tart with the tartness of lemonade and raspberryade, two things I
disliked at that time.
But delightful as were these private parties, they were as nothing
compared with the rarer visits to the theatres or other places of
entertainment. On these never-to-be-forgotten occasions Mr. Greenaway,
whose work was chiefly done away from home, would turn up quite
unexpectedly at tea-time, would pretend that he had come home for
nothing in particular, and would playfully keep the eager children
on the tenterhooks of expectation. But it was only part of a playful
fraud, for they knew well that nothing would tempt him early from
his work but some thrilling treat in store for them. What delight
there was, when finally the secret of their destination leaked out,
to scramble over tea, hurry on best clothes, thread dark streets, and
finally blink their way into the magic circle of the blazing theatre
itself, with its fascinating smell of oranges and gas, the scraping of
violins, and all the mysterious titillations of the expectant senses.
Kate’s first taste of the theatre was _Henry the Fifth_ at Sadler’s
Wells. Then came the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _Henry the Fourth_,
_The Lady of Lyons_, and (at Astley’s) _Richard the Third_. It was at
Astley’s, too, when she must have been several years older, that she
saw a piece called _The Relief of Lucknow_, in which General Havelock
rode on to the stage on a beautiful white horse. This made so great an
impression upon her that she burst into tears, whereupon her sister
said she was ‘a silly’ and her father said she wasn’t; for the awful
tragedy of the Indian Mutiny was at that time filling everybody’s
thoughts, and with the details of it she had grown terribly familiar by
poring over the pictures in the _Illustrated London News_. Moreover,
her imagination had stimulated her pencil at this time to make many
dramatic drawings of ladies, nurses, and children being pursued by
bloodthirsty sepoys; but the pencil was of slate, and consequently
these earliest known drawings were wiped out almost as soon as executed.
Hardly less enchanting than these theatrical experiences were the days
which brought them tickets for the Polytechnic or took them to the
Crystal Palace. The former was not yet the haunt of Pepper’s Ghost, or
of Liotard (in wax) on his trapeze, but it was quite enchanting enough
with its Diving Bell and the goggle-eyed Diver, who tapped the pennies,
retrieved from the green depths of his tank, on the sounding brass of
his helmet. The Palace, with its Alhambra Courts, its great fountains,
its tall water towers, and other innumerable delights, was an Abode of
Bliss. Those were days in which, to her memory, the sun seemed always
to be shining, the sky always to be blue, and the hours never long
enough for all their joyous possibilities. And, though the time had to
come when the sun sometimes forgot to shine, and, when it did, threw
longer shadows before her, Kate Greenaway never wholly forgot, but kept
these joys alive in her heart for the enchantment of others.
[Illustration:
Book-plate designed for Miss Hannah Jane Locker-Lampson, 1898.]
[Illustration: WINTER, 1892.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
CHAPTER III
CHILDHOOD IN ROLLESTON: EARLY READING—ADVENTURES IN LONDON
STREETS—A COMMUNITY OF DOLLS—BUCKINGHAM PALACE—LIFE IN
ROLLESTON—EDUCATION—BROTHER AND FATHER.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
When Kate was midway between five and six years of age, the family
moved into a larger house and shop nearer to Highbury. Here they fairly
established themselves, and here was the home of her recollection when
she looked back on her childhood.
Then a new world opened to her, a new, boundless world, unfenced about
with material walls, illimitable, inexhaustible—the world of books and
measureless imagination. Of a sudden, to her mother’s and her own great
happiness and surprise, she found that she could read! First came the
two-a-penny Fairy Tales in coloured paper covers. There were larger
ones for a penny, but the halfpenny ones were better. _Pepper and Salt_
was one of the most enjoyably and delightfully afflictive. Who that has
read it in tender years can ever forget how the Cruel Stepmother kills
Salt and buries her, or the mysterious voice that chanted—
‘She drank my blood and picked my bones,
And buried me under the marble stones.’
Kate never forgot them, as, indeed, she never forgot _Bluebeard_, or
_Toads and Diamonds_, or _Beauty and the Beast_. But, although she
never forgot them, she never remembered them too well. The delicious
excitement could always be renewed. A hundred times she had heard
Bluebeard call in his awful voice to Fatima to come down. A hundred
times Sister Ann had cried her shrill reply: ‘I see the sky that looks
blue and the grass that looks green.’ A hundred times the little cloud
of dust had risen, and the brothers had come in the nick of time to
save her. But, at the hundredth reading, Kate’s fear was as acute and
her relief as great as at the first.
Other favourites were _Frank, Harry, and Lucy_, _The Purple Jar_, _The
Cherry Orchard_, _Julianna Oakley_, _The Child’s Companion_, and _Line
upon Line_.
Then there were the verses of Jane and Ann Taylor, rendered especially
delightful by Mrs. Greenaway’s dramatic rendering at bedtime—‘Down in
a green and shady bed,’ ‘Down in a ditch, poor donkey,’ and ‘Miss Fanny
was fond of a little canary.’ The last harrowed Kate with an intense
sorrow, as indeed it did to the day when she set to work to illustrate
it for the joy and delight of a later generation in a volume dedicated
to Godfrey, Dorothy, Oliver, and Maud Locker.[2] Others which she could
never hear too often were ‘Greedy Richard,’ ‘Careless Matilda,’ ‘George
and the Chimney-Sweep,’ ‘Dirty Jim,’ ‘Little Ann and her Mother,’ and
‘The Cow and the Ass.’
‘Take a seat,’ said the Cow, gently waving her hand.
‘By no means, dear Madam,’ said he, ‘while you stand.’
Then showing politeness, as Gentlemen must,
The Ass held his tongue that the Cow might speak first.
But one book there was which, whilst it delighted the rest, depressed
little Kate horribly and miserably, though she would never confess it,
partly out of loyalty to her father and partly from shame at what she
felt might be regarded as a foolish weakness. This was a book of rhymes
for which Mr. Greenaway had engraved the wood-blocks. It contained the
‘Courtship, Life, and Death of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren’; ‘The Three
Bears’; ‘The Little Man and the Little Maid’; ‘The Wonderful History of
Cocky Locky, Henny Penney, and Goosey Poosey’; and a story of a Goose
and her three daughters, Gobble, Goosey, and Ganderee, which began
A Goose who was once at the point of death
She called her three daughters near.
These seemed to her tender heart cruel and terrible tales, and their
funny names and affectation of gaiety in no way palliated their
brutality or comforted their little reader.
Other books over which she would pore were the Plays of Shakespeare,
illustrated by Kenny Meadows, all of which she managed to read before
she was many years older, two large volumes of the _Illuminated
Magazine_, an odd volume of the _Illustrated Family Journal_, and
a monster scrap-book of coloured and uncoloured prints, collected
probably by her father in the course of his occupation. One dreadful
print there was among the last which had for her a horrible
fascination. It was the etched plate by George Cruikshank from
Ainsworth’s _Tower of London_—‘The Burning of Edward Underhill on
Tower Green,’ where, according to Reid’s rather lurid description, we
see ‘the victim losing self-command in his horrible sufferings, and in
agony plunging his hands into his flesh.’ It is easy to realise the
effect of such a scene upon a child so sensitive that she could not
bear to dwell even upon the sufferings of Gobble, Goosey, and Ganderee.
And yet, terrible as it was, she would not, had she wished, escape
from its dreadful attractiveness. Into the victim’s stricken face she
would gaze and gaze until she trembled with horror. Then seizing it and
shutting her eyes, she would frantically hide it away in a cupboard
filled with copies of the _Illustrated London News_, slipping it
blindly in amongst the reams of printed paper, half hoping never to see
it again. Then would pass an interval of relief, only to be followed as
certainly as night follows day by an irresistible craving to look upon
the awful thing again, a frantic search, another horrified glance, and
again a hasty but not a final occultation.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
But such experiences were few and detached. The prevailing notes of her
life, she insists, were wonder and delight. How limitless, for example,
were the pleasures to be got out of the streets, where, with her
younger sister Fanny, she was allowed to roam, so long as she kept away
from the forbidden land which lay beyond Wellington Street on the one
hand and Barnsbury Street on the other. All else was out of bounds. Of
course, like all imaginative children, they played at the fascinating
game of ‘Pretence,’ merging their individualities in those of grand and
mysterious children whom, nurse-guarded, as the little Greenaways were
not, they met on their daily walks. Two there were in particular who,
they made believe, had their home in the sky, descending to earth daily
for their morning’s exercise. And surely there was nothing incongruous
or surprising in the fact that these celestial visitors should choose
Islington as the most eligible part of this best of all possible
worlds for the purpose. Where else could they see such fascinating
shops and such rustling, perfumed ladies? ‘Where else such a Fancy
Emporium into which you could gaze and gaze for ever (until driven
away by the owner) at the picture-books and puzzle-maps in the glass
case at the side of the doorway?’ And when chased away from there,
where such another print-shop with its coloured engravings after John
Martin—‘Belshazzar’s Feast,’ ‘The Great Day of Wrath,’ and ‘The Plains
of Heaven’?—pictures which Kate never wearied of, and which from their
wealth of detail could never be wholly mastered.
If variety of entertainment were wanted, was there ever such a
diversity of side-shows as the corner of Wellington Street, by great
good fortune just within bounds?—by good fortune, because Kate and
her sister, being out on parole, never dreamed of straying beyond the
permissible limit. Here one day would be found a sailor with one leg
real and the other of wood, appealing to the sympathetic passer-by by
means of a large and lurid picture of a ship overturned by a whale.
Another day the pitch would be taken by an impostor of the same
feather who set forth an equally lurid representation of a battle on
ship-board, with a cannon-ball exploding in the midst of a crowded deck
and dealing around all manner of grisly and impossible hurts. Impostor
he must have been, for no brave man ever hit out so viciously as he
did with his crutch at well-behaved children, directly he found that
no grown-up people were looking, just because he knew that there were
no coppers coming to him from that quarter. Again, there was the Punch
and Judy show. Hither at the first sound of the drum and Punch’s weird
screech the little Greenaways’ feet would be set incontinently running.
Arrived, with breathless interest they would follow the familiar
tragedy, thrill at the ghost, pity the poor trembling protagonist,
and follow the drama responsively to its close. But there were times
when their eagerness was cruelly balked. As the drama drew to its most
thrilling moment, there would fall a great despair upon the little
onlookers. Of a sudden the play would stop, and the stage manager,
stepping forward, would declare that the audience was not a paying
one, and that unless a certain amount of hard cash were forthcoming,
he couldn’t afford to go on. Now the little Greenaways never had any
money, so they were helpless in the matter, and, if the rest of the
audience happened to be in the same plight, as was not rarely the case,
there was an abrupt termination to the play for that day, and Punch
struck his camp for some less impecunious sphere.
But the corner was full of possibilities. As likely as not the
faithless Punch would be replaced in almost no time by the hardly less
fascinating Fantoccini—of which Mother Goose with her milk-pails from
which jumped little children, the skeleton that came to bits and joined
itself together again, and the four little figures dancing a quadrille
dwelt longest in the memory. Indeed, rarely was this wonderful corner
unoccupied, for, lacking the more regular entertainers, there was
always the chance of tumblers, or tight-rope dancers, or a Happy
Family. The last-named, by the way, not infrequently belied its
description, and had to be hastily curtained for the saving of its
impresario’s reputation. Such _contretemps_, it need hardly be said,
met with hearty appreciation from the audience, for children, like
their elders, bear with more than equanimity the misfortunes of others.
Again, there were dancing dolls which knocked each other about in very
lively fashion, a variety of peep-shows, and a delightful organ with
a scene of great ingenuity on the top, in which an executioner cut
off the head of a queen about once every minute, to the tune of the
‘Marseillaise.’
There was one dreadful day when there came something more than little
Kate had bargained for. In place of the looked-for entertainment, there
marched along a man dressed in skins, a modern edition of Solomon
Eagle, who blew blasts out of a great brass trumpet and announced in
a loud voice that the End of the World was at hand. The shock was a
terrible one. For months Kate went about haunted by the gloomiest
forebodings. Those gruesome pictures of Martin’s in the print-seller’s
window assumed a new significance. She began to guess at what we call
inexorable fate, to catch a glimpse of destiny. Nor was this all.
From pondering, fearsomely, the world’s imminent destruction so
convincingly announced, she came to trying, in a hopeless, childish
fashion to hark back to the beginning of things. Driving herself
almost frantic with terror at the thought of burning worlds afloat
in space as dark as night, she would rack her brains as to what was
behind it all, until she faced the blank black wall of nothingness,
against which she was not the first to knock her poor little head. Then
baffled and despairing she would run away, she says, seeking relief and
forgetfulness wherever it might be found.
Fortunately she had not a few distractions. There were her dolls, which
ranged from the little giant ‘Gauraca’ (given to Kate for learning a
piece of pianoforte music so entitled, then in vogue), so huge—more
than a yard and a quarter long—that she could only be carried with
legs trailing on the ground, to the little group of Dutch mannikins
of which half-a-dozen could be grasped in one hand. By right of bulk
Gauraca claimed precedence. She wore the discarded clothes of brother
John, the tucks in which had to be let down to make them big enough,
and took full-sized babies’ shoes. She was a wonder, not indeed
altogether lovable; rather was she of value as a stimulator of covetous
feelings in others. Below Gauraca came dolls of all sorts and sizes,
too many for enumeration, but all of importance, seeing that on their
persons were performed those tentative experiments which were to colour
the work of twenty years later.
[Illustration]
On these dolls Kate dilates at some length, and the gist of her record
is this. Least in size though first in rank came the Royal group, with
Queen Victoria (who had cost a halfpenny) as its centre, supported
by Prince Albert (also a halfpenny) appropriately habited in a white
gauze skirt trimmed with three rows of cerise satin, and, for further
distinction and identification, a red ribbon tied across his shoulder
and under his left arm. These garments could only be removed by an
actual disintegration. The Royal circle was completed by the princes
and princesses at a farthing apiece. Their dresses were made from the
gauze bonnet linings just then going out of fashion, and such scraps of
net and ribbon as had proved unsaleable.
[Illustration: THE OPEN DOOR.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
The little Greenaways were profoundly interested in the doings of the
august personages who were their prototypes. They knew their names,
ages, and birthdays as well as they knew each other’s, and eagerly
studied their likenesses in the _Illustrated London News_. On great
occasions the children would be taken by Mr. Greenaway to peep in at
the gates of Buckingham Palace itself, and Kate wished and wished with
all her might that she might be driven through them, as an invited
guest, in a Royal coach. Little did she dream that thirty years later
would indeed find her an honoured visitor within the sacred precincts,
entertained by the Princess Royal (then Crown Princess of Germany),
and chatting on easy terms with the future ruler of the German Empire.
It was only when she was actually driving between those gates, not
exactly in a ‘Royal coach,’ that the memory of her ardent wish suddenly
recurred to her, for she had never thought of it since; and it filled
her mind as she entered the Royal presence. Then it was she learned
that, whilst she as a child had envied the lot of those within, the
Princess as a child had envied the freedom of those without, and that
a prison is none the less a prison because the bars are of gold. Here
also she had the privilege of meeting the Princess Helena (by that
time Princess Christian), who doubtless would have been highly amused
had she known how often the artless-looking little lady before her had
boldly represented her in bygone days when ‘pretending’ in the wilds of
Islington. How heartily, too, would she have laughed (nay, perhaps she
may laugh still) at the picture of the farthing wooden effigy which an
enthusiastic little loyalist had invested with her exalted personality
in those fast-receding days.
After the wooden dolls, with their crude and irremovable garments,
came the far more human-looking effigies in china, which populated
the cupboard in the little girls’ bedroom. Their clothes were all
exquisitely made by Kate, and were all removable. They took their walks
abroad on the mantelpiece. Their hats were made of tiny straw-plaits
trimmed with china ribbons and the fluffy down culled from feathers
which had escaped from the pillows. They revelled in luxurious gardens
made of fig boxes filled with sand collected on Sunday walks to
Hampstead Heath, and planted with the tiniest of flowering plants,
which often had to be replaced, as they would not thrive in the
uncongenial soil. Furniture was hard to come by at a farthing a week,
which was Kate’s income at this time, but twenty-four weeks’ saving
got a sixpenny piano, for the sake of which the sacrifice of other
expensive pleasures during that period was considered not unreasonable.
Once indeed Aunt Aldridge came to town and presented the dolls with a
work-table, but so great a piece of good fortune never again befell.
Later there were Lowther Arcadian dolls at fourpence halfpenny apiece,
but these like the royal group were short-lived and ephemeral. They
passed away so rapidly that memory lost their identity, whereas ‘Doll
Lizzie,’ made of brown oak, legless, armless, and devoid of paint, and
‘One-eye,’ equally devoid of paint, half-blind, and retaining but one
rag arm, were seemingly immortal, and were more tenderly loved than
all, notwithstanding the fact that their only clothing consisted of
old rags tied round them with string. These remnants went to bed with
the little girls, and enjoyed other privileges not accorded to the
_parvenues_.
London, as we see, was now the home of Kate Greenaway, but fortunately
there was Rolleston and the country always in the background as a
beautiful and fascinating possibility; and it was rarely that a year
passed without a visit, though now and again not enough money had been
saved to make the thing feasible.
In Kate’s own simple words:
In these early days all the farm things were of endless interest to me.
I used to go about in the cart with Dadad, and Nancy to draw us. He
thought wonderful things of Nancy—no pony was like her. I shared his
feeling, and when my Uncle Aldridge used to inquire how the high-mettled
racer was, I felt deep indignation. There was no weight Nancy couldn’t
draw—no speed she could not go at (if she liked), but there was no
need on ordinary occasions—there was plenty of time. The cart had no
springs—it bumped you about; that didn’t matter to me. Sometimes we
used to go to Southwell to get malt. This was a small quiet town two
and a half miles off, and the way to drive was through green lane-like
roads. It took a good while. Nancy went at a slow jog-trot; I didn’t
mind how long it took, it was all a pleasure. There was an old
cathedral called Southwell Minster, with quaint old carvings in stone
and old stained-glass windows which they said were broken and buried in
Cromwell’s time so as to save them. Southwell now possesses a Bishop,
but it did not then. Then we used to go to the ‘Plot,’ where all the
cottage people had land, to get potatoes or turnips. At hay-time and
harvest the cart had one of those framework things fitted on, and Nancy
fetched corn or hay.
I had a tiny hayfork, a little kit to carry milk in, and a little
washing-tub, all exactly like big real ones, only small. I washed dolls’
things in the tub, and made hay with the fork, and carried milk in the
kit.
Then, besides Nancy, there were the three cows, numerous calves, two
pigs, two tortoiseshell cats, and a variable number of hens. Variable,
for barring ‘Sarah Aldridge,’ the tyrant of the yard, their lives were
sadly precarious, and the cooking-pot insatiable. ‘Sarah Aldridge,’ so
named after the giver, was a light-coloured, speckled, plump hen with a
white neck—a thoroughly bad character, a chartered Jezebel of a fowl,
bearing a charmed and wholly undeserved existence. She took, says Kate
Greenaway, the biggest share of everything, chased all the other hens,
and—_crowed_.
Stowed somewhere in Mary Chappell’s memory was the old proverb—
A whistling woman and a crowing hen
Are neither good for God nor men.
‘Sarah Aldridge’ crowed. And when she crowed Mary became strangely
moved with mingled rage and fear. She would fling down whatever she
was doing. She would fly after ‘Sarah’ breathing dreadful threats.
She would run her well-nigh out of her life, nor desist until she was
compelled for want of breath. Then she would fall into an awe-stricken
state, which she called a ‘dither,’ convinced that because of this
monstrous breach of nature some terrible thing would be sure to happen.
But, notwithstanding her superstitions, Mrs. Chappell was a truly
worthy woman,—one of the noblest. Indeed, Kate Greenaway always
insisted that she was the kindest, most generous, most charitable, the
cheerfullest, and most careful woman she had ever known. To quote her
words, ‘in all things she was highest and best.’ She meant nothing
derogatory to her husband when she told every one before his face that
he was a ‘poor creature.’ He entirely agreed. There was no hint at his
being ‘wanting’ in any particular, but rather that Providence was at
fault in not vouchsafing him a full measure of health and strength.
Indeed, he felt rather distinguished than otherwise when his wife
drew attention to his infirmities. He was one of those who thoroughly
enjoyed his bad health.
It was a rule of life with Mrs. Chappell never to speak ill of her
neighbours. ‘Ask me no questions and I will tell you no stories,’ was
the letter always on her lips, and the spirit of charity was always
in her heart. She combined the utmost generosity with a maximum of
carefulness. She did not know how to be wasteful. She had a merry
heart, and Kate always maintained that it was through her that she
learnt to be in love with cheerfulness. So that more than one unmindful
generation has since had cause to bless the memory of Mary Chappell.
Her real name was Phyllis, Phyllis Barnsdale, previous to her marriage.
Before going to Rolleston she had been in service with a Colonel, a
friend of Lord Byron’s and a neighbour of his at Newstead Abbey. Of
her reminiscences Kate retained just two things. Of Byron, that his
body was brought home in spirits of wine. Of the Colonel, that he was
so short-sighted that the groom only rubbed down his horse on the near
side, secure that the half-heartedness of his service would never be
discovered.
[Illustration: MRS. CHAPPELL, DRESSED FOR SUNDAY, TAKING HER USUAL NAP
AGAINST THE COPPER.]
Coming to Rolleston, Phyllis Barnsdale entered the service of the
Fryers, farmers and butchers. Mrs. Fryer, to whom she was devoted,
was very severe, a violent-tempered woman but very kind-hearted. Here
Phyllis stayed until she married, doing unheard-of quantities of work,
up at half-past two in the mornings, or three at the latest, doing all
the domestic work of the farm-house, and washing the clothes of her
master, her mistress, two girls, and ever so many boys. Work was her
business in life and she didn’t care how much she did. One condition
only and there was nothing she was too proud to put her hand to. In
one thing was she unyielding. She must have the highest wages in the
village. These she _would_ have, not because she loved money but just
because her pride lay that way.
When Kate first went to Rolleston the Fryers’ farm had passed into
the hands of a married daughter, Mrs. Neale, whose husband, an idle,
good-natured, foolish man, smoked and drank whilst the butcher-business
slipped through his fingers. In Kate’s earliest days they were
seemingly prosperous enough, and one of the first things the little
Greenaways had to do on arrival at Rolleston was to make an odd little
morning call at ‘The House,’ where they were regaled with cowslip wine
and sponge-cakes. This was the etiquette of the place: it was the
respect due from Cottage to Farm.
The Fryers’ garden was, in Kate’s own words years afterwards, ‘my loved
one of all gardens I have ever known,’ and that was saying a good deal,
for it would be hard to find anywhere a greater lover of gardens than
she was. It was her real Paradise. Round the windows of ‘The House’
grew the biggest and brightest convolvuluses in the world (at least in
the world she knew)—deep blue blossoms with ‘pinky’ stripes and deep
pink blossoms with white stripes. Her intimacy with them told her every
day where the newest blooms were to be found. Across the gravel path
on the left as you emerged from ‘The House’ was a large oval bed, with
roses, pinks, stocks, sweet Sultans, the brown scabious, white lilies,
red lilies, red fuchsias, and in early summer, monster tulips, double
white narcissus, peonies, crown imperials, and wallflowers. Indeed,
all lovely flowers seemed to grow there. And the scent of them was a
haunting memory through life. Then there were the biggest, thickest,
and bushiest of box borders, nearly a yard high, so thick and solid
that you could sit on them and they never gave way. These bounded the
long gravel walk which led straight down to the bottom of the garden,
and along which grew flowers of every lovely shape and hue. Beyond
them on the left was the orchard—apples, pears, plums, and bushy
filberts; on the right the kitchen garden—currant bushes with their
shining transparent bunches, red and white, gooseberries, strawberries,
feathery asparagus, and scented herbs such as good cooks and housewives
love. It was an enchanted fairyland to the little Londoner and had
a far-reaching influence on her life and work. Later on her letters
teemed with just such catalogues of flowers. So great was her love for
them that, next to seeing them, the mere writing down of their names
yielded the most pleasurable emotions.
Another thing which greatly appealed to her was the spaciousness
of everything—the great house seemingly illimitable in itself, yet
stretching out farther into vast store-houses and monster barns. For
those were days when threshing machines were unknown and corn had to
wait long and patiently to fulfil its destiny. Indeed, people took
pride in _keeping_ their corn, unthreshed, just to show that they were
in no need of money. Then large bands of Irishmen wandered over the
country at harvest-time, leisurely cutting the corn with sickles, for
the machine mower was at that time undreamed of.
At the Neales’, too, there were birds innumerable—peacocks strutting
and spreading their tails, guinea-fowls, turkeys with alarming voices
and not less alarming ways, geese, pigeons, ducks, and fowls. All these
things were in the early Rolleston days, but they did not last.
By degrees, through neglect and carelessness, the business drifted away
from the Neales into more practical and frugal hands, and in the end
they were ruined—wronged and defrauded by the lawyers, the Chappells
believed, but in reality abolished by the natural process of cause
and effect. Anyhow, the Chappells acted up to their belief, and with
unreasoning loyalty gave them money, cows, indeed everything they had,
until they were themselves literally reduced to existing on dry bread
and were involved in the general downfall. In this Mary Chappell was,
of course, the moving spirit, but her husband agreed with all she did,
and took his poor fare without complaint.
But before the crash came there were many happy days and lively
experiences. There was Newark market on Wednesdays, to which Mary
Chappell always went with Mrs. Neale, sometimes, but rarely,
accompanied by the latter’s husband. On special occasions Kate went
too. Fanny, the brown pony, drew them in a lovely green cart. When Mr.
Neale went, Mrs. Chappell and Kate sat behind. When he didn’t, Kate
sat behind alone and listened to the two ladies talking about Fanny
as if she were a human being, discussing her health, her likes and
dislikes of things she passed on the road, in full enjoyment of the
never-failing topic of ‘the old girl.’
There was a good deal of preliminary interest about these expeditions.
There was the walk up to ‘The House’ with Mary Chappell heavily laden
with baskets of butter on each arm. Mary was no ordinary butter-seller.
She would no more have dreamed of standing in the butter-market to sell
her butter than she would have dreamed of selling it to the shops
to be vended over the counter like ordinary goods. Only people who
did not keep their pans properly clean would stoop to that. No, she
‘livered’ her own butter. She had her own regular customers who had
had her butter for years, and they always wanted more than she could
supply. The making of good butter and cheese was part of her religion.
She would drop her voice and speak only in whispers of people—half
criminals she thought them—whose puncheons were not properly cleansed,
whose butter might ‘turn’ and whose cheese might ‘run.’
Arrived at ‘The House,’ they would find the green cart waiting before
the door. Then a farm hand would stroll leisurely round with Fanny
and put her into the shafts. Everything was done slowly at Rolleston,
and bustle was unknown. Next would come Sarah Smith, the maid, with a
basket after her kind. Then a help or out of-door servant, with another
after his kind. A minute later some one bearing ducks or fowls with
their legs tied. These went ignominiously under the seat, and took the
cream, as it were, off Kate’s day. Their very obvious fate made her
miserable, but she cajoled herself into something like happiness by
imagining that someone might buy them ‘who didn’t want to eat them and
would put them to live in a nice place where they could be happy.’
[Illustration: MRS. NEALE.]
As the prospect of starting became more imminent, Mrs. Neale would
arrive with the whip and a small basket. Then Mr. Neale, and the two
young Fryer nephews who lived with them, would stroll round to see them
off. At the last moment would arrive baskets of plums, apples, pears,
and, perhaps, sage cheeses, and a start would then be made.
The five miles into Newark, through Staythorpe, Haverham, and Kelham,
where the Suttons, to whom nearly all Rolleston belonged, lived at ‘The
Hall,’ was a progress of great enjoyment and variety, for they knew not
only all the people they met on the road, but all the animals and all
the crops, and these had all to be discussed.
Arrived at Newark, Mrs. Neale was left at the inn, whilst Mary and
Kate went their rounds with the butter. All the customers got to know
Kate, and the little girl received a warm welcome year after year in
the pretty red-brick, green-vine-clad courtyards with which Newark
abounded. When the butter was sold the shopping came, and when all the
necessary groceries and supplies had been laid in, a stroll through
the market-place, where peppermints striped and coloured like shells
were to be got. Why people bought groceries when they could afford
peppermints Kate didn’t know.
In the market of course everything was on sale that could be imagined,
from butter to boots, from pears to pigs, from crockery to calves. But
it was the crockery that had a peculiar fascination for Mary, and many
an unheard-of bargain made a hole in her thinly-lined pocket. These
pots were from Staffordshire and became Kate’s cherished possession in
after years.
At last there was the weary return to the inn-yard to find Mrs. Neale,
who might or might not be ready to go home. Anyhow Fanny and the cart
were always welcome enough when the time came to exchange the confusion
and hubbub of the town for the quiet country roads again.
It didn’t matter what time they arrived home, Chappell would always
be found watching for them at the gate. Tea was ready and they were
hungry for it; Chappell, too, for he spent the whole afternoon on
market days leaning over the gate. It was his one chance in the week of
seeing his acquaintances as they passed to Newark, and it was his one
chance of buying pigs. He had a weakness for pigs, and he would stop
every cart that had a likely one on board. Sometimes he would have out
a whole load, would bargain for half-an-hour, and then refuse to have
one. Time was of no consequence to him, but the owner’s wrath would
be great, for all the pigs that were wanted in Newark might be bought
before he could arrive there. Then the cart would be driven away to a
blasphemous accompaniment, leaving Chappell blandly smiling, placid and
undisturbed. This would be repeated many times until the pigs arrived
which took his fancy.
On great and rare occasions, Kate would go to market with Aunt Aldridge
in a high dog-cart behind a spanking horse named Jack. Then she would
have a taste of really polite society, and would be taken to dine in
a big room at the chief inn with the leading farmers and their wives.
For in the Nottinghamshire of those days the farmers were in a large
way, prosperous and with plenty of money to spend. It was quite a shock
and surprise to her in after life to see farmers in other parts of
the country little better than labourers. For this reason she never
cared for Thomas Hardy’s books; she never could get on terms with his
characters. But with George Eliot’s it was quite another matter. Mrs.
Glegg, Mrs. Tulliver, Mrs. Poyser, and the rest, she had known all her
life. They were old friends and she felt at home with them at once.
[Illustration: ‘DADAD’ AND ANN GOING TO CHURCH.]
Kate was present at two great events at Rolleston—a fire and a flood.
Here is her own account of them:—
The fire happened in a cottage joining Mrs. Neale’s farm. It joined the
kitchen. It was a blazing hot day in August, in the morning, about 11
o’clock, when suddenly there were loud shrieks of ‘Fire!’ and I saw Ann
rushing to the gate shouting out ‘Fire!’ at the top of her voice, quite
unconscious of what she was doing. It was far off us. But the danger was
to Mrs. Neale’s. They all started off except Ann and me. Then groups of
people went rushing by to help; by and by came my Aunt Aldridge and my
sister Lizzie and all the work-women and servants that could possibly be
spared. The small fire-engine was miles away at Southwell, so the men
and women were formed into a long line from the house to the nearest
point of the stream, and passed buckets of water from hand to hand (they
could hardly use their hands for days afterwards). But the cottage was
burnt down and a bit of the roof of Mrs. Neale’s kitchen. Fortunately
it stopped there, but they moved all the things out of the house for
fear it should not be saved. The best bedroom floor of polished oak was
so slippery the men could hardly walk about to move the things. Some of
the men behaved disgracefully, tapping the casks of wine and beer that
had to be brought out into the yard. I shall never forget my terror and
fright of this day, and to ‘Mamam’ it was as the end of all things.
One summer when we went down—the day was pouring wet, it had been
very rainy—I went to the Chappells’, Lizzie to Aunt Aldridge’s. When
I got up the next morning I found a great event had taken place in the
night—the floods were out—rose in the night. They (the Chappells)
were called up about 11 o’clock and had to get up and go off to save
their animals, which all had to be brought home. Fortunately they were
in time to save them all—others were not so lucky. The house and the
next house and the croft were high and dry. The croft was filled with
animals—sheep and calves. When you looked out at the front gate, each
way you looked you saw a stream of muddy water rushing across the road.
There was a tendency to floods at Rolleston, only not bad like this.
Both Trent and Greet overflowed and met and then flooded all over the
country. No houses at Rolleston were washed away, but the lower parts of
the houses were flooded, cellars and drains were filled up with water,
the contents floating on the top. The people used to wait at the end
of the street where the water rushed over, and people who were passing
in carts would drive them through the water, and boys crossed over in
washing-tubs. A great many animals were drowned. The Neales lost a great
many sheep. After some days the floods began to subside and you could
begin to get about, and then my sister could get down to see me, for we
were quite separated for days. After the water had all gone the country
was horrible, covered with mud and dead worms, and it smelt dreadfully.
I stayed some weeks, and before I left it had returned pretty much to
its old look again. This was the only time I was ever there in what they
called ‘the waters being out.’
[Illustration: THE CHAPPELLS’ COTTAGE, FARM, AND CROFT AT ROLLESTON.
_Drawn by Kate Greenaway when a young girl._]
Next we have a glimpse of Kate making triumphant progresses in the
corn-waggons and hay-carts as they rattled back empty to the fields.
The corn-waggons, it must be admitted, had a drawback in the little
dark beetles—‘clocks’ as the waggoners called them—which ran about
and threatened her legs. But these were soon forgotten in the near
prospect of a ride back perched high on the Harvest Home load, decked
with green branches, while the men chanted—
‘Mr.—— is a good man,
He gets his harvest as well as he can,
Neither turned over nor yet stuck fast,
He’s got his harvest home at last.
Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!’
And she loved to sit on the stile watching for the postman. In earliest
days ‘he was an imposing person who rode on a donkey and blew a brass
trumpet. If you wished to despatch a letter and lived alongside his
beat you displayed it in your window to attract his attention. When
he saw a letter thus paraded, he drew rein, blew a blast, and out you
ran with your letter. If you lived off his route you had to put your
letter in somebody else’s window. So with the delivery. Aunt Aldridge’s
letters, for example, were left at the Chappells’ and an old woman got
a halfpenny a letter for taking them up to the Odd House.’ In those
days the postman was clearly not made for man, but man for the postman.
Once and once only Kate went fishing at the flour mill, which had its
water-wheel on the Greet. She sketches the scene vividly in a few
words. How lovely it all was, she tells us—the lapping of the water
against the banks of the reedy river, the great heaps of corn, the
husks, the floury sacks and carts, the white-coated millers, the clean
white scent, and, above all, the excitement of looking out for the
fish! What could be better than that? It was about as good as good
could be, when of a sudden all was changed. There was a jerk of the
rod, a brief struggle and a plunge, and there lay a gasping fish with
the hook in its silly mouth, bleeding on the bank. What could be worse
than that? It was about as bad as bad could be. The sun had gone in.
The sky was no longer blue, and misery had come into the world. She
loathed the task of carrying the poor dead things home to be cooked,
and she refused to partake of the dreadful dish. It was all too sad.
The pleasant river and the bright glorious days were all over for them
and she was not to be comforted. And that was the end of Kate’s single
fishing experience. Surely fate was in a singularly ironical mood when,
in later years, it brought her a letter of hypercritical remonstrance
because of her supposed advocacy of what the writer considered a cruel
and demoralising sport!
Indeed, we have only to read her rhyme of ‘Miss Molly and the little
fishes’ in _Marigold Garden_ to realise that her sentiments as a child
remained those of the woman:
Oh, sweet Miss Molly,
You’re so fond
Of fishes in a little pond.
And perhaps they’re glad
To see you stare
With such bright eyes
Upon them there.
And when your fingers and your thumbs
Drop slowly in the small white crumbs,
I hope they’re happy. Only this—
When you’ve looked long enough, sweet miss,
Then, most beneficent young giver,
Restore them to their native river.
In this fashion the little ‘Lunnoner,’ as she was always called,
got her fill of the country, and her intimacy with more or less
unsophisticated nature—a love which was her prevailing passion
throughout her life.
Her early education was alike unsatisfactory and varied, for at
that time it was extremely difficult to find girls’ schools at once
convenient of access and reasonable in price, where the teaching was of
any value. After leaving Mrs. Allaman’s, of whom mention has been made,
Kate was handed over to a Miss Jackson, where she remained only a few
days. Thence she went to a Miss Varley, but here also her career was a
short one. She soon fell ill, ‘under the strain,’ said Mrs. Greenaway,
‘of impossible lessons,’ and was promptly removed.
Then a trial was made of some ladies named Fiveash. Here again Kate’s
health flagged. She herself was inclined to put it down to the fact
that Miss Anne Fiveash, of whom she was otherwise fond enough, had a
cross eye, which filled her with terror. At any rate, the new scheme
succeeded no better than the old ones, and this for the time being was
an end of school. Henceforward the child’s education was continued, if
it could properly be said yet to have begun, by a lady who came two or
three afternoons a-week to give lessons (very bad ones they were) in
French and music. This arrangement lasted for several years; at the
end of which time Kate went back to Miss Fiveash’s, where she remained
until she left school altogether. During all this time she was drawing
as much as she could in private.
[Illustration: THOMAS CHAPPELL (‘DADAD’).
_Drawn in his old age by Kate Greenaway._]
When Kate was six years old her brother John was born; and of course
she remembered to her dying day all the clothes he ever had, and all
those which she and her sisters had at the same time; and she notes the
details of three of his earliest costumes which she remembered to good
purpose. First, a scarlet pelisse, and a white felt hat with feathers;
next, a drab pelisse and a drab felt hat with a green velvet rosette;
and thirdly, he was resplendent in a pale blue frock, a little white
jacket, and a white Leghorn hat and feather—all of which afterwards
found resurrection in the Greenaway picture-books.
There was always a deep bond of sympathy between Mr. Greenaway and his
little daughter, whom, by the way, he nicknamed ‘Knocker,’ to which
it amused him to compare her face when she cried. Her devotion to
her father doubtless had far-reaching results, for not only was Mr.
Greenaway an accomplished engraver, but an artist of no mean ability.
And there was a fascination and mystery about his calling which made
a strong appeal to her imagination. On special occasions he would
be commissioned to make drawings for the _Illustrated London News_,
and then Kate’s delight would be unbounded. The subject might be of
Queen Victoria at some such ceremony as the opening of Parliament; or
sometimes of some more stirring occurrence—such, for example, as that
which necessitated the long journey into Staffordshire to make sketches
of the house and surroundings of the villainous doctor, William Palmer,
the Rugeley murderer, an event which stood out in her memory as of
supreme interest and importance.
Mr. Greenaway’s office, as long as Kate could remember, was 4, Wine
Office Court, Fleet Street. There most of his work was done; but when,
as frequently happened, there was a scramble to get the wood blocks
engraved in time for the press, he would have to work the greater part
of two consecutive nights. Then he would bring portions of his blocks
home, distributing the less important sections among his assistants, so
that the whole might be ready in the morning.
These were times of superlative pleasure to Kate. She would wake up
about midnight and see the gas still burning outside in the passage.
This meant that her father was hard at work downstairs. About one
o’clock he would go to bed, snatch an hour or two’s sleep, and be at it
again until it was time to be off to the City. This was his routine,
and Kate quickly planned how to take advantage of it.
Waiting till sister Fanny was asleep, she would slip out of bed, hurry
into her clothes, all except her frock and shoes, and, covering them
with her little nightgown, creep back into bed again. Thus prepared
for eventualities, she would fall asleep. But not for long. Somehow
she would manage to wake again in the small hours of the morning and
see if the light of the gas jet in the passage still shone through the
chink of the door. If it did, she would climb with all quietness out of
bed, doff her nightdress, slip into her frock, take her shoes in her
hand and creep softly down to the drawing-room, where her father was at
work. Then he would fasten her dress and she would set to work to make
his toast. And so the two would breakfast together alone in the early
hours with supreme satisfaction.
* * * * *
Here Miss Greenaway’s autobiographical notes come to an abrupt
termination, save for a sheet of memoranda which stimulate but do
not satisfy curiosity. How, we may ask, did the ‘Fear of Water-taps’
take her?—a fear which lasted all her life. What confessions did she
contemplate under the heading ‘My Religious Fit,’ and ‘My Fight,’ and
what episodes would have grouped themselves under ‘Pincushions’?
[Illustration: EXPLANATORY SKETCH OF ROLLESTON COTTAGE FARM.
Gate to Our Bedroom. Mamam’s Bedroom.
Gate to Croft. Cart Shed. Garden. Kitchen. House. Parlour.
Road.
]
[Illustration: JOHN GREENAWAY (FATHER OF KATE GREENAWAY),
WOOD-ENGRAVER, AT WORK.
_Pencil Drawing by Birket Foster, R.W.S. In the possession of John
Greenaway, Esq._]
CHAPTER IV
STUDENT DAYS AND EARLY SUCCESS: EARLY PROMISE AND ART CLASSES—SOUTH
KENSINGTON PRIZES—LADY BUTLER—DUDLEY GALLERY—REV. W. J. LOFTIE
AND MESSRS. MARCUS WARD—‘AMATEUR THEATRICALS’—TOY-BOOKS AND
FAIRY-TALES—PROGRESS.
In 1857 the whole of Great Britain, as has been said, was stirred to
its depths by the terrible events which were taking place in India.
People talked and thought of little else besides the Mutiny, and the
papers, prominent among them the _Illustrated London News_, properly
played up to the public’s dreadful hunger for literary and pictorial
details. Many of the latter passed through the hands of Mr. Greenaway,
and nothing was more natural than that Kate, with her inborn artistic
capacity, should try her hand at expressing the sensations so aroused,
pictorially. Here is her own memorandum on the subject, written on an
isolated leaf of the autobiographic notes:—
At the time of the Indian Mutiny I was always drawing people escaping.
I wish I had some of the old drawings, but they were nearly always
done on a slate and rubbed off again. We knew all about it from the
_Illustrated London News_, and the incident of the Highland woman who
heard the bagpipes made a great impression on me. I could sit and think
of the sepoys till I could be wild with terror, and I used sometimes to
dream of them. But I was always drawing the ladies, nurses, and children
escaping. Mine always escaped and were never taken.
Fortunately, Kate’s father and mother were not blind to the promise of
these tentative efforts. The root of the matter they felt was in her,
and the first opportunity must be taken of giving it a chance of growth
and development. This opportunity was not long in coming, and by the
time she was twelve years old her artistic education had already begun.
The first art class to which she went was that held at William Street,
Clerkenwell, close to Claremont Square. A girl-cousin (one of the
Thornes) was at that time being educated as a wood-engraver by Mr.
John Greenaway, who sent his pupil to this evening class—a school
in connection with the Science and Art Department (now the Board of
Education). So that she should not go alone, his daughter was sent
to bear her company; and Kate soon showed such undoubted signs of
ability that it was decided her attendance should continue. She was
soon promoted to the day class carried on by Miss Doidge, which was
held at Miss Springet’s school at Canonbury House, also under the
Science and Art Department, and Kate remained a member of it during
its successive removals to St. George’s Hall, Barnsbury Street, and
Myddleton Hall, close to the Greenaways’ dwelling. To Kate, Canonbury
House was an ancient palace. It was an interesting old place, with
beautiful moulded ceilings and a wonderful Jacobean fireplace, which
is figured and described in Nelson’s _History of Islington_. It stood
immediately behind Canonbury Tower, which was said to have been one of
Queen Elizabeth’s innumerable hunting-boxes, and was popularly believed
to have subterranean passages leading to Smithfield.
So satisfactory and encouraging was Kate’s progress—her first prize
was gained when she was twelve years old—that in due time it was
determined that she should make Art her profession, and she forthwith
joined the chief school of the Art Department, then under Mr. R.
Burchett, who soon formed a very high opinion of her talents and
prospects. In 1861 she was awarded the bronze medal (local), Stage 10
A; in 1864 the ‘National,’ Stage 22; and in 1869 the silver (South
Kensington), Stage 17 B.[3] The set of six tiles, here reproduced,
display charming harmonies of colour. One is composed of olive-green
and two different yellows on a slate-blue ground, while the flowers are
outlined with white edges. In another, crimson-purple, russet-yellow,
and blue are on a slate-grey ground; and in a third the grey-blue
flowers are outlined with white, and grey-green, violet, purple, and
yellow tell richly on a brown ground. The other schemes of colour
are equally well combined, and the pattern designs are all good, and
display a sense of grace and ability in line and arrangement.[4] In
addition to the awards mentioned, Kate received many book prizes in
lieu of medals to which she was later entitled. Here she worked for
several years with great diligence and thoroughness, undaunted by
difficulties and hardships such as fall to the lot of few students.
Indeed, so eagerly industrious was she that at the same time she
attended the Life Classes at Heatherley’s, and later on the newly
opened London Slade School, then in charge of Professor Legros and his
assistants.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY’S PRIZE STUDENT-WORK.
_A facsimile reproduction in colour of one of the drawings for tiles
shown in the plate illustrating the set of six._]
It has often been said of Kate Greenaway that she did not
sufficiently draw from the nude, and, as will be seen later on,
Professor Ruskin implored her to undertake this severer form of study,
in order to correct and improve her figure drawing; and it has been too
readily assumed that her training was lacking in this essential element
of an artist’s academic education. As a matter of fact, Kate executed
a vast number of careful studies from the figure, both at Heatherley’s
and at a studio which she occupied with Miss Elizabeth Thompson
(afterwards Lady Butler)—who, like Miss Helen Paterson (Mrs. William
Allingham), was her fellow-student at South Kensington—and at her
death between fifty and a hundred were still in existence. Many of them
were in ‘the old South Kensington manner’—in pencil or chalk, plenty
of stump-work, and heightening of the lights with white chalk: dull,
uninspired things, excellent in proportion and construction, and not
without use for the acquisition of knowledge of the human frame. There
were also short-time sketches, but only a few of the chalk drawings
have been preserved.
Of these student days Lady Butler kindly sends the following note:—
She and I were keen competitors in the Sketching Club competitions at
South Kensington. She was a very quiet student, so that it is difficult
to find anything striking to say of her. I have no letters of hers
and no sketches. We were very good friends, she and I, in spite of
our rivalry in the sketching club; and indeed so quiet and peaceable
a student was necessarily liked, and she never, to my knowledge, gave
trouble or offence to any one in the schools. I wish I could give you
more material, but the character of the girl was such as to supply very
little wherewith to make up a biographical sketch. I only knew her at
the schools, not in her home life.
It may be added that Miss Thompson and Kate Greenaway were both such
enthusiastic workers that they would bribe the custodian to lock
them in when the other students were gone, so that they might put in
overtime.
Such was the regularity and steady application of Kate’s eager student
days. By the time she was twenty-two she was exhibiting at the old
Dudley Gallery a water-colour drawing entitled ‘Kilmeny,’ illustrating
a versified legend, and ‘six little drawings on wood’: the latter, as
we shall see, fortunate enough to attract the attention of an excellent
judge and discriminating editor. This was in the year 1868, and here,
in the old Egyptian Hall, her work made its first public appearance.
Then there came a series of small pictures in water-colour at the same
gallery, in which she already gave evidence of the bent which her brush
was to follow with such remarkable success.[5] Even then her fancy
was leading her back to the quaintly picturesque costume which was in
vogue at the close of the eighteenth century. Not that her enthusiasm
for our grandmothers’ gowns at once tickled the fancy of the public.
That was to come. Indeed, she herself was as yet only feeling her way,
though with remarkable deliberation and thoroughness. No doubt it was
in her first remunerative but anonymous work of designing valentines
and Christmas cards that the possibilities which lay in childhood
archaically, or at least quaintly, attired first presented themselves
to her, but the goal was not to be reached without unstinted labour and
active forethought. Her subsequent success rested upon the thoroughness
with which she laid her foundations.[6] She did not merely pick up an
old book of costumes and copy and adapt them second-hand to her own
uses. She began from the very beginning, fashioning the dresses with
her own hands and dressing up her models and lay-figures in order to
realise the effects anew. She would not allow herself any satisfaction
until her models lived and moved in her presence as their parents or
grandparents had lived and moved in the previous century. Only then was
she sure of her ground and could go forward with confidence.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY’S STUDENT-WORK.
_Set of Tile Drawings in Colours, executed at the age of 17.
Bronze Medal awarded and Drawing purchased by the Science and Art
Department._]
At the risk of slightly anticipating later events, there may be
interpolated here the following facts, dealing mainly with her early
work, kindly provided for our purposes by the Rev. W. J. Loftie,
who has a legitimate source of pride in the fact that he was Kate
Greenaway’s first outside employer: for work had already come to her
through her father’s instrumentality.
[Illustration: Early Pencil Sketch for a Christmas Card.]
At the time of the first Black and White Exhibition (1868) at the
Dudley Gallery, Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, Mr. Loftie was editor of the
_People’s Magazine_. He was much pleased with a frame of six drawings
on wood, which were priced at £2: 2s., and he secured them at once.
The artist’s name, he found, was ‘K. Greenaway,’ and he was given the
address: Miss Kate Greenaway, Upper Street, Islington—a student at
South Kensington. The drawings were equally divided between fairy
scenes in outline and pictures of child life. He used them in the
magazine as occasion allowed, and some of his leading contributors,
Charles Eden, Robert Bateman, John Richard Green, who were charmed
with their beauty, wrote little tales or verses to suit one or other,
until three or four were disposed of. But he was puzzled about the
rest, and eventually wrote to ask Miss Greenaway to tell him the
subjects.[7] She called immediately at the office. She was very small,
very dark, and seemed clever and sensible, with a certain impressive
expression in her dark eyes that struck every one. Her visit led to
further acquaintance, in which Mrs. Loftie shared, and she became a
frequent visitor at 57, Upper Berkeley Street, where they then lived.
The magazine soon came to an end, but Miss Greenaway was an artist who
never disappointed her employers, and before long many opportunities
occurred for recommending her. She had some work to do for Kronheim
& Co. about that time, but—forgetting, apparently, her excellent
achievement at South Kensington—she found a difficulty with colours.
Like many beginners, she imagined that a sufficient number of bright
colours made a bright-coloured picture, and being disappointed with
the result, complained to Mr. Loftie. So he got the little manual of
Colour-Harmony which was prepared by Redgrave for the South Kensington
authorities and gave it to her. In the meanwhile Messrs. Marcus Ward
of Belfast had consulted Mr. Loftie as to extending their business,
and proposed to carry out a scheme he had laid before them some time
before for issuing artistic Christmas cards and valentines in gold and
colours. Miss Greenaway entered into the idea with great zest, but at
first her designs were, as she said herself, gaudy. A little study of
colour-harmony soon showed her where the fault lay, and she used to ask
her friend to set her exercises in it—in primaries, or secondaries, or
tertiaries, as the case might be. She derived extraordinary pleasure
from studying the colour scale of such a picture as Van Eyck’s ‘Jean
Arnolfini and his Wife’ in the National Gallery, or Gainsborough’s
so-called ‘Blue Boy.’ It was only by incessant study of this kind
earnestly pursued that she acquired the delicate and exquisite facility
for figures and flowers in colour by which she soon became known.
Meanwhile she drew constantly in black and white, and illustrated a
child’s book, _Topo_, by Miss Blood, afterwards Lady Colin Campbell,
which was published by Messrs. Ward and speedily went out of print. A
volume of valentines, _The Quiver of Love_, was published about the
same time, and contained specimens of colour-printing by the same firm
after her drawings and those of Mr. Walter Crane[8].
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY.
_At the age of 16._ _At the age of 21._
]
Miss Greenaway worked very hard at the production of the designs for
birthday cards and valentines. They constantly improved in harmony of
colour and delicacy of effect. A curious chance revealed to her the
wonders of medieval illumination. Mr. Loftie was engaged at the time on
a volume of topographical studies for the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge, and wanted a copy from the pages of the book of
Benefactors of St. Albans Abbey—_Nero_, D. 7, in the MS. room at the
British Museum. Mr. Thompson, better known as Sir E. Maunde Thompson,
Principal Librarian, was head of the department, and showed her many
of the treasures in his charge, and he arranged her seat and gave her
every possible assistance. She undertook to make a coloured drawing of
Abbot John of Berkhampstead wringing his hands, for Mr. Loftie’s book.
Being still in want of work, this particular job, with its collateral
advantages in learning, pleased her very much. Another lady who was
copying an illuminated border was her next neighbour at the same table,
and they seem to have made one another’s acquaintance on the occasion.
In after years Miss Greenaway quaintly said ‘this was the first duchess
she had ever met’—the late Duchess of Cleveland, Lord Rosebery’s
mother, who was a notable artist, and who died only a few months before
Miss Greenaway herself. As for the Abbot, the committee of the S.P.C.K.
rejected him, and the picture passed into and remained in Mr. Loftie’s
possession. It figured later in his _London Afternoons_ (p. 110), as
Miss Greenaway only a few days before her death gave him leave to make
what use of it he pleased.
Her first great success was a valentine. It was designed for Messrs.
Marcus Ward, whose London manager hardly recognised, her introducer
thought, what a prize they had found. The rough proof of the drawing,
in gold and colour, is both crude and inharmonious, but it has merits
of delicacy and composition which account for the fact that the firm
is said to have sold upwards of 25,000 copies of it in a few weeks.
Her share of the profits was probably no more than £3. She painted
many more on the same terms that year and the next, and was constantly
improving in every way as she became better acquainted with her own
powers and with the capabilities, at that time very slight, of printing
in colour. ‘I have a beautiful design,’ says Mr. Loftie, ‘in the most
delicate tints, for another valentine, which she brought me herself to
show how much better she now understood harmony. It was unfinished,
and in fact was never used by the firm. I need not go into the
circumstances under which she severed her connection with them, but I
well remember her remarkable good-temper and moderation. In the end it
was for her benefit. Mr. Edmund Evans seized the chance, and eventually
formed the partnership which subsisted for many years, till near the
end of her life.’
About the year 1879 Mr. Loftie met her one day at a private view in
Bond Street. She was always very humble about herself. She was the
very last person to recognise her own eminence, and was always, to the
very end, keen to find out if any one could teach her anything or give
her a hint or a valuable criticism. She was also very shy in general
society, and inclined to be silent and to keep in the background. On
this occasion, however, she received him laughing heartily. ‘The lady
who has just left me,’ she said, ‘has been staying in the country and
has been to see her cousins. I asked if they were growing up as pretty
as they promised. “Yes,” she replied, “but they spoil their good looks,
you know, by dressing in that absurd Kate Greenaway style”—quite
forgetting that she was talking to me!’ Kate would often repeat the
story with much zest.
On two subsequent occasions did she execute work for books in which
Mr. Loftie was concerned. In 1879 he asked her for some suggestions
for illustrations of Mr. and Lady Pollock’s _Amateur Theatricals_ in
his ‘Art at Home’ Series (Macmillan & Co.). She sent him half-a-dozen
lovely sketches, of which only three were accepted by the publishers.
The frontispiece, ‘Comedy,’ a charming drawing, was not well engraved.
A tail-piece on p. 17 shows a slight but most graceful figure of a
young girl in the most characteristic ‘Kate Greenaway’ costume. The
third, less characteristic, is even more charming—‘Going on.’ Among
the sketches was a ‘Tragedy,’ represented by a youthful Hamlet in black
velvet holding a large turnip apparently to represent the skull of
Yorick. This was never completed.
[Illustration: THE ELF RING.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of John Greenaway,
Esq._]
Once again, in 1891, she made a drawing at Mr. Loftie’s instance.
He was editing the fourth edition of the _Orient Guide_ for Mr. J.
G. S. Anderson, the Chairman of the Orient Line, who had lately,
through his wife, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D., made Miss Greenaway’s
acquaintance. It was suggested that she might design a title-page for
the guide, which she did with alacrity, refusing remuneration, and
only stipulating for the return of her drawing. It was a charming
border, consisting of twelve delightful little girls and two little
boys, all ‘Kate Greenaway’ children, very dainty, but extraordinarily
inappropriate for the title-page of a steamship company’s guide-book.
As soon as the introduction to Messrs. Marcus Ward was brought about,
Kate Greenaway made a practice of consulting Mr. William Marcus
Ward on the subject of her artistic and literary ambitions. In the
matter of her drawing and painting she bowed to his expert opinion,
unhesitatingly destroying her work when he told her that it was bad,
and for years profited by his kindly advice; but when in the matter
of her verses he told her that her efforts were ‘rubbish and without
any poetic feeling,’ though she listened meekly enough, she reserved
her opinion—as we shall see in the event, not without some measure of
justification.
After working for the firm for six or seven years, during which time
her designs were trump cards in their annual pack, she was advised
by friends that the drawings ought to be returned to her after
reproduction. This new departure, however, did not meet with her
employers’ approval, and the connection ceased.
Amongst the early and unsigned work done for Messrs. Kronheim, who
had a great colour-printing establishment in Shoe Lane, may be
mentioned _Diamonds and Toads_, in ‘Aunt Louisa’s London Toy Books’
Series (published by Frederick Warne & Co.), containing six full-page
unsigned drawings of no striking promise and crude in colour, the
harshness mainly due, no doubt, to the rude methods of engraving and
colour-printing for children then in vogue. Far better was the work
done in the same style and for the same firm in 1871 for a series of
‘Nursery Toy Books’ (published by Gall & Inglis), amongst which may
be mentioned, for the sake of the collector, _The Fair One with Golden
Locks_, _The Babes in the Wood_, _Blue Beard_, _Tom Thumb_, _Hop o’
my Thumb_, _Red Riding Hood_, _The Blue Bird_, _The White Cat_, and
_Puss in Boots_. In these the illustrations, remarkably well composed
and drawn, rise somewhat above the level of children’s coloured books
of the period. The figures were mainly studied from members of her own
family. The letterpress consisted for the most part of translations
from the _Fairy Tales_ of Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy, the well-known
author of the _Memoirs and Voyages in Spain_, who flourished at the end
of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Her
fairy tales had been originally published in Amsterdam in eight little
volumes, with thirty-three plates signed ‘S. F. inv. et sc.’—a set
very different from the fanciful illustrations of Kate Greenaway.
Up to the year 1871 it is not possible to be very precise as to Kate’s
progress towards the overwhelming popularity which she was so soon to
win. But from that time onwards her systematic keeping of accounts
enables us to be definite. Besides the work done for Messrs. Kronheim,
for which she was paid £36, we have the entry, ‘Happy Wretched Family,’
10s.; ‘Tracts’ (apparently for the Religious Tract Society), £2: 5s.;
and commissions for a Mr. Sheers and Mr. Griffith,[9] £24: 10s.; the
year’s takings amounting to something over £70.
The preceding year she had been represented at the Dudley Gallery by
a water-colour drawing entitled ‘Apple-Blossom—A Spring Idyll’; and
in Suffolk Street, for the first time, by another entitled ‘A Peeper,’
representing children at play. In 1871 too, as we have seen from Mr.
Loftie’s note, she was designing Christmas cards for Messrs. Marcus
Ward of Belfast. In these drawings she adopted the style of dress which
she had seen as a child about the farm at Rolleston, where there was a
survival of costumes which had long since disappeared from the towns
and more ‘progressive’ villages and country districts, adapting them
to her purpose and filling her wardrobes with frocks, bonnets, and
jackets and other garments, partly conjured up from memory and partly
invented. She soon began to discover that she was creating a vogue.
She felt their quaintness and charm herself, and was hardly surprised
that others found them equally attractive. And notwithstanding some
doubts thrown by her father, artist though he was, upon her wisdom in
proceeding upon these lines, she determined to persist, and events
proved her instinct to be right. Fortunately, her friend Mr. Stacy
Marks, R.A., at the moment of crisis gave her strong support, and in
the face of universal opposition urged her to continue in the path on
which she had entered.
[Illustration: RAPID ALTERNATIVE PENCIL SKETCHES FOR TRAGEDY AS
TITLE-PAGE TO ‘AMATEUR THEATRICALS,’ BY WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK AND MRS.
POLLOCK.
_In the possession of Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._]
In 1872 she was designing yellow-back covers for Mr. Edmund Evans,
of whom much will be heard later.[10] At the same time she was doing
more work for Kronheim, she found her way into the _Illustrated London
News_, and she sold her pictures at the Dudley Gallery for something
like £20.
By 1873, doubtless through the influence of her father, who at that
time was doing much work for Messrs. Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, Kate
made her first appearance in _Little Folks_, for which, as well as
for other publications of the firm, she executed innumerable dainty
and characteristic drawings. This, of course, was mostly journeyman’s
work, and she was hampered by having to express other people’s ideas
pictorially. She never excelled as an illustrator, and it was not
till she had a free hand that she did herself full justice. It was,
however, an excellent school wherein to test her powers and to gain the
experience which led her eventually to ‘find herself.’ In many of these
wood-engravings it is interesting to notice the joint signature ‘K.
Greenaway, del.,’ and ‘J. Greenaway, sc.’ She disliked being bound by
another person’s imagination, and her aversion to ‘mere illustration’
remained with her to the end. As late as February 1900, when she was
asked if she would make a drawing to a story by Mrs. M. H. Spielmann,
she wrote: ‘It would rather depend if I saw my way to making a good
illustration. I’m a very tiresome person and do things sometimes very
badly. I should, if I could, like to do it very much, especially as it
is Mrs. Spielmann’s. I’ve not made any drawings for illustration for so
long, and now I’ve just taken a book to do!’[11]
In this same year (1873) her pictures at the Dudley and Suffolk
Street Galleries found a market, and ‘A Fern Gatherer,’ at the Royal
Manchester Institution, was bought by Mr. John Lomax for fifteen
guineas. The following year (1874) her gross earnings were £120, and
she realised that she was progressing steadily in public favour.
Kate was now a person of some importance in the Greenaway
establishment. Not only had she adopted a profession, but she was
making that profession pay, and the time was coming when she felt
that there should be some tangible sign, at least so far as she was
concerned, of the improvement in their fortunes. It was a cause of
profound gratification to her mother, who, by dint of thrift and
self-sacrifice and devotion amounting almost to heroism, had been
enabled to realise her ambition to educate each of her children to the
greatest advantage. Her eldest daughter was sent to the Royal Academy
of Music; her son to the Royal College of Chemistry; and Kate to South
Kensington and Heatherley’s. All of them were on the high-road to
success, and a sense of satisfaction and good-humour permeated the
household.
Good-humour, indeed, was characteristic of Kate, and to this sweetness
of disposition and thoughtfulness for others she owed not a little of
her success. Artists’ grown-up models are often difficult enough to
manage, but child-models are apt to prove exasperating; and it was due
only to her infinite tact and unwearying resourcefulness in inventing
amusements and distractions for her little sitters that she coaxed
them into good temper and into displaying the charm which she was so
successful in reproducing.
During the last year or two spent in Islington, Kate rented near by
a room which she fitted up as a studio, but about 1873 or 1874 she
and her father between them bought the lease of a house in Pemberton
Gardens, where the family lived till 1885.
Her friend Mrs. Miller writes of her at this period: ‘She was
then as ever gentle, patient, industrious, exquisitely sensitive,
extraordinarily humorous, while under and over it all was an
indomitable will. I always remember one little remark she made to me
once when we were walking from her home in Islington to a little room
she had taken as a studio (her first) in a side street. It was wet
and miserable, the streets vulgar and sordid. “Never mind,” she said,
“I shall soon be in the spring.” The first primrose she drew upon the
sheet before her would place her in another world. She loved all sorts
of street music, and once said to me, “The moment I hear a band, I am
in fairyland.”’
[Illustration: JOHN GREENAWAY, ESQ.
_Pencil Sketch by Kate Greenaway of her brother at study (about
1870)._]
In 1874 Kate Greenaway illustrated a little volume of fairy stories,
issued in coloured boards by Griffith & Farran, entitled _Fairy Gifts;
or A Wallet of Wonders_. It was written by Kathleen Knox, the author
of _Father Time’s Story-Book_, and contained four full-page and
seven small woodcuts, engraved by John Greenaway. The more important
illustrations are prettily composed, while revealing a fine taste in
witches and apparitions; and the small sketches are daintily touched
in. It was Kate’s first appearance on any title-page. There was nothing
remarkable in the little volume, yet it met with considerable popular
favour. The first edition consisted of 2,000 copies; in 1880 it was
reprinted to the extent of half as many. In 1882 a cheap edition of
5,000 copies was issued, and later in the year this large number was
repeated. To what extent the artist shared in the success does not
appear.
The year 1875, so far as earnings were concerned, was a lean year, and
introduced the names of no new clients. This does not indicate that
her activity was any the less than the year before. Indeed, we must
remember that in the life of the artist results, so far as monetary
reward is concerned, represent previous rather than contemporaneous
activity, for payment is made certainly after the work is sold, and
in the case of work for the press as often as not after publication.
In the following year (1876) her earnings again ran into £200, her
water-colour drawing at the Dudley being sold for twenty guineas, and
her two black-and-white drawings for ten guineas the pair. But the
crowning event of this year was the publication by Mr. Marcus Ward of
the volume mentioned by Mr. Loftie, entitled ‘_The Quiver of Love,
a Collection of Valentines, Ancient and Modern_, with Illustrations
in Colours from Drawings by Walter Crane and K. Greenaway.’ All the
designs had already been published separately. The verses were mainly
from the pen of Mr. Loftie himself, although he is modest enough not to
claim them in his notes.
None of the illustrations in this volume is signed, but the following
are the productions of Kate Greenaway: (1) The Frontispiece; (2)
the illustration to ‘Do I love you?’ by Julia Goddard; (3) that to
‘The Surprise,’ anonymous; and (4) that to ‘Disdain,’ by F. R. It
would have been difficult to arrive at their authorship without
unexceptionable evidence, had not Mr. Walter Crane identified his part
in the publication. Probably, had not Kate Greenaway’s name appeared
on the title-page, it would scarcely have occurred to any one, even to
those best acquainted with her work, that she had had any hand in the
production at all. The volume is merely interesting as a curiosity. It
is not surprising to learn that the republication in permanent form,
with his name attached, of ephemeral and unsigned work executed for
the butterfly existence of a valentine, did not commend itself to Mr.
Crane; and to neither artist did any profit accrue.
[Illustration: Book-plate designed for Miss Maud Locker-Lampson.]
CHAPTER V
1877-1878
THE TRIUMPH OF ‘UNDER THE WINDOW’: ROYAL ACADEMY—MR. AND MRS.
EDMUND EVANS—MR. EVANS’S COLOUR-PRINTING—JOHN RUSKIN ON KATE
GREENAWAY—‘TOPO’—RANDOLPH CALDECOTT, AND MR. WALTER CRANE.
[Illustration]
So far Kate had been going through the usual experiences of the
free-lance who with pen or pencil in hand sets forth to win recognition
from the public. Public taste is the hardest thing in the world to
gauge by those who would be original according to their talents, and
harder still is it to arrest attention, save by gasconades of which she
certainly was wholly incapable. Hitherto she had been the servant eager
to please the whim of her master, but the time was coming when she
would call the tune and the public would delight to dance to it.
Kate Greenaway was now in her thirty-third year, and, though fairly
prosperous, could scarcely consider herself successful. Commissions
were certainly coming in faster and faster, and in 1877, when she took
her studio to College Place, Liverpool Road, Islington, her earnings
had nearly reached £300; but she had not yet made any great individual
mark. She appeared in the Royal Academy Exhibition and sold her picture
‘Musing’ for twenty guineas. She was a recognised contributor to the
Dudley Gallery, and was pretty sure of buyers there. She was getting
more or less regular employment on the _Illustrated London News_. She
had been asked by Mr. W. L. Thomas of the newly established _Graphic_
to provide him with a running pictorial full-page story after the
manner of Caldecott, and had succeeded in satisfying his fastidious
taste, though the first sketch-plan which she sent seemed to him
lacking in humour. ‘They strike me,’ he wrote, ‘as being a little
solemn in tone.’ But this defect was soon rectified, and the result was
so greatly admired that it led to many further commissions from the
artist-editor.
These were gratifying and encouraging results, but in Kate’s opinion
they were but the prizes of the successful artist-hack. Her name had
not yet passed into the mouth of the town. Though she had drawn many
charming pictures, she had not yet drawn the public.
What was true of the public was true of the publishers. Though Messrs.
Marcus Ward of Belfast had seen the possibilities that lay in her
designs for valentines, Christmas cards, and the like, and had achieved
a real success by their publication, Kate was but yet only the power
behind the throne. She was the hidden mainspring of a clock with
the maker’s name upon the dial. Now all this was to be changed by a
business arrangement, almost amounting to a partnership, in which she
was to take her full share of the credit as well as of the spoil.
The story will be best told in the words of the man who so boldly
backed his opinion as to print a first edition of 20,000 copies of
a six-shilling book written and illustrated by a young lady who
could hardly yet be said to have commanded anything like wide public
approval. This was Mr. Edmund Evans.
Mr. Edmund Evans was primarily a colour-printer; his wood-engraving
department was subsidiary. For the purposes of his business he owned
a good many machines; he had three houses full of them in the City,
and he was sometimes puzzled to find work to keep them going, to
do which is at the root of commercial economy and success in his
business. He printed most of the ‘yellow-backs’ of the time, covers for
books as well as for small magazines of a semi-religious character,
working-men’s magazines, and so forth, all with much colour-work in
them. Mr. Evans also executed much high-class work of the kind, such
as Doyle’s _Chronicles of England_, which had done much to make his
reputation. Therefore, to fill up the spare time during which his
machines would otherwise be idle, he began publishing the toy-books
of Mr. Walter Crane, then those of Randolph Caldecott, and finally he
turned his attention to Miss Kate Greenaway.
It should be recorded to the credit of Mr. Evans that he excelled all
others in the skill with which he produced his colour-effects with a
small number of printings. Mr. John Greenaway, himself an expert in the
preparation of blocks for colour-printing, as well as an artist of much
intelligence, used to declare that no other firm in London could come
near the result that Edmund Evans would get with as few, say, as three
colour-blocks, so wonderful was his ingenuity, so great his artistic
taste, and so accurate his eye.
Mr. Evans informs us:
I had known John Greenaway, father of K. G.,[12] since I was fourteen
years of age. He was an assistant engraver to Ebenezer Landells,[13]
to whom I was apprenticed. I knew he was having one of his daughters
educated for the musical profession and another for drawing. I had only
seen engravings made from drawings on wood by ‘K. G.’ for Cassell & Co.,
as well as some Christmas cards by Marcus Ward & Co. from water-colour
drawings of very quaint little figures of children. Very beautiful they
were, for they were beautifully lithographed.
About 1877-78 K. G. came to see us at Witley, bringing a collection of
about fifty drawings she had made, with quaint verses written to them. I
was fascinated with the originality of the drawings and the ideas of the
verse, so I at once purchased them and determined to reproduce them in a
little volume. The title _Under the Window_ was selected afterwards from
one of the first lines. At the suggestion of George Routledge & Sons I
took the drawings and verses to Frederick Locker, the author of _London
Lyrics_, to ‘look over’ the verses, not to rewrite them, but only to
correct a few oddities which George Routledge & Sons did not quite like
or understand. Locker was very much taken with the drawings and the
verses, and showed them to Mrs. Locker with quite a gusto; he asked me
many questions about her, and was evidently interested in what I told
him of her. I do not think that he did anything to improve the verses,
nor did K. G. herself.
Locker soon made her acquaintance and introduced her into some very good
society. She often stayed with them at Rowfant, Sussex, and also at
Cromer.
George Eliot was at the time staying at Witley. She called on us one
day and saw the drawings and was much charmed with them. A little time
afterwards I wrote to George Eliot to ask if she would write me a short
story of, or about, children suitable for K. G. to illustrate. Her
reason for refusing was interesting:—
‘THE HEIGHTS, WITLEY,
_October 22, 1879_.
‘Dear Mr. Evans—It is not my way to write anything except from my own
inward prompting. Your proposal does me honour, and I should feel much
trust in the charming pencil of Miss Greenaway, but I could never say
“I will write this or that” until I had myself felt the need to do
it....—Believe me, dear Mr. Evans, yours most sincerely,
M. E. LEWES.’
After I had engraved the blocks and colour-blocks, I printed the first
edition of 20,000 copies, and was ridiculed by the publishers for
risking such a large edition of a six-shilling book; but the edition
sold before I could reprint another edition; in the meantime copies were
sold at a premium. Reprinting kept on till 70,000 was reached.[14]
I volunteered to give K. G. one-third of the profit of this book. It was
published in the autumn of 1879. We decided to publish _The Birthday
Book for Children_ in 1880. Miss Greenaway considered that she should
have half the profits of all books we might do together in future, and
that I should return to her the original drawings after I had paid
her for them and reproduced them. To both these terms I willingly
agreed.[15] ... Then came the _Birthday Book_, _Mother Goose_, and
part of _A Day in a Child’s Life_, in 1881; _Little Ann_, 1883; the
_Language of Flowers_, _Kate Greenaway’s Painting-Book_, and _Mavor’s
Spelling-Book_, 1884-85; _Marigold Garden_ and _A Apple Pie_, 1886;
_The Queen of The Pirate Isle_ and _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_, 1887;
_The Book of Games_, 1888; _King Pepito_, 1889. Besides the above and a
certain number of smaller issues, minor works, and detached designs, the
artist was responsible for an Almanack from 1883 to 1897, with the sole
exception of the year 1896.
The books named above are those which we did together.
There is a little story my daughter Lily tells of her tenderness towards
animals. She was walking one day and came upon a stream with a rat
sitting on a stone. Lily wished to startle it, and was about to throw a
stone in the water, but K. G. exclaimed—‘Oh, don’t, Lily, perhaps it’s
ill!’ We all loved her.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE MODEL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. F. St. G.
Whitly._]
This interesting account of what is one of the most important events
in Kate’s life may be supplemented by the following charming sketch
taken from an article written by Mrs. Edmund Evans at the request of
the editor of the _Girl’s Own Paper_, shortly after her death. It was
published on December 26, 1901, together with a photograph of the
artist taken by Miss Lily Evans and four pen-and-ink drawings done by
Kate Greenaway for the Evans children. Miss Lily Evans was Mr. Evans’s
second daughter and a special favourite with Kate Greenaway, who
dedicated _Mother Goose_ to ‘Lily and Eddie’ (Kate Greenaway’s nephew),
‘the two children she loved most in the world.’
Kate Greenaway (wrote Mrs. Evans) had a very interesting personality,
and was extremely fond of the country and of flowers, and could draw
them beautifully, and always liked those best of a more simple form—not
orchids nor begonias; she loved daffodils and roses, and few things gave
her more pleasure than a copse yellow with primroses. Her favourite time
of year was when apple trees were in blossom; she especially liked them
when they were in the garden of a picturesque farm or cottage. One such
cottage at Hambledon, Surrey, she particularly admired, where a green
door had faded to a peacock blue. She liked only blue and white skies;
stormy effects gave her no pleasure.... ‘The sincerest form of flattery’
(imitation) annoyed her, and did her reputation harm, as her many
imitators went beyond, in fact out-Kate-Greenawayed Kate Greenaway in
their caricatures, and many people did not know one from the other. She
herself was waiting in a bookseller’s shop at Hastings, and a lady came
in and asked for Kate Greenaway’s books. The shopman spread a handful
out before her. The lady asked, ‘Are those all by Kate Greenaway?’ The
man assured her they were. Kate Greenaway was near enough to see that
not one was her work.
She had a very affectionate nature, very tender-hearted—seeing even
an insect in pain wounded her. She could not tolerate flies caught
in traps, or see a beetle or a spider killed. Seeing a mouse in a
trap tempted her to set it free; in fact, the ‘cruelty of nature’ in
the animal world quite troubled her. (She could not understand it or
reconcile it with the goodness of God.[16]) Dogs and cats recognised
this quality by showing their devotion and imposing on her good-nature.
She would never even scold them. This was simply kindness—not
indicating a weak nature. She was a decidedly strong-minded woman.
Of Kate Greenaway’s letters Mrs. Evans writes:—
I am sorry now I did not keep her letters. They were often very
interesting and unlike ordinary people’s, but when I had a great many it
did not seem worth while, and I never do keep letters. As you know, she
was so unassuming and homely, and liked our unostentatious way of living
so much, it was difficult to realise she was a celebrated person.
Here, however, is one which has escaped destruction:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. EVANS
[Undated.]
Dear Mrs. Evans—The flowers came quite safely. I am always so pleased
when the postman brings the little box. How strange and beautiful the
daffodil is—I never saw one like it before. Also thank W. for the
snowdrops.
The party was not very lively, only a few children. The songs sounded so
well. The 12 Miss Pelicoes very funny, and the procession song pretty.
Also there was an æsthetic artist there—real genuine sort—who drank in
the Elgin marbles for recreation. No wonder du Maurier hates them.
The other day I heard I was sixty!—to-day I hear I am making £2000 a
year!
I don’t think you’d find it worth while to come up for the Dudley. I
like to meet the people, of course; they are very funny. I saw Mrs.——
the other day at the Old Masters’ in a crimson velvet pelisse; everybody
stared and smiled. She is very pretty, but so much commoner than
Mrs.——.—— With love,
K. GREENAWAY.
Of _Under the Window_, which was published at the end of 1878, it
is no exaggeration to say that it was epoch-making; its popularity
was such that Kate tasted the bitter-sweet experience—shared in
our own time by Frederick Sandys in respect of his great skit on
Millais’s ‘Sir Isumbras at the Ford,’ and by Mr. Brandon Thomas in
respect of _Charley’s Aunt_—of finding her work coolly appropriated
by others. One—a lady of Twickenham—calmly gave herself out as the
artist-author, explaining that she had preferred to issue her work
under an assumed name. To enter into an elaborate description of the
book would be superfluous, for it still holds its place in every
properly constituted children’s library, and should be constantly
taken out for renewed inspection. So, too, would it be superfluous
to make extensive quotations from the eulogiums of the reviewers. We
may content ourselves with the following prophecy from the _Saturday
Review_, which seems now to be within measure of its fulfilment.
‘In time,’ the writer says, ‘the hands of children will wear away,
and their pencils and paint-brushes deface Miss Kate Greenaway’s
beautiful, fantastic, and dainty work _Under the Window_. Probably some
wise collector will lay up a little stock for future use while the
impressions are in their first freshness. His treasure will come to be
as valuable as that parcel of unbound and uncut Elzevirs which Mottley
found in Hungary, and which, after filling the hearts of bibliophiles
with joy for years, was burned by the Commune.’
There are, however, one or two facts connected with the book which
demand attention. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that
from this moment Kate Greenaway’s name became a household word, not
only in Great Britain, but in a vast number of homes on the continents
of Europe and America. In the second place, that now for the first time
she was not hampered in her published work by adapting her fancy to the
literary ideas of other people, but was inspired by subjects which came
red-hot from the furnace of her own imagination.
This is a matter of no little importance. It is clear that the ideal
illustrator of a literary idea, if only the technical skill is not
wanting, is the person to whose mind that idea first presents itself.
In the mind of any other the conception is but a second-hand affair,
and but the reflection, more or less accurate, of the original,
conveyed on to the mental retina of the artist through the somewhat
opaque medium of language. The writer alone knows exactly what he
means and what he wants. His pencil may be unskilled, but it is nerved
by the original thought. ‘I wish to goodness I could put it upon
paper myself,’ said Barham to Bentley, writing about an illustration
for the _Mousquetaire_, even while Cruikshank and Leech were at his
service. It is because Thackeray had the double gift that his drawings,
although so weak in execution, yet so evidently imbued with the living
literary inspiration, so greatly commend themselves to those who
look for genuine sincerity of inspiration, and not only for beauty
of composition and execution. That is why the world revelled in du
Maurier’s _Peter Ibbetson_ and _Trilby_, and why Blake’s _Songs of
Innocence and Experience_ is one of the completest and most harmonious
books in existence.
What Blake did, Kate Greenaway was now enabled to do, in her own
fashion, in _Under the Window_. She was expressing her own literary
thoughts and at the same time treating them pictorially.
One word about her verses, of which more will be said later on. Alone
they would probably not have attracted much serious attention, and
doubtless would have met with criticism. For there are in them faults
of scansion, rhythm, and rhyme which it is easy enough to reprobate.
But their sincerity, gaiety, and feeling appealed to such unimpeachable
judges as Frederick Locker and Mr. Austin Dobson, the latter of whom
declares, ‘She was very deficient in technique, but she had the root of
the matter in her.’ During the last months of her life she found much
pleasure in composing many more of those charming little verses, of
which examples will be found in a later portion of this book.
Here is an amusing sample from _Under the Window_, written for children:
Five little sisters walking in a row;
Now, isn’t that the best way for little girls to go?
Each had a round hat, each had a muff,
And each had a new pelisse of soft green stuff.
Five little marigolds standing in a row;
Now, isn’t that the best way for marigolds to grow?
Each with a green stalk, and all the five had got
A bright yellow flower, and a new red pot.
It must not be supposed that Kate had any illusions about her literary
gifts, or that she placed her own productions on a par with those of
others whose work she illustrated. But she preferred her liberty and
found her pencil better inspired by her own pen than by the pens of
others with whom she was called upon to collaborate. Other verses were
obviously cleverer and daintier than hers, but her own simple thoughts
were more in harmony with her delightful little pictures.
[Illustration: ‘MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur Severn._]
It was not only the critics but the public who acclaimed her, for she
had got at the secret of the beauty and charm of childhood, and the
appeal was universal. As Mr. Lionel Robinson wrote:—
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
The moment selected for striking this note was well chosen. Abroad and
at home the claims of children were asserting themselves more loudly
than ever. German and French artists had alike proved unequal to the
task, notwithstanding the temporary popularity of L. Fröhlich, of
Ludwig Richter, and, in a high degree, of Edouard Frère and others.
Clever as many of these showed themselves, they failed to render the
more transient graces of little children, whilst they were, with the
exception of Frère, apparently indifferent to the bright surroundings
and beauties of nature with which Miss Greenaway heightened the charm
of her work. It is this absolute harmony between the figures and the
landscape which makes her work so complete. Mr. Ruskin devoted one of
his lectures at Oxford to the place occupied by Miss Greenaway in modern
art, and bestowed upon her praise without stint. ‘Observe,’ said he,
‘that what this impressionable person _does_ draw she draws as like as
she can. It is true that the combination or composition of things is
not what you see every day. You can’t every day, for instance, see a
baby thrown into a basket of roses; but when she has once pleasantly
invented that arrangement for you, baby is as like baby and rose as like
rose as she can possibly draw them. And the beauty of them is in being
like, they are blissful just in the degree that they are natural; the
fairyland that she creates for you is not beyond the sky nor beneath the
sea, but near you, even at your doors. She does but show you how to see
it, and how to cherish.’
When the original drawings for _Under the Window_ were exhibited at the
Fine Art Society two years later, the critics vied with one another in
their applause. Ruskin in particular exhausted the splendour of his
vocabulary in his praise of their unaffected beauty, their sweetness
and naïveté, their delicacy of sentiment, subtlety of humour, and the
exquisiteness of technique, and what he added to the artist privately
has already been quoted here. Furthermore Mr. Austin Dobson wrote that
‘since Stothard, no one has given us such a clear-eyed, soft-faced,
happy-hearted childhood; or so poetically “apprehended” the coy
reticences, the simplicities, and the small solemnities of little
people. Added to this, the old-world costume in which she usually
elects to clothe her characters lends an arch piquancy of contrast to
their innocent rites and ceremonies. Her taste in tinting, too, is very
sweet and spring-like; and there is a fresh, pure fragrance about all
her pictures as of new-gathered nosegays.’
Wherefore it is evident that the success was as deserved as it was
instantaneous. Nor was it due only to the fortunate moment chosen
for launching the book. There was at least one other felicitous
circumstance: Miss Greenaway was exceptionally fortunate in her
interpreter, who had brought colour-printing by means of wood blocks to
a pitch of excellence never before attempted. A description, therefore,
of the process is of exceptional interest. The following account of the
method is taken from notes supplied by Mr. Edmund Evans himself.
In the first place, a photograph is taken and printed on the whitened
surface of the wood from the original drawing in line. This is engraved
as faithfully as possible, no notice being taken at this stage of
colour. From the engraving thus made ‘transfers,’ ‘sets off,’ or
‘proofs’ are pulled in dark brown or black ink. These, laid face
downwards on the blocks prepared for the colour printing, which equal
in number the colours to be used, are passed through the press. By
this means the wet ink is transferred and set-off on to the blocks,
and a number of facsimiles of the original drawing are ready for the
engraver, who prepares for his work by painting-in, on each, that part
of the tinting which is to be printed from that particular block. On
one he paints in all the red that is to be used and engraves so much on
that block, on the next all the blue that is to be used and engraves so
much on that block, and so on until all the colours are represented,
some of them overlapping or superimposed where they have to cross and
modify other colours. Then the engraver sets to work with his engraving
until he has prepared a separate block for each colour. In theory of
course a proof printed from each block should exactly reproduce the
blue, red, and other colours used in the original picture, but, ‘alas,’
as Mr. Evans says, ‘the eye, brain, and hand of the engraver are not up
to the eye, brain, and hand of the painter,’ so that the print suffers
by comparison. No doubt the coloured inks can be ground and mixed as
surely as by the painter on his palette, but the mechanical print must
ever come short of the nerve-driven original. When all the proofs
taken from the several blocks are pronounced satisfactory, a print is
taken from the key block. Upon that is superimposed a print from the
other blocks charged each with its properly coloured ink, the greatest
care being taken to get the ‘register’ correct—that is to say, that
each block is printed accurately in its place upon the paper with
relation to those which have gone before. From this it will be seen
how important it is that the colours used should be as few as possible
so as to keep within bounds the cost of engraving and to simplify the
difficulties of printing. Of course, had Kate Greenaway worked in the
twentieth century, the conditions would have been altogether different.
Now coloured wood-engravings have been almost wholly superseded by the
‘Three-Colour Process,’ which owes its rise to the possibilities which
have been found to lie in the use of filtering screens, bichromate of
potash, and metal plates—possibilities of which full advantage has
been taken in this volume.
[Illustration: BUBBLES
‘See the pretty planet!
Floating sphere!
Faintest breeze will fan it
Far or near.’
From a pen and water-colour drawing by Kate Greenaway in the
possession of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, being an illustration for
_Rhymes for the Young Folk_, by William Allingham (Cassell & Co.),
here reproduced in two methods (by permission of Messrs. Frederick
Warne & Co.) for the sake of comparison.
1 (on left).—Engraved on 8 wood-blocks and printed by Mr. Edmund Evans.
The brighter, yellower tone is adopted probably by subsequent direction
of the artist.
2 (on right).—A true facsimile of the drawing, executed by the
‘three-colour process.’
_N.B._—A single large bubble was afterwards substituted by way of
correction before publication, the poem which the drawing was to
illustrate being entitled ‘The Bubble.’]
Even with these advantages, we cannot entirely reproduce the daintiness
and incisiveness of her drawing, the transparency and brilliancy of
her colouring, the microscopic touch of the stipple, the delicacy of
the greys, and the inexpressible charm of the whole. The three-colour
process at its best is, after all, mechanical, and just falls short
of giving ‘the spider’s touch, so delicately fine,’ which ‘feels at
each thread and lives along the line.’ Near to perfection it has got,
especially when dealing with full-coloured drawings, but it cannot be
said that any one who has not seen the originals can estimate to the
full the charm and daintiness of these pictures, which seem to have
been blown rather than painted on to the paper. Bartolozzi with his
clever graver doubtless improved the work of those for whom he acted as
middleman, but it would have taken a greater than Bartolozzi to have
bettered (except in the academic quality of the drawing) the work of
Kate Greenaway. In his ‘Lecture on Mrs. Allingham and Kate Greenaway’
in _The Art of England_ (published by Mr. George Allen) Ruskin said:
I may best indicate to you the grasp which the genius of Miss Kate
Greenaway has taken upon the spirits of foreign lands, no less than
her own, by translating the last paragraph of the entirely candid, and
intimately observant, review of modern English art given by Monsieur
Ernest Chesneau, in his small volume, _La Peinture Anglaise_....
He gives first a lovely passage (too long to introduce now) upon the
gentleness of the satire of John Leech, as opposed to the bitter
malignity of former caricature. Then he goes on: ‘The great softening
of the English mind, so manifest already in John Leech, shows itself in
a decisive manner by the enthusiasm with which the public have lately
received the designs of Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Caldecott, and Miss Kate
Greenaway. The two first-named artists began by addressing to children
the stories of Perrault and of the _Arabian Nights_, translated and
adorned for them in a dazzling manner; and, in the works of all these
three artists, landscape plays an important part;—familiar landscape,
very English, interpreted with a “bonhomie savante”’ (no translating
that), ‘spiritual, decorative in the rarest sense—strange and precious
adaptation of Etruscan art, Flemish and Japanese, reaching, together
with the perfect interpretation of nature, to incomparable chords of
colour harmony. These powers are found in the work of the three, but
Miss Greenaway, with a profound sentiment of love for children, puts the
child alone on the scene, companions him in all his solitudes, and shows
the infantine nature in all its naïveté, its gaucherie, its touching
grace, its shy alarm, its discoveries, ravishments, embarrassments, and
victories; the stumblings of it in wintry ways, the enchanted smiles of
its spring-time, and all the history of its fond heart and guileless
egoism.
‘From the honest but fierce laugh of the coarse Saxon, William Hogarth,
to the delicious smile of Kate Greenaway, there has past a century and
a half. Is it the same people which applauds to-day the sweet genius
and tender malices of the one, and which applauded the bitter genius
and slaughterous satire of the other? After all, that is possible—the
hatred of vice is only another manifestation of the love of innocence.’
...
I have brought with me to-day in the first place some examples of her
pencil sketches in primary design.... You have here for consummate
example, a dance of fairies under a mushroom, which she did under
challenge to show me what fairies were like. ‘They’ll be very like
children,’ she said. I answered that I didn’t mind, and should like to
see them all the same;—so here they are, with a dance, also, of two
girlies, outside of a mushroom; and I don’t know whether the elfins or
girls are the fairyfootedest: and one or two more subjects, which you
may find out;—but in all you will see that the line is ineffably tender
and delicate, and can’t in the least be represented by the lines of a
woodcut.[17] ...
So far of pure outline. Next, for the enrichment of it by colour.
Monsieur Chesneau doubts if the charm of Miss Greenaway’s work can be
carried farther. I answer, with security,—yes, very much farther,
and that in two directions: first, in her own method of design; and
secondly, the manner of its representation in printing.
[Illustration: PENCIL SKETCHES.
_In the possession of Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._]
First, her own design has been greatly restricted by being too
ornamental, or, in our modern phrase, decorative;—contracted into
any corner of a Christmas card, or stretched like an elastic band
round the edges of an almanac. Now her art is much too good to be
used merely for illumination; it is essentially and perfectly that of
true colour-picture, and that the most naïve and delightful manner of
picture, because, on the simplest terms, it comes nearest reality. No
end of mischief has been done to modern art by the habit of running
semi-pictorial illustration round the margins of ornamental volumes,
and Miss Greenaway has been wasting her strength too sorrowfully in
making the edges of her little birthday-books, and the like, glitter
with unregarded gold, whereas her power should be concentrated in the
direct illustration of connected story, and her pictures should be made
complete on the page, and far more realistic than decorative. There is
no charm so enduring as that of the real representation of any given
scene; her present designs are like living flowers flattened to go into
an herbarium, and sometimes too pretty to be believed. We must ask
her for more descriptive reality, for more convincing simplicity, and
we must get her to organise a school of colourists by hand, who can
absolutely facsimile her own first drawing.
This is the second matter on which I have to insist. I bring with me
to-day twelve of her original drawings, and have mounted beside them,
good impressions of the published prints.
I may heartily congratulate both the publishers and possessors of the
book on the excellence of these; yet if you examine them closely, you
will find that the colour blocks of the print sometimes slip a little
aside, so as to lose the precision of the drawing in important places;
and in many other respects better can be done, in at least a certain
number of chosen copies. I must not, however, detain you to-day by
entering into particulars in this matter. I am content to ask your
sympathy in the endeavour, if I can prevail on the artist to undertake
it.
Only in respect to this and every other question of method in engraving,
observe further that _all_ the drawings I bring you to-day agree in one
thing,—minuteness and delicacy of touch carried to its utmost limit,
visible in its perfectness to the eyes of youth, but neither executed
with a magnifying glass nor, except to aged eyes, needing one. Even
I, at sixty-four, can see the essential qualities of the work without
spectacles; though only the youngest of my friends here can see, for
example, Kate’s fairy dance, perfectly, but _they_ can with their own
bright eyes.
The year 1878, which gave _Under the Window_ to the world, also
produced _Topo: A Tale about English Children in Italy_, written by
Miss Gertrude Blood, afterwards Lady Colin Campbell, who adopted for
the occasion the pen-name of ‘G. E. Brunefille,’ ‘with 44 pen-and-ink
Illustrations by Kate Greenaway.’ It was published by Messrs. Marcus
Ward & Co. For the sake of the collector, it may be said that the
first issue was printed on thick and a subsequent issue on thin paper.
The design in black and gold on the green cloth cover was also from
a drawing by Kate Greenaway. The full-page frontispiece is printed
in green and gold; the rest of the illustrations are wood-engravings
incorporated in the text. Of these the little girl on p. 17, the
singing boy and smallest singing girl on p. 24, the little boy in
his night-shirt on p. 31, and the choir boys on p. 45 are admirable,
notwithstanding the poor printing. Apart from these, the illustrations
are of no great account. Indeed, some of the figures are very
indifferent, more particularly the middle of the three children on
p. 52, which not only is very poor in the legs and feet (a constant
difficulty with Kate through life), but is curiously faulty in its
relation to the leading figure.
Concerning the book Lady Colin Campbell has supplied the following
information:—
The child’s book, _Topo: or Summer Life in Italy_, which she
illustrated, I wrote when I was only fifteen, so of course there was no
need for her to write to a child-author. The chief point of interest is
not only the beauty of the drawings, but also that it was the first book
she had ever illustrated.[18]—before that she had only done calendars
and Christmas cards, etc., for Marcus Ward & Co. Marcus Ward & Co.
agreed to pay me £5, for the book, and they were so pleased with it that
they sent me £10, which I should think was the only case on record of a
publisher doubling the price in an author’s favour without being asked.
For the illustrations, Mr. William Marcus Ward tells us, Kate Greenaway
made innumerable sketches—was indeed tireless in her determination
to do the best for her text. These preliminary designs were thrown
off with amazing rapidity, ‘almost as quickly as they could be talked
about.’ Those rejected she would ruthlessly tear up or beg him to do
so. For the donkey she made at least a dozen drawings, but with no
success, and finally had to submit to the mortification of the animal
being drawn by some one else.
This year Kate was represented at the Academy by her ‘Little Girl with
Doll,’ while two of her pictures at the Dudley Gallery sold for fifteen
guineas and fifteen pounds respectively, her gross takings from this
source being nearly fifty pounds. Now, too, began her connection with
the Scribners, for whom she worked for several years. From this time
forward her accounts, to those who enjoy figures, make very cheerful
reading. In 1878 she earned nearly £550, in 1879 over £800, in 1880
rather more, and in 1881 over £1500, the enormous rise being due to the
accumulating royalties on the books engraved and printed by Mr. Evans
and published by George Routledge & Sons.
[Illustration: SKIT IN THE KATE GREENAWAY MANNER BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT.]
At this time Randolph Caldecott, born in the same year as Kate
Greenaway, was at once her rival in the affections of the young people
of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties, her competitor on the publishers’
prospectuses, and her admiring friend and helpful comrade. A story
is told of him that one morning, staying with her in the same
country-house (probably that of Mr. and Mrs. Locker-Lampson), he came
down declaring that he had lost all power of working in his own style
and everything came out Kate Greenaways. He then produced a telling
little skit on her manner which so delighted Kate Greenaway that she
preserved it till her dying day.
RANDOLPH CALDECOTT TO KATE GREENAWAY
46, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY,
_September 30, 1878_.
Dear Miss Greenaway—The two children of whom I spoke were recommended
to me by a Mr. Robertson of 6, Britten Street, Chelsea, himself a model.
He seemed to say that he had the power of causing the children to sit.
One is a ‘Saxon boy’ of six years old—called A. Frost; the other is a
‘vivacious girl of an auburn colour’ entitled Minnie Frost.
I do not know anything of Mr. Robertson either as a professional model
or as a private gentleman. He has called on me twice for a few minutes
at each time.
The brown ink of which I discoursed will not, when thickly used with a
pen, keep itself entirely together under the overwhelming influence of
a brush with water-colour. I have found this out to-day. But the liquid
Indian ink used for lines will stand any number of damp assaults. This I
know from much experience.—Believe me, yours very truly,
R. CALDECOTT.
_P.S._—I hope the above information may be of use to you.—R. C.
On the death of Caldecott, Miss Greenaway wrote as follows to Mrs.
Severn:—
50, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_17th Feb. 1886_.
Dearest Joanie— ... Isn’t it sad about Mr. Caldecott? The last I
heard he was so much better—and now—dead. It looks quite horrid to
see the black-bordered card with his books in the shop windows—it
feels horrid to want to sell his books somehow, just yet. I’m very
sorry....—Good-bye, with dearest love,
KATIE.
The good understanding between the two artists was probably known
outside their own circle, and strange deductions were occasionally
drawn. One day a gentleman said mysteriously to Mr. Rider, the head of
the firm who built Miss Greenaway’s house at Frognal:
‘You know, I suppose, who Kate Greenaway really is?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Mr. Rider.
‘She’s not Kate Greenaway at all,’ said his informant, confidentially,
‘_she’s Mrs. Randolph Caldecott_. I chance to know that she married
Randolph Caldecott’; and Mr. Rider utterly failed to establish the
truth in the mind of his visitor, for it was a belief held by not a few.
On the other hand, with Mr. Walter Crane—with whose name her own
was so often linked in the public mind, as well as in publishers’
announcements—Kate Greenaway had but the slightest acquaintance,
though for his work she entertained unbounded admiration. Mr. Crane
informs us:
I only met her on one occasion, and that was at a play given in Argyll
Street, wherein Tennyson’s second son, Lionel Tennyson, appeared, and in
which the Lockers were interested.
My impressions of Kate Greenaway were of a very quiet and unobtrusive
personality, probably quietly observant, self-contained, reserved, with
a certain shrewdness. She was small and plainly dressed.
In those days it was usual to bracket Kate Greenaway, Randolph
Caldecott, and myself together as special children’s-book providers,
ignoring very great differences of style and aims (ignoring, too, the
fact that I began my series of picture-books more than ten years before
either Caldecott or Miss Greenaway were known to the public). Both those
artists, however, were, I fancy, much more commercially successful than
I was, as, when I began, children’s-book designs were very poorly paid.
I was glad to be of some service to Caldecott when he started his series
through Messrs. Routledge in 1878. My _Baby’s Opera_ was published in
1877 by the same house, and proved so successful that the publishers
wanted me to follow it up immediately with another. Being engaged in
other work, I did not see my way to this; but the publishers were equal
to the emergency, for I was rather startled about Christmas to see
Kate Greenaway’s first book, _Under the Window_, announced by them as
‘companion volume’ to _The Baby’s Opera_. To this I naturally objected
as misleading, and the advertisement was withdrawn.
The grace and charm of her children and young girls were quickly
recognised, and her treatment of quaint early nineteenth-century
costume, prim gardens, and the child-like spirit of her designs
in an old-world atmosphere, though touched with conscious modern
‘æstheticism,’ captivated the public in a remarkable way.
May I confess that (for me at least) I think she overdid the big bonnet
rather, and at one time her little people were almost lost in their
clothes? However, one saw this in the actual life of the day.
I remember Miss Greenaway used to exhibit drawings at the old Dudley
Gallery general exhibition, but her larger, more elaborated studies were
not so happy as her book designs in simple outline tastefully tinted.
Mr. Walter Crane speaks here of their difference of aims. Those who
recall the public discussion between Mr. Crane and Professor Ruskin
on the subject of children’s books will remember that what the former
had greatly in mind was a special appeal to the eyes and artistic
taste of the little ones: his purpose was in a measure educative. Kate
Greenaway, on the other hand, sought for nothing but their unthinking
delight; and whether her aim was higher or lower than that of her
fellow-artist, there was no doubt of the esteem and affection in which
she was now held by all little people as well as by their elders.
[Illustration: Book-plate designed for Godfrey Locker-Lampson.]
CHAPTER VI
1879-1880
CHRISTMAS CARDS AND BOOKS—H. STACY MARKS, R.A., JOHN RUSKIN, AND
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
The year 1846—the birth-year of both Kate Greenaway and Randolph
Caldecott—marked also the genesis of the Christmas card. What was
in the first instance a pretty thought and dainty whim, by its
twenty-fifth year had become a craze, and has now, another quarter
of a century later, fallen into a tenacious and somewhat erratic
dotage. The first example of which there is any trace was a private
card designed by J. C. Horsley, R.A., for Sir Henry Cole, of the South
Kensington Museum, and it proved to be the forerunner of at least two
hundred thousand others that were placed upon the market before 1894
in England alone. For five-and-twenty years the designing of them was
practically confined to the journeyman artist, who rang the changes on
the Christmas Plum-pudding, the Holly and Mistletoe, and on occasional
religious reference, with little originality and less art. Later on
all that was changed. About 1878 certain manufacturers, printers, and
publishers recognised the possibilities which lay in an improved type
of production, with the result that in 1882 so great was the boom that
‘one firm alone paid in a single year no less a sum than seven thousand
pounds for original drawings’ for these cards.[19]
Thereupon arose the Christmas card collector, who vaunted his
possessions even as the stamp collector or book-plate collector of
to-day takes pride in his. One of the most ardent is credited with the
ownership of 700 volumes, weighing together between six and seven tons
and containing 163,000 varieties! The decade 1878 to 1888 was his happy
hunting-time, for it was then that not only were book-illustrators
of the highest repute induced to follow an employment which up to
that time had been looked upon as merely perfunctory, but established
artists, Royal Academicians and others who were popularly supposed to
work only for Art’s sake and not at all for that of Commerce, vied with
one another for the rewards which waited upon artistic success in the
new field.
Kate Greenaway had begun the designing of Christmas cards anonymously
in the pre-collector days, and her earliest productions, which were
no doubt an advance upon most of those which preceded them, are
nevertheless interesting rather as curiosities than as works of art.
In her valentines she had adopted the slashed doublet and buskin
convention; but the Christmas card was to prove her triumph. Not that
she shook herself free from her trammels all at once; but signs of
grace quickly appeared, and the year 1878 found her working on original
lines in the front rank of the artists who were taking advantage of
the new departure. Before this date her cards seem never to have been
signed, and are not easy to identify, as they lack the distinctive
characteristics of her later work. As time goes on they bear, if not
the initials ‘K. G.,’ at any rate the unquestionable evidence of her
style. Doubtless the difficulty of identifying her early work is due
chiefly to the fact that the designs, mainly flower pieces, were only
sketched out by her and were given into the hands of more experienced
draughtsmen to be finished. What was most noticeable in her work at
this period was the remarkable ease with which she adapted her designs
to the spaces they were to occupy, whether oblongs, uprights, circles,
or ovals.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS CARDS.
_From water-colour drawings in the possession of W. Marcus Ward,
Esq._]
By this year she was, as _Under the Window_ proves, in her own way
‘drawing her inspiration from classic forms unfettered by classic
conventions,’ and her very original designs, coming at a time when
the vogue was at its height, went no little way towards increasing
her popularity. From this time many of her Christmas cards are well
worthy the notice of the collector of beautiful things; and the fact
that her work, done with a single eye to this mode of publication, grew
rarer and rarer as time went on gives them the adventitious value of
scarcity which sharpens the appetite for acquisition. It is true that
Christmas cards bearing her signature continued to appear until late
into the ‘nineties, but these were usually designs made for her books
and afterwards appropriated to other uses. Those of her best period are
fully entitled to rank amongst the Art products of the time. These were
years when Christmas cards were Christmas cards, designed by Mr. Marcus
Stone, R.A., Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A., Mr. J. Sant, R.A., Mr. W. F.
Yeames, R.A., H. Stacy Marks, R.A., J. C. Herbert, R.A., and Sir Edward
Poynter, the present President of the Royal Academy. They had not yet
developed, as now, into anything from the counterfeit presentment of an
old boot, or a cigar-end, to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. As Gleeson
White wrote, with genuine indignation, in 1894—
The mass of recent cards, with few notable exceptions, are merely
bric-à-brac, and of no more intrinsic merit as to design or colour than
half the superfluous trifles of the ‘fancy emporium,’ the _articles de
Paris_ in oxidised metal, rococo, gilt plush, and ormolu, which fill
the windows of our best and worst shopping streets, and in debased
imitations overflow the baskets on the pavements outside cheap drapery
stores.
[Illustration: Early Sketch for Christmas Card.]
Wherefore, to turn back from these to the work of Kate Greenaway at the
end of the ‘seventies and beginning of the ‘eighties is to recognise
something of a revelation.
The little drawings of sprites, gnomes, and fairies which, as has
been related, attracted the attention of the Rev. W. J. Loftie and
of Messrs. Marcus Ward, in Miss Greenaway’s first black-and-white
exhibition at the Dudley Gallery, and found their way into the
_People’s Magazine_, were indirectly responsible for at least a
hundred separate designs from her brush, all of them reflecting equal
credit on the artist and the firm which reproduced them. Some idea
of the importance of the output of this house may be gathered from
the fact that in 1884 a collection of drawings, done in the main for
their Christmas cards, was sold by auction at Messrs. Fosters’ Rooms
for £1,728: 12s.[20] In this as in every other field of her work she
received the sincerest but to her the most annoying kind of flattery.
For example, in 1880 an important house offered £500 in prizes for
Christmas card designs, with Sir Coutts Lindsay, Stacy Marks, R.A.,
and G. H. Boughton, R.A., as judges; and one of the prizes fell to
‘K. Terrell, for designs after the style of Kate Greenaway.’ The sale
of these Christmas cards ran literally into millions; and when it is
remembered that probably not more than three were designed then for
three thousand pictorial postcards put forth to-day, the prodigious
popular success of them can easily be realised. These cards, it should
be added, were all produced by chromolithography, each one needing, on
the average, twelve stones.
In dealing with the iconographies of ‘the work of certain artists of
importance,’ who were represented in the great decade of Christmas card
production by more than a single set of cards, Gleeson White rightly
accorded to Kate Greenaway the premier place, and wrote:
Miss Kate Greenaway has preserved no complete set of her own
designs—nor have her publishers: hence collectors must needs exercise
their ingenuity to discover which of the many unsigned cards that appear
to be hers are genuine and which are imitations. After the success of
her first popular series (issued, as were the majority, by Marcus Ward),
it is easy enough to discard the too faithful disciples who never once
caught her peculiar charm. But in the earlier of hers, when her manner
was less pronounced, even the publishers are not always absolutely
certain regarding the authorship of several designs.[21]
But this section of her work, important though it was in the early
development of the Kate Greenaway we know, and interesting though it
is to the collector of her work, was merely a by-path in the direction
she was travelling. She was now, in truth, on the high-road to fame and
success. The next year (1879) she was hard at work on her _Birthday
Book_, a duodecimo volume with verses by Mrs. Sale Barker. It was
published in 1880, and 128,000 English, 13,500 French, and 8,500
German copies were placed on the market. For the 382 tiny drawings,
370 of which were minute uncoloured figures, she received £151: 10s.,
whilst the royalties (not, of course, received all at once) exceeded
£1,100.[22] Every day had its own delightful little pictorial conceit,
and each month had a full page in colour in her happiest manner. ‘Good
Evans!’ exclaimed a perfectly respectable newspaper at the sight of
them.
Later on, at Mr. Evans’s suggestion, Kate Greenaway coloured a certain
number of the little wood-engravings, with the idea of publishing them
in a separate volume. From these Mr. Evans engraved the colour blocks
and bound up a few copies, but no title was decided upon, and the book
was never even offered to the publishers. Should one of these little
proof copies ever come into the sale-room, some lively bidding may be
looked for.
But perhaps the most interesting thing connected with the _Birthday
Book_ is the fact, which we learn from Mr. Graham Balfour, that Robert
Louis Stevenson was first prompted by it to try his hand at those
charming verses for children which were afterwards published in the
_Child’s Garden of Verse_. ‘Louis took the _Birthday Book_ up one day,’
says Mr. Balfour, ‘and saying, “These are rather nice rhymes, and I
don’t think they would be very difficult to do,” proceeded to try his
hand.’
In this year also Miss Greenaway was commissioned by Messrs. Macmillan
& Co. to illustrate a new edition of Miss Yonge’s novels. But after
finishing four drawings for the _Heir of Redclyffe_ and three for
_Heartsease_, she threw up the task. She recognised at the end that she
was not entirely competent to carry out such work, as she had declared
from the beginning her extreme indisposition to enter upon it. The
drawings are capital, but hardly appropriate, and excellently as they
were cut on wood by Swain, they failed of their effect. For the young
man in these drawings Kate impressed her brother John as model; and her
father is to be recognised in the frontispiece, in the figure of Percy
holding his cherished umbrella over the person of Theodora.
For the same firm Kate also drew, as has been said, a delightful
frontispiece for _Amateur Theatricals_, by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock
and Lady Pollock in the ‘Art at Home Series,’ edited by the Rev. W.
J. Loftie. Other drawings appeared in _St. Nicholas_, among which
should be mentioned illustrations to Tom Hughes’ ‘Beating the Bounds,’
‘Children’s Day in St. Paul’s,’ and Mrs. Dodge’s ‘Calling the Flowers,’
‘The Little Big Woman and the Big Little Girl,’ and ‘Seeing is
Believing.’
The drawing called ‘Misses,’ which Kate sent this year to the Royal
Academy, was less attractive to some than its foregoers. _Fun_ fixed
upon its title in a critical couplet in the course of a very cutting
rhyming review of the exhibition entitled ‘The Budget at Burlington
House,’ and proceeded:
A picture by Miss Greenaway (we scarcely like a bit of it)
Is rightly titled ‘Misses,’ for she hasn’t made a hit of it.
The popular interest in Miss Greenaway then and thenceforward may be
partly gauged by the great sheaf of applications for biographical
information addressed to her by the editors of various magazines, found
among her papers. But she hated publicity at all times. Especially did
she fear and detest the attentions of interviewers, and she did her
best to escape them. In a letter of a later date to Miss Lily Evans she
says:
My mind is dull to-night. I feel like what I was described in one of
the notices of the P.V. [Private View], as a gentle, bespectacled,
_middle_-aged lady _garbed_ in black. Somehow it sounds as if I was
like a little mouse. I don’t feel gentle at all. See what it is to grow
old! I _have_ passed a time avoiding interviewers—no wonder they take
revenge!
And when Herr Emil Hannover sought to write a critical and personal
study on the artist, he received, as he records, a note from her in
which she writes with characteristic reserve and dignity:
You must wait till I am dead; till then I wish to live my life
privately—like an English gentlewoman.
Publishers, too, vied with one another in seeking her services, and a
bare list of commissions offered but not taken in the years immediately
succeeding would fill pages of this book. Indeed, if we may judge from
her correspondence, every amateur who wrote a fairy story or a child’s
book or a book of verses, and wished to float it on the sea of her
popularity, applied to her to illustrate it. One of them thinks that
the ‘kind praise received from various editors’ should be sufficient
recommendation. Another flourishes ‘seven small children.’ Another
appeal to her charity and generosity is from a clergyman’s wife; she
is in _very_ delicate health, her income does not permit of her doing
the things which her medical man tells her would greatly benefit her,
and so on, and she would be so much obliged if Miss Greenaway would
make her verses saleable by illustrating them. Pathetic requests of
this sort must have affected her tender heart as deeply as Thackeray’s
‘Thorns in the Cushion’ touched his.
Another, a German composer, puts her verses to music, and with a sense
of morality about on a par with his English writes, in the strain well
known to successful British authors:
‘In Germany every composer has a right over publishing each song by
composition without paying any honorary to the poet, therefor the editor
would not be obliged to hesitate in publishing your songs in the German
translation with melodies. But since it is of importance for me that my
composition also _find a spreading in England_,’ etc. etc., he offers
‘one hundred mark [£5] for twelve of your poems.’
It need hardly be said that to this half-threat, half-insult Kate made
no response.
Further evidence of Miss Greenaway’s vogue at this time may be gathered
from information which Mr. J. Russell Endean has been good enough to
provide. He says that shortly after the issue of _Under the Window_,
Herr Fischer, of the Royal and Imperial Porcelain Majolica Manufactory,
Buda Pesth, showed him half-a-dozen employés, with a copy of the book
lying before each of them, at work in the artist’s atelier, copying the
illustrations upon china plates which had been twice fired, line for
line, size for size, and group for group.
To this Herr Fischer himself adds: ‘It is a fact that Kate Greenaway
was copied in my factory, and I can certainly further affirm that all
the books which appeared in the ‘eighties were used, and large business
was done with the pictures.’
This annexation of copyright British designs by German china
manufacturers, however, is in no way unusual. As we write these lines
there is brought before us an excellent but wholly unauthorised
reproduction upon a porcelain vase decorated with one of Mr. C.
Wilhelm’s beautiful drawings of dainty animated flowers, a design in
which Kate Greenaway would assuredly have rejoiced.
H. Stacy Marks, R.A., it has been said, was one of Miss Greenaway’s
most valued and helpful friends. The letters of this year that follow
show how sincere and kind he was, and how candid a critic. A constant
visitor and adviser, and an ardent admirer of her work from early
years, he did more than any one to encourage her, to foster her genius,
and to bring her into notice. Always seeking eagerly for her criticism
of his own work, he was not sparing in his kindly comments on hers.
This he held to be not only a duty but, in a sense, a necessity, for
he felt that she must justify the advice he had given her to proceed
along the path she had discovered for herself, when others, declaring
she was blundering into failure, were loudly conjuring her to be more
conventional, and to suppress her charming individuality.
H. STACY MARKS, R.A., TO KATE GREENAWAY
_October 22, 1879._
Dear Miss Greenaway—Very many thanks for your very pretty and charming
book,[23] which has afforded me and my household much pleasure. Where so
many designs are delightful, it seems hard to select any special one,
but I think, as a happy method of filling up a page, the girls with the
shuttlecocks bears the palm; and how useful is the verse between! [p.
33].
I like page 41 for its naïve defiance of all rules of composition, and
pages 23 and 47 are very sweet.
I am not going to be ‘severe,’ but I _must_ ask you not to repeat those
funny little black shadows under the feet of your figures—looking in
some places like spurs, in others like tadpoles, in others like short
stilts. _Vide_ cat and children on page 53 for the last, page 39 for the
tadpoles, and pages 10 and 30 for spurs. Why you have done this (much to
the detriment of the drawings) in special instances and not in others I
can’t see. I will only find another fault—the drawing of the _feet_ on
page 31—the tallest girl’s are very funny, but all are queer. A cast of
any foot placed a little below the level of the eye would teach you how
to foreshorten feet better.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE GO-CART.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
There, I have done! But I know you well enough to feel assured that
you would not be content with unqualified praise, and that you are
grateful for a little honest criticism.
Don’t bother about painting too much. You have a _lay_ of your own, and
do your best to cultivate it.
Think of the large number of people you charm and delight by these
designs compared with those who can afford to buy paintings. You have a
special gift and it is your duty in every sense to make the most of it.
By the way, did you write the verses also? If so, there is another
feather for your cap, for I know how difficult it is to write verses
for children.
I hope I have not sermonised too much, and thanking you once more for
your pleasant, happy book, to which I shall turn again and again, I am,
faithfully yours,
H. S. MARKS.
H. STACY MARKS TO KATE GREENAWAY
_November 3, 1879._
... Mr. Ruskin dined here on Thursday last, and spoke in high terms of
your feeling for children, etc. I think it not unlikely that you may
have a letter from him soon.
One more word of advice—although I almost believe you have too much
common-sense to need it—don’t let _any_ success or praise make you
puffed up or conceited, but keep humble and try to perfect yourself more
in your art each day—and never sell your independence by hasty or badly
considered work.
I have seen so many spoiled by success that I raise my warning voice to
you.
And sure enough before three months were out Mr. Ruskin did make it his
business to write and give her shrewd and humorous advice. The first
letter is dated 1879, but that which follows it shows that this is a
mistake: like a great many other people, he found it hard to adopt a
new date at the beginning of a new year. Ruskin and Kate Greenaway,
whose friendship was soon to ripen into a happy intimacy, shared by his
household, did not meet face to face until 1882. He writes in his more
fantastic and playful vein.
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Jan. 6th, 1879_ [a mistake for 1880].
My dear Miss Greenaway—I lay awake half (no a quarter) of last night
thinking of the hundred things I want to say to you—and never shall get
said!—and I’m giddy and weary—and now can’t say even half or a quarter
of one out of the hundred. They’re about you—and your gifts—and your
graces—and your fancies—and your—yes—perhaps one or two little
tiny faults:—and about other people—children, and grey-haired, and
what you could do for them—if you once made up your mind for whom you
would do it. For children _only_ for instance?—or for old people, _me_
for instance—and _of_ children and old people—whether for those of
1880—only—or of 18—8—9—10—11—12—20—0—0—0—0, etc. etc. etc.
Or more simply annual or perennial.
Well, of the thousand things—it was nearer a thousand than a
hundred—this is anyhow the first. Will you please tell me whether
you can only draw these things out of your head—or could, if you
chose, draw them with the necessary modifications from nature?
For instance—Down in Kent the other day I saw many more lovely
farm-houses—many more pretty landscapes—than any in your book. But
the farms had, perhaps, a steam-engine in the yard—the landscapes a
railroad in the valley. Now, do you never want to draw such houses and
places, as they used to be, and might be?
That’s No. 1.
No. 2 of the thousand.
Do you only draw pretty children out of your head? In my parish school
there are at least twenty prettier than any in your book—but they
are in costumes neither graceful nor comic—they are not like blue
china—they are not like mushrooms—they are like—very ill-dressed
Angels. Could you draw groups of these as they _are_?
No. 3 of the thousand.
Did you ever see a book called Flitters, Tatters, and the Councillor?[24]
No. 4 of the thousand.
Do you ever see the blue sky? and when you do, do you like it?
No. 5.
Is a witch’s ride on a broomstick[25] the only chivalry you think it
desirable to remind the glorious Nineteenth Century of?
No. 6.—Do you believe in Fairies?
No. 7.—In ghosts?
No. 8.—In Principalities or Powers?
No. 9.—In Heaven?
No. 10.—In-Any where else?
No. 11.—Did you ever see Chartres Cathedral?
No. 12.—Did you ever study, there or elsewhere, thirteenth century
glass?
No. 13.—Do you ever go to the MS. room of the British Museum?
No. 14.—Heavy outline will not go with strong colour—but if so, do you
never intend to draw with delicate outline?
No. 15.—Will you please forgive me—and tell me—some of those things
I’ve asked?—Ever gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
To this letter Miss Greenaway responded at once, and he writes again:—
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Jan. 15th. 1880._
Dear Miss Greenaway—How delightful of you to answer all my
questions!—and to read _Fors_! I never dreamed you were one of my
readers—and I had rather you read that than anything else of mine, and
rather _you_ read it than anybody else.
I am so delighted also with your really liking blue sky—and those
actual cottages, and that you’ve never been abroad. And that’s all I can
say to-day, but only this, that I think from what you tell me, you will
feel with me, in my wanting you to try the experiment of representing
any actual piece of nature (however little) as it really is, yet in the
modified harmony of colour necessary for printing—making a simple study
first as an ordinary water-colour sketch, and then translating it into
outline and the few advisable tints, so as to be able to say—The sun
was in or out,—it was here, or there, and the gown, or the paling, was
of this colour on one side, and of that on the other.
I believe your lovely design and grouping will come out all the brighter
and richer for such exercise. And then—when the question of absolute
translation is once answered, that of conventional change may be met on
its separate terms, securely.—Ever gratefully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Dec. 7th. /80._
Dear Miss Greenaway—I have just got home and find the lovely little
book and the drawing! I had carried your letter in the safest recess of
my desk through all the cathedral towns in Picardy,—thinking every day
to get away for home (Now is there any little misery of life worse than
a hair in one’s best pen?), and to see my treasure, and I never _got_
away! and now what an ungrateful wretch you must think me!
But—alas—do you know you have done me more grief than good for the
moment? The drawing is so boundlessly more beautiful than the woodcut
that I shall have no peace of mind till I’ve come to see you and seen
some more drawings, and told you—face to face—what a great and blessed
gift you have—too great, in the ease of it, for you to feel yourself.
These books are lovely things but, as far as I can guess, from looking
at this drawing, your proper work would be in glass painting—where your
own touch, your own colour, would be safe for ever,—seen, in sacred
places, by multitudes—copied, by others, for story books—but _your_
whole strength put in pure first perfectness on the enduring material.
Have you ever thought of this?
Please tell me if you get this note. I am so ashamed of not writing
before.—Ever your grateful and devoted
J. RUSKIN.
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_Day after Xmas_, 1880.
Dear Miss Greenaway—I have not been able to write because I want to
write so much—both of thanks and petition, since your last letter.
Petition—not about the promised drawing: though it will be beyond
telling precious to me; I don’t want you to work, even for a moment, for
_me_—but I do want you never to work a moment but in permanent material
and for—‘all people, who on earth do dwell.’
I have lying on the table as I write, your little Christmas card,
‘Luck go with you, pretty lass.’ To my mind it is a greater thing than
Raphael’s St. Cecilia.
But you must paint it—paint all things—well, and for ever.
Holbein left his bitter legacy to the Eternities—The Dance of Death.
Leave you yours—The Dance of Life.—Ever your grateful and glad
JOHN RUSKIN.
Towards the end of this year Stacy Marks again wrote:
... I will say no more now than to congratulate you on your success,
in which I heartily rejoice—the more so as it does not destroy the
simplicity of your nature, or make you relax in your efforts after
excellence.
You have found a path for yourself, and though you kindly think I have
helped to remove some of the obstacles that beset that path, I can claim
no credit myself for having done so.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY, 1880.
_From a photograph by Elliott & Fry._]
The year 1880 found her still working on the _Illustrated London News_,
and exhibiting and selling her pictures at the Royal Academy (‘Little
Girl with Fan’) and the Dudley Gallery. She also made a drawing,
beautifully cut by O. Lacour, for _The Library_ (Macmillan), written
by Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Austin Dobson, to be published in 1881.
Concerning this Mr. Dobson wrote:
How I envy you this captivating talent. And how lucky the little people
are to get such pictures! I can’t help thinking that I should have been
a better man if I had had such pleasant play-books in my inartistic
childhood. You have a most definite and special walk, and I hope you
won’t let any one persuade you out of it. I have seen some imitations of
you lately which convince me—if indeed I needed conviction—that you
have little to fear from rivalry.
This year also was published a particularly charming frontispiece to
the annual volume of _Little Wide-Awake_, issued by Messrs. Routledge.
Other coloured frontispieces and title-pages well worthy of the
collector’s attention were done for several volumes of the same firm’s
_Every Girl’s Annual_, and _The Girl’s Own Paper_. But Kate’s output
at this period was so great that it is impossible to do more than
specify a few of her detached productions. Other events of this year
were the translation of her verses in _Under the Window_ into German
by Frau Käthe Freiligrath-Kröker; a request from John Hullah, whose
acquaintance she had just made, to set some of her ‘admirable’ verses
to music for a new edition of his book on ‘Time and Tune’; and an
invitation to contribute to the Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition.
The appearance of _Under the Window_ (_Am Fenster_) in Germany was
hailed with delight by the critics. Herr Trojan, writing in the
_National Zeitung_, labelled it ‘a small masterpiece of original stamp,
out-and-out English, but acceptable to the inhabitants, great and
small, of all other civilised nations.’ The only objections to it in
its new form were the rather too free treatment of the letterpress by
the translator and the very unnecessary Germanicising of the children’s
names.
In the same year Miss Greenaway began fully to realise the value of her
drawings done for publication, and henceforward made it an inflexible
rule to retain the drawings themselves and sell only the _use_ of them.
But by far the most important occurrence at this time was the beginning
of her personal acquaintance with Mr. Frederick Locker, better known
to-day as Frederick Locker-Lampson. He had, as we know, heard of her
from Mr. Evans two years earlier, in connection with her verses for
_Under the Window_. Now she was to become an intimate friend of the
family and a constant visitor at Rowfant and Newhaven Court. Of one of
these visits she writes:
I’ve been living in very distinguished society. They have a lovely
house at Cromer, and it is a beautiful place—such a fine sea and such
beautiful ponds and commons, also lots of beautiful houses to be seen
about. I went to the most beautiful one I have ever seen—and such a
garden, a perfect wonder—such flowers, it looked like June instead of
September. There were many flowers I had never seen before; it was a
beautiful place.
This year was also notable for what must have been a red-letter day in
her life—a red-letter day, it has often been said, in the public life
of anybody. Most people like the attention of polite press-notices,
but who is not a little bit the prouder when ‘the little rascal of
Fleet Street’ first considers him worthy of his flattering notice? Now
for the first time Kate appeared in _Punch_, in an important drawing
entitled ‘Christmas is Coming!’ (Dec. 4, vol. lxxix. p. 254), made by
the masterly pencil of Mr. Linley Sambourne. Miss Greenaway heralded
the event, or at least the preparations for it, in a letter to Mr.
Frederick Locker.
[Illustration: FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON.
_From the Water-Colour Drawing by Kate Greenaway. In the possession of
Mrs. Locker-Lampson._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER
_27 Nov. 1880._
I heard again in a hurry from Linley Sambourne, and had to rush off
yesterday in a great hurry and get a photo taken; I had to send him
simply a negative. So what I shall turn out like I dare not think, even
if he could use it at all. I am curious to see what is going to be made
of us all—if we are going to have large heads and little bodies, or
how we are going to be made funny.... I really feel quite cross as I
look at the shop windows and see the imitation books. It feels so queer,
somehow, to see your ideas taken by some one else and put forth as
theirs. I suppose next year they will be all little birthday books, in
shape and sort.
[It is clear that Mr. Austin Dobson’s assurances had not soothed or
convinced her.]
Those little Bewick drawings haunt me—they are so wonderfully different
to most that are done. It is a pity there is no way of reproducing such
fine work.
In Mr. Sambourne’s drawing, Mr. Punch, ‘at home,’ is invaded by a
flight and crowd of artists, writers, and publishers of children’s
books—by Kate Greenaway, Caldecott, Stacy Marks, Mr. Harrison Weir,
Mr. Crane, and Mrs. Sale Barker, by Messrs. Macmillan, William Marcus
Ward, Bradbury, Edmund Routledge, De la Rue, Hildesheimer, Duffield,
and Walker, all caterers for the little ones, ‘for all children,’ says
_Punch_, in the accompanying text, ‘are Mr. Punch’s pets. Let’s see
what you’ve got,’ and forthwith he gives the place of honour to Miss
Kate Greenaway, and warmly congratulates her on her _Birthday Book for
Children_, ‘a most dainty little work and a really happy thought for
Christmas.’ And a mother and her children are shown listening behind
the door to Mr. Punch’s declaration.
This was in itself a gratifying evidence of Miss Greenaway’s
popularity, but that it did not give much satisfaction to her friends
is demonstrated by a letter from Miss Anderson, who wrote, ‘Thank you
so much for sending me the _Punch_. I had the greatest difficulty in
finding your portrait. What a horror! It is actionable really!’ The
fact is, the photograph from which the sketch was made was unflattering
in the extreme.
‘K. G.’ was destined several times to engage _Punch’s_ attention,
but it may safely be said that no press notice ever gave her greater
pleasure than that which attended her first appearance in his pages.
[Illustration: Book-plate designed for Frederick Locker (F.
Locker-Lampson) by Kate Greenaway.]
Many of Kate’s happiest hours were spent in Frederick Locker’s
company. One day they would go to the National Gallery to gloat over
some of their ‘darling pictures,’ another day to the British Museum,
or Noseda’s in the Strand to discuss prints, or to Harvey’s, the
printseller, in St. James’s Street. Another day would find them at the
Flaxman Gallery (‘What a Flaxman gift you have,’ he said one day), or
at the ‘Arts and Crafts Exhibition,’ at a private view of the Grosvenor
Gallery, or at Colnaghi’s to discuss the purchase of a mezzotint.
Through him she seems to have become acquainted with Browning and his
sister in 1882, and with the Tennyson family, with whom she became on
intimate terms. His letters to her, which run into hundreds, teem with
advice, encouragement, and warning. In one of them (Nov. 28, 1882) he
says:
It has occurred to me that you are about the only English artist who
has ever been the fashion in France. Bonington and Constable are
appreciated, but not more than appreciated. I think anybody writing
about you should notice this important fact.
[Illustration: PINK RIBBONS.
‘Girl with pink roses and pink ribbons.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
That same year she designed a book-plate for him. This was, it seems,
with slight alterations reproduced as frontispiece to the edition of
his _London Lyrics_ published by Scribner in America. She also did
book-plates for other members of the family. Discussing them in 1892,
he writes:
There is a mystery about book-plates only known to certain initiated
ones, like Lord de Tabley. They must not be pictorial and they must
fulfil certain conditions. Now all that you have done for us, and they
are many, fully satisfy _my_ aspirations.
She also did two coloured portraits of him, now in the possession of
Mrs. Locker-Lampson.
In 1883 she was amused to discover that her popularity was so great
in Germany that she was claimed there as a German. Even the German
poet who was her father was named, and—for Germans are nothing if not
circumstantial—it was said that he was obliged to leave Germany in
1848 and went to live in England, where he was many years engaged in a
house of business in the City, and that in later years he had returned
to Germany. They gave the name of the street (Grüne Weg) in Düsseldorf
where she lived, and stated that on publishing her first book Kate
translated the name of the street into English and took it as her
_nom-de-plume_! Thus is history sometimes made.
Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson was a great admirer of her art, and when
he heard that Ruskin said in 1883 that she should aim at something
higher, he laconically, and wisely, warned her to ‘Beware.’ In the same
strain he had written to her the year before:
You must not be down-hearted about your art, or feel depressed when you
gaze at Crane’s productions. Each has his or her merit, and there is
room for all. All I beg is, that you will not rashly change your style.
Vary it, but do not change it.
This advice was called forth by the following letter:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER
_24 May, 1882._
I’ve been to call on the Caldecotts to-day with Mrs. Evans. My brother
showed me some of his (Mr. Caldecott’s) new drawings yesterday at
Racquet Court. They are so uncommonly clever. The Dish running away with
the Spoon—you can’t think how much he has made of it. I wish I had
such a mind. I’m feeling very low about my own powers just now, for I
have been looking at the originals for the new Crane book. Some of them
are literally dreams of beauty. I do wish you could see them. There is
one—a long low design of a Harvest Home. I shall try, I think, to get
it, but so many are so lovely it is difficult to fix on the best.
I have just got a first proof of my little Almanack (be sure you don’t
mention anything about it to any one except Mrs. Locker). Mr. Evans
wants me to write a little verse to put on a blank page in it. I shall
get you to look at it when I have done it.
He inoculated her with his irrepressible love of collecting, and
when she came to have a house of her own, acted as her adviser in
beautifying it. For example, he wrote in 1882:
I saw a little Bow figure (china) to-day at the shop to which this card
is the address (Fenton and Sons, Holywell Street), a figure as tall as
your dancing lady that I gave you. She is in a green jacket. Look at it
as you go to the National Gallery on Friday. He asks £2: 10s. for it and
you might get it for £2. It has been injured, but I rather like it, and
I think it is genuine, and probably Bow or Chelsea. Now mind you go and
see it or I shall be cross. It will only be five minutes out of your
way. You will see it in the window.
One day he would send her ‘a little stool, not a stool of Repentance,
either to sit on or on which to put the books or papers you are
reading’; and another day, ‘a new edition of my _Lyra Elegantiarum_.
It is a hideous book and costs 1s. 6d.’ Another day there arrived a
flower-stand, ‘which comes from Venice, and I hope is decorative’; on
another the _Athenæum_ (Dec. 1886), which is ‘full of your praises’;
and on yet another day, a letter in which he says, ‘I have told a man
to send you two little Stothards which may or may not be pretty, but
which are curious from their scarcity. One is called “Just Breeched”
and the other “Giving a Bite.”’
In return, she showered upon him and his family drawings and copies of
her books, in addition to the considerable number which he purchased.
Indeed, so generous was she in this respect that in 1883 he wrote:
I was shocked to receive [the drawing], coming as it did after the
beautiful drawing you gave Mrs. Locker. Why should you waste your time
on me? It is heart-breaking to think of, when your spare time is so
valuable and you have so little of it. You must send me no more. I say
it seriously. No more. I have plenty, plenty to remember you by, and
when I am gone, enough to show my children the kind feeling you had for
me. Work away, but for yourself—for your new house and for others more
worthy.
[Illustration: THE TWINS.
_Two pages from the little MS. volume, measuring about 3¼ × 2½
inches, entitled “Babies and Blossoms.” Drawn by Kate Greenaway
and written by Frederick Locker. (In the possession of Mrs.
Locker-Lampson.)_
The Twins
Yes, there they lie, so small, so quaint,
Two mouths, two noses, & two chins;
What painter shall we get to paint
And glorify the twins?
In tiny cloaks & coral-bells,
And all those other pleasant spells
Of babyhood? And not forget
The silver mug for either pet,
No babe should be without it:
Come, Fairy Limner, you can thrill
Our hearts with pink & daffodil
And white rosette & dimpled frill;
Come, paint our little Jack & Jill—
And don’t be long about it!
]
[Illustration: LITTLE DINKY.
Two pages from the little MS. volume, measuring about 3¼ × 2½
inches, entitled “Babies and Blossoms.” Drawn by Kate Greenaway
and written by Frederick Locker. (In the possession of Mrs.
Locker-Lampson.)]
Dorothy.
Text of poem in right-side image:
Little Dinky.
The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she’s twelve weeks old.
Plump are her fists & pinky.
She flutter’d down in lucky hour
From some blue deep in yon sky bower—
I call her little Dinky.
A Tiny now, ere long she’ll please
To totter at my parent-knees,
And crow, & try to chatter;
And soon she’ll take to fair white frocks
And frisk about in shoes & socks—
Her totter changed to patter.
And soon she’ll play, ay, soon enough,
At cowslip ball, & blindman’s buff;
And some day, we shall find her
Grow weary of her toys, indeed
She’ll fling them all aside, to heed
A footstep close behind her.
KG.
]
Her gratitude for attentions paid or gifts presented was always deeply
felt, and prettily acknowledged and expressed. Thus:
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER
_27 Aug: 1880._
... The beautiful little red book! I expect I was very horrid and did
not thank you at all, and you thought ‘_She_ is very ungrateful; she
might have been a little pleased, when I had taken that trouble to give
her pleasure.’
When people are very very kind—well—when they are very kind, I think I
am so glad I can’t say anything to tell them so. And so I send you now
very many thanks for your kindness and the pleasure you gave me.
I think you will be pleased to know that the _Birthday Book_ seems to
be going to turn out a selling success—5,000 for America, 3,000 for
Germany, and the rest going off so well that they are ordering paper for
another edition. This first edition is 50,000—so I am looking forward
with rejoicing to future pounds and pennies, uncommonly nice possessions.
He was for ever begging her not to overwork herself, fearing that her
health and bread-winning powers might fail. For example, he wrote in
1882:
I hope when you get home you will get to work, but take it quite easily
(say two or three hours a day), and try to be beforehand with the
publishers, etc., and _not let_ anything interfere with or stop your
daily moderate work.
Sometimes he feigned jealousy of her devotion to Mr. Ruskin and others.
In 1884: ‘I daresay that Ruskin is sunning his unworthy self in your
smiles. I hope he is impressed with his good fortune.’ In 1885:
‘You must let me be one of your first visitors to the new house [at
Hampstead]. What will you call it? The Villa Ruskin or Dobson Lodge, or
what?’
He would get her to colour prints for him, and would watch for
commissions for her.
‘I saw Pears of Pears’ Soap this morning,’ he wrote in 1889; ‘such a
good fellow. Will you do something for him? I am quite serious. I think
you might do it without degrading your art.’
They did not always agree in their opinions, but he could make a pretty
_amende_. In 1893 he wrote:
I remember we disputed at Cromer. I was irritable and you
were—irrational. That is not the right word—but you enunciated
opinions that I thought were not sound, and I was stupid enough not to
agree with you, for, as Prior says, _you_ had the best of the argument,
for ‘_your eyes_ were always in the right.’ Time is too short for these
arguments, at least so I think, so let us have no more.
Occasionally they would discuss more serious topics, and a letter would
be drawn from Kate with charming glimpses of self-revelation. For
example:
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER
_7 Ap: 1881._
No, I do not feel angry with the notice of Carlyle—that, I think,
expresses very much what I feel—but I do feel angry with the letter,
which seems to me commonplace in the extreme, by a man of an utterly
different mind. I do like, and I most sincerely hope that whilst I
possess life I may venerate and admire with unstinted admiration, this
sort of noble and great men. They seem to me to be so far above and
beyond ordinary people, so much worth trying to be a little like—and
I feel they talk to such unhearing ears. The fact is, most people like
to lead the lives that are enjoyment and pleasure to themselves; and
pleasing oneself does not make a noble life. But I must _tell_ you what
I mean, for I never can write well....
Also, when you come I want you to read a chapter in _Sartor Resartus_.
It is called the _Everlasting Yea_. It is beautiful; and it is when he
has given up all selfish feeling for himself and feels in sympathy with
the whole world.
Frederick Locker would write special verses for her Christmas cards.
He criticised her drawings, interjecting in his letters with curious
abruptness and delightful irrelevancy, as though half afraid of his
temerity, such remarks as: ‘Do you think the Bride sitting under the
tree is so feeble that she could not stand up?’ or ‘Are the young
lady’s arms (sitting under the tree) like cloth sausages?’ and then
promptly passing on to other subjects.
[Illustration: FROM CAREFULLY EXECUTED WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS ON LETTERS
ADDRESSED TO MRS. FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON.]
At her request he also criticised her verse. Here is an example:—
You ask me to do what Shelley would have had a difficulty in doing. Are
you aware that your poem, as it stands, is only not prose because of the
inversions? and it has neither rhythm, metre, nor rhyme, excepting ‘fun’
and ‘done,’ which is _not_ a rhyme to the eye.
‘Let me lie quietly in the Sunshine on God’s green grass, for the laugh
and fun is (? are) over and God’s day is nearly done.’
I defy Shelley, or any one, to rhyme those short lines—in the childish
language you want. It is not possible. You must either lengthen the
lines—or allow yourself a more free and complex diction.
Something like this:
The sun is warm, so let me lie
And sweetly rest.
The grass is soft and that is why
I like it best.
The games are over that made us gay—
And all the fun.
The sun is dying, so God’s fair day
Is nearly done.
Then he would advise her how to take criticism:—
You must be influenced by what the critics say up to a certain
point—but not beyond. It is very annoying to be misunderstood and to
see critics trying to show off their own cleverness, but you are now
paying the penalty of _success_, and Tennyson suffers from it, and
your friend Ruskin and Carlyle and all who make their mark in works of
imagination. I _quite_ feel what you say about Ruskin. There _does_
seem to be a ‘holiness’ about his words and ideas. I am very glad he
telegraphed to you, and wrote. His opinion is worth all the commonplace
critics put together, and worth more than the opinion of nineteen out of
twenty Royal Academicians.
Again, when one of the critics had complained of the lack of vitality
and the woe-begone expression in her children’s faces, he consoled her
and criticised her together:—
_Sept. 1881._
I have been thinking over what I said about expression in your faces. I
do not think it would suit the style and spirit of your pictures if they
were exactly _gay_ children—but at present the same sort of complaint
might be made about them that is made about Burne-Jones’s, and with more
reason, for nearly all the subjects you treat of are cheerful, and some
playful, and none are classic or tragic. There is no doubt that B.-J. is
wrong and the critics are right, but still I am grateful to B.-J. and
take thankfully what he gives me, and think it very beautiful, but I
cannot but feel its monotony of expression. Any mirth in your pictures
should be quite of the subdued kind, such as you see in those delicious
pictures of Stothard. Just get out the volume that you have and look
at ‘Hunt the Slipper’ and many others, and you will see exactly what I
want. You also see it in Reynolds, but often overdone, and more overdone
in Romney and what I call the ‘roguish’ school. Leech has often children
that look very happy without an absolute smile. You must make your faces
look _happy_.
To this she replied in a letter from Pemberton Gardens:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER
... You are quite right about the expressions. Of course, it is absurd
for children to be having a game and for their faces to be plunged in
the deepest despair and sadness. I shall bear it in mind, and I hope to
do better in my next.
The deep colour you complain of in some is due to hurry, I’m afraid.
There was no time to prove this book, and I never had any proof for
correction at all, for Mr. Evans said it was impossible, it must go; and
some of the darker ones suffer in consequence. I know you imagine I’m
always having them for correction, and sending them back and back again;
but that is not so....
I’ve found a good subject for you to exercise your energy upon, namely,
the Penny Postage stamp. Get the colour changed and you will confer a
benefit on everybody. The old Penny Stamp was a good red. Then they
changed to a worse; and now to this detestable purple colour. I never
put one on a letter without hating the sight of it. I can’t tell you how
bitter I feel. They ought to study colour in all things.
I feel a competent judge to-day, because I flatter myself
that this morning I have executed a drawing which for colour
is—is—is—too—too—too—— as I look at it I feel happy. (Compare
feeling for postage stamps.)
[Illustration: ‘A CALM IN A TEA-CUP.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
It is a girl walking a baby; she has an orange spotted dress and a
yellow hat with a green wreath round it, and the baby has a white frock
with a blue sash and blue toes. Do you see the picture?
Your little baby girl seems to me as if she ought always to wear a coral
necklace and have blue bows to tie up her shoes.
To the same subject of solemn expression in her children Mr. Locker
returns in 1882:
I was looking at your sketch of the ‘little giddy laugh,’ and I really
think it is the only figure of yours I know that has a smile on its face.
He kept a sharp eye on her employers, too, and helped her in business
matters. In 1881 he wrote:
—— told me you were engaged on two works for his house, in one of which
you were associated with Crane and Caldecott. Now remember you are to be
treated on as handsome terms as those two gentlemen or I shall not be
satisfied. We must find out what they are to receive.
When his twins were born he called upon her to paint them, embodying
his request in the following charming lines:—
Yes, there they lie, so small, so quaint—
Two mouths, two noses, and two chins—
What painter shall we get to paint
And glorify the twins?
To give us all the charm that dwells
In tiny cloaks and coral bells,
And all those other pleasant spells
Of babyhood;—and don’t forget
The silver mug for either pet;
No babe should be without it:
Come, fairy Limner, you can thrill,
Our hearts with pink and daffodil
And white rosette and dimpled frill;
Come paint our little Jack and Jill—
And don’t be long about it!
And sometimes Kate would take Locker in hand and talk about _his_ work.
‘So it is a little French poem you have been translating,’ she
writes. ‘I wish you would do more of that sort of thing—and some new
_originals_ too; then I would do the illustrations to them.’
The proposal was seriously considered for a time, but never was carried
into execution—at least, for publication. What happened was this.
Locker-Lampson had written a number of poems on his children (published
in 1881), and as a surprise present for his wife Kate Greenaway made a
series of drawings in a tiny MS. volume, and the poet copied his verses
on to the pages in his beautiful handwriting. This, he afterwards told
Mrs. Locker-Lampson, was the most anxious experience of his life; for
the drawings were done first, and he was in agony all the time lest he
should make a mistake or a blot. The result of the collaboration is one
of the most exquisite little _bibelots_ it is possible to imagine, and
the pretty title of it, ‘Babies and Blossoms.’
Their delightful friendship lasted for fifteen years, and when he died
in 1895 his son wrote to her: ‘A son has lost the most dear father a
son ever had, and friends the truest friend a friend ever had.’
An equal favourite, too, with Mrs. Locker-Lampson and with her
children, to whom in 1883 she had dedicated _Little Ann_, embellishing
the page with their four portraits, Miss Greenaway continued her visits
after Mr. Locker-Lampson’s death. She played hockey with them, and
entered heartily into all their games. She ‘corrected’ Miss Dorothy
Locker-Lampson’s drawings, and she sent priceless little drawings of
her own to Godfrey Locker-Lampson at Eton. Of the last of the visits
one of them wrote: ‘It was such tremendous fun having you here, and you
so enter into our roystering spirits.’ And again: ‘I wish you were here
to join in with your rippling laughter.’
Her attachment for her hostess was very strong, and she would write to
‘My dear dear Mrs. Locker’ letters full of affection and gratitude and
of love for the children. At the same time she was not to be lured from
her work, and in thanking Mrs. Locker for her repeated invitations and
kindness—‘it makes the world so much more beautiful,’ she said—she
firmly declined to budge; but finding it hard to refuse, she would
write to Mr. Locker (April 8, 1882):
Don’t let Mrs. Locker ask me to come. Do explain to her; tell her Mrs.
Jeune asked me to go to see her and I was obliged to say No. And it
all looks so delicious; even about here the trees are so tendrilly and
pretty, and it is so sunny and holiday feeling—I long to be out in it
all. It is quite an effort to sit at the table bending over my paper.
All the little children are out in the gardens and I hear their voices.
I even envy the cats as they run along the wall.
[Illustration: FROM A WATER-COLOUR DRAWING ON A LETTER ADDRESSED TO
MRS. FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON.]
She would not only illustrate her letters to Mr. and Mrs.
Locker-Lampson with the little pen sketches she bestowed on her other
favoured friends, she would now and again embellish them with finished
water-colour drawings exquisite in quality. Of these one or two are
here reproduced, but they necessarily lose most of their charm in
surrendering their beauty of colour.
The last of the letters runs as follows:—
[Illustration: On a Letter to Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson.]
Dear Mrs. Locker—You see me at the top doing penance in my own
particular style, being, according to Mr. Locker’s advice—uninfluenced
by the works of others. I do not know which bear (black, white, or
brown) behaves in the most bearish manner, but I feel I am of that
colour; but please forgive me and let me say thank you very much for
your beautiful gift.
You must not think so much of any little sketches I do for you; it is
only my voice saying thank you for all your kindness always. The half of
the candle belongs to Mr. Locker for his dear little box.
CHAPTER VII
1881-1882
THE EMPRESS FREDERICK, MRS. RICHMOND RITCHIE, RUSKIN, AND MR. PUNCH—‘A
DAY IN A CHILD’S LIFE’—‘LITTLE ANN’ AND ‘MOTHER GOOSE.’
As has already been said, to drive to a palace in a royal carriage to
see a princess had been a dream of Kate’s childhood; and in the year
1881 her baby wish saw its almost complete fulfilment. Royalties with
a small ‘r’ were now, she said, a matter of course to her, but of
Royalties with a big ‘R’ she had as yet no experience.
In her diary of engagements, the entry ‘Sunday, July 17, Crown Princess
of Germany,’ foretells her first visit to Buckingham Palace. Her own
account is not forthcoming, but we have hint of it in the following
quotation from a letter written to her by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie.
It was just like a fairy tale to hear of you at court with all the
nice little princes and princesses hopping about and asking you to
make _enchanting_ things for them. Mrs. Stanley[26] says they one and
all lost their hearts to you, and to _me_ for bringing you to their
threshold.
To this Mrs. Ritchie adds:
I remember Miss Greenaway telling me of her visit to the Crown Prince
and Princess at Buckingham Palace, and how cordial they were, and how
the Crown Prince came in and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and
said laughing, ‘I am the husband,’ as he stood up like a column by the
Princess, who was a little woman.
This was the beginning of a friendship which did as much honour to
the Imperial lady as to the artist whose worth she was so ready
to recognise. Until the Empress’s death Kate Greenaway’s books,
as often as not extra-embellished with original drawings, and her
autographed Christmas cards, were always received with appreciative
acknowledgments, generally accompanied by some little souvenir in
return. They would be accompanied by letters from the Count Seckendorff
such as these sent by the Empress’s command:[27]—
COUNT SECKENDORFF TO KATE GREENAWAY
OSBORNE, _Dec. 25th, 1888_.
Dear Miss Kate Greenaway—Her Majesty the Empress Frederick desires me
to acknowledge the receipt of your charming new little book, and to
say how very kind it was of you to think of her just now at Christmas
time. Her Majesty is most grateful to you for your artistic little
present.—Believe me, dear Miss Kate Greenaway, very sincerely yours,
G. SECKENDORFF.
COUNT SECKENDORFF TO KATE GREENAWAY
THE EMPRESS FREDERICK’S PALACE,
BERLIN, _Jan. 26th, 1895_.
Dear Miss Greenaway—You have had the kindness to send Her Majesty the
Empress Frederick such a charming little drawing for Christmas. Her
Majesty was delighted with it. The little Almanack is giving her so much
pleasure. Will you kindly accept in return a new photo of Her Majesty
which I am sending by Royal Messenger to-day?—Believe me, dear Miss
Greenaway, very sincerely yours,
G. SECKENDORFF.
Of one of these presents Ruskin wrote on December 30, 1884:
I liked hearing about the present from [the] Princess. I wonder what it
can be. I wish I was a Prince and could send you pearls and rubies.
At one time the Empress Frederick showed a personal sympathy not
indicated by these formal letters, and during the period of her great
sorrow wrote to Miss Greenaway touchingly and at length; but that
correspondence no longer exists.
About this time Miss Greenaway was introduced at the house of the Hon.
Mrs. Stanley to the Princess Christian, whose appreciation of her both
personally and as an artist is shown in several letters from this year
onwards, preserved by her with affectionate care.
As Mrs. Richmond Ritchie’s name has been mentioned, it should be said
that for years she and Kate Greenaway were on terms of close intimacy,
and although they were not able so frequently to meet in later years,
there was always the most cordial regard and love between them. In
1885 there was talk of their ‘doing a story together,’ but it never
came to anything; yet the idea had evidently been long in their heads,
for in 1881 Mrs. Ritchie had written: ‘When we write our book it shall
be called “Treats,” I think, and be all about nice things that happen
to little girls—don’t you think so?’ It is matter for regret that
a proposal so full of charming possibilities was never carried into
execution.
In the same year Routledge & Sons published _Mother Goose, or The Old
Nursery Rhymes, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway_—one of her daintiest
productions, although marred in several instances by crude printer’s
ink and careless register. Its success, though not equalling that of
the _Birthday Book_, was yet very great, 66,000 copies being printed in
English, German, and French. The sum of £252 was paid to her for the
use of the drawings, and in royalties she received over £650. The book
bears on the title-page the baby thrown into a basket of roses which
so took Ruskin’s fancy. As Mrs. Allingham has said, ‘No one could draw
roses like Kate Greenaway,’ and other critics have compared her drawing
of flowers with the work now of Van Huysum and now of Botticelli. Some
papers complained that some of the nursery rhymes had been unduly
tampered with; but the illustrations met everywhere with the most
cordial praise. An enthusiastic critic exclaimed, ‘Should the children
of the present generation happen to take into their little curly heads
to call together a “monster” meeting—say in the Lowther Arcade—and
propose, second, and resolve to erect a great public monument to some
favourite goddess, we have a strong conviction that, on a show of tiny
hands being taken, the chairman would declare that Miss Kate Greenaway
had been unanimously elected for the honour.’ It should be remembered
that ‘correct versions’ of nursery rhymes and tales vary in different
parts of the country, and that every one considers the version of his
childhood the true one. Kate Greenaway naturally adopted those she had
learnt in London or in Nottinghamshire, and the charge of ‘tampering’
falls to the ground.
[Illustration: OUT FOR A WALK.
_From a water-colour drawing executed in the album of Ernest G.
Brown, Esq._]
This year she also contributed a charming frontispiece entitled
‘Little Fanny’ to _Routledge’s Christmas Number_, which should not
be forgotten by the collector. It was a wonderful shilling’s worth
for those days, and including as it does contributions by Caldecott,
Gustave Doré (then at the zenith of his somewhat evanescent fame),
Griset, and Mr. Walter Crane, it is now something of a _trouvaille_.
Another trifle of this year which should not be overlooked is a
tail-piece, ‘Little Dinky,’ done for Locker-Lampson’s privately
produced selection of his _London Lyrics_.
Kate was now hard at work on the illustrations for _A Day in a Child’s
Life, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway, Music by Myles B. Foster_, to be
published by Messrs. Routledge in 1882.
Concerning its origin Mr. Foster—son of the eminent water-colour
painter, Birket Foster—writes:
If I remember rightly, I had already put the whole thing together, and,
in fact, I had suggested this as a happy ‘follow’ to _The Children’s
Christmas_, by Bob and myself. It seemed such a nice subject for
children’s music. I culled from books Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8, asked my
friend M. Gibney to write ‘Tired,’ compounded the rhymes of ‘The Lesson’
and ‘Sleeping’ myself, and then showed the whole thing, already set to
music, to Mr. Evans, and _he_ suggested sending it to K. G., saying
that if she liked the idea, she would illustrate it. That I believe
to be the commencement. At this time some hundreds of mill-hands at
Keighley in Yorkshire and at Holt in Wiltshire were finding pleasure in
_The Children’s Christmas_, and the thought of their wishes and little
needs largely led me on to the work in question, and they performed the
_Day in a Child’s Life_ very prettily in tableaux. It was followed each
year by a new work (with my own words)—_Cinderella_, _Beauty and the
Beast_, _Lampblack_, etc.—but, alas, all these lacked the charm of Kate
Greenaway’s exquisite art.
Commercially considered, this extremely pretty book was a success,
25,000 copies being issued to the English-speaking world alone, yet
the press was not unanimous in its approval. The _Times_ especially
complained that ‘Miss Greenaway seems to be lapsing into rather a
lackadaisical prettiness of style. Her little people are somewhat
deficient in vitality. On the whole, we fear we can hardly, for all its
prettiness of binding and colouring, recommend her _Day in a Child’s
Life_ as a very cheerful present, nor is the selection of songs which
she has illustrated of a much more stimulating order.’
This year on no fewer than three separate occasions _Punch_ again
turned his attention to Miss Greenaway, all within the space of one
month. On December 10, under the heading ‘Punch’s “Mother Hubbard”
Grinaway Christmas Cards,’ Mr. Harry Furniss gave a full-page drawing
of fourteen grouped cards, the first of which represented Mr. Punch
presenting a Christmas card to the Queen and Royal Family, all,
saving Her Majesty, being dressed in Greenaway costumes. John Bright
appears as Little Jack Horner, picking a 70th plum out of his birthday
pie; the Duke of Cambridge in petticoats is riding a cock-horse; Mr.
(Lord) Cross as Jack—Jill is in the background—has tumbled down with
a pail of ‘Thames Water Bill’; Lord Randolph Churchill, as Little
Tommy Tattlemouse, is haranguing ‘a little house’ from the box of the
Fourth Party; Sir John Millais is trying a glass slipper on the foot
of his own ‘Cinderella’; the Duke of Bedford, as ‘Mary Mudford quite
contrary,’ is appreciatively contemplating the untidiness and inhaling
the perfume of Covent Garden market; Mr. Fawcett, postmaster-general,
as ‘Spring-heeled Jack,’ is taking a flying leap over the telegraph
wires; Mr. Parnell, as the wolf in bed, casts his ogreish eyes on the
little figure of Ireland and her basket of neglected Irish Industry;
Mr. Gladstone, as the ‘Jack,’ is chopping down the beanstalk of the
Land League; Sir Whittaker Ellis, the new Lord Mayor of London, as Dick
Whittington, is issuing invitations from the Mansion House; and other
topics of the day are introduced with similar ingenuity.
On December 17, Mr. Linley Sambourne contributed one of his most highly
finished drawings, entitled ‘The Royal Birthday Book.’ Mr. Punch,
kneeling in court-dress, receives _Princess Beatrice’s Birthday Book_
from the Princess herself, an ideally and delightfully draped figure
wearing coronet and sandals, the central figure of the composition.
Toby stands on guard, crayon-holder in hand, while on the clouds,
prominent among other floating figures, like sympathetic familiars, are
Kate Greenaway (in Kate Greenaway costume), Caldecott, and Mr. Walter
Crane.
The accompanying legend runs:
The Christmas volumes well deserve their gains
Of Caldecott’s, Kate Greenaway’s, and Crane’s.
Fair Beatrice, we thank you for your pains.
_Much Ado About Something_, Act ii. Sc. 3
(Mr. Punch’s Version).
And finally, on December 24, Mr. Furniss gave a second series of four
‘Grinaway Christmas Cards,’ in which Mr. Edison figures as Aladdin,
Britannia as Old Mother Hubbard, Mrs. Langtry as the Sleeping Beauty,
and Irving, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendal, Charles Warner, Nellie Farren,
Bancroft, Toole, Brough, and others as the Girls and Boys coming out
to Play. It was all excellent fooling—another indication, if one were
needed, that Kate Greenaway’s name and method were name and method to
conjure with.
The following letter of this year from a highly distinguished authoress
who wishes to preserve her anonymity gives a vivid idea of the pleasure
which her books brought into innumerable homes:—
_October 10, 1881._
Dear Miss Greenaway—Your sweet little white sibylline volumes have
again come to delight us all—thank you so very much. H. (aged 3 years)
came bundling down, panting, with her book in her pinafore and wildly
excited. (I think on the whole she likes ‘Jumping Joan’ best—but she
likes each best.) B. (aged 1½) came in also breathless to look at
H.’s book. H. firmly said, ‘No, B., you may just look, you mustn’t
_touch_ it.’ Then B. was held down by force and we lit the candles, and
H. looked at her prize while I looked at mine with B. (only B. and H.
_couldn’t_ understand how the two books could be so exactly alike). Then
R. came home and we all exclaimed together, and now we all send you our
love and our thanks, dear, again for your beautiful gift.
Are you rested and stronger? Did you have a pleasant summer? We are
only just home from a great many clouds and fields and children and
dandelions, to find them all again in your sweet incantation.
L. T. told us about your Princesses’ visits, which was most thrilling
and interesting. Good-night, and thank you again for all of us.
At this time Kate was sending copies of her _Mother Goose_ to a few
chosen friends, among them to her kind mentor and chief adviser H.
Stacy Marks; and the presentation brought her the following critical
letter of acknowledgment:—
STACY MARKS TO KATE GREENAWAY
_Oct. 11th, 1881._
Dear Kate Greenaway—Many thanks for your last book. You will get
‘tired’ of sending me your works sooner than I of receiving them. I have
not acknowledged the receipt of this before because I knew you would
prefer a letter telling you what I think of your work (even if somewhat
critical) to a mere formal one of thanks. I thank you all the same very
much, for your work always gives me pleasure—it seems so happy and so
fearless of all the conventional rules and ideas that obtain generally
about the art.
In many respects you have improved, and the _drawing_ is firmer and
better. But let me have my fault-finding first, for ‘I am nothing if not
critical.’ You have got rid of the spur-like shadows, but where, even in
England, do you see such cabbagy trees as on pages 5, 7, 29? You might
find a better pattern even in the elm, which _is_ cabbagy.
The action of the figure on page 40 is impossible coming downhill—how
about the centre of gravity, madam? You know I am not conventional, but
I am troubled to know why you don’t make the hero of your story more
conspicuous. Thus on page 47 Tom the Piper’s son is the least prominent
figure in the composition, and where are the boys?
Again—the Beggars coming to town are in the far distance, and there’s
only one dog! What I mean is, that these two don’t tell their story, but
I suppose you have some good reason for your treatment.
As instances of fearlessness, I admire the pluck which can place a face
directly against a window with each pane made out as on page 12, and the
arrangement of the stick in Jack Horner which coincides with his _head_
and _both hands_, and as it (the stick) is not continued to the ground
we can only suppose it to be resting on the boy’s knees.
And now I have done being disagreeable. Despite its little faults, it
is a charming book. Your backgrounds of old houses are delightful.
The two most pictorial drawings are ‘Polly, put the kettle on’ and
‘Cross-patch.’ The latter is especially good and might be painted—the
right fore-arm only should be a bit more foreshortened.
A last look gives me a last fault to find—the chins, especially in some
of the boys, are still very pointed.
There! now I have finished, but I don’t apologise for telling you the
truth from my point of view, because I know you are strong enough to
bear it and amiable enough to like it. It will always be a source of
pride to me to remember (as you told me) that I was, though in the
humblest way, partly instrumental in finding you the way your strength
lay.
[Illustration: ‘LUCY LOCKET LOST HER POCKET.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of W. Finch, Esq._]
Ruskin received his copy in a less critical spirit; and a few weeks
later he wrote:
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Christmas Day, 1881_.
My dear Miss Greenaway—You are the first friend to whom I write this
morning; and among the few to whom I look for real sympathy and help.
You are fast becoming—I believe you are already, except only Edward B.
Jones—the helpfullest in showing me that there are yet living souls on
earth who can see beauty and peace and Goodwill among men—and rejoice
in them.
You have sent me a little choir of such angels as are ready to sing, if
we will listen, for Christ’s being born—every day.
I trust you may long be spared to do such lovely things, and be an
element of the best happiness in every English household that still has
an English heart, as you are already in the simpler homes of Germany.
To my mind Ludwig Richter and you are the only real philosophers
and——[28] of the Nineteenth Century.
I’ll write more in a day or two about many things that I want to say
respecting the possible range of your subjects. I was made so specially
happy yesterday by finding Herrick’s Grace among the little poems—but
they are all delightful.—Ever gratefully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
The year 1882 was chiefly occupied with the illustrations for a new
edition of that early love of hers, _Little Ann and other Poems_, by
Jane and Ann Taylor, a charming production, though slightly marred
by certain little faults of drawing which, with all her strict
self-training, Miss Greenaway strangely enough never quite overcame.
The ‘stilt-like’ shadows had certainly disappeared, but the feet still
sometimes went a little astray, and signs were not wanting here and
there that seem to herald the advent of mannerism. But it was a passing
phase.
She was now suffering more than ever from imitators, to the vast
indignation of her friends and admirers. For example, Mr. Locker
designates a book entitled _Afternoon Tea_ ‘a shameful imitation of
your manner, [which] if it goes on will tend to disgust the brutal
British public and therefore injure you.’
In Belgium especially, where she had a great vogue, not only were her
books themselves being imitated, but the illustrations were copied
without acknowledgment on to handkerchiefs, plates, vases, caskets,
and other objects of commerce, and the copying was so vilely done that
they were caricatures rather than reproductions of her work. All this
tended, as Mr. Locker truly predicted, to vulgarise the Fairyland which
she was creating.
As far as she could Kate combated the evil by refusing to part with
the copyright of her works. In 1898 she wrote to Mr. Stuart M. Samuel,
M.P., a generous patron for whom she would certainly have strained a
point if she could:
Thank you so very much for the cheque, but I’m so sorry I cannot give
you the copyright. I have made it a rule for a long time not to part
with the copyright of my drawings, for I have been so copied, my
drawings reproduced and sold for advertisements and done in ways I hate.
Nor was Belgium the only offending land. In France and England there
were also many manufacturers who recognised the adaptability of her
designs for printed fabrics and did not hesitate to ‘lift’ them for
their own purposes. Still, there were honourable exceptions among
those who were not prepared to copy or adapt her productions without
receiving due permission and offering pecuniary acknowledgment. The
offers of most of these, however, she did not care to accept, from
a feeling that the ‘pot-boiling’ character of the work would be
derogatory to her art. But apropos of an application by Mr. Powell, of
the Whitefriars glassworks, it may be mentioned that the very next year
Ruskin himself carried out his expressed intention, and had a drawing
of hers of a little girl with a doll ‘put on glass,’ and wrote of it
from Brantwood:
It will be a nursery window when you are next here, but it might be, as
rightly, part of a cathedral window.
A gratifying episode of 1882 was the appearance in the great French art
magazine, the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (vol. i. pp. 74 _et seq._) of an
article by Monsieur Alfred de Lostalot, in which, whilst recognising
particulars in which her work fell short of that of Caldecott and Mr.
Walter Crane, he yet gave her the first place for the special qualities
of charm and sentiment. And, after a eulogy too long to quote here, he
ends up quaintly—‘Meanwhile I shall lock up the works of W. C., of C.,
and of Kate Greenaway in my bookcase with precious care; unexpected
conclusion: works so precious cannot be left in the hands of children!’
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Lily Evans.]
Kate Greenaway knew exactly what kind of letters children like to
receive, and she loved to send them playful missives, instinct with her
love of flowers and animals. An example of such letters, addressed to
the little friend for whom she had so tender an affection, may be given
in illustration.
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS LILY EVANS
My dear Lily—I have not written to fix a day because I felt I ought not
to spare one just now—or indeed for a little time longer.
Now will you mind waiting a little longer, then my mind will be more at
rest, and we will have a real beautiful day. I’m very sorry to ask you
to wait, but I know you won’t mind really. Also more things will be up
in the garden and in my boxes of dirt. [Window-boxes for plants, which
Miss Evans, as a country child, had never seen before.] I am just going
to get pansies in them.
I’ve a real hope that I do see golden rod coming up at last—or does a
witch live in our garden, and is it phlox after all?
Some time after Easter, when you have time to spare, you will get me
some more primroses. Those last were real beauties, and lived like
anything. In the excitement of coming away I quite forgot to thank
Miss—— for all the trouble she took helping to get them for me, so you
thank her now.
The kitten has hurt its foot a little. The spring gets into its head and
I’m afraid causes it to run on walls with broken glass on the top, or
perhaps it attends a dancing class on the quiet and practises too much.
Anyhow it is constantly making itself lame, and when it loses the use of
a sponge and towel at one go, you can guess how it looks—a little rim
of white round its mouth and the rest nicely toned. Good-bye. Love to E.
and all, and we will go as soon as ever I can.
K. G.
[Illustration: From a Pencil Sketch in the possession of Lady
Pontifex.]
CHAPTER VIII
1882 (_continued_) AND 1883
THE RUSKIN AND SEVERN FRIENDSHIP RIPENS—AT BRANTWOOD—‘THE ART OF
ENGLAND’—RUSKIN’S ADVICE—KATE GREENAWAY’S FIRST ALMANACK—A GREENAWAY
‘BOOM’—MR. AUSTIN DOBSON.
Ruskin, as has been seen, took the art of Kate Greenaway very seriously
long before she became personally known to him, and it is evident,
from the portion of a letter found amongst her papers, probably
forwarded to her by the recipient, that he had some hesitation in
opening the correspondence which began after the dinner with Stacy
Marks. The fragment, which runs as follows, bears no indication either
of the recipient’s name or of the occasion of the writing; but in all
probability it was addressed to Mr. Stacy Marks himself, their common
friend.
It is a feeling of the same kind which keeps me from writing to Miss
Greenaway—the oftener I look at her designs, the more I want a true and
deep tone of colour,—and a harmony which should distinctly represent
either sunshine, or shade, or true local colour.—I do not know how far
with black outline this can be done but I would fain see it attempted.
And also I want her to make more serious use of her talent—and show the
lovely things that _are_, _and_ the terrible which _ought to be known_
instead of mere ugly nonsense, like that brown witch.[29]—If she would
only do what she naturally feels, and would wish to teach others to feel
without any reference to saleableness—she probably would do lovelier
things than any one could tell her—and I could not tell her rightly
unless I knew something of her own mind, even what might be immediately
suggestive to her, unless perhaps harmfully. Please tell me your own
feeling about her things.
J. R.
A correspondence, however, ensued, which led up, on December 29, 1882,
to this laconic but all-important entry in her diary: ‘Mr. Ruskin
came. First time I ever saw him.’ His advent had been heralded by the
following letter:—
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
_27th, Dec. 82._
Dear Miss Greenaway—Friday will do delightfully for me,—even better
than to-day—having been tired with Xmas letters and work.
This is a lovely little book—all through—the New and Old Years
are chiefly delightful to me. But I wish some of the children had
bare feet—and that the shoes of the others weren’t _quite_ so like
mussel-shells.
The drawing on my letter however is perfect! shoes and all—eyes and
lips—unspeakable.—Ever your grateful and devoted
J. RUSKIN.
From the first moment of their meeting a friendship sprang up which
grew in strength and mutual appreciation until his death in 1900.
Concerning this interesting first meeting Mrs. Arthur Severn writes:—
I shall never forget his rapturous delight at first making her
acquaintance!—and she was indeed one of the sweetest, kindest, and most
gifted of women. Lily [Miss Severn] was devoted to her, and we often
talk of her and deeply lament her loss. She loved nothing more here [at
Coniston] than driving, and was almost childish in the delight it gave
her, and with no fear of the horses—and yet she was so timid in other
ways.
Henceforth not only did Ruskin and Kate Greenaway constantly meet
either at Hampstead or at Brantwood, where she paid him several
delightful visits, but they carried on a spirited correspondence,
which on his side certainly ran to five hundred letters, and on hers
to probably double that number. For when, in 1888, illness compelled
him to cease writing, Kate made it her kindly business to continue her
frequent missives in order to add to the pleasures and relieve the
monotony of a comparatively inactive old age. And in order to amuse
and delight him, she illustrated nearly every letter with one sketch
at least. A number of these little fancies of her pen have here been
reproduced.
[Illustration]
Ruskin’s letters are full of allusions to his overworked condition, but
while fully alive to the golden rule, ‘When you have too much to do,
don’t do it,’ he never applied it to himself, and in the end he had to
pay the penalty which Nature exacts.
By the kindness of Mr. Ruskin’s executors and literary executors—Mrs.
Arthur Severn, Mr. George Allen, and Mr. A. Wedderburn, K.C.—we are
enabled to take a specified tithe of his side of the correspondence.
In the main, his letters will be left to speak for themselves, for the
discussion of the side-lights which they throw upon _Præterita_ and
other of his writings, interesting though it would be, would lead us
too far astray.
Miss Greenaway appears to have kept every scrap of Ruskin’s writing,
and even treasured the numerous telegrams which he sent her on special
occasions; for Ruskin loved the telegraph. He, on the other hand,
observant of his own dictum in _Sesame and Lilies_—‘Our friends’
letters may be delightful or necessary to-day: whether worth keeping or
not is to be considered’—seems to have destroyed all of hers save one,
which were received prior to 1887. A large proportion of her letters,
as has been said, are embellished with charming head-and tail-pieces,
to which he makes constant allusion. In her diary for February 8, 1883,
appears for the first time the entry ‘Birthday J. R.’ Henceforward the
day is always so marked, and—a sacred memory to her—is so continued
even after his death.
In March she received an invitation to Coniston, and she wrote to Mrs.
Severn, Ruskin’s cousin and adopted daughter, to accept.
11 PEMBERTON GARDENS, HOLLOWAY, N.,
_8 March 1883_.
Dear Mrs. Severn—You are very very kind, and Mr. Ruskin is very very
kind, and I look forward with very great pleasure to the time I shall
pass with you.... And, please, you are not to make so much of me, for I
am not in the least a frog Princess. Wouldn’t it be nice if I were, to
emerge suddenly, brilliant and splendid?
In May she paid her first visit to Brantwood, and found herself all
at once plunged into an atmosphere of thought and art and literature
which was to her alike new and exhilarating. That she was somewhat
bewildered by her new experiences is shown by the following quotations
from letters to Mrs. Evans and her daughter:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. EVANS
It was all altered (my coming here) in such a hurry, and since I have
been here I have had so little time, or I should have written sooner,
but the days do go. After breakfast I am allowed (which is a great
favour) to go into the study and see all sorts of beautiful things,
with little talks and remarks from Mr. Ruskin as he writes; then we go
drives, walks, or on the lake till tea-time. Then it is dinner-time;
then he reads us something nice or talks in the most beautiful manner.
Words can hardly say the sort of man he is—perfect—simply.... I do not
know yet when I shall come home—they want me to stay a month, but I
shall not stay nearly so long as that.
And again:
Everything is confused, I never know day or date. I’m always looking at
books or pictures. I am absorbed into a new world altogether. I’m sorry
to say it has turned so wet; we have to stay in and there are no more
hills or lake or streams. I shall be up next week. I’m feeling very bad
that I am not up now, but Mr. Ruskin wants me to stay, wants me to tell
him things about colour, and puts it in such a way I can’t well leave,
and the few days won’t make much difference.
On her return home she writes to Miss Lily Evans:—
My dear Lily—Enjoyments seem pouring in upon you—mine are over for
a time—for you see I am home again, and it was so lovely up there,
you can’t think. You know how I admire things—well I did such a lot.
There was such lots to admire—such wild wide stretches of country and
then such mountains—such mossy trees and stones—such a lake—such
a shore—such pictures—such books—my mind was entirely content and
satisfied, and I miss it all so much, and grumble and grumble like you
did when you came home from Scarborough.
Johnny was the worm that bore it for a while, then he turned, and said I
just wanted taken to a road in the East End of London for a while—then
I should have all the ridiculous nonsense knocked out of my head and
look upon Hampstead[30] with gratitude.—_I daresay._ It’s all very
fine, isn’t it? when you just come home.
And really you are coming out, dining out at the B.F.’s[31] really! I’ve
just got a little note with
To meet the PRINCE and PRINCESS CHRISTIAN.
Mrs. JEUNE.
At Home. Early.
Quite fashionable! I think I’ll pass it on to you. You shall be K.G. for
once, for you are coming out and growing up quite dreadfully. Where is
Caroline now? [Miss Lily Evans’ favourite doll]. But it don’t matter,
for you’re very like the old Lily after all.
So good-bye, dear, with my dearest love.
K.G.
This year (1883) Ruskin accepted his second call to the Oxford
Professorship, which had been interrupted in 1879 by ill-health, and
forthwith he gave his first series of lectures on ‘The Art of England,’
already quoted from. The following extracts from letters to Kate dated
‘Oxford, 11th May ‘83’ and ‘Herne Hill, 17th May ‘83,’ hint at his
forthcoming lecture on ‘Mrs. Allingham and Kate Greenaway.’
I only got here this afternoon out of Derbyshire, and found your lovely
little note waiting and it made me partly happy—and partly sorry—but
chiefly the first—for indeed I look forward to your working at Coniston
without any acute sense of being tortured next time—when you really
can get settled on those stones—(which are much better drawn than any
you ever did before)—and I can stay to keep the cows in order! My old
Chamouni guide told me once I was fit for nothing else.
I can’t write a word but this to-night.—I’ll think over the
drawing-cleaning; perhaps it will be safest to trust it only to
you—there’s plenty of time, for _your_ lecture isn’t till the 23rd,—we
shall have had our tea long before that.
I can’t part with the drawing to be india Rd [india-rubbered]—having
them by me helps me so, and I’m going to put those which I show—(I’m
only going to show what I _speak_ of, to prevent carelessness in
looking) under raised mounts which will quite hide soiled edges.
I am very anxious to know what you have been thinking about—colour, and
skies, since you got over the first indignation at my tyrannies!—and
I’ve ever so much to say about the daughter of Heth[32]—this chiefly,
that you never need think I can like a tragic novel—and this is either
teazing or tragedy all through.
The Scotch too is execrable—and all the younger folks are merely like
bolsters in a pantomime—put there to be kicked or tumbled over. Black
_has_ some quiet sense of humour in more refined elements—but is merely
clumsy in pantomime.
So many thanks for the large print—but the next you choose _must_ be
cheerful.
[Illustration: TWO GIRLS GOING TO SCHOOL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of John Riley, Esq._]
On June 7th, he writes from Herne Hill:—
You are _not_ to put any more sugar-plums of sketches in your
letters—as if they weren’t sweet enough without. Besides, I can’t have
you wasting your time and wits in that scattered dew of fancy.—You
must really gather yourself into a real rivulet between banks in
perspective—and reflect everything truly that you see.
You absurd Kate to think I was tired of the drawings. I was only tired
of seeing the corners unfinished—you’re nearly as bad as me, that way.
Now be a good girl and draw some flowers that won’t look as if their
leaves had been in curlpapers all night—and some more chairs than that
one chair—with the shade all right and the legs all square—and then
I’ll tell you what you must do next.
Again on the 15th, from Oxford:—
I’m thinking of you every day and a great part of the day long, whenever
I get out into the fields, more and more anxious every day that you
should resolve on a summer’s work of utter veracity—drawing—no matter
what,—_but_ as it _is_.
I am certain all your imagination would expand afterwards, like—a
rosebud. But especially I do want some children as they are,—and that
you should be able to draw a pretty one without mittens, and that you
should be more interested in phases of character. I want your exquisite
feeling given to teach—not merely to amuse.
Miss Alexander’s book[33] will delight you—but it is _all_
chiaroscuro—or rather chiar with no oscuro—which you will always think
to see in colour.
I’m going to do a bit of ‘Kate’ glass—directly, for some English hall
in fairyland.
You’ll soon have proof of the lecture on you!
On June 17th, he writes from Oxford:—
What a lovely little bit of dark grounded grace! and the two prints are
delicious—but the feet _are_ getting _too_ small.
It’s delightful to me beyond telling that you do yourself feel the need
of a time of obedience to the ‘everlasting Yea’ of Things.—What I meant
by phases of character was—in painting, what Scott or Shakespeare gives
in words,—the differences in loveliness which are endless in humanity.
Those little girls who were playing at being in church must have been so
different from little girls who were tormented by being at church.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
Yes, it is very sad that I can’t get done here,—but there are three
years of absence to redeem, and being allowed in my own department to
have my own way entirely, it is a very stringent duty to do the best I
can. And just think what the arrangements of a system of teaching in
connection with a great University means, or should mean.
I have mounted, for the present, 25 of the Mother Goose drawings beside
the plates, and put them in a cabinet by themselves, among our loan
series. People are immensely interested in them, and feel the difference
between drawing and plate quite as you would like them to. Every drawing
has its own sliding frame and glass so that they are _absolutely_ safe,
as far as handling is concerned.
You must hear a little more about Miss A.’s before you see them; and I
shall very soon have a proof of lecture for you.
And from Brantwood on the 22nd:—
What lovely, lovely things these are, that have come to-day—the
tambourine and the looking out to sea.—But your own eyes ought to have
been three times as big—on your eyes be it—and I don’t understand the
doggie carrying the maulstick—because I’ve never seen you with a pet in
a blue riband—and the first thing I should have done would have been to
order the feather out of your hat!...
It was nice, that, of the gentleman and friendship—and yet it wasn’t.
How dogged the English are in thinking that you can’t praise anybody
honestly.
I got tired at Oxford and had to run down here for some rest—but shall
be up again in a week or two and I hope in the mean time to get some
things organised for engraving some of the line sketches _in_ line,
and the moment this bad weather is past, I shall expect to hear of the
progress of the River. I saw a boy in a brown jacket with a yellow
basket in his hand—looking up wistfully at the sky—in the main street
of Worcester—he wanted only a Kate to draw him and would have been
immortal.
At the end of June Monsieur Ernest Chesneau had written to Ruskin
asking him for K. G.’s portrait and particulars of her life for an
article in a French publication. Alluding to this he writes from
Brantwood on July 4th,
I kept the portrait till I could scarcely bear to part with it. But it’s
gone to-day,—and I’ve wreaked my jealousy on M. Chesneau by three pages
of abuse of the whole French nation and Academy.
By this time enthusiastic admirers among foreign critics were many.
There were M. Arsène Alexandre and M. Jules Girardin of Paris, Dr.
Muther of Breslau, M. A. C. Loffelt, art-critic of the Dutch Journal,
_The Fatherland_, and Dr. J. Zurcher of Amsterdam. And Karl Emich,
Count of Leiningen-Westerburg, was among the keenest of them all.
Even so Parisian a personage as Alexandre Dumas _fils_, who in 1881
had acquired one of her pictures, was sensitively responsive to her
essentially English art. The agent through whom he purchased the
drawing wrote to her:—‘Your talent is still more appreciated in Paris
than in London. A proof of it is that all the _imitations_ made of
your works, which are sold here, have not any success in Paris at
all, where something else but nice book-binding is required’—the
suggestion being that, unlike the thick-headed Saxon, the artistic Gaul
could discriminate unfailingly between the original and imitations—a
two-edged compliment which Kate might appreciate as best she could.
Ruskin was much concerned at Kate Greenaway’s occasional lack of the
sense of form. He did not want her to study anatomy, but was for ever
begging her in his letters to make studies from the nude figure as the
only way. But on this matter she was stubborn: she had had enough of
nude studies at her own studio and at Heatherley’s. Here are two of his
numerous letters on the subject:—
BRANTWOOD [1883].
I’m beginning _really_ to have hopes of you. This terrific sunset shows
what a burden those red and yellow wafers have been on your conscience.
Now, do be a good girl for once, and send me a little sunset as you know
_now_ how to do it—reversing everything you used to do.
—Then secondly,—I’m in great happiness to-day thinking that M.
Chesneau must have got that lovely Kate this morning, and be in a state
words won’t express the ecstasy of. Then thirdly—As we’ve got so far as
taking off hats, I trust we may in time get to taking off just a little
more—say, mittens—and then—perhaps—even—shoes!—and (for fairies)
even—stockings—And—then—
My dear Kate,—(see my third lecture sent you to-day)—it _is_
absolutely necessary for you to be—now—sometimes, Classical.—I return
you—though heartbrokenly (for the day)—one of those three sylphs, come
this morning.
_Will_ you—(it’s all for your own good!) make her stand up, and then
draw her for me without her hat—and, without her shoes,—(because of
the heels) and without her mittens, and without her—frock and its
frill? And let me see exactly how tall she is—and how— round. [Note
written in pencil: ‘Do nothing of the kind. J. S.’]
It will be _so_ good of—and for—you—And to, and for—me.
After finishing this letter, he has turned it over and written:—
_July 5th._
Finished right side yesterday. That naughty Joan got hold of it—never
mind her—you see, she doesn’t like the word ‘round’—that’s all.
Who, conversant with Miss Greenaway’s work, can doubt that Ruskin’s
advice was entirely right and sound?
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _10th July /83_.
You really are as good as gold—heavenly gold of the clouds, to be so
patient—and to send me such lovely things—but I’ll try to make them of
real use to you with the public.—The cloud fairies are LOVELY and I’ll
have them put in a glass window the moment I’m sure of my workman.—(I’m
waiting in great anxiety for the result of the first trial—I am not
anxious about the colour—but about the drawing of the features and hair
exactly right on the larger scale.) And so also the milkgirl, _tidied_
the least bit about the feet, shall be glassed-in better than mirror.
The sunset is a delight to me and all that you say of what you used to
feel, and will again. All that is necessary is some consistent attention
to the facts of colour and cloud form.—Make slight pencil memoranda of
these, the next pretty one you see. Have you a small sketch-book always
in your pocket?
You ought to make notes of groups of children, and of more full faces
than you-face-usually. The profile is besides conventional.
I have never told you about Villette _etc._—They are full of cleverness
but are extremely harmful to you in their morbid excitement; and they
are entirely third-rate as literature.—You should read nothing but
Shakespeare, at present.
—And—you should go to some watering place in August with fine sands,
and draw no end of bare feet,—and—what else the Graces unveil in the
train of the Sea Goddess.
Again on the same subject he writes on the 26th,
I want you to go to Boulogne and take a course of fishwives and wading
children.
And once more:—
The dancing girls are delightful but you _are_ getting a little mannered
and I shall press you hard for sea study. No winter work will take its
place. I want the blue of the sea for you and the running action of the
bare feet.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, [_Sept._] _6th_, [1883].
What a lovely letter I’ve got this morning! I can’t but think that
lake-pond must be a divine one I know between Dorking and St.
Catherine’s, Guildford—the springs of it, and indeed _any_ chalk
springs at their rising, beat our rainfall streams all to mud, they are
so celestially purified by their purgatory under the chalk. Also _they_
are of _green_ water! while ours are—_purple_!!!
If only, some day _next year_ you could come fresh to them _with_ a
sketch-book!
But all you have been seeing is boundlessly helpful and good for you,
and the motives of the sketches you send to-day are unsurpassable and I
must have you carry them out when you get to work again.
The news of Scarborough fills me with delight also. I shall probably
then be at Abbotsford—and to get a little sketch from you at the
breakfast table there! fancy!
I hope my letter about the engraving will show you how I felt what you
did!—But you’ve no notion what can be done yet, when I’ve got the man
into harness. His dotting tint is execrable, but we _must_ have clear
line tints often.
And in the same strain—
_19th Sept. [1883]._
Yes, I know well how tired you are, and I do hope you’ll play on the
sands and do nothing but what the children do—all day long. As soon
as you are yourself again I’ll tell you exactly what I want about the
drawings. There was work enough for a _week_ in that _one_ of the girl
with brown background, alone.—And you ought to do nothing but patches
of colour with a brush big enough to tar a boat with for months to come.
Then _Fors Clavigera_ appeared embellished for the first time with
a headpiece from Kate Greenaway’s pencil—a charming little girl
watching the sun set across the sea. This was followed by a sweet and
dainty little dancing maiden as headpiece to Letter 93, headpiece
and tail-piece to Letter 94, headpiece to Letter 95, and full-page
frontispiece to Letter 96. In the last-named a dancing babe of fortune
leads by the hand a still more fascinating babe in rags—the rags
and babe as clean and sweet as are all the rags and babes in K. G.’s
child-Utopia—whilst a dainty lady tripping in the rear impartially
scatters roses over them from a basket under her arm. The drawings in
no way illustrated the text; they were wholly adventitious decorations.
These are the only K. G. drawings published by Ruskin, saving
those to _Dame Wiggins_, of which some account appears in the next
chapter, although others were engraved. These last, or some of them,
are included in the later volumes of the noble Library Edition of
Ruskin’s works. The engravings in _Fors_ were executed by Roffe. Their
appearance on the printed page without any sign of a plate-mark is at
first sight very puzzling, but this is accounted for by the extravagant
size of the plates, which were, by Ruskin’s special orders, made larger
than the page upon which they were destined to be printed.
The only one of the ‘Letters’ in which Kate Greenaway is referred to by
name is No. 94, ‘Retrospect.’ Ruskin is insisting upon the proper work
for women, ‘scrubbing furniture, dusting walls, sweeping floors, making
the beds, washing up the crockery, ditto the children, and whipping
them when they want it, etc. etc.’ Then he goes on with advice as to
plain work:
Get Miss Stanley’s book, which gives you the elements of this work
at Whitelands,—(I hope, however, to get Miss Greenaway to sketch us
a pattern frock or two, instead of the trimmed water-butts of Miss
Stanley’s present diagrams).
In the following extract from a letter of November 12, he refers to the
scheme which he had in his mind for reproducing her coloured work in
a more satisfactory way than could be done by the printing press. K.
G. was to make coloured drawings which were to be printed in outline
and then coloured by hand in facsimile—a method frequently used, but
nowhere so successfully on a large scale as in France. Ruskin himself
had her engravings in some copies of _Fors_ coloured by hand in this
manner.
On November 12th, he writes:—
This maid of the muffin is beyond, beyond! I _must_ engrave her for a
lovely _Fors_ on toasting forks.
The colouring of Miss Primrose and all others must be done for a quite
full and frank payment, enabling the colourist to count her day’s work
as a comfortable and profitable one. Each must be done as attentively
and perfectly—while as simply—as possible.
It ought only to be _part_ of the colourist’s day’s work—else it would
be sickeningly monotonous—there will never be any pressure or hurry
of her—the price being simply so much per score or hundred as she can
deliver them.
The next letter refers to _Little Ann_.
STACY MARKS TO KATE GREENAWAY
_Dec. 31, 1883._
I won’t allow the year to pass away without thanking you for what is, I
think, on the whole, I might say entirely, your _best book_. The drawing
is better and I think there is more feeling for _grace_ in the figures
than in the earlier works.
I have put it away carefully in my ‘Greenaway Collection’ where it will
always be a valued item.
Your work should be all the more popular after all Ruskin has said of
it. He has dined with us once or twice before he left for Coniston and
we have more than once talked of you.
He is a singular and wayward genius. I tried to get him to admire
Caldecott but it was no use—and he had not a word to say for Keene or
Sambourne.
The following extract from a letter of Ruskin’s dated ‘Brantwood, 26th
December ‘83’ refers to the headpiece of Letter 93 of _Fors_:—
I shan’t go to sleep over your note to-day.
But I have no words any more than if I _was_ asleep, to tell you how
marvellous I think these drawings. No one has ever done anything equal
to them in pure grace of movement—no one in exquisiteness of dainty
design—I tremble now to ask you to draw in any other way.
As for the gift of them, I had never such a treasure given me, in my
life—but it is not for me only. I am sure that these drawings will be
[valued] endlessly and everywhere if I can get them engraved the least
rightly,—the sight of them alters one’s thoughts of all the world.
The little beauty with the note, alone, would have made a Christmas for
me.
I hope you will like the use I’ve made of one of your little
dance-maidens—I think her glory of simplicity comes well alone.
The beginning of 1883 had seen the publication of Kate Greenaway’s
first Almanack. Published at one shilling by George Routledge & Sons,
and of course engraved and printed in colours by Mr. Edmund Evans,
it achieved an enormous success, some 90,000 copies being sold in
England, America, France, and Germany. It was succeeded by an almanack
every year (with but one exception, 1896) until 1897, the last being
published by Mr. Dent. The illustrations were printed on sheets with
blank spaces for the letterpress, in which English, French, or German
was inserted as the market demanded. There are various little conceits
about these charming productions which are calculated to appeal to
the ‘licquorish chapman of such wares’; so that complete sets of them
already fetch respectable sums from the collectors of beautiful books,
especially when they have not been divested of the paper envelopes or
wrappers in which they were originally issued.
[Illustration: THE OLD FARM-HOUSE.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of Campbell S.
Holberton, Esq._]
A Manchester bookseller who invested in three hundred copies had
a startling experience. Almost within the week he was gratified to
find that his stock was exhausted. Subsequently he was visited by a
would-be purchaser who tendered three pence for as many copies. In
response he protested that the selling price was one shilling apiece,
when his customer informed him that the book was selling at that moment
in Piccadilly—Piccadilly, Manchester—at the price of one penny. And
enquiry not only proved the statement to be correct but also elicited
the fact that the books in question were the property of this very
bookseller, the rapid disappearance of whose stock had been primarily
due not to sales but to theft.
[Illustration]
It has been said—let us admit, with a little exaggeration—that Kate
Greenaway dressed the children of two continents. In such measure as
it is true, this was mainly due to the fact that her almanacks found a
regular sale in France, from which America and Europe so largely take
their cue in feminine matters sartorial.
There was now a Greenaway boom, just as we have since seen a Trilby
boom, and amongst other amusing compliments this year a firm of
shoemakers approached the artist with a request to allow them to
christen a special boot for children which they were putting on the
market ‘The Kate Greenaway Shoe.’ Inasmuch as feet were rather a
weak point with her, the application may well have proved a little
disconcerting.
Towards the end of the year a proposal was afoot that Miss Greenaway
should issue a volume of selected poems, with illustrations from her
pencil, and Mrs. Severn proffered her aid, if it were desired, in
making the choice. To this amiable offer her friend replied:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. ARTHUR SEVERN
11 PEMBERTON GARDENS, HOLLOWAY, N.,
_29th Dec. 1883_.
My dear Mrs. Severn— ... And now about the book suggestion. Such a
book is thought of, even planned out; and it rested between the choice
of that and one other to be the next year’s book. The other one was
decided, as we thought the poetry book would be the best last. But
I’ll talk to you about it, and please don’t say anything about it till
I’ve seen you. I don’t want it known that I’m going to do a poetry
book. It is an understood thing that I do NOT mention the names of
any book going to be done till it is brought out—and this book is to
be poems of my own selection. I can only do those that get into my
mind of themselves—my own pets and favourites. But so many thanks all
the same for writing that long letter about it.... With love,—Yours
affectionately,
K. G.
This was followed, a little more than a month later, by a further note
on the subject:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. ARTHUR SEVERN
11 PEMBERTON GARDENS, HOLLOWAY, N.,
_2nd Feb. 1884_.
Dearest Mrs. Severn—The verses have come in safety—one or two are
quite new to me, and would be exactly what I’d like to put in. They are
all nice, but I doubt if in some cases the copyrights could be obtained,
and some of them are a little too much about children. Children, I find,
like to know about other things—or what other children did—but not
about children in an abstract sort of way. That belongs to older people.
I wonder if you remember what poem you liked best when you were a child?
I can remember, well, some I liked,—‘How Horatius kept the Bridge’—I
used to love that. Then ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus,’ ‘The Pied Piper,’
‘The Rope Walk,’ ‘The Thoughts of Youth.’ But I’m afraid I had a great
many loves—indeed, and so I do now. I find something to like in most
things. With love, and hoping soon to see you,—Yours sincerely,
K. G.
[Illustration: HOME-BEAUTY.
Poem by Austin Dobson. Drawing by Kate Greenaway.
Reduced from the _Magazine of Art_, 1883, by permission of the
publishers, Messrs. Cassell & Co.]
In the summer of 1883 a charming collaboration took place in the pages
of the _Magazine of Art_ (which was then under the editorship of W. E.
Henley) between Kate Greenaway and a poet in whose tender, exquisite,
and dainty art she took infinite delight—Mr. Austin Dobson. Earlier in
the year an article in that magazine on ‘Art in the Nursery’ had paid
homage to the work of Miss Greenaway, along with that of Walter Crane,
Randolph Caldecott, Miss Lizzie Lawson, and M. Ernest Griset. But Kate
is the heroine of the band, and the ‘peculiar quality of cherubic
dowdiness’ of her youngsters, the winsomeness of the babies’ solemn
flirtation under an immense umbrella, and similar fascinating scenes,
received the appreciation that was their due. Then in a number of the
magazine that contained contributions by Robert Louis Stevenson, Cosmo
Monkhouse, Leader Scott, Mr. W. C. Brownell, and others, Kate Greenaway
contributed her charming page-drawing in which Mr. Austin Dobson’s
equally delicious verses were set. The drawing, here reproduced,
naturally suffers greatly from the necessary reduction in size: lines
are thickened, the exquisite drawing of faces, of eyes and mouths and
dimpled chins, and the dainty gradations of the pencil strokes, are
inevitably impaired if not lost. But the grace of the composition, the
pretty grouping, the sweet childish attitudes, remain intact; and the
verses, written in in our reproduction by Mr. Dobson’s own hand, though
here too small in scale to be easily read, match the design in playful
elegance. They run as follows:—
HOME-BEAUTY
‘Mine be a cot,’ for the hours of play,
Of the kind that is built by Miss Greenaway,
Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red,
And the birds are gay in the blue o’erhead;
And the dear little figures, in frocks and frills,
Go roaming about at their own sweet wills,
And play with the pups, and reprove the calves,
And do nought in the world (but Work) by halves,
From ‘Hunt the Slipper’ and ‘Riddle-me-ree’
To watching the cat in the apple-tree.
O Art of the Household! Men may prate
Of their ways ‘intense’ and Italanate,—
They may soar on their wings of sense, and float
To the _au-delà_ and dim remote,—
Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West,
‘Tis the Art at the Door that will please the best;
To the end of Time ‘twill be still the same,
For the Earth first laughed when the children came!
CHAPTER IX
1884-1885
‘LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS’—‘MAVOR’S SPELLING-BOOK’—‘DAME WIGGINS
OF LEE’—RUSKIN CORRESPONDENCE—HIS TUITION AND PLANS FOR
CO-OPERATION—INTIMACY WITH MRS. SEVERN AND HER CHILDREN.
The industry of Kate Greenaway during the years 1884 and 1885 added
considerably to the growing list of her works. First there were the two
_Almanacks_, which, save for the enlarged _format_ of that of 1884—an
experiment not repeated—showed a distinct advance on the first.
That for 1884 certainly did not please Ruskin, for he wrote:—
I find Baxter[34] thinks the almanack beautiful! if that’s any
consolation to you—but _I_ divide the figures of it simply into the
Hobblers and the Kickers, see August, March, June, and November for the
hobblers (or shamblers) and the rest for kickers with the one variety of
Straddler in October.
But the public was otherwise-minded and bought over 90,000 of the
combined issues! Then a new experiment was tried in the shape of four
calendars, all for 1884; but these proved a financial failure and
had no successors, and the designs were afterwards for the most part
adapted to Christmas cards and issued by Goodall & Sons. They are only
mentioned here for the sake of completeness, and although they contain
some of Miss Greenaway’s most charming work, they are but trifles by
the side of the more ambitious publications of these two prolific years.
Of these the _Language of Flowers_ first claims attention with an
edition of 19,500 copies. Half of these went to America, which country
henceforth was to prove to K. G. a client even better than England.
This, like the Almanack, failed to please Ruskin, who wrote on Oct. 8th
with his usual directness:—
You are working at present wholly in vain. There is _no_ joy and very,
very little interest in any of these Flower book subjects, and they look
as if you had nothing to paint them with but starch and camomile tea.
The fact is that the book was printed on unsuitable paper and much
effect was thereby lost; still the illustrations, although not always
very apposite, include some of the daintiest and most exquisitely drawn
figures and flowers she ever produced.
Undeterred by Ruskin’s denunciation Miss Greenaway sent a copy of it to
Mrs. Severn with the following pathetic little note:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. ARTHUR SEVERN
11 PEMBERTON GARDENS, HOLLOWAY, N.,
_9th Nov. 1884_.
I’ve been thinking of you so often for days past. I send you my little
book. Mr. Ruskin thinks it very bad. He says he’s ashamed to show it to
any one—I hope it won’t affect you so fearfully. I am very disgusted
myself—_only_ I _don’t_ feel _I am_ so much to blame as the printers,
who have literally blotted every picture out.
But, anyhow, you’ll think I mean well in sending it you, don’t you? And
you—do you feel quite strong and well again now?... Remember, when
there is a chance I might see you, I’d be _very very very_ glad and
delighted.—Yours affectionately,
K. G.
Then came _Kate Greenaway’s Painting-Book_ which, although it consisted
of blocks brought together from _Under the Window_, _Kate Greenaway’s
Birthday Book_, _A Day in a Child’s Life_, _Marigold Garden_, and
_Mother Goose_, had nevertheless a great and deserved success, and
set at least forty thousand children painting away at her delightful
designs.
This was followed by _Mavor’s Spelling-Book_, surely, as now
illustrated by K. G., one of the most inspiring school-books ever
published for children, with the beautifully engraved cuts printed in
brown in the text. Ruskin wrote of it: ‘Spelling Book ever so nice—But
do children really learn to spell like that? I never did.’ To which
it may be added that his own experience is given in _Præterita_, vol.
viii. p. 20 (1900 ed.).
Oddly enough the success of the venture was comparatively small,
only 5,000 copies being called for. But when, seeing that there was
no great demand, the publishers issued the capital letters alone in
a tiny square 48mo volume entitled _Kate Greenaway’s Alphabet_, the
vagaries of book-buying were curiously exemplified by the fact that
the circulation reached the more than respectable total of 24,500
copies.[35] Mr. Evans, with whom the idea of illustrating _Mavor_
originated, proposed that Caldecott should be associated with Kate
Greenaway in the work, but to this, in spite of her great admiration
for her friend, she would on no account consent.
Half the number of the illustrations were engraved on wood as usual by
Mr. Evans. The rest were reproduced by process and, says Mr. Evans,
with characteristic fair-mindedness, neither K. G. nor Caldecott could
at the time say which they considered the more satisfactory. Kate was
much amused and gratified by the notice in the _Athenæum_, which waxed
eloquent, and even facetious, over the book. After comparing the little
designs to those of Stothard, and declaring that under Miss Greenaway’s
guidance three-syllable words become quite easy, it proceeds:
It is quite evident that the artist is not yet equal to four
syllables—at least she has left the section which is devoted to
those monsters without an illustration of any kind. Perhaps she, like
ourselves, believes no boy ever gets to four syllables in _Mavor_, and
thinks it useless to illustrate that stage of learning.
The drawings to _Mavor_ had a further destiny; for several of them
were used, with the addition of colour and in reduced size, to provide
illustrations to the _Almanack_ of 1889, while the _Almanack_ of 1895
(much against Miss Greenaway’s desire) was entirely made up of them.
Very beautiful they looked; but it is more than probable that the
public detected the employment of ‘old matter’ and that the commercial
failure which attended the publication that year was at least the
partial cause for the annual issue of the little work being suspended.
But the most important addition to the output of these years, that
which added largely to the artist’s reputation, was _Marigold Garden_,
in which she was once more author and illustrator in one. For an
expensive book the sales were very large, England taking 6,500, America
7,500, and France 3,500 copies. The charm of the book lies in itself,
in spite of halting verse or summary perspective. Any description of it
here would be inadequate: it must be seen to be fully appreciated.
The year 1885 also saw the publication of _Dame Wiggins of Lea and her
Seven Wonderful Cats. A Humorous Tale. Written principally by a Lady
of Ninety_, edited with additional verses by Ruskin, and with some new
illustrations by Kate Greenaway. These nursery rhymes had first seen
the light in 1823 with the woodcuts coloured by hand. In the present
edition these were facsimiled in outline and left, as Ruskin says in
the preface, for ‘clever children ... to colour in their own way.’ Of
his and K. G.’s part in the republication he says:
I have added the rhymes on the third, fourth, eighth and ninth
pages—the kindness of Miss Greenaway supplying the needful
illustrations. But my rhymes do not ring like the real ones; and I would
not allow Miss Greenaway to subdue the grace of her first sketches to
the formality of the earlier work.
A further edition of the little book was published in 1897 by Mr.
George Allen.
In the letters preceding the publication of _Dame Wiggins_, which by
the way in _Præterita_ Ruskin designates his ‘calf-milk of books on the
lighter side,’ we find several references to K. G.’s illustrations.
In May he writes: ‘Don’t bother yourself with Dame Wiggins—it’s
the cats you’ll break down in.’ But his prophecy proved wrong, for
on July 5 he confesses ‘you never shewed such sense in anything as
in doing those cats’; and again on the 11th, ‘The cats are gone to
be wood-cutted just as they are—they can’t be better’; and again
on the 29th, alluding to a further proposed collaboration: ‘We’ll
do that book together of course—I’ll write a story about perpetual
spring—but—however are you to learn what a lamb’s like? However after
those D. W. cats I feel that nothing’s impossible.’
[Illustration: THE RED BOY.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Charles P. Johnson,
Esq._]
About this time Miss Greenaway for the first and we believe the
only time listened to the voice of the journalist for the purposes
of an article on her art in an American magazine entitled _The
Continent_. Her hatred of publicity was not in any way overcome, but
she felt that as the article was inevitable ‘facts were preferable to
fiction.’ Moreover, by reason of her consent, she was in a position to
impose restrictions, and she made it a cardinal condition that such
particulars as ‘what she takes to eat before sitting down to her work,’
and personalities of every sort, should be rigorously excluded. She
may have been influenced to give certain authoritative information in
consequence of a former experience, when a ‘lady interviewer’ of an
American journal—a lady whom she had declined to receive—published an
‘interview’ that was an invention from beginning to end. Later on Miss
Greenaway met the Editor of the publication and seized the opportunity
to state the facts, when he professed, and doubtless felt, much
indignation at the imposition which had been practised upon him and the
public.
Then also occurred the fishing episode to which allusion has been made
in an early chapter. It is a curious commentary on the fable of the
man and his ass that even Kate Greenaway’s tender and humane designs
could not escape fault-finding on ethical grounds from a hypercritical
admirer of her art.
[Illustration]
‘How is it,’ he wrote, ‘that there are several lovely publications
of yours that I am prevented from treating my little friends to on
account of the fascination of the angling scenes which so often occur
in them?... Do you not think there is no necessity for _encouraging_
children to take pleasure in killing animals?’
He had been foolish enough to object to some such innocent illustration
as that of the little boy fishing, on October 14 of the _Birthday
Book_, whereto is appended a verse for which, by the way, Kate was not
responsible:
What is this boy fishing for?
What does he hope to get?
He hopes to get a very fine fish,
But I think he will get wet.
To this remonstrance she replied to the effect that Providence had
ordained a state of war between man and the lower animals and that we
must take a good many things as we find them.
The Ruskin letters of 1884 are full of interest. Criticism,
appreciation, good-humoured chaff, and sadness, jostle one another
at every turn. A standing joke is K. G.’s supposed jealousy of Miss
Alexander and her exquisite work. In April she had asked for her
autograph, and he writes in fun, for he could not have been serious in
his criticism:—
Much you’d care for one of Miss Alexander’s letters—on ‘principles of
chiaroscuro’ and the like. She’s drawing very badly just now—there’s a
little bonne-bouche for you.
In several letters he returns to the old charge and rallies her:—
Thanks—more than usual—and _much_ more, for the little drawing—an
_effort_ in the right direction! But quite seriously, and all _my_
wishes out of the court, you MUST learn to draw something more of girls
than their necks and arms!! You must go to the seaside, and be resolved
that—if nothing else be pretty—at least the ankles shall be.
Anon he mixes judicious praise and blame, rarely giving her jam without
a pinch of medicine in it.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_Jan. 7th, 1884_].
It’s not ‘horrid bad’ but it is not at all good.
When ARE YOU going to be GOOD and send me a study of anything from
nature—the coalscuttle or the dustpan—or a towel on a clothes
screen—or the hearthrug on the back of a chair.
I’m very cruel, but here’s half a year I’ve been waiting for a bit of
Common sense—!
And I’ve nothing but rain and storm all day—I never saw the place so
dreadful,—but if you’ll only paint me the coalscuttle or the towel it
will be a solace.—Don’t you think you ought to know when you do well
or ill without asking me?—I am very glad to hear of that instinct for
greater things, though.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_April 20th, 1884_].
Yes, I am really very sorry about the sore throat. You had better
take it fairly in hand at once, lie by, and foment and otherwise get
yourself to rights at once. You can’t work while you are ill like this.
But this cloud lady is very lovely, and you really MUST draw _her_
again for me without any clothes, because you’ve suggested a perfect
coalheaver’s leg, which I can’t think you meant! and you _must_ draw
your figures now undraped for a while—Nobody wants anatomy,—but you
can’t get on without Form.
I’ll send her back to have her gown taken off as soon as you’re
able to work again, meantime I’ve sent you two photographs from
Francesca[36]—only don’t show them about, because I want them not to be
seen till my text is ready.
Again on May 1st, he writes:—
Indeed the drawing is lovely, beyond all thanks or believableness or
conceivableness and gives me boundless pleasure, and all sorts of hope
of a wonderful future for you. But it is of no use to ask me how things
are to stand out. You never had any trouble in making them do so when
you had power of colour enough—but you can’t make these tender lines
stand out, unless you finished the whole in that key, and that ought
only to be done of the real size. What you ABSOLUTELY need is a quantity
of practice from things as they _are_—and hitherto you have ABSOLUTELY
refused ever to draw any of them so.
On July 6th, referring to an illustration she is engaged on for
_Marigold Garden_, he adds instruction to praise:
You’re a good girl to draw that leaf. The four princesses in green
tower[37] will be delightful but the _first thing_ you have to do in
this leafy world is to learn to paint a leaf green, of its full size, at
one blow, as a fresco painter does it on a background, with the loaded
brush opening by pressure to the leaf’s full breadth and closing to its
point.
Again on the 9th:—
I knew you could do it, if you only would. That’s been what’s making me
so what you call angry lately. This is as good as well can be. Only,
remember brown is only to be used for actual earth, and where plants
grow close to it or for brown dark leaves etc., not as shadow. And
there’s already more delineation than I at present want you to spend
time in.
And on the 25th he continues his instruction:—
The ivy is very beautiful and you have taken no end of useful trouble
with it, but the colour is vapid and the leaves too shiny. Shine is
always vulgar except on hair and water—it spoils leaves as much as it
does flesh—and even jewels are better without it. I shall return you
this study which you will find very useful and I’ve sent you two more
sods to-day, more to be enjoyed than painted—if you like to do a bit of
one, well and good.
I am glad to hear of the oil work—but it is winter work not summer. I
can’t think how you can bear to spoil summer air with it.
On October 18, he says:—
You must like Turner as soon as you see landscape completely. His
affectations—or prejudices, I do not wish or expect you to like—any
more than I should have expected him to like roses drawn like truffles.
Then he finds that he has been expecting too much, counting on physical
powers with which Kate has not been endowed.
I have not enough allowed for your being nearsighted but shall like to
see what you do see. At any rate near or far off, study of the relation
of moss[38] is indispensable.
Those hot colours of flowers are very lovely—you can do as many as you
like—only not dull things mixed with Naples yellow.
Look well at the foot of Correggio’s Venus, and at the weeds in
Mantegna’s foreground.
For the same reason Ruskin has more ‘sods’ cut and packed off to her to
paint.
Not to tease you—but they’ll go on growing and being pleasant
companions. As regards colour, no one of course sees it quite rightly.
We have all our flaws and prejudices of sight, only, be convinced there
is a RIGHT, mathematically commensurable with nature, and you will soon
get to care for no ‘opinions,’ but feel that you have become daily more
true.
So she promptly sets to work to paint one of the sods, and he is so
delighted that he flashes off a telegram—
The sod is quite lovely, the best bit of groundwork I ever got done, so
many thanks, but don’t tire yourself so again.
On great occasions, he gives her unqualified praise, which unqualified
praise it may be noted not infrequently coincides with an improved
condition in his health.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
_11th. Feb., 84._
I did not answer your question which of the girlies I liked best because
it was unanswerable, yet something is to be said anent it.
Of course the Queen of them all is the little one in front—but she’s
just a month or six weeks too young for _me_. Then there’s the staff
bearer on the right (—the left, as they come) turning round!!!—but
she’s just three days and a minute or two too _old_ for me. Then
there’s the divine one with the dark hair, and the beatific one with
the brown,—but I think _they_’ve both got lovers already and have only
come to please the rest, and wouldn’t be mine if I prayed them ever
so. Then there is the little led beauty who is ruby and diamond in
one,—but—but,—not quite tall enough, again—I think the wisest choice
will be the pale one between the beatific and the divine!
But they’re all ineffable!—I think you never did a more marvellous
piece of beauty and it’s a treasure to me like a caught dream.
I wonder how you can bear to think of drawing _me_—and how you mean to
do it!
Sitting always tires me a good deal, but perhaps John will let me lie
down in his room for a quarter of an hour before tea.
Of this portrait he writes later in an undated letter of the same
year:—
I was with some saucy girls yesterday and I was saying how proud I was
to have my portrait drawn by you—but only I had been so sleepy!
If the portrait was ever done, there is now no trace of it.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _20th, July_ [_1884_]
(an entirely cloudless morning and I wonderfully well).
I am more cheered and helped by your success in this drawing than by
anything that has happened to me for years;—it is what I have been
praying and preaching to everybody and _never_ could get done!
I was nearly certain the power was in you, but never thought it would
come out at a single true effort!
—The idea of your not seeing chiaroscuro!—the ins and outs of these
leaves are the most rightly intricate and deep I ever saw—and the fern
drawing at the one stroke is marvellous.
It’s a short post this morning and I’ve a lot to get ready for it—but
I’ve such lovely plans in my head for all you say in your last two
letters—And I’ll forgive you the pig!—but we must draw dogs a little
better. And we must learn just the rudiments of perspective—and
draw feet and ankles,—and,—a little above,—and purple and
blue things—and—the Sun not like a drop of sealing wax,—and
then—Well,—we’ll do all that first, won’t we?
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_July 22nd, 1884_].
The little hippopotamus with the curly tail _is_ lovely, and the
explosive sun promises a lovely day, and it is so _very_ joyful news to
me that you like doing trees and see them all leaves and are going to do
feet and ankles and be so good. There’s no saying what wonderful things
you may do, all in an instant, when once you’ve fought your way through
the strait gate. And you will have the joy of delighting many more
people beside me; and of doing more good than any English artist ever
yet did. And I’ll put _you_ in some of my books soon, as well as Miss A.
and very thankfully.
But you must have a few more sods, you know.
One of the ‘lovely plans’ he has in his head is ‘a book on botany
for you and me to do together—you do the plates and I the text—a
hand-book of field botany. It will be such a rest for you and such a
help for—everybody!—chiefly me.’
But it comes to nothing, for he finds that some one has taken the wind
out of their sails and writes on Easter Day of the following year:—
Something less strong than the Lamp-post. But I am ever so much more
strong....
But oh, we’re both cut out with our flower book—Here’s a perfect
primrose of a clergyman brought out such a book of flowers! beats us all
to sticks—buds and roots. I’ve got to write to him instantly and it’s
short post.
Another plan is to paint with her ‘some things at Brantwood like Luca
and the Old Masters—and cut out those dab and dash people. I felt when
I came out of the Academy as if my coat must be all over splashes.’
[Illustration: MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
If the Academy did not please, the Grosvenor of that year had no
better fortune, for on May 3 he writes:—
I was so curious to see those Grosvenor pictures that I went in with
Joan yesterday and got a glimpse.—The only picture there worth looking
at is Millais’ Lorne,[39] and his straddling girl is a fright,[40] and
his Lady Campbell[41] a horror.—As for that somebody in the sea,[42]
what did I tell you about model drawing?—People are getting absolutely
brutified by it. There’s another nearly as bad in the Suffolk St.[43]
In the great mediæval times, painters could draw people dressed or
undressed just as they chose—without the smallest weakness, shame, or
conceit. Now, there is scarcely a foolish or bad feeling in one’s head
or body, that isn’t made worse in the model-room. I scratched nearly
every picture through in my catalogue yesterday.
Another plan was that they should both set to work to paint ‘a purple
kingfisher.’
Couldn’t you go to Mr. Fletcher and ask him to introduce you to Dr.
Gunther, and ask Dr. Gunther to show you an Abyssinian kingfisher, and
give you any one you like to draw out in a good light?
Sometimes Ruskin is betrayed into writing about himself. For example on
March 20th, from Brantwood, when for the time being not only all the
world seems wrong but in Professor Clifford’s poignant words even ‘The
Great Companion’ seems dead:
I didn’t tell you if I was well—I’m not: nor have I been for some
time,—a very steady gloom on me; not stomach depression but the
sadness of deliberately preparing for the close of life—drawing in, or
giving up, all one’s plans—thinking of one’s beloved places, I shall
never be there again—and so on. A great deal of the time I _have_
lost in the mere friction of life—scarcely any sense of Peace,—And
no hope of any life to come. I forget it all more in the theatre than
anywhere—cathedrals are no good any more!
Mind you go and see Claudian![44]
And on Dec. 1st, from Oxford:—
I’ve been in a hard battle here these eight weeks,—the atheistic
scientists all against me, and the young men careless and everything
going wrong—so that I have had to fight with sadness and anger in
all my work. My last lecture is to be given to-morrow but I have been
feeling more tired in this cold weather, and the correspondence is
terrible. I have never a moment to draw or do anything I like—except
throw myself on my bed and rest, or listen to any good music if I can
get it quietly.
From among his more general and less didactic epistles three may be
given as examples.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _23 Jan. /84_.
... You must try to like the Alexanders—for they are Heaven’s own
doing—as much as Heaven ever allows to be seen of it.
I ought to be ‘good’ about everything, for good people love me,—and
have loved.
Here is the strangest thing has come to me to-day.
L——[45] was—I have told you have not I—a saint in her way,—and was
constant in the habit of prayer.
One evening—I may have told you this before, but it is better to have
it in writing,—being out at a friend’s house where there were a good
many people—more or less known to her and to each other—one coming in
told suddenly that L—— ‘s chief girl friend (she knew before of her
illness) was at the point of death.
There was a clergyman at the party and L—— asked him to pray for her
friend—but he was taken aback being among all the young people, said he
could not.—‘Then’—said L——, (only 18 at that time) ‘_I_ must.’—She
made the whole company kneel down—and prayed so that they _could_ not
but join with her.
And the girl was saved. Afterwards I used to see her, often enough. She
married, to L—— ‘s great delight—a Highland religious squire—and she
with her husband came to see me here, with their two children, boy and
girl,—three years ago. Since then the children have remembered me, and
sent me a card, for themselves at Christmas, this last year, to which
I returned a letter of thanks addressed to D—— and F——. My letter
found little F—— on her death-bed. Her Father writes to me—yesterday,
‘I think you will be pleased to know that your letter addressed to D——
and F—— gave my darling in her pain a bright smile.’—And he encloses
to me an _envelope_ which F—— had addressed to me in return. But
the letter—never, and yet—she has written one she knew not. For the
envelope is written in L—— ‘s hand! I could not tell the difference
except in the letter J. of the beginning.
Is not this a pretty little story?
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_March 3rd, 1884_].
No wonder I couldn’t understand about the letters—here’s one enclosed
which ought to have been at Witley almost in time to receive you and has
lain in my unanswered letter heap till an hour ago!
I’m so delighted about your beginning to like purple and blue flowers,
though it’s only for my sake. Not that I’m not proud of being able to
make you like things!...
I think flowers in _my_ order of liking would come nearly like this,
Wild rose
Alpine rose
Alpine gentian
White Lily
Purple Flag
Purple convolvulus
Carnation—all the tribe
Pansy, all the tribe
Thistle—all the tribe
Daisy and Hyacinth
Snowdrop and Crocus
I only put the last so low because they have such an unfair advantage
over all the rest in coming first,—and of course I’ve some out of the
way pets like the oxalis and anagallis but then _they_ have an unfair
advantage in always growing in pretty places. The wood anemone should
go with the daisy, and the ‘Blossoms’ apple and almond—hawthorn and
cherry, have of course a separate queendom.
I must really go and look for that lovely girl you gave me with basket
of pansies!
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_March 22nd, 1884_].
What a nice letter—and I’m so pleased that your Father was surprised,
and that Johnnie liked ‘Unto This Last’—and that you think you’ll
like some more. I think I tired myself with trying to draw your little
girlie yesterday—she’s _so_ hard, and I’m as lazy to-day as ever I
can be, and don’t care for anything but a French Novel, about police!
And I’m ashamed to read it at 3 in the afternoon—and it’s wet—and
I can’t do St. George’s accounts—and I should like some tea and
muffins—and—there are no muffins in Coniston.... I feel so listless
because there’s no time left now to do anything.
Oh dear, think how happy you are with all that power of drawing—and
ages to come to work in and paint Floras and Norahs and Fairies and
Mary’s and Goddesses and—bodices—oh me, when will you do me one
without any?
I must take to my French novel, there’s no help for it—Mercy on us, and
it’s two hours to tea-time! and the room so quiet, and all my books and
things about me—and I can’t do a thing—
Wouldn’t you like a photograph of me like that?
No doubt, it is difficult to help feeling at times that Ruskin’s
admiration for K. G. partakes too much of hyperbole. And yet we cannot
but confess that as he was honest in welcoming the Pre-Raphaelites so
was he honest in his greeting of her. He was weary of the artificial
pedantry of those who had elaborated an artistic code ‘with titles and
sub-titles applicable to every form of [art] and tyrannous over every
mode of sentiment,’ and he acclaimed an exquisite small voice, which
sang its little song in its own sweet tone of purity and in its own
tender unconventional way. What he meant was in no wise that she was
cleverer than other people. He over and over again tells her one way or
another that she was no great executant. But she had that rarer gift of
seeing old things through new eyes and giving artistic expression with
curious and delightful success to these newer and fresher views. And as
Ruskin was by nature vehement and by practice a controversialist, he
could scarcely resist being led from time to time into italicizing his
words and emphasizing his verdicts.
[Illustration: A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL FOUR-PAGE CHILD STORY
_Written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway for Miss Violet Severn, now
in Miss Severn’s possession._]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL FOUR-PAGE CHILD STORY
_Written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway for Miss Violet Severn, now
in Miss Severn’s possession._]
In the meanwhile the warmest affection had ripened between Mr. Ruskin’s
cousin and adopted daughter, Mrs. Arthur Severn, and Kate Greenaway.
Like most others, Kate had been fascinated by the charm, goodness, and
ability of Mrs. Severn; and so enlisted her sympathy that when her
friend fell ill, Kate opened her heart to her, like a child:—
11 PEMBERTON GARDENS, HOLLOWAY, N.,
Wednesday [_10 Dec. 1884_].
Dearest Mrs. Severn,—
Poor Dear. I’m so sorry. I hope it will be as short in staying as it
seems severe.
I’m so sorry.
I think I will put off coming till next week, for then, I hope, I’ll be
stronger. I am very unwell again to-day—so absurdly weak.
And you, too, would not be well enough to see me this week. It is such
hard work, isn’t it, talking when you don’t feel well. Not that I can or
will say I felt that with regard to you, you always seem so cheerful and
comforting—that you’d do me good at any time. Poor Dear.
But I will write again, and I’ll hope to see you quite recovered. My
mother is very ill, too, with a bad cold and cough.
Good-bye. How sweet of you to write to me at all, feeling so ill. I hope
you’re feeling better this morning. With, Dearest, lots of love, Your
affectionate, K. G.
I’m _very, very, very sorry_.
Poor Dear.
A little later on when Mrs. Severn’s young sons were about to be sent
to their first boarding school, Kate sent a characteristic note of
sympathy:—
My dearest Mrs. Severn— ... I wonder if I shall see you to-morrow at
the R. A. I shall be there till nearly 4—but I remember. Your boys
are going to-morrow. I hope you won’t feel it dreadfully. But I should
think they will be happy there. It is so much nicer than quite a strange
school and strange people. Please feel they will be very happy.... Your
very affectionate
K. G.
And for Mrs. Severn’s little daughter, Violet, Kate Greenaway composed
the doleful history of a naughty girl, such as most delights the mind
of a tiny child. That characteristic booklet, delightfully sketched
in pencil and colour, Miss Violet Severn has kindly allowed to be
reproduced here.
CHAPTER X
1885 AND 1886
THE MOVE TO FROGNAL—RUSKIN: LETTERS AND CONFIDENCES, PRAISE AND BLAME,
HIS ILLNESS—MRS. ALLINGHAM
On Monday, February 16th, 1885, Miss Greenaway moved to Frognal, into
the house designed for her by Mr. Norman Shaw, her home until her
death. Of her experiences as a house-builder she has left no record,
and Mr. Norman Shaw kept none of her letters. As there were so few
neighbouring houses at the time the architect suggested, and as some
number was necessary, the adoption of ‘50,’ for it was unlikely that a
higher number would eventually be reached. When in due time the other
plots were filled up, Miss Greenaway’s house became No. 39, and to that
it was altered. This detail, trivial as it is, is mentioned, as the
reader might be misled into believing that Miss Greenaway had at some
unspecified time changed her Hampstead home.
The scheme did not commend itself to Ruskin. On the 1st of the previous
October he had written from Kenmure Castle:—
I could not get your dainty letter until to-day. The two sweeties in
it are indeed beautiful, and only need to be painted larger to become
a most glorious picture. I must stand over you while you paint them
again with a big brush. But I am aghast at the house at Hampstead and
quite resolved that you _shan’t_ live in London. Of course if you had
stayed at Scarborough you would have begun drawing the children at the
shore, and that was just what I wanted.—But wait till I come and talk
to you—I’ll make your life a burden to you if you live in London! If
you had come to Norwood instead of Hampstead, there would have been some
sense in it—I’ve no patience with you.
And you must give up drawing round hats. It’s the hats that always save
you from having to do a background—and I’m not going to be put off any
more.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY’S HOME, 39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD.
_Designed for Kate Greenaway by R. Norman Shaw, R.A._]
Just prior to the move Ruskin wrote:—
You’re not going to call your house a Villa!?—Could you call it Kate’s
State—or Kitty’s Green—or Katherine’s Nest,—or Brownie’s Cell—or
Camomile Court—or Lassie’s Leisure—or the Romp’s Rest—or—something
of that sort?
And again:—
I will take real care about the addresses—but I really must
have a pretty one for the New House—you don’t suppose I’m going
to write Frognal every day of my life—It might as well be
Dognal—Hognal—Lognal—I won’t. If it is to be I’ll have it printed!!!
But Kate saved him the trouble, for thenceforward she kept him supplied
with sheaves of envelopes addressed to herself in her own handwriting.
The day before the actual flitting he took care to write a letter to
welcome her in the new house.
BRANTWOOD, _15 February 1885_.
I hope you are beginning by this time in the afternoon to be very happy
in thinking you’re really at home on the Hill, now,—and that you will
find all the drawers slide nicely, corners fit and firesides cosy, and
that the flowers are behaving prettily, and the chimnies—draw—as well
as you.—That’s a new pun, all my own—only think! It isn’t a very
complimentary one—but indeed—the first thing to be seriously thought
of in a new house is chimnies,—one can knock windows out—or partitions
down—build out oriels—and throw up turrets—but never make a chimney
go that don’t choose.
Anyhow—I am glad you are settled somewhere—and that I shan’t have my
letters to direct nobody knows where.—And let us bid, both, farewell
to hollow ways, that lead only to disappointment—and know what we’re
about,—and not think truths teazing, but enjoy each other’s sympathy
and admiration—and think always—how nice we are!
No sooner was she settled than she began to receive uninvited
attentions. On the 4th March she wrote to Mrs. Severn:—
There was a horrid man drawing the outside [of the house] all day. So I
suppose he is cribbing Mr. Shaw’s design, and going to put my house up
somewhere else, who knows where.
Her friends were not all entirely satisfied with it. On 25th March she
wrote:—
My dearest Mrs. Severn,—
Mr. Locker came to see this new studio yesterday. He said, ‘What a
frightful _falling off_ from the _old one_.’ Isn’t that sad?—but I fear
true.
But she was pleased to think that although it was not so pretty as her
last studio, it was larger, lighter, and altogether more practical.
The household included Kate’s father and mother and her brother, John
Greenaway. Mr. Greenaway was still practising as a wood-engraver, with
an office in the City; Mr. John Greenaway was the sub-editor of the
_Journal of the Chemical Society_, a post he holds at the present time;
while Mrs. Greenaway managed the domestic affairs. Of the routine of
Miss Greenaway’s life at this time Mr. John Greenaway writes:—
Of my sister at work, we saw very little. She very wisely made it a
fixed rule that, during working hours, no one should come into the
studio save on matters of urgency. Her great working time was the
morning, so she was always an early riser and finished breakfast by
eight o’clock. Her most important work was done between then and
luncheon time (1 o’clock). Practically she never went out in the
morning. After luncheon she usually worked for an hour or two, unless
she was going out anywhere for the afternoon; and then went for a walk
on the Heath, and came back to tea. The evenings up to eight o’clock,
when we had a meal that was a sort of compromise between dinner and
supper, were spent in letter-writing, making dresses for models,
occasionally working out schemes and rough sketches for projected books
and such-like things; but all finished work was done in the morning or
afternoon. In the summer too, a good deal of this time was spent in the
garden seeing to her flowers. After supper she generally lay on a sofa
and read until she went to bed at about 10 o’clock.
She could not stand late hours and seldom went out in the evening. For
the same reason she very seldom dined out. Tea-time was always her time
for going out to see friends, or for them to see her.
[Illustration: TEA-ROOM LEADING OUT FROM THE STUDIO, 39, FROGNAL,
HAMPSTEAD.]
The change of abode was a great success; but in Miss Greenaway’s
correspondence we have at this period frequent references to domestic
worries and minor troubles. For instance, she writes to Miss Evans:—
It is quite tragic about all your servants going. Have you got a cook
yet? You get a better chance of hearing something about them before you
engage them than we do.
I almost HATE ours! They pretended they could do such a lot. You would
have thought that _one_ was used to distinguished beings the way she
went on. _We_ felt quite vulgar. She spoke of the puddings as sweets
and when I tried to convey to her mind that in our house they were
called puddings she said, ‘Ah! I see! you prefer comfort to style!’
which is quite true, I do—only I don’t get it at her hands, and as for
_style_!—unless it consists in a nice coating of dirt over everything,
I don’t know where that is either. I hope your fate won’t be such.
The work of 1885 has been described in the last chapter. It only
remains to complete the year’s record by extracts from Ruskin’s
letters, which in consequence of another severe illness break off
abruptly on May the 22nd.
He had now retired into seclusion at Brantwood, where he was as happy
as failing health would permit in the company of Mrs. Arthur Severn,
the ‘Joan’ of the letters, and her husband and family who lived with
him.
Now it was that he set to work on that remarkable fragment of
autobiography published at intervals under the title of _Præterita_,
to which allusion has already been made; and he speaks of it in the
following extracts from letters of this period:—
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _4th, Jan._ (1885).
It was nice hearing of your being made such a grand Lioness of, at the
tea—and of people’s praising me to you because they had found out you
liked it—and of Lady Airlie and old times.
... I’ve begun my autobiography—it will be so dull!, and so meek!!—you
never did!
I write a little bit every morning and am going to label old things it
refers to—little drawings and printings and the like. I’m not going to
talk of anybody more disagreeable than myself—so there will be nothing
for people to snap and growl at. What shall I say about people who I
think liked me? that they were very foolish?
I got a dainty little letter from my fifteener to-day, and have felt a
little better ever since. She’s at the seaside and says there’s nothing
on the shore—I’ve told her to look—and that I should like to write the
‘Natural History of a dull Beach.’
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _7th, Jan. 1885_.
The auto won’t be a pretty book at all, but merely an account of the
business and general meaning of my life. As I work at it every morning,
(about half an hour only) I have very bitter feelings about the waste
of years and years in merely looking at things—all I’ve got to say
is—I went there—and saw—that. But did nothing. If only I had gone on
drawing plants—or clouds—or—.
He is still full of interest in her work, unsparing of criticism and
reproof where he considers them needful. On Jan. 2nd:
You are always straining after a fancy instead of doing the thing as it
is. Never mind its being pretty or ugly, but get as much as you can of
the facts in a few minutes and you will find strength and ease and new
fancy and new right coming all together.
On Jan. 29th:—
I think the reason Miss A.[46] puzzles you is that you never make quite
a sincere study, you are always making a pretence of striving for an
ideal.
I want you to learn nature perfectly—then Miss A. will not puzzle
you—though you will do quite different things. I am so glad you like
Holbein.
And on Jan. 4th:—
I’m very glad you want to paint like Gainsborough.
But you must not try for it—He is inimitable, and yet a bad master.
Keep steadily to deep colour and Carpaccio—with white porcelain and
Luca—You may try a Gainsborough every now and then for play.
But he can also be unstinting of praise. On Feb. 8th:—
This is quite the most beautiful and delightful drawing you’ve ever
given me, and I accept it with the more joy that it shows me all your
powers are in the utmost fineness and fulness, and that you are steadily
gaining in all that is best—and indeed will do many things—heaven
sparing you and keeping your heart in peace,—more than [have] ever yet
been seen in all human dreams.
[Illustration: THE STUDIO, 39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD.]
On April 7th:—
Ah! just wait till you see! _I’m_ quite crushed!—Never knew such pink
and blue could be found in Boxes—and not a touch of camomile anywhere!
and not a single leaf in an attitude!
Well—those anemones are a thing to tell of! What a heavenly place
London might be—if there was nobody in it.
Yes, you SHALL draw the tulip this time—if there’s a bit of possible
tulip in you. I have my doubts!
And on May 1st:—
I never was so much pleased with any drawing yet as with this, for it
is complete in _idea_, and might become a consummate picture, with very
little effort more, nor were ever faces more lovely than those of the
central girl and the one on her right hand. You must paint me this some
day—in Mays to come, when you’re doing all sorts of lovely things at
Brantwood, and the books give you no more trouble and yet bring you in
showers of gold like the celandines.
And I’ll try not to tease. It’s too sweet of you doing this lovely thing
for me.
And—what pleases me best of all’s the beauty of the rhyme. It is higher
in rhythmic power and quality than anything I’ve read of yours, and is
in the entirely best _style_ of poetry.—I believe the half of your
power is not shown yet.
You have given me a very happy May-day.
Suddenly we get a glimpse of his tender feeling for, and pretty
sympathy with, her beloved flower:—
Oxalis out everywhere—wanting to be drawn. They say they’d like to feel
how it feels, for they never were drawn in their lives.
For a moment he returns, on July 3rd, to the old subject of drawing
from the nude and incidentally shows that he looks upon her as an
exception to what he considers should be the general rule:—
What _you_ have first to do is to learn to draw ankles and feet because
you are one of the instances the enemy have of the necessity of the nude.
The moment you have any leisure for study—feet—feet—and arms. No more
shoes, come what will of it.—To the seashore—as soon as may be—Until
you come to Brant [_i.e._ Brantwood].
And every now and again Ruskin shows his unabated enthusiasm for new
knowledge and his gusto for new studies:—
... Please ask Johnnie what colour frozen hydrogen is, and if
transparent or opaque. The rascally chemistry book gives me six pages
of bad drawings of machines,—and supplies me with a picture—to aid my
imagination—of a man in badly made breeches turning a wheel!—but does
not tell me whether even liquid hydrogen is transparent or not,—they
only say it is ‘steel-blue.’
On July 26:—
This has been a very bright day to me, not least in the thoughts of
this—but in other ways very fortunate and helpful,—I’ve found out why
clouds float, for one thing!!!—and think what a big thing _that_ is!
In reply to Kate’s request for information on the cloud discovery he
writes on July 28th:—
Clouds float because the particles of water in them get warmed by the
sun, and warm the air in the little holes between them—then that air
expands and carries them up. When they cool it comes down and then they
stick together and come down altogether.
But Miss Greenaway was not yet satisfied, so to appease her curiosity
he makes further answer on July 29th:—
Clouds are warmer or colder according to the general temperature of the
air—but always enable the sun to warm the air within them, in the fine
weather when they float high. I have yet to learn all about the wet
weather on this new condition myself.
The following letters of the year speak for themselves:—
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _15 Jan. 85_.
You say in one of—four!—unanswered [letters], you wonder how far I see
you as you see yourself? No one sees us as we see ourselves—all that
first concerns us must be the care that we do see ourselves as far as
possible rightly.
In general, young people (and children, like you) know very little of
themselves; yet _something_ that nobody else can know. _My_ knowledge of
people is extremely limited, continually mistaken—and what is founded
on experience, chiefly of young girls,—and this is nearly useless in
your case, for you are mixed child and woman,—and therefore extremely
puzzling to me.
But I think you may safely conclude that—putting aside the artistic
power which is unique in its way, the rest of you will probably be
seen more truly by an old man of 65, which is about my age, than by
yourself—at almost any age you ever come to.
I note with sorrow that the weather bothers you. So it does me—but when
the pretty times come, _you_ can enjoy them, _I_ can’t.
Though I do a little like to see snow against blue sky still—to-day
there’s plenty of both....
You and your publishers are both and all geese.—You put as much
work into that Language of Flowers as would have served three years
bookmaking if you had only drawn boldly, coloured truly, and given 6
for 60 pages. The public will always pay a shilling for a penny’s worth
of what it likes,—it won’t pay a penny for a pound’s worth of camomile
tea. _You_ draw—let _me_ colour next time!
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _19 Jan. 85_.
The book I send to-day is of course much more completed in shade than
your outlines ever need, or ought to be, but I believe you would find
extreme benefit in getting into the habit of studying from nature with
the pen point in this manner and forcing yourself to complete the study
of a head, cap, hair and all—whether it succeeded or not to your mind,
in the time you now give to draw the profile of lips and chin.
You never need fear losing refinement,—you would gain steadily in
fancy, knowledge and power of expression of solid form, and complex
character. Note especially in these drawings that their expressional
power depends on the rightness, not the delicacy of their lines, and
is itself most subtle where _they_ are most forcible. In the recording
angels, pages 22, 23, the face of 23 is beautiful because its lines
are distinct—22 fails wholly because the faint proof of the plate has
dimmed them.
Tell me what the publishers ‘propose’ now, that I may sympathise in your
indignation—and ‘propose’ something very different.
I can scarcely conceive any sale paying the expenses of such a book as
the Language of Flowers—but think you could produce one easily with the
original outlay of—say at the outsidest, £500, which you would sell
50,000 of at a shilling each in a month.
Tell me how you like this little head and tail piece herewith. I’m going
to use them for a little separate pamphlet on schools.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
¼ past two P.M. _13 Feb. 85._ BRANTWOOD.
Am I busy? Well—you shall just hear what I’ve done to-day.
7½ past, Coffee. Read Northcote’s conversations marking extracts for
lecture.
½ 7-8. Dress.
8½ past, Write two pages of autobiography.
½ past 8¼ 9. Lesson to Jane Anne on spelling and aspiration. Advise
her to get out of the habit of spelling at, hat.
¼ 9-half past. Correct press of chapter of Modern Painters.
½ 9½ 10. Breakfast—read letters—devise answers to smash a
bookseller, and please an evangelical clergyman—also to make Kate
understand what I’m about and put Joan’s mind at ease....
Wished I had been at the Circus. Tried to fancy Clemmie ‘all eyes.’
Thought a little mouth and neck might be as well besides. Pulled grape
hyacinth out of box, and put it in water. Why isn’t it blue?
½ 10. Set to work again. Finished revise of M. P. chapter. Then took
up Miss Alex. next number. Fitted pages etc. Wrote to Miss A. to advise
her of proof coming.
Wrote to Clergyman and Joan and smashed bookseller.
½ 12. Examined chess game by correspondence. Sent enemy a move. Don’t
think she’s much chance left.
1. Looked out some crystals, ‘Irish Diamonds’ for school at Cork.
Meditated on enclosed mistress’ and pupils’ letters—still to be
answered before resting—Query, how?
¼ past one. Lunch. Peasoup.
¼ to two. Meditate letter to Colonel Brackenbury on the Bride of
Abydos. Meditate what’s to be said to K.
2. Baxter comes in—receives directions for manifold parcels and Irish
diamonds—think I may as well write this, thus. Wild rainy day. Wrote
Col. Brackenbury while your ink was drying to turn leaves—now for Irish
Governess,—and my mineralogist—and that’s all!
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
WHIT-BLACK MONDAY, 85
[_May 26_, LONDON].
I was down to very low tide to-day, and am still, but partly rested,
still my head not serving me,—the driving about town continually tires
me fearfully,—then I get vexed to be tired—then I can’t eat because
I’m vexed—then I can’t sleep and so it goes on. I’ve been thinking
rather sorrowfully over the Marigold Garden, which is no garden, but
a mystification—the rather that I saw a real marigold garden at Mr.
Hooper’s the wood engraver’s on Thursday and was amazed. And I mourn
over your not showing me things till it’s too late to do anything less,
or more.
[Illustration: THE CHERRY WOMAN.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
I’m at the saddest part of my autobiography—and think extremely little
of myself—then and now—I was sulky and quarrelled with all life—just
because I couldn’t get the one thing I chose to fancy.—_Now_—I can get
nothing I fancy—all the world ebbing away, and the only question for me
now—What next?
If you could only change souls with me for five minutes!—What a wise
Kate you would be, when you got your own fanciful one back again.
The melancholy tone of the last letter was a pathetic prelude to the
very serious illness of this year, of which we find in her laconic
diary the following unusually concise entries:—
July 31. He is much worse to-day.
Aug. 11. Still as ill.
” 13. No change yet, still so quiet.
” 14. Slightly better.
” 15. Still better.
” 19. Still better and downstairs.
” 24. Still getting better but so slowly.
” 25. Still better.
” 26. First drive.
” 28. Out in garden alone.
By January of the next year (1886) Mr. Ruskin had sufficiently
recovered to resume work on his autobiography and wrote on the 22nd:—
I am so very thankful you like this eighth number so much, for I was
afraid it would begin to shock people. I have great pleasure in the
thing myself—it is so much easier and simpler to say things face to
face like that, than as an author. The ninth has come out very prettily,
I think—
Again on the 27th:—
I am so very very glad you like Præterita—for it is—as you say—the
‘natural’ me—only of course peeled carefully—It is different from what
else I write because—you know—I seldom have had to describe any but
heroic—or evil—characters—and this water-cress character is so much
easier to do—and credible and tasteable by everybody’s own lips.
And on Feb. 23rd:—
It _is_ lovely of you thinking of illustrating the life—I am greatly
set up in the thought of it. But wait a while. I hope it will be all
more or less graceful. But I fear it will not be cheerful enough. I’ll
try and keep it as Katish as—the _very_ truth can be.
Clotilde is still living, (I believe)—Baronne Du Quesne,—a managing
châtelaine in mid-France.
On March 30 he is still insistent with criticism:—
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
I can only answer to-day the important question about the green
lady—‘You mean she doesn’t stand right?’
—My dear, I mean much worse than that. I mean there’s nothing of her
to stand with! She has no waist—no thighs—no legs—no feet.—There’s
nothing under the dress at all.... You recollect I hope that when you
were here, I told you you had never _drawn_ a bit of drapery in your
life.
When you are inclined to try to do so—go and copy as well as you can a
bit of St. Jerome’s in the Nat. Gall.—and copy a bit of photograph—if
you are ashamed to paint in the gallery, and send it me.
I gave you a task to do at the same time—which you never did—but
went and gathered my best cherries instead—which I wanted for my own
eating—and expected me to be pleased with your trying to paint them!
But soon she is made happier by unqualified praise:—
You never did anything more lovely than the little flowers to the
poem—and the poem itself is most lovely in its outflow from the heart.
I am very thankful to have set the heart free again—and I hope that
your great genius will soon have joy in its own power.
This year Ruskin was occupying much of his leisure by working on
drawings which he had made in early life. Beginning by sending them to
K. G. for criticism, he ended by insisting on her keeping for herself
one out of every ten, finding much amusement in guessing which would
be her choice week by week. The whole thing was a pretty contest in
generosity between the great critic and his devoted admirer.
On May 21 he writes:—
If you only knew the delight it is to me to send either you or Johnnie
anything that you like! But—not to worry you with the thought of their
coming out of my drawers, I shall send Johnnie some only to look at and
send back at leisure.—
You’re a nice Katie—you—to talk of generosity—after giving me about
£2000 worth of drawings as if they were leaves off the trees.
And on June 8:—
You cannot think what a real comfort and help it is to me that you see
anything in my drawings. They are all such mere hints of what I want to
do, or syllables of what I saw, that I never think—or at least never
thought, they could give the least pleasure to any one but myself—and
that you—especially who draw so clearly, should understand the confused
scratches of them is very wonderful and joyful to me.
I had fixed on the road through the water for you, out of that lot in
my own mind;—it _is_ like you, and it’s so nice that you found it
out,—and that you like the hazy castle of Annecy too. But it shall be
Abingdon this time—It will be very amusing to me to see which you like,
out of each ten; but I think I shall know now pretty well.
Ruskin is still full of schemes of collaboration which, in his opinion,
will draw out her best powers so that her gifts may be made more useful
to others.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _27 April 86_.
It has been a perfect and thrice lovely April morning—absolutely calm,
with dew on fields, and the wood anemones full out everywhere: and now
coming in, before breakfast, I get your delicious letter about Beauty
and the Beast,—I am so very thankful that you like it so—and you will
do it. For I want intensely to bring one out for you—_your_ book—I
your publisher, charging you printing and paper only. Hitherto I’m sure
your father and Johnnie must think I’ve been simply swindling you out of
your best drawings and—a good deal more.
But now I want you to choose me the purest old form of the story—to
do—such illustrations as you feel like doing.—Pencil sketch put in at
ease. Then—separately, a quite severe ink line—cheaply and without
error cuttable—with no bother to either of us,—and so much plain shade
as you like. To be published without colour, octavo, but with design
for a grand hand-coloured quarto edition afterwards. I’ll write a
preface—and perhaps with your help, venture on an additional incident
or two?
Yesterday was lovely too—and I couldn’t sit down to my letters—nor get
the book sent.
It is about Sir Philip Sidney and an older friend of his at
Vienna—mostly in letters.[47] Read only what you like—there’s lots
of entirely useless politics which shouldn’t have been printed. But
you will find things in it—and it is of all things good for you to be
brought into living company of these _good_ people of old days....
And again on May 7th:—
I wonder if you could put in writing about any particular face—what it
is that makes it pretty? What curl of mouth, what lifting of eyelid, and
the like—and what part of it you do first.
I think a new stimulus might be given to drawing in general by teaching
some simple principles to girls about drawing each other’s faces.
Then there is a recurrence of his illness and a three months’ cessation
of letters. In his rambling talk he is heard to say, ‘The only person I
am sorry to disappoint is poor Miss Greenaway.’
Now again we find pathetic little notes in her diary:—
July 5. Heard this morning he is ill. Had a letter from him.
July 6. Not quite so ill to-day.
July 10. Still ill.
July 14. A little better now.
By September he is at the seaside and again able to use his pen,
although too weary and depressed even to make use of that ‘Natural
History of a dull Beach’ which he carried in his mind but which was
destined never to be written.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
_Sunday_ [_Sep._ 19, 1886].
I’m sending two miles that you may get your—this—whatever you call
it—it isn’t a letter—and I dare say you won’t get it. I haven’t got
yours—they won’t give anything to anybody on Sunday!—and I’m sure
yours is a beauty—in the post office over the hill there, and I can’t
get it and I’ve nothing to do and I can’t think of anything to think
of,—and the sea has no waves in it—and the sand has no shells in
it—and the shells—oystershells—at lunch had no oysters in them bigger
than that [a rough drawing of a small oyster] in a shell—and that
wouldn’t come out!
And the wind’s whistling through the keyhole—and I ought to go out—and
don’t want to—and here’s Baxter coming to say I must, and to take
‘_this_’ to Morecambe.
Much good may it do you.
Soon however he is full of a new plan and once more anxious for her
co-operation:—
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD,
_Saturday_ [_Nov. 2, 1886_].
It rejoices me so that you enjoy those old master drawings.
It comes, in the very moment when I wanted it—this British M.
enthusiasm of yours.
I’m going to set up a girls’ drawing school in London—a room where nice
young girls can go—and find no disagreeable people or ugly pictures.
They must all be introduced by some of my own sweetest friends—by K.
G., by Lilias T.[48] by Margaret B. J.[49]—by my own sec. Sally[50]—or
by such as ever and anon may be enrolled as Honorary Students.
And I want you at once to choose, and buy for me beginning with enclosed
cheque, all the drawings by the old masters reproduced to your good
pleasure—Whatever you like, I shall—and the school will be far happier
and more confident in your choice ratified by mine.
And I will talk over every bit of the plan with you—as you have time to
think of it.
—I’m not quite sure I shall like _this_ American book as well as Bret
Harte—but am thankful for anything to make me laugh,—if it does.
This year (1886), besides the _Almanack_ of which 45,000 copies were
issued, the American sales doubling those of England, and a large
number of designs for Christmas Cards, _A Apple Pie_, published by
George Routledge & Sons, had a gratifying success.
England took 7,000 copies, America 3,500, and France 3,000. But it did
not by any means meet with Ruskin’s approval, and on Nov. 9 he writes
from Brantwood:—
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
I am considerably vexed about Apple Pie. I really think you ought
seriously to consult me before determining on the lettering of things so
important—
The titles are simply bill-sticking of the vulgarest sort, over the
drawings—nor is there one of those that has the least melodious
charm as a colour design—while the feet—from merely shapeless are
becoming literal paddles and flappers—and in the pretty—though
ungrammatical—‘Eat it’ are real deformities.
All your faults are gaining on you every hour that you don’t fight them—
I have a plan in my head for organising a girls’ Academy under you! (a
fine mistress you’ll make—truly—) Lilias Trotter and Miss Alexander
for the Dons, or Donnas of it—and with every book and engraving that
I can buy for it—of noble types—with as much of cast-drawing, and
coin[51]—as you can use,—and two or three general laws of mine to live
under! and spending my last breath in trying to get some good into you!
The next letter refers to an advance copy of _The Queen of the Pirate
Isle, by Bret Harte, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway_, with many charming
coloured engravings, yet in our opinion certainly not deserving his
estimate of it as ‘the best thing she had ever done.’ The fact is the
drawings are treated in a more natural and less quaint and decorative
manner than was common with her: and that is what her mentor had always
been clamouring for.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_Nov. 14, 1886_].
Waiting for post in expectation of Bret Harte. My dear, you must
always send me all you do. If I don’t like it—the public will,—if I
do—there’s always one more pleasure in my disconsolate life. And you
ought to feel that when I do like it—nobody likes it so much!—nor half
nor a quarter so much.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Yes, it has come—you’re a dear good Katie—and it’s lovely. The best
thing you have ever done—it is so _real_ and natural. I do hope the
public will feel with me for once—yes, and for twice—and many times to
come.
It is all delightful, and the text also—and the print. You may do more
in colour however, next time.
Then there comes a note of criticism and a note of praise.
Of criticism, harking back to _A Apple Pie_, in reply to a sort of
good-natured protest from his resolute victim:—
But I never _do_ scold you! never think of such a thing! I only say
I’m—sorry. I have no idea what state of mind you are in when you draw
stockings down at the heel, and shoes with the right foot in the left
and the left in the right—and legs lumpy at the shins—and shaky at
the knees. And when, ever—did you put red letters like the bills of a
pantomime—in any of _my_ drawings? and why do it to the public?
Of praise which in this case has been unduly withheld:—
I’ve never told you how much I liked a long blue nymph with a branch
of roses who came a month ago. It is a heavenly little puckered blue
gown with such a lovely spotty-puckery waistband and collar, and a
microscopic and microcosmic cross of a brooch, most beautiful to behold.
What is she waving her rosebranch for? and what is she saying?
Then comes the only letter written by Miss Greenaway to Ruskin before
1887 and preserved by him, and it is followed by a few letters of a
general character from him to her.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
50, FROGNAL, _30 Nov. 1886_.
Yesterday was such a nice day. I had your letter in the morning—then
the sun came out—then I went to see Mrs. Allingham in the afternoon who
was in town for a few days—with such a lot of beautiful drawings——
they _were_ lovely—the most truthful, the most like things really
look—and the most lovely likeness. I’ve felt envious all the hours
since—there was one cottage and garden with a deep background of
pines—it was a marvel of painting—then such a rose bush—then, a
divine little picture—of her own beautiful little boy sitting on a
garden seat with a girl picking red currants—and a background of
deep laurels. You can’t think the beauty of it—and _many many many_
more—all so lovely, so beautiful. She asked me could I tell her
anything—give her advice—and I could not help saying, I can give you
nothing but entire praise and the deepest admiration.
[Illustration: TAKING IN THE ROSES.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
She asked after you,—and she said she had often wished to give you a
little drawing—but she didn’t know if you would be pleased to have
it—I don’t think I left any doubt in her mind. She asked me what
subject I thought you would like best—I said I fancied a pretty little
girl with a little cottage or cottage garden—so I hope it will come to
pass—I think it will.—You will be so pleased, _only you will like it
better than mine_, but Mrs. Allingham is the nicest of people. I always
feel I like her so much whenever I see her. And I wish you could have
seen those drawings yesterday for they would have been a deep joy to
you. She is going to have an exhibition of 40 in London soon. You ought
to see them.
Well—I hope you’re feeling better. I hope I will have a letter in the
morning. I have enjoyed the _Præterita_ very much, it is so cheering to
have it coming again—
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, _1 Dec. 1886_.
That is delightful hearing about Mrs. Allingham. I’m so very glad she’s
so nice as to want to give me a picture. Please tell her there couldn’t
be anything more delicious to me—both in the sense of friendship and in
the possession.
I am very thankful she is doing—as you say—in beauty, and so much
besides.
And it is right that you should be a little envious of her
realisation—while yet you should be most thankful for your own gift of
endless imagination. The realism is in your power whenever you choose.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_Dec. 12, 1886_].
I do like _you_ to have the books I have cared for,—and—too securely I
say—there is no chance of my ever wanting to read these more. My only
pleasures now are in actual nature or art—not in visions.
_All_ national costumes, as far as I know, are modern. The conditions
of trade established after the 16th century changed everything, and
there can be no more consistent art like that which delights you so
justly. But the peasant instincts are as old as—500 B.C., through it
all—and I have seen a half naked beggar’s brat in Rome throw a vine
branch round his head, like a Greek Bacchus.
And you do more beautiful things yourself, in their way, than ever were
done before,—but I should like you to be more amongst ‘the _colour_ of
the colours.’
No, I’m not feeling stronger, but I’m strong enough for all I’ve to do.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
CHAPTER XI
1887-1890
KATE GREENAWAY AS A CORRESPONDENT—HER LETTERS TO RUSKIN—HER
FRIENDS—LEARNING PERSPECTIVE—RUSKIN’S LAST LETTERS—‘THE PIED PIPER OF
HAMELIN’—MRS. ALLINGHAM, R.W.S.—THE ‘BOOK OF GAMES’—ELECTED TO THE
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS—PARIS EXHIBITION—DEATH OF
MR. JOHN GREENAWAY, SR.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
The most important publications of the year 1887 were _The Queen of
the Pirate Isle_ (Chatto), already mentioned; the _Almanack_, oblong
instead of upright as were all the others, of which over 37,000
copies were sold; and _Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Garland_, made up of
illustrations collected from earlier books.
From this year forward Ruskin made it a practice to preserve at any
rate the majority of Miss Greenaway’s letters.[52] On his side,
however, the correspondence was soon destined to cease, and so in place
of the interchange of thought, which would have afforded stimulating
reading, we have to content ourselves with what was in the end to be
carried on as a monologue.
The earliest of these letters do not lend themselves to extended
quotation. It is only later, when Kate made it part of her day’s work
to take her share in relieving the tedium of the aged Professor’s
unoccupied days, that they assume any real importance to the reader.
The key-note of these epistles is their artlessness. She has a child’s
heart at forty and ‘lives with her girlhood as with a little sister.’
As we read them the words ‘How _naïf_’ are for ever on our lips. From
time to time we come upon a luminous point and a touch of bright
humour, but for the most part the letters are lacking in grip and
_verve_. Languid too, they often are, the consequence doubtless of the
conscientiousness with which she spent herself in her work, especially
when her health during the last ten years of her life was far from
robust. And yet with all their shortcomings they have a very real
interest and are redolent of her strong personality.
They are instinct, too, with the scent of flowers, the love of trees,
the fascinations of her garden, of sunsets and beauties of earth and
sky; full, too, of her dog Rover, whom her friends the Allhusens
twit her with calling ‘Wover’—indeed hardly a letter goes without a
chapter, or at least a verse, of Rover’s biography, from which a book
entitled _The Diary of a Dog_ might easily be compiled. They are full
of what she is reading (as we might expect, she is always inveighing
against the unhappy endings of books)—and tell in detail what she is
working at; full of pictures she has seen which wanted ‘a Ruskin for
their proper criticism’; full of her favourite model ‘Mary’—‘we always
have a merry time, I think we are both made to laugh a good deal’; full
of her love of nature—‘the garden is full of pictures but I can’t
get time to do them’; and again, ‘when the sun shines I can smell the
grass growing’; full of the seasons—‘they have got mixed up this
year; poor spring has got badly treated or else had an aspiring mind
and tried to take too much of the year for her own property—anyhow
here is winter again’; full of her friends, the Locker-Lampsons, the
du Mauriers, Lady Jeune, ‘one of the kindest people in all the world,’
and her daughter, now Mrs. Allhusen, the Tennysons, and the beautiful
Mrs. Stuart Samuel, ‘spring personified dressed in blue and violet—a
real Beauty she is and very nice’; full of playful allusions to the
pedantic conversations of Miss Edgeworth’s _Harry and Lucy_, which she
and Ruskin had read and laughed over together. And they are full of the
summer and winter exhibitions—‘no one now says a good word for the
Academy though they all want to be made R.A.’s’; full of the pictures
she intends to paint—‘I have often wished lately to paint a picture
of Night—it looks so beautiful out of my window—the yellow lights in
the windows—the stars in the sky. I think I shall do a little angel
rushing along in it, I want to do it as a background to something. If
I could but do a della Robbia angel—with that look—those curls’;
and again, ‘Don’t you love a market, a real country one, where the
stalls are so pretty with pears and plums and little sage cheeses and
long rolls of butter? For years I have been going to paint such a
market stall. One day—I suppose—one day I shall.’ And yet again they
describe lovely gardens which she has visited; full of old houses to
which she has made pilgrimages.
[Illustration: “ROVER.” MR. JOHN GREENAWAY’S RETRIEVER. _For ten years
Kate Greenaway’s faithful companion._]
One day there is a touch of sensitiveness:—‘I am often amused at the
women who sell the violets—they so often smell them before presenting
them to the purchaser—this is not always an attraction.’ Another
day she touches off a portrait:—‘My sister’s little girl is good to
contemplate. Her profile is like a _cheerful_ Burne-Jones.’
Now she airs a prejudice:—‘I wish there were no worms in the garden. I
_am_ so frightened when I sow things to see them turn up. I know they
are useful but they are not nice-looking. I do not dislike many things,
but a worm I have a repulsion for.’
[Illustration: ‘VIOLETS, SIR?’ On a Letter to Ruskin.]
And now she pays one of her rare visits to the theatre—a great event
in her quiet life:—‘I went to see _Rebellious Susan_—not a deep
play—very interesting—very cleverly acted. But I like going deeper
into things, I think I like deeper motives for things than what
Society _thinks_.’ Then she tells of the trouble she takes over her
pictures:—‘I am doing Cinderella carrying in the Pumpkin to her fairy
godmother—you don’t see the godmother. I have put a row of scarlet
beans as a background. I am going to grow a row in the garden on
purpose.’ And now she wants what she can’t have:—‘I wish you a very
happy Birthday. I wish I was going to be there to see all the lovely
flowers you are going to have. If I were there you should ask me to
tea—I think—yes, I think you ought to ask me to tea—and we’d have
raspberry jam for tea—a muffin, some violets—and a Turner to look
at—oh yes, I think you should ask me to tea.’
That is the kind of letter she writes—dwelling but a moment on this or
that point, irresponsible, sportive, sometimes gay, less often grave,
delightful to the receiver but rarely with sufficient ‘body’ for the
unsympathetic coldness of printer’s ink.
The drawings which embellished them are charming in their spontaneity,
and who can wonder at the half-heartedness of Ruskin’s protest when he
writes:—
—In trying to prevent you wasting your time on me I have never told you
how much I do enjoy these little drawings. They are an immense addition
to the best pleasures of my life and give me continual interest and new
thought.
Little marvel that such a protest prompted her to become even more
lavish than before. What a delight these letters were to him when
ill-health made any written response impracticable may be gathered from
Mrs. Severn’s reiterated announcements:—
‘The Professor is absorbed with delight in your letter.’—‘Your letters
are always so interesting and a real pleasure to _him_.’—‘How grateful
I ever am for your _untiring goodness_ to him. Your letters really
are one of the _great_ pleasures of his life.’—‘Your lovely letter
with the sweet little people looking from the ridge of the hill at the
rising sun so delighted Di Pa.[53] He looked at it long and lovingly
and kept repeating “Beautiful! beautiful! beautiful!”’ And when he was
ill in 1897:—‘Your letters (the only ones he at present has) he much
enjoys.’
These letters were full of passing allusions to her friends, of whom
she now had many amongst persons distinguished in art and society.
She was slow at forming intimacies but she was tenacious of them when
made. As she wrote to her friend of many years’ standing, the Hon. Mrs.
Sutton Nelthorpe, in 1896:
I’m sorry now that I can see you so seldom.—That’s me, so slow at
getting to want a person and then wanting them so much.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN SEAT.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
To mention only a few of her friends, there were Mrs. Miller, Miss
Violet Dickinson, the Stuart Samuels, Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Jeune,
Lady Victoria Herbert, Rev. W. J. Loftie, Stacy Marks, the du Mauriers,
Mrs. Allhusen, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, the Edmund Evans’, Mr. Norman
Shaw, Mr. Austin Dobson, the Locker-Lampsons, Lady Mayo, the Hon.
Gerald and Lady Maria Ponsonby, the Hon. Mrs. Sutton Nelthorpe, Mrs.
Allingham, the Duchess of St. Albans, Lady Ashburton, the Tennysons,
Mrs. Arthur Severn, her daughters, the Misses Lily and Violet Severn,
and her husband, Mr. Arthur Severn, R.I., Miss Vyvyan, and Miss Fripp.
Miss Vyvyan, like Mrs. Basil Martineau and Mrs. Ridley Corbet (wife of
the distinguished painter, the late M. Ridley Corbet, A.R.A.), was a
fellow-student of Kate’s; Miss Fripp was niece of the well-known member
of the Royal Water-Colour Society. With Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D.,
for some years from 1887 her medical adviser, she was very friendly.
With Mr. Anderson, too; and also with Miss Mary Anderson, Kate was on
the most intimate terms during her life at Hampstead.
In March of this year Ruskin set himself the task of teaching her
perspective in about a dozen consecutive letters. He had often alluded
to the matter, but now he fills his letters with diagrams of cubes and
gables and arches, sparing no pains to make things plain to her and
setting her tasks which she most faithfully performed. The technical
parts of these letters would here be out of place but some of the side
issues suggested by them will bear quotation.
To tell the truth, the perspective in her drawings is often very
deficient, and the calm violation of its laws in some of her earlier
work was due, not to quaintness as people thought, but to real
inability to master it. She would innocently make independent sketches
of pretty cottages, real or imagined, and then calmly group them
together, with little or no correction or bringing into harmony, as
a background for a composition of playing children. In her earlier
years her father would often put these portions of her design into
proper perspective, and later on her brother John. Indeed, at her first
exhibition a critic was examining a drawing from _Under the Window_,
and as he looked it over, he exclaimed to a friend, first in amazement
and then in anger, ‘She has one point of sight here, and another here!
and here! and here!! Why, she has five distinct points of sight!’
Afterwards her brother would reduce the whole to correctness for her to
re-draw. So when Ruskin began to educate her in a branch of art which,
by the way, is neglected and loathed by not a few of the greatest of
the world’s painters, she explained to him how she was in this respect
in the excellent care of her brother. Mr. John Greenaway, by the way,
always believed that his sister’s curious inaccuracy was due to her
short-sightedness; as she would approach too closely to the objects she
drew, and so ‘got them out.’
Thereupon, on March 8, Ruskin writes: ‘I like Johnnie’s sticking
himself up to teach you perspective! I never believed you’d learn it,
or I’d have taught it to you here, and been done with it. Anyhow—don’t
you let him teaze you any more and just mind this to begin with.’ Here,
follow diagrams and explanation, and he goes on ‘That’s enough for
to-day. Three more scribbles will teach you all you’ll ever need to
know.’
Two days later he returns to the subject:—‘There’s no fear of your
forgetting perspective, any more than forgetting how to dance. One
can’t help it when one knows. The next rule you have to learn is more
than half way. One never _uses_ the rules, one only feels them—and
defies if one likes—like John Bellini. But we should first know and
enjoy them.’
The last words refer to the following passage which he had written
the day before, when sending her a copy he had had made for her of
Bellini’s picture:—
‘The Globe picture is one of a series done by John Bellini of the
Gods and Goddesses of good and evil to man.[54] She is the sacred
Venus—Venus always rises out of the sea, but this one out of laughing
sea of unknown depth. She holds the world in her arms, changed into
heaven.’
On March 12 he says, apropos of her work on the _Pied Piper_, ‘Finished
the rats, have you! but you ought to do dozens of rats in perspective
with radiating tails.’ Here he draws a rough example of what he means
and continues:—‘I believe the perfection of perspective is only
recent. It was first applied to Italian Art by Paul Uccello (Paul the
Bird—because he drew birds so well and many). He went off his head
with his love of perfection—and Leonardo and Raphael spoiled a lot of
pictures with it, to show they knew it. Now the next thing you have to
be clear of in perspective is that—the Heavenly Venus is out of it.
You couldn’t see her and the high horizon at once. But as she sees all
round the world there are no laws of perspective for her.’
Not unnaturally, perhaps, Miss Greenaway claims for herself the same
licence or privilege of abstention as Bellini was allowed, so on
March 17th Ruskin replies:—‘I didn’t answer your question “Why may
not I defy Perspective as well as John Bellini?” Not because you are
less—but because defying is a quite different thing from running
against. Perspective won’t put up with you—if you tread on her
toes—but will concede half her power to you if you can look her in the
eyes. I won’t tell you more till you’re across that river.’
Two other extracts from Ruskin’s letters, and the record of this year
is complete.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD,
_Monday_ 23 [_Jan. 1887_].
I’m still quite well thank God, and as prudent as can be—and have been
enjoying my own drawings! and think I shan’t mind much if there’s a
fault or two in your’s![typo for yours?]
But we will have it out about suns and moons like straw hats! and shoes
like butter boats—and lilies crumpled like pocket-handkerchiefs, and
frocks chopped up instead of folded. I’ve got a whole cupboard full of
dolls for lay figures and five hundred plates of costume—to be Kate
Greenawayed.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_April 4, 1887_].
The anemones are here—and quite lovely, but you know they’re not like
those wild ones of Italy and wither ever so much sooner.
I’m enjoying my botany again—but on the whole I think it’s very absurd
of flowers not to be prettier! How they might all grow up into lovely
trees—and pinks grow like almond blossom, and violets everywhere like
daisies, tulips climb about like Virginian creeper—and not stand
staring just as if they’d been just stuck into the ground.—Fancy a
house all in a mantle of tulips.—And how many new shapes they might
invent!... And why aren’t there Water Roses as well as Water Lilies?
In the early part of the year Kate Greenaway seems to have designed
a cover for _The Peace of Polissena_, by Miss Francesca Alexander, a
‘Part’ of _Christ’s Folk in the Apennine_, edited and partly written
by Ruskin—a graceful reply to her supposed but of course entirely
imaginary jealousy of that lady’s work—but it does not appear to have
been used. This may have been a result of the return of the Master’s
illness which again laid him low in the spring of 1887.
In January of 1888 we find him sufficiently recovered to write the
following pathetic letters from Sandgate, whither he had gone to
recuperate.
In other letters of this period he complains that he has hardly
strength to answer hers, and that he is sadly oppressed by the cold
which oppresses her. He praises her for her appreciation of Donatello,
and says that Donatello would have appreciated Kate Greenaway. But
he qualifies his praise by telling her that she would do far more
beautiful things if she would not allow herself to be hurried away
by the new thoughts which crowd upon her and hinder her from fully
realising _any_.
Then he falls foul of modern novels, of which he is having a surfeit
through the circulating library. Some of the books for girls he
finds passably good but deplores the fashion, which began with
_Misunderstood_, of breaking children’s backs, so that one never knows
what is going to happen to them when they go out walking!
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
[SANDGATE] _27 Jan. 88_.
You cannot conceive how in my present state, I envy—that is to say only
in the strongest way, long for—the least vestige of imagination, such
as yours. When nothing shows itself to me—all day long—but the dull
room or the wild sea and I think what it must be to you to have far
sight into dreamlands of truth—and to be able to see such scenes of
the most exquisite grace and life and quaint vivacity—whether you draw
them or not, what a blessing to have them there—at your call. And then
I stopped and have been lying back in my chair the last quarter of an
hour,—thinking—If I could only let you feel for only a quarter of an
hour what it is to have no imagination—no power of calling up lovely
things—no guidance of pencil point along the visionary line—Oh how
thankful you would be to find your mind again.
And what lovely work you have spent—where no one will ever see it
but poor me—on the lightest of your messages. Do you remember the
invitation sent by the girl holding the muffin high on her toasting
fork? You never did a more careful or perfect profile. And the clusters
of beauty in those festival or farewell ones?
Well, I had joy out of them—such as you meant—and more than ever
I could tell you, nor do I ever cease to rejoice at and wonder at
them,—but with such sorrow that they are not all in a great lovely
book, for all the world’s New Years and Easter days.
You might do a book of Festas, one of these days—with such processions!
[Illustration: HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY.
_From a water-colour drawing made by Kate Greenaway for John Ruskin
upon his birthday. In the possession of Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._]
By ‘processions’ are meant the long drawings with a bevy of following
maids, and sometimes of boys too, of which one or two examples are
included in this book. They contain some of Miss Greenaway’s most
careful and dainty work in drawing, colour, and composition, but,
unfortunately, are so large that they have suffered great reduction.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
[SANDGATE] _17 Feb. 88_.
It’s just as bad here as everywhere else—there are no birds but
seagulls and sparrows—there is snow everywhere—and north-east wind
on the hills,—but none on the sea—which is as dull as the Regent’s
Canal. But I was very glad of the flower letter yesterday,—and the
chicken-broth one to-day, only I can’t remember that cat whom I had
to teach to like cream. I believe it _is_ an acquired taste—and that
most cats can conceive nothing better than milk. I am puzzled by Jim’s
inattention to drops left on the tablecloth—he cleans his saucer
scrupulously, but I’ve never seen him lap up, or touch up, a spilt drop.
He is an extremely graceful grey striped fat cushion of a cat,—with
extremely winning ways of lying on his back on my knee, with his head
anywhere and his paws everywhere.
But he hasn’t much conversation and our best times are I believe when we
both fall asleep.
He says he yearns for ‘Pipers,’ alluding, of course, to drawings for
‘_The Pied Piper of Hamelin_, by Robert Browning, with 35 Illustrations
by Kate Greenaway. Engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans,’
which George Routledge & Sons were just publishing. The book, which
was charming throughout, save for a poor drawing on page 31 and a
curious solecism on page 39, met with immediate and gratifying success.
Stacy Marks wrote:—‘You have far exceeded my expectations in carrying
through what must have been a strange and difficult task.’ Ruskin spoke
of it as the grandest thing she had ever done. An American admirer
wrote enthusiastically:—‘You have more followers in the States than
ever the Pied Piper of Hamelin had.’ She sold the original drawings for
a large sum to Messrs. Palmer & Howe of Manchester.
On Feb. 23 Ruskin writes:—
The Piper came by the 11 post—ten minutes after my note left this
morning. I only expected outline proofs, so you may judge how pleased I
was.
It is all as good and nice as it can be, and you really have got through
your rats with credit—and the Piper is sublime-and the children lovely.
But I am more disappointed in the ‘Paradise’ than I expected to be—a
_real_ view of Hampstead ponds in spring would have been more celestial
to me than this customary flat of yours with the trees stuck into it at
regular distances—And not a Peacock!—nor a flying horse!!
The only other publications of the year were the sixth _Almanack_, of
which 20,000 out of 37,500 copies went to America and 6,500 to France,
and a contribution to _The American Queen_. There were also private
commissions executed for Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Northcote, and Mr.
Ponsonby.
[Illustration: COTTAGES.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J.
Veitch, Esq._]
But the crowning event of 1888 was the friendship which she now formed
with Mrs. Allingham. Sixteen years before they had worked side by side
as students, but since then their paths had diverged. The account
of their intimacy will best be told in that delightful artist’s own
words:—
It must have been in 1872 or 1873 that I first met Kate Greenaway at
an evening class at the Slade School (which I only attended for three
months). I had given up my student work at the R.A. schools—(she
doubtless had then left Kensington) for drawing on the wood in my own
studio.
I was not formally introduced to her till several years after I was
married, when I met her at an evening party at Tennyson’s—in Belgrave
Square, I think. Mr. Frederick Locker presented me to her, and we had a
pleasant talk, I remember. In 1881, we went to live at Witley in Surrey,
and among our kindest neighbours were Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Evans, with
whom Kate often came to stay.
For several years we (K. and I) had merely pleasant friendly meetings
without in any way becoming intimate. I think it was in the spring
of 1888 that we went out painting together in the copses near Witley
and became really _friends_. In the autumn of that year we removed to
Hampstead, and it was always a pleasure to visit Kate in her beautiful
home and to sit and chat with her by the hour in her cosy little
tea-room or in the great studio full of interesting things. When the
time came for saying good-night, she would always come down to the
hall-door and generally put on a hat hanging in the hall and come as far
as the gate for more friendly last words.
One day in the autumn of 1889 we went to Pinner together on an
exploring expedition for subjects, and were delighted with some of
the old cottages we saw there. I had been pressing her ever since our
spring time together at Witley to share with me some of the joys of
painting out of doors. Another day we went farther afield—to Chesham
and Amersham. She was delighted with the beauty of the country and the
picturesque old towns—especially with the ‘backs’ at Amersham and the
river with its border of willows and little cottage gardens and back
yards. As evening drew on and black clouds warned us that a storm was
imminent, we hailed a baker’s cart that was going towards our station
and we agreed that it gave us a capital view of the country over the
high hedges.
In the spring of 1890 I took my children to Freshwater, Isle of Wight,
and found rooms near us for Kate. She and I went out painting together
daily, either to some of the pretty old thatched cottages around
Farringford or to the old dairy in the grounds, when we often had a
friendly visit from the great poet himself, or from Mr. Hallam Tennyson,
with an invitation to come up to tea.
During the summer of that year (1890) we continued our out-door work
together, generally taking an early train from Finchley Road to Pinner,
for the day. She was always scrupulously thoughtful for the convenience
and feelings of the owners of the farm or cottage we wished to paint,
with the consequence that _we_ were made welcome to sit in the garden or
orchard where _others_ were refused admittance.
I am afraid that her short sight must have greatly added to the
difficulty of out-door painting for her. I remember her exclaiming one
day at Pinner, ‘What am I to do? When I look at the roof it is all a red
blur—when I put on my spectacles I see every crack in the tiles.’
Though we often sat side by side, painting the same object (generally
silently—for she was a very earnest, hard worker—and perhaps I was,
too), it seemed to me that there was little likeness between our
drawings—especially after the completion in the studio. But she was one
of the most sensitive of creatures and I think she felt that it might
be wiser for both of us to discontinue the practice of working from
the same subjects, so, after that summer of 1890, we did not go out
painting any more together. Whether days or months passed between our
meetings, I was always sure of the same hearty greeting from her.
The last time I saw her was Feb. 28, 1901, at the Fine Art Society.
I thought she looked fairly well, and seemed so, though she spoke of
having felt tired sometimes. But she said nothing of the serious illness
of the year before. It was not possible to have much talk then. I became
exceedingly busy just after that time, and in May went abroad—and when
later on in the year I called at her house, I was told she was not well
enough to see friends.
Her work remains for all to see and enjoy. Of herself, I can truly say
that she was one of the most honest, straightforward, and kindly of
women: a sympathetic, true, and steadfast friend.
The year 1889 produced, besides the _Almanack_, which by now had become
an institution, _Kate Greenaway’s Book of Games_—with, as a matter
of course, Mr. Evans as engraver and printer, and G. Routledge & Sons
as publishers—and ‘_The Royal Progress of King Pepito_, written by
Beatrice F. Cresswell, illustrated by Kate Greenaway,’ and published by
the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Of each of these books
nearly ten thousand copies were issued. The _Book of Games_, in which
she could choose her own subjects and follow her own bent, found K. G.,
if not at her best, at least happy and unrestrained, while with _King
Pepito_ it was otherwise. As was usually the case with her, she found
it hard to assimilate another’s ideas. The inelasticity of story-book
illustrating seemed to paralyse her pencil and she became mannered and
conventional.
[Illustration: PENCIL AND TINT DRAWING.
_In the possession of B. Elkin Mocatta, Esq._]
This year she was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters
in Water-Colours, and was moreover represented by thirteen frames of
drawings in the British Section of the International Exhibition at
Paris.[55] These were greatly admired, and elicited the following,
amongst innumerable other tributes of praise:—
Son genre a été une innovation et une preuve de bravoure, comme tous les
actes d’indépendance dans l’ordre moral et artistique.
Lancer au milieu d’une société blasée, ces échappés de nurseries, vêtus
à la mode bizarre et charmante qu’on appelle maintenant ‘la Greenaway,’
était à coup sûr original....
Les œuvres de l’aquarelliste anglaise jettent-elles là une note
fraîche et gaie, et font-elles l’effet d’un enfant dans un intérieur de
vieux, d’un oiseau égaré dans un cloître....
L’usateur des Almanachs semble avoir une préférence marquée pour
certaines couleurs: elle excelle dans l’usage du blanc, du rose, et
du vert. Avec leur emploi, elle arrive à des teintes effacées d’un
effet charmant. Ses tons évoquent l’image des pendules à fleurs
et des soies anciennes, des vieilles faïences à paysages et des
céladonnades à la Watteau, toutes ces choses, comme elles nous arrivent
maintenant, mangées de soleil, vieilles d’un siècle et pourtant encore
délicieusement jolies, ainsi que les aquarelles qui en réveillent le
souvenir.
Since the spring of 1888 there had been no letters from Ruskin, who had
made his last foreign tour to France, Switzerland, and Italy in the
vain hope of renewing his health. Now in the spring of 1889 he was back
at Brantwood with ten pathetic years before him of growing infirmity.
In May he was well enough to write to Miss Greenaway the following
letters, which were to be the last he was ever to send. In the course
of the following month he produced a chapter of _Præterita_ and then
his literary career was closed.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD _May-day 1889_.
I’ve been a-maying with you all day,—coming upon one beautiful thing
after another in my drawer, so long unopened—most thankfully to-day
unlocked again—and sending balm and rose and lily sweetness all
through the old study. What exquisite drawings those were you did just
before I fell so ill,—the children passing under the flower arch—&c.!
and Joan tells me you are doing _such_ lovely things now with such
backgrounds,—grander than ever, and of course the Piper is the best
book you ever did—the Piper himself unsurpassable—and I feel as if
he had piped me back out of the hill again, and would give some spring
times yet to rejoice in your lovely work and its witness to them.
I do hope much, now—the change is greater and deeper for good than it
has ever been before, but I have to watch almost every breath lest I
should fall back again.
I wonder if you would care to come down in the wild rose time—and draw
a branch or two, with the blue hills seen through them, and perhaps
study a little falling water—or running—in the green shadows. I
wouldn’t set you to horrid work in the study, you should even draw
any quantity of those things that you liked—in the forenoon—and
have tea in the study, and perhaps we could go on with the Swiss fish
story! and I’ve some psalter work in hand that I want you to help me
intebbily,—and poor Joanie will be so thankful to have somebody to look
after me a little, as well as her:—and so—perhaps you’ll come, won’t
you?
BRANTWOOD, _3 May, 1889_.
I am so very thankful that you can come—and still care to come—! I was
so afraid you might have some work on hand that would hinder you—but
now, I do trust that you will be quite happy, for indeed you will find
here, when you are at liberty to do what you like best,—the exact
things that become most tractable in their infinite beauty. You are
doing great work already—some of the pages of the Piper are magnificent
pictures, though with a white background—you will be led by the blue
mountains and in the green glens to a deeper colour-melody—and—to
how much else—there is no calculating. Please bring the primrose
picture!—it will be the intensest delight to me and in looking over
your drawings again, (how many do you think there are in my Kate drawer,
now—besides those in the cabinets?) I feel more than ever—I might
almost say twice as much as I used to, their altogether unrivalled
loveliness.
And I think, as soon as you have seen all the exhibitions, and feel able
to pack your country dresses and sacrifice London gaieties for monastic
peace in art and nature, that you should really come; the roses will
soon be here—and the gentians and hyacinths will certainly be here
before you—and it is best, while all things bid fair for us, to take
Fortune at her word.
I trust that my health will go on improving—but I might take cold, or
Joanie might—or the children. At present we’re all right and I want you
to come as soon as may be.
BRANTWOOD _Sunday 12 May, 1889_.
I _am_ so sorry you can’t come sooner, to see the gentians—but I
suppose they contrive ways of growing them now even in London. But I
have a cluster of nine,—in a little glass in the study bow window—you
know where _that_ is?!—three little roses pretending to be peach
blossoms in another little glass on my table, and beside them a
cluster of ‘myrtilla cara’—if you don’t know what that is, it’s just
jealousy and I’ll make you paint some—where your easel shan’t tumble,
nor your colours be overflown—I don’t a bit know what’s the right
word—Shakespeare’s no authority, is he nowadays?—and next the Myrtilla
Cara who is in her sweetest pride and humility of fruit-like blossom,
there’s a cluster of the most beautiful pyrus I ever saw—it is almost
white, I suppose with the cold and rain, where it blooms on the outside
wall, but on my table—brought in by Joanie, it has become glowing
red—not in the least like a rose—but yet not in the least vulgar—like
a lady wearing a scarlet cloak—and with its own grand laurel-like
leaves.
Well, if you can’t come yet you can’t—but you must read a little bit of
_me_ every day—to keep you steady against the horrible mob of animals
calling themselves painters, nowadays (—I could paint better than they
by merely throwing my ink bottle at them—if I thought them _worth_ the
ink). But take my Ariadne Florentina—and read for to-morrow the 112th
paragraph, p. 94—and in the appendix, the 244th page down to ‘steam
whistle.’—Post’s going—and I must not begin any special appendix
to Katie—except that she must not plague herself with endeavours
to realise the impossible—Her first, and easy duty is to catch the
beautiful expressions of _real_ children.
BRANTWOOD, _14 May, 1889_.
I am so very happy you are teaching yourself French. It is the greatest
addition you can give to the happiness of your life,—some day I
hope—old as I am—to see you drawing French children—and listening to
them!
And you must learn a little Latin too! only to enjoy the nomenclature of
Proserpina. Please take it down and read pages 227, 228, about Myrtilla
cara—and just look at my type of all perfection, the Angel Raphael’s
left hand in the great Perugino,—it will refresh you and contrast, ever
more brightly and richly, with modern mud and pewter.—But— ... the
idea of asking why a hand is so difficult! Why it’s ever so much harder
than even a foot—and for an _arm_—nobody ever could _paint_ a girl’s
arm yet—from elbow to wrist.—It’s not quite fair to show you these
two _tries_ of yours—but yet, the moral of them is that you must cure
yourself of thinking so much of hair and hats and parasols—and attend
_first_, (for some time to come) to toes—fingers—and wrists.
Thus ended, so far as Ruskin was concerned, a correspondence which had
not only been one of the greatest pleasures of Kate Greenaway’s life,
but had been above all a healthy stimulus and a liberal education.
The following year, 1890, which saw no publication calling for notice
other than the _Almanack_, was clouded by the death of her father,
Mr. Greenaway, on August 26th. He was one of those honourable,
hard-working, competent servants of the public who, content to do their
work quietly, look for no fame and no reward beyond the right to live
and earn an honest livelihood for themselves and their dependants.
Mr. Mason Jackson of the _Illustrated London News_ paid him a fitting
tribute when he wrote:—
I have known Mr. Greenaway so long and admired his sterling qualities so
much that I feel I have lost another of my valued friends. His family
will have the satisfaction of feeling that he has left behind him an
unblemished character and a respected name.
Ever ready to help in charitable undertakings, although almost driven
to her wits’ end to get through work which had to be done, Kate this
year designed a cover for the album of the Bazaar held in aid of the
‘New Hospital for Women’; such contributions she felt due to a public
from whom she had received so handsome a recognition. Very different,
however, were the feelings she expressed towards the methods of certain
journals of getting something for nothing, and over these she would
wax exceedingly indignant. There were those who solicited her for an
(unremunerated) opinion ‘as a representative woman on the servant
question,’ or for a few lines on ‘why I like painting for children,’ or
for ‘the briefest message to our readers in a series of timely words or
messages from men and women distinguished in politics, literature, and
art’; or for a ‘gratuitous product of your skill—which would give you
a magnificent advertisement and result materially to your renown and
prosperity’!
To signalise her election she contributed to the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water-Colours four exhibits—‘A Portrait of a Little Boy,’
‘An Angel visited the Green Earth,’ ‘Boy with Basket of Apples,’ and
‘Head of a Boy’; and she exhibited also a portrait of a little lad at
the Royal Academy.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY IN HER STUDIO, 1895.
_From a private photograph by Mrs. William Miller._]
CHAPTER XII
1891-1895
MISS GREENAWAY’S FIRST EXHIBITION—THE HON. GERALD
PONSONBY—‘ALMANACKS’—CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION,
CHICAGO—BOOK-PLATES—LADY MARIA PONSONBY—WORKS SOLD—‘THE LADIES’ HOME
JOURNAL’—DEATH OF MRS. GREENAWAY—LADY MAYO—BRANTWOOD AGAIN—K. G.’S
CRITICISM OF MODERN ART—MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF—FRIENDSHIP WITH MISS VIOLET
DICKINSON—RELIGIOUS OPINIONS—RUSKIN—VIEWS ON MR. GEORGE MEREDITH, ETC.
[Illustration: On a letter to Ruskin.]
For the last year or two Kate Greenaway had shown unmistakable signs of
failing energy, and in 1891 her friend Mr. Anderson of the Orient Line
sought to persuade her to take a sea-voyage on the steamship _Garonne_:
it must not be supposed, however, that she was yet showing the first
symptoms of the illness which was to terminate ten years later in her
death. She published no work this year except the _Almanack_ and,
though scarcely worthy of repeated mention, the title-page designed
for _The Orient Guide_, as a graceful acknowledgment of Mr. Anderson’s
kindly friendship. At the Royal Academy, she was represented by a
‘Girl’s Head,’ and at the Royal Institute by ‘An Old Farm House’ and ‘A
Cottage in Surrey.’
But the year was far from being uneventful, for now for the first time
she determined to hold a ‘one-man’ exhibition of her water-colour
drawings at the Gallery of the Fine Art Society, at 148, New Bond
Street. The exhibition was highly successful. The town flocked to see
the originals of the designs which had charmed it for so many years in
the reproductions, and greatly was the world surprised at the infinite
tenderness, delicacy, and grace of her execution, and the wealth of
her invention. Sir Frederick Leighton purchased two of her pictures
and others followed suit to the amount of more than £1,350. (The net
sum which came to her was £964.) For the first time the general public
and the critics had the opportunity of assigning to Kate Greenaway
her rightful place amongst contemporary artists. She had appeared in
most of the important exhibitions in London and the provinces, and her
pictures had almost invariably found purchasers, but these occasional
exhibits had been comparatively few. Now her work could be gauged in
bulk and there was a chorus of approval. Not that too much stress must
be laid upon that. Even now, some years after her death, there is some
contention as to exactly where she stands. As Mr. Lionel Robinson asked
at the time—did she found a school or did she only start a fashion?
was hers but a passing _ad captandum_ popularity or does her art
contain the true elements of immortality?
The following letters of this year exhibit her perennial love of spring
flowers, with which Lady Mayo now constantly supplied her, in return
for which on this occasion she sent a drawing of St. John’s wort,
bluebell, and apple-blossom; and we recognise once more her fastidious
terror lest she should receive payment for what was not precisely to
the taste of her clients.
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MAYO
Dear Lady Mayo—Your lovely flowers have just come. It is too good of
you to have such kind thought and remembrance of me. I thank you very
much. I think nothing gives me such joy and delight as spring flowers,
and after this long, long winter how delightful it is to have them back
again. The springs always come late to us here; it is such a cold place.
I am just now going into Surrey to paint primroses.
I feel I must send you a flower also. I wish it could be as lovely as
yours!—With kind regards and again thanks, yours very sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
_In pencil and water-colour—an experimental drawing. In the possession
of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby._]
The following letter probably refers to the first of a set of tiny
water-colour portraits of children executed for Mr. Ponsonby which show
what she might have accomplished if she had set herself seriously to
the painting of miniatures:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. PONSONBY
50, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_5th October 1891_.
Dear Mr. Ponsonby—I am long in sending you the drawing, and now I do
send it, I am afraid you will feel it very unsatisfactory; I feel it
so myself—it is so much more difficult to me—doing a Portrait than a
purely fancy drawing. Now I can’t make up my mind if it requires more
darks or not. If you feel that let me have it back and I will put them
in. I am rather afraid to do more. I have puzzled over it until I don’t
know what it wants really. But one thing is certain, you must not have
it if you do not care for it. I should be so sorry if you did,—it would
really pain me and you know it would not matter in the least. I should
be the gainer—having had such a pleasant time with you and a pretty
little girl to draw—so please be very sure you don’t keep it if it is
not what you wish.
The African marigolds are still beautiful—the memories of Christchurch
and Poole are still vivid—I did so very much like seeing them. I
believe seeing old towns and villages _are_ my greatest enjoyments,—if
only I did not make such abject sketches. I saw the salmon-coloured
house on my way home.—With kind regards, yours sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
For the next nine years (1892-1900) there were no new publications
with Kate Greenaway’s name on the title-page with the exception of
the Almanacks. These were published in 1892, 3, 4, and 5 by George
Routledge & Sons as heretofore. In 1896 there was none: perhaps, as we
have said, because that for 1895 had been ‘made up’—much against K.
G.’s will—from old and comparatively unsuccessful work; still, as we
see later, an application was made to Miss Greenaway for an almanack,
but she was indisposed to do it. In 1897 the last was published by J.
M. Dent & Co. Of these charming booklets complete sets are now not easy
to obtain, and readily fetch four or five times their original cost.
In 1892 there was a small exhibition of twenty of her water-colours by
Messrs. Van Baerle in Glasgow, and an important commission executed for
the Dowager Lady Ashburton.
In 1893 five of her drawings were sold at the Columbian Exhibition,
Chicago, for forty-five guineas. These were the title-page to
_Marigold Garden_, ‘The Mulberry Bush,’ ‘Girl drawing a Chaise,’
‘Little Girlie,’ and ‘Little Phyllis.’ The Almanack drawings of this
year were disposed of through Messrs. Palmer, Howe & Co. of Manchester
to Mr. David Walker of Middleton in the neighbourhood of that city,
with special and exclusive permission to reproduce them as designs for
‘sanitary wall-papers.’ Kate was delighted with the results and many a
nursery is now gay with these charming productions.[56]
The modern passion for book-plate collecting was at this time at its
height and Kate came in for her meed of praise at the hands of Mr.
Egerton Castle in his _English Book-plates_ of this year, and at the
hands, too, of Miss Norna Labouchere in her _Ladies’ Book-plates_, of
two years later. In the former are reproduced those designed by Miss
Greenaway for ‘Frederick Locker’ and his son ‘Godfrey Locker-Lampson,’
and in the latter for ‘Dorothy Locker-Lampson’ and ‘Sarah Nickson.’
Amongst others for whom she designed book-plates may be mentioned
Lady Victoria Herbert, Miss Vera Samuel (a child’s book-plate), Mrs.
J. Black, and Mr. Stuart M. Samuel. Most of those mentioned are here
reproduced.
Although the publications of these closing years of her life were
scanty it must not be supposed that K. G. allowed her pencil and brush
to be idle. This was far from the case. It is true that her work done
for reproduction was nearly at an end, but she was devoting herself
with unabated enthusiasm, so far as her health would allow, to the more
congenial task of painting small easel pictures in water-colour in view
of future exhibitions at the Fine Art Society’s gallery.
[Illustration: JOAN PONSONBY, 1891.
_From a miniature in the possession of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby._]
The following letter shows her hard at work for her next public
appearance, and the entry of this year, the only entry in her long
range of laconic diaries of an introspective nature—‘To remember to
keep resolution firmly and to think how much can be made of Art and
Life,’—demonstrates the spirit in which she was working.
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. PONSONBY
50, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_29th Dec. 1893_.
Dear Mr. Ponsonby—I believe the Exhibition is finally settled at
LAST—drawings to be sent in on the 15th, and Private View to take
place on the 20th.... And it is nice weather to get on in! Black night
here the last three days.... MR. HUISH OF COURSE changes the date about
nine times. First they couldn’t, then they could. First the small room
and then the big one. HE suggested Palms to fill up the corners. Think
of my poor little works floating about in that big room. I wrote a
beautiful letter, suggesting that a considerable amount of Palms seemed
inevitable—but the letter was not allowed to be sent, my brother
considered it FLIPPANT and unbusiness-like. I thought this rather hard,
as I had abstained from remarking that a few apple trees or roses might
be more in accordance with the sentiment of my drawings than plants of
an Oriental character. However I am going to have the small room. Shall
you be still in London? Nothing will get finished if this fog lasts.
I was desperately [sorry] not to see the tree—but there was no help. I
wrote to Lady Maria in so much of a hurry—I hope I explained clearly,
and that I am hoping to come to tea when a leisure afternoon comes to
Lady Maria to have me.
I wish you and Lady Maria a very happy New Year.—Yours sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
I’m too delighted that the shops are once more open—and that the Post
comes and goes.
The exhibition opened on January 22, and the gross proceeds were
£1,067: 16s. (net £799). The most important works were ‘The Green Seat’
(40 guineas), ‘The Stick Fire’ (35 guineas), ‘The Cherry Woman’ (40
guineas), ‘The little Go-Cart’ (36 guineas), ‘Cottages’ (45 guineas),
‘Jack and Jill’ (20 guineas), ‘The Fable of the Girl and her Milk Pail’
(40 guineas), ‘Lucy Locket’ (30 guineas), ‘Standing for her Picture’
(25 guineas), ‘Two Little Sisters’ (25 guineas), ‘The Toy Horse’ (25
guineas), ‘Belinda’ (25 guineas), ‘Down the Steps’ (25 guineas), ‘Apple
Trees’ (55 guineas), ‘Over the Tea’ (35 guineas), ‘A Spring Copse’
(40 guineas), ‘The Old Steps’ (35 guineas), ‘Under the Rose Tree’ (25
guineas), ‘At a Garden Door’ (35 guineas), and ‘A Buttercup Field’
(£30).
This year she began her connection with _The Ladies’ Home Journal_,
published in Philadelphia, which, with its circulation of 700,000,
did much to enlarge her circle of American admirers. The connection
lasted through four numbers and proved highly remunerative. Thirty
pounds was paid her per page for the serial rights only of seven or
eight beautiful little pen-and-ink drawings illustrating delightful
verses by Miss Laura E. Richards. They were executed in her happiest
vein and they not only show no falling off either in invention or
execution but an absolute advance in the free use of the pen. The
only other published work of this year which calls for mention is the
coloured drawing ‘A Sailor’s Wife’ reproduced in the December number of
_The English Illustrated Magazine_. It is ambitious in treatment, but
illustrates the artist’s limitations, although much of its failure is
due to the crudeness of the colour-printing.
The fact is that her genius for drawing for the press had now grown
fitful, and that she felt this herself is proved by her refusal at this
time to undertake the illustration of Messrs. Longman’s Reading Books
for elementary schools, which a few years earlier would have made a
very strong appeal to her. Doubtless, too, her health had much to do
with it and disinclined her to bind herself to the dates and exactions
which it is incumbent on publishers to set.
After two years’ absence from the walls of the Royal Institute she
was now again represented by the portrait of ‘A Girl,’ which was the
forerunner of an unbroken series of exhibits until 1897.
On February the 2nd, the little circle at Frognal was further sadly
reduced by the deeply-mourned death of Mrs. Greenaway, of whose fine
and sterling character the reader has caught glimpses in the earlier
chapters. The strain of this sorrow coming immediately after the
exhaustion consequent upon the exhibition of her pictures, resulted
in some months of broken health, and it was not until May that Miss
Greenaway found herself again fit for work.
Soon after her mother’s death she wrote:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. PONSONBY
50, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_10th Feb. 1894_.
Dear Mr. Ponsonby—Thank you so much for your kind letter. You and Lady
Maria have been so KIND. I can’t tell you HOW much it has been to me to
feel I have such friends as you always are to me. We certainly do feel
desolate and strange, but I know in time the very dreadful feeling will
pass off, though I also know life must be for ever a different feeling,
for I have never felt the same since my father died....
I am sorry you also have had a sad loss—I have seen many notices of it
in the Papers. The longer I live the less I understand the scheme of
life that comprises so much sadness in it. I wish we could understand
more. Will you tell Lady Maria I am so looking forward to seeing her?
I feel like Lady Dorothy, who once, when you had gone abroad, said
she was glad you had rainy weather because you should have stayed in
London.—Yours sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
[Illustration: MABEL PONSONBY.
_Pencil and Tint. In the possession of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby._]
After a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Locker-Lampson at Rowfant to recuperate
her health she wrote:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
39, FROGNAL, _9 May 1894_.
Dear Lady Maria Ponsonby—I have had you and Mr. Ponsonby so much in my
mind for the last two weeks—and I feel so much I would like to write to
you, but don’t you trouble to write to me, if you are too busy. It is a
pleasure to write to you—anyhow.
I think I feel to my real friends as I do to my favourite books—they
get into my mind after a separation and I am impelled to write to them
or read them as the case may be.
I think of one of Mr. Locker-Lampson’s favourite stories of Carlyle, who
said to Mr. Allingham—‘Have a care, Allingham, have a care—there’s a
danger of your making yourself a bit of a bore.’
These are not quite the words—the original ones are better put.—I fear
that danger as regards myself.
I came home from Rowfant last week. I had a nice time. I think I am
feeling stronger, but sometimes I do not feel very well, but of course
it is rather a slow process, and it requires patience, which quality I
don’t possess.
Are you coming to Green Street this month? will you allow the bore to
come and see you, as soon as you do, one afternoon? _It will be nice to
see you again._ I think about you so often.
The Pictures are not much this year—I mean at the New Gallery and
the Academy, but I’ve only seen both in a dense crowd so it is hardly
fair to say—but the Modern Art strikes me as very FUNNY. I would like
to go with Mr. Ponsonby to the R.A. I’d like to see the effect on him
of certain Productions—I am sure you would feel the same (shall I
call it _lovely_ delight) as I do—in viewing these works of art.—I
suppose I’ve grown old and old-fashioned—but really you never saw such
creatures as disport themselves on these canvases. You go and look, and
let me go with you.
Will you tell Mr. Ponsonby the garden has been made so _tidy_ that I
shall venture to take him round it when he next comes to Hampstead? The
woodbine and carnations are alive and look as if they will do well.
I am at work again now—my ideas are coming back to me. I feel as if
I’d been in the earth for the winter and was beginning to wake up.
We have such gloomy skies every day, it spoils the lovely spring look;
if only it would rain and be done with it! You see I grumble. It does me
good.
I do hope you will soon be in town, and _do let me come to tea
soon_.—With kind regards to Mr. Ponsonby, your affectionate
KATE GREENAWAY.
And to Lady Mayo, who had again sent her some spring flowers:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MAYO
Dear Lady Mayo—What lovely flowers! I thank you so much. There are two
of my dearest loves—tulips and that beautiful double white narcissus.
But I have entirely succumbed to the fascinations of a new beauty, the
lovely greeny white ranunculus, the pale lilac anemones also. But they
are all so lovely and are an immense delight to me. I always rejoice
over a new flower. I wish I had time to paint them all, but I have not
just now for I am doing a river scene from my studio window. You will
say you do not remember a river there. Perhaps, but I will show you the
drawing if I have the pleasure of seeing you some time. The spring trees
change so quickly, but I am going to put your tulips into this very
drawing, where a little girl carries a large bunch of them.
The striped ones are so wonderful, the real old-fashioned ones. They
are one of my earliest recollections. I remember walking up a path in
my aunt’s garden that was two long lines of them, and I was so small
that I remember bending them _down to me_ to look at their wonderful
centres. Again thank you very much for the joy you have given me.—Yours
sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
[Illustration: EILEEN PONSONBY.
_Pencil and Tint. In the possession of the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby._]
In the latter part of July she paid a visit to Mr. Ruskin and wrote of
it:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. PONSONBY
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_9th August 1894_.
Dear Mr. Ponsonby—I am only just home from Coniston; it has been
quite beautiful. I found Mr. Ruskin so much better than I expected,
of course not his old self, yet even at times there really seemed no
difference—it has been great happiness—and the country there—as you
know—is lovely beyond words. I went to see Wordsworth’s country and
his two houses, Rydal Mount and Dove Cottage—the Cottage is so pretty
and they are getting back all the old furniture—(protected by strings
from the enthusiastic Americans). I sent you the little plants from
the Brantwood Garden. I thought it would be of interest to you to have
them—that is the pink and the white. The other is a little bit from our
garden, you said you would like to have—I can give you plenty more if
it does not live.
Will you please give my love to Lady Maria—I meant to have written to
her before this, but I really had _no moments_ while I was away, but
I shall write to her in a day or two before I go to Cromer, where I
think I am going next week. I am looking forward to Bournemouth, it is
always such a happy time for me—it is very close and warm here. I hoped
I should by now have felt stronger than I do—but I daresay it takes
time.—Yours sincerely,
KATE GREENAWAY.
On October 16th, she writes to Lady Maria Ponsonby:—
Tell Mr. Ponsonby I HATE Beardsley more than ever. It is the Private
View of the Portrait Painters at the New Gallery to-morrow.
_21st Oct._
All these days ago and no letter finished—not a moment of time have
I had. Some of the Portrait Painters have been slightly up to games.
Indeed I’m rather inclined to think a Portrait Exhibition is slightly
trying. The different expressions give rather the feeling of what
children call making faces. And then there are the different schools.
Some you look at through a hazy mist. Others confront you in deadly
black and ugliness. I can’t somehow help feeling a great deal of
Funniness whenever I now visit an exhibition of Pictures.
By November 1st she is again at work and writes to Ruskin:—
I have been drawing a baby six months old this morning. I wished for the
back of its head, but I proved so fascinating, it _would_ only gaze at
me, with a stony stare. The drawing did not prosper—but the baby was a
dear.
And on Nov. 29 this child of forty-eight writes of the ‘precocious
woman of thirteen’ (as quaintly alleged) of whom all the world was then
talking:[57]—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
I finished the first volume of Marie Bashkirtseff. Have you ever read
it? I think her odious—simply—but the book is wonderful in a way,
so vivid, and though you—or rather I—hate her you feel she must be
clever. You ought to read it if you have never done so. Johnny won’t see
it is clever because he hates her, but I dislike her but feel she is
clever. It is a study of supreme vanity, making yourself the centre of
all things. It is queer to be ambitious in that way. You can’t feel it a
noble ambition—very much the reverse.
She is grown up at thirteen when she ought to be having the most
beautiful child’s thoughts. I feel it quite dreadful to miss that happy
time out of your life. Perhaps one prefers one thing, one another. I
hated to be grown-up, and cried when I had my first long dress, but I
know many long to be grown-up, but even that longing is childish—but
this unfortunate girl was grown-up without knowing it.
Still, her history does affect me, I keep thinking about her. She is so
strange—so desperately worldly, and I think so cruel—because she was
so vain. I wonder if you have ever read it.
The year 1894, which had begun so sadly with the death of Mrs.
Greenaway, had happily in store for Kate the beginning of one of her
rare and highly valued intimacies. The acquaintanceship, which soon
ripened into friendship and then into warm affection, began with a
written request in May for the loan of some of her pictures for an
Exhibition in Southwark. The writer was Miss Violet Dickinson, to whom
a little later on she was personally introduced by a common friend.
From that time forward the two ladies, the old and the young, were
much in each other’s company at ‘private views’ and other ceremonies,
and the fact that her friend was tall and slim beyond the average and
Kate as noticeably short and stout, not only drew attention to their
companionship but served as a constant text for the exercise of Kate’s
humorous invention. Their correspondence by letter was incessant and
Miss Greenaway’s pencil was generally requisitioned to give an added
note of piquancy and fancy to her written communications. Many of
these little thumb-nail sketches, through Miss Dickinson’s kindness,
are reproduced in this volume, together with numerous extracts from
the letters. One note there is upon which Kate is for ever harping,
an underlying fear which is for ever haunting her. As we know she was
slow at making friendships, but when they were made they became an
essential feature of her existence, and she was in constant terror lest
they should be lost. ‘_Don’t_ begin to find me very dull—don’t begin
not to want me. Yet you can’t help it if you do. I suppose I am so slow
and you are so quick’—is but one amongst innumerable examples of the
little panics into which she would causelessly fall.
[Illustration: BROTHER AND SISTER.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Charles P. Johnson,
Esq._]
Into one other essential characteristic of hers we obtain some
insight in these letters. That Kate held no very definite or orthodox
religious opinions, although she had a strong religious instinct, is
hinted at in many of her letters to Ruskin and others. But it is only
from her letters to Miss Dickinson that we are able to gather anything
positive on a subject upon which in conversation her natural reserve
restrained her from enlarging.
On this last matter she writes:—‘I am such a reserved person. You tell
everything to everybody and I can’t. There’s numbers of things I often
long to say to you but I do not dare—and yet you are the one person in
the world I’d like to talk about them with.’
To a friend she said one day:—‘I am very religious though people may
not think it, but it is in my own way,’ and the following extracts from
letters to Miss Dickinson give us some idea of what that way was:—
_March 22, 1896._
You can go into a beautiful new country if you stand under a large apple
tree and look up to the blue sky through the white flowers—to go to
this scented land is an experience.
I suppose I went to it very young before I could really remember
and that is why I have such a wild delight in cowslips and
apple-blossom—they always give me the same strange feeling of trying
_to remember_, as if I had known them in a former world.
I always feel Wordsworth must have felt that a little too—when he wrote
the ‘Intimations of Immortality’—I mean the trying to remember.
It’s such a beautiful world, especially in the spring. It’s a pity it’s
so sad also. I often reproach the plan of it. It seems as if some less
painful and repulsive end could have been found for its poor helpless
inhabitants—considering the wonderfulness of it all.—WELL, it isn’t
the least use troubling.
_April 29, 1897._
I think Death is the one thing I can’t reconcile with a God. After such
wonderful life, it seems such a miserable ending—to go out of life with
pain. Why need it be?
_July 8, 1896._
You think, I know, that people are well off when they leave this world,
but then there’s the uncertain other—or nothing—it is a mystery I wish
we had known more about.
It feels to me so strange beyond anything I can think, to be able to
believe in _any_ of the known religions. Yet how beautiful if you but
could. Fancy feeling yourself saved—as they say, set apart to have a
great reward. For what? Those poor little bits of sacrifice—while many
and many an unregenerate one is making such big ones—but isn’t to go to
heaven?
_July 10, 1896._
Did you ever believe at all in religion, I mean did you ever believe it
as the Bible gives it? I never did—it’s so queer.—_Why_, one tries
to be good simply because you must—are so unhappy if you don’t.—A
conscience is a troublesome thing at times. I woke up at 4 o’clock this
morning and I spent the time feeling what a nothing I was, and wishing I
was so very different. Then the morning’s post brought me a letter from
a friend, saying I was so this, so that—it made me really cry, I was so
grateful.
_Dec. 13, 1896._
I could never believe as long as I can remember—yet I went through all
sorts of religious phases of my own—times when I used to write down yes
or no in a little book each night as to whether I had done all I thought
right in the day or not—oh, and lots of things—but I have never
believed—in that religion—though I do in my own. A woman once said to
me, ‘Any religion that is to be any good to one must be one they make
for themselves,’—_and it is so_. She, curiously, was a clergyman’s wife.
_June 14, 1897._
I wish there was no death. It’s so horrible, things having to be killed
for us to eat them—it feels so wicked. Yet we have to do it—or die
ourselves. These are the sort of things that make you doubt of a future
life. There’s some people would say animals have no souls—but they
have—some sort....
Don’t you wish you knew if you had got an eternal soul or not? People
believe half things in such a funny way, and mix up right and wrong—so
that I am so often nearly thinking, _is_ there a right and wrong—only
I know there is—but I would like it decided once for all what is right
and what is wrong.
_Nov. 3, 1897._
I’m depressed too by the horrid tales about people. You don’t know how
miserable it makes me—I’m so sorry—it takes all the joy out of things.
Goodness is so beautiful and so much best. I hate narrow people who
would take all the beauty and gaiety from the world. I love all that,
but I hate wickedness. Oh, it is such a pity—and the things people say
are horrid. I wish they would not tell me.
In her correspondence with Miss Violet Dickinson, Kate’s spirits would
sometimes overflow into sketches of a character more broadly comic than
the public generally has had any example of. Thus, during the hot July
of 1896, she dashes off a sketch of herself enjoying the ‘bliss’ of a
shower from a watering-can, and writes:—
What are you doing in this tropical heat—I’m so hot. I’m crimson when
I set out—and purple when I get there—oh, everywhere. Out in the
garden—the sun blazes on me....
On the 10th December she accounts for her temporary seclusion by a
sketch of herself as a solitary hermit withdrawn from the far-off
world; and a month later, still in the comic mood, she pictures herself
in the throes of composition, and writes in answer to her friend’s
remark upon her verses: ‘Dear’ (her method of addressing well-loved
intimates, omitting their names):—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
Dear.
Yes it is a fine thing to have a friend who writes lovely poems ...?
Across the lonely desert grand,
Across the yellow ridged sand
The lurid sunset filled the land
With desolate despair.
And after a vigorous thumb-nail sketch of the said desert, she adds:—
_You_ can’t do as good as that—besides _you_ can’t make a picter.
The year 1895, which marks Kate’s last appearance in the Royal
Academy exhibitions, with a ‘Baby Boy,’ also found her represented
at the Liverpool Exhibition, and at the Royal Institute of Painters
in Water-Colours by ‘Gleaners going Home,’ ‘Girl and Two Children,’
‘Little Girl in Red,’ and ‘Taking a Nosegay.’ Otherwise the year was
uneventful save for her now one-sided correspondence with Ruskin, from
which we take the following letters and extracts. They present us with
intimate glimpses of her artistic and literary tastes; her hatred of
change and the confusion of life; her discontent with her work and
her determination to do better in the future; her love of space; her
artistic methods; her views upon the Impressionist tendency of art;
and last, but not in her eyes less important, extracts from Rover’s
biography.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson
(showing ‘K. G.’ in a comic vein).]
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson
(showing ‘K. G.’ in a humorous mood).]
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.
(An example of ‘K. G.’s’ spirit of caricature.)]
[Illustration: THE BRACKEN GATHERERS.
_From the water-colour drawing in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. W. Le
Poer Trench._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
39, FROGNAL,
_The New Year, 1895_.
... I have been to the Venetian Exhibition[58]—but I have not seen it
well yet. The crowds of people prevented.
... There are some beautiful Ladies’ Portraits in such lovely dresses
and their hair done into those big rolls all round their faces. I was so
impressed by two heads by Giorgione—one a Shepherd with a Flute,[59]
so lovely, and Portrait of a Lady Professor of Bologna—the colour is
so beautiful (and the way they are painted). I think I will tell you
about the beautiful Ladies next time—because I have forgotten entirely
the most beautiful Lady’s name[60]—though I remember her so well. She
is dark and looks at you rather timidly and rather frightened—she has
a curious rolled thing round her head, I can’t tell what it is made
of—little curls of ribbon perhaps and here and there little white bows.
She has a background of white flowers, but I will tell you more of her
next time.
And Christmas is over and it is nearly the New Year—I fear I am glad
Christmas _is_ over for I want some lighter days. I don’t like getting
up in the morning when the moon is shining—and the stars are still
about. I see the sun rise as I have my breakfast, pale and cold—but it
is very nice to see the daylight come.
I am finishing General Marbot: It is a truly wonderful book, it seems
hardly possible people could be so brave—as they are—and most
certainly as I could not be—I certainly hope England may never be
invaded in my time—too fearful.
How I wish I could have come in to tea with you on New Year’s Day.
Suppose there was a little tap at your study door—and I came in
carrying a lovely Hot Muffin—would you turn me out, or allow me to sit
down by your fire and enjoy myself?
Did I tell you Eddie had come home (from Plauen in Germany) for
Christmas—so all my time is taken up in making it a merry time. I had
them all to tea and he danced and sang Nursery Rhymes and Looby Loo. Do
you know that? it is so pretty.
And then I think you would have liked to have seen my sister’s little
girl and little boy dance the Barn Dance—I would like to paint it—she
is very pretty, and so is the little boy. To-morrow we all go to
Olympia—and on Wednesday to Drury Lane—on Thursday I have another tea
with more children—Saturday is the sad day he has to go back again. All
the little Correggio curls are gone now.
New Year’s Day was my Mother’s Birthday, so I shall be with no one on
that day—except I shall think of the study and you at 5 o’clock, and
think I am coming to tea there.
It is shivery—ice everywhere—How much I wish things would not change
so much—so soon—so often—I can never understand the _plan_ of life at
all, it is all so strange—try which way you will to think it out—it
all seems of no use—yet you go on trying for this—for that—really for
some mysterious end—you don’t know.
... I hope you will have a very very Happy Year, and have beautiful
days, and lots of sunshine—and for myself I will wish that I may see
you again before it is ended.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 10, 1895._
Did you ever in your life read one of George Meredith’s novels? it
requires you to be in an angelic frame of mind or else it is that sort
of worry—trying to make out what he means—for it isn’t encouraging
while he describes all his people laughing at a brilliant joke, for you
to be _unable_ to see the drift of it.
Whatever you do don’t read _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_. It all comes of
my being sentimental and romantic. The title was so lovely, but don’t
you be induced by any means to begin it.
But if you do want to read something that is uncommonly nice get
_Passages from some Memoirs_ by Mrs. Ritchie and read about the
children’s party at Charles Dickens’, about Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle,
about her recollections of her childish days in Paris, her remembrance
of Leech, of Charlotte Brontë—it is all so nice, so kind, so clever.
I hear from Mr. Locker-Lampson that there is a real new poet, brand
new; he says his name is Davidson and he has written a poem called _The
Ballad of a Nun_. That’s all I know of it for I have not read it yet.
Perhaps I shan’t think him a poet. I fear I like them of the sort:—
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And all the shepherd swains shall sing
For thy delight each May morning.
How the beautiful words come into your mind—and then it is spring and
you forget it is snowing outside and the wind whirling the wreaths of
snow about. It is very Arctic snow, I never saw such lovely little
crystals....
Do you know, I had made up my mind to send you a real valentine—and I
invented all, just how it was all to go—then I had a horrid cold and
could only think how nice to go to sleep, so the poor valentine never
got done. I was very sorry but it could not be helped. And I had also a
good deal to do to my Institute drawings, which are very bad. So perhaps
it is as well I had the cold, only it was all so nicely ready.
I have got five bad drawings—‘Gleaners going Home,’ ‘A Little Girl in
Red,’ ‘A Girl nursing a Baby,’ ‘Another Little Girl and a Green Cradle,’
and ‘A Girl walking with two Little Children.’
The ‘Gleaners’ is, I think, the best—I fear you would say _of a bad
lot_.
Never mind, I’m going to begin beautiful things directly I can get rid
of these—which is next Tuesday—but I always think they are going to be
beautiful when I begin, then I generally get to hate them before they
are done.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
_Nov. 11, 1895._
I am still in a state of great perplexity as to what work to do and
as to what to agree to about books. There is no Almanack this year.
Now they want to do it again and I find it hard to decide if I will or
not—partly because I do not make up my mind about what I want to do in
other ways. But often when I feel like this I wait, and an inspiration
comes.
Some beautiful picture or drawing will make me long to do something. The
worst of it is, I ought always to do everything the moment it suggests
itself, or very likely by the time I go to do it the spirit of it has
vanished.
I do the technical part of painting so badly, and every one else seems
to do it so well. I have no settled way of working—I am always trying
this or that. That is why I get on better when I am doing a cottage
because I naturally do just what I see and do not think of the way to do
it at all.
Does this all bore you or interest you? I _am_ so sorry I can’t draw
when I am with you and can’t do drawings you like much now. One reason
is I am never as strong as I was and I can’t bear the strain. It is a
considerable one to do a large pencil drawing of that sort. It wants to
be so fresh and spontaneous—if it is rubbed out at all it is spoiled.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 30th, 1895._
You will be grieved to hear that Rover yesterday had a fearful fight
with his always enemy, the yellow dog, a truly amiable deer-hound; why
Rover’s enemy we can’t tell. The fight resulted in a real black eye
for Rover, who could not see out of it all yesterday. This morning it
is better and he has been standing on his hind legs looking out of the
window the last half-hour—liking to look, as he can see again this
morning, but also I fear hoping his enemy may pass by and he may renew
the fight. The yellow dog has sometimes made overtures of friendship but
Rover remains obdurate. I fear he likes an enemy—it offers an agreeable
excitement....
The truth of Rover’s enmity for the great yellow dog is that one day
his tail got caught in the gate, which was a sight not to be resisted
by the previously friendly and amiable yellow dog, who at once set
teeth in it. Rover was deeply offended at the time, and after brooding
awhile over his grievance determined on action. Thus the strained
relations of a few days developed into hostilities, thereafter
constantly renewed.
_Dec. 3._
Some cows have come into the field opposite which have now entirely
absorbed Rover’s interest. He remains fixed at the dining-room window
gazing upon them with a fixed gaze, as much as to say, ‘What are these
extraordinary large quiet animals, who don’t run about and bark?’
[Illustration: A SURREY COTTAGE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Alfred Emmott, Esq.,
M.P._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 9, 1895._
I am still doing all sorts of drawing—pencil ones with colour—I think
them rather pretty. I wish you would like a new sort—a little—I seem
to want to put in shade so much more than I used to. I have got to love
the making out of form by shade—the softness of it. I love things soft
and beautiful—not angular and hard as it is the fashion to like them
now. To be an impressionist opens a good wide space for leaving a good
deal that is difficult to do _undone_—at least so it seems to me. It is
so easy to begin, so difficult to finish.
[Illustration: A SKETCH OF KATE GREENAWAY’S MODEL, MARY.
On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 9, 1895._
I have been reading Mrs. Thrale’s letters, which have interested me very
much. It must have been a mixed pleasure having Johnson for a friend.
Yet, how every one liked him though he was so troublesome! I must say
I should have found it hard work to sit up till four o’clock in the
morning, talking and pouring out tea! Think of the hours! and they had
their dinner at four o’clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Thrale must have
been the most good-natured person in the world, indeed I can’t help
feeling people were not very grateful to her.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 16, 1895._
I am reading a horrid book by a man with a horrid face. I once saw the
author, and I said, ‘Who is that loathsome man?’—Well, I read no more
of his books—that’s settled.
CHAPTER XIII
1896-1897
THE LAST OF THE ALMANACKS—OPINIONS ON BOOKS, PICTURES, THE NEW WOMAN,
AND ETERNAL MAN—HER DEFENCE OF RUSKIN.
By way of accentuating the uneventfulness of Miss Greenaway’s quiet
life apart from her art, it is perhaps worthy of notice that the year
1896 found her staying at a hotel for only the second time in her life,
the occasion being a visit to Miss Dorothy Stanley at Southwold shortly
before that lady’s marriage to Mr. Allhusen, M.P.
To Kate the most noteworthy events of this year were her presence at
Lord Leighton’s funeral at St. Paul’s on February 2nd; the purchase of
one of her drawings by Lady Dorothy Nevill as a wedding present for
the Princess Maud of Wales; a single exhibit, ‘Little Bo-Peep,’ at
the Royal Institute; and one of her rare public appearances to give
away Mr. Ruskin’s gold cross and chain to the May Queen of the year
(by reason of her popularity among her fellow-pupils) at the May-day
celebration at Whitelands College, Chelsea.
He had asked her once before, through Mrs. Severn, but she had begged
hard to be excused:—
50, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_Wednesday_.
My dearest Joanie—I’m afraid—and feel I ought not to say yes. First
place, I have been so unwell and get so tired.... I’m afraid it would
be exciting to me. Also I can’t or ought not to spare the _morning_. If
it were the afternoon it would make a difference. I don’t like saying
_no_, as you and he [Mr. Ruskin] wish it—but if you could find a nice
somebody else, I’d go next year if I were in London. You know I’m not
fitted for Public Posts.... So do be dear—get some one else to give the
cross....
Good-bye, dear Joanie, _don’t_ think me hateful or anything horrid—and
do _do go_ to the R.A. and look out for—Your very loving,
KATIE.
Beyond these incidents the interest of the year is confined to her
letters. She always had on hand for Ruskin one epistle, to which she
would sit down at any odd moment between meals, exercise, and work,
despatching it as soon as the end of the sheet was reached.
[Illustration: GOING TO THE POST.
On a Letter to Ruskin.]
As usual these letters are full of references to what she is painting
and reading, of her views of life and religion, of her likes and
dislikes in art, of her love of flowers, of Rover, and of little
touches of self-revelation. Here and there we find a bit of keen
observation, and once a half-humorous, half-wistful protest against the
comparative homeliness of her appearance.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 5, 1896._
I have been reading a curious book called _The Wonderful Visit_.[61]
A man goes out to shoot a strange bird, and shoots instead—an
Angel!—Somehow the author does manage to make you feel the angel very
beautiful and superior to all about him, but of course it is all unreal,
and his idea of heaven doesn’t fit in with mine. I say with mine, and I
haven’t an idea. I have often tried to think out what I would like it to
be like, and I never can, for there is always something does not fit in.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 22, 1896._
Do you like the sound of things in the streets? They want to get up a
society to suppress the noises—they asked me to belong and seemed to
think it very funny when I said I liked them; what do you think?
I feel so cheerful when I hear an organ playing nice lively tunes. I
love a band. I like seeing the Salvation Army (though I should, I fear,
be angry if I lived near the sound of their preaching) marching along
and singing. I like the sound of the muffin bell, for I seem again a
little girl coming home from school in the winter afternoons. I don’t
like the beggars because I feel too much pain to think of them so
destitute, but if I could believe they got pennies enough I could like
them. I like the flower-sellers, and the fruit stalls, and the sound of
church bells.
So what could I say? I should not like silence always. It is often when
I have had enough silence I go into the cheerful streets and find it a
rest.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
39, FROGNAL, _29 Jan. 1896_.
... I am so very sorry Leighton is dead—I did not know him, I never
talked to him—yet I am _so sorry_. He seemed always to me one of the
few who cared for real Beauty. Now it is all something new—something
startling, but if it is beautiful does not matter. All the same there
seems some real sorrow that Leighton is dead....
I have got a very interesting book about Mrs. Montague—Mrs. Thrale’s
Mrs. Montague, I mean. I seem to have known her slightly so long, but
not to have known anything really as to who she was and what she did. I
think she must have been quite delightful.
What a lovely thing a purple crocus is. I told you about a book, the
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, illustrated by Anning Bell.[62] He has done
little crocuses all over the grass and I think them so pretty. I shall
draw some when they come up—but the unkind little sparrows peck them to
bits in our garden directly they open. Don’t you call that a bad return
for giving them bread all their lives?—If I were talking to you, you’d
say NO to tease me—I know you would.
But they ARE bad sparrows truly—because they peck the almond blossoms
in just the same way. Johnny is so indignant and comes to me and
says—‘_Look_ what _your sparrows_ are doing!’—My sparrows?
There was a bad thrush once lived in the garden, a robber thrush, who
came to a bad end.
Now if there are no dreadful frosts there will be a great bank of
wallflowers by and by. Only once since we have lived here have they
succeeded in living well through the winter. Mrs. Docksey sent me such
pretty flowers yesterday and a dear little pot to hold them, violets and
snowdrops—wasn’t it very kind of her?
[Here comes a little sketch of a fairy flying across the moon.]
That’s because I have been looking at the old _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ with Kenny Meadows’ drawings. I DO like them, for they are
really fairylike. As a very little child they were my Sunday evenings’
amusement whilst my mother and father read. My eldest sister played and
sang. I got to know all the plays when I was very little indeed from the
pictures. I think the names of the Italian towns got their great charm
in my mind from this time, mixed up with so much of the moonlight he
puts into them.
The sound of Verona—Padua—Venice—what beautiful sounding names he
got for his plays, didn’t he?—but then, he makes that charm over
everything. The spring flowers in his hands are nearly as beautiful as
themselves, and the girls’ names—Viola—Olivia—Perdita.
Oh dear! Things _are so_ beautiful and wonderful, you feel there must be
another life where you will see more—hear more—and _know_ more. All of
it cannot die.
I hope you get out every day for nice walks. Though I do not wish time
away I am glad this is February, the first spring month. I wonder what
you read now.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 18, 1896._
Did you ever read _Peter Ibbetson_, the first book Mr. du Maurier wrote?
I am reading it now. _I think it absolutely beautiful_—it affects me
so much. I have always liked Mr. du Maurier, but to think there was all
_this_, and one didn’t know it. I feel as if I had all this time been
doing him a great injustice—not to know.
It is such a wonderful thing to have thought of it all—it is so
_unworldly_—such a beautiful idea—an exquisite fancy. I long to tell
him how much I love it.
[Illustration: THE PINK SASH.
‘A baby with pink sash and pink ribbons.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
Miss Greenaway was also a great admirer of du Maurier as a
black-and-white artist, and after his death she wrote to Miss
Dickinson:—
All the du Maurier drawings are now at the Fine Art [Society]—I am
very sorry to think there will be no more—no more Mrs. Ponsonby de
Tomkins. He told me he got so fond of her in the end, he could not let
the retribution fall upon her that he intended to finish her up with. I
doubt if _Punch_ ever gets his like again; and he was such a nice man.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 25, 1896._
I wonder if you ever see any illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley’s and
what do you think of them? I would like to know. A great many people are
now what they call modern. When I state _my_ likes and dislikes they
tell me I am _not_ modern, so I suppose I’m not—advanced. That is why,
I suppose, I see some of the new pictures as looking so very funny.
You must not like Leighton now, or Millais, and I don’t know how much
longer I’m to be allowed to like Burne-Jones. Oh dear! I believe I shall
ever think a face should look like a face, and a beautiful arm like a
beautiful arm—not that I can do it—the great pity I can’t. Why, if I
could, they should have _visions_. Sometimes I almost wish I were shut
up by myself with nothing to do but to paint—only I’m so dependent on
people’s affection. I’m not lonely by myself but I want the people I
like very much sometimes. I feel I shall not do anything of what I could
wish in my life. Isn’t it hard sometimes when you have felt the beauty
of something in a certain way and have done it so and _no one_ you show
it to seems to see it at all. But I suppose if it is really a good thing
you have done that, after years, some one does feel it, while if it
is not worth finding out it goes into oblivion—so Time sifts it all
out. Such is not my fate, for I unfortunately can only think of all the
beautiful things and have not the skill to do them.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 2, 1896._
The almond buds are all pink, but I don’t want them out till there are
some nice little white daisies beneath them.
Do you remember the little poem on the daisy by Jane or Ann Taylor? It
is one of the earliest remembrances with me; my mother used to say it to
us so much.
Little lady, as you pass
Lightly o’er the tender grass,
Step about but do not tread
On my meek and lowly head;
For I always seem to say,
Surely, Winter’s gone away.
Now, after saying I remember it, I find I don’t, for that is the last
verse—and I know part of it goes:—
For my head is covered flat
With a white and yellow hat.
Her letters to Miss Dickinson too are full of her garden. Two or three
extracts must suffice. In February:—
I’ve had a deep disappointment to-day. Some one told me of a nice old
gardener who wanted a little more work. I thought he would just do for
us so I wrote, and when he called, instead of the old man there stood a
gorgeous young one in a gorgeous white tie. My heart sank.—He began:—
‘Path wants gravelling,
Grass wants seeding,
Roses want pruning,
Trees want cutting,
_Everything_ wants rolling,
Everything wants nailing up.’
A nice idea! my cherished garden made the exact facsimile of every one
in Frognal. I found myself _composing_ the _note_ that should dismiss
him later on. Nothing should induce me to consent to such desecration.
A month later she returns to the subject:—
I can really boast with truth that we have larger and more varied weeds
in our garden than you have in yours—in fact, our garden has forgotten
that it is a garden and is trying to be a field again.
And on April 1:—
It _is_ a Fool’s Day—this year snowing so hard—making such a mistake
in the time of year—All the poor flowers wondering what’s up. How I
hate it.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 11, 1896._
I do not have much to tell you about dear Rover. He has not been very
funny lately. He can’t fight—in the muzzle. He tries to but the other
dogs don’t see it.
Johnny always insists the cause of the fights is that Rover _boasts_ of
all the superior things he gets here, and the other dogs can’t stand
it. He says, ‘_I_ have a mutton chop for _my_ dinner’—and what can the
other dog say? except that perhaps he partakes of the bone of one, or a
paltry dog-biscuit, while Rover revels in beefsteak—beefsteak pie, pork
pie, and rabbit.
[Illustration: ‘K. G.’ WORRIED BY A STRAY PUPPY.
On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 1896._
How funny it is, the different ways different people feel you ought to
work! and people who, you feel, should know. One man said, ‘Now, what I
would like to see is all these things done _life size_!’ Another comes
back as if he had quite a weight on his mind to say he feels he must
tell me how much he feels I ought to etch, so that my own original work
was kept. Some one else wants me always to do small things; some one
else, landscapes,—so it goes on. The man with the donkey who tried to
please everybody is nothing to it!
KATE GREENAWAY TO HON. MRS. SUTTON NELTHORPE
_Good Friday, 1896._
I was given quite the wrong sort of body to live in, I am sure. I ought
to have been taller, slimmer, and at any rate passably good-looking, so
that my soul might have taken flights, my fancy might have expanded.
Now, if I make a lovely hat with artistic turns and twists in it, see
what I look like! I see myself then as I see others in the trains and
omnibuses with things sticking up over one eye. I say, Ah, there goes
me! I do laugh often, as I look.
In something of the same strain she writes to Miss Violet Dickinson:—
The beautiful Lady looked too lovely for anything yesterday in a pale
green bonnet, a purple velvet and sable cloak and a black satin dress.
I _do_ in a way envy their riches—I could have such beautiful things,
you would not know 39, Frognal. You’d come into such a dream of beauty,
and the garden too, such a sight would meet your eyes, pots and tubs of
lovely flowers all over.
In respect of Miss Greenaway’s indifference to fine clothes for herself
Mrs. Loftie points out how curious it was ‘that with her delicate taste
in dressing her subjects she did not know how or did not take the
trouble to make the best of herself.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 9, 1896._
I saw two little children in an omnibus yesterday—two little girls. I
was so much taken with their faces—they had such small eyes but exactly
the shape of some Italian ones. I seemed to know every line as I had
seen it in carved Italian faces—it was so beautifully formed, all the
eyelid round the eye.... I did long to ask their mother to let me draw
them. I could have done them with such joy.
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_July 12, 1896._
I can never define what art really is—in painting, I mean. It isn’t
realism, it isn’t all imagination, it’s a queer giving something to
nature that is possible for nature to have, but always has not—at least
that’s my idea. It’s what Burne-Jones does when he twists those roses
all about his people in the Briar Rose. They don’t often grow like that,
but they could, and it’s a great comfort to like such things, at least I
find it so.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Aug. 13, 1896._
I have not had a nice book this week. I read George Fox, the Quaker,
the other day. He was very wonderful, but some things they make a stand
for seem hardly worth it, like keeping their hats on. But perhaps that
is me in fault, for I don’t think I am at all regulated by Forms; they
don’t ever feel to me to matter: I don’t feel my life gets much shaped
by them—but then perhaps it would be better for me if it did!
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Oct. 21, 1896._
The colours are beautiful this year. Here, the Heath looks wonderful,
it is all so brilliant—red orange, emerald green, Rossetti’s green;
it always makes me think of Rossetti. I see the colour he _tried_ for,
and how difficult it is! You can’t think what colours to paint it with
because it always looks so cold when it is done—not a bit like the real
colour. I despair over grass, I can’t do it! I don’t know what it is;
I don’t know what blue to use—or what yellow. I’m so longing to try
more body-colour. It’s a curious thing everybody runs it down—yet—all
the great water-colour people (the modern ones) have used it—W. Hunt,
Walker, Pinwell, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Herkomer.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Oct. 28, 1896._
I have not seen any one or been anywhere so there is nothing to tell
you about. Yes, I did go out to lunch last Sunday and sat next to an
unenthusiastic young architect. I thought this—Am I so dull, or is he
dull? It felt very depressing. I don’t mind shy persons if they will
only kindle up when you talk to them—often at first I do not get on
with people (especially men), but in a little while generally things
take a turn. I suppose I am very shy, really, yet when they are quite
the right people I meet I am not so at all. I don’t think you thought me
so, did you? I know I did not feel so, though before you came I thought
so much of your coming it got to be really a pain, and I said I almost
wish he was not coming. But then the first moment I saw you, I was
glad—so glad.
How different everything is when you are with the right people! When
they are wrong they make me so tired. Some people think this so
arrogant—I never can see why—I should never mind it at all, or never
do mind if people don’t find me to their taste, and leave me alone. I
think it’s far more simple and right, and better so. I don’t feel what I
think is _best_ or _right_, at least of course I _do_ think so.
A lady said to me the other day, ‘We all do so many things we know are
wrong.’ Do we? That seems to me a cowardly way to live. Surely we do
what _we think_ right however mistaken we may be. Why go through those
struggles with your conscience? why accept the sacrifice for yourself,
the denial of your wishes, and yet think yourself a sinner? No, I
can’t see it! though I’ve often tried, because people have, as I said,
seemed to think it arrogant—but I have never been able to see it, it
don’t seem to me to be true. If you did what you thought right, you did
right—and there’s an end of it; I can’t think myself wrong but I can
thank what great Power there is that I am led to do what I consider
right.
There! there’s a dull long talk! What put all that into my head to talk
about, to you? Is it rather like Harry and Lucy grown up?
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
The year 1897 saw the last of the Almanacks. The later issues had
been so unsuccessful that Routledge & Sons had discontinued their
publication. This year, as has been said, another publisher attempted
their revival, but the demand had ceased and the series was abandoned
for good and all.
[Illustration: THE PEACOCK GIRL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of John Greenaway,
Esq._]
Mr. Edmund Evans was still the middleman between her and the public,
that is to say, he was the engraver and the responsible man in the
enterprise, and it is impossible to estimate even approximately by
how much her popularity had been enhanced by his excellent engraving
and his usually excellent printing. Some idea of the extent of their
partnership may be gathered from the fact that in the twenty years
since 1878 there had issued from the press in book form alone 932,100
copies of their joint productions. How far this enormous number might
be increased by Christmas cards and independent designs for magazines
it would be useless even to hazard a guess.
This year Miss Greenaway contributed for the last time to the Royal
Institute; she sent ‘Girl in Hat and Feathers’ and ‘Two Little Girls in
a Garden,’ but her most important work consisted of commissions from
Mr. Stuart M. Samuel, M.P., to paint a portrait of his little daughter
Vera, and to design ‘processions’ for the decoration of his nurseries.
Mr. Samuel is also the possessor, besides many other drawings, of her
original designs for _A Day in a Child’s Life_.
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. STUART M. SAMUEL
_13 Ap. 1896._
I cannot tell how much a drawing of your little girl would be. It
depends on the sort of drawing you want. A small water-colour would be
£25—a little girl like a book drawing £10. I can only do certain kinds
of book-plates, nothing heraldic. I do not think I could do a book-plate
to be sure it was a portrait. An ordinary book-plate is £5 or £6. I
could only undertake to do a portrait _here_—the little girl would have
to be brought to me.
This was done, and what was considered a successful result was obtained
by January of the following year. The drawing is reproduced in this
volume.
Her personal popularity showed no signs of waning, and she wrote to
Ruskin:—
Every one seems possessed with the desire of writing articles upon me
and sends me long lists of all I am to say. Then America worries me
to give drawings, to give dolls— and I have at last had to give up
answering their letters, for the time it wastes is too much to expect
wasted.
But though her name was still one to conjure with, there is little
doubt that her work was not as acceptable as it had been. Her reign
had been a long one and a new generation was knocking at the door. She
writes thus of her failing grip upon the public taste:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_April 22, 1897._
My mind is in a very perplexed state and I feel very depressed also.
I seem not to do things well, and whatever I do falls so flat. It is
rather unhappy to feel that you have had your day. Yet if I had just
enough money to live on I could be so very happy, painting just what I
liked and no thought of profit. It’s there comes the bother, but it’s
rather difficult to make enough money in a few years to last for your
life. Yet now every one is so soon tired of things—that is what it
comes to.
And on the same date to Ruskin:—
I have been all the morning painting a yellow necklace and touching up a
black chair. I _do_ take a time—far too much—they would look better if
I did them in less. I’m going to do some quite new sorts of paintings.
When I have finished this lot, I will please myself. I’m so tired
of these and nothing I do pleases any one else now. Every one wants
something different so I will please myself now.
Other letters of the year set forth amongst other things how little
sympathy she had with the ‘Shrieking Sisterhood’ and the ‘New Woman,’
how generous was her appreciation of new and honest artistic endeavour,
how she saw through the hollow pretence of what was new and dishonest,
and how educative she found her own painting. It will also be seen that
she was always on the look-out for a good story with which to amuse the
‘Professor.’
[Illustration: VERA EVELYN SAMUEL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 2nd, 1897._
People are rather excited over the Woman’s Suffrage Bill, but I hope it
won’t pass next time. I don’t want a vote myself and I do not want it
at all. Some, of course, might vote well but others would follow their
feelings too much, I am sure—and get up excitements over things best
left alone. For my part I do feel the men can do it best and so hope it
may remain.
There’s nothing but women’s everything this year because of the Queen
and the festivities, so now there’s a chance for them. They always
feel they are not done justice to. I must say, I in my experience have
not found it so. I have been fairly treated and I have never had any
influence to help me. So I can’t join in with the things they so often
say. And then it is generally the second-rate ones who feel they should
be the first if it were not for unfair treatment, and all the while it
is want of enough talent. Somehow I have always found, the bigger the
man the greater his admiration for talent in others. I suppose his own
genius makes him feel the genius in others and rejoice in it. Not one of
them can do a picture like a fine Leighton—yet they can’t even look at
him. I did admire Poynter’s speech—and how he went for them.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
_Feb. 11, 1897._
Then there are the strong-minded women, who hold up to my vision
the hatefulness and shortcomings of MAN—How they are going to have
exhibitions in this Victoria year, and crush MAN beneath their feet by
having everything to themselves and showing how much better they can do
it—???? Worm as I am, my friend, oh what a worm they would think me
if I dared write and say my true views, that having been always fairly
and justly treated by those odious men that I would far rather exhibit
my things with them and take my true place, which must be lower than so
many of theirs. For I fear we can only _hope_ to do—what men _can_ do.
It is sad but I fear it is so. They _have_ more ability.
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_Feb. 21, 1897._
My mind is tired out by wretched letters and circulars about various
exhibitions—the Victorian and others. I am at special enmity with the
Victoria one because they do _go on_ so.... _Man is such a vile worm._
Women are going to blaze forth at this show, I can tell you—at least
that is what they say—not impeded by the _usual fiasco_. Heaven knows
what that means, but I suppose it has to do with the guileful doings of
_Man_.
Have you ever been to the Exhibition of Lady Artists? You see, _I’m_
cross—well, this is what they’ve done—got the people [_i.e._ the
organisers] to say all the women’s pictures may be in the women’s work
part. They agreed at once—no wonder, they must have smiled with joy.
Now _why_ can’t we just take our places fairly—get just our right
amount of credit and no more. Of course we shouldn’t get the first
places—for the very simple and just reason—that we don’t deserve them.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 25, 1897._
I am reading a curious book called _The New Republic_, by Mr. Mallock.
I don’t know yet what it means, but so far it seems so different to its
author. Some are, and some are not like their books. You are like your
books. I never understand how they can be two things, yet how often
they are. I would rather never see the authors if they are different,
for I feel then it isn’t what they really _feel_ that they write about,
and that is not a pleasant feeling at all.
When writing this letter she does not seem to have recognised the
identity of Mr. Ruskin with the ‘Mr. Herbert’ of _The New Republic_.
Had she done so she would hardly, we may suppose, have alluded to the
book at all. Within a day or two, however, the thing seems to have
dawned upon her, for she wrote on Feb. 28:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
_Feb. 28, 1897._
Did you ever read _The New Republic_, by Mr. Mallock? It is certainly
clever, so much so I feel rather sorry he has written it. I should very
much like to know who all the people are meant for—we cannot decide. I
suppose Mr. Ruskin is one.[63] Mr. Miller told me they were all people
he met at Sir Henry Acland’s—I can’t remember if his name is spelt Ac
or Ack—and that he was furious at Mr. Mallock taking them off in that
way. Anyhow it is very amusing and funny, but if the one is Mr. Ruskin
he might have done better—but evidently he did not know him well....
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 3, 1897._
I’ve got a curious book about the adventures of a young man and a girl
on bicycles—it is called _The Wheels of Chance_.[64] It’s very funny.
The young man is a draper’s assistant who is described as weak and
vulgar (only in the way he talks) and he turns out so nice. I don’t
see why he should be supposed to be vulgar because he is a draper’s
assistant. He could be quite as noble and good being that as having any
other trade, as far as I can see. I never can see things that way, and
people never seem to me to be vulgar because they don’t speak correctly
or know quite what is done in a society a little above them. I think
it is vulgar to think them so, if they are nice and do and think nice
things. But the book has nice feeling, and it would amuse you very much
to read it.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 15, 1897._
Isn’t it a funny thing I can’t copy? All the morning I have been
blundering over a baby’s face from a little study. I can’t do it a bit;
it is odd. I can’t get it a bit like the original. I put it in and take
it out, and so it goes on getting worse and worse. And I wish I could
do it so much but I never have been able, and it don’t matter what it
is—it is everything—the most trifling thing. I never do it well except
direct from the object or my own mind, but I can’t copy a flat thing—it
really is curious....
The gentleman[65] who has his nursery hung round with my drawings has
seen those I did for you and is very much taken with them. He wanted me
to copy the two big ones, but I told him that was perfectly impossible.
So I’m going to do him a procession later on. Also I should not like him
to have drawings the same as yours.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 22, 1897._
I am very fond of _Nicholas Nickleby_. No one has liked Dickens for so
long, but I think I begin to see a little turn coming now. Of course in
time it would be sure to come, but it is a certain fate to every one
after a time, and then another thing sets in and they take their rank
for ever....
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 27, 1897._
I went to the R.A. yesterday. Every one has turned portrait
painter—Briton Riviere does ladies and their pet animals—Orchardson
all portraits—Herkomer also. There is one picture I think beautiful.
It is ‘Hylas and the Water Nymphs’[66]—the water is covered with
water-lilies and the girls’ heads above the water suggest larger
water-lilies, somehow. They are beautiful, so is Hylas, so is the green
water shaded with green trees—it is a beautiful picture—I forget
the legend. Then there’s one other that impressed me so much—I can’t
remember the man’s name[67] but I should think he’s young and new. I
think it is called ‘Love’s Baubles.’ A boy goes along, his hair stuck
full of butterflies and carrying a basket of fruits, followed by a train
of girls trying to get them; some apples are dropped which the girls
are picking up. The colour LOVELY—strong Rossetti; it’s colour to its
highest pitch, and to my mind it is splendid. There’s a girl in front
smiling—in a green dress lined with purple shot silk; she has red hair.
Her dress is so beautifully painted. The ground is covered with daisies.
I shall go on Monday and look again. _There_—it’s all true.
[Illustration: TWO GIRLS IN A GARDEN.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of John Riley, Esq._]
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
_29 April 1897._
I am reading George Moore’s _Modern Painting_ and I feel my
cheeks burn. And I long, oh I long—if only I could do it, to write
a reply. The answers come surging up while I read—so much of it
seems to me a distorted criticism of distorted things. But sometimes
he writes well. I am intensely interested in it, though of course I
look on Art from an entirely different view. I think it sacrilege to
compare Velasquez and Whistler, and when he says the world never
repeats itself, we have had a Velasquez now we’ll have a funny
Whistler. Would the world say that if there was a remote chance
even of another? Wouldn’t we all say we’ll take the Velasquez,
please?—Not that I don’t like Whistler—I do—but it is nonsense
putting him at that level. It seems to have aroused feelings in its
readers for there are various pencil notes on the margins beginning
_shame_.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 27, 1897._
I often think, just for the pleasure of thinking, that a little door
leads out of the garden wall into a real old flowering garden, full
of deep shades and deep colours. Did you always plan out delightful
places just close and unexpected, when you were very young? I did. My
bedroom window used to look out over red roofs and chimney-pots, and
I made steps up to a lovely garden up there with nasturtiums growing
and brilliant flowers so near to the sky. There were some old houses
joined ours at the side, and I made a secret door into long lines of old
rooms, all so delightful, leading into an old garden. I imagined it so
often that I knew its look so well; it got to be very real. And now I’d
like somehow to express all this in painting, especially my love of old
gardens with that richness of colour and depth of shade.
[Illustration: THE DANCING OF THE FELSPAR FAIRIES.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. PONSONBY
I went the other day to the Guildhall[68]—there are beautiful things
there, but not so interesting to me as the last exhibition—that seemed
to me the finest collection I had ever seen.
I can’t think why, but the Rossettis never seem to go with other
pictures, while the Millais’ tower above all things. They have the
Drummer-boy[69] there, just wonderful, and the early one of the
Royalist[70]—but put in the narrow passage, where you can’t see it.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 14, 1897._
There was a Millais—three Millais’—‘The Huguenots,’ ‘The Gambler’s
Wife,’ and ‘The Blind Girl.’ Every time I see any of the early Millais’
I like them more and more, if possible. ‘The Huguenots’ is so wonderful,
isn’t it? Her face! it seems to move and quiver as you look at it—it
is a divine picture. I do only wish he had not made the colour in the
girl’s sleeves yellow, or that yellow. Then the wall and the campanulas
and nasturtiums—her hands and his!—
I know you do not always like Tadema, but there is one here I think you
would like—both the painting and the subject, but very likely you have
seen it. I never have before. It is called ‘The Women of Amphissa.’ Do
you know it? Some women have gone on a pilgrimage and have strayed into
an enemy’s city and are taken care of and given food by the women of the
city. The _food_ is so wonderful. There is some honey in the comb, and
cucumbers and figs and bread. There are two fair women who are marvels
of painting.
Then there’s a Holman Hunt—‘The Boys Singing on May Morning,’[71]—but
the reflections are so exaggerated it cuts it up too much. But well
do I love the early one, ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona.’ I have often
seen this before and I love it. It really is so beautiful to see such
pictures.
Then there’s a Lewis—such painting, such colour! What a wonderful
collection of men they were!
And what will this generation who run them down have to show? For them,
_nothing_ that I can see at present. There are two Turners, but by the
time I got to those I was feeling too tired to stand. I fear I shan’t go
again for I think it closes to-day.
There, it is all pictures this time, but I feel so much better for
seeing them. I always do, if I can see a beautiful thing.
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_July 26, 1897._
An American and his wife came to-day and bought some drawings, and the
lady asked me _how much they were a dozen_!
Her American visitors were perhaps scarcely to be blamed; for Miss
Greenaway, alike innocent of the simple strategy of the prudent
salesman and incapable of the subtle skill of the accomplished
dealer, would make no attempt to ‘nurse’ her drawings. If she were
asked by an intending purchaser what she had for disposal, she would
bring out everything she had, partly in order that her client might
make the freest choice, partly in a spirit of pure but impolitic
self-abnegation. And when her friends remonstrated with her on the
imprudence of the proceeding, she would laugh and reply gaily that she
evidently was not cut out for a business woman. No wonder that American
collector thought that the matter might be approached on a ‘wholesale’
footing.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 28, 1897._
Did I tell you I was now reading a very fascinating book about gardens,
only it is conducted on more scientific principles than my gardening
and would take much longer. Mine consists in putting something into
the ground. When once there it has to see after itself, and can’t
come up to see after its root, or go to another spot for change of
air—perseverance does it! There’s an alstrœmeria that has had quite
a desperate struggle for three or four years when it’s never grown
up—never flowered—But this year there has been a victory, a great bush
of lovely orange flowers.
I saw such a great bee in the garden the other day—as large as the
Coniston ones that kick so furiously. I thought of the Coniston bees
when I saw him, and then—of the Coniston Moor, and the Coniston Lake,
and the Coniston Mountains. Ah, well, I shall come and see it again some
time—won’t you like to see me again, some time?
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
_Nov. 12, 1897._
I’ve now finished _St. Ives_. I don’t like the other man’s
ending—I—don’t think it is up to Stevenson’s usual mark. There are too
many adventures—too many hairbreadth escapes—it wants some spaces of
repose. I don’t like all dangers, it becomes painful to me to read. You
no sooner begin to breathe, feeling he is safe, than there he is again
worse than before.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 18, 1897._
Oh, I went to the New English Art Club yesterday—_such_ productions!
I just think it all mere pretence. They are to my mind mostly all very
ugly rough sketches, and they think nothing of leaving out the head or
body of any one if that isn’t where they want it—— I’d like you to see
some of the _clouds_—solid—absolutely—and to think of Turner! The
place was thronged with students which is sad—but I believe it won’t be
for long. I was told the _Times_ said the movement began to be popular
and so was bad and dangerous. I believe it will soon all crumble away,
for there isn’t anything in it except sketches; none of the good artists
would exhibit—the tide will turn.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 24, 1897._
What do you think I have been drawing to-day? I got so interested it
has made me very tired. I am doing a band of little child angels each
carrying a lily coming along a hilltop against a green (summer) sunset
sky. May-trees are in flower, and they are (one or two of the angels)
gathering daisies. The lilies are heavenly lilies, so it doesn’t matter
their being out at the same time as the May. I have not yet finished the
starry sky, but I was constrained to do the angels.
This chapter may fitly be brought to a close by the following handsome
defence of Ruskin, inspired by a conversation with Miss Violet
Dickinson, and written twelve months before the last letter.
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS VIOLET DICKINSON
_Nov. 2, 1896._
I have been thinking very much about what you said, of the way people
talk against him in Venice—I hope you will try a little not to quite
believe it all. For believe me it is sure not to be all true, and even
if he has been very inaccurate the world owes him so much that one may
well and justly (I think) forget his faults.
[Illustration: A BABY IN WHITE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
The world _is_ very ungrateful like all nature is, and takes all the
good it can get and then flings the giver of it away. That is our way
and it is a cruel one. And there’s another reason also—a reason that
once I used not to believe in—but I do now, and that is that so many
of the second-rate authors and artists seem to have a most bitter
jealousy of the great ones. It is very curious to me but they do. They
love to find a fault. Look how delighted they were to think Carlyle was
unkind to Mrs. Carlyle, while really I suppose he never was. When Mr.
du Maurier died the other day such unfair notices of both his books and
drawings!—I feel red-hot angry at lots of the things said about the
big ones, and we ought to be so grateful to them instead for what they
make the world for us. Nearly always the criticisms are from the lesser
man on the great one. How should he know?—If he did he would be the
great one, but he isn’t and can’t be, and nothing shows more how little
and below he is. More than that, he can’t reverence and venerate those
wonderful souls who shower down so freely for everybody the greatness
that is in them. I feel I can say all this to you for you _are_ a
feeling soul, and I know you’ll go with me. Not that I mean for one
moment that it is right not to be accurate, and I know in Mr. Ruskin’s
case he is too ready to believe all he hears, but I think it should be
forgiven—that the beautiful things he tells you—and the new life of
Art you enter into—compensate.
Never shall I forget what I felt in reading _Fors Clavigera_ for the
first time, and it was the first book of his I had ever read. I longed
for each evening to come that I might lose myself in that new wonderful
world.
CHAPTER XIV
1898-1901
KATE GREENAWAY’S THIRD EXHIBITION—CORRESPONDENCE WITH JOHN RUSKIN,
AND MR. AND MRS. STUART M. SAMUEL—HER VIEWS ON ART, RELIGION, AND
BOOKS—PAINTING IN OIL—DEATH OF RUSKIN—ILLNESS AND DEATH OF KATE
GREENAWAY—POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITION—THE KATE GREENAWAY MEMORIAL.
Besides a visit to Lady Jeune, at whose house Kate again had the
pleasure of meeting the Princess Christian and other royal ladies, the
year 1898 was marked by only one event of any moment. This was the
third exhibition of her pictures at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery,
and she approached the ordeal with considerable misgivings. There was
no need for apprehension, however. Out of one hundred and twenty-seven
little pictures eloquent of her unbounded industry, sixty-six found
purchasers, the total receipts reaching the sum of £1,024:16s.[72]
But the results did not satisfy her. After the opening day she wrote to
Miss Dickinson:—
_Feb. 22, 1898._
I’m so glad it is over. I hate having to talk to crowds of strangers,
and then it is a very anxious time after working for it so long. At the
Fine Art they say it will be successful; that always, if they sell as
much as that on the Private View day, that it is all right—but I have
very great doubts if it is so, and the large Pencil and Chalk drawings
I fear do _not_ take at all. The little ones sell, and the dressed-up
babies. I’ve felt depressed about it and I hardly ever feel that unless
there is a cause. It was so tiresome—the day people go to buy was such
a horrid day of rain and sleet, and now to-day snow. Then there was
coming another Exhibition of old mezzo-tints with a private view which
they said would be so good for me as so many would be there, but now
they have had an offer and sold the whole collection, so that won’t come
off. They are going to have the Martian drawings[73] and others instead.
Then they had a beautiful sage _Flag_ to float outside, but when it came
home they had only put one ‘e’ into my name and it had to go back to be
altered.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
And three weeks later, in reply to ‘kind inquiries’ after the
exhibition by her friend, she wrote in no better spirits:—
_13 March 1898._
No, the drawings are not nearly all sold. If more of the higher-priced
ones were gone instead of the others it would not be so bad, but it
takes a great number at only a few pounds each to make up anything like
enough to pay.
The Fine Art people say the East wind has kept people from going out and
they have had so few people in and out in consequence—but I feel far
more that my sort of drawing is not the drawing that is liked just now,
and also that I am getting to be a thing of the past, though I have not
arrived at those venerable years they seem to think fit to endow me with.
Whether or not she had good reason to complain of the fickleness of the
picture-buying public, certain it is that those who bought her pictures
then have had no reason to repent of their bargains.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF MISS VERA EVELYN SAMUEL.
_From the photogravure in colours in the possession of Stuart M.
Samuel, Esq., M.P._]
In this year Miss Greenaway completed the book-plate she had
undertaken to draw in colours for Mr. Stuart M. Samuel’s little
daughter Vera; and so conscientious was she that although her price for
it was only six pounds, she was occupied upon it on and off for two and
a half years; and when her client sent her a much larger sum than was
actually due, she insisted on returning to him the over-payment, while
‘feeling it so very kind.’ The pains she took were extraordinary—the
child, the design, the introduction of the wreath of roses with the
hovering bees (from Mr. Samuel’s own book-emblem), and the lettering,
all received the utmost consideration. The lettering proved too much
for her, as on the occasion when Ruskin so roundly trounced her;
so she agreed to have the words designed for her by a professional
letter-draughtsman for her to copy in her drawing. When it was finished
she took the keenest interest in the reproduction, and she was highly
flattered that Mr. Samuel decided to discard the ‘three-colour process’
and adopt the more precious but vastly more expensive photogravure on
copper. In this case each separate impression is printed from a plate
inked _à la poupée_—that is to say, the artist-printer inks the plate
with the various coloured inks carefully matched to the tones of the
drawing; so that, when the plate is passed through the press only one
copy can be obtained from each printing, and the plate has to be inked
again. A few impressions, therefore—say ten, or thereabouts—cost as
much as the original drawing, but the result justifies the expenditure.
The reproduction here given is not from the drawing itself, but is
a three-colour reproduction from the printed impression which has
often been mistaken for the original. The artist was delighted, and
wrote—‘How much I should like to do a book like this, but I suppose
it is fearfully expensive.... It is really beautifully done.’ In this
letter she goes on to revert to her ill-health, and succeeding letters,
in a like strain, led her friends to suspect the true cause of what
she thought was ‘influenza.’ Thus, on the eve of staying at Cromer
with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel, she writes—on the 15th of May 1900, after
a recurrence of illness—‘Please forgive my not coming. I know you
would have been a Vision in the Loveliest of Colours. I should so much
like to come to tea again later on when I’m not so busy, and see you
and some more First Editions.’ And again: ‘I hope you are quite well
again. I am not yet. I suppose I’ve had influenza. I never felt so
ill before.’ Then follows a series of letters full of hopes of future
meeting, of acknowledgments of commissions given, and of gratitude
for kindnesses received. The kindnesses, as was usual with her, she
sought to return by the gift of little drawings to her hosts and their
children, for although she loved attentions she never liked to feel
the weight of indebtedness. She used to be a little nervous in making
these presentations. On one occasion, when she made such a gift to one
of the present writers and she was asked to sign it, she wrote in her
flurry ‘Kate Spielmann’—and there the quaint signature remains (rather
smudged out by her impulsive forefinger) at the present moment.
As in the record of the immediately preceding years, so in that of 1898
we have to depend on letters, written in the main to Ruskin, for any
intimate impression of her life and character. They abound in allusions
to her hopes, fears, ambitions, enthusiasms, and perplexities, ethical
and religious, her preferences in art and literature, her generous
appreciation of the gifts of others and her modest estimate of her own.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 12, 1898._
I went yesterday afternoon to see the Millais’ at the R.A. and I think
them more wonderful than ever.
It is splendid the impression of beauty and power—as you first step
into the rooms. Do you know well ‘The Boyhood of Sir Walter Raleigh’? I
think that boy’s face is the most beautiful I have ever seen—it makes
me cry to look at it. Its expression is so intensely wonderful—so is
‘The Stowaway.’—But it is going from one masterpiece to another. Still
there are some which do not appeal to me as much as others. The divine
‘Ophelia’ is there as divine as ever. People are making up to it. I have
thought it the most wonderful picture ever since I first saw it.
Then there is the girl’s face in ‘Yes!’—full of the most beautiful
feeling—like the Huguenot girl.—How he painted those children!—Angels
of Beauty. He is really a marvel....
I should like to have a sort of little packing case made that I
could put drawings into and send backwards and forwards for you to
see—sometimes—only perhaps you wouldn’t like them. If you would it
would be rather nice—a very narrow flat box always ready.
I fear the exhibition won’t be in the least successful; there seems to
me to be very few pictures sell now—or a person is popular just for
a little time. And there’s so much fad over art—if you like the new
things they say you are modern. I say Art isn’t modern: new or old in a
way. It is like summer is summer—spicy is spicy, and Art is Art, for as
long as the world is—isn’t that true? However, they have woke up to the
‘Ophelia’ so I forgive them a good deal.
But I can’t help feeling boiling over with rage when I read the
criticisms in some of the papers—so utterly ignorant; and then people
who don’t know are guided by this. I daresay you will say, ‘But what do
the people who don’t know matter?’—They don’t—but it is depressing.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 26, 1898._
I wish people would care about what I do more now. This Millais
Exhibition has rather woke them up. They got to think Leighton was a
poor feeble being and Millais nowhere before the New Art, but I’m rather
amused to hear the different talk now.—And then Poynter and Richmond,
to my great joy, have been going for them in their addresses. For a
great many years now I have thought the ‘Ophelia’ the greatest picture
of modern times and I still think so. They have unfortunately hung the
children being saved from the fire next to it, which was not a wise
choice, as the red of the fire one is, of course, very trying to those
nearest it—but oh, they ARE all wonderful.[74]
_Jan. 27._
I have been to see the Rossettis again to-day for a little change, for
I was too tired for anything. I like the small water-colours more and
more. The colours are so wonderful. I feel I _do_ such weak things
and think strong ones, and it is dreadfully tiresome. I do want to do
something nice—beautiful—like I feel—like I see in my mind, and
there I am trammelled by technical shortcomings. I will never begin a
lot of things together again because then you can’t do new ideas or try
different ways of work, and I always could only do one thing at once.
I live in the one thing and think about it, and it’s like a real thing
or place for the time. Even now, the moment I’m doing a new drawing
the morning rushes by—I’m so happy, so interested, I only feel the
tiredness when I can’t go on because it is too late or too dark.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 2, 1898._
I am reading some pretty stories translated from the French of Madame
Darmesteter, but I fancy some of the historical ones are rendered a
great deal more _un_historical, and your sympathy is expected from a
point of view that you can’t (or I can’t) give, if I think it out. But
I am much more puzzled the longer I live as to what is right and wrong.
I don’t mean for myself. The rules I knew as a child are still good for
me—I still think those right. But it’s other people’s minds seem to me
so strangely mixed up till I feel, why don’t people settle it once for
all, and do what they call right and not what they call wrong?
It seems to me to be so unjust, often, for there to be two laws about a
thing. I often ask people but I never learn—every one seems vague and
says—‘Oh well, if you do right you have your own self-respect’; but it
seems to me more than that. It _is_ right to do one thing—wrong to do
another; at least, isn’t this true?
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 29, 1898._
I long to be at work painting May-trees. There are such beauties on the
Heath only they are black instead of grey, or else they twist about
beautifully. May-trees have such sharp curves, don’t they, grow at right
angles, in a way, instead of curves? I like it so much. Do you know them
in Hatfield Park? They are the greyest, oldest trees I have ever seen.
May-trees don’t grow about that way at Witley. The May is all in the
hedges, not growing on the commons in single trees. Yet it must be very
much the same sort of sandy soil that is on the Heath, and Witley is
nearly all uncultivated land.
I always look with envy at the May-tree Burne-Jones painted in ‘Merlin
and Vivien’:—it is so wonderful.
In the following letter she describes her visit to Lady Jeune at
Arlington Manor, Newbury:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 14, 1898._
I feel rather low to leave Lady Jeune, she is so dear and kind. I
can’t tell you how kind she is to every one, and Madeline Stanley, the
daughter, is _so beautiful_ and so kind and so very unselfish. She
played Lady Teazle and she was a dream of loveliness, and, I thought,
acted it in so refined a manner. I felt considerably out of it all but
they were all very nice people and I did them pictures—I hope gave them
a little pleasure in compensation for their kindness to me.... I went
off for two or three little quiet walks by myself on the Common; it was
a fascination complete—a great joy. It made me wild with delight to
see it all—the yellow of the gorse and the brilliant green and orange
of the mosses, and the deep blue of the sky. Also, I grieve to say it,
and you will be shocked to think it of me, but those three lovely sirens
were rather depressing—one felt so different, one was of no account.
There was Miss Millard;—black curly hair and deep, deep grey eyes, and
sweet pink cheeks. There was Lady Dorothy FitzClarence with red-gold
hair and eyes like—was it Viola? (‘her eyes are green as glass, and so
are mine’);—eyes the greenest (or greyest) of things blue, and bluest
of things grey—cheeks the colour of a pink pale China rose, red lips
and creamy complexion. Then came that beautiful, that dearest siren of
them all—Madeline Stanley—who is so dear one could only rejoice in her
altogether. But think of poor me! I used to say to Lady Jeune, ‘Oh, let
me come away with you, away from these sirens, the air is full of them.’
No wonder the poor young men thirsted for the stage-manager’s blood, who
took the lion’s share of the beautiful sirens. They vowed such vengeance
I told them _I_ thought it very unfair, but they assured me their
injuries were great.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY BEFORE THE FATES.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
In another letter on the same occasion she writes, ‘I am a crow amongst
beautiful birds.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_April 19, 1898._
It was lovely at Newbury—there is a common there just edging the
grounds tenanted by sweet little woolly white lambs—such pictures, with
wide-open anemones and blackthorn bushes. It made me so very happy to
walk about there and look at things.
There was acting going on and the house was filled with young men and
women, so I felt considerably out of it. But they were really most
of them very nice to me, and the three girls were dreams of beauty.
Madeline Stanley is so beautiful and not _modern_; she is so very dear
and kind—I think her perfection.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 20, 1898._
To-morrow is the New Gallery Private View, but there won’t be anything
to look at like the Rossettis. How I should like to live always in a
room with two or three Rossettis on the walls. You live in a great many
places at once, don’t you, when you have beautiful pictures hanging on
your walls? You lift up your eyes and you are away in a new land in a
moment.
I should find it hard to choose if I were allowed the choice of twelve
pictures. I would have had one of the Briar Rose pictures, _I know_:
‘The Maidens asleep at the Loom’—a small Rossetti, _I know_, but which
I am not quite certain,—perhaps the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in
Paradise. (Whenever I write Paradise I think of you. I remember writing
it ‘Paridise’ one day to you, and you were rather cross and wrote back
‘I’d write Paradise with an _a_ if I were you.’ I _did_ feel humiliated!)
Then what else! The beautiful Luini Lady with the jasmine wreath and
green gauzy veil and the divine smile.[75] It is a great deal to make
any one smiling a smile that you can never get tired of.
I’m reading the Diary of Grant Duff; it is so very interesting and full
of such funny pictures. I was rather interested last night, after I had
been writing about the twelve pictures, to find he talks of choosing
twelve, but his choices are not mine—and I’ve not chosen my twelve, and
besides perhaps my twelve are far away where I shall never see them—I
have seen so few.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 27, 1898._
I wish I did not have to make any money. I would like to work very hard
but in a different way so that I was more free to do what I liked, and
it is so difficult now I am no longer at all the fashion. I say fashion,
for that is the right word, that is all it is to a great many people.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 6, 1898._
Isn’t it curious how one can like good things so much and not do them?
I do love one figure or a number put into a little space with just room
for what they are doing. I don’t think figures ever look well with
large spaces of background. I know how fascinated I was by that one
of Rossetti’s—the Princess of Sabra drawing the lot. For one thing,
my mind runs to ornament or decoration in a way, though it has to be
natural forms, like foxgloves or vine-leaves. I can’t like a flower or
leaf I invent, though I often love those I see done.
[Illustration: On a letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 14, 1898._
I went to see the Guildhall pictures yesterday afternoon, but I can’t
help it, I like the English ones best. They are splendidly done
but—they don’t take me. I do like Bastien-Lepage and Millet and
Meissonier—I don’t think I’ve got sympathy with French art, it is
somehow too artificial. Perhaps I’m very, very wrong but—I can’t help
it, I feel so. I went one day to the Gallery of International Art. Some
things I liked but the greater number I felt wrong and not clever, and
some I felt loathsome. That is a strong word but I feel it. Shannon does
fine portraits. I think his pictures of girls are perfect, I like them
so very much.
Two days later she wrote to Miss Dickinson: ‘I went to see the pictures
at the International. Some are so funny. I laughed till the tears
really came. It is art gone mad.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
NEWHAVEN COURT, CROMER,
_August 26, 1898_.
There is a very, very pretty girl sitting opposite doing French. She
is occasionally extremely impertinent to me—I tell her _I am going to
tell you_. She says she would like to see you, and she likes your face
and she sends you her love. This is Miss Maud Locker-Lampson, looking so
lovely in a purple and green dress like a wild hyacinth. You would so
love all these nice dear children—they are _so_ nice—so good-looking.
And there is something else you would like—the loveliest tiny grey
kitten, such a sweet.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 1, 1898._
Isn’t it a pity more people do not love things?—The beautiful things of
the world are so little to so many; they go for drives where all they
look upon is so lovely and they care not one bit, but long to get home
again as quickly as possible.
I can’t tell why it is people are always trying to convert me. They seem
to look upon me as always such a ready subject, and really there is not
a more fixed belief than I possess—I have thought the same way ever
since I have had the power to think at all. How is it possible that I
should change? I know I shall not. If there is a God who made all the
wonderful things in this world, surely He would require some worship of
those also, but I can’t help thinking of a power so much greater than
all that altogether—a power that the best in us reaches to only.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 16, 1898._
I’m reading a book that makes me so unhappy—I hate it—I totally
disapprove of it, yet I want to read it to the end to know what it is
like. I feel all the time how wretched I should be if I had a mind like
the man who wrote this book. How curious it is the way people think—the
difference of how they think—how curious they are in the narrowness
of their—shall I say—vision? And there goes on the wonderful world
all the time, with its wonders hidden to, and uncared for by, so many.
How is it that I have got to think the caring for Nature and Art of
all kinds a _real_ religion? I never can, never shall see it is more
religious to sit in a hot church trying to listen to a commonplace
sermon than looking at a beautiful sky, or the waves coming in, and
feeling that longing to be good and exultation in the beauty of things.
How dreadful that sordid idea of a God is with the mind getting more and
more morbid and frightened. Why was the world made then? and everything
so wonderful and beautiful?
She recounts how somebody, who had felt it a duty to attempt to convert
her, had said, ‘“You can’t sit on that sofa for five minutes without
feeling steeped in sin”; and I said, “I often sit on it, and I don’t
feel like that; if I did I should try hard not to do wrong things.” And
so I would!’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Oct. 26, 1898._
How curiously days come back to you, or rather, live for ever in your
life—never go out of it, as if the impression was so great it could
never go away again. I could tell you so many such. One is so often
present I think I must tell that one now. Go and stand in a shady
lane—at least, a wide country road—with high hedges, and wide grassy
places at the sides. The hedges are all hawthorns blossoming; in the
grass grow great patches of speedwell, stitchwort, and daisies. You
look through gates into fields full of buttercups, and the whole of
it is filled with sunlight. For I said it was shady only because the
hedges were high. Now do you see my little picture, and me a little
dark girl in a pink frock and hat, looking about at things a good deal,
and thoughts filled up with such wonderful things—everything seeming
wonderful, and life to go on for ever just as it was. What a beautiful
long time a day was! Filled with time——
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_7 Nov. 1898._
I am reading a strange French Play. I should like to see it
acted—_Cyrano de Bergerac_. I feel it would be very taking when played.
It is so strange all the great things are a sacrifice. The thing that
appeals supremely seems to me always that. Yet how sad it should be, for
to the one it means desolation. It is a strange world this. How queer it
all is, isn’t it? living at all—and our motives and things matter, and
liking beautiful things, and all the while really not knowing anything
about the Vital Part of it—the Before and the After.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 1898._
Oh, so foggy again! No seeing to paint or draw. I hope it will soon
leave off this, but it always is so about Lord Mayor’s day. It is
nearly always an accompaniment, isn’t it? I saw the people going home
the other day with those long papers of the Show. Do you remember them?
How fascinating they used to be to me! how wonderful they seemed! Did
you like them? I have only seen Lord Mayor’s Show once. I would like to
see it again. I hope they will never give it up. I do so wish we had
a few more processions, and I’d like to revive all the old May-days,
Jacks-in-the-Green, and May-poles—then Morris dancers, all of them.
I’ve seen Morris dancers once only but they looked so nice with their
sticks and ribbons.
I wish I had something very nice to send you on this foggy day. I want
to go to the Fine Art this afternoon to see Alfred East’s drawings. One
will have to look at them by gas-light for the fog is so dense.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 27, 1898._
It really is fatal to me to have to do anything in a hurry, I must have
a quiet time. I can do just as much work or more if only I don’t feel
I’ve got to make haste—a sort of Dutch temperament—no, it is really
nervousness—comes in. Look at dear Rover! There’s a calm life—nothing
at all to bother about except to try to get more of the things he likes.
Such, presumably, as two chops instead of the one which, every day
of his spoiled life, Kate had grilled for him. And he might eat the
cakes and fancy biscuits at tea-time if he chose to commandeer them.
The inevitable result of such high living was occasional illness and
veterinary attentions.
The following are extracts from undated letters of this year:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
Dear Rover is, I am sorry to say, getting fatter again, after all the
trouble we have taken to make him thin. He is evidently meant to be
stout. One thing now, he never will go alone. We always have to be
with him. Once he would go for long walks by himself. They are quite
different, like people, when once you get to know them.
[Illustration: THE FABLE OF THE GIRL AND HER MILK PAIL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of W. Finch, Esq._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
I have just heard from Joanie that you spent your day in the
drawing-room yesterday—so you would see the Burne-Jones’ and the Hunts.
How slowly the Hunts have dawned on me—but it is a comfort _they have
dawned_, isn’t it???? Ah, you say, WHAT a benighted being, what a little
Heathen! to have been so long.
[Illustration: ROVER IS INDISPOSED AND HAS TO BE BANDAGED.
On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
What a fuss there has been about Sir Herbert Kitchener!—I like it.—He
must have felt it was very nice for people to be so glad. I like a great
deal made of people who do things.
In the same strain she had written of another hero to Miss Dickinson
the year before:—
I’m very much impressed by Lord Roberts’ Indian book. I met him many
years ago at a children’s party at Lady Jeune’s. She told us we were
rival attractions and the little Princes and Princesses couldn’t make up
their minds which of us they wanted to see most.
He _was brave_—so were the others; they were a brave and noble lot. It
seems too wonderful as you read to think how people can be like that,
going to certain death—to the suffering of anguish. It feels to me too
much to take—too much to accept—but it’s beautiful.
In 1899 Kate Greenaway devoted herself seriously to the painting of
portraits in oil colours, and her letters of this year are full of
the difficulties which beset her and her indomitable determination to
master the mysteries of the new medium. Again and again we find her
bewailing—‘I wish I could paint and not do smooth sticky things’—‘I
can draw a little but I can’t paint’—‘Isn’t it too bad—too bad—how
_much_ I can admire and—how _little_ I can do.’
In March she said good-bye with a heavy heart to her friends the
Tennysons, on Lord Tennyson’s departure to take up the Governorship of
South Australia. They were destined never to meet again.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 3, 1899._
I’m not doing drawings that at all interest me just now. They are just
single figures of children which I always spoil by the backgrounds. I
never can put a background into a painting of a single figure, while
in a drawing there isn’t the least difficulty. Perhaps I don’t trouble
about the reality in the drawing. I put things just where I want them,
not, possibly, as they ought to go. And that seems to me the difficulty
of full-length portraits. It is all quite easy with just a head or half
length. It is funny the background should be the difficulty. The most
modern way is to have a highly done-out background and a figure lost in
mist, but I don’t see this. So I can’t take refuge there.
Miss Greenaway’s difficulty with backgrounds is that shared by every
artist, more or less. G. F. Watts, R.A., used to quote Rubens, who said
that ‘the man who can paint a background can paint a portrait.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 11, 1899._
What dismal books people do write! I have just been reading a story
by Hardy called _The Woodlanders_, so spoilt by coarseness and
unnaturalness. I say spoilt by this, for there are parts of it so
beautiful—all the descriptions of the country and the cider-making—it
is all so well described you really feel there. The end of the book is
simply _Hateful_. I hated to think his mind _could_ make it end so. Did
you ever read any of his books? so many people now seem to me to make
things unnatural—it is a curious thing to think so, but I’m sure it
is that they do—and the natural is so much greater. They like things
odd—eccentric.
She never missed an opportunity of seeing Burne-Jones’s pictures. Here
are two of a hundred instances:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 19, 1899._
I am going to-day to see the Burne-Jones drawings at the Burlington
Club. His drawings are so beautiful. I do wish you could see the large
painting of King Arthur at Avalon. How you would like to have it to look
at for a time! I should like to have it for a week hung opposite to me
that I might know it all—every bit.
How tired one would get of some paintings if one gazed upon them for a
week—as tired as one often gets of one’s own. I fear it is conceited
but there are a _very few_ drawings—little ones of my own—that I do
not get tired of, though I do of most of them.
_Saturday._
I went to see the Burne-Jones drawings yesterday. They are very lovely.
There are two or three I would like to have, but indeed there is not
one I would not, but there are two or three I would love to possess—a
procession with such lovely young girls in it. The studies for the
pictures are so beautiful—the chalk and pencil drawings. He draws
such beautiful faces; and I like his later drawings often better than
his earlier ones. He certainly had not gone off, except perhaps in
colour—but that was a phase. He had grown to like colder colour, brown
and cold grey, which I did not always like, preferring the beautiful
colouring of the ‘Chant d’Amour’ and ‘Venus Vinctrix.’ But then, I like
colour so much. Well, the _world is_ Coloured, so are people. I see
colour higher than things uncoloured for that reason.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 21, 1899._
I told you, didn’t I, that I was going to try if I could do portraits of
children? I don’t at all like it. I don’t feel near strong enough for
the strain of it. I know what the children are like—quite unaccustomed
to sitting still, and then to have to get a real likeness! I prefer the
little girls and boys that live in that nice land, that come as you call
them, fair or dark, in green ribbons or blue. I like making cowslip
fields grow and apple-trees bloom at a moment’s notice. This is what
it is, you see, to have gone through life with an enchanted land ever
beside you—yet how much it has been!
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 8, 1899._
The summer exhibitions now are never interesting. The poor artists
can’t afford to paint good pictures. No one will buy them. I think it
is very sad and such a pity—the sort of thing that’s taken now—cheap,
of course, that comes first—then comes the picture if you can call
it so (I often don’t). The colours are daubed on in great smears and
dashes. The drawing has gone—anywhere but to the picture—at a distance
it looks like something but close you can’t see anything. Now _I hate
pictures_ that don’t look right _close_. Sometimes the colour of them
is good, powerful, and strong, but—so was Millais, and with all else,
it ought to be added, the more and more do I grow to think Millais
wonderful. To me there is no question he is greatest. People quarrel
with me because I think him greater than Watts, but, is it conceited to
say?—_I know he is._ And Watts himself says so also. Ah! if I could
paint like Millais! then, then you’d see a proud person indeed.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 17, 1899._
My little model has taken to say such funny things lately. She said
yesterday some one had an illness that went in at his head and came out
at his feet. She also was talking of a little sister being ill and I
said, ‘Perhaps she is cutting a tooth.’ ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘she always
cuts her teeth with bronchitis.’ ... It inspires me so much to see good
paintings though I don’t think you can ever tell how they are done, or
at least I can’t. I often think that when I am painting myself no one
would guess I did that, or that, the look is all. You may do a thing
quite another way from the elaborate theory.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 23, 1899._
I make such awful beings in oil—you would be amused, but—I’m going on
till I emerge—I’m going to emerge, I’m so interested but SO STUPID. The
paint all runs away, and the big brushes! But think of the fine point
I’ve passed my life with! I knew where I was going then. Why, trying to
draw with a pencil with _no point_ is nothing to it. But, as I said,
I’m going to emerge—in the end—triumphant—????—but that appears to
be a considerable long way off yet.... I should like to paint Spring
one day. I see it all.... If I could _Paint in Oil_, you see, I could
do it,—_don’t you see?_ or do you smile? You _would_ if you saw the
Painting in Oil. I sit and laugh at it. My little model says—‘Oh, I
don’t think it’s so bad’—and tells other people I don’t get into a
mess. Upon which they say, ‘_That’s odd._’ I was rather touched by her
assumption of my triumphant progress. You like her for it—don’t you?
Ah, well, I’m going to do lovely little girls and boys by and by. I _am_.
[Illustration: THE MUFF (UNFINISHED).
_From the experimental oil painting in the possession of John
Greenaway, Esq._]
On the same subject she wrote to Miss Dickinson on April 24: ‘I am
more enthralled than ever by the oil paint, which begins to go where I
want it instead of where it wants to go itself.’
At the Exhibition of the Home Art Industries at the Albert Hall she has
an amusing contretemps.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
[Illustration]
_May 9, 1899._
Then the Princess Louise came and I was introduced to her. She is so
pretty and looks so young. I actually remembered to curtsey (which I
always forget), and I was just congratulating myself on having behaved
properly, when all my money rolled out of my purse on to the ground.
The Princess laughed and picked it up. Wasn’t it nice of her? Something
always happens to me.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 17, 1899._
I am improving now in my oil-painting. I begin to make the flesh look
like flesh and no longer white and chalky. I like doing it so much and
if only the models would not talk so much!—But how they talk! and if
you stop them talking they gape and make such ugly faces! Some one was
telling me that Sir Joshua Reynolds, to stop his sitters’ talking, had
a glass put up so that they could see him working. I think of adopting
that plan. You can’t think what you are doing while you have to listen.
I can’t see why they want to talk so and never think. How funny it
would be to have a mind that never liked to be alone with its own
thoughts—very dreadful I should find it. I get to feel very tired and
miserable if I can’t have any time to be quiet in.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 31, 1899._
You can’t think how funny it is—but finding the power of oil-painting
now, my curious mind is wishing to see, and seeing, all subjects large;
it seems as if my long-ago and ever-constant wish—to paint a life-size
hedge—might now be realised. What a divine thing to do! A life-sized
girl in the front and then the large foxgloves and wild roses, and
strawberries on the ground. I should be lost in my picture. I should
have to have a stool that moved up and carried me about over my picture.
All the same I should not wonder if I _do_ do a life-size thing! Perhaps
I have hopes of the capacity of oil paint that won’t be realised, but it
is nice to get a medium to work in that does what you want more at once.
I don’t like small oil things half as much as water-colours—but I do
lose the _go_ of things in water-colours.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_June 7, 1899._
I went to the Tate Gallery the other afternoon, and somehow I didn’t
like it—much. It is a beautiful Gallery, but somehow tomb-like—and my
dearest-loved of English pictures, Millais’ ‘Ophelia,’ doesn’t look its
best there. Now I feel this picture ought to have a gallery that suits
it exactly! but perhaps some other time I may go and like it ever so
much. As it was, I grieve to say, the entrance was what I liked best,
going out and coming in. There’s the beautiful river and the boats and
the opposite shore of wharves and buildings, and I felt how nice it
must be at Venice to come out and find the sea—I do like the sea—or
a large river to every town. But this view of the Thames fascinated
me—like seeing the river from the drawing-room at the Speaker’s house.
I am almost getting to think that an oil-picture does undergo a change a
little while after it is painted—I mean twenty or forty years—and then
if it is a real good one settles itself into remaining a wonderful thing
for ever. For some of the pictures of forty years ago get a curious
look. I’m thinking of Egg, and that time—or are they not quite good
enough? For the Leslies remain charming.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
[Illustration]
_June 22, 1899._
The air is scented with the hay—everywhere—and the wilderness of the
garden has fallen before a very hard-working young gardener. I loved it
all overgrown, but the gardener told me when he saw it _he could not
come again_, he felt so _depressed_. Queer, isn’t it, how differently
people feel? It is very fresh and flowery at this moment. The rain
has brought out the flowers. There are roses, white peonies, purple
irises, large herbaceous poppies, lupins, syringa, marigolds, foxgloves,
delphiniums, and campanulas, and day lilies, and many others. It is the
garden’s best moment, and it is summery and not that frightful heat
which is too much for me. Do get _Elizabeth and her German Garden_. It
[suggests] Alfred Austin’s garden books but it is amusing and pretty....
I am depressed often when I can’t do this new painting as I like. I
take a rush on and think every difficulty is over—when I find myself
suddenly plunged deeper than ever in things that won’t come right—_but
they’ve got to_—they don’t know that, but it is so—I’m not going to
be beaten. I can see loveliness surely. My fingers have got to learn to
do what my eyes wish—they will have to—so there it is. _I see such_
colour and I can’t find a paint to make it. In water-colour I could
get any colour I could see, but I can’t in oils. I get something pretty
like; then in a day or two some underneath colour has worked up and
horrid colour is the result. However, I’m beginning to find out many
things, so I hope as I go on working I may get to do it all right.
It poured with rain here yesterday. I hope this may make the gardener
less depressed when he contemplates our weeds. Poor weeds—fine tall
fresh green thistles and docks spreading out their leaves in lovely
curves. I’m sorry for all the things that are not much wanted on this
earth.—And long ago, I loved docks; we used to play with the seeds and
pretend it was tea. We used to have a tea-shop and weigh it out and
sell it for tea. Perhaps docks do not mean that for any one else in the
world—like the purple mallow and the seeds I used to call cheeses,
sweet little flat green things, do you know?
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 25, 1899._
Dear Rover’s pride has had a fall. There are two swans have come to live
on the White Stone pond, and Rover goes and swims there on his way home.
Johnny said he could see the people round the pond laughing, and when
he got up to it there was Rover swimming about as if the pond belonged
to him, while the swans who thought it belonged to them were fluttering
their wings and craning their necks. Rover still remained unconcerned
and imperturbable, when one of the swans took hold of his tail and
pulled it! This did vanquish Rover, who left the pond hurriedly amidst
the derisive laughter of the bystanders.
He has some nice friendly swans on the other pond who swim up and down
with him. I suppose he thought all swans were alike. I am curious to
know if he goes in to-day.... Dear Rover stood firm and did go in.
Johnny saw him quite unconcerned swimming about with the swans flapping
about at the back. Now don’t you think this was much to his credit? I
only hope they won’t peck him!
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. EDMUND EVANS
Dear Mrs. Evans—You don’t know how I feel that I don’t get time to
write—you must think it horrid—but I have so many things to do because
I can’t afford to pay for them being done, and my little leisure bit of
time is taken up writing to Mr. Ruskin every week—for now he can’t go
out, or often do things that mean so much to him. Then I am trying to
do children’s portraits life-size—in oils; this means giving up a lot
of time to practising, a year possibly, and making no money. Then I’ve
the house to see to and my dresses and needlework and trying to write
my life—as you will, I think, see there is a good deal more than a
day’s work in each day. I want to come and see you very much but I fear
I can’t before the autumn—then I shall try. I have wanted rather to go
somewhere quite by myself to the sea to try to get on with my book. I
might come near you, if not to stay with you. I hope you like Ventnor
and that it suits Mr. Evans.
[Illustration: THE STICK FIRE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 1899._
[Illustration]
Do you know, I’ve had a great deal of pleasure out of oak branches and
acorns—what a lovely green they are! One day walking by the sea, I saw
a little bit of lovely emerald green on the sand. When I looked to see
what it was there were two _acorns_! shining and looking so brilliant. I
could not have thought a small thing could show so much colour.
I go on liking things more and more, seeing them more and more
beautiful. Don’t you think it is a great possession to be able to get
so much joy out of things that are always there to give it, and do not
change? What a great pity my hands are not clever enough to do what my
mind and eyes see, but there it is!
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 7, 1899._
There are not any very good children’s books about just now that I have
seen. The rage for copying mine seems over, so I suppose some one will
soon step to the front with something new. Children often don’t care a
bit about the books people think they will, and I think they often like
grown-up books—at any rate I did. From the Kenny Meadows pictures to
Shakespeare I learnt all the plays when I was very young indeed. It is
curious how much pictures can tell you—like the plays without words.
I suppose I asked a good deal about them and was told, and read little
bits anyhow. I never remember the time when I didn’t know what each
play was about. They were my Sunday evening’s amusement, and another
book called _The Illuminated Magazine_[76] that had all sorts of things
in it. Some I specially liked, called ‘The Recreations of Mr. Zig-Zag
the Elder.’ Perhaps you know the magazine. And then there were accounts
of the old London Churches and old places of interest: the Lollards’
Tower, St. John’s Gate, St. Bartholomew’s Church. No, I believe these
were in a book called _The Family Magazine_. I believe one of our three
cherished large volumes was that name,—the other two the _Illuminated_.
How much prettier those old illustrations are than the modern engraved
photograph. I hate the modern book and magazine illustration. But there
is a BUT—the illustrations of Hugh Thomson and Anning Bell, also Byam
Shaw, are quite beautiful and quite different.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 26, 1899._
I am rather liking red and blue just now. I suppose it is the winter
makes all faint colours look so pale. I like the strong warm colours of
scarlet—it is nice to do. I always like painting fur, which I think is
rather curious, for I don’t like painting hair and never do it well.
Rembrandt painted hair so beautifully—the portrait of Saskia with the
fair hair hanging down was so beautifully done; I did envy that. Then
Correggio also—do you remember Cupid’s curls? so lovely; and some of
Sir Joshua’s, the Angels’ heads—their hair is done so wonderfully. Fair
hair is more difficult to paint than dark; I spoil mine by getting the
darks too dark in it, so losing the fair colour of it, though I do think
it is easier in oils than in water-colours.
[Illustration: TWO AT A STILE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Levy._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 5, 1899._
There is going to be an exhibition for children at the Fine Art—the
Private View is on Saturday—but I think it is very likely the children
won’t appreciate it. I often notice that they don’t at all care for what
grown-up people think they will. For one thing, they like something
that excites their imagination—a very real thing mixed up with a great
unreality like Blue Beard. How I used to be thrilled by ‘Sister Ann,
Sister Ann,’ done by the servants in the agonised voice of Blue Beard’s
wife, and I could hardly breathe when the stains would not come off the
key.—Those wonderful little books they used to sell in coloured covers,
a penny and a halfpenny each—they were condensed and dramatic. They are
spoilt now by their profuseness.
I never cared so much for _Jack the Giant-Killer_, or _Jack and the
Beanstalk_, or _Tom Thumb_, as I did for _The Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood_, _Cinderella_, and _Beauty and the Beast_. I did not like _Puss in
Boots_ as well either. Of course they were all deeply fascinating, but
the three pretty ones I liked best. It would be curious to do a book of
them from one’s remembrance of them in one’s early thoughts. I know my
Blue Beard people were not dressed as Turks then.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 13, 1899._
It has been so dark lately, I’m quite afraid to do my things. For a
dark day does so much harm—just spoils everything. I’m getting quite
used to oil now, but I still make out things too much, especially the
lines round the eyelids. It is a pity, but I always have that tendency
and this dark weather makes it worse. I hope I may get out of it in
time—but I may never.
Dear Rover has hurt his foot and is quite sulky because Johnny has gone
out this evening. He expects us always to be at home now. You will say
to yourself, why does she write such silly letters to me just now? and
they are. It is my mind has got too much in it—more than it can hold.
Now you will say, ‘Oh, I don’t think her mind has got anything in it
at all.’ What do you think it is doing?—Trying to write a play in the
midst of all this bother! Now I never could think out a _plot_ to write
a story about, and here, at this most inopportune moment, a play has
got into my mind and insists on being written, and goes on and on and
develops in a quite curious manner. And there am I with no time to spare
and it _will_ be written down—isn’t that funny? Of course it won’t be
good or of any use—only I must do it!
On Saturday, the 20th January 1900, the following entry which says so
little, but meant so much to Kate Greenaway, appears in her diary—‘Mr.
Ruskin died to-day at 2.30 in the afternoon from influenza.’
For him there could be no regret that the ‘black archwaygate had swung
open to the glittering fields of freedom,’ but for those left behind it
would be hard to say by how much the world was the poorer. It was not
characteristic of her to say much when she felt most deeply.
It was Mr. Stuart Samuel who broke the news to her. ‘On Sunday,’ she
wrote to Mrs. Evans, ‘some people came in and said they had seen from
the papers he was dead. I didn’t believe it, but the next morning I got
letters from Brantwood.’
Then on the following day she wrote in her trouble:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. M. H. SPIELMANN
_22 January 1900._
I’m dreadfully sorry about Mr. Ruskin’s death. It was a great shock.
I only heard from Mrs. Severn on Saturday morning; she said then he
had influenza, but they did not think of any danger. I’ve heard again
to-day—they only knew there was any fear of it being fatal between 10
and 11 Saturday morning. He died at half-past 2, entirely painlessly all
through. I feel it very much, for he was a great friend—and there is no
one else like him.
Soon she came round to talk it over and open her heart to this
correspondent, who had known Ruskin, too, and loved him well. And it
will be observed that up to his death, never in her letters to Ruskin
did she write a word about her own ill-health, lest she should distress
one for whom she had so affectionate and unselfish a friendship.
[Illustration: STUDY FROM LIFE.
_Illustration_ (_‘Ronald’s Clock’_) _in ‘Littledom Castle,’ by Mrs.
M. H. Spielmann,_ (_G. Routledge & Sons._)]
Miss Greenaway was now invited by the Royal Commission to contribute as
a British artist to the Water-Colour and Black-and-White of the Paris
Exhibition of 1900, when it was hoped that she would repeat her success
of eleven years before. She had written to Ruskin that she was ‘too
busy to take any trouble over it,’ and to a friend to whom she paid
the compliment of coming for occasional counsel, she wrote as follows,
after due deliberation:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. M. H. SPIELMANN
I have decided not to send to the Paris Exhibition. I have nothing good
enough and I don’t know who has my things—I can’t think of anything I
would like to send. I feel pencil drawings look so very pale when they
get placed with strong coloured things. Don’t you think it better not to
send unless you send your best? There was no time to do anything, and I
did not want to leave the oil work.
To her question there could be only one answer, and the artist was
unrepresented at Paris.
The state of her health was now giving serious anxiety to her friends.
She certainly had undertaken and was able to carry to completion the
illustrations to _The April Baby’s Book of Tunes_, by the author of
_Elizabeth and her German Garden_, which was published towards the end
of the year, but signs of failing power were only too evident.
The _April Baby_ illustrations, which were reproduced by
chromolithography in place of Mr. Evans’s wood-engraving, to which
admirers of her work had become accustomed, though charming enough and
in harmony with the spirit of the book, are inferior to Mr. Evans’s
interpretations, and add not much to her reputation. A curious fact
connected with them is recorded in the following letter received by us
from the delightful and exhilarating author:—
In answer to your letter I can only tell you that I did not,
unfortunately, know Miss Kate Greenaway personally, and that while she
was illustrating the _April Baby’s Book of Tunes_ we only occasionally
wrote to each other about it. I felt quite sure that her pictures would
be charming and did not like to bother her with letters full of my own
crude ideas. It was odd that, though she had never seen the babies or
their photographs, her pictures were so much like what the babies were
at that time that I have often been asked whether she had sketched them
from life.
Her letters were exceedingly kind, and one of the April Baby’s most
precious possessions is a copy she sent her of _Marigold Garden_ with a
little pen-and-ink figure on the fly-leaf drawn specially for her. She
wrote me that she had been ill for a long time and had not been able to
work at my illustrations, and that they had all been crowded into a few
weeks at the end of the time given her by the publishers. She apparently
thought they had suffered from this, but I think most people will agree
that they are as charming as anything she ever did. Naturally I was
extremely pleased to have the weaknesses of my story hidden behind such
a pretty string of daintiness. So peculiarly simple and kind were her
letters that even a stranger like myself who only knew her through them
felt, when she died, that there was one sweet nature the less in the
world.—Believe me, yours very truly,
THE AUTHOR OF ‘ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN.’
That she now rather shrank from undertaking work of this kind we
have already seen from the letter written to Mr. M. H. Spielmann,
who, as a friend of some years’ standing, asked her if she would be
disposed to illustrate one of his wife’s stories which were appearing
in _Little Folks_, and were afterwards published in book form. In the
event, the book, which contains brilliant drawings by several leading
black-and-white artists of the day, was not lacking in two from the
pencil of Kate Greenaway.
At the same time her letters are sadly eloquent of her failing health:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. M. H. SPIELMANN
_11 Jan. 1901._
It is so long since I have seen you—so long since I have been. It has
not been my fault. I have not been well enough. I seem to have been
ill all the year. I had a long illness all the autumn which I am not
yet recovered from—and then colds so bad they have been illnesses....
I have seen no one hardly and done so little work. I’m so sorry when
I don’t work. For the time so soon goes and I always have so much I
want to do, and just now there are so many beautiful pictures to go and
see.... I hope you will believe that though I have not been to see you I
have often thought of you and wished to see you.
[Illustration: WAITING.
_From a coloured chalk drawing in the possession of the Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby._]
Ruskin’s birthday was on the 8th of February. On the first
anniversary of it a year after his death, Kate wrote to Mrs. Severn:—
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_7 February 1901_.
My dearest Joanie—To-morrow is a sad day again. How I always wish I
had done so much, much more. And I should have if life had not been so
difficult to me of late years....
If it would get warmer I could get out; then I should get stronger. As
it is I take everything I can. This is the little programme: medicine, 9
times a day; beef tea, 8 times; port wine, champagne, brandy and soda,
eggs and milk. I’m all day at it. Can I do more? Am I not a victim?
My dearest love to you. Your loving
KATIE.
A few days later she writes to Mrs. Spielmann:—
... I am really, I think, getting much better now, and when I have been
away I hope I may return to my usual self. I have never been well enough
to go to see you though I have often wished to. Since this time last
year there has only been one month (June) without the doctor coming. I
have felt it so trying being ill so long.
Yet in spite of her illness it must not be supposed that Kate’s desire
for industry ever flagged for a moment. She was full of schemes for
books—not merely projected schemes, but plans fully matured, first
sketches made, and pages fully ‘set-out.’ There was a book of ‘sonnets’
of her own—(she called them sonnets, though not all of them were in
sonnet form)—plaintive, dreamy, and frequently a little morbid; and
the water-colour drawings to these are occasionally quite or almost
complete. The water-colour sketch called ‘Dead,’ here reproduced, is
one of these. Then there was a new _Blake’s Songs of Innocence_, to
be published at a shilling net, each song with at least one drawing;
this was so fully worked out that for certain of the designs several
sketches were made. No fewer than twenty-two sketches were designed for
a volume of _Nursery Rhymes_; there are fourteen to _Baby’s Début_;
and twelve and four respectively to Hans Christian Andersen’s _Snow
Queen_ and _What the Moon Saw_. And, finally, _A Book of Girls_ was to
be illustrated with six of her daintiest pictures. A brave programme,
surely, with sketches made, ready to be carried into execution; but
publishers were doubtful, their enterprise declined, and offers were so
little generous, that the schemes were not pursued.
Several friends sought to remove the discouragement under which Kate
Greenaway was now labouring, in order to open up new vistas of activity
and success in other walks than those she had trodden hitherto: not
merely to salve her wounded _amour propre_ but to spare her the natural
worry incident to the diminution of her earning powers. For some time
she had herself schemed a great dressmaking business in her own name,
with herself as designer; but it never got beyond the talking stage,
and that mainly with her sister Fanny—Mrs. Dadd. Then she had the
idea of modelling bas-reliefs in _gesso_ for decorative purposes;
but that also came to nothing. For her heart was in her drawing and
painting, and she welcomed cordially a suggestion that the Editor
of the _Magazine of Art_ should write an article on ‘The Later Work
of Kate Greenaway,’ partly in order to draw public attention to her
oil-painting, but mainly to bring forward once more her name as an
active art-worker, for she was firmly persuaded that she was well-nigh
forgotten—‘forgotten,’ the bitterest word in all the vocabulary to one
who has been a public favourite and whose name has rung throughout the
world.
Then, in August of 1901, Miss Greenaway was offered the post of editor
of a new Magazine for children at a handsome salary, but she refused
it, not only because she felt her strength unequal to so exacting an
undertaking, but also because she doubted whether she possessed the
necessary qualifications. But sadly enough for the many who loved her
the first of these reasons was all too cogent, for only three short
months were to pass before ‘finis’ was to be written both to work and
life.
A fortnight before she had written to Mrs. Stuart Samuel from Cromer:—
I’ve been very ill—acute muscular rheumatism—horribly painful. I am
now, I hope, getting better. It has been so in my mind the wish to
write to you. You were so kind, it felt ungrateful to disappear in
silence....—Your affectionate
KATE GREENAWAY.
And again, ten days before she passed away: ‘I should love a drive when
I’m well enough. I will write and tell you how I get on; then, if you
will, take me one day. With my love.’
But the end came, at 39, Frognal, on November 6th.
The privacy she wished for in life was observed at her death; only a
few friends attended in the Chapel of the Cremation Society’s Cemetery
at Woking, on November 12th; fewer still on the day following, when the
casket was quietly interred at Hampstead Cemetery. But the proofs were
overwhelming that she was in a multitude of hearts on that day.
At the news of her passing a chorus of eulogy and regret went up from
the press. Writers and critics, English and American, French and
German, vied with one another to do honour to the memory of one who
had spent her life in spreading joy and beauty about her without the
faintest taint of vulgarity, without the slightest hint of aught but
what was pure and delicate, joyous and refined. Tender and respectful,
admiring and grateful, saddened with the note of heartfelt sorrow,
these tributes one and all bore witness to the beauty of her life and
work. Of them all none touches a sweeter and a truer chord than the
farewell homage of her friend, Mr. Austin Dobson:[77]—
K. G.
NOV: VI: 1901
Farewell, kind heart. And if there be
In that unshored Immensity
Child-Angels, they will welcome thee.
Clean-souled, clear-eyed, unspoiled, discreet,
Thou gav’st thy gifts to make Life sweet,—
These shall be flowers about thy feet!
For a few years preceding her death Kate Greenaway had occupied herself
much with trying to express her feelings in artless and simple verse.
In 1896 we find her writing to Miss Dickinson with her customary pluck
and energy:—
Each night when I go to bed I read a little bit of Browning—they are so
wonderful—each time I read one I like it better than ever. That fires
me with ambition to try to write something, and I do try, and they won’t
come good; isn’t it hateful of them to be so poor and weak? But I’m
going to try more than ever, and I’m going to try other things too if
only I can keep well. I do mean to try and do a little more in my life.
I’m not content, for I have not yet _expressed myself_. It’s such a
queer feeling, that longing to express yourself and not finding a means
or way—yet it goads you on and won’t let you rest.
The following sonnet, a characteristic and appropriate example, was
written when she already felt the coldness of the advancing shadow, and
it may be accepted as reflecting her own view of the Great Hereafter:—
When I am dead, and all of you stand round
And look upon me, my soul flown away
Into a new existence—far from the sound
Of this world’s noise, and this world’s night and day:
No more the inexplicable soul in this strange mortal body,
This world and it in severance eternal:
No more my presence here shall it embody,
No more shall take its place in time diurnal—
What beauteous land may I be wandering in
While you stand gazing at what once was I?
Why, I may be to gold harps listening
And plucking flowers of Immortality—
Why, Heaven’s blue skies may shine above my head
While you stand there—and say that I am dead!
In the year following Kate Greenaway’s death, a fourth Exhibition
of her works was held at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery. These were
in no sense ‘the remaining works of an artist lately deceased,’ as
auctioneers’ catalogues commonly have it, nor yet was it a memorial
exhibition. It was, like those of 1891, 1894, and 1898, the result of
labour undertaken with the definite purpose of showing what she could
accomplish, and of claiming once again the suffrages of the collector.
The only difference—a difference that weighed upon every visitor to
the Gallery—was that the hand which had produced them was now stiff
and the gentle heart by which they were inspired had ceased to beat.
The most important pictures sold were ‘Little Girl in Purple,’ ‘Little
Girl in Blue and White,’ ‘Visitors,’ ‘Boy with Basket of Apples,’
‘Procession of Girls with Roses,’ ‘Little Girl in Red Pelisse,’
‘Procession of Girls with Flowers,’ ‘The Doorway,’ ‘Doubts,’ ‘Girl in
Orange Dress (seated),’ unfinished, ‘Cottage with Children,’ ‘Girl
seated by a Rose Tree,’ ‘Strawberries,’ ‘Children passing through the
Apple Trees,’ ‘Susan and Mary and Emily, with their sweet round mouths
sing Ha! ha! ha,’ and ‘A Little Girl in Big Hat with Basket of Roses.’
In a table case were also exhibited a selection from the illustrated
letters written by Kate to John Ruskin, from which many of the
thumb-nail sketches reproduced in this book are taken.
[Illustration: SKETCH-DESIGN FOR THE PLATE AFFIXED ABOVE THE KATE
GREENAWAY COT IN THE GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL.
Designed by Mrs. Arthur Lasenby Liberty.
THE KATE GREENAWAY COT
ENDOWED BY FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS 1903
COMMITTEE
CHAIRMAN, SIR THOMAS WARDLE, J.P.
HON. TREAS. M^R ARTHUR L. LIBERTY, J.P.D.L.
HON. SEC. SIR ARTHUR TRENDELL, C.M.G.
LADY DOROTHY NEVILL, LADY MARIA PONSONBY,
LADY VERA HERBERT, HON. LADY FREMANTLE,
LADY JEUNE, M^{RS} LOCKER-LAMPSON,
MISS MERESIA NEVILL,
SIR WILLIAM AGNEW, BT. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD N.C.I.E., C.S.I.,
SIR CASPAR PURDON CLARKE C.I.E., M^R WALTER CRANE, A.R.W.S.,
M^R HAROLD HARTLEY, M.J.S., M^R MARION H. SPIELMANN,
M^R ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., M^R ARTHUR W. A. BECKETT, F.J.I.,
]
For the sake of those who have not enjoyed the privilege of seeing any
of her original work it should be mentioned that in the Art Library
of the Victoria and Albert Museum there are ten of her water-colour
drawings, among them illustrations to the _Language of Flowers_,
_Little Ann_, and the Almanacks, while in the Picture Gallery at this
time of writing hang ‘P peeped in it,’ an illustration for _A Apple
Pie_, one of the illustrations for _A Day in a Child’s Life_, and
‘Three Girls in White.’
* * * * *
Although such a one as Kate Greenaway is scarcely likely to be
forgotten, a movement was quickly set on foot by some of her friends in
order to perpetuate her memory in some appropriately practical fashion,
and a committee was formed ‘for the purpose of promoting a scheme which
will secure a fitting memorial to the late Kate Greenaway, who filled
so distinctive a place in the Art world, and whose charming treatment
of child-life endeared her to every home in the Empire.’ The committee
consisted of Lady Dorothy Nevill (at whose house the meetings were
held), Lady Maria Ponsonby, Lady Victoria Herbert, Lady Fremantle, Lady
Jeune (Lady St. Helier), Mrs. Locker-Lampson, Miss Meresia Nevill,
Mr. Arthur à Beckett, Sir William Agnew, Sir George Birdwood, Sir
Caspar Purdon Clarke, Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Harold Hartley, Mr. M. H.
Spielmann, Sir Arthur Trendell (hon. secretary), Sir Thomas Wardle
(chairman), and Sir Aston Webb, with Mr. Arthur L. Liberty as hon.
treasurer. The amount of the subscriptions collected—to which Sir
Squire Bancroft largely added by his fine reading in St. James’s Hall
of _The Christmas Carol_—reached £949, which when the expenses were
deducted left the sum of £779. It was decided to endow a cot in the
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children—a form of memorial which
would assuredly have appealed most strongly to Kate Greenaway herself,
supposing it possible that so modest a person would have agreed to
or authorised any memorial at all. In due course the purpose of the
committee was carried into effect; and a dedication plate, designed by
Mrs. Liberty, is now affixed above a little bed. And when the little
ones who lie sick in the hospital ward ask the meaning of the plate
upon the wall they are told of one who in spite of much physical
weakness and suffering devoted herself whole-heartedly to bringing
happiness and delight into the lives of others, particularly of
children.
[Illustration: SPRING TIME.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Henry Silver, Esq._]
CHAPTER XV
VERSE-WRITING: KATE GREENAWAY’S FEELING FOR POETRY—PROBLEM, TRAGEDY,
AND RESIGNATION—CHARM OF HER VERSES FOR CHILDREN—ON DEATH.
From the early days when Kate Greenaway submitted her crude verses to
Mr. W. Marcus Ward and found little encouragement, down to the very
end of her life, she spent no inconsiderable portion of her time in
fluttering around the base of Parnassus. Competent critics, as we have
seen, expressed the opinion that there was poetic fancy and feeling
in many of these early attempts. Four thick volumes of neatly written
manuscript running to hundreds of pages testify to the industry with
which Miss Greenaway followed what she says to her infinite regret
proved to be a vain hope. It is not given to every genius to shine
in two spheres. These curious volumes as they stand make tantalising
reading. A hundred telling themes are gaily launched on a sea of words
and all goes well, until we are disturbed by mixed metaphor, faulty
rhyme, and defective rhythm, and only here and there do we find a poem
which is sustained and carried on successfully to the end.
The fact is, Kate Greenaway—so she told her sister to whom she would
read her verses—regarded these efforts only as rough drafts from which
she intended some day to select the best and put them into form. She
herself considered them defective alike in rhyme, rhythm, and metre,
and admitted that they needed rewriting, and she made fair copies
into her MS. volumes only in order to preserve her ideas until she
could find time to express herself adequately according to the rules
of versification. Indeed she did not seem to regard any of them as
finished. This should be borne in mind by the reader who would deny
these efforts serious consideration, or who would admit them only on
the ground that no ‘Life’ of Kate Greenaway would be complete or truly
reflective of the artist’s work without some reference to an occupation
which filled her mind during many years of her career. How far Miss
Greenaway might ultimately have gone it is difficult to say; but we
cannot doubt that she possessed some of the qualities of a poet. Hers
was a mind full of subtle and beautiful thoughts of a sweet and simple
kind, struggling to give them lucid expression.
Let us take for example the following lines in which the anticlimax is
really cleverly managed:—
It is so glorious just to say
I loved him all at once—one day—
A winter’s day. Then came the spring
And only deepenèd the thing.
I think it deepen’d—I’m not sure
If there was room to love you more.
Then summer followed—and my love
Took colour from the skies above.
Then weeks—and months—and years there came,
And I, well, loved on—just the same.
Then, dear, stretch out your hands—and let me lie
Within them as I slowly die,
Then stoop your head to mine and give—
Ah, not a kiss—or I should live.
It must not be forgotten that, like most bright and happy and keenly
sensitive natures, Miss Greenaway had many moments of melancholy,
almost of morbidness, which she attributed to her being ‘a quarter
Welsh.’ On this element of national sadness she laid the responsibility
of her passion for writing love-verses, of a character so yearning
and despairing, that she almost found herself, with rôles inverted,
playing the Beatrice to some unknown Dante. It pleased and soothed her
to work out a poetic problem—to imagine herself appealing to some
foolish heartless swain blind to her love and deaf to her appeal—and
to feel her way as she developed the character and mind of the lovelorn
lady. The case was not her own, and for that reason, no doubt, the
experiment was the more alluring. She returned to it again and again,
constantly from a different point; and poem after poem is expressive
of a passionate desire for a love which never came. Page after page is
devoted to apostrophising the imaginary one who is somewhere in the
world, sometimes perhaps even seeking her—seeking but not finding.
First, her heroine takes upon herself the blame for losing him—‘You
smiled and I turned me away’; and then declares that the fault is his
for hanging back, for—‘man is a fool—such a fool’—
Ah, cold, faint-hearted, go—I tell you go!
Dear God, to think I could have loved you so!...
His eyes were blind that he could not see
As he turned away to the world from me ...
And his soul
Sought out—a lower soul.
... It may be
One day God
Will tell you that you missed
The Higher Part.
You grasped the grass
Who might have held the flower.
You took a stone
Who might have won a heart.
... He looks back
Over the years
Of the rift and the wrack—
And the lover’s soul cries to her soul:—
Oh, can you forgive me?
I know to my cost
The Life that I’ve missed,
The Life that I’ve lost.
Soul,
Can you pardon this soul?
God bless you, dear, always and ever,
God bless you and bless you I say.
And I know you will pray for the coward,
The fool who once threw you away.
Soul, when the stars shine
Think sometimes of this soul.
Later on, he is not content with forgiveness, but is praying to be
taken back. But it is too late, for
You rejected—threw the gift away,
And now bring tears and sorrowful complaint.
I call you coward, playing at babies’ play.
The woman made no sound, or any plaint,
But took her lot and kept her bitter tears
In silence all alone and unbefriended—
Now take her scorn for all the coming years.
That is her answer, till her life is ended.
Then in the verses entitled ‘The You that was not You’ she makes the
discovery that—
The You I loved was my creation—mine,
Without a counterpart within yourself.
I gave you thoughts and soul and heart
Taken from Love’s ideal....
And so the first dream ends and she brings her heroine to a saner
mood, with the discovery that all these bitter experiences and
disappointments have been sent by God to teach her that she has been
pre-ordained to an anchorite’s life of Art, for Art’s sake. Then half
regretful, half resigned, she carries on her character a stage:
A lonely soul, I am ever alone.
If love ever comes it is quickly gone—
Nothing abides and nothing stays.
I think I have found it, but only to know
How very soon it is all to go.
The sunshine is followed by falling snow.
There are sometimes moments when I see
A sort of divinity in it for me,
To keep me separate and alone;
To hold away and keep my heart
All for my work, set aside and apart,
As if I were vowed away to Art.
And then there comes a happier moment when something breaks into her
life to compensate and console her for her renunciations:—
For the world had found a new and lovely voice
To teach and train me in her secret ways,
And I saw beauty in all things that are
And knew that I was blest for all my days.
Above the world now, above its good and ill,
I ventured on a new and lovely life—
Sesame! had been said and I passed in,
My soul and body no more waged a strife.
Shall I not think you then, oh, best of all?
Shall I not call you Friend, and say—‘tis He
Who shook away the chaff and saved the grain
And gave the whole—God’s Heaven—unto me?
[Illustration: SWANSDOWN.
‘Girl in hat with feather, hat trimmed with swansdown and yellow
ribbons.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
The verses here quoted are fair examples of her powers and of her
limitations, so far as it is fair to speak of limitations when the
verses are avowedly but studies for the finished work, the uncut and
unpolished stones. The expression of the ideas is consequently crude,
but the ideas are clearly there and have at least become articulate.
They are not mock heroics, but the half-spoken utterances of real
passion, of the baulked, helpless, disillusioned woman of her creation,
who is emerging into a philosophic and sufficiently satisfactory state
of mind. And they are representative of by far the larger portion of
her literary output.
What Kate Greenaway might have accomplished had she devoted as much
time to verses for children as in accumulating poetic material of an
introspective nature, may be gathered from the pretty and dainty rhymes
with which every one who is familiar with her books is well acquainted.
It may be seen, too, from the following lines from ‘The Getting Up of
the King’s Little Daughter’—in which she has many pretty ideas around
which she wanders, grasping them fully from time to time. Here is a
dainty couplet describing the little princess’s bath:—
Then she rises and fresh water
Swallows up the King’s small daughter;
and the conclusion—
For her breakfast there is spread
Freshest milk and whitest bread,
Yellow butter, golden honey,
The best there is for love or money.
So, too, in ‘Girls in a Garden,’ a prettily clothed thought here and
there stands out deliciously:—
The Roses red white fingers take
And Lilies for their own sweet sake—
is surely a little picture of which no one need to be ashamed. So too—
By Hollyhocks they measure who
Is grown the taller of the two;
and—
The sky is laughing in white and blue—
reveal to us the true Kate Greenaway of _Under the Window_ and
_Language of Flowers_, illustrating the sisterhood of her pencil and
her pen. And again there is a touch of infantile delight in the artless
little verse—
Oh, what a silken stocking,
And what a satin shoe!
I wish I was a little toe
To live in there, I do.
Is it too much to say that had Kate Greenaway given as much time
and energy to such verses as these as she did to her more ambitious
efforts, she might be acclaimed the Babies’ laureate as unchallenged on
her pinnacle as she is supreme as the Children’s Artist?
From the melancholy of her imaginary heroine, and from the brightness
of her joyous self when she appeals to her vast child-constituency, we
may turn to the occasional depression which is mirrored in some of her
late verses when she considers her own life and achievement. It is not
to be supposed for a moment that Kate Greenaway was morbid naturally,
but she was easily dejected, particularly when, as we have seen, she
fell into despair on realising that the world had forgotten her and
passed her by while her imitators were reaping the reward which her own
genius and originality had sown. Had she fallen out of fashion merely
she would not have complained; it was the denseness of the public who
willingly accepted the counterfeit for the genuine that hurt her. More
than once she casts these feelings into rhyme:—
Deserted, cast away, my work all done,
Who was a star that shone a little while,
But fallen now and all its brightness gone—
A victim of this world’s brief fickle smile.
Poor fool and vain, grieve not for what is lost,
Nor rend thy heart by counting up the cost.
In spite of the mixed metaphor we must recognise a sincere thought
sincerely expressed—no mere idle complaint, but a disappointment
honestly and courageously borne. And she proceeds—
We walk, we talk, we sing our song,
Our little song upon this earth;
How soon we tread the road along,
And look for death almost from birth.
In point of fact, hopefulness was the note of her character; and in
spite of all disappointments, she was an optimist to the end. This note
is struck again in the following lines:—
Take all my things from me—all my gold,
My houses, and my lands, and all I hold—
Even my beauty’s grace;
Smite down my health, take all my joy,
Fret all my life with great annoy,
If thou wilt still look on my Face,
If thou wilt still say—This is she
Who shall be mine, immortally,
In Heaven, on Earth,
In night, in day, in months, in years,
In joy, in sorrow—smiles and tears—
In life—in Death!
Death was a favourite _motif_, but Death regarded as Watts regarded
it—not as a ‘skull and cross-bones idea like that of Holbein,’ but
as the gentle messenger, remorseless but not unkind—as the nurse
who beckons to the children and puts them to bed. One set of verses,
obviously marked out for revision, is entitled—
THE ANGEL FRIEND
God called you—and you left us.
Heaven wanted you for its own.
I guessed you were only waiting
Till an Angel fetched you home.
I knew you talked with Angels
In the green and leafy wood.
Some thought you strangely quiet,
But I—I understood.
For I saw your eyes looked into
The things we could never see,
And the sound of your voice had the wonder
Of the distant sound of the sea.
And all the dumb creatures knew it,
And the flowers faded not in your hand.
You walked this earth as a Spirit
Who sojourned in alien land.
Another, equally simple, is illustrated with the sketch for a
water-colour drawing ‘Dead,’ here reproduced. For each of these poems,
about fifteen in number, Kate Greenaway had made a drawing more or less
complete, with the intention of issuing them in a volume. The verses
for which ‘Dead’ was designed run as follows:—
LITTLE DEAD GIRL
Hands that no more colour hold
Than the jasmine stars they fold
In their clasping, still and tender—
Can we doubt, who knew her living,
She was worthy of the giving,
This gift of Death that God did send her?
Alas, that we are left to sorrow
Deeply for you on the morrow.
We stand and envy you the peace
As you lie so, still and blessed,
With your grievings all redressed
And your soul obtained release.
A final example of her happier mood and we have done:—
THE HAPPY LADY
My Lady, as she goes her ways
By street or garden, gives God praise
For all His lovely sounds and sights,
The sunny days, the quiet nights—
The glories of a moonlit sky
With stars all shining silently—
The rose and red of setting sun,
And children as they laugh and run,
The flowering fields, the flowering trees,
The strong winds or soft-blowing breeze.
No evil thing comes ever nigh
To hurt her sweet tranquillity.
In conclusion, we would draw the reader’s attention once more to the
verses ‘When I am Dead,’[78] which were written on the approach of
death, perhaps when, in spite of the confidence based on friendly
assurances, her instinct whispered to her that the end was not far off.
In these circumstances the lines assume a more pathetic and a tenderer
significance, and breathe the pilgrim spirit of Hope and Faith at the
very threshold of the Valley of Death.
[Illustration: ‘DEAD.’
_Sketch for an illustration to a poem by Kate Greenaway. From a
water-colour drawing in the possession of John Greenaway, Esq._]
CHAPTER XVI
THE ARTIST: A REVIEW AND AN ESTIMATE
In order to judge of Kate Greenaway as an artist, and appraise her
true place and position in British art, we must bear in mind not only
what she did, but what she was. It must be remembered that she was a
pioneer, an inventor, an innovator; and that, although she painted no
great pictures and challenged no comparison with those who labour in
the more elevated planes of artistry, is sufficient to place her high
upon the roll. Just as Blake is most highly valued for his illustration
and Cruikshank and Goya for their etched plates, rather than for their
pictures, so Kate Greenaway must be judged, not by the dignity of
her materials, or by the area of her canvas, but by the originality
of her genius, and by the strength and depth of the impression she
has stamped on the mind and sentiment of the world. As Mr. Holman
Hunt, Millais, and their associates invigorated the art of England by
their foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, so Kate Greenaway
introduced a Pre-Raphaelite spirit into the art of the nursery. That
is what Dr. Max Nordau, with curious perversion of judgment and lack
of appreciation, denounced as ‘degeneracy’!—accusing her of creating
‘a false and degenerate race of children in art,’ while at the worst
she was but giving us a Midsummer Day’s Dream in Modern England. For
him Kate Greenaway, the healthy, sincere, laughter-loving artist, is a
‘decadent’ such as vexes the soul of a Tolstoi. It is the result, of
course, of misapprehension—of a misunderstanding which has revolted
few besides him.
The outstanding merit of Kate Greenaway’s work is its obvious freedom
from affectation, its true and unadulterated English character. What
Dr. Nordau mistook for affectation is simply humour—a quaintness
which is not less sincere and honest for being sometimes sufficiently
self-conscious to make and enjoy and sustain the fun. Such grace of
action, such invariable delicacy and perfect taste of her little
pictures, belong only to a mind of the sweetest order—the spontaneity
and style, only to an artist of the rarest instinct. Animated by a love
of the world’s beauty that was almost painful in its intensity, she
was not satisfied to render merely what she saw; she was compelled to
colour it with fancy and imagination. She reveals this passion in a
letter to Mr. Locker-Lampson:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO F. LOCKER-LAMPSON
22 WELLINGTON ESPLANADE,
LOWESTOFT, _Thursday_.
Dear Mr. Locker—We are back again in clouds of mist—no more lovely
sailing boats. Yesterday afternoon was as fine as we could wish it to
be. We went all through the fishing village, and then there comes a
common by the sea, covered with gorse. The little fishing houses are so
quaint. I was savage, for I had not got my book in my pocket, so shall
have to trust to memory to reproduce some of it.
I never saw such children—picturesque in the extreme; such funny little
figures in big hats, the very children I dream of existing here in the
flesh; and lots of clothes hanging out to dry flapped about in the
sun and made such backgrounds! People laugh at me, I am so delighted
and pleased with things, and say I see with rose-coloured spectacles.
What do you think—is it not a beautiful world? Sometimes have I got a
defective art faculty that few things are ugly to me? Good-bye,
K. GREENAWAY.
The truth is, her poetic emotion and the imagination which so stirred
the admiration of Ruskin and the rest, inspired her to express a
somewhat fanciful vision of the flowers, and children, and life which
she saw around her. She gave us not what she saw, but what she felt,
even as she looked. Her subtle and tender observation, one writer has
declared, was corrected and modified by her own sense of love and
beauty. Her instinctive feeling is, therefore, nobler than her sense of
record; it is big in ‘conception’ and style, and is immeasurably more
delightful than bare appreciation of fact.
It is a touch of tragedy in Kate Greenaway’s life, that she to whom
the love of children was as the very breath of her life was never
herself to be thrilled by that maternal love for the little ones she
adored. Still ‘her spirit was bright and pure, vivacious and alert,’ so
that she drew children with the grace of Stothard and the naturalness
of Reynolds, investing them with all the purity and brightness that we
find in her drawing and her colour. Although her cantata was simple, it
was ever notable for its exquisite harmony and perfect instrumentation.
Faults, no doubt, of a technical sort Kate Greenaway shows in many of
her drawings, and, as we have seen, mannerisms at times betrayed her.
She would exaggerate in her faces the pointed chin that was a charm of
her model Gertie’s face. She would draw eyes too far apart, as Ford
Madox Brown came to do; yet how exquisitely those eyes were drawn,
and how admirably placed within their sockets! perfect in accuracy
of touch, and delightful in their beauty. The knees of her girls are
sometimes too low down; the draperies are often too little studied
and lack grace of line; her babies’ feet are at times too large, and
are carelessly drawn, or at least are rendered without sufficient
appreciation of their form. A score of drawings substantiate every
one of these charges—but what of that? The greatest artists have had
their failings, cardinal in academic eyes, for the faults are all of
technique. As Boughton exclaimed of his friend George du Maurier—‘I
respect him for his merits, but I love him for his faults.’ In Kate
Greenaway’s case her faults are forgotten, or at least forgiven, in
presence of her refined line and fairy tinting, her profiles and full
faces of tender loveliness, and her figures of daintiest grace.
‘English picture-books for children,’ exclaims Dr. Muther,[79] ‘are
in these days the most beautiful in the world, and the marvellous
fairy-tales and fireside stories of Randolph Caldecott and Kate
Greenaway have made their way throughout the whole Continent. How
well these English draughtsmen know the secret of combining truths
with the most exquisite grace! How touching are these pretty babies,
how angelically innocent these little maidens—frank eyes, blue as
the flowers of the periwinkle, gaze at you with no thought of being
looked at in return. The naïve astonishment of the little ones, their
frightened mien, their earnest look absently fixed on the sky, the first
tottering steps of a tiny child and the mobile grace of a school-girl,
all are rendered in these prints with the most tender intimacy of
feeling. And united with this there is a delicate and entirely modern
sentiment for scenery, for the fascination of bare autumn landscapes
robbed of their foliage, for sunbeams and the budding fragrance of
spring. Everything is idyllic, poetic, and touched by a congenial breath
of tender melancholy.’
The appreciation of Kate Greenaway’s work was universal. In France its
reception was always enthusiastic, and the critics expressed their
delight with characteristic felicity. They recognised, said one,[80]
that until Kate Greenaway there had been no author and artist for the
boy citizens whose trousers are always too short, and for the girl
citizens whose hands are always too red. They knew nothing about her
personality, and even doubted whether her name was not a pseudonym; but
they welcomed in her the children’s artist _par excellence_, who knew
that the spirit, the intelligence, the soul of little ones are unlike
those of adults, and who knew, too, by just how much they differed. At
the end of a glowing tribute M. Arsène Alexandre spoke of her as having
been _naturalisée de Paris_—alluding, of course, not to herself but to
her work,—whereupon an important English newspaper mistranslated the
expression; and so arose the absurd report circulated after her death,
that Kate Greenaway, who had never quitted the shores of England, had
passed the later years of her life in Paris.
From Paris, declared _La Vie de Paris_, ‘the graceful mode of
Greenawisme has gained the provinces, and from wealthy quarters has
penetrated into the suburbs’;[81] and the Vienna _Neue Freie Presse_
maintained that ‘Kate Greenaway has raised a lasting monument to
herself in the reform of children’s dress, for which we have to
thank her.’ But the _Figaro_ and the _Temps_ recognised her higher
achievement. ‘Kate Greenaway,’ said the former, ‘had _une âme exquise_.
She translated childhood into a divine language—or perhaps, if you
prefer it, she translated the divine mystery of childhood into a purely
and exquisitely child-like tongue.’ ‘Never,’ said the latter, ‘has a
sweeter soul interpreted infancy and childhood with more felicity, and
I know nothing so touching in their naïveté as the child-scenes that
illustrate so many of the artist’s books, the very first of which made
her celebrated.’ These are but specimens of the scores of tributes that
filled the press of Europe and America at the time of Kate Greenaway’s
death, and are sufficient to prove the international appeal she made,
triumphing over the differences of race, fashion, and custom which
usually are an insuperable bar to universal appreciation.
Original as she was in her view of art and in the execution of
her ideas, Kate Greenaway was very impressionable and frequently
suffered herself to be influenced by other artists. But that she was
unconscious of the fact seems unquestionable, and that her own strong
individuality saved her from anything that could be called imitation
must be admitted. The nearest semblance to that plagiarism which she
so heartily abhorred is to be found in the likeness borne by some of
her landscapes to those of Mrs. Allingham. The circumstance, as already
recounted, that the two ladies were cordial friends and went out
sketching together, the younger student in landscape-drawing watching
her companion’s methods, is sufficient explanation of the likeness.
Miss Greenaway quickly recognised the peril; and she must have realised
that her drawings, so produced, lacked much of the spontaneity, the
sparkle, and the mellowness of the work of Mrs. Allingham. Take,
for example, the charming plate called ‘A Surrey Cottage.’[82] The
landscape is as thoroughly understood as the picturesque element of
the design, with its well-drawn trees and deftly-rendered grass.
The children form a pretty group; but they are not a portion of the
picture; they are dropped into the design and clearly do not fit the
setting into which they are so obviously placed. The artist herself has
clearly felt the defect, and obviated it on other occasions. The love
of red Surrey cottages, green fields, and groups of little children
was common to both artists, and Kate’s imitation is more apparent than
real; her renderings of them are honest and tender, full of sentiment,
and of accurate, vigorous observation. She does not seem to have
studied landscape for its breadth, or sought to read and transcribe the
mighty message of poetry it holds for every whole-hearted worshipper.
Rather did she seek for the passages of beauty and the pretty scenes
which appealed to her, delighting in the sonnet, as it were, rather
than in the epic.
Her shortness of sight handicapped her sadly in this branch of art,
and prevented her from seeing many facts of nature in a broad way; for
example, while ‘The Old Farm House’ has great merits of breeziness,
truth, and transparency of colour, with a sense of ‘out-of-doorness’
not often so freshly and easily obtained, the great tree at the back
lacks substance, as well as shadow and mystery, for its branches are
spread out like a fan, and do not seem, any of them, to grow towards
the spectator. There is no such fault in ‘The Stick Fire’—a subject
curiously recalling Fred Walker; for here the landscape, although a
little empty, is clearly studied from nature and set down with great
reticence and intelligence. And what could be prettier than the pose of
the two girls, big and little, on the left? When she leaves realism and
touches the landscapes and groups with her own inimitable convention,
Miss Greenaway becomes truly herself and can be compared with none
other. Glance, for instance, at ‘The Bracken Gatherers.’ It has the
sense of style and ‘bigness’ which triumphs over any mannerism; and the
heads, especially that of the girl set so well upon her neck, are so
full of dignity that they may be considered a serious effort in art.
She was undoubtedly influenced at times by Mrs. Allingham and Fred
Walker, as well as by Ford Madox Brown (see ‘Brother and Sister,’ in
which the little girl might almost have come from his pencil). We find
traces, too, of Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A. (in ‘Strawberries’—a drawing
not here reproduced), of Stothard (as in the masterly sketch for ‘The
May Dance’ with its fine sense of grace and movement, and its excellent
spacing), of Downman (as in the portraits belonging to the Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby), of Richard Doyle (as in the large drawing of ‘The Elf
Ring’), and sometimes we recognise echoes of Stacy Marks, of Mason, and
of Calvert. But what does it all amount to? Merely this, that when she
wandered beyond the garden of that Greenawayland which she had called
into being, the artist was sometimes moved by the emotions with which
she had been thrilled when in past years she gazed with enthusiasm
at these men’s work. The resemblance was in the main accidental; for
every one of these painters, like herself, is characteristically and
peculiarly English in his view of art as in his methods of execution.
There are those who sneer at nationality in art. You can no more
speak of English art, laughed Whistler, than you can speak of English
mathematics. The analogy is entirely a false one. You can say with
truth ‘English art’ as you can say ‘German music’; for although art
in its language is universal, in its expression it is national, or at
least racial; and it is the merit of a nation to express itself frankly
in its art in its own natural way, and to despise the affectation of
self-presentation in the terms and in the guise of foreign practice
not native to itself. It is a matter of sincerity and, moreover, of
good sense; for little respect is deserved or received by a man who
affects to speak his language with a foreign accent. Kate Greenaway was
intensely and unfeignedly English: for that she is beloved in her own
country, and for that she is appreciated and respected abroad. Like
Hogarth, Reynolds, and Millais, she was the unadulterated product of
England, and like them she gave us of her ‘English art.’
In the latter part of her career Kate Greenaway modified her manner
of water-colour painting, mainly with the view to obtaining novelty
of effect and conquering public approval. At the beginning she had
tried to make finished pictures, as we see in the moonlight scene of
‘The Elf Ring.’ Then when she discovered her true _métier_, influenced
by the requirements of Mr. Edmund Evans’s wood-block printing, to
which she adapted herself with consummate ease, she used outline in
pen or pencil, with delicate washes in colour: these drawings were
made in every case, of course, for publication in books. Their ready
independent sale encouraged her to elaborate her little pictures,
and her election as Member of the Royal Institute of Painters in
Water-Colours confirmed her in the decision to turn her attention to
pure water-colour painting. The decreasing demand for book-illustration
influenced her somewhat in taking the new work very seriously,
encouraged thereto by Ruskin, who, as we have seen, was forever crying
out for ‘a bit of Nature.’ So she painted landscapes which, in point
of technique, lacked some of the accidental grace and freshness and
serious depth which should be essential to such work, although they
were rich in her own sentimental and tender way of seeing things. Then
in figure painting she abandoned her outlines and indulged in the full
strong colour which Ruskin always begged from her. That she should
have fused this vigour of coloration with her own native faculty for
daintiness—as for example in ‘Lucy Locket’—must be accounted to her
credit.
Later on her colour became more subdued and even silvery. We see it
in the little idyll, so pure in drawing and feeling, ‘Two at a Stile’
(with its curious contrast of exact full face in the girl and exact
profile in her swain), and still more in the tender and prettily
imagined ‘Sisters,’ wherein even the red flowers, although they lend
warmth to the almost colourless composition, do not tell as a spot, so
knowingly is the strength restrained. Indeed, charm and delicacy rather
than strength are characteristic of Kate Greenaway’s genius. We see
them, for example, in the little ‘Swansdown’ and companion drawings
here reproduced full size, and we see them also in the playful ‘Calm
in a Teacup,’ and in ‘Mary had a Little Lamb,’ which the artist drew
as a Christmas card for Professor Ruskin, with their delicate touches
of colour and the exquisite pencil outline—so unhesitating and firm
nevertheless, that, despite their simplicity, they rarely fail to
realise the exact degree of beauty or of character intended.
Her colour indeed was almost invariably happy, exactly suited to the
matter in hand. In the early days of her first valentines it was
crude enough, and chrome yellow, rose madder, cobalt blue, and raw
umber seemed to satisfy her. But soon her eye became extraordinarily
sensitive, and whether strong or delicate the scheme of colour was
always harmonious. A test drawing is to be found in ‘A Baby in White,’
wherein the little personage so well fills the page. This is in fact
a study in whites—in the dress, the daisies, and the blossoms—of
such variety that the artist’s judgment and ability are absolutely
vindicated. Not that Kate Greenaway always painted her white blossoms,
or, for the matter of that, left the white paper to represent them.
She became skilled in the use of the knife, and used the artifice
consecrated and made legitimate by such masters as Turner and William
Hunt, with great dexterity. In ‘The Girl and her Milk Pail’—which
breathes so pleasantly the memory of Pinwell, and which, well
composed and drawn, shows greater regard than usual for the virtue of
atmosphere—the blossoms on the branch above the wall are all produced
by ‘knifing’: that is to say, by means of a sharp knife a bit of the
paper’s surface of the exact shape required is sliced into and turned
over when not cut off; and the effect is more vivid and true than any
amount of care or paint could otherwise secure.
Except for this, Miss Greenaway used no tricks: she neither ‘rubbed,’
nor ‘scratched,’ nor ‘washed.’ It is perhaps fairer to say that she
was too honest than that she lacked resource. She always maintained
the legitimacy of the use of body-colour, which some purists profess
to abhor; beyond that her work is quite simple and direct, while her
technical skill is amply efficacious for all she had to do.
[Illustration: THE MAY DANCE.
_From the water-colour sketch in the possession of Miss Violet
Dickinson._]
In the matter of models, whether for illustrations or exhibition
drawings, she was particular and fastidious. At all times she preferred
to draw from the life. Her studies from the nude—made in her youth,
with such conscientious accuracy that every form, every fold in the
skin, and every undulation of high light and shadow, were rendered
with the firmness and with ease that come of practice, knowledge,
and skill—had carried her far enough for the model to be reckoned a
servant, and not a master. But a realistic drawing is one thing, and
a simplified archaistic rendering of a living figure quite another;
and we may take it, broadly, that difficulty in figure draughtsmanship
increases in direct ratio to the degree of its simplification. With
anatomy, we imagine, she was less familiar.
Miss Greenaway selected her models with much care. For her men, as has
already been said, her father and brother usually would good-naturedly
sit, and the type of old lady she often adopted was based upon Mrs.
Greenaway. As for her children, the list of those who were pressed into
the service is tolerably long. Some of her models she would secure by
visiting schools and selecting likely children, and these again would
recommend others. Some were already professional models themselves,
or were children brought to her by such. The first of all was the
‘water-cress girl’ who was employed for her earliest work for the
publishers. ‘Mary,’ who was secured after the publication of _Under
the Window_, appears in all the books up to the _Pied Piper_. She
belonged to a family of models, and coming to Miss Greenaway when a
little girl, remained in her service until she was grown up. And years
later another ‘Mary’ succeeded her. ‘Adela’ and her sister were the
earliest models of whom any record exists, and they were employed for
_Under the Window_, for which Miss Greenaway’s nephew Eddie also sat.
He, indeed, is to be found in the whole series up to and including the
_Pied Piper_, that is to say in the _Birthday Book_, _Mother Goose_, _A
Day in a Child’s Life_, _Little Ann_, _Language of Flowers_, _Marigold
Garden_, and _A Apple Pie_. Mary’s brother ‘Alfred’ sat, along with his
sister, for the same books as she did; and ‘Gertie’ is to be recognised
mainly in _Little Ann_ and the _Language of Flowers_. Gertie became a
figure in the Greenaway household; as, from the position of a model
merely, she afterwards graduated to the rank of housemaid at Frognal,
where, when she opened the street door, visitors were surprised and
edified to recognise in her a typical ‘Kate Greenaway girl,’ with
reddish hair and pointed chin, as pretty and artless a creature as if
she had walked straight out of a Greenaway toy-book. If the reader
would see a characteristic portrait of her, he will find one on p. 24
of the _Language of Flowers_, and better still, perhaps, in ‘Willy and
his Sister’ on p. 30 of _Marigold Garden_. Then there were ‘Freddie’
and his sisters, and Mrs. Webb’s children, and ‘Isa,’ ‘Ruby,’ the
Gilchrists, two sisters, and a little red-haired girl (name forgotten):
nearly all of whom were known only by their Christian names, so that
their identity must remain unknown to fame. These were the most
constant models—these, and the ‘little Mary’ to whom she frequently
alludes in her letters to Ruskin.
That the little ones were a constant tribulation to the artist, whose
patience was often put to the severest test, her letters to friends
bear frequent witness. For example, to Mr. Locker-Lampson she writes
from Pemberton Gardens:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
You ought to enjoy the beautiful sea and this lovely weather. Do you
see those wonderful boats we used to see at Lowestoft? I never saw such
magnificent crimson and orange sails, and such splendid curves as they
made.
How nice of you having Mr. Caldecott; you will enjoy his society so
much....
I have got a little girl five years old coming to sit this
morning—which means a fearfully fidgety morning’s work. However, it is
the last of the models for my book; then I can go straight away with the
illustrations, which will be a great gain.
And in a lively letter to Mrs. Severn she sends a verbatim report of
the bright but discursive dialogue between the ‘Chatter-box Mary’ and
‘Victim’ (herself), illustrated with fifteen sketches of Mary’s feet
in constantly changing postures, driving the artist to distraction and
culminating in ‘VICTIM—limp—worn—exhausted.’
[Illustration: ‘ALFY’ (UNFINISHED).
_From an experimental oil painting in the possession of John Greenaway,
Esq._]
In the class of drawings which she called ‘Processions’ Miss
Greenaway is entirely original. She could arrange a dozen, or if need
be twenty, figures—usually of graceful girls and pretty babes—full
of movement and action, in which there is cheerfully worked-out
a decorative _motif_, with a rhythmic line running through the
composition. In some the work is so delicate as practically to defy
satisfactory reproduction; but sufficient justice can be done to
suggest their charm of sentiment and the balance of design. Now and
again we have in miniature a reminder of the languorous dignity of
Leighton’s ‘Daphnephoria.’ Sometimes the movement is more lively,
and we have ‘Dances’ of all kinds, now quaint and strangely demure,
now full of the joy of life. ‘The May Dance’ is as sober as if it
were designed for a panel in a public building; but in ‘The Dancing
of the Felspar Fairies’ we have a vigorous _abandon_ mingled with
the conventionality of graceful poses. In most of them, no doubt,
the draperies are seldom studied accurately from life; but it is
doubtful whether, if they were more correct in their flow of fold,
they would harmonise so well with the character of the figures and
general treatment. For throughout, it must be observed, she is a
decorative artist. Even in the delightful realism of her flowers,
which have rarely been surpassed either in sympathy of understanding
or in delicacy and refinement of realisation, she never forgets their
decorative value: they are presented to us not for their inherent
beauty alone, but for their value upon the paper or upon the decorated
page.
For that reason, perhaps, Kate Greenaway was never quite at home as
a portraitist: she resented being tied down to a face or figure. No
doubt, such drawings as ‘The Red Boy’ and ‘The Little Model’ were
portraits, but she was free to depart from the truth as much as she
chose. The children in the unfinished oil-paintings of ‘The Muff’ and
‘Alfy’ were not less portraits, but the motive of these oil pictures
(of the size of life) was not likeness merely but practice in what
Ruskin called ‘the sticky art.’ In ‘Vera Samuel’ an unaccountable
width has been given to the head, but without loss of character. There
appears more truth in the portrait of ‘Frederick Locker-Lampson’ with
eyelids drooping, an interesting likeness of an interesting man of
letters; the woolliness of effect being mainly due to the translation
of stippled water-colour into black-and-white. The head of old ‘Thomas
Chappell’ is one of the artist’s masterpieces in portraiture—full of
character and insight, and a really brilliant rendering of old age,
firmly drawn and elaborately modelled. With the pencil Kate Greenaway
was more at home. The rapid unfinished sketch of her brother, ‘John
Greenaway, Jr.,’ is still a likeness although more than thirty years
have passed since it was made; and the two delightfully executed
heads of ‘Miss Mabel Ponsonby’ and ‘Miss Eileen Ponsonby,’ reinforced
with faint colour in the manner of Downman, and with not a little of
his delicacy, imply a measure of accomplishment attained by constant
practice—the result, perhaps, of South Kensington training. The
‘Portrait of a Lady,’ in a method somewhat similar, is not entirely
successful as a portrait; but it is included here as an example of
the new style of work which Miss Greenaway adopted towards the end
of her career. Perhaps the most engaging of all is the miniature of
‘Joan Ponsonby,’ in which we find an artless simplicity, a candour
and refreshing naturalness, wholly apart and distinct from the
photographically inspired miniature of to-day. The colours are simple
and the handling broad for all its precision of drawing, for the artist
has resisted the temptation to finish her flowers and other details
with the microscopical minuteness which she employed with so much
effect on more suitable occasions.
[Illustration: PENCIL STUDY FROM LIFE.]
When all Miss Greenaway’s work is carefully judged, it will, we think,
be seen that it is with the point rather than with the brush that
she touches her highest level, whether her manner be precise as in
her book-plates, or free as in her sketches. Of her book-plates, the
best are unquestionably those of Mr. Locker-Lampson and Lady Victoria
Herbert. The latter is formal in treatment and beautifully grouped, yet
drawn with a certain hardness typical of what is called the Birmingham
School; the former infinitely more sympathetic in touch, the children
delightful in pose, the apple-tree drawn with unusual perfection, and
the distant city touched in with extraordinary skill. With these,
compare the masterly pencil study of a baby toddling forwards—swiftly
drawn, loosely handled, instinct with life and character, one of the
best things, artistically considered, the artist ever did. Hardly
less remarkable is the tiny sketch in a letter to Ruskin of a little
bonneted girl holding up her skirt as she walks—a drawing not unworthy
of Charles Keene in its vigorous light and shade, and suggestion of
the body beneath the clothes (see p. 283). And yet in the text Miss
Greenaway laments the badness of the pen! A better pen would have
produced a worse sketch. It was a quill that she habitually used,
and, in spite of the broad line it compelled, she made good use of
it. In the heading to her letter to Miss Dickinson, dated October 19,
1897, we can positively feel the wind that is scattering the leaves
around the old oak. The girl with the candle, in her letter to Mrs.
Locker-Lampson, which reminds us of Caldecott; the little ‘Violets,
Sir?’ which reminds us of Leech; the dancing children, one with a
tambourine, the other with hand on hip, who remind us of Stothard; the
group of three dancing children, which has been compared with the work
of Lady Waterford; and the letter to John Ruskin showing the sketch of
reaper and sheaf-binder—are all drawn with the broad-nibbed quill,
with consummate ease and masterly effect, and they give even more
pleasure to the educated eye than the charming little pencil sketches
such as those in the possession of Lady Pontifex.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
[Illustration HANDWRITING: ash trees in the Hedge as a background. and
lots of poppies in the near corn—I shall do it—— oh when I can begin
some new things—— I shall feel so joyful. I do like doing one thing
only at
From a Letter to Ruskin.]
The early sketch-books of Kate Greenaway reveal some rather
unexpected phases of her development before she had produced any work
characteristic enough to be recognised as hers by the public. It is
with surprise that we see how well she drew in the very first stage
of her career. As the reader will remember, her first leanings were
towards the comic—as in the humorous sketch of the lovelorn swain
piping to his ridiculous love (p. 279): a drawing which Phiz might have
been willing to acknowledge; or, again, the little girl and sprite
walking arm-in-arm (see p. 75). Then the romantic moved her, and in
the spirit of the great illustrators of the ‘sixties she made the rapid
pencil sketch (for composition) of a princess in a castle kissing a
farewell to some sailor-boy whose ship scuds one way while the sails
belly the other; and, again, a long-hosed gallant gracefully doffing
his cap to a ‘faire ladye’ at a window (see p. 45). Rough as they are,
both are well drawn, especially the latter, but they give no hint
whatever of the art which was to spring from them.
[Illustration: Very early sketch illustrating Kate Greenaway’s ambition
to be a humorous artist. In the possession of W. Marcus Ward, Esq.]
Similarly with her pen-sketches. The design, dashed off at lightning
speed, of an eighteenth-century scene at Christmas eve might almost be
the work of Phiz or Cruikshank; and the power of managing many figures
on a small sheet of paper is already fully developed. So, too, in a
drawing of a totally different class—‘The Picnic.’ Miss Greenaway
had been much impressed, in common with the rest of the fraternity of
London artists, by the work of the Scottish artist Mr. William Small,
and had attempted to probe into his method of handling, particularly
in the technical treatment of form and texture in the coat worn by
the central figure. It need hardly be said that these sketches, and
others in the manner of Leighton, Mr. Holman Hunt, and so on, were
in no sense copies, or even imitations. They were intended only as
studies with a view to analysing each man’s style, for the purpose of
self-education. That mastered, or at least understood, she turned to
her own work, and began to feel her way towards the light.
[Illustration]
Once she departed from the heroic and romantic manner of her coloured
fairy toy-books and valentines and began the simple sketches from
everyday life for ‘Poor Nelly’—a serial in _Little Folks_ under the
anonymous authorship of Mrs. Bonavia Hunt, afterwards republished in
volume form—she betrayed a certain weakness in her drawing; while for
a time the garishness of tint which had been demanded of her did not
immediately disappear. But by the time _Under the Window_ was reached,
five years later (1878), her difficulty of colour was conquered, and
she stood alone, with Mr. Walter Crane, in the intelligent combination
of healthy children’s art and the chastened colour which was being
insisted on by William Morris and the so-called Æsthetic Movement.
The reversion in the following year to modern illustration, in the
drawings made for Charlotte Yonge’s novels, proved once more that
the decorative treatment of subjects was her natural rôle. When she
returned to the true Kate Greenaway manner, the change was welcomed
by every competent critic. A German writer expressed himself in terms
not less appreciative than those which later came from France and
Belgium. ‘It is impossible,’ he said, ‘to describe in words the wealth
of artistic invention, the dignity and loveliness, which characterise
this performance. What a gulf between these delightful works of art of
imperishable value, and the trashy caricatures of such stuff as our
_Struwelpeter_! God-speed to Kate Greenaway!’
[Illustration: THE PICNIC.
_Early Pen-and-Ink Drawing from Kate Greenaway’s Sketch-book._]
_Mother Goose_ was, indeed, an advance on _Under the Window_—which,
under the title of _La Lanterne Magique_,[83] the _Revue de Belgique_,
in an enthusiastic article, curiously attributed to a male artist, and
which the _National Zeitung_ extolled as much for its verse as for its
bewitching art. The drawing here is better, and the effect not very
seriously injured by the faulty register of many of the copies. An
American journal—the _Literary World_, of Boston—declared that the
delicacy and beauty of her faces in outline were as good as Flaxman;
and the curious quality of ‘affectionateness’ in the drawings, their
ingenuousness and prettiness that would have moved the heart of
Stothard and touched the soul of Blake, firmly established the young
artist in the position to which her former book had raised her. But not
until _A Day in a Child’s Life_ did Kate Greenaway show her full power
as a painter of flowers—by the side of which even her pictures of boys
and girls seem to many to yield in interest. The difficulty, or rather
the irksomeness, which she habitually experienced in pure illustration
of other people’s ideas, in no wise affected her in _Little Ann_, which
contains some of the most delightful and spring-like drawings she ever
did, usually so excellent in composition and fascinating in single
figures and in detail that we overlook, if we do not entirely miss,
certain little faults of perspective—faults, indeed, which, if noticed
at all, only add to the quaintness of the design.
In the _Language of Flowers_ and _Marigold Garden_ Kate Greenaway
rose to her highest point in decision and firmness allied to the
perfect drawing of flowers and fruit, although it must be allowed that
those who have not seen the original designs can form no accurate
judgment from the printed work. The annual _Almanacks_, too, which
had been begun in 1883, showed her endless resource and inexhaustible
faculty of design; yet it is perhaps to be regretted that so much
conscientious effort and executive ability should have been wasted in
the almost microscopic rendering of the innumerable illustrations which
embellish these tiny books. In The _English Spelling-Book_ another
change is seen. In several of these beautiful line illustrations
there is a freedom in the use of the pencil not hitherto shown, and
the drawings of ‘Miss Rose and her Aunt,’ ‘Our Dog Tray,’ ‘Jane,’ and
a few others, modest as they are, mark a definite advance in Miss
Greenaway’s artistic development. She returned to her more formal
manner in _A Apple Pie_ (1886), as it was more suitable to the large
page she had to decorate; and she gives us a greater measure of
combined humour and invention than had previously been shown, for the
subject fitted her mood of fun and fancy exactly—far better than
the same year’s _Queen of the Pirate Isle_. On the title-page of the
last-mentioned book, however, appears one of the prettiest vignettes
she ever drew. Unsuspected power was revealed in _The Pied Piper of
Hamelin_. Miss Greenaway was hampered, no doubt, in her attempt to
render the pseudo-German medievalism on a large scale: nevertheless,
she succeeded in grasping the full significance of the poem, and the
spirit maintained throughout and the capacity for dealing with ease
with crowds of figures, combine in this volume to constitute a very
considerable performance.
A strange contrast with the _Pied Piper_ is _Dame Wiggins of Lee_.
It is scarcely likely, we think, that readers will endorse with much
cordiality the unbounded admiration expressed by John Ruskin for these
designs. It must be borne in mind, however, that they are merely rough
trial sketches for approval of drawings which were to be made, but that
Ruskin, charmed with their spontaneity, declared that they would fit
the poem better in their scribbled state than any illustrations more
complete.
[Illustration: PEN SKETCH IN ONE OF KATE GREENAWAY’S EARLIEST
SKETCH-BOOKS.
(_Showing early power of composition._)]
Miss Greenaway’s last book was that admirable volume for children,
_The April Baby’s Book of Tunes_, by the author of _Elizabeth and
her German Garden_, whose humour and love of children were like to
Kate Greenaway’s own, with an added wit of the most innocent and
refreshing kind. The ‘babies,’ whom the artist had never seen, were
sympathetically pictured, and their favourite nursery rhymes were
illustrated once more as freshly as if she had dealt with them for the
first time.
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
Nothing but bad Pens down Here and I don’t like going to the studio
when it’s dark I don’t like the boy Figure—I’ll get a new Pen
See p. 276.]
The survey of her work in the aggregate shows convincingly that even
had her technique been on a lower level Kate Greenaway would still have
succeeded as the interpreter-in-chief of childhood. Follower though
she was in point of time of Mr. Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott,
inspired in some respects no doubt by their example, she nevertheless
stands alone in her own sphere. From Lucca della Robbia to Ludwig
Richter and Schwind, to Bewick and Thackeray, Cruikshank and Boutet de
Monvel, no one has demonstrated more completely the artist’s knowledge
of and sympathy with infant life, or communicated that knowledge and
that sympathy to us. Her pictures delight the little ones for their own
sake, and delight us for the sake of the little ones; and it may be
taken as certain that Kate Greenaway’s position in the Art of England
is assured, so long as her drawings speak to us out of their broad and
tender humanity, and carry their message to every little heart.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
LIST OF BOOKS, ETC.,
ILLUSTRATED WHOLLY OR IN PART BY KATE GREENAWAY
1871. AUNT LOUISA’S | LONDON TOY BOOKS | DIAMONDS | AND | TOADS.
| London. | Frederick Warne & Co. (10⅜ × 8⅞)
MADAME D’AULNOY’S FAIRY TALES:
c. 1871. (1) THE FAIR ONE | WITH | GOLDEN LOCKS
(2) THE BABES IN THE WOOD
(3) TOM THUMB
(4) BLUE BEARD
(5) PUSS IN BOOTS
(6) THE BLUE BIRD
(7) THE WHITE CAT
(8) HOP O’ MY THUMB
(9) RED RIDING HOOD
All published by Gall & Inglis, 6, George Street, Edinburgh.
(6-11/16 × 7¼ and 9¾ × 7¼)
1874. FAIRY GIFTS; | or, | A WALLET OF WONDERS: | By Kathleen
Knox, | author of ‘Father Time’s Story Book.’ |
Illustrations by Kate Greenaway. | Griffith & Farran, |
successors to Newbury & Harris, | West Corner of St.
Paul’s Churchyard, London. | E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.
(6¾ × 5)
1876. THE QUIVER OF LOVE: A Collection of Valentines. [By Walter
Crane and Kate Greenaway] Marcus Ward & Co.
1878. POOR NELLY; | By | The Author of ‘Tiny Houses,’ and ‘Two
‘Little Fourpenny Bits’; | and | Polly and Joe. | Cassell, Petter,
Folks,’ Galpin & Co., | London, Paris and New York. | [All Rights
1877. Reserved.] (_Written by Mrs. Bonavia Hunt_)
(7-3/16 × 4¾)
1878. TOPO: A Tale about English Children in Italy. By G. E.
Brunefille. With 44 Pen-and-ink Illustrations by Kate
Greenaway. Marcus Ward & Co. (_Written by Lady Colin
Campbell_)
1878. UNDER THE WINDOW | PICTURES AND RHYMES | FOR CHILDREN
| by | Kate Greenaway | engraved and printed | by | Edmund
Evans. | London: | George Routledge & Sons | Broadway,
Ludgate Hill. | New York: 416, Broome Street.
(9¼ × 7¼)
1879. THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE | [_By Charlotte M. Yonge_]
(Another Illustrated edition by Kate Greenaway | London | Macmillan
1902.) & Co. | 1879 | The Right of Translation is Reserved.
(7½ × 4¾)
1879. AMATEUR THEATRICALS | By | Walter Herries Pollock | and |
Lady Pollock | London: | Macmillan & Co. | 1879. | The
Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved
(7⅛ × 4½)
1879. HEARTSEASE | or | THE BROTHER’S WIFE | By | Charlotte M.
(Another Yonge | Illustrated by Kate Greenaway | London | Macmillan
edition & Co., Limited | New York: The Macmillan Company |
1902.) 1902 | All rights reserved (7⅜ × 4⅝)
1879. THE ‘LITTLE FOLKS’ | PAINTING BOOK. | A Series of | Outline
Engravings for Water-Colour Painting, | By Kate Greenaway,
| with descriptive stories and verses by George Weatherly.
| Cassell Petter & Galpin: | London, Paris and New York.
| (_The book contains 107 illustrations, 88th thousand._)
(8¾ × 6½)
1880. KATE GREENAWAY’S | BIRTHDAY BOOK | FOR CHILDREN | with
382 Illustrations, | Drawn by Kate Greenaway, | Printed by
Edmund Evans. | Verses by Mrs. Sale Barker. | London: |
George Routledge & Sons, | Broadway, Ludgate Hill. | New
York: 416, Broome Street. | [All Rights Reserved.]
(3⅝ × 3½)
1881. THE LIBRARY. | By | Andrew Lang | with a Chapter on | Modern
English Illustrated Books by | Austin Dobson | London |
Macmillan & Co. | 1881 | The right of reproduction is
reserved.
1881. A DAY IN A CHILD’S LIFE. | Illustrated by | Kate Greenaway.
| Music by Myles B. Foster. | (_Organist of the Foundling
Hospital._) | Engraved and Printed by Edmund Evans. |
London: | George Routledge & Sons, | Broadway, Ludgate
Hill. | New York: 9, Lafayette Place. | [Copyright.]
(9⅝ × 8⅛)
1881. MOTHER GOOSE | or the | Old Nursery Rhymes | Illustrated by
| Kate Greenaway | engraved and | printed by | Edmund
Evans. | London and New York | George Routledge & Sons.
(6¾ × 4¾)
1882. LITTLE ANN | AND | OTHER POEMS | By | Jane and Ann Taylor
(Printed | Illustrated by | Kate Greenaway | printed in colours by
1882, Edmund Evans | London: George Routledge & Sons |
published Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New York: 9, Lafayette Place.
1883.) | [The Illustrations are Copyright.] (9 × 5-13/16)
1883. ALMANACK | FOR | 1883 | By | Kate Greenaway | London |
George Routledge & Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New
York: 9, Lafayette Place (3-15/16 × 2⅞)
1883-84. FORS CLAVIGERA | Letters | to the Workmen and Labourers | of
(And Great Britain | By John Ruskin, LL.D., | George Allen, |
subsequent Orpington and London
editions.)
1884. ALMANACK | FOR | 1884 | By | Kate Greenaway | Printed by
Edmund Evans | London: George Routledge & Sons | Broadway,
Ludgate Hill | New York: 9, Lafayette Place |
[_Copyright_] (5¼ × 3⅝)
1884. A PAINTING | BOOK | by | Kate Greenaway | with Outlines from
Other her various works | for | Girls and Boys | to Paint |
editions London: George Routledge & Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill
with (9½ × 7⅛)
different
title, by
F. Warne
& Co.
1884. LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS | Illustrated by | Kate Greenaway |
Printed in Colours by | Edmund Evans | London: George
Routledge & Sons. (8-13/16 × 4⅝)
1884. THE | ENGLISH SPELLING-BOOK | accompanied by | A Progressive
Series | of | Easy and familiar lessons | by | William
Mavor, LL.D. | Illustrated by Kate Greenaway | engraved
and printed by Edmund Evans. | London | George Routledge
& Sons| Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New York: 9, Lafayette
Place | 1885.
(7 × 4⅛)
1885. ALMANACK | FOR | 1885 | BY | KATE GREENAWAY | London |
George Routledge & Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New
York: 9, Lafayette Place (3-15/16 × 2⅞)
1885. DAME WIGGINS OF LEE, | AND HER | SEVEN WONDERFUL CATS; |
(Second A humorous tale | written principally by a lady of ninety.
edition | Edited, with additional verses, | By John Ruskin, LL.D.,
1897.) |Honorary Student of Christ Church, | and Honorary Fellow
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. | And with new
illustrations | By Kate Greenaway | with twenty-two
woodcuts. | George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington; | and 156
Charing Cross Road, London. (7¼ × 4½)
1885. MARIGOLD GARDEN | Pictures and Rhymes | By | Kate Greenaway
| Printed in Colours | By | Edmund Evans | London |
George Routledge & Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New
York: 9, Lafayette Place. (10¾ × 8½)
? 1885. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALPHABET. | London | George Routledge
& Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New York: 9, Lafayette
Place. (2⅝ × 2-5/16)
? 1885. KATE GREENAWAY’S ALBUM. With 192 Illustrations within
gold borders. Printed in Colours by Edmund Evans. George
Routledge & Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill. [_Printed but
not published._]
1886. ALMANACK | FOR | 1886 | By | Kate Greenaway | London |
George Routledge & Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | New
York: 9, Lafayette Place. (3-15/16 × 2⅞)
1886. A APPLE PIE | By | Kate Greenaway | Engraved and Printed by
Edmund Evans. | London: George Routledge & Sons | Broadway,
Ludgate Hill | New York: 9, Lafayette Place.
(8¼ × 10¼)
1886. THE QUEEN | OF | THE PIRATE ISLE | By | Bret Harte |
Illustrated by Kate Greenaway | Engraved and Printed by
Edmund Evans | London: Chatto & Windus | 214, Piccadilly.
(8½ × 6⅛)
1887. ALMANACK | FOR 1887 | By | Kate Greenaway | George Routledge
& Sons | The Pictures are Copyright. (3 × 4)
1887. QUEEN VICTORIA’S JUBILEE GARLAND. (A booklet made up of
illustrations already published.)
1887. RHYMES | FOR THE | YOUNG FOLK | By | William Allingham |
with Pictures by | Helen Allingham, Kate Greenaway, | Caroline
Paterson, and Harry Furniss | Engraved and Printed by Edmund
Evans | Cassell & Company, Limited, | London, Paris, New
York and Melbourne. (8-3/16 × 6½)
1888. ORIENT LINE GUIDE | Chapters for Travellers by Sea and by Land
| Illustrated. The Third Edition, re-written, with Maps and
Plans. | Edited for the Managers of the Line | By | W. J.
Loftie, B.A., F.S.A., | Author of ‘A History of London,’
‘Windsor,’ ‘Authorised | Guide to the Tower,’ etc. etc. |Price
2/6. | London: | Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington,
| Limited, | St. Dunstan’s House, Fetter Lane. | Edward
Stanford, 26 and 27 Cockspur Street, S.W. | 1888. | [Entered
at Stationers’ Hall.—All Rights Reserved] (8-1/16 × 6⅜)
1888. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | for | 1888 | George Routledge
& Sons (3⅝ × 2⅝)
1888. THE PIED PIPER | OF | HAMELIN | by | Robert Browning | with
35 illustrations | by | Kate Greenaway | engraved and printed
in colours by Edmund Evans | London | George Routledge
& Sons | Broadway, Ludgate Hill | Glasgow, Manchester and
New York. (9¾ × 8⅝)
1889. ALMANACK | FOR | 1889 | By | Kate Greenaway | Printed by
Edmund Evans | George Routledge & Sons | London, Glasgow,
and New York (3⅝ × 2⅝)
1889. KATE GREENAWAY’S | BOOK OF GAMES | with Twenty-four Full-page
Plates | Engraved and Printed in Colours by Edmund
Evans | London | George Routledge & Sons | Broadway,
Ludgate Hill | Glasgow, Manchester, and New York. (9 × 7⅛)
1889. THE ROYAL PROGRESS | OF | KING PEPITO | By | Beatrice F.
Cresswell | Illustrated by | Kate Greenaway | engraved and
printed by Edmund Evans | London | Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge | Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross,
W.C.; | 43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C. | Brighton: 135, North
Street. | New York: E. and J. B. Young & Co. (8⅛ × 6)
1890. ALMANACK | FOR | 1890 | By | Kate Greenaway | Engraved and
Printed by E. Evans | George Routledge & Sons (3⅝ × 3)
1891. KATE | GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | FOR | 1891 | George Routledge
& Sons, Limited (4 × 2⅝)
1892. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | FOR | 1892 | George Routledge
& Sons, Limited (3-5/8 × 2-5/8)
1893. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | FOR 1893 | George Routledge
& Sons, Limited (3-5/8 × 2⅝)
1894. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | FOR 1894 | George Routledge
& Sons, Limited (3-5/8 × 2⅝)
1895. KATE GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | FOR | 1895 | George Routledge
& Sons, Limited (3-5/8 × 2⅝)
1897. KATE | GREENAWAY’S | ALMANACK | AND DIARY FOR | 1897 |
J. M. Dent & Co.: | 67 St. James’s St., London (4-1/16 × 3)
1900. THE | APRIL BABY’S BOOK OF TUNES | with | THE STORY OF
HOW THEY CAME | TO BE WRITTEN | By the Author of |
‘Elizabeth and her German Garden’ | Illustrated by Kate
Greenaway | London | Macmillan & Co., Limited | New
York: The Macmillan Company | 1900 | All Rights Reserved.
(7¼ × 7½)
* * * * *
MISCELLANEA:
1868. _The People’s Magazine._
1873-80. _Little Folks._ Serial Story of ‘Poor Nelly,’ etc. etc.
(9½ × 7¼)
1874. _Cassell’s Magazine._ (10½ × 7)
1881-2. _Little Wide-Awake_ (G. Routledge & Sons). Edited by Mrs. Sale
Barker.
1882, etc. _Routledge’s Christmas Number._ (10¾ × 8)
_St. Nicholas._
_The Graphic._
_Illustrated London News._
1882, etc. _Routledge’s Every Girl’s Annual._ (10 × 6¾)
v.y. _The Girls’ Own Paper._
Etc. etc.
Index
_A Apple Pie_, 58;
success of, 155;
Ruskin on, 156, 160;
drawing in Victoria and Albert Museum, 256;
models for, 273; style of, 282
Abbot John of Berkhampstead, copy of illumination of, 47
À Beckett, Mr. Arthur, member of Memorial Committee, 256
Agnew, Sir William, member of Memorial Committee, 256
Aldridge, Aunt, visit to, 10
Aldridge, Uncle, visit to, 28
Alexander, Miss Francesca, 115;
Kate Greenaway’s pretended jealousy of, 132;
Ruskin’s reference to, 133, 138;
and Ruskin, 146, 156;
_The Peace of Polissena_, Kate Greenaway’s design for cover of, 170
Alexandre, Arsène, on Kate Greenaway, 3, 268
‘Alfy,’ 275
Allaman, Mrs., Kate Greenaway’s first schoolmistress, 14
Allen, Mr. George, 112
Allhusen, Mrs., references to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters, 164, 167
Allingham, Mrs. W., fellow-student with Kate Greenaway at
Heatherley’s, 43;
on Kate Greenaway’s work, 100;
Ruskin’s Lecture on, 114;
Kate Greenaway’s visit to, 160;
Ruskin on, 161;
as friend of Kate Greenaway, 167, 172;
influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s landscape work, 269, 270
_Almanack_, first (1883), 122;
1883-1897, 58;
1884 and 1885, 127;
1884, drawings for, exhibited at Paris, 174;
1886, success of, 155; 1887, 163;
1888, 172;
1889, 174;
1889 and 1895, drawings for Mavor’s Spelling Book, used in, 129;
1890, 177;
1891, 179;
1892-1900, 181;
1893, drawings for, sold by Messrs. Palmer, Howe & Co., 182;
1897, 210
_Alphabet, Kate Greenaway’s_, success of, 129
_Amateur Theatricals_, designs for, 48, 78
_American Queen, The_, contribution to, 172
‘An Angel Visited the Green Earth,’ at Royal Institute (1890), 178
‘An Old Farm House,’ at Royal Institute (1891), 179
Anderson, Miss, letter from, on Punch portrait of Kate Greenaway, 87;
reference to, by Ruskin, 155
Anderson, Miss Mary, 167
Anderson, Mr. J. G. S., chairman of Orient Line, 49, 179
Anderson, Mrs. Garrett, M.D., 49;
asmedical adviser and friend of Kate Greenaway, 167
‘Apple-Blossom—A Spring Idyll,’ at Dudley Gallery (1890), 50
‘Apple Trees,’ sold, 183
_April Baby’s Book of Tunes, The_, 51;
illustrations to, 249;
letter from author of, 249;
style of, 283
Art education at William Street, 41;
at Canonbury House, 42;
at South Kensington, 42;
at Heatherley’s, 43;
at the Slade School, 43
‘Art of England,’ Ruskin’s Lecture on the, 114
Ashburton, Lady, 167
Ashburton, Dowager Lady, commission from, 181
‘At a Garden Door,’ sold, 183
_Aunt Louisa’s London Toy Books Series_, designs for, 49
Autobiography of childhood, 9, 16, 28
_Babies and Blossoms_, 96
‘Baby Boy,’ at R.A., 192
‘Baby Boy in Blue Coat and Tippet,’ sold, 224
‘Baby in White, A,’ 272
_Baby’s Début_, designs for, 251
Backgrounds, difficulty with, 238
_Ballad of a Nun_ (Davidson), Kate Greenaway on, 196
Bancroft, Sir Squire, reading of _The Christmas Carol_ for Memorial
Fund, 256
Bashkirtseff, Marie, Kate Greenaway on, 187, 188
Beardsley, Aubrey, Kate Greenaway on, 187, 205
Belgium, vogue and imitators in, 106
‘Belinda,’ sold, 183
Bell, R. Anning, Kate Greenaway on illustrations to _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ by, 204
Bellini’s, G., ‘Venus, Mistress of the World,’ Ruskin on, 168
‘Betty,’ sold, 224
Birdwood, Sir George, member of Memorial Committee, 256
Birth, place and date, 8
_Birthday Book_, 58;
publication and success of, 77;
as inspirer of R. L. Stevenson, 77;
_Punch_ on, 87;
Kate Greenaway on success of, 91;
designs from, used for _Painting Book_, 128;
models for, 273
Black, Mrs. J., book-plate for, 182
Blake’s _Songs of Innocence_, designs for, 251
Body-colour, use of, by Kate Greenaway, 272
_Book of Games_, 58;
publication of, 174
_Book of Girls, A_, designs for, 251
Book-plates for Mr. Locker-Lampson, etc., 88, 89, 182, 276
Books illustrated by Kate Greenaway, list of, 285
‘Boy with Basket of Apples,’ at Royal Institute (‘Off to the
Village’), 178
‘Boyhood of Sir Walter Raleigh’ (Millais), Kate Greenaway on, 228
‘Bracken Gatherers, The,’ style of, 270
Brantwood, first visit to, 112
British Museum, work at, 47
‘Brother and Sister,’ 270
Brown, Ford Madox, influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
Browning, R., acquaintance with, 88
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, Kate Greenaway on ‘The Briar Rose,’ 209, 231;
on May-tree in ‘Merlin and Vivien,’ 230;
on drawings of, 238, 239
Burne-Jones, Miss, reference to, by Ruskin, 155
Butler, Lady, on student days with Kate Greenaway, 43
‘Buttercup Field, A,’ sold, 183
Caldecott, Randolph, as rival and friend, 69;
letters from, to Kate Greenaway, 70;
Kate Greenaway on death of, 70;
story of Kate Greenaway’s marriage to, 70;
Kate Greenaway on work of, 89;
contributions to _Routledge’s Christmas Number_, 101;
and _Mavor_, 129
Calendars for 1884, 127
‘Calm in a Teacup,’ 272
Calvert, influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
Campbell, Lady Colin, on Topo, 68
Canonbury House, Art classes at, 42
Carlyle, Thomas, Kate Greenaway on, 92
Cassell & Company, Kate Greenaway’s first work for, 51
Castle, Egerton, on Kate Greenaway’s book-plates, 182
Chappell, Mary, visit to, 29
Chappell, Thomas, portrait of, 275
Character of Kate Greenaway, 2
‘Cherry Woman, The,’ sold, 183
Chesneau, Ernest, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 5;
asks Ruskin for portrait of Kate Greenaway, 117
Chicago Exhibition (1893), sale of Kate Greenaway’s drawings at, 181
Childhood, autobiography of, 9, 16, 28
Children’s dress, Kate Greenaway as a reformer of, 48, 268
Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street, ‘Kate Greenaway’ Cot in, 256
Christmas Cards, first designs for, 44, 46, 74;
designs for Marcus Ward, 50;
development of, 73;
published by Goodall & Sons (1884), 127;
forProf. Ruskin, 272
_Christ’s Folk in the Apennine_, edited by Ruskin, 170
Cinderella, drawing of, 165
Clarke, Sir C. Purdon, member of Memorial Committee, 256
Cleveland, Duchess of, meeting of Kate Greenaway with, at British
Museum, 47
‘Coiffure Greeneway,’ 268
College Place, studio in, 55
Colour, work in, 270, 272, 281
_Continent, The_, interview in, with Kate Greenaway, 130
Copyright of drawings, refusal to part with, 106
Corbet, Mrs. Ridley, fellow-student and friend of Kate Greenaway, 167
Costume of eighteenth century, chosen by Kate Greenaway, 44
Costumes, ‘Kate Greenaway,’ 4, 44, 48, 268
‘Cottage in Surrey, A,’ at Royal Institute (1891), 179
‘Cottages,’ sold, 183
Crane, Walter, drawings by, in _Quiver of Love_, 47, 53;
recollections of Kate Greenaway, 71;
Kate Greenaway on work of, 90;
contributions to _Routledge’s Christmas Number_, 101;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Cremation, 252
Cresswell, Beatrice F., author of _The Royal Progress of King
Pepito_, 174
_Cyrano de Bergerac_, Kate Greenaway on, 235
_Dame Wiggins of Lee_, drawings for, 120;
publication of, 130;
Ruskin on, 130;
style of, 282
‘Dancing of the Felspar Fairies,’ 275
_Day in a Child’s Life, A_, 58;
origin of, 101;
success of, 101;
designs from, in _Painting Book_, 128;
drawing in Victoria and Albert Museum, 256;
models for, 273;
excellence of flower-painting in, 281
‘Dead,’ water-colour sketch, 251, 264
Death, Kate Greenaway on, 189, 190, 263
Death of Kate Greenaway, 252
_Débats, Journal des_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
De Monvel, Boutet, inspired by Kate Greenaway, 2
Dent, J. M., & Co., _Almanack_ for 1897, 181
_Diamonds and Toads_, drawings for, 49
Dickinson, Miss Violet, 167;
beginning of friendship with, 188;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 9, 16, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 205,
206, 208, 214, 215, 218, 221, 222, 224, 225, 233, 237, 241, 253
Dobson, Austin, Mr., on verses of Kate Greenaway, 62;
on _Under the Window_ drawings, 63;
on drawings for _The Library_, 85;
poem by, in _Magazine of Art_, with Kate Greenaway illustration, 124;
friend of Kate Greenaway, 167;
verse on death of Kate Greenaway, 253
Dolls, Kate Greenaway’s, 26
Dove Cottage (Wordsworth’s), Kate Greenaway’s visit to, 187
‘Down the Steps,’ sold, 183
Downman, J., A.R.A., influence of, on Kate Greenaway, 270
Doyle, Richard, influence of, on Kate Greenaway, 270
Dreams of childhood, 16
Dudley Gallery, early exhibits at, 44, 45;
‘Apple-Blossom,’ 50;
sale of drawings at, in 1872, 51;
sale of water-colours at, in 1876, 55;
sale of pictures at, 1878, 69;
exhibits at, in 1880, 85
Dumas, Alexandre, _fils_, as admirer of Art of Kate Greenaway, 117
Du Maurier, George, Kate Greenaway on work of, 204;
references to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters, 164, 167
Düsseldorf, street in which Kate Greenaway is falsely said to have
lived, 89
Early life of Kate Greenaway, 8
‘Elf Ring, The,’ 270, 271
Eliot, George, and _Under the Window_ drawings, 57;
letter from, to Mr. Evans, 58
_Elizabeth and her German Garden_, Kate Greenaway on, 243;
letter from the author of, 250
Empress Frederick, visit to H.I.H. the, 98;
correspondence with, 100
_English Book-plates_, Kate Greenaway’s work in, 182
_English Illustrated Magazine_, work for, 184
Evans, Edmund, first association with Kate Greenaway, 48;
yellow-back covers for, 51;
_Under the Window_ and story of its production, 57;
other works produced during partnership with, 58;
methods of printing, 64;
reference to, by Mrs. Allingham, 172;
extent of partnership with, 211;
death of, _see_ Preface
Evans, Mrs. Edmund, account of Kate Greenaway by, in _Girl’s Own
Paper_, 59;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 60, 113, 244, 248
Evans, Miss Lily, letters from Kate Greenaway to, 78, 107, 113, 145
_Every Girl’s Annual_, designs for, 85
‘Fable of the Girl and her Milk Pail, The,’ sold, 183
_Fairy Gifts; or, A Wallet of Wonders_, 53
Fairy Tales, Kate Greenaway’s preferences in, 247
‘Fancy Dress Ball, The,’ sold, 76
‘Fern Gatherer, A,’ sold, 51
_Figaro, Le_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
Fine Art Society, exhibition of _Under the Window_ drawings at
(1880), 63;
Kate Greenaway exhibition at (1891), 179, 182;
third exhibition at (1898), 224, 226;
fourth exhibition at, 254
FitzClarence, Lady Dorothy, Kate Greenaway on, 231
Fiveash, the Misses, school of, 38
Flower painting in _A Day in a Child’s Life_, etc., 281
_Fors Clavigera_, drawings by Kate Greenaway in, 120, 122;
reference to Kate Greenaway in, 120;
Kate Greenaway on, 223
Foster, Mr., on _A Day in a Child’s Life_, 101
Fremantle, Lady, member of Memorial Committee, 256
French art, Kate Greenaway on, 233
Fripps, Miss, 167
Frognal, house at, designed by Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., 142;
F. Locker-Lampson on, 91, 144;
Ruskin on, 143
Fryers’ farm, visit to the, 31
Furniss, Harry, ‘Grinaway Christmas cards’ in _Punch_, 102
_Gazette des Beaux-Arts, La_, article in, on Kate Greenaway, 106
German, Kate Greenaway falsely claimed as a, 89
Gertie, the model, 273
Giorgione, Kate Greenaway on work of, 195
Girardin, Jules, admirer of Kate Greenaway’s art, 117
‘Girl and her Milk Pail, The,’ 272
‘Girl and Two Children,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 192, 197
‘Girl drawing a Chaise,’ sold at Chicago, 182
‘Girl in Hat and Feathers,’ at Royal Institute (1897), 211;
sold, 224
‘Girl in Pink and Black,’ sold, 224
‘Girl nursing a Baby,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 197
‘Girl’s Head, A,’ at Royal Academy (1891), 179
_Girl’s Own Paper_, account of Kate Greenaway by Mrs. Evans in, 59;
work for, 85
‘Gleaners going Home,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 192, 197
‘Going to School,’ sold, 224
Goodall & Sons, and Kate Greenaway Christmas cards, 127
_Graphic, The_, first work for, 55
Greenaway, John, father of the artist, 8;
work for _Illustrated London News_, 39;
love for Kate Greenaway, 39;
as engraver, 39;
death of, 177;
as model to Kate Greenaway, 273
Greenaway, John, brother to Kate Greenaway, sub-editor of _The Journal
of the Chemical Society_; letter from, on life of Kate
Greenaway, 144;
_instructs Kate Greenaway in perspective_, 168;
as model to Kate Greenaway, 273;
portrait of, 275
Greenaway, Mrs., opens a shop in Upper Street, Islington, 13;
death of, 184;
as model to Kate Greenaway, 273
‘Greenawisme,’ 268
‘Green Seat, The,’ sold, 183
Greet Close, the, at Rolleston, 10
Griffith & Farran, designs for _Fairy Gifts_ for, 52
‘Grinaway Christmas cards’ in _Punch_, 102
Grosvenor Gallery, invitation to contribute to, 85;
Exhibition of 1884, Ruskin on, 137
Grüne Weg, Düsseldorf, where Kate Greenaway is falsely alleged to have
lived, 89
Hampstead, house at, F. Locker-Lampson’s suggestions for names for, 91
‘Happy Wretched Family,’ payment for, 50
Hare, Augustus, Kate Greenaway on Life of, 16
Harte, Bret, _The Queen of the Pirate Isle_, 156, 163
Hartley, Mr. Harold, member of Memorial Committee, 256
_Heartsease_, illustrations to, 77
Heatherley’s, Kate Greenaway attends Life Classes at, 43
_Heir of Redclyffe_, illustrations to, 77
Herbert, Lady Victoria, 167;
book-plate for, 182, 276;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Highbury, Kate Greenaway’s home at, 21
Hospital for Women, New, design for Bazaar album for, 178
Hoxton, home at, 13
‘Huguenots, The’ (Sir J. Millais, R.A.), Kate Greenaway on, 219
Hullah, John, acquaintance with, and designs for _Time and Tune_, 85
‘Hylas and the Water-Nymphs’ (J. W. Waterhouse, R.A.), Kate Greenaway
on, 216
_Ibbetson, Peter_, Kate Greenaway on, 204
_Illuminated Magazine_, 23, 246
_Illustrated Family Journal, The_, 23
_Illustrated London News_, Mr. Greenaway’s work for, 8, 39;
Kate Greenaway’s first work for, 51;
recognised contributor to, 55, 85
Illustration work, Kate Greenaway’s objection to, 51
Imitators of Kate Greenaway, 105, 106, 117
Indian Mutiny, Kate Greenaway’s recollection of, 41
International Art Society, the, Kate Greenaway on, 231
Interview, fictitious, with Kate Greenaway, 131
Interviewers, Kate Greenaway’s objections to, 78
Islington, home at, 13
‘Jack and Jill,’ sold, 183
Jackson, Mason, tribute to Mr. John Greenaway, Sr., by, 178
Jackson, Miss, school of, 38
Jeune, Lady, reference to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters, 164, 167;
visit of Kate Greenaway to, 224, 230;
member of Memorial Committee, 257
Jones, ‘Grandma,’ and her husband, 14
_Journal des Débats_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
_Kate Greenaway’s Painting Book_, 58, 128
_King Pepito_, 58
Kitchener, Lord, Kate Greenaway on, 237
‘Knocker,’ Kate Greenaway’s pet name, 39
Kröker, Frau Käthe Freiligrath-, German translator of _Under the
Window_, 85
Kronheim, Messrs., early work for, 46;
_Diamonds and Toads_, designs for, 49;
‘Nursery Toy Books,’ 49
Labouchere, Miss Norna, on Kate Greenaway’s book-plates, 182
_Ladies’ Book-plates_, Kate Greenaway’s work in, 182
_Ladies’ Home Journal, The_, work for, 183
Lang, Andrew, Mr., and _The Library_, 85
_Language of Flowers_, 58, 127;
Ruskin on, 149;
drawings for, exhibited at Paris (1889), 174;
drawings of, in Victoria and Albert Museum, 256;
models for, 273;
excellence of drawings in, 282
_Lanterne Magique_, La, French and Belgian edition of Under the
Window, 281
Leighton, Lord, purchaser of Kate Greenaway drawings, 180;
funeral of, 201;
Kate Greenaway on death of, 203
Leiningen-Westerburg, Count of, on Kate Greenaway’s art, 117
Leslie, G. D., R.A., influence of, in Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
Liberty, Mr. Arthur Lasenby, Treasurer of Memorial Committee, 256
_Library, The_, drawing for, 85
‘Lilies,’ sold, 224
_Literary World, The_, on _Under the Window_, 281
_Little Ann and other Poems_, 22, 58;
dedicated to Mrs. Locker-Lampson, 96;
drawings for new edition of, 105;
Stacy Marks, R.A., on, 121;
drawings for, exhibited at Paris (1889), 174;
drawings of, in Victoria and Albert Museum, 256;
models for 273;
excellence of drawings in, 281
‘Little Dinky,’ tail-piece for _London Lyrics_, 101
‘Little Fanny,’ frontispiece to _Routledge’s Christmas Number_, 101
_Little Folks_, first appearance in, 51;
‘PoorNelly’ in, 280
‘Little Girl and Green Cradle,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 197
‘Little Girl in Red,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 192, 197
‘Little Girl in Scarlet Coat,’ sold, 224
‘Little Girl with Doll,’ at Royal Academy (1878), 69
‘Little Girl with Fan,’ at Royal Academy (1880), 85
‘Little Girl with Tea Rose,’ sold, 224
‘Little Girlie,’ drawing sold at Chicago, 182
‘Little Go-Cart, The,’ sold, 183
‘Little Model, The,’ 275
‘Little Phyllis,’ drawing sold at Chicago, 182
_Little Wide-Awake_, frontispiece to, 85
Liverpool Exhibition (1895), Kate Greenaway’s work at, 192
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, _Under the Window_, 57;
beginning of friendship with, 86;
association with, 87;
portraits of, 89, 275;
_London Lyrics_, frontispiece to, 88;
tail-piece to, 101;
suggestions for names for Kate Greenaway’s house at Hampstead, 91;
verses for Christmas cards by, 92;
criticisms of Kate Greenaway’s drawings and verses, 93, 95;
on Ruskin, 93;
on Burne-Jones, 94;
Poems on his children, with illustrations by Kate Greenaway, 96;
death of, 96;
on Kate Greenaway’s imitators, 106;
on new studio at Frognal, 144;
references to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters, 164, 167;
introduces Kate Greenaway to Mrs. Allingham, 172;
book-plate, 182, 276;
visit to, 185
letters to Kate Greenaway, from, 88, 90, 91, 92, 95;
letters from Kate Greenaway, to, 86, 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 266, 274
Locker-Lampson, Mrs., friendship with, 96;
letters to Kate Greenaway, 96, 97;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Locker-Lampson, Godfrey, Esq., Kate Greenaway sends drawings to, at
Eton, 96;
book-plate for, 182
Locker-Lampson, Miss Dorothy, Kate Greenaway corrects drawings by, 96;
book-plate for, 182
Locker-Lampson, Miss Maud, 234
Loffelt, M. A. C., on Kate Greenaway’s art, 117
Loftie, Rev. W. J., early recollections of Kate Greenaway, 45;
on Kate Greenaway’s designs for valentine, 48;
‘Art at Home’ Series, 48;
as friend of Kate Greenaway, 167
_London Lyrics_, frontispiece to, 88;
tail-piece to, 101
_Lord Ormont and His Aminta_, Kate Greenaway on, 196
Lostalot, M. Alfred de, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 106
‘Love’s Baubles’ (Byam Shaw), Kate Greenaway on, 218
‘Lucy Locket,’ sold, 183; daintiness of, 271
Macmillan & Co., illustrations to Miss Yonge’s novels for, 77;
frontispiece to _Amateur Theatricals_, 78;
_St. Nicholas_, 78;
_The Library_, 85
_Magazine of Art_, poem by Mr. Austin Dobson, illustrated by Kate
Greenaway, 124;
proposed article on ‘Later Work of Kate Greenaway,’ for, 252
Mallock, Mr., and _The New Republic_, Kate Greenaway on, 214, 215
Mannerisms of Kate Greenaway, 267
_Marigold Garden_, 58;
designs from, in _Painting Book_, 128;
publication of, 129;
Ruskin on, 133, 151;
drawings for, exhibited at Paris (1889), 174;
drawing of title-page sold at Chicago, 182; models for, 273;
excellence of drawings in, 282
Marks, H. Stacy, R.A., encouragement from, 51;
letters to Kate Greenaway from, 80, 81, 84, 104, 121;
as friend of Kate Greenaway, 167;
on _Pied Piper of Hamelin_, 172;
influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
Martineau, Mrs. Basil, 167
‘Mary had a Little Lamb,’ 272
Mary, the model, 164, 273
Mason, George, A.R.A., influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
_Mavor’s English Spelling Book_, 58;
Ruskin on, 128;
success of, 129;
_Athenæum_ on, 129;
drawings for, used in _Almanacks_, 129;
development of style in, 282
‘May-Dance, The,’ 270, 275
‘May Morning on Magdalen Tower’ (Mr. Holman Hunt, O.M.), Kate Greenaway
on, 219
Mayo, Lady, 167, 180;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 180, 186
Meadows, Kenny, Kate Greenaway on illustrations to _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ by, 204
Memorial to Kate Greenaway, 256;
Committee, 256
Meredith, George, O.M., Kate Greenaway on work of, 196
Millais, Sir J. E., _P._R.A., portraits of Duke of Argyll and Miss Nina
Campbell, Ruskin on, 137;
Kate Greenaway on work of, 219, 228
Millard, Miss, Kate Greenaway on, 231
Miller, Mrs., recollections of Kate Greenaway by, 52, 167
‘Misses,’ at Royal Academy, 78
Models, child, Kate Greenaway’s tact with, 52, 273, 274
Modern Art, Kate Greenaway on, 185, 228, 229
_Modern Painting_ (Mr. George Moore), Kate Greenaway on, 218
_Mother Goose_, 58;
publication and success of, 100;
H. Stacy Marks, R.A., on, 104;
Ruskin on, 116;
designs from, in _Painting Book_, 128;
models for, 273
‘Muff, The,’ 275
‘Mulberry Bush, The,’ drawing sold at Chicago, 182
‘Musing,’ sold, in 1877, 55
Muther, Dr., on Kate Greenaway’s work, 5, 267
‘My Lady and Her Pages,’ sold, 76
‘My Lord’s Page and my Lady’s Maid,’ sold, 76
_National Zeitung on Under the Window_, 85, 281
Nelthorpe, Mrs. Sutton, letters from Kate Greenaway to, 166, 167, 208
_Neue Freie Presse_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 167;
commission from, 172;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Nevill, Miss Meresia, member of Memorial Committee, 256
New English Art Club, Kate Greenaway on, 221
Newhaven Court, Kate Greenaway’s visits to, 86
_New Republic, The_, Kate Greenaway on, 214, 215
_Nicholas Nickleby_, Kate Greenaway on, 216
Nickson, Miss Sarah, book-plate for, 182
Nordau, Dr. Max, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 265
Northcote, Lady, commission from, 172
Nude, studies from the, 43;
Ruskin’s advice on, 117, 133, 147
_Nursery Rhymes_, sketches for, 251
‘Nursery Toy Books,’ designs for, 49
‘Odd House,’ visit to the, 10
‘Off to the Village’ (‘Boy with Basket of Apples’), 178
Oil-painting, 237;
difficulties with, 241, 242, 244
‘Old Farm House, The,’ 270
‘Old Steps, The,’ sold, 183
‘On the Road to the Ball,’ sold, 76
‘Ophelia’ (Sir J. E. Millais, _P._R.A.), Kate Greenaway on, 228, 229,
242
_Orient Line Guide_, title-page for, 49, 179
‘Over the Tea,’ sold, 183
_Painting Book, Kate Greenaway’s_, 58, 128
Paris Exhibition, 1889, contributions to, 5, 174
Paris Exhibition, 1900, invitation to contributeto, 248;
invitation declined, 249
_Passage from Some Memoirs_ (by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie), Kate Greenaway
on, 196
_Peace of Polissena, The_, by Miss Francesca Alexander, design for cover
of, 170
‘Peeper, A,’ 50
Pemberton Gardens, Greenaways’ house in, 52
Pen and pencil sketches, 279
_People’s Magazine_, early work for, 45, 46, 75
Perspective, instruction in, from Ruskin, 167;
from John Greenaway, 168;
lack of knowledge of, 167
‘Picnic, The,’ 279
_Pied Piper of Hamelin, The_, 58;
Ruskin on, 168, 171, 175;
models for, 273
Pinwell, George, influence of, in Kate Greenaway’s work, 272;
style of, 282
Ponsonby, Hon. Gerald, 167;
portraits belonging to, 270;
commission from, 172;
portraits of children of, 180;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 181, 182, 184, 186
Ponsonby, Lady Maria, 167;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 185, 187, 209, 212, 220, 231;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Ponsonby, Miss Eileen, portrait of, 276
Ponsonby, Miss Joan, portrait of, 276
Ponsonby, Miss Mabel, portrait of, 276
‘Poor Nelly,’ 280
Portraitist, Kate Greenaway as a, 275
‘Portrait of a Lady,’ 276
‘Portrait of a Little Boy, A,’ at Royal Institute (1880), 178
‘Portrait of a Little Lad,’ at Royal Academy (1890), 178
Portraits in oils, 237
_Præterita_ (by John Ruskin), reference in, to _Mavor_, 129;
to _Dame Wiggins_, 130, 145, 151;
Kate Greenaway on, 161;
last chapter of, 175
Princess Christian, Kate Greenaway’s meeting with, 27, 224;
introduction to, 100;
correspondence with, 100
Princess Louise, meeting with, 241
Princess Maud of Wales, wedding present for, 201
Princess Royal, meeting with, 27
‘Processions,’ drawings of, 211, 216, 274
_Punch_, first appearance in, 86;
references to Kate Greenaway in 1881, 102;
‘Grinaway Christmas Cards,’ 102, 103
_Queen of the Pirate Isle, The_, 58;
Ruskin on, 156;
publication of, 163;
vignette on title-page of, 282
_Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Garland_, publication of, 163
_Quiver of Love_, illustrations in, 47;
publication of, 53
Reading Books (Longman’s), Kate Greenaway’s refusal to illustrate, 184
Religion, Kate Greenaway’s views of, 189, 190, 234, 235
‘Rescue, The’ (Sir J. E. Millais, _P._R.A.), Kate Greenaway on, 229
Richards, Miss Laura E., verses by, 183
Richmond Ritchie, Mrs., letters to and from, 98;
friendship with, 100, 167;
proposed collaboration with, 100
Roberts, Lord, meeting with, 237
Robinson, Mr. Lionel, on Kate Greenaway as children’s artist, 62, 180
‘Rock, Moss, and Ivy,’ drawing by Kate Greenaway in Sheffield
Museum, 134
Rolleston, the Chappells’ house at, 10;
visits to, 28, 33;
fire at, 35
Rossetti, D. G., Kate Greenaway on work of, 229, 231
Routledge, Messrs., work for, 100;
_Little Wide-Awake_, frontispiece to, 85;
_Every Girl’s Annual_, 85;
_Mother Goose_, 100;
_Christmas Number_, frontispiece (‘Little Fanny’), 101;
_A Day in a Child’s Life_, 101;
_Almanack_, first (1883), 122;
_A Apple Pie_, 155, 156, 160;
_Pied Piper of Hamelin_, success of, 171;
_Book of Games_, 174;
_Almanacks_ for, 1892-95, 181
Rover, biography of, 164, 195, 198, 207, 236, 237, 244
Rowfant, Kate Greenaway’s visits to, 86, 185
Royal Academy, first exhibit at, 55;
‘Little Girl with Doll’ (1878), 69;
‘Misses’ (1879), 78;
‘Little Girl with Fan’ (1880), 85;
‘Portrait of a Little Lad’ (1890), 178;
‘A Girl’s Head’ (1891), 179;
‘Baby Boy’ at (1895), 192
Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, Kate Greenaway elected a
Member of, 174, 178, 271;
exhibits at (1890), 178;
(1891) ‘An Old Farm House,’ ‘A Cottage in Surrey,’ 179;
(1894) ‘A Girl’ at, 184;
(1895) exhibits at, 192, 197;
(1896) ‘Little Bo-Peep’ at, 201;
last exhibits at, in 1897:
‘Girl in Hat and Feathers,’ ‘Two Little Girls in a Garden,’ 211
_Royal Progress of King Pepito, The_, 174
Royal Society of British Artists. _See_ Suffolk Street Gallery
Ruskin, John, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 5;
on _Under the Window_, 63;
Lecture on Mrs. Allingham and Kate Greenaway, 65, 114;
first meeting with Kate Greenaway, 110;
on _Mother Goose_ drawings, 105, 116;
on Kate Greenaway design on glass, 106;
on the 1884 _Almanack_, 127;
on _Language of Flowers_, 128;
on _Mavor’s English Spelling Book_, 128;
on _Dame Wiggins of Lee_, 130;
portrait of, by Kate Greenaway, 135;
suggested collaboration with Kate Greenaway in a book on Botany, 136;
on Millais’ portraits of ‘The Marquess of Lorne’ and ‘Miss Nina
Lehmann’ (Lady Campbell), 137;
references to Miss Francesca Alexander, 133, 138;
on house at Frognal, 142;
illness of, 145, 151, 154, 170;
_Præterita_, autobiography of, 145, 151, 175;
Kate Greenaway on, 161;
‘Natural History of a dull Beach,’ 146, 154;
on drawings from the Nude, 147;
on _Language of Flowers_, 149;
on _Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet_, 154;
on _A Apple Pie_, 156;
on Mrs. Allingham, 161;
practice of destroying letters, etc., 163;
instructs Kate Greenaway in perspective, 167;
on John Greenaway as his rival therein, 168;
on _Pied Piper_ drawings, 168, 172, 175;
on Bellini’s ‘Venus, Mistress of the World,’ 168;
_Christ’s Folk in the Apennine_, 170;
last foreign tour, 175;
visit of Kate Greenaway to, 186;
as ‘Mr. Herbert’ in _The New Republic_, 215;
death of, 248
letters to Kate Greenaway from, 82, 83, 84, 99, 105, 109, 110, 114,
115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 127, 128, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150,
151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 166, 168, 169,
170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 160, 164, 165, 166, 187, 188, 195,
196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211,
212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 228, 229, 230, 231,
232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244,
245, 246, 247
Rydal Mount, Kate Greenaway’s visit to, 187
‘Sailor’s Wife, A,’ in _English Illustrated Magazine_, 184
St. Albans, Duchess of, 167
St. Helier, Lady. _See_ Jeune, Lady
_St. Ives_ (R. L. Stevenson), Kate Greenaway on, 221
_St. Nicholas_, drawings for, 78
Sambourne, Mr. E. Linley, drawing Kate Greenaway in _Punch_ by, 86;
‘Royal Birthday Book’ by, 102
Samuel, Mr. Stuart M., M.P., book-plate for, 182;
commissions from: portrait of daughter, decoration of nurseries
for, 211, 216;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 106, 211
Samuel, Mrs. Stuart M., references to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters,
164, 167;
letter from Kate Greenaway to, 252
Samuel, Miss Vera, book-plate for, 182, 226;
portrait of, 211, 275
_Saturday Review on Under the Window_, 61
Scribner, first work for Messrs., 69;
frontispiece to _London Lyrics_ for, 88
Seckendorff, Count, 99
Severn, Mrs. Arthur, on Ruskin and Kate Greenaway, 110;
friendship with, 141;
letter to Kate Greenaway from, 166;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, Preface, 70, 201, 251, 274
Severn, Miss Lily, 167
Severn, Miss Violet, Kate Greenaway writes and illustrates ‘A very
Naughty Girl’ for, 141, 167
Shaw, Mr. Norman, R.A., architect of Kate Greenaway’s house, 142;
friend of Kate Greenaway, 167
Sheffield Museum, drawing, ‘Rock, Moss, and Ivy,’ by Kate Greenaway
in, 134
‘Shoe, The Kate Greenaway,’ 123
Shortness of sight, cause of Kate Greenaway’s faults of perspective,
168, 270
_Sidney, Sir Philip, and Hubert Languet, Correspondence of_, 154
Silver medal gained at South Kensington in 1864, 42
‘Sisters,’ colour of, 272
Sketch-book, early, 277
Small, Mr. William, influence of work of, on Kate Greenaway, 279
_Snow Queen_, designs for, 251
Spielmann, Mr. M. H., letters from Kate Greenaway to, 248, 249;
member of Memorial Committee, 256
Spielmann, Mrs. M. H., proposed illustrations to story by, 51;
stories by, with illustrations by Kate Greenaway, 250;
letters from Kate Greenaway to, 250, 251
‘Spring Copse, A,’ sold, 183
Spring flowers, Kate Greenaway’s love for, 180
‘Standing for her Picture,’ sale of, 183
Stanley, Hon. Mrs., 100
Stanley, Miss Dorothy, visit to Southwold with, 201
Stanley, Miss Madeline, 230, 231
Stevenson, Robert Louis, inspired by _Birthday Book_, 77
‘Stick Fire, The,’ sold, 183; beauty of, 270
Stothard, influence of, on Kate Greenaway, 270
‘Stowaway, The’ (Sir J. E. Millais, _P._R.A.), Kate Greenaway on, 228
‘Strawberries,’ influence of G. D. Leslie, R.A., in, 270
Suffolk Street Gallery, ‘A Peeper,’ 50
‘Surrey Cottage, A,’ influence of Mrs. Allingham in, 269
‘Swansdown,’ 272
‘Taking a Nosegay,’ at Royal Institute (1895), 195
Tate Gallery, the, Kate Greenaway on, 242
_Temps, Le_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
Tennyson, family, friendship with, 88;
references to, in Kate Greenaway’s letters, 164, 167
Tennyson, Lord, last meeting with, 237
‘The Seasons,’ sold, 76
Theatre, early visits to the, 19
Thomas, William L., on Kate Greenaway’s early work for _The Graphic_, 56
Thompson, Miss Elizabeth (Lady Butler), on student days with Kate
Greenaway, 43
Thorne, Aunt, and her garden, 15
‘Thoughts of the Sea,’ sold, 224
‘Three Girls in White,’ in Victoria and Albert Museum, 256
‘Three Innocents,’ sold, 76
_Time and Tune_, designs for, 85
‘Time of Roses, The,’ sold, 76
_Times, The_, on _A Day in a Child’s Life_, 101
_Topo: A Tale about English Children in Italy_, illustrations for, 47;
publication of, in 1878, 67;
sale of drawings for, 76
‘Toy Horse, The,’ sold, 183
‘Tracts,’ payment for, 50
Trendell, Sir Arthur, Hon. Sec. of Memorial Committee, 256
Trojan, Herr, on _Under the Window_, 85
Trotter, Miss Lilias, reference to, by Ruskin, 155, 156
Turner, J. M. W., R.A., Ruskin on, 134
‘Two at a Stile,’ 271
‘Two Girls in a Garden,’ sold, 224
‘Two Little Girls in a Garden,’ at Royal Institute (1897), 211
‘Two Little Sisters,’ sold, 183
‘Under the Rose Tree,’ sold, 183
_Under the Window_, story of its production, 57;
popularity of, 60;
_Saturday Review_ on, 61;
verses in, 62;
exhibition of drawings for, at Fine Art Society, 63;
designs copied on majolica ware at Buda Pesth, 79;
translation into German, 85;
reception of, in Germany, 85, 281;
drawings for, criticised for lack of perspective, 167;
models for, 273;
French and Belgian edition of, 281
Valentines, first designs for, 44;
designed for Marcus Ward & Co., 47
Van Baerle’s Gallery, Glasgow, exhibition of Kate Greenaway’s drawings
at, 181
Varley, Miss, school of, 38
Velasquez, Kate Greenaway on, 218
Venetian Exhibition, Kate Greenaway on, 195
Verses by Kate Greenaway, 38, 62, 254, 257, _et seq._
Victoria and Albert Museum, Kate Greenaway’s work in, 256
Victorian Exhibition, Kate Greenaway on, 214
_Vie de Paris, La_, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 268
‘Violets, Sir?’ 277
Vyvyan, Miss, fellow-student and friend of Kate Greenaway, 167
Walker, Mr. David, purchaser of _Almanack_ (1893) drawings, 182
Walker, Fred, A.R.A., influence of, on Kate Greenaway’s work, 270
Wall-papers, _Almanack_ (1893) designs sold for, 182
Ward, Marcus, & Co., Christmas cards designed for, 46;
valentines designed for, 48;
cessation of connection with, 48;
Christmas cards for, 50;
_The Quiver of Love_, 53;
_Topo_, 68
Ward, Mr. William Marcus, as adviser, 49;
on illustrations to _Topo_, 68
Wardle, Sir Thomas, Chairman of Memorial Committee, 256
Warne, Frederick, & Co. _See_ Preface and List of Works
Webb, Sir Aston, R.A., on Memorial Committee, 256
Wedderburn, Mr. A., K.C., 112
_What the Moon Saw_, designs for, 251
_Wheels of Chance, The_, Kate Greenaway on, 215
Whistler, J. M’N., Kate Greenaway on, 218
White, Gleeson, on Kate Greenaway’s designs for Christmas cards, 76
Whitelands College, Kate Greenaway at May-day celebration at, 201
Wise, Aunt, visit to, 10
Women and Woman’s Suffrage, Kate Greenaway on, 212
‘Women of Amphissa, The’ (Sir L. Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A.), Kate
Greenaway on, 219
_Wonderful Visit, The_, Kate Greenaway on, 203
_Woodlanders, The_ (Mr. Thomas Hardy), Kate Greenaway on, 238
Wordsworth, visit of Kate Greenaway to country of, 187;
Kate Greenaway on ‘Intimations of Immortality’ of, 189
‘Yes’ (Sir J. E. Millais, _P._R.A.), Kate Greenaway on, 228
Yonge, Charlotte, Kate Greenaway’s illustrations to novels of, 77, 281
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R. TALBOT KELLY, R.B.A.
EGYPT
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
=“All men completely organised and justly tempered enjoy colour;
it is meant for the perpetual comfort and delight of the human
heart.”=—_Ruskin._
BY HELEN ALLINGHAM, R.W.S.
TEXT BY MARCUS B. HUISH
HAPPY ENGLAND
=80= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY A. HEATON COOPER
DESCRIBED BY WILLIAM PALMER
THE ENGLISH LAKES
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY COL. R. C. GOFF
DESCRIBED BY MRS. GOFF
FLORENCE & SOME
TUSCAN CITIES
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY M. H. SPIELMANN, F.S.A.,
AND G. S. LAYARD
KATE GREENAWAY
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS (=51= IN COLOUR)
AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
BY NICO JUNGMAN
TEXT BY BEATRIX JUNGMAN
HOLLAND
=76= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I.
DESCRIBED BY THE REV. JOHN KELMAN, M.A.
THE HOLY LAND
=92= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS,
MOSTLY IN COLOUR
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY FLORA A. STEEL
INDIA
=76= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY FRANCIS S. WALKER, R.H.A.
DESCRIBED BY FRANK MATHEW
IRELAND
=77= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY ELLA DU CANE
DESCRIBED BY RICHARD BAGOT
THE ITALIAN LAKES
=69= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
JAPAN
=100= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY ROSE BARTON, A.R.W.S.
FAMILIAR LONDON
=60= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY W. L. WYLLIE, A.R.A.
DESCRIBED BY MARIAN AMY WYLLIE
LONDON TO THE
NORE
=60= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
PHILIP NORMAN, F.S.A.
LONDON VANISHED
AND VANISHING
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY HERBERT M. MARSHALL, R.W.S.
DESCRIBED BY G. E. MITTON
THE SCENERY OF
LONDON
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY A. S. FORREST
DESCRIBED BY S. L. BENSUSAN
MOROCCO
=74= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY AUGUSTINE FITZGERALD
TEXT BY SYBIL FITZGERALD
NAPLES
=80= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY NICO JUNGMAN
DESCRIBED BY BEATRIX JUNGMAN
NORWAY
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I.
DESCRIBED BY EDWARD THOMAS
OXFORD
=60= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY ALBERTO PISA
TEXT BY M. A. R. TUKER AND HOPE MALLESON
ROME
=70= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY SUTTON PALMER
DESCRIBED BY A. R. HOPE MONCRIEFF
BONNIE SCOTLAND
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
A. HENRY SAVAGE LANDOR
TIBET AND NEPAL
=76= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS (=50= IN COLOUR)
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
VENICE
=100= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
PAINTED BY ROBERT FOWLER, R.I.
DESCRIBED BY EDWARD THOMAS
BEAUTIFUL WALES
=75= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
WAR IMPRESSIONS
=99= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY CAPTAIN S. E. ST. LEGER
WAR SKETCHES IN
COLOUR
=165= ILLUSTRATIONS (50 IN COLOUR)
PAINTED BY A. S. FORREST
DESCRIBED BY JOHN HENDERSON
THE WEST INDIES
=74= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
WORLD’S CHILDREN
=100= FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.I.
TEXT BY DOROTHY MENPES
WORLD PICTURES
=500= ILLUSTRATIONS (=50= IN COLOUR)
PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The drawings of the cheese-press, the pump, and the fireplace in
the kitchen of the cottage, as well as of the croft at Rolleston, here
reproduced, were executed by Kate Greenaway while she was still a girl.
[2] _Little Ann and other Poems_, by Jane and Ann Taylor, illustrated
by Kate Greenaway, printed in colours by Edmund Evans. London: George
Routledge & Sons, etc. (n.d.)
[3] The head in water-colours, which won her the silver medal, was
bought by the late Sir Julian Goldsmid.
[4] Official inscription on the drawing: ‘National Medallion Award.
Finsbury, 1864. Stage 22. Aged 17 years. Time in School, 9 sessions, 4
hours a week. Medals already obtained in Stages 4^b, 10^a, 10^b, 22^c.
Teachers: S. A. Doidge, S. Hipwood.’
[5] The following is a complete list of her exhibits at the Dudley
Gallery:—
1868—Kilmeny.
1869—The Fairies of the ‘Caldon Low.’
1870—Apple Blossom—A Spring Idyll.
1872—(1) A Study.
(2) A Reverie.
1875—Little Miss Prim.
1876—Little Girls at Play.
1877—(1) In Spring Time.
(2) Dorothy.
(3) Birthday Tea.
(4) A Procession of Children with Flowers.
1878—(1) A Procession of Children.
(2) Darby and Joan.
(3) Miss Patty.
1879—(1) Prissy.
(2) A Morning Call.
[6] See Mr. Lionel Robinson’s introduction to the Exhibition of Kate
Greenaway’s Works in 1891.
[7] These were the first things she ever sold publicly. Mr. Loftie
forgets the apparent fact that the two remaining designs were also
published, though at a later date, for on looking through the volume of
the _People’s Magazine_ for 1873 we find on pp. 24 and 97 two of her
drawings (unsigned) written up to respectively by ‘M, E.’ and ‘E. J.
Ellis.’ The first illustrates a set of verses entitled ‘Nonsense about
Cat’s Cradle’; the second a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland story entitled
‘Bebel,’ an ingenious rendering of a somewhat cryptic design.
[8] This was also published by Messrs. Marcus Ward & Co.
[9] Of Messrs. Griffith, Farran, & Co., for whom she worked later.
[10] An excellent account of Mr. Evans’s work is to be found in _The
British and Colonial Printer and Stationer_ for March 31, 1904.
[11] _The April Baby’s Book of Tunes_, by the author of _Elizabeth and
her German Garden_.
[12] As ‘K. G.,’ the reader should be reminded, Miss Greenaway was
known to most of her friends, and even to many of her relations as well.
[13] The originator of _Punch_.
[14] In addition there were French and German editions, which probably
brought up the number to 100,000 copies.
[15] It should be understood, however—lest the strict facts of the
arrangement mislead the reader—that the half-share royalty only became
payable after the expenses of publication had been cleared off—that
is to say, after the sale had passed a given number of copies.
Consequently, as certain of the books never reached the limit, K. G.
only received payment for the use of the drawings, which were returned
to her. Such failures, commercially speaking, were _A Day in a Child’s
Life_, the Calendars, and one or two more. It was found in practice
that, except in rare cases, books with music were not successful.
[16] These words have been added in MS. by Mr. Evans.
[17] From a letter written in 1879 it will be seen that the heaviness
of her line had before been a matter of complaint with him.
[18] The reader will see that this is a misconception, as _Fairy Gifts_
preceded it by four years.
[19] See ‘Christmas Cards and their Designers, by Gleeson White.’ Extra
number of the _Studio_, 1894, which is full of interesting information
on the subject.
[20] At this sale Kate Greenaway’s illustrations to _Topo_
fetched—after the copyright had been used—35 guineas; whilst others of
her pictures sold were ‘Three Innocents,’ 12 guineas; ‘My Lady and her
Pages,’ 23 guineas; ‘The Seasons,’ 17 guineas; ‘The Time of Roses,’ 18
guineas; ‘On the Road to the Ball,’ and ‘The Fancy Dress Ball,’ £28;
and ‘My Lord’s Page and my Lady’s Maid,’ 13 guineas.
[21] ‘Those indisputably by Miss Greenaway,’ he proceeds, ‘include:
a set of children, 1878; another set, a Page in Red, with a cup,
etc.; children by ponds; a set of little people in initial letters; a
set of damsels with muffs, and lads in ulsters; another set of four
initials; a Red Riding Hood set; an oblong set, with processions of
little people; a tiny set of three; an upright set of three single
figures; a set of heads; and a set of “Coachmen.” To these may be added
the Calendars published by Marcus Ward, as well as the annual “Kate
Greenaway’s Almanack,” published by Geo. Routledge & Sons; a set in
circular panels on small cards, published by Goodall; a set, “The Four
Seasons”; also a calendar with four designs issued separately as cards,
and a few early cards published by Marcus Ward.
‘Without very minute and tedious detail, it is not possible to identify
even these in written descriptions; but, unless collectors have at
least as many sets (usually four in as I have noted), they may still be
certain that the most prized section of their collection is incomplete.
How many more can be traced it would be pleasant to discover.’
[22] Of these little drawings in pen-and-ink, many of them scarcely
more than an inch high, 292 have lately been offered for sale by
a London west-end bookseller, prettily mounted on pages, in an
elaborately-bound morocco-covered box, for the sum of £300.
[23] _Under the Window._
[24] By Miss Laffan, author of _Baubie Clarke_ (Blackwood, 1880).
[25] See _Under the Windows_, p. 35.
[26] Now Lady St. Helier.
[27] For authorisation to reproduce these letters we are indebted to
the German Ambassador.
[28] This word is illegible.
[29] The lurid and dramatic witch in _Under the Window_.
[30] The Greenaways were contemplating moving from Holloway to
Hampstead.
[31] Birket Fosters.
[32] William Black’s novel, published in 1871.
[33] By his American friend, Miss Francesca Alexander, the exquisite
artist of _The Roadside Songs of Tuscany_ and the charming writer and
poet who to this day with her mother are residents of Florence, famous
for their charity, kindliness, and hospitality.
[34] Ruskin’s body-servant.
[35] This includes an edition of 2,000, published by Hachette & Cie.,
of Paris.
[36] Miss Francesca Alexander.
[37] Page 22 of _Marigold Garden_.
[38] A water-colour drawing of ‘Rock, Moss, and Ivy’ by K. G. is now in
the Sheffield Museum. Of its origin the catalogue says ‘The sketch was
made by Miss Greenaway in consequence of Mr. Ruskin having told her one
day at Brantwood, that she could draw pretty children daintily enough
but she couldn’t make a drawing of that rock. Miss Greenaway hastily
produced this study of it, and presented it to Mr. Ruskin.’
[39] Portrait of the present Duke of Argyll.
[40] Portrait of Lady Campbell when a little girl—Miss Nina Lehmann.
Painted in 1865.
[41] Lady Campbell (Miss Nina Lehmann) on her marriage.
[42] ‘Aphrodite’ by Philip Calderon, R.A.
[43] The Society of British Artists.
[44] For _Claudian_—the play produced by Wilson Barrett, who acted the
title-rôle—Ruskin had a prodigious and rather unaccountable admiration.
To one of the present writers, he said during the run of the piece:
‘I admired it so much that I went to see it three times out of pure
enjoyment of it, although as a rule I cannot sit out a tragic play. It
is not only that it is the most beautifully mounted piece I ever saw,
but it is that every feeling that is expressed in the play, and every
law of morality that is taught in it, is entirely right.’
[45] A young lady who died young. Her fine character and sweet
disposition Ruskin greatly admired.
[46] Miss Francesca Alexander.
[47] _The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet. Now
first collected and translated from the Latin with Notes and Memoir of
Sidney._ By Stewart A. Pears (London, William Pickering, 1845).
[48] Miss Trotter.
[49] Miss Burne-Jones.
[50] Miss Anderson, his secretary, of whom on rare occasions Ruskin
spoke thus.
[51] Ruskin had much faith in the educational value of drawings from
Greek coins of the finest period.
[52] It was Mr. Ruskin’s practice to destroy everything not of special
interest to him or what was unlikely to be of use. On one occasion
the present writer sent him by request certain early proofs of etched
plates, the coppers of which were in the Professor’s possession. After
a time, on being requested to return them, he replied that he had
destroyed them—‘How else do you think I could do my work if I litter my
house with such?’—and offered by way of compensation to have as many
proofs pulled as his disconsolate correspondent might desire.
[53] Di Pa was the pet name Ruskin bore at that time in his immediate
family circle.
[54] ‘Venus, Mistress of the World’—one of the series of allegorical
subjects by Giovanni Bellini in the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.
[55] These comprised designs from the _Almanack_ for 1884, and
drawings from _Marigold Garden_, the _Language of Flowers_, and _Little
Ann_.
[56] Reproduced as end-papers of this volume.
[57] It will be remembered that although Marie Bashkirtseff was given
out to be thirteen the facts in the book prove that she was four years
older.
[58] Held at the New Gallery, London.
[59] From the Hampton Court Collection.
[60] Lent by Louisa Lady Ashburton. The ‘beautiful lady’s name’ is
unknown.
[61] _The Wonderful Visit_, by H. G. Wells (1895).
[62] Robert Anning Bell, R.W.S.
[63] Miss Greenaway raised the point again later on with one of the
present writers, and was vastly interested to learn that Ruskin, as
she suspected, is presented as ‘Mr. Herbert,’ Huxley as ‘Storks,’
Tyndall as ‘Stockton,’ Jowett as ‘Jenkinson,’ Kingdon Clifford as
‘Saunders,’ Carlyle as ‘Donald Gordon,’ Matthew Arnold as ‘Luke,’ Pater
as ‘Rose,’ and Hardinge as ‘Leslie,’ while Lady Dilke is ‘Lady Grace’
and Mrs. Singleton ‘Mrs. Sinclair.’ ‘Then who is Lawrence?’ asked Miss
Greenaway. ‘Mallock himself.’ ‘Ah!’ she replied,’ that settles it; I
don’t like him.’
[64] By H. G. Wells.
[65] Mr. Stuart M. Samuel, M.P.
[66] By J. W. Waterhouse, R.A.
[67] Byam Shaw.
[68] An exhibition of the works of painters who had flourished during
Queen Victoria’s reign, held at the Guildhall Art Gallery.
[69] ‘An Idyll, 1745.’
[70] ‘The Proscribed Royalist.’
[71] ‘May Morning on Magdalen Tower,’ Oxford.
[72] The net profit to Miss Greenaway was £645. The most important
pictures sold were ‘Little Girl with Tea Rose’ (35 guineas), ‘Going to
School’ (35 guineas), ‘Betty’ (35 guineas),’Girl in Pink and Black—Grey
Muff’ (60 guineas), ‘Little Girl in Scarlet Coat and Tippet’ (35
guineas), ‘A Girl in Hat and Feathers’ (45 guineas), ‘Thoughts of the
Sea’ (35 guineas), ‘Two Girls in a Garden’ (35 guineas), ‘Lilies’ (35
guineas), and ‘Baby Boy in Blue Coat and Tippet’ (35 guineas).
[73] By George du Maurier.
[74] She here refers to Millais’ ‘Rescue,’ of which Ruskin had written
in 1855: ‘The only _great_ picture exhibited this year; but this is
_very_ great. The immortal element is in it to the full.’
[75] Apparently, Luini’s ‘St. Catherine.’
[76] First volume published in 1843, edited by Douglas Jerrold, and
written and illustrated by some of the most brilliant authors and
artists of the day.
[77] Published by Mr. Austin Dobson in his delightful article on Kate
Greenaway in the _Art Journal_, and written by him, on the 29th January
1902, in the Album of Mr. Ernest G. Brown, and here printed by consent
of both gentlemen.
[78] See p. 254.
[79] _The History of Modern Painting_, vol. iii. p. 137.
[80] The _Journal des Débats_.
[81] So true is it that ‘Greenawisme’ stands for a phase of art and
dress, that in that entertaining publication, the _Almanac Hachette_
for 1904 (p. 329), under the heading ‘L’Histoire du Costume des
Enfants,’ the ‘Coiffure Greeneway’ (_sic_) takes its place in the
series of woodcuts immediately preceding ‘la jupe cloche fin du xix^e
siècle’; and many more examples might be adduced.
[82] To consult the drawings mentioned see the Index of Illustrations.
[83] Translated by J. Levoison. The German version, _Am Fester_, was
translated by Frau Käthe Freiligrath-Kröker.
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