Granny's Wonderful Chair. Frances Browner
how elastic and untarnished must that nature have been which, after years of continuous struggle for bare subsistence, could put her money-wise people on to paper and quietly say of them that "To keep a daily watch over passing pence did not disturb the Fentons – it was a mental exercise suited to their capacities." The turning of that sentence was surely an exquisite pleasure to its author. And "My Share of the World" is full of cleverly-turned sentences – "Hartley cared for nobody, and I believe the corollary of the miller's song was verified in his favour."
But we must not linger longer over her novel, its pages are full of passages which tell of the vigorous quality of her mind.
Frances Browne's poetry is as impersonal as her prose. She belonged to the first order of artists, if there be distinction in our gratitude. The material with which she tried to deal was Life – apart from herself – a perhaps bigger, and, certainly, a harder piece of work than the subjective expression of a single personality.
The subjects of her poems are in many lands and periods. The most ambitious – "The Star of Attéghéi" – is a tale of Circassia, another is of a twelfth-century monk and the philosopher's stone, another of an Arab; and another is of that Cyprus tree which is said to have been planted at the birth of Christ, and to spare which Napoleon deviated from his course when he ordered the making of the road over the Simplon.
"Why came it not, when o'er my life
A cloud of darkness hung,
When years were lost in fruitless strife,
But still my heart was young?
How hath the shower forgot the spring,
And fallen on Autumn's withering?"
These lines are from a poem called "The Unknown Crown." The messenger who came to tell Tasso the laureate crown had been decreed him, found him dying in a convent.
Then she has verses on Boston, on Protestant Union in New England, on the Abolition of Slavery in the United States, on the Parliament grant for the improvement of the Shannon. Her mind compelled externals to its use.
A love of nature was in her soul, a perception of the beauty of the world. She, with her poet's spirit, saw all the green and leafy places of the earth, all its flowery ways – while they, may be, were trodden heedlessly by those about her with their gift of sight.
"Sing on by fane and forest old
By tombs and cottage eaves,
And tell the waste of coming flowers
The woods of coming leaves; —
The same sweet song that o'er the birth
Of earliest blossoms rang,
And caught its music from the hymn
The stars of morning sang."
"Ye early minstrels of the earth,
Whose mighty voices woke
The echoes of its infant woods,
Ere yet the tempest spoke;
How is it that ye waken still
The young heart's happy dreams,
And shed your light on darkened days
O bright and blessed streams?"
"Words – words of hope! – oh! long believed,
As oracles of old,
When stars of promise have deceived.
And beacon-fires grown cold!
Though still, upon time's stormy steeps,
Such sounds are faint and few,
Yet oft from cold and stranger lips
Hath fallen that blessed dew, – That,
like the rock-kept rain, remained
When many a sweeter fount was drained."
Many and many such verses there are which might be quoted, but her work for children is waiting. – For them she wrote many stories, and in their employ her imagination travelled into many lands. The most popular was "Granny's Wonderful Chair," published in 1856. It was at once a favourite, and quickly out of print, and, strangely enough, was not reprinted until 1880. Then new editions were issued in 1881, '82, '83, '84, '87, and '89. In 1887 Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnet published it, with a preface, under the title "Stories from the Lost Fairy Book," re-told by the child who read them. "The Lost Fairy Book" was "Granny's Wonderful Chair."
One has not far to read to discover the secret of its popularity with children. It is full of word-pictures, of picturesque settings. Her power of visualisation is shown in these fairy-tales more, perhaps, than in any other of her writings. Truly, she was fortunate in having the Irish fairies to lead her into their gossamer-strewn ways, to touch her fancy with their magic, and put upon her the glamour of their land. When the stories are of them she is, perhaps, at her best; but each story in the book makes a complete picture, each has enough and no more of colour and scene. And the little pictures are kept in their places, pinned down to reality, by delightful touches of humour. Of the wonderful chair Dame Frostyface says in the beginning of the story, "It was made by a cunning fairy who lived in the forest when I was young, and she gave it to me because she knew nobody would keep what they got hold of better."
How did a writer who never saw a coach, or a palace, or the picture of a coach or a palace, tell of the palace and the people and the multitudes, of the roasting and boiling, of the spiced ale and the dancing?
Whence came her vision of the old woman who weaved her own hair into grey cloth at a crazy loom; of the fortified city in the plain, with cornfields and villages; of floors of ebony and ceilings of silver; of swallows that built in the eaves while the daisies grew thick at the door?
Had her descriptions been borrowed, the wonder of them would cease. But her words are her own, and they are used sparingly, as by one who sees too vividly what she is describing to add one unnecessary or indistinct touch. She seems as much at home under the sea, among hills of marble and rocks of spa, as with the shepherds on the moorland, or when she tells of the spring and the budding of the topmost boughs.
The enrichment of little Snowflower, by the King's gifts, links these stories together as artistically as the telling of the princess's raiment in that beautiful book "A Digit of the Moon;" and right glad we are when the poorly clad little girl takes her place among the grand courtiers, and is led away to happiness by the Prince.
Frances Browne's list of contributions to children's literature is a long one. In reading these books one is surprised by the size of her imaginative territory; by the diversity of the knowledge she acquired.
One, "The Exile's Trust," is a story of the French Revolution, in which Charlotte Corday is introduced; and in it are descriptions of the scenery of Lower Normandy; another, "The First of the African Diamonds," is a tale of the Dutch and the banks of the Orange River. Then, in "The Young Foresters," she conducts her young heroes to Archangel, to see the fine frost and clear sky, the long winter nights and long summer days, to adventure with wolves in the forest and with pirates by sea.
In "The Dangerous Guest" she is in the time of the Young Pretender, and in "The Eriksons," "The Clever Boy," and "Our Uncle the Traveller," she wanders far and wide.
In reviewing her subjects one realises afresh the richness of the world she created within her own darkness.
A wonderful law of Exchange keeps safe the precious things of Life, and it operates by strange and unexpected means. In this instance it was most beautifully maintained; for Frances Browne, the iron of calamity was transmuted to gold.
Thus it has been, and thus it shall be; so long as the world shall last, circumstance shall not conquer a strong and beautiful spirit.
August 1906.
The following are the works of Frances Browne:
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