Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books. Horatia K. F. Eden
jam, and our digging of earth-nuts were limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted to exercise her prerogative over the stream; I am sure that, whenever we caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy Batrachospermum in its clear depths, we plunged in to secure it for Mother, whether Julie or any other Naiad liked it or no! But "the splendour in the grass and glory in the flower" that we found in "St. Nicholas" was very deep and real, thanks to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood she must have felt, and imparted to us, a great deal of what she put into the hearts of the children in "Our Field."[5] To me this story is one of the most beautiful of her compositions, and deeply characteristic of the strong power she possessed of drawing happiness from little things, in spite of the hindrances caused by weak health. Her fountain of hope and thankfulness never ran dry.
[5] "A Great Emergency, and other Tales."
Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment.
From her earliest years it had been a family joke, that poor Madam Liberality was always in ill-luck's way.
It is true that she was constantly planning; and, if one builds castles, one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now and then. But, besides this, her little hopes were constantly being frustrated by Fate.
If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed was sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When a picnic or a tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not catch cold, so as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to have a quinsy from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a treat, she paid for the pleasurable excitement by a head-ache, just as when she ate sweet things they gave her toothache.
But, if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about the treat when she had forgotten the head-ache.
One side of her face would look fairly cheerful when the other was obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole was redolent of every possible domestic remedy for toothache, from oil of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue would not hurt her "this time."
In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her quinsy she would amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition, on a larger and possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time when she should be out again.
It is a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a cork rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had swallowed up her hopes.
Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each mischance or malady as ready and hopeful as ever.
Some of the indoor amusements over which Julie exercised great influence were our theatricals. Her powers of imitation were strong; indeed, my mother's story of "Joachim the Mimic" was written, when Julie was very young, rather to check this habit which had early developed in her. She always took what may be called the "walking gentleman's" part in our plays. Miss Corner's Series came first, and then Julie was usually a Prince; but after we advanced to farces, her most successful character was that of the commercial traveller, Charley Beeswing, in "Twenty Minutes with a Tiger." "Character" parts were what she liked best to take, and in later years, when aiding in private theatricals at Aldershot Camp, the piece she most enjoyed was "Helping Hands," in which she acted Tilda, with Captain F.G. Slade, R.A., as Shockey, and Major Ewing as the blind musician.
The last time she acted was at Shoeburyness, where she was the guest of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, and when Captain Goold-Adams and his wife also took part in the entertainment. The terrible news of Colonel Strangways' and Captain Goold-Adams' deaths from the explosion at Shoebury in February 1885, reached her whilst she was very ill, and shocked her greatly; though she often alluded to the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' unselfishness, courage, and submission during his last hours, and trying to bear her own sufferings in the same spirit. She was so much pleased with the description given of his grave being lined with moss and lilac crocuses, that when her own had to be dug it was lined in a similar way.
But now let us go back to her in the Nursery, and recall how, in spite of very limited pocket-money, she was always the presiding Genius over birthday and Christmas-tree gifts; and the true 'St. Nicholas' who filled the stockings that the "little ones" tied, in happy confidence, to their bed-posts. Here the description must be quoted of Madam Liberality's struggles between generosity and conscientiousness;—
It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should ever have been accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his head at her and say, "You're the most meanest and the generousest person I ever knew!" And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, although her brother was then too young to form either his words or his opinions correctly.
But it was the touch of truth in it which made Madam Liberality cry. To the end of their lives Tom and she were alike, and yet different in this matter. Madam Liberality saved, and pinched, and planned, and then gave away, and Tom gave away without the pinching and the saving. This sounds much handsomer, and it was poor Tom's misfortune that he always believed it to be so; though he gave away what did not belong to him, and fell back for the supply of his own pretty numerous wants upon other people, not forgetting Madam Liberality. Painful experience convinced Madam Liberality in the end that his way was a wrong one, but she had her doubts many times in her life whether there were not something unhandsome in her own decided talent for economy. Not that economy was always pleasant to her. When people are very poor for their position in life, they can only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting is very painful to a liberal spirit. And it requires a sterner virtue than good nature to hold fast the truth that it is nobler to be shabby and honest than to do things handsomely in debt.
But long before Tom had a bill even for bull's-eyes and Gibraltar rock, Madam Liberality was pinching and plotting, and saving bits of coloured paper and ends of ribbon, with a thriftiness which seemed to justify Tom's view of her character. The object of these savings was twofold—birthday presents and Christmas-boxes. They were the chief cares and triumphs of Madam Liberality's childhood. It was with the next birthday or the approaching Christmas in view that she saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity. Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would "do for a boy;" but it was easy to please Darling, and "Mother's" unabated appreciation of pin-cushions, and of needle-books made out of old cards, was most satisfactory.
Equally characteristic of Julie's moral courage and unselfishness is the incident of how Madam Liberality suffered the doctor's assistant to extract the tooth fang which had been accidentally left in her jaw, because her mother's "fixed scale of reward was sixpence for a tooth without fangs, and a shilling for one with them," and she wanted the larger sum to spend on Christmas-tree presents.
When the operation was over,
Madam Liberality staggered home, very giddy, but very happy. Moralists say a great deal about pain treading so closely on the heels of pleasure in this life, but they are not always wise or grateful enough to speak of the pleasure which springs out of pain. And yet there is a bliss which comes just when pain has ceased, whose rapture rivals even the high happiness of unbroken health; and there is a keen pleasure about small pleasures hardly earned, in which the full measure of those who can afford anything they want is sometimes lacking. Relief is certainly one of the most delicious sensations which poor humanity can enjoy!
The details which can be traced in Julie's letters after undergoing the removal of her tonsils read very much like extracts from Madam Liberality's biography. During my sister's last illness she spoke about this episode, and said she looked back with surprise at the courage she had exercised in going to London alone, and staying with friends for the operation. Happily, like Madam Liberality, she too earned a reward in the relief which she appreciated so keenly; for, after this event, quinsies became things of the past to her, and she had them no more.
On