  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. Thereupon arose the Christmas card collector, who vaunted his possessions even as the stamp collector or book-plate collector of 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 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) 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, 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. 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? 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 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 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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.) 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.) 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. 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 The grass is soft and that is why The games are over that made us gay— The sun is dying, so God’s fair day 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.) ‘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— What painter shall we get to paint To give us all the charm that dwells And all those other pleasant spells The silver mug for either pet; Come, fairy Limner, you can thrill, Come paint our little Jack and Jill— 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. 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:— 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. |
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