  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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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 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, 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. ‘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 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 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? 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. 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 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.’ 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. 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 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. 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. 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 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’ 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 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. 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 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 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,’ 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, 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 alstroemeria 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? 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. 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. 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. |
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