He frowned, walked
deliberately
and slowly from
the room, and I saw him no more.
the room, and I saw him no more.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
Do not crush these flickering sparks!
IT is a fine thing that authors, even those who deny the im-
mortality of their souls, seldom dare to contest that of their
names; and as Cicero affirmed that he would believe in another
life even if there were none, so they wish to cling to the belief
in the future eternal life of their names, although the critics may
have furnished positive proofs to the contrary.
LET us not despise the slender thread upon which we and
our fortune may depend. If, like the spider, we have spun and
drawn it out of ourselves, it will hold us quite well; and we may
hang on it safely as the tempest tosses us and the web uninjured
to and fro.
POVERTY is the only burden which grows heavier when loved
ones help to bear it.
THE human body is a musical instrument, in which the Cre-
mona chords are twisted out of living intestines, and the breast
is the sounding-board and the head the damper.
## p. 12264 (#310) ##########################################
12264
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
SINCE there are in our world so many delicate and Divine
sentiments hovering about, so many rich blossoms unfolding and
bearing no seed, it is fortunate that poesy was invented to pre-
serve all these unborn spirits and the fragrance of flowers in its
halo.
IF YOU are an author, picture to yourself the best man, one
who cherishes in his heart all that is most holy and most beauti-
ful, and never suffers anything impure to enter there; then take
your pen and strive to enrapture this imaginary reader.
MAN is like horse-radish: the more it is grated the more it
bites. The satirist is sadder than the jester, for the same reason
that the orang-outang is more melancholy than the monkey,-
because he is nobler.
## p. 12265 (#311) ##########################################
12265
-
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
(1852-)
AMES WHITCOMB RILEY, the western-American dialect poet, is
one of the younger writers who have given to the newer
native literature a quality expressive of interesting and typ-
ical local conditions. A man of the people, he has in his homely
and heartfelt song uttered their joys and sorrows, - to be repaid by
the affectionate admiration of his Indiana Hoosier folk and by a wide
popularity throughout the United States. Riley's work is honestly a
product of the soil. It reflects the life of the Middle West, and at
its best calls for recognition as something
more than social documents; namely, as
lyric utterance vital with feeling and full of
a truly democratic sympathy for common
humanity.
JAMES W. RILEY
Riley was born in 1852 in Greenfield,
Indiana, a small town twenty miles from
Indianapolis. His father, a country lawyer,
wished his son to read for that profession:
but it took the latter, after a course at the
village school, but a short time to learn
that Blackstone was not for him, and he
ran away from home with a patent-medicine
and concert wagon, it being his function to
beat the bass-drum; then he worked at the
trade of sign-painting, coming back to Greenfield to do some experi-
mental journalism on a local paper, the failure of which sheet sent
him to Indianapolis, where his labors on the Journal of that city re-
sulted in a connection which introduced him as a writer and brought
him fame and fortune. Riley's boyhood in the little town, with its
simple honest ways, among his kin and comrades, is described in the
autobiographic book 'A Child World' (1897). His upbringing was
typical of the place and time, and richly has he made use in his
writings of these early experiences. For a while Riley used the pen-
name "B. F. Johnson of Boone" in signing his Journal contributions;
and a great deal of his verse and prose first appeared in the columns
of that paper, the rapidly thrown off "copy" of the practical news-
paper man. Yet this long apprenticeship helped Riley to acquire
the firm technique, the grasp on the art of verse-making, which he
now possesses.
## p. 12266 (#312) ##########################################
12266
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Since Riley has come into prosperity and fame he has returned to
Greenfield, and purchased and fitted up for his summer home the old
family residence, endeared to him by so many associations. He is
in demand all over the country as a reader, his gifts as a platform
speaker being remarkable. A tour made with the late humorist Bill
Nye was very successful. A friend thus describes his personal
appearance: "In physical stature he is below the average height.
His complexion is fair. His hair has never changed from the flaxen
whiteness of boyhood. His eyes are large, light-blue, wide open, and
marvelous in their expression. His face is smooth-shaven; his attire
neat and fashionable. To his friends, to all the associations, interests,
and memories of his life, he is profoundly, patriotically loyal. »
His literary bow as a maker of poems was made in 1883, when he
was turned thirty, with the volume entitled 'Old Swimmin' Hole. '
It was brought out by an Indianapolis firm, the Bowen-Merrill Com-
pany, which has continued to issue Riley's books; although the Cen-
tury Company of New York in 1893 published a handsome volume of
his representative lyrics, Poems Here at Home. ' That maiden vol-
ume, with its quaint verse depicting the rustic haunts and characters
he knew as a lad, pleased the public, and Riley's road was smooth
thereafter. Other collections of poems, typical of the man and his
quality, are 'Afterwhiles' (1887), 'Old-Fashioned Roses' (1888), 'Pipes
o' Pan' (1889), 'Green Fields and Running Brooks' (1893). Riley's
publications also include several volumes of humorous prose sketches;
but this side of his work, when compared with his poetry, is un-
important. His most winning verse is that which blends pathos and
humor. His dialect pieces have made him most broadly known, and
his choicest in this kind are admirable. He catches the idiom of the
middle-class home, and interprets the homely human heart with sure
divination. He chose this medium of expression because he wished to
speak for and of the plain people, and believed this the most direct
and honest way
As he says himself, "I went among the people:
I learned their wants, their sufferings, their joys; and I put them
into rhyme. " But it would be a mistake to regard Riley exclusively
as a dialect poet. The Poet of the Future,' for example, with its
healthy democratic teaching, its vigorous lilt, its unforced melody, is
one of numerous inspiring poems written in more conventional Eng-
lish. This is true too of the exquisite sonnet, 'When She Comes
Home,' showing what lovely work he can do in one of the most dif-
ficult of verse forms; while his 'Away' is another illustration of his
tender simplicity which makes magic effects. Riley believes that-
"The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet. »
## p. 12267 (#313) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12267
He is a genuine people's poet; and although his work suffers here
and there from prolixity and suggests the pressure of over-production,
he is, judged by his highest accomplishment (as every literary maker
should be), a true singer, who has contributed authentically to the
content of American letters.
[All the following poems are quoted from 'Afterwhiles,)-copyright 1887,
by James Whitcomb Riley,- and are reprinted by permission of The Bowen-
Merrill Co. , publishers. ]
AWAY
CANNOT say and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!
I
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
――――――
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you-O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,-
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still as he gave the blows
Of his warrior strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things: where the violets grew
Pure as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. -
Think of him still as the same, I say:
He is not dead- he is just away!
## p. 12268 (#314) ##########################################
12268
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WHEN SHE COMES HOME
HEN she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble — yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.
Then silence; and the perfume of her dress.
The room will sway a little, and a haze
WH
Cloy eyesight-soul sight, even- for a space.
And tears - yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
TH
A LIFE LESSON
HERE, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house, too,
Are things of the long ago:
But childish troubles will soon pass by; —
There, little girl-don't cry!
There, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your schoolgirl days
Are things of the long ago:
But life and love will soon come by;—
There, little girl- don't cry!
There, little girl- don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago:
But heaven holds all for which you sigh;
There, little girl-don't cry!
-
## p. 12269 (#315) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12269
A SONG
TH
HERE is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
There is ever a something sings alway:
There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray;
The sunshine showers across the grain,
And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,
The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair;
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear-
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear-
There is ever a song somewhere!
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
In the midnight black or the midday blue:
The robin pipes when the sun is here,
And the cricket chirrups the whole night through;
The buds may blow and the fruit may grow,
And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sere:
But whether the sun or the rain or the snow,
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
NOTHIN' TO SAY
to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say! .
NG'yirls that's in love, I've noticed, ginerly has their way!
Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me-
Yit here I am, and here you air; and yer mother-where is she?
You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size;
And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes;
Like her, too, about her livin' here,- because she couldn't stay:
It'll most seem like you was dead-like her! but I hain't got
nothin' to say!
She left you her little Bible writ yer name acrost the page;
And left her ear-bobs fer you, ef ever you come of age.
I've allus kep' 'em and g'yarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away-
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
## p. 12270 (#316) ##########################################
12270
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
You don't rikollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year old then!
And now yer-how old air you? W'y, child, not 'twenty'! When?
And yer nex' birthday's in April? and you want to get married that
day? —
I wisht yer mother was livin'! -but-I hain't got nothin' to say!
Twenty year! and as good a girl as parent ever found!
There's a straw ketched onto yer dress there - I'll bresh it off-
turn round.
(Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away! )
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE
you what I like the best:
TELL Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time the strawberries melts
On the vine,- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard 's where I'd ruther be—
Needn't fence it in for me! -
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath -
Sorto' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kindo' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass,
Where the shadder's thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!
Jes' a sorto' lazin' there-
S' lazy 'at you peek and peer
Through the wavin' leaves above,
Like a feller 'at's in love
And don't know it, ner don't keer!
Ever'thing you hear and see
Got some sort o' interest:
Maybe find a bluebird's nest
Tucked up there conveenently
For the boys 'at's apt to be
Up some other apple-tree!
--
## p. 12271 (#317) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12271
Watch the swallers scootin' past
'Bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.
Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air! —
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she's got,
Suddent-like! And she knows where
That air hawk is, well as you!
You jes' bet your life she do! -
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!
Pee-wee's singin', to express
My opinions second-class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more or less;
Sapsuck's gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
In them base-ball clothes o' his,
Sportin' 'round the orchard jes'
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two.
Plague! ef they ain't sompin' in
Work, 'at kind o' goes ag'in
My convictions! -'long about
Here in June especially!
Under some old apple-tree,
Jes' a-restin' through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Was a-gittin' there like me,—
And June was eternity!
Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be! —
## p. 12272 (#318) ##########################################
12272
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Tumble round and souse your head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'at's dead,
Maybe smilin' back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o' gold and white and blue! -
Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
March ain't never nothin' new! -
April's altogether too
Brash fer me! and May-I jes'
'Bominate its promises:
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land-
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two-
Drap asleep, and it turns in
'Fore daylight and snows ag'in!
喜
-
clear my throat
Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!
But when June comes.
With wild honey!
Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll git down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!
-
## p. 12273 (#319) ##########################################
12273
YOCK
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
(1838-)
HE feminine quality in Thackeray's genius, which saved his
unerring comprehension of human nature from harshness,
seems detached and given complete embodiment in the
writings of his daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Not that these
are lacking in strength, nor in evidences of keen perception; but they
are steeped in the mellow atmosphere of an exquisite womanliness.
They are feminine in the highest and completest sense of the word.
They contain moreover a quality lacking to the works of the younger
generation of writers,- that of nobility, of
high breeding; the spirit indeed of one
whose life from her childhood up has been
spent among the true aristocracy of mind
and of character, and whose sensitive soul
responded wholly to gracious influences.
Anne Isabella Thackeray (Ritchie), the
daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray,
was born in London in 1838. Her child-
hood was spent partly in Kensington,-
whose quaintness she has immortalized in
her most characteristic novel,- partly on
the continent with her grandparents. She
grew up in London as her own heroine
Dolly grew up, "like a little spring flower
among the silent old bricks. " Her girlhood was spent in association
with her father and his circle of friends; which included indeed the
cream of England's true gentry. Never did a little lady grow into
womanhood in a more harmonious environment.
ANNE T. RITCHIE
In 1877 Miss Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thack-
eray Ritchie. In 1860 her first story, 'Little Scholars in the London
Schools, had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, of which her father
was editor. Unpretentious as it was, it revealed the author's domi-
nant qualities: her appreciation of the beautiful and dramatic elements
which may lie hidden in obscure lives, and in the experiences of
commonplace people; her genial sympathy, the rare charity and truth-
fulness of her spirit. It revealed, moreover, the genuineness of her
literary gift. Her simple and strong English belonged to no "school. "
It was that of one who had drunk deep at the undefiled wells of the
great Masters of the tongue.
XXI-768
## p. 12274 (#320) ##########################################
12274
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
In Old Kensington,' published in 1873, her gifts become fully
manifest. It would be difficult to overrate the charm of this novel
of gentlefolk, living out their simple lives in that quaint quarter of
London where the author's own girlhood was passed, and whose old-
fashioned beauties (many of them now vanished) she depicts with the
clear memory of love. The odor as of lavender haunts each chapter
of this book; whose fine, clean atmosphere removes it, as the East
from the West, from the neurotic vulgarities which in the present
day have debased the beautiful art of fiction. To read a novel like
'Old Kensington' is to come at once into good society. The book is
remarkable, moreover, for its depiction of human nature, and of child
nature; and for its exquisite bits of description, like some little warm
Dutch landscapes:-
"As days go by, Dolly's pictures warm and brighten from early spring into
summer-time. By degrees they reach above the table, and over and beyond
the garden roller. They are chiefly of the old garden, whose brick walls seem
to inclose sunshine and gaudy flowers all the summer through; of the great
Kensington parks, where in due season chestnuts are to be found shining
among the leaves and dry grasses; of the pond where the ducks are flapping
and diving; of the house which was little Rhoda's home. This was the great
bare house in Old Street, with plenty of noise, dried herbs, content, children
without end, and thick bread-and-butter. There was also cold stalled ox on
Sundays at one. »
Scattered through the book are wise comments on the mysteries
of life, worthy of Thackeray's daughter, who was too much of a
woman and of an artist ever to change her broad morality into the
moralizing spirit.
"To hate the Devil and all his works is one thing; but to-day, who is the
Devil and which are his works is another. "
"Dolly was true to herself; and in those days she used to think that all
her life she would be always true, and always say all she felt. As life grows
long, and people living on together through time and sorrow and experience
realize more and more the complexities of their own hearts, and sympathize
more and more with the failings and sorrows of others, they are apt to ask
themselves with dismay, if it is a reality of life to be less and less uncompro-
mising as complexities increase, less true to themselves as they are more true
to others. "
In 1873 and 1874 Miss Thackeray also published a number of short
stories and sketches: Toilers and Spinsters,' 'Bluebeard's Keys,'
etc. In 1875 appeared a novel, 'Miss Angel,' of which the heroine
is Angelica Kaufmann. In the same year she edited 'The Orphan
of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,' by her
father. Her life of Madame de Sévigné, in the 'Foreign Classics for
English Readers' series, appeared in 1881; and in the same year
she published another novel, 'Miss Williamson's Divagations. ' Later,
## p. 12275 (#321) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12275
'Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs' was published. This book
of personal reminiscences is delightful, for the glimpses it affords the
reader of the Thackeray household, and of the rare guests who gath-
ered there from time to time. One of the prettiest pictures is that
of a child's party at Dickens's house: of the little Misses Thackeray
in plaid sashes and bronze shoes, of Dickens's little daughters in
white sashes and white shoes; of the supper table presided over by
Mr. and Mrs. Dickens; of the innumerable small boys who swarmed
on the staircase, and who gave three cheers for Thackeray when he
appeared in the hall to take his little girls home. There is a humor-
ous picture of Charlotte Bronté dining with Thackeray and his fam-
ily: a number of his intimate friends were invited to meet her
afterwards, and hopes of brilliant conversation ran high; but the
little shy author took refuge with the family governess, an awful
gloom like a London fog settled upon the company, and Thackeray
in despair went off to his club.
In her 'Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning,' Mrs. Ritchie
has given to the world pictures of these great men drawn by the
hand of a loving and understanding friend. Like her other books, it
is instinct with the charm of her sympathy. Her true, pure, and
sweet spirit has left a precious imprint upon the world of letters and
of society. She is loved and will be long remembered, not as Thack-
eray's daughter alone, but for her own inherent qualities of true
greatness.
MY WITCH'S-CALDRON
From Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs. ' Copyright 1894, by Harper
& Brothers
I
REMEMBER a visit from another hero of those times. We were
walking across Kensington Square early one morning when
we heard some one hurrying after us and calling, "Thack-
eray, Thackeray! " This was also one of Byron's friends,-a
bright-eyed, active old man; with long wavy white hair and a
picturesque cloak flung over one shoulder. I can see him still,
as he crossed the corner of the square and followed us with a
light, rapid step. My father, stopping short, turned back to meet
him; greeting him kindly, and bringing him home with us to
the old brown house at the corner where we were then living.
There was a sort of eagerness and vividness of manner about
the stranger which was very impressive. You could not help
watching him and his cloak, which kept slipping from its place,
## p. 12276 (#322) ##########################################
12276
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
and which he caught at again and again. We wondered at his
romantic foreign looks, and his gayety and bright eager way.
Afterwards we were told that this was Leigh Hunt. We knew
his name very well; for on the drawing-room table, in company
with various Ruskins and Punches, lay a pretty shining book
called 'A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,'- from which, in
that dilettante childish fashion which is half play, half impatience
and search for something else, we had contrived to extract our
own allowance of honey. It was still an event to see a real
author in those days, specially an author with a long cloak flung
over his shoulder; though for the matter of that, it is still and
always will be an event to see the faces and hear the voices
of those whose thoughts have added something delightful to our
lives. Not very long afterwards came a different visitor, still
belonging to that same company of people.
I had thrown open
the dining-room door and come in, looking for something; and
then I stopped short, for the room was not empty. A striking
and somewhat alarming-looking person stood alone by the fire-
place with folded arms,—a dark, impressive-looking man, not tall,
but broad and brown and weather-beaten,-gazing with a sort of
scowl at his own reflection in the glass. As I entered he turned
slowly, and looked at me over his shoulder. This time it was
Trelawny, Byron's biographer and companion, who had come to
see my father.
He frowned, walked deliberately and slowly from
the room, and I saw him no more.
All these people now
seem almost like figures out of a fairy tale. One could almost
as well imagine Sindbad, or Prince Charming, or the Seven
Champions of Christendom, dropping in for an hour's chat. But
each generation, however matter-of-fact it may be, sets up fairy
figures in turn to wonder at and delight in. I had not then
read any of the books which have since appeared; though I had
heard my elders talking, and I knew from hearsay something of
the strange, pathetic, irrational histories of these bygone wan-
derers, searching the world for the Golden Fleece and the En-
chanted Gardens. These were the only members of that special,
impracticable, romantic crew of Argonauts I ever saw; though I
have read and re-read their histories and diaries so that I seem
to know them all, and can almost hear their voices.
One of the most notable persons who ever came into our old
bow-windowed drawing-room in Young Street is a guest never to
be forgotten by me, a tiny, delicate little person, whose small
## p. 12277 (#323) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12277
hand nevertheless grasped a mighty lever which set all the liter-
ary world of that day vibrating. I can still see the scene quite
plainly! the hot summer evening, the open windows, the carriage
driving to the door as we all sat silent and expectant; my father,
who rarely waited, waiting with us; our governess and my sister
and I all in a row, and prepared for the great event.
We saw
the carriage stop, and out of it sprang the active, well-knit figure
of young Mr. George Smith, who was bringing Miss Bronté to
see our father. My father, who had been walking up and down
the room, goes out into the hall to meet his guests; and then,
after a moment's delay, the door opens wide and the two gentle-
men come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious little lady, pale, with
fair, straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over
thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of
faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in serious-
ness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This, then, is
the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all Lon-
don talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father
wrote the books-the wonderful books. To say that we little
girls had been given 'Jane Eyre' to read, scarcely represents the
facts of the case; to say that we had taken it without leave, read
bits here and read bits there, been carried away by an undreamed-
of and hitherto unimagined whirlwind into things, times, places,
all utterly absorbing and at the same time absolutely unintelligi-
ble to us, would more accurately describe our states of mind on
that summer's evening as we look at Jane Eyre—the great Jane
Eyre the tiny little lady. The moment is so breathless that
dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we
all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though
she may be, Miss Bronté can barely reach his elbow. My own
personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern,
especially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. Mr. George
Smith has since told me how she afterwards remarked upon my
father's wonderful forbearance and gentleness with our uncalled-
for incursions into the conversation. She sat gazing at him with
kindling eyes of interest, lighting up with a sort of illumination
every now and then as she answered him. I can see her bending
forward over the table, not eating, but listening to what he said
as he carved the dish before him.
――――
I think it must have been on this very occasion that my
father invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss
## p. 12278 (#324) ##########################################
12278
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
Bronté, for everybody was interested and anxious to see her.
Mrs. Crowe, the reciter of ghost stories, was there. Mrs. Brook-
field, Mrs. Carlyle - Mr. Carlyle himself was present, so I am
told, railing at the appearance of cockneys upon Scotch mountain-
sides; there were also too many Americans for his taste; "but
the Americans were as God compared to the cockneys," says the
philosopher. Besides the Carlyles, there were Mrs. Elliott and
Miss Perry, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, most of my father's
habitual friends and companions. In the recent life of Lord
Houghton, I was amused to see a note quoted in which Lord
Houghton also was convened. Would that he had been present!
-perhaps the party would have gone off better. It was a
gloomy and a silent evening. Every one waited for the brilliant
conversation which never began at all. Miss Bronté retired to
the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then
to our kind governess, Miss Truelock. The room looked very
dark; the lamp began to smoke a little; the conversation grew
dimmer and more dim; the ladies sat round still expectant; my
father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to
be able to cope with it at all.
Mrs. Brookfield, who was in the doorway by the study, near
the corner in which Miss Bronté was sitting, leaned forward with
a little commonplace, since brilliance was not to be the order
of the evening. "Do you like London, Miss Bronté ? " she said.
Another silence; a pause; then Miss Bronté answers "Yes" and
"No," very gravely. My sister and I were much too young to
be bored in those days: alarmed, impressed, we might be, but not
yet bored.
A party was a party, a lioness was a lioness; and
shall I confess it? - at that time an extra dish of biscuits was
enough to mark the evening. We felt all the importance of the
occasion — tea spread in the dining-room, ladies in the drawing-
room. We roamed about inconveniently, no doubt, and excitedly;
and in one of my excursions crossing the hall, towards the close
of the entertainment, I was surprised to see my father opening
the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips,
walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind
him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies
asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he
was coming back. I was puzzled at the time; nor was it all
made clear to me till long years afterwards, when one day Mrs.
Procter asked me if I knew what had happened once when my
## p. 12279 (#325) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12279
father had invited a party to meet Jane Eyre at his house. It
was one of the dullest evenings she had ever spent in her life,
she said. And then with a good deal of humor she described
the situation: the ladies who had all come expecting so much
delightful conversation; and how as the evening went on, the
gloom and the constraint increased; and how finally, after the de-
parture of the more important guests, overwhelmed by the situ-
ation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and
gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally
departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles,
after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L—s,
in shiny silk dresses, arriving, full of expectation.
We
still said we thought our father would soon be back; but the
Miss Ls declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and
drove away again almost immediately.
―
I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the
great honest eyes; an impetuous honesty seemed to me to char-
acterize the woman.
I fancied an austere little Joan of
Arc marching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our easy
morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty
and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and
truth seemed to be with her always. Such in our brief interview
she appeared to me. As one thinks of that life, so noble, so
lonely, of that passion for truth,—of those nights and nights of
eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, elation, and
prayer; as one reads of the necessarily incomplete though most
touching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this
one little frame, of this one among the myriads of souls that
have lived and died on this great earth,- this great earth! this
little speck in the infinite universe of God,-with what wonder
do we think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when
that which is now but darkly seen shall be clear! .
I am suddenly conscious as I write that my experiences are
very partial; but a witch's-caldron must needs after all contain
heterogeneous scraps, and mine, alas! can be no exception to the
rest. It produces nothing more valuable than odds and ends,
happily harmless enough; neither sweltered venom nor fillet of
finny snake, but the back of one great man's head, the hat and
umbrella of another. The first time I ever saw Mr. Gladstone,
I only saw the soles of his boots. A friend had taken me into
the ventilator of the House of Commons, where we listened to a
·
·
•
1
1
1
## p. 12280 (#326) ##########################################
12280
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
noble speech, and watched the two shadows on the grating over-
head, of the feet of the messenger of glad tidings. One special
back I cannot refrain from writing down, in a dark-blue frock
coat and strapped trousers, walking leisurely before us up Picca-
dilly. The sun is shining, and an odd sort of brass buckle which
fastens an old-fashioned stock flashes like a star. "Do look! "
I say: "who is that old gentleman? " "That old gentleman!
Why, that is the Duke of Wellington," said my father. On
another occasion I remember some one coming up to us and
beginning to talk very charmingly, and among other things
describing some new lord mayor who had been in state to a
theatrical performance, by which it seemed he had been much
affected. "I cried, I do assure you," the lord mayor had said;
"and as for the lady mayoress, she cry too:" and the gentle-
man smiled, and told the little story so dryly and drolly that
my sister and I couldn't help laughing; and we went on repeat-
ing to one another afterwards, "As for the lady mayoress, she cry
too. " And then as usual, we asked who was that.
«Don't you
know Lord Palmerston by sight? " said my father.
Another miscellaneous apparition out of my caldron rises be-
fore me as I write. On a certain day we went to call at Mrs.
Procter's with our father. We found an old man standing in
the middle of the room, taking leave of his hostess, nodding his
head: he was a little like a Chinese mandarin with an ivory
face. His expression never changed, but seemed quite fixed.
He knew my father, and spoke to him and to us too, still in this
odd, fixed way. Then he looked at my sister. "My little girl,”
he said to her, "will you come and live with me? You shall be
as happy as the day is long; you shall have a white pony to ride,
and feed upon red-currant jelly. " This prospect was so alarming
and unexpected that the poor little girl suddenly blushed up and
burst into tears. The old man was Mr. Samuel Rogers; but
happily he did not see her cry, for he was already on his way to
the door.
My father used to write in his study at the back of the house
in Young Street. The vine shaded his two windows, which looked
out upon the bit of garden, and the medlar-tree, and the Spanish
jasmines, of which the yellow flowers scented our old brick walls.
I can remember the tortoise belonging to the boys next door
crawling along the top of the wall where they had set it, and
making its way between the jasmine sprigs. Jasmines won't
## p. 12281 (#327) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12281
grow now any more, as they did then, in the gardens of Ken-
sington, nor will medlars and vine-trees take root and spread
their green branches: only herbs and bulbs, such as lilies and
Solomon's-seals, seem to flourish; though I have a faint hope.
that all the things people put in will come. up all right some
centuries hence, when London is resting and at peace, and has
turned into the grass-grown ruin one so often hears described.
Our garden was not tidy (though on one grand occasion a man
came to mow the grass), but it was full of sweet things. There
were verbenas- red, blue, and scented; and there were lovely
stacks of flags, blades of green with purple heads between, and
bunches of London-pride growing luxuriantly; and there were
some blush-roses at the end of the garden, which were not al-
ways quite eaten up by the caterpillars. Lady Duff Gordon came
to stay with us once (it was on that occasion, I think, that the
grass was mowed); and she afterwards sent us some doves, which
used to hang high up in a wicker cage from the windows of the
school-room.
The top school-room was over my father's bedroom, and the
bedroom was over the study where he used to write. I liked
the top school-room the best of all the rooms in the dear old
house: the sky was in it, and the evening bells used to ring into
it across the garden, and seemed to come in dancing and clang-
ing with the sunset; and the floor sloped so that if you put
down a ball, it would roll in a leisurely way right across the
room of its own accord. And then there was a mystery,—a
small trap-door between the windows which we never could open.
Where did not that trap-door lead to? It was the gateway of
paradise, of many paradises, to us. We kept our dolls, our bricks,
our books, our baby-houses, in the top room, and most of our
stupid little fancies. My little sister had a menagerie of snails
and flies in the sunny window-sill: these latter, chiefly invalids
rescued out of milk-jugs, lay upon rose-leaves in various little
pots and receptacles. She was very fond of animals, and so was
my father - at least, he always liked our animals. Now, looking
back, I am full of wonder at the number of cats we were allowed
to keep, though De la Pluche the butler, and Gray the house-
keeper, waged war against them. The cats used to come to us
from the garden; for then, as now, the open spaces of Kensing-
ton abounded in fauna. My sister used to adopt and christen
them all in turn by the names of her favorite heroes: she had
## p. 12282 (#328) ##########################################
12282
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
Nicholas Nickleby, a huge gray tabby, and Martin Chuzzlewit,
and a poor little half-starved Barnaby Rudge, and many others.
Their saucers used to be placed in a row on the little terrace at
the back of my father's study, under the vine where the sour
green grapes grew - not at all out of reach; and at the farther
end of which was an empty greenhouse ornamented by the busts
of my father as a boy and of a relation in a military cloak.
One of my friends—she never lived to be an old woman
used to laugh and say that she had reached the time of life when
she loved to see even the people her parents had particularly dis-
liked, just for the sake of old times. I don't know how I should
feel if I were to meet one agreeable, cordial gentleman, who used
to come on horseback, and invite us to all sorts of dazzling
treats and entertainments,—which, to our great disappointment,
my father invariably refused, saying, "No, I don't like him; I
don't want to have anything to do with him. " The wretched
man fully justified these objections by getting himself transported
long after for a protracted course of peculiarly deliberate and
cold-blooded fraud. On one occasion, a friend told me, he was
talking to my father, and mentioning some one in good repute
at the time, and my father incidentally spoke as if he knew
of a murder that person had committed. "You know it, then! "
said the other man. "Who could have told you? " My father
had never been told, but he had known it all along, he said; and
indeed he sometimes spoke of this curious feeling he had about
people at times, as if uncomfortable facts in their past history
were actually revealed to him. At the same time I do not think
anybody had a greater enjoyment than he in other people's good-
ness and well-doing: he used to be proud of a boy's prizes at
school, he used to be proud of a woman's sweet voice or of her
success in housekeeping. He had a friend in the Victoria Road
hard by, whose delightful household ways he used to describe;
and I can still hear the lady he called Jingleby warbling "O du
schöne Müllerin," to his great delight.
Any generous thing or word seemed like something happen-
ing to himself. I can remember, when 'David Copperfield' came
out, hearing him saying in his emphatic way to my grandmother,
that "little Em'ly's letter to old Peggotty was a masterpiece. "
I wondered to hear him at the time, for that was not at all
the part I cared for most; nor, indeed, could I imagine how
little Em ly ever was so stupid as to run away from Peggotty's
## p. 12283 (#329) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12283
enchanted house-boat. But we each and all enjoyed in turn our
share of those thin green books full of delicious things; and how
glad we were when they came to our hands at last, after our
elders and our governess and our butler had all read them in
turn!
It is curious to me now to remember, considering how little
we met and what a long way off they lived, what an important
part the Dickens household played in our childhood. But the
Dickens books were as much a part of our home as our own
father's.
est.
Certainly the Dickens children's-parties were shining facts in
our early London days; nothing came in the least near them.
There were other parties, and they were very nice, but nothing
to compare to these: not nearly so light, not nearly so shining,
not nearly so going round and round. Perhaps so dear K. P.
suggests it was not all as brilliantly wonderful as I imagined
it; but most assuredly the spirit of mirth and kindly jollity was
a reality to every one present, and the master of the house had
that wondrous fairy gift of leadership. I know not what to call
that power by which he inspired every one with spirit and inter-
One special party I remember, which seemed to me to go
on for years, with its kind, gay hospitality, its music, its streams
of children passing and repassing. We were a little shy coming
in alone, in all the consciousness of new shoes and ribbons; but
Mrs. Dickens called us to sit beside her till the long sweeping
dance was over, and talked to us as if we were grown up,- which
is always flattering to little girls. Then Miss Hogarth found us
partners; and we too formed part of the throng. I remember
watching the white satin shoes and long flowing white sashes of
the little Dickens girls, who were just about our own age, but
how much more graceful and beautifully dressed! Our sashes.
were bright plaids of red and blue, (tributes from one of our
father's Scotch admirers; - is it ungrateful to confess now, after
all these years, that we could not bear them? ) our shoes were
only bronze. Shall I own to this passing shadow amid all that
radiance? But when people are once dancing, they are all equal
again, and happy.
Somehow after the music we all floated into a long supper-
room, and I found myself sitting near the head of the table by
Mr. Dickens, with another little girl much younger than myself;
she wore a necklace, and pretty little sausage curls all round her
――――
## p. 12284 (#330) ##########################################
12284
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
head. Mr. Dickens was very kind to the little girl, and presently
I heard him persuading her to sing, and he put his arm round.
her to encourage her; and then, wonderful to say, the little girl
stood up (she was little Miss Hullah) and began very shyly,
trembling and blushing at first, but as she blushed and trembled
she sang more and more sweetly; and then all the jeunesse dorée,
consisting of the little Dickens boys and their friends, ranged
along the supper table, clapped and clapped, and Mr. Dickens
clapped too, smiling and applauding her. And then he made a
little speech, with one hand on the table; I think it was thanking
the jeunesse dorée for their applause, and they again clapped and
laughed; but here my memory fails me, and everything grows
very vague and like a dream.
Only this much I do remember very clearly: that we had
danced and supped and danced again, and that we
were all
standing in a hall lighted and hung with bunches of Christmas
green, and as I have said, everything seemed altogether mag-
nificent and important; more magnificent and important every
minute, for as the evening went on, more and more people kept
arriving. The hall was crowded, and the broad staircase was
lined with little boys-thousands of little boys-whose heads
and legs and arms were waving about together. They were
making a great noise, and talking and shouting; and the eldest
son of the house seemed to be marshaling them. Presently their
noise became a cheer, and then another; and we looked up and
saw that our own father had come to fetch us, and that his
white head was there above the others: then came a third final
ringing cheer, and some one went up to him—it was Mr. Dick-
ens himself—who laughed and said quickly, "That is for you! "
and my father looked up,- surprised, pleased, touched,— settled
his spectacles, and nodded gravely to the little boys.
――
BRICKS AND IVY
From Old Kensington. ' Published by Harper & Brothers
A
QUARTER of a century ago, the shabby tide of progress had
not spread to the quiet old suburb where Lady Sarah Fran-
cis's brown house was standing, with its many windows daz-
zling, as the sun traveled across the old-fashioned house-tops to
## p. 12285 (#331) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12285
set into a distant sea of tenements and echoing life. The roar
did not reach the old house. The children could listen to the
cawing of the rooks, to the echo of the hours, as they struck on
from one day to another, vibrating from the old brown tower of
the church. At night the strokes seemed to ring more slowly
than in the day. Little Dolly Vanborough, Lady Sarah's niece,
thought each special hour had its voice. The church clock is
silent now, but the rooks caw on undisturbed from one spring
to another in the old Kensington suburb. There are tranquil
corners still, and sunny silent nooks, and ivy wreaths growing
in the western sun; and jasmines and vine-trees, planted by a
former generation, spreading along the old garden walls. But
every year the shabby stream of progress rises and ingulfs
one relic or another, carrying off many and many a landmark
and memory. Last year only the old church was standing, in
its iron cage, at the junction of the thoroughfares. It was the
Church of England itself to Dolly and George Vanborough, in
those early church-going days of theirs. There was the old
painting of the lion and the unicorn hanging from the gallery;
the light streaming through the brown saints over the commun-
ion table. In after life the children may have seen other saints
more glorious in crimson and in purple, nobler piles and arches;
but none of them have ever seemed so near to heaven as the
old Queen Anne building, and the wooden pew with its high
stools, through which elbows of straw were protruding, where
they used to kneel on either side of their aunt, watching with
awe-stricken faces the tears as they came falling from the wid-
ow's sad eyes.
Lady Sarah could scarcely have told you the meaning of those
tears as they fell: old love and life partings, sorrows and past
mercies, all came returning to her with the familiar words of the
prayers. The tears fell bright and awe-stricken as she thought
of the present, of distances immeasurable, of life and its incon-
ceivable mystery; and then her heart would warm with hope
perhaps of what might be to come, of the overwhelming possi-
bilities how many of them to her lay in the warm clasp of
the child's hand that came pushing into hers! For her, as for
the children, heaven's state was in the old wooden pew. Then
the sing-song of the hymn would flood the old church with its
homely cadence.
―
## p. 12286 (#332) ##########################################
12286
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
"Prepare your glad voices;
Let Hisreal rejoice,"
sang the little charity children; poor little Israelites, with blue
stockings, and funny woolen knobs to their fustian caps, rejoi-
cing, though their pastures were not green as yet, nor was their
land overflowing with milk and honey. However, they sang
praises for others, as all people do at times; thanks be to the
merciful dispensation that allows us to weep, to work, to be
comforted, and to rejoice, with one another's hearts, consciously
or unconsciously, as long as life exists.
Every lane and corner and archway had a childish story for
Dolly and her brother; for Dolly most especially, because girls
cling more to the inanimate aspects of life than boys do. For
Dolly the hawthorn bleeds as it is laid low, and is transformed
year after year into iron railings and areas; for particulars of
which you are requested to apply to the railway company, and to
Mr. Taylor, the house-agent.
In those days the lanes spread to Fulham, white with blossom
in spring, or golden with the yellow London sunsets that blazed
beyond the cabbage fields. In those days there were gardens and
trees and great walls along the high-road that came from Lon-
don, passing through the old white turnpike. There were high
brown walls along Kensington Gardens, reaching to the Palace
Gate; elms spread their shade, and birds chirruped, and children
played behind them.
Dolly Vanborough and her brother had many a game there,
and knew every corner and haunt of this sylvan world of child-
ren and ducks and nurse-maids. They had knocked their noses
against the old sun-dial many and many a time. Sometimes now,
as she comes walking along the straight avenues, Dolly thinks
she can hear the echo of their own childish voices whooping
and calling to one another as they used to do. How often they
had played with their big cousin, Robert Henley, and the little
Morgans, round about the stately orange-house, and made believe
to be statues in the niches!
"I am Apollo," cries George Vanborough, throwing himself
into an attitude.
IT is a fine thing that authors, even those who deny the im-
mortality of their souls, seldom dare to contest that of their
names; and as Cicero affirmed that he would believe in another
life even if there were none, so they wish to cling to the belief
in the future eternal life of their names, although the critics may
have furnished positive proofs to the contrary.
LET us not despise the slender thread upon which we and
our fortune may depend. If, like the spider, we have spun and
drawn it out of ourselves, it will hold us quite well; and we may
hang on it safely as the tempest tosses us and the web uninjured
to and fro.
POVERTY is the only burden which grows heavier when loved
ones help to bear it.
THE human body is a musical instrument, in which the Cre-
mona chords are twisted out of living intestines, and the breast
is the sounding-board and the head the damper.
## p. 12264 (#310) ##########################################
12264
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
SINCE there are in our world so many delicate and Divine
sentiments hovering about, so many rich blossoms unfolding and
bearing no seed, it is fortunate that poesy was invented to pre-
serve all these unborn spirits and the fragrance of flowers in its
halo.
IF YOU are an author, picture to yourself the best man, one
who cherishes in his heart all that is most holy and most beauti-
ful, and never suffers anything impure to enter there; then take
your pen and strive to enrapture this imaginary reader.
MAN is like horse-radish: the more it is grated the more it
bites. The satirist is sadder than the jester, for the same reason
that the orang-outang is more melancholy than the monkey,-
because he is nobler.
## p. 12265 (#311) ##########################################
12265
-
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
(1852-)
AMES WHITCOMB RILEY, the western-American dialect poet, is
one of the younger writers who have given to the newer
native literature a quality expressive of interesting and typ-
ical local conditions. A man of the people, he has in his homely
and heartfelt song uttered their joys and sorrows, - to be repaid by
the affectionate admiration of his Indiana Hoosier folk and by a wide
popularity throughout the United States. Riley's work is honestly a
product of the soil. It reflects the life of the Middle West, and at
its best calls for recognition as something
more than social documents; namely, as
lyric utterance vital with feeling and full of
a truly democratic sympathy for common
humanity.
JAMES W. RILEY
Riley was born in 1852 in Greenfield,
Indiana, a small town twenty miles from
Indianapolis. His father, a country lawyer,
wished his son to read for that profession:
but it took the latter, after a course at the
village school, but a short time to learn
that Blackstone was not for him, and he
ran away from home with a patent-medicine
and concert wagon, it being his function to
beat the bass-drum; then he worked at the
trade of sign-painting, coming back to Greenfield to do some experi-
mental journalism on a local paper, the failure of which sheet sent
him to Indianapolis, where his labors on the Journal of that city re-
sulted in a connection which introduced him as a writer and brought
him fame and fortune. Riley's boyhood in the little town, with its
simple honest ways, among his kin and comrades, is described in the
autobiographic book 'A Child World' (1897). His upbringing was
typical of the place and time, and richly has he made use in his
writings of these early experiences. For a while Riley used the pen-
name "B. F. Johnson of Boone" in signing his Journal contributions;
and a great deal of his verse and prose first appeared in the columns
of that paper, the rapidly thrown off "copy" of the practical news-
paper man. Yet this long apprenticeship helped Riley to acquire
the firm technique, the grasp on the art of verse-making, which he
now possesses.
## p. 12266 (#312) ##########################################
12266
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Since Riley has come into prosperity and fame he has returned to
Greenfield, and purchased and fitted up for his summer home the old
family residence, endeared to him by so many associations. He is
in demand all over the country as a reader, his gifts as a platform
speaker being remarkable. A tour made with the late humorist Bill
Nye was very successful. A friend thus describes his personal
appearance: "In physical stature he is below the average height.
His complexion is fair. His hair has never changed from the flaxen
whiteness of boyhood. His eyes are large, light-blue, wide open, and
marvelous in their expression. His face is smooth-shaven; his attire
neat and fashionable. To his friends, to all the associations, interests,
and memories of his life, he is profoundly, patriotically loyal. »
His literary bow as a maker of poems was made in 1883, when he
was turned thirty, with the volume entitled 'Old Swimmin' Hole. '
It was brought out by an Indianapolis firm, the Bowen-Merrill Com-
pany, which has continued to issue Riley's books; although the Cen-
tury Company of New York in 1893 published a handsome volume of
his representative lyrics, Poems Here at Home. ' That maiden vol-
ume, with its quaint verse depicting the rustic haunts and characters
he knew as a lad, pleased the public, and Riley's road was smooth
thereafter. Other collections of poems, typical of the man and his
quality, are 'Afterwhiles' (1887), 'Old-Fashioned Roses' (1888), 'Pipes
o' Pan' (1889), 'Green Fields and Running Brooks' (1893). Riley's
publications also include several volumes of humorous prose sketches;
but this side of his work, when compared with his poetry, is un-
important. His most winning verse is that which blends pathos and
humor. His dialect pieces have made him most broadly known, and
his choicest in this kind are admirable. He catches the idiom of the
middle-class home, and interprets the homely human heart with sure
divination. He chose this medium of expression because he wished to
speak for and of the plain people, and believed this the most direct
and honest way
As he says himself, "I went among the people:
I learned their wants, their sufferings, their joys; and I put them
into rhyme. " But it would be a mistake to regard Riley exclusively
as a dialect poet. The Poet of the Future,' for example, with its
healthy democratic teaching, its vigorous lilt, its unforced melody, is
one of numerous inspiring poems written in more conventional Eng-
lish. This is true too of the exquisite sonnet, 'When She Comes
Home,' showing what lovely work he can do in one of the most dif-
ficult of verse forms; while his 'Away' is another illustration of his
tender simplicity which makes magic effects. Riley believes that-
"The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
Hath never need of coronet. »
## p. 12267 (#313) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12267
He is a genuine people's poet; and although his work suffers here
and there from prolixity and suggests the pressure of over-production,
he is, judged by his highest accomplishment (as every literary maker
should be), a true singer, who has contributed authentically to the
content of American letters.
[All the following poems are quoted from 'Afterwhiles,)-copyright 1887,
by James Whitcomb Riley,- and are reprinted by permission of The Bowen-
Merrill Co. , publishers. ]
AWAY
CANNOT say and I will not say
That he is dead. He is just away!
I
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
――――――
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you-O you, who the wildest yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,-
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still as he gave the blows
Of his warrior strength to his country's foes.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things: where the violets grew
Pure as the eyes they were likened to,
The touches of his hands have strayed
As reverently as his lips have prayed;
When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. -
Think of him still as the same, I say:
He is not dead- he is just away!
## p. 12268 (#314) ##########################################
12268
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
WHEN SHE COMES HOME
HEN she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble — yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.
Then silence; and the perfume of her dress.
The room will sway a little, and a haze
WH
Cloy eyesight-soul sight, even- for a space.
And tears - yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
TH
A LIFE LESSON
HERE, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house, too,
Are things of the long ago:
But childish troubles will soon pass by; —
There, little girl-don't cry!
There, little girl-don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your schoolgirl days
Are things of the long ago:
But life and love will soon come by;—
There, little girl- don't cry!
There, little girl- don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago:
But heaven holds all for which you sigh;
There, little girl-don't cry!
-
## p. 12269 (#315) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12269
A SONG
TH
HERE is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
There is ever a something sings alway:
There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray;
The sunshine showers across the grain,
And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,
The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair;
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear-
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear-
There is ever a song somewhere!
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
In the midnight black or the midday blue:
The robin pipes when the sun is here,
And the cricket chirrups the whole night through;
The buds may blow and the fruit may grow,
And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sere:
But whether the sun or the rain or the snow,
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
NOTHIN' TO SAY
to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say! .
NG'yirls that's in love, I've noticed, ginerly has their way!
Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me-
Yit here I am, and here you air; and yer mother-where is she?
You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size;
And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes;
Like her, too, about her livin' here,- because she couldn't stay:
It'll most seem like you was dead-like her! but I hain't got
nothin' to say!
She left you her little Bible writ yer name acrost the page;
And left her ear-bobs fer you, ef ever you come of age.
I've allus kep' 'em and g'yarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away-
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
## p. 12270 (#316) ##########################################
12270
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
You don't rikollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year old then!
And now yer-how old air you? W'y, child, not 'twenty'! When?
And yer nex' birthday's in April? and you want to get married that
day? —
I wisht yer mother was livin'! -but-I hain't got nothin' to say!
Twenty year! and as good a girl as parent ever found!
There's a straw ketched onto yer dress there - I'll bresh it off-
turn round.
(Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away! )
Nothin' to say, my daughter! nothin' at all to say!
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE
you what I like the best:
TELL Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time the strawberries melts
On the vine,- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard 's where I'd ruther be—
Needn't fence it in for me! -
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
And the whole airth underneath -
Sorto' so's a man kin breathe
Like he ort, and kindo' has
Elbow-room to keerlessly
Sprawl out len'thways on the grass,
Where the shadder's thick and soft
As the kivvers on the bed
Mother fixes in the loft
Allus, when they's company!
Jes' a sorto' lazin' there-
S' lazy 'at you peek and peer
Through the wavin' leaves above,
Like a feller 'at's in love
And don't know it, ner don't keer!
Ever'thing you hear and see
Got some sort o' interest:
Maybe find a bluebird's nest
Tucked up there conveenently
For the boys 'at's apt to be
Up some other apple-tree!
--
## p. 12271 (#317) ##########################################
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
12271
Watch the swallers scootin' past
'Bout as peert as you could ast;
Er the bobwhite raise and whiz
Where some other's whistle is.
Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow;
Er a hawk away up there,
'Pearantly froze in the air! —
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over every chick she's got,
Suddent-like! And she knows where
That air hawk is, well as you!
You jes' bet your life she do! -
Eyes a-glitterin' like glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!
Pee-wee's singin', to express
My opinions second-class,
Yit you'll hear 'em more or less;
Sapsuck's gittin' down to biz,
Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
In them base-ball clothes o' his,
Sportin' 'round the orchard jes'
Like he owned the premises!
Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two.
Plague! ef they ain't sompin' in
Work, 'at kind o' goes ag'in
My convictions! -'long about
Here in June especially!
Under some old apple-tree,
Jes' a-restin' through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Was a-gittin' there like me,—
And June was eternity!
Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be! —
## p. 12272 (#318) ##########################################
12272
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Tumble round and souse your head
In the clover-bloom, er pull
Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes,
And peek through it at the skies,
Thinkin' of old chums 'at's dead,
Maybe smilin' back at you
In betwixt the beautiful
Clouds o' gold and white and blue! -
Month a man kin railly love—
June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
March ain't never nothin' new! -
April's altogether too
Brash fer me! and May-I jes'
'Bominate its promises:
Little hints o' sunshine and
Green around the timber-land-
A few blossoms, and a few
Chip-birds, and a sprout er two-
Drap asleep, and it turns in
'Fore daylight and snows ag'in!
喜
-
clear my throat
Rench my hair
In the dew! and hold my coat!
But when June comes.
With wild honey!
Whoop out loud! and throw my hat!
June wants me, and I'm to spare!
Spread them shadders anywhere,
I'll git down and waller there,
And obleeged to you at that!
-
## p. 12273 (#319) ##########################################
12273
YOCK
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
(1838-)
HE feminine quality in Thackeray's genius, which saved his
unerring comprehension of human nature from harshness,
seems detached and given complete embodiment in the
writings of his daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Not that these
are lacking in strength, nor in evidences of keen perception; but they
are steeped in the mellow atmosphere of an exquisite womanliness.
They are feminine in the highest and completest sense of the word.
They contain moreover a quality lacking to the works of the younger
generation of writers,- that of nobility, of
high breeding; the spirit indeed of one
whose life from her childhood up has been
spent among the true aristocracy of mind
and of character, and whose sensitive soul
responded wholly to gracious influences.
Anne Isabella Thackeray (Ritchie), the
daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray,
was born in London in 1838. Her child-
hood was spent partly in Kensington,-
whose quaintness she has immortalized in
her most characteristic novel,- partly on
the continent with her grandparents. She
grew up in London as her own heroine
Dolly grew up, "like a little spring flower
among the silent old bricks. " Her girlhood was spent in association
with her father and his circle of friends; which included indeed the
cream of England's true gentry. Never did a little lady grow into
womanhood in a more harmonious environment.
ANNE T. RITCHIE
In 1877 Miss Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thack-
eray Ritchie. In 1860 her first story, 'Little Scholars in the London
Schools, had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, of which her father
was editor. Unpretentious as it was, it revealed the author's domi-
nant qualities: her appreciation of the beautiful and dramatic elements
which may lie hidden in obscure lives, and in the experiences of
commonplace people; her genial sympathy, the rare charity and truth-
fulness of her spirit. It revealed, moreover, the genuineness of her
literary gift. Her simple and strong English belonged to no "school. "
It was that of one who had drunk deep at the undefiled wells of the
great Masters of the tongue.
XXI-768
## p. 12274 (#320) ##########################################
12274
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
In Old Kensington,' published in 1873, her gifts become fully
manifest. It would be difficult to overrate the charm of this novel
of gentlefolk, living out their simple lives in that quaint quarter of
London where the author's own girlhood was passed, and whose old-
fashioned beauties (many of them now vanished) she depicts with the
clear memory of love. The odor as of lavender haunts each chapter
of this book; whose fine, clean atmosphere removes it, as the East
from the West, from the neurotic vulgarities which in the present
day have debased the beautiful art of fiction. To read a novel like
'Old Kensington' is to come at once into good society. The book is
remarkable, moreover, for its depiction of human nature, and of child
nature; and for its exquisite bits of description, like some little warm
Dutch landscapes:-
"As days go by, Dolly's pictures warm and brighten from early spring into
summer-time. By degrees they reach above the table, and over and beyond
the garden roller. They are chiefly of the old garden, whose brick walls seem
to inclose sunshine and gaudy flowers all the summer through; of the great
Kensington parks, where in due season chestnuts are to be found shining
among the leaves and dry grasses; of the pond where the ducks are flapping
and diving; of the house which was little Rhoda's home. This was the great
bare house in Old Street, with plenty of noise, dried herbs, content, children
without end, and thick bread-and-butter. There was also cold stalled ox on
Sundays at one. »
Scattered through the book are wise comments on the mysteries
of life, worthy of Thackeray's daughter, who was too much of a
woman and of an artist ever to change her broad morality into the
moralizing spirit.
"To hate the Devil and all his works is one thing; but to-day, who is the
Devil and which are his works is another. "
"Dolly was true to herself; and in those days she used to think that all
her life she would be always true, and always say all she felt. As life grows
long, and people living on together through time and sorrow and experience
realize more and more the complexities of their own hearts, and sympathize
more and more with the failings and sorrows of others, they are apt to ask
themselves with dismay, if it is a reality of life to be less and less uncompro-
mising as complexities increase, less true to themselves as they are more true
to others. "
In 1873 and 1874 Miss Thackeray also published a number of short
stories and sketches: Toilers and Spinsters,' 'Bluebeard's Keys,'
etc. In 1875 appeared a novel, 'Miss Angel,' of which the heroine
is Angelica Kaufmann. In the same year she edited 'The Orphan
of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,' by her
father. Her life of Madame de Sévigné, in the 'Foreign Classics for
English Readers' series, appeared in 1881; and in the same year
she published another novel, 'Miss Williamson's Divagations. ' Later,
## p. 12275 (#321) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12275
'Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs' was published. This book
of personal reminiscences is delightful, for the glimpses it affords the
reader of the Thackeray household, and of the rare guests who gath-
ered there from time to time. One of the prettiest pictures is that
of a child's party at Dickens's house: of the little Misses Thackeray
in plaid sashes and bronze shoes, of Dickens's little daughters in
white sashes and white shoes; of the supper table presided over by
Mr. and Mrs. Dickens; of the innumerable small boys who swarmed
on the staircase, and who gave three cheers for Thackeray when he
appeared in the hall to take his little girls home. There is a humor-
ous picture of Charlotte Bronté dining with Thackeray and his fam-
ily: a number of his intimate friends were invited to meet her
afterwards, and hopes of brilliant conversation ran high; but the
little shy author took refuge with the family governess, an awful
gloom like a London fog settled upon the company, and Thackeray
in despair went off to his club.
In her 'Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning,' Mrs. Ritchie
has given to the world pictures of these great men drawn by the
hand of a loving and understanding friend. Like her other books, it
is instinct with the charm of her sympathy. Her true, pure, and
sweet spirit has left a precious imprint upon the world of letters and
of society. She is loved and will be long remembered, not as Thack-
eray's daughter alone, but for her own inherent qualities of true
greatness.
MY WITCH'S-CALDRON
From Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs. ' Copyright 1894, by Harper
& Brothers
I
REMEMBER a visit from another hero of those times. We were
walking across Kensington Square early one morning when
we heard some one hurrying after us and calling, "Thack-
eray, Thackeray! " This was also one of Byron's friends,-a
bright-eyed, active old man; with long wavy white hair and a
picturesque cloak flung over one shoulder. I can see him still,
as he crossed the corner of the square and followed us with a
light, rapid step. My father, stopping short, turned back to meet
him; greeting him kindly, and bringing him home with us to
the old brown house at the corner where we were then living.
There was a sort of eagerness and vividness of manner about
the stranger which was very impressive. You could not help
watching him and his cloak, which kept slipping from its place,
## p. 12276 (#322) ##########################################
12276
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
and which he caught at again and again. We wondered at his
romantic foreign looks, and his gayety and bright eager way.
Afterwards we were told that this was Leigh Hunt. We knew
his name very well; for on the drawing-room table, in company
with various Ruskins and Punches, lay a pretty shining book
called 'A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,'- from which, in
that dilettante childish fashion which is half play, half impatience
and search for something else, we had contrived to extract our
own allowance of honey. It was still an event to see a real
author in those days, specially an author with a long cloak flung
over his shoulder; though for the matter of that, it is still and
always will be an event to see the faces and hear the voices
of those whose thoughts have added something delightful to our
lives. Not very long afterwards came a different visitor, still
belonging to that same company of people.
I had thrown open
the dining-room door and come in, looking for something; and
then I stopped short, for the room was not empty. A striking
and somewhat alarming-looking person stood alone by the fire-
place with folded arms,—a dark, impressive-looking man, not tall,
but broad and brown and weather-beaten,-gazing with a sort of
scowl at his own reflection in the glass. As I entered he turned
slowly, and looked at me over his shoulder. This time it was
Trelawny, Byron's biographer and companion, who had come to
see my father.
He frowned, walked deliberately and slowly from
the room, and I saw him no more.
All these people now
seem almost like figures out of a fairy tale. One could almost
as well imagine Sindbad, or Prince Charming, or the Seven
Champions of Christendom, dropping in for an hour's chat. But
each generation, however matter-of-fact it may be, sets up fairy
figures in turn to wonder at and delight in. I had not then
read any of the books which have since appeared; though I had
heard my elders talking, and I knew from hearsay something of
the strange, pathetic, irrational histories of these bygone wan-
derers, searching the world for the Golden Fleece and the En-
chanted Gardens. These were the only members of that special,
impracticable, romantic crew of Argonauts I ever saw; though I
have read and re-read their histories and diaries so that I seem
to know them all, and can almost hear their voices.
One of the most notable persons who ever came into our old
bow-windowed drawing-room in Young Street is a guest never to
be forgotten by me, a tiny, delicate little person, whose small
## p. 12277 (#323) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12277
hand nevertheless grasped a mighty lever which set all the liter-
ary world of that day vibrating. I can still see the scene quite
plainly! the hot summer evening, the open windows, the carriage
driving to the door as we all sat silent and expectant; my father,
who rarely waited, waiting with us; our governess and my sister
and I all in a row, and prepared for the great event.
We saw
the carriage stop, and out of it sprang the active, well-knit figure
of young Mr. George Smith, who was bringing Miss Bronté to
see our father. My father, who had been walking up and down
the room, goes out into the hall to meet his guests; and then,
after a moment's delay, the door opens wide and the two gentle-
men come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious little lady, pale, with
fair, straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over
thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of
faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in serious-
ness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This, then, is
the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all Lon-
don talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father
wrote the books-the wonderful books. To say that we little
girls had been given 'Jane Eyre' to read, scarcely represents the
facts of the case; to say that we had taken it without leave, read
bits here and read bits there, been carried away by an undreamed-
of and hitherto unimagined whirlwind into things, times, places,
all utterly absorbing and at the same time absolutely unintelligi-
ble to us, would more accurately describe our states of mind on
that summer's evening as we look at Jane Eyre—the great Jane
Eyre the tiny little lady. The moment is so breathless that
dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we
all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though
she may be, Miss Bronté can barely reach his elbow. My own
personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern,
especially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. Mr. George
Smith has since told me how she afterwards remarked upon my
father's wonderful forbearance and gentleness with our uncalled-
for incursions into the conversation. She sat gazing at him with
kindling eyes of interest, lighting up with a sort of illumination
every now and then as she answered him. I can see her bending
forward over the table, not eating, but listening to what he said
as he carved the dish before him.
――――
I think it must have been on this very occasion that my
father invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss
## p. 12278 (#324) ##########################################
12278
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
Bronté, for everybody was interested and anxious to see her.
Mrs. Crowe, the reciter of ghost stories, was there. Mrs. Brook-
field, Mrs. Carlyle - Mr. Carlyle himself was present, so I am
told, railing at the appearance of cockneys upon Scotch mountain-
sides; there were also too many Americans for his taste; "but
the Americans were as God compared to the cockneys," says the
philosopher. Besides the Carlyles, there were Mrs. Elliott and
Miss Perry, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, most of my father's
habitual friends and companions. In the recent life of Lord
Houghton, I was amused to see a note quoted in which Lord
Houghton also was convened. Would that he had been present!
-perhaps the party would have gone off better. It was a
gloomy and a silent evening. Every one waited for the brilliant
conversation which never began at all. Miss Bronté retired to
the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then
to our kind governess, Miss Truelock. The room looked very
dark; the lamp began to smoke a little; the conversation grew
dimmer and more dim; the ladies sat round still expectant; my
father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to
be able to cope with it at all.
Mrs. Brookfield, who was in the doorway by the study, near
the corner in which Miss Bronté was sitting, leaned forward with
a little commonplace, since brilliance was not to be the order
of the evening. "Do you like London, Miss Bronté ? " she said.
Another silence; a pause; then Miss Bronté answers "Yes" and
"No," very gravely. My sister and I were much too young to
be bored in those days: alarmed, impressed, we might be, but not
yet bored.
A party was a party, a lioness was a lioness; and
shall I confess it? - at that time an extra dish of biscuits was
enough to mark the evening. We felt all the importance of the
occasion — tea spread in the dining-room, ladies in the drawing-
room. We roamed about inconveniently, no doubt, and excitedly;
and in one of my excursions crossing the hall, towards the close
of the entertainment, I was surprised to see my father opening
the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips,
walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind
him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies
asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he
was coming back. I was puzzled at the time; nor was it all
made clear to me till long years afterwards, when one day Mrs.
Procter asked me if I knew what had happened once when my
## p. 12279 (#325) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12279
father had invited a party to meet Jane Eyre at his house. It
was one of the dullest evenings she had ever spent in her life,
she said. And then with a good deal of humor she described
the situation: the ladies who had all come expecting so much
delightful conversation; and how as the evening went on, the
gloom and the constraint increased; and how finally, after the de-
parture of the more important guests, overwhelmed by the situ-
ation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and
gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally
departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles,
after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L—s,
in shiny silk dresses, arriving, full of expectation.
We
still said we thought our father would soon be back; but the
Miss Ls declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and
drove away again almost immediately.
―
I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the
great honest eyes; an impetuous honesty seemed to me to char-
acterize the woman.
I fancied an austere little Joan of
Arc marching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our easy
morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty
and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and
truth seemed to be with her always. Such in our brief interview
she appeared to me. As one thinks of that life, so noble, so
lonely, of that passion for truth,—of those nights and nights of
eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, elation, and
prayer; as one reads of the necessarily incomplete though most
touching and admirable history of the heart that throbbed in this
one little frame, of this one among the myriads of souls that
have lived and died on this great earth,- this great earth! this
little speck in the infinite universe of God,-with what wonder
do we think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when
that which is now but darkly seen shall be clear! .
I am suddenly conscious as I write that my experiences are
very partial; but a witch's-caldron must needs after all contain
heterogeneous scraps, and mine, alas! can be no exception to the
rest. It produces nothing more valuable than odds and ends,
happily harmless enough; neither sweltered venom nor fillet of
finny snake, but the back of one great man's head, the hat and
umbrella of another. The first time I ever saw Mr. Gladstone,
I only saw the soles of his boots. A friend had taken me into
the ventilator of the House of Commons, where we listened to a
·
·
•
1
1
1
## p. 12280 (#326) ##########################################
12280
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
noble speech, and watched the two shadows on the grating over-
head, of the feet of the messenger of glad tidings. One special
back I cannot refrain from writing down, in a dark-blue frock
coat and strapped trousers, walking leisurely before us up Picca-
dilly. The sun is shining, and an odd sort of brass buckle which
fastens an old-fashioned stock flashes like a star. "Do look! "
I say: "who is that old gentleman? " "That old gentleman!
Why, that is the Duke of Wellington," said my father. On
another occasion I remember some one coming up to us and
beginning to talk very charmingly, and among other things
describing some new lord mayor who had been in state to a
theatrical performance, by which it seemed he had been much
affected. "I cried, I do assure you," the lord mayor had said;
"and as for the lady mayoress, she cry too:" and the gentle-
man smiled, and told the little story so dryly and drolly that
my sister and I couldn't help laughing; and we went on repeat-
ing to one another afterwards, "As for the lady mayoress, she cry
too. " And then as usual, we asked who was that.
«Don't you
know Lord Palmerston by sight? " said my father.
Another miscellaneous apparition out of my caldron rises be-
fore me as I write. On a certain day we went to call at Mrs.
Procter's with our father. We found an old man standing in
the middle of the room, taking leave of his hostess, nodding his
head: he was a little like a Chinese mandarin with an ivory
face. His expression never changed, but seemed quite fixed.
He knew my father, and spoke to him and to us too, still in this
odd, fixed way. Then he looked at my sister. "My little girl,”
he said to her, "will you come and live with me? You shall be
as happy as the day is long; you shall have a white pony to ride,
and feed upon red-currant jelly. " This prospect was so alarming
and unexpected that the poor little girl suddenly blushed up and
burst into tears. The old man was Mr. Samuel Rogers; but
happily he did not see her cry, for he was already on his way to
the door.
My father used to write in his study at the back of the house
in Young Street. The vine shaded his two windows, which looked
out upon the bit of garden, and the medlar-tree, and the Spanish
jasmines, of which the yellow flowers scented our old brick walls.
I can remember the tortoise belonging to the boys next door
crawling along the top of the wall where they had set it, and
making its way between the jasmine sprigs. Jasmines won't
## p. 12281 (#327) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12281
grow now any more, as they did then, in the gardens of Ken-
sington, nor will medlars and vine-trees take root and spread
their green branches: only herbs and bulbs, such as lilies and
Solomon's-seals, seem to flourish; though I have a faint hope.
that all the things people put in will come. up all right some
centuries hence, when London is resting and at peace, and has
turned into the grass-grown ruin one so often hears described.
Our garden was not tidy (though on one grand occasion a man
came to mow the grass), but it was full of sweet things. There
were verbenas- red, blue, and scented; and there were lovely
stacks of flags, blades of green with purple heads between, and
bunches of London-pride growing luxuriantly; and there were
some blush-roses at the end of the garden, which were not al-
ways quite eaten up by the caterpillars. Lady Duff Gordon came
to stay with us once (it was on that occasion, I think, that the
grass was mowed); and she afterwards sent us some doves, which
used to hang high up in a wicker cage from the windows of the
school-room.
The top school-room was over my father's bedroom, and the
bedroom was over the study where he used to write. I liked
the top school-room the best of all the rooms in the dear old
house: the sky was in it, and the evening bells used to ring into
it across the garden, and seemed to come in dancing and clang-
ing with the sunset; and the floor sloped so that if you put
down a ball, it would roll in a leisurely way right across the
room of its own accord. And then there was a mystery,—a
small trap-door between the windows which we never could open.
Where did not that trap-door lead to? It was the gateway of
paradise, of many paradises, to us. We kept our dolls, our bricks,
our books, our baby-houses, in the top room, and most of our
stupid little fancies. My little sister had a menagerie of snails
and flies in the sunny window-sill: these latter, chiefly invalids
rescued out of milk-jugs, lay upon rose-leaves in various little
pots and receptacles. She was very fond of animals, and so was
my father - at least, he always liked our animals. Now, looking
back, I am full of wonder at the number of cats we were allowed
to keep, though De la Pluche the butler, and Gray the house-
keeper, waged war against them. The cats used to come to us
from the garden; for then, as now, the open spaces of Kensing-
ton abounded in fauna. My sister used to adopt and christen
them all in turn by the names of her favorite heroes: she had
## p. 12282 (#328) ##########################################
12282
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
Nicholas Nickleby, a huge gray tabby, and Martin Chuzzlewit,
and a poor little half-starved Barnaby Rudge, and many others.
Their saucers used to be placed in a row on the little terrace at
the back of my father's study, under the vine where the sour
green grapes grew - not at all out of reach; and at the farther
end of which was an empty greenhouse ornamented by the busts
of my father as a boy and of a relation in a military cloak.
One of my friends—she never lived to be an old woman
used to laugh and say that she had reached the time of life when
she loved to see even the people her parents had particularly dis-
liked, just for the sake of old times. I don't know how I should
feel if I were to meet one agreeable, cordial gentleman, who used
to come on horseback, and invite us to all sorts of dazzling
treats and entertainments,—which, to our great disappointment,
my father invariably refused, saying, "No, I don't like him; I
don't want to have anything to do with him. " The wretched
man fully justified these objections by getting himself transported
long after for a protracted course of peculiarly deliberate and
cold-blooded fraud. On one occasion, a friend told me, he was
talking to my father, and mentioning some one in good repute
at the time, and my father incidentally spoke as if he knew
of a murder that person had committed. "You know it, then! "
said the other man. "Who could have told you? " My father
had never been told, but he had known it all along, he said; and
indeed he sometimes spoke of this curious feeling he had about
people at times, as if uncomfortable facts in their past history
were actually revealed to him. At the same time I do not think
anybody had a greater enjoyment than he in other people's good-
ness and well-doing: he used to be proud of a boy's prizes at
school, he used to be proud of a woman's sweet voice or of her
success in housekeeping. He had a friend in the Victoria Road
hard by, whose delightful household ways he used to describe;
and I can still hear the lady he called Jingleby warbling "O du
schöne Müllerin," to his great delight.
Any generous thing or word seemed like something happen-
ing to himself. I can remember, when 'David Copperfield' came
out, hearing him saying in his emphatic way to my grandmother,
that "little Em'ly's letter to old Peggotty was a masterpiece. "
I wondered to hear him at the time, for that was not at all
the part I cared for most; nor, indeed, could I imagine how
little Em ly ever was so stupid as to run away from Peggotty's
## p. 12283 (#329) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12283
enchanted house-boat. But we each and all enjoyed in turn our
share of those thin green books full of delicious things; and how
glad we were when they came to our hands at last, after our
elders and our governess and our butler had all read them in
turn!
It is curious to me now to remember, considering how little
we met and what a long way off they lived, what an important
part the Dickens household played in our childhood. But the
Dickens books were as much a part of our home as our own
father's.
est.
Certainly the Dickens children's-parties were shining facts in
our early London days; nothing came in the least near them.
There were other parties, and they were very nice, but nothing
to compare to these: not nearly so light, not nearly so shining,
not nearly so going round and round. Perhaps so dear K. P.
suggests it was not all as brilliantly wonderful as I imagined
it; but most assuredly the spirit of mirth and kindly jollity was
a reality to every one present, and the master of the house had
that wondrous fairy gift of leadership. I know not what to call
that power by which he inspired every one with spirit and inter-
One special party I remember, which seemed to me to go
on for years, with its kind, gay hospitality, its music, its streams
of children passing and repassing. We were a little shy coming
in alone, in all the consciousness of new shoes and ribbons; but
Mrs. Dickens called us to sit beside her till the long sweeping
dance was over, and talked to us as if we were grown up,- which
is always flattering to little girls. Then Miss Hogarth found us
partners; and we too formed part of the throng. I remember
watching the white satin shoes and long flowing white sashes of
the little Dickens girls, who were just about our own age, but
how much more graceful and beautifully dressed! Our sashes.
were bright plaids of red and blue, (tributes from one of our
father's Scotch admirers; - is it ungrateful to confess now, after
all these years, that we could not bear them? ) our shoes were
only bronze. Shall I own to this passing shadow amid all that
radiance? But when people are once dancing, they are all equal
again, and happy.
Somehow after the music we all floated into a long supper-
room, and I found myself sitting near the head of the table by
Mr. Dickens, with another little girl much younger than myself;
she wore a necklace, and pretty little sausage curls all round her
――――
## p. 12284 (#330) ##########################################
12284
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
head. Mr. Dickens was very kind to the little girl, and presently
I heard him persuading her to sing, and he put his arm round.
her to encourage her; and then, wonderful to say, the little girl
stood up (she was little Miss Hullah) and began very shyly,
trembling and blushing at first, but as she blushed and trembled
she sang more and more sweetly; and then all the jeunesse dorée,
consisting of the little Dickens boys and their friends, ranged
along the supper table, clapped and clapped, and Mr. Dickens
clapped too, smiling and applauding her. And then he made a
little speech, with one hand on the table; I think it was thanking
the jeunesse dorée for their applause, and they again clapped and
laughed; but here my memory fails me, and everything grows
very vague and like a dream.
Only this much I do remember very clearly: that we had
danced and supped and danced again, and that we
were all
standing in a hall lighted and hung with bunches of Christmas
green, and as I have said, everything seemed altogether mag-
nificent and important; more magnificent and important every
minute, for as the evening went on, more and more people kept
arriving. The hall was crowded, and the broad staircase was
lined with little boys-thousands of little boys-whose heads
and legs and arms were waving about together. They were
making a great noise, and talking and shouting; and the eldest
son of the house seemed to be marshaling them. Presently their
noise became a cheer, and then another; and we looked up and
saw that our own father had come to fetch us, and that his
white head was there above the others: then came a third final
ringing cheer, and some one went up to him—it was Mr. Dick-
ens himself—who laughed and said quickly, "That is for you! "
and my father looked up,- surprised, pleased, touched,— settled
his spectacles, and nodded gravely to the little boys.
――
BRICKS AND IVY
From Old Kensington. ' Published by Harper & Brothers
A
QUARTER of a century ago, the shabby tide of progress had
not spread to the quiet old suburb where Lady Sarah Fran-
cis's brown house was standing, with its many windows daz-
zling, as the sun traveled across the old-fashioned house-tops to
## p. 12285 (#331) ##########################################
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
12285
set into a distant sea of tenements and echoing life. The roar
did not reach the old house. The children could listen to the
cawing of the rooks, to the echo of the hours, as they struck on
from one day to another, vibrating from the old brown tower of
the church. At night the strokes seemed to ring more slowly
than in the day. Little Dolly Vanborough, Lady Sarah's niece,
thought each special hour had its voice. The church clock is
silent now, but the rooks caw on undisturbed from one spring
to another in the old Kensington suburb. There are tranquil
corners still, and sunny silent nooks, and ivy wreaths growing
in the western sun; and jasmines and vine-trees, planted by a
former generation, spreading along the old garden walls. But
every year the shabby stream of progress rises and ingulfs
one relic or another, carrying off many and many a landmark
and memory. Last year only the old church was standing, in
its iron cage, at the junction of the thoroughfares. It was the
Church of England itself to Dolly and George Vanborough, in
those early church-going days of theirs. There was the old
painting of the lion and the unicorn hanging from the gallery;
the light streaming through the brown saints over the commun-
ion table. In after life the children may have seen other saints
more glorious in crimson and in purple, nobler piles and arches;
but none of them have ever seemed so near to heaven as the
old Queen Anne building, and the wooden pew with its high
stools, through which elbows of straw were protruding, where
they used to kneel on either side of their aunt, watching with
awe-stricken faces the tears as they came falling from the wid-
ow's sad eyes.
Lady Sarah could scarcely have told you the meaning of those
tears as they fell: old love and life partings, sorrows and past
mercies, all came returning to her with the familiar words of the
prayers. The tears fell bright and awe-stricken as she thought
of the present, of distances immeasurable, of life and its incon-
ceivable mystery; and then her heart would warm with hope
perhaps of what might be to come, of the overwhelming possi-
bilities how many of them to her lay in the warm clasp of
the child's hand that came pushing into hers! For her, as for
the children, heaven's state was in the old wooden pew. Then
the sing-song of the hymn would flood the old church with its
homely cadence.
―
## p. 12286 (#332) ##########################################
12286
ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE
"Prepare your glad voices;
Let Hisreal rejoice,"
sang the little charity children; poor little Israelites, with blue
stockings, and funny woolen knobs to their fustian caps, rejoi-
cing, though their pastures were not green as yet, nor was their
land overflowing with milk and honey. However, they sang
praises for others, as all people do at times; thanks be to the
merciful dispensation that allows us to weep, to work, to be
comforted, and to rejoice, with one another's hearts, consciously
or unconsciously, as long as life exists.
Every lane and corner and archway had a childish story for
Dolly and her brother; for Dolly most especially, because girls
cling more to the inanimate aspects of life than boys do. For
Dolly the hawthorn bleeds as it is laid low, and is transformed
year after year into iron railings and areas; for particulars of
which you are requested to apply to the railway company, and to
Mr. Taylor, the house-agent.
In those days the lanes spread to Fulham, white with blossom
in spring, or golden with the yellow London sunsets that blazed
beyond the cabbage fields. In those days there were gardens and
trees and great walls along the high-road that came from Lon-
don, passing through the old white turnpike. There were high
brown walls along Kensington Gardens, reaching to the Palace
Gate; elms spread their shade, and birds chirruped, and children
played behind them.
Dolly Vanborough and her brother had many a game there,
and knew every corner and haunt of this sylvan world of child-
ren and ducks and nurse-maids. They had knocked their noses
against the old sun-dial many and many a time. Sometimes now,
as she comes walking along the straight avenues, Dolly thinks
she can hear the echo of their own childish voices whooping
and calling to one another as they used to do. How often they
had played with their big cousin, Robert Henley, and the little
Morgans, round about the stately orange-house, and made believe
to be statues in the niches!
"I am Apollo," cries George Vanborough, throwing himself
into an attitude.
