LITTLE BLOSSOM
"What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?"--HERRICK.
Mr. Wintle gave his little grand-daughter a new name after her loss of
sight. He called her "Little Blossom." She was never to develop into
flower or fruit, he said, on account of her great affliction, and the
limitations that it must entail. Miss Trotwood may have had a similar
theory as to David Copperfield's Dora, but these were days before
Dickens had written of Little Blossom. The theory was by no means
adopted by Bessie's parents; and the name of Blossom was used by Mr.
Wintle only.
Dr. Kynaston, in lines addressed "to Bessie," in 1835, tells how his
"soul" reproved
"That friend, as once I heard him say,
Oh, may it please Almighty God
To take that child away!"
We do not know who "that friend" was, who prayed for the removal, at
nine years old, of a singularly happy and engaging child; but the
prayer is indicative of the condition of the blind, the probable outlook
for the child, and the point of view from which blindness was regarded
even by people of culture and means. If such a one could pray for the
death of a blind child, what would the poor do?
Despite the "Blossom" theory, or perhaps because of it, Bessie was a
great favourite with her grandfather. He liked to have her with him at
Culham Vicarage. She often stayed there for weeks together, and would
learn more about flowers and birds than she could do in Oxford. There
was also a delightful companion and friend at Culham, the black pony,
Toby. Bessie was a fearless little rider, and delighted in a gallop
round the field. But Mr. Wintle would not trust her alone with Toby, and
there was always a servant to walk or run by his side. The grandfather
makes an entry in his diary as to Bessie's first ride, and adds that he
"was much pleased with Blossom."
It was at Culham that she was introduced to _Robinson Crusoe_. Mr.
Wintle gave it to the servant who was to walk out with her, and who read
aloud as she walked. Bessie was deeply interested, and would allow of no
pause in the reading: "She kept her going all the time:" says a sister.
Sometimes there were three or four little girls at Culham, and then in
the evening, grandpapa read aloud to them James's _Naval History_. It
was very little to their taste, and all but one paid little attention,
or if attending, could remember or understand but little. When, however,
the reading was ended, and grandpapa began to ask questions, it was
Bessie who knew how the vessels were manned and rigged, the complement
of men and guns, and all the details connected with the fitting out of a
man-of-war. And again Mr. Wintle had good reason to be "much pleased
with Blossom."
The little girl learnt needlework with her sisters. She could hem and
sew, but never liked doing either. A very neatly hemmed duster, done
before she was ten years old, and presented to an aunt, is still
preserved in the family. Knitting and crochet she liked better, and a
knitted purse in bands of very bright colours has been kept unused by
the friend to whom she gave it as a child. Her favourite occupation of
this kind was the making of slender watch chains with fine silk on a
little ivory frame. All her friends will remember these chains, which in
many cases were an annual present.
But needlework of any kind was always "against the grain." She liked any
other occupation better.
Perhaps the chief characteristic of early youth was her love of poetry
and music. Wordsworth's poems, especially those that referred to
flowers; Mary Howitt, Mrs. Hemans, these were her favourites. A sister
says she cannot remember the time when Bessie was not in the habit of
sitting down to the piano to improvise. She set Mary Howitt's "Sea Gull"
to her own music before she was twelve years old. It was published at
the time of the Irish famine, and realised L20, which she gave to the
Famine Fund.
Bessie's first music-mistress was the widow of an organist in Oxford,
but when her talent for music was more pronounced she had lessons from
Dr. Elvey, the brother of Sir George Elvey. Whilst she was learning a
new piece, a sister would sit by her side and read the notes aloud. She
quickly discovered if a single one had been omitted; and, as with
_Robinson Crusoe_, she kept her reader "going all the time." But her
enthusiasm and pleasure kindled the interest of those who certainly had
a dry part of the work.
Bessie was not the only blind child in Oxford. Dr. Hampden, afterwards
Bishop of Hereford, had two blind daughters. The three blind children
used often to meet and walk together; but Bessie preferred the
companionship of the merry girls at home, in whose games she always
shared. She did not bowl a hoop, however, and in formal walks she was
the companion of the governess.
Children's parties in Oxford were a source of much pleasure; she danced
with girls, she was very fond of dancing, but seldom with boys. She
wanted a little guiding, and the boys were possibly too shy to undertake
this; certainly very few of them were disposed to try.
Bessie's birthday was, for the Gilbert children, the festival of the
year. This was owing partly to the fact that it fell in August, during
the long vacation, the time associated with out-door games in the grassy
quadrangle, whispered conferences near the mysterious and awe-inspiring
Cain and Abel, with dinners in the Hall and visits in the schoolroom
from friendly dons. There were three birthdays in August: a younger
sister and a brother were also born in that month; all three were
celebrated on the 7th, and Bessie was the "lady of the day." There was
always a water party to Nuneham in the house-boat or the barge. On
landing, the children would run to the top of a grassy slope and then
slide and roll down the slippery grass. Bessie joined in this game with
keen delight, untroubled by the silent watchfulness of a father, ever
alert to protect her from danger, and ever anxious that she should be
ignorant of special precautions on her behalf.
Dr. Kynaston, "High Master of St. Paul's," and former Philological
Lecturer of Christ Church, Oxford, was nearly always included in the
birthday party, and was very fond of Bessie. When she was a very little
child she was leaning far out of the window of the boat so as to put her
hands in the water, and her father was alarmed. "I am holding her tight
by the frock," said Dr. Kynaston. "Yes," replied the father, "but I must
have something more solid than that held by."
Of all these birthday parties, the most memorable to the blind child was
that on which she was ten years old. The day was fine, every one was
very good to her. Her special favourites, Dr. Kynaston and Mr. Bazely
(father of Mr. Henry Bazely, of whom a short biography has recently
appeared), were both present. A vase with a bouquet of the flowers she
loved, mignonette, heliotrope, roses, geraniums, was presented to her.
All her life she treasured those dried flowers and the little vase. But
the thing that made this birthday memorable was that not only her music
but her poems were beginning to receive consideration, and one written
at this time was considered worthy of being copied and sent to her
godmother, Miss Hales. A copy in her mother's writing is still extant,
and may be read with interest:
LINES WRITTEN AT TEN YEARS OLD.
When morning appears, and night melts away,
Then comes the bright, dull, or enlivening day;
The dewdrops like pearls on the flowers are shining,
But the sunbeams to dry them are quickly inclining.
The sun now red peeps through the trees,
And now there springs up a freshening breeze.
The flowers which are by the sunbeams extended,
Droop no more o'er their green stalks bended.
All is cheerful and gay, at the dawn of the day,
And March's high winds are flying away.
A shower of rain now darkens the skies,
A few people begin to open their eyes;
It is early, 'tis dawn, 'tis the dawn of the day,
And the darkness of night is fast gliding away.
The child's verses are neither better nor worse than those of many a
little versifier of her age, but they are remarkable because they are
obviously untouched by elders, who could so easily have corrected rhythm
and metre; they are genuine, and they are written by a child who had
apparently forgotten that she had ever seen the light. She had learnt to
love it for some occult and mysterious reason which she could not
explain, perhaps for the physical effect which light exercises upon the
human organism. She loved light, she loved nature, and from early
childhood she loved beautiful scenery. Dreams were always a source of
delight to her, and her dreams were a feature in her life. She would say
that she constantly dreamt about beautiful landscapes. Did some memory
of sight revisit her in dreams? "There were beautiful intuitions in her
music," we are told. Had she "beautiful intuitions" as to sight? Had
she, in her dreams, visions of the scenes that passed before her in
those three first years of which she retained not the slightest
recollection in her waking hours? Beautiful scenery gave her pleasure;
there was always a response to any description of it. Once when a sister
was describing mountains she said: "I don't want to know how high they
are, how many hours it takes to climb them, and what they are made of. I
want you to tell me if they make you afraid, if they make you happy,
or," drawing herself up, "if they give you a kind of a proud feeling."
In the April before this tenth birthday she had attempted to express in
verse her feeling as to the light; and on this day three sonnets were
addressed to her by Dr. Kynaston.
What little girl would not be proud of such homage from a "High Master
of St. Paul's," and so dear a friend?
The sonnets appear in _Miscellaneous Poetry_, by Rev. Herbert Kynaston,
M.A.,[3] and two of them are here given:--
TO BESSIE ON HER BIRTHDAY.
And art thou ten years old? one half the time
Is spent--oh say, thou heavenly-gifted child,
How hast thou, then, those weary years beguiled--
That fills thy budding years to woman's prime.
Thou stand'st midway, as on a height sublime,
Sweet record here, sweet promise there as mild
Of childish days, of girlhood undefiled,
To lure thee on; heaven help thee now to climb
With fairest hope, as erst, the onward part
Of life's sad upland course that still is thine!
Had I one wish, fresh gathered from the heart,
To hang with votive sweets at friendship's shrine,
I'd pray--and yet, methinks, if thou wert mine,
I would not have thee other than thou art.
THE SAME SUBJECT.
Forgive the thought, but I have learnt to love
What others deem privation; I have seen
How more than recompensed thy loss has been,
Dear gentle child! by Him who from above
Guides thy dark steps; and I have yearned to prove
The blessed influence, the joy serene,
The store of heavenly peace, that thou dost glean
From angels' steps, unseen, who round thee move.
Yea, I have owed thee much; thou art a thing
For sharpest grief to gather round, and grow
To mellowness; where sorrow loves to cling,
And tune to gospel strains the tears that flow
In harshest discord, sullen murmuring,
That will not learn the blessedness of woe.
In this same year, 1836, Bessie took her first long journey away from
home. Her father and mother had arranged to pay visits to some old
friends, and they took with them the two eldest girls, Mary and Bessie.
They stayed with the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Kaye, with an old college
friend, Mr. Stephens, at Belgrave, Leicester, and with several other old
college friends of the Principal's. They visited Matlock; and on her
return Bessie described to the younger sisters the excitement of going
into the caves, of crossing the Styx, and of listening to the blasting
of rocks. It is recorded of her at this time that she never hesitated or
shrank from anything required of her. She sat down in the boat, or stood
up, or bent her head just as she was told to do. The loving care of the
parents was not in vain, they saw their blind child fearless and happy,
and well able to take the place due to her as second daughter. It is
recorded that at Liverpool she was present for the first time at a
really good concert, and that the music she then heard was a great
stimulus to her, as well as a keen delight.
Dr. Gilbert preached at Liverpool, and from Liverpool they went to
Stockport. In the church at the latter place there was a brass band, the
sudden braying of which was a shock to her nerves which Bessie never
forgot. She was too young to dine or spend much time downstairs in the
houses where they stayed, but she always remembered the kindness with
which she was treated in schoolrooms and nurseries, and looked back upon
these early visits with great pleasure.
The family hurried back to Oxford on account of the unexpected death of
Dr. Rowley before his term of office had expired, and Dr. Gilbert at
once entered upon the duties of Vice-Chancellor of the University.
Many little incidents connected with her father's tenure of office were
a source of amusement to Bessie throughout life.
The University marshal made daily reports to the Vice-Chancellor, and
informed him of any disturbance. One morning he stated that he had found
two men fighting near Wadham College and separated them. Some time
afterwards he came upon them in another place and did not interfere.
"And pray, why not?" asked the Vice-Chancellor. "Well, sir, you see,
they were very comfortably at it."
This story was repeated at the breakfast table and made a great
impression upon Bessie. She told it and laughed over it throughout life.
If she was seated near a table when telling it, she would push herself
away with her two hands as if she wanted more room to laugh, a way she
had when very much amused.
It was also about the same time that the butler, standing one day by the
open door, saw a freshman pursued by the proctor coming at full speed
down the street. Seeing the open door the young man darted in, and
rushed up the staircase. Silence for a few moments, and then peeping
over the banisters the youth said in an urgent whisper, "Is he gone, is
he gone?"
Now, the humour of the situation was that whilst he was so eager to
escape from the proctor, nothing but a thin partition separated him from
the Vice-Chancellor in his study.
We can picture to ourselves the butler's "Do you wish to see the
Vice-Chancellor, sir?" and the hasty exit!
Meanwhile the child Bessie returned to her poems, her songs, her
improvisings at the piano, to lessons in the schoolroom, to that
terrible frame and the leaden type and raised figures, and the sums
which would not "come right"; to the brothers and sisters and the happy
home life. But she too had seen something of the great world lying on
the outside of Oxford, and could refer back to "my visit to the North."
An old friend of the family remembers the first sight of Bessie as a
girl of about twelve years old. She was in the Magdalen Gardens with a
nurse and the little brother Tom, the youngest boy, of whom she was
always very fond. She was standing apart on the grass; standing
peaceful, motionless, with a sweet still face, and all the sad
suggestion of the large darkened glasses that encased her eyes. The
little boy picked daisies and took them to her and showed her the gold
in the centre. She smiled as she took them, and her slender fingers
fluttered about them. And the children, the flowers, the sunlight, and
those beautiful gardens in the early summer, made a picture in which
this friend always loved to enshrine her memory of "Little Blossom."
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Published by B. Fellowes, Ludgate Street, 1841.