Here is that person again whom I so dislike--and for no reason at
all except that my Marjorie doesn’t like her:
“Miss Potune is very fat she pretends to be very learned she says
she saw a stone that dropt from the skies, but she is a good
christian.”
Of course, stones have fallen from the skies, but I don’t believe
this “horid fat Simpliton” had ever seen one that had done it; but
even if she had, it was none of her business, and she could have
been better employed than in going around exaggerating it and
carrying on about it and trying to make trouble with a little child
that had never done _her_ any harm.
“... The Birds do chirp the Lambs do leap and Nature is clothed with
the garments of green yellow, and white, purple, and red.
“... There is a book that is called the Newgate Calender that
contains all the Murders: all the Murders did I say, nay all Thefts
& Forgeries that ever were committed & fills me with horror &
consternation.”
Marjorie is a diligent little student, and her education is always
storming along and making great time and lots of noise:
“Isabella this morning taught me some French words one of which is
bon suar the interpretation is good morning.”
It slanders Isabella, but the slander is not intentional. The main
thing to notice is that big word, “interpretation.” Not many
children of Marjorie’s age can handle a five syllable team in that
easy and confident way. It is observable that she frequently employs
words of an imposingly formidable size, and is manifestly quite
familiar with them and not at all afraid of them.
“Isa is teaching me to make Simecolings nots of interrigations
periods & commas &c. As this is Sunday I will meditate uppon
senciable & Religious subjects first I should be very thankful I am
not a beggar as many are.”
That was the “first.” She didn’t get to her second subject, but got
side-tracked by a saner interest, and used her time to better
purpose.
“It is melancholy to think, that I have so many talents, & many
there are that have not had the attention paid to them that I have,
& yet they contrive to be better then me.
“... Isabella is far too indulgent to me & even the Miss Crafords
say that they wonder at her patience with me & it is indeed true for
my temper is a bad one.”
The daring child wrote a (synopsized) history of Mary Queen of Scots
and of five of the royal Jameses in rhyme--but never mind, we have
no room to discuss it here. Nothing was entirely beyond her literary
jurisdiction; if it had occurred to her that the laws of Rome needed
codifying she would have taken a chance at it.
Here is a sad note:
“My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so much
attention when I am saying my prayers and my character is lost
a-mong the Breahead people I hope I will be religious again but as
for regaining my character I despare of it.”
When religion and character go, they leave a large vacuum. But there
are ways to fill it:
“I’ve forgot to say, but I’ve four lovers, the other one is Harry
Watson, a very delightful boy.... James Keith hardly ever Spoke to
me, he said Girl! make less noise.... Craky hall ... I walked to
that delightfull place with a delightful young man beloved by all
his friends and espacialy by me his loveress but I must not talk any
longer about him for Isa said it is not proper for to speak of
gentalman but I will never forget him....
“The Scythians tribe live very coarsely for a Gluton Introduced to
Arsaces the Captain of the Army, 1 man who Dressed hair & another
man who was a good cook but Arsaces said that he would keep 1 for
brushing his horses tail and the other to fead his pigs....
“On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made bucks, the
names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey [Cragie], and Wm.
Keith and Jn Keith--the first is the funniest of every one of them.
Mr. Crakey and I walked to Craky-hall [Craigiehall] hand and hand in
Innocence and matitation sweet thinking on the kind love which flows
in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic
pleasure no one was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my
existence. Mr. Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty
good-looking.”
For a purpose, I wish the reader to take careful note of these
statistics:
“I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of 2
or 3 months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, &
he killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged.”
Marjorie wrote some verses about this tragedy--I think. I cannot be
quite certain it is this one, for in the verses there are three
deaths, whereas these statistics do not furnish so many. Also in the
statistics the father of the deceased is indifferent about the loss
he has sustained, whereas in the verses he is not. Also in the third
verse, the _mother_, too, exhibits feeling, whereas in the two
closing verses of the poem she--at least it seems to be she--is
indifferent. At least it looks like indifference to me, and I
believe it _is_ indifference:
“Three turkeys fair their last have breathed,
And now this world forever leaved;
Their father, and their mother too,
They sighed and weep as well as you;
Indeed, the rats their bones have cranched.
Into eternity theire launched.
A direful death indeed they had,
As wad put any parent mad;
But she was more than usual calm,
She did not give a single dam.”
The naughty little scamp! I mean, for not leaving out the _l_ in the
word “Calm,” so as to perfect the rhyme. It seems a pity to damage
with a lame rhyme a couplet that is otherwise without a blemish.
Marjorie wrote four journals. She began the first one in January,
1809, when she was just six years old, and finished it five months
later, in June.
She began the second in the following month, and finished it six
months afterward (January, 1810), when she was just seven.
She began the third one in April, 1810, and finished it in the
autumn.
She wrote the fourth in the winter of 1810-11, and the last entry in
it bears date July 19, 1811, and she died exactly five months later,
December 19th, aged eight years and eleven months. It contains her
rhymed Scottish histories.
Let me quote from Dr. John Brown:
“The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin,
her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a
tremulous, old voice repeated a long poem by Burns--heavy with the
shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment seat--the
publican’s prayer in paraphrase, beginning:
“‘Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between,
Some gleams of sunshine ’mid renewing storms.’
“It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother’s and
Isabella Keith’s letters written immediately after her death. Old
and withered, tattered and pale, they are now; but when you read
them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love! how rich in that
language of affection which only women, and Shakespeare, and Luther
can use--that power of detaining the soul over the beloved object
and its loss.”
Fifty years after Marjorie’s death her sister, writing to Dr. Brown,
said:
“My mother was struck by the patient quietness manifested by
Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature;
but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When Dr. Johnstone
rewarded her submissiveness with a sixpence, the request speedily
followed that she might get out ere New Year’s Day came. When asked
why she was so desirous of getting out, she immediately rejoined:
‘Oh, I am so anxious to buy something with my sixpence for my dear
Isa Keith.’ Again, when lying very still, her mother asked her if
there was anything she wished: ‘Oh yes, if you would just leave the
room door open a wee bit, and play the _Land o’ the Leal_, and I
will lie and _think_ and enjoy myself’ (this is just as stated to me
by her mother and mine). Well, the happy day came, alike to parents
and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery
to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who
idolized this child, and never afterward in my hearing mentioned her
name, took her in his arms; and while walking her up and down the
room she said: ‘Father, I will repeat something to you; what would
you like?’ He said, ‘Just choose for yourself, Maidie.’ She
hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, ‘Few are thy days and
full of woe,’ and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on
the latter; a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating of these
lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked
to be allowed to write a poem. There was a doubt whether it would be
right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded
earnestly, ‘Just this once’; the point was yielded, her slate was
given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen
lines ‘To my loved cousin on the author’s recovery.’”
The cousin was Isa Keith.
“She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the night
with the old cry of woe to a mother’s heart, ‘My head, my head!’
Three days of the dire malady, ‘water in the head,’ followed, and
the end came.”
-----
Footnote 17:
_Marjorie Fleming._ By L. MacBean. G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
publishers, London and New York.
Permission to use the extracts quoted from Marjorie’s Journal in
this article has been granted me by the publishers.
Footnote 18:
It is a whole century since the dimly conscious little prophet
said it, but the pathos of it is still there.