1881-1882
THE EMPRESS FREDERICK, MRS. RICHMOND RITCHIE, RUSKIN, AND MR. PUNCH—‘A
DAY IN A CHILD’S LIFE’—‘LITTLE ANN’ AND ‘MOTHER GOOSE.’
As has already been said, to drive to a palace in a royal carriage to
see a princess had been a dream of Kate’s childhood; and in the year
1881 her baby wish saw its almost complete fulfilment. Royalties with
a small ‘r’ were now, she said, a matter of course to her, but of
Royalties with a big ‘R’ she had as yet no experience.
In her diary of engagements, the entry ‘Sunday, July 17, Crown Princess
of Germany,’ foretells her first visit to Buckingham Palace. Her own
account is not forthcoming, but we have hint of it in the following
quotation from a letter written to her by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie.
It was just like a fairy tale to hear of you at court with all the
nice little princes and princesses hopping about and asking you to
make _enchanting_ things for them. Mrs. Stanley[26] says they one and
all lost their hearts to you, and to _me_ for bringing you to their
threshold.
To this Mrs. Ritchie adds:
I remember Miss Greenaway telling me of her visit to the Crown Prince
and Princess at Buckingham Palace, and how cordial they were, and how
the Crown Prince came in and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and
said laughing, ‘I am the husband,’ as he stood up like a column by the
Princess, who was a little woman.
This was the beginning of a friendship which did as much honour to
the Imperial lady as to the artist whose worth she was so ready
to recognise. Until the Empress’s death Kate Greenaway’s books,
as often as not extra-embellished with original drawings, and her
autographed Christmas cards, were always received with appreciative
acknowledgments, generally accompanied by some little souvenir in
return. They would be accompanied by letters from the Count Seckendorff
such as these sent by the Empress’s command:[27]—
COUNT SECKENDORFF TO KATE GREENAWAY
OSBORNE, _Dec. 25th, 1888_.
Dear Miss Kate Greenaway—Her Majesty the Empress Frederick desires me
to acknowledge the receipt of your charming new little book, and to
say how very kind it was of you to think of her just now at Christmas
time. Her Majesty is most grateful to you for your artistic little
present.—Believe me, dear Miss Kate Greenaway, very sincerely yours,
G. SECKENDORFF.
COUNT SECKENDORFF TO KATE GREENAWAY
THE EMPRESS FREDERICK’S PALACE,
BERLIN, _Jan. 26th, 1895_.
Dear Miss Greenaway—You have had the kindness to send Her Majesty the
Empress Frederick such a charming little drawing for Christmas. Her
Majesty was delighted with it. The little Almanack is giving her so much
pleasure. Will you kindly accept in return a new photo of Her Majesty
which I am sending by Royal Messenger to-day?—Believe me, dear Miss
Greenaway, very sincerely yours,
G. SECKENDORFF.
Of one of these presents Ruskin wrote on December 30, 1884:
I liked hearing about the present from [the] Princess. I wonder what it
can be. I wish I was a Prince and could send you pearls and rubies.
At one time the Empress Frederick showed a personal sympathy not
indicated by these formal letters, and during the period of her great
sorrow wrote to Miss Greenaway touchingly and at length; but that
correspondence no longer exists.
About this time Miss Greenaway was introduced at the house of the Hon.
Mrs. Stanley to the Princess Christian, whose appreciation of her both
personally and as an artist is shown in several letters from this year
onwards, preserved by her with affectionate care.
As Mrs. Richmond Ritchie’s name has been mentioned, it should be said
that for years she and Kate Greenaway were on terms of close intimacy,
and although they were not able so frequently to meet in later years,
there was always the most cordial regard and love between them. In
1885 there was talk of their ‘doing a story together,’ but it never
came to anything; yet the idea had evidently been long in their heads,
for in 1881 Mrs. Ritchie had written: ‘When we write our book it shall
be called “Treats,” I think, and be all about nice things that happen
to little girls—don’t you think so?’ It is matter for regret that
a proposal so full of charming possibilities was never carried into
execution.
In the same year Routledge & Sons published _Mother Goose, or The Old
Nursery Rhymes, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway_—one of her daintiest
productions, although marred in several instances by crude printer’s
ink and careless register. Its success, though not equalling that of
the _Birthday Book_, was yet very great, 66,000 copies being printed in
English, German, and French. The sum of £252 was paid to her for the
use of the drawings, and in royalties she received over £650. The book
bears on the title-page the baby thrown into a basket of roses which
so took Ruskin’s fancy. As Mrs. Allingham has said, ‘No one could draw
roses like Kate Greenaway,’ and other critics have compared her drawing
of flowers with the work now of Van Huysum and now of Botticelli. Some
papers complained that some of the nursery rhymes had been unduly
tampered with; but the illustrations met everywhere with the most
cordial praise. An enthusiastic critic exclaimed, ‘Should the children
of the present generation happen to take into their little curly heads
to call together a “monster” meeting—say in the Lowther Arcade—and
propose, second, and resolve to erect a great public monument to some
favourite goddess, we have a strong conviction that, on a show of tiny
hands being taken, the chairman would declare that Miss Kate Greenaway
had been unanimously elected for the honour.’ It should be remembered
that ‘correct versions’ of nursery rhymes and tales vary in different
parts of the country, and that every one considers the version of his
childhood the true one. Kate Greenaway naturally adopted those she had
learnt in London or in Nottinghamshire, and the charge of ‘tampering’
falls to the ground.
[Illustration: OUT FOR A WALK.
_From a water-colour drawing executed in the album of Ernest G.
Brown, Esq._]
This year she also contributed a charming frontispiece entitled
‘Little Fanny’ to _Routledge’s Christmas Number_, which should not
be forgotten by the collector. It was a wonderful shilling’s worth
for those days, and including as it does contributions by Caldecott,
Gustave Doré (then at the zenith of his somewhat evanescent fame),
Griset, and Mr. Walter Crane, it is now something of a _trouvaille_.
Another trifle of this year which should not be overlooked is a
tail-piece, ‘Little Dinky,’ done for Locker-Lampson’s privately
produced selection of his _London Lyrics_.
Kate was now hard at work on the illustrations for _A Day in a Child’s
Life, Illustrated by Kate Greenaway, Music by Myles B. Foster_, to be
published by Messrs. Routledge in 1882.
Concerning its origin Mr. Foster—son of the eminent water-colour
painter, Birket Foster—writes:
If I remember rightly, I had already put the whole thing together, and,
in fact, I had suggested this as a happy ‘follow’ to _The Children’s
Christmas_, by Bob and myself. It seemed such a nice subject for
children’s music. I culled from books Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8, asked my
friend M. Gibney to write ‘Tired,’ compounded the rhymes of ‘The Lesson’
and ‘Sleeping’ myself, and then showed the whole thing, already set to
music, to Mr. Evans, and _he_ suggested sending it to K. G., saying
that if she liked the idea, she would illustrate it. That I believe
to be the commencement. At this time some hundreds of mill-hands at
Keighley in Yorkshire and at Holt in Wiltshire were finding pleasure in
_The Children’s Christmas_, and the thought of their wishes and little
needs largely led me on to the work in question, and they performed the
_Day in a Child’s Life_ very prettily in tableaux. It was followed each
year by a new work (with my own words)—_Cinderella_, _Beauty and the
Beast_, _Lampblack_, etc.—but, alas, all these lacked the charm of Kate
Greenaway’s exquisite art.
Commercially considered, this extremely pretty book was a success,
25,000 copies being issued to the English-speaking world alone, yet
the press was not unanimous in its approval. The _Times_ especially
complained that ‘Miss Greenaway seems to be lapsing into rather a
lackadaisical prettiness of style. Her little people are somewhat
deficient in vitality. On the whole, we fear we can hardly, for all its
prettiness of binding and colouring, recommend her _Day in a Child’s
Life_ as a very cheerful present, nor is the selection of songs which
she has illustrated of a much more stimulating order.’
This year on no fewer than three separate occasions _Punch_ again
turned his attention to Miss Greenaway, all within the space of one
month. On December 10, under the heading ‘Punch’s “Mother Hubbard”
Grinaway Christmas Cards,’ Mr. Harry Furniss gave a full-page drawing
of fourteen grouped cards, the first of which represented Mr. Punch
presenting a Christmas card to the Queen and Royal Family, all,
saving Her Majesty, being dressed in Greenaway costumes. John Bright
appears as Little Jack Horner, picking a 70th plum out of his birthday
pie; the Duke of Cambridge in petticoats is riding a cock-horse; Mr.
(Lord) Cross as Jack—Jill is in the background—has tumbled down with
a pail of ‘Thames Water Bill’; Lord Randolph Churchill, as Little
Tommy Tattlemouse, is haranguing ‘a little house’ from the box of the
Fourth Party; Sir John Millais is trying a glass slipper on the foot
of his own ‘Cinderella’; the Duke of Bedford, as ‘Mary Mudford quite
contrary,’ is appreciatively contemplating the untidiness and inhaling
the perfume of Covent Garden market; Mr. Fawcett, postmaster-general,
as ‘Spring-heeled Jack,’ is taking a flying leap over the telegraph
wires; Mr. Parnell, as the wolf in bed, casts his ogreish eyes on the
little figure of Ireland and her basket of neglected Irish Industry;
Mr. Gladstone, as the ‘Jack,’ is chopping down the beanstalk of the
Land League; Sir Whittaker Ellis, the new Lord Mayor of London, as Dick
Whittington, is issuing invitations from the Mansion House; and other
topics of the day are introduced with similar ingenuity.
On December 17, Mr. Linley Sambourne contributed one of his most highly
finished drawings, entitled ‘The Royal Birthday Book.’ Mr. Punch,
kneeling in court-dress, receives _Princess Beatrice’s Birthday Book_
from the Princess herself, an ideally and delightfully draped figure
wearing coronet and sandals, the central figure of the composition.
Toby stands on guard, crayon-holder in hand, while on the clouds,
prominent among other floating figures, like sympathetic familiars, are
Kate Greenaway (in Kate Greenaway costume), Caldecott, and Mr. Walter
Crane.
The accompanying legend runs:
The Christmas volumes well deserve their gains
Of Caldecott’s, Kate Greenaway’s, and Crane’s.
Fair Beatrice, we thank you for your pains.
_Much Ado About Something_, Act ii. Sc. 3
(Mr. Punch’s Version).
And finally, on December 24, Mr. Furniss gave a second series of four
‘Grinaway Christmas Cards,’ in which Mr. Edison figures as Aladdin,
Britannia as Old Mother Hubbard, Mrs. Langtry as the Sleeping Beauty,
and Irving, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendal, Charles Warner, Nellie Farren,
Bancroft, Toole, Brough, and others as the Girls and Boys coming out
to Play. It was all excellent fooling—another indication, if one were
needed, that Kate Greenaway’s name and method were name and method to
conjure with.
The following letter of this year from a highly distinguished authoress
who wishes to preserve her anonymity gives a vivid idea of the pleasure
which her books brought into innumerable homes:—
_October 10, 1881._
Dear Miss Greenaway—Your sweet little white sibylline volumes have
again come to delight us all—thank you so very much. H. (aged 3 years)
came bundling down, panting, with her book in her pinafore and wildly
excited. (I think on the whole she likes ‘Jumping Joan’ best—but she
likes each best.) B. (aged 1½) came in also breathless to look at
H.’s book. H. firmly said, ‘No, B., you may just look, you mustn’t
_touch_ it.’ Then B. was held down by force and we lit the candles, and
H. looked at her prize while I looked at mine with B. (only B. and H.
_couldn’t_ understand how the two books could be so exactly alike). Then
R. came home and we all exclaimed together, and now we all send you our
love and our thanks, dear, again for your beautiful gift.
Are you rested and stronger? Did you have a pleasant summer? We are
only just home from a great many clouds and fields and children and
dandelions, to find them all again in your sweet incantation.
L. T. told us about your Princesses’ visits, which was most thrilling
and interesting. Good-night, and thank you again for all of us.
At this time Kate was sending copies of her _Mother Goose_ to a few
chosen friends, among them to her kind mentor and chief adviser H.
Stacy Marks; and the presentation brought her the following critical
letter of acknowledgment:—
STACY MARKS TO KATE GREENAWAY
_Oct. 11th, 1881._
Dear Kate Greenaway—Many thanks for your last book. You will get
‘tired’ of sending me your works sooner than I of receiving them. I have
not acknowledged the receipt of this before because I knew you would
prefer a letter telling you what I think of your work (even if somewhat
critical) to a mere formal one of thanks. I thank you all the same very
much, for your work always gives me pleasure—it seems so happy and so
fearless of all the conventional rules and ideas that obtain generally
about the art.
In many respects you have improved, and the _drawing_ is firmer and
better. But let me have my fault-finding first, for ‘I am nothing if not
critical.’ You have got rid of the spur-like shadows, but where, even in
England, do you see such cabbagy trees as on pages 5, 7, 29? You might
find a better pattern even in the elm, which _is_ cabbagy.
The action of the figure on page 40 is impossible coming downhill—how
about the centre of gravity, madam? You know I am not conventional, but
I am troubled to know why you don’t make the hero of your story more
conspicuous. Thus on page 47 Tom the Piper’s son is the least prominent
figure in the composition, and where are the boys?
Again—the Beggars coming to town are in the far distance, and there’s
only one dog! What I mean is, that these two don’t tell their story, but
I suppose you have some good reason for your treatment.
As instances of fearlessness, I admire the pluck which can place a face
directly against a window with each pane made out as on page 12, and the
arrangement of the stick in Jack Horner which coincides with his _head_
and _both hands_, and as it (the stick) is not continued to the ground
we can only suppose it to be resting on the boy’s knees.
And now I have done being disagreeable. Despite its little faults, it
is a charming book. Your backgrounds of old houses are delightful.
The two most pictorial drawings are ‘Polly, put the kettle on’ and
‘Cross-patch.’ The latter is especially good and might be painted—the
right fore-arm only should be a bit more foreshortened.
A last look gives me a last fault to find—the chins, especially in some
of the boys, are still very pointed.
There! now I have finished, but I don’t apologise for telling you the
truth from my point of view, because I know you are strong enough to
bear it and amiable enough to like it. It will always be a source of
pride to me to remember (as you told me) that I was, though in the
humblest way, partly instrumental in finding you the way your strength
lay.
[Illustration: ‘LUCY LOCKET LOST HER POCKET.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of W. Finch, Esq._]
Ruskin received his copy in a less critical spirit; and a few weeks
later he wrote:
JOHN RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON,
_Christmas Day, 1881_.
My dear Miss Greenaway—You are the first friend to whom I write this
morning; and among the few to whom I look for real sympathy and help.
You are fast becoming—I believe you are already, except only Edward B.
Jones—the helpfullest in showing me that there are yet living souls on
earth who can see beauty and peace and Goodwill among men—and rejoice
in them.
You have sent me a little choir of such angels as are ready to sing, if
we will listen, for Christ’s being born—every day.
I trust you may long be spared to do such lovely things, and be an
element of the best happiness in every English household that still has
an English heart, as you are already in the simpler homes of Germany.
To my mind Ludwig Richter and you are the only real philosophers
and——[28] of the Nineteenth Century.
I’ll write more in a day or two about many things that I want to say
respecting the possible range of your subjects. I was made so specially
happy yesterday by finding Herrick’s Grace among the little poems—but
they are all delightful.—Ever gratefully and affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
The year 1882 was chiefly occupied with the illustrations for a new
edition of that early love of hers, _Little Ann and other Poems_, by
Jane and Ann Taylor, a charming production, though slightly marred
by certain little faults of drawing which, with all her strict
self-training, Miss Greenaway strangely enough never quite overcame.
The ‘stilt-like’ shadows had certainly disappeared, but the feet still
sometimes went a little astray, and signs were not wanting here and
there that seem to herald the advent of mannerism. But it was a passing
phase.
She was now suffering more than ever from imitators, to the vast
indignation of her friends and admirers. For example, Mr. Locker
designates a book entitled _Afternoon Tea_ ‘a shameful imitation of
your manner, [which] if it goes on will tend to disgust the brutal
British public and therefore injure you.’
In Belgium especially, where she had a great vogue, not only were her
books themselves being imitated, but the illustrations were copied
without acknowledgment on to handkerchiefs, plates, vases, caskets,
and other objects of commerce, and the copying was so vilely done that
they were caricatures rather than reproductions of her work. All this
tended, as Mr. Locker truly predicted, to vulgarise the Fairyland which
she was creating.
As far as she could Kate combated the evil by refusing to part with
the copyright of her works. In 1898 she wrote to Mr. Stuart M. Samuel,
M.P., a generous patron for whom she would certainly have strained a
point if she could:
Thank you so very much for the cheque, but I’m so sorry I cannot give
you the copyright. I have made it a rule for a long time not to part
with the copyright of my drawings, for I have been so copied, my
drawings reproduced and sold for advertisements and done in ways I hate.
Nor was Belgium the only offending land. In France and England there
were also many manufacturers who recognised the adaptability of her
designs for printed fabrics and did not hesitate to ‘lift’ them for
their own purposes. Still, there were honourable exceptions among
those who were not prepared to copy or adapt her productions without
receiving due permission and offering pecuniary acknowledgment. The
offers of most of these, however, she did not care to accept, from
a feeling that the ‘pot-boiling’ character of the work would be
derogatory to her art. But apropos of an application by Mr. Powell, of
the Whitefriars glassworks, it may be mentioned that the very next year
Ruskin himself carried out his expressed intention, and had a drawing
of hers of a little girl with a doll ‘put on glass,’ and wrote of it
from Brantwood:
It will be a nursery window when you are next here, but it might be, as
rightly, part of a cathedral window.
A gratifying episode of 1882 was the appearance in the great French art
magazine, the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (vol. i. pp. 74 _et seq._) of an
article by Monsieur Alfred de Lostalot, in which, whilst recognising
particulars in which her work fell short of that of Caldecott and Mr.
Walter Crane, he yet gave her the first place for the special qualities
of charm and sentiment. And, after a eulogy too long to quote here, he
ends up quaintly—‘Meanwhile I shall lock up the works of W. C., of C.,
and of Kate Greenaway in my bookcase with precious care; unexpected
conclusion: works so precious cannot be left in the hands of children!’
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Lily Evans.]
Kate Greenaway knew exactly what kind of letters children like to
receive, and she loved to send them playful missives, instinct with her
love of flowers and animals. An example of such letters, addressed to
the little friend for whom she had so tender an affection, may be given
in illustration.
KATE GREENAWAY TO MISS LILY EVANS
My dear Lily—I have not written to fix a day because I felt I ought not
to spare one just now—or indeed for a little time longer.
Now will you mind waiting a little longer, then my mind will be more at
rest, and we will have a real beautiful day. I’m very sorry to ask you
to wait, but I know you won’t mind really. Also more things will be up
in the garden and in my boxes of dirt. [Window-boxes for plants, which
Miss Evans, as a country child, had never seen before.] I am just going
to get pansies in them.
I’ve a real hope that I do see golden rod coming up at last—or does a
witch live in our garden, and is it phlox after all?
Some time after Easter, when you have time to spare, you will get me
some more primroses. Those last were real beauties, and lived like
anything. In the excitement of coming away I quite forgot to thank
Miss—— for all the trouble she took helping to get them for me, so you
thank her now.
The kitten has hurt its foot a little. The spring gets into its head and
I’m afraid causes it to run on walls with broken glass on the top, or
perhaps it attends a dancing class on the quiet and practises too much.
Anyhow it is constantly making itself lame, and when it loses the use of
a sponge and towel at one go, you can guess how it looks—a little rim
of white round its mouth and the rest nicely toned. Good-bye. Love to E.
and all, and we will go as soon as ever I can.
K. G.
[Illustration: From a Pencil Sketch in the possession of Lady
Pontifex.]