1887-1890
KATE GREENAWAY AS A CORRESPONDENT—HER LETTERS TO RUSKIN—HER
FRIENDS—LEARNING PERSPECTIVE—RUSKIN’S LAST LETTERS—‘THE PIED PIPER OF
HAMELIN’—MRS. ALLINGHAM, R.W.S.—THE ‘BOOK OF GAMES’—ELECTED TO THE
ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PAINTERS IN WATER-COLOURS—PARIS EXHIBITION—DEATH OF
MR. JOHN GREENAWAY, SR.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
The most important publications of the year 1887 were _The Queen of
the Pirate Isle_ (Chatto), already mentioned; the _Almanack_, oblong
instead of upright as were all the others, of which over 37,000
copies were sold; and _Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Garland_, made up of
illustrations collected from earlier books.
From this year forward Ruskin made it a practice to preserve at any
rate the majority of Miss Greenaway’s letters.[52] On his side,
however, the correspondence was soon destined to cease, and so in place
of the interchange of thought, which would have afforded stimulating
reading, we have to content ourselves with what was in the end to be
carried on as a monologue.
The earliest of these letters do not lend themselves to extended
quotation. It is only later, when Kate made it part of her day’s work
to take her share in relieving the tedium of the aged Professor’s
unoccupied days, that they assume any real importance to the reader.
The key-note of these epistles is their artlessness. She has a child’s
heart at forty and ‘lives with her girlhood as with a little sister.’
As we read them the words ‘How _naïf_’ are for ever on our lips. From
time to time we come upon a luminous point and a touch of bright
humour, but for the most part the letters are lacking in grip and
_verve_. Languid too, they often are, the consequence doubtless of the
conscientiousness with which she spent herself in her work, especially
when her health during the last ten years of her life was far from
robust. And yet with all their shortcomings they have a very real
interest and are redolent of her strong personality.
They are instinct, too, with the scent of flowers, the love of trees,
the fascinations of her garden, of sunsets and beauties of earth and
sky; full, too, of her dog Rover, whom her friends the Allhusens
twit her with calling ‘Wover’—indeed hardly a letter goes without a
chapter, or at least a verse, of Rover’s biography, from which a book
entitled _The Diary of a Dog_ might easily be compiled. They are full
of what she is reading (as we might expect, she is always inveighing
against the unhappy endings of books)—and tell in detail what she is
working at; full of pictures she has seen which wanted ‘a Ruskin for
their proper criticism’; full of her favourite model ‘Mary’—‘we always
have a merry time, I think we are both made to laugh a good deal’; full
of her love of nature—‘the garden is full of pictures but I can’t
get time to do them’; and again, ‘when the sun shines I can smell the
grass growing’; full of the seasons—‘they have got mixed up this
year; poor spring has got badly treated or else had an aspiring mind
and tried to take too much of the year for her own property—anyhow
here is winter again’; full of her friends, the Locker-Lampsons, the
du Mauriers, Lady Jeune, ‘one of the kindest people in all the world,’
and her daughter, now Mrs. Allhusen, the Tennysons, and the beautiful
Mrs. Stuart Samuel, ‘spring personified dressed in blue and violet—a
real Beauty she is and very nice’; full of playful allusions to the
pedantic conversations of Miss Edgeworth’s _Harry and Lucy_, which she
and Ruskin had read and laughed over together. And they are full of the
summer and winter exhibitions—‘no one now says a good word for the
Academy though they all want to be made R.A.’s’; full of the pictures
she intends to paint—‘I have often wished lately to paint a picture
of Night—it looks so beautiful out of my window—the yellow lights in
the windows—the stars in the sky. I think I shall do a little angel
rushing along in it, I want to do it as a background to something. If
I could but do a della Robbia angel—with that look—those curls’;
and again, ‘Don’t you love a market, a real country one, where the
stalls are so pretty with pears and plums and little sage cheeses and
long rolls of butter? For years I have been going to paint such a
market stall. One day—I suppose—one day I shall.’ And yet again they
describe lovely gardens which she has visited; full of old houses to
which she has made pilgrimages.
[Illustration: “ROVER.” MR. JOHN GREENAWAY’S RETRIEVER. _For ten years
Kate Greenaway’s faithful companion._]
One day there is a touch of sensitiveness:—‘I am often amused at the
women who sell the violets—they so often smell them before presenting
them to the purchaser—this is not always an attraction.’ Another
day she touches off a portrait:—‘My sister’s little girl is good to
contemplate. Her profile is like a _cheerful_ Burne-Jones.’
Now she airs a prejudice:—‘I wish there were no worms in the garden. I
_am_ so frightened when I sow things to see them turn up. I know they
are useful but they are not nice-looking. I do not dislike many things,
but a worm I have a repulsion for.’
[Illustration: ‘VIOLETS, SIR?’ On a Letter to Ruskin.]
And now she pays one of her rare visits to the theatre—a great event
in her quiet life:—‘I went to see _Rebellious Susan_—not a deep
play—very interesting—very cleverly acted. But I like going deeper
into things, I think I like deeper motives for things than what
Society _thinks_.’ Then she tells of the trouble she takes over her
pictures:—‘I am doing Cinderella carrying in the Pumpkin to her fairy
godmother—you don’t see the godmother. I have put a row of scarlet
beans as a background. I am going to grow a row in the garden on
purpose.’ And now she wants what she can’t have:—‘I wish you a very
happy Birthday. I wish I was going to be there to see all the lovely
flowers you are going to have. If I were there you should ask me to
tea—I think—yes, I think you ought to ask me to tea—and we’d have
raspberry jam for tea—a muffin, some violets—and a Turner to look
at—oh yes, I think you should ask me to tea.’
That is the kind of letter she writes—dwelling but a moment on this or
that point, irresponsible, sportive, sometimes gay, less often grave,
delightful to the receiver but rarely with sufficient ‘body’ for the
unsympathetic coldness of printer’s ink.
The drawings which embellished them are charming in their spontaneity,
and who can wonder at the half-heartedness of Ruskin’s protest when he
writes:—
—In trying to prevent you wasting your time on me I have never told you
how much I do enjoy these little drawings. They are an immense addition
to the best pleasures of my life and give me continual interest and new
thought.
Little marvel that such a protest prompted her to become even more
lavish than before. What a delight these letters were to him when
ill-health made any written response impracticable may be gathered from
Mrs. Severn’s reiterated announcements:—
‘The Professor is absorbed with delight in your letter.’—‘Your letters
are always so interesting and a real pleasure to _him_.’—‘How grateful
I ever am for your _untiring goodness_ to him. Your letters really
are one of the _great_ pleasures of his life.’—‘Your lovely letter
with the sweet little people looking from the ridge of the hill at the
rising sun so delighted Di Pa.[53] He looked at it long and lovingly
and kept repeating “Beautiful! beautiful! beautiful!”’ And when he was
ill in 1897:—‘Your letters (the only ones he at present has) he much
enjoys.’
These letters were full of passing allusions to her friends, of whom
she now had many amongst persons distinguished in art and society.
She was slow at forming intimacies but she was tenacious of them when
made. As she wrote to her friend of many years’ standing, the Hon. Mrs.
Sutton Nelthorpe, in 1896:
I’m sorry now that I can see you so seldom.—That’s me, so slow at
getting to want a person and then wanting them so much.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN SEAT.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
To mention only a few of her friends, there were Mrs. Miller, Miss
Violet Dickinson, the Stuart Samuels, Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Jeune,
Lady Victoria Herbert, Rev. W. J. Loftie, Stacy Marks, the du Mauriers,
Mrs. Allhusen, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, the Edmund Evans’, Mr. Norman
Shaw, Mr. Austin Dobson, the Locker-Lampsons, Lady Mayo, the Hon.
Gerald and Lady Maria Ponsonby, the Hon. Mrs. Sutton Nelthorpe, Mrs.
Allingham, the Duchess of St. Albans, Lady Ashburton, the Tennysons,
Mrs. Arthur Severn, her daughters, the Misses Lily and Violet Severn,
and her husband, Mr. Arthur Severn, R.I., Miss Vyvyan, and Miss Fripp.
Miss Vyvyan, like Mrs. Basil Martineau and Mrs. Ridley Corbet (wife of
the distinguished painter, the late M. Ridley Corbet, A.R.A.), was a
fellow-student of Kate’s; Miss Fripp was niece of the well-known member
of the Royal Water-Colour Society. With Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D.,
for some years from 1887 her medical adviser, she was very friendly.
With Mr. Anderson, too; and also with Miss Mary Anderson, Kate was on
the most intimate terms during her life at Hampstead.
In March of this year Ruskin set himself the task of teaching her
perspective in about a dozen consecutive letters. He had often alluded
to the matter, but now he fills his letters with diagrams of cubes and
gables and arches, sparing no pains to make things plain to her and
setting her tasks which she most faithfully performed. The technical
parts of these letters would here be out of place but some of the side
issues suggested by them will bear quotation.
To tell the truth, the perspective in her drawings is often very
deficient, and the calm violation of its laws in some of her earlier
work was due, not to quaintness as people thought, but to real
inability to master it. She would innocently make independent sketches
of pretty cottages, real or imagined, and then calmly group them
together, with little or no correction or bringing into harmony, as
a background for a composition of playing children. In her earlier
years her father would often put these portions of her design into
proper perspective, and later on her brother John. Indeed, at her first
exhibition a critic was examining a drawing from _Under the Window_,
and as he looked it over, he exclaimed to a friend, first in amazement
and then in anger, ‘She has one point of sight here, and another here!
and here! and here!! Why, she has five distinct points of sight!’
Afterwards her brother would reduce the whole to correctness for her to
re-draw. So when Ruskin began to educate her in a branch of art which,
by the way, is neglected and loathed by not a few of the greatest of
the world’s painters, she explained to him how she was in this respect
in the excellent care of her brother. Mr. John Greenaway, by the way,
always believed that his sister’s curious inaccuracy was due to her
short-sightedness; as she would approach too closely to the objects she
drew, and so ‘got them out.’
Thereupon, on March 8, Ruskin writes: ‘I like Johnnie’s sticking
himself up to teach you perspective! I never believed you’d learn it,
or I’d have taught it to you here, and been done with it. Anyhow—don’t
you let him teaze you any more and just mind this to begin with.’ Here,
follow diagrams and explanation, and he goes on ‘That’s enough for
to-day. Three more scribbles will teach you all you’ll ever need to
know.’
Two days later he returns to the subject:—‘There’s no fear of your
forgetting perspective, any more than forgetting how to dance. One
can’t help it when one knows. The next rule you have to learn is more
than half way. One never _uses_ the rules, one only feels them—and
defies if one likes—like John Bellini. But we should first know and
enjoy them.’
The last words refer to the following passage which he had written
the day before, when sending her a copy he had had made for her of
Bellini’s picture:—
‘The Globe picture is one of a series done by John Bellini of the
Gods and Goddesses of good and evil to man.[54] She is the sacred
Venus—Venus always rises out of the sea, but this one out of laughing
sea of unknown depth. She holds the world in her arms, changed into
heaven.’
On March 12 he says, apropos of her work on the _Pied Piper_, ‘Finished
the rats, have you! but you ought to do dozens of rats in perspective
with radiating tails.’ Here he draws a rough example of what he means
and continues:—‘I believe the perfection of perspective is only
recent. It was first applied to Italian Art by Paul Uccello (Paul the
Bird—because he drew birds so well and many). He went off his head
with his love of perfection—and Leonardo and Raphael spoiled a lot of
pictures with it, to show they knew it. Now the next thing you have to
be clear of in perspective is that—the Heavenly Venus is out of it.
You couldn’t see her and the high horizon at once. But as she sees all
round the world there are no laws of perspective for her.’
Not unnaturally, perhaps, Miss Greenaway claims for herself the same
licence or privilege of abstention as Bellini was allowed, so on
March 17th Ruskin replies:—‘I didn’t answer your question “Why may
not I defy Perspective as well as John Bellini?” Not because you are
less—but because defying is a quite different thing from running
against. Perspective won’t put up with you—if you tread on her
toes—but will concede half her power to you if you can look her in the
eyes. I won’t tell you more till you’re across that river.’
Two other extracts from Ruskin’s letters, and the record of this year
is complete.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD,
_Monday_ 23 [_Jan. 1887_].
I’m still quite well thank God, and as prudent as can be—and have been
enjoying my own drawings! and think I shan’t mind much if there’s a
fault or two in your’s![typo for yours?]
But we will have it out about suns and moons like straw hats! and shoes
like butter boats—and lilies crumpled like pocket-handkerchiefs, and
frocks chopped up instead of folded. I’ve got a whole cupboard full of
dolls for lay figures and five hundred plates of costume—to be Kate
Greenawayed.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD [_April 4, 1887_].
The anemones are here—and quite lovely, but you know they’re not like
those wild ones of Italy and wither ever so much sooner.
I’m enjoying my botany again—but on the whole I think it’s very absurd
of flowers not to be prettier! How they might all grow up into lovely
trees—and pinks grow like almond blossom, and violets everywhere like
daisies, tulips climb about like Virginian creeper—and not stand
staring just as if they’d been just stuck into the ground.—Fancy a
house all in a mantle of tulips.—And how many new shapes they might
invent!... And why aren’t there Water Roses as well as Water Lilies?
In the early part of the year Kate Greenaway seems to have designed
a cover for _The Peace of Polissena_, by Miss Francesca Alexander, a
‘Part’ of _Christ’s Folk in the Apennine_, edited and partly written
by Ruskin—a graceful reply to her supposed but of course entirely
imaginary jealousy of that lady’s work—but it does not appear to have
been used. This may have been a result of the return of the Master’s
illness which again laid him low in the spring of 1887.
In January of 1888 we find him sufficiently recovered to write the
following pathetic letters from Sandgate, whither he had gone to
recuperate.
In other letters of this period he complains that he has hardly
strength to answer hers, and that he is sadly oppressed by the cold
which oppresses her. He praises her for her appreciation of Donatello,
and says that Donatello would have appreciated Kate Greenaway. But
he qualifies his praise by telling her that she would do far more
beautiful things if she would not allow herself to be hurried away
by the new thoughts which crowd upon her and hinder her from fully
realising _any_.
Then he falls foul of modern novels, of which he is having a surfeit
through the circulating library. Some of the books for girls he
finds passably good but deplores the fashion, which began with
_Misunderstood_, of breaking children’s backs, so that one never knows
what is going to happen to them when they go out walking!
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
[SANDGATE] _27 Jan. 88_.
You cannot conceive how in my present state, I envy—that is to say only
in the strongest way, long for—the least vestige of imagination, such
as yours. When nothing shows itself to me—all day long—but the dull
room or the wild sea and I think what it must be to you to have far
sight into dreamlands of truth—and to be able to see such scenes of
the most exquisite grace and life and quaint vivacity—whether you draw
them or not, what a blessing to have them there—at your call. And then
I stopped and have been lying back in my chair the last quarter of an
hour,—thinking—If I could only let you feel for only a quarter of an
hour what it is to have no imagination—no power of calling up lovely
things—no guidance of pencil point along the visionary line—Oh how
thankful you would be to find your mind again.
And what lovely work you have spent—where no one will ever see it
but poor me—on the lightest of your messages. Do you remember the
invitation sent by the girl holding the muffin high on her toasting
fork? You never did a more careful or perfect profile. And the clusters
of beauty in those festival or farewell ones?
Well, I had joy out of them—such as you meant—and more than ever
I could tell you, nor do I ever cease to rejoice at and wonder at
them,—but with such sorrow that they are not all in a great lovely
book, for all the world’s New Years and Easter days.
You might do a book of Festas, one of these days—with such processions!
[Illustration: HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY.
_From a water-colour drawing made by Kate Greenaway for John Ruskin
upon his birthday. In the possession of Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._]
By ‘processions’ are meant the long drawings with a bevy of following
maids, and sometimes of boys too, of which one or two examples are
included in this book. They contain some of Miss Greenaway’s most
careful and dainty work in drawing, colour, and composition, but,
unfortunately, are so large that they have suffered great reduction.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
[SANDGATE] _17 Feb. 88_.
It’s just as bad here as everywhere else—there are no birds but
seagulls and sparrows—there is snow everywhere—and north-east wind
on the hills,—but none on the sea—which is as dull as the Regent’s
Canal. But I was very glad of the flower letter yesterday,—and the
chicken-broth one to-day, only I can’t remember that cat whom I had
to teach to like cream. I believe it _is_ an acquired taste—and that
most cats can conceive nothing better than milk. I am puzzled by Jim’s
inattention to drops left on the tablecloth—he cleans his saucer
scrupulously, but I’ve never seen him lap up, or touch up, a spilt drop.
He is an extremely graceful grey striped fat cushion of a cat,—with
extremely winning ways of lying on his back on my knee, with his head
anywhere and his paws everywhere.
But he hasn’t much conversation and our best times are I believe when we
both fall asleep.
He says he yearns for ‘Pipers,’ alluding, of course, to drawings for
‘_The Pied Piper of Hamelin_, by Robert Browning, with 35 Illustrations
by Kate Greenaway. Engraved and printed in colours by Edmund Evans,’
which George Routledge & Sons were just publishing. The book, which
was charming throughout, save for a poor drawing on page 31 and a
curious solecism on page 39, met with immediate and gratifying success.
Stacy Marks wrote:—‘You have far exceeded my expectations in carrying
through what must have been a strange and difficult task.’ Ruskin spoke
of it as the grandest thing she had ever done. An American admirer
wrote enthusiastically:—‘You have more followers in the States than
ever the Pied Piper of Hamelin had.’ She sold the original drawings for
a large sum to Messrs. Palmer & Howe of Manchester.
On Feb. 23 Ruskin writes:—
The Piper came by the 11 post—ten minutes after my note left this
morning. I only expected outline proofs, so you may judge how pleased I
was.
It is all as good and nice as it can be, and you really have got through
your rats with credit—and the Piper is sublime-and the children lovely.
But I am more disappointed in the ‘Paradise’ than I expected to be—a
_real_ view of Hampstead ponds in spring would have been more celestial
to me than this customary flat of yours with the trees stuck into it at
regular distances—And not a Peacock!—nor a flying horse!!
The only other publications of the year were the sixth _Almanack_, of
which 20,000 out of 37,500 copies went to America and 6,500 to France,
and a contribution to _The American Queen_. There were also private
commissions executed for Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Northcote, and Mr.
Ponsonby.
[Illustration: COTTAGES.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J.
Veitch, Esq._]
But the crowning event of 1888 was the friendship which she now formed
with Mrs. Allingham. Sixteen years before they had worked side by side
as students, but since then their paths had diverged. The account
of their intimacy will best be told in that delightful artist’s own
words:—
It must have been in 1872 or 1873 that I first met Kate Greenaway at
an evening class at the Slade School (which I only attended for three
months). I had given up my student work at the R.A. schools—(she
doubtless had then left Kensington) for drawing on the wood in my own
studio.
I was not formally introduced to her till several years after I was
married, when I met her at an evening party at Tennyson’s—in Belgrave
Square, I think. Mr. Frederick Locker presented me to her, and we had a
pleasant talk, I remember. In 1881, we went to live at Witley in Surrey,
and among our kindest neighbours were Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Evans, with
whom Kate often came to stay.
For several years we (K. and I) had merely pleasant friendly meetings
without in any way becoming intimate. I think it was in the spring
of 1888 that we went out painting together in the copses near Witley
and became really _friends_. In the autumn of that year we removed to
Hampstead, and it was always a pleasure to visit Kate in her beautiful
home and to sit and chat with her by the hour in her cosy little
tea-room or in the great studio full of interesting things. When the
time came for saying good-night, she would always come down to the
hall-door and generally put on a hat hanging in the hall and come as far
as the gate for more friendly last words.
One day in the autumn of 1889 we went to Pinner together on an
exploring expedition for subjects, and were delighted with some of
the old cottages we saw there. I had been pressing her ever since our
spring time together at Witley to share with me some of the joys of
painting out of doors. Another day we went farther afield—to Chesham
and Amersham. She was delighted with the beauty of the country and the
picturesque old towns—especially with the ‘backs’ at Amersham and the
river with its border of willows and little cottage gardens and back
yards. As evening drew on and black clouds warned us that a storm was
imminent, we hailed a baker’s cart that was going towards our station
and we agreed that it gave us a capital view of the country over the
high hedges.
In the spring of 1890 I took my children to Freshwater, Isle of Wight,
and found rooms near us for Kate. She and I went out painting together
daily, either to some of the pretty old thatched cottages around
Farringford or to the old dairy in the grounds, when we often had a
friendly visit from the great poet himself, or from Mr. Hallam Tennyson,
with an invitation to come up to tea.
During the summer of that year (1890) we continued our out-door work
together, generally taking an early train from Finchley Road to Pinner,
for the day. She was always scrupulously thoughtful for the convenience
and feelings of the owners of the farm or cottage we wished to paint,
with the consequence that _we_ were made welcome to sit in the garden or
orchard where _others_ were refused admittance.
I am afraid that her short sight must have greatly added to the
difficulty of out-door painting for her. I remember her exclaiming one
day at Pinner, ‘What am I to do? When I look at the roof it is all a red
blur—when I put on my spectacles I see every crack in the tiles.’
Though we often sat side by side, painting the same object (generally
silently—for she was a very earnest, hard worker—and perhaps I was,
too), it seemed to me that there was little likeness between our
drawings—especially after the completion in the studio. But she was one
of the most sensitive of creatures and I think she felt that it might
be wiser for both of us to discontinue the practice of working from
the same subjects, so, after that summer of 1890, we did not go out
painting any more together. Whether days or months passed between our
meetings, I was always sure of the same hearty greeting from her.
The last time I saw her was Feb. 28, 1901, at the Fine Art Society.
I thought she looked fairly well, and seemed so, though she spoke of
having felt tired sometimes. But she said nothing of the serious illness
of the year before. It was not possible to have much talk then. I became
exceedingly busy just after that time, and in May went abroad—and when
later on in the year I called at her house, I was told she was not well
enough to see friends.
Her work remains for all to see and enjoy. Of herself, I can truly say
that she was one of the most honest, straightforward, and kindly of
women: a sympathetic, true, and steadfast friend.
The year 1889 produced, besides the _Almanack_, which by now had become
an institution, _Kate Greenaway’s Book of Games_—with, as a matter
of course, Mr. Evans as engraver and printer, and G. Routledge & Sons
as publishers—and ‘_The Royal Progress of King Pepito_, written by
Beatrice F. Cresswell, illustrated by Kate Greenaway,’ and published by
the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Of each of these books
nearly ten thousand copies were issued. The _Book of Games_, in which
she could choose her own subjects and follow her own bent, found K. G.,
if not at her best, at least happy and unrestrained, while with _King
Pepito_ it was otherwise. As was usually the case with her, she found
it hard to assimilate another’s ideas. The inelasticity of story-book
illustrating seemed to paralyse her pencil and she became mannered and
conventional.
[Illustration: PENCIL AND TINT DRAWING.
_In the possession of B. Elkin Mocatta, Esq._]
This year she was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters
in Water-Colours, and was moreover represented by thirteen frames of
drawings in the British Section of the International Exhibition at
Paris.[55] These were greatly admired, and elicited the following,
amongst innumerable other tributes of praise:—
Son genre a été une innovation et une preuve de bravoure, comme tous les
actes d’indépendance dans l’ordre moral et artistique.
Lancer au milieu d’une société blasée, ces échappés de nurseries, vêtus
à la mode bizarre et charmante qu’on appelle maintenant ‘la Greenaway,’
était à coup sûr original....
Les œuvres de l’aquarelliste anglaise jettent-elles là une note
fraîche et gaie, et font-elles l’effet d’un enfant dans un intérieur de
vieux, d’un oiseau égaré dans un cloître....
L’usateur des Almanachs semble avoir une préférence marquée pour
certaines couleurs: elle excelle dans l’usage du blanc, du rose, et
du vert. Avec leur emploi, elle arrive à des teintes effacées d’un
effet charmant. Ses tons évoquent l’image des pendules à fleurs
et des soies anciennes, des vieilles faïences à paysages et des
céladonnades à la Watteau, toutes ces choses, comme elles nous arrivent
maintenant, mangées de soleil, vieilles d’un siècle et pourtant encore
délicieusement jolies, ainsi que les aquarelles qui en réveillent le
souvenir.
Since the spring of 1888 there had been no letters from Ruskin, who had
made his last foreign tour to France, Switzerland, and Italy in the
vain hope of renewing his health. Now in the spring of 1889 he was back
at Brantwood with ten pathetic years before him of growing infirmity.
In May he was well enough to write to Miss Greenaway the following
letters, which were to be the last he was ever to send. In the course
of the following month he produced a chapter of _Præterita_ and then
his literary career was closed.
RUSKIN TO KATE GREENAWAY
BRANTWOOD _May-day 1889_.
I’ve been a-maying with you all day,—coming upon one beautiful thing
after another in my drawer, so long unopened—most thankfully to-day
unlocked again—and sending balm and rose and lily sweetness all
through the old study. What exquisite drawings those were you did just
before I fell so ill,—the children passing under the flower arch—&c.!
and Joan tells me you are doing _such_ lovely things now with such
backgrounds,—grander than ever, and of course the Piper is the best
book you ever did—the Piper himself unsurpassable—and I feel as if
he had piped me back out of the hill again, and would give some spring
times yet to rejoice in your lovely work and its witness to them.
I do hope much, now—the change is greater and deeper for good than it
has ever been before, but I have to watch almost every breath lest I
should fall back again.
I wonder if you would care to come down in the wild rose time—and draw
a branch or two, with the blue hills seen through them, and perhaps
study a little falling water—or running—in the green shadows. I
wouldn’t set you to horrid work in the study, you should even draw
any quantity of those things that you liked—in the forenoon—and
have tea in the study, and perhaps we could go on with the Swiss fish
story! and I’ve some psalter work in hand that I want you to help me
intebbily,—and poor Joanie will be so thankful to have somebody to look
after me a little, as well as her:—and so—perhaps you’ll come, won’t
you?
BRANTWOOD, _3 May, 1889_.
I am so very thankful that you can come—and still care to come—! I was
so afraid you might have some work on hand that would hinder you—but
now, I do trust that you will be quite happy, for indeed you will find
here, when you are at liberty to do what you like best,—the exact
things that become most tractable in their infinite beauty. You are
doing great work already—some of the pages of the Piper are magnificent
pictures, though with a white background—you will be led by the blue
mountains and in the green glens to a deeper colour-melody—and—to
how much else—there is no calculating. Please bring the primrose
picture!—it will be the intensest delight to me and in looking over
your drawings again, (how many do you think there are in my Kate drawer,
now—besides those in the cabinets?) I feel more than ever—I might
almost say twice as much as I used to, their altogether unrivalled
loveliness.
And I think, as soon as you have seen all the exhibitions, and feel able
to pack your country dresses and sacrifice London gaieties for monastic
peace in art and nature, that you should really come; the roses will
soon be here—and the gentians and hyacinths will certainly be here
before you—and it is best, while all things bid fair for us, to take
Fortune at her word.
I trust that my health will go on improving—but I might take cold, or
Joanie might—or the children. At present we’re all right and I want you
to come as soon as may be.
BRANTWOOD _Sunday 12 May, 1889_.
I _am_ so sorry you can’t come sooner, to see the gentians—but I
suppose they contrive ways of growing them now even in London. But I
have a cluster of nine,—in a little glass in the study bow window—you
know where _that_ is?!—three little roses pretending to be peach
blossoms in another little glass on my table, and beside them a
cluster of ‘myrtilla cara’—if you don’t know what that is, it’s just
jealousy and I’ll make you paint some—where your easel shan’t tumble,
nor your colours be overflown—I don’t a bit know what’s the right
word—Shakespeare’s no authority, is he nowadays?—and next the Myrtilla
Cara who is in her sweetest pride and humility of fruit-like blossom,
there’s a cluster of the most beautiful pyrus I ever saw—it is almost
white, I suppose with the cold and rain, where it blooms on the outside
wall, but on my table—brought in by Joanie, it has become glowing
red—not in the least like a rose—but yet not in the least vulgar—like
a lady wearing a scarlet cloak—and with its own grand laurel-like
leaves.
Well, if you can’t come yet you can’t—but you must read a little bit of
_me_ every day—to keep you steady against the horrible mob of animals
calling themselves painters, nowadays (—I could paint better than they
by merely throwing my ink bottle at them—if I thought them _worth_ the
ink). But take my Ariadne Florentina—and read for to-morrow the 112th
paragraph, p. 94—and in the appendix, the 244th page down to ‘steam
whistle.’—Post’s going—and I must not begin any special appendix
to Katie—except that she must not plague herself with endeavours
to realise the impossible—Her first, and easy duty is to catch the
beautiful expressions of _real_ children.
BRANTWOOD, _14 May, 1889_.
I am so very happy you are teaching yourself French. It is the greatest
addition you can give to the happiness of your life,—some day I
hope—old as I am—to see you drawing French children—and listening to
them!
And you must learn a little Latin too! only to enjoy the nomenclature of
Proserpina. Please take it down and read pages 227, 228, about Myrtilla
cara—and just look at my type of all perfection, the Angel Raphael’s
left hand in the great Perugino,—it will refresh you and contrast, ever
more brightly and richly, with modern mud and pewter.—But— ... the
idea of asking why a hand is so difficult! Why it’s ever so much harder
than even a foot—and for an _arm_—nobody ever could _paint_ a girl’s
arm yet—from elbow to wrist.—It’s not quite fair to show you these
two _tries_ of yours—but yet, the moral of them is that you must cure
yourself of thinking so much of hair and hats and parasols—and attend
_first_, (for some time to come) to toes—fingers—and wrists.
Thus ended, so far as Ruskin was concerned, a correspondence which had
not only been one of the greatest pleasures of Kate Greenaway’s life,
but had been above all a healthy stimulus and a liberal education.
The following year, 1890, which saw no publication calling for notice
other than the _Almanack_, was clouded by the death of her father,
Mr. Greenaway, on August 26th. He was one of those honourable,
hard-working, competent servants of the public who, content to do their
work quietly, look for no fame and no reward beyond the right to live
and earn an honest livelihood for themselves and their dependants.
Mr. Mason Jackson of the _Illustrated London News_ paid him a fitting
tribute when he wrote:—
I have known Mr. Greenaway so long and admired his sterling qualities so
much that I feel I have lost another of my valued friends. His family
will have the satisfaction of feeling that he has left behind him an
unblemished character and a respected name.
Ever ready to help in charitable undertakings, although almost driven
to her wits’ end to get through work which had to be done, Kate this
year designed a cover for the album of the Bazaar held in aid of the
‘New Hospital for Women’; such contributions she felt due to a public
from whom she had received so handsome a recognition. Very different,
however, were the feelings she expressed towards the methods of certain
journals of getting something for nothing, and over these she would
wax exceedingly indignant. There were those who solicited her for an
(unremunerated) opinion ‘as a representative woman on the servant
question,’ or for a few lines on ‘why I like painting for children,’ or
for ‘the briefest message to our readers in a series of timely words or
messages from men and women distinguished in politics, literature, and
art’; or for a ‘gratuitous product of your skill—which would give you
a magnificent advertisement and result materially to your renown and
prosperity’!
To signalise her election she contributed to the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water-Colours four exhibits—‘A Portrait of a Little Boy,’
‘An Angel visited the Green Earth,’ ‘Boy with Basket of Apples,’ and
‘Head of a Boy’; and she exhibited also a portrait of a little lad at
the Royal Academy.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY IN HER STUDIO, 1895.
_From a private photograph by Mrs. William Miller._]