1898-1901
KATE GREENAWAY’S THIRD EXHIBITION—CORRESPONDENCE WITH JOHN RUSKIN,
AND MR. AND MRS. STUART M. SAMUEL—HER VIEWS ON ART, RELIGION, AND
BOOKS—PAINTING IN OIL—DEATH OF RUSKIN—ILLNESS AND DEATH OF KATE
GREENAWAY—POSTHUMOUS EXHIBITION—THE KATE GREENAWAY MEMORIAL.
Besides a visit to Lady Jeune, at whose house Kate again had the
pleasure of meeting the Princess Christian and other royal ladies, the
year 1898 was marked by only one event of any moment. This was the
third exhibition of her pictures at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery,
and she approached the ordeal with considerable misgivings. There was
no need for apprehension, however. Out of one hundred and twenty-seven
little pictures eloquent of her unbounded industry, sixty-six found
purchasers, the total receipts reaching the sum of £1,024:16s.[72]
But the results did not satisfy her. After the opening day she wrote to
Miss Dickinson:—
_Feb. 22, 1898._
I’m so glad it is over. I hate having to talk to crowds of strangers,
and then it is a very anxious time after working for it so long. At the
Fine Art they say it will be successful; that always, if they sell as
much as that on the Private View day, that it is all right—but I have
very great doubts if it is so, and the large Pencil and Chalk drawings
I fear do _not_ take at all. The little ones sell, and the dressed-up
babies. I’ve felt depressed about it and I hardly ever feel that unless
there is a cause. It was so tiresome—the day people go to buy was such
a horrid day of rain and sleet, and now to-day snow. Then there was
coming another Exhibition of old mezzo-tints with a private view which
they said would be so good for me as so many would be there, but now
they have had an offer and sold the whole collection, so that won’t come
off. They are going to have the Martian drawings[73] and others instead.
Then they had a beautiful sage _Flag_ to float outside, but when it came
home they had only put one ‘e’ into my name and it had to go back to be
altered.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Miss Violet Dickinson.]
And three weeks later, in reply to ‘kind inquiries’ after the
exhibition by her friend, she wrote in no better spirits:—
_13 March 1898._
No, the drawings are not nearly all sold. If more of the higher-priced
ones were gone instead of the others it would not be so bad, but it
takes a great number at only a few pounds each to make up anything like
enough to pay.
The Fine Art people say the East wind has kept people from going out and
they have had so few people in and out in consequence—but I feel far
more that my sort of drawing is not the drawing that is liked just now,
and also that I am getting to be a thing of the past, though I have not
arrived at those venerable years they seem to think fit to endow me with.
Whether or not she had good reason to complain of the fickleness of the
picture-buying public, certain it is that those who bought her pictures
then have had no reason to repent of their bargains.
[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF MISS VERA EVELYN SAMUEL.
_From the photogravure in colours in the possession of Stuart M.
Samuel, Esq., M.P._]
In this year Miss Greenaway completed the book-plate she had
undertaken to draw in colours for Mr. Stuart M. Samuel’s little
daughter Vera; and so conscientious was she that although her price for
it was only six pounds, she was occupied upon it on and off for two and
a half years; and when her client sent her a much larger sum than was
actually due, she insisted on returning to him the over-payment, while
‘feeling it so very kind.’ The pains she took were extraordinary—the
child, the design, the introduction of the wreath of roses with the
hovering bees (from Mr. Samuel’s own book-emblem), and the lettering,
all received the utmost consideration. The lettering proved too much
for her, as on the occasion when Ruskin so roundly trounced her;
so she agreed to have the words designed for her by a professional
letter-draughtsman for her to copy in her drawing. When it was finished
she took the keenest interest in the reproduction, and she was highly
flattered that Mr. Samuel decided to discard the ‘three-colour process’
and adopt the more precious but vastly more expensive photogravure on
copper. In this case each separate impression is printed from a plate
inked _à la poupée_—that is to say, the artist-printer inks the plate
with the various coloured inks carefully matched to the tones of the
drawing; so that, when the plate is passed through the press only one
copy can be obtained from each printing, and the plate has to be inked
again. A few impressions, therefore—say ten, or thereabouts—cost as
much as the original drawing, but the result justifies the expenditure.
The reproduction here given is not from the drawing itself, but is
a three-colour reproduction from the printed impression which has
often been mistaken for the original. The artist was delighted, and
wrote—‘How much I should like to do a book like this, but I suppose
it is fearfully expensive.... It is really beautifully done.’ In this
letter she goes on to revert to her ill-health, and succeeding letters,
in a like strain, led her friends to suspect the true cause of what
she thought was ‘influenza.’ Thus, on the eve of staying at Cromer
with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel, she writes—on the 15th of May 1900, after
a recurrence of illness—‘Please forgive my not coming. I know you
would have been a Vision in the Loveliest of Colours. I should so much
like to come to tea again later on when I’m not so busy, and see you
and some more First Editions.’ And again: ‘I hope you are quite well
again. I am not yet. I suppose I’ve had influenza. I never felt so
ill before.’ Then follows a series of letters full of hopes of future
meeting, of acknowledgments of commissions given, and of gratitude
for kindnesses received. The kindnesses, as was usual with her, she
sought to return by the gift of little drawings to her hosts and their
children, for although she loved attentions she never liked to feel
the weight of indebtedness. She used to be a little nervous in making
these presentations. On one occasion, when she made such a gift to one
of the present writers and she was asked to sign it, she wrote in her
flurry ‘Kate Spielmann’—and there the quaint signature remains (rather
smudged out by her impulsive forefinger) at the present moment.
As in the record of the immediately preceding years, so in that of 1898
we have to depend on letters, written in the main to Ruskin, for any
intimate impression of her life and character. They abound in allusions
to her hopes, fears, ambitions, enthusiasms, and perplexities, ethical
and religious, her preferences in art and literature, her generous
appreciation of the gifts of others and her modest estimate of her own.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 12, 1898._
I went yesterday afternoon to see the Millais’ at the R.A. and I think
them more wonderful than ever.
It is splendid the impression of beauty and power—as you first step
into the rooms. Do you know well ‘The Boyhood of Sir Walter Raleigh’? I
think that boy’s face is the most beautiful I have ever seen—it makes
me cry to look at it. Its expression is so intensely wonderful—so is
‘The Stowaway.’—But it is going from one masterpiece to another. Still
there are some which do not appeal to me as much as others. The divine
‘Ophelia’ is there as divine as ever. People are making up to it. I have
thought it the most wonderful picture ever since I first saw it.
Then there is the girl’s face in ‘Yes!’—full of the most beautiful
feeling—like the Huguenot girl.—How he painted those children!—Angels
of Beauty. He is really a marvel....
I should like to have a sort of little packing case made that I
could put drawings into and send backwards and forwards for you to
see—sometimes—only perhaps you wouldn’t like them. If you would it
would be rather nice—a very narrow flat box always ready.
I fear the exhibition won’t be in the least successful; there seems to
me to be very few pictures sell now—or a person is popular just for
a little time. And there’s so much fad over art—if you like the new
things they say you are modern. I say Art isn’t modern: new or old in a
way. It is like summer is summer—spicy is spicy, and Art is Art, for as
long as the world is—isn’t that true? However, they have woke up to the
‘Ophelia’ so I forgive them a good deal.
But I can’t help feeling boiling over with rage when I read the
criticisms in some of the papers—so utterly ignorant; and then people
who don’t know are guided by this. I daresay you will say, ‘But what do
the people who don’t know matter?’—They don’t—but it is depressing.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 26, 1898._
I wish people would care about what I do more now. This Millais
Exhibition has rather woke them up. They got to think Leighton was a
poor feeble being and Millais nowhere before the New Art, but I’m rather
amused to hear the different talk now.—And then Poynter and Richmond,
to my great joy, have been going for them in their addresses. For a
great many years now I have thought the ‘Ophelia’ the greatest picture
of modern times and I still think so. They have unfortunately hung the
children being saved from the fire next to it, which was not a wise
choice, as the red of the fire one is, of course, very trying to those
nearest it—but oh, they ARE all wonderful.[74]
_Jan. 27._
I have been to see the Rossettis again to-day for a little change, for
I was too tired for anything. I like the small water-colours more and
more. The colours are so wonderful. I feel I _do_ such weak things
and think strong ones, and it is dreadfully tiresome. I do want to do
something nice—beautiful—like I feel—like I see in my mind, and
there I am trammelled by technical shortcomings. I will never begin a
lot of things together again because then you can’t do new ideas or try
different ways of work, and I always could only do one thing at once.
I live in the one thing and think about it, and it’s like a real thing
or place for the time. Even now, the moment I’m doing a new drawing
the morning rushes by—I’m so happy, so interested, I only feel the
tiredness when I can’t go on because it is too late or too dark.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 2, 1898._
I am reading some pretty stories translated from the French of Madame
Darmesteter, but I fancy some of the historical ones are rendered a
great deal more _un_historical, and your sympathy is expected from a
point of view that you can’t (or I can’t) give, if I think it out. But
I am much more puzzled the longer I live as to what is right and wrong.
I don’t mean for myself. The rules I knew as a child are still good for
me—I still think those right. But it’s other people’s minds seem to me
so strangely mixed up till I feel, why don’t people settle it once for
all, and do what they call right and not what they call wrong?
It seems to me to be so unjust, often, for there to be two laws about a
thing. I often ask people but I never learn—every one seems vague and
says—‘Oh well, if you do right you have your own self-respect’; but it
seems to me more than that. It _is_ right to do one thing—wrong to do
another; at least, isn’t this true?
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 29, 1898._
I long to be at work painting May-trees. There are such beauties on the
Heath only they are black instead of grey, or else they twist about
beautifully. May-trees have such sharp curves, don’t they, grow at right
angles, in a way, instead of curves? I like it so much. Do you know them
in Hatfield Park? They are the greyest, oldest trees I have ever seen.
May-trees don’t grow about that way at Witley. The May is all in the
hedges, not growing on the commons in single trees. Yet it must be very
much the same sort of sandy soil that is on the Heath, and Witley is
nearly all uncultivated land.
I always look with envy at the May-tree Burne-Jones painted in ‘Merlin
and Vivien’:—it is so wonderful.
In the following letter she describes her visit to Lady Jeune at
Arlington Manor, Newbury:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 14, 1898._
I feel rather low to leave Lady Jeune, she is so dear and kind. I
can’t tell you how kind she is to every one, and Madeline Stanley, the
daughter, is _so beautiful_ and so kind and so very unselfish. She
played Lady Teazle and she was a dream of loveliness, and, I thought,
acted it in so refined a manner. I felt considerably out of it all but
they were all very nice people and I did them pictures—I hope gave them
a little pleasure in compensation for their kindness to me.... I went
off for two or three little quiet walks by myself on the Common; it was
a fascination complete—a great joy. It made me wild with delight to
see it all—the yellow of the gorse and the brilliant green and orange
of the mosses, and the deep blue of the sky. Also, I grieve to say it,
and you will be shocked to think it of me, but those three lovely sirens
were rather depressing—one felt so different, one was of no account.
There was Miss Millard;—black curly hair and deep, deep grey eyes, and
sweet pink cheeks. There was Lady Dorothy FitzClarence with red-gold
hair and eyes like—was it Viola? (‘her eyes are green as glass, and so
are mine’);—eyes the greenest (or greyest) of things blue, and bluest
of things grey—cheeks the colour of a pink pale China rose, red lips
and creamy complexion. Then came that beautiful, that dearest siren of
them all—Madeline Stanley—who is so dear one could only rejoice in her
altogether. But think of poor me! I used to say to Lady Jeune, ‘Oh, let
me come away with you, away from these sirens, the air is full of them.’
No wonder the poor young men thirsted for the stage-manager’s blood, who
took the lion’s share of the beautiful sirens. They vowed such vengeance
I told them _I_ thought it very unfair, but they assured me their
injuries were great.
[Illustration: KATE GREENAWAY BEFORE THE FATES.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn._]
In another letter on the same occasion she writes, ‘I am a crow amongst
beautiful birds.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO LADY MARIA PONSONBY
_April 19, 1898._
It was lovely at Newbury—there is a common there just edging the
grounds tenanted by sweet little woolly white lambs—such pictures, with
wide-open anemones and blackthorn bushes. It made me so very happy to
walk about there and look at things.
There was acting going on and the house was filled with young men and
women, so I felt considerably out of it. But they were really most
of them very nice to me, and the three girls were dreams of beauty.
Madeline Stanley is so beautiful and not _modern_; she is so very dear
and kind—I think her perfection.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_April 20, 1898._
To-morrow is the New Gallery Private View, but there won’t be anything
to look at like the Rossettis. How I should like to live always in a
room with two or three Rossettis on the walls. You live in a great many
places at once, don’t you, when you have beautiful pictures hanging on
your walls? You lift up your eyes and you are away in a new land in a
moment.
I should find it hard to choose if I were allowed the choice of twelve
pictures. I would have had one of the Briar Rose pictures, _I know_:
‘The Maidens asleep at the Loom’—a small Rossetti, _I know_, but which
I am not quite certain,—perhaps the meeting of Dante and Beatrice in
Paradise. (Whenever I write Paradise I think of you. I remember writing
it ‘Paridise’ one day to you, and you were rather cross and wrote back
‘I’d write Paradise with an _a_ if I were you.’ I _did_ feel humiliated!)
Then what else! The beautiful Luini Lady with the jasmine wreath and
green gauzy veil and the divine smile.[75] It is a great deal to make
any one smiling a smile that you can never get tired of.
I’m reading the Diary of Grant Duff; it is so very interesting and full
of such funny pictures. I was rather interested last night, after I had
been writing about the twelve pictures, to find he talks of choosing
twelve, but his choices are not mine—and I’ve not chosen my twelve, and
besides perhaps my twelve are far away where I shall never see them—I
have seen so few.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 27, 1898._
I wish I did not have to make any money. I would like to work very hard
but in a different way so that I was more free to do what I liked, and
it is so difficult now I am no longer at all the fashion. I say fashion,
for that is the right word, that is all it is to a great many people.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 6, 1898._
Isn’t it curious how one can like good things so much and not do them?
I do love one figure or a number put into a little space with just room
for what they are doing. I don’t think figures ever look well with
large spaces of background. I know how fascinated I was by that one
of Rossetti’s—the Princess of Sabra drawing the lot. For one thing,
my mind runs to ornament or decoration in a way, though it has to be
natural forms, like foxgloves or vine-leaves. I can’t like a flower or
leaf I invent, though I often love those I see done.
[Illustration: On a letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 14, 1898._
I went to see the Guildhall pictures yesterday afternoon, but I can’t
help it, I like the English ones best. They are splendidly done
but—they don’t take me. I do like Bastien-Lepage and Millet and
Meissonier—I don’t think I’ve got sympathy with French art, it is
somehow too artificial. Perhaps I’m very, very wrong but—I can’t help
it, I feel so. I went one day to the Gallery of International Art. Some
things I liked but the greater number I felt wrong and not clever, and
some I felt loathsome. That is a strong word but I feel it. Shannon does
fine portraits. I think his pictures of girls are perfect, I like them
so very much.
Two days later she wrote to Miss Dickinson: ‘I went to see the pictures
at the International. Some are so funny. I laughed till the tears
really came. It is art gone mad.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
NEWHAVEN COURT, CROMER,
_August 26, 1898_.
There is a very, very pretty girl sitting opposite doing French. She
is occasionally extremely impertinent to me—I tell her _I am going to
tell you_. She says she would like to see you, and she likes your face
and she sends you her love. This is Miss Maud Locker-Lampson, looking so
lovely in a purple and green dress like a wild hyacinth. You would so
love all these nice dear children—they are _so_ nice—so good-looking.
And there is something else you would like—the loveliest tiny grey
kitten, such a sweet.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 1, 1898._
Isn’t it a pity more people do not love things?—The beautiful things of
the world are so little to so many; they go for drives where all they
look upon is so lovely and they care not one bit, but long to get home
again as quickly as possible.
I can’t tell why it is people are always trying to convert me. They seem
to look upon me as always such a ready subject, and really there is not
a more fixed belief than I possess—I have thought the same way ever
since I have had the power to think at all. How is it possible that I
should change? I know I shall not. If there is a God who made all the
wonderful things in this world, surely He would require some worship of
those also, but I can’t help thinking of a power so much greater than
all that altogether—a power that the best in us reaches to only.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 16, 1898._
I’m reading a book that makes me so unhappy—I hate it—I totally
disapprove of it, yet I want to read it to the end to know what it is
like. I feel all the time how wretched I should be if I had a mind like
the man who wrote this book. How curious it is the way people think—the
difference of how they think—how curious they are in the narrowness
of their—shall I say—vision? And there goes on the wonderful world
all the time, with its wonders hidden to, and uncared for by, so many.
How is it that I have got to think the caring for Nature and Art of
all kinds a _real_ religion? I never can, never shall see it is more
religious to sit in a hot church trying to listen to a commonplace
sermon than looking at a beautiful sky, or the waves coming in, and
feeling that longing to be good and exultation in the beauty of things.
How dreadful that sordid idea of a God is with the mind getting more and
more morbid and frightened. Why was the world made then? and everything
so wonderful and beautiful?
She recounts how somebody, who had felt it a duty to attempt to convert
her, had said, ‘“You can’t sit on that sofa for five minutes without
feeling steeped in sin”; and I said, “I often sit on it, and I don’t
feel like that; if I did I should try hard not to do wrong things.” And
so I would!’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Oct. 26, 1898._
How curiously days come back to you, or rather, live for ever in your
life—never go out of it, as if the impression was so great it could
never go away again. I could tell you so many such. One is so often
present I think I must tell that one now. Go and stand in a shady
lane—at least, a wide country road—with high hedges, and wide grassy
places at the sides. The hedges are all hawthorns blossoming; in the
grass grow great patches of speedwell, stitchwort, and daisies. You
look through gates into fields full of buttercups, and the whole of
it is filled with sunlight. For I said it was shady only because the
hedges were high. Now do you see my little picture, and me a little
dark girl in a pink frock and hat, looking about at things a good deal,
and thoughts filled up with such wonderful things—everything seeming
wonderful, and life to go on for ever just as it was. What a beautiful
long time a day was! Filled with time——
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_7 Nov. 1898._
I am reading a strange French Play. I should like to see it
acted—_Cyrano de Bergerac_. I feel it would be very taking when played.
It is so strange all the great things are a sacrifice. The thing that
appeals supremely seems to me always that. Yet how sad it should be, for
to the one it means desolation. It is a strange world this. How queer it
all is, isn’t it? living at all—and our motives and things matter, and
liking beautiful things, and all the while really not knowing anything
about the Vital Part of it—the Before and the After.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 1898._
Oh, so foggy again! No seeing to paint or draw. I hope it will soon
leave off this, but it always is so about Lord Mayor’s day. It is
nearly always an accompaniment, isn’t it? I saw the people going home
the other day with those long papers of the Show. Do you remember them?
How fascinating they used to be to me! how wonderful they seemed! Did
you like them? I have only seen Lord Mayor’s Show once. I would like to
see it again. I hope they will never give it up. I do so wish we had
a few more processions, and I’d like to revive all the old May-days,
Jacks-in-the-Green, and May-poles—then Morris dancers, all of them.
I’ve seen Morris dancers once only but they looked so nice with their
sticks and ribbons.
I wish I had something very nice to send you on this foggy day. I want
to go to the Fine Art this afternoon to see Alfred East’s drawings. One
will have to look at them by gas-light for the fog is so dense.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 27, 1898._
It really is fatal to me to have to do anything in a hurry, I must have
a quiet time. I can do just as much work or more if only I don’t feel
I’ve got to make haste—a sort of Dutch temperament—no, it is really
nervousness—comes in. Look at dear Rover! There’s a calm life—nothing
at all to bother about except to try to get more of the things he likes.
Such, presumably, as two chops instead of the one which, every day
of his spoiled life, Kate had grilled for him. And he might eat the
cakes and fancy biscuits at tea-time if he chose to commandeer them.
The inevitable result of such high living was occasional illness and
veterinary attentions.
The following are extracts from undated letters of this year:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
Dear Rover is, I am sorry to say, getting fatter again, after all the
trouble we have taken to make him thin. He is evidently meant to be
stout. One thing now, he never will go alone. We always have to be
with him. Once he would go for long walks by himself. They are quite
different, like people, when once you get to know them.
[Illustration: THE FABLE OF THE GIRL AND HER MILK PAIL.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of W. Finch, Esq._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
I have just heard from Joanie that you spent your day in the
drawing-room yesterday—so you would see the Burne-Jones’ and the Hunts.
How slowly the Hunts have dawned on me—but it is a comfort _they have
dawned_, isn’t it???? Ah, you say, WHAT a benighted being, what a little
Heathen! to have been so long.
[Illustration: ROVER IS INDISPOSED AND HAS TO BE BANDAGED.
On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
What a fuss there has been about Sir Herbert Kitchener!—I like it.—He
must have felt it was very nice for people to be so glad. I like a great
deal made of people who do things.
In the same strain she had written of another hero to Miss Dickinson
the year before:—
I’m very much impressed by Lord Roberts’ Indian book. I met him many
years ago at a children’s party at Lady Jeune’s. She told us we were
rival attractions and the little Princes and Princesses couldn’t make up
their minds which of us they wanted to see most.
He _was brave_—so were the others; they were a brave and noble lot. It
seems too wonderful as you read to think how people can be like that,
going to certain death—to the suffering of anguish. It feels to me too
much to take—too much to accept—but it’s beautiful.
In 1899 Kate Greenaway devoted herself seriously to the painting of
portraits in oil colours, and her letters of this year are full of
the difficulties which beset her and her indomitable determination to
master the mysteries of the new medium. Again and again we find her
bewailing—‘I wish I could paint and not do smooth sticky things’—‘I
can draw a little but I can’t paint’—‘Isn’t it too bad—too bad—how
_much_ I can admire and—how _little_ I can do.’
In March she said good-bye with a heavy heart to her friends the
Tennysons, on Lord Tennyson’s departure to take up the Governorship of
South Australia. They were destined never to meet again.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 3, 1899._
I’m not doing drawings that at all interest me just now. They are just
single figures of children which I always spoil by the backgrounds. I
never can put a background into a painting of a single figure, while
in a drawing there isn’t the least difficulty. Perhaps I don’t trouble
about the reality in the drawing. I put things just where I want them,
not, possibly, as they ought to go. And that seems to me the difficulty
of full-length portraits. It is all quite easy with just a head or half
length. It is funny the background should be the difficulty. The most
modern way is to have a highly done-out background and a figure lost in
mist, but I don’t see this. So I can’t take refuge there.
Miss Greenaway’s difficulty with backgrounds is that shared by every
artist, more or less. G. F. Watts, R.A., used to quote Rubens, who said
that ‘the man who can paint a background can paint a portrait.’
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 11, 1899._
What dismal books people do write! I have just been reading a story
by Hardy called _The Woodlanders_, so spoilt by coarseness and
unnaturalness. I say spoilt by this, for there are parts of it so
beautiful—all the descriptions of the country and the cider-making—it
is all so well described you really feel there. The end of the book is
simply _Hateful_. I hated to think his mind _could_ make it end so. Did
you ever read any of his books? so many people now seem to me to make
things unnatural—it is a curious thing to think so, but I’m sure it
is that they do—and the natural is so much greater. They like things
odd—eccentric.
She never missed an opportunity of seeing Burne-Jones’s pictures. Here
are two of a hundred instances:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Jan. 19, 1899._
I am going to-day to see the Burne-Jones drawings at the Burlington
Club. His drawings are so beautiful. I do wish you could see the large
painting of King Arthur at Avalon. How you would like to have it to look
at for a time! I should like to have it for a week hung opposite to me
that I might know it all—every bit.
How tired one would get of some paintings if one gazed upon them for a
week—as tired as one often gets of one’s own. I fear it is conceited
but there are a _very few_ drawings—little ones of my own—that I do
not get tired of, though I do of most of them.
_Saturday._
I went to see the Burne-Jones drawings yesterday. They are very lovely.
There are two or three I would like to have, but indeed there is not
one I would not, but there are two or three I would love to possess—a
procession with such lovely young girls in it. The studies for the
pictures are so beautiful—the chalk and pencil drawings. He draws
such beautiful faces; and I like his later drawings often better than
his earlier ones. He certainly had not gone off, except perhaps in
colour—but that was a phase. He had grown to like colder colour, brown
and cold grey, which I did not always like, preferring the beautiful
colouring of the ‘Chant d’Amour’ and ‘Venus Vinctrix.’ But then, I like
colour so much. Well, the _world is_ Coloured, so are people. I see
colour higher than things uncoloured for that reason.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Feb. 21, 1899._
I told you, didn’t I, that I was going to try if I could do portraits of
children? I don’t at all like it. I don’t feel near strong enough for
the strain of it. I know what the children are like—quite unaccustomed
to sitting still, and then to have to get a real likeness! I prefer the
little girls and boys that live in that nice land, that come as you call
them, fair or dark, in green ribbons or blue. I like making cowslip
fields grow and apple-trees bloom at a moment’s notice. This is what
it is, you see, to have gone through life with an enchanted land ever
beside you—yet how much it has been!
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 8, 1899._
The summer exhibitions now are never interesting. The poor artists
can’t afford to paint good pictures. No one will buy them. I think it
is very sad and such a pity—the sort of thing that’s taken now—cheap,
of course, that comes first—then comes the picture if you can call
it so (I often don’t). The colours are daubed on in great smears and
dashes. The drawing has gone—anywhere but to the picture—at a distance
it looks like something but close you can’t see anything. Now _I hate
pictures_ that don’t look right _close_. Sometimes the colour of them
is good, powerful, and strong, but—so was Millais, and with all else,
it ought to be added, the more and more do I grow to think Millais
wonderful. To me there is no question he is greatest. People quarrel
with me because I think him greater than Watts, but, is it conceited to
say?—_I know he is._ And Watts himself says so also. Ah! if I could
paint like Millais! then, then you’d see a proud person indeed.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 17, 1899._
My little model has taken to say such funny things lately. She said
yesterday some one had an illness that went in at his head and came out
at his feet. She also was talking of a little sister being ill and I
said, ‘Perhaps she is cutting a tooth.’ ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘she always
cuts her teeth with bronchitis.’ ... It inspires me so much to see good
paintings though I don’t think you can ever tell how they are done, or
at least I can’t. I often think that when I am painting myself no one
would guess I did that, or that, the look is all. You may do a thing
quite another way from the elaborate theory.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_March 23, 1899._
I make such awful beings in oil—you would be amused, but—I’m going on
till I emerge—I’m going to emerge, I’m so interested but SO STUPID. The
paint all runs away, and the big brushes! But think of the fine point
I’ve passed my life with! I knew where I was going then. Why, trying to
draw with a pencil with _no point_ is nothing to it. But, as I said,
I’m going to emerge—in the end—triumphant—????—but that appears to
be a considerable long way off yet.... I should like to paint Spring
one day. I see it all.... If I could _Paint in Oil_, you see, I could
do it,—_don’t you see?_ or do you smile? You _would_ if you saw the
Painting in Oil. I sit and laugh at it. My little model says—‘Oh, I
don’t think it’s so bad’—and tells other people I don’t get into a
mess. Upon which they say, ‘_That’s odd._’ I was rather touched by her
assumption of my triumphant progress. You like her for it—don’t you?
Ah, well, I’m going to do lovely little girls and boys by and by. I _am_.
[Illustration: THE MUFF (UNFINISHED).
_From the experimental oil painting in the possession of John
Greenaway, Esq._]
On the same subject she wrote to Miss Dickinson on April 24: ‘I am
more enthralled than ever by the oil paint, which begins to go where I
want it instead of where it wants to go itself.’
At the Exhibition of the Home Art Industries at the Albert Hall she has
an amusing contretemps.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
[Illustration]
_May 9, 1899._
Then the Princess Louise came and I was introduced to her. She is so
pretty and looks so young. I actually remembered to curtsey (which I
always forget), and I was just congratulating myself on having behaved
properly, when all my money rolled out of my purse on to the ground.
The Princess laughed and picked it up. Wasn’t it nice of her? Something
always happens to me.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 17, 1899._
I am improving now in my oil-painting. I begin to make the flesh look
like flesh and no longer white and chalky. I like doing it so much and
if only the models would not talk so much!—But how they talk! and if
you stop them talking they gape and make such ugly faces! Some one was
telling me that Sir Joshua Reynolds, to stop his sitters’ talking, had
a glass put up so that they could see him working. I think of adopting
that plan. You can’t think what you are doing while you have to listen.
I can’t see why they want to talk so and never think. How funny it
would be to have a mind that never liked to be alone with its own
thoughts—very dreadful I should find it. I get to feel very tired and
miserable if I can’t have any time to be quiet in.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_May 31, 1899._
You can’t think how funny it is—but finding the power of oil-painting
now, my curious mind is wishing to see, and seeing, all subjects large;
it seems as if my long-ago and ever-constant wish—to paint a life-size
hedge—might now be realised. What a divine thing to do! A life-sized
girl in the front and then the large foxgloves and wild roses, and
strawberries on the ground. I should be lost in my picture. I should
have to have a stool that moved up and carried me about over my picture.
All the same I should not wonder if I _do_ do a life-size thing! Perhaps
I have hopes of the capacity of oil paint that won’t be realised, but it
is nice to get a medium to work in that does what you want more at once.
I don’t like small oil things half as much as water-colours—but I do
lose the _go_ of things in water-colours.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_June 7, 1899._
I went to the Tate Gallery the other afternoon, and somehow I didn’t
like it—much. It is a beautiful Gallery, but somehow tomb-like—and my
dearest-loved of English pictures, Millais’ ‘Ophelia,’ doesn’t look its
best there. Now I feel this picture ought to have a gallery that suits
it exactly! but perhaps some other time I may go and like it ever so
much. As it was, I grieve to say, the entrance was what I liked best,
going out and coming in. There’s the beautiful river and the boats and
the opposite shore of wharves and buildings, and I felt how nice it
must be at Venice to come out and find the sea—I do like the sea—or
a large river to every town. But this view of the Thames fascinated
me—like seeing the river from the drawing-room at the Speaker’s house.
I am almost getting to think that an oil-picture does undergo a change a
little while after it is painted—I mean twenty or forty years—and then
if it is a real good one settles itself into remaining a wonderful thing
for ever. For some of the pictures of forty years ago get a curious
look. I’m thinking of Egg, and that time—or are they not quite good
enough? For the Leslies remain charming.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
[Illustration]
_June 22, 1899._
The air is scented with the hay—everywhere—and the wilderness of the
garden has fallen before a very hard-working young gardener. I loved it
all overgrown, but the gardener told me when he saw it _he could not
come again_, he felt so _depressed_. Queer, isn’t it, how differently
people feel? It is very fresh and flowery at this moment. The rain
has brought out the flowers. There are roses, white peonies, purple
irises, large herbaceous poppies, lupins, syringa, marigolds, foxgloves,
delphiniums, and campanulas, and day lilies, and many others. It is the
garden’s best moment, and it is summery and not that frightful heat
which is too much for me. Do get _Elizabeth and her German Garden_. It
[suggests] Alfred Austin’s garden books but it is amusing and pretty....
I am depressed often when I can’t do this new painting as I like. I
take a rush on and think every difficulty is over—when I find myself
suddenly plunged deeper than ever in things that won’t come right—_but
they’ve got to_—they don’t know that, but it is so—I’m not going to
be beaten. I can see loveliness surely. My fingers have got to learn to
do what my eyes wish—they will have to—so there it is. _I see such_
colour and I can’t find a paint to make it. In water-colour I could
get any colour I could see, but I can’t in oils. I get something pretty
like; then in a day or two some underneath colour has worked up and
horrid colour is the result. However, I’m beginning to find out many
things, so I hope as I go on working I may get to do it all right.
It poured with rain here yesterday. I hope this may make the gardener
less depressed when he contemplates our weeds. Poor weeds—fine tall
fresh green thistles and docks spreading out their leaves in lovely
curves. I’m sorry for all the things that are not much wanted on this
earth.—And long ago, I loved docks; we used to play with the seeds and
pretend it was tea. We used to have a tea-shop and weigh it out and
sell it for tea. Perhaps docks do not mean that for any one else in the
world—like the purple mallow and the seeds I used to call cheeses,
sweet little flat green things, do you know?
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_July 25, 1899._
Dear Rover’s pride has had a fall. There are two swans have come to live
on the White Stone pond, and Rover goes and swims there on his way home.
Johnny said he could see the people round the pond laughing, and when
he got up to it there was Rover swimming about as if the pond belonged
to him, while the swans who thought it belonged to them were fluttering
their wings and craning their necks. Rover still remained unconcerned
and imperturbable, when one of the swans took hold of his tail and
pulled it! This did vanquish Rover, who left the pond hurriedly amidst
the derisive laughter of the bystanders.
He has some nice friendly swans on the other pond who swim up and down
with him. I suppose he thought all swans were alike. I am curious to
know if he goes in to-day.... Dear Rover stood firm and did go in.
Johnny saw him quite unconcerned swimming about with the swans flapping
about at the back. Now don’t you think this was much to his credit? I
only hope they won’t peck him!
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. EDMUND EVANS
Dear Mrs. Evans—You don’t know how I feel that I don’t get time to
write—you must think it horrid—but I have so many things to do because
I can’t afford to pay for them being done, and my little leisure bit of
time is taken up writing to Mr. Ruskin every week—for now he can’t go
out, or often do things that mean so much to him. Then I am trying to
do children’s portraits life-size—in oils; this means giving up a lot
of time to practising, a year possibly, and making no money. Then I’ve
the house to see to and my dresses and needlework and trying to write
my life—as you will, I think, see there is a good deal more than a
day’s work in each day. I want to come and see you very much but I fear
I can’t before the autumn—then I shall try. I have wanted rather to go
somewhere quite by myself to the sea to try to get on with my book. I
might come near you, if not to stay with you. I hope you like Ventnor
and that it suits Mr. Evans.
[Illustration: THE STICK FIRE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Harry J. Veitch,
Esq._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Sept. 1899._
[Illustration]
Do you know, I’ve had a great deal of pleasure out of oak branches and
acorns—what a lovely green they are! One day walking by the sea, I saw
a little bit of lovely emerald green on the sand. When I looked to see
what it was there were two _acorns_! shining and looking so brilliant. I
could not have thought a small thing could show so much colour.
I go on liking things more and more, seeing them more and more
beautiful. Don’t you think it is a great possession to be able to get
so much joy out of things that are always there to give it, and do not
change? What a great pity my hands are not clever enough to do what my
mind and eyes see, but there it is!
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 7, 1899._
There are not any very good children’s books about just now that I have
seen. The rage for copying mine seems over, so I suppose some one will
soon step to the front with something new. Children often don’t care a
bit about the books people think they will, and I think they often like
grown-up books—at any rate I did. From the Kenny Meadows pictures to
Shakespeare I learnt all the plays when I was very young indeed. It is
curious how much pictures can tell you—like the plays without words.
I suppose I asked a good deal about them and was told, and read little
bits anyhow. I never remember the time when I didn’t know what each
play was about. They were my Sunday evening’s amusement, and another
book called _The Illuminated Magazine_[76] that had all sorts of things
in it. Some I specially liked, called ‘The Recreations of Mr. Zig-Zag
the Elder.’ Perhaps you know the magazine. And then there were accounts
of the old London Churches and old places of interest: the Lollards’
Tower, St. John’s Gate, St. Bartholomew’s Church. No, I believe these
were in a book called _The Family Magazine_. I believe one of our three
cherished large volumes was that name,—the other two the _Illuminated_.
How much prettier those old illustrations are than the modern engraved
photograph. I hate the modern book and magazine illustration. But there
is a BUT—the illustrations of Hugh Thomson and Anning Bell, also Byam
Shaw, are quite beautiful and quite different.
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Nov. 26, 1899._
I am rather liking red and blue just now. I suppose it is the winter
makes all faint colours look so pale. I like the strong warm colours of
scarlet—it is nice to do. I always like painting fur, which I think is
rather curious, for I don’t like painting hair and never do it well.
Rembrandt painted hair so beautifully—the portrait of Saskia with the
fair hair hanging down was so beautifully done; I did envy that. Then
Correggio also—do you remember Cupid’s curls? so lovely; and some of
Sir Joshua’s, the Angels’ heads—their hair is done so wonderfully. Fair
hair is more difficult to paint than dark; I spoil mine by getting the
darks too dark in it, so losing the fair colour of it, though I do think
it is easier in oils than in water-colours.
[Illustration: TWO AT A STILE.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Mrs. Levy._]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 5, 1899._
There is going to be an exhibition for children at the Fine Art—the
Private View is on Saturday—but I think it is very likely the children
won’t appreciate it. I often notice that they don’t at all care for what
grown-up people think they will. For one thing, they like something
that excites their imagination—a very real thing mixed up with a great
unreality like Blue Beard. How I used to be thrilled by ‘Sister Ann,
Sister Ann,’ done by the servants in the agonised voice of Blue Beard’s
wife, and I could hardly breathe when the stains would not come off the
key.—Those wonderful little books they used to sell in coloured covers,
a penny and a halfpenny each—they were condensed and dramatic. They are
spoilt now by their profuseness.
I never cared so much for _Jack the Giant-Killer_, or _Jack and the
Beanstalk_, or _Tom Thumb_, as I did for _The Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood_, _Cinderella_, and _Beauty and the Beast_. I did not like _Puss in
Boots_ as well either. Of course they were all deeply fascinating, but
the three pretty ones I liked best. It would be curious to do a book of
them from one’s remembrance of them in one’s early thoughts. I know my
Blue Beard people were not dressed as Turks then.
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
KATE GREENAWAY TO RUSKIN
_Dec. 13, 1899._
It has been so dark lately, I’m quite afraid to do my things. For a
dark day does so much harm—just spoils everything. I’m getting quite
used to oil now, but I still make out things too much, especially the
lines round the eyelids. It is a pity, but I always have that tendency
and this dark weather makes it worse. I hope I may get out of it in
time—but I may never.
Dear Rover has hurt his foot and is quite sulky because Johnny has gone
out this evening. He expects us always to be at home now. You will say
to yourself, why does she write such silly letters to me just now? and
they are. It is my mind has got too much in it—more than it can hold.
Now you will say, ‘Oh, I don’t think her mind has got anything in it
at all.’ What do you think it is doing?—Trying to write a play in the
midst of all this bother! Now I never could think out a _plot_ to write
a story about, and here, at this most inopportune moment, a play has
got into my mind and insists on being written, and goes on and on and
develops in a quite curious manner. And there am I with no time to spare
and it _will_ be written down—isn’t that funny? Of course it won’t be
good or of any use—only I must do it!
On Saturday, the 20th January 1900, the following entry which says so
little, but meant so much to Kate Greenaway, appears in her diary—‘Mr.
Ruskin died to-day at 2.30 in the afternoon from influenza.’
For him there could be no regret that the ‘black archwaygate had swung
open to the glittering fields of freedom,’ but for those left behind it
would be hard to say by how much the world was the poorer. It was not
characteristic of her to say much when she felt most deeply.
It was Mr. Stuart Samuel who broke the news to her. ‘On Sunday,’ she
wrote to Mrs. Evans, ‘some people came in and said they had seen from
the papers he was dead. I didn’t believe it, but the next morning I got
letters from Brantwood.’
Then on the following day she wrote in her trouble:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. M. H. SPIELMANN
_22 January 1900._
I’m dreadfully sorry about Mr. Ruskin’s death. It was a great shock.
I only heard from Mrs. Severn on Saturday morning; she said then he
had influenza, but they did not think of any danger. I’ve heard again
to-day—they only knew there was any fear of it being fatal between 10
and 11 Saturday morning. He died at half-past 2, entirely painlessly all
through. I feel it very much, for he was a great friend—and there is no
one else like him.
Soon she came round to talk it over and open her heart to this
correspondent, who had known Ruskin, too, and loved him well. And it
will be observed that up to his death, never in her letters to Ruskin
did she write a word about her own ill-health, lest she should distress
one for whom she had so affectionate and unselfish a friendship.
[Illustration: STUDY FROM LIFE.
_Illustration_ (_‘Ronald’s Clock’_) _in ‘Littledom Castle,’ by Mrs.
M. H. Spielmann,_ (_G. Routledge & Sons._)]
Miss Greenaway was now invited by the Royal Commission to contribute as
a British artist to the Water-Colour and Black-and-White of the Paris
Exhibition of 1900, when it was hoped that she would repeat her success
of eleven years before. She had written to Ruskin that she was ‘too
busy to take any trouble over it,’ and to a friend to whom she paid
the compliment of coming for occasional counsel, she wrote as follows,
after due deliberation:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MR. M. H. SPIELMANN
I have decided not to send to the Paris Exhibition. I have nothing good
enough and I don’t know who has my things—I can’t think of anything I
would like to send. I feel pencil drawings look so very pale when they
get placed with strong coloured things. Don’t you think it better not to
send unless you send your best? There was no time to do anything, and I
did not want to leave the oil work.
To her question there could be only one answer, and the artist was
unrepresented at Paris.
The state of her health was now giving serious anxiety to her friends.
She certainly had undertaken and was able to carry to completion the
illustrations to _The April Baby’s Book of Tunes_, by the author of
_Elizabeth and her German Garden_, which was published towards the end
of the year, but signs of failing power were only too evident.
The _April Baby_ illustrations, which were reproduced by
chromolithography in place of Mr. Evans’s wood-engraving, to which
admirers of her work had become accustomed, though charming enough and
in harmony with the spirit of the book, are inferior to Mr. Evans’s
interpretations, and add not much to her reputation. A curious fact
connected with them is recorded in the following letter received by us
from the delightful and exhilarating author:—
In answer to your letter I can only tell you that I did not,
unfortunately, know Miss Kate Greenaway personally, and that while she
was illustrating the _April Baby’s Book of Tunes_ we only occasionally
wrote to each other about it. I felt quite sure that her pictures would
be charming and did not like to bother her with letters full of my own
crude ideas. It was odd that, though she had never seen the babies or
their photographs, her pictures were so much like what the babies were
at that time that I have often been asked whether she had sketched them
from life.
Her letters were exceedingly kind, and one of the April Baby’s most
precious possessions is a copy she sent her of _Marigold Garden_ with a
little pen-and-ink figure on the fly-leaf drawn specially for her. She
wrote me that she had been ill for a long time and had not been able to
work at my illustrations, and that they had all been crowded into a few
weeks at the end of the time given her by the publishers. She apparently
thought they had suffered from this, but I think most people will agree
that they are as charming as anything she ever did. Naturally I was
extremely pleased to have the weaknesses of my story hidden behind such
a pretty string of daintiness. So peculiarly simple and kind were her
letters that even a stranger like myself who only knew her through them
felt, when she died, that there was one sweet nature the less in the
world.—Believe me, yours very truly,
THE AUTHOR OF ‘ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN.’
That she now rather shrank from undertaking work of this kind we
have already seen from the letter written to Mr. M. H. Spielmann,
who, as a friend of some years’ standing, asked her if she would be
disposed to illustrate one of his wife’s stories which were appearing
in _Little Folks_, and were afterwards published in book form. In the
event, the book, which contains brilliant drawings by several leading
black-and-white artists of the day, was not lacking in two from the
pencil of Kate Greenaway.
At the same time her letters are sadly eloquent of her failing health:—
KATE GREENAWAY TO MRS. M. H. SPIELMANN
_11 Jan. 1901._
It is so long since I have seen you—so long since I have been. It has
not been my fault. I have not been well enough. I seem to have been
ill all the year. I had a long illness all the autumn which I am not
yet recovered from—and then colds so bad they have been illnesses....
I have seen no one hardly and done so little work. I’m so sorry when
I don’t work. For the time so soon goes and I always have so much I
want to do, and just now there are so many beautiful pictures to go and
see.... I hope you will believe that though I have not been to see you I
have often thought of you and wished to see you.
[Illustration: WAITING.
_From a coloured chalk drawing in the possession of the Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby._]
Ruskin’s birthday was on the 8th of February. On the first
anniversary of it a year after his death, Kate wrote to Mrs. Severn:—
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.,
_7 February 1901_.
My dearest Joanie—To-morrow is a sad day again. How I always wish I
had done so much, much more. And I should have if life had not been so
difficult to me of late years....
If it would get warmer I could get out; then I should get stronger. As
it is I take everything I can. This is the little programme: medicine, 9
times a day; beef tea, 8 times; port wine, champagne, brandy and soda,
eggs and milk. I’m all day at it. Can I do more? Am I not a victim?
My dearest love to you. Your loving
KATIE.
A few days later she writes to Mrs. Spielmann:—
... I am really, I think, getting much better now, and when I have been
away I hope I may return to my usual self. I have never been well enough
to go to see you though I have often wished to. Since this time last
year there has only been one month (June) without the doctor coming. I
have felt it so trying being ill so long.
Yet in spite of her illness it must not be supposed that Kate’s desire
for industry ever flagged for a moment. She was full of schemes for
books—not merely projected schemes, but plans fully matured, first
sketches made, and pages fully ‘set-out.’ There was a book of ‘sonnets’
of her own—(she called them sonnets, though not all of them were in
sonnet form)—plaintive, dreamy, and frequently a little morbid; and
the water-colour drawings to these are occasionally quite or almost
complete. The water-colour sketch called ‘Dead,’ here reproduced, is
one of these. Then there was a new _Blake’s Songs of Innocence_, to
be published at a shilling net, each song with at least one drawing;
this was so fully worked out that for certain of the designs several
sketches were made. No fewer than twenty-two sketches were designed for
a volume of _Nursery Rhymes_; there are fourteen to _Baby’s Début_;
and twelve and four respectively to Hans Christian Andersen’s _Snow
Queen_ and _What the Moon Saw_. And, finally, _A Book of Girls_ was to
be illustrated with six of her daintiest pictures. A brave programme,
surely, with sketches made, ready to be carried into execution; but
publishers were doubtful, their enterprise declined, and offers were so
little generous, that the schemes were not pursued.
Several friends sought to remove the discouragement under which Kate
Greenaway was now labouring, in order to open up new vistas of activity
and success in other walks than those she had trodden hitherto: not
merely to salve her wounded _amour propre_ but to spare her the natural
worry incident to the diminution of her earning powers. For some time
she had herself schemed a great dressmaking business in her own name,
with herself as designer; but it never got beyond the talking stage,
and that mainly with her sister Fanny—Mrs. Dadd. Then she had the
idea of modelling bas-reliefs in _gesso_ for decorative purposes;
but that also came to nothing. For her heart was in her drawing and
painting, and she welcomed cordially a suggestion that the Editor
of the _Magazine of Art_ should write an article on ‘The Later Work
of Kate Greenaway,’ partly in order to draw public attention to her
oil-painting, but mainly to bring forward once more her name as an
active art-worker, for she was firmly persuaded that she was well-nigh
forgotten—‘forgotten,’ the bitterest word in all the vocabulary to one
who has been a public favourite and whose name has rung throughout the
world.
Then, in August of 1901, Miss Greenaway was offered the post of editor
of a new Magazine for children at a handsome salary, but she refused
it, not only because she felt her strength unequal to so exacting an
undertaking, but also because she doubted whether she possessed the
necessary qualifications. But sadly enough for the many who loved her
the first of these reasons was all too cogent, for only three short
months were to pass before ‘finis’ was to be written both to work and
life.
A fortnight before she had written to Mrs. Stuart Samuel from Cromer:—
I’ve been very ill—acute muscular rheumatism—horribly painful. I am
now, I hope, getting better. It has been so in my mind the wish to
write to you. You were so kind, it felt ungrateful to disappear in
silence....—Your affectionate
KATE GREENAWAY.
And again, ten days before she passed away: ‘I should love a drive when
I’m well enough. I will write and tell you how I get on; then, if you
will, take me one day. With my love.’
But the end came, at 39, Frognal, on November 6th.
The privacy she wished for in life was observed at her death; only a
few friends attended in the Chapel of the Cremation Society’s Cemetery
at Woking, on November 12th; fewer still on the day following, when the
casket was quietly interred at Hampstead Cemetery. But the proofs were
overwhelming that she was in a multitude of hearts on that day.
At the news of her passing a chorus of eulogy and regret went up from
the press. Writers and critics, English and American, French and
German, vied with one another to do honour to the memory of one who
had spent her life in spreading joy and beauty about her without the
faintest taint of vulgarity, without the slightest hint of aught but
what was pure and delicate, joyous and refined. Tender and respectful,
admiring and grateful, saddened with the note of heartfelt sorrow,
these tributes one and all bore witness to the beauty of her life and
work. Of them all none touches a sweeter and a truer chord than the
farewell homage of her friend, Mr. Austin Dobson:[77]—
K. G.
NOV: VI: 1901
Farewell, kind heart. And if there be
In that unshored Immensity
Child-Angels, they will welcome thee.
Clean-souled, clear-eyed, unspoiled, discreet,
Thou gav’st thy gifts to make Life sweet,—
These shall be flowers about thy feet!
For a few years preceding her death Kate Greenaway had occupied herself
much with trying to express her feelings in artless and simple verse.
In 1896 we find her writing to Miss Dickinson with her customary pluck
and energy:—
Each night when I go to bed I read a little bit of Browning—they are so
wonderful—each time I read one I like it better than ever. That fires
me with ambition to try to write something, and I do try, and they won’t
come good; isn’t it hateful of them to be so poor and weak? But I’m
going to try more than ever, and I’m going to try other things too if
only I can keep well. I do mean to try and do a little more in my life.
I’m not content, for I have not yet _expressed myself_. It’s such a
queer feeling, that longing to express yourself and not finding a means
or way—yet it goads you on and won’t let you rest.
The following sonnet, a characteristic and appropriate example, was
written when she already felt the coldness of the advancing shadow, and
it may be accepted as reflecting her own view of the Great Hereafter:—
When I am dead, and all of you stand round
And look upon me, my soul flown away
Into a new existence—far from the sound
Of this world’s noise, and this world’s night and day:
No more the inexplicable soul in this strange mortal body,
This world and it in severance eternal:
No more my presence here shall it embody,
No more shall take its place in time diurnal—
What beauteous land may I be wandering in
While you stand gazing at what once was I?
Why, I may be to gold harps listening
And plucking flowers of Immortality—
Why, Heaven’s blue skies may shine above my head
While you stand there—and say that I am dead!
In the year following Kate Greenaway’s death, a fourth Exhibition
of her works was held at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery. These were
in no sense ‘the remaining works of an artist lately deceased,’ as
auctioneers’ catalogues commonly have it, nor yet was it a memorial
exhibition. It was, like those of 1891, 1894, and 1898, the result of
labour undertaken with the definite purpose of showing what she could
accomplish, and of claiming once again the suffrages of the collector.
The only difference—a difference that weighed upon every visitor to
the Gallery—was that the hand which had produced them was now stiff
and the gentle heart by which they were inspired had ceased to beat.
The most important pictures sold were ‘Little Girl in Purple,’ ‘Little
Girl in Blue and White,’ ‘Visitors,’ ‘Boy with Basket of Apples,’
‘Procession of Girls with Roses,’ ‘Little Girl in Red Pelisse,’
‘Procession of Girls with Flowers,’ ‘The Doorway,’ ‘Doubts,’ ‘Girl in
Orange Dress (seated),’ unfinished, ‘Cottage with Children,’ ‘Girl
seated by a Rose Tree,’ ‘Strawberries,’ ‘Children passing through the
Apple Trees,’ ‘Susan and Mary and Emily, with their sweet round mouths
sing Ha! ha! ha,’ and ‘A Little Girl in Big Hat with Basket of Roses.’
In a table case were also exhibited a selection from the illustrated
letters written by Kate to John Ruskin, from which many of the
thumb-nail sketches reproduced in this book are taken.
[Illustration: SKETCH-DESIGN FOR THE PLATE AFFIXED ABOVE THE KATE
GREENAWAY COT IN THE GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL.
Designed by Mrs. Arthur Lasenby Liberty.
THE KATE GREENAWAY COT
ENDOWED BY FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS 1903
COMMITTEE
CHAIRMAN, SIR THOMAS WARDLE, J.P.
HON. TREAS. M^R ARTHUR L. LIBERTY, J.P.D.L.
HON. SEC. SIR ARTHUR TRENDELL, C.M.G.
LADY DOROTHY NEVILL, LADY MARIA PONSONBY,
LADY VERA HERBERT, HON. LADY FREMANTLE,
LADY JEUNE, M^{RS} LOCKER-LAMPSON,
MISS MERESIA NEVILL,
SIR WILLIAM AGNEW, BT. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD N.C.I.E., C.S.I.,
SIR CASPAR PURDON CLARKE C.I.E., M^R WALTER CRANE, A.R.W.S.,
M^R HAROLD HARTLEY, M.J.S., M^R MARION H. SPIELMANN,
M^R ASTON WEBB, A.R.A., M^R ARTHUR W. A. BECKETT, F.J.I.,
]
For the sake of those who have not enjoyed the privilege of seeing any
of her original work it should be mentioned that in the Art Library
of the Victoria and Albert Museum there are ten of her water-colour
drawings, among them illustrations to the _Language of Flowers_,
_Little Ann_, and the Almanacks, while in the Picture Gallery at this
time of writing hang ‘P peeped in it,’ an illustration for _A Apple
Pie_, one of the illustrations for _A Day in a Child’s Life_, and
‘Three Girls in White.’
* * * * *
Although such a one as Kate Greenaway is scarcely likely to be
forgotten, a movement was quickly set on foot by some of her friends in
order to perpetuate her memory in some appropriately practical fashion,
and a committee was formed ‘for the purpose of promoting a scheme which
will secure a fitting memorial to the late Kate Greenaway, who filled
so distinctive a place in the Art world, and whose charming treatment
of child-life endeared her to every home in the Empire.’ The committee
consisted of Lady Dorothy Nevill (at whose house the meetings were
held), Lady Maria Ponsonby, Lady Victoria Herbert, Lady Fremantle, Lady
Jeune (Lady St. Helier), Mrs. Locker-Lampson, Miss Meresia Nevill,
Mr. Arthur à Beckett, Sir William Agnew, Sir George Birdwood, Sir
Caspar Purdon Clarke, Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Harold Hartley, Mr. M. H.
Spielmann, Sir Arthur Trendell (hon. secretary), Sir Thomas Wardle
(chairman), and Sir Aston Webb, with Mr. Arthur L. Liberty as hon.
treasurer. The amount of the subscriptions collected—to which Sir
Squire Bancroft largely added by his fine reading in St. James’s Hall
of _The Christmas Carol_—reached £949, which when the expenses were
deducted left the sum of £779. It was decided to endow a cot in the
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children—a form of memorial which
would assuredly have appealed most strongly to Kate Greenaway herself,
supposing it possible that so modest a person would have agreed to
or authorised any memorial at all. In due course the purpose of the
committee was carried into effect; and a dedication plate, designed by
Mrs. Liberty, is now affixed above a little bed. And when the little
ones who lie sick in the hospital ward ask the meaning of the plate
upon the wall they are told of one who in spite of much physical
weakness and suffering devoted herself whole-heartedly to bringing
happiness and delight into the lives of others, particularly of
children.
[Illustration: SPRING TIME.
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Henry Silver, Esq._]