Poems (Dunn)/Preface

by Sarah Jane Dunn

PREFACE.

HE following poems were written by a little village girl of the name of Sarah Jane Dunn, deformed by spinal, and suffering also from heart disease, who has received no education beyond that supplied by an ordinary charity school. The first poem was written at the age of sixteen, to the memory of her sister, a lovely child, who died at the age of ten years from blood poisoning, the result of adjacent sewage being allowed to percolate into a public well used for culinary purposes.

In the early part of the year 1868 this fearful and highly contagious disease broke out in the village of Wormley, Herts, and continued for many months spreading consternation among the poorer class of its inhabitants, several of whom sunk under its influence.

Of the victims who narrowly escaped death was the mother of the authoress of these lines. When approaching convalescence, her younger daughter was sent to Wormleybury, the seat of Horace Smith Bozanquet, Esq., about a mile from her home, from a portion of the soup he was in the habit of providing for the poor of the neighbourhood. On her way back she was overtaken by an old neighbour, who described rather minutely how a woman had been trampled to death by a bull in an adjacent field.

The effect on the nervous system of the child, probably in an incipient state of disease, was so powerful that she rushed home in a state of great terror and excitement, when the fever became fully developed; and, although medical aid was quickly employed, her case was pronounced hopeless. At the end of a week lockjaw intervened, which rendered her speechless, and at the end of a fortnight she had ceased to exist.

From the commencement of her attack she felt convinced that she had no chance of recovery; but, so imbued was her mind with the glories of a future state, the result of a strictly religious training on a highly imaginative intellect, that the contemplated change appeared to afford her satisfaction rather than regret.

A short time before she became speechless she had her family assembled in the presence of several ministers from the training college built and endowed by Lady Huntingdon at the adjacent village of Cheshunt, who were in the habit of officiating in the chapel at Wormley, whose services they regularly attended. Her admonitions to each member of it were so beautifully conceived, and expressed in language so pure and appropriate, as to call forth from one of the reverend listeners the remark, that "she seemed more like an inspired than an ordinary child."

From the shock to her feelings by the loss of her younger sister the elder one has never rallied, Having been an invalid from infancy she has, since that event, given way to a dreamy lethargic state of existence, under which her infirmities have increased so rapidly that only a short time is likely to elapse before she will be placed by the side of her little idol.

Her talent had hitherto been unknown or unrecognised. Being of a timid and retiring disposition, with a great propensity for secretiveness, she would never allow even her mother to see her writings, who was however aware that she was in the habit of putting her thoughts upon paper, when she could do so unobserved.

A short time since, by a piece of oversight, the verses to her sister fell into her mother's hands, who took them to a lady, a friend of mine, who had treated her with great kindness and sympathy during various family afflictions. She was so struck with their merit that she asked my opinion of them. Being equally impressed with their singular beauty and originality, I thought they might be turned to some account for the benefit of the little sufferer. To this proposal the child gave a very reluctant consent, observing that she could not conceive that ladies and gentlemen could take any interest in her writings, and that she had intended her parents should only have seen her papers after her death.

I believe no one can read these verses without deeply sympathising with this fragile little being, who seems to have been endowed by the Almighty with talent above the average bestowed on his creatures in general, as a means of consolation while bearing more than an average amount of human suffering.

Whether, with a sounder constitution, a better education, more extensive reading and a wider knowledge of the world, she would have produced works of a more voluminous character worthy of being preserved, may be open to doubt.

Her efforts hitherto have been confined to scenes of a domestic kind, and within her own experience. These she has described with an intensity and refinement of feeling, and a command of language quite extraordinary, considering the circumstances in which she had been placed.

The second poem, entitled "Starlight," written in memory of an infant brother, although characterised by religious thoughts of great beauty, is wanting in the singular pathos and power of imagination shown in the lines to her sister.

My leading motive for printing these compositions, which I think too good to be allowed to perish, is to raise the means for supplying the author of them with the many little comforts necessary in her unfortunate condition, while drifting out of existence, and which her parents cannot afford to supply.

When I mention that her father is a labourer on one of the telegraph lines, at very low wages, and that her mother adds to their joint means with her needle—an implement of industry which can rarely be put to very profitable use under the most favourable circumstances, still less when confined to the divided patronage of a small village—it will be evident that such united gains must leave it a hard struggle to provide the merest necessaries for themselves, this sick child, and other children.

In naming half-a-crown as the price of this tiny volume, I am aware that I propose a sum beyond what is usual if mere bulk were taken as the test of value; but I appeal only to those who are willing to recognize and reward talent and merit in adversity, and to whom so small a sum is not a consideration.

I have not placed it in the hands of a publisher, as no firm of high standing would consider so trifling a commission worthy of attention, and my great object is to hand to its authoress, as quickly as possible, any proceeds of its sale I may receive undiminished by trade allowances. To any one who may be willing to assist me in this object, I shall have great pleasure in sending a copy through the book-post on receiving thirty postage stamps.

Henry Shaw, F.S.A.

103, Southampton Row,

Russell Square,

April, 1870.