Poems (Shore)/Memoir
MEMOIR
MEMOIR
The following notice is an attempt not so much at narrative as at some kind of portraiture; for it treats of one whose life, passed in a world of her own, had in it none of what are called events. But in the small circle that knew her she was loved and admired both as a woman and a writer. It is hoped that some idea of what she was herself may be gathered from this Memorial. And if the sketch, slight and faint as it needs must be, of a personality so delicate and retiring, should yet have the good fortune to draw attention to the poems which follow—poems which are the expression of her whole being—I shall feel that the attempt has been justified.
Louisa Shore was the third and youngest daughter of the Reverend Thomas Shore, M.A., ex-Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford; she was born on the 20th February in 1824 and died 24th May 1895. Her father was a man of high cultivation and singular moral worth; the subordination of private interests to considerations of conscience was the habit of his life. During his children's early years he maintained his household by receiving into it a succession of young men, whom he prepared for college. Among these pupils some in after days attained distinction, and, in the cases of Lord Canning and the late Lord Granville, celebrity.[1] He was of a quiet, independent character, and firm in the sense and practice of duty, though too modest and retiring for his merits to be widely known. In this respect his youngest daughter greatly resembled him. She was, moreover, the sister of one whose remains, under the title of "Emily Shore's Journal," have in the last few years raised a sympathetic interest in many readers, and some of whose remarkable qualities were shared by her we now write of. The readers of Emily's Journal will be aware in what a healthy atmosphere of wise freedom and mild restraint, of mental culture, of open-air joys and observation of Nature these happy children were reared. The father's studious habits and quiet heroism, the charm of the gentle mother, the sister's kindling example, and the country homes in which Louisa's childhood and most of her after years were past, had no small influence in moulding her character.
Louisa was a bright, pretty child, "with rosy cheeks and shining curls," as she unconsciously paints herself in one of her poems; cheerful and active in her quiet way, though by temperament rather silent and reserved, chiefly from extreme shyness. She was always known as an emphatically "good" child, docile, obedient, and never "in a scrape." Her early tastes were for outdoor play, runs in the garden, and the observation and petting of all creatures that came in her way; indoors, for helping her mother—at whose side she was constantly to be found—and a good deal of miscellaneous reading.
Her sister Emily's passion for study was not in her; her temperament made her averse to hard work of any kind, but she seemed to imbibe knowledge intuitively. Her "headwork" was always well done. Her father, who taught his children himself, spoke of her as the accurate little Greek grammarian, who brought up her exercises without a blunder." But in after life she did not carry on this pursuit except occasionally, when it was a help to her literary work. Even at modern languages, which she was fond of, she would not work regularly, but her knowledge, as far as it went, was very exact. French, Italian, and Portuguese were familiar to her. She knew something also of Spanish; and in the first three languages she read much and easily, and could converse more or less in them.
In her tenth year the family quitted Brookhouse, the home at Potton, in Bedfordshire, where Louisa was born, and removed to Woodbury—properly Woodbury Hall—some three miles distant, the beautiful home so fondly dwelt on in Emily's Diary. Here her observant faculties visibly developed. Following, as was natural, her eldest sister's lead, she became a student of natural objects, which indeed formed her constant pleasure through life, and her kindly disposition early showed itself in the construction of a hospital for sick bees.
Between the ages of thirteen and fifteen her very marked leaning towards literature showed itself unmistakably. Then there came signs of delicate health; but the symptoms were not such as to cause definite alarm: they pointed rather to a general want of vigour. Indeed, at no time after this did she manifest the buoyant and active spirits of thoroughly sturdy youth. Her mother and Emily promptly restricted her studies; she was made to rise later than the other children and to join the breakfast of the "grown-ups," in her place at a small table close to her mother. In her quaint fashion she commented on this arrangement, saying "I sit like a bulb, an excrescence, by mamma's side."
At the close of 1838 the home, which had now been fixed in the beautiful New Forest, was broken up, and the whole family migrated to Madeira, in the vain hope of saving the life of that gifted elder sister, which there in six months was brought by consumption to a close. The rest of the family remained a year more in that enchanting island, their residence being a large romantic quinta called the "Angustias."[2] But here the languor which had already shown itself greatly increased. She pined for England and enjoyed little of all that lay or lived around her; and those who came across her, grave and quiet, while "her peers and playmates" were revelling in the glad rush of young life, hardly knew what to make of her. Yet even then her poetic genius was unfolding in its own springtide fulness; but the poems which were poured out incessantly, and which even at fifteen show a wonderful ripeness and strength of feeling, were seen by no one save her one sister. She wrote from sheer delight in the employment, without a thought of exhibition or any idea of merit in the production. She had indeed even in childhood written verse, and was haunted by distressing childish night-dreams, in which she fancied others of her family surprising and persisting in reading aloud her verses in spite of her terrors and tears.
Various changes of residence followed upon the return from Madeira in 1840. Her first small social experiences began during a visit at just sixteen years old to a dear friend in Fulham, who gave her some taste of London pleasures. Scarce more than a child as she was, she knew how to describe these in lively letters to her sister confidante. She was taken to some agreeable parties, in one of which she was introduced to Mrs. Nelson Coleridge, daughter of the poet, the beautiful "Eugenia" as she was then familiarly called, married to her cousin, and better known to posterity by her real name of Sara Coleridge. This charming lady talked to her almost the whole evening, to her delight, answering all her eager questions about Wordsworth and Coleridge; the husband standing by inquired of her hostess, "Who is that whom my wife is talking to? I never saw such a perfect little Hebe in my life."
In this respect she altered but little through life; she preserved to the last in aspect and character a something of childlike innocence. Her early shyness changed to retiringness; always yielding to others, she was thus naturally placed a good deal in the background. Self-assertion was impossible to her.
At another party she saw Mr. Pierce Butler and his wife (Fanny Kemble), and remarked with a satiric touch rather unusual with her, though pardonable at thoughtless sixteen, "When I saw Mr. Butler, I said to myself, 'How could she?' but when afterwards I saw her I said, 'How could he?'" Mrs. Kemble was not then so well known to the world for her fine qualities of mind and heart and her powers of fascination as she has been of late years; and of course Louisa could see no more than others did.
Four years of great contentment were then spent at Sunbury in Middlesex, perhaps the happiest period of the two sisters' girlhood. Time had softened their grief for the loss of the beloved Emily, and for the parting from their excellent eldest brother, who was pursuing a deservedly prosperous official career in India.[3] The family party now consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Shore, their three young:est children, and a small number of young boys taken (for obvious reasons) as pupils instead of the young men of former years. The society of many pleasant acquaintances was freely enjoyed here, and Louisa had really a fair share of girlish gaiety of spirits.
This is the place for a few specimens of youthful vivacity in conversation with intimates. She was quite a girl, when on "Royal Oak" day she saw some elder friends wearing sprays of oakleaves in their dress, and earnestly begged them to tell her "what was the contrary to oak" that she might put it on.
It was at the same age that, conversing with her sister on an unfortunate love affair and the blight it was supposed to have brought on the principal sufferer, she answered, with an image drawn from her young brother's Australian grazing experiences, "No, not a blight, only the burning of the grass that makes it grow all the richer afterwards." She afterwards more sententiously observed, "The misfortune in love affairs is that both men and women have an ideal for their object a little higher than their own merits entitle them to."—She was shown by a rising barrister a letter from the well-known A. W. Kinglake asking him to take a brief for him as he (Kinglake) had business elsewhere. A friend standing by (a literary critic) inquired of her if she did not think that was "selling his client." The young girl answered promptly, "Not at all; if the client could trust Mr. Kinglake with his cause, he might trust him with the choice of a substitute." "I give you credit for the answer," said the lawyer. The philosophical reviewer was silent, but smiled approval.
But perhaps her chief happiness was in the companionship of her one sister, and their still younger brother, with whom much time was delightfully passed in boatings on the river. The boy had some fine gifts of his own, and became intensely dear to both. But when he left them as an emigrant to Australia, and, in thus severing the merry group, robbed the Sunbury life of much of its glamour, deeper interests began to fill the void. Louisa's attachment to her mother had been hitherto her most conspicuous family trait; now, without diminishing this, began the ardent affection for her sister, which was fully reciprocated, and made the joy and the support of their future lives. The feeling was externally quiet, like everything about her; but in all cases which called forth peculiar sympathy it found strong and devoted expression.
Here, too, Louisa's poetical powers began fully to unfold. Her work hitherto had had the crudeness and imperfections of early youth; but when she had attained her twentieth year it had a character and a finish of its own, and though she never, as yet, thought of publication, she now worked in earnest with an artist's aspirations. It was here too, in her twenty-first year, that she took seriously to what became her leading taste through life—dramatic composition. The earliest suggestion of this was probably given by Sir Henry Taylor's "Philip van Artavelde," the first reading of which was an era in her life; but the subject chosen for her first play was classical. Its hero was Hannibal, for whom she had imbibed a passionate, one might say a personal,enthusiasm,as depicted in Arnold's "History of Rome," and studied by her afterwards with great care in the original authorities. The eye of memory can see this girl of twenty sitting in a flowery arbour in the garden, with the history of Livy or Polybius on her knee, and her scraps of manuscript around her. The drama was sketched out, and a first play finished at that age; a second and superior version—essentially the same—followed in two or three years. It was the praise given to this by her father, an excellent classical scholar, that lighted up her first faint modest desires for fame. "I never thought I could be ambitious," she said, "but papa's words have made me so." But it was laid by, publishing being an expensive luxury that could not then be dreamed of.
In 1845 the serious illness of Mrs. Shore caused the break-up of the Sunbury home, and the family removed to London. The three years there were made pleasant by a good deal of congenial, including literary, society. Former pupils renewed their old friendship, and fresh ties were formed.
Again, however, ill-health came in the way—Mr. Shore's this time. His long years of unremitting labour were brought to an end by cruel neuralgic sufferings, and country life was resumed, to the satisfaction at least of his wife and youngest daughter.
Twenty-two years' tenancy of Elmers End Cottage, a charming little abode in Kent, followed. The home here, though quiet and rural, was by no means secluded; pleasant society was always at hand, visits to other country places or to London frequently took place, and Louisa's lively letters to sister and friends exhibit plenty of interest in life, and even social joyousness of a fresh and simple kind. A change full of varied interest was made in 18513 by an eighteen months' residence in Paris and its neighbourhood. Frequent soirées of a cosmopolitan type introduced the family to delightful English and French society, and, above all, they made the valued acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Browning. These somewhat exciting experiences had their effect on Louisa's quiet mind, but she returned the same as ever to her simple but well-filled country life. About twenty-seven, her mind's natural and irrepressible growth, enlarged by many deep-lying human experiences, made the outlet of poetical utterance more than ever a necessity; and to this period and a few years later belong the best of her published work.
Her first appearance in print was during the Crimean War in 1854, when the patriotic passion overflowed in a short poem sent merely as an impromptu in a letter to her sister. The sister equipped it with the title of "War Music," and, without a hint to Louisa, sent it to the Spectator; where the authoress read it with great astonishment. The poem became popular, and several more followed in the same journal the final result being a tiny joint volume by the two sisters, of which the best pieces were hers, called "War Lyrics."
Life had for Louisa its usual pains, its partings and bereavements, and its disillusions as well. Here in midway life the sisters lost their mother; next year came news that the beloved brother (whose return from his long exile and sore fight with life they were daily expecting) had perished suddenly at sea; and three years after, 1863, the worn-out, widowed father went to his repose.
But this time of trouble had braced her faculties; "Hannibal" was taken up again, "carried on," as she said, "through much sorrow," revised and enlarged, and finally given to the world in 1861. This was done with the encouragement of her now aged father, who lived long enough to read it aloud with a parent's pride to a small but sympathetic and happy audience. This drama attracted the-attention of historical students and literary critics, alike for its severe accuracy and its glow of enthusiasm, and was indeed very favourably noticed by the Athenæum and the Saturday Review, at that time the two rulers of the literary world. It was published anonymously, Louisa at all times shrinking timidly from public notice, and it required the suggestion and persuasion of others to induce her to appear in print at all.
After their father's death the sisters remained eight years in their desolate home, and then they found a new one in Firgrove, at Sunninghill, Berkshire. Here in an interregnum of poetical occupation she imbibed an interest in political and social questions which lasted and strengthened to the end. In taking up these interests she followed almost instinctively, as in her, early literary outset, the steps of her more actively originating sister. This was caused by no kind of inferiority, but by her extreme modesty and that languor, in some respects amounting to indolence, which always required kindling by special incentives. But she gave her work a character of its own and, small in quantity as it was, its value much surpassed that of her leader, as the sister was always proud to feel and to avow.
She was a staunch Liberal; but over and above considerations of party, her heart went out to every high and generous cause. She made no public appearances; her work was done contentedly in the shade. One of the first causes that she took up was Woman's Suffrage, which drew from her an essay entitled the "Citizenship of Women Socially Considered."[4] This pamphlet, her first performance in prose, written with much masculine vigour, won for her admirers who never saw her face. But the labour and excitement of its preparation prostrated her, and she uttered from the sofa to which weakness too often consigned her, a resolution never again to attempt a serious prose work, and she kept her word.
She had, however, for a year or so an on-and-off correspondence with Liberal journals on political, social, or religious subjects, and sometimes a little smart controversy; but it was long before she gave her name to any printed work.
Her rare appearances in society were now and again marked by incidents of interest. In 1873 she was invited to a small London party for the kind purpose of making her acquainted with Mr. John Morley, then at the height of his more purely literary fame, whose career she had watched with ardent admiration, inspired not only by his brilliant powers, but more especially by the lofty and earnest tone of thought which marked such work as his "Compromise." They had a long, and to her a most agreeable, conversation, in which she expressed so warmly her delight in the works of George Meredith, then an almost unknown writer, that Mr. Morley urged her to address to this as yet unappreciated genius the expression of her admiring homage. The suggestion was adopted, and for a month she remained in suspense regarding the success of her daring overture. Then it turned out that Mr. Meredith had for once been made to experience a taste of that bewilderment in which his own printed pages occasionally involve even his most sworn devotees.[5] He failed, namely, to decipher the signature of his admirer. When at length the mystery had been cleared up there ensued an interesting intercourse of some years' duration between him and the two sisters.
After nine years they again changed their residence and for the last time. Orchard Poyle, near Taplow, was the first home owned by themselves, and here they lived together for fourteen years. During this period Louisa wrote nothing but desultory fragments of dramas and single scenes, and published nothing save a few pieces composed some years before, as contributions to a small joint-volume of "Elegies and Memorials," which appeared in 1890.[6]
Here I may be allowed to pause in order to give, if I can, some closer views of the character that had been maturing during the thirty-two years of dual life.
The retiring habits I have spoken of had been fostered partly by the delicate health which shrank from exertion; sometimes by some strong, absorbing interest, and especially by an entire absence of belief in any social gifts of her own. The excitements of personal vanity, the craving for recognition, for intellectual distinction, ambition, in short, of any kind, that beset other minds, seemed not to touch her. She maintained a serene independence, only asking perfect freedom for a life of reading, thought, and reverie, in a beautiful country home, subject but to those domestic ties which had always formed an essential part of her existence. She loved to dream, but her dreams were not of herself so much as of others, of those she knew and of strangers, even of persons and scenes in the historic past; while in the living, larger world that she would not enter, she had an ever-growing interest. Social questions and world problems occupied her mind to an extent which no one who did not know her well, or had not read those writings she habitually kept to herself, could have suspected.
Those who did know her can testify to her clear good sense, and to her pleasant talk when quite at her ease, to her pithy observations and sudden quiet strokes of wit or quaint humour. When once conversing in Paris with an eminent traveller, who spoke of the advantage of knowing many races and their languages, she rejoined, "Yes, you cannot make life longer, but you can make it wider;" a remark which confirmed what was often expressed by her friends that "she always contrived in a quiet way to throw light on a subject." In spite of her self-effacing modesty she had yet an influence not perhaps fully realised at the time by others, and which certainly would have surprised no one more than herself. She was placidly incredulous when sisterly fondness tried, by reports of praise, to awaken a little innocent vanity.
She had of course her share in the rather numerous acquaintance gathered by the family in the course of years, and amongst them were friendships, the dearest of which formed the great charm and solicitude of her life. Besides these loving enthusiasms, she had sympathies always alive, and her feeling for others in little and great matters, was almost too sensitively vigilant. But she was not profuse in demonstration save in her warmly affectionate letters, and, as the herself said, always found difficulty in expressing her feelings. Even to those she most loved caressing language was unusual with her; but the bright smile with which she would greet them, or the soft mockery which replied sometimes to laudatory and loving words, were as well worth having.
It is difficult to do justice to her unexacting character (self-assertion was, as we have said, impossible to her). The pain given by offences which in most other minds awaken some resentment, with her took shape only in a feeling of disappointment. "I am humbled who was humble," she once said, half pleasantly quoting Mrs. Browning on some such occasion. Only once, when an irresistible outpouring of her deeper thoughts by letter to one, a litterateur in whose intellectual sympathy she believed, was met by what seemed to be a cold repulse, and a fondly nursed hope thereby destroyed, did she show that she was wounded. But all that occurred was that her bright colour fled, she turned quite pale, and said in a faint voice, "I have not deserved this." And the incident, though I believe not forgotten, was not again alluded to.
She was by nature very religious; nor did the dropping away of an orthodox creed disturb the deep and devout sense of duty which dwelt within her. A robust habit of independent thought had made conventional modes of belief an impossibility to her even in early youth. "Thinks for herself" was an acute-minded barrister's early pronouncement when asked what in his opinion was her leading characteristic. As, nevertheless, she had a great reluctance to shock other minds and hurt other feelings, her nonconformity was silent and unaggressive; but no doubt it helped to make for her an existence somewhat apart.
Her gentleness was by no means of an insipid kind, being combined with a good deal of critical severity. She once found her sister busy over 300 papers sent in by competitors for a poetical prize, and, ready as she always was to help her, stretched out her hand for a bundle of them, observing, "Give them to me; I'm the hanging judge." When she had gone through her portion she observed that most of them ought to be put in the seventh, that is, the lowest class, and that for the others a new and still lower class should be created.
Nor was her habit of dreaming incompatible with practical activity when effort seemed necessary. For example, one night whilst yet it was dark,though dawn was near, she heard a trampling in the stable-yard, and going from bed to window she dimly discerned that the carriage horse had got out of the meadow where she was wont to be left at night, and was making her way to the gate beyond the stable out into the high-road. No time was to be lost; she threw a cloak over her nightdress, put her feet into slippers, and, thus attired, rushed out with a heavy rain pouring down upon her loose streaming hair. She caught the animal in time and led her back to the meadow over the broken-down gate, which she showed the greatest reluctance to cross. She then observed that another little gate into the garden was out of repair and easily opened, and hurried back to the house to fetch some string. In the meanwhile the delinquent had once more got out, pushed open the outer yard gate, and was actually some way out up the road. Still, through the streaming rain she pursued her, and brought her back just as the grey dawn showed her a cart and man coming towards her along the road. She then heaped up the wreck of the field gate into a substantial barrier, tied up the other gate with strong cord, and returned to lay her drenched hair on the pillow with a good conscience.
To return to her way of life at Orchard Poyle. Here her disinclination to seek society, to leave her home, to depart in any way from the quiet, unvarying life she preferred, continued and increased. But it was not a selfish, inactive life; her last years were spent in attention to home duties and interests, enlivened by her few warm friendships and general kindnesses, and marked above all by devoted affection and continual care given to the companion of her home. The years since they were left wholly alone had been years of the closest, most unbroken union; all the closer, no doubt, that two markedly distinct personalities viewed and handled the stuff of which that life in common was made up. They were not unfrequently apart, but the intercourse of letters was as tender, as abundant, and almost as satisfying as that of personal presence.
Of this united life there is now no more to narrate. In 1895, after three months of altered health, the last fortnight of Louisa's life was spent at Wimbledon, whither she had been conveyed in hopes of the benefit of a change, and there, after thirty-four hours of entire unconsciousness, she painlessly expired on May 24, three months and four days after her seventy-first birthday.
The picture of this "violet life," as one who of all her friends perhaps knew her best, tenderly called it, would not be complete without some touches of what cannot well be supplied by the hand of a near relation, the aspect presented to outside observers. I will premise that of the qualities which are apparent in external life, those which may be singled out as most characteristic of her were her translucent truthfulness and her tender humanity. These traits were well summed up by the above-mentioned friend, who spoke of her as this "guileless, gentlest of natures." Another who knew her well wrote, "Only those who loved her best could know the full beauty of her sweet, unselfish, hidden life; she never spoke, nor seemed to think, of herself."
Her "beautiful face" has in these characterisations been frequently referred to; but its most striking beauty was perhaps that of expression, though the features were good, especially as shown in the finely moulded, cameo-like profile. Her rich auburn hair; worn in youth in tresses, fine, soft, and silky, her bright complexion and sweet mouth, aided the childlike character which her face long retained.
But her "rare and beautiful nature," her "gentle voice," her "charm of manner," her gracious, welcoming smile and kindly interest in all who visited that home beyond which she scarcely ever went, are the traits chiefly dwelt on, alike by intimate friends and by those who saw her but once or twice. "I can never," wrote one to her sister, "think of you without Louisa, nor of Orchard Poyle without her sweet, gentle presence. I shall always picture her amongst her flowers, with her ready, kindly sympathy for every one, and her righteous indignation against wrong and oppression." "Even I," says another who knew her but slightly, "loved and valued the sweet, pure, noble soul of her from whom you are now parted." And one who had not seen her for several years wrote, "I hear her tones constantly, those tones of an exquisite sympathy, and I feel that she is not dead."
The editor of the "Journal of Education" says, "I recall your sister as a kind of spirit who looked down on all our fret and fume and turmoil as from a higher sphere, ready to aid and sympathise, but without any personal stake in the struggle." A literary clerical friend speaks of her "bright talk, her sweet countenance, and her enthusiastic interest in all that was lovely and true." And in a private letter, Mr. Frederic Harrison, whose critical estimate follows this Memoir, speaks of "the many graces of her beautiful nature."
At all times of her life she liked to be a good deal alone, and when her sister left her for months together, always urged that she wanted no company. "I can always read, think, and dream," she said.
Thus charming and beloved, though she was more vividly conscious of loving than of being loved, and of charms was not conscious at all, she was not unhappy. Her temperament was calm rather than joyous; but she was fully happy after her fashion, when she called you out to listen to the first lark, or found a couple of titmice building their nest in the letter-box at the garden gate, and helped the tiny architects by gathering their moss for them; when she verified by observation some curious bit of natural history, or discovered in the garden some lovely old-fashioned rose; when in her wanderings round the grounds she caught a new vista through the woodlands, or some magical effect of light and shade, or took a long exploring drive in search of some romantic spot, with picturesque old houses and cottages—such a spot as she always dreamed of finding, to end her days in.
Very touching was the tranquil resignation with which in latter days, while still looking comparatively young, and in good health, she abandoned even the small share she had taken in outward and social life; and dwelt almost like a gentle shadow in her secluded home. There grew over her a quiet indifference to outside things, even to the subjects which had once most excited her; she was living, as in truth she had done more or less all her days, in dreamland. And when finally her home activity ceased, and her interests grew languid, though not her affections—only her impulse to the manifestation of them—she still preserved what a friend described as her "sweet, sad content;" and in this deep calm she passed away, May 24, 1895.
It may be well to add a chronological list of all the poems published in her lifetime, most of which have been already referred to.
1. "War Lyrics, by A. and L." (Saunders and Otley), 1855. This little work, aided by the national enthusiasm for our brave soldiers in their fearful strife, reached a second edition in a fortnight.
2. "Gemma of the Isles, a Lyrical Drama by L." (Saunders and Otley), 18509, a fairy-fiction, full of songs and poetical pictures, with a very slight thread of historical fact.
3. "Hannibal, a Drama in Two Parts" (Smith and Elder), 1861, anonymous. I have already described the slow and interrupted growth, through seventeen years, of this her first, and indeed most important, work.
4. "The Lost Son, a Domestic Drama," and "Ballads," which appeared in 1871 in a volume entitled, "Fra Dolcino and Other Poems, by A. and L." (Smith and Elder). This drama, whose chief feature is the commemoration of a beloved personality in the past, was written very hurriedly, under trying circumstances.
5. "Elegies and Memorials" (Kegan Paul), 1890. Regarding the "Elegies," the first and most important of the pieces she contributed, I will here quote, out of the numerous tributes paid to it from various quarters, those of the two personal friends to whom it was sent in manuscript—George Meredith and Robert Browning. The first acknowledges it as follows:
"Box Hill, Dorking, April 9, 1876.
"The poem . . . . a moon-sketch; it has a breath of pure melody, coming of most tender feeling, with a certain haze proper to it, reminding me of a night scene by the sea . . . . a beautiful poem of, I fear, no fancied sentiment, and winding up with such grave, good hopes as I share with you, and few at this time, though more than in old times, look to."
Mr. Browning writes:
"19 Warwick Crescent, Nov. 16, 1876.
"I have read the poem with just the result I expected; no surprise at finding it very beautiful and touching . . . . it is curious to find from what you have experienced, and in this case anticipate, that, being abundantly intelligible, and having a subject adapted to the sympathy of any one with sympathy to bestow, it is likely to lie in your sister's drawer because no magazine cares to publish it. What more does the dear, intelligent public want?"[7]
In 1894 the poem was made known to Mr. Gladstone through Mrs. Drew, who replied, "My father wishes me to thank you for having sent him the little memorial poem, which he has read, and which has deeply impressed him. He was saying to me only to-day that if he had known of it he would certainly have mentioned the authoress amongst the women poets he wrote of in an article some years ago."
The "Elegies," which was printed first by itself in 1883, for private circulation, has been much used in the Positivist services.
- ↑ Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Indian Mutiny," when sketching Lord Canning's early life, justly characterises his tutor as "that ripe scholar and worthy Christian gentleman."
- ↑ Meaning "sorrows," from a chapel in the house dedicated to "Our Lady of Anguish."
- ↑ His great-uncle, Sir John Shore, created Lord Teignmouth, had been Governor-General of India at the end of the last century. A son of his, the Hon, Frederick Shore, was highly esteemed in those days for his earnest advocacy of the rights of the natives.
- ↑ This appeared first in the Westminster Review, and has just been reprinted by the Women's Printing Society.
- ↑ I am bound to acknowledge that this ingenious application of the incident was supplied by a friend.
- ↑ See the list of her published works appended to this Memoir.
- ↑ The poem was offered to the distinguished editor of a leading Review, and at once sent back with the usual curt form of rejection.