STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE]
The author of this little book, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, was a womanas modest, sweet, and wholesome as the story itself. She lived inEngland, but her writings endeared her to people all over the world.Some American ladies who went to call upon her in her home, WildwoodCottage, in Hampstead, near London, describe her as wearing a blacksilk gown with a plain linen collar, her brown hair drawn smoothly backfrom an open brow, and her face, gracious and winning to an unusualdegree, bearing the look of one who had tasted of sorrow. This was whenshe was already a well-known writer, having won her place in literatureby hard and faithful work; but probably she did not dream, even then,that she would come to be recognized as, next to Dickens, the mostwidely-read novelist of her time.
She was born April 20, 1826, at Stoke-upon-Trent, one of the chiefmanufacturing towns of Staffordshire, England. Staffordshire is thecentral county of England, and has many curious and interestingfeatures. It forms the sloping base of a long chain of hills, where incountless ages the sea, sometimes covering the land and again drivenaway from it by the upheaval of a great body of earth and stone, hasworn down the grit and limestone rock into clay. Did you know that allclay was mud made by the washing away of rocks? Just think how manyhundreds of years it took to make the little ball of clay you modelwith!
Well, the people who lived in this country found out, eighteen hundredyears ago, that they could mould their clay into pots and basins, evenif they could not make things grow in it; so they dug up the clay,shaped it with their hands, and baked it in the sun, making jars,bowls, and other useful things which they sold to farmers in exchangefor food.
About that time there came marching over the thickly wooded land,companies of Roman soldiers, who took all the clay bowls they wantedfor their own use, and showed the potters how to make better ones.They also compelled them to make floors, roofs, and wall ornaments ofclay baked in very hot ovens, called kilns. Much of this old Romanpottery was, of course, broken and lost, but still, if you should evergo there, you would find pieces of it in the banks of the little riversand brooks near the clay pits, pieces more than a thousand years old.
Because it is so full of clay--dark blue clay, and red and yellowochres, used for coloring and painting, as well as red and blackchalk--the country seems to have been made for potteries. Besides this,there used always to be plenty of wood to keep the kilns hot, for agreat forest covered nearly all the land. This was a continuationof the Forest of Arden, about which you will read some day, as wellas about Sherwood Forest, which sheltered Robin Hood and his merrymen.--Have you heard about them yet?--Later, when better fuel wasneeded, two great coal fields were discovered underlying the county,one of them twenty miles long by two broad. Here, then, where all wasso perfectly prepared for his work, it was natural that the greatestpotter of modern times, and one of the greatest of all times, should beborn--Josiah Wedgwood, who lived for many years in the very town whereMrs. Craik was born. He not only loved to make dishes and jars of allkinds as perfect as possible, but while shut in with a long illness hestudied the chemistry and the arithmetic needed in his trade. In yearsof hard labor and close study he so mastered his trade that he made itboth a science and an art. He, more than any other, turned the countyinto one of the busiest places in the world, where thousands of menwork from morning till night to supply the whole world with every sortof thing that can be made out of clay. Perhaps on the bottom of yourplates at home you may find printed the words "Staffordshire, England."
Before Wedgwood's time--in 1653, to be accurate--Stoke-upon-Trent wasa small group of thatched houses and two pot-works, gathered aroundthe ancient parish church. In 1762, thirty-two years after Wedgwood'sbirth, it had a population of 8,000, of whom 7,000 were employed, inone way or another, in the pottery trade. The whole country-side isnow black with smoke from the many factories. At one time, when thepotters used salt to glaze their ware--that is, to put a bright polishon it--they used to open up their huge ovens every Saturday morning,between the hours of eight and twelve, and cast in salt. It would thenmelt, and run over the surface of the clay jugs and things inside, andleave a smooth, shining surface. If you let some salt and water, verystrong of salt, boil over an old crock of your mother's, when the fireis making the stove red-hot, you will see how it works. Indeed, it wasthrough an accidental boiling-over of this sort that salt-glaze wasdiscovered. On Saturdays, when the salt was cast into the kilns, itmade great clouds of smoke and vapor, filling streets and houses, andspreading far out into the country, so heavy that travelers to townlost their way, and persons in the street ran against each other.
Here lived, and preached, and argued, and laid down the law, abrilliant, enthusiastic Irishman, named Thomas Mulock, the father ofthe woman who wrote this book. He was a minister, but one who didnot agree with any of the other ministers around him. He had a warm,eager nature, and a temper to match, and as the second of twenty-twochildren must have exercised from his early childhood all that powerof domineering which made Lord Byron nickname him "Muley Mulock." Bythis name he was known over half of Europe, but for all that he wasmuch loved and admired, and moved in the same circle as Byron, Scott,Southey, and Wordsworth. From him, Mrs. Craik undoubtedly inherited hergifts as a writer.
Her mother was a daughter of Mr. Mellard, a tanner and a member of theReverend Thomas Mulock's congregation. She was one of three sisterswho used to talk with the young minister over the wall that separatedtheir gardens. There is a legend that he went all in white to thewedding, his shoes being of white satin; but this is very likely only apicturesque bit of gossip, kept alive by the fact that Mr. Mulock wasquite romantic enough and independent enough to have done such a thingif it had happened to strike his fancy. His wife was a frail littlewoman, and the troubles which soon beset her husband on account of hisstrong, new opinions, were hard for her to bear, as was also the wayin which he, like a hot-blooded Irishman, sure that he was right andall the rest of the world wrong, marched straight into the thick ofany theological fight that might be going on. Dinah, at last, althoughmerely an inexperienced girl, persuaded her mother to go with her toLondon, to seek a little peace and quiet, leaving the father to fightout his battles alone in the country place he found--or made--so fullof strife.
This was a tremendous responsibility for a young girl with no means tospeak of and only an ordinarily good education, such as was given toyoung ladies in the girls' schools of those days. At school she seemsto have been a great favorite, and is described as being always thecenter of a bevy of girls, who hung round her lovingly, and for whomshe prophesied the most wonderful things. She was always sure they hadgreat abilities, but seemed to be quite unconscious that she herselfwas the most gifted of them all, and would be remembered when they wereforgotten.
Even after she came to London, she made friends among other girls, andin spite of her unceasing and exacting work, seems always to have hadtime to enjoy them and make them enjoy her. She was only twenty yearsold when, in 1846, she went to London, and undertook the main supportof her mother and the two young brothers who soon joined them. She dideverything her pen could find to do, writing stories for fashion booksand other periodicals, and had the satisfaction, finally, of knowingthat she had succeeded in caring for her aged mother to the end of herlife.
Of the two brothers, the elder, Thomas, Jr., true son of his father,took part in some act of rebellion while studying at theRoyal Academy. His father sided with the principals of the schooland approved of the son's being expelled, his own heart aching, mostprobably, while he did what he thought was his duty. The son's heart,in turn, was sore at what he must have thought unloving conduct on thefather's part. At any rate, he decided soon after to go to Australia,and, as he was about to board the ship, fell off the quay and waskilled.
This was a heavy blow to the brave young sister, now left with only theyounger brother. He was a musician and a photographer of no mean rankat a time when few persons thought of photography as an art. Though henever proved a support to h
er, always leaning on her motherly care andgetting himself into many scrapes from which she had to pull him out hewas nevertheless the joy of his sister's life.
In London Miss Mulock made friends whose assistance, later, was wortha great deal to her. She had published, in 1849, her first novel,_The Ogilvies_, which brought her recognition, and made men and womenof real power in the world of letters seek her out. When they knewher personally, her simple cordiality, friendliness, and, above all,her thorough goodness of heart, made them her warm friends. When shefound herself able to take a cottage--the "Wildwood Cottage" alreadyspoken of--she quickly gathered around her some of the brightest andbest people in the great city. From that time on, her books came outsteadily and in great numbers. In all, she wrote forty-six works,including many novels, some essays, and two or three volumes of poetry.
The greatest of her novels is _John Halifax, Gentleman_, consideredby many the best story of English middle-class life ever written. Thisnovel was translated into French, German, Italian, Greek, and Russian,and is still one of the most frequently called for books in the publiclibraries. Her poems, _Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True_, and _PhilipMy King_, are known wherever English is spoken.
There is an interesting story connected with the latter poem. PhilipBourke Marston, the boy to whom it refers, was the son of one of MissMulock's London friends, Westland Marston, a famous dramatic poet andcritic. When his little son was born, August 13, 1850, he asked MissMulock to be Philip's godmother, and traces of her deep affection forthe gifted child are to be found among her writings. _A Hero_ waswritten for him, and it is to him, evidently, that the lovely littlepoem, _A Child's Smile_, refers. The boy lost his sight when only threeyears old. The cause is said to have been too much belladonna, given toprevent scarlet fever. For many years enough sight remained to enablehim, in his own words, to see "the three boughs waving in the wind,the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon thehearth." Shut in thus to the inner world of thought and feeling, Philipindulged in an imaginative series of wonderful adventures, and in longdaydreams excited by music. Perhaps his blindness, coupled with hisvivid imagination, is the reason why the beautiful poems he wrote whenhe grew older show such a wonderfully vivid power of portraying nature.When he saw a tree-bough waving in the wind, he saw it only dimly withhis outward eyes, but as he sat dreaming over it afterward, it becamemore real to him than any bough was likely to become to an everyday,hearty boy who saw so many trees, with so many branches, that he hardlynoticed them at all. It must have been a great comfort to him to havesuch a godmother as Miss Mulock--a real fairy godmother, who couldweave magic spells of the most interesting stories, and heal the achesof his poor heart by sweet little poems.
It was at Wildwood Cottage that Miss Mulock formed that closeacquaintance with George Lillie Craik that finally led to her marriagewith him. Mr. Craik met with a serious railroad accident near herhouse, which she promptly gave up to him, she staying with a friendnear by; in the long days of convalescence they learned to know eachother thoroughly. The marriage was singularly happy. Mr. Craik was aman of letters as well as a publisher, and they had every taste incommon. Their life together was beautiful and full of a deep peace.
Although they had no children of their own, they had an adopteddaughter, Dorothy, and she it is for whom _The Adventures of a Brownie_was written. It is probably because of Mrs. Craik's devotion and lovefor her that the little book is so free from self-consciousness, soevidently written wholeheartedly "as told to my child."
Mrs. Craik's death, which took place in 1887, was, like her life, fullof self-sacrificing affection and obedience to duty. She had not beenill, beyond a few attacks of heart-trouble that no one consideredserious. By some blessed chance, on the morning of her last day onearth, her husband took an especially loving farewell of her--so muchso that Dorothy laughed at him, and Mrs. Craik, smiling happily,reminded her that, although they had been so long married, they werelovers still. It was within a few weeks of Dorothy's marriage when thesudden heart failure came, and Mrs. Craik's one wish was that she mightbe permitted to live four weeks longer, so that her death might notovershadow her daughter's wedding. She resigned even this unselfishwish when she saw that it was not God's will.
The beauty of her character, it may be supposed, quite as much as anypeculiar merit in her writings, led Queen Victoria, who always triedto reward uprightness of life as well as unusual skill in any art, tobestow upon Mrs. Craik the only mark of recognition in her power. Thiswas a small pension, and although she often was criticised for keepinga sum of money she did not need, while many less fortunate writersdid need it, she retained it as her right, to use as her consciencedictated. She set it aside for struggling authors who would accept helpfrom the queen's bounty that they would refuse from her private funds.
Other writers may be more brilliant and more profound than Mrs. Craik,but her tales of simple goodness bring, not only a sense of rest andrelief to the reader, but also a new desire to put goodness into hisown daily life. In all her stories Mrs. Craik makes goodness as lovelyas it really is. There are sad things in them, but the sadness isalways made sweet at last by courage and patience and kindliness.
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