LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON MRS. STRETTON. ANNE MANNING
The three ladies here grouped together are similar in the purity andprinciple which breathe throughout their writings, though different inother respects. The first named wrote in the stress, and later in thecalm, of a religious struggle; the second in the peaceful, fond memoryof a happy home-life; the third in the pleasurable realisation ofhistoric days long gone by. In each case, the life is reflected in thebooks.
Georgiana Charlotte Leveson Gower was born on September 23, 1812, beingthe second daughter of one of those noble families predestined, by theirrank and condition, to a diplomatic course. Her father becameultimately Earl Granville, and when his little daughter was twelve yearsold, he received the appointment of ambassador at Paris. It is wellknown that the upper diplomatic circles form the _creme de la creme_ ofaristocratic society, their breeding, refinement, knowledge of man andmanners, as well as their tact, being almost necessarily of the highestorder. Lady Granville was noted for her admirable management of herreceptions, and her power of steering her way through the motley crowdof visitors and residents presented to her. The charm of her manner wasvery remarkable, and made a great impression on all who came in her way.And, giving reality and absolute sincerity to all this unfailingsweetness, Lady Granville was a deeply religious and conscientiouswoman, who trained her daughters to the highest standard of excellence,and taught them earnest devotion.
Naturally, French was as familiar to the young ladies as English, andthey became intimate with many of the best and purest families inFrance, among others, with that of de Ferronaye, whose memoirs, as toldby one of them, Mrs. Augustus Craven, has touched many hearts. It was ahappy life, in which study and accomplishment had their place, andgaieties did not lose the zest of youthful enjoyment because they werepart of the duty of station.
Between France and England the time of the family was spent, and, in1833, both sisters were married--Lady Georgiana on July 13, to AlexanderFullerton, heir to considerable estates in Gloucestershire and inIreland. He had been in the Guards, but had resigned his commission, andbecome an _attache_ to the Embassy at Paris. There the young couplecontinued, and there, at the end of the year, was born their only child,a son, whose very delicate health was a constant anxiety.
In 1841 Lord Granville ceased to be ambassador, and the whole family leda wandering life in the South of France, Italy, and Germany,interspersed with visits in England. In 1843 Mr. Fullerton, after longstudy of the controversy, was received into the Church of Rome. His wifehad always greatly delighted in the deep and beautiful rites of thatcommunion, in its best aspects, and many of her most intimate friendswere devout and enlightened members of that Church; but she had beenbred up as a faithful Anglican, and she made no change as long as herfather lived. The tale on which her chief fame rests was the product ofthe heart-searchings that she underwent, at the very time when thethoughts and studies of good men were tending to discover neglectedtruths in the Church of England.
Lady Georgiana said, in her old age, that she had never written for herown pleasure, or to find expression of feeling, but always with a viewto the gains for her charities. She would rather have written poetry,and the first impulse was given by her publisher telling her that shewould find a novel far more profitable than verses. Yet it is hardlypossible to believe that when once embarked she did not write from herheart. She was a long time at work on her tale, which was written duringsojourns at various continental resorts, and finally submitted to twosuch different critics as Lord Brougham and Charles Greville, both ofwhom were carried away by admiration of the wonderful pathos of thenarrative, and the charm of description, as well as thecharacter-drawing. It is, however, curious that, while marking somelesser mistakes, neither advised her to avoid the difficulty which makesthe entire plot an impossibility, namely, the omission of an inquest,which must have rendered the secrecy of "Ellen Middleton" out of thequestion.
The story opens most effectively with the appearance of a worn andwasted worshipper in Salisbury Cathedral. One of the canons becomesinterested, and with much difficulty induces her to confide her griefsto him in an autobiography, which she had intended to be read only afterher death. The keynote of Ellen's misfortunes is a slight blow, givenin a moment of temper, at fifteen years old, to her cousin, a naughtychild of eight, causing a fatal fall into the river below. No one knowsthe manner of the disaster, except two persons whose presence wasunknown to her: Henry Lovell, a relative of the family, and his oldnurse, whom he swears to silence.
This woman, however, cannot refrain from strewing mysterious hints inEllen's way, and Henry Lovell obtains a power over the poor girl whichis the bane of her life. His old nurse (by very unlikely means) driveshim into a marriage with her grand-daughter, Alice, whose lovely,innocent, devotional character, is one of the great charms of the book.Ellen, almost at the same time, marries her cousin, Edward Middleton,whom she loves with all her heart; but he is a hard man, severe in hisintegrity, and his distrust is awakened by Henry's real love for Ellen,and the machinations by which he tries to protect her from the malice ofthe old nurse. The net closes nearer and nearer round Ellen, till atlast Edward finds her on her knees before Henry, conjuring him to lether confess her secret. Without giving her a hearing, Edward commandsher to quit his house. A letter from Henry, declaring that she is hisown, and that she will not escape him, drives her to seek concealment atSalisbury, where she is dying of consumption, caused by her brokenheart, when the good canon finds her, gives her absolution, and bringsabout repentance, reconciliation, and an infinite peace, in which we arewell content to let her pass away, tended by her husband, hermother-like aunt, and the gentle Alice.
It is altogether a fine tragedy. The strong passions of Henry Lovell,the enthusiastic nature of Ellen, beaten back in every higher flight byrecurring threats from her enemies, the unbending nature of Edward, andin the midst the exquisite sweetness of Alice, like a dove in the midstof the tempest, won all hearts, either by the masterly analysis ofpassion or by the beauty of delineation, while the religious side of thetale was warmly welcomed by those who did not think, like Lord Brougham,that it was "rank Popery." The sense of the power and beauty of thestory is only enhanced by freshly reading it after the lapse of manyyears.
Naturally, it was a great success, and the second book, "GrantleyManor," which was not published till after her father's death and herown secession to Rome, was floated up on the same tide of popularity. Itcontrasted two half-sisters, Margaret and Ginevra, one wholly English,the other half Italian by race and entirely so by breeding. Still,though Ginevra is the more fascinating, Margaret is her superior instraightforward truth. For, indeed, Lady Georgiana never fell into thetoo frequent evil of depreciation and contempt of the system she hadquitted, and remained open-minded and loving to the last. The excellenceof style and knowledge of character as well as the tone of high breedingwhich are felt in all these writings recommended both this and"Ladybird," published in 1852. Both are far above the level of theordinary novel, and some readers preferred "Ladybird" to the twopredecessors.
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In the meantime, an estate in England at Midgham had become a home, andyoung Granville Fullerton had gone into the army. On the 29th of May1855, he was cut off by a sudden illness, and his parents' life was everafter a maimed one, though full of submission and devotion. Externally,indeed, Lady Georgiana still showed her bright playfulness of manner,and keen interest in all around her, so that the charm of her societywas very great, but her soul was the more entirely absorbed in religionand in charity, doing the most menial offices for the sick poor andthrowing herself into the pleasures of little children. She questionedwith herself whether she ought to spend time in writing instead of onher poor, when the former task meant earning two hundred pounds a yearfor them, but she decided on uniting the two occupations, the morereadily because she found that her works had a good influence and helpedon a religious serial in which she took a warm interest.
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br /> But her _motifs_ were now taken from history, not actual life. "LaComtesse de Boneval" is a really marvellous _tour de force_, being adevelopment from a few actual letters written by a poor young wife,whose reluctant husband left her, after ten days, for foreign service,and never returned. Lady Georgiana makes clear the child's hero-worship,the brief gleam of gladness, the brave resolve not to interfere withduty and honour, and the dreary deserted condition. All is written inFrench, not only pure and grammatical, but giving in a wonderful mannerthe epigrammatic life and freshness of the old Parisian society. This isreally the ablest, perhaps the most pathetic, of her books.
"Ann Sherwood" is a picture of the sufferings of the Romanists inElizabethan times, "A Stormy Life" is the narrative of a companion ofMargaret of Anjou--both showing too much of the author's bias. "TooStrange not to be True" is founded on a very curious story, disinterredby Lord Dover, purporting that the unhappy German wife of theferociously insane son of Peter the Great, at the point of death fromhis brutality, was smuggled away by her servants, with the help ofCountess Konigsmark, the mother of Marshal Saxe, while a false funeraltook place. She was conveyed to the French Settlements in Louisiana, andthere, after hearing that the Czarowitz was dead, she married a Frenchgentleman, the Chevalier d'Auban. Here, in these days of one-volumetales, the story might well have ended, but Lady Georgiana pursues thehistory through the latter days of the princess, after she had returnedto Europe and had been bereaved of her husband and her daughter. Shelived at Brussels, and again met Marshal Saxe in her extreme old age.The figures of the Chevalier, and the sweet daughter, Mina, are verywinning and graceful, and there are some most interesting descriptionsof the Jesuit missions to the Red Indians; but, as a whole, the book hadbetter have closed with the marriage with d'Auban.
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There is little more to say of Lady Georgiana's life. It was alwaysaffectionate, cheerful and unselfish, and it became increasingly devoutas she grew older. After a long illness, she died at Bournemouth, on the19th of January 1885, remembered fondly by many, and honoured by all whoknew her saintly life. As to literary fame, she may be described ashaving written one first-rate book and a number fairly above theaverage.
MRS. STRETTON
About the same time as "Ellen Middleton" appeared, a novel was makingits way rather by force of affectionate family portraiture than by plotor incident. "The Valley of a Hundred Fires" is really and truly Mrs.Stretton's picture of her father and mother, and her home; and hermother is altogether her heroine, while old family habits and anecdotesare given with only a few alterations. "The Valley of the Hundred Fires"has been placed by her on the borders of Wales, but it really wasGateshead, in Durham, quite as black and quite as grimy as the moresouthern region, inasmuch as no flowers would grow in the Rectory gardenwhich, nevertheless, the children loved so heartily as to call it dearold Dingy. (It is Cinder Tip in the story.) Literally, they lived so asto show that
"Love's a flower that will not die For lack of leafy screen; And Christian hope may cheer the eye That ne'er saw vernal green;"
and that--at least, in the early days of this century--an abnormallylarge family was no misfortune to themselves or their parents.
The real name was Collinson, and the deep goodness and beneficence ofthe father, the Reverend John Collinson, and the undaunted cheerfulness,motherliness, and discipline of Emily, his wife, shine throughout, notat all idealised. The number of their children was fifteen, tendaughters and five sons; and the second daughter, Julia Cecilia, was, asshe describes herself, a tall, lank, yellow baby who was born on the25th of November 1812. She became as the eldest daughter to the others,for there had always been a promise that if there were several girls theeldest should be adopted by her aunt, wife to a clergyman and childless.
The two homes were a great contrast: the one kept in absolute order andgreat refinement, with music and flowers the constant delight andoccupation, and the single adopted child trained up in all the precisionof the household; while the other was a house of joyous freedom, keptunder the needful restraints of sound religious principle, disciplineand unselfishness. The story went that when the children were asked howmany of them there were, they answered, "One young lady and eight littlegirls." Mrs. Collinson used to say, that if she ever saw any signs thather "one young lady" was either pining for companionship, or growingspoilt by the position, she would recall her at once; but the child wasalways happy and obedient, and pleased to impart her accomplishments toher sisters, who admired without jealousy. Comical adventures arerecorded in the "Valley," such as when the whole train of littledamsels, walking out under the convoy of Julia and a young nurserymaid,encountered a bull, which had lifted a gate on its horns. The maidthrust the baby into Julia's arms and ran away, while her chargesretired into a ditch, the elder ones not much alarmed, because, as theysaid, the bull could not hurt them with the gate on its horns. It passedsafely by them; but the little ones confessed to having been dreadfullyfrightened by a snail in the ditch, "which put out its horns like alittle Kerry cow," and it creeped and it creeped!
One incident in their early childhood was the rioting that pervaded thecollieries in the years immediately following the great French war. Mr.Collinson, being a magistrate, was called upon to accompany the dragoonsin order to read the Riot Act. He thus left his family unprotected; butthe seven thousand pitmen never touched the Rectory, and, according tothe "Valley," replied courteously to two of the children, who rushed outto the top of the Cinder Tip, begging to know whether they had seen "ourpapa" and if he was safe.
There was another sadder episode, related also with much feeling, thougha little altered, for it concerned the second son, not the eldest (thenthe only son) as described. A blow from a cricket ball did irreparablemischief to his knee, and it was suddenly decreed that amputation wasnecessary, long before the days of chloroform. The father was away fromhome, the mother sentenced not to be present, and the doctors consentedthat Julia should hold the patient's hand, smooth his hair, and try totell him stories through the operation. It was successfully and bravelycarried out, but the evil was not removed, and a few weeks later thismuch-loved boy was taken away. The circumstances, very beautiful andconsoling, are given in the story; and there too is told how, beforesunset on that sad day, the ninth little daughter was given, andstruggled hard for the vigorous life she afterwards attained.
The "Parson's man" said one day, when his mistress, for once in herlife, indulged in a sigh that her garden could never rival that of hersister, "We've got the finer flowers, ma'am."
Education was not the tyrannical care in those days that it is atpresent, and the young people obtained it partly through their parents,some at school, and some by the help of their grandmother and theiraunt, but mostly by their own intelligence and exertions; and the familyincome was augmented by Mr. Collinson taking pupils. He had a fairprivate income; he had a curate, and was able to give a good educationto his sons, one of whom made himself a name as Admiral Collinson, oneof the Arctic explorers. If there were anxieties, they did not tell uponthe children, whose memories reflect little save sunshine.
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At nineteen, Julia Collinson became the wife of Walter de Winton,Esquire, of Maedlwch Castle, Radnorshire; but after only twelve yearswas left a widow, with two sons and a daughter. Her life was devoted tomaking their home as bright and joyous as her own had been; and it wasonly in the loneliness that ensued on the children going to school thather authorship commenced, with a child's book called "The LonelyIsland."
Later she wrote "The Valley of the Hundred Fires," tracing the habits,characters and the destiny of the family of Gateshead. The father was bythis time dead, and extracts from his sermons and diary appear; but"Emily," the mother, is the real heroine of the whole narrative, andthough there is so little plot that it hardly deserves the name ofnovel, there is a wonderful charm in the delineation. There are a fewdescriptions of manners and of dres
ses which are amusing; nor must weomit the portrait of the grandmother, Mrs. King (called Reine in thebook), daughter to the governor of one of the colonies in America beforethe separation, with the manners of her former princess-ship andsomething of the despotism. She was a friend of Hannah More, abeneficent builder of schools, and produced a revolt by herself cuttingthe hair of all the scholars!
"The Queen of the County" relates Mrs. de Winton's experiences ofelections among "the stormy hills of Wales" in the early days of theReform Bill. "Margaret and her Bridesmaids" draws more upon invention.Each of two young girls, through the injudiciousness of her parents, hasmarried the _wrong_ person. Margaret acquiesces too much in herhusband's indolence, and when herself roused to the perception of dutytries in vain to recover lost ground. Her friend Lottie is ahigh-spirited little soul, determined to do her duty as a wife, but notto pretend the love she does not feel, till it has been won. She israther provokingly and unnaturally perfect, especially as she is onlyseventeen, always knowing when to obey up to the letter in a mannerwhich must so have "riled" her husband that his persistent love ishardly credible, though it shows itself in attempts to isolate her, sothat she shall have no resource save himself. His endeavours bring uponhim heart complaint, whereof he dies, under her tender care, though shenever affects to be grief-stricken. Only, as Margaret has lost herhusband about the same time in a yachting accident, Lottie refuses tolisten to the addresses of a former lover of Margaret's until she isconvinced both that her friend will never form another attachment andthat the original passion she had inspired is absolutely dead. There isa good deal of character in the story, though overdrawn, and it hassurvived so as to call for a new edition.
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To her children, as well as to her many nephews and nieces, Mrs. deWinton was a charming companion-mother, always fresh, young, vigorousand as full of playfulness as the Julia who led the band of littlesisters. When all her children were grown up, in 1858, she marriedRichard William Stretton, who had been their guardian and an intimatefriend of the family, by whom he was much beloved. He died in 1868, andMrs. Stretton followed him on the 17th of July 1878, leaving behind herone of the brightest of memories. Her books are emphatically herself intheir liveliness, their tenderness, their fond enshrining of the past.
The third of our group had an even more eventless life, and, instead ofletting her imagination dwell on her own past, she studied the women ofpast history, and realised what they must have felt and thought in thescenes where most of them figure only as names. Her father belonged tothe higher professional class, and lived with his large family, of whomAnne was the eldest, at the Paragon, Chelsea, where at eight years oldAnne listened to the crash of the carriages, when the Bourbons were ontheir return to France, and witnessed the ecstasy of London on the visitof the Allied Sovereigns after Waterloo.
With the help of masters for special accomplishments, the daughters hadthe best of educations, namely, the stimulating influence of theirfather, an accomplished man, for whom they practised their music, wrotetheir themes, went out star-gazing, and studied astronomy, listeningwith delight to his admirable reading of Scott or Shakspere; they alsohad the absolute freedom of an extensive library. Anne Manning waspronounced to be no genius, but a most diligent, industrious girl; asindeed was proved, for, becoming convinced during the brief reign of agood governess of the duty of solid reading, she voluntarily read fromthe age of fourteen ten pages a day of real, if dry, history,persevering year after year, and thus unconsciously laying in a goodfoundation for her future work.
For health's sake the family went into the country, where they becametenants of a tumble-down Cistercian priory on the borders of SalisburyPlain. The numerous girls, with their mother and governess, lived thereconstantly; the father coming down as often as his business would allow,almost always by the Saturday coach, to spend Sunday. Here the firstliterary venture was made, when Anne was about seventeen. It was a shortdialogue on a serious subject, which a young aunt managed to getaccepted in St. Paul's Churchyard; and, as Miss Manning candidly avows,was so well advertised privately by her fond grandfather that--such werethe palmy days of authorship--five hundred copies brought her in aprofit of L60.
The story, "Village Belles," was completed at Tenby, the Priory havingbecome too ruinous for habitation. It was put into the hands of Baldwinand Cradock, and no proofs were sent till the whole of the two firstvolumes came together. It was introduced to Mr. Manning thus, "Papa, Idon't know what you will say, but I have been writing a story."
"Ho! ho! ho!" was his first answer, but he afterwards said, "My dear, Ilike your story very much"--and never again referred to it.
Her own after judgment was that it was an "incurably young,inexperienced tale which, after all top dressing, remained but daisiedmeadow grass."
Sorrow came in to fill the minds of the family (to the exclusion of merefictitious interests) in the deaths within short intervals of two of thesisters, and their mother's invalidism, ending, within a few years, inher death. After this the winters were spent by the three sisters at theParagon, the summers in a cottage at Penshurst, their father coming downfor the Sunday. Anne Manning, meantime, was pursuing studies in paintingand was an excellent amateur artist. She was also a botanist, and thishas much to do with her accuracy in writing details of country life andhabits.
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Dates, alas! are wanting both in her own "Passages in the life of anAuthoress," and in the recollections of her kind and affectionatebiographer, Mrs. Batty; but it seems to have been in 1849 that her"Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell," at first written to amuseherself and her sisters, and afterwards sent to assist a brother inAustralia, who was starting a local magazine, was given to the editorof "Sharpe's Magazine," then in its early youth.
It made her fame. Nobody had particularly thought of Milton in hisdomestic capacity before, except as having advocated divorce and madehis daughters read Greek to him, and it was reserved for Miss Manning tomake the wife paint her own portrait as the lively, eager girl, happy incountry freedom with her brothers, important with her "housewife-skep"in her mother's absence, pleased with dress, but touched by thebeautiful countenance and the sudden admiration of the strange visitor.There proves to be a debt which makes her marriage with him convenientto the father, and it is carried out in spite of the mother's strongobjections, alike to the suitor's age, his politics, and his puritanism.We go along with the country girl in her disappointment and sense ofdreariness in her unaccustomed London life, in the staid and serioushousehold, where she sorely misses her brothers and is soon condemnedfor love of junketing. Then come her joy in her visit to her home atForest Hill and her reluctance to return, fortified by her father'sdisapproval of Milton's opinions. By the time that a visit to some wiserelatives has brought her to a better mind and to yearning after herhusband, Milton has taken offence and has put forth his plea fordivorce, which so angers her father that he will not hear of herreturn; nor does she go back till after many months and the surrender ofOxford, when on her own impulse she hurries to London, meets her husbandunexpectedly, and when he "looks down on her with goodness and sweetness'tis like the sun's gleams shining after rain."
There Mary Powell's journal ends. It is written in beautiful English,such as might well have been contemporary and could only have beenacquired by familiarity with the writers of the period, flowing alongwithout effort or pedantry so as to be a really successful imitation. Itcrept into separate publication anonymously, and achieved a greatsuccess, being in fact the first of many books imitating the like styleof autobiography; nor has it ever been allowed to drop into oblivion. Itwas followed up after a time by "Deborah's Diary," being the recordsupposed to be kept by Milton's one faithful and dutiful daughter, wholived with him in his old age.
The "fascination of the old style," as she calls it, led her to dealwith "The Household of Sir Thomas More" in the person of his nobledaughter Margaret. There was a good deal mo
re genuine material here, andshe has woven in the fragments from Erasmus and others with greatingenuity, and imitated the style of the fifteenth century as well asshe had done that of the seventeenth.
From that time Anne Manning's books had a ready sale, though still hername did not appear. "Cherry and Violet" was a tale of the plague ofLondon; "Edward Osborne" told of the apprentice who leapt from thewindow of a house on London Bridge to save his master's daughter fromdrowning; "The Old Chelsea Bunhouse" described the haunts with whichMiss Manning was familiar; and there were other stories of country life,such as the "Ladies of Bever Hollow." All were written in the pureststyle, such as could only be attained by one to whom slip-shod writingwas impossible, and to whom it was equally impossible not to write whatwas gentle, charitable, and full of religious principle.
Miss Manning was a kind friend and charming letter-writer. Her healthbegan to fail in 1854, when she was writing for a magazine "SomePassages in the Life of an Authoress," never completed. She continued tobe an invalid under the care of her sisters till her death on the 14thof September, 1879.
[Signature: C M Yonge]
DINAH MULOCK (MRS. CRAIK)
_By_ MRS. PARR