MRS. MOLESWORTH'S CHRISTMAS STORY.
PUNCTUAL as Christmas, bright as the orange of which its binding reminds us, and welcome as the former and nearly as welcome as the latter to the children, comes Mrs. Molesworth's story-book for them, in the gay cover which we have learnt to look for on book-stalls and in shop-windows. This time its brilliancy is re- lieved, not by the curly head of little Carrots, but by a black silhouette of the kind old grandmother who delights the repre- sentatives of Carrots and his sisters with her stories. Or perhaps it is Carrots himself and his sisters, for all these Christmas stories of Mrs. Molesworth's are told to a group of sympathetic listeners, who have a marvellous family likeness, in warm hearts, intelligent minds, and bright and pretty forms and faces. Mrs. Molesworth has forgotten, for this year, her fanciful dreaming and fairy-story mood, and wanders, instead, amidst tender old family traditions, of which she selects such as are sure to suit all little people of the refined and kindly-nurtured sort, or of the natures which would answer to kindly culture, and which only very adverse surround- ings have spoiled.
Our authoress has again summoned Mr. Walter Crane to her aid, and with beautiful effect ; except that he has so entirely realised his subject, that he has fancied himself where "grand- mother dear" tells her stories—in the sunny South—and has hung such appropriately cool drapery round his captivating little girls, that we regard them with a cold shudder of pity, in this coldest and darkest of all English Decembers. The vignette on the title-page indeed—otherwise so exquisite—apparently re- duces the tiny shop-gazer's habiliments to a little night-dress and slippers. We must except the frontispiece, where the journey has been provided for to a limited extent, but where we should, nevertheless, have felt less anxiety, bad the travellers been more
* Grandmother Dear. By Mrs. Molesworth. With Illustrations by Walter Crane. London: Macmillan and Co. comfortably bundled up in " all the proper muffiings " of a bitter English winter. The boys are not so dear to Mr. Crane's chival- rous heart as the girls, and their ages, attitudes, and expression not so well portrayed. Ralph in the coppice and Carlo at the school-door are both much too old. The old Ger- man pawnbroker and all his quaint ware are most admirably conceived and executed ; "Grandmother dear," on the other hand,. disappoints us ; she is too tall and young,—not at all our ideal of the gentle, loving, little old lady, who is not merely respected and loved, remember, but who is petted and—in a re- spectful and loving way—even taken liberties with, by her little worshippers ; but in the same picture (" Whose drawer is this ?") is Mr. Crane's chef dWurre, Molly ; we see little of her face, but there is everything in the figure ; the position of the hand, ner- vously holding back the dress, denotes anxiety; there is a touch of shame, and at the same time of deprecation, in the attitude of the body ; and the turn of the head expresses at once courage, loving confidence, and full purpose of amendment. It could not be better. Walter Crane draws little girls con amore.
Of the book itself—of its mingled humour and pathos—we can scarcely say too much ; and if we do not like it all equally, it is only because it grows more and more interesting and touching as it goes on ; except, perhaps, that the " Christmas Adventure," which is the last story, though very delightful, does not come up to "That Cad Sawyer "—the last but one—either in the present writer's opinion, or in that of a little critic whom he summoned to his aid, and who, declining to be influenced by the charms of ghosts or robbers, delivered the unhesitating verdict, " Oh ! it's all awfully jolly, but I like 'That Cad Sawyer' the best." Whether Mrs. Molesworth has had to read much to children, we do not know ; but if she has, or had, and if she had found it as fatiguing, in the eases of some children's books, as it certainly is, and if she had been inspired with the benevolent desire to lighten the burden to unhappy seniors, and been specially gifted with the genius to choose the most suit- able style, she could not have effected her purpose better than she has quite unconsciously done in these Christmas stories. They are as attractive to grown-up people as to children. There is no occasion, with this book in the hand, for that skilful, but altogether ineffectual attempt to lead the child's choice to one of the least inane of the oft-read stories ; nor are those subterfuges necessary which would fain make the child believe that it prefers one with some natural human interest, to the wearisome iteration of some impossible folly. It must, indeed, be a child of little indi- viduality that is not wide awake to the fact that in offering to read it a story there is so distinct an assumption of self-denial, that we should be humiliated and compromised if, afterwards, we did not sustain the character for perfect indiffer- ence as to the choice ; a false pretence of which the child is per- fectly aware, but which it ignores, with a calmly tyrannical self-possession that our dignity forbids us to combat. But with Mrs. Molesworth we are safe. The children enjoy the simple, every-day incident, which all can understand, and many have some experience of ; and the parents are captivated by the know- ledge of their little ones, and the sensitiveness of feeling for them which this delightful authoress exhibits. She seems to discern not only the clue to children's affections, but the delicate thread which separates the domains of tenderness and indulgence. There is all the modern appreciation of the timidity and sensitive- ness of childhood, and of its newly recognised rights, and all the old-fashioned but wise dislike to the reversion of the natural order of things ordained by God, when the wishes and convenience of the young take precedence of everything, and forward and self-confident youth, nurtured by the misplaced and exaggerated self-surrender of parents, thrusts diffident age gently, may be, and with a cheerful smile of patronage, but firmly, to the wall. We said last week that there are "books for children," and "children's books." Mrs. Molesworth's belong eminently to the latter class, captivating though they be to the mature also. Her children are sweet, lovable children, but "not too good for human nature's daily food." And the incidents are of those every-day scrapes—some- times the result of naughtiness, sometimes of accident—about the getting-out of which there is such a pleasant excitement, amount- ing now and then to a thrill, akin to the "dreadfully nice" sen- sation of the child's dip in the sea.
Molly, if not a perfect character, is at least a perfect child ; we know few sweeter sketches of a little girl,— thoughtless, naive, impulsive, confident, warm,—generous, brave, honest, simple, and loving. The bluntness of her speech, that gives the tiny, unintentional wound ; the exces- sive grief, when it is pointed out ; the honest acknowledgment of the wrong ; the eager desire to heal it, at any cost to herself ; the childlike confidence in others' love for and belief in her; the rush of feeling that overwhelms with endearments ; the un- blushing coaxing,s, the cunning little manceuvrings and the wilful deafness and blindness to hints, which she allows herself in aid of her pertinacity, are admirably childlike, and are unmis- takable descriptions from life. We have been so carried away with our theme, that we have trespassed upon the space that would, perhaps, have been better devoted to sketches of, or extracts from the stories themselves.
We must give our readers an example of Molly's diplomatic abilities. "Grandmother dear" has told them a story of a " trust " given to their Uncle Jack, by a dying man in the Crimea—" that Cad Sawyer," in fact—and Molly wants to know how it was executed, since Uncle Jack also died there ; but she is loth to reopen Grandmother's wounds by referring to her uncle. The story has been very sad :— " I felt, you know,' said Molly to Sylvia, when they were dressing the next morning, 'I felt a sort of feeling as if I'd been in church when the music was awfully lovely. A beautiful feeling, but strange, too, you know, Sylvia ? Particularly as Uncle Jack died too. When did he die ? Do you know, Sylvia ? Was it at that place ?'—' What place ?' said Sylvia curtly. When her feelings were touched she had a way of growing curt and terse, sometimes even snappish.—' That hot place— without trees, and all so dusty and dirty—Kadi—Kadi—I forget!— ' Oh ! you stupid girl. Kadikoi was only one little wee village. You mean the Crimea—the Crimea is the name of all the country about there—where the war was.'—' Yes, of course. I am stupid,' said Molly, but not at all as if she had any reason to be ashamed of the fact. 'Did he never come home from the Crimea ?'—' No,' said Sylvia, curtly again, he never came home.'—For an instant Molly was silent. Then she began again. Well, I wonder how the old lady, that poor nice man's mother, I mean—I wonder how she got the money and all that, that Uncle Jack was to settle for her. Shall we ask grandmother, Sylvia ?'—' No, of course not. What does it matter to us ? Of course, it was all properly done. If it hadn't been, how would grandmother have known about it ?'—' I never thought of that. Still, I would like to know. I think,' said Molly, meditatively, 'I think I could get grand- mother to tell without exactly asking—for fear, you know, of seeming to remind her about poor Uncle Tack.'—' You'd much better not,' said Sylvia, as she left the room.—But once lot Molly get a thing well into her head, 'trust her,' as Ralph said, not to let it out again till it suited her.' That very evening when they were all sitting together again, working and talking, all except aunty, busily writing at her little table
in the corner, Molly began. Grandmother dear,' she said gently, wasn't the old lady di eadfully sorry when she heard he was dead 2'— For a moment grandmother stared at her in bewilderment—her thoughts had been far away. 'What are you saying, my dear ?' she asked.— Sylvia frowned at Molly across the table. Too well did she know the peculiarly meek and submissive tone of voice assumed by Molly when bent on—had the subject been any less serious than it was, Sylvia would have called it mischief.'—' Molly,' she said reprovingly, finding her frowns calmly ignored.—' What is it?' said Molly sweetly. ' I mean, grandmother dear,' she proceeded, I mean the mother of the poor nice man that uncle was so good to. Wasn't she dreadfully sorry when she heard he was dead ?'—' I think she was, dear,' said grand- mother unsuspiciously. Poor woman, whatever her mistakes with her children had been, I felt dreadfully sorry for her. I saw her a good many times, for your uncle sent me home all the papers and directions —" in case," as poor Sawyer had FDA of himself—so my Jack said it.'— Grandmother sighed ; Sylvia looked still more reproachfully at Molly ; Molly pretended to be threading her needle.—' And I got it all settled as her son had wished. He had arranged it so that she could not give away the money during her life. Not long after, she wont to America to her other son, and I believe she is still living. He got on very well, and is now a rich man. I had letters from them a few years ago—nice letters. I think it brought out the best of them—Philip Sawyer's death I mean. Still—oh no—they did not care for him, alive or dead, as such a man deserved.'—' What a shame it seems !' said Molly. When
/ have children,' she went on serenely, shall love them all alike— whether they're ugly or pretty, if anything, perhaps the ugliest most, to make up to them, you see.'—' I thought you were never going to marry,' said Ralph. For you're never going to England, and you'll never marry a Frenchman.'—' Englishmen might come here,' replied Molly. And when you and Sylvia go to England, you might take some of my photographs to show:—This was too much. Ralph laughed so that he rolled on the rug, and Sylvia nearly fell off her chair. Even grand- mother joined in the merriment, and aunty came over from her corner to ask what it was all about."
We cannot do better than conclude with Molly's parting wish— to which we heartily respond—for we have not space for extracts from the various stories, nor judgment sufficient to select the best where all are so equal ; and we would not, on any account, break the completeness of the touching story of "That Cad Sawyer," the poor usher :— "The children listened with sobered little faces. • Poor papa!' they said.—' But some day,' said grandmother, 'some day, I hope, when you three are older, that Alderwood will again be a happy home for your father. It is what your mother would have wished, I know.'—' Well, then, you and aunty must come to live with us there. You must. Promise now, grandmother dear,' said Molly.—Grandmother smiled, but shook her head gently. 'Grandmother will be a very old woman by then, my darling,' she said, and perhaps—'—Molly pressed her little fat hand over grandmother's mouth. I know what you're going
to say, but you're not to say it,' she said. 'And every night, grand- mother dear, I ask in my prayers for you to live to be a hundred.' —Grandmother smiled again. 'Do you, my darling?' she said. But remember, whatever we ask, God knows best what to answer.'"
Previous page
