FROM SIX TO SIXTEEN.*
IT would be a very inadequate account of this charming little story—which the readers of Aunt Judy's Magazine will have enjoyed, before they reread it in this more finished and carefully revised form—to say that it is in some sense a practical illustration of the remark which Mrs. Ewing makes at p. 164, that "girls' heads not being jam-pots, which, if you do not fill them, will remain empty, the best way to keep folly out is to put something less foolish in." The story is, no doubt, an elaborate illustration of that remark, but that is a very small part of the matter, for it would have been quite possible to give us an elaborate illustration of it with exceedingly little of the humour, pathos, and thought which this story contains. The only fault which we can find with such books as this, as compared with the didactic little story-books on which the childhood of the last generation was nourished, is that they present none of that mixture of the intrinsically ludicrous with magnanimous virtue and magnificent decorum, which used to excite in the boyish minds of those days an emotion delightfully blended of quizzical superiority to the author and sympathy with the priggish excellences of disposition so majestically depicted. There is something very delightful to children in feeling that they have really more knowledge of the world than the excellent people who preach to them, and who set little patterns of decorum before them to show them' how they ought to behave, though if they ever did so behave, they would well deserve to be whipped well and sent to bed. Books like Sandford and Merton, Elements of Morality, and , The history of Harry Freeman and Tommy Truelove, while they really answered the purpose of teaching children the difference between right and wrong in a very simple way, also answered the purpose of making everything like moral posture-making supremely absurd, so that the very puppets which taught us in strongly-marked outlines the difference between right and wrong, also taught us the supreme folly of all the ceremonial grandiloquence of histrionic virtue. Mrs. Ewing will never give the young people of the present day the pleasure of laughing at her at the very time that they are learning from her, as the story-book teachers of our fathers' times used to do. She makes you laugh with her at what is artificial as heartily as she makes you laugh at what is humorous, so that in reading her tales, young people have no chance of becoming conscious of their superiority in knowledge of the world and in reality of mind to their author. Mrs. Ewing is lively and natural, and hates preachiness as much as any of her readers. Her girls have as good an idea of a joke and a remp as they have of a moral lesson or a childish friendship. Her notion of a good education for girls is to give them some one to love and trust, enough sub-: jects worth thinking about, plenty of exercise, plenty of fun, a good number of dumb companions, a cordial love of natural beauty, and sincere devotional feeling. If you can add a taste for housekeeping, and skill in cooking, sewing, cutting-out, and ornamentation, so much the better, but mental qualifications of a higher order are made the first requisites even for that domestic happiness to which powers of managing and of beautifying a home so much contribute. If this idea of the education of girls had been developed in theory only, we should certainly have praised the little book in which it was inculcated in a few lines, but as certainly it would not have given us any great pleasure. It is the lively picture of these girls' thoughts and habits, relatives, friends, teachers, and dumb companions, which makes this little
• From Six to Bizteen: a Story for Girls. By Juliana Horatla Ewing. Whh 10 Illustrations by Mrs. W. Allingham. London : George Bell and Bons.
story so entertaining, and here and there so full of power and pathos.
The story opens in an outbreak of cholera in India, which carries off Margery's father and deprives her indirectly of her mother also ; and this opening is given with great beauty and pathos, and the mixture of vanity with grief in the associations connected with Marger5's first black frock are exquisitely painted. Again, the effect upon Margery of hearing of her mother's "graceful, gracious little manner," and that she has to some extent inherited it, and the little scene in which her great-grandmother, Madame de Vandaleur, first sees her practising her 'graceful, gracious, little manner' before a great pier-glass, are sketched with just that light and easy touch which makes the child's vanity amusing without making a solemn warning of it: But the contrast between the 4,good" little books of the last generation and this tale, cannot be better shown than by quoting the passage where Margery's almost model friend, Eleanor, attacks the style of the drawing- master of the school to the French mistress, and attacks it suc- cessfully, but is made ashamed of herself for her pains by Miss Ellen Mulberry (the sister of the schoolmistress) without any invalidation of her criticisms ;— a Her [Eleanor's] taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with hiving a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour copies were not so effective as Luoy's ; simply, I believe, with the wish to stimulate her to exceL I am sure Madame much pre- ferred Eleanor to Lucy, as a matter of liking. Behold, Mademoiselle 1' said she, holding up one of Lucy's latest copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard 'mounting.' What do you think of this ?'—' It is very like Mr. Henley's,' said Eleanor warmly. 'Lucy has taken great pains, I'm sure. It's quite as good as the copy, I think.'— 'But what do you think of it ?' said Madame, impatiently; she was too quick-witted to be easily put off.' 'Is it not beautiful ?'—' It is very smart, very gay,' said Eleanor, who began to lose her temper. 'All Mr. Henley's sketches are gay. The thatch on the house reminds me of the ends' of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley's sketches. I don't know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The trunks are pink, but that doesn't help one, for the markings on them are always the same.' Eleanor's French was quite good enough to give this speech its full weight, as Madame's kindling eyes testified. She flung the draw- ing from her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the room. 1 had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, 'who lay on a couch near the window, but we had both paused involun- tarily to listen to Eleanor and Madame. Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in the thick of it, I think. When Madame had loft the room, she called Eleanor to' her, and in an almost trembling voice My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about that drawing ?'—' I am very sorry, Miss Ellen,' said Eleanor, but it's what I think, and she asked me what I thought:— ' You are very clever, my dear,' said Miss Ellen, 'and no one knows better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing one's opinion.'—' Indeed,' Eleanor broke in, 'I don't want to be rude. rm sorry I did speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my mother draws ! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley's ? Like green aeaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork ! And we've lots of old etchings at home, with such trees in them ! Like —well, like nothing but real trees and photographs.' Miss Ellen took Eleanor's hand and drew her towards her. 'My dear,' said she, you have plenty of sense, and have evidently used it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls' schools, or, if they would, that schoolmistresses could afford to pay them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things, but fault- finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley's lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting your drawing because you don't like his style, which, after all, you needn't copy when you sketcb from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever young people are apt to think that their stupid elders have never perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself,' continued Miss Ellen, very modestly, 'and I have never liked Mr. Henley's style. But he is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and we should have had another master if a much better one could have been got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley ; and though his style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him."
Conduct such as Eleanor's, in the old-fashioned children's books, would have been made the very type of indecorous iniquity, instead of being half justified as Eleanor's criticism here is, indeed intellectually wholly justified, and only found wanting in that she did not make allowances for a class of considerations quite beyond the reach of a girl in her position. Our grandfathers could not have endured to admit that any virtuous child could know, and believe that she knew, more on
any subject than her teacher. It would indeed have been a sign of a vicious child to allow such an impression to creep, however gradually, into her mind; but Mrs. Ewing makes it quite evident that not only did Eleanor know more than her drawing-master, but that it was her natural straightforwardness and reality of mind that made her avow her disbelief in that master's style.
But the humour of the story is better even than its strong belief in the use of intellectual hobbies for the training of children. Nothing can be more delightful than the sketch of Eleanor's home, and especially of "the dear boys,"—the dogs,—who adorned it:—
4, We found the [kitchen] door shut; much, it seemed, to Eleanor's as- tonishment. But the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone passage there arose from behind the kitchen-door an utterly indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and barking. 'It's the dear boys !' said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a moment I thought of her brothers, (who must, obviously, be maniacs!) but I soon discovered that the dear boys' were the dogs of the establishment, who were at once let loose upon us es masse. I have a faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each other's arms with cries of delight, but I was a good deal absorbed by the care of my own small person. under the heavy onslaught of dogs big and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more cautious of the pack 'Keziah has put the chair-bed into my room, Margery dear,' said Eleanor.—' am so glad,' said I. I would rather be with you.'—' Would you like a dog to sleep with you?' Eleanor politely inquired. 'I shall have Growler inside, and my big boy outside. Pincher is a nice little fellow ; you'd better have Pincher.' I took Pincher accordingly, and Pincher took the middle of the bed. We were just dropping off to sleep, when Eleanor said, 'If Pincher snores, darling, hit him on the nose.'—' All right,' said L Good night.' I had begun a confused dream, woven from my late experiences, when Eleanor's voice aroused me once more. 'Margery dear, if Growler should get out of my bed and come on to yours, mind you kick him off, or he and Pincher will fight through the bed-clothes.' But whether Pincher did snore, or Growler invade our bed, I slept much too soundly to be able to telL It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realise my new position. The window being in the opposite direc- tion (as regarded my bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry's, the light puzzled me, and I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his tongue, which I took all the kindlier of him, that he had been, of all the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening before."
No wonder that when Madame, the French mistress, came to stay at the house, and was offered a dog to sleep on her bed, she exclaimed ', menage extraordinaire !" with even more than her usual fervour.
The discussions between the young people at the vicarage, and Jack's speeches especially, are full of liveliness, and yet they are just such discussions as young people with educated hobbies have had and will have to the end of time. But the element in the story which gives it its rare pathos, is the story of the French émigré, Margery's great- grandfather, and his wife, and the description of her childish visit to Vine Cottage, and again of her later visit to nurse them in their declining years. There is a delicacy, and we may say a brilliancy, in that exquisite picture which idealise the whole story, and give it an ending as touching as its beginning in the account of the death of Margery's father in India. The homely good- sense and humour of the bulk of the story are thus set off by the pathos of its opening and its close, and a soft and beautiful light, as of dawn and sunset, is thrown round the substantial English ideal of what a girl's education ought to be, which runs through the tale Mrs. Ewing's book will hardly be equalled by any of the many stories for girls which the coming of Christmas is sure to produce. And there is this further excellence in it, —that it is quite as good and entertaining as a story for boys, as it is for the purpose for which it is more especially designed.
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