by Silverpen [Eliza Meteyard].
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.3 #56 (22 Jan 1848).
The same principle as seen in the matter of the flowerless table was again shown, and Mason followed up the lesson taken therefrom. By the following writing day the table was newly covered with green baize, and the brown delf inkstands were replaced by three in white porcelain, made from a beautiful design by Terence; and silently watching the result for several weeks, he soon perceived, that unless from accident, no blots fell about, and almost every little hand was eager to keep unsullied the purity of the beautiful shape that stood before it.
About this time, now early spring, several sets of the already mentioned cups, saucers, jugs, plates and dishes, were finished and brought one day into the room during school hours. Two small common round tables, such as were used in his workmen's cottages, had been previously placed there by Mason's orders, one as smooth and white as new deal could be, and the other selected from some dirty cottage, where, begrimed with soot and dirt, it had been used perhaps for years. Every tea-service and every jug differed in its beautiful shape, and the richness of the white glaze upon the delf, made it look equal to the finest porcelain. All the scholars crowded eagerly round the table to view these things as there had been already much talk in their respective homes regarding them.
"Jean: shall pick out the nicest set of tea-things," said Mason, with a smile, as he looked down upon the knot of little scholars, "and the first little girl that can say what ought to be done with them, shall have them to take home." Each small face looked full of eager thought directly, and the little French lad with his innate sense of beauty, set forth the most perfect in shape, as Mason in a minute saw. After repeating what he had before said, the girls variously suggested that these tea things were to be washed, or not broken, or locked up, and so on, to all of which the good master shook his head. But Alice Brown, the bright faced child before spoken of now looked up, and pointing to the new table, said "to be placed on there, sir."
"Yes," replied Mason kindly patting her head, "you are right, Alice. But beautiful shapes, like these, will always want to stand upon a table as new and white." Alice coloured and hung down her head. Young as she was, she was conscious that hers was a very dirty and disorderly home, for the neighbours often twitted her about her dirty mother; and her father, one of Mason's best workmen, too often quitted his own squalid and comfortless fireside, for that of the tavern. "But I could wash it and keep it white, I think, sir, and father would be very proud, I know, and might often stop at home, to drink his tea out of such pretty things."
Mason had gained his point. The tea things were set aside for Alice, and the governess that very evening, before her father came to fetch them home, showed her how they were to be washed and kept, how set forth for tea, and how the table was to be scoured, so as to keep it white and new.
The poor workman was so pleased, that his bright little Alice should be the one to comprehend Mr. Mason's meaning, that he determined to make a sort of little festival of the occasion, and invite Jean and a few other of his little Alice's favourites, to take tea out of the beautiful tea-things. He persuaded his slattemly wife to clean up the house, and dress the children and to allow Alice to set forth her prize, and he borrowed a neat tea tray, and some nice spoons, and got a tidy neighbour to make a large plum cake. It was the brightest and happiest day of this young child's life; and when these grand things were set forth, and the cake lay heaped and rich upon the plate, and the little guests came, and the hearth and singing kettle, bright and clean for once, and the warm light of the soft spring evening came through the window upon the happy faces and the humble tea-table, it seemed indeed as if the spirit of the beautiful had stepped already into this poor sordid home. The little children were very merry, Jean in his broken English telling them about the woods and fields of Normandy, what a grand old place the cathedral of Beauvais was, and how, when le Pere Pacifique chaunted the Even-song, he and his little sisters kneeling had often felt as happy as God's brightest angels. As he thus talked—much meaning however hidden by his foreign speech, and comparatively highly cultivated feeling—and the other children of their school, and Mr. Mason, how he had promised them a full day's holiday in his garden, when flowers were fairly come, and Mrs. Brown said grumblingly, "that such tea-things were all very well for gentle-folks, but that a black teapot for the hob, and an odd cup or two was much better for such as them, who had not time for hearth cleaning and table-scouring, and how finery of this sort had better be stuck up on the highest shelf to be looked at," Robert Smith, one of Brown's lodgers, came in. He too was one of Mason's workmen, though not of the same high class as Brown. Drunken and dissipated in his habits, he was the only one in the house, as Mrs. Brown often declared, that made himself at home. All Brown's children however liked him, as he was very good natured and kind, and as Alice was his favourite, he came to look at the much talked of tea-things, and Alice held up as the most beautiful thing there to show, that firmly balanced yet taper milk-jug.
"Well, Ally," he said with a laugh, to which Mrs. Brown nodded approvingly, "they're all pretty things enough for little girls like you, and for a man like Mr. Mason, but I should be glad to see the jug beautiful enough to make me like water better than beer. No, no, Black Bet without her handle, and a quart for me. Beer 'afore prittiness, eh?"
"That's jist what I say," answered Mrs. Brown, looking with new contempt upon the tea things.
"But if there could be one found beautiful enough, Bob," spoke Brown, "it would put a new coat upon your back, and shoes on your feet, and might make a man of you. Ay, ay, Bob, the jug'd be as blessed as an angel that would do it, and as good a one as the little lad here talks about, up in the big church window at home."
Bob made no reply, but taking down Black Bet from the shelf, went and fetched his nightly quart from the nearest tavern, and lighting his pipe, sat down beside the fire, dirty and unwashed as he was.
The children's happy evening passed away, not without, however, some struggle of the moral and the beautiful with the ugliness and coarseness around; for Alice's tears flowed fast at the game Bob and her mother made of the tea things, more particularly whilst she washed them, and set them up on a shelf her father had cleared for the purpose. As for Jean, he became all at once very full of thought: sometimes looking up into Bob's face very acutely, then round at the shelf on which the tea-things rested, and as soon as he returned home that night to Terence's room, with whom he lodged, he got around him his little school drawings, and sat busy an hour or two with the pencil. Terence was much struck with the lad's silence and earnestness, but he did not question him, as these moods were not unusual, whenever any subject had arisen, that bore reference to "good Virgine," and the dear home and the little ones in Normandy. On the morrow morn after school hours, Jean, instead of a ramble in the lanes with his school-fellows, which had been their daily habit since spring had set in, in search of wild flowers for the foreign designers, made his way to the modellers' shed to beg of them some clay and to watch the use of their turning lathe. Whatever was the purpose of this earnestness was not known for many weeks, as he was seized that very night with cold shiverings and all the symptoms of severe fever, which proved but the forerunner of small-pox in its most malignant form. During the delirium of the attack he talked incessantly of some beautiful shape that haunted his brain, and asked imploringly for Virgine, and begged them not to keep her away. It occurred to Mason, as he watched beside him during one of these paroxysms, how much might be done for his little art-school, if a mind like Virgine's would watch daily over it, and influence by the example of a home of her own those of his workmen. To say was to do. After consulting Terence, who was, of course, too much delighted with the proposal to offer any objection, a letter was sent to the good father Pacifique, enclosing sufficient funds for Virgine and the little sisters' journey, and it was arranged that Terence should meet them at the nearest English port.
The secret was well kept from Jean till slowly recovering, and after one of those deep sleeps of convalescence he woke to find kneeling beside his little bed this dearest and best of sisters, and it seemed so like a dream, that whilst clinging passionately to her, he kept repeating is it not a romance, my sister? nor had Virgine's meek heart exhausted half its infinite love and pity, before Mr. Mason himself came gently into the chamber, leading the little ones, and in the shadow of the dear and good old father.
Jean was now the happiest of children. Mason was equally delighted at this unexpected visit from the good canon, and as the great Easter festival of his church was just over, it was arranged that he should remain some weeks, and within a day or two pronounce the nuptial benediction upon Terence and Virgine!
After this happy event, and during the rapid convalescence of the sick child, the good father took much pains with Richard's little school, both as regarded an artistic decoration of its interior, and the plan that Virgine was to follow respecting it, as soon as she could speak English sufficiently to become its mistress. He likewise advised Mason, to form a museum of his scattered works of art, in pottery both ancient and modern, wood carving, bas-reliefs, sculpture, pictures, and adding to it the mass of British antiquities collected by Walmsly, let it be a whole sufficiently easy of access to educate the eye of the neighbourhood.
"Not for copying, not for copying, let these things be, friend Richard," spoke the admirable old man, "but let the eye become accustomed to colour, and form, and beauty. Mon petit Jean, is already highly educated, as regards the beautiful, though his only lesson books have been the sunsets and the vineyards of la belle Normandie, and the shrines and windows of our Beauvais Cathedral. If Virgine does but do her duty, and Madame will but assist with her cultivated pencil, the result upon those little children may be wonderful."
One day, shortly before the good canon's departure, Jean, who had been removed to the hall by Mr. Mason's orders, was in the beautiful garden, just after a shower of rain, and whilst noticing the flowers along the border, he said abruptly—"You see, mon pere, how the rain-drop only stays in the most beautiful shaped flowers. It rolls out from the less beautiful and sheds itself upon the ground. Does it not look, mon pere, as if the lovely should only hold the pure?"
"Certainly, but the thought is an odd out of the way one for you, Jean, is it not," smiled the canon.
Jean supposed this a rebuke, so, hanging down his head, he replied, "I have odd thoughts sometimes, monsieur le pere, that I could only speak of to you, or Terence, or Virgine. But ever since the night before I was taken ill I have been trying to bring before my eyes some pitcher so graceful as to be only fit to hold a thing as pure as water. For Bob Smith, at Alice's father's, said, that no jug could make him love anything but beer. I think there might be, for he mostly gets drunk out of an ugly thing he calls Black Bet."
"You are right, and not yet right," replied the good canon, "a jug if it were as lovely as our Lady's vase is holy, would do no good thrust at once into the hands of an ignorant, ill-doing, man. But let him be gradually led to see, that cleanliness and order, however humble, are a part of beauty, let him feel a nice shaped vessel adorns the table, and he may in time come to see that his behaviour must agree through decency with what at last he has been taught to esteem. Yet as you progress with your drawing, and begin to work with Terence, all these true thoughts will serve you much, more especially if you strive to make those around you appreciate them. You must strive to grow up the very best workman Mr. Mason ever had; quite an English workman too, and a bringer forth of designs from the landscapes, the flowers, the buildings, the costume, even the books which you may read of this beautiful land, and thus as an originator, we may hear of you in la belle France, mon petit Jean. So recollect all I say."
Every word was engraven in the heart of the child. Virgine progressed so rapidly in acquiring the language, that not long after the good father's departure, she udertook the care of the school, and from this hour, all things went on admirably. Each morning she herself decked the school with flowers, and on holidays took the children a walk either to Mr. Mason's garden, or its adjacent woods and lanes. She even herself improved under the watching care of Terence, and as he earned good wages, her cottage was soon a model of tasteful elegance, fit for the peace and purity that dwelt therein. At first the neighbours held aloof from what they called "a fine fangled farener and papist," but when they began to discover that she was neither arrogant nor uncivil, and unwearied in her care and attention to their children, their dislike gave way, and a smile, look, a kindly office, was received with a sort of pride. She encouraged their coming to and fro to her on occasions, and in time the effects of these visits began slowly to show themselves through the process of a sort of imitation. On many a cottage window-ledge, plate-shelf, and mantel-piece, small vases, painted cups, and porcelain ornaments, that had proved "wasters, and as such, unfit for sale, replaced a broken flowerpot, an old tureen cover, a cracked dish, or a dirty candlestick, and wherever this was observed, another sort of sublimation was proceeding slowly in the household. It was perhaps the little children that carried home daily the seeds of this great, yet increasing change, but somewhat was certainly due to the improved household utensils now used in many cottages. Other children besides Alice Brown had had gifts of the beautiful tea-things principally as a reward for their little drawing lessons; and the other larger articles, as plates, jugs, dishes, had been distributed amongst the most meritorious of Mason's workmen. From this time one furnace and model-house were wholly used for the purpose of these improved domestic articles, which were sold amongst the workmen at cost price. A beautiful coloured jug, a well shaped tea-cup cost less, and soon began to replace the former ugly and ill-shapen things.[1] But it was in Brown's cottage, that the tea-things had served the best purpose. Alice had never forgotten Mr. Mason's words, and now, further improved by Virgine's cares, With whom she was a great favourite, she persevered in scouring her table, so that it looked even whiter than at first, and in spite of her mother's ill-natured annoyance, and Robert Smith's laughter, set forth the well-washed tea-things every night and morning. Some certainly got broken, but, as Mr. Mason always allowed them to be replaced from his warerooms, Mrs. Brown soon found that her purposed carelessness in letting down a tea-cup, or cracking the tea-pot, served to no other purpose than to exasperate her husband, and make Alice more persevering in her care and cleanliness.
1. This idea, which gives to a large master-potter, like Mason, liberality and culture of soul sufficient to advance his art through the home-culture of his workmen, as embodied in an early portion of this tale, is original. Since it was written an admirable article has appeared in Douglas Jerrold's Magazine for December, suggesting an "Art Union Manufactory" for the universal people. I trust this excellent suggestion will not die out on paper. Never till we have a home culture of the arts, shall we be, as a nation, great in original design, or an artloving, and, consequently, moral people. It is not manufacturing pots and pans for lords and ladies that we want, but letting them be beautiful for the common household where the hand is rough, and the eye yet rude. Moreover, we are probably destined to become the greatest manufacturing potters in the world as soon as the dead weight of Directors and Monopoly is removed from our commercial relation with India. This probability calls for progress in design, or other nations may outrival us on the banks of the Ganges or the Indus. As I have said, I trust this suggestion may not die. Democrat as I am, I recognise the aristocratic element of beauty as the noblest feature in the coming democracy of the people.—Silverpen.