by Silverpen [Eliza Meteyard].
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.3 #57 (29 Jan 1848).
It was necessary for Alice to be up earlier in the morning, for she soon saw that a dirty hearth and dull fire did not suit the bright white table, and the brighter tea-things; and though it was cold and dark now winter was come round again, it fully repaid her to see her father come cheerfully in to tea, or breakfast, with a smile on his face, and always a kind word. By degrees, her mother, who at first would not sit near the "fine things," began to take her breakfast at the table with her husband and the little ones, and to admit that the fire "was really comfortable." It might be noticed, too, that these little ones grew more tidy in their habits at breakfast and tea, and were careful not to grease or slop the neat table. The more this change made him happier, the more poor Brown returned to his fireside, to hear of an evening Alice read, or to teach the other children. The kitchen walls, too, as he would sometimes look up and down them by the evening fire, looked dirty and bare; so, after a week or two's discussion, his wife consented to let them be papered with a cheap paper, and when this was done, the highly-coloured pictures bought at the door, of a hawker, looked so absurd and uncomely, that they were taken down again. Brown presently recollected that one of the burnishers had, some days before, offered him a well-shaped "waster" vase for a few pence, and as he knew that if this were bought, and placed upon a little wooden bracket, that his friend Hodges would easily make and paint, Alice would be wonderfully delighted, the pictures were given as toys to the children, and Alice one night was surprised by seeing on the middle of the bare wall, opposite the window, the pretty bracket, and its prettier vase. From this time, art, in its poor way, entered the humble household. The mantel, the shelf, the window ledge bore testimony to this.
Though Mrs. Mason had never co-operated in any of her husband's plans, she, as time wore on betrayed her unexpected jealousy of Virgine's success, by haughty coldness in their occasional intercourse, or by marked silence at other times. She never visited the little school, though an object of great interest for many miles around; and so persistingly opposed the removal of her father's collection of British antiquities, and splendid books on works of art, that Richard's projected museum was for the present at a stand still. Though thus crossed and vexed, Richard loved her dearly, and now looked forward with anxious interest to an increase in his household. The more anxiously, as he had on one or two previous occasions been disappointed. The hour came, and he was made happy by the birth of a son, but at such cost to Gertrude, that for weeks she lay so ill, as to be unable even to recognise her husband. No nurse could be found for the baby. It was at this moment, when his wife seemed dying and his child's life was perilled, that Virgine sent and proffered to be its nurse, though her own infant was only a fortnight old. This noble offer inexpressibly touched the soul of Mason. He felt that in saving his child, the poor designer of Beauvais rewarded him very largely for the service he had done, and in the moment of his happiness he made new resolves to further lift this household-art that had made the soul and home of this poor teacher so lovely and exalted. Virgine's were not mere words. She took the babe, and in maternal tenderness was more careful of it than of her own. As soon as she was sufficiently convalescent, she took it each day to the bedside of its mother, and poor Gertrude, once able to recognise her own blooming and thriving infant, cherished and preserved by the gentle, meek hearted foreigner, then all mere difference of rank, pride, and jealousy were cast forth from the contrite heart of the mother and the woman.
From this time a strong affection grew up between Virgine and Gertrude; and where the one had cast the seed with meek diligence, the other with more advanced culture of hand and eye raised and led onward. The lessons of the most intelligent children were soon wholly prepared by Mrs. Mason, and though one by one the boys were drafted into the various working departments of the pottery, amongst others, Jean, still they formed a class three evenings in the week to pursue what had been so well, and so artistically, begun.
Through the space of the next five years the children of the little geometrical lessons, who had sat round the garlanded table, and first paid worship to purity through the beautiful inkstands, became the full grown or growing youths of this pottery district. If original design was but yet in its infancy amongst them, it was already noticed that Mason's goods bore a remarkable finish; and that instead of as formerly, the most elaborate model could be perfected by his own workmen. But design itself was under development. True, Jean Marron was far above the rest in artistical genius and taste, though the youngest amongst them; still the correct hand, the cultivated eye, was fully alive to all the influences which generate the true and new in art. As inseparable the moral growth kept pace with the intellectual one. Instead of the dog-fighting, public-house hunting, rioting, which filled up the leisure of their fathers' early time, these youths now spent their few holidays, in what Jean truly called "design rambles," that is amidst the woods and fields, catching sweet nature in her loveliest forms and fancies. Many a graceful tea-cup handle, had in form, but the week before perhaps, been the mossied bough of some old tree; and the pendulous flower, that had suggested the curve of a vase or new drinking vessel, had drooped beneath some hedge row, or dipped into some stream.
It was during one of these summer holiday rambles that a floating bough in the shady recesses of an old country mere, suggested the outline of the imperishable form that was first to proclaim Jean Marron a great original artist, and to be well known in every European wareroom as the "Lily Water Jug." This was the form he had so long vainly sought to realize. It was faultless, and when executed in the relief of porcelain and biscuit, orders poured in on every side for this rich specimen of original British art. Various sizes of the jug were made. With one holding about two pints Jean went to Brown's cottage, where, if the truth be spoken, he now went pretty often, as between himself and Alice an affection had for some time sprung up. Bob Smith was still a lodger, and it being evening time, Alice had just spread the supper table as Jean went in. But what a different supper table to the one of years before, though the viands were not richer. The well shaped dishes and plates were set on a neat cloth, the knives and forks and salt cellars were bright and clean; the only thing that seemed out of place on the table was Bob Smith's remarkable Black Bet, which was still filled both at dinner and supper with a quart of strong beer. Though not the drunkard that he formerly was, as the culture that had commenced with the first set of tea things had operated gradually upon his coarse, rough habits, still these daily quarts kept him without a Sunday coat and shoes. Jean was invited to supper; and Alice at his bidding filled the beautiful jug with fresh spring water and set it on the table. Bob looked and admired with the rest. "It really is beautiful" and mechanically he looked down at the beer pot by his side. Jean made no comment, he had already spoken aside to both Brown and his daughter, but from this time the "Lily Jug"' stood so regularly on the table that Bob was the first to miss it, if designedly forgotten by Alice, and at last one day said, "Come, I've seen this thing so long, that I begin to think what comes out of it must be 'specially nice. Let's have a drop." Though such a circumstance had never been known before, Black Bet was soon after this forgotten to be filled. And Bob who would at one time have walked a mile to secure his "dinner drop," now without a comment took water; and from this time the "quart" was so frequently forgotten, that, at Alice's suggestion, Black Bet was dismissed altogether.
"And now Bob" said Alice, "dear Jean will be happy, for though father and I have not told you, he never forgot what you said a long while ago, that no Jug would ever make you like water. He thus thought in his own mind that he would try to make one so beautiful, that set on the table from day to day, you might be led to like water, for the reason that it stood in what was so much admired and what was so pleasant and nice to look at. This is the jug, and now, Bob, I'll take care of the money it once cost to fill Black Bet, and you'll soon have the worth of a Sunday coat."
The success far and wide of the "Lily Jug," and the moral of the little story attached to it, gave as it were a new and great impulse to the whole management of Mason's pottery. Anxious to compete with Jean, the young designers and modellers of the district soon formed a "Design Association," the products of which might be bought by any master potter, on the condition that they would manufacture certain of the designs to supply a cheap "Art-Lottery" for the people. Mr. Mason had just built some magnificent rooms, and arranged within them his now greatly enlarged museum. With his old liberality he at once gave over to the use of the Association his "British" rooms: and thus amidst relics of English battle fields, the wreck of buried cities, the riches of excavated tumuli and barrows, old carving, old missals, old stained glass, models of Stonehenge and old abbeys like those of Glastonbury and Fountains, rich paintings of native scenery and domestic life, and illustrations of the ideal of our poets, the great work of originality was commenced. From the first, success was wonderful. The design for a fish strainer by Jean sold for a large sum, and the designs for the "Material Art Lottery" were gladly executed by the master potters at half the usual cost for the mere sake of practice from such models.
As native art thus improved, wealth flowed in upon Richard Mason. He could afford to be liberal, to elevate his workmen, to still further their advance through lectures and books, for the reason, that he had wisely cultivated the native genius of the district. In no great while an equal moral change was perceptible.
I now come to the present time when British art is making such a change in the whole condition of the people. Mason is the greatest and most successful of English potters, and he has been the means of spreading the "Marron designs" far and wide upon the continent. As the good father prophecied, Jean has been heard of in La belle Normandie. But passionately attached to the country of his adoption, and married to one of the best and worthiest of its women, in good circumstances, he is still Mason's chief designer, and carrying out with singleness of purpose, the almost sublime image of the river drooped flower—"The Beautiful contains the Pure."
I now finish with a true and fitting climax to my little story. No later than this very past Christmas eve. Mr. and Mrs. Mason with good old father Pacifique, who has come his last journey to England, principally for the purpose of bringing to Richard the gift of the Veiien vase, meet the whole body of workmen in the great room of the Museum. Gertrude looks kindly round upon the many faces, Virgine proudly on her foster son, and after some speaking Jean uncovers the table, and shows as a gift to Richard Mason, the great English Potter, the magnificent dessert service to be henceforth immortalized in British art as the "Shakesperian Service," because illustrating the grandest scenes in the greatest plays. It has been secretly in progress for five years; and subscribed for by the whole body of workmnen, is gigantic evidence of luxuriant originality in those, that once, as little children, had sat round the garlanded table. Both plate and dish are matchless in form, and rich in painting and bas-reliefs. The latter, upholding the flower vase, shows Perdita bringing in the flowers to the feast of the sheep shearing!
In the admirable thanks that Richard Mason gives, he says, "I have never doubted the artistic genius of this great country, and I am right. We will yet be immortalized by more things than by the grandeur of our poetry; and when I see around me as I do, the moral life that has sprung forth, like a stream, from this true and new estimation of the beautiful, I may justly say this is indeed divine—"Fruit From Plates and Dishes."