Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books | Page 6

me this story is one of the most beautiful of her
compositions, and deeply characteristic of the strong power she
possessed of drawing happiness from little things, in spite of the
hindrances caused by weak health. Her fountain of hope and
thankfulness never ran dry.
[Footnote 5: "A Great Emergency, and other Tales."]
Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment.
From her earliest years it had been a family joke, that poor Madam
Liberality was always in ill-luck's way.
It is true that she was constantly planning; and, if one builds castles,
one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now and then. But,
besides this, her little hopes were constantly being frustrated by Fate.
If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed was
sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When a picnic
or a tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not catch cold, so
as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to have a quinsy from
fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a treat, she paid for the
pleasurable excitement by a head-ache, just as when she ate sweet
things they gave her toothache.
But, if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good
spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about
the treat when she had forgotten the head-ache.

One side of her face would look fairly cheerful when the other was
obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole
was redolent of every possible domestic remedy for toothache, from oil
of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No sufferings abated
her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the hope that cold, and damp,
and fatigue would not hurt her "this time."
In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her quinsy she would
amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition, on a larger and
possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time when she should
be out again.
It is a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a cork
rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had swallowed up her
hopes.
Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each
mischance or malady as ready and hopeful as ever.
Some of the indoor amusements over which Julie exercised great
influence were our theatricals. Her powers of imitation were strong;
indeed, my mother's story of "Joachim the Mimic" was written, when
Julie was very young, rather to check this habit which had early
developed in her. She always took what may be called the "walking
gentleman's" part in our plays. Miss Corner's Series came first, and then
Julie was usually a Prince; but after we advanced to farces, her most
successful character was that of the commercial traveller, Charley
Beeswing, in "Twenty Minutes with a Tiger." "Character" parts were
what she liked best to take, and in later years, when aiding in private
theatricals at Aldershot Camp, the piece she most enjoyed was
"Helping Hands," in which she acted Tilda, with Captain F.G. Slade,
R.A., as Shockey, and Major Ewing as the blind musician.
The last time she acted was at Shoeburyness, where she was the guest
of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, and when Captain
Goold-Adams and his wife also took part in the entertainment. The
terrible news of Colonel Strangways' and Captain Goold-Adams' deaths
from the explosion at Shoebury in February 1885, reached her whilst

she was very ill, and shocked her greatly; though she often alluded to
the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' unselfishness,
courage, and submission during his last hours, and trying to bear her
own sufferings in the same spirit. She was so much pleased with the
description given of his grave being lined with moss and lilac crocuses,
that when her own had to be dug it was lined in a similar way.
But now let us go back to her in the Nursery, and recall how, in spite of
very limited pocket-money, she was always the presiding Genius over
birthday and Christmas-tree gifts; and the true 'St. Nicholas' who filled
the stockings that the "little ones" tied, in happy confidence, to their
bed-posts. Here the description must be quoted of Madam Liberality's
struggles between generosity and conscientiousness;--
It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should ever have been
accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his head
at her and say, "You're the most meanest and the generousest person I
ever knew!" And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, although
her brother was then too young to form either his words or his opinions
correctly.
But it was the touch