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though, taught by those around her, she soon began to take an imaginary interest in colour, and a very real one
in form and texture. An old nurse is still alive who remembers making a pink frock for her when she was a
child, her delight at its being pink and her pleasure in stroking down the folds; and when in 1835 the young
Princess Victoria visited Oxford with her mother, Bessie, as she was always called, came running home,
exclaiming, 'Oh, mamma, I have seen the Duchess of Kent, and she had on a brown silk dress.' Her youthful
admiration of Wordsworth was based chiefly upon his love of flowers, but also on personal knowledge.
When she was about ten years old, Wordsworth went to Oxford to receive the honorary degree of D.C.L. from
the University. He stayed with Dr. Gilbert, then Principal of Brasenose, and won Bessie's heart the first day
by telling at the dinner table how he had almost leapt off the coach in Bagley Wood to gather the blue
veronica. But she had a better reason for remembering that visit. One day she was in the drawing-room
alone, and Wordsworth entered. For a moment he stood silent before the blind child, the little sensitive face,
with its wondering, inquiring look, turned towards him. Then he gravely said, 'Madam, I hope I do not disturb
you.' She never forgot that 'Madam' grave, solemn, almost reverential.
As for the great practical work of her life, the amelioration of the condition of the blind, Miss Martin gives a
wonderful account of her noble efforts and her noble success; and the volume contains a great many
interesting letters from eminent people, of which the following characteristic note from Mr. Ruskin is not the
least interesting:
DENMARK HILL, 2nd September 1871.
MADAM, I am obliged by your letter, and I deeply sympathise with the objects of the
institution over which you preside. But one of my main principles of work is that every one
must do their best, and spend their all in their own work, and mine is with a much lower race
of sufferers than you plead for with those who 'have eyes and see not.' I am, Madam, your
faithful servant, J. Ruskin.
Miss Martin is a most sympathetic biographer, and her book should be read by all who care to know the
history of one of the remarkable women of our century.
* * * * *
Ourselves and Our Neighbours is a pleasant volume of social essays from the pen of one of the most graceful
and attractive of all American poetesses, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton. Mrs. Moulton, who has a very light
literary touch, discusses every important modern problem from Society rosebuds and old bachelors, down to
the latest fashions in bonnets and in sonnets. The best chapter in the book is that entitled 'The Gospel of Good
Gowns,' which contains some very excellent remarks on the ethics of dress. Mrs. Moulton sums up her
position in the following passage:
The desire to please is a natural characteristic of unspoiled womanhood. 'If I lived in the
woods, I should dress for the trees,' said a woman widely known for taste and for culture.
Every woman's dress should be, and if she has any ideality will be, an expression of herself. .
. . The true gospel of dress is that of fitness and taste. Pictures are painted, and music is
written, and flowers are fostered, that life may be made beautiful. Let women delight our
eyes like pictures, be harmonious as music, and fragrant as flowers, that they also may fulfil
their mission of grace and of beauty. By companionship with beautiful thoughts shall their
tastes be so formed that their toilets will never be out of harmony with their means or their
position. They will be clothed almost as unconsciously as the lilies of the field; but each one
LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES IV 123
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will be herself, and there will be no more uniformity in their attire than in their faces.
The modern Dryad who is ready to 'dress for the trees' seems to me a charming type; but I hardly think that
Mrs. Moulton is right when she says that the woman of the future will be clothed 'almost as unconsciously as
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