The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

This was a heavy blow to the brave young sister, now left with only the younger brother. He was a musician and a photographer of no mean rank at a time when few persons thought of photography as an art. Though he never proved a support to her, always leaning on her motherly care and getting himself into many scrapes from which she had to pull him out he was nevertheless the joy of his sister's life.

In London Miss Mulock made friends whose assistance, later, was worth a great deal to her. She had published, in 1849, her first novel, The Ogilvies, which brought her recognition, and made men and women of real power in the world of letters seek her out. When they knew her personally, her simple cordiality, friendliness, and, above all, her thorough goodness of heart, made them her warm friends. When she found herself able to take a cottage—the "Wildwood Cottage" already spoken of—she quickly gathered around her some of the brightest and best people in the great city. From that time on, her books came out steadily and in great numbers. In all, she wrote forty-six works, including many novels, some essays, and two or three volumes of poetry.

The greatest of her novels is John Halifax, Gentleman, considered by many the best story of English middle-class life ever written. This novel was translated into French, German, Italian, Greek, and Russian, and is still one of the most frequently called for books in the public libraries. Her poems, Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True, and Philip My King, are known wherever English is spoken.

There is an interesting story connected with the latter poem. Philip Bourke Marston, the boy to whom it refers, was the son of one of Miss Mulock's London friends, Westland Marston, a famous dramatic poet and critic. When his little son was born, August 13, 1850, he asked Miss Mulock to be Philip's godmother, and traces of her deep affection for the gifted child are to be found among her writings. A Hero was written for him, and it is to him, evidently, that the lovely little poem, A Child's Smile, refers. The boy lost his sight when only three years old. The cause is said to have been too much belladonna, given to prevent scarlet fever. For many years enough sight remained to enable him, in his own words, to see "the three boughs waving in the wind, the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the hearth." Shut in thus to the inner world of thought and feeling, Philip indulged in an imaginative series of wonderful adventures, and in long daydreams excited by music. Perhaps his blindness, coupled with his vivid imagination, is the reason why the beautiful poems he wrote when he grew older show such a wonderfully vivid power of portraying nature. When he saw a tree-bough waving in the wind, he saw it only dimly with his outward eyes, but as he sat dreaming over it afterward, it became more real to him than any bough was likely to become to an everyday, hearty boy who saw so many trees, with so many branches, that he hardly noticed them at all. It must have been a great comfort to him to have such a godmother as Miss Mulock—a real fairy godmother, who could weave magic spells of the most interesting stories, and heal the aches of his poor heart by sweet little poems.

It was at Wildwood Cottage that Miss Mulock formed that close acquaintance with George Lillie Craik that finally led to her marriage with him. Mr. Craik met with a serious railroad accident near her house, which she promptly gave up to him, she staying with a friend near by; in the long days of convalescence they learned to know each other thoroughly. The marriage was singularly happy. Mr. Craik was a man of letters as well as a publisher, and they had every taste in common. Their life together was beautiful and full of a deep peace.

Although they had no children of their own, they had an adopted daughter, Dorothy, and she it is for whom The Adventures of a Brownie was written. It is probably because of Mrs. Craik's devotion and love for her that the little book is so free from self-consciousness, so evidently written wholeheartedly "as told to my child."

Mrs. Craik's death, which took place in 1887, was, like her life, full of self-sacrificing affection and obedience to duty. She had not been ill, beyond a few attacks of heart-trouble that no one considered serious. By some blessed chance, on the morning of her last day on earth, her husband took an especially loving farewell of her—so much so that Dorothy laughed at him, and Mrs. Craik, smiling happily, reminded her that, although they had been so long married, they were lovers still. It was within a few weeks of Dorothy's marriage when the sudden heart failure came, and Mrs. Craik's one wish was that she might be permitted to live four weeks longer, so that her death might not overshadow her daughter's wedding. She resigned even this unselfish wish when she saw that it was not God's will.

The beauty of her character, it may be supposed, quite as much as any peculiar merit in her writings, led Queen Victoria, who always tried to reward uprightness of life as well as unusual skill in any art, to bestow upon Mrs. Craik the only mark of recognition in her power. This was a small pension, and although she often was criticised for keeping a sum of money she did not need, while many less fortunate writers did need it, she retained it as her right, to use as her conscience dictated. She set it aside for struggling authors who would accept help from the queen's bounty that they would refuse from her private funds.

Other writers may be more brilliant and more profound than Mrs. Craik, but her tales of simple goodness bring, not only a sense of rest and relief to the reader, but also a new desire to put goodness into his own daily life. In all her stories Mrs. Craik makes goodness as lovely as it really is. There are sad things in them, but the sadness is always made sweet at last by courage and patience and kindliness.