Great Englishwomen: An Historical Reading Book for Schools

by M. B. Synge

At eight years old and earlier she began to write little verses, and at eleven she wrote a long “epic” poem in four books called the “Battle of Marathon,” of which fifty copies were printed, because, she tells us, her father was bent on spoiling her. She spent most of her time reading Greek, either alone or with her brother; she so loved the old Greek heroes, and would dream about them at night; she loved the old Greek stories, she “ate and drank Greek,” and her poetry is mixed with Greek ideas and thoughts and names, even from a child.

She had one favourite brother; with him she read, with him she talked; they understood one another, and entered into one another’s thoughts and fancies. He called her by a pet name, when they were little children together, because the name Elizabeth seemed so “hard to utter,” and “he calls me by it still,” she adds pathetically in later life, when that life was no longer all sunshine and laughter, and when the brother had been taken from her. But these were happy days, these days of childhood, never forgotten by Elizabeth Barrett, who looked back to them afterwards, and remembered how she sat at her father’s knee, and how lovingly he would look down at the little poet and reward her with kisses.

When she was older the family moved to London, and there Elizabeth Barrett became very ill. She had always been fragile and delicate, and now she was obliged to lie all day in one room in the London house. When she grew a little stronger, and the cold weather was coming on, the doctor ordered a milder climate, and she was moved to Torquay, her favourite brother going with her. She had been there a year, and the mild sea-breezes of Devonshire had done her good, when fresh trouble came to her.

One fine summer morning her brother with a few friends started in a little sailing-vessel for a few hours’ trip. They were all good sailors, and knowing the coast well, they sent back the boatmen, and undertook the management of the boat themselves. The idea of danger never seems to have occurred to them. They had not got far out, when suddenly, just as they were crossing the bar, in sight of the very windows, the boat went down, and the little crew perished—among them Elizabeth Barrett’s favourite brother. He was drowned before her very eyes, and, already ill and weak, she nearly sank under the weight of the blow.

The house she lived in at Torquay was at the bottom of the cliffs close to the sea, but now the sound of the waves no longer soothed her; they sounded like moanings from the sea. She struggled back to life, but all was changed for her. Still she clung to Greek and literature, and she would pore over her books till the doctor would remonstrate, and urge some lighter reading. He did not know that her books were no hard study to her; reading was no exertion, but a delight and comfort to her, changing the current of her thoughts from the sad past, and helping her to wile away the long hours of sickness. However, to make others happy about her, she had her little edition of Plato bound so that it looked like a novel, and then she could read it without being disturbed or interfered with at all.

She tried to forget her ill health and weariness, and some of her letters at this time were so bright and amusing, that we see how well she succeeded in throwing herself into the lives of those around her. At last she was well enough to be moved in an invalid carriage with “a thousand springs” to London, in short journeys of twenty miles a day. There for seven long years she lived in one large, but partly darkened room, seeing only her own family and a few special friends.

Her poems were sad, beautiful, and very tender; never once does she allude in words to the terrible blow which had swept so much sunshine and happiness from her young life, but her writings are full now of wild utterances and passionate cries, now calming down into sleepy lullabies for the little children she had such sympathy with. She did not put her name to many of her works, but readers were startled from time to time by the wonderful new poems, until at last they were traced to the sick room of Elizabeth Barrett. In her sick room lived “Flush,” a little dog given her by a friend; he was dark brown with long silken ears and hazel eyes, but, better than these, such a faithful heart, and

“... of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary;
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.”

He would push his nose into her pale, thin hand, and lie content for hours, till the quick tears of his mistress would sometimes drop on to his glossy head, and he would spring up eagerly, as if to share the trouble if he only could.

Here is a story about Flush which shows his devotion. The little terrier was stolen, and his mistress shed many tears for her lost favourite. She was accused of being “childish,” but she could not help it.