But it will be seen that to this has been added the prefix “Happy,” thereby drawing down the disapprobation of certain of the artist’s friends, who, recognising her as a resident in Hampstead, have associated the title with that alliterative one which the northern suburbs have received at the hands of the Bank Holiday visitant; and they facetiously surmise that the work may be called “’Appy England! By a Denizen of ’Appy ’Ampstead!”
But a glance at the illustrations by any one unacquainted with Mrs. Allingham’s residential qualifications, and by the still greater number ignorant even of her name (for these, in spite of her well-earned reputation, will be the majority, taking the countries over which this volume will circulate), must convince such an one that the “England” requires and deserves not only a qualifying but a commendatory prefix, and that the best that will fit it is that to which the artist has now submitted.
We say a “qualifying” title, because within its covers we find only a one-sided and partial view of both life and landscape. None of the sterner realities of either are presented. In strong opposition to the tendency of the art of the later years of the nineteenth century, the baser side of life has been studiously avoided, and nature has only been put down on paper in its happiest moods and its pleasantest array. Storm and stress in both life and landscape are altogether absent. We say, further, a “commendatory” title, because as regards both life and landscape it is, throughout, a mirror of halcyon days. If sickness intrudes on a single occasion, it is in its convalescent stage; if old age, it is in a “Haven of Rest”; the wandering pedlar finds a ready market for her wares, the tramp assistance by the wayside. In both life and landscape it is a portrayal of youth rejoicing in its youth. For the most part it represents childhood, and, if we are to believe Mr. Ruskin, for the first time in modern Art; for in his lecture on Mrs. Allingham at Oxford, he declared that “though long by academic art denied or resisted, at last bursting out like one of the sweet Surrey fountains, all dazzling and pure, you have the radiance and innocence of reinstated infant divinity showered again among the flowers of English meadows of Mrs. Allingham.”
This healthiness, happiness, and joy of life, coupled with an idyllic beauty, reveals itself in every figure in Mrs. Allingham’s story, so that even the drudgery of rural life is made to appear as a task to be envied.
And the same joyous and happy note is to be found in her landscapes. Every scene is
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
One feels that
Every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
Rain, wind, or lowering skies find no place in any of them, but each calls forth the expression
What a day
To sun one and do nothing!