"They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven Through peril, toil and pain."
The men sang on, but the V.C. stopped as if he had been shot. For a man's hand had come to the Barrack Master's window and pulled down the blind!
Here, again, we have an instance of this author's power to touch her readers, even to tears, by the true pathos which needs but few words to bring it home to many hearts.
Taken as a whole, "The Story of a Short Life" has, it may be, some faults of construction, which arose from its being written in detached portions. The history of St. Martin, though it is not without its bearing on the story of the beautiful and once active child's bruised and broken life, and his desire to be a soldier, rather spoils the continuity of the narrative.
"The Story of a Short Life" was not published in book form until four days before the author's death; but it was not her last work, though from its appearance at that moment the title was spoken of by some reviewers as singularly appropriate.
Mrs. Ewing's love for animals may be seen in all her stories—Leonard's beloved "Sweep," Lollo the red-haired pony on which Jackanapes took his first ride, and the dog in the blind man's story dying of grief on his grave, are all signs of the author's affection for those who have been well called "our silent friends." Her own pets were indeed her friends—from a pink-nosed bulldog called Hector, to a refugee pup saved from the common hang-man, and a collie buried with honours, his master making a sketch of him as he lay on his bier.
Mrs. Ewing was passionately fond of flowers, and "Mary's Meadow" was written in the last years of her life as a serial for Aunt Judy's Magazine. Her very last literary work was a series of letters from a Little Garden, and the love of and care for flowers is the theme.
Much of Mrs. Ewing's work cannot be noticed in a paper which is necessarily short. But enough has been said to show what was her peculiar gift as a writer for children.
It is sometimes said that to write books for children cannot be considered a high branch of literature. We venture to think this is a mistake. There is nothing more difficult than to arrest the attention of children. They do not as a rule care to be written down to—they can appreciate what is good and are pleased when their elders can enter into and admire the story which has interested and delighted them.