Or heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
Right onward.”
Hence the name of the guild, which is itself a beautiful posthumous memorial to the genius and sympathy of its creator. And here it is pleasing to record an incident of Mrs. Ewing’s last illness. In one of her paroxysms of pain she expressed a fear to the doctor that she had been impatient. He answered, “Indeed you are not. I think you deserve a Victoria Cross for the way in which you bear it.” This afforded her intense satisfaction, as it was known that the doctor had not read A Story of a Short Life itself.
Mrs. Ewing died when she was only forty-four years old. Her comparatively brief life was throughout heavily streaked with periods of much pain, endured with amazing fortitude and cheerfulness. From her earliest days she found her chief happiness in sacrificing for others. In the exquisite little memoir which her sister (Mrs. Eden) has published, we have a personal interpretation supplied to some of her writings. We learn that in the sketch of Madam Liberality we have reminiscences of her own doings: “Here she has painted a picture of her own character that can never be surpassed.” With such a testimony we turn to peruse its pages with redoubled interest. In the first sentences of this sketch we find it recorded of Madam Liberality:
“It was not her real name: it was given to her by her brothers and sister. People with very marked qualities of character do sometimes get such distinctive titles to rectify the indefiniteness of those they inherit and those they receive in baptism. The ruling peculiarity of a character is apt to show itself early in life, and it showed itself in Madam Liberality when she was a little child.”
And then we have the account of the pleasure the child derived from saving the plums from her cake, and how “she could ‘do without’ anything if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to her.” Her liberality was the outcome of continuous and rigid self-denial, and in sharp contrast to that of her brother Tom.
“It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should even have been accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his head at her and say, ‘You’re the most meanest and generoustest person I ever knew.’
“And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, although her brother was then too young to form either his words or his opinions correctly. But it was the touch of truth in it which made Madam Liberality cry. To the end of their lives Tom and she were alike and yet different in this matter. Madam Liberality saved and pinched and planned and then gave away, and Tom gave away without the pinching and the saving. This sounds much handsomer, and it was poor Tom’s misfortune that he always believed it to be so, though he gave away what did not belong to him, and fell back for the supply of his own pretty numerous wants upon other people, not forgetting Madam Liberality.”
Mrs. Eden tells us of the thoughtful kindness shown to herself and other members of her family by her sister who, out of her literary earnings, planned delightful holidays for them, often adding to the pleasure by letting the patient choose her own route according to her fancy.
In this same sketch we get an insight into the courage of Madam Liberality, “like little body with a mighty heart.” Often tortured by headache, toothache, and quinsy, “no sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits or quenched the hope that cold and damp and fatigue could not hurt her ‘this time.’” Of Mrs. Ewing it is stated that “she was always coughing” as a girl, but her weakness never seemed to affect her vivacity. We read how Madam Liberality went alone to the dentist’s and allowed him to extract a horribly difficult tooth without flinching; she well merited the praise, “You’re the bravest little lady I ever knew.” This incident finds its counterpart in Mrs. Ewing’s life when she went alone to a London surgeon for an operation on her throat in order that no friend might be present at so unpleasant a scene.