Read Ebook: The Girl's Own Paper Vol. XX No. 1027 September 2 1899 by Various

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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.

On the "ever-glorious first of June" in the year 1867 Juliana Gatty was married to Alexander Ewing, A.P.D. After two years spent in New Brunswick she returned to England with her husband, who for eight years was stationed at Aldershot. Here she acquired her close familiarity with military habits and the high appreciation of soldierly virtues which have made her later books both pathetic and stimulating. Of fragile frame herself, she has immortalised the famous south country camp.

Not long after the final removal of Major Ewing from Aldershot the health of his wife began steadily to fail. She was compelled to remain in England when he had to serve in India, and she had to bear many crushed hopes during the last six years of her life. But her "lamp of zeal and high desire" continued to burn brightly.

F. W. NEWLAND, M.A.

FOOTNOTES:

Full particulars of the Guild can be obtained from its founder, Sister Grace at the Bermondsey Settlement, where its headquarters are.

LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.

The Temple.

MY DEAR DOROTHY,--You say that Aunt Anne is in a great state of mind because she has lost her copy of Uncle John's will. She sent it to her solicitors to have their opinion on one of the clauses in the will, and they declare that the will was returned to her, and that it is not in their possession.

There is no need for Aunt Anne to distress herself, even if her copy of the will is lost; she can easily procure another copy by applying to Somerset House. If she only wishes to read over the will again with the opinion she has received from her lawyers, she had better go down to Somerset House, which is in the Strand, not very far from Wellington Street, on the right hand side going towards the City from Charing Cross, and there they will let her read the will on payment of, I think, a shilling, and they will supply her with a certified, or an ordinary, copy of the will on payment of so much per folio, the exact amount she can learn on inquiry.

The part of Somerset House where the wills are kept is exactly opposite the archway, straight across the courtyard--she cannot mistake it. Inside she will find several polite minor officials, who will show her what forms to fill up, fetch the books for her and render her every possible assistance; the men who fetch the books expect a small tip for their trouble.

At Somerset House, Aunt Anne will find all sorts of people reading not only the wills of their friends and relatives, but also wills under which they can take no pecuniary interest, such as the wills of public men in no way related to them; anyone can read anybody's will on payment of the usual fee. To make a copy of a will for oneself is not permitted, but you may take a short note of its contents.

Somerset House, like most of the public offices, closes at four o'clock, so it is advisable to go not after half-past three at the latest. If Aunt Anne can put off her visit till next week, I shall be happy to accompany her if she desires it. This week all my time is fully occupied with an unusually large sessions, which means that your affectionate cousin will have the chance of scooping in a guinea or two by the prosecution of some unfortunate prisoner. This is what we call getting "soup."

A curious name, is it not? I do not know the origin of the term, which is certainly a suggestive one. A good many of us never get beyond the "soup," I am afraid, much as we should like to assist at the carving up of the joints.

After which poetical digression, let us return to our muttons. It is very annoying to lose a business appointment on account of a train being late. Gerald has my sympathy, but I can offer him no consolation, it being a generally established rule that damages cannot be obtained for the loss of a business engagement, nor can damages be obtained for the annoyance experienced by the traveller.

You see the railway companies say that "every attention will be paid to ensure punctuality," and to recover damages you would have to prove that the lateness of the train was due to their neglect to pay the "every attention" promised, a difficult thing to do. Supposing the weather was foggy, or there had been a break-down on the line, or some other reason for the train being late, the company would declare that their failure to keep to the time advertised on their time-tables was unavoidable, and due to causes beyond their control.

There have been one or two cases where travellers have recovered damages from railway companies on account of the lateness of a train, but in all these cases there were special circumstances which rendered the companies liable; but Gerald's case was not an exceptional one; in fact, if he were a suburban season ticket holder, he would find the lateness of trains arriving in the morning a very common occurrence.

If a train is advertised to stop at a certain station, and you get carried beyond your destination, you would probably be successful in obtaining damages for personal inconvenience, supposing you were obliged to walk back, and you would certainly be entitled to drive back and charge the expense of carriage hire to the company; or, supposing that no conveyance was procurable and it was too far or too wet or too late for you to return on foot, you would be justified in going to a hotel and making the company reimburse you for the expenses of the night. It would have to be an exceptional case which would justify you in the ordering of a special train, a course of action not recommended by

Your affectionate cousin, BOB BRIEFLESS.

GIRLS AS I HAVE KNOWN THEM.

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL.

When "that gift" is of generous proportions, as happens once in a while, there is given the further ability to discern "something than beauty dearer." That phrase is a poet's. Beauty has been from of old a theme of poets, and the poets of this country, from Chaucer to Browning, have made beautiful girls their theme. Chaucer has good and bad to tell of them. The good may be read in many a tale, and the bad will be best left unread. Browning has good and bad to tell of them. There is good told of "beautiful Evelyn Hope--sixteen years old when she died," and there is bad told of "the beautiful girl, too white, who lived at Pornic by the sea," the girl who hoarded gold.

Browning, perhaps better than any English poet who ever lived, could describe a beautiful girl's face and incidentally point out a thing in it detracting from its beauty. He does this with remarkable directness in his poem called "A Face," which opens--

How did that girl laugh? Probably as too many an English girl laughs--riotously. Of such an one was said a little while hence: "When she laughs, there seems no room left in the world for any other sound."

The loose use of the word "beautiful" in English is largely commented on by foreign visitors to this country. The many English faces that are lovely in colour must strike everyone, but that only a minority of these are lovely in line is undeniable. Now a face to be beautiful must be lovely in colour and in line.

"Health and mirth make beauty," says a Spanish proverb wrongly. They do not so, though they make what is by many deemed a better thing than beauty, being that lovely and pleasant thing named comeliness.

The following is a question put by a girl--

"Can a girl with a bad nose be called beautiful?"

That is a question which one is tempted to meet with the counter-question--

A bad man--and even, alas! a bad woman--is a thing conceivable; but--a bad nose--No.

The thing meant by this girl, it has transpired, is an unbeautiful nose. Certainly a girl with such a nose, suppose it to take the form of a tip-tilted nose, cannot be called beautiful. For her consolation, let her be told that she can fairly be called pleasing, the actual fact, it would seem, being that a tip-tilted nose sets a girl in one matter at an advantage. A London journalist some little time ago gave his readers this piece of information--

Welladay!

If it be conceded, as I think it must be, that classical outline is an essential part of beauty, "young ladies" with Greek and Roman noses are not without one feature essentially beautiful. In the case of those with Greek noses, there are commonly other features satisfying the severest exactions in regard to beauty. This fact notwithstanding, the faces in question may be so far from pleasing to those who look, as the poet did, for something than beauty dearer, as to bring upon themselves the censure contained in certain words by Shakespeare--

"This is a strange repose, to be asleep With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep."

Beautiful faces too often lack animation.

As a natural consequence, beautiful faces lack another thing. A young face to be pleasing must hold out a promise, just as an older face to be pleasing must tell a story. Now there are more unbeautiful young faces that hold out a promise than there are beautiful young faces that do this, just as there are more unbeautiful older faces that tell a story than there are beautiful older faces that do this.

In like manner, the regularity of line that is a main part of beauty is often attended by defects in another direction, calculated to arouse comment such as the following, being a speech made in reference to a woman of great beauty--

"Her profile is delicious, but her full face is an empty face."

The woman in question lacked somewhat in intellectuality. A beautiful woman--so fairly on the whole are gifts distributed--is rarely a clever woman, and a beautiful girl is often a goose. Thus it was a beautiful girl of not ten but twenty years of age, who put to paper this account of Spain--

It was a beautiful girl who asked lately--

"Has a cow horns?"

To which the counter-query put by an unbeautiful girl was--

"Did you ever hear of the nursery rhyme of 'the cow with the crumpled horn'?"

Not only do beauty and stupidity often go hand in hand, but beauty and commonplace affections often do this. Butterflies love the flavour of cabbage, and some beautiful girls--by their own confession--"love" onions. It is no crime to like onions, but to "love" them is to waste sweetness.

That vanity, as a whole, is less often met with in beautiful girls than in unbeautiful ones is a well-known fact, and it is a fact which I am so little inclined to challenge that I give the following cases as being to my full belief exceptions to the rule.

A beautiful girl, known to me, while really very young poses as being very much younger. Her age is seventeen or thereabouts, and she poses as being fourteen. If her age were forty or thereabouts, and she posed as being seventeen, one would more easily forgive her. She will derive the benefit of this mental bias some twenty years hence.

In the case of another beautiful girl known to me, so much of her is dress that her appearance seems to warrant what once seemed to me an unwarrantable piece of English, being the following extract from a society paper of the year 1887--

"Among the younger ladies was a pretty white tulle with marguerites and a white satin bodice."

At first reading of that I asked myself, "What sort of a young lady is a pretty white tulle with marguerites and a white satin bodice?"

I do not ask myself that question now.

Thirdly, a beautiful girl of my acquaintance has a face with what her enemy calls "Inspection invited" all over it. That is unbeautiful phrasing, but the charge thus levelled is not without foundation in fact. One hopes that some day there may happen to this girl what there happened once to a beautiful girl. She looked in the glass to see her face, and she saw her heart, and that day all vanity left her.

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