The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales by Mrs. Alfred Gatty
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Mrs. Alfred Gatty >> The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales
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THE FAIRY GODMOTHERS AND OTHER TALES.
BY MRS. ALFRED GATTY.
1851.
[Illustration: HERMIONE SKETCHING.]
Col miele, e non coll' aceto si piglian le mosche.
_Italian Proverb_.
To My Children
These tales are most affectionately dedicated. They were written in
hours of sickness, but are intended to be read by the healthy and
joyous young: and to illustrate some favourite and long cherished
convictions.
Margaret Gatty.
Ecclesfield Vicarage,
27th March, 1851.
CONTENTS.
The Fairy Godmothers
Joachim the Mimic
Darkness and Light
The Love of God
The design for the Frontispiece which adorns this volume is by the
pencil of the writer's kind and highly gifted friend, Miss Lucette E.
Barker.
THE FAIRY GODMOTHERS.
In one of the beautiful bays on the coast of Fairy Land, a party of
Fairies was assembled on a lovely evening in July. There are many
beautiful bays on the coast of England, and there is one especially,
my dear little readers, which you and I know of, where a long line of
grand old rocks stretches far into the sea on the left-hand extremity,
while in the distance to the right a warning lighthouse with its
changing lights gives an almost solemn beauty to the scene; for one
cannot help thinking, at the sight of it, of the poor storm-driven
mariner, whom even that friendly light may fail to save from a sad and
sudden death. But beautiful as this little bay is, of which I speak,
and fond as we are of it, it is nothing, I do assure you, compared to
the bays in Fairy Land! There, there are no light-houses reminding one
painfully of danger and destruction near, but all is loveliness and
peace; and even the rocks would be turned into soft pillows by the
good-natured Fairies who inhabit the country, should any strange
accident drive a mortal ship on that shore.
Also the bays in Fairy Land face to the west, which is a great
advantage, for in an evening there you may sit and watch the golden
sun dipping behind the waves; and the rich red tints he sends out upon
the rocks before he sets, are beyond measure beautiful and attractive.
Especially, I believe, the Fairies enjoy this time of day, for they
are odd little creatures, rather conceited, and fond of everything
pretty; consequently they like to be floating about the rocks in their
white dresses when the crimson and golden hues of sunset shine on
them, knowing very well they look like so many bright flowers on the
occasion.
The day I speak of however had been very hot, and at the time I speak
of, the Fairies felt a little lazy and were reclining on some rocks
covered with sea-weed and amusing themselves by talking. In general
the conversation of these little creatures is rather light and
frivolous and gay; but it is really a fact that they were just then
all serious together and all were engaged in a very profound
conversation on human happiness.
I am sorry to have so many explanations to give, but I think it quite
necessary to tell you the reason of so uncommon an event as a party
of Fairies being serious. Well then, there were going to be, very
shortly, several extremely gay christenings in the world, and some of
the Fairies had been invited to attend at them as Godmothers, in order
that they might bestow Fairy gifts on the different infants.
Four or five of the christenings were to take place the next day, and
the Fairies who were going were discussing with each other what gifts
they should bestow, and as their only object was to ensure the
happiness of the children for whom they were interested, they
naturally fell into a discourse as to what gifts were most likely to
have so charming an effect. "Your Godchild is a girl too, I believe,"
said Euphrosyne to Ianthe [Fairies are privileged, you know, to have
romantic names] "what do you think of bestowing upon her?" "Why,"
answered Ianthe, "the old story, I suppose--BEAUTY: at least such
was my intention, but if you can any of you show me I am wrong in
supposing it a cause of happiness to the mortal race, why, I suppose
I must give her ugliness instead."
"Sister, I hope you will do no such thing," murmured a young Fairy who
lay near twining seaweeds into a wreath. "I never until this evening
heard a doubt upon the subject, and to tell you the truth the only
time I ever envy a mortal is when I see a regular beauty enter a large
assembly. Oh, the triumph of that moment! Every eye turned upon her;
murmurs of admiration, not unmixed with envy, greeting her as she
sweeps along; everyone courting her acquaintance; a word, a smile of
hers more valued than a pearl or a ruby. A sort of queen of Nature's
own making, reigning royally in undisputed sway, let her circumstances
of life be what they may! Look how mean the richest woman who is ugly
looks by the side of her! No no, dear Ianthe, make your little lady
handsome, and you have done the best that Fairy can do for her. I
declare I envy her beforehand! Here where we are all so beautiful
together there is no interest or excitement about it--it is quite
flat." And so saying the young fairy Leila laid herself down to her
wreath again. "Why, Leila, you are absolutely eloquent!" observed
Ianthe, "Beauty it certainly must be."
"Oh, I declare," pursued Ianthe, rousing up again, "I have sometimes
really wished myself ugly, that I might some day have the pleasure of
suddenly finding myself beautiful!"
"Oh, but then," said a Fairy from behind, "is there no danger of your
regular beauty, as you call her, getting as tired of being beautiful
as you are, and wishing herself ugly too?"
"Certainly, not," answered Ianthe, "for, for an earthly beauty there
would always be the excitement of being envied."
"Come, come," persisted the former speaker, "then the gift of being
envied would be the best thing to bestow, at all events a necessary
addition."
"Oh," cried Leila, stopping her ears, "I can't argue, I never could--I
can't hear any more, I am quite satisfied that I am right; you can't
argue away the pleasure of being a beauty in a ball-room. Ask any of
them themselves."
"Well," said Ianthe, "we need pursue the subject no further. I am
resolved. My baby is to be beautiful, beautiful as the dawn of the
morning; they shall call her Aurora!"
"I shall not follow your example," observed Euphrosyne, "I don't at
all like that notion of the necessity of _envy_ to make the beauty's
joy complete. Besides, I'm not at all sure beauty is not much more
charming in idea than in possession. Nobody spend their lives in
entering a ball-room, and one gets sadly tired of one's own face. I'm
sure _I_ do, beautiful as it is;" and as she spoke the Fairy stooped
over a clear tide pool which mirrored her lovely countenance; "and yet
look what a nose I have! It is absolutely exquisite! And this hair!"
and she held up her long silken curling tresses and looked at them
reflected in the water as she spoke. A musical laugh rang through the
fairy group. Euphrosyne resumed her seat. "There isn't a mortal damsel
in the world who would not go into raptures to resemble me," pursued
she, "and yet--but, oh dear, I am getting quite prosy, and it is quite
useless, for Ianthe has decided. I, on the contrary, am thinking of
something far less romantic and interesting, but I suspect far more
necessary to the happiness of mortals than beauty--I mean RICHES."
"Men are horribly fond of them, certainly," observed the Fairy from
behind, whose name was Ambrosia. "I can't endure men on that very
account. Look at the grubby wretched lives they lead in
counting-houses and banks, and dreadful dingy holes and corners of
great towns, where we wouldn't set the soles of our feet, and this for
forty or fifty years, perhaps, in order that in the fifty-first, or
perhaps later still, they may turn into butterflies for the little bit
of life that is left to them. And such butterflies, too! not knowing
what to do with their gay coats and fine wings when they get them at
last."
"I think you are putting an extreme case," observed Euphrosyne.
"Though the grubs themselves may not thoroughly enjoy the riches they
have so laboriously acquired, their children or grandchildren may, and
live at ease and enjoy them. I should not think of bestowing great
riches on uneducated paupers. But it is another matter to give them to
people whom education has refined, and who would know how to enjoy and
employ them."
"I wonder," suggested a very little Fairy, scarcely grown to her full
size, "why you don't just give your Godchildren moderate good health,
and enough money to make them quite comfortable without puzzling
them?"
"You are a complete Solomon," observed Euphrosyne, "but you must know,
my dear, that moderate good health and a mere comfortable competency
would hardly be considered Fairy gifts by our friends in the lower
world. These things are, as it were, the absolute _necessities_ of a
happy life; they are the beef and mutton (to borrow an earthly simile)
of the entertainment. Fairy gifts form the somewhat unnecessary (and
questionably wholesome) second course, the sweets, the bonbons, the
luscious luxuries of the repast.
"Very few, by comparison, get them. Very few infants you know have
Fairy Godmothers, but we make it a rule that those who have, shall
always be distinguished from the crowd. Other-wise our power would not
be believed in. No, my little Aglaia, all our Godchildren start from
the point you spoke of--'caeteris paribus,' as those dingy black
lawyers say--all other things being equal--it is a question now of
bestowing extra superfine Fairy gifts."
Aglaia tittered--"I know Sister Euphrosyne is thinking of the
christening suppers, and the whipped creams, and the syllabubs!" and
away she tripped to the other end of the bay, lest the older Fairies
should scold her for impertinence.
"Certainly," pursued Euphrosyne, "I have a great contempt for riches
myself. Bah! the idea of all the troublesome as well as wicked things
men do in order that they may be able to keep a lumbering thing they
call a carriage, to drive them round a dirty town. Just think of that
one thing alone! It is hardly credible." And Euphrosyne laid her head
by the side of Leila's, and looked up into the deep blue sky.
"Remember," said Ambrosia, from behind, "it is a choice with poor
mortals between heavy foot-walking, and the lumbering vehicles you
talk of. Perhaps when their legs ache terribly, the carriages are not
such bad things. We can hardly judge dispassionately in such a matter,
we who can float and fly!" and the delicate Ambrosia, springing up,
floated softly round the bay, and then returned smiling to her
companions. "It made me almost ill to think of aching legs," observed
she, "how I do pity the mortal race!"
"How pretty you looked as the sun shone golden upon your white robe,"
exclaimed Leila, "It was a sight for a mortal painter to die of!"
"A genius for painting would be a grand Fairy gift," observed Ianthe.
"Too doubtful of success," answered Euphrosyne, "and the Musician's
power the same; besides musicians always die young and with exhausted
minds. The art is too much for mortal nerves."
"Their atmosphere is too thick," said Leila. "How tired I am of your
discussions! Let us sing! Whatever music may be to them, it is food to
us."
Then all those beautiful Fairies arose and joining hands on the rocks
they sang to the now dying Sun a chorus of Fairy Land! Now and then
these ravishing melodies are permitted to reach to mortal ears:
chiefly in dreams to the sick and sorrowful, for Fairies have great
compassion on such, and allow them a distant taste of this, the most
exquisite of their enjoyments.
There was no more discussion that night, nor did they argue much the
next morning. There was the rising sun to welcome from the sleeping
caves on the eastern side of their country, and the bath to be
enjoyed, and their wings to plume, and sweet odours to gather from the
early flowers; and the time passed so quickly, they only met to take a
hurried leave. "We must understand each other however, before we
separate," said Euphrosyne.
"Dear Ianthe, your Gift is Beauty?" "It is." "And mine is Riches,"
said Euphrosyne. "All the pleasures of life shall be at my Godchild's
feet," said another Fairy, laughing. "If that will not ensure
happiness, I know not what will." Ambrosia held back--"Your choice,
dear Sister?" asked Euphrosyne.
"Come! we have no time to lose."
"It must remain a secret," was the reply. "Our discourse yesterday
evening was so thoughtful, so sad, I could not sleep. I arose hours
before you this morning, ere daylight streaked the sky. Dear Sisters,
how shocked you will be to hear I wept; but now I have determined. If
my gift succeed I will tell you all about it, or you shall guess it
yourselves; for I now propose that our Fairy Gifts this year shall be
a sort of experiment on human happiness. Let us from time to time
visit in company our young charges, and let the result--that is, which
of our Gifts is proved to confer the greatest amount of happiness, be
written in the archives of our kingdom for the future benefit of the
mortal race."
A murmur of approbation rose, sweet as the vibration of a harp-chord
through the assembly.
There was no time for enquiry about the other gifts: the travelling
Fairies arose and beat their gauzy wings upon the western breeze. A
melodious rushing was just audible; the distant murmurs of the earthly
sea the most resemble that sweet dream of sound. In a few moments the
departing sisters became invisible, and those who remained returned to
float by the sea shore, or make sweet music in the bowers of their
enchanted land.
* * * * *
Time is a very odd sort of thing, dear readers. We neither know whence
it comes nor whither it goes;--nay we know nothing about it in fact
except that there is one little moment of it called the present, which
we have as it were in our hands to make use of--but beyond this we can
give no account of, even that little moment. It is ours to use, but
not to understand. There is one thing in the world, however, quite as
wonderful, and quite as common, and that is, _the Wind_. Did it never
strike you how strange it was that the strongest thing in the world
should be _invisible_? The nice breezes we feel in summer and the
roughest blasts we feel in winter in England are not so extremely
strong you will say: but I am speaking, besides these, of the winds
called hurricanes that arise in the West Indian Islands, and in other
places in the world. These dreadful hurricanes have at times done as
much mischief as earthquakes and lightning. They tear down the
strongest trees, overthrow the firmest houses and spread ruin and
desolation around, and yet this terrible power, so tremendous, and
against which the cleverest contrivances can provide no defence, is as
invisible as the great Maker of Heaven and Earth. How unbelieving many
people would look if you told them of a dreadful creature that was
coming to the world, which could be heard to roar, be felt to knock
down every thing in its path--men, women and children, houses,
churches, towers, castles, cities, and trees the most firmly
rooted--and yet which you could never catch the faintest glimpse of,
for it was always invisible, even when it roared the loudest! As
invisible then, as when in its mildest moods, it, as it were, purred
softly over the country like a cat. How the good people would laugh,
and tell you you were very silly to believe in such a thing. Yet I
think this is not at all an incorrect description of the great
invisible Power WIND. Now the lesson we may learn from this is to be
humble-minded; for since we live in the constant presence of a Power
we cannot see, we ought to feel it is equally possible other Powers
may exist of which our other senses cannot take cognizance. There is
an old proverb--"Seeing is believing"--but you perceive, dear readers,
we are forced to believe in the wind though we never see him at all.
To return to Time who is travelling fast on while I am rambling after
the wind, he has puzzled the artists a good deal I should say, for
with all their skill at representation they have never hit upon any
better idea of him than an old Man with wings. An old man with wings!
Can you fancy anything so unnatural! One can quite understand
beautiful young Angels with wings. Youth and power and swiftness
belong to them. Also Fairies with wings are quite comprehensible
creatures; for one fancies them so light and airy and transparent,
living upon honey dew and ambrosia, that wings wherewith to fly seem
their natural appendages. But the decrepitude of old age and the wings
of youth and power are a strange mixture:--a bald head, and a Fairy's
swiftness!--how ridiculous it seems, and so I think I may well say
Time is a very odd sort of thing.
Among those who have to deal with Time, few are more puzzled how to
manage him than we story-tellers. In my first chapter, for instance, I
gave you a half-hour's conversation among some Fairies, but I think
you would be very angry with me were I to give you as exactly every
half-hour that passed over the heads of the little girls with Fairy
Godmothers, till they grew up. How you would scold, dear little
readers, if I were to enter into a particular description of each
child's Nurse, and tell whether Miss Aurora, Miss Julia, Miss
Hermione, &c. &c. &c. were brought up on baked flour, groat-gruel,
rusks, tops and bottoms, or revalenta food! Whether they took more
castor-oil, or rhubarb and magnesia; whether they squalled on those
occasions or were very good. When they cut their teeth and how,
together with all the &c. and ups and downs of Nursery life which
large families, such as you and I belong to, go through daily.
Well then, suppose I altogether pass over a period of ten years, and
enter into no minute particulars respecting that portion of Time. You
must know that the Fairies had agreed that all the children should
have the same (and rather a large) amount of intellect, or what you
would call cleverness: that is to say, they were all equally capable
of learning anything they chose to learn: also they had all fair
health, plenty to eat and drink, and all the so called "necessary"
comforts of life.
Now then to our story.
At the end of ten years the Fairies agreed to go and have a peep how
their charges were going on. They quite knew that nothing decisive
could be found out, till the children had come to years of discretion
and were their own mistresses. Still they thought it would amuse them
just to go and see how the charms were working, as it were; so, away
they went.
Now picture to yourselves a nice large nursery, much such a one as
your own, in which several children are playing. The eldest, a girl of
ten, you may see yonder lounging--gracefully perhaps--but still
_lounging_ in a rocking chair which she is swinging backwards and
forwards, having set it in motion by the action of her foot on the
floor. What a lovely face! I do not think you ever saw one so handsome
except in a print in one of Mamma's best picture books. All the
features are perfectly good and in proportion, and the dark blue eyes
are fringed by the longest eyelashes ever seen. The hair of this
little girl too--look at it, as the soft chestnut ringlets wave about
on her shoulders as she swings, and show the round richness of the
curls.
Now if you ask about the expression on her face, I must tell you it
was rather languid and "_pensieroso_." Pensieroso is an Italian word
really meaning thoughtful--but this little girl was not _thinking_,
for then the expression of her face would have been much stronger and
firmer and less languid; but the word has got to be used for a sort of
awake-dreamy state when one lets thoughts float lazily along without
having any energy to dwell upon them, and see whether they are good or
bad.
The thought that was passing through this little girl's head at the
time I mention and which made her look so languid and pensieroso, was
"I wish it was 6 o'clock."
Now here you are ready to laugh, I know, for there was nothing to look
so languid about, in "I wish it was six o'clock!" but the fact was
this: at half-past six the little girl's Mamma was expecting a large
party to dinner and the little girl was to dress at six and be ready
to go down and see the company:--I might add _and to be seen by them_;
for the little girl was, as you will have guessed, the beautiful
Aurora herself, and there had been plenty of foolish people, though
her good Mamma was not one of them, to tell her how pretty she was and
how much people admired her.
It is a very pleasant thing to be admired, both for children and grown
up people. "The love of approbation," as it is called, i.e. the wish
to be approved of and admired is a feeling which is very strong in
most people; not in quite all, perhaps, but in _most_ people
certainly. But like all other powers of the mind considered apart from
the influence of the heart and conscience, it is capable of being used
to a very bad or a very good purpose. Thus you may remember what our
Saviour says of the Pharisees who stood praying at the corners of the
streets that they might be seen of men: Verily, they had their
reward--viz: that men admired them: whereas those who do good deeds
and pray privately, i.e. unseen and unadmired by men, should verily
have their reward in that day when God who seeth in secret himself
shall reward them openly.
Here you see is the same strong feeling,--love of approbation,
exercised in a wrong and a right direction. The Pharisees wish for the
approbation of men, good people wish for the approbation of God.
Now, love of approbation exists about much smaller matters than I have
just been mentioning. But I would warn my young readers, that, to be
always thinking, and bothering yourselves as to what other people are
thinking about you, is one of the most uncomfortable and injurious
habits a person can get into. It makes them so selfish and
egotistical. And here was one of Aurora's dangers. Because she knew
she was pretty, she was always wondering what other people were
thinking about her, a habit which so far from contributing to what the
good Fairy had wished, viz. her happiness, was constantly spoiling her
comfort from hour to hour. And here, at ten years old, was this little
lady swinging languidly and idly on the rocking chair, wishing it was
six o'clock, instead of enjoying, as she might so well have done, that
small portion of time, time present, which is, as I told you before,
the only bit of him we can ever lay hold of, as it were. Of time
present, just then, she thought nothing. She would have said, (had she
been asked), that the old gentleman moved very slowly in spite of his
wings, for her eye was fixed on that delightful time future, six
o'clock. Well! at last the clock struck, and Aurora sprang from her
chair,--her whole face altered in a moment. "Now, Nurse, I may dress,
may I not?" she exclaimed, radiant with animation, and all the languor
and dreaminess gone over like a cloud from before the sun. And it is
true that just then Aurora was happy. It was a pleasant task to her to
arrange and smooth that curling hair, and to put on the simple white
dress she knew set off her beauty so well. But alas! for the happiness
caused by thoughts of _one's self_! The toilet over, she ran down to
her Mamma, and was welcomed with a smile of fondness and approbation.
Indeed, when she was happy, a sweeter face could not be seen, for she
was not a naughty child, and if it had not been for the Fairy gift, I
do think she would have been a very nice one.
The Fairies who invisibly had witnessed all I have described to you,
were not so loud in their admiration of Aurora as you or I might have
been. They are so handsome themselves, they think but little of
earthly beauty, and even Ianthe could not conscientiously say, "What a
_happy_ looking little girl she is." That was just the one thing that
was wanting: ay, and it continued wanting even after the room was
filled with company, and she was petted, and caressed, and praised on
every side. Her spirits became very high, however, and she enjoyed
herself much; and it is perhaps only very very critical folk, bent on
spying out a fault, that could have detected the little clouds of
anxiety that now and then shot across her face. A thought of whether
her curls were all right, or her dress untumbled, &c. just now and
then disturbed the charm, and prevented her forgetting herself
sufficiently to allow her to be quite at ease and happy, and she would
glance at herself in the mirror, and put back the hair from her brow,
lest Mrs. I-know-not-who, who was just then entering the room, should
not think her quite as lovely as Mrs. Somebody-else did, who had very
foolishly been saying so rather in a loud tone to her Mamma.
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