by Edith Nesbit
Now that I have written the words I don’t like the look of them; and looking back through this book, I see that most of what I have written applies to the kind of children who are in little danger of going to prison, children in comfortable homes, with enough of, at any rate, material well-being. Most of my book refers to the class that is not taught in Council Schools, and that will not be sent to a reformatory if the eighth commandment is not learnt in one lesson. This class is called the upper middle-class, and it does not go to the Council Schools because it has money to go elsewhere. The children of this class are, in brain and heart, not superior to the children of what are called the working classes. Place the middle-class children in the surroundings of the slum child, and thereupon the middle-class child would grow as the slum child grows, as the plant debarred from light grows — not straight. What we want is that there should be a distribution of wealth so changed from the one that now destroys the nation’s balance as to put every parent in a position to pay for his child’s education, and that the nation’s schools should be so superlatively better than all other schools that no parent would dream of sending his child to any school but that provided by the nation for the nation’s children.
And now that it comes to good-bye, I am sorry to say it. I feel that I have only been touching the fringe of the greatest problem in the world: that there is very much which I have left unsaid, or which I might have said differently, and better. One might go on for all one’s life thinking and writing about children and their needs, and always there would be more unsaid than said, less thought than food for thought. If the thoughts which I have striven to set forth give food for thought in others, if my little candle may help to kindle a great torch, I shall look back on the writing of this book as a great privilege and the memory of the hours spent on it I shall treasure with a glad and grateful heart.
The Criticism
LIST OF REVIEWS AND NESBIT RELATED ARTICLES
Portraits of Celebrities at Different Ages — Mrs. Hubert Bland (“E. Nesbit”).
A Bookman’s Gossip
Review of ‘The Red House’
Review of ‘The New Treasure Seekers’
E. Nesbit: Author of ‘The Incomplete Amorist’
Miss E. Nesbit: (Mrs. Bland)
Review of ‘The Literary Sense’
Review of ‘The Railway Children’ I
Review of ‘The Railway Children’ II
1905 Publisher’s Advertisement, Longman’s Green & Co.
Portraits of Celebrities at Different Ages — Mrs. Hubert Bland (“E. Nesbit”).
From: The Strand Magazine V.30 No. 177 October 1905 p.286-288
Miss E. Nesbit, whose stories for children, “The Psammead,” “The Phoenix and the Carpet,” “The Amulet,” and others, are so familiar to readers of The Strand, was born at Kennington. She is the daughter of John Collis Nesbit, Principal of the first Agricultural College established in England, but her English blood is modified by a trace of Irish, to which those who are strong on racial influences may attribute something of the humour which can be found in her work. She spent a somewhat wandering childhood in Germany and Brittany as well as in various parts of England. But it is worth noting that she has generally lived in the country and almost always in houses with large gardens, for among the influences that have moulded her none have probably been more potent than this constant contact with the earth. Thus you will always find in her an intense passion for Nature — not a love of “scenery” such as townsmen possess, but a love of the life and growth of things, of the processes of fruit and flower, which is only articulate in the country-dweller who is also a poet.
The second influence of E. Nesbit’s early years has been the influence of poetry, which she has been reading and writing ever since she can re member. She read Scott and Longfellow at the age of five. She began to write verse as soon as she could write at all, and her first published poem appeared when she was only sixteen. When quite a young girl she was brought into touch with the brilliant circle that surrounded the Rossettis. In fact, she was born and bred to poetry, and in prose or verse she has always been in root and substance a poet. Her own emphatic view is that there is no better training for any kind of writing than the writing of verse, and her own prose style, so perfect that one hardly notices that it is a style at all, is certainly a strong confirmation of her doctrine.
In 1879 she married Mr. Hubert Bland, the well-known journalist and essayist, one of the brilliant band of propagandists who created and directed the Socialist movement of the eighties. Into that movement E. Nesbit threw herself with all her energy and enthusiasm, and her earlier poems are full of the revolutionary ferment of that stormy decade. Time and circumstance have since given another direction to her talents, but they have neither modified her convictions nor mitigated their intensity. She and her husband are still active and prominent members of the Fabian Society, and it was only quite recently that she contributed to the Daily Mail a powerful plea for the underfed children in our elementary schools.
Those who know E. Nesbit’s child-stories, with their almost uncanny insight into the psychology of child hood, must long ago have guessed (if they did not know) that they were not written without a good deal of personal experience. She is the mother of four children, to whom some of her most exquisite poems are addressed, and she lives with her family in an old house with a still older garden (both old enough to have attained to the honour of a ghost) a little way outside London. For she hates London with a deep and abiding hate, as she hates the interviewing, intellectualizing, hair-splitting literary world of London, which seems to her the most aimless of worlds.
Two characteristics of E. Nesbit’s work may be noted here — her astounding literary fecundity and her even more astounding versatility. No living writer has written so much and yet kept such a high level of excellence.
A Bookman’s Gossip
From: The Bystander April 12, 1905 p. 88
Rarely does a publishing season “E. Nesbit” go by without a new book from “E. Nesbit.” This lady is, I believe, to make another addition to her long list of works this spring; and anything from her pen is assured of welcome at the hands of very different publics, for no other woman-writer is more variously accomplished: poetess, novelist, writer for children, her appeal is three-fold. It is close on twenty years since she issued her first book, “Lays and Legends,” but not until ten years ago, when she gave us “A Pomander of Verse,” did her rare lyrical faculty begin to receive its due mead of recognition. One recalls such haunting lines as these from “The Gray Folk “:
The house, with blind, unhappy face,
Stands lonely in the last year’s
corn,
And in the grayness of the morn
The gray folk come about the place.
By many pathways and gliding gray,
They come past meadow, wood, and
wold,
Come by the farm and by the fold,
From the green fields of yesterday.
About the same time, she showed us her quality as a novelist in “A Marden Mystery,” while some years earlier, she had published those remarkable collections of short stories, “Grim Tales “ and “Something Wrong,” in which we had evidence of a talent for the short story which she has always cultivated with the happiest results, despite the falling away of public taste for this form of fiction. But, personally, among her books, I find my chief delight in “E. Nesbit’s” stories for children. What could be better for genuine childhood fun than “The Would-be Goods,” and others in similar vein? She has achieved that extremely difficult task of writing about children and for children, so that both youngsters and grown-ups can share the entertainment of her stories. As a novelist, perhaps, she would not object to be judged by that very charming book, “The Red House,” which appeared about two years ago.
Most of my readers will be aware that “E. Nesbit” is Mrs. Hubert Bland, the former having been her maiden name. Although her husband’s
name is not so familiar to the bookish public, he has long influenced a vast audience by his pen. Beyond a novel written in collaboration with his wife, and (I seem to remember) a book or two on social subjects, Mr. Bland has shown no hankering after the reputation of a writer of books, which might easily be his if he only cared to reproduce some selections from his weekly contributions to the Sunday Chronicle. That widely-read newspaper is unique in provincial journalism, for side by side with the vulgarities of the turf and the football field, it has, for twenty years, provided its readers with the work of really notable writers. For years I took it merely to read the essays of “Nunquam,” whom I esteem — much though I disapprove of his recent onslaught against religion — one of the finest writers of our time; and, when he left the Chronicle in 1891, Mr. Hubert Bland became the contributor of its chief article, which he signs “Hubert.” Thus he has written on a bewildering variety of topics, and always with vivacity and humour, allied with culture. Mr. and Mrs. Bland live at Well Hall, Eltham, Kent.
Review of ‘The Red House’
From: The Book News Monthly Volume 21, No. 244 December 1902 pages 281-282
Here we have a successor to “Chanticleer.” and a very delightful one at that. These pictures of healthy, optimistic married life are appreciable in a day when literature is prone to dwell only upon those problems that reek with uncleanness and unwholesomeness.
It is a pleasure to find a man and woman happily mated, living sincerely and contentedly in one long springtime of bliss. The woman is sweet and ingenuous, the man is noble and generous-hearted. Artist and writer together are they, and each does a share of work by which to contribute to the common livelihood. It is an ideal plan for a young married couple, though not too ideal to be within the pale of possibility.
The master and mistress of the Red House had many adventures and many strange experiences, but they bore them all smilingly and light-heartedly, obtaining a full measure of enjoyment from the best and making the best of the worst. How good it is to live out the allotted span in this happy, congenial way! Were there a few more Lens and Chloes, the vast army of pessimists might be forced to the background and finally vanquished altogether!
“The Red House” is indeed a delightful book. It is full of sprightliness and of gentle humor; it has scenes of more than ordinary amusing qualities. It has nature love, it has a garden, just the setting for a romance; it has woods and hills and brooklets. It is a domestic tale, but the domesticity is brightened by the love story. There is nothing monotonous, nothing wearisome; we read and we do not regret reading. Without a doubt the story is representative of Mrs. Bland’s best work. She has written in a charmingly sweet, unaffected manner, with a poetic touch and a penetrative insight into human nature.
Review of ‘The New Treasure Seekers’
From: The Publisher’s Circular, January 28, 1905 p.109
‘New Treasure Seekers,’ by E. Nesbit. The lady who writes under the name of ‘E. Nesbit’ enjoys a well-deserved popularity; she is one of the few living novelists who can write successfully for children. ‘New Treasure Seekers’ makes delightful reading both for children and their elders. The volume contains thirteen sketches of child life; there is humour in abundance, occasional pathos, and over flowing human naughtiness and cheek. The youngsters are so dreadfully in earnest in all their escapades that the grown-up reader is made to sympathise in spite of himself. Gordon Browne and Lewis Baumer have provided excellent illustrations.
E. Nesbit: Author of ‘The Incomplete Amorist’
From: The Bookman, July 1906, page 480
It is not generally known that the woman who signs herself ‘‘E. Nesbit” is in private life Mrs. Hubert Bland, and lives in E. Nesbit an old place, Well Hall, Kent, in England. She reverses the usual order of things by being a successful writer of children’s stories turned writer of tales for grown-ups; for in The Incomplete Amorist she has written a book with a character something like “Sentimental Tommy.” It is the story of a man who is a universal lover, and who is finally bitten by a real passion himself. Mrs. Bland has become widely known as a poet too. She is an enthusiastic “outdoor” woman, and takes great delight in swimming and boating.
Miss E. Nesbit: (Mrs. Bland)
From: Poets of the Younger Generation, by William Archer. Published by John Lane, 1902. Pages 272-283
There is more feeling than art in the poetry of Miss E. Nesbit; but the feeling is often very genuine, and of the art one may at least say that it has ripened with every book the poetess has put forth. Miss Nesbit had from the first a remarkable fluency and a correct ear for metres. Unfortunately, her fluency was altogether too strong for her sense of style, which was originally very imperfect, and to this day leaves something to be desired. Her first collections of verse — Lays and Legends 1886 and 1892, and Leaves of Life 1888 — are chiefly notable for the vigorous rhetoric of some of her revolutionary chants. She was caught on the wave, it would seem, of the Socialist movement of the ‘eighties, and many of her poems breathe a deeply-felt sympathy with the toilers of the earth, and a burning sense of the inequality of social conditions. The following may serve as a specimen of her early work in this kind — a few quatrains from a poem entitled:
AT THE FEAST.
* * * * *
Yes, we have learned to know, and not to shrink
From knowing, to what depths our brothers sink.
And we have learned the lesson “ not to feel,”
And we have learned the lesson ‘‘ not to think.’’
We must have learned it; otherwise, to-night,
When, sped by wine and feasting, time takes flight.
When perfect music searches for our soul,
And all these flowers unfold for our delight,
We should not hear the music, but, instead
Hear that wild, bitter, heart-sick cry for bread,
And in the lamps that light our lavish feast,
Should see but tapers burning for the dead.
We should not see the myriad blossoms waste;
The bloom of them would be thrust back, displaced
By the white faces of the starving children —
Wasted and wan, who might have been flower-faced.
Among other powerful pieces in the same key may be mentioned Two Voices and A Spring Song. There is, perhaps, more of declamatory force than of lyric inspiration in them, but their fervour and sincerity give them a value of their own.
Much less notable are the narrative poems which form the bulk of these volumes. Smooth and flowing they always are, with occasional passages of a certain vigour; but they have all a fatal bent towards prolixity and commonplace. The best, I think, is Absolution, a story of real tragic strength. Such legendary subjects as Tekel (a variation of the St. Anthony theme) and The Singing of the Magnificat, Miss Nesbit treats with occasional felicity, but also with occasional lapses into bathos. Of the felicities I can give no better specimen than this fine couplet, spoken by the mother of St. Simeon Stylites to her son, in a poem entitled Earth and Heaven:
At last God heard my cry — thee did I bear,
The inexorable answer to my prayer.
The lapses, on the other hand, are characteristically exemplified in the concluding couplet of this stanza:
The Angel spoke — his voice was low and sweet
As the sea’s murmur on low-lying shore —
Or whisper of the wind in ripened wheat:
“Brother,” he said, “the God we both adore
Has sent me down to ask, is all not right? —
Why was Magnificat not sung to-night?”
Miss Nesbit is least fortunate, to my thinking, in her modern, or semi-modern novelettes in verse, such as The Moat House, Two Christmas Eves, and Treason. Her literary power is always considerable. She seldom descends to mere solecisms like this:
And then the clouds set fast again
Into a leaden sky like this is,
Lit by no lightnings of warm kisses —
or this:
Her soul has held my soul, and taught
The way of storming Fortune’s fort.
Nor does she often write sheer jingling prose such as this
from The Moat House:
First he listened, vain and flattered that a girl as fair as she
Should be so distinctly anxious for his lost humanity,
Yet determined no attentions even from the Lady May
Should delay his home returning one unnecessary day.
The last three quotations are not, I repeat, fair specimens of Miss Nesbit’s manner. They are quite exceptionally bad. But, on the other hand, it is difficult to quote from these poems anything memorably good. All Miss Nesbit’s narrative verse is of the nature of Christmas-number poetry. It is like the text to those highly-coloured works of art which adorn the December bookstalls. In a word, it is chromolithographic.
The poetess’s true bent is clearly towards the pure lyric. Even at the height of her revolutionary fervour, she herself admitted this in the following stanza: