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192 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The History of Lucy, Emily, and Henry Fairchild was begun in 1818, nearly a century ago. The two little misses and their brother played and did lessons, were naughty and good, happy and sorrowful, when George III. was still on the throne; when gentlemen wore blue coats with brass buttons, knee-breeches, and woollen stockings; and ladies were attired in short waists, low necks, and long ringlets. The Battle of Waterloo was quite a recent event; and the terror of Boney was still used by nursery maids to frighten their charges into good behaviour.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819916130
Langue	English

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Introduction
The History of Lucy, Emily, and Henry Fairchild wasbegun in 1818, nearly a century ago. The two little misses andtheir brother played and did lessons, were naughty and good, happyand sorrowful, when George III. was still on the throne; whengentlemen wore blue coats with brass buttons, knee-breeches, andwoollen stockings; and ladies were attired in short waists, lownecks, and long ringlets. The Battle of Waterloo was quite a recentevent; and the terror of "Boney" was still used by nursery maids tofrighten their charges into good behaviour.
Perhaps some of those who take up this book andglance at its title-page are saying to themselves. We have plentyof stories about the children of to-day – the children of thetwentieth century, not of the early nineteenth. How should itinterest us to read of these little ones of the time of ourgreat-grandparents, whose lives were so dull and ideas soold-fashioned; who never played cricket or tennis, or went toLondon or to the seaside, or rode bicycles, or did any of thethings we do?
To anyone who is debating whether or no he will readthe Fairchild Family , I would say, Try a chapter or twobefore you make up your mind. It is not what people do , butwhat they are that makes them interesting. True enough,Lucy, Emily and Henry led what we should call nowadays very dulllives; but they were by no means dull little people for all that.We shall find them very living and real when we make acquaintancewith them. They tore their clothes, and lost their pets, and wantedthe best things, and slapped each other when they disagreed. Theyhad their good times and their bad times, their fun and frolic andtheir scrapes and naughtiness, just as children had long beforethey were born and are having now, long, long after they aredead.
In fact, as we get to know them – and, I hope, tolove them – we shall realize, perhaps with wonder, how very likethey are to the children of to-day. If they took us by the hand andled us to their playroom, or into "Henry's arbour" under the greattrees, we should make friends with them in five minutes, eventhough they wear long straight skirts down to their ankles andstraw bonnets burying their little faces, and Henry is attired in afrock and pinafore, albeit he is eight years old. We should haveglorious games with them, following the fleet Lucy running like ahare; we should kiss them when we went away, and reckon them everafter among our friends.
And so, as we follow the History of the FairchildFamily we shall understand, better than we have yet done, howchildren are children everywhere, and very much the same fromgeneration to generation. Knowing Lucy and Emily and Henry willhelp us to feel more sympathy with other children of bygone days,the children of our history books – with pretty Princess Amelia,and the little Dauphin in the Bastille, with sweet ElizabethStuart, the "rose-bud born in snow" of Carisbrook Castle, and ahost of others. They were real children too, who had realtreats and real punishments, real happy days and sad ones. Theyfelt and thought and liked and disliked much the same things as wedo now. We stretch out our hands to them across the mistycenturies, and hail them our companions and playmates.
Few people nowadays, even among those who know the Fairchild Family , know anything of its writer, Mrs.Sherwood. Yet her life, as told by herself, is as amusing as astory, and as full of incidents as a life could well be. When shewas a very old woman she wrote her autobiography, helped by herdaughter; and from this book, which has been long out of print, Iwill put together a short sketch which will give you some idea ofwhat an interesting and attractive person she was.
The father of Mrs. Sherwood – or, to give her hermaiden name, Mary Butt – was a clergyman. He had a beautifulcountry living called Stanford, in Worcestershire, not far fromMalvern, where Mary was born on May 6, 1775. She had one brother, ayear older than herself, and a sister several years younger, whosename was Lucy.
Mary Butt's childhood, in her beautiful countryhome, was very happy. She was extremely tall for her age, strongand vigorous, with glowing cheeks and dark eyes and "very long hairof a bright auburn," which she tells us her mother had greatpleasure in arranging. She and her brother Marten were bothbeautiful children; but no one thought Mary at all clever, orfancied what a mark she would make in the world by herwritings.
Mary was a dreamy, thoughtful child, full of fanciesand imaginings. She loved to sit on the stairs, listening to hermother's voice singing sweetly in her dressing-room to her guitar.She had wonderful fancies about an echo which the childrendiscovered in the hilly grounds round the rectory. Echo shebelieved to be a beautiful winged boy; "and I longed to see him,though I knew it was in vain to attempt to pursue him to hishaunts; neither was Echo the only unseen being who filled myimagination." Her mother used to tell her and Marten stories in thedusk of winter evenings; one of those stories she tells again forother children in the Fairchild Family . It is the tale ofthe old lady who was so fond of inviting children to spend a daywith her.
The first grand event of Mary's life was a journeytaken to Lichfield, to stay with her grandfather, old Dr. Butt, athis house called Pipe Grange. She was then not quite four yearsold. Dr. Butt had been a friend, in former days, of MariaEdgeworth, who wrote the Parents' Assistant and otherdelightful stories; of Mr. Day, author of Sandford andMerton ; and other clever people then living at Lichfield. Heknew the great actor, David Garrick, too, who used to come there tosee his brother; and the famous Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had beenborn and brought up at Lichfield. But to little Mary, scarcely morethan a baby, these things were not of much interest. What sherecollected of her grandfather was his present to her, on herfourth birthday, of "a doll with a paper hoop and wig of realflax." And her memories of Pipe Grange were of walks with herbrother and nurse in green lanes; of lovely commons and oldfarmhouses, with walls covered with ivy and yew-trees cut ingrotesque forms; of "feeding some little birds in a hedge, andcoming one day and finding the nest and birds gone, which was agreat grief to me."
Soon afterwards the nursery party at Stanford wasincreased by two little cousins, Henry and Margaret Sherwood. Theyhad lost their mother, and were sent to be for a time under thecare of their aunt, Mrs. Butt. They joined in the romps of Martenand Mary, and very lively romps they seem to have been. Marydescribes how her brother used to put her in a drawer and kick itdown the nursery stairs; how he heaped chairs and tables one on theother, set her at the top of them, and then threw them all down;how he put a bridle round her neck and drove her about with a whip."But," she says, "being a very hardy child, and not easily hurt, Isuppose I had myself to blame for some of his excesses; for withall this he was the kindest of brothers to me, and I loved himvery, very much."
When Mary was six years old she began to makestories, but she tells us she had not the least recollection ofwhat they were about. She was not yet able to write, so whenevershe had thought out a story, she had to follow her mother aboutwith a slate and pencil and get her to write at her dictation. Thetalk Mary and Marten heard while sitting at meals with theirparents was clever and interesting. Many visitors came to thehouse, and after a while there were several young men living there,pupils of Mr. Butt, so that there was often a large party. The twolittle children were never allowed to interrupt, but had to sit andlisten, "whether willing or not"; and in this way the shrewd andobservant Mary picked up endless scraps of knowledge while stillvery young. She tells us a good deal about her education in theseearly days. "It was the fashion then for children to wear ironcollars round the neck, with a backboard strapped over theshoulders; to one of these I was subjected from my sixth to mythirteenth year. It was put on in the morning, and seldom taken offtill late in the evening, and I generally did all my lessonsstanding in stocks, with this stiff collar round my neck. At thesame time I had the plainest possible food, such as dry bread andcold milk. I never sat on a chair in my mother's presence. Yet Iwas a very happy child, and when relieved from my collar I notunseldom manifested my delight by starting from our hall-door andtaking a run for at least half a mile through the woods whichadjoined our pleasure grounds."
Marten, meanwhile, was having a much less strict andsevere time of it. Mr. Butt was an easy-going man, who likedeverything about him to be comfortable and pretty, and was notinclined to take much trouble either with himself or others. WhileMary was with her mother in her dressing-room, working away at herbooks, Marten was supposed to be learning Latin in his father'sstudy. But as Mr. Butt had no idea of authority, Marten made noprogress whatever, and the end of it was that good Mrs. Butt had toteach herself Latin, in order to become her boy's tutor; and Marywas made to take it up as well, in order to incite him tolearn.
The children were great readers, though their bookswere few. Robinson Crusoe ; two sets of fairy tales; TheLittle Female Academy ; and Æsop's Fables made up theirwhole library. Robinson Crusoe was Marten's favourite book;his wont, when a reading fit was on, was to place himself on thebottom step of the stairs and to mount one step every time heturned over a page. Mary, of course, copied him exactly. Anotherfunny custom with the pair was, on the first day of every month, totake two sticks, with certain notches cut in them, and hide them ina hollow tree in the woods. There was a grand mystery about this,though Mary does not tell us in what it consisted. "No person," shesays, "was to see us do this, and no one was to know we