The evening times., 1898-05-26
THEY LOVED
THEIR DOLLS
Famous Women and Their
Little Toy Children.
Some Loved One and Others Many
Wooden Babes which Brighten
cd Their Early Existence.


little women they lived a hard. desolate
life on the bleak Yorkshire moors, and
found the chief pleasure of their young
lives in playing with a set of very ugly
wooden dolls. They thought rather slight
ingly of doll babies. dressed the wooden
figures in coats and trousers, and gave
them most heroic names. Charlotte
Bronte's favorite playfellow was called
the Duke of wellington, and the gallant
duke had armies of tin soldiers against
Emily's Napoleon. or stood up to listen
while Charlotte read to him long poems
she had composed in his honor. Besides
stage in their nursery. and wrote little
plays for their dolls to act, and composed
romances, in which one doll rescued an
other from the pirates or Turks. or went
tiger shooting in jungle OF shawis IN
one end of the playroom.
The Bronte dolls had very exciting lives
indeed, but they were not so sad as tnat
of Jane Welsh Carlyle's doll. This clev-
er woman was precocious as child, and
she loved only one doll. When at last. IN
her studies, the girl began to translate
the first book of Virgil. she decided 1t was
time to give up doll games. According
ly. she piled on its bed all the dolls
clothes, added several lead pencils, grated
over this. some nutmeg, and emptied over
the funeral pyre a vial of perfume. Fin
ally, with many tears, she pretended that
the doll had stabbed herself, and. laying
the unhappy sawdust corpse on the bed,
set fire to it. When the fire began to
burn the doll, Jane Welsh's feelings gave
way. She snatched it from the flames,
but all too late. and the toy was soon re-
duced to ashes.
George Eliot possessed several dolls in
her childhood, but gave them her atten-
tion or affection only by fits and starts.
In THE Mill on the Floss she writes Of
a little girl. Maggie Tulliver, who kept in
the garret a hideous wooden doll. lacking
a head, one arm and a leg. When poor
Maggie was in trouble she went to the
garret to weep and drive nails into the
forlorn body of this wretched plaything.
called Fetish. Every nail in Fetish's body
represented the fault for which Maggie
mourned or suffered punishment. When
grown to be a famous woman, George Ell
lot confessed that in her youthful days
she had owned and maltreated doll call
ed Fetish. and Maggie's behavior was the
true story of her own childish life.
Miss Jean Ingelow possessed a special
waxen favorite that she called Amelia.
Amelia went everywhere Jean did. and
she was introduced to all the agreeable
people who came to the Ingelow house:
her dresses were always made from a
piece of whatever cloth Jean wore. and
when games of merry times were enjoyed
in the nursery Amelia was placed where
ever she could take in the fun with the
rest of the young folks. An ill-advised
bath on a hot day was so hopelessly de-
structive to Amelia's painted beauty and
sawdust constitution that the Ingelow
family pronounced her quite dead. Her
funeral was well attended and for many
months Jean sorrowed for Amelia and
refused even to take another doll to her
heart.
Not only her own big family doll. but
all dolls, fine or shabby, large or small
black or white. who came Annie Thack-
eray's way shared the tender affection of
her overfiowing heart. Wen a very little
girl she believed dolls We're quite as much
alive as real babies. and If they lost
heads or arms the missing members
would grow again. When her dolls suf-
fered an accident she went weeping to
her father. and he would gravely assure
her that all that dolly needed was an in
terview with the family physician. Put
ting the toy in his pocket, he would pre-
tend to be of to the Doctors. Instead
he went straight to a toy shop, had the
doll repaired, and returned her whole
and hearty to his daughter.
When at fourteen years of age George
Sand heard some one laugh at the idea
of so big a girl still playing with dolls,
like Jane Welsh, she concluded to give
them up. With tears and hearty hugs
she bade every one of them adieu, and
locked them into garret closet. At first
the separation from her adored playfel-
lows was almost more than she could
bear. and every day she would sit for an
hour or two sad and fearful outside the
closet door, sometimes whispering words
of comfort through the keyhole to the
poor exiles, but she never broke her vow
to have done with dolls. and by and by
they were forgotten.
Florence Nightingales dolls all enjoy
ed very Indifferent health. Time and
again disease stalked through the nurse
,ry and laid the dolls so low that their
lives were quite desDaired of. but the
little girl, who was TO grow up to be a
ministering angel to thousands in real
suffering. always pulled her babies
through their worst attacks. One night
youthful Miss Florence assured her nurse
that she could not possibly go to bed
because a feverish rag baby would need
to be watched every hour. 1t was only
when both nurse and mother assured the
little girl that one of them would sit
right beside the invalid that Florence
consented to go to bed. Once or twice,
thinking the child was fast asleep the
nurse attempted to leave her post. but
Florence awoke in an instant. At mid
night a second effort was made to de-
sert the sufferer but the child awoke
again. and in the end the nurse was OBJ
Iged to remain beside the dolls bed un-
til Miss Nightingale was up. bright and
early in the morning, and able to pro-
nounce the patient vastly improved.