The courier., 1901-12-14


ration. England and America testified
to the soundness of her Judgment by
Immediately accepting her hint. She
did not have to start out on a dress
reform lecture tour, carrying trunks
full of new and more sanitary dresses
to try on some poor little borrowed
child in the view of an audience and
in the centre of draughty platform.
She knew a better way than that. She
stayed at home and took orders for
illustrating children's books. The styl-
ish people who began to dress their
children in Kate Greenaway gowns and
suits had no idea of hygiene. Ameri-
can mothers did it because it was the
mode and because English women of
station had adopted il. English
mothers were Influenced by the de-
light their children took in Kate Green
aways children. Both nations full of
mothers We're influenced powerfully by
the real beauty. simplicity, grace and
essential juvenility of the mode Green
away.
In 1876 Miss Greenaway illustrated
'Mildreds Mistake" and "TOpO" and
published Kate Greenaway's Little
Folks Painting Book Under the
Window" was published in 1879. X.
G.'s Birthday Book in 1880. From 1880
to 1890 she published constantly.
Among the best known of her pictures
are those illustrating the Pied Piper of
IL
Garden. The Language of Flowers, Lit
tie Ann and Kate Greenaways Alpha
bets
But the clever fingers grew tired and
the pure understanding spirit faint.
1t is several years since she laid aside
her drawing board. The men and wO-
men who were children in the eighties
and seventies are grateful to Miss
Greenaway for her obedience to her in
spiration. She waved "a wand and the
overdressed little children, especially
the girls whose ugly looking Overskirts
caught in bushes and fences whenever
they attempted "A frolic, came out TO
play in smOcks. straight breadth skirts
aways will, cores, ruffles and the airs
that accompany cores and ruffies, van
ished She is the true fairy gOdmother
of the XIX century. She set the princes
and princeSSes free from the spell OF
the wicked drygOods fairy. And she did
still more for the men and women. In
her pictures the helplessness and lnno-
cence and touching purity of child
hood is evident. The men and women
who showed her pictures to the little
children yielded themselves more fully
to the charm, the witchery of child
hood. And for every such permanent
yielding a soul is saved.
Her art was in harmony with the
times otherwise it would not have had
such instantaneous effect in creating
an epoch in modes. In regard To IL
Mr.. Ernest knaufft says in the Review
of Reviews: Her art was IN ltSeH
a product of an influence which per
meated Victorian architecture and lit
erature as well. The writings of Rus
kin. the buildings of Norman Shaw.
above all, the furniture and fabrics OF
William Morris. We're more or less dl-
rectly responsible for the aesthetic
craze of a decade ago. which Gilbert
and Sullivan burlesqued in their "p-
eraS.
Routet de MonVeTS children are as
artless and appealing and his technique
has greater depth and versatility. His
groups of children convert the most
grabbed individual if not To love at
Ieast TO a sense of the beauty. helpless
ness and purity of childhood. De N"h-
vel has originality that is not yet eN-