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(p. 1)
LIFE OF ANNA KINGSFORD
(Vol. 1)
CHAPTER I
EARLY
LIFE
ANNIE BONUS – to call the subject of this
memoir by her baptismal and paternal names – was born at
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2)
former selves. The youngest of twelve children, and born long after her
immediate predecessor, she was without nursery companionship, and her
loneliness was further aggravated by her inability, through ill health, to take
part, save occasionally, in the studies and pastimes of other children. Thus
isolated, her chief delight as a child was to lose herself in the ample gardens
with which her homes, originally at
No
less abnormal was her relations with her dolls. Their number was legion, and
each was a personage in some drama, historical or imagined, being named and
attired to suit the
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character assigned it, she herself being the ready spokesman in the
parts enacted by them, her faculty of improvisation being such that she was
never at a loss. Whether her audience consisted of dolls or of living persons,
it was equally her delight to sit and pour out in unbroken succession, and
without pause, story after story, either remembered or invented at the moment,
about fairies and princesses and knights and castles and dragons, and gods and
goddesses, as if all mythology, fable, and romance were at her finger-ends. And
to some extent they were so; for, having free run of her father’s
library, she had devoured various translations from the classics –
notably the Metamorphoses of Ovid – and assimilated the contents of
Lemprière and Froissart.
There
was, however, this peculiarity about her excursions into literature of this
kind, for which only long afterwards was she able to account – all that
she read struck her as already familiar to her, so that she seemed to herself
to be recovering old recollections rather than acquiring fresh knowledge.
The
faculty of seership manifested itself at a very early age. Phantoms of the
dead, and the states, physical, moral, and spiritual, of the living, were open
to her view, and her previsions of impending death were always verified by the
event. But she soon learnt the wisdom of keeping her own counsel in such
matters; for not only did she suffer reproach as if accountable for the events
she had foreseen, but such exhibitions of abnormal faculty entailed references
to the family physician, with results at once disagreeable and injurious to
her.
Her
aptitudes for music, singing, drawing, and painting were such as to procure from
her teachers earnest recommendations to a professional career. But the only
result was a discontinuance of her lessons, through a fear lest she should be
induced by her consciousness of ability to adopt the suggestion. But though
these faculties were neglected, her native exquisiteness of touch and tone
never left her, but remained to find manifestation in other directions.
Deprived
of these outlets and repelled from association with the generality of folks by
her sensitiveness to the incompatibility of their characters and ideals with
her own, her great resource was writing. It was in verse chiefly that she at
first sought at once relief from uncongenial associations and expression for
the
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ideas which crowded on her. And the quality of her poems, while still
but a child, was such as to win for them admission into various magazines. Her
first book was written at the age of thirteen. This was Beatrice: a Tale of the Early
Christians. It was intended to be a magazine story in the Churchman’s
Companion. But the publisher, Mr. Masters, thought it worthy to make a
separate volume, and offered to bring it out in that form, and to give her a
present for it, both of which proposals were accepted. “And I
accordingly,” she said, when recounting her early history to me but a
week before her death, “received two guineas, for they knew I was but a
child. (1) I afterwards wrote a quantity of poetry for the Churchman’s
Companion, which I do not consider as composed by myself, as it all
came to me ready-made, and I had but to write it down.” A small volume of
her poems, River-Reeds, also published by Masters, had the same origin.
Over and above their intrinsic merit, which is considerable, they are
remarkable as unconscious imitations of various styles, especially of that of
the “In Memoriam.” The
volume bears this touching dedication to the memory of her father, (2)
who had been the first to recognise and believe in her, and to whom she was
tenderly attached: –
“To
you, our Father in
The
following is the last stanza of the poem, which explains the title: –
“Reeds in the river! Reeds in the river!
O deep in my heart like the reeds in the river,
My thoughts grow in darkness, far down out of
sight,
And over my life passes shadow and light,
Like sunshine and cloud on the breast of the
stream;
But I sit by the banks of my river and dream,
For day after day they grow silent and strong,
The reeds of my Syrinx, the reeds of my
song.”
The
following verses were found by me among her early papers, written in her own
hand and bearing her signature. If not actually her own, the fact that they
should have so powerfully attracted her as to be copied out by her indicates a
consciousness of ideas and experiences altogether abnormal in one so young:
–
(p. 5)
THE
PENITENCE OF LOUISE DE LA VALLIÈRE
Alas! I cannot pray, – my heart within
Burns with mad conflict, love, despair, and sin.
Only
escapes a silent cry
From
my soul’s depth of agony,
Like a little cloud rising out of the sea,
Out
of the restless surging sea, –
“O
Lord, remember, remember me!”
Alas! I cannot weep, – I have no tears;
They are all dried up with the woes of years;
And
only that one ceaseless cry
Through
my heart echoes silently,
Like the evening bell sounding over the lea,
Over
the sunless, pathless lea, –
“O
Lord, remember, remember me!”
Alas! I cannot sleep, – my restless brain,
In fearful dreams, revives the past again;
And
so I wake, and wearied lie
Repeating
still that voiceless cry,
Entreating, O God, in the darkness with Thee,
In
the darkness alone with Thee, –
“O
Lord, remember, remember me!”
And so the morning finds me, and I rise
With heavy, aching heart and burning eyes,
Creep
to my work with heavy feet.
And
still within my soul repeat, –
Like a bird in a cage that pines to be free,
Sits
alone and pines to be free, –
“O
Lord, remember, remember me!”
Remember me! I cannot pray nor weep,
Night cannot bring me either rest or sleep,
But
evermore with wakeful eyes,
My
soul looks up to Thee and cries,
Be merciful, Lord, as Thou usedst to be;
Mercy
belongeth unto Thee;
“O
Lord, remember, remember me!”
Strong
of will, independent of judgment, bent on the meanings of things as against their
appearances, heedless of persons where principles were concerned, and keenly
resenting in justice and oppression, Annie Bonus was scarcely likely to be a persona
grata with the authorities of the fashionable school at Brighton to
which it was her lot to be sent for what in those days was called
“finishing her education.” Bent as they were on effecting the
lopping and trimming considered necessary to fit girls for conventional
society, they naturally confounded the cravings of a
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large and highly vitalised nature for expansion and unfoldment with the
wilfulness of a rebel against all the proprieties, and accordingly regarded her
as one whose example could not fail to be detrimental to others. Hence it came
that, while her talents were recognised, her character was mistaken, with the
result of enhancing and confirming that disposition to revolt against
conventional limitations with which she seemed to herself to have been born.
Her curiosity respecting religious subjects was an especial cause of offence;
and some of her severest school-impositions were incurred through her
persistence in demanding from the clergyman who superintended that portion of
the school curriculum explanations of the rationale of the doctrines
inculcated. She could not be made to comprehend why the desire to understand,
so laudable in respect of other subjects, should in the case of religion be
accounted an impertinence and even a profanity. The first prizes for English
composition, however, always fell to her, notwithstanding the presence in them
of passages so widely at variance with the ruling standard, as will be seen
from the following extract from a school essay on Ambition, which is worthy of
reproduction here if only as a curious presage of her life and work: –
“But
the earnest, high-seeking man is not satisfied with success, because success
only inspires him with renewed ardour, confirms him in the confidence of his
own powers, and reveals to him new fields for discovery or invention. He
continues to work, not that he may promote his own glory, but that he may use
to the glory of God the talents entrusted to his charge. The more such a man
knows, the more he desires to know; not that he may be known – because
this is Vanity – but to edify himself and to exalt God – for this
is Greatness. The farther we climb up a mountain, the more we perceive of it;
and that part which, when viewed from its base, appeared lost in clouds and
mists, discovers itself clearly when we are half-way up, and we behold beyond
it higher peaks still, of which, before, we saw nothing. Within the heart of
the truly great is a still, persuasive voice saying continually, ‘Higher!
Higher!’
“For
to be ambitious is not only to desire and hope for, but to aim at and to
purpose. And day after day, year after year, the ambitious soul mounts higher
and higher up that vast mountain whose top no mortal in this life has ever yet
attained, and of which we shall never know whether there is any top; so huge
and great is Wisdom; so unlimited and untried the human intellect. And even
while man mounts and toils and struggles, higher and higher yet, there comes to
him one day a bright angel, and carries him away to the Highest, Sublimest
place of all, where all shall be known and understood – that is, God
– and where at last there is peace.”
(p
7)
On
quitting school she rejoined her family at St. Leonards, whither they had
removed from Blackheath, and devoted herself to writing. The chief products of
this period were her Flower-Stories and some others of an
historical character, some of which, after passing through various magazines,
were in 1875 published by Messrs. Parker under the title of Rosamunda
the Princess, others being included in Dreams and Dream-Stories,
which was published after her death. Many of them were the products of sleep,
even to their minutest details, those especially which were thus originated
being characterised by a mysticism at once subtle, exquisite, and tender, and
clearly such as to indicate their derivation direct from the soul itself rather
than from a faculty merely intellective. Her power of retention in respect of
the products of her dreams was already at this early period remarkable; but it
was only in after-years that she learnt its true nature, significance, and
value. The testimonies received by her of the power of these stories to affect
others were many and striking. “Before I knew you” – wrote
one lady to her – “I took up your ‘Flower-Stories’
accidentally, and something sobbed in me so bitterly in response that I could
not see to read for tears.” Men were no less affected by them. One
– the editor of a periodical, who sought permission to reproduce one of
them – wrote: “These beautiful things sink into and find the inner
life, as with the touch of Love itself.” And the notable kabalist and
mystic – whose recognition, friendship, and ripe wisdom proved an
invaluable support in the work done in her subsequent collaboration with myself
– the venerable Baron Spedalieri – on reading them after her death,
thus wrote concerning these products of a girl’s dreams: –
“Words
fail to express the feelings I was seized with when I began to peruse these
magical writings. It seemed to me that she was speaking to me with her so
melodious a voice. What a poetical and prophetic genius! What a mastery of
style! What a richness of language! How graphic and grasping! How beautiful and
touching! My delight was unbounded and well-nigh unutterable when I tasted
– as a glutton does with a dainty – and pondered over the
thoughtful and suggestive clusters of flowers – flowers of Wisdom. May
her heavenly soul be blessed for the good and comfort she affords to a poor and
disenchanted heart!”
She
did not regard these writings as representing the whole of her nature, but only
its inner and central part, between which
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and its outer and circumferential part she recognised not only a great
interval as to space, but a great difference, amounting to positive disharmony,
as to character; for, while in the former she found herself optimist, poet, and
well-nigh prophet, in the latter she found herself pessimist, critic, and
well-nigh cynic. She could understand that the very keenness of her perceptions
of the ideal might minister to the bitterness of her disappointment with the
actual, and dispose her to hold persons responsible for their failure to
realise, or even to approach, her conceptions of a possible perfection; and
also that her own defect of health and her lack of sympathetic appreciation
might in some measure account for this tendency. But she was liable also to a
feeling of positive antagonism, and even of resentment, amounting to a sense of
being persecuted and hunted, which seemed to be inborn in her, so much was it a
part of her nature, her inability to account for which ministered to the
pessimistic views of existence which forced themselves on her, leading her to
ascribe the disharmony thus manifested to a defect in the nature of existence
itself. And the events were not few or far between which served to confirm the
impression, either that the world was hopelessly evil or that she was the
especial victim of a conspiracy to disgust her with it.
Among
such events the following held a prominent place and long rankled in her
recollections. She had offered to a publishing house of high repute a small
volume containing the results of some illuminations on religious subjects which
had highly delighted herself, and for which she anticipated a corresponding
appreciation from others. After being retained for an excessive length of time,
the MS. was returned to her, bearing evident marks of having been read and
re-read, with a warm expression of admiration for its contents, and also of
regret at the inability of the firm in question to undertake its publication
consistently with regard to the feelings of its clients, whom it dared not
offend. The commendation went far to compensate for any disappointment caused
by the rejection. But shortly afterwards a book appeared, issued by the same
firm, and bearing the name of a near relative of the firm, largely made up from
her MS., as was made clear to a family conclave to whom she read out page after
page of identical matter, proving beyond possibility of doubt the treacherous
fraud which had been practiced upon her,
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and this by persons making high pretension to religion. Unhinged by the
shock, she would listen to no proposition for seeking redress, but, in a
passion of indignation, put this out of her power by forthwith destroying the
MS., that the sight of it might not remind her of the suffering it had caused
her. Life for her was always thus on the quick; and the necessity of acting in
accordance, at all costs, was paramount.
The
death of her father, which took place in 1865, was a profound grief to her; and
while it made her her own mistress, so far as money was concerned – for
she came at once into possession of an income of some £700, – it
concurred with other circumstances to aggravate her pessimistic tendencies,
leading her to seek in physical excitements relief from mental distresses.
Recounting to me her history at this period, she frankly admitted her
attraction by the doctrine which regards existence as an evil in itself, and
every moment of pleasure as something gained in spite of it. At some of her
doings in this frame of mind she looked back with amazement and even horror.
“Why,” she exclaimed, pursuing her confessions, “between my
leaving school and being married I was for a time passionately fond of hunting,
and, when not disabled by illness, would spend the day in the saddle. I not only
loved the wild excitement of the gallop and the chase, but I delighted to be in
at the death. I seemed to find a savage joy in seeing the dogs fasten on the
fox and tear it to pieces. It was as if the beast of prey in me alone bore
sway, and my moral nature was completely in abeyance. But suddenly one day,
while riding home after a ‘splendid run and finish,’ as it is
called, something in me asked me how I should like to be served so myself, and
set me to looking at the matter from the point of view of the hunted creature, making
me vividly to realise its wild terror and breathless distress all the time it
is being pursued, and the ghastly horror of its capture and death. It was even
less, I believe, my sense of pity than of justice that rebuked and changed me.
What right have I, I asked myself, thus to ill-treat a creature simply because
it has a form which differs from my own? Rather, if I am the superior, do its
weakness and helplessness entitle it to my pity and protection than justify me
in seeking my own gratification at its expense. And as for its lower position
on the ladder of evolution, if there be evolution in one thing there must in
another – if in the
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physical, then in the moral – so that for a man to act thus is to renounce
his moral gains and abdicate his moral superiority. Of course that was the end
of my hunting, and thenceforth I and my steed took our gallops by ourselves;
for, however much I may like a thing, I never can bring myself to do it while
feeling it to be wrong. In fact, such a feeling would prevent my liking
it.”
An
escapade into which she was led by her eagerness for something that might be
called work consisted in an application to a local solicitor for a clerkship in
his office. It was not pay that she wanted, she informed him, but occupation;
and by what she knew of lawyer’s writing, she thought hers would be
suitable. He listened with mingled interest and amusement, and then, to her
great delight, seated her at a desk and gave her some copying to do; but, as
his next step was to call at her home and report the incident, her hopes in
this direction were soon extinguished.
An
attachment which sprang up between her and her cousin, Algernon Godfrey
Kingsford, who held a post in the Civil Service, ultimately proved the solution
of her difficulties. But the engagement was long and troublous, owing to the
parental preference for a wealthy but elderly suitor who also presented
himself. The marriage was consequently deferred until Annie became of age, and
took place on the last day of 1867, the chief event of the interval having been
a visit to
Her
first introduction to “spiritualism” took place as told in the
following narrative. She recounted the incident to me on
(p.
11)
my first visit to her
and her husband, but only in brief; but having the good fortune subsequently to
make the acquaintance of the lady who enacted the part of medium on the
occasion, I sought and obtained from her a copy of the record in her diary.
This was Miss F.J. Theobald, a lady well known and highly esteemed in
spiritualistic circles. And her narrative is interesting, not only as showing
the impression made by Annie Bonus upon others, but also for its correspondence
with some of the most remarkable of her own later independent experiences:
–
“I
was living at
“It
was during this winter that Annie Bonus – for I soon came to call her so,
at her own desire – became Mrs. Kingsford; but until the time of her
marriage she frequently called upon me. One day she came just as I had received
a message from my father, who had recently passed on. I read it to her, and was
surprised to see how deeply it interested her. She listened with breathless
attention, and
(p.
12)
when I had ceased reading, exclaimed, ‘How beautiful! Do you think
if you took pencil again you would have a few words for me?’ I most
gladly complied, for I saw that her doubts were softened, and that she was in a
receptive state of mind. This, of course, gave right conditions; and presently
a message came purporting to be from her father. He said how sorry he was to
have brought her up in such erroneous ideas, and urged her to investigate
spiritualism, as it would bring evidence of the future state, and of his power
to come to her and help her. This message came to her with conviction. I
believe she at once accepted it as genuine. Her visits to me, which were
frequent, were obliged to be sub rosa, because her family were
greatly opposed to her coming to see a spiritualist, fearing its effect upon
one whose experiences had been so peculiar and even alarming.
“Our
first formal séance together was on November 30, 1867. Besides ourselves
there were present Mrs. De Morgan (the wife of the professor), who came by
appointment, and Captain F. and his daughter, who came in unexpectedly. After a
general message of admonition to cultivate communication, the following was
written through me, addressed to Miss Bonus: – ‘My child, resist
the materialistic teachings you have learned. There is a future, for I –
your father – live. Seek
earnestly;’ and after an interval it was added, ‘Avoid undevelopment
by prayer to God. No other form.’
“I
received several very interesting letters from Mrs. Kingsford when she was
living her married life at Lichfield, and very much regret having destroyed
them; for they told of most interesting visions, and of evident cases of
trance-condition; but, unhappily, not being understood by those about her, they
were mistaken for fits, and she was placed again and again under the
doctor’s hands, and, as before, made to suffer cruelly.
“On
January 24, 1869, being on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Kingsford and a friend
of hers came and sat with me for writing, and Mrs. Kingsford herself held the
pencil. For some time the writing was confused and indistinct, as if of some
unaccustomed hand. Then, in answer to the question whether the spirit trying to
write was a relative of Mrs. Kingsford’s, it was written distinctly,
‘Yes, long ago. Anne Boleyn.’ At this we laughed, and Mrs.
Kingsford told us that they had reason to believe that Anne Boleyn was an
ancestor of theirs. On questioning the spirit as to her state, she wrote:
‘God is very good to me, and I am learning.’ She then desired that
the room be darkened, writing, as a reason, ‘Because light consumeth
atmosphere which contains the necessary influence. For this reason perfect absence
of fyre is meetest.’ She then continued: ‘Conceive of me this,
– that I died for a customme.’ Asked for explanation, she wrote the
following in old French: – ‘Prejugée – c’est
à vous que je parle. Prejugée,
– mais j’etais coupable. Moi, seulement – comme toutes les
femes gallantes. Je vous aime, parceque je vous vois. Comme moi, votre roy est
loin de vous à present. Ayez soin,
m’amour.’
“Then,
after a pause, during which we expressed our dislike of what was written, the
spirit continued: – ‘I died by sword. II y en a qui souffre dês choses plus terrible. II y en a qui
perrissent par des maux de coeur, plus dur que d’acier. J’aimais
trop mon frère. C’est l’homme que est injuste, et non pas ce
grand esprit qu’on
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13)
appelle Dieu.’ No doubt by ‘sword’ she meant axe, but
she was at a loss for English words, and took the first that answered to her
idea. On being asked her purpose in coming, she wrote, ‘Pour
interêt.’”
The
impression made on Mrs. Kingsford’s mind by this experience was that,
supposing the writer to be really Anne Boleyn, her object was to warn her in
respect of certain characteristics which she recognised herself as possessing
in common with the hapless queen, and through yielding to which she had come to
grief. As will duly appear, this experience had a remarkable sequel, imparting
to it a value beyond what could have been conceived.
Her
frankness respecting herself was a very marked characteristic. Full of the
ideas which possessed her respecting a work in store, she had made it a special
condition of her marriage that it should not fetter her in respect of any
career to which she might be prompted. And when, in after-years, she happened,
while I was with them, to come upon a packet of the letters which had passed
between herself and her future husband, she was so struck with the insistency
with which she had written on this point that she exclaimed while reading them,
“What a disagreeable person I must have been to have written to A. in
this way! They are full of declarations that my chief reason for marrying was
to be independent and free. I only wonder that he took me.”
As
he had far too high an estimate of her powers and regard to her wishes to wish
to restrict her, everything promised favourably for her future so far as their
mutual relations were concerned. But it was soon made clear that her marriage
was to be a marriage in little more than the name. They went to Brighton for
their wedding-trip, only for her to be seized on the following day with an
attack of asthma of so violent a nature as to endanger her life, and compel her
return, so soon as she could be removed, to her mother’s to be nursed
through it. And there she remained, suffering constantly and severely, until
the birth of her only child. This was a daughter, to whom – in indulgence
of some early English prepossessions – she gave the name of Eadith,
adding also her own maiden name, for which she entertained a high regard.
During this interval her husband determined, to the great satisfaction of
herself and family, to
(p.
14)
enter the ministry, graduating for that purpose at
The
step proved to be of high importance for her future work; for she accompanied
him assiduously in his studies, proving herself an admirable student,
laborious, intelligent, exact, and thorough, and, while of invaluable
assistance to him, making herself complete master of Anglican theology. But
misfortune again overtook her, and she returned once more to her mother’s
house to be nursed through a long, painful, and dangerous illness of an
internal nature, due, it was believed, to an accident, and involving severe
surgical treatment, from the effects of which she never entirely recovered; for
from that time, in addition to her constitutional liabilities, she was subject
to acute accesses of neuralgia, nervous panics, and sudden losses of
consciousness, which were the occasion of several dangerous falls.
None
of these things, however, sufficed to impair her mental power, damp her
ambition, or weaken either her sense of some great work to be done by her or
her resolution to do it whenever it should be shown to her. Nor did they affect
her faculty of spiritual receptivity. On the contrary, the character of this
faculty seemed to be enhanced by being lifted to a more distinctly religious
sphere, wherein glimpses were obtained of interpretations and correspondences
hitherto unsuspected by her, one especial effect being to impress her with a
keen aversion to the religious system in which she had been reared, for its
hardness, coldness, and meagreness, and its utter unrelatedness to her own
spiritual needs, intellectual or emotional.
She
had already at this time a small circle of Catholic friends, through whom she
obtained some knowledge of that communion, and she had learned to appreciate
the atmosphere, at once devotional and artistic, that environed them, and its
contrast with all that she knew of her own co-religionists. The attractive side
of the conventual life had also been presented to her. But the determining
cause was of an abnormal kind. It consisted in her receipt of nocturnal
visitations, three in number, from an apparition purporting to be that of St.
Mary Magdalen, who announced herself as the patron of souls of her order, and
bade her join the Roman communion as a step requisite for the work in store for
her, the nature of which would in due time be communicated to
[Portrait of Anna Kingsford AET. 23]
(p.
15)
her. This led to her seeking priestly counsel, when she was told that
her experience, though of rare occurrence, was recognised by the Church as
being orderly and regular, and as a mark of special grace and favour, and one
not to be disregarded without incurring grave responsibility. Her private
intimations were to the same purport, and no obstacle being raised, she at
length took the step so strangely prompted, and on September 14, 1870, being
the “Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,” was formally received
under the names Mary Magdalen. Two years later, June 9, 1872, being the
“Feast of the Sacred Heart,” she was confirmed by Archbishop
Manning, receiving the additional names of Maria Johanna. Of these, the former
was chosen by the Archbishop, and the latter by herself, her reasons for the
choice being her affection for her father and eldest brother, both of whom were
named John, and her veneration for Joan of Arc, upon whom she was wont to look
almost as a patron saint, as she told me on the occasion of an experience of an
extraordinary character, to be related in its place, which occurred in 1877. In
this way she came to bear the names of all the women mentioned in the Gospels
as being by the Cross and at the Sepulchre. But this is not all that was strange
and noteworthy about her names; for the time was to come when even her maiden
and married names were to disclose themselves as invested with a profound
significance. She described the apparition of the Magdalen as bearing a close
resemblance to herself in feature, form, and colouring, so far as she could
discern her through a veil which covered her head and shoulders. She had no
theory at the time to account for the experience, but subsequent events pointed
to conclusions of a very startling nature.
Thus
was accomplished the second great step in what proved to be her education for
the task which awaited her; for to her knowledge of Anglican theology she now
added that of Catholic doctrine, by making of it as careful a study as of the
former. It must be stated, however, in view of her subsequent unfoldments, that
no question had as yet arisen for her as between the two presentments of
Christianity, the ecclesiastical and the mystical. She accepted the Roman as
against the Protestant, the Catholic as against the sectarian, the aesthetic
and emotional as against the inartistic and formal; not the ecclesiastical and
objective as against the spiritual and subjective. For of the
(p
16)
existence of the alternative presentation she had yet to become aware.
Meanwhile she retained complete independence, both in mind and act, declining
spiritual direction, and only as the impulse took her did she avail herself of
the offices of the Church.
Her
husband’s first curacy was that of Atcham, near
(p.
17)
her intense feminineness. Never of her was it said that she
“unsexed” herself on these occasions; but, on the contrary, she was
recognised as a practical demonstration of a woman’s ability to fulfil
such functions without the smallest derogation of her womanhood, and that fact
supplied the most potent of all arguments for her cause. Even members of
Parliament resorted to her, not only for information and arguments, but for
speeches, with which she readily supplied them, taking delight in attending the
House to hear them delivered, but always regretting her inability to deliver
them herself, she would have done it so much better!
The
following extracts from An Essay on the Admission of Women to the
Parliamentary Franchise, by Ninon Kingsford (Trübners, 1868), will
serve to exhibit her position on this subject, and manner of dealing with it.
Referring to the allegation that the majority of women themselves are
indisposed to the franchise, she says: –
“And
if it be so – which I very greatly doubt – why is it so? It is
because men have narrowed the minds of women, by employing against them every
species of tyranny that the law can be made to sanction or to wink at. If I
take a bird out of a wood and cut its wings, what wonder that it cannot fly?
And when, after a while, I let it go about the house, and it begins to
understand that it cannot fly, what wonder that it ceases to attempt flying,
and is content to hop about from room to room and from stair to stair? Well, my
friends see the bird, and they say it is tame. It has lost the use of its
wings, and so it goes on its legs, and is tolerably content. But one of my
friends looking on – perhaps his name may be Mill – says, ‘I
think your pet would be happier if it could fly.’
“But
it is not for the actual privilege of voting itself that I would so much plead,
but for the benefit that the extension of the franchise to women would bring to
the whole sex. It would give women a higher place in society; it would raise
them in the estimation of men; it would lift them from the level of goods and
chattels to the position they ought to occupy, of citizens and responsible
beings. And to those men who cry out so loudly that women’s inferior
attainments and acquirements prove them inferior in capacity and intellect, I
answer this: Who made them inferior, nature or custom, God or man? Who barred
against women the doors of the colleges, the academies, the scientific
societies, the associations, the institutions? Who deny to women every means of
superior education and nobler training? Who push them back into the nursery and
the kitchen, and tell them their ‘duty’ and their ‘sphere’
is there, and there only? Why, these men themselves, who, by and by, seeing
that women grow up as they have trained them, stand up on platforms and say,
‘See here: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Are the women half
so clever as we?’
(p.
18)
“Ah,
my good sirs! They must indeed be clever if they are to know, without being
taught, what you take many long years to learn! (...)”
After
contrasting the education afforded to the sexes respectively, and showing that,
while everything is done to advance the boy, everything is done to repress the
girl, she enlarges upon the aimlessness of a woman’s life, her absolute
want of anything to look forward to, saving only marriage. And –
“This aim frustrated, her only design crossed,
she is thrown on her own resources for her enjoyment; and because these,
through defective education, are shallow and superficial, (...) she stands,
another Andromeda, bound to the rock on the sea-shore; the ocean lies before
her, the heavens are above her head, but she has no power either to float over
the deep waters of the one or to rise into the pure bright ether of the other;
she stands, shackled by the chains of ignorance, a helpless prey to that
terrible monster whose name is ‘Ennui.’ But to the educated man,
what heights, what depths, are accessible! Like Perseus, he leaps from the edge
of the high cliff into the higher fields of light over his head, or he floats
and hovers over the clear, transparent face of the broad sea; for he is
provided with the wings of the Immortals, and to him nothing is impossible. But
oh! When will the world translate the allegory rightly, and act out its moral
and its doctrine? When will Perseus come to deliver the fair Andromeda, to
loosen her fetters, and to set her free? When, for her sake, will he slay the
terrible monster who would devour her, combat for her against an army of
priests and soi-disant lovers, and bear away his bride to be his spouse and
queen on the far-off peaks of the Holy Hill?”
The
tendency thus to express herself in terms derived from the Greek anthology is
one of those characteristics which are worthy to be noted by the way as serving
to confirm the solution ultimately afforded of the problem of her life and
character; namely, that it was not acquired but innate, being due to unconscious
recollection of previous existences. Another undesigned testimony to the same
solution is afforded by the variety of the names adopted by her. That of Ninon,
which was affixed to this brochure, was used by her for a considerable period,
having been given her by her eldest brother on account of a resemblance he
found between her and the celebrated Ninon de l’Enclos, and adopted by
her in preference both to her own name and the more feminine appellation of
“Nina” used by her husband, as better according, by reason of its
more masculine termination, with the active and energetic side of her character
and career. The
(p.
19)
tendency thus to multiply her names was an unconscious expression of her
sense of the multiplicity of the personalities she came to recognise as
subsisting in herself.
Though
sympathising to the last in the movement for the enfranchisement of women, she
did not long continue to take an active part in it. The reasons for her
withdrawal were manifold. One was her conviction that women would more
successfully achieve their desired emancipation by demonstrating their capacity
for serious work than by merely clamouring for freedom and power. And another
was her strong disapproval of the spirit in which the movement was coming to be
worked. This was the spirit which manifested itself not only in hostility to
men as men, but to women as the wives and mothers of men. The last thing
contemplated by her was an aggravation of the existing divisions and
antagonisms between the sexes. And, so far from accepting the doctrine of the
superiority of spinsterhood over wifehood, she regarded it as an assertion of
the superiority of non-experience over experience as a means of education. But
that which most of all she reprobated in this connection was the disposition
which led women to despise womanhood itself as an inferior condition, and
accordingly to cultivate the masculine at the expense of the feminine side of
their nature. Her aim was to exalt, not persons, but principles; not women, but
womanhood. It was by magnifying their womanhood, and not by exchanging it for a
factitious masculinity, that she would have her sex obtain its proper
recognition.
Neither
in the acquisition nor in the conduct of her magazine was she influenced by
commercial ends. Her principles were everything, and her adherence to them
proved fatal to the enterprise. It was not that those essentials of
journalistic success, advertisements, were wanting. On the contrary, the supply
was ample for such purpose. But, as proprietor, she insisted on editing her
advertising as well as her literary columns, and rigidly excluded notices of
any wares which failed to meet her approval. Preparations of meats, unhygienic
articles of apparel, deleterious cosmetics – in fact, whatever involved death
in the procuring or ministered to death in the using was banned and barred,
regardless of monetary results. Her manager, alarmed at the prospect which he
too surely foresaw, remonstrated earnestly but vainly. She was inflexible. And
so it came that, after
(p.
20)
a two years’ trial and a loss of several hundred pounds, the
incompatibility of the standard of journalistic morality which she proposed to
herself with commercial success became too obvious to be disregarded, and the enterprise
was abandoned. The experience gained, however, was regarded by her as more than
compensating the outlay. It was another step in her education for whatever was
before her. And her magazine had served at least one notable end, for in its
columns had been sounded the first note of the crusade which has since been
waged against the atrocities of the physiological laboratory. It was in the
exercise of her functions as editor of The Lady’s Own Paper that she
became aware of the existence of vivisection. A paragraph on the subject
elicited a sympathetic response from Miss Frances Power Cobbe; and from that
time forth the suppression of this “modern Inquisition” became the
foremost aim of her life, as also of Miss Cobbe’s. When she renounced her
magazine she had already come to the determination to devote herself to the
study of medicine, with a direct view to qualify herself for accomplishing the
abolition of that which she regarded with a passionate horror as the foulest of
practices, whether as regarded its nature or its principles. This and the
question of diet were the two immediately impelling motives which determined
her choice of a profession. Under her brother’s tuition she had adopted
the Pythagorean regimen of abstinence from flesh food, with such manifest
advantage to herself, physically and mentally, as to lead her to see in it the
only effectual means to the world’s redemption, whether as regarded men
themselves or the animals. Man, carnivorous and sustaining himself by slaughter
and torture, was not for her man at all in any true sense of the term. Neither
intellectually nor physically could he be at his best while thus nourished.
These, then, were the four points of the charter for the establishment of which
she now determined to obtain medical knowledge: purity of diet, compassion for
the animals, the exaltation of womanhood, and mental and moral unfoldment
through the purification of the organism.
There
was one feature in her magazine which calls for more particular notice, partly
as an illustration of her faculty of psychic insight and reflectiveness, and
partly for its relation to her subsequent history. This was a story called In my
Lady’s Chamber, and purporting to be a “speculative romance
touching a few
(p.
21)
questions of the day.” It was afterwards (1) published separately
as by “Colossa,” a signature chosen in token of her own unusual
stature, but singularly inappropriate in view of her total lack of the other
characteristic – massiveness – implied by the term.
In my
Lady’s Chamber represented a striking contrast between two
opposite kinds of life, that of her own high poetic and prophetic aspirations,
and that of which she caught glimpses and suggestions from the Bohemian element
in the world artistic and journalistic with which she came into unavoidable
contact. The impartiality with which she vividly drew both of these opposite
pictures was such as to leave it an open question which of the two, the saintly
or the prodigal, engaged her own sympathies. And it was not until I had become
familiarised with her peculiar gift in virtue of which she could take on, as it
were, and make her own, and reflect exactly persons, scenes, and conditions of
which she had no experience, that I was able to comprehend her power of
describing what was so widely removed from her own personal knowledge or
cherished ideals. But, as I came to learn by manifold experiences, it was
enough that there be some contact or link, however slight, with persons,
circumstances, and conditions, for them to become transferred in their entirety
to her imagination, and there impressed with such vividness as to enable her to
reproduce them in full detail, as if experiences of her own, as faithfully and
almost as mechanically as a mirror reflects the objects presented to it.
The
following is the incident to which the story in question gave rise. It was the
spring of 1873. She had commenced to study medicine, and was living at her new
home, near Pontesbury, in Shropshire, of which parish her husband had lately
become one of the three rectors, when she received a letter, signed “Anna
Wilkes,” from a lady at a distance, a stranger to her, saying that she
– the writer – had read with profound interest and admiration the
story above mentioned, and, after reading it, had received from the Holy Spirit
a message for her which was to be delivered in person. Would Mrs. Kingsford
receive her, and when? After a little hesitation the permission desired was
accorded, and an appointment made. The rest shall be told in Mrs.
Kingsford’s own words: –
(p.
22)
“At
the hour named I met her on the way while she was driving from the station, and
was at once struck by her manner and appearance, and subsequently by her
conversation, as much as I had been by her previous communication. She was
tall, erect, distinguished-looking, with hair of iron-grey and strangely
brilliant eyes. She told me that she had received a distinct message from the
Holy Spirit, and had been so strongly impressed to come and deliver it to me in
person that she could not refrain. Her message was to the effect that for five
years to come I was to remain in retirement, continuing the studies in which I
was engaged, whatever they might be, and the mode of life on which I had
entered, suffering nothing and no one to draw me aside from them. And when
these probationary and preparatory five years were passed, the Holy Spirit
would drive me forth from my seclusion to teach and to preach, and that a great
work would be given me to do. All this she uttered with a rapt and inspired
expression, as though she had been some sibyl delivering an oracle. And when
she had ended, seeing, no doubt, my look of surprise, she asked me if I thought
her mad – a question to which I was at some loss to reply; for I had
encountered nothing of the kind before, and was disposed to share the
impression which all ordinary and worldly folk have always had concerning those
who profess to be prophets. Having delivered her message, my prophetess kissed
me on both cheeks and departed. And on subsequently reflecting upon my own
experiences in receiving communications in dream and vision, and beholding
apparitions, and also upon the singular accordance between the purport of the
message and my own impression from childhood upwards, my sense of its
strangeness became greatly diminished.”
As
will duly be recounted, this was not the only occasion on which this lady was
employed as the bearer of a message to Mrs. Kingsford from unseen sources, all
the circumstances of the second occasion being within my own cognisance.
The
story contained the following ballad, which is not only a good example of her
facility for compositions of this kind, but prophetic of her own future work.
She entitled it, “The Light that
never was on Sea or Land.” Here it may better be called –
“Prick fast, fair knight; the west is
gray,
The
east is dark and eerie;
No hope for him who rides this way,
If
heart or spur be weary!”
“Fair Elle-maid, mine are spurs of steel;
My
heart no peril jars,
If only on my face I feel
The
holy light of stars;
If but athwart the gloom shall steal
The
steadfast light of stars!”
(p.
23)
“Ah, valiant sir! Round yonder heights
The
windy thunders revel;
The
Lies
black along the level.”
“No mountain storms, pale elf, I fear,
Nor
lights upon the lea,
If only breaks upon my ear
The
murmur of the sea;
If but across the wild I hear
The
Voice of
To dare the fearsome waste he flies
Ere
scarce the words are spoken;
Secure beneath his corselet lies
His
chosen lady’s token.
The mystic forest o’er him throws
The
black colossal bars,
But high above them slowly grows
The
glory of the stars;
He greets their silver smile and knows
It
is the light of stars.
Wild voices cry, strange faces glance
From
tufted glen and hollow;
Before him ghostly meteors dance,
Behind
him shadows follow!
The boughs are live that touch his cheeks,
The
grass that sweeps his knee,
The goblin bird of midnight shrieks
From
every gnarlèd tree;
But evermore sonorous speaks
The
Voice of
Weird spectres round him wheel and dart,
But
he nor turns nor tarries,
For still upon that knightly heart
His
lady’s gift he carries;
No phantom bred of reedy mires
His
eastward journey bars;
He trusts alone the holier fires
Of
Heaven’s eternal stars;
A sacred light his soul inspires
From
yonder burning stars!
“I mind thee not, dim Wood,” he
sings,
“Thou
World of Lights pretended;
False fires, and tongues of vapid things
That
die like lamps expended!
Vague babble of uncertain creeds,
Vain
faiths that flit and flee;
My heart one nobler warning heeds
From
yonder sounding sea;
No wandering voice my path impedes
To
that eternal sea!
(p.
24)
“Evöe! Through the darkness burns
A
Light of Love supernal;
Die, feeble tongues! My spirit yearns
For
harmonies eternal!
Evöe! From yon purple space,
The
storm no longer bars
That glory from my lifted face
That
is the Light of Stars;
So mighty is my Lady’s grace,
So
true the holy Stars!”
The
tale was prefaced and followed by some verses which, taken together with those
already given, afford a striking token of her power of intense expression
equally in the direction of melancholy, of tenderness, and of passion. For
which reason, as well as for their intrinsic merit as poetry, they deserve a
place in a biography designed especially to exhibit all the phases of a soul of
rare capacity: –
A
SONNET OF DEDICATION
This book is thine, my friend, and this thy
song,
My
service follows aye where rests my heart;
Since heart and service then to thee belong,
Take
also this, which of myself is part.
A sorry gift, beneath thy lightest thought
–
Thy
meanest thanks, – yet, worthless though it be,
One value hath it still, that it was wrought,
As
is all else of mine, beloved, for thee!
My life hath no good thing that doth not take
Its
brightness from the love which is my sun;
For thee I sing or laugh, and for thy sake
From
day to day whate’er I do is done!
Yet, though this be, and still like
morning’s glow
That
one sweet thought turn all my grey to gold,
Thou dost not know my heart, nor canst thou know
As
others do, to whom that heart is cold!
I am a dullard in thy presence, sweet,
I
have no power to think when thou art near,
And from my trembling lips the words retreat,
Abashed
and coy, when thou art by to hear!
Would I be witty to deserve thy grace?
Would
I be wise to win some praise from thee?
‘Tis all in vain – I look but in thy
face,
And
straightway love alone possesseth me!
Since, then, thy face my sight doth ever fill,
Thy fault it is this book is writ so ill!
(p.
25)
A
SONG OF LEAVE-TAKING
It is ended; the rapture is broken,
The
moon of my passion is set;
I knew the farewell must be spoken,
I
knew we must learn to forget.
No more shall the darkness deceive us,
With
dreams that are tender and fleet; –
Alas that a waking so grievous
Should
follow a slumber so sweet!
Must this be the end of our passion?
Ah,
love! Hold me once to your heart!
Kiss me once in the old tender fashion,
Mine
now – and with sunrise we part.
We part; ah! The sweets that are ended,
Ah!
The joys that are faded and fled,
With the fume of the lamplight expended,
And
the breath of the rose that is dead!
Yet, sweet, though our ways lie asunder,
WE
HAVE LOVED, and your soul has been mine;
Day may waken with tempest and thunder,
But
the night that is past was divine.
Past! Past! . . . Oh, my darling l stoop nearer,
Read
the light of old times in mine eyes;
Never then were you fairer or dearer
Than
now, in this moment of sighs!
Press close, let me see the love glitter
Once
more in the face that was mine;
For the gold has grown ashen, and bitter
The
cup that was sweeter than wine!
Past, past! So they languish and leave us
These
passions that once were our breath,
And the perfumes of garlands is grievous,
And
song dies, – and life is as death!
FOOTNOTES
(1:1) In a copy of The
Life of Anna Kingsford which belonged to Edward Maitland, and which
came into the possession of the late Rev. J.G. Ouseley, the letters
“P.M.” were altered in ink to “A.M.” It was supposed
that the alteration had been made by Edward Maitland. – S.H.H.
(4:1) Beatrice was published in
1863. – S.H.H.
(4:2) River-Reeds was published
in 1866, her father having died in 1865. – S.H.H.
(21:1) In 1874.
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