Rose Kavanagh. Some Scraps from Her Life and Her Letters

Irish Jesuit Province

Rose Kavanagh. Some Scraps from Her Life and Her LettersAuthor(s): Rose Kavanagh, John H. Card. Newman, Aubrey de Vere and John O'HaganSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 19, No. 220 (Oct., 1891), pp. 512-521Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498265 .

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512 The Irish Monthly.

ROSE KAVANAGH.

SOME SCRAPS FROM HER LIFE AND HER LETTERS.

S INCE her death, six months ago, the name of Rose Kavanagh has appeared in these pages almost every month. Three of

our poets have paid tribute to her memory, one of them twice over; and a gifted Irish priest has given some touching reminiscences of her, calling her by her quaint nom de plume of "' Uncle Remus." To many of our readers her name was unknown; and, changing the pronoun in a well-known Scripture text, they were doubtless inclined to ask: " Who is she, and we will praise her ?" She was

a young Irishwoman, who in her short life found or made oppor tunities of showing that she possessed a beautiful nature and many gifts, by which she won the deep regard and admiration of all who had the privilege of her friendship.

Rose Kavanagh was born at Killadroy, in County Tyrone, on the 24th of June, 1860. The year is fixed by the second letter that we are about to quote. Through her mother she was related to Archbishop Hughes of New York, whose birthplace, Errigle

Kieran, lies not far from Mullaghmore, which was afterwards her home. Carleton was bom not far away, and both he and she have

sung the praises of Knockmany, which rises to the west. Rose was passionately fond of books from the earliest year that

it was possible for a bright child to read them. She was educated

at the Loretto Convent, Omagh. Her twentieth year found her

studying in the Mietropolitan School of Art: for her first aspiration was to be a painter. She gradually, however, transferred her alle

giance from Art to Literature, like Thackeray and many another;

and she soon became a contributor, and even a paid contributor, to

several journals and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. One

long story and innumerable short stories, many essays and a few poems, constitute her contribution to Irish literature. For the last three or four years of her life any exertions that her failing health allowed her to make were devoted to the superintendence of the

Children's Department of The Irish Fireside, in which she (and not any white-headed old gentleman such as her youthful correspoan dents probably imagined) was the Uncle Remus of the Fireside Club, aiterwards transferred to The Weekly Freeman.



Rose Kavanagh. 513

I think Miss Kavanagh's first offering to THE: IRISH MONTHLY was prose-a story called " Kevin O'Neill "-and, if so, it was " declined with thanks." But the thanks were evidently so sincere

as to constitute only a semicolon in our correspondence, and by no

means a full stop. The earliest letter here before me is dated

March 10, 1884, and it can hardly have been even the second, for

it begins thus:

"You were right about its being ' Oh! Little Headc' that Charles

Kickham liked. But he had heard me talking a good deal about the child. When last at home, I made a rough sketch of his face, which I will show you. I had great fun doing it, for I put him on a chair,

and the chair on a table; and then he would insist on coming down

now and again, and gravely inspecting my work. As a critic is

nothing if he does not find fault, he told me, when it was only an outline, that I had made his eye like a trout and his mouth like a worm. He will be six years old next June; and all the golden rings are gone off his head now.

" I want to tell you why I did not keep my written sketches more

carefully. The idea of reprinting never occurred to me; besides, they

were a source of pain rather than pleasure. True, it was a happiness to write them; and just at the time of writing I could feel my subject thoroughly, and even feel equal to expressing it. But disappointment always came after; I did not see so much worth in them when printed.

Along with that, my editors did not see it either; or, if they did, they

kept these interesting views to themselves. I think it is very hard to get one's work examined. Now just look what a mere chance your

reading my 'K evin O'Neill' was. Probably I could write as well as

some people who get along very well; but, then, these are known

people."

Though this letter is dated plainly March 10th, this seems to be a mistake; for there is internal evidence of its being later than

the f6llowing, which is dated " St. Patrick's Day, 1884 "; and we

shall see in a moment that my correspondent considered that our

starting-point.

"I thought it was kind of you to write to me about 'Kevin ,O'Neill,' and I thank you sincerely. The next best thing to seeing

oneself in print is, I think, to have the editor discuss one's work.

"Perhaps 'the day we celebrate,' or else your kind letter, or

perhaps a little of your' Erin: Verses Irish and Catholic '-probably all put together-makes me want to tell you about myself. I am a



514 The Irish Monthly.

farmer's daughter from County Tyrone; I shall be twenty-four years old next June; and I was educated in the Loretto Convent, Omagh. To follow my favourite study, drawing and painting, I am in Dublin. I attend the School of Art in Kildare-street; but I write a little, too. There is a story of mine running on in Young Ireland at present. But I do not get half enough writing to do-that is the worst of it always, I suppose, with struggling students. . . . If you knew the diocese of Clogher some years ago, perhaps you were acquainted with some of my people. I had two uncles named Cassidy, who were canons of the diocese; and I am sure you know Archbishop Hughes of New

York-he was my mother's cousin. But this is worse again than 'Kevin O'Neill.' It was ouly an episode, and here I am. inflicting

both biography and genealogy on you."

I have always felt that our affection for Gerald Griffin-and those who know his life and writings cannot help having a personal regard for him-I think somehow that we feel differently towaxd.s him from what we should have felt if his christian name had been John instead of the alliterative Gerald. I seem to have congratu lated Rose Kavanagh on her happy combination of names, and to have blamed her for signing some of her magazine articles 'cR. Kavanagh."

" I think the reason why I did not write my name in full was the fancy that by giving only an initial I might be taken for a man. This, in writing, I thought, would be a fine thing. Though that same name never struck me as being pretty, many another way it struck me! Many a time (in my very young days) it was a source of deep delight and even of consolation to me, to read how constantly my namesakes were up in arms for their conntry. In a measure, this used to make up for the pain it was to recollect Dermot MacMurrough. But al this was long ago, dear Father Russell. However, I am not at all afraid of your misunderstanding me, and it seems the easiest thing imaginable to say out to you just what crosses my mind."

Even as far back as September 8th, 1884, she writes thus about her health: " I think I would ask you to say a little prayer for me

to get better (I am not quite well yet; Bundoran, I think, was not good for my cough), only that on the whole I believe it is better

not to want any change in whatever is allotted to one. If you ever do remember me in that way, you might ask for all my sin to be forgiven." But in November she speaks of being " perfectly well



Rose Kavanagh. 515

and strong, and my cough dean gone away many a day ago. You

must say Thank God with me for this." And then she goes on:

" And so you have been at Keady, only twenty miles away. I

wish I coulld have shown you Knockmany, though, alas! its glory is

departing: they are selling the wood off it-some days it looks like a

poor old hali-plucked hen. It was different in my early days....

There is rather an interesting book, which I have just finished, though it makes sad enough reading in places-Mrs. Carlyle's Letters. She

had not her sorrows to seek, poor little woman! Well, there is one

thing, a very common thing, that I do detest-people like Carlyle

making a caoine * over a person that the least little bit of this ill-dated

tenderness would have made happy in life. She, too, was very clever,

it seems, but so ridiculously anti-Irish. Gavan Duffy appears to havp

been the only Irishman they could mention with the calmness of reason. Who was Mazzini? I am shamefully ignorant of Italian

history-indeed of most history, unless of the victories of Brian and the exploits of my namesake, Art MacMurrough."

The following letter refers to a very touching ballad, "The Hillside To-day," which will be found at page 601 of the twelfth yearly volume of this Magazine (1884), and which speaks of " the

oorucrake's low nest with its brown downy brood." Edward Dowden's fine poem had not yet appeared.

"I notice that Tennyson spells ' corn-crake ' so; but his Princess is very hard on the poor bird, ' grate her harsh kindred in the grass.s It is not alone that I liked the cornerake; its song used to have a

soothing effect on me. So had another very dissimilar thing-to drive very hard through a bog on a frosty moonlight night; and yet

another thing which was strongest of all-to think I should some day succeed in literature or art, and get rich enough to go to Italy and sail through Venice in a gondola. But I am not coming much speed on that road, since, instead of being away in London with all my armour on in the struggle for success, it is sitting here in the sunshine I am, nursing my little old cough. Thanks be to God for the same

sunshine, however. I believe, if it lasts some time longer, I shall be

just as well as ever. Such a good harvest-time has not been for years, they say; nearly all the corn is stacked already, and then it is so dry !

What a wonderful stillness there is among the hills in September t

After all, September is a lovely month, too. I wish it had a poet as

* Keen. Irish for funeral lamentation.



416 l?he lrsh k 1onthly.

devoted as Denis Florence MacCarthy was to May. Perhaps you will teU me the meaning of the title ' Underglimpses' in Mr. MacCarthy's book. Does it mean glimpses under the surface of life, or nature, or what ? But it must be Nature, I think. I like his 'Irish Emigrant's Mother' greatly- it always brought the tears into my mother's eyes.

'The Foray of Con O'Donnell ' always rises in my mind as the Foray -of Dan O'Connell. Dublin ought to be pretty hot now, with the

asphalt soft and springy under one's feet. I miss the National Library a good bit, but one can't have everything. And here I have my own

people, and the sun, and the birds, and such landscape-pictures every day as make little of the best of painting."

As is the case with a great many sketches of more importance, these scraps from the life and letters of Rose Kavanagh suppose the reader to be already somewhat interested in her personality.

Without that personal interest our extracts will have less meaning than I hope they will convey to some who will appreciate, for instance, the grateful spirit that could make so exaggerated a return for sympathy ancd kind words as to write thus on St. Patrick's Day, 1885 :-"1 It was this very day twelvemonths I wrote to you first; so that, even if it were not our national feast, I would be likely to mark it with the whitest of white stones." And then at the end, after wishing me a happy feast, she says: " I will always

do that on this day." She kept her promise in 1887 at any rate; for here is a note dated from the office of The Irish Fireside on St.

Patrick's Day in that year, in which she unwittingly plagiarises from herself, using almost the same words as two years before:

" It was this day three years ago that I wrote to you first. It is

marked with a very white stone in my chronicles. But, dear me, how time flies !'

What special need there was for the whitest of chalk at this

particular epoch her own kind heart alone could explain. Small thanks for perceiving that certain rhymes which came to me with the shamrocks in March, 1884, in a handwriting rather manly than

girlish, were sincere, healthy, and unconventional. In the June number of this Magazine in that year appears "K nockmany," by

Rose Kavanagh; and, looking at it now, I am touched at seeing that she mentions the very spot where, by her special choice, she now lies buried-IDunroe. On the 27th of that month she writes from Pembroke Road, Iublin:



Rose Kavanagh. 517

152 Pembroke Road, June 27th, 1884.

My DxnA FATrEll RUsEL-I suppose you know Lough Bray ? I was there

on Sunday last-we were a party from Dr. Sigerson's-nine or ten in all. We

drove through the Scalp and Enniskerry; I suppose you know that too F Well, it

was a long, long happy day on Sunday, but I am going to sihow you some verses I

wrote since, and if you think them any good, or suitable for The Irish Monthly, I

would be glad. Mind now, you may change, reduce, or reject them as you see fit!

I never was a good judge of my own poetry, whatever guess I might be able to

make at the merits of my prose. However, I saw and felt the things in this little

poem, let them be properly expressed or not.

All the pride about Knockmany and about other hills (heathery) and about

great bogs in Tyrone, is taken out of me since Sunday. Oh, it was wonderful how

wide the horizon became up on those hills, and how one's heart seemed to get

wider too; and once I thought it might cur6 one of bronchitis to come up here and

look around, for you really would have to take in many a deep full breath. What

an idea of solitude they give one ! Davis thought " brown Kippure like a tall

Moor " in his Emmeline Iialbot. I hope we shall go to see Glenismole also, sometime

this summer. Well, after all, it is no wonder our poor exiles can never love any

other place but Ireland. Often I was thinking what I would do if I had to go

away. I am sure I would much rather die.

Yours faithfully, RosE KAVANAGH.

The little poem which this note introduced may be found at page 421 of our twelfth volume; but that is so far back in the past

that we may reprint it as a sample of her poetry, which Miss Katharine Tynan has described as " that artless Irish poetry which is almost mannered from lack of mannerism, but superadded there is often an exquisite delicacy oi expression which Irish poetry as a. rule does not possess. Some of her ballads have an open-air sweet ness and freedom like her, their maker. One cannot analyse what she wrote, because one's heart is too full of her own beautiful per sonality."

A little lonely moorland lake,

Its waters brown and cool and deep

The cliff, the hills behind it make

A picture for my heart to keep.

For rock and heather, wave and strand,

Wore tints I never saw them wear;

The June sunshine was o'er the land

Before, 'twas never half so fair!

The amber ripples sang all day,

And singing spilled their crowns of white

UTpon the beach, in thin pale spray

That streaked the sober sand with light.



518 The Irish Afontkty.

The amber ripples sang their song,

When suddenly from far o'erhead

A lark's pure voice mixed with the throng

Of lovely things about us spread.

Some flowers were there, so near the brink

Their shadows in the wave were thrown;

While mosses, green and grey and pink,

Grew thickly round each smooth dark stone.

And, over all, the sulmmer sky

Shut out the town we left behind;

'Twas joy to stand in silence by,

One bright chain linking mind to mind.

Oh, little lonely mountain spot!

Your place within my heart will be

Apart from all Life's busy lot

A true, sweet, solemn memory.

A letter dated July 1st, 1884, refers to one of the foregoing stanzas. " If that verse seems to make little of my other Junes by

contrast, I would rather cut it out than convey such a wrong im pression. Many influences that I understood made me enjoy the day'keenly; others that I could not account for did the same. For instance, then and since I felt that, if I live to be an old woman, I will think of it the same way, and this for no actual reason unless the fine day, the hill scenery, and kind friends be reasons. Nature was ' never half so fair, probably because never before do I remember feeling at the same time so much in harmony with her and the living people around me. Well, after all, I sup pose it must remain-it is quite true that it is the best June I have known."

If I live to be an old woman-and she had only half a dozen

years to run! In this same letter she asks to see Merry England

-with consequences which are alluded to in the following, which may be given in full:

Mullaghmore, Candlemas Day, 1886. MY Dxn FATHEn RussxLn-I cannot thank you enough for your goodness and

kindness in sending me Vagrant Verses. Certainly I cannot say how extremely

beautiful I think the poems. Even more so than I expected, and I expected much.

If I began to go over what I like best, it would take me a long time, for I would

not know which to leave out. But I thinlk " Mother and Son," at page 100, " The

Heart of Rachel," "Failure," of course, "Perpetual Light," "May Ditty,"

" Grandmother's Song," " The Builders," " Thither," and " My Saint '-it is in

these I take the most pleasure. Since Adelaide Proctor I have liked no pious



Bose Kavanagh. 519

poetry half so much as some of these verses. As a rule, I cannot care much for

religious poetry. I am glad for your sake, and for Ireland's, and, of course, for

the poet's, whom I know to be so good and gifted, that Vagrant Verses are so

beautiful. The book came to me at the right time. There was a friend in Dublin

who had just offered to lend it to me; but I was able to write and save him the

trouble. Of course you will do what you please with " The April Day," and Mr. M.'s

letter. I have no doubt whatever but his criticism is absolutely right, though I

am blankly ignorant about anapaestics and iambics, etc. But the thing that always

strikes me as queer is that no English paper, high or low, could be induced to print

a line of mine. With my own countrymen (God bless them!) it is all the other

way. For instance, at the other end of the world, Australia, two editors have just

written, asking me to supply their weekly Irish correspondence. This, and some

other strokes of luck, will leave me able to fight my way, I hope, independent of

-the London market; and, besides, I shall have the gratification of adding my

repeated rejection as another score in the record I keep against Britain.

I will enclose a little sonnet of mine which was published in a Tipperary paper

the week before last. I believe they would have accepted it in the -D. U. Review,

but I wanted it to see the light at my poor friend's native place. I don't suppose

it is much of a poem, and perhaps an utter rebel against sonnet laws; but it is true

as a picture of him, I hope, and I know it is literally true as to his last moments.

It was in my own ear he said, " Remember I die thinking of Ireland, loving her

the same as ever, and I only wish I could have done more to help." He did not

speak any more on earth. We are all very tired of the snow.

Adieu, dear Father Russell.

I am ever affectionately yours,

RTSE KAVANAGH.

I find the foregoing appreciation of Rosa MuIlholland's Vagrant Verses pinned with three ot-her letters on the same subject. Though they do not concern Rose Kavanagh, the reader will allow me to take advantage of her letter to slip them here stealthily into print, as no other opportunity of doing so might ever turn up. They are from three good and gifted men who were themselves linked toge ther by a warm friendship, to which, on the part of the two laymen,

was added the deepest reverence for the third. Cardinal Newman at the beginning of his note refers to a sonnet addressed to him by

Father Lewis Drummond, S.J., of St. Boniface, Manitoba, which may be found at page 26 of our sixteenth yearly volume (1866).

Birmingham, June 10th, 1886.

MY DEAR .FATHER RussELL-Excuse a short letter of thanks, for I write with

lifficulty, my fingers being now so stiff and weak. My thanks are [due] to

your American Father, and to you, for what he has written about me, and you

have inserted in your Magazine. It quite frightens me when I read such kind

words, and I think that some great penance is coming on me. But I have been

spared undeservedly all through my life-so I ought not to anticipate trial.



520 The Irseh Monthly.

I am much obliged by Miss Muiholland sending me her poems, and dn not

wonder that she has become popular. Your uncle anticipated it apparently front

the first. Her religious verses are especially good.

Most truly yours,

JoHN H. CARD. NEWMAN.

The phrase genus irritabile vaturn would never have been invented or gained currency if poets were at all like the author

of The Legends qf St. Patrick. No lack of warmth or generosity in this unstudied judgment passed on a sister-poet. The writer

will, I trust, forgive my rashness in publishinj it, for I have not

asked leave from the living any more than from the dead.

Curragh Chase, Jan. 15, 1886.

DEAR FATHER RusfsELL-Accept my best thanks for Miss Mulholland's truly

beautiful book. The briefest and best way in which I can express my sense of its

high merit is that of referring you to your own excellent article on it in THn

lines MorNurLY, with every word of which I agree heartily. Your selection of

poems is most judicious, I think. I had myself marked in the table of contents

those poems which struck me most, but only those beginning at page 94. They

were "'Shamrocks," "Song," p. 95, "My Treasure," "Kilfenora," and "A

Rebuke." I earnestly hope all these beautiful poems may meet the success they

deserve; and, if they have to wait long for it, I do not suppose that the authores

will be discouraged. They ought to find readers in the convents as well as in the

world, and may do much for " spiritual " poetry if they should there fall into the

hands of one who can appreciate them, and has poetic genius. As Miss Mulholland

had herself sent me a copy, I thought that the best thing I could do with the one

I owed to your kindness was to send it to a young lady who has lately taken the

veil in one of the Loretto convents, and who is fond of poetry. I shall take care to

recommend the book to all my friends who care for poetry, both when speaking and

writing to them. The praise of Dowden and Ruskin * is a high attestation, indeed.

O'Hagan's review of my brother's translations is both beautifully written and

most appreciative. It will encourage him to translate more. He is too modest by

far, as all Irishmen are, except when they have the opposite fault.

I hope Miss Mulholland in future poems will illustrate Irish ways and Irish

character, as several of yours do. This was Gerald Griffin's ambition, and it was

a noble one. Yours very faithfully,

AUBRET DE VERB.

The last of the letters, which in this context an amiable indis

cretion confides to the reader, was not addressed to the present

writer; but he kept a surreptitious copy of it, which he publishes

now without leave. Would that he could play the eavesdropper

*This refers to letters about Vagrant Verses. Judge O'Hagan's criticism on

Sir Stephen de Vere's Trauslations from Horace appeared in TIE IRISH MONTHLY,

Vol. xiv., pagu-e S3.



The Urn of God. 521

to more of the emanations of that rich heart and mind, whose most unstudied expression was always worth preserving. None of the poems singled out for special praise by Aubrey de Vere are amongst Judge O'Hagan's favourites. This letter is dated a day before Cardinal Newman's:

22 Upper Fitzwilliam-street,

9th January, 1886.

MY DEAR MISS MULHOLLAND-I can really hardly express to you with what

pleasure and admiration 1 have read your little yvolume of " Vagrant Verses."

do not know how it happens, but with most of the poetry now published, even that

which obtains great applause, I feel myself somehow out of sympathy. Whether

the cause be in the themes or the mode of handling them, or, more probably, in

myself and my antiquated ideas, the fact is so. But by your poems I am touched

and delighted; and I wonder how it came to pass that I had seen so few of them

on their first publication. They are to my ear most rhythmical and melodious,

exquisite in their purity, and always enfolding a thought which, if sad (as befits

our humanity), is consolatory as well. If I might name those which have given me

the greatest pleasure, they are "The Builders, " " The Denial of Peter," "Lent,"

"Saint Brigid," " Ave Maria," and " An Outcast's Prayer."

Believe me, very faithfully yours, JOHN O'lIAGAN.

And now, after this digression, let us return to Rose Kavanagh.

[Conclusion ntext month.]

THE URN OF GOD.

ALL things are beautiful, and all are great.

God in His world abideth, not alone In works immortal:-sculptured dreams of stone,

Music that makes the inner heart vibrate;

Or moods of nature: seas irradiate, Wild branches tossing in a golden light,

Winds, waves, bloom, sunrise, visions of delight That human souls to higher spheres translate.

But lift the humblest daisy from the ground,

And note how wonderful its mimic wheel! The axle gold, the spokes of rosy white,

The lesser circle in the greater bound; Do not its harmony and law reveal

That flower-cups may hold the Infinite? E. S.

VOL. xix. No. 220. 38



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Rose Kavanagh. Some Scraps from Her Life and Her Letters