More Wearers of the Laurel

      A little while ago I made a row of little chaps (masculine chaps), the future "great," in all stages of wear and tear, lovable, and beloved I know, freckled and smooth and rough and clear (all good stuff, and to a woman's heart, cuddleable!) So come along a letter, a very dear letter, from a woman person, and says she: "Please, are there no little women-children who will one day be great also? You know better, so please don't leave them out."
      So here they are---woman's, woman! All in a row for you. And surely there are great among them. These little chaps (feminine). Little girls are dainty--so I cannot show you the grubby knees of them, the scratches and mars and bruises, the poverty, as I could on the little boys. But it's there most surely!
      Who could believe that crop-headed, boyish Sara, with the squint and the Teddy-bear, will discover more magic in the scientific world some day--something that will set the world by the two pricked ears! Barbara, with the steadfast gray eyes and the "er-plain face," who speaks at the Explorers club on the far places she has gypsied through, was once this little beauty with the pale brown curls, the blue baby-ribbon wound in them, and the frothy dress. Then she was a professional beauty! Julie, with the stockings that were knit to last, the old-fashioned apron, and the hair ribbon faded and glossed with the washings and ironings that have been its lof--Julia, with the gallent little smile--any one might dream here is a great comedienne! Cissy, with the boyish hair and socks, scuffed shoes and ravaged knees, all boy save her heart--becomes a great mother. And there are famous mothers--many.
      The mother of a great suffragette and orator, a woman with a silver tongue and voice of gold, brings out her baby picture. And lo! It's a bit of a girl with a blue slip, soft hands, soft face and demure, long soft, brown curls! Just a baby girl named Dorothy Jane!
      Here is Joan. Fat and smiling, dimpled and golden, clutching a flower with all her soul. A "snap"--the sun in her eyes and her hair ablow. The material in her slip is cheap and not new. But the light in her eyes is rich and alive to sound. And one day you will pay joyously your five or ten or twenty round dollars to hear her sing! And you will sit wrapped in a magic cloak, drowned in the diamond stream of her voice. And your eyes will ache with tears and your heart beat glad and sad. Just the same Joan wore blue-print and did it not cost very much!
      And Mary, the dreamer, with the slow, soft eyes and always the best love for her violet frock, the little girl with a lonely way with her, who saw the sunset in the heaven before she did the toy at her feet--a little chaser of hoops and obscure fancies--perhaps she'll paint and write and give great dreams to the world from the head under her thatch of fine dark hair. Who knows!
     Look into the eyes and heart of your little daughter--and wonder and reverence and be afraid. For something looks back at you of greatness and splendor! And if you will search and help--you may sense the dim glost-glow of Fame's halo 'bove her hair. by Nell Brinkley     

Music video by Jon McLaughlin performing Beautiful Disaster. (C) 2007 The Island Def Jam Music Group

The Butterfly and The Bee by Nell Brinkley

Eleven-Thirty A. M. One gives her beauty and naught else--and there are those who say that is, enough to give a reaching world. 

-and-

Seven-Thirty A. M. One makes the world go 'round, washes babies and feeds men and they are those who say she is beautiful, too. --Nell Brinkley

Goodbye, Maytime; Hello, June!

Illustrated May Pole dance by Nell Brinkley.

       May's a jolly month, fresh out of her skins and winter burrow; she means primroses and woolly lambs and the end of misty rains; blue scrubbed skies with cottony clouds floating over, the far-coming of the pop-corn man; she's the wild maid in the story who burns winter's thongs away from your wrists and lets you out  into the sun again when you thought you'd die in darkness and cold, an yet when she goes we don't cry! That's because a lovelier lady follows--June. When Maytime slips out of our gate, looking back over her delicate shoulders, her primrose garments fluttering their last until another year; in at the same gate, brushing her very robe, golden and warmly scented and loaded with flowers, against pale May, comes June--singing, snapping her fingers, more tender of sky and air, mocking, bringing warm waters for the body that would a-swimming go, merry of eye, rich in color, May's lovelier sister.

      May promises things and gives us a peek at them--but June comes with a magic sack and an open palm.

      So that is why we dance May in and out again, and laugh at her farewell fete! by Nell Brinkley.

The Last of Summer by Nell Brinkley

I have cleaned this lovely cartoon butterfly girl by illustrator, Nell Brinkley. Brinkley has long since flown from the earth but her work is still just as endearing. If you'd like to see more of it, I could include a category here at this blog of her work only. She really was quite a popular artist in the early 20th Century. What do you think?

Nell Brinkley Says:

      Butterflies go with the ending of Summer ---butterfly girls go with the ending of the gay night that is their lives. Butterflies grow rare and at last do not flicker gold anywhere, when the sumac turns scarlet and the aspen on the far hills changes into little golden coins; butterfly girls vanish and are no more dimples and sparkle and laughter when there is no more fun to have, when the lights are out and real work comes. But I love a golden butterfly in the sun; and who doesn't joy to watch the butterfly girl dance her way through the sober faces and the earnest!

      Somebody said, " A butterfly lives but a day-- and what if that day is rainy!" So, little butterfly girl whose day is so short, may it be sunny and clear.

More About Illustrator Nell Brinkley:

• Biography and sample illustrated medallions by Brinkley