Miss Potter’s Growth Story——Afterword to the Translation of “Miss Potter and Peter Rabbit”

I’ve had the great hon­or of trans­lat­ing the Pen­guin edi­tion of Beat­rix Pot­ter’s “The World of Peter Rab­bit,” and I’m also hon­ored to have trans­lat­ed David MacPhail’s “Miss Pot­ter and Peter Rab­bit.” Like MacPhail, Miss Pot­ter is a hero of mine, and I’m grate­ful to him for cre­at­ing this pic­ture book about Miss Pot­ter’s com­ing-of-age sto­ry for chil­dren (it’s also the first one I’ve ever read). I could­n’t resist shar­ing some more infor­ma­tion with old­er read­ers. You can delve deep­er into this book, and if you’re inter­est­ed, share it with your chil­dren.

Although Miss Porter was born in the mid­dle of the Vic­to­ri­an era in Eng­land and died dur­ing World War II, and her life span is quite long ago, many peo­ple still remem­ber her because of her many remark­able con­tri­bu­tions to the world. They have col­lect­ed and com­piled a lot of rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. There are at least three rig­or­ous biogra­phies alone. Her diaries, let­ters, and works have been pre­served quite well. Her farm, old house, and fur­ni­ture in the Lake Dis­trict of Eng­land have also been pre­served very well. There­fore, we can basi­cal­ly have a pret­ty clear under­stand­ing of the out­line of her life. If nec­es­sary, we can go there to see it in per­son.

The book opens by men­tion­ing that Miss Porter was born into a wealthy fam­i­ly, but her par­ents did­n’t spend much time rais­ing their chil­dren them­selves, instead leav­ing them to nan­nies and gov­erness­es. Indeed, Miss Porter lat­er described the large house at 2 Bolton Gar­dens in Lon­don where she and her broth­er were born as a “love­less birth­place.” While their par­ents did love them and pro­vid­ed them with excel­lent mate­r­i­al con­di­tions, the lack of parental com­pan­ion­ship still left them feel­ing a sense of loss.


Num­ber 2 Bolton Gar­dens (pho­to tak­en by Miss Porter’s father Rupert in 1889)

Miss Porter’s birth­place, 2 Bolton Gar­dens, Lon­don
The orig­i­nal man­sion was destroyed by bomb­ing in World War II and has now been con­vert­ed into a pri­ma­ry school.

Miss Porter’s par­ents, both orig­i­nal­ly farm­ers in north­ern Eng­land, rose to wealth through tire­less hard work, becom­ing emerg­ing indus­tri­al tycoons in the Man­ches­ter area. Her grand­fa­ther, a major play­er in Man­ches­ter’s tex­tile indus­try, lat­er became an MP in Lon­don and active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in pol­i­tics. Her mater­nal grand­fa­ther, through his suc­cess­ful over­seas trade, also achieved inter­na­tion­al influ­ence. Both placed great empha­sis on their chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and pos­sessed artis­tic taste, includ­ing avid art col­lec­tors. Her mater­nal grand­fa­ther’s col­lec­tion includ­ed numer­ous land­scapes by the Impres­sion­ist mas­ter Turn­er. Miss Porter’s father, Rupert, was a Lon­don lawyer and a skilled investor, accu­mu­lat­ing con­sid­er­able wealth through both per­son­al accu­mu­la­tion and inher­it­ed wealth. Her moth­er, Helen, also amassed a sub­stan­tial for­tune, pri­mar­i­ly through inher­i­tance. When Miss Porter was born, the fam­i­ly, with a but­ler, house­keep­er, cook, groom, and sev­er­al ser­vants, was con­sid­ered a dis­tin­guished fam­i­ly. How­ev­er, with­out a title and lim­it­ed social cir­cle, they were still con­sid­ered upper-mid­dle class.



Miss Porter’s par­ents

A child liv­ing in such a home should nat­u­ral­ly feel hap­py, but Miss Porter recalls her child­hood as one of rigid­i­ty and lone­li­ness. Her father was away on busi­ness, often on busi­ness trips, while Rupert was active in var­i­ous social clubs. Her moth­er was busy direct­ing ser­vants, enter­tain­ing guests, and social­iz­ing at oth­er homes. The child, cared for by a surly Scot­tish nan­ny, spent most of her time in the chil­dren’s play­room on the third floor, away from the adult world down­stairs. Miss Porter usu­al­ly played alone, occa­sion­al­ly see­ing the chil­dren of vis­it­ing rel­a­tives. This sit­u­a­tion did not improve until her younger broth­er Bertram arrived, when she was almost six. It was indeed a rather lone­ly child­hood! Miss Porter’s first biog­ra­ph­er was so moved that he even imag­ined the nurs­ery win­dow barred with iron bars. In fact, there were no bars at all, and the view from there was breath­tak­ing.


Miss Porter in her child­hood

Pho­to of Miss Porter and her broth­er

For­tu­nate­ly, Miss Porter had a pas­sion for paint­ing from a young age. This soli­tary activ­i­ty must have helped alle­vi­ate much of her lone­li­ness. Her artis­tic nur­tur­ing came pri­mar­i­ly from her fam­i­ly. From a young age, she often vis­it­ed her grand­par­ents and her grand­moth­er’s home, though her grand­fa­ther sad­ly passed away five years before she was born. Both homes were filled with their col­lec­tions of famous paint­ings, and the fur­nish­ings and fur­ni­ture were ele­gant and antique. Miss Porter lat­er became a col­lec­tor of these works. How­ev­er, even as a young girl, it was the nat­ur­al sur­round­ings of the coun­try estate that most cap­ti­vat­ed her. Her grand­fa­ther’s Cam­field Estate spanned over 300 acres and even fea­tured a cave! He hired a lead­ing land­scape archi­tect of the time to design and trans­form it into a renowned scenic spot. In that envi­ron­ment, Miss Porter devel­oped a close con­nec­tion with nature and a love for observ­ing beau­ti­ful things.

Her par­ents also passed on to her the abil­i­ty to feel and express beau­ty. Rupert and Helen already had a deep artis­tic back­ground: Rupert loved paint­ing in his ear­ly years, often sketch­ing in his sketch­book even while study­ing at law school. Lat­er, he became fas­ci­nat­ed with pho­tog­ra­phy and became a skilled ama­teur pho­tog­ra­ph­er; Helen excelled in water­col­or land­scapes in her youth, and her works are still auc­tioned and col­lect­ed. Some crit­ics believe that her paint­ings have beau­ti­ful com­po­si­tion, but are “too sub­jec­tive.” The two of them always car­ried sketch­books with them when they went out, and would write and draw in them at any time. Rupert would often draw while telling his daugh­ter inter­est­ing things. Miss Porter devel­oped this habit nat­u­ral­ly. It is said that once some­one gave them a rare pineap­ple, she quick­ly drew it before the ser­vants could cut it.


Land­scapes paint­ed by Miss Porter’s moth­er when she was young

The book recounts one of Miss Porter’s hap­pi­est child­hood moments, when Helen gave her water­col­or box to her daugh­ter. She kept the box through­out her life. Var­i­ous sources indi­cate that Miss Porter’s rela­tion­ship with her moth­er was strained, even dis­tant. How­ev­er, her moth­er’s encour­age­ment and affir­ma­tion of her daugh­ter’s paint­ing played a sig­nif­i­cant role in her future suc­cess in this field.

By com­par­i­son, her father, Rupert, had a more direct and pro­found influ­ence on her. Although he was often away from home, he was incred­i­bly kind and patient with his daugh­ter and son. He also had a won­der­ful habit of writ­ing down inter­est­ing things he saw upon their request. Rupert and his daugh­ter often exchanged notes. When his daugh­ter asked him if he had seen any­thing inter­est­ing out­side, he would patient­ly write down a long para­graph. Rupert’s pho­tog­ra­phy required mod­els. At the time, cam­eras took a long time to process, requir­ing him to sit fac­ing the lens for sev­er­al min­utes before tak­ing a sin­gle shot, which required repeat­ed adjust­ments. Most peo­ple would­n’t have endured this, but Miss Porter loved being her father’s mod­el because it allowed her to spend more time with him. Even bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties includ­ed fish­ing trips with her father or out­door pho­tog­ra­phy ses­sions, where they had more time to inter­act freely. This was how Miss Porter learned pho­tog­ra­phy from her father, and also how to observe like a pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

Rupert was well-con­nect­ed in the art world of his time, asso­ci­at­ing with numer­ous artists, most notably Mil­lais, one of the three great Pre-Raphaelite artists. Miss Porter’s favorite paint­ing was “Ophe­lia.” Mil­lais fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed the Porter fam­i­ly’s farm in Scot­land, where they vaca­tioned, and asked Rupert to pho­to­graph him. He also fre­quent­ly invit­ed them to his stu­dio in Lon­don. As a child, Miss Porter was ter­ri­fied of this painter, who often teased her, but she grad­u­al­ly learned from him and received numer­ous prais­es and encour­age­ment from the mas­ter. Mil­lais once remarked to Miss Porter, “Many peo­ple can paint, but you and my son know how to observe.”

Mil­lais’s Ophe­lia

Although Miss Porter’s par­ents did not suc­ceed in mak­ing their chil­dren feel ful­ly loved, they did a lot of things with­in their abil­i­ty, con­scious­ly or uncon­scious­ly. One of the most won­der­ful things was to take their chil­dren on vaca­tion to the coun­try­side in north­ern Eng­land every sum­mer, which often last­ed four or five months.

Orig­i­nal­ly, the Pot­ters had longed to join Lon­don’s upper crust, but their thick­ly accent­ed Yan­kees, their upstarts from a fam­i­ly of farm­ers, and their mem­ber­ship in the niche Uni­tar­i­an sect (which did­n’t believe in the Trin­i­ty) made this dif­fi­cult. Despite this, when­ev­er the warm Eng­lish sum­mer breezes blew, they could­n’t help but yearn for the earthy aro­ma of the north. They quick­ly packed their bags, gath­ered their chil­dren and ser­vants, and head­ed for their farms in north­ern Eng­land or Scot­land. For now, they could for­get all about Lon­don soci­ety. The peas­ant blood cours­ing through their veins flowed irre­sistibly into their daugh­ter and son, who, as adults, chose to leave Lon­don behind and set­tle down in the rur­al coun­try­side of north­ern Eng­land. Miss Pot­ter even made remark­able efforts to become a true coun­try bump­kin. But that’s anoth­er sto­ry.

Before she was 16, Miss Porter spent most of her sum­mers in the Scot­tish coun­try­side. In her “aes­thet­ic dic­tio­nary,” beau­ty was syn­ony­mous with the Scot­tish coun­try­side. When she was 16, her fam­i­ly spent their first sum­mer in the Lake Dis­trict in north­ern Eng­land, and she fell hope­less­ly in love with the Lake Dis­trict, espe­cial­ly the vil­lage of Thor­ley, west of Lake Win­der­mere. Many years lat­er, it was there that she com­plet­ed the pre-pub­li­ca­tion revi­sions for The Tales of Peter Rab­bit, and lat­er bought Hill­top Farm, where she grad­u­al­ly set­tled down.


Miss Porter’s for­mer home at Hill­top Farm (pho­to tak­en by Ajia in the sum­mer of 2013)

Dur­ing their sum­mers in the coun­try­side, Miss Porter and her broth­er Bertram enjoyed a free­dom they had­n’t enjoyed in Lon­don. They could go out and play on their own, and when they were old­er, they could go boat­ing or ride in a horse-drawn car­riage. In this beau­ti­ful nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, their par­ents relaxed, often play­ing and inter­act­ing with their chil­dren. Vis­i­tors, many of whom were promi­nent fig­ures from var­i­ous social cir­cles, also nat­u­ral­ly engaged in con­ver­sa­tion with the chil­dren, which broad­ened their hori­zons. Miss Porter’s broad per­spec­tives in lit­er­a­ture, art, and sci­ence were in part due to these con­nec­tions. For exam­ple, the vis­it­ing Mil­lais gave her a lot of artis­tic guid­ance; and the post­man she met in Scot­land was actu­al­ly a folk nat­u­ral­ist. Miss Porter’s inter­est in fun­gi and her out­stand­ing achieve­ments in this area were large­ly due to his help, and he also became the pro­to­type of Mr. McG­o­na­gall in “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit”; and the pas­tor and writer Mr. Rawns­ley, whom she met in the Lake Dis­trict, spared no effort in encour­ag­ing her to pub­lish “The Tale of Peter Rab­bit”, and his sci­en­tif­ic and rig­or­ous atti­tude and almost fanat­i­cal piety to pro­tect the Lake Dis­trict envi­ron­ment also influ­enced Miss Porter’s entire sec­ond half of her life.

Miss Porter was often ill while in Lon­don, suf­fer­ing sev­er­al seri­ous ill­ness­es between the ages of 16 and 19, includ­ing eight months in which she did­n’t write a sin­gle word in her secret diary. This lit­tle book also recounts this expe­ri­ence. Inter­est­ing­ly, how­ev­er, once in the coun­try­side, Miss Porter’s ail­ments van­ished, leav­ing her feel­ing strong and ener­getic. In this healthy, free air, she hiked exten­sive­ly, paint­ed every­where, and observed with great inter­est. The Vic­to­ri­an era, dur­ing which she lived, was Britain’s most glo­ri­ous era. Sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­cy was wide­spread, and even young ladies enjoyed read­ing sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals, col­lect­ing fos­sils, and prepar­ing spec­i­mens in their spare time. Joy­ful­ly immersed in nature, Miss Porter devel­oped a deep inter­est in nat­ur­al his­to­ry. Rupert, notic­ing his daugh­ter’s par­tic­u­lar inter­est in bird­watch­ing, gift­ed her a beau­ti­ful copy of “Bird Sketch­es” on her tenth birth­day. Miss Porter loved it and trea­sured it for the rest of her life.

When she and her broth­er had to return to the nurs­ery in Lon­don (which lat­er served as a class­room), they not only brought back numer­ous fos­sils and spec­i­mens but also raised numer­ous small ani­mals. Besides the more domes­ti­cat­ed dogs, rab­bits, lizards, sala­man­ders, tor­tois­es, canaries, par­rots, mice, and guinea pigs, they also kept wild ani­mals like ring-necked snakes, wild ducks, bats, hedge­hogs, kestrels, and grouse. This reflect­ed both their bound­less curios­i­ty and their par­ents’ aston­ish­ing tol­er­ance for this hob­by. Many of these ani­mals became char­ac­ters in Miss Porter’s pic­ture books.

Miss Porter’s child­hood draw­ings

The book also men­tions Miss Porter’s paint­ing stud­ies, thanks to her father’s arrange­ment. Rupert, increas­ing­ly impressed by his daugh­ter’s tal­ent in this area, urged her to pur­sue for­mal paint­ing train­ing. She stud­ied for five years with a Miss Cameron and lat­er took the Nation­al Art Train­ing School exams, achiev­ing dis­tinc­tions in all of them. How­ev­er, her enthu­si­asm for this kind of art edu­ca­tion waned as she grad­u­al­ly devel­oped her own per­spec­tive and stan­dards for judg­ing art­work, often find­ing them at odds with her teacher’s. Under the guid­ance of a men­tor, Rupert arranged for his daugh­ter to take expen­sive oil paint­ing lessons with a renowned teacher. Miss Porter reluc­tant­ly com­plet­ed the course, almost instinc­tive­ly rebelling against the tech­niques being taught. This rebel­lion, how­ev­er, led her to dis­cov­er a pas­sion for water­col­or and grad­u­al­ly devel­op her own style. While these lessons did­n’t direct­ly ben­e­fit her, they did pro­vide a win­dow for the young artist to emerge.


Miss Porter’s paint­ings of fun­gi

The book men­tions her broth­er Bertram pri­mar­i­ly as a com­pan­ion grow­ing up, but he was also an artist. Miss Porter admit­ted that his broth­er far sur­passed her in land­scapes and por­traits. She her­self pre­ferred to paint ani­mals and plants in water­col­or, with a cer­tain sci­en­tif­ic rig­or. She cre­at­ed dozens of water­col­ors of fun­gi, which are still includ­ed in author­i­ta­tive ency­clo­pe­dias. She also had a deep admi­ra­tion for sev­er­al of the lead­ing chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tors of the time, such as Wal­ter Crane, Kate Green­away, and Rudolph Calde­cott, espe­cial­ly Calde­cott. Rupert him­self was deeply fas­ci­nat­ed by Calde­cott and col­lect­ed some of his orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions. Miss Porter was a great admir­er of Calde­cott, even “try­ing in vain” to copy many of his works. Calde­cot­t’s pro­found influ­ence can be seen in many of her lat­er works.

Although Miss Porter nev­er attend­ed school, she received a well-round­ed edu­ca­tion. Even before she was six, her can­tan­ker­ous Scot­tish nan­ny read her count­less Scot­tish nurs­ery rhymes, fairy tales, and folk tales, all of which per­me­ate her lit­tle book. From the age of six until she was nine­teen, she stud­ied under three gov­erness­es, tak­ing spe­cial­ized assess­ments and achiev­ing excel­lent grades in every sub­ject. Home­school­ing allowed her to ful­ly pur­sue her inter­ests. She devot­ed near­ly half her time to paint­ing, and much of her time to nat­ur­al his­to­ry research, Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture, French, and Ger­man. She wrote flu­ent­ly in French and con­versed quite com­fort­ably in Ger­man. At one point, she became a fer­vent Shake­speare fanat­ic, assign­ing her­self assign­ments and assess­ments, mem­o­riz­ing entire plays in a mat­ter of months.

In short, when Miss Porter wrote The Tale of Peter Rab­bit at the age of 27, she was well pre­pared in every way.

That famous illus­trat­ed let­ter was writ­ten on Sep­tem­ber 4, 1893, while she was spend­ing the sum­mer on a farm in Scot­land, busy with paint­ing and her fun­gal research (which lat­er cul­mi­nat­ed in a valu­able sci­en­tif­ic paper). She had heard that her friend’s (and her last Ger­man tutor’s) son, Noel, was ill, and she felt com­pelled to write to com­fort him. Remem­ber? Miss Porter’s father often wrote amus­ing anec­dotes to com­fort his absent chil­dren, so Miss Porter nat­u­ral­ly fol­lowed suit. But since she had noth­ing else to tell him, she decid­ed to tell him the sto­ry of the four lit­tle rab­bits. As she wrote and illus­trat­ed, a beau­ti­ful and love­ly sto­ry emerged.

The recip­i­ent of this famous let­ter: Noel Moore

A few sum­mers ago, my fam­i­ly and I vaca­tioned in Eng­land’s Lake Dis­trict. On the fer­ry across Lake Win­der­mere, the cap­tain, upon hear­ing we’d come from Chi­na to vis­it Miss Porter, was delight­ed and proud­ly asked, “Do you know the three things Miss Porter should be remem­bered for?” I almost guessed the answers, but I was eager to hear his response. He said, first, she was a remark­able writer and artist, the author of so many beau­ti­ful books; sec­ond, she was a remark­able envi­ron­men­tal­ist, and the Lake Dis­tric­t’s beau­ty today is large­ly due to her years of hard work; and third, and this is often over­looked, she was also a sci­en­tist, whose vast knowl­edge instilled in her a deep love for this land. Yes, I hap­pi­ly shook the cap­tain’s hand; what he said was exact­ly what I had in mind.

In 1913, Beat­rix Pot­ter mar­ried Mr. Hillis, a local Lake Dis­trict lawyer, and became Mrs. Hillis. The Hilliss were deeply in love and pas­sion­ate­ly com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing the Lake Dis­tric­t’s envi­ron­ment. They lived togeth­er for 30 years until Mrs. Hillis’s death in 1943; Mr. Hillis, unable to bear the grief of his wife’s death, fol­lowed two years lat­er. Dur­ing their life­time, they donat­ed all their farms in the Lake Dis­trict to envi­ron­men­tal char­i­ties to pro­tect them from future overde­vel­op­ment. As a result, to this day, the Lake Dis­trict where they lived retains the nat­ur­al beau­ty of its 140-year his­to­ry.
　　
Writ­ten in Bei­jing on March 7, 2016


The inn next to Hill­top Farm

Lake Esth­waite, Miss Porter’s favorite

Peter Rab­bit’s Adven­ture in the Veg­etable Gar­den