IN MEMORIUM, MARGARET GATTY

      In Memoriam.

      MARGARET,

      [Daughter of the Rev. Alexander John Scott, D.D.]

      (LORD NELSON’S CHAPLAIN, AND THE FRIEND IN WHOSE ARMS HE DIED AT
      TRAFALGAR),

      was Born June 3rd, 1809.

      In 1839 she was Married to the Rev. Alfred Gatty,

      OF ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE,

      where she Died on October the 4th, 1873, aged 64.

My mother became editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine in May 1866.  It was named after one of her most popular books—­Aunt Judy’s Tales; and Aunt Judy became a name for herself with her numerous child-correspondents.

The ordinary work of editorship was heavily increased by her kindness to tyro authors, and to children in want of everything, from advice on a life-vocation to old foreign postage stamps.  No consideration of the value of her own time could induce her to deal summarily with what one may call her magazine children, and her correspondents were of all ages and acquirements, from nursery aspirants barely beyond pothooks to such writers as the author of A Family Man for Six Days, and other charming Australian reminiscences, who still calls her his “literary godmother.”

The peculiar relation in which she stood to so many of the readers of Aunt Judy has been urged upon me as a reason for telling them something more about her than that she is dead and gone, especially as by her peremptory wish no larger record of her life will ever be made public.  I need hardly disclaim any thought of expressing an opinion on her natural powers, or the value of those labours from which she rests; but whatever of good there was in them she devoted with real affectionate interest to the service of a much larger circle of children than of those who now stand desolate before her empty chair.  And those whom she has so long taught have, perhaps, some claim upon the lessons of her good example.

Most well-loved pursuits, perhaps most good habits of our lives, owe their origin to our being stirred at one time or another to the imitation of some one better, or better gifted than ourselves.  We can remember dates at which we began to copy what our present friends may fancy to be innate peculiarities of our own character.  The conviction of this truth, and of the strong influence which little details of lives we admire have in forming our characters in childhood, persuade me to the hard task of writing at all of my dear mother, and guide me in choosing those of the things that we remember about her which may help her magazine children on matters about which they have oftenest asked her counsel.