Marianne North: To the Tropics

"Night Flowering Lily and Ferns, Jamaica"
by Marianne North

After a trip to Europe in 1869, Marianne North's father became very ill. She sadly recounted, "The last words in his mouth were, 'Come and give me a kiss, Pop, I am only going to sleep.' He never woke again and left me indeed alone.

For nearly forty years he had been my one friend and companion, and now I had to learn to live without him, and to fill up my life with other interests as I best might. I wished to be alone. I could not bear to talk of him or of anything else. As soon as the household at Hastings was broken up, I went straight to Mentone to devote myself to painting from nature, and try to learn from the lovely world which surrounded me there how to make that work henceforth the master of my life.

I had long had the dream of going to some tropical country to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant luxuriance. So when my friend Mrs. S. asked me to come and spend the summer with her in the United States, I thought this might easily be made into a first step for carrying out my plan."

[Marianne's American friends gave her a delightful and interesting tour of the northeast, which included painting Niagara Falls and visiting with President Ulysses Grant and his family in the White House, after which she sailed to Jamaica.]

She excitedly wrote: "In the West Indies at last - on Christmas Eve! I rented a house, half hidden amongst the glorious foliage of the long-deserted botanical gardens of the first settlers. From my verandah I could see up and down the steep valley covered with trees and woods; higher up were meadows. The richest foliage closed quite up to the little terrace on which the house stood; bananas, rose-apples, gigantic bread fruit, trumpet trees with great white-lined leaves, star apples with brown and gold plush lining to their shiny leaves, the mahogany trees, mangoes, custard apples, and endless others. Over all a giant cotton tree quite 200 feet high stood up like a ghost against the forest of evergreen trees, only colored by the quantities of orchids, wild pines and other parasites which had lodged themselves in its soft bark and branches. I painted all day, going out at daylight and not returning until noon, after which I worked at flowers in the house."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "A Vision of Eden: The Life and Work of Marianne North.")