Eminently Worth Living

Book Profile: Shepherd Easton's Daughter by Mary J. H. Skrine

Shepherd Easton’s Daughter was published by Mary J. H. Skrine in 1925. It’s been out of print for decades, and I’ve hardly found any information on Skrine. She was English, and likely lived in Yorkshire at some point. The small, quaint copy of Shepherd Easton’s Daughter that I acquired survived the damp, smells lovely as only old books can, and has paper that is hardly foxed. It had clearly not been read in years, as the binding shows that a tight band had been wrapped around its middle long enough to discolor and deform. This compression caused the book to fan out at the edges, begging to be opened and read.

“Thee Be Going to Live”

The gentle oblivion of this ninety-nine-year-old novel is fitting for its protagonist, Dorcas Easton. Dorcas is a quiet, peaceable girl, twin sister to Arthur. Her mother raised her children “chapel,” in the Methodist tradition, while her father is lapsed “church,” Anglican/Church of England. Dorcas pockets the riches of both traditions, preaching outside in true Methodist fashion, and falling to her knees in worship when she encounters an icon of Christ in an Anglican chapel.

Shepherd Easton’s Daughter, a 1947 reprint edition from Edward Arnold & Co.’s Kingfisher Library. The kingfisher is on the spine and embossed on the cover.

Skrine preserves local Yorkshire dialect in the novel, leading to oddments like Dorcas’s family nicknames, Dork and Dorky, said with affection and none of the playground carelessness we hear in those terms today. Honoring local dialogue is just one way that Skrine dignifies her rural characters, showing their daily routines with affection while noting the challenges. Skrine’s focus remains on spirituality, as Dorcas’s inner life deepens.

Early on, Dorcas is shown to have a gift for relieving pain. She can soothe a struggling newborn lamb, and ease the pain of a dying woman. In her work of healing, Dorcas glimpses eternity while facing the line between life and death. When Arthur is injured in a car accident, Dorcas cannot heal him, but she comforts him:

“Maiden,” Arthur said. She met his eyes mutely. They dwelt on one another.

“I be going to die, maiden—”

“No,” said Dorcas, very simply, “thee be going to live, Arthur. That’s dying.” (68)

“It came…with a deep and mighty simplicity”

Shepherd Easton’s Daughter is not without melodrama, but its passion is simple. Instead of mistaken identities, sudden wealth, or dramatic reveals, the melodrama relies on the inconspicuously complex lives of farm and factory workers. An accident can mean death without access to medical care and poverty leads to desperate decisions. As Dorcas immerses herself in caring for her people, she does not have to travel to marvelous cathedrals or ancient universities to experience transcendence. The divine pierces her world. When Dorcas reads the Gospels, she mystically encounters Jesus:

She saw a life, human as her own, her mother’s, the Vicar’s; full of wide, pure visions, of difficulty, disappointment, fervent charities, divine hopes limited by human neighbours, patience, withdrawals deep into the prayer life, silence, supreme sacrifice. The young man, teacher out of little country Nazareth, son of a wistful mother, healer of the poor, Master of the Saints—He stood alive to her, moving, speaking. Sitting there in the old low room and the dim candlelight, Dorcas saw him with her own eyes. (186)

“The Essential Character of Sanctity”

With passages like this, the choice of Evelyn Underhill to introduce the novel is fitting. She speaks of Skrine’s “delicate accuracy” (viii) and identifies the humble Dorcas with Catherine of Siena and Elizabeth Fry, both mystics who served the poor. What Dorcas has, according to Underhill, is the “essential character of sanctity,” from which “creative and protective love” (x) is poured out upon the world. As Underhill knew from experience, true sanctity, or holiness, is an interior posture that finds external expression. Unlike A. W. Tozer’s incurvatus in se spirituality, Dorcas’s spirituality opens her hands to the needy.

Shepherd Easton’s Daughter goes through her trials. Melodrama manifests in sudden deaths, a mob, and family secrets. In her contemplative spirituality, Dorcas finds peace, from which she can operate as a merciful figure in her sorrowful world. Her holiness repulses some, even her undiscerning priest, but it attracts those in need of care. Dorcas drinks from a deep well, but instead of gorging herself, she shares with the thirsty.

At the end of the novel, Skrine writes:

The life of the contemplative knows not solitude, holds energies stronger than strength, loves that lie deeper than all conscious love. According to one who knew, “it flieth, runneth, and rejoiceth.” It is eminently worth living. (323)

Beautifully Inconspicuous

This unassuming, long-forgotten novel reminds me that performing virtue in public does not redeem private wickedness. There are many examples of that duplicitous lifestyle in history and the present. The choice to devote one’s interior life to God, resulting in meaningful good works, is not a choice that will get one’s name on buildings.¹ But for Dorcas and the saints, the contemplative life has rewards greater than fame.

Through Dorcas, Skrine shows us that a quiet life, well-lived, is a better pursuit than wealth or celebrity. Like Shepherd Easton’s Daughter, that may mean being forgotten for generations. Human memory cannot hold everything, and the hidden will come to light.² Contemplatives have a love “deeper than all conscious love,” and a life, I dare say, more vivid than this life. In Underhill’s words, the lives of saints are “beautiful and inconspicuous.” (vii) In Dorcas, we see that the beauty of holiness flourishing in comparative obscurity, the fruit of her interior life ripening in deep service to her community.

1. Until one is canonized, perhaps.

2. Matthew 10:26-27, 29-31 NRSVUE: “…nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops….Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”