Opal
OPAL was an intriguing and mysterious author with largely unknown origins, though she is known to have lived in Oregon. She was undoubtedly a child prodigy, with an amazing ability to memorize/categorize large amounts of information on nature and other such things.
She is most famous for her "Journal of an Understanding Heart" or "The Story of Opal" which is an elaborate collection of her early journal/diary entries. Her original wish had been to publish her (much less acknowledged) real life work: "The Fairyland Around Us", but this continued to be turned down by publishers.
Upon learning she had lived in at least nineteen lumber camps in the woods, and that she had lost her parents by the age of five (having later been adopted), The Atlantic Monthly, intrigued by the unusual circumstances surrounding her, agreed to publish her early diary.
The name "Opal Whiteley" was actually the name of a first child who had parted with the new Opal's adopted mother - who speculatively perhaps pretended her to be her daughter.
Opal's real parents, who she usually refers to as "Angel Father" and "Angel Mother" in her diaries, were said to have left her two little copybooks, apparently holding their photographs - and containing information that her mother and father had wished her to learn and know.
These books, for unknown reasons, were eventually taken away from Opal when she was about 12 years of age, and were never returned - though there is apparently grounds for believing that they are still in existence somewhere.
Opal would also frequently use French expressions, and was clearly well-acquainted with very scientific terms - which can be seen throughout the journals, even though written at such a young age. This was perhaps influenced from learning wisdom from these books. Later theories suggested that she may have been the daughter of Henri, Prince of Orleans.
Speaking of these mysterious two books, given her by her real parents, Opal herself writes:
"With me I took into camp a small box. In a slide drawer in the bottom of this box were two books which my own Mother and Father, the Angel Father and Mother I always speak of in my diary, had written in. I do not think the people who put me with Mrs. Whiteley knew about the books in the lower part of the box, for they took everything out of the top part of the box and tossed it aside. I picked it up and kept it with me, and, being as I was more quiet with it in my arms, they allowed me to keep it, thinking it was empty. These books I kept always with me, until one day I shall always remember, when I was about twelve years old, they were taken from the box I kept then hid in the woods. Day by day I spelled over and over the many words that were written in them. From them I selected names for my pets. And it was the many little things recorded there that helped me to remember what my Mother and Father had already told me of different great lives and their work; and these books with these records made me very eager to be learning more and more of what was recorded in them. These two books I studied much more than I did my books at school. Their influence upon my life has been great."
It is also said that when Opal was over 12 years, that a foster-sister had unearthed the hiding place of her own diary (the one she is best known for that was later published) in rage, and had torn it into a myriad of fragments. Opal had gathered all of the many thousands of pieces together and stored them in a secret box where they lay undisturbed for years.
Much later when the publishers refused to print "The Fairyland Around Us" but agreed that they may be interested in her diary - she began to painstakingly put the entire diary back together again like a giant puzzle. It is said that some of these pieces ranged from being only big enough to hold one letter of the alphabet, with others at times being half a sheet.
In the Introduction to her Journal of an Understanding Heart, Ellery Sedgwick, of the Atlantic Office describes Opal's task of putting her diary back together again as being "enormous".
It took her nine months to piece everything together sheet by sheet - comprised of around a quarter of a million words. The majority of the journal had been written when she was just six and seven years old - and it also helped her to piece some of her own life back together.
Opal went on to try and earn her livelihood by giving nature lessons to classes of children, and continued persevering with this for several years until they became more successful.
The cost for printing her nature book was high, and even though she managed to raise $9400 of it - it is said that "the printers with a girl for a client - demanded more and still more money, and when the final $600 necessary to make the booty mount to $10,000 was not forthcoming - they first threatened, and then destroyed the plates. A struggle for mere existence followed, but gradually Opal triumphed, when she was overtaken by a serious illness and taken to the hospital. New and merciful friends, such as are always conjured up by such a life as Opal’s, came to her assistance, and after her recovery she soon started eastward, to find a publisher for her ill-fated volume."
Perhaps with circumstances such as these we cannot really be sure which aspects may have been altered by publishers and so forth, though many years later - the few remaining copies of "The Fairyland Around Us" (being the book she had most wished to publish, and which she had financed, published, and circulated by her own efforts among just a few people by the age of 20) - was eventually documented and made available. She had initially run out of money to self-publish it and so only a very few limited copies were ever sent to subscribers - and as earlier mentioned, when she sought a publisher for this book, the task was refused. Of these original limited copies however, some have been scanned and published online - so that we now have the wondrous gift left to us by Opal, being: "THE FAIRYLAND AROUND US".
This is the very same book mentioned in Jeremy Garner's "Beginner's Guide to Faerieland", course, in the first week: "The Importance of Nature".
One day the All-wise Father perceiving that the Children of Men were having "blue" days did send the little Wind Fairy, Aurelius Evangel, in search of the Joyous Blue. So he started forth upon his journey in search of all fairies who wear the blue - and seeking he found them as he went through fields and meadows, along streams, and into shady woods. Herein is recorded a part of his journey. 'Tis recorded that you the Children of Men each day may seek for the Joyous Blue in the Fairyland around you - and that seeking you may find - and finding you may come to understand the greatness, the tenderness, and the wisdom of His great love. So as ye read herein seek ye for the Joyous Blue. Seek and find and make it a part of your daily life.
This, then is the message of Aurelius Evangel." - THE FAIRYLAND AROUND US.