“We find them very good company”. Beatrix Heelis (née Potter) discussing the personalities and appearance of her two Pekinese dogs Su-zee and Chuleh at length, including four drawings of them: two illustrating their colouring, and two detailing the “harness” (before and after its implementation).
According to the Beatrix Potter Society both dogs, sisters, joined the Heelis family the year of this letter, 1936. Suzee (also spelt Tzusee) arrived at Castle Cottage in March, and Chuleh in July. “A pretty pair”, she writes of their coats and colouring: “Suzee has been in lovely coat […] Chuleh has never had as good a jacket yet [..] the elder sister red gold and the younger fawn and red […] She [Chuleh] is blacker than Su, the black comes down under her chops if you can understand this scribble”, adding, “Mr Heelis is very scornful of her snub nose.”
Of their temperament, she writes of Chuleh that she is “cheerful and more placid than Su, perhaps rather lazy”; also “obstinate”, and “affectionate and loveable as long as she gets her own way”. It is for her (we think) the lead is needed. The recipient, Miss Dobson, is the one who has sent it (“I am not sure whether your little friend is gratified! But I am grateful”). Heelis (Potter) is optimistic that “this new harness may be a success” for her “most obstinate dog”. As she shows through her sketches, “the previous pair of braces […] were large for her”, resulting in her being pulled along rather than willingly walking; the drawing of the new “instrument” “obliges her to walk […] to use her hind pair of legs!”
She also writes of their energetic escapades (being puppies): “Su-zee would like to [race], but the pup [Chuleh] prefers to box, and fall on her back.”
Potter’s walking stick (exhibited at the Morgan Library exhibition in 2024) bore the names “Chuw” and “Susi” engraved in miniature. So, it seems that both dogs, as well as being effective “foot warmers” in Potter’s later years (as she called them), also learnt to enjoy her daily perambulations around the countryside around Sawrey, no doubt the lead played its part.
A third member of the Pekinese litter, “Yummi”, is also mentioned. Yummi belonged to the Heelis’ neighbours Margaret (“Daisy”) Hammond and Cecily Mills, who lived together in the neighbouring cottage to Castle Cottage, nicknamed “The Castle”. She writes how “It has seemed very empty without ‘next door’” who had been on holiday; how she “was real glad to see them back again with Yummi”; and what a pity it is that they have returned to inclement weather, “the ground was white with hail last night”. Hammond was the niece of Beatrix Potter’s first governess; they had been fond acquaintances since at least 1920. Potter left an amount to both Hammond and Mills in her will.
Miss Dobson may be one of the Dobsons of Glenside, Far Sawrey.
A pleasing memento of the importance of dogs.
Bibliography:
Judy Taylor, Beatrix Potter Letters, 2012. Judy Taylor, Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, & Countrywoman, 2011. Morgan Library, exhibition note, Emma Kantor, 5 March 2024.
Provenance: From the library of Thomas & Greta Schuster.
Woolley and Wallis, 28 June 1994, lot 45.
