PART V

Transcriber’s Notes:

The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the

original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been

corrected.

Italic text is denoted _thus_.

See further notes at the end of the book.

THIRTEEN YEARS

OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

GEORGE HARLEY, F.R.S.; OR, THE LIFE OF A LONDON

PHYSICIAN

THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS. (Several Editions)

A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY „

DANISH VERSUS ENGLISH BUTTER-MAKING

THE OBER-AMMERGAU PASSION PLAY

WILTON, Q.C.; OR, LIFE IN A HIGHLAND SHOOTING-BOX

A GIRL’S RIDE IN ICELAND. (Several Editions)

BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS „

MEXICO AS I SAW IT „

SUNNY SICILY „

PORFIRIO DIAZ. THE MAKER OF MODERN MEXICO

HYDE PARK. ITS HISTORY AND ROMANCE

THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE

[Illustration:

_Photo by Hoppé, 1911_

WRITING]

THIRTEEN YEARS

OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE

By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN. MCMXII

THIRD EDITION

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROLOGUE 3

PART I

CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER

I. THE GOLDEN AGE 11

PART II

GIRLHOOD

II. THE GIRL IS MOTHER TO THE WOMAN 25

PART III

WOMANHOOD

III. “Wooed and Married, and a’” 37

IV. “A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY” 49

V. “THE TENDER GRACE OF A DAY THAT IS DEAD” 58

PART IV

WIDOWHOOD AND WORK

VI. WIDOWHOOD AND WORK 65

VII. WRITERS: SIR WALTER BESANT, JOHN OLIVER

HOBBES, MRS. RIDDELL, MRS. LYNN LINTON 80

VIII. JOURNALISM 94

IX. ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS 107

X. THE END OF A CENTURY 116

XI. MEXICO AS I SAW IT 123

XII. THE CONTENTS OF A WORKING-WOMAN’S LETTER-BOX 133

PART V

THE SWEETS OF ADVERSITY

XIII. PAINTERS 145

XIV. SCULPTORS 161

XV. MORE PAINTERS, AND WHISTLER IN PARTICULAR 168

XVI. “THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS” 180

XVII. LORD LI AND A CHINESE LUNCHEON 188

XVIII. FROM STAGELAND TO SHAKESPEARE-LAND 199

XIX. WOMAN NOWADAYS 209

XX. AMERICAN NOTES 224

XXI. CANADIAN PEEPS 241

XXII. ON PUBLIC DINNERS 256

XXIII. PRIVATE DINNERS 270

XXIV. FROM GAY TO GRAVE 283

XXV. JOTTINGS 298

XXVI. MORE JOTTINGS: AND HYDE PARK 310

XXVII. BURIED IN PARCELS 319

XXVIII. WORK RELAXED: AND ORCHARDSON 333

XXIX. DIAZ—FAREWELL 349

EPILOGUE 356

INDEX 359

ILLUSTRATIONS

WRITING. HOPPÉ _Frontispiece_

TO FACE PAGE

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM BISMARCK 16

HANS BREITMANN’S BALLAD 31

AUTHOR’S HAND 33

GRAPES GROWING ON A LONDON BALCONY 42

BORKUM OF SPY FAME. (SKETCH BY AUTHOR) 47

WHEN FIRST A WIDOW 65

MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE’S WRITING-TABLE 94

THE WRITER IN DIVIDED RIDING-SKIRT IN SOUTHERN MEXICO 123

THE AUTHOR, BY HERBERT SCHMALZ 145

HALF-HOUR SKETCH OF AUTHOR, BY JOHN LAVERY 156

WATER-COLOUR SKETCH, BY PERCY ANDERSON 161

WALTER CRANE’S MOST FAMOUS BOOK-PLATE 175

CHARACTERISTIC POSTCARD, BY BERNARD SHAW _Page_ 262

CHRISTMAS CARD, BY HARRY FURNISS „ 303

CHRISTMAS CARD, DESIGNED BY JOHN HASSALL „ 316

BURIED IN PARCELS, BY HARRY FURNISS (TO FACE) „ 320

SKETCH BY “SPY” „ „ 356

THIRTEEN YEARS

OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE

THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE

PROLOGUE

One day in the ’nineties I was quietly sitting in my library, when the

door opened and a gentleman was announced. Standing solemnly before me,

he said:

“I have come to thank you for my life.” I looked at him. Was the man

sane? Was he suffering from hallucinations, or what on earth did he

mean?

“Yes,” he repeated solemnly, “I have come to thank you for my life.”

“I am afraid I am at a loss to understand,” I replied, “perhaps you can

explain.”

“Existence became utterly unendurable,” he continued, “worries heaped

upon one another until the strain was unbearable, and then, to crown

all, a terrible disease took possession of me. I knew I could not live.

It might be a matter drawn out in all its hideousness for two or three

years, but—the germ was there.”

“We shall none of us live for ever,” I replied cheerily. “Death is

inevitable.”

“Oh yes,” he nodded, “death is inevitable; but we do not all have to

face it in this way. So unendurable was the strain that I determined

to end the matter in my own fashion, and a day or two ago I finally

decided to take my life.”

The man talked in a perfectly rational manner, though at the same time

in an extremely impressive tone.

“I did not come to the conclusion lightly,” he continued. “I weighed

all the _pros_ and _cons_; faced all the circumstances of the case, and

I could not see that my life was of any value; in fact, in many ways

my family would be better off without me. I had not much pluck left to

face the inevitable racks of pain and disease, so after hours and days

of mental torment I decided to end it all.

“Night came.

“Having determined to wait quietly until all the family were in bed, I

sat in my study and read. I read and thought, and planned and argued,

and the hours appeared to drag interminably. For some reason the

servants seemed later than usual in retiring, and I watched the hands

of the clock slowly move along. It was almost midnight. The lights

had been put out in the passages. I could no longer hear the tread of

people overhead; but for fear that it was still too early I returned

to the book I was reading. Strangely enough, my eye fell on the word

_suicide_. It seemed to rivet me with a weird and terrible fascination.

I looked again, and that word appeared to be written in letters of

blood. Was it a message, I wondered, to a man standing on the brink of

the grave, on the verge of cutting the knot of life? What did that word

_suicide_ portend? I read on....

“Gradually I became interested. Here was a strange case. A man battling

with blindness, a man whose circumstances seemed somewhat similar to

my own; and as I read, I discovered that he had thought deeply on the

same subject, he had disentangled the same problem. Yes, as I read

and re-read the words they seemed to burn into my brain. I realised

that this man decided that he was _not_ justified in taking his own

life, that even though blindness threatened he still had a mission to

fulfil; and when I had learnt those words by heart, I banged down the

book, rose from the table, clenched my fist, and determined to go on

quietly and live my life to the bitter end. That page which altered

the course of events was in the ‘Life’ you wrote of your father.[1]

Since that evening I have read the book from end to end. Clearly he was

right. He had a mission to fulfil and fulfilled it. I have, I hope, now

passed through the darkest hour of my life, but I could not rest until

I came to tell you personally that if you had not written the book,

which chance put into my hand that night, I should have been a dead man

to-day.”

Seizing both my hands, he uttered, “God bless you and thank you! God

bless you! Good-bye.”

And he was gone.

This incident set me thinking.

My father’s life had helped many men who had never seen or met him.

Well if I, a woman, could in some lesser manner help some lone,

struggling women who, like myself, after being reared in wealth,

suddenly found themselves forced to toil for those “little luxuries”

which to a refined woman are verily the necessaries of life, I too

might be of use.

The Society bride who went to Ascot on a drag; to Ranelagh, Hurlingham,

or Sandown in her husband’s buggy, or drove her own Park phaeton and

pair; the pampered, spoilt, well-dressed young wife, who only lived for

a “good time,” at one fell swoop lost all.

A hard school—more kicks than halfpence—and yet now it is passed one is

almost thankful for the experience, thankful for each link in the chain

so often welded with fire and tears.

Two things made life possible—ambition for one’s children and the

kindly hand of friendship—two most precious pearls in the diadem of

life. These, and a mother’s devotion and encouragement.

That hard time of Egyptian slavery is over; my thirteen years’ task is

ended. The widow’s cruse may run low, but need not be empty if she has

health and courage to work; yes, work, work, and still keep on working.

Only let me deplore the unfortunate circumstances that allow the

possibilities of widows and children left to battle with the world,

without sufficient means for a home and education after being born in

luxury.

* * * * *

I won’t attempt to write my memoirs, but just jot down a few odds and

ends before they slip my memory.

Memory is an excellent institution, and often assertive until one

begins to write. Then nasty little doubts have a way of creeping in,

doubts about dates, spelling of names, the actual perpetrator of a

certain cute act, or the inception of a particular thought. Each year

fills memory’s slate more full, and the older markings become gradually

obliterated as new pencillings take their place.

Poor old slate, let me see if I cannot decipher a few stray

remembrances before they are all rubbed out—and recall how I began to

write.

Thirteen years.

What does the title mean? It does not refer to a prison sentence, to

supposed ill-luck as a fateful sign which a modern club of thirteen

members is said to have put to the test, nor to anything romantic.

Like Nansen, I am not superstitious. He was the head of twelve men on

his Polar expedition, and his was the most successful one ever carried

through, for he never lost a man. They started a party of thirteen

and they returned a party of thirteen—an antidote to the superstition

originated by the treachery of Judas.

Thirteen years is a large lease of existence during which to hire one’s

self out a bond-slave. But that is what I did—perforce. Necessity is a

hard taskmaster; and necessity plied the lash.

A great deal of water runs in thirteen years; water that turns the

mill-wheel to grind us mortals to finer—perchance more useful—issues.

The various incidents in my busy life during those years of toil all

doubtless had their effect on character and my outlook on the world.

“Nobody simply sees; nobody simply meets, and doing, simply does this

and that. Inevitably in seeing, meeting, and doing there is a certain

shaping of the mind and spirit of the person principally concerned.” So

Richard Whiteing wisely remarked, speaking of this—my hardest stage of

life’s journey.

Certainly my outlook on the world has altered since the days of happy,

careless childhood, of joyous youth as girl and bride. How I resented

constraint at fifteen and appreciated it later. How the restlessness of

my teens mellowed and sobered and ripened.

Although I did not experience it myself, I am sure that adversity is a

fine up-bringing for youth. It makes children think, which youth nursed

in luxury seldom does. Adversity only came to me in my twenties.

Youth is often spent courting time,

Middle age in chasing time,

Old age, alas, in killing time.

Reared in a soil of generous sufficiency, nourished by wisdom and

kindness in the warm sunshine of love, instead of the human plant

being blighted when the winds blew and the rains fell, it grew stronger

and blossomed and bore the fruit of work.

“Oh, poor So-and-so was not brought up to work,” people often say

despondingly when bad times overtake their friends; “theirs was such a

happy home.” But surely the home should be happy. At least, let there

be something of gladness to look back on, when one is struggling uphill

under a heavy load. The influence of parents is incalculable in effect

on children. The example of my father was powerful in helping me to

take up my burden as he had done his.

If these pages, put together after thirteen years of constant work,

seem too scrappy—disconnected even—let me ask the sympathy of those who

know what it is to be interrupted again and again by illness in the

midst of a task. Illness that has laid me on my sofa, in bed, even sent

me to a “cure” in search of health, as often as six times in eighteen

months; that makes the grasshopper a burden.

Without friendship and sympathy courage would have failed to go on

struggling with what seemed a veritable burden, and yet when well, how

little I thought of toil and stress when writing more important books.

The offer of a friend to undertake a little of the drudgery of the task

seemed to lift tons’ weight off my head. Still, though other hands may

pull a sofa and shake pillows into place, the invalid’s direction is

needful or her own room would not have her own individuality, and would

lose the personal touch that gives the clue.

Ups and downs will come. Bolts will fall from the blue. The unexpected

is what always happens.

Then, oh, why not be prudent, both young men and maidens? Don’t be

foolish, shy, or negligent to make provision against a possible wintry

time, by settlement, or insurance, and in every sound and legal way

hedge round your home against those desolating intruders—Poverty or

Illness.

I do not intend to enter into all my ancestral chain between these

covers; and I do not mean to moralise. People don’t care a ha’penny

for other people’s philosophy, although everybody must have some kind

of working philosophy of his own after he has knocked about in the

crowd and scrimmage of life. I’ve got mine, like other folk, and I’ve

learnt there are only two things worth living for—love and friendship.

The first is not passion, but the capacity to care for the welfare

of others more than for one’s own. Passion burns itself out, love is

ceaselessly unselfish.

And friendship? Why, friendship is the handmaiden of sympathy, the art

of appreciation, the pleasant interchange of thought.

This is a jumble of facts and fancies, wherein memory and pen run riot.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _George Harley, F.R.S., or the Life of a London Physician._

PART I

CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER I

THE GOLDEN AGE

Unless a book starts with some interest it finds no readers. The first

page is often the key to the whole.

But how is one to be interesting about such commonplace events as being

born and vaccinated, cutting one’s first tooth or having measles and

whooping-cough? They are all so uneventful, and while important to the

little “ego” are so dull to the public. Therefore I refuse to be either

“born” or even cut a wisdom tooth within these pages anent a busy

woman’s life, except to say that on the night of my birth my father and

his friend, the famous surgeon John Erichsen (later Sir John), walked

home from a meeting of the Royal Society together, and on reaching the

old house in Harley Street a servant greeted them with the announcement

that my mother was very ill.

Up the stairs my father hurried, while his colleague went off for

the nurse. I was too small to be dressed, so my early days were

spent rolled up in cotton wool—which fact did not deter my further

development, as at fourteen years of age I stood five feet eight inches

high. On my second day of existence I was introduced in my cradle to

him who for nearly thirty years was as a second father to me—him whom I

always called “dear Uncle John.”

What a horribly egotistical thing it is to write about one’s self!

Until now I have generally managed to keep _I_ out of books by using

that delightful editorial _WE_, but somehow this volume cannot be

written as WE, and the hunting of the snark never afforded more

trouble than the hunting out of _I_. There it is and there it remains.

It refuses to be removed. It glares upon the pages, and spurns all

attempts to be suppressed.

Let me humbly apologise, once and for all, for

“I.”

Some people are born smart, just as others are born good—some are

born stupid—and some are born haunted by the first personal pronoun.

People believe they are relating the honest truth when they speak ill

of themselves, and yet it is so pleasant to relate appreciative little

stories of “ego.”

Why mention my early youth in a book only meant to treat of working

years?—it may be asked. Well, for this friends are to blame. Folk have

constantly asked, “What first made you write? Was it an inherited gift?”

Did my second baptismal name predestine my career? On this subject my

father wrote in a diary:

“The next favours I received from Fortune were domestic ones—a boy

and a girl. The name of Ethel was given the little maid to please

her mother, that of Brilliana to please me. Brilliana, I called her,

out of respect for the only woman of the name of Harley who added by

her writings to the celebrity of the race. _The Letters of the Lady

Brilliana Harley_, 1625-43, wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton

Bryan, Knight of the Bath, were reprinted by the Camden Society,

with introductions and notes by Thomas Taylor Lewis, M.A., Vicar of

Bridstow, Herefordshire.[2]

“Of men authors we have had abundance: of women only one. No wonder,

then, I wished our daughter to perpetuate her name.”

Thus it seems to have been my father’s wish to dedicate me to the

memory of the well-known Dame Brilliana who shone in both social and

literary circles in the seventeenth century. Did he, perhaps, remember

that the old Romans, at the birth of a child, used to choose for it the

name of some ancestor, whose career they wished to be its example, in

the belief that the deceased would protect and influence the infant to

follow in the same path?

This second name of mine is queer enough, and seems to have suggested

penmanship, followed by a number of strange nicknames, chosen

promiscuously by my friends, but all tending in two directions:

“Madame la Duchesse.”

“Liege Lady.”

“She who would be obeyed.”

“Grande Dame.”

“Esmeralda.”

“Carmen.”

“Vixen.”

Do these denote character?—for they apparently run from the sublime to

the ridiculous.

My parents seem to have been less careful about choosing me a nurse of

a literary turn, however otherwise excellent the woman was, for the

following quaint letter to my mother from my old attendant, who was for

nearly forty years in the family, is not exactly a model of epistolary

art:

“I am wrighting to thank you for Papers you so kindly sent Mrs.

B—— she wished me to do so i told her i would do so but there was

plenty of time for doing it but on Monday morning she very quietly

took her long departyer not being any the worse the Delusions was

to much for her and she just went off hoping you are quite well

also your four Gran children and there parents the wether is very

cold for May i remain your Obident

“S. D.”

Apart from the undoubted virtues of my illiterate old nurse, my

education proceeded on the usual infantile lines. My father taught us

children a great deal about natural history, which we loved, as most

children do, and many odds and ends of heterogeneous information picked

up from him in those early days proved a mine of “copy” in years to

come.

A sage once said the child should choose its own parents. He might have

gone farther and said that the child should choose its own school,

because if school-fellows have often had as much influence as mine did

on me, then school companions are a matter of importance. Youth is the

time of selfishness and irresponsibility. How cruel we are through

thoughtlessness! How we stab and wound by quick, unmeditated words! The

journey onwards is a stony one, but we all have to pass along if we are

to attain either worldly success or, greatest of all blessings, mastery

of self. I often wonder why people are so horrid at home. We know it,

we deprecate it, but we don’t seem to have the pluck or the courage to

change it. We suffer the loneliness of soul we all endure at times,

even more than we need, because of our own foolish pride and want of

sympathy with our surroundings. We could be so much nicer and more

considerate if we really tried. We mean to be delightful, of course;

but we signally fail.

In those far-away kindergarten days in Harley Street there were a

little boy and three grown-up gentlemen with whom I made friends. The

little boy grew up and went to Mexico, where I met him after a lapse

of twenty-five years, a merchant in a good position. He was able to do

a great deal for me during my stay there, and proved as a brother in

occasions of difficulty.

Sir Felix Semon became a great physician, and Dr. von Mühlberg a German

Ambassador. The more elderly gentleman was studying at the British

Museum, and only lodged at the house. Dr. von Rottenburg was also a

German, and he used to pat my head every morning on the stairs and

talk to me about my playthings, calling me “leetle mees.” When I grew

up this famous philosopher, diplomat, and writer never forgot the

little black-eyed girl going to school with her doll, and was one of my

dearest and best friends in Germany.

On his return to Berlin he published, in 1878, a book called _Begriff

des Staates_. It was a learned volume and created much sensation in

Germany. One day he was sitting in the Foreign Office when he received

an invitation to dine with the great Bismarck. He was amazed, but

naturally accepted. At the dinner were only two other men, the Imperial

Chancellor and his son Herbert. The former talked to von Rottenburg

about his book in most flattering terms. On his return home that night

his wife asked him how he had got on.

“Not particularly well,” he replied. “I was so awe-stricken by the

wondrous capacity, the bulk of both body and mind of Bismarck, that I

seemed paralysed of speech and said practically nothing.

“Why were you invited?” enquired his spouse.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” was his reply. “Anyway, I am afraid I

made but a poor impression.”

A week later von Rottenburg was again sitting in his room when Count

Wilhelm Bismarck was announced.

“My father wishes to see you to-morrow,” he said.

“Indeed, and may I ask what for?”

“That is his business, not mine. Be pleased to call at such an hour.”

Perplexed as to the repetition of the invitation the young diplomat

called as desired. Bismarck was sitting at his table writing. The man

who held the destiny of Europe in his hands looked up and nodded.

“Sit down,” he said, and went on signing letters.

When he had finished blotting the last bold signature, turning to von

Rottenburg, he said:

“Do you wonder why I sent for you?”

“To tell the truth, I do.”

“I wish to make you Chief of the Chancellery.”

Von Rottenburg was naturally amazed, but said nothing.

“Do you understand what I say?” repeated Bismarck. “I wish to make you

Chief of the Chancellery.”

“Well—er—but——”

“There is no _well_ or _but_ about it.”

“But, you see, I am rather ambitious.”

“Are you? I am glad to hear it.”

“And such being the case, perhaps——”

“Man!” thundered Bismarck from his seat as he thumped the table; “Do

you understand the importance of what I am offering you?”

“I quite realise the immense _honour_, but at the same time I am

interested in my present work, and am doing so well at the Foreign

Office that I should be sorry to relinquish——”

“Are you married?” interrupted the Chancellor.

“Yes, to an English lady.”

“I congratulate you. I believe English women are the best wives and

companions in the world.”

Here let it be remarked that Bismarck was a great English scholar. He

spoke the language fluently, he read _Tom Jones_ from cover to cover

four times, and was never without his Shakespeare in the original,

whole pages from which he could quote.

“Go home,” said the Prince; “tell your wife what I have offered you

and ask her advice. But mind, if you come to me you will have to be my

slave. Where I go you must go, and it is only fair that you should ask

her permission. Women should be more considered than they are. Go home,

I tell you, and ask your wife.”

[Illustration: ORIGINAL LETTER FROM BISMARCK WITH A TRANSLATION BY HIS

INTIMATE FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE DR. VON ROTTENBURG]

Still bewildered, flattered but faltering, von Rottenburg went home. He

told his wife of his extraordinary interview with the Chancellor, and

she at once exclaimed:

“Of course, you must accept.”

“Must I?”

“Why, of course you must. A chance comes once to every man; let him

accept it gladly when it does come.”

Accordingly he accepted the post of Chief of the Chancellery, and began

his ten years’ service directly under the Iron Chancellor.

This post is by appointment for three years, and, as a rule, men are

not reappointed, but von Rottenburg was enjoying his fourth term when

Bismarck went out of office. During all those ten years von Rottenburg

rarely left the side of his Chief—the greatest man of his day.

Speaking of the storm and stress of those years, he once said:

“No one can realise the strain of that time. Bismarck was the most

remarkable man in the world. His physical health was as wonderful as

his mental capacity. He had so much to do, so much to bear, so much to

arrange, that I naturally saved him in every way I could, therefore

nearly everything of importance went through me. That alone was a

great responsibility. I settled all I could, arranged what interviews

I thought necessary, and played buffer between him and the great world

outside. But I often felt he reposed too much confidence in me.”

Bismarck objected to German being written or printed in Latin

characters, and never read a book not printed in German letters. Von

Rottenburg told me Bismarck had the greatest mathematical head he ever

knew and a colossal brain. A man of huge bulk, vast appetite, and

unending thirst, he was once at a supper-party in Berlin where six

hundred oysters were ordered for ten people. He ate the greater share.

“Thank Heaven!” once exclaimed von Rottenburg; “during all those ten

years of constant attendance and companionship with Bismarck we hardly

ever had a disagreeable word, and instead of taking power from me, year

by year he placed more upon my shoulders.”

“Practically nothing went to the Chancellor that did not pass through

my hands. I shiver to think of the times I was disturbed at night with

messages of importance, telegrams, special messengers, or letters

marked _Private_; all these things seemed to have a particularly

unhappy knack of arriving during the hours one should have had repose.

It was very seldom, however, that I went to Bismarck, as I never

disturbed him at night unless on a matter of urgent business, feeling

that his sleep was as important to him as his health was to the German

nation.”

“No, I don’t think I am tidy,” von Rottenburg once exclaimed. “I had

to be tidy for so many years that I fear I am a little lax nowadays,

although I can always find the papers I want myself, and generally know

where I have put everything. During those years with Bismarck I had to

be so careful, so exact and methodical. One of his little hobbies was

that when he was staying in an hotel, or anywhere away from home, he,

or I, would carefully search the waste-paper baskets to see no scrap

of paper that could in any way be made into political capital was left

therein.

“Bismarck was most particular about this. He destroyed everything that

might, he thought, make mischief, or would do harm of any kind.”

Did von Rottenburg destroy his wondrous diaries which I saw a few weeks

before he died? Of them I may have more to say in the future.

Another of my very earliest recollections is of Madame Antoinette

Sterling. She came from America to sing in England, and often stayed

at the residence of my grandfather, James Muspratt, of Seaforth Hall,

near Liverpool. In this house in earlier years James Sheridan Knowles

wrote some of his plays, and in it also Baron Justus von Liebig—who

invented his famous soup to save my mother’s life—Charlotte Cushman

(the American tragedienne), Charles Dickens, and Samuel Lover had been

frequent and ever-welcome guests.

At the time that Antoinette Sterling arrived in this country sundry

cousins, who were all quite little children, sat, open-mouthed and

entranced, before the fire in that beautifully panelled, well-filled

library at Seaforth Hall, while she squatted on the floor amongst us

and sang, “There was an old Nigger and his name was Uncle Ned,” or

“Baby Bye, here’s a fly.” How we loved it! Again and again we wildly

demanded another song, clapping our hands, and again and again that

good, kind soul sang to her juvenile admirers—maybe her first English

audience.

Seaforth Hall was built by my grandfather about 1830, at which time

four miles of beach divided him from Liverpool. The docks of that

city are eleven miles long to-day, and the Gladstone Dock is now in

the field in which we children used to ride and play. It was named

“Gladstone Dock” because that great statesman was born at a house near

by. The next dock will probably be on the site of my grandfather’s

dining-room, and may berth the largest ship in the world, that monster

now being built by Lord Aberconway (John Brown and Co.).

During his early years my father went a great deal into Society, being

presumably considered a clever, rising young physician who had seen a

good deal of the world, and was an excellent linguist: so by the time

he moved to the house now numbered “25, Harley Street,” in 1860—a step

followed later by his marriage with Emma, daughter of the above-named

James Muspratt—he was well established in the social world.

I often heard him speak of the delightful gatherings he attended and

so much enjoyed in those early days before I had opened my eyes on

this wonderful world, when women like Charlotte Cushman, Catherine

Hayes, Helen Faucit, Mrs. Charles Kean, Mrs. Kemble, and Mrs. Sterling

added grace and charm to the company: when the scientific giants were

Faraday, Tyndall, Sir David Brewster, Graham, Sir Henry Holland, and

William Fergusson: and in the literary world he was brought into

contact with Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Samuel

Lover, Theodore Hook, and Mark Lemon.

The people at whose houses he visited became his constant guests; so

later his children grew up in a delightful atmosphere, in a home of

culture, where art, science, and literature were amply represented.

Meetings like these, even in earliest childhood, with bright souls,

persons of culture, intellect, polished manners, and brilliant gifts,

all leave strong impressions on a plastic youthful mind, and the memory

is undoubtedly an influence through life.

But the commanding figure in Harley Street in my early years was

not to be found among the doctors: it was Mr. Gladstone, while Mrs.

Gladstone’s individuality was hardly second to that of her husband.

When Mr. Gladstone first came to live there the mob broke his windows,

and shouted and yelled outside his house because of his hostility to

Disraeli’s policy in the Russo-Turkish War (1876-8). The Jingo fever

was at its height. There was tremendous excitement, and ultimately

the street had to be cleared by mounted police. To the surprise of

everyone, in the full tide of the tumult, the Gladstones’ front door

opened, and out walked the old couple, arm-in-arm, and passed right

into the midst of the very people who had been hurling stones through

their windows. With the grand manner of an old courtier the statesman

took off his hat, made a profound bow to the populace, and before the

mob had recovered from its astonishment, he had walked away down the

street with his wife.

It was a plucky act, and one which so surprised the boisterous assembly

that they utterly subsided, and soon dispersed quietly.

Mr. Gladstone’s habit every morning was to leave home about half-past

nine or ten o’clock and walk down to his work. My sister Olga (wife of

Dr. Francis Goodbody), then a very little girl, used to go out with her

nurse about the same time to Regent’s Park for her airing in a “pram.”

Some twenty or thirty houses divided my father’s from Mr. Gladstone’s,

and therefore, as the elderly statesman and the little girl both left

home about the same time, they often met.

“Well, how is dolly this morning?” he would say, and then he would

chaff the child on not having washed dolly’s face, or tell her that

the prized treasure wanted a new bonnet. In fact, he never passed her

without stopping to pat her on the head, and make some little joke such

as children love. She became very fond of her acquaintance and came

home quite disappointed if she had not seen “my friend Mr. Gladstone,”

as she always called him.

Years afterwards, when Mr. Gladstone had ceased all association with

Harley Street, and was Prime Minister, I fell a victim to the desire to

possess his autograph. Few people now realise how difficult a thing it

was to secure, for the public imagined that the statesman showered post

cards, then a somewhat new invention, on his correspondents by hundreds

and thousands. I asked his friend Sir Thomas Bond what was best to do.

His advice was shrewdness itself. Mr. Gladstone, he assured me, had

great objections to giving his autograph. He could not himself ask him

point-blank for his signature. “But if,” said he, “you will send one

of your books as a presentation copy to him, with a little note on the

title page, ‘To Mr. Gladstone, from the Author,’ I will take it across

and ask him to write you an acknowledgment.”

I did so, and Mr. Gladstone wrote me a charming little letter in his

own hand:

“10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL.

“To convey his best thanks for Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s kindness in

sending him a book of so much interest.

“W. E. GLADSTONE.”

Not long before his death I had another letter from him, short, as

all his communications were, but always long enough to include the

gracefully drawn compliment which, one fears, has died out of the art

of letter-writing as now practised:

“DEAR MADAM,

“I received your obliging gift and letter yesterday. I consider

Finland a singularly interesting country, singularly little known;

and I am reading your work in earnest and with great interest.

“Your very faithful

“W. E. GLADSTONE.

“Jul. 13, ’97.”

The mention of Mr. Gladstone in connection with Harley Street brings to

mind his famous physician, Sir Andrew Clarke, who was a great personal

friend of my father.

At one time Sir Andrew Clarke had the largest practice in London,

besides holding the proud position of President of the Royal College of

Physicians. Thanks chiefly to a charming personality, he was one of the

most successful and most beloved of all the London medical men, and to

him is doubtless due the widespread discovery that a careful diet is a

better means to health than promiscuous floods of medicine.

These were some of the friendships and associations that surrounded

my childhood: such was the soil that nourished my infant roots in

kindliness and encouraged my green idea-buds to put forth into leaf.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Lady Brilliana Harley was the daughter of Sir Edward Conway, and

was born in the year 1600, at the Brill, of which her father was

Governor. She became the third wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton

Bryan, in 1623.

From her letters published by the Camden Society one gathers she was a

woman of considerable education, and of deep religious feeling imbued

with Calvinistic doctrine, while devotion to her home and children is

the keynote of her correspondence.

In the Great Rebellion, however, when Sir Robert Harley’s Parliamentary

duties necessitated his absence from Brampton Bryan, the Royalists

in the neighbourhood of the Castle alleged that Lady Brilliana was

sheltering rebels; and, after various threats and efforts to gain

possession of the stronghold, a Royalist force under Sir William

Vavasour laid siege to Brampton Bryan Castle on July 26th, 1643.

There Lady Brilliana with her children and household, and several

neighbours who had joined her in resisting the encroachments of the

Royalists, were shut up for six weeks, during which time she, usually

spoken of as “the Governess,” conducted the defence with both skill and

courage. Shots were daily fired into the Castle and frequently poisoned

bullets were used: one of these wounded the cook, who died from its

effects; and two ladies among the besieged party were also wounded.

Finding that Lady Brilliana was obdurate and would not surrender,

Charles I sent her a personal letter by special messenger—Sir John

Scudamore—whom Lady Brilliana received with calm dignity; but with

unflinching endurance she determined to continue her defence. She

replied to the King by a letter setting forth the attacks to which her

husband’s property had been subjected, and humbly petitioned that all

her goods should be restored to her.

Sir John Scudamore hurried back with another Royal document, offering

free pardon to Lady Brilliana and her supporters in the Castle, if she

would surrender, and also granting free licence to all to depart from

the Castle.

But Lady Brilliana stood her ground when the Royal messenger arrived on

September 1st. “By this time,” an “eye-witness” wrote later, “the fame

of the noble lady was spread over most of the kingdom, with admiration

and applause....”

And this courageous determination was all the more pronounced as she

was too unwell to receive Sir John on his return, having contracted a

chill which terminated fatally about a month later.

On September 9th, the defeat of the Royal troops elsewhere necessitated

the withdrawal of Sir William Vavasour’s force from Brampton Bryan, and

the siege was suddenly raised.

The relief was too late. Strain of deprivation and anxiety had taken

their toll and weakened the frame of the plucky heart that knew no

surrender.

“This honourable lady,” continued her historian, “of whom the world was

not worthy, as she was a setting forward the work of God suddenly and

unexpectedly fell sick of an apoplexy with a defluxion of the lungs....

Never was a holy life concluded with a more heavenly and happy ending.”

Her body was encased in lead and carried to the top of the Castle to

await burial in more peaceful days; but when the siege of Brampton

Bryan was renewed, and the Castle taken, her coffin was desecrated in

the search for plunder.

Her three beloved children, who had been through the first attack with

her, were taken prisoner at the end of the second siege in 1644.

PART II

GIRLHOOD

CHAPTER II

THE GIRL IS MOTHER TO THE WOMAN

As the boy is proverbially father to the man, so is the girl mother to

the woman.

Looking back, over thirteen years of exacting professional work,

beginning in 1896—the sad cause and necessity for which will be told

later—my destiny seems to have been that of a writer.

True, on my first coming out the stage was my girlish ambition.

Elsewhere[3] I have told how, after the success and delirious delight

of the private theatricals given at home for me instead of a ball—at

my own request—there came a tempting offer to make my bow behind the

footlights. Breathless with excitement I rushed downstairs to tell my

father and receive his approval. He heard my story, looked very sad,

and declared it should never be with his consent: “Of all professions

for women he disliked most the stage, especially for one so young.”

My dream was shattered, but the longing to work remained: _Je l’ai dans

le sang_. Looking back now, difficult though it is to see one’s own

growth, there was doubtless the worker dimly trying to struggle out of

the enveloping husk of protecting conventionalities: something within

me wanting to find an outlet, a means of _self-expression_.

In girlhood one hates the conventionalities. For instance, how I chafed

at the care demanded in handling old family treasures and wished

the cut-glass decanters, the old Scotch silver salvers, the Italian

embroidered cushions, and all the other details of a refined home, at

the bottom of the sea. I used mentally to vow that when I had a home

of my own I would never have anything that cost more than sixpence,

and would wear it out and throw it away. I did not then realise that

little by little the love of beautiful things, fine workmanship, rich

colours, coupled with reverence for ancient family gods, was being

fostered within me.

Environment is of enormous importance in a child’s life. Heredity and

environment are three-fourths of character, the other fourth being left

to chance and circumstances; and character counts for more in the end

than any other asset in life. If we are born into a refined home, we

learn to hate vulgar things, we are not interested in vulgar people,

and, however poor we may become, that love of culture and good taste

never leaves us.

In spite of the tales and explanations that my father gave us about

beautiful things of art, or curios, it must be owned these wearied me.

But when the day for work came, some of them formed the nucleus and

inspiration of the half-dozen articles the grown woman turned out every

week for the Press.

The influence of that Harley-Street home was very strong. I left it

when young for a house of my own, but its atmosphere went with me.

After all, it is the woman who makes the home. A man may be clever,

brilliant, hard-working, a good son, a good father, and a good master,

but without a wife the result is a poor thing. It is the woman who

keeps the home together. It is the woman who is the pivot of life. Most

men are like great big children, and have to be mothered to the end of

time.

To my mother I really owe any success I may have had. Encouragement

goes a long way, just as human sympathy is the very backbone of life.

It was she who encouraged, cheered, and often censured, for she was

a severe critic. It was she who helped my father during those awful

years of blindness, who wrote his scientific books from dictation,

before the days of secretaries and shorthand. It was she who learnt to

work the microscope to save his eyes. Later, it was she who corrected

my spelling and read my proofs. Never an originator herself, she

was always an initiator. She ran her home perfectly and—whether as

daughter, wife, or mother—never failed. Her personality dominated,

and her personality made the home. Only two homes in life have been

mine, and, roughly speaking, half has been spent in each; and yet few

people have had so many addresses. I might have been running away from

creditors, so many strange places have given me shelter in different

lands.

I was a lazy young beggar in those Harley-Street days. Books and

lessons had no particular fascination for me, and the only things

I cared about were riding daily in the Row with my father, hunting

occasionally, dancing, and painting. My education, after preparatory

schooling, was more earnestly taken in hand at Queen’s College,

Harley Street, but I was a very bad pupil, never did anything with

distinction, and the only lectures I really cared for were literature

and history, and the only occupations that appealed to me were drawing

and map-making; but I did actually win a prize for mathematics.

Lady Tree, who was my mentor, can vouch for my mediocrity, judging by a

letter just found, written by her shortly after a serious accident.

“WALPOLE HOUSE, THE MALL,

“CHISWICK,

“_November 21st, 1906_.

“DEAREST ETHEL,

“Thank you so much for your sweet letter. I am home and getting on

wonderfully well, though I dare say some weeks will go by before

I shall be fit to be seen. _You_ are a wonder with all your work

and energy. What fun your _Observer_ article was on Sunday. You

clever Ethel—and I used to think—how many years ago?—that you only

cared about the set of your lovely ‘pinafores’ over your black silk

dresses, with slim body and _tiny_ waist. What were you?—14-16, I

think, and _the_ most lovely figure I ever saw. _Most_ naughty and

inattentive and _vain_ (I feared), with very small feet in little

tiny smart shoes below the kilt of the black silk dress.

“You will think my brain has gone the way of my jaw (indeed,

it _was_ cracked a little as a matter of fact); but I am only

remembering. Tell me, if you have time, dear, to write to me again,

all sorts of _goodish_ novels to read. I mean that I find I can

devour _now_ what I called trash a month ago.

“It is lovely to be at home here, with the babies and Viola,

and Herbert sparing as much time as he can from his _Anthony_

rehearsals. He, like everybody else, has been an angel to me, and

my heart is _too_ full of gratitude to everybody for all the love

and tenderness they have shown.

“What a long letter, but it will show you how well I am, dear. Thank

you again and again for writing.

“With love always,

“Yours affectionately,

“MAUD TREE.”

Later on my school education was finished in Germany, where my mother

had many old friends, among whom was the great chemist, Baron von

Liebig, my godfather. How oddly, as years roll by, friends meet and

part and meet again, like coloured silks in a plaited skein. One of my

school-fellows in Germany, for instance, came from Finland, and, later

on, it was the fact of meeting her again that brought about my visit to

“Suomi,” described in _Through Finland in Carts_.

Another of my companions became engaged to one of Sweden’s most famous

artists, Carl Gustav Hellqvist, though at that time he was not known

so well as later. He only spoke Swedish and French, and Julie Thiersch

spoke German and English. Therefore many little translations were done

by myself at that delightful country home of Maler Thiersch, on the

shores of the König See, in Bavaria. Many sweet little sentences had to

be deciphered by me, although the language of the eyes is so powerful

that the actual proposal was accomplished through music (of which they

were both passionately fond) and rapturous glances, in which he, at any

rate, excelled.

What a delightful, fair, rough-and-tumble, jolly boyish man Hellqvist

then was. Later, gold medals were showered at his feet, and many

distinctions came to him while he painted those wonderful historical

pictures which are now in the Museum at Stockholm.

But, alas! a few years of happy married life ended in an early death.

Other German girl companions are now married to Dr. Adolf Harnack, the

famous theologian, and Professor Hans von Delbruck, Under-Secretary of

State for Germany.

Of amusement there was no lack at home, for from the age of seven,

I rode every morning with my father in Hyde Park, and kept up the

practice with my husband after my marriage. Then there was skating on

ice or rinks, croquet or tennis. There was also amusement of another

kind. A delightful old Scotch gentleman used to come and tune the piano

on Harley Street. One day he told me he was going on to tune one for an

entertainment for the blind in the East End.

“Why don’t you come and recite to them?” he asked.

I was fifteen or sixteen at the time and bursting with pride over

having won a prize for repeating Gray’s _Elegy_. That is a long time

ago, but from then till now I have gone two or three times a year as

girl, wife, or widow, to entertain those poor afflicted people—the

blind.

The Somers Town club, which began in a small way and now numbers over

eight hundred members, is the work of one woman. Mrs. Starey has

accomplished a great mission. Besides her clothing club, coal club,

and employment bureau, she provides an entertainment every Thursday

night for these sightless sufferers to whom she has devoted her life.

And as there are fifty-two Thursdays in a year, and it takes five or

six performers for each entertainment, one can glean some idea of the

labour entailed; but beyond all this, no outsider can realize what

her life and sympathy have done for these sufferers. As a girl my

interest was aroused in these people by the old piano tuner, and years

afterwards I went on to their work Committee—just one instance among

many, showing how first impressions and environment influence one’s

after-life.

At “our shop” for the _Society for Promotion of the Welfare of the

Blind_, on Tottenham Court Road, they sell mats, brushes, chairs,

re-make mattresses, and even undertake shorthand notes and typewriting

with nimble fingers and blind eyes.

I danced hard, painted, and accomplished a good deal of needlework

for my father’s hospitals, or my own person. One Bugaboo haunted me,

however, and that was music. I sang a little and played a little, both

very badly, but my parents insisted on me struggling on. When I first

met Alec Tweedie, shortly after my coming out, I heard him say, “There

is only one thing in the world that would induce me to marry, and that

is a thoroughly musical girl.” He had a beautiful voice and sang a

great deal—but he married me!

Perhaps those music lessons made me appreciative later, but they were

an awful waste of time and money.

Again, painting was another likely channel for my energies, for at that

time I used to show my pictures at the women’s exhibitions; yes, and

sell them too. But writing must have been ordained for me by the stars.

A year or two before my actual coming out my parents took me to supper

one Sunday night at the house of Nicholas Trübner (the publisher), in

Upper Hamilton Terrace, his only child being about my own age. Charles

Godfrey Leland, Bret Harte, Miss Braddon, and others were there.

On this particular occasion I sat next that famous writer of gipsy

lore, Charles Godfrey Leland. He was an old friend of my father, and

often came to Harley Street, so I knew him well. He chaffed me about

being so grown up, and told me tales of some gipsy wanderings he had

just made, when suddenly he exclaimed:

“Let me see your hand.”

Leland was a firm believer in palmistry, which lore he had picked up

from the gipsies. For a long time, as it seemed to me, he was silent.

“Most remarkable, the most remarkable hand I have ever seen in anyone

so young. My dear, you must write, or paint, or sing, or do something

with that hand.”

Up to that moment I had certainly never thought of doing anything but

lessons or enjoying myself.

He took out his pocket-book and made some notes, then he insisted upon

the others looking at what he called “the character, originality, and

talent” depicted in my hand.

He was so long about it that I grew tired, and at last exclaimed:

“I shall charge you if you lecture them about me any more.”

“And I’ll pay,” he said; “I’ll send you a Breitmann Ballad all to

yourself.”

And he did. Naturally proud of being so honored in verse, its heroine

was nevertheless shy, and never, never showed her poetic trophy for

fear of being thought conceited.

[Illustration: HANS BREITMANN’S BALLAD TO THE AUTHOR WHEN]

[Illustration: A GIRL—SET TO MUSIC BY ADOLPH MANN]

Years afterwards—in 1908—Mrs. E. K. Pennell wrote the _Life_ of

her uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, and there, to my surprise,

reproduced my hidden ballad, a copy of which she had found amongst

the writer’s papers. Sydney Low, in his critique of the book in the

_Standard_, said this poem “was one of the best Leland ever wrote.”

Leland intended it to be his last Breitmann Ballad, but I believe he

wrote another later.

I dink de sonn’ hafe perisht in all dis winter rain,

I never dink der Breitmann vould efer sing again;

De sonne vant no candle nor any Erdenlicht,

Vot _you_ vant mit a poem? bist selber ganz Gedicht.

For like a Paar of Ballads are de augen in your head,

(I petter call dem bullets vot shoot de Herzen dead).

And ash like a ripplin’ rifer efery poem ought to pe,

So all your form is flowin’ in perfect harmony.

I hear de epigramme in your sehr piquant replies,

I hear de sonnets soundin’ ven your accents fall and rise,

And if I look upon you, vote’er I feel or see,

De voice and form and motion is all one melody.

Du bist die Ideale of efery mortal ding,

Ven poets reach de perfect—dey need no longer sing

Das Beste sei das Letzte—de last is pest indeed!

Brich Herz und Laut! zusammen—dies ist mein letztes Lied!

Leland was an enormous man, with a long, shaggy beard. He came from

Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1824, but lived the greater part of

his life on this side of the water. He was full of good stories: knew

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Talleyrand, J. R. Lowell, Emerson, and others of

that ilk. Our sympathy lay, however, in his love of the gipsies (about

whom he wrote so much that to his friends he was known as “The Rye”),

also in his affection for and knowledge of Germany, so that when I came

back from that country a first-class chatterbox in the Teuton tongue,

and ready to shake school-days from my feet, he wrote me that I “looked

like a gipsy and talked German like a _backfish_.”

Those were the days of his waning as a literary star in London life,

a firmament in which he had shone for long. His Breitmann Ballads

were an unexpected hit. They made the journalist famous. The author

became known as “H. B.” on both sides of the water. History relates

that cigars were called after them, they were the rage. Germany was

indignant; France ecstatic.

Lying by me is a letter I received from “Hans Breitmann.” It displays

his unvarying kindness and helpfulness towards younger people, always

wanting to be doing something to employ their energetic mind and body.

I had evidently made some proposal to him, and he says:

“DEAR FRIEND,

“Short biographical sketches, as they are almost invariably given,

are the veriest nutshells filled with ashes that literature yields.

As regards to accuracy, you cannot obtain it by interviewing. It

does not happen that once in twenty times—if ever—that the most

practiced reporter succeeds in getting and giving even an average

idea of a life. I have sat for this kind of portrait more than

once. I once gave a professional collector of anecdotes _six_—and

when they appeared in his book he had missed the point of _five_.

“The best I can do for you will be to write you a brief sketch

of my rather varied and peculiar life—which I will do whenever

you want to go to work on me. It is rather characteristic of the

Briton that he or she does not invariably distinguish accurately in

conversation what is printable from what is not. Once in talking

with Frank Buckland about animals I mingled many Munchausenisms and

‘awful crammers’ with true accounts of our American fauna, etc.

Fortunately he sent me a _proof_ of his report! I almost—gasped—to

think that any mortal man _could_ swallow and digest such stories

as he had put down as facts. Had they been published he would have

appeared as the greatest fool and I as the grandest humbug—yea,

as the ‘Champion Fraud’ of the age. I believe that he was

seriously angered. Now the American knows the scum from the soup

in conversation. I never dreamed that any human being out of an

idiot asylum or a theological seminary could have believed in such

‘yarns’ as the great naturalist noted.

“I will do myself, however, the pleasure of interviewing you when I

get a little relief from the work which at present prevents me from

interviewing even my tailor.

“Yours faithfully,

“CHARLES G. LELAND.”

Leland was a most talented man, if one may use the word, for talent

itself is generally undefinable even through a magnifying glass.

[Illustration: AUTHOR’S HAND]

Later, Adolph Mann, the composer, wished to set Leland’s charming words

to music, and the accompanying ballad in 1908 was the result.

Sir Charles Santley thought so highly of it, “that he much regretted

that the public would not let him sing any new things or he would have

rendered it himself,” but, as he sadly remarked, “I am never allowed to

sing anything but the old songs,” and at seventy two, when he retired,

he was still “singing the old songs.”

That is the worst part of being a celebrity. The moment a man makes

a name in any particular line, whether singing a song, acting a

particular style or part, painting a certain type of tree, scenes

of snow or what not—along that line he has to go for evermore, for

the public to consider anything else from that particular person an

imposition. People do not naturally become groovy. It is the public

that makes them so.

The next development of Leland’s palmist theory, which begun in my

youth, took place some years later, when a man arrived one day asking

permission to make an impression of my hand. If I remember correctly,

it was for a series of magazine articles upon the resemblance between

the hands of persons occupied in the same professions. He showed

impressions of the hands of many well known folks, and it was strange

to see how inventive minds, like Sir Hiram Maxim, that delightful man

of leonine appearance, had blunted tips to their fingers. That artistic

and musical people should have long and tapering fingers was not

surprising, but he pointed out other characteristics. Smearing a sheet

of white paper with smoke, he pressed the palm of my hand on it, ran

round the fingers with a pencil, and the trick was done. Anything more

hideous or like a murderer’s fist one has seldom seen, but the lines

were there as distinctly as those of prisoners’ fingers when their

impressions are taken for purposes of identification.

This discovery, that the lines of the human thumb do not change from

cradle to grave—was one of the brilliant achievements of Sir Francis

Galton (the founder of Eugenics). I remember the great kindly,

soft-voiced scientist in my father’s house speaking enthusiastically

of Darwin—who was his relative—and his work. He was as determined to

improve the race as Darwin was to prove its origin.

Sir Francis Galton was one of the kindest old gentlemen. Benevolence,

goodness, and sympathy were written large all over his face. It was his

very sympathy with mankind that made him wish to better the lot of the

degenerate, while preventing their marriage, and improve the condition

of the unsound. He even went so far as to wish rich folk to gather

about them fine, sturdy young couples, to protect them and look after

their children for the good of the race. He saw that the human race is

deteriorating, while different breeds of animals are improving under

care.

The tiny seeds of the environment of youth are what blossom and ripen

in later years. And here, again, my childish environment bore ultimate

fruit. As a child I met Galton, and as a woman I went on to the Council

of the Eugenic Society of England.

Yes, I had a good time, a really lovely girlhood, and when the days of

worry came I could look back with pleasure to those happy years. The

remembrance helped me—but I missed the old life.

It doesn’t matter being born poor, that is no crime, and we cannot miss

what we never had; but the poverty which robs of the luxuries—that use

has really made necessaries—of existence is a cruel, rasping kind of

poverty, that irritates like a gall on a horse’s back until one learns

the philosophy of life. Luxury is merely a little more self-indulgence

than one is accustomed to. Prolonged luxury becomes habit. The

well-born can do without cream, but they cannot do without clean linen.

Those girlhood days were bright and happy. I had no cares, just a

rollicking time in a refined and cultured home, with lots of young men

ready to amuse me, and after all these years I am proud to say girl

friends of my school days, and even of the kindergarten, are still

constant visitors at my home. As I write a beautiful white azalea

stands before me, an offering from a woman, who sent it with a note,

saying, “It was so kind of you to let me come and see you after nearly

thirty years, and so charming to find you so little changed from my

school-playmate, in spite of all you have done since we met. Accept

this flower with gratitude and affection from a friend of your early

youth.”

These are the pretty little things that make life pleasant.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _Behind the Footlights._

PART III

WOMANHOOD

CHAPTER III

“WOOED AND MARRIED, AND A’”

Iceland seems a strange place to go to, but it came about in this wise.

My brother was ill after completing his medical education, and wanted

a holiday. Not having the slightest idea where to go, Iceland was

suggested. To Cook’s I then went. The young man behind the counter

shook his head. They had never been asked for a ticket to Iceland.

Indeed, they did not know how to get there. They knew nothing about the

place. That decided the matter, and to Iceland, in 1886, we young folk

went.

Then it was that my father besought me to keep a diary. “There will

be no possibility of sending letters home,” he said, “because there

are only two or three posts a year, and there is no telegraphic

communication. So by the time you come back, you will have forgotten

many of the interesting details, all of which your mother and I would

like to know. Consequently I beg you will keep a diary.”

Therefore I took with me some funny little black-backed shiny books

at a penny each, and scrawled down notes and impressions, sometimes

written from the back of a pony, sometimes in the darkness of a tent in

which one could not stand up; sometimes sitting beside a boiling geyser

while our meal bubbled in a little tin can on the edge of the pool, but

always beneath the gorgeous skies, the endless days and little-known

nights of the Arctic in summer.

To that little trip romance is attached.

Alec Tweedie, who had been proposing to me regularly since the day I

came out, was, to my amazement and disgust, standing on the quay at

Leith when we arrived there ready to start.

We were a little party of four, and as he knew I particularly wished

him not to come, and that he would make an odd man in the party and

also render the situation uncomfortable for me, I was perfectly furious.

I raged up and down that quay, I used every bad word I could think of.

But still he was firm to his ground. He would take his gun, he would

shoot. He would never say a word to cause me the least embarrassment

from the day we started till we returned, he would never refer to

the old sentimental charge of which I was heartily sick. In fact, he

promised to be on his “best behaviour,” but come he would.

I nearly turned tail myself, even at the last moment, so furious was I

at the situation. However, as his word of honour was given, I accepted

the matter rather than upset the whole party at the eleventh hour or

let the others guess the secret.

To his credit be it said, he entirely carried out his promise. He was

always there when I wanted him, never when I did not. He was just as

nice to my girl companion as to myself. He was good pals with the two

men, in fact, I do not think any of the others realised the situation

in the least.

It was his behaviour during that time that made me begin to change my

mind. I saw the strain it was on him and admired him for carrying it

through. I saw him pull himself up many times and march off to light a

pipe for solace.

* * * * *

If love is service, Alec loved.

Riding astride over a lava bed near Hekla my pony fell, the girths gave

way, and saddle and I turned round together. It was a nasty fall on my

head and I was stunned. Alec appeared—from goodness knows where—to pick

me up. I have ridden since I was seven, generally on a side-saddle, but

in Iceland, Morocco, and Mexico astride, and only two falls have been

my lot, this and another from a side-saddle in Tangier, when my horse,

climbing a steep stony road, strained and broke the girths and I fell

on the off-side.

* * * * *

It was not till we were coming into the Firth of Forth many weeks

later, just before landing on the quay where I had stormed and raged,

that Alec Tweedie said:

“There is Edinburgh Castle, have I kept my word?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Have you any fault to find with anything I have said or done during

the trip?”

“No,” I murmured.

“Have I kept my promise in the letter and the law?”

Again I had to answer “Yes.”

“Then you are satisfied?”

“But you had no right to come,” I weakly said.

“That has nothing to do with it. Are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” I had to reply.

“Then,” he continued, “remember that my bond is waste paper when we

land in a few minutes, and the proposals I have made before, I shall

repeat on _terra firma_.”

* * * * *

Six weeks later we were engaged, and six weeks later still I married

one of the handsomest men in London.

* * * * *

When I was first engaged it was a constant subject of interest to my

friends that the man should have such an extraordinary name as ALEC.

In 1887 no one in England had apparently ever heard the name of Alec.

He was the fifth generation bearing the name himself, but outside that

family the abbreviation does not appear to have penetrated.

Times change, and twenty years later the name had become so well

known that I had the honour and felicity of seeing it on a music-hall

programme, and placarded for a music-hall artist.

In his diary my father states the following:

“My daughter Ethel has just married (1887) Alec Tweedie, son of an

Indian Civil Servant and grandson of Dr. Alexander Tweedie, F.R.S.,

formerly of 47, Brook Street, whose portrait hangs in the Royal College

of Physicians, London. Old Dr. Tweedie’s work on fever was very well

known, and the London Fever Hospital was built under his auspices.

Strangely enough, he examined me when I first came to London to take

the membership of the Royal College of Physicians.

“But the connecting-link is even stronger, for Alec Tweedie is first

cousin to Sir Alexander Christison, my old Edinburgh chum, who took

his degree with Murchison and myself on the same day in Edinburgh. My

son-in-law is therefore a nephew of dear old Sir Robert Christison,

whose classes I attended as a student.

“On his mother’s side, Alec is the grandson of General Leslie,

K.H., and great-grandson of Colonel Muttlebury, C.B.K.W., a very

distinguished soldier, who was in command of the 69th at Quatre Bras.

“My son-in-law is also a nephew of General Jackson, who was in the

famous charge of Balaclava, so that on his mother’s side he is as much

connected with the army as he is on his father’s with medicine.”

* * * * *

Being a young person with a mind of her own, I rebelled against hideous

sugar flowers on my wedding-cake. I loved wedding-cake, and my father,

knowing this form of greed, laughingly said:

“You had better get a wedding-cake as big as yourself and then you will

be happy.”

I did, that is to say it weighed nine stone four pounds, my own weight,

which is barely a stone more when these pages go to press.

Well, thereupon, I repaired to Mr. Buszard, junior—whose father,

attired in a large white apron and tall hat, I, as a baby, had known in

his then little shop in Oxford Street.

“I want real flowers on my cake,” I announced.

“Impossible, we never do such a thing,” he replied.

“Then you must do it now, do it for me.”

Much palaver, and Mr. Buszard and I crossed the street together to

a little flower shop, with the result that those three tiers of

wedding-cake were decked with natural blooms and a tall vase of white

flowers as a central ornament.

Everyone has natural flowers nowadays.

I travelled away with the top tier of my cake, and ate bits of it in

France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, during our three months’

honeymoon.

We took one of the houses at the top of Harley Street, overlooking

Regent’s Park, where squirrels frolic and wood pigeons cry, and there,

in York Terrace, where the muffin man rings his bell on Sundays and

George IV lamp-posts hold our light, I still live.

Apropos of this street, Sir Arthur Grant of Monymusk once told me a

curious story.

His grandfather owned many houses in the neighbourhood in the beginning

of the nineteenth century, and whenever one was empty he put an old

caretaker in who had once been a personal servant. On one occasion one

of the houses was to let. A lady and gentleman arrived in a carriage

and asked to see over it. The caretaker showed them round and they

seemed pleased with everything. They asked many questions and lingered

some time, and when they left, to the surprise of the caretaker, they

handed her a sovereign.

As most people gave her nothing, and others a shilling, she was rather

taken aback with the sovereign, and explained how large a sum it was.

“It is all right,” said the gentleman, “put it in your pocket and may

it bring you luck.”

Not long after her return to the staircase, which she had been cleaning

before their arrival, she heard a child’s voice. It seemed to be

crying. She listened for some time, and as she was quite alone in the

house, she was unable to understand the cause. Finally, feeling sure it

came from a certain room, she went and opened the door, just to satisfy

herself it was an hallucination. What was her amazement to find a

sturdy little boy of two standing before her. She nearly had a fit, the

people had not mentioned a child, nor had she seen anything of it, and

she remembered that the lady and gentleman had left no address. Feeling

sure such kind people would come back, she took the small boy to the

kitchen and gave him some milk. He was too small to tell her who he was

or where he came from, though he sat and cried.

When her husband came home she told him the strange story.

“Oh, they will come and fetch him presently. Don’t you worry,” he said.

But day wore on to evening, and evening wore on to night, and no one

came. The only thing she could do was to pacify him and put him to bed,

and when she undressed him golden sovereigns fell out of a bag tied

round his neck.

The mystery thickened. Days went on; no one claimed the child. The

caretaker went to Sir Arthur’s grandfather and reported the matter, and

everything was done to try to trace the owners of the little boy, but

nothing was heard of them.

The woman’s husband was a nice old man, and instead of wishing to turn

the child out, he said:

“No, God ordained to give us no children of our own. This little boy

has been left with us, and it is our duty to take care of him.” So

accordingly the little boy was brought up as their own son.

He was sent to school, went out as a page-boy, and became a footman. He

made an excellent servant, clean, punctual, tidy, and efficient—but,

alas! he finally traced his pedigree to a family of very high degree;

from that moment he was ruined. He thought himself too grand for his

situation, became idle, took to drink, began blackmail, and generally

went to the dogs.

The house we took was a few doors from this romance.

Built about 1810, the house was strong and good, but old-fashioned, so

we had to put in a bath, have hot and cold water laid on upstairs; add

gas, after finally deciding it would be too much bother to work our own

electric dynamo in the cellar (the only possible source of electric

light in London in 1887 was at the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street);

reconstruct the drains from end to end; in fact, turn an ancient

dwelling into a modern one. A vine, probably as old as the house, bears

fruit on the drawing-room balcony every summer, and lilies of the

valley and jasmine flourish beneath the window.

One year the vine bore one hundred and seventy bunches of little black

grapes. In the hot summer of 1911 the number of bunches was less; but

two weighed respectively one pound, and thirteen ounces.

* * * * *

Was it Chance? or did Dame Brilliana Harley hover as a guardian angel

round the path of her namesake, gently whispering suggestions shedding

her influence to draw me in her footsteps? Howe’er it was, after my

marriage and departure abroad, naturally nothing more was thought of

the shiny black cloth book of Iceland notes by its owner.

Meantime it happened that Miss Ellen Barlee, a fairly well-known

authoress in those days—she wrote a _Life of the Prince Imperial_—was

going blind, and my father lent them to her so that her secretary might

read my jottings aloud in the evening with a view to amusing the old

lady.

[Illustration: GRAPES GROWING ON A LONDON BALCONY]

One day she sent for me. “My dear, you must publish this,” she said as

soon as I arrived.

At that time I had not long returned from my wedding tour. Needless

to say, therefore, I laughed at the idea. Miss Barlee was determined,

however, to carry her point.

“If you do not believe in my opinion,” she said, “may I send the

manuscripts to my publisher, and if he approves of it, will you take

the matter into serious consideration, as you are almost the first

woman—girl, I should rather say—to have been across Iceland?”

Naturally I assented to her proposal, thinking the whole thing absurd.

What was my surprise when, a little later, I received a letter from the

publisher to say that he liked the notes, and if I would divide them

into chapters he thought that they would make a nice little book. He

also asked whether I could let him have any illustrations for it.

Feeling somewhat exalted, and yet very shy about the whole thing, I

sent him a number of the sketches that I had made. Lo and behold, they

were accepted for the illustrations, and the book appeared as _A Girl’s

Ride in Iceland_.

How strange it seems to look back and remember the origin of the title

_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_. It was the title I had put on the cover of

the little black book—but it seemed absurd and ridiculous to my mind as

a cover on a real book. I thought of all sorts of grand, high-sounding

delineations; but Miss Barlee would none of them. “I love your title,”

she said. “You were a girl, and it seems such an original idea, you

must stick to it.” I did, but the critics laughed at the idea of a girl

doing anything—nevertheless it was quickly followed with _A Girl in the

Carpathians_, and every sort and kind of “girl” has haunted the public

ever since, from the stage to the library.

The book ran through four editions, finally appearing on the bookstalls

at one shilling.

But, oh dear, how I struggled with those chapters! How I fought those

“Mondays,” “Tuesdays,” and “Wednesdays” of the diary-form and wrestled

to get the whole into consecutive line and possible chapters: but it

gave me amusement during long hours spent on a sofa before my eldest

child was born. I used to get into despair, the despair of the amateur

who does not know what is wanted, and which is just as bad as the

despair of the professional who really knows what is wanted and yet

cannot pull it off. And so _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ appeared just for

the fun of the thing. It cost me nothing and amused me hugely at the

moment; but I soon forgot all about it and set to work to enjoy myself

again.

Among the friends who came to our bridal dinners—alas! years have

rolled on and death has played havoc among them—was Professor John

Stuart Blackie, my husband’s cousin. In Edinburgh that remarkable head

of his, with the shaggy white locks, the incomparable black wide-awake

and the Scotsman’s plaid thrown around his shoulders, was really one of

the sights. In fact, no figure was better known north of the Tweed than

Professor Blackie in his day. The north was his “ain countree,” but he

was a delight to every social circle that he entered on those occasions

when he came south.

Of course, he commanded the whole company. And why not? Who would be an

octogenarian as full of activity and high spirits as he was, a Greek

scholar, professor, and a wit, without the authority to bid others keep

silence while one’s self talks? His little foibles and vanities were

the man, and nobody who knew him would willingly have seen him part

with a single one of them.

On such an evening, soon after my marriage, I was sitting between him

and Mr. (now Sir) Anderson Critchett. The Professor declared in his

emphatic way that no man who lacked a poetic soul ought to live, poetry

being one of the most refining and ennobling gifts; he had always been

a poet himself and hoped to continue so as long as he lived.

The old scholar became quite excited on the theme and said he would

sing to us after dinner, which he did, half singing, half reciting

“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”

“I believe in singing, it does one good,” he professed, and so he sang.

Eccentric as he was, Blackie’s courtesy was delightful. What a pity we

have not more of that sort of thing nowadays! We women do love pretty

little attentions.

Blackie once wrote me a poem—it was in Greek:

_Likeness to God._

Those _things_ are likest to God,

The _heart_ that fainteth never,

The _love_ that ever is warm,

And the hand of the generous giver.

When he gave it to me, he dropped on his knees on the floor before a

whole roomful of people, kissed my hand like a courtier of the Middle

Ages in humble obeisance, and handed me the little poem.

About this time also dates my first essay in journalism. Chance so

often steps in to foreshadow the important events of our lives.

Everyone gets his chance; but many do not recognise it when it comes.

If we only accept small beginnings they often lead to big endings. My

chance notebook on Iceland and some sporting articles in the _Queen_

were the beginning of an income a few years later.

I was going to Scotland to pay a round of shooting and golfing visits

with my husband, who was fond of all kinds of sport. It occurred to

me it would be an interesting thing to write some sporting articles,

for I invariably followed the guns. I therefore went down to the

office of the _Queen_ and boldly sent my card in to the editor. Miss

Lowe received me. I explained my idea to her, but as it would be an

innovation for a lady’s paper to attempt to print anything in the

nature of sport she did not know how it would be received, so she sent

for a worthy captain, who was at that time the art editor of the paper,

and asked for his opinion. “Absurd!” he exclaimed, without a moment’s

hesitation; “perfectly absurd! A woman can’t write articles on sport.”

As really I did not care very much about doing the articles except

for an amusement, I was turning to go away, when I noticed the editor

holding the lapels of the old gentleman’s coat and trying to bawl into

his ear.

“Women don’t know anything about sport and don’t want to,” he

continued, still determined not to listen.

Those were the early days of women in journalism, and men—or rather

most men—had a strong prejudice against us and a distinct disbelief in

our abilities. After this ultimatum there was nothing left for me to

do but to say good-bye and leave Miss Lowe’s room. I was going out a

little crestfallen that my plan had so completely fallen through, when,

as the captain opened the door for me, he suddenly noticed my gloves,

and said:

“Why do you wear those white gauntlet gloves? They look like the Horse

Guards.”

“They are my driving gloves,” I replied.

“Driving gloves!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean? You didn’t drive

here?”

“Certainly,” I answered, “the phaeton is at the door.”

“You drove down Holborn at this crowded hour of the day?”

“Yes,” I mildly replied.

He looked out of the window and saw the carriage and horses standing in

the street below. By this time I was in the passage. He called me back,

scanned me curiously, and, turning to Miss Lowe, said suddenly, and

without any preliminary canter:

“Let her do the articles. A woman who can drive a pair along the

crowded London streets in the season ought to be able to write a

sporting article.”

Perhaps his conclusion was as illogical as his previous opinion of

woman’s capability in the sporting line had been. Anyway, as it gave

me the opportunity I wanted, I was not disposed to question, much less

to quarrel, with it. So began the first series of sporting articles

to appear in a woman’s paper. The little set was a success. This was

my first essay in journalism, just done at the time for the fun of

the thing. I think I made about fifteen pounds over it, and promptly

distributed my earnings where most sadly required.

Any little earnings then were devoted to charity, and I always called

them my “charity money.” It was the generousness of superfluity. Now,

when I can’t help giving away a great deal more than I ought to afford,

it is the “extravagance of generosity.”

Having tried my hand at journalism I was satisfied, just as I had tried

my hand as a girl in my teens at exhibiting oil-paintings at the Lady

Artists’ Exhibitions or china plaques elsewhere; or as later, when I

exhibited photographs and won a Kodak prize of five pounds for horses

galloping across the open prairie. It is nice to make an attempt at

anything and everything, and sometimes such experience becomes of

value. Truly, journalism did so to me when, six years after those first

half-dozen sporting articles appeared for “the fun of the thing,” I had

to look to my pen, or my brush.

[Illustration: BORKUM OF SPY FAME—NOW A GREAT NAVAL STATION

_Water-colour sketch by the Author. Exhibited in London 1911_]

How strange, after such a span of time, to feel a little thrill of

pleasure at the announcement of acceptance of something I had done!

It shows that, after all, one is capable of new sensations along new

lines, even when parallel ones.

Everyone was talking of Borkum in 1910. Two English officers had been

arrested as spies there and imprisoned in a German fortress.

Mr. Percy Anderson, fresh from designing the dresses for _Kismet_,

chanced to see a sketch I had made at Borkum a few years before.

“Why on earth don’t you send it to an exhibition?” he asked.

“I never show anything nowadays,” was my reply.

“Send this for a change, then—just get a frame and send it in.”

The frame was bought, and to the Lady Artists in Suffolk Street it

went. A little thrill of joy passed through me when I opened an

envelope with a bright red ticket:

_Admit the artist to varnishing day._

A week later my little picture appeared in the _Daily Graphic_.

Borkum, once famous “as the only spot on earth without a Jew,” is now

a great German naval base. In 1900 it was little more than a sandhill,

with a few lodging-houses and bathing-machines, and ourselves the

only English folk. Icebound in winter, it was the home of millions of

wild fowl in summer. Every evening before going to bed the visitors

and residents sang their anti-Jewish anthem. Though strong in

fortification, Borkum is not great in size, being only six miles long

and half a mile wide.

Public charity is no doubt an excellent thing. The world could not

get on without it. But private charity seems to me of infinitely more

value. If every one of us always had some particular case in hand for

someone less blessed than ourselves, what a much happier place the

world would be. Individual charity means so much. There is nothing

easier than for a rich person to write a cheque and send it to some

institution, where a large percentage is swallowed up in paying rates,

rent, and taxes, clerks, and the rest of it, but it means a great deal

for a person to give up their private time, to expend their own energy,

in looking after some individual case. We all know people we can

help, not singly, but in multitudes, if we choose to take the trouble,

and for the greater part of my life I have found it a good thing to

have one big job in hand at a time and to work at it till completed.

Procuring public or private pensions for the genteel poor, getting

cripples into homes, invalids into hospitals, or people recovering

from illnesses into convalescent homes; starting young people in life;

enquiring into emigration cases and helping them; finding young women

places in bonnet shops, even securing employment in orchestras.

In fact, there is generally a niche for every case if one only takes

the trouble to find it. The niche is not always procurable by the

persons themselves, as they have not the world-wide knowledge and

influence to secure it; but with a little capacity, a little work,

and a little thought one is often able to help young people to start,

to help to educate children, and do hundreds of little individual

kindnesses which may keep the whole family together, or mean the future

success of the individual.

Poverty is always relative. It means possessing less than we have

been accustomed to. Having been both rich and poor, I am perhaps an

impartial critic.

The domestic experiences of those married years were, later, as so much

garnered grain to the writer. My luxurious, happy home was—without my

knowledge—affording me training which afterwards proved invaluable in

my writing. The responsibilities of motherhood gave me insight into the

workings and imaginations of children’s minds. The household wisdom

learnt as mistress of a fairly large establishment has been of infinite

use in writing on practical subjects of domestic interest—especially

those of interest to women.

Men must really cease to think women find fun in ordering cabbages.

As every book we read leaves some sort of an impression, so every scene

or incident we live leaves its mark.

CHAPTER IV

“A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY”

On a terribly cold day in January, 1893, my father received a wire from

Christiania, saying that my brother was dangerously ill there.

After he took his degree, Vaughan had worked with Pasteur in Paris

for some time at the table next Professor Sophus Torop. They thus

became friends, and when my brother wished to complete some original

scientific work of his own, Professor Torop kindly offered him space in

his huge laboratories at Christiania if he cared to use them. Thither

he went. A cut on his hand ended in serious blood-poisoning, and a

terrifying telegram suggesting amputation of the right arm was the

first intimation we had of the illness.

It was afternoon. Someone must go to Norway. Norway in winter! Yes,

Norway covered with snow and ice: its rivers, fjords, waterfalls, and

lakes all frozen: its mountains cloaked with purest snow: its people

swathed in fur.

My father was too tied by his profession to leave. My mother was not

equal to so perilous a journey. My husband was away in Scotland on

business, so I undertook the expedition. It was considered too wild

an undertaking for me, a young woman, to do quite alone, so my people

insisted that my sister, then a little girl, should accompany me.

Three hours later we started, not in the least knowing how we were ever

going to get to Christiania, as the winter was particularly severe,

and for months the great naval station at Kiel had been completely

ice-bound. We had the most exciting time crossing from Kiel to Korsör

in the first boat that had ventured through the ice for twelve weeks,

and so bad did the passage finally become that we were forced to get

out and walk.

Crossing an ice-floe was somewhat interesting and certainly exciting,

and walking on one’s feet from Denmark to Sweden was a queer experience.

Sometimes we stumbled through slush across ice-hummocks between two

and three feet thick. At other times we got into lumbersome ice-boats

and were pulled by sailors with feet properly swathed for the purpose.

Occasionally the boat would slide into an ice-crack, and, though the

passengers remained dry, the wretched men dragging the craft suffered

unexpected cold baths.

We passed encampments on the ice, with people living calmly there,

from whom we learnt that various venturesome travellers, thinking they

could cross the frozen belt without proper guides, had started off on

foot. Then fog or mist overtook them and they lost their way, or, being

fatigued, they sat down to rest and were frozen into their eternal

sleep. Others slipped and lost their lives in the ice-cracks. Two or

three such deaths were matters of weekly occurrence that severe winter.

* * * * *

We were met in Christiania at six o’clock in the morning by Dr. Nansen,

who came to tell us that our brother’s hand had been saved, and though

he was still seriously ill, they hoped all immediate danger was past.

We nursed him and finally took him away to the mountains, where there

was snow ten feet deep, to recoup after his illness.

Our experiences were so delightful that we returned to Norway a

couple of years later for the fun of the thing, and I took a number

of photographs. The Lady Brilliana Harley must have been at my elbow,

I think, as I only did the thing as a joke and to amuse myself at the

time. I had found ski so exciting a sport, I wanted others to know

about its joys. Strange to say, however, no newspaper would take my

photographs of ski. “They had never heard of such a sport, they did not

wish to hear of such a sport—one which would never be the slightest

interest to English people,” and so on. Who would believe this, when,

only fifteen years later, the windows of London sporting outfitters are

filled with _ski_ in the winter months, and great numbers of young men

and women have tried Skilübling themselves? Do not our English people

go out to Switzerland in thousands and tens of thousands every year

for this very purpose? While, after all, Norway is preferable in winter.

When I took up my pen professionally, I pegged away, and I wrote and

wrote and wrote. Other people began to be interested, so I contributed

the first snow-shoe articles to the _Encyclopædia of Sport_, and

newspapers and magazines galore.

At that time in Christiania, and later on when we returned for

snow-shoeing, Society was very simple, but very interesting. Night

after night at parties we met such men as Nansen, Ibsen, Björnson,

Leys the poet, and Ilef Petersen the artist. There were no grand

dinners, just simple little supper-parties, beer and milk being the

chief beverages, with one hot dish and many delicious cold compounds.

The daughter of the house, more or less, waited at table. Everything

was simplicity itself, but brains and talent, wit and humour were

omnipresent.

The greatest personality of all this group was undoubtedly Björnson. He

was one of the finest men, both in appearance and brain, that I have

ever met, and I have met many great men.

I made a few notes, remembered much more; and finally, when friends

begged me to write a volume of these travels, I wrote _A Winter Jaunt

to Norway_. It went into two or perhaps three editions, but that was

only as a _hors d’œuvre_. It contained personal chapters upon such

people as Nansen and the latter-day dramatists of Norway, Ibsen and

Björnson. Ibsen had not then the cult that he immediately afterwards

acquired, and it is curious now to read of the hostility which his

writings provoked. Sir Edwin Saunders wrote to me:

“You have gone far to sweeten Ibsen, which is no ordinary

achievement.”

Mr. W. C. Miller, the editor of the _Educational Times_, wrote:

“Some time I propose to try Ibsen again, when, I dare say, I shall

be reviled (once more) almost as if I were advocating robbery and

murder.”

One appreciates most the compliments of one’s own fellow-countrymen.

But the foreigner is charming, so frank and free, so naïve. How could

a young writer be otherwise than pleased to receive this letter from a

Norwegian?

“How well you bring out the poetry of winter in your Norway book!

I think you are more of a poet than you know of yourself. I think,

too, that you are a born story-teller. I never knew anyone seize

so quickly and unerringly the spirit of those Icelandic tales. I

believe you could modernise one of the Sagas so as to make it as

interesting to a modern reader as a novel. I have an unbounded

belief in you.

“Yours truly,

“J. STEFANSSON.”

Even as I write, the vision of Ibsen’s simple home, his plebeian wife,

and the old man seated at his desk with his little dolls laid out

before him, comes floating over the space of years.

A most unromantic figure, surely! though at the end of his life Ibsen

formed an attachment for a young girl which was tenfold returned

by her. He was, notwithstanding the rough exterior, an amorous old

gentleman, fond of squeezing ladies’ hands and whispering pretty things

into their ears, so I was not so surprised as some of his admirers on

this side seem to have been.

He was hardly dead before a little book appeared in German, its title

being _Ibsen. With Unpublished Letters to a Friend_, by Georg Brandes.

The friend was the girl. There were twelve letters, including a set of

album verses and the dedication of a photograph. The romance came about

in this wise.

In the late summer of 1889 Ibsen and his family spent a holiday in the

Tyrolese watering-place Gossensass, where they made the acquaintance

of a young Viennese girl who was also staying there. She was eighteen

years of age, the poet sixty-one; but that wide disparity did not

prevent a warm friendship springing up between them, which apparently

was cultivated more assiduously on her side than on his, and was

eventually brought to a close, as far as overt manifestations were

concerned at any rate, by his decision. On separating, the dramatist

gave her a copy of his photograph, on the back of which was written:

“To the May sun of a September life—in the Tyrol; 27-9-89.—HENRIK

IBSEN.”

By the following February Ibsen was already troubled in his mind over

the development which the friendship was taking. He wrote:

“Long, very long, have I let your last dear letter lie, read it

and read it again, without sending you an answer. Please accept my

most heartfelt thanks in a few words. And henceforward, till we

see one another personally, you will hear from me by letter little

and seldom. Believe me—it is better so. It is the only right thing

to do. I feel it a matter of conscience to put a stop to this

correspondence with you, or, at any rate, to restrict it.... You

will understand all this as I have meant it. And if we meet again

I will explain exactly. Till then and for ever you remain in my

thoughts. And that all the more if this troublesome letter-writing

causes no disturbance. A thousand greetings.

“Your

“HENRIK IBSEN.”

In spite of Ibsen’s entreaties his young friend continued to send him

letters, and a little present accompanied one of them at the close of

1890. He replied:

“I have safely received your dear letter. Also the bell with the

lovely picture. I thank you for them from my heart. My wife, too,

thinks the picture is very well painted. Soon I will send you my

new play. Receive it in friendship—but in silence.

“Your ever devoted

“HENRIK IBSEN.”

That was the end of the letter-writing. They never saw one another

again after the meeting in the Tyrol, and from then the Viennese girl

kept silence. Only once did she break it—on the poet’s seventieth

birthday, in 1898, when she sent him a congratulatory telegram. Three

days later she received from him a photograph, on the back of which was

written:

“The summer in Gossensass was the happiest, the most beautiful in

my life. Hardly dare to think of it. And yet must always—always.”

So Love came tapping at the window of the old gentleman who had

described Youth knocking at the door.

_A Winter’s Jaunt to Norway_ the papers unanimously described as

“lively” and “breezy,” and its proud parent began to feel as if she had

discovered the home of the winds.

A few years later the solid meal followed—the notes were served up as

soup, re-served as fish for the papers, and took more solid form as

meat for the magazines. Memory was called upon in all kinds of ways

and on all kinds of Scandinavian subjects as puddings for the Press,

so these little trips for pleasure became invested capital and bore

good interest. I became an authority on Northern lands, and for years

was written to, or telegraphed to, or ’phoned to for copy on like

subjects. I was asked to review somebody else’s Norway book; to join a

Norwegian Club; to supply someone with a teacher of Norsk literature,

and be interviewed for “galleries” of travellers or sportswomen. One

gentleman, whom I unfortunately did not see, but of whose industry I

remain an unceasing admirer, wrote an admirable four-column interview

with me, entirely from his own imagination.

It always pays to master something well, and it is strange how one

comes across things again and again through life. When I had been very

ill in 1909, and was ordered to Woodhall Spa for a course of baths, the

delightful Bath-chair man who conveyed me to the pump-room, suddenly

exclaimed, “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you the Mrs. Alec Tweedie that

writes?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“I wondered if you were immediately I heard your name,” he said,

“because I owe you a lot, ma’am.”

“Owe me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “seven or eight years ago there was a sale near here

and a lot of books were sold. I bought a dozen old copies of _Murray’s

Magazine_ for a shilling, and a shilling meant a good deal to me in

those days, but reading meant more. In them I read articles by you on

Nansen, Björnson, and those Norwegian fellows, and I got so interested

in Norwegian literature and the North Pole that I have read everything

about them I have been able to lay my hands on ever since. The Squire

has been awfully good in lending me his books on Arctic travel, and if

it had not been for you I should never have begun to take an interest

in such things.”

It was really quite touching. How little one knows when one takes up

one’s pen what good or ill those inky scratches may do.

On the heels of _A Winter’s Jaunt to Norway_, written for pleasure,

came _Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting-Box_, written for

gain, which _The Times_ was kind enough to praise for its _instruction_

as well as amusement, saying the author appeared to have a sound

knowledge of all varieties of the chase. This was the outcome of those

sporting articles in the _Queen_ written when I used to follow the

guns with my husband. It was followed by a booklet on _Danish versus

English Butter-making_, reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_. This

subject interested me so greatly that it was most cheering to find

the big “dailies” taking up with zest my lecture to our slack farmers

at home. A leading article in the _Daily Telegraph_ said, “Those of

our readers who wish to learn how the thrifty, hardy, and industrious

Danes have grown rich during the last quarter of a century we refer to

Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s instructive exegesis.” And the _Review of Reviews_

affirmed, “It is a discourse much needed in the present day by our

agriculturists.” But I am running too far ahead. Life is often ruled by

chance, and that Danish subject which brought so much _kudos_ at the

time was taken up by chance because of a stray remark at a big dinner

in Copenhagen.

Apropos of the simplicity of life in Norway, it was rather amusing

to note the despair and worry caused over the dress allowance of the

maids-of-honour appointed to attend upon the young English Princess,

who had, in 1906, but recently taken her seat upon the throne of Norway.

It was decided that a certain amount of Court etiquette must be kept

up. Accordingly, a high official from the Court of St. James’s went

over to Christiania to see what could be done. It is a rule that a

maid-of-honour should be paid a sum sufficient to dress upon, a sum

which in England amounts to £300 a year, although a maid-of-honour

is no longer given a thousand pounds as a marriage portion; all she

carries away is her badge, with permission to wear it as a brooch since

it is no longer required as an Order.

Being anxious to make all arrangements as satisfactorily as possible

the Englishman visited a well-known gentleman in the capital, who had

several daughters and went much into Society. Touching the subject, he

asked, “What would be a reasonable figure for a Norwegian girl to dress

upon?” and explained his reason for wishing to know.

“Well,” said the likewise exalted Scandinavian official, “I have three

daughters, and as they go out a good deal, and I am particular that

they should always look nice, I am afraid I am a little extravagant in

their allowance and give them each twenty-five pounds a year.”

“Twenty-five pounds a year!” exclaimed the Britisher, amazed.

“Well, you see,” continued the Norwegian, evidently fearing that his

visitor was shocked at the magnitude of the amount, “an ordinary young

lady here would dress on fifteen or seventeen pounds a year, and, of

course, some people do think the allowance I give my daughters somewhat

excessive.”

The Englishman, evidently more surprised, proceeded to explain that a

_dame-d’honneur_ would have to dress more expensively than an ordinary

young lady; besides, there would be an occasional visit to London, or

some other capital, when new clothes would be required.

So these two good, kind creatures put their heads together, and,

hovering between the hundred pounds offered by the Britisher and the

fifty suggested by the Norwegian, decided that seventy-five pounds a

year would be ample.

Norway was amazed at the magnitude of the sum. For a young lady to have

seventy-five pounds a year to put upon her back was astounding. But

the young ladies soon discovered that they were expected to dress for

dinner every night, a social custom unknown in their experience; and

before the year had run out, they had learnt that their allowance was

as little as they could clothe themselves upon as maids-in-waiting to

the Queen of Norway.

It was pleasant, when I paid my last visit to Norway in 1910, to

hear how popular our English Princess and her Danish husband had made

themselves.

Norway is poor, but delightful.

Life on lentils and beans can be quite pleasant; but perhaps the

proletariat may deny us even these luxuries.

Demos may decree that all men and women not employed on manual labour

are “waste products,” and to work or to die will be demanded of them,

work being to Demos a purely physical action.

CHAPTER V

“THE TENDER GRACE OF A DAY THAT IS DEAD”

Those early days of married life were very gay. We entertained

tremendously. We went out enormously. We lived in a perfect social

whirl. I enjoyed the privilege of wearing pretty frocks at luncheons,

dinners, and dances; of riding in the morning, and driving a Park

phaeton and pair of cobs in the afternoon, followed by two brown

collies, given me by Sir John Kinloch of Kinloch. One, “Ruby” by name,

went everywhere with me, and, clinging to her coat as she perambulated

round the dining-room, my babies learnt to walk. They were a pretty

sight, those two small boys in Lord Fauntleroy suits, tumbling about on

the hearth with the long-haired red collies.

How I loved going to Ascot and Goodwood, taking people down, or being

taken down, always feeling I could help to make things “go” and amuse

people. Then the dinners; we had eight or ten to dine every Sunday

night, quite informally, but as we usually lunched out and were away

all day, we used to do this in the evenings. All sorts of charming

people came, and I never enjoyed myself more than in the capacity

of a hostess. Alec sang well, and we collected good musicians about

us; Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, Madame Antoinette Sterling, George

Grossmith, Corney Grain, Eugene Oudin, all went to the piano in turn.

My husband was member of a dozen golf clubs, including St. Andrews,

Wimbledon, and Sandwich; and we took houses for odd months on different

links for the benefit of the children, who were looked after by two

excellent nurses, while we ran down to see them for week-ends or

slipped over to Paris for a few days.

We went to shooting parties in the autumn, to race-meetings in the

spring, were members of Sandown and Hurst Park, were constantly at

Ranelagh or Hurlingham, kept a couple of boats on the river (the river

was the height of fashion in the ’nineties) and generally enjoyed

ourselves.

* * * * *

As a rule, we always lunched at the old Harley-Street house on Sundays

when we were in town, went to all the theatres, and, in fact, lived a

thoroughly happy, gay, social life, with no thought for the morrow.

I still kept up my painting, did a quantity of embroidery from my own

designs for bedspreads, sideboard cloths, babies’ bonnets, or lapels of

dresses; once and again wrote a little, but the business of existence

was more amusement, and fun and spending, rather than making money and

saving.

Everything seemed gay and bright and I found life one continual joy.

Let Youth be happy and gay. It is the time to be irresponsible and

light-hearted. Years bring soberness. Life makes us wonder if the game

is worth the struggle. I suppose it comes to all of us at times to wish

to run away and hide ourselves as Tolstoi did. The rebellion of youth

against home restraint returns again in later years as the rebellion of

age against life’s thraldom.

And then, when the sky was blue, the bolt fell. We had been married

eight years.

Suddenly all was changed. My husband had joined a syndicate. The

syndicate failed. He had lost—lost heavily. Lost his capital.

* * * * *

Immediately our household was reduced to modest limits. Our

drawing-room was shut up, three servants dismissed, the horses sold.

For the first time in my life I was without a carriage. But, as Alec

was sure of earning money again shortly, we did not part with anything

which this income would make possible to keep.

Then a wonderful thing happened. A very dear old friend came to me.

“Ethel,” he said, “I am more than sorry, my dear child, for all that

has happened, but your husband will go back to business and all will be

well; meantime put that in your bank to tide you over and keep things

going as a weapon to fight fate.”

It was a cheque for two thousand pounds. Imagine my amazement, imagine

my pride at having a friend willing to make such a sacrifice; but, of

course, I did not take it. I could not take it, although I thanked him

from the bottom of my heart and promised if the necessity really came I

would go to him.

To give in one’s lifetime is true generosity, to bequeath after death

is often merely convenience.

* * * * *

But my husband never smiled again. Overpowered by grief at the position

in which he had placed his wife and children, he died six months later

in his sleep; died simply of a broken heart.

He was followed on the same journey only a few weeks later by my

father, who passed away quite as suddenly, with the ink still wet on

the paper of an article he was writing for the _Lancet_. He never

finished his article, neither had he altered an old will as he had

intended.

* * * * *

Three shocks had thus each followed the other in quick succession

without time to recover from one before the next came, and so in little

more than half a brief year the once happy daughter, wife, and mother

stood alone, stunned, reduced to comparative poverty, with children

clinging to her skirts. The two breadwinners of the family had gone out

almost together.

* * * * *

There was not time to think and mourn and let precious moments go by.

Something must be done. There was I with about as much to live on as I

used to spend on my dress.

Then my old dear friend came back to me.

“I admired your pride and your pluck six months ago,” he said, “when

you had a husband beside you to fight for you. But now, my dear child,

you are alone and you have the children to think of. I wish you to go

to your bank and put that two thousand pounds to your credit; and, more

than that, I wish to adopt you as my daughter.”

It was all so bewildering, so strange. I had known him all my life.

He was one of my father’s oldest friends. His wife had always been

charming to me and she had left me bits of jewellery when she died;

but again I had to refuse. He had relations. I could not claim that

privilege. Still he persisted.

“You have always been like a daughter to me—to us—and now I want to

claim the right to provide for you and your children.”

Still I refused. I promised again to go to him if ever I was in real

need; but I took nothing.

When he died others inherited all he had.

* * * * *

There are only two crimes in Society: one to be poor, the other to be

found out.

It seems to me that everything in life is relative. If one is born

poor, one does not know what it is to be rich, and if one is rich, one

does not understand the responsibilities of strawberry leaves, and

strawberry leaves do not comprehend the difficulties of a throne.

If things change, if one goes up in the world, one naturally

assimilates ideas and ways by merely taking on a little more of what

one already has; but if one slides back in life, one has to give up

what is part and parcel of one’s very existence. I was not born in a

back street or a country cottage or a suburban villa—in either of these

I might have lived in simple comfort on my small income—but that would

not have been _me_.

* * * * *

Bills came in on every side. Bills haunted me. Bills were nothing in my

old life when they were paid up every quarter; but even a few hundreds

meant sleepless nights of haunting fear to me now.

I took up my pen feverishly. Nine years of married life were ended. All

was changed. Still, during those first few months of shock, my father

yet lived, and I knew I could rely on his help, so it was not until the

late autumn of 1896 that I realised my position in all its cruelty.

* * * * *

Pause, readers, not to give me your sympathy, not to shed tears on what

is past, but to think of the future; pause and think, and pave the

paths for your daughters, wives, mothers, and sisters by settlements.

Yes, _settlements_. It is a cruel thing to let a girl leave a home

without a safeguard in proportion to the income of her family. It is a

crueller thing to bring boys and girls into the world with insufficient

provision for their education and maintenance.

This little book of a woman’s work will have served a good end if one

father, husband, son, or brother, sees what opportunities were lost by

no adequate provision being made for its author, when this could so

easily have been done. Settlements of some sort are as necessary as the

marriage ring, a health certificate is as important as the marriage

lines.

I feel strongly that every child born should have some kind of

provision made for its education and maintenance and to give it a start

in life. Both boys and girls should be treated exactly alike.

* * * * *

The unexpected change in my position showed me how kind the world can

be; how good and generous the bulk of humanity is. There are certainly

exceptions, and those generally where they should not be. But one

does not think of them: one turns to the geniality and little acts of

thoughtfulness that day by day come from friends in the truest sense of

the word, and I can only wish that mine could realise to what extent

they have greased the wheels of these working years. Little kindnesses

are like flowers by the roadside or sun-gleams on a rainy day.

PART IV

WIDOWHOOD AND WORK

[Illustration:

_From a photograph by Lombardi & Co._

WHEN FIRST A WIDOW]

CHAPTER VI

WIDOWHOOD AND WORK

_Labor omnia vincit_

Alone!

’Tis often harder to live than to die.

Schopenhauer says happiness is only a delusion of youth and childhood;

anyway, my work now began. Hard work; collar-work, uphill and

unceasing. The work of a professional woman, not the pleasant dipping

into the inkpot as amateur fancy led.

Despite advice showered on me I refused to give up my “home.” Many

things were sold, the carriages and saddles among them, but I stuck to

the “home.” The old family silver was sent to the bank, the ancestors’

china packed away; the house was let for two years until the worker

should feel her feet. But those two years were destined to be more than

doubled before I should sit down once more on my own hearth, among my

beloved household gods.

Now that I had to face the world on my own and take up my pen

seriously, the few pounds that dilettante work had brought in before—to

be distributed in charity—must be doubled and quadrupled.

* * * * *

A school-fellow—the native of Finland whom I have already mentioned—was

staying with us in England that spring. She had often talked of her

wonderful country—her beloved Suomi—with its eight hundred miles of

coastline, and literally thousands of islands, ranging in size from

tiny rocks to habitable portions of land. She had often done her best

to persuade us to go there, but it seemed a long way and there was no

particular reason for the journey. Now, when my husband had passed

away, she persuaded me anew to pack my trunk and accompany her to

Finland. Change of scene and thought would be good for me, and I could

gather material for a book. We started within a week, and thus, on

a brilliant morning early in June, in 1896, our vessel steamed into

Helsingfors.

My friend was connected with some of the oldest families in Finland,

and great and wonderful was the hospitality we—my sister and I—received

upon her native shores. We were there for some months. We wandered

north, south, east, and west. We slept in a haunted, deserted

castle, which stood alone on a rocky island, round which the current

made endless whirlpools. We roved through districts where milk and

eggs and black bread were the only food procurable; we went to the

fashionable watering-place Hangö, and there were entertained on a

Russian man-of-war. We saw the Kokko fires lighted on Midsummer’s Eve;

we watched the process of emptying the salmon nets at five o’clock in

the morning and packing the fish for transport to St. Petersburg. We

heard the Runo singers, those weird folk who, by word of mouth, have

kept alive the Finnish legends from generation to generation. We saw

forests burnt; and I tried an ant-heap bath, which is a Finnish remedy

for rheumatism and such-like ills. We plodded along the stony path to

Russia. We stayed at a monastery at Lake Ladoga, and, above all, we

descended in tar-boats the famous rapids between Russia and the Gulf of

Bothnia, which was perhaps one of the most exciting events in my life—a

life which has not been altogether devoid of excitement.

No one can dream of the pleasure and nervous strain of rushing through

curdling water for six miles at a stretch over huge waves, in a fragile

craft, at breakneck speed.

Six miles, with a new experience every second. Six miles, when every

bend, every mile, may be the last. Turning and twisting between piles

of rocks, running down like precipices to the water’s side, from which

one could feel the drops of water as they splashed over our little

craft, or when a great wave struck it and threw a volume of water into

our laps. We felt almost inclined to shriek at the speed with which

we were flying those rapids. Wildly we tore past the banks, when, lo!

what was that? A broken tar-boat, now a scattered mass of beams, which

only a few short hours before had carried passengers like ourselves.

In spite of the wonderful dexterity of the pilots such accidents

sometimes happen. The steersman of that boat had ventured a little

too near a hidden rock and his frail craft was instantly shattered

to pieces, the tar barrels bubbling over the water like Indian corn

over a fire. The two occupants had luckily been saved, as they were

sufficiently near the water’s edge to allow a rope to be thrown.

Yes, these rapids, of which there are several, the largest being

thirteen miles long at Pyhakoski, represent an enormous force of

nature, and, to descend them, shows a wonderful example of what great

skill and a cool head can do to steer a frail boat through such

turbulent waters and such cataracts.

I tremble now when I think of those awful nights in Finland. Sleep had

deserted me. I used to steal from my bed in the small hours, when I

could toss about no more, and, throwing on a dressing-gown, slip out

on to the balcony. How perfect it all was, that great high dome of

sky so light that one could barely see a star, so warm that sun and

moon fought for pre-eminence. No one who has not really seen them can

know the glory of those Northern nights both in winter and in summer.

In winter the glory of the darkness and the aurora borealis (Northern

Lights), in summer the perfection of colour and light. I have seen them

on four or five different occasions. Beautiful as is the South, the

night of the Arctic is still more wondrous. It is so still, so calm, so

vast.

There on the balcony, listening to the grasshoppers and watching the

reds and yellows of the midnight sun, I would dream waking dreams.

Could I really write professionally? Could I earn sufficient to send my

boys to school and keep a home, ought I to risk it, or should I decide,

as so many friends wished, to part myself from all my old ties and

treasures, and live in seclusion on my little income in a cottage or a

suburb? It was a great fight. Six months of anxiety and two terrible

shocks had weakened me and made me distrust myself.

Yes, even now I shiver when I think of those nights. Nights of

wakefulness after a hard working day. Napoleon, Wellington, and Grant

could all sleep at a moment’s notice, even on the battlefield, the

result of will-power and habit. I wished I could acquire the gift.

Was it possible that I, a woman of no particular education, no

particular gift as far as I knew, could become one of the army of

workers?

That an occupation was necessary, I resolved. I had no money to enjoy

my old world, not enough to keep up my old home. There were debts to

be paid. The children must be properly educated, something must be

done—Ah—but what?

Should I turn to the stage? There I felt fairly sure of success.

I could walk, talk, move as a lady, knew how to recite and speak;

besides, had I not had that girlish offer when I was less capable than

now?

In the early ’eighties Mrs. J. H. Riddell, the then fashionable

novelist, started a magazine called _Home_. Looking back, I fancy

she wrote a good deal of the copy herself, anyway, it was fairly

successful, and amongst other articles was one called “Here and There,”

by an Idle Man. This gives in a few words her impressions of my

performance as a girl in the schoolroom.

_THEATRICALS_

“SWEETHEARTS.”

A Dramatic Contrast, by W. S. GILBERT.

ACT I

_Garden Scene—Early Spring, 1849._

Harry Spreadbrow (the Young Lover) SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY, BART.

Wilcox (the Old Gardener) GENERAL ANDERSON.

Jenny Northcott MISS ETHEL B. HARLEY.

ACT II

_The Fall of the Leaf, after a lapse of Thirty Years._

Sir Henry Spreadbrow SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY, BART.

(an Old Indian Judge)

Miss Northcott MISS ETHEL B. HARLEY.

Ruth (her maid-servant) MISS MAUD HOLT (afterwards

LADY BEERBOHM TREE).

Scenery painted by Miss Ethel B. Harley, Proscenium by General

Anderson.

Number 25, Harley Street, is the residence of Doctor George Harley,

F.R.S., the mention of whose name will at once recall to the

readers of _Home_ “My Ghost Story”—so weird a narrative that, to my

thinking, it was a pity to mar its dramatic effect by explanation.

To the general public, he is better known by the results of his

labours in the field of medical science; but it is only his friends

who are aware of his large experience, his wide knowledge, and

his untiring efforts to make the age in which he lives wiser,

happier, better. Though still, comparatively speaking, young, he

has been on terms of intimacy with most of the men of the Victorian

era, whose memories (alas! we live fast now and the great die too

soon) will never be forgotten while the English language remains

to tell of their achievements; and his conversation teems with

anecdotes concerning famous beauties, authors, artists, statesmen,

millionaires. No pleasanter hour could be spent than in hearing his

kindly appreciative talk concerning “People I have known.”

His observation of the habits of animals also has been marvellous. I

never recollect reading anything which conveyed so vivid a picture to

my mind, as his verbal description of a lake haunted by wild swans in

Scotland.

At the door of his house, then, do we find ourselves.

Such a day! the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky leaden, the

earth soppy, all cabs engaged, all trains full, all omnibuses wretched.

But once across the hospitable threshold, life casts its cloud-tints,

and sunshine seems to reign.

We go upstairs. Can this possibly be the remembered drawing-room? It

is parted off from door to window, the side next the hearth being

converted into the stage, and the larger half admirably arranged for

the accommodation of the spectators.

* * * * *

So, the lover comes to say farewell, and the young lady’s manner will

not let him say more. One does not quite like—at least an old fogey

like myself, with ideas as much out of fashion as his coat, hesitates,

even in such an exclusive publication as _Home_—to talk about the

charms of a living maiden in print; but yet in some future happy time

Miss Harley may like to show eyes still younger and brighter than her

own are now, the impression she produced upon one not too impressible.

Most fair, most sweet, most lovable. With respect as profound as our

admiration is deep we write this sentence. We look and wonder. So

young, so gifted!

* * * * *

And now we all go downstairs again, to find Wilcox—who we had fancied

was dead—alive, and looking exactly as he did thirty years ago,

handling meringues and jellies to the ladies, and suggesting coffee,

sherry, claret-cup. It is all very pretty and very pleasant. Our last

memory, ere we go out into the rain again, is of Jenny Northcott’s

lovely face, and our hostess’s kindly farewell; and so we take our

leave, feeling—well, we scarcely know how we feel!

At one moment the stage flashed through my mind, but the stage had

serious disadvantages my friends at the top of the tree told me. Supers

can generally get work, stars can’t. Of course, I hoped to be a star,

we all do, and then those kind friends told me of the weary months,

perhaps years, without work of those who have reached the top and for

whom there are no suitable parts—years of long-drawn-out waiting,

ironically called “resting.”

A very amusing account of some theatricals we had the following year,

for which Weedon Grossmith and I painted the scenery, appeared in a

little book by L. F. Austin, the predecessor of Chesterton on the

_Illustrated London News_—Beerbohm Tree supervised the performance,

and his young wife took part.

Should I take up painting seriously? My love of colour and form, the

fact that I had exhibited a little without lessons, seemed to point to

the possibility of my doing more if I studied.

Then again, a hat shop was no impossible means of livelihood, with my

huge connection of friends.

Or, should I give up everything, give up the battle, and just live

quietly in a small cottage somewhere and look after chickens?

Weeks rolled on in Finland, the notes for the book were made; parts of

it were written in steamers or on railway trains, bundles of material

had been collected for subsequent articles, and, most important of all,

my mind was made up. _I was going to write._

By the time we had knocked about Finland for three or four months I

was worn out, from worry, work, anxiety as to the future, and want of

sleep. Many people in England do not realise that the midnight sun

shines in Finland no less than in northern Norway, and the perpetual

sense of light is wearying, inexpressibly so sometimes, to the brain.

However, the notes were taken. I was steeped in the customs, habits,

thoughts, and scenery of Finland, but, more important than all the

rest, I had entered Finland in deepest sorrow, my mind had now been

made up, flame-like—imagination had decided I would write—my spirit

emerged in the house of life.

Artistic life is, after all, self-development, and self-development and

outward expression lay before me in my newly sought profession. Cruel

doubts crept in; but the flame of desire was burning, and again and

again I said to myself, “I _will_ write.” _Through Finland in Carts_

appeared in 1897, the third edition came out three years later, and

others followed at intervals (now in Nelson’s 1/- library).

On the borders of Lapland my resolution to become a scribe had

been made and my luck had turned. It was there I received the wire

containing an offer to take my house off my hands; and so began my

first “let.” Four years later, when strenuous effort had made it

possible, I went back to live in that same old home. It was a very

old-fashioned thing to do, because everybody lives in everybody else’s

house nowadays. The snobbish rich luxuriate in the castles of the

aristocratic poor, and the aristocratic poor curl themselves up in the

abandoned cottages of the self-made. But I reached my first goal when

I stepped across the threshold of my old home again. The accompanying

illustration, taken just after my husband’s death, is from a photograph

for which a paper asked on the appearance of _Finland_. The reason for

its not showing the conventional widow’s weeds—no crêpe and no veil—is

that I never wore these social brands, and my severe, unrelieved

black—a terrible breach of custom in the opinion of Jay’s forewoman—was

impossible, for reasons connected with the camera. Hence a dilemma!

Suddenly remembering my grandmother’s lace scarf and my sister’s new

bridesmaid’s hat, I donned both and went off to be “taken.” Hence this

photograph.

When I returned to England, late in September, and York Terrace was

in other hands, I took a tiny country cottage in Buckinghamshire, and

retired there alone with my little boys of six and seven years of age

to write my book.

This had barely been started, and the notes were still scattered over

the table and piled on the sofa, and the chapters had not yet been

formulated, when another dreadful telegram was put into my hands: My

father had fallen dead of apoplexy in his study. The second breadwinner

in the family had gone out.

This made the third death in my circle of loved ones within four

months: my husband, my father, my more or less adopted father, Sir John

Erichsen—“dear Uncle John”—and my mother was very ill.

Life seemed full of sorrow.

* * * * *

These were the sad circumstances under which _Finland_ was written.

* * * * *

Curious. Whilst so often my feelings during those days of journeying

were of exhaustion from insomnia, heat, mosquitoes, jolting vehicles,

and impossible beds, the papers were full of compliment on my “spirited

sprightliness,” on “the liveliness of observation and the humour

displayed by the narrator” whose pages were “full of entertainment

and instruction.” It must often be so in the lives of those who are

servants of the public. A smile and grin from actress or mountebank:

the sigh and tear when the curtain drops.

A leading article in the _Liverpool Post_, a column and a half in

length, kindly said:

“Very few English people visit Finland. There is a far-away sound

in the name. Probably the general idea of Finland in this country

is associated with thoughts of Polar bears and barbarity and

reindeer sledges in use all the year round. The task of disabusing

the English mind on this subject has fallen to a well-known and

popular English lady—Mrs. Alec Tweedie—whose latest book, entitled

_Through Finland in Carts_, has recently been published. In this,

Finland is extremely fortunate. No country and no people could find

a more capable champion. Not only is Mrs. Tweedie an experienced

traveller, whose intrepidity might well put many of the sterner sex

to the blush: she is also possessed of a remarkably keen faculty

for minute observation of men and manners and scenery; and a

power of expression and a literary style which are as strong and

convincing as they are easy and graceful. Her book has all the

interest of a well-told story; the vivacious charm of a volume of

personal reminiscences; the excitement of a book of adventure,

and the exactness and studious attention to necessary detail of

an official Blue Book. From this time forth let no one complain

that a journey to Finland is almost the only means of becoming

intimately acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. Mrs.

Alec Tweedie’s book—which ought to become a standard work on the

subject—is a contradiction of that notion.

“It is worth a thought that—some would say as a result of the free

and equal footing of the sexes—the morality and virtue of the

people reaches the highest possible level. Divorce is not often

heard of. When it does occur, it is oftener through incompatibility

of temper than immorality. ‘Surely,’ says Mrs. Alec Tweedie,

‘if two people find they have made a mistake, and are irritants

instead of sedatives to one another, they should not be left to

champ and fret like horses at too severe a bit, for all their

long, sad lives—to mar one another’s happiness, to worry their

children and annoy their friends. Finland shows us an excellent

example. The very fact of being able to get free makes folk less

inclined to struggle at their chains. Life is intolerable to Mrs.

Jones in Finland, and away she goes; at the end of a year Mr.

Jones advertises three times in the paper for his wife, or for

information that will lead to his knowing her whereabouts; no one

responds, and Mr. Jones can sue for and obtain a divorce without

any of those scandalous details appearing in the Press which are

a disgrace to English journalism.’ Whatever may be thought of

Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s plain words as to the facilities for divorce,

her remarks about the English Press do not quite convince the

journalistic mind. The Press has a public duty to perform, and if

it can be proved that the conscientious publication of ’scandalous

details’ is more likely to act as a deterrent to vice and crime

than would be the case if those details were suppressed, one should

pause before describing the course adopted by the majority of

English journals as a disgrace to the profession....

“We can only refer our readers to Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s pages, where

the inner life and the outer life of the Finns, their weaknesses

and their strong points, their advantages and their limitations,

are all revealed with the discreet thoroughness of an artist and

the kindliness and consideration and admiration and candour of a

friend.”

And now journalism in turn began and that seriously.

I found a list of editors and papers, scanned it carefully, and to the

most likely addressed manuscripts. On every possible and impossible

subject—very often the latter, be it known—I scribbled. Often the

manuscripts were returned, but equally often they were accepted, and

gradually this came to mean regular engagement. Thus, for years, I

turned out four, five, and six articles every week, many of them

signed. The front page of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the front page

of the _Queen_ were a constant source of employment, to say nothing of

other work on nearly every important paper at some time or the other.

I have written serious stuff for the magazines, topical stuff for the

dailies, and rubbish for the frivolous papers.

I never had an introduction in my life and have rarely been inside

a newspaper office. My work was done from my own writing-table and

entirely by correspondence; for, in my belief, if the material is

worth taking it will find its own market, and no amount of pushing or

introductions will be of the slightest avail.

Penmanship means hard brain-fagging work with little gain in

proportion. A well-known writer once told me one of his big important

books brought him exactly thirteen pounds.

I still remember with what joy I read a leader in the _Daily Telegraph_

on a magazine article of mine. It then seemed so great and wonderful to

be mentioned in a leader; next to which recollection comes my pride on

seeing book reviews with my own name above them in the literary page

of that literary paper, the _Daily Chronicle_. These little vanities

were the recompense for the dreary hours of work, when one’s head ached

and one’s eyes felt hot and swollen and one’s brain seemed on fire or

asleep.

What years of anxiety some of those were, when the house would not

let and the bills would come in! Tenant succeeded tenant, and between

whiles I wandered.

Later, when I returned to the old home, I took a boarder. In

polite society people talk of “paying guests.” I prefer the true

term—“lodger.” She was an old lady with a title, nearly blind, and had

her maid. They were with me for two years. I used to work all day,

and read aloud, trim her caps, or chat to her in the evening. She

very rarely had a meal outside the house, so there was a good deal to

arrange for her in my otherwise busy life.

My old lady came into an unexpected fortune and left.

Little boys home from school had to be fed at meals, amused between tea

and dinner during that precious “children’s hour,” and I often left my

bed in the morning, to begin another strenuous day, more tired than I

had entered it the previous night.

But mediocrity and determination succeeded where genius and inspiration

might have failed.

One rule, and a very good rule, for success is never to let one’s self

get out of hand. If anybody cannot rule himself, he cannot rule his

life.

Age has nothing to do with success. Byron, Burns, and Shelley all wrote

priceless gems in youthful years, and, on the other hand, Samuel Smiles

never took up his pen until he was past forty, and was then read by

millions all over the world and translated into a dozen languages.

Often in those days I longed for my old world. I was too proud to

tell people I could not afford a cab, and a bus fare was often

a consideration. My beautiful evening dresses were out of date.

Opera-cloaks and tea-gowns were laid aside in tissue paper—quite

inappropriate for a journalist living in a country cottage. I used to

long for a night at a theatre, a whirling dance, a day on the river.

But no, life was one round of work, work, work. Thoughtless friends,

out of the kindness of their heart, invited me to stay with them.

Wealth of gold often accompanies poverty of mind. They thought they

were helping me—they had not brains to see I could not afford the

ticket to Scotland, the clothes necessary for them and their guests, or

the stupendous tips required in large households—a life of pleasure now

seemed to me merely fierce misery. What time I could spare from my work

I spent resting, often in bed. Worn out mentally, bodily repose seemed

the only way of re-stoking the engine for a further pull uphill.

Invitation after invitation had to be refused because I could not

afford the expense nor the time. A great barrier had arisen between

me and my old world. How I regretted I had not done even more than

I had done for people less dowered than myself in the past! And yet

Alec and I had often sent a bank-note in an envelope to a sick or poor

friend. Then, yes then, the reward came. The thoughtless rich, with

all their kindly but useless offers of hospitality, left me alone, and

the others—those who were really worth knowing—sought me out. Well I

remember a first-class return ticket to Scotland being pinned, as if by

chance, on the top of the letter which invited me to a shooting-box.

Another time some friends asked me to go abroad with them _as their

guest_, and treated me as their most honoured friend. Boxes came for

the theatres, and the note accompanying them asked at what hour I would

like the carriage to fetch me, or motors were lent me to shop or call.

It was all to save me expense, I knew; but done so nicely, and showing

so keenly the determination to give me a good time and save my slender

purse. These were the acts of true gentlefolk—the vaunted offers of

visits that meant hundreds of pounds’ worth of clothes and ten pounds’

worth of tickets and tips were mere pretence, merely salves to the soul

of the sender of the invitation, that he or she was doing something

kind, knowing all the time they were but dangling a fly from the world

I had lost, to the woman not yet sure of her new world or of herself.

The creative mind is like a sensitive plant. It feels sorrow or joy

more acutely than its neighbour or it could not take in or give out

impressions.

Everyone with initiative in the Arts is receptive. They are like

sensitive plates in a camera. They conceive and receive impressions.

Genius suffers, or it cannot expand, and poverty to genius is often

cruelly crushing. It paralyses output, or is a wild incentive to work

at the cost of double brain force.

It would be so nice if all really clever people, people whose work

benefits mankind, could be saved the gnawing pains of poverty.

Genius is often emotional, and there are just as many emotional men as

emotional women. I have seen as many tears lurking in men’s eyes as in

women’s in my day. God bless them for it—a person who cannot feel is

not human.

* * * * *

I went to all sorts of queer old eating-houses, doss-houses, lunatic

asylums, gaols, docks, slums, Jews’ markets, and Billingsgate, in my

pursuit of “copy”; always seeking something new.

I began to wonder if money was the only thing that counted, and then—a

thousand times no. I realised that money was the only thing that

counted in the world of snobs—but did the world of snobs count at all?

The words of Montaigne came back to me: “We commend a horse for his

strength and sureness of foot and not for his rich caparison; a

greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for

her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why in like manner do we not

value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a

beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and

all these are _about_ him, but not _in_ him.”

A millionaire was one day sitting having tea with me, when I exclaimed:

“I wonder what it feels like to be so rich?”

He stared at me, as though puzzled that anyone should be in doubt.

“Often very disagreeable,” he replied.

“Why?”

“Well, one never knows who are one’s friends, because of one’s money;

or who would cut one to-morrow if it were lost!”

Then he told me an experience which must certainly have been mortifying.

“At a ball my wife and I gave recently I felt tired, and slipped down

to the supper-room for a glass of champagne and a sandwich. I sat for a

moment at a little table where two young men were sitting, and this is

what I heard:

“‘Whose house is this?’

“‘Oh, one of those beastly rich African Jews, I’m told.’

“‘Do you know them?’

“‘Lord, no! I came with Lady M——.’

“‘And I came with Lady N——. Not a bad house, though. Champagne might

have been better.’

“Sick at heart, I looked at them, turned on my heel, and went upstairs.

A few minutes later they followed. I was standing talking to Lady M——

as the pair sauntered up.

“She caught one of them by the arm and said to him, ‘Oh, I must

introduce you to Mr. X——, our host.’

“I pulled myself together. ‘Thanks, there is no need; we met in the

supper-room a moment ago, and I had the pleasure of hearing his opinion

of my champagne.’ And having said that, I put out my hand and hoped he

was enjoying himself. You should have seen that young man’s face.

“Is it pleasant to be rich? No!”

He spoke so bitterly, one could not help feeling how often accumulated

wealth is merely luck, when it comes from the yield of the earth

or is the product of invention; but yet how often it comes through

Stock-Exchange knowledge, which not infrequently is another name for

organised robbery!

In an earlier chapter I have alluded to my school-days at Queen’s

College, Harley Street. This was the first college opened for women,

and when it had been in existence fifty years (started 1848), I—as

an “old girl”—volunteered to edit a booklet giving a short account

of its history; and also suggested that other “old girls,” as an

encouragement to the younger generation, should contribute articles

describing their own particular professions, all of which were more or

less the outcome of the education they received in Harley Street.

If I gave an honest account of the editing of that volume people

would laugh. Up to that time no careful register of “old girls”

had been kept. These were the initial days of women learning to be

business-like, I suppose, and if the girls’ names were known their

addresses were not forthcoming, or else nobody had any idea whether or

not the said “girls” were married.

Persistency and dogged determination is rewarded in most things, and in

the end the first page of the little volume entitled:

“THE FIRST COLLEGE OPEN TO WOMEN,

QUEEN’S COLLEGE, LONDON,”

recorded the following contributions, among others (it appeared in

1898):

Dorothea Beale, “Recollections of the Early Days

of Queen’s College.”

Sophia Jex Blake, “The Medical Education of

Women.”

Louisa Twining, “Workhouses and Pauperism.”

Lady Beerbohm Tree, “Quick, thy tablets, memory!”

Dr. Jex Blake was too busy to write her own articles, so I jotted down

the sort of thing I wanted and she filled in the facts and figures.

Another good lady’s I entirely re-wrote; it was so impossible in the

form in which it was sent in.

Some of the other contributors accepted the task gleefully, wrote to

the point, sent copy to date, returned their proofs the same day, and

otherwise showed the difference between an amateur and the professional

journalist.

Several of my contributors seemed unaccustomed to writing for the

Press. One dear lady actually wrote to enquire how she would know when

she had written fifteen hundred words. She explained that a friend

had told her, that _she_ had a friend, who had another friend, who

thought that a column of a daily paper contained about three thousand

words, etc. etc. I suggested her writing a page and counting it, and

multiplying by the number of pages, but when the manuscript came back

the first page had been counted, and at the top of the second page

appeared, “Carried forward 162 words,” at the top of the third page,

“Carried forward 314 words,” and so on, as if it were the butcher’s

book. She had succeeded in life, but not as a scribe.

Another insisted on writing something quite different from the subject

arranged and asked for.

I had to sit in Maud Tree’s dressing-room at the Haymarket Theatre

during a performance of _Julius Cæsar_ to get her article out of her at

all. Not that she does not know how to write, for she is particularly

clever with her pen, as in many other things; but she has a little

trick of procrastination, so it was only by sitting beside her during

the “waits” and taking her ideas down on pieces of paper that we

managed the article. I know nothing of shorthand, unfortunately, so

the notes were somewhat scratchy and interlarded with remarks to her

dresser: “Give me my cloak,” “A little more rouge,” “Has the call-boy

been?” and so on.

There are two classes of successful people: those who buy a reputation,

and those who make one.

Each despises the other and nurses his own illusions. But, after all,

life would be deadly were it not for its illusions.

CHAPTER VII

WRITERS: SIR WALTER BESANT, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, MRS. RIDDELL, MRS. LYNN

LINTON

New! Why, there is nothing new. The only luck is to pitch on something

old enough to be forgotten.

The writing profession is a hard and often underpaid one, but one thing

may be said, that writers are ever ready and willing to help each other.

We can most of us testify to this by kindnesses received.

Sir Walter Besant was the very embodiment of this spirit of

helpfulness, not only to me personally, but also to the literary world

at large, and it was he who conceived the idea of bringing this same

friendliness into a common centre by establishing the Incorporated

Society of Authors.

Having touched on the toil, sorrows, and worries of “work,” it is

pleasant to pass on to the silver lining to the cloud.

I cannot remember when I first met Sir Walter Besant, although two

or three meetings stand forth distinctly in the tangled web of

recollection. One of the many kind things he did for me was soon after

my election to the Society of Authors. A dinner was announced. I had

never been to a public dinner in my life, but as a member of that

august body I had a right to be present.

Naturally wishing to go, I wrote a little letter to Sir Walter, saying

that I simply dared not go alone; did he know any lady who would join

forces with me?

“I quite understand,” he replied; “you are young and new at the game,

and may bring any guest you like. If you take my advice you will let

it be a man, and not a woman, because, I think, you will have a better

evening’s enjoyment.”

From that moment women writers were allowed a guest.

Accordingly, with a man as my “chaperon,” I attended my first public

dinner.

Afterwards, when I was in great anxiety as to ways and means of

obtaining a pension for the late Mrs. J. H. Riddell, I went one day

to see Besant at his office in Soho Square. He was surrounded—half

buried, in fact—by manuscripts, for he was then correcting his books

on London—the really joyful work of his literary life. Volumes strewed

the floor, volumes were stacked upon the writing-table, volumes lay

pell-mell on the chairs. In fact, there was nowhere to sit or stand;

London on paper filled the room.

He quite sympathised with my difficult task, but said there was then no

fund available to which one could apply; and I asked if it would not be

possible to form, in connection with the Society of Authors, some sort

of Pension Fund for writers who had made fame but not fortune.

“Well, I don’t know; it might be,” he said.

As I poured forth a string of enthusiastic suggestions the dear

old gentleman listened calmly and quietly, gazing through his gold

spectacles in wonderment at my volubility.

“Not a bad idea,” he remarked.

Several interviews were the result, and not long afterwards the Pension

Fund of the Society of Authors was formed, under the able Chairmanship

of Mr. Anthony Hope. On the Original Committees of which I served, and

still serve.

Besant was a real practical help to young writers. Quaint,

old-fashioned, and prim, he addressed even his best friends as “Madam.”

The following letter is in connection with a further pension for Mrs.

Riddell, which I was then endeavouring to procure from the Civil List,

and did afterwards succeed in obtaining from Mr. Balfour:

“DEAR MADAM,

“The way to get a (Civil List) pension is to ask for it. You must

draw up a petition setting forth the exact circumstances of the

case, and get this signed by as many people of name and position

as you can, or—what is perhaps better—get it signed by a few

whose names command attention. If your friend is a member of our

society, I will undertake the petition and the signatures of a good

many known names. Remember that W. H. Smith, in administering

these pensions, is under the fixed belief that novelists are an

extravagant race who spend in luxury the enormous sums their

publishers allow them. Word your petition, therefore, so as to show

that your friend was never in receipt of his imaginary fabulous

income.

“I remain, dear madam,

“Very sincerely yours,

“WALTER BESANT.”

No man did more for writers than Walter Besant. He raised their

status, he demanded more pay for their products, he attempted to make

a copyright with America; and the present-day position of authors,

unsatisfactory though it is, is a thousand times better than it was

before Sir Walter Besant took the matter up and maintained that

literary wares were property, and as such should be treated legally. I

merely quote this letter to show the kindness of heart of the man, and

how even the busiest people find time to do a good deed. He wrote:

“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,

“Your little book looks very nice. I hope it will go. Publishers

work by a regular method. Their travellers offer the book to

booksellers, who take at first what they think they can sell. Then

reviews—nature of the subject—the reputation which a book quickly

gets—cause or do not cause—a demand, and so the book succeeds or

fails. I hate to discourage people, but I have always entreated you

not to expect too much. This only on the general principle that

most books fail.

“Publishers, though very few would acknowledge this, can really do

very little for a book. What helps more than anything is for the

book to be talked about.”

His death was a loss to the entire literary profession.

He lived at Hampstead in a charming old house not far from George du

Maurier and Frank Holl; in fact, in the early days of my married life,

there was quite a little colony of interesting people living in that

neighbourhood, and we often drove up on Sundays for luncheon or to call

on those delightful folk.

Are there any novelists to-day who make enormous sums? When Sir Walter

Besant himself died he left only £6000.

* * * * *

Looking back into the recesses of one’s memory two women writers,

who died within a few weeks of each other (1906), come to mind; two

women entirely distinct in their lives and in their deaths, in their

writings, in their purpose. One rich, popular, and brilliant; the other

poor, popular, and—less brilliant, perhaps, but so extraordinarily

brave and persevering, that if it be true that genius is the capacity

to take infinite pains, no one will deny the late Mrs. J. H. Riddell’s

genius.

The first woman writer of these two was Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver

Hobbes).

And Mrs. Craigie was herself a dual personality. As a girl she was full

of romance, sentiment, enthusiasm, and fire. Mrs. Craigie as a woman

renounced romance—of which she had but a sad experience—and sought

solace in religion. The dissection of love and the solace of religion

became the keynotes of her writings.

“John Oliver Hobbes” was another person altogether. He was a cynic,

clever, brilliant, at times as hard as his name implied. He was the

mask, the curb by which the budding womanhood of Mrs. Craigie was

extinguished and held in check. The death of this duplex personality

was a real loss.

A paradox often ends conversation, the listener is so busy trying to

unravel its meaning. But a paradox in a book often stimulates the

reader, and Mrs. Craigie was a master of paradoxes.

No one could honestly wish her back. Her death was ideal. At the zenith

of her power, in the prime of her life and looks, with the happiness of

unfulfilled dreams still before her, she lay down quietly to rest and

passed away. She was a handsome woman, with wit and charm; her parents

were rich, she acquired position, and she commanded respect by her

work. She did not live to grow old or grey, she just slipped the cable

when all the world was rose-colour and the sun shone.

Mrs. Craigie’s face when in repose had a melancholy aspect, her tongue

was often bitter. Like all Americans, she loved titles and craved

for social success; for, clever and brilliant writer as “John Oliver

Hobbes” was, Mrs. Craigie was undoubtedly a woman of the world.

To a certain extent her life was dwarfed. An unhappy marriage, in

which she early divorced her husband, kept the woman in her nature

from expanding; she imposed restraint upon all her actions, all her

thoughts. She never—even in her writings—let herself go.

Mrs. Craigie was of medium height, with a slight figure, piercing

eyes, and dark hair, which she wore very simply. She was an excellent

_raconteur_, and a delightful neighbour at a dinner-table. She

certainly showed to greater advantage in the company of men than of

women, in which characteristic she was somewhat un-American.

Knowing this want of sympathy with her own sex, she rarely appeared at

women’s functions.

Mrs. Craigie’s name appeared in many papers as attending dinners or

committees, and making speeches; but in reality Mrs. Craigie herself

came seldom, ill-health or retirement into a convent being a frequent

excuse at the last moment for her non-appearance. She spoke well when

she did speak, although it was not really a speech at all, but a

carefully prepared little treatise which she read word for word to her

audience. She delivered it well, the matter was always worth listening

to, and she was pleasing to look upon.

“John Oliver Hobbes” was a weird pseudonym. The titles of her books

were equally incongruous. Imagine such anomalies as _Some Emotions

and a Moral_, _The Gods, Some Mortals and Lord Wickenham_, _The Herb

Moon_, or the latest—_The Dream and the Business_. Mrs. Craigie will be

remembered as a novelist, not as she aspired to be—a dramatist.

None of her plays achieved any real success except _The Ambassador_,

which had a considerable run at the St. James’s Theatre, ably helped

by that excellent manager, Sir George Alexander. Smart epigrams,

pretty setting, and French frocks won’t make a play. Her characters

lacked blood and sinew; they meant well and generally began well,

but they were not healthy, living beings. In a novel that lack of

characterisation was not so obvious as on the stage, and her smart

lines, her epigrams, and ironic thoughts, or rather the irony of “John

Oliver Hobbes” (her double), covered the lack of plot and thinness of

character more satisfactorily.

As years rolled on and the sentimental woman was lost in the thoughtful

religionist, swayed by the Romish Church, the philosopher found

satisfaction, and her later books became deeper in tone, stronger in

handling, and likely to be more lasting on the shelves of time. She

was a literary personality, with high aims where her art was concerned,

and had she lived she might some day have rivalled George Meredith,

whose style she so much admired. Much mystery surrounded her death; she

was barely forty when she suddenly and swiftly passed, as it were, like

a person going out of a house without a good-bye.

People pray against sudden death. Let me pray for it. What more lovely

ending than to sleep away into the Unknown? It may be a selfish wish,

because the shock is greater for those left behind, but, after all, to

them the death of a dear one is always a shock, come quick, come slow,

and why should the parting be harrowed by tardiness? Yes, let me pray

for sudden death, and at an early age before one gets dependent on

others.

And my body. Well, if I die of anything interesting—disease or

accident—that will make my body of any value whatever to medicine or

science, I bequeath it for dissection to University College, Gower

Street (or to any other hospital that may be nearer me at my decease).

It is only right we should help the living to the last, and interesting

cases should always be investigated; at least, my love and admiration

for science and medicine tell me so.

Then the scraps can be cremated, because they will have fulfilled their

end. Putrefaction is disgusting and harmful to living things; so let my

remains be consumed by fire to clean white ash, and let that (in one of

those beautiful urns designed by Watts) rest inside Kingsbury Church,

or in the vault outside, beside my husband and father.

None of this is morbid, it is only common sense. Death has no horrors

for me. I am content to die, and have even paid for and arranged my own

cremation to save my survivors time and expense.

But let us return to Mrs. J. H. Riddell, who was the second of these

two well-known women writers. Of her one thinks and writes differently;

and for myself it is difficult not to hold her in memory more as the

woman than the writer, for she was an intimate friend of my earliest

years. Even then she was approaching middle life, and, unlike “John

Oliver Hobbes,” who passed away when so much of the best of life seemed

before her, Mrs. Riddell had reached the eve of her seventy-fifth

birthday before death at last—in September, 1906—released her from her

prolonged struggle.

She was writing as early as 1858, when women writers were little known.

At one time she was among the most popular novelists of the day; but

she only declared her identity in 1865, after the enormous success of

_George Geith of Fen Court_.

The death of her husband whom she adored, the failure of her

publishers, and her own constant ill-health, brought her much trouble,

but she bravely struggled on with her writing for nearly half a

century, producing some thirty or forty novels, many of which ran into

second and third editions and are now in sixpenny numbers. Her insight

into character was her strong point, and her people gradually unfolded

themselves with skill and thought as the stories proceeded. She reaped

little reward, however, as her best work was done before there was any

copyright with America, and, being poor, she sold her books out for an

average of about one hundred pounds each.

Although born on the hill-side in Ireland, at Carrickfergus, the

daughter of a squire, and a lover of fresh air, fowls, flowers, and

country pursuits and produce, Mrs. Riddell settled in London. She hated

it at first, and then became an enthusiast over its charms. By day and

by night she wandered into its highways and peered into its alleys. She

learnt the City off by heart, and penetrated the mysteries of business

life so successfully that, woman though she was, she wrote _The Senior

Partner_, _City and Suburb_, etc. At that time business was not thought

a suitable subject for the novelist except in France, by men like

Balzac, so to Mrs. Riddell is due the honour of introducing the City

gentleman and making him known to the West End.

Many of the tragedies, the failures, and mysteries of business routine

which she so often depicted in her books, she wrote from personal

knowledge. Misfortunes fell upon her family and, as she was the one

to try to put matters right, she naturally learnt many curious ins

and outs of speculation and failure. Had she not always had her hand

in her pocket for someone, she would not have been so miserably off

financially when old age and sickness overtook her.

She wrote her first novel when only fifteen; but this she candidly

admitted never saw the light.

In my early writing days I remember asking Mrs. Riddell for an

introduction.

“What?” she replied. “Introductions are no good; the best and only

introduction to an editor is a good article.”

How right she was!

Mrs. Riddell once told me she collected the whole of a three-volume

novel in her head—all novels were then in three volumes—and for weeks

and months she worried out the story. When it was quite complete she

wrote the last, or the most telling chapter of the book, first. For

instance, Beryl’s death scene in _George Geith_ was set down just as it

appeared in print three years subsequently.

As I have said, it was my privilege to know Mrs. J. H. Riddell from my

childhood. She was an old and valued friend of my father, and in the

curious jumbling of early recollections I recall eating my first ice at

her house at Hampstead, and being obliged to confess, with a cold lump

of surprise on my tongue, “It isn’t as nice as I ’spected.” A remark

she recalled with amusement years afterwards.

I do not suppose I was more than five years of age at that time, but

I can remember perfectly well the kindly and charming face of the

hostess, and her dark brown hair, which she wore in a loose curl

hanging behind each ear.

Her Hampstead home existed in Mrs. Riddell’s palmy days; she went

through much subsequent trouble, backing a bill for a friend, paying

debts for her husband, keeping a paralysed brother whose health

necessitated constant care, and who was for many years a heavy drag

upon her purse, all of which brought incessant anxiety upon the

authoress. My father and my husband helped her substantially many

times—so when they both died so suddenly she was even more handicapped

by Fortune. She nobly struggled on until the year 1900, when, as

already mentioned, I made a personal application to Mr. Balfour, then

Prime Minister, for a sum of money towards purchasing an annuity for

her. Much correspondence ensued, and, thanks to the courtesy of Mr.

Balfour, a cheque for three hundred pounds was finally handed to me

from the Civil List. Through the help of Mr. J. M. Barrie, a further

couple of hundred pounds was obtained from the Royal Literary Fund.

This, with some kindly contributions from my own personal friends,

among whom may be mentioned Sir W. S. Gilbert, Mrs. Humphry Ward,

Justin Huntley McCarthy, E. W. Hornung, and Anthony Hope Hawkins,

was, however, found to be too small a sum to buy an annuity of real

value, and, accordingly, I made that bold suggestion to the Society of

Authors. It was finally agreed that I should hand over three hundred

pounds direct to them, in consideration of their granting her a pension

for life, the Society retaining the three hundred at her death.

Mrs. Riddell thus became the first pensioner of the Society of Authors,

of which she was one of the original members; and time after time she

expressed to me her gratitude for that sixty pounds a year, her own

private income being practically _nil_. The Society conferred a great

benefit in bestowing this pension, and, at the same time, must feel

proud to know it was given to one so worthy to claim it in the world of

literature.

Her struggles to work were magnificent, and she actually published

her last book after she was seventy years of age. Nearly fifty years

of penmanship is indeed a record. During the last months of her life

she suffered much pain from cancer, and was constantly in her bed, not

being able to write at all, and to read but little. I constantly went

to see her, and wondered at her patience and grieved at her poverty and

suffering.

Then came her release; for such was the messenger of death to her tired

spirit. And the few friends who saw her laid in the grave, felt it was

so, and had the relief of knowing they had added to her comfort—and

even the necessaries of life—in her last darkened years.

Since those days I have collected purses for a dozen or more folk.

Men and women whose names are known in every land—but who have fallen

on evil days—generally ill-health having been the cause. The Arts

are shockingly paid, the mental strain is great. Exponents of great

work live on their health capital, their brain-force, and sometimes

the chain snaps and the wheels refuse to go round. Then a few hundred

pounds, or a pension, or the kindly sympathy of friendship that backs

up their faltering strength, comes like a new fuse, inspiring the

recipient to take up the threads of work almost as well as before.

Yes, I collected between seven and eight hundred pounds for Mrs.

Riddell, which I doled out weekly till her death. I paid her servant’s

wages, rent, the doctor, and all the necessities of years of illness.

Just as my little store was coming to an end her life flickered out.

There was enough left for a modest funeral and a stone slab above her

grave. That was the first time I undertook a big job of the kind; but

not long after I did the same for one of the most famous singers of the

day.

Then again, the people who do things that will live have proverbially

bad business heads. Just as judges die without wills, and Chancellors

of the Exchequer leave their own affairs in a muddle, so artists,

writers, painters, scientists, reap little reward themselves when

weighed against the intense pleasure they give to others.

Each little monetary collection or pension has necessitated dozens,

almost hundreds, of letters, all of which have come into extremely busy

days. I only wish I could have done twice as much, for well I know what

a few hundred pounds handed over to me by friends and sympathisers

would have been in those early days of widowhood.

He who gives quickly gives twice. The generous people are those who

have been poor and suffered. The rich so seldom think of anyone but

themselves, although writing a cheque costs them no self-sacrifice.

Then comes another notable woman; a power in her day. One who, herself

strong-minded and a pioneer without recognising it, bitterly denounced

other women for so-called strong-mindedness; but, while inflicting

the lash on imaginary victims, she poured balm on the wounds of real

sufferers. Unhappily deserted in her married life, she yet extolled the

virtues of mankind to the skies—a living paradox.

Woman has advanced very far since Mrs. Lynn Linton invented the phrase

of “the shrieking sisterhood.”

That was in the distant ’eighties, when the modern young woman,

who filled her with such holy horror, was, after all, but a poor,

shrinking creature compared with the amazons of 1907, who marched to

Hyde Park to demand votes for women. A desire for the development

of her own individuality, freed from the control of parents and the

enforced escort of brothers, a latch-key, a club, and a _mode_ of

short hair, waistcoats, men’s coats, and even hard shirts, besides a

horse-shoe pin, were all that the “Girl of the Period” advanced; but,

in contemptuous condemnation of her, Mrs. Lynn Linton dipped her pen in

gall.

Dear me! what an archaic type she already seems, that original “new

woman” whom one used to find at the Pioneer Club in its early days.

Perhaps it is as well that Mrs. Lynn Linton did not live to see

suffragists concealed in pantechnicon vans for the purpose of raiding

Parliament, or shouting down Cabinet Ministers, assaulting policemen,

smashing windows, and going to prison in hundreds with as much

self-glorification as if they were notorious criminals and heroines

of a “Penny Dreadful.” The dictionary surely does not contain words

so scathing as the old lady would have required for such flagrant

revolters against her ideal of womanhood. That women suffragettes have

an ideal she would not have understood. The curt indifference of men

to their more peaceable demands has forced women to perpetrate these

antics to draw attention to their creed. She was herself a woman who

was greatly misunderstood. The conception formed by the public, who

knew Mrs. Lynn Linton only by her writings, was entirely different from

that of people who were privileged to know her personally. All her

venom was in her pen, all her heart in her home and her friends.

I have reason to recall her name with gratitude, for she was one of the

first to assist me by helpful advice and example along the slippery

path of authorship. Indeed, her readiness to place her long experience

at the service of young writers, who were often entirely unknown to

her, even at the sacrifice of considerable time and convenience to

herself, was one of the most delightful points in her character.

One day, late in the last century, I was chatting with her in her flat

eight stories up in Queen Anne’s Mansions, the windows of which looked

out high over the neighbouring chimney-pots and far away beyond the

grey mist of smoky London to the Surrey hills. Lying on the table was a

large bundle of manuscripts, upon which I naturally remarked, “What a

lot of work you have there on hand; surely that means two or three new

books?”

“Not one page is my own,” she replied, peering at me through her

gold-rimmed spectacles. “Bundles of manuscripts like these have haunted

my later life. I receive large packets from men and women I have never

seen and know nothing whatever about. One asks for my advice; another

if I can find a publisher; a third enquires if the material is worth

spinning out into a three-volume novel; a fourth lives abroad and

places the MS. in my hands to do with it exactly as I think fit.

“How fearful! But what do you do with them all?”

“Once I returned one unread, for the writing was so bad I could not

decipher it. But only once; the rest I have always conscientiously

read through and corrected page by page, if I have thought there was

anything to be made of them. But to many of my unknown correspondents,

I have had to reply sadly that the work had not sufficient merit

for publication, and, as gently as I could, suggest their leaving

literature alone and trying something else.”

“You are very good to bother yourself with them.”

“No, not good exactly; but I feel very strongly the duty of the old

to the young, and how the established must help the striving. I am so

sorry for young people, and know how a little help or advice given at

the right moment may prove the making of a career; kindly words of

discouragement, given also at the right time, may save many a bitter

tear of disappointment in the future.”

This was the “dragon” who, I do not doubt, existed in the minds of

thousands of readers of Mrs. Lynn Linton’s magazine essays—essays which

were full of fire; critical, analytical, clear-sighted and written

unflinchingly. Who would dream after reading one of her splendidly

forcible arguments, written in her trenchant style, that the real

author was one of the most domesticated, home-loving women possible,

full of kindness and sympathy, and keenly interested in the welfare

of all around her? How little a book reveals the true author. How

often the pen disguises the real person, as words disguise the inmost

thoughts.

Indeed, one might go far to find another such lovable old lady.

It is often supposed by the outside world that jealousies and rivalries

exist between authors, as is too often said to be the case in other

professions. Nonsense! Here is one example to the contrary. And many

another could easily be furnished.

At the very time that Mrs. Lynn Linton was earning her living by

writing novels, Mrs. Alexander, in private life Mrs. Hector (another

dear memory), was doing the same. Rivalry there was none between these

two; more than that, they actually helped each other. And in the end,

when Mrs. Lynn Linton died, she left her most cherished cabinet of

china and many other souvenirs to her woman writer friend, who prized

them above rubies.

The following is a characteristic letter from Mrs. Lynn Linton, anent

an article I had written about her:

“MY DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,

“Thank you so much for your kind letter. I am so glad you are busy

and successful in your work.

“The She you painted in _T.B._ was a very nice old She indeed, a

quite superior She, and a little better than the original, I am

sorry to say! But, la, la, la, the heaps of begging letters and

manuscripts the paper has brought me. It has punished me for any

pride I might have had there-anent, and kept my comb cut down to

my head. To-day, again, comes a long eight-paged letter of sorrow,

distress, and nonsense, which I am asked to help. Well, I do what I

can, and, at all events, sympathy and kind words and thoughts have

their own value, if that is not of a productive or golden kind.

“I was very sorry not to see that fine young fellow again. I was

charmed with him, if you like![4] I should have liked to kiss his

hand for respect and hope and admiration. I should have liked to

whip him as an aged Sarah might have whipped her grandson! I hope

he will come back safe and with renown and success.

“Good-bye, dear Mrs. Brightness.

“Yes, I have partly recovered from Ibsen, who had a lurid kind of

light that fascinates yet repels, a lying spirit that enthusiates

yet revolts.

“Affectionately yours,

“E. LYNN LINTON.”

I had sat between her and Beerbohm Tree at the first performance

in England of “Hedda Gabler,” which I had seen Ibsen rehearse in

Christiania shortly before in his slow pompous manner.

To understand humanity is a work of intelligence, and Mrs. Lynn

Linton had that gift in a marked degree. She was a woman of strong

individuality.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Nansen, whom she met at dinner at our house.

CHAPTER VIII

JOURNALISM

From other people’s work I must return to my own. As is Fleet Street

compared with Hyde Park, so is journalism with the authorship of more

lasting literature.

To would-be scribblers I would say journalism is a bagatelle in

comparison with the production of a book. The main axiom for a book is

_Write what you know about_. If you live with dukes, don’t write about

the slums. If you live in the slums, don’t write of dukes.

Don’t write unless you have something to say. For the papers, matter is

more important than style. Aim at telling something interesting in an

interesting way. Keep it short and crisp and to the point. Never mind

rejection. Introductions to editors are of no avail. They generally

retard. Work of merit always finds its niche, so peg away till you get

the right thing and fit it into the right corner.

A journalist requires no equipment but a quick perception of men and

matters, a desire for information, and a belief that what interests her

may interest someone else. A journalist is obliged to look ahead:

Someone is reported very ill—collect facts for an obituary notice.

A picture promises to become successful—have an account of the artist

and his work ready for press.

An actor is producing a new play—try to learn something about the play,

and any little incident of its production.

One used to write of things that had been; but since all this Yankee

journalism has come in, one has to anticipate things that _are_ to be.

Weddings are described to-day before the marriage ceremony even takes

place.

[Illustration: MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE’S WRITING TABLE]

It is a bad sign of the times, but that is modern journalism. A

journalist’s is a hard and anxious life and often ill-paid; but

here, at least, men and women can earn equal wages, and have equal

chances. Nearly all the papers except _The Times_ now have women on

their staff.

Just as an actor adopts various disguises, so it is amusing to remember

how many pseudonyms have been the different masks which have helped

me, as other journalists, to attract the attention of the public. The

public loves variety. It would never, never pay to appear always as the

same old stager.

Journalists must turn their hand to anything, at any time, and in any

way. Sometimes I wrote as a man, sometimes as an old lady, comparing

the past with the present. For instance, the “Elderly Scribe” became

“A Girl at the Drawing-room,” under which heading a long article once

appeared in a leading paper, describing my imaginary thrills as an

American _débutante_ at the first Court of King Edward VII.

I think it was in the _Pall Mall Gazette_:

“Although I am an American, a Republican and all that sort of

thing, I must own I dearly love a ceremony, adore a title, and was

prepared for wild enthusiasm at a Court function. I crossed the

Atlantic all in a quiver of excitement to know whether I should

receive a card or not, because on that would depend our tearing off

to Paris to get a Court dress.

“Oh, the joy and excitement on opening a big envelope, without a

stamp, with a purple die-mark in one corner, bearing the mysterious

words, ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Office’! There was nothing grand

whatever about the card, just a great, big, plain invitation:

“‘The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by their Majesties to invite

Miss American to a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace on Friday,

June 6, 1902, at 10 o’clock p.m.’

“‘Full dress, ladies with feathers and trains.’

“Hugging the much-prized card to my heart, I skipped about the room

practising that bow, or curtsey, or bob, or whatever they like to

call it, that I had been rehearsing for weeks in my own mind, so as

to be ready for the great event.

“We went to Paris and ordered the dress, which I dare say would

have been just as well made in England, only somehow it sounds

smarter to cross the Channel for it. The four yards of wonderful

train of glistening, sheeny, silvery stuff was made and ready, the

three white plumes, the long tulle veil and white gloves were all

on my bed waiting, and I was just wild with excitement. I wanted to

get dressed at breakfast-time, but as the Court did not begin until

10 p.m., the family decided that was rather too early, although I

really did have my head done soon after lunch, as the hairdresser

came then to perform upon it. He had so many engagements for Court

heads, he had to dress it then or not at all. He did it up in

the most wonderful manner, frizzed it and curled it, the greater

part of the coiffure being, however, low on my neck, as that, he

declared, was more becoming with the tulle veil. When he had done

he placed the three white feathers conspicuously in front, and

twisted the tulle in and out of the curls. A long strand of tulle,

which was finally to hang down my back, he folded up and pinned in

a bob on the top of my head, so that it might not inconvenience me

during the many hours that intervened before I went to Buckingham

Palace.

“They say that seven thousand people are still waiting for

invitations; if they only knew how lovely it all was they would be

more anxious even than they now are, for it was a veritable dream

of splendour, gorgeousness, and magnificence, such as my youthful

mind had never conceived possible.

“We left home early, and when we arrived at St. James’s Park about

half-past eight, a line of carriages was already before us, but

as the doors were not opened till nine we had to wait our turn.

Gradually that procession of carriages moved on; we did not draw up

in front of Buckingham Palace, which I know so well from the road,

but drove right into a courtyard at the back, a regular quadrangle,

round the four sides of which a brilliant row of gas-jets was

shining. The Royal folk wisely live in these more secluded portions

of the Palace, and their private rooms overlook the gardens, which

are lovely and contain a lake, instead of looking on to the public

part of St. James’s Park.

“There was a great wide stairway with red carpet, beyond which

was the cloakroom, and once having struggled through that, my

chaperone straightened me out and shook my train, telling me I

looked ‘just sweet,’ a very consoling remark in my flutter of

excitement. She then gave me my train back over my arm, and we were

ready. Four yards of Court train were pretty heavy, I found; for

although it was shining silver outside, it was lined with white

satin (_débutantes_’ dresses are always white), and there was an

interlining to make it stand out as I passed before the King and

Queen. Then I had a bouquet too, which seemed to grow very heavy

before the evening was over, and I envied those ladies who had come

without such floral adjuncts.

“Continuing our journey up the staircase we gave up our cards of

invitation at the top, and I passed into a room at the left—my

chaperone passing on to the big ballroom at once.

“The great State ballroom at Buckingham Palace is a magnificent

chamber; it is an immensely long saloon, probably about a hundred

and fifty feet, which looks out on the gardens. A friend we met

there said that the kitchens were underneath, and that this wing

was only added in 1850, when more space was found necessary.

“Our friend told us that all the rooms had been redecorated. They

were certainly perfectly beautiful—such lovely brocaded walls and

wonderful curtains, lots of pictures, many of which they said were

priceless; and one thing struck me as particularly strange: the

magnificent glass chandeliers and candelabra. We never have such

things in America; but they were simply gorgeous with incandescent

lights shining behind their prismatic colours. The Palace was

literally banked with flowers and the air scented with their

perfume.

“There were lots of gorgeous servants everywhere with red liveries

emblazoned with gold. Most of them wore white silk stockings

and black shoes with buckles. There were endless officials from

the Lord Chamberlain’s Office in dark blue uniforms with gold

embroidery. There were some of the most delightful old men

possible, who, they said, were Beefeaters, and had come from

the Tower of London in all their magnificence to assist at the

Court at Buckingham Palace. Numbers of men were there in black

velvet or cloth, with steel buttons, little white lace frills,

silk stockings, and a sword, probably the most becoming costume

a modern man ever wore, and there were many wonderful uniforms

with breasts ablaze with Orders and medals. These gentlemen were

specially favoured and allowed to go with their women-folk, but,

of course, they were not presented. A man is only presented to the

King at a Levée, and when at a Court and their ladies pass the

Royal Presence, the men disappear and join them in a later room.

Then there were beautiful men of the Body Guard, all gentlemen of

importance, who wore splendid uniforms and big brass helmets. There

are only forty-eight in this Royal guard, so most of them were

present, and I was sorry for them standing on show in their heavy

clothes for hours and hours. At the last Court one of them fainted

twice, they say.

“It was all so beautiful I hardly know how to describe it. At the top

of the staircase was the hall, which was lovely. Hundreds of ladies

were there before us, and nearly all of them had seats. Some of the

elderly ladies thought the seats were not comfortable, but there seemed

to be banks of long sofas with gilt legs and red cushions, which formed

a welcome resting-place and an opportunity for laying down the weight

of one’s train. That train made me feel awfully grand, ‘quite too

utterly too, too,’ in fact; but, oh dear, it was heavy.

“King Edward and Queen Alexandra arrived exactly at twenty minutes

past ten. By this time we had been in the Palace about an hour. They

entered at the top end of the big hall or concert-hall, and stood on

a red velvet carpet—not on a dais—facing the organ-loft, where the

band played at intervals. Behind them were two thrones, but they stood

for one hour and a quarter while the _débutantes_ and mothers passed,

and each bowed separately to each woman or Indian Prince who passed.

The Royal pair often talked to one another, and seemed to be enjoying

themselves. The Indian Princes over for the Coronation were wonderful.

One man in gold and cream brocade wore gorgeous jewels and a ruby as

big as a florin; another was dressed in a sort of dressing-gown with

diamond buttons of enormous size; another wore a wonderful green and

gold sash, which fastened in a big bow in front over his portly form.

They were certainly a great addition to a magnificent spectacle.

“We _débutantes_ passed through the bottom of the long hall—up the

corridor at the side, where I saw our Ambassador (the only man in

plain clothes), where our trains were let down by someone belonging

to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, before re-entering the ballroom;

he seemed to be quite accustomed to that sort of thing, and spread

them out most neatly over the highly polished floor. I was feeling

all in a flutter when an official asked me for my card, which had

somehow got mixed up with my handkerchief and my bouquet; but I

managed to extricate it for him, and he roared my name out very

loudly as I entered the Royal Presence. I felt I should like to

catch hold of His Majesty’s hand as I made my curtsey, but I pulled

myself together and just had time to realise what a nice kind face

the King had, and how pleasantly he smiled, before walking a couple

of steps further and repeating my low obeisance to that beautiful

and lovely woman Queen Alexandra.

“Oh dear, how I wished I could stop and look at her for five

minutes instead of making my oft-rehearsed curtsey and getting out

of the way in five seconds. She looked perfectly charming, and it

seemed quite impossible to believe that those were her daughters

beside her. She did not seem to be any older than I am myself; her

auburn hair she wears in a fringe almost down to her eyebrows,

and it is all very neat and tight and well arranged. On her head

she wore a little crown of diamonds, encircled by a larger tiara.

It was not a great big crown, such as the peeresses are going to

wear at the Coronation in a few days’ time, but just a dear little

shining circlet looking eminently regal. Somebody said she was not

going to wear the crown that all the Queen Consorts have worn at

former coronations, but is having one made all for herself, and

the Koh-i-noor, the famous diamond, is to be mounted in it. The

late Queen had this famous diamond cut and wore it as a brooch.

So, although it is only half its original size, it is much more

beautiful and valuable now. The Queen was dressed in white satin

with golden fleurs-de-lis embroidered all over it. Her train was of

gold, lined with Royal crimson velvet, and in the procession it was

carried by two pages.

“What masses of jewels she wore. Round her neck she seemed to have

about a dozen necklaces of pearls and diamonds; great long strings

of pearls reaching down to her waist. They all suited her, and she

has the most delightful figure and most winning smile of anyone

I ever saw—in fact, it was worth while coming all the way from

America just to look at England’s Queen.

“The presentation was all too quick, the exciting moment had come

and gone, and when I found I was out of the room, another of those

grand gentlemen caught my train on his stick and in some wonderful

manner turned it over my arm, and I sailed away, my presentation

accomplished. The arrangements were excellent; of course, there

had been some difficulty about trains or no trains, but it had

been decided that everyone was to wear a train, although only

_débutantes_ passing immediately before their Majesties were

required to let them down at this evening Court early after the

death of Queen Victoria.

“Perhaps the most beautiful part of the Court was the passing of

the Royal procession through the galleries on their way to supper.

I was not flurried then as I was on presentation, so I could just

stand and see the regal party pass without personal emotion. The

King looks every inch a King in his dark blue uniform, wearing, of

course, that blue ribbon which they call the Order of the Garter.

First of all came the King and Queen, followed by their daughters,

the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, the Mistress of the Robes, and

a host of others. They walked very slowly, and the Queen, who had

no bouquet, bowed delightfully to everyone, as she passed through

those vast rooms. Oh dear! Oh dear! It was lovely, and I am sorry

it is over, for it was more lovely than anything I could ever have

conjured up in my wildest dreams.”

Most useful proved my own experiences at such functions as

Drawing-rooms, and my favourite adage as to journalism came into play,

viz. Write of what you know.

But how, some timid minds may object, can a working-woman still afford

to go to Court? Suffice it to say that one originally handsome gown of

wealthier days served me, its wearer, several times to make my curtseys

to Royalty.

I should not have attended so often in the ordinary way, but going

so much abroad as I did, it was advisable. There one’s reception at

Court is of use, for, after all, foreigners are unable to judge one’s

social position from one’s appearance, some of the worst scamps seeming

the most ideal on the surface, therefore a pass-word, such as having

“been to Court”—which means so little in England—counts for something

across the water. I always wore a train, that once belonged to my

great-grandmother. It ought to know its way to Buckingham Palace by

now. Strangely enough, that old _chiné_ silk (it must be between one

hundred and a hundred and fifty years old) has a stripe of soft grey

between wider stripes of beautiful mellowed flowers. It is exactly

the same kind of thing that is so fashionable to-day. History repeats

itself even in silk, and those dull _chiné_ ribbons and dull _chiné_

silks are but reproductions of those worn by our great-grandmothers.

Royalty and really great folk—that is great-minded people in high

places—do not carp at the clothes of those whose work in life is harder

than showing off new and expensive dresses. Thank goodness, the days

are long dead when writers were supposed to exist on the sufferance of

publishers, to be always ragged, in debt, or to fawn on patrons and

live in Grub Street.

Still, this is forestalling the account of my laborious, weary time

before achieving anything, so it must be put down in faithful warning

that “good times” have to be worked and waited for.

I often wonder now how I lived through those first years of hardship,

paying off debts, working often ten hours a day with the constant goal

of making an income and achieving success.

Poverty or ambition are the only stepping-stones to attainment.

Perseverance did it, and bed. On and on I pegged. Wrote and re-wrote

some things several times over, while others were not even corrected.

Worked with throbbing eyes and weary brain—I’ve always been more or

less a teetotaller, but it wasn’t that which helped me—it was bed.

Never a good sleeper at any time, I crept off to bed as early as

possible, and even if I did not sleep, I rested my back, closed my

eyes, and lay in the dark. Most of my work was planned then, all my

articles were thought out in that silent obscurity. My bed was my

salvation.

Lots of people work best in the evening and the small hours of the

morning. I was never any good then, and if “copy” had to be ready, say,

by eleven at night, and I knew a “printer’s devil” would be standing in

my hall at that hour to bear it away to the machines, I always got hot

and cold, nervous and fussy; I never worked so well as directly after

breakfast.

Work! Would anyone dare to say I have not worked? Why, in one fortnight

(November, 1906) I see I had long signed articles in the _Queen_,

_Daily Chronicle_, _Observer_, _Daily Mail_, and _Tatler_. Five

important papers, besides unsigned articles in others.

“What does a signed article imply?” someone may wonder. It means

double, treble, quadruple pay—as compared with an unsigned one. It

means the writer’s name is of value, and sufficiently established to

say what he thinks and means right out, instead of sending his poisoned

darts unofficially in the disguise of anonymity. All articles and

reviews ought to be signed, I think. One takes more care, gives more

thought, attains a higher standard than for anonymous stuff. Leaders

and critiques would be of real value if one knew who had written them.

Ease has come, facility of the pen. I believe I could write an article

on almost any sort of subject with five minutes’ notice, and twenty

minutes in which to dictate it. It is so easy to write on a theme which

you never really touch on at all, but just glide along the outside

edge. Things conceived like this cannot be of permanent value, but they

are the product of an active brain and serve their purpose for the

moment. That is journalism.

It may be interesting to beginners to read here how I wrote my first

magazine article as a girl, in amateur days. This will illustrate how

wise it is to make use of one’s opportunities; how from one small

beginning a path may be opened in the wood of difficulty, at which,

except in rare instances, all but genius has to hew.

I chanced to be in Paris in 1890, with my husband and mother who knew

Pasteur, and thus I saw a good deal of the delightful, grey-bearded old

gentleman whose work made such a stir at that time and revolutionised

science. He was then about seventy. Short in stature, he was in no way

a striking figure, but his clear eyes and thoughtful face arrested

attention. I shall never forget the charm of his manner, and the

courteous tolerance he displayed towards an unscientific young woman,

who had no excuse for poking about the place save that she was the

sister of one of his students and the daughter of a scientist. At that

time Pasteur did very little personal work or research himself, but he

most carefully superintended everything that was done under his roof.

So anxious was he for others to benefit by his experience that he had

set apart fourteen tables in his large laboratory, at which were to be

found working students of all nationalities and ages, from twenty-five

to fifty—some of them men who had already won a name in science. No

charge was made to them beyond the price of the materials they used,

and every facility for scientific research was provided.

The hydrophobia cure was then the subject of commanding interest in

the scientific world. It was a curious set of people who assembled in

the large outer hall of the Institute every morning. On one occasion

when I was there the patients numbered eighty-nine, amongst whom were

a little English girl (the first to be sent over by the Lord Mayor’s

Mansion-House Fund), a French soldier, a Belgian fisherman, a German,

and many more of different nationalities.

On my return to England from that visit, with mental and scribbled

notes, I sat down to write a little article on “Pasteur and his

Institute,” which I sent addressed to the editor of _Murray’s

Magazine_, feeling quite proud of myself but absolutely certain of its

rejection. It was the first magazine article I had attempted. What was

my surprise on receiving a letter in the course of a few days, signed

“The Editor,” saying that he had been much interested in the article,

but it was far too short for a magazine, and if I could double its

length and write on one side of the paper only, he would have great

pleasure in inserting it.

I actually jumped for joy. It seemed as if the whole literary world

were opening at my feet. Of course, I copied it all out carefully on

one side of the paper as ordered, and added a little bit here and a

little bit there, counting the words one by one as they crept from

tens into hundreds. The article duly appeared. It was wonderfully well

reviewed, for it was the first thing of the kind on Pasteur that had

been written in English, and therefore was quoted at some length in our

Press.

A few years afterwards, when struggling to pay Charterhouse and Harrow

bills, I was dining out one night when a gentleman was introduced to

me. He said:

“I know you very well, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, far better than you know me.

I have printed several of your articles.”

“Indeed,” I exclaimed, surprised, “but I have never seen you before.”

“No, but you know the editor of _Murray’s Magazine_ as a correspondent.”

“Of course I do,” I laughed, “and love him very much, for he printed my

first magazine effort.”

“I am the man,” he replied; “I am W. L. Courtney, under which name I

have since accepted several articles of yours for the _Fortnightly

Review_.”

This was a pleasant means of introduction to one’s editor.

Lending or borrowing money ends friendship, and in the same way I

feel shy of offering my wares to anyone I know. Mr. Courtney and I

are excellent friends; but the work is arranged by an agent nowadays.

Friendship and work have never gone together in my case. It is so much

better to be incognito, and for them to remain unknown. Writing is a

business, and can only be worked on a strictly business footing.

On one of the few occasions I ever entered an editor’s room—certainly

in all those thirteen years of stress of work the occasions could be

counted on my fingers—the experience was not pleasant.

Up dirty, dark stairs I stumbled, and after much waiting was shown into

the gentleman’s office. I informed him I was going abroad, that I could

take photographs, and suggested a somewhat new scheme of illustrated

articles.

“What do you want for half a dozen?” he enquired.

“Five guineas a column,” was my reply.

“Five guineas a column. Tush! I’ll give you one guinea; and take six

articles.”

I had only been a widow a short time, and was in deep, dull black, with

the little uniform muslin collar and cuffs. He looked me up and down.

Perhaps he thought I wanted the money badly, and repeated “A guinea a

column, no more.”

“But I cannot take less than five. I am going abroad to get the

information, and six guineas would not pay the ticket one way.”

“Ten guineas for the six, then.”

“No,” I replied, sticking firmly to my guns; “I am sorry I cannot do

them for that. Good morning.”

He barely raised his eyes from the paper. He did not even rise, nor

open the door. I stepped out, choking with humiliation and tears, but

with my head still high.

I wrote several books in the following years and many magazine

articles, but for five long years my name never once appeared in that

gentleman’s paper. Probably the only paper in the country into which

some sort of notice of something of mine did not creep.

He paid me out; but I survived.

Another time, I was dining in Grosvenor Street. A charming young man

took me in to dinner. He asked a number of questions, spoke much of my

past work and future plans. Being surprised, I said:

“You seem to know a great deal about me.”

“I do.”

“Would you mind telling me why? Are you a detective from Scotland Yard?”

He laughed.

“No, I am only one of your editors. You constantly write for me in the

_St. James’s Gazette_. My name is Hugh Chisholm.”

The same thing happened with regard to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and Sir

Douglas Straight.

Editors seldom or never write; many of them do not even know how. There

are, of course, one or two brilliant exceptions, as W. L. Courtney of

the _Fortnightly_, Owen Seaman of _Punch_, L. J. Maxse of the _National

Review_, Austin Harrison of the _English Review_. But there is hardly

a single daily paper where the editor is a writer, except J. L. Garvin

of the _Pall Mall_, and J. S. R. Phillips of the _Yorkshire Post_.

Many editors were once “reporters,” and on an occasion of stress were

put on to edit some subject. Having done it satisfactorily they came

in useful in times of pressure, and finally became one of the many

sub-editors necessary in a news office. From that apprenticeship they

have gradually climbed to the post of editor. An editor is therefore

not a literary man as a rule, but a business manager with a sound

judgment of the public pulse and what the public wants. If he is wise

he never goes into Society or knows people, because then his hand is

free, and he can be independent. He decides the policy and the attitude

of his paper, therefore he must read all the contemporary Press, and

about eleven o’clock in the morning he is so buried in other people’s

newspapers that he has to be dug out of the pulpy débris and printer’s

ink.

It is a tremendous strain to be an editor, besides a terrible

responsibility. Poor men, I pity them. It is bad enough to be a topical

writer; to have a “printer’s devil” waiting on one’s door-mat for

articles on which the ink is hardly dry; but to have to read and pass

everything nightly at such a pace is enough to send the wretched editor

demented. He is responsible for libellous matter, so out it must go. He

must not offend his political party, so free-lance contributors must be

“edited,” and, above all, he has only so many columns to fill and ten

times the amount of stuff waiting to be inserted.

Then again, _The Times_, that great bulwark of the British

Constitution, receives from fifty to a hundred letters a day for

insertion, out of which only six or eight of the most public interest

can be printed. _The Times_ is a great asset of the country, and proud,

indeed, should be John Walter, the fifth generation. He is Chairman

of the journal founded and maintained by his family at such a high

standard for so many years. He ought to write the true history of _The

Times_, as he alone can.

But there are many and puzzling questions as to the journalism of the

present day.

Why are modern writers so destructive in their ideas? Why are they so

seldom constructive?

Why in politics is everything for pulling down, and nothing for

building up?

Is this the craze of the age? The hypercritical, hypersensitive desire

to destroy everybody and everything, and why, oh why, must we have

veiled advertisements in nearly every column of our minor newspapers?

CHAPTER IX

ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS

Once I thought the grandest thing in the world would be to write a

book. It appeared the acme of desire. To see one’s name on a cover, oh,

the joy of it! I trembled with fear and pride when that wondrous end

was attained. I almost took that first book to bed with me. I wasn’t

very old or very sedate, and so that little volume made me childish

with glee.

Well, I thought to myself, “I’ll never give away a single copy.

If anyone wants it they must get it from a library or spend

three-and-sixpence on it themselves.” I kept to my resolve, because

honestly afraid that if an utterly unknown young writer made presents

of her little venture, kind folk (!) would say she could not sell the

work, so distributed it amongst friends. A year or two afterwards, when

_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ had gone through two or three editions, and

appeared on the bookstalls at a shilling, then—but not till then—did

its author feel justified in sending presentation copies, with some

words and her name inscribed on the fly-leaf. This was not churlish,

but reasoned out. Cheap sales of goods mean deterioration; but cheap

editions of books denote the popularity of the originals. On that first

venture I received a ten per cent royalty.

And now after years of labour and experience, so many and great to me

are the hardships, the struggles, the worries, the endless detail and

annoyances of producing a book, that I always feel inclined to take off

my hat figuratively, or drop a curtsey, to every fellow-author.

Strange as it may seem, every volume of mine has caused me sleepless

nights of ever-increasing anxiety. _Hyde Park_, for instance, was

written twice over from cover to cover—a little matter of about a

hundred thousand words, re-arranged and practically rewritten.

I have generally worked myself into a perfect fever of anxiety by the

day of publication, and even when those kindly, delightful reviews

have appeared, my misery has not abated. Treated more than generously

by both critic and public, I have naught to complain of. I have made

far more money by my pen than I ever deserved—three hundred pounds

advance on a twenty-five per cent royalty, is “nae so bad,” as our

Northern friends would say. Columns of excellent reviews have appeared

in the best papers of many lands. Yet I know the anxiety of it all, the

rejection of articles, the return of “copy” from magazines, the weary,

weary waiting when weeks seem years, after one has worked at break-neck

speed; and although literature—no, I must not call anything I have

done by such a stupendous name—although writing is a feverish joy, it

is generally ill-paid, and the greater the rubbish, the more money

it brings in. It certainly has done so in everything I have written.

Serious work receives the least remuneration.

Major Martin Hume and other kind critics have told me I have “written

two books that will live.” All I can say is those books (the last two

on the list) have cost me ten times the work for less reward and much

less public acknowledgment than the others. Serious work may live, but

it seldom pays. Rubbish may pay, but it never lives.

Here is the list of thirteen books—the children of my pen—and various

editions and translations of these have been published. But the

newspaper and magazine articles number thousands, they cannot be

counted.

_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland._

_The Oberammergau Passion Play._ (Out of print.)

_A Winter Jaunt to Norway._

_Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting Box._ (Out of print.)

_Danish versus English Butter-making._

_Through Finland in Carts._

_The First College for Women._ (Out of print.)

_George Harley, or the Life of a London Physician._

_Mexico as I saw It._

_Behind the Footlights._

_Sunny Sicily._

_Porfirio Diaz, Seven Times President of Mexico._

_Hyde Park, Its History and Romance._

So many people have asked me how a writer works or plans out a day,

that a sketch of an ordinary writer’s ordinary day may be of interest.

For years I have been called with a cup of tea at seven o’clock.

Between then and getting up, thoughts have chased one another in quick

succession. As a composer composes without a piano, so a writer writes

without a pen. It is the thinking that does it. The arranging of facts

and settling the sequence of events. It is the length of a book that

wears one out, the necessity of keeping up the interest and working up

to some definite end.

Breakfast at half-past eight, and a glance at the papers. To the

kitchen as the clock struck nine, and then, every order given for the

day, the flowers arranged, and so on. Nine-thirty heralded the arrival

of my secretary, and from then till luncheon I was a hard-working

woman. After luncheon, I could afford to be a “laidy,” not before.

At one time I had three secretaries, one Spanish and two English, and

kept them all busy. On other occasions, I perforce worked ten hours a

day. But as a rule four to five hours’ steady grind accomplished all

that was necessary. One can do an immense amount in that time if one

sticks to it.

It is fairly easy to give advice on how to write for the papers:

journalism can be taught as a school task to a great extent, but with

books it is different. We all have to serve our apprenticeship for

ourselves, to learn how to balance our subject, to work out our theme,

and finally to make a readable volume. It seems to me book-making is

more a gift than anything else. Artists learn to draw, but they never

learn to paint. Colour is an inspiration. Drawing requires work. The

same applies to a book. We can all learn the mechanical part; but I

don’t honestly think that anyone can write a book that people will

read, unless they have some special gift that way. Books must be

individual.

All this perhaps sounds pedantic, but the dozens and dozens of young

men and women, who have written to me asking for advice, show how many,

from milk-maids to hotel-lift boys, are interested in the subject.

People, who can neither write nor spell, have strange ideas that God

has sent them special literary powers, and hope to sit on the top of

the ladder of fame without putting a foot on the bottom rung. ’Tis a

laborious ladder to climb in all the arts; but it has its rewards.

Public praise counts for little, the real pleasure is the knowledge

within ourselves that we have given of our best. It does not satisfy;

but it pleases.

To produce a book or a picture is a stupendous effort. It claims all

the power of thought and of concentration that is in us. It demands

enthusiasm, determination, the conquest of idleness and self. We may

not produce a great book or a great picture, but it is our supremest

effort at that time, and when done, we feel like a squeezed lemon.

“Writers are so dull,” is a frequent remark. So they may well be—at

times. So are artists, or musicians, or any creative workers. Their

life’s blood is given to their work.

Another saddening result of giving one’s self wholly (as a worker

should) to a task until success crowns one’s efforts is that it often

arouses the envy of onlookers, and mostly of those who would not take

the least trouble to compete.

Yes: it is fairly certain that the more one achieves in any walk of

life, the more jealousy one encounters. A pretty woman is called

hideous by some; a woman with charm—that indefinable attraction we all

love—is dubbed a minx. Brilliant wit calls forth much condemnation.

Success of work and brain is belittled by the envious. So while nothing

succeeds like success, no one makes more enemies than the one who wins.

Every little victory brings a new enemy. When one hears the “catty”

things people say, one can but wonder what catty things are said about

one’s self. People say malicious things, suggest improprieties without

foundation, assert motives that have never been born. In fact, Society

is often cruel and hard. It eats and drinks too much, gets overwrought

and tired, and says nasty things it does not mean.

The life of many an ordinary Society man or woman is despicable. They

are the people who are “too busy” to do anything useful, whose lives

are no good to anyone, and therefore boring to themselves.

Better work and be busy with something tangible, than idle life away in

social dissipation. Yet how good and kind and generous most people are,

and how hard many of them work for the good of others!

The vicissitudes of writers are many. I once suffered the loss in the

post of an entire chapter of a manuscript. That missing link never

turned up, and as I stupidly had kept no copy, while the rough notes

thereof were of the roughest order, it was considerably difficult to

rewrite the passages; indeed, impossible to remember the exact details

of what the missing fragment formerly contained. Oh, the exasperation

of it!—it was a thankless, dreary task.

How on earth Carlyle ever wrote his _French Revolution_ over again is

a marvel which fills me with admiration, whenever anything brings back

the memory of all that labour which the second edition of that silly

little chapter of an ordinary book cost me.

Work, too, is often wasted. Full of enthusiasm, after a peep at the

gorgeous Eastern life on my return from Morocco in the ’nineties, I

started a novel, which was nearly completed when the agent discovered

there was already a somewhat similar book on the market. The appended

letters speak for themselves and show the generosity of a man like

Grant Allen in replying to a young and almost unknown author:

“DEAR MR. GRANT ALLEN,

“I am much distressed! I was in Morocco this spring, and took

copious notes, which I have since been busily writing up into a

story, now nearing completion.

“Telling the plot to my host the other night, he exclaimed, ‘That

is very like Grant Allen’s _Tents of Shem_.’ He found the book, and

I have just read it, and put it down feeling very sad.

“You make English characters play the drama in Algiers, I do the

same in Tangier.

“You have a naturalist, F.R.S.; I have a Science Professor from

Cambridge.

“A Moorish girl falls in love with an Englishman.

“A Moorish man falls in love with my heroine.

“Indeed, the similarity of idea is in many ways extraordinary. I

don’t see what to do unless I rewrite the whole thing, the work of

some months, and even then, your story is splendid and your name

famous; mine is simple and my name more or less obscure.

“It is altogether very disquieting.

“Being an author yourself, I felt I must tell you of my woes.”

“MY DEAR MADAM,

“I really don’t think you need trouble yourself excessively. Pretty

much the same thing has happened to most of us—myself included.

Besides, the number of people who have read _The Tents of Shem_ is

not so very great; nor did the book make stir enough to be well

remembered by reviewers. My advice to you would be, go on and

publish, and you will probably find nobody else is struck by the

undesigned coincidence. Nor does it seem to me, from what you say,

to be particularly close. If you will kindly send me a copy of

your book when it appears, I will try to prevent any suggestions

by reviewing it myself (if editors will permit me) over my own

signature. If _I_ am not struck by the supposed resemblance, nobody

else need be. One little hint: don’t say anything about it to the

publisher to whom you offer the book; never anticipate possible

objections; ten to one, if _you_ don’t, nobody else will raise them.

“Yours very faithful,

“GRANT ALLEN.

“Writers’ cramp, not discourtesy, compels typewriting. My right

hand is useless, and even this machine I work with my left only.”

Still, that book was never finished. I had lost heart.

The same thing happened again in regard to a play in 1907. Everyone

seemed to be making vast sums by writing plays and naturally an

energetic woman wished to have a shot, too. I sketched out a most

elaborate plot, laid partly in England and partly in America, and was

brimming over with enthusiasm about it. Then I went gaily to the first

night of Sutro’s play, _John Glayde’s Honour_, at the St. James’s

Theatre, and lo and behold, the whole of my story unfolded itself on

the stage.

Sutro’s play ran for about a year. Mine was never completed.

After one has passed the critical age of twenty—I say critical, as

many a man and woman have made or marred their future by that time—the

love of books, the real honest pleasure of reading, the insatiable

craving for knowledge takes fast hold of us, and we begin to realise,

as we study even one single subject, what a vast field lies open before

us. Unfortunately, the enormous number of cheap newspapers that have

appeared on every side within the last few years have done much to

interfere with more profound reading; but it is quite unnecessary for

this to be the case, for there ought to be time for both. Newspapers

are excellent amusement, and sometimes afford much information in odd

moments, such as on journeys by train, or long rides in omnibuses, and

at other periods of the day’s existence. But there are the evenings,

and unless people are professionally engaged during that time, there

is no greater pleasure or amusement than in the perusal of some sound

book. Literature is so cheap nowadays, that it is within the scope of

everyone.

Besides, what a great field is Literature! A vast mass of education can

be gleaned from the pleasantest reading. It is a poor book, indeed,

from which we can obtain neither amusement nor instruction.

It is strange how even a humble writer like myself gets quoted; more

often than not, without payment or acknowledgment. A certain well-known

author wrote a book which was literally a réchauffé of one of mine;

but beyond my name appearing in the preface as “one of the works

consulted,” no further acknowledgment was made. Whole articles have

appeared with new headlines. Pages and pages have been embodied in

other people’s work without any acknowledgment whatever.

I remember two instances, however, where I was most graciously asked

for the right of reproduction. I say “graciously” advisedly, because

I should never have seen the publications, and never have known the

articles were used.

One was a letter from the head teacher of the great Military College

near Berlin, Lichtenfelde, who asked if an article on Mexico might be

used in the new _English Reading-book_, then in preparation for the

students.

The other was a request for permission to transcribe an article on the

_Silent Sisterhood_ at Biarritz into Braille for the blind. That again

was a thing I should never have been likely to come across.

Speaking of translations reminds me of the lack of emancipation of

Germany as recently as Christmas, 1906. _Porfirio Diaz_ had just been

translated. It was being well advertised and well reviewed, all the

result, probably, of a long article that had appeared a few months

before in the _Preussische Jahrbücher_, the leading political magazine

of the Fatherland, which had suggested that the book was of such value

they hoped to see a German translation.

Having many friends in Germany, I thought I would go over for a month,

let my boys join me for Christmas at Bonn, where we would visit Dr. von

Rottenburg (mentioned in an earlier chapter), and afterwards snow-shoe

and skate in the Thüringian Mountains.

On my dressing-table when I arrived in Berlin was a copy of _Diaz_,

with the publisher’s compliments. It was charmingly and most

artistically got up, and what cost a guinea here was only twelve

shillings there.

But I at once noticed the name attached was _Alec Tweedie_. There was

no “Mrs.” nor “Frau.” I peeped inside. Again the man’s name, without

the feminine prefix.

Next morning my esteemed publisher, who represented one of the most

important houses in Germany, called to make my acquaintance.

I congratulated him on the get-up of the book, and the excellent

translation. “But why,” I said, “did you put ‘Alec Tweedie’ on the

volume without a prefix?”

He hummed and hawed.

“That is a man’s name,” I continued, “my husband’s name, and I am a

woman.”

“That is true, Gnädige Frau, we preferred to put a man’s name on the

cover. You see a big historical, biographical work like that with a

woman’s name upon it would be seriously handicapped in Germany. Fifty

years ago, aye, twenty years ago in England, you women were hiding

your identity under the manly names of George Eliot, George Trafford,

George anything. Well, we are still in that condition in Germany, not

as regards novels, but as regards more serious work.”

True, O publisher, and yet with all this female emancipation, with all

the _Reform Kleider_ which stand for advancement in Germany, it really

was amusing.

Five years later the girls of the Fatherland were reading risky books

and taken to see risky plays, such was the rapidity with which the

pendulum of ultra-propriety swung the other way.

CHAPTER X

THE END OF A CENTURY

The close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth

was the subject of much notice both in drawing-room talks and articles

in the papers. The latter recapitulated all that the march of science

and civilisation had effected. Private persons spoke gaily or piously

anent “turning over a new leaf.”

For me? Well, it was much the same as with the rest of nature. My life

went on through 1900 with only this difference, that it had grown—grown

certainly in the past years of striving to put forth one’s self.

Personally the end of the old century marked a new departure, and was

the starting-point of much interesting public work—work, by the way,

that only a few short years before might not have seemed so enticing to

the then young Society woman as it was now to the thoroughly interested

worker.

In 1899 the International Council of Women, under that brilliant worker

the Countess of Aberdeen, had met in London. It was a tremendous

undertaking, and I served on several of the committees. The one,

however, which took most of my time and thought was the Agricultural

Section, for which I was the Convener, and finally took the chair.

It seems a funny thing for a writer to have taken the chair at the

proceedings of an Agricultural Section, but this was the outcome of the

pamphlet on butter-making, and the endless articles I had then written

about women taking up dairy-work in this country.

The Agricultural Section was a novelty, and, I am glad to say, proved

a success. I never felt more nervous in my life, although supported

on the platform by many able people, among them the Earl of Aberdeen.

Viscount Templetown sat next to me, and primed me in what to say, rang

bells when the allotted space of time had been filled by some speaker,

and generally acted as call-boy and prompter combined. And Professor

James Robertson, Agricultural Commissioner of Canada, travelled to this

country purposely to speak for me. I felt terribly impressed by the

solemnity of the entertainment, the whole section being a new departure.

I continually received little notes from the audience asking questions

or offering to speak. One of them ran, “Please pass me down that

beautiful hat.” Utterly amazed at such a thing, I read and re-read the

sentence. I seemed to know the writing. I looked again, and found a

little “Hy. F.”

“Good heavens!” I thought. “Harry Furniss is here making caricatures of

the proceedings.”

Truly enough, the picture appeared in a paper the following week.

One thing leads to another. At the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a Woman’s

Section was inaugurated, and a few people were invited by the Minister

of Commerce of the French Republic from England to go over and speak on

different subjects. Accordingly to Paris I went, and for twelve minutes

inflicted upon those poor, dear French people a speech which I read

in French, entitled “L’Agriculture et les femmes en Grande Bretagne.”

Since those days cultured women have energetically taken up dairying,

chicken-rearing, and egg-collecting, to say nothing of many branches of

horticulture in which they have proved themselves eminently successful.

But while these international courtesies and gatherings were in process

the tragedies of war were being enacted in South Africa, and deep

anxiety and sorrow prevailed throughout the British Empire.

Only a few weeks after the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith Queen

Victoria came to London for a couple of days. She had a splendid

reception as she drove through the chief streets, a marvellous

demonstration of unorganised loyalty. After our sad reverses early in

the Transvaal War England went wild at the favourable turn of events,

and London continued its jubilation during Her Majesty’s stay.

The Queen visited the City—it was on March 8th, 1900—and, in

accordance with the ancient custom, the Lord Mayor awaited Her

Majesty’s arrival at the City boundaries. On this occasion the

Embankment was the route taken by the Royal procession, and the Lord

Mayor—Sir Alfred Newton—stood in the road by the Temple Gardens and

presented the Queen with the City sword in its pearl scabbard, offering

a welcome “on behalf of your ancient and most loyal City.” It was an

impressive scene. The great City dignitary is privileged to wear an

earl’s robe when receiving a crowned head, and he was surrounded by his

Sheriffs, the City Marshal, the Sword-bearer, and the members of the

Common Council.

After taking the sword—which was presented to the Corporation by

Queen Elizabeth—in both hands, Queen Victoria returned it to the Lord

Mayor “for safe keeping,” adding in her beautiful voice and faultless

diction, “My Lord Mayor, I wish to thank you for all the City has

done.” This, of course, alluded to the formation of the City Imperial

Volunteer Corps, which had started some weeks before for South Africa.

The next day, March 9th, 1900, a luncheon party was given at the

Mansion House by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress to the members of the

Executive Committee of the International Associations of the Press.

Among others I received an invitation.

When an alderman is elected Lord Mayor, he and his family take up their

residence at the Mansion House for a year. There is a charming suite of

apartments at the top of the house for their reception, and all they

have to take with them is their private house-linen; everything else is

found. The servants are supplied, but as the Lord Mayor _pro tem._ pays

their wages, he can dismiss them at his pleasure. This rarely occurs,

however, especially among the upper servants, who positively nurse the

Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress and steer them clear of shoals during

their year of office.

Arrived at the state door of the Mansion House, where magnificent

servants in blue velvet and gold trappings, white silk, and powdered

heads, took our cloaks, the guests ascended the red-carpeted staircase

to the chief corridor. Here, at the far end, between two splendid

thrones, stood the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The former wore a

black Court dress, with his chain of office, and a wonderful locket of

diamonds and enamel. On my name being announced, he most graciously

shook hands, and remarked, “I believe I am to have the pleasure of

sitting next you.” Evidently a Lord Mayor is not devoid of tact,

judging by this small incident.

The City Marshal, resplendent in scarlet uniform, the Mace-bearer

in black robes with sable cap, many well-known City dignitaries,

and various officials stood around; among others being Mr. Sheriff

(afterwards Alderman Sir) William Treloar, who was later a most popular

Lord Mayor himself.

Some hundred and fifty people had been received when luncheon was

announced. The Lord Mayor offered his arm to Mademoiselle Humbert,

the daughter of one of the French Deputies and editor of _L’Éclair_,

and the late Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, one of the originators of evening

papers, was allotted to me. We formed into a procession and marched to

the big banqueting hall. A long table was arrayed down the room. At the

side centre sat the Lord Mayor, in a veritable throne of red velvet and

gilding. It was a magnificent setting, for behind him, along a large

part of the room, a sort of red-baize-covered sideboard was erected,

which literally groaned under gold plate. Tankards, cups, swords, and

bowls in number were here displayed, the collection of hundreds of

years of City wealth.

We began with the renowned turtle soup, and I ventured to ask the Lord

Mayor if that were part of the City religion, at which he laughed.

“Almost,” he said. “But I think to-day it has been given for luncheon,

a somewhat unusual affair, in honour of our foreign friends.” He

was both affable and charming. During the meal a perfect budget of

papers was brought in for his signature. He did not even look at their

contents—there were too many of them—but merely signed. Thereupon I

remarked:

“You may be signing away your birthright.”

“Oh,” he replied, “the Mansion House is a network of officialism, and

all these papers have gone through the proper office, been enquired

into, and passed; I have, therefore, nothing to do with them but sign

my name.” Gorgeous flunkeys placed the papers before him and gorgeous

flunkeys bore them away.

The luncheon was not particularly good, except the turtle soup,

though it was well served. All the plates and silver bore the City

arms. Beautiful yellow tulips stood in golden vases down the table.

Certainly the foreign visitors ought to have been impressed by the

solid magnificence of a City banquet. The Lord Mayor made a happy,

though evidently unprepared speech, and regretted that he was not

master of each of the sixteen languages represented by the different

nationalities sitting round the table, but he did give a few phrases in

French and German, much to the delight of the foreigners.

“What is the most difficult part of being Lord Mayor?” I asked.

“The dinners,” was his surprising reply. “It is a case of dining out

practically every night, and as the Lord Mayor goes everywhere in his

official capacity, he is always expected to say something. How is it

possible to say anything with any sense in it six times a week?”

He seemed delighted with the Queen’s visit and showed the sword which

had been used for the ceremony. The next day the announcement appeared

in the papers that Her Majesty, in recognition of her City reception,

had been pleased to confer a baronetcy upon him, and knighthood upon

the Sheriffs.

I had a long talk after the luncheon with Sir William Agnew, who

said, “I have now collected all my pictures for the Paris Exhibition,

and flatter myself they are the finest collection of representative

English art that has ever been brought together, considering the

number—Gainsborough, Raeburn, Romney, Constable, Turner, Watts,

Burne-Jones are among them, and several are insured for from £10,000

to £15,000 apiece. But I have never before found such difficulty in

obtaining the loan of pictures. In several cases I received an answer

in the affirmative until I mentioned Paris. ‘Oh no, my dear fellow! I

am not going to let my picture go _there_,’ has been the reply.

“There is no doubt about it,” he continued, “that the attitude of

the French Press lately towards the Queen, and their comments on the

Transvaal War, have caused a very bitter feeling in this country, and

in several instances I have had to make it a personal favour to myself

to get the pictures at all. Indeed, the fear has been so great that the

exhibition might be burnt down, or the canvases cut and destroyed, that

I almost gave up all idea of a representative English collection in

despair; and, although I have insured the pictures for a large sum from

their owner’s door till their ultimate return, I shall not be happy

in my mind until the exhibition is over and they are back again. The

present mistrust of the French people is extraordinary, and the sort

of feeling current that we may go to war with France has made it very

difficult.”

A few years later the influence of King Edward did much to create a

better understanding with France.

The Lord Mayor’s documents coming in for signature reminded me of a

millionaire, who has much to do with the issue of shares and can sign

his name fourteen or fifteen hundred times in an hour.

“I often do that,” he said; “in fact, two or three times in a year. But

the greatest number of times I ever signed my name in a week was once

in Paris when we were bringing out a new company; then I signed my name

thirty-three thousand times in one week.”

“How on earth do you manage it?” I exclaimed. “Does a secretary pass

the papers before you and blot them as you sign?”

“I have no secretary and no one blots them,” he replied. “A book,

containing from one to three hundred documents, is put before me, and

I lift each one with my left hand while I sign with my right. I don’t

stop to blot them, they blot themselves—or smudge,” he laughed; “and as

each book is completed I throw it on the floor and take up another from

the table beside me. Every hour or so one of the clerks comes in, and

wheels the signed books away on a trolley and places another bundle on

the table. I sometimes sign my name for three hours straight off, which

means four thousand to four thousand five hundred signatures without

rising from my seat.”

“I am going to assist at a bazaar,” I exclaimed, “and I really think

it would be a splendid idea to put you in a little room dressed up in

gorgeous Eastern attire, charge sixpence for admission, and write in

large letters on the outside: “‘The man who can sign his name fifteen

hundred times in an hour!’ We should make quite a lot of money.”

He laughed. Writer’s cramp never troubled him.

When the day came that I really was overpowered with work, that my

table was strewn with commissions, that I had secretaries hard at it,

sorting, arranging, looking out photographs or figures; as I dictated

between whiles and they typed, a horrible pain, like hot sand, came

in my eyes. At first intermittently, then more frequently, till at

last a hideous dread of blindness—like my father’s—seized hold of me.

Off to Sir Anderson Critchett I went. “Overwork, overstrain; you must

give up your work for a time.” “I can’t,” I replied. “Then you must be

responsible for the consequences.” Lotions, blisters behind the ears,

brought improvement, but still that hot, burning sand was there.

To Sir John Tweedy I then repaired. “Inflammation of the eyes from

overwork; you must rest the eyes. Never work at night, and always wear

a black shade when possible.”

So I gained nothing fresh from him. Both gave me exactly the same

advice and warned me of danger.

I wore that hideous shade for a year, tore it off the moment a stranger

appeared—never went out at night. The glaring lights of the theatre had

become positive torture; but, in spite of all, I managed somehow to

keep up my work and write another book.

Gradually, by resting my eyes whenever possible, never reading unless

obliged, and sitting much in the dark, my eyes became better and remain

better.

And thus the last days of the great Century of Progress sped into

the realm of past ages. But when the newcomer crossed the threshold

of Time, with all the new century’s opportunities and hopes, I was

far away under the Southern Cross amid the brilliant colouring and

luxuriant vegetation of the tropics.

[Illustration: THE WRITER—IN DIVIDED RIDING SKIRT, SOUTHERN MEXICO,

1900-1]

CHAPTER XI

MEXICO AS I SAW IT

One day in July, 1900, I was explaining to my small boys that I was

going off through Canada and America to Mexico to write a new book, to

make some more money for bread and butter and school bills.

One of them appeared distressed at the idea. At last, after a pause, he

said:

“Why don’t you go and sit in that shop in Regent Street with your hair

hanging down, like those three girls do?”

I looked surprised.

“It would not be so tiring as travelling all that long way and writing

another big book,” he explained, “and you would make just as much

money, I am sure.”

Lovely idea!

But I dared not accept his suggestion, kindly meant though it was.

A letter I wrote to a woman friend in 1900 has just come into my hands.

It says:

“Your congratulations on my ‘success,’ as you are pleased to call

it, are very sweet. Public success seems to me to mean so little.

After a good dinner the playgoeer enjoys any foolery—and much the

same with books. A good temper makes a satisfied reader, and an

easy chair and shady lamp do the rest. I am not satisfied. Far from

it. Sheaves of reviews—and all good ones, strange to relate—lie

before me; but they mean nothing. I know inside my little _me_ that

I ought to have done better.

“Perhaps I should have been wise never to have commenced the

struggle. To have retired from London to a suburb or a cottage and

lived quietly on my small income. You will say I have a fit of the

blues—and doubtless I have—or liver, or something equally stupid;

but I’ve been pretty hard at it for four years now—three

books have been conceived and born and a fourth nearly done, and

I am still alive; but I’m tired. Shall I go to Mexico and write

another while I am young enough to rough it and stand the racket,

or shall I throw down the pen and cry vanquished? Work is a tough

job to a woman never brought up to the idea of working, and perhaps

I’m trying to carry more on my silly shoulders than those silly

sloping shoulders can bear. The table is covered with orders of all

sorts and kinds—work lies before me if only I had the pluck to do

it. The more ’success’ I gather, as you call it, the more incapable

I feel.

“Two strings are tugging at me, one says _go on_, the other says

_stop_. The first may end in failure. The second begins in failure.

Mexico—and quite alone—mind you, is a long way, and a big job. To-night

I seem to funk it; but, then, to-night I seem to funk everything, and

even your letter of love and sympathy, dear friend, has not quite

dragged me back to my senses. I’m very lonely at times, and that’s the

truth. After that remark you will think I’m going to marry again; but

there you are wrong. You lost your hundred pounds bet that I would

re-marry in a year—so don’t be foolish and risk any more on this silly,

wayward, lonely, spoilt pen-woman.

“Yours, etc.”

N.B.—I went to Mexico shortly after—alone, quite alone, on a

twenty-five-thousand-mile journey.

Why did I choose Mexico to visit and write about? Because with all the

world before me that land seemed to offer a more historic past than

almost any other country on God’s earth; and was there not a spice of

danger and romance lurking amongst its hills and valleys?

I left London in July, and, after halting in Canada and the United

States, landed in Mexico on November 1st, 1900, and returned to England

in April, 1901. Between those dates I had travelled some twenty-five

thousand miles, had spent thirty-nine nights in moving trains, and many

more in private Pullman-cars in railway sidings. I had lived a life of

luxury and ease and had roughed it to nigh unendurable straits. Besides

which I was constantly sending home articles to the English Press.

It was a several months’ journey from Liverpool to Quebec, through

Canada to Niagara, then to New York, Chicago, Washington, and

Philadelphia; and onward, onward to Mexico. Before leaving America,

however, I turned aside when I found myself only fifty miles from

Galveston, which, about ten weeks previously, had been visited by its

historic and terrible storm. Heart-rending were the sights that met

my eyes and the tales that were poured into my ears. Eight thousand

people had perished in that terrible hurricane, their bodies were

even then being cremated on the shore. Rows of small houses literally

stood on their heads, while on the beach pianos, tramcars, saucepans,

sewing-machines, baths, and perambulators lay in wild confusion.

Resuming my journey I soon passed the Mexican frontier, and there

had my first experience in ranch life; there, too, a “norther,” or

dust-storm, made me long for the comparative comfort of a London fog.

Eyes, nose, mouth, ears, were all choked with hard, sharp, cutting

sandy dust. My raven locks were grey and no longer suitable for

exhibition in the shop in Regent Street. Next came another long railway

journey to Mexico City, with the President of the line in his private

train, with various entertainments on the way, including a bull-fight

and a cock-fight, and much interested amusement at the customs of

the people. Mexico City was reached just in time for me to see the

celebrations of the Feast Day of the Lady of Guadaloupe, the patron

saint of Mexico. It was a wonderful sight, and the story reminded me of

Lourdes, though it is of much earlier origin and the pilgrimage of far

greater magnitude.

The welcome tendered to me in the capital was delightful.

The Christmas customs were, of course, of great interest; Madame Diaz,

the wife of that great President, invited me to her _posada_. A most

enjoyable and novel evening. One of my most valued treasures is the

little bonbonnière she gave me on that occasion.

Many varied experiences followed; rides lasting two or three weeks

through that marvellous country to see old Aztec ruins; life at

tobacco, sugar, tea, or coffee _haciendas_; to say nothing of the

national customs, traditions, and superstitions on every side. The

President gave me a guard of forty _rurales_ (soldiers), and, as

the opportunity of penetrating remote parts was great, twenty-two

gentlemen of all nationalities, from Cabinet Ministers to clerks,

joined us. We were sixty-three all told, and, though I rode astride

like a man, I was the only woman.

Perhaps the most thrilling and exciting moment on my various travels

was that spent on a trolley-car in Southern Mexico. Along those distant

tracks barely two or three trains pass in a day, and hundreds, aye,

thousands, of miles of railway have to be kept in repair. It is usual

for the engineers to run along the line in a little open wagon, known

as a trolley-car, which is worked by hand by four or six men, and

covers the ground at a good pace. It can stop at any moment, and be

lifted bodily off the line should a train require to pass.

Naturally, one sees the scenery magnificently from a car of this

kind, for there is nothing before one. I was sitting in front with an

engineer on each side of me. We had just come through one of the most

magnificent passes in the world of engineering, and had, indeed, at

that moment crossed a bridge, a slender, fragile thing. Some two or

three hundred feet below it the water gurgled in a rushing stream.

Parrots shrieked overhead, terrapins floated on the water, and monkeys

swung from tree to tree. There was a precipice on one side, a high,

rocky hill on the other, and just room for this mountainous line to

crawl round the rocks.

We were all telling stories and chatting cheerfully: the next thing

I knew was that the man on my right seized me by the neck, as if he

suddenly wished to strangle me, and somehow he and I fell together a

tangled mass down the side of the precipice.

When I looked up—luckily caught in the shrubs—an enormous engine was

towering over my head, the grid-like rails of the cow-catcher looking

ominous and weird above me. The splintered platform of the trolley-car

was rushing down the mountain-side, and our iron wheels were running

off in different directions. It was a marvel we were not all killed.

It had happened in this wise.

As we turned a sharp corner an engine suddenly bore down on us—one

of those great black, high American locomotives, neither varnished

nor painted. The engineers, accustomed to the ominous sound, luckily

heard it before it was quite upon us. Hence, I was violently dragged

from what, in another second, would have been instantaneous death. The

natives all jumped off in some wonderful manner, also being accustomed

to the sound; but our trolley-car was smashed to smithereens.

It was a ghastly experience. By the time I regained my equilibrium,

and saw the horrible accident to our frail little carriage and learnt

the awful danger we had just come through, I realised that I had just

experienced one of the most perilous moments of my life.

I should have sat there oblivious and literally courted death. We never

know life’s real dangers till they are past, hence the courage of the

battlefield or shipwreck. We only worry over what we but partially

understand, hence the anxiety so often experienced before sitting in

the dentist’s chair. Anticipation is so much sharper than realisation.

This was not my only narrow escape, for I was blessed with the

proverbial three.

While visiting at the _hacienda_ of the Governor of one of the Southern

States we, one day after lunch, amused ourselves by shooting at bottles

with the rifles of the _rurales_. After a time my hostess and I had

wandered away for a stroll, and, as we returned, a ricochet bullet

slid off a bottle and buried itself in my womanly “Adam’s apple.” A

red streak ran down my collar, I opened my mouth and literally gasped,

choking; everybody thought I was dead. But it proved nothing, and in a

few minutes I could breathe and speak again and was washed clean.

My third escape was a terrible illness, contracted when riding in the

tropics, and caused either by venomous bites or poisonous ivy. Never

shall I forget the awful loneliness of those days and nights fighting

with death in a Mexican hotel.

Of all the marvellous sights, the magnificent scenery, the

many-coloured birds and flowers rivalling each other in gorgeousness,

I need not write here. But, far beyond everything, the scene that left

the deepest impression on my mind was in Southern Mexico. It was a

visit to the Caves of Cacahuimilpa, one of the greatest wonders of the

world, and the Governor of the State organised an expedition for me to

see them. Numberless Indians from far and wide had joined my party,

glad of the opportunity of going inside the wondrous caves which they

hold in such superstitious dread. Candles were distributed to the

company, which by now must have been swelled to something like a couple

of hundred people. All was ready.

The descent was easy, for a roadway had been made; but it was really

very impressive to see so many individuals solemnly marching two and

two into impenetrable blackness to the strain of martial music. Each

person carried a long lighted candle, but before we returned to our

starting-point, six and a half hours later, these candles had nearly

burnt out.

The caves were originally formed by a river, the waterline of which

is distinctly visible, while in places the ground is marked with wave

ripples like the sand of a beach. Then, again, many stones are round

and polished, the result of constant rolling by water; and, still more

wonderful, two rivers flow beneath them, probably through caves just as

marvellous, which no man had then dared penetrate.

I believe we went through seven caverns, and our numerous lights barely

made a flicker in the intense gloom—they were nothing in that vast

space. Rockets were sent up. Rockets which were known to ascend two

hundred and fifty feet, but which nowhere reached the roof; the height

is probably somewhere between five and six hundred feet. Think of a

stone roof at that altitude without any supports.

The size alone appalled, but the stalactites and stalagmites almost

petrified one with amazement. Many of them have joined, making rude

pillars a couple of hundred feet high and perhaps a hundred feet in

diameter at the base. Others have formed grotesque shapes. A seal

upon the ground is positively life-like: a couple of monster Indian

idols: faces and forms innumerable; here an old woman bent nearly

double, there a man with a basket on his head, thrones fit for kings,

organs with every pipe visible, which, when tapped, send forth deep

tones. It was all so great, so wonderful, so marvellous; I felt all

the time as if I were in some strange cathedral, greater, grander, and

more impressive than any I had ever entered. Its aspect of power and

strength paralysed me, not with fear, but with admiration.

At times it was terribly stiff climbing and several of the party had

nasty falls in the uncertain light; at others it was a case of sitting

down and sliding, in order to get from one boulder to another; but it

was worth it all to see such a sight, to realise the Power that made

those caves, to bow before the Almighty Hand which had accomplished

such work, even in millions of years. There hung those great stone

roofs without support of any kind—what architect could have performed

such a miracle? There stood those majestic pillars embedded in rocks

above and below; there hung yards and yards of stalactites weighing

tons, and yet no stay or girder kept them in place. It was a lesson,

a chapter in religion, something solemn and soul-stirring, something

never to be forgotten; one of the Creator’s great mysteries, where

every few yards presented some fresh revelation.

My knees were trembling, every rag of clothing I wore was as wet as

when first taken from the washerwoman’s tub, yet I struggled on,

fascinated, bewildered, awed, by the sights which met me at every step.

Think of it. Stumbling along for four and a half hours, even then not

reaching the end, and, though we returned by the easiest and quickest

way, it was two hours more before we found the exit.

In one of the caves the Governor proposed my health, and the party

gave three cheers, which resounded again and again in that wonderful

subterranean chamber, deep down in the bowels of the earth, with a

mountain above and a couple of rivers below. The military band of

Cacahuimilpa accompanied us, and the effect produced by their music was

stupendous. No words can give any idea of the volume of sound, because

the largest band in the world could not succeed in producing the same

effect of resonance in the open air which ten performers caused in

those vast silent chambers.

It is impossible to describe the immense grandeur of Cacahuimilpa.

Man is speechless in such majestic surroundings; but in this

all-pervading silence surely the voice of God speaks.

Hot, tired, and overpowered we were plodding homewards, when a letter

was handed to a member of the party by a mounted soldier, who, seeing

our lights approaching the entrance, had dared to venture into the

grottos to deliver his missive. We were all surprised at the man’s

arrival, and more surprised to find he carried an envelope. It turned

out to be a telegram which had followed our party from a village

forty miles distant, and had been sent on by special horseman with

instructions to overtake us at all speed. Was ever telegram delivered

amid stranger surroundings, to a more cosmopolitan collection of

humanity assembled in the bowels of the earth, far, far away from

civilisation?

What news that telegram contained! It had travelled seven thousand

miles across land and sea; it had arrived at a moment when we were all

overawed by stupendous grandeur and thoroughly worn out with fatigue.

At the first glance it seemed impossible to read. Men, accustomed to

the vagaries of foreign telegraph clerks when dealing with the English

language, found, however, no difficulty in deciphering its meaning.

Then the Governor spoke a word. Every Indian doffed his hat and bent

his eyes, as Colonel Alarcon walked solemnly towards me, and in deep

tone, with evident feeling, explained that the President of Mexico had

sent on the news to tell the English señora—

“QUEEN VICTORIA IS DEAD.”

A historic telegram, truly, announcing a national calamity, and

received amidst the wildest possible surroundings in the strangest

possible way.

The Queen was dead. The English-speaking people had lost her who had

been their figure-head for sixty-three years. The monarch, to whom the

whole world paid homage as a woman and respect as a Queen, had died at

Osborne on the previous day, while we, wandering over Aztec ruins at

Xochicalco, had not even heard of her illness.

Impressed as we were by the mystic grandeur of the caves, amazed at the

wonders of nature, this solemn news seemed to fit the serious thoughts

of the day, thoughts which had grown in intensity with each succeeding

hour. Cacahuimilpa appeared a fitting spot in which to hear of a great

public loss. Time and place for once were in no wise “out of tune.”

It was dark and the way steep as we rode back to the village in

silence.

Like the proverbial bad penny, I rolled home again with my pocket

full of notes on men, women, and things. I had collected my material,

written bits in railway trains, on steamboats, and almost in the

saddle, and as soon as I felt well enough, put together _Mexico as I

saw It_.

The beginning of the manuscript was sent off to the publishers in

the June following, just two months after landing at home, and the

remainder was printed, chapter by chapter, as I managed to finish each:

a most terrible and anxious manner of proceeding and one certainly not

to be recommended. The first proof of _Mexico as I saw It_ was returned

on July 10th; the slips, or galleys, finished on August 10th; the

whole was paged and passed for press on September 10th. It appeared in

October at a guinea net, the illustrations mostly from my own camera.

So I was just six months in Mexico, and just six more getting out the

book; in my own souvenir copy there is written on the fly-leaf: “It is

done, but it has nearly done for me.”

Reviews were more than kind, but then the subject was new, so people

found it interesting. As Frederic Harrison wrote in the _Positivist

Review_: “The marvellous restoration of Mexico, from being a hot-bed

of anarchy and the victim of superstition to its present condition of

one of the best governed and most enlightened of modern countries, has

often attracted the attention of political observers. In Mrs. Alec

Tweedie’s most interesting volume we find suggestive sketches of the

institution of the Republic, and a personal character of the President,

General Porfirio Diaz, the noble statesman who has achieved such

triumphs.” How could one help being gratified that other influential

organs of public opinion felt with me the “fascinations of the Southern

_haciendas_ and of the natives of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,” and held

the information, that had been zealously collected, of practical and

informing value?

On the hospitality of the President it is only necessary to say that,

looking back to those records of 1900-1, I find this expression—warm

from the heart—respecting General and Madame Diaz:

“Their kindness and courtesy, the extraordinary thoughtfulness and

consideration with which I was treated, will ever remain in my mind.

Without the personal aid of General Diaz I could not have written

_Mexico as I saw It_, and perhaps this peep into the life of the

people, over whom he rules so powerfully, may help to make that

wonderful country a little better understood.”[5]

* * * * *

Five years later I returned to Mexico and wrote the _Life_ of the

President.

The first time I left the country I was limping with pain after a

serious illness of blood-poisoning—the second time I left almost

limping again, but that was from the weight of the precious documents I

bore away.

No one knew but the President, his wife, and three of his Ministers,

what important material I was taking with me, or that I was going to

write the _Life_ of General Diaz from his diaries and notes. It was

published in England and America in February, 1906, and reprinted with

additions two months later. One kindly critic said: “It is a romance,

a history, a biography, one of the most thrilling stories of real life

ever written.” Later it was translated into German and Spanish. I was

so pressed with work at that time I had one Spanish and two English

secretaries constantly employed—I often sat at my desk for nine or ten

hours a day, and rarely went to any social entertainment except an

occasional public dinner.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] _Mexico as I saw It_ quickly passed into a second edition in spite

of its price, and then fell out of print. Nearly ten years later Nelson

and Sons decided to add it to their shilling Library of Travel. Strange

as it may appear, not a single copy of the old edition was on the

market anywhere, and we had to advertise three times before we could

get a dirty copy to tear to pieces for correction for the printers. In

August, 1911, the cheap edition was selling in thousands on the railway

bookstalls of Great Britain.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONTENTS OF A WORKING-WOMAN’S LETTER-BOX

The fact of having committed a book into printer’s ink lays one open

to curious correspondence. I am sure there are autograph hunters who

seek the appearance of each new writer, in order to mark her down, as

eagerly as ever angler watched for a trout rising to his fly. Some ask

directly and are unashamed; others wrap up their request by desiring

some piece of information. Happily it has not yet become a recognised

custom for a writer to be asked by people entirely unknown to her to

give them her books, but I have experienced even such modest requests.

One circumstance was perhaps a little unusual.

From far-away Mussoorie, in the North-West Provinces of India, came

a letter one day. It was dated “January,” after the season at the

hill station was over, by some exile compelled to stay on through

the dreariness of a deserted health resort, to live through the

monotonously dull days and watch the successive falls of snow on the

mountains. My correspondent had been reading about myself and my books

in a popular monthly which had reached her, and became emboldened to

ask “if the writer would lend her a copy of _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_,

which she would carefully return.” As she covered the thin pages of her

foreign note-paper her boldness grew, for next she “confessed” that she

would like to possess the book; and she wound up with a suggestion that

if my name “was written on the fly-leaf, signifying that the book was a

gift to her by the author, it would add to its value.”

I believe in this instance I did weakly send the book, autographed

fly-leaf and all. One feels sympathetic towards a lonely woman

compatriot left stranded on an Indian hill-top, thinking perchance of

a friendly Christmas-time at home, with one’s own people, shops and

shows to amuse and cheer one.

“A bibliophilic favour” was on another occasion requested. This time my

correspondent was nearer home:

“Ever since boyhood I have been an ardent lover of books; but,

alas! owing to a paucity of pence (to say nothing of pounds), I am

only able to buy when I can, not when I would. So I am sorry to

have to confess that none of your volumes grace, as yet, my humble

shelves. But I am not wholly without examples of your pen. Some of

your articles, those on “Dr. Nansen at Home” and “Henrik Ibsen” and

“Björnstjerne Björnson,” I have had carefully excerpted from back

numbers of _Temple Bar_ and neatly backed for preservation. Well,

I should very much like to adorn each of them by the insertion

of a line or two in your handwriting—will you graciously make

it possible for me to do so? The veriest trifle—or trifles—that

you might care to send me would, you may be sure, be gratefully

accepted and prized.”

I am afraid those magazine excerpts, though neatly “backed” for

preservation, are still unadorned.

What, one wonders, will become of pickers-up of bibliophilic trifles

in these days when everything committed to paper is typewritten? The

relics of dead authors of the twentieth century, when those of the

twenty-first come to collect them, will not be the manuscripts written

in ink in a neat (or otherwise) handwriting, such as the British Museum

purchases for hundreds of pounds and stores among its treasures to-day;

but lacerated engrimed sheets of typescript which can make but small

appeal to anyone’s emotions.

At other times various correspondents have asked of me:

If I would figure with my children in a series of articles entitled

“Model Mothers,” which Mr. Harmsworth’s (Lord Northcliffe’s) enterprise

was bringing out.

Would I get somebody concert engagements?

Did I approve of divorce?

Had I any theory in the bringing up of babies?

Would I permit my visiting-card to be reproduced in the illustration of

an article on “The Etiquette of Card-leaving”?

Had I two or three good specimens of opals from Querétaro for a

correspondent who had _twice_ read my Mexican book?

While another enterprising gleaner sought my help in gathering his

sheaf as follows:

“I am endeavouring to collect the opinions of prominent ladies

and gentlemen as to what is the ideal age for marriage. If you

would be so good as to write a few lines, giving your opinion

on this matter, from the lady’s point of view, and enclose them

in the accompanying stamped addressed envelope at your earliest

convenience, I assure you that I should esteem it a great favour.

Sincerely hoping that you may see your way to accede to my

request,” etc.

Another enquired if I thought widows should remarry.

Lastly, among begging letters that visit the working-woman’s desk

like so many buzzing flies, one covering many pages may be taken as a

specimen. A youth, a French polisher by trade, wrote that he had given

up his situation: taken to writing: failed and become a tramp. After

many hardships, having only one penny left, he bought a postage-stamp

and hoped to find a _Who’s Who_ in his inn. He was unsuccessful, but

discovered a _Literary Year-Book_, which he opened by chance, and his

eyes fell on my name; therefore he sent me a most lengthy appeal for

help, adding a promise of repayment as he had a prospect of work.

Truly strange epistles drift into the working-woman’s letter-box, and

each steals a little time from her busy day.

Once an unknown person, chancing to read an article of mine on Lourdes,

sent me sixteen closely written pages in French, betraying a profound

anxiety on the writer’s part to convert me to Roman Catholicism.

Then come letters of a different kind requesting loans. They may be

from the Royal Geographical Society, or the Earl’s Court Exhibition, or

a lace collection, or perhaps some clergyman in the East End, but the

letters come and the letters have to be answered.

The writers generally require the loan of curios from Iceland, Finland,

Norway, Mexico, Morocco, Sicily; or any country, in fact, with which

one’s name is associated. Lists have to be made, the objects looked

out, packed, sent, placed, fetched, unpacked. Sometimes things get

damaged, or lost, and then no one seems responsible.

People write asking for patronage; the loan of one’s name as a

patroness to soup kitchens, charity concerts, balls, clubs, hospital

bazaars, or collections by a friend for some charity. I was once asked

by an unknown man to be godmother to his child. Soaps have asked for

my patronage, and a motor-car was suggested as a free gift (it was the

early days of motoring) if I would drive it through the streets of

London.

Letters from women and men aspiring to literature—and verily half the

world seems to think literary gifts are as common as pens and inkpots;

letters from the natives of all the countries about which I have ever

written, asking for help, or “for money to buy a ticket home because

they are stranded in London and destitute”; or a fond father wishing

to start his son in mining writes to ask my experience of mines in

Mexico; while perhaps a mother thinks my experience would solve a

question whether her daughter, who is a hospital nurse, would find a

good opening in Canada; and, again, a girl starting a dairy enquires

for hints on the Danish procedure.

Letters modestly ask me if through my medical connection I can get

“a poor friend” seen by a doctor gratis; or if I can give someone an

introduction for the stage, or hear somebody else sing or recite, and

see what he or she had better do with their talent.

Oh dear! Oh dear! Letters never end, they are like the taxes in their

persistency. Is there anything under the sun people will not bother a

busy woman to obtain? The following letter was as much underlined as

one of Queen Victoria’s epistles:

“I know your books so well, and have heard so much of _all_ your

_great_ kindness to people. I am a worker in one of ... and am

resting a time, and am anxious to get some help towards getting

a _Bath chair_ for a poor crippled child. It is _such a sad, sad

case_, and if she had a chair she could get to church and Sunday

School. I have also been a missionary in poor needy India. Please

send a _little_ help towards the Chair, and also if you can

_towards_ the support of our Hospital for poor _Purdah women_ in

India, where I hope to be able to return _some day_. I am Dean

...’s niece.

“Yours very truly,

“O. P.”

One effusion addressed to me begins:

“It is very many years since we met, but I am hoping you have not

quite forgotten me. I have been a widow for nearly two years,

and am now anxious to get some employment, as I am _absolutely

penniless_.”

In the same strain the letter runs on for several pages. For a long

time the signature was a puzzle, and then gradually rose before me the

vision of a man with whom I used to dance twenty years before as a

girl; he was then a rich bachelor in Park Lane. A few years after this

he married, and I only saw his wife two or three times. Surely on such

a slight acquaintance the letter could not come from her. But it did.

What is to become of the endless stream of charming but incapable

women, whose husbands, fathers, or brothers leave them in this

deplorable condition?

Among the newspaper articles for which my pen has travelled

over reams of paper—articles responsible for much of my strange

correspondence—were some on hand-loom weaving.

Far away in the wilds of Sutherlandshire, chance once drew my steps to

visit a little croft where homespuns were woven by the family, while

the hens laid their eggs in the corner, or cackled in the rafters.

Years went by and better days came to that household.

Appreciation is always pleasant, and such kindly words as those in the

following simple letter are good to read. The excellent English used by

the writer is a testimony to education in the Highlands of Scotland.

“DEAR MADAM,

“I feel very much my inability to write as I feel in regard to

the very able and very earnest appeal you have made through the

columns of the _Queen_—on behalf of the British workman, but more

especially for your kind way of writing about our little Cottage

home.

“Dear Lady, your visit had gladdened our hearts but your paper more

so, and I feel quite at a loss to thank you for your kindness. We

have an ‘heirloom’ in the family already (the one you saw), but if

this paper won’t be an ‘heirloom’ it will be a relic, in the family

of all about the loom.

“My mother said while you were here you would soon come to

understand about it, but I can’t help complimenting you on the

retentiveness of your memory. I don’t think you have forgotten

anything I said, but certainly you haven’t forgot about the hen

laying her egg. “What a joke?” nor my kitten either.

“Teazled ought to have been spelt Teazed. Teazling is part of the

operation fine tweeds undergo in the finishing process after being

woven.

“Teazed is an opening out of the wool.

“That is the only error and probably a printer’s one, so that your

facts are perfectly correct, the prices of your wool are not my

quotations.

“Sutherlandshire wools always get a higher price in the wool

markets than any other work. Wools under 9d. per lb. are of no

great value.

“I have been very successful in this Exhibition, sold out, some

orders, three prizes, for our own goods; woven the goods of seven

others (crofters), who have also obtained prizes. In the green

wincy 1st prize, the Black second; the travelling-rugs 1st prize,

the shepherd’s plaid commended.

“Again thanking you for your kindness

“I am,

“Dear Madam,

“Your humble and obedient Servant,

“A. P.”

If the weaver’s letter was pleasant, the following reversed the shield.

I have not often received abusive letters; but here is an example at

random:

“PUTNEY.

“MADAM,

“I have read your article on ‘Beauty’ in _The Daily Mail_ of

to-day’s date, regarding your idea of tall, slight figures (which

_you_ describe as being leggy, lanky, etc.). I consider you a fool

and an idiot and certainly _low-bred_. You are evidently coarse and

fat yourself, therefore you do not understand refined breed. Kindly

insert this in your next article on ‘Beauty.’

“A JUDGE OF REFINEMENT.”

Possibly my correspondent would claim that her judicial merits in the

matter of refinement extended to language.

A total stranger sent me the following—among epistolary

curiosities—dated from a well-known ladies’ club:

“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,

“I am doing a most unusual thing and I fear you will at once

say—impertinent! but please don’t. You travel so tremendously,

each of your works I seem to like better than the other. I suppose

you always have a maid with you? or a companion? If only you would

take me with you (I would pay my own expenses) on one of your

fascinating journeys. I am just consumed with a desire to travel in

unfrequented country and would do anything if only I could go with

you sometime. Please do not consider me a most rude and forward

girl.”

Being struck with this letter, I sent for the girl. She came; tall,

dark, handsome, and a lady. It appeared that she was not happy at

home, but had means of her own. She had been abroad with friends, who

invariably stayed in large hotels, all alike and all uninteresting,

whilst she wanted to see something of the real life of the foreign

lands she visited.

“But what do you want to do with me?” I asked.

“Travel with you. I would go as your secretary, as your maid, as

anything if you would only take me. I would pay all my own expenses and

promise to be useful.”

“Maids sew on buttons and lace up boots,” I replied, laughing.

“I’ll do all that and more, if you will only take me. I have your

books, and I know I should love you, and I do so want to travel, to

really travel as you do.”

She was delightfully enthusiastic; but, alas! I could not take her; the

responsibility of a headstrong girl was too great. It might have turned

out an ideal arrangement, but, again, it might have been a hideous

failure, and when travelling to write books one has no time to tackle

needless worries.

To end this list of letter-samples that more often tease than gratify

the recipient are constant demands for subscriptions; appeals for gifts

of books to poor clubs; letters from comparative strangers asking if

they may bring a particular friend or a foreigner to call, as they wish

to have a talk with me, or see over my house. In fact, no one who does

not peep into a busy woman’s letter-box can have any idea of the amount

of correspondence on all conceivable subjects it contains.

No doubt other workers have likewise helped—or are helping—the young or

shiftless beginners who have not yet found foothold on the lowest rung

of the ladder, round which so great a crowd is struggling. But do all,

one wonders, learn, as has been my experience, how quickly eaten bread

is sometimes forgotten by the eater: how often so-called gratitude is

only the hope of fresh favours to come?

Does it ever strike people that it hurts?

A girl of my acquaintance was once very, very poor. She wrote asking

my advice; saw me, and finally started in a small way as a manicurist.

No move was made without claiming my advice at all times and seasons.

She called and sat for hours asking this and that. She brought

agreements to be looked over, earnings to discuss, address-books for

suggestions; Heaven knows what she did not bring. At my persuasion she

saved shillings and put them into the Post Office Savings Bank. Then it

became pounds, and I arranged with a bank to open a little account for

her, and later asked my stockbroker to invest her first saved hundred

pounds in something _very_ safe.

That first hundred saved, in a year or two became a thousand, and

quickly doubled itself. She deserved it all, for she worked hard and

saved diligently, but—well! the protectress was wanted less and less,

the protestations of affection and admiration slowly ceased, and when

my help could no longer be of use they came to an end.

Gratitude. Where is it? The people one helps most generously often turn

away the moment they are firmly established.

Take another case. I started a certain girl in journalism. (I’ve

started so many.) She worried me day and night for help and advice.

I corrected MSS., suggested subjects, rewrote whole articles, and

all because of feeling really sorry for her plight. She is now a

flourishing journalist. We often meet, but she rarely takes the trouble

to call because she need no longer get anything out of me.

Yes! after correcting four whole books, and that means hours and hours

of dreary work, only in one case, to my surprise and delight—for

such a small return gives one real pleasure—did I find a pretty

acknowledgment, in a preface, of my part of the work.

People will come again and again, and a hundred times again, no matter

how inconvenient the hour; they will drop in at meal-time, and knowing

how poor they are, one feels forced to ask them to stop. But these very

folk, once on their feet, sometimes forget the friendly outstretched

hand of help by which they climbed.

It hurts.

On the other hand, some people are almost too grateful. A boy who was

alone in lodgings and spent his Sundays with us in Harley Street in the

long ago, went to China, where he has done splendidly; and every year

since I have had a home of my own—since 1887, in fact—he has sent me a

chest of tea, “because he never could forget the kindness of the past.”

And he sends a similar recognition to my mother for the same reason.

Such tokens of remembrance keep alive the friendships of those bygone

days.

A woman who was with me for some years as secretary and left through

ill-health never forgets to send me a kindly note on my birthday, a

little thoughtfulness I greatly appreciate. One loves to be remembered.

A penny bunch of violets often gives a hundredfold its weight in

pleasure.

Yes, remembrance is always pleasant. Dear old Sir John Erichsen left me

£300 in his will to buy a memento. I was too poor for mementoes when

it came, so I invested it, and the £12 a year became of real tangible

help. Or again, an old cousin in Scotland whom I only saw twice, left

me, when she died, my paternal grandmother’s engagement-ring, and her

delightful old tea-service of soft buff and white china ornamented with

the daintiest landscape medallions.

Thank God, I have never been pursued in life by little ills, but three

or four times big collapses have overtaken me. Typhoid, rheumatic

fever, and blood-poisoning are no slight matters: but they are almost

worth the suffering and pain for the pleasure of receiving such

kindnesses from friends, letters of sympathy, flowers, fruit, wine,

jellies, all have been left at my door, and I blessed the kind donors

then as I bless them in remembrance now. Doubtless the severity of the

illnesses that overtook me was due to intense overwork coupled with

anxiety—overstrain invariably spells breakdown.

A horrible distrust overcame me at one time.

I used to go to bed worn out and weary, at last sleep would come.

Then I would wake up with a start, feeling some awful calamity had

overtaken me, that I had written something libellous or said something

scandalous, and the Court of Law was waiting to receive me. No one

would intentionally write a libel any more than they would cut a

friend. I would see paragraphs chasing paragraphs across the page, just

as the typed letters had turned red under my gaze when my eyes gave

out a few years before. I used to get horribly anxious over my proof.

Things I had rattled off when well were laborious now, and the anxiety

they entailed was wellnigh unendurable.

It was merely a matter of health—a tonic and a rest put matters right.

PART V

THE SWEETS OF ADVERSITY

[Illustration: MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE

_After a painting by Herbert Schmalz, 1894_]