[1] Since the serial publication of these sketches the death
of the gifted writer has taken place.
With a vivid recollection of the comforts enjoyed on a recent trip to
Ireland to visit Mrs. Hungerford, you again trust yourself to the tender
mercies of the London and North-Western line with the intention of
calling on Miss Jessie Fothergill, author of "The First Violin," etc.,
in her own home. Starting at 10.10 a.m. from Euston, and having
prudently taken another of the young writer's works, "Kith and Kin,"
to beguile the time during the long journey, you arrive punctually at
2.20 p.m. at the busy, bustling town of Manchester, having found that
with the fascinating novel, combined with the smoothly-running and
comfortable carriages and a good luncheon basket, four hours have passed
like one; so deeply absorbing is the story that you have lost all count
of time, and utterly neglected to notice the scenery through which you
have been so rapidly carried. Proposing, however, to repair this
omission on the return journey, you select a tidy hansom, with a
good-looking bay horse and an intelligent-faced Jehu, desiring him to
point out the principal objects of interest to be seen. Having an
hour to spare, there is time to make a _detour_, and drive round the
exterior of the great Cheetham Hospital, which, with its college and
library, are famous relics of old Manchester, and are in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Cathedral, and in a moment you seem to be
transported from the bustle and roar of life into the quiet and peace of
the old world cloisters.
Presently, driving past St. Peter's Church, the open door invites a peep
at the famous painting of the "Descent from the Cross," by Annibal
Carracci, which adorns the altar, and, finally, passing on the left
Owens College, the principal branch of the Victoria University, the cab
pulls up at Miss Fothergill's door.
It is a quiet street lying off Oxford-street, one of the main
thoroughfares of Manchester; and the house, one of a modest little row,
is small and ordinary. The rooms are larger than might have been
expected from its exterior, notably Miss Fothergill's own "den," as she
calls the place where she spends nearly all her time. It is upstairs,
and has two windows facing south; between them stands a large writing
table, from which the author rises to welcome you. It is literally
covered with papers and manuscripts. "You think it looks extremely
untidy," she says with a bright smile, after the first greetings are
over. "It is not untidy for me, because I can put my hand on everything
that I want. I am much cramped for space, too, in which to arrange my
books as I would have them. I have a great many more than these, and
they are scattered about in different other rooms in the house, which is
only my temporary home, and everything is in disorder now, as I am on
the eve of departure for sunnier climes."
The furniture is arranged with the greatest simplicity, but it is all
very comfortable; there are several easy chairs, a good resting couch,
and plenty of tables, heaped up with the books, papers, and magazines of
her daily reading. Over the fireplace is a large and very good autotype
of Leonardo da Vinci's "Monna Lisa," with her mysterious smile and
exquisite hands. There are likewise many photographs of Rome, and the
art treasures of Rome. On another wall are two of Melozzo da Forti's
angels, after those in the Sagrestia dei Canonici at St. Peter's, Rome,
and a drawing of Watts' "Love and Death," made by a friend.
"It is all extremely simple and rather shabby," Miss Fothergill remarks
placidly, "but it suits me. I rarely enter the downstair rooms except at
the stated hour for meals, and, though I detest the dirt and gloom of
Manchester, and am always ill in this climate, yet for luxury I do not
care. Sumptuous rooms, gorgeous furniture, and an accumulation of 'the
pride of life' and 'the lust of the eye' would simply oppress me, and
make me feel very uncomfortable."
It is only fair to remark that on this occasion Manchester has put on a
bright and smiling appearance. Though the fogs and rain can be as
persistent as they are in London, the latter indeed much more frequent,
the sun to-day shines brilliantly over the great city, and "dirt and
gloom" are conspicuous by their absence.
In person the author is moderately tall and slight in figure. She is
pale and delicate-looking, with dark brown curly hair brushed back from
her forehead, and fine grey eyes, which have a sparkle of mirth in them,
and indicate a keen sense of humour. "I have a keen sense of fun," she
replies in answer to your remark, "and see the ridiculous side of
things, if they have one. It is a blessed assistance in wending one's
way through life. My mother and all her family possessed it, and we
inherit it from her." She wears a soft black dress, trimmed with lace
and jet embroidery, and she is so youthful in her appearance that she
looks like a mere girl.
Jessie Fothergill was born at Cheetham Hall, Manchester, and is of mixed
Lancashire and Yorkshire descent. Her father came of an old Yorkshire
yeoman and Quaker family, whose original home--still standing--was a
lonely house called Tarn House, in a lonely dale--Ravenstonedale,
Westmoreland. From there, in 1668, the family, having joined the Society
of Friends, removed to a farmhouse, which some member of it built for
himself in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, a district which until lately has
been quite remote and little known, but which is now beginning to be
sadly spoiled by the number of visitors from afar, who have found it
out, and who are corrupting the primitive simplicity of the inhabitants
of the dale. This old-world farmstead was called Carr End. It is still
in existence, but has passed out of the possession of its former owners.
"My father spent his childhood there," says Miss Fothergill, "and used
to keep us entranced, as children, living in a stiff Manchester suburb,
with accounts of the things to be seen and done there--of the wild
moors, the running waterfalls, the little lake of Semirwater hard by
filled with fish, haunted by birds to us unknown, and bordered by grass
and flowers, pleasant woods and rough boulders. I never saw it till I
was a grown woman, and, standing in the old-fashioned garden with the
remembrance of my dead father in my heart, I formed the intention of
making it the scene of a story, and did so." But ere she has finished
speaking you recognize the whole description in the volume of "Kith and
Kin" which you had been reading in the train.
Miss Fothergill's father spent his early manhood in Rochdale, learning
the ins and outs of the cotton trade, the great Lancashire industry,
settling with a friend as his partner in business in Manchester. He was
a Quaker, and on marrying her mother, who was a member of the Church of
England, he was turned out of the Society of Friends for choosing a wife
outside the pale of that body. His Nonconformist blood is strong in all
his children, and not one of them now belongs to the Established Church.
Mrs. Fothergill was the daughter of a medical man at Burnley, in
North-East Lancashire, another busy, grimy, manufacturing town.
"I, however," says your young hostess, "knew very little of these
northern towns, or the characteristics of their people, the love of
which afterwards became part of my life, for, though my father's
business was in Manchester, our home was at Bowdon, a popular suburb
some eight or ten miles on the Cheshire side of the great city, and as
utterly different from its northern outskirts and surroundings as if it
belonged to another world."
Misfortune soon brought the young girl in contact with other scenes.
When she was a mere child at school, and all her brothers and sisters
very young, her father died. Much reduced in circumstances, the family
went to live (because it appeared best, most suitable, and convenient)
at an out-of-the-way house appertaining to a cotton mill, in an
out-of-the-way part of Lancashire, in which her father and his partner
had had a business interest.
"There must have been something of the artist," continues Jessie
Fothergill, "and something also of the vagabond in me, for I quite well
remember going home to this place for the first Christmas holidays after
my father's death and being enchanted and delighted--despite the sorrow
that overshadowed us--with the rough roads, the wild sweeping moors and
fells, the dark stone walls, the strange, uncouth people, the
out-of-the-worldness of it all. And the better I knew it the more I
loved it, in its winter bleakness and its tempered but delightful summer
warmth. I loved its gloom, its grey skies and green fields, the energy
and the desperate earnestness of the people, who lived and worked there.
I photographed this place minutely under the name of Homerton in a novel
called 'Healey.' Here I passed a good many years after that
turning-point in a 'young lady's' career--leaving school. Alas! there
was little of the 'young lady' about me. I hated company, except exactly
that in which I felt myself at home. I loved books, and read all that I
could get hold of, and have had many a rebuke for 'poring over those
books' instead of qualifying myself as a useful member of society.
Almost better, I loved my wild rambles over the moors, along the rough
roads, into every nook and corner of what would have been a beautiful
vale--the Tadmorden Valley--if man had but left it as God had made it.
But I liked the life that was around me too, the routine of the great
cotton and flannel mills, the odd habits, the queer sayings and doings
of the workpeople. It was only when compassionate friends or relations,
wishing to be kind and to introduce me to the world, insisted upon
appearing in carriages, presenting me with ball-dresses, and taking me
to entertainments that I was unhappy. I wove romances, wrote them down,
in an attic at the top of the house, dreamed dreams, and lived, I can
conscientiously say, far more intensely in the lives and loves of my
imaginary characters, than even in the ambition of some day having name
and fame."
Both of Jessie Fothergill's two first books "Healey" and "Aldyth,"
according to her own account "fell flat and dead to the ground." Nothing
daunted, however, by their failure, she paused for a while before
writing anything more. Soon after their publication, she paid two visits
to the Continent as the guest of friends, delighting much in all the new
and wonderful things she saw. But the real enjoyment of foreign life
came on a subsequent journey, when, with a sister and two young friends,
she found herself established in a German boarding-house at Dusseldorf,
on the Rhine, utterly without any of the luxurious hotels, drives,
dinners, or any correct sight-seeing which she had enjoyed on her former
visits, but with a thousand interests brought by the opening of a new
life, the wonderful discovery of German music, the actual hearing of
all the delightful things she had previously only heard of, which
naturally inspired her imagination and fancy. At Dusseldorf she began to
write "The First Violin," weaving into the scenes which passed every day
before her eyes a series of imaginary adventures of imaginary beings. It
was written "in spasms," she says--often altered, again completely
changed in plot and incident several times, and it was not actually
finished for a very long time after it was begun.
During the fifteen months spent at Dusseldorf she took every opportunity
of studying the German language and life, and at the expiration of that
time she went back to England--"to the house at the end of the world,"
she says, smiling; "and soon after my return I took a secretaryship, my
heart in my books, making several efforts to get some enterprising
publisher to take 'The First Violin.' I went to the firm who had brought
out my two first unlucky efforts, but they kindly and parentally advised
me, for the sake of whatever literary reputation I might have obtained,
not to publish the novel I submitted to them. Much nettled at this, I
replied, somewhat petulantly, that I acknowledged their right to refuse
it, but not to advise me in the matter, and I _would_ publish it. Next I
took it to another firm who made it a rule never to bring out any novels
except those of some promise. If it were possible to grant the premises
of my story, the action itself was consistent enough, but it was up in
the clouds and (though so elevated) was below their mark. Finally Mr.
Bentley took pity on it, and brought it out in three-volume form, first
running it through the pages of _Temple Bar_. Since that time I have not
experienced any difficulty in disposing of my wares, though continuous
and severe ill-health has been a constant restraint on their rapid
production, and has also kept me quiet and obliged me to seek rest and
avoid excitement at the expense of many an acquaintance and many a
pleasure I should have been glad to enjoy."
On looking back, Jessie Fothergill cannot remember anything which caused
her to write beyond the desire to do it. Her first attempts began when
she was a mere child. Passionately fond of fairy tales, or any other,
good, bad, or indifferent, she read them all, literally living in them
when doing so. Then at school she used to instigate the other girls to
write stories, because she wished to do so herself. She would tell them
marvellous romances, which she had either read or invented. Her talent
for writing fiction cannot be called hereditary, since the only family
literary productions of which she is aware are a volume or two of
sermons preached by some Fothergill who was a Friend, a missionary, and
a man of note in his time. "Then, long ago," says the author, "there was
a celebrated Dr. John Fothergill in London. I came across his name in
one of the volumes of Horace Walpole's letters. He not only made a
fortune, but wrote books--purely professional ones, I imagine. My
father's people were brought up narrowly as regards literature and
accomplishments, as was the fashion in his sect in that day, but he
himself was an insatiable devourer of novels and poetry, and introduced
me to the works of Dickens and Walter Scott, exacting a promise that I
should not read more than three chapters of any given book in one day, a
promise which was faithfully kept, but with great agony of mind."
Jessie Fothergill forms her plots as follows: She imagines some given
situation, and works round it, as it were, till she gets the story, all
the characters except the two or three principal ones coming gradually.
Next she writes them out, first in a rough draft, the end of which often
contradicts the beginning, but she knows what she means by that time.
Then it is all copied out and arranged, as she has settled it clearly in
her mind. She is quick in composing, but slow in deciding which course
the story shall take, as all the people are very real to her, and
sometimes unkindly refuse to be disposed of according to her original
intentions. "I write much more slowly," says Miss Fothergill, "and much
less frequently now that my health is so indifferent. As a child I
learnt very quickly, and sometimes forgot equally quickly, but never
anything that really interested me. I remember winning one prize only at
a very early age, and choosing the most brightly bound of the books from
which I had to select. It has always been my great regret that I did not
receive a classical education. If I had, I would have turned it to some
purpose; but when I was a child, music, for which I had absolutely no
gift, was drummed into me, and a little French, German and Italian I
have learnt for myself since." "The Lasses of Leverhouse" was her third
book, but "The First Violin" scored her first success. It went through
several editions, and was followed by "Probation," "Kith and Kin," "The
Wellfields," "Borderland," "Peril," and "From Moor Isles." Most of these
passed first through _Temple Bar_ before being issued in book form, and
each has been warmly welcomed and favourably reviewed. Some have
appeared in Indian and Australian journals, and nearly all her works are
to be found in the _Tauchnitz_ edition. "A March in the Ranks" is the
author's latest book. Besides these, she has written numerous short
stories, among them, "Made or Marred," "One of Three," and a great many
articles and essays for newspapers and magazines.
Full of interest and incident, carefully and conscientiously worked out,
there is one prevailing characteristic running through all Miss
Fothergill's novels. She is thoroughly straightforward and honest.
Hating shams of all kinds, she pictures what seem to be things that
happen, with due license for arranging the circumstances and
catastrophes artistically and dramatically. "The First Violin" is a book
for all time; "Probation," "Kith and Kin," "Peril" and "The Wellfields,"
are decidedly nineteenth century stories, as many of the interesting
questions of the day appear in them, and it is evident that the said
questions occupied the gifted writer's mind not a little. "I have
absolutely no sympathy," she says, "with what is often called realism
now, the apotheosis of all that is ugly in man's life, feelings, and
career, told in a minute, laborious way, and put forth as if it were a
discovery. Life is as full of romance as Italy is full of roses. It is
as full of prose as Lancashire is full of factory chimneys. I have
always tried to be impartial in my writings, and to let the pendulum
swing from good to bad, from bad to good; that has been my aim when I
could detach myself enough from my characters." Here Miss Fothergill
draws off a seal ring which she long ago had engraved with the motto she
chose to guide her through life. "Good fight, good rest," she adds. "It
embodies all I have of religious creed. It means a good deal when you
come to think of it."
Miss Fothergill is a great reader. She delights especially in Ruskin,
Darwin, Georges Sand, and George Eliot's works, which she says have
solaced many an hour of pain and illness. In lighter literature she
prefers some of Anthony Trollope's novels, and considers Mrs. Gaskell's
"Sylvia's Lovers" one of the masterpieces of English fiction, and
"Wuthering Heights" as absolutely unique and unapproachable. Herbert
Spencer and Freeman are great favourites, whilst in poetry Browning
stands first of all in her affections, and next to him, Morris, Goethe,
and bits of Walt Whitman. Of her own works she remarks modestly, "It
seems to me that I have not much to say of them. What little I have done
has been done entirely by my own efforts, unassisted by friends at
court, or favour of any kind. It has been a regret that owing to my
having never lived in London I have not mixed more with scientific or
literary people, and that I only know them through their books."
The author having studied her "Lewis' Topographical Dictionary" to such
good purpose, is thoroughly conversant with her own native city, and
its doings past and present, she has therefore much interesting
information to impart about its ancient history, the sources of its
wealth, and the origin of the place, which is so remarkable for the
importance of its manufactures and the great extent of its trade.
Manchester may be traced back to a very remote period of antiquity. It
was once distinguished as a principal station of the Druid priests, and
was for four centuries occupied by the Romans, being amply provided with
everything requisite for the subsistence and accommodation of the
garrison established in it. It was as long ago as 1352 that the
manufacture of "Manchester cottons" was introduced, and the material was
in reality a kind of woollen cloth made from the fleece in an unprepared
state. In that period Flemish artisans settled in the town, where,
finding so many natural advantages, they laid the foundations of the
trade and brought the woollen manufacture to a great degree of
perfection. Nor is the industrious city without later historical
reminiscences. In 1744 Prince Charles Edward visited Manchester, where
he was hospitably entertained for several weeks at Ancoat's Hall, the
house of Sir Edward Moseley, Bart., returning the following year at the
head of an army of 6000 men, when he took up his quarters at the house
of Mr. Dickenson in Market Place. In 1768 Christian, King of Denmark,
lodged with his suite at the ancient Bull Inn. Early in the present
century the Archdukes John and Lewis of Austria, accompanied by a
retinue of scientific men, spent some time in the place, and in 1817 the
late Emperor of Russia, then the Grand Duke Nicholas, visited
Manchester to inspect the aqueducts and excavations at Worsley, and was
escorted all over the principal factories.
But the shades of evening draw on; London must be reached to-night, and
having likewise been "hospitably entertained," you bid Jessie Fothergill
good-bye, with an earnest hope that under southern skies, and in warmer
latitudes, she may soon regain her lost health and strength.
[Illustration: Mary Hardy]