Notable Women Authors of the Day Part 15

"Mopsa, the Fairy" has been called "A poem in prose, for the use of children," and a better name for it could not be found. It is, as the t.i.tle implies, a tale of fairyland in its brightest aspect, and is told with the purity of conception and the excellence of execution which characterise the gifted author's writings.

A few words must be said in description of the pretty house in Kensington where Miss Ingelow lives with her brother, and into which, some thirteen years ago, they removed from Upper Kensington to be further out and away from so much building. Since this removal she says, "three cities have sprung up around them!" The handsome square detached house stands back in a fine, broad road, with carriage drive and garden in front filled with shrubs, and half a dozen chestnut and almond trees, which in this bright spring weather are bursting out into leaf and flower. Broad stone steps lead up to the hall door, which is in the middle of the house. The entrance hall--where hangs a portrait of the author's maternal great-grandfather, the Primus of Scotland, _i.e._, Bishop of Aberdeen--opens into a s.p.a.cious, old-fashioned drawing-room of Italian style on the right. Large and lofty is this bright, cheerful room. A harp, on which Miss Ingelow and her mother before her played right well, stands in one corner. There is a grand pianoforte opposite, for she was a good musician, and had a remarkably fine voice in earlier years. On the round table in the deep bay windows in front are many books, various specimens of Tangiers pottery, and some tall plants of arum lilies in flower. The great gla.s.s doors draped with curtains at the further end, open into a large conservatory where Miss Ingelow often sits in summer. It is laid down with matting and rugs, and standing here and there are flowering plants and two fine araucarias. The verandah steps on the left lead into a large and well-kept garden with bright green lawn, at the end of which through the trees may be discerned a large stretch of green-houses, and a view beyond of the great trees in the grounds of Holland Park. On the corresponding side of the house at the back is the billiard-room, which is Mr. Ingelow's study, leading into an ante-room, and in the front is the dining-room, where the author's literary labours are carried on. "I write in a commonplace, prosaic manner," she says; "I am afraid I am rather idle, for I only work during two or three of the morning hours, with my papers spread all about the table." Over the fireplace hangs a painting on ivory of her father, and above it a portrait of her mother, taken in her early married life. This portrait, together with one of the poet herself when an infant, is in pastels, and they were originally done as door panels for her father's room; the colouring is yet unfaded.

The conversation turning upon memory--for Jean Ingelow holds p.r.o.nounced theories on this subject--she leads the way back to the conservatory and points out the picture of her grandfather's house, called Ingelow House after her, with which her very earliest recollections are a.s.sociated, and her memory dates back to when she was but seventeen months old! She says that "friends smile at this and think that she is romancing, but if people made attempts to recollect their very early days, certain visions which have pa.s.sed into the background for many years would rise again with a distinctness which would make it impossible to mistake them for inventions, and also make it certain that the records of this life are not annihilated, but only covered." She took some trouble to collect facts as to "first recollections" of many people, and found that two at least could remember events which were proved to have happened at the age of eighteen and twenty-two months respectively. In further support of this theory she relates an amusing and curious incident of dormant memory in early childhood which actually happened in her own family.

Miss Ingelow's mother went on a visit to her own father, who lived in London, accompanied by her infant son aged eleven months and his nurse.

One day the nurse brought the baby into his mother's room and put him on the floor, which was carpeted all over, where he crept about and amused himself whilst she dressed her mistress. When the toilet was completed, a certain ring which Mrs. Ingelow generally wore was missing. Search was made but it was never found and shortly after the visit ended, and the matter was almost forgotten. Mother and child again went on the same visit exactly a year later, accompanied by the same nurse, who took the boy into the same room. His mother saw him look around him, and deliberately walk up to one corner, turn back a bit of the carpet and produce the ring. He never gave any account of it nor did he seem to remember it later; he had probably found it on the floor and hidden it for safety--it could hardly have been for mischief--and had forgotten all about it until he saw the place again, as he was too young when the ring was missed to understand what the talk and search about it meant.

"He was by no means a precocious child," adds Miss Ingelow, "nor did he show later any remarkable qualities in his powers of learning or remembering lessons."

She lost her mother thirteen years ago, and her father pa.s.sed away before the publication of her first book of poetry--the book of which he would have been so proud. "It was a joy to me," says the poetess, "when I found that people began to read my verses, and I can never forget too my pleasure when first introduced to Mr. Ruskin and he asked my mother and me to luncheon at his house. Of course, I was far too modest to be willing to talk to him, especially in my mother's presence; but after luncheon I got away from them, leaving them in high discourse, and surrept.i.tiously stole down to look at a bush of roses which were very much to my mind. Mr. Ruskin presently came up to me, and entered into a charming conversation. He gathered some of the flowers and gave them to me--I kept them for a long time--then we walked round a meadow close at hand which was just fit for the scythe, and afterwards he took me to see a number of the curiosities that he had collected. We soon became loving friends and his friendship has been one of the great pleasures of my life. Sir Arthur Helps, too, was for many years a dear friend."

Miss Ingelow is, as may be supposed, a great reader, though she observes, "that few people take as long a time in reading a book as she does." Her preference is for works of a religious tone, chiefly those of eminent divines. "I do not want to use the word 'fastidious,'" she adds, "but perhaps I am more _bornee_ than most people in my taste in literature. Even some of Sir Walter Scott's and many of Thackeray's novels I cannot read, but I am fond of 'Vanity Fair,' and d.i.c.kens, and delight in several of Shakespeare's masterpieces, reading them over and over again."

She is "resting" for a while now. The poetic vein, she says, is not strongly upon her for the moment, but it invariably returns. Meantime it is to be hoped that the day may not be far distant when the public will rejoice to welcome yet more sweet strains from the pen of the great and gifted poet.

The pleasant task of writing these simple biographical sketches of writers of the day is at an end. With those who were previously friends the friendship has been deepened, the few who were as yet strangers have become friends. In thankfully acknowledging the great kindness and cordiality shown by all, it must be added, that in future days no remembrances can be happier than the delightful hours spent with the "Notable Women Authors."

For a few brief mentions of historical facts in one or two of these sketches the writer is indebted to "Lewis' Topographical Dictionary."