Notable Women Authors of the Day Part 3

Her _nom de guerre_, "John Strange Winter," was adopted by the advice of the publishers of her first books, because they thought it wiser that works so military as "Cavalry Life" and "Regimental Legends" should be a.s.sumed by the world to be written by a man, and that they would stand a better chance of mercy at the hands of the critics than if they went forth as the acknowledged writing of a woman, and for a time it was so a.s.sumed; but when "Booties' Baby" made such a success, and people wanted to know who the author was, and where he lived, it soon became known that "he" was a woman, although, as she did not add her name to the t.i.tle-page, it was a good while before it was generally believed. It may here be remarked that Mrs. Stannard holds very strongly the opinion that there should be "no s.e.x in art," and whilst never desiring to conceal her ident.i.ty, deprecates the idea of receiving indulgence or blame on the ground of her work being that of a woman, as both unjust and absurd.

In private life she carries out her ideas on this point so effectually that few acquaintances would gather from her conversation (unless it were necessary to "talk shop") that she was a literary woman at all, as, except to a fellow worker, she would rather talk on any subject under the sun than literature.

"The author to whom," according to Ruskin, "we owe the most finished and faithful rendering ever yet given of the character of the British soldier" can portray, too, in a wonderful degree the beauty of child-life. Of modern creations there can be none better known to the public, or which have excited more sympathy, than "Mignon" and "Houp-la."

Correct in detail, as those can prove who were in India at the time of the terrible mutiny of 1857, she might have written "A Siege Baby" on the spot had it not been that she was only born on the thirteenth of January in the previous year, and at that time was an infant in arms.

Fertile in imagination, acute in observation, sprightly and wholesome in style, there is a freshness and life in her books which charm alike old and young, rich and poor, at home and abroad; and that her popularity is fully maintained is testified by the gratifying fact that a late story, "He went for a Soldier," one of the slightest of her efforts, had a larger sale during the first month after publication than any previous work from her pen in the same period. One practical result of this book must be mentioned. The scene is laid at Doverscourt, a few miles from Mr. and Mrs. Stannard's pretty summer home at Wix. She had been greatly distressed, when visiting that seaside place, by the sight of the overloaded hackney-carriages, with their poor, broken-down horses.

Immediately after her indignant comments on this fact in her story, bye-laws were pa.s.sed bringing these vehicles under effective police supervision.

Besides those already named, amongst some two or three and twenty novels, which are all so well known as not to need description--for are they not to be found in every library and on every railway bookstall in the United Kingdom?--"Beautiful Jim," "Harvest," "Dinna Forget," and a most pathetic story called "My Poor d.i.c.k," remain fixed on the memory.

This last is perhaps the author's own favourite. "Booties' Baby," as all the play-going world knows, was dramatised and brought out four years ago at the Globe Theatre in London. It has been on tour ever since, and there seems no intention of terminating its long run, dates having been booked far into the year. A late story, ent.i.tled "The Other Man's Wife,"

has been running in a serial in various newspapers, and is now issued in two-volume form. One great element in the author's success and world-wide literary reputation is undoubtedly to be found in her creations of the children of her military heroes, alike among the officers' quarters and those "on the strength." She has the happy knack of depicting them at once simple, natural, and lovable.

"I never begin a novel," says Mrs. Stannard, "until I have got a certain scene in my mind. I cannot write any kind of story without having one dramatic scene clearly before me; when I have got it, I work up to that; then the story arranges itself. But this is only the germ, the first conception of the tale. As I write one thread after another spins itself out, to be taken up afterwards to form a consecutive, concise whole.

Sometimes I lose my original story altogether, but never any dramatic situation towards which I am working, and the end is often quite different to what I had intended. When this happens I very seldom try to fight against fate. I think all stories ought more or less to write themselves, and it seems to me that this must make a tale more like real life than if it were all carefully mapped out beforehand, and then simply padded up to some requisite length."

By this time the last doll is finished and added to the row on the sofa.

They all look as if they had been turned out of a first-cla.s.s milliners'

establishment. Mrs. Stannard suggests a move to her study, and leads the way up the wide staircase, the handrail of which is protected by a broad and heavy bra.s.s guard, put there for the sake of the little children of the house. A broad settee on the wide conservatory landing invites you to rest awhile and look at all the odds and ends which your hostess says are so precious to her. Here are two handsome Chippendale chairs picked up in Ess.e.x, many photographs of the house at Wix, a dozen pieces of Lancashire Delph porcelain, made specially as a wedding present for Mrs.

Stannard's grandmother in 1810, some Staffordshire hunting jugs, and some quaint little figures, "all rubbish," she says, smiling, "but precious to me." There is, however, a Spode dinner service in blue which is emphatically not rubbish, and a set of Oriental dishes, blue and red, which are very effective. The landing is richly carpeted; the windows and the doors of the conservatory are all of stained gla.s.s, while above hangs an old Empire lamp of beautiful design filled in with small cathedral gla.s.s. The first door on the left leads into the author's study. It is a charming room, small but lofty, with pale blue walls hung with many little pictures, plates, old looking-gla.s.ses, and chenille curtains of terra-cotta and pale blue softly blended. A pretty inlaid bookcase stands opposite the window, filled with a few well-selected books. The horseshoe hanging yonder was cast in the Balaclava charge.

She has indeed a goodly collection of these, and owns to a weakness to them, declaring that her first great success was achieved on the day that she picked one up at Harrogate. There must be many hundreds of photographs scattered about in this room, and it would be a day's occupation to look through them all; but each has its own interest for her, and most of them are of people well known in the literary, scientific, artistic, and fashionable world. "I never sit here," she says. "It is my work-room, pure and simple. Sometimes my husband comes up, and then I read to him all my newly-written stuff, but this I do every day."

The next door opens into the drawing-room, where there is a rich harmony in the details of the decoration and furniture, which suggests the presence of good and cultivated taste, combined with a general sense of luxury and comfort. The entire colouring is blended, from old gold to terra-cotta, from Indian red to golden brown. On the left stands a cabinet crowded with choicest bits of china, in the middle of which is placed the bouquet, carefully preserved, presented to the author by Mr.

Ruskin on her birthday. A lovely Dutch marqueterie table contains a goodly collection of antique silver, and among the pictures on the walls are a painting by Lawrence Phillips, Batley's etching of Irving and Ellen Terry, also one of Mrs. Stannard, and a series of all the original and clever pen-and-ink sketches in "Bootles' Children," by Bernard Partridge, drawn as ill.u.s.trations to the story in the _Lady's Pictorial_.

After lingering long over afternoon tea, you express a wish to see the children before they sleep. Mrs. Stannard leads the way first to a room next her own, which is occupied by a fair little maiden, seven years of age, with grey-blue eyes, sunny hair, and a wild-rose complexion, who asks you to "go and see the twins." Accordingly their mother takes you on to a large night-nursery, where the two little ones, boy and girl, are being prepared for bed. They are just turned four, and are called Eliot and Violet Mignon, after two of the characters in Mrs. Stannard's books. They are perfectly friendly, and as you bend to kiss the baby girl last, she looks reproachfully out of her great dark eyes, and sternly commands you to "kiss Gertie, too." (Gertie is the under nurse.) This raises a hearty laugh, under cover of which you hastily retreat.

Above all things, Mrs. Stannard is a thoroughly domestic woman. Popular in society, constantly entertaining with great hospitality, she yet contrives to attend to every detail of her large household, which consequently goes like clockwork. She writes for about two hours every morning, and keeps a neat record book, in which she duly enters the number of pages written each day.

Presently Mr. Stannard comes in, and soon suggests an adjournment to his study downstairs, a snug, business-like room, half filled with despatch-boxes, books, and MSS. On a table stands a large folio-like volume, which is Mrs. Stannard's visiting book, containing many hundreds of names. She looks ruefully at a clip containing some sixty unanswered letters, and candidly confesses that she finds considerable difficulty with her private correspondence and her calls, both of which acc.u.mulate faster than she can respond to; though, as she says, her many friends are very indulgent to her on those scores, and are "quite willing to make allowance for a poor woman who has the bulk of her literary work cut out for a year or two in advance, three little children, and a houseful of servants to manage; but, happily," she adds, "good servants.

I have been so lucky in that way."

Just now, indeed, she claims especial indulgence in respect to social observances, for, as though so busy a life were not enough to exhaust her energies, early in 1891 she added a new burden to her indefatigable pen, by starting a penny weekly magazine under the t.i.tle of _Golden Gates_, subsequently altered to _Winter's Weekly_ in deference to the opinion of those who objected to the somewhat religious sound of the former name. The little paper was the first weekly periodical that was ever exclusively owned, edited, and published by a popular novelist, and its fortunes have been watched with vivid interest by all who know how treacherous and adventuresome are such enterprises. The fresh, frank individuality of _Winter's Weekly_ has, however, made friends for the journal wherever it has gone, and if John Strange Winter can keep it at its present point of unconventional interest, it may consolidate into a valuable property. Already it seems to have suggested the publication of new journals on similar lines, though no other woman novelist has yet had the courage to follow suit.

Later works of this favourite writer are "Mere Luck," "My Geoff,"

"Lumley, the Painter," also a powerful and pathetic novel, in two volumes, ent.i.tled "Only Human." Her last is a story called "A Soldier's Children," which she has given for the benefit of the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea.

But with all this acc.u.mulation of business, these domestic cares, and social claims, somehow Mrs. Stannard never seems in a hurry. The kind and hospitable young couple are always ready to do an act of kindness, and to welcome with help and counsel a new aspirant to fame in the th.o.r.n.y paths of literature. Small wonder that they are so much sought after in society, and so heartily welcomed wherever they go--and one is seldom seen without the other. You go on your way with every hearty good wish that each year may bring them ever-increasing prosperity and success, for in such union there is strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Annie Hector]

MRS. ALEXANDER.

About three miles north-west of St. Paul's lies a comparatively new suburb of the great metropolis, which but forty years ago was described as "a hamlet in the parish of Marylebone," and through which pa.s.ses the Grand Junction Ca.n.a.l, almost reaching to Kilburn. London, with her ever-grasping clutch, has seized on the vast tract of ground, which erstwhile grew potatoes and cabbages for the mult.i.tude, and, abolishing the nursery and market-gardens, has transformed them into broad streets, of which one of the longest is Portsdown-road.

Not altogether inartistic is the row of substantially built houses where Mrs. Alexander Hector has been for some years located. It is far enough away to enable the popular auth.o.r.ess to pursue her literary vocation in peace and quiet, yet sufficiently near to keep her in touch with the busy world of literature and art, wherein she is deservedly so great a favourite. The blue fan, serving as a screen for the window, is a sort of land-mark distinguishing the house from its fellows. You are shown into the library, where Mrs. Alexander is seated at a handsome oak writing-table, busily engaged in finishing the last words of a chapter in her new story. She looks up with a smile of welcome, and is about to discontinue her occupation; but you hastily beg her to go on with her work, which will give you time to look around; and as she complies with the request, she says pleasantly, "Well, then, just for three minutes only."

Your glance lights again on the gentle author herself, and you watch the pen gliding easily over the page, which rests on a diminutive shred of well-worn blotting-paper. The face is fair and smooth, the hair, slightly grey, is simply parted back from the forehead, and the three-quarter profile, which presents itself to your gaze, is straight and well-cut. She wears a little white cap, and a long black gown, trimmed with jet, and close by her side lies an enormous Persian tabby cat of great age.

The study is divided from the adjoining room by heavy curtains drawn aside and a j.a.panese screen. It is all perfectly simple and unpretending, but the rooms are thoroughly comfortable and home-like.

The chapter being finished, your hostess rises, declares herself entirely at your service, and mentions that she is now engaged on a new three volume novel, which is to come out early next year in America, and is as yet unnamed.

Mrs. Alexander was born in Ireland, though no touch of accent can be detected. She never left that country until after her nineteenth birthday. Her father belonged to an old squirearchal family, the Frenches of Roscommon. He was a keen sportsman, and a member of the famous Kildare Hunt. The few old pictures which hang on the wall are all family portraits. One represents a paternal ancestor, Lord Annaly, painted in his peer's robes. He was one of the Gore family, of whom no less than nine members sat at the same time in parliament shortly before the Union. Another picture of a comfortable-looking old gentleman in a powdered wig is the portrait of a high legal dignitary, well known in his day as Theobald Wolfe, a great-uncle of Mrs. Alexander. A third is a seventeenth-century portrait of Colonel Dominic French, who looks manly and resolute, in spite of his yellow satin coat, flowing wig, and lace cravat, drawn through his b.u.t.tonhole. This gentleman was the first Protestant of the family, and is credited with having given up his faith for love of his wife, who simpers beside him in an alarmingly _decolletee_ blue dress, suggestive of the courtly style in the time of the Merry Monarch. Her husband, with the ardour of a convert--or a pervert--raised a regiment of dragoons among his tenantry, and fought on the winning side at the Battle of the Boyne.

Mrs. Alexander remarks that her "kinsfolk and acquaintance in early life, were, if not illiterate, certainly unliterary." "I always loved books," she adds, "and was fortunate, when a very young girl, barely out of the schoolroom, in winning the favour of a dear old blind Scotchman, whose wife was a family friend. He was a profound thinker, and an earnest student before he lost his sight. My happiest and most profitable hours were spent in reading aloud to him books, no doubt a good deal beyond my grasp, but which, thanks to his kind and patient explanations, proved the most valuable part of my very irregular education. In reading the newspapers to him, I also gathered some idea of politics, probably very vague ideas, but so liberal in their tendency that my relatives, who were 'bitter Protestants' and the highest of high Tories, looked on me, if not as a 'black sheep,' certainly as a 'lost mutton.' The tendency has remained with me, though my consciousness of the many-sided immensity of the subject, has kept me from forming any decided opinions."

The only bits of ancestry she values, Mrs. Alexander says, are her descent from Jeremy Taylor, the celebrated Bishop of Down and Connor, and the near cousinship of her grandmother to Lord Kilwarden, who was the first victim in Emmet's rising; that high-minded judge, whose last words, as he yielded up his life to the cruel pikes of his a.s.sailants, were, "Let them have a fair trial."

The above-mentioned Jeremy Taylor, and the Rev. Charles Wolfe--whose well-known poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore," was so greatly appreciated by Lord Byron--were the only literary members of the family on her father's side; on her mother's, she can claim kindred with Edmund Malone, the well-known annotator of Shakespeare.

On leaving Ireland, Mrs. Alexander, with her parents, travelled a good deal, both at home and abroad, occasionally sojourning in London, where, while still young, she began to write. Her first attempts were made in the _Family Herald_ and _Household Words_, beginning with a sketch called "Billeted in Boulogne." This is an account of their own personal experience, when they endured the inconvenience of having French soldiers quartered on them.

It was about this time that she was introduced to Mrs. Lynn Linton, by the late Adelaide Proctor, with whose family she was on terms of some intimacy, and with whose charming grandmother, the once well-known and admired Mrs. Basil Montague, she was a prime favourite. From this introduction arose the long, close friendship with the brilliant author of "Joshua Davidson," which Mrs. Alexander values so highly, and of which she is so justly proud.

In 1858 she married Mr. Hector, and wrote no more until she became a widow.

Mr. Hector was a great explorer and traveller. He had been a member of Landor's expedition to seek the sources of the Niger, and immediately after his return to England he joined General Chesney in his attempt to steam down the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf. He was also with Layard during his discoveries in Nineveh, and spent many years in Turkish Arabia. A man of great enterprise and ability, he was the pioneer of commerce, and was the first who sent from London a ship and cargo direct to the Persian Gulf, thereby opening up the trade between the two countries.

It was after her husband's long illness, which terminated fatally, that Mrs. Alexander again turned her thoughts to literature, to seek distraction from her bereavement. It was then she wrote "The Wooing o't." The book was a great success; it ran first through the pages of _Temple Bar_; it was then published in three volumes, pa.s.sed through many editions, and has a world-wide reputation.

"I always write leisurely," says Mrs. Alexander; "I never will hurry, or write against time. No, I have not much method," she answers, in reply to your question, "nor am I quite without it. My stories are generally suggested to me by some trait of character or disposition, which I have adapted rather than produced. My people are rarely portraits, they are rather mosaics; and, I _must_ say, I am exceedingly shy of dealing with my men. Women I _do_ understand. Character to me is all-important. If I can but place the workings of heart and mind before my readers, the incidents which put them in motion are of small importance comparatively. Of course, a strong, clear, logical plot is a treasure not to be found every day! I am not a rapid writer; I like to live with my characters, to get thoroughly acquainted with them; and I am always sorry to part with the companions who have brought me many a pleasant hour of oblivion--oblivion from the carking cares that crowd outside my study door."

There is one point on which you would fain differ from the author. An intimate knowledge of her books convinces you that her power of dealing with her "men" is very great, and that her habits of observation have stood her in good stead, whilst depicting with ready wit and considerable skill the characters of her heroes. As you follow step by step the career of the fascinating Trafford, in "The Wooing o't," and watch the workings of his mind, the struggles between his natural cynicism and pride, and his love for the humbly-born but high-souled little heroine Maggie; his graceful rejection of the hand and fortune of the proud heiress, and the final triumph of love over pedigree, you can with truth echo the author's words, and feel that you too are "sorry to part" with him and his wife, and would gladly welcome a sequel to their histories.

Mrs. Alexander observes that there _is_ one character in that book drawn from life, but adds, with a laugh, she "will not tell you which it is."

You have, however, a suspicion of your own.

"Her Dearest Foe" was the author's next work. It is constructed on entirely different lines, but it is equally absorbing. The varied fortunes of the brave heroine of the "Berlin Bazaar," of the masterful Sir Hugh Galbraith, and the faithful cousin Tom, keep up an engrossing interest from the first line to the last.

Her husband's Christian name being Alexander, she elected to write under that appellation, fearing that her first book might be a failure. Having begun with it, she has ever since kept the same _nom de plume_, and she remarks, "It does just as well as any other."

The great success which attended these two books justified Mrs.

Alexander's further efforts. "Maid, Wife, or Widow," a clever little story, is an "Episode of the '66 War in Germany"; "Which Shall it Be?"

"Look Before You Leap," and "Ralph Wilton's Weird" were brought out during the next few years. They were all favourably reviewed, and many of them pa.s.sed into several editions. These were followed at intervals by "Second Life," "At Bay," "A Life Interest," "The Admiral's Ward," "By Woman's Wit." Mrs. Alexander wrote "The Freres" during a long residence in Germany, whither she went for the education of her children. The fact that she was on intimate terms with many of the good old German families enabled her to write graphically from her personal knowledge of the country.

In "The Executors" Mrs. Alexander broke new ground. The life-like delineation of Karapet is drawn from her own observation and experience of Syrian Christians, but the incidents are, of course, imaginary.

"Blind Fate," "A Woman's Heart," "Mammon," "The Snare of the Fowler,"

followed in due course, also some clever little shilling stories. The author's latest published work in three volumes is called "For His Sake," a pleasant and interesting novel, well worthy of the writer of "The Wooing o't."

Mrs. Alexander's great ambition originally was to write a play; indeed, her first few stories were planned with that object in view, but she soon abandoned the idea, and says she "turned them into novels instead."

That there was some dramatic power in a few of her earlier efforts is evident, as she was applied to for permission to dramatise "Her Dearest Foe" and "By Woman's Wit." "Though," she adds, "it seems to me that the latter is not suited to the stage."

Mrs. Alexander writes best in England. She says that London "inspires her." She holds strong views upon education, and maintains that girls, as well as boys, should be trained to follow some definite line in life.