The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward Part 2

I wish I could follow you there! But that is an 'argumentum non unius horae.'

"Believe me, dear Mrs. Ward, to be

"Yr. attached friend, "MARK PATTISON."

It was indeed an argument, not of a single hour, but of many long years.

But the spark had been set to a complex train of thought which was now to work itself out through toil and stress towards its appointed end.

CHAPTER III

EARLY YEARS IN LONDON--THE WRITING OF _ROBERT ELSMERE_

1881-1888

It was in the early summer of 1880 that Mr. Ward was first approached by Mr. Chenery, the editor, with a suggestion that he should join the staff of _The Times_. The proposal was in many ways an attractive one, in spite of the love of both husband and wife for Oxford, for Mr. Ward was becoming known to a wider world than that of Oxford by his _English Poets_, which had appeared in this year, nor was he a novice in journalism. His wife, too, had many links with London through her visits to the Forsters and her journalistic work. The experiment began in a tentative way in the winter of 1880-81, she remaining in Oxford with the children, and he being "tried" for leader-writing while staying in Bloomsbury lodgings. Within a very few months it proved itself a success, and, after some pleasant interviews with Mr. John Walter, he was retained on the permanent staff of the paper. They began seriously to plan their removal and to look for a house, and found one at length in that comfortable Bloomsbury region, which was then innocent of big hotels and offices, and where the houses in Russell Square had not yet suffered embellishment in the form of pink terra-cotta facings to their windows. They found that the oldest house in the Square, No. 61, was to let, and in spite of the dirt of years with which it was encrusted, perceived its possibilities at once, and came to an agreement with its owner. A charming old house, built in 1745, its prettiest feature was a small square entrance-hall, with eighteenth-century stucco-work on the walls, from which a wide staircase ascended to the drawing-room, giving an impression of s.p.a.ce rare in a _bourgeois_ London house. At the back was a good-sized strip of garden shaded by tall old plane-trees and running down to meet the gardens of Queen Square, for No. 61 stood on the east side of the square and adjoined the first house of Southampton Row. Little powder-closets jutted out at the back, one of which Mrs.

Ward used as her writing-room, and upstairs the bedroom floors seemed to expand as you ascended, reaching only to a third story, but giving us rooms enough even so for ourselves, our maids, and a German governess, besides the various relations who were constantly coming to stay. Wholly pleasant are the memories connected with that benign old house, to us children as well as to our elders, save only that to the youngest of us there were always two lurking horrors, one on the second floor landing, where a dark alcove gave harbourage to a little old man in Scotch kilts, who might, if your legs were not swift enough, come after you as you toiled up the last flight, and one--still more disquieting--on the top landing itself, where the taps dripped in a dreadful little boxroom, and if the taps dripped you knew that the water-bogy, _who lives in taps_, might at any moment escape and overwhelm you. Since no self-respecting child ever imparts its terrors to its elders, these nightmares went unknown until one night, when all the maids were downstairs at supper, the child in question could not make up its mind to cross the landing, past the dark mouth of that box-room, from the room where it undressed to the room where it slept, and was found an hour later, fast asleep in a chair, with towels pinned over every inch of its small body lest the bogy should come out and catch hold. After this crisis I think the terrors declined, and now, alas! taps and box-room and dark alcove have all disappeared together, with the pleasant rooms downstairs and the gravelled garden where one made so many persevering expeditions with the salt-cellar, after the tails of London's sparrows--all swept away and vanished, and the air that they enclosed parcelled out once more into the rectangles of the Imperial Hotel! Peace be to the ghost of that poor house, for it gave happiness in its latter days for nine long years to the human folk who inhabited it, and it watched the unfolding of a human heart and mind which were to have no mean influence upon the generation that encompa.s.sed them.

The house at Oxford was disposed of to the Henry Nettleships, at Michaelmas, 1881, and in the following November the family moved in to Russell Square. It was not without searchings of heart, I think, that Mr. and Mrs. Ward embarked upon the larger venture, where all depended on their retaining health and strength for their work; but they fondly hoped that with the larger regular income from _The Times_ the burden on both pairs of shoulders would be lessened.

"All will be well with us yet," wrote Mrs. Ward to her husband three months before their move, "and if G.o.d is good to us there are coming years of work indeed, but of less burden and strain. All depends on you and me, and though I know the very thought depresses us sometimes, it ought not to, for we have many good gifts within and without, and a fair field, if not the fairest possible field to use them in. It seems to me that all I want to be happy is to keep my own heart and conscience clear, and to feel my way open into the presence of G.o.d and the unseen. And surely to seek is to find."

Years of less burden and strain! She had, indeed, forgotten the spirit within, which was to drive her on to ever new and greater efforts in the more stimulating atmosphere of London. Though her work for the _Dictionary of Christian Biography_ was almost over, she had by this time made the acquaintance of Mr. Morley, then editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and was doing much reviewing of French and Spanish books for him, while she continued to write weekly articles for the Church _Guardian_ and the _Oxford Chronicle_. Nor were the authorities of _The Times_ long in finding out that she too could write, and by the autumn of 1882 many foreign books reached her for review from Printing House Square. She complains in her letters that she cannot get through them quickly enough. "Three or four volumes of these books a week is about all I can do, and that seems to go no way." The inevitable expenses of London life did in fact weigh upon her heavily within a year of their migration, and the sense of "burden and strain" was never long absent.

But she could not have lived otherwise. It was her fundamental instinct to work herself to the bone and then to share her good times with others less fortunate, and since this process made away with her earnings she would work herself to the bone again. In this atmosphere of unremitting toil interruptions were of course discouraged, but when they occurred in spite of all defences she never showed the irritation which so frequently accompanies overwork. And in the many interruptions caused by the childish illnesses of her small family her tenderness and devotion were beyond all words. How she dosed us with aconite and belladonna, watching over us and compelling us to throw off our fevers and colds!

Nor was anything allowed to interfere with the befriending of all members of the family who wished to come to Russell Square. Her brother Willie, who had by this time been appointed to the staff of the _Manchester Guardian_, was a frequent visitor, renewing with each appearance his literary _camaraderie_ with her and delighting in the friends whom she would ask to meet him. Matthew Arnold, too, was sometimes to be caught for an evening--great occasions, those, for Mrs.

Ward's relations with him were already of the most affectionate. He influenced her profoundly in literary and critical matters, for she imbibed from him both her respect for German thoroughness and her pa.s.sion for French perfection. These, indeed, were the years when she saw most of "Uncle Matt," for Pains' Hill Cottage, at Cobham, was not too far away for a Sunday visit, so that she and Mr. Ward would sometimes fly down there for an afternoon of talk. Usually, however, she would return full of blasphemies about his precious dogs, who had diverted their master's attention all through the walk and prevented the flow of his wit and wisdom. Therefore she preferred to get him safely to herself at Russell Square!

Her two younger sisters, Julia and Ethel, were constantly in the house, the elder of whom married in 1885 Mr. Leonard Huxley, and so brought about a happy connection with the Professor and his wife, which gave Mrs. Ward much joy for many years. Nor were her neighbours neglected.

When Christmas came round there was always a wonderful _Weihnachtsbaum_, dressed with loving care by the good German governess, and by any uncles and aunts who were within reach, and attended not only by all possible relations and friends (including especially and always Mr. and Mrs. J.

R. Thursfield and their children), but also by the choirboys of St.

John's Church and by many of _their_ relations too. But behind all this eager hospitality lay a far deeper longing. Her mother had, early in 1881, undergone a second operation for cancer, and though this gave her a year's immunity from pain the malady returned. In March, 1882, she wrote to her daughter with stoical courage that she foresaw what was in store for her--"a hard ending to a hard life." Though she was devotedly nursed by her youngest daughter, Ethel, her suffering overshadowed the next six years of Mary's life like a cloud, but it became also Mrs.

Ward's keenest joy to be able to help her and to ease her path. Once when she herself had been ill and suffering, she wrote her a few lines which reveal her own inmost thoughts on the relation between pain and faith:

"I am _so_ sorry, dearest, for your own suffering. This is a weary world,--but there is good behind it, 'a holy will,' as Amiel says, 'at the root of nature and destiny,' and submission brings peace because in submission the heart finds G.o.d and in G.o.d its rest.

There is no truth I believe in more profoundly."

Yet in spite of the unceasing round of work, what compensations there were in the London life! The making of new friends can never fail to be a delightful process, and it very soon became apparent that Mrs. Ward was to be adopted to the heart of that London world which thought about books and politics and which incidentally was making history. London was smaller then than now, and if a new-comer had brains and modesty, and above all a gift of sympathy that won all hearts, there were few doors that did not open to her or him in time. Her connection with the Forsters and with "Uncle Matt" brought her many friends to start with, while Mr. Ward's work on _The Times_ took them naturally both into the world of painters (for after 1884 he joined art criticism to his political and other writing) and into the world of affairs. A letter written to Mrs. A. H. Johnson in May, 1885, gives a typical picture of the social side of her life three years after the move to London. The occasion is the marriage of Alfred Lyttelton and Laura Tennant:

"The wedding function yesterday was very interesting. I am glad not to have missed Gladstone's speech at the breakfast. What a wondrous man it is! The intensity, the feeling of the speech were extraordinary.... Life has been rather exciting lately in the way of new friends, the latest acquisition being Mr. Goschen, to whom I have quite lost my heart! There is a pliancy and a brilliancy about him which make him one of the most delightful companions. We dined there last Sat.u.r.day and I have seldom had so much interesting talk. Lord Arthur Russell, who sat next me, told me stories of how, as a child at Geneva, he had met folk who in their youth had seen Rousseau and known Voltaire, and had been intimate friends of Mme.

de Stael in middle life. And then, coming a little further down the stream of time, he could describe to me having stayed at Lamartine's chateau in the poet's old age, and so on. Mr. Goschen is busy on a life of his grandfather, who was the publisher of Goethe, Schiller and Wieland, and whose correspondence, which he is now going through, covers the whole almost of the German literary period,--so that after dinner the scene shifted to Germany, and we talked away with an occasional raid into politics, till, to my great regret, the evening was over."

Her own little dinner-parties very soon began to make their mark, while not long after their establishment in London, she began the practice of being at home on Thursday afternoons, and though at first her natural shyness and lack of small talk made her openings somewhat formidable, she soon warmed to the task, till within a very few months her Thursdays became a much-appreciated inst.i.tution. Men, as well as women, came to them, for they always liked to make her talk and to hear her eager views on all the topics of the day, from Irish coercion to the literary personalities of France, or the need for prodding the Universities to open their examinations to women. She still called herself a good Radical in these days, but her devotion to Mr. Forster--whom she had visited in Dublin during his Chief Secretaryship--gave the first reservations to her Liberal faith, for she took his part in the matter of his resignation, and felt that he had not been sufficiently supported by the Cabinet. It was a great grief to her that Mr. Morley, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, found it necessary to attack Mr. Forster's Irish administration with such persistent energy, and once, towards the end of 1882, she summoned up the courage to write him a remonstrance in good set terms. Mr. Morley's reply is characteristic:

_Dec. 13, 82._

DEAR MRS. WARD,--

I have got your letter at last, and carefully read and digested it.

Need I say that its frank and direct vigour only increases my respect for the writer? To answer it, as it deserves, is hardly possible for me. It would take a day for me to set forth, with proper reference to chapter and verse, all the reasons why I could not follow Mr. Forster in his Irish administration. They were set forth from time to time with almost tiresome iteration as events moved forward.

In all that you say about Mr. Forster's unselfishness, his industry, his strenuous desire to do what was right and best, n.o.body agrees more cordially than I do. Personally I have always had--if it is not impertinent in me to say so--a great liking for him. He was always very kind and obliging to me, and nothing has been more painful to me than to know that I was writing what would wound a family for whom I have such sincere respect as I have for his. But the occasion was grave. I have been thinking about Ireland all my life, and that fashion of governing it is odious and intolerable. If Sir Charles Dilke or Mr. Chamberlain had been Chief Secretary, and carried out the Coercion Act as Mr. Forster carried it out, I could not have attacked either of them, but I should have resigned my editorship rather than have connived by silence or otherwise at such mischief.

I may at times have seemed bitter and personal in my language about Mr. Forster. One falls into this tone too readily, when fighting a battle day after day, and writing without time for calm revision.

For that I am sorry, if it has been so, or seemed so. Mr. Forster's friends--some of them--have been extremely unscrupulous in their personalities against me, their charges of intrigue, conspiracy.

All that I do not care for one jot; my real regret, and it is a very sincere one, is that I should seem unjust or vindictive to people like you, who think honestly and calmly about politics, and other things.

I hope that it is over, and that I shall never have to say a word about Mr. Forster's Irish policy again.

Yours very sincerely, JOHN MORLEY.

Such a letter only served to strengthen friendship. Mrs. Ward's literary comradeship with Mr. Morley remained unbroken in spite of widening differences in politics, and when, a few months later, he a.s.sumed the editorship of _Macmillan's Magazine_ he proposed to her that she should virtually take over its literary criticism:--

_March 22, 83._

DEAR MRS. WARD,--

My reign over "Macmillan" will begin in May. I want to know whether you can help me to a literary article once a month--in the shape of a _compte rendu_ of some new books, English or French. It is highly desirable that the subject should be as lively and readable as possible--not erudite and academic, but literary, or socio-literary, as Ste Beuve was.

I don't see why a "causerie" from you once a month should not become as marked a feature in our world, as Ste Beuve was to France. In time, the articles would make matter for a volume, and so you would strike the stars with your sublime head.

I hope my suggestion will commend itself to you. I have been counting upon you, and shall be horribly discouraged if you say No.

Yours sincerely, JOHN MORLEY.

Flattered as she was by the suggestion, she was never able to carry out his whole behest, yet between February, 1883, and June, 1885, she wrote no less than twelve articles for _Macmillan's_, on subjects ranging from the young Spanish Romanticist, Gustavo Becquer, to Keats, Jane Austen, Renan and the "Literature of Introspection" (a propos of Amiel's _Journal Intime_), while the series was ended by a full-dress review of Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_. These articles did much to a.s.sure her position in the world of pure literature, as her Dictionary articles had a.s.sured it in the world of scholarship, and she never ceased to be grateful to Mr. Morley for the opportunities he had given her in inviting them, for the encouragement of his praise and the bracing of his occasional criticism.

But these articles were all written under the heaviest physical disabilities. Early in 1883 she began to suffer from a violent form of writer's cramp, which made her right hand almost useless at times, and recurred at intervals all through her life, so that writing was usually a far more arduous and painful process to her than it is to most of us.

Through the years 1883 and 1884 she was frequently reduced to writing with her left hand, but she also dictated much to her young sister-in-law, Gertrude Ward, who came to live with us at this time, and became for the next eight years the prop and support of our household.

Many remedies were tried for the ailment, but nothing was really effective until after two years a German "writing-master" came on the scene, one Dr. Julius Wolff, who completely transformed her method of writing by making her sit much higher than before, rest the whole fore-arm on the table, and use an altogether different set of muscles.

Many curious exercises he gave her also, which she practised at intervals for years afterwards, and by these means he succeeded in giving her comparative immunity, though whenever she was specially pressed with work the pain and weakness would recur. During the year 1884, however, before Dr. Wolff had appeared, her arm was practically disabled, and she wore it much in a sling.

Yet it was during this year that she began her translation of Amiel's _Journal_ and wrote her first novel, _Miss Bretherton_. The idea of it was suggested by her first sight of the beautiful actress, Mary Anderson, though she always maintained that, once created, Isabel Bretherton became to her an absolutely distinct personality. The manner of its writing is told in a fragment of Miss Gertrude Ward's journal:

"The book was written in about six weeks. She used to lie or sit out of doors at Borough Farm, with a notebook and pencil, and scrawl down what she could with her left hand; then she would come in about twelve and dictate to me at a great rate for an hour or more. In the afternoon and evening she would look over and correct what was done, and I copied out the whole. The scene of Marie and Kendal in his rooms was dictated in her bedroom; she lay on her bed, and I sat by the window behind a screen."

The book was published by Messrs. Macmillan and appeared in December, 1884. It attracted a good deal of attention. The general verdict was that it was a fine and delicate piece of work, but on too limited, too intellectual a scale. This view was admirably put by her old friend, Mr.

Creighton (then Emmanuel Professor at Cambridge):

MY DEAR MRS. WARD,--

I have read _Miss Bretherton_ with much interest. It was hardly fair on the book to know the plot beforehand, but I found myself carried away by the delicate feeling with which the development of character was traced. The Nuneham scene, the death-bed and the final reconciliation were really touching and powerfully worked out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Borough Farm.]