
 
 <v

 
 I MYSELF
 
 MRS. T. P. O'CONNOR 
 
 FROM A DRAWING BY \V. STRANK3
 
 I MYSELF 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS T. P. O'CONNOR 
 
 WITH FOURTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 1911
 
 TO 
 
 W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON 
 
 IN APPRECIATION OF THE HAPPINESS AND PR1DK 
 HE HAS GIVEN ME
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 I. MY FIRST MEMORY i 
 II. A FIRST FAMILY OF VIRGINIA ... 6 
 
 III. MY FATHER . . . . .n 
 
 IV. MY TERRIBLE SECRET . . . .16 
 V. IN TRUTH LIES FREEDOM . . . .20 
 
 VI. ELEMENTAL ME . . . . .25 
 
 VII. MY FATHER IN PRISON . . . .30 
 
 VIII. MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE . . 35 
 
 IX. AUNT MARY THE ANGEL . . . -39 
 
 X. MY MOTHER'S DEATH . . . -45 
 
 XI. FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE . . . .50 
 
 XII. MY REGRET AT MY LACK OF EDUCATION . 59 
 
 XIII. THE UGLY DUCKLING . . . .65 
 
 XIV. THE WORLD'S DIVINEST LOVE . . .72 
 XV. MY FIRST EMPLOYMENT . . . . 79 
 
 XVI. LOVE MEANS SACRIFICE . 85 
 
 XVII. A NOBLE LIFE ..... 88 
 
 XVIII. THE JOY OF GIVING . . . .92 
 
 XIX. AN UNQUIET GHOST . . . .99 
 
 XX. MY BELOVED MARY . . . .104 
 
 XXI. THE MAKING OF A JOURNALIST . . .109 
 
 XXII. A CHANGE OF OCCUPATION . . .115 
 
 XXIII. LOVING MEMORIES . 120
 
 viii I MYSELF 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XXIV. BRER RABBIT AS THE THERMOMETER OF MY 
 AFFECTIONS .... 
 
 XXV. THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM SOLVED. BRIGIT, THE 
 JEWEL OF THE WORLD 
 
 XXVI. THE TRAGEDY OF A NUN 
 XXVII. I BECOME ENGAGED .... 
 XXVIII. A SHIPWRECK LEAVING MY FRIENDS 
 XXIX. I GET MARRIED .... 
 
 XXX. THE UNPOPULARITY OF IRISH POLITICS 
 XXXI. MY MYTHICAL REPUTATION 
 XXXII. MY FAITHFULLEST FRIEND MAX 
 
 XXXIII. IN GERMANY DAILY LETTERS FROM T. P. . 
 
 XXXIV. " MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM," AND GEORGE 
 
 AUGUSTUS SALA .... 
 
 XXXV. RED INDIANS AND THE MAZE . 
 XXXVI. IN GERMANY IT is THE LAW . 
 
 XXXVII. SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE BROAD DAYLIGHT . 
 
 XXXVIII. THE MEMBER FOR SCOTLAND DIVISION AND 
 THE UNCROWNED KING 
 
 XXXIX. THE BIRTH OF "THE STAR" . 
 
 XL. MY FIRE-ESCAPE FLIGHT. BRILLIANT LETTERS 
 FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 
 XLI. A "STAR" PARTY. THE SHIRT OF CHARLES 
 I., AND NORWAY .... 
 XLII. A FRAGRANT PRECIPICE 
 
 XLIII. THE LOST LEADER .... 
 XLIV. AN OLD-WORLD HOUSE IN CHELSEA . 
 XLV. FROM MY LETTER BOOK 
 XLVI. A LONG AGO MEMORY OF LISZT 
 XLVII. MY DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO A GROUP OF AUTHORS
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XLVIII. MY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE . .268 
 
 XLIX. THE VALLEY OF DEATH . . .273 
 
 L. THE NURSING HOME . . . .277 
 
 LI. THE LITTLE JOYS OF LIFE . . .282 
 
 LII. SATISFYING SYMPATHY .... 285 
 
 LIII. MY HUMAN GARDEN .... 290 
 
 LIV. HENRY JAMES, ELLEN TERRY, AND OLD LACE 295 
 
 LV. A LACE POCKET HANDKERCHIEF AND ST JOSEPH 301 
 
 LVI. FAITHFUL ENGLISH KINDNESS . . 306 
 
 LVII. MY SOUL is LARGE ENOUGH TO BEAR THE 
 
 WEIGHT OF GRATITUDE . . .311 
 
 LVI 1 1. ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH . . 318 
 
 LIX. SYMPATHETIC WAITERS . . .327 
 
 LX. THE LEPRECHAUN'S POT OF GOLD . -333 
 
 LXI. MY STEPMOTHER FATE . . . .341 
 
 INDEX . .... 349
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MRS T. P. O'CONNOR .... Frontispiece 
 
 From a drawing by W. Strong 
 
 FACING PACK 
 
 "I AM AN ABOLITIONIST" . . . . .21 
 
 From a drawing by Graham Robertson 
 
 "SHE is ALONE THE ARABIAN BIRD" . . .31 
 
 From a drawing by Graham Robertson 
 
 A SERIOUS CHILD OF TWELVE . . . -59 
 
 IN THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH, A DEBUTANTE . . 74 
 
 DISCREET TOODIE . . . . . .116 
 
 THE NUN OF THE VANDERBILT BALL . . .126 
 
 "YOU BETTER HOLLER FROM WHAR J YOU STAN', BRER 
 WOLF," SEZ BRER RABBIT, " I'M MONST'OUS FULL OF 
 FLEAS DIS MORNIN'" . . . . .128 
 
 From a pencil drawing by Sir F. Carruthers Gould 
 
 "NOTHING BUT THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS" . . 203 
 
 From a pencil drawing by Max Beerbohm 
 
 A RARE OCCASION T. P. AT HOME . . .236 
 
 PlOUS COAXEY AT HIS PRAYERS . . . .266 
 
 From a photograph by W. & D. Downey 
 
 "I'M A SOLDIER OF THE KING" .... 282 
 " 'Tis ALMOST FAIRY TIME " 333 
 
 From a drawing by Graham Robertson 
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN AND THE GARDEN OF PINKIE AND 
 
 THE FAIRIES ...... 338
 
 I POUR LOVE S WINE AND BID THE WORLD TAKE PART 
 AROUND THE PURPLE ALTARS OF MY HEART."
 
 I MYSELF 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MY FIRST MEMORY 
 
 MY first memory is one of pain. I was the child of 
 a romantic love marriage ; my father was 
 desperately in love with my mother, and she 
 with him. She died of heart disease when I was a little 
 girl and he was far away, but I have never forgotten her 
 continued calls for him. Many years after, when his voice 
 had grown weak from suffering, and he was at the gates of 
 death, he tried to raise himself from the pillow, and called 
 in a loud, clear voice : " Marcia ! Marcia ! " then fell back 
 into unconsciousness. Her beloved name, which he had not 
 spoken for years, was the last on his lips. 
 
 I have a theory that the children of two people who love 
 profoundly have deeper affections than those whose parents 
 are indifferent or philosophic towards each other ; at any 
 rate I was born with a most loving heart, and even yet, 
 after years of disillusion, experience and trouble, it is still 
 in the power of those whom I love to hurt me bitterly. 
 
 I was an unexpected and delicate child, and was greatly 
 loved, and terribly indulged. According to the fashion of 
 the South, I had a foster-mother, a very black young negress 
 of twenty ; she had already become the mother of two lusty 
 little piccaninnies shiny, coal-black, fat boys. I adored 
 my " Mammy," and my adoration was returned a thousand- 
 fold. Love means sacrifice : this poor slave was called upon 
 to make woman's supremest sacrifice for her foster-child, 
 and made it with the generosity of an entirely noble nature. 
 
 My two foster-brothers were much indulged and spoiled
 
 2 I MYSELF 
 
 by my father, who loved all children, white or black. They 
 were continually in the front garden, rooting up flowers (my 
 mother was a passionate gardener), throwing stones at the 
 chickens, and doing other damage. At any rate, my mother, 
 who had been born and brought up to slavery and its in- 
 justice as a matter of course (I was literally born detesting 
 it, and I may say detesting all injustice), influenced my 
 father to sell my negro Mammy and her two children to a 
 woman who lived twenty-five miles from Austin in a little 
 town called Bastrop. 
 
 I woke up one morning with a sweet-faced Irish nurse, 
 whom I grew to love very fondly afterwards, and who lived 
 with us for five or six years (she is now a rich woman and 
 the mother of a prospective bishop), but she was a stranger, 
 and I was told that Mammy was gone. I immediately 
 dissolved into tears and wailings, and for a fortnight I cried 
 out by day and by night : " I want my Mammy I want 
 my Mammy ! " Toys were given to me, new dolls, I was 
 allowed to choose my own dresses and sashes every day, but 
 nothing in this world mattered to me neither dolls, nor 
 candy, nor ribbons. I was perfectly consistent, and I dare- 
 say must have wearied everybody out with my continual 
 cry : " I want my Mammy I want my Mammy ! " Mary, 
 my nurse, said to me : " Now, will you have the pink dress 
 or the white dress ? " I looked at the pink and white 
 dresses through a rain of tears, and answered, " I want my 
 Mammy I want my Mammy ! " Finally I cried myself 
 into a high fever ; the old family doctor was sent for, and 
 came jogging along on a fat white horse with saddle-bags on 
 each side, as was the custom in the country then ; he came 
 in the nursery and asked : " What is the matter with the 
 little girl ? " in a tone so kind and sympathetic that I fairly 
 wailed in anguish : " I want my Mammy I want my 
 Mammy ! I must have my Mammy ! " The doctor loved 
 children, and when my father said : " What are we going 
 to do with this child, doctor ? " he shook his head and 
 answered, " You know, Judge, she is very delicate, she is 
 now in a high fever ; her nurse tells me that she has taken
 
 MY FIRST MEMORY 3 
 
 scarcely any nourishment for the last week she is literally 
 starving from grief." 
 
 " I want my Mammy I want my Mammy ! " 
 
 The old doctor put his hand tenderly on my head and 
 said, " I really think there is nothing for it, Judge, except to 
 buy her Mammy back again." 
 
 " Very well," my father answered, " I don't care what it 
 costs I'll do it." 
 
 I was only four, not old enough to understand all the 
 conversation, difficult to convince of Mammy's return, and 
 that day I refused to eat altogether. When the shadows 
 were at their longest in the afternoon, my mother had per- 
 suaded me to go into the dining-room, an immense room 
 with six long windows and two doors. I had not touched 
 a morsel of food the entire day. She opened the doors of a 
 cupboard which contained cream, and curds and whey, and 
 cakes, and jellies, and preserves of all kinds, for my mother 
 was a famous cook and noted housekeeper, and she began : 
 
 " Now, if you would like a little peach preserve and a 
 little cream you can have it." 
 
 " I want my Mammy," I said. 
 
 "Or if you would like a little cake and some milk you 
 can have that." 
 
 " I want my Mammy." 
 
 " Oh, do," she said, " be reasonable, and try just a little 
 bit of honey and some clabber." (Milk with cream on the 
 top, which turns sour in a hot country in perhaps less than 
 an hour it has a slightly acid taste, and is delicious.) 
 " Take some clabber," she said. 
 
 " I want my Mammy I want my Mammy ! " 
 
 Suddenly a long ray of sunlight fell through the door ; 
 I turned, and there, with the tears running down her dusty 
 face, exhausted, travel-stained and bareheaded except for 
 her many-coloured head-handkerchief, stood my Mammy. 
 I gave one wild cry of delight, rushed towards her, and she 
 gathered me in her black, strong arms. 
 
 " Oh," I said, " I've got my Mammy ! I've got my 
 Mammy ! " And I began to pat her black cheeks and kiss
 
 4 I MYSELF 
 
 her all over her face. Then I tucked my head in her neck 
 and almost fainted with joy. 
 
 " Why, Hester," I heard my mother say, " where have 
 you come from ? " 
 
 " Miss Marcia," she answered, " I have runned away. 
 Ever since I left my white chile I've had awful dreams I 
 thought she was dyin' an' I could hear her cryin' for me, an' 
 cryin' for me, an' cryin' for me, an' I know'd she wuz jus' 
 breakin' her po' little heart de chile got so much heart 
 an' las' night at eleven o'clock I got out of bed, stole out of 
 the niggers' quarters, and since then I have walked twenty- 
 five miles in de sun. I've had nothin' to eat or drink I 
 felt my baby wuz dyin', an' I jus' kep' on an' kep' on till I 
 got here." 
 
 And about everything Mammy possessed an extraordinary 
 prophetic instinct. 
 
 The next day, when we were all less emotional, my father 
 spoke to her and said, " Hester, I am going down to Bastrop 
 to buy you and your children back again." 
 
 He went and found the woman who had bought Mammy 
 obdurate ; she said the children were valuable, they were 
 healthy boys, and she had got them very cheap that 
 Hester was lazy and he could buy her back if he liked, but 
 no price would induce her to part with the children. 
 
 My father returned, bringing the bad news. " Well, 
 Hester," he said, " I am very sorry, but I am afraid you 
 have got to decide between my child and your boys. I 
 won't buy you back and separate you from your children 
 without your own consent." 
 
 She took the night to think it over, and then she gave her 
 decision, saying : " Judge, Betty's a terrible, nervous, 
 delicate chile, an' I think it would kill her if I left her ; them 
 little niggers of mine are strong healthy children they'll 
 grow up anyhow so I have decided to stay with my white 
 chile." 
 
 From that moment I was her bond-slave much more than 
 she was ever mine. If I did not want to do anything Mammy 
 had only to say : "I might have know'd this. I done give
 
 MY FIRST MEMORY 5 
 
 up my own childern for you, an' here you're treatin' me 
 without any respec'." And whatever it was, whether 
 reasonable or not, I at once did her bidding. As I grew 
 older I can remember my mother saying : "If you want 
 Betty to do anything, get Hester to ask her." 
 
 That was my first memory, my first grief, and my first 
 responsibility. Surely life began with me too soon.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A FIRST FAMILY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 MY great-grandfather, Major Duval, a proud and 
 very elegant, dressy old gentleman of the old 
 regime, was, according to the history of Virginia, 
 the last man in Richmond who wore satin small-clothes and 
 a bag wig. His ancestors were two brothers of aristocratic 
 family and considerable fortune who came to America from 
 Rouen. One of the (I think feeble) jokes of the family was, 
 that we had come from Rouen, and we were going back to 
 ruin for we were as a family both unceasingly hospitable 
 and thoughtlessly extravagant. My grandfather, on my 
 father's side also of French Huguenot extraction had 
 been a shopkeeper, and this was considered a terrible blot 
 on the family escutcheon. No Duval had ever even scented 
 trade. My mother, the proudest and most intolerant 
 socially of all her family, had married a man whose father 
 had been a merchant. Consequently, at an early age I was 
 taught that I must combat the plebeian blood which came to 
 me from my father's side of the family. No Duval ever had 
 it, and no Duval had ever brought it into the family before 
 and whenever I did anything my mother particularly dis- 
 liked she remarked to my very intolerantly aristocratic 
 great-aunt, Miss Polly Hynes, who from time to time lived 
 with us, that it was my " plebeian blood." I used as a very 
 young child to wonder if it was a different colour from other 
 blood, and I remember once asking Mammy when I cut my 
 finger badly not to tie it up, to let it bleed. I thought in this 
 way I might get rid of the awful blood that was ever pursuing 
 me, and getting me into bad favour and mischief. Even
 
 A FIRST FAMILY OF VIRGINIA 7 
 
 my physical defects came from my plebeian blood. No Duval 
 had ever had freckles but I had freckles, Paschal freckles 
 and, what is worse, I've got them yet. Oh, that persistent 
 plebeian blood ! All the Duvals had small, aristocratic 
 ears ; mine were large, plebeian ears. And every self- 
 respecting Duval woman wore a No. i shoe, and was 
 the possessor of an Andalusian instep ; I had the Paschal 
 foot. If I had not passionately loved my father I might 
 have wished that my mother had married some one else. 
 And it was not, alas ! only in my ears and my feet that my 
 plebeian blood asserted itself ; at an early age I evinced 
 certain decidedly democratic tendencies that had to be com- 
 bated with might and main, as no Duval ever had them 
 (the truth being that I was a friendly, lonely, affectionate 
 child, longing for companionship). 
 
 A family of delightful children lived near us, but their 
 father was a tinsmith, and I was strictly forbidden to play 
 with them, for they too were plebeians. Mary and Billy, 
 the eldest boy and girl, were my own age, and Billy, in spite 
 of my freckles (he had a goodly number of his own) and my 
 ears, adored me. He used to give me strings of the most 
 wonderful birds' eggs, for Texas is the land of birds, and 
 once he brought me a live humming bird, but it died in an 
 hour and then he gave me a white rabbit with pink eyes. 
 My mother was for sending it back at once, but it had 
 already been concealed for a week, and become attached to 
 me, and I cried piteously, and Mammy, and Aunt Polly 
 Hynes, and my father, all interceded, and my father re- 
 marked that Bates was a very decent man, with decent 
 children, and why couldn't I be allowed to be friends and 
 play with them now and again ? And my mother answered 
 if she listened to him I would know every plebeian child in 
 town, that Mammy was to take Billy a prize chicken the 
 next day, and a riding whip, which would relieve us from the 
 obligation of the white rabbit, and my acquaintance with the 
 Bateses was at an end. Years afterward, when I came back 
 home from boarding school, a motherless girl with the 
 longest trains and the most elaborately dressed hair that
 
 8 I MYSELF 
 
 was ever seen, Billy, now rich and in the best society, was 
 my very first visitor. Good, broad-faced, broad-shouldered, 
 broad-souled, freckled-faced, Billy not a bit put off by my 
 plebeian defects was still adoring. But Austin was a 
 military post, there were numbers of young officers in 
 gorgeous uniforms, with dash and mystery about them. 
 Billy was just Billy of the birds' eggs and the white rabbit, 
 whom I had known all my life. There was no mystery 
 about him. His nature was as clear and pellucid as a crystal 
 spring. He was unpretentious, simple, honest, truthful, 
 straightforward, honourable, high-minded, and as hard 
 wearing and honest as his good father's good tin a true 
 gentleman. But I infinitely preferred a long blue cloak lined 
 with red, a close-fitting uniform with brass buttons, and a 
 red sash, a military cap set jauntily on the head, a splendid 
 dancer (Billy got on my toes) and Swinburne read aloud. 
 Only eyes that have wept much can see clearly mine had 
 not been cleared by tears of sorrow. I was still blind with 
 youth's unreal visions. 
 
 Few women have the good fortune to love Billys at six- 
 teen. The spurious glitter of life fills and dazzles the eyes 
 at that tender age. 
 
 Although my mother had been the most exclusive person 
 in our little town, and an aristocrat to her very small finger- 
 tips, she was really not so hidebound in her views as Mammy, 
 who preached eternally on the necessity of keeping to your 
 own class. 
 
 " But, Mammy," as a child I used to say, " the Bateses 
 are very nice, and Mary has beautiful clothes for Sunday 
 school." 
 
 Mammy looked imperious and disapproving. " Dem 
 Bates chillun ain't bad chillun I ain't sayin' dey is but 
 who dey gran 'pa ? Dey ain't nobody in de roun' worl' dat 
 knows, or dat wants to know. Now you's got a gran'pa, 
 an' what yo' gran'pa wuz, you is. An' yo' gran'pa is a gentle- 
 man, an' you ought to be a lady. But you ain't gwine to 
 be if you goes an' plays wid de Toms, Dicks an' Harrys in 
 dis here town."
 
 A FIRST FAMILY OF VIRGINIA 
 
 But, dear Mammy " 
 
 " Now, don't you ' dear Mammy ' me. I seen you fishin' 
 wid William Bates yesterday" (no familiarity of nick- 
 names for Mammy), " an' I ain't tell yo' momma yit, but 
 jes' let me ketch you at it agin, dat's all." 
 
 The words of Mammy have come painfully and acutely 
 true the last few years. My " gran'pa " died with gout, and 
 several severe attacks have lately laid me low and at last, 
 after many years, " what my gran'pa wuz, I is." 
 
 The Civil War opened my mother's really noble nature, 
 and the last years of her life she was too much of a humani- 
 tarian to be exclusive. But Mammy, who lived to be an 
 old woman, never relaxed, and remained a true aristocrat 
 to the end of her days. She had a thorough contempt for 
 people whom she called " half -strainers," and Yankees she 
 could not abide. She used to say : " Dese here Yankees 
 don't understand niggers dey too polite, an' dey too 
 promisin', an' dey too stingy. A Southern man sing out in 
 de mornin' : ' Here, Dick, you old villain, take my breeches 
 and brush 'em, an' clean my shoes,' den he up an' cusses 
 'cause de shoes don't shine, but he gives Dick two dollars. 
 A Yankee says : ' Please brush my clothes, valet.' Den 
 he takes 'em an' say : ' Thank you, I'm gwine to give you 
 five dollars on Saturday,' an' dat's de last you hear of him. 
 De magnolia an' pomegranate an' jessamine won't grow in 
 no Yankee land. The South is de place for de magnolia 
 blooms, an' for de ole families an' fur niggers." 
 
 I shall never forget Mammy's scorn of me upon one 
 occasion, when she asked me who a young cavalry officer 
 who was visiting the house was. 
 
 I said, " He's Captain Maynard." 
 
 Mammy said : "I know he name I tuk it often enough 
 at de door but who is he ? Who is his pa an' his gran'pa ? " 
 
 " Oh, Mammy " I spoke with impatience " I don't 
 know, only I've heard that he belongs to one of the old 
 families in Ohio." 
 
 Mammy gave a great burst of sardonic laughter, and 
 said : " Honey, dis is something new. I know de Pages,
 
 io I MYSELF 
 
 an' de Nelsons, an' de Dinwiddies, an' de Berkeleys, an' de 
 Duvals, in Virginia dey's de ole families. I knows de 
 AUstons an' de Pegrams, de Pinkneys an' de Gordons, an' 
 other ole families in South Carolina, an' in Florida an' 
 Louisiana, an' in de South, but dese here ole families in 
 Ohio is bran' new to me. I don't know why you can't keep 
 to yo' kind. Miss Marcia " (my mother) " never knew any- 
 body from Ohio, ole or new. An' all I know 'bout Ohio 
 wuz dat before de war de runaway niggers went dar." 
 
 I did not argue Mammy was too subtle and too per- 
 sistent for argument and about people her instinct was 
 almost unerring. She scented the false, the mean, and the 
 meretricious from afar, and her opinions were often veritable 
 prophecies. She was black, and she could read no books. 
 Her horizon was bounded by our very small world. But 
 no statesman could give better, wiser or more far-seeing 
 advice. And in time of sickness, and sorrow, and trouble, 
 there was no heart so tender, so loyal, understanding and 
 true. How often, after the responsibilities and disillusions 
 of life came to me, I would go to Mammy about twilight 
 and say, " Mammy, I'm tired." She understood all there 
 was behind that. " Is you, honey ? " and I was gathered 
 to her broad breast, and there was just silence and comfort 
 no questions asked, no comments, no advice, no criticisms 
 just pure and faithful, unquestioning, understanding love. 
 Oh, the infinite rest of it ! The peace of it ! There is 
 nothing like it in all this weary world now. I am mortally 
 tired. My body is tired my heart is tired my very soul 
 is tired. And in some other and better world Mammy knows 
 it, for she sends me oftener and oftener sweet dreams of my 
 childhood, of the far-away South and of her.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 I THINK the person of all others whom I have loved 
 most in my life was my father. I know I stood 
 spiritually closer to him than I have ever done to 
 any human being. I had a sort of understanding with him 
 as if I were a little corner of his soul. If he came into the 
 house apparently quite collected and cheerful, to all the 
 other members of the family, I recognized instantly a sort 
 of worried undertone in his voice, and I involuntarily 
 slipped my hand in his and gave it a little squeeze of sym- 
 pathy. Of all the men I have ever seen, he was the most 
 touchingly unselfish. Man is in the main so unconsciously 
 selfish, that there is something deeply pathetic in a manly 
 man with the tenderness, and self-sacrifice, of a woman. 
 Even in quite little things my father always thought first 
 of others. He was extremely fond of vegetables and fruit, 
 but in the early spring, when green peas first appeared on 
 the dinner-table, he always said he preferred peas a little 
 older, so that some one else might have his portion ; or if 
 a great bowl of new figs was brought in, and every one began 
 to eat greedily, he said he preferred figs a little more ripe, 
 and had none at all himself. He could more readily put 
 himself in the place of other people than any man I have ever 
 seen as the French say, he could " get into the skin " of 
 others. He was a famous divorce lawyer, and as far as I 
 can recollect he never lost a divorce case ; but when people 
 came to him, particularly women, with a long story of
 
 12 I MYSELF 
 
 wrongs, and their feelings at the highest tension, he listened 
 sympathetically, and with the greatest patience, and at the 
 end he said : " Yes, this is very melancholy, and I have no 
 doubt you have had a good deal to bear, and very likely 
 you will be able to divorce your husband ; but divorce is not 
 to be entered into any more lightly than matrimony ; and 
 as you have talked a good deal to your friends and your 
 relations, and been advised by various people (I daresay 
 much ofjt is very good advice), I want you and your husband 
 now to go away into the country, or by the seashore, quite 
 alone and talk over your affairs together without any inter- 
 ference or advice from anybody else for a month. At the 
 end of that time, if you really want a divorce, come back 
 and talk to me about it ; but if there is to be a reconciliation, 
 then, I will help you to set yourself right with your family 
 and friends." 
 
 I remember a case of the wife of a colonel in the army. 
 She roused us up at two o'clock one morning in the dripping 
 rain, with a delicate baby in her arms, to say that her husband 
 had beaten her and turned her out of his quarters. At 
 fifteen I was the most chivalrous, sympathetic child possible. 
 Her description of the colonel and his cruel and inhuman 
 conduct, made me blaze with rage. I could not understand 
 my father's coolness and, as I thought, phlegmatic indiffer- 
 ence over her outrages, and when she told me that my 
 father had made the proposition of a trip to the country 
 with her husband, I really lost patience with him, and he 
 had not only to listen to the wrongs of the wife from her, 
 but from me ; and to all the innocence, enthusiasm and 
 ignorance of a child, the wrongs were truly heartrending. 
 When she finally retired into the country with this awful 
 blackguard, this monstrous ruffian, I simply wept. How- 
 ever, she did retire. At the end of the month they returned. 
 The young lieutenant (I was too young in those days to know 
 anything about the lieutenant, but there was a lieutenant) 
 had been ordered off to another regiment stationed in 
 California. The colonel and his wife were entirely recon- 
 ciled, and many years afterwards, when he died, I never saw
 
 MY FATHER 13 
 
 so much crpe or such heavy mourning. By that time I 
 had seen a good many colonels' wives, and a good many 
 lieutenants, and I was much less impressed with the mourn- 
 ing than I was with the projected divorce. According to 
 the convenient memory of her sex, and enveloped in velvet 
 blackness from top to toe, she subsequently told me, that 
 no woman in the world had ever had such a devoted 
 husband, and there had never been a difference (I don't 
 suppose she considered a lieutenant a difference) between 
 them. I did not remind her of her flight in the middle 
 of the night from this monster who had become such a 
 saint. 
 
 Of all the peacemakers I have ever seen I think my father 
 was the best and greatest. " Blessed are the peacemakers, 
 for they shall be called the children of God." Not only were 
 many divorces avoided by my father, but family quarrels 
 patched up again and again, friends reconciled, and quarrels 
 mended, by his just and wise advice. In the first place, no 
 one ever talked to him without feeling rested and refreshed. 
 His spirit was so broad and so great that you felt your 
 mental littleness and pettiness drop from you like a mantle, 
 as you sat down in his beautiful, uplifting presence. An old 
 friend of his died, leaving rather a complicated will. He 
 was a very rich man, and had ten children : this led to fre- 
 quent quarrels in the family, but they all lived together 
 fairly harmoniously until my father was taken very ill. 
 One morning seven of the children and the mother arrived, 
 all of them in a state of mind bordering on insanity. My 
 father was at this time very ill, but he insisted upon being 
 propped up in bed with pillows behind his back, and 
 the eight raging human beings entered this exalted death- 
 chamber. The first words were loud and angry, and I 
 listened with the greatest anxiety outside the door. In 
 half-an-hour one could hear the tones getting lower and 
 more gentle, and the end of it was, they all left the house in 
 tears, quite subdued, and with promises of a better under- 
 standing in the future. 
 
 My father never had an interested thought for himself,
 
 i 4 I MYSELF 
 
 and his pitiful tenderness for humanity was inexhaustible. 
 He loved his kind with an instinctive sympathy derived 
 from a continual study of that source of all the humanities, 
 Christ's Sermon on the Mount. He was not a very good 
 business man, but his beautiful, brave face at once inspired 
 trust and faith. 
 
 After the Civil War, when America was in a perfectly 
 chaotic state, he was in New York, and walking down 
 Broadway he passed once or twice a tall countryman. 
 Finally this man came up and spoke to him, saying : " Ex- 
 cuse me, sir, but I have left the South and have come to 
 New York to make my fortune. I have got the whole of 
 my capital with me three thousand dollars. Can you tell 
 me how to invest it ? " 
 
 " Well, my dear sir," my father said to him, " how is it 
 that you address a total stranger like myself and ask for such 
 an important piece of advice ? " 
 
 The man answered : "I have been walking up and down 
 Broadway the whole day looking for an honest man, as 
 soon as I saw you, I knew I had found one." 
 
 My father did not tell him how to invest the money, but 
 introduced him to a responsible banker, and the man after- 
 wards established a good business by buying and selling 
 cotton. 
 
 There was a very celebrated woman in America, a Mrs 
 Gaines. My father was her lawyer for thirty years. She 
 had a most romantic history. When a young, brilliant, and 
 beautiful girl, she fell in love with a young man who was 
 poor and not desirable : so her father thought, but she 
 insisted upon marrying him, and at last her father flew into a 
 terrible rage and said : " I don't care who you marry, as you 
 are not my daughter." 
 
 She asked whose daughter she was, and he said : " The 
 illegitimate daughter of Daniel Clark of Louisiana." 
 
 She answered : " I am too honest a woman to be anybody's 
 illegitimate daughter ; from this moment I devote my life 
 to proving my legitimacy. I don't know who Daniel Clark 
 was, but if he was my father, he married my mother ; and
 
 MY FATHER 15 
 
 though you have been my father for nineteen years you shall 
 not reproach me with what is not true." 
 
 She did establish her legitimacy, and she was heir to per- 
 haps the greatest fortune in America, but, according to our 
 national law, her property, having been " squatted upon," 
 had really passed into other hands, consequently innumer- 
 able and incessant law-suits were necessary in order to get 
 hold of the many millions. En secondes noces she married 
 General Gaines, and the fortunes of the first and second 
 husband were both swallowed up in enormous law-suits. 
 She read law herself, and was a very intelligent woman, a 
 brilliant conversationalist, but absolutely with one idea, 
 as she never thought or spoke of anything else than her one 
 great interest. When my father died she paid him a magni- 
 ficent tribute, after thirty years of the closest association 
 with him, and having become suspicious of human nature 
 through very many experiences. She said to me : " Your 
 father Judge Paschal never thought, or said, or did a mean 
 thing in the whole of his life."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MY TERRIBLE SECRET 
 
 I REMEMBER the first secret that I ever had from 
 my father. Oh, how hideously, how terribly it 
 weighed upon my conscience the tender conscience 
 of five ! Mammy used to tell me a great deal about the 
 wrongs of the negroes and about the Abolitionists, who were 
 looked upon as the very scum of the earth in the South, and 
 were often lynched. I had great sympathy with the slaves ; 
 I seemed to have been born to think slavery an abomina- 
 tion, and gradually I became an Abolitionist. It was such 
 an awful thing that I could take only Mammy into my con- 
 fidence. 
 
 I recollect when I was six years old going into the kitchen 
 early one morning and saying to her : " Mammy, I have got 
 something to tell you. It will be an awful thing for the 
 family when it is known perhaps I shall have to go away 
 for always. I am an Abolitionist ! " 
 
 Mammy said : " Oh, lots of niggers are mighty well off, 
 I can tell you all Miss Marcia's niggers are anyhow. 
 I don't think, if I wuz in your place, I would be an 
 Abolitionist." 
 
 " But," I said, " Mammy, I am I am an Abolitionist." 
 
 Then slowly I began to prepare my father for this horrible 
 revelation. I said to him : " Pappy, I have got something 
 to tell you about myself, so awful that I can't be your little 
 girl." 
 
 He looked rather amused : " Oh, I don't think that is 
 possible." 
 
 " But," I insisted, " it is. You don't know what it is 
 
 16
 
 MY TERRIBLE SECRET 17 
 
 it is something so terrible that I can't tell you to-day I 
 must have a few days more." 
 
 He did not press me. I was rather sorry for that, so again 
 I asked him : " If I had to go away from home for ever 
 could I take Mammy with me ? " 
 
 He said : " Well, it depends upon where you are going." 
 
 I replied : " Fm afraid I will have to go. You say I 
 should never have a secret from you, but I have got a most 
 awful, awful secret I don't suppose any child ever had such 
 a secret before." 
 
 Again he repressed his curiosity and I deferred my revela- 
 tion. Finally one day I climbed upon his knee, put my 
 arms round his neck, and said : " Now, I am going to hold 
 you tight while I tell you something, because it may be the 
 last time that you will ever want me on your lap. I am 
 something that you think is awful, but I know it is right, 
 and you have always told me that I was to be brave and 
 have courage, and if I thought a thing was right I was to 
 stand by it." 
 
 He tenderly stroked my hair, saying, " Well, now I am 
 thoroughly prepared ; you have been talking to me for 
 some time, and I shall have courage for whatever revelation 
 you make to me." 
 
 I slipped from my knee, and stood up, held my breath for 
 a moment, and then gasped out : "I am an Abolitionist ! " 
 
 I shall never forget the shame and anguish that I suffered 
 when he laughed more heartily than I had ever heard him 
 laugh before. To think that I had gone through weeks of 
 agony and genuine mental suffering, and my well-thought- 
 out, martyr-like principle was to be treated with levity ! I 
 was thoroughly angry and disgusted, but somewhat re- 
 lieved at the same time, as it seemed to make no difference 
 whatever in my father's affection for me. 
 
 Just after this I had an opportunity of putting my prin- 
 ciple into practice. My father had bought a negro from the 
 rice plantation who was more like an animal than anything 
 I have ever seen. He had been brought up in a little cabin ; 
 he had never seen a carpet, or a pair of andirons, or a table,
 
 i8 I MYSELF 
 
 or in fact anything that belongs to civilization. He had 
 simply worked on a river plantation, had corn-bread and 
 bacon for food, and slept on a blanket in a little cabin at 
 night. The miasma of the low-lying river bed would have 
 killed a white man, but he was an enormous fellow about 
 six feet high, and as black as coal, gay and always laughing, 
 his big mouth was filled with splendid rows of white teeth, 
 and he had a fascinating store of animal tales. We instantly 
 became great friends, and he could carry me round the place 
 by the hour on his back without being tired, and he was 
 always ready to put the saddle on my pony or to mend my 
 whips or to do anything to please me, but he was extremely 
 idle, and impertinent to my father. One day I was sitting 
 on the end of a waggon, and he was standing by, as usual 
 laughing. My father came up and said : " Eli, have you 
 been down in the cornfield to-day ? I told you to go this 
 morning at five o'clock." 
 
 " No, sir," he said, " I didn't go." 
 
 " Damn it all ! Do you dare to disobey me ? " said my 
 father, raising his hand to give him a blow. 
 
 Just then I leaped off the end of the waggon on to Eli's 
 neck, and the blow a hard one descended with such force 
 on my head that I was rendered quite blind and dazed for 
 a moment, and my nose began to bleed, but as the blow was 
 not intended for me I uttered no cry. My father was in a 
 terrible state of mind ; he asked my forgiveness, and said : 
 " I tell you what I'll do : I promise you as long as I live 
 I will never strike another negro." And he never did. 
 
 A man lived opposite to us who was extremely cruel to 
 his slaves ; he seemed to take a perfect delight in giving a 
 negro a beating, and he selected the lovely sunny days to 
 do it in, when the cries could be well carried through the 
 clear and ambient air. With the first blow and the first 
 cry I began : " Oh, pappy, please go and ask Mr Young not 
 to go on beating that negro. Oh, please ! Oh, please ! " 
 The louder her cries, the louder became mine, and the tears 
 rolled down my cheeks as I begged : " Oh, I can't bear it 
 I can't bear it ! " It was just as if we were trying who
 
 MY TERRIBLE SECRET 19 
 
 could cry the loudest, the woman who was being whipped 
 or myself. It was inadmissible in the South for one man to 
 interfere with another man's slaves ; but finally in despera- 
 tion my father would rush over to Mr Young, and I can hear 
 him still with his angry voice : " Good God, Young, for 
 heaven's sake drop that whip ! You are not only killing 
 your darkie, but you are killing my child she is now in a 
 nervous spasm. Why the devil can't you manage your 
 servants without continually thrashing them ? " 
 
 Mr Young finally became so angry that he sent my father 
 a challenge to a duel, which was instantly accepted, as my 
 father had been brought up to the duelling system. He was 
 a splendid pistol shot : it was said that once he shot a wild 
 beast at night under the house simply by firing between the 
 two brilliant eyes. (The houses in the South are raised from 
 the ground, for additional coolness probably.) As Mr Young 
 was a very bad shot, his second came to my father and the 
 matter was arranged without blood being spilled, and after 
 that he was more considerate to his negroes. 
 
 I thought then, and I think now, that unlimited power is 
 one of the most terrible things in the world. The power of 
 one man to strike another man without his being able to 
 strike back, but simply to stand like a dumb animal and 
 take the blow, is an abomination in the sight of the just.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN TRUTH LIES FREEDOM 
 
 " No man is free until he has been divorced from public 
 favour." ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 ABOUT this time an uncle of mine wanted to go 
 abroad. He wrote to my father and asked if he 
 would take charge of his negroes he had a planta- 
 tion of about five hundred slaves. My father answered No, 
 it was impossible ; he was too much occupied with his law 
 cases. However, Uncle Marcellus was a man who did 
 whatever he wanted to do. and one morning we awoke to 
 find the place literally swarming with negroes ; nearly the 
 whole number had been sent down for my father to take 
 charge of, while Uncle Marcellus made a two years' tour in 
 Europe. 
 
 In a very short time they were all hired out, and one of 
 them, Sally a fat, black, lazy, sweet-tempered creature 
 was taken as a useful maid to some young Duval cousins of 
 mine. Sally had quite as good a collection of negro stories 
 as Uncle Remus of which " Brer Rabbit " and the " Tar 
 Baby " were the first favourites and night after night we 
 listened to her tales and her songs. I can hear her chanting 
 " De Jay Bird " yet : 
 
 " De jay bird he lived on de fork eyed dear 
 
 Jang my long go hay 
 An' de blue bird lived a neighbour near 
 An' he sot one day on de top of de sawpit, 
 An' he saw de jay bird co'tin' de tomtit 
 
 Jang my long go hay.
 
 1AM AN ABOLITIONIST!
 
 IN TRUTH LIES FREEDOM 21 
 
 An' de blue bird he ripped, an' de blue bird swore 
 
 Dat he nebber had saw sich fun before. 
 
 Said de jay bird " Blue coat, you be done 
 
 An' stop dat way of pokin' fun." 
 
 But de blue bird he kep' on a-lafin' still, 
 
 Said de jay bird : " Go it have your fill." 
 
 Den de jay bird he co'ted de blue bird's sister, 
 
 An' he flew to de paw-paw bush an' he kissed her. 
 
 Den de blue bird he ripped an' de blue bird tore 
 
 An' said he nebber was so mad before. 
 
 Den de jay bird he 'loped wid de blue bird's wife, 
 
 An' it almos' took dat bluebird's life, 
 
 An' he fluttered about an' he could not res' 
 
 Till he took an' destroyed dat jay bird's nes'. 
 
 Den all de birds from de crow to de wren 
 
 Poked dey fun at de blue bird den, 
 
 An' he moved away to de Arkansaw, 
 
 But de jay bird still stuck in he crow 
 
 An' he died one day of de melancholy 
 
 Because he had committed de folly 
 
 Of laughing at de jay bird an' de tomtit 
 
 As dey sat one day on de top of de sawpit. 
 
 An' he wiped his bill, an' he writ his will, 
 
 An' his will is in dat fam'ly still. 
 
 An' he lef his chillun dis beques' : 
 
 Nebber to fool wid a jay .bird nes'." 
 
 How we loved the line : "He wiped his bill, an' he writ 
 his will " ! But Sally was not much good for anything but 
 story telling, so Uncle Tom bought a useful maid who could 
 sew neatly, and Sally was hired out to a Mrs Birrell. Mrs 
 Birrell was a tall, angular, hard-featured Yankee from 
 Connecticut. Though the people of the North were all 
 against slavery, they often made much the more cruel and 
 tyrannical masters and mistresses of the negroes. 
 
 Nothing was heard of Sally for some time, when one day 
 about one o'clock (this was almost at the close of the war) she 
 appeared, seemingly very ill I cannot say pale, as she was 
 as black as the ace of spades but she looked decidedly 
 ashen. She said to my mother : " Miss Marcia, I have 
 runned away from Mrs Birrell because I can't stand it any 
 longer."
 
 22 I MYSELF 
 
 My mother answered, " Well, Sally, I'll send a note to 
 the Judge. Take it to his office and see what he can do for 
 you." 
 
 She replied, " Miss Marcia, I can't walk another step. I 
 just want to show you something." 
 
 With this she raised up her one garment a cotton dress 
 and showed her back to my mother, and my mother, who 
 was a woman with strong nerves, instantly fainted. From 
 Sally's shoulders to her heels she had literally been flayed 
 alive. I was told afterwards there was scarcely an inch of 
 skin on her whole body ; and not only that : the woman 
 had rubbed salt all over the raw flesh ! 
 
 We sent for the family doctor, and he thought it was 
 impossible for Sally to live ; but my mother, who had un- 
 daunted courage and undaunted kindness, said it would be 
 too great a satisfaction to Mrs Birrell to have her die, and 
 that she herself would nurse her. The finest linen sheets in 
 the house were taken out of a fragrant cupboard, and the 
 nursing began. It was impossible for Sally to wear a night- 
 gown ; she was covered with salves, ointments and old 
 linen, and rolled up in a linen sheet, and fanned all day long. 
 After six weeks of hard, never-ending work, with relays of 
 nurses I can remember my dear father coming home tired 
 from his office, and sitting down with a palm-leaf fan, and 
 fanning Sally by the hour, to be relieved by my mother, or 
 one of my cousins or the cooks or housemaids and by con- 
 stantly being kept cool and looked after night and day, she 
 was finally out of danger. My father brought a suit against 
 Mrs Birrell, for persistent cruelty, but only got the price of 
 the doctors' bills. 
 
 There was a negro whipper in town, a Mr Marsh, who was 
 thin and tall, and the children ran from him as if he were a 
 leper ; and although people sent him servants for five, or ten, 
 or twenty, or thirty lashes, as the case might be, Mr Marsh 
 was held in great contempt by the whole town, was absolutely 
 friendless, and was always called the negro whipper. To 
 me he seemed a sort of vampire, and whenever I saw him I 
 turned my head away as quickly as possible and once I
 
 IN TRUTH LIES FREEDOM 23 
 
 forgot the ladylike teachings of my Mammy, and as I passed 
 by I spat upon him. 
 
 We had a negro man who belonged to my brother ; he 
 was called William, and was a very clever man indeed ; 
 after the war, he made quite a fortune by patents. He 
 could play the violin admirably, he was a splendid carpenter, 
 could mend anything that was broken a waggon, or a 
 window, or a door but he was very insubordinate and 
 impudent, so I was told. He belonged to my eldest brother 
 not to my father. He had done something ,1 don't know 
 what, and I heard my brother say one day to the manager 
 of the place, " Take William up to Marsh to-morrow and tell 
 him to give him twenty lashes." 
 
 I went to sleep with that horrible speech echoing in my 
 ears. Twenty lashes ! Twenty lashes ! William, who was 
 always so kind to me, and who played such pretty, gay tunes 
 on the violin, and who was so tall and good-looking and 
 proud William was to have his spirit broken, his shirt taken 
 off, and on his bare back old Marsh was to administer twenty 
 lashes ! No ; I made up my mind that it should not happen 
 if I had to die for it. 
 
 Early the next morning, about five o'clock, I woke up and 
 I said to my Mammy, " Mammy, William is to be whipped 
 to-day, but he sha'n't be whipped if I scream myself to death 
 for it." 
 
 As soon as Mammy dressed me, I ran to the garden and 
 stationed myself by William's side. When the manager 
 came and said, " William, I am going to take you up to 
 town," I gave one scream, a perfectly ear-piercing scream, 
 followed by another. My father ran out of the house, 
 thinking that I was being mortally hurt, and my mother 
 ran after him, only to find that my brother had given orders 
 for William to be whipped. I would not stop screaming 
 for a moment ; then I began to tremble and grow white, 
 but still held on to William, who was dumb. My father 
 turned to my mother, saying, " Good God, this child is going 
 to drive us all mad about these negroes." Then he turned 
 to the manager and said, " Go and tell your Marse George
 
 24 I MYSELF 
 
 that Betty won't let William be whipped, and, damn it all, 
 I won't either." 
 
 I was the thinnest wraith who has ever been seen, because 
 my mind and my imagination were being continually drawn 
 upon ; and when I see fat, stolid English children, who can 
 eat and sleep and live a simple unimaginative existence, I 
 do envy them their natural, healthy lives no anxieties and 
 no responsibilities, while mine began, alas ! almost at my 
 birth. 
 
 My father, according to other members of the family, 
 spoiled me terribly. Every night after I went to bed he 
 always told me a story, kissed me good-night, and held my 
 hand until I went to sleep. And I have been told that he 
 gave up many dinner parties for this reason, and would 
 always leave his own for a short interval, saying, " Pray 
 excuse me, but I always tell my little daughter a story 
 before she goes to sleep. I will return in a few moments." 
 
 The stories were of many and various sorts. I preferred 
 "The Arabian Nights" (shortened and simplified) to them all. 
 But I loved above everything true stories, and I always 
 breathed a sigh of satisfaction if my father convincingly 
 said, " That's a true story." Even in my babyhood I had 
 a passion for truth. Can a woman be born into the world 
 with a more tragic desire ? From men especially she gets 
 it so rarely, and yet of all things it is the most tonic, and the 
 most healthy. In truth lies freedom of spirit and freedom 
 of mind.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ELEMENTAL ME 
 
 " Good my lord, 
 
 You have begot me, bred me, loved me ; I 
 Return those duties back as are right fit, 
 Obey you, love you, and most honour you." 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 I REMEMBER one night when I was about four years 
 old, I had a fever. It was a very warm night in 
 the summer time, and in my little thin nightgown 
 I turned and twisted on my father's serge lap, and complained 
 so much, and insisted so despotically on my own way that 
 he was finally induced to take off his woollen trousers. His 
 linen drawers were cooler, and we sat quite peacefully 
 afterward, he attired in black coat, waistcoat and drawers, 
 when my mother and the old family doctor made their 
 appearance. My mother, who was very prim, was horrified 
 at my father's attire, but he explained that it was my com- 
 mand, and my necessity, as I was ill. As they went out of 
 the room I heard the doctor say to my mother : " The 
 Judge is preparing himself for the fate of Lear, and Betty 
 will be a second Goneril." 
 
 I insisted then and there on the story of Lear, and we both 
 scouted the baleful prophecy of the future. This was my 
 first introduction to Shakespeare. My first successful 
 rebellion was shortly after this episode. Whenever the 
 doctor was called in for any childish ill, he always gave one 
 remedy rhubarb and jalap. Oh, the black, sticky nasti- 
 ness of it ! To this day the odour even of rhubarb makes 
 me feel faint. 
 
 25
 
 26 I MYSELF 
 
 One day when the doctor was sent for, I suddenly made 
 up my small, unbendable, martyr -like mind not to take the 
 rhubarb and jalap. When he felt my pulse and looked at 
 my tongue and ordered the usual prescription I was pre- 
 pared, and calmly announced my unalterable decision never 
 to take rhubarb and jalap again. My father was grieved ; 
 my mother was angry ; the doctor was stern so was I. 
 The doctor then advised my mother and father to leave 
 the room while he administered the potion. He sat down 
 on a chair, seized me, put me on a small stool, and held my 
 head between his knees. I sat quite still, with hands and 
 teeth both clenched hard together. I have always had good 
 muscular strength, and my little jaws never opened, so the 
 doctor emptied spoonful after spoonful of jalap over my 
 apron and hair. My gums bled profusely from the hard 
 pressure of the wandering spoon, but the jaws and the spirit 
 remained strong and locked like a vice. Finally my father, 
 alarmed at the unexpected silence, rushed in, and, rinding 
 my hair clotted with jalap and my face as pale as death and 
 stained with blood and medicine, picked me up in his arms, 
 saying to the doctor, " Good heavens, are you killing the 
 child, Dr Baker ? " It was then, and only then, that I 
 wept out my insubordinate and passionate soul. My father 
 understood. He always understood. And jalap was never 
 mentioned in the house again. 
 
 Another memory of my childhood, and a happier one, was 
 of a wonderful Christmas tree in the church, for all the Sunday 
 school scholars, with the curate, an amiable albino, dressed 
 as Santa Claus. It was a big cedar -tree, with a rich spicy 
 odour from the cedar brake, full of purple cedar berries, and 
 lighted with myriads of pink candles. It was hung with 
 beautiful toys all direct from Germany, but the toy that 
 rilled my soul with delight, joy, envy and apprehension was 
 a parrot. What would I do if any other child got that 
 parrot ? I felt that I would die. Having seen the parrot 
 with its gorgeous red and green, colouring its fine tail, and 
 fresh kid base that promised a sonorous squeak, life with- 
 out it would, I knew, be worthless and unlivable. My long-
 
 ELEMENTAL ME 27 
 
 ings even now, though I am a grandmother, are keen. As 
 a child, when I wanted anything, my little soul was a flame 
 of desire. Those are the beings born into the world to suffer 
 above all others. Fate loves to punish them ; she has 
 given them keen longings, keen joys and keen agonies. 
 They are the people who never do anything by halves the 
 elemental ones, whose emotions are stormy and turbulent, 
 or joyous, but always deep and definite. And as I gazed at 
 that parrot, even at the tender age of four, my life presented 
 one long grey blank without him. Santa Claus began to 
 distribute the toys. The tree was robbed of dolls, and 
 Noah's arks, and horses, and carts, and kites, and drums, 
 and flutes, and engines, and trumpets and then a hand 
 took down the parrot. I shut my eyes tight, and held my 
 breath, for I could not have witnessed another child's 
 possession of that irrationally loved bird without a cry of 
 agony. But Fate on one of the few occasions of my life 
 smiled on me that night. I felt something placed in my 
 arms, I smelt the adorable scent of toy paint, more agree- 
 able to the nostrils of a child than all the mingled perfumes 
 of Araby. I opened my eyes. I breathed again, the blood 
 flowed back to my little heart. The parrot, the beautiful, 
 the many-coloured, the longed-for, the well-desired parrot, 
 was mine. That was an hour of perfect bliss. 
 
 Not so many years ago something of the same sort happened 
 to me in London. Buffalo Bill had his big show here, and 
 undertook to teach my son riding. Toodie (my boy) was 
 only fifteen then, and provided with the longest gloves and 
 the biggest sombrero, and the most brilliant shirt of all the 
 cowboys, he was given a kicking broncho, and told to ride. 
 Being an anxious mother, I was frequently at the show and 
 often in Colonel Cody's quarters. Hanging on the wall of 
 his sitting-room was a charming water-colour that I wanted 
 almost as badly as the parrot. It represented a brilliant 
 summer day, a stretch of wild prairie (probably Texas), 
 and sitting immovable, on an immovable mustang pony, 
 an Indian chief in all the bravery of his war paint, his proud 
 head prouder with feathers, and his hand held lightly over
 
 28 I MYSELF 
 
 his eyes to shade them from the blinding sun. Evidently 
 he was looking for and scenting some distant, unseen, but 
 instinctively felt enemy. The subject appealed to me, and 
 I loved the picture and wanted it badly. But Buffalo Bill 
 did not know this, and one day the show was over, and 
 packed, and gone away. 
 
 Two days after its departure a coloured servant appeared 
 and brought me the envied water-colour with Colonel Cody's 
 compliments. He had left it for me. And if ever I have a 
 home again (oh, the dear heart-breaking word !) I will hang 
 that Indian brave the first of all my pictures. 
 
 Heredity is much stronger than we realize, and its identical 
 forces march along the same lines, in spite of the leavening 
 of many generations. Zelie de Lussan, that gifted singer 
 and actress, says she has never known a more decided 
 Frenchwoman in thought, in feeling, in sentiment, and in 
 taste, than myself. And yet for generations I am an Ameri- 
 can. But my French blood reasserts itself, and I easily 
 comprehend the exalted desperation which sent the men 
 and women of France quite gaily to the guillotine. I have 
 experienced this feeling more than once in my life. There 
 is no other emotion akin to it. The soul seems quite detached 
 from the body ; it leaps forth like a sword from the scabbard. 
 It is a monstrous flame blazing to the sky. It is the pure 
 spirit freed by an overmastering emotion from the dragging 
 flesh. And this feeling came to me first as a child through 
 my father. He was a Union man, a convinced constitutional 
 lawyer. He believed in the United States of America as a 
 great, magnificent and undivided whole. And though he 
 had the greatest love of his people, and was a Southern man 
 by ancestry and sentiment, he always remained true to the 
 constitution and to the Union, although he lived in Texas, 
 a state unanimous in its adherence to the Confederacy. 
 
 Toward the end of the war, when the Confederacy was 
 nearing its end, a small party of fanatics decided, as an 
 example to others, to hang my father, who was the leader of 
 the Union men of the state. One day my mother was on 
 the balcony attending to her flowers. I was in the garden
 
 ELEMENTAL ME 29 
 
 playing. An uncle of mine suddenly appeared unannounced 
 and spoke to her hurriedly. My mother turned deadly 
 pale, put her hand to her side, and my uncle supported her 
 to a chair and called to a maid for a glass of water. I ran 
 to her, calling out, " Oh, mamma, what's the matter ? " 
 She exclaimed, " Your father has been arrested and put in 
 gaol for his opinions, as a Union man and an honourable 
 gentleman. But he will soon be out. Be a good little girl 
 and don't cry." 
 
 Uncle Matthew, who was clerk of the court, then said, 
 " Marcia, I've arranged for the Judge's dinner to be sent to 
 him. Will you order the carriage and one of the servants 
 to take it ? " 
 
 And " Oh, mamma," I began to beg, " let me go with 
 Mammy too, do let me go, do, do." And I begged and 
 cried with such vehemence that I was finally lifted in the 
 carriage and sent off with Mammy. 
 
 The gaol was overflowing with prisoners, for Texas was a 
 rough country in those days. Murderers, thieves, deserters 
 from the army were all crowded into one room. They were 
 dirty, unkempt, desperate, hard-looking men, some of them 
 with the faces of ravening beasts and my father with his 
 thick thatch of silver hair, fine features, close-shaven, bene- 
 volent face, noble bearing, spotless linen and fine broadcloth 
 clothes, looked a veritable king among them. He was 
 sitting quite quietly and undisturbed, reading, perhaps for 
 the fiftieth time, " The Bride of Lammermoor." He had 
 taken it from the table in his office, and slipped it in his 
 pocket while being arrested. It is for this sweet reason I 
 feel as if Sir Walter Scott were a kinsman of mine, and that 
 Scotland is so close to my heart. It is impossible for the 
 old world to know the many and tender bonds between it and 
 the new. Some day, though God forbid, if a war is declared 
 between England and another power, the United Empire will, 
 if need be, discover our unforgotten love and loyalty to the 
 country of our ancestors.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MY FATHER IN PRISON 
 
 " Life is a battle, and the successful soldier is he who wields the sword 
 of Knowledge and trembles not at the threatenings of Ignorance." 
 
 MY beloved father in gaol ! For a moment I was 
 blind with rage and terror, then I hurled myself 
 at him like a small catapult, gripped him around 
 the neck and began to cry, woman fashion, saying, " Oh, do 
 whatever they want you to do only come home with me, 
 come home with your little daughter." 
 
 He soothed me and talked to me, until I felt, as I always 
 did in his presence, calm, and quiet, and reasonable, even 
 though I, too, was in gaol. A rough red-faced soldier sitting 
 on the floor in the room said to me, " Little girl, what would 
 you do if your father was a hundred miles away ? " I drew 
 very close to pappy, with the horrible idea making me quite 
 cold. Years afterwards when I had almost forgotten the 
 existence of this soldier, he wrote me a letter on my father's 
 death to say that he had never forgotten that tragic night 
 nor the strong love between us, and that he was very sorry 
 for me. 
 
 The night of my father's arrest, my mother, Aunt Polly 
 Hynes, a young lady and myself were sitting in my mother's 
 room, when it seemed to me I heard at a great distance a 
 trampling of many feet. My ears were as keen in hearing 
 as the ears of a Red Indian, and at once my little figure was 
 alert and at attention. Standing up, I gasped out the 
 words " Pappy ! Pappy ! " The others heard nothing, 
 but in a short time the room was filled with a number of
 
 "SHE IS ALONE THE ARABIAN BIRD"
 
 MY FATHER IN PRISON 31 
 
 masked men, armed and terrible-looking, who surrounded 
 my father. He said to my mother, " Marcia, these men are 
 taking me away, God knows where ; give me some money 
 and pack my clothes as soon as you can. If they murder 
 me I will leave my sons to avenge my death." (Both my 
 brothers were away, soldiers in the Union Army.) 
 
 My mother, suddenly looking quite old and white, began 
 to pack a bag, and one of the men called out, " Hurry up, 
 madam. No trifling do not keep us waiting." 
 
 We had a number of negroes on the place all loyal to my 
 father, and we always had firearms, as we lived in the country. 
 The negroes rushed in at this moment, carrying guns, and the 
 coachman asked, " Shall we shoot, Judge ? " My father 
 seemed to consider for a moment he did not expect to live 
 an hour after leaving the house and then replied, " No, let 
 there be no bloodshed put down your rifles." 
 
 The negroes marched slowly out, but all the fearsome 
 tension of the atmosphere was communicated to me. My 
 little soul leaped to flame, and the white heat of exalted 
 detachment separated spirit from flesh, making the im- 
 possible possible. I rushed toward one of the horrible black 
 masks, and screamed out, " Are you going to hang my 
 pappy ? " The man put out his arm to ward me off. I 
 seized the soft part of the palm of his hand in my strong, 
 sharp little teeth, biting a piece of flesh almost out of the 
 hand I tore the mask from his face, scratching his cheeks, 
 and dragging at his shirt collar with all my strength. He 
 swore at me, saying, " Hell and damnation ! Take this 
 little devil away ! " Two soldiers seized me, and carried 
 me to the other end of the room, but I left him a perfect 
 wreck, blood streaming from his wounded hand, collar torn 
 apart, and his mask on the floor. He was really only a mild 
 and servile little shopkeeper in the town, who belonged to 
 the militia, and who had been given a disagreeable duty to 
 perform. When I grew up and came back from boarding 
 school, although he carried a scar on his hand he served me 
 many a time quite amiably from his excellent shop. 
 
 My father was carried a hundred miles away to be tried
 
 32 I MYSELF 
 
 by a court martial, but it was practically the end of the war, 
 so they thought it better to release him and send him home 
 without a trial and after days and nights of a horrible, 
 heart-eating anxiety he arrived at midnight. My mother 
 almost died with joy, and I awakened from a sound sleep 
 and thought it must be a blissful dream until he spoke to me. 
 
 When I grew up and the family reproached my father 
 with spoiling me, saying, " If Betty told you that white was 
 black you would agree to it," he would place his hand 
 tenderly on mine and answer gently, " Well, you see, she's 
 the only one of my children who has ever fought for me." 
 Fought for him ! Oh, how willingly I would have died for 
 him, then or at any moment of my life afterwards. 
 
 I was a very fearless child. The dark held no terrors 
 whatever for me, and all animals I looked upon as my own 
 particular friends and trusted companions. My father had 
 an old race horse, an extraordinarily intelligent animal called 
 " Pomp." He had retired from the race-course, and indeed 
 from all work, and led a lazy, luxurious existence, as a 
 reward for his past prowess. He would not let anyone come 
 within a yard of his heels without kicking out, most viciously, 
 and the little negroes of the place were all dreadfully afraid 
 of him. One morning, when I was about three years of 
 age, I could be found nowhere. My father finally looked in 
 the stable and saw Pomp standing quite still, with both my 
 arms clasped tightly around his wicked hind leg ; but he 
 spared me, and turned his intelligent old head and, my father 
 said, actually winked at him. I have always loved horses ! 
 When I was two years old, my father had a Mexican saddle 
 made with a pommel about the size of a large dinner plate, 
 and I rode in front of him on this little seat, until I was big 
 enough to have a saddle, and pony, of my own. And there 
 was a time in my life when I could ride without any saddle 
 at all, but just catch a horse by his mane, and jump on his 
 bare back, and ride gaily away. I used to love the danger 
 of riding a wicked horse, something that had to be blindfolded 
 while I got on, and then would leap away like a wild thing, 
 and I have been thrown dozens of times, but never seriously
 
 MY FATHER IN PRISON 33 
 
 hurt. One summer I got hold of one of the most foolish, 
 senseless horses I have ever seen. He shied at everything, 
 and would jump clear across the road, at a wind-blown ball 
 of leaves. And when I was taken suddenly ill, and the 
 groom heard it, he said : " Thank de good Lord for dat, if 
 Miss Betty had a kep on ridin' dat Bob Lee, dey would sholy 
 bin a corpse or a cripple befo de summer was out." 
 
 I was not only fond of horses, but of every living animal, 
 and as a child spent far more time on them than on my 
 spelling-book, and never forgot any need of theirs food, 
 or water, or medicine, if necessary. 
 
 Mammy got me rather a good breed of game chickens, and 
 one little chick who lost its mother was brought up in the 
 kitchen and became as tame and intimate as a dog. He 
 had the greatest interest in my teeth, pecking at them with 
 vigour, and finding them solid, he would turn a red eye slowly 
 on them for a few moments, conclude he had made a mistake, 
 and that with greater energy they could be dislodged, and 
 begin vigorously pecking again. One day my two grown 
 brothers discovered his worth and engaged him in a cock 
 fight. I found him in the evening all bedraggled, his beautiful 
 feathers clotted with blood, and one bright eye swollen and 
 closed. That night when I said my prayers to my father 
 the names of my brothers were omitted. After the " Amen " 
 my father inquired, " Why haven't you asked God to bless 
 your brothers ? " " Because," I answered, " they have 
 been fighting my chickens, and my cocks are all hurt, and 
 blood is on their feathers. I don't want God to bless them." 
 " But," said my father, " you cannot be a little Christian 
 until you ask God to bless your brothers." So after various 
 arguments I was induced to kneel down, and said, " Oh, 
 God, bless my brothers " (a pause) " but pray don't do it on 
 my account." Even at a very early age my mind was a 
 logical one. I loved my chickens, therefore why love their 
 destroyers ? And even yet, after years of an older and 
 steadier civilization, the utmost that I can do is not to 
 loathe my enemies to love them as myself is quite beyond 
 me. All human beings are products of their native soil.
 
 34 I MYSELF 
 
 Texas is a country of wild storms and great tornadoes. 
 Nature there is oftentimes in her most savage mood. The 
 dusty road-bed of a river to-day, is the angry and raging 
 torrent of to-morrow, sweeping everything before it. It is 
 said of the native Texan like myself that if he loves you he 
 loves you all over ; if he doesn't, he would just as soon make 
 you cold as not. I do so truly love my friends their ways, 
 their eyes, their hands, their voices, their little peculiarities. 
 As for my enemies well . . .
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE 
 
 " Four ducks on a pond, 
 A green bank beyond ; 
 A blue sky of spring, 
 White clouds on the wing : 
 What a little thing 
 To remember for years, 
 To remember with tears ! " 
 
 W. ALLINGHAM 
 
 A TRAVELLING menagerie came to Austin soon after 
 my Mammy was restored to me, and I heard much 
 talk of the lions, tigers, elephants, zebras, etc. The 
 calvacade passed just in front of our house splendid 
 knights in gold, scarlet, orange and green, ladies on snow- 
 white horses in long velvet riding habits, hats with sweeping 
 feathers, and lovely saddlecloths rich in the glitter of 
 spangles. And then after this agony of agonies ! my 
 mother said I was too little to go to the circus. I held the 
 opposite opinion, but she would not relent, therefore I de- 
 cided to take the matter into my own hands. 
 
 There was the question of money, but this did not in the 
 least trouble me. The next day, after Mammy had made 
 me smart for the afternoon in muslin, lace, corals u.nd blue 
 ribbons, as soon as her back was turned I trotted briskly off 
 in the direction of the shining tents. On arriving there I 
 asked the man at the door if I could go in, and he inquired 
 who I was. I drew myself up and said I was Betty Paschal, 
 and he smiled and lifted the curtain of the tent and said he 
 reckoned Betty Paschal would have to go in, and I found 
 myself alone, but not a bit afraid. I walked around, and 
 stood all admiration before the array of living curiosities 
 
 3$
 
 36 I MYSELF 
 
 the Fat Woman, the Living Skeleton, the Snake Charmer, 
 the Knife Swallower, and the Tattooed Man. The Fat 
 Woman, a girl of about twenty, was lovely I gazed at her 
 with eyes distended by admiration ; she was dressed in a 
 white flowered muslin, a pink sash, wide pink kid slippers, 
 and, like the old song, she wore a wreath of roses. Her hair 
 was a pretty nut-brown, her eyes were the same colour, 
 she had dimples and a wide fresh mouth filled with white 
 teeth. Her lips parted in a smile and the dimples deepened 
 when she saw me, and she said to one of the attendants, 
 " Say, is that little girl all by herself ? " He said I was, and 
 she told him to lift me up and place me on her knees. What 
 a roomy, capacious seat it was ! The Living Skeleton pro- 
 vided me with long sticks of red and white striped candy, the 
 Tattooed Man chucked me under the chin, and there I sat, 
 adorably happy, when an anxious clamour arose outside, 
 followed by the appearance of my father, my mother, and 
 Mammy. I wept when I left the Fat Lady, and we parted 
 with many embraces and the joy at my recovery was too 
 great for any reproaches to follow. Sawdust to this day 
 has an agreeable odour in my nostrils it is connected with 
 my first appearance on any stage. 
 
 When I was five years old my father had spent three 
 thousand dollars on toys for me. How rich I should be 
 with that amount of money now ! And beside playthings 
 of every imaginable kind, there were innumerable dolls 
 white and black, large and small, of wax, of china, and of 
 alabaster. I loved them all, but my heart's favourite was 
 a large wax doll christened " Mary Llewellen," and lovingly 
 shortened to " Mary Lou." I had kissed Mary Lou's once 
 ruddy cheeks pale, and her once scarlet lips to anaemic pink, 
 her abundant curls were worn away, and her hair was as 
 short as a boy's, but her black eyes still sparkled. Her body 
 was large and comfortable, and when she was in my arms 
 I felt as though I were holding something solid, and her arms, 
 and hands, and feet, were soft kid. The other dolls were laid 
 in neat rows in their beds at night, but Mary Lou in a ruffled 
 nightgown always slept with me, and to her I confided every
 
 MY FIRST APPEARANCE ON ANY STAGE 37 
 
 secret and aspiration of my life. Every day I gave her a 
 nice dinner on a little pewter plate, and every morning a 
 thimbleful of coffee in a tiny pewter cup. Mammy made 
 her a delicious cake for her birthday, which I was obliged to 
 eat for her and Mary Lou was my inseparable companion ; 
 even when I rode on the big flat pommel of the Mexican 
 saddle in front of my father, Mary Lou was gathered in my 
 arms and rode too. Her clothes went to the wash with 
 mine, and we wore the same coloured sashes and hair ribbons. 
 And when I was ill of a fever for a fortnight, Mary Lou 
 lay cradled in the hollow of my arm, and never left me for 
 a moment, night or day. 
 
 About Christmas time Mary Lou and I were constantly 
 sent out of the sitting-room. My mother told me that 
 Santa Claus was going to give me a wonderful Christmas, 
 and asked what he should bring me. I said a new dress and 
 new shoes for Mary Lou. 
 
 Christmas morning I was awakened by the servants all 
 calling out " Christmas gift ! Christmas gift ! " I put out 
 my hand for Mary Lou. She was gone ! " Mary Lou," I 
 cried, in great anxiety, " Oh, darling, where are you ? " 
 
 My mother caught me up, wrapped a shawl about me, 
 saying, " It's all right," and carried me to the fireplace, 
 where a wood fire sparkled and roared, and there set out 
 were all my wonderful toys. The best cabinetmaker in 
 Austin had been employed to make a little walnut bedstead 
 with a carved head board, a real mattress, bolster and 
 pillows, and Aunt Polly Hynes and my mother had sewn 
 little embroidered linen pillow-cases and sheets, ribbon- 
 bound blankets, and a satin coverlet. There was a little 
 dressing-table with a pretty oval looking-glass bound in 
 brass, a rocking chair, a washstand, with a bowl and jug of 
 fine china, and in the rocking-chair a large new beautiful 
 wax doll, who could open and shut her eyes and say " Mama 
 Papa." Her fair golden hair hung to her waist, her ruby 
 lips were parted in a smile, disclosing four little white teeth. 
 The best (described by Aunt Polly Hynes as) " mantua- 
 maker " (such a dear old word) had made her frock, which
 
 38 I MYSELF 
 
 was of stiff blue satin softened with blonde lace, and her hat 
 was of shirred white velvet trimmed in bunches of little 
 gold grapes and a blue feather. Her lingerie was of the most 
 exquisite, and she wore open-work socks and blue shoes, 
 while by her side stood a little blue silk parasol, and in her 
 lap was a tiny bouquet of roses. But none of this elegance 
 gave me any pleasure, and even at the age of four I delighted 
 in beauty and daintiness, for horror of horrors ! sitting 
 on the floor at the feet of this beautiful intruder, in a stiffly 
 starched pink calico frock, white apron and white cap, 
 degraded from her high estate into a lady's maid, was my 
 best beloved child, Mary Lou ! Her eyes seemed to me full 
 of sadness and reproach. 
 
 " Mary Lou, oh, Mary Lou," I cried, " I didn't do it I 
 Your mother didn't do it ! I love you the best. Oh, Mary 
 Lou, I'm so sorry ! " And all the time I was undressing 
 her with trembling fingers, and then I tore the clothes off 
 the intruder and gave them to Mary Lou. The hat wasn't 
 a bit becoming, but she wore it. Only the blue shoes were 
 left to the intruder they were too small for Mary Lou's 
 ample feet. 
 
 My mother was grievously disappointed. There was I, 
 on Christmas morning, after all her work and trouble, in a 
 passion of tears. I remember her plaintively complaining 
 to my father that I was " such an odd child," and he said 
 very tenderly, " Forgive her, Marcia. She will suffer 
 enough pain through that faithful heart of hers." 
 
 How sad he would have been if he had known how much !
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AUNT MARY THE ANGEL 
 
 " Oh 1 friends regretted, scenes for ever dear, 
 Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear t 
 Drooping, she bends o'er pensive Fancy's urn, 
 To trace the hours which never can return." 
 
 BYRON 
 
 I MUST not forget one of the cruellest disappointments 
 of my childhood. My aunt Mary (Mrs Matthew 
 Hayes) was an angel upon earth, a real, veritable 
 angel dropped from heaven by accident. She had married, 
 very young, a Dr Atkinson, who was extremely handsome, 
 a splendid dancer, a bold rider, the possessor of a good 
 baritone voice, great charm of manner, and very popular. 
 Consequently he was in great demand socially, and Aunt 
 Mary led a lonely life. A few years after their marriage he 
 died, and left her a widow with one beautiful little girl, 
 Ellen Atkinson, who inherited all her father's great charm 
 and good looks. What lovely arch blue eyes she had, with 
 dainty pencilled black eyebrows, and the most winning 
 ways. I adored her as a child : to go and see Cousin Ellen 
 was one of my greatest treats. 
 
 After Dr Atkinson's death Aunt Mary announced to the 
 family that if she married again it would be the ugliest man 
 she could find, and one day in Galveston she came back to 
 my mother and said, " Marcia, I've seen the man-^I met 
 him on the street to-day, and he is ugly enough to suit even 
 me, and I'm sure he can't sing." 
 
 This bit of nonsense proved to be prophetic. She married 
 the man, and he was undoubtedly plain, but he had one of 
 
 39
 
 40 I MYSELF 
 
 the most musical speaking voices I have ever heard, and in 
 spite of his ill assorted features he looked what he was a 
 distinguished gentleman. He adored Aunt Mary as a saint 
 in a niche, and little Ellen was as dear to him as his own 
 children there were five in family, three boys and two 
 girls. Aunt Mary had an undestroyably happy and cheer- 
 ful disposition and a lovely sweet face. My mother used 
 to call it a " how-de-do face." One of the stories told of 
 her was, that in a shop a man was trying on a coat, and he 
 observed Aunt Mary's look of solicitous interest, and turned 
 to her saying, " Madam, excuse me, but my wife could not 
 accompany me to-day will you look and see how this coat 
 fits in the back ? " 
 
 Such a thing as a trained nurse was unknown to Austin 
 in those days, and we were not scientific or careful, so 
 typhoid and other fevers were constantly occurring, and 
 Aunt Mary was continually sent for, to nurse the sick. She 
 would arrange her household affairs and go for two or three 
 days, sitting night and day with the patient. Uncle Matthew 
 used to make a protest, but there was nobody like Mrs 
 Hayes. If anybody died a carriage was at once sent for Mrs 
 Hayes to comfort the afflicted family. If there was a bazaar 
 Aunt Mary's busy clever hands made half the objects for 
 the stalls. She could embroider beautifully, she was an 
 exquisite needlewoman, and she had a wonderfully artistic 
 sense of colour. She could trim hats and design dresses, and 
 she was a good cook and of course never idle for one single 
 moment of her busy, unselfish life. Novels she loved and 
 devoured. Her one recreation was reading whenever she 
 could find the time. 
 
 Like my grandfather, Governor Duval, Aunt Mary was 
 the very soul of hospitality. The Atkinson house was an 
 odd rambling bungalow sort of affair, with a great number 
 of rooms. Whenever Uncle Matthew could afford it he built 
 an additional room it made no difference how the room 
 lay sometimes it was not connected with the main house 
 at all, but joined on by a covered archway. And rooms 
 were always occupied by Aunt Mary's kinfolks and the boys'
 
 AUNT MARY THE ANGEL 41 
 
 friends and the girls' friends, and " the weak -hearted and 
 the afflicted," for being near Aunt Mary was like being 
 bathed in sunshine. I have never seen such a persistently 
 optimistic nature as hers. Hope radiated from her eyes, 
 and her lips were always ready to curve into a smile and to 
 speak words of cheerful comfort. Of course Fate bore down 
 upon her radiance with a malice and a cruelty rarely equalled. 
 
 I remember when my baby was a few months old I went 
 to Texas to spend the summer, and we occupied a sort of 
 wing connected with the main house by a little covered way, 
 one of the latest developments of the bungalow. All the 
 other rooms were filled, and this happened to be the quietest 
 place in the house. One evening, when fourteen or sixteen 
 people were expected to dinner, a carriage drove around the 
 back way, and Aunt Mary's eldest son, quite insensible, was 
 lifted out and carried to his own room. He was frightfully 
 ill, and had been drinking heavily for days. It was terribly 
 sad, for Frank was a dear, kind fellow, and had it in his 
 power to give the people who loved him a dreadfully sick 
 heart. In a few moments I left the parlour and went to 
 my bedroom, and there I found Aunt Mary on her knees, 
 praying, and perfectly convulsed with sobs. I closed my 
 door softly and went back to the parlour. A little later I 
 heard a splashing of cold water in her room, where the guests 
 were taking off their light wraps, and she came out with her 
 face quite fresh, dressed in a lavender muslin, and she was 
 by far the most cheerful person at the dinner. She had that 
 gift from God, a perfect faith in a future life, and in His 
 goodness how indeed could she doubt it, when she possessed 
 so much of her own ? 
 
 Among the servants that summer were a girl named Adler, 
 and Willy, two young Swedes. They were very rough, and 
 could speak scarcely any English. Aunt Mary became sus- 
 picious about Adler, and soon found that her suspicions were 
 justified. On inquiring into the situation she found that 
 Willy was quite willing to marry the girl, only he would 
 not pay either for a marriage licence or the minister's fee. 
 And he was getting thirty dollars a month and Adler twenty-
 
 42 I MYSELF 
 
 five between them nine pounds a month. But neither 
 appeals nor bullying moved the thrifty William, so the end of 
 it was, that Aunt Mary bought the licence, paid the young 
 clergyman who officiated, gave Adler a wedding gown, and 
 the next week paid the doctor who ushered into the world, 
 a free-born American citizen. I hear that Adler and Willy 
 are now among the prosperous landholders of Austin. 
 
 Children are unerring in finding out their friends, and 
 when we were all little girls and boys, my cousins and myself, 
 Aunt Mary's house was overrun with children. There we 
 foregathered whenever we could, and one winter things were 
 planned out and done on a grand scale. There was a stage 
 built in one end of the drawing-room, and we were to have 
 one evening of wondrous tableaux. I was to do the " Sleep- 
 ing Beauty." The part did not appeal to me one bit, but 
 it was so much better than nothing that I consented. 
 
 Under Aunt Mary's guidance the girls worked for months. 
 They sewed great wings, and spangled dresses and silvered 
 slippers, and painted wands, and made tassels and caps, and 
 borrowed properties and at last the night of nights arrived. 
 Of course all the girls wanted to be in the tableaux, conse- 
 quently the audience was entirely composed of boys. There 
 was a lovely supper prepared in the dining-room, of delicate 
 ham sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, big iced cakes, jellies, 
 ice creams, lemonade, and claret cup and the evening 
 promised to be one of unalloyed bliss. 
 
 The curtain went up on " The Peri's Lament." The stage 
 really looked lovely it was covered with moss and sea- 
 shells, and on a sort of flowered mound lay the Araby's 
 daughter, very pink and smiling, but drowned, of course, 
 and surrounded by peris charming beings in perfectly dry 
 spangled dresses, with big white wings at the back and in 
 their clear children's voices they sang : 
 
 Farewell farewell to thee, Araby's daughter ! 
 
 (Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea,) 
 No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water 
 
 More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.
 
 AUNT MARY THE ANGEL 43 
 
 Oh ! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing, 
 How light was thy heart till love's witchery came, 
 
 Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute blowing, 
 And hush'd all its music, and wither'd its frame. 
 
 But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands, 
 Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom 
 
 Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, 
 With nought but a sea-star to light up her tomb. 
 
 Vociferous applause, and the curtain went down. 
 
 Tableau after tableau followed, until a good deal of 
 scuffling and shuffling was noticeable among the audience. 
 The boys were evidently getting hungry. The applause 
 died away, but still the tableaux followed on. I wanted 
 to get on my " Sleeping Beauty " dress, but nobody had any 
 time to help me. Finally, as we thought, the curtain went 
 up on a scene of surpassing beauty the Fairy Queen, sur- 
 rounded by her maids of honour, one bearing a tray and 
 offering it to her with a cake and a small sugar ballerina in 
 the middle of it. With this apparition the already whetted 
 appetites of the boys immediately asserted themselves 
 the audience en masse rose to their feet, and the ringleader 
 said : " We've had enough tableaux, we're going to 
 supper." 
 
 Nannie Hayes, the Fairy Queen, had a fiery temper. She 
 rushed through her cohort of handmaidens, her black eyes 
 flashing fire, and stood perilously close to the footlights and 
 said, " Oh, you wicked, ungrateful boys ! Here we've 
 worked the whole winter on these tableaux, and now you 
 don't want to see them ! Sit down this minute, or I'll go 
 straight and tell father, and you will none of you get any 
 supper. Sit down, I say." 
 
 The audience muttered, conferred together, then gloomily 
 sat through three more tableaux, when again there was a 
 strike, and Frank as the spokesman said they would rather 
 starve than see another tableau. By this time I was quietly 
 weeping, and the Fairy Queen, who had a very kind heart,
 
 44 I MYSELF 
 
 said, " Well, will you see just one more ? Betty Paschal as 
 the " Sleeping Beauty " ? 
 
 " What, that torn-boy ! " Frank said. " Never ! She 
 isn't a beauty and we don't care to see her sleep as one. Not 
 if you lock the dining-room door." And the audience then 
 and there filed out. 
 
 I fished, and ran races, and climbed trees, and played 
 marbles with the boys, and they liked me as another boy, 
 but all the girls had sweethearts I had none, and there 
 were many incipient hopes bound up in that " Sleeping 
 Beauty " tableau that, alas ! like so much else in my life, 
 was only a tantalizing, vanishing dream.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MY MOTHER'S DEATH 
 
 " sir ! The good die first, 
 And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
 Burn to the socket." WORDSWORTH 
 
 ALL only children (I was the young belated one in 
 our family) long for little brothers and sisters, and 
 I, so full of affection and so eager for companion- 
 ship, longed for them more than most, but my nearest 
 approach to this relationship was a little adopted brother 
 who lived near us. " Miss Jenny," as I called his mother, 
 put him in my arms a few days after he was born, and gave 
 him to me as a brother. He was very small, and always 
 remained frail and delicate, like a little snowdrop. " Miss 
 Jenny " (Mrs Scott) was a beautiful tall girl with a heavy 
 veil of hair that reached her knees. I loved the mother, 
 but I adored the child. Every moment I could spare from 
 lessons I spent playing with him, and he loved me, and 
 cooed and crowed for joy at my appearance. When he 
 was nine months old he sickened and died. I was allowed 
 to kiss the sweet little waxen face in the white-satin-lined 
 coffin, and when it was taken out of the house it really 
 seemed to me that my heart was going to be buried too, 
 and I grieved literally for months. Miss Jenny gave me his 
 little white sunbonnet, exquisitely made by herself, all 
 stitched with cords and delicately ruffled, and until I was 
 married I always carried that white sunbonnet of little 
 Jimmy's with me wherever I went. My own baby wore it 
 afterward, and I have the little bonnet still. 
 
 When I should have been beginning my lessons the war 
 
 45
 
 46 I MYSELF 
 
 was ending. My brothers came home from the army, my 
 father went north on business, and while he was away my 
 mother died from heart disease. Telegraphic communica- 
 tion was difficult in those days, the wires were down, the 
 postal service was greatly disturbed, and the first intimation 
 my father received of my mother's death was from a news- 
 paper which he was reading while crossing the Gulf of 
 Mexico between New Orleans and Galveston. He told me 
 afterwards that his first impulse was to throw himself into 
 the sea, he felt life would be so valueless without her. Then 
 he remembered his little girl, suddenly left motherless, and 
 the impulse passed, leaving only a paralysing sense of loss. 
 But a nature so unselfish as his quite recovered in time ; 
 his purposes, and his efforts, and services had always been 
 for other people, and the unselfish and self-forgetful ones of 
 the earth never, in spite of grief, wholly lose their interest 
 in things and in people while life lasts. 
 
 My mother was, so I have been told, a woman of remark- 
 able force of character. She was in her youth very beautiful, 
 small and compact of stature, with a white skin, large blue 
 eyes, a straight nose, a pretty mouth, a square chin, reddish 
 hair, and tiny hands and feet. She had a great sense of 
 humour, a beautiful voice accompanying herself on the 
 guitar on summer evenings when it was too hot to sit in- 
 doors and she was a celebrated cook and housekeeper. 
 Her garden was a curiosity of the town, with its myriads of 
 flowers. If she had lived my habit of procrastination would 
 have been cured, and other traits corrected that have miti- 
 gated against my success in life. She insisted on my dress- 
 ing promptly, and not, with one stocking on, sitting dreaming 
 with the other in hand, a habit that pursues me even to this 
 day. She possessed that rarest and most valuable sense 
 common-sense to a remarkable degree, and her advice was 
 asked by all sorts and conditions of people. She kept her 
 large family of brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, 
 third and fourth cousins, together in love and amity, feeling 
 the obligation of the tie of blood to be indissoluble. If any 
 disputes or worries or disagreements arose, my mother ended
 
 MY MOTHER'S DEATH 47 
 
 the conference with these words : " He's your kin there 
 is nothing else to do but stand by him " and stand by him 
 they did. I have never seen in any family such a sense of 
 loyalty, of obligation, of affection and unselfishness, as among 
 my mother's people. 
 
 Just at the end of the war my Mammy came to my mother 
 and told her that Charlotte, a negro woman who belonged to 
 one of the neighbours, was in her cabin suffering from an 
 accident ; her mistress had thrown a flat iron at her and 
 broken her arm, and had then in a fit of temper ordered her 
 to continue her work, which she did with one arm (she was 
 scrubbing the floor), but when night came she ran away. I 
 forget what the law was for harbouring a runaway negro, 
 but it was very severe. My mother decided to keep 
 Charlotte and hide her until her arm was well. So good old 
 Dr Baker was sent for, Charlotte's arm was put into splints, 
 and no one except my mother and Mammy knew her where- 
 abouts, and she remained in Mammy's cabin until her arm 
 was quite cured. She was a big woman and as powerful as a 
 man. 
 
 During my mother's last illness Charlotte never left her, 
 all the time carrying her from her bed to a couch on the 
 balcony with as much ease as if she had been a child and it 
 was Charlotte's black hand that closed my mother's eyes 
 with grief and lamentation when she died, and afterwards 
 she and her little black baby, Pony, became a sort of re- 
 sponsibility and legacy to the family. Pony, by the way, 
 became a mother at the tender age of fourteen, but Charlotte 
 said it was only an accident, " an dat Pony didn't mean 
 nuffin by it." Virtue was not in those days expected in the 
 negro, but a want of virtue in a white woman was unforgiv- 
 able. Everyone knows Hawthorne's story of " The Scarlet 
 Letter " and the terrible sentence meted out to Hester 
 Prynne. Really, it was no great exaggeration of the state of 
 affairs in Texas when I was a child. If a man compromised 
 the wife or daughter of another man, he knew the conse- 
 quence beforehand. He paid for it with his life. 
 
 There were many more men than women in Texas ; every
 
 4 8 I MYSELF 
 
 woman, pretty or ugly, could marry some sort of man ; there- 
 fore morality was demanded of her, and after marriage her 
 flirtations were at an end. As for the cocottes of the town, 
 they were worse than lepers. They were not even spoken of. 
 And yet beautiful low-necked ladies, with roses in their hair, 
 and diaphanous, flowered dresses, came out about sunset with 
 fluffy parasols over their heads and paraded the town. I 
 used to wonder who they were. One of them I admired 
 exceedingly ; she was very tall, with hair like satin, lively 
 black eyes, and always wore white. She managed to give 
 me a bonny smile when she passed, though Mammy had 
 ordered me to turn my head directly away from these fascinat- 
 ing, mysterious beings. When I grew up I was told that the 
 tall one, called Sue Thomas, had married a young man, a 
 friend of the family, of good birth, means and position, who 
 had conceived a hopeless passion for her, and they had 
 started for a new life in Mexico, but had both been murdered 
 on the way. 
 
 One of our negroes had made an arrangement with my 
 mother to pay for her own hire, and do what she liked with 
 her time that is, she paid my mother ten dollars a month, 
 and set up a laundry for herself, making much more than 
 this sum, as she was a genius in washing fine muslins and 
 Valenciennes laces and the exquisite organdies worn in the 
 South. One of her customers was a lady of the parasol, and 
 she was ill, heart-sick, home-sick and repentant. She came 
 from Kentucky, having been, like my mother, educated in her 
 innocent and happier youth at Bardstown Convent. Finally 
 after she became very ill, she was installed, as so many of the 
 lame, halt, and blind had been before her, in Mammy's cabin, 
 with Mammy and my mother to nurse her until she could 
 start for home, my mother undertaking to pay her travelling 
 expenses. 
 
 Wandering about the place one evening, I heard a hollow 
 cough in Mammy's cabin, and when I entered there was a 
 lovely lady with plaits of molasses-coloured hair, blue eyes, 
 and of a ravishing beauty to me. She wore a blue muslin 
 much beruffled, and prettier than any of my mother's frocks,
 
 MY MOTHER'S DEATH 49 
 
 and I really thought she must be a princess. Mammy had 
 often told me of fairy princesses, and here she was concealing 
 one in her cabin. 
 
 My mother was vexed to find me there, and told me to 
 run back to the house. Very unwillingly I obeyed her, and 
 when next I stole away to Mammy's cabin it was empty 
 and silent except for the sunbeams slanting in at the door, 
 and a mocking bird singing in a fruit-laden fig-tree outside 
 the window. The lady of the parasol had gone home to 
 Kentucky to die ; but that I was not to hear until many 
 years afterward. 
 
 My mother hated show and pretension and falseness and 
 hypocrisy, but she had the tenderest heart in the world for 
 sin, poverty and misfortune. Her death was not only a loss 
 to her own family but a loss to the whole town where she 
 lived, for she had literally " clothed the naked and fed the 
 hungry, and been a ministering angel to the sorrowing and 
 afflicted."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE 
 
 I love her 3 but tenderness obscures passion and respect holds it 
 at bay. 
 
 AFTER my mother's death I lived with my aunt, Mrs 
 Beale, until my father decided to send me to board- 
 ing school in the North. At this period of my life 
 Aunt Lizzie occupied the place next my father in my heart, 
 and until her death we loved each other tenderly and de- 
 votedly. 
 
 Love, sympathy and understanding are totally indescrib- 
 able and mysterious things. Two quite excellent people may 
 take a decided dislike to each other, and two quite un- 
 excellent people very often are held together by some secret 
 bond of sympathy throughout a long life. Between my 
 mother and her eldest sister was the most perfect understand- 
 ing I have ever seen between sisters, and they managed, except 
 for short periods, never to be separated. My aunt married 
 a gentleman who had a plantation in Kentucky, and my 
 mother ran away from school at the early age of fifteen and 
 married, as her first husband, a young surgeon in the navy. 
 During the winters Aunt Lizzie visited my mother, and the 
 summers my mother spent with my aunt at her plantation in 
 Kentucky ; and whatever the sorrows, troubles or anxieties 
 of these two ladies were, they were lightened by the love, 
 congenial companionship and sympathy of one for the other. 
 When I was born, I was named after my aunt Elizabeth, 
 and one of my earliest recollections is of her. She was a very 
 beautiful woman, and she had what I should call an old- 
 fashioned skin. The girls of the present day have very often 
 so
 
 FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE 51 
 
 fresh and healthy complexions, but they are apt to be a little 
 tanned by the sun, or roughened by the wind, and the quality 
 is not always fine. My Aunt Elizabeth's complexion was 
 dazzlingly beautiful ; even with a magnifying glass it was as 
 smooth as satin ; there was not a spot or a freckle or an im- 
 perfection on this white and pink velvet texture. She had 
 large blue eyes, with black lashes, neatly marked eyebrows, 
 a small straight nose, a rosebud, smiling mouth and even 
 teeth ; her head was proudly placed upon her shoulders, and 
 it was covered with brown, waving hair that in the strong 
 sunlight showed glints of gold. She had an upright, faultless 
 figure, fairy feet, for she wore, I recollect, No. I shoes, and 
 she always had difficulty in finding 5^ gloves for her small 
 white hands. She took the greatest care of herself, wearing 
 a green veil if the sun was hot, never exposing herself to a 
 strong wind that would dry her skin, and when she sat down 
 to read, as she did for hours together, she always wore gloves. 
 She did not marry until, as was considered in those days, she 
 was quite an old maid that is, she was twenty-six, and one of 
 my younger aunts had kept a list of the men who had asked 
 her to marry them. There were twenty-seven would-be 
 husbands, and all her life long she never ceased to receive 
 admiration. Besides her very great beauty she was witty, 
 well read, very large minded, and a woman of extremely 
 independent character. In her youth, when my grandfather 
 was Governor of Florida, she had spent several winters in 
 Washington, and her nieces were much interested in a 
 description which she gave of her first ball at the White 
 House. 
 
 She said that, although it was a cold night, and there was a 
 snowstorm brewing, she wore but two garments, one of them 
 a long linen lace-trimmed " shift," and the other a white 
 satin dress with a blonde lace berthe. Her hair was crowned 
 by a wreath of silver leaves, and my mother told me she was 
 the most radiant of visions that night, and the belle of the 
 ball. 
 
 My first distinct recollection of my Aunt Elizabeth was of 
 her visiting my mother late one summer evening just before
 
 52 I MYSELF 
 
 twilight. She was dressed in a dark, magenta-coloured 
 organdie, flowered in white, low necked with long sleeves, and 
 she wore a small fichu of the same muslin trimmed with a 
 little white silk fringe. In her white silk belt was a bunch of 
 white roses, and ever since then I have loved white roses the 
 best of all the garden of flowers. 
 
 Between my Aunt Elizabeth and myself was the same love 
 and sympathy that had existed between herself and my 
 mother. I was very different from my mother, who had a 
 determined will and an imperious manner, and in my child- 
 hood she did not always understand me nor I her. I know, 
 now that I have arrived at years of maturity, that she was one 
 of the noblest and most generous women in the world, but as a 
 child there was friction between us but never for a moment 
 between my Aunt Elizabeth and me. I have often felt a 
 sort of mingling of my spirit with hers, so close was the 
 sympathy between us, and yet we were absolutely opposite 
 to each other on many points. For instance, I was born 
 indifferent to dress. I notice pretty clothes on other people ; 
 I appreciate them, and like to see them ; but my own clothes 
 have always bored me to extinction, and if any toilettes of 
 mine have been successes it has been due to the efforts of 
 either kind relations, friends or dressmakers, or above all, 
 to that wonderful sartorial artist in Paris, Leroux, from whom 
 I occasionally get a gown. I find if you put yourself entirely 
 in the hands of people who understand the subject of dress, 
 and do not interfere or make suggestions to them, they will do 
 their very best for you. Aunt Lizzie really loved dress, and 
 with her beautiful figure did full justice to decoration ; and she 
 earnestly laboured to make me a conscientious dresser, but 
 never succeeded. I was always eager for baths, hot and cold, 
 ready to wash my hair three times a week if need be, to brush 
 my teeth after every meal, and I spent a large portion of 
 my pin money in tooth-brushes, mouth-washes, soaps and 
 toilet powders : then I lost interest while Aunt Lizzie's 
 theory was that a woman under any and all circumstances 
 should be well dressed. My aunt Florida Howard told me 
 that when Elizabeth lived at " The Bend," her husband's
 
 FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE 53 
 
 plantation in Kentucky, on the bend of a river, the nearest 
 neighbour was nine miles distant, and the visitors were few 
 and far between, and yet Elizabeth was always as spick and 
 span, as if the madding crowd surged about her. Her hair 
 was exquisitely done, she was well corseted, her dimity and 
 muslin gowns were fresh and fashionable, and her feet 
 faultlessly shod in openwork silk stockings and little kid 
 slippers. In the evening she changed her dress to fine lace 
 and muslin gowns, low-necked, with little capes. She always 
 said she dressed for her own satisfaction, whether people saw 
 her or not, and occasionally she became a veritable heroine 
 as an exponent of her theory. All her life she had suffered 
 agonies from headaches, so severe that temporarily they made 
 her almost blind. But these headaches never conquered her 
 toilettes. She would awake in the morning with racking 
 pain, that would have put any other woman to bed, but she 
 got up, took a bracing cold bath, powdered her face, put a dab 
 of rouge on each cheek and on her chin, pencilled the neat 
 eyebrows, dressed her hair elaborately in puffs and curls, 
 arranged herself in a perfectly fitting princess morning-gown 
 (she did not own such a thing as a loose and comfortable 
 wrapper), then sat down in a straight-backed chair to rest. 
 The only concession she ever made to a headache was a thin 
 cambric pocket-handkerchief folded in a neat little square 
 soaked in Eau de Cologne, nestling among the puffs and curls. 
 She was always ready to receive visitors, and I never remem- 
 ber her in deshabille. 
 
 During the Civil War, when any delicacies in the way of 
 food were almost impossible to get in the South, Aunt Lizzie 
 went to San Antonio, where some boxes of raisins and barrels 
 of sugar and coffee had been smuggled in through Galveston. 
 She had little money to spend, but after looking a long time 
 at the raisins, and smelling the coffee and sugar, she bought 
 a bunch of violets to freshen up a straw bonnet. Isn't it 
 Elbert Hubbard, that altogether original, courageous and 
 delightful writer, who says : " If I had but two loaves of 
 bread, I would sell one of them and buy white hyacinths to 
 feed my soul ? " The pleasures of the table never appealed
 
 54 I MYSELF 
 
 to Aunt Lizzie, though Melinda, her cook, was a genuine 
 cordon bleu. She used to make a bread that I have never 
 seen equalled ; it was known as " salt rising bread," and is 
 made without yeast. It would have been possible only to a 
 darkie cook who could nod over the fire all night without 
 feeling any great fatigue in the morning, as an equal tempera- 
 ture was necessary, and constant watching, in order to have 
 the bread rise properly. " Salt rising bread " went out 
 with slavery, and is known to the younger generation only 
 in name, but no cake I have ever tasted compared to it in 
 delicacy. 
 
 Melinda's wedding was a quaint affair. She was going to 
 marry a man called Sam, the servant of a neighbour, and she 
 had planned a white muslin bridal gown, a veil and a big 
 wedding, so dear to the heart of a negro, when on a Monday 
 morning, while she was at the wash-tub, Sam appeared, and 
 informed her that as soon as she dried the soap-suds from her 
 arms she was to be married, as the minister was coming right 
 along. In vain she expostulated and pleaded for delay and 
 bridal attire and the wedding cake. Sam said he didn't want 
 " no tarnation nonsense dat it was now or never wid him," 
 so, choking with sobs and tears of disappointment, Melinda 
 stood at the side of her wash-tub, was married and returned to 
 her work. And Sam, who was very busy with the season's 
 crops, only appeared a day or two later, but he said he " done 
 had it off his mind anyway. " He made an excellent husband , , 
 and Melinda gradually recovered from her regret for the loss 
 of her wedding. 
 
 At forty my Aunt Elizabeth was still a fresh beauty, very 
 popular, and much admired. Among her suitors was a young 
 man who remained her devoted slave for twenty years. At 
 intervals during this time he proposed to her, but she always 
 refused him, preferring the freedom of widowhood, and finally 
 he married the very opposite of my aunt : a dull, colourless, 
 monotonous, uninteresting woman in mind and appearance. 
 Very often he strolled around to have a talk with his old love, 
 who to the very end of her life remained witty and engaging. 
 My aunt's speaking voice was music itself, and she was the
 
 FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE 55 
 
 embodiment of naturalness without a vestige of either vanity 
 or affectation. Really beautiful women are always freer 
 from vanity than those of lesser pretensions to loveliness. 
 Perfect beauty is an accomplished fact of which there is no 
 doubt, and can be dismissed from the mind of the owner, and 
 frequently is ; while merely pretty women are oftentimes in 
 doubt of their good looks and need the constant bolstering up 
 of compliments in order to be satisfied. 
 
 When, for example, I first saw Mrs Frances Lowther she 
 possessed a really noble and very rare beauty. Her head 
 was pure Greek. Her forehead low and broad, her features 
 quite regular, her mouth finely chiselled, her eyes were deep 
 blue, and the face was mobile with an ever-changing expres- 
 sion. Watts has made a beautiful " Clytie " of her, Gustave 
 Dore painted her, Leighton has used her head for more than 
 one of his pictures. Prinsep, Halle, Tissot, Boldini and 
 other great artists asked her constantly to sit to them, and 
 she had no personal vanity whatever, and hasn't a picture 
 of herself, or even a bronze reproduction of " Clytie " ; and 
 yet she must have known with all the admiration she excited 
 that she was beautiful, but apparently she had forgotten it 
 and dismissed it from her mind. And her loveliness has 
 never spoiled her frank and honest nature, nor her sense of 
 humour, nor her wit, nor has it chilled her warm heart. 
 
 The world is undoubtedly getting more materialistic, and 
 the once-honoured ideals of self-sacrifice, loyalty and devotion 
 are being laid aside. Passion and the indulgence of it at 
 any cost, scarlet love, the realization of every complicated 
 and subtle emotion, is the mode and preachment of the 
 moment. Many a modern young man in his secret soul 
 admires Oscar Wilde when he says : "I remember when I 
 was at Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling 
 round Magdalen's narrow, bird-haunted walks one morning 
 in the year before I took my degree, that I wanted to eat 
 of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and 
 that I was going out into the world with that passion in my 
 soul. And so indeed I went out and so I lived." We all 
 know the result of the experiment : first the court of justice
 
 56 I MYSELF 
 
 then the prison gate, and afterwards the prison and even if 
 he had not landed there, his soul would have been seared, 
 and scarred, and stricken, by " the fruit of all the trees." 
 He learned later, poor, tragic, gifted singer, that life is sweet 
 only to those who themselves are sweet and tender to 
 humanity, and this is accomplished by self-control, self- 
 denial and self-sacrifice. The delight in children, and 
 flowers, and the country, domestic love, and romantic 
 friendship, are fast becoming, like faded ribbons and old- 
 fashioned ballads, things of the past. Sir Arthur Pinero's 
 touching play The Thunderbolt failed because the love 
 interest in it was only the deep, sweet affection and the self- 
 sacrifice of husband and wife. The critics voted it dry. 
 Would they have understood my friend Sidney Lanier's 
 poem ? 
 
 WEDDING HYMN 
 
 Thou God, whose high, eternal Love 
 
 Is the only blue sky of our life, 
 Clear all the Heaven that bends above 
 
 The life-road of this man and wife. 
 
 if ay these two lives be but one note 
 In the world's strange-sounding harmony, 
 
 Whose sacred music e'er shall float 
 Through every discord up to Thee. 
 
 As when from separate stars two beams 
 
 Unite to form one tender ray : 
 As when two sweet but shadowy dreams 
 
 Explain each other in the day : 
 
 So may these two dear hearts one light 
 
 Emit, and each interpret each. 
 Let an angel come and dwell to-night 
 
 In this dear double-heart, and teach ! 
 
 Since my earliest youth one of the most touching love 
 letters in all the world to me is the one written by Comtesse de 
 Florae to Colonel Newcome when they were both old people
 
 FOR LOVE'S DEAR SAKE 57 
 
 he married and the father of Give, she the mother of children 
 and the wife of a very old husband. But she had loved her 
 first lover all the years of her life, with a patient, pathetic, 
 unforgetting loyal love. In her letter she says : 
 
 " Sometimes, I have heard of your career ... he informed 
 me how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and 
 Bhartpour, how you escaped death as Laswari. I have 
 followed them, sir, on the map. I have taken part in your 
 victories and your glory. Ah ! I am not so cold but my heart 
 has trembled for your dangers, not so aged, but I remember 
 the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederic the 
 first rudiments of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, 
 your courage, were your own. None had to teach you these 
 qualities, of which a good God had endowed you. ... I hold 
 you always in memory. As I write the past comes back to 
 me. I see a noble young man who has a soft voice and 
 brown eyes. I see the Thames and the smiling plains of 
 Blackheath. I listen and pray at my chamber door, as my 
 father talks to you in our little cabinet of studies. I look 
 from the window and see you depart. ... I remember this was 
 your birthday. I have made myself a little fete in celebrat- 
 ing it after how many years of absence, of silence. . . . 
 
 " COMTESSE DE FLORAC 
 
 (Nee ' L. DE BLOIS ') " 
 
 This letter is as if written with a pen of sweet dried 
 lavender. It is from a loyal wife to the man she has always 
 loved, and yet what unforgetfulness, sweetness, tenderness, it 
 contains ! It is further endeared to me by the memory of a 
 long walk, and a long talk with Justin McCarthy at Westgate- 
 on-Sea one sunshiny, golden October afternoon. In the 
 discussion of various things, and various people, Thackeray 
 came along, and I mentioned the Newcomes and Madame de 
 Florae's letter, and Justin then and there quoted it almost in 
 entirety (he is gifted with the most wonderful memory). 
 His rich voice was very sweet in the lines : " I see the Thames 
 and the smiling plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at
 
 58 I MYSELF 
 
 my chamber door, as my father talks to you in our little 
 cabinet of studies. I look from the window and see you 
 depart." 
 
 Dear Justin ! Dear Thackeray ! It is for these recollec- 
 tions that I once made a journey to Blackheath. 
 
 And the gentleman who loved my Aunt Elizabeth for 
 twenty years and remained her true friend to the end he and 
 all people who are simple, and straightforward, and loyal are 
 dear to my primordial heart. Thackeray himself was one of 
 the faithful, long-suffering, platonic and self-sacrificing lovers .. 
 After his separation from his wife, caused by her long mental 
 illness, he formed a great friendship with Mrs Brookfield, 
 who was the wife of one of his oldest friends and the close 
 intimacy resulted in his falling in love with her. But the 
 thought of disloyalty never entered Thackeray's mind. The 
 world, however, was ill-natured over the friendship. Brook- 
 field became cool to him, and finally Thackeray wrote him a 
 noble letter of explanation in which he was reputed to have 
 said he did love Mrs Brookfield deeply, but neither Brookfield, 
 nor his wife, nor he himself, need be ashamed of his love, which 
 was composed of tenderness and devotion, but above all of 
 respect. Brookfield was a generous man himself he under- 
 stood, and after the letter the three friends remained intimate 
 and united until the day of Thackeray's death. 
 
 There is something infinitely restful and uplifting in a love 
 shorn of passion, but still faithful. This has often happened 
 through Fate's contrary mandate, but only the noble ones of 
 the earth can abide by it.
 
 A SERIOUS CHILD OF TWELVE
 
 " Mankind is ignorant, a man am I, 
 Call ignorance my sorrow, not my sin." 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 AFTER living with my Aunt Elizabeth a short time 
 my father decided to take me with him to the North 
 and leave me at a boarding school. How inade- 
 quate education was at this period, particularly for girls ! 
 At Georgetown Convent, which was such a beautiful old place, 
 not unlike a fourteenth-century Italian villa, with the 
 Potamac running through its grounds, lovely meadows and 
 orchards, and the best bread and butter I have ever eaten, I 
 learned to dance, and to embroider, a little music, and some- 
 thing of manners at the other schools nothing at all. Ladies 
 of the Visitation (black-veiled nuns) conducted the convent. 
 They were mostly women of good Southern family, and dis- 
 tinction, who had chosen to give up the world for a cloistered 
 life, and at one period of the school the President of the 
 United States gave the medal to each graduate, and placed a 
 wreath on her virgin brow. It was soon enough after the 
 war for one of the rules read aloud by the mother superior to 
 be, " The discussion of politics and religion is strictly for- 
 bidden." I was much too young to care for either, but in 
 spite of this rule occasional angry discussions ensued between 
 girls from the North and girls from the South, and between 
 Catholics and Protestants. 
 
 It was an excellent school for the morals of any girl. 
 Without realizing it, the surveillance was constant. There 
 
 59
 
 60 I MYSELF 
 
 was a sister everywhere in the dormitories, in the class-rooms, 
 in the recreation-rooms, in the playgrounds, and a tite-d-tete 
 between girls was practically impossible. Secrets were dis- 
 couraged, and frankness and truth were at a premium. 
 The hour for getting up was unearthly five o'clock and 
 each girl, as she left the dormitory, was obliged to have her 
 teeth and finger nails inspected by a keen-eyed sister at the 
 door. Many girls went back to use tooth brush and nail 
 brush more vigorously, but, small as I was, my teeth and 
 nails were invariably satisfactory. Scrubbing anything has 
 always been an agreeable occupation to me, particularly my 
 teeth the consequence is that I have never had a toothache 
 in my life, or lost a tooth. Another thing I owe to the 
 convent is a love of cold water. Our most luxurious baths 
 for invalids and delicate girls had " the chill off " only, and a 
 nun's " chill off " leaves the water still quite cold. I used to 
 love my icy baths, freshly drawn from the chilled river, in- 
 ducing the warm glow that followed afterward and only 
 rheumatism has ever driven me to the leisurely laziness of 
 warm baths. 
 
 There was a Madonna-faced nun at the convent whom I 
 adored. I can see her now. What blue, blue eyes she had, 
 with long, perfectly straight eyelashes which gave her eyes a 
 continually pensive expression. Her face was a pure oval, 
 with a transparent skin, a fine aquiline nose, and a drooping 
 mouth. She was a teacher of music, which in truth she knew 
 only superficially, but I learned " The Maiden's Prayer " 
 under her guidance, and Thalberg's " Home, sweet Home " 
 with variations, and I loved her reverently and tried to 
 imitate her voice and manner. It was said she had been 
 engaged to a young Confederate officer on General Robert 
 E. Lee's staff, and that after he was killed in battle she 
 entered the convent. We parted with many tears and em- 
 braces. She was to say always a little daily prayer for me, 
 and I was never to forget her. I have kept my promise, and 
 she was too unselfish ever to forget hers. 
 
 The old wardrobe sister was a beautiful needlewoman from 
 Ireland. She made yards of Irish crochet lace, but nobody
 
 MY REGRET AT MY LACK OF EDUCATION 61 
 
 wanted it in those days. She used to scold me for being slow 
 with my mending, but I got good marks for neatness, and she 
 used to say that " dirt never stuck to Betty." Even as a 
 child I disliked dirt, except mud pies, and they are a different 
 sort from spots, and stains, and London fogs, which are quite 
 the worst of all. 
 
 My next school after the convent was at White Plains, 
 New York. It was kept by the sweetest, gentlest, most 
 worried creature I ever saw, and her sister, who gave me a 
 Bible that I use still. The girls all thought Mrs Stirling a 
 widow, but I heard later she had a bad husband who had dis- 
 appeared into the West. 
 
 Except for the cold, which was detestable frost and snow 
 have a perfectly paralysing effect on me I was quite 
 happy learning my lessons as they were given to me, but I 
 left school really profoundly ignorant, and all my life I have 
 suffered and regretted my want of education. It is not what 
 one knows that apparently matters so much the topics 
 discussed in social life are not very abstruse. Magazines, 
 and newspapers, and an amiable manner, go a great way 
 toward agreeable conversation of the everyday sort. It is the 
 drudgery of study that is so steadying for the mind the 
 power of application and concentration of a real education 
 that uplifts, and bears you beyond the pettinesses of un- 
 educated people that is of such inestimable value. I wish 
 that even at three years of age my father had made me begin, 
 like John Stuart Mill, the study of Greek. I did learn a little 
 Latin, and liked it, but only the very beginning of Algebra, 
 which I have forgotten, and never Geometry and I had a 
 mind that wanted something more than just the ordinary 
 gossip of society, which bored me, even at a very early age, to 
 extinction. The only true kingdom on earth is the kingdom 
 of a well-stored mind, that nobody can wrest away from, 
 you. Parliaments can rob a monarch of his crown and his 
 possessions, but a king in exile can take his store of knowledge 
 and his well-disciplined mind with him. And I do most 
 bitterly regret my want of education, and always have and- 
 always will, and, among my life's many failures and wants,.
 
 6* I MYSELF 
 
 this want and failure of an education I consider the greatest 
 of all. 
 
 After the years spent at the convent and at boarding school 
 we went back to Texas. It was a great joy to see my old 
 home again. The very root of my heart is in the South 
 everything in it appeals to, soothes and comforts me. The 
 hot sun, the rich vegetation, the blossoming trees of oleander, 
 magnolia and crepe myrtle, the penetrating scent of the 
 jasmine, the night-blooming cereus, and the honeysuckle, 
 the silver nights when the moon makes luminous the deepest 
 shadow, the soft, full-throated trills of the mocking bird, the 
 caressingness of the air, the grateful freshness of early morn- 
 ing, the little shiny darkies, the corn bread, and rice, and rich 
 water-melons, and fragrant coffee and velvety peaches all 
 these delightful things are mine by birth and inheritance, 
 for, like me, they all belong " to the land of cotton, cinnamon 
 seed, and sandy bottom away down South in Dixie." 
 
 We settled down in our old home, and Mammy, who had 
 such a pretty name Hester superintended the house- 
 keeping, and a mocking bird came every night at nine o'clock, 
 perched on the bough of a tree by the portico, and told us in a 
 gush of melody what time it was. It is a curious thing, this 
 habit of that particular bird, to sing at precisely the same 
 hour for weeks at a time. 
 
 I began going to a day school and taking music lessons 
 from one of the playmates of my childhood Willie Boaz, 
 who had been to Germany and studied music there. I thought 
 to impress him by " The Maiden's Prayer " and the variations 
 of Thalberg's " Home, Sweet Home," but not a bit of it. He 
 put me on five-finger exercises, and the small amount of 
 music I know (which used to be one of the worst-taught 
 things in the world) I learned from him. Although I was 
 still going to school my hair was up, and I began to take 
 notice of the various playmates of my childhood who were 
 now well-grown youths, and the youngest lieutenants of the 
 military post were also numbered among my friends. It was
 
 MY REGRET AT MY LACK OF EDUCATION 63 
 
 the fashion in those days to serenade the lady of your choice, 
 and this occurred to me so often that my father threatened 
 to move further into the country. Guitars, banjos, flutes, 
 and tenor voices were disturbing his middle-aged slumbers, 
 but the serenaders did not end there. When a lieutenant 
 serenaded he brought the entire brass band of his regiment, 
 and that meant a box of candles in order to see the music. 
 The performers were grouped around the porch, and after- 
 ward wine was offered, and this all in the middle of the 
 night. Their arrival was announced by a strident " blam- 
 blam ! " and a deep groan followed from my father's room, 
 which was next to mine. I arose, all joy and light, and 
 hastily dressed, and he arose, all gloom and weariness, and 
 slowly dressed. He did not care at all for music, and certainly 
 not at one or two o'clock in the morning. It irritated him 
 beyond measure, and I was not serenaded less than three 
 times a week. My father was too sweet tempered ever to be 
 really disagreeable, but the day after the serenade he was 
 greatly depressed, while I bubbled over with satisfaction. 
 
 I remember once he was defending a murder case a woman 
 had killed her husband in a rather cold-blooded fashion, 
 and the trial was to end the next day. He said when we 
 went to bed, " I do trust, my dear daughter, there will be no 
 caterwauling to-night." But that night of all nights we 
 had three serenades first a flute, then a baritone with his 
 guitar (we hadn't to get up for him), and no sooner had he 
 departed, and silence reigned again, than blam-blam ! and 
 the entire band of the 6th Cavalry had arrived. My father 
 never swore, but I fear he did that night, and the next morn- 
 ing, before going to court, he said to me, " Mind, if that un- 
 fortunate woman is hanged it will be the fault of you and your 
 infernal serenaders. I am worn out this morning ! " But his 
 logic and eloquence prevailed, and the woman got her 
 freedom. 
 
 He never lost but one murder case. A negro in Washington 
 cut off his wife's head with a cleaver while she slept, and my 
 father defended him, but the negro was hanged. This broke 
 my father's record, and he felt dreadfully about it. His
 
 64 I MYSELF 
 
 speech in defence of the man was so fine that the papers said 
 he was an old slave of Judge Paschal's with a claim upon 
 him of long service but this was not true. Every client 
 of my father made a claim upon him to do his best, and he 
 did it. He was a born lawyer, with an actual knowledge of 
 the law, to which he added thorough conscientious work, and 
 when occasion demanded he was passionately eloquent and 
 above all he never wavered, and was as true to the interests 
 of his clients as they were themselves. 
 
 Business called my father north, and there he met and 
 married my stepmother a handsome woman of many 
 accomplishments, and as she preferred living in Washington, 
 that delightful capital became our home. My father's 
 marriage was very happy. He was exceedingly proud of his 
 wife, she was devoted to his interests and was of the greatest 
 help to him in his work, " The Digest of the Laws of Texas," 
 and his " Annotated Constitution of the United States." He 
 taught her how to make an index, and she was remarkably 
 quick at the work. She was a most accomplished pianist, 
 reading music at sight as other people read books, and, 
 although my father never cared for music, he used to love to 
 hear her play. She had faultless taste in the arrangement of 
 a house, and she was a genius in dress. This delighted me, 
 as I put myself completely in her hands, and wore with 
 pleasure and without argument, the clothes she chose for me.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE UGLY DUCKLING 
 
 " Oh, the wild joy of living, the leaping from rock to rock, 
 The strong bending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock 
 Of the plunge in a pool's living water." 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 MY father was married in the spring, and I went for 
 the summer to Elkton, Maryland, to visit Mrs 
 Young, a lady for whom I always had a devoted 
 friendship, and although she was sixty and I sixteen we 
 were perfectly congenial. For one thing she was beautiful, 
 and I adore beauty. Her eyes were large, soft and brown, 
 and her hair, snow white, was worn in soft puffs on either side 
 of her face, and she was exquisitely, daintily neat and 
 clean. Her housekeeping was of the sort that has gone out 
 of fashion the old-fashioned Southern housekeeping. The 
 cooking was renowned throughout the county, and the boy in 
 the kitchen who cleaned the pots and pans was required to 
 leave them in such a state of perfection that a cambric pocket- 
 handkerchief could be passed around the inside of one and 
 returned to the owner unsoiled. And, what is more, I have 
 seen it done many a time. The piece de resistance of the 
 house was peach ice-cream. The ripe peaches were mashed 
 and put in pure sweetened cream, flavoured by Mrs Young, 
 and Charley the pot-boy was set to work to freeze it, and in the 
 evening at eight or nine o'clock the neighbours came in to 
 partake of this celebrated dish. Many notable housekeepers 
 tried, but no one ever succeeded in attaining the perfection of 
 Mrs Young's icecream. The Misses Partridge, two aristo- 
 cratic maiden ladies, refined, exclusive and poor, made 
 5
 
 66 I MYSELF 
 
 wonderful small cakes, really the most marvellous cakes I 
 have ever eaten, superior even to those made in Austria, 
 the land of cakes and occasionally they sent Mrs Young 
 a panful of these envied delicacies, but the secret of just 
 how to make them they would never divulge. They said 
 they would leave the receipt to the little town of Elkton 
 when they died. I wonder if they did ! 
 
 I returned to Washington in the autumn, and that winter 
 was to be my debut as a young lady. My first appearance 
 was made at an army and navy German (a cotillon). My 
 partner, a Mr Mark Severance from Boston, was singularly 
 handsome, but not a good dancer. I would have preferred 
 him plain and light of foot, for I adored dancing. Mother 
 dressed me in white, with scarlet geraniums in my hair and on 
 my dress, and she and I and Dan Gillette, a friend who did 
 not dance, met Mr Severance at nine o'clock. 
 
 People danced in those days, and the German began early. 
 I was feeling anxious about my success. After all, I was very 
 young, and a perfect stranger in Washington. There were 
 other girls, older, more experienced, prettier, better dressed ; 
 maybe I would have no partners, or very few. Mr Sever- 
 ance was agreeable, but I was not at a cotillon to sit still. 
 Presently Captain Mason, the smart young naval officer who 
 was leading the German, clapped his hands for the first figure. 
 We were all expectancy. My heart was beating like a trip 
 hammer. He looked around the pretty circle, and probably 
 the eagerness of my face attracted him. Anyhow I was the 
 girl he selected for the first figure, and after that I was never 
 off the floor. My feet ached at two o'clock, but still I danced 
 on, covered with favours from head to foot, iridescent in 
 tarlatan scarfs of various colours, laden with bouquets, but 
 blissful and tireless. 
 
 That was the happiest night of my life, because my success 
 was quite unexpected. The next day, by some freak of 
 fortune and caprice of journalism, the Washington papers 
 announced that I was to be the belle of the season, that " since 
 Miss Harriet Lane's reign at the White House the belleship 
 of Washington has been divided among numberless pretty
 
 THE UGLY DUCKLING 67 
 
 girls, but this year the honour, an undivided one, is to be 
 given to a new debutante, Miss Betty Paschal." Of course, 
 this was grossly inaccurate and mere newspaper exaggera- 
 tion. Nevertheless, life began to take on very rosy hues, 
 and I had a wonderful sense of the " wild joy of living." It 
 was almost the story of the Ugly Duckling over again. It 
 had never occurred to me that I had the least claim to good 
 looks, and being an absent-minded, unanalytical creature, with 
 more than my share of humility, I had not considered myself 
 at all in those days except to be very grateful and apprecia- 
 tive of the affection which was given me. And suddenly to 
 burst upon the world as a pretty girl was a wonderful and 
 unbelievable surprise. As a matter of fact, my claim to good 
 looks was of the slightest ; it was only freshness and vivacity 
 no one knew that better than myself and whenever people 
 flattered me it gave me the sensation of having warped their 
 real taste and judgment. My own ideal of beauty is so high, 
 and so instinctive, that my eye detects at once every fault 
 in all physical or mechanical misconstruction. I adore 
 beauty in life or art. A beautiful man, woman, child, flower, 
 star, sea, mountain, sunset or sunrise, a picture, or mosaic, or 
 enamel, or tapestry, or statue, or carving, or gem all these 
 things have given me indescribable pleasure, and I knew that 
 my face was much too irregular for beauty. There is so 
 much that is lovely in the world to look at if one has eyes to 
 see : it has been my pageant. Thank heaven always for 
 that inestimable boon, sight. Of all my senses my eyes 
 have given me the keenest pleasure the beautiful things 
 they have visually photographed, priceless, unattainable 
 pictures all over Europe, and statues and lovely people and 
 beautiful faces are by every detail of an accurate remem- 
 brance mine. Among the pictures one I particularly love is 
 in Munich, by Bocklin. A midsummer azure sky of a trans- 
 parent sapphire blue, with a full, warm, lazy sea breaking into 
 frothy white waves, and floating up with and upon the curling 
 water, and so much a part of it that at first they are un- 
 noticeable, strange, glad, half-human, but wholly possible 
 sea-creatures.
 
 68 I MYSELF 
 
 My first winter in Washington, a lost vision now, was 
 almost too good to be true. 
 
 " And the spray from the fountain of youth that clings 
 In May's first dew to her whispering wings, 
 These are the gifts that our lady brings 
 
 To the land where the dreams come true." 
 
 " The spray from the fountain of youth that clings in May's 
 first dew " was surely my right at sixteen and besides that, a 
 rare happiness was mine : an absolutely perfect, unconscious 
 innocence. A complete want of curiosity, and an intense 
 interest in the moment, had kept my mind from inquiring 
 into material things, and so far as the complications of life 
 and evil were concerned I was a child a radiant, believing, 
 vivacious, completely happy, healthy-minded, confident, 
 dancing child. In those far-off, more friendly days in 
 Washington, dancing was the principal amusement, and 
 indeed the constant amusement for the young. There was 
 either a ball or a dance every night, and at the large houses 
 a matinee every afternoon, where you threw off your wraps 
 and danced in your hat from three until six ; and at Anna- 
 polis what were called morning Germans were very usual. So 
 I danced in the morning, I danced in the afternoon and I 
 danced in the evening. 
 
 At first mother, who was so interested and busy in pro- 
 viding me with pretty (but simple) clothes, gave me tulle 
 dresses and silk shoes, but these were soon danced to ribbons. 
 Then I wore silk muslins and kid shoes. I remember for the 
 Annapolis ball three young officers had asked me as a partner 
 for the German, and I said yes to all of them so, armed 
 with bouquets, they all accompanied me, and with mother 
 and my father we went to Annapolis. In those days it 
 was the custom to carry all your bouquets, or, anyhow, all you 
 could manage. There was the fourth bouquet waiting at the 
 hotel for me, so with my arms full of flowers, and my three 
 partners, I entered the ball-room and began the German. 
 My poor father (for mother it was not so bad, as she was still
 
 THE UGLY DUCKLING 69 
 
 young and attractive, and danced herself) had to sit from nine 
 o'clock until five in the morning, and, almost unbelievable 
 now, another German was organized at ten o'clock the next 
 morning at the hotel, and reinforced with bouillon and biscuits 
 we danced steadily until two o'clock. In the afternoon we 
 returned to Washington, and that night there was another 
 ball, where I really went to sleep between the dances, but 
 danced all night nevertheless. I was absolutely tireless, and 
 could dance longer than anybody except one of the most 
 enduring and best dancers we had Dick Evans, a tall, good- 
 looking, athletic man, who was always in urgent demand for 
 every occasion. We must have danced some thousands of 
 miles together that winter, but we never danced into each 
 other's affections, though the families were old friends and 
 were, like ourselves, Texas people, and Dick was a favourite of 
 my father's. Mrs Stevenson, then Tilly Evans, was one of the 
 sisters she is now a distinguished scientific woman, great in 
 Indian lore, customs and languages. I do not remember 
 her in the old days as a dancer, but she was always a charm- 
 ing, interesting girl. Betty Evans, now Mrs Kellogg, another 
 sister of Dick's and of fighting Bob's Admiral Evans was a 
 perfect fairy on her feet, which were celebrated for their 
 minute size. 
 
 After the Annapolis ball, one of the cabinet ladies gave a 
 calico ball, the rule being that any costume was permissible 
 if made of cotton material only. Mother, who was a queen of 
 taste, sent me forth like a figure on a fan. A pale blue 
 cambric petticoat, a Watteau overdress, much puffed on the 
 hips, with a sharply pointed square-necked bodice, elbow 
 sleeves and lace ruffles. The design of the sateen was a 
 repetition of groups of shepherds and shepherdesses, sur- 
 rounded by wreaths of roses. My shoes were black, with big 
 paste buckles, and the black velvet on my neck and around 
 my wrists was fastened with antique paste clasps. With 
 extreme youth, a brilliant colour, black eyebrows, and the 
 freckles discreetly dimmed with powder, I looked my best 
 that night, and Mr Corcoran, who said he had not danced for 
 five and twenty years, gaily stepped through a quadrille
 
 70 I MYSELF 
 
 with me. He was a very handsome, sympathetic old gentle- 
 man, and his snow-white hair, flashing black eyes and 
 regular features gave him a most distinguished appearance. 
 
 With dancing and flowers, flowers in abundance, baskets 
 and bouquets sometimes a pyramid four feet high and 
 laughter, and joy, the winter wore away. At the close of the 
 season an event happened that decided my future. Mrs 
 Sheppard gave a fancy ball. Her husband, Governor 
 Sheppard, was the Governor of the District of Columbia, and 
 was making and planning Washington into the beautiful 
 city it is now. The Sheppards had a splendid house, and she 
 was an ideal hostess ; very handsome and graceful and 
 gracious people flocked to her house, and on this occasion 
 even the men did her bidding and all wore fancy dress. 
 There were Shakespeares and Napoleons and Raphaels and 
 Walter Raleighs and George Washingtons and Mexicans 
 and troubadours. My escort was the sweetest possible 
 Mephistopheles. Mother, who was dark, looked charming as 
 a Spanish lady, all black lace and gold bobs, and a high gold 
 comb. The hostess was a Venetian lady, in a long-trained 
 gown of mauve and pink and gold, with flowing sleeves and 
 ropes of pearls. My costume represented, of all things, the 
 moon ; feeling as I did at the time, the wonder is that it did 
 not represent the whole solar system. 
 
 But even at that particular moment Fate with a birch rod 
 was waiting to administer severe correction and make me pay 
 for all my triumphs. But for that night I shone resplendent. 
 My dress was of amethyst-blue satin strewn with stars ; it 
 was looped up at one side by a round, pink-cheeked, silvered 
 full moon. The bodice was brilliant with stars, and a silvered 
 crescent slanted down one side of it. In my yellow flowing 
 wig also glittered stars, and a crescent with the points curved 
 up was fastened to a diadem resting on my hair. Moonshine, 
 as usual, was popular, and only at half -past five o'clock did 
 the moon sink to rest. 
 
 Among the many dancers at the ball was an extra- 
 ordinarily handsome young Sir Walter Raleigh in black and 
 silver. He was watching the dancers when Governor
 
 THE UGLY DUCKLING 71 
 
 Sheppard asked if he was star gazing. " No," he said, " I'm 
 contemplating the moon, and I'm going to be the first man in 
 the world to marry her," pointing in my direction. 
 
 " Do you," said Governor Sheppard, " happen to know 
 her ? " 
 
 " No," said Sir Walter, " nevertheless, I shall marry her." 
 And he did, the following winter.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE WORLD'S DIVINEST LOVE 
 
 " God cannot be everywhere, so He made mothers." Egyptian Proverb 
 
 MY observation and experience in life convince me 
 that certainly God can trust, with very little 
 direction, a good mother to do His work. Men 
 believe the progress of humanity to be due to their energy, 
 but the maternal instinct is the most powerful lever in the 
 world. Through it children are born, loved and cared for 
 even though they bring disgrace. There is no man who 
 understands the maternal instinct so well as Barrie. In his 
 play of " The Wedding Guest " he made a powerful plea for 
 all mothers, even the unwedded mother, but somehow it 
 failed. Perhaps he was not bold enough. At any rate his 
 dormant meaning was that maternity in any form dignifies 
 and ennobles and with a true mother it must do so. There 
 is a scene between the old maid aunt, who in her heart of 
 hearts had longed for children, and the artists' model, who 
 was the mother of the child in question. The aunt is prim, 
 and, even while loving children, thinks it a condescension to 
 offer to adopt the baby the illegitimate child of her nephew 
 but when she has made her offer the mother rises in her 
 wrath and says, " Go, you childless woman go ! " That 
 is her reproach the impossibility of a woman to understand 
 who has not borne children. 
 
 There are many women, however, who have never been 
 physical mothers, to whom Nature has given the mother's 
 heart. They are the sisters of charity who care for the aged, 
 and bring up and love the nameless foundling. There was a 
 nun in New York, a famous mendicant, courageous and plucky
 
 THE WORLD'S DIVINEST LOVE 73 
 
 in getting money for her convent, and when she died there 
 were eighteen hundred orphaned children under her roof. 
 What a great mother's heart beat in her breast ! There must 
 have been many little cherubs to welcome her directly to 
 Heaven, for surely when she left this world she was purged of 
 sin. The women who delight in nursing the sick are mothers. 
 The Salvation Army women who give hope to the fallen and 
 the criminal are mothers. The founders of convents are 
 mothers ; and luckily for the women of fashion many a 
 nurse or a governess is an ideal mother tireless, self- 
 sacrificing and loving. How often have I seen in the South 
 an old maid sister, or aunt, mothering a whole set of fledglings, 
 and giving up her whole life to the service of another woman's 
 children, but hers by right of love. These self -elected mothers 
 are the most unselfish of ah 1 the race. Maternity is so 
 beautiful, so nearly divine, that in creating humankind it 
 seems to me an infinite pity not to have made ah 1 women 
 mothers at thirty, just as a rose-tree bursts into blossom. 
 Then the woman's heart, filled by this nearly divine love, 
 would have opened to a greater understanding of humanity. 
 And it is not only the love for her own child that so opens 
 the heart of a woman. This God-given instinct makes her 
 a universal mother. Catholics understand this in looking 
 upon the mother of God as the mother of all the world. And 
 through motherhood a new interest arises in all children, and 
 the woman is infinitely more tender and pitiful to sorrow and 
 trouble. It is mother love which creates understanding of 
 both sin and sorrow, and makes forgiveness possible. 
 
 There was an eminent judge in a certain town in America 
 who had an only son, who was apparently a naturally de- 
 praved blackguard, but he looked as unlike the accepted idea 
 of one as possible. Clear, brown, frank eyes met yours in an 
 honest, straightforward way. There were dimples in his 
 cheeks and chin,while a constant laugh displayed strong white 
 teeth. He had cordial, engaging manners, a quick intelligence 
 and great ability. His wife was a beauty, a pocket Venus, 
 and their one child, a little girl who had a touch of genius, 
 always reminded me of that adorable child, Marjorie Fleming,
 
 74 I MYSELF 
 
 Sir Walter Scott's friend, who recorded in her diary that " the 
 most devilish thing is 8 times 8, and 7 times 7 is what nature 
 itself can't endure." 
 
 But all these advantages did not produce the smallest 
 effect on this hard, bad nature. A black-hearted villain 
 can laugh quite as lightly and as heartily as the best of good 
 fellows. This man lied and drank, and cheated at cards, 
 and lost caste, and finally forged his father's name. To save 
 him from prison, the father sold what property he had, 
 mortgaged his house, resigned his judgeship, and retired with 
 his wife and daughters to the country. The son was banished 
 and his name was never to be mentioned. Of course he went 
 from bad to worse, and finally stole the watch of a woman of 
 ill repute, was arrested and put into prison. Then the 
 divine protecting love of the mother asserted itself, and Mrs 
 N. came to New York, where I was living. She arrived late 
 in the evening and said, " Betty, I know you'll take me in and 
 help Bobby." Then she burst into uncontrollable weeping. 
 
 We talked until two in the morning, and when I went to 
 bed I heard her wearily walking in her room the whole night 
 through ; at dawn I went to her and she said : " His father 
 and the girls would be so angry if they knew I had come. 
 It isn't the Bobby of now that I want so much to save, it's 
 the baby who once lay on my breast. It's the chubby child 
 of four, so strong and so affectionate why, he was the most 
 loving of all my children ! And though he is in gaol I love 
 him still I am his mother." 
 
 We went together to the prison, and she did not utter one 
 reproach, but gave him money, and employed a well-known 
 attorney to defend him. And he got off with a light sentence. 
 Maybe he did better afterwards I never heard of him again. 
 Truly God cannot be everywhere, so He made mothers. I 
 was very young when my baby's cry flooded my heart with 
 a warm love, an anxious love, an undying love, quite unlike 
 anything I had ever experienced. " Is it a boy ? " I asked 
 eagerly. I wanted a boy and Dr Reilly laughed and said to 
 the nurse, " He looks like a boy, doesn't he, Anne ? " And 
 when he was cradled in my arms, in all my life that was the
 
 IN THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH 
 
 A DEBUTANTE
 
 THE WORLD'S DIVINEST LOVE 75 
 
 very happiest moment. It must be a terrible, an unspeak- 
 able grief to lay a baby in his little white muslin shroud in 
 the earth but rather than never to have been a mother at 
 all I would have undergone this bitter experience. 
 
 When my baby was about eighteen months old we had a 
 very hot summer in Washington, and he was taken suddenly 
 ill with that dread disease from which children suffer in 
 America cholera infantum and at a moment's notice we 
 went to a farm in the country. How near death he was ; 
 how wasted away to a little pale skeleton, and eaten with 
 fever and nearly unconscious ! Neither night nor day did 
 I leave him, and except for dozing at his bedside never 
 felt the least need of sleep. Finally the weather became 
 a little cooler, and the doctor said I might carry him about 
 the garden on a pillow. He had not as yet taken the least 
 notice of anything, but as I walked under the trees in a 
 meadow I passed by an old white horse who lifted up his 
 head from the grass, and suddenly the child smiled, and put 
 up a poor little thin hand to stroke the animal's nose. I sat 
 down at the horse's feet, and had a good happy cry, for I 
 felt my baby was going to get well. From the farmhouse 
 we went to the mountains in Virginia and joined my friends, 
 Harriet and Henry Morgan. Toodie was quite well then, 
 and could toddle around, and insist upon his own way, which 
 Franzie Morgan and his other older playmates willingly 
 gave him. Franzie was one of those children, so beautiful, 
 appealing, intelligent, gentle and obedient, that one has an 
 instinctive feeling that it is impossible they can grow up to 
 selfishness and evil. Although too young to have a com- 
 prehension of what adverse criticism of a man meant, if he 
 heard it he lifted his noble head from his toys and said with 
 a heavenly smile, " But he's good, he's good." He had 
 given eight years of pure happiness to his mother when, in 
 her own language, " he went away to the beautiful country." 
 The wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and a clear, intense, 
 complete faith in a Hereafter has been given to Harriet 
 Morgan. She is as sure of the reality of another life as I am 
 of the reality of this one. The utter unselfishness of her
 
 76 I MYSELF 
 
 grief for her one ewe lamb went to the very core of my 
 heart. Indeed, the unselfishness of her whole life, which she 
 gave up entirely to comfort the sick and lift up the weak- 
 hearted, kept her from being a famous woman, for she was 
 gifted with a perfectly original, humorous and, at the same 
 time, poetical mind. The veriest prose she translated into 
 poetry. The most sordid scandal she covered up with a soft 
 veil of heavenly charity. And hers was the merriest, 
 gayest, sunniest, most hopeful nature I ever saw ; no 
 circumstances daunted her optimism, or her belief in the 
 steady improvement and progress of the world. " From 
 hatred and malice, Good Lord deliver us ! " were words not 
 written for her. Nothing approaching those qualities was 
 known to her tender heart. She had entered a purified 
 intellectual atmosphere and left all the meannesses of life 
 down below. Franzie had given her the play-name of 
 " Rosy Pink," which suited her to perfection ; his father, 
 Henry Morgan, was " Tom," and he was " Jack O'Nory." 
 
 The clouds were beginning to darken my horizon at this 
 time, and those three dear ones, Rosy Pink, and Tom, and 
 Jack O'Nory, were my constant friends and playmates, my 
 refuge from all that was unhappy and disquieting. But 
 Franzie never grew up, and his death only added to the un- 
 selfishness of his mother. Her letters were touchingly tender 
 and resigned, though the light of her life had gone out : 
 
 " 1015 L. STREET, 
 " WASHINGTON, Thursday. 
 
 " ELIZABESS DEAR, Oh, the old-fashioned name. ' Eliza- 
 bess ' he called it. How I thank you for the dear loving 
 letter ; with all the kind letters that came from those who 
 loved little Babio Mow, little Jack, little Franzie, I missed 
 greatly yours, and Will went round twice to N. Street to ask 
 if you were still in Virginia. On the I2th August Will wrote 
 to you at Berkley Springs and I knew you had never received 
 the letter or you would have written to your poor Hallie, one 
 of your ' wedding guests/ who is walking about in the
 
 THE WORLD'S DIVINEST LOVE 77 
 
 world whose sun is set, while the other is full of gladness in 
 the beautiful country. He had been so well this summer, 
 so good, so beautiful, so bright, that I have sometimes 
 thought it was wrong not to take him among his people 
 because he was so worthy of admiration, and then we thought 
 a simple life was the most healthy for him body and spirit. 
 For one week after he was taken ill we fancied he had only 
 a common ulcerated sore throat, and the new homoeopathic 
 doctor in the country said he was not really ill. He was 
 downstairs on the sofa, sometimes walking about, and some- 
 times singing, but sleeping a good deal. On the sixth day 
 Tom brought out a doctor from the city and the next morning 
 we all came into the town. From that time, dear, we began 
 to trouble our little one greatly, trying to make him well, 
 but he only stayed with us one week longer, lovely and 
 loving till he left us, and Tom and I are desolate. It was 
 diphtheria, but we have to thank the Merciful Father that the 
 suffering of that terrible disease was spared to us and him, 
 and that his little lovely noble face looked beautiful through 
 all. I do not think we are rebellious, Elizabess dear, I 
 believe that our whole hearts are turned towards that bliss- 
 ful day of meeting again, but the road we are travelling is 
 very desolate and we are so lonely for our little one. Tom 
 read your letter with the tears streaming. He says, ' Oh, 
 such a kind, dear letter. She has a good loving heart.' 
 
 " Oh, Elizabeth, what can we do ? I cannot write any 
 more to-day. Kiss darling little Toodie for me. 
 
 " Thank you for your love and prayers. I hope you will 
 come soon to us. Your loving HALLIE 
 
 " Do you remember my darling's name for me, his name, 
 Rosy Pink, dear, dear name ! 
 
 " Tom and Rosy send you love and thanks. Will is in New 
 York. In our time of trouble he was father and mother and 
 brother to us and never left us." 
 
 A beneficent providence has left me Tom and Rosy Pink. 
 Tom and Rosy, like myself, are older now, and when I go
 
 7 8 I MYSELF 
 
 back to Washington, which is through many associations 
 so dear to me, by taking a train and travelling a little way in 
 the country I arrive at Rose Garden, where I have passed 
 so many happy days. They sold it once, and then Rosy 
 cried all night, and the next day Tom bought it back again, 
 by giving the owner (who vowed he loved it so, although he 
 had only owned it one day, he couldn't part with it) an extra 
 rive hundred dollars more than he had paid for it. Tom and 
 Rosy are not good business people every one has profited 
 by them. I have worn Rosy's pearl earrings for thirty 
 years, and by this time she has given away all her pretty 
 things, but she has still love, and enthusiasm and apprecia- 
 tion, and hospitality to give to those who ask it this truest 
 and best and sweetest of all the women in my human garden 
 of friends.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MY FIRST EMPLOYMENT 
 
 Work is the salvation of a tried and restless soul. 
 
 WHEN my father's health began to fail, and we with 
 others were dependent upon him, without con- 
 sulting anybody I went to the President of the 
 United States, General Grant then, and asked him to give 
 me employment. Diplomacy is all very well, but I believe 
 in going to the first person in power when a favour is wanted, 
 and stating quite frankly your necessity, Many people 
 love go-betweens ; I always do without them and am my 
 own go-between it saves much trouble and misunder- 
 standing. 
 
 General Grant had gone out of his way to be polite to me 
 as a girl on my first appearance at a White House reception, 
 and had said something to my father about me which had 
 pleased him greatly. And my liking for him was strong and 
 instinctive ; he was so quiet, with steady, kind eyes, a deep, 
 agreeable voice, and gave an instant impression of strength 
 and manliness. I talked to him freely, and he said there 
 was some work which could be given me in the War Office 
 among the archives, which were then in process of being 
 sorted, indexed and made into books. His rugged face 
 softened, and he added, " Perhaps it will be as well for you 
 to have your work at home, you are really too young to go 
 to an office. I'll speak to our new Secretary for War and 
 see what can be done." 
 
 Don Cameron had just been made Secretary for War, and 
 he was not at all inclined to send the MSS. to me and to make 
 an exception in my case. But of course General Grant had 
 
 79
 
 8o I MYSELF 
 
 his way, and I worked at home on the archives, while Toodie 
 by my side careered back and forth on a fine rocking horse 
 covered with real horseskin and with the flaring nostrils of 
 a racehorse, a tribute of affection to him from a wealthy 
 friend in New York. Subsequently I went to the War Office 
 for a short time, and joined the ladies there who were doing 
 the same work. It was a very pleasant occupation. We 
 arrived at nine (or for me thereabouts) o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and left the office at four, and I made two friendships 
 which have been of lifelong duration. 
 
 My dear father was much opposed to my doing anything 
 at all, and himself offered to substitute my salary, but I 
 have always loved work it is the greatest aid to happiness, 
 to steadiness of nerve, to good judgment and sanity, in the 
 whole world. I only hope that I shall die in harness, for 
 idleness to me is in my changeful life self-introspection and 
 grief. If only I had done this at that time, and not done 
 that at another time, life might be different but all 
 repining is so useless and so weak. It is difficult, with 
 insomnia ever at my door, and unstrung nerves, to master 
 and dismiss thought, but these words of John Trotwood 
 Moore, that industrious and delightful writer of the South, 
 have been of infinite help and comfort to me : 
 
 1. Throw off the curbs of thy past ! 
 
 2. Fools cling to their folly, and the witless to the beaten highway. 
 
 But be thou wise to seek the new road that leadeth to the life 
 anew. Throw off the curbs of thy past. 
 
 3. Grieve not over things agone. Shed not tears for past errors. 
 
 Let the penance of thy past shrive the dead of thy past and 
 be thou the High Priest of thine own future. Throw off the 
 curbs of thy past ! 
 
 Wise is he who garnereth honey from the hornets' nest, and worthy 
 of praise who followeth the sting of bees to the bee tree. Throw 
 off the curbs of thy past. 
 
 Forget thou wert ever wronged ; remember not that thou wert ill- 
 used ; think not of the days of thy scorning, for by taking 
 thought of them they become part of thee, and having already 
 had their setting by thy fireside thou wantest them no longer 
 as the guests of thy soul. Throw off the curbs of thy past.
 
 MY FIRST EMPLOYMENT 81 
 
 " Forget thou wert ever wronged." " Throw off the curbs 
 of thy past." The essence of a brave and gentle philosophy 
 is all there. It is curious this help of certain writers to certain 
 people. A most charming Florentine, the Marquesa Picco- 
 lellis, told me James Lane Allen's " The Choir Invisible " 
 had been to her in a time of mental conflict like the Balm of 
 Gilead. And this year in New York Mrs Waith gave me 
 Gustav Frenson's " Jorn Uhl," saying it had brought light 
 and peace into her life in her darkest hour. To me it is a 
 sad and depressing book, with only the magnificent descrip- 
 tion of the battle of Gravelotte (which should be used as a 
 tract for peace) to illumine its relentless pages. 
 
 In the old days in Washington I used to see a good deal 
 of Walt Whitman. He was an early riser and often walked 
 with George Douglas a brilliant young journalist then on 
 Don Piatt's fearless paper " The Capital," and myself to the 
 War Office. Walt Whitman was extraordinarily handsome 
 and definite in appearance. His skin was as pink and white 
 as a baby's. His hair, which he wore rather long, was like 
 spun silver, and his eyes were an intense burning blue. All 
 the spring and summer he was dressed from top to toe in 
 spotless white a big white slouch hat, white serge or linen 
 clothes, a soft white linen shirt left quite unbuttoned at the 
 throat, and white shoes. He was very merry and cheerful, 
 and often carried a roll of MS. and generally read bits of it in a 
 sonorous voice to us as we walked along. Douglas was one 
 of his warmest admirers, and was ever ready to listen. My 
 mind in those days was too undeveloped to appreciate the 
 manliness, virility and courage of his work. Now I under- 
 stand. The late John Bright, who was an appreciative lover 
 of poetry, considered Walt Whitman a great poet, and with 
 his fine elocution he loved to repeat whole pages from 
 " Leaves of Grass." Mr Labouchere once said to Bright, 
 " Most people have read Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' but I 
 wonder if anybody has read ' Paradise Regained/ " where- 
 upon Bright began with the first line and sonorously repeated 
 the greater part of it then and there ; Mr Labouchere 
 6
 
 82 I MYSELF 
 
 frankly confesses this is his only experience of " Paradise 
 Regained." 
 
 One day Douglas and I went to Walt Whitman's room to 
 see him ; he had only one he was very poor and it was 
 as sparsely furnished as a monk's, but very clean and tidy, 
 and he made us fragrant Virginia coffee (he loved a little 
 cooking), and brought out some old-fashioned Southern 
 gingerbread for me, and then he read for quite an hour, with 
 an occasional glance at me. He saw I lacked enthusiasm, 
 but said it was the fault of youth and femininity, that he 
 had every hope of my growing up some day to the highest 
 leaf of grass, and I remember his voice, which was expressive 
 and full of colour, in these lines : 
 
 Out of the cradle endlessly rocking 
 
 Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle 
 
 Out of the ninth-month midnight, 
 
 Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving 
 
 his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot. 
 Down from the shower'd halo, 
 Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they 
 
 were alive 
 
 Out from the patches of briers and blackberries 
 From the memories of the bird that chanted to me. 
 
 He said : " You are from the land of mocking birds, you 
 know the musical shuttle of his throat all blown to roundness 
 by his thrilling melody." And Douglas begged him to read 
 " A Festival Song " : 
 
 " The duet of the bridegroom and the bride, a marriage march, 
 With lips of love, the hearts of lovers fill'd to the brim with love, 
 The red flushed cheeks and perfumes, the cortege swarming full of 
 
 friendly faces young and old, 
 To flutes' clear notes and sounding harps' cantabile." 
 
 It sounded really like a song from his lips ; and I wondered 
 why he had never been a bridegroom. Later, one delight- 
 ful first of May, he and Douglas, old black Sophy (Toodie's 
 nurse), Toodie and I went over in the boat from Washington 
 to Alexandria, spent the day in and around the old church
 
 MY FIRST EMPLOYMENT 83 
 
 looking at the tombs and the English names. We made a 
 simple lunch of bread, fried chicken and milk on the porch 
 of a little hotel, and came home in the twilight, laden with 
 white lilac, and Toodie very tired and sleepy, but ecstati- 
 cally happy, holding in his hand a huge gingerbread horse 
 with raisin eyes, which Walt Whitman had sighted in the 
 window of a little shop, and, though it was an advertisement, 
 had bought it and triumphantly borne away. 
 
 Douglas was a budding poet too, and on the boat he read 
 these verses to Walt Whitman ; they were going into " The 
 Capital " the next Sunday, and Whitman clapped him on the 
 shoulder and said : " Good, good ! " with his eyes dancing 
 at me. " I reckon she understands that kind of poetry, 
 George." The MS. " Bessie " was given to me then, signed 
 by the author and initialled by Walt Whitman, and it is 
 with other relics of my youth locked in a box and labelled 
 " Boysie " for my grandson. 
 
 BESSIE 
 
 Where, my sweet enemy, lies your power 
 
 To move men's wills ? 
 You are a deadly perfumed flower 
 
 That shines and kills. 
 Your face is brighter than a diamond's splendour 
 
 Or any jewel ; 
 Swift eyed, yet sad, and seeming tender 
 
 Demure and cruel. 
 
 Thrown back in warm and mingling tresses 
 
 Your fragrant hair 
 Falls from a brow too chaste for love's caresses, 
 
 Too chaste and fair. 
 Your lips blush deeper than the roses, 
 
 Your murmuring words 
 Are better than the breath of violet closes 
 
 Or song of birds. 
 
 I watch you, love, my heart is trembling 
 
 To find you there. 
 So strangely self-same undissembling, 
 
 So fair, so fair !
 
 84 I MYSELF 
 
 Calmer than death, a white-faced statue, 
 
 How can I move you ? 
 I love you dearly, wondering at you, 
 
 Hate you and love you ! 
 
 Leave go my soul and let me hasten 
 
 Far from your spell. 
 These bonds you bind me with unfasten 
 
 While all is well ! 
 Why do you glisten with such beauty, 
 
 So strong and fateful, 
 When walking coldly down the paths of duty 
 
 You seem so hateful ! 
 
 I think of treason, plot, defiance, 
 
 Your vivid presence 
 Comes on and holds me with a magic science 
 
 That never lessens. 
 You are so subtle, so magnetic, 
 
 I thrill and crave 
 Servile beneath you and ecstatic 
 
 Like a drugged slave. 
 
 Eyes swift like lodestars in clear winter weather, 
 
 Lids lashed and curled. 
 Oh, face more fair than worlds together 
 
 Than all the world. 
 Why will your glory ever so pursue me 
 
 With pleasant pain ? 
 Bright eyes that kill me with your burning through me 
 
 And quicken me again. 
 
 I ask not love nor love's endearment 
 
 But only this ; 
 To kiss the hem of my lady's garment 
 
 With a soul's whole kiss. 
 To have you near me, waking, sleeping, 
 
 Living and dead, 
 To give my heart, sweetheart, into your keeping 
 
 And keep you in its stead. 
 
 Although Douglas was young enough to be Walt Whit- 
 man's grandson, Whitman outlived him many years, and 
 we wept together at the grave of our friend, who died in early 
 manhood too soon to fulfil the promise of his gifted youth.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LOVE MEANS SACRIFICE 
 
 MY vacation that year was spent with friends in 
 New York. I had always loved the theatre, and 
 everything connected with it, and I was sure, 
 without ever having acted even in a charade, that I could 
 act, and so I went to see A. M. Palmer, who was at that 
 time in the zenith of his success as a theatrical manager. I 
 told him what I wanted, and he asked me to walk across 
 the stage and repeat some bits of poetry, anything I could 
 remember. I was horribly frightened, and have always had 
 a memory like a sieve, but in some way I managed it, and 
 he then and there agreed to give me a three years' engagement 
 at twenty-five dollars a week, and to arrange elocution, 
 singing and fencing lessons for me. 
 
 I ventured to say : " Then you think I have some talent ? " 
 
 " I don't know about that," said Mr Palmer, " but you 
 have individuality, and some day some fellow will come along 
 and see it, and write a play you that will suit you, and then 
 you may make a big success. Now you have everything to 
 learn, and much hard work before you. Come to-morrow 
 morning and sign your contract." 
 
 The world had suddenly become a paradise to me, and 
 when I asked " When am I to begin work ? " " Next 
 week," Mr Palmer said. 
 
 It was midsummer, his excellent company was on tour, 
 but the Vokes were going to do a short season, and there 
 was a very small, unimportant part which could be assigned 
 to me. The next morning I signed my contract, and the 
 day after I returned to Washington. 
 
 My father's health was just beginning to fail ; he died 
 
 eighteen months later ; and when I showed him, with great 
 
 85
 
 86 I MYSELF 
 
 pride and joy, my contract, he wept the bitter tears of 
 weakness, sorrow and old age. He knew absolutely nothing 
 of the stage, but he considered it an abyss of wickedness and 
 vagabondage. He said that, much as he loved me, he would 
 rather see me dead than a " play actress." I called upon 
 mother, who was less prejudiced and had great influence 
 with him, to plead for me, but he was immovable, and 
 finally, after two days of misery for us all, I sat down and 
 wrote Mr Palmer a long letter, and he sent me a telegram : 
 " Very sorry. Quite understand. Am writing." And he 
 did write me such a kind letter to say that some good fortune 
 would attend my obedience ; but he was mistaken. " The 
 setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun." I 
 loved my father, and made the supremest sacrifice of my 
 life for him, but I was not happy, for the great hope and 
 desire of all my life was dead my sun had set. He did it 
 for the best, but it was a mistake on his part, and even on 
 mine to give way to him. It was necessary for me to make 
 my living, and I should have been allowed to choose the 
 work most congenial and best suited to me. We must all 
 live our own lives ; there are probably so many years before 
 us when our parents are gone that it is well for them to 
 recognize this in the beginning, and to let us individually 
 work out our own salvation. There is nothing sadder or 
 more depressing in life than the feeling of having missed one's 
 vocation and it has always pursued me. In this respect 
 my father was supremely happy. He had chosen the pro- 
 fession of ah 1 others best suited to him. He loved the law, 
 he had a prodigious memory his mind was like an en- 
 cyclopaedia of the statutes and the different cases which he 
 argued before the Supreme Court. It was scarcely necessary 
 for him to consult his well-stocked library. And he had an 
 innate love of bringing order out of chaos, and a bull-dog 
 tenacity of never letting go when he had once taken hold 
 that was unparalleled. 
 
 The remainder of that summer between us was a very 
 intimate one. We were alone ; mother and her baby, my dear 
 youngest brother (Sam Paschal), just the age of my little son, 
 had gone into the country, and my father and I read and
 
 LOVE MEANS SACRIFICE 87 
 
 worked together, and sat up late at night with a jug of iced 
 water between us and a little fruit, discussing all sorts of 
 questions. We never mentioned the stage, but he was very 
 tender to me, for he knew I had made my supreme sacrifice 
 and I was cheerful, for my motto has always been, " If you 
 do a thing at all do it thoroughly." Every sacrifice, great 
 or small, should be made bravely or not at all. I was never 
 more impressed by this than when Lady Q. told me about 
 the marriage of her eldest son. He was the favourite of 
 all her children handsome, clever, generous, sympathetic 
 and affectionate, but lacking in common-sense (that rarest 
 of all the qualities), and he married a lady who had for a 
 number of years spent her evenings in the Alhambra and 
 was, alas, too well known to the jeunesse doree of London. 
 Sir Q., the father, was utterly disgusted, and said of course 
 they must cut the son, and his name must never be men- 
 tioned and for a year there was silence. Then Lady Q. 
 said, " Q., I must see Bobby again. We must ask him and 
 his wife to visit us." Sir Q. said, " Impossible," and his 
 wife said, " No, it isn't." Sir Q. said, " That woman 
 how shall we receive her ? " Lady Q. looked at him with 
 her tender, faithful eyes, and said, " We will receive her 
 exactly like a daughter." And she said to me, " I did ; I 
 made no difference between her and my own children." 
 And she added, " She was very sweet in many ways, and she 
 has made me more charitable to every other woman with a 
 chequered past." 
 
 This is true generosity, not only to forgive, but to do it 
 nobly and entirely. There is indeed no use in doing any- 
 thing in a petty manner. A great psychological doctor says 
 there are thirty-six differences between a negro and a white 
 man one of them is that the negro's leg is placed in the 
 middle of his foot, giving him as much foot behind as before. 
 In a crowd on the street in Washington a little darkie was 
 stepping on an old white-haired negro in the rear, when the 
 old man turned around and said, " Boy, git off my heel 
 git intirely off." So if we are going to do anything in life, 
 we should do it with a whole heart, and " intirely," like 
 getting off the darkie's heel.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A NOBLE LIFE 
 
 " Death meant, to spurn the ground, 
 Soar to the sky die well and you do that." BROWNING 
 
 THE year after we had spent the summer so happily 
 alone together, my father's health began to be 
 seriously affected, and a long and very dreadful 
 illness followed, but in all his terrible insomnia, and constant 
 pain, I never heard him say an impatient word. He was 
 far more distressed at giving trouble to the nurses, and to the 
 family, than on account of his own suffering, and even when 
 his mind began to be obscured he never forgot for a moment 
 his beautiful consideration, and his courtly manners. When 
 I would go into the room in the morning sometimes he would 
 look at me blankly, and say to the nurse : " Robert, give 
 this lady a chair. I am sorry that I cannot offer you a seat 
 myself, madam, but as you see I am ill. Will you have a 
 cup of tea ? " and then I would say to him : ' Oh, dearest, 
 don't you know me ? " And my voice never failed to call 
 him back, and he would sigh and say, " I thought, my 
 daughter, for a moment, you were a stranger ; and it does 
 distress me so, not to be able to give visitors a proper 
 welcome." Whenever I entered his room, my father had 
 risen and said to me : " Will you have this chair, my 
 daughter ? " And when I went out he opened the 
 door. His politeness was as natural to him as the breath 
 that he drew, and even when he suffered occasionally from 
 delirium during the last weeks of his life he was always 
 courteous and always considerate. And when he died my 
 careless youth ended. Life was never the same to me again. 
 
 88
 
 A NOBLE LIFE 89 
 
 While he lived my worries, no matter what they were, seemed 
 to drop naturally on his broad shoulders and he was only too 
 glad that they should. There was never anyone like him. 
 He was wise, and just, and merciful, and courageous, and 
 charitable, and true, and self-sacrificing, and pure in mind 
 and heart. The exalted and humane religion of his life 
 gave him as nearly divine a spirit as mortal can possess. He 
 believed that at the eleventh hour, by a Christ-like inspira- 
 tion, the wickedest sinner could turn about, repent, and be 
 the means of great good in the world. He believed that 
 the liars, hypocrites and thieves had a chance of becoming, 
 through a change of heart, repentant saints, and he believed 
 the Magdalens could all shrive their souls of uncleanness and 
 become pure once more. His outlook on all evil was that 
 of a forgiving and merciful and optimistic saint. I loved 
 him not only for his saintliness, but for himself, and I have 
 never ceased throughout my life for one moment to lament 
 his loss, and sorely to miss his absence. 
 
 After my father's death, at the meeting of the Washington 
 Bar, the Chief Justice Carter presiding, Mr Riddell said of 
 him in his memorial speech : 
 
 " Judge Paschal was quiet, of grave face and thoughtful 
 mien, but a word dispelled the seeming reserve, the features 
 lit with a smile, followed with pleasant words. He was a 
 man of the highest character, the frankest manners, of 
 warm impulses and temperament, full of a tender sensibility, 
 a true, noble child of the South, illustrating in character 
 and life what is best of her generous products. Nature 
 endowed him liberally : a life of pure morality, abstemious 
 habits, a rare power and will for persistent labour, these, 
 and his many years, made him that rare thing after all, a 
 very able and most accomplished lawyer. A lawyer, whom 
 every lawyer calls a lawyer, is in the main the result of 
 growth, to which much time, many years with care and much 
 culture are necessary. Not the care of the hothouse, nor 
 yet greatly the culture of the schools, or of philosophic 
 retirement, but that which is had in the free open atmo- 
 sphere of the Nisi Prius Courts, and in the never-ending
 
 go I MYSELF 
 
 mental contests, of strong, vigorous, sinewy minds, daily at 
 their best in the adjustment of the most interesting and 
 important affairs of individual man. 
 
 " Trained in this school, cultured in its ever varied law, 
 Judge Paschal was a lawyer few men were ever more so a 
 learned lawyer. This is about the highest praise lawyers 
 ever do or can award the leading men of their ranks. They 
 say an advocate's effort was ' lawyer like/ and in this they 
 bestow their most valued encomium. No men know better 
 the value of their fellows. No profession in the world is less 
 jealous of the fame of each other. They know the limits of 
 human excellence, and, save in exceptional instances, that 
 there is no great difference among really good lawyers. In 
 this sense Judge Paschal was really a great lawyer. Great 
 as they have anywhere. He was something more than a 
 mere lawyer. It has never taken the greatest human in- 
 tellect to make the greatest lawyer ; possibly the greatest mind 
 might miss that distinction. Judge Paschal was a man of 
 wide, liberal, enlightened views the views of a Statesman. 
 He was a man of thought, of ideals, of high aspirations, and of 
 wide learning. 
 
 " I first met my friend here. We were not much alike he 
 from the extreme South I from the farthest North. He, 
 ' raised ' amidst institutions of which the chief was slavery 
 I, reared in the civilization of puritans. He was an exile from a 
 home and country in ruins ; I, with the disappointments which 
 all men meet, had survived the friends of my youth and early 
 manhood and was living on memory ; both were at a time of 
 life when men rarely form new attachments ; I know not what 
 drew us together. Our unlikeness may have helped the tie 
 which formed so silently that we may have been unconscious 
 of its strength till it was touched by death. This blow inten- 
 sifies the solitude of my life. I cast my eyes about to see how 
 lonely I stand. To my friend was given a clear steady hope 
 of the future ; he died with its glow on the opening pinions of 
 his spirit. We may not regret him. His career was com- 
 pleted. He lived and died a man : every inch, fibre, instinct, 
 was pure, manly, strong, brave, gentle, tender, loving. True
 
 A NOBLE LIFE 91 
 
 to his generation, true to his kind, true to his country, true to 
 his God, true counsellor, true friend, true lover, true husband, 
 true father, what more can be said ? To the eager friend- 
 less youth I point the example of Paschal's early life. To 
 the timid, doubting, hesitating citizen in hours of peril and 
 darkness, I offer the example of his riper years. To the 
 lawyer, old or young, his whole career. His life was brave, 
 blameless. His country had his best exertions. He leaves 
 his name and memory to his children, the wealth of his 
 example, the lesson of his life, to all our children." 
 
 After my dear father was buried in the Rock Creek 
 Cemetery that I loved so well, Washington lost its charm for 
 me, and only of late years has my heart turned back to it 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE JOY OF GIVING 
 
 Many charities are but dreams. 
 
 Now and then a blessed dream comes true a motherless child finds 
 a mother ; or a home is built for the homeless. 
 
 WHAT a beaiitiful everlasting monument Mr Corcoran 
 has given to the memory of his wife in the Louise 
 Home in Washington. Those poor ladies of 
 genteel lineage and former grandeur, who are unfitted to 
 work, and too proud to beg, are through his hospitality 
 rendered for the remainder of their lives free from care. If 
 Heaven ever gives me riches, my charities are all mapped out. 
 The first would be for governesses, those self-sacrificing 
 beings, who have been obliged to crush out individuality, and 
 subordinate themselves all their lives to other people. Two 
 thousand pounds annually, would support ten worthy women. 
 To each would be given her own little income, one hundred 
 pounds a year, to spend as she liked. There would be no 
 house with rules and regulations, but freedom at last and 
 there is nothing so sweet in the whole world as freedom. 
 And for men, I should establish, in my father's dear name, a 
 Law School with a simple home attached, where poor young 
 men could become first-class lawyers, with a small sum of 
 money at the end to carry them to that big-hearted West in 
 America whose wide arms are encouragingly opened to the 
 stranger and new-comer. 
 
 My father, who was a sentimentalist, used to say that his 
 charity would be a bank of honour, where industrious young 
 men of twenty-one could borrow money to start themselves 
 in married life. He was a firm believer in marriage, and 
 above all in early marriages. He said if wild oats must be 
 
 sown, it was better after the children were born, for then they 
 
 92
 
 THE JOY OF GIVING 93 
 
 would be healthy, and a comfort to the mother. But he was 
 always sanguine that an early marriage would deprive a 
 man of his oatsing appetite. 
 
 The happiest and most satisfactory charity, of course, is 
 that which can be personally superintended. I know of such 
 a one. When last in New York I met Mr and Mrs Frank 
 Deems. They were married when he was nineteen and she 
 was fifteen, and they just happened to be two minds with but 
 a single thought that of benefitting less fortunate humanity 
 than themselves. I should like to change their names from 
 Deems to Greatheart it would suit them better. Mr Deems 
 is a genius in the railway line, receiving for his services a big 
 salary and this is part of the way in which he so nobly 
 spends it. He selects twelve poor boys of ability and in- 
 vention, and educates them in whatever bent of life seems to 
 promise success. And he has adopted five others one of 
 them, a poor delicate little child, had the offer of another 
 home after he had been mothered by Mrs Deems for a few 
 weeks, and when she told him he was going away to a 
 nice new mother and father she noticed the child seemed 
 intensely quiet, and said nothing. A little later she found 
 him sobbing convulsively in a room by himself, and when 
 she asked him what was the matter he proudly replied, 
 " Nothing." And then he lost control of his little breaking 
 heart, and said, " I don't want a new mother I want you for 
 my mother always," and he caught her closely around her 
 neck and cried ; and she cried, and of course he stayed, and 
 is now, after many years, a model, appreciative, and devoted 
 son. They are not childless people ; their only son, a 
 popular and successful doctor, sympathizes with his father's 
 philanthropic work. 
 
 We crossed in the " Cedric" together, and I never saw the 
 popularity of any two people made so manifest as that of the 
 Greathearts. Their two state rooms were lined with roses. 
 Roses red, and roses white, roses pink, and roses yellow, gave 
 forth each their different fragrance, and jostled and crowded 
 each other in myriads. The floors were covered with large 
 and small baskets of fruit ; and here let me thank Mr Green
 
 94 I MYSELF 
 
 and Mr Robinson, as their fruit and flowers were transferred 
 to my state rooms, cards and all. I hope the son by choice 
 had remembered his mother, for while she was in London we 
 went together and selected a beautiful carved gold ruby-set 
 ring for him. It was her first visit to England, and yet this 
 dear devoted Madame Greatheart, instead of seeing London 
 as she wished to do, spent the major portion of her time in 
 shopping for her children, and for her troop of friends, buying 
 for each and all some lovely souvenir. She is good to look at, 
 this generous lady : her healthy, handsome exterior, her sweet 
 eyes, and childlike smile, are indications of her warm and 
 tender heart. Like every natural woman, she loves pretty 
 clothes, jewels, laces, feathers and furbelows, but she can 
 always deny herself and put the vanities aside to give to 
 others. 
 
 Mr Greatheart has a large library of scrap books compiled 
 by himself. We talked and talked on the voyage, and when 
 we were for the moment silent, Madame Greatheart would 
 suggest poems of his liking to him, and with his splendid 
 memory, as robust as his physique, he amused us by the 
 hour. Does he remember, I wonder, how I wept over : 
 
 She was only a pup when I first picked her up, 
 
 One night in this town in a storm ; 
 But I mind that she cried like the nor'-easter sighed, 
 
 From my breast which was ragged but warm. 
 
 I'd been round the world, been battered and swirled, 
 
 In camps and in ships from a boy ; 
 But not one ever cared how my barque ever fared 
 
 When tossed in the storm like a toy. 
 
 I had no one to love all I loved were above 
 
 When I heard Lizy bark in the gale. 
 So I stooped and picked up the forsook little pup, 
 
 And for port with the outcast set sail. 
 
 'Twere a long time ago ten or twelve year or so 
 
 But we've loved and divided our hoard, 
 And she's been faithful as I, mate, will be by and bye, 
 
 If I'm but took up by the Lord.
 
 THE JOY OF GIVING 95 
 
 When I come to his gate some wild night pretty late, 
 
 A castout who nobody knows, 
 P'raps he'll take me up, as I did the pup 
 
 Now, maty, what do you suppose ? 
 
 Ah, that kind o' cheers and drives out the fears 
 
 I've had since the pup left my side. 
 She went out the same way we will all go some day 
 
 She just licked my hand, then she died. 
 
 She were outcast, but true, and the Lord knows it too, 
 
 She deserves all up there we can win. 
 Now, if me and the pup at his gate, mate, fetch up, 
 
 Do you think, maty, he'll take us in ? 
 
 Rose Stahl is a valued friend of the Greathearts. They have 
 been to all her important first nights twenty-nine " Chorus 
 Ladies " in all and could not of course leave out London, 
 so they just packed, and came across with her in the " Cedric." 
 She, too, belongs to the Greatheart family by virtue of wisdom, 
 modesty and sympathy. It was my privilege, as the darkies 
 say, " to hope her up," for she was very doubtful and fearful 
 of a London audience, and that queer public who have refused 
 so many American successes, but I felt that the " Chorus 
 Lady " could not fail to appeal to and delight all English 
 people, and I boldly prophesied this again and again to Rose 
 Stahl, and my prophesy came true. 
 
 I am an American ever and always, in spite of my dear love 
 for England, and the first time I saw Rose Stahl in " The 
 Chorus Lady " was really a revelation to me, and also one of 
 the happiest nights of my life. In the first place I had not 
 been home in fifteen years, and it was hot, and I love the heat, 
 so I wore a thin grey muslin, and I love grey. Then I dined 
 with the Pages (the Thomas Nelsons) and I love the Pages, and 
 they gave me a real American dinner fried chicken, green 
 corn, soft shell crabs, water melon and ice cream and Charley 
 Bryan of my youth, now the Hon. C. F. Bryan, Minister 
 to Belgium and an agreeable diplomatist, whom I had not 
 seen since I danced with him in my girlhood, in his beautiful 
 mother's house in Washington she was tall, pensive-looking,
 
 96 I MYSELF 
 
 wore long curls at either side of her face, black velvet, 
 old lace, and fine jewels joined us afterwards, and we 
 four went to the theatre to see Rose Stahl, who was 
 playing her great success of " The Chorus Lady." I had 
 never even heard of her, or the play, but from the moment 
 she appeared her incisive individuality gripped me, and she 
 was a revelation of naturalness, and the essence of humour. 
 The modern American slang was delightful to my ear, 
 and I understood it by instinct. What a description 
 Patricia O'Brian gives of the Chorus Girl's smile when she 
 is tired and downhearted ! " It's the smile that's hard. 
 Fancy standing with your foot pointing a quarter past six 
 and looking like the cat that's swallowed the canary ! " 
 I've very often seen that galvanized smile on the lips of sad 
 gay women, at the jolly Savoy Hotel suppers, and other de- 
 pressing gay places. Rose Stahl with her cameo-like features 
 looks like a younger Sarah Bernhardt, and she has, like her, a 
 beautiful golden voice full, resonant, capable of many 
 variations, plaintive, gay, humorous, scornful, womanly, or 
 tender, and perfectly produced from a strong throat. She is 
 primarily an intellectual actress, and one of decided origin- 
 ality. Her comedy, like all true comedy, has tears at close 
 call. When I laughed the tears fell before I had finished. I 
 followed her every mood and movement, in perfect under- 
 standing, and I sighed with regret when the curtain came 
 down, and shut beloved Patricia O'Brien from my sight. 
 And I might have thought my admiration exaggerated owing 
 to the fortunate home coming, and the atmosphere surround- 
 ing me that particular night, but the next night I went with 
 another friend, good-looking, black-visaged John Savage, and 
 it was possible for me to regard the play less, and Rose Stahl 
 more, and she impressed me as a far greater actress than I 
 had at first thought her. When the other characters spoke 
 Dan Mallory, Crawford, and her sister Norah she listened as 
 intently, and with as swiftly changing an expression as if 
 it was reality and not make-believe. There was no smallest 
 detail slurred or wanting, and the whole performance 
 was that of a great character study by an inspired but
 
 THE JOY OF GIVING 97 
 
 careful and sincere artist. It was my intention to 
 write and say how her performance had moved me, but 
 procrastination the impulse passed, and only after two 
 years we became acquainted, and the woman impressed 
 me even more than the artist. I have never known anyone 
 possessing greater individuality or one more free from the 
 weaknesses of the ordinary woman than Rose Stahl. She is 
 surprisingly free from vanity she says laughingly, " My 
 mother says Rose has good teeth and a good disposition, but 
 she isn't pretty." And she is even without vanity of her 
 artistry, or of her wit, which is keen and trenchant or of her 
 strong common-sense, which is so rare. And with all her 
 brilliant success she must have very many sad moments, for 
 her searching eyes look right through sham, falseness, pre- 
 tension, and deceit ; she sees life as it is, and people as they 
 are not always a pleasant sight by any means. She herself 
 is sincere, unpretentious, straightforward, and courageous, 
 and yet the most feminine of women. Tenderly attached to 
 her family, fond of children and flowers, grateful for affection 
 and intuitive to a painful degree. Her father is a journalist, 
 and when she was a child he was poor and life was a struggle 
 with a big family to bring up and educate, and she noticed 
 when one of the children asked for a new pair of shoes his 
 already careworn face looked more anxious, so she resolved 
 to tread lightly on her shoes that they might last a long, 
 long time. Now Fortune showers gold upon her, and she 
 can buy a new pair of shoes every day if she likes, but she 
 treads lightly still, for fear of stepping on the susceptibilities 
 of those who are easily hurt. She has learned the most 
 difficult lesson of life for a woman her eyes penetrate to the 
 root of evil, and seeing, she understands and forgives. She 
 leads from choice " the simple life," without falling from 
 grace the life which is so much advocated and so little 
 followed. She eats no meat at all, and sparingly of other 
 food, drinks nothing but water, is reasonable and economical 
 in her dress, and sleeps the sleep of the just. She desires no 
 possessions except plenty of books, for she is a constant, 
 omnivorous and appreciative reader. She never goes out
 
 98 I MYSELF 
 
 to suppers or dinners, and has no desire to be in evidence, or 
 for notoriety. Her success has not been attained by adver- 
 tisement, but by legitimate means the hardest, most pains- 
 taking and intellectual work. She wrote me in answer to a 
 letter reproaching her for forgetfulness : 
 
 " No, dear, dear and beautiful Mascotte, I am not fickle 
 only worn out and oh, so tired ! I am sailing to-morrow 
 on our ' Cedric ' and am hoping that the trip may bring me 
 some strength and rest. How I wish I might have gone to 
 Italy where you are and have a few quiet, restful weeks with 
 you. But I open in Boston in the middle of August and 
 that is why I must hurry away. 
 
 " As for the London season, I can only say with all my 
 heart and soul, ' God bless them they have been far better 
 to me than I had ever dared to dream they might be ! ' And 
 I shall be waiting the opportunity to come back again. 
 
 " There is much I would like to say to you but I hope 
 that we will meet soon. For your goodness to me I shall 
 always have an unbounded gratitude and quite apart 
 from all your goodness to me, I love you very, very much. 
 Auf Wiedersehn, ROSE " 
 
 And as she belongs in a measure to England for their 
 appreciation of her and will not rest until she returns to 
 reap fresh laurels, I give this letter, which was meant for 
 no eyes but mine, and I say to her, not " Auf Wiedersehn," 
 but " Auf baldiges Wiedersehn."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 AN UNQUIET GHOST 
 
 Let each man wheel with steady sway 
 Round the task that rules the day, 
 
 And do his best. GOETHE 
 
 UNTIL we lose them we never realize the stupendous 
 force of youth, health and hope. When I went to 
 New York to live that great cormorant of a city 
 of noise, and din, and greed, and hardness, and struggle 
 I had only fifty dollars in all the world, my little child 
 dependent upon me, and I do not suppose any creature on 
 earth was less equipped for a remorseless fight with the 
 world than myself. 
 
 In the first place, I was born and brought up in the South. 
 All my ancestors were Southern people, and their women 
 for generations had been protected, considered and loved, 
 and had never had to battle for themselves. And Nature 
 is meagre (unless to the Napoleons, Shakespeares, and 
 Gladstones, and those she lavishly endows) : in giving us one 
 thing she takes away another. I have what a friend of mine 
 calls " merciless logic," and for a woman my reasoning 
 powers are well developed, but I have no intuitive faculty 
 whatever. I know nothing about human nature, except by 
 a sequence of events, and a logical deduction. My first 
 impulse is to like everybody that I meet ; I have no instinct 
 of protecting myself from men or women who are either 
 false or untrustworthy. My judgment of people is of the 
 worst. But in spite of my many disillusionments and dis- 
 appointments in human nature, my inexhaustible well of 
 
 99
 
 ioo I MYSELF 
 
 credulity and trustfulness can always be drawn upon, and 
 happily I rebound after each deception. 
 
 New York, of all places, with its cosmopolitan population 
 and its heartlessness, is the last place for an unprotected 
 woman of my temperament, and yet I had little to complain 
 of at that period of my life, for I was able to make warm and 
 valued friends there. 
 
 In the beginning I hoped to keep my little son, Toodie, 
 with me, and we went to live in a lodging-house in I4th 
 Street. I paid four dollars a week for a large bedroom, 
 and it served also as a sitting-room ; we went across the 
 street to a cheap boarding-house for our meals ; and doing 
 a little newspaper work and reading plays for A. M. Palmer 
 just kept body and soul together, but I was very young, and 
 hope loomed large before me. 
 
 The lodging-house was well furnished, exquisitely clean, 
 and I was quite comfortable there, when something 
 mysterious occurred which necessitated my finding other 
 rooms. 
 
 On going one afternoon to see a friend of mine who lived 
 a few doors away a flower painter she said to me : " You 
 have had a suicide in your house, haven't you ? " 
 
 Greatly surprised, I said, " No, I'm sure not I have heard 
 nothing of it." 
 
 But she insisted that she had read a full account of it in 
 the papers, and when I went home I asked the housemaid 
 if she knew anything about it. She turned red and said, 
 Yes, that a nephew of Jefferson Davis had shot himself a 
 week before. I then knew that he had occupied the room 
 next to mine. He was very unfortunate in business, and 
 it seemed that for weeks he had been making up his mind 
 to do the deed, for the housemaid told me that sometimes 
 she had found the pistol on the mantelpiece, sometimes on 
 the washing-stand, and sometimes on the dressing-table 
 as if he had picked it up and re-considered his dire resolution 
 and had gone on fighting bitter Fate a little longer. 
 
 He, like myself, took his meals outside, and as he fre- 
 quently went away a few days on business, when his door
 
 AN UNQUIET GHOST 101 
 
 was locked, nothing was thought of it, and when the suicide 
 was discovered he had been dead four or five days and, 
 poor soul, unselfish to the last, he had taken his overcoat 
 and put it under his head, doubled it up as a pillow, and 
 managed in taking his life not to make the smallest bloodstain 
 on the bed or the carpet. 
 
 I remembered that I had often seen a sad, cavernous-eyed 
 man going up and down the stairs, and I had more than once 
 thought I would speak to him, he looked so melancholy 
 and despairing, but the convention of life kept me from 
 it I was a young widow, and was then trying to con- 
 sider my dignity but I have always regretted not having 
 put out a hand of fellowship and of sympathy to that pursued 
 and lonely creature. Convention is after all a most hateful 
 and unnecessary and sometimes cruel thing. The older I 
 grow and the more I see of life, the less sympathy I have 
 with it. 
 
 There is neither fear nor superstition in my composition, 
 and as I was getting a little more work I sent for the landlord 
 and told him that I would take the suicide's room as my 
 bedroom and turn my bedroom into a sitting-room. The 
 next day this arrangement was made. 
 
 The first night I slept in the room I was awakened by a 
 long sighing groan which seemed to be just at the side of 
 my bed. Curiously enough I was not in the least afraid 
 I only hoped the noise would continue so that I might rouse 
 the servants and the landlord and his wife, and have them 
 listen to this strange portent, and understand that it was not 
 my imagination. The groans, however, continued, and I 
 awoke the two housemaids and a young army officer who 
 lodged on the same floor, and asked him to go downstairs 
 and request the landlord and his wife to come up to my 
 room. He did, and the landlord decided that it was either 
 a chimney-pot out of order whirling round and round, and 
 making an unearthly noise, or that next door the doctor, who 
 was a specialist for nervous diseases, had a patient who was 
 either very ill and suffering, or else a madman. 
 
 The groans never ceased, so the mattress was dragged off
 
 102 I MYSELF 
 
 the bed and placed on the floor of my sitting-room, and 
 towards morning I dropped into a worried sleep. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast I went to see the doctor and 
 asked him if he had any patients. He said that no one lived 
 on the fourth floor of his house at all, as his family was very 
 small, consisting only of himself and his wife, who occupied 
 the second floor, and the servants had their bedrooms on 
 the third floor. 
 
 During the day we had a man to come and look at the 
 chimney-pots, but they were all in excellent order, so that 
 night I tried sleeping in the room again. About twelve 
 o'clock the groans re-commenced, and the same thing 
 happened the following night. Then I determined to move. 
 The landlord was exceedingly angry he said that I had 
 taken the rooms for the winter, and threatened to sue me 
 for the rent, but I did move, and in a blinding snow storm 
 at that. I do not know whether I believe in supernatural 
 phenomena or not I only relate what happened as an un- 
 pleasant, inconvenient and inexplicable experience. 
 
 Never in my life have I seen a harder woman than the 
 woman who kept this lodging-house. The unfortunate 
 being who committed suicide had lived in her house five or 
 six years, and her only thought was, that he should have 
 drowned himself in the East River, or gone to a hotel to 
 blow his brains out. And it seems to me of all lonely and 
 heart-breaking places in the world, without friends, New 
 York is the loneliest and the most relentless. 
 
 My little son seemed to realize my position at this time, 
 although I was always gay before him, and surely no mother 
 ever had a more devoted or a kinder protector. I used 
 sometimes to sit up writing until two and three o'clock in 
 the morning, and when I crept into bed, cold and tired, he 
 never failed to awake and put his thin little arm under my 
 neck and say to me, " Poor girl poor girl ! You must be 
 so tired." He made friends very readily, and always had 
 plenty of toys and plenty of amusement, but I think he felt 
 the seriousness of life, nevertheless. 
 
 We used very often to go to Philadelphia and to
 
 AN UNQUIET GHOST 103 
 
 Baltimore to visit friends there, and I remember admonish- 
 ing him not to talk to people in the cars, as frequently it was 
 only a subterfuge for some one to bore me with conversation, 
 and especially he was to recollect never to answer any 
 questions, no matter what they were. One day going to 
 Baltimore I noticed a man who had been talking to the 
 child observing me with a most peculiar expression. Not 
 impertinent, but certainly extremely curious, and rather 
 amused. When I got out of the train I said, " Toodie, 
 did that man ask you any questions ? " 
 
 He said, " Yes, he did, but I remembered what you told 
 me and I didn't answer him." 
 
 I said, " What did he ask you ? " 
 
 He said, " He asked me if you were my mother, and I told 
 him there were reasons why I couldn't tell him." 
 
 I have often wondered what description the man himself 
 gave of the interview. 
 
 After a few months, it became plain that a boarding-house 
 was no place to bring up a child, and so my one friend and 
 sweetheart had to go away to school. It was a perfectly 
 heart-breaking parting, both for him and for me. I took him 
 down to the nuns in Orange, New Jersey, and left him with 
 the heaviest heart in the world, and I could only stand it 
 two days in New York without going to see him again. I 
 asked him how he liked it, and he said it was dreadful, and 
 I said, " Well, there are lots of boys here who have left their 
 mothers," and his answer was, " Yes, they have, but I have 
 been talking to them and they are not so used to their 
 mothers and to their mother's friends, as I am to you. I am 
 so used to you that I don't think I can stay here without 
 running away." 
 
 This was in the early spring, and in the summer the nuns 
 let me come as a boarder, so that I could see him every day.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 MY BELOVED MARY 
 
 " Oh, those happy days, when we were miserable ! " 
 
 JUSTIN MCCARTHY 
 
 JUST before I went down to the convent Dr Mallory 
 came to see me and asked if I knew any place 
 where a lady could go who was in the very deepest 
 grief, and I recommended the convent as quiet and prettily 
 situated, and the nuns as being exceedingly sympathetic and 
 kind. I asked what the lady's grief was. He said, " Don't 
 laugh" and then he told me hesitatingly that she had 
 lost a Pekinese Spaniel. I love animals as much as anybody 
 in the world, but hard work seems to give life its true per- 
 spective, and I must say that, in spite of his admonition, I 
 did laugh at her irreconcilable grief. 
 
 The lady went down to the convent a day or two in ad- 
 vance of myself. I discovered that she was one of the 
 friends of my girlhood, and the wife of a captain in the navy, 
 now a well-known admiral. She was dressed in deep mourn- 
 ing a cashmere heavily trimmed in crepe, and a cr6pe hat 
 with a drooping veil. The dog during its illness had one of 
 the best physicians in New York and two trained nurses, 
 and after its death had been laid to rest under a carved 
 marble headstone reciting its virtues. The lady had told 
 an innocent sister that her grief was for a child a Japanese 
 baby whom she had adopted. There is always something 
 of the eternal child in every nun, and this one was both 
 sympathetic and curious. She asked the lady the baby's 
 age, and whether it was a boy or a girl. The grief-stricken
 
 MY BELOVED MARY 105 
 
 mere adoptive said it was a girl, and when the sister asked 
 her if it had been baptized and she said " No," the nun was 
 shocked and grieved to think the adopted child would not 
 meet its mother in heaven. 
 
 The sister repeated this conversation to me, and said, 
 "It is such a curious thing that if she had wanted 
 to adopt an infant she should have adopted a yellow 
 Japanese baby, and of course her grief is mingled 
 with a terrible remorse that she neglected the child's 
 baptism." 
 
 I said, " Don't you worry about that baby. It was a 
 monster with a black snub nose, saucer eyes, and covered 
 all over with black and white hair." 
 
 The sister turned pale with horror and said, " How shock- 
 ing ! She adopted a hairy monster ! " 
 
 ' Yes," I said, " she did, and, as you know, loved it 
 devotedly." 
 
 The sister tapped her forehead significantly, and after 
 this the convent was quite resigned to the death of the child, 
 and I never disclosed anything further. The poor lady is 
 dead long ago, and I hope buried, as she wished to be, by 
 her Japanese darling. 
 
 In the autumn I returned to New York and joined forces 
 with a friend from Virginia, and we went to live in a large 
 boarding-house which was comparatively comfortable. At 
 any rate we had each other, and I never knew a better friend 
 than Mary Agnew. She has the loyalty of a man combined 
 with the tenderness of a woman, and an unchangeableness 
 and intensity of affection that I have never seen equalled. 
 It is hard for us with our finite natures to understand every- 
 thing, but I have no thought in my mind, no high aspiration, 
 no sin, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, that my friend is not 
 capable of understanding, and, if necessary, of forgiving. 
 It is a wonderful thing to feel there is one being in the world 
 from whom you need have no slightest secret, and that 
 whatever you have said or done in your life will not lessen 
 the love which has been given to you in the fulness and 
 generosity of a truly noble soul and neither years of separa-
 
 106 I MYSELF 
 
 tion nor of divided interests have made the least difference 
 in our friendship. 
 
 We were truly in those days a mine of help and strength 
 to each other. I always dressed in mourning not that I 
 was mourning always, but black was the cheapest and the 
 easiest dress, and in a sort of costume designed by myself, 
 which was something between that of a widow and a nurse. 
 It consisted of a perfectly plain black skirt and bodice, white 
 linen collar and cuffs, a small black close fitting bonnet, and 
 a long heavy black cloak. In this way even with my small 
 means I was enabled to look neat and clean, and for years, 
 with all my intense love of pretty things, I never went in a 
 shop or scarcely looked in a shop window. 
 
 Mary, with her generous, handsome presence, abundance 
 of hair and robust health, had rather the flamboyant taste 
 of the South in dress, and I remember one winter she econo- 
 mized and bought a most terrible bonnet. The whole of it 
 was made of huge pearl beads, and there were two or three 
 large white feathers nodding on the top. I really did feel 
 our friendship tremble in the balance with those waving 
 feathers, and finally I had to speak my mind, but in vain. 
 Mary's heart had gone out to that bonnet, and it was really 
 dearer than anything in the world to her except myself. 
 About this time the lady who kept the boarding-house had 
 made enough money to retire, and it was necessary for us 
 to find new quarters. Mary was occupied all day down 
 town at the post-office and left the moving to me, and one 
 or two old friends who used to take us to the theatre and 
 came very often to see us suggested my managing to lose 
 that pearl bonnet of Mary's in the moving. " Oh, I wouldn't 
 dare," I said but somehow in spite of the care that I really did 
 give, that bonnet was lost. Mary always suspected me. She 
 said, " Elizabeth, you know you didn't like that bonnet, and 
 I have noticed that things of mine you particularly dislike 
 disappear. Now why ? You always lay it to a dishonest 
 chambermaid, but why should people who are dishonest 
 take my things that you set your face against ? " I acknow- 
 ledged the logic of this argument, but nevertheless my con-
 
 MY BELOVED MARY 107 
 
 science was as clear as crystal about that pearl bonnet. I 
 have often wondered at its end. Luckily Mary was so hand- 
 some that it was impossible for her really to spoil her noble 
 appearance, but she did give its power of endurance continual 
 tests. Now she has had so much sorrow and such heart- 
 breaks that all the gay, youthful, gorgeous taste is gone, 
 and she dresses as quietly as a Quaker. Oh, dear me, as 
 Justin M'Carthy says, " those happy, happy days when we 
 were miserable ! " for we had youth, and hope, and health, 
 and ambition, and dreams that never came true. 
 
 Desultory journalistic work in New York is perfectly 
 terrible, and I was kept continually on the rack, and finally 
 for a time I could get absolutely nothing to do. I had 
 knocked figure lively and literally at the door of every 
 editor's sanctum in New York, and I was in utter despair, 
 until poor David brought me luck. 
 
 Mary had a cousin whom she called " David " on account 
 of his tenderness and his charm, for that was not his real 
 name, and on telling him how worried I was he wrote me a 
 letter which made me cry my heart out, and sent me a cheque 
 for five hundred dollars. I could only return it, and tell him 
 that it was impossible for me to accept it even as a loan 
 because I saw no prospect of paying it back. I scarcely 
 knew him. It was such a wonderfully kind thing to 
 do ; and I got work that very day. Ah me, what a 
 tragic death he met with afterwards ! His wife had 
 been an invalid for some years, never leaving her room 
 or her couch, and he was young not more than thirty- 
 two or thirty-three full of vitality and a love of pleasure. 
 One night after a supper party he met a handsome woman 
 who belonged to the chorus of one of the theatres. He was 
 going to Albany, New York, for two or three days, and asked 
 her to accompany him. She went, and by some strange 
 turn of fate fell savagely in love with him. He thought it 
 was an experience that would last a day only, but for two 
 years this woman persecuted him until his life ceased to be 
 of any value whatever. He was a millionaire, and he gave 
 her 8000, but this only whetted her appetite for more money
 
 io8 I MYSELF 
 
 and for a greater revenge. One day she went over to his 
 house and penetrated to the chamber of his poor little 
 invalid, and made such a scene that his wife was ill for weeks ; 
 but she understood, and forgave him with her whole heart. 
 
 Every morning when he left Brooklyn, where he lived, this 
 Jezebel waited, accompanied him to New York, abused him 
 all the way to his office, and often returned with him at night 
 as far as his own door, all the while making terrible threats. 
 He said to Mary he was sure that in the end this woman 
 would take his life, and Mary said, " If that is true, give her 
 50,000 or 100,000 your life is worth everything." He 
 was a man who had a host of poor relations in the South and 
 generously supported a number of them. He gave largely 
 to charity, and he had the tenderest and kindest heart I 
 have ever known, but the woman had made him hate her, 
 and he refused to give her another farthing so one morning 
 on Broadway she came behind him and shot him several 
 times in the back. He staggered into a chemist's shop and 
 leaned on the marble counter with his life blood running 
 down his sleeves and over his gloves, and he died in a few 
 minutes. The woman was never tried as she fell ill in prison 
 and died of pneumonia. Then the New York papers came 
 out and described this man as a leper, who had taken advan- 
 tage of the youth and innocence of a charming young girl, 
 and a fine story was made of his hardness and heartlessness 
 but this is the inside truth of that unfortunate affair. 
 Poor David, with his generous soul, his chivalrous nature, 
 and his impossibility of doing a mean or ungentlemanly 
 thing, was killed by one of those harpies, born into the world 
 for the purpose of destruction. He paid for his sin with his 
 life. That was the end.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 " The soul grows by leaps and bounds, by throes and throbs. A 
 flash ! and glory stands revealed for which you have been groping 
 blindly through the years." 
 
 ABOUT this time A. M. Palmer produced the " Parisian 
 Romance ' ' with Richard Mansfield as Baron Chevrial. 
 And he at once made himself and the play famous. 
 After all the critics had written about the play I sent an 
 article to " The New York World." Mr Hurlbert, who was then 
 the editor, published it, and luckily it aroused a little con- 
 troversy, and later on I received a short note from the editor 
 saying that he would like to see me and then I went on 
 " The World " at a weekly wage as an ordinary reporter. And 
 the work ! Mr Hurlbert never considered me any more than 
 if I had been a strong young man. I was sent at any time, 
 day or night, to this, that, and the other person for inter- 
 views. I wrote a long series of articles called " Curious 
 Occupations," which necessitated my seeing half the crooks 
 of New York. And I climbed up factory stairs, went over 
 laundries, hospitals, shops, and manufactories of all kinds, 
 and wrote and wrote about working women and every sort 
 of subject until I had writer's cramp and I have never 
 entirely escaped from it since. 
 
 At the same time I had much for which to thank Mr 
 Hurlbert. He was one of the people who should have been 
 a teacher. His father was, I believe, a professor of sorts hi 
 the South. Mr Hurlbert himself had a lucid power of 
 explanation and a quick critical faculty which was unsur- 
 passed. He was a hard master, but a most profitable and 
 
 109
 
 no I MYSELF 
 
 inspiring one. He would cast his eye down a column of 
 copy, take a blue pencil and run ruthlessly through two- 
 thirds of it, and say, " This is all nonsense. Now I'll give 
 you the names of a dozen books to read so that you will see 
 why." And quick as lightning he jotted down the names 
 of the books, and off I went to a library to get them. Now 
 this was most kind, as he was a busy man and a most 
 selfish one, but while I worked under him I felt my mind 
 open exactly as if it had been a bud blossoming into flower, 
 so helpful and so stimulating was his influence. He was at 
 once a ruthless critic and also an encouraging, inspiring one. 
 And he was always optimistic and illuminating, and I never 
 knew anyone who possessed such a fund of knowledge upon 
 every conceivable subject. He was a living, enthusiastic, 
 joyous, intensely interesting encyclopaedia. I remember one 
 dazzling evening hearing him give a complete history of 
 Peru, so romantic and entrancingly interesting that a 
 publisher present, with a pencil and half sheet of paper 
 drew up then and there a contract for a book. And from 
 Peru he transported us to Mexico, and opened up mines of 
 gold and silver, and finally the evening closed with half a 
 dozen ghost stories that were magnificently tense and 
 thrilling. As a conversationalist Mr Hurlbert was unsur- 
 passed, as a writer he should have left an immortal name. 
 He was unhappily indifferent, unmethodical, and lacked 
 concentration of purpose, but he possessed both brilliancy 
 and genius. My work was not confined to any one depart- 
 ment. He tried me at everything, as he said that in time 
 he would make me into a first-class journalist and absent- 
 minded as I am, and even lacking in talent, if I had worked 
 long enough under him, so great was my diligence and so 
 anxious was I for success, even this would have come 
 to pass. I remember in a certain Sunday edition of " The 
 World" I had seven columns, and eight columns in another, 
 and I felt myself really advancing in my profession. 
 Then I was given by the Associated Press the description 
 of the Vanderbilt ball to do. It frightened me dreadfully, 
 for I really didn't know where or how to begin, but the happy
 
 THE MAKING OF A JOURNALIST in 
 
 idea occurred to me of going to Richard Hunt, the architect 
 who built W. K. Vanderbilt's house in Fifth Avenue, and I 
 went. I was shown into his office, and he turned his very 
 clear, brilliant, intelligent, cold blue eyes on me and said, 
 rather curtly, " Well, what is it you want ? I am in a hurry 
 this morning." And I said, " Mr Hunt, I am a struggling 
 journalist, and a bad one, but I have got to go on in the 
 profession because I have myself and my little boy to sup- 
 port, and I have only my pen to do it with. I don't know 
 a thing in the world about architecture, and I have been 
 given the Vanderbilt ball by the Associated Press to report. 
 Now, I ask you, as man to man, to give me an intelligent 
 description of the house I believe you built it. Will you 
 do it ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I will. I am busy this morning, but I 
 will put on my hat and take you up to the house now." 
 
 And in five minutes we were on a Fifth Avenue stage. As 
 we entered the door Mr Hunt pointed upward and said, 
 " Here is a pendentive dome." " What," I asked, " is a 
 pendentive dome ? " " Don't," he said, " ask any questions 
 just put down what I tell you but since you have 
 asked, a pendentive dome is one where you stand at the 
 bottom of the house and look straight without interruption 
 to the arch at the top." 
 
 Then he kindly gave me letters of introduction to various 
 people who were dancing the quadrilles, and the costumiers 
 who were making the dresses. Mrs Vanderbilt and her 
 husband and Lady Mandeville showed me their costumes, 
 and from that moment, except for the continual work and 
 the constant running about, my description of the great 
 event was made easy for me and Mrs Vanderbilt invited 
 me to the ball. I told her that I could not accept, on account 
 of the expense, as she wished all the dresses to be so magnifi- 
 cent, but finally she consented to my wearing the habit of 
 a nun. This I could afford, because the black nun's cloth 
 could easily be made over into a summer dress. The white 
 linen bands, veil and crucifix were lent to me by a nun, and 
 I not only did the description for the Associated Press, but
 
 ii2 I MYSELF 
 
 a special description for " The New York World," and many 
 smaller paragraphs that went the round of the provincial 
 press. 
 
 Some verses apropos of the nun, who was the humblest 
 and the least-known person at the ball, were sent to " The 
 World," and when I went into the office a day or two later 
 Mr Hurlbert read me with much amusement : 
 
 " As from the throng of moving masks 
 
 I drew a space apart, 
 Well known to some, unknown to me 
 
 By my imperfect art ; 
 One in the habit of a nun 
 
 Stopped short as in surprise, 
 And through her domino I saw 
 
 Two soft, regarding eyes. 
 
 Long looked we both, for half I felt 
 
 Her gaze no mischief spoke, 
 And then it was a woman's hand 
 
 Reached to me from the cloak ; 
 A voice I never heard before 
 
 But most sincere and sweet, 
 Said, ' Ah, my love, do we once more 
 
 Touch hand to hand and meet ? ' ; 
 
 The poet gave rein to his imagination, as there was no 
 domino, nor did the nun say, " Ah, my love, do we once 
 more touch hand to hand and meet ! " These things were 
 all " poetic licence," but at any rate there was a ball, there 
 was a very very tired journalistic nun, and there was a 
 rhymester, if not a poet. 
 
 Mr Hurlbert wrote me before the ball : 
 
 "32 WAVERLEY PLACE, 
 " NEW YORK. 
 
 " MY DEAR LADY FROM THE SOUTH, Your suggestion is 
 an excellent one and shall be duly worked out so that you 
 may see Dazien to-morrow and extract essence of his cynical 
 observations. If you will then write out his tales and send
 
 THE MAKING OF A JOURNALIST 113 
 
 them to me on Friday that will be quite early enough. I 
 shall hope also to have your tale concerning the stage and all 
 the quadrilles, and in the hope once more that you will not 
 overdo yourself in this treacherous Northern spring weather 
 which smiles but to betray, Always most sincerely yours, 
 
 " WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT 
 
 " P.5. The portrait you were so good as to let me look at 
 is not only an admirable piece of technical work, but a most 
 interesting portrait of a singularly sweet and noble face, a 
 face out of keeping with the costume of our times and 
 belonging if ever a face belonged it is this to the ages of 
 belief. It gives me much to think of and to say." 
 
 (This was a small portrait of my father done by a friend. 
 I wanted Mr Hurlbert's opinion of the work. Dazien was 
 the costumier making many of the dresses for the Vanderbilt 
 ball.) 
 
 And after the ball : 
 
 " 32 WAVERLEY PLACE, 
 " NEW YORK, Tuesday. 
 
 11 MY DEAR LADY FROM THE SOUTH, In looking over all 
 the notices this morning of the ball, I see so many little 
 and great blunders that I think it will be worth while to use 
 your additional notes to-morrow. Pray see Mrs Vanderbilt 
 and Lady Mandeville to-day and go over the whole story 
 with them and make any really important corrections. The 
 decorations might be touched up a little bit. I hope you 
 will not be too tired to do this, and if you are not I shall be 
 very glad to hav your notes as early as possible. Could 
 you possibly take a cab and drive down here and leave them 
 with the Assistant Editor should I not be here at 10 P.M. ? 
 I expect, however, to be here at that time, and with my best 
 thanks for the admirable work you have done and of which 
 too much cannot be said, Believe me, yours very sincerely, 
 
 " WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT" 
 
 Mr Hurlbert's letter amused me not a little with its polite 
 affectation of " taking a cab," for in those days a cab to " The 
 8
 
 u 4 I MYSELF 
 
 World " office would have cost at least three dollars, and I 
 could no more have afforded that amount of money than I 
 now can afford to hire a motor. He was a perfect genius 
 in getting work out of people. I am sure that he kept me 
 employed fourteen hours out of the twenty-four while I was 
 on " The World." My very spirit used to faint with fatigue, 
 but absolute poverty, with a child to support, is a wonderful 
 goad to a worn-out body. And he never had occasion to 
 complain of lateness, procrastination, or indifference. He 
 said to me once, " I believe you love drudgery." What a 
 sigh I stifled, before I made a brave answer, for I would 
 willingly have worked all night, and all day, before losing 
 my job.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A CHANGE OF OCCUPATION 
 
 " And now we believe in evil 
 
 Where once we believed in good, 
 The world, the flesh and the devil 
 Are easily understood." 
 
 AT this period Constance Fenimore Woolson, a novel 
 writer of excellence and of charm, was looming 
 on the horizon, and as our reviewer of books 
 suddenly disappeared to the country without leave, in addi- 
 tion to my more active work quantities of books arrived for 
 me to review, among them " The Colonel's Marriage," by this 
 author, published by the Harpers. 
 
 The scene was laid in Virginia, and I wrote of the book 
 with keen appreciation, and a paragraph from " The World " 
 was much quoted, and attracted the eye of the publishers, 
 the Harpers, and was helpful later in getting me my place 
 with them as MS. reader. 
 
 When " The World " changed hands Mr Pulitzer offered me 
 a better salary than Mr Hurlbert, but society reporting, which 
 he wanted me to do, is completely out of my line. I am like 
 the man who said, " There are three things I never can 
 remember : names, faces and I forget the third thing I 
 can't remember." I always forget clothes and decorations, 
 and I, too, forget the third thing I can't remember feasts, 
 maybe. 
 
 At any rate, I left " The World," and Mrs Bradley Fiske, a 
 daughter of Joseph Harper, and a most fascinating, sym- 
 pathetic woman (at one time we always held a weekly 
 symposium together, and sang duets, and talked and laughed
 
 n6 I MYSELF 
 
 and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves I love her voice and her 
 ways), gave me a letter to her father. I was shown into his 
 office, and after placing a seat with old-fashioned courtesy, 
 he said, " Well, what is it ? Josie says only nice things 
 about you, but that isn't enough, I take it." 
 
 I said, " It's a great deal to me, Mr Harper, but I want 
 more and it's work, of course." 
 
 " Ah," said Mr Harper, " can you write ? " 
 
 " No," I said, " I can't really." 
 
 His eyes twinkled. " Well, then," he asked, " what are 
 you going to do for us ? " 
 
 " I don't quite know," I said. " I thought maybe you 
 would find out. I can sweep, and dust, and wash, and clean 
 beautifully." 
 
 " I see that," he said, " but can't you write the least little 
 bit ? " 
 
 " Well," I said, " I'm a sort of incompetent writer, you 
 use one of my book reviews in a catalogue." 
 
 " Do we ? " he said, looking really pleased, and the cata- 
 logue was sent for, he read the paragraph, and said, " It's 
 better than I expected. Now you go home and I'll send you 
 the MS. of a book which our readers have disagreed about, 
 and on your opinion rests a tentative engagement of six 
 months as one of our readers is away on vacation." 
 
 So off I sped, and an hour later the MS. had arrived, and 
 how I loved that book ! It was so definitely bad and im- 
 possible. I remember but one thing in it, a young Guards- 
 man, a kind of curly-headed, muscular, passionate Apollo, 
 had been making red-hot love to a married lady, who had 
 on one occasion at least yielded to his fierce embraces, 
 although her subconscious mind really loved her husband, 
 who of course had neglected her ; but with repentance of 
 heart, a sad expression, and patches of grey on each temple, 
 he was returning home after a temporary separation from his 
 tempted wife and his che-ild. And then the question arose 
 what to do with the Apollo of the passionate but faithful 
 heart ? He was strong, but he had to die, and the author 
 disdained the good old wheezes of battle, heart disease, and
 
 DISCREET TOODIE
 
 A CHANGE OF OCCUPATION 117 
 
 railway disasters. So with heart aflame, and perfect health, 
 the Guardsman unsuspiciously walked in the Zoo (it would 
 seem an innocent amusement) the London Zoo and there 
 through the carelessness of one of the keepers (how I thanked 
 that keeper) a magnificent lion of the jungle was trotting 
 around seeking whom he might devour. Oh, what a licking 
 of chops and swishing of tail when he saw the Guardsman, 
 and then the hand to paw encounter between them in a 
 part of the Zoo where no one ever came ! The fight was long 
 and terrible, keen human intelligence and trained strength 
 against wild beast force. But the British lion conquered, 
 as he always does. There was the horrible scrunching of a 
 human skull, the brave blue eyes were closed for ever the 
 lion gave a great roar of triumph, his tail stood perfectly 
 upright and the dark gentleman (who presumably never 
 went to the Zoo) could come home in perfect safety to the 
 arms of his wife. I am glad the management of the Zoo has 
 improved since this incident, for I have been there so very 
 very often, and have never met even the smallest animal 
 walking at large. 
 
 Could the author have made the same mistake about the 
 lion that the little girl did who went walking in Central 
 Park ? She was incurably mendacious, and coming home 
 she said, " Mother, I met a lion to-day walking in Central 
 Park." 
 
 " Now, Mary," her mother said, " you know that's a lie. 
 Go in your room and pray for forgiveness." 
 
 The child obediently went, returning in a few minutes 
 with a beatific expression, and when her mother asked if she 
 had prayed God to be forgiven she said, " I did, and God 
 said to me, ' Never mind, Miss Jones, I've often met that dog 
 in Central Park and have mistaken him myself for a lion.' ' 
 
 My tentative engagement with the Harpers resolved itself 
 into two or three years, and I left them with very real regret. 
 The work was continual and rather trying to the eyes, as in 
 those days the typewriter was little used, but I could take 
 my own time, and everyone was very kind I used regularly
 
 n8 I MYSELF 
 
 to ask for an increase of salary, which I never got, as Joseph 
 Harper always answered, " You have enough to live on, 
 and Dobbin will turn up soon, and then you will read no 
 more MSS." 
 
 At this time the broken friendship between the North and 
 the South was being mended, and the Harpers were display- 
 ing a most generous and interested spirit towards the South. 
 Mr Joseph Harper had sent both his sons to a Virginia 
 College, and Southern writers were encouraged and even 
 sought after. A novel dealing with the South was sent to 
 Franklin Square with the scene laid in Maryland. It was 
 clever, but there were a good many pin pricks for Southern 
 people in it, and much division of opinion among the readers, 
 who were none of them from the South, when finally the book 
 was sent to me for a final decision, accompanied by a 
 note from Mr Conant to say I was to read it with unusual 
 care. 
 
 What was my horror on reading the book, to find the 
 author to be a man who, without my personal acquaintance, 
 had written some unjust and unkind newspaper paragraphs 
 about me. And I wished from my heart that my enemy 
 had not written a book. I sat down, however, and read 
 every line with, I hope, a dispassionate outlook. 
 
 Mr Joseph Harper had told me when I first went to them 
 as a manuscript reader, there were three things they required 
 in a book : It was to be of mercantile value, it was to be 
 interesting, and it was to be clean. 
 
 Well, my enemy's book was not unclean but coarse, and 
 I marked a good many passages and said that with these 
 eliminated, or at any rate greatly toned down, the book, since 
 it had unusual interest, and genuine cleverness, should by all 
 means be published. I must confess I stretched my good 
 opinion as far as it would go, because I really thought it some- 
 what dry and lacking in heart, but it seemed such a mean 
 thing to stab even an enemy in the back, that I could not 
 conscientiously give an antagonistic opinion. 
 
 When the author saw the passages, he said to Mr Conant, 
 ' Your reader seems to strike at my very personality "; how-
 
 A CHANGE OF OCCUPATION 119 
 
 ever, he drastically edited the offending paragraphs and the 
 book was published, but in spite of all its merits was never 
 a success, and they always spoke of it reproachfully at the 
 Harpers as " your book." 
 
 Now that I have grown older and more practical, I fear 
 my chivalrous Southern sentiments were more useful to my 
 unconscious enemy than to my employers. I was over 
 scrupulous. I never mind a fair fight in an open field, but 
 I have a whole-souled horror of the stab of the assassin.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LOVING MEMORIES 
 
 " BRER RABBIT (Prisoner). ' If I'm gwine to be sacaficed, Brer 
 Wolf, I wants to be sacaficed de right way.' 
 
 " BRER WOLF. ' What's de right way, Brer Rabbit ? ' 
 
 " BRER RABBIT. ' Shut yo' eyes, fold yo' hands under yo' chin, an' 
 say : " Bless us an' bine us, an' put us in a place whar de ole boy can't 
 fine us." ' 
 
 " When Brer Wolf open his eyes, whar was Brer Rabbit ? " 
 
 UNCLE REMUS 
 
 DURING my exile in the North, the stories of Uncle 
 Remus by Joel Chandler Harris were of the greatest 
 comfort to me. I remember so well the first time 
 that dear Uncle Remus became my friend. I was terribly 
 homesick and alone hi New York. If I shut my eyes, I 
 could in imagination fairly smell the odour of the magnolia 
 and the oleander, and see the mimosa burst into bloom. 
 One night, in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, I went around 
 the corner for a breath of fresh air to a little circulating 
 library, and almost the first book I put my hand upon, was 
 a collection of darkey stories beginning with the Rabbit and 
 the Tar Baby, and at once I was transported back into the 
 past. I could see a big, dim room with no light in it, 
 except the light from the logs of a great open fire, and 
 sitting just in front of the hearth was a broad shouldered 
 negro woman with the children clustered all round her, 
 the youngest with its head pillowed on her broad bosom, 
 and there we all were, cousins and sisters and brothers, 
 listening to the story of the Tar Baby, and the Wolf, and 
 the Rabbit, and the Fox, and the animals were talking 
 through her in their wise and witty way until our bedtime,
 
 LOVING MEMORIES 121 
 
 when Mammy heard our prayers, said good night, and gave 
 each of us her tender blessing until the morning. 
 
 I met Mr Harris once, and there was some talk between 
 Major Pond and myself at that time, about my giving a 
 few readings in negro dialect, and Mr Harris wrote me 
 apropos of this subject : 
 
 " CONSTITUTION, 
 " yth January 1881. 
 
 " DEAR AND GRACIOUS LADY, Mr Finch turned the matter 
 over to Mr Howell Glen of the Lecture Committee, and I 
 was under the impression he had opened correspondence 
 with you. I should be extremely sorry not to have an 
 opportunity of hearing you interpret Uncle Remus. I 
 have my own opinion as to the absurdity of the interest 
 taken in the book at the North, but the interest undoubtedly 
 exists, and I would be overjoyed to see you reap some of 
 the benefits of it. There is no reason in the world why 
 you should not. I feel that you can do the affair more 
 than justice. 
 
 " I trust you will overlook or at any rate pardon any lack 
 of politeness on my part during our interview. The con- 
 sciousness of my extreme awkwardness is an affliction that 
 I have striven in vain to overcome, and in addition to this 
 you humbled me to the dust by your tributes to Uncle 
 Remus. These things and the fact that your face (if 
 I knew you better I would say your lovely face), and 
 your voice, and gestures are such startling reminders of 
 some one I knew a great while ago, must have given me 
 an appearance of great constraint. I really felt like one in 
 a dream. Well, well, we won't get in a controversy about 
 poor old Mr Carlyle. He has doubtless overcome you 
 with his plug-ugly vocabulary and his wonderful facility 
 of humbuggery. He never made anybody happy in this 
 world, and if we deny him remorse what a terrible spectacle 
 we set up. By all means let us consider that he was capable 
 of remorse. We do not deny that to the ordinary criminal. 
 
 "The Scribners, I mean the Editors of ' Scribner,' are
 
 122 I MYSELF 
 
 pressing me to write a serial based on Slave life at the 
 South. It is a matter that has been worrying and fretting 
 me for several years, but I haven't the confidence to 
 undertake it. 
 
 "Is it necessary for me to add to this hasty scrawl the 
 statement that I would be more than glad to hear from 
 you again ? Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS " 
 
 And later on I sent him an article about his stories for 
 approval, and he wrote again : 
 
 "2gth October 1883. 
 
 " DEAR AND GRACIOUS LADY, I received your letter 
 Saturday, and I seize the first opportunity to thank you 
 for the sympathetic tone and intention of the MSS. you 
 enclose, but to tell you the truth it rather saddens me to 
 read it. I am perfectly sure of your appreciation as far 
 as its sincerity is concerned, but your article reads almost 
 like a burlesque on my hopes and desires. Knowing my 
 own limitations, knowing just where I have failed, and 
 where in the very nature of things I must continue to fail, 
 it is rather a curious sensation to be credited by you with 
 the very things I have longed to accomplish. 
 
 " You ask for some suggestions. I will give you one 
 from the newspaper point of view. Your sketch is too 
 personal, and too enthusiastic. The literary tone of the 
 ' Tribune ' is as high as any of the Magazines, and such 
 praise as you have given me will not fit it. The ' Tribune ' 
 is one of the few papers I read through and through, and 
 you may be sure I speak by the card. The men who 
 make the ' Tribune ' might all have been distinguished in 
 literature, and some of them have already become so. Uncle 
 Remus has never been noticed in the ' Tribune.' The 
 first book, I mean. I have been told that this was because 
 the paper was not on good terms with the Appletons, but 
 I prefer to believe that the ' Tribune ' judged the book on
 
 LOVING MEMORIES 123 
 
 its own merits. If it was what you and some other very 
 partial friends believe it to be, the ' Tribune ' would have 
 discovered it. I do not know who presides over the Literary 
 Department since the death of Dr Ripley, but no mistakes 
 of judgment are ever made there. It thus happens that 
 the ' Tribune/ without making much fuss about it, is 
 one of the most influential papers in American literature. 
 Now the forthcoming Remus book is no better than the 
 first, and I question very much whether the ' Tribune ' 
 will allow anything to be said about it in its literary depart- 
 ment, not because the Editor and his Assistants are opposed 
 to Southern literature, to quote the idea of some of our 
 Southern lunatics, but because they are jealous of American 
 literature. The line must be drawn somewhere and why not 
 at the Remus trash. 
 
 " I am telling you this to warn you against a possible 
 disappointment . 
 
 " Mr Reid's note, which I return, is kind, and I have no 
 doubt the new book will be considered on its real merits, just 
 as the first one was. You must remember that a knack of 
 writing dialect bears about the same relation to literature 
 that the Negro Minstrel bears to Salvini. I know that you 
 really love Uncle Remus. I sincerely trust that my candour 
 is not disagreeable. I am simply striving to prevent you 
 from placing too high an estimate on our Uncle Remus in 
 your article for the ' Tribune.' It is to be considered by 
 those whose judgments are not biassed by any pleasing 
 or happy recollections of the old plantation system. In 
 other words, your article will be judged not only on its own 
 merits, but in relation to the merits of the new Remus 
 book. You are handicapped at the start and you will find 
 it necessary to exercise both caution and reserve. 
 
 " I enclose a note to Mr Osgood. When you receive the 
 advance sheets, I would advise that you submit them to 
 Mr Reid and get his instructions, not only as to the length 
 but as to the tone of the review. This may save you a 
 good deal of unnecessary labour. 
 
 " Pray don't say ever again that Friday is unlucky, since
 
 i2 4 I MYSELF 
 
 you wrote your letter on that day it was a lucky day for 
 me at any rate. 
 
 " I am sorry that you did not send me your photograph, 
 but unfortunately I do not need a photograph to remember 
 you. I shall never forget your face, nor your voice, nor a 
 single word that you have said. I envy your friends. 
 Heaven help us all ! If I had some one near me to give 
 such encouragement as you can give what could I not 
 accomplish. 
 
 " I hope you will write to me occasionally when you have 
 time ; in one way and another it will do me a vast amount 
 of good, and I shall be very certain to make answer, and 
 remember that Friday is just as lucky a day as any. 
 
 " Do not please be frightened at the length of this letter, 
 for it is not half so long as some I can write, and if you 
 encourage me, probably will write. Ever your sincere and 
 faithful friend, JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS " 
 
 "NEW YORK TRIBUNE, 
 "October ijth, 1883. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, If the book to which the enclosed refers 
 were not now so old, we might have been able to make use 
 of the matter. The new volume by the same Author, 
 however, is announced for publication in some two or 
 three weeks. If some of the points in this could be em- 
 bodied in an article or in a review of the new book, there 
 might be a chance of our using it, at any rate we should 
 be glad to see it. Certainly this does not seem to warrant 
 in the least the depreciating tone you use concerning it 
 and your work in general in your conversation the other 
 day. Yours respectfully, J. WHITELAW REID." 
 
 And when I answered this letter, came the third letter 
 of Mr Harris to me, which somehow ended our corre- 
 spondence, but not my tender and faithful affection for 
 him and all that he has ever written.
 
 LOVING MEMORIES 125 
 
 " 12th November 1883. 
 
 " DEAR AND GRACIOUS LADY, I am very sorry my letter 
 gave you pain. I am afraid you think I do not properly 
 appreciate what you said of my work, if so you are labouring 
 under a terrible mistake. 
 
 "The reading of the MSS. did me a great deal of good, for 
 I know there is no higher form of success from an artistic 
 standpoint than to win the sincere praise of an enthusiastic 
 and cultivated woman. But everything I said was dis- 
 connected from my own appreciation, and the opinion I 
 gave you was that of an Editor. I was trying to give you 
 a cue which would make your notice of the book available 
 for the " Tribune." I hope Osgood sent you the book instead 
 of the advance sheets, for it was already out. 
 
 " And so you know Morgan, and you ask if I know him. 
 Gracious Heavens ! I know every thump and wriggle of 
 his little mind. Did you ever sleep near enough to a 
 kitchen to wake up in the night and hear a mouse trying 
 to climb out of a dishpan, and do you remember how it 
 affected you ? That is the mysterious feeling I have 
 about Morgan. He is the only creature I ever saw whose 
 flatness and dullness gave him character. There is nothing 
 more original than his stupidity. I had been writing 
 some off-hand impressions of Boston, and what does Morgan 
 do but get the proof sheets and sell the matter to the 
 Philadelphia press on his own account. I had to write 
 and stop the publication, and then I had to interest myself 
 to prevent the ' Constitution ' from discharging Morgan. 
 You will acknowledge that this ought to be called an Ordeal. 
 But Morgan told you true. He is a writer on the ' Con- 
 stitution.' He goes out and hunts up advertisements 
 and writes them out. He has quite a knack of this business 
 and for this reason I was not willing that the paper should 
 sacrifice its own interests on my behalf, particularly when 
 I knew that Morgan was innocent of any intention to wrong 
 me by selling my matter and pocketing the proceeds. And 
 so you know Morgan ! Well, well, when circumstance
 
 126 I MYSELF 
 
 borrows the humour of fate we may know that the 
 world is smaller than we have dreamed of. 
 
 " I promised Mr Alden a sketch entitled ' Blue Dave ' 
 for the Christmas number, but the Osgood's kept pressing 
 me so for Remus copy that I could not finish it 
 in time. I doubt if it would have passed muster. Mr 
 Alden is a fine man. He has breadth and generosity. 
 
 " I don't know the Harpers, but I suppose they are very 
 keen. Take any large successful firm that has been com- 
 pelled to adapt itself to the emergencies of four or five 
 generations, and you will find a great deal of hardness and 
 cant tucked away under its idea of business. I have a 
 horror of that word and of the idea. But really I did 
 not start out to put myself in one of Morgan's recitation 
 attitudes. Pardon me. The limit to human endurance 
 must be at the bottom of this sheet, where I sign myself, 
 Sincerely and gratefully yours, 
 
 " JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 
 
 " Although I do not need, as I said, a Photograph to 
 remember your face, I still would be very grateful if you 
 would send me one." 
 
 Mr Harris was mistaken in his opinion of the Harpers, 
 there was never a more generous publishing firm than 
 theirs. Perhaps this accounts for their failure, and the 
 business of the old firm passing into new hands.
 
 THE NUN OK THE VANDEKBILT BALL
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 BRER RABBIT AS THE THERMOMETER OF 
 MY AFFECTIONS 
 
 I HAVE a friend who says that my affection for people 
 is always determined by the circumstance whether I 
 have read them " Uncle Remus " or not. He often 
 asks, " Has she read you ' Uncle Remus ? ' ' and if the 
 answer is " No," he shakes his head and says, " Ah, well, 
 she has not taken you to her heart of hearts." And 
 indeed there is no writer who so penetrates to the roots 
 of my heart as Joel Chandler Harris, and I do not at 
 all agree with him that the negro dialect is an easy thing 
 to do. Above all it is necessary in negro dialect to 
 write from the soul in order to have the sentiment 
 reach the reader. It needs absolute directness, honesty, 
 straightforwardness, a touch of simple homeliness and a 
 beautiful tenderness to make it real. Mr Harris had all 
 these qualities combined with a wonderful sense of both 
 humour and pathos. I have often wondered if Frank 
 Carruthers Gould is a reincarnation of some old Virginian 
 gentleman, so perfectly does he write negro dialect. Where 
 will you find greater observation or more intelligent philo- 
 sophy, than in this little description of Brer Rabbit when the 
 Wolf brings him the news of the death of Brer Fox : 
 
 " I fetch bad news, Brer Rabbit," sez Brer Wolf, sezee. 
 
 " Bad news is soon tole," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. 
 
 By dis time Brer Rabbit done come ter de do' wid his head tied 
 up in a red hankcher. Brer Wolf wuz gettin' nearer Brer Rabbit, 
 but he don't git too near. 
 
 "You better holler from whar you stan', Brer Wolf," sez Brer 
 Rabbit, " I'm monstous full of fleas dis mornin'." 
 
 "7
 
 i 2 8 I MYSELF 
 
 " All right," sez Brer Wolf, sezee. " Brer Fox died dis mawnin,' 
 sez Brer Wolf, sezee. 
 
 " Whar yo' mo'nin' gown, Brer Wolf ? " sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. 
 
 "Gwine atter it now," sez Brer Wolf, sezee. "I des' call by fer 
 ter bring de news. I went down ter Brer Fox house a little bit eer 
 go, en dar I foun' 'im stiff," sezee. Den Brer Wolf lope off. 
 
 Den Brer Rabbit jump up 'en out he went. When he got to Brer 
 Fox house, he look in, en der lay Brer Fox stretch out on de bed 
 des ez big ez life. Den Brer Rabbit make like he talkin' to hisself : 
 
 " Nobody roun' fer ter look atter Brer Fox not even Brer Turkey 
 Buzzard ain't come ter de funer'l," sezee. " I hope Brer Fox ain't 
 dead, but I speck he is," sezee. " Even down ter Brer Wolf done 
 gone en lef 'im. Hit's de busy season wid me, but I'll set up wid 
 'im. He seem like he dead, yet he mayn't be," sez Brer Rabbit, 
 sezee. " When a man go ter see dead folks, dead folkes allers raises 
 up der behime leg en hollers, wahoo ! " sezee. 
 
 Brer Fox he lay still. Den Brer Rabbit he talk little louder : 
 
 " Mighty funny ! Brer Fox look like he dead, yit he don't do 
 like he dead. Dead folks hists der behime leg en hollers, wahoo I 
 When a man come ter see um," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. 
 
 Sno nuff, Brer Fox lif up his foot en holler wahoo ! En Brer 
 Rabbit he tear out de house like de dogs wuz atter 'im. Brer Wolf 
 mighty smart, but nex' time you hear fum 'im honey, he'll be in 
 trouble. You des hole yo' breff 'n wait." 
 
 Brer Rabbit knew that if Brer Turkey Buzzard was not 
 around Brer Fox was alive. He only went in the house 
 to betray him and to show his cunning. 
 
 And one of the most beautiful stories in the whole world, 
 and certainly the most beautiful story that has ever been 
 written of the old South is " Marse Chan," by Thomas 
 Nelson Page, which is in negro dialect : it has the tender 
 grace of a lay that is dead, in every line. 
 
 The day after its publication he could with truth repeat 
 the words of Lord Byron, " I awoke and found myself 
 famous." For it embodies all the traits of which we of the 
 South are so proud : the chivalrous honour, the tenderness, 
 the splendid courage, the endurance, the noble pride, and 
 the loyalty of the Southern character are touchingly 
 portrayed, and it has made a whole world of lovers for 
 Mr Page.
 
 YOU BETTER HOLLER FROM WHAR' YOU STAN', BRER WOLF," SEY BRER 
 RABBIT, "I'M MONST'OUS FULL OF FLEAS DIS MORNIN' !"
 
 THE THERMOMETER OF MY AFFECTIONS 129 
 
 Years after its publication the author wrote me this 
 modest letter : 
 
 " RICHMOND, July 22nd, 1888. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I have only to thank you for 
 an added kindness. The ' Star' arrived containing your most 
 flattering notice of myself and ' Marse Chan.' I scarcely 
 can claim now to be its author, for I feel that the old life 
 of the South was the author of its being, and I was simply 
 the amanuensis who, being so fortunate as to catch its echo, 
 transcribed it. 
 
 " I assure you my debt to the ' Star ' as well as to its 
 delightful editor is very great, and I beg that you will convey 
 to him my acknowledgments. 
 
 "When my new story, 'Two Little Confederates,' now 
 running in ' St Nicholas,' appears in book form, which 
 will be about October, I shall send it to you, for although 
 your boy will probably be too old to appreciate it, I know 
 that his mother will not be, and it contains a fair account, 
 making allowances for romantic licence, of the house where 
 I was born. And our old Bella, and mother, and the boys, 
 are real, and are, thank God ! still spared to me. 
 
 " The notice of the reception was read and greatly enjoyed 
 by both Anne and myself. We recognized our friend Miss 
 Kenny among the ladies who assisted the hostess, or was 
 it her sister ? 
 
 " Major Reilly, our Judge at Cairo, made very pleasant 
 mention of Mr O'Connor to me the other day, but our con- 
 versation was too formal for me to learn all I wished. It is 
 rather a joke, I suspect, for Reilly came home to testify in a 
 suit I was prosecuting against him and his brother, and one 
 George Campbell, formerly one of Mr O'Connor's Liverpool 
 constituents, for fraud, and my only communication with 
 him was in the court room. We used to be very good 
 friends, and I did not charge Judge Reilly with fraud. It 
 is proper to say that the jury exonerated John D. Reilly also, 
 but found Campbell guilty. 
 
 " Mrs Page is, I am sorry to say, ill, but sends many more
 
 i 3 o I MYSELF 
 
 affectionate messages than I can venture to give on crossed 
 paper. With our affectionate remembrances to both you 
 and Mr O'Connor, yours always sincerely, 
 
 " THOMAS NELSON PAGE " 
 
 The late Henry Ward Beecher hated slavery. He passed 
 from State to State, and with his mighty plea for the aboli- 
 tion of slavery, and by his fiery eloquence he precipitated 
 the Civil War that cost America one million lives and freed 
 the slaves. But this did not prevent his admiration of the 
 Southern character. I did not like his politics, but I knew 
 and loved Mr Beecher, and when I read " Marse Chan " 
 to him for the first time, he was most deeply touched and 
 the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 Years afterwards when he came to England I had this 
 note from him : 
 
 " HAMPSTEAD, July i^th. 
 
 " MY DEAR GIRL, When you come to Hampstead prepare 
 yourself for a little reading of our dear ' Marse Chan.' 
 You need not bring it with you as I have the volume at 
 hand. I could have read it again myself, but have not done 
 so, preferring through the absent years to wait until we met 
 again. 
 
 " Thanks for your Stores ticket. I went there yesterday 
 and bought a little fruit, for which I paid ten dollars ! It 
 would not do for me to live in England, I should become a 
 bankrupt. Your sincere friend, 
 
 " HENRY WARD BEECHER " 
 
 I read him " Marse Chan." " It is the last time I shall 
 ever hear it," he said. And it was, as Mr Beecher died the 
 following winter. 
 
 Dr Parker, at whose house Mr Beecher was visiting, 
 objected. " Beecher," he said, " you are not going to listen 
 to a whole story this hot afternoon ? " 
 
 " Parker," Mr Beecher said, " I am ! This is my tea-party, 
 and I am going to sit on the floor with my head on Mother's
 
 THE THERMOMETER OF MY AFFECTIONS 131 
 
 knee " (" Mother " was his wife), " and I am going to have a 
 good cry. If you don't want to listen, go out in the garden." 
 
 Dr Parker stationed himself by the door, ready to flee into 
 the garden, but he never stirred until the story was finished, 
 and even then he was unable to speak his thanks for a few 
 moments, while his beautiful wife, in tears, was as deeply 
 moved as Mr Beecher himself that wonderful man, who was 
 by far the greatest orator I have ever heard : gifted with 
 superb eloquence, great variety and picturesqueness of 
 language, a deep chest, a fine throat, and a beautiful voice 
 perfectly trained, he was an ideal preacher. The final test 
 of both acting and oratory is the power of the speaker to get 
 a stupendous effect in a few words. I heard Mr Beecher 
 in one of his sermons end a peroration with " You can not 
 destroy God. And you can not destroy the souls that echo 
 to God." His voice gathered force and volume as he went 
 on, and the last word was like a silver trumpet calling upon 
 the congregation to maintain their faith. He had the 
 quality of being always interesting, was full of humour, 
 daringly original, and quite a century in advance of his time. 
 The day of this sermon I waited with Marshall Wilder to 
 speak to him, and Mr Beecher said : " Wait a minute, I 
 want to put on a ring," and taking out of his pocket a 
 wonderful opal he placed it on his stubby finger and turned 
 it to catch the light, with the delight of a child. He had 
 a perfect mania for gems : their clear and pellucid colour and 
 brilliancy were a continual pleasure to him, and he told me 
 he had forty rings. He wore them only fitfully, but carried 
 one or two in his pocket and occasionally refreshed his sight 
 by looking at them. 
 
 Quite a different preacher from Mr Beecher was Father 
 Ducey, who was for many years one of my staunchest friends, 
 and whose death has made a gap in my life never to be filled. 
 He, too, was a very brilliant orator, at times strikingly 
 dramatic, and as intimate and dictatorial with his fashion- 
 able New York congregation as any old Irish parish priest 
 laying down the law to his following of humble peasants. 
 
 He endured the huge hats as they are worn now as long as
 
 i 3 2 I MYSELF 
 
 he could, and then he admonished the startled ladies under 
 his gaze to get another headgear for St Leo's, as the church 
 was not built for the present mode, and he must have more 
 than two women sitting in a pew. 
 
 When he was preaching a sermon once, on marriage, he 
 said : " Marriage between a young man and a young woman 
 is made by God ; between an old man and a young woman is 
 made by man ; but between an old woman and a young man 
 it is made by the devil." His tongue was caustic, but his 
 heart was kind, and his nature was one of the most generous, 
 giving constantly in charity, and he was instantly touched 
 and moved by every tale of woe. His influence over young 
 men was very great, and his interest in them was truly 
 understanding and paternal. One of his friends was a 
 handsome, reckless young blackguard, who had committed 
 nearly every crime in the calender, and finally got such a 
 terrible reputation that Father Ducey told him not to visit 
 him in the day when he could be seen. But he received him 
 at night, and never failed to pray for him and to hope for a 
 regeneration of spirit. He was the most popular priest in 
 New York, and at any public meeting the mention of his 
 name was the signal for a great burst of applause. It is 
 easy to be popular with the comfortable and rich, but the 
 poor find out a man's inmost heart, for they demand both 
 patience and help. Father Ducey, through his constant 
 generosity, made himself one of them. And blessed are the 
 poor, for theirs shall be the Kingdom of Heaven.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM SOLVED. BRIGIT, 
 THE JEWEL OF THE WORLD 
 
 WHEN I neglected reading my MSS. for the Harpers, 
 as I sometimes did, a vast collection used to 
 accumulate, and I then farmed them out to my 
 various good-natured friends. Father Ducey has read 
 many a one for me, and Dr Walter Gillette, my kind 
 and good friend as well as physician, nearly always had 
 a number on hand. 
 
 I have often wondered if my work suffered during the 
 last summer that I spent in New York, but at Franklin 
 Square they never complained probably they never knew 
 of my illness. 
 
 It was a blazing hot summer, Mary Agnew had gone to 
 live in the country, and I had taken a small flat and settled 
 myself in it with Brigit, who was one of the most remarkable 
 women I have ever known and a priceless gem to me. She 
 had lived with me off and on for a number of years, and 
 with her various accomplishments commanded high wages, 
 and I really did not expect any such good fortune as her 
 coming to me for what I could afford to pay her, but she 
 did come, and in spite of real poverty I lived like a lady. 
 Brigit was an accomplished cook, she could do anything, 
 bone turkey, make all sorts of salads, cook vegetables like 
 a Frenchwoman, boil rice like an Indian, and make the 
 lightest cakes and the most wonderful sweets I ever ate. 
 She was also a first-class laundress, and in those days all 
 my clothes were white. White dressing-gowns in the 
 morning, and white muslin in the afternoon, and Brigit
 
 134 I MYSELF 
 
 did all the washing for the house and for me. On Monday 
 morning she was up at 5 o'clock (each flat had a little 
 laundry assigned to it at the top of the house) and by 
 9 o'clock she had all her clothes hung up to dry and my 
 breakfast ready. She kept the flat spotlessly clean and 
 managed the entire work, washing, ironing, cooking and 
 waiting on me, and when Toodie came home from school 
 for his vacation she looked after him as well, and yet she 
 had time to read " The New York Sun " and to discuss 
 politics with me. And I have never seen so thrifty a 
 servant. She never threw away even one crumb of stale 
 bread, but dried it, pounded it into powder, and put it aside 
 for breakfast cakes, and those cakes with fresh radishes and 
 a cup of marvellous coffee were all that she allowed me for 
 breakfast. I was never afraid to have the smartest people 
 come to see me, because everything was exquisitely done 
 and in such order, and Brigit always spotless in a nice 
 gingham dress and long white apron was quite ready to 
 answer the door. If I went out at night to a theatre or 
 a party, she always waited up for me until I came in, and 
 saw that I was in bed before she left me. She had many 
 offers, of course, to get higher wages, and my kind friends 
 often tried to entice her away, but her answer was " that 
 I had my ways and she had her ways, and they happened 
 to agree, and she thought she had better stay." How 
 fond my friends were of Brigit and that little flat ! I 
 entertained constantly, giving both lunches and dinners, 
 and was not too proud to have my friends provide them if 
 they liked. I remember an old friend from Maryland used 
 to come very often to dinner and he would say, " Don't 
 be alarmed, my dinner is on the stairs, and Brigit has 
 undertaken to cook it." And I was often sent Virginian 
 hams, chickens and turkeys from the South, a barrel of 
 flour, now and then, from Georgia, so my table cost me 
 very little, and I think this part of my life was almost entirely 
 happy, until I was struck down by the first attack of my 
 now vigilant and recurrent enemy, peritonitis. I went 
 out one hot afternoon, not feeling very well, and the weather
 
 THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM SOLVED 135 
 
 suddenly changed, a cold rain came up, and I had no 
 umbrella and got soaked through to the skin. I could 
 not afford a cab, and came home on a crowded street car, 
 having to stand outside, and the draught blowing on my 
 soaked clothes gave me a terrible chill. That night I had 
 a high temperature, and when at last I sent for my doctor 
 he pronounced it peritonitis, and for two months I was 
 in bed and Brigit's labours were much increased, as I could 
 not afford to have a trained nurse, and she had to do all 
 the work of the flat as well as to nurse me. My doctor 
 often came at 9 o'clock at night and stayed with me until 
 12 o'clock so that she might have a little sleep for the first 
 part of the night, and during these two months I never 
 heard her complain of fatigue, nor was she ever impatient. 
 And every evening my funny shabby old carpet bag, with 
 various labels on it, arrived from Franklin Square full of 
 MSS., and the next morning the boy called on his way down 
 to the office to take back what I had read. My Doctor 
 said that if I did not stop work and give myself a chance 
 of rest I would certainly die, but if I lost my salary from 
 Franklin Square I would starve, so I had to go on. I have 
 never minded work, but this was unrelenting bitter poverty, 
 to be obliged to read and think and write with a temperature 
 varying from 103 to 104, and my exhausted body racked 
 with the most terrible pain that a woman can endure, and 
 my brain, dulled by opium, working fitfully and with 
 difficulty. Finally, the worst fears of Dr Gilette were 
 realized, an abscess formed which seriously threatened 
 my life, and did eventually give me a slight attack of blood 
 poisoning, but I made a most valiant effort to live, as my 
 death would have left my little son unprovided for and 
 alone. And I told the doctor that I simply could not 
 and would not die, although I calmly made preparations to 
 do so, sorting and burning my letters, and making my will, 
 which was, after all, only to ask an old friend to care for 
 my little boy and to have me buried in the South under 
 a magnolia tree. I felt that I wanted to be far away from 
 the rush, the noise, and the loneliness of New York.
 
 136 I MYSELF 
 
 The crisis passed and I got better, and finally Dr Gilette 
 told me the time had come for me to be able to bear the 
 pain with reduced doses of morphine, and from that moment, 
 although he said it was much too sudden, I refused to take 
 it again. I was wrong, the sudden cessation of the opiate 
 was a terrible wrench to my nerves, and I had not a moment's 
 sleep for forty-eight hours ; but I have always had a strong 
 will, and plenty of self-control. If it is necessary for me 
 to do a thing I can do it, no matter what the suffering may 
 be. I remember one night when the pain was uncontrollable 
 and my poor numb legs had been in the same position for 
 weeks, I asked Brigit to tell me something interesting 
 enough to make me forget it. " Think," I said, " of the 
 thing in your life which you remember most clearly and 
 tell me that," and Brigit said : "I'll tell you the story of 
 my nun."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A NUN 
 
 A GOOD many years ago I was a servant at a 
 convent in New Jersey for the cure of consumption. 
 Among the patients was a young married man 
 about thirty, very handsome, with black eyes and hair. 
 He looked like a Spaniard, and he may have been one. At 
 first he was very ill, but after a while he got better, and 
 he was there for a long time. The sister who nursed him 
 was most experienced, and he obeyed her like a child, and 
 always wanted her with him. She had lived all her life 
 in convents, being left an orphan at nine ; the sisters had 
 educated her, and at sixteen she became a Sister of Charity, 
 and ever since had nursed the sick in the hospital for con- 
 sumption. She was thirty-two, but looked only twenty, 
 and her face was lovely a real Madonna face, with sweet 
 blue eyes and long eyelashes, and her smile was quite 
 beautiful. All the patients loved her, and everybody 
 wanted to be nursed by Sister Teresaf 
 
 " I noticed that she was getting thin, and she seemed 
 very restless and greatly troubled, and at last one night 
 I asked her what was the matter, and she began to 
 cry pitifully, desperately I never saw such sobs and 
 said, ' Brigit, can I trust you ? There is no other 
 creature in all the world to help me.' And I said she 
 could, and then she gasped out, ' The greatest trouble 
 that can befall a woman is mine I am ruined, soul and 
 body God will never forgive me. There is the man I 
 love I do love him, but I hate myself.' She pointed to 
 the garden where he was sitting. It was in May, and
 
 i 3 8 I MYSELF 
 
 the Spanish-looking man was nearly well then, and as 
 happy and gay as possible. She went on, "I must get 
 away from here as quickly as I can. Take this money and 
 buy me a dress and a hat and shoes, and I'll go to-night.' 
 That afternoon I went out and bought a very plain black 
 alpaca dress, as that was more like a nun's habit than any- 
 thing, and a black hat with a pink rose, but she wouldn't 
 wear the rose, and ripped it off with her poor, trembling, 
 awkward fingers, and gave it to me. I did enjoy seeing her 
 pretty little feet in high-heeled shoes. I got them with 
 buckles, but she never noticed them, she was crying so. 
 Every part of her habit she laid her head upon and kissed 
 her crucifix, her belt, her beads, and her cap, with its white 
 wings like a bird, she held to her breast as if it had been a 
 child, the cap she had worn so long and so honourably. ' Oh, 
 Brigit,' she said, ' how could I have forgotten my vows, 
 and after sixteen years ! Oh, merciful God, help me and 
 he has a wife ! That's the worst of all ! ' She was white 
 with despair, but she looked so sweet with her short hair 
 curling all over her head just like a young girl. 
 
 " At eight o'clock we stole away and went to an apartment 
 he had taken for us in New York. I did all the work and I 
 never saw any gentleman in the world love a lady as much 
 as he did her. He never went out or came in without kissing 
 her hand, and I often saw him kiss her shoe, and he always 
 brought her some little thing a rose, or a bunch of violets, 
 or a little box of sweets, or a book, or a picture paper, or 
 some trifle to show her that he was thinking of her. He 
 said his wife drank, and he could divorce her, and he would 
 marry Sister Teresa the moment he could. But he saw 
 as well as I did that she was fretting herself to death her 
 conscience never gave her a moment's rest. Finally, she 
 must have spoken to him about leaving him, for he called 
 me aside one morning and said, ' Brigit, don't, for God's 
 sake, help Teresa get away ! I love her, and I know I can 
 make her happy in time, and I can't live without her and 
 let me tell you this : if you help her to get away, the first 
 time I see you afterward I'll shoot you like a dog.' He was
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF A NUN 139 
 
 so fierce he frightened me terribly. That same week Sister 
 Teresa wrote to the Mother-house in Cincinnati, and the 
 Reverend Mother wrote to her to meet her in New York at 
 another convent, a little boys' school, and one day we stole 
 away. She left the man a letter that must have broken his 
 heart. She said in it that she loved his body, but she loved 
 his soul more, and she was going away to save it and hers 
 and that her every breath would mean a prayer for him, and 
 their child and she prayed him to be patient and to forgive 
 her. I got her a little crucifix to put in the letter, and how 
 she kissed it and clung to it ! He was to forgive her wasn't 
 that like a woman ! It was four months since we came to 
 New York, and this was the first time we had left the apart- 
 ment. She was like a poor helpless child in the world, and 
 afraid of the streets. We arrived at the convent about six 
 o'clock in the evening. The Reverend Mother from Cin- 
 cinnati, and the Mother of the convent were both waiting. 
 When the poor thing got out of the train she dropped first 
 on her knees and then she laid her face on the Reverend 
 Mother's shoes, and the Mother stooped and raised her up 
 in her arms, and we four women cried fit to break our hearts. 
 
 " It was decided the next day that the two Mothers should 
 between them adopt the baby when it came, and educate it, 
 and care for it, and Sister Teresa was to enter the order of 
 the Magdalen Nuns." 
 
 " And did you," I asked, " never hear of her again, 
 Brigit ? " 
 
 " Wait," Brigit answered, " I went to Brooklyn to live, 
 and for a while I was terribly afraid of meeting the man, but 
 I never did." 
 
 " I hope," I said, " the baby died, and she was spared her 
 second great heartbreak of parting with it. She didn't 
 count on that little cry, and the flood of love that comes with 
 it, to wedded and un wedded mothers alike." 
 
 ' Yes," said Brigit, " she died when the baby was born, 
 and the baby died too." 
 
 " What became of the father ? " I asked. 
 
 ' The Reverend Mother," Brigit said, " managed in some
 
 140 I MYSELF 
 
 way to get the news to him of Sister Teresa's death, and he 
 became a Catholic and was never out of church, but only 
 lived two months afterwards. He must have been glad to 
 die, for I never saw a gentleman love a lady so much." 
 
 The dawn had come ; and with daylight all pain, physical 
 and mental, is easier to bear so I sent Brigit for a little 
 rest, and then I slept myself.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 I BECOME ENGAGED 
 
 MY Mary had been married and had gone to Ireland 
 to live, and when I was well enough to travel, she 
 insisted upon my taking a vacation and coming to 
 Ballymena and making her a visit, and I went over and 
 arrived at Belfast in September (how beautiful Ireland 
 was, and how I loved it !), and remained abroad until 
 February. 
 
 The weather was bitterly cold that winter, but the absolute 
 quiet of the life in the country, the very early hours, and the 
 quiet soft air, and her beloved companionship, did every- 
 thing for me, and before I left Ballymena I was feeling strong 
 and well once more, and full of hope. 
 
 I came to London from Ireland, to join two friends of mine 
 from Richmond, Mrs Day and Elizabeth her daughter. How 
 pretty Elizabeth was ! She was just twenty-three, with 
 slate-grey eyes, and hair to match I never saw hair which 
 had grown grey so evenly as hers, and it fell in heavy masses 
 down to her knees like a dove-coloured veil. 
 
 Mrs Day had been recommended to go to No. 9 George 
 Street, Hanover Square it was a pension kept by Miss 
 Moore, an Irish-woman of excellent family, who had herself 
 lived a great many years in Virginia ; her brother had been 
 a General in the Confederate Army. 
 
 The pension had, like herself, plenty of character ; the 
 table was excellent and bountiful, and the food was of the 
 very best quality. She got up early in the morning and went 
 to Mass, and to market afterwards. As to furniture, there 
 was nothing in the house that matched anything else, as 
 
 *>
 
 142 I MYSELF 
 
 everything had been bought at sales, and at second-hand 
 shops. There was nothing vulgar in the house, and there 
 were some bits of splendour, and it had, in spite of the dirt 
 of a good many London fogs, an air of gentility, and Miss 
 Moore herself possessed the kindest and most hospitable 
 heart in the world. Everybody who came under her roof had 
 an instantaneous claim upon her consideration. 
 
 The first day that I arrived in London Colonel Mitchell, 
 the American Vice-Consul, came to call upon me, and as I 
 was going to be in London only a very few days, he pro- 
 posed returning after dinner and taking me to the House of 
 Commons to be introduced to Justin M'Carthy, whom he 
 knew. Great was our vexation to find that Mr Justin 
 M'Carthy had gone for the evening. I had myself a letter 
 of introduction to him, and I left it to be delivered the next 
 day. The big, good-natured policeman, seeing how terribly 
 disappointed I was at not seeing the House of Commons, 
 proposed that he should take Colonel Mitchell's card to Mr 
 T. P. O'Connor, who, he said, was always most polite to 
 Americans. In a few moments the genial T. P. came out 
 beaming. He was delighted to do the honours for Mr 
 M'Carthy, explained all the House of Commons most lucidly, 
 then disposed of Colonel Mitchell and took me up to the 
 Ladies' Gallery, where his native eloquence poured forth like 
 a torrent, and he seemed prepared to keep me any length of 
 time certainly, verifying the judgment of the policeman 
 who said he was so kind to Americans. 
 
 When we came downstairs Colonel Mitchell was looking 
 quite gloomy after our prolonged absence, nor did the pro- 
 position of T. P. to stroll home with us seem to make him any 
 more cheerful. It was only at the door of my pension that 
 T. P.'s eloquence ceased, and both he and Colonel Mitchell 
 had arranged to call upon me the next day but not together, 
 and this was my first meeting with T. P. 
 
 The next day Justin M'Carthy called and invited me to 
 dine at the House of Commons. The party consisted of his 
 daughter, T. P., Justin Huntly M'Carthy, and myself. I 
 thought I had never heard such brilliant, gay, witty con-
 
 I BECOME ENGAGED 143 
 
 versation they flashed together like meteors. Justin 
 Huntly and T. P. were like two accomplished fencers. As I 
 was fresh from America where, even if men can talk, they 
 rarely do if women are present, allowing them to absorb all 
 the conversation and all the attention, the dinner was a 
 perfect revelation to me. 
 
 Colonel Mitchell and T. P. came to see me every day, and 
 sometimes twice a day. They had an opportunity of 
 becoming better acquainted, but they were never congenial, 
 and when I finally announced my engagement to T. P., 
 Colonel Mitchell was distinctly pessimistic about the future, 
 giving me an exceedingly long list of unhappy international 
 marriages. This was, however, a matter of six weeks later, 
 after I had been to Paris and again to Ireland. I remained 
 ten days in London before starting for America. The time 
 was entirely taken up by arguments between T. P. and 
 myself as to whether I should be married then or at all, or 
 the following summer when I was coming to Europe again. 
 Mrs Agnew had said, " If you are going to marry Elizabeth, 
 do it now, as she might change her mind." This enhanced 
 my value in the eyes of T. P., who loves uncertainty and 
 change, and it gave him an opportunity of using his persua- 
 sive powers, which are very great and of which he has every 
 reason to be proud. I felt like yielding more than once, but 
 resisted. He could not leave Parliament and his work and 
 accompany me to America, and it seemed so foolish to be 
 married one day and return to America the next, and I had 
 never been separated from my little son longer than a week, 
 until then, and was aching to see him again so I stood firm. 
 
 One evening T. P. appeared, and was transcendentally 
 charming and agreeable. Presently he took from his pocket 
 an important looking official document, which proved to be 
 a special licence for our marriage the next day ! Oh, how 
 magnificently he talked and argued, and how I laughed ! 
 A special licence, without one word of consultation with me ! 
 We were to be married in St Margaret's Church, West- 
 minster it was not to be announced and later, on my 
 return from America, we were to be married again in the
 
 i 44 I MYSELF 
 
 Catholic Church. His chief argument for the marriage was 
 that he was engaged on a novel, " Dead Man's Island " 
 (afterwards published in an Irish paper and never a great 
 success, but some very brilliant writing in it nevertheless), 
 and that he must have no uncertainties in his life while he 
 was doing it. I had read the beginning of the romance 
 found it too sombre in hue for success, and did not feel 
 that even his getting married would add gaiety to the book, 
 so I said, no, we must wait until my return from America. 
 He folded up the special licence hopefully, and put it in his 
 pocket, and said if I was not to wear a wedding ring at least 
 I must have an engagement ring, and would I meet him at 
 the Army and Navy Stores the next day which I did, and 
 chose a modest little turquoise ring which cost, I remember, 
 eight pounds, and it pleased me as much as if the price had 
 been eighty. I knew T. P.'s income was small, and did not 
 allow him to carry out his wish and buy diamonds which I 
 was sure he could not afford. 
 
 When we left the Stores he placed my hand in his arm and 
 grasped it tightly with the other hand. " Now," he said, 
 " you must come to church with me for a moment." 
 
 I objected, and laughed so contagiously, the people we 
 passed laughed in sympathy. We arrived in a few moments 
 at St Margaret's, and interviewed a very ancient sexton. 
 T. P. said, " I am coming here on Friday at n o'clock to be 
 married have the clergyman and witnesses ready." 
 
 The old man answered indifferently, " All right." 
 
 Then I said, " I'm afraid the gentleman won't come on 
 Friday as the lady he is to marry is very ill." 
 
 The old man paid no attention to me, but turned his weak 
 old eyes on T. P. and asked, " Are you, or are you not, going 
 to get married ? " 
 
 " I am," T. P. answered firmly. 
 
 I was almost suffocated with laughing, but managed to 
 say, disconnectedly, " If the lady is worse you can't marry 
 here you will have to be married at her bedside." 
 
 " We will be here Friday," T. P. confidently replied. 
 
 The old man meantime had been examining T. P. carefully,
 
 I BECOME ENGAGED 145 
 
 and he asked querulously, " Ain't you the gentleman as was 
 going to be married this morning and didn't come ? " 
 
 " I am," said T. P., unabashed. 
 
 " Then why didn't you ? " the old man grumbled. 
 
 In the middle of uncontrollable laughing I gasped out, 
 " The lady was so ill." 
 
 " Never mind," said T. P., " Friday " and we went away. 
 
 I forget what I did on that particular day, but it was not 
 the business of getting married. I think I went with 
 Colonel Mitchell to buy a steamer trunk, and by way of 
 making myself agreeable I said to him, " What a fine figure 
 you have ! How tall are you ? " And he answered, " Six 
 feet two, but I don't look so tall, as my figure is perfectly 
 proportioned have you noticed it ? " 
 
 Men are really appealing in their vanity it is so simple, 
 childlike, and unafraid. Ah well ! This " perfectly pro- 
 portioned " being was a gallant, kind, unselfish, honourable, 
 high-minded gentleman, and it was only his innocent vanity 
 that was out of proportion.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A SHIPWRECK LEAVING MY FRIENDS 
 
 A crisis reveals man's true nature, and often dissipates the myth of 
 his chivalry to woman. 
 
 I LEFT T. P. to deal with clergyman, witnesses and 
 sexton, and on Saturday I sailed for America. This 
 was in January, and the following June I found it very 
 difficult to leave my friends and to return to England again. 
 
 One of the compensations of poverty is disinterested 
 friendship. When you have neither money, nor hospitality, 
 nor time, nor service of any kind to offer your friends, and 
 they love you, and all the favours and advantages are on 
 their side, you are sure of pure, unalloyed affection. This 
 was my position. I had been very poor, and very busy, 
 and badly dressed, and often tired, and sometimes sad, but 
 I had my little circle of intimate, devoted friends, of whose 
 life I formed a part, as even in busy New York I saw them 
 almost every day. 
 
 Dr Walter Gillette had literally snatched me from the jaws 
 of death only the summer before, and there was Mrs Clark 
 who had been a mother to me a woman whose heart was 
 pure gold and her son, Max, who stood almost as near to me 
 as my own child. When Max was a baby his mother sailed 
 from New York to California, and the boat struck a rock 
 in the Pacific Ocean some hundreds of miles from San 
 Francisco, and the whole crew were landed on a tiny island 
 covered with ashes not a drop of water or a blade of grass. 
 Luckily the boat did not go to pieces at once. They got the 
 evaporating machine for making fresh water from salt a 
 sorry business at best, as the water remains brackish, and 
 
 146
 
 A SHIPWRECK LEAVING MY FRIENDS 147 
 
 never water enough to quench thirst. Even on this desert 
 island with death staring them in the face, some ladies elected 
 to be exclusive, and declined lying near the filles de joie 
 for the people were packed together like sardines at night. 
 My friend with Max, who was then a baby, surrounded her- 
 self with these ladies, and she said they behaved like heroines, 
 particularly one, who gave her share of water to the children 
 until her tongue was swollen, blackened and cracked from 
 want of it. Mrs Clark was possessed of a courage worthy of 
 Napoleon. She was full of hope all through the terrible ten 
 days or fortnight which they spent on the island and at 
 dawn one morning, far, far away, she saw a thin haze of blue 
 smoke. At first she thought it was her imagination, but the 
 smoke grew bluer, and then a ship came in sight, and finally 
 it saw their signals of distress. She then awoke the Captain, 
 told the good news, and they were eventually rescued. The 
 Pacific Mail Steamship Company afterwards gave her a set of 
 silver in appreciation of her courage. 
 
 Only in a crisis is the true nature of a man or woman 
 revealed. Mrs Clark told me of one man, so gallant and 
 flirtatious to the women on board, who when the one to whom 
 he had shown the most compromising attentions rushed to 
 him after the ship struck the rock, screaming, " Save me, 
 save me ! " pushed her from him roughly, saying, " Go 
 away, woman," and swiftly leaped into the first life-boat 
 lowered, only to be ordered out by the Doctor, who stood 
 with pistol in hand calling out, " The women and children 
 first ! The next man who gets in the boat I'll shoot like a 
 dog ! " And he did shoot one sailor, and that restored 
 order. 
 
 Her great courage and her great heart made me cling to 
 my friend, and there never was a boy so lovable, so honest 
 and honourable, and truthful, and studious, and kind as Max, 
 and he occupied the place of an elder brother to Toodie. It 
 was really heart-breaking to leave these and other friends. 
 I remember going one night to a restaurant for oysters with 
 General Kirkland, one of my truest and most understanding 
 comrades, and H. S. N., whose tender friendship for me dated
 
 148 I MYSELF 
 
 from the days when we were both pink-cheeked youngsters. 
 When we sat down to supper General Kirkland looked at me 
 regretfully and said, " It's a pity the little woman is engaged 
 to an Irishman. We are going to lose her. Do you want to 
 marry her, N. ? " 
 
 H. S. N. flushed up, but stood to his guns like a man and 
 said, " Yes, General, I do." 
 
 " Then why don't you do it ? " said General Kirkland. 
 " You know I love her better than any woman in the world, 
 but I dreamed last night I was married to her, and I tell you, 
 sir, I woke up the whole of Fifth avenue with my screams." 
 He continued, " Does T. P. consider you a type ? " 
 
 I said, " Oh, I don't know I suppose so." 
 
 " Well," he said, " will you give him a message from me ? 
 Will you tell him that you are the only thing of the kind in 
 the country ! " 
 
 I can always enjoy any amount of humour at my own 
 expense, even when there is a strong suspicion of truth 
 attached to it, and administered in generous doses, if it be 
 without malice. There is nothing that creates such quick 
 intimacy or such thorough understanding as appreciation 
 of the same joke, and my friends are welcome to laugh at my 
 peculiarities and eccentricities any day if they will only 
 love me. 
 
 " The world is filled with folly and sin, and love must cling where 
 
 it may, 
 For Beauty is easy enough to win, but one isn't loved every day." 
 
 People with a sense of humour are hungrier for affection 
 than those without it. For at heart they are often both lonely 
 and sad. Life seen through comic spectacles is an amusing, 
 but not an edifying sight. Tears can quiver just behind 
 laughter. You do not want to murder if you are a comedian, 
 but you can long to die. My friend, William Kirkland, was a 
 born humorist, but life had gone very awry with him. He 
 is at rest now, buried in Virginia. I am glad he sleeps in the 
 South, where the mocking-bird sings and the honeysuckle 
 blooms. Only necessity brought him to New York, and he
 
 A SHIPWRECK LEAVING MY FRIENDS 149 
 
 never liked the noise and the cold, and was always home-sick. 
 Friendship without one soupfon of sentiment between a 
 woman and a man rarely exists in England, but it is very 
 common in America, and I make bold to say, that it is a 
 woman's strongest inducement to virtue. If two or three men 
 genuinely like a woman with frankness, appreciation and trust, 
 she will pause before she betrays the trust. Without analysing 
 the position she feels she is expected to uphold an ideal. She 
 stands for something higher and better in womanhood than 
 surrender. Mrs Crawford, the brilliant Paris Correspondent 
 of " Truth," my good and consistent friend, says I have a 
 genius for friendship. If it be true, it is my only genius. 
 But this I do know I have loved my friends understand- 
 ingly, and often there has been between us a communion of 
 spirit that passeth all understanding out of which has been 
 born an indestructible bond. 
 
 My idea of loyalty in friendship is best illustrated by three 
 street boys in New York. Two were preparing to fight. 
 One turned to the spectator and said, " Jim, before dis yer 
 fight begins is you fur me or agin me ? " Jim answered, 
 " Bill, I'm fur you but you's in de dead wrong." Now, 
 when my friends are " in de dead wrong " that's the time 
 I'm " fur em " and that's the time I want them to "be 
 fur me." Any stranger can befriend us when we are in " de 
 dead right." At one time, I had occasion to test myself. 
 It was during the period of the Beecher-Tilton trial. I 
 loved Mr Beecher, firmly believed him innocent of all 
 wrong, took my stand on that, and I never read one word 
 of the testimony. "If," an astute judge asked me, "he is 
 guilty ? " " Then," I said, " he is truly noble, for, believing 
 in God and practising that belief all his life, yet he has com- 
 mitted perjury, not to cast people out in the dark of weaker 
 faith than himself." " What sophistry ! " the judge said. 
 " But what an obdurate friend ! " According to my code 
 not even marriage has greater obligations than friendship. 
 
 American men like women as friends, comrades, com- 
 panions as human beings quite apart from sex. The 
 American man likes one woman he loves another woman.
 
 i 5 o I MYSELF 
 
 Very frequently his marriage does not interfere with his 
 friendship, which resembles in many respects the friendship 
 between men. 
 
 Englishmen (I am not speaking of the exceptions) like 
 women as wives and sweethearts, not much as mothers and 
 sisters, . and their friendships, intellectual, personal and 
 political, are with other men. This is the reason doubtless 
 why they have such superficially bad manners with women. 
 In trouble they can be and are kind, helpful, and even 
 chivalrous, but life is not altogether made up of trouble, and 
 I think the forward way some Englishmen use their legs and 
 loll at ease, in House of Commons attitudes, before women is 
 most objectionable. Who would ever think of describing 
 the best mannered Englishman as deferential to women 
 and yet many foreign and American men are. 
 
 The fact is the point of view of an Englishman and an 
 American is exactly opposite. The American man expects 
 to make his wife happy the Englishman expects his wife to 
 make him happy. If he is happy, he thinks she should be so 
 too in the contemplation of his happiness. There is a story 
 vouched for in an American hotel. An Englishman travel- 
 ling with his wife ordered two birds to be brought for their 
 supper. The waiter returned saying there was only one bird 
 left. The Englishman then asked, " What is my wife 
 going to have ? " 
 
 When he falls in love, however, and while he remains in 
 love, an Englishman is probably more generous to the object 
 of his affections than an American, and by all odds more 
 trusting. Two of my friends, for example, without introduc- 
 tions, have married from the Burlington Arcade ; one of them, 
 a smart young officer in the Grenadier Guards, had danced 
 and flirted his share, but trustfully accepted the version 
 of her life from a russet-haired lady who casually bid him 
 good day, as he was going to buy silk socks. He married her, 
 and of course subsequently he divorced her. An American 
 man would have been quizzical over her story, and even if in 
 love, he would certainly not have married her. The other 
 man, a sailor, had had even a wider experience with the fair
 
 A SHIPWRECK LEAVING MY FRIENDS 151 
 
 sex than the Guardsman, and he is both handsome and 
 charming and might have married almost anybody but a 
 pretty, black eyed little foreigner eating bonbons said as he 
 passed, " Will you have a sweet ? " And he said, " Yes," 
 and married her. He is divorced also. And ridiculous as 
 these marriages are, both these men are possessed of an 
 innate generosity and chivalry, or these women would have 
 been passing episodes. The frank indifference, the good 
 looks and the manliness of the average Englishman are 
 valuable weapons for arousing the interest of an American 
 woman, but there are very few successful international 
 marriages, English or European. An American woman's best 
 chance of happiness is with one of her own countrymen. In 
 many things their point of view and opinions must be the 
 same, while with different nationalities the situation is 
 pithily summed up by Graham Robertson in " Pinkie and the 
 Fairies," when Elf Pickle is discoursing his wise philosophy. 
 Elf Pickle : " Point of view, you know. You see me and say, 
 ' That's fairy Pickle of course.' Gregory stares me in the 
 face and says, ' Of course that isn't Fairy Pickle, that's a 
 grasshopper.' ' It's just point of view. And that is where all 
 the unhappiness and misery steps in. How can two people 
 be happy when, looking at the same object, one sees a fairy 
 and the other a grasshopper ? For example, an American 
 woman who has been brought up to regard divorce from an 
 enlightened point of view marries and goes to Italy to live, 
 where divorce is non-existent. Her Marquis can leave her 
 temporarily and flaunt the most celebrated cosmopolitan 
 beauty in her face, and she is helpless. Her independent 
 soul, and her younger and more courageous civilization, are 
 defied and set at nought. And even in England the divorce 
 law, as it exists now, is an insult to all womanhood. The 
 man divorces his wife for unfaithfulness ; the wife must have 
 combined unfaithfulness and cruelty and moral cruelty is 
 physical cruelty, because it leads to nervous prostration and 
 illnessess of divers sorts, to be borne by the woman whose 
 husband is unfaithful and not only unfaithful, but gener- 
 ally unjust, and unkind, at the same time. Men are more
 
 i 5 2 I MYSELF 
 
 simple and unsuspicious than women. A clever adventuress 
 can play upon a man as upon a responsive instrument. 
 When the wife is honest and the adventuress dishonest, the 
 wife must inevitably go to the wall and get the worst of it, 
 and yet she has no redress unless her husband strikes her. 
 She is bound hand and foot, not only to him but to her 
 enemy, the third partner in the concern. Much immorality 
 would cease if the divorce law of England was amended 
 and made equal between the sexes. Now, a wife is not nearly 
 so well protected as an ordinary partner in an ordinary 
 business. There, at least, taking in a third partner, without 
 the consent of the other two, would dissolve the firm. But 
 in marriage this rank and hideous injustice is done every 
 day, and the law of an old and intelligent country allows it. 
 Certainly women in England are right in clamouring for a 
 vote. Many injustices are crying to them for reformation. 
 Lady Aberdeen, that large-minded, noble and admirable 
 woman, who is so deeply concerned over the advancement of 
 her sex, will assuredly have done much good at the Universal 
 Congress for Women held recently in Canada, one of the sub- 
 jects for discussion being the advisability of a woman keeping 
 her own nationality after marriage. It is a monstrous thing 
 that a woman should lose her country as well as her name 
 on her marriage. These questions had not occupied me so 
 deeply in America, although I became a Suffragist as soon as 
 I began to work for my living. When fifteen pounds a month 
 was paid me, for exactly the same amount of work for which 
 a man received twenty-five this obvious and practical 
 injustice instantly converted me to Woman's Suffrage. A 
 Republican form of government is the best, but even we have 
 many laws for women which need amendment. And the 
 women have already begun to work to amend them. ;
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 I GET MARRIED 
 
 AFTER all, we in America are a young and un- 
 disciplined country, but we can take the very 
 worst elements from older civilizations and in a 
 few months turn them into creditable law-abiding citizens, 
 ready to shoulder a musket in defence of their country. Can 
 any other nation do as much ? We do it by optimism. We 
 create an atmosphere of self-respect, equality and hope, 
 where the hopeless become self-respecting, and the down- 
 trodden find equality. Give a man back his self-respect, 
 and his reformation has begun. 
 
 I gave up a great deal when I gave up my country, for I 
 love it. I love its boisterous youth and its progress and its 
 great possibilities. But I believed in T. P. and in Home 
 Rule, and I had been brought up by my father to love 
 England and the English, and I felt I should be happy in 
 England and so one lovely May day, with a crowd of 
 friends to see me off, my little son and I stood on the deck 
 of a White Star steamer, and long before the land faded 
 away, my blinding tears had hidden it from my sight. It 
 was a happy voyage ; three old friends were on board, the 
 weather was lovely, and T. P. met us at Queenstown. He 
 paid small attention in those days to his appearance, and I 
 remember thinking how quickly I should change the cut of 
 his trousers and the cut of his hair. Toodie (who was then 
 ten years old) and I had many long talks about my 
 getting married. He had a friend in New York whom 
 he preferred as a stepfather. He said, " He has given 
 me rabbits and dogs, and anyhow, if he hadn't, I would
 
 i 5 4 I MYSELF 
 
 love him, and I do love him. Why don't you marry 
 him ? " 
 
 I said, " Well, you see he plays cards all night long, and 
 we would be so tired sitting up until the morning waiting 
 for him to come home." 
 
 " But," said Toodie, " if we both try can't we keep him 
 in nights ? " 
 
 I said it would be perfectly impossible, and then the tears 
 rolled down his cheeks and he said regretfully, " Well, I wish 
 you hadn't let me get so attached to him." 
 
 Then I told him how good T. P. was, how truthful and 
 honourable, what a good example he would be, and that he 
 was very, very kind, and loved children, but I said, " If you 
 don't like him I wouldn't think of marrying him. You and 
 I are quite alone in the world I, the only mother, and you 
 the only son and somebody must give his consent to my 
 getting married, and nothing must ever come between us 
 or separate us, so if you don't like T. P. say so, and back we 
 go to America." 
 
 He was a most deliberate and thoughtful child, and said 
 he would get to know T. P. and think it over. Every day 
 I said, " Now mind, nothing will induce me to marry T. P. 
 unless you give your consent and unless you like him." 
 
 After thinking it over he said he did, and added, " He 
 must be a gentleman, because," he said quite seriously, " all 
 the O'Connors are the descendants of Kings Pie is a born 
 Imperialist] and Kings are always the first gentlemen." 
 After having freely given his consent he refused, however, to 
 go to the wedding. He said, " I do give my consent, and 
 I'm sure we will be happy with him, but somehow," and the 
 tears came in his eyes, " I don't want to see you married. 
 Now run along and get married, and come back and tell me 
 so, and I'll wait here in the flat for you." 
 
 I turned obediently to do his bidding and he called me 
 back and pinned a rose on my dress and said, " I want to 
 love you a minute, God bless you " and after a long 
 squeeze T. P. and I and his sister went off to a quiet little 
 church in Horseferry Road, and we were married. Dear
 
 I GET MARRIED 155 
 
 Justin M'Carthy gave me away, a few friends wished us luck, 
 and then we went back to the flat and to Toodie and began 
 housekeeping. T. P. who at the last minute was writing an 
 article with the boy in his study waiting for copy, had 
 forgotten the wedding ring, so there was a slight wait while 
 Mary O'Connor rushed to the Stores to get it, and really 
 we have been rushing to the Stores for forgotten things ever 
 since. Toodie had decorated the flat in our absence, and 
 was very tactful on our return. 
 
 And now London was to be my home. The first three 
 months of our married life we lived in T. P.'s small flat in 
 Parliament Mansions, Victoria Street. How businesslike 
 it looks now, but twenty-five years ago it was occupied as 
 residential apartments. There was one large living room, 
 a library for T. P., and four or five bedrooms. Mary O'Connor 
 (now Mrs William O'Malley) T. P.'s youngest sister, formed 
 part of the household. She was a very amiable, attractive 
 girl, with the traditional Irish eyes, bright blue with black 
 eyebrows and lashes, a charming quality of voice, and an 
 ever present touch of persuasiveness in the full-flavoured 
 Irish brogue. She had the proud distinction of having been 
 in prison during the Land League struggles, and she had 
 behaved with great determination and valour so she was 
 quite a heroine among the Irish. No one ever possessed a 
 sweeter or more unselfish nature than hers, or had a brighter 
 or more hopeful outlook on life. Among the blackest clouds 
 the silver lining always peeped forth for her, and she has made 
 life happier for all who have come into contact with her. 
 
 The flat was too small for us, and we moved in September 
 to 38 Grosvenor Road, a house on the river Thames. What 
 a constant interest the river was ! It was a pretty little 
 house my first home in six years and I loved it, and took 
 root at once. My household gods and books were sent 
 from America among them some really valuable colonial 
 furniture, and silver that had been made in Virginia, quite 
 simple, but heavy and everlasting (now, alas, gone by the 
 nimble hand of the burglar !). 
 
 Feeling was still running high against Home Rule, and
 
 156 I MYSELF 
 
 these big cases arriving from New York addressed to Mrs 
 T. P. O'Connor contained, the authorities conjectured, 
 what ? Especially as some imaginative woman in Belfast 
 had started the rumour that in America I was the leader of a 
 Fenian band I who scarcely numbered an Irishman among 
 my acquaintance ! So long iron spikes were run cautiously 
 through the boxes to see, I suppose, if they contained 
 dynamite or infernal machines and the face of " The Madre 
 Isabella Philomena Mehea Iturbede " was seriously injured. 
 This picture was a portrait given to me by a friend who had 
 lived in Mexico and done some service to the then President 
 of the Republic, for which he had been rewarded by a copy 
 of the original portrait of this celebrated nun. She was 
 the founder of an order, and was so talented that she was 
 known as the Tenth Muse being a poet, a musician, a 
 linguist, a diplomatist and a wonderful business woman. 
 She died leaving the order rich in Convents and leagues of 
 land. The portrait had been presented to me as a con- 
 ventionalized likeness of myself. It was as I should have 
 been if Nature had been more kind. How I wept when I 
 saw the hole in Donna Isabella's cheek ! But a clever 
 restorer made it as good as new, only there was the bill to 
 pay, and we were dreadfully poor in those days. Every 
 shilling had to be counted. We had only one servant, and 
 I swept and dusted, and made beds, and cleaned silver, and 
 made salads (I am not a cook) , and hunted up a small dress- 
 maker who went out to work by the day, and all our dresses 
 were made in the house. (Neither am I a dressmaker !) 
 They were not conspicuous successes, but we wore them, 
 Mary and I, with happy hearts, for we were young and full 
 of hope, and poverty, with the management of a small 
 income, is a very engrossing occupation. The house looked 
 quite pretty when finished, although it was decidedly 
 original and somewhat incongruous. The drawing room 
 curtains in their day cost five hundred dollars, and had 
 draped immense windows in America. In our small house 
 they looked decidedly relics of departed grandeur, but we 
 came very near not having them at all. In the innocence
 
 I GET MARRIED 157 
 
 of my heart and ignorance of London prices I sent them to 
 Pullar's to be cleaned, and they were returned with a bill 
 of five pounds to be collected on delivery ! The house 
 and everyone in it was guiltless of five pounds. So the man 
 took them away, and I wrote and formally presented them to 
 Pullar's Dye Works. They refused my present, preferring 
 the five pounds, and then ensued a lively correspondence, 
 in which I blithely persisted in my generosity, and in which 
 Pullar visibly weakened, until at last the curtains reappeared 
 with a quite collapsed bill. When the man brought them he 
 asked the " general " if he could deliver them in person, as 
 he wanted to see the only customer for whom the firm had 
 reduced a bill in his recollection. It was an encouragement 
 for me to go on in well-doing, and I have never forgotten it. 
 The drawing-room carpet, I remember, was a great 
 problem. I didn't want a Brussels carpet, and I could not 
 afford an Axminster, and my tidy soul revolted at felt, so 
 what was to be done ? Luckily, Henry Norman came in 
 to tea (now Sir Henry Norman, and somewhat grave, with 
 his hair thinning on the top). He was such a nice boy then, 
 fresh from an American College, and just settled in rooms 
 at the Temple ; he had been furnishing himself, and he was 
 interested in every possible question of life. I never saw 
 such an eager mind. So I confided to him the crux of the 
 carpet and we went upstairs and he looked at the room and 
 said he knew the exact thing, and he gave me the name and 
 the shop and said, " Mind you get a wine colour for the 
 curtains." The colour was to make up for lack of quality, 
 and I did, and this finished off the room. I've forgotten 
 the name of the carpet, but I saw some of it not long ago, and 
 it did not strike me as very pretty. I fear I have outgrown 
 it, but I have not outgrown Sir Henry : that is some consola- 
 tion. Only I see him too rarely to profit by his great know- 
 ledge on an infinite variety of subjects, which when he attacks 
 them in the different magazines are always so delightfully 
 and lucidly dealt with. When the little house was finished, 
 it was fresh and pleasant, and became very dear to me, 
 though the taste of its furnishing was by no means faultless.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE UNPOPULARITY OF IRISH POLITICS 
 
 WHEN I was first married and came to England, 
 twenty-five years ago, Irish politics were neither 
 popular nor fashionable, and, with the exception of 
 Justin M'Carthy, who had been in constant demand at 
 every great house in London, as a charming and delightful 
 conversationalist and famous literary man, there was 
 scarcely a Nationalist who had entered an English house. 
 Therefore it was a question whether, as the wife of an Irish 
 Member, I would be received by English people or not. 
 
 Justin M'Carthy was a very old friend of Lady St Helier 
 (who at that time was Mrs Jeune) and spoke of me in kindly 
 fashion to her, and she left cards and sent an invitation to 
 an " At Home " immediately afterwards. In those days 
 Lady St Helier had perhaps the best known salon in London. 
 She had the courage of her convictions, and asked whom she 
 pleased to her house and even the great personages, who 
 perhaps in private life would have held themselves apart 
 from some of the gay Bohemians assembled there, were at 
 least pleased and amused to see them. 
 
 I was fresh from America at this time, and as we wore 
 decoUet&e gowns only at balls and on ceremonious occasions, I 
 must have looked very modest and provincial and not at all 
 fashionable but in the enjoyment of the evening I quite 
 forgot my disadvantage. My dress had been fashioned by 
 most loving hands in America an Irish dressmaker, Mary 
 Johnson, who had taken great pains with it. The material 
 was a heavy ribbed white silk made with a modest square 
 neck. The silk was cut out in points and softened by a little 
 158
 
 THE UNPOPULARITY OF IRISH POLITICS 159 
 
 tulle ruffle the sleeves were long, plain, very tight, and 
 finished in the same way the skirt was perfectly plain, cut 
 out in points at the bottom, and a little frill underneath. 
 There was scarcely any train, and it had a narrow sash tied 
 at one side. I wore no jewellery (I had none at the time) and 
 carried no flowers, so I must have presented a very simple 
 effect in the midst of lovely dresses trimmed with lace and 
 many magnificent jewels ; but to be under-dressed is a thing 
 that has never troubled me. It has occurred to me so often 
 in my life that I suppose I have grown accustomed to it. 
 At any rate the evening was a delightful one, and Justin 
 M'Carthy and his daughter Charlotte were very kind in intro- 
 ducing me to various well-known people. 
 
 Miss M'Carthy was a very pretty girl, and I remember her 
 dress quite well, as it was rather an original one for a blonde 
 to have chosen. She had very white skin and amber- 
 coloured wavy hair. With this she wore white satin covered 
 with white lace and looped up here and there with amber 
 velvet bows. I thought I had never seen a prettier being. 
 
 One of the people to whom she introduced me was, I 
 remember, Oscar Wilde, and he began at once the most 
 brilliant talk about America and American women. He 
 said he had seen many very pretty dainty complete and 
 charming women in America, but never one of magnificent 
 Goddess of Liberty proportions, and he thought that, new 
 as the country was, we should dethrone the Goddess of 
 Liberty and have a French Marquise in her place, as being 
 more representative of the country. 
 
 I was then quite new to the carelessness of English etiquette, 
 and I insisted on Mr Wilde's taking me to have a few words 
 of conversation with my host, as in America we were par- 
 ticular to pay special attention to our host and hostess. 
 Mr Wilde assured me laughingly that Mr Jeune did not know 
 I was there, and I replied, " Quite true ; I don't suppose he 
 knows that I am here, but I know that he is there." Where- 
 upon Mr Wilde said my vernacular proclaimed me Irish. 
 I told him, however, that I had no Irish blood, but was of 
 French extraction, and he said that was the next best thing.
 
 160 I MYSELF 
 
 He then presented me to Mr Jeune, who looked rather bored 
 and somewhat sleepy, but very, very kind and when I told 
 him I was the daughter of an American Judge he asked my 
 father's name. I said, " Paschal," and he knew of " Pas- 
 chal's Annotated Constitution of the United States." I 
 afterwards brought him a copy from America and received 
 such an appreciative letter of thanks. 
 
 The evening was most agreeable and friendly, and I took 
 an enormous fancy to Mrs Jeune but in all that large crowd 
 the person who aroused genuine tenderness in my heart and 
 a desire to know him better was Mr Jeune, because he had 
 spoken of my father. It gave me a feeling of real happiness 
 to find that in England his dear name was not unknown. 
 
 Soon after Mrs Jeune's party Charlotte M'Carthy brought 
 Mrs Labouchere to see me. A little boudoir which I had 
 tried to furnish in the Japanese style was just finished, and 
 they were shown in there. The one servant brought in tea, 
 which Charlotte poured out and we began to talk, and in 
 spite of her severe scrutiny I felt that Mrs Labouchere and I 
 should be friends : as the fortune tellers say, " she would 
 cross my path." Her eyes of grey-blue were quite steady in 
 their gaze, and she seemed to be looking through and beyond 
 me. Her manner was very quiet and reserved, but she asked 
 us to spend the following Sunday at Twickenham. This de- 
 lighted me. I had never been on the river, and Pope's Villa 
 with its carved hah 1 and its grotto in which Pope wrote his 
 " Universal Prayer " was historic, that prayer that has 
 contained some crumb of comfort for every distressed soul 
 these two verses alone would make him immortal : 
 
 Teach me to feel another's woe, 
 
 To hide the fault I see ; 
 That mercy I to others show, 
 
 That mercy show to me. 
 
 Mean though I am, not wholly so 
 
 Since quickened by thy breath ; 
 Oh, lead me whereso'er I go, 
 
 Through this day's life or death.
 
 THE UNPOPULARITY OF IRISH POLITICS 161 
 
 In those days Mrs Labouchere was a noted hostess, getting 
 just the right people together, very gay, bright and witty, 
 and full of humour herself, and Mr Labouchere was always 
 sparkling and scintillating, so whoever was asked to her 
 house went quite sure of being amused and having, in 
 Americanese, " a good time." The guests arrived at Twicken- 
 ham about twelve or one o'clock, sat on the lawn until lunch 
 was served, returned to the lawn for coffee, went through the 
 grotto to the other side of the garden for tea, roamed around, 
 smoked, told stories Mr Labouchere always with a laughing 
 circle around him and before dinner we went into the 
 house to brush up, morning dress being always the rule, for the 
 convenience of the guests. Then dinner, and later a drive 
 by moonlight or starlight to London. How many, many 
 happy, interested, amused hours I owe to Pope's Villa ! 
 Last year when I was staying at York House, the Ratan 
 Tata's historic place, I walked over to the now empty 
 house it seemed to echo with absent voices, and I wandered 
 sadly over the charming garden, so full of memories. " Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream " and " The Tempest " were both 
 given there with great beauty and success but that was 
 long after my first day on the river. 
 
 There was a most interesting party of people for our first 
 dinner. Mr and Mrs Maxwell (Miss Braddon), the authoress 
 of " Lady Audley's Secret," which I thought and still think 
 the best novel of the kind ever written. Mrs Maxwell was 
 a tall, dignified woman, dressed in black and white, her face 
 wore a very kind expression, and she was as modest and as 
 feminine as a woman who had done nothing. I remember 
 we spoke of Mrs Labouchere, and she said she was a woman 
 of imagination and an excellent critic. There were some 
 straw chairs on the balcony that I admired very much, and 
 Mr Maxwell undertook to send me one, and I thought of 
 course he would forget, but later on he wrote to say he 
 regretted very much but the last chair that I wanted had 
 been sold. 
 
 At twilight Mrs Labouchere and I went upstairs to see 
 Dora, now the Marquesa di Rudini. She was two years old 
 ii
 
 162 I MYSELF 
 
 and was having her bath, and, as the darkies say, she was a 
 lump of sweetness, very fat and solid, quite unabashed and 
 unafraid, with her father's dark eyes and mischievous 
 glances. I begged one or two nice wet soapy kisses, which 
 she gave me quite willingly, and we left her with a plump 
 india-rubber doll-baby exactly her own shape to finish her 
 bath. 
 
 Beerbohm Tree and his wife were also there. She wore a 
 picture gown of cream lace and a Gainsborough hat, and he 
 was most agreeable and likable. He took me into dinner, and 
 I sat next Mr Labouchere, who rather damped my poetic 
 enthusiasm about Pope's Villa. The poet had certainly 
 built a villa on that site, but it had been destroyed, and a 
 worthy Swiss had evidently designed and built the present 
 one. This did not prevent the servants from showing, when 
 the family was absent, the bedroom as the room where the 
 poet died, to sightseers, and from reaping considerable benefit 
 from their obligingness. When Pope built the grotto he had 
 been sent by his admirers from all parts of the world bits of 
 malachite, chrysophrase, bloodstone, onyx, sardonyx, the 
 matrix of opal, and turquoise, and many semi-precious 
 stones, with which he adorned the grotto. There were only 
 two left : the remainder Mr Labouchere said had been plucked 
 by the enterprizing tourist the American probably, as he 
 has a practical, acquisitive mind. 
 
 The happy day was at last ended, and having no carriage 
 we went home in the train. This was the beginning of my 
 friendship with the Laboucheres which was to form so large 
 a part of my life in London. 
 
 They were then living in Queen Anne's Gate, a delightful 
 old house looking on to St James's Park. We celebrated our 
 first Christmas dinner with them. Among the guests were 
 Whistler, Frank Miles, and George Augustus Sala. After 
 dinner we played like so many children, and Whistler said 
 that mistletoe was made for brides, and I was carried under 
 a big bunch of mistletoe and told to be a good little girl and 
 kiss everybody good night. I refused to obey, and nobody 
 dared to kiss me except Whistler, and some absurd punish-
 
 THE UNPOPULARITY OF IRISH POLITICS 163 
 
 ment was devised for me by the others, and the party did not 
 break up until one o'clock. That was twenty-five years ago, 
 please remember ! 
 
 Frank Miles was very handsome and agreeable, and 
 a better gardener than artist. He gave Mrs Langtry 
 the pretty name of the Jersey Lily, on account of the 
 way her head drooped like a flower on its stem. His 
 father had a fine garden, and he used often to go in the 
 country just for the sake of digging and planting, and was 
 always kind in sending me charming country nosegays. He 
 was also a friend of the M'Carthys and I sometimes met him 
 there. At this time they had a house in Ebury Street. 
 Justin said it was a very nice little house, but there was no 
 furniture in it. They went in one dark evening, and saw a 
 pretty comfortable room, and were satisfied with this, and 
 confidingly engaged the house, but when they came to live 
 in it all the furniture had been moved for that one occasion 
 into that one room.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 MY MYTHICAL REPUTATION 
 
 " I was a princess once, and my talents were everywhere sung of. 
 I was indebted for my popularity not only to beauty but to whit. 
 Ah ! where is the destined prince that is to come to liberate and 
 to whoo ? " THACKERAY 
 
 JUSTIN M'CARTHY was one of the most delightful con- 
 versationalists I have ever known a perfect encyclo- 
 paedia of information ; a wonderful memory, with any 
 amount of prose and verse, stored away for immediate 
 application ; witty, gentle, and kind, he was universally 
 popular. Justin Huntly was handsome and scintillatingly 
 brilliant, and Charlotte was very pretty, and an excellent 
 hostess, one of her accomplishments being that of a carver. 
 She could deftly divide a partridge or a duck as well as the 
 most accomplished maitre d'hdtel. 
 
 Soon after we were married we had a few friends to dine 
 with us, among them a very conventional American. Char- 
 lotte at my request sat at the head of the table and carved, 
 and very cleverly she did it. The American went to Paris 
 and said it was a queer household, as Miss M'Carthy sat at 
 the head of the table and did the honours, but Mrs T. P. did 
 not seem to mind. If he had but known, he was lucky to 
 have his neat morsel of chicken cut by such capable hands, 
 for carving is not one of my accomplishments, nor is it T. P.'s. 
 
 The M'Carthys' household was a delightful one. They 
 were all humourists and determined to take life as a huge 
 joke. Justin was very ill at one time, and when Mr Curzon 
 called, the stupid little parlour-maid went upstairs and said, 
 " Mr Crusoe would like to see you."
 
 MY MYTHICAL REPUTATION 165 
 
 " Would he ? " said Justin. " Ask him up. His father 
 was a very eminent mariner." 
 
 One day at lunch T. P. was complaining of his chronic 
 ill-health. Justin Huntly laughingly said, " T. P. you are a 
 remarkable speaker and a remarkable journalist, but above 
 and beyond all, a remarkable, indeed, a wonderful invalid 
 always very ill, but at the same time perfectly well, and 
 absolutely robust. I shall write an article and call it ' T. P. 
 the Invalid.' ' 
 
 At that period during a General Election T. P. could untir- 
 ingly make seven and eight speeches a day, and often did, 
 and two or three in one night, keeping up the pressure for six 
 weeks, and being perfectly fresh at the end of the time. 
 Indeed his health would improve after continual activity 
 and work that would have worn out another and a differ- 
 ently constituted man. 
 
 Not long after we moved to Grosvenor Road there was a 
 General Election, and T. P. was away speaking all over the 
 country. His speeches were highly commended and com- 
 plimented, and he arrived at home one night expecting more 
 praise, when almost my first words were, " I've made an 
 awful mistake in the blue wall-paper, its much too dark and 
 eats up all the light. You see London is so gloomy, so different 
 from America, I did not realize that when I chose it." 
 
 " Really," T. P. said, much irritated, " and not one word 
 about my speeches. Have you read them ? " 
 
 " Not all of them," I answered, " and the dado is the worst 
 part it's much darker than the rest." 
 
 " What is a dado ? " said T. P. " And this is the interest 
 you take in my career ! " 
 
 Just then came the postman's knock, the mail was brought 
 in, and on opening an American paper, the first thing that 
 caught my eye was an article saying there were three women 
 in England who were intelligent politicians. The Baroness 
 Burdett-Coutts, Lady Randolph Churchill, and Mrs T. P. 
 O'Connor that Mr O'Connor was not ashamed to acknow- 
 ledge how much of his success he owed to his wife, who had 
 indeed been of great assistance to him, in planning his present
 
 166 I MYSELF 
 
 brilliant election tour. I handed the paper to T. P. and said, 
 " You see I am made a politician whether I am one or not : 
 the American papers always praise their absent womenkind." 
 
 T. P. read the article with rather a grim smile, and said, 
 " This fellow does not know your interest in dadoes. The 
 American papers will say next that you wrote ' The Parnell 
 Movement.' ' 
 
 There is nothing indeed in life that has amused me more 
 than my own reputation. It is a thing I have stood so apart 
 and away from, and it is so utterly unlike the real, less 
 interesting me. An Irish woman said to me once " Do you 
 write ' M. A. P.' ? " 
 
 I thought I had not heard her aright, and replied, " You 
 mean do I write in ' M. A. P.' ' 
 
 " No," she said, " do you write the paper ? " 
 
 I asked, " Do you mean from cover to cover ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I heard that you did." 
 
 " Oh," I said, " this is very interesting. Tell me what 
 else you have heard about me." 
 
 She hesitated a moment and said, " Well I did hear that 
 you wrote Mr O'Connor's political speeches." 
 
 " Well," I said, " I don't, but I'll tell you a secret I did 
 write all of Mr Gladstone's." 
 
 The lady had, although an Irishwoman, only a small sense 
 of humour, and I left her looking rather bewildered. 
 
 Another friend travelling in Ireland was told that it was 
 I who put the dynamite in the House of Commons, and that 
 before I married Mr O'Connor I was in America the leader 
 of a Fenian band. I have never known a Fenian band (I 
 hope they are more in harmony than a German band, but 
 doubt it) and I don't believe if I had they would have 
 allowed me to lead them. I am not a good leader. I tried 
 very hard to lead a small dog once, but it ended in his leading 
 me, and in my most vaulting ambition I should not dream 
 of leading even one tame Irishman, much less a dozen, and 
 that dozen Fenians. I have never seen any dynamite, but 
 I loathe both powder and temper explosions. They are 
 very unnerving. A pretty house, birds, flowers, music,
 
 MY MYTHICAL REPUTATION 167 
 
 books, and a circle of understanding friends, are more in my 
 line than Fenians and dynamite ; they are less exciting it is 
 true, but I want only peace and quiet, not noise or glory. 
 Henry James speaks in one of his inimitable stories of a man 
 who had the charm of being always at home. Well, I had 
 another charm, that of being even from the beginning of 
 my married life almost always alone. T. P. was a congenital 
 bachelor, he loved men, and clubs, and political meetings, 
 and speeches, and public dinners, and dining in the House 
 of Commons, and long conferences with his confreres. The 
 consequence was, as I once laughingly said to a friend, " I 
 rarely see T. P., with all that he has to do, but when I do 
 meet him out at dinner I still find him an agreeable man." 
 
 My cook, when I engaged her an Irishwoman, and an 
 original had given me a Roland for an Oliver. After asking 
 her various questions about how long she had been in her 
 last place, her capabilities, etc., I said, " And now, cook, in 
 the light of recent painful events, I must ask you a very 
 direct question : Do you drink ? " 
 
 " No, Madam," she answered, " and I may say as I am 
 looking for a place where the lady don't, as I've been very 
 unlucky in my last places." 
 
 We then exchanged characters for sobriety, and she came 
 to me the next day. She had been in the house three or 
 four months when one morning at nine o'clock she informed 
 me that a gentleman wanted to see me. 
 
 I said, " Isn't it rather early for a gentleman to call ? 
 Who is he ? " 
 
 " I don't know, ma'am," she said, " I never saw him 
 before." 
 
 " Where is he now ? " I asked. 
 
 " Using the telephone," she answered. 
 
 " What impudence ! " I said, and when I put on my 
 most becoming peignoir and went downstairs it was T. P. ! 
 Emerson, that gentle and comforting philosopher, says there 
 is a law of compensation in everything. Maybe so. At any 
 rate, when a woman marries a man who is in the strictest sense 
 of the word a public man, giving his time, his geniality, his
 
 168 I MYSELF 
 
 energy, and his life, to the multitude, he inevitably becomes 
 absorbed in outside interests, and his wife's compensation 
 for loneliness must be pride in his reputation and his popu- 
 larity. And of course she shines in reflected glory, and that, 
 although not quite so glorious as her own glory, is a thousand 
 times better than not shining at all. And there is another 
 and not a poor compensation for having her time at her 
 own disposal the opportunity of forming close and devoted 
 friendships. Mrs Labouchere once said to me that I was better 
 off than most women, for I had two homes, hers and mine. 
 And what could be pleasanter than a home where another 
 woman has all the worry and responsibility and you have 
 only the pleasure and amusement ? And I adored Dora, 
 who was a most quaint and attractive little child when she 
 was only four, dancing prettily and reciting with great 
 brilliancy " Where are you going to, my pretty maid ? " hold- 
 ing up her skirts coquettishly, "I'm going a-milking, sir, she 
 said." And a little later, what an Ariel she made when Mrs 
 Labouchere gave " The Tempest " in the garden of Pope's 
 Villa ! with her round little face, and her infantile grace, her 
 diaphanous garments and her wings she looked an elfin 
 thing just ready to fly away. Dora has fulfilled her promise 
 of childish beauty, and is now as the Marquesa di Rudini 
 one of the acknowledged loveliest women in Rome. 
 
 Naturally my first meeting with the Baroness Burdett- 
 Coutts made a lasting impression on my mind. It was one 
 afternoon in the height of the London season at Lady Jeune's. 
 
 There was only a very small gathering : Mrs Jopling Rowe, 
 brilliant, charming, and more beautiful than her celebrated 
 portrait by Millais, Lewis Morris the poet, Thomas Hardy, 
 that most gifted and most modest author, who had not yet 
 written " Tess of the D'Urbervilles," De Lara, and the 
 Baroness, who was dressed in a charmingly old-fashioned 
 manner. Her gown of deep purple silk was made with a 
 rather full skirt, and a simple bodice belted in with the same 
 material. There were lace ruffles at the neck and sleeves, 
 and she wore a small black cape of embroidery and lace, and 
 a close black bonnet trimmed in violets. Her ear-rings of
 
 diamonds were long, and she carried a small silk bag of 
 netted purple silk neither long earrings nor handbags were 
 worn at that period. 
 
 Lady Jeune presented me, and the Baroness was exceed- 
 ingly gracious, asked where I lived, carefully wrote down the 
 number, and said she would call to see me. De Lara at that 
 moment was the most popular tenor in London. Knowing 
 the Baroness's fondness for music, Lady Jeune asked him to 
 sing, and he gave this poem of Owen Meredith's, set to his 
 own characteristic music : 
 
 " As the one star that's left in the morning 
 
 Is more noticed than all night's host, 
 As the late lone rose of October 
 
 For its rareness regarded the most, 
 As the least of the leaves of December 
 
 That is loved as the last on the tree, 
 So sweetest of all to remember 
 
 Is thy love's latest promise to me. 
 
 For to love it is hard, and 'tis harder, 
 
 Perchance, to be loved again, 
 But if living be not loving 
 
 Then living is not all in vain. 
 To the tears I have shed and regret not 
 
 What matters a few more tears ? 
 Why should love, that is present for ever, 
 
 Be afraid of the absence of years ? 
 
 When the snow's at the door and the ember 
 
 Is dim, and I far o'er the sea, 
 Remember, beloved, remember 
 
 That my love's latest trust was in thee." 
 
 He sang magnificently, with great passion and expression, 
 and both Lady Jeune and the Baroness went to the piano and 
 thanked him warmly. I daresay now that he composes 
 grand opera De Lara looks superciliously on the tuneful 
 music of his youth, but it was very charming nevertheless. 
 He was a most amiable man, and after hearing me sing a
 
 170 I MYSELF 
 
 little coon song, offered to cultivate my voice, but somehow, 
 like so much else in my life, the opportunity slipped by and 
 came to nothing. 
 
 With a good many visitors, the door bell to answer, and 
 continual errands for T. P., one servant proved terribly 
 inconvenient, and it was necessary to get a Buttons to open 
 the door, clean the boots, and make himself generally useful. 
 Knowing the unregenerateness of the genus boy, I deter- 
 mined on a nice religious one, brought up by the Christian 
 Brothers. William was his name. He was represented as 
 all I desired, good, quiet, conscientious, obedient, and no 
 relatives. So the treasure came. He was a hopelessly 
 dirty boy. The first thing he did was to make a black 
 streak on the blue wall-paper from the top to the bottom 
 of the stairs. His face was continually like the face of a 
 sweep with coal dust, he broke every particle of china that 
 he touched, and he had an instinctive aversion to opening 
 the door. One afternoon I was busy, with my sleeves rolled 
 up, arranging a cupboard, when I heard the door bell ring 
 several times. Then I called " William," and after an 
 interval the door was finally opened, and William appeared 
 in my room with a navy blue face from grime and dust, and 
 said sulkily, " There's an ould woman downstairs." 
 
 " Where is she ? " I asked. 
 
 " On the mat," said William, and only when I had finished 
 the cupboard and pulled down my sleeves did I descend to 
 find the Baroness Burdett-Coutts standing in the hall ! 
 
 I explained that William's only recommendation was his 
 religion, that he had neither knowledge nor manners, and I 
 begged her forgiveness for his rudeness. She was most 
 amused, made anything but a ceremonious visit, and as she 
 was leaving for Highgate asked me to come to tea with 
 her there. 
 
 A few days after her visit my little son Toodie said to me, 
 " If I tell you something you won't tell anybody ? " I 
 promised, and he said, " William says he is not going to clean 
 his teeth with your tooth-brush any more it's so hard it 
 makes his gums bleed." And I fancy the brush had served
 
 MY MYTHICAL REPUTATION 171 
 
 more purposes than one, for I once found a round black 
 object in it, which on examination proved to be a bird seed. 
 So I returned William, accompanied by my tooth-brush, to 
 the Christian Brothers. And he had relations. One of 
 them, a most stylish, bedizened young lady, his sister, called 
 to ask why he had been dismissed. I afterwards met her in a 
 Turkish Bath, where the attendant told me she came after 
 her horseback rides in the park, as she was just learning to 
 ride and the lessons made her rather stiff. She said she 
 had lovely jewellery, and that a kind old gentleman friend 
 always called for her, after her bath, in a carriage. So 
 perhaps with her good fortune she educated her brother 
 William.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 MY FAITHFULLEST FRIEND MAX 
 
 " For never man had friend 
 More enduring to the end, 
 Truer mate in every turn of time and tide. 
 Could I think we'd meet again 
 It would lighten half my pain. . . ." 
 
 THERE are two things I remember about my visit to 
 the Baroness at Highgate. She gave me a sprig of 
 eucalyptus it grows vigorously in Texas, and the 
 aromatic odour was like a breath from home and I noticed 
 the portrait of a dog, a plebeian, with a stubby black 
 muzzle, soft, beautiful, had-been-sad, patient eyes, a square, 
 tenacious jaw, and an expensive collar. Of course he had a 
 history one saw it in his face. It seems in his youth he 
 travelled in a circus, his " stunt " being to pick up live coals 
 with his teeth. He grew quite an adept at this inhuman trick, 
 curling up his lips, keeping his tongue back and taking what 
 care he could, but with all that he was a scarred and hopeless 
 performer; when the Baroness, by paying a high price, 
 rescued him, won his everlasting gratitude and adoration, 
 and gave him the happiest of homes until his death. She 
 had a great love of animals, and it is to her that " Bobby " 
 owes his handsome bronze fountain, which he surmounts 
 with such alluring impudence in Edinburgh. " Bobby " was 
 the dog of a carrier and always sat by his master and minded 
 the cart when the parcels were being delivered. On a 
 freezing day the man caught a cold and died of pneumonia. 
 " Bobby " watched by the body, attended the funeral, and 
 made the grave his future home. The sexton and the carrier's
 
 MY FAITHFULLEST FRIEND MAX 173 
 
 friends fed him, and there he remained in the churchyard for 
 several years until he died and I hope was buried by the side 
 of his master. In bronze he looks a perfect comedian, with his 
 turned-up, cock-sure little nose, his little paws turned out, 
 and his woolly coat of rough hair. He evidently had a sense 
 of humour, but, like many comedians and humorists, his heart 
 became a tragedy of faithful grief. How well he deserves a 
 statue this unselfish, self-sacrificing, long-suffering, best 
 friend of man ! 
 
 In the autumn Toodie was being sent to school to Old 
 Hall, Ware, and just before he left home, he and T. P. went 
 out together to select a new suit for school. We were still 
 very poor, and the clothes would take about all the money 
 T. P. had in his pocket. I cautioned him to buy a service- 
 able tweed of a dark colour, and off they started. This was 
 in the morning. Towards dusk, I heard an excitement 
 downstairs and Toodie's voice saying, " Wait, I'll get milk 
 for him." And when I went down a very noble collie looked 
 up pathetically in my face, and wagged his tail. He had 
 been bought at the dogs' home with the money for Toodie's 
 clothes. They had also lunched out, and brought back a 
 liberal selection of chocolates and a dog whip, which that wise 
 and sweet creature Max Gladstone O'Connor never needed. 
 We named him for Max (Toodie's friend in America), and for 
 Mr Gladstone because his eyes were so Gladstonian ; his 
 mobile eyebrows black, on a tan ground, were like Sir Henry 
 Irving's. For the most part his eyes were limpid and 
 beautiful, but they could be both eager and fierce. Mr 
 Parnell said he had a strain of Gordon Setter, as his nose was 
 too blunt for a pure collie. After he had been with us a few 
 days, he gravely shook hands with me, and that sealed our 
 everlasting friendship. He loved T. P. and Toodie, but I 
 always remained first in his affections, and he knew my mind, 
 grave or gay, as well as I did myself. He had been well 
 trained, was obedient, and had the reasoning powers of a 
 human being. His coat of black and tan was long and 
 silky, and his tail was like a great feather. How so remark- 
 able a friend had ever been abandoned it was impossible
 
 i 7 4 I MYSELF 
 
 to guess. Probably his owners were stopping only tempor- 
 arily in London, and when they lost him were obliged to 
 leave town at once. I spoke to him about his past life, 
 once or twice, but it was evidently such a sore subject that 
 I never mentioned it again. He very often went with T. P. 
 to the House of Commons and used to sit in the lobby 
 entrance in one of the tall-hooded leather chairs. On the 
 second reading of the Irish Bill, in the excitement of the 
 moment he was forgotten, and at three o'clock in the morning 
 the door bell rang, and there was a policeman with Max, 
 who had never moved from his seat. The late Dr Wallace 
 gave a dinner at the House, and Max was invited, and sat 
 at the right hand of the host : on the floor, it is true, but there 
 he was. Dr Wallace had a caustic tongue, and said, " Max 
 is the only four-footed member of the House of Commons, 
 but plenty of them have long ears." 
 
 Max would wait hours in front of shops. Once I was so 
 long that a policeman gathered him up and led him to a 
 police station. That he considered a great disgrace, and it 
 took him some time to recover his self-respect. He loved 
 cabs. When I said to the maid, " Call me a cab," he darted 
 downstairs, and the moment the cab arrived he jumped in. 
 By looking dreamily straight ahead he hoped to avoid my 
 eye, and if I said, " Max, you can't go," a sudden deafness 
 overtook him. In his younger, more observant days he 
 could follow any omnibus with me in it through the most 
 crowded part of London. If I walked too long, he took a 
 cab without consulting me, and I have often heard a cabby 
 good-humouredly ask him if he had his fare with him. Once 
 walking in Grosvenor Square I missed him, and found him 
 sitting smiling on the back seat of a satin-lined landaulette 
 drawn up in front of one of the great houses. The powdered, 
 cockaded, liveried coachman and footman were looking 
 amused, but had not made him unwelcome, and I had the 
 greatest difficulty in persuading him to descend. He dis- 
 liked all dogs, and never spoke to one if he could avoid it. 
 When there was a bunch of dogs on the street he made a 
 wide circle around them, but if a dog was ill or in trouble that
 
 MY FAITHFULLEST FRIEND MAX 175 
 
 was a different matter. Then he considered it his Christian 
 duty to care for him. One cold, rainy night in the winter 
 we missed him. I called and called at the door, but he did not 
 come. The next morning about ten he arrived, drank a vast 
 quantity of water, but was too excited to eat, barked to go 
 out, and when I opened the front door off he rushed. I 
 followed him and found a very sick dog lying on the doorstep 
 of a near-by empty house. A policeman told me that Max 
 had been sitting by this dog all night, licking his face and 
 giving him what comfort he could. The policeman carried 
 the dog to the dogs' home, Max trotting at his heels ; then 
 Max came back and slept steadily for about fourteen hours. 
 
 His memory was extraordinary. He had been only once 
 to Queen Anne's Gate, to the Laboucheres, when one after- 
 noon Mrs Jopling was giving a musical party, and there I met 
 Mrs Labouchere. We left together, Max, who had been 
 waiting at the door, following behind. Mrs Labouchere 
 asked if I was dining alone ; I said yes, and she suggested 
 that I had better come home and dine with her. I said I 
 would, if she could stop a moment at my house on the way. 
 Soon after this Max disappeared. Three-quarters of an 
 hour afterwards when we arrived at her house, there was Max 
 waiting on the steps for us. Now, unless he understood the 
 conversation, why did he go there ? 
 
 When we went to " The Star " building to live, he, like 
 myself, loathed it. Boys were his particular antipathy, and 
 there were always newsboys about, and he detested noise and 
 commotion, loving quiet and order, so that that experience 
 was not a happy part of his life. The watchman used to be 
 relieved on Sunday, and then he went in the country to spend 
 the day at Brixton, taking Max with him. When he left 
 " The Star " and lived altogether at Brixton, every Sunday 
 morning for months Max spent that day with him, starting 
 off quite alone at seven o'clock in the morning, and coming 
 back about the same hour in the evening. 
 
 There were two of my friends he adored Cardinal Manning 
 and Monsieur Johannes Wolff, the gifted violinist. He used 
 very often to go quite alone to visit the Cardinal. We lived
 
 176 I MYSELF 
 
 a few doors from him after we left " The Star " building, and 
 he would wait until the door of the palace opened, walk 
 gravely up to his library, scratch at the door, go in, shake 
 hands with his Eminence, and lie down before the fire at his 
 feet. I remember going in one afternoon to see him, and the 
 Cardinal said, " One member of your family is already here," 
 and there was Max beaming upon me. The Cardinal added, 
 " If you ever want a home for Max, he will find one with 
 me." 
 
 For M. Wolff he reserved a special and individual atten- 
 tion that he gave to no one else, not even to me. M. Wolff 
 would say, " Max, show your teeth, smile at me, smile at me," 
 and Max curled back his mobile black upper lip, showing 
 every tooth in his head. How we used to laugh at that 
 wonderful smile of his ! M. Wolff always rewarded him 
 with loud and fulsome praise, and perfect as he was, he had 
 a little vanity. He lived until he was nearly fifteen, and was 
 thoughtful and wise to the very end of his perfectly blame- 
 less life. 
 
 When he was too deaf and his scent too faint for him to 
 follow me when I walked, he took three hours' exercise every 
 day alone two hours in the morning from ten until twelve 
 o'clock, and in the afternoon from three until four. I've 
 often met him going at a steady trot down the embankment, 
 or, if he felt in need of amusement, down the King's Road, 
 or the Fulham Road. 
 
 What a grief his death was, and still is ! He had suffered 
 greatly from gastritis, and his poor face looked troubled and 
 pained, but he smiled once very feebly, lifting his lip just a 
 little when M. Wolff came to see him. I cried then. And 
 they told me that he looked sweet and peaceful after he died, 
 like the dear old Max who had been my faithfullest friend and 
 closest companion for so many years. I could not bear to 
 look closely at him, but from a distance I saw them carry 
 him to the garden, and I called out, " Turn his face toward 
 my window, and make his grave where the morning sun will 
 shine upon it." And then tears hid the burying from my 
 sight.
 
 MY FAITHFULLEST FRIEND MAX 177 
 
 I intended to put a little stone at the head of his resting- 
 place in Chelsea with " To the Memory of Max, beautiful, 
 good and gifted," carved on it, but I never did, and it is just 
 as well, now that Oakley Lodge is in other hands than mine ; 
 and the epitaph is only in my heart, for I, who love all dogs, 
 know there never was, or could be one like him, so sensible, 
 so sweetly reasonable, so merciful, so wise, and so loving. 
 If I ever can, I shall do something handsome for the Dogs' 
 Home in the name of Max Gladstone O'Connor. 
 
 12
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 IN GERMANY DAILY LETTERS FROM T. P. 
 
 IN the spring of this year Lawson Tait ordered me off to 
 Kreuznach, Germany, for a long course of baths, as my 
 health was very delicate. T. P. went with me, and 
 Harold Frederic and his wife, who were going up the Rhine, 
 came along, so we made a party of four. It was the month 
 of June and Germany was as green as Ireland that year. 
 We stopped in Cologne, saw the Cathedral, which with its 
 wonderful architecture gives a great and impressive sense of 
 space, and in the afternoon went to the Cemetery and looked 
 for the grave of Judge Keogh, the Irish traitor, who is buried 
 there, which T. P. wished to see, but we never found it. 
 Harold Frederic at that time had written no novels these 
 came afterwards was a most interesting companion. He 
 was a man of great natural ability, having started in life 
 without any educational advantages whatever. He began 
 by being apprenticed on a farm, and used to boast that 
 he could milk a cow better than he could write an article. 
 He was even a better journalist than novelist ; his letters 
 from London to " The Times " were many of them of great 
 brilliancy. 
 
 He had made a study of the Irish question, had travelled 
 in the country, and was on intimate terms with a number 
 of the Irish members, and his articles at the time of the 
 division in the party were quoted all over America. He 
 said to me while we were sailing up the Rhine. " When I 
 was in America in March, I missed a train and had to stop 
 the night at a small country hotel, and the only thing for me 
 to read was a pile of old ' Harper's Weeklies ' " (he was a
 
 IN GERMANY DAILY LETTERS FROM T. P. 179 
 
 great reader, but acknowledged that he never could digest 
 George Meredith), " and in one of the papers I read a story of 
 yours. It was so bad how could a clever woman like you 
 do it ? " (He believed in scratches with cold cream after- 
 ward !) , ,, v i 
 
 I laughed. His candour was delightful. " Dear Mr 
 Frederic," I said, " I quite agree with you. I am neither a 
 literary woman, nor a story-teller, but I was poor, and had 
 to live. The editor of ' Harper's Weekly/ my good friend, 
 Mr Conant, accepted my stories, and after all they were not 
 worse than some of the others." 
 
 " Oh yes, they were," Mr Frederic said, " worse than any- 
 body's hopeless. I read two they were both equally 
 bad. Conant had no excuse for accepting them, he was 
 stretching friendship too far." 
 
 Mr Conant, who was for many years connected with the 
 Harpers, was deservedly a most popular man. Amiable, 
 cheerful, optimistic, clever and handsome, his end was an 
 unfathomable mystery. He put his hat on, left the office 
 for lunch, and no trace was ever heard of him again. 
 
 He sometimes invested in a lottery ticket, and through 
 this source Fortune curiously enough twice slipped through 
 his fingers. He and Mrs Conant were in Cuba at the time 
 of the Grand Havana Lottery. A friend in New York had 
 sent him a cheque asking him to invest the money in a 
 lottery ticket for him, and he bought it with his own. Before 
 posting it he said to his wife, " One of these may be the 
 prize winner I wonder which I had better send," and he 
 finally despatched No. 999 (the actual number I forget). 
 His friend promptly returned it, saying that times were hard 
 and if Mr Conant could conveniently dispose of the ticket 
 he would be grateful. Mr Conant then offered the ticket to 
 his wife, saying that Fate surely had something up her sleeve 
 in giving this particular number into his hands twice. Mrs 
 Conant, who was perfectly free from superstition, begged 
 that it might be sold, saying she would much prefer a new 
 dress. He did sell it, and the next day No. 999 drew the 
 Grand Prize of twenty thousand pounds ! This so im-
 
 i8o I MYSELF 
 
 pressed Mr Conant that he continued his investments in 
 lottery tickets, and once drew four hundred pounds. 
 
 T. P. always wrote me a daily letter the four summers 
 that I spent in Kreuznach. I have great numbers of them, 
 but select at haphazard only one or two. 
 
 " HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 " Monday. 
 
 " DEAREST BESS, I have only returned from Twickenham 
 and am hurrying down to the House being already very 
 late. I got two letters from you to-day. The first arrived 
 on Saturday night, after I had left, but I got Armstrong to 
 send it on to me so that I had it by post early in Twickenham 
 to-day. And then your second letter I found on my arrival 
 here. I am always so glad to get one of your letters. I think 
 you the prettiest letter-writer I ever read. Not that your 
 letters are a bit clever ; but all the goodness of your heart 
 comes out in them so clearly. When you were in America, 
 I always rejoiced at a letter from you. It removed all 
 misgivings, and doubts, and made me feel, even more than 
 your presence or your talk, what precious treasures of love 
 there were in your nature. I rejoice that my experience of 
 marriage instead of decreasing has increased my affection. 
 I certainly love you better every day. Your health is the 
 one cloud that darkens our happiness ; and you are a good 
 deal more feverish and fretful about that than I am. I would 
 like you to be well and strong, of course, but I don't feel 
 that even ill-health continued throughout marriage would in 
 the least diminish my love for you. Therefore I feel worried 
 sometimes to see you so desperate about it. I had quite a 
 pleasant time at Labby's and will be out there again next 
 Saturday. Mrs L. sends you a long letter to-day describing 
 our life there. Last night we had two strange people at 
 dinner the Meri vales. He is a clever dramatist but wild 
 and eccentric, and has already been some time in an asylum. 
 He talked all the time in a thunderous voice ; but still he was 
 entertaining. I got a good London Letter out of the different 
 people I had seen. I ought to go out more ; and then my
 
 IN GERMANY DAILY LETTERS FROM T. P. 181 
 
 people would not have to complain of want of variety in my 
 letters. When I got here I found a letter from Mr Elaine 
 asking me to get his wife and daughter into the House this 
 evening. I immediately despatched Armstrong with a 
 letter telling them to be down at eight. Mrs Jeune gives a 
 lunch in his honour next Thursday. She has invited me and 
 I will go if I can. Several people have called including Miss 
 Ward of whom I have heard you talk. I was not in ; and 
 she leaves London immediately. There is also a letter from 
 a Miss Starkweather or something like that saying she 
 and her mother are here. I will write and invite them 
 down to the House of Commons. 
 
 " No more just now from, Your ever loving, 
 
 " TOMSK " 
 
 " Monday. 
 
 " DEAREST BESS, The weather is frightfully bad in 
 London. Constant rain, hideous cold. I have a cold in the 
 head, my nose is red and swollen, and I can't speak without 
 snuffling. I am writing this, as I sit in the House listening 
 to Gladstone. The old boy is making a long speech full of 
 vigour, and tho' his voice is now and then feeble he is on 
 the whole in excellent form. 
 
 " Your letter in ' The Star ' of to-day. It was a wild and 
 vehement attack on the position of women in English Society. 
 You took your revenge for all the weary hours you have had 
 of loneliness while I have been in the House and otherwise 
 occupied. You must have been very down in the mouth 
 when you wrote it. I'm rather glad that you have taken 
 it out on ' The Star ' instead of on me. The article will 
 be largely read, I think. I am trying to get up a corre- 
 spondence upon it. I have written a letter myself to ' The 
 Star ' to-day under the heading ' Are Englishmen kind 
 to their women ? ' It may blossom into something. I went 
 yesterday evening to see Mrs Govett. She was quite plump 
 in the face and had quite recovered from her illness. Your 
 Lady White came in. The weather was hideous outside. 
 We were all depressed and spoke outrageous cynicism.
 
 i8a I MYSELF 
 
 Govett is away in Scotland. Dined at my Club, came home 
 early, woke up with my cold worse, a disagreeable taste in 
 my mouth and a general miser ableness. But I worked it off, 
 stuck to business hard all day ; have made arrangements in 
 the country which I think will help forward the circulation. 
 I then drove down to the House. 
 
 " Gladstone has just ended his speech in a splendid out- 
 burst, he has put Hartington and the other Unionists in a 
 great hole. 
 
 " Have sent you cartloads of papers to-day. 
 
 " No more from your much abused but deserving 'usban, 
 
 " TOMSK 
 
 " Rammie has lost his way several times lately and returned 
 to my room and affections." 
 
 Rammie was a most fascinating but unfaithful German 
 dog, that T. P. had picked up in a peasant's hut. He sub- 
 sequently left us entirely for the night watchman, went 
 with him to Brixton, and left him eventually for two wealthy 
 ladies who visited the watchman during an illness. They 
 had a carriage-and-pair, and one day he entered it, refused 
 to get out, so they bought him, and he ended his days with 
 bow-knots of ribbons on his head driving around Hyde Park. 
 
 The post in the morning was my greatest pleasure, al- 
 though Kreuznach itself is a pretty, delightful, healthy 
 little place ; and how beneficial the strong brine baths are ! 
 Reinforced by mutterlauger (motherlye), the water in a 
 concentrated form, they are wonderful for all sorts of 
 chronic illnesses. My first year there, I took ninety baths. All 
 April, May and June I spent there, but interrupted my cure 
 to return for the month of July to London. How delightful 
 it was to get back home again ! Max had a regular hysteria 
 of joy.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 " MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM," AND 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA 
 
 THE day after my return I went to Twickenham, where 
 Mrs Labouchere was busy arranging for the pro- 
 duction of " Midsummer Night's Dream." It was 
 to be given in the beautiful garden of Pope's Villa, under the 
 light of the moon, with an orchestra to render Mendelssohn's 
 music that divine fairy music, so interpretive of all the 
 poet's dreams. The disposition and character of the garden 
 lent itself perfectly to the play, and never was there a more 
 grassy, daisy-pied, flowery, softly-rolling background pro- 
 vided for Shakespeare's fascinating fantasy. Clumps of 
 lilies and Canterbury bells grew just where they were wanted, 
 and a bed of roses was not too far away. A noble old tree 
 with gnarled roots in the centre was chosen for the stage. 
 The huge branches, like a monster umbrella, dipped down 
 here, and there, quite low enough for Puck to swing upon. 
 The musicians were hidden from view behind a screen of 
 honeysuckle and trumpet flowers. The electric lights 
 glowed through blossoming foliage, and a moon was pro- 
 vided in case the real one, which was due, should hide her 
 silver face behind a cloud. 
 
 The dress rehearsal came at last. Mrs Labouchere had 
 admonished Mr Sala (Bottom) whose memory was unreliable, 
 " to take pains and be perfect," but even while wearing the 
 head of the ass, he clung to his book. " You can't do that," 
 she said, " the night of the performance." " Give me," 
 he answered, " a whisky and soda instead, and you will find 
 I'll rise to the occasion," and he kept his promise and was 
 most excellent in the part.
 
 i8 4 I MYSELF 
 
 The great night followed the dress rehearsal, and the 
 weather was superb a midsummer's night warm enough to 
 make a gentle breeze grateful, and the crickets chirped 
 applause even before Puck (dainty, auburn-haired Rose 
 Norreys) appeared under the tree. Who can forget her gay 
 vibrating voice, "I'll put a girdle round the earth in forty 
 minutes," and speeding like a bird she flew into the darkness. 
 And then Titania (lovely Kate Vaughan) that exquisite 
 fairylike vision, came floating from an emerald vista, like a 
 cloud of iridescent fireflies. She was clothed in a rose 
 gossamer garment flecked in spangles, which revealed her 
 classic limbs, and on her perfect head a little crown glittered 
 with stars. Her attendant fairies, in green and gold and 
 white and mauve, followed in her wake, and then Titania 
 listens to their song and sleeps. That plotting Oberon 
 comes along (Lady Archibald Campbell) as fairylike and 
 diaphanous as Titania, with his bewitched flower juice, and 
 drops it on her eyelids 
 
 " In thine eye that shall appear, 
 
 When thou wak'st it is thy dear ; 
 
 Wake when some vile thing is near. 
 When in that moment so it came to pass, 
 Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass." 
 
 And there was exquisite Titania weaving garlands of 
 natural flowers around Bottom's hairy head, and winsome 
 Puck, sitting on a branch of the tree, laughing to see Oberon's 
 magic do its mischievous work. The soft breeze stirred 
 Titania's sparkling draperies to the despair of Sir Frederic 
 Leighton, who said he could never hope in his most artistic 
 moments to reproduce them. It was the first appearance 
 of the alluring dancer in Shakespeare, but her soft caressing 
 voice and perfect intonation suited the poetical rhythm 
 as if she had spent her life studying blank verse. 
 
 Another woman of great loveliness in the caste was 
 Dorothy Dene, and that night was her most beauteous 
 moment. Sir Frederic Leighton designed and superintended 
 her dress, which was pure Greek, and the silver fillet binding
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM 185 
 
 her curling hair, and her severely simple white draperies 
 embroidered in a pattern of silken thread, suited her noble 
 beauty as no other costume could have done. 
 
 Miss Fortescue, then in the zenith of her pink and white 
 beauty, was Hermia, all in glistening white, with her gold 
 hair bound with gold, and the men were as good-looking as 
 the women. Claude Ponsonby, with his straight features 
 and fair silky beard, was Demetrius, and Luxmore Marshall, 
 tall, straight and graceful, might have passed as his twin 
 brother. When Demetrius and Hermia, Lysander and 
 Helena, wandered all together, " the lovers full of joy and 
 mirth," with real moonlight shining upon them, for the moon 
 had promptly taken her cue, and was not a minute late, 
 the audience burst into rapturous applause. Saucy Puck, 
 like a silken grasshopper with flaming red hair, in her 
 arresting insistent voice ended the play : 
 
 t: To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our end, 
 Our true intent is all for your delight." 
 
 A cloud obscured the moon. " Midsummer Night's 
 Dream " was over. The realities were upon us once more. 
 The audience, who had partaken of high tea before the moon 
 rose, rushed off for carriages and trains, leaving the caste and 
 a few friends staying in the house for supper, which was 
 scarcely less exciting than the play. Every one was under 
 the spell of fairyland still. Mr Sala made a most charming 
 and pretty little speech in honour of the Stage Manager, 
 Mrs Labouchere ; who was so touched by it that she left 
 her chair and gave him a fairy kiss on the top of his kind, 
 bald head and we all drank her health, and the health of the 
 lovers and the fairies and the elves. 
 
 Puck meanwhile, contrary to history, had garbed himself 
 in white, lace and orange ribbons, and was flirting out- 
 rageously with Demetrius. Mr Labouchere, who had 
 possibly during the play been discussing Home Rule or the 
 abolition of the House of Lords with an Irish Member, was 
 rescued, borne to the head of the table, and beamed on us all, 
 drank his wife's health in champagne (which he dislikes)
 
 186 I MYSELF 
 
 and was as merry, as young, and as full of quirks and quips 
 as Puck himself. The moon went to bed before we did, but 
 we never missed her, for that was a night when the gods were 
 good. 
 
 All girls have loved the novels of William Black. " The 
 Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," " A Princess of Thule," 
 and his earlier romances, are particularly appealing to youth. 
 He, Thomas Hardy, and Kenneth Grahame divide the honours 
 in realistic descriptions of scenery, so vividly done that with 
 William Black you gulp draughts of the strong salt air of the 
 North Sea. The soft summer breeze of the English Downs 
 stirs your hair with Kenneth Grahame, and your hand 
 involuntarily reaches out to gather apples in the orchard 
 with Thomas Hardy. It is a wonderful gift, this bringing 
 the sights and sounds and odours of Nature into the dreari- 
 ness and dinginess of a London house on a foggy afternoon 
 in mid-winter. 
 
 Mr Black was one of the personalities whom I wished to 
 meet. He and Mrs Black (who was the veritable lady of the 
 Phaeton) had left London, and were living in Brighton on the 
 East Cliff, in a very pretty, old-fashioned house, and among 
 the modern pictures was a fine one by Abbey, for whom Mr 
 Black had a very great admiration. It was originally called 
 " A Bible Reading in the time of Shakespeare," but the title 
 was subsequently changed to " On Stormy Ground." It 
 was really a development of one of Mr Abbey's beautiful 
 illustrations of Mr Black's " Judith Shakespeare," that 
 delightful book jointly illustrated by Edwin Abbey and 
 Alfred Parsons. " M c Leod of Dare," a novel that touched 
 me deeply, was also admirably illustrated. 
 
 Every morning William Black walked for hours on the old 
 pier, in solitary meditation, for scarcely anyone went there 
 except himself. The glasses that he always wore did not 
 hide the brightness of his observant brown eyes, and with 
 his closely cut hair, trim moustache, wind and sun tanned 
 face, and alert bearing, he looked an open air man rather 
 than a journalist or novelist. 
 
 I remember particularly one pleasant dinner we had at
 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA 187 
 
 his house : himself and his cheery agreeable wife, George 
 Augustus Sala, T. P., Mrs Nye Chart, and three or four 
 friends who had come down from London. The guest who 
 carried off the honours of the evening (for some reason or 
 other he was in a most scintillating mood) was George 
 Augustus Sala. Each person recounted the most horrible 
 story of his repertoire. The only one lingering in my 
 memory was the one told by George Augustus Sala, called 
 " The Blind Wife." A man met an exceedingly beautiful 
 girl and married her. She had been born blind, and there 
 was no hope of sight ever illuminating her heavenly blue 
 eyes. Her character did not correspond with the eyes, 
 as she had a waspish temper. She was mysteriously know- 
 ing about the shade of curtains and carpets ; if they did 
 not match she raged. Milliners and dressmakers also 
 suffered, as she was more exacting as to the perfection of 
 work than those who could see. Also, she knew by some 
 extraordinary method the whole contents of her husband's 
 post (which doubtless was embarrassing to him, as a blind 
 wife would be of great convenience to most men) and, unless 
 she was a witch, how did she find out things only discoverable 
 by sight ? The husband became suspicious and unnerved, 
 and consulted the greatest oculists of the day, but they said 
 with one accord, " Blind from birth." And still she knew 
 all that occurred in the house as one of keenest vision. One 
 night she refused to go to a ball with her husband, and he, 
 worrying over the paradox of his wife being able to see 
 and still being blind, returned home unexpectedly from the 
 ball, and found her sitting at his writing-table reading a 
 love letter. But how ? Her peignoir was unfastened and 
 thrown back from her shoulders ; her bosom was uncovered 
 and in the centre of each breast was a terrible eye ! Quelle 
 surprise pour Monsieur ! 
 
 It would not of course entitle a man to a divorce to have 
 his wife's eyes in the wrong place. This state of affairs has 
 been known to exist many times. If a man has what he calls 
 " private affairs " and his wife's eyes regard them, they are 
 always in the wrong place but even then, eyes for a woman
 
 i88 I MYSELF 
 
 are not necessary. There is instinct George Moore says 
 every woman knows when the wolf is at her door. But if 
 she does what can she do ? The wisest thing is to leave 
 the man to be gobbled up, for if the wolf is really at the door 
 it is by the man's invitation. A clever wife may, on occasion, 
 make her husband go her way, but never, never, if he has 
 begun to go some other woman's way. And the wolf's way 
 and the wife's way are so essentially different there might 
 as well be a parting at once. 
 
 George Augustus Sala was a very remarkable journalist ; 
 he could write on almost any conceivable subject. His mind 
 was more assimilative than original, but he knew a great deal, 
 and how to apply it. Also he realized his own limitations, 
 and was quite without vanity. The late Mr Levy of the 
 " Daily Telegraph " once asked him : " Mr Sala, have you any 
 objection to our editing your copy in the office ? " "Mr 
 Levy," Mr Sala answered, " I am like a butcher. I sell you 
 so much meat to me it is a matter of profound indifference 
 whether you serve it fried, boiled, or roasted." 
 
 This reply from a seasoned journalist might serve as a 
 lesson to many a budding writer. Mr Sala had, in the long 
 years of his service as a journalist, managed, composed and 
 arranged for himself a great number of books of reference. 
 He was very methodical, and with his superb memory it was 
 possible for him to turn out a readable article in a very short 
 space of time. His first marriage was a most fortunate one. 
 Mrs Sala was handsome, sensible, and a genius as a cook and 
 housekeeper. He was never (except for occasional spurts of 
 brilliancy) the same after her death. He had her head fres- 
 coed on the hall ceiling of their pretty, old-world house in 
 Mecklenburgh Square, so that he might on entering the hall 
 look up and be welcomed by her, and her dresses he still 
 kept hanging in the cupboards among his own clothes, saying 
 that only to see a garment she had worn gave comfort to 
 his grieved and lonely soul. 
 
 At the first little tea-party given after he became a widower, 
 his friends discovered in a little case close to his writing- 
 table, where by turning his eyes he could see them, his wife's
 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA 189 
 
 thimble and needles and threads, and keys, and scissors, and 
 watch and purse all the small intimate things of her daily 
 life. It was his habit while he worked to touch them with 
 his hand, saying, " My dear, my poor dear ! " She had been 
 indeed his better, saner helpmate and friend ; for, when he 
 was irascible and inclined to quarrel with his editors, it was 
 his wife who smoothed out differences and made the peace 
 for him. Without knowing it he had leaned upon her strong 
 common-sense and her judgment, and he was never to find 
 rest and peace without her. His last days, in spite of the 
 fine income he had made, were spent in pain and humiliation, 
 although lightened by the kindness of disinterested friends 
 like Lord Burnham, Henry Labouchere and others, who 
 left nothing undone for him. But his valuable library had to 
 be sold, including his reference books. When he realized his 
 loss he wept bitterly and begged to have them back again, 
 saying, " My children, my children my books, my dear 
 books that were my children ! Give them back to me ! 
 Give them back to me ! " He wailed out this cry all through 
 the night and never fully recovered again. 
 
 " Who never ate his bread in sorrow, 
 
 Who never spent the midnight hours 
 Weeping and waiting for the morrow, 
 He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers ! " 
 
 I pray that when the morrow came after his weeping 
 and waiting the Heavenly Powers were merciful in giving 
 him back his " poor, poor dear one " for all eternity ! 
 
 With his exuberant health and bright spirits, William 
 Black looked as if he would live for years, and yet he is 
 sleeping in the pretty churchyard at Rottingdean, near the 
 sea, which he loved so well, and only a few feet away from 
 his friend, Sir Edward Burne- Jones whom I met only once, 
 in the studio of Henry Holiday, that distinguished artist, the 
 executor of the beautiful stained-glass window designed by 
 Edward Burne- Jones which so adorns and distinguishes the 
 quaint little church of Rottingdean. 
 
 One of the most touching pictures in all the world to me
 
 i 9 o I MYSELF 
 
 is, " The Merciful Knight " by Burne-Jones. The first time I 
 saw it the pitiful tears came to my eyes. The rude cross is 
 by the wayside, with the rugged figure of Christ, which has 
 slightly loosened itself from the Cross and is bending over the 
 kneeling knight, who, with bowed head, is praying for moral 
 courage not to fight. How often the highest and noblest 
 courage is to leave the sword in its scabbard ! That turning 
 of the other cheek oh dear, how difficult ! When Toodie 
 was about four years old, we were at the Berkeley Springs in 
 Virginia, and he came to me where I was sitting with a group 
 of friends on one of the wide porticos, crying, and said, 
 " Mamma, a boy hit me ! " 
 
 " Did you," I said, " hit him back ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't," the child answered. 
 
 " Then," I said, " go straight back and hit him." 
 
 Fanny Tate, a charming, fascinating woman from South 
 Carolina, with the heavenly accent and drawl of that dear 
 country said, " It's plain to be seen this child's mother is 
 from Texas." 
 
 I hadn't seen " The Merciful Knight " then.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 RED INDIANS AND THE MAZE 
 
 WHEN Buffalo Bill brought the " Wild West " show 
 to London for the first time, it was a colossal 
 success, and he was overwhelmed by hospitality, 
 which he returned with a number of American lunches 
 cooked by his friend, Colonel James, who, like the late Sam 
 Ward, was a cordon bleu. The dishes were typically 
 American, and the menu consisted of : 
 
 Corn beef hash, and buttered corn bread. 
 
 Chickens fried in cream, green peas and hot biscuits. 
 
 Porterhouse steak and corn fritters. 
 
 Peach ice cream. 
 
 Cheese. 
 
 Superb coffee. 
 
 Cocktails in abundance. 
 
 After the lunch, visiting the cowboys and the Indians, it 
 occurred to Mrs Labouchere to ask all the chiefs and their 
 families to spend a Sunday at Twickenham, and to see the 
 inside of an English house. They accepted the invitation 
 eagerly, and were expected about 2 o'clock on the Sunday 
 following, but not later than ten in the morning I ran into 
 Mrs Labouchere's bedroom and cried, " Henrietta, the 
 Indians have come ! " 
 
 As it was Sunday morning and we were taking things in 
 leisurely fashion, nobody was dressed, and there they were 
 for a good long day Indian braves, squaws and babies, 
 all in costumes befitting a visit to a great white chief, as they 
 were instructed Mr Labouchere was, a chief in Parliament.
 
 192 I MYSELF 
 
 We made quick toilettes, and were soon downstairs, 
 where they were all assembled. The interpreter said they had 
 been up since dawn and he had had difficulty in keeping them 
 from starting on the seven o'clock train to Twickenham. 
 
 A steam-launch had been engaged to convey them to 
 Hampton Court, and while waiting for its arrival they were 
 shown the garden, and Mr Labouchere told them to help 
 themselves to gooseberries and red currants whereupon 
 they descended upon the bushes like devouring locusts, and 
 in a very short time there was not a berry, ripe or green, left. 
 
 The great chief, " Up the River," looked like a feathered 
 Gladstone. His face was fine and even noble, and he was 
 not the least overawed by anything he saw. He reared his 
 crest like a hawk and looked around the garden as if he 
 owned it, and leisurely seating himself with his braves all 
 around him in a circle, he signified to the interpreter his desire 
 to make a little speech to the White Chief. He said, " My 
 heart thanks you for remembering the Red Man and for 
 asking him to your wigwam. My heart is happy with the 
 beauty of this country and this garden, and I will never 
 forget this day. When the great White Chief visits my 
 country, my heart will be filled with joy, and I will send him 
 a message of welcome from my heart." 
 
 Surely this was the speech of a courtier, and Mr Labouchere 
 replied with equal politeness. 
 
 Their gay costumes, brilliant feathers, and brown painted 
 faces looked most picturesque on the launch. Nothing 
 escaped their bright watchful eyes, and at Hampton Court, 
 when they were shown the Maze, Mrs Labouchere settled 
 herself for a comfortable rest, but lo, they were no sooner 
 in at one end, than out they came at the other. They did not 
 even know it was a Maze to them it was only a pleasant 
 simple little walk. There was quite a crowd collected by 
 this time, but they were apparently oblivious of everybody, 
 and without a turn of the head walked as proudly as if alone 
 in a primeval forest. Was it not Washington Irving who, in 
 a burst of admiration, said, " The only gentleman in America 
 was the Red Indian " ?
 
 RED INDIANS AND THE MAZE 193 
 
 After the voyage back, an old English dinner, a grand 
 affair, was set on the leafy balcony of Pope's Villa. There was 
 roast beef, baked potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, chicken and 
 peas, and a Christmas plum pudding. The roast beef was 
 very popular ; they ate a few peas and drank tea and coffee, 
 but the pudding was carried away in a beaded bag, which 
 each Indian wore at his side. The bag already contained 
 a wonderful mixture of gooseberries, grapes, biscuits, cigar- 
 ettes, and cake. When Mrs Labouchere said, " More meat," 
 one of the young Indians looked at her with a broad smile, 
 and the Interpreter explained that Moremeat was his name, 
 that he was a Chippeway, and then Mr Labouchere dis- 
 covered him to be a descendant of one of the friends of his 
 very earliest youth. 
 
 Nearly sixty years ago Henry Labouchere, then an 
 adventurous lad, made a journey in the West of America. 
 Minneapolis was at that time called St Anthony's Falls, and 
 while he was there a far-seeing young chemist begged him 
 to buy the land on which Minneapolis stands it was to be 
 sold for a very small sum, now it is worth many millions. 
 He travelled still farther west with the Chippeways, who were 
 going to their hunting fields. The great chief, " Hole in 
 Heaven," was very friendly with him, and he camped in one 
 of their wigwams for six weeks, the sister of the Chief being 
 assigned to wait upon him. She cooked game to perfection, 
 roasting wild birds in clay and larger game before a fire. 
 The game in those days was very plentiful and tame, not 
 having found out man to be their avowed enemy. Some- 
 times prairie chickens came near enough to be knocked on 
 the head, and great herds of buffaloes still ranged the plains. 
 The Indians often killed a buffalo, but Mr Labouchere was not 
 lucky enough to get one for himself. He saw an Indian War 
 Dance, but discreetly from a slit in the door of his wigwam, 
 as " Hole in Heaven " said that, friendly as they were, at this 
 sacred rite a white face might infuriate them even to the use 
 of the tomahawk. And another most interesting custom 
 was seeing the youths of the tribe transformed to braves. 
 This is done by physical suffering, inflicted by other warriors. 
 
 13
 
 194 I MYSELF 
 
 The greater the torture, the greater the brave. Sharpened 
 sticks are run through the tender skin on the breast, and 
 forcibly pulled out, making when healed great scarred ridges 
 of flesh. Leather thongs are bound round ankles and wrists 
 until they cut into the flesh like a knife, leaving it raw and 
 bleeding. These and other tortures the young Indian bears 
 without a murmur, but sometimes a coward is found who 
 utterly refuses all hurt ; even a good venomous scratch will 
 save him from utter disgrace, but if he refuse this much, the 
 penalty is an apparent change of sex. He wears a squaw's 
 dress until the ban is lifted. To the uninitiated eye the 
 difference is nothing, as women and men dress so much alike, 
 but to the Indian it is everything. 
 
 Mr Labouchere lingered among these American gentlemen 
 until the last steamer had departed from Fond du Lac, so he 
 was obliged to travel in a canoe until he reached the eastern 
 end of the lake and these early experiences have always 
 kept his interest in the Red Man alive.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 IN GERMANY IT IS THE LAW 
 
 ONE summer in Schwalbach a philanthropic English 
 woman asked a belle dame from Florida, " And don't 
 you like the negroes ? " 
 
 " Very much," the American answered, " in my kitchen. 
 I don't want them in my drawing-room." 
 
 Now this lady's attitude to the negro represents mine to 
 the calf. I love him in the field I don't want him on the 
 dining-room table. It is hard, however, to escape him in 
 Germany, where he seems one of the staple products of the 
 country and a tragic moment arose in my experience when 
 unless I resorted to extreme measures it was impossible to 
 get away from him at all. It grew, as these things do, out 
 of a thoughtless piece of advice given by a most convincing 
 Englishman. It was a heavenly sunshiny day and we were 
 walking to the station preparatory to my making a journey 
 to Baden-Baden, which is comparatively near Schwalbach ; 
 but requiring four changes, with waiting here and there, to 
 make connections it bade fair to be a whole day's journey. 
 
 As we passed a field a number of spotted calves frisked 
 gaily in the sunshine. 
 
 " Dear me," I remarked, " how surprising that so many 
 calves are left in Germany." 
 
 My friend replied, " That's because we've boycotted veal 
 in our hotel." 
 
 " Now where," I asked, " can one find a hotel in Wies- 
 baden where veal is boycotted, or do you know a good 
 restaurant there ? " 
 
 My faith in man is perennial, in spite of the many times
 
 196 I MYSELF 
 
 he has disappointed me. I go on asking for advice, taking 
 it, and suffering afterwards just the same, instead of using 
 my own better judgment. There is something so cocksure 
 about the way a man tells you anything that somehow, 
 in spite of yourself, you feel he must be right. So when 
 my friend answered confidently, " Don't go to a hotel or 
 restaurant at all just take lunch in the station," it seemed 
 quite the best thing to do. 
 
 " I recollect," he went on, " having such an appetizing 
 meal once in quite a small German station : fresh eggs, 
 broiled chicken, and green peas," and he talked so well, 
 and so eloquently, about that dejeuner that I got quite hungry 
 before he finished, and would not have eaten lunch any- 
 where but in a German railway station. 
 
 On arriving at Wiesbaden I too would order chicken, peas 
 and fresh eggs, served in the waiting-room. I must say 
 the griminess of the room and the stale smell of beer was not 
 suggestive of a crisp meal, but still under the spell of broiled 
 chicken I asked cheerfully of the waiter, " Was haben Sie ? " 
 
 Waiter : " Kalbs Kotlett und Kartoffeln." 
 
 Me : " Nichts Anderes ? " 
 
 Waiter : " Nein, das Kotlett ist aber sehr gut." 
 
 I was already tired, and with the prospect of a day's travel 
 before me it seemed wise to eat something ; and I was 
 reluctant to go to the town. My luggage had yet to be 
 labelled and the tickets to be bought, but the ticket office 
 was still " geschlossen," so I succumbed to the force of 
 circumstances and ordered a veal cutlet and fried potatoes. 
 
 My seat at the table was by the side of a woman who had 
 already given her order, and presently the waiter returned 
 bearing her lunch. On a thick, large plate reposed a pen- 
 insular-shaped cutlet, the size of a small ham. It was 
 submerged in thick, greasy gravy ; and on another plate 
 a mound of fried potatoes had been carefully built up, with 
 bubbles of fat still sizzling on them and I had been sent all 
 the way from England to Germany to cure my indigestion ! 
 I gazed upon this stupendous sight with horror. It was not 
 necessary to eat to induce discomfort the sight and the
 
 IN GERMANY IT IS THE LAW 197 
 
 smell was enough. I was already suffering agonies. Calling 
 the waiter, I countermanded the order. 
 
 " I cannot eat the cutlet I am ill," I explained. 
 
 " But you must eat it," the waiter answered. " In 
 Germany if you order a good kalbs cutlet you must eat 
 it." 
 
 " But I am ill ! " 
 
 " Es schadet nichts. You ordered it. It will be got ready. 
 You must pay for it." 
 
 Ah, there was the crux. " You must pay for it." 
 
 " No," I answered, " I countermanded the order at once. 
 I won't eat the cutlet, and I won't pay for it." Then I 
 got up and went to the office to buy my tickets. Presently 
 there was a tumult. The waiter appeared with the man who 
 owned the cutlet. 
 
 " There, there is the English dame who won't take the 
 Kotlett," the waiter was excitedly saying. 
 
 The man approached me. " Are you the lady who ordered 
 the Kalbs Kotlett and won't eat it ? You must. In 
 Germany one may not order a Kotlett and not eat it." 
 
 Receiving no answer they retired, but it was only in order 
 to gather a reinforcement to continue hostilities. Meantime 
 the luggage having been registered I had gone to the other 
 side of the station in the wake of my trunks. Suddenly the 
 waiter reappeared, his face scarlet with emotion, his hair 
 standing up like a cockatoo's. He was accompanied by the 
 man and a woman, all of them talking vociferously with the 
 countersign " Kalbs Kotlett." They all appealed to me. 
 The waiter actually wrung his hands with anguish. 
 
 The woman said, " Eine Englibhe Frau die sich eine Dame 
 nennt und sich weigert ein schones deutsches Kalbs Kotlett 
 zu essen, das ist unverschamt ! " (" An Englishwoman, 
 calling herself a lady, to refuse to eat a good German 
 veal cutlet it was shameful.") 
 
 The man said, " So, so ! We shall see." 
 
 They then laid the case before the guard of the train, who 
 listened with much interest, but said he could not interfere. 
 " Tickets," yes, if I gave him any trouble about my
 
 ig8 I MYSELF 
 
 tickets th^y should see. A Kalbs Kotlett was not his 
 province, so, reprehensible as my conduct was, they must 
 settle it themselves. 
 
 The restaurant man said something must be done. The 
 woman said, " Send for the Polizei." The waiter scuttled 
 off hatless and breathless, quickly returning with a big, good- 
 looking, steady-eyed policeman. 
 
 " What is the trouble ? " he said. 
 
 The waiter, the restaurant keeper, and the woman, all 
 talked breathlessly together. 
 
 " The English dame had commanded a Kalbs Kotlett ; 
 then she wouldn't eat it, and she wouldn't pay for it. What 
 was to be done ? " 
 
 The Polizei fixed me with a stern eye and began, " Warum 
 haben Sie das Kalbs Kotlett nicht gegessen ? " 
 
 My answer was, " I don't speak German." 
 
 The waiter interposed, " Oh, but she does she speaks 
 very good German, and understands Alles." 
 
 The Polizei waved him aside. " Warum haben Sie das 
 gute Kalbs Kotlett nicht gegessen ? " Like Brer Rabbit, 
 " I laid low and said nothin'." He continued, " In Germany, 
 if one orders a Kalbs Kotlett, one must eat it and pay for 
 it, or pay for it if one eats it not. That is the law." 
 
 The waiter, the restaurant man, and the woman all 
 solemnly repeated, " That is the law." 
 
 The guard said, " That is the law." One or two out- 
 siders to whom the waiter had explained the situation said, 
 " That is the law." 
 
 Still the prisoner at the bar remained silent. Suddenly 
 the empty blue eyes of the Polizei lighted up with wonderful 
 intelligence. " Bring the Kotlett," he said. " Bring the 
 potatoes," he said. 
 
 The waiter shot by me like an arrow from a bow. In a 
 second he ran back, carrying a twin Kotlett to the first 
 peninsular-shaped one I had seen, and a second pyramid of 
 fried potatoes, both of which he reverently placed on my 
 trunk. 
 
 The Polizei began to look hungry. He looked affec-
 
 IN GERMANY IT IS THE LAW 199 
 
 tionately at the Kotlett. " Ein sehr gutes Kotlett," he 
 said. " Why haven't you eaten this good cutlet ? " 
 
 A wicked plan entered my head. I would have revenge. 
 
 " Wie viel ? " I asked the waiter. 
 
 " Zwei mark fiinfzig." 
 
 I laid the money on the trunk. He pounced on it like 
 a hawk on a tomtit. 
 
 " So," said the Polizei. 
 
 "So," I repeated, and with a quick deftness of which I 
 thought myself incapable, I threw the cutlet in the middle 
 of the station, just grazing the leg of the law, and it was 
 quickly followed by a generous shower of fried potatoes. 
 
 The policeman gave a suppressed cry, as if a knife had 
 stabbed him to the heart. I had thrown away his dinner, 
 his nice greasy dinner for which I had paid. 
 
 " In Deutschland ist es nicht erlaubt Kotletts und kartof- 
 feln auf dem Bahnhof zu werfen. Es ist nicht erlaubt." 
 (In Germany it is not allowed to throw cutlets and potatoes 
 in the station it is not allowed.) 
 
 For the first time since I ordered the cutlet my tongue 
 was loosed. " What can you throw in a station ? " I asked. 
 
 Solemnly he replied, " Not potatoes not Kalbs Kotlett." 
 
 Again a gleam of intelligence entered his bovine eye. 
 " Sie miissen es aufheben." (You must pick them up.) 
 " In Germany if you throw potatoes and Kalbs Kotletts in a 
 station you must pick them up. That is the law." 
 
 " Never," I answered. " Never." (The train was just 
 starting I became bold.) "I will leave you to pick them up." 
 
 This impudence was followed by a few seconds of horrified 
 silence, then the voice of the woman pierced it in a shrill scream. 
 
 " Ach, Gott in Himmel ! Die Englische Dame has 
 ordered the Polizei to pick up the cutlet and the potatoes ! " 
 
 The Polizei said, " In Germany it is the law " 
 
 Then a great clamour arose, but I jumped on the train, 
 which was just moving out of the station. And as far as I 
 could see, the brilliant sun lighted up the fine, silver helmet 
 of the Polizei, the bronze brown of the Kalbs Kotlett, and 
 the pale gold of the fried potatoes.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE BROAD DAYLIGHT 
 
 IN all the many summers spent by me in Germany, I had 
 never seen Heidelberg. Hand-made scars, smooth 
 scars, ridged scars, manufactured by Heidelberg duels 
 yes, deep red scars, purple scars, and white scars, proudly 
 worn on the plump cheeks of the young officers who, well 
 corseted, clicked their spurs together in Wiesbaden, in Horn- 
 burg, in Kreuznach, and in Schwalbach all these I had 
 seen, but not Heidelberg. The scars were only amusing, and 
 Heidelberg I knew to be beautiful. So I determined, in spite 
 of being the loneliest and the worst traveller in the world, 
 always late and always anxious and distracted, to break my 
 journey from Schwalbach to Baden, at Heidelberg. 
 
 The weather was so lovely that I stayed at a country hotel 
 beyond the town, and wandered solitarily over the wonderful 
 romantic ruins of the Castle by moonlight. The hotel gave 
 me an excellent little dinner, and an unusual thing for me 
 I slept deeply and dreamlessly until late the next morning. 
 When the Boots knocked at my door there was barely ten 
 minutes for me to dress and to take a hasty cup of coffee in 
 my room. I asked in my best German which as usual 
 miscarried " Am I to be alone in the omnibus ? " 
 
 ' Yes, yes," the porter said, " hurry if you wish to catch 
 the train " and down I rushed pell-mell, thinking to finish 
 the details of my toilette in the omnibus. The ribbons of 
 my shoes were flowing, my cuffs were unbuttoned, my neck-tie 
 not yet tied, my hat-pins, veil and belt were in my hand, 
 and my gloves were stuffed in my little hand-bag. Trembling 
 like a leaf, I was handing out tips to the last moment, and
 
 SHIPS THAT PASS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT 201 
 
 when I was pushed and literally fell into the omnibus, there 
 sat a tall, fair, composed, immaculate being with monocle, 
 umbrella tightly wrapped, gloves well fitting, and overcoat 
 neatly folded by his side, regarding my discomfiture with a 
 kindly wooden expression, too polite to allow even the 
 slightest soupfon of a smile to appear on his well-groomed 
 face. So I composed myself, tied my necktie and pinned it, 
 buttoned my cuffs, buckled my belt, put my watch in it, 
 straightened my hat, prodded it with hat-pins, pinned on my 
 veil, and was just about to descend upon my shoes, when the 
 Monocle said in very good authoritative English, " Pardon, 
 permit me," and leaning forward, instantly the shoe- 
 strings were tied in good, firm, wouldn't-come- undone bows ; 
 then, lifting his hat, he sat up very straight again and con- 
 siderately looked out of the window. 
 
 I said to myself, " He's married, he's a good husband, he 
 ties his wife's shoes, he likes all women and he's a nice, 
 safe creature." By the time my gloves were buttoned we 
 had reached the station. He lifted his hat again and asked 
 if he could attend to my luggage. I said he could, and he 
 did. Also at the very last moment he had to leap from the 
 train, dash back to the omnibus and rescue my Tiffany 
 umbrella the one with a tortoiseshell handle so well known, 
 and so often found, at Scotland Yard. What with the 
 toilette, the shoes and the umbrella, by the time the train 
 started there was quite a domestic atmosphere between us. 
 At any rate he had some sort of understanding of my help- 
 lessness, and I of his good nature and obligingness. 
 
 He sat down beside me in the train and we began to talk. 
 He told me he was a Swede, a civil engineer, who had 
 worked for five years at his profession in London, hence his 
 good English. He lived in Stockholm, and was on his way 
 to an International Convention of Engineers at Baden-Baden. 
 He had married a lovely Norwegian, who had dreamed of 
 becoming a great singer, and had studied in Paris with Grieg's 
 encouragement, who said she might develop into a Christine 
 Nilsson in time, but the Monocle bade her choose between a 
 career and himself, and now she was singing lullabies to the
 
 202 I MYSELF 
 
 first baby. He brought forth a little leather case from his 
 pocket, and there was Madame, a radiant blonde, and the 
 baby, so fat that his wrists and ankles seemed tied with 
 string, and his broad smile showed four fine Norwegian 
 teeth, and he looked altogether a credit to his parents. The 
 Monocle was a most fond and proud father, and when I said 
 his offspring looked a baby Viking he was amazingly pleased. 
 
 In the course of the conversation, which covered many 
 subjects, he spoke of " M. A. P.," and said he had learned 
 much of his English from it, and his choice of English 
 literature was decided by the " Book of the Week " in the 
 " Sunday Sun." I informed him that my husband edited 
 both of the papers, and then we were completely in sympathy 
 and at our ease. He told me that he was arresting his 
 journey to Baden-Baden by stopping at Carlsruhe for a 
 couple of hours he wanted to see the Castle of the Grand 
 Duke of Baden-Baden, as the Crown Princess of Sweden 
 had been born there, and in a small gallery there was a 
 noted collection of etchings, and the Botanical Garden 
 was among the celebrated small ones of Europe, containing 
 many rare and beautiful plants. Wouldn't I and he was 
 very deferential " make him a great pleasure and stop over 
 for a couple of hours at Carlsruhe : all tourists should see 
 Carlsruhe " the Botanical Garden was the bait, for I will 
 travel any distance to see a garden and trusting that no 
 tourists would be in Carlsruhe except ourselves for how 
 could I introduce a man whose name I didn't know, and 
 was too polite to ask ? Fortune favoured me we had the 
 place to ourselves, and the miniature castle and little red- 
 nosed soldiers were vastly amusing, and just suited our 
 innocent adventure. A Grand Duchess de Gerolstein with 
 le sabre de mon pere was alone needed to make the scene 
 perfect. The etchings were nothing, but the garden, with 
 the hot August sun shining on its wealth of flowers and 
 blossoming shrubs, and bringing out the myriad different 
 odours, was divine. 
 
 The Monocle spoke excellent German, and induced the 
 gardener to part with a big bunch of lemon verbena which
 
 SHIPS THAT PASS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT 203 
 
 I tied up in my pocket-handkerchief. It was a pungent 
 reminder of that Arabian Nights garden of my youth 
 where almost everything known in botany bloomed under 
 the persuasive genius of my mother's hand. 
 
 We lunched on the balcony of an open-air restaurant, 
 with honeysuckle and purple passion-flowers dangling over 
 our heads. The rescued umbrella tilted against my chair, 
 the restaurant dog leaning his head against me, and a bottle 
 of Liebfrauenmilch was daintily folded in a napkin between 
 us. We were talking only about seeds and grafting, but the 
 engineer had gathered a stalk to show me how he did it, 
 when along came a travelling photographer and asked to 
 photograph us. The Monocle said " Yes, yes," and before 
 the lunch was finished we had two pictures of a comfortable, 
 highly- domestic character presented to us. I have known a 
 good many men in my life I was married very young, and 
 have had a number of friends, some suitors, and hosts of 
 acquaintances, among the opposite sex but it just so 
 happens I was never photographed with anyone of them 
 except that strange Swede. How I shook with laughter 
 over that group ! I didn't know the man I didn't know 
 the dog I didn't drink the wine and yet it is said that 
 photographs cannot lie ! 
 
 " What," asked the Monocle, " amuses you so ? " 
 
 " The unexpected," I said. " The only people who will 
 be more surprised than you and I over this friendly photo- 
 graph are your wife and my husband ! " 
 
 I shall never see the Monocle again, nor Carlsruhe, nor the 
 Botanical Gardens, nor the dog nor do I regret them. And 
 I was advised by the First Lord of the Admiralty, then 
 Reginald M'Kenna, and his family, never to disclose this 
 dark secret of my life for fear of being " misunderstood," 
 whatever that may be. But I must ever have someone to 
 share a secret, so I chose Max Beerbohm, dear Max, who 
 with his risible temperament laughed unrestrainedly, and 
 straightway made a free interpretation of the photograph. 
 
 " But, Max," I objected, " you've left out the dog and 
 put in a cupid ! "
 
 204 I MYSELF 
 
 " Of course I have," he said, " for in spite of your account 
 of the episode, I shall always think of that Swede eating his 
 heart out in the long future, across the seas and the years." 
 But that was only a pretty compliment from Max. 
 
 " And really and truly," said Mr Labouchere, who can 
 never quite get over the old-fashioned idea of " gallantry " 
 to women, " was there never a moment of sentiment ? " 
 
 " No," I said, " never I am a modern woman, and there 
 was my sense of humour, the baby, his four new teeth, and 
 my grown-up son between us. We were only ships that pass 
 hi the broad daylight. Maybe some day I'll come up against 
 a Dreadnought, but it wasn't that day anyhow." 
 
 Convention is death to spontaneity. I never repent any 
 action of mine which has been natural, but have many regrets 
 for lost opportunities of amiable human impulse. 
 
 One year in Brighton a tall, interesting, solitary woman 
 dressed in mourning, accompanied by a white greyhound 
 and a blue-tongued chow, continually sat near me on the 
 lawns, listening to the music. The chow unbent and became 
 friendly, and the greyhound treated me as a relative, but the 
 sad-eyed mistress I never got to know. Afterwards it came 
 to my knowledge that she was an American with a tragic 
 history then indeed I was sorry not to have given her an 
 unconventional word and shake of the hand.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THE MEMBER FOR SCOTLAND DIVISION AND 
 THE UNCROWNED KING 
 
 WHEN the next General Election occurred, Mr Parnell 
 decided that the numerous Irish in Scotland 
 Division, Liverpool, were entitled to their own 
 representation in Parliament, and T. P. was selected to contest 
 the seat. He stood as well for his old constituency in Galway 
 to ensure his membership in Parliament, in case the election 
 went against him in Liverpool. 
 
 Mr Parnell, T. P. Gill, T. P. O'Connor, and myself, occupied 
 one common sitting-room at least, I occupied it, as they 
 were all busy and absent, organizing meetings and speaking 
 at various places. One day I bought three bunches of violets 
 and presented each gentleman with a flower for his button- 
 hole. T. P. and Mr Gill threw theirs aside when faded, but Mr 
 Parnell paid me the compliment of wearing his a week. He 
 had to women the manner of a man who liked them. It was 
 quite different from his manner to men, much more kind, 
 gracious, and solicitous. They all seemed to take the result 
 of T. P.'s election for granted, and one evening at dinner 
 Mr Gill asked Mr Parnell whom he should put up at Galway 
 in T. P.'s place. There was a dead silence at the table, and 
 Mr Parnell answered not one word, but I saw a sort of red 
 glint in his eye, his mouth shut like a death trap, and I said 
 to myself, " It will be O'Shea." 
 
 I lay no claim to being a politician, and am generally quite 
 without intuition, but on this occasion it came to me force- 
 fully, and when we went upstairs I mentioned my suspicion 
 to T. P., who said it was impossible. Nevertheless, I was 
 right, as subsequent events proved. 
 
 ao s
 
 206 I MYSELF 
 
 What an enormous amount of character, and courage, 
 it must take to be asked a direct question, and to answer 
 it by a direct silence. I have only seen it done on that un- 
 forgettable occasion, but I have been told Mr Parnell never 
 hesitated to take this course whenever the question was an 
 embarrassing one. 
 
 The night of the result of the Election of Scotland Division 
 was declared, T. P. was hard at work speaking in a doubtful 
 district, so I drove in the carriage with Mr Parnell and sat 
 with him on the platform. He had given me some violets 
 to wear, and added a little bunch of shamrock that some one 
 had sent him from Ireland. The large hall was packed with 
 a breathless, enthusiastic audience, and Mr Parnell was as 
 pale as death. Men kept coming and going on the platform. 
 Some short speeches were made. A man came in and said 
 softly to Mr Parnell that a goodly number of votes had been 
 given for T. P.'s opponent, enough to cause anxiety. There 
 was a pause my heart was beating to suffocation. Mr 
 Parnell came over and told me not to be anxious. A few 
 confident people applauded ; then hurried feet outside, a 
 man bearing later news and greatly excited, rushed on to the 
 platform, and whispered to Mr Parnell, announcing T. P.'s 
 success. Mr Parnell reared up his head like an emperor, 
 got on his feet, his face paler than before, his hands clasped 
 behind his back so tightly they were bloodless, and stepping 
 to the front of the platform, he announced that T. P. O'Connor 
 had been elected by fifteen hundred majority. The vast 
 crowd rose to their feet and answered with deafening cheers. 
 Women waved their handkerchiefs, men shouted themselves 
 hoarse. My ready tears came. Never have I witnessed a 
 scene of wilder enthusiasm the Irish had wrested a seat 
 from the Saxon. 
 
 The doors were closed, and then Mr Parnell made a speech. 
 You could have heard a pin drop, the tension was so great 
 and he finished with these words : " We will knock at 
 England's door gently ; and if she refuses to hear, we will 
 knock again more loudly ; then if she still remains deaf we 
 will knock with a mailed hand." With this he raised his
 
 THE UNCROWNED KING 207 
 
 hand as if to strike a blow. The effect was electrical. If 
 he had added, " We will knock now," I am sure the whole 
 of that audience would have followed him and gladly died 
 fighting for they knew not what, but imbued by the despera- 
 tion of his soul. That is what made him a great leader. 
 He inspired other men, even the timid, with his flaming 
 spirit. I never saw a braver man than Mr Parnell. And 
 Texas is a country that breeds brave men, and I know 
 courage when I see it. Alas, a time came when his courage 
 availed him nothing. The history of his downfall is one of 
 the most pathetic in history. There is a rumour that 
 Captain O'Shea said to Gambetta, " What are we going to do 
 with Parnell ? He is getting to be a great danger in the 
 country." And Gambetta replied, " Set a woman on his 
 track." And the woman, instead of betraying him, fell in 
 love with this patriot, and that was his undoing. He was the 
 only man who held the Irish party together for fifteen years, 
 and he had every quality to do it. In the first place he was 
 mysterious, and that appealed to the Irish imagination. 
 He was self-contained, and before announcing them to his 
 party, he made his decisions. He was self-reliant enough to 
 take all responsibility on his own shoulders. He could fight 
 for every inch of ground with his adversary, guided by 
 unsurpassed wariness. A member of Parliament, with a 
 world- wide reputation in the early days of Home Rule, had a 
 sort of promissory paper entrusted to him by Mr Gladstone, 
 merely to be read to Mr Parnell and afterwards it was to be 
 returned to Mr Gladstone. Mr Parnell, desiring to see some 
 particular phrase, held the paper for a moment, then quietly 
 folded it and placed it in his pocket. The member stretched 
 out his hand and said, "Oh, but I'm under a bond to return 
 that to Mr Gladstone." " No," said Mr Parnell very gently, 
 " oh no, it's safer in my pocket," and in his pocket it re- 
 mained. Mr Gladstone was greatly disturbed when he heard 
 the result of the interview and fiercely blamed the inter- 
 mediary, who said, " Well you get it back I can't." And 
 Mr Parnell remained master of the situation and possessor 
 of the document. He had infinite patience and could always
 
 208 I MYSELF 
 
 bide his time. And he had a thorough knowledge of the 
 Irish character, and the advantage himself of possessing some 
 of the sterner qualities of his fighting American ancestors. 
 His mother's father, Admiral Stewart, was known as " Old 
 Ironsides," and in a way Mr Parnell was very American. 
 He could be as silent and as watchful as a Red Indian. He 
 had perfect faith in himself ; he stood alone ; and he had 
 the superabundant energy of the American, that fierce 
 energy that finally drove him to his death. In one fatal 
 particular, however, he resembled his countrymen. Every 
 Irishman has a henchman whose business it is to report all 
 that he hears, and to invent the rest. Mr Parnell had more 
 than one specimen of this particularly mischievous and 
 abominable type busily employed in constantly betraying 
 his followers and stirring up strife not only between himself 
 and them, but between the Irish members themselves. 
 There is but one thing in my now somewhat long life of which 
 I am thoroughly proud. I have never in the whole course of 
 it repeated a disagreeable thing that one human being has 
 said to me of another. I have said disagreeable, and I dare- 
 say even cruel, things myself, but always off my own bat, 
 and never under cover of some one whose confidence I have 
 betrayed. My strongest temptation to lie is to make peace, 
 for " one doth not know how much an ill word may empoison 
 liking." If every one had preserved a hard and fast rule 
 never to hear or to repeat disagreeable things, what a differ- 
 ence it would make in the whole history of the world ! And 
 the informer is always the betrayer afterwards. This rule is 
 unalterable. Mr ParnelTs most dangerous henchmen were 
 men of no importance, of narrow intellect, and of small out- 
 look, and yet they were able to set the ball rolling which was 
 eventually to temporarily divide and ruin the Irish party 
 and to delay Home Rule for a decade. 
 
 If I were a great orator or a great preacher I would by 
 eloquence and argument make the world look with horror 
 upon the creatures who stir up strife in families, between 
 friends, and worst of all given the opportunity, between 
 nations. The futile argument advanced is, " You should
 
 THE UNCROWNED KING 209 
 
 know your enemies," and if you do, what then ? You can 
 only hate them back, and make bad worse. Whereas, by 
 innocently treating an enemy as a friend you may un- 
 expectedly win him as one. The truth is, the person who 
 brings a disagreeable story that hurts and wounds, dislikes 
 you. The desire to see you suffer proves that. Tale-bearers 
 are weak, and the weak are rarely frank they have not 
 enough courage to make their dislike manifest. They can 
 do it only through other and more subtle means. How 
 often sensible people are taken in by the mischief-maker 
 whose pretence of friendship enables him to give a lifelong 
 festering wound. 
 
 Like all great leaders, Mr Parnell was inordinately selfish. 
 When he put Captain O'Shea up for T. P.'s seat I was visiting 
 in the North of Ireland, but I somehow felt he would get T. P. 
 to go with him to Galway, and that it was asking far too great 
 a sacrifice, as T. P. had represented the town and was both 
 trusted and beloved there. He of all the members should 
 not have been asked by Mr Parnell to support O'Shea. And 
 I wrote to T. P. imploring him not to go to Galway. But 
 it was in vain, and the fact that he did go made a grave 
 quarrel between us, but whatever Mr Parnell demanded of 
 his followers he got, no matter how difficult the command. 
 He subordinated everything and every man to himself. He 
 was without doubt the " Uncrowned King," but Galway was 
 his " Ides of March."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THE BIRTH OF " THE STAR " 
 
 I HAD gone to Ramsgate to stay with the Laboucheres, 
 and Mrs Labouchere and I were walking on the sands, 
 when she said to me, " Bessie, is T. P. always going to 
 be as poor as he is now ? " 
 
 I said, " I hope not. I think he would make a very good 
 editor," and that night we talked it over with Mr Labouchere ; 
 he agreed with me, and when T. P. came down at the end of 
 the week the idea of " The Star " was born. A prominent 
 politician and a remarkable judge of men wrote to me while 
 I was lately staying in Florence with the Laboucheres, " I 
 should love to see Labby again. He and I were always good 
 friends in the House of Commons. He should have been in 
 the Cabinet. I fancy his remarkable sense of humour was a 
 bit against him the fools mistake it for insincerity, whereas 
 there were few more honest and sincere men than our witty 
 friend. When one plays cards with a man, sits in the House 
 of Commons with him, or is in business with him, he cannot 
 for long conceal his defects. Of course I write only of the 
 political game. No one ever found Labby for one moment 
 false to his professions, and his word was implicitly trusted, 
 although his jokes I'm afraid did the party little good. The 
 Nonconformist is totally devoid of humour, but is, au fond, 
 a good creature and must be considered." 
 
 Every one believed in the judgment of Mr Labouchere ; 
 he had a very practical mind, and from the beginning he 
 predicted the success of the paper. It was a psychological 
 moment, there was room for it. He thought T. P. an 
 always- to-be-depended- upon journalist, never dull in his
 
 THE BIRTH OF "THE STAR" 211 
 
 writing, continually interesting, and indeed with a touch 
 of genius. 
 
 Mr Labouchere was very encouraging, helpful and active 
 in getting the capital together, and T. P., full of blithe 
 energy, worked night and day, seeing capitalists, politicians, 
 artists who brought advertising designs the man with 
 torch aloft was his own idea engaging his staff. Mr 
 Massingham, that brilliant journalist, was his chief leader- 
 writer, Ernest Parke was the sub-editor, George Bernard Shaw 
 was the Musical Critic and many other men, then unknown, 
 but now famous in the world of journalism, were contributors. 
 
 But even after some of the machinery was bought there 
 was a moment of fear that the whole plan of " The Star " 
 would miscarry. Mr Carnegie offered to provide Lord 
 Morley with sufficient capital to start an evening paper in 
 support of the Liberals. " The Star " was to be a Radical 
 paper. I was staying in Brighton, to be near the Laboucheres, 
 who were at Lyon Mansion. T. P. came down from London 
 much depressed, and said as Home Rule was to come to 
 Ireland through the Liberals, and John Morley with an 
 evening paper could be of such service to the party, he 
 thought he had better drop " The Star." I simply raged. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " I said, " you can't do it. Here you are 
 compromised to all your staff I never heard of such a quixotic 
 idea in my life of course you must go on with the paper." 
 
 He said, " Don't say anything about this to anybody." 
 
 I looked at the clock. " In fifteen minutes," I said, 
 " Mr Labouchere shall know all about it." And off I rushed 
 to Lyon Mansion to find him a mine of strength and support ; 
 he helped to write a wire to Mr Morley for T. P. to sign, who 
 soon made his appearance, and with my bullying and Mr 
 Labouchere's logic a boy was sent off with the telegram. 
 I followed him in the hall and gave him a shilling to run. 
 
 Mr Morley abandoned the idea of his paper, and " The 
 Star " went triumphantly on its way. So great was 
 T. P.'s, enthusiasm that he said he must be on the premises 
 both day and night. He could not edit the paper otherwise. 
 So a flat was built for us at the top of " The Star " building.
 
 212 I MYSELF 
 
 He also, to lessen the time given to dressing in the morning, 
 designed a time -saving costume. It was to be a flannel- 
 lined coat buttoned to the chin, the trousers also flannel- 
 lined and with socks and slippers ; he calculated not more 
 than two minutes for clothing himself. My suggestion was 
 to do away with socks and trousers, and in their stead flannel- 
 lined top-boots reaching well up over the knee, and a very 
 long, braided sort of garberdine, thus reducing his dressing 
 to half a minute. He said I always threw cold water on all 
 his valuable ideas, and neither of the costumes after this 
 was adopted. 
 
 Finally, the first day arrived for the publication of the 
 paper. I went down rather early. The machines were 
 going, nice new carts standing outside, newsboys were 
 waiting in groups. T. P. was in his editorial room, proof 
 was going up and down the stairs, and finally a batch of 
 papers were ready, and the first newsboy found his voice and 
 called out " Star, Evening Star " and rushed down the street 
 followed by other boys shouting and waving the new paper. 
 A lump came in my throat, and I ran upstairs to congratulate 
 T. P. 
 
 Before night the success of the paper was ensured. I 
 drove to Grosvenor Gardens to dine with the Laboucheres 
 and tell them all about it. Mr Labouchere had advised about 
 the contract, which practically made T. P. a life editor, and 
 at last I thought that with his splendid talent he had come 
 into his own. What a happy, happy night it was, in spite 
 of the prospect of, like poor Jo, my moving on again. 
 
 Although I had not been long in my little house on the 
 embankment, it was a grief to leave it. The river was full of 
 interest and charm to me, and it was my first home, after 
 being so many years without one. But I moved to " The 
 Star " the day after the paper started. And really the 
 next two years could not have been more uncomfortable. 
 The building was not very solidly built, and the machinery 
 shook it like an aspen leaf. The hangings, curtains and all 
 my clothes reeked of printers' ink, the noise of the carts 
 coming and going, the call of the drivers, the quarrelling of
 
 THE BIRTH OF "THE STAR" 213 
 
 newsboys, and the incessant grinding of machinery, made a 
 perfect pandemonium of noise. A huge market was just 
 opposite, and the odour of stale food was continually coming 
 in at the windows. The one delightful thing about it was an 
 excellent bathroom with a generous tub and a fine shower- 
 bath, which had been put in expressly for T. P. Before we 
 left Grosvenor Road he had been speaking somewhere in the 
 country, and at the house of his host had taken a cold shower- 
 bath. When he came home he said at last he had found the 
 thing that would cure his every ill a shower-bath and he 
 wanted one put in at once in Grosvenor Road. I demurred 
 to the expense, and also suggested that he sometimes 
 changed his mind perhaps after he got the shower-bath he 
 wouldn't like it. He said he never changed his mind never ; 
 that I always discouraged him in every effort he made to 
 regain his health (what a splendid robust invalid he was !) ; 
 that evidently I didn't care for a shower-bath myself, and 
 that was the reason I didn't want it. So when the architect 
 who was designing " The Star " flat came to me with the 
 plans, I at once put my finger on the bathroom and said, 
 " Whatever you can or cannot do in this flat, give us a 
 vigorous shower-bath the largest one manufactured." 
 
 One morning about nine o'clock I asked the maid where 
 Mr O'Connor was. She said in his bedroom, in bed that 
 he was suffering from a chill. When I went in, he was 
 wrapped in blankets and had a hot-water bottle clasped in 
 his arms. The chill was the result of the shower-bath, 
 without which only a short time before he could not exist. 
 He said there was something the matter with his circulation 
 for the moment, but he would be better in a day or so. 
 Twice after he tried the shower-bath, with the same result, 
 and then it was left to my undisturbed possession. There is 
 nothing in the world I like better. That cold, invigorating 
 spray kept me alive during those two trying years spent in 
 Stonecutter Street. 
 
 One night in particular I remember. T. P. was speaking in 
 Scotland, where I was to join him the next day, and I was 
 alone on my floor, the servants all up above, when, about
 
 2i 4 I MYSELF 
 
 half-past two or three o'clock in the morning, I felt the 
 quiver and grind of machinery. I looked at my clock, and 
 was petrified with terror. It was an evening paper the 
 machines never began before the morning what could have 
 happened ? Had the Queen died ? I jumped out of bed, 
 threw on my dressing-gown, and ran barefooted into the hall. 
 
 The night-watchman met me, his lantern swinging in his 
 hand, followed by Max. 
 
 " What, oh, what has happened ? " I gasped out. 
 
 " Jack the Ripper," he said, " has murdered two women 
 to-night not so far away from here either and we are 
 getting to press as early as anybody." 
 
 " Two ! " I said. " Horrible ! How did he manage that ? " 
 
 He told me as much as he knew, and I took Max in my 
 room to guard me, and waited for the daylight. 
 
 What an impenetrable mystery Jack the Ripper was ! 
 The wretch evidently had a sardonic sense of humour, for 
 he used to write to the papers to say a murder would 
 be committed the next night, and sign his letters " The 
 Ripper " and sure enough the murder, in spite of all 
 vigilance, would take place neatly and deftly ; and, notwith- 
 standing his grimly humorous letter of warning, no trace 
 would be found. All sorts of theories were advanced, but 
 there was absolutely nothing in any of them. 
 
 One night Mr Parnell came to see Mr Labouchere. He 
 was wearing a long rough overcoat with the collar well above 
 his ears, a slouch hat well down over his eyes, and he carried 
 a black bag just the size for instruments. Mr Labouchere 
 accompanied him to the door and said, " Shall I call a cab 
 for you ? " 
 
 " No," Mr Parnell said, " I will walk." 
 
 " Where," said Mr Labouchere, " do you live ? " 
 
 " Over there," said Mr Parnell, sweeping his arm toward 
 the darkness of the night into which he disappeared. 
 
 Mr Labouchere returned to his library and a group of 
 friends, and laughing, said, " I do believe that I've just 
 parted with ' Jack the Ripper ' anyhow Parnell is the only 
 man who answers to the description."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MY FIRE-ESCAPE FLIGHT. BRILLIANT LETTERS 
 FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 
 THE authorities looking over " The Star " building said 
 it was particularly unsafe in time of fire that in fif- 
 teen minutes the building would be demolished ; and 
 they ordered a fire-escape to be made, one of those long canvas 
 bags which are hooked on to iron loops and swung down 
 into the yard below. You are supposed to get in it and put 
 your arms akimbo, and stretch your legs wide apart, thus 
 filling up the bag and keeping yourself from going down with 
 too great a velocity. It is a sort of calisthenic performance, 
 requiring a good deal of practice, and you begin with one 
 storey only. Another thing breaking the direct downward 
 drop are the two men who, in the yard or street below, hold 
 the bag out, so that it makes a slanting line. 
 
 Two firemen and the bag arrived one spring evening about 
 six o'clock. I was to dine out and go on to a party afterwards. 
 The iron loops were screwed in and firmly adjusted in my 
 bedroom window, which was on the fourth story ; the bag 
 was fixed on to the loops, and hung down to the square court 
 below. The firemen, both of whom had been drinking and 
 probably wanting a lark, urged me to go down in it. I 
 hesitated, and sat in the window for some moments (any 
 height makes me rather sick) with my legs dangling down 
 in the bag. They said, " You had better slide down now, 
 and in case of fire you can give Mr O'Connor and the servants 
 confidence by going down ahead of them." 
 
 I felt very frightened and nauseated, but I said, " All 
 right, go down and take hold of the bag " and after I had 
 
 215
 
 216 I MYSELF 
 
 dangled a little while longer I suddenly let go, and down I 
 went. But no arms akimbo, and no legs braced against the 
 canvas ! Oh no I just put my arms up above my head in 
 the frantic hope of grabbing something anything that would 
 stay my instant death, for that is what it felt like. 
 
 However, the agony did not last long. Down I went like 
 an arrow shot from a bow, my skirts up about my head like 
 an umbrella turned the wrong side out. I shot by the men 
 like a catapult from a gun, and slid along the stones in the 
 yard as if they had been greased, leaving large patches of 
 skin on each one that I touched. My right foot turned, 
 spraining the ankle, every hairpin was out of my head, my 
 hair hung down like Meg Merrilees', my elbows had come 
 through my sleeves and my arms were skinned, but I was 
 to my great surprise alive. Every window in the court was 
 filled with a laughing, cheering crowd. 
 
 The firemen, quite sobered with fright, picked me up, and 
 smoothed my ruffled feathers, and then I found I couldn't 
 walk. My ankle began to swell at once. I was carried 
 upstairs. I called for a soft cushion to sit on ; Mr Parke came 
 up and cut off my boot ; and we dispatched a telegram to 
 my hostess and my doctor. 
 
 T. P. was out. When he came in he could not believe 
 that I had done anything so utterly foolhardy, so absurd, 
 and apparently so courageous. And the unfortunate part 
 was that everybody who had seen the descent resolved there 
 and then to burn up alive rather than go down in a fire-escape. 
 
 We had a lunch party when I had sufficiently recovered, 
 and I remember Tim Healy, such a gay, agreeable, and witty 
 friend in those far-off days, looking out of the window and 
 down the fire-escape, and saying he wouldn't for four thousand 
 pounds have taken that hasty journey. As a matter of fact, 
 I was most horribly afraid to do it, but I thought it my duty 
 to be prepared for fire, and above all to set the servants an 
 example with the fire-escape ; but the moments of agony 
 I spent in the awful thing have developed in me an ever- 
 lasting sympathy for the criminal. On that occasion I 
 suffered all the pain of execution.
 
 LETTERS FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 217 
 
 One night we went to Spencer House, to an " At Home," 
 and on our return to Stonecutter Street, when T. P. gave 
 the cabman his fare, he got a very frank lecture on the 
 enormity of his ways. 
 
 " If," said the man, " I knew your families, I would tell 
 them who you are, bringing me down here to a newspaper 
 office at this time of night, and giving me half-a-crown to do 
 it. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves." 
 
 We did not explain that we were married and this was our 
 singular home. 
 
 Climbing up and down the four flights of stairs was very 
 tiresome, and another disadvantage was the number of things 
 that were stolen while we lived there. One thing I shall 
 ever regret, a genuine treasure that I had always refused 
 to sell, even in my poorest days : a very beautiful authentic 
 miniature of the Pompadour with powdered hair, dressed 
 with a little wreath of roses, a white pointed bodice, and 
 gossamer lace falling about the square neck. It was painted 
 in the heyday of her beauty, and the face and shoulders were 
 exquisite. It disappeared one day. With so many people 
 running in and out of the flat, to trace it was impossible. 
 Newspaper offices and theatres are alike things just go. 
 
 The musical criticisms of George Bernard Shaw were 
 among the great successes of the paper. They were bril- 
 liantly written, full of humour, and always amusing and 
 original not entirely about music, for he gave himself great 
 latitude, and this was his charm : the unexpected always, 
 even as in his plays of the present day. I delighted in every 
 line that he wrote, and in him personally. He was so witty, 
 gay, and undaunted. He was very poor, and revelled in his 
 poverty as a huge joke. That is why Fate has made him 
 rich. He really didn't care a pin about money. The 
 simplicity of his life called for nothing more than the most 
 moderate stipend. He was the strictest vegetarian. He 
 wore flannel shirts, and the most inexpensive clothes ; was 
 active and walked great distances, spending nothing in cab 
 fares ; his only beverage was water and he was perfectly 
 happy, living partly in his land of dreams, and partly in the
 
 2i8 I MYSELF 
 
 world, where nothing escaped his sharp eye the follies and 
 the motives of mortals were quite open to his penetrating 
 vision. Many people, chiefly unobservant ones, argue that 
 George Bernard Shaw's theoretical creations spring from his 
 brain, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, and possess no 
 attributes of human men and women, but I daresay if the 
 truth were known, he has drawn them chiefly from his own 
 intimates. 
 
 There was never a more natural play than " Man and 
 Superman "or a more natural woman than its heroine Ann ; 
 and the female of the present day is continually stalking the 
 male all over the world. It is a reversal of nature, but then 
 through so-called civilization we are tending more toward 
 artificiality every day, and it is a long time since Eve offered 
 Adam the apple in the Garden of Eden and then felt 
 ashamed of herself. The only question now among a certain 
 class of women is, " Will he eat, and how soon ? " Many 
 women, especially the hypocritical, and those who have 
 played Ann's game, resent the creation ; but we all know her. 
 There are Anns belonging to every nationality ; they are 
 found in America, France, Germany, England and I 
 daresay in Asia Minor. 
 
 Some years ago I met G. B. S., travelling with a party 
 of artists on the Lake of Como. I asked to be introduced to 
 one of them, saying, I was so much interested in his pictures. 
 
 " Not you," said Mr Shaw, his eyes dancing with fun. 
 " He's a mighty good-looking fellow, that's why you want 
 to know him you neither know nor care anything about his 
 pictures." 
 
 I laughed and instantly forgave him he was so near the 
 truth. I love beauty above everything in nature, in art, in 
 man, or tree, or flower, or child, and the satisfaction of my 
 eye is my chiefest pleasure. 
 
 The boat stopped at Como just then, so I never made the 
 gentleman's acquaintance, but it really is not worth the 
 trouble of ever trying to deceive Mr Shaw. By a quick 
 mental process he divines the truth at once. Indeed a great 
 part of his wit lies in presenting the facts of life (in his own
 
 LETTERS FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 219 
 
 inimitable style) just as they are. Unabashed and unafraid, 
 he exposes truth, no matter how ugly she may appear to be, 
 and tears from her face the falsehood with which we have 
 been veiling it for generations. He knows, nobody better, 
 that in truth lies freedom, and he is working steadily toward 
 that goal, and at the same time adding to the gaiety of 
 nations, for, thank Heaven ! his most serious efforts are 
 seasoned with the biting sauce of inexhaustible humour. 
 
 These letters, received so long ago in " The Star " days, I 
 kept for their frank and delightful wit. They are as amusing 
 to-day as when they were written. 
 
 " 29 FITZROY SQUARE, 
 Lfih May, 1888. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Decidedly the American woman 
 is the woman of the future, but how the American woman 
 contrives to get on with the Irishman of the present, without 
 driving him out of his senses by franknesses which strike me 
 as appalling indiscretion, was the second thought which 
 occurred to me when I met you at ' The Star ' sanctum, the 
 first thought being, of course, the realization of the American 
 woman herself personally. It is the Irishman's charm and 
 defect that he never loses his naivete as to woman, he never 
 ventures to think that she is human ; and consequently he is 
 eternally chivalrous, which is convenient at times, but which 
 on the whole makes him desperately conventional on the 
 woman question, and inclined to think that her place, after she 
 has seen to his dinner and his buttons, is a glass case, and her 
 chief duty to hold her tongue. I cannot help intrusively 
 surmising that the unfortunate T. P. is having the remnants 
 of this superstition ruthlessly extirpated by the aforesaid 
 American woman of the future. I am enviously sorry for 
 him. 
 
 " I admit that it was a fall for Trefusis when he married 
 Agatha, but it was inevitable. They were one another's 
 natural prey from the first, and when two people find that 
 out it ends always in the same way in spite of reason, unless 
 one or other or both is ' Bespoke ' before the meeting occurs.
 
 220 I MYSELF 
 
 "As to the vegetarian meal, I positively refuse. I have 
 had considerable experience of the danger of associating 
 myself with experiments of that kind. When the victim is 
 a man he forgives me after a time, but women are not so 
 magnanimous ; besides, your suggestion the most extra- 
 ordinary ever made by woman that the reformed diet might 
 have the effect of assimilating your personal appearance to 
 mine, chills me to the soul. Imagine your becoming fair, 
 not to say green ! No, thank you ! If all the women were 
 made fair to-morrow I should retire to a monastery the day 
 after. The fact is these bean-pies and so on are not the 
 proper things to eat, though they are better than cow. The 
 correct thing is good bread and good fruit and nothing else. 
 At present it is impossible to get either except at odd times. 
 
 " It is superfluous to recommend M.'s ' Confessions ' to me ; 
 I have heard them from his own lips. I doubt if there is any 
 other such man in the world as he. I cannot describe him ; 
 he would baffle even T. P.'s descriptive talent, and I accept 
 your phrase as the final felicity of criticism on him. 
 
 " My book- writing days are over, unluckily ; for the last 
 five years I have had to live and lecture at my own expense, 
 and I should not know how to write a novel now if I wanted 
 to. At the present moment, by the by, I should be writing 
 notes for the mossy-headed Massingham. How I should 
 like to get hold of that paper just for a fortnight ! 
 
 "G. B. S. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I have such a habit of signing that 
 way, that I forget and do it when better manners are needed. 
 Pray excuse it." 
 
 " 29 FITZROY SQUARE, W., 
 i6th September, 1888. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I take it that you are back from 
 Kreuznach by this time. I too am back from Bath upon 
 which expedition (I was three hours and a half there) I spent 
 a fortnight's hard work and a pound in present cash, only 
 to be maligned and misrepresented in ' The Star ' and to
 
 LETTERS FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 221 
 
 return in a state of destitution with my Italian Exhibition 
 project faded into an impossible dream. No, madam. 
 Share the splendour of West Kensington with the giddy 
 Massingham if you will, and leave to sterner, grimmer uses 
 the slave of the world's destiny and of his own genius. 
 
 " I walked home from my lecture at Dalston last night to 
 save a tram fare think of that and blush ! Probably I 
 shall walk home from the New Cut to-night for the same 
 reason. Last month I earned 6, 125. The month's rent 
 is 5. I have another paper to prepare for October 5th, 
 equal in difficulty to the Bath one, and equally paid in the 
 gratitude of posterity. I have two books commissioned, 
 payment by royalty after they are published and you talk 
 of the Italian Exhibition ! Ha, ha ! Do you know what the 
 Italian Exhibition costs ? Our tickets, third class, including 
 admission, half-a-crown if they would cost a penny. One 
 programme between us, a penny. The Blue Grotto, three- 
 pence (for you I should wait outside as I have seen the 
 imposture already) ; sixpenny seats at the Coliseum one 
 shilling ; threepenny seats at the Mandolinists sixpence ; 
 shilling seats at the Marionettes two shillings ; Switchback 
 Railway, one turn sixpence. Refreshments, say fourpence, 
 as we could be scrupulously economical. Loss of time, 
 reckoned at ' Star ' rates of payment half-a-crown apiece. 
 Total, twelve shillings and twopence ! So that even if I 
 borrowed ten shillings from you to start with (which an Army 
 Reserve man in the S. D. Federation tells me is the cheapest 
 plan of managing an affair of this sort) I should still be two 
 shillings and twopence out of pocket. Two shillings and 
 twopence to gratify the whim of a giddy young woman who 
 proposes (monstrous conceit) to take my education in hand ! 
 My education ! You a baby, still looking with wide-open, 
 delighted eyes at the glitter of West European whitewash 
 and advising maids, wives, and widows with the artless 
 wisdom of an incomparable and unique naivete educate 
 me \ Stupendous project ! No, I learn from everybody, 
 and what I learn I teach, but I am nobody's pupil, though I 
 should be glad indeed to meet my master. You will find
 
 222 I MYSELF 
 
 very few people in London who know anything, but those 
 who do have learnt it all from me ! All of which is as much 
 as to say that for the present I am tied, neck and heels, 
 to stump and inkpot, and mustn't introduce the statue to its 
 original yet awhile. 
 
 " Meanwhile, I hope you are well, as this leaves me at 
 present thank God ! (if there were one) for it. This is the 
 Irish formula, and faultless in its way. 
 
 " I judge by a fervour in the leading article that the 
 editor of ' The Star ' is again at his post. Convey to him 
 such kind regards as can pass between two hardened 
 worldlings. 
 
 " Of the enclosed 1 I very grievously suspect Master Tighe 
 Hopkins but you began it. 
 
 " G. B. S." 
 
 1 " The enclosed " was a brilliant article by Tighe Hopkins, suggested by 
 a paragraph in ' For Maids, Wives, and Widows ' my weekly column in 
 ' The Star.' "
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 A " STAR " PARTY. THE SHIRT OF CHARLES I., 
 AND NORWAY 
 
 WHEN I returned from Scotland to " The Star" build- 
 ing it never could be called home I met Adele 
 Steiner in Edinburgh and brought her back with 
 me as a consolation. She was a very pretty, thoughtful, 
 intellectual, charming girl from Texas, who had been spend- 
 ing a year or two abroad in foreign travel, and her stay 
 with me was a delight. She is now the wife of the Hon. 
 Albert Burleson, the able leader in Congress of the able 
 democratic party from Texas, and her thoughtfulness and 
 tact have been of inestimable service to her husband. 
 
 We were soon busy preparing for a reception in " The Star " 
 building. The editorial department was furbished up as a 
 series of dressing-rooms, and as all the rooms in the flat 
 opened into each other and some of them had folding-doors, 
 it was easy to make sufficient space to accommodate many 
 guests. Various friends with country places sent big 
 baskets of flowers and foliage. Lady Ripon from Studley 
 Royal was particularly generous, and Lady Milbanke sent 
 from Yorkshire not only flowers enough to decorate the 
 entire dining-room, but a special bunch of pink and white 
 carnations my favourite flower for my own personal 
 decoration. 
 
 The four flights of stairs were covered in red felt. An 
 awning was provided for the door, and we looked very gay 
 and festive on the night of the party. The various papers 
 were kind in their mention of it, but I have only this extract 
 left : 
 
 aaj
 
 224 I MYSELF 
 
 " Mrs T. P. O'Connor, a charming American, was ' At 
 Home ' on Wednesday evening at ' The Star ' Office, an 
 immense building which also serves Mr and Mrs O'Connor 
 as a residence. 
 
 " It was a novel experience, I should imagine, to nineteen 
 out of every twenty guests to be sumptuously entertained 
 in a newspaper office, and for myself, I never remember 
 anything like it except the great party given to inaugurate 
 the new ' Daily Telegraph ' buildings six or seven years 
 ago. 
 
 " Luckily ' The Star ' ' At Home ' was on that evening of the 
 week when most of us can manage to steal a few hours of the 
 night without going into sackcloth and ashes next morning, 
 and the result was that some 500 accepted Mrs O'Connor's 
 invitation. The ' At Home ' was a kind of christening of 
 the Radical paper, which in five months has obtained a 
 circulation unprecedented in the history of journalism in 
 England. Everybody was there, Politicians, Artists, Actors 
 and Actresses, Professional Beauties, pretty young ladies 
 just coming out, and a large sprinkling of Society celebrities, 
 and what is more, everybody enjoyed himself or herself. 
 
 " Clever Mrs O'Connor had turned the rooms in which she 
 and her husband live, above the working part of the paper, 
 into a perfect fairyland, ablaze with lights and flowers. 
 There was Irish hospitality and some excellent Washington 
 punch, and the result was that all went merry as marriage 
 bells. 
 
 " Towards the middle of the evening there was a diversion 
 in the shape of the printing of the last edition of the paper, 
 the ladies going down to the machine-room and setting the 
 Marinoni and Fosters going with their own fair hands. 
 
 " There was Mr Gladstone talking to Mr John Morley. 
 Mr Beerbohm Tree surrounded by a circle of admirers. Oscar 
 Wilde and his pretty young wife. Sir Charles Russell. 
 And representing the Opposition Bench were Sir Lyon Play- 
 fair and Mr James Stansfeld, and I noticed Mr G. B. Shaw 
 and Lord Ashburnham, Sir Frederick and Lady Milbanke, 
 and Mrs Labouchere in white satin, old lace, and a parure of
 
 A "STAR "PARTY 225 
 
 diamonds, had a smile and a cheery word for every one of her 
 numerous friends. 
 
 "A great many people who had dropped in for a few minutes 
 only and intended to hie them away to other functions, 
 changed their mind when they found what good entertain- 
 ment was in store for them and stayed at " The Star " Office. 
 
 " The party was altogether a brilliant success." 
 
 M. Johannes Wolff played divinely at " The Star " party. 
 He could not speak a word of English at that time, and I 
 offered jestingly to give him lessons. He took it seriously 
 and arrived the next day with grammar, dictionary, and a 
 little book of stories. I gave him one lesson, Adele Steiner 
 gave him the next, and T. P. gave him two. This was his 
 entire course in English, though now he speaks the language 
 very well. The lessons were interrupted by a short visit to 
 Lord Ashburnham's and never resumed. Ashburnham 
 Place is one of the lovely spots of England. The house is 
 old, and the garden is sheltered and has a great variety of 
 trees and shrubs brought from milder climates and thriving 
 well in the soil, which all about Hastings is more or less 
 productive. The white grapes are magnificent, and there 
 is okra also growing under glass, a very delicious vegetable 
 brought from Egypt, and, like the pomegranate, Cleopatra 
 ate of it, for okra is a historic vegetable and was, I have no 
 doubt, a favourite with the Ptolemies. It is the principal 
 ingredient of gumbo, the famous dish of New Orleans. 
 
 There was no house party, only Adele and I, Lord Ash- 
 burnham and, later on, T. P. The first evening of our 
 arrival Adele came down to dinner looking like a very youth- 
 ful Marquise. She was dressed in pink satin brocaded in 
 silver lilies, with her hair powdered and bound by a silver 
 ribbon. I said, " Why all this magnificence ? " And she 
 bowed toward Lord Ashburnham and answered, " In honour 
 of the distinguished host and the distinguished house." 
 
 He looked very pleased it was a pretty compliment, and 
 we three spent such a gay evening together. I have never 
 seen a more courteous or thoughtful host, or a man with 
 more exquisite manners.
 
 226 I MYSELF 
 
 He never passed a gardener without lifting his hat, and his 
 servants have followed his example so closely in the matter 
 of manners, that I wanted to know why the butler had not 
 been sent as Ambassador to St Petersburg. I never had quite 
 such pretty attentions from anybody as that butler. He 
 listened at table to my lightest word. If I said I liked 
 venison it appeared at the next meal. If I said I liked roses 
 I found a bunch on my dressing-table. Some artist had 
 visited at Ashburnham Place and made various sketches 
 while there, and it occurred to the butler, after looking at the 
 pictures, that he could paint too. So he bought himself an 
 easel, and various tubes of colours, and straightway became 
 an artist. There was a certain vista of the garden I loved, 
 and he painted a most creditable little picture of that view, 
 and subsequently sent it to me, accompanied by a ham from 
 Lord Ashburnham. 
 
 There was so much of interest in the house. The magnifi- 
 cent library which had been collected by the father of Lord 
 Ashburnham was then intact ; among the books was a fine 
 Mazarin Bible in perfect condition, and a missal set with 
 uncut gems and illustrated by Raphael. But of far greater 
 interest to me was the shirt worn by Charles I. the 
 day he was beheaded. It was made of very fine linen, 
 with the broad ruffles around the wrists and down the front 
 exquisitely hemstitched, and circling the neck was a faint 
 salmon pink stain. It seems that one of the former Ladies 
 Ashburnham had no regard for the blood of kings, and she 
 ordered a tirewoman to wash the shirt ! Fortunately the 
 stain was like the blood-stain of Rizzio in Holyrood, too deep 
 to be removed. 
 
 All pleasant things come to an end, and one day we found 
 ourselves back in London, and Adele departed for Germany, 
 leaving me to bear the ceaseless restlessness of Stonecutter 
 Street alone. 
 
 There was a little interregnum of peace when Walter 
 Ballantine, that kind and thoughtful friend, lent us his 
 maisonette in Victoria Street. Merely to be away from the 
 throb of machinery was bliss. Finally the noise and din of
 
 NORWAY 227 
 
 Stonecutter Street got on T. P.'s nerves as well, and we 
 found a flat in Carlisle Place, and for a time settled there. 
 Then came T. P.'s resignation from " The Star," and that 
 summer we went with Thomas Nelson Page and Johannes 
 Wolff to Norway and spent a delightful few weeks there. 
 It was on our return that Tom Page read us his charming 
 story of " Elsket " which he had begun in Bergen and 
 finished at our house in London. 
 
 T. P. has a remarkable concentration of mind, and can 
 study as easily now as at eighteen. Before we started on our 
 trip I came in one day and found a queer-looking man in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Who is that man ? " I asked. 
 
 " My Norwegian teacher, madam," answered T. P., and 
 with a novel, a grammar, and a book of verbs, he soon 
 mastered enough of the language to make us quite com- 
 fortable in travelling. He has a quick understanding of the 
 construction of a language, but his ear is defective the 
 pronunciation is for him always difficult. 
 
 At Bergen we drove out to see the Griegs, whom I knew, 
 but they had gone away, and so we missed them. They had 
 a little place near the town, and they lived very simply. 
 Their quiet happiness came from within, and surely their 
 marriage was made in heaven, for no two people were ever 
 more contented together, or more congenial. They looked 
 exactly alike, both having wide open, childlike, heavenly blue 
 eyes, short, curly, grey hair, and both were small and thin. 
 They dressed alike in grey tweed, and when they went out 
 wore overcoats and little round caps made apparently by the 
 same tailor. 
 
 Mrs Grieg was a fine pianiste, and I have heard them play 
 spirited duets together, and he never found such an inter- 
 preter of his beautiful gay, sad, characteristic songs as she. 
 When he came to London, and his wife was just recovering 
 from a life and death operation, a well-known singer was 
 engaged for one of Grieg's concerts, and sang once, but he 
 telegraphed Mrs Grieg to come if possible. She did, and 
 sang like a nightingale. Her voice even at that time was as
 
 228 I MYSELF 
 
 fresh as that of a girl of seventeen joyous, melodious and 
 musical. 
 
 They were very young when first engaged to be married, 
 and both taught music and were hopelessly poor, and the 
 engagement lasted years fifteen or seventeen before he 
 made enough money to buy a little home ; but they were 
 always happy in each other and consequently quite in- 
 dependent of other people. 
 
 We all have different ideas of happiness. One woman 
 desires social success above all else. Another wishes to 
 become a great singer ; another a great actress ; another 
 longs to have been born a great beauty ; but my idea of 
 satisfying happiness is that of a close, congenial, unbreakable 
 companionship, such as Grieg and his wife had. It gives 
 that peace which passeth all understanding the peace of 
 the mind and the heart. It stills restlessness, and makes the 
 sharpest pain bearable. And, alas, this companionship is 
 given to so few of us ! To me it began and ended with my 
 father. 
 
 When Grieg's music became popular, he was offered 
 concert engagements all over Europe, but he never wanted 
 money. His wife, his home and his piano, made him com- 
 pletely happy. 
 
 M. Johannes Wolff was a special favourite with the great 
 composer. He thought no artist could play Grieg's Sonata 
 with such expression and feeling, and Johannes Wolff loved 
 Norway, which was also a claim upon Grieg's affection. 
 The Norwegians are a very proud race even the humblest 
 are self-respecting and independent. When we were all 
 travelling in the little stohlkerries, each alone with the 
 driver, Johannes Wolff complained to his of the slowness 
 of his horse, whereupon the man said he would go home 
 though it was only our second day out and home he went, 
 proudly refusing a penny for his services. This taught 
 me a lesson, and every little while, when my driver said, 
 " Good 'orse, good 'orse," I, looking at his sturdy steed, 
 enthusiastically agreed.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 A FRAGRANT PRECIPICE 
 
 STALHEIM is the most beautiful place in Norway, with 
 the hotel looking down a purple gorge of mountains, 
 and a fragrant precipice was just at the side of my 
 bedroom window it must have contained all sorts of strongly 
 perfumed flowers to scent the air so adorably. And I 
 remember Stalheim for another reason as well : it was there 
 T. P. and Tom Page elected to demonstrate the fact that men 
 are only grown-up boys. As the hotel was overflowing, they 
 occupied the same room, and each had retired to his separate 
 little bed, when Tom Page, who did all the last things at 
 night, said, " T. P., you open the window to-night, and hang 
 up your wet stockings to dry, and blow out the candle," 
 but T. P. firmly declined any of the offices, and the candle 
 was still lighted on the table between them when I went 
 in the room later for some medicine. " Why." I said, " has 
 the candle been left burning ? " 
 
 " Because," Tom Page grumbled, " T. P. was too darned 
 lazy to blow it out. After this we must all strike against 
 waiting on him." To restore harmony, I opened the window, 
 hung up the stockings, and blew out the light, but unless I 
 had gone in the room, the candle would have burned to its 
 socket, a torch of contention between a celebrated author 
 and a celebrated journalist. 
 
 In Christiania I found Grieg's world-renowned Wedding 
 March converted into a picture : it represents a midsummer's 
 day, in a dark green forest. The tall pine trees rearing their 
 heads to the blue sky, the hot bright sunlight slanting through 
 and down upon a rushing stream, over which the wedding 
 
 29
 
 2 3 o I MYSELF 
 
 party are crossing. The bride is in white and on a white 
 horse, and wears a silver crown which the sun turns to pale 
 gold. 
 
 The bridegroom is in green, rich in ancestral ornaments, 
 and the wedding guests are clad in the gay and picturesque 
 peasant costumes of the country. It is a happy rendering 
 of love, and youth, and colour, and coolness, and greenness, 
 by an artist of much poetical feeling, and was inspired by 
 Grieg's fairy-like, characteristic music. I stood long enough 
 before it to make it mine, and I have only to shut my eyes 
 to see it again. 
 
 At our hotel in Christiania every evening about six o'clock 
 we had a visitor with whom I longed to speak Ibsen. He 
 came in the reading-room at this hour, settled himself in a 
 certain chair, and read the English, German and French 
 newspapers. He resembled strongly a retired American 
 farmer, with his white beard under and around his face like 
 a ruffle, his thick grey, wiry, upstanding hair, and his small, 
 inquisitive, very bright eyes. He was always dressed in 
 black, with a black necktie and a soft black hat, and no one 
 ever spoke to him, or he to anyone. I longed to tell him 
 what a debt of gratitude all women owed him for writing 
 " A Doll's House," that great play which is one of the most 
 powerful pleas for the emancipation of woman. It is a 
 tragic, unanswerable argument that they should occupy the 
 position of comrade and friend, instead of child or play- 
 thing. Nora understood the art of flattering her husband's 
 vanity by appealing to him as a pretty playful baby. She, 
 indeed, for a time, and through his attitude, believed in his 
 superiority, but when the final test came she was the stronger 
 of the two. It was her husband's latent cowardice and 
 her latent strength which the comedy she was playing laid 
 bare and converted into a tragedy.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 THE LOST LEADER 
 
 " Blot out his name then, record one lost soul more, 
 One task more declined, one more footprint untrod, 
 One more devil's triumph and sorrow for angels, 
 One wrong more to man, one more insult to God." 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 THERE is no woman, even the most unthinking, who has 
 read or heard Nora's words that can ever forget them, 
 when in answer to her husband's assertion that as a 
 man he cannot sacrifice his honour for her, Nora says : 
 " That is what hundreds and thousands of women have done, 
 and are still doing every day." 
 
 It is the false position which women occupy, the necessity 
 of subordinating an intelligence oftentimes better and 
 keener than that of man, simply on account of sex, which 
 makes so many of the heart-breaking tragedies of the world. 
 " I'm a man and I ought to know," is a phrase which accounts 
 for a number of the shipwrecks which might have been 
 avoided if the captain had not steered the ship alone. 
 
 Quite a different man from Ibsen was Bjornsterne Bjornson. 
 I saw him walking along one very hot afternoon, clothed 
 entirely, like Mark Twain, in pure white heavy serge. The 
 only spots of colour were his blue, blue eyes, and a blue 
 pansy pinned on his coat. He was a strikingly hand- 
 some man of the real Viking type, very tall and strong 
 looking, with glittering hair, and eyes and a rolling gait like 
 a sailor. He, too, had advanced ideas for women, but his 
 genius was of a more delicate order and much less ruthless 
 than Ibsen's. His studies and pictures of Norwegian life 
 give a most vivid impression of the country ; they are so
 
 232 I MYSELF 
 
 definite, so full of vigour and virility, and he makes the rush 
 of the water and the clearness of the air an actuality. 
 
 In the autumn of that year we went to America. It was 
 necessary to raise funds for the Irish Party, and Mr Parnell 
 sent for this purpose T. P. O'Connor, William O'Brien and 
 John Dillon if there were other members, I have forgotten. 
 The possibility of a divorce between Mrs O'Shea and her 
 husband had been spoken of, but Mr Parnell was strong in his 
 assurance that it would not take place, and even if it did it 
 would make no difference to him or his position. The first 
 meetings were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and the money 
 came rolling in, like a tidal wave. Bishops, and priests, and 
 governors, and mayors, sat on the platforms and made 
 speeches. Theatres were not large enough to hold the 
 audiences, and opera houses were brought into requisition. 
 
 At that time every one in America believed in Home Rule ; 
 the party was undivided, working in unity and held together 
 by an iron hand. Parnell was looked upon as more astute 
 than Gladstone, and quite as great a party leader. The very 
 air was full of success. Irish and Americans alike put their 
 hands in their pockets to contribute to the funds, and many of 
 the Irish chambermaids gave each a solitary dollar. 
 
 Then came the news of the divorce, and the tide turned. 
 The Nonconformist conscience is by no means unknown in 
 America, and also many American men are grim and self- 
 controlled. They had no particle of sympathy for a man who 
 could ruin his own position and that of his party through Love. 
 There were columns upon columns in all the American news- 
 papers, and the Irish members were besieged by reporters, 
 who never left them, night or day. I remember washing my 
 hands and dressing my hair one evening with three in the 
 room. T. P. was extremely tactful and patient with them. 
 And at every cable, or tiny morsel of news, they made a fresh 
 rush, trying to thumbscrew some small opinion out of some- 
 body. One night, on the arrival of a certain cable, they woke 
 Mr Dillon and T. P. up at three o'clock in the morning. It 
 was always the same question : " Have you anything to say, 
 Mr O'Connor, on the state of affairs now ? "
 
 THE LOST LEADER 233 
 
 The answer was invariably, " No, boys, I haven't." Then 
 the " boys " would invent what it seemed to them 
 should have been said, and we would pass on to the next 
 day. 
 
 Mrs William O'Brien was held up to me as a model of dis- 
 cretion. She never even looked in the direction of a reporter, 
 while I occasionally did smile at some good-looking lad, who 
 bade me good morning, and I was strictly commanded to hold 
 my tongue, and on no account to be interviewed. I slipped 
 away to Washington for a few days, and missing my friends 
 at the station, as they lived in the country, I was obliged to 
 go to the Arlington Hotel for the night. No sooner had I 
 sat down to supper than a young man appeared. 
 
 " Is this Mrs O'Connor ? " 
 
 " It is," I answered cordially, thinking, with my bad 
 memory for faces, he was a forgotten friend. 
 
 " I am a reporter from the " 
 
 " Don't," I said, " please don't interview me. T. P. is in 
 mortal terror of my saying something I ought not to say. 
 You see I am disturbingly frank, and I've got no political 
 opinions except that I'm a democrat from Texas, and anyhow 
 I'm not the interesting one of the family. If you will leave 
 me out I'll tell you all I know about T. P. Where shall we 
 begin ? " 
 
 The next morning there was an awful column headed : 
 " Mrs T. P. says what she ought not. The frankest woman 
 in America." 
 
 Luckily there really was nothing compromising in the 
 interview, but the Irish Party breathed a sigh of relief when 
 they heard I had retired to the country. 
 
 On my return to New York things were in statu quo that 
 is, the Irish members were holding little committee meetings 
 from morning until night, but could not decide whether or 
 not to stand by Parnell. 
 
 I am in no sense of the word, as I have said before, a 
 politician, but I wanted dreadfully, from the dramatic and 
 spectacular point of view, that the Irish Party should to a man 
 stand by Parnell. In vain T. P. explained the Nonccn-
 
 234 I MYSELF 
 
 formist conscience to me. I said, " They ought to stand by 
 him like a solid phalanx of Roman soldiers, and go down 
 to history united. It would be splendid, unexpected and 
 intimidating. The English count on their being disunited. 
 They will at last fear the Irish if they rise or fall together." 
 
 I was an enthusiastic, blind, unconquerable Parnellite in 
 those days, and I thought, and think now, the division of the 
 party was a mistake. Once having been made, it was not 
 a matter of any consequence who became an anti-Parnellite 
 or a Parnellite. It was wiser to join the majority the one 
 and only thing was complete unity. 
 
 One day the committee meeting lasted so long in the 
 Hoffman House that I finally went to look for T. P. I 
 knocked at the door. There was a silence, so I went in. 
 Sheets of scribbled paper, parts of memoranda, and mani- 
 festoes were scattered about. One of them blown from the 
 table to a chair caught my eye it, too, was unfinished. I 
 picked it up, and brought it away with me, feeling that it was 
 ParnelTs doom. How splendidly it reads : 
 
 " HOFFMAN HOUSE, 
 " NEW YORK. 
 
 " We stand firmly and unitedly by the man who has brought 
 the Irish people through unparalleled difficulties and dangers 
 from servitude and despair to the very threshold of emancipa- 
 tion, with a genius, courage and devotion unequalled in our 
 history not only in gratitude for these imperishable services 
 in the past, but in the profound conviction that now more 
 than ever Parnell's leadership is the chief assurance of the 
 triumph of the Irish cause. We shall follow that leadership 
 loyally and unflinchingly " 
 
 It was never finished or signed, and the reading even 
 to-day is as sad as death. How history might have been 
 altered if it had been finished and valiantly upheld ! Mr 
 Parnell would not have died of a broken, desperate heart. 
 Irishmen would have proved themselves a united body of 
 men of steady nerve, incapable of intimidation, and, in spite
 
 THE LOST LEADER 235 
 
 of Mr Gladstone's manifesto, Home Rule would have been 
 nearer at hand than now. 
 
 " And I think, in the lives of most women and men, 
 There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, 
 If only the dead could find out when 
 To come back, and be forgiven." 
 
 The Uncrowned King has been forgiven the wild cheers 
 that enthusiastically burst forth at the magic word " Parnell " 
 at all Irish meetings show this. But he will never come 
 back. He was ill and doomed, when at one of his last 
 meetings, hoping to arouse the old enthusiasm, he himself 
 called out hoarsely, " Cheers for the Chief ! Cheers for the 
 Chief ! " That proud, silent, self-contained soul, to beg of the 
 public for cheers ! His spirit was broken, the end was near. 
 A great leader of men was dying. 
 
 " Whatever he to others was 
 
 He was finer far than anyone that I have known beneath the sun, 
 Sinner, saint, or pharisee "
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 AN OLD-WORLD HOUSE IN CHELSEA 
 
 ON my return from New York, after the Parnell debacle, 
 we moved into a charming old-fashioned house in 
 Upper Cheyne Row, just around the corner from 
 Carlyle's historic old house (which has now been turned into 
 a museum) in Cheyne Row. The people who lived in Oakley 
 Lodge before us had been tenants for thirty years, and were 
 broken-hearted at leaving it. I can well understand, for it 
 was unlike other houses and had a character and an in- 
 dividuality of its own. 
 
 There were two friendly drawing-rooms downstairs with 
 low ceilings, and a pretty dining-room, and above that 
 T. P.'s study, and a number of bedrooms, but the great charm 
 of the place was the long garden with the old sundial in the 
 centre and a number of fine old trees. 
 
 I grew to love every inch of the place, and I shall, I hope and 
 know, now that it is forever gone, never care so much for any 
 house again. 
 
 My friends found it pleasant to come and see me in the 
 summer, for a long balcony ran at the back of the house, and 
 here tea was served, and every one used to say that it was like 
 the country, so quiet, green, and peaceful. Every Friday 
 found me at home, and no one ever stood on ceremony with 
 me or waited for me to return their visits. 
 
 Many of my American friends found their way in the 
 pleasant spring days to the house at Chelsea. Mrs Louise 
 Chandler Moulton came every Friday. She is dead now, so it 
 doesn't matter if her pretty romantic story, already known 
 to her friends, is put into print. Philip Burke Marston, the 
 236

 
 AN OLD-WORLD HOUSE IN CHELSEA 237 
 
 blind poet, fell in love with her voice, when she was no 
 longer in the first freshness of her youth, and she always 
 used to say that she did not mind his being blind, because he 
 would never see her grow old ; but he never grew old himself, 
 and he loved her to the end of his life, and she his memory, 
 to the end of hers. She was an appreciative friend, and 
 what affectionate letters she always wrote. This one 
 enclosed a little paragraph which she had sent to a Boston 
 paper : 
 
 " 17 LANGHAM STREET, 
 " August 2^th. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I had felt a little blue and 
 lonely to-night, and I said to myself when the postman 
 knocked, ' I do wish something pleasant would come ' 
 and so it did, in the shape of your letter. Thank you for the 
 ' charming exaggeration of your paragraph. You make me 
 out all that I would like to be. 
 
 " I am so sorry to hear you are ill. You are too bright and 
 sweet for fate to give you any suffering. I hear you praised 
 when I go to Mrs Perkins to try on my gowns, and a dress- 
 maker is always a judge of character. 
 
 " I sent off the poems to my publisher to-day thank 
 Heaven ; now I shall have a little more leisure. I am going, 
 
 September 3rd, to make a brief visit to Lady W , about 
 
 two hours from London, and then I shall go either to Scotland 
 or Paris, I am not sure which. Next time we are in London 
 at the same time I hope I shall have the good fortune to see 
 much of you. 
 
 " I met the Pages at the Hendersons', and they promised 
 to come and see me last Tuesday, but they were faithless and 
 didn't. I was sorry, because I liked them much. 
 
 " I send my sheet full of good and affectionate wishes, and 
 a paragraph which I clip from a Boston paper, and I am very 
 much yours, LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON " 
 
 This was the paragraph : 
 
 " Americans are numerous in London just now. At a little
 
 2 3 8 I MYSELF 
 
 breakfast, given yesterday by Mrs T. P. O'Connor, I met 
 Thomas Nelson Page, whose work has long been my delight, 
 and he is himself quite as interesting as his own books. 
 Harold Frederic was there also, clever and brilliant, as 
 became the author of ' Seth's Brother's Wife,' and several 
 more Americans besides to say nothing of Mrs O'Connor, 
 who is an American herself, though she has been the last 
 sixteen or seventeen years in London. I have fallen in love 
 with Mrs O'Connor young, beautiful, witty, gracious, and 
 graceful, one is glad to have America thus represented in 
 London Society. When she talked I wanted to hear her talk 
 for ever, and when she accompanied on her grand piano the 
 divine playing of Johannes Wolff on his violin, the enchant- 
 ment of music completed the spell which enthralled me. 
 
 " Oscar Wilde was at this pleasant breakfast, and fairly 
 scintillated with wit. The host was talking to a radiant 
 blonde, and Oscar Wilde asked Mrs T. P. if she wasn't jealous ? 
 She said ' No T. P. doesn't know a pretty woman when he 
 sees one.' Harold Frederic said, ' I beg leave to differ 
 what about yourself ? ' Mrs T. P. answered, ' Oh, I was an 
 accident.' ' Rather,' said Oscar Wilde, ' a catastrophe ! ' 
 
 Lord Glenesk during the heat of the season would some- 
 times come and spend nearly a whole day on my little balcony. 
 He was never the same, poor man, after the death of his son, 
 and I remember driving out to Hampstead immediately 
 after this little note reached me : 
 
 " 139 PICCADILLY, W. 
 " 22nd August 1904. 
 
 " DEAREST RIVAL AND SWEET SUPPLIANT, I will tell the 
 M.P. to do what it can for you, but do spare me and my 
 blushes and ask me not to appear as a photograph \\ith a 
 phender under my pheet or in my arms. 
 
 " My poor son has been three months in bed, and is so 
 delicate that even the half-hour's journey to Hampstead 
 quite upset him. However, he is better to-day and I trust 
 the air up there will set him right. You may imagine what 
 .anxiety we have had.
 
 AN OLD-WORLD HOUSE IN CHELSEA 239 
 
 " Please come and see Mm when you can. He would like 
 it. Sincerely yours, GLENESK " 
 
 When Frankfort Moore first lived in London he often 
 dropped in on Friday. Although his novels, many of them, 
 are immensely entertaining, T. P. thought he ought to return 
 to Journalism, and something was said to Lord Glenesk, who 
 was then Sir Algernon Borthwick, on the question of Frank- 
 fort Moore, and he wrote me : 
 
 " AIRDRIE LODGE, KEW GARDENS, 
 " February 26th, 1895. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, How good of you ! How good 
 of Mr O'Connor to mention my name to Sir Algernon Borth- 
 wick. I had no idea of returning to Journalism, my books 
 have lately been doing so extremely well, but so splendid a 
 post as Sir Algernon has at his disposal would be a tempta- 
 tion. I have written to Sir Algernon, but I do not know 
 in what terms I should write to you. Whether I get the 
 thing or not, my gratitude to you will be the same. It was 
 so singular that I should find your kind letter awaiting me 
 on my return from town, where I spent some profitable 
 minutes negotiating with a dealer for an ivory crucifix for 
 you. You may remember, that when I was in your bed- 
 room (doesn't this look like a bit from a novel by the author 
 who shocks people) I promised to get you a crucifix possessing 
 some artistic merit. I did not forget that vow. I have been 
 looking about me ever since, but without success until to-day. 
 If I can bring the Hebrew who owns it to reason to-morrow, 
 I shall call with it as near four o'clock as possible, but on 
 no account wait in to receive it, if I am fortunate enough to 
 get it. 
 
 " Thank you again and again. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " FRANKFORT MOORE " 
 
 I don't know if he brought the Hebrew to reason, but he 
 got the crucifix, one of the most beautiful I ever saw. After
 
 240 I MYSELF 
 
 hanging over my bed for so many years it now lies packed 
 away in a box waiting for me to have a home once more. 
 
 Grant Allen was an occasional visitor. I used always to 
 say of him, that if I was a rich woman I would give him 
 a salary of 2000 a year to take a walk with me every day. 
 He was so full of information, and had such a very lucid way 
 of imparting it. Only to-day I looked at a book which he 
 sent me with the little inscription of which he speaks : 
 
 " THE CROFT, 
 " HINDHEAD, HASLEMERE, 
 " Thursday. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, It was a great pleasure to meet 
 you again the other night at Dr Bird's. 
 
 " I am sending you my book. You will see a little sketch 
 there of American Duchesses. I have taken the liberty of 
 dedicating it to one of them. 
 
 " Please thank your husband most sincerely for his 
 generous review of ' The Woman who Did.' It is the kindest, 
 honestest, and truest notice the book has yet received. 
 What- 1 particularly value is the fact that while differing 
 fundamentally from the social and ethical theories of the 
 book, he yet shows himself just to them and to it. I have 
 had so much unfair treatment in other quarters that I know 
 how to value this frank and fearless criticism. 
 
 " With kindest regards to you both. Yours very cordially, 
 
 " GRANT ALLEN "
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 
 
 IN spite of my really sincere friendship for the Baroness 
 Burdett Coutts, I saw her only too rarely, but some- 
 times she used to drive to Chelsea, and she was always 
 cordial, sympathetic and unforgetful, and if I was going 
 away she sometimes sent me a little note of farewell : 
 
 " STRATTON STREET, 
 " Thursday. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I very much regret to learn by 
 your note that you have been so ill and are now obliged to go 
 to Germany in order to recruit your strength. Both Mr 
 Burdett Coutts and myself unite in wishing that you will 
 return quite yourself again, and we should have been very 
 glad to have come to you to-day and offered you our best 
 wishes for a fine journey and warm weather, if there be such 
 a thing in this chilled world. Unluckily, however, we cannot 
 visit you to-day with your other friends, for my husband 
 leaves London to-morrow and is overburdened with business, 
 and I have a meeting of ladies at my house this afternoon 
 interested in the Great Northern Central Hospital just 
 building. 
 
 " I am very sorry that I must say good-bye, and in the 
 best sense God speed you. 
 
 " I send these roses for your journey. Believe me, Ever 
 sincerely yours, BURDETT COUTTS " 
 
 It was at Oakley Lodge that I read " The Lost Leader " 
 to Max Hecht and received such enthusiastic encouragement 
 from him. He possessed a great deal of sentiment and 
 
 16 *'
 
 242 I MYSELF 
 
 understood what I was trying to convey in the play. My 
 poor play, that has never been produced and very likely 
 never will be. But I had faith in it then, and I have faith 
 in it still, on account of the subject, with which history pro- 
 vided me, and because of the absolute honesty with which 
 I have dealt with the subject. I have endeavoured to put 
 into the play the relentlessness of Fate toward all the tragedies 
 of love that go on between a woman who is married and 
 a man who is unmarried, who have the misfortune to 
 love each other with sincerity. I believe that irregular 
 relations can exist between a man and a woman, and they 
 may truly love each other, and even respect each other, but 
 the greater the love and the greater the respect, the more 
 terrible the tragedy becomes. It is the natural province of 
 man to protect the woman he loves, and it is the natural 
 province of woman to seek this protection, but protection is 
 impossible except from a husband to a wife. Gladys says to 
 the O'Donoghue : 
 
 " Oh, do you understand me so little ? I am miserable and un- 
 happy with you without you I could not eat, nor sleep, nor live. 
 Marriage is said so often to be a failure, but I long for its surety and its 
 ease. It is ten thousand times harder for a woman and man in our 
 situation to love and be just to each other. Bitterness must creep in. 
 The world is against us. Society, is against us. Law and order are 
 against us, and, worse than all, our own conscience is against us. If I 
 belonged to the highest and noblest type of woman I would go away 
 from you. But I love you so." 
 
 The world is always against those who break her very 
 wisely ordained laws, and of course the highest type of man 
 and of woman control themselves and never in spite of suffer- 
 ing make these sordid tragedies, and I have tried to convey 
 in my play of " The Lost Leader " the inevitable end which 
 must result from a tragic, wrongly placed love. 
 
 Mr Hecht tried to get Forbes Robertson to do it, and then 
 he wrote to Mrs Campbell about it and enclosed me this note 
 from her. But nothing came of it and I have almost given 
 up hope of seeing it done.
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 243 
 
 " 33 KENSINGTON SQUARE, W. 
 
 " DEAR MR HECHT, I have always admired Mrs 
 O'Connor's Play Mr Robertson knows that and I have 
 tried for many months to convince him it was worth doing. 
 I thought a provincial trial production would have been best. 
 Yours Sincerely, S. P. CAMPBELL" 
 
 Another friend who came not often enough to Oakley 
 Lodge was Anstey Guthrie, that most delightful, modest 
 humourist and playwright. Can I ever forget the keen 
 pleasure " The Man from Blankley's " gave me, even to the 
 big red chrysanthemums on the wall-paper in the first scene ? 
 
 I remember one quickly arranged dinner on Sunday in the 
 little house, when I was fortunate enough to get Anstey on 
 the very shortest notice, and he wrote me : 
 
 " 16 DUKE STREET MANSIONS, 
 " GROSVENOR SQUARE, W. 
 " i8th March 1893. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I shall be delighted to dine with 
 you to-morrow, Sunday, at 7.30. 
 
 " I am pained that you should suspect me of making light 
 of ball fringe and mantel frills and turquoise blue pots. 
 Do you really think I have no reverence ? I am having my 
 rooms done up this Easter, and they are to be all ball fringe 
 even my dog will be re-covered in Waring-Gillow muslin and 
 have a mantel frill around his tail, and he won't eat out of 
 anything but an art pot as it is. There is nothing Philistine 
 about us. Sincerely yours, F. ANSTEY " 
 
 I remember the very first time that I ever met Anstey. It 
 was mid-winter, and we were both going down to stay for 
 a few days in the country at Lady Jeune's. I got into the 
 train at Euston ; Sir Henry Thompson, whom I did not know 
 at that time, was in a compartment alone when I, a solitary 
 female, entered. He examined me suspiciously, and reached
 
 244 I MYSELF 
 
 for his bag preparatory to changing into another carriage, 
 but I saved him the trouble by saying : " Pray don't get out : 
 you will not be travelling with me alone : my husband will 
 be here in a few moments." I wished him particularly to 
 stay as he was taking down the most adorable bull puppy 
 to Lady Jeune, a blue-eyed, brindled angel, and I wanted to 
 make his acquaintance. Sir Henry gave his brother to Ada 
 Rehan, and I used often to see him in her dressing-room 
 when she played in London. I wonder if she has him now ? 
 But the blue-eyed, brindled angel grew up and developed 
 a perfectly maniacal hatred of horses. After biting one or 
 two cab horses severely in London, and giving Lady Jeune 
 a big bill of damages to pay, he was sent down in the country 
 where he lamed an inoffensive pony, and finally, I believe, 
 was given away. 
 
 After we had spent a few days in the country together, 
 Anstey Guthrie and myself became fast friends, and I have 
 always been grateful to him for making me like him as much 
 as I do his delightful humourous books ! How many times 
 I have sent " A Fallen Idol " and " Vice Versa " to friends 
 sailing for America. " The Pariah " in quite a different 
 and more serious vein is an exceedingly fine novel. 
 
 Paul Blouet (Max O'Rell) I knew very well. What a wit 
 he was, and what an inimitable speaker. I do not think I 
 ever heard anything so finished, and so exquisite, as his after- 
 dinner speeches, and he always had something pretty to say 
 both in conversation and in letters : 
 
 " MIDLAND HOTEL, BRADFORD, 
 " Nov. 2oth, 1900. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Your kind note was here await- 
 ing me when I arrived from Manchester. I shall not be in 
 London, if my health permit me to work, before December 
 2Oth. We could only have that chat through the long 
 distance telephone, and until Edison has given to us his new 
 improved telephone which will enable us to see the people 
 we are talking to, I should not care to use the present ones. 
 Sincerely yours, PAUL BLOUET "
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 245 
 
 Pett Ridge I also genuinely like. He is one of the humour- 
 ists who enjoy jokes against themselves. Some years ago I 
 was sitting next to him at a public dinner when the toast- 
 master came up and asked him : "Mr Pett Ridge, will you 
 speak now, or shall we let them enjoy themselves a little 
 longer ? " Pett Ridge was perfectly delighted. I never saw 
 anybody laugh more. 
 
 Last year I went to a dinner party given by a friend : Pett 
 Ridge was there. I was a trifle late, and he had proposed a 
 " Pool " to the men of the party on the precise moment 
 at which I would arrive. One man said ten minutes late, 
 another fifteen, somebody else twenty-five, Pett Ridge him- 
 self said thirty, and I am ashamed to say won the Pool ; but 
 it happened in this way. My friend had suddenly moved. 
 I had mislaid her address, and when I called up to the Lyceum 
 Club, they would not let me have it. I raged and stormed 
 at the porter through the telephone, but it did no good, and 
 then I told him never to refuse my address to a single human 
 being in the world ! Then I flew into a cab and rushed to 
 Mrs Greenwood's former house. There a nice, gentle, old 
 lady gave me the new address, and that was the reason why 
 I was so late, but of course nobody believed any of my 
 excuses. 
 
 Pett Ridge is also an excellent after-dinner speaker, and 
 I should think could give a delightful lecture. He should 
 try his luck in the American field, where they would be sure 
 to like him. 
 
 When Eugene Field came over from America he brought 
 me a letter of introduction from a very dear friend, and I was 
 so anxious to meet him, but never did. He wrote me twice : 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, A bad digestion aggravated 
 by a somewhat severe attack of influenza has prevented me 
 from presenting the letter which I herein send to you. 
 
 " Your acquaintance is an honour and a pleasure which 
 I promise myself shall be mine in the near future. I happen 
 to have a favour to ask you, and the righteousness of the 
 cause induces me to believe that you will be glad to grant
 
 246 I MYSELF 
 
 the favour. Through the kind offices of friends I have been 
 able to secure one of Mr Gladstone's axes, one of the honest 
 and potent implements with which the Grand Old Man has 
 been wont to work havoc in the forest at Hawarden. It is 
 my purpose to give the axe to the Chicago Newberry Library, 
 as soon as the noble building of that important institution 
 is completed. The relic will create unbounded enthusiasm 
 in our country, for there, quite as sincerely as here, Gladstone 
 is venerated and beloved. Oscar Browning, M.A. of King's 
 College, Cambridge, has given me this epigram upon the 
 subject, and the key of the subjoined translation of the 
 epigram : 
 
 Oceanum transit manibus trita bene securis 
 Indicium belli nuntia pacaverit 
 Eruat obscures victrix nemora avia rixse 
 Instaretque novae fcedus amicitise. 
 
 The woodman's axe well worn by Gladstone's hands. 
 Emblem of war, speaks peace to distant lands 
 It goes, the bush of dark mistrust to clear 
 And found a league of love for many a year. 
 
 " I have secured paraphrases in English of the epigram 
 from several well-known writers. Mr [Andrew] Lang sends 
 me two paraphrases. I am looking for some particularly 
 felicitous phrases from John Boyle O'Reilly of the * Boston 
 Pilot.' Now, will you ask your distinguished husband to 
 graciously favour me with a paraphrase, or, if the Muse be an 
 individual with whom he has no dealings, will you ask him 
 to kindly give me a sentiment suitable for publication with 
 the rest of this literature upon the subject of the enclosed. 
 
 " It seems to me just at this moment that maybe he would 
 like to print in his newspaper an article upon this interesting 
 subject. If this should be the case I shall be most happy 
 to provide him gratuitously, as soon as I have secured all the 
 material I am seeking, with every detail, including versifica- 
 tion lines and so forth. This original manuscript will eventu- 
 ally pass with the axe into the possession of the library here
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 247 
 
 before referred to. I know you will be interested as an 
 American to assist me. Believe me, dear Mrs O'Connor, 
 Yours most sincerely, EUGENE FIELD " 
 
 " 20 ALFRED PLACE, 
 " BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, 
 " Jany, 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Returning to my lodgings at 
 this unholy hour of 10-45 P.M. I found your cordial note, 
 and I am reproaching myself most bitterly that I chanced to 
 be away from home this particular evening. Still, I am a 
 sorry creature for a dinner just at present, and it is perhaps 
 just as well for your good people that I missed my bid to 
 your feast. Mr O'Connor writes me that he too is a dyspeptic. 
 I have been hoping to meet him and to organise with him 
 a Mutual Grievance Society. To-morrow I go to Germany 
 to try a season of the alleged efficacy of Teutonic Spas, and 
 when I return habilitated, you and I must banquet in good 
 old Texas fashion. Although, alas, I fear no such morsel 
 as ' Possum and sweet potatoes ' are to be had in this raw 
 cold island. For six months I have been pining for my 
 native dishes, but I could not eat them if I had 'em. How- 
 ever, in the words of the sweet singer of Michigan, ' We may 
 be happy yet, you bet.' And by ' we ' I mean, of course, 
 you and Mr O'Connor and aU the rest of us, God's very elect. 
 
 " On my return from Germany I shall do myself the honour 
 and the pleasure of calling upon you. 
 
 " Meanwhile believe me, with every assurance of regret, 
 Yours most sincerely, EUGENE FIELD " 
 
 " 20 ALFRED PLACE, 
 " Feby. 26th." 
 
 When he came back from Germany he was still suffering, 
 and sailed almost at once for America, and to my great regret 
 I never met this charming poet, and was unable to tell him 
 what exquisite pleasure his tender verses of child-life had 
 given me.
 
 2 4 8 I MYSELF 
 
 George Street is another man and author for whom I have 
 a very great regard, and I suppose I must have read " The 
 Autobiography of a Boy " at least a dozen times, and I was 
 perfectly horrified not long ago to find out that by an absurd 
 contract he had made so little money out of it. What a 
 delightful literary man he is ! Like Max Beerbohm he has 
 the technique of writing at his fingers ends, and has an 
 immense sense of humour and is a perfect encyclopaedia 
 about books and literature. " Ghosts of Piccadilly," which 
 I loved, not only for the pictures but for the text, he sent me 
 the winter before last with this little note : 
 
 " 64 CURZON STREET, W., 
 " February 4th, 1909. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I do not suppose you have 
 seen this immortal work, but if you have you may like to have 
 it for the sake of the pictures. 
 
 " I enjoyed myself so much last night the beautiful little 
 play, and still more the going to it with you three. Yours 
 ever, GEORGE STREET " 
 
 The beautiful little play of which he speaks is " Pinkie and 
 the Fairies," and the three were my son and my daughter 
 and myself. 
 
 George Moore is another of my friends and an always 
 welcome one, for I know nobody who talks more brilliantly 
 or more wittily than he. I have often urged him to go into 
 Parliament, where, I am sure, his many gifts would be appreci- 
 ated, and if he scorns Parliament he can become a decorator. 
 His own house in Merrion Square, Dublin, is in the most 
 perfect taste. The front of the house is painted white, and 
 the door a bright green. By some law all the doors in 
 Merrion Square must be painted brown, and the solicitors 
 wrote at once to George Moore to request that this should be 
 done. Whereupon he answered with a most amusing letter, 
 to say that he had made his entire house a symphony in green 
 and white, the hall being white with a green stair carpet, 
 the dining-room white with green carpet and curtains, and
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 249 
 
 the drawing-room green with white curtains, so that if 
 the solicitors wanted to change the green front door into a 
 brown one, he should insist that they continued the scheme 
 of colour throughout the house. He was quite willing to have 
 a gold and white symphony at their expense but not at his 
 own. I do not know whether the solicitors knew what a 
 symphony was, but at any rate the letter remained unanswered 
 and the door remains green ! 
 
 When I was playing in Dublin in " The Lady from Texas," 
 I went over one morning and had breakfast with him. At 
 the time he was very enthusiastic about Ireland, which he 
 had recently discovered, and compelled his little nephews, 
 under pain of disinheritance, to study the Celtic language. 
 But he was very dissatisfied with the Irish cooking and Irish 
 chickens. " Look ! " he said, as he helped me to the wing 
 of a chicken, " at this skinny blue bird." (Maeterlinck's 
 " Blue Bird " had not been written then.) " In Ireland the 
 chickens are left to pick up a precarious living wherever 
 they can get it. The consequence is, that not even Dublin 
 produces anything but a scrawny and miserable fowl. Now 
 a chicken is an artificial production. It should be fed and 
 considered and cared for until a plump toothsome creature 
 is produced. In future," he said, " I shall send to England 
 for all chickens." 
 
 Just before leaving London he wrote me and I went to tea 
 with him and saw his flat, which, even in Victoria Street, he 
 had managed to make quite original and charming. 
 
 " 92 VICTORIA STREET, S.W., 
 " Saturday. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Immediately after I left you 
 I remembered that I had promised Monet to go and see the 
 pictures he is painting at the Savoy Hotel to-morrow, so you 
 see I am going out to lunch after all, and at a more incon- 
 venient time at twelve o'clock but this I must do. He is 
 an old friend, and he is alone in London and very much 
 discouraged, so he says.
 
 250 I MYSELF 
 
 " You said you would like to come to tea. Nothing would 
 please me more. I love a talk, and you are one of the best 
 talkers. I cannot only talk to you I can even listen. Do 
 come or ask me to come to you soon. Always sincerely yours, 
 
 " GEORGE MOORE " 
 
 One Christmas, Mrs Henniker, who has written many 
 charming stories and a clever play, asked us to spend Christ- 
 mas at Fryston Hall with Lord Crewe, her brother, and her- 
 self. It was a delightful week. 
 
 The other guests were Herbert Paul, that very brilliant 
 writer (and by the way why has he not written a political 
 novel, he could do it better than anybody else, and make it 
 remarkably interesting), Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett, 
 and that perfectly delightful being, Bret Harte. Every 
 morning a little box arrived for him containing a 
 carnation, a rosebud, or a bunch of violets. He loved 
 being well dressed, and often wore a red necktie. He 
 delighted in brilliant colours. He was a charming con- 
 versationalist ; his voice was quiet and sweet, he was per- 
 fectly natural, very modest and full of humour. He told me 
 that when his last baby was born, the youngest boy, about 
 five, was sitting in the dining-room looking at a picture-book. 
 Bret Harte went in thinking to surprise and please him 
 and said : " Your mother has given you a little brother." 
 The child looked up, greatly disappointed, and said : " I do 
 wish she had asked me, and I would have told her to give 
 me a little donkey." 
 
 Bret Harte was not a good walker, but said he would walk 
 with me if I would let him make laps around the house, 
 keeping it in view, as if he got too far away he at once felt 
 tired. 
 
 One day while we were lapping our circle, he said : " Now, 
 you are a woman, I want you to explain to me one of the 
 inexplicable actions of your sex. Years ago, when I was a 
 very young man and living in California, a beautiful young 
 lady, who was separated from her husband, in order to eke 
 out her income took a few paying guests I was one of them.
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 251 
 
 I at once fell in love with her and we became rather more 
 than friends, and I passed one or two very happy years in her 
 house, when a brother of hers, a clergyman from the East, 
 proposed coming to California for the winter, when suddenly 
 her conscience woke up, and I was told that I must find a 
 home elsewhere. I was going to another town anyhow to edit 
 a small paper, and so we parted on the most affectionate 
 terms, and before we were to meet again her divorce would 
 have ended, and I had every intention of marrying her. 
 That winter I wrote ' The Luck of Roaring Camp,' and she 
 got her divorce and married a millionaire, and became a 
 leader of Society and eminently respectable. One day a 
 friend sent me a magazine, and in it, I think, was the bitterest 
 attack on me and on my story that I have ever read. It 
 simply flayed me alive ! It said I was advocating vice 
 instead of virtue, and that every virtuous woman should 
 boycott the story, and not stop there but boycott me. Now 
 a publisher had undertaken to make a small book of ' The 
 Luck of Roaring Camp ' and some of my other tales, and it 
 was he who called my attention to this article, and told me 
 that he also knew the author. I thought it was some orthodox, 
 extremely narrow-minded man, probably a Puritan Yankee, 
 so what was my surprise when he told me a lady had written 
 it, naming my former love. He said that at the moment 
 she was in town opening a bazaar, and suggested that I should 
 go down and muzzle her so that she would not again bite 
 me to the bone. I went to the bazaar ; she was there, 
 looking like a pure angel, and when I spoke to her she said 
 quite clearly : ' Mr Harte, no self-respecting woman can talk 
 to you after writing " The Luck of Roaring Camp " ; I must 
 bid you good day ! ' I lifted my hat and went out, and never 
 saw her again. Now, you are a woman, pray explain to me 
 her conduct, because I have been puzzling over it for many, 
 many years ? " 
 
 I said : "It's the simplest thing in the world. She was a 
 wolf so cunningly dressed up in sheep's clothing that every- 
 body in the world thought her a sheep except yourself, and 
 she was very angry and bitter that even one person had
 
 252 I MYSELF 
 
 found her out. How she must have enjoyed reading that 
 article to her lammy lambkin of a husband." 
 
 That Christmas Lord Crewe gave one of Jane Austen's 
 books to Bret Harte, and within was inscribed this 
 charming little verse : 
 
 " Beneath our grey unlovely skies 
 She wielded once her dainty pen, 
 With tolerant smile and wistful eyes 
 Calm critic of the minds of men. 
 
 Brave wizard of the brighter west, 
 Though life be short, yet Art endures, 
 Shadow or sun we love the best 
 That Art can give us, hers or yours." 
 
 I was much impressed by Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett's 
 industry. She wrote every morning for two hours and 
 accomplished a great deal of work ; to write for her is as easy, 
 as spontaneous, and as natural, as for other people to talk. 
 And what a very amiable, delightful companion she is. I 
 saw her last winter in New York looking not one day older 
 and, as always, happy and successful. 
 
 We came back to London from Lord Crewe's just in time 
 for one of our premier dramatist's first nights. What has 
 become of Pinero's vein of comedy ? (How perfectly delight- 
 ful his first plays were ! Who will ever forget Mrs John 
 Wood in " Dandy Dick " ?) Of late years Sir Arthur has 
 grown serious and sadly cynical. The " Thunderbolt " 
 impressed me far more than " Iris," and I wrote an apprecia- 
 tion of it and received this word in reply : 
 
 " STILLANDS, NORTH CHAPEL, 
 " SUSSEX. 
 
 "My DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, As a big dramatist once wrote 
 to Bjorn Bjornson, one cannot return thanks for being 
 praised ; but being understood that makes one inexpress- 
 ibly grateful. 
 
 " Certainly I will read ' The Lost Leader ' play again
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 253 
 
 when I return to business in the autumn. My recollection is 
 that it had much good in it. 
 
 " With warm regards in which my wife joins. I am, Yours 
 always truly, ARTHUR W. PINERO " 
 
 As a man Sir Arthur Pinero is wonderfully attractive. 
 He is so large minded and kind and tender. Lady Pinero, 
 I am sure, is a very happy woman, for the one thing most 
 conducive to a woman's happiness is tenderness. If her 
 husband gives her that, she can be contented with very little 
 else, but if a husband like Sir Arthur Pinero gives her tender- 
 ness and fame and a charming home, she is indeed a blessed 
 woman. 
 
 Sir Arthur is not only unique in his genius as a playwright, 
 but he is unique in his genius for neatness. In his study 
 there is not one speck of dust to be found, or one book, or one 
 pen, or one paper out of its place. It is order personified. 
 This shows there are always exceptions to the rule, and that 
 a literary man can be as orderly as a soldier. 
 
 Another literary man that I knew who was very neat and 
 methodical was Sir Edwin Arnold. And what a very agree- 
 able man he was. I heard him speak the Japanese language 
 once, and it was pure music. I was a great admirer of his 
 " Light of Asia," and he sent me such a charming copy of 
 that work, which some kind friend borrowed and never 
 returned. He told me that on one occasion in America a 
 newspaper reporter had extracted a long interview from him, 
 and just at the end said : " Now, Sir Edwin, what is your 
 opinion of the American woman ? " " An exhaustive 
 subject," said Sir Edwin, " but I can dispose of it in one word, 
 Afrin." " And what," said the reporter, " does that mean ? " 
 " It is Turkish," said Sir Edwin, and means, " Oh Allah, 
 make many more of them," and then he ran away. 
 
 He used to find his way sometimes to the little house in 
 Chelsea, and this particular Tuesday afternoon I happened 
 to be alone, and he read me himself the greater part of " The 
 Light of Asia."
 
 254 I MYSELF 
 
 " 45 KENSINGTON PARK GARDENS, W., 
 " July 2nd, 1891. 
 
 " Best thanks, dear and sweet Mrs O'Connor ! Most 
 gladly would I accept your pleasant invitation, but have a 
 dinner party myself on Sunday, to which I was going to 
 invite you. I am going afterwards to Fleet Street. 
 
 " If you are free, I shall come to you for a cup of tea on 
 Tuesday afternoon. Yours always most sincerely, 
 
 " EDWIN ARNOLD " 
 
 We talked of all sorts of subjects and people, and he 
 expressed a great admiration for Sir Frank Carruthers Gould, 
 and said how much he had done for the Liberal Party. 
 An extraordinary thing to me is the way that Sir Frank has 
 absolutely mastered the Negro dialect. He never makes 
 a mistake any more than if he had been born and brought up 
 way down South in Georgia. Indeed, I always associate him 
 in my mind with Uncle Remus, and recently I sent him a little 
 rabbit in a pink coat and blue shoes, with a note in Negro 
 dialect, and he wrote me in answer : 
 
 " 3 ENDSLEIGH STREET, 
 
 " TAVISTOCK SQUARE, W.C., 
 
 " i^th October 1908. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, It is monstous good of Sis 
 O'Connor to say Howdy to me in such a delightful way. 
 
 " Little Rab of de Blue Shoes shall certainly have house 
 room, and he is now standing watching over a Japanese mouse 
 on a special shelf with the Combat des Trente raging in 
 high relief close by, while above him is a Madonna-faced 
 St George with a pious expression pushing a large silver knife 
 into a sweetly smiling green dragon. 
 
 " I am very sorry you are not well chacun a son gout in 
 this climate, and I am not surprised that Virginia calls you 
 when you ache. 
 
 " Uncle Remus ought never to have died seeing that he 
 kept so many of us alive. If I had to pull down all the 
 existing statues in London and put up new ones, I should
 
 FROM MY LETTER BOOK 255 
 
 begin with Chaucer and all his Canterbury Pilgrims, 
 and then I should start on Uncle Remus's menagerie 
 and the Wonderland creatures. There would be some- 
 thing worth looking at then. 
 
 " If you will let me know when you are in London again, 
 I should much like to come and have a chat. With kindest 
 regards, Believe me, Yours Sincerely, 
 
 " CARRUTHERS GOULD " 
 
 It fairly warms the cockles of my heart to feel that this 
 great artist loves and understands my countryman as well 
 as I do myself. 
 
 I used to see the Duke of Marlborough occasionally at the 
 Laboucheres' when they lived in Queen Anne's Gate : his 
 house was only a few doors away. He was a clever man with 
 a keen mind, and he loved to get up a subject. He knew a 
 great deal about electricity, and could have been an electrical 
 engineer, and he was immensely interested in Science. Very 
 likely even then he had his theories about flying machines. 
 After he married Lily, Duchess of Marlborough, she brought 
 him to see me on one of my Fridays, and he looked around my 
 little Chelsea house and said, " The difference between you 
 and me is this, I can make a pretty house only with taste and 
 money, while you can manage to do it only with taste." 
 
 I considered this a very great compliment as he had 
 wonderful taste and ingenuity as well. When he took his 
 house in Carlton House Terrace, the staircase was long and 
 narrow, and he changed the whole appearance of it by having 
 a wrought-iron baluster curved out very much wider at the 
 bottom than at the top. He never minded what trouble he 
 took over decoration. He would find an old piece of brocade 
 and wait months to have it copied on account of the design 
 and colour, and the whole result was beautiful. 
 
 A house is a thing to me like a friend. It requires constant 
 personal every-day attention to make it repay you, and love 
 you, but some houses of course are, with the best will in the 
 world, hopeless. When the Laboucheres lived in Grosvenor 
 Gardens, in one of those long up and down characterless
 
 256 I MYSELF 
 
 houses, even Mrs Labouchere, with her love of home, and Mr 
 Labouchere, with his mania for building and changing, could 
 do absolutely nothing with it. But when they bought 5 Old 
 Palace Yard from the Duke of Marlborough, it was full of 
 charm and possibilities and eventually became one of the 
 most delightful houses in London. Mrs Labouchere was 
 always an excellent housekeeper, and there was an agreeable 
 atmosphere in their home, as she and her husband have a 
 thoroughly comfortable understanding together, the sort of 
 close understanding which means that if one of them died, 
 the other (I am sure) would soon follow. 
 
 Before the Laboucheres lived in Old Palace Yard, various 
 interesting people had owned the house, and a certain lady 
 who was at one time Chatelaine there, had very high 
 political aspirations and a desire to be exclusive. Her 
 husband, on the contrary, a Member of Parliament, was most 
 democratic in his tendencies, so there was often a great 
 mixture in their entertainments. One night at dinner John 
 Bright was sitting near his hostess, and she was rather 
 annoyed at having him among her smart guests and thought 
 to give him a direct snub, so she said during a pause in the 
 conversation : " Mr Bright, this rug, I understand, was made 
 by you, and I am very dissatisfied with it. I have only had 
 it a short time, and it is very shabby and badly made." 
 
 " Is it ? " said Mr Bright, getting up deliberately from the 
 table and taking a silver candelabrum which he put down 
 upon the floor, and getting on his knees, closely examined the 
 carpet. " You are quite right," he said, blithely getting up, 
 " it is a bad carpet, and I will order my firm to send you 
 another in its place," and then he calmly resumed his political 
 conversation and the dinner went on. 
 
 The house in Old Palace Yard has now been bought by the 
 Government and looks deserted, and I never go by it without 
 a pang, and Oakley Lodge is a dream of the past : so to me 
 London is losing its interest. I am not so old, but life's 
 changes have been grievous.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 A LONG AGO MEMORY OF LISZT 
 
 I REMEMBER long ago, at the Lytteltons', seeing Liszt. 
 He was a very calm and beautiful old man, with white 
 hair and the noblest warts I think I ever saw. They 
 gave his face a benign expression. There was some talk of 
 his playing that night, but he didn't. To me he was an 
 object of great interest, as the man who had been a faithful 
 lover for thirty years to the same woman, and had written 
 many hundreds of letters, four hundred being published ; 
 and yet the Princess Wittgenstein was not a beauty, nor 
 even soft or feminine, but she was ambitious, courageous 
 and encouraging. It was through her that he composed his 
 " Dante and St Elizabeth," and he always said his best 
 work was due to her. I felt that Liszt was lovable, and 
 it would have been a pleasure to know him better. 
 
 My friends I choose entirely to suit myself. It is to their 
 credit if they happen to be Princes, but if they happen to be 
 paupers I can still love and appreciate them. 
 
 Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein is one of my friends, 
 and is one's ideal of a Prince ; always courteous, always kind, 
 perfectly simple and unassuming, a really grand old gentle- 
 man. In many respects he reminds me of Justin M'Carthy ; 
 they both have the same gentleness, the same considerate- 
 ness, and the same power of attracting hearts. 
 
 He sent me a photograph of himself, taken in the pictur- 
 esque dress he wore at the Devonshire Ball. It was a correct 
 copy of one of his ancestors who tried to marry Queen 
 Elizabeth, and it was accompanied by a kind little note, 
 which I must not reproduce. This ancestor, the Duke,
 
 258 I MYSELF 
 
 received the Garter from Queen Elizabeth, who flirted with 
 him in some sort of way, and probably gave the Garter as a 
 consolation to his wounded vanity. He married afterwards a 
 Hessian Princess. 
 
 We were staying in Bradford, and on leaving, Mrs Byles, 
 that clever woman and silver-tongued orator, gave me a 
 little yellow book to read in the train, saying it was astonish- 
 ingly clever ; the author's name, John Oliver Hobbes, was 
 unknown. I didn't read it immediately but one day in 
 Chelsea picked it up and was much struck with what seemed 
 to be the author's experience, disillusion, brilliance, cynicism 
 and wit. I begged T. P. to read it, but he declined, so I 
 boldly read a few passages aloud although he was busy with 
 an evening paper. He made no remark except to beg me to 
 be quiet, but later in the evening I saw him become absorbed 
 in the book, and when he made it the book of the week, John 
 Morgan Richards, Mrs Craigie's father, wrote him a letter 
 of thanks, and this was followed by a visit from the authoress 
 herself. I don't know why, but " Some Emotions and a 
 Moral " had conjured up in my mind a vision of pearl-powder, 
 blonde hair, and a lady of forty. What was my surprise to 
 see a girl of twenty-five, with brilliant dark eyes, brown hair, 
 the fresh complexion of youth, a charming personality and 
 gowned quite like one of her own heroines. Dressed all in 
 purple velvet, with a bunch of parma violets fastened to her 
 bodice by a jewelled pin, and with her rich furs, she looked 
 the woman of fashion rather than the budding literary genius. 
 But with all this lavishness of dress, she was really indifferent 
 to it. I saw her later under circumstances which disclosed 
 the real woman. She came on a Friday in June to see me, 
 dressed in an exquisite gown of white chiffon embroidered in 
 silver fleur-de-lys, and Max, my collie, who had a perfect 
 passion for white, sat himself down in front of Mrs Craigie, 
 and after admiring her for many minutes, got up and laid 
 his head in her lap, and his nose made a long wet dark mark 
 on the delicate fabric. She laughed like a happy child and 
 didn't mind a bit. All the agony and mortification was 
 mine, and from that day Max was never allowed to " receive "
 
 A LONG AGO MEMORY OF LISZT 259 
 
 with me again. Mrs Craigie liked her pretty costumes only 
 for the pleasure they gave other people. Her mind was a 
 purely intellectual one, and with study, books, and her own 
 thoughts, she was quite independent of the material things 
 of life. But she was wise enough to know the store which the 
 world set upon them and she used them accordingly. And 
 how much she gave the world brilliant books, good looks, 
 witty conversation, musical ability, and her fascinating, 
 good-humoured, delightful self ! No matter how tired she 
 was physically, socially she never flagged. 
 
 It is good to die young. But Pearl Craigie's death was a 
 tragedy, for she had not yet done her best work. She had 
 not yet found herself. No living author could have written 
 such telling comedy as she ; it was her youth, and her ambi- 
 tion that made her portray the too serious side of life ; and it 
 was a mistake, for humourists are not found every day. She 
 was one of the most loyal of friends. I had occasion, while 
 President of the Society of Women Journalists, to take a 
 stand in a matter of some importance, and Pearl wrote me 
 this letter : 
 
 " 56 LANCASTER GATE, 
 " Tuesday. 
 
 " MY DEAR BESSIE, I have seen Mrs H. and she ex- 
 plained the raison d'etre of the Committee meeting to-morrow, 
 and while I like her, I told her that you were my friend, and, 
 without even an explanation from you, which now I have no 
 time to hear, that I would give my entire support to you 
 and would of course vote against her. I will be with you 
 early to-morrow at Gray's Inn. With love, Yours affec- 
 tionately, PEARL MARY TERESA CRAIGIE " 
 
 Mrs Craigie was literally brought up in a house of mirth, 
 for her mother, Mrs John Morgan Richards, is one of the 
 wittiest women in the world. She is an inimitable mimic, 
 her mind is a purely original one, she simply bubbles over 
 with humour and with fun, and beneath this gay exterior 
 her great heart responds to both spiritual and righteous 
 things.
 
 260 I MYSELF 
 
 Before the war was declared between the United States 
 and Cuba, and while it was being agitated, Mrs Richards was 
 using every argument against it, and finally she sent this 
 telegram : " Pope, Vatican, Rome. Stop War. Richards." 
 Whether it reached His Eminence or not, I do not know, 
 but I envy her family Mrs Richards. 
 
 Pearl said once that her father might as well have married 
 a strong north wind, but after all, where would the health 
 of the world be without a strong north wind ? 
 
 At one time Mr Richards was quite ill, and he and his wife 
 went to Switzerland. He was very depressed in spirits, and 
 one morning while talking to his wife about what he needed, 
 she said to him, " John, I will tell you what you need ; you 
 need a good course of elocution lessons, and I will give you 
 one myself now," and thereupon began the most amusing 
 recitation possible. Mr Richards laughed and laughed, and 
 from that moment his recovery began. 
 
 When I went to return Mrs Craigie's first visit, I 
 was shown up in the drawing-room by the butler, whose 
 hair was grey in patches (I dare say Mrs Richards' uncon- 
 ventional humour had had something to do with it), and 
 seated at the end of the very long drawing-room was a lady 
 busily writing, who did not turn at once as I came in. The 
 butler announced : " Mrs O'Connor ! " She went on writing 
 and said, " Mrs who ? " The butler said : " Mrs O'Connor " ; 
 she continued to write. Then the butler said : " Mrs T. P. 
 O'Connor ! " and she said, " What, the woman that has been 
 so good to my Pearl ? " She turned around then, and said, 
 " My dear, come here and kiss me at once," and I did with 
 the greatest pleasure, and from that time we have been 
 understanding friends. 
 
 Mrs Craigie had her own beautiful little house that was more 
 like the inside of a jewel-box than anything else, within a 
 stone's throw of Steephill Castle, the residence of her father, 
 in the Isle of Wight, but she never went there to live. She 
 would have missed too much the brightness and gaiety and 
 wide-armed hospitality of her father's home. Even in their 
 overwhelming sorrow at her loss these unselfish people con-
 
 A LONG AGO MEMORY OF LISZT 261 
 
 trolled their grief for the sake of their friends. Once at 
 least her mother's prayers were answered, for when Pearl 
 was a little girl, and grievously ill, the doctor said nothing 
 could save her and Mrs Richards took her husband by the 
 hand and said : " Come into the other room, John, and pray, 
 pray : we will pray together." And that night the child was 
 out of danger. 
 
 On the whole, I cannot imagine a happier life than Mrs 
 Craigie's. She was always surrounded by people who loved 
 her, people who were considerate of her, and she had health, 
 and good looks, and great success, a devoted son, and troops 
 of friends, and she deserved them each and every one. And 
 she died before sadness or old age had touched her.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 MY DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO A GROUP OF AUTHORS 
 
 ANOTHER novelist has appeared on the horizon, who 
 I prophesy will make quick success Mr A. S. 
 Hutchinson. His sense of humour is delicious, 
 irrepressible, and spontaneous. I read his first book, " Once 
 aboard the Lugger," while suffering from a bout of insomnia, 
 certainly the most discouraging influence possible for both 
 the author and myself. And even toward the grey hours of 
 the dawn, I was gurgling with laughter, and one little bit of 
 philosophy took hold of my memory and remained in it. 
 
 " A sleepy maid in Mr City Merchant's suburban mansion 
 leaves the dustpan on the stairs after sweeping. That is the 
 little action she has tossed into the sea of life, and the ripples 
 will wreck a boat or two now snug and safe in a cheap and 
 happy home many miles away. Mr City Merchant trips over 
 the dustpan, starts for office fuming with rage, vents his 
 spleen upon Mr City Clerk dismisses him. 
 
 " Mr City Clerk seeks work in vain ; the cheap but happy 
 home he shares with pretty little Mrs City Clerk and plump 
 young Master City Clerk is abandoned for a dingy lodging. 
 Grade by grade the lodging they must seek grows dingier. 
 Now, there is no food. Now, they are getting desperate. 
 Now pneumonia lays erstwhile plump Master City Clerk by 
 the heels and carries him off consequences, consequences ; 
 that is one boat wrecked. Now Mr City Clerk is growing 
 mad with despair ; Mrs City Clerk is well upon the road that 
 Master City Clerk has followed. Mr City Clerk steals, is 
 caught, is imprisoned consequences, consequences ; another 
 boat wrecked. Mrs City Clerk does not hold out long, 
 262
 
 MY DEBT OF GRATITUDE 263 
 
 follows Master City Clerk consequences, consequences. 
 Three innocent craft smashed up because the housemaid 
 left the dustpan on the stairs." 
 
 And gratitude impelled me to write and thank Mr Hutchin- 
 son for the pleasure he had given me, and he answered in 
 characteristic fashion : 
 
 " 53 CROFTDOWN ROAD, 
 "HIGHGATE ROAD, N.W., 
 " December i6th, 1908. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I think you are amazingly kind. 
 I think it was so uncommonly good of you to write to me 
 about my book. I have had some very gratifying reviews, 
 but it was part of the writers' business to write them, and I 
 have had some nice letters from strangers, but those are 
 from admiring folk to whom I suppose the business of 
 writing is a thing apart from their daily lives. But it is a 
 portion of your life and, therefore, I think it was so good of 
 you to take the trouble to notice a stranger engaged in the 
 same business. Additional to this to me are the kind terms 
 in which you write to me, and to me coming from you, I 
 indeed value very highly. I find it difficult to tell you how 
 very much I appreciate your letter and you must believe, 
 I thank you very, very warmly. When the next book is 
 written, I am going to give myself the great pleasure of 
 sending you a copy. 
 
 " This is a very funny life I often think, full of tricks and 
 chances. Two days ago, yours was no more than a well- 
 known name to me. To-day, I am concerned that you suffer 
 from sleeplessness. It is the result of your kind letter, and 
 gives the obvious thought that this would be a nicer world if 
 there were more kindliness such as this you have shown me, 
 for it sets up a chain of sympathy. There is a symposium 
 in the current ' Review of Reviews ' on sleep and remedies 
 for insomnia and perhaps you might find a hint or so. 
 
 " I had considerable pleasure in writing my story, but I 
 think it has given me no pleasure so great as this letter from
 
 264 I MYSELF 
 
 you. I catch myself thinking of bits and relishing the fact, 
 that perhaps you enjoyed them. 
 
 " Thank you and again thank you. Yours sincerely, 
 
 "A. S. HUTCHINSON" 
 
 I not only enjoyed " bits " but every line of the book, and I 
 have read it twice since the first time and find in it a com- 
 forting, sane and joyous outlook upon life. The difference in 
 books upon the mind, is, indeed, as great as the difference in 
 people. It amazed me this summer when we were in the 
 Apennines to find that Mr Labouchere, who is such an om- 
 nivorous reader, had never read " The Golden Age," that 
 charming, delightful and most satisfying book by dear 
 Kenneth Grahame. Whenever I speak of him in connection 
 with " The Golden Age " I am impelled to add dear, from the 
 affection with which he has inspired me. In America he is 
 well known, but his warmest admirer is Theodore Roosevelt. 
 When I told the then President on New Year's Day that I 
 knew Kenneth Grahame, his face lighted up with enthusiasm 
 and he said, " Then give him a message from me. Tell him, 
 if he does not come to America and make me a visit at the 
 White House, I shall create an International War." I wrote 
 Mr Grahame on my return, and he had moved to the country, 
 but he appreciated the warm-hearted message I had brought 
 him from America. 
 
 " MAYFIELD, 
 
 " COOKHAM DENE, BERKSHIRE, 
 " ^th August 1908. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Thank you very much for your 
 letter and for its enclosure. It was very pleasant to receive 
 the President's message. Nothing could be kinder than the 
 way he has expressed himself from time to time. He was 
 so very good as to write me a letter some little time ago, 
 inviting me most cordially to the White House, and it was a 
 great grief to me that iron circumstances were too strong. 
 
 " I have disposed of the lease of my Durham Villa house, 
 and this is our only address at present. We could not keep
 
 MY DEBT OF GRATITUDE 265 
 
 ' Mouse ' in town, and it was a perpetual bother finding him 
 fresh country quarters and bad in principle our being 
 separated so much. He is very happy here though his 
 thoughts still turn to the golden strand at Littlehampton. 
 I took him a row under Quarry Woods the other day, but his 
 highest praise was that it was something like Arundel. 
 
 " E. is picking up slightly after her bad peritonitis in the 
 spring. It is beautiful here, and healthy, and high, and 
 invalids are supposed to reconstitute themselves here, as well 
 as anywhere. 
 
 " We both rather wanted reconstituting. We have spent 
 two previous summers here, and I knew it well as a little 
 boy. 
 
 " I hope you and Mr O'Connor are both keeping fit and 
 well. 
 
 " With kindest regards from both of us, Yours very truly, 
 
 " KENNETH GRAHAME " 
 
 " Dear ' Mouse ' went to his first Theatre last winter to see 
 ' Pinkie and the Fairies ' and was, I heard, enthralled by the 
 Fairy Queen and her Court." 
 
 And there are such a number of writers who have personally 
 endeared themselves to me by their work. Barrie has lovers 
 all over the world. I remember that one of his plays I think, 
 " Little Mary " with its wonderful tenderness appealed to 
 me so strongly that I wrote a letter of congratulation and 
 signed myself Bessie Barrie O'Connor. 
 
 And he was quite equal to the occasion when he answered : 
 
 " LEINSTER CORNER, 
 
 " LANCASTER GATE, W., 
 " October 28th, Thursday. 
 
 " DEAR MRS BARRIE O'CONNOR, I think it is a famous 
 good name and thank you very heartily for your letter. I 
 am delighted to hear you like the play. I am, Yours 
 sincerely, J. M. O'CONNOR BARRIE "
 
 266 I MYSELF 
 
 And for many hours of breathless interest I owe Sir Arthur 
 Conan Doyle a debt of gratitude and what excellent, excit- 
 ing plays he has written I was staying out at Hindhead one 
 year with Mrs Labouchere, and wrote Sir Arthur asking him 
 to come and see me ; in answer he asked us to his charming 
 place. On every height there lies repose, and his house on 
 the top of a hill looked down on a wonderful purple gorge. 
 
 " UNDERSHAW, HINDHEAD, 
 " HASLEMERE. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I should have been delighted to 
 come, but I have several visitors here, and mustn't dis- 
 appoint them. 
 
 " Will you come across on Monday afternoon and see my 
 Commando, I think it is rather unique in England. 
 
 " With kind regards, Yours very truly, 
 
 " A. CONAN DOYLE " 
 
 And we went over one afternoon, and I made acquaintance 
 with a great friend, his mighty bull-dog, who examined me 
 critically for a few moments and then licked my face all over, 
 my neck and even behind my ears. Sir Arthur said I was the 
 realization of the dog's dream : that for years he had been 
 hoping to find a heart leaping to his, and understanding him, 
 and at length he had found it in me. His appearance, for- 
 bidding and terrorizing, was the opposite of his big affection- 
 ate love-craving heart, and he spent his days in grief because 
 people were afraid of him. I offered him a home, and Sir 
 Arthur said, " Take care, he may arrive one morning," but he 
 never did. Perhaps it is just as well, he might not have liked 
 " Mr Phelan," my little Yorkshire terrier given me by James 
 D. Phelan of San Francisco, and named for him. A very 
 wise and sweet specimen of his kind, he realizes his own 
 limitations, which some humans never do, and he never 
 attacks other dogs or runs away, for he knows how helplessly 
 small he is. The only fault in his otherwise quite perfect 
 character is his effeminacy. He loves silk cushions and cats. 
 If other dogs are about, in compliment to them he pretends
 
 PIOUS COAXY AT HIS PRAYERS
 
 MY DEBT OF GRATITUDE 267 
 
 to be cool and distant to cats, but if alone with a cat he 
 snuggles into the same basket and is quite happy. He has 
 one accomplishment, he can shake hands beautifully and 
 will give first one paw and then the other in the most 
 fascinating manner. And he is wonderfully sympathetic. 
 Lying on my bed one day, he discovered that I was crying, 
 and after licking all the tears off my face he then gave me 
 his paw. And in all his amiable sweet little life Mr Phelan 
 has never done or said an ill-tempered or an unamiable 
 thing. Though once he told a lie. Phelan and I were walking 
 together on the Brighton Downs, when suddenly he gave an 
 ear-piercing scream, and held up a tiny paw in apparently 
 great agony. I thought he had stepped on a thorn, and I 
 carried him a few yards, when a charming toy Pomeranian 
 met us and Phelan leaped out of my arms perfectly cured 
 the scamp, he was tired and only wanted to be carried. 
 
 Phelan's uncle, James Foster (a Grindley wonder), who had 
 nursed me so tenderly in Scotland, was stolen, and Phelan, 
 who belonged to the same family, was given me as a con- 
 solation. But he never had either the beauty, or the wit, 
 or the character of James Foster, who gave me his whole 
 heart until I sent him to the Veterinary Surgeon in Edinburgh 
 to have a wart taken off from his side, and ill as I was, he 
 would not speak to me, or notice me for a week. He was 
 even smaller than Mr Phelan, but he had a wonderful per- 
 sonality, and I grieved dreadfully over his loss. What 
 terrible punishments I would give to dog-stealers, for they not 
 only rob your pockets, but they so wound your affections. 
 He was stolen in Chelsea ; while he was walking just in front 
 of the house, a man was seen to pick him up, button his coat 
 about him, and run down Tite Street. And we heard after- 
 wards that he had been shipped to America. My little 
 faithful sick-room friend.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 MY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 
 
 " A" | AHE Lady from Texas," produced at Penley's Theatre, 
 was one of the bitterest disappointments of my life. 
 I wanted success, of course, but money above all 
 things. I haven't a penny of my own, and absolute depend- 
 ence is a hurtful position for a proud and sensitive woman. 
 Independence is something I've longed for and dreamed of 
 for years. To be able to earn my own living, to eat the bread 
 of my making, has been the goal of my ambition, and to this 
 end no task for me would have been too Herculean ; but Fate, 
 my unkind stepmother, has not only discouraged, but has 
 even denied me work. The play ran only four weeks, and 
 lost money. I believe it might have had a different fate 
 if I had, in the beginning, taken the advice of my friends and 
 played in it myself. Not that Miss Cheatham was not good 
 in the part ; she was excellent, better possibly than I with 
 my inexperience could have been, but there were many and 
 varied reasons why I should have played in it one being, that 
 we would have first tried it for a few weeks in the provinces, 
 and in this way rubbed off the rough corners, improved it, 
 and presented it in a different aspect to the critics, who, on 
 the whole, were terribly severe on me; but I bear them not the 
 slightest ill-will, always standing by my craft, and believing 
 and advocating the freedom of the press. When the play 
 was taken off, a young manager offered to take it on tour 
 if I would play the title part. He said that with my 
 name it might go in the provinces. The dresses were new 
 and fresh, the caste was small, and he was sanguine and 
 thought the venture worth while. I was more than doubtful 
 m
 
 269 
 
 of my ability to fill the r61e. I am horribly nervous of 
 appearing in public in any capacity, but I could not bear 
 the idea of my poor bantling dying without an effort of 
 resuscitation, and I proposed myself to rehearse on ap- 
 proval, and if I was impossible to retire in favour of an 
 understudy. 
 
 I worked with enthusiasm, taking every suggestion, and 
 going over my part again and again, until the Stage Manager 
 thought me possible, and we opened at Leamington. It 
 was a fearful ordeal. When the curtain went up, I stood 
 rooted to the stage, and could scarcely hear myself speak, 
 and I dared not look at the audience ; but gradually a little 
 confidence came back to me, and I struggled through the 
 three acts at any rate without breaking down. Clement 
 Scott kindly came down for the first night, and never was 
 there a more encouraging, uplifting, inspiring friend. The 
 papers were very kind, and the next week we went to Dublin. 
 It was there, on the second or third night of the week, that 
 I suddenly felt happy, at home, and completely at ease on 
 the stage. From that moment, I really loved acting, and 
 lived only for the night. When the notices said that I made 
 " the public forgive Mrs O'Fish Withers for her uncon- 
 ventionalities and even vulgarities, and love her in spite of 
 them," my cup of bliss was full, for I felt the character was 
 understood as I was trying with utter inexperience to convey 
 it. And I worked harder than ever. 
 
 After five weeks, we had a week out, and the dresses were 
 all sent to the cleaners, coming back fresh and lovely, and 
 we opened in Edinburgh. I felt really like a sure enough 
 actress when the public applauded me before I said a word, 
 and the papers were quite wonderfully kind. This was 
 on Monday. That night I had a violent chill and very 
 threatening pains, which seemed premonitory of peritonitis. 
 My temperature was well up the next morning, and that night 
 my face was scarlet with fever, but I managed somehow to 
 crawl over to the theatre, to get dressed and to play. I had 
 always heard that a real actress played whether well or ill, 
 and certainly I was ill enough.
 
 270 I MYSELF 
 
 The next morning a doctor was called in, and my tem- 
 perature had gone up to 104, where it remained with varying 
 steadiness for weeks, and one blissful day for then I lost 
 consciousness it reached 106. T. P. was telegraphed for 
 and came ; we had Sir Halliday Croome in consultation, who 
 pronounced it a well-developed case of peritonitis, with 
 internal haemorrhage, and left me to the local doctor. This 
 was the last week in October, and I left Edinburgh only the 
 day before New Year. Nine weeks of mortal sickness ; but 
 my splendid constitution pulled me through ; and stretched 
 in a sleeping berth, and clothed in a flannel dressing-gown, I 
 was able to travel to London on December 3ist. T. P., who 
 was busy, could only spare a few weeks from London and had 
 returned there so the rest of the time I battled with death 
 alone. There is no disease on earth so painful as peritonitis ; 
 only one position is possible, lying on the back with the knees 
 drawn up, as to stretch out the legs is unspeakable agony. A 
 pillow is put under the knees to hold them up, but even then, 
 after days carried in this fashion, they ache to drop off. My 
 sweet Scotch nurse used to hold them up for me until I could 
 see her turn pale with fatigue. And the long purgatorial 
 nights of active bodily pain, while the brain acted with 
 superhuman clarity, were more terrible than Dante ever 
 invented in his " Inferno." Was it not Sydney Smith who 
 said, " The view from the horizontal position is so different 
 from the perpendicular " ? and Heaven knows it is. 
 
 And when my fever raged and I could sleep, again and 
 again a dream came to me of a garden in the South. 
 
 " There's not a flower, there's not a tree, 
 In this old garden where we sit, 
 But what some fragrant memory 
 Is closed and folded up in it. 
 To-night the dog-rose smells as wild, 
 As fresh, as when I was a child." 
 
 It was always the same dream, and the same dear garden 
 just at the gateway a wonderful avenue of tallest cypress 
 trees began, and finished in the feathery cedars of Lebanon.
 
 MY STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 271 
 
 And at the end of the avenue was a water garden of diamond- 
 shaped and octagonal marble pools, and all around and 
 between them grew oleander trees, weighed down by blooms 
 of deepest pink, and white, and lemon colour, and paler 
 pink, and all the air was bitter sweet with the scent, and there 
 were statues standing here and there, very old, some with 
 blunted features from age and damp, but all of them light 
 and graceful, and there were arbours of rich datura, and the 
 purple wistaria and great beds of phlox, and dahlias, and 
 thick branched lilac trees, and musky honeysuckle growing 
 thickly about the trunks of the olive. And the lilies stood in 
 long, straight rows made whiter by a background of scarlet 
 pomegranates, and hollyhocks and spicy pinks, and purple 
 and white and pink larkspur, and beds of four o'clocks, 
 and scarlet salvia, and sweet william, and crepe myrtle, and 
 red lilies and cyclamen, all crowded each other, and at the 
 end of the garden a little busy, noisy stream ran, with giant 
 fig-trees growing on its banks, and every once in a while the 
 ripe fruit fell, and made a little splash in the clear water, and 
 the dog-roses and the crimson rambler, and the cloth-of-gold 
 roses all climbed and hid the wall in brilliant sheets of colour, 
 and an old house stood very far back in the garden and the 
 hill sloped down in terraces covered in rich grapes, and olive 
 trees, and the blue, blue of the South sky above it all, and 
 when night came the nightingales sang. And then I awoke 
 to grinding pain and looked out on Calton Hill and the 
 snows of the north. 
 
 As the days went by, and I was fairly eaten up by fever, 
 lying hour after hour by myself looking over my whole life 
 past and future, the psychological moment for death seemed 
 to me to have arrived, and I did most earnestly pray God to 
 let me die. I am not in the least afraid of the changelessness 
 of death. It is the changefulness of life that fills me with 
 apprehension and despair. To me there are no more com- 
 forting words than these : 
 
 " Oh, cool and perfect, peaceful death, 
 Without one painful sigh or catching in of breath."
 
 272 I MYSELF 
 
 And I felt a whole eternity of sleep would not have been too 
 much to rest my hot and tired heart and restless brain. 
 
 But I rarely slept, and with a book propped on my breast, 
 I read day and night, and the effort of getting my mind fixed 
 on my book and away from acute and continual pain was so 
 great, that whole chapters of " Anna Karenina " and 
 " Kim " oh, that great white road ! and the poems of 
 Burns, are absolutely photographed in my memory, which 
 ordinarily, except in spots, is a sieve. And when I could 
 read no longer, I comforted myself with what odd verses 
 I could remember, whispering them to myself. This com- 
 forting plea recurred to me often and often : 
 
 It cannot be that this poor life shall end us ! 
 
 God's words are truthful and His ways are just. 
 He would not here to sin and sorrow send us, 
 
 And then blot out our souls with " dust to dust." 
 Saving our clay, and back to nature giving 
 Smothering our soul ere it hath had its living, 
 It cannot be ! 
 
 It cannot be that One so just and perfect 
 
 Would make a perfect universe, and plan 
 The star of all should be at last imperfect, 
 
 Life, yet leave that life half -lived in wretched man. 
 Forever lives the gross the dead material 
 Forever dies the life the spark imperal ? 
 It cannot be ! 
 
 It cannot be, for life is more than living ; 
 
 It cannot be, for death is more than dream. 
 Think ye to clod, God daily life is giving, 
 
 Yet from the grave shut out the grander beam ? 
 Night is but day ere it hath had its dawning, 
 Death a brief night, and waiteth for the morning, 
 Which soon shall be !
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 THE VALLEY OF DEATH 
 
 " Dusk upon the river, 
 And dusk upon the land 
 But oh the sorrow in my heart, 
 Too deep to understand ! 
 
 Who of my kin is dead, my heart, 
 
 That you should mourn them so ? 
 
 Or is it that you died yourself 
 
 A thousand years ago ? " DA COSTA 
 
 MY doctor believed in the old-fashioned method of 
 treating the disease with opium, and I took vast 
 quantities which scarcely eased the pain. T. P. 
 sent me a letter every day, and wrote from time to time 
 articles about me in " M. A. P." He said : 
 
 " Finally, I had an opportunity for the first time in my 
 life to see the stage from the inside, and it was a very satis- 
 factory experience. The company of ladies and gentlemen 
 that Mrs O'Connor had around her were like a family rather 
 than a mere chance association of people with no tie but 
 that of business, and this made their travels, labours and 
 experiences singularly agreeable. To Mrs O'Connor they 
 all acted with signal consideration. When she was rehearsing 
 for her first appearance on the stage, there was not one of them 
 that did not put their experience at her disposal, and I am 
 told that the night of her debut they all were trembling with 
 nervousness for her. She was indeed the only person fearless 
 and self-confident. When she came through this ordeal 
 triumphantly they acclaimed her with all that readiness 
 18 3
 
 274 I MYSELF 
 
 of kind emotion which is the characteristic of their pro- 
 fession a profession which brings out the good and the 
 simple and the sympathetic in human nature, as well, of 
 course, as its rivalries and hatred. They all I may say, 
 perhaps, who shouldn't were profoundly attached to the 
 authoress of the play as indeed is everybody who comes 
 to know her sweet, gentle and beautiful nature." 
 
 On my lonely bed of pain to read these paragraphs from 
 T. P.'s ever facile pen gave me food for reflection and a 
 feeling of deepest sadness. It is the woman with " the sweet 
 and the gentle nature " who is generally called upon for 
 life's supremest sacrifice renunciation ; while the passionate 
 woman of ardent temperament, selfish and exigeante, gets 
 and keeps what is best in life. 
 
 My friends wrote constantly, and my room was literally 
 a bower of flowers arriving every day from London, but the 
 slow days dragged on like links in a convict's chain. And 
 towards the middle of December, I felt myself growing 
 gradually weaker, and hour by hour slipping away. Some- 
 how, crossing the dark river, although I don't mind the other 
 side, without a word of farewell to anybody at the very 
 brink, seemed bitter, so the doctor telegraphed to T. P. to 
 come. He was just concluding a business matter of much 
 importance. and thought the journey unnecessary, and was a 
 little impatient with me at first. He said, " American 
 women were imaginative, and unnecessarily nervous ; that 
 he found me really looking better than he expected ; that I 
 should have more courage " but after his dinner, when he 
 came to say good-night, the burning heat of my hand 
 frightened him, and he sent for the doctor, who said that I 
 was very ill, but he thought I would certainly live until the 
 morning. T. P. came back after speaking to the doctor, and 
 though I begged him not to stay, knowing how sad a sick- 
 room is to him, he insisted upon it, and sat down by my 
 bedside to wait for the morning. I believed I really was 
 going to die, and I felt as gently toward death as though a 
 friend was softly opening the door, and I wondered :
 
 THE VALLEY OF DEATH 275 
 
 " If I should die to-night, 
 
 E'en hearts estranged would turn once more to me, 
 Recalling other days remorsefully ; 
 The eyes that chill me with averted glance 
 Would look upon me as of yore, perchance, 
 And soften in the old familiar way 
 (For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay ?) 
 So I might rest of all forgiven to-night ! 
 
 Oh friends, I pray to-night, 
 
 Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow, 
 
 The way is lonely, let me feel them now. 
 
 Think gently of me ; I am travel-worn : 
 
 My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn ; 
 
 Forgive, hearts estranged, forgive, I plead ! 
 
 When dreamless rest is mine, I shall not need 
 
 The tenderness for which I long to-night." 
 
 The theatre where I had so hopefully and gaily trotted 
 about the stage was exactly opposite the hotel, and there 
 Dick Whittington and his Cat were disporting themselves, 
 and that night the whole of the chorus were invited by some 
 young men to the hotel to supper in a room very near mine. 
 When the noisy songs began, T. P. went downstairs to the 
 gay company and begged for me, telling them my very life 
 depended on a little sleep indeed, I might die at any 
 moment during the night. He prayed them to be quiet, 
 but they were, if anything, noisier than before. The pro- 
 prietor said he could not have his guests interfered with, 
 and I fully expected my soul to depart boisterously to the 
 tune of " He's a jolly good fellow." 
 
 At daylight only did the riotous revellers go home. In 
 the morning the doctor came, and again Sir Halliday Croome 
 was called into consultation. He was surprised to find me 
 still in Edinburgh, thinking I had got well and gone back 
 to London. This time he seemed anxious, and said I must 
 be carried to a nursing home at once, and he would himself 
 send an ambulance and two nurses to fetch me as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 I was greatly opposed to the move, being quite indifferent
 
 276 I MYSELF 
 
 then to everything, but at five o'clock the ambulance 
 arrived, and two nice young nurses came up to take me away. 
 T. P. could not bear to see me in an ambulance it would 
 have filled him with depression so I made him go out to 
 visit friends. The two ambulance men picked me up in my 
 nightgown, rolled me in blankets, strapped me on a stretcher, 
 and we began our downward march. My room was in the 
 third storey, and every step gave me pains like knives. A 
 number of people had assembled before the door to see me 
 off. I had been making such a long fight for life that many 
 knew of my illness. The crowd parted silently to let me 
 pass. The nurse threw the blanket over my face, and some 
 pitying soul dropped a little penny bunch of violets on what 
 I thought was my " mattress-grave." The men shoved the 
 stretcher on a long narrow shelf, and I felt without volition 
 cold weak tears running down my cheeks. The ambulance 
 driver turned to see that I was all right. He had no pocket- 
 handkerchief, poor man, so he doubled up his kindly fist and 
 with it wiped away my tears, saying, " Never mind, Mrs 
 O'Connor dear, I feel it an honour to have carried you 
 downstairs." 
 
 The ruling passion is strong in death, and I wanted dread- 
 fully to say, " Did you see the ' Lady from Texas ' ? " but 
 a solid lump in my throat kept me from speaking. The nurses 
 then took their places, and we began our slow march of a mile 
 or more to me it seemed a great distance. When they 
 lifted me from the ambulance the stars were shining, and as I 
 looked up at them I bade them a silent good-bye. It was 
 many weeks since I had seen them, and I never expected 
 to see them again.
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE NURSING HOME 
 
 " Blessed are the merciful " 
 
 THE nursing home, sweet and clean and cheerful, and 
 full of air, was very different from the hotel. When 
 I was carried upstairs, I gathered from one of the 
 nurses that I was at the very portal of death with the door 
 wide open. The peritonitis had abated, but I was suffering 
 from acute opium poisoning, and from my waist down I was 
 quite paralysed. For weeks I had been dripping with night 
 sweats, that resembled nothing so much as rain ; five or six 
 times during the night the nurse had changed my nightgown ; 
 and I had become so thin my poor bones were comfortable 
 only on air cushions. 
 
 Very drastic remedies were given me among them doses 
 of belladonna in such quantities that I became quite blind, 
 and it made me so hot and nervous it was with difficulty I 
 restrained myself from wild screams of hysteria. My opium 
 was suddenly left off, and I could have no fluids, or water, 
 only small sips of brandy and soda, and a mouthful of fish 
 or a morsel of toast. 
 
 For two nights the angelic night-nurse sat by me dipping 
 her hand in iced water, and then slowly rubbing my fore- 
 head ; but for this soothing process I could not have remained 
 quietly in bed. 
 
 With a complete reversal of my treatment, in ten days I 
 was sitting up and begging to go home. On Christmas Day, 
 T. P. came to have a Christmas dinner with me at the side of 
 my bed, and on December 3ist we left for London. The 
 doctor was terribly opposed to my travelling so soon, but I
 
 278 I MYSELF 
 
 longed so desperately for my own surroundings and belong- 
 ings that finally he consented to my going if I promised to 
 lie down all the way, and get into a wheeled chair, and from 
 there to the carriage. Sir Halliday Croome considered my 
 recovery a miracle, and from the moment I got home, I began 
 to mend, and was soon more cheerful but life has never 
 been quite the same careless affair to me since those many 
 weeks of a horizontal position, when through exceeding pain 
 I faced the great problem of existence, and put out a friendly 
 hand to death, only to have his dark face turn aside, and be 
 sent out to fight the battle of life once more. 
 
 Perhaps the prayers said for me in the Convents by 
 innocent children, and by my good friend the Chief Rabbi 
 Adler, may have helped my recovery at any rate I expect 
 now to reach a quite astonishing age of longevity. When I 
 came back to London, what kind letters awaited me among 
 them a letter from Justin M'Carthy : 
 
 " ASHLEY DENE. 
 " WESTGATE-ON-SEA, 
 " Jan. 8th 1902. 
 
 " DEAREST BESSIE, I must send you a line to express my 
 heartfelt delight on reading the good news that you are at last 
 able to return to your London home, and that you have borne 
 the journey well. May your complete recovery come soon, 
 to the relief and joy of all who love you. Ever your 
 affectionate friend, JUSTIN M'CARTHY 
 
 " Charlotte sends her love." 
 
 What a wonderful recovery Justin M'Carthy made himself 
 after his long and terrible illness in London. It must have 
 been due to the love and the nursing of Charlotte M'Carthy, 
 one of the noblest and most devoted daughters I have ever 
 seen. She was a very witty, agreeable woman, she had lived 
 in London all her life, and had a large circle of appreciative 
 friends, and yet she gave everything up, went to the country 
 to live on account of Justin's health, and was most cheerful 
 and happy in making her father's life hers. I suppose
 
 THE NURSING HOME 279 
 
 sacrifice for a woman with the knowledge that she is entirely 
 necessary to the comfort and well-being of some one she loves, 
 always means happiness. Until women are educated not to 
 live entirely through their emotions they must live through 
 the people they love, and it is sad, for they often fail us. 
 
 I felt it so kind in Mr (now Sir Henry) Lucy to write me, 
 knowing how busy a man he is, and I kept his letters, 
 written by Mrs Lucy, the kind secretary : 
 
 " WHITE THORN, 
 
 " HYTHE, KENT, 
 " ^th January 1902. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, We were very glad to hear better 
 news of you. It must have been very hard to have been 
 shut up in Edinburgh, sick and in a strange room, with Sir 
 Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and other desirable 
 people out of town. 
 
 " I hear you are coming south. If you chance to select 
 Folkestone for a place of convalescence we shall hope to see 
 you here during one of our flying visits in the Parliamentary 
 session. Please do not forget to let us know where you are 
 and how you are when you settle down. 
 
 " The kind secretary joins me in affectionate regards, 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 " HENRY W. LUCY " 
 
 I wonder if I had left Edinburgh as I expected, by the 
 gate of death, after my little much enjoyed triumph 
 there 
 
 " But none shall triumph a whole life through, 
 For death is one, and the fates are three. 
 At the door of life, by the gates of breath, 
 There are worse things waiting for men than death." 
 
 If I had met Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 I would have tried to speak with Sir Walter first, because I 
 was brought up to love him. The chivalry of the South came 
 from him. Robert Louis Stevenson is a great admiration,
 
 280 I MYSELF 
 
 but has never excited the tender affection in me of " the stout 
 blunt carle " as Sir Walter called himself. There are some 
 people to be loved at first sight. Sir Walter Scott must have 
 been one of them and Robbie Burns another. The literature 
 and history of Scotland have always had a peculiar fascina- 
 tion for the South. Carlyle is another author greatly read, 
 and Whistler, who was typically American, never painted 
 any portrait so fine as that of Carlyle. It is a great piece of 
 work. I saw it first in Edinburgh and it seemed to me, 
 seeing it unexpectedly, to be the living man. And even 
 Sargent, that great artist, has never painted a finer or more 
 characteristic portrait. I do not set myself up to be a critic of 
 art, but some things are very obvious. From the beginning 
 of his career Sargent was a great artist. Mrs Labouchere 
 has a letter from me written twenty- three years ago, begging 
 her to have Mr Labouchere, Dora and herself painted by 
 Sargent. He was always kind. This letter was written to 
 me now a very long time ago : 
 
 " i RUE TROUCHET, 
 
 " PARIS, 
 "April, -Lst. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I hope you will go to my studio 
 and take your son, although I won't be there to do you the 
 honour, but perhaps you will be so good as to come again 
 when I return. 
 
 " The picture of Lady Macbeth is still at the studio until 
 the I5th, when it goes to the New Gallery, and I should like 
 you to see it in the studio as there never is any telling what a 
 picture will look like at an exhibition. 
 
 " You really amuse me, by saying that perhaps I will not 
 remember you, and there is a quaint joke on my side, for you 
 taxed me at Parsons' studio with vagueness, and not keeping 
 engagements, and I weakly apologized my bewilderment. 
 You were thinking of Reinhart, and then I remember the 
 circumstance of several years ago, when you invited Reinhart 
 to call, and enjoyed the comedy of errors enormously. The 
 facts are that I had only seen you once and can draw your
 
 THE NURSING HOME 281 
 
 likeness from memory, and that Reinhart and I are one 
 formless and unreliable monster in your recollection, but 
 when I return to London, which will be in May, I will call and 
 try to disentangle myself. Very truly yours, 
 
 "JOHN S. SARGENT" 
 
 I wish now I had asked him to paint a portrait of myself 
 if only from memory, but there was no one who particularly 
 wanted it. Now I have an adorable little love in whose long, 
 lashed eyes it would be lovely. He one day told me he 
 wanted a picture of me, and I said, " Oh, no, damma is too 
 old and ugly," whereupon his eyes flashed and he said, 
 " Damma is not ugly, not a single bit of her is ugly," and I 
 determined then and there always to look my best in those 
 young, beautiful, and starlike eyes. No one who has seen 
 can ever forget them, even George Meredith was impressed 
 by their singular beauty, and when I wrote to ask if I might 
 buy that wonderful photograph of himself, taken by Hollyer, 
 he wrote me in answer : 
 
 " Box HILL, DORKING, 
 " April 2Qth, 1908. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Here is a Bluebeard's reply to you. 
 No ! The permission for Hollyer to sell is not to be granted. 
 It might lead to the appearance of a singularly modest man 
 in shop windows between a bishop and a specimen of tarnished 
 silver, having the charm of the metal and its attractive 
 disfigurement. But I will send to Hollyer for copies, and 
 beg you, with your enthusiast, to accept them. Is it fair 
 of a grandmother to give her beautiful eyes to male infants ? 
 Women bearing the darts in their breasts complain of 
 treachery. We will hope that the younger Howard will be 
 conscientious in the use he makes of his grandmother's gift." 
 Most truly yours, GEORGE MEREDITH "
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 THE LITTLE JOYS OF LIFE 
 
 The little joys of life must twinkle like small stars, and illumine the 
 lives of those whose background is one of sorrow. 
 
 I AM taking a course of Herbert Spencer, hoping he 
 may give me the peace he has given to so many others. 
 And I try, and succeed very often, to make a joy out 
 of many little things of life. If a friend sends me a bunch of 
 roses, that is a joy. If Helen brings me, as she so often does, 
 a pot of mignonette, that is a joy. If Kathleen O'Moore 
 makes a fairy-like darn on a beloved but elderly blouse, that is 
 a joy. When I visit those twenty-five years married lovers, 
 that is a joy. When my grandson, brave and manly in his 
 four years, comes in my bedroom in the early morning and 
 says patronisingly, " Good mornin', little dam," and kisses me 
 a dozen times, that is more than joy. And how well he knows 
 his power, the scamp. A friend met him not long ago in the 
 park and said to him, " Does your Damma love you ? " 
 And he answered, " She woshups me." And indeed I do. 
 For anything more beautiful or alluring or sweet never lived 
 upon this earth than my little love. A year ago, when he 
 was only three years old, we were staying with a friend in 
 Brighton, whose husband is paralysed, and I was advising 
 him to try the Christian Science principles to say, " I will 
 walk and I can walk," and just walk. He tried the plan, 
 took one or two steps, wavered a little bit, and fell rather 
 heavily. He was describing the fall to Boysey, and he said, 
 " I tried and tried to walk and then it was terrible. I fell ! " 
 " Good God," said the baby, " a accident ! " And he was 
 so concerned and sympathetic.
 
 I'M A SOLDIER OF THE KING"
 
 THE LITTLE JOYS OF LIFE 283 
 
 When he was two years old, and just after he had begun to 
 say his prayers, his Nannie said to me, " He is very good now, 
 you know, and says his prayers every night. He is a per- 
 fect little diplomatist and always ready to take advantage 
 of every situation." So when I said, " I'll hear his prayers 
 to-night," he said to his Nannie, " Well, if I say my prayers 
 to Damma can I say them with my eyes open ? " His nurse 
 said he could, so arranging himself in his crib, with his little 
 hands clasped together and his big, dark eyes wide open, he 
 turned to me and called, " Ready, Damma ! " and the 
 prayers began. Some time ago, he asked me what had 
 become of a man who died a man who was drowned and 
 I said, " He has gone to heaven." He said, " My heaven ? " 
 I said, " I didn't know that you had a private heaven, but he 
 has gone to heaven." He said, " Tell me what it is like." 
 So I began a description of a heaven where there were whole 
 avenues of Christmas trees filled with toys, and cakes, and 
 live parrots that came when they were called, and there were 
 fluffy toy dogs who became real dogs when they were taken 
 off the tree, and angels handed down the toys and played 
 the most delicious music on harps and altogether the picture 
 struck him as being so delightful that he said, " I want to go 
 to heaven now at once. Do you understand, at once ? " 
 I said, " But you have to die first, and you don't want to 
 leave your mother, do you, and your Daddy and Damma ? " 
 He said, " But we can all die together, and all go to heaven 
 at once." 
 
 His Nannie had him photographed in his Guardsman's 
 uniform, and when I asked him what he thought of the 
 pictures, he said, " I think they are the sweetest soldiers I 
 ever saw." I said, " You know you are an American, and 
 this is an English uniform." He said, " I'm not, I'm a 
 Union Jack, a soldier of the King." And I know one thing, 
 if all the King's soldiers were such loves there would never 
 be any wars. 
 
 Last winter among the many games he elected to play with 
 me was one called " Burning Kisses." I had been writing 
 all the morning, and there were a good many torn scraps in
 
 284 I MYSELF 
 
 my paper basket, and with every scrap of paper that he threw 
 in the fire and saw burnt up he gave me a kiss and I am sure 
 they are the purest and the tenderest burning kisses that ever 
 woman in this world has received. Ah, my little love, if all 
 burning kisses were as sweet and innocent as yours, how 
 much easier and happier life would be, how many tragedies 
 avoided ! So life, if we cultivate pleasure in small things, 
 can never be hopeless, but sometimes it is very sad.
 
 CHAPTER LII 
 
 SATISFYING SYMPATHY 
 
 " He has the Alchemist's secret who changes one sad note to song ; 
 he has the touch of Midas who makes all bright and golden some one's 
 day." ELBERT HUBBARD 
 
 IS there such a thing in life as re-incarnation ? It seems 
 the most plausible theory for sudden and complete 
 sympathy and understanding between people of 
 different age, different nationality, different religion, and 
 very often a completely different point of view. 
 
 The first time I saw Helen I saw nothing of her but 
 her eyes ; bright, brown, laughing, foreseeing, inquisitive, 
 speculative, humorous, kind eyes. Doctor Patrick Murphy, 
 her father, is marvellous at diagnosis of the body this 
 talent has come to his daughter as a diagnosis of the mind. 
 Born and brought up in the East, she has been surrounded 
 by that mystic atmosphere of the Orient which has developed 
 her powers of observation until she is uncanny in reading 
 the mind of every human being who comes near her. She 
 is by far the finest psychologist I have ever seen. The 
 future, by some occult means, is often an open book to her, 
 but her warm and generous heart will always close the page 
 when she knows it will hurt. And what a whole-souled 
 lover of humanity she is ! Spending herself, giving herself, 
 working herself, and continually for other people. She 
 seems to feel that everybody has a right to happiness, and 
 that she must contribute toward that end. Of course, with 
 such unselfishness as a motive power, she is always cheerful 
 and happy. As for me, there is no one of my friends who 
 has been to me in adversity what Helen has been. All 
 
 285
 
 286 I MYSELF 
 
 satisfying sympathy between two human beings is a fore- 
 taste of heaven. When my spirit faints I fly to her for 
 comfort, and I always get it. She loves to make her affection 
 manifest, and if I look in a shop window and admire any- 
 thing she never rests until she has given it to me. The 
 greatest or the smallest thing in the world of my desire 
 would be mine if Helen was all-powerful. She is young 
 enough to be my daughter, but, with her mother's heart, 
 has constituted herself my mother, knowing that I need a 
 mother most of all. And how she adores children old, 
 like myself, and young, like my Love pretty, ugly, rich, 
 poor, clean, and dirty. Helen's face softens beautifully to 
 them all. One poor, plain, bandy-legged and puny baby 
 she entirely clothes and feeds out of her little pocket money. 
 May she be near me at the last, and may her dear hand hold 
 fast to mine, and beg for grace when my tried and restless 
 spirit wings its flight ! 
 
 Cardinal Manning once told me that I was in for some 
 millions of years of purgatory more than other people, and 
 when I asked him why, he said, " Because you know how 
 to be good, and you are not good, and those are the people 
 who suffer the most." 
 
 I am so thorough in everything that if I once was as good 
 as I know how to be and am not, I should simply die. And 
 Helen is sure to beg to become my proxy in purgatory to 
 work off one or two of my million years. And I think, in 
 remembering all her acts of devotion and her great love for 
 me, her request will be granted. I shall be liberated before 
 my time, and wait, on the other side, until she comes. 
 
 I have done some unselfish things in my life I suppose 
 every woman has been forced to do them, whether she 
 wanted to or not but I hope the chiefest will be remem- 
 bered to my credit when the last great day comes and its 
 being comic, to my mind, does not is the least lessen its 
 merit. 
 
 One summer, my son, Francis Howard, Johannes Wolff, 
 a party of friends and myself, went to Oberammergau to 
 the " Passion Play." The construction of my hat was such,
 
 SATISFYING SYMPATHY 287 
 
 that it was easier to attach my " transformation " to it 
 which, as a matter of convenience, I was wearing while I was 
 travelling than to put it on my head ; and it was not long 
 after we were all seated that a man sitting behind me a 
 man with a strange foreign accent said, " Madam, I cannot 
 see the stage unless you take off your hat." I replied, 
 " I fear it is impossible." " And I have travelled seven 
 thousand miles to see this play," he added. That settled 
 it. I could not bear, after such a journey, to inconvenience 
 him, so I bravely took out my hatpins and deposited hat, 
 hair and all, in my lap. My son, sitting by me, didn't 
 notice at first, but presently he turned round and exclaimed, 
 " What on earth are you showing that noble, intimidating 
 forehead of yours for ? " And I said, " On this occasion 
 it happens to be a Christian virtue I have taken off my hat 
 and hair so the man sitting behind me shall see the ' Passion 
 Play.' ' Then on the other side Monsieur Johannes Wolff, 
 whom I had known a great many years, went into paroxysms 
 of laughter over my coiffure, as my hair, in order to wear 
 the transformation comfortably, was drawn quite flat and 
 tight from my forehead, and so that it might seem to be part 
 of the transformation was loosely dressed at the side. I 
 explained to M. Wolff that very few people had seen my 
 forehead ; that it was indeed a test of friendship. I wonder 
 if the man who had travelled seven thousand miles appreci- 
 ated my absolute unselfishness upon this occasion ! 
 
 The " Passion Play " to me was a great disappointment, 
 and I had wanted all my life to see it but I was almost 
 sorry that I had, for the Christ of my imagination is a manly 
 man, gentle and tender, but above all courageous, and this 
 character the actor did not portray at all ; the meekness 
 made every other trait subservient. It was only the 
 crucifixion that was magnificent, and that awed and touched 
 me to the quick, and impressed me more than anything I 
 have ever seen. 
 
 Going from Munich to Baden-Baden that summer I read 
 Dr John Brown's " Horae Subsecivae," and in the account 
 he gives of one of his father's friends, an old Scotch Pro-
 
 288 I MYSELF 
 
 fessor, he records an evidence of an almost miraculous love, 
 which seemed to me unforgetably touching. It was this : 
 
 " His second wife was a woman of great sweetness and 
 delicacy, not only of mind, but, to his sorrow, of constitu- 
 tion. She died after less than a year of singular and un- 
 broken happiness. There was no portrait of her. He 
 resolved there should be one, and, though utterly ignorant 
 of drawing, he determined to do it himself, No one else 
 could have such a perfect image of her in his mind, and he 
 resolved to realise this image. He got the materials for 
 miniature painting, and, I think, eight prepared ivory 
 plates. He then shut himself up from every one, and from 
 everything, for fourteen days, and came out of his room, 
 wasted and feeble, with one of the plates (the others he had 
 used and burnt) on which was a portrait, full of subtle like- 
 ness, and drawn and coloured in a way no one could have 
 dreamt of, having had such an artist ; I have seen it, and 
 though I never saw the original, I felt that it must be like, as 
 indeed every one who knew her said it was. I do not, as I 
 said before, know anything more remarkable in the history 
 of human sorrow and resolve." 
 
 I once told this incident to David Murray, and he asked 
 me to write it down and send it to him, which I did, and 
 received from him this reply : 
 
 "HiLL HOUSE, 
 
 " LOWER HOLBROOK, 
 
 " 24th January. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, Your very kind letter has 
 come on to me here, and I am indeed delighted to get the 
 actual statement of the fact you related to me. It is still 
 more strange when full details are before me, knowing, as 
 I do, the difficulties of a novice attempting drawing and 
 colouring, and, above all, choosing the miniature and exact 
 portraiture : it is quite wonderful that he could ever produce 
 anything to challenge criticism at all. No doubt whatever 
 it is attributed to the true cause, power of will under pressure 
 of affection, but it had to be a will of a very intelligent man.
 
 SATISFYING SYMPATHY 289 
 
 I shall treasure the instance and thank you heartily for 
 taking the trouble on my account. My absence on Friday 
 you will see is accounted for by my being here hard at work 
 in bitter cold and wet weather, the most persistent I have 
 ever known. To-day as bad as ever, with an equally bad 
 promise for to-morrow. I shall now be out of town till the 
 ist November, but on my return I shall do myself the 
 pleasure of calling at once to see you ; meanwhile with my 
 best thanks, believe me, very sincerely yours, 
 
 " DAVID MURRAY "
 
 CHAPTER LIII 
 
 MY HUMAN GARDEN 
 
 I THINK there is no one of my friends who has given me 
 more pleasure than Max Beerbohm. In the first 
 instance I was somewhat jealous of him, for he succeeded 
 George Bernard Shaw as dramatic critic on the " Saturday 
 Review," and being a fanatic in my admiration of that 
 brilliant author, it seemed to me that no one could ever 
 worthily succeed him. But the editor displayed great 
 acumen when he replaced Mr Shaw with Max, for he is 
 the one and only man who would have been accept- 
 able to the public. His English is exquisite, his humour 
 is of the most subtle, delicate, and original flavour, and his 
 analysis, not only of plays but of the players themselves, is 
 often like second sight. He sees in a transatlantic comedy, 
 or melodrama, an actor or actress playing a character part 
 and therefore somewhat disguised. Yet straightway when 
 the weekly critique appears in " The Saturday," Max Beer- 
 bohm is writing of the inner self, of the man or woman 
 whom he has seen but once in his life. His mind was a 
 delight to me long before I knew him. Somehow we never 
 met until " Madame Delphine," my first attempt at play- 
 writing, was produced at Wyndham's Theatre. It was not 
 a professional, but a social affair, and was a delightful day 
 to me ; a 'sort of material evidence of the affection of many 
 friends, and was, in fact, a gift day. The clerk of the 
 weather presented me with a superb summer day. Sir 
 Charles Wyndham gave me the theatre. My friends, Mrs 
 Cecil Raleigh, Laurence Irving, Lettice Fairfax, Brandon 
 Thomas, and Amy Height, gave me their services. Mrs 
 
 ago
 
 MY HUMAN GARDEN 291 
 
 Labouchere, my able stage manager, gave me cream and 
 strawberries for my tea, the audience gave me enthusiasm, 
 and I made the first speech of my life, beginning in a 
 very nervous and shaky voice, but gathering courage as 
 I went on, and afterwards got a number of congratulatory 
 letters, but only kept from them all this one : 
 
 "6 GROSVENOR PLACE, S.W., 
 " Friday. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I must thank you for a very 
 delightful afternoon. Louisiana and the French have 
 always greatly interested me. I know Cable's story well, 
 and if anything you have rendered ' Madame Delphine ' into 
 a more touching and dramatic incident than the author 
 himself. The play is both charming and pathetic, but that 
 speech ! Oh that speech !! There was never anything 
 like it. When you make another, let me know, and I will 
 travel miles to hear it. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN " 
 
 And this full, happy day was the first time I saw Max 
 Beerbohm, and in spite of all my emotion I remember 
 quite clearly how he looked, and just where he stood in the 
 theatre. He was waiting for someone, and standing rather 
 back of the people who were shaking hands with Sir Charles 
 and myself. I said to Sir Charles, " Who is that young 
 man over there with eyes just the colour of the sky ? " 
 
 " Why, don't you know," said Sir Charles, " that's Max 
 Beerbohm." 
 
 And from that day we have been friends, such good 
 friends. We have the same point of view about so many 
 things, and so many people. And how we have laughed 
 together, such good understanding laughs the sort that 
 promote a comfortable intimacy. Barrie knew this in 
 " What every Woman knows," when Maggie says, " Laugh, 
 John, laugh, then you will understand me. Try, oh try 
 to laugh. John, laugh ! " And he does, whereupon the 
 audience all cry, so closely do comedy and pathos
 
 292 I MYSELF 
 
 commingle. And, indeed, it can always be said of the 
 people who know how to laugh, that they know how to cry. 
 
 What long walks Max and I, and " The Engineer " have 
 had over the Brighton Downs " The Engineer," so called 
 by Max, being an agile fox terrier called for his many 
 fascinations Coaxy, with a fine muscular nose, which he 
 uses to tunnel up whole families of pink field mice. With 
 paws, nose, and snorting enthusiasm he ferociously digs and 
 digs, refusing to come when called, and in the dusk of the 
 evening returns home bearing proudly on the top of his 
 broad nose quite a small mountain of earth. 
 
 The only disadvantage about Max Beerbohm is, that he 
 is too popular quite as popular as the young wit described 
 in a story of his own a man who had ideals, and ideas, 
 and wanted seriously to work, but his witticisms, amiability, 
 and gregariousness all prevented it. He was invited to 
 lunches, dinners, bridge parties, and country houses ; in 
 consequence his life was too interrupted to accomplish 
 fame. There was nothing to do but separate himself from 
 the world, and no way of doing it but by a drastic measure. 
 He must disgrace himself. So he selected the worst possible 
 thing he could think of he cheated at cards. The result : 
 his friends held a solemn conclave and resolved that so 
 witty, delightful, and amusing a companion must be freely- 
 forgiven, and instead of being ostracized he was submerged 
 with fresh invitations. They fell upon him like the leaves 
 of Vallombrosa. Fate outwitted him after all. I wonder 
 if Max remembers telling me this story the day I wasn't 
 late just to surprise him. 
 
 "48 UPPER BERKELEY STREET, W., 
 " Tuesday. 
 
 " MY DEAR BESSIE, Saturday then by all means. And 
 I will be waiting you at one o'clock on the doorstep of 
 Jules'. 
 
 " I shan't really be there till half-past-one. But I say 
 
 One so that you will arrive not much later than . 
 
 Yours affectionately, MAX "
 
 MY HUMAN GARDEN 293 
 
 He was obliged to be very agreeable at this time, for I had 
 just forgiven him for much faithlessness and a little neglect. 
 
 " 48 UPPER BERKELEY STREET, W. 
 
 " MY DEAR BESSIE, Your charming daughter-in-law has 
 asked me to dine next Friday, to which I look forward with 
 much pleasure (and I have just written and told her so). 
 
 " Meanwhile I hope you won't have it that it is another 
 instance of the " faithlessness " of which you are always very 
 unjustly accusing me (who am the most faithful of creatures) 
 that I did not see your play. I had made all my arrange- 
 ments to go down on Saturday, but these were all bowled 
 over by sudden illness on the Friday and I was in bed till 
 the Sunday, and that was how I missed the pleasure. 
 
 " When is the play going to be done again ? Nothing 
 short of ' typhoid fever with complications ' shall prevent 
 me from being at my post. 
 
 " I hear that Graham Robertson's play is in a sense yours. 
 What a nice present. I wish / had a play to give you ! 
 Yours affectionately, MAX BEERBOHM " 
 
 I wrote at once on the strength of this generous offer to say 
 I would accept a book, and have indeed decided on the 
 subject. 
 
 There is no one who could do an appreciation of Henry 
 James (that master of style and juggler of language) so 
 marvellously well as Max Beerbohm. He is an absolute 
 master of technique himself, and he loves the complete- 
 ness and the exquisite finish of Henry James. I do wish I 
 might " browbeat and bully him " (as Graham Robertson 
 accuses me of doing about " Pinkie ") into writing this 
 work, then the book, like the fairy play, would in a sense 
 be mine, for I too love Henry James, only my artistry is 
 not sufficient to explain and analyse all my many and various 
 reasons why. Max Beerbohm must do this for me. 
 
 Henry James is to me personally the embodiment of his 
 books, he is so polished, so finished, so delicate, so distin- 
 guished a gentleman, and withal so very human and kind.
 
 294 I MYSELF 
 
 The first time I met him I sat next him at a dinner. I had 
 just come to London, and he asked me if I liked it. I said I 
 hadn't made up my mind, and he said I would, that in 
 London you were allowed every independence of opinion 
 and action, only you must contribute something socially 
 beauty (and he bowed very courteously to me, and I bowed 
 very prettily to him) or wit, or agreeableness, and then 
 London accepted you. I said, " History repeats itself. 
 In Texas, where I was born, they say a man is not asked 
 his nationality, his religion, or his politics, but only if he is a 
 good fellow." 
 
 " Ah," said Mr James, " then London is the Texas of 
 Europe." 
 
 A life-long friend of Henry James and a witty woman from 
 Boston, in speaking of him to me, said, " He has most noble 
 qualities, and is a sort of Massachusetts Sir Galahad." I 
 asked her why he had never married, and she said he never 
 wanted to, that he was once engaged to be married, and when 
 the lady broke it off he was so grateful to her that he became 
 her devoted friend for life. " He never," she said, " tempted 
 Fate again. The next time the lady might not have been so 
 kind." 
 
 I remember on another occasion a man saying to him, 
 " You knew Mrs Y. very well ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Henry James, " she was clever, a great 
 mathematician . ' ' 
 
 " And," said the gentleman, " remarkably untruthful, 
 wasn't she ? " 
 
 " Well," said Henry James, " she might have been 
 described as mathematically mendacious." 
 
 I have known quite ordinary liars to entertain the futile 
 hope of rendering an acute triangle into a parallelogram, 
 but a mendacious mathematician would of course lie on a 
 more probable basis.
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 HENRY JAMES, ELLEN TERRY, AND OLD LACE 
 
 A GOOD many years ago I was an almost chronic 
 invalid, and a German doctor told me that I could 
 be cured' by an operation. The doctors in England 
 disagreed, saying I would probably die under it, but finally 
 life became such a burden that I decided to take a sporting 
 chance with death and have it done. Lawson Tait was to 
 do it, I assuming all the responsibility. The time was fixed, 
 the nurse was engaged, and the doctor was coming the next 
 morning at nine o'clock, and I had told no one at all not 
 even T. P. when in the afternoon Henry James came to 
 call, we had an amusing hour together, and just as he was 
 going away I said, " I shall see you again, of course, but I 
 am going under an operation to-morrow and the doctors 
 think it rather serious. I don't know," I said, " why I've 
 bothered you with it, for I've told nobody, and I don't 
 intend to." 
 
 " What," said Mr James, coming instantly back again, 
 " why, this is very sad ; " and no one could have been more 
 kind or sympathetic. He was greatly touched by what he 
 considered my " courage," which seemed to me only a natural 
 dislike of fussiness, and a desire to save T. P. anxiety, but 
 that day T. P., against my express desire, was informed of the 
 imminent operation by my own doctor, and at first he flatly 
 refused his consent, but was persuaded into it later. The 
 person most terribly anxious and worried was my faithful 
 friend and collie, Max. He always remained downstairs in 
 the evening to guard the house, but not that evening. He 
 refused to leave me, and sat with his head on my knee, 
 
 9S
 
 296 I MYSELF 
 
 rolling his eyes, until the whites were visible, at the nurse 
 and the various preparations, and sighing profoundly. Nor 
 did he leave me during the night, although he always slept 
 in the hall. When the doctors came in the morning he was 
 pulled out of the room by the collar, and when my bedroom 
 door was closed he sat with his head against it until the 
 operation was over, and when one of the doctors opened the 
 door he slipped quietly in the room, crawled under the bed, 
 and except to get food and water in the kitchen, he never 
 left me for a week. When I woke up from the stertorous 
 sleep of an anodyne, the first thing I saw was a big bunch of 
 white lilac and white roses from Henry James, and later on 
 came this note : 
 
 " 34 DE VERB GARDENS, W., 
 " Saturday, P.M. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I am much touched by the kind- 
 ness as well as courage of your note, which is almost intoler- 
 ably pathetic. I rejoice exceedingly in your security and 
 convalescence, but disapprove still more intensely of your 
 pretending as yet to know anything about complicated and 
 remote consequences. Wait till you have been restored to 
 the social circle that deplores your absence then we'll talk ! 
 Talk meanwhile as little as possible don't even think, 
 if such a feat is possible to your irrepressible mind ! Only 
 peacefully exist, regularly eat, abundantly sleep, and 
 serenely wait. Meanwhile a lot of helpful thinking will be 
 done for you about you ; even by yours, dear Mrs O'Connor, 
 most truly, HENRY JAMES " 
 
 How I prized that letter, even more than the flowers, for 
 *hey are withered, but the kindly words will ever be mine. 
 
 The operation was successful, and the following summer I 
 could walk for miles without fatigue a thing I had not been 
 able to do in years. 
 
 But " to sleep abundantly," that has always been denied 
 me. Oh, the terrible bouts of insomnia that ever pursue 
 me ! Why my brain has not succumbed to this constant 
 torture I know not, only that I began life with the con-
 
 HENRY JAMES, ELLEN TERRY, ETC. 297 
 
 stitution of Texas mustangs, the ponies that can stand hard 
 work, immense fatigue, and even a moderate amount of 
 starvation and yet thrive on it. And of all people Ellen 
 Terry is most constantly associated with my insomnia, for I 
 so often remember in the long, wakeful hours her unspeak- 
 able kindness. Some friend told her that I was suffering 
 from this heart-breaking malady. At the time she was on 
 tour under her own management and overwhelmed with 
 work, and what does she do but put everything aside, and 
 write me a long letter offering me her cottage in the country, 
 and making arrangements for the grocer and the butcher and 
 the milkman to call, telling me where I could engage " a 
 general " until my own servant arrived, and going into every 
 smallest detail for my comfort. What a sunny, kind and 
 generous nature she has ! I wonder if anyone has ever 
 known Ellen Terry without being under some sort of obliga- 
 tion to her of actual service or sympathy. And how delight- 
 fully quaint she is, and how unlike other people ! Long ago, 
 she and Sir Henry were dining at the Laboucheres ; they were 
 already a little late, when I saw her whisper something to 
 Mrs Labouchere, who smiled, and Ellen ran lightly upstairs 
 and presently came down again beaming. It seemed she 
 had expressed a desire to clean her teeth, and asking if there 
 were a new tooth brush in the house, Mrs Labouchere said 
 she would find one in the washstand drawer of the bath- 
 room. The dear ! we would all have waited dinner with 
 pleasure, if she had even decided on a Turkish bath. 
 
 We were neighbours in Chelsea, Ellen Terry and I, but 
 both busy women, and I rarely saw her, and had not heard 
 from her in many months, when one morning I received a 
 letter enclosing a lovely piece of old lace. Of course I was 
 mightily pleased, wrote and thanked her and heard no more. 
 When the summer came, a special blue muslin was bought, 
 and a collar embroidered in little white sprigs and finished 
 by the lace, and the beauty of that cerulean gown was com- 
 mented upon by everybody. One day I made a special 
 journey to see Ellen, and asked if she liked the dress, and said, 
 " I am wearing your lace, you see ! "
 
 298 I MYSELF 
 
 " My lace ! " she said looking surprised, " did I give you 
 that lace ? " 
 
 " You did," I said. 
 
 " Why did I ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have never known," I said. 
 
 " Well anyhow," she said, " it was very sweet of me, and 
 the lace is sweet and so are you," and she kissed me, and I 
 daresay by now has quite forgotten the incident. I have the 
 collar still, and I hope I will be always associated in her 
 mind with anything so pleasant as old lace or lavender. 
 
 I had occasion to borrow her scarlet robes for a study made 
 by a friend of me as Portia and she was so gracious about it, 
 sending this letter in reply : 
 
 " 22 BARKSTON GARDENS, 
 " EARL'S COURT, S.W. 
 
 " MY DEAR BESSIE, Of course I will lend you my 
 ' Portia ' robes, and have directed my theatre maid to pack 
 them off this day. 
 
 " Eight people in my household have influenza and we 
 have a hospital nurse, and this state of affairs means a good 
 deal of extra work, or else I should have answered your letter 
 before to-day. You will excuse me, I am sure, now I have 
 told you of my influenza happenings. Yours affectionately, 
 
 " ELLEN TERRY 
 
 " P.5. Another excuse ! I had a birthday yesterday 
 that was a fierce affair, I assure you." 
 
 And shortly after she wrote me again : 
 
 " 22 BARKSTON GARDENS, 
 " EARL'S COURT, S.W., 
 " Sunday, May 26th. 
 
 " MY DEAR BESSIE, Will you tell me who Gertrude Hall 
 is ? Her lines, ' The Rival,' in this week's ' Sun,' are 
 rather remarkable and I should say one day, not in too great 
 a hurry, since most good things come stronger slowly, she 
 will be able to write for the stage. Do please tell me whether
 
 HENRY JAMES, ELLEN TERRY, ETC. 299 
 
 she is young, poor, and of dark complexion ? And ' excuse 
 me ' for troubling you. With love, yours affectionately, 
 
 " ELLEN TERRY " 
 
 With difficulty I unearthed Gertrude Hall's poem, which 
 did not strike me as anything remarkable ; it just fitted into 
 some mood or memory of Ellen's, and Gertrude Hall herself 
 I never discovered. 
 
 Ellen Terry, the woman with her gentle sweetness, has a 
 successful rival in Ellen Terry the actress ; for myself there is 
 no artist who has given me so much and such heartfelt 
 pleasure. When she comes dancing upon the stage like 
 embodied sunshine, and holds out her arms, taking every 
 individual in the audience, figuratively speaking, to her 
 large and tender heart, her words, whatever they may be, 
 mean the dear old doggerel of my childhood : 
 
 " If you love me as I love you, 
 No knife can cut our love in two." 
 
 I am always permeated with wonder that so much appeal- 
 ing joy and friendliness can dart so directly beyond the foot- 
 lights, and never do I love her more than when she hesitates 
 over her words, and fills them in with the most delightful 
 business. And occasionally she supplies even Shakespeare 
 with a word of her own. 
 
 In the " Merry Wives of Windsor " Mistress Page says to 
 Falstaff : "On my word, it will serve him ; she's as big as 
 he is : and there's her thrummed hat, and her muffler too : 
 Run up, Sir John." 
 
 Instead of muffler, Ellen sometimes substituted " thing- 
 um-ey." 
 
 And the audience twinkled over " thing-um-ey " and 
 thought it Shakespeare ! 
 
 I am sure the immortal poet would have changed the word 
 himself, if he had seen how adorable and amusing it was 
 made by Ellen Terry. 
 
 Laurence Irving has a far greater sin on his soul, for in 
 " Coriolanus " he wrote a long, fine, high-sounding, brave,
 
 300 I MYSELF 
 
 warlike speech for Sir Henry, who gave it with great emphasis, 
 and the critics never one of them discovered the clever 
 Irvingesque intrusion. Of all the many young men who are 
 his disciples Tolstoy should be proudest of Laurence Irving. 
 He is a very remarkable man, possessing ideality, straight- 
 forwardness, wonderful refinement of mind, and has a high, 
 and even a noble sense of duty toward his fellow men. He is 
 a better author than actor, and it is a pity he writes so little. 
 His tragedy, " Richard Lovelace," is like an old-fashioned 
 ballad, rendered into a charming poetic play. Mrs Irving 
 (Mabel Hackney) was delightful in it. She is one of the most 
 gifted of the younger actresses of the day.
 
 CHAPTER LV 
 
 A LACE POCKET HANDKERCHIEF AND ST JOSEPH 
 
 ONE of my very first recollections of London is con- 
 nected with the stage Wilson Barrett gave us a 
 dinner in his pretty house in St John's Wood. The 
 fashion of white and light rooms was then unknown, and the 
 drawing-room walls were covered in brown velvet, and silver 
 candelabra gave the necessary light. It was neither a cheer- 
 ful nor a gay room, but I must say very becoming as a back- 
 ground to the women. A daughter of William Morris, with 
 clear serious eyes that had a sort of glow within, wore a long 
 classic white gown tightly embroidered in a thread of green 
 silk, and against the rich dark background she looked like 
 a tall, pale lily. Olive Schriener, the author of " An African 
 Farm," was in London then, and I remember we spoke of her. 
 She was a little thing with bright red cheeks, much dark 
 curly hair, and a pleasant manner, but not at all romantic 
 looking. I always liked Wilson Barrett : there was some- 
 thing boyish about him, even in his acting, which was stagey, 
 but in many respects very fine. When I saw him in " The 
 Sign of the Cross " I actually soaked a handkerchief with 
 tears, and as I left the theatre, put the wet little wad in an 
 envelope, and wrote " My tribute " upon it, and sent it 
 around to the stage door. 
 
 The next day came this note : 
 
 " LYRIC THEATRE, 
 
 " SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, 
 
 " Jan. 22nd, 1896. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, This affair of the dripping 
 handkerchief must not be misconstrued by Mr O'Connor. 
 
 301
 
 302 I MYSELF 
 
 I presume he is not an Othello ! I received your tribute 
 of tears, and enclosed is but a poor return for them but 
 please accept it as a small token of gratitude. I am glad you 
 so thoroughly enjoyed yourself. When next you come to 
 see the play please let me shake hands with you, it is too long 
 a time since we met. 
 
 " Give my kindest greetings to your husband, and believe 
 me, ever yours, WILSON BARRETT " 
 
 The letter enclosed the loveliest possible Valenciennes 
 pocket handkerchief tied with emerald green ribbons and 
 Wilson Barrett told me afterwards that he bought it himself, 
 and was so afraid it would not be as real as my tears, but I 
 assured him it was. 
 
 " July 2ist. 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, To-morrow is my farewell day 
 and night, so it will not be possible for me to come, much as I 
 regret it. 
 
 " The Prince of Wales and a very distinguished audience 
 will be present in the evening. I am so sorry that you 
 cannot come yourself. 
 
 " Will you bring Mrs Leslie to see the last of my London 
 performances ? ' Hamlet ' begins at 7.45. If you can 
 come let me know at once and I will send you a box. 
 " With kindest regards, ever yours sincerely, 
 
 " WILSON BARRETT " 
 
 In answer to this note I saw his " Hamlet " but did not 
 care for it at all. I sent Agnes Vale to see " The Sign of the 
 Cross " and she said she felt more " at home " in it than any 
 play she ever saw. When I asked why, she said it reminded 
 her so much of the life of St Agnes. 
 
 I had a great regard for the opinion of Agnes Vale, who 
 lived with me five years, a dear devoted little person in 
 my service ; she was a housemaid in reality, but a lady in 
 feeling. 
 
 After she had been with me some months she said to me,
 
 A LACE HANDKERCHIEF AND ST JOSEPH 303 
 
 " You know, dear madame, the way I came to you was this : 
 The nuns sent me out to my first place and it was a very 
 bad one, and I went back to the convent at the end of the 
 month, and then I told St Joseph that I was not like most 
 girls, I wouldn't ask him for a husband that might be more 
 difficult for him but I would ask him for a nice, kind lady ; 
 and then I went out and I bought his statue a new brown 
 dress, and I made it and put it on him, and then, dear madame, 
 St Joseph sent me you. Well, that wasn't so bad in him, 
 was it ? " 
 
 I have an idea that Agnes really established my having 
 a sort of claim upon St Joseph, for, after that she was 
 always asking him little favours for me, and once when I was 
 very ill, my good little friend had three Masses said for my 
 recovery, and, like the little lady that she was, never told me 
 that she had paid for them, lest I should feel under obliga- 
 tion to her. But St Joseph did not protect her from a most 
 unfortunate experience. She was very thrifty and I paid 
 her wages only quarterly. Just before I went abroad one 
 summer, I gave her her quarter's wages, seven pounds. As 
 ill-luck would have it, a short time afterwards a woman came 
 to the house and rang the door bell and Agnes opened it. 
 
 " Is this Miss ? " " Vale ? " Agnes supplied. " Yes," the 
 
 woman answered, " you are exactly the person I have come 
 to see. Is Mrs O'Connor in town ? " 
 
 " No," said Agnes, " she is in France." 
 
 " Oh," said the woman, " what a pity ! You know how 
 kind she is." 
 
 " Yes," Agnes said. 
 
 " Well ! " the woman replied, " I have 300 that Mrs 
 O'Connor has promised to invest for me, would you mind 
 taking care of it until she returns ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly," Agnes said, " but perhaps Mr O'Connor 
 would be better. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " the woman answered, " this is a secret be- 
 tween Mrs O'Connor and myself, and I want you to take 
 care of the 300 only until she returns from Paris. When 
 will that be ? "
 
 3 o 4 I MYSELF 
 
 Agnes told her that I was expected back at the end of the 
 week. 
 
 " Well," said the woman, " I will return with the 300 and 
 you will take care of it for me. The moment Mrs O'Connor 
 arrives please give it to her." 
 
 Agnes said she would and the woman turned to go. Then 
 a thought, Agnes said, seemed to come to her, and she came 
 back saying, " But until I get the 300 I have no money, I 
 wonder if you would let me have 3 ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Agnes confidingly, " I can let you have 7." 
 
 The woman said that would be even better, and so she 
 took the 7 and was to return with the 300 in a few hours. 
 Of course she was never heard of again. 
 
 When I came back and Agnes related the incident to me 
 with many flowing tears, I really could not sympathize with 
 her greatly and I said to her : 
 
 " Agnes, you are an intelligent human being. You know 
 that I have no secrets, whatever ; that my letters are always 
 lying about open ; that I never had seen this woman before ; 
 and you know that I am not a business woman." 
 
 Agnes said she knew that. 
 
 I said to her. " Why didn't you put your thinking cap 
 on and remember that Mr O'Connor's secretary, Mr Walker, 
 pays all my bills and pays all the household bills, and under 
 these circumstances with no command over any money 
 whatever for myself, and knowing nothing about invest- 
 ments, why in the world should an utter stranger bring me 
 300 to put out at interest for her ? Really," I said, 
 " you have been too foolish." 
 
 Tears flowed afresh and poor Agnes retreated to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 Angele, a nice little French maid, was living with me at 
 the time and was just beginning to speak English, but her 
 vocabulary was most limited. She said she was very sorry 
 for Agnes and I said I had no patience with her, that she was 
 such a donkey, and in order to explain my description to 
 Agnes it was necessary for Angele to give fearful hee-haws 
 in the kitchen in imitation of the beast whose name she did
 
 A LACE HANDKERCHIEF AND ST JOSEPH 305 
 
 not know in English. With this Agnes returned to me and 
 said, she would much rather have parted with the 7 than 
 have had me call her a " Hee-haw." Whereupon my con- 
 science troubled me so dreadfully that I made her a present 
 of 2 towards the loss of the 7, and by strict economy, before 
 the end of the year, she had with Christmas boxes nearly 
 made up the amount. 
 
 Agnes left me only on account of a long illness, and she has 
 been some eight or nine years now in her place, but she still 
 prays to St Joseph for me, and comes regularly to see me ; 
 and though she says her new lady is a Saint, she has confided 
 to me that she has never felt " at home " with her as she 
 did with me, and she has always the intention of some 
 day coming back to live with me again. 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTER LVI 
 
 FAITHFUL ENGLISH KINDNESS 
 
 " If we sit down at set of sun 
 And count the things that we have done, 
 And counting find one self-denying act, 
 One word that eased the heart of him who heard, 
 One glance most kind that fell like sunshine where it went, 
 Then we may count the day well spent." GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 WHEN I think of all the kindness I have received at 
 the hands of my English friends, it overwhelms 
 me. Years ago after introducing Thomas Nelson 
 Page, that most gifted author and charming of men, to Lady 
 St Helier, she said to me, " It was so nice of you to bring him 
 to see me remember your friends are always welcome in 
 my house." I have not abused her generous offer, but it 
 greatly touched me. What a wonderful combination she is 
 of capability, tact, utter unselfishness, and a thorough 
 knowledge of the world. She and witty Mrs Louis Nixon 
 of New York are almost the only women I have ever 
 seen with all these qualities united. Worldliness generally 
 means hardness in a woman, with a fair slice of selfish- 
 ness but there is nothing Lady St Helier enjoys more 
 than sacrificing herself. Her door is ever on the latch, and 
 oftentimes when the house is filled to overflowing with 
 visitors, she gives up her own room to some one perhaps 
 a nurse with a convalescent child who has been undergoing 
 some operation and she herself sleeps on the sofa in a 
 dressing-room. She is without a particle of personal vanity. 
 I remember after lunch one day, before her two pretty 
 daughters were married, going upstairs with her while she 
 put on her bonnet. On looking for a veil she found that her
 
 FAITHFUL ENGLISH KINDNESS 307 
 
 girls had taken both her new ones, and she seemed rather 
 pleased than otherwise to have them appropriate what they 
 liked. She loves drudging, really working for other people, 
 and in her whole life she has never refused sympathy or 
 kindness to one in trouble or in need. 
 
 Sir Francis was equally kind ; his close proximity in the 
 Divorce Court to human nature, necessarily at its worst and 
 most untruthful on account of the unjust laws, but gave him 
 greater faith in the goodness of men and women. He once 
 said to me, " It was impossible for a Divorce Court Judge 
 ever to lose his faith in the inherent goodness of man, 
 seeing, as he did daily, revelations of long and patient 
 martyrdoms silently borne by men and women whose relief 
 oftentimes came too late." 
 
 One night at Lady St Helier's I sat next to the Right 
 Honble. Cecil Raikes, at that time Postmaster General. 
 He wanted to know what he could do to show his appreci- 
 ation of an Anglo-American, and I instantly asked for a pillar- 
 box to be put up before the front door of Oakley Lodge. 
 He laughingly said it should be done at once. T. P. was 
 surprised at my request, and going home gave me a lecture 
 on the freedom of my American manners. I said " Wouldn't 
 it be nice to have a nearer pillar box ? " He agreed that it 
 would, but said it was impossible. However a very few 
 days later a Government cart drove up, and deposited exactly 
 opposite our door a shining new pillar box, and when T. P. 
 returned at midnight from the House of Commons there was 
 my scarlet triumph to greet him. 
 
 When we lived in Grosvenor Road I saw a little boy 
 drowned in the river, just before the house a heart-breaking 
 experience and the very same day (luckily, I had gone out), 
 a second boy suffered a like fate. It was a favourite part of 
 the Thames for swimmers, so I went to the Chief of Police 
 and begged to have a policeman stationed there for the pro- 
 tection of boys and in an hour the policeman arrived, with 
 orders to report to me, that I might show him the exact place 
 of danger. I did not get back until six o'clock, and there he 
 stood, and had been standing like a sentinel in front of the
 
 308 I MYSELF 
 
 house all day. They had told him nothing at Scotland Yard 
 except that he was to take an order from me. T. P. wondered 
 why on earth a giant policeman was standing directly before 
 our front door, and said, when I explained, that we were 
 eternally compromised with the neighbours, who would 
 think we were under observation. (It was at a time when 
 there was much talk about dynamite.) Quite like a sergeant 
 I marched before that policeman, showed him the treacherous 
 eddy, and after that no more casualties occurred. Sub- 
 sequently I made the strangest request in the world to the 
 Chief of Police (I find policemen, like soldiers, very sym- 
 pathetic), and he was instantly kind and interested and 
 granted my request without a smile. A dear friend, Madame 
 X., sent for me to come and see her. She was in bitter 
 trouble : her husband, an important foreign correspondent 
 living in London, had written her from Austria saying 
 that it was impossible for him ever to return to England, 
 as he was being continually watched and persecuted by 
 Oriental Jews, who were employed for that purpose by the 
 British Government. Of course this was an utter delusion 
 from which, poor man, he suffered intermittently until his 
 death, and this was his first attack and there he was, alone 
 and completely terrorized by his diseased imagination. His 
 wife, who was quite devoted to him, could not go to fetch him, 
 as she was hourly expecting a child. I read his letter care- 
 fully, and drove to Scotland Yard with it, explained all the 
 circumstances to the Chief of Police, and asked him to send 
 an official document to my friend with an official seal and to 
 assure him in the " Whereas, whereby, we, the under- 
 signed " style of literature that the British Government 
 loved him and desired his presence above all things in 
 London. A fine large cream-coloured document dangling 
 with seals was despatched, and it worked like a charm. My 
 friend returned, and for a time lost sight entirely of his 
 delusions, but finally, poor man, all documents and arguments 
 lost effect, and they plagued him out of existence. 
 
 One autumn T. P. was in a most depressed state of mind 
 a.bout the lowness of his exchequer, and I said, " Why don't
 
 FAITHFUL ENGLISH KINDNESS 309 
 
 you do some work for the ' Daily Telegraph ' ? I am sure 
 they would be glad to have you." 
 
 " Oh, no," he said, " they wouldn't ; but they know where I 
 am, and if they wanted me to do any work they would say so." 
 
 I had just been reading an American paper, and this 
 admirable sentiment vulgarly but pertinently expressed 
 struck my fancy : " The difference between a fellow who 
 succeeds and one who fails is that the first gets out and 
 chases after the men who need him, and the second sits 
 around waiting to be hunted up." Now, it occurred to me 
 the " Daily Telegraph " needed T. P., but clearly I must do 
 the chasing. So I wrote Lord Burnham at Hall Barn, and 
 delicately advised him to invite us there for a week-end, 
 which he did. Then we had a long walk and talk, and I 
 placed my innocent scheme before his sweet and kindly 
 inspection, and he at once promised to help me, and it 
 ended in his offering T. P. " The Bar of the House " and 
 various other work for the " Daily Telegraph," which 
 tided us over what might have been a very uncomfortable 
 time. Why is it that so many men dislike being under 
 an obligation to a woman ? And yet the woman who 
 is capable of making an obligation is strong enough to 
 be generous, and to forget it. I never confided to T. P. 
 that I was " the fellow who chased around," and until 
 this fitting moment of acknowledging my many, many 
 obligations to various kind and generous people, I have 
 not spoken of Lord Burnham's responsive and practical 
 sympathy. But he knows I am grateful. I am always 
 grateful for kindness thank Heaven, my soul is big enough 
 to bear the weight of gratitude a weight that is insupport- 
 able to many otherwise excellent people. Too much im- 
 portance is given to gratitude ; personally, I don't care a 
 rush whether people are grateful to me or 4 not. If, in my 
 small way, I can be of service to my fellow man and he forgets, 
 all right ! the action has benefited my own character and 
 that is the best of benefits. 
 
 I owe a whole mountain of gratitude to the Society of 
 Women Journalists, who, quite without consulting me, and
 
 3io I MYSELF 
 
 most unexpectedly, elected me their president. Later, a 
 member confided to me the secret of my having been elected 
 by a unanimous vote. I said " This is because you 
 don't know me popularity so often comes from a want of 
 intimacy." But in justice to the Society, when they did 
 know me they re-elected me for a second term, and, what 
 was a great gratification, the number of members doubled 
 under my two years of service.
 
 CHAPTER LVII 
 
 MY SOUL IS LARGE ENOUGH TO BEAR THE WEIGHT 
 OF GRATITUDE 
 
 MRS MACKAY while I was president gave the 
 annual party for the Society of Women Journalists, 
 in her beautiful house in Carlton House Terrace, 
 and she took as much pains in entertaining them as if they 
 had been princesses. Besides our own Italian Concert, 
 which Henry Russell furnished from his operatic company 
 singing in London that season, Mrs Mackay had an excellent 
 band, which discoursed gay music after the concert, and the 
 supper was quite royal, with peaches out of season, white 
 grapes, iced champagne and all sorts of delicacies, of which 
 to tell the truth I did not partake, being rather agitated 
 over her vexation with me, for, alas, I was late, and she 
 had to receive a large number of my guests alone. But 
 as many of them had never seen me, and took it for 
 granted they were speaking to Mrs O'Connor, and she has 
 the sweetest and most cordial manners in the world, it 
 was not really a matter of any moment to anyone except 
 herself, but she did give me such a scolding. I was 
 perfectly convulsed with laughter, and so was she and 
 eventually she forgave me. 
 
 I do not know why it is that I am always expecting a 
 miracle to be performed for me and time to stretch itself 
 longer than it ever does ; yet. it is never because I am lazy 
 that I am late, but on account of my doing too much. Once 
 I was nearly dining in the wrong house, through this repre- 
 hensible habit of mine. Rushing off to Mr Scale Hayne's to 
 dine, I promised an extra shilling to the cabman if he would 
 
 3"
 
 312 I MYSELF 
 
 drive very quickly, so we dashed up to the first red carpet 
 in Belgrave Square, I ran in, saying to the butler, " I fear 
 that I am late." He made no reply, but gave a haughty 
 sniff and showed me upstairs, whereupon a very agreeable 
 man came forward to meet me, whom I had never seen before ; 
 then I gasped out, " Oh, dear me, I'm afraid this is not the 
 house ; I am dining with Mr Scale Hayne, do you know where 
 he lives ? " " Yes," he said, " only three doors from here," 
 and he escorted me downstairs. I was much relieved, for I 
 felt that I really needed protection from that butler, who 
 looked simply scandalized, and sure enough three doors 
 away was another red carpet, but if I had never seen Mr 
 Scale Hayne (and I had only seen him once) I should have 
 dined at the first house. 
 
 Two or three days afterwards I went to call on Miss 
 Roosevelt, who is now Mrs Coles, and I said, " I think I have 
 been here before. Didn't I come the other night to dine 
 when I wasn't expected ? " She said, " Oh, that was you, was 
 it ? My cousin told me afterwards that a greatly agitated 
 lady came to dinner at the last moment, and he was sure 
 she belonged to us and was an American, and he was sorry 
 he had not begged her to stay and dine." I said, " So 
 indeed am I." 
 
 T. P. once tried his hand at my reformation. We were 
 going to the theatre together. I was just a little late and he 
 suddenly announced that he wanted to see the curtain go up. 
 I said, " But you never have seen a curtain go up, and you 
 haven't had your dinner ! " He replied that that did not 
 matter : he would much rather be in time for the theatre than 
 eat his dinner, and full of righteous wrath he dashed off 
 in a cab alone, telling me to follow him later. I did, and 
 found him and two other people in the audience sitting 
 in a dimly lighted theatre at the end of a long and 
 stupid lever de rideau. I had had my dinner quite 
 comfortably and was in time to see the piece. I did 
 not crow over him it would have been too cruel but that 
 unhappy experience made him once and for all abandon 
 my reformation.
 
 THE WEIGHT OF GRATITUDE 313 
 
 I have explained to him more than once that I am never 
 really late : that I only seem late, on account of my manifold 
 occupations. 
 
 And Mrs Bland Sutton was as kind as Mrs Mackay in 
 giving me her unique house for the annual party of the 
 Society of Women Journalists, and what a royal party it 
 was ! She kept saying to me " It is a big house, and we 
 must have enough people to furnish it," so between us 
 we sent out eight hundred invitations, and it just happened 
 that there was nothing going on that night, and everybody 
 came. 
 
 We blocked up the entire street in front of Claridge's, and 
 one friend who with great difficulty had made her way up 
 the stairs to ask if she might bring in her son went down 
 for him and was never able to get back again. It was 
 indeed like one of the illustrations in " Punch," where 
 a severe-looking policeman standing in front of a large 
 crowd before a house is admonishing a well-dressed young 
 man to move on ; the young man answers : " I can't, I'm 
 at a party ! " 
 
 But the people who had got in said they had never 
 enjoyed themselves more, and I quite believe it. Mrs Bland 
 Sutton loves lavishly entertaining and filling her house with 
 hosts of friends ; and I owe not only her an obligation for 
 kindness, but her husband as well. He is one of the most 
 remarkable men in London. A great Shakespearian scholar, 
 a fine natural historian, and a genius as a surgeon. He lives 
 for his work and loves it, and even with the most serious 
 cases he is so sure of success that his patients imbibe his con- 
 fident spirit, and recover with astonishing rapidity. I went 
 into a Nursing Home a little while ago and he performed an 
 operation for me, and in a week I was out and at home again. 
 And then there is another friend whose kindness I shall 
 never, never be able to repay : my doctor who has attended 
 me for twenty-five years, Dr Septimus Sunderland. I think 
 I have never seen such a fine consistent character. His 
 friendship is as steady as a rock, and his unselfishness is so 
 great that he actually likes the people who exact the most of
 
 3 i4 I MYSELF 
 
 him and give him the least. The Christmas before last I was 
 in America and missed my usual Christmas present, so last 
 Christmas he gave me two, the one of the year before, and 
 the one of the present Christmas. My son asked him why 
 he gave me any present at all. He said, " My mother 
 demands your services as her natural right, and is always 
 bothering you about something or other. I suppose it is 
 your quaint English sense of humour which makes you give 
 presents to the people who should give presents to you." I 
 revel in this quaint sense of English humour and always 
 encourage it. And the hospitality that I have received in 
 England which I have never been able to return, really it has 
 been overwhelming, especially from my friends who are lucky 
 enough to have theatres. I wonder how many notes I have 
 written to thank Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree for his hospi- 
 tality, and Sir Charles Wyndham, and George Alexander, 
 and Cyril Maude, and George Edwardes, and that most 
 fascinating being Charles Hawtrey. And how am I to express 
 my unspeakable gratitude to my ever hospitable and most 
 kind friend Oswald Stoll of Hippodrome fame ? Again and 
 again has he been most prodigal in his hospitality to me, and 
 not only that, but he laughed so enormously at some of my 
 stories, negro and otherwise, that he decided I should have 
 an appearance at one of his numerous music halls, under 
 another name, and in that way we would find out if a London 
 audience could stand me. I was a fortnight getting my music- 
 hall manner, and apparently never got it. Graham Robert- 
 son was my only confidant and he wrote to give me courage : 
 
 " SANDHILLS, WITLEY. 
 
 " I heard much abuse of you from Ellen Terry, which (of 
 course) I good-naturedly repeat. She said that she had seen 
 you as the Texas lady, and that your behaviour in not sticking 
 to the boards had been simply idiotic. That you had a 
 dainty personal charm which she would not have expected 
 to get over the footlights, but that to her surprise it did, and 
 gave you a grip of the audience that much experience cannot 
 always bring. That in short you were cut out for a play-
 
 THE WEIGHT OF GRATITUDE 315 
 
 actress, and why you do not play-act she could not imagine. 
 There ! 
 
 "GRAHAM " 
 
 And later : 
 
 " SANDHILLS, WITLEY. 
 
 " But I am bursting to know how went the Monologue. 
 It must have happened by now. I gathered from your letter 
 that it was imminent. Do tell me was the ovation in the 
 shape of roses and lilies, or eggs and cats ? If the former, 
 we will rejoice in the intelligence of the public if the latter, 
 we will remember its frequent lack of appreciation of genius 
 and the debut of Sarah Siddons. Anyhow do tell me. 
 
 " Here it rains and rains, and Bob, and Portly, and I, are 
 just about sick of it. And yesterday a thunderstorm got 
 into the garden and I couldn't get it out. As soon as it 
 had cleared out at the bottom it tumbled in again at the 
 top like pigs. 
 
 " And one can't sit in the cellar all day. And of course 
 when it went, it took the summer with it and now it's bitterly 
 cold, and I wish you the Compliments of the Season and a 
 Merry Christmas, and am. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " GRAHAM " 
 
 I was announced as Mrs Carey from Virginia, and came on 
 in my own whitening hair and a pompadour dress, just after 
 a gentleman from my native land, a real negro, attired in a 
 scarlet hat, a grey suit, and scarlet gloves. He sang and 
 danced and showed all his fine white teeth, and the audience 
 loved him. But Mrs Carey from Virginia, the imitation article, 
 trembling and nervous, with her miserable tears just behind 
 her smile, and her little negro and drawing-room stories, oh 
 dear me, no, they were completely nonplussed and wouldn't 
 have her for one moment. They told her firmly but politely 
 to get back to Virginia as soon as possible and to stop there. 
 Of course the faithful Rose was with me and one of the 
 ushers said, " I know that Mrs Carey : she is Mrs T. P. 
 O'Connor. I saw her in 'The Lady from Texas." Rose 
 tossed her head, and when the audience drowned my voice in
 
 316 I MYSELF 
 
 satiric applause, like Peter she denied me. Whatever I am 
 fitted for, evidently it is not for music hall performances, 
 but all the same I am grateful to Mr Stoll who did his best 
 for me. I have so longed to make money, and the big 
 salaries the artists receive make even the poor amateur 
 desperately bold. " A fool has only one teacher : she arrives 
 too late, and her name is Consequences." Hammersmith 
 was my night of consequences. One life-long friend in the 
 audience wrote me this consolatory letter. I really didn't 
 mind much, as I half expected failure, since Fate on every 
 occasion disciplines her unfortunate but persevering step- 
 daughter. 
 
 " 4 NEVERN SQUARE, 
 
 " EARL'S COURT, S.W., 
 " Thursday. 
 
 " MY DEAREST BESSIE, I do hope that your reception 
 last night is not troubling you unduly. It was so easily 
 understood. I really think that your audience was quite 
 prepared to be pleased, for you looked charming and ap- 
 peared perfectly self-possessed, but I don't think your choice 
 of stories was a happy one for any music hall audience. I 
 have heard you tell many far better at your own table, but I 
 question if even the best of them would have appealed to 
 such an audience. ' The Gods,' from whom all the opposi- 
 tion came, could make nothing of the Tiara story. I thought 
 you wonderfully plucky to brave it out as you did but you 
 always are brave. You were really most beautifully gowned, 
 and looked so very elegant and graceful. 
 
 " Don't worry, darling. All who really care for you only 
 love you the better for the ceaseless disappointments and 
 sorrows that have met you at almost every turn in life. 
 Certainly 7 do. I hesitated to intrude upon your dressing- 
 room last night, feeling sure that you were not alone, and 
 thinking it probable you might have immediately driven off. 
 You may perhaps be in town when I get back and we shall 
 meet. Very lovingly yours, 
 
 " EDITH WEYLAN "
 
 THE WEIGHT OF GRATITUDE 317 
 
 Another friend who has extended wide-armed hospitality 
 to me, given me much wise and sound advice, and helped 
 me in great difficulties, is my solicitor, Clement Locke 
 Smiles, a high-minded man who, like my father, never 
 said or did or thought a mean thing. To him I am under 
 never ending, happy, and grateful obligations as well as 
 to all my unselfish and hospitable friends who have con- 
 tributed to my enjoyment and pleasure for so many years. 
 They have kept me in England, for as I grow older the cold 
 and damp of the climate chills me more and more, and if it 
 was not that love, and affection, and friendship make 
 warmth and sunshine for me here, I should go back to 
 happier lands of sun.
 
 CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH 
 
 IN Germany, next to the Triple Alliance, the most serious 
 thing in the country is a mud bath or a whole series 
 of mud baths are more serious still. First, you consult 
 a doctor ; he looks very grave and important and orders you 
 two mud baths a week, of ten minutes each, of a tepid tem- 
 perature. After two weeks, if you still survive the four, you 
 follow these with three mud baths a week, of a higher tem- 
 perature, resting much in between, until twelve, or fifteen 
 baths at most, complete the cure. Then you remain quiet 
 for a few days and round up in a high and bracing place with a 
 nach cure. 
 
 But I reversed the old order of things, having no doctor, and 
 a supreme confidence in myself and in German mud. I dashed 
 in, took a daily mud bath of half an hour each, had myself 
 wrapped in blankets afterwards, and dripped for a matter of 
 forty minutes, and in sixteen days I had completed my cure 
 with a rapidity, a courage, and a thoroughness unheard of in 
 all Germany. Every day a tragic result was expected a 
 sudden fit of apoplexy, or heart failure but I struggled 
 through the sixteen most valiantly, though towards the end 
 very, very weakly. Indeed, after a bath, I could scarcely 
 drag myself home, and my heart behaved as if I was desper- 
 ately in love and my lover had deserted me for the woman 
 I most loathed in all the world. It stood still, it beat 
 violently, it stopped, went on, left its moorings entirely, and 
 made every effort to occupy an absolutely new place in my 
 breast. When my nose grew pinched and my upper lip 
 turned a chalky white, Rose stepped in and forcibly put me
 
 ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH 319 
 
 to bed, and kept me there for five days. This rest gave me 
 time to think and to take a still more sporting chance with 
 death, a gentleman of whom I am not in the least afraid. 
 For in the last few years of incurable torturing insomnia 
 how often have I longed for an unawakening sleep ! 
 
 " I am tired of tears and laughter 
 
 And men that laugh and weep ; 
 Of what may come hereafter 
 
 For men that sow to reap ; 
 I am weary of days and hours, 
 Blown buds of barren flowers, 
 Desires and dreams and powers, 
 
 And everything but sleep." 
 
 In the meantime I knew I ought to rest, that quiet was 
 necessary to make my heart behave itself just ordinarily well, 
 that my banking account was overdrawn, that I couldn't be 
 poorer, and could ill afford a cab ride, much less a trip in 
 Holland ; and these adverse reasons all decided me to take it. 
 
 I had travelled through Holland for eighteen years, and 
 always planned to see a bit of it, and on other occasions it 
 would have been convenient and easy but all other journeys 
 would have lacked the salt and savour of this. A sporting 
 chance with death, and no money, so what fun ! And 
 Rose my jewel of the world, my faithful comfort, my 
 secretary, my confidante, my dear, dear one. I wrote a 
 friend : " I am travelling in Holland and very ill, but if I die, 
 Rose will be equal to the occasion." And so she would, God 
 bless her. What a wonder she is ! She has made but one 
 mistake in her life, a very serious one she has neglected to 
 become an English Joan of Arc. How well she would have 
 looked the part, and played it too. She is tall, with an 
 erect, soldierly, rounded figure, and a pretty, rosy, fresh face 
 with wonderfully clear, steady, sensible, dove-coloured eyes 
 and long curly eyelashes. And she loves to do things to 
 organize and plan, and contrive, and work, and accomplish 
 and all in the best possible manner. But what is so wonder- 
 ful is that she likes to work for me better than I like to work 
 for myself. She loves to bring order out of chaos, to answer
 
 320 I MYSELF 
 
 dozens of letters, to return borrowed books, to send away 
 promised photographs, to mend and to darn, and to clean, 
 and to make over, and to economize, and all for me. But 
 not for long, else life would be too sweet for, alas, she 
 belongs to another. She is the wife of a fine, smart 
 soldier man, an imposing picture in his bearskin, and now 
 and then he feels so sorry for me that he lends me 
 Rose, and for a little while I pretend to be rich and happy, 
 until she is taken away from me again, and then comes 
 gloom and despair. If she had only been commander 
 of the army, the Boer War would have been ended in a 
 trice. It is too late now, I fear, for the Joan of Arc role 
 neither her husband nor myself could possibly spare her, even 
 for the good of the country. But there is no reason why 
 Mr Haldane should not now and then consult her. She 
 knows more about the army than anybody in England, her 
 heart is loyal, and her mind is wise, just and courageous 
 three admirable qualities for a soldier, and still more admir- 
 able for the wife of one. Among other soldierly qualities 
 Rose has learned obedience usually a cheerful obedience 
 without any arguing : it is only when my nose is pinched 
 that she admonishes me. 
 
 " Rose," I remarked, " we are going to Holland." I was 
 in bed and my voice was very weak. 
 
 She looked at me gravely and the dove eyes were reproachful. 
 
 Rose. " Why, do you want to kill yourself ? " 
 
 Me. " I don't mind. Anyhow with death stalking along 
 between us we are going to Holland but you know how 
 often I've been dreadfully ill, and yet I always get well. 
 Death doesn't like me you know he doesn't." 
 
 Rose. " You are a great responsibility. What would I do 
 if anything happened to you ? " 
 
 Me. " Have me buried in a quiet churchyard away 
 from motors, and put up a neat headstone with a suitable 
 inscription." 
 
 Rose. " And what should it be ? " 
 
 Me. " Say : ' Sacred to the memory of Betty. She loved 
 Hollyhocks.' '
 
 ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH 321 
 
 Rose. " But you love all flowers. Why Hollyhocks ? " 
 
 Me. " Don't quibble. Let it stand at Hollyhocks and 
 pack for Holland." 
 
 The soldier reappeared, and Rose packed. 
 
 Have you noticed that it is never possible to like a belong- 
 ing of your own as much as a belonging of your neighbour's ? 
 For example, Lady P., who has correct and beautiful taste, 
 when travelling in Germany picked up a basket and brought 
 it back to Lura, my sweet and pretty daughter. She isn't 
 really my daughter, she is my son's wife, but I've made myself 
 her mother, and she has made herself my daughter, and we 
 both scorn the " in law," two hateful words made for the un- 
 loving. It was a straw basket of charming proportions, filled 
 with natural flowers prepared in a cunning German fashion 
 to render them everlasting. The green leaves were thick, 
 full, and curly, and at equal distances small bunches of pink 
 flowers were stiffly grouped, and there was a nice pungent 
 odour about it like the paint that Mrs Ham, Shem and 
 Japheth diffused from the Noah's Arks of my childhood. I 
 wanted that basket badly, but Lura wouldn't give it to me. 
 She had several excuses : first, Lady P. had given it to her ; 
 second, it was convenient when other flowers were withered 
 to ornament the dinner-table ; and third, she said, " Mother, 
 you live with me and the basket is just as much yours as mine, 
 you are not housekeeping, you can always see the basket, 
 what do you want with another ? " All the same I wanted 
 that basket. And I want still more her empire wreath in 
 small diamonds, also a gift of Lady P.'s ; but of course I've 
 never breathed my desire I've only looked at the brooch. 
 
 On one of my most breathless and exhausted days, I 
 decided to go from Schwalbach to Wiesbaden for the after- 
 noon just to see how much I could stand without dropping 
 by the way. And there in a shop was the basket. Not of 
 course a pink one, and a fresh one Fate was not kind enough 
 for that but the identical Lura basket, only dusty and shop 
 worn, with the flowers a faded yellow. It was like seeing 
 the face of a friend, and the very soft-voiced and obliging 
 salesman promised rne a new basket, in which the flowers 
 
 21
 
 322 I MYSELF 
 
 were to be a rosy pink, and the leaves a full green, and it was 
 to be ready packed and delivered at the station when I next 
 passed through Wiesbaden. Also, I ordered the replica 
 of a prettily shaped gilded laurel wreath an offering for a 
 friend later on there is nothing like being prepared for an 
 emergency, even to a laurel wreath on hand. Also I bought 
 some lace cheap, effective and good, at a lace shop, and a 
 brown leather bag at a reasonable price, as Germany is 
 renowned for its " leder waaren." And the day we started 
 for Rotterdam a messenger awaited us with two neat pack- 
 ages the wreath and the basket. How I would crow over 
 Lura ! Like the trusting soul that I am and will always 
 remain, I paid without examining my purchases, and we 
 proceeded on our way, unluckily by a different route, as the 
 Rhine is more interesting than inland scenery, so I should 
 not do it again. 
 
 In our carriage were two attractive German sisters. One 
 of them was like a Southern American dark skin, laughing 
 black eyes, brilliant teeth, and an air of happiness and 
 vigour about her that was quite infectious. My heart felt 
 lighter and less tired in her agreeable presence. She wore 
 a brown tailor skirt and jacket, and a panama hat with a 
 tiny crown, evidently a German fashion, as I had seen a 
 number of them in Wiesbaden it is not a pretty one. Her 
 sister was a regular Teuton, blue eyes, magnificent full light 
 hair, and a white and red skin, but she lacked the vivacity 
 of her sister. I wondered if the dark-eyed one was married. 
 She looked very young, and I was sure she had many ad- 
 mirers. The mystery was soon solved, for when we stopped 
 at a station I stood looking out of the window, and she was 
 met by a young officer in undress uniform, who kissed her on 
 both cheeks, and then held up a small man of three exactly 
 like her, and he too kissed her many times. Then the man 
 of three was admonished as to his manners, and he brought 
 his heels together with quite a military click and made me 
 the most fascinating bow. His father raised his hat, his 
 charming mother and aunt waved their hands, and the train 
 moved on. May all angels bless and guard them !
 
 ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH 323 
 
 We arrived at Rotterdam about nine o'clock, and Rose 
 selected the hotel as she selects race horses, because she liked 
 the name. It was Leygraaffs. There were no guests, but 
 much linoleum. I do not like linoleum Rose does. She 
 likes anything that she can wash. The luxury of washing 
 this was denied her we left too soon. The linoleum on my 
 floor was a brilliant green, powdered with still more brilliant 
 green apples. The walls were papered in brown wrapping 
 paper, and the curtains were pale cream dimity with a blue 
 ribbon and pink roses appliqued on as a border. The 
 furniture was of oak and singularly ugly. There are no 
 dressing-tables in Holland, the washstand with drawers 
 underneath performing a sort of double duty ; the rugs 
 scattered about were red and yellow, and the edge of the 
 floor was painted orange. So far as I saw, outside of the 
 Old Masters, the Dutch of to-day do not in the least trouble 
 themselves about taste. And yet individually they make 
 some charming things wall-papers for example. I saw 
 some charming wall-papers in the shops of Dutch manu- 
 facture. Another disappointment I had was through my 
 Dutch friend, Johannes Wolff, who has been living in London 
 nearly fifteen years, but has always scorned the English 
 language, having instead composed a delightful vernacular 
 of his own. " In Holland, in my country," he always assured 
 me, " you will have a good eat." But mine was both bad 
 and very dear. Rose has too much soul to care about food, 
 though one of her many accomplishments is cooking. But 
 " a good eat " pleases and cheers me. I am not one of the 
 women who can be happy on a rusk and a cup of tea. A feast 
 puts me in a good temper with the world and myself. A 
 famine makes me cold to both. My palate, like my sense of 
 smell and sense of sight, is keen. I can be and often am 
 deceived in people, but never in food. The most talented 
 and wonderful of cooks can make a most seductive sauce, but 
 though concealed I at once detect the ancient butter. If a 
 fish is not fresh I will none of him. And how people ever die 
 of ptomaine poison from bad fish and oysters is a mystery to 
 me. Knowing the danger as well as the disagreeableness I
 
 324 I MYSELF 
 
 should undoubtedly follow the example of the man who was 
 invited to a public dinner, and taking his first oyster it made 
 an instant reappearance on his plate while he blinked and 
 said : " Now some fools would have swallowed that." And 
 he was quite right some timid and unscientific fools would, 
 with the result of typhoid fever developing. I should have 
 coughed, looked innocent, and used my napkin as a tribute 
 to manners. But under no circumstances would I have 
 tempted Fate by swallowing that oyster. I do not know 
 whether the eggs in Holland were Italian or Russian, but 
 they were travelled eggs, and eggs, to be successful, are 
 distinctly stay-at-home products. If I were the maker of 
 the laws of a country, foreign eggs should have a huge duty 
 imposed upon them, then fewer stale eggs would be eaten. 
 Having partaken of one travelled egg (Russian I think) 
 and tea, I found the gods were still unpropitious, for when, 
 to comfort myself with a look at my basket, Rose unpacked 
 it and brought it to my bedside, lo, the thrifty German in 
 Wiesbaden had simply dyed the dusty yellow flowers of the 
 old basket a hot purple and sent that to me. Two had 
 remained undyed, so I plucked them from their stems, 
 enclosed them in a reproachful letter, saying I had trusted 
 his commercial honour, and he must take back the old basket 
 and give me a new one or else destroy all my deep and abiding 
 confidence in German shopkeepers. 
 
 At any rate the eggs and the basket could not destroy my 
 joy in the morning which was beautiful, cool, with sunshine, 
 and a gay breeze. We left the Leygraaffs Hotel, and walked 
 toward the park, passing a group of charming old houses on 
 our right. I stopped on the bridge long enough to photo- 
 graph one mentally. The house, built of white stone, was 
 old, with green shutters, and it stood on a sort of round 
 mound of velvety grass carpeted with daisies and dandelions, 
 and chequered by broken blossoms. It was separated from 
 the street by a canal and connected with it by a fine iron 
 bridge. In front of the house were two giant horse-chestnuts 
 laden with blossoms. I never saw such tall ones, and the 
 trunks of the trees were all covered in ivy. At the left side
 
 ALL ABOUT ROSE AND THE DUTCH 325 
 
 of the house an avenue of trees continued, pink horse-chest- 
 nuts, amethyst lilac trees, lavender lilac trees, and white 
 lilac interspersed with flower-laden laburnums. When the 
 breeze softly moved them they waved like plumes, and the 
 fragrance of that delightful mass of superb colour was almost 
 overpowering. The door of the house stood wide open with a 
 hospitable smile, but there was no one in sight only an old 
 white and orange setter lying on the step blinking one eye at 
 us, and almost snowed over by purple and white and yellow 
 blossoms continually drifting down on him. It made him 
 look like a babe in the wood. All one side of the house was 
 completely covered by an old laburnum tree with the 
 blossoms of a luxuriance great enough to make a blazing, 
 waving cloth of gold. At a long distance in the park it 
 remained with the sun striking it a jewelled banner. 
 The laburnum is a dear flower to me for itself and its 
 memories. I remember long ago driving to a garden 
 party at Mrs Labouchere's when she produced " The 
 Tempest." In the caste were two beautiful people I 
 loved : my son, Francis Howard, as Sebastian ; and 
 Claude Lowther, in a wonderful broidered Venetian cap, 
 the two long feathers, silken hose, and velvet doublet, as 
 Ferdinand. How handsome he was, and we two friends 
 and mothers, Mrs Lowther and I, how vain we were of our 
 boys ! An American friend on whom Fortune had smiled 
 came with his splendid carriage and horses to drive me to 
 Pope's Villa, and we made a little detour to see the house of 
 the distinguished novelist, Miss Braddon, whom my friend 
 greatly admired, and in her garden was a laburnum tree 
 laden with blossoms, and I loved it and called his attention to 
 it, and said, " You can't do better than that in California, 
 can you ? " And he said, " No, but Miss Braddon must not 
 be the only one to possess laburnum trees to-morrow you 
 shall have one all in bloom, growing and blowing at Oakley 
 Lodge." And sure enough the very next morning a cart 
 arrived and a glorious tree dripping with gold was conveyed 
 to the garden and firmly planted in memory of our golden 
 day. I wonder if my poor friend in the chaos of his dis-
 
 326 I MYSELF 
 
 ordered mind ever remembers when he sees the laburnum 
 bloom. He was a bachelor, never having married, it was said, 
 because in his youth he had fallen hopelessly in love with a 
 fille-de-joie. He could not marry her : his good common sense, 
 and he had plenty of that, forbade it : and he could not make 
 her his friend and companion. He was a devout Catholic, 
 a chamberlain of the Pope, and his religion forbade that. 
 So he provided for her and left her, but he always loved her. 
 And of all the sane people I ever met he seemed the sanest, 
 and yet he went mad quite suddenly, raving mad, in one of 
 the great hotels in London. And all the people who knew him 
 were away, and his man, a timid foreigner, was frightened, 
 and by some quibble of the law he was put into the workhouse 
 infirmary. With all his millions to protect him, this is where 
 he was found by his friends. And though well and strong, he 
 has never recovered his reason. I saw him not long ago in 
 Brighton with a roll of music under his arm. His attendant 
 said he played the banjo a great deal, and sang the popular 
 songs of the day. We had a long walk, and apparently 
 rational talk together, but I was too sad to allude to the days 
 when he was free of mind and body, full of interest in his 
 friends, and all that concerned them, and he did not ask 
 about the laburnum. And I did not tell him that dear 
 Oakley Lodge and the laburnum tree had passed into the 
 hands of strangers, for, though he was mad, it would have 
 saddened him.
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 SYMPATHETIC WAITERS 
 
 THE parks in Holland are the loveliest I have ever seen 
 in any country. They are unlike those in England, 
 America and France, as we see them, all teased and 
 artificially arranged and distorted by the hand of man 
 and tasteless man at that : they have the appearance of 
 softly rolling, grassy meadows, with groups of trees, and 
 irregular paths wandering through them. The Dutch 
 appreciate Nature and wisely leave her to manage her own 
 affairs, which she can do so much better than the ordinary 
 soulless gardener. 
 
 The park at Rotterdam breaks upon your startled vision a 
 perfect unexpected joy. What a lovely wonder to find a lush 
 quiet meadow with the wind blowing the long grass about in 
 waves, and a snowstorm of petals from white and red chestnut 
 trees showering down upon it, the birds singing a thousand 
 different songs, and the nice black and white cows, switching 
 their tails, and with the sheep, feeding quietly, and the air 
 scented by tall white and purple lilac, laburnum, and flower- 
 ing almond, and peach trees, all jostling each other for 
 elbow room. Think of it a silent, sunny, apparently 
 remote natural country meadow not a stone's throw away 
 from a busy town and the great liners that come and go to and 
 from America. That meadow, freshly washed by the rain 
 and suddenly and surprisingly come upon, was a never to be 
 forgotten picture. We seemed, except the cows, and the 
 sheep, and the birds and the bees, and the butterflies, the 
 only living creatures in it and yet it was exactly five minutes' 
 walk from our hotel.
 
 328 I MYSELF 
 
 Among my many idiosyncrasies is this : I can never think 
 of food unless I see it. If a cook comes to me for a menu my 
 spirit sinks to zero. My thoughts fly off at a tangent, and I 
 can't even remember that a chicken crows. And to select 
 a meal from a card is most wearisome to me. I both like and 
 appreciate dainty food, but what an insufferable bore to think 
 about it, and above all, to dwell upon it, and to order it. 
 In crossing the Atlantic, if the waiter asks me what I want 
 I always say : " Bring me what my next door neighbour 
 has ordered." If this is a man, I am quite safe it is the 
 best the ship offers, and it saves both time and trouble. In 
 a restaurant I ask the advice of the head waiter, and I 
 meekly eat what he brings me. Waiters I have always 
 found very sympathetic porters not so much so and cab- 
 men not at all. In all my long years of constant cabbing I 
 have only known three sympathetic cabmen. They were 
 delightful but, they were exceptions. 
 
 In Rotterdam the head waiter was very sympathetic, 
 helpful, and solicitous, and, singularly enough, truthful. He 
 advised lobster salad, and said the lobsters were fresh, 
 although they came from Ostend ; and they were fresh, but 
 muscular. It was a nice lunch, however, and he did all the 
 thinking and waiting. Rose was meditative and silent. 
 Like all artists, I must have expression, and as there was no 
 one else to express myself to, I expressed myself to the waiter. 
 I told him I wanted to come to Holland and live by the park. 
 
 " You have seen it, of course," I said. 
 
 He looked so pained I was frightened, and answered : 
 " Seen it, Madame ! I have walked in it for four hours 
 every day for eight months." 
 
 " Dear me ! " I exclaimed. " How delightful ! " 
 
 " No, Madame," he said, very sadly. " I had a great 
 shock, a great grief, and I walked in the park to keep my 
 reason." 
 
 " Oh," I replied. " I am very, very sorry but you are 
 better now ? " 
 
 " Yes." He spoke with resignation. " I am better. 
 My doctor tells me I can work again, but nerve sickness is a
 
 SYMPATHETIC WAITERS 329 
 
 terrible thing. One day I was well, and this sorrow and 
 shock struck me like a blow, and the next day I was ill and 
 my only rest was to walk until I could walk no more. The 
 park ! I know every foot of ground in it, every flower and 
 shrub and tree, and almost every blade of grass. Grief is a 
 terrible thing, Madame." 
 
 I said, " I know I know. I have had great grief too." 
 
 " And could you sleep, Madame ? " 
 
 " No, oh, no and I sleep so badly now." 
 
 " But Madame need not stay in the place where she 
 remembers. I well, I must stay here where I was once so 
 happy and am now so hopeless, and I always remember." 
 
 Then a brilliant idea came to me. I advised him comfort- 
 ingly. " Take one of the big American liners and go to 
 New York." 
 
 " Ah, Madame," he spoke like one beaten and discouraged 
 " they are not waiting for me in New York, and yet this 
 hotel is too empty for me. There are not enough people to 
 make me work hard and forget. I want to run here, run 
 there, and be busy, always hard worked and busy." 
 
 I clapped my hands with enthusiasm. 
 
 " I have it," I said. " You must go to New York at once. 
 It was made for you. Everybody there is running like a hare, 
 and you can't think for the noise." 
 
 Rose had gone to pack the bags, or I never would have 
 dared to say it. Here I wrote rapidly on one of my cards. 
 
 " Take that and go to the Hotel Algonquin and give it to 
 Mr Frank Case, the proprietor of the hotel. He is good- 
 looking, and you are good-looking " (not one least little gleam 
 of pleasure on his poor sad face he is the one man I have 
 ever seen who did not rise to a compliment he was broken- 
 hearted indeed) " he is amiable and you are amiable, he has 
 agreeable manners, and your manners are good, and his inn is 
 successful and gay, and bright and clean, and hospitable and 
 delightful, and full of people, and you will have to run all 
 day. Frank Case has the kindest heart in the world he 
 will be a good friend to you. Will you go ? " 
 
 At last he smiled, showing such nice clean white teeth, and
 
 330 I MYSELF 
 
 looked for a moment cheerful. " I will, Madame," he said, 
 " and maybe some good fairy sent you here." 
 
 " Yes." I smiled back, though he was only a waiter, 
 but also a man, and in grievous need. " Yes," I told him, 
 " a good fairy to send you across the sea." Frank Case must 
 do the rest of the work now in bringing back that stricken 
 soul to health and hope, and he will, for he too has suffered. 
 
 Then, according to his advice, we went to the weekly 
 market, and Rose, who rarely permits herself a remark about 
 her superior officer, said I always seemed to get on with a 
 waiter but more particularly with the sad-hearted and the 
 afflicted and I told her it was because of my great sym- 
 pathy with the one and my dependence on the other that, to 
 think for me what I should eat, created a solicitude. And 
 then I remembered a most kind and motherly waiter in 
 Venice (what French wit was it who said the only man he 
 ever knew who had become a mother was George Sand ?). 
 With my usual trustfulness I drank deeply and generously of 
 Venice water a thick, cold, tasty, lemon-coloured water, 
 and, inured as I am to microbes, the Venetian ones brought 
 on a sort of Asiatic cholera, and I really was for a few days 
 quite alarmingly ill. My chambermaid was this motherly 
 waiter, who probably saved my life, for when after days of 
 fasting I found I was hungry again, I ordered a ripe tomato 
 and a fresh cucumber for my first meal. My waiter-nurse- 
 chambermaid knocked at the door and entered, truly pleased 
 to find me better, when he espied the vegetables. His face 
 darkened and became as tragic as did the face of Othello 
 when he discovered Desdemona's pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 He said, " The Signora will not eat of these after her great 
 seekness ? " 
 
 " Yes," I replied, reaching for the plate ; " the Signora 
 will." 
 
 The motherly waiter seized the plate, and carried it to the 
 window, saying, " If the Signora will permit me to say so, 
 she is the most foolish lady I have known. [A splash.] I 
 have trow the tomato into the canal, the cucumber has 
 gone with heem."
 
 SYMPATHETIC WAITERS 331 
 
 " Oh," I said, almost crying, " and I was so hungry. I 
 don't care J'll order more." 
 
 But the waiter said, " You will not be allow, Signora, to 
 keel your nice foolish self, because I now go to tell them in the 
 dining-room not to send you nothing unless I bring heem. 
 And I also tell your frens about the tomato and the cucumber." 
 And he went out and came back shortly with some dry toast 
 and a little beef tea. How like he was to a nice, fat, jolly, 
 sensible, kind, old woman ! He told me that he was very 
 happy with his wife. I am sure he took good care of her. 
 
 Another dark and very romantic looking waiter in Venice 
 I remember, who simply haunted my footsteps, undertaking 
 the sweeping and dusting of my room in spite of quarrels and 
 protestations from the chambermaid. At last my attraction 
 for him was solved. I came from London, but was not like 
 the English ladies, of whom he stood in mortal fear my eyes 
 were exactly like the eyes of his grandmother who had brought 
 him up and been so kind and he wanted, oh so badly, to go 
 to London with me, for in London lived his fiancee 
 she was lady's-maid to a great lady, and she was pretty, and 
 he had loved her all his life, and he found the separation 
 unbearable, and he was sure that through me it would be 
 ended. I explained the smallness of my establishment, and 
 no men servants he said nothing made any difference 
 that to be with Madame who had the eyes of his grand- 
 mother, and his fiancee, would be enough. I had to put him 
 off with various promises, and I did try to get him a place, 
 and wrote to him, and he to me, but nothing came of it. 
 I hope by this time he is married to the sweetheart of his 
 childhood, and settled in some nice little wayside inn in 
 Italy. 
 
 We went to the Botanical Garden in the afternoon and 
 there I saw a most fascinating love of a white cockatoo with 
 the most original way of captivating hearts ever devised by 
 bird. When I held my hand palm up toward him, he turned 
 a somersault and landed on his back in my hand with his 
 legs kicking up in the air, and actually laughed ! We went 
 to the Hague the next morning and there I was ill, and
 
 332 I MYSELF 
 
 noticed only the Dutch blankets as light as thistledown and 
 delightfully warm. 
 
 At Haarlem we heard the wonderful organ play, and at 
 Antwerp in the Rijks Museum I made a great discovery. 
 Golf was played in 1631, for a portrait of a young girl, by 
 de Geest, in a full length figure daintily dressed, holds a 
 golf ball in one hand, and a golf club in the other. It hangs 
 on the left hand side of the gallery almost at the entrance. 
 And the miles of pictures and my stubborn will to see them 
 put me in bed for several days, Joan of Arc, otherwise Rose, 
 saving my life by bringing me back to England and giving 
 me a rest cure. And I read in the lazy hours Mark Twain's 
 delightful life of that inspired Virgin Soldier, Rose's proto- 
 type. It was Lord Morris, I think, who said the only two 
 women of history who had saved their country were Joan 
 of Arc and Kitty O'Shea.
 
 'TIS ALMOST FAIRY TIME
 
 CHAPTER LX 
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN'S POT OF GOLD 
 
 " Our tokens of love are for the most part barbarous, cold and life- 
 less, they do not represent our life. The only gift is a portion of thy- 
 self therefore let the farmer give his corn the miner his gem the 
 sailor coral and shells the painter his picture and the poet his poem." 
 
 FOR some occult reason, from Emerson's many pages 
 only this charming sentiment remains in my memory ; 
 maybe, that one day it was to have a deeper meaning 
 to me. In my childhood my belief in the fairies was absolute. 
 Mammy, when she said good-night, was always cautioned to 
 leave the window wide open, and when the moonbeams slanted 
 into my room, I always expected to see a cohort of fairies 
 sliding down them, towards my bed. During the long, warm, 
 summer afternoons, I often, with infinite pains and hours of 
 work, made a fairy garden, a little place sweetly prepared 
 for their midnight revels. The lake was a doll's beflowered 
 washbowl, well set into the earth, lined with white sand, 
 filled with clean spring water, and wreathed around with 
 forget-me-nots. There was a little avenue of crepe myrtle 
 on one side, a flower of enchanting appearance, the leaves like 
 bits of deep rose-crinkled crepe, with a downy golden centre 
 of sandal wood fragrance, and on the other side big stalks 
 of mignonette arranged with great precision, while the 
 avenue road was lavishly paved with pearly pebbles, and 
 at the end came the chef d'ouvre, the throne of the fairy 
 queen, a small moss-covered mound scattered over with 
 rose leaves red and white, the finest roses in the garden 
 stuck in the ground and nodding behind it, and a special 
 attention to the queen was a court train left in readiness for 
 
 333
 
 334 I MYSELF 
 
 her. This regal garment was made of heartsease, taking as 
 my foundation a piece of thin muslin, and sewing the flat 
 flower in patches of purple and gold on either side, for no 
 self-respecting fairy queen must have her lining showing ; 
 and the last thing in the evening, with a small watering-pot, 
 I left it ah 1 bejewelled and heavy with raindrops, for of course 
 fairies never take cold. And the fairies never forgot. 
 
 With life's sad experience and many necessities, the fairy 
 queen has ceased to be my favourite. She is too prosperous 
 and too powerful. She has a kingdom of her own and is 
 independent of me, so my heart has turned to the Leprechaun, 
 the little Irish fairy philosopher, he who understands the 
 value and forgetfulness of work, and sets a practical example 
 himself of voluntary industry ; for knowing where all the 
 crocks of gold in the world are, he lets them alone, and prefers 
 to sit cross-legged, with his cocked hat on the side of his head, 
 his bit of a dudeen stuck in his mouth, and by industriously 
 making and mending the fairy shoes, earning his honest 
 bread, rather than live a life of idleness and luxury. He 
 scorns to belong to the vulgar rich. One day I met a 
 Leprechaun. He didn't in the least look like one, being a 
 grown-up, and in ordinary clothes. No, not quite that, for 
 he wore a soft slouch hat, a long old faded friendly cloak, 
 curious rings on handsome slender hands, and no gloves, 
 although the weather was cold. He was striding along 
 followed by a beautiful knowledgeable sheep dog, but I recog- 
 nized him for a fairy at once. The Leprechaun's face was 
 kind and gentle, and he carried all the crocks of gold, as 
 Johannes Wolff would say, " widout to know it " in his head. 
 He had inherited a few crocks, so he was in no hurry about 
 those lying fallow, and there they might all be hidden now, 
 only to use his own language, I " browbeat and bulHed him " 
 into parting with a little crock, which took the form of a 
 fairy play. He has many more his mind to him a golden 
 kingdom is whenever he chooses to give to the world his 
 charming dreams, inspired by his closest friends, " the stars, 
 streams and moonbeams." Unfortunately his pen has a 
 powerful rival in his painter's brush, and much of his time is
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN'S POT OF GOLD 335 
 
 passed in his studio in the lovely old-world garden of his 
 country home. I wanted to be his neighbour, but he frankly 
 discouraged me. " You at Witley ! You would bore your 
 head off in a fortnight. You love seeing people ; I don't 
 want to see people. You like brightness and variety ; I like 
 dullness, monotony, and silence. You like company ; I love 
 to be alone." But he is never alone, his satisfying poetical 
 thoughts are his beautiful companions, while a happy opti- 
 mistic nature like his knows nothing of the flight from 
 despair, which drives human beings like myself to the weary- 
 ing company of their kind. The delicious fairy play really 
 grew out of the seed of " Blue Bell Time," it was the first of 
 the many songs of Graham Robertson's which Frederick 
 Norton has now set to music. When he of the faded cloak 
 with Bob (the sheep dog) saw me off at the pretty seaside 
 station of Sidmouth, and I returned on a cold, wet, spring 
 day to London, Frederic Norton, that brilliant, versatile, 
 contrary, delightful, witty, original man and musical genius 
 dined with me the same evening, and much against his will 
 I read " Blue Bell Time " aloud to him. I love reading 
 aloud, I hate being read to. Frederic Norton is in the same 
 position. When I put the book down he took it up and looked 
 at it : that was a hopeful sign. When he went home he put 
 it in his pocket. When he came again he sang me the verses 
 set to his own sylvan melody. " The stars, streams, and 
 moonbeams " are indeed as completely his in music, as they 
 are Graham Robertson's in poetry. Then I asked the poet 
 to lunch, for even poets must eat, and this one is an excellent 
 housekeeper. The musician came too, and after the meal 
 I begged Frederic Norton for a song, and as the story books 
 say, " he struck a few chords " and began. I saw Graham 
 Robertson lift his head and listen, surprised, and greatly 
 pleased, and at the finish of the fairy-like accompaniment he 
 said : " Mr Norton, your music has given my little nonsense 
 verses a new meaning." Perhaps at that moment the happy 
 idea shot into my mind of these two making a musical 
 sylvan play together. When I spoke of it to the poet he 
 completely scorned my suggestion and said, " I cannot do it ;
 
 336 I MYSELF 
 
 what put such an idea into your head ? " But I hammered 
 away, and every time I saw him asked, " When is the fairy 
 play to begin ? " It didn't begin. Then a trouble, and an 
 uncertainty, came to worry me, and I made an appeal to him. 
 " I want distraction and an interest badly, and I am much 
 too distracted to give it to myself. You must do it for me. 
 Do, do, write the fairy play." This plan worked, and one 
 morning he came with the beginning of the first act and read 
 it. I listened with delight and enthusiasm, but couldn't 
 help thinking all the same, how much better I could have 
 read it myself. From that time the play made steady 
 progress. He could not go to his studio to paint just then, 
 being occupied with a dear invalid who was very ill at home, 
 so he wrote, and from time to time a little bundle of manu- 
 script was posted to me, and " Pinkie and the Fairies " 
 became my greatest interest and consolation. A kind friend 
 lent me a little house at Littlehampton that summer, and I 
 went down one afternoon to find it in complete order, with 
 even my first dinner of a country chicken and fresh green 
 peas all provided. Two American friends came to share my 
 solitude, and one day the very last pages of Pinkie arrived. 
 I wrote immediately to Frederic Norton and bade him 
 come for the week-end. I could scarcely wait to tell him the 
 fairy play was finished, and to ask him if he would do the 
 music. He instantly and promptly refused, saying : "I 
 must write music for publishers, I can't afford to sit down and 
 write a whole fairy play that may never be produced. You 
 are the most unpractical, unreasonable woman, you expect 
 a fellow to do anything you suggest without thinking." 
 
 I listened sweetly to the lecture, never for a moment losing 
 heart, and got off as quickly as possible to other subjects. 
 
 The next day was warm and sunshiny. After breakfast 
 we sat in the garden reading the Sunday papers, when I 
 asked Frederic Norton to read " Pinkie " out aloud. He 
 swallowed the bait without suspicion, and read it from the 
 first line to the last. As I knew it by heart it wasn't necessary 
 for me to listen closely, being occupied with the same reflec- 
 tion with which I had heard the author read it, namely, how
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN'S POT OF GOLD 337 
 
 much better I could have done it myself ; but I rose to the 
 situation and encored the poem I love the best, the sleeping 
 beauty's song, " The wells of sleep." (How charmingly Viola 
 Tree sang it and looked it !) Frederic Norton said at the 
 finish, " There's no doubt about it, that chap has charm in 
 every line he writes, he's a wonder." I agreed, but was 
 reticent. The next morning as Frederic Norton was start- 
 ing for the train he turned back and said, " Just give me the 
 fairy play, will you, I'll take another look at it going to town." 
 Singularly enough it was near at hand. I heard nothing 
 for a fortnight, then a friend, himself very musical, wrote 
 me from London, " I spent the afternoon with Norton 
 yesterday. He was gaunt, unshorn and unshaven, and has 
 not been out of the house for days, but he has written nine 
 numbers of the fairy play and you will love them. His 
 opening theme for Pinkie is a five-finger exercise with 
 orchestral accompaniment, while ' Day was born a daffodil, 
 day dies a rose ' is set to really exquisite music." When I 
 returned to London, Frederic Norton said : " The thing 
 got hold of me, I couldn't help it ; I don't care now whether 
 it's produced or not, I'm writing for the pure love of it," and 
 in that spirit it was finished. I was a bit anxious until the 
 poet heard it, for he had very definite ideas of the kind of 
 music he wanted, being musical himself; and as Frederic 
 Norton is more than usually sensitive to criticism, I feared a 
 few arguments on both sides, and then what would happen ? 
 But there were none. We three met one afternoon at Sand- 
 hills and Frederic Norton played all the music on the white 
 piano, which he loathes. He says a white piano has no soul. 
 And the poet loved the music and the musician loved the 
 poetry, and except for the white piano all was harmony. 
 But the music was only in Frederic Norton's head and 
 fingers : he never put down a note of it and went off to America 
 and stayed there for months, with it still in his head. And the 
 fine, large, brindled mosquitoes of my native land, who love 
 the stranger within their gates, stung him almost into his 
 grave. Anyhow they gave him a slow, low, exhausting 
 fever. Then Pinkie and the fairies called him back to
 
 338 I MYSELF 
 
 England, and ill as he was, he had all the music to write and 
 orchestrate in a very short space of time ; for Elf Twinkle 
 had whispered in Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and he had 
 suddenly and irrevocably lost his heart to Pinkie, and it was 
 going to be done at His Majesty's Theatre con amore with the 
 splendid caste and the great success that everybody knows 
 by now, and this is how I became godmother to the fairies, 
 and how at last they rewarded me for the love and faith I 
 had, and still have in them. When the poet refused to share 
 my enthusiasm for his work, I sent " unbeknownst " to 
 him a copy of the book to W. L. Courtney of the " Daily 
 Telegraph," that most generous and big-hearted of critics, 
 and later received this encouraging letter : 
 
 " DEAR MRS O'CONNOR, I have read ' Pinkie and the 
 Fairies ' and find it the most charming thing which has come 
 under my notice for years. But that is not enough, I place 
 myself at your entire disposal to assist in getting it produced. 
 Is it an indiscretion to ask the author's name ? With kind 
 regards. Yours sincerely, W. L. COURTNEY " 
 
 How kind ! I had only asked for his opinion, he gave it 
 and so much more ! So the play then had a godfather, as well 
 as a godmother, and surely a curtain never went up on a pro- 
 duction so surrounded with good wishes, and love, and 
 tenderness, and enthusiasm, as " Pinkie and the Fairies." 
 Every time I read it to a friend, which was reasonably often, 
 Pinkie added a fresh lover to her list, and the lovers only 
 loved her the more when Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree added 
 his magic touch to that of the poet and the musician, making 
 a happy trilogy of genius, and on December igth, Pinkie 
 not only completely conquered her admirers, but the public, 
 and His Majesty's Theatre was filled by an apprecia- 
 tive, enthusiastic, laughing, applauding audience. It has 
 been revived, and has every appearance of becoming 
 like the primrose, the daisy and the buttercup, a hardy 
 annual.
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN AND THE GARDEN OF PINKIK AND THE FAIRIES
 
 THE LEPRECHAUN'S POT OF GOLD 339 
 
 BLUEBELL TIME 
 
 I thought that the grass was green, 
 To-day it has all turned blue, 
 
 Had anyone told me even a queen 
 I would not have thought it true. 
 
 I wonder if I'm awake, 
 Those trees never used to grow 
 
 Bathing their feet in a deep blue lake 
 I can't make it out, you know. 
 
 I always thought of the sky 
 
 High lifted over my head, 
 So please can you tell me the reason why 
 
 It's under my feet instead ? 
 
 But the Bellmen of Elfin Town 
 Ring out their delicate chime : 
 
 The world has not turned upside down 
 It is only Bluebell Time ! 
 
 THE WELLS OF SLEEP 
 
 As I leaned over the Slumber Well 
 
 Where the wild white poppies grow, 
 The heart from my bosom slipped and fell 
 
 Into the depths below. 
 And the waters cool of that healing pool 
 
 So stilled the throb and the pain, 
 That my heart sank deep in the Wells of Sleep 
 
 And never came up again, 
 
 For Hushaway Honey Dew-drips ! 
 
 The slumberous Hydromel. 
 From wild white poppies that brush the lips 
 Of the way-worn pilgrim who stoops and sips 
 
 A draft from Lullabye Well. 
 
 So still I drone like a drowsy bee, 
 Where the wild white poppies weep,
 
 340 I MYSELF 
 
 And my heart that is drowned looks up to me, 
 Up through the Waters of Sleep. 
 
 Drowned it lies with its dream-dark eyes, 
 And a face so like mine own, 
 
 Image of me that is held in fee 
 By the Dreamland King on his throne. 
 
 And the Hushaway Honey Dew-drips, 
 
 The slumberous Hydromel ! 
 Closing the eye and sealing the lip, 
 Stilling the frame to the finger-tip, 
 As the wild white poppy leaves fall and slip 
 Into the Lullabye Well.
 
 CHAPTER LXI 
 
 MY STEPMOTHER FATE 
 
 " It is not in the shipwreck or the strife 
 We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, 
 But in the after-silence on the shore, 
 Where all is lost, except a little life." 
 
 BYRON 
 
 WHATEVER I most dislike in life has been freely 
 handed out to me by my unrelenting stepmother, 
 Fate. A short stature (when I wanted to be 
 tall), freckles (when I wanted to be plain white), irregular 
 features (when I wanted a classical profile), a sort of general 
 failure all round and a succession of tragedies (when I 
 wanted a quiet life), while a very moderate success in any 
 one direction would have filled me with gratitude and 
 happiness. To have been the mother of many children, 
 or a woman with a career : a novelist, a playwright, or an 
 actress of repute, or a woman with a fortune great enough 
 to benefit the world. But my life has been a conspicuous 
 failure, partly through an intermittent will, but more largely 
 in living through the lives of others and when it is too 
 late, and husband or children find other interests, women 
 like myself are cast aside, and life becomes empty and 
 valueless. I have loved too much, and given too much, 
 until the value has ceased. Only the most generous and 
 noble natures can stand continual spoiling. I have always 
 felt that everybody near me men, women, children, 
 servants, and dogs should, at no matter what cost to 
 myself, be made happy ; and a wrong sort of pride has 
 
 34'
 
 342 I MYSELF 
 
 governed me I have never exacted my proper due, and 
 have taken only that which has been voluntary. What proud 
 folly ! Empires, States, and families, would all come to 
 grief through such Arcadian sentiments. 
 
 Lady R. once discussed this question at length with me 
 when I dropped into tea. We lived near each other in 
 Chelsea she, in a charming house on the embankment 
 and I found her sitting in her boudoir. Such a pretty 
 room it was, the walls of dark green hung with a number 
 of delightful fairy pictures by the late Richard Doyle (Dicky 
 Doyle). One in particular I remember : a huge blackthorn 
 tree with a ring of fairies madly, wildly, dancing round it, 
 in the early glimmer of a clear bluish, greyish, whitish, 
 pinkish dawn, and you felt in another moment the ring 
 would break, and the fairies disperse with the night. The 
 end of the room was occupied by a white cupboard filled 
 with gaily decorated old china, bird cages tenanted by prize 
 canaries, and singing bullfinches hung from the ceiling ; 
 the long French windows disclosed a near-by view of the 
 Thames, and across the water appeared the tall trees and 
 the fresh greenery of Battersea Park. 
 
 Dicky Doyle, by the way, visited the R.s some twenty 
 years or more in the country. He was an acquired taste, 
 and after six months or so, Lady R. rather wished him to 
 go, but later on she said if he had gone she would have 
 asked him to come back. These long visits still exist in the 
 hospitable South, but even there they are growing less 
 frequent. 
 
 What a kind and tender heart Lady R. had. On the day 
 of which I speak she had been sitting with an old friend 
 who was dying, not in her arms, but at her neck, since the 
 early morning. 
 
 He was a much beloved aged bullfinch from whom she 
 had never been separated. Even when she made country 
 house visits he was taken with her, and hung in his cage in 
 her bedroom : he knew her step, and always called her to 
 hurry when he heard it. He had been growing weaker
 
 MY STEPMOTHER FATE 343 
 
 all day, and sitting there with the poor little bunch of 
 stricken feathers at her throat, we both felt moved to talk 
 with affectionate candour of many things, and of my theory 
 of wanting only what was voluntary. 
 
 She said she had felt exactly the same throughout her 
 own life, but had lived long enough to know it was a mis- 
 taken view that every woman should exact what was her 
 right and due. Such a woman was valued, not the one who 
 waited for voluntary tributes of affection. The world 
 eventually passed her by, and at the end she was generally 
 left alone and sorrowing. In her case this had not 
 happened, for she was surrounded by love and troops 
 of friends, she had escaped the result of her too generous 
 temperament. 
 
 I went home filled with good and dignified resolutions, 
 but I let two of the servants go to the theatre the same 
 evening ; and as the front door key had been mislaid I 
 sat up, though mortally tired, until twelve o'clock to let 
 them in. 
 
 Undoubtedly one of the healthiest tenets of Christian 
 science is to pay more attention to yourself, and less to 
 other people ; never to rely on weak human creatures, nor 
 to expect too much of them, but to get your happiness 
 through God and self -reformation. The happiest women 
 are those who are adored the unhappiest those who adore. 
 I belong to the latter class. Mrs M'Kenna, the mother of 
 seven children, sons and daughters, was a notable example 
 of the former. She was a small, elegant-looking woman, 
 wearing her hair in bunches of curls at each side of her face, 
 which was somewhat stern unless she smiled, then it was 
 enchanting. Her voice was a deep contralto, like that of 
 Queen Victoria, and she had an air of great authority that 
 even her children of quite mature age never thought of 
 disputing. Reginald M'Kenna, now First Lord of the 
 Admiralty, was his mother's darling, and he decided, for 
 her sake, not to marry while she lived, as a separation from 
 her would have caused her pain although he would not
 
 344 I MYSELF 
 
 have left her alone, as another son, Ernest M'Kenna, of a 
 charming, gay disposition, and equally devoted to his mother, 
 formed one of the household. What is this mysterious 
 compelling power that to the end of a parent's long life 
 makes children obedient ? 
 
 I believe it to be a latent sternness, a severe and constant 
 force of character, that every now and then appears the 
 iron hand within the velvet glove is there. I heard a mother, 
 who is adored and cherished by her family, say : "If one 
 of my children did a disgraceful thing, I would never see 
 him again." And she meant it. Another more tender 
 mother would follow her ungrateful child to the prison gate. 
 We all know that heartbreaking recitation of Yvette Guilbert 
 where the son has killed his mother at the request of his 
 sweetheart, and holds her dead heart in his hand. Suddenly 
 he slips, and the heart speaks to give warning, saying : 
 " Don't fall, dear son, and hurt yourself." 
 
 It is the unselfish love of a mother for her children that 
 gives one faith in God and the immortality of the soul. 
 If the love of one human being for another is so divine, 
 then nothing short of Divinity inspires it. 
 
 These reflections are rambling away from the blows 
 which my unkind stepmother, Fate, has given me. Besides 
 freckles, failures, and tragedies, she has dealt me a fair share 
 of illnesses and diseases of a singular abhorrence to me, one 
 of them being a closed tear-duct which caused a constant 
 trickling of the eye for several years (and after three opera- 
 tions is now quite cured by a French salve given to me in 
 the first instance by that greatly gifted, and wonderful 
 musician and charming and lovable woman, Louise Douste. 
 It has been in existence since the time of Louis XVI., 
 and is a most remarkable remedy). Recurrent bronchitis 
 annoys me ; and gout, too, which I always dreaded, is my 
 frequent companion, though I am not nearly so great a 
 sufferer from it as Lady Colin Campbell, that splendid 
 beauty and most excellent journalist, who is now held a 
 close prisoner by pain. How well I recollect the first time
 
 MY STEPMOTHER FATE 345 
 
 I ever saw her ! It was at a dinner party given by Mrs 
 Campbell Praed, whose very successful novel, " Nadine," 
 had just created something of a sensation. It was 
 a thrilling book, and the interest was enhanced by the 
 romance of its inspiration, which was, that in her buoyant 
 youth a very remarkable, beautiful, and popular girl had 
 made one of a country house party ; her lover had suddenly 
 died at midnight in her room ; and she had (for she was of 
 tall and powerful physique) dragged her tragic burden 
 along the moonlit corridor, and in the morning he was 
 found sitting in his chair many hours dead. One of the 
 guests, hearing in the dead silence of the night a weird, 
 scraping, muffled sound, looked out and saw a tall girl with 
 her face set in a strange and terrible mask, dragging 
 along a dead and stiffening body, the moonbeams slanting 
 down upon the glassy, wide-opened eyes. He said he shut 
 his door and prayed, but apparently he talked too, for the 
 secret became known. Anyhow, the world admired the 
 young lady's stoical self-control and courage, and later she 
 married a great name and a great fortune, became the 
 mother of many children and grandchildren, and lived 
 happy ever after. 
 
 Lady Colin and I discussed " Nadine " and many other 
 things, and were from that moment friends. She saw, of 
 course, my very apparent admiration for her beauty, charm 
 and intelligence. She was very dark ; her figure was perfect 
 tall, broad shoulders, a naturally lissom, slender waist, 
 round, sloping hips, and in all her movements the grace of 
 a Spaniard. 
 
 She wore a closely fitting princess dress of lace and jet, 
 a string of pearls around her throat, a tiny golden key 
 depending from it (she wears that key still, I wonder what 
 tender secret it guards), and on her bodice a great bunch 
 of mauve orchids. Now, instead of the orchids on her 
 breast this cheerful invalid, who never leaves her house, 
 should carry the Victoria Cross in recognition of life's con- 
 tinual battle, for she bears her suffering with a courage,
 
 346 I MYSELF 
 
 an equanimity, and a patience that are worthy of the 
 bravest soldier. 
 
 We women, most of us, need all these qualities courage, 
 equanimity, and patience in reserve. But I have come 
 to the conclusion that what we do not need is " proper 
 pride." How much better the world would be without 
 it. Many of us have more than our fair share of proper, 
 justifiable, or false pride. And we are all ashamed of 
 something or other, and contrariwise it is very often the 
 thing of which we should be most proud. I have never 
 been ashamed of poverty, but always of unhappiness. 
 To be bankrupt of happiness : that indeed is a poverty so 
 bitter, it must ever be concealed from the world. 
 
 And I have always attempted to play the role of a happy 
 and successful woman, but lately a sad independence has 
 come to me, and I will play my part no more. 
 
 " I will instruct my sorrow to be proud. 
 For grief is proud, and makes its owner stout. 
 Here I and sorrow sit." 
 
 And I have a hope, that by making sorrow a friend, and 
 not trying to run away from it, and cheat it, and defy it, 
 and elude it, peace may come to me at last. 
 
 And it is on its way. This present life, which used to be 
 the only thing, has lost its importance. For quite lately 
 a surety, a sign, a token, came to me of my soul's separate- 
 ness from the body. I felt it flutter in my breast, and know 
 that it will live through all eternities. . . . 
 
 Circumstances change one's tastes and desires. My 
 once passionate love of home, now that I am homeless, 
 is passing, travel takes me out of myself and the happier 
 past. In a hotel, when loneliness submerges me, and 
 even tempts me on occasion " to sleep and wake no 
 more," I can ring the telephone bell, and ask the hotel 
 clerk what's o'clock and if insomnia, as it so often 
 does, keeps me in its bitter grip all through the night, and
 
 MY STEPMOTHER FATE 347 
 
 memory, the Lord of Hell, holds full sway, the silence can 
 be broken. In a certain hotel where I often stay, the night 
 clerk is a person of imagination, and when I ask the time, 
 he answers comfortingly, " Twelve o'clock and all's well ! " 
 or " Two o'clock and all's well ! " " Four o'clock and all's 
 well ! " 
 
 So, good-bye to you who have skimmed these pages. May 
 the clock strike happy hours in your own home blessed 
 word and may all be well with you !
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABERDEEN, LADY, 152 
 Adler, Dr, 278 
 Agnew, Mary, 105-8 
 Alexander, George, 314 
 Allen, Grant, 240 
 Angele, 304 
 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 253-4 
 Ashburnham, Lord, 224-6 
 Atkinson, Dr, 39 
 
 Ellen, 39 
 
 BAKER, DR, 25-6, 47 
 
 Ballantine, Walter, 226-7 
 
 Barrett, Wilson, 301-2 
 
 Barrie, J. M., 265, 291 
 
 Bates, Wm., 7-9 
 
 Beale, Mrs, 50-5 
 
 Beecher-Tilden Trial, 149 
 
 Beerbohm, Max, 203-4, 2 9~3 
 
 Birrell, Mrs, 21-2 
 
 Bjornson, Bjornsterne, 231-2 
 
 Black, Mr and Mrs Wm., 186-7, 189 
 
 Blouet, Paul, 244 
 
 Borthwick, see Glenesk 
 
 Braddon, see Maxwell 
 
 Bright, John, 81, 256 
 
 Brigit, see M'Kenna 
 
 Brookfield, Mrs, 58 
 
 Browning, Oscar, 246 
 
 Bryan, Hon. C. F., 95 
 
 " Buffalo Bill," see Cody 
 
 Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 165, 168, 
 
 170, 172, 241 
 
 Burleson, Hon. Albert, 223 
 Burne- Jones, Sir E., 189-90 
 Burnham, Lord, 309 
 Byles, Mrs, 258 
 
 CAMERON, DON, 79 
 Campbell, George, 129 
 
 Lady Archibald, 184 
 
 Lady Colin, 344-5 
 
 Mrs S. P., 243 
 
 Campbell -Bannerman, Sir H., 291 
 Carlsruhe, 202 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 280 
 Carnegie, Andrew, 211 
 Carter, Chief Justice, 89 
 Charlotte, 47 
 
 Chart, Mrs Nye, 187 
 
 Cheatham, Miss, 268 
 
 Christiania, 230 
 
 Churchill, Lady Randolph, 165 
 
 Clark, Daniel, 14 
 
 Clarke, Max, 146-7 
 
 Mrs, 146-7 
 
 Cody, Colonel, 27-8, 191 
 
 Coles, Mrs, see Roosevelt 
 
 Conant, Mr, 118, 179 
 
 Corcoran, Mr, 69-70, 92 
 
 Courtney, W. L., 338 
 
 Craigie, Mrs, 258-61 
 
 Crawford, Mrs, 149 
 
 Crewe, Lord, 250, 252 
 
 Croome, Sir Halliday, 270, 275, 278 
 
 DAVIS, JEFFERSON, 100-1 
 Day, Mrs, 141 
 
 Elizabeth, 141 
 
 Deems, Mr and Mrs Frank, 93 
 De Lara, I., 168-9 
 Dene, Dorothy, 184 
 Dillon, John, 232 
 Douglas, George, 81-4 
 Douste, Louise. 344 
 Doyle, Richard, 342 
 
 Sir A. Conan, 266 
 Ducey, Father, 131-3 
 Duval, Major, 6 
 
 EDWARDES, GEORGE, 314 
 
 Eli, 1 8 
 
 Evans, Admiral, 69 
 
 Dick, 69 
 
 FAIRFAX, LETTICE, 290 
 Field, Eugene, 245-7 
 Fiske, Mrs Bradley, 115-6 
 Fortescue, Miss, 185 
 Foster, James, 267 
 Frederic, Harold, 178-9, 238 
 Friendship, Thoughts on, 149-51 
 
 GAINES, MRS, 14-5 
 Georgetown Convent, 59-61 
 Gill, Mr, 205 
 Gillette, Dan, 66 
 
 Dr Walter, 133, 135-6, 146 
 
 349
 
 350 
 
 I MYSELF 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., 182, 207, 224, 
 
 246 
 
 Glenesk, Lord, 238-9 
 Gould, Sir F. C., 127, 254-5 
 Govett, Mrs, 181 
 Grahame, Kenneth, 186, 264-5 
 Grant, General, 79 
 Green, Mr, 93 
 
 Grieg, Mr and Mrs E., 227-8 
 Guilbert, Yvette, 344 
 Guthrie, Anstey, 243-4 
 
 HACKNEY, MABEL, see Irving, Mrs 
 
 J-*. 
 
 Hall, Gertrude, 298-9 
 Hardy, Thomas, 168, 186 
 Harper, Joseph, 115-8 
 Harris, Joel Chandler, 120-7 
 Harte, Bret, 250-2 
 Hawtrey, Charles, 314 
 Hayes, Frank, 41, 43-4 
 
 Matthew, 29 
 
 Mrs, 39-41 
 
 Nannie, 43 
 Hayne, Seale, 311-2 
 Healy, Tim, 216 
 Hecht, Max, 241 
 Heidelberg, 200 
 Height, Amy, 290 
 Henniker, Mrs, 250 
 Hester, 1-5 
 Hobbes, see Craigie 
 Hodgson-Burnett, Mrs, 250, 252 
 Holiday, Henry, 189 
 Holland, 318-32 
 
 Howard, Florida, 52 
 
 Francis, 102-3, 281-6, 325 
 Hunt, Richard, in 
 Hurlbert, W. H., 109-14 
 Hutchinson, A. S., 262-4 
 Hynes, Miss Polly, 6, 30 
 
 IBSEN, H., 230 
 
 Irish Party, state of, 232-5 
 
 Irving, Sir Henry, 297, 300 
 
 Laurence, 290, 299-300 
 
 Mrs Laurence, 300 
 
 " JACK THE RIPPER," 214 
 James, Colonel, 191 
 
 Henry, 293-6 
 
 Jeune, Lady, 158, 169, 181, 243-4, 
 306-7 
 
 Sir F., 168, 307 
 Johnson, Mary, 158 
 Journalists, Soc. of Women, 309-11, 
 
 313 
 
 KELLOGG, MRS, 69 
 Keogh, Judge, 178 
 Kirkland, General, 147-8 
 Kreuznach, 178 
 
 LABOUCHERE, DORA, see Mar- 
 quesa di Rudini 
 
 Henry, 81-2, 161-4, 210-4, 22 4> 
 255-6, 264, 325 
 
 Mrs H., 160-1, 168, 183-5, I 9 I- 3> 
 210, 255-6, 280, 290-1, 297 
 
 Lane, Miss Harriet, 66 
 Lang, Andrew, 246 
 Langtry, Mrs, 163 
 Leighton, Sir Frederic, 184 
 Levy, Mr, 188 
 Liszt, F., 257 
 Littlehampton, 336 
 Lowther, Claude, 325 
 
 Mrs Frances, 55, 325 
 Lucy, Sir H. W., 279 
 Lussan, Zelie de, 28 
 
 MACKAY, MRS, 311 
 Mallory, Dr, 104 
 Mandeville, Lady, in 
 Manning, Cardinal, 175-6, 286 
 Mansfield, Richard, 109 
 Marlborough, Duke and Duchess 
 
 of, 255 
 
 Marriages, Anglo-American, 150-2 
 Marsh, Mr, 22-3 
 Marshall, Luxmore, 185 
 Marston, Philip Burke, 236-7 
 Mason, Captain, 66 
 Massingham, H. W., 211, 220-1 
 Maude, Cyril, 314 
 " Max Gladstone O'Connor," 172-7, 
 
 295-6 
 
 Maxwell, Mr and Mrs, 161, 325 
 Maynard, Captain, 9 
 M'Carthy, Charlotte, 159-60, 164,278 
 
 Justin 57-8, 142-3, 155, 158, 
 163-5, 278 
 
 Justin Huntly, 142-3, 165 
 Meredith, George, 281 
 Merivale, Mr and Mrs, 180 
 Milbanke, Sir F. and Lady, 223-4 
 Miles, Frank, 162-3 
 
 Mitchell, Colonel, 142-3, 145 
 M'Kenna, Brigit, 133-40 
 
 Ernest, 344 
 
 Mrs, 343 
 
 Reginald, 203, 343 
 Moore, Frankfort, 239 
 
 George, 248-50 
 
 J. T, 80 
 
 Miss, 141-2
 
 INDEX 
 
 35i 
 
 Morgan, Franzie, 75-7 
 
 Mr and Mrs, 75-6 
 Morley, John, 211, 214 
 Morris, Lewis, 168 
 
 - Lord, 332 
 
 William, 301 
 Mortimer, Rose, 315-26 
 Moulton, Mrs L. C., 236-7 
 Murphy, Dr P., 285 
 
 Helen, 285-6 
 Murray, David, 288-9 
 
 NORMAN, SIR HENRY, 157 
 Norreys, Rose, 184 
 Norton, Frederic, 335-7 
 Norway, 227-30 
 
 OAKLEY LODGE, 236 
 Oberammergau, 287 
 O'Brien, Mr and Mrs Wm., 232-3 
 O'Connor, Mary, see O'Malley 
 
 T. P., 142-5, 165, 173, 205, 
 229, 232, 308-9 
 
 O'Malley, Mrs Wm., 155 
 O'Reilly, J. B., 246 
 O'Rell, see Blouet 
 O'Shea, Captain, 205-9, 2 3 2 
 
 PAGE, THOMAS NELSON, 128-9, 227, 
 229, 238, 306 
 
 Palmer, A. M., 85-6, 109 
 
 Parke, Ernest, 211, 216 
 
 Parker, Dr, 130-1 
 
 Parnell, Charles, 205-9, 214, 232-5 
 
 Partridge, The Misses, 65-6 
 
 Paschal, Elizabeth, early years, 
 i-io ; defence of slaves, 16-24 ; 
 visit to a circus, 35-6 ; dolls, 
 36-8 ; school days, 59-62 ; dtbut, 
 66-71 ; first marriage, 70-1 ; 
 birth of a son, 74-5 ; War Office 
 work, 79-80 ; the stage, 85-6 ; 
 New York, 93-102 ; convent 
 life, 103 ; journalism, 109-11 ; 
 literary reader, 116-8 ; illness, 
 135-6 ; meeting with " T. P.," 
 142 ; New York again, 146 ; 
 marriage and life in London, 
 153-71 ; Germany, 178-82, 195-9; 
 a . General Election, 205 ; Stone- 
 cutter Street, 216-27; Chelsea, 
 236 ; The Lost Leader, 241-3 ; 
 Lady from Texas, 269 ; illness, 
 270-8, 313, 318; Madame Del- 
 phine, 290 ; the music-hall, 314-6 ; 
 Germany and Holland, 318-27 
 
 Paschal, Judge, 11-5, 24, 28-32, 
 63-4, 85-91 
 
 Marcellus, 20 
 
 Mrs, 46-7, 50 
 Paul, Herbert, 250 
 Phelan, James, D., 266-7 
 Piccolellis, Marquesa, 81 
 Pinero, Sir A. W., 252-3 
 Pinkie and the Fairies, 335-7 
 Playfair, Sir Lyon, 224 
 
 " Pomp," 32 
 
 Ponsonby, Claude, 185 
 
 Pope's Villa at Twickenham, 160-2 
 
 Praed, Mrs Campbell, 345 
 
 Pulitzer, Mr, 115 
 
 RAIKES, RT. HON. CECIL, 307 
 Raleigh, Mrs Cecil, 290 
 Rehan, Ada, 244 
 Reid, J. Whitelaw, 123-4 
 Reilly, Dr, 74 
 
 John D., 129 
 
 Major, 129 
 
 Richards, John Morgan, 258-61 
 
 Mrs, 259-61 
 Riddell, Mr, 89 
 Ridge, W. Pett, 245 
 Ripon, Lady, 223 
 
 Robertson, Graham, 151, 293, 314-5, 
 
 335-7 
 
 J. Forbes, 242 
 Robinson, Mr, 94 
 Roosevelt, Miss, 312 
 Rose, see Mortimer 
 Rotterdam, 323-7 
 Rowe, Mrs Jopling, 168 
 Rudini, Marquesa di, 161-2, 168 
 Russell, Henry, 311 
 
 Sir Charles, 224 
 
 Sx HELIER, see Jeune 
 
 Sala, G. A., 162, 183-9 
 
 Sally, 20-2 
 
 Sargent, John S., 280-1 
 
 Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Christian 
 
 of, 257-8 
 
 Schreiner, Olive, 301 
 Schwalbach, 195 
 Scott, Clement, 269 
 
 Sir Walter, 279-80 
 Severance, Mark, 66 
 
 Shaw, G. B., 211, 217-22, 224, 
 
 290 
 
 Sheppard, Governor and Mrs, 70 
 Sidmouth, 335 
 Slavery, 16-23 
 Smiles, Clement Locke, 317 
 Stahl, Rose, 95-8
 
 352 
 
 I MYSELF 
 
 Stalheim, 229 
 Stansfeld, James, 224 
 Star, The, 210-4 
 Starkweather, Miss, 181 
 Stevenson, Mrs, 69 
 
 R. L., 279-80 
 Stewart, Admiral, 208 
 Steiner, Adele, 223, 225 
 Stirling, Mrs, 61 
 Stoll, Oswald, 314, 316 
 Street, George, 248 
 Sunderland, Dr S., 313-4 
 Sutton, Mr and Mrs Bland, 313 
 
 TAIT, LAWSON, 178, 295 
 Tate, Fanny, 190 
 Telegraph, Daily, 308-9 
 Teresa, Sister, 137-40 
 Terry, Ellen, 297-9, 314 
 Thackeray, Wm. M., 56-8 
 Thomas, Brandon, 290 
 
 Sue, 48 
 Thompson, Sir H., 243-4 
 
 Tree, Sir H. B. and Lady, 162, 224, 
 314, 338 
 
 VALE, AGNES, 302-5 
 Vanderbilts, the, 1 10-1 
 Vaughan, Kate, 184 
 
 WAITH, MRS, 81 
 
 Walker, Mr, 304 
 
 Ward, Miss, 181 
 
 Ward-Beecher, Henry, 130-1, 149 
 
 Weylan, Edith, 316 
 
 Whistler, J. M'N., 162, 280 
 
 White, Lady, 181 
 
 White Plains School, 6 1 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 81-4 
 
 Wilde, Oscar, 159, 224, 238 
 
 William (negro slave), 23-4 
 
 (" buttons "), 170-1 
 Wittgenstein, Princess, 257 
 Wolff, Johannes, 175-6, 225, 227-8, 
 
 238, 286-7, 323 
 Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 
 
 H5 
 Wyndham, Sir Chas., 314 
 
 YOUNG, MR, 18-19 
 
 Mrs, 65 
 
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 University of California 
 
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