THE pen may well fall from the hand in attempting its task, though only a few pages can be given to this present record. If a longer Biography should be written, it must come when Time has softened the first keenness of the blow; though the loss, the sorrow, the silence, and the vacant chair can only grow more real and more vivid in the coming years.

  But it is meet that a few words, whatever the effort, should be given at once in memory of one whose name has been so long a household word in the pages of this magazine, and has contributedso greatly to its remarkable success.

  It is not only a painful but a difficult task to write the following pages. To describe the personal charm of Mrs. Henry Wood isalmost as impossible and hopeless as it would be to attempt to embody the perfume of the rose, or to give form and expression to the scent of the violet.

  Her inner life was so beautiful that it can only be a record of praise upon praise; and it might have seemed more graceful and appropriate had the tribute come from some other hand. Unfortunately none other exists. Mrs. Henry Wood's life was so self-contained that only those connected with her by the closest bonds of relationship knew her intimately. Even with these there was ever a certain reticence which made them feel that in some sense her life was lived apart from them and from the whole world. There was within her a yet higher and deeper life into which none were permitted to intrude.

  In presence of the solemn Mystery of Death, also, all other thoughts and considerations must yield. The ordinary rules and conventionalities of life have no place. In the most sacred of all earthly ties--that existing between mother and son--scope may be allowed and indulgence given, and praise that might have come better from others must be looked upon as Sorrow's tribute placed reverently upon the tomb of the sacred departed; making that natural and becoming which might not be quite so under other circumstances.

  I can only affirm that the following pages are a most unworthy, most unexaggerated record of a singularly perfect life, to which it is as impossible to render justice as it is impossible, in mere words, to describe the influence of everything that is lovely and of good report.

MRS. HENRY WOOD was born when the present century was still young. It has gone forth to the world--I know not how--that she was born in the year 1820. This is a mistake. She was born on the 17th of January, 1814, and consequently, at the time of her death, was seventy-three years of age. Yet no one ever thought or spoke of her as being old. She had the rare gift of perpetual youth. Her eye was as bright, her face as young, her complexion as fair and brilliant, her mind as sparkling, and her heart as green, as they had been fifty years ago.

  She was christened Ellen, and was the daughter of Mr. Thomas Price, one of the largest glove manufacturers in the city of Worcester; as his father had been before him.

  Mr. Thomas Price, an only child, inherited considerable property from his father, who died at the early age of forty-seven, and had been known as the finest and handsomest man in the Faithful City. His son Thomas had received what would have been very advanced education even in these days, and was a very exceptional one in those. He was a man of remarkable intellect, of great refinement and taste.

  I once saw him, and only once, when my parents came over to England on a short visit, and brought me with them. I was very young at the time, and can just remember the effect made upon me by a venerable gentleman, with calm and dignified manners and a subdued voice; with an abundance of white hair and a face beautiful in age. Perhaps what most impressed me were the large frills he always wore to his shirts, and about which he was very fastidious, even after they had gone out of fashion. His hands were white and delicate as a woman's.

  Child as I was--I could not have been more than five years old--the impression made upon me by this vision of age and dignity, the certain awe and veneration it created in a childhood that was peculiarly impressionable, never passed away. Yet the interviews, as far as I was concerned, were few and short, and had taken place in London. He had come up to town to visit his daughter, as she was unable, on that occasion, to go down into Worcestershire

UP to the age of seven, Mrs. Henry Wood was brought up in the house of her grandmother, a lady who adorned her home, but took no part in its arrangement. This was relegated to the care of a housekeeper, who managed everything, and was responsible for the duties of the other servants of the household. She was called Mrs. Tipton, was a very original character, and was never seen in anything but black silk. She had been with her mistress from the time of her marriage and remained with her until her death.

  The little child was Mrs. Tipton's especial charge, though she also had her own particular attendant to wait upon her. She also had her own special rooms, and though so great a favourite with her grandmother, was only allowed to be with her at stated times. Children in those days, it is needless to say, were brought up far more strictly and severely than they are in these.

  It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Tipton, who generally accompanied the little child in her morning walks, whilst in the afternoons she was always expected to drive out with her grandmother. Her place in the carriage was never filled. The housekeeper, when no one else was present, generally accompanied them in these drives, in attendance upon her little charge. It was on such an occasion that she gave expression to one of her quaint sayings, which was ever afterwards remembered against her.

  They were passing a churchyard at some distance from Worcester, when Mrs. Tipton, looking up, suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, ma'am! what a healthy, bracing spot for a churchyard How I should like to be buried there when my time comes!"

  She was promised that her wish should be regarded, but whether it was ever carried out in the end, I do not remember to have heard.

  It was in one of their morning walks that the housekeeper, whilst probably saving the life of her charge, also very possibly laid the foundation for much future delicacy.

  They were passing through a field, when suddenly an infuriated bull, attracted by a red dress or hood that the child was wearing, made a rush, and charged at them across the field.

  Mrs. Tipton, paralyzed with fear, took the child in her arms, and fled for her life. She gained the hedge, but no point of exit. The bull was upon them; and scarcely knowing what she did, she threw the little girl high over the hedge into an adjoining field.

  How she eventually escaped herself, she never could quite tell afterwards; but she did escape. On reaching the next field, she found her charge lying where she had fallen; pale, but apparently unhurt.
 
 

  Genius, in childhood, is said to be either very awakened or very backward. In my mother's case it was the former. At seven years old she had gone through, without effort, the studies of girls twice her age. She could repeat, rapidly and correctly, whole poems, such as Gray's "Elegy" and the "Deserted Village;" and at ten years old she had read a great part of Shakespeare. At all times her memory was marvellous, almost miraculous. It was only last year that one of her children having asked a question with regard to Sterne's "Maria," she immediately and fluently repeated two whole pages bearing upon the question. Yet she had never opened the book since she was thirteen: an interval of sixty years.

  With regard to her lessons, her daily tasks, she never had to read them through more than once, after which she could repeat them fluently. History was her favourite and beloved study; geography she disliked. All her wishes in her early home were regarded. She was indulged in every possible way, but could not be spoilt. It may be said, with all truth and with all , reverence, that the Hand of God was upon her, and that she was ever in His keeping. "Thou wilt hide me under the shadow of Thy wings, and I shall be safe from fear of evil." I have never beard this verse read in church without thinking of my mother.

  Her grandmother supplied her with unlimited pocket-money; but where in most cases it would have been exchanged for dolls, toys, and bonbons, in my mother's case it was invariably spent in books. When she was seven years old, Mr. William Price died after a few months' illness; an illness which had baffled the skill of all physicians, who could not even guess at the nature of his malady. He suffered no pain; yet no relief could be obtained; no food could be digested. He gradually faded and passed away.

  After death, when lying in his coffin, it was thought right to take in his little grand-daughter--of whom he had been so fond, and who had returned all his affection- -for one look before the last sad office was performed and the face was for ever closed to mortal eyes.

  The act was, no doubt, prompted by a good and kindly feeling, but it was a mistake. The child, peculiarly imaginative, sensitive and impressionable to the last degree, was so terrified and affected by the sight that she fell into violent hysterics, and for many hours they feared for the result. In time she calmed down, and the effect disappeared; but the impression remained, and was never forgotten by herself in after years.

AFTER the death of her grandfather, changes were made in the household, and it was decided that the little girl should return to her own home. She had only beet; lent for a time.

  For her, this meant the commencement of a new life. At her grandmother's she had been made the first consideration ; had been indulged in every way; her every wish bad been studied, as much as it was possible to do so in those days of discipline; but her sweet nature, as I have said, could not be spoilt.

  She now became the companion of her father, whose cultivated mind greatly guided her from that hour, and, no doubt, had considerable influence in directing the growth of her intellect over and above her governess, he superintended her studies and indicated her reading; and she ever looked up to him with the deepest reverence and affection.

  I have remarked that he was a man of great mental power; a refined and polished gentleman, as well as one of the most accomplished scholars of his day; looked up to by all, respected by high and low, ever known as the friend and protector of the poor and suffering.

  Singularly calm in the ordinary ways and walks of life, nothing roused him so much as the tyranny and oppression of those who had power to help themselves. And it was almost a proverb in Worcester that, whoever might be present at any public meeting, however important, Mr. Price's opinion would carry the day; and the poor--if they happened to be in question--would certainly get their rights. He was a man of few words, and spoke in the quietest tones; but all he said was pointed by such sound sense and judgment that he was seldom known to fail in carrying his point.

  It must also be remembered that we are now writing of some sixty or seventy years ago and more, when the world was very different from what it is now: and, as regards the poor, they had only the rich to trust to for their privileges.

  It was with such a man that my mother's earlier life was passed exactly the man and mind to strengthen and nourish the good seed abounding in her heart. The home was a quiet one of abundance, with more life and movement about it than had been the case in the home of her grandmother. Mr. Price was a great classical scholar, and some of the learned dignitaries of the cathedral would not infrequently consult him upon abstruse points, and accept his opinion in preference to theirs. He was intimate with many, and was, indeed, more fitted to, be a dignitary himself than to be the head, of a manufactory. , He was an especial favourite of one of the bishops, who lamented to him on his death-bed that he had not a son in the Church whose interest he might have advanced.

  He was also an accomplished musician, of which art he was passionately fond; and his sketches in water colours were far above the average of amateur productions. Landscapes, interiors, men and women, he did all equally well; but he could not draw an animal, with which he was as unsuccessful as was Turner with his figures. He was a great chess player, moved with extreme rapidity, and rarely lost a game. Everything he undertook, he mastered.

  There is no doubt that Mrs. Henry Wood inherited much of her literary talent from her father. He read deeply, and although he never wrote, he was of an original and thorough turn of mind. Whatever he attempted was carried out with an earnestness of intention which equally characterised his daughter all through life.

  She, also, was very artistic in mind, and in earlier years painted charmingly in water colours. Her subjects were chiefly flowers, and she delighted in arranging and forming her own groups..

  Probably no one ever lived with greater taste for preparing flowers wherewith to decorate a table or a room ; and her drawing-rooms in France were at all times made beautiful by a profusion of exotics arranged as no one else could do them. The result in her case was almost magical. It cost her neither time nor trouble. When the flowers had been sorted and placed in vases by a servant, she would go round the rooms, and in a moment, as it were, completely transform the whole effect, giving beauty and grace where before all had been commonplace and ordinary.

  But her painting she soon put aside, and when she took up her pen, her pencil was laid down for ever.

  Whilst Mrs. Henry Wood was greatly indebted to her father, there is no doubt she also owed much to her mother. Two more opposite characters than Mr. and Mrs. Price could scarcely have existed, and therefore they blended into a perfect whole.

  Mr. Price, thoughtful and scholarly, rarely spoke merely for the sake of saying something. His wife was a small, very pretty woman, with dark, flashing eyes, light, graceful movements, and sparkling wit and conversation. She was as animated and talkative as her husband was the opposite.

  She lived to a very advanced age, and when I was fifteen and she was eighty-one, I paid a short visit to Malvern, and as we went together about the hills, she scarcely seemed the elder of the two. To the last she possessed all the life and freshness of youth.

  Our conversation naturally often turned upon my mother's works. She was very proud other daughter and took the liveliest and most intense interest in all she wrote.

  "It is my delight," she would say over and over again, "to shut myself into a sitting- room, perfectly alone, with her books. I then feel that I am in the company of a great crowd of living, breathing friends. I see them and know them as much as if they actually existed ; and I feel as if they all knew me. If I were suddenly transplanted to the midst of a desert with her books, I should never be lonely or depressed."

  Depressed she could never have been under any circumstances. She was then a perfect picture of an old lady, and always wore her hair in the fashion of her younger days : beautifully arranged in small curls one above another on her forehead and temples. It was very picturesque, and added distinction to a face that had always been charming. Before her marriage, she and her sister had been known as "the beautiful Miss Evanses." A generation later, my mother and her sister were universally known as "the beautiful Miss Prices." Worcester had always been famous for its beauties, but the two Miss Prices were said to excel them all.

  One of her great friends was Mrs. Benson, wife of the then Master of the Temple, and one of the Canons of Worcester Cathedral; and I have in my possession an ancient copy of Milton, given to my grandmother by Mrs. Benson, and which she passed on to me as one of her greatest treasures on the occasion of the visit to Malvern to which I have just alluded. Milton was one of her favourite poets, and she never tired of the grandeur and solemnity of his themes.

THE mention of Canon Benson brings to my mind the frequency with which I have heard my mother say how much she liked him, both as a girl and a young woman. And it was only last year that my old friend Mr. Whitefoord, the Rector of Whitton, who had also been a friend of Canon Benson's in his earlier days, gave my mother great pleasure by sending her an old and lengthy letter of the Canon's, which he had unearthed from treasures long buried. Though she had not seen his writing for so many years, she at once recognised both it and the familiar style of the writer.

  I have often heard her remark that when Canon Benson was in residence, people flocked from far and near to hear him preach People of all sects and denominations; Dissenters, and even Quakers who would not have ventured at any other time within the cathedra walls, scarcely have dared to do so. His preaching was remarkable: the quietest, calmest, most earnest that could be conceived. And it was only such calm, quiet preaching that ever impressed my mother. To ranting she could never listen. A loud voice or much action had an effect upon her nervous system and delicate organisation that she was unable to bear, and she would be almost made ill by it.

  Such a voice, also, as Canon Benson's was rarely found. It was perfect harmony and music. With all its quietness, every syllable he uttered was distinctly heard by the whole congregation. On the days that he preached, long before service began, there was not standing room to be had; and. the pulpit stairs were crowded up to the very door with people, who had to come down and make way for the Canon as he ascended to his place.

  I have so far mentioned him because he was a great feature in my mother's life, standing out with distinct influence upon the canvas of her early days. His name was frequently upon her lips, and to her he was ever the beau-idéal and perfection of all that a preacher and a light in the Church should be. He had one affliction: in his late life he became so deaf that he could not even hear the organ, and when reading the Commandments a sign had always to be made when the organ ceased and it was time for him to go on. It was difficult to say which was the more musical of the two: his pure,_ distinct voice, or the soft flute stops of the instrument.

  It was amongst such people that my mother's early life was passed, and it is this atmosphere which she introduces into so many of her works. Nowhere, perhaps, is it more conspicuous than in her present story, "Lady Grace." One feels that it is taken from life; that the people are real, and actually have an existence; that nothing is invented, except plot, situations and incidents; and even some of the latter actually occurred. Cathedral atmosphere, cathedral people, cathedral prejudices, these were a part of her life and nature, her very being, and threw their influence over the whole tone and cast of her mind. With these she was identified. She delighted in the smallest details of this life as much as in its broad outlines. In all matters ecclesiastical she was an authority.

TE years went on until at the age of thirteen a delicacy began to show itself. Something was wrong with the spine. No doubt in these more advanced days all might have been put right: but sixty years ago the science of medicine--which, even as it is, has made less progress than any other science--was in a very elementary condition. All was done that could be done: but it seemed certain that henceforth a life of more or less suffering and weakness was to be her lot. And now the quiet, thoughtful girl had to become still quieter and more thoughtful. The doctors did their utmost, but it was little. Her days had to be passed on a reclining board or couch, from which she seldom moved. Reading and study, always her great pleasure and passion, now became her chief resource. Surrounded by her books she was always happy.

  Her mind grew and expanded rapidly, but this was probably at the expense of the frail body. As its delicacy increased, so did the singular beauty of her face.

  This beauty was something quite out of the common order. It possessed a quality that cannot be described, because it was, so to say, intangible. It was something quite apart from the mere perfection of feature, which she also possessed. Perhaps the word ethereal will best give the reader an idea of its character.

  The face was a pure oval, of the most refined description : that perfection of form that is so rarely seen. A small, straight, very delicate and refined nose; teeth of dazzling whiteness, entire to the day of her death ; a perfect mouth, revealing at once the sensitiveness and tender sympathy of her nature and the steadfastness of her disposition. Her eyes were unusually large, dark and flashing, with a penetrating gaze that seemed to read your inmost thoughts. One felt that everything before her had to, be outspoken: for if you uttered only half your thoughts, she would certainly divine the rest. Nothing escaped her powers of observation. She seemed to learn things by intuition, so that she often surprised one by uttering what seemed like a revelation or the disclosures of an Oracle. She herself was aware of this, and was frequently amused by the result and the astonishment created. At the same time hers were the softest and sweetest eyes imaginable, and one marvelled over and over again, how this singular combination of intellect, penetration, and sweetness, could exist--as exist it undoubtedly did.

  With it all, her prevailing expression was a look of absolute repose. I remember Lady Lush once saying to me--one of the best women that ever lived: whose life was devoted to good works--that she would give anything to possess my mother's calm expression. But Lady Lush's life was passed in activity, and in the bustle of the world my mother's to a great extent in the retirement of her study. Her health never permitted of anything else and even after a quiet but animated evening with friends, she would sometimes suffer from a fit of nervous exhaustion, which would feel to her almost like death itself.

  This calmness and serenity came from within. It seemed as if her whole life, with all its cares, responsibilities and joys, was taken to a higher Power and Refuge than any on earth, and there reposed in the security of perfect faith. This was, indeed, the case. She never spoke of these matters, but she was the living, breathing embodiment of the verse: "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."

  The head was well set upon the shoulders: a head perfect in form, small, except where the intellectual faculties were developed. Her complexion was dazzling, the most lovely bloom at all times contrasting with the brilliant whiteness of her skin. In hours of animation I have watched the delicate flush come and go a hundred times in as many minutes across her wonderful countenance; and, to record the simile once used by a friend in speaking to me of this peculiar beauty, "chasing each other like the rosy clouds of sunrise sweeping across a summer sky." She had a very keen sense of wit and humour.

  This strange beauty remained with her to the end! Even in hours of illness and suffering it never forsook her. Her face never lost its look of youth. It was absolutely without line or wrinkle or any mark or sign of age. She kept to the last the complexion and freshness of a young girl: that strange radiancy which seemed the reflection of some unseen glory. This was so great that to the last we were unable to realise that death could come to her.

  I fear this may sound very like exaggeration, but many living friends will bear witness that it only falls short of the facts. I have said that these simple records would have come more appropriately from some other hand than mine; but as mine is the task, I can only do it to the best of my ability, and with absolute truth. I cannot do less than justice to her who for so many years was unto us as a fortress firm and sure; whose wisdom was unfailing; whose love was boundless; who would never at any moment have hesitated to lay down her life for those she loved, had the trial been demanded of her whose loss is as the withdrawing of the sun from our sky, the life and beauty of all that was to us most sacred and most dear.

  The description lately given of her by an unknown writer,: who yet must have met her, is as true as anything that could be written of her: "You can almost see the spirit itself of Mrs. Henry Wood shining through the frail, I had almost said diaphanous, body and exquisite face; and the sight only rivets and charms one more and more; for she possesses a sparkling intellect and a heart of gold."

IT is said of most literary people that they are not domesticated. My mother was eminently so. Her household was perfectly ruled; the most complete order and system reigned. Her servants were expected to do their duties without any interference. It was the rarest thing for any servant to leave her. She never omitted, morning by morning, to have an interview with her housekeeper; when the orders were given for the day, down to the smallest item concerning luncheon or dinner. Punctuality was a strict rule of the house: everything was ready to the moment ordered. There was no effort, no jarring, no ruling except by quiet, firm influence. The complaints about domestics so often heard in these days were never heard in my mother's house, and never existed.

  She was a very early riser. Punctually at seven o'clock, summer and winter, her maid went into her room, drew up the blinds, and she rose immediately after. A few minutes after eight, she went into her study, where she invariably breakfasted alone, never coming down, except upon very special occasions, until one o'clock, when her work was over for the day.

  Of her benevolence, perhaps a few words may be recorded. Her, charity was unbounded. It might be said of her: "She stretcheth out her hands to the poor; yea she reacheth forth her hand to the needy." Her pensioners were many. No one ever applied to her in vain if they were found worthy. She gave away many hundred's a year, yet always with discretion. Very much was done in secret, and all was done, as all else in her life, unobtrusively. Her sympathy with suffering and sorrow was profound.

  But we have not quite done with her girlhood.

  From the age of thirteen to seventeen my mother's life may be said to have been spent on her reclining board and couch. No doubt this greatly tended to bend her mind in the direction it took; just as Scott's long illness about the same age strengthened and developed all his own powers of romance. No doubt, also, it gave her that matured habit of thought and calm, sound judgment for which in after life she was distinguished. Her imagination grew with her growth and her reading, but so did her good sense. Considering the occupation of her life, and her constant exercise of the gift of ideality, the common sense she exercised on all possible occasions was, as singular as it was remarkable.

  At the age of seventeen the curvature of the spine became confirmed and settled. She was pronounced cured. That is to say, she ceased to suffer. Nothing more could be done. It was no longer necessary to be always reclining. In earlier life very little amiss was, to be seen with the figure, except that she remained small and short, her height not exceeding five feet two. But, the spine excepted, she was so perfectly formed that her movements were at all times full of grace and dignity. Her constitution was remarkably sound, but the body henceforth was to be frail, delicate, absolutely without muscular power. She could at no time raise an ordinary weight, or ever carry anything heavier than a small book or a parasol.

  Whether this weakness of the spine had anything to do with the fall when she was thrown over the hedge by Mrs. Tipton, the house-keeper: or whether it was a certain weakness born with her, and which had to develop itself in any case: or whether the strength and activity of the brain overpowered the weaker body: this can never be known. In any case it was to be.

  I think it was probably due to the latter cause, for many writers have suffered in a similar manner. It was once said to me by one who knew all three, that if you followed Miss Mitford, Mrs. Barrett Browning, and Mrs. Henry Wood down a street, walking side by side, you could scarcely tell one from the other, so much were their figures alike.

  Another, who at this moment occurs to me, was Julia Kavanagh. She has told me that in early life she suffered exactly as my mother had suffered; but she was even smaller and shorter, and the mischief in her case was more evident. She, too, had large, beautiful brown eyes, with a singular softness and sweetness about them, through which one saw shining the spirit of purity and devotion.

  There is no doubt that the cultivation of the intellect is often purchased at the expense of muscular power. The constitution may remain vigorous, but whatever is done or accomplished in life has to be done through the brain. Bodily toil or exertion becomes impossible.

  With my mother the frailty of the body was so pronounced that every word of "East Lynne" was written in a reclining chair with her manuscript paper upon her knees.

WHEN about twenty years of age, trouble came to her home. Trouble not from within but from without. Not the overwhelming disasters that overtook many households, but sufficient to make a marked change in her life.

  It was about this time that Huskisson, with the desire for "Free Trade" which has since characterised a certain number of English statesmen, opened the British ports for the introduction of foreign goods.

  The immediate effect upon the English glove manufacturers was disastrous. Men of limited works and means were ruined and disappeared for ever. Those who could weather the storm did so at immense sacrifices.

  Amongst these was Mr. Price. Ever thoughtful and considerate for others, and especially so for those beneath him or dependent upon him, though he employed a very large number of workpeople. he would not discharge one of them. For long the remained absolutely idle. It was generally supposed that when the evil wrought came to be realised, the ports would he closed again. For years manufacturers went on hoping against hope. In this and other ways for many weeks, week after week, and week by week, Mr. Price lost each week what to many would have been a large fortune.

  Matters were growing serious. Thousands of working men and women were thrown out of work; thousands were starving. Huskisson saw the mistake he had made when it was too late. The mischief was done; the evil had fallen. Ruined masters could not be reinstated : the thousands of operatives had scattered over the land: or had found other occupation: or had died of want and despair.

  Mr. Price felt the blow equally with others, but, thanks to private resources, he was by no means ruined. Had he retired at once, he might have done so with wealth and honour. Probably, he too, thought that when those who had done this mischief saw the evil they had brought upon the land, they would do their best to correct it. It is in human nature to go on hoping against hope. It was a very forlorn hope in this instance. The Bill had passed, the deed was done. The evil came to the few, as was predicted by the very men who wrought it; but it came to the many also; whilst the benefits. that were to follow to the millions were never traced.

  Chiefly for his workpeople Mr. Price had kept on. He saw misery and ruin, distress and famine around him; as far as he was able, his own people should be spared. But he paid a great price for all this upright dealing and noble conduct. Though even now it was not absolutely necessary, yet he thought it right to diminish his household and his expenditure, and to continue life in a much simpler manner than that to which he had been born and bred.

  Probably very few living remember the devastation and ruin worked at this time in many of the manufacturing towns of England. But, as in "Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles," Mrs. Henry Wood has given a detailed description of the manufactories, their ways, and works; so in "Mildred Arkell," and especially in the chapter headed A City's Desolation, she has recorded the misery and despair that fell upon so many parts of England on this opening of the British ports.

  The wealth Mr. Price then lost he never recovered. All had not gone. He was fortunately a man of sufficient property, and enjoyed an easy competence to the last; but this was all very different from what it once had been.

THE next change in my mother's life was her marriage with Mr. Henry Wood, who was at the head of a large shipping and banking firm abroad. He was also for some time in the consular service, and it was said by Lord Palmerston in his later days that he had never, in all his experience, received such clear and satisfactory documents and reports as those invariably sent in by Mr. Henry Wood. He retired early into private life, and died, comparatively speaking, a young man.

  It was a singular coincidence that he was somewhat nearly related to one who bore his name, and was for many years Canon of Worcester Cathedral, and who died only last year full of age and honour.

  Another coincidence was, that in marrying Miss Price he was. marrying into an old family name, though they were in no way, related. He was heir to a considerable property left to the family, by an ancestor named Price, who in 1741 went out as Governor of Surat. He died in 1780, leaving property, which, unclaimed by his family, remained in the hands of the East India Company until it passed over to the Government. There it still remains, to enable my father's descendants to indulge in Aladdin-like visions of wealth and airy castles, from which perhaps they derive as much pleasure as if they possessed them in reality.

  My father, though a man of great intellectual power, possessed a very different cast of mind from that of his wife. He was almost devoid of imagination. Novels he scarcely ever read; poetry he would not look at; but abstruse books of science were his delight. Yet in social life he was the gayest of the gay.

  He had a great gift for languages, and those he had mastered he spoke fluently. No Frenchman hearing him speak French for the first time would believe that he was English. This, in the most delicate and therefore difficult of European tongues, was a great test. To his children it came naturally, as their mother tongue; with him it was acquired, and therefore the greater merit. He was a first- rate public speaker, and a great politician on the Conservative side.

  He possessed another gift also-that of Medicine; loving it for its own sake. Out of pure admiration for the work and science, he walked the hospitals of London, performed operations, went through the whole curriculum. And this not with any idea of practising--he never did practise, and never intended to do so--but from absolute devotion to the art. He was a great friend of the late Sir William Lawrence; who, indeed, in the only illness he was ever known to have until his last and fatal illness, saved his life. He had the strength of a man with the tenderness of a woman.

  I have said that he never practised, but I ought to make one exception, As long as he lived, we never needed a doctor, never had one. He was all-sufficient; and through all the illnesses to which childhood is heir, he brought us to safe and speedy convalescence. This was twice fortunate for us, who were living abroad, and must otherwise have been at the mercy of foreign physicians. These as often kill as cure. It is only the French surgeons who excel in skill.

  It was, indeed, the fatal treatment of a French doctor which determined him to take matters henceforth into his own hands.

  At that time two children had been born to him: his eldest son, Henry, named after himself, and a daughter, Ellen, named after her, mother. The little girl was seized with scarlet fever, and my father, then a young man, feared to take so much responsibility upon himself. He was devoted to his children, but especially so to his little daughter. I have heard her described as a very sweet child, and people frequently said she was too good to live. Their prophecies proved only too true.

  The doctors treated her as they always treated the malady in those days. They first of all starved her, and when she was sinking from exhaustion applied leeches to the throat. The faithful nurse, who was then a member of the household, has ever since belonged to us, and been looked upon as a firm friend of the family, protested in vain.

  "Monsieur," she cried to her master, distractedly raising her hands in agonies of despair, "do not allow it. If this thing is done and the leeches are applied, I tell you the child will die."

  They were applied; the little throat closed up, and the child died. For long the sorrow of the father was such, it was feared that he would die also. The faithful nurse was almost equally affected. She was one of those strong and determined characters who will have their own way in everything; the under nurses had to obey her every look, and even the mother's authority in her nursery was not absolute.

  She was as tenacious in her affections as she was strong in character. None but herself was allowed to perform the last sad offices for the pure and beautiful little creature who had gone to a better world. With her own hands she placed her in her little coffin, watched over it night and day, until the little body was consigned to the earth, and hidden away for ever from mortal eyes.

  But my father had had enough of French doctors. The day his little girl died, his son was taken ill with the fever. "This," he said, sadly, "shall now be my care; come what may I will have no more French doctors in the house." And in a fortnight the little fellow was well again and running about.

  Years afterwards, when another little daughter was bom to them, my father--who regarded his wife as a woman far above rubies; and who thought to the end of his life the world contained none like her--again insisted that the name Ellen should be repeated.

  His wife, whose vivid imagination perhaps inclined her to be slightly superstitious, hesitated: a compromise was eventually agreed upon by the addition of the name of Mary: and Ellen Mary she was accordingly christened. Had he been blessed with twelve daughters instead of two, I believe that every one of them, amongst other names, would have borne that of Ellen.

  The name exactly suited my mother: soft, liquid, flowing easily. It expressed her own gentle, quiet nature. So much gentle softness was perhaps never before united to so much vigour of mind.

  Amongst the many charms that characterised her was a very rare one. She had little ear for music, 110 voice whatever for singing; but in speaking her voice was music itself. Sweet and low, clear and distinct, it was like a silver bell in the house, like the softest flute. Those who heard it once, never forgot it. By reason of its beauty, it rang in your ears long after you had passed out of her presence. It rings in mine as I write, where it will ring for ever. No music in heaven will be sweeter: no face will he fairer.

  "The sound of a voice that is still," can scarcely be applied in this instance. Her voice and her presence do not seem to be withdrawn. It is impossible to pass her room and believe that she is no longer there. Such presence and influence as hers do not cease with death. It was sufficient if she were only in the house: a subtle, impalpable something told you that it was so, even though unseen: and it was light and life to those about her. With her amongst us we were lifted at once far above the ordinary conditions of everyday existence.

AFTER her marriage, Mrs. Henry Wood went abroad, and England for many years ceased to be her home. It was a great change of life and atmosphere for the young girl, who, until now, had known only the quiet and retirement of a Cathedral city, had consorted with its grave clergy: years of which life, moreover, had been passed on a reclining board and a couch, from which she was seldom permitted to stir.

  At first, I have heard her say, she did not like the change, though he went to a beautiful home, and was surrounded by all that wealth could supply or affection dictate. But her mind was unusually faithful to old impressions, singularly tenacious, and many elements dear to her in the old life were wanting in the new.

  She mixed in a different social atmosphere. The gravity and dignity of a cathedral city were exchanged for the gaiety and sparkle that distinguish so many French towns. The language, too, was foreign. Though she had studied French, she could not speak it. In time she came to do so as fluently as English, but that was only in after years.

  The cathedral itself was a very great loss to her. She missed the beautiful services; the quiet dignity and solemnity with which everything was done there; the chanting of the prayers, the influence of the building itself, and the beauty of the great east window, so often alluded to in her works.

  To the end she delighted in rich colours, and it was ever her pleasure to blend them about her in her sitting-rooms. For hours she would sit in her drawing-room watching the prismatic reflections thrown from a crystal upon an opposite wall, whilst plots and ideas for her works would flash through her brain with strange ease and fertility.

  But as time went on she grew reconciled to the change, and in the end very much liked her Continental life, and looked back upon it as upon very happy days.

  She had another great source of pleasure. She always slept well, but she dreamed constantly, and it was ever the greatest delight to her to recall her dreams. The remembrance of them did not pass away, as they do with most people. She would dream whole con- secutive histories; she was ever wandering in the loveliest realms, amongst the sweetest flowers. These dreams never forsook her throughout life. In her very last days when waking out of sleep, she would say to those about her how beautiful her dreams had been.

  No wonder. Her imagination was continually exercised. Her spirit was pure and lovely above any we ever knew; her face was the reflection of every beauty and every virtue; her waking thoughts were, ever full of compassion and consideration for others. An unkindly thought never entered her heart; an unkindly or uncharitable word was never heard upon her lips.

  Whilst very rarely giving expression to her emotions--she was, indeed, in these matters, singularly reticent and self-contained--love and compassion were the key-notes of her life. It is a fact that she was never known to make an enemy. Every one who knew her agreed in loving and praising her. It could not have been otherwise. Her very sweetness disarmed all antagonism. The weaknesses of her sex seemed to have passed her by. Faithful friend, charming and intellectual companion, she yet never for a moment indulged in frivolous chatter and gossip; and such was her unconscious influence that scandal was never mentioned before her.

  There was of course one great reason for all this personal influence and beauty of living. She was, in a quiet, unostentatious way, one of the most religious and devout women that ever lived. She had a firm, unwavering faith. Her heart at all times seemed fixed upon the things unseen rather than upon the things of earth. Her whole life was one long, silent sermon, one unbroken example of the strength and truth of religion. Her unspoken text in life was: "In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths." She absolutely lived up to it. And in response came the promise ever fulfilled in her case: "Them that honour Me, I will honour."

  But it was all done in the most unobtrusive manner; not with the desire of reading a lesson to others, or of being a pattern. Nothing was ever farther from her mind. It was part of her nature; it was hersel She had one model before her; one Master to serve; and she ever looked upwards.

  Only in this manner can such a life as hers be lived. Otherwise, all the disturbing elements of earth would inevitably come in and trouble the harmony of the whole, and constant failure would be the result. Human nature is at best imperfect; but as far as it was possible, hers was a perfect life.

  It was all lived in the quietest, calmest, most gentle manner. I have said that she never preached to others. Religion was never mentioned by her. It was far too sacred a thing to be made a topic of conversation. On rare occasions, when it became her absolute duty to speak, her words were few, but impressive with the rare power of earnestness and conviction. She never wearied even her children with lengthened sittings and difficult tasks: but she never omitted to have them with her morning after morning; and if the beautiful face and voice, and the earnest tone and manner, failed in their mission, it must be that there could be no power in any earthly influence.

  It seems to me right to insist upon this, the highest and best of all her gifts, because it has been too often the case that where great powers of the imagination have existed, the higher spiritual gifts have been absent from their possessors.

  It was also the unobtrusiveness of my mother's spiritual life that gave it so much power. She persuaded and conquered: by the force of example alone. She was followed, yet she never commanded or dictated.

  Her unswerving faith never failed her to the last. It was not likely to do so. She bore many weeks of great suffering without a murmur, never losing her serenity, her brightness; that calm, trusting glance, which ever spoke of a Peace not of this world; and she saw the last dread hour approaching with a heroism that cannot be told, a full, firm faith and reliance upon Him in whom she had trusted. Whilst those about her, and near and dear to her, had sometimes to hasten from the room to conceal the emotion it was not always possible to control, her eye remained undimmed, her calmness never forsook her.

TO go back for a moment to the earlier days of her married life.

  I have said that the change from a cathedral city to a Continental town was a great one. Many old influences dear to her disappeared for ever. Above all, the companionship of her father, his culti- vated mind. and constant influence. They had been everything to each other. The Times, in reviewing "East Lynne," said they had never yet met with any female author possessing her exceptional power for depicting men, especially noble men; and there is no doubt the great model she frequently set before her was the father with whom her most impressionable years had been passed.

  One other man had great influence upon her life: Dr. Murray, who was then Dean of Worcester and at the same time Bishop of Rochester. He was perhaps the handsomest and most dignified man who ever wore bishop's robes, and he was dignified and influential in all his domestic relations.

  From all this she was transferred to France, with its blue skies and balmy atmosphere. But the climate did not always suit her. Her delicate frame could never bear great heat, which affected her nervous system in a very peculiar manner.

  Depression of mind was unknown to her: but in the extreme heat of summer, she could only sit or recline, clad in thin gauze or muslin, and there was ever upon her a weight of some great impending evil or calamity. Had it been her fate to go out to such a climate as that of India, for instance, there is no doubt that she would soon have died.

  Once, in the South of France, she was nearly overtaken by a great misfortune.

  She was much tormented by gnats, and these troublesome insects, one summer, so affected her left hand, that fears were entertained for the result. A consultation of surgeons ended in a divided opinion as to the necessity for taking the hand off, and for some time it seemed that she must lose it. One of the doctors, however, held out, and in the end it was saved, and she perfectly recovered. She had the most perfect hands and arms almost ever seen: the whitest, most delicate, most fragile, and most beautiful.

  In her married life, my mother, like everyone else in this world, had many troubles and trials. Some of them, indeed, were singularly great and overwhelming: and it may be said that her character was made perfect through suffering.

  My father, an intellectual and talented man, might have risen to any distinction in the world, and ought to have died the possessor of great wealth. His income at the time of his marriage, numbered many thousands a year. Everyone fell under the charm of his manner and conversation. In every assembly he was the leading spirit. But he had one fault. He wanted the solidity of character and earnest steadfastness of purpose which so eminently distinguished his wife.

  Up to the time of his retirement he had been a man of the rarest activity and energy. He was ever ready to do everything for everyone, but, alas, seldom thought of himself. One or two of the great railways in France owed their final consolidation to his wonderful financial and organising powers, and his singular conviction of success in all he undertook. He possessed a temperament sanguine to a fault, but it sometimes enabled him to triumph where others would have failed.

  Whilst my mother was a great reader of countenance, my father was absolutely devoid of the faculty. He believed in everyone. The simplest tale would impose upon him. He was generous to recklessness, and whether a friend came to him to borrow twenty pounds or two thousand, it is simply a fact that he had only to ask and to have the larger sum just as readily as the smaller.

  The consequence was that no one was so popular, and no one's goodness was so much abused.

  This is rather a fatal gift for going through life, and my father's wealth rapidly diminished. Before very many years were over he saw that, in spite of his undoubted powers, he was really unfit for active life; he retired, and, in 1866, died, comparatively speaking, a young man.

  Shortly before this they had returned to England. For some years my mother had taken up her pen, and, month after month, had contributed stories to Bentley's Miscellany, and Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. These magazines were then the property of William Harrison Ainsworth. My mother's stories appeared anonymously, but attracted much attention; and there is no doubt that they, in conjunction with the charming and admirable essays of William Francis Ainsworth, kept the magazines from extinction--a fate, I believe, they eventually suffered.

  One anecdote may here be given in reference to these stories. My father and mother had come over to England for a short visit, and were staying at a private hotel in Dover Street, Piccadilly, where they happened to make the acquaintance of some charming people--a lady and gentleman who were staying there at the same time.

  At this period my mother was writing a series of letters supposed to be written by a young officer out in the Crimea. They were called "Ensign Tom Pepper's Letters from the Seat of War."

  One morning the lady in question mentioned to my mother that her husband had gone out for a magazine. "He is deeply interested in some letters that are appearing in Colburn's New Monthly," she said, "and can scarcely wait patiently from one month to another. We are both certain they are genuine," she added, emphatically.

  My mother, who seldom spoke of her writing to her most intimate, friends, and never at all to strange could not help laughing at the singular situation; and great was their astonishment at finding that the author of those masculine and realistic letters was none other than the calm, gentle, refined lady whose acquaintance they had so recently made.

BUT my pen has carried me beyond its limits, and I cannot here enter upon my mother's new life, which began with her literary career. This must be reserved for another paper, and for next month.

  I have very rapidly sketched some of the events of her earlier life. Later on, and not for these pages, the picture may be filled in more elaborately.

  It is certain that the beauty of her life ought to be known, and could never be too widely circulated. Faithfully depicted, it could only have a lasting influence for good upon everyone who read it; for the faithful record of one good life is above the power of all the sermons that ever were written.

  It may seem that I have exaggerated her charms and virtues; have made her too perfect a character. It is, indeed, difficult to write calmly and dispassionately about her. I repeat, again, how much I feel that the task should have been placed in other hands, had they existed. But they do not exist. I have nothing but praise to record; nothing else was possible in all the days of her life. I can only appeal to the "great cloud of witnesses" who knew her to bear me testimony that I have stayed my hand where I might have said much more.

  I have letters by me from great men, who declare that her influence upon them will follow them through life, and I feel that they have uttered no exaggeration; no mere form of words.

  A few weeks before the end, she was, and had been for long, in better health than usual. It has been stated that she was crippled with infirmities. Nothing could be more incorrect. She had scarcely left the house for two years, but she had kept perfectly well at home, bright and quietly animated as ever. She felt that she was growing weaker, and would sometimes say so, but there was no difference in her to reveal the hidden mischief.

  It was the curvature of the spine, dating back sixty years, that was to prove fatal now. This for two years had been getting worse, though none knew it. It was an inward curvature; and as it increased, it pressed upon the heart, and gradually prevented it from exercising its functions.

  On Christmas Day, 1886, she caught cold, and came down for the last time. No one dreamed of a fatal termination to her illness. But from that day until the end--February 10th--she suffered the intense agony of inability to breathe, and ever-growing weakness and weariness. This arose from the heart pressure.

  It was only at the beginning of February that those around her became seriously alarmed; and even then a consultation of doctors led to the hope that her life might still be spared.

  It was not to be. On the 10th of February, 1887, at about half-past three in the morning, with her hand in that of the writer she passed away: so gently, that none knew the exact moment when the summons came.

  Such is the loss to those who are left. If the whole universe were laid at their feet, it could in nothing fill the void created by a sorrow never to pass away, a silence never to be broken. For her, it may indeed be said with Jacob, "They, will go down mourning to the grave;" but that she was, and for what she was, they can only sing an everlasting song of thanksgiving. The 31st chapter of Proverbs in its description of a good woman is true to her throughout: and in Solomon's words--and I would that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever--"HER CHILDREN ARISE UP, AND CALL HER BLESSED."

IF last month my task was delicate and painful, it is almost more so in the present instance.

  Then I had to speak of one who had passed away from all earthly scenes and influence. If I had to praise, it could no longer affect her. If I had to declare the beauty of her perfect and spotless life, it could not reach her. We may call upon her name but she will not answer. The last sigh has been breathed, the last heart-beat is over, the beautiful eyes will be no more seen. For her, Death is swallowed up in Victory. The Cross has been borne, and the Crown is won. She has kept the Faith, she has finished her course, and henceforth there is laid up for her a treasure in the Heavens. But for those that remain, the path of life is darkened and made desolate.

  But to-day I have to speak also of her works, which exist as a legacy to her country, a memorial of herself. In referring to them, it will be impossible to do so without a certain praise, where praise is due. Again it would seem more appropriate to have come from some other hand, but again no other hand exists. Her works were so much a part of her life, she is so personally interwoven with her writings, that, in a memoir, the one cannot be separated from the other: allusion to the books brings constant reference to the writer.

  I trust, therefore, it may be felt that where I have praised, it is from no spirit of egotism. If in her works, my mother had risen to heights never before attained by man or woman, we should still have felt that she was herself immeasurably above all earthly fame and success. This, compared with her, was as nothing. Our pride and happiness was in herself. She sanctified the home she adorned. In her withdrawal a bright and shining light has gone out, leaving only the greater darkness for those who mourn. The silence and sorrow are deeper now than when the blow first fell, but this must ever be.

  As regards the writer, her presence to him is more real, her voice that soft and silvery voice-more audible than ever. The indescribable loveliness of her face is ever visible, with that earnest, intent gaze, that riveted and even dazzled by its charm. In the dark hours of the night, it is there; underlying life's daily work, it is there also. If withdrawn for a season by ordinary cares and responsibilities, by the passing influence of companionship, or the converse of a dose friend, it is only to flash back again more vividly than ever, on each return to solitude.

  Yet it must not be imagined that he would restore her again from the Crown she has won to the Cross of earth. King David said of his child: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me:" and in this lies all consolation. As a poet has lately written of her in words that are so true:

"Work done, toil over, sounds the curfew's knell,
  Comes Home and Welcome, folded hands and rest;
Sweet through the silence throbs the 'All is well:'
  And GOD'S OWN SLEEP has hushed the peaceful breast."

  An intimate friend and one of the most learned of divines, was wont to say: "Whatever of greatness or beauty or charm there is in Mrs. Henry Wood's heroines, she herself infinitely surpasses them all." And again he would add: "She had persuaded him into the belief that as there had been religious inspiration in the past, so there was secular inspiration also in the present." This was the opinion of one who had spent his life amongst princes, and had seen more of the world and human nature than most of his kind.

  It was all too true. And therefore I wish it to be realised that infinitely before and above all other considerations, we place HERSELF; her loveliness; the beauty of her life and character: that beauty of holiness which was pre-eminently hers: which remain as the one hope and consolation. If I seem occasionally to repeat myself, or to allude over and over again to certain of her distinguishing traits and virtues, it is that I wish to impress them upon the reader, and bring them vividly before him. Only by reiteration can this be done. We have to read a lesson ten times over before we know it by heart. Only thus can the reader be enabled, even in a slight degree, to see and know her as she was. If the rare beauty of her life is insisted upon, it is that it may be the more realised, for to some one or to some other it may perchance be a: help and an encouragement. There is so little to be seen of this perfect and unfailing CONSISTENCY. It is so rarely that we come upon one for whose sake we will hold the world GOOD. She is indeed of those who being dead yet speak. In the words of King Lemuel: "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." And again with St. Paul to Philemon:, "Thou wilt also do more than I say." For she rose far above all earthly limitations of what we call DUTY.

  These few words have seemed to me necessary. I think it may now be understood that any praise occurring in the following pages arises from the necessity of the case, a rendering of justice. At the present moment, to a spirit seeking rest and finding none, from a sense of a loss which neither time nor change can ever fill again, all praise, even the very highest, falls cold and lifeless under the pen. It can bring no relief except as fulfilling a part of its task; a rendering of honour to whom honour is due; the accomplishment of the work in hand.

IT was said of Mrs. Henry Wood, as it was once said of Lord Byron, that she awoke one morning to find herself famous. This was to a great extent true. Though East Lynne had been out some little time, had been unusually well reviewed, and was already popular, it was only the review in the Times that set the whole world talking and reading about it. This review also created such a demand for the book that Messrs. Spottiswoode set to work night and day to reprint it for Mr. Bentley, and one edition after another was quickly exhausted.

  Though only a young boy at the time, I remember that morning well. We were then in England, and my father, who, as already remarked, was a great politician, could scarcely have taken his breakfast without the help of his beloved Times. True, Parliament had not yet assembled, but it was about to do so, and the bugle notes were already sounding for battle.

  The paper happened to be a little late that morning, and we were already seated at the table when it was brought in. On taking it up, on the outer column of the page, the first thing that struck his eye was the heading "EAST LYNNE," followed by a long and glowing notice.

  "East Lynne," he remarked quietly, looking across at my mother. "The Times gives it a long review, this morning."

  I remember jumping up in wild excitement, and leaning over his shoulder whilst he read it through, not aloud, but silently. The calmest of the three present was the one most interested: the author of the book. I had looked at her when the circumstance was mentioned, and saw the flush of sudden emotion pass and repass, wavelike, over her beautiful face. She had been wondering whether the Times would review it; hoping it would do so; so much depended upon it. Yet, when it came, she received it, as she did all other things in life, whether for good or for ill, calmly and quietly: the calmness of very deep feeling. Though her anxiety to know what was said was as intense as her interest, she remained seated and asked no question, until my father, having read to the end, rose and handed the paper to her.

  "Forgive me," he then said. "I felt compelled to finish it, and fear I forgot that your interest in it must be even greater than mine."

  She took the paper from his hand with her very rare smile and glance, and read the review without remark: and no one could tell what was passing in her mind.

  In those days reviews were very different from reviews in these, and were much more powerful in their effect. A great review in the Times then made the fortune of a book and established the fame of its writer. This was no doubt chiefly due to the fact that the Times only gave exceptional reviews in very rare instances.

  It would not do so to-day: there are too many writers and too many books to be noticed.

  From a literary point of view, as well as from many other points, I think it may be said that the age is a little out of joint. Where one person wrote when East Lynne appeared, probably two or three hundred write now. In those days, and before them, writing was chiefly confined to those who felt within them "the sacred fire;" now it seems to be taken up as a profession, like Law, Physic, or the Church. This wholesale production, for some good reason we need not enter into here, seems generally rather fatal to the literature of a country.

  I have heard it said that the two great reviews of the latter half of the present century--great in the effects they produced—have been those of Adam Bede and East Lynne; causing these works to stand out above all others that have appeared.

  In the instance of East Lynne, the success has certainly been permanent. It is in greater demand now than when it first came out, and is even more popular. As a proof of this, it will not, I hope, seem invidious to record that, though the work has never been published under the price of six shillings, an edition never consists of less than ten thousand copies, and in most years the book has to be reprinted.

  I think there could scarcely be a greater test than this to lasting popularity, after a lapse of more than twenty-five years. Some two or three years ago, Mr. Bentley remarked to me that no book of modern times bad met with the success of East Lynne.

  It was my mother's first long work, but she had written much before it appeared.

FOR some years, whilst living abroad, she had every month, and month by month, contributed short stories to two of the leading periodicals of the day: Bentley's Miscellany and Colburn's New Monthly Magazine.

  At that time, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth was the proprietor of these magazines. For long my mother wrote without any remuneration: wrote out of love for her work, as Mr. Ainsworth made no return for the stories that were really keeping up his periodicals. At length, she declared her unwillingness to continue to send these contributions to him month after month and year after year, unless he made her some acknowledgment for them.

  Mr. Ainsworth then agreed to the payment of a small yearly sum: so small indeed that the original arrangement could scarcely be said to have been disturbed.

  His cousin, William Francis Ainsworth, was then part editor of these magazines, and to him all my mother's MSS. were forwarded, and most of the correspondence was carried on between them. This correspondence was ever of the most pleasant and cordial description. Mr. Francis Ainsworth was a traveller, a gentleman, a man of large sympathies, and was altogether possessed of a very different tone of mind from his cousin, Harrison Ainsworth. His acquaintance with my mother was almost limited to letters, for she was living abroad, and Francis Ainsworth had ceased to travel. But on the rare visits, my mother paid to England, she never failed to spend an afternoon or evening with Mr. and Mrs. Ainsworth at Hammersmith: visits which always left behind them a very agreeable recollection. On these occasions, Harrison Ainsworth was sometimes also a guest.

  In my previous paper, I have mentioned Mr. Francis Ainsworth's contributions to these magazines, in the form of essays and miscellaneous articles. On referring to them, I am surprised at their interest; the powers of memory and research they betrayed. They were too good to be buried in the pages of a magazine and thrown aside from month to month. These papers ought to have been republished in book form and given a permanent place on one's bookshelves; but I do not think this was ever done.

  On looking over some of Francis Ainsworth's old letters, I come upon the following passage in one of them. My mother had then been writing for some years for both magazines. The passage begins the letter:

"MY DEAR MRS. WOOD,--Whence comes this deep well of the imagination, that, the more you draw from it, the fresher and more sparkling becomes the pure water?"

  She several times wrote to Harrison Ainsworth, begging him to allow her to write a novel in place of these monthly stories; but he would not consent to the change.

  Let the reader conceive the tax and drain upon mind and imagination, of having to write, year after year, twenty-four short stories, each complete in itself, and of doing this for ten years before East Lynne was written. Then let him think of all the work that has followed East Lynne; the acknowledged work; the anonymous stories under the name of JOHNNY LUDLOW; the immense amount of anonymous literary work written in addition for the ARGOSY, that was never known and never will be known. When all this is considered, I think it will be admitted that a more fertile brain never existed; that she had more ideality, a far greater creative power for plot and dramatic situations than any other writer of her sex.

  The marvel is that the frail body was not worn out long before its time. But the intense activity and energy of mind, the fire of genius, which all true writers possess, triumphed over all weaknesses, and burnt on to the end with undiminished vigour. In her case, the flame was suddenly extinguished in its full light; it did not flicker and die out.

  Let us take "JOHNNY LUDLOW" as an example of her power and energy.

  For nearly twenty years, she has written these stories in rapid succession. The same thread runs through all. The same characters appear, disappear, and reappear upon the scene. The field was therefore limited to certain restrictions. Yet, to the very last, there was no falling off in vigour or interest, or in dramatic action. "Caramel Cottage," one of the very last, is also one of the best. The stories form a great crowd and company of people, each endowed with life, each standing out, separately and distinctly, from the other.

  Three long books, three series, have been republished from the ARGOSY; and enough material remains, published, or to be published, for three more series. Six series; equal to six long novels. Yet, much as she loved JOHNNY LUDLOW, and delighted in him; lived in the midst of this crowd of friends she had gathered about her, until their existence seemed to her a positive reality; she yet ever considered the writing of these papers as apart from her ordinary occupation--a rest and recreation from her other work.

  The brain never failed or grew exhausted. It was the body that at last conquered, and caused the pen to fall from the hand. The last time she ever took it up was to sign a cheque which another hand had been obliged to fill in. It was only two days before the end. She did it with her accustomed firmness and determination never to give in, never to yield. Nevertheless the hand was failing; and when the cheque was presented to the clerk at Herries' Bank, he remarked, after looking at it for some moments: Mrs. Henry Wood must indeed be very ill!"

  As a proof of her unfailing powers, I remember her saying to me, one day last year, with that sad intonation of the voice we all give to things departed and departing:

  "I could now sit down and compose a hundred plots, if I only had the strength to work them out."

  If she had had ten right hands in place of one, her brain would have found sufficient work for all. It has occasionally been said that she was helped in her work--even as it was said of Dumas, that he dictated his novels four or five at a time, and also adapted the work of young aspirants and brought it out as his own, openly and candidly. It is, perhaps, beneath one's dignity to allude to such an assertion or rumour in connection with Mrs. Henry Wood. After the record in last month's ARGOSY, if it has not quite missed its mark, it will be realised that she was incapable of anything but the strictest uprightness and integrity, carried out all through life, not only in the spirit but in the letter; in the very smallest actions as well as the greatest and most important. That a single line should ever have appeared under her name that was not absolutely her own work, would have been as impossible to her nature as for the sun to stand still in his course.

  She occasionally received offers of plots and materials from strangers, but these were ever politely declined; a refusal which sometimes created indignant surprise in those who had made the proposal. One applicant, I remember, wrote, in reply, her persuasion that Mrs. Henry Wood was the most jealous of living authors; with other remarks too insolent to be brought under Mrs. Henry Wood's notice. The letter fulfilled its destiny in the flames. But how far was such an assertion from the truth! No one ever rejoiced so much in the evidence of new and real talent. No one ever gave more encouragement to young writers, where she thought she discerned evidence of promise in the future. She was as destitute of jealousy as her pure and noble mind was free from all the meaner passions of mankind.

  Perhaps, therefore, I may here affirm that everything that ever appeared under Mrs. Henry Wood's name was her own; and, moreover, that every line of hers that ever appeared in print was written by her own untiring hand. That hand was so delicate that anything but the gentlest clasp would cause her pain for hours afterwards; yet no hand has ever been more industrious and indefatigable, and few hands have done as much work. She never in her life dictated a single word, and never employed an amanuensis even for the most ordinary note.

  For the rest, there is the internal evidence of her own books. Every writer of genius possesses a marked individuality impossible to reproduce; and I think the world might safely be challenged to write a single page of JOHNNY LUDLOW, for example, without the imitation being at once detected.

MANY persons have passed themselves off as Mrs. Henry Wood in private life, and occasionally the fact has been brought under my mother's notice. I remember, about five years ago, a lady, Mrs. C., coming up to her in great excitement and distress. She was an old friend, who had for my mother the greatest regard.

  The previous day, an acquaintance of Mrs. C.'s, not knowing that she was Mrs. Henry Wood's friend, declared to her that she wrote every word of Mrs. Henry Wood's books.

  Mrs. C. came up full of trouble. "Of course I knew it was a very wicked story, and an impossibility, but I was obliged to come and tell you," she exclaimed, speaking in the italics ladies are so fond of; and thereupon burst into tears. My mother, on the contrary, only met it with her usual calm smile, and assured Mrs. C. that such assertions could do harm to none but those who uttered them.

  On another occasion, an acquaintance--this time a person we knew well--was taking a mutual friend into dinner at a country-house in Shropshire. Unaware that the lady upon his arm was also a friend of ours, he boldly declared that he did most of the editing of the ARGOSY, and wrote quite half Mrs. Henry Wood's works. This gentleman is now in Holy Orders, and a country vicar, and one may charitably hope that he has repented of the error of his ways.

  On a third occasion, my sister was at a ball at Sir William Walker's, when her host brought up and introduced to her a gentleman for the next dance. At the same time, he made some playful allusion to her being Mrs. Henry Wood's daughter.

  When the dance was over, the young man went up very gravely to Sir William, and said: "That young lady cannot be genuine. She is not Mrs. Henry Wood's daughter at all. I know Mrs. Henry Wood, the author of East Lynne, quite well. She lives near my home in the country, and I often meet her. This young lady lives in London, and I can see plainly knows nothing about the real Mrs. Henry Wood."

  Sir William, a little annoyed, but also entertained, replied:

  "I can only assure you, sir, that whoever your Mrs. Henry Wood may be, she is not Mrs. Henry Wood, the author of East Lynne. I can further assure you, that the young lady with whom you have just been dancing is not here as my guest to-night under fictitious circumstances."

  Then leaving the young man in a state of confusion worse confounded, he went up to my sister, and with humour narrated the incident, laughingly advising her to enter an action against her late partner for defamation of character.

  One other occasion of misrepresentation m4y be recorded, but it was of a more serious nature.

  Some years ago, in the course of a trial at Scarborough, a witness under examination, and, therefore, under oath, declared that he was the author of the papers signed JOHNNY LUDLOW in the ARGOSY.

  This could not be passed over as the mere idle declarations of dishonourable men and women in private life. The lawyers conducting the case were advised that, unless the declaration so publicly made were as publicly denied, further steps would be taken.

  It was at once done. The author of the assertion wrote to the papers declaring that what he had stated was untrue, and that he had never written one word Of "JOHNNY LUDLOW." At the same time, he privately wrote a letter begging for mercy, which, I need not say, he received.

  My mother, during her lifetime, never troubled about such matters as these, but passed them over with her usual calmness as of no importance. Nor, indeed, were they. As I have already remarked, she ever seemed to dwell above and beyond the world, to possess an unseen source of strength, from which she gained absolute repose. Her life was never free from singular cares and troubles, but they never deprived her of her serenity; never for a moment disturbed her faith in the Divine love, the Divine ordering of all things for the best: a faith that grew with her years and bore so much fruit Trouble never hardened her heart, but opened it to Paradise. Whenever the hand of affliction was heaviest upon her, it only seemed the occasion for rising to greater heights of heroism. For a heroine she was, in the highest sense of the word.

WHILST perfectly aware of her own power, she was always very modest about her writings, and very retiring. In the years, when contributing to Bentley's and Colburn's Magazines, not under her own name, the subject was never mentioned by her. Her intimate friends knew that she wrote, but she never talked of her writings to them; whilst ordinary acquaintances perhaps found it out by accident, after a long period--often never found it out at all. And, in spite of the singularly bright face, sparkling with intellect; her calm and retiring manner was so full of repose, so little self-asserting; there was something so gentle in her clear voice and beautiful eyes, that you never guessed at the truth;, and the remark has often been made: "Mrs. Henry Wood is the last person I should have suspected of being a writer." She was indeed like the rose in appearance, but like the violet in nature : full of rare and hidden modesty and sweetness.

  And in all things, the opposite to a blue stocking. An acquaintance, who had never seen her, once remarked to me that they pictured her as a tall and severe woman, wearing blue spectacles. How different from the reality! Only this morning--April 2nd--I received a letter from one of her old friends in Paris, from which I translate the following passage:--

"I cannot believe that she is gone. It seems an impossibility. I see no change from twenty-five years ago, except in the widow's cap, and the style of dressing her hair. She appears to me to have remained as lovely to the end as when I first knew her. I have before me, as I write, those large, soft, beautiful brown eyes, ever so full of intelligence and frankness, ever beaming with kindly feeling. And now--all gone! Can it be true? What is to become of those who are left to mourn her?"

  Most of what was then written, she unfortunately destroyed. As the first juice of the grape is said to be sweetest, it is possible that those earlier writings might have contained at least the germs of excellent material for future use. One of these earlier productions, I have heard her say, was an historical five-act drama in blank verse. Every line of it was consigned to the flames in her shyness; and this she ever afterwards regretted.

I HAVE frequently been asked as to my mother's manner of writing her novels.

  She first composed her plot. Having decided upon the main idea, she would next divide it into the requisite number of chapters. Each chapter was then elaborated. Every incident in every chapter was thought out and recorded, from the first chapter to the last. She never changed her plots or incidents. Once thought out; her purpose became fixed, and was never turned aside for any fresh departure or emergency that might arise in the development of the story. The drama had then become to her as real as if it had actually existed. Every minute detail of the plot was written out before a line of the story was begun. All was so elaborately sketched that anyone with sufficient power would have had no difficulty in writing the story with the plot in possession. The only difference would have been the evidence of another hand.

  The plot of each novel occupied a good many pages of close, though not small, writing. It would take her, generally speaking, about three weeks to think it out from beginning to end. During those times, she could not bear the slightest interruption. But I have occasionally gone into her study, though never without being startled, almost awed, by the look upon her face. She would be at all times in a reclining chair, her paper upon her knees; and the expression of her eyes, large, wide-opened, was so intense and absorbed, so far away, it seemed as if the spirit had wandered into some distant realm and had to be brought back to its tenement before the matter suddenly placed before her could be attended to. It, indeed, took many moments to recall her attention, elsewhere concentrated.

  Only on rare or important occasions was such an intrusion even permitted; for the thread of her ideas once broken could very, seldom be resumed the same day; and, as she never wrote a line of anything when composing a plot, she would consider that her day had been partly lost or wasted.

  Yet her sweet face never showed sign of vexation, and her sweet voice gave no word of regret or reproof.

  The ability to draw out her plots so minutely and elaborately gave her immense power in writing. Morning after morning, when she had begun upon the story itself, she had only to consult her papers to see what her work for the day must be. The whole subject was at once grasped, and stood visibly before her, as if she were actually looking upon a diorama.

  It also enabled her to see clearly the end of her story from the beginning. It prevented her from making any contradictions, or omissions, or mistakes. It avoided all unnecessary crowding or hurrying at the end. Everything was gradually led up to; every incident, main or secondary, received its appointed place and space. No character was left forgotten or undeveloped. Yet in her novels it is impossible to say that there is anything mechanical in the manner in which they are worked out. The story, on the contrary, flows onward like a drama of real life; and one incident leads up to another as naturally as if all were the result of accident and not design.

  It also enabled her to take the greatest interest in her story and in her characters. She believed in them, realised them, looked upon them as living people. To her they had as much an existence as her own friends. They were her friends. She lived an ideal life amongst them. Nothing was more real to her than her work--the people, histories and realms she created. In this lay one great secret of her power. Nothing gave her greater delight than writing.

  A friend, who lunched with her not many months ago--almost her greatest and oldest friend--remarked as they met:

  "How fresh and bright you look! And yet you have been writing since half-past eight o'clock! How weary you must be!"

  "Weary!" returned my mother. "I am never weary of writing. If you only knew the intense delight it is to me!"

  Another friend--in this instance a celebrated writer--one day remarked to her:

  "I shall be very glad when my work is done. There will be no writing of books in Heaven--at least, I hope not."

  "I cannot enter into your feeling," returned my mother. "If I thought that writing books would be one of my occupations in Heaven, it would give me nothing but the most intense pleasure."

  For if anyone has genius for a particular work, it cannot be exercised without a rare pleasure. This is especially true of those who create. The intense delight of feeling that but for you the world would have been poorer than it is: that you have given rise to and filled a distinct need. Perhaps this is one reason why genius is almost always modest. It recognises its high end and calling, and reverences the power it feels within itself.

  As a child, my mother would write and compose stories, though no one else ever saw a line of them. When finished they were consigned to the flames. Like all youthful efforts probably this was the best place for them. I believe she would almost as readily have died as have shown one of them even to her father--for she inherited not only the modesty of genius but its shyness. Even as a young girl, they were a great delight to her, and no doubt a great resource. When reclining upon her couch, day after day, and year after year, they must have brightened many an hour that might otherwise have proved long and weary. There was a hidden spring within her that none knew of: far beyond and above reading and study; for the advanced mind must even then have felt its gift and power. Even her governess, whom she ever liked and valued, and who took the greatest pride and interest in those works which had appeared before she died, was never admitted into the secret of this inexhaustible well: there was no familiar council as to what should be the destiny of this knight or that heroine. Self reliance, which served her in such stead in after life, seemed to have begun even in those early days.

  I have heard my mother say that she never hesitated but once in composing any plot: that was when writing out East Lynne. I now forget which she told me was the point in question, but it was a leading situation in the story. It caused her a great deal of deliberation. "And in the end," she added, "I decided rightly." It is certainly difficult to see , how the plot of East Lynne could be improved or altered for the better. It overflows with dramatic action; everything indeed fits into its place as exactly as the different sections of a puzzle; and the slightest alteration would seem to interfere with the thread and flow of the narrative.

  A gentleman told me not long ago that a friend of his in America was complaining of blunted feelings. "Nothing moves me," he said, "as it once did. I can neither cry nor laugh when others do, or get up any sort of excitement."

  "Come with me," said his friend; and he took him to see East Lynne, with which, like the rest of the audience, he was much affected.

  "I don't quite see your excessive insensibility," remarked his friend, as they left the theatre together.

  "You have given me great relief," he returned. "I thought my feelings were dead, but to-night I have found them as much alive as ever."

MRS. HENRY WOOD was a very rapid writer. She hardly ever paused or hesitated for a word or an idea. Her thoughts flashed more quickly than the pen could record them. Up to the time of writing East Lynne she had been in the habit of copying everything she wrote. But East Lynne, partly on account of severe illness, was sent off to press as it was written: and from that time she never copied again.

  Her manuscripts were exceedingly legible, clear as print; there was scarcely ever a correction or an erasure from beginning to end; until quite the last years of her life, when she began to find that she was writing less quickly and fluently than of old. Printers were delighted to have her copy, and declared that none other was so good. To the workmen who have to decipher MS., and who are paid by the amount of work they get through and not by time, they must have been still more acceptable.

  I have mentioned her remarkable memory. She could recall every line and every expression she had written; and if, in correcting a number of the ARGOSY for press, a single word or expression of her own had been altered, perhaps to get in a line at the end, she never failed to discover it, and to ask a reason for the change. This was so invariably the case, that the printers never ventured upon the alteration even of an evident oversight, the change of a word or a comma, without first submitting it to her as a query.

  When George Canterbury's Will was coming out--one of the best and most powerful of her works--after the MS. had gone in, she wished a slight change made in it. Time pressed, and it was necessary that some one should call at the printers'. I undertook to do this, if the rest could be managed. She indicated the nature of the passage, the very number of the page on which it would be found, and on what part of the page. Then writing out the fresh matter, which amounted to fifteen or twenty lines, she gave it to me.

  All was found exactly as described, the new matter was substituted for the old, and the thing was done. But I thought then, as I do now, that it was a singular proof of the power of memory. That same morning, I called upon the publishers, and mentioned the circumstance to them. I remember their surprise and remark. "Here," they said, "is not only the test of a remarkable memory, but also of a true writer: one who evidently takes the deepest interest in her work."

  It was about this time that we discovered one of the boldest frauds of its kind perhaps ever attempted.

  Messrs. Savill and Edwards--who were blameless in the matter--were printing a penny weekly paper, which was being issued from some House in the Strand. A writer, whose name was well known, conceived the idea of taking East Lynne, and bringing it out in this penny paper. The proprietors and editors of course knew of the fraud; the printers, no doubt, did not. The title of the book was changed and the name of every character; but, with that exception, it was word for word East Lynne.

  My mother's solicitors, Messrs. Ashurst and Morris, at once wrote to Messrs. Savill and Edwards, stating that if it were not at once stopped, and the story discontinued, an injunction would be applied for.

  Messrs. Savill and Edwards replied that they had no idea of what had been going on, and much regretted the circumstance. Not only was the story discontinued, but another number of the paper itself never afterwards appeared.

  The circumstance might never have been discovered--for the paper was not one at all likely to be brought under notice--but for the kindness of a young journeyman printer, who wrote to the author through Messrs. Bentley, disclosing what was going on.

  By some strange mischance, his letter was accidentally mislaid or destroyed; we lost all clue to his name and address, and were never able to thank him for the service he had rendered. I fear he must have thought us less grateful than we were. If these lines should ever come under his eye, I should be glad if he would write to me, that I might return him very late but very sincere thanks for his goodness. He cannot have forgotten the circumstance. The thrilling title chosen to replace East Lynne, was How could she do it? by the author of The Black Angel. I fear the author of The Black Angel had not very far to seek for a type of his hero. The story was arrested at, I think, the fourth chapter.

I HAVE remarked how intensely my mother enjoyed writing her own stories: and she would read and re-read them every few years, with as much pleasure as when they first appeared. In a letter received only this morning--April 2nd--from my friend Canon McCormick, he begs me to do justice to her sense of humour: "not only as seen in her books, but as manifested in life: the keenness and quickness with which she saw the point of a good joke."

  In writing her novels, there were days when she could scarcely do so for laughter. Over and over again her pen had to be laid down, until the fit had passed, only very shortly to give place to another. As a boy, I have often watched the tears of merriment--which so often were also tears of sorrow--raining from her beautiful eyes as she wrote. I alone was privileged to be with her on those occasions, for I happened to be a quiet lad and never disturbed her; with a favourite book, I would sit for hours without moving. Others, still in the nursery, were too loud and restless with the high spirits that are so good and so much more natural to childhood and youth, to be admitted into this sanctum of thought and work. I was scarcely ever absent from her: and can never forget those tears of mirth and of sorrow, that gentle flow of wonderfully sweet and silvery laughter, which so often set my childish mind wondering.

  The extremes of mirth and sorrow are often united, and he who is keenly sensible to the one will be as easily moved by the other.

  It was so in my mother's case; and it shows itself in her books: in none more so, perhaps, than in the alternate fun and pathos underlying her JOHNNY LUDLOW stories. In these, you are as quickly moved to tears as to laughter: and as quickly to laughter as to tears. And sometimes the two emotions are so mingled that you scarcely know which preponderates, or which to give way to.

  It was so in life. No one entered more keenly into a good story of fun and humour. Her eyes would sparkle, her sweet laughter would I be long and low and clear, her face would overflow with the flushes of animation. Then, when all was over, her countenance would settle down again into that look of repose which was so seldom absent; which was neither apathy nor indifference nor want of energy, but simply, suggestive of absolute rest.

IT was not often that my mother took tip any social topic of the day, but, if she did so, her keen insight into the hidden motives of human nature, her common sense, the clearness of her judgment, and her vigorous mind went straight to the root of the matter. Often there came to her a proof of this, and, on two occasions, they were nearly parallel cases.

  The first was in connection with Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. Mrs. Henry Wood at that time was writing stories that touched upon certain religious topics, and a danger that seemed threatening to England. The stories were written with great force, and went to the root of the evil, pointing out all its subtlety and danger. After a time, a deputation, interested in the dangers exposed, waited upon Mr. Francis Ainsworth and demanded the name of the author. If this were withheld, all sorts of penalties and punishments were to ensue, beginning with the blowing up of the Houses of Parliament, and ending with death and destruction to Mr. Ainsworth himself.

   The name, of course, was withheld. And the Houses of Parliament are still standing and Mr. Francis Ainsworth, I am happy to say, is still alive.

  The incident caused him and my mother much amusement at the time, and some lively correspondence passed between them. It occurred in the days when she was still abroad.

  The second occasion happened when A Life's Secret was passing through one of the magazines of the Religious Tract Society. This work touches upon the evils of Strikes and Trade Unions. They were then very far from being the power they are now, but my mother clearly divined the evil they would become to the country if not checked. She foresaw that the greatest trouble would fall upon the working-men, who could not see this for themselves; whose minds, like their lives, dated only from day to day.

  The subject was vividly handled, the dangers were exposed in the course of the story: a far more effectual way of bringing anything home to people's minds than by the mere writing of essays or pamphlets, which seldom have any lasting result. Any subject dramatically placed before people; worked out in the lives of men and women, with a realism which suggests fact rather than fiction; reads a lesson that can only be set aside or ignored.

  It was so with A Life's Secret. Those most concerned in Strikes and Trade Unions, most active in fanning the rising flame and spreading it over the country, demanded the name of this writer, who thus exposed hidden and interested motives, and prophesied evils to come. The House in Paternoster Row was mobbed, and the windows were threatened with destruction if the name were not given.

  But it was not given; and the mob no doubt thought better of their threat, and spared the windows.

  That was many years ago now, and the evils prophesied in A Life's Secret have not tarried.

IT has been said that nearly all Mrs. Henry Wood's works were written with a purpose. Yet nothing can be more mistaken. Her purpose was to interest and amuse her readers. At the same time, she always endeavoured, as far as possible, to elevate them; to raise the standard of morality; to set forth the doctrine of good and evil; to point out the two paths in life, and the consequences that must follow the adoption of either.

  No other mode of writing would have been possible in one who herself so strictly and undeviatingly followed the right path; who would never have turned aside one hair's breadth, whatever the temptation; who acknowledged the guidance of a Divine Hand in her own life, day by day and year by year: in her case, indeed, so apparent, that there ever seemed about her a certain power and presence especially vouchsafed. The Divine Hand, in the ordering of her life, can be as distinctly traced as if it were visible. Not otherwise could so perfect a character have existed through shadow and sunshine, and storm and tempest, and all the troublesome waves of life by which she was frequently buffeted. Not otherwise could no mistakes have been made, as they never were made. Not otherwise could every great incident of her life have arisen at the very moment it was needed for some especial purpose, making the whole life fit in as a perfect piece of mosaic.

  Very much of her private life was of too personal and intimate a nature to be made public. If this could be done, it would be found more wonderful and romantic, and fuller of dramatic situations, than any of the plots of her own books. It all could be disclosed, it would be seen that amongst the great women of the world, she was one of the very greatest, most heroic, and most enduring.

  "We see with a sentiment of deep sympathy," writes Mary Howitt, from Meran, in Austrian Tyrol, "that your dear mother has just now passed to the Higher Life. A happiness for her, but a sorrow to all who loved and esteemed her; and they were many. The Divine mercy still spares me on earth; but one by one my old friends and co-labourers in the fields of literature pass on to receive their reward. In this case, it will be great, for she always had a high and noble end in view."

  "How valuable must be the record of such a life as Mrs. Henry Wood's," writes another successful author, who, unlike Mary Howitt, is still in the height of her work. "I cannot help telling you that I derive personal and spiritual help from the memory of such a life. It is something to believe in and to cling to. It has strengthened my faith, and shown me clearly those sacred 'footprints on the sands of time.'"

  It follows that such a life and character could only declare themselves in the works that were to follow her, and be left as a legacy to her country. Her motive was to amuse and interest, but to do good at the same time, It is our happiest thought and consolation that not one line or word of anything she ever wrote we could wish blotted out.

  But this is altogether different from writing books with "a purpose." Her purpose only revealed itself dramatically in the conduct and actions of her characters; it was never made unduly prominent to the reader, never put forward by personal reflections. No writer ever brought herself so little into her own books: she almost invariably remains out of sight. Her characters play their own parts; live, move and act for themselves.

THE two works written with a distinct purpose are A Life's Secret and Danesbury House.

  The former we have touched upon. The history of the latter is as follows.

  The Scottish Temperance League had advertised a prize for a story showing the evils of intemperance. An old and much valued friend of my mother's, who had once been Vicar of Great Malvern, had been intimate with Queen Adelaide, had held great appointments in the Church, one day came to her, newspaper in hand.

  "My dear madam," he said, "here is work that you can do and that you must do. No one could write it with your force and vigour; no one could preach so eloquent a sermon."

  "You are paying me a great compliment," laughed my mother, for almost the greatest preacher in the Church stood before her.

  "I assure you that I mean what I say," returned her friend. "What think you of my suggestion?"

  "I do not much like the idea of competing for a prize," was the reply. "It seems to me that there is always a slight want of dignity in this sort of thing."

  "I fancied so, too, at the first moment," returned the Vicar. "But I now think you might dismiss that idea, for the sake of the good you would do."

  "You are taking too much for granted," laughed my mother once more. "I might not gain the prize."

  "My dear lady," was the emphatic retort, "if you don't win the prize, never believe in me again. I would stake my reputation upon your success."

  "There is another difficulty in the way," said Mrs. Henry Wood, after a moment's reflection. "This advertisement has been out some time. Scarcely a month remains of the date on which MSS. must be sent in; I could not do it."

  "I am quite sure that you could," persisted the Vicar. "You have the pen of a ready writer, and, if you begin at once, you will accomplish your task." Then turning to her husband, whose greatest friend he was, he added: "Won't you add your persuasions to mine in this matter?"

  My father laughed his usual quiet laugh.

  "I never influence my wife in her writings," he replied. "She knows what to do so much better than I can tell her. If she competes for this prize, I have no doubt she will succeed; but if she feels disinclined for the attempt, I would not urge it."

  The difference between my father and the Vicar was this: the one, though a learned divine, was also full of imagination, and delighted in works of that description; whilst the other believed that politics and abstruse books of science were the levers on which the world should move.

  But the Vicar won the argument. He so persuaded my mother, that she agreed to make the trial. She began the work at once, threw her whole heart and mind into a subject of which she recognised the importance. In twenty-eight days, the work was completed and sent off: and, considering the strength and thought of the book, it is an example of inconceivably rapid writing: for a portion of that twenty-eight days was devoted to composing the plot.

  In due time, the award came; and Mrs. Henry Wood, as the Vicar had predicted, was successful. But from a pecuniary point of view, it would have been far better had she failed. She received the sum of one hundred pounds for a work which has sold by hundreds of thousands. And when some time ago this same friend wrote to the Scottish Temperance League, unknown to Mrs. Henry Wood, and said he considered that a further and much larger honorarium was due to the author of a success they could never have dreamed of in their utmost imaginations, and out of which they must have made many thousands, the Directors of the League replied in a brief note of three lines that: "They must decline making any further acknowledgment whatever to the author of Danesbury House, as it would be establishing a precedent."

  The circumstance was afterwards related to my mother, and caused her some pain: a little from this proof of the not very liberal tendency of the League, but more that the request should have been made at all.

  No one in this world was ever more unselfish and more generous in all her thoughts and dealings with others. What is vulgarly called "a bargain," she could never think of or attempt. She shrank from the very word. She was ever contented with what she received. No one ever cared less for the intrinsic merit of wealth. The love of money was never hers. Even when she felt that she had met with less than justice at the hands of others, she would greet them as gently and quietly as ever, and all was forgiven and forgotten.

  Occasionally, I have ventured to remonstrate upon her too great goodness and leniency, but was ever met with the calm, beautiful smile and earnest gaze, and the remark: "It will all come right in the end."

  I remember, when East Lynne had appeared and taken the world by storm, Harrison Ainsworth wrote and said: "I suppose, now, I shall never have another work from your pen."

  With that unvarying generosity and nobleness of feeling; that singleness of purpose, which was part of her very self; my mother replied: "Yes, I will write you one more book." And she wrote him The Shadow of Ashlydyat; really, it may be said, making him a present of it for his magazine. For a shorter book, for the same right--the right of appearing in the magazine only, after which every right reverted to the author--she received about that same time the sum of a thousand pounds: and not only on that occasion but on many other occasions also.

  I think it was greater generosity than Harrison Ainsworth deserved. But my pure and perfect mother was never of the world worldly. She was ever lovely and unselfish: a nature such as we have never found. I, her constant companion from my earliest years; who knew her more intimately than any one else on earth; her fellow worker in all but her own writings; I, in whom she confided, and to whom I ever went for counsel; affirm that I have never met her equal in beauty of face and of character; the impersonation of all that is loveliest and best on earth. This thought is the one consolation of her children in their loss, and it is their greatest heritage.
 
 

I MUST here pause, though I have left much unsaid that I had wished to record, and fear I shall yet have to tax the leniency of the reader in a further paper, for I have already exceeded the limits of this one.

  But before closing this article, I should like to reply to innumerable questions as to whether or not "Lady Grace" was completed.

  Yes; every line of it. In this, as in all the events of her life, my mother made no mistakes. When the pen was laid down for the last time, there was nothing to be ended.

  Apart from "Lady Grace," she has left much finished work behind her. A long serial story that will go through the whole of next year's ARGOSY. A long "Johnny Ludlow" story that will go through very many months of 1889. Another long "Johnny Ludlow" that will go through many months of 1890. Various short "Johnny Ludlow" stories that will appear in 1891.

  Every word of all these stories is absolutely completed and ready for the printers.

  And, if I mistake not: but of this I am not certain, for I have not yet had courage to look into a secretaire that was never opened by anyone but herself, and on whose contents her own beautiful eyes last rested: there are also one or two other completed works of considerable length to add to the number.

  Thus, for some years to come, her hand will be almost as visible as ever in the pages of the ARGOSY. Whilst the hand that has long been at the helm, in conjunction with her own, will still be there. But the wise counsellor; the voice, with its sweet and silver tones; the beautiful eyes that ever gazed with such serene affection--all this is gone. Silence remains, and unspeakable sorrow, and a task that has become lonely and must inevitably remain so.

  It is singular that the title of the very last "Johnny Ludlow" story she ever wrote was "SILENT FOR EVER." I was present as she ended the last word, and, putting it aside, she said with a wistful look in the large, earnest eyes that went as a knife to the heart:

  "My work is almost done. It is certain that I shall never write much more."

  She never wrote another line.

  Ay; Silent for ever in this world. But as her pure and lovely spirit entered the Celestial realms for which it was so meet, I can only imagine the whole Company of Heaven hastening to receive her, with songs of praise, and harps attuned, and voices, ten thousand times ten thousand, ringing the raptures of welcome.

  Silent for ever here, but through Heaven's eternal spaces and through the Eternity of Heaven, rejoicing for evermore.

IT has been the fate of many great works to be rejected in the first instance by the publishers. Not until one amongst them has discerned the vein of gold beneath the new and unknown surface have they been brought to light.

  An old saying tells us that we can only understand Shakespeare by the Shakespeare that is within us. Genius must be original, and for this reason is often slowly recognised. The tendency of the human mind is conservative. A new departure is looked upon with suspicion. The unfamiliar seldom pleases. The new and the strange can never charm as did the old. We love our old haunts and associations. Man returns to the scenes and loves of his boyhood with more delight and longing the farther this period of life recedes into the past. For those were the days of first and vivid impressions. The mere delight of existence was sufficient; the full warmth of sunshine that as yet cast no shadow; the looking out upon a world, and behold everything was beautiful and good.

  This dislike to the new and the unfamiliar has no doubt been a reason why many a work of genius has been so slowly recognised. Sometimes, indeed, only after death has its author received due appreciation. It has been the case in all branches of art: literature, painting, music, science, all have equally suffered at times.

  The saddest thought is that of a great genius, with all its cravings for recognition, singing its song to soulless ears and going out of the world unhonoured and unknown. The tardy recognition can never make atonement; the pain of a past silence, deep as the soul within, can never be lifted.

  How often one has longed to bring them back to earth, crown their brow with laurels, heap the glories of the world upon them and its riches; for want of which they have sometimes perished; raise them on a pedestal far above all ordinary humanity. But in vain.

EVERYONE knows the story of Jane Eyre, which went the round of the publishers and met only with rejection until it fell into the hands of Mr. Williams, who sat up all night to read it. East Lynne did not go the same round as Jane Eyre, yet it might have done so but for the late Mr. Richard Bentley's judgment in the matter.

  It was first offered to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, as the publishers of the. magazine in which East Lynne first appeared: and also because Mrs. Henry Wood had a slight and pleasant acquaintance with Mr. Frederick Chapman.

  They rejected it on the report of their reader. Yet they were themselves so convinced of the merits of the work, that Mr. Chapman told Mrs. Henry Wood they did what they had never done before: returned the work to their reader for reconsideration.

  A second time the report was unfavourable, and East Lynne was finally declined.

  "I think you are making a mistake," my mother remarked to Mr. Chapman. "I am sure the book will be a success."

  "I think so, too," he replied. "But we have made it a rule never to publish upon an unfavourable verdict, and it is a rule, we have never yet broken."

  That they did not break it in this instance, he afterwards admitted how great was their regret.

  East Lynne was then offered to Messrs. Smith, and Elder. Perhaps it did not fall into the hands of Mr. Williams, who had appreciated Jane Eyre. Or perhaps it did so, and found no favour with him. However this may have been, Messrs. Smith and Elder also very politely declined the work. When it was returned, it had every appearance of never having been opened.

  It next came under the consideration of Mr. Bentley, who at once accepted it.

  "I should not publish it," he said to my mother, "but I believe it will be successful."

  I remember her repeating the remark to my father, and his reply. "I suppose that may be taken for granted," he laughed.

  Mr. Bentley asked for a motto, and my mother chose one out of Longfellow:

*        *        *        *        *        *

LONGFELLOW was one of Mrs. Henry Wood's favourite poets. She was in perfect sympathy with his feeling and sentiment. The pure and elevated tone of his writings was in exact accordance with her own mind and nature. Nearly all her mottoes are taken from him. She saw in him more thought than is generally admitted, and always said it was easier to find a motto in Longfellow than in any other poet. Perhaps this was partly because their minds ran, as it were, in the same groove. They both took the same high standard of life, its end and aims and responsibilities, and the necessity for making it upwardly progressive.

  But my mother did not read all the poets. Shakespeare, Longfellow, Byron, parts of Tennyson and Mrs. Browning, and some of the very old song writers: these were nearly all she cared for. Yet her mind was stored with poetry. There was hardly an old and famous song that she could not repeat by heart the moment it was referred to her. Longer poems she equally remembered, and stores of Shakespeare. Of Goldsmith she never tired, and she also knew by heart very much of his poetry and prose. These things had never been learned, but simply acquired by the power of a strangely retentive memory. Shakespeare, it has already been remarked, she began to be familiar with from the time she was ten years old.

  If asked to do so, she would sometimes recite to us in the twilight, by the hour together, poem after poem, with a power that was quite remarkable; an intonation and emphasis that seemed to bring out new meanings and hidden charms, and revealed all her depth of feeling; whilst her soft and silvery voice, clear and distinct, sweet and low, at all times held us under a spell.

  With the modern Æsthetic School, it is perhaps unnecessary to say she had no sympathy, and did not attempt to read it. The mind's poetical bias is formed in early life, and in my mother's earlier days the Æsthetic School was a thing. of the future. Independently of this, her mind could never have accepted it. With all her love for poetry, she took too clear and earnest a view of the seriousness of life; and in spite of the extreme romance of her nature, she had not a spark of strained or unhealthy sentiment within her.

  Some of Christina Rossetti's writings pleased her very much; especially a short poem of four or five verses, called Amor Mundi, which she thought particularly beautiful and true.

  Another of her favourite poems, for its simplicity and truthfulness to life, came out some years ago anonymously: The Twin Genii, written by Mrs. Plarr. The genii in this instance are Pleasure and Pain. This poem she introduced into one of her Johnny Ludlow stories, not then knowing who had written it.

  Upon this, Mrs. Plarr wrote to me and said how much flattered she had felt at seeing her poem quoted in Johnny Ludlow. For, like many others, she had given me undeserved credit, and placed me on a pedestal of fame to which I had no claim. It was difficult to contradict at the time the rumour that I was the author of Johnny Ludlow without running the danger of betraying the secret.

  I remember Mary Cecil Hay -- whose death last year was so sad and touching -- saying that the first time she ever saw me she said very emphatically to herself: "That is Johnny Ludlow." When the author's name was declared, she was puzzled and confused about it, and for long after found it incomprehensible.

  So also with Miss Emily Leith, herself a poetess, and niece to Mrs. Plarr. The authorship of Johnny Ludlow had just been declared, when I happened to meet her at a reception at Miss Dickens's.

  "I am bewildered," she said. "I thought you were the author of Johnny Ludlow and wrote all those stories. I cannot tell what to make of it."

  There was an ammense amount of condemnatio