Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

which country, for so long, because of the Maximilian episode, Mexico held no diplomatic intercourse, it is inferred that it would not now be, as once it was, a faux pas to place the Austrian and Mexican ministers, on official occasions, or at a banquet, in close juxtaposition in Washington, and the Austrian minister could not be invited to the Mexican legation, and vice versa.

Very many points must be considered when mixing up members of the diplomatic corps on occasions of ceremony, whether official or social. As indicated above, the accredited representatives of nations which are not holding diplomatic intercourse with each other must not receive each other officially even when on neutral ground in the capital of a nation friendly to the government each represents, though they may know each other and be friendly privately outside their official residences. Again, exception has been taken when the wife of a minister representing a nation governed by a king or emperor has assigned her as escort at a state dinner at the White House a minister from a republic, and an instance of this caused a fair lady whose lot fell as above intimated to pout, and later to complain as to her treatment, when the annual diplomatic dinner was given a winter or two ago at the Executive Mansion. She had no objection to her partner, except that he being from a republic, and her husband from a kingdom, she did not consider his rank high enough to be her escort to table in the President's house.

But the seating of guests on such occasions is arranged according to the length of time each minister has been accredited here, he who has served longest in the same capacity in Washington taking the highest rank, and the wives of the ministers are given places, as between themselves, in strict accordance with those assigned their husbands. This rule as to seniority in the diplomatic corps giving precedence is the same which obtains in all European courts, being the only one which can give no offence because of a seeming exaltation of one ambassador or minister above another of the same grade, or of one nation over another.

SOME REMINISCENCES OF MRS. D. M. CRAIK

"SAY

of me only that I am sixty years old, and have been writing novels for forty years," wrote Mrs. Craik a year ago, when there was a question of preparing some sketch of her literary life. This restriction she afterward. removed; and indeed it would be a loss, now that she is gone, if some record of her strong and sweet character and dignified yet kindly presence were not made by those who knew her and were counted among her friends.

I first saw Mrs. Craik one sunshine-and-shower autumn day seven years ago, when I had been asked to her house, and on the way there from the station passed a group of young girls, among whom a stately gray-haired woman attracted my attention. The group were waiting under a tree by the roadside for a slight shower to be over, and presently, when I had reached the house and the sky had cleared, I found on her arrival that my hostess was the same lady who had so attracted me as I passed by. The people with her were a group of shopgirls from "Waterloo House," London, where she was accustomed to make her purchases. It was her pleasant habit

once a year or oftener to make a garden party on a Saturday half-holiday for a number of these young people. She was assisted in this kindly task by her husband's sister, Miss Georgiana M. Craik, also known as a writer and as a collaborator with Mrs. Craik in some of her children's stories, and it was a pleasant sight to see these two ladies so cordially and hospitably receiving their happy guests. It made an agreeable introduction to a delightful friendship, and was a revelation of the real woman who was behind the writer of her books.

There never was a more charming hostess than Mrs. Craik in her own home. She was tall and stately in carriage, with a winning smile and a frank and quiet manner which gave one the best kind of welcome; and her silver gray hair crowned the comfortable age of a woman who had used her years, one could see and feel, always to the best purposes. Somehow it always seemed to me as though here was the Dinah of Adam Bede, who had gone on living and developing after the novel stopped. When once I said this to her, she told me that one or two

others had said the same of her, and that indeed she had come from a part of the country not far from Dinah Morris's home, where Dinah was a usual name. She was born in Staffordshire, at Stoke-on-Trent, in 1826, the daughter of a clergyman, who died when she was quite young, and was soon after followed by his widow. At her death the small annuity on which the family had depended ceased, and the young girl, Dinah Maria depended ceased, and the young girl, Dinah Maria Mulock, was left to take care of two brothers, whom she educated with the earnings from her pen. These are details which I never heard from her, but give on the authority of printed statements, though what I have heard her say as to her early life is in line with them. She had a strong sense of being born a gentlewoman, and felt, as I remember she said once, that no matter what reverses or what adversity might come to her, that feeling would always give her stay and standard. It was this spirit of her own life standard. It was this spirit of her own life which she afterward wrote into John Halifax,

Gentleman.

The first work she did was in the line of short stories, and she was happy in at once finding an

ried out in her novels this idea of a central purpose from which incidents and characters develop.

She was a prolific writer, being the author of nineteen novels, eleven books for children, and as many books of travel and miscellaneous works, and three volumes of poems, in all over forty volumes. Last year her husband, with her co-operation, made a careful list of her books, which she sent me in one of her letters, and which I give below, adding one or two which have since appeared.

Novels. The Ogilvies, 1849; Olive, 1850; The Head of the Family, 1851; Agatha's Husband, 1853; John Halifax, Gentleman, 1857; A Life for a Life, 1859; Mistress and Maid, 1863; Christian's Mistake, 1865; A Noble Life, 1866; Two Marriages, 1867; The Woman's Kingdom, 1869; A Brave Lady, 1870; Hannah, 1871; My Mother and I, 1874; The Laurel Bush, 1876; Young Mrs. Jardine, 1879; His Little Mother, 1881; Miss Tommy, 1884; King Arthur, 1886.

Miscellaneous Works.-A villion and other Tales, 1853; Nothing New, 1857; A Woman's Thoughts

[ocr errors]

appreciative publisher. Her first published book was one for children, How to Win Love; or, Rhoda's Lesson. Her first novel, The Ogilvies, was issued in 1849, and gave her a very fair start in the literary life. It was not, however, till 1857 that the story by whose title she was afterward so widely known, and which marked the climax of her fame, her fifth novel, was published. It is an interesting feature of her novels that they were all built upon some principle or thought of wholesome bearing which she desired to illustrate, and John Halifax, Gentleman, was intended to set forth that feeling of gentlehood under all circumstances which had been so strong a part of her own life. This she once told me in so many words. Afterward she had sought to collect material which should illustrate this thought, and thus in searching through the chronicles of the time which she had chosen she came upon the incident of the riot, which makes so strong a point in the book, and so lives in the memory of most of her readers. Such books as A Life for a Life, A Brave Lady, My Mother and I, and King Arthur illustrate very fully how she car

about Woman, 1858; Studies from Life, 1861; The Unkind Word and other Stories, 1870; Fair France, 1872; Sermons out of Church, 1875; A Legacy, being the Life and Remains of John Martin, Schoolmaster and Postman, 1878; Plain Speaking, 1882; An Unsentimental Journey through Cornwall, 1884; About Money and other Things, 1886; An Unknown Country, 1887.

Poetry.-Poems, 1859, expanded into Thirty Years' Poems, New and Old, 1881, and Children's Poetry, 1881; Songs of Our Youth, 1875.

Children's Books.-Alice Learmont, a Fairy Tale, 1852; How to Win Love, or Rhoda's Lesson, 1848; Cola Monti, 1849; A Hero, 1853; Bread upon the Waters, 1852; The Little Lychetts, 1855; Michael the Miner, 1846; Our Year, 1862; Little Sunshine's Holiday, 1875; Adventures of a Brownie, 1872; The Little Lame Prince, 1874.

She also prepared The Fairy Book and Is it True? two volumes of old fairy tales rendered anew, translated Mme. Guizot De Witt's A French Country Family, Motherless, and An Only Sister, and edited the series of books for girls.

On the title-page of most of her books she was known as "the author of John Halifax, Gentle man," which was usually supposed to be the result of a prejudice against the use of her own name in literature. It was, however, quite an accident, coming from the desire of her publisher, soon after John Halifax, Gentleman, had made so great a success, to utilize that success in selling her later books, and once she adopted the habit she adhered to it. Her novels, and perhaps her other writings, have a wider circle of readers in America than England, although in both countries the manfulness and sweetness of her books have given her thousands of devoted readers. She took much interest in travel, and especially in the Irish journey of last year, which is the subject of a book yet to be published, with illustrations from her young friend Mr. Noel Paton. Her relations with her juniors, as in this instance, were very sweet and motherly, and this friendly feeling for others comes out strongly in her poems, which have a sweetly touching sympathy always in them. pathy always in them. The most interesting of all, perhaps, is that poem which is put first in the collected edition, "Philip my

King," in which "the large brown eyes" were those of the little child who was afterward to be the blind poet, Philip Bourke Marston. All her work showed a combination of manly strength and feminine tenderness which made it as acceptable to men as to women.

In 1864 her literary work received the appreciation of a pension from the Civil List, and the next year her personal life was crowned by her marriage to Mr. George Lillie Craik, the son, I think, of the Scotch writer of that name, and a relative of the author of Craik's English Literature. Mr. Craik himself is now a partner in the publishing house of Macmillan & Co., and is well known in the literary world of London. He was somewhat younger than his wife, but the marriage was a most happy one, as she once had occasion to say to another lady who came to her in regard to a marriage under similar conditions. The home which Mr. and Mrs. Craik built for "themselves was one of the most charming about London, across "the lovely Kentish meadows," to the southeast, at Shortlands, Kent. It stood in the pleasant English country, with a delightful garden stretching out from it, and outside the house toward the garden was a little recess called "Dorothy's Parlor," where Mrs. Craik was very fond

of taking her work or her writing on a summer's day. It was named for the little daughter whom they had adopted years ago, having no children of their own, and who was the sunshine of the house up to the time of her foster - mother's death. Within the recess was the Latin motto, "Deus haec otia fecit" (God made this rest), which Mrs. Craik once told me she had long ago selected as the motto which she would wish to build into a home of her own, should it ever be given to her to make one. Within the house there was one charming room which served for library, music-room, and parlor, filled with books and choice pictures, but chiefly beautiful because of the presence of its mistress, as she brought her work-basket out for a quiet talk with a friend. Over the mantel of the pleasant dining-room was the motto, "East or West, Hame is best," which pleasantly gave the spirit in which Mrs. Craik lived in her home, for she used to say in later years that home-keeping was more to her than storywriting, and she often got only an hour or so a week for her pen.

Besides this work with her pen, Mrs. Craik was known in many quarters for the practical interest which she took in all good works. Last year she distributed the prizes at the Working Girls' College in London, and in many such enterprises she had a keen and loving interest. Most especially did her heart go out toward an institution in her own neighborhood, the Royal Normal College for the Blind, at Upper Norwood, of Mr. Campbell, of whose life she once wrote a most interesting sketch. The pluck and bravery of this blind man, who had worked out into success a great plan for the betterment of the condition of his fellow-sufferers, and who climbed Mont Blanc to show that a blind man could do some things as well as others, appealed strongly to her, and she was also interested in the fact that he was an American: America and Americans had always a large share in her heart. To a great circle of readers all over the English-speaking world the news of her death will come with a sense of personal loss for the woman shown through her books; but what shall be said of the sorrow of those who had come to know her and love her as a personal friend? R. R. BOWKER.

[graphic]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

Mary was sent away from the dinner-table because she misbehaved, and told to go upstairs and tell nurse to put her to bed. The family coming in from dinner a half-hour later found her threading her way among the parlor chairs and tables in most complicated figures. "Mary!" exclaimed her mother, "didn't I tell you to go upstairs ?"

Mary looked up placidly. "Yes, 'm. I'm going; I'm on my way now.".

There was a certain character in one of our country towns who was noted more for the various means to which he resorted to earn a living than for his veracity. At one time it happened that he was peddling fish, and his cry summoned a very particular old lady to the side of the wagon.

"Are these fish fresh ?" she asked, viewing the finny representatives with suspicion.

"Yes, 'm; caught this very mornin'," was the reply.

"Are you sure?" she continued, giving the load sundry pokes. "They all seem to be dead."

"Dead ?" echoed the vender-"dead? Yes, 'm, they are dead. They wuz so lively when I left home that I had ter kill 'em to keep 'em from jumpin' outer ther wagon."

[blocks in formation]

AN ACCOMPLISHED CANINE.

DOG-FANCIER. "I DOLE YOU DOT DOG VOS ONTELEGENT. HE CAN SHPEAK TWO LANGUAGES! Now I ZAY IN ENGLISH, COOME HERE, YACK, UNT DAKE DIS PONE,' UNT HE SCHOOST COOME AT DE VORT."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"UNT VEN I ZAY IN DOITCH, GEHST DU 'NAUS!' HE SCHOOST YUMP UNT RUN. HONEST, I B'LIEF DOT DOG VOS TONK-TIED, UR HE COULD SHPEAK LIKE ANY PERSON."

[graphic][graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« IndietroContinua »