The Argosy — page 363: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

340 Mrs. Henry Wood. 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, more- over, 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. IV. 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 Avezw it was a very wicked story, and an zmposstbility, 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 COMICLDOO;KS,(E0) —— a a