The Argosy — page 373: what you’re looking at

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

350 Mrs. Henry Wood. 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.’” And yet a third writes this morning—April 3rd—one who has done much literary work in his day, and still works untiringly: ‘I read your Memoir in the April number shut up alone in my room, because my tears would come. What a loss is yours! and not yours alone ; but still yours in a pre-eminent degree. ‘Thousands, who never had the privilege of seeing or speaking with Mrs. Henry Wood, will feel as if they had lost a personal friend. ‘To me, one of the chiet attractions of her writings was the spirit of charming personality which pervaded them. You felt as if you actually £zew the writer, and that to know her was to reverence her and to love her.” It follows that such a life and character could only declare them- selves 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 sametime. 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 reflec- tions. 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. XI. THE two works written with a distinct purpose are A Life's Secret and Danesbury House. The former we have touched upon. ‘The history ot 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 CORNICLIOOKS (E(0) m