The Review of Reviews. 



November 1, ItOi. 



The Lata Mrs. Craigie ("John Oliver Hobbes "). 



Bom Xovoml.T :!i-.l. IS:;:. Dkvl .A.iif.ixst IP.tli. 10%. 



define ; it was as intangible, as exquisite, and as 

 refreshing as the odour of rose gardens in the morn. 



ONE or THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 



A devout Roman Catholic, she was, as are many 

 members of her Church, somewhat of a fatalist. 



Her extraordinary activity, her deep sympathy, 

 and her wide understanding were to some extent 

 accounted for by the fact that she felt she had much 

 to do, and that the niglit soon cometh when no man 

 can work. 



Yet it must not be thought that she wished for an 

 earlv death. She was one of the great lovers of the 

 earth who are at once the salt thereof, and the living 

 chalices of the wine of God, and she has herself 

 said : 



For who that loves dotli ever sigh for death? 



A mutual friend told her 1 was most anxious to 

 make her acquaintance, and almost immediately I 

 received a friendly note saying she was staying for 

 a time at the Carlton Hotel, and asking me to come 

 and have tea with her there. 



A THREE HOURS' INTERVIEW. 



It was a wonderful afternoon : I think I stayed 

 about three hours, and it seemed like ten minutes. 

 Her beauty of person, her perfect taste in dress, 

 her wit, her charm, fascinated you, and one of the 

 greatest compliments I can pa\ to her cleverness 

 is to say she never let you realise how clever she 

 really was. 



She knew that to be virtuous out of season is to 

 be worse than wicked ; and so she was all things 

 to all men, and to each she gave something intan- 

 gible and imperishable. 



The apparent spontaneity of her work was the 

 result of long and strenuous effort. She spent some 

 six or seven years preparing to write '" Robert 

 Orange " and " The School for Saints," and these 

 she considered her best works, an opinion which 

 most critics would, 1 think, endorse. 



ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS. 



The author was to her the high priest of the 

 things of the soul, and her opinion of those of her 

 contemporaries who might be said to write for gold 

 or applause was unsparingly contemptuous. She 

 had a deep admiration for both Mrs. Humphry 

 Ward and Mrs. W. K. Cliflford, and gladly confessed 

 that she owed much to both of them. 



I fancy that at one time she must have been a 

 keen admirer of Emerson, though I do not remem- 

 ber having heard her say so, and her Catholic taste 

 and svmpathy made her at once appreciate in vary- 

 ing degrees Jenny Taylor, Lord Beaconsfield, George 

 Moore, Hall Calne, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard 

 Shaw, Mr. Balfour and Marie Corelli. 



The author of '■ Robert Orange '" was largeh in- 

 debted to Beaconsfield. and she said that as a nove- 

 list who dealt with politics, certaiji aspects uf his 



