Rti-ieu- Of Recieirs, I'JUIuS. 



(Character Sketches, 



473 



-work had never been surpassed. As a man he at 

 moments obsessed her by his great abiUty, while 

 her Puritan soul writhed when she remembered his 

 ethics. 



ON POLITICS. 



rolitics interested her immensely, though I 

 hardlv think she thought much of politicians. She 

 felt that if you knew things from the inside, and 

 could watch the pu'.ling of the strings, it was vastly 

 amusing and even absorbing. While she acknow- 

 ledged that the game of politics was a necessary 

 one, she was somewhat pessimistic as to its value, 

 and 1 think she only saw two ways of helping man- 

 kind in the mass, and these two were religion and 

 literature. In common with all who think widely 

 and deeply, John Oliver Hobbes clearly realised 

 the value of the theatre as an asset in national life. 



ON DR-AMA AND THE THEATRE. 



Her views on the drama were very sane, and she 

 could admire a musical comedy as much as a 

 Shakespearian or classical play, though I have heard 

 her define a certain very successful musical comedy 

 as " movement gone mad.' 



The two living dramatic artists she most admired 

 were Mr. F. R. Benson and Miss Olga Nethersole. 



The former's " Richard the Second " she regarded 

 as the high-water mark of excellence on the modern 

 stage, and while she was w»ritlng " The Flute of 

 Pan " for Miss Nethersole she told me that in her 

 opijiion this actress wa.s a great actress who had 

 never had a chance. 



And here let me say that her concurrence in the 

 somewhat unusual action taken by the management 

 to boom an obvious failure was the result of her 

 firm conviction that she had given a great artist a 

 fitting medium of expression, and was far removed 

 from auN desire to force something on the public 

 which they did nut want. 



She did not quite believe in a national theatre, 

 because she felt that an art which is not self-sup- 

 porting c.innot be said to bear any vital relationship 

 to the life of the people, however interesting or ad- 

 mirable it may be in itself ; but she certainly thought 

 that Shakespeare should be continually presented in 

 this country. Her feeling was that his plays should 

 be mounted with chaste simplicity and austerity, and 

 not have their beauty shadowed by excessive mil- 

 linery and too much ornament. 



HER AUTOGRAPH. 



I remember calling to see her in the spring of 

 1904. I found her with the proof sheets of "The 

 Vineyard " on the table, and she copied for me the 

 letter, which in the book is addressed to a young 

 painter ; — 



Feb. 3. 1904. 

 You h;i.ve caught the gaiety, the very madueBS and in- 

 tojiicatioti of the suminer; you ha\e put it with express 

 beauty and skill on canvas, liut you have done it from the 

 outside — aa though you yourself were in a dark cave and 

 watching the world through some little hole. Another time 



join iu the madness: be less distant and calm. Tlie calm 

 does not deceive me: it is another name for death in the 

 soul But the saddest histories in the world are the hiB- 

 toriea of its men of genius — " The Vineyard," p. 313. 



Pearl Mary Teresa Craigib. 



" The saddest histories in the world are histories 

 of its men of genius.' How keenly she realised 

 that, only God knew. 



THE TRAGEDY OF HEK LIFE— 



Her brief married life was a failure, and she suf- 

 fered intolerably. What that suffering meant to her 

 work and to the world no one can say. 



We only know that through suffering men find 

 God; and only a soul that has suffered can point 

 the way to Him. 



She found rest and cdnsolatiini in the arms of 

 the great Roman Catholic Church. 



I liked to think of her as retiring occasionally 

 from the strenuous life of the world, into the white 

 peace of the convent, where only God, and the 

 things of the soul, are deemed of any account. 



Then she would come forth laden with benison 

 and balm, and pass its sweetness on to her vain 

 and foolish brethren, who stupidly toiled for the 

 world's rewards. 



—AND ITS CONSOLATION. 



The great reward of all her labour and sorrow 

 was her boy. Now a lad of sixteen at Eton, he is 

 old enough to remember and appreciate his beau- 

 tiful mother, and. one day, if God wills, he will 

 gr(jw up a good, gracious man, and she, watching 

 from Heaven, will smile and kiK)W that, however pro- 

 minent and great a woman's public career may be, 

 her rarest privilege is that it is she whom God has 

 deputed to first set His seal on the soul of a child. 



This is not the occasion to try to fix her place in 

 Literature, though it is undoubtedly a very high 

 one, and as far as one can see, alive she had no 

 equal, and dead she has left no successor. Had 

 she lived, it may have been that she would have 

 given the world even finer work, but that need not 

 fret us. Death is never premature, and none die 

 before their work is done. Royal natured, she gave 

 rovally. Widely dowered, she gave widely ; great 

 souled, she explored and revealed to us the heights 

 and depths of human nature. 



None ever appealed to her in vain, and each got 

 more than he asked, and however he may have re- 

 ceived it, you may be sure it was offered with sin- 

 cerity and grace. 



HER PHILOSOPHY. 



Broadly speaking, her philosophy may be summed 

 up in a few words. .She held that a man may com- 

 mit murder, lust, theft, adultery, sacrilege, or any 

 other sin, and repenting, find forgiveness and peace; 

 but he who, seeing and knowing the higher, delibe- 

 rately shut his eyes and chose the lower, cemmitted 

 the unpardonable sin for which there is no redemp- 

 tion. 



She taught the terrible truth that if a man has 



