Helen Black

Notable Women Authors of the Day: Biographical Sketches


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etc., etc., and an ornamental plate rack, by which she sets great store, from Adelaide Kemble (Mrs. Sartoris); a very ancient engraving of Titian's "Danaë" hangs over the mantelpiece opposite three lovely photographs of "Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy." The floor of this delightful room is covered with peacock-blue felt and a few rugs of Eastern manufacture; a small aviary of birds stands by the window, which is open, for your hostess is a "great believer in plenty of fresh air and a good fire." Ere taking leave, you ask if the two fine pugs basking on the rugs are especial pets. "Yes," says Miss Broughton, "but," mournfully, "they are a degenerate race; and not the dear dog heroes of my books. They are all dead and gone!"

      MRS. ARTHUR STANNARD

      ("JOHN STRANGE WINTER")

      Emerging from the Earl's Court Station, where once stood the old manor house of the De Veres, and glancing at the noble row of buildings across the road, which until quite lately was the site of a maison de santé, it seems impossible to realise that it was at the end of the last century a miniature private zoological garden. Yet here the great anatomist and surgeon, John Hunter, kept a collection of rare and foreign animals; here, too, was the kitchen and the great cauldron in which he performed the gruesome operation of boiling down the giant O'Brien, whose skeleton can be seen in the museum of the College of Surgeons. It is to be hoped that the ghost of the big Irishman was safely laid when the work of destruction was carried on! Turning to the left, you go down Trebovir road, past the great red-stepped house of the well-known and successful "crammer" and army coach, Captain Pinhey, which leads out into Nevern square. Perhaps in nothing more than in the present style of building does the growing artistic spirit of the day assert itself. Although the houses are not erected with the solid masonry of other days, which seemed to defy the hand of time, they rejoice in more picturesque effects, and certainly the handsome, spacious Nevern-square, with its large gardens, its three well-kept tennis courts, and its fine red-brick dwellings, is a striking instance of the fact. It is barely a decade and a half of years since this site was occupied by large nursery gardens, through which a winding country lane lead to St. Mathias' Church yonder; now it is surrounded by stately mansions, broad roads, and pleasant gardens. On the south-side a ruddy gleam of fire-light through the red window-blinds marks the residence of the popular author, John Strange Winter. Passing through the outer and inner entrance doors, with mounted antlers, and Swiss carvings hung between them, you reach the long, narrow hall, where the tesselated black-and-white paving is covered for the most part with heavy Wilton carpets; the rich, deep-red walls are profusely decorated with quaint old prints, whose sombreness is relieved by Nankin and Spode china. A later inspection shows these to include some choice engravings by Morland, a few miniatures, and a group of family silhouettes. ("Had we any more black relations?" Mrs. Stannard, when a child, once asked her mother on being told which members of her family they portrayed.)

      Entering the dining-room on the right, your hostess is discovered, deeply engaged in dressing dolls for an approaching juvenile festivity, when each little guest is to receive some gift. Clouds of filmy muslin, embroidery, lace, and silk lie before her, and several of those already attired repose in a row on the sofa. She extends a firm, white hand in cordial greeting, and as there is only one more doll to complete the set, you settle down beside her to watch the process, and notice the deft and nimble fingers, as they swiftly run up a flounce or adjust a tiny trimming. She is dressed in a black and grey tea-gown, which looks like fine tapestry, with grey satin sleeves, panels, and front.

      Mrs. Arthur Stannard is a tall, handsome young woman. She has fine, dark brown eyes, which sparkle with intellect and humour, level eyebrows, and dark hair curling over her low forehead, and well-shaped head; she has a pretty but firm little mouth, and clear-cut chin, indicative of strength of will. Her face has settled somewhat into gravity as she pursues her occupation, for she has put into this apparently trivial matter, just as she does in greater things, her very best efforts with that thoroughness which characterises her; but as she suddenly looks up, and catches you intently watching her, she smiles a sweet, bright smile, and laughs a low, rippling laugh, as she seems to guess exactly what are your thoughts. "It is for the children," she says softly, and in those few words she betrays at once the sympathy of her nature, that sympathy with these little ones which has caused the children of her pen to live so vividly in the hearts of her readers.

      It is a large, lofty room, pale green in colour, with carved oak dado. A bright, clear fire blazing in the wide, tiled hearth makes the heavy, polished brass fender and "dogs" glisten like gold. On the high, black, carved "chimney shelf," as Mrs. Stannard calls it, stand three valuable old blue jars, and the low, broad overmantel is composed of genuine Dutch tiles, three hundred years in age, framed in wood. Over this is grouped a collection of ancient blue Delft; the walls are hung with a few good proof engravings; at night the room is amply lighted by the huge hanging, crimson-shaded lamp, which casts a soft, becoming glow over every corner; the floor is covered with a thick Axminster carpet of subdued colouring, and with the exception of a handsome old carved oak dower-chest and grandfather clock, with loud and sonorous strike, which both date back into the last century, the rest of the furniture is mahogany; pieces picked up here and there, restored, modernised, and chosen with an eye to effect as well as to comfort.

      Mrs. Stannard is the only daughter of the late Rev. Henry Vaughan Palmer, rector of St. Margaret's, York. For some time Mr. Palmer had been an officer in the Royal Artillery before his convictions led him to lay down his sword and enter the church militant; he had come of several generations of soldiers, and to the last day of his life found his greatest pleasure in the society of military men; this perhaps accounts for Mrs. Stannard's almost instinctive knowledge of army men and army ways. Asking her if, when a child, she loved books, and gave promise of her brilliant gift, she says, smiling, "Well, as regards my lessons, most emphatically no! I was a restless, impatient sort of child, who tired of everything before it was half done. I think, like all very enthusiastic people, that I was never as happy as with books, that is to say, novels. I was just eleven when I went to my first school, but I had read Thackeray, Dickens, Charles Reade, and Whyte Melville up to date, besides many others, and I was never restricted in my reading; I never remember in my life my father or mother telling me not to read any particular book, and," speaking very impressively, "I am all the better for it. Years afterwards, when my father died – I was twenty-one then – I felt that the few stories I had written and sold up to that time, were but child's play. Then I began to work in real earnest, studying certain authors that I might clearly realise the difference of their method and style." But the thought at once arises, that the touching and simple pathos of her style is entirely original, and born of no earthly model.

      And then, as ofttime happens when two women are sitting together in friendly converse, a word is dropped about her married life. Ah! here, though much could be said, in deference to your hostess's wishes the pen must be stayed. All who know Mr. and Mrs. Stannard know how complete and perfect is their union. Mr. Stannard is a civil engineer, and at one time served under the late General Gordon. He is very pardonably proud of his clever wife, and efficiently transacts all her business arrangements, the two – so perfect an one – working, as it were, hand in hand.

      Her nom de guerre, "John Strange Winter," was adopted by the advice of the publishers of her first books, because they thought it wiser that works so military as "Cavalry Life" and "Regimental Legends" should be assumed by the world to be written by a man, and that they would stand a better chance of mercy at the hands of the critics than if they went forth as the acknowledged writing of a woman, and for a time it was so assumed; but when "Booties' Baby" made such a success, and people wanted to know who the author was, and where he lived, it soon became known that "he" was a woman, although, as she did not add her name to the title-page, it was a good while before it was generally believed. It may here be remarked that Mrs. Stannard holds very strongly the opinion that there should be "no sex in art," and whilst never desiring to conceal her identity, deprecates the idea of receiving indulgence or blame on the ground of her work being that of a woman, as both unjust and absurd. In private life she carries out her ideas on this point so effectually that few acquaintances would gather from her conversation (unless it were necessary to "talk shop") that she was a literary woman at all, as, except to a fellow worker, she would rather talk on any subject under the sun than literature.

      "The author to whom," according to Ruskin, "we owe the most finished and faithful rendering ever