New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1894-04-18
MRS. HUMPHREY WARD.
A STUDY OF SOME OF HER MENTAL
CHARACTERISTICS AND OF SOME
OF HER LITERARY
METHODS.

appears with all the honors 1t is announced
long in advance and on the day fixed for publ
cation April 8. the leading papers review 1t a
length The public is understood to be impatient
1t must have account Of this book at the
earliest possible moment. and must be told witt
authority what to think of It, There is. nc
doubt sense in which the public Is impatient
Mrs. Ward has created for herself such a posi-
ton in literature that few dare confess them.
selves uninterested in anything she does; few
with a social reputation to lose. At the same
time I imagne-and the fact is creditabe to
her-that the circulating library public is not
precisely her public. The average man is not
her man. The average men and women who de-
YOUR the average three-volume novel are not
those who read Mrs. Ward with the greatest
eagerness nor those whom she has chiefly In
view when she writes.
1t is an audience Of the best or at any rate,
of the most serious. 10 whom this gifted author
appeals. She is herself serious; in one sense too
serious or too strenuous. She has the serious
ness which comes Of effort. Her books-and
"Marcea" is no exception to the rue-impress
the reader the result Of conscientious and
long-contnued toll too long continued per-
haps. The lighter aspects Of life interest her
but little. She must have a problem. and to the
solution of 1t she applies with unremittng In
dustry all the energies of her soul. Her first
book. Robert Elsmere" was hostage to fort
une. A novelist and above all a woman-nOvel
ist who makes her bow TO the public with three
volumes Of religious sceptcism, is thenceforward
under an obligation from which neither readers
nor critics can release her. She can only release
herself David Grieve" seemed TO some OF her
admirers and friends-she has legions of both
a step toward emancipation. 1t was not a sequel
srDAtN u
that Mrs. Ward had served her apprenticeship
to the exclusively solemn. and that she might
venture next time into more open fields where
the flowers bossomed and the zephyrs sported.
There were hopes that she might a least be more
brief
These hopes are not dispelled by "Marcella"
but they are postponed. She has entered upon
new task. and it is still task; annexed. per-
haps. a new domain, but here also there is more
of the air Of the dollhouse than Of the breath Of
heaven; applied herself to fresh subject but to
one hardly less oppressive; and still in the
same spirit Of doing her best all the time.
Religion has given place to socialism She has
allowed the politics Of the period-there is no
other phrase for ito determine what might
have been a purely literary choice. Socialism or
social reform in shape has taken posses
sion Of the European mind, and perhaps lately !
OF the English mind most Of all. 1t is the prob |
lem which presents itself daily and hourly. Mrs. |
Ward seems to have chosen it because It pre- !
sents itself daily and hourly. Difident. perhaps. |
though surely without reason. of her own au- !
thority, and OF her power to fix the attention Of |
others upon any topic which interested her. |
self. she conforms to the fashion and inter- |
ests herself in the topic which interests others. !
She is an opportunist in literature. The result |
is what might have been foreseen. The convert !
surpasses the teacher in zeal
1t may be said that the intellectual side 10
stronger in Mrs. Ward than in most women. rela
lively to the emotional: but it is not predomi-
nant. The emotional is predominant. and most
Of all at those critical moments when the dry
light of pure reason is most needed to elucidate
her perplexites Her heroine for example the
girl Marcea is a Socialist but she Is a Social
ist far more from impulse than from conviction.
II may be said that Mrs. Ward meant to draw
her So | think not. but whether she did or not,
she has left the stamp Of her own individuality
upon her in this respect. 1t Is not difficult TO
imagine the writer. any other writer who Is
woman. honestly trying to reach a reasoned con-
yicton or judgment. She puts before herself the
facts and the arguments She weighs the one
and balances the other She is, 10 all appear
ance on the point Of coming to something like
judicial decision, and all at once Whit Of IRE |
sistible feminine impulse sweeps away all the
elaborate apparatus and material for logical
conclusion and she makes up her mind exactly
as she would have done without them: in Obedi-
.nce to the suggestions Of her temperament. and
by that intellectually rapid mental process known
as intuition. In plain English, her sympathies
run away with her.
The modern men or science-are there any
~ 10 bra Dc1, ofc Sole =
viii allow no opinion to be individual. They trace
III mental processes. as they do all acts, TO an
ancestry more or less remote. They would prob
lbly tell Mrs. Ward that in submitting to
he influence Of her environment as she does in
iogmatizing about Socialism. she could not es
ape from the limitations which the environment
md the mental habits Of her progenitors impose
lpon her. Her mother and grandmothers were
title in contact with actual life outside the fam
" or the family circle They never learnt TO
eeislate or TO administer the poor laws. or to
dust the relations OF landlord and tenant or TO
AIRY on any kind of business, public or private.
hey transmitted to their descendants a brain
n which there were formed channels for the
ow of the thoughts applicable to affairs. she
as to form them for herself. Is 1t likely she
vii set the stream flowing broad and free and
rue at the first attempt? And if not. what is
kelly to be the practical value OF conclusions
n class of subjects with reference TO which
er opinions must be, to use the mildest word Of
IL. experimental?
Mrs Ward showed in David Grieve" that she |
vas CAPABLE of accommodating a mass Of material
n topics quite alien to the Of her life. and
making a literary use Of them. Assimilate
hem she could not Her sketch for example Of
ne Trois Rats by which to understand d
he Chat Noir as 1t existed and still exists in the d
tue Victor Masse in Paris, was tour de force.
was wonderfully done. but II was done as from
ne outside. To enter into the spirit Of that
ngular expression Of one side OF the art and
bohemian life Of one set Of Partisan eccentrics,
.as not given TO her. II could not be. II she | !