The herald., 1896-12-13
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: 4 FAMOUS WOMAN DtAD !
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The death in London, England, on
Friday last Of Mathilde Blind, the au-
thor. lecturer and staunch advocate of
improvement in education and political
position Of women, recalls an interesting
life Miss Blind was so years of age
The San Francisco Chronicle thus re-
views her life:
Mathilde Blind has been called 1.-THE
English Heine Daughter of Carl Blind,
the well-known socialist and scientist,
she was for many years the beloved
pupil and adopted child of Mazzini; he
taught her Greek and Latin. and III
stiled in her a strong love of liberty
AS young girl she lived in what was
then the most interesting political cir
Gle in Europe. Among those who Wis
tied at her fathers house were Garibaldi,
Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill and
Prof. Huxley. Mathilde Blind was lit
tie more than child when she published
her first book of verse; after that she
wrote constantly. but her greatest sue
cess was made by her translation of the
Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. She was
an intimate friend of the mother of the
strange Russian artist, whose memoirs
for time were the prevailing fad.
When mere girl, with an imagina-
ton fired by her favorite authors in his
TORY anu literature, SHe lduuCHeu lOt III
into composition of her own account,
and filled many copy books with her jul
venile poems, plays and stories. A
tragedy on the death of Robespierro
actually won a word of praise from the
great French historian Louis Blanc.
She was expelled on account of her un-
orthodox views from a school in ST
Johnswood, of which the headmistress
belonged to the sect of the Plymouth
Brethren. Mazzini melted her to write,
but in her reverence for literature Miss
Mathilde Blind almost shrank from com
mtting herself to print. Daudet, in
'I.'Immortel," says that it is the fashion
for young French poets to begin their
literary career by writing an essay on
Shelly Miss Blind did the same by an
article in the Westminster Review.
She also edited selection of Shelley's
poems for Tauchnitz, which has had a
wide circulation abroad. The Proph
ecy of St. Oran," her first published
volume, attracted immediate notice by
the freshness of the subject chosen and
the distinction of the style. The Lon
don Times hailed it as "a remarkable
contribution to English literature" and
there was consensus of opin
ion among critics about the dram
attic power of the narrative
and its metrical excellence Besides
her poems Miss Mathilde Blind accom-
plished much good work of another
sort. Her lives OF Nine Roland and
George Eliot, forming part of the Emil
nent Women Series, are models of what
such biographies ought to be, and her
portrayal of the French revolutionary
heroine showed keen insigtt and under
standing of the whole revolutionary pe-
riod. Miss Blind took strong interest
in the woman question. and at one tim =
delivered number of lectures on "Wo-
man Suffrage" She was the first Eng
lish writer and critic to discover Marie
Bashkirtseff. Her study was lined
with portraits of the unhappy Marie,
and she possessed many letters and other
interesting relics which at one time o..
other belonged to her subject
Speaking French and Italian, as well
as German, Miss Blind spent much of
the year on the continent. She RENAME 1
to the end an ardent Liberal, and was
never afraid of stating openly her con-
victions. Among her intimate friends
she counted Mrs. Mona Caird and Mrs
w. X. Clifford. The few receptions
which she gave during the, London sea-
son We're crowded with strangely het-
erogeneous crowd of celebrities. and
her brilliant conversation made her