The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-29
HENRY JAMES ON MRS. OLlPHANT
| A Woman with a Great Capacity 1oF
WOrI<-SOurce OF Her POWER
Harper's Weekly

Harpers Weekly.
Criticism among US all, has come 70 t ne
mass Of being shy of difficult cases anu no
one. for that matter, practiced II more III
the hit-or-niss fashion and ION the haPpSye-
go-lucky line than Mrs. Ohphaht heLsTIl'
She practiced it. as she practiced every
thing on a scale that was immense d anu
her biographer, if there IS to De one, ft MI
have no small task in the mere ufdtIs
of lists of her contributions to magaAlheS
and Journals in general and to B!acHWoo9
in n3rticular She wrought in BlackWood
for wears anonymously and profusely; no
writer of the day found porte-VolA nearer
to hand or used it with an easier personal
latitude and comfort. l should almost sup
pose in fact, that no woman had ever, Tor
half a century, had her say SO cohVeAcc
iently and constantly. Her faclhues' OF
course, were of her own making, but the
greatest of them all was the way she MAGE
them The explanation of her eXtraordl-
nary fecundity was rare original EQUIP
ment. an imperturba blity of courage,
health and brain, to which was adoed the
fortiIne or the merit of her having had
10 t',le ber Instrument at the earliest age.
That instrument was essentially a scotch
one: her stream flowed long and full with
out losing it's primary color. 10 say that
she was organized highly for literature
would be to make too nght OF TINS leTTlply
tclllish business; but few writers OF o our
time have been so organized Ior npeIdI'
fOr-one may almost put 1t-herolc prOduc-
ton. One of the interesting things in large
figures is that they leave us plenty OF
precisely one of those that Mrs. Onphant
en~GestS is the wonder and mystery of a
love of letters that could be so great with
out ever on a single occasion even, being
greater 1t was, of course, not matter OF
mere love: it was part or her volume ana
abundance that she understood life itself
in a fine free-handed manner, and, | i'm
agine seldom refused to risk an effort on
a subject however it might have given
pause that would help to turn her wide
wheel She worked largely from obliga-
ton-to meet the necessities and charges
and pleasures and sorrows, of which she
had a plentiful share She showed in it
all a sort of sedentary gallantry, an ac-
ceptance of the days work and an Austen
| confess | could never withhold my adj
miration Her capacity for labor was in
finite-fOr labor Of the only sort that. with
the fine strain of old Scotch pride and be-
she held the only worth while. She had
small patience with new-fangled attitudes
or with a fnical seriousness. What was
good enough for Sir Walter was good
her shreWd. unfiltered, easy flow, fed after
all by an immensely of reading as well as
of observation and humor, would have been
good enough for Sir Walter. If this had
biography and criticism, it would have
been still more the case with her uncOn-
trolled food of fiction. She was really
great improvisatrice, night-working spin
ner of long, loose. vivid yarns numberless
pauseless. admirable. repeatedly. for their
full. pleasant. reckless rustic over depths
and iculties-admirable indeed, in any
case of Scotch elements, for many a fair
strong encounter with these. She showed
in no literary relation more acuteness than
in the relation-so profitable a one as it has
always been-to the ineXhaustible little
country which has given so much yet has
nance and reality of which she had at the
end of her pen. Her Scotch folk have a
wealth of life and / think no Scotch talk
in fiction less of strain to the patience