The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-16
LIFE OF A NOTED WOMAN
MRS. COWDEN CLARKE, WHO WAS
FAMOUS HALF A CENTURY AGO.
Author of seThe Complete Concord
and shelby Among Her Friends.
Chicago Times-Herald.


the fact that Mrs. Cowden Clarke finished
her great work in 1s45 and perhaps also
by the fact that she had been living in re-
tirement in Italy for many years. She
really belonged to the first half of the nine
teenth century for her friends were Lamb,
Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt. and the men
Of letters who were their contemporaries.
Mrs Cowden Clarke died in Villa Novello,
the charming abode to which she went to
live many years ago with the surviving
members Of the Novelo family, of which
she was by far the most famous. That de-
lghtful house, overlooking the Mediterra-
mean and occupying one Of the prettiest
sites in all of Genoa the Superb" whose
marble round the bosom of the sea its arm
enclasps" is perhaps the only link in the
world that unites the to-day of English let
ters with their yesterday. The treasures
that Mrs Cowden Clarke gathered about
her in her Italian heme are priceless. They
should be placed in the British Museum,
where all the world may see them, for they
belong to the world, as did the genius OF
the concordance. The nature of these treas
ures will be touched upon farther on in this
article. A few words about the great wonl-
an who died Thursday may well be written
first.
On June %. 1909, she was born in London
Her father Vincent Novello was the son
OF an Italian refuge and was a noted COM
poser and organst in the end of the last
and the beginning of this century. lie lived
in the golden Bohemia of the London or
those days and at his house in oxford
street gathered the literary, musical ana
artistic men of the metropolis Under the
influence of such men as Lamb. Keats,
Shelley Jerrold hu ; ana s1ter Haz anti - she
a wonder then that she began to write
when she was a mere girl? Mary Lamb
f1ra< han ct nj n
vello married Charles Cowden Clarke, a
man of letters aid lecturer, and school
mate of Keats. Husband and wife wrote
and worked together. They produced some
novels that were well received and Mrs
Cowden Clarke was well on her way 10
fame as story-writer when one day an
accident set her to work upon the monu-
mental labor of her lite
HER GREAT WORK.
It was in July, 1929. when Mrs. Cowden
Clarke was sitting at the breakfast table of
some friends in Somersetshire that regret
was expressed that there existed no con-
cordance to Shakespeare, whose works
formed the bible of the intellectual world.
Eager in everything. Mrs. Clarke resolved
then and there that she would write this
desired concordance. and that very fore
noon, while joining her friends in walk
through the fields, she took with her
volume of the poet and pencil and jotted
down the first lines of her book under b:
"Boatswain have care"-Temp l, 1, etc.
She herself describes in a letter to one of
her friends the methods she used in doing
this tremendous self-set task of love: Il
had a separate portfolio for each letter of
the alphabet; these portfolios were ranged
round in front of me on my writing table.
opened nay fathers copy of Shakespeare
at my side, having two pages in view at the
time. l took the fiTst word that presented
itself at the top of the first page eve VIII
suppose this word began with az, and en-
tered each word commencing with the same
letter on the MS. page. which was headed
by the word, and placed ii in it's respective
portfolio; going thus alphabetically through
the whole of the two spread open pages UNI
culled and registered. l generally worked
from four to elk hours per day, and always
SO that the outside of the house during
those hours of the day was little known
to me. We usually took our exercise and
ly happy-were the hours then! Side by
side, one working at this book, the other
writing his lectures on our poetic idol
Just half of the herculean labor was done
when she was told that some other person
was also at work upon a concordance or
Shakespeare, and sadly she put away her
mat~ila thinking with the modesty OF gem
uine genius, that the great unknown would
proved baseless. and she returned to her Ia
bors with an energy and a devotion THAI
the work may be gathered when it is ex-
planned that sixteen of the best years of her
life We're spe mt upon it; that four years were
required satisfactorily to correct the proofs,
and that the paper used in making the man
uscripts cost $25. The great book finished
and out of the press served to imbed the
name of Mary Cowden Clarke forever in the
amber of the fame of William Shakespeare
In an analysis of the plays of Shakespeare,
such as was required to produce the con-
cordance. Mrs. Cowden Clarke identified
herself one may say. with the very spirit
and flesh of Shakspeare's creations. Analy-
sis without synthesis is ungrateful labor.
The analyst serves the best purpose in the
world If another rebuilds upon the gr99 pune
without its synthetic correlatlve. The genius
Nof the Novelties could not resist the temp
tation TO make use of the vast knowledge
she al gain d of the Shakspearean thought
in her twenty years of intimacy with It, and
the principal of which is "Girlhood of Shak-
Many men have written of Shakspeare's
women. but Mrs. Cowden Clarke surpassed
them all in the marvellous intuition OF mag
ination disclosed in this work. Those III
scientific method involving problem in
psychology (and its solution) deserving OF
more serious attention than the ordinary lit
erary critic has capacity or knowledge To
give IT, The concordance itself and this eff
feet of the study spent upon Its production
presents Mrs. Cowden Clarke as an inde-
pendent thinker in the borderland between
literature and science.
WHERE SHE DIED.
In 1861 the Cowden Clarkes and Mrs. Cow
den CIarkes brother and sister retired to
Genoa to live together IN peace ana III the
Labor of leisure" the compiler of the con-
cordance loved so much. For a score of
years or more their lives were as sunny ana
happy as the bright land about them. Sor-
row never entered that castle across its
moat of joy. but easy was the access TO
those troops of friends that make age all
that age can be made to be. To her in her
retirement in Novello villa came friends and
the tributes and the symbols of friends from
over all the world. she died surrounded by
multitudes of things that kept the Old years
Young ana that carried the murmur OF by
gone time clearly and distinctly TO her ear.
IN the picture gallery hang the paintings
done BIZ her brother Edward who died too
young Tor the expansion OF his art to its
highest compass. There, too, is a portrait
of P0erio. the martyr TO Italian liberty.
Giovanni Mazzini 5 portrait of Garibaidi and
a sketch of Richard Golden by Emma No
vello are among the pictures in the hail.
There, too is the Shakespeare chair pre-
scented by Americans to Ms. Cowden Clarke.
IOngfeilow. Bryant, Washington Irving.
Willis and Allibone were among those who
ster and the identical gold piece given by
the great statesman was sent along with
the euair. The carvings on the chair have
portions z in them OF the wood of
Shalzspeare's famous mulberry tree in New
Place.
Mrs. Cowden Clarke's bedchamber is a
treasure house in itself. 1t was a sanctu-
AIRY made doubly sacred by the death of it's
occupant. There hung the portraits of her
parents and her husband. By her bedside
hang paintings of Keats, Chaucer Shak-
~ IL 10