Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1908-01-29

two OF her pet uOSS dI he' 'i"'~'
She was always up by 8 90 Clock
in the morning. OF late years she
went daily for a walk in the after
non with her dog friends, although
after the English papers began to
call attention to her circumstances
she sometimes declined to leave the
house for the fear of being ques-
toned. She wa "bsolutely md
pendent. refusing medical care and
other comforts that We're offered
her by Italians.
Ouida's dogs have been RESPONSE
BILE for a good deal of the hardships
which she suffered after she lost her
villa. If she had given up her pets
she would have had no difficulty in
getting accommodations at hotels,
but this Ouida refused, and she was
obliged to leave one hotel after
anothec
There was always a good deal OF
mystery about Ouida's early life
which probably never will be dis
PEELED by the novelist herself. She
was born OF French parents, her
mother having been the daughter
Of a clergyman. Her father and
mother separated when She was an
infant, and her father took her with
him on his rovings in foreign lands.
Her father has been described as a
man of dissolute character, but bril-
liant attachments. He devoted HIM
self TO the education of his little
daughter He taught her mascu-
line modes of thought. Ouida her.
self mas said that she never had
any childhood or girlhood. Under
her fathers tutelage she wrote a
little story, or rather printed one
in childish letters, when she was 1
years old
Ouida was 20 years old when her
first story, Granville de Vigne,
was published The pen name Sc
lected by her was her own childish
INSTRUMENTATION of the name Lou
isa. Her first novel. like most of
her late ones was highly seasoned
and the critics charged the author
with being artificial, sense tional
and indirectly licentiouG. They
were certain that the writer of the
book was a man. No woman. they
said, would have written book
with such "a decided flavor of the
barracks and the tap room. In the
critics opinion, the writer was a
man who had led a very free life.
1t was not Until after ,,Strathmore,
"Chando ~ Cecil Castlemaine
Cage" and one or two others of
Ouidas books had appeared that The
public learned that the writer Was
a young woman in her twenties.
The apparent familiarity which
Ouida showed with the seamy side
of life afforded an opportunity for
the spreading of base calamities by
her enemies. An attempt was made
even to compare her earlier life with
that of George Eliot" but these
attacks were as baseless as they
wara ,1nnardOnahJa
Ouida was in the habit of giving
her friends whom she disliked the
preference in her books. In one of
her books Friendship" she por-
trays in the character of a weak.
wavering nero her faithless lover.
a Florentine Marquis. This was
the only time she was ever in love.
The Marquis was a young and a
man OF cultured tastes. Ouida at
that time was no longer youthful
Ouida after the Marquis had woed
and won her, discovered his fasc'
nation for the wife of another, who
was less brilliant, but younger and
more beautiful than Ouida. The
novelist impaled both the man and
woman in her production in SO I'M
mistakable manner that they
were obliged to withdraw for time
from the Tuscan capital. This
book alone yielded Ouida $14 900.