New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1911-09-17

bulk of the book with selections from
Mrs Craigie's correspondence we'll cal
culated TO put her traits wildly before
us A number Of her portraits are re-
produced and there are a few tributes
from friends. She is studied, II not pre-
Cisely at full length, at all events ex-
haustively enough. She was not the
type to demand the usual biographical
double decker"
The author Of The School for Saints"
was a consummately modern creature,
a bundle Of nerves saturated In intelli-
gence. The glimpses that we have OF
her as child disclose an unmistakable
precocity. Mr.. Richards notes that there
was little in her London home to de-
velop a literary tendency. This fact
only throws into sharper relief the in
stinctive nature of her gift, which de-
clared itself at an early age. Before
she was in her teens she had written
short stories. Her school life, we are
told. was passed in the conventional
way. She was married not long after
her nineteenth birthday, but she OBJ
tanned a divorce from her husband only
three or four years later. We have
scarcely begun to read her biography be-
fore we realize her simply and solely as
a we'll poised woman Of the world, alb
sorbed in the writing Of books and
plays 1t is thus that she appeals to us
thenceforth to her untimely death In
1906, at the age Of thirty-eight. She
was very human, and yet somehow de-
tached from that world Of familiar
everyday life with which so many au-
thors are so easily identified. The inner
spiritual life to which there are fire.
quent references in her letters neverthe-
less remains hidden from the reader, or
at any rate fails to exert upon his mag
nation the influence as OF something
poignant which one would naturally ex-
pect of 1t. This must be the result Of
her intense enthusiasm for her work.
She remains, when all Is said, purely
literary" figure, the artist rather than
the woman, John Oliver Hobbies
rather more than Pearl Mary-Teresa
Craigie.
Here again she is, as we have said,
notable instance Of modernity. There is
something fairly breathless about this
book. She plunged into "life's fitful
fever" with a kind OF strained ardor,
restlessly striving, hurrying from one
achievement to another, and finding
quite as much pain as pleasure In her
eager: more than industrious, career.
III health logged her, though she APP
pears, like so many people of delicate
physique, to have had mysterious re-
sources Of energy upon which to draw.
Romantic, sensitive, tremulous with am
bition, she was also resolute and practi-
cal, a good business woman, with as
keen feeling for affairs as for litera-
ture. From the start she disdained all
idea Of profiting in her professional ca
reer by anything save her own efforts.
She wanted no favors and she would
herself make no concessions. The NOR
bid streak in her temperament which
kept her forever questioning her ego
serving the tenacity with which she
held to her own way as an author, and
the shrewd efficiency with which she
looked after the fortunes Of her books
and plays, it is momentarily dlsconcert-
ing TO read i'm some letters Of hers to
George Moore plants like these:
The silence of my life overwhems me.
! dined out last night and met very charm
ing people: / have seen visitors to-day
but the silence the silence Of
IL all / have written TO Lady Jeune TO
say that / cannot attend her party this
evening. ! cannot face the loneliness of
crowded drawing room: the host of mere
scouaintances the sOlitariness Of the re-
turn All, well, l must not be depressing.
But God knows how | need a friend-an
honest one / try TO forget myself In other
people: I try to think only Of others and
never OF myself ! choke my soul with
work. and yet-snd yet
Life has made me fearful OF my own best
impulses. ] hate 10 be reserved, distant
and mysterious, and yet | not only think
twice before I speak or move--but twenty
times II could only be natural once
should feel rested, but this eternal re-