New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-07-04

sional coarseness Of her deicacy. the
taste that travcrsed theirs, and the
fangs Of her many prejudiccs. But
they were blind to her wonderful grasp
of life. and her vivid sympathy with
every phase and form of being, brute
as we'll as human.
The melodrama of her own career
inspires that of her works, and we
have only to read "Friendship"-the
best, ! think, of her compositions-to
know "Ouida." There VIC can discern
the woman at once, generous and un-
just, sensitive beyond measure to kind
ness. maddened beyond measure by re-
tutf. She is tissue of contrasts. We
can mark a nomad by sentiment and in
stinct. yet the loyal adherent of lost
causes and lovely traditions; the at
tractor of notice. yet the shrinker from
intrusion, fighter for freedom, but q
aetester Of the crimes and follies con-
stantly committed in its name, the
strong patriot, yet the born cOsmopoli-
tan: the daring, yet never the despair
ing. or dogmatic doubter. Indeed,
Ouida was a sort of pagan in a feudal
setting. for she loved equally the
Gothic church and the pagan temple.
What she abhorrcd were drabncss and
distractions. Above all she was a
priestess of intuition. Has she not
herself declared that to understand in
tuitively is the breath OF poets life +?
She gravitated to distinction high or
low, and in these respects there Is
link between her. Bulwer Lytton, and
Disraeli Like a Provencal troubadour
she rovcd from the crowds OF beggars
: md n
upper middle class perhaps By her un-
likcness) she appealed as George Eliot
could never do. just as to-day Marie
Corelli arouscs the lower middle ciass
as Mrs. Humphry Ward has never
done. II is not by quick railways so
tc speak. up the problem" Rigis that
the crowd is stirred. 1t is by passion
and emotion. by pronounced types and
effects. BY sounding conflicts. Every
yagrant on the high road watts meas
cage. and when Adventure mounts the
uulpit, somehow the sermons live.
Who but Ouida could boast an inter
mittent father that soldier OF fortune,
who came and went, and went and
came till he persisted knows how
AZ the time OF the Paris Commune
This mysterious Louis Rance played
hide and seek with his home. \ scholar
and \ wit the friend OF Louis Ma
poleon. with whom he quarrclled after
the coup d'etat, absent or present. he
exercised great influence over his only
child. Once he took her to France and
ccnversed with her as he alone could.
For though but a French teacher at
Bury St. Edmunds when he married, by
all reports il is more than plain there
was a dash Of the fairy prince about
him. This political conspirstor and
member Of secret societies, always
a:rily accomplished, always fascinat-
ing riddle. early rivetcd has queer,
dreamy. quaint, worshlpping, yet self
centred child. Years afterward, when
she had published "ldalia." he was said
suddenly to have reappeared and met
her in Kensington Gardens. And then,
after most affectionate talk and walk
and congratulations on her fame, rumor
has il that he vanished like dream.
When Friendship came 10 be writ
,cn. with its self-portraiture of her as
"Etoilc." the wistful. hayward genius,
that father figures as Count Avesnes
a.. black bead in the golden rosary OF
the happy childhood the hlSh-born
vanderer. She turned him into an
aristOcrat and |dc Ia was SUM ruuSu
10 Rance. But it is under her childish
iisping OF Louisa" it is as "Ouida'
That she knew herself and will always
be known. Her devotion TO her mother
the pretty Miss Sutton who saw so
little Of her husband was the passion
OF her life Never were they parted
save by death. How bitter must it have
been for Ouida. who had delighted in
housing and clothing that mother so
sumptuously, perforcc at the last to
have laid her in a pauper's grave.
Harrison Ainsworth helped the girl
when she and her mother came TO live
in Hammcrsmith. where his cousin was
their doctor. Her talent soon showed
itself. unusual. sometimes perverse. but
ever with voice OF its own. Always
here emerged the types OF the woman
who gives, the man and the woman who
exact. all. When Italy came into view.
the artist n-troubadour type
followed, the charm Of dog humanity.
and. later. the specialized cruelty Of the
advcnturcrs, whether in vice or virtue.
I his eliminated in Friendship which