The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1920-05-21

The death of Mrs Humphrey Ward
has undoubtedly been a profound
shock wherever English is read. To
gether with her a school of literature
has been buried, which at one time
exercised an immense influence over
the intellectual development of a
whole generation. A book such as
Robert Elsmere, if published today,
would probably not give rise to the
discussion this famous work produced,
and it is to be doubted whether it
could achieve the colossal success
that attended its appearance thirty
years ago, when people had more
time to give to the study of theo-
logical differences of opinions. But
for the contemporaries of its author,
it was certainly a sensational one, as
it embodied so many of their own
thoughts, and of their own doubts
And l shall add something else. Rob
ert Elsmere, like most of the other
works of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, was
essentially of a nature to appeal only
to middle-aged people, those who had
had already the opportunity to study
some of the graver problems of hui
man life, and human science.
Young people did not care for it,
nor did they care for the several
novels which followed upon it. They
thought these productions too serious,
and not sufficiently amusing. l re-
member when mentioning this, dis
cussion which took place in the house
of Max Muller at Oxford, when he,
in reply to some such remark made
by one of his younger guests, advised
US all in twenty-five years to re-real
Marcella, then just published, and
which some among us criticised Sc
verely, adding that then we would
perhaps consider it in a different
light l have often thought of this
paradox, as it seemed to us to be
one at the time, when few months
ago, the book in question fell ac-
cidentaIly into my hands, and l re-
read it with a sensation of pleasure
which l had certainly not experienced
at the time it first startled the world,
as startle it did, because it was not
considered then a proper thing for
young people to give any attention to
socialistic doctrines and even less SO
to discuss them and interest them
selves in their application to the
needs of humanity.
Personally Mrs Ward, whom l had
often the opportunity TO meet in
London, was a charming woman, but
one, who except in literary and in
tellectual questions, had absolutely
no knawledge of the difficulties OF
life She had always been comfort
ably well off, and had had no need
to struggle against the many OBJ
stacles a writer find in his, or her,
path when he has to make living
out of his pen. For her work was
sedate, quiet sort of thing, and the
idea of being compelled to turn our
a newspaper article, or a story at a
few hours notice simply Mortified her
She considered such things a desecra-
ton, and fully believed that every
author had a mission to fulfill, to
which he ought to sacrifice everything
else in life, even, as Lacky, the his
torian, once remarked facetiously,
"the means to live it." But with it
all, she was a great mind, and her
books shall survive where the produc-
lions of many more popular authors
will have been forgotten. Certainly
she has left us a description of Ok
| ford University life which but few
could have traced withe the same tai
ent and remarkable spirit of observa-
ton, and taken all in all, she was a
worthy niece of the great Mathew
Arnold, whom she reminded in many
things both physically and intellec
tually, and her disappearance will
leave in London literary circles void
which it will not be easy to fill again
A marriage has just been announced