MRS CAMPBELL PRAED.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7778, 4 February 1891, Page 6

MRS CAMPBELL PRAED.

By Mrs 6. A. Sax a.

It is Thackeray who says, " If you want to be asked .to dinner, ask to be asked." Believing implicitly as I do in the wisdom of the author of the immortal ■" Vanity Fair," his was the advice which I followed to some degree in order to become personally acquainted with Mrs Campbell Praed. In common with moe* people, I have read nearly all her books, and have the sincerest admiration of her writings; but knowing the novelist and knowing the woman is a totally different kind of acquaintanceship, for I do not lean towards the theory that the majority of authors resemble their books in characteristics and disposition. Therefore, a short time ago, when dwelling upon Thackeray's advice respecting invitations, I wrote to the well-known author of "Nadine," and "asked to be asked"— not to dinner, certainly, but to be allowed to call one morning or afternoon. The result of such audacity was not a politely-worded regret, to the effect of "going out of town," &c," but a kindly

'•Come to lunch next Wednesday, and then afterwards I can tell you anything you wish to know." Of that invitation I was not slow to take advantage, and shal[ always look back wick pleasure to this meeting with one of the most accomplished and most talented of modern novelists.

It is not necessary,*on account of the ac* companying portrait, for mc to try and describe Mrs Campbell Praed's appearance. In sDite of this being essentially an age of personalities, it will here suffice to say that the subject of this brief sketch is a tall, elegint, intellectual, geutle-looking lady, with the light of genius rather than actual beauty shining forth in every feature of her very expressive face. Her spacious house in Norfolk-square, Hyde Park, is a model of comfort, and although all its appointments testify to the evidence of wealth, yet, like its owner, it is perfectly devoid of all ostentation. Mrs Campbell Praed laughingly declares that the curio-hunter will Had nothing to .idmire and linger over in her domains, for her house is furnished on distinctly modern principle-". Nothing so precious in old china as grand Mandarin in to be found, neither can anyone dUcover, she says, anything so priceless as the tapestries of the Middle Ages. Whitu-twiiimelle't. well-filled book-case* run round the pretty drawiug-room vvulls, thereby forming a dado, upon the top of which is piled plenty of uretty chin* aud howl? of flowers ; and above inuy be seen a hundred-and-one tasteful water-colours and delicate etchings by modern artists. A magnificent grand piano, over which is throw a piece of hitfh art embroidery, divi ies the two drawing-rooms, the presence of winch instrument) seemed to infer that Mrs Campbell Praad is not only a li'erary woman but a musical one. Such I found was the case, as she told mc that in her eariy days she studied music f'.ir many years, crying to express all the thought* which occupied her busy brain by means of music ; but that nt last nho gave it up as a serious occupation, feeling sure that she was not really musical, not having found the comfort in music which she yearned f »r. And sure enough when she allowed her incessant duty of music to drop, she found her true vocation in writing, and by hv.r pen w»ts a->ie to prm* ouc all the ideas which she had beforetiine vainly striven to uive utterance to on the piano. Consequently thtt instrument is now only manipulated occasionally by Mrs Campbell Praed, merely as amusement. Being anxious to learn a little about the childhood of so interesting a woman, we talked about the land 'it her birth, Au* tralia; aud I learn that she was born at Brometon Station, Logan Biver, Queenslaud, and that Iwv maiden name was Rosa Murray-Prior, aud that by descent sho is Irish. Her grandfather was Colonel Mur-ray-Prior, who served in thelß r h Hussars, and won distinction at Waterloo. Her father in early life left the green shores of Erin, and settled as a squatter in Australia, and was subsequently in the Colonial Parliament, and held the appointment oi Postmaster-General for utany yearc. His daughter's childhood was spent-, however, not in the busy intpudean cities, but right in the bush. Lite there, although lonely, could scarcely *t that period have been very monotonous, as the natives were very troublesome, aud were constantly rising in revolt, therefore causing infinite anxiety and discomfort to the white community. Particulars of their insurrections and those troubled times can be found in the graphically written pages of "Australian Life, Black and White." ' Far away from the haunts of'civilisation, oue wonld have thought tbat the future authoress would perhaps have suffered from want of education. She says herself that, although in her youth, she had plenty of opportunities for study, the sources from which she gained her knowledge, were nob those open to the ordinary English girl. Fortunately for herchildren.lVlrs MurrayPrior was a very highly-educated lady, «nd she used to encourage her little ones to play at learning instead of breaking toys in their nursery. To amuse them she started a little household newspaper, to which all the children were allowed to contribute either poetry, prose, or drawings, and this journal she edited and published every month: thus constantly keeping her children not only amused but instructed. Mrs Campbell Praed told'me that the excitement to her of this paper ; appearing every month was a never-end-ing oue, and tbat she used to be .always deeply immersed in preparing her various contributions, and took great care never to miss a month. Her strange education, too, was aided by the fact that her father owned a large library, to which she had access, being just "tumbled into it and allowed to read what she liked. When quite a little girl she loved to read philosophical and psychological books in S reference to any others, and was a rabid evourer .of all such volumes Iα her father's library. To the present day her tastes lie in the same direction, and she still delights in all works that deal with the doctrine of the soul to those more material in their teaching. This remarkable woman's girlhood was spent between the bash and Brisbane. Iα the beautiful city of Brisbane, her father being in the Ministry, she naturally saw a great deal of Australian political life; and anyone who has read her interesting books, "Policy and Passion "and "Miss Jacobsen's Chance," will notice that in these stories she makes admirable use of that knowledge, although she did not begin to write in earnest, or, rather, she did not publish any books, until many years afterwards, being, as I have mentioned above, so entirely wrapped up.in the study of music in her girlhood. Moreover, when very young, in the year 1872, she married, choosing as her husband Mr Campbell Mackworth Praed, son of a banker in Fleet-street, and nephew of the poet William Mackworth Praed. The first three years of her married life, were spent on a very lonely island, which her husband had bought, off the Australian coast. There, I believe, they led a very lonely life ; but it is needless to say anything more about this island, as Mrs Campbell Praed has minutely described ft in " The Romance of a Station." Indeed, nearly all her Australian books accurately describe phases of her jown life; and she did not hesitate to confess to mc that, although she prefers to live in England, as the heat of Queensland was too fatiguing to her, she thinks the Australian part of her life more interesting than the English from a literary point of view. She came to England for the first time in 1876, and has since lived in Northamptonshire and London.

We now came to a very interesting time for Mrs Campbell Praed's life, the year 1881, in which she published her first book, " An Australian Heroine." This novel, the germs of which had laid dormant so many yean in the brain of the authoress, and which had refused to be committed to paper, was quickly followed by "Policy and Passion, aud some six months later by "Nadine," the wonderful book which made its author a very famous women, and placed her in the first rank of English writers of fiction, a position she is not -ikely to lose or even endanger. My husband told mc a somewhat curious anedote touching his experiences of "Nadine." In 1885 he was travelling through the Hot Lake district of New Zealand, intent among other things on on opening on behalf of the Government a " Blue Bath " somewhere near Obicemutu. He was staying at an hotel on the shores of Lake Taruwera, and the landlady, a very intelligent and cultivated person, lent him *• Nadine," and bade him read it through attentively. I may add that my husband is an incorrigibly bad reader of , modern romances, therefore ie was with j some reluctance he devoted himself to the perusal of "Nadine." To do so he went quietly off to his bedroom, and commenced reeding it at ten at night; and he finished the last page at five o'clock In the morning, having smoked meanwhile, aa he told mc, at least half a dozen cigars.

The strange, weird, terribly truthful, end yet fervidly imaginative book;so excited him that from time to time he threw open the window to catch, if he could a whifl of the cooling breeze; and he,has often described to mc the wholly exceptional aspect of the wild expanse of country round the house—the moon reflected in the glassy watera of the lake: the moonbeams bathing the earth with level rays and" shadows brown between," while ever and anon, from fissures in the heated crust of the earth, came gusts and spirals and jets of white vapour, .as though the Old Dragon underground, that Milton tells us of, was swinging (the scaly horrors of his folded tail, and letting off steam from his angry jaws and nostrils in his efforts to get free. Then my husband said he would shut out the view of the Hot Lakes, and the hotter plains, and fall to reading •* Nadine" again. No novel he had studied had so impressed him, he has told ma over and over again, sincn be read " Jane Eyre " and " Paul Ferrol," and that " Nadine " is the only novel he has ever read straight through from beginning to end without a break.

Having taken an equally vivid interest in "Nad:tie," and having read it at least twenty times, until I almost knew it by heart, it was natural that I was intensely curious to know more about it, and under what circumstances such a wonderful story was written. Mrs Campbell Prned immediately t< Id mc all about it. The letter which opens the novel was received by a friend of hers, and the whole history of " Nadiue " is true, and was told to her one evening in her own drawing room. The recital finished, her vivid imagination conjured up the whole scene, and she assured mc that she actually seemed t;> see her heroine Nadine seated at the piano, and each chapter of the novel which she tAt she would be obliged to write, seemed to stare her in the face. She could not get the strange story that had been told her out of her mind. It troubled her throughout a sleepless night, and haunted her through the following day. At last, feeling positively exhausted, and unable to bear the strain any longer, towards the close of that day she rushed up to her little writing den, took up her pen, and rapidly wrote off the first chapter. For cix weeks she scarcely moved from her writing-desk; but at the expiration of that time her task was done, and the next day "Nadine" was in the publisher's hands.

From that time the fever of writing has been upon Mrs Campbell Praed, for in lee than nine years she has produced Rome eiehteen novels, besides a good many short stories and articles for newspapers, bor.h English and American.

The novel which followed "Nadine" was " Moloch," and next came " Zero," and then theiMiiinentlv psychological story entitled "Affinities,'' * hich attracted much attention. *' The Bond of Wedlock," which was afterwards dramatised as "Ariane," and the leading character pi tveil by Mrs Benardßeere, was a novel which created a great deal of controyersv, and by many people was thought slightly Immoral in its tendencies, as well as wantinn in truthfulness to nature. The former it may have appeared to Hiose happy peoph'whose pathway in life ia lined on eirhe'r side with bcauMftil flowers which hide the thistles from vi -w; but its truthfulness could not possibly be doubted for one moment. The story, miserable as it is has been enacted many hundreds of timea in real life in the modern Babylon, and the drama will be played again and again so long as the world contains disc n euted wives and careless husbands ; and to all such couples, provided th« discontented wife be Hiifficii-ntly beautiful in face, there will always bs fouud a aymparhisi g lover ready to accentuate the miseries of such a household.

Mrs Campbell Praed prefers Miss jacobsen's Chance " to any of her books, but she declares that she is so entirely dissatisfied with all she has produced as yet, that she never reads her novels nfcer once having correcned the proofs of them. One seldom meets so modest an author: but no one can look at Mrs Campbell Praed and doubt her sincerity. She in always striving to produce her ideal book, and thoroughly means what she says when she asserts that, far from feeling Imrc and annoyed at the severe cri icisras her works have evoked (and no novelist hnn been more roughly or severely criticised than she has been), it has the healthy effoct ol inducing her to make greater effort* towards th<: high standard of excellence she has laid riowu for herself. There is one very gteat cha-m about JVfrs Campbell Praed, and that is, sh<j is fortunately entirely free from the influence of pecuniary considerations. She does not work for money, as she la not obliged to do so ; and, consequently, does not need to dash off any hasty stories to serve as " pot-boilers." She can choose her own time for .writing, and will never be persuaded to make any arrangements to write this, thac, or the other, and to got; It finished by a certain date. She waits for inspiration and then goes quietly to work, ana just as quietly sends tne novel to her publishers, Messrs Bentley or Messrs Chapman and Hall. One thing impressed mc very much in our conversation. I havn often noticed the accuracy Mrs Praed displays ia her books when describing the scenery and characteristics of various pi ices, and have often fancied I hat she was an artist, and was in the habit of making drawings of every place she visits. This she does, I ascertained ; but only by means of wurdw. She makes copious notes of every fresh Slace she visits, even entering the smallest tst'ails.• These notes are all carefully catalogued and bound up in various books, perhaps to lie-unused for years ; but sooner or later they always come out. , This talented and careful authoress is thinking of bringing out another novel at no very diecant date, but politeness, after a severe mental , struggle, having gained the mastery over natural curio*ifcy, I refrained from asking ray gentle and courteous hostess one question concerning it beyond ascertaining that in this instance she is not collaborating with Mr Justin M'Garthy aa she did in "The Right Honourable," "The Rival Princess," and the V Ladies' Gallery," three books whirh met with distinct nuccees. These novels are deservedly popular, not alone for their intrinsic merit, bat because they show that the jealousy said to exist between literary folk cannot be ho fierce and so bitter as it is oftentimes painted, seeing; . that these two distinguished authors, who have separately won their laurels, can get work amicably together in writing, not merely one most interesting book, but also two, and yet live to declare that they are still fast friends, and are likely to always remain so.The Gentlewoman.