THE HOUSE OF BLACKWOOD.

Evening Star, Issue 10817, 29 December 1898, Page 4

THE HOUSE OF BLACKWOOD.

FURTHER ANNALS'OF A GREAT PUBLISHING FIRM.

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES,

[Fbom Oto Bpboiai, Cobbbsponpbnx.] '

LONDON> November 11. The final volume of the annate of the ereat publishing house of Blackwood will be found far the most interesting of the three to the average reader. It coverß the his- s tory of "Maga" between 1850 and 1879, and contains the relations of the firm with Dickens, Charles Reade, George Eliot, Sir Theodore Martin, Charles Lever, Sir George Chesney, Laurence OliphanV Tennyson, and manv other notabilities The pen laid down in death by poor Mrs Obphant has been token up by Mrs Gerald Porter, a daughter of John Blackwood, and a thoroughly capable editress. She has noted the hint given her predecessor by the reviewers regarding too voluminous details, and this third volume is, in consequence, much easier reading than one and two. , Most neople who do not intend to gef right through tho book will probably turn first, as I did, to the chapters regarding George Eliot. One always knew, of course, that both George Henry Lewes and Miss Evans were anxious to keep the identity of George Eliot a secret. Still the former took to mystify and mislead even his confidential friend and publisher doeß seem extraordinary. For instance, he writes to Mr Blackwood:—

Bntre nous, let me hint that, unless you have any serious objection to make to Eliot's stories, don't make any. He is bo easily discouraged, so diffident of himself, that, not being prompted by necessity to write, ho wjU close the series in the belief that his writing fa not relished i laugh at him for this diffidence, and tell him it's a proof he is not an author. But he has passed the middle of life without writing at all, and he will easily be made to give it up. Don't allude to this hint of mine. He wouldn't like my interfering.

Again, under date Rosa Cottage, Jersey, May, 1857, we have from the same hand the following cunningly evasive note: — Much do I regret your leaving town before our return. I had set my heart on breaking through the incognito, and bringing you and Eliot together, feeling sure that if you once saw and conversed with him, and found the sensitive, shrinking, refined creature he is, you would have your opinion of your new contributor considerably modified. Is there any chance of your being in town in the autumn? It is to be noted that the lady to whom he uniformly assigns the masculine pronoun had not at that time "passed the middle of life," and assuredly had not been unaccustomed to use her pen. Many months later, it would seem, Mr Blackwood was still convinced that his brilliant contributor was really of the male sex. There was one distinguished correspondent, however, who was better skilled to detect tokens of the woman's hand, as will be seen in the> following letter:

Tavistock House, London, W.C., 27th January, 1858. My Dear Sir,—l have been very much interested by your extract from " Mr Eliot's " letter, which has given me the greatest pleasure. Also of your account of the manner in which you had the good fortune to find (I say nothing of the good sense immediately to appreciate) that admirable and charming writer. The portions of the narrative to which you refer had not escaped my notice. But their weight is very light in my scale, against all the references to children, and against such marvels of description as Mrs Barton sitting up in b«d to mend the children's clothes. The' selfish young fellow with the heart disease, in ' Mr Gilfil's Love Story,' is plainly taken from a woman's point of view. Indeed, I observe all the women in the book are more alive than the men, and more informed from within. As to Janet, in the last tale, I know nothing in literature done by a man like the frequent references to her grand form, and her eyes and lier height, and so forth; whereas, Ido know innumerable things of that kind in books of imagination by women. And I have not the faintest doubt that a woman described her being shut out into the street by her husband, and conceived and executed, the whole idea of her following of that clergyman. If Ibe wrong in this, then I protest that a woman's mind has got into some man's body bv a mistake that ought immediately to be corrected. . . . Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens. It was not till March Ist, 1858, that Mr Blackwood was enabled to write to his wife:

I drove to Richmond to see Lewes, and was introduced to Georfe Eliot—a woman (the Mrs Lewes whom we suspected). This is to be kept a profound secret, and on all accounts it is desirable, as you will readily imagine. She is a most intelligent, pleasant woman, with a face like a man, but a good expression. I am not to tell Langford the secret even. It was earlv in the following year that she published through the Messrs Blackwood, though not in the magazine, her ' Adam Bede,' certainly, as Mrs Porter observes, the most interesting and life-like of all her stories, and the one of which she herself says, in her journal: " Shall I ever write another book as true?"

Tennyson was, as the world knows, fiercely attacked in the pages of "Maga, but this didn't prevent him dropping in on the poet when, some twenty-five years later he visited the Isle of Wight. What occurred is related in a letter from John Blackwood to his brother, Major William Blackwood, dated Bonchurch, May, 1858, as follows :

We had a delightful expedition to Freshwater yesterday. We were received by Mrs Tennyson very cordially. The Bard was in his study, and White went up and soon fetched him down. He is a striking-looking man, with a shyisli, almost awkward, but manly and not unbecoming manner. He became very pleasant, and I should think him a very good fellow indeed. He evidently lives in a little world of liis own, and takes things on hearsay from his satellites. Mrs Tennyson is a very pleasing woman, I believe " my cousin Amy," who did not play the part represented in the poem. After a comfortable lunch or early dinner, White and I went up to the attic which constitutes liiß study, and had a social pipe. He is under the impression that the ' Magazine' is always saying unkind things of him. He said something of the kind, and I asked him how he imagined such a tning possible. He confessed he never saw the ' Magazine,' but people told him it was so. White and I corrected him on this point. At first he was not disposed to go out at all, but then became quite keen for a walk, and finally he, White, Julia (Mrs John Blackwood), and I started over the downs to the extreme west point of the island, overlooking the Needles. We had a delightful walk of about, three hours—Julia chiefly in charge of the Sard, with whom she was charmed. White cut off about midway, but we went on »» the very end, and finally the Bard brought us sheer down ttie oliff by way of a short cut, Julia astonishing and pleasing him greatly by her powers of scrambling. White thinks he would have come back with us had not Mrs Tennyson been a little poorly. He promises to come and see us whenever he is in Scotland. He is good fun, quotes poetry (not his own) very appropriately in a sonorous voice, and makes puns in rivalry of White. They go on chaffing each other about the merits of their respective houses. He said to White: " I believe part of Bonchurch belongs to you." " The whole of it," says White. "He means the hole he lives in," replied the.poet. Looming large, too, in these pages is the strange figure of Laurence Ohpnant, the projector and editor of that once famous satirical publication "The Owl,' and the author of the novel ' Piccadilly,' who was ever one of " Maga's " most welcome writers. Many are the stories told of this übiquitous, omniscient, superstitious, and mysterious personage who has sketched his own character so graphically in his ' Episodes of a Life of Adventure.' Mrs Porter has the following curious passage on her relations with "the prophet Harris":

By ill-luck, this truth-seeking vigorous spirit, whose one wish was to fpllow the precepts of a higher Power, and to give practical effect to the teaching of a divine Master, fett under the influence of a person calling himself the Prophet Harris, by whom he was spirited off to [ America. Here he worked for the gocd of the community over which Harris presided. His feelings on the subject found expression in* a speech to my father, who often repeated it as an explanation of Oliphant's religious beliefs. He used to sav: "If I were really to obey the teaching of Jesus Christ, I should take my coat off before I had gone a few steps along Piccadilly and give it to the first poor fellow who wanted it." This being practteally impossible, he devoted himself to the good of the community described, and no work was too menial for him as a proof of his devotion. "The Prophet," as he called himself, after » year or two released him from the duties of farm work and strawberry selling, discovering more advantageous means of utilising bis convert; for apparently in this society any capital of money or brains possessed by the members was at the disposal of their leader, who was not alow to turn it to account. Oliphadt was »

teS Allowed to return W Europe, !rom More readily replenish the eommtmnPTTpffers, and w&fM him acting as special 6orMflpondeht during the Franoo-Gennan Wai. In Paris, after the Commune, he wm performing the tame work—, ftst always under pledge to return to his Amerifotn friends if the Prophet summoned him.