NOVELISTS AND THEIR CHARACTERS.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12398, 13 November 1908, Page 3

NOVELISTS AND THEIR CHARACTERS.

When the authoress of "Red Pottage," Miss Cholmondeley, began to. write, the originals of her characters; were immediately identified with neighbours-within a five-mile radius of the rectory. ■.. The neighbourhod could not understand that a young: woman living such a "secluded life could devolve characters from her inner consciousness. '."After ..all',, you must own-that you took them, from someone," .was. a /common , reply to her denials. The. character of Mr Gresley in ''Red Pottage" was widely believed to have been taken from life. A. church newspaper suggestedthat the character was a bit of spite on the part of the authoress, who had probably been jilted by a clergyman. The character, as a matter of fact, was the result of long and 'close observation of many clergymen, and hot one in particular, but numbers of people in numbers of parishes wrote excited letters to the authoress, affirming .that their rector, and he only, could have been the prototype of Mi- Gresley.: University . men declared that Mr Gresley was a facsimile of their tutor. In another of her novels Miss "Chblmbhdeley depicted a young female prig, piloting her through courtship- and marriage with considerable minuteness of detail. While the book was in the press one of the young women who had unconsciously contributed -a trait, to*"- the character became affianced, and. immediately began making; just such remarks as Miss Cholmondeley had put into the mqtith of her prig in the book. Tho real wedding was exactly similar to the imaginary one. The rich, elderly, stout and gouty bridegroom whom the lady . of the book captured, was there in the church before the authoress' s panic-stricken .eyes. She knew that the most solemn denials -would never convince certain people that she had igonoantpi hvinp; individuals for her characters; Other; novelists, says Miss Cholmondeley,have a similar tale. to tell. Miss Clifford told -her that after 'JAunt Annie" appeared she received hundreds of letter* from strangers, reproaching her with having pourtrayed their, aunt.: ' " ■■' .' . ' : ■-