MRS E. LYNN LINTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5056, 15 September 1894, Page 3

MRS E. LYNN LINTON.

Probably few women of letters have had their personality more ruthlessly discussed than has Mrs Lynn Linton. She has alwayß braved public opinion where her own actions were in question, yet advanced womanhood has no severer critic than the authoress of "Eealitiea" and of "The Girl of tho period." It is strange that a lady who has herself been in many ways more advanced than the most ardent public advocate of the suffrage, dares to speak as though woman's only true role is the rocking of the cradle and the mending, if possible, of husband's shirts and stockings to the exclusion of all other thoughts aud aims of life. Yeb none who have read Mrs Lynn Linton' a caustic, and generally unjust, attacks upon her own sex can form the dimmest idea of the writer herself. { Apart} from her pen, Mrs Lynn Linton is one of the kindest-hearted and most feminine women imaginable, always ready to lend a helping hand to any literary aspirant, and to aseiat, aa Kingsley used to > Sfiy, a lame dog over a stile. Her Saturday | afternoon receptions are always crowded with a number of winsome, laughing eyed girls, from whom it is to be hoped their hostess did not gather her impressions of the girl of the period. A keen and clever talker, Mrs Linton never loses her temper in a discussion, and eh a is eminently courteous in her manner and speech. She seldom, it ever, alludes to her own works, and eave for the broad, workmanlike desk which stands close to the window of the pretty drawing-room in her fiat in Queen Anne's mansions, no one would ever guesa th&t the motherly-looking woman was the wield9r of eo formidable and scathing a pen. Her artistic gift is betrayed in the stripa of exquisite embroidery which cover some of the chairs in her rooms, and she designed the walnut wood overmantel which is sd striking a feature in her study. It is not generally known that Mrs Lynn Linton waa the firat lady who wrote for the daily newspapers. When she was only twenty-three ahe was workißg for the Morning Chronicle of that day, also for the Morning Star and the Daily News. She was greatly helped during her early literary life by Walter Savage Landor, and among her most valued treasures ib a gold cinquecento basket, given to her by the great Qroek Bcholar. ; Some idea of Mrs Lynn Linton's industry may be gathered from the fact that since her .first nove), " Azeth the Egyptian," appeared, some forty-six yeara ago, eho ha3 written over forty volumes. H«r industry has been untiring— Btories, es3ays, and articles of every kind and description have succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity. Often che has as many &b three important contributions appearing simultaneously in monthly reviews and magazines. Those who wieh to understand bow varied and curious are Mra Lynn Linton's literary and social recollections should read her novel entitled "The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland." There will be found a curiously realistic and faithful transcript of the life and adventureß of Eliza Lynn Linton.