SARAH GRAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6132, 19 March 1898, Page 3

SARAH GRAND.

HER CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. In the Young Woman Mrs Sarah Tooley gives an account of her interview with Sarah Grand, _ which proves the autobiographic nature of her latest work, " The Beth Boole," as those who have read it will readily gather from the following brief history of its author's life. Madame Sarah Grand, though of English parontage, was born in the north of Ireland, at Donaghadee. She was the daughter of Mr Bollenden Clarke, of Ballycastle, County Mayo, a commander in the t navy, who during her early years held a post at a coastguard station, so that she had an interesting life by the sea. "Although not strictly of Irish birth," said Madame Sarah Grand, in the course of the interview, " I love the country, and think that no one can pass a length of time there without coming under its strangely romantic spell. We had Irish servants, and much of my time was passed in the cottages of the peasantry listening to the legends and folk-lore of the people." Madame Sarah Grand's father died while comparatively a young man, and, though only seven years of age at the time, she recalls vividly the sense of desolation which his loss caused her. This event brought to a close her wild, free life on the Irish coast. Her mother now removed with her family to England, settling at a small seaport place near Scarborough. Her education for some years was, as she says, "most desultory;" and while her eldest sister was absorbed in the usual studies, Madame Grand was reading anything and everything that came in her way. Her mother was a very accomplished woman, and had an admirable library, and there the futura novelist fed her mind liberally on the English classics, being specially devoted to the writings of Scott, Dickens and Thackeray. She still continued to pass an active outdoor life, riding, rowing and roaming about the meadows and fields. When asked if 6he made any literary attempts during these early years, she replied that when she was eleven years of age she wrote a song and set it to music, just, as she expressed it, "picking out the notes on the piano without any scientific knowledge of harmony." She was also, at this period, much addicted to spinning yarns, and after she and her sister had retired to bed she told a story which would appear to have been a serial of unlimited continuation, for it went on night after night, week after week, and I believe month after month. "My sister," she laughingly told me, " says that her nerves suffered for years afterwards, and she thinks she has hardly overcome the effects yet of the horrors which I crammed into that story. I certainly went in for dramatic effects in those days in a manner which I have never done since, and I well remember how I used to ponder during the day over the portion of the story to be related in the evening, and what frantic efforts I made to cram it with horrors." It was not until she was fourteen years of age that Madame Sarah Grand may be said to have been brought under regular school discipline ; and she recalls that she felt the disadvantage of being behind other girls in precise knowledge. She was only two years at school, and at the eartyage of sixteen she was married to an officer in the army, who took her to the Far East. Here she spent four years in studying medicine and in writing short stories. When she was about twenty years of age there came a wish to make a career for herself, and with it, no doubt, the consciousness that she had the power to do so. She had been a serious student of medicine and physiology, and this led \ip to an inquiry into certain social questions affecting women. The outcome of this was the story of " Ideala," which may be considered her first serious effort. Sarah Grand gives good advice to the literary person. "Now and again "she said, "some one •writes a really good useful piece of criticism — gives one a helpful word — but such reviews are so rare and the search for them so tedious, that- 1 would advise young authors not to waste the time in seeking for them. Recently, however, said Madame Grand, I have literally banished all newspaper cuttings about myself. I now make no efforts to have them collected, and never read one except by chance. I very much sympathise with Mr Kipling, who has, I believe, long made it a practice not to read review articles of his books. I h&d got into a wretched condition at one time ; but I have been writing my new book with a delightful sense of freedom, and without any of those jarring notes to remind me of critical carpings. I really think this is the only way in which to attempt good work, for, if you have always the thought of a public and the dread of criticism upon you, it paralyses your thought and hampers your work." It is a thousand pities that Sarah Grand did not follow this excellent advice herself, for her reply to the unkind criticism of " The Beth Book," which appeared in the Daily Telegraph, was unworthy of one who aspires to the ranks of representative women of to-day.