Works of Ellen Wood, page 1332
In all this Mrs. Wood was only reproducing her own experience; what she had observed, what she knew. And where actual experience was wanting, genius stepped in with its intuition and supplied the material. “How could you delineate that phase so accurately, you who have never passed through it?” Charlotte Bronte was once asked. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I thought about it morning after morning when I awoke, and at last it came to me. How it came I cannot tell.” Julia Kavanagh once made a very similar remark to the writer. If in developing a story or constructing a plot she were sometimes puzzled to know how such and such a character would act under certain conditions, or what would be the effect of a particular combination of circumstances in her drama, she let the matter lie fallow for a time in her brain. In the end, by some secret power or intuition, the right solution always came to her. But Julia Kavanagh was greater as an essayist than as a novelist. Pure and charming as her stories are, they, for the most part, lack that dramatic force and vigorous grasp of subject necessary to place all novels on “the shelf of the immortals.” Yet would it be well if in these days many writers followed in her healthy and wholesome footsteps.
The end of our task approaches. We have recorded the little we have to say about Mrs. Wood’s literary life. In this matter her works are her best memorial, and in one sense can be her only memorial. For her life was so simple that, in point of literary detail or adventure, it consisted solely in the work she produced. Nothing about her was studied, nothing was done for effect. Not a single word in any of her letters was ever inserted to “point a moral or adorn a tale.” She kept nothing. Nearly all her MSS. and letters were destroyed; everything as soon as its purpose was accomplished. What she had to say, she said simply, straightforwardly, concisely, with no digressions. Possibly in the earlier years it was different; the years when Mrs. Wood’s life was passed under Southern skies, and she sat on Alpine terraces listening to the song of the nightingales and writing poetry. In those days her letters may have been, and probably were, full of romance and imagination; but we possess none of them. In the ensuing years, when all romance had died and the pen was taken up in earnest work, mind and strength were devoted to that object alone. In this also she was wise.
CHAPTER XXV
“Abiding with me till I sail
To seek thee on the mystic deeps,
And this electric force, that keeps
A thousand pulses dancing, fail.”
AFTER East Lynne was published there followed many years of earnest work, during which between thirty and forty books were written. They were years of quiet happiness, which Mrs. Wood made a delight to those about her; full of rest and repose, with no great sorrows or changes to remark their passing. Once or twice health gave way from overwork; the brain needed rest, and home had to be left for absences of two or three months for change of scene and influence. At such times no remedy was ever so effectual as the fresh breezes of the Kentish coast. She never grew tired of watching the glorious sea and wonderful sunsets. The white cliffs of England charmed her. The winds that blew straight from the North Pole seemed charged with healing on their wings. The remedy never failed. Before long, vigour returned to the brain, elasticity to the step, animation to the countenance.
But on one occasion she felt more seriously overworked than usual. It was at the time that she had begun to write The Master of Grey lands. The overstrain came on suddenly, and as the first portion had appeared it was impossible to give up, yet seemed equally impossible to go on. Sleepless nights threatened serious disorder, and the least effort caused them.
What was to be done? Only absolute rest could be advised, and that was not to be taken. She decided to leave home, in spite of “the chilling blasts of January,” and go down to her favourite coast — a better wintering place than is generally supposed. Here for three months she lived a quiet life of seclusion, writing only for an hour or an hour and a half every day, spending much time in looking upon the ebb and flow of the sea, which washed up very near to her windows. In the movement of the water there was something peculiarly restful to the brain; it soothed the overstrained nerves, and induced the sleep that undue work had temporarily banished. Nothing ever delighted her like the sea; she was never tired of watching its broad and ever-changing expanse. We have said that she was peculiarly susceptible to harmony of colour; and the colours of the sea, changing from day to day with every passing cloud, the varying wind, fascinated her. So also with the sunsets — especially if they could be followed across the water. She would watch all the gorgeous effects with the keenest enjoyment and reverence, her thoughts ever filled, we may be sure, with the unseen glories beyond. The golden-tinted clouds turning to orange, with a background of sea-green sky; the wonderful opaline only found in the north; the pale blue graduating into the deeper purple. These were the things in nature that she most studied and loved; sea and sky; charmed by soft moonlight effects as much as by the brilliant sunsets.
On the occasions we have mentioned she had left home somewhat depressed, thinking that in The Master of Greylands she had begun her last work; fearing she might not perhaps finish even this. But at the end of three months she returned home restored, and never again suffered in the same way. Her health, however, was beginning to fail, though by imperceptible degrees. The foundation for this seemed to be laid during one of these very absences from home. And on that occasion it was curious that she remarked to one of the many friends who had met her at the station to bid her goodbye: “I don’t know why I am going away, for I never felt better in my life.” Alas, it was the commencement of a long and last farewell.
It happened that year on the Kentish coast that a quarrel took place between the lord of the manor and the contractor who removed the seaweed from the shore. In consequence of this the seaweed was left to decay, with deplorable results.
Many in the town died from typhoid fever. Mrs. Wood, at all times peculiarly sensitive, ought immediately to have returned home; but every hour was expected to end the quarrel, and she remained. At the end of ten days she was seized with a diphtheritic sore throat, and for a short time was dangerously ill. From the immediate effects of this she recovered, but it appeared to have left such permanent influence upon her that she never again felt really well.
She dated her decline from that hour. Once or twice after that she left home, though never again to visit Kent, for whose bracing air she had now become too delicate. Then came a time when home itself was never left. For some years before the end she never quitted even the house, though retaining quiet energy and youth even to the last. She would receive and entertain her friends with as much pleasure and animation as ever; but strength was gradually diminishing. The spinal weakness was growing greater. Very soon she began to realise how great was that weakness; how almost impossible she often found it to sit at the head of her table; but even then she was not aware that the inward curvature was fatally pressing more and more upon the heart. This was only really known a few days before the end came.
Though she never left the house, she was not ill, nor was she in any way considered an invalid; remaining at home more as a precaution than because she was not well enough to go out. She had become peculiarly susceptible to severe bronchial colds, which caused her so much suffering that she dreaded every fresh attack, from which she seemed to recover with more and more difficulty. At length to brave the air was impossible; she had become too sensitive, and suffered from the slightest change of temperature. In this she resembled her father, who in the later years of his life — almost entirely passed in his study — was never without a fire, summer or winter, and scarcely ever ventured beyond his own rooms.
Then came one Christmas Day which was to be for ever memorable — the Christmas of 1886. The previous day she had caught cold, and on Christmas Day, because it was Christmas Day, though feeling almost incapable of exertion, with the courage that had distinguished her through life, she came down to breakfast. She had seldom felt so ill, and it almost seemed as though a prevision that she had entered upon the beginning of the end was upon her. The habit had never been given up, when breakfasting with her children, of reading a chapter aloud at the close of the meal On this occasion two of them only were present, and she chose the 21st chapter of Revelation. She reached the fourth verse: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Here, and twice more during the chapter, she — the self-contained and the reliable — had to pause in order to retain her self-control. Even then she must have felt that for her “the former things had passed away.” Her last Christmas had dawned; soon her place would know her no more. She had had many previsions in life, and no doubt the sure knowledge of her approaching end came to her then. But she quietly closed the book and made no remark.
All that day she kept up, and at night presided at her family dinner-party, courageously making no sign; but at the end of the evening she murmured to one sitting near her: “I almost feel as if I were dying.” Yet never had she looked more radiant A little later on, and with great difficulty, leaning on the arm of one of her sons, she reached her own room. The pressure upon the heart was making it almost impossible to breathe — one of the most painful of all experiences. She was never to come down again.
The next day she was unable to rise, and her doctor, who had attended her for many years and thoroughly understood her, was early at her bedside. Three days afterwards she had thrown off her cold in a wonderful manner, and seemed almost well again. Every one about her rejoiced; so rapid a recovery had never been known, for her bronchial attacks would last for very many days and sometimes weeks. “It seems almost miraculous,” she laughingly remarked. “I cannot understand it. If I did not feel so wonderfully well, I should say that something was going to happen.” Sadly prophetic words.
Her doctor still wished her to keep her room, but she felt so well that she thought it unnecessary. She, however, agreed to remain on the same floor for a day or two, and occupy her study.
The very next day she seemed a little less well, and every day a little and a little less well. The difficulty to breathe was great and caused much suffering, and added to this was a distressing cough which probably partly arose from heart-trouble. This continued until the first of February, and during that time, though she said little, her sufferings were extreme — the suffering of breathlessness and great exhaustion.
Yet even now a little work was done; a few proofs were corrected for press, a few letters written; she gave advice upon many matters; talked and settled many of her affairs as one talks and settles who feels he has done with life. All was done with the greatest calmness and heroism. But the solemnity of the hour was seen in the expression of her eyes, which seemed to have gained a greater depth, an unspeakable seriousness. Earth was passing; she saw heaven opening. To such a mind and to such a life as hers the momentous issues would be realised to their utmost. She had ever dwelt much upon the thought of death, the awful hour of departure, when the long unknown journey has to be taken and the Dark Valley, with its shadow, lies immediately before us. Often when her children were young she was fond of gathering them around her, and of reading Sintram to them, a book she much loved. The translation of that day was far better than any that has since appeared. We still hear the echo of her sweet and serious voice as she repeated the verse —
“My Lord and God, I pray,
Turn from my heart away
This world’s turmoil:
And call me to Thy Light,
Be it through sorrow’s night,
Through pain or toil.”
And again —
“When death is drawing near,
And thy heart shrinks in fear,
And thy limbs fail:
Lift up thy heart and pray
To Him who leads the way
Through the dark vale.”
In looking back upon her life, she one day remarked that it seemed to have passed as a flash; it appeared but as yesterday that she was a child playing in her grandfather’s home. Yet few lives had been more truly lived; few had done more work, gone through greater trials. But the beauty of her nature, the purity and innocence of the years, unburdened by regrets of conscience, of duties unfulfilled or time wasted, made the life at its end seem strangely short and fleeting. Not hers the reproach of talents wasted, but rather the result of the good steward: “Lord, Thou hast committed unto me five talents; behold, I have gained five talents more.” And the award: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
This was now to be hers, and she might say with St. Paul: “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course.” She had “endured to the end.” The good seed had not fallen on barren ground. Her faith was not to fail in the last trying hours. “I know in whom I have believed.”
“When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee: they shall not overwhelm thee.” There was her consolation. Look well to the end had been one of the mottoes of her life; and with the great Eastern King she had engraved upon her heart the warning: This also shall pass away.
Much of these last days were spent alone in quiet thought and contemplation. She was too ill and suffering to converse very much, and insisted upon others not devoting very much time to the tedium of an invalid’s room. Through life she had thought of others; always others, never self.
It had been the custom to have a family dinner-party every year on her birthday — the 17th of January. But on this occasion, for the first time, it had to be postponed. One of her last letters was written to a son — who soon followed her to the Silent Land — telling him that she was too ill to join in the usual gathering, but hoping before very long to be well enough to come down and take her place amongst them again. It was not to be; and probably a voice was telling her even then that it never would be. No doubt she was so bravely meeting the end not only for her own sake, but for the sake of those around her. She could not help realising that their loss must be an endless sorrow. It was indeed already as a two-edged sword. Already the Shadow was upon the house, and steps went softly and voices were hushed; a fact was being slowly realised none dare look upon, and would not whisper even to each other.
A whole month passed thus; the month of January. Every day a change for the better was hoped for, and every day seemed to bring a slight change for the worse. Much of that month, we have said, was spent alone. How the past must have been dwelt upon — for her unfailing memory could carry her through almost every incident of her life. In nothing was her memory more remarkable than in this wonderful power of being able to trace out its events literally almost day by day.
It almost seemed that approaching departure had added a keenness to her vision; as the mortal receded, the spiritual and the intellectual grew brighter, as though the loosening bands of earth made higher flight possible. All her soul, we have said, seemed in her eyes, all the intensity of her nature to concentrate itself in her expression. Every time one near and dear to her entered her study there went forth a yearning gaze which spoke silently of the agony of approaching separation, but nothing was said. Life is sad; we all travel on the same road, which has a parting and a solitary journey at the end; sooner or later the “rending asunder” must needs come.
The days of that darkened January went slowly on, bringing no relief or consolation. Her birthday was spent in the quietude of her study. Seventy-three times had the sun risen and set for her on that day, and it had set for the last time. But even yet this was not known. Whilst there was life, hope could never be given up. The days went on, and she kept up bravely, day by day suffering more and more from weakness and difficulty of breathing. She would not give in, though the illness was asserting itself more firmly and fatally. At length, on the 31st of January, she felt that she could battle no longer, and remarked to her doctor that she would return to bed for a few days. Though she did not say so, she must have felt that the end was approaching. A consultation was desired. “It is useless,” she replied, “nothing can be done.” But to please those about her she yielded. Then, for the first time, the mischief was explained. Her own doctor had known it but kept silence. The spine pressing upon the heart prevented its working, and there could be but one termination. This might yet be delayed, but the end must come.
And now every day there was a decided change for the worse. She still sat up part of the day, but it was pain and grief to her. The suffering from exhaustion was intense, though the breathlessness had been mercifully removed. These days were borne with the utmost fortitude and patience. She, who had ever thought for others, had now to be the constant care of others. Frequent were her expressions of gratitude, whilst the hearts of those about her ached because they could do so little; repeated her words of thankfulness for the mercies with which Heaven had surrounded her, and which were rendering less painful these last days of intense suffering.
Through all she never lost her youthful look, her beauty and radiant complexion. Never had she looked better or appeared mentally brighter. It seemed impossible that death could be so near; almost impossible that death could ever be near.
On the Saturday evening she received the last rites of the Church, and from that moment no doubt felt that she had done with earth. Her faith seemed to shine more and more brightly to the end. There was no wavering. Steadfast as she had lived, so she remained in the trying hours of the close. Her clergyman, who saw her only on the occasion of administering the sacrament, afterwards spoke from the pulpit of her wonderful calmness and serenity, the brave manner in which she awaited the awful moment. After that memorial sermon the Dead March in “Saul” was played, and the congregation remained standing to the end.
