by Ellen Wood
“Will you allow me to add the expression — which, though tardily uttered, is none the less as entirely genuine as any of the numberless similar indications which you have, no doubt, ere this from every side received — the expression of my deep sympathy with you in the bereavement which not only you, but the world of letters generally has sustained, in the death of your illustrious mother. She was, in many senses of the word, one of our greatest English women.”
“I feel for you so much: the loss is dreadful! such a mother — such an interchange of thought and work: where shall we find a parallel?”
“We are deeply indebted to your kindness for affording us the opportunity of testifying our loving regard to one of our best, oldest, and most beloved friends — whom to know was to admire and esteem.... Alas! to-day we visit the tomb of our friends, and to-morrow others visit ours. The bereavement deprives me of a friend whom I can never replace — but to you, how vast the loss! Happily, our still living though unseen friend, when dwelling among us, added largely to the mental pleasures of mankind, and by a felicitous gift of more than earthly wisdom, uttered truths never to be forgotten. May this Christian lady now know in its grand and comprehensive sense what it is to be a member of the household of faith, and heir to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that passeth not away.”-
Sent to the writer by a friend abroad on the day of Mrs. Henry Wood’s death, but without knowing even of her illness:
“For the past fortnight your image has been floating before me, awake or asleep. I seemed to see a sad and marred face, and unable to wait any longer, I wrote to Miss Anne Beale for news. Only last night I was preaching of sorrow and sadness, our need of comfort, from the words:
‘The God of all consolation and suddenly you flashed into my mind, and I had to thrust you back to finish my sermon.”
“I have some hesitation in writing to you now when your heart and your head are alike so painfully occupied, but I cannot feel satisfied until I have thanked you for your most kind letter, which has touched me more than I can express. I need not say how grateful I am for the regard in which I was held by your good and admirable mother, nor how sincerely I reciprocated her affectionate friendship. Although we met seldom of late years, since the death of Mr. Wills, I think it was understood that there was no diminution of kindly feeling for, or of faith in, each other; and now I can only deplore the loss of a most dear and most sincere friend.... To you the loss is irreparable; your consolation must be in the influence for good your mother has left behind her, and in the pride you must feel in her name, which is loved and honoured throughout the world. That is something for children to cherish in a parent; and although now it may make your sorrow more acute, it will be an abiding solace to you in the future, which now looks sad and desolate.”
“We have heard, with great sorrow for you, of the irreparable loss you are now suffering. I do not know anything I can say that could comfort you; but I pray that the consolations of God may be great towards you. We, too, have been lately brought face to face with the great mystery, for three months ago my eldest sister died suddenly — never speaking after the first stroke fell. If we had not hope in Christ beyond this life, we should be indeed most sorrowful. But I believe that all is well for us and them.”
“May God give you strength to go through with your life. None can ever know your dear mother without having a very strong affection for her. She was so far above all other women.”
“You will hardly believe that until yesterday I never even heard of your great loss and grief. I have myself, for exactly one month, been through great desolation and trouble; for my dear old aunt, my companion and more than mother, died on the 17th of January after a few days’ illness. Since then I have lived in a sort of a maze, unable to fix my mind on any reading — even of the daily paper, which would have informed me of so great a public loss as your private grief entails. I am so very distressed and sorry for you.... My dear aunt, to the very end — as with my uncle and adopted father — did so delight in all and everything your mother wrote. Her name was a passport and a household word, and the magazine or book containing anything of hers must be had at any price — even if money was scarce. Of late she was growing deaf, and found it hard to gather all of a story read aloud; but it became almost a jest that no word of any story by Mrs. Henry Wood was ever lost. She listened with avidity to the first part of Lady Grace, and was sorry she should never read the second number. The Argosy must indeed droop her colours and take in ballast now.”
“... I cannot realise that in this world I shall never again see that kind, calm, beautiful face, with its marvellous bloom and serenity. Nor can I realise what her removal must be to your circle, in which she had such a special headship. But think of the happy life... a great blessing of work and success and love and honour and dutifulness. Of her we may truly quote the words of Thomas á Kempis: ‘Blessed is she that hath lived well and ended happily!’ Yet I know well that none of you will feel the orphanhood the less, because it overtakes you in the heat of life’s mid-day; and you have to go on living without the love and wisdom that has never failed you before for all these years.... Only God remains. That is the sole Comfort, after all. And He who spared her to you for so long is still keeping her for you.”
“It is seldom a mother has to be mourned at once so good and so gifted. To you — having been so long and so closely associated with her in her work — the bereavement must be doubly great. But in the midst of grief there is the consolation of a beautiful memory, and while the one becomes softened by time, the other lasts, interweaving itself with the hope of reunion.”
“The loss of such a mother must indeed be a terrible grief to you, and your sorrow will be shared, not only by friends and acquaintances, but by the world-wide circle of readers to whom Mrs. Henry Wood’s delightful books have endeared her.... Many will feel as if they had lost a personal friend — particularly the readers of the Argosy, who had just welcomed a new work from her pen, showing all the old freshness of charm and style.... Even in the midst of your grief it must be a pride and satisfaction to you to know how universally she was admired and esteemed, not only for her great talents, but for the pure and elevated spirit which breathes in all her works, and gives them a lasting influence for good.”
“Most truly she deserved all praise, not only as a writer but as an exemplary good woman in every phase of her life. Although of late years we saw so little of each other, I truly loved her. Her large charitable heart was ever ready to relieve and sympathise with those in trouble. She will indeed be missed and lamented by many who, unknown to the world, have been succoured in their hour of need. Oh, in the depth of your great sorrow, you have the remembrance of her unfailing goodness to assure you that her pure spirit is now receiving its reward.”
“Perhaps no word of mine can possibly lighten the weight of your sorrow.... Your loss, however, is a public calamity as well as a private grief, and as one amongst the many thousands of admirers of East Lynne, I offer you my tribute of regret.”
“I have felt the deepest sympathy with you, and now can think of nothing but the great happiness I have often witnessed in your family.... I really loved her, and it has often afforded my wife and myself no little pleasure and pride in being numbered amongst her many friends.... We have frequently spoken of the close ties existing between your mother and yourself, and amongst the other members of the family circle, and expressed a hope that our children might grow up to regard us with the same affection, and that we might be equally deserving of it.”
“We see with a sentiment of deep sympathy that your dear mother has just now passed on to the higher life. A happiness for her, but yet a sorrow to all who loved and esteemed her, and they were numberless. The Divine Mercy still spares me on earth, but one by one my old friends and co-labourers in the fields of literature pass on to receive their reward — and in this case it will be great, for she had always a high and noble purpose in view. I have now been so many years absent
from England, that my friends may have forgotten me, or might naturally suspect that Mary Howitt was one of the departed. But no one of my friends has been forgotten by me; and all who knew me, or have any knowledge of my former life, have known more or less of your excellent mother through my description of her wonderful powers of mind, industry, and success.... She was indeed a very remarkable woman from her unwearied and unwearying activity of mind and her boundless power of imagination. And no less remarkable, if not more so, was the fact of her retaining to the last that marvellous delicacy and refinement of feature and complexion which appears to have been the characteristic of her youth.”
“You have sustained a loss which nothing in this world can ever replace; that of a good mother; of whom, though your future memories may and will be more or less sad and painful, yet they will be rendered less bitter by the sentiments of love, esteem, and honour with which all thoughts of her whom you have lost must ever be connected. Compared with your loss mine is as nothing, yet to me it is very great and irreparable.... I have known you and yours now for nearly twenty years, and during the whole of that time, as you are well aware, have been invariably treated with nothing but kindness by your late mother; indeed kindness is a very weak word to express my sense of Mrs. Henry Wood’s treatment of myself. Her house I have ever regarded as a second home, where I always felt sure of a welcome and of real sympathy. The thought that one of such superior attainments and who held so prominent a place in the world’s regard, and of such sterling worth, should so regard me, has ever been to me very precious, though humbling, as knowing how far I fell short of deserving her kindly regard. She has now passed into the light, but though here I shall see her no more, I am sure that the remembrance of her will be an influence of guidance and comfort as long as I live.”
“It is not from carelessness for the loss you, and, in a different way, all England, have sustained, that I have refrained from writing my sincere condolences. I feared to intrude in the early days of so great and irreparable grief. We all felt on reading the sad announcement of your noble mother’s death, that we top had lost a true friend, and that one more of the gifted ones of earth had gone to reap the reward of a life of patient, constant, self-denying work, and of unwavering goodness. I think that Mrs. Henry Wood’s life is a true and abiding lesson.”
“At the risk of intruding as a stranger on holy ground, I write to express my sympathy with you in a loss which I am sure you will feel acutely. The setting sun leaves always a darkness behind it, but when it sets in crimson glory the gloom is relieved by a sense of thankfulness which I am sure you will feel.”
“If it is any comfort that many mourn with you, you must surely have it, for it was impossible not to love her through what she wrote, and to many all over the world this sad news has brought, I know, a heartfelt sorrow and regret. Never can I forget the kindness she has shown me for over ten years, and there was something so lovable and natural in her letters, that, aided by my sister’s description of her charm and beauty, I seemed to know her better than many met face to face. Seldom indeed are such talents combined with such sweet and feminine goodness, and we know what great comfort there must be for you in the thought. How strangely and beautifully applicable is now all she wrote of death, with such trust, serenity, and warmth of feeling, in the Argosy pages of this very month! We thought of it immediately, and how much more must you have done so.... The loss of one so gifted and so good must leave a blank not to be filled in this world, though submitted to in sure and certain hope of reunion in a better.”
“From the bottom of my heart I feel that I have lost a dear friend. All Mrs. Henry Wood’s works are equally well known to me, have been my companions. They have cheered and amused me in many a dark hour of sickness and of trouble as nothing else could — so it is small wonder that I love the books, and feel grateful to the ‘dead hand.’ Forgive me — a stranger — for venturing to write to you at this sorrowful time.”
“Though a stranger to us all, none of us ever having even seen her, yet we all loved her, and feel as if we had lost a personal friend. Her books have been a constant source of interest, instruction, and delight to us. We have read and re-read them, each time seeing fresh beauties in them, for she had that wonderful power of making all her characters absolutely real and lifelike.... About two years ago I wrote to Mrs. Henry Wood telling her what a pleasure and comfort her books had been to me. In return she sent me a charming letter, which I keep amongst my greatest treasures.... Forgive the liberty a stranger has taken in writing to you.”
“I pray you to pardon the liberty I take in writing to you, but the deep love and admiration I have for Mrs. Henry Wood’s works is my excuse. I am only the wife of a working man, and therefore not able to express myself so well as my betters; but we many of us so long to know if there is any hope for Mrs. Henry Wood’s works being published at a price to place them within reach of the working classes — so many desire to have them.... And in these days, when there are so many atheists and socialists, there is a great need for good books. Perhaps you will allow me to say that only one other author claims my love and reverence as Mrs. Henry Wood does, and that is Dickens; but his works are well within our reach, whilst of Mrs. Henry Wood’s I have only been able to buy two. After the day’s work — often with trouble and care — nothing rests me so much as a little reading; and though I love Dickens very much, yet Mrs. Henry Wood is like an effervescing draught. Every sentence is delightful and refreshes one, whilst the characters are so real and lifelike that one sorrows and rejoices with them as with friends we have known. Please pardon my writing, and believe me that, though far apart in station, and total strangers, the death of Mrs. Henry Wood is sincerely mourned by thousands among the working classes, and by none of them more than your respectful servant, M. S.”
“May I, a stranger, be allowed to offer you my profound and sincere sympathy in a loss so great that only those who have experienced something of the same loss can understand it. When I read of Mrs. Henry Wood’s death, I felt as though I had parted with a friend. All her beautiful writings are familiar to me, some very, very much so. I shall never forget how East Lynne impressed me. For long after I used to dream of its author and feast my imagination upon her, wondering and speculating upon many things. Indeed, it was impossible for me to read any of her books without the wish ever coming over me that I might see her and speak with her. I am so sure she must have been all you have written about her, for it is impossible to read her books without feeling that they are written by a most loving and deeply religious woman. I could never go to Malvern or Worcester, but Mrs. Henry Wood came most vividly to my mind. Her presence seemed everywhere: in the Cathedral, in the cloisters, passing up the thoroughfares, by the banks of the Severn — everywhere. So, sir, if it be any comfort to you to know that the outside world has a deep feeling of sympathy with you and yours, then you have it; for though unknown, we are all brethren, and all members of one great household. I trust you may not think it intrusive in a stranger thus writing to you, and will allow the great respect and love for the dead to plead my excuse.’’
The following impressions are the slight record of a friend who knew Mrs. Henry Wood for many years; one who had laboured long in the ministry in a London parish, had come into contact with all sorts and conditions of men, and had seen human nature in all its phases. They are inserted because they form an impartial and separate testimony to much that has already been affirmed in these pages.
“The task of giving some expression of my ideas and sentiments of the late Mrs. Henry Wood is not very easy, for the simple reason that though her character was as far removed from being commonplace as her writings were from ordinary productions, yet her nature was so retiring and her ways so devoid of self-assertion, that neither in what she said nor in what she did was there anything sufficiently prominent to challenge special attention.
“In the times of early acquaintance the gifted authoress was lost sight of in the presence of the courteous
lady and hostess, who with the tact that comes from good breeding and a kindly nature put you at your ease and showed you, though without ostentation, that her desire was to please you.
“A closer intimacy revealed other characteristics. I had known Mrs. Henry Wood through her writings for many years — fifteen or sixteen — before I knew her personally. I was then struck with the identity between herself and her works; what the books were in their aims and principles, such was the writer. The devotion to duty, the high sense of responsibility, the rectitude of purpose, the benevolence and goodness which form true life, and the inseparableness of them all from sincere but unaffected religion, which have so conspicuous a place in all she ever wrote, equally appeared in herself. It was — such at least is my opinion — that because she was what she was in these respects, she produced works which, unless I am greatly mistaken, will live as long as fiction is read. Nor do I think that, great as was the gift of imagination which she possessed, she could ever, her moral qualities being such as I have described, have allowed it to stray beyond the limits which they imposed upon it. Further acquaintance with her only deepened this conviction.
“Among the points of her character which always much impressed me, her high sense of duty stood out foremost, and stands so still in my remembrance. It imparted a substance and solidity to the writings which her talents made so powerful and attractive; but it also pervaded her whole character and life. Quiet and undemonstrative as she was, one soon perceived that she possessed a singularly clear and independent judgment on which she invariably acted without any reference to what others might say or think; for no one was less in bondage to outside opinion than she was. She formed her opinions, and acted on them, as I believe, from a deep sense of responsibility to God, and a certainty that such opinions came ultimately from Him. It may have been thought that these opinions were sometimes mere prejudices, and it is not for me to say that she was never mistaken in an estimate she had formed of a person or an action; but that estimate was never capricious, but deliberately arrived at from reasons which satisfied her own mind, and the conclusions thus established were never, so far as I recollect, altered in one single instance. She expressed what she thought, clearly and incisively, but seldom if ever argued.