The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan : Poet and Novelist [1 ed.] 9781443893015, 9781443886956

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The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Edited by

Damian Atkinson

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Edited by Damian Atkinson This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Damian Atkinson All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8695-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8695-6

In memory of Deborah Hayward Eaton sometime Librarian St Edmund Hall, Oxford

Katharine Tynan aged thirty (Magazine of Poetry, 1889)

CONTENTS

Note .......................................................................................................... viii List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... x Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Editorial Procedures .................................................................................. 18 Sources of Letters and Short Titles ............................................................ 19 A Brief Chronology of Katharine Tynan ................................................... 21 THE LETTERS 1884-1931 I. The Emerging Writer............................................................................. 29 21 January 1884 – 27 April 1893 II. England ............................................................................................... 161 7 May 1893 – 17 December 1911 III. Ireland ............................................................................................... 337 2 July 1912 – 19 July 1914 IV. The Great War ................................................................................... 387 8 August 1914 – 15 September 1918 V. Aftermath ............................................................................................ 455 14 March 1919 – [February 1931] Index of Recipients .................................................................................. 591 Index ........................................................................................................ 594

NOTE

Unfortunately, without the courtesy of any explanation, I was denied access to the letters of Katharine Tynan to her mentor Fr Matthew Russell, S.J., held in the Jesuit Archives in Dublin. This has obviously led to a gap in the understanding of her relationship with Fr Russell and her views on a variety of subjects not necessarily covered in her other correspondence.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: Katharine Tynan aged thirty (Magazine of Poetry, 1889) Alice Meynell (Greatham) Katharine and Pamela Hinkson November 1904 (© Victoria and Albert Museum) Katharine’s father Andrew Cullen Tynan Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent (Chris Jones) Plaque on Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent (Chris Jones) Wilfrid Meynell 1910 (Greatham) Pamela and Giles Aylmer Hinkson 1918 (Bookman, January 1918) Subscriptions appeal (TCD, Dublin) Holographs at Greatham (Oliver Hawkins) 21 June 1886 to Alice Meynell 8 July 1893 to Alice Meynell 20 June 1917 to Alice Meynell 28 November 1922 to Wilfrid 27 February 1924 to Wilfrid Meynell 17 November 1928 to Wilfrid Meynell 14 January 1931 to Wilfrid Meynell

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My first thanks must go to Philip Hanson for copyright permission to publish letters and photographs. Sincere thanks are due to the following libraries for permission to publish: Berg Collection, New York Public Library; British Library; Queen’s University, Belfast; Birmingham University Library; Brotherton Library, Leeds University; Cambridge University Library; King’s School, Canterbury; Columbia University, New York; Meynell family library, Greatham, Sussex; Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut; Hertfordshire County Record Office; Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Indiana; University of London Library; John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; Morgan Library, New York; Morris Library, University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale, Illinois; National Library of Ireland, Dublin; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; University of New England, NSW, Australia; University of Notre Dame, Indiana; Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia; University of Reading Library; Richmond Central Reference Library, Middlesex; Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratfordupon-Avon; Stanford University Library, California; Stony Brook University Library, New York; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Texas; Trinity College, Dublin; University College, Dublin; University of British Columbia Library; University of Victoria Library, British Columbia; Washington University Library, St Louis, Missouri; West Sussex Record Office, Chichester. Many thanks go to Linda Dryden, Edinburgh Napier University; Suzanne Foster, Archivist, Winchester College; and Mark Samuels Lasner, for permission to include two letters in the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection on loan to the University of Delaware Library. Especial thanks to Fran Baker, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; and also to Oliver Hawkins for his usual hospitality at Humphreys Homestead, Greatham, and for a long loan of Katharine’s letters to Alice and Wilfrid Meynell. My thanks also to him for the photographs of Alice and Wilfrid and also scans of some of the letters. Many thanks to Chris Jones for the photographs of Katharine’s house, Fairlawn, in Southborough and its commemorative plaque. Grateful thanks to Peter van de Kamp who has an extensive knowledge of Katharine Tynan’s life. I am also indebted to

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Whitney Standlee for her help and suggestions. John Kelly’s first volume of Yeats’s letters has been an invaluable source and I am greatly indebted for his scholarship. I am grateful to Cambridge Scholars Publishing for guiding the manuscript through the press. Finally my thanks to my wife Ann for her usual forbearance with the intrusion of yet another writer into her life and her help in deciphering some of Katharine’s handwriting.

INTRODUCTION

A farmer’s daughter, a convent girl, a lover of the Irish countryside, a poet, novelist and short story writer, a journalist, a friend of the English during war and peace, a fighter for justice, a Catholic but able to see and decry the interference of religion in politics: this is in part Katharine Tynan Hinkson, usually known as Katharine Tynan, who lived in Ireland and England and wrote through the turbulent times of Irish politics, suffrage, the Great War, and civil war in Ireland. Katharine Tynan was born on 23 January 1859 in Dublin into a farming family, her father Andrew Cullen Tynan (1829-1905) being a farmer of some note and a council member of the Irish Cattle Traders Association. He traded cattle with Irish and English buyers and sellers and also supplied the British Army and the Royal Navy. Her mother, Elizabeth O’Reilly (1831-68/9), is not mentioned in the letters I have seen, whereas her father played an important role in Katharine’s life, though not always to Katharine’s benefit. The first chapter of Katharine’s Reminiscences is entitled “My Father” and references to her mother occur in later chapters where she is seen as a rather Puritan influence, especially in her attempts to control Katharine’s selection of reading matter. Katharine was born as the fifth child of a family of twelve. Her sister Nora (Norah) Tynan (1866-1954), achieved some literary note as a novelist, poet and women’s editor of Freeman’s Journal. Katharine’s education was firstly at a Dublin school for young ladies and later at the Dominican Convent, St Catherine of Siena, at Drogheda. Her schooling was sparse and was not helped by increasing poor eyesight which she later referred to as “purblind” which forced her in later life to seek treatment in Germany. At one point in her early life Katharine remembers “kneeling by a big chair, my face on my folded arms, because I could not bear the light” (Memories, 388). Her poor eyesight is evident in some of her later letters and certainly towards the end of her life. In her last years she relied on her daughter Pamela to act as an amanuensis. One could argue that there were three major friendships in Katharine’s life outside her family, the first being Fr Matthew Russell, S.J., editor of the Irish Monthly. Katharine had submitted a long ballad, “The Legend of the Painted Windows” and was asked to meet the editor. The ballad was published in July 1880 and Fr Matthew Russell became a life-long friend

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and mentor. The second friendship resulted from Fr Matthew Russell’s suggestion to write to the Catholic literary couple Alice and Wilfrid Meynell and Katharine met them on a visit to London in 1884. This soon enabled Katharine to publish in the Catholic Weekly Register and the Meynells’ monthly Merry England. The friendship with Alice was deep and lasted until Alice’s death in 1922. Some of Alice’s letters to Katharine are published in my Selected Letters of Alice Meynell: Poet and Essayist. Katharine’s affection for Alice is shown in her “Alice Meynell—The Dearest of Women” (Memories). The third friendship, though not strictly life-long, was with W. B. Yeats whom she met in June 1885 through the auspices of Charles Hubert Oldham, co-founder of the Dublin University Review. Yeats was a frequent visitor to the Tynan home in the 1880s and early 1890s. The friendship was basically one of common literary interests although Yeats did propose unsuccessfully to Katharine on 19 July 1891. Unfortunately very few of Katharine’s letters to Yeats appear to have survived but those to her from him are in Yeats Letters, and show that both were involved with Irish literature to the extent of collaboration on Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland published in 1888. This collaboration and the interest in Irish literature was in part a contribution to the Celtic revival in which Katharine played a minor part through her poetry. Katharine also visited the Rev. Fagan and family in Norfolk. Wilfrid Meynell introduced Katharine to the publisher Kegan Paul and with the financial support of her father her first volume of poetry Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems was published in 1885 and was generally well received, with letters from William and Christina Rossetti, and also Cardinal Manning: Katharine had started on her life as a poet. She began to publish in America, notably in the Catholic Ave Maria and later in the Providence Journal. Horace Reynolds in his A Providence Episode in the Irish Literary Renaissance (Providence: 1929) notes that Katharine contributed some sixty poems (11). Kegan Paul published her second volume of poetry Shamrocks in 1887 to good reviews including two from Yeats. His father John Butler Yeats completed a portrait of Katharine in 1886. 1888 was a major year in her life when she met the Trinity College scholar Henry (“Harry”) Albert Hinkson, who, incidentally, had been at one stage in the same form at the Harcourt Street High School, Dublin, as Yeats. Harry was a Protestant and the Catholic Church did not take too kindly to such marriages and they were eventually married in England at the Register Office, in Kingston, Surrey, on 4 May 1893. Despite Katharine staying with the Meynells before the wedding they, being strong Catholics (both converts), did not appear to have attended the wedding.

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Harry did convert on his deathbed in 1919. Further literary recognition reached Katharine in 1888 when she was the subject of “Living Irish Literary Celebrities No. 1—Katharine Tynan”, in the Nation, 3 November, at the age of twenty-nine, with the opening comment: “The first we have chosen for our subject is a writer, not old in years, but of sufficient merit in achievement to have made a distinct place for herself in the literary history of our generation.” Katharine reviewed both Wilfrid Blunt and Yeats in the following year and became one of the few women contributors to the Scots Observer (later the National Observer) then under the editorship of W. E. Henley. To Wilfrid Meynell the relationship with Yeats suggested that there was more to it than literature and mere friendship and Katharine had to rebuke him with “Willie Yeats is not a swain;—of mine;—he is too inhuman to love or to be loved,—but I have curiously baulked him for years, and feel that he has so much claim upon me” (22 May 1889). She came to England in the summer of 1889, staying first with the Meynells, then with Yeats in Chiswick, the Blunts in Sussex, friends in Oxford and the Fagans in Norfolk and finally the Meynells in London. She was now well established in England and this no doubt helped her to live in England later on. This connection with England was further reinforced when she became Godmother to the Meynells’ daughter Olivia in 1890. Naturally politics played a part in her life being Irish. She was a supporter of the Protestant politician Charles Stewart Parnell and the first chapter of her Memories is on Parnell, who stood for the rather vague term “Home Rule” in Ireland whereby there would an assembly looking after Irish affairs. All was well until Parnell’s affair with Mrs Kitty O’Shea came to light and the subsequent divorce in November 1890 which caused a rift among his supporters. Katharine, however, still supported him and castigated the priests for their interference It is a bad day for the Church. I can say to you what I can’t to the Catholic men here, whom I try to persuade that the action of the priests cannot affect the divine impersonal Church. There is the bitterest feeling against the priests. They are autocrats here, and as insolent as autocrats are. Yesterday they went about Dublin streets meeting the black looks with faces beaming with triumph (24 December 1890 to Alice Meynell).

In the same letter she writes Yesterday evening coming home in the steam-tram, I sat opposite two priests one of whom used to be a warm friend of mine, the other a frequent visitor here. Except to shake hands when I came in and got out, they

Introduction

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ignored me as if I had done something which cut me off, and they talked anti-Parnellite with ungenerous triumph all the time.

And again I wonder what the English think now as to the Home Rule and Rome Rule being synonymous terms. I hope we’ll never get Home Rule till the priests are made to understand that when they step down from their sacred office to be politicians they have no more right or importance or sanctity than other men.

Katharine’s support for Parnell caused her anxiety and she recounts “The Parnell Split” in her Reminiscences. Katharine’s third volume of poetry Ballads and Lyrics was published in 1891 as was her A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order: the Life of M. X. Fallon which was heavily criticised in the National Press no doubt because of her support for Parnell. The Catholic Times noted that Katharine was unable to write prose equally as well as poetry. However, the English press was complimentary. Her Ballads and Lyrics was reviewed by Yeats in the Dublin Evening Herald who was glad that she had improved her work “by study both of the old Irish ballads and of the modern writers I have named” and that the present book “is well nigh in all things a thoroughly Irish book” rather than under English influence. This criticism of national influence was later to apply to some of her novels. Katharine’s affection for Alice resulted in her appraisal “Alice Meynell” in the Magazine of Poetry in 1891. Katharine’s journalism increased in 1892 when she became a regular reviewer for the Irish Daily Independent, while Harry Hinkson wrote short titbits of university news often under the heading “Trinity Intelligence” for the same paper and he also wrote for the Dublin Evening Herald. Katharine published her first anthology Irish Love-Songs which included two poems from Yeats and two of her own. A letter to Alice in March shows that she and Harry intended to marry once Harry was settled in London as she saw her future in England among the new friends, especially the Meynells. Harry published Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin but she entreated Wilfrid Meynell not to look at it critically! 1893 was a momentous year for Katharine: marriage and settling in England in May. Prior to the move she had to meet Lady Aberdeen to discuss her own visit to Donegal as she contributed an article “The Cottage Industries of Donegal” in the Guide to The Irish Industrial Village and Blarney Castle for the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1 May to 30 October 1893. This meeting led to a lifelong friendship with Lord and Lady Aberdeen despite the social differences. She contributed articles on

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Alice Meynell in the Sketch and W. B. Yeats in the Sketch and the Bookman and was herself interviewed for the Sketch. She was now a regular contributor to the Bookman and she was signing herself with either surname or both. Harry had advertised in the Weekly Register as a private tutor for university and army entrance and eventually found employment at a Mr Maguire’s, an army crammer. Katharine was now leading a full literary and social life and her Middle Years gives ample proof. Yeats and she continued to meet whenever he was in London. Unfortunately she had a miscarriage in July. The next year brought more sadness: Katharine had a stillborn child. The birth was looked for more so than normal as Harry, a Protestant, had agreed to the child being brought up as a Catholic. Katharine wrote to Alice I have been wanting to tell you that Harry has yielded about the baby after all; it is to be a Catholic in any case, and Father Dawson is to baptize it. I know how glad you and Wilfrid will be. When I say “yielded” it is scarcely the right word, for there was no pressure. I had only to ask him. He made no concession of it. I love him so much better every day it grows almost too much (10 May 1894).

In July Katharine and Harry spent a month in Ireland for recuperation but as usual Katharine was reviewing as she requested John Lane to send her books. From February 1894 to August the following year Katharine wrote a monthly “London Letter” for the American Literary World. Despite her sadness Katharine managed to publish two books in 1894, Cuckoo Songs and the prose A Cluster of Nuts: being Sketches among My Own People. Katharine reviewed the first issue of the Yellow Book in the Literary World commenting that it was “not differing greatly from other magazines except by displaying the eccentric influence of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, which gives it its individuality”. Harry left his teaching post at Maguire’s as there had been complaints about his attitude towards the boys and concentrated on writing although this was not very financially rewarding. A major scoop occurred in late 1895 or early 1896 when Katharine became one of the unsigned women-only contributors to the “Wares of Autolycus” column in the Pall Mall Gazette a post she shared with Alice Meynell. Katharine published her first collection of stories An Isle in the Water in 1895 to mixed reviews. The Academy damned the book saying that she could not write prose and that it was a trait not uncommon in the Irish, but there were complimentary reviews. Harry published his Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College. Another disaster befell Katharine and Harry when their son Godfrey Assumption Francis who was born on

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17 August 1895 died of rickets dyspepsia on 30 September. Harry was still looking for permanent employment. With May Probyn Katharine published a very slim Christmas Verses in 1895 which consisted of four poems by May and two by Katharine. The following year Katharine suffered rejections from Blackwoods Magazine but was successful with the National Observer. In June they moved to 107 Blenheim Crescent, London: “We did it really to be near to the Meynells” (Middle Years, 154). They then went to Dublin until the end of October. Theobald (“Toby”) Henry Hinkson was born on 12 August 1897 and Harry went to Ireland in September. Katharine published The Wind in the Trees: A Book of Country Verses dedicated to Alice Meynell in 1898 although there had been some dispute with Yeats over the title. Katharine had suggested some titles for her book to the publisher Grant Richards and in a letter to Yeats (13 May 1898) wrote: “I sent him [Richards] a list, showing my preference for Country Airs. At the end of the letter I wrote—‘Only for W. B. Yeats’s Wind Among the Reeds The Wind in the Trees might be a bad title’.” There were more rejections from Blackwoods, and also one from John Lane as a result of a reader’s assessment. This year was the first mention of Katharine’s financial problems as she thanked Wilfrid Meynell for a loan, an arrangement that lasted for the rest of her life. Harry’s publications and teaching did not provide them with enough financial security and the rewards for Katharine’s writing were small and inconsistent. Some sense of financial stability only came later with her novels, or “pot-boilers” as she called them. Giles (“Bunny”/“Patrick”) Aylmer Hinkson was born 7 February 1899 in London after they returned from Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin for the birth. They then returned to Ireland until late April or early May. Katharine was commissioned to revise the four volume The Cabinet of Irish Literature: Selections from the Works of the Chief Poets, Orators, and Prose Writers of Ireland which had been published in 1879-80. This was a major undertaking and was published in 1902-03. She did not include herself but included an extract from Harry’s latest book The King’s Deputy. A notable exclusion was Oscar Wilde and writing to Fr Russell, 29 April 1903, she remarked I believe I did make up my mind to exclude Oscar Wilde, as I thought his name would do the book no good. Of course it was compiled before he had made any sign of repentance: but anyhow I should have been afraid to include him.

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Further success came in the Spring of 1899 when Katharine learnt that McClurg of Chicago had bought editions of her work. The Hinksons moved back to Ealing in the first week of June 1900 and their daughter Pamela was born on 19 November. Katharine’s well-known poem “Sheep and Lambs” (“All in the April evening”) was included in Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Verse. There is one intriguing issue for this year as Katharine is reported to have obtained a grant of £400 from the Royal Bounty Fund and also a grant of £300 from the Royal Literary Fund. This was in a letter from Downing Street to the secretary of the Royal Literary Fund, 5 November 1925, with the request “let me have your observations in regard to this case”. There is no mention of these amounts in Katharine’s letters of 1900 or at any other time. Katharine had met the writer May Sinclair at a Women Writers’ Dinner in the summer of 1900 and they began a correspondence with Sinclair becoming a frequent visitor. Katharine’s affection for Alice was again shown by her unsigned poem “Alice” in the Pall Mall Gazette, 2 November 1900, which was later included in her Collected Poems. The Hinksons went to Dublin in late April 1901 visiting an old friend Mary Gill and returning in early March to Ealing. Katharine turned to the well-known literary agent J. B. Pinker to help with publication. In July the Hinksons spent their holiday at Pounds Farm, Oakley, Surrey, before staying at the King’s Arms at Oakley in August until early September when they returned to Ealing. Katharine published her novel A Union of Hearts and her Poems towards the end of the year. The Boer war had started in October 1899 and in 1901 Katharine wrote an article in the Pall Mall Gazette about James Anderson, the son of a friend, who had been killed the previous year. This was the first of articles, poems and correspondence about war which later marked an important era of her life during the Great War. In late April 1902 Harry was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple and the Hinksons went to Ireland for about a month. In August they spent three weeks at Ambleteuse on the French coast at the suggestion of York Powell, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, a holiday Katharine recounts in her Middle Years (288-91). They then returned to the King’s Arms for three weeks, returning to Ealing on 1 October. The return was saddened by the death of their friend the poet Lionel Johnson and Katharine and Harry attended the funeral. The Athenaeum of 8 November noted that Katharine was to publish an edition of Lionel Johnson’s poems but his family vetoed this. However, Katharine’s Pall Mall Gazette article of 6 October 1902 was used as an introduction to

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“Poems by Lionel Johnson” in the Bibelot (1904). There are a few surviving letters for 1903. Much was taken up with visiting or receiving friends such as the Meynells and May Sinclair. Katharine declined to offer work to T.T’s Weekly as they set a word limit which she found too low. She and Harry entertained the publisher Eveleigh Nash for dinner in May and he eventually published Katharine’s Memories in 1924. In October they were back at the King’s Arms while the water pipes were unblocked at home: a stay of about two weeks! In a letter to Pinker Katharine commented on her A Union of Hearts, first published by Nisbet in 1901 I am sorry the book did so badly, for I know it is a good book: but I have come belatedly to the conclusion that it is their Irishism that is against the success of my books, & intend to devote myself to England for the future.

This was true and she did write strongly for the English market but her heart was still in Ireland. The art collector and dealer Hugh Percy Lane wished to include John Butler Yeats’s portrait of Katharine in the Irish art section at the World’s Fair in St Louis in 1904. Unfortunately for Katharine Lane found the cost of insurance for shipping prohibitive and instead held an exhibition at the Guildhall, London, in the summer of 1903. That summer they spent on the French coast. In July Katharine had suggested to the Governing Body at Winchester College that a memorial tablet be erected to the memory of its old boy Lionel Johnson. No action was taken until July 1904 when a design was approved. Katharine and Harry each gave a pound and a plaque in Latin was erected and Katharine acted as a collector of subscriptions in England and Ireland. In April 1905 Katharine received a commission worth £150 to write a serial for the British Weekly which was subsequently published as “For Maisie” in 1906 and later in book form. This joy was tempered by the death in May of her old friend and Pamela’s Godmother Mary Gill of Dublin. Katharine’s A Little Book for Mary Gill’s Friends appeared in 1906. Katharine’s interest in literature and death resulted in A Book of Memory, the Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead with extracts from poetry and prose for every day. The Hinksons paid their third visit to France staying at Audresselles, Pas de Calais (Middle Years, 298-300). Katharine’s father died on 7 September 1905 and is briefly mentioned in a letter of 24 June 1907 to Fr Daniel Hudson: “I miss him more sadly than ever since we have come to the country.” In November 1906 Katharine wrote to The Times being shocked that the suffrage women in prison should be treated as common criminals and

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ends with telling remark: “I have never hitherto desired to vote, but these doings make me think. I ask myself why my gardener should have a vote and I not have one.” In a letter to Mrs Keith Gilbert Chesterton (5 November 1906) Katharine thanks her for an invitation to visit one evening but writes I am so blind that for a long time now I have not been able to get about unaccompanied after dark. I realized how very blind I was the other day when I took my working glasses to an optician to ask if I could have anything stronger, & he told me, after taking a deal of trouble that they could do nothing for me. I had reached the limit.

Katharine’s brother-in-law John O’Mahony had died in 1904 and Katharine published A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends in 1906. Another friend died in early 1907, the journalist Vernon Blackburn. Katharine was now suffering from “wheel” headaches something she had in common with Alice Meynell. April saw Katharine support the successful application to the Royal Literary Fund by the short story writer and journalist Alexander Gordon. The Hinksons were now house hunting and on 16 June moved to Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, and in a letter to Dora Shorter (18 May 1907) they are thinking of getting a horse which they did. Katharine was to attend the Women Writers’ Dinner in London on 17 June acting as hostess to Lady Augusta Gregory but was unwell and Alice Meynell stepped into the breech. In August Katharine wrote to both Wilfrid Blunt and Lord Rothschild seeking financial support for a small Catholic mission in Chipperfield (“in this very bigoted corner of England”) but it did not materialise. In November 1907 Francis Thompson died and Wilfrid Meynell telegraphed to Katharine asking her to “pay tribute to him in Pall Mall”. Katharine’s “Francis Thompson: An Appreciation” appeared on 23 November. In December the Tablet noted that Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson will contribute to the forthcoming number of The Fortnightly Review an appreciation of the poetry of Francis Thompson, a poet to whom she was personally known.

This did not happen and Katharine’s article was finally published in February 1910. No reason for the delay has been found. Since 1887 Katharine had been corresponding with the editor of Ave Maria Fr Daniel Hudson and in early 1908 she asked him to send used stamps from around the world for her children which he did. She had also been corresponding with the author Frank James Mathew since 1900, who

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had lived near them when they were in Blenheim Crescent. In May 1908 Katharine writes to Frank Mathew about Toby: “We put him into a very jolly preparatory school at Watford to come home week-ends: but he ran away three times & we have now given it up.” Katharine published “The Neglect of Irish Writers” in the Catholic World, April 1908 stating that “a great tragedy...is the disappearance of the Irish writer” and that “the Irish are not a reading people” but rather oral. She then balances this with the emergence of new writers but is anyone reading them? Harry published Father Alphonsus, a story questioning those who become priests without a vocation which received a fair review in the Tablet although Katharine writes that the Tablet was denounced for its lenient review. At the end of the year Katharine published her volume of poetry Experiences. A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends was reprinted by Thomas Mosher in 1909. Writing to Frank Mathews on 6 January 1909 she complains that reviewers “take it for granted that I’m at my usual game of boiling the pot & writing down to girls,—who are in my experience a most thankless audience”. Katharine was forced to write for financial gain to support her family and she makes the point that she does not write poetry for the same ends. In the same letter she explains why the family is always on the move: “We are wanting to get away from here for a bit,—not that we are not happy but that at long last I am impatient of being always in the one spot.” Her Experiences, published the previous year, received poor reviews and Katharine felt it necessary to write to Lascelles Abercrombie to express her gratitude for his positive review. In May the family spent some weeks in Malvern with the intention of finding a school for Toby but the right school could not be found. In August Alice Meynell and Ezra Pound visited. In a letter to Fr Hudson (22 October 1909) Katharine sheds light on the governess’s use of language in relation to a child when On one occasion it was because she required Pamela to read a line in BethGelert...“Hell-hound, thou hast devoured my child”, the governess required to be read as “Bad dog, thou hast devoured my child”. Pamela thought the substitution inadequate & refused to read it: so I agree with you as to the sufferings of children from the stupidity of grown-ups.

In 1910 Katharine introduced the writer Lucy Lyttelton to the American publisher Thomas Mosher who published Lyttelton’s Lyrical Poems the same year. Katharine was now an irregular contributor to the American Collier’s Weekly. Writing to Kathleen McDonnell in America in April Katharine says they were about to move to Southborough in Kent, a stay described in a chapter of Middle Years. Southborough was chosen so

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that Toby and Giles could go to Tonbridge School as day-boys, which they did. They had rented the house for twenty-one years, their longest intention to say in one place, but realised that they had made a mistake and eventually managed to lease the house and they stayed at various addresses until, after a holiday in Ireland in the summer of 1911 and a return to Southborough, they finally moved to Ireland for Christmas 1911. During this unsettled period Katharine contributed poems to McClure’s Magazine and published Paradise Farm and Princess Katharine in America. She also published New Poems. In May she attended the Women Writers’ Dinner in London. Once settled in Ireland the family took on a country life with an orchard and a hundred chickens. Even though they had made a permanent base in Ireland they hoped to spend summers in London. In July Katharine reviewed May Sinclair’s The Three Brontës in the Pall Mall Gazette. Toby won a Foundation Scholarship to Tonbridge and became a boarder. Unfortunately this did not last and he ran away and finally he went to the Dublin High School which both Harry and W. B. Yeats had attended and where Giles was also. In July Katharine made the first reference to a post for Harry: “I want a comfortable opportunity for H. for our old age. A Resident Magistracy in Wicklow, Kildare or Meath would do: but I won’t go to the hinterland.” This hope was filled through the generosity of Lord Aberdeen in 1914 but in Co. Mayo. In 1912 Katharine started on her first autobiography Reminiscences published the following year. Early in 1913 Katharine wrote to the Irish Times concerning a cruelty to animals case, a cause very dear to her. Her major publications that year were her selection of Irish poetry, The Wild Harp, Reminiscences and her Irish Poems. Although she had never met the politician George Wyndham, one time Chief Secretary for Ireland, they had corresponded and in 1913 she and Harry were invited to Wyndham’s son’s wedding in April but were unable to attend. George Wyndham died later that year and his son Percy was killed in 1914. Katharine once more praised Alice with her “Mrs Meynell and her Poetry” in the Catholic World in August. In October Katharine stayed at the home of Judge John Ross, later Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in Co. Tyrone. The year closed with Yeats writing about Reminiscences to Lady Gregory on 9 November (Yeats Letters) that It contains—without permission—pages of my letters when I was twenty one or two, to me now very curious letters. I recognize the thought, but the personality seems to me someone else. The book which is careless & sometimes stupid contains a great deal that moves me, for it is a very vivid picture of that Dublin of my youth.

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Introduction

Katharine wrote to Yeats on 17 December Mrs Meynell told me that you were not angry with me for using your letters in Reminiscences I was afraid to ask you lest you should say no. Anyhow I didn’t think I had committed any indiscretion, and I am glad to see that people recognising you as one of the heroes of the book.

Yeats replied on 19 December 1913 I liked your book very much and not merely because it brought back so many memories. You have the gift to describe many people with sympathy and even with admiration, and yet to leave them their distinct characters. Most people have to choose between caricature & insipidity. I was especially interested in all that period just before I knew you. You called up the romance of a forgotten phase of politics and gave it dignity.

Katharine was happily settled in Ireland but she wrote to Frank Mathew on 16 December 1913 that Harry obstinately refuses to settle. He is really happy but doesn’t know it. We are both far better in health than we were in England. He gets very good health & as for me I have never been so well before thanks to the giver of all good things. He sighs for London & the Savage Club.

In 1914 John Butler Yeats’s portrait of Katharine appeared with an entry in the Catholic Who’s Who. In June she published The Flower of Peace: a Collection of Devotional Poetry an interesting title in view of the coming conflict. At the end of April Katharine accompanied Lady Aberdeen to Rome for the Quinquennial Meeting of the International Congress of Women in Rome of which Lady Aberdeen was President (Years of the Shadow, ch. XIII “Rome”). While in Rome she had an audience with the Pope and wrote articles for the Westminster Gazette, Freeman’s Journal and The Times. The rest of the year and the three succeeding years were highly influenced by the Great War, a period dealt with in her Years of the Shadow. Finally Harry had found, or been given, a full-time post. The Times, 7 October 1914, had a short announcement that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Lord Aberdeen) had appointed Harry as Resident Magistrate for Co. Mayo to be stationed at Castlebar. The Irish Independent of 10 October published The Council of the Incorporated Law Society has passed a resolution against the appointment of Mr. H. A. Hinkson, a member of the English

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

13

Bar, as resident magistrate in Ireland. The Council regard the appointment as a slight upon the legal profession in Ireland, and repeat their protest against the action of the Executive in ignoring the claims of members of the solicitors’ profession for such appointments. In the Wandering Years (54) Katharine includes the following To Mr. Hinkson, R.M. There was a bit of a kick-up about your appointment as an R.M., but you have well justified the opinion of those who put you here. You are a gentleman every inch, and your decisions are always of such a nature as to give satisfaction. You are incapable of even a scintilla of prejudice, and you have no political humours. Your estimable lady has made her name in the world of letters you have established yours here as a high-minded and impartial magistrate.

Katharine visited Harry in Castlebar to help him settle in. The Great War now began to take its toll of Katharine’s friends and acquaintances. Many of her letters of the period contained references to the young men who were killed and Katharine wrote commemorative verse and also published two volumes of poetry, Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time in 1915 and The Holy War in 1916. In a letter to Harry, 23 November 1914, Katharine writes: “I’ve been writing war poems, four this morning & I’ve got a happy idea. I’m going to put together an Anniversary Book of those killed in the war.” She later refers to this as The Roll of Honour: A Book of Glories & Illusion and it appears it was written but not published. It was written on the lines of A Book of Memory. In December she stayed with the Aberdeens in Dublin. Katharine’s last stay with the Aberdeens was in February 1915 before they left office to return to England and she wrote two newspaper reports about their departure. Katharine and the children moved to Carradoyne, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, to be with Harry. In May Katharine published a study of her friend and poet George William Russell (AE) in T. Ps Weekly. She wrote to the Irish Times complaining that she had to pay to send vegetables by train for soldiers in city hospitals and suggested free carriage or a nominal sum. The title poem of The Flower of Youth became so popular that the publishers issued it as a separate item. Since the start of the Great War Katharine had kept a War Book...mainly a collection of conversations & letters & may make me famous in a century or so. It will take that time to mellow. When all the War books have been long forgotten this will give a glimpse of what was being talked of & written about in 1914-15-16. (12 November 1915).

14

Introduction

This she called A Woman's Notes in War-Time: Observations from a Quiet Corner but it was never published. Giles went to Sandhurst on 27 November 1916 and passed out on 30 April 1917 to join the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a 2nd Lt. Toby was already serving as a 2nd Lt. in the 3rd Royal Irish Regiment. On 8 December 1916 writing to Wilfrid Meynell Katharine makes passing reference to the Easter Rising in April: “Did you not feel for me in our own little war here. It was terrible but very wonderful too.” Chapters cover the Rising in Years of the Shadow. There is no discussion on the Rising in the letters I have seen. It is possible her concern for her two soldier sons and the sons of friends was paramount. Writing to Alice in December Katharine remarks that You will be amused to hear that I spoke at a Recruiting Meeting at Ballinasloe 14 miles from here the other night! Got a tremendous reception. I have written a recruiting song to be printed on the recruiting circulars for the West.

In July 1916 Katharine and Pamela moved to Brookhill, a house in Claremorris, which she describes in Years of the Shadow. 1917 saw Katharine applying to the Royal Literary Fund for £100 outlying her and Harry’s financial incomes and admitting that she “never was a popular writer”. George Wyndham’s sister the Countess of Wemyss wrote in support as did AE. The application was successful and she received £50. Part of the money was needed to pay for a car for Harry. Her financial straits forced her to sell some seventy odd letters from W. B. Yeats to the American book buyer George D. Smith for £100 in the following year. Harry had been contributing to the Bookman since 1911 as a reviewer. Katharine wrote to the Irish Times concerning the welfare of Irish girls arriving at Irish and English ports seeking employment. She published Late Songs and published an article “Recent Irish Poetry”. Finance was still a problem and early in 1918 she approached the journalist Clement King Shorter, who had become a friend, for £20. She had published an introduction to the poems of Shorter’s late wife Dora and also two articles. She also reviewed John Butler Yeats’s Essays: Irish and American. During the summer Lord Linlithgow as Colonel of the Royal Scots spent ten weeks at the Hinksons’ house, an episode recounted in Years of the Shadow. 1919 opened with a disaster, Harry, as a Catholic, died quite suddenly on 11 January at home after a week’s illness. Katharine and Pamela’s life changed and they moved to Killiney, Co. Dublin, on 14 February. In May they and Pamela returned to England visiting friends in Scotland and

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

15

returning to Ireland in October. The major publishing event for Katharine was The Years of the Shadow which generally received good reviews, although she was attacked in one review for her alleged snobbery. Katharine applied to the Royal Literary Fund in 1920 and received £150. Giles Hinkson went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1920 under a government scheme for returning officers. Christmas 1920 was spent in London. There was major civil unrest in Ireland, the Anglo-Irish war, at this time but it hardly merits a mention in Katharine’s letters, although it is dealt with in The Wandering Years. Katharine had hoped to secure a financial future through film rights in America for one or more of her books but nothing came of it. Toby was married in Dublin in January 1921 although Katharine and Pamela did not attend as it was to be a quiet one. In February Katharine and Pamela went to Italy returning to London and then to Ireland in May. Once again Katharine applied to the Royal Literary Fund but was refused. She wrote to The Times in September to counter a quotation in a book review which criticized the Aberdeens. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in December 1921 and in an article in the Star Katharine expressed her admiration for Lloyd George. Katharine’s concern for social issues resulted in a letter to The Times on the employment of daughters as a result of correspondence on the employment of sons. In May Katharine and Pamela left for Cologne an adventure recorded in Katharine’s Life in the Occupied Zone which gives an insight into the relationships between the Allies and the German people and this is reflected in her letters of the period. While abroad she still kept in touch with events in Ireland and on the killing of Michael Collins she wrote to The Times expressing her admiration for the eloquence of General Mulcahy in the Dial. While in Germany Katharine visited an oculist as her eyesight was becoming worse. The end of the year brought a major disaster for Katharine as her beloved friend Alice died in November and Katharine contributed “Alice Meynell. The Poets’ Poet” in The Times. Katharine’s Evensong was published in 1922 but was not universally well received. Clement Shorter commissioned Katharine to write of her experiences in Germany for the Sphere which she did in 1923. Katharine wrote to the Irish Times complaining about the suffering of animals in the current civil unrest pleading for concern for them should their owners’ houses have to be burnt. They returned to London for a quick visit in June and then back to Cologne. In December they were back in Dublin until a permanent move to London in 1924. Pamela’s The End of All Dreams was published

16

Introduction

in 1923 and earned good reviews. Katharine’s Memories was rejected by Constables but published by Nash and Grayson in 1924. Toby went to East Africa without his wife and daughter who were to follow and Giles had found employment in South America in late 1924. Katharine’s letter to The Times pleaded better conditions for shop girls. She submitted a story of Pam’s who wrote under the name Peter Deane to Macmillans but it was rejected. Katharine and Pamela, together with Toby’s son and nurse, went to France in October 1924 and did not return until the end of November 1925. In a letter to Patterson Webb (26 April 1925) Katharine writes that she was “terribly blind”, however, her handwriting was still legible. Later in the year in a dictated letter to Wilfrid Meynell, 16 November, she writes I know you will be sorry the hear I have had eye trouble more or less since last May which first took my reading from me, & for the last six or seven weeks my writing. You can imagine what that means to me, but I have been under treatment with a very good occultist, & though I can still see only dimly, I have actually got back to work today.

Pamela achieved success with The Victors a novel which depicted the lack of help and acknowledgement for returning officers seeking employment. Late June and July were spent in Ireland as house guests of the widow of the late Nicholas Synnott and the party included John Betjeman and the future Warden of Wadham, Oxford, Maurice Bowra and this resulted in an article in the Star. Katharine still owed money to Wilfrid and sent a fifth of her debt to him in July. Katharine appealed for funds to help the setting up of a Dublin animal sanctuary in a letter to the Irish Times. In November she opened a sale of work in support of the sanctuary in Dublin. December saw her apply again to the Royal Literary Fund and she received £125 in January 1927. Katharine’s final single volume of poetry Twilight Songs was published. Later in the year they were again living in Dublin and back in London by June 1928. In late October they were back in Ireland and in London by May 1930, their final English destination. Sometime in the autumn of 1928, either September or early October, they visited Dr Hermann Pagenstecher at the famous eye hospital in Wiesbaden so Katharine could have some treatment. She hoped to have another volume of verse published but it was not so and in 1930 her Collected Poems was published with a foreword by AE, W. B. Yeats having declined to edit the book, a task then undertaken by Monk Gibbon. She had hoped for an American edition as well but it did not happen. She wrote to The Times in April 1930 on the demise of the weekly Irish Statesman. Katharine’s last community undertaking was to collect books and manuscripts from well-

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

17

known writers to support the British Legion of Ex-Servicemen Donnybrook Fair which was held from 12 to 14 June 1930 in Dublin. Among the writers who donated books for Katharine were Edmund Blunden, Siegfried Sassoon, R. C. Sherriff, A. P. Herbert, Arnold Zweig, and Wilfrid Owen’s mother. Katharine donated a Yeats letter and an AE letter. G. K. Chesterton gave a copy of his Collected Poems. At the end of 1930 Katharine had a nervous breakdown and in January 1931 she again applied to the Royal Literary Fund and received £100 while she was in a nursing home. Walter de la Mare was instrumental in obtaining this. In March Katharine was awarded a Civil List Pension of £80. An appeal was launched among her friends in Ireland. In her letter to Wilfrid Meynell, 14 January 1931, Katharine writes: “We are so lonely.” Katharine died on 2 April 1931 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, her grave beside that of Alice Meynell. Writing of her own work to Frank Mathew (16 December 1913) she says: “You’d be amazed to know how very unsuccessful I am, although I earn a decent income by doing all sorts of chores. But a handful of people whose approval I dearly prize like my poetry & my prose at its best.” Katharine was both Irish and English in her literary output and outlook: she felt affinity for both countries. I had lived eighteen years in England. I had come to believe that affection for England and love of Ireland could quite well go hand in hand. I was enthusiastically pro-Ally. Both my boys were pledged to the War—by their own choice. They had grown up to adore Ireland without ever doubting that they might have an affection for the country in which they were born. During those years of English life we had never suffered because we were Irish (Years of the Shadow, 204-5).

And “I don’t think Imperialism incompatible with broad Irish nationalism. I am an Imperialist myself & I wish we were all quiet & at peace...” (to James Louis Garvin, 4 December 1913).

EDITORIAL PROCEDURES

No edition of Katharine’s letters has previously been published but many to her have been published, notably in The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats (text and electronic versions). The current selection of Katharine’s letters consists of three hundred and eighty-one letters. The layout of the letters has been standardised. The holding institution is indicated to the left of the letterhead. Any previous major publication or quotation of a letter is then noted. The position of the address is to the right irrespective of its original position and a printed or embossed address is signified by italics. Below the address the date has been standardised. Postscripts are retained after the closure, whether written as an afterthought at the letterhead or not. Katharine’s spelling has been retained throughout, as has her punctuation, except where clarity demands an alteration or insertion. Cancelled passages are generally silently excised and illegible words are indicated within square brackets and words inserted by Katharine have been silently included. Where the sense demands, an apparently omitted word may be added within square brackets. The closing of the letters has been centralised irrespective of the original position. Her handwriting gradually became worse with age and very poor eyesight which she termed “purblind”. Where a reference in the text is unidentified a footnote has, in most cases, not been added.

SOURCES OF LETTERS, ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES

Alice Letters

Apex One Atkinson Berg Birmingham BL Brotherton Cambridge Canterbury Columbia Delaware Greatham Hartford Herts Lilly London Manchester Memories Middle Years Morgan Morris NLI NLS New England Notre Dame

Selected Letters of Alice Meynell: Poet and Essayist, ed. Damian Atkinson (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013) Apex One (1973-75) Damian Atkinson Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, New York Public Library Birmingham University Library British Library, London Brotherton Collection, Leeds University University Library, Cambridge King’s School, Canterbury Columbia University, New York University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware Meynell family library, Sussex Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut Hertfordshire County Record Office Indiana University, Lilly Library, Bloomington University of London Library John Rylands University Library, Manchester University Katharine Tynan, Memories (Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, Ltd, 1924) Katharine Tynan, The Middle Years (Constable & Company Ltd, 1916) The Morgan Library, New York Southern Illinois University Special Collections Research Center, Carbondale, Illinois National Library of Ireland, Dublin National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales University of Notre Dame, Indiana

20

Sources of Letters and Short Titles

Occupied Area

Katharine Tynan, Life in the Occupied Area (Hutchinson & Co., 1925) University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Queen’s University, Belfast Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada University of Reading Library Katharine Tynan, Twenty-Five Years: Reminiscences (Smith, Elder & Co.: 1913) Richmond Central Reference Library, Surrey Royal Literary Fund Katharine Tynan, The Years of the Shadow (Constable and Company Ltd, 1916) Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon -Avon Theophilus E. M. Boll, Miss May Sinclair: Novelist (Rutherford [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1973) Stanford University Library, California Stony Brook University, New York Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin Everard Meynell, The Life of Francis Thompson (Burns & Oates: 1913) Trinity College, Dublin University College, Dublin University of British Columbia Library, Vancouver University of Victoria, British Columbia Katharine Tynan, The Wandering Years (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1922) Washington University, St Louis West Sussex Record Office, Chichester The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats. Electronic edition, 2002

Pennsylvania Queen’s Belfast Queen’s Kingston Reading Reminiscences Richmond RLF Years of the Shadow Shakespeare Sinclair

Stanford Stony Brook Texas Thompson TCD UCD Vancouver Victoria Wandering Years Washington West Sussex Yeats Letters

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF KATHARINE TYNAN

1859 1871 1884 1885 1886 1887

1888

1889 1890 1891

1892

1893

Katharine Tynan born 23 January in Dublin to Andrew Cullen Tynan and Elizabeth Tynan, née O'Reilly. Attended the Dominican Convent, Drogheda, for four years. Visits England. Meets Alice and Wilfrid Meynell and contributes to their monthly Merry England. Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems published. Meets W. B. Yeats in June. Visits England. In Ireland. John Butler Yeats paints her portrait. Contributes to Magazine of Art and the American Ave Maria. Publishes Shamrocks. Meets Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Reviews Alice Meynell’s Preludes. Contributes to the Catholic World and Magazine of Art. Nation article on Katharine. Meets Henry (Harry) Hinkson on 6 September. “Willie Yeats is not a swain” in letter to Wilfrid Meynell. Visits England. Returns to Ireland in September. Godmother to Olivia Meynell. Supports Charles Parnell at Dublin meeting. Poems in Scots Observer. Publishes A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order: the Life of M. X. Fallon and Ballads and Lyrics. Her “Alice Meynell” in April Magazine of Poetry. Rejects Yeats’s marriage proposal. Reviewer for the Irish Daily Independent and the Dublin Evening Herald. Yeats’s promising review of Ballads and Lyrics in Dublin Evening Herald. Irish Love-Songs: Selected by K. Tynan. Harry writes for Irish Daily Independent and Dublin Evening Herald and publishes Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin. First reference of intention to marry Harry. Marries Harry Hinkson 4 May in London and settles in Ealing. Interviews Yeats and Alice Meynell for the Sketch. On Yeats in Bookman. Interviewed in the Sketch. On

22

1894

1895

1896

1897 1898

1899

1900

1901

1902

A Brief Chronology of Katharine Tynan

Christina Rossetti in the Bookman. Cuckoo Songs. A Cluster of Nuts: being Sketches among My Own People published. Reviews the Yellow Book in Literary World. Stillborn child in May. A month in Ireland. Contributes monthly “London Letter” in Literary World February 1894 to August 1895. Christmas Poems with May Probyn. Miracle Plays, The Way of a Maid and An Isle in the Water: Short Stories published. Harry publishes Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College. Godfrey born 17 August and dies on 30 September. “Wares of Autolycus” column in Pall Mall Gazette. Blackwoods reject some submissions. Moves to 107 Blenheim Crescent in June then in Ireland until late October. Another Blackwoods rejection. Theobald (“Toby”) Henry Hinkson born 12 August. Harry in Ireland. The Wind in the Trees: A Book of Country Verses published. Harry publishes Up for the Green: a Romance of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Lane rejects stories. Financial help from Wilfrid Meynell. Blackwoods rejections. Financial help from Wilfrid Meynell. Article in Catholic World. Edits new edition of The Cabinet of Irish Literature. Tillotsons reject story not sensational enough. Winter at Dalkey, Co. Dublin. Harry publishes The King's Deputy. Giles Aylmer Hinkson born 7 February. The Handsome Brandons published. Moves to Longfield Road, Ealing. W. by 3 June. Pamela Mary Hinkson born 19 November. “Sheep and Lambs” in Oxford Book of English Verse. “Alice” poem in Pall Mall Gazette. Unconfirmed grants from Royal Bounty Fund. Visits Mary Gill in Dublin in March. Stays at The King’s Arms, Ockley, Surrey, in August. A Union of Hearts published. Poems published. May Sinclair visits. Short visit to Ireland. Cabinet of Irish Literature published. The Handsome Quaker and Other Stories and Love of Sisters published. Three weeks in Ambleteuse on French coast. At The King’s Arms in September. At funeral of Lionel Johnson in October. To edit Johnson’s poems but family refuse publication.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

1903 1904

1905

1906

1907

1908

1909

1910

1911

1912

Story in Christmas Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic. J. B. Yeats portrait of Katharine at Guildhall May-July. Requests memorial to Lionel Johnson at Winchester College and gives £1. £150 commission for British Weekly. Mary Gill, Pamela’s God-Mother, dies. “Mary in Heaven” and “In Fond and Faithful Memory “in Irish Monthly. Innocencies: A Book of Verse published. Her father dies. “For Maisie” in British Weekly, July-December. Publishes A Little Book for Mary Gill’s Friends and A Book of Memory, the Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead. Visits Ireland and holiday in France. Suffrage letter in The Times. Eyesight problem. Letter in the Speaker. The Adventures of Alicia and A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends published. In anthology Popular and Patriotic Poetry. Supports Royal Literary Fund application of Alexander Gordon. Moves to Chipperfield, Hertfordshire, in June. Poem in Ave Maria. Asks Wilfrid Blunt and Lord Rothschild for finance to support Catholic priest. Thanks A. P. Watt for acting for her. Pall Mall Gazette article on Francis Thompson. On Lionel Johnson in Dublin Review. “The Neglect of Irish Writers” in Catholic World. Publishes Father Matthew, Experiences, The House of the Crickets and The Lost Angel. Harry’s Father Alphonsus published. Contributes to Companions of the Way being Selections for Morning and Evening Reading. Mosher reprints A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends. The Handsome Brandons pirated in USA. Stays in Malvern in May. Alice Meynell and Ezra Pound visit. Lauds published. “Dublin the Beautiful” in Ave Maria. Fortnightly article on Francis Thompson. Poem in Collier’s Weekly. Poems in McClure’s Magazine and Spectator. Moves to Southborough, Kent, in May. Paradise Farm and Princess Katharine in USA, and New Poems published. Women Writers’ dinner in May. Dines in Soho with the Meynells 18 December and moves to Ireland 19 December. Toby has Foundation Scholarship to Tonbridge public school. Princess Katharine and Rose of the Garden published. Continued friendship with Lord and Lady

23

24

1913

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918

1919

A Brief Chronology of Katharine Tynan

Aberdeen in Dublin. Starts on her Reminiscences. Poems in Eye-Witness. A Mésalliance, Reminiscences, Irish Poems and Mrs Pratt of Paradise Farm published. Edits The Wild Harp: A Selection from Irish Poetry. Letters in Irish Times. On Alice Meynell in Catholic World. Stays with Judge and Mrs Ross in Co. Tyrone. Rose of the Garden published in USA. Harry’s Gentleman Jack: An Adventure in East Africa. Reviews Dora Shorter’s poems in Bookman. A Little Radiant Girl and Men, not Angels, and Other Tales told to Girls published. Quinquennial Meeting of the International Congress of Women in Rome in May as guest of Lady Aberdeen. Congress articles in Westminster Gazette and Freeman’s Journal. Portrait in Catholic Who’s Who. The Flower of Peace: a Collection of Devotional Poetry of Katharine Tynan published. Letter in Irish Times. Moves to Co. Mayo as Harry now a Resident Magistrate. Back to Shankill, Co. Dublin, in October. Stays with Aberdeens in Dublin in December. Christmas in Dublin. Joins Harry in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, in February. Final visit to the Aberdeens in Dublin. John Bulteel’s Daughters and Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time published. The Roll of Honour: A Book of Glories & Illusion written but not published. Article on AE in T. P’s Weekly. Letter in Irish Times. Pamela’s poem in Windsor Magazine. Speaks at a recruiting meeting. Toby commissioned in the army. John-A-Dreams and The Middle Years published. Giles (“Bunny”/“Patrick”) at Sandhurst. Toby in Greece. Elsie E. Morton’s Maxims from Katharine Tynan published. Lord Edward Fitzgerald: a Study in Romance published. Moves to Brookhill, Claremorris. Easter Rising Dublin. Royal Literary Fund award of £50. Sells letters of W. B. Yeats. Late Songs published. Cornhill rejects article. Harry reviews in the Bookman. Letter in the Irish Times. On Irish poetry in Studies. On Dora Sigerson in Observer and a tribute to Dora in Sigerson’s The Sad Years. Borrows £20 from Shorter. Reviews John Butler Yeats’s Essays: Irish and American in Studies. Harry dies 11 January. Katharine and Pamela move to

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

1920 1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926 1927 1928

1929

Killiney, Dublin, in February. Summer in Ealing. Two editions of The Years of the Shadow. Visits the Meynells at Greatham. Visits the Linlithgows in Scotland. Returns to Ireland in September. Moves to Shankill, Co. Dublin, in May. £150 from Royal Literary Fund. Visit to Scotland and returns to London. Toby marries Moira Pilkington. The Second Wife together with A July Rose published. Visits Italy with Pamela. Ireland at end of April. Fails in Royal Literary Fund application. Letter in The Times. Pamela’s story in Lloyd’s Story Magazine and serial in Weekly Freeman. John Butler Yeats dies. Moves to Dalkey, Co. Dublin. Letter in The Times. Article in The Times. Car accident. Trip to Germany in May. Cologne in July. Letters in The Times. Blunt dies. Letter in Saturday Review. Sees German oculist. Evensong published. Alice Meynell dies in November. On Alice Meynell in The Times. Letter in Irish Times. Pamela’s The Girls of Redlands published. Writing Memories. Articles in the Sphere. In London June, in Germany July. Pamela’s The End of All Dreams. Letter in The Times. Toby to East Africa. Moves to Pembridge Crescent, London, in May. Reviews in the Bookman. Letter in The Times. Visits Scotland and in France for the winter. Pamela’s The Victors published. Life in the Occupied Area published. “I am terribly blind.” Article in the Bookman. Return to London from France in late November. Irish Literary Society dinner. Visit to Naas, Co. Kildare. Letter in Irish Times. Applies to Royal Literary Fund. £125 from Royal Literary Fund. Letter in The Times. In Dublin. Twilight Songs published. Letters in Irish Times. At 12 Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington in June, 26 Queens Gate Terrace in October, then Leixlip, Co. Kildare. Eye treatment from Dr Pagenstecher in Wiesbaden. Letters in Saturday Review and Irish Times. The Rich Man published. Letter in Irish Times. Reviews Monk Gibbon in Bookman. At Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Toby’s marriage breaks down. Writes to W. B. Yeats.

25

26

1930

1931

A Brief Chronology of Katharine Tynan

Letter in Irish Times and The Times. In charge of bookstall at Fete for Irish ex-servicemen in Dublin. Moves to St John’s Road, Wimbledon. Moves to 18 Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill, end of May. At 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, in October. Letter in The Times. Collected Poems published. £100 from Royal Literary Fund. Dies on 2 April.

THE LETTERS 1884-1931

I THE EMERGING WRITER “I was born under a kind star In a green world withouten any war”

To Mrs Pritchard1 MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin2 21 January 1884 Dear Mrs Pritchard, I shall be going over to London next month to pay you that long projected visit, to which I am looking forward with a great deal of pleasure. I had intended to have gone this month but I have decided upon waiting for some friends of mine who are going to Australia and who will sail from London on the 20th of February and I can go across with them;3 they will leave Dublin I suppose about the 17th but I have not concluded my arrangements yet. I will write again to you when matters are finally settled. I am very conscious indeed of your kindness in asking me to visit you and I hope you will like me when we become acquainted. As you will see from the letter which I enclose, I will only be able to pay you a flying visit when I go over first as I am due in Norfolk on 21st February,4 but my 1

Emma Sophia Bence (1850-1929) had married the cattle salesman James Pritchard (b.1849) in Clifton, Gloucestershire, on 14 February 1875. They were now living at 446 Camden Road, Islington, London. 2 Katharine describes the cottage in her Reminiscences (31-2). 3 The friends were Beatrice (d. 1901, Australia) and Margaret Walshe on their way to join their brother John W. Walshe (1853-1915) in Sydney. He had been sent as a Land League organiser to Australia in 1881, returning to Dublin in 1903. The two sisters were active members of the short-lived Ladies’ Land League formed in 1881 by Anna Parnell, sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, with the aim of carrying on agitation against eviction and the power of landlords should the leaders of the Land League be jailed. Katharine devotes a chapter of her Reminiscences to the Land League. 4 The home of the Rev. Henry Stuart Fagan (1827-90) vicar of Great Cressingham, Norfolk, from 1882, and his wife Emily, née Kinnier (1827-1923). After Pembroke College, Oxford, and various teaching posts Fagan became headmaster of Bath Grammar School. He resigned in 1870 and finally settled in Norfolk. Katharine’s account of her meeting the Rev. Fagan and her subsequent visit to the Fagan family is in Reminiscences (ch. XI). In a letter from Great Cressingham to Fr Russell, 25 February 1884, Katharine writes ...the people are very refined and intellectual and the house is full of books. They have every new book and magazine, and they have the first editions of almost every good old book. I find so many books an embarrassment of riches, I cannot settle to read any of them. I keep dipping into one and another. They are High Church people here, and very broad in their views. Mr. Fagan the rector says that, if he resided in Ireland, he should consider it his duty to be a Catholic in order to be in uniformity with the people.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

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stay with my friends there will extend only over a week or so, and then I hope you will take me back again. Will you kindly send me a letter to say that you will expect me. I hope Mr Pritchard and your little children and yourself are well; 5 with very warm regards from Papa.6 Believe me, dear Mrs Pritchard Very faithfully yrs Katie Tynan

Fr Matthew Russell, S.J. (1834-1912), editor of the Irish Monthly, became a friend and mentor of Katharine and she recounts her friendship in her Memories. There are numerous references to him in her Reminiscences, The Middle Years and The Years of the Shadow. Her letters to him are held at the Jesuit Archive, Dublin. One of the Fagan sons, Charles Gregory Fagan (1860-85), later principal of Kerala Vidyasala College, India, was away and he eventually visited her. In a letter to Fr Russell, 12 March 1884, Katharine wrote of him Charlie the poet came to me here on Sunday and spent the day with me. I had tea with him yesterday in his chambers in Fleet St. He is a wonderful boy; I have a book with some of his poems here, and I must copy one especially of them for you before I give it back. It has a great deal of the beauty and horror of Dante Rossetti. There is a curious morbidness in all his verse, and in his water colours and etchings (he is an artist also) much of the same tendency is apparent. He is only just from Oxford, and I fear like all these clever boys in the Protestant Church he is an agnostic. I do not wonder that they drift away from their creed's cold motherlessness. I wish you would pray for him and for all his family that they may be brought over to us. They are such delightful people and he is quite an ideal poet, golden haired and blue-eyed, and dreamy and emotional as Shelley. 5

The young Pritchards were Florence (“Flossie”) Louise (1878-1926) and Lena Sophia Beatrice (1882-1925). 6 Katharine’s father Andrew Cullen Tynan (1829-1905) was a farmer and Katharine’s first chapter of her Reminiscences is entitled “My Father” with the final chapter of her Memories also of the same title.

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To Alice Meynell7 MS Greatham. 446 Camden Road, N. 1 April 1884 My dear Mrs Meynell, I sent you my “Louise” yesterday. I am so glad Mr Meynell will take it for Merry England.8 Will you please believe that it seems very good to me, to have my verses appear in a magazine connected with your name, and in which your writings so often appear. Please forgive me if it seems to you that this is exaggerated; I have the largest capacity for poet worship, and, dear Mrs Meynell, my heart does render you a very large share of love and worship. I am very grieved and concerned about Mr Meynell being so unwell; I hope he is able to be abroad again by this time. I know you are very busy now with your art reviews,9 but perhaps you might send me just one line to say if he is better. If you will mark any thing you do not like in my poem, I will do my 7

Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell, née Thompson (1847-1922), poet and essayist. A convert to Roman Catholicism, she published her first book of poems Preludes in 1875 and in 1877 she married the critic and writer Wilfrid Meynell (1852-1948). With her husband she co-edited the Weekly Register (1881-98) and Merry England (1883-95). Fr Matthew Russell, a mutual friend, had suggested Katharine write to the Meynells. In a letter to Fr Russell of 29 January 1884, she writes You will understand that I am very anxious to make some literary friends; I should like greatly to meet his wife and to be asked to his house. To get into a London literary circle is my earthly ambition. In her Reminiscences she recounts sending, by mistake, an unfinished letter to the Meynells (126). Katharine wrote that I wrote my letter very carefully, and not approving it for some reason or other, when I had done three-fourths of it, cast it on one side. I wrote another letter, which I found several days later in my blotter: I had sent the unfinished, unsigned letter, much to the bewilderment of the recipients.

However, all was well and a firm and deep lifelong friendship developed. For some of Alice’s letters to Katharine see Alice Letters. Katharine has a chapter “Alice Meynell—The Dearest Woman” in her Memories. 8 Katharine Tynan, “Louise de la Vallière: A Dramatic Monologue”, Merry England, May 1884. 9 Alice had been writing for the Magazine of Art and the Art Journal since 1882.

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best to alter it to your satisfaction. I have read Mrs Rae and Miss Thompson since I saw you and find them very delightful women indeed.10 Please remember me kindly to Mr Meynell, and believe me, very faithfully yours Katie Tynan

10

Catherine Jane Alicia Rae, née Thompson (b.1837) wife of the Scottish polar explorer and surgeon Dr John Rae (1813-93). Her sister Canadian-born Emily Skeffington Thompson (1845-1932) had published The Irish Birthday-Book: Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Irish Men and Women in 1884. The sisters had founded the Southwark Junior Irish Literary Club on 22 October 1881 in an effort to further the education of Irish children. Katharine met the Raes in May 1884.

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Alice Meynell (Greatham)

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 446 Camden Road, N. 25 April 1884 My dear Mr Meynell, I am so glad to know that you are well enough to write to me. I hope you will soon be quite strong again. I return the proof; am I to be in your May number? I am so glad Cardinal Manning is in the same number with me.11 Mrs Meynell suggested some alterations to be made to the poem which I am afraid I have not made. She did not like the “Comes a new day. Now pealeth near and far”. She did not like the verb varied in this way. Of course I could have written “Cometh the day etc” but it would exactly express what I meant and elsewhere, if I altered similar lines, I should lose my rhyme as for instance.12 “Hearing the steps of one who hasteneth”,13 I find that Dante Rossetti does this in “The Bride’s Prelude”.14 Will Mrs Meynell accept him as a precedent? I should have gone to see you before now, but that I knew you were ill, and Mrs Meynell not strong. I hope I shall be in London long enough to see you both quite restored to health. Perhaps I may, as I am going soon to Norfolk, to Mr Fagan, for another short visit, and I hope I may be able to stay in London for a while after I return. Will you send me a line, soon, to let me know how you both are. Please, believe, dear Mr Meynell, that I am so glad my poem is of use to you, and I hope you will let me contribute often to Merry England. I am very anxious to please you, and Mrs Meynell, and to earn your friendship. With kindest regards to her Believe me very faithfully yours Katie Tynan

11

Henry Edward Manning (1808-92), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was ordained in the Church of England in 1832. He married in 1833, but his wife died in 1837. Manning had converted to Catholicism in 1851 and became Cardinal in 1875. He contributed an article on “Honour” in the May issue, signing as “Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop”. 12 Katharine’s lines were unaltered. 13 “Louise de la Vallière.” 14 Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem.

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin 20 June 1884 My dear Mrs Pritchard, Our last letters crossed each other, so you knew as soon as I had your letter that we had got the sweets and were so grateful to you for them, and at the same time you were quite reassured about Flossie.15 You need not trouble about that young lady at all. She likes to be here and after all a country life is the one best fitted to young creatures, where they have the wide clear skies, and the birds and flowers, and God’s blessed sunshine golden on the green fields. She is always out and that is why I find it so difficult to get hold of her to write to you; when she is in in the evening she is sleepy after the day. She has such a good appetite; she is always hungry, and you should see the grand colour she has. Perhaps it is fancy but we all think that she has grown tall, and her cheeks are getting quite round, though we are only a month here. We are all so fond of her, but she is fondest of me and Nora. She is out with Nora now catching minnows,16 what we call pinkeens. She keeps them in a little iron box in the garden for a few days, but of course the poor things die. If you leave her with us till the autumn, I think you will say we have taken care of her when you come for her, if she goes on at the rate she has been going. But I’m afraid when she goes back to London, she will astonish Miss Merton by saying “Begorra” and “Musha”, she has picked up all the Irish expressions. I am glad Mrs Pritchard senior has been with you;17 you would find it less lonely. Has she left you yet? I had a long letter from Charlie Fagan last week; he has been very ill, poor fellow; he did not tell me this but I had a letter from Miss Kincaid, in which she said that he had been so very ill, that Mr Hughes feared he was going to have typhoid fever. I was afraid of his being ill, because he was so sick the week before I left; do you remember the night I went with him to Hampstead, he looked so strangely ill. I wish he suffered less, poor boy! Mr Hughes has been bad too with sore throat, so they have been a houseful, no, a chambersfull of invalids. I hope he will go to see you; I know he likes you, the more because he knows I like you so much and because you were so good to me, but he is 15

Florence Louise Pritchard. Katharine’s sister Nora (Norah) Tynan (1866-1954), who married the barrister John O’Mahony (1870-1904) in 1895, was a poet, novelist and women’s editor of Freeman’s Journal (see also Fr Matthew Russell, “Poets I have known IX. Nora Tynan O’Mahony”, Irish Monthly, September 1908). 17 Elizabeth Pritchard (b.1823). 16

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so strange and unaccountable. He put such a beautiful letter in the book he gave me that morning when I was leaving. Don’t say much of him when you write to me, as your letters are public property, and everyone is not as much in my confidence as you are. I have not heard from Mr Ryan though I wrote to his sister in law and asked her to tell him my address.18 He asked me to write to him but I forgot to give him my address and I don’t know his new address; he had changed his residence just before I left. If he goes to you, will you tell him. I had a letter from Miss Walshe from Australia; they are making a lot of her out there; the Irish National League were going to present her with an address and testimonial.19 Poor darling! she was sick all the time going out. God grant that happiness may come to her there; she suffered so much here. My young brother is on his way home from Australia;20 he will arrive probably about the end of August. His health was giving way under the hard work. I was talking to William O’Brien last week.21 He told me he had a letter from Mr Johnnie Fagan, about missing us that night.22 We will not forget the vote of censure night, or rather morning in a hurry, will we? William O’Brien is so very nice; he seemed to think he should apologise for the state he was in that night. I thought he was better than any other man would have been under the circumstances. He is involved in some very sensational libel suits now.23 18 Presumably the Fenian Mark Francis Ryan (1844-1940) who was born in Galway, Ireland, and came to England when his family emigrated in 1860 after being evicted from three farms. He returned to Ireland to support the Irish Republican Brotherhood and eventually moved to Edinburgh where he obtained a medical degree. He was at 51 Exmouth Street, London until 1889. 19 The Irish National League was founded in 1882 by the politician Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91) to further Home Rule for Ireland. He was famously acquitted of involvement in the Phoenix Park murders of 1882. Katharine was an admirer of Parnell and attended his funeral on 11 October 1885 in Dublin. She describes her feelings and the day of the funeral in the final chapter of Reminiscences. 20 Presumably Francis James Tynan (b.1869). Parnell is the opening chapter of her Memories. 21 The Irish Nationalist leader and journalist William O’Brien (1852-1928). A Parnellite, he was appointed editor of the weekly United Ireland in 1881 and in 1883 was elected MP for Mallow. He was in and out of Parliament until he withdrew in 1918. His strong views on Irish politics led to imprisonment in 1881 and 1882. Katharine first met O’Brien when she was a member of the Ladies’ Land League. 22 John Stead Patrick Fagan (b.1855) 23 O’Brien was currently being sued for libel by the Secretary to the Post Office for libel in articles in United Ireland in May 1884 and also by the Secretary’s solicitor. The libel cases failed.

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Mr Harrington is in London now,24 and will get you in if you like to go to the House any time. Mrs Tyler25 wrote to me last week saying she thought she would have to return to London on business but she would come back to Dublin again and would let me know of her return. She is still a mystery; she is so good natured though, she gave me a book, and a beautiful bottle of white rose in addition to her other presents. Please excuse haste. Love to Mr Pritchard and yourself. Good bye dear always yours affectionately Katie Tynan Yesterday Flossie drove to town with Lizzie26 in the phaeton and made the acquaintance of my young nephews. They kissed each other all round. Sara, my sister, and my brother Andy bought her sweets and cakes and she came home laden.27 Please give my love to Edith when you see her. Has Mr Lyons been to see you yet?28 He wrote to me that he should go very soon; if he does it will show that I was not his attraction. I will write again next week; I have not yet sent off my poem.

24

Timothy Charles Harrington (1851-1910) was an Irish Parliamentary Party MP for Westmeath from 1883 to 1885. Later that year he was MP for Dublin Harbour until 1901. 25 See “The Adventure of the Lady in Black”, Reminiscences (ch. XIII). Mrs Tyler was friendly towards those who aspired Irish nationalism and attempted to gather information for use to the British Government and also to entrap Irish nationalists. Apparently she acted in Ireland as well as England. She was mentioned as being a member of the Secret Service Department by Mr Healy in the House of Commons as reported in Freeman’s Journal, 26 July 1884. There was speculation later that Mrs Tyler was a Mrs Lucille Yseult Dudley who attempted to murder O'Donovan Rossa in New York in 1885. However, nothing has been proved. Edward C. Mann has a chapter “The Psychological Aspect of the Case of Lucille Yseult Dudley” in his A Treatise on the Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity (Albany, N Y: 1893). 26 Katharine’s sister Elizabeth born 1857. 27 Sarah was in born 1855 and Andrew in 1852. 28 The Irish clergyman and mediaeval scholar Ponsonby Annesley Lyons (c.182995) was living at 30 Princess Terrace, St Pancras, London.

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin 9 January 1885 My dear Mrs Pritchard, The books came to me today and I think it was so good and kind of you to remember them; I thought your having been ill would have put the memory of them quite out of your head and I think it so good of you to have that kind thought of me now, when you are only recovering. The books themselves gave me a great deal of pleasure in their receipt, but it was even a much greater pleasure to read inside them what you had writtenʊ“K. Tynan, with much love”, because I thought somehow that you had grown to dislike me because you had ceased to write to me. The thought gave me so much pain, because I had so much to love you for, and be grateful to you for, and so many pleasant and even better than pleasant, memories and associations connected with you. And thinking you had grown to dislike me, I felt too hurt to write to you, and so make an effort to gain your affection. I suppose I am egoistical, and I care a very great deal for loveʊI have a great deal of love, thank God—and certainly I have wished you to like me, because I liked you, and felt interested in you, and sorry for the strange depressions that used to come to you, and so when I thought I had failed to make you care for me, I said to myself that I would not force myself or my letters on you—and perhaps there was a proud fear too, lest if I wrote my desire to gain your liking might be misinterpreted. So now, dear, you will understand that I feel so glad you wrote those few words. I suppose your letters ceased, really, because you were too ill to write. Are you very much better? I hope you are, and I wish you would write and tell me about your sickness. Mr Pritchard only told us you were ill, never saying what you were suffering from. Will you be glad to hear that I hope to bring out a little book of my own soon?29 Mr Meynell—one of my friends—do you remember that he lived at Kensington, and I used to have his wife’s poems; he is editor and owner of Merry England—is negotiating about their publication with a London publisher, Mr Kegan Paul. It will be so nice if it be brought out and I get good reviews—I shall be quite a personage. I am very pleasantly busy just now preparing my “copy”. How is Flossie? Strong and well I hope, and remembering us all, and meaning to summer with us again. Tell her that Mary Higgins was so delighted with the card. She is always saying to her mother; “Well, Ma, 29

Katharine’s Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.: 1885).

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doesn’t Flossie bate to remember me.” I had a letter and some illustrated papers from Mr Ryan at Christmas, and I also had a letter from Mr Lyons. Do these go to see you? And do you ever go to the British Museum? This has been such a quiet winter to me. I have hardly ever gone to Dublin; I find stirring so unbearable once I have got into a groove. Next Wednesday though, I am going to a dinner party, at the house of a literary lady; they will be all writers there I suppose. Besides your books—do you know?—I got ten others for Christmas and New Year. I got one today with yours “Becket”, Lord Tennyson’s new poem from the editor of The Month.30 Then Mr Meynell sent me the first three volumes of Merry England beautifully bound in grey and gold, and I got four other volumes of poems, a tale, and a book of travels. I got some feminine fal-lals too. I got a letter this week from Mr Fagan. He finds India lonely, poor fellow, but he writes so much more cheerfully, than he used to, from London. The College of which he is Head Master has 400 students, and about 20 assistant masters. It is a great responsibility for his young shoulders, but I believe he will prove equal to it. I hope Mr Pritchard is keeping well, Love to children and you your loving friend K. Tynan

30

Father Richard Frederick Clarke S.J. was editor of The Month, a Catholic Magazine and Review from 1882 until 1892. Tennyson’s poem was not published in the Month.

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin 16 February 1885 My dear Mrs Pritchard, You will wonder perhaps that I should have left your last letter so long unanswered. The reason was that that last letter of yours was written in reply to one of mine which pleaded for an answer, and you said in it that you had not felt at all inclined for correspondence. So I thought that perhaps it was only written out of courtesy to me, and that any correspondence with me would be not a pleasure but a weariness to you, so I thought I would not ask you to keep it up further. Since then I have been thinking that I might have given a wrong reading to your letter, and that you might not really have wished me to give up writing. To-day, too, I thought that you would probably be feeling lonely for Mr Pritchard, so I made up my mind to write and ask you if my letters would be any pleasure to you; I shall be very glad to write to you if they will. I may tell you that the feeling that after all our time together I had not been able to win your friendship and affection gave me considerable pain. And I did wish to win your affection, even if I did not go a right way about it. I suppose it was my own fault that I seem to have failed, and I am sorry, but I think there are times in every woman’s life when absorbed by one thought, she fails in doing the small duties she ought to do. And I would wish you to believe that even if I seemed careless and selfish, I had always a true and grateful affection for you and a strong desire to gain yours in return, and I always felt a very real sympathy and concern for the pain you suffer from. I hope you are quite strong again in bodily health, and that you are not suffering very much from depression of spirits. About that I gave you the best advice I had to give. I hope Flossie and the baby are well too; and happy, and helping to keep up your spirits. This morning my father had a letter from Mr Pritchard, written at Queenstown while the Aurania was awaiting the mails.31 He wrote brightly, and was evidently well, and in good spirits. I hope the voyage may do him a great deal of good. He said nothing of how long his absence would last. I hope as we all do that the voyage may be a smooth one with fair weather; it promises excellently, because here the days are soft and balmy, and warm with a prescience of later days, and they are bright and brisk as well with the early presence of Spring. I suppose as yet no flowers have made an appearance in London, though you are such a flower-loving 31

The Cunard ship RMS Aurania was launched in 1882 and scrapped in 1905. The letter was written from Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland.

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people. But there are snowdrops in our garden, the faintest frailest most delicate little cups of pearl in the world. I have seen as yet neither violet or primrose. I went on Saturday round the bare hedgerows on a vain quest for these and found them not. But it was so soft that I wore no hat, and my arms were bare, and there was a brilliantly pale sun under a bank of silvery-grey cloud like a dove's breast, and as I was turning homewards I looked back to the West, and saw along the grass a path of moon-light coloured glory like what one sees sometimes on the sea, and so I turned somewhat presumptuously and went right across this heaven-ward path, and stooping on it, I gathered handfuls of diamonds which alas in the hand proved to be but sun-woven gossamers. I think God is so good to have made the world so marvellously lovely. He might have made it a grey work-a-day world, calculated for useful purposes only; instead of that He adorned it with all the loveliest things of His fancy. Just think, if we only were to see a sunset once in our lives the wonder and beauty of it would kill us I think. As it is we see it every day, and so scarce turn to look upon it. I have got such a nice new friend in England. She is a poet also. She is a friend of Mr Beckley’s, that friend of Charlie Fagan, who was staying in Dublin this winter past, and he having written to her, and sent her some of my poems, she sent me her book. So we write constantly to each other now and are great friends. She has asked me to go and stay with her. Her name is Miss Evelyn Noble,32 and she lives at “the Pines”, Bagshot, Surrey. I don’t know the fate of my poems yet, but am expecting to hear every day. I had a letter from Mr Meynell last week, and he had just seen Mr. Kegan Paul, and the poems were under consideration. I have had a very happy busy winter. I have written a good deal and gone out very little. I have not a great many friends in Dublin. But I always have Miss Rosa Mulholland,33 the sister of Mrs Charles Russell; 32

Evelyn May Noble (b.1853) who wrote as Evelyn Pyne. Kegan Paul published her The Poet in May in 1885. She married the Quaker minister John Armitage (1827-1903) in 1893. 33 The Irish poet and novelist Rosa Mulholland (1841-1921) published over forty novels and was a contributor to the Irish Monthly. She married the historian John Thomas Gilbert (1829-98) in 1891. He was knighted in 1897. Charles Dickens had encouraged her to write and published some of her short stories in his Household Words. Katharine devotes a chapter to her in her Memories. In a letter to Fr Russell 20 August 1883 Katharine writes Do not forget to tell me about Miss Mulholland. I hope she will like my “Una”. I would ask nothing better to fill my life than that Rosa Mulholland

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she is a most noble and beautiful woman, and is a very distinguished writer, and she is good enough to care for me; she is so loving and good to me. And I get a great many letters from my friends in England and elsewhere. With much love yours affectionately K. Tynan. Did Flossie get the little book I sent her all right?

should honour me with her friendship. For the happiness of knowing her, I have to thank you, as well as for many other things. Rosa’s sister Ellen Mulholland (1836-1918) married the barrister and politician Charles Arthur Russell (1832-1900) in 1858. Knighted in 1886 he was created GCMG in 1893 and later Baron Russell of Killowen. He was Attorney-General of England and later Lord Chief Justice of England. His younger brother was Fr Matthew Russell, S.J.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin. 6 March 1885 My dear Mrs Meynell, I am very glad indeed that you liked the wall-flowers. When I gathered them, the place was all white with snow and I had to shake the frozen snow off the flowers; I think they must have been quite glad to go to you, the air was so bitter the day I plucked them: probably the travail was very strange to them, but your presence must have so much warmer than the snow-covered garden. I pleased myself with the thought that you would keep them on your writing-table, and that they would make the atmosphere around you lovelier while you were at your work. We have only the very simplest flowers in our garden, homely old-fashioned flowers: I shall be very glad to send you a little box of them sometimes, and I will make no apology to you—a poet—for their homeliness. Of course I know that in London, flowers are always very abundant, but I shall be giving myself such a very real pleasure also. Some wall-flowers I sent to-day almost need no apology: they were pinched poor things by a bitter sleety wind this morning and yesterday, and the snowdrops have shrunk away into nothingless; they were lovely in mid-February, when the Spring really came for a few days; now she is gone somewhere out of sight and hearing, and it is cruel for the baby flowers she had lured out of their cradles. My wall-flowers this morning looked as if they had grown on a London wall or window, all—not certainly as if they had been born in a country garden. Dear Mrs Meynell, you are not to write to acknowledge these flowers or any I may send you. I shall always know they came to you safely, and shall please myself fancying them set near you at your work. You were so very good to be interested in my book, and to feel sympathy with me in my suspense, but I should have expected all that tenderness for another from you. Only sometimes artists are not all one expects them to be, but just because now and then, they fall below one’s ideal it is so much the greater help and happiness when one meets an artist who like you and Miss Mulholland fulfils one’s highest expectation: and dear, Mrs Meynell, you must not say you neglected me when I was in London. You were very very good to me, and it was a real, most undeserved happiness for me to come to you weak and delicate as you were, and let me stay with you in the room where your beautiful work is done seemed to me the greatest of privileges: I felt as if I had been admitted so much more to your friendship than those who have been seeing you half a lifetime, but when many others are present. I hope I may

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be fortunate enough to come to England this year. If I get any money for the sale of the book I shall certainly use it in that way, but I should like first to repay my father the £20 which he gave me before thinking of my own pleasures. Father Russell says that Messrs Kegan Paul & Co’s terms leave the proceeds of the sale of the book to me, and if that be correct, I expect I shall have a little money. You will smile perhaps at the rashness of this expectation, but I believe the book will have a fair sale here. The very dearth of literature in Ireland is my great friend in this case, because here the least of the book-writers has a prominence which only the greatest have with you. I am almost sure so that my book will be bought in Dublin if from no better motive in many cases than curiosity. And the sale need not be very large to give me enough money to go to London. I wrote to Messrs Kegan Paul & Co on Monday, and in their reply they said they should put the book in hand at once. I hope you will like the book when it comes to you, and feel a little tender to it, because it will owe so much its existence almost to Mr Meynell, and to you very respectfully yours always Katie Tynan I shall not expect you at all to answer this letter. I know how busy you are always, and you must not trouble to write to me at any time. And remember please remember me to Mr Meynell.

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin 23 April 1885 My dear Mrs Pritchard, Our letters before the last crossed so I can hardly say which of us owed the other a letter; but, I had been expecting one from you. I am delighted to hear that Mr Pritchard came home strong and well, and having enjoyed himself. You must feel it so very very good to have him again. I am glad you liked Hannah Lynch.34 I don’t think we are really alike, and I fear it is rather libellous to her to say that we are, because she is a much better looking girl than I am, but I know she doesn’t mind its being said, because her half-sister, Miss Cantwell,35 who is a great friend of mine, said the first time she saw me “Isn’t Miss Tynan like Hannah?” I don’t think anyone besides you two ever thought so. I hope you will be great friends. I have had no letter from her since -because I did not answer yet a letter received from her before yours; I must try to answer her tonight. I am very glad to hear about the music-lessons. Tell me more about it, who is teaching you etc. I am sure you will get on well because you are so fond of music, and the learning it will bring a great pleasure into your life. My book is not ready yet, though I hope and expect it will be soon. I have seen the first bound copy. It came to me this day week together with bindings in various colours for me to select from. I chose one of a blue34

The Irish journalist and novelist Hannah Lynch (1859-1904). Her novel Through Troubled Waters was published by Ward, Lock & Co. in 1885. Politically she was against British rule in Ireland. She eventually settled in France. In Reminiscences (89) Katharine describes Hannah “as one of the few people I have known who eat, drink, and dream books”. In a letter to Mrs Pritchard, 12 April 1885 (NLI), Katharine wrote: “I write now because I want to send a friend of mine to call on you if I may. She is a Miss Hannah Lynch and is a literary lady.” In a letter to Fr Russell, 17 June 1885, Katharine comments on Hannah Lynch Hannah Lynch sent me these two copies of verses enclosed a little while since and asked my opinion of them. I thought they were very fair only, utterly wrong in metre and rhythm, and told her so but I confess myself rather a bad judge of verse in manuscript; your professional eye will weigh their worth at once, and will you please give me your opinion of them. 35 Teresa Cantwell daughter of the nationalist James Cantwell (1818-75), Hannah’s late step-father.

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green colour, and I am sure I hope it is pretty, but I distrust somewhat my judgement in colour.36 All had to go back to the publishers at once,— including the bound copy. You will get one of the very first. I heard from Mr Fagan a couple of weeks ago. He seems very well, and in good spirits. He has more than 400 students of all ages under him, and about 25 masters. He is busy getting up cricket-clubs, tennis-clubs etc. but he hopes through the influence of someone in Madras to get a Government appointment which would be better. At present he and his brother Arthur who is a Government Engineer are staying together in the Neilgherries,37 which is the hill-country of Madras. I shall have a great many more friends in England by the time I come again. I told you,—did I not?—of Miss Noble the young lady at Bagshot whom I came to correspond with through Mr Beckley, Mr Fagan’s friend who was here during the winter. Mr Beckley is such a jolly man; I think you will like him really well when you come to know him, some day. He is a friend of mine and we write to each other, so whenever I come to London you will probably meet him. Then I get such kind letters from Mr James Britten;38 he is Director of the Natural History Department at South Kensington. He is a great friend of a number of my friends. I have never seen him, but as he is coming to Ireland in June I shall see him then. You will see the Academy, and Grosvenor Gallery, I know. Be sure and tell me all about the lovely pictures. How I envy you. Do you ever see Mr Ryan? He has quite left off writing to me. Poor dear Mr Hughes is very ill with rheumatic fever. But I forgot you don’t like Mr Hughes. He is a good little man though, and if you knew him you would most certainly like him. 36 On 4 May Katharine wrote to Fr Russell that she had received a list of presentation copies which included

The Meynells, Lady Wilde, R. M. M. R. Bee Walshe in Australia, Mrs A. M. Sullivan, Miss Cassie O'Hara, Miss E. Skeffington Thompson, John Kane (I was sending him a parcel for sale), Miss Cantwell (who is a governess in Palina, Majorca), Miss Noble (she sent me hers). I sent one also to the Fagans though they had forbidden me, but I did not like them to buy my first prints seeing how good they have been to me. And the others are to people who could hardly afford to buy the book. 37

Arthur M. Fagan (b.1859). James Britten (1846-1924) was a founder member of the English Dialect Society and also the Folklore Society. He joined the British Museum in 1871 and moved to the Natural History Museum in 1880. He was a convert to Roman Catholicism and became honorary secretary to the Catholic Truth Society. 38

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I suppose you don’t know of a situation for an educated girl who wants something to do away from home. She has some money, so salary is, hardly an object. She is a fine strong girl, with a good English education, but no accomplishments. I ask you, because I have promised her to ask everyone, as one never knows where God will open a door. Give my best love to my dear little Flossie, and also Miss Baby whose lungs I hope are as sound as ever. And remember me affectionately and gratefully to dear Mr Pritchard. Good bye, my dear friend, and God keep you and yours. Your ever-loving friend Katie.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin. 18 May 1885 My dear Mrs Meynell, Even before the Weekly Register came from Mr Meynell this morning I had seen the review and of course recognized your hand.39 It is a beautiful review, and I am glad to have been reviewed by you: I hope I may never disprove your high opinion of me: I value your belief that I am a poet as much. You gave me an unexpected delight in selecting the “Dreamers” for praise.40 No one saw that poem before it went in the “copy”; as I told Mr Meynell it was written while I was under the spell of your “In Autumn”41 and I liked it at first, as it is shown by my placing it second in the volume. Afterwards with the distrust of one’s own work that comes so painfully sometimes I grew to believe it tawdry and artificial,—I am so easily put out of conceit with anything I write—and I had a most step-motherly feeling for that poor poem, passing it by quickly, whenever I turned the pages in proof, and wishing heartily that I could blot it altogether. Now your pleasure in it has made me take it to my heart again. I do not think the next volume—if there ever should be a next—will have my mannerisms. I left off “small soft” “small sweet” etc. I fear all critics will not be as kind as you to my adjectives; some of my poems are dreadfully over-adjectived, “King Cophetua” being perhaps the very worst. Dear Mrs Meynell, though I could not acknowledge your last letter earlier it gave me real delight, and I thank you for signing yourself “ever yours affectionately”. When I was making my inscription in the book for you and Mr Meynell I remained a long time with my pen uplifted thinking of how I should phrase it. I felt much more than gratitude, which is a cold thing if affection does not go hand-in-hand with it, and I was somewhat 39

Unsigned, “Miss Tynan’s Poems”, Weekly Register, 16 May 1885. Alice opened with: “It is seldom that poetry is at once so sincere and true, and so characteristic of a time, as is this by a new writer.” And continues Some of her verse, indeed, has a rare beauty—a beauty of intimacy, generally, but now and then a beauty of splendour and freedom which gives the reader hope that she will, in time, enlarge her themes even more than she has yet done, and will not shrink from those outward things that lie beyond the limits of the lyric. It was also reviewed in Merry England, June 1885. 40 A twenty verse poem. 41 Alice’s twelve verse poem in her Preludes.

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afraid of writing anything warmer, lest you might think it unwarrantable. So at last I said, “They will not think me presumptuous for feeling affection for them and expressing it, and they will not think affection a poor thing, I am sure.” It was so gracious of you, dear Mrs Meynell, and so like you to respond in that way. You gave me a picture too to look at, when you wrote about the dear little baby. I should like to make a poem about you, and the little wilful thing struggling for the possession of your paper. When I am less busy, I will make one, if it comes to me then as it does now, and send it to you. I am dreadfully busy; the very fact of people being so wonderfully kind makes me all the busier; I have the more letters to write, and so many are to people I don’t know. It is quite a relaxation to write to someone I do know and care for. I have had to deny myself many pleasures this last fortnight sending flowers included. I must make time to send you apple-blossom this week; I shall like to think of your face when you see it. I, who sees week by week as to which is the best flower God has made, just now place apple-blossom in the ascendant. Last week I thought it was the cowslip, but it was for the scent of the honey-sweet smell. I am so glad it is early in the year; there are so many lovely successions to come yet. I cannot go with George Eliot in loving Autumn;42 even the early glories of it are fierce and false and hectic, and the bees when they are “Indian Princes” only bring to me a second sight for the drenched earth and the sodden dead leaves in November, and a sound of the drip drip from the shiny wet branches. How much alike are my poem and Mr Dowling’s in the current Merry England.43 The metre is identical, and some of his lines echo mine,—mine his. Dear Mrs Meynell, believe me with much affectionate gratitude your ever K. Tynan

42

George’s Eliot’s “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” Letter to Maria Lewis, 1 October 1841 quoted in George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals, 3 vols (1885), edited J. W. Cross, vol 1. 43 Katharine’s “A Nested Bird” and Richard Dowling’s “Blind in the Woods”, Merry England, May 1885. The journalist Richard Dowling (1846-98) wrote as Marcus Fall.

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Whitehall, Clondalkin 30 June 1885 My dear Mrs Pritchard, A fortnight ago I commenced a letter to you prior to a ten days visit which I have been making to Miss Hannah Lynch’s mother who lives at Kingstown our most fashionable watering-place.44 Somehow I did not get the letter finished, I was too busy I suppose, so I must begin a new one. The Graphic review was very kind,45 and I have had so many as kind and kinder, no not kinder, but as kind and much longer. I send you a leaflet with a few extracts from the reviews that have appeared up to the present. I hope you are watching the Daily News for me.46 I am glad you and Flossie had such a nice time in the country; I did not know before that you had friends in that part of the world— Herefordshire—was it not? It must be a real delight to you to get away from London in the hot summertime to green grass and cool damp places and misty hills. How is dear Mr Pritchard in health, and how are you, yourself, in health and spirits. You must tell me because I care so much. Did I tell you that I had lovely letters about my book from Cardinal Manning and Cardinal Newman and that they sent me their blessings.47 All this praise and affection is very delightful. I am getting letters from admirers of my poems all over the world—even in America and Australia. A young Englishman, Mr Cyril Weale, editor of an Australian paper, sent me his photograph—he is so nice—and wrote under it “O that those lips had language!”48 I wonder what they would say if they had. Then a Mr 44

Hannah’s mother’s name is unknown. “Recent Poetry and Verse”, Graphic, 30 May 1885. 46 The Daily News, 1 May 1886, remarked that it was in its second edition and that there was “a true lyrical grace, clearness of vision, and felicity of expression”. 47 Manning’s letter is published in Katharine’s Reminiscences (146). John Henry Newman (1801-90) was one of the major Church of England clerics in the Oxford (or Tractarian) Movement which basically endorsed the high church aspect of the Church of England. Newman eventually converted to Rome, became a priest and in 1879 was appointed a Cardinal in 1879. 48 John Cyril Marie des Anges Weale (1857-1942) editor of the Sydney Express, a Catholic paper. Born in Bruges, he came to England in 1878 but ill-health forced him to move to Sydney, Australia, in 1882. He married Margaret Walshe who had moved to Australia in 1884. He returned to England in 1892. “O that those lips had language! Life has pass’d / With me but roughly since I heard thee last” William Cowper’s “On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture Out of Norfolk”. 45

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Charles Hubert Oldham,49 a Scholar of Trinity College wrote to me about a magazine they are starting, and then asked me if he might come to see me.50 He has come twice since, and last time he brought a young poet, Mr Yeats,51 with him. I found him very interesting, he has the saddest, most poetical, face I ever saw; he looks a poet much more than Mr Fagan though he was poetical-looking also, but a fair face can never look so sad as a dark one. I am the only poet I have ever met whose face does not show something of her divine art. O dear, I wish I was in the least degree poetical-looking. Friday July 3rd. I resume. I fear I am fated never to finish this letter to you. Wednesday I was at a garden party, and I remained in town all night. It was very grand; it was at the house of the principal Dublin publisher. I did not know them before, but they sent me a card on account of my poems. I went with that dear Miss Mulholland of whom I have told you. She also went with me to buy my dress. It is cream coloured nun’s veiling trimmed with coffee lace and a black velvet belt and loops of black velvet; hat black velvet and feathers with a cream bird, black gloves and stockings with white clocks. I think the dress was very pretty. There were about 250 people there and indoors where there was music it was rather a crush; out in the grounds it was charming, and I watched the tennis players for a long time. I don’t like going away to entertainments though; it wastes my time so much, and just now I have such an immense number of letters to write, I have no time for my poetry. I should feel more troubled for that though if 49

Charles Hubert Oldham (1859-1926) founded the Dublin University Review in February 1885 with T. W Rolleston. He founded the Contemporary Club in November 1885 while still at Trinity College, Dublin. Oldham later became Professor of Political Economy at the National University of Ireland and then Professor of Economics from 1916. He founded the Dublin branch of the Irish Protestant Home Rule Association in 1886. 50 Katharine writes (Reminiscences, 141) Some time in the spring of 1885 I had a letter from Mr Charles Hubert Oldham, a young Trinity College man, who was about to start the Dublin University Review, asking me to help him. Such a request gave me great pleasure in those days. I contributed a poem to an early number, after which Mr Oldham came to see me and told me about Willie Yeats...Presently Mr Oldham came to see me accompanied by Willie Yeats. 51 This was Katharine’s introduction to W. B. Yeats and they formed a close friendship for a few years and Yeats proposed unsuccessfully to Katharine on 19 July 1891.

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it were not that my friends do not wish me to write much just at present. I hear last Saturday’s Spectator rather cuts me up.52 How dreadfully unkind of Mr Hutton.53 I have not seen it; could not get it in Dublin, but probably someone will send it to me. The Academy gave me a pretty good review and the Ladies Pictorial a very good one.54 I will send you as soon as I get copies the Irish Monthly with an article on my book by that Miss Noble,55 the poet at Bagshot to whom I am going on a visit one of these days. I wish I could come now as she and so many others beg me to, but I must possess my soul in patience till perhaps next Spring. Will you have forgotten me by that time? Darling little Flossie; we are always talking of her and her funny sayings. Does she ever talk of us. Next Summer perhaps when Baby will be more of a companion you will let us carry off Flossie for a little while. Did you see Hannah Lynch since? She has changed her residence I believe though I don’t know her new address. Remember me affectionately to Mr Pritchard, and with love and kisses to you and Flossy. I am yours Katie

52 Spectator, 27 June 1885. The short review opens with “Miss Tynan’s verses weary us with the verbiage of the new school of poets” and closes with

In short, there is affectation and feebleness, with many falsities of sentiment, and now and then more serious errors of taste (see, for instance, the first line of p. 54) ; but still there is some genuine poetry in the volume, more, we should say, than in either of those which we have already noticed. The first line of p.54 is “Kiss me once more, my king, and find me sweet”. 53 Richard Holt Hutton (1826-97) was co-editor with Meredith White Townsend (1831-1911) from 1861 until 1886. 54 Academy, 27 June 1885, stated that “This is a volume of no little merit.” The Lady’s Pictorial reviewed the book of 20 June 1885 remarking: “There is a colour and melody in this Irish poetess’s verse that adds a charm to her native energy of expression.” 55 The unsigned review in the Irish Monthly, July 1885 Already the young poet has received most flattering recognition from the Press, and from many men of high authority; and we can give, in farewell, no better wish, than that Louis de la Vallière may be as great a success as it deserves to be, and that we may soon welcome a second and larger volume from the same pen.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Clondalkin 21 July 1885 Dear Mr Meynell, I have written now to Messrs Kegan Paul & Co, asking them to send the copies of my book to those you name. How good of you to think for me and work for me, and make your friends work for me. You are quite right about the little Irish song, and I knew it before your letter came. It is going with a new series of “Irish Penny Readings” which Mr T. D. Sullivan has begun to issue from the Nation office;56 there will be the poem’s proper place. I suppose any flavour the poem has for Irish ears would hardly be detected by the organs of Merry England readers (that is a fine example of a mixed metaphor—is it not?—the foregoing sentence I mean) Mr T. D. Sullivan had not appealed to me when I sent you the poem, and I have been only waiting for it to come back. I am glad you are going to the country, but I hope the box of roses which I shall send to-morrow morning will be in time to give you a breath of the country in anticipation. I should not have behaved so badly to Mrs Meynell those last three weeks only I supposed that you had gone out of town,—so some flowers that were hers by right were deviated to other people. I saw but two of the advertisements of my book,—one in the Register.57 Father Russell who knows says I got splendid value for my £10. Thank you heartily for that service, and so many others. Messrs Kegan Paul & Co wrote to me a little while since that they were happy to say my book was enjoying a larger sale than works of its class normally do; they had reassured me that poetry does not sell well and still my book was some exception to that rule, though in these impartial days they hardly hoped that it would ever have a very large sale. That is their report, almost verbatim. I am not very extravagant with my hopes,— expectations I have none—my largest hope is that I may have enough money out of it to go to London next Spring; and that would require but a very modest sum. The Spectator was very severe on my modern verbiage, but I found the severity rather bracing. I do not mean to use again “of me” 56 The politician, lyric writer and novelist Timothy Daniel Sullivan (1827-1914) was editor of the Nation from 1876 until 1890. Penny Readings for the Irish People, Compiled by the Editor of the “Nation”, 4 vols. (Dublin: 1879-85). Sullivan was the compiler of the fourth volume. Katharine’s poems “The King’s Cupbearer” and “The Dead Patriot” were included in volume IV, 1885. 57 Weekly Register, 11 July 1885.

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for “of my”, and similar combinations of words like “sweet small”: so their cruelty will have an effect which dear Mrs Meynell’s golden-tongued method of finding the casual fault might not have had. I send you a sheet of extracts from reviews, which perhaps I sent you before, but not as it now stands I think. There have been some reviews since this was printed. I am very anxious for a review in the Saturday,58 and I hope they would not be savage to me. The Spectator review is the only severe one I have had & I began to feel a little afraid of my reviewers promises for me. They are mortgaging my future, and supposing I should never do better than I have done! I think though that I am too often called Rossettian; one of the poems which my reviewers call so, was written before I had read a line of him;59 and two excellent judges have found Morris’s influence in “Joan of Arc”.60 I being wholly unacquainted with Morris’s poetry. I think very often the thought of a time runs in one groove. Mr Healy is working very hard for me among his co-members.61 Mr Labouchere has promised a notice in Truth and Mr Justin McCarthy is doing what he can in the Daily News.62 It was his son Justin Huntley 58

“Recent verse”, Saturday Review, 29 August 1885. In a short paragraph among reviews of twelve poetry books the reviewer quotes examples of Katharine’s “mawkish affectations” and sees evidence of “natural power and genuine poetic vision”. 59 However, in a letter to Fr Matthew Russell of 20 July 1885 Katharine writes: “As for Rossetti, I had never read a line of him up to two years ago and some of my poems which people call Rossettian were written before I knew him at all.” She later says that she had not seen Rossetti’s poetry before 1884 (Reminiscences, 71). In her “Some Memories of Christina Rossetti”, Outlook (USA), 9 February 1895, she states in reference to Louise de La Vallière that By far the greater portion of it was written before I ever read Dante Rossetti’s poems. I had looked at them in a library in 1883 or 84 but was not until April ’85, that I possessed a precious volume of them. For a discussion on this see Peter van de Kamp, “Wrapped in a Dream: Katharine Tynan and Christina Rossetti” in Beauty and the Beast: Christina Rossetti, Walter Water R. L. Stevenson and their Contemporaries, ed. Peter Liebregts and Wim. Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996). 60 Katharine’s “Joan of Arc: a monologue” in her Louise De La Vallière. 61 The Irish barrister and politician Timothy Michael Healy (1855-1931) was a prominent member of the Irish Land League becoming first Governor General of the Irish Free State, 1922-8. 62 A weekly journal edited by the journalist and politician Henry du Pré Labouchere (1831–1912), which ran from 4 January 1877 to 27 December 1957. The Irish politician, journalist and novelist Justin McCarthy (1830-1912).

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McCarthy who wrote that article in the Whitehall Review.63 Please remember me most kindly to Mrs Meynell, and believe me with hearty thanks yours faithfully Katie Tynan

Presumably Katharine is referring to the review of Louise de La Vallière, Truth, 13 August 1885, in which the reviewer notes: “We feel that we are hardly presumptuous in hailing Katharine Tynan a genuine poetess.” 63 Whitehall Review, 4 June 1885. The novelist and politician Justin Huntly McCarthy (1860-1936). The article, if Katharine is referring to Louise de La Vallière, was signed Mark Wyndham, and was a five line mention of Katharine “but I had never heard of this new poetess of whom I think every one is likely to hear before long”.

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To Edward Dowden64 MS Morris. Whitehall, Clondalkin 5 August 1885 Dear Professor Dowden, I have asked my publishers to send you a copy of my little volume of verse, Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems; it will reach you I suppose in a day or two. You once gave a distinctly favourable verdict on the poems which gives the little book its title; if you should find anything in the other poems seeming to you worthy of your praise or anything to give you pleasure, it would be a great delight and honour to me, and a great help and encouragement as well. For the book’s defects I may plead to you that comes of the poems were written in very early girlhood, some of them dating from seven years ago; “August or June”, a piece towards the end of the volume was written in August 1878, and was published in the Graphic in the following June;65 that was my first publication. believe me to be very faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

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Edward Dowden (1843-1913), literary critic and Professor of English at Trinity College from 1867. He published widely and was a scholar of international repute. Fr Matthew Russell had introduced Katharine to Dowden. 65 Katie Tynan, “August or June?”, Graphic, 14 June 1879.

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To Father Matthew Russell66 Published in The Irish Monthly, May 1903.67 [Whitehall, Clondalkin] [August 1885] Dear Father Russell, A long, long letter from William Rossetti this morning.68 I will bring it to you next week when you are back in Gardener Street; it is too precious to send by post, and too new to let out of my hands. He says my letter interested him so much that he was afraid to open the book lest it should destroy the impression the letter had made.69 He read first “The Wild Geese”,70 and then on till he had read about one-third of the whole. He found in the poems many things beautiful, tender, touching, and deeply felt. The poems really belong to the class Poetry, not to the class Versification. He regards me as worthy to write poetry and rank as a poetess, and it is clear to him that I have only to go on and cultivate my faculty and that I will not miss my mark. He finds his sister’s influence more strongly marked that his brother’s in those of the poems he has read.71 He asked me to send her a copy of the book as she is prepared to be interested in it. He read my letter for her on Friday and assured her that the book would please her. Now listen!!! He sent me a list of the large photographs of his brother’s works and asked me to select any half-dozen. He had marked those most likely to win my liking.72 (I’m afraid he marked all the expensive ones.) He sent me also autograph letters of his brother and sister. I’ll bring you the letter; but these are the salient points. I said “Thank God”. Was it profane of me? Yours ever affectionately Katie Tynan. 66

See p. 31n. By the Editor, “Poets I have Known No. 5: Katharine Tynan”, Irish Monthly, May 1903. 68 William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) art critic and brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti. Parts of his letter, dated 9 August 1885, are published in Reminiscences (148-9). 69 Katharine had written on 5 August. 70 Katharine’s “The Flight of the Wild Geese” was first published in the Irish Monthly, February 1884 and included in Louise de La Vallière. This poem is not to be confused with her later “The Wild Geese” published in her The Holy War (1916). 71 Katharine had bought Dante Rossetti’s Poems in 1885. 72 Katharine chose Dante’s “Dream”, “Proserpine”, “The Girlhood of Mary”, and “Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee”. 67

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 18 August 1885 My dear Mrs Meynell, Thank you very much for sending me the Truth notice of my book. It is a very good notice and ought to serve me very much. I have been wondering this while back if you had returned to town, and I was glad to get an intimation to that effect from your envelope. I hope you and Mr Meynell enjoyed that well-earned holiday, but I am so sorry you could not have taken it in the Spring. I think the loveliness has quite gone off the world after June. Only, you may be an enthusiast for Summer, or like George Eliot for Autumn, but from your poetry I think you are a Springworshipper like myself. I have had a most kind long letter from Mr W. M. Rossetti. I sent my book to him, claiming to be a disciple of his brother. He said my letter interested him, and pleased him so much that he opened the book with some trepidation lest the poems should not be of the calibre as to enhance the or sustain the interest excited by the letter. He read first “The Wild Geese”,—and then on, about a third of the volume, finding at once that there was the cause of the trepidation; the poems really belonging to the class poetry, and not to the class versification, more or less accomplished, more or less rooted in prose. Whatever his opinion might be worth he would not be so wrong, and indeed impertinent as to overstate it. In the poems he had found many beautiful, tender, touching and delightfully felt things, and when he said beyond this that he truly believed me to be worthy to write poetry, and rank as a poet, he said all that could be in demand. He believed I had only to go on and cultivate my faculty and that I would make my mark. He found influence from his sister’s work than from his brother’s. He had read my letter to her on the previous day, and assured her that she would heartily like some things in my book, and he asked me to send her a copy. (I had spoken of doing so.) He enclosed also a list of the photographs of his brother’s works and asked me to select any half-dozen I would particularly like and he should do himself the pleasure of ordering them for me. He sent me also autograph letters of his brother and sister. He marked the best of the photographs for me to select from, and I asked besides the advice of two artists who knew the pictures. My selections are,—The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,—Dante’s Dream— Proserpine,—Mary Magdalene at the House of Simon the Pharisee,—the portraits of Mary Mag Mrs Rossetti, Senior, and Miss Christina Rossetti, and a portrait of Dante Rossetti taken in 1863 by the author of Alice in

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Wonderland. The last, an unusual selection perhaps,—was made from motives of modesty!!! I am not afraid, dear Mrs Meynell, that you will think me an egoist for writing to the kind things Mr Rossetti said about my poems; you and Mr Meynell being the book sponsors will care to know of its being praised by so high an authority, and you who are so sweet, will be glad for my poor sake, because the letter meant much a delight to me. This box of flowers is a poor one, but roses and lilies are gone, and I send you the best my garden will afford; just now it is flaming all over with nasturtiums, and there is little else in it. Soon I shall have nothing to send you but Autumn leaves. With kindest regards to dear Mrs Meynell, ever affectionately yours Katie Tynan

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. Great Cressingham Rectory Walton, Norfolk 13 October [1885] My dear Mrs Pritchard, You are so good and kind and I was indeed glad to get your loving letter. It will be very nice to see you in London, and my dear little Flossie and Mr Pritchard. I shall be here a good while I expect, and shall hardly stay any length of time in London. May I come to you for a few days,— would you like me to come? I have promised to go for a little while to Miss Noble at Bagshot. I need not tell you that there has been great trouble here.73 The father 73 Charles Fagan had died of dysentery on 8 August in India. In an undated letter but after 7 August Katharine wrote to Fr Russell

I have not written for so long because I meant to come to you next week. Now I come to you with a request which you will not deny I know. It is for poor Charlie Fagan whom a little while ago you found unsatisfactory. He was dying then—in India with not one of his kith or kin near him; there can be no further news till Monday, but they fear that if there had been good news Arthur would have telegraphed. But I think the same applies to bad news. Arthur (his brother) is not with him; the Gov’t would not give him leave of absence. He wrote on the 7th of August sending the urgent telegrams that were sent to him; three in two days. The last said “very dangerously ill”. It was inflammation of the bowels. Of course it is decided one way or the other now. I want you to pray, to give him a Mass —will you, dear friend! And to get the Mass to pray. It will be as terrible if he died without belief in God. I only heard this morning. They are in dreadful trouble, and poor Mr Fagan whose favourite son he always was, is quite frantic; and will believe only the worst. Will you pray dear friend and get all the prayers you can for him. If you tell me you are praying and others it will make me glad. It is a real trouble to me, because he is my dear friend, and always trusted and believed in me so much, and I am sorely troubled too for his dear father and mother. Writing to Fr Russell of 12 September 1885 Katharine explains I am glad you have spoken in a way that gives me an opportunity of telling you about my poor dear, the more so that I will remove a cloud which has lain over my affection for you. If there had been anything definite to tell, I would have told you long ago, but I did not know how to set about answering vague suspicions which I only half guessed at. There was nothing at all, like what you think between us; he has been engaged for more than a year. You would not have feared that he would affect my

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was entirely wrapped up in him, and he is very much broken; indeed I think his heart is broken. There is one good thing in all the sorrow,—that is—Mary Fagan became engaged just before that terrible news came from India, to a young clergyman and they are all greatly pleased about it.74 He is as much in love as any man could be, he is nice and good, and he belongs to a very good old family. It is a drop of joy in the cup of their sorrow. He is here now, and I like him very much. I can’t write to you, or anyone; the heavy Autumn has taken possession of my spirit and I haven’t life enough to do anything but dawdle. I shall be happiness if you knew how much good he has done me: he gave me a great affection and trust and honour which at first I was very unworthy to hold, but it has done so much to shape my soul; I think God sometimes works on people through human affections, and I have never ceased trying to reach up to his ideal of me, and in the trying I know my soul has grown; sometimes I think my whole nature has altered; I was so foolish when I knew him first. When I went to London he was not engaged to this girl, but he was very much in love with her. She is a lovely child, & only a child— and she was not very fitted for him. She is a musician, and at that time the society she was in seemed dangerous for her—she was leading a kind of Bohemian life. She was playing with him then, in a cruel fashion, from mere childish ignorance—and at a time he was in great trouble he told me everything—I don't think anyone ever gave a fuller confidence; he put his poor heart into my hands, and it was a very unspotted heart. He was constantly with me then, and as he said I “pulled him through”. He wanted help so much because he was utterly alone, the man who shared his rooms having gone away to his mother's death-bed. The position in which I stood to him grew to me almost like as if I was his mother, and my love for him has been like that for a long time. Later he asked me to be a friend to this girl,—he pleaded so hard with me, because for a time I held out. In the end I consented, and after a time there was no difficulty; she crept into my heart, poor little one, and she will always be there now. Of late his letters have been full of her, and the comfort it was to him to know I had taken her, and when I was this week in the worst kind of trouble, that takes any one's warm human heart and puts a stone in its place, it came to me suddenly like new life that he had given her to me to love. Perhaps it was one of his last thoughts, or perhaps he cried out to me from the shadows of death,—I know it stood up suddenly on my darkness in letters of light that I can never forget. We do not know anything at all about the end yet; Arthur's last letter was written when he had received the telegram of his death; a letter would have taken nearly a week to reach him in Northern India from Calicut. We will have that letter next week probably. 74

Mary Frances Fagan (1862-1945) married the clergyman John Neal Henry Long (1850-1926) in August 1886.

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glad—truly glad to see you again. Do you remember the evening we went to his rooms, and he told me to make tea for you, and you said afterwards; “he is nice, Miss Tynan, he is a gentleman.” It seems so terrible to think of him out in the wind and rain. Only he is not there, but warm with Christ in His house. Love to you and Mr Pritchard ever your loving friend K. Tynan

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To Mrs Pritchard MS NLI. Published in Apex One, 1973. The Pines, Bagshot Whitehall, Clondalkin 30 November 1885 My dear Mrs Pritchard, I have been here since last Tuesday and feel quite at home, though at first I was a little home-sick for Great Cressingham.75 However when all my visits are concluded I shall return home by there, so that anticipation keeps me from fretting. I am staying now with another poet, Miss Noble. Her second book has just been published by Kegan Paul;76 the copies reached here today. It is such a lovely book of poems, and looks so pretty in its delicate cover of apple-green. The house here is beautiful, over-grown with ivy from top to bottom, and the quaintly shaped windows set in the ivy. It is all very modern and luxurious, having all the new things, utterly unlike dear Great Cressingham with its old-fashioned rambling passages and corridors. There are only Miss Noble and her mother here; they are both all that is charming. Mr Noble and his other daughter are in the Isle of Wight. I don’t know how long I shall be here; I suppose two or three weeks longer. When I am coming to you won’t you meet me at Waterloo Station? I shall of course let you know the train. I am going to get a nice new mantle for all my grand London visiting. Won’t that be nice? I shall be quite a swell. And all this time I have been holding myself in reserve for London. There has been such a nice article on my book in the Cambridge Review.77 Mr Hughes got it written by a friend, a Mr Russell. It is called “A New Poetess”, and it is sure to help me and sell many copies of my book. I am so very blessed in my friends, and certainly as dear Mr Fagan says, the book was born under a lucky star. Tell Flossie I shall be coming very soon now. When you come to meet me at Waterloo, you must bring her. I shall be so very much delighted to see her and you. Is the baby quite a big girl now? I hope you will feel very glad to have me. And I shall try to make you very sorry to lose me. Are you quite well, and Mr Pritchard, Flossie & Baby, With much love ever yours affectionately K. Tynan 75

Katharine arrived on 24 November from Norfolk. Evelyn Pyne’s The Poet in May (Kegan Paul & Co.: 1885). 77 J. R., “A New Poetess”, Cambridge Review, 11 November 1885. 76

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To Gordon Hake78 MS BL. The Pines, Bagshot. 8 December 1885 My dear Dr Hake, If Mrs Meynell cannot come to introduce me, I shall be able to find my way to you quite—easily. I flatter myself on a way of finding out places but in this case it will be especially easy because I know Addison Road quite well. I have often been there, as I have friends living in Addison Gardens, and I always went to Addison Road Station in going to see them. It is so good of you to say you anticipate a pleasant afternoon when I come. I hope it will be pleasant to you, because you will be giving me a very keen pleasure and you are so good that you will like to feel that, I think. Otherwise the pleasure;—and more than pleasure will all fall to my share. I am going up to London next week, but I shall not come to see you till after the Christmas festivities are over. My London address will be,—446 Camden Road, N. I shall of course send you a card before I come. I have been reading Dante Rossetti’s praise of your work.79 I felt so glad to know he liked it,—because I have quite an unlimited love and admiration for him. What a happiness to have known him! And he painted your portrait, I know. With many grateful regards, believe me ever yours faithfully Katharine Tynan

78 Dr Thomas Gordon Hake (1809-95), physician and poet. In a letter of 30 November 1885 (BL) Katharine thanked Hake for his invitation to visit him and intended to do so with Alice Meynell. However, by 26 January 1886 (BL), Katharine writes

I have been waiting all this time for Mrs Meynell to take me to see you: I wrote a fortnight ago asking her when but I suppose the month’s end is busy for her because I have had no reply. I have grown tired waiting, and so perhaps you will let me come alone. I have been looking forward so much to coming. 79

D. G. Rossetti wrote two reviews of Hake’s poetry: “Madeline, with other Poems and Parables”, Academy, 1 February 1871 and “Critical Notices”, Fortnightly Review, April 1873, a review of Hake’s Parables and Tales.

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To Edward Dowden MS Morris. 446 Camden Road, N. London 7 January 1886 Dear Professor Dowden, I was very glad indeed to get your letter. When you made no sign I feared you did not like the book, and I was so sorry because I wished very much that you should like it. Thank you for thinking of writing to me before the year went out. Yes,—I think that book shows the influence of my reading very much, but I hope if I ever publish another volume to have in it more of myself and less of other people. Still I think I shall always be a literary poet: I would never have begun the race of poets. But if I may be a poet at all, I am only too glad, and too proud. I think Miss Mulholland’s book has lovely things in it.80 I am a very devoted admirer of her, and I don’t think my high opinion of her poetry to be all that influenced by my personal affection for her. I think she ought to rank high among the women poets of to-day. Mr William Rossetti asked me last week if I knew you.81 I said I was so fortunate,—but that I feared you did not care for my poetry. That must have been just about the time you wrote to me. I am so glad now that I need not say that or think it any more. With many thanks. Believe me to be, very faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

80

Vagrant Verses (1866). Katharine visited William Rossetti on 29 December 1885, a visit she remembers in her Reminiscences (157-8). Then a few days later she visited Christina Rossetti. Peter van de Kamp notes 30 December (“Wrapped in a Dream”, 75). 81

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 21 June 1886 Dear Mrs Meynell, I am glad you are going to Harrow—which I take to be a green place— rather than to a fashionable watering place or suchlike. I hope you will be among lady-smocks and yellow cuckoo-buds. I was in such a field yesterday and thought of Shakespeare,—the great daises were like small moons. I wish you could be among my meadows with me for a little while just now—only it is not really the right thing to be among meadows and if they are not your own you may be interviewed by the irascible farmer— the ideal farmer is irascible. However we have rather a mind to what it is—but not the farmer—than to what will be, and a cascade—a million cascade; of delicate grasses, are worth to our minds, all the hay in the world. You would laugh to see my father’s face when I break in on a disquisition between him and farmers as jealous, about the quality of the oats this year,—with my opinion that the oats are little good because there are few poppies. There is a certain yellow thing grows in corn which the peasantry here call “prashoge”,82 I admire it immensely, and while I rhapsodize over the delicate vivid colour of it my father calls it “dirt”, so there is a difference of opinion. He has just been manufacturing ensilage, if you know anything of that latest craze of fairness, and it is pitiful to smell the fermenting stuff that last week was a tossing sea of buttercups. He proposes to like the smell but it is very dreadful to the unprofessing, and unprofessional noses and the woodbine and sweet briar have their hands full in smelling it down. But there will be no ensilage about Harrow I trust and there will be corn and poppies and prashoge and woodbine and wild roses. I gave Father Russell your message, he was with me the very day your letter came. He wants us to call the house “The Hawthorns”; I should like “Meadowlands”—but I fear we are too old to change; we and the house alike. I got a very good review in the Daily News a while since.83 Mr Labouchere had it done at my friend Mr Healy’s instance. I don’t know how my second edition goes; they are not communicative. I hope all is well with you and dear Mr Meynell, and the sweet little children. 82 83

Katharine uses the word in her novel The Way of a Maid (1895). The review of 1 May 1886.

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Please call me “Katie”—in your letters,—not Miss Tynan. I have always been called “Katie”, Ever affectionately yours Katie

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 20 September 1886 Dearest Mrs Meynell, Your letter is just the kind of letter one wants to acknowledge right off, but I have been away from home three days and your dear letter has just been so long awaiting its answer. It is so sweet of you to write to me at such length, and your lovely letter is the more precious that I think it has so much of yourself in it. I like so much too, that you should call me by my familiar name. I don’t feel that I have “lost sight” of you, but that must be because I talk of you very often, and think of you often, and I do the best thing in my flowers by naming you and yours in my daily prayers for those dearest to me. It has been such a busy Summer,—too busy for it has stolen at least four days a week from me in visiting and being visited and other worldly allurements. I have been sitting too, for a portrait to Mr Yeats whom you know. It is almost finished now, and is wonderfully successful; I think it is only too nice.84 Of course I should be delighted to see Mrs Sullivan.85 Indeed I think she promised to see me through her friend and mine, Miss Katharine Conway of the Boston Pilot.86 And you know, dearest Mrs Meynell, any friend of yours must always evoke a kindly feeling from me. I am glad to hear about your time in Northumbria: it seems such a happy thing that you should have been quartered in the Darlings’ house. I wish I might know that you had written something very tender about the woman and the place. In poetry I mean,—though your prose goes the nearest of any prose I know except Ruskin’s to being as good. By the bye I have asked Fr Russell to send you some copies of that I.M. containing my words about 84

W. B. Yeats’s father John Butler Yeats painted Katharine throughout the summer of 1886 (Memories, 277). 85 The Irish-born journalist Margaret F. Buchanan (c.1847-1903) and her family moved to Detroit where she went to school. She wrote for the New York Sun, the Chicago Times and the Chicago Chronicle. She was married to the American lawyer Alexander Sullivan (c.1847-1913) who was an ardent Fenian and had been arrested in connexion with the murder of Dr P. H. Cronin, although released without charge. He was at one time president of the National League of America to organise American support for Parnell. 86 The journalist and author Katharine Eleanor Conway (1853-1927) became assistant editor of the Boston Pilot in 1890. Later she was against women’s suffrage insisting that they be wives and mothers and not having a career, despite the fact that she had a career in journalism.

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the Mrs Piatt from whom I have had one or two letters.87 I have treated you so badly all this Summer about flowers, and have felt so bad over my own guilt I really have not had time to gather the flowers or pack them and the sister who used to help me last year has other avocations this. With all my distractions I have written a good deal this Summer, but in quarters where you would never come, as well as a good deal you will know I have provided for your daffodils next March if all be the same with us. A certain Sir Harry Lawrence has taken Belgard,88 the place containing that green retreat of daffodils where I used to go astealing. His mother, Lady Young,89—has been very kind to me, and I have confessed my peccadilloes to her. She was amused instead of shocked and has given me carte blanche for next Spring as she will not be here. I think I will take over the daffodils, paying her a pepper corn rent of a weekly or fortnightly box for herself. I have enough poetry for a new volume, but for book’s sake will delay its appearance till next May. We have the pale September beauty around us, but are wishing for a little of your tropical heat. It has been an insufficiently warmed Summer. I hope the dear little children are well, and Mr Meynell, and with truest love, I am your friend Katie Tynan

87

K.T., “Mrs Piatt’s Poems”, Irish Monthly, July 1886. The American poet Sarah Morgan Piatt, née Bryan (1836-1919) was married to John James Piatt (18351917), American Consul in Queenstown (now Cobh). They are mentioned in Reminiscences (ch. XXVI) and Katharine has a chapter on both in her Memories. 88 Sir Henry Hays Lawrence, 2nd Bt (1864-98) was living at Belgard Castle, Clondalkin. 89 Alice Eacy Kennedy (1840-1922), widow of Sir Alexander Hutchinson Lawrence, 1st Bt (1838-64) had married Sir George Young, 3rd Bt (1837-1930) in 1871. See “Lady Young and her Circle” (Reminiscences) and “The Youngs” (Wandering Years).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 7 October 1886 Dearest Mrs Meynell, I have seen a good deal of Mrs Sullivan this last fortnight.90 I think she must have gone to rejoin her companions at Cork by this time, though I am not sure. She accompanied the deportation of Mr Gladstone this week,91 and I suspect she only passed through Dublin on her return. I stayed with her at her hotel a good deal,92 and feel very flattered and grateful that she should have desired so much of my society; she was kindness itself to me. I admire her exceedingly, and I am very glad you brought me to know her. What a keen wit she has! It sharpens one to even rub against her. I told her a good many funny stories and made her laugh a great deal which she enjoyed. I think the Americans think laughter if not the highest good, at least a very desirable thing. I am afraid I never made you laugh unless when I didn’t intend to. With all my admiration for Mrs Sullivan I didn’t come to know her quite well, or perhaps she didn’t come to know me. I thought once or twice when we were talking of you, of how much I used to like our long evenings in January by the fireside,—you and I—and how much more I was myself then. There is a side of my nature,—the largest side of it perhaps—which I kept carefully hidden away from those keen American eyes. And I grow tired in an atmosphere always bright and glittering. You see I am telling you my honest thoughts, feeling there will be no misunderstanding. You will believe that my liking and admiration for Mrs Sullivan are hearty things, and that I am so glad to know her. I will not find everyone like you and Rosa Mulholland. I am going to make a request and beg forgiveness in the one breath. Do you remember the copy of your book in which you wrote an inscription when I was leaving London: Well, I lent it,—and to someone to whom your work is just what it is to me,—dear and precious beyond saying. He kept it a long time, and was bringing it to me in August when his sister who was reading it on board the boat let it drop into the sea. However he has succeeded in getting another copy which I have not got because he is engaged in copying out a number of the poems, but when it reaches me I will send it to you in the hope that you will repeat the inscription, which was “Katharine Tynan, with love of her friend Alice Meynell”. I would 90

Reminiscences (184-6). Gladstone had been in Ireland to receive the freedom of Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Clonmel. 92 The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. 91

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pray your forgiveness more for having lent the precious volume, only I don’t think you could dislike my lending it, to one who simply worships the poetry in it. He thinks it is like Beethoven and he calls “Sœur Monique” “the best poem ever set to music”.93 Some day perhaps you will let me send him to see you; he would value the privilege as it ought to be valued. He is a Mr Legge, his father is the Chinese Professor at Oxford, but he is himself in the Admiralty and so being in London.94 He was the close friend of my dear dead friend Mr C. G. Fagan who wrote for you once.95 I have a very busy Summer and Autumn, only unfortunately the business was very much play. There has been so much visiting and being visited. On Tuesday I had for a long delightful day, Mr Alfred Percival Graves, whose Irish songs you will know.96 I like him very much. I hope to have a new volume ready for next May’s publishing season, when if all goes well we shall see each other again. I hope the dear little children are well, and Mr Meynell. With kindest regards to him, ever affectionately yours Katie

93 François Couperin’s “Sœur Monique” was written for the harpsichord and published in 1722. Alice’s poem ‘“Sœur Monique’ A Rondeau by Couperin” was in her Preludes. 94 James Granville Legge (1861-1940) joined the Civil Service after Oxford and later became Director of Education for Liverpool. He published on education and literary criticism. His father was the Rev. James Legge (1815-97) a former missionary to China who became the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University in 1876. Katharine recounts her visit Middle Years (293-5). 95 Charles Gregory Fagan, “Fox Hunting at the Land’s End”, Merry England, May 1884. 96 The Irish-born educationalist and poet Alfred Percival Graves (1846-1931) was an inspector of schools in Southwark and in 1891 was a founder member of the Irish Literary Society in London. He published Irish Songs and Ballads in 1886. His autobiography To Return to All That (1930) was a response to his son’s Goodbye to All That (1929).

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To Father Hopkins97 Published in The Irish Monthly, May 1903. Whitehall, Clondalkin [Dublin] 27 December 1886 Dear Father Hopkins, I did not answer your last letter because I thought it would be kinder to a busy man like you to spare you a correspondence,98 and I am not sure that your courtesy would permit me to have the last word. Now I am writing to wish you tardily the compliments of the season, and also to say that I hope sometime to see you again.99 I enjoyed my one talk with you genuinely, and it would be a real pleasure to me if I thought I might hope for a repetition. Perhaps, when Spring makes my cottage lovely, you would come with Father Russell to see me? I know I am presuming on precious time, but nevertheless I dare. I have taken a great fancy to the beautiful way in which Mr. Bridges’ books are bound.100 I should like my next book bound like Prometheus.101 I hope he and his are well. His work has given me great pleasure: it seems so very perfect of its kind. I have seen a clever letter from that Mr. Paravicini (of whom you spoke) in The Spectator; it was about Mr. Shorthouse’s Sir Percival.102 Did 97 The poet Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (1844-89). While at Balliol College, Oxford, Hopkins was received into the Catholic Church by John Henry Newman and joined the Jesuits in 1867 being ordained in 1877. Hopkins was a fellow of the Royal University of Ireland and also held a junior classic chair at University College, Dublin. Hopkins was introduced to Katharine and W. B. Yeats by Fr Matthew Russell in November 1886 (Yeats Letters gives October) at the studio of the painter John Butler Yeats. Katharine records this visit in Memories (155). 98 Hopkins’s letter of 14 November 1886 (Texas). 99 They met again on 17 February 1887. 100 Hopkins’s friend Robert Bridges (1844-1930), whom he met at Oxford, became Poet Laureate in 1913. After Hopkins’s death Bridges realised that the public was not ready for his poetry and did not publish any of his poems until 1918. In her letter of 6 November to Hopkins Katharine thanks him for three of Bridges’s books and also for having met Hopkins. 101 The first published edition of Bridges’s Prometheus the Firegiver (George Bell, 1884) was of a cream spine and grey-blue boards. The title was in red. An edition of one hundred copies in vellum backed grey-blue boards had been privately published by the Daniel Press, Oxford, in 1883. 102 Francis de Paravicini’s Letter, “Sir Percival as an Allegory”, Spectator, 13 November 1886. Baron Francis de Paravicini (1843-1920), scholar. The novelist John Henry Shorthouse (1834-1903) published his Sir Percival: a Story of the Past and of the Present in 1886.

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you see it? Mr. Yeats has not yet returned: he seems to be getting a good deal to do in London, I am glad to say. I don’t know if he has seen your brother.103 I hope you may have found something to interest you in my book,— something of promise perhaps.104 I think now that it is coloured too much with other people’s performance to have any of its own. It was handled with extreme kindness by the Press, as you will see from the enclosed booklet of reviews. Pray pardon my egotism in sending it. Believe me, dear Father Hopkins, with all kind regards and wishes, Ever faithfully yours, Katharine Tynan

103

The watercolourist Arthur Hopkins (1847-1930) contributed to the Graphic, Punch and the Illustrated London News. 104 There is no evidence that Hopkins commented on Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems although in a letter to Katharine, 15 September 1888 (Texas), he wrote about Shamrocks In this volume your first poem [“The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne”] and the longest is also the best in my judgment. You seize your subject with ease, zest, and mastery. It appears to me that a set story, a matter already made...best suits your powers and that you must have felt that yourself.

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To Richard Hodgson105 MS Manchester. Whitehall, Clondalkin 16 March 1887 Dear Mr Hodgson, I don’t know if this letter will catch you. I see you said in your last that you must be in America by the 31st of March. I had forgotten that and also I had forgotten that your letter reached me so long ago as the 22nd of February; I thought it was only a fortnight or so old. It came the day of my sister’s wedding which had to be postponed a week and then carried out with the most entire privacy on account of the death of my new brother-inlaw’s uncle. For the same reason they went nowhere for their honeymoon. I mean they travelled nowhere. They spent their wedding-day in Bray and the next day were setting their house to rights. They are Sir Matter of Fact and Madam Commonplace despite their youth. One would fancy they had been married fifty years except that they are a little babyish and one has rather a sensation of watching children playing at house-keeping through it all. He is a dear fellow and much the pleasantest importation we have had into this family. He is a farmer of which I am glad; I think it is a beautiful avocation and living so close to the heart of Nature one must gain something of her laziness and simplicity. I never wonder at Robert Burns’s poetship but rather that many more ploughmen have not been made poets. There is no figure more suggestive to me than a ploughman’s going up and down as patient as his patient horses—outlined against grey skies, and so absolutely lovely and isolated,—and across the wintry sunset the crows flying in a log line home. It is a picture I have often seen and one which can never lose its strange impression for me. I have concluded arrangements about my book now. You will be glad to hear that Kegan Paul & Trench are taking all expenses, and giving me a royalty. The edition will be a thousand.106 Everyone seems to consider it a 105

Dr Richard Hodgson (1855-1905) was born in Australia and after obtaining three degrees he became a lecturer at Cambridge University. He later moved to America. As a member of the Society for Psychical Research he was asked in 1884 to investigate the claims of the famous Theosophist Helena Blavatsky (1831-91) whom he exposed as a fraudulent medium. Katharine and W. B. Yeats had attended a séance in early January 1888 which Yeats describes in his Autobiographies (1926), 103-05. 106 Katharine’s second book of poetry Shamrocks was published by Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. in May 1887. Katharine sent the Meynells an inscribed copy “Wilfrid and Alice Meynell with the Writer’s love. May 30th 1887”. Yeats reviewed it in the Gael, 11 June 1887 and also in the Irish Fireside, 9 July 1887. In his Gael review Yeats finishes with

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wonderful offer for a book by a comparatively unknown poet,—and poetry!—that “pest of publishers” as the Pall Mall calls it. I assure you I feel it a delightful thing being taken up like that in a regular business fashion and so separated from the herd of minor poets who pay for publication. The word I most resent in the language is being applied to myself is “amateurish”. But apart from all questions of sentiment or even money-gain there is the obvious advantage that the book will be so well handled, advertized and pushed, the principal interest in it being the publishers. I wonder how your lecture went off at Toynbee Hall.107 That institution is curiously interesting to me. If your next to be in London during my time I should beg you to take me there. There are few places I desire as much to see. Wishing for an external standard I open the volume of another deservedly noted poetess of our days, and find a sequestered nature of abnormal likings, singing for the leisured and well read. Besides an ever increasing number of leisurely and well read people, Miss Tynan has, for hearers many simple folk in many lands, and provided the mind of an author be too watchful to grow careless, there is no better audience, year after year it will draw forth whatever belongs to humanity, and leave to wither whatever belongs to a coterie. In his much shorter review in the Irish Fireside Yeats notes that the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites is missing and that Katharine has “found also herself, and written many pages of great truthfulness and simplicity”. The book was dedicated to William and Christina Rossetti but only after Fr Russell refused the dedication. Katharine writes in a letter to Fr Russell, 22 January 1887: “About the dedication. I scarcely think it would interfere with the book’s success; I wish you would let it stand. The book will be openly Catholic, because I am retaining the ‘Rhymed Rosary’ as a kind of Confession of Faith.” However, she later withdrew the poem I have been thinking a good deal about the Rosary poem, and I think the answer has come in my mind without any bias of mine. I fear I must sacrifice it because it would certainly shut Protestant doors against the book. Our Blessed Lady knows that if it is left out it will not be from cowardice. What do you think? Perhaps your answer points otherwise than mine and I shall abide by your will (3 February 1887 to Fr Russell). 107

Hodgson gave a lecture on Spiritualism at Toynbee Hall on Saturday 26 February 1887 at 8 pm. Toynbee Hall was an educational institution established in 1884 in the East End of London and founded by the social reformer and Anglican clergyman Samuel Augustus Barnett (1844-1913) and his wife Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett (1851-1936), later Dame Barnett. It was named after the economist and socialist Arnold Toynbee (1852-83).

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I have a friend in Boston, Miss Katherine Conway, a poet and journalist. She is sub-editor of the Boston Pilot where another most true poet Mr John Boyle O’Reilly holds the reins.108 I know something of him also, but she is my friend though I have never seen her. She must be a very sweet creature judging by her letters. Marie Kincaid has not written to me since Christmas and I have been too busy to write to her again. It is difficult,—is it not?—to keep up a correspondence when you never get a reply without entreating it many times. Mr Fagan said in his last letter that he had been wanting Mary—his married daughter—to have her at her home in Kent. I don’t know if she will. I look forward to knowing the Russells some day. It is a very sweet and sounding name to me, as it ought to be to be. With kind regards to F. S. Hughes,109 ever faithfully Katharine Tynan

108

The Irish nationalist John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-90) had an interesting life. He served in the British Army while a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Convicted of inciting mutiny his death sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia where he escaped to America. Eventually he edited the Boston Pilot from 1874 until 1890 and was a staunch social reformer. 109 F. S. Hughes, B.A., was a member of the Society for Psychical Research.

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To Father Daniel Hudson110 MS Notre Dame. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Dublin 4 May 1887 Dear Father Hudson, Miss Katharine Conway has remitted to me your order for £1.4.0 in payment for my two poems which recently appeared in the Ave Maria,— also I have to thank you for copies of the magazine and in both cases I am much obliged.111 I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude for the kindness with which you reviewed my Louise de la Vallière:112 I tried to mark my sense of that kindness—in my own mind—by reviewing kindly “A Sacred Troubled Heart”;113 and one or two books whose welfare I know you were interested. I hope you will be glad to know that I have a new book in the press, and I hope also that I have your kind permission to reprint the two Ave Maria poems.114 With very great respect and regard. Believe me to be faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

110

Daniel Eldred Hudson (1849-1934) became a priest in 1875 and spent the remainder of his working life as editor of Ave Maria until ill-health forced his retirement in 1930. 111 “St. Francis to the Birds”, Ave Maria, 19 March 1887. “An Old Story”, Ave Maria, 16 April 1887. 112 Ave Maria, 4 July 1885. The review opens with It is a pleasure, and a very great one, in this prolific age, to find a singer whose songs sing themselves; whose couplets mate like doves; whose lines linger in the memory without losing anything of their surprising charm; whose thoughts are poetical, and as closely akin to the music of the verse as soul and body. Such a singer is Katharine Tynan. And finishes with: “The poems of Miss Tynan, though rich and sensuous, are touched with the purest passion.” 113 Charles Warren Stoddard’s A Troubled Heart and how it was Comforted at Last (Notre Dame: 1885). 114 Both the above poems were included in Shamrocks.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 27 May 1887 Dear Mr Meynell, Thank you very much for sending me Miss Clara Mulholland’s The Miser of King’s Court:115 I always consider anything coming from you as a message of remembrance and I value it accordingly. If I am to review the book please let me know.116 Will you ask Mrs Meynell if in the course of her novel-reviewing a book called Unrest, or the Newer Republic by Mr Earl Hodgson,117 comes to her to speak kindly of it if she can, for my sake, and if she can’t conscientiously, at least be merciful to it. The writer is a friend’s friend and I have promised to help it if I can. It has come to me from the publishers but I have not yet cut the leaves to learn what it is like. so don’t know how to word my request for it to a possible reviewer. My own book is still delayed: however the post must bring it to you very soon. The first specimen copies were bound not at all to my liking,— the binders having represented that the Irish linen I wanted would not take glue: I selected the least objectionable of the lot, but said in returning the specimens that I was very disappointed, and a week later,— last Saturday,— two copies came actually bound in the soft, warm-grey unbleached Irish linen asking if I approved: I don’t know how the binders were made amenable to reason. I suppose the publication must come in a few days. There are excellent omens: no less than seven reviews, three of them very important ones, are already written from the proof sheets: one of these is the Academy where I shall have a special review all to myself.118 115

The novelist Clara Mulholland (c.1850-1934) sister of Rosa and Ellen. Her The Miser of King’s Court was published by Burns and Oates in 1887. She was educated in England and Belgium and contributed to the Irish Monthly and the Irish Fireside. 116 There was an unsigned review in the Weekly Register, 16 July. 117 Unrest, or the Newer Republic (1887) by William Earl Hodgson (1861-1910). He also wrote books on fishing. It was not reviewed in Merry England, nor in the Weekly Register. 118 T. W. Rolleston in a two column review in the Academy, 9 July 1887, wrote That unless Miss Tynan will give up writing sacred poetry, or can learn to write it differently, the final estimate of the value of her contributions to literature—an estimate which it is to be hoped may be deferred by a long life of work and growth—will be much lower than her power in dealing with secular themes gives her a right to expect.

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I hope Mrs Meynell’s flowers last week arrived fresh. Next week I shall send her lilies and Golden Roses; I must give the latter a large R. because they are so huge: I wonder if she will like them: their size and colour make them fairly decorative: we have a huge tree of them in our very old-world garden which is the envy of many people. I was gathering heart’s ease to-day and repeating to myself that sonnet about “your old self whose thoughts went like last year’s pansies”.119 I am going to write an article about Preludes.120 I wish I could write— to do justice to it better prose, but one can only give what one has. I wonder which of her own poems your wife likes best. I have come to think the long poem at the end perhaps the loveliest,121 but “In Autumn” is the one I repeat to myself going along the road and through the fields. I hope the children are all well. Give my warm love to Mrs Meynell, and believe me yours ever faithfully K.T.

119

Alice’s “Your Own Fair Youth”, Preludes. Katharine’s review of Preludes was published in the Providence Sunday Journal, 12 February 1888. 121 “A Study: in Three Monologues, with Interruptions”, Preludes. 120

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To Henry Sparling122 MS BL. Whitehall, Clondalkin 7 August 1887 Dear Mr Sparling, I shall be glad to have “Shamrock Song” or any other poem of mine included in your volume of Irish songs to which I wish all success.123 I am 26 years of age, having being born in 1861 in Dublin. My first poem appeared in the Graphic from whose editor I received great kindness and encouragement.124 I have contributed since then to magazines and newspapers here in England and in America.125 My first book appeared in May 1885—my second recently as you know. I had heard of the forthcoming book from Mr Willie Yeats, and also from Father Russell and shall look for it with great interest. I shall be greatly pleased to have a copy from your hands especially if you will kindly write an inscription. faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

122

Henry Halliday Sparling (1860-1924) was secretary of the Socialist League. In 1890 he married May Morris, daughter of William and Jane Morris. The marriage was not successful and they divorced in 1898 after May had an affair with George Bernard Shaw. Sparling was secretary of the Kelmscott Press until 1894. 123 H. Halliday Sparling, ed., Irish Minstrelsy: being a Selection of Irish Songs, Lyrics, and Ballads; Original and Translated (1887). Katharine’s “Shamrock Song” was included. 124 The editor of the Graphic from 1870 to 1891 was the novelist Arthur Locker (1828-93). Katharine’s other contributions under Locker in the Graphic were, “Fame’s Temple”, 3 January 1880; “A Bird’s Song”, 27 March 1880; “In Summer”, 16 July 1881; and “At Set of Sun”, 19 August 1882. Her Graphic poems appeared in Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems without acknowledgement. 125 Katharine was a contributor to the Boston Pilot, Ave Maria, Magazine of Art, Irish Monthly, and both of the Meynells’ journals.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Manchester. Whitehall, Clondalkin 22 September 1887 Dear Mr Meynell, You are very good to give me that beautifully got up Leo XIII and still more to write that nice and dear inscription in it.126 I have certainly the warmest of heart for you and your dear Alice. I hope she is well, and not missing the little son too much.127 I am sending you another poem by the little girl who wrote “Jessie”,128 the poem you found lacking in certain qualities. I think “Marigolds” very poetical, but you and Mrs Meynell will see for yourselves.129 You should know my Frances Wynne to judge. I think she is very fervent,—“fiery-hearted”, if you will. Her father is a land-agent and unlike his class are is a wonderfully good man,—a wonderfully good man,—a quite saintly Protestant who has his whole life really in the presence of God. Those tenants are very happy who are under him,—my father has some land on our estate which he manages, so I know. He has just resigned his most lucrative agency because the landlord Lord Massereene would not give a reduction of rent,—and that wretched Lord is plunging the hitherto quietest corners of Ireland into a cauldron of heated passions. Mrs Wynne is her husband’s fitting helpmate and Frances is just what the daughter of such people should be,—extraordinarily affectionate, sensitive tender-hearted. This little world of her and hers may make you like Reynolds better,130 and think it perhaps fit for Merry England. I met a friend of yours here last week,—Mr Wilfrid Blunt and was delighted with him.131 It was at the Lord mayor’s reception, and he 126

John Oldcastle (Wilfrid Meynell), Life of Leo XIII (1887). Vivian Meynell born on 3 March 1887 died on 13 August. 128 Frances Alice Maria Wynne (1863-93) published “Jessie”, Irish Monthly, September 1887. She married her cousin Rev. Henry Wynne (1861-1953) on 29 December 1891 in Dublin and they moved to London. She published poems in Merry England between November 1887 and December 1890. Katharine devotes chapters XX and XXI of her Reminiscences to Frances. Frances and Katharine had met when Frances’s father Alfred Henry Wynne (1849-1908) visited the family in his role as landlord of Andrew Cullen Tynan’s farm Cheeverstown. He was also the land-agent for the eleventh Viscount Massereene (1842-1905) among others. 129 “Marigolds” was published in Merry England, November 1887. 130 Reynolds Newspaper was a weekly radical paper which flourished until 1967. It was started by the radical journalist and novelist George William MacArthur Reynolds (1814-79) as Reynolds Weekly Newspaper in 1850. 131 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840-1922), poet, diplomat, traveller and seeker of independence of countries from British rule. The Meynells were friends of the 127

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was walking about large and lonely. We became great friends, and he asked me to come and see him and his wife,—if I could come with you and Alice so much the better. He thinks Alice a lovely woman and a lovely soul as I do. I talked to him about his Arab horses for a long time never betraying the fact that for all my country breeding a horse is to me a horse again,—a terrible creature which may go off at any time. But then I admire their beauty notwithstanding. I never thanked you for sending me the Merry Register:132 you are very good to put me on the free list, and I value the privilege. Can you tell me how to get at Miss Mary Probyn’s poetry,133 —or at herself if you don’t know about the poetry? A visitor I have just had, Mr Alfred Williams,134 editor of the Providence Journal a huge tensheet American daily, has given me an order for some literary articles for his Sunday issue; the first to be on Preludes, the second Miss Probyn; and the rest according to my pleasure.135 It was a curious thing because I was starting an article on Preludes which I had meant to offer to the Catholic World. When it is done I must submit it to Alice. I met your uncle Mr Tuke last week but I did not know then that he was your uncle.136 His sister-in-law Lady Young has just been here and told me. She borrowed Preludes for a few days. With kind love to Alice, your K.T. I hope the children are all well.

Blunts and often dined at the Blunts’ home. Wilfrid was married to Lady Anne Isabella Noel (1837-1917), daughter of the first Earl of Lovelace (1805-93) and grand-daughter of Byron. She, like her husband, was a breeder of Arab horses and a traveller. She was a notable horsewoman and had married Blunt in 1869. 132 Merry England. 133 The French-born novelist and poet Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn (1856-1909) known as May Probyn. She had published her first poetry book Poems in 1881 and a second A Ballad of the Road, and Other Poems in 1883. She and Katharine published their joint Christmas Verses in 1895 which consisted of four poems by May and two by Katharine. She had become a Catholic in 1883. 134 Alfred Mason Williams (1840-96) was editor of the Providence Sunday Journal 1884-91. He had published The Poets and Poetry of Ireland in 1881. In 1893 he published his Sam Houston and the War of Independence in Texas. 135 She did not publish on May Probyn. 136 Alice had two Tuke uncles by marriage: the Quaker philanthropist James Hack Tuke (1819-96) and the physician and surgeon Daniel Hack Tuke (1827-95).

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To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt137 MS Texas. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 31 October 1887 Dear Mr Blunt, I have been wondering if you ever got the volume of my poems which was sent to the Imperial Hotel for you.138 The week after I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Mansion House.139 The book was not sent as soon as I ordered it to be, and I don’t think you could have been at the Imperial— or indeed in Ireland—when it was sent but I hope you got it on your return. It is the uncertainty about it which makes me write to you, for indeed I have no desire to force letter-writing upon you in these days of action, and I hardly suppose you have been able to read poetry or anything requiring contemplation since I saw you.140 If you have the book all right. I hope you will read it some day, and I should be very pleased and proud indeed if you found anything in it you liked. I did not write in the book as you kindly asked me because to save time I had it sent from Gill’s bookshop.141 Permit me to say that, with most people, I am very sorry and indignant for you and Lady Anne Blunt’s experiences at Woodford: but I am sure it will result in enormous good. Believe me, dear Mr Blunt, sincerely yours Katharine Tynan

137

See p. 83. Katharine’s Shamrocks. 139 In Reminiscences (201) Katharine writes 138

At one of the Lord Mayor’s entertainments I met Mr Wilfrid Blunt, whom I admired very much and found very handsome and romantic, with a look at once proud and shy, something of the desert grace of his own Arabs about him. 140

Blunt was in the chair at an anti-evection meeting in Woodford, Galway, on 23 October 1887. Arthur Balfour, the Irish Secretary, had forbidden such meetings and in the ensuing fracas Blunt was arrested and charged on 24 October. He was sentenced to two months in prison, lodged an appeal, and released on bail and he and Lady Anne returned to London. He was sentenced at his trial in January 1888 and released from prison on 6 March. 141 The Dublin bookseller and publisher Henry Joseph Gill (1836-1903).

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To Sir Charles Duffy142 MS NLI. Whitehall, Clondalkin 24 December 1887 Dear Sir Charles, Your are very generous: the flowers have all the rich sweetness of the south and they make my little room redolent of sweetness. But they are not as sweet as your thought of sending them or the pleasure they give me. You must be very kind, and I am sure your kindness would be rejoiced if you could know my delight in your gift. They came beautifully fresh, the violets a kind of antedating of Spring, and the roses and marigolds and some southern things whose names I do not know—all are lovely. I have given some of them to the altar of our Church where they will be beside the tabernacle at Mass to-morrow. Your name and Lady Gavan Duffy’s are included in my gift of them.143 May the Christmas and New Year bring you both all best gifts and blessings. It was a great honour and pleasure for me to see you in [the] Summer, and I feel so grateful to John O’Leary for being the means of my seeing you—a thousand times more now when your remembrance of me makes my heart warm to you and yours.144 Believe me, dear Sir Charles, yours with admiration and gratitude Katharine Tynan

142

The Irish politician and journalist Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (1816-1903). After some early journalistic experience Duffy, in October 1842, co-founded the weekly Nation and became editor. A supporter of Irish Nationalism he was arrested for seditious conspiracy in 1844 and seditious libel in 1846 but discharged on both. He again fell foul of the law being charged with treason-felony on five occasions but was discharged in 1849. In 1852 Duffy became MP for New Ross but he made no headway on Irish independence and emigrated to Australia in 1855. He was Prime Minister of Victoria 1871-2. He was knighted in 1873 for political services and retired to Europe, occasionally visiting Britain. 143 After the death of his first wife Emily McLaughlin in 1845 Duffy married Susan Hughes in 1846 who died in 1878. He then married Louise Hall in 1881. 144 John O’Leary (1830-1907), after unsuccessful law and medicine studies, became involved in the then Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. His editing of the Irish republican Brotherhood paper Irish People advocating the end of British rule resulted in being sentenced to twenty years imprisonment in 1865 but he was released during a general amnesty in 1871 and exiled to France, returning in 1885, and becoming a friend of W. B. Yeats. He was against land reform which cut him off from main stream reform.

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To George Pellew145 MS Morgan. Whitehall, Clondalkin 11 January 1888 Dear Mr Pellew, You will now know what has become of me, but I had not your address and was waiting to see Mr Colles to learn if from him:146 he has not turned up here for some time, but luckily your letter came to enlighten me. You were very good to send me that pretty Turgenoff: it was of all books the one I should have chosen: my friends normally think I prefer poetry to all else and as I gradually acquire all the good poets they are drawn to giving me minor ones when I should so infinitely prefer good prose. How does your sonnet come in front of Turgenoff by the bye? A very good sonnet it is. Thank you also for Jane Austen,147 a very clever and sympathetic essay: I am going to lend it to the O’Learys. Thank you kindly for the pretty card and for your letter: I must not forget to thank you for the inscriptions in the books. In advance I must say how much I shall appreciate the cheap editions. I suppose they reprint Stevenson’s things.148 These I should like to see sometimes and Besant’s newest novels,149 all Stevenson roughly: I have an immense admiration for him. It will be a great boon if you if you will send me the new stories in your cheap editions: one likes one’s poetry better produced. Your Howells autograph was not enclosed in the letter by the bye.150 Now I must leave off this strand. I feel like a beggar. Blanche Fagan will be so disgusted at hearing that you never mentioned her in your letter: it was unkind of you: I told her about my meeting you and giving you my photograph, and she wrote—“I suppose Mr Pellew never mentioned poor Miss Blanche”—a too-true supposition. I wish you would send me your photograph: if you do I will send you on of my father,—an excellent one—which he has just had taken. The Mayor of Kilkenny sent me his book some time ago but I have 145

The American poet and writer George Pellew (1859-92) published In Castle and Cabin or Tales in Ireland in 1887 in 1888. 146 The Irish journalist and writer Ramsey W. Colles (1862-1919) was a friend of Katharine and was to review W. B. Yeats’s Oisin at Katharine’s suggestion in the Irish Times, 4 March 1889. 147 Pellew had published his Jane Austen’s Novels in Boston in 1883. 148 Robert Louis Stevenson. 149 Walter Besant (1836-1901), knighted 1895. The novelist’s latest books were The World went Very Well Then (1887), To call Her Mine (1887) and Katherine Regina (1887). 150 The American novelist William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was to write the introduction to his edition of The Poems of George Pellew (Boston: 1892).

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never yet looked in to it.151 I did not care very much for the Mayor, and he committed the unpardonable offence of spelling my name with a C, degrading my regal Katharine with a half- bourgeois, half old-maidenish Catharine. Mr Yeats whose poetry you heard of is here now,—has been here since November.152 He is going to bring out a volume of his poems by subscription.153 Will you be a subscriber and can you get any subscribers? The price will be 5/. There is a poem of mine in the New York Catholic World—do you know the magazine?—this month:154 perhaps you will see it. I have not yet seen it, as they have not had sufficiently good manners to send me a copy. I am doing a good deal of prose at present: today I finished an article on Dublin for Oscar Wilde’s Woman’s World.155 There are also some articles of mine on Irish life coming out in the Magazine of Art: one has already appeared.156 I am going to send a poem to the Century.157 Mr Williams of the Providence Journal who was here in Autumn, promised me an introduction to Mr Gilder.158 An artist here who was asked at one time to submit her work to the Century thinks of illustrating 151

Patrick M. Egan (1843-1903) published his Scullydom: an Anglo-Irish Study of To-day in 1886. He was Mayor for 1888. 152 Yeats returned to London on 25 January having stayed at Whitehall since 22 November. 153 Yeats’s The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems was published by Kegan Paul in 1889. 154 Katharine’s “Ronain on His Island”, Catholic World, January 1888. 155 Katharine means Wilde’s Lady’s World, see note 2, Yeats to Katharine, 1 August 1887 (Yeats Letters). Wilde had asked her for articles on major poets treatment of women, but they were not published by him. Her completed articles were later published as “Lord Tennyson’s Women”, Nation, 2 August 1890; “Tennyson’s Heroines”, Sylvia’s Journal, March 1893 and April 1893; “Longfellow’s Heroines”, Sylvia’s Journal, June 1893; “Keats’s Heroines”, Sylvia’s Journal, August 1893; and “Browning’s Heroines”, Sylvia’s Journal, January 1894. 156 Katharine’s three part “Irish Types and Traits” were published in the Magazine of Art, November 1887, February 1888 and April 1892. These were commissioned by Edwin Bale, the art editor, at the suggestion of W. B. Yeats. John Kelly (Yeats Letters) notes that Katharine was paid a guinea per page. 157 It was not published. 158 The American journalist and editor Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) had become editor in chief of the Century Monthly Magazine in 1881 for twenty-five years, making it the most successful of American magazines. His sister Jeanette Leonard Gilder (1849-1916) and brother Joseph founded the weekly Critic in 1881.

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the poem which will be about the Children of Lir.159 I have been pulling my room to pieces and will tell you about my alterations and additions in my next letter. Perhaps you will come across my friend Richard Hodgson: if so say you are a friend of mine. He is at 5 Bryanston Place the office of the Psychical Society. My sisters are very indignant because you never mention them. Ask for them in your next without saying that I told you. Yours faithfully, Katharine Tynan Tell me about yourself, and your doings.

159

Katharine’s “Children of Lir’ was published in Atalanta, October 1888. Katharine published nine poems and one story in Atalanta between 1888 and 1893.

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To Mr Langbridge160 MS Delaware. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 21 May 1888 Dear Mr Langbridge, It is grand about Good Words: I won’t try to thank you: you will understand.161 I think it would be well to let Dr Macleod see the picture: they might like the poem illustrated.162 The original of that unfurnished photograph is a very beautiful picture: it is by Miss Sarah Purser, a Dublin artist whose work you may perhaps know.163 Her two brothers are distinguished T.C.D. men,—one a Professor, the other a fellow.164 Perhaps you know something of them. She would make a black and white drawing of the picture if desired. Don’t you think I might try the poems at Cassell’s myself,—with a fair chance of success, being already a contributor to the Magazine of Art, and the Woman’s World? If you think so I will release you of so much of my burden. I hope the Penny Readings are satisfactory out of hands. always your grateful friend Katharine Tynan I am glad to know the kind of things Dr Macleod likes. 160

Frederick Langbridge (1849-1922) was born in Birmingham in a family of Irish origin and was educated at Merton College, Oxford University. He became an Anglican priest in 1876 becoming a curate at St George’s, Kendal. He then moved to Ireland firstly at Glen Alla in County Donegal, then at St Munchin’s in Limerick and eventually as rector at St John’s, Limerick. He published poems, plays and novels. 161 In a letter of 12 April 1888 (Delaware) Katharine had asked Langbridge to offer one of her poems to Good Words. Good Words was a monthly from January 1860 until April 1906 then as Good Words and Sunday Magazine until April 1911. Rev. Donald Macleod (1831-1916) was editor of Good Words from January 1873 until August 1907. 162 Katharine’s first contributions were the poems “The Dead Mermaid”, “StormGold” and “A Day-Dreamer” in Good Words, December 1889. 163 W. B. Yeats in a letter to Katharine [20] June 1888 (Yeats Letters) writes that Sarah Purser “went yesterday to Good Words with the drawing for your poem”. The artist Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848-1943) was educated in Switzerland and studied art in Dublin and Paris. Mainly a portrait painter she exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, and was elected to the Royal Hibernian Academy as an honorary academician in 1890 without full status as she was a woman. However, she became a full academician in 1924. She founded a school for stain glass making and became a trustee of the National Gallery of Ireland. 164 John Mallet Purser (1839-1929) was Professor of Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. His brother Louis Claude Purser (1854-1932) was a tutor at Trinity College, Dublin, and Professor of Latin from 1898.

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To Count Plunkett165 MS NLI. Whitehall, Clondalkin 6 June 1888 Dear Count Plunkett, John O’Leary has sent me this list of provincial papers to be supplied with copies of our own little book.166 Remembering that you sent some review copies I send you this list fearing I should be only duplicating. If you have supplied any of these please put your pen through the names and return the list. It is being replaced by the newspapers, owing I think mainly to the publishers pamphlet. I have never been in town since the day I had the pleasure of seeing you and your wife. I am writing to bring Rose Kavanagh to call.167 She is at present making a visit to Miss Charlotte O’Brien but will be home in a 165

The Irish nationalist and scholar George Noble Plunkett (1851-1948) was called to the Bar in 1866 but never practised. He had married Mary Josephine Cranny (1858–1944) in June 1884. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he wrote for magazines and founded the short-lived Hibernia in 1882. He was generous with his allowance which enabled him to donate to the nursing sisters Little Company of Mary and in April 1884 he was created a hereditary Papal count by Pope Leo XIII. Politically he was a supporter of Parnell but was defeated in three parliamentary elections. He was involved in behind the scenes prior to the Easter Rising of 1916 travelling to Germany for support after he had joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood at his son Joseph’s insistence. After Joseph’s execution in April 1916 Plunkett was deported to England but returned illegally and was elected Sinn Féin MP for North Roscommon, but he did not sit. After a period in prison in 1918 Plunkett became a minister in de Valera’s government. He resigned with the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. After the Anglo-Irish war during which he was interned Plunkett was again unsuccessful in two elections. 166 Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland (Dublin: 1888). This collection was being gathered by W. B. Yeats and Katharine among others,, although no editor’s name appears on the title-page. It was “Dedicated to John O’Leary and the Young Ireland Societies”, with a dedicatorial poem by T. W. Rolleston. Yeats had three poems and Katharine had three poems: “The Grave of Michael Dwyer”, ‘“Shameen Dhu”’, and “Papist and Puritan (A.D. 1710)”. In its review of 9 June 1888 the Nation claimed Katharine’s “The Grave of Michael Dwyer” was the book’s “crowning poem”. 167 The Irish writer and poet Rose Kavanagh (1859-1891) had met Katharine at the Middle Abbey Street offices of the weekly Shamrock which Rose was editing. They formed a close friendship which is illustrated by Katharine in her chapter on Rose in her Memories. Rose contributed to many journals including the Nation, Young Ireland and the Irish Monthly.

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few days.168 I hope the Countess is well and has beautiful babies.169 With kindest thoughts of you and her Faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

168

The social reformer and author Charlotte Grace O’Brien (1845-1909) daughter of William Smith O’Brien, was well-known for her work for Irish emigrant women who were forced to travel to America in poor conditions. She had a boarding-house for such women at the port of Queenstown. She was member of the Land League and supporter of Parnell. 169 Two of eleven children were born in 1886 and 1887.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 20 July 1888 Dear Wilfrid Meynell, I never acknowledged your generous gift of books, but I sent my love to you in the roses I forwarded to Alice from Queenstown,—but love is an invisible quality and perhaps you did not find it after all,—though you must have noticed the scent of the roses. I had a lovely time with Piatts for three weeks—almost living on the sea: their quaint delightful old house,— a grey stone house covered in ivy with diamond-paned windows,—goes to the sea’s edge—almost, and there was sailing always going on for somebody. We often talked of you two,—who are one. I hope Monnie is stronger;170 Alice said she was delicate when she wrote: that letter was nearly a month old before I received it, for I meant to pay a short visit only, and gave directions for my letters not to be forwarded, and then I stayed on from day to day, and week to week. I wonder if Miss Purser even turned up. I only write to-day to tell her that Alice will be glad to see her. She is at (or now at) 48 Beauchamp Place, Chelsea. I heard from Miss Probyn. After all it was Alice who found the address and sent it to me. Miss Probyn would not lend me the unregenerate poems, written before Catholicity,—but will send me soon a new volume. With love yours hurriedly, and always Katie Tynan My month’s letters are over my head.

170

The Meynells’ daughter Monica (“Monnie”) Mary Eve Meynell (1880-1929).

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To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt MS Texas. Whitehall, Clondalkin. 10 November 1888 My dear Mr Blunt, I am very glad there will soon be a new book.171 I am proud that you should exhaust me with its interests in Ireland, and I shall try to guard them as faithfully as if they were my own. Such a book will be especially dear to us Irish folk. I am sending you a copy of Atalanta with one of my latest poems.172 It has been lying on my sofa waiting to be sent to you for the last month. By the bye isn’t Atalanta, lying on anybody’s sofa, an incongruous idea! So very unlike what Atalanta herself would have done. I send you also a paper dealing with me and my doings extracted from last week’s Nation.173 171

In Vinculis (1889) which was dedicated to “The Priests and Peasantry of Ireland”. 172 “The Children of Lir”. 173 “Living Irish Literary Celebrities No. 1—Katharine Tynan”, Nation, 3 November 1888. This was an interesting choice as Katharine was a young poet, but not of the first order. The article opened with The first we have chosen for our subject is a writer, not old in years, but of sufficient merit in achievement to have made a distinct place for herself in the literary history of our generation. Two small volumes contain all the writings of Miss Katharine Tynan that have been collected and submitted formally to the judgment of the reading public. Nevertheless, her place is as secure as that of authors who have many more years of literary labour behind them. Her success has been immediate and certain. The praise which it generally costs various experiments and painful experience to win has been gained by her at the start. This has been mainly because of her poetic earnestness. A critic might discover blemishes, crudities, and deficiencies in her poetry, but it has that certain mark of genuine literature. Miss Tynan has written not, like so many of our latter-day triflers, because she has read, but because she has felt. In her, therefore, whatever be her rank in the great hierarchy, we possess a genuine poet, and in her verse genuine poetry, which is so rare now-a-days as to be worthy of study, especially as the poet draws her inspiration, though she does not always take her models, from Irish sources. And concluded Even though the poetry of Miss Tynan would be better if there were more mind in it, we cannot but be grateful that it has so much heart. Its melody,

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I think it a very good and just article, though I’m not sure that I accept all the writer’s conclusions or inclusions. I hope to do when your next new book arrives, for another American paper, a paper on your work and yourself. Miss Wynne has had a heavy trouble in the death of a beloved sister which took place early in September. She has been in London since, and heard of you from Mrs Singleton. Mrs Val. Dillon and Mrs Kenny have been to Birmingham, from whence they have just returned.174 I hope you will have a very enjoyable time abroad, and that you will not forget your friends in Ireland who bear a warm heart towards you and yours. Praying to be kindly remembered to Lady Anne, I am, dear Mr Blunt, very faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

too, is undeniable. The verse is artistic, perhaps here and there artistic to the verge of artificiality. Celtic grace is present, and Celtic talent for style. We do not know what the years may bring to Miss Tynan. Many of her defects are such as living and experience may fill up. 174

Margaret Phelan had married the solicitor Valentine Blake Dillon (1845-1904) in 1872. He was Lord Mayor of Dublin 1894-5. Joyce based his character Val Dillon on him in Ulysses (1922).

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To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt MS Texas. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 18 March 1889 Dear Mr Blunt, I was very glad to get your letter. I did not know where to write to, to acknowledge a In Vinculis,175 which came to me very warmly welcome, at Christmas.176 The sonnets are full of nobility as yours always are, and with the same charm and individuality as the Love Sonnets of Proteus have.177 In Vinculis was very well received here: I’ve no doubt your publishers have sent the reviews to Crabbet Park:178 I asked to do it in United Ireland but was told William O’Brien wished to do it himself. That was before he went to prison last time. I don’t know if a review ever appeared as I don’t see United Ireland. I did a little review in Truth, where my friend Mr Ashe King,179 the reviewer, allows me sub rosa to pronounce upon poetry in his book-letter:180 he claims to have no judgment of it. I think I shall do another American article about your work, in a New England Sunday paper for which I write. Since your letter came there have been many countries. I am sure you see the English papers if not Irish, so you will know all the sensational denouement of the Innis case.181 They have been 175

Blunt’s In Vinculis poems were written mainly while serving two months in prison in Galway and Dublin. 176 The Blunts were staying with the Count and Countess George Hoyos at the Villa Hoyos, Fiume, Italy. 177 Published in 1880. 178 The Blunts house in Sussex and also their stud farm. 179 Richard Ashe King (1839-1932), Irish journalist and novelist, was Vicar of St Mark’s Church, Bradford, in 1867, but moved to London in 1880, resigned his living in 1881 and started on a literary career. He became literary editor of the weekly Truth in 1883. King was a constant visitor to his Dublin home when living in London. 180 In the “Letter on Books”, Truth, 14 March 1889 appears the following In Vinculis—indicating that most of the poems were written in goal. Mr Blunt is such a fine sonneteer that I grudge his devotion to lyric poetry. These new sonnets have his old qualities of loftiness and outspokenness, if they also have his old fault of seeming to overstate the emotion. 181

The Cork North-East M.P. William O’Brien was imprisoned for six months for conspiracy as a result of the Plan of Campaign. The Plan, instigated by Tim Harrington, John Dillon and William O’Brien, was for tenants to offer reduced rents as a result of hardship caused by bad harvests. Should such rents be refused no rents were to be paid, but instead the rents were to be collected by National

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treating Mr O’Brien very fairly in Galway, and now I suppose he will be set at liberty for Parnell’s rebutting case. I don’t think you will cease to be a politician as long as you live, though I doubt you will always be with the forlorn hope. If Deptford were to come over again you would no doubt be flocked in on the high wave of popular feeling which has landed Mr Beaufoy at Kennington with a tidy majority.182 I hope Egypt will give you some beautiful poetry.183 What a country it must be for a painter. I have been reading a novel about Florida which makes me long to go there. I saw Miss Wynne a little while ago. We talked about you of course. She did not know where to write either and not having your letter with me, with Egyptian address, I told her Crabbet would do, if marked “to be forwarded”. I hope Lady Anne and your daughter are quite well. With kindest regards I am, dear Mr Blunt faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

League members and used to help evicted tenants. 182 Blunt, as an Anti-Coercion candidate, had lost the Deptford by-election on 29 February 1888 by two hundred and seventy five votes. Mark Hanbury Beaufoy (1854-1922) had been elected Liberal MP for the Kennington Division of the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth on 15 March 1889, mainly because of his great interest in the welfare of his employees of his Lambeth vinegar works and his founding of the Church of England Children’s Society. 183 Blunt had been in Egypt since December 1888 returning to England on 6 April 1889.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 1 April 1889 Dearest Alice, At last some daffodils but alas! double ones which I feel ashamed to send you. The single daffodils I don’t like to steal, since I have need to be on visiting terms with their owner, and in their owner’s absence I should have to beg them from a very dignified new English gardener whom I have not made friends with yet. So to steal I am not able, and to beg I am ashamed. Perhaps I may get some single ones next week? I have been very bad about flowers this spring, but it is only that I have more to do not that my thoughts are less loving. The thought of you does not fade at all though it is three years since I have seen you. To-day I read a bit of your beautiful prose in a newspaper; it was about the ebb and flow of things in life:184 I suppose it was from a magazine article, but the paper didn’t say. Whenever I see your prose I think of what I heard Lady Russell say of it, “whenever she writes of a thing you always feel that no one else should have said anything as perfect: you want it to be the last word on a subject.”185 How I wish the book of essays was to be had. When I saw the extract I had a little thrill of pleasure, for I thought it might be the book. To-day is a lovely 1st of April the long grass outside my window blown by a west wind all one way till it has a surface like grey glass. I am writing with my window open wide and the birds singing. A Maltese terrier has just walked in to my window, and had to be lifted from the dizzy height and a half or so to the ground. I am very well and quite busy. Writing prose is an impertinence I have come to perpetuate with the solitary qualification for it that I know what good prose is. And an enthusiastic classical friend of mine has persuaded me to try to learn Greek. So I am always tolerably busy. Give my best love to Wilfrid. Are you and the bairns well? Your ever loving Katie

184

Presumably a quotation from Alice’s essay “The Rhythm of Life”, Scots Observer, 16 March 1889. In a letter to Alice, 19 March 1889 (Texas), the editor, William Ernest Henley, remarks: “I want to thank you for ‘The Rhythm of Life’ as one of the best things it has so far been my privilege to print.” 185 Katharine is referring to Lady Ellen Russell, wife of the barrister and politician Sir Charles Arthur Russell (later Lord Killowen).

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To W. E. Henley186 MS NLI. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 18 April 1889 Dear Sir, If either of the poems I send should find favour in your sight I should feel very proud. “The Blackbird” has the metre and title of a Jacobite song: if the poem were to be printed I should duly acknowledge my indebtedness.187 I wish I might take the liberty of saying what I think of your beautiful Book of Verses,188 but as you are an Editor I must be silent ever. I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours Katharine Tynan

186

The poet, journalist and critic William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) was editor of the Edinburgh based Scots Observer publishing his first edition on 19 January 1889. It became the National Observer in November 1890 and moved to London in 1892 in the hope of increasing its readership. Henley ceased as editor in March 1894 when the paper was sold. The journal was recognised during Henley’s editorship as a strident advocate of Tory and Imperial politics and for the number of young and later influential writers, among whom were Robert Louis Stevenson, Gilbert Parker, Charles Whibley, Kipling, Arthur Morrison, H. G. Wells, Mrs Oliphant, Kenneth Grahame, W. B. Yeats, Alice Meynell, Graham R. Tomson (later Rosamund Marriott Watson) and also Katharine Tynan. 187 Katharine’s “The Blackbird” was published in the Scots Observer, 1 June 1889. Katharine published an article on Henley in the New York Sun, 11 July 1891, and also in the Evening Telegraph (Dublin), 8 September 1891; and the Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), 9 October 1892. 188 Henley’s first publication A Book of Verses (1888).

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 23 April 1889 Dear Father Hudson, I return the proof which needed no correction:189 I wish all printers were as much to be trusted as yours. I am so glad you like the poem,—and thanks from my heart for the promised prayers. I am just starting at your story,—having a real true story for the germ.190 I can’t tell you how much I like the Ave Maria. It has something which many Catholic magazines lack,—a kind of Christian courtesy and refinement which would render it possible for those of another faith to read it with pleasure. It is the spirit of the heart of Mary. I am not surprised that some of your contributors speak of the “dear Ave Maria”. A distinguished Catholic said to me recently how much she wished the Catholic magazines would have such charming religious papers as appeared in the Protestant magazines as for instance Good Words. She would feel her choice satisfied if she could read your “Lay Sermons”. I have done another Mary poem, but I won’t offer it to you till I try it with some of the English magazines which would be better for her name. It is a picture poem like “The Angel of the Annunciation”,191 which might be acceptable to non-Catholic readers. I shall try Good Words first, as I am a contributor there and rather a pet of Dr Donald Macleod, the editor.192 I have read an article in that high-class Protestant magazine on the Mother of God which would please the most ardent of her lovers. always, dear father Hudson, yours faithfully Katharine Tynan

189

Presumably the poem “Queen’s Favors”, Ave Maria, 18 May 1889. “Mrs Grace’s Governess”, Ave Maria, 15 June 1889 and 22 June 1889. 191 Shamrocks, 59-61. 192 Apart from the three previously noted poems Katharine contributed the following to Good Words: “King’s Prisoners”, January 1890; “Aspiration”, January 1892; “The Venetians”, December 1894; “Over Mountains”, December 1895; the story “Old Soldiers”, January 1896; and “Epitaph”, December 1902. 190

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To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt MS Texas. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 3 May 1889 My dear Mr Blunt, I was very glad to receive your letter, and glad to know you were home again. But I hope you will be in Dublin long before the time you say, though I hope also that our day of rejoicing will not be postponed many years. I shall always remember the first time I say saw you, at Mansion House, towering a head and shoulders over the rest of the folk,—in stature and in something else. I am sure you have left a very vivid impression on the Irish heart and soul. It would be strange if you did not, for we are a responsive people. I met Mrs Dillon one day in the street,—we were talking of you, and she was greatly interested in hearing of my letter from you. I have never been to see her since the evening I dined there with you and Lady Anne,—I am such a bad visitor. Miss Wynne, and her father were here a little while ago. She gets on wonderfully well with her poetry. She has made a great hit with Andrew Lang,193 who was charmed with a poem she sent to him,—“At the Sign of the Ship”,—and no wonder.194 I foresee that her poetry will be well-liked: she writes very fresh and dainty things, light enough to charm a public which is perhaps too much accustomed to take its poetic pleasures sadly. I feel quite proud of the way she has got on,—for I am her literary god-mother. I wonder if you have looked in at the Commission at all:195 I suppose not, or the Freeman would have mentioned it. I saw that Lady Anne was there one day. I expect to be 193

The poet and classical scholar Andrew Lang (1844-1922) wrote his monthly “At the Sign of the Ship” from January 1886 until October 1905. 194 Frances Wynne’s “Sweetheart Daisy” was published in Lang’s “At the Sign of the Ship” section of Longman’s Magazine, June 1889. Lang commented that the poem has the bad luck to be a ballade, but that is so much more than its misfortune than its fault, that it may escape the iron law, “No Ballades need apply”. Many excellent people might read it and never find out that it had anything criminal about it. The refrain has seldom been better managed in English ballade making Frances Wynne followed this with another poem in the next issue. A series of articles purporting to have been written by Charles Stewart Parnell were published in The Times in 1887 showing his connection with terrorism. The Parnell Commission was set up to establish the facts and Parnell was not indicted. It sat at the Royal Courts of Justice, London.

195

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in London, with the Meynells, in June,—too late probably for the Commission. I must try and console myself with the pictures,—Watts for Webster, and Richmond for Russell, and so on.196 You were fortunate in having Egypt in Winter and Sussex in “The sweet o’ the years”,197—if you are not in London indeed. I never go away from home in this enchanted time. I am sure the last two weeks in May, and the first two in June were Shakespeare’s “sweet o’ the year”... I hope Lady Anne and your daughter are quite well. I am, dear Mr Blunt, ever sincerely yours Katharine Tynan

196

Katharine intended to view paintings by George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) and George Richmond (1809-96) in place of the lawyers Richard Everard Webster (1842-1915), later Viscount Alverstone, and Sir Charles Arthur Russell, who were at the Parnell Commission. 197 “When daffodils begin to peer, / With heigh! the doxy over the dale, / Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; / For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale” Winter’s Tale, IV, iii.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 22 May 1889 Dear Wilfrid Meynell, Of course the proof is all right:198 I believe you only sent it for the sake of the accompanying frivolity. Willie Yeats is not a swain;—of mine;—he is too inhuman to love or to be loved,—but I have curiously baulked him for years, and feel that he has so much claim upon me. If he were my young man,—which Heaven forbid! will Alice faint at the phrase?—I should be ashamed to summon him too soon: as it is, I want to make you two, dear busy people understand right off that you are not responsible for amusing me. If I had to bother you at all, I shouldn’t come to you. So good-bye till Monday the 27th:199 why I should have been calling it Monday the 26th to Alice, and she aiding and abetting me, I don’t know: she ought to have known better. With best love to both, yours affectionately K.T.

198 199

Presumably of her poem “Sub Rosa”, Merry England, June 1889. Katharine arrived in London.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. 3 Keble Terrace, Oxford.200 16 June 1889 Dearest Alice, Here I am established in the university city. I have just got back from Mass at the Jesuits.201 I felt quite lonely last night, and longed for the pallet, and the houselikeness of Linden Gardens.202 I hope Wilfrid was very sorry to miss me. I got down quite comfortably. I had for companion a very friendly little girl only, the porter having put me in a ladies’ carriage. At Westbourne Park a very pleasant old gentleman with a twinkle in his eye, would have got in but the little girl said very acrimoniously “ladies’ carriage!”, and the poor old boy, twinkling up at me, made the humblest of apologies, and retired. Miss Legge met me at the railwaystation,203 and having had a cup of tea we went to a ladies debating society, where she had a motion on about Darwin. There were about 30 ladies, some in strange and wonderful gowns. They debated extremely well. Professor Legge is very old, and quite amiable. He is a Dissenter, and a most conscientious one. I don’t think he understands that I am a Catholic though that would be better to him than Church of England. His eyebrows hang down at one corner like those of a river-god. His daughter keeps snubbing him, which he likes quite amiably. The other son is home since last night: he is younger and less bald that the one you know but quite as solemn. The married daughter Mrs Hunt, is a beauty, of a very bonny order, nut brown hair; eyes, and complexion, with roses red in the cheeks, and very white teeth.204 She laughed all through the debate in a most frivolous manner. I feel quite strange here so far, but I’ll get over it, I hope. I am very glad to think I shall see you again. Was Monnie sorry? Give my best love to Wilfrid, and the birds—and remember me to Hannah 200

Katharine arrived on 10 June at the home of James Legge. At the beginning of July Katharine stayed with Yeats at Blenheim Road, London, for a week. 201 St Aloysius’s Church, Woodstock Road, Oxford, where Gerard Manley Hopkins had been a curate. 202 The Meynells had stayed at 65 Linden Gardens while their house Palace Court House (later 47 Palace Court) was being built. 203 Helen Edith Legge (1860-1946) who published James Legge, Missionary and Scholar in 1905. 204 The stepdaughter Marian Fitzgerald Willets (b.1853) had married the doctor Bertram Hunt (b.1856) in 1880. They lived at 39 St Giles, Oxford, and Katharine stayed with them from 22 July to 29 July (Yeats to Katharine [after 6 August 1889], Yeats Letters).

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and Nurse.205 The maid here who attends on me won’t smile at me, and I’m afraid of her. Alice, with very warm love for you and dear Wilfrid, yours K. I forgot my Atalanta in the drawing room with an account of Herkomer.206 I wanted it to make up my article.207 Could you send it, dear? I’m so sorry to trouble you.

205

Hannah Ridley (b.1865) was the cook and Ada Monge (b.1861) the nurse. [John Staples], “Our English Schools of Art. 3: The Herkomer School”, Atalanta, June 1888. Hubert von Herkomer (1849–1914), Bavarian born painter. In 1883 he founded the Herkomer School of Art from which he retired as Director in 1904. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, 1885–94. Knighted in 1907. Alice Meynell had published “Artists’ Homes. Mr Hubert Herkomer’s, at Bushey, Herts.”, Magazine of Art, January 1883. 207 I have not identified the article. 206

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To Andrew Cullan Tynan MS Manchester. [446 Camden Road, N]208 [12 July 1889] Dearest Father, This is only a brief word. I have to go to Oxford tomorrow with Mrs Alexander Sullivan and her party,209—to show them round. I didn’t know this in time to write you your long letter, and I would not disappoint you for worlds. It is after 12 and I have had a long day. I have been at the Commission and saw the great event of the brilliant. Miss Mabel Robinson sent me tickets,210 and if she hadn’t Mrs Sullivan would have taken me in. She knew this event was coming on, and advised me to be there to-day. I lunched with her and then went to the Meynells, and then to tea at Mr Herbert Horne’s211 and then to dinner at the Hughes: so it has been a full day. By the bye Mrs T. said something about driving out to see you some afternoon next week. Mr Hinkson is in London,212 and came yesterday with Addie, and took her and Mrs P. and me to the Grosvenor, and afterwards gave us dinner at the Criterion. I was able to give him a ticket for the Commission, of which he was very glad. I saw Parnell and Davitt, spoke to the latter.213 I have four engagements for Sunday, and on Monday morning go to Finchley, so you see I have little time. Will write a very long letter the first day I’ve time. I met Louise Chandler Moulton, the 208

The postmark gives Oxford with 13 July but was written in London where she was staying with Mrs Pritchard and she had visited the Commission on 12 July (Reminiscences, 301). 209 Reminiscences (301). 210 The novelist Frances Mabel Robinson (1858-?1911) who also wrote as William Stephenson Greg. 211 The poet and architect Herbert Percy Horne (1864-1916) co-edited the Century Guild Hobby Horse, one of the journals of the art and craft/aesthetic movement, with Arthur H. Mackmurdo (1851-1942) and later was a member of the Rhymers’ Club. Katharine had published her poem “In a Cathedral” in the Hobby Horse, June 1888. In a letter to Katharine, ([c. 18] May [1890], Yeats Letters), Yeats writes of the founding of the Rhymers’ Club in London. 212 Katharine had met her future husband Henry Albert Hinkson (1865-1919), writer and barrister, on 6 September 1888 when he was still at Trinity College, Dublin. 213 The Fenian Michael Davitt (1846-1906) whose family had been evicted for non-payment of rent and moved to England. He was convicted for gun running in 1870 but released in 1877. He was one of the founders of the Land League and later of the United Irish League. He was an anti-Parnell MP in 1892 and 1895-9.

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American poet, at Horne’s to-day.214 Sharp’s on Wednesday was interesting.215 I talked to Thomas Hardy, and Fredrick Wedmore,216 and several others, and came home with the Todhunters.217 I hope Lizzie and Nora liked their hats. Good bye now, dear. I’ve been up since 7.30, and have to rise to-morrow morning at same hour, and it is now 12.30. I’m going to the great Rose Fête at the Botanical Gardens on Monday with the Cranfords.218 your loving K.

214

The American poet and novelist Louise Chandler Moulton (1836-1908), née Chandler. 215 The novelist William Sharp (1855-1905) who wrote as Fiona Macleod. 216 Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921), short-story writer, journalist and art critic. Knighted 1912. 217 The Irish poet and playwright John Todhunter (1839-1916) and his second wife Dora Louisa (1853?–1935), née Digby, lived in Bedford Park, London, not far from Yeats. His first wife Katharine Gresley Ball died in childbirth in 1871 a year after they were married. 218 By 27 July Katharine was staying in Norfolk, having visited the Blunts in June (27 July to Fr Russell) and later the Meynells in September.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 15 January 1890 Dearest Alice, I am so glad you liked the candle things. I thought you would. I like to think of them being on your walls. Often when I see things I say to myself that I would like to buy them for you. Perhaps I shall realize some of my ambitions this year. I treated Monnie disgracefully. I meant to send her a sash, because someone else was to send her sweets, but my money gave out suddenly, and I don’t know if the sweets went before someone else was made ill by the bad weather. At least sweets and sash are only postponed. Wilfrid seems to have created a hubbub by the Gladstone article.219 I hope it has been good for him at all events. I don’t mind very much about W.E.G. Alice dear, who is to be godmother?220 I know you’ll have me sometime, and Vernon perhaps for godfather,221 only these would be drawbacks that we couldn’t marry each other—for a long time, (how long?) and perhaps we’d want to, being forbidden,—such is the cussedness of human nature.222 I’ve been doing nothing since Christmas. I’m going to undertake a Nun’s life, for the Loretto Order here,—the life of the late Superior– General.223 I shall like to have a regular piece of work to do, side by side 219

Gladstone had reviewed Lady Georgina Fullerton’s novel Ellen Middleton on its publication in 1844 giving tacit approval to religious confession for misdeeds. Wilfrid had asked Gladstone in December 1888 whether he minded a republication in Merry England. Gladstone assented on 1 January 1889 and it was duly published in Merry England in January and February 1890. Wilfrid then received a postcard saying that the republication had not been authorised. Gladstone’s memory was at fault and Wilfrid published Gladstone’s letter of 1 January 1890 in which he agreed that he could not object to the republication. 220 Alice’s daughter Olivia (“Lobbie”/“Beelie”) would be born on 9 March 1890 and Katharine was Godmother. 221 Vernon Blackburn (1867-1907), sub-editor of the weekly Catholic Tablet and music critic for the Pall Mall Gazette. 222 This is the first mention of Katharine and Harry’s intention to marry. The problem was that Harry was not a Catholic and the Church frowned on such marriages. Katharine is being over cautious here for as a Catholic she would have no problem in being a godmother whether married or not. 223 Katharine’s A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order: the Life of M. X. Fallon (1891) with the dedication “TO / WILFRID AND ALICE MEYNELL / LOVE AND

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with my casual things. How stupid Mr Gladstone was over English poetry!224 Fancy putting Scott and Byron, with Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge, and almost plumping for Byron as the greatest. And imagine naming Miss Constance Naden,225 and Mrs Clive,226 where you were left out,—or even Mrs Webster, Mary Robinson,227 and half-a-dozen others. Alice dear,—I’m bad at writing but you and yours are always in my love and thoughts. If I cared for you less I’d think I ought to write oftener, but you know how much I care. Are you keeping well, dear? Give my love to Wilfrid and Monnie, and to Vernon, your always loving K.T. I did you for the Magazine of Poetry, without waiting any longer.228

THANKSGIVING”. 224 W. E. Gladstone, “British Poetry in the Nineteenth Century”, Speaker, 11 January 1890. 225 Constance Caroline Woodhill Naden (1858-89), poet and philosopher. Her publications included Songs and Sonnets of Springtime (1881) and the posthumous Induction and Deduction, and Other Essays (1890). 226 Caroline Clive (1801-73), née Meysey-Wigley, married Rev. Archer Clive in 1840. She published novels and poetry under the name “V”. 227 Augusta Webster (1837-94) née Davies, poet, translator, playwright and feminist, married Thomas Webster in 1863. Her first book Blanche Lisle and Other Poems (1860) was published under the name “Cecil Home”. Mary Robinson (1756-1800), née Darby, actress, novelist and poet. She married Thomas Robinson in 1773 but they separated after she became the mistress of the Prince of Wales. She published poetry in magazines under a variety of different names and attacked politicians also using an assumed name. 228 K.T., “Alice Meynell”, Magazine of Poetry, April 1891, concluding The poet herself looks her poetry more than any other poet I have ever seen. In the midst of all this home-happiness, slender and still, with wistful eyes, and grave lips, a beautiful face and presence, and one to haunt one when roses’ beauty is forgotten. Her voice goes with these,—an unforgettable voice certainly, when it has once spoken, with lingering cadences full of the tenderest music. Katharine also contributed “William Butler Yeats” in the Magazine of Poetry, October 1889 and “Alfred Percival Graves”, Magazine of Poetry, October 1890. The Magazine published biographical sketches of poets with selections from their poetry.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 4 March 1890 My dear Wilfrid, I feel it must be nearly time for news: when there is news to tell please let me have it at once. I’m very glad I’m to be god-mother to the baby: I hope I didn’t elbow out Mrs Blackburn, or she would never forgive me.229 I have been away, or would have written before. I had to make a journey round Southern Ireland for an article in the Atalanta to be written to sketches of that part of the world.230 I didn’t enjoy it very much: it was cold weather, and I hate the discomfort of hurrying around, and I had bad nights. I always think of my dear Palace Court as a place where I was never frightened of nights. I’m very busy. I forgot whether I told you or Alice I’d undertaken a Nun’s life. Well, there are a heap of note-books on my sofa for my reading which would daunt the bravest. I feel I shall have to wade through much heaps of chaff for the little grains of corn. Biography, even in the hands of a Boswell has a hill to go upon. I’ve been thinking how little of my life anyone but myself could tell. I wonder are you having it as bad in London as here,—the weather I mean. It’s nippingly cold, and I feel idealess because of it. I hope the chicks are all well. Did any of you get the influenza? All my friends and relatives had it, but I never succumbed. I can’t picture London to myself to-day. Window-walking would lose its whish in such a wind. Weren’t Monnie’s sweets jolly? I selected them, they being mysterious to the male mind. Give my love to Alice and Vernon, and everybody. Tell Alice I don’t expect to be in London this year. your very affectionate K.T.

229

Vernon’s widowed mother Elizabeth Blackburn (b.1843) as he was not married until 1900. 230 “A Journey and a Journal”, Atalanta, July 1890.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 15 March 1890 My dear Wilfrid, I am heartily glad of the good news,231 and should have written at once to say so, only I was going to town for a couple of days when your letter came. I sent on my good-motherly christening-cloak on Thursday. The girl in the shop said,—‘You’ll find you can use it again and again, Madam, and it will clean beautifully.’ I said, ‘O, I’ve nothing at all to do with it.’ She was misled I suppose by my matronly appearance for I’m growing frightfully stout. The lamentations of my dressmaker over my slight figure that used to be are heartrending. My waist that once measured from 20 to 22 inches now is a goodly 27, and I go on getting fatter. I’ve been very well in health and spirits since I came back from England, and I suppose being well I keep putting on flesh. A girl from one of the cottages here made the appalling suggestion that Miss Kate was taking after her papa, and as her Papa is, well, very stout, Miss Kate may look forward to being a sort of feminine claimant. You did not tell me about the Baby’s name, or when the Christening takes place. Truly a godmother should know such things. I hope dear, darling Alice is getting strength up quickly, and I hope she won’t be bothered with any more babies for a long time to come. I’m sending you a poem,—whether one up to your instructions I can’t answer for. I’d rather not marry Francis Thompson, thank you. He and Willie Yeats are not in my line. I like a manly man so you know and I don’t want a poet anyhow. Good-bye, Wilfrid dear, your ever loving K.T. Give my best love and felicitations to Alice. I am sending you a bit of shamrock,—not that I believe you to be a lover of Ireland one bit, you know, you wretched old John Bull. But you can wear it honestly on account of K.T.

231

Birth of Olivia.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Whitehall, Clondalkin 21 April 1890 My dear Father Hudson, The Ave Maria has come, and the postal order for £1..10..0 for which many thanks.232 I’ll do the Marian article at once and send it.233 I’m always so glad to feel that you are pleased with what I do. Won’t you remember me in the Month of Mary,—and pray for two conversions of people dear to me? I forget whether I thanked you for a bound volume of the Ave Maria, which I am very glad to have. With best regards yours always faithfully Katharine Tynan

232

Katharine’s “An Old English Catholic Mansion”, Ave Maria, 5 April 1890. She had also published the poem “Forgiven”, 4 January 1890; the article “Our Lady’s Hospice for the Dying”, 11 January 1890; and the poem “Two in Heaven”, 1 February 1890. 233 “Our Lady in the Calendar”, Ave Maria, 7 June 1890.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 3 May 1890 Dearest Alice, I love your little letters. You are good to want to have me, and it is lovely to me to feel that confidence about you and Wilfrid, which used to make me at Palace Court do exactly as I liked,—the confidence that you really care for me. But, dear, I don’t think I can come this year. I have my Nun’s life to get done, and must work quietly at home. I think I may come perhaps after Christmas all being well. Despite the season I should not choose June again for London:—it is too hot. And between Christmas and Easter is a jolly little uncrowded time, when the pavements are cool and everyone likes to see you. I wish you could be in the country now. It is almost too lovely, especially about 6. in the evening, such greenness and dewiness and singing of birds, and such lovely colours on the mountains. The other evening there were wisps of rose-coloured clouds lying down on the blue, here and there. And the birds sing every morning before daybreak, such sleepy little hills, pure and sweet and small. It is really “the sweet o’ the year”.234 I am sending my St Francis and the Lark,235 neglected in a dozen places, for Wilfrid. They think it is trivial, and won’t see the delicious naive simplicity of the story. You did enjoy it, I remember. You will be surprised to hear that I’m learning a bicycle, and going to get one for myself. A lady’s bicycle, unlike a bicycle is graceful as well as quite modest. I must get rid of the stone of flesh I put on in the last years. You remember the old Fenian John O’Leary. He has gone to live in London, and means to call on you some Sunday. I hope you’ll like him. He is the most single-souled and chivalrous of mortals, except as regards the later Irish politicians. I’m glad you like “Sheep and the Lambs”.236 It was absolutely sincere. And I’m glad Vernon liked it. Love. your K.T. 234

The Winter’s Tale, IV. iii. Katharine used the same phrase in the poem “Love’s House” (A Lover’s Breast-Knot, 1896) and in “The Flower o’ the Year” (Herb o’ Grace: Poems in War-Time, 1918), 235 Katharine’s poem “Of St Francis: His Wrath”, Merry England, June 1890. 236 Katharine’s later very popular poem “All in the April evening”, Weekly Register, 5 April 1890. Yeats in a letter to Katharine ([12 March 1895], Yeats Letters) wrote: “I wish I were as certain of the immortality of anything I have or will write as I am of the immortality of ‘Sheep & Lambs’.”

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 23 May 1890 Dearest Alice, I must thank Wilfrid for Mr Domenichetti’s book,237 though I shouldn’t have known who sent it if I hadn’t torn off the address and found Weekly Register on the other side. He is always good to me. I haven’t yet cut the book. It seems very Rossettian. Alice dear, I am sending a friend to call on you. She is Miss Louise Imogen Guiney, an American poet and literary person.238 She is young and very delightful. If she were not I wouldn’t bother you with her even for your sake. She writes beautifully. I told her to come some Sunday afternoon. Miserable Willie Yeats told me he had been at Palace Court on Sunday,—and just nothing else!239 And I should like to hear from someone who had seen you all. Alice dear, Monday will be the anniversary of my coming to you. I didn’t know I was to have such a dear time, and to get to care so much for you and dear Wilfrid, though you always excited my admiration you know. Now I just love you, and am not a bit afraid of you. On the contrary I feel rather protecting to you. I am working away steadily and expect when I take a trip to you and London, I shall have earned it,—though I gad about a lot. Don’t you want to know how my bicycle progresses? Well I don’t get on with it,—I get off. But I have learned how to get off harmlessly, which is something. For the rest I have a sense of despair. Liberty has an agency here: a specialist department is devoted to him in a big shop called Pim’s.240 I’ve begun to haunt it, and I’m treated with much respect by the attendants being one of their customers who is conscientiously acquainted with Liberty at large. I’ve got very nice frocks this Summer. I’ve got a jolly big black lace hat, 237

The Quest of Sir Bertrand, and Other Poems (1890) by Richard Hippisley Domenichetti (1863-1935). A Newdigate prize winner at Oxford in 1885 he became a Catholic for a short period but was ordained in the Church of England in 1892. The family name Domenichetti was changed to Markham during the Great War. Katharine’s unsigned review in the Weekly Register, 26 July 1890. 238 The American poet Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) and her mother arrived in England in 1889 and stayed for two years. In 1901 she returned to England living in Oxford. She died in Warwickshire and is buried in Oxford. Katharine gives her a chapter in her Memories. 239 Yeats to Katharine [c. 18] May [1890] (Yeats Letters). 240 Pim’s Departmental Store, South Great George’s Street, Dublin, was built in the mid-1850s and demolished in the 1970s.

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with pale green in it to match my frock. I’ve also got a black silk being mindful of Wilfrid, and I wear my fichu over it. Good-bye, Alice darling. Best love, yours K.T.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 4 August 1890 My dear Father Hudson, I return the verses which are a marvel of correct printing. The Ave Maria never misprints,—does it? I’m so glad you liked the Tipperary sketch.241 I sent you one on Saturday which I hope you may also like.242 I want, when I have time, to follow up my Oxburgh article with a little account of Mother Dorothy Bedingfeld,243 one of the first members of the Institute of Our Blessed Lady and the founding of the Convent at the Micklegate Bar in York which has stood nearly since the Reformation. With best regards yours always faithfully Katharine Tynan

241

“Nuns in New Tipperary”, Ave Maria, 5 July 1890. Possibly the poem “Votive Offering”, 13 September 1890. 243 “Frances Bedingfeld of Oxburgh and her Friends”, Ave Maria, 29 November 1890. Frances Bedingfeld (1616-1704) was born in Norfolk but educated in Munich, where she later entered the Institute of Mary and became Superioress. The article was edited by Fr Coleridge, S.J. The Weekly Register, 10 May 1890, published a three column quotation of Katharine’s Ave Maria article as “A Visit to Oxburgh”. 242

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To John Todhunter244 MS Reading. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 23 August 1890 My dear Dr Todhunter, You were very good to remember my desire for your photograph and to gratify it. It is a beautiful photograph and such a fine big one and I am very proud of possessing it. I will order for you one of the photographs you think good, though I think none of my photographs like me; and I don’t know that I like them. However the one the Magazine of Poetry printed is rather kind to me than otherwise,245 and I don’t expect to get a better one. This photograph of yours is admirable, and looks both what you look and what you ought to look which is one and the same thing. I shall always value to it very much and where I have placed it, it looks steadily at me, with the eyes of a poet and the eyes of a friend. I hope you and Mrs Todhunter and yours are well. Your play must have made a pleasant show in the park this summer.246 It must have been a lovely thing to see. I envied Willie Yeats and Miss Guiney and the others who were fortunate. I have not left home this summer. I am engaged in writing a little life of a nun for the Loretto Order here and shan’t stir at least till it is finished.247 There’s not much material: at least it is not easy to get from nuns with their well-learnt lesson of reticence and retirement the things that make the woman interesting. Now if it were permissible to fill the outline form one’s imagination! I often think of Bedford Park and how friendly you all were to me. When I write to the Yeats I always say “Give my love to the Park”, as comprehensively as I can, though I generally ask for you and Mrs Todhunter distinctly. Mr Yeats likes my compulsiveness, as last year when Louis Purser came over from Dublin I said at once “How is Dublin?’ while Mr Yeats was casting about his mind for a form of question which should be as all embracing. With many thanks and kind regards.

244

See p. 107. Photograph, Magazine of Poetry, vol. I, No.3, (1889), p.258. A column and a quarter note on Katharine followed by some of her poetry on pp.285-88. 246 Todhunter’s A Sicilian Idyll was at St George’s Hall, Regent St, 1 and 2 July to support the Popular Musical Union. 247 A Nun, Her Friends, and Her Order. 245

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Believe me, dear Dr Todhunter, yours ever sincerely Katharine Tynan I hope you won’t mind my returning the order form to you as I’m writing.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 26 September 1890 Wilfrid dear, Your invitation came in a lovely way, and make one feel so welcome and so sure of welcome. But don’t you see, dear boy, that the Nun is to provide the wherewithal, and she must be polished off before I get it. I’m going to Queenstown to the Piatts, on Monday week for a few weeks of change. Do you know I’ve some idea of publishing a volume of poems in the Spring? What do you and Alice say? Is it too soon? I think I must dedicate it to Rosa Mulholland. I’ve owed her a dedication for a long time.248 After that my next dedication will be to you and Alice. And I hope I’ll keep on improving to make it worthy. There is a little poem I’ve had waiting to send you for some time. Will you do it for Nov. M.E.?249 The Sayings and the October No. had a paragraph in the Nation.250 After that I lent my copy to the Editor who is a great friend of mine and a charming fellow asking him to review it, which he will. He will also see to the notice in the Freeman.251 I have to thank you, Wilfrid dear, for being kind to Mr 248

Ballads and Lyrics (1891). The dedication was “To / ROSA GILBERT / (ROSA MULHOLLAND) / GREETING!”. 249 “Golden Weed”, Merry England, November 1890. 250 Nation, 13 September 1890. Under the heading “General News” it was mentioned that “the October number of Merry England will be devoted to a collection of anecdotes of Cardinal Newman” and that also there will be a number of “Sayings of Cardinal Newman”. The Merry England article referred to was “Sayings of Cardinal Newman: A Collection of Speeches and Sermons delivered by His Eminence on occasions of interest during his Catholic life”. 251 Katharine’s Ballads and Lyrics was reviewed in Freeman’s Journal, 28 December 1891. The book showed a “distinct advance on her earlier books, full of promise though they were”. The reviewer sums up the with .

But no bouquet that we could gather would give any idea of the richness of the garden, and we trust that all those who have the interest of a renaissance of Irish literature at heart will find out this book of Miss Tynan’s for themselves in the confidence that it is at once a harbinger and a pledge of the revival they look for. In his review in the Dublin Evening Herald, 2 January 1892, Yeats remarked In reading this new book of Miss Tynan’s...I feel constantly how greatly she has benefited by study both of the old Irish ballads and of the modern writers I have named. Her first book...was too full of English influences to

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Hinkson. He valued it immensely, and he was especially proud and pleased because Alice came and held the baby for his inspection. Give my love to Alice and Monnie. How is Vernon? your always affectionate K.T.

be quite Irish, and too laden with garish colour to be quite true to the austere Celtic spirit. Shamrocks was better, and now Ballads and Lyrics is well nigh in all things a thoroughly Irish book, springing straight from the Celtic mind, and pouring itself out in soft Celtic music.

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To the Editor, Freeman’s Journal Whitehall, Clondalkin, County Dublin 10 December 1890252 Dear Sir, Will you please add my father, Andrew C. Tynan, to the list of your committee.253 I suppose, as you have admitted Lady Florence Dixie,254 sex is not a disqualification. In that case I should be very glad if you would give me membership also.255 Very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan The Chairman, Parnell Leadership Committee.

252

Published on 12 December under the heading “Parnell Leadership Committee”. The Parnell Leadership Committee was formed to give support to Parnell in the leadership crisis following his citing as co-respondent in the case brought by Captain William O’Shea in 1890. 254 The traveller and war correspondent Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (1855-1905) wife of Sir Alexander Beaumont Churchill Dixie (1851-1924), 11th Bt. Her eldest brother was the Marquis of Queensberry of Oscar Wilde fame. In 1878 she and her husband travelled in Patagonia where she hunted big game and published her Across Patagonia in 1880.. She then covered the first Boer War for the Morning Post. 255 Katharine became a Committee member. She has a chapter “The Parnell Split” in Reminiscences. 253

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin 24 December 1890 Dearest Alice, Your letter was a greater pleasure than I can say.256 You’ll be under my quilt next Winter, dear. After all it might be only giving you cold to introduce you to an eider-down quilt in the depth of Winter: you should have time to get used to it. When you didn’t write I thought perhaps you wouldn’t care about the quilt and I loved to give you something you would wear, as I hope you will wear the little broach. Harry Hinkson gave me a little gold horse-shoe to post to Monnie yesterday evening: he was going to the country and hadn’t time to get it registered. He had been standing three hours, with a great crowd of equally patient people waiting for the returns from Kilkenny.257 If he’d let me select his broach I’d have got something daintier, but a man’s taste unless specially cultivated inclines to the solid and plain: you can only trust a man, as a rule, to buy a weddingring. However I didn’t tell the poor boy when he showed it to me that I could have done better. Alice dear, what you said about politics was sweet to me and to all those to whom I showed it. I can’t tell you how we feel here. It is a bad day for the Church. I cant can say to you what I can’t to the Catholic men here, whom I try to persuade that the action of the priests cannot affect the divine impersonal Church. There is the bitterest feeling against the priests. They are autocrats here, and as insolent as autocrats are. Yesterday they went about Dublin streets meeting the black looks with faces beaming with triumph. If Parnell appeals in Kilkenny a few of them 256

Alice’s letter of 19 December 1890 (Alice Letters, 36) in which she writes that it is delightful to know, from the Daily News, that you stuck to your Parnell. It is humiliating to hear of the insults of the wretched AntiParnellites are screaming at him since they turned from him. That they should turn even after professing that the divorce made changes, I do not think so heinous, if the political expediency seemed clear; but that they should do it so! No, those men are not fit to govern or represent any people. Even Wilfrid is now content that Home Rule should at least be held over.

The Daily News of 11 December 1890 reported an evening meeting of some three thousand people in the Rotunda, Dublin, in support of Charles Parnell, who later attended the meeting. Mention was made of Katharine’s attendance. 257 The Parnell candidate Vincent Scully was beaten at the Parliamentary byelection in Kilkenny on 22 December.

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will be run in, but that will make his cause the anti-Catholic cause: if he does not appeal they will carry on the same tactics in every election in Ireland. Yesterday evening coming home in the steam-tram, I sat opposite two priests one of whom used to be a warm friend of mine, the other a frequent visitor here. Except to shake hands when I came in and got out, they ignored me as if I had done something which cut me off, and they talked anti-Parnellite with ungenerous triumph all the time. The moral question is sheer nonsense. It is aimed at “the Protestant libertine” as someone called him. They know that Sexton for example has committed Parnell’s sin,258 and with worse circumstances, for no one approves Mrs O’Shea more sinned against than sinning. They condemned the open immorality of O’Connell’s life long ago.259 It is only when the people have a leader who will put a backbone in them and make them strong that the priests get frightened. They have played every National movement in this century false. They killed the Tenant Right movement of ’52, and would have killed the Land League if they could.260 They have irresponsible power and its accompanying tyranny. If the priests had let us alone there would have been no division. The mutineers would have seen that Ireland could care nothing for Gladstone, and would have fallen back in their places. But as I said Kilkenny was a bad day for Ireland and a worse day for the Church. Please don’t think I’m dreadful. No, I know you won’t: you’ll understand quite well. I wonder what the English think now as to the Home Rule and Rome Rule being synonymous terms. I hope we’ll never get Home Rule till the priests are made to understand that when they step down from their sacred office to be politicians they have no more right or importance or sanctity than other men. As for Mr Parnell, well, I’d rather put off Home Rule for a century than have the shame of betraying him. I’m sorry I didn’t send Wilfrid a little account of the Rotunda meeting for the Register but perhaps he couldn’t have used it. I didn’t know the Daily News put in my name. I have been hounded by anonymous letters out of the other camp, one full of the vilest abuse, the other melancholy over my fall, with several neat stings inserted in its lachrymose piety. All the Parnellites nearly, are Catholics of course, and 258

Katharine is referring to the Irish politician and nationalist Thomas Sexton (1847-1932) who eventually opposed Parnell after the divorce case and the lack of support for him. 259 The great Irish politician and nationalist Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) who had been accused of having children with others. There was no truth in this accusation. 260 The Tenant League was formed in 1850 in an attempt to legalise the traditional rights of the tenant. It was also an object of the Land League formed in 1879.

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good ones. Some of the priests are Parnellite, but are of course muzzled by the bishops. I daresay twill all end in good. The treachery of the seceders is very bad. Davitt told John O’Leary six months ago that however the Divorce Court verdict went, there would be an organized attempt made this session to get rid of Parnell. Davitt has been widely jealous of him always: some of the others wanted places and knew they’d never get them while he was there: others disliked his aloofness from them. There are really only two men who seceded on moral grounds—Alfred Webb and J. F. X. O’Brien.261 Please forgive all this: I am glad to get it off. You can’t imagine the loyalty of the people here to Parnell. His looks his voice his good birth, the records of his family, all charm them. And the priests are only discrediting themselves miserably, and doing more harm to the Church than centuries of persecution,—in trying by foul means to fight him. I hope Wilfrid is stronger,—quite strong again. Give my best love to him, and tell him if he was here he’d be Parnellite as every gentleman is. One need make no conventional distinctions for the women. They are all, ladies and otherwise, for Clarke. Good-bye dear, and forgive me if I love you. I thought you might both like to hear a little of it from this side. your loving K.T.

261

The Quaker Alfred John Webb (1834-1908) was a radical reformer who was MP for Waterford West from February 1890 for five years. James Francis Xavier O’Brien (1828-1905) was a merchant and an Irish nationalist and had enlisted as a Confederate assistant surgeon for a short period during the American Civil War. During the civil unrest in Ireland he was imprisoned for high treason in 1867, being released in 1869 during an amnesty. He was MP for Mayo South but took little part in Parliament, but was president of the Irish National League of Great Britain when he was in London.

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To D. J. O’Donoghue262 MS UCD. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 14 January 1891 Dear Sir, I send you Farrell’s book, which I think is the best I can do for you.263 I don’t know him personally, but I gather he is of erratic habits, a feature not uncommon in the male poet, just from the testimony of a friend who met him, secondly because he neglected to pay postage on his book, or put 2½d on, and I had a revulsion of feeling or having to pay several shillings for it. These facts however you will not mention in your notice of him.264 I am interested at hearing of Hugh Tynan.265 Pray forgive my not answering you before. I was away on a week’s holiday. I am very glad indeed to oblige you in any way. yours faithfully Katharine Tynan Book on account of its bulk goes by parcel post.

262

David James O’Donoghue (1866-1917) was a founding member of the Irish Literary Society in London. He worked as a journalist and biographer of Irish literature and music and became librarian at University College, Dublin, in 1909. 263 Hugh Farrell’s Irish National Poems (Dublin: 1873). 264 O’Donoghue’s The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (1892). 265 Hugh Tynan (1782-1802) worked in the Custom House in Donaghadee. His Poems was published posthumously in 1803.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin Holy Thursday 26 March 1891 My dear Father Hudson, Your letters always give me pleasure: they are so kind. I wasn’t sure whether you wouldn’t call that note of mine audacious. But you are so good and kind and gracious as you can well be. Thank you so much for the volume of the Ave Maria, gratefully received. I am tremendously busy finishing up a Nun’s life I am engaged on. She was Superior General of the Loretto Nuns, a very holy and sweet woman, whose qualities were however of a hidden kind. I have written it altogether with an eye to the London market,—I mean to the non-Catholic public. I have made it as pretty as possible and it may be a useful counterblast to Edith O’Gorman and her sort.266 Kegan Paul will publish it in May. Dear Father Hudson, your most grateful contributor Katharine Tynan

266

Edith O’Gorman (1842-1919) published her Trials and Persecutions of Miss Edith O'Gorman: otherwise Sister Teresa de Chantal, of St. Joseph's Convent, Hudson City, N.J. in 1871. This was an expose of the “wrongs and errors incident to the Romish system of religion”.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 5 May 1891 Wilfrid dear, I never see the National Press, so missed the row over The Register.267 I got a copy yesterday,—borrowed it from the files of the National League,—and have written to the Freeman about it.268 I’m sure the National Press wouldn’t publish a letter or I should send one there too, much as I should dislike appearing in it. You will understand the rabid intolerance we are exposed to here, when such a commonsense and temperate article as yours provokes this storm. I don’t see why the Cardinal need have meddled. He grows as bad as Mr Gladstone for not being able to keep silence. My letter touches simply the personal question as to your identification with Tablet politics, etc. I knew any politics would do you harm, and bring a hornet’s nest about my own ears. I hope it won’t mean more than a disagreeable incident to you, dear boy. The priests and bishops here are so occupied pulling down Parnell that they don’t seem to have any thought of purely Church interests. Therefore their intolerance for an article like yours couched written in the best interests of the Church. They are doing more harm than centuries of persecution. I’m very sorry, dear for the wrong the matter will have caused you. How is Alice? I shall be thinking of her a great deal this month.269 You will let me know about her. I have given a young man named Lynch an introduction to you, to be delivered next month.270 He is an Irish Australian, who is 267

The short-lived National Press was anti-Parnell and published in Dublin from 1891 until it was absorbed by Freeman’s Journal in 1892. The National Press, 1 May 1891, attacked the Weekly Register as a mouthpiece of Cardinal Manning and referred to its editor (Wilfrid Meynell) as a “literary trifler”. A leader, “The Weekly Register and Priests in Politics”, Freeman’s Journal, 5 May 1891, reiterates that the Freeman’s Journal believed that the Weekly Register was the mouthpiece of Cardinal Manning. Manning telegraphed that this was not so to the Irish Catholic paper on 28 April. Manning had also had written to the National Press on 29 April saying that he did not own the paper. Wilfrid, as editor of the Weekly Register, wrote a letter and is quoted in Freeman’s that the Cardinal’s “repudiation of the Freeman’s ‘mouthpiece theory’ has in some quarters been hastily misstated as a repudiation of sentiments the Register has expressed”. Wilfrid was not mentioned by name in any of these reports. 268 Katharine’s letter was published on 6 May, see next letter. 269 Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell was born 12 May 1891. 270 The Australian journalist and writer Arthur Alfred Lynch (1861-1934) born of an Irish father and Scottish mother, was a remarkable man. After graduation he left

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bringing out a couple of books with Ward and Downey,271—a novel and a volume of criticism. I think him a very nice fellow, and I want to be kind to him so I send him to you for the best kindness. Of course you will have no more bother with him than to let him call sometimes on a Sunday afternoon. Best love to Alice. ever, Wilfrid dear, your affectionate K.T. I send you the Freeman of to-day in case you haven’t seen it.

Australia for good first studying at Berlin University and then working in London. As a reporter he went to South Africa during the Boer War but helped to form an Irish “brigade”, becoming a Colonel. Elected MP for Galway he was arrested in London, tried for treason and with his death sentence commuted was sentenced to life. He was released the following year after public support and pardoned in 1907. He then studied medicine at London University and practised. He was MP for West Clare from 1909 to 1919 and during the First World War worked for the Allies. He published Modern Authors: a Review and a Forecast with Ward and Downey in 1891 and this was his only book with them. 271 Edmund Downey (1856-1937), Irish novelist (as “F. M. Allen”) and publisher. He was editor of Tinsley’s Magazine Autumn 1879 to September 1884. He started the publishing firm Downey and Ward with Osbert Ward in London in 1884 and the partnership was dissolved on 1 August 1887, with Downey continuing as Downey and Ward, later Downey and Co. On his return to Ireland he bought the Waterford News in 1906. He became a Sinn Féin member after the Easter Rising of 1916. Tinsley’s Magazine had published Katharine’s poem “The Lark Waking” in March 1882.

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To the Editor, Freeman’s Journal Whitehall, Clondalkin [Co Dublin] 5 May 1891272 Dear Sir, Will you let me add a few words to what you say of the Weekly Register in your leading columns to-day? I have seen belatedly the National Press of Friday last and its comments upon the Register and its Editor. No one in Ireland has a better right to speak for both than I have. The National Press says—”In London it is known that the columns of the Tablet are as grateful a vehicle for the opinions of the writers of the Register as a column of the latter.” The only foundation I know for such a statement is that Mrs Meynell contributes to the Tablet in purely literary articles her lovely and distinguished prose, and is therefore no more identified with the Tablet’s politics than she is with those of the Saturday Review, the National Observer, or other high and dry Tory organs for which she writes. Mr Wilfrid Meynell is one of those English converts who atone to us somewhat for the hatred of the hereditary English Catholics by consistent and affectionate friendship for our country. I have read the Register for years and know that it has been even daringly Irish in sentiment. It does not become the National Press to speak of Mr Meynell as a literary trifler. He is an able and distinguished journalist and writer, and foremost in all good work to be done for the Church, and I may add for Ireland, in London, where such men are few. Naturally his article, which is the bone of contention, expressed his own views on the present trouble, but the Register has always faithfully represented the Cardinal’s large-heartedness and large-mindedness. I remember that he said emphatically, when I last had the honour of visiting him with Mr Meynell, “The Weekly Register never offends”. It was apropos of the politics of other English Catholics, and I am sure nothing would surprise his Eminence more than to learn from the National Press that the Register is in the habit of exchanging politics with the Tablet with all the quickness of a lightning-change artiste. Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours, Katharine Tynan

272

Published on 6 May 1891 under the heading “The Weekly Register”.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 11 May 1891 Wilfrid dear, I send some cowslips for Alice. I don’t suppose she will be able to unpack them herself, but I hope they will arrive fresh, and keep some sweetness for her. You will let me know as soon as she is through.273 I hope indeed that may be now. I dare say you can get lots of cowslips in London streets, but these have come from the fields, and have languished no night in Seven Dials or Drury Lane. I know Alice would love them coming from the fields. I’m glad you liked the letter. No one but you will. That wonderful gift of equable temper could have glided through the disagreeable thing so well. Dr Murphy should learn charity:274 it is terrible for him to call Parnell ‘an impenitent adulterer’: how can anyone know but God? Your quotation is very good, but why insist on only this unfortunate little country counting righteousness a sine quâ non in a leader. We have suffered enough for conscience sake. No one doubts that if we had conformed we should have now wealth and happiness. Small thanks those who represent the Church in Ireland give us, certainly. But for the priests there would be no antiParnellite party. It is all doing dreadful mischief. But I won’t bother you about it, as there’s a domestic crisis. I am waiting for news, dear. your ever affectionate K.T. My best love to you both.

273 274

The birth of Francis. Dr W. H. Murphy, of the Archbishop’s House, Dublin.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 21 May 1891 Wilfrid dear, I am rejoiced at the new boy’s safe arrival. I think on the whole you’d better now have no more boys and girls. You have a comfortable family for a young couple already. I am glad the cowslips came quite fresh,—or fairly fresh. I wanted to send Alice some this week as a reward for pulling through well, but I was away last week up to Sunday, and Tuesday I go to Belfast for a fortnight, and am very busy in the interval. To-morrow and Friday Saturday I have to do a Nuns’ Blind Asylum, and a Christian Brothers’ Deaf and Dumb Asylum for the bold bad Freeman.275 I have to do the writing in Belfast. Wilfrid darling, I’d love to come over, only my young man is just coming home, and how could I start off! He leaves Hanover on the 5th of June. He’ll be here till he gets his degree in October. Then he’ll try for something at an Army Grinder’s in London, as I’d rather live in London than anywhere after this place, which is peculiarly happily ostrich. I must stay here as long as he is here, for if I ran across to you even for a few weeks, it would prevent my coming again soon. You who are always a lover will find my reasoning, or want of it, conclusive. I’m giving you and Alice the dedication of the Nun’s Life,—as an instalment, for of course I’ll give you a poetry book some day. Harry wants the dedication of my next book, but I tell him he can’t get it unless our engagements are public. Besides it’s promised to Rosa Mulholland,— at least to Fr Russell for her. I’ll send Alice a little bit of Irish linen from Belfast, to reward her for being a good girl, and bringing home the blackhaired boy safely. your loving K.T. I’m going to stay at the Methodist College, with the Master and his wife,—the most un-Methodistical persons living.276 They live in a condition of dissembling. I shall gather the stories of Northern Orangemen from mine host, and make an article of them.

275

I have been unable to identify the articles in the Freeman’s Journal or the Weekly Freeman’s. 276 Henry McIntosh was Headmaster from 1890 to 1912 of the Methodist College, Belfast, which was founded in 1868.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 8 September 1891 Wilfrid dear, The books came all right. I don’t know how long they were at my end: I sent to the railway station on Saturday and they were delivered to my messenger. No instruction was sent to me that they were there which is the Irish way of doing business. I’m sorry for troubling you, dear,—and thank you so much for the big lot you sent. They furnished my sister’s table splendidly. Did you do the review of the Nun in the Athenaeum?277 I rather hope you didn’t, for though I value no one’s praise more than yours, I believe you would be good to me because you are fond of me, and I should like the independent judgment. It was a very good review, wasn’t it? I’m glad Fr Angus is doing me for the Register.278 I’m ready to shake hands with anyone now, so long as they don’t belong to the Nonconformist Conscience, or old Gladstone. He was right enough in destroying the Land League. It was detestable, but it was made so by Michael Davitt and his lot. I met John Dillon on Friday at Rosa Gilbert’s.279 He was with Mrs Rae and Miss Thompson, who are visiting his aunt, Mrs Deans at Ballybrack. They were horrified at my Parnellism. Miss Thompson sighed,ʊ“how we all used to worship Mr Parnell!” “I worship him still”, said I, causing great scandal. People over hereʊanti Parnellites,ʊare such beasts. They can forgive everything but the poor Chief’s marriage,ʊhis right and honourable atonement. The ideal of high politics to the National Press is to call Mrs Parnell Kitty O’Shea all the time. You never told me what you thought of this review of the Nun.280 She is getting very well reviewed in England. The only horrible reviews have been the N.P. and the Catholic 277

A good review in “Our Library Table”, Athenaeum, 5 September 1891 by the Jamaican-born journalist Henry Richard Fox Bourne (1837-1909), who was an important member of the Aborigines Protection Society. 278 The Weekly Register for this period is not available at the British Library. 279 The Irish nationalist and politician John Dillon (1851-1927). He was MP for Tipperary from 1880 to 1883 then East Mayo 1885 to 1918. Although an early supporter of Parnell he sided against him after the split of 1890. He was imprisoned for his militant vies and behaviour. 280 A damming review of A Nun, probably by Robert Donovan (1852-1934), in the National Press, 23 July 1891, castigated Katharine for only having enthusiasm (“gush”) for the work and lacking any form of structure in the biography. Defence came from the United Ireland, 19 September 1891, which decried the attack merely because she was a supporter of Parnell.

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Times,281 and both I think are of the negligible quantity the Freeman used to talk of when people were ratting. I hope dear Alice is well, and all the chickens, and my god-child. your ever affectionate K.T.

281

“Literary Notes & Notices”, Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion, 14 August 1891. The review echoes the National Press in that Katharine cannot “write prose and verse with equal facility”. Repetition and sentence construction mar her work. The one redeeming feature are some unpublished sonnets “which show Miss Tynan almost at her best”.

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To James Dunn282 MS NLI. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 9 November 1891 My dear Sir, I hope this poem may prove acceptable.283 Would you kindly pay me for the four poems that have appeared?284 I am ashamed to ask you, but I have had a season of ill-luck, and my finances are low. I think I may promise that I won’t do anything so disagreeable to myself again. yours most faithfully Katharine Tynan The Managing Editor.

282

The journalist James Nichol Dunn (1856-1919) was the short-lived first editor of the weekly Edinburgh Scots Observer with its first issue of 24 November 1888. He was replaced by W. E. Henley whose first issue was 19 January 1889. Dunn became business editor. He was editor of Black and White, 1895-97, the Morning Post, 1905-10 and the Johannesburg Star, 1911-14. 283 Presumably “The Sad Mother”, National Observer, 28 November 1891. 284 “The Fairy Foster-Mother”, 25 July 1891; “To Inishkea”, 19 August 1891; “All Souls’ Night”, 10 October 1891 and “The Farmer Monk”, 7 November 1891.

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To Mary Gill285 MS Manchester. Partly published in Reminiscences, 331. [Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin] 14 November 1891 Mary darling, I’ve been thinking about next Thursday, and what I said yesterday. After all I think we won’t come: I can go to my sister’s in Rathmines We will be at your dinner perhaps the following week and it’s not fair in the circumstances to identify you too much with the thing. Once I knew the boss had that idea I shouldn’t be very comfortable. I’m feeling like as if I was quite a wicked person once this morning when I got a letter from Father Russell, telling me he couldn’t do anything for my poems or my Nun in the Irish Monthly,286 because of the part I’d taken in politics. It isn’t his will but stronger wills outside. He told me for the first time that last December two of his subscribers returned the Irish Monthly because I had something in it.287 I’m sure those two were priests and I shall say for the future that for intolerance and un-Christian uncharitableness, priests take the cake.288 Isn’t it absurd seeing that so many priests think exactly as I do? Ah well, perhaps my poetry will turn souls to God when their pride and intolerance are turning souls away from Him. They think me very wicked, but perhaps they’re like the Pharisee in the Gospel in the sight of God. I’ll send you your copy of the book as soon as it is ready, and I send the Plain Tales now.289 Good-bye, darling, and God bless you. your loving K.T.

285

Mary Julia Gill (1846-1905), née Keating, wife of the Dublin bookseller and publisher Henry Joseph Gill. 286 Katharine’s A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order was reviewed in the Irish Monthly, October 1891. The writer contrasts the reviews in the Athenaeum, AntiJacobin and the Manchester Guardian all of which were complementary. 287 Katharine had no contributions in the Irish Monthly for October, November nor December 1890. 288 In Reminiscences (331) Katharine omits any reference to priests. 289 Kipling’s Plain Tales from the Hills (1890).

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To Alice Meynell MS Manchester. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 15 January 1892 Dearest Alice, I am sure the Cardinal’s death is a profound affliction to you and Wilfrid,—yet he was very old, and he died such a saint, so sure of a great place in Heaven.290 I can’t feel so sorry for him as for the poor young Prince, and his mother and his betrothed.291 Death has indeed had a full game this year, and how poor the Cardinal’s death leaves the English speaking Church. I am very glad I knew the great old Saint: it is another of Wilfrid’s benefactors. I hope he will remember us in Heaven. Many of us will often say, “Blessed Henry Edward, pray for us”. It seems as if there was nothing but sadness and bereavement this year. Mr Parnell’s death has never yet lifted its shadow of bereavement off me and many others, and every new death gives me a throb of the old horrible shock.292 I dreamed of you the night before last, my dear,—that I went to stay with you, but you were not at Palace Court, but in a gloomy old-fashioned house, and the place was called Porchester Gardens, Hyde Park. I don’t know where our cheerful Wilfrid was, and you were cold to me, and the house was a great change from Palace Court. And then I went on an expedition to many shops, and coming back lost my way, and couldn’t think of your address, but was befogged in a new building district. I was going to write to you next day on the head of my dream. Are you all well, dear people? I was out to-day for the first time for fourteen days [inserted: I got a relapse]. We are all under frozen snow. I think I am quite well now, but am accustoming myself gradually to the open air. I am glad the Chartreuse wasn’t lost. Give me best love and sympathy to my dear Wilfrid, and the same to you. God send such another guide for lost and helpless souls. Harry is all right. He was with me yesterday. I am now reviewer for the Irish Daily Independent, with a circulation of 40,000 a day,293—not to speak of the Evening Herald which has a huge Dublin 290

Cardinal Manning had died on 14 January. Katharine contributed “Some personal Recollections of Cardinal Manning” in the Catholic World, May 1892. Katharine had published her “A Visit to Cardinal Manning” in the Boston Pilot, 26 October 1889 (6 [November 1889], Yeats Letters). 291 Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (1864-92) had died the previous day of pneumonia. His parents were Alexandra of Denmark (later Queen Alexandra), wife of Prince Albert Edward of Wales (later Edward VII). 292 Parnell died on 6 October 1891. 293 Under the heading “Our Reviewer’s Table”, Katharine reviewed Todhunter’s

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circulation. I am trying to get en rapport with the London publishers to get their books regularly. How does one best go about it? Anything from B. & O. will receive best attention.294 your ever loving and sympathizing K.T. Did you see “Wayfarers” in last weeks Speaker? 295

The Banshee and Other Poems in the Irish Daily Independent on 14 January 1892. “I used to send in about three columns per week, with an occasional sub-leader” (Middle Years, 5). 294 Wilfrid worked at the Catholic publishers Burns and Oates, eventually becoming a director. 295 K.T. short story “Wayfarers”, Speaker, 9 January 1892.

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To T. Fisher Unwin296 MS Berg. Quoted in Yeats Letters, 2 March 1892. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 23 January 1892 My dear Sir, I have been away from home, recovering after influenza, or should have replied to your kind note sooner. I shall be very glad indeed to undertake your commission: no work could be pleasanter in the doing,— and there is a large field for a work of Irish Love-Songs.297 I suppose it will have a short preface,—I think a long one is distracting from the poetry itself,—and if there are biographical notes, they will go at the end? for any kind of notes spoil the reading of poetry if they come on the same page. Please let me know when you would want the book to be ready. With very cordial good wishes. believe me very truly yours Katharine Tynan

296

Thomas Fisher Unwin (1848-1935) founder of the publishing firm. Irish Love-Songs: Selected by K. Tynan (T. Fisher Unwin: 1892) in the Cameo Series. In a letter to Katharine, 2 March 1892 (Yeats Letters) Yeats replies to an earlier letter to him from Katharine about the inclusion of certain poems in her book. His suggestions of “a fair number” of poems by Thomas Osborne Davis (1814-45) resulted in only two being included. Among others of Yeats’s suggestions which were included were “Kathleen O’More” by George Nugent Reynolds (c.1770-1802) and “Were You on the Mountain” by Douglas Hyde (1860-1949). Yeats included the text of two of his poems “When You are Old” and “When You are Sad” in his letter but Katharine did not include them, rather opting for “An Old Song Resung” and “To an Isle in the Water”. Katharine included her “The Wood-Pigeon” and “Irish Love-Song”.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 30 March 1892 My dearest Alice, You will be thinking me a horrid wretch for never writing about poor little Prue;298 but I have been away nearly all the last two weeks, having a dash before shutting myself up for a couple of weeks to do my Love Lyrics. What a horrible fright you must have got. It was very lucky there wasn’t another on the way,—though for all I know there may be. Do you observe that I am getting a very married way of talking. I suppose the dear little girl is all right now: Indeed I gather she was fairly all right when you wrote. Lucky there is a special providence for children,—children and drunken men, as we say here. On the whole you have led a very hard winter, my poor Alice. But I hope all the troubles are over with the Winter. There is lovely Spring weather, all my windows wide open and the birds singing perfectly frantically and Harry in the arm-chair by my fire, to make up the list of good things,—for he stayed here last night. The wooddoves have been coming in the orchard outside my window these last two months, even in the snow. They build in a big walnut tree there. I am writing very well, despite my intervals for amusement. I shall make £200 or more this year, and thank God for my earnings; it will make it easier for us to marry as soon as Harry gets settled in London. He is doing the University intelligence for the Independent.299 He has only £52 a year for that, but he is paid for special articles in it and in the Evening Herald, so that he will get about £100 a year from it. Of course once he settles in London he will lose the University Intelligence, but he will have made a connection with the paper. Some of the men on it are talking of getting him made a member of the Journalists Institute. It would help him in his teaching work too. It’s a long time since I saw Wilfrid’s fist,—and why doesn’t he send me some B. & O. books for the Independent. ever your loving K.T.

298

Viola (“Prue”/”Prudie”) Mary Gertrude Meynell (1885-1956). This consisted of small snippets of information often under the heading of “Trinity Intelligence”.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 22 July 1892 My very dear Wilfrid, I was delighted to see your handwriting, because the time between us is getting long, and why should you not forget?—even though I never do. I gave Harry your message. I was just thinking of writing to ask you to send it, for he was getting offended, but a kind word puts things right with him. He goes over in September. Will you take him in for a few days while he is looking about him? He will probably return here after interviewing agents etc, unless he is engaged at once. It would serve him in more ways than one if he was staying with you, for Palace Court House is a far better address than a hotel in the Strand. I hope he will get work soon, for then we could be married, and I should be near you. I know you are always ready to welcome me, dear old fellow, though perhaps when I come and you see how fat I am you’ll say it isn’t the original K.T. I’ve a hat this Summer with velvet strings, and since I’ve been wearing it I always get receive my parcels addressed to “Mrs Tynan”. So I must be getting a very matronly look. Harry has a little book to send you. He bought it out for the Tercentenary in a paper cover. It is an expansion of some articles he wrote for the Evening Herald.300 Don’t read it critically, if you love me. Remember that it is absolutely his first piece of writing. I have a long letter to answer of Francis Thompson’s which I must answer more leisurely than I am doing this.301 I heard of you recently from the Piatts and from the Wynnes. I envied both because they had seen you and Alice and the chicks recently Mrs Piatt told me, and I had a pleased feeling for long afterwards that Dimpling and Prue remembered Harry.302 But how could 300

Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin: 1892). Francis Thompson’s letter of 15 July 1892 was published in Katharine’s Middle Years (14-6). It was also published in John Evangelist Walsh’s The Letters of Francis Thompson (New York: 1969). Thompson thanked Katharine for reviewing his poems “To the Dead Cardinal at Westminster” and “The Making of Viola” (Irish Daily Independent, 25 May 1892). “To the Dead Cardinal at Westminster” was published in Merry England, February 1892 and “The Making of Viola” in May 1892. Francis Joseph Thompson (1859-1907), poet. An early education for the priesthood was followed by six years of medical training and a recognition that poetry was his role in life. In 1885 he took to the streets of London and formed a lifelong habit with opium. Eventually he was rescued and befriended by the Meynells. For his relationship with the Meynells, see Alice Letters. 302 The Meynells’ daughter Madeline (“Dimpling”) Mary Eve Meynell (18841975). 301

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they after a year? How is Monnie? I was concerned to hear that she was laid up the day the Piatts saw you. Good-bye, dear fellow. I would not be the person to answer you about the Manning Fund.303 your most affectionate K.T.

303

A meeting was held on 27 April 1892 at the Westminster Palace Hotel to discuss the erection of a memorial to Cardinal Manning. Among those present were Wilfrid and Alice Meynell. Wilfrid, with the Duke of Norfolk, was Hon. Secretary of the Manning Memorial Committee. The Tablet, 23 July 1892, noted that a fund was to be established for a practical memorial to Cardinal Manning. The memorial was to be some form of a refuge for the destitute.

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To Francis Thompson304 MS Lasner. Quoted in Thompson, 102-3. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 10 August 1892 My dear Mr Thompson, I am glad you wrote to me at last,305 though I’ve been so tardy in replying. I am usually the best of correspondents, but I get more and more to have work that must be done, and as I live unmethodically , getting up late and going to bed late, something has to be crushed out to make time, and of late it has come to be my letters. I have always felt—ever since “Dream-Tryst”—a great interest in your career,306 and whatever I have said in print about you was only the moderate expression of my faith in your work. You are too good to say you are indebted to me. If I thought you were I should begin to feel proud of myself, for at present I have only a qualified pride. I’d like to think better of my own work than I do of some of my friends’ work,—Mr Yeats is one, and you are another,—but I can’t. My faculty of admiration is too true and strong. What you say about the effects of metre in my poems is quite unconscious.307 It makes me believe in my own work to hear your praises not that I affect disbelief, but only a moderate faith. I hope you will write to me again, and I look forward to meeting and knowing you when I come to London. Your buying the “Poppies” in the circumstances was indeed an exquisite tribute.308 I am very glad to know you are now lifted to a safe position, out of danger of such poverty. You know you were very kind to me once, in a delightful article you wrote in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record about my 304

See p. 140. Thompson’s letter of 15 July 1892. 306 Thompson’s poem first published in Merry England, May 1888. 307 In his letter Thompson writes 305

You have a special right to praise The Making of Viola, for you are partly its parent—not on the poetical, but on the metrical side. ... The true law is, that you take a metre (the more received and definite the better), and then vary it by the omission of syllables, leaving the lines so treated to be read into the given length by pause, and dwelling on the syllables preceding or following the hiatus. ... Now the true use of the principle was first revealed to me by my beloved Poppies. That, and a poem in your Shamrocks, sent me to the early English writers, where I studied the principle at its source, till I had thoroughly grasped its various uses. 308

Katharine’s poem “Poppies” was first published in Merry England, April 1885, and was included in Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems.

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Shamrocks.309 They would not let you say anything for me there now, since I am an abandoned Parnellite. I am very glad for you to be the Meynells’ friend. I think they are the dearest people, and the truest friends. Yours most cordially Katharine Tynan

309

Shamrocks was reviewed in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, August 1887, by Walter MacDonald and not by Thompson.

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To William Kineton Parkes310 MS Stanford. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 22 September 1892 My dear Mr Parkes, I fear you will think me very miserable but I’m not. I’m really the most reliable of persons. Only you mustn’t give me classical books to do any more, for of course I know nothing about them. I got the first part of this review from a classical friend. I think you’d better not sign my name, for all my friends would laugh, and my enemies swear at my impudence. I hope it will be in time after all. My friend only gave me the few suggestions yesterday. May I keep the little Rolleston Plato too?311 I want to give to a friend, a girl who admires Plato. I should be very grateful if you would send me a miscellaneous bundle of books,—novels, poetry, biography. I would review them for you and return them unless one or two I specially decided to keep, and for which I should ask your permission. Send me anything you have as they will turn in for my Independent reviewing. I will return Passion the Plaything when I am sending back more books.312 I don’t care for it. I think it extravagant. But I do like greatly the short stories I have seen in the National Observer, and look forward much to the volume of his short stories. Won’t you ask him to send it to us? Believe me, with many apologies yours very truly Katharine Tynan 310 The writer William Kineton Parkes (1865-1938) edited the short-lived monthly Library Review and Record of Current Literature which ran from 1 March 1892 until 17 July 1893. Parkes also edited the Ruskin Reading Guild Journal in 1890 and published a two volume Sculpture of Today in 1921. He was Principal of the Nicholson Institute, Leek, Staffordshire, from 1891 until 1911. 311 Thomas William Hazen Rolleston (1857-1920), journalist, poet, German scholar and critic. He published a translation of Walt Whitman in 1889. He was a co-founder of the Dublin University Review. He revised and edited Sydenham and Taylor’s Selections from Plato (1892). Katharine contributed a short, unsigned review, “Plato”, Library Review and Record of Current Literature, October 1892. 312 The first novel by Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917), novelist, short story writer and writer about the Peak District of England. His first collection of short stories was The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances published in 1894. He had nine signed contributions in the National Observer between 2 July 1892 and 3 February 1894. Passion the Plaything was not reviewed. Katharine contributed “Letters in Dublin” in the September issue.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 26 September 1892 My very dear Wilfrid, I thought you were forgetting all about poor K.T. when The Child in the Midst was late in coming.313 Now, it has come, and many thanks for it, but why not from your own hand, with a clear inscription and not wordless from the publishers? It is a lovely anthology. No one could have done it better. I’ll review it in this week’s Independent and recommend it to all the parents.314 The dedication is magnificent,—but my dear, what a disgracefully long list!315 Not that one of the dear half-dozen could be spared. I have been wanting to write to Alice to tell her that I saw Lady Butler at home at Delgany.316 I was at a pic-nic in the neighbourhood, a Parnell’s pic-nic, with the Redmonds and Leamys,317 —and Father Hurley the very Parnellite priest of Delgany fetched me away to see Lady Butler. She was painting when we arrived, but came to us. Her studio is just a little cabin by the roadside with high windows in the thatch for a northcast light. The place is in the middle of woods, among the beautiful and most melancholy scenery. Delgany village is quite out of sight, and the sea only a silver streak. All about are walls of woods. The house is fronted with white stucco, as so many of these Wicklow houses are. The dear Chief’s house at Avondale is the same.318 And such houses look peculiarly 313

The Child set in the Midst By Modern Poets (1892), edited by Wilfrid Meynell. This Katharine did in the issue of 28 September noting: “It ought to be especially the gift-book of the season for fathers and mothers, while it contains things to recommend it to everyone who loves poetry.” 315 The book is dedicated to all eight of Alice and Wilfrid’s children including Vivian who had died at five months in August 1887. Wilfrid included Katharine’s “A Child’s Day”. 316 Elizabeth (“Mimi”) Southerden Thompson (1846-1933) was the sister of Alice Meynell and a successful military artist, well known for her Calling the Roll after an Engagement, Crimea (exhibited 1874) which was so successful that it was bought by Queen Victoria. Elizabeth married Major William Francis Butler (18381910) later General Sir William Butler, in 1877. 317 The Irish politician and barrister John Edward Redmond (1856-1918) was a supporter of Parnell, being a Nationalist MP from 1881 to 1918. After Parnell’s death he finally led the party supporting Home Rule. The Irish writer, barrister and politician Edmund Leamy (1848-1904), editor of the United Irishman. He was a Nationalist MP, 1885-7, 1888-92, and finally in 1904. 318 Katharine wrote an unsigned article about Parnell’s house, “About and Around Avondale”, Speaker, 4 October 1890, and she refers to the house in her 314

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lovely amid Autumn foliage. I said to Lady Butler that it was a lovely place for a very happy and busy person to live. I saw her eldest child girl, Corsh,319 I think, a serious looking child. I saw Alice’s dear darling face on the wall, and it was lovely to hear Lady Butler speak with that plaintive voice I remember in Alice. The visit was really very short, for I had to return to my pic-nic, and Lady Butler was going out to tea. She agrees with me in politics. I suppose you know her feeling about Mr Parnell. Do you wonder Harry has never turned up? He took some tutoring which delayed him and now he has to wait for some of his testimonials, people being away on their holidays. Those he has got are magnificent. He expects to go over about the 20th of October. I will write more decisively when I know. Good-bye, dear old fellow, and warm love to Alice and Monnie. yours always K.T.

Reminiscences (319-20). 319 Elizabeth Butler’s eldest was Elizabeth born September 1879.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. .

Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 6 December 1892 Alice dearest, The two dear grey books have reached me, with their two very precious inscriptions.320 I would say as much except that there is Wilfrid, I always felt that one reason of many for Wilfrid’s affection for me was that I could match him in feeling Preludes. I haven’t cut them yet, but have found out that most of the contents are dear to me already. Mrs Piatt who was here yesterday says that I always understand her poetry as no one else does,—I never ask as even her husband does,—“What do you mean by this?” I know. I think I have this instinct about your poems too,—to appreciate every delectate shade of feeling in what you write. I am so glad the books are arrived, because it was dreadful not to have your poems and essays saved in a book. I will write again when I have read them all through, though as I have said I know a great deal of both poems and essays. Nothing could be more beautiful and suitable than the way they are produced. They look all their distinction,—and the grey suggests the twilight that is over your poems. Dear, I can’t thank you enough about Harry. I am so glad and proud he has made friends of you,—the twin you. After all beautiful as your poems are they are most beautiful to me because they recall you,—and I think you know you are as gracious a presence of a woman to me as the world could give. Tell me about the Christmas box,— dear. Best love to Wilfrid. your ever loving K.T. in great haste

320

The Rhythm of Life and Other Essays and Poems. Katharine reviewed both books in the Irish Daily Independent, 19 December 1892. Alice replied on 21 December Even though it may not be strictly correct to thank one’s critics, I must send you a line of great gratitude for your most beautiful articles, which I read with pleasure for their own charm as well as with delight for their kindness to me! I found them very beautiful and so generous and dear (Alice Letters, 61).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 27 December 1892 My best Wilfrid, I have had Harry for three happy days,—he went into town last night,—during which we talked almost incessantly of you. He gave me your dear note. There are no friends like you and Alice. I scarcely know anyone else think would be so divinely kind to me and my Boy. I saw the opening sentence of his letter to you yesterday, in which he said he had been too happy to write before. He wouldn’t let me read any more, for he doesn’t think I ought to be too much complimented. He slapped me for reading that. I want so much to hear that Alice likes him. She has never said she did, though I turned her letters up and down and everyway looking for it. He is devoted to her, and as she said to me once, “devotion is sweet”,—and it ought to rewarded by at least liking. Besides I think he is a dear manly boy, and you have sent him home to me looking handsome and happy. I brought him to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I think he told us [sic] this. We were together all day, Christmas Day and yesterday, and had lovely walks in the brilliant frosty weather that has suddenly come upon us. My ring came Christmas morning. I think it is lovely: it has such a solid, enduring look. It makes me very happy to have it on my finger. I hope Alice’s bushes arrived safely, and your handkerchiefs. The things were not good enough to give you two dear, dear, dear people. Thank you, old fellow, for the promise of the Chartreuse. Harry has come back to me with a singularly unprejudiced mind, from the religious point of view. He is very impressionable, and it matters much to him that people he loves and honours are Catholics. I hope you all had a good Christmas. Get stronger, old chap: I don’t like your colds or influenza, or whatever it is. ever your most grateful and affectionate K.T.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 4 January 1893 Dearest Alice, I am satisfied now you say you like him. It is quite true about knowing him, for my love grows with everyday. It is only one woman can know a man really, and I can truly say that he is goodness itself to me. He has never let me know what it is to feel slighted or neglected,—never made me wait for a letter, or any of the other hundred and one ways a man can hurt a woman who is bound up in him. I am always sure of his niceness not only about myself, but about other people. He always appreciates the best, as in his devotion to you, but in his simple and kindly manliness of feeling about those who are not the best he has often made us feel violent and vulgar. He is really dearer than I can say and I’m not blind about him. On the contrary I’m painfully anxious for him to make a good impression and my nervousness always makes me feel when he is not showing especially well, as I should never feel it with another man. That is why I wanted to be assured of your liking him. I think he goes back Monday night. He will come to you first,—unless your going to the Patmores makes a difference,321 —as Wilfrid wished him to, but will then go on to stay with his sister. You have been angels of goodness to him. Talk of Irish hospitality! I know of no one in Ireland,—except perhaps the Piatts, and they are Americans,—with whom I could let him stay all those weeks and not feel unhappy lest it was too much kindness. I can only love you twain with love for ever. I didn’t see the N.O. review.322 Will you lend it to me? I shall return it quite safely. If you can’t I’ll order the paper,—if you’ll tell me the date,— 321

The poet Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823-96) had became a Catholic in 1864 and his third wife Harriet Georgina Robson (1840-1925), whom he had married in 1881. He later formed an intense devotion to Alice. She in turn championed his work. Later on she realised that his affection was too intense and ended the friendship “at her husband’s urgent wish” (Francis Meynell, My Lives, 1971, 51). 322 National Observer, 24 December 1892. The unknown reviewer of Poems and The Rhythm of Life noted that Alice’s poetry had not matured since the potential shown in her Preludes and accuses her of being “among the chief adherents of a certain literary style which may briefly be described as the creed of low vitality. A creed which preaches pause and restraint, and speech that lies just a little on the hither side of emotion”. He grants her individuality “through the lack of a complete sense of form”. Her prose, however, is seen in a better light but there is criticism of her “sorrowful meditations”.

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as I’m very anxious to see it. If Vernon Blackburn wrote it he’s a sweep. Harry is very indignant over it,—rather proud of his prescience too, as he never would like Vernon. Tell Wilfrid not to write his love-letters outside the envelope. your most loving K.T.

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To Douglas Brooke Sladen323 MS Richmond. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin 30 January 1893 Dear Mr Sladen, I am glad to hear of you again. For membership of your Club I would suggest your asking: Standish O’Grady, Esq., 25 Morehampton Road, Dublin324 R. A. King, 11 Waltham Terrace, Blackrock325 N. J. Fitzpatrick Esq., Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin Dr George Sigerson, 3 Clare Street, Dublin326 Dr Douglas Hyde, Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon327 I expect you have Willie Yeats. If you have not you ought to for he is one of the coming men. His address is Lonsdale, St Laurence Road, Clontarf, Dublin. Dr Sigerson is a Fellow of the Royal University as well as a literary man. The Royal however is not Dublin University.328 Why not ask Professor Mahaffy or Professor Dowden or both?329 Trinity College, Dublin, would find them. I think these are the most representative names I know. I could add to the list considerably if you advanced enough to invited us. I also see your name very often. I imagine your American tour was a great success. I reviewed a big red book of yours, American Poetry, in two or three places.330 By the bye if you have anything, you or your friends, which you would care to have reviewed in a “mere Inst” paper, I am now the reviewer of the Irish Daily Independent, Mr Parnell’s paper, which despite the irresistible blow of his death, is a great popular success. 323

The novelist, writer and journalist Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen (18561947) editor of Who’s Who 1897-9. In his Twenty Years of My Life (1913) he recounts that Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley and Katharine “gave me introductions to many authors” (27). After Oxford he went to Australia, read law at Melbourne and became the first Professor of Modern History at Sydney University. He published anthologies of Australian and American poets. On his return from America to England he settled in London. 324 The journalist and historian Standish James O’Grady (1846-1928). 325 Richard Ashe King. 326 Dr George Sigerson (1836-1925), surgeon and scholar. 327 Hyde became President of Eire in 1938. 328 The Royal University was founded in 1880 and taken over by the National University of Ireland in 1909. 329 Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919), Professor of Ancient History at Trinity College, Dublin. 330 Younger American Poets 1830-1890 (1891) ed. Sladen.

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Thank you very much for the kind offer of introductions etc. I shall be in London one of these days I expect, under a new name,331 and shall look you up, or ask you to look me up. very truly yours Katharine Tynan

331

To marry Henry Albert Hinkson. After leaving Trinity College, Dublin, without a degree Harry studied in Germany and later obtained an M.A. at the Royal University, Dublin, in 1890, although Katharine’s letter of 21 May 1891 suggests October 1891. All references to his life give 1890 for graduation. He published a history of T.C.D. and edited a Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College (1895) and wrote over twenty books. On 21 April 1894 Harry was admitted to the Inner Temple, London, and called to the Bar on 27 January 1902. On admittance he is given as possessing a B.A. Part of the qualifying conditions to become a barrister included twelve dinners and Katharine mentions this in some of here letters.

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To D. J. O’Donoghue MS UCD. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 18 February 1893 My dear Mr O’Donoghue, I never for a moment supposed you were the writer of the Evening Telegraph thing.332 In fact I knew you weren’t. It’s a great pity—we Irish don’t act up to the spirit of “dog doesn’t eat dog”. It is quite the contrary with us. I never saw the E.T. article, and only heard that it suggested enough stuff to fill all the Cameo Series.333 A young fellow named McGrath wrote it. Of course he is quite ignorant of the subject, but in Dublin that is so much the better. I am very sorry by the bye that I omitted noting the 2nd part of your valuable dictionary.334 Since last November my reviews have appeared so irregularly that many thing have been overlooked and delayed. I promise however a good notice to the Part 3rd, for once the Meath Elections are over I expect my reviews to become regular again.335 I was born in Dublin, but have nearly always lived here. I did not ever try to write till I was 16 or so. The house was always full of books but mainly of a scribbling character and I was absolutely 20 before Tennyson. Rossetti, whose influence was so paramount in my first book I did not read until I was 23, and most of the Rossettian poems were written before I had read him. I can’t account to myself for that. I was at school at Siena Convent, Drogheda. The greatest friend I have ever had in a literary sense is Father Russell. I might never gone on writing if he had not taken me so seriously. My father too has encouraged me and helped me at every step. Outside these I have many friends, in England, Ireland and America who have been most generous helpers. The intermediary in the publishing of my first book was Mr Wilfrid Meynell of the Weekly Register who has been my best friend, after those named. I began to write prose at the suggestion of Mr Williams, then editor of the Providence (U.S.A.) Journal 332

A review of Katharine’s Irish Love Songs, Dublin Evening Telegraph. The February issues are missing at the British Library. 333 T. Fisher Unwin’s Cameo Series for poetry. 334 Katharine was included in part three, p. 249. She gives her birth date as 3rd February 1861. 335 The North and South Meath Parliamentary elections were held on 17 February 1893 and Michael Davitt and Patrick Fulham of the Irish National Federation were elected as MPs. However, because of undue interference in the election process by the clergy the result was declared void and James Gibney and Jeremiah Jordan of the Irish National Federation were declared elected..

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when he visited Ireland in 1887. Since then I have contributed stories, articles all manner of things to many journals and magazines at both sides of the Atlantic. In England I may mention the National Observer, the Spectator, the Anti-Jacobin,336 Atlanta, Good Words, etc, etc. I hope these facts have some bearing on what you ask. yours very truly Katharine Tynan May I congratulate you on your librarianship?337 An excellent appointment for them. [added at the letterhead] In the Love Songs I had to regret writing because I was given so little space.338

336

The revived title Anti-Jacobin ran from 1 January 1891 to 16 January 1892. He had become assistant secretary of the London branch of the Irish Literary Society, founded in 1892. 338 Katharine’s selection of Irish Love-Songs. 337

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To Samuel Sydney McClure339 MS Lilly. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 18 February 1893 Dear Mr McClure, I am sending by this mail a letter by a friend of mine a Professor Tyrrell who goes to lecture at John Hopkins next month.340 As it is an eminently dignified letter perhaps your friend the Critic would take it,341 or it ought to interest the newspapers of Baltimore and Richmond. very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan

339

The Irish-born American publisher Samuel McClure (1857-1949) ran a literary syndicate and published the monthly McClure’s Magazine from June 1893. 340 Robert Yelverton Tyrrell (1844-1914), Regius professor of Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, 1880-98. His lectures at Johns Hopkins were published as Latin Poetry: Lectures delivered in 1893 on the Percy Turnbull Memorial Foundation in the Johns Hopkins University (Boston and New York: 1895). He published The Correspondence of Cicero in 7 vols, (1879–1900). Katharine’s future husband Harry Hinkson contributed an article on Tyrrell in the Daily Graphic, 28 February 1893 and also “Prof. Tyrrell at Johns Hopkins”, Critic, 11 March 1893. Katharine has a chapter on Tyrrell in her Memories. 341 Not published in either McClure’s or the Critic.

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To John O’Leary342 MS UCD. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 16 March 1893 My dear Mr O’Leary, I have been intending all the week to write and ask you and Willie Yeats to come on Sunday.343 Do you think you could? It is far too long since I have seen you. The proposed article would be only on Jacobite songs, not songs written by Jacobites. There was a book of yours would help us,—was it Reliques of Irish Poetry?344 I don’t think Miss Gould got any but women-poets. The little green paper-covered Edward Walsh is what I want.345 I suppose I ought to see Hardiman.346 I am myself disgusted with the Speaker. It has no one but G. now.347 I don’t know how many things of mine they have. But I will write about them next week. I will do Mr Clarke’s book in the next set of reviews,348—but I have two sets, as well as a second article on William Bell Scott’s Autobiographical Notes, waiting to go in.349 I have been crushed out for so long by Meath and this precious Home Rule bill that books have accumulated on my hands. Do you notice my birthday leaders? The last was on Henley & Stevenson’s Plays.350 I hope you will be able to come on Sunday. After Easter I shall be in Donegal for a couple of weeks.351 342

See p. 86. According to John Kelly’s A W. B. Yeats Chronology (2003) he visited on Friday 17 March with John O’Leary. 344 Does she mean Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry (Dublin: 1789)? 345 Irish Popular Songs (Dublin: 1847). The Irish poet Edward Walsh (1805-50). 346 James Hardiman (1790-1855) was librarian at Queen’s College, Galway. He published Irish Minstrelsy or Bardic Remains of Ireland with English Poetical Translations in 1831. 347 This is not Gladstone but G.M. i.e. George Moore. 348 Not done. 349 Katharine’s contributions in the Speaker for 1893 were: unsigned, “English Bards and Scottish Reviewers”, 21 January 1893; Katharine Tynan, “The Irish Houses of Parliament”, 29 April 1893; K.T., “A Literary Causerie. Irish FolkLore”, 8 July 1893; Katharine Tynan, “A Book-Lover”, 30 September 1893. No second article on William Bell Scott has been identified. 350 Not found. Three Plays (1892). 351 Katharine was visiting Donegal for background information for a commission to write “An Ode for the Opening of the Irish Village at Chicago” and the article “The Cottage Industries of Donegal” in the Guide to The Irish Industrial Village and Blarney Castle (1893) at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, from 1 May to 30 October 1893. Katharine records her visit to Donegal in Middle Years (ch. “Lady Aberdeen and Donegal”). 343

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yours always K.T. Please ask Willie Yeats for me.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 27 April 1893 Dearest, Papa has decided that I go by the mail on Monday morning.352 I shall arrive at Euston at a quarter to six. He says I am to travel first-class, on account of the occasion. He gave me a cheque for £150 yesterday. I have had to pay some things out of this but shall have at least a clear £130 to start with. We might keep the furniture within the £30, perhaps. There’s rather a hitch about the furniture group, but I don’t think it matters. Captain Clarke, the man Pa knows, who would take special care of it and Pat,353 is not sailing until Saturday week, and Pa thinks it best to keep back the things till then. It’s as well in a way for there will be less to get or order before our marriage, and we shall be able to do the rest leisurely during our honeymoon week. I’m bringing over as much linen as we’ll need for the few days before the things come. We won’t mind picnicking a little till they do. We can furnish the bedroom and dining room next week,—at least the latter as much as we intend to at first. Pa wishes us to keep with the National Bank. He says it will be more convenient in any future money transactions he will have with us and he feels indebted to the National, as they’ve been very good to him. I knew you would agree so I’m getting my account transferred this week to the Charing Cross branch of the National Bank. Our linen stock, which was reinforced to-day by two tablecloths a doz. napkins, and ½ dozen bath towels from Anna Johnston 352

In a letter to Coventry Patmore 26 April 1893 (Alice Letters, 68), Alice writes I fear that the ground is likely to cumbered for this Saturday. For Katharine Tynanʊhardly expectedʊarrives on Monday, to be married on Thursday. She wants to return here and not to join until she can get a priest to give her some kind of benediction. How long that will take I cannot tell. Lady Colin’s mother arrived last night. Even if she makes a short visit, the presence of K.T., in tears generally, would prevent Wilfrid and me from having many quiet smokes with you.

Katharine stayed with the Meynells prior to the wedding and Harry stayed at Pembroke Villa, Tudor Road, Norbiton. They were married on 4 May 1893 at the Register Office, Kingston, and started married life in Ealing, London. It appears that the Meynells did not attend the ceremony as they were not the witnesses and also that being Catholics, as was Katharine, would not have approved of a nonChurch wedding, as Henry Hinkson was a Protestant. 353 Katharine’s St Bernard.

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amounts to a really splendid thing. The Macintoshes’ lot is magnificent. There must be at least £10 worth. Preston joined us, you know. Mrs Gill took us yesterday to see our dinner service.354 It is all over roses and other flowers,—a lovely thing. I also got two silver salt-cellars yesterday from Pocock, and two pairs of carvers, silver mounted from a friend of Nora’s. I wonder how you’ll get on with Father Dawson!355 Au revoir, darling, and God bless you. We shall have to be awfully good to Pa some day for this. I never could tell you how tender he is. your loving K.T. I think it best not to say I’d take the carpet when Pa says it’s not worth while. We’ll cover the floor with matting. He’ll pay carriage to London Mrs Power found enclosed among some old papers, and gave it to me for you.

354 355

Mary Julia Gill. Fr Thomas Dawson, O.M.I. (1850-1939).

II ENGLAND “O green and fresh your English sod With daises sprinkled over; But greener far were the fields I trod, And the honeyed Irish clover.”

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing, London. W. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin. 7 May 1893 Dearest Alice, I was saying to Harry this morning that I imagined Wilfrid saying, ‘James, dear, I wonder how the love-birds at Ealing are getting on!’ Well, if he wondered, tell him we are as happy as any birds or people ever were this side of Paradise. We have a most wonderful servant,—unfortunately only a loan,—who has made everything plain-sailing for us so far. We want you and Wilfrid to come down and see us in our little house any day after next Saturday. We are getting our furniture from Dublin on Thursday, and the house will be upset for a couple of days. Could you manage Sunday, Monday or Tuesday? We will have vermouth for you, as Harry says it’s a favourite liquid of yours, and you can dig potatoes and be loved and admired by two grateful and loving people. We are getting pretty things every hour almost. Last night we got a lovely Benson lamp.1 But we will show you everything but since you are so sweet and dear as to care. I hope Wilfrid is not tired or suffering with his eyes. The dear fellow was not so bright as we want him to be during those few days: I noticed that though I was full of my own anxieties. They have all gone now however, and I am immeasurably happy. Harry is so good and tender and sweet-tempered. He set up my Crucifix for us on the wall, and my little lamp, which I keep lighting before a picture of the our Lord he keeps filled and lighted. Love, very dear to you, my sweetest of women, and to Wilfrid. your own loving Katie. (K. little T. Harry calls me) Address The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing.

1

William Arthur Smith Benson (1854-1924) was articled to Basil Champneys (1842-1935) after Oxford but decided eventually to design and work metal and by 1887 had established a showroom in Bond Street, London. He was a founder member of the Art-Workers’ Guild in 1883. His friendship with William Morris led him to become the first chairman of William Morris & Co. in 1896. He produced many domestic articles and lamps of varying designs.

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It must be some day in the week following next that we meet the Bellocs as we shall be so busy next with the furniture from home.2 Harry is in ecstasies of measuring for carpeting, curtains etc. It would make even a woman who didn’t love him happy to see his happiness.

2

Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829-1925), journalist, poet and writer, married Louis Belloc (1830-72) in 1867. She was the mother of the writer Hilaire Belloc and the novelist Marie Belloc later Lowndes. She was a co-editor of the English Woman’s Journal and an advocate of women’s rights. Parkes had become a Catholic in 1864.

II. England

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 8 July 1893 Dearest Alice, I am enclosing an advt. of Harry’s, which Wilfrid promised to put in the Register.3 I have been wanting to write to you ever since the day I brought my dear Father to Palace Court. You were so sweet, but then you always fulfil one’s highest ideals more than any other woman in the world could. There is no one like you,—no one. You never fall below what one expects from you,—you alone. It was dear of you to come down in your pretty tea-gown and your diamonds for my dear Father,—only an old Irish farmer, but the finest man and gentleman conceivable. He was delighted with you. I felt stronger so long that day, but did not feel that you would permit yourself to feel that I or mine bored you, or that you could be a fraction less than absolutely sincere in asking us to stay. Dear Alice,—I love you more than any woman in the world, and understand all the things that make you so lovely. Harry has been in Ireland for a week, during which I lived in a state of suspended animation. He has been back since yesterday morning, and we feel as if we were newly married, only better. I wish you could come down here and see our fields. We have discovered some exquisite ones, which might be in Ireland. You would have to cross a gate, and Wilfrid said you would break a limb doing that, and you would hate it, but that I believe to be one of Wilfrid’s characteristic exaggerations. You didn’t come to Graham Tomson’s after all,4 and I was 3

Weekly Register, 15 July 1893 ARMY and University Tutor, living in the best part of Ealing, has a vacancy for one or two pupils preparing for the Army, University, Civil Service, or Public Schools. Cricket, tennis, etc. Excellent swimming baths within ten minutes’ walk.—Address, TUTOR, The Weekly Register Office, 43, Essex Street, Strand, W.C.

4

As Rosamund Ball (1860-1911) she had married George Francis Armytage (1853–1921), then the artist Arthur Graham Tomson (1859–1905) and finally, after being divorced by him in July 1895, she became the common law wife of the writer Henry Brereton Marriott Watson (1863–1921). Prior to living with Marriott Watson she had adopted the name Graham R. Tomson for her literary work. She contributed articles on fashion as well as poetry to the Scots Observer, later National Observer and other journals. She published Tares in 1884, The BirdBride (1889) and A Summer Night (1891). She edited Sylvia’s Journal January 1892-June 1894. Katharine probably met her at the founding dinner of the Literary

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watching for you all afternoon. Papa’s sideboard is awfully nice I want you and Wilfrid to see it. Good-bye, dearest Alice. Love to Wilfrid. ever your loving K.H.

Ladies (Women Writers Dinner) at the Criterion Restaurant, London, on 31 May 1889. Katharine gives an account of this in Memories (36-7).

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Katharine to Alice Meynell 8 July 1893

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To an unknown recipient MS Manchester. [The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing] [28 July 1893]5 ...professes apparently. I have a new one coming in shortly. She is a little black one, as sharp as a needle. She was recommended to me as absolutely invaluable. She is undertaking washing, ironing, and all. She objects to living where another servant is kept. I am giving her £20, but shall not grudge if she be what she is represented. She is cheaper than paying one £16, and having a laundress at 2/6 a day and her dinner weekly. She was sent to me by the lady at the Victoria Wine Company about whom I told you perhaps, who is our friend’s philosopher, and friend. Yesterday we met Maarten Maartens and Barrie at Dr Nicoll’s.6 It was splendid lunch,— more elaborate than a dinner party. Hors d’oevres of lobster, cold salmon, veal and peas in aspic jelly, salad, cold lamb, game, game, pudding, ices, strawberries and cream, & coffee. I, of course, had to eschew the meats, which looked fascinating. There were also present two young ladies, a Baroness Somebody, a Mr Espinasse and Sir George Douglas.7 I sat beside Dr Nicoll with Barrie at my right hand, Maarten Maartens opposite. He is a big handsome delightful fellow, and speaks English better than an Englishman. Barrie is a tiny, yellow, rather dirty looking man, and very cold and shy. Mrs Nicoll had warned me about him when she called here.8 So I didn’t speak to him much at first. However when the conversation got on books he seemed to appreciate most of the things I liked, and presently when I found,—to my immense surprise,—that he was absolutely devoted to Mr Parnell as I myself, we became friends. Lunch [rest of letter missing] 5

Dated from Katharine’s “Books and Bookmen in London”, Literary World, 29 July 1893, where she comments on the lunch noted in this letter. 6 Katharine describes this visit in her Middle Years (99). The novelist (Sir) James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937). The journalist and writer William Robertson Nicoll (1851-1923) was editor of the British Weekly from 1886 until his death. In 1891 he founded the Bookman. He was knighted in 1909. Maarten Maartens, pen name of the Dutch writer Jozua Marius Willem van der Poorten Schwartz (1858-1915). 7 The writer and journalist Francis Espinasse (1823-1912) was the son of a French immigrant who lived in Edinburgh. At one time he was assistant keeper of books at the British Museum. He published a life of Voltaire in 1892. The fifth baronet and landowner Sir George Brisbane Scott Douglas (1856-1935) was a writer on Scottish subjects and a friend of Thomas Hardy. 8 Nicoll’s first wife Isa (Isabella) died the following year and Nicoll remarried in 1897.

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To Henry Austin Dobson9 MS London. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing 18 August 1893 Dear Sir, I send you the Irish Daily Independent of yesterday, hoping you will not despise a “mere Irish” tribute, and from a neighbour too.10 What I have said expresses poorly the keen and exquisite pleasure your work has always given me. I know much of it by heart. Trusting you will not consider me intrusive, I am, dear Sir yours very truly Katharine Tynan Hinkson

9

Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921), poet and writer on 18th century literature, worked at the Board of Trade. 10 Irish Daily Independent, 17 August 1893. This was a third leader and was indeed a tribute and an outline of Dobson’s development.

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To Alice Meynell MS Manchester. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing 28 August 1893 Dearest Alice, I meant to come in to-morrow and take my chance of seeing you,—but my best of husbands says “not this week”. He is really afraid of the wind blowing too roughly on me, which seems absurd, for I have always been so strong. I had a little illness last month,—a miscarriage—which was actually on the evening we dined with you, but I was too ignorant to know. That makes Harry redouble his watchfulness. You heard about my poor darling Frances Wynne.11 It was a great grief to us. For two or three days I was sick with sorrow, longing so much to have her back here, be better to her,—and magnifying any short coming I ever had towards her, into crimes. Harry was so good and patient even when I sat through meals with the tears flowing down my checks. But the thing that helped me most was when her people began to turn to me as one of themselves in their trouble, and I found I could even comfort her poor husband. He is coming to us for a quiet day this week. I had such a longing that she might come tapping at my window as she used to do, and then running in, that one day when someone came in that way, I felt my pen fall, and just gasped at them. She was wonderfully fond of me, and it seemed to me I never knew how I cared for her till she was beyond being well. She used to say as you said once that I was cold, because I usedn’t to respond to her kisses, but I didn’t grieve for her, coldly. It is only a kind of shyness makes me not respond. I am going to do you for the Sketch, darling, if you don’t mind, and I’m sure you won’t.12 That was one reason why I wanted to see you this week, 11 Frances Wynne had died on 9 August. Katharine’s “Frances Wynne” appeared in Longman’s Magazine, 1 November 1893. She also contributed “Frances Wynne: A Memory” in Wynne’s Whisper! a second edition of her poetry published in 1908. In an interview in The Lady of the House, 15 June 1893, Frances Wynne stated, when asked how the publication of her Whisper came about

Well, primarily through making, almost by accident, the acquaintance of Miss Katherine Tynan—I was intensely struck by the beauty of her poetry. She gave me many valuable hints—for example, as to making each verse rhyme and not alternate verses. By her I was introduced to Father Russell, S.J., the kindly editor of the Irish Monthly, and he took my first printed poem, “The First Cuckoo,” after she had brushed it over. 12

“Mrs Wilfrid Meynell. By Katharine Tynan”, Sketch, 20 September 1893.

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though my loving you was reason enough. But you are somehow far away and seem as if you can do without people, even if you can’t. All the same you are my ideal woman of all now living. My dear Frances was always running down to see me: I never went to see her at all, though she wanted me so much, poor darling. But she has forgiven every shortcomings. I felt so sadly when she was gone that no one else—no friend, I mean, was always desiring to see me as she was. I wish the Sketch could have the picture of yourself that you have in the room I slept in for reproduction. The photograph doesn’t do you justice. I think I can interview you, if necessary for the Sketch without seeing you. Perhaps they will put it in the English Illustrated, as they are doing with my sketch of Miss Barlow,13 because it is too good for the Sketch. My new volume of poems is to be with Elkin Mathews & Lane on Friday.14 Au revoir, my dear, I’ll come next week, I hope, to see you; & don’t bother you to come to me because you are so busy. Love to Wilfrid your loving K.H.

13

It was not in the English Illustrated Magazine but Katharine published “The Author of ‘Irish Idylls’” in the Sketch, 17 January 1894. The Irish novelist and poet Jane Barlow (1857-1917) published her Irish Idylls, a collection of short stories, in 1892. Katharine had reviewed Irish Idylls in the Bookman, December 1892. She published “A Chat with Miss Jane Barlow”, Sylvia’s Journal, November 1894 and “Miss Jane Barlow” in the Catholic World, April 1899. She also published “A Chat with Alice Meynell”, Sylvia’s Journal, October 1893. Jane Barlow is given a chapter in Katharine’s Memories. 14 Cuckoo Songs (1894).

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. [?September 1893] [last four pages of the letter] was over too soon, for I had no words with him afterwards. He said he and G. felt the same, and that no one could have grieved over Mr Parnell’s death more. It made me love him, whereas otherwise I should have disliked him. You asked about our little house. Well, the dining room is on one side of a very tiny hall. It is a big room, and is papered in a green-blue. My picture is over the mantelpiece and Mr Parnell’s on the other wall. We have a Benson lamp that Hetty Sigerson gave us hanging over our diningtable.15 At the end of the room, when we can afford it we shall have a sideboard, stands one of my bookcases full of china. In a corner is my corner-cupboard likewise full of china,—a little table is by the wall, and there are chairs. My room is opposite it. It is as like as we can make it to my Whitehall room, and is very pretty and cool. It has a French window opening out on the lawn, and has folding doors opening onto Harry’s den which looks out on the garden at the back. The kitchen, scullery, etc are behind the dining room: a delightful wee kitchen, and it and the scullery excellently fitted up, and supplied with cupboards: a glass door goes out in the garden. It is a long narrow little garden, very full of fruit. An arch of roses leads is over the path leading down. There is a grass plot before you come to that, outside the garden there are fields. Up-stairs there is a dear little long corridor opening down to the w.c. and bathroom,—a grand bathroom, with the window framed in ivy. At the other end my room opens off. It is painted terra cotta, and is the perfection of cleanliness, with its white enamelled furniture decorated in blue. A great many of my pretty things are set out there. Then there is the room where Nora sleeps,16 a little green room, and a yellow room at the back, and the servant’s room into which you descend three steps. All the room are a charming shape, and all, except ours have wall cupboards. Everyone says the house is delightful. Mrs Morley was here the other day—just the same old thing. I’m all right now, thank goodness, about certain matters. I think I’d rather a worse time than most people. Nora put up red blinds over all the front of the house. It is a little grey house with windows, and a huge chestnut tree in front. I manage the dinners, and two small joints a week, with a bit of veal, or 15

Anna Hester (“Hetty”) Sigerson (1870-1939), daughter of Dr George Sigerson. She married Arthur Donn Piatt (1868-1914), American Vice-Consul in Dublin, in 1900. 16 Katharine’s sister.

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cutlets one evening, does. We have fish generally twice. We generally cut the joints in two if no one is coming, and have two evenings of roast meat,—the third mince with a bit of fish. That is about the routine. We have our own fruit, and have gooseberries and custard, rhubarb, or stewed currants. Good-bye, darling. I must try and get some work done while my lord is down at the swimming baths. He has a day off, and a friend here pretending to garden with him. He gets additional work every week. He has now from three to four hours daily.17 I married him on one hour’s work a week though. I told no one that. He is now getting up Constitutional History to take some of Raymond’s personal work off his hands. Best love to your Harry and the dear boys. your loving K.T.

17

Katharine notes in a letter to Fr Russell, 3 August 1893, that Harry was teaching at Mr Maguire’s, an army crammer. This may well have been at 12 and 14 Earl’s Court Square, London. In the same letter Katharine notes that Harry was teaching five hours a day. In another letter to Fr Russell Katharine reports that there had been complaints about Harry’s attitude to the boys and that Harry would offer to resign (29 May 1894). There is nothing to suggest that Harry stayed at the crammers but instead was working on his “first original—the hero of which is an Irish priest!” (28 August 1894 to Fr Russell).

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To Clement King Shorter18 MS Brotherton. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing 6 September 1893 Dear Mr Shorter, A few hours before your memo. reached me, I had a note from Dr Robertson Nicoll asking me to do a thousand words on W.B. Yeats for the Bookman.19 His article will appear in any case, whether I did it or not,—as he has a photograph engraved. In these circumstances perhaps you would not care for the an article anyway. If I were to do the two I should make yours the more personal, his the more literary. Will you kindly let me know?20 I could do an interview with Miss Rossetti if you cared for it:21 I have often visited her. Another young poet Miss Dora Sigerson, is perhaps to little too new a comer to be eligible for the Sketch but she is a lovely creature,22 and her picture would be most attractive. very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson To Mr Clement K. Shorter I send a picture of Miss Sigerson as warranty, but there is a prettier one yet. Mrs Meynell’s photograph has not yet reached me. I could get a sketch of W. B. Yeats by his father, if you wished.

18 The journalist and editor Clement King Shorter (1857-1926) wrote for the Star and the Queen before he became editor of the Illustrated London News in 1891 and in 1893 of the English Illustrated Magazine and of the Sketch. 19 Katharine’s “W. B. Yeats”, Bookman, October 1893, included a photograph. 20 Katharine’s “William Butler Yeats” appeared in the Sketch, 29 November 1893. Katharine was herself interviewed as “A Sweet Singer from over the Sea: a Chat with Katharine Tynan”, Sketch 13 September 1893. 21 Katharine’s “The Poetry of Christina Rossetti” appeared in the Bookman, December 1893. 22 The Irish writer and poet Dora Mary Sigerson (1866-1918) published her first collection of poems Verses in 1893. She was a contributor to many journals such as the Irish Monthly, the Nation, United Ireland, the Boston Pilot, and the Catholic Times. She married Shorter in 1896. Katharine has a chapter on Dora in her Memories.

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To Frederick Langbridge MS Lasner. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 15 November 1893 Dear Mr Langbridge, I am glad the Old Country is by way of succeeding so well.23 I intended to notice it in the Independent, but someone forestalled me. It is really the only place where I could do that special kind of notice. When I see the annual I will do a little sub-leader on it for the Independent. I am sending you on approval, for the other thing, the only story I happen to have by me. I will see you get a copy of A Cluster of Nuts.24 I will have almost enough material for a new volume by the time it is issued, as they are returning me six stories. I gave them twenty originally, but they thought 23 Langbridge’s intended monthly The Old Country was first published in December 1893 as a Christmas annual: there were no subsequent publications. Katharine contributed her poem “November Eve” and W B Yeats contributed “Michael Clancy, the Great Dhoul, and Death”. Langbridge advertised the annual in United Ireland (4 November 1893) as

The Old Country, the new Christmas Annual which we have the honour to introduce to the public represents—not a creed, or a parry, or a province; not an interest, an -ism, or a hobby—but the Literature of Ireland. While fully assured that Irishmen will regard with kindly good will a genuine Irish Magazine, we feel that it is expecting too much of patriotism to ask it to give a penny for a halfpenny bun, because it is homemanufactured. We offer, therefore, a large bun, with plenty of currants. The Old Country consists of 200 royal octavo pages, well printed, on good paper, and profusely illustrated by the best and newest processes. Eschewing politics and theology, and all controversial matters, we have tried to make its pages light and bright, pure and wholesome. We hope that our readers will enjoy many hearty laughs—laughs of which it may be said: “There is not a heart-ache in a hogshead of them.” Not that serious interest will be lacking. There is the story with a grip; the song that reaches the heart. The harmless necessary ghost unobtrusively keeps his tryst, and other seasonable “creeps” are not lacking. Our pages will be found distinctively, but aggressively, Irish. They smack, but not thump, of the soil. For we look for a welcome in Great Britain, and in Greater Britain, as well as in the Old Country. The Bill of Fare will, we venture to believe, tempt the very coyest shilling out of its owner’s pocket. 24

A Cluster of Nuts: being Sketches among My Own People (Lawrence and Bullen: 1894).

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there was too little for a 6/ book, and too much for a 3s. 6d., as they are using only fourteen.25 Then I have five others done. They said if the first volume was a success they would be very glad to publish a second as soon as I had the material ready.26 I should like to know about your series however, which, I imagine, you are editing for some publisher. Is that so? With your letter last night I had a letter from a new firm of publishers saying they hoped I would give them a book one of these days. I am glad the portrait was in time after all. I’m afraid I have left something in your letter unanswered but I have somehow mislaid it since last night, and have only found an empty envelope in its place on my desk. The Annual and the magazine have my best and most cordial wishes. I must try a paragraph in the Echo about the Annual.27 They used the only para. I ever sent them. With my best regards. ever cordially yours Katharine Hinkson

25

There were seventeen stories. Lawrence & Bullen did not publish any more of her stories but did publish her novel The Way of a Maid and her Poems (1901). 27 Nothing found. 26

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 10 January 1894 Dearest Alice, I was so stupid as to get a cold, standing by my draughty door-window on Monday feeding the birds. If I could have stayed in bed yesterday I could have got rid of it, but I had Norman Gale,28 —a very pleasant person—to lunch, and for the afternoon. So when Harry came home and found me so back with it he wouldn’t hear of my going out to-day—and work by Wilfrid—but ordered a hot foot-bath , punch and bed. It is sweet to be tyrranized* over by the man one’s whole heart is given to. But I am sorry to behave so badly to you, my dearest (of women.) I have just got up now to write a few letters. My dear little Irish girl comes this evening, and it will be a real joy. Will you have us next week—any evening but Tuesday? I’m ashamed to offer our presence again after so many disappointments. My cold is a good deal better. I’ve reclined in bed all day with grease on my nose, Harry being out and no one but Pat and my maid to see me.29 You’ll be glad to hear that all of a sudden my wretched sickness seems to have departed. I am rejoicing, and taking wild liberties with my new freedom. I drank the other evening beer, tea, ginger-beer and orangeade in rapid succession with no ill results. I have some pots of home-made jam and jelly to send you for the children, but am waiting till my new maid comes to pack them. Lizzie is getting married on Saturday, and is so busy making the house spotless before she goes that I dare not disturb her. How is Wilfrid? your ever loving K. *This looks queer.

28 The writer and poet Norman Rowland Gale (1862-1922) who was well-known for his cricket poems and A Country Muse (1892). 29 Pat was the dog.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 6 April 1894 Wilfrid dear, Forgive my not coming to-day, as I should love to under other circumstances. I feel too dowdy and generally unpresentable to go to Lady Lindsay’s for the first time.30 I should mind less perhaps if I had known her before. This lovely Spring weather makes me feel more dowdy than if the days were dark. I have not been in town since the 6th of March, and feel inclined only for my modest country walks in my oldest clothes and with the dogs. I wish you and Alice could come down some afternoon, but I don’t ask you lest it should be an exaction. We love each other enough to be sure without exactions. The country here is quite lovely now. The larks sing wonderfully these days and everything is budding and blossoming. Our little plum trees are all out in disjoined white. I know you’ll all forgive my not coming. Town doesn’t agree with me, and I am so splendidly well here. Harry is very well too, and grows better and dearer every day, if that were possible. My best love to Alice always. K.

30

The poet and writer of short stories Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Fitzroy (18441912) had married Sir Coutts Lindsay 2nd Bt (1824-1913) in 1864. She cofounded the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877 with her husband.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 10 May 1894 Dearest Alice, It was a disappointment that we couldn’t have you on the anniversary of our wedding. I hope you and Wilfrid will come as soon as the weather leaves off weeping: it is hard to believe it May now, except for the luxuriant greenery and the heavenly smells. But once the weather takes a turn it will be lovely for everything will be so fresh. I have been wanting to tell you that Harry has yielded about the baby after all;31 it is to be a Catholic in any case, and Father Dawson is to baptize it. I know how glad you and Wilfrid will be. When I say “yielded” it is scarcely the right word, for there was no pressure. I had only to ask him. He made no concession of it. I love him so much better every day it grows almost too much. I am very well, thank God. I am sure you who have always had such bad times will be amazed at me. I am blooming and rosy and plump, and I am working away regularly. I got my little volume of Miracle-plays finished this week and sent to be read by Lawrence & Bullen.32 It is too long since we have seen you and Wilfrid, but Harry won’t let me go to town though I have fine country walks here every day. Harry Wynne has been here this afternoon, and we have had a fresh walk in the wet country. We have been journeying,—my Harry and I—that we recognized Wilfrid among the occ. poets of the Pall Mall.33 I wonder if 31

This resulted in a stillborn baby. In a marriage between a Catholic and a nonCatholic agreement had to be reached that any children would be brought up as Catholics. Harry was not a Catholic. Katharine commented on Harry in a letter, 18 December 1893, to Fr Russell Thank God Harry is wonderfully kindly disposed towards Catholics and Catholicism now. I don't mean that I see any likelihood of his becoming a Catholic but whereas he had very bitter engrained prejudices at one time he is now entirely friendly, and always champions the Church when it is a question between it and Protestantism. 32 Miracle Plays: Our Lord’s Coming and Childhood was eventually published by Stone and Kimball of Chicago and John Lane at The Bodley Head in 1895. Katharine had previously published “The Purification. A Miracle Play”, Ave Maria, 4 February 1893 and “The Annunciation. A Miracle Play”, Sylvia’s Journal, December 1893. 33 The Pall Mall Gazette, under the editorship of John Henry (Harry) Cockayne Cust (1861-1917), ran an unsigned occasional poem.

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Wilfrid recognized me? Mr Cust edited me so generously that I was no doubt less recognizable than usual. Do you know you have a devotee who writes stories in the Quiver? That very Protestant little magazine is sent to me every month for review, and one of the serials has almost every chapter headed by a quotation from you.34 Pray for me that I may be kept very well for Harry’s sake. With best love to you and Wilfrid,—I know you will both come as soon as the weather improves. ever your very loving K. I’ve got a very nice nurse and doctor and a wonderfully good friend here who takes all mundane responsibilities off my shoulders.

34

For example, the eleventh verse from Alice Meynell’s “A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age” was quoted above the text of chapter IX of E. S. Curry’s “Miss Gayle of Lescough”, Quiver, May 1894. The verse was Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded; Only one morning, and the day was clouded; And one old age with all regrets is crowded. Other chapters of the story also have quotations from Alice.

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To the Editor, The Literary World MS Morgan. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 23 June 1894 Dear Sir, If you have ever any reviewing to give away, will you think of me?35 perhaps in the holiday season some of you regular reviewers may temporarily drop off whereas I shall be having a very quiet time in Ireland, recovering after an illness, and should be glad of work. I might sign myself truly a “Constant Reader”, as I am. very truly yours Katharine (Tynan) Hinkson

35

Katharine’s first contribution had been “Books and Bookmen in London”, 29 July 1893 and she had reviewed the first volume (April 1894) of the Yellow Book in the Boston Literary World, 2 June 1894, in her “London Letter” remarking: “To my mind it is just a rather elaborate magazine, not differing greatly from other magazines except by displaying the eccentric influence of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, which gives it its individuality.” She later reviewed the January 1895 issue in the Literary World, 9 March 1895 extolling the art of “a young man of genius”, the illustrator Patten Wilson (1869-1934). From 24 February 1894 she wrote the “London Letter” finishing with 24 August 1895.

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To John Lane36 MS Stanford. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin. 9 July 189437 Dear Mr Lane, We are here for a month’s change and rest as both of us have been laid up. If you are sending books they might perhaps come here for the present. We expect to be at home again by mid-August. I have a little volume of Miracle Plays, which I think ought to make a good Christmas book, especially if illustrated. There are six in all,—the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation, Flight into Egypt and Finding in the Temple. They are interleaved with little lyrics. Would you consider them with a view to publication next Christmas? If so I shall forward them. Believe me, dear Mr Lane, very faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

36

John Lane (1854-1925) in partnership with Charles Elkin Mathews (1851-1921) established the Bodley Head publishers in 1887 in London. Eventually both partners were not compatible as businessmen and the partnership ceased on 30 September 1894. Lane then moved his business across the street and ensured that the Bodley Head was at the forefront of publishing in the 1890s. Mathews continued as a publisher in the old Bodley Head building. 37 On the same date Katharine writes to Fr Russell that: “Harry is very busy with his first original story— the hero of which is an Irish priest! We are always talking of you. Harry loves you. He has translated two German stories for the Ave Maria since we got back.” They do not appear to have been published.

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To Charles Elkin Mathews38 MS Reading. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 28 August 1894 Dear Mr Matthews [sic], Since I got your letters after we returned from Ireland I have been thinking about the Cuckoo Songs question.39 I don’t think how I could take that special book from Lane if he wishes to have it, since he made all arrangements with me about it. But I should be very glad to offer you a book later if you would care to consider one. I have quite enough material for a book about Irish stories, and should be glad to submit it to you,40 but I should not care to have it published till spring as my Cluster of Nuts will not be a year old till March, and would not be fair to Lawrence & Bullen to publish a second collection so soon. With best wishes. Believe me, dear Mr Matthews [sic], very truly yours Katharine Hinkson 38

See p. 181n. Katharine’s Cuckoo Songs was published by Mathews and Lane with Copeland & Day of Boston in 1894. The poems received a very favourable review in the Bookman, April 1894. The Irish Monthly, June 1894, noted the complimentary reviews by the press in general. Katharine sent a copy to the Meynells with the inscription “With K.T’s best love to her ever-dear Wilfrid and Alice. February 20th 1894”. 40 Katharine’s An Isle in the Water: Short Stories was, in fact, published by A. and C. Black in 1895. It received a damning review by Elsa D’Esterre Keeling in the Academy, 5 October 1895 39

Mrs Hinkson cannot write prose; and her case is one not so uncommon with those of her country that it is perhaps no wonder that she herself refuses to admit it. The list of excellent prose-writers produced by Ireland is a long one; the list of excellent poets is very small. To this fine minority Mrs Hinkson belongs. She can sing a song; she cannot tell a story. She can make a poem, but—this cannot be too strongly emphasised—she cannot write prose. In the attempt to do so she ceases to be an artist, and becomes a scribbler. The Irish Monthly, October 1895, was of a different opinion and stated that Katharine “was more of a storyteller than she has hitherto shown herself”. The New York Times, 21 March 1896, noted that: “All the stories were well told and typical of Irish manners and customs.”

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To Miss Christie41 MS Texas. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 28 September 1894 My dear Miss Christie, I was born in Dublin,—I’d better not tell you the precise year,—but I am still in the earliest thirties. I was educated (?) at the Dominican Convent of St Catharine of Sienna, Drogheda, which I left at the mature age of 14½ years. I have lived pretty well all my life at Whitehall, Clondalkin, a thatched farmhouse, amid exquisite scenery, just under the Dublin mountains. My first book Louise de la Vallière appeared in 1885,—the second Shamrocks in 1887, the third Ballads & Lyrics in 1892. These were all poetry. In 1891 I published my first prose book A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order: Being a Sketch of the Life of Mother Xaviera Fallon, Sometime Superior General of the Loretto Institute in Ireland. This year a volume of poems, Cuckoo-Songs was published by Mathews & Lane, and the Cluster of Nuts, as you know. I have also edited Irish Love Songs for Fisher Unwin’s Cameo Series. This Christmas Mr Lane publishes my Miracle Plays, and I hope to have another volume of short stories ready for next Spring. I have just begun my first novel, a story of Irish life.42 I was married in May of last year, and came to live here. Is that enough? very truly yours Katharine Hinkson (Katharine Tynan)

41 42

Possibly an unknown admirer or for a directory. The Way of a Maid.

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To the Editor, Kerry Sentinel The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 30 September 1894 Dear Sir, I must thank you for the kindly reference in a recent issue of yours to my article in the current English Illustrated Magazine on Match-making Customs in Munster,43 but at the same time to defend myself against your suggestion that the subject is worked up for the English market. I grant you that the illustrations of the article lend themselves to the idea, but then I am as innocent of them as you are. I quite agree with you that Mr. Dudley Hardy’s pictures, clever as he is, are, in this case, conventional and most unlifelike.44 As a matter of fact the time is past when an Irish writer need work up for the English market. The pressingly sincere work of Miss Barlow, Miss Lawless45 and others has happily done away with so degrading a necessity, though I doubt I should personally have at any time conformed to such a need. I wrote the article from my own observation and that of friends more conversant with Munster customs than I am, I should be very grateful if you would insert these few lines. Believe me, dear sir, Very truly yours, Katharine Tynan Hinkson

43

Katharine Tynan, “Match-Making Customs in Munster’, English Illustrated Magazine, October 1894. “Notes and News”, Kerry Sentinel, 22 September 1894. 44 The painter and illustrator Dudley Hardy (1867-1922) who illustrated for many journals and newspapers, including the Illustrated London News, Black and White, and the Graphic. He married Mrs Lizzie Burnside, of Toronto, in August 1899. Katharine gives him a chapter in her Memories where she refers to Dudley’s wife as Peggy. 45 The historical novelist the Hon. Emily Lawless (1845-1913). Her best work was Grania (1892).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 28 January 1895 Dearest Alice, I have been wishing very much for a word from you to prove that I was in your thoughts. Harry’s six dinners have all come and gone except one, but I have dread them in solitude occasionally mingling my tears with my bread. I didn’t know how bad they could be, but I have felt so seedy that it was better to stay at home and go the bed early. My seediness is an increasing quantity and is always most disagreeable in the morning. It takes the salt and savour out of life. However I am half way through the time, if it lasts the same length as before, and I shall recover my elasticity with rebound about the end of February.46 I have felt greatly our isolation here since I have temporarily lost delight in my work,—our isolation from you most of all, for you are by far the dearest person in London town. Harry whose words physical and otherwise keep time with mine has felt the time rather sad too. To console ourselves we talk a great deal about the Kensington house. I am sure you feel the cold very much. You will let us come up as soon as I emerge from this. I’ve been working away. I re-wrote a quarter of my novel, the first quarter which was stiff and constrained. I’ve been publishing a good deal of occ. verse. The P.M.G. had two occ. poems of mine last week, a Spring poem, save the mark, on Thursday, and “The Occ. Bard’s Lament” on Friday.47 They have some verses about Codger too,48 and an article called “Suburban Neighbours”.49 If my next46

This is a puzzling statement. Katharine was two months into another pregnancy, see letter of 23 November 1895 to Alice Meynell. 47 “He knows, the rogue on the tree”, Pall Mall Gazette, 24 January 1895 and “The Occ. Bard’s Lament”, Pall Mall Gazette, 25 January 1895. Marie O’Neill notes that in one year alone Katharine contributed fifty poems to the PMG (“Katharine Tynan Hinkson: A Dublin Writer”, Dublin Historical Record, June 1987, 87). 48 One of her two dogs. Presumably the poem “Dog-Sleep”, Pall Mall Gazette, 14 May 1895. 49 The unsigned “Suburban Neighbours”, Pall Mall Gazette, 2 March 1895. Katharine wrote in her second paragraph Our acquaintance with our neighbour attached began stormily. We started life in the suburbs with a St Bernard dog, who being fresh from the country, was unused to the society of his fellow dog, and thought he but fulfilled his duty in turning the quiet avenue into a battle-ground. Large dogs he did his best to wipe out of existence. Small dogs he spared as they were civil. They have a small terrier next door. In his first interview with

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door neighbours discover it we shall have to leave Ealing at once. Best best love always. I hope dear Wilfrid and all the children are well, and yourself dearest. K.

our St Bernard he growled out of sheer nervousness, whereupon the St Bernard sat down upon him, and, stretching his paws in front of him assumed the finely benevolent look characteristic of his race.

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To Charles Elkin Mathews MS Reading. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 2 April 1895 Dear Mr Mathews, Harry will not be able to go to the Vagabonds on Thursday.50 He has been in bed for days with a sharp seasonal influenza and he must not get up till there is a warm bright day. Hope there is good news of Dublin Verses.51 With kind regards. very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

50 The New Vagabond Club was a London dining club. The Literary Year-Book for 1897 gives the Club as “Literary, artistic, and journalistic. Monthly dinner. Ladies’ nights twice a year”. 51 Henry Hinkson’s Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College (London: Elkin Mathews; Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co., Limited: 1895). The Athenaeum, 18 May 1895 comments that “Can T.C.D. be growing dull?”

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 9 May 1895 Dearest Alice, My father hasn’t yet come, but I don’t feel a bit lonely. The place is all in bloom and fragrance, and I am sitting here in the midst of it with a contented heart, contented ever to wait for Harry. You put me over my loneliness and it was stepping towards him to come back. I got home all right. Miss Butterfield, the friend who does so much for me, came to dinner, and the Blackwells came later, and stayed till nearly 11. I trust you could come now. All the apple-trees are in bloom, and the cuckoo calling out of the pink haze in the fields. Nothing would have been better than coming to you for that week. I feel the joy of living which I felt when I came back from Ireland last year. Codger greeted me with effusion tempered by his haste to find Harry who he supposed to be paying the cabman. He hasn’t quite got over the blankness of no Harry yet. Will you give me one of the Sargent prints when Wilfrid gets the supply?52 I want it for someone who has the tenderest feelings for your work. I think you lovelier and more gracious than ever. I wish you would do an Autolycus about yourself.53 If you could stand apart and look at yourself no one could do such justice to an exquisite woman as you. My love always, I commend Wilfrid to his old Violets Marys, etc. He wouldn’t stay in to say good-bye to a dull domestic person fool like me. I say fool because I think just like a honey hen. very tenderly loving K. He and we are quite well. How is little Francis?

52

The American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) produced a pencil drawing of Alice in 1894 which was given to the National Portrait Gallery, London, by Wilfrid in 1928. 53 Alice embarked on the “Wares of Autolycus” column in the Pall Mall Gazette on Fridays from 2 June 1893 until she changed to Wednesdays from 25 March 1896 to 28 December 1898. This series of articles was written by women and unsigned. Alice did not write of herself: it was not in her character. Katharine wrote “The year 1896 was a cheerful one. On the edge of it I reached the summit of my hopes in those days. I got an ‘Autolycus’ column in the Pall Mall” (Middle Years,149).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 15 May 189554 Dearest Alice, Will Wilfrid address and post this letter to the New Budget?55 I don’t know where it hangs out. I am offering Hind a brace of occ. poems.56 Did you see the occ. I wrote at Palace Court in Monday’s Pall Mall?57 My father has been and gone. He arrive Saturday morning and left Monday evening. Thank you so much, darling, for meeting him all the same. I was awfully glad to have him. I found there was really nothing in his mind about Harry. It was only that he knew he had been rude to him last Summer and so met the coldness he conjectured in me with sullenness like a child. I am all right again with him, and very soft-hearted towards him, and though the soft-heartedness is a kind of pain, it is a sweet pain by comparison with hard-heartedness. I wrote to-day and told him you had asked him. My Harry comes back on Saturday in a very bridegroom mood. He left all his engagements to this week but writes now every day that he cannot endure the days till Saturday. Perhaps we’ll come on and see you on Tuesday,—if not Tuesday week. I didn’t know it was sweet little Francis’ birthday last Sunday, or I’d have written. I am glad you didn’t want to let me go for I always love you. I was thinking this morning that I bothered you at your work like some girls I know who walk here from Chiswick before noon, and sit down for a good rest and chat, when I’m wishing them at your favourite dance. You can’t turn away people who have walked from Chiswick. But this is a depression, I only meant to say, like Walter Cox,58 that I decided to talk to you that I even forgot I was hindering you. I am spoilt. I scented at every sweetness I can get, and you are as sweet as your azaleas. You were very punctilious about the seven bob dearest. The blossom is all gone, but we have still lilac and laburnum, and the roses are all in bud. I am very well and happy, thank God,— 54

The letter is written in pencil. The weekly New Budget first appeared on 4 April 1895 as the replacement for Harry Furniss’s Lika Joko which first appeared on 20 October 1894. The New Budget merged with the Pall Mall Budget in October 1895. Occ. poems were unsigned. 56 Charles Lewis Hind (1862-1927), sub-editor of the Art Journal (1887-92), editor of the weekly Pall Mall Budget (1893-5) and of the Academy (1896-1903). 57 “Nightingale”, Pall Mall Gazette, 13 May 1895. 58 The Irish journalist Walter Cox (c.1770-1837) was the founder of the Irish Monthly Magazine in 1807 which closed in 1815. 55

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waiting here in the sweet May weather for my lover and lord. You will come when Harry returns. That old Rosa Gilbert hasn’t written since.59 It 59 In a letter to Fr Russell, 25 February 1895, Katharine tells him that Rosa Gilbert, had complained that she (Rosa) had been mentioned in Katharine’s article on the Lord Chief Justice without her permission. The article was “Lord Killowen at Home”, English Illustrated Magazine, November 1894, and contains nothing detrimental to Rosa, in which Katharine writes:

Lady Russell’s sister, Rosa Mulholland, now Mrs Gilbert, took up literary work after her sister had renounced it, and began a literary life under circumstances of extraordinary auspiciousness. Thackeray published her first poem in the Cornhill, and Millais illustrated it... This was in addition to Rosa’s attitude to Katharine’s marriage in the same letter: She wrote to me in the first week of my marriage that it would always be a painful subject between us. I did not resent that then, and I think now I should have. I should have let no one speak to me against my most sacred and blessed marriage. In her Memories (313) Katharine remarks of Rosa “But it was about trivial things she was apt to be severe”. In a further letter of 23 March 1895 to Fr Russell Katharine writes You will think that you can’t get free from R. G. [Rosa Gilbert] and me, but I must tell you that I’ve written to her again. She answered my last letter by the enclosed and I wrote and said that I didn’t want to give up her friendship if she would let me keep it, that I had put no one in her place, and so on. I said that there was no question of any truth or untruth towards me now, that I was doing my duty as best I could, but that in any case I thought a rebuke from one friend to another was a mistake, that it only created soreness, and that no one person however good and loving could make another’s life for them. I raked up nothing, and I said that if she would write to me kindly, and on the assumption that I had not been false to her in any way that everything would be all right, but that if she would not I would not expect an answer. Goes on to say that there have been many troubles lately for her, and that there are some I can't share with Harry. I got a letter last night from a very faithful friend of mine, who is the post-mistress at Clondalkin. She was saying how sorry she was for that abusive article in the Figaro, and she went on to say that perhaps I ought to know that the general opinion was that I had given up my faith and country. Sydney Brooks (1872-1937), editor of the Irish Figaro, wrote a few paragraphs as the main body of the Irish Figaro entitled “Entre Nous”. Included in this was the

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is eight weeks to-day since I wrote. I feel now that my last letter which I meant to be everything nice has insulted her beyond endurance. My love to Wilfrid and the chicks. ever your devoted K.

article referred to above by Katherine, “Entre Nous”, Irish Figaro, 16 March 1895, 168-9. The article dismisses Katharine, her literary work, attacks her snobbery and her social standing. Katharine’s article “The Women of Ireland” in the monthly Young Woman, March 1895 is attacked. Writing of Katharine as an “ordinary Irish literateur” writing in an English journal “the writing will be just what those readers would expect” and “One must be cautious not to disappoint their preconceived notions, not matter how erroneous”. The message is that Katharine knows nothing of Irish women. Brooks finishes his “assessment” of Katharine with a list of the “Best Thirty Irish Books” with his samples such as: “7. The Mutuals. By W. B. Yeats. 8. The Same. By Miss K. Tynan. 9. Ditto Ditto. By Miss K. Tynan. ... 27. Standish O’Grady about Miss Tynan. By Standish O’Grady. 28. Miss Tynan About Yeats. By K. Tynan.” and so on. Yeats remarked on this article in his letter to Katharine of 25 March: “You should be rather glad than other wise at attacks like the ‘Figero’ [sic] one. They always mark the period when a reputation is becoming fixed & admitted.” (Yeats Letters). In the same letter Yeats thanks Katharine for her “most admirable review” of his A Book of Irish Verse which she published unsigned in the Daily Irish Independent, 19 March 1895.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 23 November 189560 Dearest Alice, We got back on Thursday morning, and are both a good deal better of the change,—though the poor little house at 3 in the afternoon of a wild November day is sad enough.61 Harry is away eating one of his dinners.62 I felt so bad when he was going that I would have come to you seeking comfort if the weather had permitted my going out. But this does not mean that I am not ordinarily here and cheerful, for I am. As you who everything say your “Rhythm of Life”63, there are even times when I feel indifferent, and then I want my trouble back again: though I know it is on its way. When may we come to you? Would Tuesday or Wednesday do? How wonderful your “Eyes” or rather “Eyelids” is!64 There has never been such a woman. I have been having a quite cheerful time in Ireland. There has been great sweetness with my sorrow. I think God gives that secretly, and no one knows it but the recipient. How are you and Wilfrid and the children? I have my novel for you and the Miracle-Plays. ever your devoted K.

60

The letter is written in pencil. The Hinksons’ baby Godfrey Assumption Francis was born on 17 August 1895 but died of rickets dyspepsia on 30 September and was buried on 2 October 1895 at St Mary the Virgin, Perivale, Middlesex. Fr Dawson took the service. 62 At the Inner Temple. 63 Alice’s essay first published in the Scots Observer, 16 March 1889 and subsequently published in her collection of that name in 1893. 64 Alice’s “The Wares of Autolycus. Eyes”, Pall Mall Gazette, 22 November 1895. 61

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To an unknown recipient MS Texas. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 26 November 1895 Dear Sir, I am sending you an interview with me which was published some years ago in The British Weekly.65 It has a good deal of information about me. The things in it are not materially changed except that I have laid my poor Paddy in English earth since then. I would write something new for you, but I am head over heels in business illness and absence and trouble have kept me idle for three months and now I have to work. I have at least a hundred and fifty books waiting to be read and reviewed, and reviewing is only a portion of my work, so please excuse me. Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson (Katharine Tynan) Since this interview was done I have published four prose books, An Isle in the Water, short stories with Messrs A & C Black, A Cluster of Nuts, short stories, and The Way of a Maid a novel (just out) with Lawrence & Bullen, Cuckoo Songs The Land of Mist and Mountain short stories, with the Catholic Truth Society.66 My Cuckoo Songs which Lane published last year has been followed by Miracle Plays just issued by the same publisher.

65 66

“An Interview with Katharine Tynan”, British Weekly, 14 September 1893. The Land of Mist and Mountain was also published by Unwin Bros.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 16 December 1895 Dear Father Hudson, I have two receipts to send you. I neglected business matters in the troubles of this Autumn. I meant to write to you about the £3..1..1. I thought it was a mistake for a story,—“Father Anthony O’Toole” and two poems.67 But your last order is £1..4..1 for two poems, so perhaps this means that you are only paying for the poems. Is this so? You always paid me a pound. I fancy that perhaps you are not accountable for the change: your manager may have sent it. Believe me, dear Father Hudson, very sincerely yours. Katharine Hinkson

67

The story “Father Anthony O’Toole” was one of the stories published in her An Isle in the Water. It was not published in Ave Maria. The two poems were probably “Night Prayer”, 20 July 1895 and “Lux in Tenebris”, 12 October 1895.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 30 January 1896 Darling Alice, May we bring Lionel Johnson on Sunday?68 I’ve asked him to come to us for a few days, as he has been seedy. Don’t bother to write if we may. your devoted lover K.H.

68

The poet and scholar Lionel Pigot Johnson (1867-1902) was a convert to Catholicism and a member of the Rhymers’ Club. Katharine writes of her friendship with Johnson in her Memories (“Lionel Johnson—Medlævalist”) .

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To Charles Elkin Mathews MS Delaware. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 10 February 1896 Dear Mr Mathews, What do you do think of A Lover’s Breast-Knot for the title making the two sections of the book afterwards consist of ‘Heartsease’ and ‘Love lies Bleeding’?69 Thanks for Sligo valentine,—a quaint thing and for promised books. best regards, ever sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

69

Katharine’s poetry A Lover’s Breast-Knot was published by Elkin Mathews in 1896. It was not divided into sections and was dedicated To HARRY / HEARTSEASE’.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 24 February 1896 Dearest Alice, We are so sorry about the dear kiddies. We trust they are all better today and will be soon convalescent. 70 We thought Monnie would have come yesterday, and blamed the rain for keeping her away on Friday. We were so glad that your visit to Meredith was all that could be desired.71 your ever loving K.H. Let me know in time if you don’t want visitors on Sunday.

70

Alice wrote to Katharine on 27 February saying that children had whooping cough (Alice Letters, 91). 71 George Meredith had invited Alice and Wilfrid to his home at Boxhill for the 22 February. The Illustrated London News, 19 April reported Of a recent article by Mrs. Alice Meynell in the Pall Mall Gazette, upon Signora Duse, Mr. George Meredith has expressed the opinion that it reached the high-water mark of literary criticism. This paragraph was reprinted in The Letters of George Meredith to Alice Meynell with Annotations thereto 1896-1907 (London and San Francisco: 1923). Alice’s article was in the Pall Mall Gazette, 12 July 1895.

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To William Blackwood72 MS NLS. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 30 March 1896 Dear Sir, I am sending a story for your consideration.73 You have rejected me twice with such kindness that I am emboldened to try again. If you will not be bored by my persistence, I shall on my side accept rejection in the right spirit and shall try till I have succeeded in pleasing you. Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson To the Editor Blackwoods

72 73

The Edinburgh publisher William Blackwood (1836-1912). “A Child shall lead Them” was rejected.

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To William Blackwood MS NLS. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 11 April 1896 Dear Sir, I have done both these sketches since I sent you the other one, which I have regretted sending you. Your criticisms were absolutely right. I know nothing of the life of a London clerk, and though I started with a bit of real life for a basis I was timid and made it conversational and unreal. Thank you so much for troubling to say all that about it. The things sent now seem to be of my best,—especially “A Pack O’Children” which when I had written it I thought the best bit of prose I had done.74 If they don’t appeal to you I beg your pardon for bothering you so soon again.75 Believe me, dear Sir, yours very obliged Katharine Tynan Hinkson

74 This story was published in her The Handsome Quaker and Other Stories (1902). 75 They were rejected.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. The Laurels, Mount Avenue, Ealing. W. 15 May 1896 Best Wilfrid, A thousand thanks for the gloves. I daresay you are at Boxhill still,76 and I am rejoiced you have had such beautiful weather. Anyhow we shan’t see you on Sunday, because the visitors who desert us to Windsor are flocking hither now. We have a Miss Sigerson with us now too.77 As soon as I get a new frock I shall bring her to see you.78 Warm love to W. and all. your affectionate K. Poor Harry has an awfully bad cold in his head and an exam. Wednesday.

76

Alice was at 47 Palace Court, London. Dora Sigerson. 78 Alice replied on 29 May (Alice Letters, 95) saying she would be delighted to see them on Sunday (31 May). 77

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co Dublin79 18 August 1896 To the Only Woman, I wanted to send you more mushrooms but they went as they came, in the night, and no man saw them go.80 However there will be a second crop probably in September. I was glad of your dear letters, as always, and so glad you liked the Autolyci: Did you see your own special one?81 I am glad about the Colour of Life,82 glad that people can appreciate such writing too. May it go on increasing in editions.83 We shall be here, I think till early October. We are wonderfully happy. The old friction between my father and Harry has quite disappeared and they are devoted to each other. Harry has not yet gone on his bicycling tour, nor finished his novel. I am having beautiful dissipating times, playing cards till the small hours and doing very little work. I am glad you have had so much out of town but I believe London is quite cool now. I am writing under my apple tree on which I have made several poems. I think a great deal of you. I am always thinking how much you would love it. Such verdure! Of course it rains a good deal, but then the trees are very sheltering, so that the rain doesn’t give me cold like English rain. I wonder if you see me in the Westminster? I am very often there. We get the Pall Mall and Westminster every day, 79

In June 1896 the Hinksons moved from The Laurels to 107 Blenheim Crescent. The reason for the move as Katharine says in the Middle Years (154) was “We did it really to be near to the Meynells”. Once settled they then returned to Ireland until late October 1896. 80 Katharine had sent some mushrooms to Alice in July and in a letter of thanks on 28 July Alice wrote (Alice Letters, 98) I was just sitting down to write to you to tell you how much I—and everybody—liked and loved your two Irish Autolyci when your mushrooms came. We immediately ate some at dinner, and the rest this morning. They were splendid. It was too nice to have the very ones! Katharine’s Autolyci were “The Wares of Autolycus. Mushroom Gathering”, Pall Mall Gazette, 20 July 1896 and “The Wares of Autolycus. Coming Back”, 27 July 1896. 81 “The Wares of Autolycus. To the Only Woman”, Pall Mall Gazette, 10 August 1896. Katharine dreams of a trip in the countryside with an unnamed friend. 82 Alice’s The Colour of Life, and Other Things Seen and Heard (1896). 83 There were nine editions during Alice’s lifetime.

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but we much miss our Chronicle.84 We are beginning already to feel provincial and out of it. However it is a grand life for us. We never meet anyone who knows anything about books. The society which calls itself intellectual in Dublin is ghastly and I close my ears to its blandishments. We dined one evening at the Regius Professor of Greek’s house. There was a long discussion between him and a bland old lady upon the marvellous teaching of Trilby.85 I eschew all that kind of society and stick to the pure Celt. We hear more jokes in ten minutes than you’ll hear in England in as many years. It is extraordinary what an amount of cleverness without education one finds here. The educated people are duller than ditchwater. We shall come back full of freshness and health, God willing, and it will be delightful to have the new home and the London Winter and the “Tops” and you. Our fondest love always K. I haven’t met anyone yet who has ever heard of Francis Thompson. A Catholic D.D. I met the other evening had never heard of him, though he has literary leanings (!). He told me Wilfrid was married to a Miss Burke. Such is fame. He was a dull d-g,—no I mean D.D. But dullness is sufficiently rare to stand out over here. I thought it very low of Wilfrid never to put me in Whereabouts,86 as if forsooth, were of less importance than Russells and Coxes.87

84

Alice was writing for the Daily Chronicle. George du Maurier’s novel of student art life in Paris had been published in 1894. 86 A section of social chit-chat in the Weekly Register. 87 The barrister John George Snead-Cox (1855-1939) editor of the Tablet from 1884 to 1920 and his American wife Mary Porteous, whom he married in 1891. 85

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To William Blackwood MS NLS. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 11 September 1896 Dear Mr Blackwood, I return the corrected proof of the story which I am proud you and Maga think well of.88 I have nothing good enough to send you now. I had something for a long time, but finally gave it away. I did not want to bother you with things. When I have something I feel you will like I shall offer it. Meanwhile I can never thank you enough for your encouragement and your generous kindness. ever faithfully yours Katharine Hinkson I have a new address, 107 Blenheim Crescent, London, W. though I shall be here till late October.

88

“Out of the Night”, Blackwood’s, October 1896.

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To William Blackwood MS NLS. Whitehall, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin 16 October 1896 Dear Mr Blackwood, Thank you very much for your letter and enclosures. I ought to have acknowledged before now, but I have been away a good deal. Now our long holiday is drawing to a close we have so many people to see before leaving Ireland. I think I know what you mean about the Brothers.89 It was hard to keep it at the high pitch it began in. I felt myself that the lawyer part fell flat. I indeed re-wrote it but I felt the difficulty of pitching it as high as the other parts and I did not know how to do it without it. Perhaps I should have cut it out altogether? I liked the Donegal article very much.90 I have been in Donegal so it specially interested me. I think it very picturesquely written too. What a number of Irishmen you have writing for you? I will try Maga again when I have something I think good and with a thousand thanks to the kindest of editors. Believe me, dear Mr Blackwood very faithfully yours Katharine Hinkson To William Blackwood, Esq.

89

“The Brothers” was published in the National Observer, 27 February 1897. William J. M. Hardy’s “In Dark Donegal: the Tourist on the Celtic Fringe”, Blackwood’s, October 1896.

90

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To William Blackwood MS NLS. 107, Blenheim Crescent, London, W. 20 January 1897 Dear Mr Blackwood, I hope I am not too persistent. I have written a story with a good deal of incident and I thought I should like to offer it to you.91 This more of a story, less of a sketch than normal. You ask me if I ever do anything more extended. Well, I am the author of two novels, neither of them. I’m afraid runs to fame. I have one here I should like to send you, but it is very frivolous and I am afraid you might not like it, perhaps. Thanking you many times for the trouble you take about my things. Believe me, dear Mr Blackwood, very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

91

Not published.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. 107, BLENHEIM CRESCENT, W. 24 September 1897 My dearest Love, Your two letters are a great help and delight.92 It is good to have the time going over till you come back to me, and we are in our old life again, and so good to think of you when you are around all the healthful surroundings. I am just writing this before starting for Dora’s. It is a beautiful mild windy day,—just like your weather, I am sure with a really west wind. I am taking Paudeen.93 He has got into such a way of starting a panic if I go without him since you left. I’d be miserable thinking of him yelping his head off all day, for Susan is powerless to console him. Mrs Hall came last night about 9 to see us and the baby.94 I was so glad to see her. I wished she could have stayed, and another gone. She is engaged for a fortnight longer, after which she is free. We didn’t go to drive yesterday. Mrs Belson kept the baby out a long time, I wouldn’t go afterwards as I feared Huxley might turn up.95 However he didn’t; he sent me a note to say he’d come to-morrow afternoon. I’ll hunt up his prescription for Willie Swann.96 I seem to have no time for anything. I couldn’t go on without a clear morning. I’ll arrange about giving the baby a morning bottle with Huxley to-morrow. I got a bit of the [illegible] article done yesterday. Then was Kathleen Blanche Fagan come in [the] afternoon with a big box of flowers someone had sent her.97 I made her arrange them then. I didn’t tell you that when I came down to Alice Meynell the other day I heard her talking to Paudeen so that I thought it must be one of the kids. When I came in he was sitting in her lap. Imagine him conquering Alice Meynell! She seemed rather indifferent about it too. Old Corry had the downstairs bell mended but the men have never come to put in the chimneypot, and poor little Toby is still in that stuffy room. No letter except the one 92

Harry was in Ireland. One of their dogs. 94 Theobald (“Toby”) Henry Hinkson (1897-1966) generally known as Toby was born on 12 August. 95 Probably the physician and surgeon Henry Huxley (1865-1946) of 1 Queensborough Terrace, London W., who by 1899 had moved to 39 Leinster Gardens, Hyde Park. He was the son of the biologist and evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), 96 William Swann (1860-1911) who married Katharine’s sister Sarah (1855-1929) or more probably their son William Swann (1881-?) 97 Presumably Katharine means the artist Blanche Clara Fagan (b.1869), daughter of the Rev. Henry Stuart Fagan. 93

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enclosed. My fondest love to Pa. Tell Lizzie how grateful I am to you her for taking care of you. May God bless and keep you for me. Love to all of them. Will write to-morrow. your devoted wife Flower not come yet. Thank you darling and thank Nora for me. Stay as long as you like. I’m going to write to Corry now about the chimneypot.

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To John Lane MS Texas. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 13 March 1898 Dear Mr Lane, Mr Grant Richards who was considering my verses when I saw you has decided to publish them this spring.98 I wonder whether you would think of publishing a book of prose for me instead? I have a little collection of Irish stories in which I think there is reputation. I have an idea of running them together by an introductory chapter, and a little thread of sequence from one to the other, as Irish Idylls is done.99 I was sorry to hear from Miss Guiney that the future Mrs Lane had been ill but glad that she was on the way to recovery.100 Believe me, dear Mr lane, very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

98

The author and publisher (Thomas Franklin) Grant Richards (1872-1942). Katharine’s The Wind in the Trees: A Book of Country Verses (Grant Richards: 1898). See also Katharine’s letter of 13 May 1898 to W. B. Yeats. 99 A reference to Jane Barlow’s Irish Idylls (1892). Lane did not take up this offer but the stories were most probably Led by a Dream and Other Stories published in 1899 by the Gresham Press. 100 Lane married the Swiss-born American Annie Philippine Eichberg King (1856/7-1927) on 13 August 1898. She was a writer and also took a practical interest in Lane’s publishing.

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To Henry William Egan Mew101 MS Delaware. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 20 March 1898 Dear Sir, You asked me some considerable time since about my book prospects. At the time I had several prospects more or less nebulous, so I waited. Now two have emerged. Messrs Blackie will publish at Christmas a girls’ story-book The Handsome Brandons,102 and Mr Grant Richards will publish this Spring a volume of verse, but the title is not yet finally decided upon. Probably The Wind in the Trees. very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Mr Egan Mew. My husband, Mr H. A. Hinkson, will publish with Messrs Lawrence & Bullen in the early days of May Up for the Green, a Romance of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.103

101

Henry William Egan Mew (1862-1945), author of books on ceramics and a prolific journal contributor, writing on drama for the Academy. 102 The Handsome Brandons was published in 1898 by Blackie and in 1900 by McClurg of Chicago. 103 Up for the Green: a Romance of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (1898).

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To John Lane MS Texas. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 23 April 1898 Dear Mr Lane, I am sorry to hear from Mr Chapman that you have been ill.104 I trust that you will now make a speedy convalescence. Thank you for letting me see your reader’s opinion of the stories.105 I am obliged to him for his evidently painstaking study of them. All the same I think he is utterly wrong, except in the case of one story perhaps “The Whisperer”.106 Of course I quite see that in face of his opinion you could do nothing but reject the stories. Believe me, dear Mr Lane, very sincerely yours, Katharine Tynan

104

Frederic Chapman (1863-1918) was John Lane’s manager from 1892 until his death. 105 Katharine had sent the stories on 11 April. 106 It was published in the Temple Bar Magazine, June 1898 and in the Irish Monthly, January 1908.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 28 April 1898 My dear Wilfrid, A thousand thanks. It is like you to respond so quickly and lavishly. It will be only for a few weeks and we are obliged.107 Now that meat is up, and in any case, this list may interest Alice. It is best quality English meat. We have been getting it for six or seven weeks past. It is not much more than half butchers’ prices. Delivery is most satisfactory. ever, with love, your K.H.

107

Wilfrid had lent Katharine some money.

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To W. B. Yeats MS Stony Brook. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 13 May 1898 My dear Willie, I am sorry for the clashing of titles.108 I will tell you how it happened, and am glad of the opportunity. I had sent in the book without a title; & Grant Richards wrote to me for one. I sent him a list, showing my preference for “Country Airs”. At the end of the letter I wrote—“Only for W. B. Yeats’s “Wind Among the Reeds”.” “The Wind in the Trees” might be a bad title: I heard nothing from him till my husband called there sometime after & found that they had selected “The Wind in the Trees”. I wrote & asked them not to use that title,—on my own account for every reviewer will say, “Mrs Hinkson’s ‘Wind in the Trees’ comes [illegible] after Mr Yeats’s ‘Wind Among the Trees’.” But Grant Richards wrote that the title-page was designed & printed & no alteration was possible. The injury will be entirely to me & my book. You know I have never placed my verse on the same plane as yours and I am sure to suffer from the similarity of names. But I am glad to let you know that I tried to prevent it. ever yours K.H.

108

This letter was in reply to WBY’s letter of 5 May from Paris saying that he had a book in press called The Wind among the Trees which had already been announced, saying that “I am sure that you will under the circumstances alter the title, as the appearance of a book with the title you propose would injure my book a good deal.” Katharine’s title stood as it had, in fact, been decided by Grant Richards without Katharine’s knowledge.

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To William Blackwood MS NLS. 107, Blenheim Crescent, W. 11 October 1898 Dear Sir, Once more I venture to ask your consideration for a story of mine though I might well be dismayed. How can I know the consideration is always as considerate as it is just.109 Believe me, dear sir, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson William Blackwood, Esq.

109

Not published.

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To John Lane MS Texas. Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin 6 January 1899 Dear Mr Lane, I should be very much obliged to you if you would send me Frank Mathew’s Spanish Wine in sheets,110 at the same time giving me permission to extract from it for the Cabinet of Irish Literature which I am editing for Blackie’s.111 I want the sheets because I am finishing up, and there is not much time for copying. I hope you and Mrs King are quite well these melancholy times. ever sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson 110

The barrister and novelist Frank James Mathew (1865-1924) was born in India and was a member of the Irish Literary Society. His novel The Spanish Wine was published in 1898. Many of his stories and novels had an Irish theme and Katharine later praised him And there was Frank Mathew, whose book “The Wood of the Brambles” gave earnest, we thought, of the Irish novelist we had long been waiting for. He wrote in a language which the English reader did not understand; and the Irish reader was too much occupied in going after half-gods or false gods to be aware of him. But some day a critic like Henley would turn up “The Wood of the Brambles” and say “Here is something that was too good save for the elect”. And then Frank Mathew’s books may or may not come to their own, for the elect is but a handful anywhere; and, in Ireland, if you are a Protestant you read one class of books, and if you are a Catholic you read another ; and if you want to depart from this course your Protestant or Catholic bookseller sees that you are kept in it (Middle Years, 192).

111

The Cabinet of Irish Literature: Selections from the Works of the Chief Poets, Orators, and Prose Writers of Ireland, 4 vols (1879, 1880), edited by Charles A. Read and T. P. O’Connor, which went through various printings. Katharine revised the book bringing it up to date and her edition was published in 1902, 1903, by Gresham Publishing. Katharine did not include any of her own work but included an extract from Harry’s The King’s Deputy. In a letter to Fr Russell, 29 April 1903 Katharine remarked I believe I did make up my mind to exclude Oscar Wilde, as I thought his name would do the book no good. Of course it was compiled before he had made any sign of repentance: but anyhow I should have been afraid to include him.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 107, BLENHEIM CRESCENT, W. 22 January 1899 My dear Wilfrid, Will you once more lend me ten pounds for a few days. It is only that the money has not come to hand yet—one considerably cheque from America delayed no doubt by the storms,—and as I may be ill any day we want a little balance in the bank.112 You are the only friend we can ask to do this for us. I’ve been hoping to see Alice. I suppose she was upset somewhat by Miss John’s sudden departure. But I hope she will come soon. ever affectionately yours, Katharine Hinkson.* * Why this formality I do not know.

112

Giles (“Bunny”/“Patrick”) Aylmer Hinkson (1899-1957) was born on 7 February.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The Mill Cottage, Westerham Hill, Kent113 29 July 1899 Dearest Alice, I have often thought about you during the hot weather. A week in Boulogne was too little but I suppose Wilfrid can’t be away from London for long at a time. I was delighted to see by your last Autolycus that you had been in Sussex.114 Where was it? I loved that Autolycus because of its country feeling. The country has become “opening paradise” to me indeed,115 and I am grateful to my London life because the history made me realize how much I love it. How does the Ruskin go on?116 I hope the hot weather hasn’t been pulling you down. Perhaps you will come down here for a day later on. I don’t force it upon you, for it is a journey,—only if you like to come. Next year, when, God willing, we will have a house of our own in some less difficult place country to get at, you will come to us, won’t you, and stay sometimes? We shall let you alone, and it would do you good. You have never stayed under my roof yet....but we have to leave each other those individual liberties. Only sometime it would make me happy if you could, without violence to yourself. I have always a kind of hurt about you that so many people are more to you than I am: but then I ought to be glad to be anything. Your affection for me came to me unsought for I should never have thought of looking for it, or for anything more than the most ordinary liking. I think hardly anybody is good enough for you to love. But there spoke my jealousy. We are beautifully well, thank God. Lovely babies, full of health and joy. You know the “Tillotson story” for which they were to pay me £125?117 Well they sent it back on the ground that it wasn’t sensational enough. It was a facer to me, for the first few minutes, but being so well as I am, as I always am when I live out of doors, I get over it wonderfully: it only spoiled my sleep a little one night. I haven’t the slightest doubt but that I could make them pay,—there wasn’t a word about reviewing the right of refusal, but one has to think of so many things. They are a market for short stories, and pay me ten 113

Katharine describes their stay in the chapter “Holidays” in Middle Years. “The Breath of July. [By A.M.]”, Pall Mall Gazette, 26 July 1899. 115 “The meanest floweret of the vale, / The simplest note that swells the gale, / The common sun, the air, the skies, / To him are opening paradise.” Thomas Gray’s Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude, (1754), lines 37- 41. 116 Alice’s John Ruskin was published in Blackwood’s Modern English Writers series in 1900, price 2/6. 117 The publishers and syndicators Tillotson and Sons of Bolton. 114

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guineas a piece for them so I was afraid to proceed to extreme measures, or even to put on the screw very tightly in my letter to them. I am at the Blackie book now.118 Of course I can sell this Tillotson book, but there will be a delay and I can’t afford to wait to try and get serial rights. Being poor one is always hampered. I have to take bad prices and all sorts of things because of wanting ready money. The incessant babies, God bless them, have kept us poor. Harry is doing a good deal of work now, and placing it. I never heard of the Shorters since. I hope Wilfrid and the children are well. Would Everard cycle down here?119 We could put him up for a few nights. It is charming country. ever fond love K. Toby is awfully jolly now. He is talking a lot, and singing the most delicious nonsense songs.

118 119

Cabinet of Irish Literature. The Meynell’s son Everard Henry Manning Meynell (1882-1925).

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To Edmund Downey120 MS NLI. Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin 28 November 1899 Dear Mr Downey, We are wintering here; and my winter’s task is the revising (to some extent) and bringing up to date of Blackie’s Cabinet of Irish Literature, which you will know perhaps. You will let me put you in it? From my own knowledge of your work I should like to extract from The Merchant of Killogue which I think a great book.121 I wonder if you could lend it to me. It is an impudent request, but I am far from my own books and the British Museum. Have you any views about [page torn and end of line missing] ought to select? [page torn and end of line missing]. With kindest [regards] [torn page] Kath[arine Tynan Hinkson]

120

See p. 128. Downey as F. M. Allen, The Merchant of Killogue (1894). Downey’s “In an Irish Country-Town” was included in vol. 4.

121

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To Edmund Downey MS NLI. Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin. 16 January 1900 My dear Mr Downey, You will be thinking me a most ungrateful creature. You gave me all your books but one; you told me a delightful story, and you offered to help me in any way you could. Nothing but the fact that the Cabinet ground me to earth could have kept me from acknowledging all this kindness earlier. It was a far, far bigger undertaking than I ever dreamt of, and I’ve been working six and seven hours a day at it to get it done within the three months. I’m sending back the Green as Grass now.122 I’ve represented you after all by two chapters from The Merchant my great admiration. They don’t represent you properly, because the book is partially built up, like most by things: but you’ll see in the Introduction that I’ve spoken the faith is in me. There is just one thing you might advise me about. I’ve extracted a couple of chapters from The Real Charlotte by Œ. E. Somerville & Martin Ross.123 It was published by Ward & Downey who held the copyright. Who has Ward & Downey’s copyright now, and how should I ask the permission? We’re having a very pleasant winter here and happily so far escaping the influenza. We look to go back about the middle of April. I hope we shall meet sometimes when we get settled down again. You are always so busy. Believe me, dear Mr Downey ever gratefully yours Katharine Hinkson [added at the letterhead] It would be only manners to say that I hope you all have escaped the flue.

122

F. M. Allen’s Green as Grass (1892) The writer and painter Edith (Anna Oenone) Somerville (1858-1949) and her second cousin Violet Florence Martin (1862-1915) collaborated as “Somerville and Ross” on a number of books, the well-known one being the stories Some Experiences of an Irish RM (1899). Their finest novel The Real Charlotte was published in 1894. Katharine included two chapters from it and one from The Silver Fox (1898) in vol. 4.

123

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To John Lane MS Texas. Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin. 1 February 1900 Dear Mr Lane, When I had finished my terrible big Cabinet of Irish Literature and sent it in I remembered one or two omissions, and have asked for half a volume back to rectify them. One is Ella D’Arcy,124 and I have written to her to-day to your care asking leave to represent her by a story from Monochromes. I hope I should have your permission too. You have two or three Irish names on your list, whose work I do not know or whether I ought to represent it. Ella Napier Lefroy is,125 I think Irish: also Caldwell Lipsett and H. de Vere Stacpoole.126 It is invidious to ask this publisher if they are any good: but I have no one else to tell me. Perhaps two of them are not Irish at all? With a great many apologies for troubling you, and kindest regards, Believe me, dear Mr Lane, ever sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

124

The Irish short story writer Constance Eleanor Mary Byrne D'Arcy (1857?1937), known as Ella D’Arcy, assistant editor of, and a contributor to, the Yellow Book, whose Monochromes, a collection of short stories, was published by John Lane in 1895. 125 Scottish-born Isabella (“Ella”) Napier Lefroy, née Hastie (1854-1919) also wrote as E. N. Leigh Fry. She had published her novel The Man’s Cause in 1899 which dealt with suffrage. 126 The West Indian-born journalist Henry Caldwell Lipsett (1869-1913). The Irish writer Henry de Vere Stacpoole (1863-1951) whose best known book was The Blue Lagoon (1908).

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To Frank James Mathew127 MS Manchester. Pilot View, Dalkey, Co. Dublin. 10 March 1900 My dear F. Mathew, There is no little dog bespoke so far. You know it’s extremely difficult to get dogs from Ireland into England just now. I hope we’ll be able to squeeze Paudeen through, since he came here originally from England. I don’t know what we’ll do with him if we don’t. I want to implore you and Mrs Mathew not to go live quite in London. Of course if you are going to you won’t mind me. People implored us four years ago, and we did not heed them. Still I’m not on the whole sorry for my town life since it has made my love of the country a passion. We managed to spend two out of the four years away from Blenheim Crescent. But, oh dear, what sickness for the country was compressed into those two years. Being a suspicious Celt I daresay you’ll distrust the disinterestedness of my advice when I suggest that you ought to come live in the direction we’re going to at the June quarter i.e. Harrow, Pinner or Bushey. If we were neighbours we should be always sure of delightful society. I won’t say anything about you and Mrs Mathew. I’m going to buy One Queen Triumphant of course.128 I postpone it only because I don’t want more than I can help to carry over, and we seem to have pretty well loaded ourselves already. Meanwhile I have asked J.B. for her copy,129 and it awaits my first visit there. I am deeply proud of the dedication.130 You’ll be interested to hear that I’ve begun to go in America. McClurg of Chicago have bought up large editions of all my books they can lay hold on, and have an edition of their own of the Dear Irish Girl.131 They write to me as respectfully as if I were Marie Corelli.132 I have great hope of success in the country which made the fortune of “the Duchess”,133 on whose literary style I am trying humbly to model myself. It would be awfully nice if one could sometime leave off boiling the pot so 127

See p. 214. Frank Mathew’s One Queen Triumphant (1899), a story of Elizabeth I. 129 Jane Barlow. 130 “I DEDICATE THIS ROMANCE / TO MY FRIEND / KATHARINE TYNAN HINKSON.” 131 A. C. McClurg published it in 1899 and ten of Katharine’s in all. 132 The very popular novelist Marie Corelli (1855-1924) born Isabella Mary Mills, later Mackay. 133 A Little Rebel by the Duchess (New York: c.1890), the Irish novelist Mrs Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (1855-97). 128

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energetically, knowing that it would simmer away of its own accord without fresh fuel. I am very glad of your happiness,—the dear sacred natural happiness of the bet of friendships. I look forward much to knowing Mrs Mathew.134 Your godson weighs 2 stone, 8 pounds in his outdoor cloths, and we are all thriving though not exactly in proportion. We get back on the 10th of April. ever faithfully your friend K.H. Harry was greatly pleased at your praise of his book.135

134

Frank Mathew married Agnes Woodroffe (b.1873), daughter of the barrister James Tisdall Woodroffe (1838-1908), Advocate-General of Bengal, and his wife Florence, née Hume (d.1894), in 1899. 135 Presumably The King's Deputy. A Romance of the Last Century (1899).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 107 Blenheim Crescent. W. 30 April 1900 My dear Wilfrid, I called round to see you this morning to ask you to help us in a matter of business but failed to find you. Lawrence & Bullen have sent us the enclosed bill in payment of some money they owed us. The money, a second instalment on a book, was to have been paid on the book’s publication.136 They have held over the book in order to serialize it, and as we grumbled over the payment being indefinitely delayed they sent us the bill payable at six months. We thought our bank would have discounted it, but they won’t, only hold it over for collection till when it falls due. We don’t know anything about bill-discounting, or where to go to a billdiscounter: it is our first transaction of the sort. We should be very grateful if you could discount it for us deducting the ten pounds we owe you, and of course the amount of discount, and giving us a cheque for the balance. It is the last time we shall trouble you about our money matters. I thought Alice was at lunch to-day, so would not ask to see her. We’d have come round one evening only I’m not very well,137 and we go to bed every evening early. I shall be better in a few weeks, time. ever, with love,—and contrition,— yours K.H.

136 137

Katharine’s The Handsome Quaker and Other Stories. She was pregnant with Pamela Mary Hinkson.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 107 Blenheim Crescent. W. 9 May 1900 My best Wilfrid, I’m glad you’re held in more respect by your banker than we are by ours, for ours would do nothing. I think you discounted it very cheaply, and I’m sure you deserve that £10, which will come to you now just like a windfall. In any case we should have paid you before you went to Venice.138 So please, dear Wilfrid, send us a cheque for the balance. We know you’re very busy now with picture-show. I am delighted Alice is doing the pictures for the Pall Mall.139 One can read her with delight even though one is quite ignorant of pictures. If we don’t come round on Sunday it is only because I’m not well enough just yet. I mean you have always other people, and I’m not well enough for that. I hope Alice appreciates my forbearance in not asking her to come to see me. I know she’s so busy that I shouldn’t want her to come because it would tax her; but I can’t help asking a mite of praise for my superiority to other people. We’ve nearly taken a house at Ealing: in fact the agreement lies here waiting to be signed. So we go back to where we were so happy and so miserable. Dear Wilfrid, you are always so good to us, and we both love you. K.H.

138

Alice and Wilfrid were to spend a month in Venice (Alice Letters, 151). Robert Alan Mowbray (“Bob”) Stevenson (1847-1900), Robert Louis Stevenson’s cousin, had resigned as art critic from the Pall Mall Gazette because of ill-health in 1899 and had died on 18 April 1900. Alice wrote some unsigned art reviews before her first signed art review of 1 May 1902. Her final signed art review was on 20 June 1905.

139

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 17 July 1900 Dearest Mary, I’ve been awfully busy, finishing a story, or would have written. Today I’m writing in work-hours as I’ve just finished something & Alice Meynell is coming to lunch. I asked Toby who was coming. He guessed Nanna Gill first of all. I wish you were,—as well. We’ve having a very hot burst. Yesterday at this time it was 88 against a sheltered wall, where the sun never strikes, & to-day we are grateful for 76. I’m feeling sore all over. Do you remember a great friend of mine, Jim Alderson?140 He was a Captain in the Royal Irish. I always loved him, we only met of late years at rare intervals. He was the very soul of simple chivalry. I remember saying to Frank Mathew when they met at our house that he would do exactly as Sidney did at the battle of Zutphen and would never dream of it’s being heroic.141 He was wounded at Bethlehem on Sunday week and died next day. Such food for powder!142 He would have made some woman perfectly happy, and would have transmitted his qualities to his sons but all for the sake this damnable British trade. He was one of two sons, & his mother a darling.143 She is quite an old lady. He was in Ireland last year but when we wrote for him to come and stay with us at Pilot View he had been moved to Aldershot. Given the fact that he was gone seemed little to me yesterday when I read about Peking.144 Think of the terrified children in 140

Captain James Beaumont Standly Alderson (1869-1900), 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, was mortally wounded on 7 July 1900 at Bethlehem, Free State, South Africa, during the Boer War, and died the following day. Katharine devotes a chapter “James Beauchamp Stanley [sic] Alderson” in her Memories and also a mention in her Reminiscences (304-09). 141 The mortally wounded Sir Philip Sidney is said to have given his water bottle to a dying soldier at the battle of Zutphen in 1586. 142 Falstaff: “Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder, they’ll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men” Henry IV, Part I, IV. ii. 143 James was the younger son of the solicitor Edward Samuel Alderson and Caroline Alderson, née Standly. There is a plaque dedicated to James Alderson in the Lady Chapel, St Mary’s, Church, Newport, Pembrokeshire. 144 After a long history of exploitation by the Western Nations, notably the USA, Great Britain, Germany and France, and also Japan and Australia, militant Chinese societies attacked the foreigners. By Spring 1900 the revolt, termed the Boxer Rebellion, had spread and the Legation quarter of Peking was besieged. The siege was raised after fifty-five days. Events were not settled until September 1901 when

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the midst of that square and the poor fellows turning them on all they loved to serve them. It’s an awful world. The God who put us here certainly owes us reparation. “Look on the piteous world Thou hast decreed Come to our broken hearts and be forgiven.”145 I feel terribly about the children, my own being surrounded by everything love can give them. I hope there is good news of Geoff & that Michael is better.146 I am keeping very well. Yes, the baby has quickened, and seems very strong.147 Of course it is no burden & I am very helpless, more so than normal. I suppose one feels the hot weather very much. The children are splendid, thank God. They don’t seem to feel the heat. They are out all day, & rush about when they come in as though they could never have off enough of it. Toby is in little holland suits which are so beautifully cool & comfortable. They are a handful. Last Friday this nurse went out for the afternoon. I didn’t anticipate much trouble, as I have a temporary parlourmaid of whom they are fond. But we had an awful time. They did everything they liked. Toby’s crowning achievement was to throw away my glasses somewhere in the garden. They have never been found since. I had to send to Dublin to Yeates’s who have my number for a new pair.148 Then they absolutely refused to go to bed. Toby was jumping about, shouting with joy, smashing all he could; but was nothing compared with Bunny who roared all the time. At last I smacked Toby, and then I cried. Toby called me a naughty Mama & insisted on my kissing where I had spanked. Harry was out, luckily. I threatened Toby with the direst pains & penalties when his father would return. At last Harry came. “Now”, I said to Toby, “you’ll do what Daya will say to you.” What do you suppose the little imp did. He flung his arms round his father’s neck, allowed him to the war was ended with the Chinese again coming off worse. 145 Alice Meynell’s one stanza poem “Veni Creator” first published in the Scots Observer, 2 August 1890. The exact quotation is Look on the mournful world Thou has decreed. The time has come. At last we hapless men Know all our all our haplessness all through. Come then Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven. 146

Mary’s sons Captain James Geoffrey Gill, RAMC (1873-1942) and Michael Joseph Gill (?1871-1913). 147 Katharine’s daughter the novelist Pamela Mary Hinkson (1900-82) was born on 19 November 1900. 148 Yeates and Son, Opticians, Dublin.

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lay him down and was in an angelic asleep!—in three minutes. Of course Harry said it was all our mismanagement & that the child was terribly misunderstood. We had to take Bunny to the dining-room while we had dinner. He kept standing on his head for a while, a feat he has seen performed by street-boys. At last he got in a chair & fell asleep & slept till his nurse came in at 10.30. They’re standing the heat very well, though Bunny is teething. They almost live on fruit,—bananas & strawberries in the morning, mangos to take out with them, stewed fruit & more mangos at dinner, strawberries for their afternoon walk & strawberries to go to bed. Bunny has them also if he wakes in the night, Toby never wakes. I wonder if you’ve seen my story in the Gentlewoman at all.149 It’s prettily illustrated. Did you & Mrs Tyrrell ever exchange visits?150 I think you would like each other. She told me she was going to see you. I had a letter from poor Mrs Kenny yesterday. She told me she was going to live abroad with Nora O’Shea for a time. Have you seen young Mrs Piatt once she returned?151 I wonder is she as [?irresponsible] as ever. We dined with the Sullivans,—Mary Fitzpatrick last week, but the train-journey made me seedy for days. It is positively my last expedition till I am, please God, a free woman once more. I am going to have an Irish parlour maid. I found it impossible to get one here. I believe the China trouble will put lots of servants on the market as the mills & factories will be shut down. Needless to say we were glad to see Geoff’s letter. It’s awful that England is tied now fighting a Christian people, when the whole world wants to be at the Christian heart. I suppose it’s punishment. I don’t think they’ll ever conquer the Boers myself. Harry is as good as gold,—has given up his weekly dinners at the club,—his one outing, & goes to lunch instead, so that I may have no lonely evening. He practically never leaves me. Goodbye, Mary darling. I hope all is well with everybody. How is Sis? I must get to my work. your devoted K. I hope it will be a girl for you.

149

Katharine’s “That Sweet Enemy” ran from 7 July to 18 August 1900 in the Gentlewoman: An Illustrated Weekly Journal for Gentlewomen. It was illustrated by the well-known illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). 150 Ada Shaw had married Tyrell in 1874. 151 Hetty Piatt.

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To Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch152 MS New England. Published in Notes & Queries, October 1977, 439. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 10 September 1900 Dear Mr Quiller-Couch, I am, of course, very much honoured at your wanting anything of mine, and gladly give the requisite permission.153 I suppose you take the poem from one of my books? I remember that Dr. Robertson Nicoll published an abridged version of it somewhere which was not to its bettering.154 If you care to give me a copy of the Anthology I should be proud.155 I am your debtor for many books from Dead Man’s Rock onward.156 Most of all perhaps for Noughts and Crosses, which I never forget.157 With a great many thanks, Believe me, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

152

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (“Q”) (1863-1944), critic and King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University, 1912 to 1944. Knighted 1910. He was a friend of William Robertson Nicoll. 153 Katharine’s “Sheep and Lambs” was included in The Oxford Book of English Verse (Oxford: 1900), edited by Quiller-Couch. 154 The poem was quoted in full in W. B. Yeats’s “Irish National Literature”, Bookman, September 1895. 155 Writing to Quiller-Couch on 19 November 1900 (New England) Katharine thanks him for a copy of the book but notes: “There are only two people I miss very much, Louise Imogen Guiney,—an Irish American...and the author of ‘The White Moth’[Quiller-Couch].” 156 Dead Man’s Rock, a Romance (1887). 157 Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies and Sketches (1891).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 4 November 1900 Dearest Alice, I was going to write to you last night, but I had a premonition that I should see or hear of you to-day. When I went to bed I dreamt that you had been very nasty to me about my disreputable attire, with special reference to a gown I am wearing at this moment which has ink-stains down the front. I was bitterly affronted in my dream but called afterwards with a hankering after you only to find you so engrossed with Miss Tobin in a garden that I came away unseen.158 There were other grievances; and I doubt if in real life I have ever suffered from such a sense of injury. Your gifts will be much enjoyed & I love to think of the kind thought of me that prompted them being sent. 5 Nov I meant to give this to Sebastian yesterday,159 but he was gone by the time I got downstairs from my afternoon siesta. I was delighted to have news of you. There has been a long silence and I began to feel uneasy. While the fine weather lasted I looked for a visit daily. Now I am not exciting about visits, but I am glad to have a “sine”.160 Sebastian told us the news about you & Wilfrid & the circle. He asked me very impressively if I was better. I did not like to tell him as the old women say that I must be worse before I was better, & I felt a fraud saying I was better as I know my face looks the picture of health. I am keeping very well, thank God, the usual derangements & distempers, but very well on the whole. I expect to be laid up somewhere about the 25th. Did you see your poem in Friday’s Pall Mall?161 I think you could not have doubted that it was me, and you. You are the only woman I know who carries her soul outside. I am always seeing it and praising the wind signed works of God. You know Harry comes back to me practically well of the eye-trouble. The children are splendid. 158

Agnes Tobin (1864-1939) a wealthy American poet and translator of Petrarch. Alice first met her at a party on 6 June 1895 in London and this resulted in a strong friendship and a lecture tour in America. 159 Alice’s son Sebastian (“Bastian”) Henry Tuke Meynell (1878-1961). 160 Sine die. 161 Katharine’s unsigned “occ. verse” “Alice”, Pall Mall Gazette, 2 November 1900. It was included in her Collected Poems (1930) as “Alice Meynell” without any changes.

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The best of love to you & Wilfrid. ever your most loving K.

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 15 January 1901 Dearest Mary, I thought I only had your letter a few days ago and am amazed to find it is a fortnight old. Time seems to spin at such a rate now. I was very glad that the news was better. I hope the poor man’s gouty hand is long since well. Dearest, you have all my thoughts & all my prayers in your troubles. I pray every day that they may pass & that you may be happy & at peace as you ought to be & deserve. I hope there is good news of Geoff. I had a letter the other day from the mother of dear, dear Alderson, who was killed at Bethlehem in July. She had seen my article in the Pall Mall about him.162 I could not bear to send it to her, though I wanted to write to her. However she had seen it & wanted me to go to her and talk about him. I was so fond of him. The most kinder friendship was between us,—almost more beautiful than love,—that I shall always have a little wound somewhere out of sight because of him. But your boy is at the base, and not in the fighting line, thank God. I couldn’t bear that you should have more anxiety added to your heavy, heavy pack which may God lighten. Everything is well here, Mary darling. Harry headache & liverish,—after the anxiety about me & the worry of these wretched servants. I spent a pound yesterday replacing some of the kitchen leakages, & that was only an instalment. I haven’t gone over my linen cupboard yet, but I see it is sadly depleted,—my things lost in the wash is perhaps used for kitchen cloths. That wretched Maggie had charge. The night before she went she smashed the entire contents of a tea-tray,—every article, & the last discovery I made about the cook was that she was stealing my baby’s cream every morning. I said whoever took it was a murderess, stealing the very life of the child,—but it was true. What a scandal for Protestants such creatures are! To think of my little Nurse’s perfect integrity! I’ve got my new cook,—a good creature, I think, but very slow.163 She is a deserted wife, with two little boys the age of mine. I was in treaty with a very excellent parlour maid, 7½ years in one place,—& meanwhile have an awfully nice temporary one,—a married woman. I wish I could keep her. She has a bad husband, but she sticks to him. I love some of these Englishwomen, they’re so exquisite with the children & so sweet to animals. They’re always wanting to steal into the nursery to hold the baby. 162

K. H., “Died of His Wounds [J. B. S. A., Bethlehem, July 5]”, Pall Mall Gazette, 27 July 1900. 163 Mary Poulter (b.?1871).

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It’s curious how little the Celt cares. Even this mother I have in the kitchen never goes near the nursery or takes any notice of the children. I’ve got a little under-nurse,164 a great help to Nurse White, & quite efficient with the baby. Pam looks more like six months than a many weeks,—a huge baby thriving splendidly. You should see her humorous smile. We roar when we see it. She’ the finest baby of any of them. She never cries except a roar of rage when her bottle is delayed. Nurse is really a magician with children. Pam loves her, & lies on her lap talking to her & occasionally smiling that smile. I’ve just been out with Toby & Bunny. They’re frightful imps. Toby clasped gentlemen around the knees & looked up at them with the most bewitching impudence. Finally he ran away right under a hedge, & with all sorts of vehicles coming. Fortunately Nurse & his Angel were about, & he escaped. But I take no more walks with the young gentlemen. This was all wildness caused by my company. Bunny was very nearly as bad. It was a beautiful frosty afternoon & they were both walking, or rather scampering. Bunny thinks nothing of a two mile walk. He’s a terrible big fat overblown boy with lovely hair & flaming cheeks. Did I tell you Toby was always writing letters to you? He’s very funny. He always calls himself “the soldier”,—“the yolger”. You hear him saying when he’s going to bed at night “The yolger wants to be held out, Nana Wi”. And I [illegible] discussions with her. “A soldier doesn’t wet his trousers.” “A yolger does, Nana Wi.” Everything Toby says Bunny repeats in a voice big enough to take the ears off. Bunny is the Hooligan. You’d hardly believe that Toby is most gentle & refined by comparison. I saw the Braydons at Christmas. Dear little woman she is. She had just had a miscarriage, & was travelling about with a bad cold. I don’t know how people can be so foolish. How is Sis? Give her my very best love. Good-bye, Mary darling. God bless you. your devoted K.

164

Elsie Sykes (b.1888).

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 9 March 1901 Beloved Mary, I wanted to write yesterday but we were both fagged, & I had to go asleep after lunch. It wasn’t such a bad passage at all.165 The boat rolling a lot but we sat on deck all the time unless when our deck chairs ran away. Indeed it was rolling so much that once we got settled I, for one, didn’t dare to stir. It must have been very sickening downstairs, but once you learnt to rise & fall with the ship you hardly noticed it on deck. We had to wait forty minutes at Willesden which was the worst part of it. However we got home at 9.30, and found all well, babies asleep. They were all greatly pleased with their presents though Nurse & Elsie said, “Thanks” in the coldest of voices. I told Nurse not to let the children know I was home, so I walked into the nursery quite unexpectedly. Toby got very red, & dead silent after his manner when he is enraptured & after a bit said “Choc.” Nurse explained that it was the only thing he could think of to say. Bunny seized & kissed me furiously, kissing me on the mouth over & over even when I tried to elude him. Finally he shrieked “no more kiss”, & rolled off round the nursery shrieking with laughter. It’s miserable weather, wet all the week, & to-day a North-East wind. I gave them some of their toys yesterday. Toby had a happy morning sweeping up the floor with his little dustpan & brush. We kept him in as he had a slight cold, and he swept the floor all the time bringing his pan every few minutes to show all “the dust & muck” he’d collected. Nurse has covered the drawingroom furniture as well as any upholstery, and I found everything in great order. I send you M.A.P. 166 Read the little paragraphs about me in the body of the paper. I don’t know who wrote them but they seem very nice. I’ll send you back your flask in a day or two with those nightdresses you thought you might do with, & one or two things of Sissie’s which happily I did not require en route though I did yesterday morning. We had a very happy visit, & I am immensely the better for it. I thought my rooms very small after Roderick. The jam & everything was carried quite safely. Dicky sent us off in the best of humours. He’s a grand fellow. Did you feel awfully lonely for me, & how goes the sewing-bee? Pam looks at one with the indifference of twelve months. She’s pale, poor little mite for want of fresh air. They’ve been in all the week till yesterday. You were awfully good to 165

Katharine and Harry had visited Mary Gill in Dublin. Mainly About People: a Popular Penny Weekly of Pleasant Gossip, Personal Portraits, and Social News which ran from 18 June 1898 to 28 October 1911.

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us. Give our fondest love all round & especially to dear Sissie who is a lovely girl, I think. Don’t give her to any of those youths. They aren’t good enough. Your devoted K.

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To John Lane MS Texas. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 8 May 1901 Dear Mr Lane, I am downstairs to-day, but my doctor says I shall be indoors for at least ten days. So the best thing I can do is to send you the copy for the book, with the books which you did not publish. I made the selection by the advice with the help of Lionel Johnson.167 I took nothing from the first book, Louise de la Vallière, very little from the second. In fact the selection practically began with the third book I published Louise de la Ballads & Lyrics. Those first three volumes are contained within the parchment-covered volumes. I have no other copies of them. I am quite willing to make the selection a shorter one if you thought it advisable. I put in a couple of Miracle Plays at Lionel Johnson’s suggestions, But I shouldn’t really mind dropping them or one of them.168 The personal indecision will hold over till you come back from America: and I am sure I shall be quite satisfied with anything you propose on my behalf. I know you will issue the book beautifully. Believe me, dear Mr Lane, very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

167

Poems was eventually published by Lawrence and Bullen, Ltd, in December 1901. 168 “The Nativity” and “The Flight into Egypt” were included.

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To John Lane MS Texas. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 7 July 1901 Dear Mr Lane, On further consideration I do not care to postpone the publication of the volume of poems as you suggested yesterday. I look to bring them out in the Autumn. Will you therefore kindly let me have them back not later than Wednesday, as we leave town on Friday for some weeks? We were very glad to meet Mrs Lane yesterday. She took both our hearts. very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

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To James B. Pinker169 MS Berg. The King’s Arms, Ockley, Surrey.170 20 August 1901 Dear Mr Pinker, Will you please let me know if you submitted Love of Sisters to Mr Wood & the result?171 Also will you please let me have back some short stories that I may negotiate them? very sincerely yours Katharine Hinkson

169

The literary agent James Brand Pinker (1863-1922) numbered Conrad, H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett among his authors. 170 A holiday visit. The Hinksons had stayed at The Pounds Farm, Oakwood Hill, Ockley, before moving here. 171 Love of Sisters was published by Smith, Elder and Co. in 1902.

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To May Sinclair172 MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 63. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 30 December 1901 My dear Miss Sinclair, I waited to write till I should have read the book and I was kept back from that by having to read some others, for business. I want to tell you what a wonderful book it seems to me.173 I think it has more of the stuff of greatness in it than the best of perhaps any woman writing to-day: I say “perhaps”, because I expect “Zack” whose work I do not know, but have heard so highly praised.174 Now & again I read a passage to my husband driven to find sympathy with my admiration. He felt as I did. One portion which I read to him about the two yachts in the Cornish harbour, & afterwards about the sea he said was equal to the best of Stevenson: and I quite agree with him. The second story held me in a way the first failed to do till towards the very end. The second is the simpler & more direct, the first is the more subtle. Very humbly & sincerely I say that it is great work: and presently when other people find out you will remember that I was among the first. No wonder you take time to it,—while I & such as I are turning out our poor ephemeral stuff. You will write your name in it when you come down, won’t you? I hope that will be soon, & I hope that presently you will give me the privilege of your friendship, which I shall be very proud to have. Believe me, my dear Miss Sinclair, ever affectionately yours Katharine Hinkson

172

The writer, philosopher and suffragist Mary Amelia St Clair Sinclair (18631946), known as May Sinclair, whom Katharine had met at a Women Writers’ Dinner in the summer of 1900. 173 Sinclair’s Two Sides of a Question (1901). This book consisted of two stories: “Cosmopolitan” and “Superseded”. 174 The Devon novelist and short story writer Bertha Gwendoline Keats (18651910) who wrote as “Zack”.

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 2 January 1902 My dear Friend, Will you come next Sunday by train about 6 & stay for supper?175 We shall have the most dear, delightful person here that day,—Miss Louise Guiney. I wonder if you know her beautiful poetry. But she would be lovely if she had never written it: and I want you to meet each other. I am very glad & proud that we are friends. You’re right about the “Cosmopolitan” to some degree. What I found was that though the first part it failed to hold me: yet one had glimpses all the time that it was great. Any how it is a failure that many of us would be proud to achieve. The second story is absolutely complete & perfect, yet there are splendid things in the “Cosmopolitan”, things which make it a shame to speak of failure. I am greatly interested in the new novel.176 Perhaps you will come to your own with that and your own must be a big inheritance. ever, with love, yours K.T.

175 176

5 January. Sinclair’s next novel was The Divine Fire (1904).

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 25 April 1902 My dear Miss Sinclair, I have been thinking of you all the week. We are going to Ireland tomorrow by long sea & taking Toby. I expect to be away nearly four weeks. I wanted to see you: but could arrange nothing, as since Mrs Meynell came home from her Winter in America last Saturday & it was arranged that we were to dine there one evening this week.177 I’ve been waiting for the summons every day & couldn’t settle anything else: but after all it hasn’t come: & I shall have to wait to see her too till I return. Of course they didn’t know we were going so soon. In fact we only decided during the week. I feel so done up. I’ve had two letters back from the Dead Letter Office lately because of wrong addresses: which shows how badly I need a rest. We’ll do the Heath, please God, before May is out,—unless you’re off to Ireland. But do let us go to the Women Writers dinner together.178 With love K.H.

177

Alice had been invited to America by her friend Agnes Tobin to make a lecture tour. Alice, together with Agnes’s sister Celia Tobin and her brother Edward Tobin, sailed to America on 7 September 1901 as her guest. See Alice Letters, 15786. 178 Held on 11 June 1902 at the Criterion Restaurant with Mrs W. K. Clifford presiding. May Sinclair was noted as attending but not Katharine.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. The King’s Arms, Ockley, Surrey. 10 September 1902 Dearest Alice, You will be surprised to hear we are here again. We didn’t like the crowded hotel at Ambleteuse—crowded with middle-class English more horrid than I could have believed possible—& we couldn’t work so we stood three weeks of it and came back here on the 27th of August.179 We look to be here till the 1st of October. Won’t you come down to us one day during the month? Perhaps you would like to bring Miss Tobin? She may know what a really good specimen of the English country view is like. This place is as sweet & gentle as ever: charming country. I hope Wilfrid & the children are well. Needless to say we should be so glad to have Wilfrid but he never will come. Harry is in town to-day, but I know I may send his love. your devoted K.H.

179

The Hinksons had spent three weeks at Ambleteuse on the north French coast at the suggestion of Frederick York Powell (1850-1904), the Regius Professor of History at Oxford. Katharine recounts her stay in Middle Years (288-91).

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 65. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 12 October 1902 My dear May Sinclair, I am sure you wonder what on earth has become of me. Well we got back on the 1st of the month, & we are now established for the Winter. When are you coming to see me? We are going to be busy for a few days changing our rooms about: and on Thursday I get a new nursery-governess for the children. It is always such a bother changing nurses for small children, & I don’t know how Pamela is going to take it. So on the whole I think a day the week after next would be best. Will you come in the afternoon, say on Tuesday week? walk, & stay for dinner? All our home-coming has been over-shadowed by the death of Lionel Johnson.180 We went to his funeral on Wednesday. Every day I seem to feel a shaper pang because I hadn’t seen him for so long before he died. It was very hard to get hold of him though he loved us & one has a way of taking one’s time about things. As though one ever had time in this world. I wish you had known him. ever, with love, K.H.

180

Lionel Johnson died on 4 October 1902.

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To Father Thomas Dawson181 MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 28 October 1902 My dear Father Dawson, I didn’t try to talk to you the other evening because the table listened, but I was so glad to see you & sit beside you. I always like to feel that you look on us as your special friends. We are always wanting to have you quietly to ourselves so that we might really talk with you. Will you come & dine with us two alone one evening? I think you couldn’t help being pleased & touched if you could know how my husband thinks of you. He puts no man near to you in his thoughts. He has never forgotten his walk with you across the fields the day our little son was laid to rest. “He is so human,” he said the other day of you. He gave a little laugh that had more of tears in it. “Human!” he repeated. “I think he is so divine.” Of course the word is too immense for an human being, but you will know what he meant, & I tell it to you to show how he regards you. I believe that under God you will make him a Catholic. Just write a line to say that you’ll come & dine with us one evening next week at 7. Yours ever affectionately K.H.

181

See p. 159.

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To T. Fisher Unwin MS Berg. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 16 November 1902 Dear Mr Unwin, Lionel’s poems are not yet in my hands. I believe he has left a great quantity of papers to be gone over. Do you think we ought to make a selection of his poems from the published volumes as well as from the unpublished poems. That would be of course the best way to make the book his monument. I always understood from him that he paid Elkin Mathews for publishing the two volumes,182 so that of course the copyright was his & would rest with the family, who are willing to leave the matter in my hands. Will you tell me what the you think about this. I only contemplated at first collecting the poems written since the last volume, but the error of the Athenaeum in stating that I was going to edit all,183 suggested to me that it might be wise if I did so. I don’t know the Johnson Club poem to which you refer.184 I have not approached any publisher nor thought of doing so about the Poems, & I shall with pleasure give you the first sight of them as soon as I get them together. I suppose they ought to be published as soon as possible before the careless world has time to forget them. With kindest regards, Believe me, dear Mr Unwin, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

182

Not so. “The poems of the late Mr Lionel Johnson, both published and unpublished, are to be collected for early publication, with an introduction by Katharine Tynan.” “Literary Gossip”, Athenaeum, 8 November 1902. This did not materialise (see Katharine’s letter of 17 December 1902) but her Pall Mall Gazette article of 6 October 1902 (signed “K”) was used as an introduction to “Poems by Lionel Johnson”, Bibelot, vol. X, 2, (1904). 184 Johnson Club Papers by Various Hands (T. Fisher Unwin: 1899). The poem was “At the Cheshire Cheese”. The Club, in honour of Dr Samuel Johnson, was formed in 1884, at the Cock Tavern in Fleet Street, London, before moving to the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. It had quarterly meetings. T. Fisher Unwin was Prior in 1885, with the members being Brothers. 183

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To James B. Pinker MS Berg. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 25 November 1902 Dear Mr Pinker, Your letter did not reach me till 6 o’clock. I thought then that it was too late to telegraph. Yes, you’d better accept Reginald Smith’s offer:185 only will you ask him to permit a girls-book at Christmas to be published some time in November? I have a girls-book in hand now, partly done which I think we would be able to dispose of for the next season.186 He was willing that I could publish a girls-book this year, so I don’t think Smith & Elder have ever got colonial rights for any book of mine: but other people have & I don’t see why they shouldn’t. About Tillotsons,187 I accept the terms for the three stories. I fancy they cut off the extra guinea after the first or second commission I executed through you, unfortunately I’m not in a position to stand out: but I hope it won’t always be so. I suppose there would be no chance of Smith & Elder escaping to pay a royalty on this book after 5,000 copies. If there were an arrangement it would save us if the book should prove a success: but if they will not then it can’t be helped. But you might try. Have you been doing anything about The Children at the Farm?188 I am very anxious to get that placed as there are two books to follow it. Of course Smith Elder’s ban for next year only covers novels. With kindest regards yours ever sincerely Katharine Hinkson

185

The barrister Reginald Smith (1857-1916), had married Isabel Marion Smith, daughter of George Murray Smith of Smith, Elder & Co., in 1893. He joined the firm a year later and in 1899 became head of the firm. 186 The next book published by Smith, Elder was The Honourable Molly in 1903. 187 Tillotson & Sons of Bolton did not publish anything of Katharine and their archives have nothing about her. The company also had a Newspaper Fiction Bureau. 188 Louise Imogen Guiney in a letter to the Rev. Alexander Smellie, 17 September 1901, writes that “Katharine tells me that one of the new volumes is called— charmingly don't you think?—The Children at the Farm, and is to be published very shortly” (Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney, vol. II, ed. Grace Guiney, New York and London: 1927). However, no such title was published by Katharine.

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To Edmund Downey MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 27 November 1902 Dear Mr Downey, It is very good of you to think of me, and I am grateful. Unfortunately I don’t know anything about Father Sheehan’s work: have never even come across My New Curate,189 which is so much praised. So I should have the whole business of getting him up, & it wouldn’t pay me. Before T.P’s Weekly came out I did a little article which I intended to send there on the sayings of my boy, Toby, of which I have kept discreet. I intended to do two articles. But I have not opened it after all, for the papers seemed to me to publish such tiny snippets of things outside T.P’s own articles.190 This article is about 1500 words, & I shall send it if you encourage me. Thank you very much for the advance copy of the paper. I hope Mrs Downey & your children are well. Won’t you come down & dine with us one evening? With kindest regards & thanks yours ever sincerely Katharine Hinkson

189

My New Curate: a Story gathered from the Stray Leaves of an Old Diary (Boston: 1899) by the Very Rev. Patrick Augustine Sheehan (1852-1913) which ran to many editions. He published many books and essays on religion, politics and education, and also translated from the Italian. 190 However, Katharine had a short, one paragraph under the heading “The Books of My Childhood. 10”, T.P’s Weekly, 9 January 1903, where she noted Elizabeth Wetherell’s The Wide, Wide World. Among the other writers of that issue writing of their choice were Joseph Conrad and George Grossmith. Katharine’s first contribution was her short story “An International Idyll”, T.P’s Weekly, 26 December 1902 in the paper’s series “Tales for the Times”.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 1 December 1902 Dearest Alice, I’ve thought of you over & over although I have been going through a period of storm & stress. Since the 16th of October when the nurse I had so long left me, and I got an unique specimen of the dead-beat who called herself a nursery-governess I had no peace. She let the children all get bad colds though I had made them so hardy: Bunny had grumpy attacks twice and finally they all wound up with a grand attack of bronchitis. I had them in my room for a fortnight, keeping the fire up day & night, & they weren’t out for nearly three weeks. However, thank God, they are all right once more, & I’ve gone back to a nurse who came on Saturday, so I’m having a little peace once more. Time & time through it all I thought of writing to you. We wanted to know about you all and about Monnie in particular: but always I refrained because I said to myself that you might want a quiet time without anyone bothering you. I knew you’d know if you thought about me at all that I was loving you. But with Miss Tobin & Monnie & all I knew your dear hands are full up, so I shan’t expect to hear from you. It was dear of you to send me a message & I am glad the little poem gave the occasion. When you are freer & the weather better I want you to come down. I want you to see Pamela now. She is lovely. She is always asking with round eyes of anxiety,—“Do you like me, Mamma?” I like that “like”. She was two years old on Saturday. She is going to be her mother’s little sweet drop of joy without any bitter. Toby’s language after being so long housebound is lurid. The arrangement of the new nurse, & the pious little Church going nursery-maid is painful for a mother to witness. He objected to saying his prayers to-night. “Don’t you know that I’ve given all that up?” he said. He is still perturbed in mind as to what or who is “the Holy Goose man” (Holy Ghost) can be. Dearest Alice, our fondest, dearest love to you. We hope all is well with Wilfrid & all. K.

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To an unknown recipient MS Stanford. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 16 December 1902 Dear Sir, My much beloved friend has introduced me to The Reader,191 & I think the enclosed story* ought to fill the Reader’s bill. The real person or his ghost is that darling of the Gods Lord Edward Fitzgerald & the house is Frascati at Blackrock, Co. Dublin where he lived his few years of idyllic happiness with his Pamela!192 Believe me, dear Sir, yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson *sent by same mail

191

The Reader, an Illustrated Magazine of Literature (New York) which ran monthly from November 1902 until February 1908. Katharine was not published. 192 Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-98) was a son of the first Duke of Leinster. Fitzgerald was wounded while serving in the American War of Independence. He returned to England and was elected MP for Athy, in Co. Kildare. Over the years Fitzgerald became increasingly radical in his political views and conspired to overthrow British rule in Ireland. He was betrayed in 1898, was shot resisting arrest and died of his wounds. In 1872 he had married Pamela (the French-born Anne Caroline Stéphane Sims, c.1776-1831). In 1916 Katharine published her Lord Edward Fitzgerald: A Study in Romance.

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To the Editor, Athenaeum Ealing, W. 17 December 1902193 Will you permit me to say in reference to the volume of my dead friend’s which I proposed to edit that his family, after examining his papers, do not consider that he has left sufficient unpublished material behind to warrant a new volume? Nor do they think there should be a selection of his poems. In these circumstances I am reluctantly compelled to accept their decision. Katharine Tynan Hinkson.

193

Published under the heading “Lionel Johnson’s Poems” in the Athenaeum, 20 December 1902.

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To an unknown recipient MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 22 February 1903 Dear Sir, I became an author as long ago as 1885 when my first volume of verse Louis de la Vallière and Other Poems was published by Messrs Kegan Paul & Co. I was born in Dublin in the early sixties, and spent nearly all my life till I was married at the farmhouse in the Co. Dublin under the mountains which was my home. I went to school to a Dominican Convent in Drogheda but left at such an early age that I may say I educated myself, reading omnivorously & learning much out of doors. In May 1893 I married Mr Harry Hinkson, a Scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, & since then have lived in London. I am responsible for some fifteen novels, several volumes of short stories, seven volumes of verse besides a collection of an immense quantity of stories, sketches, verses all which I have not retained in volume form besides a considerable amount of editorial work. Dear Sir—if there is anything else you wish to know I shall gladly supply the hiatus. Believe me, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Edmund Downey MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 1 April 1903 My dear Mr Downey, I am always very grateful for your kind readiness to rescue me when occasions arise, and am always sure of your good feeling towards me & mine. I quite agree with you about the length of the stories. I have not offered anything to T.P’s Weekly since they set a limit about the number of words because when I had an idea for a story it pays me better to let it run to 4 or 5000 words as it would naturally. I am sorry for their sake as well as for mine that your counsel does not prevail more with them. I shall be very glad to have your book especially from you. Thank you very much indeed. My husband will have great pleasure in looking in on you one day. With kind regards & thanks yours ever sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 27 May 1903 Dear, I have said yes for you to the enclosed. I will appraise you when the date is fixed. We had Eveleigh Nash to dinner last week.194 He was very enthusiastic about your work & gave us a message for you. I have had toothache & had two teeth drawn yesterday, & am to have more next week. And my cook is ill with tonsillitis. But these are passing discomforts. We shall hope that you will sleep here the night we dine at the Meynells. yours ever with love from both of us K.T.H.

194

Eveleigh Nash (1873-1956), founder of the publishing firm of the same name in 1903 and of Nash’s Magazine in 1909. The firm later became Nash and Grayson. They did not publish May Sinclair.

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 28 June 1903 My dear, Do manage Wednesday afternoon & stay for dinner. Ella D’Arcy is coming to see me. Do you know her work? Mrs Meynell has asked us for any evening next week we name or next Sunday. Perhaps we had better say Sunday if that will suit you. Mrs Meynell is leaving town on the 6th. We hope to go to Ireland on the 11th so time is getting short with all of us. Do come Wednesday. With love from us both. your friend K.T.H.

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 67. The King’s Arms, Ockley, Surrey. 2 October 1903 Dear Friend, We are here still, but hopeʊwater permittingʊfor our water-pipes at Longfield Road have somehow got blockedʊto be back at Ealing in a fortnight. We shall then be settled down for the Winter & shall hope to see you very soon. We very often think of you & talk of you: and we hope that you have been out of town pretty well since we have. We are all splendid: and H. & I have spoilt a frightful quantity of paper. How does the novel go?195 This is only a line to say that we love you & look forward to meeting. yours ever K.T.H.

195

The Divine Fire.

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Katharine and Pamela November 1904 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

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To James B. Pinker MS Berg. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. New Year’s Day 1904 Dear Mr Pinker, I am quite satisfied that Messrs Nisbet should issue A Union of Hearts at 2/6 on the terms they suggest.196 I would not sell the copyright. I am sorry the book did so badly, for I know it is a good book: but I have come belatedly to the conclusion that it is their Irishism that is against the success of my books, & intend to devote myself to England for the future. With best wishes. Believe me, dear Mr Pinker your very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

196

The book was first published in 1901 at 6/-. The Saturday Review, 16 November 1901, commented that “it is not unpleasing”. The Athenaeum, 19 October 1901, sums up the review with “We like this new story better than A Daughter of the Fields”. Nisbet published A Union of Hearts in the Blue Cloth Library at 2/6 in 1908.

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To Hugh Percy Lane197 MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 24 February 1904 Dear Sir, I return schedule filled in. I was very glad to give the desired permission to Mr Yeats & to you.198 Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Hugh P. Lane, Esq.

197

The Irish-born art collector and dealer Hugh Percy Lane (1875-1915) who started life as an apprentice at the Marlborough Gallery in London and finally owned his own gallery in Pall Mall in 1898. In 1908 he established the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin. He was knighted in 1909. 198 Lane was organising the Irish art section for the World's Fair held at St Louis in America. Lane was prevented by the cost of insurance in shipping paintings to the St Louis World Fair so he decided to show them at the London Guildhall from May to July 1904. Katharine had lent her portrait by John Butler Yeats for the exhibition.

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To Hugh Percy Lane MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 10 July 1904 Dear Mr Lane, I am afraid I shall not be able to manage another visit to the Guildhall before we leave: I wish I could. We go on the 20th,199 & I am terribly busy trying to finish a pot-boiler before I go. If you will send the picture to Miss Butterfield, Victoria Wine Company, 2 The Mall, Ealing, it will be kept for me. I hope the exhibition has been a great success. I am sure your energy & enthusiasm did very much for it as mortal man could. I told all my friends to go. I wanted very much to ask you to come to see us while you are well as we were in town: but the time has somehow slipped away & I have not seen you again as I hoped to. I am sure you are certainly in London. Won’t you come to dinner with us when we are all here again? Believe me, dear Mr Lane, yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

199

‘We are going abroad some time between the 10th & 20th of July’ (Katharine to Hugh Percy Lane, 28 June 1904, NLI). They stayed in a chalet “Les Marguérites” on the coast (Middle Years, 295-8) .

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 6 October 1904 Dear Mr Shorter, Through the exertions of some of his friends, of whom I am one, a tablet is about to be erected in the cloisters of Winchester to Lionel Johnson.200 We have only just got the requisite permission from the Board of the College. A few of his friends, those we think would wish to subscribe, are being asked to do so. Do you wish to be a subscriber? Please give Dora my love, & tell her that we arrived home on Monday night, & that she would find me pretty well any afternoon now. With kind regards, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

200

At a meeting of Winchester College Governing Body on 11 July 1903 a request from Katharine Tynan Hinkson for “leave to place in College Cloisters a tablet to the memory of the late Mr Lionel Johnson, formerly a scholar of the College” was not voted on. It was not until July of 1904 that another request was made and also an application by old Wykehamists. Two drawings submitted by Campbell Dodgson were discussed and later one was approved. The American John Russell Hayes in a letter in the Dial, 16 December 1904, acted as the receiver for American subscriptions and Katharine did so in England.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 9 October 1904 Dear Mr Shorter, Miss Guiney has given a pound towards Lionel’s tablet,201 & we intend to give a pound each. I did not receive any photographs from Dora. With kind regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson I don’t know anything about the Biography.202 I heard some time ago that Mr Galton who was to do it had been ill.

201

Louise Imogen Guiney wrote the entry “Lionel Pigot Johnson”, Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: 1913), vol. 16 and also an obituary in the Atlantic Monthly, December 1902. 202 There was no biography but Shorter published Selections from the Poems of Lionel Johnson: Including some now collected for the first time. With a Prefatory Memoir in 1908. In the Memoir Shorter writes: “I am impressed by the fact that this should have been done by one who knew him more intimately—Mrs Tynan Hinkson or by Mr Selwyn Image, for example.”

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 70. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 24 January 1905 Dearest May, I have thought of you over & over again since Christmas, & always with a little unhappy feeling that we hurt you by want of sympathy about The Divine Fire.203 I felt I couldn’t do anything to recover that impression till I had read the book & could tell you what I thought about it; but I have only just now achieved that—you’ll forgive me when I tell you that we’ve had a sick house since the New-year. That day Pamela got a got a bad chill Miss Hancock was at home from Sat. to Mon. & Blanche the parlour maid unearthed a thin Summer coat & put it on her instead of her warm Winter coat which was a trifle shabby. She kept the poor little thing out for two hours, & brought her in crying & shaking. As the chill coincided with an attack of influenza it was very serious, & for a day or two we feared we were going to lose her. At the same time Bunny & Toby were down in different rooms. When they all began to mend I got it, & it was succeeded in my case by bronchitis, which is only just yielding to treatment. Thank the kind God the children are all pretty well recovered though the hard Winter hinders our getting back to our old robustness. It has been such a sad Winter. In the week before Christmas we lost two human friends, & on Tuesday of the same week our dear little dog died. It was a real grief. We had him ten years, & he had hardly ever left my skirt. Now, dear, I want to tell you what I think about the book. It has the divine fire. It is a book of genius although I think it unequal in parts. I don’t like the cockney poets circle. They all give me a feeling of misery after the beautiful serenity of Lucia & her surroundings. She is beautiful. I said in the early part of the book that she could never marry Rickman, but he endears himself as the book goes on. I’m not sure that you didn’t begin on a false note with him. I love all the part about Harcombe Hill & Muttersmoor. You make the places real as Hardy does with his places. I suppose I am less able to judge the cockney part because I should be always out of sympathy with it. But it fills me with interest as does the insistence of Rickman’s dropping his aitches. But all the same it is a big book worthy of the little woman of genius to whom I have always taken off my hat. How are you, & when shall we see you? I hope you are feeling stronger & that you won’t over work at more translations.204 And I hope the American boom will grow. 203

Katharine had criticized it during May’s Christmas visit. In 1900 May was doing translations in order to support her mother who had had a heart attack. Her mother died in 1901.

204

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Come & talk over everything. I feel that you think us pigs & bad friends & all sorts of things at the back of your mind although you are too highminded to let in come in sight. I look out for your reviews eagerly. What does the Outlook mean by calling Jewdwine “preposterous”?205 Is it from your point of view or theirs? your ever loving Katie

-

205

The literary critic and editor Horace Jewdwine was a character in Divine Fire. “A Notable Novel”, Outlook, 24 December 1904, remarks As a poet he [Keith Rickman] is taken up by Jewdwine, a preposterous Oxford don, who has come to town to instruct uncultured Fleet Street in the art of journalism.

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 19 February 1905 Dearest Mary, You know I’ve been expecting a letter from you for a long time. I put down your silence to the fact that you were busy & engrossed over Geoff’s home-coming & I did not write again only because I was unusually busy. I had to put half a book into the hands of someone who had commissioned a serial, & would decide on seeing how if this book would suit them. This when I had got so much done I wanted to peg along & finish while I knew all about the story. I wanted to get the book off my mind before going to Dublin. But the fine weather has been bringing me shoals of visitors. Poor dear little Mrs Leamy was here on Monday:206 Friday I had an interviewer: yesterday we had the Hardys to lunch:207 to-day I had people lunching again. I’m not done either for the Meynells are coming to lunch on Tuesday: I have a photographer one morning, & I’ve a dinner on Wednesday. Of course I haven’t had anybody since we knocked up, except on Sundays. I hate people coming to lunch. It takes all my working day, for once I’ve had a solid meal in the middle of the day I’m done for the day, even if the people go away early, which they seldom do. Annie told me to-day that Blanche objected very much to lunches. “I quite agree with her,” said I. I’m delighted you’re all well, & that you have Geoff home. We hope to go over on the 7th of March, so we shall look to see him: & I hope you’ll have time to get your Waterford visit over before we come. Monday 20th.—I didn’t get any further last night. To-day I am rejoicing that we’re not going over just yet, for the Winter has come back, with us as it has with you. I hope there is a return of Spring before we go over. To-day Toby is in town with Harry. A friend of Harry’s who loves Toby is taking him to lunch, & another is giving him tea, so he’s having a great day. I had a lovely walk with my little nurse Burn, & it did me a lot of good. Toby chatters all the time, & makes you answer him. I was awfully cross this morning. I always get cross when my work is interrupted with. But the walk did us a lot of good, with the little golden nurse pegging along by my side barely saying a word. Miss Haycock says the house is “Peace, perfect Peace” without the imp. She has been rather quarrelling with him lately, which has bothered me a bit but I don’t think she has been well, as she has finished up with a bad throat. One of the 206

Margaret Hanley had married Edmund Leamy in 1889. He died on 10 December 1904. 207 Dudley and Peggy Hardy.

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people who was here yesterday had no more sense than to ask him if he minded leaving here to-day, before her. “No,” he said frankly. “I don’t care for Miss Haycock”. One comfort is she won’t visit after him when our backs are turned. She wasn’t that sort. I think she knows when she is all right that it is her own fault,—he’s very forgiving & loving. The trouble is she will never coax him & he won’t be driven. I am dreading his going to school. I wonder do other mothers feel as I do the dread of their boy’s losing their innocence. Did you? I shall never let them go to a boardingschool but even at a day-school they learn things. He is still a baby. Lately he has been very nervous,—got hold of some horrors in books, & he has been sleeping with me. When I go to bed he opens a sleepy eye, & says “Mamma! I like this”, & puts his arm across me. One night he said: “You bring a lovely smell into the bed!”, which must have been the toilet cream on my face. As soon as he goes to school all that will be over. Did I tell you he’d settled all about his marriage to Barbara? Even to the child’s name, which is to be Mary Katharine “after God’s Mother & her Grandmother”. He told Miss Hepworth Dixon who was here yesterday that Barbara was as beautiful as a Holy Person.208 By the way Nora asked me to tell you that she went out to see you one day, but you were out. She thought you might not have heard. If you get any picture postcards, who doesn’t? Remember my three. They are collecting assiduously. Our warmest, dearest. Your loving, K.

208

Ella Nora Hepworth Dixon (1857-1932) was the daughter of William Hepworth Dixon (1821-79) who was editor of the Athenaeum from 1853 until 1869. Ella was editor of the Englishwoman for six months from March 1895. From 1895 to 1921 she wrote a signed weekly column in the Lady’s Pictorial. She is remembered today for her novel The Story of a Modern Woman (1894).

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To Mary Gill MS Manchester. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 10 April 1905 Mary, my darling, I must send you a few lines to let you know I am thinking of you in bed. I always feel bed is such a loneliness no matter how many people are about you. Now darling, I hope you are mending every day, & that you will be about soon again. It is a comfort to think that there is every care taken of you. We have awful weather here. It has now been raining 32 hours on end. Yesterday we went for our country expedition. It didn’t begin to rain until 8 o’clock, & as I had got up at 6.15 in order to get Mass at the Convent, & was dressed & all for the 8.48 train, we went hoping the rain might clear off. But it has never stopped since. To-day it is pouring. We are all miserable because we can’t get out. However yesterday was a really nice day. We went to E. J. Sullivan the artist, a delightful person.209 His wife is a dear too. They have a little girl,210 & their cottage is in exquisite country. We simply defied the rain & went out in it, & we became quite intimate before the day was over. We had never met before, so it was rather a risk spending nearly 12 hours together on the first occasion & a wet day. However it was a great success,—we told stories & drank whiskey & sodas! And got as intimate as if we had known each other for years. My old friend, Lady Young, has a house at Cookham.211 In the afternoon we went to tea at the house of a Mrs Kennedy, the widow of a first cousin of Lady Young’s who was a distinguished portrait painter but died early. His sister, Mrs Martin, used to be a great friend of mine. I daresay I told you about her & her tragic end, poor dear. It was very nice. We had tea in a big garden. Run like a studio, full of pictures & with a piano & organ. A young man, a musical genius played the Sonata Appassionata.212 There was a very clever young woman there, a Mrs Watson who had come down in a motor car. She asked me if she might come to see me, so my ambition of motor-drives may be realized! Sometimes during the pleasant day I thought of my darling Mary. Dear Sissie told me that you wanted her to send the children picture postcards. 209

The illustrator, painter and etcher Edmund Joseph Sullivan (1869-1933). He had married Frances Louise Williams (b.1869) in 1894 and they lived at 30 Belsize Grove, Hampstead. He worked for various magazines and papers, especially the Pall Mall Budget and the Daily Graphic. 210 Eileen was born in 1896. 211 Formosa Cottage. 212 Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Opus 57 (Appassionata).

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You darling to think of it! I am awfully glad she is with you so much. It must be a comfort. The children got their Irish terrier on Saturday. He is a very handsome dog & most amicable but has been treated so badly that he is cowed & spends his whole time apologizing for his existence. Lizzie got him from a neighbouring farmer. She says he was badly treated. However I’m sure he’ll soon learn that he is a pet & an object of consideration to his friends. The children are always talking about you. I got a good bit of news on Saturday morning,—a commission for a serial for the British Weekly £150,—the book-rights to go to Hodder & Stoughton with a payment on account of royalties of £150 down.213 It isn’t the job itself, but it is that Robertson Nicoll, who is the B.W. & Hodder & Stoughton can make a big success if he wants to do it. He made Barrie, Ella Thorneycroft Fowler, Ian MacLaren & Crockett.214 He leads the British public by the nose. I’ll write every few days while you’re in bed, darling, & tell you all our little news. Give my fondest love to dear Sissie. Your loving, devoted K.T.H.

213

Katharine’s “For Maisie”, British Weekly, 5 July 1906 to 27 December 1906. It was published in book form in 1907. 214 The novelist Ella Thorneycroft Fowler (1860-1929) had been encouraged to write by Robertson Nicoll. Her most successful novel was Concerning Isabel Carnaby (1898). That and subsequent novels reflected her Methodist upbringing even though she was an Anglican. The Scottish Presbyterian minister and writer John Watson (1850-1907) wrote novels under the name Ian Maclaren. Samuel Rutherford Crockett (1860-1914), prolific Scottish writer. After graduating from Edinburgh University he trained for the ministry and was ordained in 1886 as a Free Church minister. He later resigned in order to write full-time. The Stickit Minister (1893), a collection of stories, is probably his best work.

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 11 April 1905 My dear May, Are you forgetting us altogether? —or why the long silence. We have had trouble or I should have written before. We were called to Dublin at the end of February to Harry’s mother, but she was dead before we could arrive. Afterwards we stayed over there for a few weeks. Just now I am dreadfully anxious about my oldest & dearest friend, Mrs Gill, who is dangerously ill.215 I left her so cheerfully a few short weeks ago. Outside Harry & the children & my father I should miss no one so dreadfully. Won’t you come & see us & stay for dinner any evening, or would you come down on Sunday? your loving K.T.H.

215

Mary Gill died on 4 May 1905. Katharine published her poem “Mary in Heaven” in the Irish Monthly, June 1905 and “In Fond and Faithful Memory”, Irish Monthly, August 1905. The latter essay appeared in her A Little Book for Mary Gill’s Friends published by James Guthrie at the Pear Tree Press in 1906. The essay was reprinted in the Bibelot, X, No. 9, (1907). Mary Gill was Godmother to Pamela Hinkson.

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To Henry Austin Dobson MS London Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 30 June 1905 Dear Mr Dobson, Will you give me permission to use in a Birthday Book of the Dead a verse from Angiola in Heaven, and one from the poem not the refrain.216 There are no birds in my last year’s work. For this permission I shall be much indebted. very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

216

A Book of Memory, the Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead [1906] compiled by Katharine. She included the first eight lines of the last verse of Dobson’s “A Song of Angiola in Heaven” as one of the poets for “March the Twelfth”. She also included the final verse of “The Dying of Tanneguy du Bois” for “May the Eleventh”.

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To Helen Allingham217 MS NLI. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 4 July 1905 Dear Mrs Allingham, Thank you so much. I shall love to come to see you on a Wednesday afternoon after we get back. I am just going to Ireland, for a week with my dear old friends, before taking the children to the coast of France for eight or ten weeks. Yes,—I was at Ballyshannon,218 just before I was married, & met Mr Hugh Allingham,219 & had a long talk with him chiefly about your husband.220 I shall let you see the proofs.221 The extracts—I have taken, are tiny ones. I think you will like the book very much & think him in befitting company. With kind wishes & regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

217

The well-known artist Helen Mary Elizabeth Peterson (1848-1926) had married the Irish poet William Allingham (1824-89) in 1874. 218 William Allingham’s birthplace. 219 William Allingham’s half-brother Hugh. 220 Katharine published “The Poetry of William Allingham” in the Irish Fireside, 30 October 1886. 221 Katharine included the final verse of William Allingham’s “Twilight Voices” for “September the Twentieth” and four lines from the second verse of “The Abbot of Innisfallen” for “October the Fourth” in A Book of Memory.

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To Alice Meynell MS Texas. Villa Marthe, Audresselles, pas Mariquise, Pas de Calais222 31 July 1905 Dearest Alice, I hoped you would have come to us for lunch before leaving town: but I didn’t bother you hoping you would write. Then I remembered a little later that you had said you were going out of town for ten days in July: and we made a hasty visit to Ireland before coming over here. So the time went in one way or another. We have been here nearly a week. It is most sweet & peaceful, with such strong, pure air. We look on the sea, & there are a few châlets scattered about, but it is quite country, & we are well away from the village. Two of our friends have châlets close by, & we have some other friends who come over from Ambleteuse: but we are delightfully quiet, just seeing our friends, who are also workers, in the evening. We bathe every morning before breakfast, & altogether it is delightful. I wonder if you have had your ten days & are back in London. If you are going to be in London during August you will be quite ready for another change in September, & we shall look forward with quiet hope to seeing you. We have a spare room which would be ready for any time & honoured to receive you, so that if you found you could come in August, the come, darling. But I think you said September would suit you best. Only if you wait till September you must come early lest the weather should break up. I suppose you are all quite settled down in the flat,223 & I expect Wilfrid enjoys being so near everything that is going on. I hope he is well & all the children & Monica & her baby. Tell Wilfrid I am just going to turn the kindle & read out another story. I have two serials to do before the close of the year, & I hope to get one done here. But I know he will like letters to hear that I have a little new book of poems coming out soon.224 You know with what love & joy we shall all welcome you. Come to us for as long as you can stay, darling. your ever loving, devoted K.T.H. We have plenty of beautiful music, for Herbert Bunning is one of our 222 The Hinksons were on holiday staying at the chalet Marthe (Middle Years, 298300). 223 Wilfrid had the vacant top floor of the Burns and Oates building converted into a drawing-room, dining room, five bedrooms and a dressing room as 4 Granville Place Mansions, W. 224 Innocencies: A Book of Verse (Dublin: 1905).

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neighbours:225 and Dudley Hardy has a big house with a studio, & is painting lovely sea-scapes.226 It is all silvery grey, except for the red roofs: and just opposite us, across a waste of sand & coarse grass covered with wild convolvulus & other delicious smelling little flowers, a Calvary holds out its arms to us. We have a French cook who does us delightful things in the way of cookery course.

225

After two years as an Army officer Herbert Bunning (1863-1937) resigned to study and compose music. 226 Dudley Hardy was at the chalet Qui Si Sano.

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To Ernest Percival Rhys227 MS BL. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 14 December 1905 Dear Mr Rhys, I got the Lays of the Round Table from the Pall Mall & sent in my review yesterday. I love the book.228 It is in my mind side by side with Morris’s Defence of Guenevere which has always had the greatest fascination for me.229 The Pall Mall review had to be short, but I tried to make it sweet. I hope many people will be delighted with the book. I’m writing to-day to the Editor of the Irish Daily Independent. I asked him to see if the Lays came to him that it had due attention.230 The reviews there are short, & perhaps you will hardly think it worth while to send a copy. The Editor of the Freeman is also a friend of mine, if my word can be of any use there.231 I will also speak about the book to a friend on T.P.’s Weekly. I also wrote to the Irish Daily Independent about Mrs Rhys’s beautiful work.232 I was so sorry about the fog the other night. I’m afraid you had no quests at all. It was impossible for us to stay. With my kind regards to Mrs Rhys. yours ever sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson The Lays get in the very enchanted air of old Romance.

227

The writer, poet and editor Ernest Percival Rhys (1859-1946) who co-founded the Rhymers’ Club in 1890. 228 Rhys’s Lays of the Round Table: and Other Lyric Romances (1905). Katharine gave a favourable review in the Pall Mall Gazette, 26 March 1906. 229 William Morris’s The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858). 230 It was not reviewed in the Irish Daily Independent. 231 It was not reviewed in Freeman’s Journal. 232 Ernest’s wife the Irish writer and novelist Grace Little (1865-1929).

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To Richard John Kelly233 MS Morris. Wrentham, Longfield-road, Ealing, W. 2 October 1906 Dear Mr Kelly, I think the Irish Pipes would be a good choice for your book,234 but not the cricket muses so I keep them back. I send a poem which I think will be more suitable. You are very welcome to make a reasonable selection from anything I have written. I was obliged to you for sending me the cricket poem. I had no idea it had appeared in the Daily Chronicle & no memory of having sent it there: so you did me a service. I hope all is well with you, & with all kind wishes & regards. Believe me, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Richard J. Kelly, B.L.

233

Richard John Kelly (1856-1931) was a newspaper editor and barrister, becoming a K.C in 1914. He was editor of the Tuam Herald founded by his father in 1837. Politically he was for Home Rule. 234 Popular and Patriotic Poetry (Dublin: 1907). Katharine’s “Irish Pipes” was included.

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The Editor, The Times Wrentham, Longfield-road, Ealing, W. 1 November [1906]235 Sir, It has come as a shock to me—it will come as a shock to many people—that the ladies who are in prison for their part in the agitation for female-suffrage should be treated as common criminals. Sir, no one doubts the disinterestedness and good intentions of these ladies. The gentlemen of the Press have made them suffer that martyrdom of being ridiculous, which is one of the worst martyrdoms to a sensitive and dignified woman. (For my own part I do not in the least believe in the alleged hysteria. I know one of Richard Cobden’s daughter,236 and it would take a good deal to make me believe that she could ever be anything but noble and dignified.) The history of the making of the Constitutions teaches us that the first step towards making a law is to break it. These ladies have already, by the action of the Press, amused the groundlings. Let us not add to this humiliation the hardships and degradation of such treatment as Mrs. Fenwick Miller describes.237 I have never hitherto desired to vote, but these doings make me think. I ask myself why my gardener should have a vote and I not have one. Yours very faithfully, Katharine Tynan Hinkson

235 Published under the heading “To the Editor of The Times”, The Times, 1 November 1906. 236 The suffragette (Julia Sarah) Anne Cobden-Sanderson (1853-1926) was the daughter of the radical politician Richard Cobden (1804-65). She and others had been arrested after a protest at the House of Commons on 23 October 1906. They were charged with abusive behaviour but did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court. Each was asked to choose between surety of £10 or prison for two months. They chose prison. They were released on 24 December. Later Cobden-Sanderson and others left the Women Social & Political Union and formed the Women’s Freedom League. 237 A letter in The Times, 29 October 1906 by the journalist and suffragette Florence Fenwick Miller (1854-1935). Her daughter Irene was also in prison and released with the others.

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To Frances Alice Chesterton238 MS BL. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 5 November 1906 My dear Mrs Chesterton, I should like immensely to come to you on one of your at home evenings & should not think of being formal in any way: but, I am so blind that for a long time now I have not been able to get about unaccompanied after dark. I realized how very blind I was the other day when I took my working glasses to an optician to ask if I could have anything stronger, & he told me, after taking a deal of trouble that they could do nothing for me. I had reached the limit. Therefore you will please excuse me, and know that I appreciate very much your kindness in thinking of me. I am so sorry to know that you have been ill: and so sorry for your husband who must have suffered. I always think it is worse for the well one. I hope you are really stronger & will be very careful to keep well. Please remember me cordially to Mr Chesterton. Is this a Saint’s Day of his?239 With all kind wishes & regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

238

Frances Alice Blogg (1869–1938) had married the writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) in June 1901. 239 5 November was the Saints Day for the English St Gilbert of Sempringham.

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To the Editor, Speaker240 Ealing 19 December 1906241 Sir, Miss Frances Low,242 in a “A Woman’s Causerie” in The Speaker of December 15, states, regarding the work of Hannah Lynch: “Yet the first of modern Irish writers does not figure at all in The Anthology of Irish Authors edited by Miss Tynan.” I have edited no book under that title, but I have edited The Cabinet of Irish Literature, and, since it is the only book of the kind I have edited, it must be to that Miss Low alludes. Will you permit me to say that Hannah Lynch is represented in The Cabinet of Irish Literature by “A Village Sovereign”, one of the two short stories of hers that Miss Low names as her highest achievement. Hannah Lynch wished to be represented by this story, and she furnished me with it, and also with a brief biography which appears before the extract. This statement cannot be a mere inaccuracy on Miss Low’s part, since she made it before in the Dublin Freeman’s Journal,243 to which I wrote correcting it. I know that this correction of mine was brought to Miss Low’s notice.244 Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

240

John Lawrence Hammond (1872-1949) was editor from 1898 until the journal’s demise in 1907. 241 Published under a heading “A Correction”, 29 December 1906. 242 The journalist and short story writer Frances H. Low (1863-1939) author of two children’s books and Press Work for Women: What to Write, How to Write It, and Where to Send It (1904). 243 Frances H. Low, “The Late Miss Hannah Lynch”, Freeman’s Journal, 2 February 1904. The text Katharine refers to is In her lifetime she felt keenly that in the anthology of Irish writers her name is omitted whilst a host of mediocrities are included, scarcely one of which will be remembered ten years after her death. 244

Frances H. Low replied in the Speaker, 12 January 1907, saying that I beg you will allow me to say that I had not seen the “correction” to which Mrs Hinkson refers till it appeared the other day in The Speaker. I can only assume that there has been a new and revised version of the anthology which contains Hannah Lynch’s name, a tardy recognition of a neglected genius that I am glad to know of.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 17 February 1907 Dearest Alice, We are awfully sorry about poor dear Vernon,245 & I feel sure it must be a great rend to you, for I know how it must bring back the old days and in the presence of death one forgets and forgives & remembers only the happy things. I am sure you & Wilfrid were very good to him in his last days. I feel very sorry for the poor widow who, I am sure, according to her lights, did all possible for him. I wished to be at Kensal from to-morrow,246 but Harry could not be there. We have all had colds, & I have had an extraordinary time of wheel headaches. Saturday & Sunday of last week I had the wheels twice each day. I find at times a certain glow in the Eastern or Northern lights bring it on at once. I have been free for a week now, but am bothered with neuralgia. The children are always a more wonderful joy. Pamela has developed a passion for poetry & can reel off whole poems. She has selected the carols in a book of poems,247 & it is wonderful how at six years old she appreciates the simplicities. She is a miracle of wisdom. We read your lovely poem in the Saturday Review.248 When are you coming to see us? ever your loving K.T.H. I have had worries, not in my own home luckily, but about my sister to whom my father left the old home. She intends to marry a man 16 years younger than her, & a gross libertine. So far nothing the priests, or anyone can say, has sufficed to move her. Give my love to Wilfrid & all the children.

245

Vernon Blackburn had died on 14 February. Cemetery. 247 Katharine’s A Little Book of XXIV Carols (Portland Maine: Thomas B Mosher, 1907) with a second edition in 1916. 248 Alice’s “The Fugitive”, Saturday Review, 2 February 1907. 246

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To the Royal Literary Fund249 MS RLF. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 8 April 1907 Dear Sir, I should like to add my name to the many you will receive as testifying to the truth & beauty of Mr Alexander Gordon’s work.250 It seems a thousand pities that work of such simple excellence should not command the suffrages of the public, & his is on a course which I am sure ought to receive the help from the Royal Literary Fund. Believe me, dear Sir yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

249

It was founded in 1790 as the Literary Fund Society to aid authors and their dependents and it received its Royal Charter in 1845. 250 The short story writer Alexander Gordon (b.1857) currently English news editor of the Sunday Review but also suffering from an incurable nervous disease of the ear. Gordon’s application was successful and he received £50 on 11 April. Gordon also received a further £20 on 12 February 1909 after a second application. He applied for a further grant in 1912 and Katharine wrote in support on 11 April 1912. He received a further £20 and a another £15 on 10 October 1913 and £10 on 13 November 1914. In 1915 he received £10 and in 1917 £5. Two further applications failed in 1918.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 14 May 1907 Dear Father Hudson, I hope you will remember me as an old friend of the Ave Maria. May I commend you to as a new friend John Hannon,251 who tells me he has sent you an article? He is a brilliant fellow, but he has had the hard blow for a man who lives by the pen of being knocked over by eye-trouble. I am sure the work will commend itself. He is a good Irishman & Catholic, & a dear friend of mine. I hope you are quite well, & you & the Ave Maria flourishing. With all kind regards ever sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

251

John Hannon’s “Noel Night”, Ave Maria, 21 December 1907. Hannon also contributed “A Poet and a Premier”, Ave Maria, 9 January 1909. He was also a contributor to the Irish Monthly. His The Kings and the Cats: Munster Fairy Tales for Young & Old was published by Burns and Oates in 1908. Fr Matthew Russell wrote the preface and Katharine contributed a verse for children. It was illustrated by the well-known illustrator of cats Louis Wain. John Hannon (1870-?).

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To Dora Shorter252 MS Brotherton. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 18 May 1907 My dear Dora, We gave up the idea of the Missenden house after we came back that night. I daresay we shouldn’t have if we hadn’t all been frightfully tired, for we got out at Harrow & Weldon & walked two miles to the other station, & had another mile & a half at this end. I got discouraged over everything. Now we have found a house at Chipperfield, Kings Langley, which seems the ideal house.253 It was built by a lady for herself, but circumstances have prevented her living in it. Everything is of the best, hollow walls, the bricks laid in cement, parquet flooring, slow combustion new fireplaces beautifully tiled, and all the windows very sound classical. It has four acres of land, & the garden is laid out & well planted. We hope to get in about the first week of June. We have just selected the papers. I wish it could have been Missenden for your sake if I could have helped about the priest. Perhaps I couldn’t. It will be easier at King’s Langley to realize our dream of getting Fr Dolan as it is in Westminster diocese.254 The Bishop of Northampton in whose diocese you are will not have Regulars.255 We shall not be far from you as the crow flies. I hope you will manage to get across to us some times. It is flat, beautiful patterned country not so high as Missenden but 425 feet & with nothing higher about it. Harry is so overjoyed he doesn’t know what to do with himself. I shall have to drive to church there for early Mass every second Sunday: train the others. We shall be nearly two miles from King’s Langley station but the trains are for the masses & when I have had my breakfast I think nothing of two miles. We hope to start a gee very soon: meanwhile I must hire.256 Give my love to Hetty & the boys & your father & Donn.257 And don’t forget my dear old friend Mrs McGuiness. I hope you will be able to get a print at Missenden. Do let us meet when you come back. Will you come 252

See p. 173. In Middle Years Katharine remarks that it was “much too small” (323). 254 Fr (John) Gilbert Dolan, O.S.B. (1853-1914). Katharine devotes a chapter, “Father Gilbert Dolan, O.S.B.”, in her Memories. 255 Arthur George Riddell (1836-1907) became Bishop in 1880. 256 In a letter to Dora Shorter (11 November 1907, Brotherton), Katharine writes: “Our own horse is lame unfortunately & we have one hired, very serviceable but not beautiful.” 257 Katharine is referring to Hester’s husband Arthur Donn Piatt. 253

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down one afternoon & tell me all the news. We dined with the Sullivans on Monday.258 ever, with love, yours K.T.H.

258

Edmund Joseph Sullivan and Frances Louise Sullivan.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 31 May 1907 Dearest Alice, Will you hand the enclosed M.S.S. to my goddaughter with my love?259 I know your children like such things: and she will be able to see some day that her god-mother wasn’t a very hard working woman & point to the M.S.S. in justification. I began to ask you the other day, but something put it out of my head if you would care for a fresh egg supply,—1/2 a dozen (boxes to be returned costing 4d a week) & a fresh butter supply,—3 lbs for 3/6, carriage paid,— which I am obliged to relinquish on going to the country. Ask the housekeeper’s daughter if these supplies would be satisfactory advantageous to her: they are considerably below London prices. I have been getting the eggs & butter since mid Winter, so I conclude they are the year round prices. Perhaps the eggs would fail in the scarce time before Christmas. The addresses are for eggs, Miss G. S. Smith Landview House Ongar Sussex. For butter, Mrs G. M. Thorp Kilgraney Bagenalstown Co Carlow Ireland Both are excellent in quality & the supply very punctual. We don’t get in after all till Thursday.260 Couldn’t get the painters out. All best love. yours K.T.H.

259 260

Olivia. 6 June.

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To Lady Augusta Gregory261 MS Berg. Wrentham, Longfield Road, Ealing. W. 31 May 1907 Dear Lady Gregory, I am very glad you will come to the Women Writers Dinner as my guest.262 I knew you were in Italy, so was writing quite particularly for your reply. We are just about to move from here to Greenhurst Chipperfield King’s Langley Herts. We hope to get down there about the middle of next week. We shall take some little time to get settled but we shall manage a matinée at the Irish Theatre.263 Is W. B. Yeats with you?264 At Kings Langley we shall be almost your neighbours at Euston Hotel.265 Perhaps you & he could manage to lunch with us before you go back? With all kind regards yours ever sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

261

Lady (Isabella) Augusta Gregory (1852-1932), née Persse. She, with W. B. Yeats and the writer and playwright Edward Martyn (1859-1923), founded the Irish Literary Theatre which became the Abbey Theatre. She was a major partner in the Irish Literary Revival and wrote plays and books. 262 Katharine had written to Lady Gregory on 19 May hoping that she would be her guest at the Women Writers Dinner on 17 June. 9. 263 Katharine is referring to the Irish plays to be performed at the Great Queen Street theatre from 10 June. The plays were J. M. Synge’s The Raiders of the Sea, Lady Gregory’s The Jackdaw and Spreading the News, and W. B. Yeats’s The Shadowy Waters. 264 On 27 May Yeats was at 18 Woburn Gardens, Euston Road, London and on 1 June was in Birmingham. 265 Lady Gregory was at the Euston Hotel, London.

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To Lady Augusta Gregory MS Berg. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 15 June 1907 Dear Lady Gregory, I am so awfully sorry. I have caught a chill & dare not come on Monday night, but I have asked Mrs Meynell to look after you & I am telegraphing to the secretary to put you beside Mrs Meynell at dinner.266 It is a very great disappointment to me, but the chill is rather a bad one. Last night I thought it was influenza, & I can’t take risks. I had looked forwarded so much to being your hostess, as well as to the pleasantness of the dinner which is always delightful. But I know you will find Mrs Meynell a very good substitute. I am so sorry too to miss the plays. We had thought of a matinée but this wretched weather has spoiled all our plans. With all kind regards your very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

266

Alice Meynell wrote to Katharine on 17 June (Alice Letters, 234) How sorry I am to hear of your illness! I wish I could have a line to say you are better. I shall be next to Lady Gregory and will talk to her uninterruptedly about her great friend Wilfrid Blunt, who has been thrice to see Dimpling in her cottage.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 24 June 1907 Dear Fr Hudson, Thank you so much for your kind letter. I am glad you remember me over all these years, as I do you, with the old kindness. Thank you so much for being good to poor John Hannon. It is a great kindness to the poor fellow. We have just moved into the country, charming country, and our house is very pretty. It has been our dream for years. But alas it is the wettest the wildest the coldest June on record. To-day we a expecting one of our dearest friends, Dom Gilbert Dolan, the Benedictine. He has a wretched day to arrive. Many things have happened since I used to write for you. My dear father died in 1905.267 I miss him more sadly than ever since we have come to the country. I have three children, two boys & a girl,—the eldest boy nearly 10, the youngest, the girl 6½. They are all Catholics, thank God, & their best of fathers, though he remains where he was, is as careful as I am that they should neglect nothing of their religion. I have become a very busy writing woman since the old days. I don’t know how many books I am responsible for,—not far short of fifty, I think. I write all the year round & thank God I have great health & strength. I hope you keep well. In a world that slips & changes so sadly, it is good to know that an old friend stands where he was. I am sending you two or three M.S.S which you may perhaps be able to use, & I enclose a little poem.268 With all kind regards & good wishes for you & the Ave Maria. Believe me, dear Fr Hudson yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

267

He died on 7 September 1905. Only the poem “A Night Thought”, Ave Maria, 20 July 1907, was published in 1907. Her next contribution was the short story “Mary’s Paragons”, 1 February 1908.

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Katharine’s father in 1888

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To Wilfrid Scawen Blunt MS Texas. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 14 August 1907 Dear Mr Blunt, I wonder if you would be so good as to give me a subscription towards a mission which we hope to start here,—in this very bigoted corner of England? We have our priest with anxiety to come, we have a good woman who will house him & the mission till the latter is able to house itself, & we only want a small sum guaranteed to keep our priest alive during the first lean years.269 There is only one family beside ourselves to be guarantors others can’t help,—so I am obliged to go outside. Many people would come if there were a mission here. Please forgive me for being that odious thing a beggar. I hope you are stronger. And that Lady Anne is well & Mrs Lytton & their children. Believe me, dear Mr Blunt with a hundred thousand apologies sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

269

Katharine also appealed to Lord Rothschild but nothing came of her intention to form a mission (Middle Years, 330).

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To A. P. Watt270 Published in Letters addressed to A. P. Watt (1909). Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley. 26 October 1907 Dear Mr Watt, You have now transacted my business for a number of years and I should like to express my grateful acknowledgments of the care with which you have looked after my interests and the intelligence you have devoted to them. You have the gift of turning your clients into personal friends, and if I were not your very much obliged client, I should like to sign myself Your friend, Katharine Tynan Hinkson

270

The Scotsman Alexander Pollock Watt (1838-1914) was one of the first literary agents, starting his business in 1875 in London.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 19 November 1907 My dear Wilfrid, We are so sorry but,—he seemed to be less of earth than most of us, & had less reason for staying.271 The immortal poet of him remains with us, thanks to you! It is good to feel that you were with him to the end the most faithful & abiding & patient of friends. I have just sent my little bit to the Pall Mall.272 I hope I shall not be forestalled. I shall also do a review article & hope to place it in some good quarter.273 You must write his life. One is as sure of him as though he were dead a hundred years & Time had spoken his merit. I have only just achieved an article on The Church and Animals, although I have had it in my mind for a long time.274 I think of doing a number of those stories in verse & including the poems of the same sort I have already done. We have a couple of artists beside us here,— Chadburns,275 —Mrs Chadburn illustrates books & is anxious to work with 271

Francis Thompson had died on 13 November. At Wilfrid’s request (telegram 18 November) Katharine Tynan wrote, “Francis Thompson: An Appreciation”, Pall Mall Gazette, 23 November 1907. 273 The Tablet, 28 December 1907, noted that “Mrs. Katharine Tynan Hinkson will contribute to the forthcoming number of The Fortnightly Review an appreciation of the poetry of Francis Thompson, a poet to whom she was personally known”. However, Katharine’s “Francis Thompson”, did not appear in the Fortnightly Review until February 1910. It is the original text with an added opening sentence 272

It is now more than a year since Francis Thompson died, and the publication of a selected volume of his poems has once again brought him before the official assize which sits in judgment upon poets as upon common men and things. The first sentence seems to indicate that Katharine’s article was to have been published in late 1908 or early 1909. Wilfrid‘s edition of The Selected Poems of Francis Thompson was published in September 1908 with reprints in 1909, 1911, and 1910. As Thompson’s executor Wilfrid published the three volume The Works of Francis Thompson in 1913 and Katharine reviewed it in the Bookman, August 1913. 274 Not identified. 275 The landscape and portrait painter George Haworthe Chadburn (1871-1950) and his wife, the book illustrator and sculptor, Mabel E. Chadburn (b.1878), née Harwood. Nothing came of this.

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me. We think of co-operating on this. We are all flourishing & very gay. It is a sociable place: and for the first time in my life I perform my social duties. I don’t know how I squeeze them in but I manage to somehow. We have two new rooms being built, a library & a bedroom over. They will be habitable in Spring: and then I hope you & Alice will come to us for a week-end. Neither of you has ever spent a night under my roof, though I spent so many good nights under yours. During the beautiful Autumn I often wished you were here. It seemed the most wonderful Autumn to me, perhaps because it is so long since I was in the country in the Autumn. But in Spring this country will be all alive with cherryblossom & the nightingales sing at our doors. Perhaps if we get some beautiful frosty weather in Winter you will not wait for the Spring? I hope everything is well with you & dearest Alice & yours. With love from us all, ever yours K.T.H. Look at my Birthday Book for the quotation from Sappho for the 13th.276 It is appropriate.

276

“But their hearts turned cold and they dropt their wings” (189).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 14 December 1907 My dear Wilfrid, I didn’t want the proof back as I had always already returned one.277 This will explain why I didn’t accept your corrections which it was awfully good of you to make. I returned my proof in a hurry because I thought they might want to use the article soon. I was very sorry I hadn’t New Poems when doing it:278 I hope my dearest Alice didn’t think me intolerant about Patmore.279 I made it as a mere statement of fact. He had a tremendous intellectual annoyance & intolerance,—hadn’t he? Perhaps it wasn’t so apparent to those he honoured. It seemed to me just part of his character, & I wrote entirely without any sense of intolerance. Perhaps thinking of him & Francis Thompson together made him seem more blighting to me, & the more so because I had such an immense feeling for his poetry. But I should be awfully grieved if I hurt the dearest of women. God bless you & her always. Think of K.T. caught in a whirlwind of country gaieties, lunching out, dining out, bridge-parties afternoon & evening; driving to see the meet & so on: we find ourselves in the midst of the friendliest people,—some of them in touch with art & literature too. I feel that my era of all work & my little poems has come to an end, & am only anxious lest the positions should be reversed. 277

This was a proof of her Fortnightly Review article not published until 1910. Writing to Wilfrid on 27 November (Greatham) Katharine had remarked: “I am so glad you liked the Pall Mall article.” 278 Francis Thompson’s New Poems (1897). 279 In her Thompson proof Katharine remarks At that time one often saw him in juxtaposition with Coventry Patmore, who was an extremely arrogant poet, and a terrifying person to the young aspirant who would write poetry or had written something he or she hoped was poetry, even though of a minor order. Alice wrote on 23 December (Alice Letters, 240) No, my own dear K.T., I was not hurt. Of course I know there was arrogance among the characters of that great and singular spirit and that the contrast with the other poetʊmuch more self-absorbed and at the same time more humbleʊwas a very curious one. It is quite impossibleʊyou being yourselfʊthat you should ever really hurt me.

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I am much interested in Dr Saleeby’s controversy with Bernard Shaw.280 What a beast Shaw is! I hope all the belongings flourish. We are splendid, despite the bad weather. I haven’t had a headache since June & my eyes seem washed clear of ache & pain. Love form us ever yours K.T.H.

280

Saleeby published his “Marriage and its Critics”, Pall Mall Gazette, 28 November 1907. He supported the concept of marriage and the influence of the State in furthering eugenics. Bernard Shaw argued for eugenics to improve the character and wellbeing of people without the interference of the State. The argument raged in the Pall Mall Gazette from 2 December until 17 December. Dr Caleb William Saleeby (1878-1940) supported suffrage and he became an advisor to the Minister of Food. He was a strong advocate for a ministry of health.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 29 February 1908 Dear Fr Hudson, I enclose receipt for your remittance with many thanks.281 I have also received M.S. When I have something suitable for you I shall send it with pleasure.282 I hope I haven’t been bothering you with my friends. I never send anyone to you who cannot write & whose writing is not acceptable in some other quarters. I know you are always good to then as you possibly can be. It would be the height of unreason to expect you to accept things that did not suit you. The children are very well,—thank you so much for remembering them. The eldest goes to school to-morrow as first break. He is 10½ years old. I wish we had not to send him away, but there are no schools here in the country where we are living. They are very quaint children. They are just now much taken with writing letters to us, which have a complete detachment from us. “Dear Mrs Hinkson,—I hope you are quite well. How is your husband? I love that you have had your field ploughed for potatoes & that your children enjoy picking the stones from it. The weather is offal. yours sincerely Bunny.” Bunny & Pamela also write poems, which are very promising, and Bunny illustrates them. By the way I know you get stamps from all parts of the world. Could you spare me some for the children? They are great collectors. I promised them I would ask you. With all kind regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

281 282

Katharine’s “Mary’s Paragons”. Katharine’s next contribution was “Lullaby”, Ave Maria, 30 May 1908.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 14 May 1908 My dear Frank Mathew, I have asked you to Julia Crottie to send on to you my Catholic World article on the Neglect of Irish Writers which has been exciting some considerable amount of interest.283 I hope you won’t feel as I imagine some Irish writers do: “Dash, her impudence! Can’t I be neglected if I like without her caterwauling over it?” They won’t even buy a poems book at a shilling. My Child’s Life of Our Lord which took me two months to do has so far brought me in £7.284 Yes: I didn’t discuss Fr Mathew’s ferocity.285 I begin to regret it now. Mine was is a poor little made book, owing nearly any litt goodness it has to you.286 Do me of those “kindly” Irish sketches & send it to the Fortnightly.287 That should be a big book. Toby, (was) placed in an ideal school at Watford last week, neither ate nor slept: finally bolted home on Monday. Returned in company with Bunny on Tuesday, he made another attempt yesterday, frustrated. It is not easy to be [?personally] severe with such an offence. Fortunately the school people are kindly fatherly & motherly. Our best love, K.T.H. You & me are both unlucky in our country lives,—a freak Summer followed by a freak Spring! The rain is too much.

283

The Irish writer Julia M. Crottie (1853-1930). Katharine’s “The Neglect of Irish Writers”, Catholic World, April 1908. Katharine opens with the view that “a great tragedy...is the disappearance of the Irish writer” and that “the Irish are not a reading people” but rather oral. She later balances this with the emergence of new writers but is anyone reading them? Katharine also mentions Frank Mathew whose work belongs to literature. 284 The Child’s Life of Our Lord (1907). The same title by Sarah Stock was published in 1879. 285 Katharine’s Father Mathew (New York: 1908) a biography of the Capuchin priest Theobald Mathew (1790-1856) who was a great advocate of teetotalism. 286 Frank Mathew published his Father Mathew, His Life and Times in 1908. 287 He did not.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 24 May 1908 My dear Frank Mathew, Thanks so much for the photographs. They are jolly little chaps, darlings: and they must be a huge joy to you & their mother. Anthony is more like you though I can see that your heart is more in the first-born, or think I can see it. Our first-born is the only one who gives us any anxiety. We put him into a very jolly preparatory school at Watford to come home week-ends: but he ran away three times & we have now given it up. The dream of Harry’s life is that he should get a scholarship at Winchester. But he puts difficulties in the way. I say nothing. The other boy & the girl are poor joy: and we have no anxiety concerning them. If Harry had not his dream I wish the boy might go to Beaumont or Downside.288 I have arrived at the age when the worldly prizes dwindle. What have I been saying in Father Mathew to provoke our fellow country-people? I can’t remember anything. The Freeman did indeed object to something or other but I thought it must occur in a quotation from you.289 I’m glad to know that the English did not plot ’98.290 I was brought up to believe there was never a doubt of it. I’m very sorry I committed myself so cynically to the statement. The Manchester Guardian, which has an edge on against me (our lady reviewer) objected to “the stale calumnies against English statesmen” in Father Mathew.291 I didn’t know there were any. Did you make them? I wish we could meet. It is a thousand pities for friends to be so separated in a world where only love & friendship count. Harry tells me to tell you Fr Alphonsus brought a fearful shower of denunciations to the Tablet of him as “an ogre of immorality” and the Tablet for its leniency to the ogre.292 288

Beaumont College, Berkshire, was founded in 1861 and closed in 1967. Downside, initially founded in France, moved to England in 1795, being on the present site in Somerset since 1814. 289 I have not found this. 290 The rebellion of 1798 was an attempt to rid the country of the centuries of influence by the English in Irish affairs. The promise of French help was not forthcoming and the rebellion floundered with thirty-four leaders being executed. The outcome of the rebellion was the Act of Union in 1801 which strengthened British control in Ireland. 291 There was very brief note in the Manchester Guardian, 15 May 1908. 292 Harry’s Father Alphonsus (1908) was reviewed in the Tablet, 21 March 1908. The review opens with

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I wish I had thought of sending Father Mathew to the Judge.293 I’m so glad it pleased him. yours ever affectionately K.T.H. I don’t think my novel is good enough to send you.294 But next Autumn will see one. My Croppies Lie Down (second-hand) is on loan to Mrs Rhys.295 When I recover it you shall have it.

The moral of this novel is that men who have no vocation ought not to become priests, and unquestionably a very good novel it is. Two men are described as students in an Irish seminary and on the eve of ordination. Neither of them had vocations; and one of them left the seminary and returned to the world, while the other persevered and was ordained. The laymen prospered, and the priest came to grief. We question the truth of the statement: “In nine cases out of ten men became priests without any conscious vocation, and in nine cases out of ten of those who did, they made very good priests.” We have still greater doubts, nay, something more than doubts, about the advantages of describing, as apparently happy, the death in the arms of her paramour of a convert, who had gone through the form of a marriage with the priest who had received her into the Church, and of entitling the chapter in which it occurs “The Dawn”. Naturally there was a critical response to this and Harry published a letter in the Tablet of 11 April refuting the implication that the novel was erotic. Rosa Mulholland wrote in defence of the book in the issue of 23 May. 293 The Right Hon. John George Gibson, P.C. (1846-1923), From 1885 to 1887 he was Solicitor-General for Ireland and then Attorney-General. He resigned as MP in 1888 and became a judge of the Queen’s Bench. He retired in 1921. Katharine gives him a chapter in her Memories. 294 The Lost Angel (Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: John Milne, 1908). The autumn book would have been The House of Crickets which was published on 8 October 1908. 295 Croppies Lie Down: a Tale of Ireland in ‘98 (1903) was written by William Buckley of Cork.

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To Messrs Lepard & Smiths296 MS Columbia. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 23 July 1908 Dear Sirs, Re “The Adventures of Alicia”. On receipt of the sum of ten pounds (£10.0.0) I will authorise you to publish or cause to be published for your own benefit an edition of The Adventures of Alicia at sixpence for you or your assignees to have the exclusive right to issue such sixpenny edition. faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Messrs Lepard & Smiths Ltd297

296

Letter written in Henry Hinkson’s hand but signed by Katharine. Lepard & Smiths Ltd, Paper Merchants & Agents Wholesale & Export Stationers, 17/18, Great Earl Street, W.C. The Adventures of Alicia was originally published by F. V. White in 1906. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1909.

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To Leo Maxse298 MS West Sussex. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 29 September 1908 Dear Sir, Please let me know something about the articles which are in your hands, one of them for more than two years, & please don’t consider me a bore.299 If I hear they are on the way to being published I shall be quite satisfied: but I find your silence discouraging. Please don’t let me be discouraged. yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

298

The journalist and politician Leopold James Maxse (1864-1932) was editor of the Conservative National Review from 1893 to 1929. 299 Nothing of Katharine’s was published in the National Review.

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To Elizabeth Waterhouse300 MS NLI. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, Herts. 24 October 1908 Dear Mrs Waterhouse, It is so good of you to send me the beautiful book which is a treasurehouse from end to end.301 I am very proud to be in it. I haven’t done more than dip in it, finding always heavenly things. It is a great thing to compile a good spiritual book: and it will help many pilgrims. Such selecting as yours is a mission & a genius. I have not yet received from America the book of memories you kindly said you would accept from me:302 nor do I know definitely about its appearance. There may be a new book of poems first which I have called daringly Experiences303 —the last published book being Innocencies. If the poems come first I will lay them at your feet with thanksgiving for what you have done for me. very gratefully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

300

Elizabeth Hodgkin (1834-1918) married the architect Alfred Waterhouse (18301905) in 1860. Alfred Waterhouse was the architect of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. 301 Companions of the Way being Selections for Morning and Evening Reading (1908). Katharine’s contributions were: “All in the April evening”; “Oh, safe for evermore”; “I will go out into my garden to hear the birds sing”; “My rose shall have no care at all”. Elizabeth Waterhouse published a few anthologies of poetry among which was A Little Book of Life and Death (1905). 302 John O’Mahony had died in 1904 and Katharine’s A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends was published by James Guthrie at the Pear Tree Press in 1906. Thomas Mosher, of Portland, Maine, reprinted it with additions in 1909. He had previously published it in the Bibelot 1907. Katharine has a chapter “John O’Mahony” in her Middle Years. 303 Experiences (1908) was limited to two hundred and five copies and apart from a short review in the Scotsman appears not to have been reviewed.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 6 January 1909 My dear Frank Mathew, It is good news that you are writing again. I never felt that you could be happy without it. You must have always been waiting to be at it. Such work as yours must come to its own in the end: and it is a great loss when such a writer as you ceases to write. I’m afraid none of us are at our best off our Irish hearth whether it is wanted or not: so I hope you will write Irish novels again for the sake of literature. I know you’re a great novelreader. I wonder if you’ve read my House of the Crickets. I thought it good: but the reviewers take it for granted that I’m at my usual game of boiling the pot & writing down to girls,—who are in my experience a most thankless audience. To the reviewers I am become, alas, a sort of L. T. Meade,304 & he lumps all my work without reading it. I have a little book of poems out, but neither the publisher nor I can make anything out of it: 305 fortunately I never want to make money out of my poems. Bullen,306 — being an Irishman sent me back half the copy for the projected book, & published as many copies of the other half as he paper for: he was closing down the Shakespeare Head Press & there was just enough paper for 205 copies. I hear that there have been a good many applications for it at the booksellers, but no copies. We are wanting to get away form here for a bit,—not that we are not happy but that at long last I am impatient of being always in the one spot, but the house [we have] been trying to let with no success so far. We must leave here June twelve months to get near schools for the boys, since Toby won’t stay at a boarding school. As it would not be a Catholic school I look upon Toby’s messages as a first interposition. I don’t want a non-Catholic day-school: but indeed I don’t believe in the boarding-school at all. The children are now all ours. We should lose them in the boarding-school. I wish we could see you sometimes. It is a pity,—friends should be so 304

The prolific Irish novelist L[illie] T[oulmin Elizabeth Thomasina] Meade (1854-1915) and editor of Atalanta, 1887-93. She had married Alfred Toulmin Smith in 1879 but wrote under her maiden name. 305 Experiences was published by A. H. Bullen. 306 Arthur Henry Bullen (1857-1920) founded the publishing firm Lawrence and Bullen in 1891. The firm collapsed in 1900 but Bullen continued on his own. In 1904 with Henry Sedgwick he founded the Shakespeare Head Press in Stratfordupon-Avon.

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widely divided as Caterham and King’s Langley.307 Although we had visitors from Putney here during the Autumn. Anyhow you are always the same in our affections. I should like to see your boys. Ours have become very gay down here. Four Christmas parties this week: and we had a Christmas Tree on the 28th just escaping the blizzard & happily unaware as to the elders of us of the dreadful happenings in Sicily.308 Please remember me kindly to Mrs Mathew & with our love, yours always K.T.H. I shall wait to see the play.

307

They were about forty miles apart. A huge earthquake struck Messina on 28 December 1908 with the estimated loss of two hundred thousand.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 23 March 1909 My dear Wilfrid, It is very good of you to send me the Shelley.309 It is beautiful within & without. I am very glad to believe that you always like my poems dear Wilfrid. I envy you going to Rome.310 We always seem to be tired. Even our little plan of wishing absent came to nought since we could not let our house & we didn’t know what to do with it & with our servants. You will give my warm love to Alice, I mean when you both come back? We think of going down to Malvern for the Summer to put Toby to school.311 He won’t be a boarder: and we must be where he is: and our dear old friend Fr Dolan is there. We should like to see you before we go. If we like the place we may settle down there for some years. I’ve discovered now that I can do without London: and I should see more of my real friends there by coming up for a few days occasionally. Two of our neighbours here are George Wyndham’s cousins,312 —also great grandchildren of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,—Mrs Ryder & Lady Ernest Hamilton.313 Mrs Ryder is married into the lowest of Low Church people the Dudley Ryders,—who had a cousin nevertheless an Oratorian:314 but she & her sister chose our children for playmates for theirs out of all the county. They are charming & kind & we shall be very sorry to leave them. You must come to this house before we leave it. Of course we may we may be here next Winter, if our letting still hangs fire, as our tenancy does not expire for more than a year yet. God bless you all, you & yours. ever affectionately yours 309 Francis Thompson’s Shelley (1909) with an introduction by George Wyndham and textual corrections made by Wilfrid. 310 Alice and Olivia visited Rome, Florence and Venice and returned at the beginning of June. 311 Their stay in Malvern for May and June is given a chapter in Middle Years. 312 George Wyndham (1863-1913), journalist and politician, was private secretary to Arthur James Balfour, 1887-89, and later Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1900-05. He became one of the financial backers of the National Observer and had been contributing to the Scots Observer since 1890. He is given a chapter in Middle Years. 313 Florence Frances Augusta Campbell (1867-1930) married William Henry Dudley Ryder (1865-1933) in 1903. Pamela Louisa Augusta Campbell (d.1931) married the novelist Lord Ernest William Hamilton (1858-1939) in 1891. 314 Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder (1837-1907) was a priest at the Birmingham Oratory.

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K.T.H. I have a dear little governess who is a great joy. She has read pretty well everything & read poetry every night. At present we are at the Ring & the Book.315 The children will not sleep unless they hear me reading, which I do to the accompaniment of hair-washing for an hour after dinner.

315

Browning’s narrative poem published in 1868-9.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 26 March 1909 Dear Fr Hudson, You are so good about the children. I always think the love of a priest for children has something wonderful about it,—like Our Lord’s love & with a certain human poignancy added. I never can thank you enough for your goodness to them: but my heart goes out to you when I receive one of your letters concerning them. They will love the stamps. Bunny gave me a Christmas letter to post. I must have put it aside till I should be writing to you & I can’t put my hand on it now. He sends you one of his ‘poems’,— an old one. He is now working with algebra with considerable success to the exclusion of the Nurse. He & Pamela are two dears. Toby is in the hobbledehoy stage at Latin & Greek all day. He is afraid he forgot to write to you when you sent him the stamps: but he will write. They are all passionately affectionate & grateful for all kindness. Thank you for telling me the meaning of the paragraph in Ave Maria. I am so unaccustomed to the unreasonableness of my country people that I don’t even wonder at what they can have found to [?denounce]. The oddest thing is that they should have any objection with my writings as they never buy my books. I should starve if it were not for English readers. A little while ago someone sent me from New York a violent denunciation of me which had apparently been sent to the priests of the diocese. It was founded apparently on the fact that the Catholic News of New York pirating my Handsome Brandons, had for their own purposes made the Brandons Catholics,—they were Irish Protestant gentry,—and forgetting ‘to jinx the flats’ had them married by a parson. This anonymous soul objected to the Catholic News supporting a writer like me,316 which was interesting considering they steal all my books. I meant to have written to Archbishop Farley about the Catholic News’s dishonesty:317 I must look up the letter & do it. With all grateful & affectionate regards from me & the children Believe me, dear Fr Hudson, yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson 316

The weekly Catholic News (1896-1981) was the newspaper of the Archdiocese of New York. 317 The Irish-born John Murphy Farley (1842-1918) became Archbishop of New York on 15 September 1902 and was created Cardinal on 27 November 1911.

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To Lascelles Abercrombie318 MS Berg. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 2 July 1909 Dear Sir, I should like to express my deep & sincere gratitude for what you have written about my little book Experiences in the Nation of June 19th.319 I am too old a hand to trouble my reviewers with either my thanksgiving or my reproaches, but as it happens your review comes at a moment when my verse, with that of better people is so entirely unwanted that one feels shamefaced in producing it at all. I care dearly about my poetry, to make it as good as I can & keep it apart in my life which is mainly spent in the praiseworthy occupation of boiling the domestic pot. But it has had so little praise of late to say nothing of discipline that I have sometimes felt obliged to cling onto the good opinion of writers dead & gone such as Henley & Lionel Johnson, as well as of poets like Francis Thompson & Willie Yeats else I should believe that I was a fool to thrust my poor stuff on a world that didn’t want it. This being so you can understand what pleasure your review gave me, & how I felt that I must tell you. Experiences received two or three colourless words from the Times & the Spectator, a contemptuous notice in the Athenaeum,320 & only two reviews besides yours in the Nation that gave me much pleasure. Please forgive me 318

The critic and poet Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938) became a quantity surveyor and journalist and later an academic. He was a member of the Dymock Poets based on those living near Dymock in Gloucestershire between 1911 and 1914. The group consisted of Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Gibson, Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas and the American Robert Frost. 319 “Some Excursions in Poetry”, Nation, 19 June 1909. It noted that “Her lyrical impulse is unquestionable; and the impulse is embodied in delicate fantasy”. 320 Nothing was found in either The Times or the Times Literary Supplement. In “Recent Verse”, Spectator, 30 January 1909, the reviewer states She is the singer of moods and sentiments, always simple, though often it is the simplicity of artifice. Intricate and beautiful airs are always in her head, and her verses never fail in melody. We like best the first poem, “A Memory”, but such an exercise in the antique as “The Garden” is very pleasing and successful. “Verse”, Athenaeum, 6 March 1909. This was a poor review with remarks such as “There is little striking in Mrs Hinkson’s new poems”; “facile triviality”, and “potential daintiness is consistently brought to nothing by injudicious laxity of technique”.

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for saying how much I thank you. I have nearly torn up this letter, two or three times since beginning it:—but there,—it shall go. Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Mrs Smith MS Victoria. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 16 July 1909 Dear Mrs Smith, I’ve been hoping since we came back from Malvern to have a chance of seeing you: but what can one do in this awful weather? I hope your holiday is saving up for you: for I think we must get a fine Autumn. I am sorry for the poor people who have to take their holidays now. Would you tell me if any American edition of The House of the Crickets was published?321 I don’t remember if it was arranged with McClures. Mrs Blackwell was greatly pleased with the ‘Lady of the Manor’. I think a considerable number of Cornhills have come to Chipperfield this month.322 I hope you & Miss Smith are well. and believe me dear Mrs Smith with all kind regards very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

321

The House of the Crickets was not published in America. Katharine’s “The Lady of the Manor”, Cornhill, July 1909, was an essay on Mary Wotton (1828-1910) who had married Robert Blackwell (1815-93) in 1852. After his death Mary Blackwell lived in the Manor House until her death in 1910. Katharine contributed a chapter “The Lady of the Manor” in her Middle Years.

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 84. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 4 August 1909 Dearest May, How can I thank you? You are a dear, little friend. God bless you! You know I needed just some such encouragement & it made my heart sing,— not only for what Mr Bliss Perry said, but for the kindness & love of your heart towards me.323 I have a little new book coming out in five or six weeks.324 I’ll send a copy of that myself & I one to you, dear heart. When I have another volume of poems you must accept the dedication. I think Experiences, Innocencies & the Collected Poems would represent me pretty thoroughly. But you do too much for us. Again God bless you. We have just had an unsigned telegram to say that “we are coming down to-morrow”. I take it to be Alice Meynell & Ezra Pound. The post on Sunday proved very nice,—letters then his poetry. Don’t work too hard, & if you feel slack come to us for a rest & change. ever your loving & grateful K.T.H.

323

The American scholar, novelist and story writer, Dr Bliss Perry (1860-1954) who taught at Princeton and Harvard. He edited the Atlantic Monthly from 1899 until 1909 and was literary advisor to the publishers Houghton, Mifflin. 324 Lauds (1909) of fifty-eighty pages was hand printed with three hundred and fifty copies. The Times Literary Supplement noted that “the vein of simple, trustful naiveté runs through all these little charming ditties telling of nature and the God of nature” (28 October 1909).

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 22 October 1909 Dear Fr Hudson, I always feel so touched by your letters about the children. I think your feeling for them is a beautiful one: and their mother appreciates it warmly. Pamela & Bunny will both write to you themselves. I’ve been away in Ireland for a few weeks. Now we should all have measles! I think their epistolary energy exhausted itself when we were away in writing to us which they did nearly every day. Pamela divided the stamps with her brothers. They were a great acquisition to their store. Toby is now at school daily. He goes to Berkhamsted a big public school about eight miles from us.325 I have a governess with the little ones. She is such a good girl, & wonderful for imaginative children. She is very literary, although she produces nothing herself: but she is very widely read & knows all that is good. I find the children doing their dictation from the delightful nature articles in the London Times. She gives them nothing that is poor. Last year the children had a very silly governess with whom Pamela was always getting into trouble. On one occasion it was because she required Pamela to read a line in Beth-Gelert: you remember the poem about the man who killed his dog because he thought the dog had killed his child because the poor dog was bloody from killing the wolf that would have killed the child:326 “Hell-hound, thou hast devoured my child”, the governess required to be read as “Bad dog, thou hast devoured my child”. Pamela thought the substitution inadequate & refused to read it: so I agree with you as to the sufferings of children from the stupidity of grown-ups. The children are wonderfully good & sweet. Even Toby, twelve years old, is as insecure as a baby. It is a difficult question with us as whether to tell them things or not. I fear it is impossible to keep him so much longer: and he would not have been so long if it was not for a certain clear incisiveness of mind which derives from his father. I must tell you that the children have an alter of Our Blessed Lady in the schoolroom. My dear little governess, who is not a Catholic makes it her dearest care! She keeps the 325

Berkhamsted School was founded in 1541 The narrative poem is correctly entitled “Bedd Gelert, or the Grave of the Greyhound” and recounts the story of how Prince Llewellyn killed his hound in mistake as he thought it had killed his son. There are various poetical versions of the story and one of the well-known ones was written by William Robert Spencer (1769-1834) and published in his Poems in 1811. There is a grave in the village of Beddgelert in Gwynedd, Wales.

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lamp as well as my Sacred Heart lamp, flowers, etc, & does not like anyone to touch them but herself. She loves the protection of the Statue with its lamp at night; and when we were away & she had a servant it was her responsibility about the children. She went into the schoolroom & sat with the Statue for company. The Vicar of Chipperfield’s little daughter comes to share Pamela’s lessons, as they have no governess. She is almost equally devoted to the Statue & cannot bear the lamp to go low. The other day her baby sister was here,—a darling child with a head of wild red gold, & she kept telling her: “Look at the pretty lady! Isn’t she sweet?” all the time. By the way I wrote to the Catholic News & had a shuffling reply from them. They said if they had taken anything that was copyright they would pay for it. I gave them three weeks to make an offer in before writing to the Archbishop. That is a fortnight ago. I send you a little article on Dublin by this mail which I hope may suit the Ave Maria.327 Thank you from my heart for you lovely feeling for the children. I think a priest’s love for children is one of the most natural things in the world. K.T.H.

327

“Dublin the Beautiful”, Ave Maria, 20 November 1909.

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 6 March 1910 My dear Fr Hudson, I am sure the children wrote & thanked you for the stamps & the pictures. Certainly Pamela did. Pamela & Bunny have placed you among their dearest friends. They are such a dear little couple. Bunny is very wise & very babyish at eleven years old. We are often very much amused at his wisdom. I think they will even be sweeter & lovelier than they are now. We all went to Communion this morning. People wonder at Pamela having made her First Communion at nine years old: but she is so wonderfully wise: and I thought it lovely to have them make their first Communion where they are quite innocent. I often wonder over their companions. We have a delightful young priest here, very intellectual & with a keen sense of humour. A little while ago Pamela being in a fine rage committed herself to the threat that when she grew up she would murder Peggy,—her young governess to whom she is tenderly attached,—& drown her body in the canal. We told her she must tell it when she went to confession. Fortunately we had prepared Fr Whitfield for she did tell it this morning. They take their religion with the most happy joyfulness. When our dear Fr Gilbert Dolan O.S.B. prepared them for their first communion at Malvern last year they were quite jolly occasions. There is something so joyful about absolute innocence. I sent you a photograph of the three taken by Fr Whitfield last Summer. It was one of the very few sunny days of an almost sunless Summer, & the faces are hardly visible: but I am going to get you a good photograph of Pamela soon. You don’t know how grateful I am to you for loving them. It gives you a warm place in my heart. Mr Mosher published the John O’Mahony book but with my consent. It had appeared over here as a companion booklet to one about Pamela’s god-mother & my dearest friend Mrs Gill who died in 1905 the same year as my Father. Did I never send you them? I must look up the Mary Gill booklet for you as apparently you know the others. John O’Mahony has left three most delightful little boys each in their different ways, with his [illegible] humour & wild charm. My sister works hard for them. He left her nothing but a few hundred pounds of insurance: and the Irish Bar raised a fund for the education of the boys. She has a little cottage like a green lost in the grounds of the Dominican Noviciate at Tallaght, Co. Dublin. They are the most delightful quaint little bodies. It

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was the youngest Jack, a chubby rogue of six, who being rebuked for using a strong word, “A little boy like you should not use such a word”, replied obstinately, “Some good little boys did, younger’n me”. “Surely not.” “Yes they did. Job was holy man and he cursed the day he was born.” At three years old having a mysterious bump on his head that it was “brainfog”,—“brainfog” for he couldn’t yet talk properly. With all cordial regards & love from my three. ever yours, dear Fr Hudson K.T.H.

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To Lucy Blanche Masterman328 MS Birmingham. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 24 April 1910 Dear Madam, Mr Thomas B. Mosher of Portland, U.S.A. is anxious to get into communication with you as you will see from the enclosed page of a letter of his to me.329 He is a pirate, but a generous & gentlemanly one & he has a real flair for literature. He has published some things of mine by permission & has even paid me a modest sum for them when he need not.330 I don’t know why he didn’t take the simple way of communication with you which I am doing. Perhaps he has tried & you wouldn’t take any notice of him in which case forgive me.331 Any how I’m obliged to him for introducing me to such a wonderful thing as “Quod Semper”.332 Dear madam it is a joy to know it & I thank you. yours very gratefully Katharine Tynan Hinkson Perhaps you would tell him about the Christmas Rose which he has published as a forward to a beautiful little book of Christmas poems.333 I can send you a copy if you will graciously accept it.

328

The poet and journalist Lucy Blanche Lyttelton (1884-1977) was the successful hostess and influential wife of the politician Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman (1874-1927). 329 Unfortunately lost. 330 “The Wind that shakes the Barley”, Bibelot, 1 January 1903; “Where You buy Joy for a Penny”, Bibelot, 1 January 1903; and “The Dearest of All”, Bibelot, 1 January 1910. The latter had also appeared in the Cornhill, November 1907. 331 Mosher published Lyttelton’s Lyrical Poems in 1912 in his Lyric Garland Series and it was “issued under copyright arrangement with the author” (Philip R. Bishop, Thomas Bird Mosher Pirate Prince of Publishers (New Castle, DE: London, 1998, 204) and she received $25. Katharine had introduced her to Mosher. 332 A Book of Wild Things. Compiled by Lucy Lyttelton. With Pictures from Japanese Artists [1909]. 333 Anonymous, “The Christmas Rose”, A Little Garland of Christmas Verse (Portland, Maine: Thomas B Mosher, 1905).

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To Kathleen McDonnell334 MS NLI. Greenhurst, Chipperfield, King’s Langley, Herts. 24 April 1910 My dear Miss McDonnell, I have two of your letters to acknowledge full of kindness. Also two Collier’s Weeklys.335 I didn’t find Chipperfield in either of them. I have to thank you so much for the kind hint about sending the poems direct I shall act upon it. Also it is really a great help to know what kind of stories are wanted. I was greatly delighted with one that was called by a poor name,—“With Bridges Burnt” by Rex Beach.336 We thought it splendid,— quite as good in a way as Kipling & we handed it now to a friend who was heartily agreed. It was sheer genius to write a technical story which could so hold one. I have not yet read that last one you sent but I observed some extremely improper pictures at the bottom of a page,—do you often do that? I am glad you like the poems in Experiences. When I have a good poem I shall offer it to Collier’s. Just now we are on the point of making a move to Southborough, Tunbridge Wells,—I didn’t give you the new address as the matter is not absolutely settled.,—and a letter here will be sent on but I have not much doubt that it will be Tunbridge Wells. It is good of you to want to help me about Collier’s. Mr C. Harrison of the Delineator advised me to put my stories into the hands of an agent, a Miss Holly,337 & I have done so—or at best given her a few things & shall give her more. Do you think I ought to try Collier’s direct[?] It is wonderfully sweet & kind of you to be writing & anxious to be of service to me: one I shall not easily forget it. I must send you a photograph when I write again. I have three delightful children & the best of husbands. He also writes. I hadn’t even dreamt of him in the old days when you & I met. If you take a trip over here you must come & see us. Now with my hearty thanks & all kind regards 334

An Irish friend living in America. The American magazine known as Collier’s Weekly, later Collier’s, ran from 1888 to 1957, with a revival in 2012. Katharine contributed the poems “Chaffinch”, 23 July 1910; “For a Connaught Man”, 24 November 1917; and “The Old House”, 23 March 1918. 336 “With Bridges Burned” by the American novelist and prolific story writer Rex Ellinwood Beach (1877-1949). It was published in Collier’s Weekly, 19 March 1910. 337 The Delineator; a Journal of Fashion, Culture and Fine Arts. The “authors and publishers representative” Miss F. M. Holly, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 335

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yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson I used to read Richard Harding Davis with great delight whenever I got a chance.338 He is very racy. Chimmy Fadden was his great creation,— wasn’t he?339 But I have missed him of late years.

338

The American journalist and story writer Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) who was the first American war correspondent covering the Boer War, the Russian-Japanese War and the First World War among others. 339 Chimmie Fadden was a character created by the American writer and Congressman Edward Waterman Townsend (1855-1942).

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To Kathleen McDonnell MS NLI. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent.340 26 June 1910 My dear Miss McDonnell, I am sending you the photograph you asked for. I must tell you that my husband hates it & my children disapprove of it: but it is the only one I happen to have by me. I think it like me as I see myself in the glass, but they say that what you see in the glass is not really you at all. I find that I usually like the photographs of myself which my friends abhor. However, bad or good, take it with my love. I am also sending you a bottled refreshment in America which will I hope bring you a whiff of Irish air. You never knew my father & I have done him only scant justice.341 He was too near to write about with the necessary aloofness. I feel that I have only suggested him: and there were sides to his many-sided character that I have never touched upon at all. You take it with my love. I can’t thank you enough for good will towards me. I value it more from an Irish friend of old days. I daresay I needn’t tell you that the Irish will always help the Irish rather the other way but often, I think, in getting away from Ireland you gain if you also lose. You get away from the littlenesses as well as from other things. Thank you for telling me about the agents. I’ve taken Mr Reynolds’s address in case I need him.342 Before I had your letter I sent a story direct to Collier’s thinking it would find them.343 Next time I’ll send through an agent. Yesterday I sent Mr Oskison two poems.344 Thank you heartily for all the kind & helpful hints. Watt does most of my business here. I don’t think he does very much in America. I’ll remember the one I’m not to go to. My husband has sent something to Collier’s through Miss Holly.345 I hope we’ll get in there finally. It would make a considerable difference to us if either of us could make a modest success in America. Miss Holly has had an offer from 340

They had taken this house for twenty-one years (Middle Years, 387). “The Dearest of All.” 342 The American literary agent Paul R. Reynolds, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, who represented William Heinemann among other English publishers. 343 Katharine did not have any stories in Collier’s. 344 John Milton Oskison (1874-1947) had a Cherokee mother and was a writer of novels and stories of the peoples of the Indian Territory. He was also a journalist and an associate editor on Collier’s. 345 Nothing of Harry’s was published in Collier’s. 341

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Duffields for the first book I placed in her hands.346 They wanted to publish at once, but I couldn’t let them till early next year as I had sold the American serial rights (for a song) in order to produce capital. I hope this will not make any difference. It certainly wouldn’t with an English publisher: but Americans think so much. The next time you get back you must come to me for a rest. This is such a golden country & full of days. I can imagine that it would be very good for a poor hustled Irish woman in America. ever, with love yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Thanks very much for the Collier’s.

346

Duffield and Company of New York published Paradise Farm and Princess Katharine in 1911 and A Mésalliance in 1913.

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Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent.

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To Mrs Hudson347 MS Hartford. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 18 July 1910 My dear Mrs Hudson, Agatha Mayo who was here for a day or two last week told me that you had some trouble with your arm:348 and the immediate cause of my writing is to say how sorry I am & how much I miss you all,—especially my Bridge trio. It is unkind to say that I hope you miss me,—but I am selfish enough to hope it. I am being called on every day by the élité of Southborough. I call them crows & Pamela calls them “Trogies” and I think a fair description of Southborough would be a place of decayed ladies; no gentlewomen. I inquire eagerly of each caller if she is a bridge-player. Up to the present the answer has been in the negative. I have great hopes of next door, which has been taken by some Londoners. They mow their lawn on Sunday mornings, which keeps us company in our croquet-playing. You can imagine the effect on Southborough where I believe all the occasions are missionary meetings. I am panting to call next door, but am deterred by not knowing their names. Pamela suggested that I should say: “Is your mistress at home?” when the maid opened the door & leave it to chance to find out afterwards. All Southborough means gloves, even the little girl who comes to take out Sesie!349 We alone wear none. The first call Pamela & I made it was very hot, & I wore no gloves but insisted on Pamela observing the convenances, but the minute she arrived in the drawingroom she pulled them off & also her hat which she hung on the back of a chair. I believe they think we’re really Irish gipsies. One lady answered me that no one would mind it in me. I hear Southborough is wickedly worldly by comparison with Tunbridge Wells.350 The country is most lovely & despite the dreary weather we get along pretty well. I have to attend many cricket-matches with my husband. We pic-nic & have our lunch on the grass. I am still shockingly ignorant of cricket & only pretend to enjoy it. I usually read a book & leave off to clap when other people clap. I was much interested in the Captain of the Leicestershire Team in the Tunbridge Cricket Week.351 He was very fine 347 Mrs Catherine Hudson (?1870-?), infants’ mistress, wife of Frederick James Hudson (1855-1932), headmaster of Chipperfield National school, 1903-23. 348 Anne Agatha Mayo (1881-1956). 349 Their dog. 350 Katharine’s stay in Southborough merited a chapter in the Middle Years. 351 Sir Arthur Grey Hazlerigg, Bt (1878-1949) was captain of Leicestershire cricket

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physically & as he was fielding just in front of me I was able to appreciate him. My husband told this to a gathering of Southborough ladies on Saturday. You can imagine their opinion of me. Toby is doing splendidly at Tonbridge & Bunny has just passed the Entrance Examination & goes next term. The Headmaster is a friend of ours,352 & there are three Irishmen among the Senior masters so I’m afraid they’ve had privileges. I hear dear Mrs O’Connell is away. You must give me my love to Mrs Smith. I have some hope of getting to Chipperfield for a day or two next month & should hope to see you. How is the darling Mary?353 God bless her. This very dull afternoon have been sighing for a dear fire, dear hearth and you three. Please remember me kindly to Dr Hudson and believe me, with love ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

team, 1907-10. He played sixty-five times for the county. Created Baron in 1945. 352 The Headmaster was Charles Lowry from 1907 to 1922. 353 Kathleen Mary Hudson (b.1900).

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To Kathleen McDonnell MS NLI. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 16 October 1910 My dear Kathleen McDonnell, I find I owe you two letters. You are very good to write to me so faithfully. I have a hazy memory of your brother, Father Joe, as the Nallys used to call him!: but it is very hazy. I’m glad you had the Summer holiday with him in the country I hardly realize the American country. I always think of its beauty as being a beauty of vivid colouring not as you describe it fresh & quiet. Please remember me to Father Joe when you write or see him. You are so good to be willing to sort out my things for me. I find America very disappointing & I’ve had so many suggestions after beginning so well. I think my letter explaining myself made some impression on them for the moment,—the editors I mean,—but by the time my next contributions went they had forgotten all about me. McClure’s is the only magazine that has kept up its first cordiality,—I am particularly disgusted with the Atlantic Monthly, for I sent them of my best but they keep returning them with what I think trivial reasons for return. My husband says it is because they only understand iambics & that my tripping metres are all envy to them. They certainly complain of my “metres” as they call them as I had gas. The two Mr Oskison rejected were fortunate, for one was taken by McClure’s & the other by the Spectator.354 All the same I think of him that he knows poetry on the rare occasions when I see poetry in Collier’s it is the real stuff. And that reminds me to thank you for all the copies you send. You are so good. Yes my husband writes & writes very well. I shall send you a book of his for yourself so that you may judge. He hasn’t the recognition he deserves, but that’s nothing. In our trade as a rule the journeyman carries off the rewards & when an artist succeeds it is in spite of the public. Some day I hope you may know him. He is a dear person. The only thing I have to complain about him is that he won’t become a Catholic to please me. However I daresay he will one day to please God. He is really a darling & the most devoted husband alive. I have three interesting children, who are as loving as their father. I always say I’m affectionate but he’s loving. The 354

The poem “For Your Sake”, McClure’s Magazine, August 1910. “A Rhyme of the Road”, Spectator, 10 September 1910. Katharine’s first contribution to McClure’s was the poem “Doves”, February 1910. She contributed twelve poems between February 1910 and July 1912.

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children inherit his deeper quality. I’m sending a picture of our house that you may place me at home. Pamela & Bunny are on the steps, too small to be made out. It has a very pretty garden, but my husband has the Irish thirst for land & we are already coveting a dear little place with 14 acres. The difficulty in England is always the distance from a Catholic church. Here we are two miles away, which is nothing, after our five miles in Hertfordshire. With all kindest regards & many thanks your old friend Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 86. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 27 October 1910 Dearest May, You’ll think me the most ungrateful wretch,—but I was away all day yesterday. I am so proud of the Creators from your own hand:355 and I shall value it dearly. I have already read it. A reviewer brought it down in his Saturday to Monday bag. I’m sorry the reviews have hurt you.356 Anyhow many of them are very appreciative. Of course the book is packed full of splendid things, & so generous like yourself. I was talking about you yesterday with Mrs Maude Egerton King who is a dear friend of mine.357 She was so pleased that you praised her Archdeacon’s Family,358 which I think a splendid book. Don’t wear yourself out. No matter how splendid your work is personally you count more for me, which I am sure you will think a wretched attitude in me. But there it is. I love the little human woman & would not have her recognised for a book no matter how great. Let me know when you will come to us. ever your loving K.T.H. You are a splendid little girl with the generous qualities of a very generous man in addition to others.

355

May Sinclair’s The Creators: a Comedy (1910). The Athenaeum, 8 October 1910, notes that though the book is well-written the problem within the story is not well resolved and the reviewer feels distressed about this. The Saturday Review, 26 November 1910, however, sees a successful novel with good characterisation. The Bookman, December 1910, refers to the book as a “masterpiece of construction”. The Academy, 8 October 1910, remarks the “it would be impossible to praise Miss Sinclair’s work too highly”. 357 The writer and poet Maude Egerton King (1867-1927), née Hine. She was a cofounder of the monthly Vineyard to which Katharine contributed. 358 The Archdeacon’s Family (1909) dealt with the sexual and religious problems within a family. 356

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 8 December 1910 Dear Frank Mathew, I was just thinking of you. We had been talking of you & wondering where you were. When you wrote last you were abroad & when I set about answering your letters I found that you must have left the address you had given me, so I was all at sea & had to wait till I could get an address for you again. Yes,—we have been here since last May. We have a very comfortable Victorian house, with a pretty garden in Summer. I send a post-card with a picture of it. But there are houses all about us & as the population of Southborough consists chiefly of old ladies,—all terrible objects, we feel it a bit stifling. Of course there are nice people, & Tunbridge Wells is a very pleasant town & the country is beautiful: but we’ve been feeling we must get out & away from tea-parties which are always going on. Sometimes I quite enjoy the Protestant atmosphere which is also anti-Irish for it answers the fighting spirit in me,—& in Harry some more,—& I feel in my element, but there are other times when I feel it thick, stifling. I don’t think we shall be very long in this house,—though I was so happy in the garden last Summer, & the rooms are so large & everything so commodious,—but it’s “the wressed people” as Toby used to say when he was small not just Southborough,—not the district which we like so much that we mean to end our days in it. There’s a sort of density in the English churches that makes them very depressing. Over this election now,—we are by way of being Conservatives & Harry promised to take the chair at one of Spender Clay’s meetings359 & I was asked to tea with Mrs Spender Clay & were quite clamped to the Conservative bosom. Then comes on this [illegible] election & they bring a bigot from Ulster to warn all the silly people with lies so more refused to take my part & we’re non persona gratia. Harry hasn’t voted at all. I don’t see how any self-respecting Irishman or woman could vote Conservative or not so at this election. Fortunately we can get out next Christmas as we took over a very favourable lease which sets the tenant free at intervals of three years & one expires then: but we may go earlier if we get a chance. We came here for Tonbridge for the boys.360 They are well established now & we have 359

Herbert Henry Spender Clay (1875-1937) became the Conservative MP in the 1910 election for the Tunbridge division of Kent. He married the Hon. Pauline Astor (1880-1972), daughter of the 1st Viscount Astor, in 1904. 360 Tonbridge School was founded in 1553.

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several friends among the masters as well as the Headmaster whose brother-in-law is Marie Belloc Lowndes’s husband & an old friend of ours.361 They are all very much interested in the boys. At present they are day-boys, but we think when we get rid of the house of storing our furniture & going abroad for a time, putting the boys in as boarders, as the Headmaster is so anxious to have them. We are so glad to have news of your boys & of Mrs Mathew & you. I suppose you are settled at Lyme Regis.362 We had been rather hoping that you might settle one day at Tunbridge Wells to which we shall certainly return. Poor David! I am rather dreading parting with the boys in the future but I’ll never have another chance of going abroad & we are torn so often that they must be boarders to give them the proper chance that I begin to believe it. There is great hardship for them in the Winter going to & fro. We have to drive them at present as there is no communication. We are just three miles from the school. They are all we could wish & so is Pamela. So glad to hear of your literary prospects. With a gift like yours you should never have laid it aside. With all our affectionate regards. yours ever. K.T.H.

361

The novelist Marie Belloc had married Frederick Sawrey Archibald Lowndes (1867-1940) on 9 January 1896. She was president of the Women Writer’s Suffrage League in 1913. 362 Coram Court, Lyme Regis, Dorset.

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To Kathleen McDonnell MS NLI. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 6 January 1911 My dear Kathleen McDonnell, I wish you a very happy New Year & all that your heart can desire in it. According to your kind word I am sending you a selection of poems. If you can’t do anything with them now I shall always remember that you tried, dear. I’d have written for Christmas only that we’ve been rather disorganized. We haven’t liked this house since the winter came in. It is dark & difficult to undertake: and we thought it wise to send the boys to boarding-school & could not face this big home without them. Nor did we care to be so surrounded by people, from which we could never get away. Then just as we were getting discontented a man came along & offered to take the house off our hands. It was all quite sudden & I think we both felt a bit alarmed later. The exhilaration followed later. For we are not going to have a house for a while, but we are going to roam where we will taking only Pamela with us. I have never been able to travel having always intended to one way or another. The only thing I shall not like is being separated from my boys. They have been day scholars so far but it is very difficult getting them to & from school especially in Winter & it involves a lot of hardships to them. Nearly all the public-schools of England are down in valleys & I can’t live in a valley for I get most disturbing headaches unless I am on high ground, so that we have been always beyond walking distance from their schools. I am just getting a new volume of poems ready. I hope it will be published in America as well as here, & you shall have a copy when it is ready. I’ve had a letter from French, Sherman & Co. of Boston asking for a volume of poems: and as I am getting one ready to be published here this year I hope we shall be able [to] arrange simultaneous publication.363 One small boy is doing a poetry lesson with his father just at my ears, & I fear this letter will be very confused. During February we shall be at the Hand & Sceptre House, Southborough Common. I’ll let you have other address as soon as we have one. A thousand thanks to you, my dear, for all your good will and kindness to me & for being ready to bother yourself with my every things. ever yours affectionately Katharine Tynan Hinkson 363

New Poems. It was not published by Sherman, French & Co., of Boston, but eventually by Sidgwick and Jackson in 1911.

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To Macmillan & Co. MS Reading. Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 14 February 1911 Dear Sirs, I sent the copy for the proposed volume of poems to-day.364 If you thought it should be reduced in size I should be quite willing to prune it or to accept other suggestions on your part. If you published the book in England I presume you would also publish in America. About half of it is copyright in America by first publication there. I may say that in the case of previous volumes of my poems published in England, unlike poetry generally, they have paid for their publication & yielded a small profit. Believe me, dear Sirs yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

364

New Poems.

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To Kathleen McDonnell MS NLI. Hand & Sceptre Hotel Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent. 23 March 1911 My dear Kathleen McDonnell, You are a dear girl,—really an oasis, something given to rest one’s thoughts on when one is disillusioned or beset with cares. Not that I am the first at all & only occasionally the latter. I’ve been waiting to write so that I could send you a copy of my novel Princess Katharine which is just out in America, with Duffield of New York. At least it was published on the 11th of February & my copies have been ever since then in the hands of the agent who placed it, who will not send them till she receives Duffield’s cheque so that she can deduct the expenses of sending them on!!! I have a theory,—I wonder if you will agree with me,—the Americans are really very bad business people. Some good or evil pawn has forced riches on a certain number of them; but I have numerous experiences of their throwing away a tangible & accessible bird in the bush for the excellent egg in the hand. When the lady releases the books,—it will be her last transaction with me—you shall have a copy, my very dear friend. If you never place those poems I shall just be as lovingly grateful to you. How good you are: to send them round & send to all those magazines! Dear old Ireland! Everybody’s is the last to reach me.365 I think badly of it. All that northern business is so rotten. There’s something very prurient to my mind in the pictures of the various wives’ houses with the little Noah’s Ark women outside.366 One feels that it is designed to put money in someone’s pocket rather than to redress a sin & scandal. McClures I think really good in its way—don’t you? I met Cosgrave of Everybody’s at the home of a dear friend,367 Martin Egan, who was representing the Associated Press in London.368 Cosgrove impressed me unfavourably—a cold-blooded creature. 365

The monthly American magazine Everybody’s Magazine ran from 1899 until 1929. Katharine contributed “The Boys of the House” in August 1918. 366 Frank J. Canon’s “Prophet in Utah: The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft”, Everybody’s Magazine, March 1911. The essay is an account of the breaking of pledges given to the nation by Mormon leaders and is illustrated with pictures of the houses of the various Mormon wives. 367 The Australian-born journalist John O’Hara Cosgrave (1864-1938) was editor of Everybody’s from 1900 until 1911. 368 The American journalist Martin Egan (1878-1932) edited the Manila Times from 1908 to 1913 and then worked for J. P. Morgan in New York.

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I remember something he said about animals,—I don’t remember what it was, but it gave me a bad impression. On Monday we began to lead the Simple Life at Forest Farm, Tonbridge. It is a real dairy-farm with cattle & calves & fowl & a couple of cart-horses. Do you know the characteristically Kentish erections in which they sort the hops? We have all the family, at home in consequence of an outbreak of measles at Tonbridge School. Our tiny sitting-room is rather energetic. We are hoping for a good summer at our farm, then it will be lovely. It is good sand with woods where the nightingales will turn up presently & Nature has just begun her Spring cleaning. Soon all the muddles of last year will be [illegible] up in [two illegible words]. Do you know anything about a Mr Paget who is the American agent for my agents Messers A. P. Watt & Sons?369 The Watts think very highly of him. Good-bye & God bless you. ever yours K.T.H. I always find that my good work is hardest to get off. My best books do least well. American trade does not need correction more than English. Oh, the biggest circulation is here! There is a creature called Garvice,— Garbage we call him who is read by hundreds of thousands.370 A foul world, very [illegible]. Don’t forget the new address Forest farm Tonbridge Kent

369

The English-born Robert Harold Paget (1876-1926). He married the widow Edith Bowman (1855-1908) in 1905. He served as a Private in the 15 Battalion Imperial Yeomanry Company during the Boer War. 370 The journalist and prolific novelist Charles Garvice (1854-1920) who wrote at least fifty-seven books.

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Plaque on Fairlawn, Park Road, Southborough, Kent

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Quoted in Sinclair, 92. Southborough. Forest Farm, Tonbridge. 10 April 1911 Dearest May, The crossing out of the Forest Farm address was that Forest Farm itself is crossed out. We spent nine uncomfortable days there & left last Wednesday in the blizzard at the risk of being snowed up rather than postpone the departure by a day. We could not have got a room for you anyhow, if the people had proved all right, which they didn’t: and the Hand & Sceptre where we were so comfortable would have been too far from the Farm. But now it will not be too far from us. We have taken a tiny furnished cottage on the Common here for the Summer,—perhaps longer.371 We shall be a tight fit,—not even a servant’s room but my good cook & servant who is married & lives close by undertakes the work of the cottage: and how we shall love to be to ourselves. The poor boys were with us at the farm. They had such high hopes of it & it is so easy to make them happy: but the priggish people were constantly curmudgeons. Poor Bunny, who is such a darling, used to go out by himself & pick primroses & adorn my room with them, but the prigs always showed their forbidding faces. We are at the moment [here] till the cottage is ready for us in apartments; It is an extraordinary place. Texts every where even in the w.c. where they shock Bunny who always turns their faces to the wall.372 Exiguous poverty behind the most florid ornamentations. A very cheerful young girl hostess who came to me this morning to ask my advice because the maid-servant proved to be in an interesting condition & how was she to get rid of her. All told in the vernacular by a little smiling body. No condemnation whatever,—only that the delinquent was a silly girl. It was extraordinary to me coming from a country where a [?peasant] [illegible word] hangs about such lapses. We are happy being together & there is the home to look forward to when we shall set up house again, but that will not be till we have set aside a comfortable little sum for ourselves & the children besides being clear with all the world. The latter will be simple enough. We are always wondering over the kindness that rid us of our house just at the psychological moment. There has been a slump in my work, which I hope 371

The family was at Roselyn Lodge, Blacklion, Greystones, Co. Wicklow in August 1911 where they stayed for the summer (Letter to Fr Hudson, 16 August 1911, Notre Dame; Middle Years, ch. XXX). 372 Middle Years (396).

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is only temporary. I am looking for new openings & thank God I have abounding health & a great capacity for work. I’ve just had a copyright novel published in America which seems to have been very well received.373 I’m in negotiation with the same publishers about the poems. I forget if I told you that Sidgwick & Jackson publish them next month here.374 I see you are to be a guest at the Whitefriars ladies’ dinner.375 We nearly always go to it, but we are not going this year. We have a grudge against the American “Pres”. & I object to the choice of him.376 But I must manage the Women Writers’ when I see you are to preside.377 Don’t give a thought of anxiety to me. I think very probably the slump is more apparent than real. Anyhow we are getting through as fast as ever we can. I always see the leading & the light in these little difficulties. Do come & stay at the Hand & Sceptre & let us see a lot of you & give you your meals. What are you working at? I don’t see your new novel announced yet.378 Isn’t it cruel weather? The leafage is due here in a month. One can’t realize it. And the poor birds,—and the lambs. No wonder the English are a sad people. I’m splendidly well & so is Harry, thank God. When I think of his agonies at Chipperfield it makes me feel how trifling small worries are with that such thing to set against them. Toby is not very well. He is out growing his strength & he had influenza which has left all sorts of delicacies behind. God bless you, ever your loving K.T.H.

373

Either Paradise Farm which was subsequently published in England in 1913 as Mrs Pratt of Paradise Farm, or Princess Katharine which was published in England in 1912. 374 New Poems. 375 The Whitefriars Club was founded in 1874 as a dinning club in London. 376 William Howard Taft (1857-1930) was President 1909-13. 377 The Dinner was at the Criterion Restaurant, London, on 29 May 1911, with May Sinclair in the chair. 378 The Flaw in the Crystal (1912).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Southborough, Kent. 30 November 1911 Dearest Alice, I’ve been meaning to write to you to tell you & Wilfrid about our intentions. We are going back to Ireland for Christmas, with the intention of settling there. We shall leave some most dear friends behind: but since we have settled in the country we’ve seen so little of our London friends that it is not too extravagant to hope that we may see them often from Ireland as it would be necessary for us to spend some little time in London every year. And since you have new ties in Ireland though the old ones are broken we should hope to see you. For the present we have taken a furnished house at Sorrento Terrace, Dalkey. I think you visited Mrs Macran in the Terrace & saw how lovely it is.379 Perhaps you would come to us in the Spring, while we are still in the heavenly place. We are going over on the 19th Dec. I hope, and shall be in town on the night of the 18th. Will you & Wilfrid & Olivia dine with us that evening. 18th December—at the Chanticleer, Frith Street, Soho, at 7.30?380 I give you a long notice so that we may be safe. We want a great talk for—au revoir! Pam is with us, so she & Olivia can foregather. Bunny is at school in Shropshire. Toby is in Ireland, where he has just run away from school again—after refusing to stay in Shropshire ten months ago. You have a very troublesome Godson. How strange it is that one child should be absolutely satisfactory & the other doubly troublesome. Bunny is a splendid character & Pam is a great happiness too. I suppose two out of three is a good proportion. With my very dear love to you all, ever yours K.T.H. I am very much interested in Viola’s progress.

379 380

Mrs Stella Macran was at 2 Sorrento Terrace. This took place.

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Wilfrid Meynell 1910 (Greatham)

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To Florence Emily Dugdale381 MS Berg. Southborough, Kent. 17 December 1911 My dear Florence Dugdale, First, I am so sorry about poor A. H. Hyatt’s death.382 I never heard of it. The poor fellow: well, please God, now the other life is making him amends for this. Next,—you poor darling! I am transported in ecstasies at the thought of receiving an autographed Hardy book. I never dreamt of anything so good. I simply adore Hardy & always remember my one little speech of him more than 20 years ago, when he stood so good, & listened to my balderdash. I would rather he would choose the volume to give me than choose it myself. I can’t tell you how precious it will be. I’ll write a letter after Christmas. God bless you ever yours in love Katharine Tynan Hinkson

381

Thomas Hardy’s second wife Florence Emily Dugdale (1879-1937) whom he married in February 1914 after the death of his first wife Emma Lavinia Gifford (1840–1912). Florence met Hardy in 1910 and helped him with research at the British Museum and eventually spent some time at the Hardys’ house, Max Gate, in Dorchester, working on Hardy’s manuscripts. Hardy was thirty-eight years older than Florence. 382 The journalist and writer Alfred Henry Hyatt (1871-1911). Among his books was The Pocket Thomas Hardy, being Selections from the Wessex Novels and Poems of Thomas Hardy (1906). Hyatt suffered from a stammer and in his later years contracted tuberculosis.

III IRELAND “When all the world's asleep the voices call me, Come home, acushla, home! Why did you leave us?”

To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin.1 2 July 1912 Dearest Alice, Every day Toby asks me,—“Have you told my Godmother yet that I have won a Tonbridge scholarship?”2 and every day I have to cry Peccavi. Now I have told you so that I am clear on that point. And I want to give you a general report of us & to hear of you in return. We are now quite settled down in our new abode.3 It would be entirely satisfactory if it were not for the rain & grey skies. We are in the midst of leaves lovely in sun but a bit depressing in dark Summer weather. No one likes it except an Anglo Indian who is over here on leave. He simply basks in the greyness & cloudiness. I don’t mind so long as I can get about but I’ve had to keep the house at varying periods this Summer, & I get hipped but not seriously hipped. We had such a wonderful Winter & Spring of sunshine that we felt in April as if we must be at the end of a long beautiful Summer, so we ought not to grumble. I think you would like this dear place, all the country about here, like Wicklow, is English in escaping the fulsomeness of the Irish country. There is no suggestion of dire peasantry here where all the guide-books call gentlemen’s seats & a few scattered villages of their retainers. It was very interesting to win our garden from under the overgrowth of three years. It has now quite come good. The garden is chock full of vegetables, fast approaching the eating point. The old gnarled fruit trees are heavy with apples & pears. Our lawns & paddocks have just been mown. We have over 100 fowls of all descriptions. Harry says there is enough felled wood in the place to keep us in fires for eighteen months & we are going to do a bit of thinning in Autumn as well. It sounds as though we are ready for a siege, does it not? As you may well believe the children get great joy out of this place. We have just got rid of a Welsh Gardener whom we did not like, although he freed the Dryad from her tree,—and are replacing him by Lady Butler’s late coachman who comes to us as groundsman. The Welshman mowed the hay, & Harry & the children have been raking it. We have not yet begun to bathe but our bathing attire is all ready waiting for some decent weather. We are just now working very hard to get over the big expenses of our transfer from England. When I am free & have taken up the links with the life here more perhaps you will lend me my God daughter for a 1

They had left Southborough on 18 December 1911 (Middle Years, 410). He won a Foundation Scholarship for Tonbridge School in June 1912. 3 Described in Years of the Shadow (ch. II). 2

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while. The time between Christmas & Easter is the time for gaiety in Dublin. In Summer everyone goes to the sea & people are scattered. We hope to let our house every Summer & to spend Junes in London. We are most happily situated for letting, & were half-tempted to let this year, only we hadn’t got our lawns in order. I have a book to do,—Reminiscences,— for which I shall need my papers. I am just getting through a girls’ work for Blackies’.4 Tell me about the Estate & about Wilfrid & the children,5 & from dear little Monica. Did I tell you that I met Mrs Egan?6 It has gone no further so far. Oh there is the sun! How welcome he is! We have been thinking of last Summer’s sultry blaze with longing. your devoted K.T.H.

4

A Little Radiant Girl (1914). Wilfrid had bought at auction a farmhouse, Humphreys Homestead, at Greatham, near Pulborough, in Sussex, with eighty acres of land. Eventually a new two-storey wing containing the library was built. The library has had a stream of visitors and researchers ever since. 6 Eleanor Egan. 5

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To May Sinclair MS Pennsylvania. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 2 July 1912 My very dear May, I’ve done the Brontës for the Pall Mall.7 It ought to have gone in on Saturday, but by an accident it was posted late. You will see what I think of the book. I read it from cover to cover finding it more fascinating than any novel. I have only seen the Eye Witness review which I thought very unjust.8 Someone with an edge on evidently. I wonder what kind of person doesn’t feel in honour bound to treat the book well, better then if he or she hadn’t an edge on. I hope it did not hurt you. I am sure you will have plenty of praise to make up:9 and anyhow [if] you were not felt to be important you would not have so much space given to you. We are quite settled in now & the place is awfully nice. But the weather is very hippish. Day after day of grey skies, the clouds almost on your head. No one is very happy expect an Anglo-Indian who is married to a friend of ours & simply revels in the grey skies. I daresay we shall make a go for it by bright weather later. I wish you would come over & stay with us for a bit. We have a couple of friends coming this next month. I don’t quite know when yet. But September is always lovely in Ireland if you could come then. We should have settled completely. I am having to lie up every few weeks which will account for the hipped tone I feel must be apparent in this letter. But that will pass, must pass soon, I think. and it is all really lovely. Did you see that I have published a book with Constables?10 I don’t 7

A review of Sinclair’s The Three Brontës and Flora Masson’s The Brontës, Pall Mall Gazette, 3 July 1912. 8 J.K.P., “The Slander of Subservience”, Eye Witness, 27 June 1912. The reviewer end with It is perhaps in keeping with the tragedy that stalks through Miss Sinclair’s pages, that her very defence of Charlotte is in the nature of an attack. The woman who had the courage to defy literary convention, and bring within the scope of her genius “the justification of passion” has escaped from the stones of scandal to be assailed by the slander of subservience. We think the last would have hurt her most. 9

Bookman, August 1912, questions whether the book was necessary, while admitting that Brontë students would welcome it. The English Review, October 1912, gives a favourable review. 10 Rose of the Garden (1912).

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send it because I always feel my novels are negligible. I wrote it between my going back to Southborough on the 8th. Nov last & returning here on the 19th Dec. To be sure I get a good deal of quotation into it. The children are all at home now from school. They adore the place, and it is delightful indeed, if a bit too leafy for dark days. They find so much to do. We have over 100 fowl, & Harry & the children have been making hay this week. Toby has got a scholarship at Tonbridge & enters this Autumn. Bunny goes on at a day-school The Dublin High School till we see what we are going to do with him.11 I am just about to start a Book of Reminiscences which I hope will clear us of the heavy expenses of moving over here & our other burdens which are not many. After that it will be plain-sailing enough. They say you can live here on half of what you can live on in England. In the purchase of food I find that £4 here goes as far as £6 in England. We have our house, a quite good one,—much better than we ever had before for £95 a year without taxes. It is the cheapest house we have lived in since the little Laurels. It has a lovely garden & grounds, an exquisite situation is just ten miles from Dublin, & in what house agents call a choice residential neighbourhood. The energetic person, Lady Aberdeen, is now dragging us at her chariot wheels.12 I am taking an interest in her many philanthropies & will do what I can in the writing way. She runs everything here. I want a comfortable opportunity for H. for our old age. A Resident Magistracy in Wicklow, Kildare or Meath would do: but I won’t go to the hinterland. There are plenty of jobs that would keep us near Dublin. Her ladyship is very understanding. God bless you. Dear, your ever loving K.T.H.

11

Harry was a classmate of W.B. Yeats at the school. Lady Isabel Maria Dudley Coutts (1857-1939), had married John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon (1847-1934), 7th Earl of Aberdeen, in 1877. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from December 1905 until 1915, having previously held that office in 1886. He was created the first Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair in 1916. Katharine and the Aberdeens were good friends despite the social difference. Isabel was created a Dame in 1931.

12

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To Macmillan & Co. MS Reading. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 3 July 1912 Dear Sirs, I am entrusted with the arrangements for publishing a volume of poems by Mrs C. F. G. Masterman, Lucy Lyttelton of the Nation, Spectator, etc. The poems are, I think, of remarkable quality. Would you care to see them? I should be very greatly pleased with myself if the poems were to receive the imprint of your most distinguished house.13 yours very sincerely Katharine Hinkson

13

Macmillan declined and John Lane published the Poems in 1913, with the author as Lucy Masterman.

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To Alice Meynell MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 6 August 1912 Dearest Alice, I am most remiss in not writing to you, especially as your letter told me of Olivia’s engagement.14 Perhaps she would tell me about it herself. I hope she is very happy & that you and her father are correspondingly pleased. One never knows about the marriages of their children. Yours are very ardent & romantic; & since how you not telling me who the fiancé was gave me a little suggestion,—or perhaps it was something that envisaged itself to me because I love you,—that perhaps you were anxious about it: I hope it is only imagination on my part: I want you to be happy as well as the God child. I am so glad that Viola keeps novel-writing & is content with it: I shall look out eagerly for the new novel.15 If I knew about it before hand I would ask for it for review for the Pall Mall & the Bookman. I hope you will keep Viola with you a good while yet. Anyhow you do not lose the children as people do whose children go quite away. I am already beginning to dread Toby’s going away to some considerable extent because he does not get on with other boys, & because I am anxious about his religion. I don’t know what I shall do without my Bunny, when his turn comes. He is one of the fortunate ones who are loved by all the world, and he will keep the light burning the stronger because of a Protestant atmosphere,—but then he is the light of the house to us. We are having the saddest of Summers so far as the weather goes. Today is weird, with such a green sky as one sometimes finds with a black east wind in Winter & raining again after the torrents on Sunday & several days last week. Happily this ground dries up magically. We can play croquet as soon as the torrents leave off, & the sand, full of silver particles of [illegible], is sparkling which as soon as ever the sea leaves off. We have quite given up bathing: and poor Harry has a liver. He has been sighing for London,—but he frets less as he finds so many delightful people eager to make friends. I was very much interested in the Rowton House party but I don’t 14

Olivia was engaged to the Bristol solicitor Thomas Murray Sowerby (18831971). 15 Viola Meynell’s Lot Barrow was published in 1913 and her Modern Lovers in 1914, the latter being her best known novel. There was an unsigned review of Lot Barrow in the Bookman, April 1913, and of Modern Lovers in February 1914.

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know a single thing about him.16 Your party must have been most delightful. I wish I had been there to see your dear face. I am getting more poetry than I have had for years. We are picking up the possible literary people of Dublin & finding again the young ones who are as I was in the days of my youth. This afternoon I have had a girl to whom I read poetry endlessly,—or would if time had not intervened. She is the daughter of a man who owns many public-houses in Dublin & London & it was a cause of scandal to my genteel friends when they heard her mother had called on me. But the girl is beautiful like Esther of the Old Testament, quite ignorant though she has been to good schools, but full of passionate delight in poetry & pictures. She follows me about like a little dog. With the Celt more than with others the spirit bloweth as it listeth, and blows oftenest in unexpected places. I daresay it is good for the spirit in this instance that the genteel ladies of Killiney let it severely alone. I am just beginning my Reminiscences. My warm love to you, you darling love,—and fond remembrances to Wilfrid & all the children. your devoted K.T.H.

16

Rowton Houses were London lodging houses founded by Montagu William Lowry-Corry (1838-1903), 1st Baron Rowton, for working men.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 14 October 1912 My dear Frank Mathew, Here we are! We came over last Christmas, spent some months in a furnished house at Dalkey, and, as there seemed no immediate prospect of Harry’s being made a Molly Maguire,17 and we were paying for the storage of our furniture we made up our minds to take a house which we did,—and are now settled in. We have been here since May. It is a square, unimaginative red-brick house, very comfortable and the grounds are very pretty, a real old garden, lawns & a bit of woodland, in all about 3 acres. On one side of us now that the leaves are thinning, we can see Killiney. On the other side we have the Sugar-Loaves.18 Our road opens on the sea, & we are about seven minutes walk from Shankill Station. I feel that our lives have fallen in pleasant places, but Harry sometimes sighs for London, which I never do. I would have written to you long ago if I had had the least idea where to address you. We were very glad to have news of you. Yes, Downside is a wonderful place & Fr Ramsay a wonderful man.19 I should have liked Bunny who is the apple of my eye to go there: but Harry says we are too poor to pay his fees at a school where there are no scholarships. Toby, who has run away from all his preparatory schools doubtless the result of calling him after the Apostle of Temperance,20 who did the same thing, won a Tonbridge scholarship this summer, went to Tonbridge in September, saw nothing but home at the end of a long visit, was treated with for a week by the Headmaster & Housemasters & their wives, to say nothing of the Catholic Church which was brought in to give ghostly counsel, finally was sent home by the doctor & is now perfectly happy, going to the High School in Harcourt Street, with T.C.D in the future.21 Bunny, who has a great character & is the ideal school-boy, is going up for a scholarship at Shrewsbury in March & if he fails that he goes up for Tonbridge in June. Wherever he is he will keep the flag flying & the place will be the better of him. 17

An Irish secret society which fought against the tyrannies, as they saw them, of the landlords. 18 Hills to the south. 19 Fr Leander Ramsay (1863-1929) was Headmaster from 1902 to 1918. 20 A reference to Fr Theobald Mathew who was known as the Apostle of Temperance. 21 Trinity College, Dublin.

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We find Ireland excellent to live in. We have a quite amazing prominence as literary people. Here in Shankill we are very highly esteemed by the Proddy-world gentry & nobility & gentry.22 I am bound to say that last year in Greystones we were absolutely ignored by the Papistical officialdom of Dublin.23 We differ from most of our neighbours by being personally loyal to the King’s representative. The best abused people in Ireland are in our experience kind, simple & sincere: and they are extremely good to us. I wish you might be a neighbour of ours. Life is so much simpler here, & has so much more dignity because the love of money does not find much to feed on. We shall be much better off than you in case of a big European war. But it will play the devil if it comes off with my Reminiscences, ending with the death of Parnell, which are approaching completion. You should never have taken up with English country life. It is too dull. Please remember me to Mrs Mathew & my love to the little boys. All affectionate regards yours ever, K.T.H.

22

Protestants. They spent August and September in Greystones, Co Wicklow (Middle Years, ch. XXX).

23

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To Arthur Quiller-Couch MS New England. Published in Notes & Queries, October 1977, 440-1. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 19 October 1912 Dear Sir Arthur, Yes of course: you can have anything of mine you like for your new Oxford Book.24 I am honoured, & delighted & grateful for what you say. I wonder if you have seen my later books at all. Innocencies I sent you, & was so snubbed by receiving no acknowledgement that I did not dare send you Experiences & New Poems. The former is not to be had.—Mr Bullen printed as many copies as he had paper for when he was giving up & they are scattered: but New Poems is at your service if you would care for it. Next year I hope to have a book of Irish Poems.25 We came back to Ireland this year & it set me off singing again as though I were young. I shall put down your name for a copy. Did I ever send you A Book of Memory about which you helped me? If not I think I can find a spare copy. It fared disastrously, for it never reached the public at all & I think hardly paid for its typing. But it is a lovely book nevertheless, & I hope I shall be able to revive it some day. About the Eye-Witness,26 —ah well, it is good for me to know that you care about the verses.27 But what about your Open Letters?28 We read them with great satisfaction. Surely you shook down the towers of the Eugenists. Your defence of the poor, so helpless, was glorious. May He who loves the poor reward you! yours ever sincerely & gratefully Katharine Tynan Hinkson I have always loved your writings dearly & have been your reviewer over & over. 24 No additional poems of Katharine’s were included in the 1912 edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse. 25 Irish Poems (1913). 26 The short-lived weekly Eye-Witness founded in July 1911 was edited by Hilaire Belloc in its first year then by Cecil Chesterton until November 1912 when it became the New Witness. 27 Katharine contributed twelve poems and one story in Eye-Witness between 3 August 1911 and 24 October 1912. 28 “Three Open Letters to the Right Reverend Archibald Robertson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter”, Eye-Witness, 1 August, 8 August and 15 August 1912. A Liberal, Quiller-Couch was objecting to the Mental Deficiency Bill proposed by the Liberal Government which would not only allow the insane, but also the feeble-minded, to be detained. The bill was re-introduced in 1913 with most of the objectionable sections removed.

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To T. P. O’Connor29 MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. [?25 October 1912] Dear Mr O’Connor, I can hardly believe that T.P.’s Weekly is only ten years old:30 it seems such an old friend. I should not like to say how many stories I found the germ of in its delightful pages. I have been a reader from the very beginning. The paper has done more than you could have hoped for in the direction of leading people to read & to delight in reading. I am full of admiration for the way you have done your editing, for you have continued to make a paper about books attractive to the ordinary man as well as to the bookish man,—to say nothing of women,—I am sure you must have many feminine readers. Your paper brings reading literature within reach of all & I am sure that the man who sits down with his T.P.’s Weekly & his pipe after his day’s work will rise up “a full man” in Bacon’s sense & likely to hunger after the husks of swine.31 You are to be congratulated upon finding the best possible assistants to do your work. Ad multus anno, T.P.’s Weekly! Katharine Tynan

29

Thomas Power O’Connor (1848-1929) journalist and politician. He was the founding editor of the evening Star in 1888 until 1890 but is known more for T.P.’s Weekly. 30 It was first published on 14 November 1902 priced 1d. It ceased publication in January 1917. 31 Francis Bacon’s Essays Civil and Moral: Of Studies (1625) Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.

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To Seumas O’Sullivan32 MS TCD. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 17 December 1912 Dear Mr O’Sullivan, I have been meaning to write to you every day: please forgive me. I have just written to George Russell asking him if he could arrange with you to come down to dinner on Saturday evening.33 I hope it will be possible when you come I will go through the poems with you. My selections for the Wild Harp were chosen because they were what I wanted, being lyrical snatches like the notes of a harp with a certain wildness added.34 It was not that I liked your later poems less or thought you had not advanced. But you are the one of the poets who had not to learn your trade. Your songs were born perfect. I cannot think that anything would better them. If you have anything unpublished you would like me to consider will you bring it. I have your book & we can look through it together.35 With all kindest regards yours ever sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson There is a train at 6.30 from Harcourt Street which will bring you in good time. 32 The Irish journalist, poet and publisher Seumas O’Sullivan (1879-1958) had adopted that name, in place of his birth name James Sullivan Starkey, at the suggestion of Padraic Colum. In 1923 he founded and edited the Dublin Magazine. 33 The writer, poet and artist George William Russell (1867-1935) known as AE. Interested in the occult he joined the Dublin Theosophical Society in 1890. He was a firm friend and mentor of O’Sullivan. In a letter to Fr Russell, 12 December 1887 Katharine writes

Yesterday there was a young artist named Russell (clarum et venerabile nomen!) here, a friend of Willie Yeats, and certainly even more a genius than he is. I take his body to be inhabited by the soul of William Blake. He was here last year once, but then he was very shy and awkward. He comes out wonderfully in the warmth of kindly interest. I will send him to you one day. He is the most marvellous boy. In age about 19, in appearance tall and a little ungainly, almost blind with a curiously shaped head and face. But you should talk with him. He made me feel sad: I felt so dull and earthy beside him, a daw with even the occasional peacock's feather that dazzled the eye of the beholder from seeing my poverty, plucked away. 34 Seumas O’Sullivan’s “The Twilight People” and “The Poplars” were included in Katharine’s The Wild Harp: A Selection from Irish Poetry (1913). 35 His The Twilight People (1905).

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To Frances Alice Chesterton MS BL. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 13 January 1913 My dear Mrs Chesterton, I feel I must write & tell you how beautiful I think the Small Dreams in the Westminster36 & how much I thank you for the pure & exquisite pleasure it gave me as though I had found a little clump of primroses under a wintry tree. It was all the greater delight because I had never seen your hand to a poem before. I hope that there are many others where that came from, for it would be to the great sweetening of the world. I am very glad & proud to be associated with G.K.C. & with his brother.37 We always read G.K.C. with the greatest appreciation: and if he finds his left ear burning it may be because by a cat and hearth fire in Ireland we are talking over his work. I could not tell you how often we say,—“Chuck it, Smith!”38 It has become a sort of household word. Please forgive this intrusion and believe me, dear Mrs Chesterton yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

36

Frances Chesterton’s poem “The Small Dreams”, Westminster Gazette, 11 January 1913. 37 Cecil Edward Chesterton (1879–1918) was a political journalist. He died of illness in France during the Great War. 38 “Talk about the pews and steeples / And the cash that goes therewith! / But the souls of Christian peoples . . . / Chuck it, Smith!” G. K. Chesterton’s Antichrist, or the Reunion of Christendom: an Ode. This was written in response to the disendowment of the Church in Wales in the Bill which finally became law in 1920.

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To Stephen Gwynn39 MS NLI. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 24 January 1913 Dear Mr Gwynn, May I have your “Out of the Dark” for an Irish Anthology, The Wild Harp, which Messrs Sidgwick & Jackson are publishing for me.40 It is to contain what I think best in Irish poetry. With all kind regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

39

Stephen Lucius Gwyn (1864-1950), Irish politician, novelist and critic. He was MP for Galway City from 1906 to 1918. He served in the Great War. 40 Gwynn’s “Out in the Dark” was included.

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To the Editor, Irish Times41 Clanbeg [sic], Shankill, Dublin 19 February 191342 Sir, It is not easy to write with moderation of this atrocious case, and I desire to write with moderation. Perhaps the crowd that laughed only laughed at some oddity in the evidence. The Irish are a mercurial people, and I have known them to laugh at moments when there was certainly no laughter in their hearts. I do not believe that any body of white men could laugh at the atrocity of this poor dog’s unspeakable torture. What about the bench of magistrates who dismissed the case? May we not know their names, and give them the chance to state, if they can extenuating circumstances? At Tallaght, not so far away, a man got two months the other day for stealing a hen. What strange divergences in a sense of justice! This a case which ought not to be passed over, unless we desire to brutalise our young by a horrible example, and to make our justices’ justice a bye-word to civilised peoples. In the name of religion, of mercy, of justice, put back these men into a position where they cannot scandalise us with such pranks. About two years ago I read of a case almost exactly the same—in Ireland, too, alas!—and went sick and sorry for days because of it. I am of the opinion of the old Scottish divine who said: “I care little for the religion of that man whose ass and whose ox are not the happier and better for it.” It is not given to any man to know the tender tie between man and the subject animals. But it is given to every man to answer to his God for wrong inflicted on the helpless and harmless creatures of God. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

41

John Edward Healy (1872-1934) was editor 1907 to 1934. Published under the heading “The Baltinglass Cruelty Case”, 20 February 1913. A farmer was prosecuted for cruelty to his dog but was not convicted which resulted in letters to the Irish Times.

42

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 4 March 1913 Dearest, I am sorry you had so bad a passage.43 It was very unfortunate. I hope poor old Bun is somewhat fit to-day: and I am glad that you are going to have the cheerful companionship of Fr Gilbert, to whom my love.44 No cheques yet except £1.2.10 from Sealy Bryers.45 I had a most delightful letter from George this morning, about his son’s engagement.46 He has apparently quite forgotten the other matter. He could do the introduction when it is set up anyhow. Isobel is in trouble with the Corporation over the Collier dispensary.47 The Lord Mayor says they’ve been “diddled” & some of them want to know what became of Collier’s money. The papers started a story of J.G.’s resignation.48 He says “His Ex. has not hitherto contemplated resignation owing to the mutability of human affairs. His Ex. would not like to indulge in any procrastination as to the exact time his present official tenure will automatically come to an end, although of course he has his private views about it.” Isn’t that a gem? The weather is wild here, but very beautiful to-day. I hope it is travelling on to Shrewsbury. Very much love your devoted K.T.H. Toby is very good & sweet. Ditto Pamela. It is nice the have a really loveable Toby coming back.

43

Harry was staying at the Crown Hotel, Shrewsbury. Fr Gilbert Dolan. 45 Possibly royalties as they published her The Story of Our Lord for Children in 1907. 46 George Wyndham’s son Percy Lyulph Wyndham (1887-1914) married the Hon. Diana Lister (1893-1983), daughter of Lord Ribblesdale, on 17 April 1913. Katharine and Harry had been invited to the wedding but were unable to attend (Middle Years, 233-4). 47 The P. F. Collier Memorial Dispensary for the Prevention of Tuberculosis was founded by the American P. F. Collier and opened by King George on 11 July 1911. Collier had given a sum of money for the Dispensary to Lady Aberdeen on the understanding that the Dispensary was to be transferred to the Lord Mayor of Dublin. 48 The Right Hon. John George Gibson. 44

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To Adelaide Gosset49 MS Delaware. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 15 July 1913 Dear Madam, Messrs Boosey only buy musical rights, so I have pleasure in giving the permission you ask for the use of my poem “Sleep sweet Birdiekin” in your collection of Lullabies.50 No one else need be consulted. faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson The third line Silk-soft for Birdiekin’ is quite right.

49

Adelaide L. J. Gosset (1855-1936) author of Shepherds of Britain: Scenes from Shepherd Life Past and Present from the Best Authorities (1911). 50 Katharine’s poem was included in Gosset’s Lullabies of the Four Nations: a Coronal of Song with Renderings from the Welsh and the Gaelic (1915) as “Mother’s Joy”.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 4 August 1913 My very dear Wilfrid, I received the cheque from B. & O. on Saturday. It is very useful. You are a good, dear old fellow. I think of you building down in Sussex these beautiful Summer days: for at least, I think you have Summer in England. Here we have had a couple of beautiful shining months while you were in the dark & cold. We are now suffering from a drought. This Summer I cannot move for reasons of expediency. Another Summer I should love to come to you in Sussex for a little while & be with you & Alice in the happy companionship of that Summer of 1889. I am sending on the Catholic World with the Alice article.51 I am going to do Francis Thompson as [soon] as I can get my Girl’s book for Blackies out of my hands.52 My first vol of Reminiscences,—complete in itself,— comes out with Smith & Elder in October. There is a good deal of Palace Court in it. It only goes down to 91. My warm love to you all. I am going to write to Alice. All well here. I saw your paragraphs in the Tablet.53 What a void Mr Wyndham’s going left! There is no one like him. But perhaps there was a fitness in his escaping later middle & old age. ever your loving & grateful K.T. We often see Fr John, the Capuchin, & the Colums.54

51

Katharine’s “Mrs Meynell and her Poetry”, Catholic World, August 1913. Her novel A Little Radiant Girl. 53 Presumably the obituary “Et cætra”, Tablet, 14 June 1913 as George Wyndham had died on 8 June in Paris. 54 The Irish critic and teacher Mary Catherine (“Molly”) Maguire (1887-1957) obtained her BA at the Royal University after a convent education in Germany. With others she founded the short-lived Irish Review in 1911. She married the Irish poet, novelist and playwright Padraic Colum (1881-1972). He was a member of the National Theatre company and had plays performed at the Abbey theatre. They moved to America where they both taught. Catherine published two volumes of autobiography. Padraic published the anthology Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in 1916. They both died in America. 52

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To the Editor, Irish Times Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 15 September 191355 Sir, May I ask, as one deeply interested, why this new timidity on the part of a section of my countrymen about hospital sites? Are we more timid or less humane than the English? Are we more ready than they to set the safety of our bodies before the health of our souls? I think not. Yet I remember the many hospitals, homes, and sanatoria of one kind or another on the hills round about London, in the midst of a country far more thickly populated that the Dublin Mountains or the lovely country round about Peamount. Sir William Treloar’s Home for Crippled Children is at Alton, Hants, a beautiful district, which of late years has sprung into favour with Londoners who go holidaying in the country. I have not heard of any protest form owners of house property at Alton, or the people who let farmhouse lodgings or any others against Sir William Treloar’s beautiful charity. The London Cancer Hospital sits squarely in Brompton road. I have not heard that there is any slump in houses in Brompton therefore. Anywhere in the neighbourhood of an English town you may come upon, in a country lane, the isolation hospital, where anything at all, from scarlatina to smallpox, may be behind the open windows. I have never heard of property in the vicinity being affected: nor have I thought of taking another way when I went my country walks. I am sure nothing could be further from the minds of those who start alarms than to make people selfish cowards; but if their letters have any effect it will be, I fear, in that direction. We, Irish, used to be very proud of preferring our souls to our bodies. Shall we learn to act as though our bodies were all? Even if they were all, should we not still have some natural virtue of courage and unselfishness? I do not believe that these alarms are in any sense wide spread: but if we stand aside and say nothing while destructive criticism is heaped upon those who are doing a beneficent work of mercy, we must be in some sense responsible. If we must hunt sick bodies from pillar to post and out into the wilderness—for the love of the Babe of Bethlehem, do let us hunt their sick children. Larch Hill will do us and our healthy children no harm—so we are assured by medical men.56 If it were not so—oh, sir, we could save ourselves and 55 Published under the heading “Another Peamount?” on 16 September 1913. Peamount was a TB sanatorium for women founded by the Women’s National Health Association in 1912. 56 Larch Hill House was used as a military sanatorium during the Great War. A petition was published in the Irish Times, 3 October 1913 against “a large public

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those dearer than ourselves at too great a cost. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

hospital for the treatment of persons suffering from tuberculosis of the bone and joints”.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Dunmoyle, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.57 3 October 1913 Dearest, Your letter & enclosures all right this morning. I’ve just been out for a walk with Mrs Ross & have a little while before lunch. I am sending on a set of the revise of Poems to J. G. to keep him in mind, ostensibly to let him see the dedication.58 The fine dry weather continues. We are going for a motor drive this afternoon to see some people. Everything goes on very happily. My only trouble is getting so little time to myself. There may be a little more at my disposal when the Judge goes on Tuesday, but it will be much lonelier. I am always somewhat frightened at night although now my room is beside Mrs Ross’s & opposite the Judge’s. But I am splendid & feel full of health & desire to do things. The Judge is literally the very soul of good-nature. He was horrified to hear about poor Tim Harrington’s widow.59 I promised him I’d try to find out how things were. I am sure a lot of his income goes to charity. I’ve given up claret & last night at dinner the Judge ordered a small bottle of champagne for me which I had all to my self. Madam is very good to me too only she wants to keep me entirely to herself & is visibly annoyed when the Judge comes in. By the way get the mushrooms if you can before he goes away. Don’t let Pam walk the roads by herself while that madwoman is about. They think up here that everything will be divided among the Ancient Order when Home Rule comes. The Judge I gathered yesterday, thought Tim Healy very good for the employers. He tells me lots of stories. He is full of sentiment: allows children & is most kindly about everybody. He showed me a scrap book this morning with all kinds of personal things about himself & his family. Among the high notabilities came a letter from me! He is almost overcome about the poem I dedicated to him in the book & was setting it to music 57

The home of the judge and later last Lord Chancellor of Ireland Sir John Ross (1853-1935). He was MP for Antrim North from 1891 until 1895. He was created a Baronet in 1919 and Lord Chancellor in 1921. In 1894 he married Katharine Mann (1882-1932). The house was built in the 1880s and demolished in 1965. 58 The Right Hon. John George Gibson. The dedication was “TO / THE FIRST GENTLEMAN IN IRELAND AND / THE MOST GRACIOUS” in Katharine’s Irish Poems (1913). Katharine dedicated most of the poems to her friends, including both Alice and Wilfrid Meynell, John O’Mahony, her father, AE., Frank Mathew, Fr Russell, and Olivia Meynell. 59 Elizabeth O’Neill had married Timothy Harrington in 1892 and she was left in financial straits at his death. A subscription was raised in her benefit.

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last night.60 He is going to orate at the Classical Association so we shall have to go there. Every morning he & the baby go to sail boats on the pond, then come in for food from the breakfast-table to feed the horse & the dogs. He can do everything for her, even to putting her to bed. Mrs Ross told me last night that she would present me if I required it so that is all right. This house is run in the real old Irish style,—having indoor servants, the Chaplin & the steward, because his wife died recently to all meals, besides which the parlour have their breakfast & tea. Tell Pamela to write to me. The Judge always asks for news of you. I shall certainly try to get home next week. I suppose I must have a few days with Mrs Ross after the Judge goes but I fear it may be a bit nervy, although the house is very light & pleasant not at all ghostly. I hope I’ll get a little work done next week. At present I am panting after my proofs painfully, & with a thousand interruptions. I see that Elkin Mathews is advertising Lauds the little book which Alfred Hyatt published privately.61 I wonder where I come in. Isn’t it odd? Henry Huxley’s wife is Mrs Ross’s first or second cousin & they are on most intimate terms.62 Mrs Ross’s mother was one of the Stobarts & it is from that family she has the money. My love to you & the children. Sorry about Murphy but it was to be expected. Glad they’re all doing well otherwise. God bless you your devoted K.

60

The poem was “Compensation” dedicated “To Mr. Justice Ross” (Irish Poems). Katharine’s poems Lauds was published by the Cedar Press in 1909 and “Sold by Elkin Mathews, Cork Street”. 62 The surgeon Henry Huxley had married Sophie (or Sophy) Wylde Stobart (1865-1927) on 4 June 1890. The Stobarts were colliery owners in the north of England. 61

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 29 October 1913 My very dear Wilfrid, Do exactly as you like with the stories.63 I did not read them through & I am not surprised to hear there are repetitions. I often repeat myself in a book, but of course it gets taken out in the proof. The Reminiscences have been on the hall-table these two days waiting to be posted to you. There have been three days of torrential rain, during which I have not been out & the children have all been laid up with colds & are at home from school. I don’t like to send them out in the rain to the post office hence the delay. I must get it off to-day. Bear with us a little longer. We are just waiting from day to day for news of special interest to us.64 With warm love to Alice & all ever your devoted friend K.T.H.

63 64

Men not Angels and Other Tales told to Girls (Burns & Oates [1914]). See Katharine’s letter of 16 December 1913.

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To Frances Alice Chesterton MS BL. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 20 November 1913 My dear Mrs Chesterton, I have been meaning to write to you for a long time & have kept your dear letters by me waiting to be answered. I am such a hewer of wood & drawer of water that I sometimes have to wait a long time for leisure for a real letter. I have you down as one of those to be written to for Christmas with my little new book of Irish Poems as a small offering to the dear dreams of the small dreams. Now I am hurried up because I have a wild hope that the review of my Twenty-Five Years in the Daily News may have been Gilbert Chesterton,65 and there are very few people whose praise could give me as much pride & pleasure as his. I was on the point of writing to the editor, to ask who did it: but I thought you would tell me if it was your husband. Another reason for writing now is that I want you, if you will be so good & if it is needed, to make my peace with Cecil Chesterton. He has asked me to identify myself with the policy of the New Witness, which I cannot do because of certain prospects of my husband’s which might be endangered. I hope as a man & a brother he would understand & excuse me. Anyhow, please help me, as a woman & a sister,—and please treat this paragraph as confidential. And now it is time for me to ask after your own health. I wonder if you are able to winter in England this year. English people have not yet discovered what a beautiful Winter climate Ireland possesses. Day after day we bask in Summer-like sun & the softest air; here between the mountain & the sea. I am always reading to myself & for others the “Small Dreams”. It is a heavenly thing. Do remind me if it is necessary. I have a very warm feeling for the Chestertons all. 65

Katharine’s Twenty-Five Years: Reminiscences had been published on 23 October 1913. “A Book of the Day. An Irish Author’s Memories”, Daily News, 8 November 1913. The reviewer summed up the book with This book is, however, much more than a book of good stories: it has a real unity of its own, and a purpose as gracious as the personality of the writer. And it is, as we said, illuminated throughout by Miss Tynan’s keen and splendid patriotism.

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ever yours Katharine Tynan P.T.O. I loved G.K.C. for his article on dear Mr Wyndham.66 I too have been of that beloved companionship. I should like to send C.C. a copy of Irish Poems if he would not spurn it. I ought to say that as an honest woman that there was some of the policy of the N.W. which I could not approve. What is one to do if a kind & beloved friend is handled cruelly by another friend?

66

G. K. Chesterton, “The Death of George Wyndham”, Illustrated London News, 14 June 1913.

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To James Louis Garvin67 MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 4 December 1913 Dear Mr Garvin, It is very nice of you to write to me so explicit & I appreciate it. I like to think of you as a Parnellite knowing a big man when you saw him,—but I don’t think I can though of your opinions about his policy. His policy was largely opportunist, I think. I can’t believe he even had any love for the Land League any more that I had or have. As you have written to me frankly I also write frankly to you. I don’t think Imperialism incompatible with broad Irish nationalism. I am an Imperialist myself & I wish we were all quiet & at peace, & I am very far from thinking that such a Home Rule as is on the horizon means the nihilism to this country. I think it is in fact a very alarming, if also very exhilarating & exciting prospect. Many Imperialists just as advanced as you are among the best of Irish patriots. I always feel a great admiration for you & the stir you have made in the world.68 It is a feather in Ireland’s cap, to be worn imperially. With a great many good wishes Believe me, dear Mr Garvin yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson I am looking for a review of the Reminiscences.69

67

James Louis Garvin (1868-1947) was editor of the Observer from 1908 until his dismissal in January 1942. 68 He campaigned for a stronger military and navel Britain as he foresaw the intentions of Germany. 69 It received a very favourable review in the Observer, 2 November 1913 with the final sentence stating: “It is good to know that Mrs Hinkson intends to continue her reminiscences; this first instalment of them has given us a taste for more.”

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 16 December 1913 My very dear Frank Mathew, I loved your kitten & so did Harry, but I’ve been holding over the reply till I could send the new volume of poems for Christmas. Your praise of the Reminiscences is heart warming. Everyone seems to like them so much. Hardened reviewers have been dissolving in tears over the personality behind the book,—and every day I receive two or three letters about it,—and yet,—when it was a month out the record of sales was painfully small. I have been afraid to ask about it since but I note that Smith & Elder have given up advertising it which is a bad sign. However the book has been abundantly justified for it is being praised on every side by those whose praise one cares for, and I am going on presently with the next lot. I know I want to be able to get the young glamour into the next Twenty Years, but I’m the devil for glamour, & I’ve no doubt I’ll be able to get some in. Your Reminiscences of W. B. & Lionel Johnson are very delightful.70 When are you going to write again? Don’t you feel your hand aching for the pen? I should. I took a holiday two years ago & was in the doctor’s hands by the end of it. It seems wicked that you should not write, when you have the gift. You may answer that no one wants your writing. Well very few want mine. You’d be amazed to know how very unsuccessful I am, although I earn a decent income by doing all sorts of chores. But a handful of people whose approval I dearly prize like my poetry & my prose at its best. Your work is so beautiful that it must have made you friends. I wish you had not given it up. However all this is beside the question. I know you will think me impractical nor like me the less because I believe in your work. We are so sorry that Mrs Mathew’s health is not extremely satisfactory. Your itinerary sounds very delightful. I am beginning to doubt if I should ever travel this side of the mountains. Perhaps I may. But I always seem to be tied up one way or another. That R. M. seems to be on the way to us.71 It has a curious history which I could go into if we were 70

Not found, but may have been in a letter to Katharine. The Resident Magistrate, or R. M., “had its origins in government response to the perceived failure of county justices to maintain law and order during widespread unrest in the early nineteenth century” (Penny Bonsall, The Irish RMs: The Resident Magistrates in the British Administration of Ireland [1997], 11). The Magistrate was appointed from outside his area but then had to be resident for his new position. 71

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talking, but it is too much to take up a letter with, besides it is wiser not to talk about it too much. We look on it as an old age passing, while it is on the way we do act as if it we’re not caring. I find Dublin life very delightful. There are so many odd people & a sufficiency of congenial & interesting ones. I find it rather like a family party where on knows everyone. I don’t know if I told you that James Stephens became a great friend of ours last year.72 We also see George Russell often & his is pure genius. Harry obstinately refuses to settle. He is really happy but doesn’t know it. We are both far better in health than we were in England. He gets very good health & as for me I have never been so well before thanks to the giver of all good things. He sighs for London & the Savage Club.73 I usually found his Club very dull. I told him to-day that while he wasn’t dull himself he wallowed in dullness. He snatched eagerly at a chance of correspondence with a Garrick Club man, Walter Jerrold—do you remember him.74 But when the reply came he was dismayed by the sense of dullness it conveyed. He forgot that we were used to dullness in those years & had learnt to assimilate it. The children are all well & most devoted to us. Toby & Bunny are at present at the Dublin High School;,— very good for teaching but a horrible place full of Jews. I never thought my boys would be in the Ghetto. However all the schools in Dublin are the same. The Convent schools are extremely mixed. Pam is at the Sacred Heart which is the best, but even there the daughters of publicans abound. Pam has too much sense to object to them as the daughters of publicans. Education is in a way here & seems likely to continue so. The National University is a roaring farce.75 Protestant & Catholic schools alike are as bad as they can be. Everybody who is at all fastidious sends their children to England. My Giles who is the apple of my eye is to go to Shrewsbury in the Spring. Toby settled things for himself by chucking his scholarship at Tonbridge & must stay at the ‘Oigh as they call it till he goes to Trinity. Pam, I hope will go to Princethorpe, presently.76 She has grown up a 72

The Irish novelist, poet and actor James Stephens (1880-1950). From 1907 he was a regular contributor to United Irishman. His poems Where the Demons Grin in 1908 began to make his reputation. His Insurrections published immediately after the Easter rising of 1916 made an impact. He was a co-founder of the Irish Review in 1911. 73 The Savage Club, London, was founded in 1857 for gentlemen of the arts and literature. 74 The travel writer and biographer Walter Jerrold 1865-1929). He published a biography of his grandfather the playwright Douglas Jerrold in 1914. 75 The University was created in 1908 but did not award degrees for part-time or external students and was not allowed to award degrees in Theology. 76 Pamela was educated at a convent school and a boarding school in Ireland.

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charming little girl. If your boys are inflammable & you are minded to forbid the banns don’t let them meet. She has brains, character & charm. She is always working at poems or stories or making pictures & has already appeared in print & touched the joy of being paid. The photograph I send is in a fancy dress,—in some tableaux at the Abbey Theatre. Her face is too long in the picture. It is rather short & pregnant. My darling Bunny (Giles) got a prize the other day for an historical essay—10s 6. He bought the Reminiscences the darling. How I wish we could see you before you go on your travels. I fear it won’t be possible. I am lecturing in Cork in February, in Liverpool in May. You will be gone by May. I hope we may get on to London,—if we’re flush. The Reminiscences may do something in America: and the Bobbs Merrill Company are running my Rose of the Garden in the best American style of hustle.77 God bless to you all. Remember me most kindly to Mrs Mathew. Harry has a boys’ book this year which I am sure you he will want to give to your boys.78 It’s very hard to induce him to send out things. Ever your with much affection K.T.H.

Princethorpe girls school was attached to St Mary’s Priory for nuns founded in 1833. 77 Published 1913. 78 Gentleman Jack: An Adventure in East Africa (1913).

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To W. B. Yeats MS Stony Brook. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 17 December 1913 My dear Willie, Will you let me have your address? I have two books for you,—one my compilation The Wild Harp, to which you were so generous.79 The other my new little volume of poems, in which I know you will find something to like because you are so generous a critic & for the sake of old times. Mrs Meynell told me that you were not angry with me for using your letters in Reminiscences I was afraid to ask you lest you should say no.80 Anyhow I didn’t think I had committed any indiscretion, and I am glad to see that people recognising you as one of the heroes of the book. It is like Mrs Meynell’s sonnet,—do you remember? Your own fair youth, you care so little for it.81 If you are within easy reach of me do come to see me. yours ever affectionately K.T.H.

79

Yeats contributed “An Old Song Resung”, “The Host of the Air” and “The Happy Townland’. 80 In a letter to Lady Gregory 9 November 1913, (Yeats Letters) Yeats writes It contains—without permission—pages of my letters when I was twenty one or two, to me now very curious letters. I recognize the thought, but the personality seems to me someone else. The book which is careless & sometimes stupid contains a great deal that moves me, for it is a very vivid picture of that Dublin of my youth. However, in a letter to Katharine of 19 December 1913 (Yeats Letters) Yeats writes I liked your book very much and not merely because it brought back so many memories. You have the gift to describe many people with sympathy and even with admiration, and yet to leave them their distinct characters. Most people have to choose between caricature & insipidity. I was especially interested in all that period just before I knew you. You called up the romance of a forgotten phase of politics and gave it dignity. 81

“Sonnet” in Alice Meynell’s Preludes.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 6 January 1914 Dear Mr Shorter, Thank you for sending me on the letter. Your letter was a shock & grief. Poor Donn! I pray he may pull through. We had not heard a whisper about his illness, although several weeks ago some one said to me that he was not looking well, but I did not think of anything serious. I have written to poor Hester. I pray this heavy cloud may be lifted from her. What I said in the Pall Mall about the Bronte books had no reference to you in my mind.82 I am sorry you thought it had. It was said in a fit of impatience with the subject & had no reference to anyone. I am often glad to have the opportunity of correcting such possible misapprehensions in proof. The other day I was very glad to delete some things I had said of Christina Rossetti, after reading it through on and for an anthology I got a sensation of utter weariness with the notion of the religious poems & wrote things I was very glad to have a chance of taking out. The Pall Mall sends no proofs. I am very sorry that the thing hurt you. Life is so short & often so sad that it is a pity to hurt any fellow travellers. How wonderful Dr Sigerson is. I think the Saga is really the best verse he has done,83 though, of course it does not make the special appeal of the translations. You may be very proud of your splendid old father-in-law. I am just going to review Dora for the Bookman.84 I am glad to see so many appreciative reviews of it. It seems her high-water mark: I have not yet read it and an judging by the quotations I have seen for it. I am hoping for better news of poor dear Donn. Hester knew him through me as you knew Dora. I hope it may be a happy New Year for all this cloud being lifted. ever yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

82

In her review of the two Bronte books in the Pall Mall Gazette, 3 July 1912, Katharine remarked that: “Of the making Bronte books there is no end, and by far the greater number of them could well be spared.” Shorter had published The Complete Works of Emily Bronte in 1910, 1911. 83 George Sigerson’s The Saga of King Lir (Dublin: 1913). 84 Katharine reviewed Dora’s Madge Lindsey and Other Poems in the Bookman, February 1914 and also Dora’s father’s The Saga of King Lir.

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To Alice Meynell MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 23 January 1914 Dearest Alice, I am rather anxious for news of you all, especially of dear Wilfrid to whom I wrote one little while ago about the Reminiscences that I asked Smith & Elder to send to the Tablet.85 I hope & pray indeed with all my heart that you dear people may have a very happy year to make up for last year, & that there will be excellent health all round. It makes me very sad to think of my very dear kind cheerful Wilfrid if ill. And your own rheumatism, and Bastian’s troubles & the dear little ones.86 I pray that all my be well: and that poor dear Lobbie may have great joy.87 I hope the Reminiscences are doing well. They have been getting the most extraordinary reviews & praises all round. When it was a month out I asked for a report & it was so bad that I have not dared to ask since but am grateful I did ask since I could surly have been building on it. I hope it has recovered somewhat & I think it must have, but I shall have to wait for a report. I hope it will bring us in a decent sum so that we may get quite straight again. Yes,—the appointment is only postponed for a year or so.88 I am trying to write while Pamela with most extraordinary passion is reading aloud Synge’s Deirdre of the Sorrows,89 how wonderful they are, these children. Darling Alice I want to know all about you & the family. It is so sorrowful to me that when good things have come to you & no one ever deserved it more there should be this dark shadow of ill health. But perhaps it is not a shadow. I cannot think of you but as always in the light, God’s light, ever brightening about you. As I grow older while I am very 85

It was not reviewed in the Tablet but mentioned, in passing, in an article about Cardinal Manning on 15 November 1913 and in an article on Christina Rossetti on 22 November. 86 Sebastian Meynell had suffered a nervous breakdown in August 1913 and went to a convalescent home. In a letter to Katharine, 8 December 1913 (Alice Letters, 350) Alice wrote: “Bastian has been well now for weeks but he will require the greatest care.” 87 The Meynells’ daughter Olivia had married Thomas Murray Sowerby on 23 June 1913. 88 Harry was to be a Resident Magistrate. 89 Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910) by the Irish playwright (Edmund) John Millington Synge (1871-1909). His most famous work was The Playboy of the Western World (1907) causing controversy for its depiction of its anti-hero and caused riots.

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much of this world still, I grow happy about all that can befall, feeling more & more the hand of God over and around us. Give my love to dear Wilfrid and I pray most heartily that you can send me a good word of him. your devoted K.T.H. We are so amused at the picture of Father Bernard Vaughan & his Chinese hosts in the Catholic Who’s Who.90 How deliciously Wilfridian. Have you seen this little article. Oh, Alice of all the passions!

90

Catholic Who’s Who (1914). Fr Bernard Vaughan, S.J. (1843-1922) made a world tour raising finance for missions, China being one of the countries visited. The directory also contained a reproduction of J. B. Yeats’s portrait of Katharine.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 1 March 1914 My dear Wilfrid, I hope you are stronger & all things go well. I don’t know how you regard Francis’s exploits as a glory or a shame or something between or an escapade.91 I sympathize with you in whatever point of view, as always. I am about to put together a volume of my religious poems, giving it a name like Mount of Olives or something of that sort, but not that of course.92 I have not yet thought of a title. I should like you to have the first refusal of it if you felt like it. There might be some luck in your luck-bag for me. Of course there would be no question of money till it had earned it. I think it might make a considerable success. Will you let me know? I am always in a most apologetic frame of mind towards you, but I won’t make my apologies for I feel you would hate them. It will be all right presently what with getting rid of dishonest servants who have plundered us for seven years, & replacing them with honest ones,—and this appointment (which I think has been made safe against all the chances). But I shall never forget your dear kindness & I always love you & Alice most dearly. The Poems could be in your hands almost immediately. Let me have good news of you yours always K.T.H. If you don’t want the poems don’t be embarrassed about saying so. I think I should have no great difficulty in placing them, as my verse still pays for itself.

91 Francis Meynell, with others, notably the artist and writer Laurence Housman (1865-1959), was arrested for obstructing the police while protesting in Parliament Square on 24 February 1914 in favour of women’s suffrage. At Bow Street Police Court Francis refused to pay a 40/- fine in preference to a week in prison. However, after lunch the magistrate released the six, four men and two women. 92 The Flower of Peace: a Collection of the Devotional Poetry of Katharine Tynan was published by Burns & Oates on 29 June 1914.

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To the Editor, Irish Times Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 4 March 191493 Sir, May I direct your attention, and the attention of your readers, to the fact that the Bill to Amend the Diseases of Animals Act (1894-1911) will come up for second reading in the House of Commons on April 3rd?94 It is hoped that the passage of this bill may put to an end to the abominable cruelty of the last 24 years of exportation of old and diseased animals to the Continent. It is quite amazing that such a traffic could have been permitted for so long a period. The English are a humane people, and I am glad to give this testimony after 18 years spent in England, but there is a certain base minority with whom nothing counts but the love of money, and it is this evil class which must be met and circumvented if the poor creatures who have spent themselves willingly in the service of mankind are to be saved from oppressions and the cruelties which call Heaven for vengeance. The detailed facts of this traffic are so dreadful that one hardly dares parade them in public. Nearly 50,000 broken-down and diseased horses have been exported in this way since the beginning of the traffic. It is a grief and an acute suffering to think of this miserable procession of poor creatures to whom man owes a very different repayment. What is it Blake says?— “A horse starved at his master’s gate Predicts the ruin of the state.”95 And what of the fifty thousand pitilessly tortured that a few nefarious scoundrels may have money in their pockets? Ireland loves the horse, and it is to be hoped that the Irish members may swell the majority for the bill. It will be a great help if sympathisers with the horses will impress on their members the need of being in their places on April 3rd to vote for the bill. Let us never forget the glorious fact that it was a Martin of Ballynahinch who brought in the first bill for the protection of animals,96 or that the Irish members, however much they may differ in high politics, have always 93

Published under the heading “The Decrepit Horse Trade”, 5 March 1914. The Bill to prohibit the exportation of horses no longer fit for work was passed unanimously. 95 “A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.” William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”. 96 The animal welfare reformer Richard Martin (1754-1834) published a Bill in 1821 which became law in 1822 to protect animals. Later Martin, with others, founded what eventually became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 94

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voted straight when it was a question of protecting the weak and the helpless. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. [Travelling]97 [30 April 1914] In the train between Tonbridge & T. Wells.98 Here I am looking out on the familiar fields & glad I am now a change of the place. But it is all very beautiful with the hop vines just climbing the poles & the apple orchards in great beauty. There is a lot of fog. I daresay we will get out of it when we cross the Channel. I am sitting opposite a High Churchwoman & instructing her on the Irish question. She is very open-minded. The two love birds are sitting opposite of each other. On feels as though one must avoid interrupting the tête a tête as though they were a honeymooning couple. Everything is very easy. The trunks will be opened in the train deluxe: no terminus alighting for the douane. John’s message was that he felt he has not grasped his opportunities on Monday & that he was overwhelmed when he discovered that I was going so soon,—all put much more sweetly than this.99 They love John. They say that his beautiful kindness & courtesy never fail nor alter. I don’t think I’ll get much writing done in the train, what do you think? Even a St John would be hard put to it to make it out. I wrote a little letter to Bunny from the hotel—will write to-morrow from Paris. I hope there’ll be some good news. God bless you. I’ll write to Toby & Pam as soon as I can. your devoted K.T. 1 May [1914] Paris-Rome express May 1st. Here I am in the lap of luxury a carriage all to myself, with a little [illegible] apartment for washing etc. As I shall never travel in this style again I am enjoying it. We saw Notre Dame square & Notre Dame des Victoires & some shops [&] lunched at Véfour where you & I must lunch one of the good days to come. The train is running very fast & it is not easy to write. I feel good to-day. Paris was distinctly cool which was a great improvement. You will see that is quite cheap. Roger is going on for Parliament.100 He wants a Nationalist seat & 97

Written in pencil on her journey to Paris. Katharine had been asked by Lady Aberdeen to accompany her to the Quinquennial Meeting of the International Congress of Women in Rome of which she was President (See Years of the Shadow, ch. XIII “Rome”). 98 Tunbridge Wells. 99 Lord Aberdeen. 100 Captain Roger Charles Noel Bellingham (1844-1915), second son of Sir Alan Henry Bellingham, Bt (1846-1921) of Castle Bellingham, County Louth. Roger

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is likely to get it I think. I hope there has been some good news. I don’t know when this will get posted, but I shall add a bit from time to time. The Bs took great care of me walking about. The streets look frightfully dangerous but I think it is all right if you keep calm. The Bs are very fond of their food & nearly embarrassed me when they found I was. I had frogs. They were delicious, but you have to prick them to get anything of them. Mrs B & Roger hacked up my gravy that had the legs in the dish with bits of bread. Paris must be one of our first holidays. Give my fondest love to T & P, & my remembrance to the dogs. I hope I shall get a letter at Rome. The train de luxe takes 26 hours to Rome, six hours less than the ordinary express so we shall be in at 5.30 to-morrow evening. Unfortunately we pass the most beautiful places in the night, but there is early daybreak & I hope I may see a bit of the Alps. All round Paris is lovely with the river winding everywhere & the most heavenly little green poplarlike flowers. We passed by Fontainebleau. It is still cloudy, though we have had some sun. All the better if it is wet in Rome [rest of letter missing]

Bellingham had married Alice Ann Naish in 1910. He was Aide-de-Camp to Lord Aberdeen.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Hôtel Terminus, du Chemin de Fer de Lyon, 19, Boulevard Diderot, Paris 1 May 1914 Dearest, I began a letter to you in the train yesterday & meant to go on with it this morning but left it up stairs, & don’t propose to ascend three corkscrew flights to retrieve it. There is a hideous little lift but I distrust it. I have not seen the sun since I left home. Fog in London & all the way down yesterday,—a bad presage,—I was quite all right. I think I’ve found out the secret of biliousness & port sea-sickness,—too many oranges. I talked to two ladies in the train yesterday, one from Torquay, who had just read Reminiscences. There was darkness & heavy rain all through France. Very beautiful scenery,—masses of woods & rivers & lakes. I was awfully tired last night. The Bellinghams went out, but I stayed in. Very good dinner, although this is only a railway hotel. And Mr & Mrs Jack Quinn at the next table! I was delighted to see someone from Shankill. But they melted away & I couldn’t find them afterwards, so I went educating the Saxon as I had been doing in the train. There are English people everywhere & I like it. The extortion everywhere is awful. I got a cup of coffee at Ancien yesterday—1/6. It will be some time before we could travel on unless as very third-class passengers. Even last night I was so tired I had a queer kind of energy, & took out my garments which the douane had knocked of a about hung them up & arranged everything newly. Paris never sleeps. It is all noise & glitter. Some people here say Rome is nosier. I shall really love the green peace of Shankill when I get back. To-day, despite the long train journey,—we shall escape the douane as all baggage on the train de luxe is examined in the train. A man brought me my petit déjeuner this morning & arranged it comfortably for me while I sat up in bed in my nightdress. We are going sight-seeing as soon as the Bs appear. We leave Paris at 3 & reach Rome about 9 to-morrow night. The train de luxe is confined to 50 passengers. Last night’s sleep despite the amazing noise has set me up. I slept from 10.30 to 7 when the waiter brought the tea, beautiful tea & rolls & butter. Tell Pam her little watch is a great companion & every time I go look at it I say “my dear little girl” and feel something of her presence about me. I am very careful & Mrs Bellingham grabs me & leads me about. I shall never get across a Paris street by myself. Metros everywhere & long trams running through all the streets. Baths are 2 fr 50 c here. I bathed in the basin this morning. I shall hope to find a letter at the Hotel Quirinal.101 I was miserable last night 101

Rome.

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because I had left you. But time will not be long in passing & the experience will be very useful to me. Love to my darling Toby & Pam Your K.T.H.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Hotel Quirinal, Rome 7 May 1914 Dearest, I was relieved at getting your letter this morning. All those days without letters were somewhat trying. I was relieved when her Ex told me last night that she had heard from Pam. Here I am, a real martyr to duty. We were all going to Frascati to lunch & tea with Mrs Mulhall to meet various notabilities,102 but I this morning I couldn’t do it without neglecting what I am here to do. Mrs Ogilvie Gordon,103 a Vice President was in my room with my little breakfast this morning to beg me to attend her committee on Education so I spent the morning between that & the Suffrage & Education Committees & have now done my second Westminster article & sent it off.104 The Bellinghams are out for all day, as they are dining with her Ex at the Contessa Spalletti Rasponi’s.105 I’ve just had my déjeuner. There is a most agreeable waiter who over feeds us. He never understands when you say no; & keeps heaping your plate. This afternoon I am going with Mrs Forbes of Rothiemay,106 a most agreeable woman & a neighbour & friend of their Exs to see some sights. I’ve done two Westminster articles one which I sent to the Times & one which I sent to the Independent.107 Both these,—entre nous, were written for the 102

Katharine writes that Mrs Marian Mulhall represented Argentina at the Congress and in Rome was known as the Queen of Patagonia (Years of the Shadow, 116). She published Between the Amazon and Andes or Ten Years of a Lady’s Travels in the Pampas, Gran Chaco, Paraguay and Matto in 1881. 103 Maria Matilda Ogilvie (1864-1939) gained a BSc in geology and zoology in 1890 at University College, London, later gaining a DSc (London) and a PhD (Munich). She studied the Dolomites of the Tyrol and was a prolific publisher of articles and books. She married Dr John Gordon in 1895. A great advocate of women’s rights, she was Vice-President of the International Council of Women, President of the National Council of Women and Hon. President of the National Women’s Citizens Association. 104 Katharine published six articles in the Westminster Gazette, five of them under the heading “Women of the World”, 8 May, 11 May, 12 May, 14 May and 16 May. The final article was “Women in Council”, 18 May. In Years of the Shadow (127) she mentions she did one article for The Times, presumably the short report “Women in Council”, 6 May 1914. 105 Contessa Gabriella Rasponi Spalletti, daughter of the Vice-Consul of France, lived in a splendid mansion built in 1905. It is now an hotel. 106 Mary Livesey Wardle (b.1855) married Lt. Col. John Foster Forbes (18351914) of Rothiemay in 1873 and lived in Rothiemay Castle, Banffshire. 107 There was poor cover of the Congress in The Times. Reuters reported on the

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Freeman & should in each case be good.108 I told her Ex last night that I was always writing articles for the Independent but they always turned out to be too good so they had to go somewhere else. We had a terrible powwow last night which lasted 3 hours. It was the welcome to the delegates & there were 23 National Anthems sung & 23 speeches made & it was 12 when we got back & the place was like an oven. It is very warm here, but all the advanced women get the shivers at the thought of an open window. Poor old Mrs Mulhall will be disgruntled at my not turning up to-day. I’m afraid the Vatican regards her as a prime bore. The struggle of the Monsignors & the Camerius & the Cardinals to avoid meeting her eye are most amusing. Heaven delivered me from being persecuted by her again. Not but that she is splendid in getting me these things but she’s an awful fidget. However I’ve done grandly. The Bellinghams have not yet got their audience though they began it all the moment they arrived & were full of introductions. There’s a frightful lot of wire pulling going on. Her Ex wants to be received & to present a deputation but the Congress is in very bad odour at the Vatican & the utmost she will get is an audience for herself. Cardinal Merry Del Val said “ Give the Congress a wide berth!” to Mrs Mulhall, of course not to me.109 They are certainly discouraging all the things we don’t talk about, and that old fool, Mrs Creighton made her speech last night into a passionate eulogism of Garibaldi which won’t help.110 Her Ex is very sweet & very happy. She insisted on taking me home in the motor last night. Did I tell you that the train de luxe from Paris to Rome cost £15.1.3? I am very much stumped for a watch. They wanted 7 francs for doing Pamela’s, but I thought that perhaps was excessive. This morning I got up at what the servants apparently thought was the middle of the night. I had said I’d be called at 7.30 as I thought I could get my article in & go to Frascarti. When I rang the bell they said it was 7 o’clock. It must really have been close on 8 as I was just sitting down to my tea & rolls when Mrs Ogilvie Gordon, & said it was 9.20. I think I’ll have to buy a cheap schoolboy’s watch when I get a little money. I’m frightfully stumped for the time as I’m always having appointments. I Congress for the Irish Independent. 108 Katharine contributed two articles, “Women in Council”, Freeman’s Journal, 2 May 1914 and 12 May 1914. 109 The English-born and English-educated Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val y de Zulueta (1865-1930). 110 Louise Hume Creighton, née von Glehn (1850-1936), widow of Mandell Creighton (1843-1901) Bishop of London, was a social reformer and writer. She was heavily involved in many women’s societies and after her husband’s death she edited his letters.

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had a letter from Bun to-day. I am pretty sure I have not got his glasses the extra pair I took from a letter basket not in my house, & I’m certain they are not his. To-morrow is the grand meeting. Love to the two K.

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To Giles Aylmer Hinkson MS Manchester. Hotel Quirinal, Rome 12 May 1914 My darling boy, I have just had your letter. I am writing to Mr Baker about letting you have eggs on Friday. If it is not possible you must eat meat, for you require food at your age. But I am proud of my boy nevertheless. I am sitting in the hall of the meeting with a little table of my own & a comfortable chair. Oh, but is so stuffy. And there is a delicious garden outside with a pond full of red fish & an aviary of birds & big bushes of azaleas all quantities of roses. But it is my duty to stick here especially as I am going out in the afternoon with a charming Monsignor O’Kelly to San Clemente, the Dominican Monastery where they have just got the actual temple of Mithras free of sand & water. To-morrow we go to a party at the American Ambassador’s. I meant to have gone home on Saturday but her Ex wished me to stay for Queen Margherita’s garden party on Monday so I hope to leave immediately after that.111 The Bellinghams are going on to Florence, so I shall probably travel there with a Scotswoman, Mrs Ogilvie Gordon or at least to London. Your father is coming to meet me at Holyhead. Neither Pam nor Toby have written a word to me, but your father writes every day. I hope to have an audience with the Pope again this week, when I shall introduce Mrs Forbes of Rothiemay a friend & neighbour in Scotland of their Exs. The last audience was rather spoilt for me by the fussiness of the lady who introduced us. There were about twenty people in the room & the Pope walked around & blessed each one. But my old fidget was rabling at him all the time as she was trying to buttonhole everyone from the Cardinals down to the servants who all wear mediaeval garments of ruby damask silk. The Pope was all in white. He seemed very well & laughed a good deal when talking to his Cameriere or private Chamberlain. There are ten different officers of the Pope’s household. I sent you a Swiss Guard yesterday but there is a whole set if you would like to have them. Don’t write after Friday as I should not get a letter. You can’t imagine the splendour of Rome. One of five hundred beautiful & wonderful sights make any city famous. Sometime we must all come here together. You can only see a tiny corner of it in the time. I will write to Canon Moriarty when he comes back. Meanwhile I trust my darling boy to be as good as his mother would wish. I set out last week to buy you some sweets, but I got such a tiny bag for seven pence that I gave 111

Queen Margherita Teresa Giovanna (1851-1926), widow of King Umberto I of Italy.

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up the idea of buying a quantity & then the parcel post is rather heavy; so I hope I’ll have a chance of sending a nice lot from London. If not it shall be from Dublin. The morning meeting is just on. After déjeuner I am going with two ladies to the Corso to buy some little things. His Ex telegraphed how much he liked the first Westminster article which appeared on Friday.112 If you don’t see them I shall try to get you the lot when I go home. I shall only have a few days for rest before going to Liverpool. It is glorious weather again to-day & we have been sitting in a shut up well because of the noise of the streets. One or two of the people here have little dogs & I love to see them & talk to them. On Thursday when we were at Frascati I saw the Pomeranian grazing on the Campagna & drawing the carts. Capt. Bellingham’s uniform of the household is a great puzzle to the people here. Fondest love. Will write to-morrow & tell your father news. Mother

112

Westminster Gazette, 8 May 1914.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Hotel Quirinal, Rome 15 May 1914 Dearest, I write this while I may. It is 8.30 & I have just breakfasted in my own room. And a private audience letter has reached me for 11 o’clock. Roger Bellingham told me last night that they had a letter too calling them & me. I don’t know where these emissaries are coming from, unless this is one in which I am to accompany her Ex. Roger Bellingham told me last night that if she got a private audience I was to accompany her. Poor darling she is receiving blow after blow. The Pope will have nothing to do with the Congress,—won’t even receive the delegates on their own. Queen Mary has telegraphed that she is very much annoyed at Mrs Creighton’s speech involving her in the suffrage question113 (a lie of Mrs Humphry Ward’s in The Times)114 and when we went to the Embassy yesterday Sir Rennell & Lady Rodd were wandering “in the country”,115 and we were received by Mr Denning the attaché! The Rodds are entirely in with the “Black Aristocracy”.116 I feel so sorry for her, & she is so splendid all through. These audiences are becoming an ‘alot [sic]. Yesterday morning I took Mrs Forbes, Mrs Booth of Liverpool who is sending word to her friends in Liverpool about us & she is married to the head of the Booth Line117 & is a sister-in-law of Charles Booth and (the Hon) Mrs Handford Lord Belper’s sister,118 to an open-air audience. Mrs Forbes has a son & a daughter-in113

Reuters reported in The Times that the Queen “had consented to become a patron of the English Council”, 9 May 1914. In a note The Times explained that the reference was to the National Council of Women Workers to which the Queen had become a patroness in 1911. 114 Mrs Creighton published a denial in The Times, 14 May 1914. 115 Sir Rennell Rodd (1858-1941) was British Ambassador to Italy from 1908 to 1919. He married Lilias Georgina Guthrie in 1894. In 1933 he was created Lord Rennell of Rodd. 116 The Roman nobility who supported Pope Pius IX after the Papal States (Vatican) were taken over by the Italian state. 117 The shipping line was founded in 1866 to sail to Brazil and the Amazon. It was taken over by the Blue Star Line in 1975. Mary Blake was to married Alfred Allen Booth (1872-1948) of the shipping line the brother of the philanthropist Charles Booth (1840-1916) whose ground breaking Life and Labour in London was first published in two volumes (1889, 1891) but eventually as seventeen volumes in 1902-3. 118 The first Lord Belper, Edward Strut (1801-80), had four sisters and Mary married secondly the doctor Henry Handford.

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law (Lady Helen who writes) Catholic: Mrs Booth has a daughter & Mrs Handford has a daughter a nun. Isn’t Rome getting into the English aristocracy. Mrs Forbes had provided herself with rosaries to be blest, & I gave the other two one a piece of mine for which they almost wept their gratitude. When Mrs Forbes & I got back we found a luncheon invitation awaiting us from Mrs Sanford, the Treasurer & her Ex’s great friend.119 The lunch was for the Canadian & Australian delegates. Her Ex presided & I sat on her left. There were about 30. After lunch her Excellency told the party who I was, & the delegates almost fell on my back, especially the Australians. Then her Ex went away to a newspaper man & I sat in her chair & everyone came up & was presented & I wrote autographs for them. Afterwards I saw Dr Kolbe,120 a South African priest (Boer) who was a great friend of Fr Russell’s: the Burns Street. He asked me to lunch to-day but I can’t go , which I am less sorry for, as he is deaf. He will be in Ireland presently. In the afternoon to the Embassy & last dined with the Italian Council at the Hotel Continental. There is a visiting card which you must keep safely. It was left (in person) while I was out yesterday. Mrs Ogilvie Gordon promised to tell me all about the journey to-day.; but if I can get hold of her again. I’ve got to get in my Westminster article somehow. Sunday Mrs Mulhall has a lunch for her Ex,—two Cardinals, 4 heads of Colleges, diplomats, etc, Mrs Forbes & me. I’ve got nearer to her Ex, I think. Fondest love Your devoted K.T.H. A thousand thanks for the [illegible].

119

Harriet Sophia Vaux (1848-1938), widow of the Canadian Senator William Eli Sanford (1838-99), whom she married in 1866. She was President of the National Council of Women of Canada, 1918-22. 120 The South African Monsignor Frederick C. Kolbe (1852-1936). Dr Kolbe was a convert and wrote on Shakespeare and writers of the period.

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To Giles Aylmer Hinkson MS Manchester. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 19 July 1914 My dearest Bunny, I suppose this is my last letter for this term. Your father will shortly send you the passage money next week. Then I suppose you will arrive in time for breakfast on the 28th. Will you have other boys travelling with you? I don’t think there is a train from Kingston for Killiney till five past eight so you will have to stay on board till then. We shall send Owens to meet you at Killiney. I shall be delighted to see you. I have been pitching into Pam for not writing to you, but she has not been up to much this Summer. It is very oppressive weather & she is languid & rather liverish. A voyage over to meet you would be the last thing for her. This morning Toby was playing the fool at breakfast & she suddenly went for him & knocked him over chairs & all & pounded him with her fists. She went on after she had got him down & your father says it was awful like Boad Gunboat Smith.121 We had a great day at the opening of the exhibition.122 Last night George Russell was at dinner & we were expecting the Warners,123 but only Miss Warner turned up. Hope124 & Forbes were away, and Roger Bellingham who is an awful little slacker went off to the flying at Woodbrook with a promise to be back early & had not come back.125 We expect when he did turn up he was slain. Toby went to the flying with Co. & Harry Fagan. No one else would go with him & he hated to go alone, so he had the impudence to go off to Co. from whom he received the warmest welcome. They saw the flying from the field & saved their shillings. The air-ship was flying about all the afternoon at the back & we could see it from all the back windows. I don’t think we shall go to Greystones as we’ve heard nothing more about letting. But you will enjoy it here, and we think your father’s appointment is very near now, as an R. M. died a little while ago. Your father annoys Toby much by saying that 121

The American heavyweight boxer and actor Edward I. Smith (1887-1974). The Civic Exhibition held at the Linenhall Buildings, Dublin, from 15 July to 31 August. The exhibition was designed to illustrate Irish life in all its facets and how Dublin can be improved as a commercial and industrial centre. Katharine was one of the guests at the official opening. 123 Captain, later Colonel, Edward Courtenay Thomas Warner (1886-1955) and his sister (Leucha) Mary Warner (1884-1960)). He was an ADC to Lord Aberdeen and succeeded his father as 2nd baronet in 1934. 124 Lt. William Edward Hope (1887-1914). 125 Lord Carbery (1892-1970) gave a flying display in a Morane-Soulnier monoplane at Woodbrook Bray cricket ground on 18 July. 122

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you’ll take care of them when they’re bathing. Pam & I are going to the Exhibition to-morrow. We are to lunch with Miss Warner & afterwards take her to see George Russell & afterwards I have to give tea to some Canadians at the Exhibition. There is plenty of fun going on. Very fondest love Ever your devoted Mother The “townies” have started. I’ve had a bad foot for a week & at the moment I write Golly is sick and scratching. They always (the dogs) go in with the bathers & that keeps the townies under order.

IV THE GREAT WAR “THE Autumn leaves are dying quietly, Scarlet and orange, underfoot they lie; They had their youth and prime And now's the dying time; Alas, alas, the young, the beloved, must die!”

To Holbrook Jackson1 MS Texas. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 8 August 1914 Dear Mr Holbrook Jackson, I must acknowledge the friendliness of your letter. Perhaps you will see something of Ireland for yourself one of these days, and I hope those that care about that we may be permitted to show you a lot of it. Of course we are all somewhat sad at the break of our gaiety, not only anxious, but sad at seeing all the mothers’ sons going over to this awful war, but we are glad, all the same. I sent back the proof yesterday.2 With very many thanks yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

1

George Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948), writer, bibliophile and co-owner of the New Age from 1907 for a year before working on T.P’s, Weekly becoming editor in 1914. Later he became a small press publisher. 2 “Dublin for a Holiday”, T.P’s Weekly 22 August 1914.

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To Pamela Hinkson MS Manchester. Castlebar House, Castlebar, Co. Mayo3 14 October 1914 My dearest Pam, I am coming home by the mail on Friday.4 The morning train starts too early & is too wretchedly slow. The mail gets to Broadstone at 7.12 so I want you & Ellen to come to meet me.5 Come up on the 5.51 & cab to Broadstone. We could hardly catch the 7.30 at Harcourt Street, but we can catch the 7.45 at Westland Row, so tell Owens to meet us at Killiney at 8.10.6 3

The Times (7 October 1914) had a short announcement that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Lord Aberdeen) had appointed Harry as Resident Magistrate for Co. Mayo to be stationed at Castlebar. The Irish Times made the announcement on 2 January 1915. The Irish Independent reported the appointment on 7 October 1914. On 10 October 1914 the Irish Independent reported that The Council of the Incorporated Law Society has passed a resolution against the appointment of Mr. H. A. Hinkson, a member of the English Bar, as resident magistrate in Ireland. The Council regard the appointment as a slight upon the legal profession in Ireland, and repeat their protest against the action of the Executive in ignoring the claims of members of the solicitors’ profession for such appointments. However, in the Wandering Years (54) Katharine includes an Open Letter from the Mayo News (no date) To Mr. Hinkson, R.M. There was a bit of a kick-up about your appointment as an R.M., but you have well justified the opinion of those who put you here. You are a gentleman every inch, and your decisions are always of such a nature as to give satisfaction. You are incapable of even a scintilla of prejudice, and you have no political humours. Your estimable lady has made her name in the world of letters you have established yours here as a high-minded and impartial magistrate. Katharine had travelled to Castlebar and stayed at the Breaffy Housel Hotel in order to visit Harry. In a letter to Pamela, 10 October (Manchester) she writes: “Also, please send me my combinations, as those I am wearing have gone into holes & are uncomfortable.” 4 16 October. 5 The terminus of the Midland Great Western Railway in Dublin. 6 The nearest railway station to Katharine’s home.

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We are so sorry about poor Toby’s foot, & hope there is a livelier report of it. This place will quite set him up. It is beautiful country & the weather is lovely. You get great wide skies with Croagh Patrick & other mountains in the distance & bits of water everywhere. We are longing that you could come down for a bit. Your letter was awfully nice. Your father said you were a sweetheart. You never saw as changed a man. He is bubbling over with joy & his temper is the sweetest, & all pains & aches have fled away, thank God. He has got double duty as he has half Major Meldon’s district as well as his own.7 He loves Castlebar. But I’ll tell you all about it. I drove with him to Kiltimagh,—you can’t imagine how it’s pronounced,8—on Monday to his first court,—28 miles in an outside car.9 Didn’t get back till 9 & then moved in here & wasn’t a bit tired. I shall to see your dear little face again & dear old Toby & the bow wows. Don’t send any letters after to-morrow. I am sure Teresa & Ellen are spoiling you. Remember me to them. I feel so happy about your father. Ever, with much love to you & Toby Yours K.T.H. We didn’t like Toby’s patterns. He is to come down here as soon as he can travel in any clothes he’s got, & get a suit here where the homespuns are beautiful & very cheap. I had a telegram from his dear Ex yesterday. This lovely old house is in a heavenly place. It is glorious these Autumn days.

7

Dublin-born Major James Austin Meldon (1870-1932) of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He joined the 16th Queen’s Lancers in February 1889. He was appointed RM in March 1914. 8 In Years of the Shadow (150) Katharine writes: “I accompanied my husband to Kiltimagh (pronounced Kul-cheemauch).” 9 12 October.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 30 October 1914 Dearest Alice, I feel somehow cut off from you all. It is so long since I have heard: I am hoping that no one is ill. I have just been writing a letter of sympathy to poor Mr Snead-Cox.10 He is so associated with the old dear days at Palace Court & Linden Gardens long ago. Harry has been a Resident Magistrate for nearly a month.11 Toby is with him in Castlebar. Pamela & I are here alone. We have this house till next May, & we each offered to pay two grants. I am sticking on here for some time at all events. I don’t quite know how long Harry will stand my absence. I left him beautifully settled in with the Larminies (Mr Larminie is the agent of the Lucan family) who live in Lord Lucan’s delightful house Castlebar House.12 The Lucans come back no more since all their 10

John George Snead-Cox. 2nd Lieutenant Richard Mary Snead-Cox (1892-1914) of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Royal Scots was killed near Neuve Chapelle on 28 October 1914. He has no grave but is remembered on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais. His brother 2nd Lieutenant Geoffrey Phillip Joseph Snead-Cox (1895-1914) of the 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers was killed on 20 October 1914 at the first battle of Ypres. He has no grave but is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. A third son Midshipman Herbert Arthur Snead-Cox was killed at Jutland on 31 May 1916 aged sixteen and is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. 11 In a letter to Evelyn Gleeson (17 October, Trinity) Katharine writes I’ve left him delightfully comfortable at Castlebar in the old home of the Earls of Lucan which is now tenanted by Mr Larminie Lord Lucan’s agent. It is a delightful comfortable kindly house and Mrs Larminie will take care of him & Toby who goes down there on Monday so my heart is at ease, & I hope to have as happy a time as the war will allow this Winter, seeing my friends in the greater freedom of there being only Pamela & myself to be thought of. Katharine wrote a seven verse poem “To Two Bereaved (For G.S.C., 20th October, R.S.C., 28th October 1914)” which was published in her Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time (1915). 12 Alexander Clendining Larminie, J.P. (1843-1932) was land agent for the fifth Earl of Lucan, George Charles Bingham (1860-1949) who succeeded on 5 June 1914. Castlebar House was burnt down in 1798 and the estate agent lived at the Rocklands.

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estates have been sold to the tenants and the Larminies use the house as their own.13 There are three or four other people staying there,—all friends but paying their pay, for the land agents are poor now a days; so there is plenty of society. Harry has his own private sitting room for his work & papers & his bedroom side by side with Toby’s looks out on such a crystal West as only the Atlantic can produce. The air is as though you saw it through clear water as crystal & the clean sharp colours are wonderful. I wonder if Lady Butler was at Castlebar when she painted Recruiting for the Connaught Rangers.14 It used to be their headquarters. For some reason or other the War Office which normally bungles things Irish removed them & left the great barracks to go to ruin. Is the War breaking your heart? Poor Toby wanted to get a commission, but he would not pass the medical test: he is still not strong. Bunny that born soldier, who is at Shrewsbury15 & a member of the O.T.C. prays ever for the heads of the club to go fast & make him 17. Fortunately for my peace of mind he is still under 16. I hope the bloodiness will be over before he joins. What a war! I think the methods,—the mine laying & bomb-dropping are so wicked. I’m afraid London must be very depressing these Winter evenings. I am working very hard, accumulating material intended for the good time to come. For the moment my income has disappeared, but I hope I shall get some of it back presently and then we shall be very well off. Harry has long journeys every day & lives for his work. Sometimes he has 60 or 70 miles in the day when to motor. He has besides his own work half the work of a soldiers’ magistrate who has joined. Let me know something about you all dear people. I am really growing anxious. Much love to all your devoted K.T.H.

13

Parts of the estate were sold in 1898, 1905 and 1911. Listed for the Connaught Rangers (1878). She made studies for the painting when on honeymoon in Glencar, Co. Kerry in June 1877. 15 Giles was at Shrewsbury School from the summer of 1914 and left sometime in 1915. The School records do not give any further details. 14

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 23 November 1914 Dearest, We’ve got home safely: but it was so sad to-day. His Ex got a letter from the War Office saying that our dear Captain Hope was killed on the 6th November.16 He was killed at once. When he fell two of his soldiers pu lifted him up to carry him to a farm-house, but one was killed on the way & his comrade was only able to get poor Hope to the farm-house & leave him. He was dead apparently. Afterwards the Germans took the farmhouse. A burying party was seen shortly afterwards to leave it, so they thought they were burying the poor boy. Their Exs were awfully sad about it. They were both in mourning when they came to lunch. So there has gone I think a good white soul home to God. The servants at the Lodge had asked to be allowed to sign a letter to Mrs Hope, saying how gentle & kind & friendly he was & his Ex had drawn it up for them. Isn’t it awfully sad,—from our side of it? I spoke to her Ex about the Christmas holiday, & she said of course she would write: it was nothing. She was wonderfully sweet to Pam and to me too. His dear Ex took me aside at the last moment to say that I was to ask him anything & never feel it would be trouble, but be sure that all that was in his power he would do, and only love to do it. They are really such angels. On wonders why they should have so much sorrow. Well, dearest, I expect you will be back in a few weeks’ time. His Ex lifted his eyes to heaven at the idea of the journey from Castlebar Castle £2.5.0. He has enough of the Scotsman in him to anticipate that. I think Pam is the better of her visit. It was very nice to get home. The dogs were almost strange at first, but are now sitting happily at the fire. I have a card for an afternoon party at the Swift MacNeills on Saturday,17 to meet the Hardy-Manners. Not opened letters awaited me except Toby’s which was delightful. Your devoted K.T. 16

Lt. William Edward Hope, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, was killed on 6 November 1914. He has no grave but is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. 17 John Gordon Swift MacNeill (1849-1926) was an MP for South Donegal from 1887 to 1918. He was Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law at king’s Inns, Dublin from 1882 to 1888, and professor of Constitutional Law and the Law of Pubic and Private Wrongs at University College, Dublin from 1909. Unmarried he lived with his sister Mary Colpoys Deane MacNeill.

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This was written late last night, but Pam dropped it when she gave the letters to the postman. Nothing special this morning. I’ll send off your bag, hat, ties, & the foot-warmers. Pam had great luck this morning. Just after parting from her at the railway bridge I encountered Allen Beard on his way to town. He was very warm & friendly. He said he would give Pam tea one day in town. Perhaps he walked to her school with her. I hope no one interfered to snatch him from her. He goes back in a fortnight. He is a dear fellow. By the way his Ex was very much surprised at the story about knocking off the ten years of pension. I don’t think he altogether believed it. I told him you thought later on of looking for a C.C. judgeship & he approved.18 I think after a time they will be a great deal at Ely House although it will not be etiquette at first.19 I don’t know that I altogether like these long drives with Pam in this cold weather. Old Larminie stopped me this morning & had a long palaver. Fritz is on my lap & won’t keep out of it. He gives me an awful life. I’ve been writing war poems,20 four this morning & I’ve got a happy idea. I’m going to put together an Anniversary Book of those killed in the war.21 The Book of Memory is [illegible] & with quotations not suitable to soldiers. Would it not be a good idea. A letter from Bun this morning. Nothing now as normal. I had a letter from Mary Warner last night with copies of a letter from Hope & one from Edward.22 Hope’s letter is very like him. He hated the folly of killing people. Your devoted K.T.H. Toby’s letters are fine. They give great joy in the kitchen.

18

A County Court appointment. Ely House, Dublin, had been leased to Lady Aberdeen in 1908. 20 The Flower of Youth. 21 See Katharine’s letter to J.B. Pinker, 30 December 1914. 22 Leucha Mary Warner. 19

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To James B. Pinker MS Berg. Private Vice Regal Lodge. Dublin.23 3 December 1914 Dear Mr Pinker, I would not look at John Long’s offer.24 My terms have been for many years £100 down in advance of negations at the rate of 1/ a copy up to 1500 copies, 1/6 afterwards & the usual 3d on colonials. I will not sell outright at all, at least at any price he is likely to offer. My last two novels were sold on these terms by Mr Watt to Messrs Hodder & Stoughton & Messrs Ward & Lock respectively & they also bought serial rights at £100.25 Smith & Elder are merely trying it on because the last book I sold them at £76. They think I am hard hit by the loss & I am, but I shall recover: & my husband’s salary keeps us from any necessity of making bad bargains as I have just written to Mr Reginald Smith. These last do not like my keeping the American rights in my hands. There has been work at hand £50 to me on each book. In the case of Smith & Elder I don’t mind taking a low advance as I shall, I know, get all the book earns. I don’t care much for tying myself up with John Long for three books, do you? Let him this one & see what he does with that, if he will pay the money. I shall be at home to-morrow, so please write to Clarebeg, Shankill. ever sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

23

The residence of Lord and Lady Aberdeen. The publisher John Long (1864-1935) did not publish Katharine. However, he had published Harry’s When Love is Kind in 1898. 25 Out in the World (Hodder and Stoughton: 1912) and Princess Katharine (Ward, Lock & Co.: 1912). 24

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Vice Regal Lodge. Dublin. 6 December 1914 My very dear Wilfrid, Would you come to have the refusal of a little book of War Poems which I shall have ready for the Spring?26 I could send you a couple of dozen to read. I have copied them out for a Christmas present to their dear Excellences & got a typescript made on the way. I wonder if the Flower of Peace has fallen quite dead or if people have heard of it at all. That was a good review in the Pall Mall.27 I have a lovely letter from Alice still unanswered. While Pam & I are “bachelor girls” we have a good many social engagements & philanthropic uses, for they have discovered in Dublin that I can speak. I now only get the morning buses for work,—for I am busy usually every afternoon, & we have stayed here several times of late. Lately some bundles of my old letters of 30 years ago have turned up,—among them the very first letters from you & Alice, even the one to Father Russell in which you mentioned my first visit! I shall probably have to join Harry in Mayo soon after Christmas, or at least earlier than we anticipated. There was no house at Castlebar, but the dearest & kindest of Viceroys has offered us an exchange. Still in Mayo, but in a more desirable place & some miles nearer Dublin. Just imagine, Wilfrid dear, that I have a friend who likes me as much as you used too long ago, and that he is the Viceroy,28 & the most sensitive & sweet, country Christian gentleman possible. She is an absolute angel. Some day I hope I shall be able to write about them, not as they deserve for my pen is too poor but as well as I can. 26 The Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time was published by Sidgwick and Jackson in 1915 and by Charles Scribner’s Sons in America in 1915. 27 The Flower of Peace: A Collection of the Devotional Poetry of Katharine Tynan was reviewed in the Pall Mall Gazette, 6 November 1914, the reviewer stating

This is not the kind of literature that qualifies for laurels and academic acclamation; it appeals to meditative and initiated religious minds, and your mystic is commonly simple and unversed in the niceties of prosody. All the more credit then, that the author’s literary workmanship has been maintained at a level comparable with its ecstasy of feeling, and all the more assurance that this unity of the two elements will keep Mrs Hinkson’s work alive. 28

Lord Aberdeen.

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I had a letter from John Cox yesterday at which I cannot look without tears. My Pamela,—who is a remarkable child—says “The patience of a man is dreadful.” God help him! My devoted love to Alice. I keep you all in my loving prayers including the one who is at the war & Alice’s little love. your devoted K.T.H.

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To James B. Pinker MS Berg. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 20 December 1914 Dear Mr Pinker, Mr Reginald Smith tells me he has opened negotiations again with you about John-A-Dreams.29 I shall be satisfied with his paying £60 in advance of royalties, as the royalties will be quite safe with them. Would it be possible to extract the £60 from him before Christmas? I want it badly. I am pretty sure he will take the other novel too. I have laid it aside temporarily for my three new books, but hope to get on with it after Christmas. He knows it is to come on if we agree about the other. All kind regards. I hope there is good news of your boy.30 ever yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

29

John-A-Dreams (Smith Elder and Co., 1916). Eric Seabrooke Pinker (1891-1973) served as a 2nd Lt in the Royal Field Artillery and was awarded an MC in 1918. 30

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To James B. Pinker MS Berg. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 30 December 1914 Dear Mr Pinker, I did not overlook the advance when I wrote to you. I asked you if you would let it stand over until the next book which will be in your hands in a short time. It is about the same group of people as John-A-Dreams & I have already spoken about it to Mr Reginald Smith saying it could follow that. My husband has also had his negotiating these months & my income fell away in August: & we have had no time to right ourselves. I don’t think there will be any difficulty about getting the money from Mr Reginald Smith if you will allow me three months congress to repay your advance. The new novel would have been ready, but that I put it aside for one of my war-books,—The Roll of Honour: A Book of Glories & Illusion series. I wonder if you could arrange this for me?31 It is verse & prose for every day in the year, applicable to the fallen soldiers. Believe me, dear Mr Pinker yours very truly Katharine Tynan Hinkson I quite see that you want to do better for me with the book & appreciate it, but I cannot help at the moment asking you to get the money down & let me have it less commission as soon as possible.

31 The intention was to produce a book on the lines of her A Book of Memory: The Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead. It appears that it was written as she asked James Pinker to arrange its publication for Christmas 1916 (letter to Pinker, 9 July 1915, Berg). In a further letter to Pinker (9 August 1915, Berg) Katharine asks Pinker to which publisher he has offered the book. A pencilled note in another hand has the three publishers Routledge, Nisbet and Newnes.

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To Forrest Reid32 MS Queen’s Belfast. Clarebeg, Shankill, Co. Dublin 7 January 1915 Dear Sir, I am sorry I cannot help. I am always glad to help a fellow-writer if it is at all possible. Between 1892 & 1900 I have no letters. Mine are of the late eighties. I am glad W.B.Y. will lend you sheets of his Autobiography.33 That should help to make your book very attractive. With all good wishes yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson Forrest Reid Esq. You are welcome to quote from the Reminiscences if it suits you.

32 The Irish novelist and scholar Forrest Reid (1875-1947). Educated at the Royal Belfast Academy he graduated from Cambridge University in 1908 and returned to Belfast to write. Reid published his W.B. Yeats, a Critical Study in 1915 and did use Reminiscences. 33 Yeats’s first published autobiography was Reveries over Childhood and Youth published in 1914.

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To Henry Albert Hinkson MS Manchester. Vice Regal Lodge. Dublin.34 13 February 1915 Dearest, Their Exs have not left. It has been a very wild day & at the last moment they decided not to go.35 Everyone’s luggage was packed & only just not dispatched & we had all to come back from the reception & unpack again. I do not yet know if they go on Monday or Tuesday, but I hope to know before I finish this letter. I have to stay to do the Westminster thing. I have just done a short article about last night’s meeting & sent it.36 There were four new knights made among them Alfred Callaghan.37 So that is great joy. Mahaffy was there & Sir Horace Plunkett.38 I had a long talk with Sir John Lentaigne.39 I’ve written so much & will add a bit after tea. No on yet knows if they go Monday or Tuesday. As soon as I know I shall write. Anyhow I shall not return till Tuesday at earliest, perhaps Wednesday. Perhaps you had better send me a pound note if you have such a thing, in case I need it. I am writing to the Gresham to say we shall want the bedroom to-morrow night.40 Ever your devoted K.

34

Katharine and Pamela arrived on 12 February as guests. The Irish Times (14 February 1915) reported that the ceremonial departure of the Aberdeens was postponed because of the severe weather until 15 February. 36 “Outgoing Viceroy, Lord and Lady Aberdeen’s Departure from Dublin (From a special correspondent)”, Westminster Gazette, 15 February 1915. Katharine also wrote “Lord and Lady Aberdeen: An Appreciation”, Freeman’s Journal, 13 February 1915. 37 The barrister Alfred John Callaghan (1865-1940) had recently resigned as secretary of the Dublin Steam Packet Company owing to other business commitments and was a director of the Church of Ireland Gazette. 38 Professor Mahaffy and the agrarian and cooperative reformer Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (1854-1932). Plunkett was the first president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society in 1894. Knighted in 1903. 39 Sir John Vincent Lentaigne (1855-1915) was surgeon general to the Lord Lieutenant. 40 Dublin. 35

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland.41 18 March 1915 My very dear Wilfrid, I am alarmed by your letter to Pam saying that Alice has been ill for a month.42 I am hoping that it is no worse than influenza complicated by the shadows of these days. Will you be more explicit, dear Wilfrid & let me know? I hate to think of her not being well, for she & you & our friendship are always a light in my life even if I don’t hear or see you for a time. We are settled in Mayo now, or shall be settled after April. This being Ireland we had to do the ridiculous thing of bringing all our furniture into a house already furnished. The landlordship is just in the act of passing to the Congested District Board.43 When that is completed, which is expected in April, the original furniture of the house will be auctioned off, & we can get quite straight. As it is we are not somewhat congested, but quite comfortable. It is a beautiful county, but we have no neighbours except the Oranmores who are here from August to February with a few flying visits during the Summer.44 People, I believe, visit from several miles away but calling has not yet begun. Mayo has nearly all been bought up by the Congested District Board & cut up into small farms, & the deserted big houses are somewhat melancholy. We have a fine old 18th Century house with 18 acres of lawns, gardens & orchards, shooting on 140 acres & a bit of the river for fishing. The rent of this will be £40 or £50 unfurnished: it is £90 furnished. Alice would love the county. Such colours, wide shoulders of bog with the primeval forest coming up through it, mountains on the horizon, an immense stretch of sky: all bathed in the strange lucency the ocean gives the atmosphere here. Everything wild is here. The wild geese fly high in the sky, wedge-shaped telling stormy weather. There is no poverty here, 41

They moved into Carradoyne on 4 February (Katharine to Arthur St John Adcock, 7 February 1915 (Texas) and Katharine describes the house in the Years of the Shadow (ch. XVIII.). 42 Alice Meynell was quite ill during the winter. 43 The Congested District Board was established in 1891 to develop agriculture and industry in those areas where there was poverty. Despite financial problems the Board was popular. 44 The Irish politician Geoffrey Henry Browne (1861-1927), third Baron Oranmore and Browne, was married to Lady Olwen Verena Ponsonby (1876-1927). They lived at Castle McGarrett.

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thanks to the C.D.B. We live very simple. Perhaps in the Summer you & darling Alice will come & visit us? It would be a complete change from England, & the air is beautiful. The skies to-day are as blue as Italy, with great shining snow-packs reaching above high, high above. We shall get straight here, please God. It is very cheap living: and no “petty cash”. And this month I have got in £70, the first since the War that I got anything to speak of. When we are straight,—then, we shall try to get nearer Dublin. It is not uncheerful even now. We dine & play Auction Bridge with the priests & a most unconventional English parson who is a sort of chaplain of the Oranmores. As he has practically no flock, & the few look on him as a Man of Sin because he is always with the priests,— he spends all his time fishing, shooting & playing cards. Unfortunately,— for we are no likely to look upon his like again, he goes back to Wiltshire to take up a family living next Autumn. His name is Law: he has many cousins in the Catholic Who’s Who. Dear Wilfrid,—I write all this hoping that my Alice may be well enough for you & her to be interested. I am not away from the serious interests of the War. I have so many friends in it, & friends who have been through it. Poor little Roger Bellingham!45 And I am just going to answer the wonderful letters of a man who has lost two sons,—the third & last thing in the Army. It is heart rending, but it touches too the very heights of human capacity for God-likeness. I remember Percival Lucas in my prayers.46 Is he at the Front? Dear Wilfrid, I loved your news about the poor Cox boys & have quoted from them in a book of Anniversaries I have written.47 My love to her & you. Send me pressing news K.T.

45

Captain Roger Charles Noel Bellingham of the 37 Battery, Royal Field Artillery, was killed on 4 March 1915 at Ypres and is buried at Dickebusch Old Military Cemetery. Katharine dedicated her poem “The Perfect Playmate” to him in her The Holy War. 46 Madeline Meynell had married Percival Drewett Lucas (1880-1916) in the spring of 1907. He was the brother of the essayist E. V. Lucas (1868-1938). Both brothers played for J. M. Barrie’s famed occasional cricket team the Allahakbarries (Kevin Telfer, Peter Pan’s First XI: The Story of J. M. Barrie’s Cricket Team, 2010). Percy had enlisted as a private before being commissioned. 47 Her unpublished Roll of Honour.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 25 March 1915 Darling Alice, I am so sad at hearing that that wretched influenza has been so bad to you. Get well quickly, my dear, & quite well you are a light in my life, even if you do not write & I do not write. You all are the loves of my life, so I must needs be concerned about you. Thank your dear Wilfrid & Monnie for his letter. My Pam who loves you has sent you some violets. We have lovely violet-beds. And I have sent for your dear acceptance knowing that you love Eau de Cologne two small bottles of the German Eau de Cologne which cannot now be procured. I found some in a shop in Claremorris. I shall send some of our own new-laid eggs as soon as I can get a box to build up my darlings strength. I wish you would come here late for a change of air & scent. Mayo is beautiful and we are near the beautiful West Coast. There are magnificent skies & the bays are full of wonderful colours. It is the country Lady Butler painted in her Recruiting for the Connaught Rangers. We are leading the Simple Life. Fortunately in these parts we can lead it in a beautiful way. We have a most comfortable spacious old house & lovely gardens. You can’t spend any money here, & your dresses all hang on their pegs. The danger for me is that I get behind the fashions. The danger for Pam is that she grows out of her skirts. She is going to be tall & pretty, perhaps more than pretty, for she is charming. Men tumble over her charms; at 14!—but they are usually married men. She is too clever for boys. And she is very simple & childlike for all her cleverness & charm. The other day I produced suddenly,—a new hat. You see I haven’t mended my ways. Harry said: “Where on earth did you get that from? I thought you couldn’t possibly get hats here.” I got it in Claremorris which is a dreadful place, such a country town as only Ireland could produce.48 It cost 4/ not 14/ as it looks,—but 4/ & it is quite elegant,—a black fine straw with a ruche of white ostrich feathers. Beyond the upkeep of the house it is practically impossible to spend money. There is not even a collection at the Church—we have a dear little country Church: and one Sunday at Claremorris when I put 2/ on the plate the collector followed me up the Church & planted down 1/10 before me. How is dear Lobbie & the family & how is your precious little one, Madeline’s little hurt one?49 And what news of Percival Lucas? All these 48 49

Years of the Shadow (ch. XVIII). Madeline’s five year old daughter Sylvia had fallen on a sickle in 1913 and

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questions I do not expect to be answered yet awhile. We feel very much cut off from things. We get our newspapers by sending to Claremorris for them at 12. o’clock. You might think the Great War was a dream or a nightmare so little does it affect the life here. The little farmers are all very prosperous, getting good prices for their stock & produce. I heard someone say in Claremorris one day—“There are German submarines in the Irish Channel & eggs are down to 16d the score.” That is how the world here reaches us. Harry is longing for an hour at the Savage Club. I have a great correspondence with mourners, who take comfort from my letters.50 One poor friend has lost his two elder sons & the third & last goes out with Kitchener’s Army. He “howls” as he says himself to me & is helped. And I am helped by the revelation of his great courage & resignation. I see now that we are the sons & daughters of God made in His likeness. The vision was not so clear in the peace. My darling, get well quickly. your devoted K.T. I have not yet read a book of Viola’s, though I read all her reviews with eager interest. I am going to read her: and I must get her next book for review. All my reviews are cut off except the Bookman. Harry & Pam both ask to have their love sent.

required two operations to save her leg, if not her life. 50 Katharine writes “I was writing a hundred letters a week to the bereaved of the War” (Years of the Shadow, 176),

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To Father Daniel Hudson MS Notre Dame. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 8 April 1915 Dear Fr Hudson, This is the article & a poem for poor little Mrs Roger Bellingham, whose young husband has been killed in the war.51 He belonged to a very good Catholic family,—a grandson of Lord Gainsborough & a brother-inlaw of Lord Bute.52 He was Lord Aberdeen’s A.D.C. and I went to Rome with him & his little wife last May. I should rather like to do you a little sketch of him. He was such a pious Catholic poor boy. You spoke in your last letter as though you had sent me a cheque, but no cheque has reached me. The mails seem irregular. I have just had a letter from a friend in New York from whom I had not heard for a sufficiently long period to make me feel alarmed. Her letter told me that she had written me three or four letters, none of which reached me. Pam tells me you sent her some stamps a while since. How good you are to her! All kindest regards Believe me, dear Fr Hudson, yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

51

Katharine’s “Roger Bellingham. A Victim of the War”, Ave Maria, 10 July 1915. 52 Charles William Francis Noel, 3rd Earl of Gainsborough (1850-1926). John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute (1881-1947).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 27 May 1915 My very dear Wilfrid, It is a long time since I have had any news of dearest Alice. I have not liked to trouble you,—and you are always so good about writing: I fear that she must, please God, have arrived at the stage when no further bulletins are issued. But a card would be very gratefully received. Wilfrid dear, I am so sorry the books have not done better with you. There ought to have been luck for The Flower of Peace in your luck bag. I hope the book will recover. If Flower of Youth succeeds as I have some hopes it will, it may help that. The stories too! Perhaps it is too soon to be altogether dependent about them. Your books can hardly be like the modern novel which is dead in three months. My novel published with Smith & Elder this last Winter did quite as well as usual:53 that is to say it sold out its first edition by the end of the year & the new edition has continued selling. Perhaps Men not Angels will sell as a school prize.54 Everything is very beautiful here now. Skies like the Italian,— beautiful trees: this place was planted by someone who had done the grand Tour in the 18th Century & remembered Italy. All the young grass & the copper beeches striking against the pines. The garden, our garden for there are three of them heavenly with flowers & the greatest promise of fruit I ever saw. But I refuse to put one foot down into the place, for I want to get out & nearer to where life goes & does not stagnate. The War Poems are not yet out you will receive one of the first copies. I am so glad to see Aunt Sarah steadily climbing.55 I’ve reviewed Loneliness in all quarters & G.K.C. in another.56 How delightful he is! 53

John Bulteel’s Daughters (1915). Men, not Angels, and Other Tales told to Girls (Burns & Oates:[1914]). 55 In a letter to Katharine, 29 December 1915 (Alice Letters, 374), Alice writes that fifty thousand copies of Wilfrid’s most successful book Aunt Sarah and the War: a Tale of Transformations (Burns and Oates 1914) had been sold. Fifty four thousand were published by September 1915. 56 Loneliness (1915) by the novelist Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914). Katharine reviewed Benson in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, June 1915. She opened with 54

I have the unique qualification for reviewing the last books of these two recently-dead priest-novelists [Benson and P. A. Sheehan] that I come to the task almost without prepossession; and I wonder whether, if the Editor of Studies had known beforehand my attitude towards the two writers, he

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yours & hers K.T. I trust my dear Lobbie is well & all the family.

would have selected me for the task. She continues In the case of Monsignor Benson I started to read The Conventionalists, was not interested, and read no more. People who know have said: “Oh, but you should not judge by The Conventionalists; you should read the historical novels.” Well, I have not read the historical novels, but I am bound to say that Loneliness has persuaded me that Monsignor Benson was a novelist born; that he was perfectly right to ply the double trade; and that his death was a real and serious loss to Catholicism as well as to contemporary letters.

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To AE (George William Russell)57 MS Lilly. Carradoyne, Claremorris 6 June 1915 My always dear A. E., Here are the new poems for you & Violet.58 I hope you will find something in them to like. They are at least deeply felt. You were good not to mind about T. P’s Weekly.59 It is as I see you,— but I was assured in Dublin that your opinions were rather dreadful, and some good people were amazed at saying you were deeply religious. Which confirms my opinion that we find what we look for. I look for religion & I find it: other people look for irreligion & equally find it. Give my love to Susan. I want her to come & stay here when she has holidays, for I don’t think she’ll mind it being dull. There is nothing to do here, & we can’t afford a motor which is the only thing to make life possible in Mayo. If you can paint in Mayo as well as in Donegal we should be more than delighted if you would come to us this year for your painting month. You shall be free to come & go as you please, and it would be a very real joy to us to have you. Anyhow come & try. God bless you. Love to Violet & the boys yours ever K.T.H.

57

See p. 349. Katharine sent a copy of The Flower of Youth to the Russells. Violet North (1869-1932) had married AE on 9 June 1898. 59 Katharine’s “George Russell (AE). A Personal Study of a Great Poet and Reformer”, T. P’s Weekly, 29 May 1915. AE was an enthusiastic member of the Theosophical Society. 58

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To the Editor, Irish Times Claremorris, Co. Mayo 17 July 191560 Sir, I sent vegetables the other day for the soldiers in the city hospitals and looked forward to sending a regular supply. To my disgust the railway company charged 3s. 6d. for carrying them: there was one sack. The sum was, perhaps, a little less than their value in the Dublin market. If the railways would carry these packets free, or charge a nominal sum, we at a distance could help. I have a large garden, and far more vegetables than we can consume, or even give away locally. Must these valuable foods for soldiers be thrown out because the railway company’s charges are prohibitive? Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

60

Published under the heading “Vegetables for the Red Cross”, 20 July 1915.

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To Constance Weigall61 MS NLI. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 3 August 1915 Dear Mrs Weigall, Of course you need no apology for writing to me. You are one of the dear pre-destined women to follow in the footsteps of the Mother of Christ, giving your sons to save the world. For it must be saved,—from gross materialism wither it was tending— by the clean sacrifice of those beautiful young lives. You have not lost him.62 We only lose our children by coldness or by sin. Yours is safe. This is the poem you want.63 It was so much asked for that when the volume of poems Flower of Youth was being published we thought more of reporting this separately & selling it at 2d for the benefit of the Dublin Red Cross Hospital.64 This is the poem as it appears in the book. But the card I send is one of a number which a lady had printed for distribution among her friends & this is as it appeared in the Spectator.65 The 61

Constance Emma Cromwell Warner (1865-1951), wife of Major George Edward Weigall, R.A. (1860-1931). She contributed poems to the Family Herald, Pall Mall Magazine, the Quiver and the Argosy among others and published some short stories. She wrote originally as C. E. C. Warner and later as C. E. C. Weigall. Katharine dedicated her poem “They who Return” in The Holy War to her. 62 Lt. Richard Edward Cromwell Weigall (1891-1915) of the Sherwood Foresters was killed in France on 11 March 1915. He has no grave but is remembered on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais. 63 Katharine’s “The Flower of Youth” the title poem of The Flower of Youth. On p.55 a publishers’ insert stated In response to numerous applications, the publishers can supply copies of this poem printed separately at twopence each (post free, 2½d., or a dozen copies, 2s. 1d.). The profits to be given to the Dublin Castle Red Cross Hospital. 64

In Years of the Shadow (175-6) Katharine writes Quite early in the War letters began to come to me from the mourners. A poem of mine in the Spectator, “Flower of Youth,” had apparently caught and held many. Since it first appeared, in the autumn of 1914, it has brought me many hundreds of letters. I believe I have written better poems of the War, or as good, but nothing I have written has approached its popularity.

65

“The Flower of Youth”, Spectator, 26 December 1914.

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difference was not deliberate: but when I was making up the book I had not the Spectator & I wrote it out from rough notes in my M.S. book, altering it unintentionally. I’m sorry I lost “the playing fields” which some mothers liked.66 Will you tell me your boy’s name. I should like to keep him in my thoughts & prayers. I remember seeing his [illegible] the Happy Warriors,—God Bless him. ever yours in all sympathy Katharine Tynan Hinkson

66

The line “And in the playing-fields of Heaven” of “The Flower of Youth” in the Spectator was omitted in the final published version.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 22 August 1915 My ever dear Wilfrid, I am so glad of the chance that dear talkative,—(“Coventry Patmore’s favourite adjective.” See Inge & Gosse)67 Wilfridian letters. And the news that Alice has played a game of croquet. That is good news. I’m afraid the War depresses her vitality, the poor precious darling. My Pam sometimes goes to bed & turns her face to the wall for comfortlessness. Only this week we have heard of the death of a dear friend, Captain Johnston who was Lord Aberdeen’s private Secretary.68 He was a dear big simple boy, & he & his young wife were absorbed in each other.69 Pam stayed with Mrs Johnston in June & only left because he was coming home to say goodbye. He was in that terrible landing in the Gulf of Saros. We were all praying together. He wrote that they were all “scared”, and he depended on our prayers to make him keep his head. Telling me this she his wife said her soul was with him & she felt her body was dead. He was killed at the landing “between the 7th & 10th”. She sent us on the 13th a snap shot of her two exquisite little girls posting a letter “To Daddy”—She must have heard immediately afterwards. I keep imagining about the telegram coming. He is the sixth of Lord Aberdeen’s A.D.C.s to be killed. She is only in the twenties. I have so many leaning on me. They want the assurance. There could be nothing lovelier & sweeter than the way they turn for comfort. Oh Wilfrid dear, with all the anguish of the War. Hasn’t God made a new Heaven & a new earth? I think sometimes of the putridities of the old world,—the rotten sex literature: the Yellow Books & Beardsley & all the shameful poetry & plays & all the rest of it. How glad I am about the success of Aunt Sarah. I think what helped that poor lady was your lovely poem about the Cox boys.70 And Flower of Youth the very first copy, inscribed by my own hand sent from me direct to Granville Place. Of course you shall have another if that cannot be found. I wish there was any money in my books that I might offer you one: but I have 67

Dean Inge and Edmund Gosse: but I haven’t been able to find the reference. Captain James Cecil Johnston (1880-1915), Adjutant to the 6th Battalion, Princess Victoria’s Royal Irish Fusiliers, was killed by a shell during the disastrous Gallipoli campaign on 9 August 1915 and is remembered on the Cape Helles Memorial. 69 Violet Myrtle Walker Waters and James Cecil Johnston had two daughters, Myrtle (1909-55), who later became a novelist, and Marjorie Helen, born 1911. 70 Not found. 68

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been only your ruin so far. The Tablet has not yet reviewed me.71 I know a copy went there. Pam was just about to send sweet peas to Alice when your letter came. Shall I ever come to you & all yours again, I wonder! Some day perhaps Pam & I will come to Greatham. We are awfully cut off in Mayo. Our last touch with the world is at about 12:30 pm. when the second post comes. After that if the Germans were in London or we in Berlin we should not hear till next day. I am intriguing to get out,—Dublin or a Holyhead boat. The local magistrate, Lord Oranmore has just come back. We were sent home originally because he asked for someone who would be agreeable socially and dear Lord Aberdeen who has a ridiculously high opinion of me thought we would fit the bill. Lady Oranmore has called & is very attractive—and very dominating, they say. If she was satisfied with us she might prove an obstacle, but no doubt it could be broken through. They are only here for the shooting & their house is shut up from February to August. Pam has just received a proof from the Windsor for her poem & is highly delighted.72 This is Monday morning before breakfast & I have just taken it up to her. She is a quiet dear. She wrote such a pretty simple thing yesterday for Jimmy Johnston. This place is very sweet if one were only twenty. But I do grudge those last years of liveliness to stagnation. God bless you, dear Wilfrid, and the precious creature who is so very close to my heart & all yours your devoted K.T.

71

The Flower of Youth was reviewed on 30 October 1915. A very good review began with This new volume of verse from the pen of Miss Katharine Tynan is certain to make successful appeal to a wide circle of readers. It reaches a high level of achievement throughout, and the writer’s delicate mastery of words has helped her to link up the poignant emotions of the moment with the great sadness of the world, with “the sense of tears in human things”. But, side by side with the “lacrymae rerum”, and dominating them, is the Christian hope.

72

Pamela Hinkson, “A Song of Autumn”, Windsor Magazine, September 1915.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 12 November 1915 My darling Alice, I have been reading your beautiful Nurse Cavell poem in the Nation,73 so poignant, and intense. I never seem to hear anything of you, nor how you are doing. Your Godson is going to write to you to tell you he has applied for a commission. He is just over eighteen. He has always wanted to go, but we did not think him strong enough, nor indeed did we know how strong his desire was,—till he broke out one day & said he would go off & enlist unless we helped him to get a commission. My little Bunny goes up to Sandhurst in February.74 He is a born soldier & would never have been anything else but we thought of Toby as a College don or perhaps a barrister. Of course he will take only a temporary commission. He went up for a scholarship in T.C.D., but his health broke down,—it was dreadfully muggy weather at the time & as he was up in Dublin without the parental supervision he sat over his books all day. He is a fine tall boy, but his health is not fully established. You will be amused to hear that I spoke at a Recruiting Meeting at Ballinasloe 14 miles from here the other night! Got a tremendous reception. I have written a recruiting song to be printed on the recruiting circulars for the West. It was easy to talk to Ballinasloe. Out of a population of 1200 or so there are over 600 with the Colours. So we are not all shirkers in the West. Recruiting is badly muddled here. It is run by people whom the people wrongly regard as enemies. The priests won’t appear on any of the platforms. Like everything else religion comes in & recruiting is not a life and death business for all of us, but simply a Protestant & landlord propaganda. That is how the people look at it. We are very lonely here. The last rose of Summer,—the Oranmores & Brownes who made gaiety every other week with a constantly big houseparty for the sporting pages London naturally, and Lady Oranmore’s brother was killed in September,75 so that there was no entertaining. There 73

“Two O’clock, the Morning of October 12th”, Nation, 13 October 1915. The nurse Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915) ran a training school for nurses in Belgium and during the German occupation she and others helped allied soldiers to escape. She was arrested, confessed to this, and was executed and an international outcry followed. 74 To be interviewed for admission. 75 Major the Hon. Cyril Myles Brabazon Ponsonby (1881-1915), of the Grenadier Guards, was killed on 28 September 1915 and is remembered on the Loos

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is only one priest with whom we have any intellectual touch. He is a really charming person, but he is at Ballinasloe & would not come to hear me speak because the Irish regiments have been so severely treated. That hits recruiting badly too. The P.P.76 a p [sic] Nov. 14th. I broke off the thread of my discourse then and cannot now take it up again. Toby goes up to Dublin to-morrow to interview his C.O. He is in anguish lest he should not pass the medical examination because his throat which has been interminably troublesome for a long time is a little in evidence & a young doctor has said he might be spun on that. He has been living in such a state of nervous tension lately that it is no wonder he has a throat. He is sitting by me now & so is Bunny who is reading a typed instalment of my War Book,77 which I have kept since the beginning. It is mainly a collection of conversations & letters, & may make me famous in a century or so. It will take that time to mellow. When all the War books have been long forgotten this will give a glimpse of what was being talked of & written about in 1914-15-16. We’ve just had a cattle-drive to keep us from stagnation. I live by my letters which are many. I am just doing another instalment of my Reminiscences covering my English years.78 I feel that I am living the old life again & meeting the old friends. There is great beauty here in the bogs & the mountains. Nov 15th—Your Godson went up to Dublin this morning to see the C.O. Royal Irish. He was in anguish lest a throat trouble, which only belongs to his age should spin him on the medical exam. He will write to you when he is through. What ages since you wrote to me. My love to dear Wilfrid & all. K.T.

memorial. 76 Parish priest. 77 This is her unpublished A Woman's Notes in War-Time: Observations from a Quiet Corner (original held at Manchester and a typed, edited ms at UCD, Dublin). 78 The Middle Years.

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To Edmund Downey MS NLI. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 22 February 1916 My dear Mr Downey, Your record is a noble one. Isn’t it an odd thing that we should be sending our sons with our blessing to this War? I think Stephen Gwynn summed it up excellently when he wrote to New Ireland the paper run by his weak & weird Sinn Fein boys: “The manhood of Ireland is abroad.”79 One could not [inkblot] to have a son who wished to stay. Toby has been in the Army two months. He left us to-day after six days’ leave, but we hope to see him again in Dublin to which we go for a much-needed change on Friday for a whole blessed fortnight. He is unbelievably changed. He walks hardly touching the earth—he has been through hard work & hardships which one would have said would kill him a year ago. He glories in the hardships & will not let you ameliorate them. He is full of ardour, pride in his Regt & cause, love of comrades, all manner of fine things so that his youth is a glorious revelation. He has had his eyes opened—a boy who never would stay at a boarding-school,— suddenly & it has taught him tolerance. He is very involved & young & good—and the others have been really good to him. He says: “They are good soldiers & such good fellows at least.” He is 18½. Bunny our younger is up for Sandhurst to-day & following days. He is 17. The war has done great things for us. It has made me not to be afraid. Do you remember that fine thing in Marcus Aurelius “One prays: ‘Let me not lose my little son.’ Do now pray: ‘Let me not be afraid to lose him.’ ”80 Did you ever dream human nature was so great? It has come to me in these solitudes to comfort the humans. I have had an immense correspondence since we came down here. It has helped me to endure this inhuman solitude. It has been a great revelation to me of the Image of God in men & women. God knows that Image was pressed enough in the days of Peace, especially in literary London. Is your young boy gone? I pray that they may all come back safely to you. The R.M. likes his work & he has 79

New Ireland was edited by Stephen Gwynn’s son Denis Rolleston Gwynn (1893-1973). “The duty of the manhood of Ireland is twofold. Its duty is at all costs to defend the shores of Ireland from foreign invasion.” Gwynn was referring to John Redmond’s speech at Woodenbridge on 20 September 1914. 80 “Another thus: ‘How shall I not lose my little son?’ Thou thus: ‘How shall I not be afraid to lose him? In fine, turn thy prayers this way, and see what comes.’ ” Meditations, Book IX, 40.

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made a splendid magistrate I am glad to say. It was very simple. There is no income except what is come by drunkenness. Raising the fines made all the difference. The difficulty was to get “the locals” to agree. He has achieved that. But we all feel the loneliness. Feb 23rd. I didn’t get finished last night, and to-day we hear that Toby is going to Ballykinlar to-morrow so we shall not have him after all next week. However I am grateful that his going out is postponed. And now with all good wishes & warm regards & I shall keep your dear brave boys in my prayers ever yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Lady Desborough81 MS Herts. Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. 8 March 1916 Dear Lady Desborough, Thank you so much for writing & so kindly. I read the letters on Monday to the girl-students after my Pamela had repeated “Into Battle” pointing out to them how truly the English aristocracy had proved itself in these sad & glorious days as most truly an aristocracy.82 There has been nothing like it since the French aristocracy went so gaily to the guillotine. I felt so sorry to hear that your poor eyes were not strong. How could they be? How I shall treasure the record of your beautiful sons! I do not know how to thank you for giving it to me. Last night again my Pamela said “Into Battle” for a soldier & his wife with whom we were dining. She has an extraordinary devotion to the poem. Her grief is that she cannot now hope that he would like her poem as dear Lord Grey said he would.83 I hope some day he will know our thoughts & prayers for him. The thought of him is always an uplifting one. She is anxious to write a poem about him. Imagine his influence over other men as shown by that letter! One thinks of him as a territorial St Michael. I wander if you would give us his photograph,—& his brother’s perhaps.84 We keep a sort of Chapelle ardente for the soldiers in Heaven. One day—when we are sure that we are settled I am going to have a little oratory for them with a light always burning, & a Crucifix to embrace them all. I must think of Julian Grenfell always as the leader & chief of these knights. My own baby of 18½ is now a soldier & devoured with the 81 Ethel (“Etti”) Anne Priscilla Fane (1867-1952) had married the politician and well-known sportsman William Henry Grenfell (1855-1945) in 1887. He was created Lord Desborough in 1905. They were members of “The Souls” a select group of aristocrats bound together by wealth, intelligence and social standing; see Angela Lambert, Unquiet Souls (New York: 1984) and Jane Abdy and Charlotte Gere, The Souls (1984). 82 “Into Battle” by Captain the Hon. Julian Henry Grenfell, D.S.O. (1888-1915) eldest son of Lady Desborough. His poem was published in The Times on 27 May 1915, a day after he died from wounds of 13 May. He is buried in the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France. The poem has since been much anthologised. 83 The Foreign Secretary Edward Grey (1862-1933), Viscount Fallodon. See Years of the Shadow, ch. XX “Chiefly Lord Grey”. 84 2nd Lt. The Hon. Gerald William Grenfell (1890-1915), 8th Btn, the Rifle Brigade, was killed on 30 July 1915. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

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ardour of it, & his brother 17 has just been up for Sandhurst. Thank you for telling me about Lord Grey,—though it is a shadow. I pray that he may be left to us. He has a lovely way of spreading happiness all about him, God bless him. Dear Lady Wemyss!85 The Wyndhams have always been my romance. I remember dull years in a suburb in London when they were a kind of Secret Rose to me. We return on Monday to Carradoyne, Claremorris, Co Mayo. Again, with a thousand thanks Katharine Tynan Hinkson [Added at the letterhead] Pam is so proud that you like her poem & wish to keep it.

85

Mary Constance Wyndham (1862-1937) married the 11th Earl of Wemyss in 1883.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 8 April 1916 Dearest Wilfrid, Thank you so much for Who Goes There.86 I hope it will do as heroically as its predecessors but I do not think it is as easy reading. I asked Frank Sidgwick87 who sent me the Australian cutting to let me know if he saw anything further. I wonder where you got that beautiful letter of poor Captain Phillips to his mother.88 He used to be with the Aberdeens, but before we were here; I remember Lady Carrick whose little daughter Rosamond he was engaged to conditionally,89—telling me about his poetry. Lady Rosamond was only 15, the age of my Pam now. I heard he had left her his money. What a sad little story. We had news to-day that Bunny has got into Sandhurst,90 so we still only have Pam left with us. She is very pretty & charming: tremendously militant. Your breed is fond of her as you used to be of me long ago. She won’t hear of the sudden death of Ian Hamilton.91 She wants to slay him with her own hands, for the martyred 10th Division. She is a magnificent thing. I am happy in better news of the angel Alice. Give her my fondest love. God bless you all. ever your most affectionate K.T.H. I haven’t said how much I like Who Goes There. Full of beauty & Wilfridishness. 86

The third impression with a new title of Wilfrid’s Halt! Who’s There? (1916). The publisher Frank Sidgwick (1879-1939). After Cambridge Sidgwick worked for A. H. Bullen before establishing the firm of Sidgwick and Jackson in 1907. He was also a poet and novelist. 88 Halt! Who’s There? pp. 81-2. Captain the Hon. Colwyn Erasmus Arnold Philipps (1888-1915), Royal Horse Guards, was killed on 13 May 1915 at Ypres and is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial. His brother Captain the Hon. Roland Erasmus Philipps MC (1890-1916), Royal Fusiliers, was killed on 7 July 1916 and is buried at Aveluy Communal Cemetery Extension, France. 89 Ellen Rosamond Mary Lindsay (d.1946) married the 7th Earl of Carrick in 1898. Their daughter Lady Rosamond Kathleen Margaret Butler (1899-1972) was expected to marry Captain Phillips, but married firstly Lionel Gallway Robertson (1893-1925) in 1919 and after a divorce Bryn Mortem Gibbs (d.1965) in 1925. 90 Giles started at Sandhurst on 27 November 1916 and left on 30 April 1917 to join the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a 2nd Lt. 91 General Sir Ian Standish Hamilton (1853-1947) was involved in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1915. 87

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To Wilfrid and Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Carradoyne, Claremorris, Ireland. 11 July 1916 Dearest Wilfrid & Alice, I am so sad about little Dimpling, & her little wounded child & the poor fellow who had died so nobly.92 I know you will know that my heart is with you. It is a terrible war, taking the young & the good & the beloved. I would to God it was over. Poor, poor little Maddie. She was such a lovely thing as I remember in Linden Gardens long ago when we were all so happy. He has never been out of my prayers, poor boy. I pray that the poor child may have all consolation. May the Love of God be with her & with you all. your devoted K.T.H.

92

Madeline’s daughter Sylvia. 2nd Lt. Percival Drewett Lucas, of the Border Regiment, died on 6 July from wounds received on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. He was buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery, France.

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To Florence Amy Combe93 MS Atkinson. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland.94 30 July 1916 My dear Mrs Combe, I’ve been wanting to tell you how much we like this dear place. It seems to have made the greatest difference in our outlook in life in Mayo. We are all as happy as possible, & I foresee that we shall love the place more & more, & be very sad when the time comes for us to leave it. I don’t know what was the matter with Carradoyne. I do know that it is not healthy: it smells so badly & all the old furniture was worm-eaten & I think there was dry-rot in the floors. But apart from that I think dull & narrow people must have lived there & left their aura behind. I always believe entering a house,—an old house,—that I can tell what kind of people lived in it. The house is the body & the people who have lived in it the soul, & the inhabitants write themselves on the house as the soul does on the body. It is all so sweet & high-minded & gentle as possible. And then your old retainers are all round us, & the friendliness extends to us as your tenants. The Lamberts have written their names on the country hereabouts & they are the only names we find. No one seems to care for the Oranmores or to remember anyone who lived at Carradoyne. Now we have taken great care to disturb your Lanes as little as possible. We have left all our furniture except the things we prize to be sold at the Carradoyne auction as this house is well-plenished & we may be here for a long time & in any case may be moved from place to place. The library, drawingroom & dining room we have hardly touched, nor indeed the bedrooms. I have taken the long room in the wing, with four little windows for my own, & we have put up the main body of our books there. We have a lot of pictures, but are only hanging a certain number as yours seem to fit in. We thought the move would be so easy because we were shedding so many things, but the packing of things over there & the unpacking here, & the transporting them in all sorts of vehicles, piecemeal, was a job. We had a packer from Dublin for my little collection of china & glass & to take down & put up the furniture we kept, but I was tired before I came packing books & sorting papers & now I am taking it a bit easy, leaving off for a day to write a story in between. I have found to my great 93 Florence Amy Combe (1861-1951), née Lambert, had married Harvey Trewythen Brabazon Combe (1852-1923) on 14 December 1882. She and her husband were the landlords of Katharine’s house at Brookhill. Mr Combe was a J.P. for Sussex and Co. Mayo. 94 Katharine devotes a chapter in Years of the Shadow to “Brookhill”.

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joy that I can sit out to work here as I have always accustomed to do in Summer but could not at Carradoyne, because of the flies. I can sit all day long under the yew tree by the wall overlooking the tennis court. You remember the little room beside the room I have taken for my own,—a little slip of a room. I am making a little oratory in it,—I hear it was used as a chapel when the Blakes were here. It will be an altar of the Dead,— just a Crucifix on the wall, the photographs of the boys killed in the War & some few others, a little lamp always burning & a couple of vases of flowers,—with a prie-Dieu where one may kneel to say one’s prayers.95 I wonder if you would give me your boy’s photograph for that, or perhaps you may not like the idea.96 When I am quite settled I should like to have your material about this house & Crossboyne & see what I can make of it.97 I told Holman about your son. God keep you with good news of him.98 Miss Somerville sent me the other day a copy of her drawing of Martin Ross, who was often a guest here.99 The parson & his sisters are just arriving for supper, & au revoir. ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

95

Katharine describes this in Years of the Shadow (258-9). Lt. (temporary Captain) Boyce Anthony Combe (1889-1914), 6th Battalion Royal Fusiliers attached to the 4th Battalion, was killed on 11 November 1914 at Herenthage Wood, near Ypres, and is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. 97 The parish of Crossboyne, Claremorris. 98 Captain Harvey Alexander Brabazon Combe (1884-1955), Reserve Regiment of Cavalry. MBE in 1918. 99 A chalk drawing of Martin Ross was inserted in Edith Somerville’s diary of 1916 now held at Queen’s University, Belfast. 96

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 24 September 1916 Dear Mr Shorter, It was kind of you to think of sending me Dora’s Old Proverb.100 Very beautiful and true. All our hearts are opposed with this nightmare war, dragging on & on. I am going to be a Suffragist after the war, for women must never again permit such a horror as this. Every day the young, the beautiful, the brave, are falling around us like the leaves of Autumn. All that one can lay hold on gain or good is the superb unselfish fortitude of the mourners, the comradeship of the fighting men, and, of course the great heroism: and especially of the Irish soldiers. Despite all that has happened God must make their sacrifice so for Ireland. Our Toby sailed on Friday week for Salonika,—poor babe. And the younger one once Bunny now Patrick,—he is the most intense of patriots passes out of Sandhurst on 23rd October unless they keep him another term because of his age. They wouldn’t be kept at home, & I feel they had to serve in some cause, but indeed it was out of our hands. I want you to look at the article I enclose. We were very much struck by it when it appeared in the New Witness.101 On making inquires I found that John Higgins was living in the next county to me,—Roscommon, that he has lung trouble & haemorrhage which is going to finish him if he stays in these terrible humid parts. He only wants to escape from Roscommon to London & find work. He has a sad story which I shall not bother you with. The main thing is that he can write & ought to be saved from premature death. I want first to give him a chance for life & then get him work. He has is very proud & has given me no permission to beg for him. I am not begging from you by the way, for I know you have plenty to do with your money. But I am asking some friends privately to help get up a little fund to send him to Davos or farther for the Winter & then let him start work. I think you might help to get him work when he is ready for it: I should like to know what you think of the article. I thought it the most vivid article on the Rebellion I had seen when it appeared.

100

An Old Proverb: “it will be all the same in a thousand years” (privately printed: 1916). 101 John Higgins, “Above the Ashes”, New Witness, 22 June 1916. This was an article on the Easter Rising in Dublin. Katharine devotes chs. XXIV and XXV of Years of the Shadow to John Higgins who died on 13 July 1917.

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If there is any fund that would help quickly I should be glad to know of it. Give my love to Dora, & with all kind regards & thanks. ever yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Lady Desborough MS Herts. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. All Saints [1 November] 1916 Dear Lady Desborough, I hope I am not keeping the precious book too long.102 I am immensely busy just now, & can never read any of it till about 9. at night. Then I have to put it down sometimes to talk to my husband. He & Pam depend on me so much. We are such a little family,—and my husband is sometimes melancholy about the boy who is in Macedonia. He is not very strong & need not have gone as he was certified “unfit for Active Service”, but he got another doctor to pass him & then worried till he got out. He is only just 19. I want to tell you how I love the book, & how I realize your two wonder-boys and little Imogen & Monica’s babyhood. Those chapters are wonderful. Billy’s history of the family is immortal. I love the letter from the lady who remembered you & the children at Swanage. You have done something great by being absolutely unselfconsciousness and writing down all as it came,—but then of course, they were wonder-children now I realize Billy much more than Julian. (I hope you will forgive my using their names like this. They wouldn’t mind) I think of him sometimes as a really young archangel,—Julian the Ramiel & furious. Billy so extraordinarily sweet. I love Patrick Shaw Stewart upon them,103—his opening phrases about their curls,—Julian in the Duchess of Rutland’s picture is very like a fine Roman Emperor,—and then his description of them boxing, & the difference between them. I don’t know any romance half as good. Your glorious boys! Of course they go on more glorious,—as Heaven is greater than Earth,—but yours. They must want you. Their religious faith is so good to read of. We are within an hour or two of All Souls as I write this. I am remembering them at Holy Communion tomorrow as I have done to-day. I have their names up on in my little oratory. It always seems a place of peace with the Crucifix spreading its arms wide above the names & the photographs, & the little light keeps going out, and the flowers. I have two sisters, my dear old Irish servants, my religious here. To-day I was telling them about Lady Glenconner’s 102

Lady Desborough’s Pages from a Family Journal (Eton: Eton College, privately printed Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co.: 1916). 103 Patrick Houston Shaw-Stewart (1888-1917). After a brilliant education at Oxford he became a managing director of Barings Bank in London. As a RNVR Lt. Commander he was killed on 30 December 1917 and is buried at Metz-enCouture Communal Cemetery British Extension, France.

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boy.104 They kept saying “The heavenly creature!” I thought it so beautiful a phrase. Your “heavenly creature” was too beautiful for Time to deepen. “The lads that are gone in their glory & never grow old.”105 I will return the book I hope, next week,—with pangs because I have never read anything quite like it & love it so much, and I am so grateful. My husband who looked into the book over my shoulder named as one of the characterisation of the Family.—a possible feeling for achievement. The boys,—all the children inherited that. How happy they are having such a splendid father as well as such a mother. Few children can have been so happy. They could worship & honour without reservation. Someone will read you this & save your precious eyes. I’m afraid my apology for delay in returning the book has degenerated into frightful long-windedness. It is all so fascinating. One thinks of it as of some precious & wonderful thing shut up in a gallery where only a few people can ever see it. Pam adores the book as I do. She has been away a day or two, & she we are very lonely, but she comes back to-morrow. ever most gratefully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

104

The Hon. Stephen James Napier Tennant (1906-87) was the son of Pamela Adelaide Genevieve Wyndham (d.1928) and Edward Priaulx Tennant (18591920), 1st Lord Glenconner. . 105 “The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.” A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XXIII, final line.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 8 December 1916 My beloved Wilfrid, It was worth losing a slacker & all sorts of things to have so tender a letter. I had already seen your Tablet review & knew by it that you loved me still.106 I cannot tell you what golden clamour is twined about you & Alice for me. Oh, Wilfrid dear, the good days long, long ago, at Linden Gardens & Palace Court! There is nothing like the darling old friends. It will be such a joy to repay. You are good to understand. But I might have known you would. Would you rather have Lord Edward than the Middle Years which I think you must have already? 107 What you said in the Tablet was, darling, just like you. Did you see the damn fool in The Times on me & my lack of modesty?108 I suppose he meant that I printed such things said of me or perhaps reported them. But that is humility really, because I am so joyful to be praised by those I love & reverence. The reviews are grand, so I can bear with the Times which consistently unfriendly, or has been hitherto. This one warms into friendliness at the close. What changes, Wilfrid dear! What a sick strange, horrible & beautiful world. I get such letters from the mourners as I never dreamt could be written. How Alice’s good heart must be lacerated. The poor poor SneadCoxes! And your own flock! Toby is on the Struma front & has been several times in action.109 He writes every week. But we are always terrified of a knock at the door & what it may bring. The Sandhurst cadet is a darling. You must see him before he leaves England,—for Ireland I mean. He hopes to get into Dublin under Col. Bellingham:110 but he is so young he may escape the war. Did you not feel for me in our own little war here.111 It was terrible 106

Wilfrid’s unsigned uncritical review of Middle Years, Tablet, 2 December 1916. Lord Edward Fitzgerald: a Study in Romance (1916). 108 “In particular the lack of any pretence of modesty is amusing—and rather magnificent. In a man it would be different: one would then bluntly call it vanity and reach for one’s club; but women can do these things.” A good review of Middle Years, Times Literary Supplement, 7 December 1916. 109 In Greece. 110 Lieutenant Colonel Edward Henry Charles Patrick Bellingham (1879-1956). He was at this time Colonel of the 8th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He later became the fifth Baronet Bellingham and a Brigadier-General. 111 The Irish Republican Brotherhood had attacked the general Post Office in 107

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but very wonderful too. I know I could trust you to feel sympathy. God bless you, dear boy. Give my tender love to Alice; I trust all the poor children are well & as happy as may be. your devoted K.T.

Dublin making it their headquarters on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. The Easter Rising lasted for a week with the surrender on 29 April. Poorly planned it failed against the British garrison and fourteen of its leaders were executed and the British diplomat Sir Roger Casement’s involvement led to him being hanged for treason.

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To Marie Lowndes112 MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 24 December 1916 Dear Marie, I’ve been meaning to write to you this Christmas & to send you a little book—Maxims from Katharine Tynan, which might amuse you.113 But the supply of the book ran out, & I have to wait till after the holidays for more, and I might have waited till then to write, if the cadet who, came home from Sandhurst on Friday had not let slip, in a boy’s careless way, the poignant news that your Charles had been wounded some time this Autumn & had lain two days & two nights between the trenches before he was helped in.114 Well the mere man might say “All’s well that ends well”, but that is not the way of mothers. I feel that the retrospective anguish of such a thing as that might be life-long. I did not even know that Charles was out. I should have said off-hand that he was too young. I write even so late to say that I had a retrospective anguish even imaging yours. The Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry the cadet says is Charles’s regiment: I know so many in that regiment who passed away gloriously,—Jack Warner, a man named Chapman115,—others: and I have a correspondent in the Regt, one J. C. B. Gamelin.116 You know Toby is in Macedonia or perhaps you do not know. One feels about them the cry of the woman in the Canterbury Tales, “O’deare, O milde, o younge childern myne!”117 Did I ever thank you for being so good to my Patrick? He is Patrick now, with Giles for a second name. We thought it wonderfully enterprising of him to go to you, & wonderfully kind of you to take him by the hand. Yes,—I am sure I wrote, for I remember that you wrote to me just about him. How is your mother? She is very wonderful. I hope she keeps her heart 112

See p. 325. She was president of the Women Writer’s Suffrage League in 1913. Maxims from Katharine Tynan. Selected by Elsie E. Morton (1916). 114 2nd Lt. Frederic Charles Louis Arthur Lowndes (1898-1950) won the MC in 1917. In September 1925 he changed his surname to Belloc-Lowndes (London Gazette, 29 September 1925, 6317). 115 Private John Thomas Warner (1887-1916) was killed on 24 April 1916 and is buried at Long Crendon (St Mary) Churchyard, Buckinghamshire. Lt. John Percy Chapman (1882-1916) was killed on 21 July 1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, France. 116 2d Lt, later Captain, John Charles Gamlen (1885-1952) served in France, Belgium and Italy and left the Army in 1919, having been awarded the MC. He was appointed solicitor to Oxford University in 1929. 117 “O tendre, O deere, O yonge children myne!” The Clerkes Tale. 113

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of youth, like an old lady who is a dear friend of mine, Mrs Rowan Hamilton,118 the Dear Lady Dufferin’s mother. She writes to-day to say that she has tooth ache, but is not ill. She is so keen about everything—at 96! We are greatly pleased with the turn things have taken in Ireland. I was not inclined to welcome Lloyd George, but he has shown that his policy is no “wait & see” one.119 There is a good deal of mischief to be undone, but at least a first step has been made. But I must not talk politics. I wonder who reviews me in The Times. I know at least one person there who does not like me. They don’t handle me fairly. I think, although I am too much of an old hand to quarrel with my reviewers. Very much love to you & yours. Give my best love to your dear mamma. What are you doing with Beli Bessie & Susan?120 Pam is at home with very little schooling. She is working, earning enough to dress herself, housekeeping for me, gardening, making her own dresses,—she has just achieved a coat & skirt, a most varied efficiency. Harry asks me to send his love. ever your loving old friend Katharine Tynan Hinkson I do so hope all is well with you & Freddie & the children.

118

Catharine Caldwell (d.1919) had married Archibald Rowan Hamilton in 1842. Their daughter Harriot Georgina married Frederick, Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, in 1862. 119 It was intended to push for home rule in Ireland rather than let matters take their course which would probably have led to anarchy. 120 Elizabeth Susan Angela Mary Lowndes (1900-91) married the 3rd Earl of Iddesleigh in 1930 and Susan Lowndes (1907-93) married Luiz d’Oliveria in 1938.

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To Arthur Llewellyn Roberts121 MS RLF. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 22 January 1917 Dear Sir, I am in difficulties owing to the War, and I shall be very grateful if the Royal Literary Fund would give me a hundred pounds which I should hope to repay in donations after the war,—I understand the Fund does not lend money as I should ask it as a loan repayable after the war. Allow me to make a brief statement. Up to the time of the war I was able to live by my pen by incessant industry,—for I am and never was a popular writer, though for some years before the War my earnings had diminished considerably. With children to be brought up & educated I never was able to do more than live from year to year. Since the War began I have not been able to keep up the income. It almost disappeared for several months after the War: then revived somewhat & has now fallen again. I have five books lying aside till after the war. The last six months of 1916 I was able to contribute little more than £100 to the family exchequer. In October 1914 my husband was made a Resident Magistrate. In the third class the salary is £427 with an allowance of £100 for travelling expenses. This salary was fixed in 1860, & is of course quite inadequate now: but the Resident Magistrates being a small body & their fate somewhat in doubt in view of possible future legislation no one befriends them. Sir Matthew Nathan in his economic reforms swept away a number of them & added on these districts to others.122 My husband has now I think the largest & most difficult to work districts in Ireland. He is allowed no additional expenses for the additional district which will lose him about £40 a year out of his salary. We have a boy at Sandhurst who is costing us a great deal, & are saving to Macedonia to when we have to send a weekly parcel of food. No one has ever worked harder then I do, & I think the difficulty will only be temporary. I need hardly say that it is a trial to me to ask this help, but it is the fortune of war. If it is granted I shall hope to repay every penny of it. Faithfully yours, dear Sir Katharine Tynan Hinkson 121

Arthur Llewellyn Roberts (1855-1919) was Secretary of the Royal Literary Fund. 122 Lt. Col. Sir Matthew Nathan (1862-1939) after a military career served as Governor of Hong-Kong and then Natal in South Africa. He was under-secretary for Ireland in July 1914 but resigned after the Easter Rising in April 1916.

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To Arthur Llewellyn Roberts MS RLF. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 27 January 1917 Dear Sir, Thank you so very much for your kind letter. I send in the application, in order, I hope.123 I asked Mr George Russell (AE.) to write to you for me, and the Countess of Wemyss.124 very sincerely & gratefully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson A. Llewellyn Roberts, Esq.

123

In her application Katharine lists her thirteen published books. She gives her age as fifty-eight and birth date as 3 February 1859 and her yearly income as £300. 124 AE. wrote on 26 January that Katharine was “a poetess of real distinction whose work has the praise of fellow poets like W. B. Yeats, Francis Thompson, Alice Meynell and many others”. (RLF 96 1/3028/2). Lady Wemyss wrote to Roberts on 27 January supporting Katharine’s application and noting that her “brother George Wyndham—once Chief Secretary for Ireland took a great interest in her poems”. With her letter Mary Wemyss included a note of support on United Universities Club notepaper from the critic and writer Charles Whibley (18591930) who would be prepared to speak to the Committee if required. Marie Belloc Lowndes also wrote in support. On 16 February Katharine acknowledged that she was most deeply grateful to the Royal Literary Fund without mentioning that she had received £50.

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To Arthur Llewellyn Roberts MS RLF. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 27 January 1917 To the Committee Royal Literary Fund Gentlemen, In making, most reluctantly, an application for a grant from the Royal Literary Fund, I wish to explain why I need the grant. We were able to live, although without surplus up to August 1914. The war surprised us with a boy at a public school another reading for the university & living in a way the income entitled us to live, especially as my husband was about to receive an appointment as Resident Magistrate which we felt would secure us. But with the outbreak of war my income practically ceased for five months during which we got into difficulties. My husband’s appointment came in October of that year, & afterwards my income revived somewhat till the last six months of 1916 when it has practically vanished again. Of late though I keep on working my M.S.S have come back to me in a steady flow. As a resident magistrate of the third class my husband’s salary is £425 a year with an allowance of £100 a year for expenses. Promotion has been stopped by the War; and a year ago owing to Sir Mathew Nathan’s economies on magistrate for Co Mayo, the largest county in Ireland & the most difficult to work has been dispersed with. My husband’s district has been doubled & he receives neither extra pay nor expenses, so that the working of the new district costs him £40 a year out of his salary. He, with other Resident Magistrates upon whom these things press hardy has done his utmost to get at least his travelling expenses, but his claim has been disallowed. The boy at Sandhurst will have cost us £100 in April though he has a free cadetship, & we send weekly food parcels as well as many other things to the boy in Macedonia. My hope is that if my work revives after the War I shall be able to repay the grant, if it is given, by donation to the Fund. Believe me, Gentlemen faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson I should have added that we have not been able to catch up on these early months of the War when we got into debt hence our difficulties & the application made with the greatest reluctance.

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To Marie Lowndes MS Texas. Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. 6 March 1917 Dearest Marie, I meant to have written before I left home, but was rushed. We got here last night. Pam & I, for a change,—of water—as well as to see our friends. We have a fortnight before us. Poor Harry has is all alone in the wilds, but he is pretty busy with many special courts having ridiculous Defence of the Realm cases against people who say the Army’s a poor job or the Kaiser gave us better lamp chimneys. Ireland is a semi-comic now. Well, my dear, how is Bessie. Measles are a nuisance, but with care they are all right. I asked the Authors’ Emergency Fund to lend us £50 at back interest for a year after the War. We have to get a Ford car. We are ruined hiring for all those long distances. It would very soon pay for itself. That is our immediate necessity & a very pressing one. He often has 100 miles a day and the profit goes to the man who hires out the car. Gave your name as a reference. I knew I might. That will be the last bother, dear. I hope there is good news of Charles. Toby writes every week. All love K.

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To Bernard Osborne125 MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 19 May 1917 Dear Mr Osborne, I am very glad you like my Reminiscences, but you are mistaken about Ireland being less interesting now. Thirty-five years ago she was recovering from a sordid, if necessary revolution in which she had all but lost her soul. Now all the young of Ireland are passionably interested in a cause that brings only death & imprisonment to its adherents. The farmers of the next generation will not be rank nationalists as the Irish farmers have been ever since the Land League. Even the returned Irish American who is the curse of these parts may lose his, or her, Alighting power. Naturally literature is springing up on every side. So I am very hopeful indeed about Ireland, & only wish I was not banished to these wilds by the accident of my holding husband’s holding an official position, which however does not bind him here. All the young Unionists are becoming patriots so there will be no troublesome Irish question to another generation. About Lionel there was an article by me in the Dublin Review in 1907 or 1908.126 The most interesting part was plucked out by a pictorial person named Ezra Pound for his preface to Lionel’s Collected Poems (Elkin Mathews).127 If your American friend will look up the New York Catholic World he will find many Lionel articles during the decade after Lionel’s death.128 Miss Guiney 175 Woodstock Road, Oxford, one of Lionel’s editors & dear friends could help your American friend.129 Miss Louise Imogen Guiney whose poetry is so beautiful & distinguished, you will know as an American Irish woman,130 & as Elizabethan. 125

Unidentified. Katharine Tynan, “A Catholic Poet”, Dublin Review, July 1907. 127 Pound’s The Poetical Works of Lionel Johnson (Elkin Mathews: 1915). Pound wrote in his preface: “His sense of criticism is to be gathered from his own prose, though I think it never more clear than in the notes sent to Katharine Tynan and printed by her after his death.” 128 For example, Elbridge Colby, “The Poetry and Prose of Lionel Johnson”, Catholic World, March 1913 and also April 1913. There were also numerous reprints of articles by Johnson during this decade. 129 Some Poems of Lionel Johnson Newly Selected (1912). Norman Colbeck remarks that Guiney did not make the selection, only the introduction (A Bookman’s Catalogue, Vancouver, 1987, I, 433). 130 In a letter to the Rev. A. F. Day, [2 April] 1918, Guiney writes: “I once flew at nice Katharine Hinkson, for calling me ‘Irish American’.” (Letters of Louise 126

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Believe me, dear Mr Osborne, yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

Imogen Guiney, ed. Grace Guiney, New York and London, II, 234).

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Carrolstown, Trim.131 20 June 1917 My darling Alice, If I do not write it is not that you are not in my thoughts, & my grief, because you are not well & my prayers in which you are named everyday,—but only that I am warbling like a mad woman to try to make up for all the earnings that have fallen away & to get straight. I came here to some kind hospitable people for a change & rest having exceeded my own record of work within a given time, during the last couple of months. I expect this letter will find you in leafy Sussex. I hope so. It has been a trouble to me to think of you on the ground floor of a high London house, you who always loved air. Private. I am trying to sell some things to get myself straight. There are things I would not put into an auction. The main thing is a collection of W. B. Yeats’s young letters, the ones which appear in the Middle Years. I have about 70 in all. They are in quite good order. I want them to go to a private collector & I am negotiating with the famous buyer, Mr Smith of New York.132 If the negotiations fall through I wonder if Wilfrid knows anything about private buyers on this side. However, I need not bother him till I see further. Perhaps you will have heard from Patrick Butler who is Godfathering him out there that your Godson has been recommended for the Military Cross.133 He showed extraordinary coolness in a very difficult position & brought in his patrol uninjured having held up a force of the enemy many times his strength for 25 minutes which covered the retreat of a second patrol. The darkness covered the tiny force, else I suppose it would have been rushed. Having a literary Godmother he was able to write, “All around us, through the pitch darkness we could hear the feet of the Bulgars running in the long grass which covers a man above his head.” I often think of little Dimpling with her Crown of sorrows! How I love you, Alice! I cannot tell you how much. K.T. [Added at the letterhead] A letter to Brookhill, Claremorris is safest, as I am paying a number of visits. 131

Co. Meath. Katharine sold the letters to George D. Smith in 1920 for £100. 133 It was not awarded. Captain, later Lt. Colonel Patrick Richard Butler, DSO (1880-1967) was Alice’s nephew, being the son of her sister Lady Elizabeth Butler. 132

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Katharine to Alice Meynell 20 June 1917

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To Alice Meynell MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 9 September 1917 Darling Alice, Here is the little new book for you & Wilfrid.134 How I keep on piping! I believe I shall to the end. Darling, how pleased I was to hear from you. I was so cold at the heart sometimes, thinking you must think me a wretch. I am so grieved for all you’ve had to suffer about the boys. Poor, dear Everard & Francis!135 I know what it must all mean to you with the dreadful background of the war. I wonder at the world that lets it go on. I am living in terror of my little son going out in February when he will nineteen,—or, at least, I may have to live in town, but I don’t yet, for I think it must come to an end before that. Darling Toby is so good about writing that we had two letters last week. Patrick Butler has been so good in looking after him. I never could be grateful enough to him. Darling, I understand perfectly well about you not signing that petition. I feel curiously apathetic it myself. Only the good British ladies who got it up could not be refused when they asked my help. I do not believe in these exhumations, & if the ground was not consecrated a priest officiated at the grave-sides. I agree with de Valera,136 who has no use for talk & sentiment & seems to be controlling Ireland as she was never before controlled. Here the thing would be to concentrate the place where they lie later. But I love the good English who have a kindness for us & a love of justice. I am reading Everard’s Life of Francis Thompson.137 How it brings back the old dear days! I have written an article on my poor Francis Ledwidge,138 which has 134

Late Songs (1917). Everard Meynell was serving as a gunnery instructor in the Flying Corps. Francis Meynell had resigned from Burns and Oates and was manager and later associate editor of The Herald (later Daily Herald) and a conscientious objector in the Great War. He had been arrested in January for refusing to serve as a non-combatant and sentenced to two months in prison where he went on hunger strike. He was freed after three weeks. Francis Meynell devotes a chapter “Conscientious Objector” in his My Lives. 136 American-born Eamon de Valera (1882-1975), Irish politician. He took part in the Easter Rising and had his death sentence commuted and served a short prison term. As president of the Irish Volunteers he was arrested in a German arranged plot and jailed in England. He escaped and his political career in Ireland took off. Eventually he became president of the Irish Republic, 1959-73. 137 Everard Meynell’s Life of Francis Thompson (1913). 138 The Irish poet Lance Corporal Francis Edward Ledwidge (1887-1917), Royal 135

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gone to the Cornhill.139 It is full of letters & poems. I wonder if Wilfrid would like it for his book?140 Viola did her Julian Grenfell beautifully.141 I thought her style very choice. Pam goes off to her school on the 19th & I sit down in Winter quarters. I have an interesting visitor in here now, the Margrieta Beer to whom that unlady book Men not Angels was dedicated.142 Harry is delighted with her knowledge & intelligence. She has been everywhere & has known most people. We shall have our Patrick for a week-end at the end of the month & then we enter solitude. I have always my work & letters, but poor Pam pined here without her brothers. She has become so pretty & is most loving. Dearest Alice, your devoted lover K.T. Warm love to Wilfrid. I have at last heard from Mr G. D. Smith of New York that he has rescued the autograph letters, so I hope I shall soon have results.

Inniskilling Fusiliers, was killed on 31 July 1917 during the third battle of Ypres and is buried at Artillery Wood Cemetery, Belgium. Katharine had first met him at a private view of the paintings of AE in Dublin in 1913 (Years of the Shadow, ch. XXXII “Francis Ledwidge”). Ledwidge’s last poem “The Lanawn Stee” was dedicated to Katharine and published in the English Review, October 1917. 139 Katharine’s article was not published in the Cornhill but there was one by Lewis Chase, “Francis Ledwidge”, Cornhill, June 1920. Katharine’s The Years of Shadow chapter is probably her rejected Cornhill article. 140 No book was published. 141 Viola Meynell, “Julian Grenfell”, Dublin Review, January 1917. It was reprinted by Wilfrid for Burns & Oates, 1917. . 142 The journalist and social writer Margrieta Johanna van der Veen, Ph.D. (18711951) was born to Dutch parents in Manchester. She graduated from Owens College, later Manchester University, with a B.A. and received the M.B.E. in 1935. She married the German-born paper merchant Edward Beer in 1899. The dedication of Men, not Angels, and Other Tales told to Girls was “To Margrieta Beer / for Rome in May”. The 1911 Census gives her occupation as “Investigator” for the Board of Trade.

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To Mary Kettle143 MS UCD. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 16 October 1917 My dear Mrs Kettle, My husband has been reviewing your books for the Bookman & we have both been greatly delighted with your part of it, so intimate, so tender & so faithful.144 It makes me serious than ever that I did not know him.145 I have an odd diffidence about the younger generation & always fear they will think me a foggy, which I am not nor shall not be if I see my country. But it has often kept me from seeking out people I should dearly like to know & good chance did not save me. Well, well, we still must elsewhere, I trust! We are going to be in Dublin for a fortnight from Friday,146—at the Shelbourne,147 I expect all the time. Perhaps you will come & have tea with us one day. With all warm regards ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

143

Mary Sheehy (b.1884) had married the barrister Thomas Michael Kettle (18801916), Professor of National Economics at University College, Dublin, and a Nationalist MP, on 8 September 1909. 144 H. A. Hinkson, “The Ways of War”, Bookman, December 1917, a review of T. M. Kettle’s The Ways of War (1917) which included a memoir by Mary Kettle. 145 Lt. Thomas Michael Kettle, 9th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, was killed on 9 September 1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, France. 146 19 October. 147 Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

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To the Editor, Irish Times Brookhill, Claremorris, Co. Mayo 19 November 1917148 Sir, The letter signed by the Countess of Fingall and the Lady Holm Patrick in your issue of to-day calls attention very quietly to a terrible and pressing necessity.149 The needs of the body are great in these days. The needs of the soul may be even greater. There is a stream of girls constantly passing in these days of multiplied employments for women between English and Irish ports. Many of these girls are simple creatures who have never before been far beyond the confines of their own village and countryside, where they are known to and know everyone. They might in their simplicity fall an easy prey to the creatures who lie in wait for them at our ports. Lady Fingall and Lady HolmPatrick ask for funds to keep going the five women-workers who wait at the ports to receive our innocent girls and keep them from the powers of darkness. Sir, there is no need more terribly pressing than this. Dublin is the most charitable of cities, and has need of all her charities; but none can appeal more than this, which is to keep innocent girls from a fate worse than death. Let all who have precious children safeguarded and shut away from evil remember the needs of their little sisters exposed to terrible dangers. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

148

Published under the heading “The Protection of Irish Girls”, 21 November 1917. 149 A letter under the heading “The Irish Girls’ Protection Crusade”. Elizabeth Mary Margaret Plunkett (1865-1944), née Burke, was married to the eleventh Earl of Fingall. Victoria Alexandrina HolmPatrick (1847-1933), née Wellesley, was the widow of the first Baron HolmPatrick.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 24 January 1918 Darling Alice, You told me I might send Margreita Beer. She is a widow, of Dutch parentage. I met her in Rome when I was there with Lady Aberdeen for the International Congress of Women.150 She was representing the Queen, and when I made friends with her I thought I was rather conferring a favour, if I had any conscious thought about it. I thought she was just a very nice journalist. Shortly after she became a Catholic & just missed being made Head of—is it University College for Women—I can’t remember! I knew it all then. She was here in September. She has been acting as Arbitrator to the Board of Trade for a district extending from Land’s End to Oxford,—that I do remember,—& she is a most wonderfully learned person although she carries it very lightly. I only discovered it when she talked to Harry & revealed little by little all she had done & her friendship with guest soldiers. She is really a very brilliant person & very simple, & she had a great sorrow in the sudden death of her husband a few years ago. She has no Catholic friends in London; that was one element in her desire to know you & Wilfrid. I think you would like her, & I hope it isn’t a bother. I am sending a little picture of Pam & Patrick (once Bunny) from the Bookman to let you see how they look.151 The preternatural seriousness is holding giggles in check. Poor darling Patrick will be 19 on the 7th of February & eligible for active service. If I thought he would go out I should be quaking, but I have a conviction he won’t. He is such a baby, but such a wise accomplished soldier: I am all alone. We had to send Pam to school because of the loneliness here. I miss my children dreadfully. I often long for the old free days. But perhaps we shall soon get deliverance from this lonely place. Of course everything has been in the soup these last two years, but we hope our friends like Sir Horace Plunkett will be on tap presently. We heard from Toby last Monday after a long silence. His letter was dated Dec 19th. He was in the mountains of Jordan, & had been burying the dead men, horses, camels, under fire! Poor child,—what mercy keeps them sane? I must send this though I not finished, lest Mrs Beer should come to you on Sunday & you lack the information you require. 150

Quinquennial Meeting of the International Council of Women, Rome, 5-14 May 1914. 151 Bookman, January 1918.

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I have never yet heard from Mr Smith of New York about the autograph letters, except that he received them. Sometime I hope he will attend to them & send me money to pay off my debts. The third class R.M’s £425 a year is miserable now, & I work eight hours a day. Perhaps the American twenty million will give us a better chance. I feel all sorts of things about you & Wilfrid I needn’t talk of now. Presently I will, Fondest love. I pray for you all every day. your loving K.T.H. Poor Pam’s feelings, after a week in Dublin attended by a long-nosed boy in the Hussars with no brains but an unbounded admiration for her, has now dropped back into school are tragic. One knows because we went through it all. I write my letters at night but interrupted in this last night by Harry’s loquacity, & finish standing up while the lark wakes.

The Selected Lettters of Katharine Tynan: Poett and Novelist

Pamela and Giles G Hinkson (Bookman, ( Januuary 1918)

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To Clement King Shorter MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 6 February 1918 My dear Clement, Of course I am proud & glad that you should use the Observer article as an introduction to the dear poems.152 And equally of course, I should not dream of taking money for them. I never saw Love of Ireland.153 I was doing an article for Studies about Recent Irish Poetry about the time it appeared.154 I asked Fr Connolly, the Editor to get that for me with other books.155 It did not come to me. I don’t think she wrote me the long letter. I had one letter from her about a year ago but at no great length. I wrote in reply hoping you & she would come here, but that was the last. If I can find the letter I will send it. Father Dawson sent me two letters of hers to me to keep but I think you saw those. I will send them if you think you didn’t see them. I know your loneliness, poor Clement, and I am so glad you feel moved to write to me. I am sure she knows & is glad. I only wish we were nearer. Harry says he will write to you. He was very fond of Dora & believes she liked him. We feel the isolation here a good deal, & are only waiting till there is someone to go to to make an effort to get nearer Dublin. Harry & I are here alone. I wonder if you would come to us later in the Spring. We could talk about her. I am adding what you tell me about the Percy Reliques & John O’Leary.156 I soon knew that syne. It was a bookless house for bookish people. I don’t know what the Dr had in his bookcase beyond medical books, but my impression is that there were no books, or a few ragged ones upstairs. Like myself I know I think she extracted heavy from all possible sources. She had a Chambers’s Encyclopaedia of Literature (is that the name)? as I had. Try to come to us about Easter. We shall probably be in Dublin soon after Easter. We would love to see you here & talk about her. I am quite sure she is near you. 152

Clement’s wife Dora had died on 6 January 1918. Katharine’s “Dora Sigerson: a Tribute and Some Memories”, Observer, 13 January 1918. 153 Dora’s Love of Ireland. Poems and Ballads (1917). 154 “Recent Irish Poetry”, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, June 1917. 155 Fr Patrick J. Connolly, S.J. (1875-1951) was editor from July 1914 to September 1950. 156 The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) was three volumes of poems and ballads collected by Thomas Percy (1729-1811) with a new edition in 1910. John O’Leary had given Dora a copy of the Reliques and this widened her experience of poetry.

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“Where the treasure is there is the heart also”,157 & she loved [rest of letter missing]

157

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” Matt. vi. 21.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 10 July 1918 My dear Clement, I wonder if you would lend us £20 & hold the Yeats letters for security till I pay you back this coming Autumn.158 I want to pay off a local shop, Ropers: and I can’t get money due to me. Constables have two books of mine for the Autumn,159 but I can not get them to pay in advance, as I have been counting, & now I am asked for a cheque by Friday. I should be so deeply grateful & you can depend on an early repayment. Dora’s book has come.160 It is a real monument of love. How you love her! I have asked for it from the Observer & other places.161 ever yours K.T.H. I will write again about the book. I don’t like to write in this letter.

158

Katharine had intended to sell her letters received from Yeats but asked Shorter to withdraw them from Maggs Brothers, the London dealer in rare books and manuscripts (3 June 1918, Texas). 159 The Years of the Shadow and Love of Brothers were published in 1919. 160 Dora Sigerson’s collection of poems The Sad Years with Katharine’s “Dora Sigerson, a Tribute and Some Memories” was published by Constable & Co. in 1918. 161 Katharine’s “Dora Sigerson’s Last Poems”, Observer, 1 September 1918, a review of Dora’s posthumous Sad Years.

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To John Butler Yeats162 MS Stony Brook. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 11 August 1918 My dear Mr Yeats, Ever since Lilly was here going on for a year ago I have meant to write to you to renew our old friendship & with the hope of extracting from you one of the delicious letters which some specimens of which I saw with Lilly. I am kept so incessantly busy that I have postponed & postponed: but now the needed impulse has come with the reading of your delicious Essay just published by the Educational Company. I am going to review it for Studies, the review of the Irish Jesuits.163 I must see if I can do it somewhere else. London reviewing is scarce now that all the papers have grown so small. You know we are in the Wild West, not so far as the crow flies from Willie and his horde. She is a delightful creature, pretty, charming & beautifully dressed.164 I think that it is a great happiness for him. They stayed a night at [illegible] Hotel when they passed through in April. We were there, having just seen off our younger baby to France. I was very much taken with the pretty creature & should love to be friends with her. Willie was glad to see me again I think, & asked to be introduced to my Pam, who thought Willie beautiful. She herself has considerable heart. I wish you might paint her. Toby the oldest boy, whom you remember as a baby has been in the East for two years, the first year in Macedonia, the second in Palestine. Thank God, though, often in action he has never had a wound & has enjoyed splendid health, barring a touch of malaria. He now talks of transferring to the Indian Area. He will be 21 tomorrow, so I have lost two years of him already & shall never know how he looked during those two years & more. We have had a dull time in the West, for more than three years till this Summer, which is more exciting. I don’t know if the Censor will allow me 162

John Butler Yeats (1839-1922) was the father of W. B. Yeats. He was called to the Irish Bar but had little enthusiasm for the law and after his marriage in 1863 to Susan Mary Pollexfen (1841-1900) instead studied art in London. The family moved back and forth to Ireland until he went to New York in December 1908 with his daughter Lily. He never returned. Katharine contributed “Personal Memories of John Butler Yeats”, Double-Dealer, July 1922 and a chapter in her Memories. 163 Katharine’s review of J. B. Yeats’s Essays: Irish and American (1918) was in Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, September 1918. 164 Bertha Georgie (“George”) Yeats (1892-1968), née Hyde-Lees, had married W. B. Yeats on 20 October 1917.

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to allude to the reason for excitement. We are very near a camp, & as we’ve been the house for officers within many miles we’ve had a crowded Summer crammed with experience of human nature enough to cover several years. For about ten weeks we had the O.C. Lord Linlithgow living here.165 You would have revelled in him. He had been a working-man with working-men on many expeditions, in mines, in the great lumber yards of America; worked a hospital for a year; had travelled all over the world. As he is only 31 we never knew how he got it in. He is a great, lanky boy, 6ft 4½, clean shaven, with a dark boyish head. In the half-light he used to look sixteen. He was the ideal person to be here & to win the people, but that being so he was taken away. I could tell you endless stories of him to show his quality. Here is one. He has been politician as well as other things. Addressing a miners’ meeting he was heckled by a big, very hideous miner. “Where did ye get yer bloody land, Hopetoun?” he asked. (Lord L. was the Earl of Hopetoun). “Same place as you got your bloody face,— from Daddy.” His answers always flashed like that. The first day he was here, when the people regarded the troops with doubt & aversion he was in a pot-house (by courtesy a hotel) in C’morris. He had left his cap Glengarry & coat in the coffee-room when he went upstairs to see the General. When he came back two unfriendly gentlemen not altogether sober were sitting on them with no intention of giving them up. The hat of one was on the table. He put it on and made as though to go out. “I’ll get into trouble for going out in this”, he said: “but it’s nothing to the trouble you’ll get into when you go out in the cap & coat.” They roared with laughter & got up & gave him his things.166 I’ll write a good long letter when I hear from you, & will try to be a faithful correspondent. I wish you would come home. It is lonely to think of you all alone by yourself. I hear Mrs Quinn is a good friend & looks after you so far as you will let her. I haven’t been in Dublin: for 4 months, so can give you no account of old Dublin friends, steadily going fewer alas. With all affection yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson 165

Victor Alexander John Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow (1887-1952) was Colonel commanding the 1st/10th Royal Scots when based at Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo. He spent ten weeks in the Hinkson’ house and Katharine has many references to him in Years of the Shadow. He was later to become Viceroy of India. 166 Years of the Shadow (316-7).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Brookhill, Claremorris, Ireland. 15 September 1918 Poor beloved Wilfrid, Thank you so much for the little book, so deep & wise & witty, every page having its separate ingenious thought.167 You don’t know how much it meant to me your giving it to me with your loving inscription. For, dearest Wilfrid, I’ve been very unhappy about my debt to you; but, at last I seem to be in for a bit of good luck. There is a quite a comfortable sum coming to me within the next few months & before Christmas I shall have paid off at least a considerable portion of that debt, in money, but never in my heart’s indebtedness to you. I long for some news of you & Alice. Do you know that you never answered my last letter? That was an occasion which was a constant small pain to me. But now I only think you forgot. Now I shall not talk any more about it,—but a portion will come very soon. The horrible thing to me has been that with all who are leaning upon you I hid the money which must be needed. It was hard for us that the long looked for job for Harry only came with the war & the dropping of my income, but it was good it came then. Just imagine, Wilfrid, my little boy sent me £20 the other day,—that is my precious Pat, who is in the line in France. He went out in April. It seems rather poignant that these babies should send me money, or know that it is needed. Toby is transferring to the Indian Army. It is more than two years since we have seen him & it looks like to be longer we have lost the two years in which he must have grown so much. He was 21 last month. We have still the soldiers here. One, my dear one, is sitting opposite to me as I write valiantly getting through very slowly a novel of mine. It is odd that after three years (and more) of fretting at asking out of the world of great doings the soldiers should suddenly come to us to be for greater intimacy that is possible with people who have been in the thick of it since 1914. It is the only house for their comfort, & it has been raining going on for forty eight hours, & the state of the camp is deplorable. We have three soldiers to lunch to-day, & the drawingroom will be crowded this afternoon: they will be so glad of tea & the roaring wood fires, which we get for just the labour of collecting. Then in the evening they come in & sit on the floor about the fire as you used to do, and there are always one or two suffering from wounds or wet sleeping here. One went up to Hospital 167

Wilfrid’s Rhymes with Reasons. By the author of ‘Aunt Sarah & the War’ (1918).

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yesterday whom I should like you & Alice to know. He is a Captain Peter Thorburn, a painter in private life,168—and a most wonderful musician. He plays for hours & does not read a note of music. You can imagine the intimacy with the soldiers which we have arrived at. Of course they are always going which is very sad, but some remain,—one little boy remained through flu, probably saving his life, for the camp is very cold and he was shot in both lungs as well as being gassed.169 He is the youngest of three boys: the other two were killed, & on this poor child the father & mother, entirely broken, lean for everything. He has three wound stripes. Think of the poignancy of the situation,—we are all strong Nationalists, I more than a bit rebelly, & we don’t conceal our opinions,— it must give some of them furiously to think that in this treason o’ the green house they have been received with open arms. We have the K.O.S.B. here,170—“the Kings Own Savage murderers” according to the men & women in the street. Since the Batchelor’s Walk trouble they are very touchy,171 & rather in the way of looking for trouble, but I think we have done real good there. Also in nearly any other house like this they would have heard nothing but evil of Celtic & Catholic Irish. God bless you, dearest Wilfrid, and all yours & dearest Alice. your devoted K.T. Harry does not look very well. The climate does not suit him very well. I fear he has aged a lot in looks. The place suits me. We have a charming old house, very spacious, yet not a ruin as such houses usually are. Pam has grown up exceedingly good looking. She has many lovers, but I am glad to say is quite unawakened.

168

Katharine mentions him in Years of the Shadow (329), but not by name. Eric (Years of the Shadow, 329-33). 170 The third battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Boarders moved to Ireland in May 1918 and was stationed in Claremorris. 171 On 26 July 1914 in Batchelor’s Walk, Dublin, a company of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers fired on stone throwing civilians killing four. It caused outrage in Ireland (Years of the Shadow, 140). 169

V AFTERMATH “Everything has an ending: there will be An ending one sad day for you and me”

To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin1 14 March 1919 My dear F. Mathew, I fear I never thanked you for Toby & David, two dears: they always were. What a joy for you & their mother! I carried their photographs away with me from Claremorris a month ago & with my own particular belongings they keep this furnished house home-like looking down on me from the mantelshelf. I can’t go over that time to tell you anything, only of course you know he was received into the Church which made the whole difference to me, & there was every circumstance of mercy & gentleness, so that I can never again be afraid of Death, who came as an angel to him. So now there is only to be happy looking forward to the reunion. I think if we met I could tell you about it; but I can’t write about it though I could at first. We are here high over Killiney Bay at about the highest point. It is a great big house in the wind & the sun shines up from the sea 300 feet. It is a furnished house while we one which we look about us. Pam is with me. Pat has been with us for nearly three weeks & left us three weeks ago to return to the Army of Occupation. He expects to start back again next week as the battalion is being broken up. They will come down the Rhine to Rotterdam which ought to be a pleasant journey than he has hitherto,— vide the Star of 2 days ago,2 & his journey home before Xmas to fetch out the colours was as comfortless. He has volunteered for foreign service with the 2nd battalion & if he is accepted as he very probably will be I shall have him home for 2 months leave before losing him for five years. Toby has not yet reached us. He left Cairo on the 13th Feb. & he is either ill or held up at Taranto for a boat, for no word has reached us since his telegram announcing that he had left received going on for four weeks ago. We finish up here on the 28th of May, & then we shall send the servants home to the Co. Limerick with the dogs, & go to England & Scotland for a round of visits. I expect we shall be in London sometime in June. When we have made out our itinerary to suit our hearts I will let you 1

Harry died, as a Catholic, at home, Brookhill, on 11 January after a week’s illness and Katharine and Pamela had moved here on 14 February. After Requiem Mass at Crossboyne on Monday 13 January Harry was buried at St Mary’s Abbey Cemetery, Ballinasmalla, Co. Mayo. Obituaries appeared in the Irish Independent, 13 January; The Times, 13 January; Freeman’s Journal, 13 January; the Tablet, 18 January and Irish Book Lover, vol. X, Jan., Feb., March 1919. The death was reported in the Observer, 12 January 1919. 2 K.T.H., “Coming from Cologne”, Star, 12 March 1919

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know further so that we may meet unless you would come over here for Easter. We have an immense house,—10 bedrooms (at a small rent as it is rather a white elephant to the owner) a most amusing house.3 It belonged to one Dubedat who made a famous smash in Dublin 16 years ago. He planned it palatially. When he burst the people who took it over had no money to carry out his plans so this splendid drawingroom has a mean chimney-piece: the galleried hall was left with one gallery inaccessible, the marble staircase which was to have been its approach being envied from Italy the day he absconded & the communication with the other gallery remaining incomplete. So the only staircase is the kitchen staircase. Of course the situation is wonderful, & the cold bright weather high up has had the most wonderful tonic, effect on me. Killiney is very like Tunbridge Wells, for Protestant tabbies. I am so glad I took a furnished house here for us. All affection K.T.H. I sent the letters long ago to my typist saying that she might take what time she would to do them all. All kind thoughts to Mrs Mathew. I love your dear boys. I will send you a photograph of Harry when some I have ordered come. I know I can count on your prayers for him. Pat is education Officer, Demobilisation Officer & Asst Adjutant at present. His idol is a swashbuckler who has killed 23, has the D.S.O. & M.C. with two bars & commander after the Colonel was killed when Pat went over on the 14 October. He calls Pat “his dear child”. Girls are certainly out of it for Pat.

3

The Italianate house, originally Kenah Hill, was built circa 1871 and bought by the stockbroker Frank Dubedat, President of the Dublin Stock Exchange, in 1889 “calling it Frankfort”. His company was declared bankrupt and eventually he was jailed for seven years. He died in 1919 in South Africa. The house then reverted to its original name.

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To Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin Easter Monday [21 April] 1919 Darling Alice, I have at long last taken up the task of answering the letters which came to me last January. I could not do it before with composure & it would have troubled the children. Among the letters I have come upon your dear one which reminds me that I must write to you as I have been meaning to do to tell you of our plans. We have been here since the 14th of February, in a perfect fairyland of beauty, high up 300 sheer feet from the railway-station. The house is approached by a steep hill from every side: and though the climb is a bit of a trial especially after a walk we recompensed by the heavenly views from every window & the sun & the air flood every room. It has done wonders for me with the plan, please God, willing us together once more. We are looking for a little house somewhere about London (furnished) for the Summer months, as a base while Pamela & I pay a round of visits, and mean to bring our servants who have been so dear & kind & faithful to me. So I shall see you & tell you something of what has befallen us during the years, & about my Harry I am perfectly happy about him & I have attained great cheerfulness. But because I mean so much to the children I count on the Summer of seeing old friends & new friends to cure me of a certain weariness of life which goes on all the time within me. I shall like to show you my Pam as she has grown up. Pat is here on a 60 days leave, preparatory to going to India in the Autumn: and we had Toby for a month, but he went back to Egypt last week. The two boys are absolutely unspoilt, simple & innocent as they were & devoted to me. I am so looking forward to seeing you & Wilfrid again. We leave here on the 28th of May.4 your loving K.T. I shall let you know when we have a London address.

4

They were returning to England.

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To Evelyn Gleeson5 MS TCD. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 17 May 1919 My dear Evelyn, I’ve been meaning to write to you especially since I heard that Mrs MacCormack was ill:6 but I can’t do the things I want: I find everything a trouble, although, of course, I have had to do many things. Now we are going off in a few days to London where we have taken a little furnished house till the middle of September, by which time I hope there may be a house for us somewhere near Dublin. We have a number of visits to pay in England & Scotland, which I hope will help me to my old cheerfulness or something of it. I should so much like to se you & Kitty & Gracie, & so would Pam,—but there is hardly time for anything now: only I want to say how sorry I am about Mrs MacCormack & how much I hope that she is getting better. All the world seems full of trouble now. I shall be putting up something for him in the little Mayo graveyard where all that is mortal of him is laid to rest. I want a Crucifix; something like the sketch I enclose; Do you think there is anyone in Ireland would do it for me as well as this & not at too great a price? I have not much money to spare. What about the Kilkenny Wood-workers? Do you know anything of them? I would rather leave the money in Ireland, if possible & it would be more fitting to have it done by people who believed. It need not be so tall as this of course. The people who designed this Crucifix suggest one with the Figure 4ft 6. The total height 9 to 10 feet. I’d come to see you only it is only a troublesome journey. The climb from the train or the tram after a day in town is really killing. If you could come next Saturday would be a good day: but I fear you won’t come till we are nearer. Ever yours with love, & love from Pam to the girls, & the dear invalid, ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

5

Although Evelyn Gleeson (1855-1944) was English she was very interested in the Irish literary and arts scene. Living in England ill-health forced her to move to Ireland where she opened a craft centre with W. B. Yeats’s sisters Susan and Elizabeth and he acted as an advisor. The centre later called Dun Emer soon established itself for various crafts and also printing. 6 Evelyn’s sister Constance MacCormack (1862-1921) was a widow, her husband having been killed in a riding accident.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 2 Amherst Road, Ealing W.137 6 July 1919 Beloved Wilfrid, I’ll try to write as clearly as possible. We are looking forward to Greatham. Nothing has been or can be put the same as the meeting with you & Alice which brought me so strange a happiness. Our arrangements are as follows. We are here till about the 28th when we go to Scotland for three or four visits which will take at least three weeks. But we go down to Kingsgate to the Linlithgows who are temporarily in Lady Avebury’s house from the 18th to the 21st.8 I am trying to see this month the people who will be out of town in August. We could go to you between the 21st & the 28th but it would be rather a rush as we should want a little while at home to get our blouses washed before going to Scotland, somewhere about the 21st if that would suit you & Alice perfectly. By that time we should be very glad of the peace of Greatham, with our big visiting done & only loving friendship to think of. But if you would rather have us for a few days between the 21st & 28th let me know. I do hope now that the fine weather is coming back: it has been very cold lately. I was glad to think of you all, Alice especially, escaped from London into beautiful Sussex. When we were in Dorset I had a very cursory meeting with the ex Father Angelo & Mrs de Bary.9 Pam was greatly excited remembering “Any Other Man Monnie poured the water jug Over Angelo’s sleeping snug Mother cried: ‘No, Monnie, please Not a man with heart disease’!”10 Angelo looks more an “immoral” than ever with his queer goat like wisps of beard. What did she marry him for? 7

Katharine and Pam were here by 30 May. Alice Augusta Laurentia Lane Fox-Pitt (1862-1947) was the second wife of Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913), who was created 1st Baron Avebury in January 1900. Lady Avebury lived at Kingsgate Castle, Kent. 9 Wilfrid Blunt remarks that “De Bary, ex-Father Angelo came for a couple of nights” (My Diaries, 686-7) and “Also that Father Angelo de Bary is engaged to marry Miss Bunston!” (716). Richard Brome de Bary (1866-1948) joined the Capuchin Order and appears later to have left the Order, joining the Episcopalian Church in America. He was the author of a number of books notably Franciscan Days of Vigil (1910). 10 Written by Katharine Tynan and quoted in her Memories, 31. 8

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I have The Years of the Shadow for you. Did you see the Tablet review or not?11 Pat is here for the week-end. All love to the circle. ever your loving K.T.

11 It was not reviewed in the Tablet, merely noted in the “Book of the Week” section, 5 July.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. 2 Amherst Road, Ealing W.13. 16 July 1919 My dear Frank Mathew, I meant to have written: but I have not had a clear day to come to you. Now we go off to-morrow till Monday.12 I am taking Pam to a small dance at the Glenconners staying with the Linlithgows & going down with them to Kingsgate.13 This high society comes to us mainly through last Summer hospitality to the troops. We don’t seek high society, & it would be a bore without the qualities one cares for Lord Linlithgow is a man & brother, & a wonderful character. We have one day at home,—Tuesday. Wednesday we go to the Meynells in Sussex till Saturday, & Tuesday the 29th to Scotland for three weeks. After that we hope for a breathing space till we go home on the 11th September. I hope all this absence doesn’t mean that we shall miss you and Mrs Mathew & the boys. I’ll ask you to fix a day for us to come, if you have not gone away, as soon as I know just when we return from Scotland. All this gadding seems strange for a six-months widow: but I go on remembering behind it all: yet it has done me good. The desire & the power to work have come back. I look forward to a quiet working Winter. I am proud that you like the Years of the Shadow. The second edition is in the press. It is barely a month old and is sold out. This a great advance on the other two which stuck in the first edition. I think of you with constant affection Ever yours K.T.H.

12 13

21 July. Katharine describes this visit in Wandering Years (ch. XI).

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Hopetoun House, South Queensferry. N.B.14 20 August 1919 My dear Clement, Your letter dated 24th July has just reached me. I send its envelope that you may see its wanderings. We return to 2 Amherst Road, Ealing tomorrow, Thursday. I can’t imagine where your letter can have lain unless it was at Kenah Hill. We’ve been in Scotland three weeks. Over & over again I’ve thought of you, and wondered if you were back. It is now the 22nd & we are back in London. Your letter ought to have reached me when we were with the Meynells in Sussex just before we went up to Scotland. I thought you were to be back about the end of July, but we’ve been out of London, practically since the middle of July. I meant to have written to you on the chance of finding you all through the Scottish visit, but failed to get a letter done. Now, when are we to meet? I want so much to know that your American visit has done wonders for you,15 as our Summer of visiting has done for us. I want you to see my Pam & Pat. The latter comes up from Aldershot to-morrow night. Would it be possible for you to come Sunday afternoon & stay for the evening meal? We go back to Ireland on the 11th September, to the furnished house we had in the Spring, Kenah Hill, Killiney, while we wait for an unfurnished house, which is not easy to get, impossible unless one is on the spot. Thank God, I’ve got back my power to work, which practically deserted me for several months,—a serious matter for me. I thought I was going blind too, & have been shirking seeing the oculist, but the pains when we left yesterday,—the Linlithgows, carried me off almost as soon as I arrived to an Edinburgh oculist, till when they had arranged everything, (including his fee!). Thank God he said there was no disease, & I might hope to keep my sight, such as it is to the end. I keep all news till we meet. With all affection K.T.H.

14 15

The home of the Marquess of Linlithgow. Shorter went to America in mid-June and returned in September.

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To Jacqueline Trotter16 MS Canterbury. 2 Amherst Road, Ealing W. 6 September 1919 Dear Madam, I give you the permission you ask willingly.17 “Flower of Youth” was written in the early days of the war. “The Colonists”: 1915.18 By the way the version of “Flower of Youth” which appears in the volume of that name (Flower of Youth: Poems in War-Time: Sidgewick & Jackson London)19 is different from this version which appeared in the Spectator.20 It happened accidentally that when making up the book I had not a copy of the poem as it appeared in the Spectator so re-wrote it with a difference. Perhaps you ought to see the other version. I give you permission for whichever you like and no further permissions are necessary. Very sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

16

Jacqueline Theodora Trotter (1894-1948) married Archibald W. Cockburn in 1933. She became a Justice of the Peace and was the director of Crosby Hall International Settlement for Women. In her obituary The Times remarked that her “Valour and Vision is esteemed the best of its time”. 17 To include Katharine’s poems in her anthology Valour and Vision, Poems of the War, 1914-1918 (Longmans, Green: 1920). Both poems were included. There was a second enlarged edition published in 1923 by Martin Hopkinson and Co. In a letter of 30 October Katharine grants permission for the inclusion of her poem “Palestine”. The profits of the book were to be given to the Incorborated Soldiers and Sailors Help Society. 18 “The Colonists” was in Katharine’s The Holy War. 19 There were two impressions in 1915 and one in 1917. 20 Spectator, 26 December 1914.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 8 October 1919 My dear Clement, We were sorry to miss a lunch with you on Tuesday, but the Strike found us staying with people on whom we had no great claim,21 & rations seemed likely to be short, & the duration of the struggle indefinite,—so under the protection of our invaluable Mr Jones, the station master at Euston,22 we made a flight for home. Mr Jones had arranged everything for us as a happy confidence that we shall reach Holyhead in twelve hours or so, but at Crewe everyone was turned out of the trains,—I never saw such confusion,—no one knew anything: only everyone was so kind & helpful it would have been despair. The soldiers were wonderful. A certain Captain Evans, a young man, took as much care of us as my Harry used to do,—and the soldiers keeping the station, simply did everything for us. Finally we made two in a party of 20, including the Currans,23 which left Crewe at 10 on Thursday night by motor char-a-banc & arrived at Holyhead at 6 a.m. on Friday. We got across by the boat that left Holyhead in the small hours of Saturday morning. I’m very glad to have seen so much of the Great Strike & needless to say Pam is. We lunched again at Le Petit Savoyard the day before we left to make sure there was no mistake. There is no longer an mystery except the mystery of your not looking into the room where we had lunched before. We both lunched sadly, each having given up the other! We must have arrived just before you, & left just after you. Thanks so much for sending me that ripping review in the New York Times.24 21

There was a nine day railway strike starting at midnight on 26 September for the continuation of the wartime increased pay scale which the government now wished to rescind. The strike had the effect of the government agreeing to maintain the wartime pay for one year. Katharine writes of the episode in Wandering Years (ch. XVI). 22 Joseph Jones was appointed station master in 1913. 23 In Wandering Years (174-5) Katharine writes: “I heard voices, Irish voices!— voices I recognised! I had been sick of an Irish voice to give me comfort. Oh, Constantine Curran of Dublin and Helen Curran, your voices were as the heavenly choir!” 24 “Poets and Others as seen by Katharine Tynan”, New York Times, 7 September 1919, a review of Years of the Shadow. The review sums up with It is all done with that light touch that is the finishing grace of memoir

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With all affection from us both ever yours K.T. Vandyk has made a beautiful photograph of Pamela.25

writing, and it is discursive, personal, a bit garrulous and even trivial. But it is endlessly entertaining, and behind it all is that sense of the pageant of life which is always enough the make interesting and readable the story of even the most inconsequent life. 25

The photographer Herbert Vandyk (1879-1943) took over his father’s successful photography business and moved the studio to 37 Buckingham Palace Road, London.

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To Mary Kettle MS UCD. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 21 November 1919 My dear Mrs Kettle, I received about a week ago a copy of the Irish Citizen containing a bitter & I think, unjust article about my last volume of Reminiscences The Years of the Shadow.26 I wrote, as I felt, very kindly about your sister & her husband & I can’t imagine why I should have been the cause of such bitterness,—I think the bitterness was specially shown in sending me the marked copy. I hope I was not very indiscreet in what I said about her from what you told me, & that you are not angry with me. I only intended to show the magnanimity of her character as I saw & admired it. I have felt so much for her and you & I have expressed it publically as well as privately. We are back here again after some months of absence. I would like so much to see you & your little Betty here, if you would like to come. I feel myself constantly wishing that I had known your husband With all kind regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

26 Rose Jacob’s review of Years of the Shadow, in the November issue of the suffrage Irish Citizen, 1919. The reviewer, apart from admitting that Katharine’s volume is not dull, does take her to task for her snobbery, as she sees it, in her relations with people of note, particularly Lord and Lady Aberdeen. The passage Katharine objects to is

Of Francis Sheehy Skeffington she says: “‘Skeffy’, as the Dublin crowd called him, laughing at him with affection, was the bravest of men. He was a pacifist and a suffragist—all manner of ists—but an entirely lovable personality.” The “but” is entirely characteristic of Mrs Hinkson’s conventional objection to the holding of unpopular opinions. The Irish pacifist journalist Francis Sheehy Skeffington (1878-1916), brother-inlaw of Mary Kettle, was arrested on 25 April 1916 on suspicion of being an agitator. He was summarily executed, with two others, without any trial on the next day, by Captain Bowen-Colthurst of the Royal Irish Rifles, who was later courtmartialled but found insane and removed to Broadmoor.

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To Gilbert and Frances Chesterton MS BL. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 19 December 1919 My dear Gilbert & Frances Chesterton, I am so pleased & proud to be the recipient of Irish Essays & to see myself described therein as Gilbert Chesterton’s friend.27 It was so kind to think of sending it. It is so full of generous sympathy & strange observation. We are always quoting it. I have no volume of poems this year to make return. It seems difficult to get off the one string which has been all I have had this year: but I see enough beauty here to set me to writing of the beautiful world God has made, & perhaps that will come back to me. We are going to have a very lonely Christmas. Pat is on his way to the Black Sea,—nearly there by now,—and Toby still in Egypt. We are in a huge house, which we have cheaply because people fight shy of its size & its airiness in Winter: and my two maids who are sisters find it absolutely necessary to spend Christmas with their mother in Limerick. She is an ancient tyrant who enforces her will, either to push them out or pull them back quite indifferent to the needs of the unfortunate employer. So we shall have the gardener’s wife to do for us: we dine with a neighbour Christmas night: but after all it is not really lonelier for the absence of servants. We send you both our love and Christmas blessings. ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

27

“I could write a great deal, not only about those I value as my own friends, like Katherine Tynan or Stephen Gwynn, but about men with whom my meeting was all too momentary” Irish Impressions (1919, 86).

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 4 January 1919 [1920]28 My dear Clement, This day last year I wrote to you for Dora’s anniversary little knowing what stood at my threshold. This year again I am thinking of you & her & keeping both in my prayers. I was so sorry to miss you. Hester’s letters & yours did not reach me till Saturday, but anyhow, as I explained to Hester we are afraid of coming home in the darkness & loneliness that lie between this house & Killiney station. Somehow we have got a distaste for Dublin where so many doors used to open to us & so few open now. We hardly ever leave this beautiful place where there are some very agreeable people who give us what society we want with an occasional Dublin friend. I have found a young genius I think a poet & artist named Vera Goodwin.29 She has been writing for about two years, broken until by my troubles & her ill-health. She sent me this Christmas what I think an exquisite drawing of “The Wild Swans at Coole”.30 There was a drawing of hers in the Bookman lately & it took first prize.31 She told me she sold it to a Harley St doctor who afterwards asked her to see him. It was to talk about here psychological powers: fortunately she doesn’t seem to want to 28

Contents suggest 1920. The first anniversary of Dora’s death was 6 January 1919, Dora having died on 6 January 1918. 29 Vera Dorothy Goodwin (1893-1979) is mentioned in Wandering Years (251) without any further elaboration. Her poem “Cock-Crow” was in the New Witness, 31 May 1919. During 1918 she received special commendations for her lyrics as did many other aspiring writers in the Bookman Prize Competitions. She published three plays, I was a Stranger (1923) and under her married name Peareth, The Prince of Peace (1955) and The Light of the World (1961). She married William Francis Ernest Peareth (1893-1974) in 1929. 30 A depiction of the title poem of W. B. Yeats’s The Wild Swans at Coole (1919). 31 She won the first prize for “Drawing Illustrating Book Title” in October 1919 to illustrate the title of Max Brand’s book The Untamed. Vera Goodwin’s first competition entry to be commended for poetry in the Bookman was in January 1912. Her poetry seems to have been commended in practically every issue to this letter date. She also won a £1-1-0 prize for her poem “A Song for Easter: FlowerSacrifice” which was printed in April 1914 and her “The Comforter” in April 1915. She shared the same prize with her “To My Beloved Dying Very Young” in March 1917. She won the prize of three new books for the best “New Year Greeting to Our Soldiers at the Front” with her “Greeting” in January 1915 and in February 1917 one years subscription to the Bookman.

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exercise them. I will show the picture to AE. If he thinks it as good as I do, would you like to see some of her work. It is always worth while to discover a genius & she would be an antidote to “Eve”. I hope we won’t miss each other next time you come. With all affection from us both ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Pam is at her second book & can hardly be detached from it.32 I must get away somewhere presently.

32 In a letter to Alice Meynell (19 December 1919, Greatham) Katharine says that Pamela had written her first book My Lady of the Lavender. Writing to Shorter on 1 February 1920 (Brotherton) Katharine says: “I see that what I said to you about Pam’s book might suggest that it was published. But it has only just been written & sent out, & the writing of the second one is ‘Going Strong’.” It was not published.

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To Alice Meynell MS Manchester. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 4 May 1920 My dearest Alice, I feel moved to write to you today. It is the anniversary of my happy wedding & I have been living over that day again, looking at myself in my blue flock, the hat with roses from a long long distance. I can see myself having breakfast in the dining-room at Palace Court, & hear you calling me “that dear bride”. Usually I keep these thoughts at bay by being busy, but I am getting over a chill or a slight influenza & am not able to work. We are still waiting for the return of the boys. Pat must be somewhere near now: he reached Port Said a fortnight ago last Sunday & had to wait for a boat there. Any time at all there may be a telegram from him from London. We’re also expecting a cable from Toby to say that he has been demobilized. I have now to see about getting them started in civil life. I don’t know what they will choose to do. They can go through Cambridge if they like on the Government Education Grant, as some of my friends want them to. Toby wants to walk with a job, but unfortunately the job which would really suit him & which would suit him—a cadetship in the R.I.C.—is impossible in these days.33 We are still out of a house, and as we are exiled from this for the Summer months I have taken a little furnished house at Shankill, where we used to live till the Autumn since I must have a place for the boys to come to. Pam & I hope to get over to London during the Summer a much-needed change. I’ve worked tremendously hard this winter & have got rather run down else I shouldn’t have picked up influenza from which I have been immune for many years. I am hoping to get on to the movies in America. I don’t believe on these things till I see them, but an American film agent who is doing work seems very sanguine. I believe your fortune is made if you get on to the American movies. It would be a very wonderful thing for me if after my life of not looking beyond the day I should attain [?something] in money matters & all my dead novels and short stories should come to life again. I shall look forward so much to seeing you in July and Wilfrid in the Summer. We shall hardly get over before July & we shall not be householders in London this year since friends have consented to take us in. I hope all the young people are well. Pam is always affectionately good to me—almost too devoted if anything, for I shall be so afraid of leaving her. But doubtless she will form new ties in time. With very much love, dearest Alice, to you and Wilfrid,—you don’t 33

Royal Irish Constabulary.

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know how dear you both are to me,—and all the family. ever your devoted K.T. I hope Olivia & the new babe go on well.34

34

Catherine Mary Sowerby.

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To the Royal Literary Fund MS RLF. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin.35 24 June 1920 Sir, The immediate cause of my asking for a grant from the Royal Literary Fund is that both my boys have been in the Army & must be placed in civil. The elder one is seeking a commercial appointment out East. The younger one who is strikingly intellectual is to go through Cambridge on the Government Education Grant which I must supplement. I have to keep things going meanwhile till the one has found his job & the other comes under the Grant which will not be till the next term opens at Cambridge on October 1st & even then I fear he will not handle whatever may be over his expenses till the end of the term. The Grant is from £120 to £175 for maintenance which leaves little margin & the boy will need an outfit. I am giving up a house & servants in the Autumn so as to be able to help him. I am at the moment less able to cope with these things than I usually can, as I have had some sort of breakdown from overwork & need of change. The boys did very creditably, the elder having strongly recommended for the M.C. Last year the sale of things consigned in the breaking-up of my home helped me through the debts I had to pay. My husband was a Resident Magistrate for South Mayo but when by the withdrawal of two R. M’s [sic] to the War, he was given an enormous district & had to keep a motor there was little margin from the starveling salary of £427 a year, never increased since 1860. I have not given the huge list of my published books, but I hope the Committee will be satisfied. I hope this is a full & sufficient statement. Believe me, dear Sir yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson If there should be another letter with Mrs Belloc Lowndes’s, here May Sinclair would, I know, write.36 The Secretary Royal Literary Fund.

35

Katharine and Pamela had moved here in May (Wandering Years, 201). Mrs Belloc Lowndes wrote in support in an undated note and May Sinclair wrote in support on 30 June.

36

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To the Royal Literary Fund MS RLF. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 16 July 1920 Dear Sir, I thank you very much for your letter & cheque enclosed.37 I am deeply grateful to the Committee. The grant will be of great assistance to me. I hope it may yet be possible for me to return even a portion of it as a donation. There must be so many applicants for the Fund’s benefaction. Please allow me to thank you personally for the trouble you yourself had in the matter. Believe me, dear Sir faithfully & sincerely yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

37

Katharine received £150.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 28 September 1920 Very dear F. M., I’ve not been forgetting you, but have been hard at it: I had to go away in August to pack up,—having done one Syndicate serial under difficult circumstances,—before doing another which I am at once. Just had no leisure. Even while I sat in the Seats of the Mighty in Scotland I wrote, but came back in the pink.38 We have only a month here now to get everything done in. After 28th Oct. We shall be at 37 Linden Gardens, Notting Hill Gate. So we shall meet soon, & talk. Some of our Scottish experiences would interest a student of human nature such as you are. I have had the most wonderful Summer. A dear friend of mine an Auld Licht Saint Dr Alexander Smellie wrote to me when I was widowed,39—and there can be nothing sadder, as I know now,—“God himself will be Husband & Son & Father & Brother & Friend”. Well, I faced this Summer with some fears. I had to place out both boys in civil life: they had been able to save nothing: and I live still from hand to mouth. But the money came,—wonderfully. Now it is practically done. Toby has got his Assistant District Commissionership in East Africa under the Colonial Office.40 (By the way he is in London on a three months’ course. Will you ask him for a Sunday walk & supper? He is at 31 Ex-Officers Residential Club, 31 Leinster Gardens, Lancaster Gate, W.). He goes out after Christmas & may take a wife with him. Perhaps you’ve seen in the newspapers that he’s engaged.41

38

They stayed at Rothiemay Castle with Mrs Forbes, now the home of her son Lt. Col Ian Rose Innes Forbes, D.S.O. (1875-1957) and his first wife Lady Helen Emily Craven (1874-1926). 39 Dr Alexander Smellie (1857-1923) was a Minister of the Original Secession Church and a writer. 40 “Theobald Henry Hinkson to be a Cadet in the Administrative Service, with effect from 20th of January 1921”, Kenya Gazette, 16 March 1921. “Theobald Henry Hinkson, to be Assistant District Commissioner, Embu, Kenya Province, with effect from the 15th of March, 1921” (Kenya Gazette, 6 April 1921). “Theobald Henry Hinkson to be a Magistrate of the Second Class, with power to hold a Subordinate Court of the Second Class in the Kericho District, whilst holding his present appointment of Assistant District Commissioner, Kericho District, Nyanza Province, with effect from the 28th July, 1925” (Official Gazette of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, 29 July 1925). 41 Theobald (Toby) married Moira Pilkington at University Church, Dublin on 8 January 1921 prior to going to British East Africa.

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Very quick work. She is a great grand-daughter of Henry Grattan,42 & a Catholic, thank God. Pat goes to Cambridge next week,43 on the Government Grant supplemented by me. Perhaps I told you I hoped to make a fortune on the American movies. Nothing has happened yet,—but we’re going to do without a house for a while. We shall be in London till after Christmas anyhow,—we may go to Italy afterwards but we may come back here: I don’t like living out of Ireland at a time like this. Of course the Black & Tans may have done their worst before the 28th Oct. but I don’t think they’ll “bring it to a head” this time.44 Why does England send us her congenital idiots like Macready?45 But all this talk may be continued when we meet, in a month’s time if all goes well. I think I hardly finished the second of my “miracle”. It was that everything went well & my purse filled as it emptied,—and emptied as it filled. I believe this will be the best year’s earnings I have ever had. Affectionate regards to you all. I hope Mrs Mathew keeps well, & the boys. your friend always K.T.H. I’ve kept your hotel address for use, I hope.

42 The Irish barrister and politician Henry Grattan (1746-1820) served in both Irish and English Parliaments and although a Protestant he supported the Irish Catholics on many questions. 43 Magdalene College, Cambridge. 44 British ex-soldiers had been recruited to bolster the strength of the R.I.C. and due to lack of uniform they were given khaki trousers and green tunics giving rise to the term Black and Tans. Generally they were brutal and were certainly hated by the Irish nationalists. The R.I.C was disbanded in 1922. 45 General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Bt (1862–1946) Commanderin-Chief of the British troops in Ireland from April 1920 to 1923.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 5 October 1920 Ever dear Wilfrid, I have been meaning to write & wondering how you & Alice feel about Francis & the D.H.46 I have no idea whether you would take a serious view of it or not. I hope not because I care so much for anything of joy or sorrow that comes to you both. I have had a most strenuous Summer. The two boys came home in June & I had to place them out in civil life. It meant a good deal of money as well as a certain amount of effort but things have gone very well, thank God. Toby has got a job under the Colonial Office in East Africa. He is at this moment doing a three months course in various subjects belonging to his job & is at 31 Leinster Gardens, Lancaster Gate. Pat begins at Cambridge to-day. He gets £120 a year for 3 years from the Government which I hope to supplement to a living income. All this being done Pam & I go to London towards the end of the month. We shall be at 37 Linden Gardens,—a private hotel,—and hope to stay there till after Christmas, at all events. I am still in the world, hoping for the American movies to come off & give me money for a house in my old age, but nothing has happened so far. Now that the military have begun to take the letters Heaven knows when I shall have any news. They will probably take months to go through the letters,—which would be a proper holdup for me as my income comes from England. S.F. held up my letters last week but it was delivered three days later.47 Oct 9th—Toby called at the flat, but found no one. Perhaps you are still enjoying the beautiful Indian Summer at Greatham. I hope we are going to see a great deal of each other this Winter, beloved old friend. Just imagine my staying at Linden Gardens: Oh, 31 golden years ago! Sic transit gloria mundi! It will be good to get to a place where things do not change, some day! Meanwhile I owe everything to Pam & Pat. You will 46

Francis Meynell resigned from Burns and Oates and was manager and later a director of the Herald (later Daily Herald) and had been a conscientious objector in the Great War. The Spectator of 17 September 1920 reported, as did other newspapers, that Francis Meynell had collected £75,000 from the Bolsheviks and that George Lansbury of the Daily Herald had asked their readers whether the paper should accept the sum. The directors rejected this and Francis resigned. Francis recounts this in his My Lives (1971, ch. VIII). 47 “[The letters] would come, marked, ‘Censored, I.R.A.’, in blue pencil” (Wandering Years, 355).

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have heard perhaps of your Godson’s engagement. Seems a very nice girl, Sir Thomas Esmonde’s niece & a Catholic, which is a good thing.48 I don’t know when they will be married. Perhaps they may do something wildly romantic & marry before he goes out—perhaps not. There is no money either side. Anyhow I will see you soon please God. My dear love to Alice. ever your devoted K.T.H

48

She was the niece of Sir Thomas Henry Grattan Esmonde, Bt (1862-1935).

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. 138 Lauderdale Mansions, Maida Vale, W.9 7 January 1921 My dear Clement, We are moving to-day to 12 Gordon Place, Kensington, where we are joining Jessie Payn, James Payn’s daughter, in a little house.49 I hope you & Mrs Shorter are keeping well. London does not agree with Pam. We are going to Italy next month for a couple of months & then back to London till June when we return to Ireland. You must not think it was my fault if I was not oftener at Marlborough Place. I should have been in & out as I was accustomed to be at the Sigersons but Dora did not want that. I remembered the 6th in the way she would wish by having Mass said for her, & I keep her always in my loving prayers. We shall have a drawingroom all to ourselves at Gordon Place if you would care to come there & perhaps bring your wife.50 With affectionate regards from us both ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson I meant to have written for the 6th but I am ambushed. Toby & his bride are here; sailing on Thursday, & Pat has just gone back to Cambridge. We have at least 2 engagements every day& I must work as well.

49

Jessie Adelaide Payn (1862-1933), daughter of the prolific novelist and Cornhill editor James Payn (1830-98). 50 Shorter had married as his second wife Annie Doris Banfield (1896-c.1980) on 23 September 1920.

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To an unknown recipient MS Texas. Lyceum Club, 138, Piccadilly, W.1. 12 February 1921 My dear friend, I fear I’ve seemed horribly neglectful of you, which I was, could be really being my Harry’s friend & always a kind friend to me. I love the book you sent me. It is what I should have expected from you for I know you are always against covetousness & greed. Would you like The Second Wife?51 And if so would you give me a day after the 22nd when could come & have tea with me here? It is possible we go to Italy on 28th for a couple of months & afterwards we shall be back in London for a month or so before returning to darling Ireland. We have been caught into a whirl of life. I breakfast in Kensington, lunch at Kew & dine in St John’s Wood. It is not killing me: it is a fact agreeing with me & with Pam: and I manage to earn my daily bread as well. I hope all is well with you & yours. ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

51

Katharine’s The Second Wife together with A July Rose was published in 1921.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Pensione Casali, Lung’ Arno, Serristore 11 Frienze52 16 March 1921 Ever dear Wilfrid, Do you think this is an offer I ought to accept?53 As the books are in a way your books I feel you will have a special interest in advising me. I have not received any royalties on these books. Of course you paid me £40 down for Men not Angels.54 I don’t like to think of the beautiful format of the Flower of Peace disappearing. I’ll do nothing till I hear from you. It is as hot as a very hot June day in London to-day. We are all so grieved at the party breaking up. It has been so happy. I am glad Alice did not come here. It would not have been suitable for her. I am remembering how you & Alice loved Viola at three years old. She has grown up worthy of it. Dear friend— your loving K.T.

52 Katharine records in Wandering Years (289) that the party of eight women included Viola Meynell, daughter of Wilfrid and Alice. They had left for Italy in late February. 53 Not identified. 54 Men, not Angels, and Other Tales told to Girls.

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To Father Thomas Dawson MS Brotherton. Hotel Nazionale Levanto, Liguria 11 April 1921 My dear Fr Dawson, I have been meaning constantly to write to you but my ordered existence has been somehow upset during these months of absence from Ireland. We came out here at the end of February, spent five weeks in Florence & are now in this great place for a few weeks. We came out as a party of eight, including Viola Meynell, & joined now [by] Stephen Gwynn & Shelia.55 Since then four have been added to our number including Pat for his Easter holidays. The big party has I think, tended towards the confusion. However it is breaking up this week,—all will be gone by Saturday when Pat goes back to Cambridge. Pam & I will soon follow & we hope to be at Sylvanmount, Shankill before May is out. We shall be very glad to get back, for more reasons than one. I shall keep my talk of Italy till we meet, but I must just tell you about the family. Toby & Moria have arrived safely several weeks ago, & Toby is now I suppose exercising his duties as a sort of R.M. Fortunately for Toby there is no complication about his holding a Government job. Pat passed his Little-Go in all subjects before he came out.56 The Little-Go was a Big-Go in his case as on his passing it at this moment depended his taking Honours & finishing next year instead of the year after. He is as good as gold, & considering that he left school in 1916 his Little-Go was quite an achievement. I must tell you that the friend who pushed Toby through his appointment is waiting to do the same thing for Pat. It is a mutable fairystory. I had the good fortune to review a book of his in a way he liked never having read his name before. He is a Robert Vansittart, First Secretary now in the diplomatic service.57 He gave us lunch just before we came out & might have been friends for years at that first meeting. He mentioned causally that if Toby was not satisfied with his job he had another one for him. Apparently it is a bank agency on the Continent which is somehow joined up with a Consulship. As Pat is doing economics at Cambridge and wants to make a short cut to fortune through business it would be excellent for him though there may be reasons against it. However nous verrons! There are many things I want to discuss, but it is safer not: there are so many kinds of censorship now-a-days. I could write 55

Gwynn’s daughter. The second year examination. 57 The British diplomat Robert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart (18811957). At this time he was private secretary to the Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon. 56

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you a much longer letter if I was sure it would only be for your eyes. Will you say a Mass for Harry on or about the 18th which is his birthday? I make no apology for not sending an enclosure as you told me not to. I will confide to you that I am in a difficult moment, because of having had to keep Toby & I anticipate a little struggle to keep Pat at Cambridge till he finishes next year but he is worth it. Pray for me & ask that I may have a home once more. It is sad to be in London. With all affection your devoted old friend K.T.H. Sir Francis Vane, villa Albizzi, San Dominica, Frienze, would much appreciate you as a correspondent.58 Will you write to him?

58 The Irish-born Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher-Vane, 5th Baronet (1861-1934) had suffrage leanings and a social conscious. He fought in the Boer War but was against the harsh treatment of the Boers. He was dismissed from the army after trying to investigate the cover up after the shootings during the Easter Rising, especially the murder of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.

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To the Royal Literary Fund MS RLF. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 30 April 1921 Dear Sir, Do you think the Royal literary Fund would give me a grant of £50?59 I am deeply ashamed to ask when they have been so generous to me already but the task of putting my two boys out in the world after their four years of service has been a very heavy one. I work constantly but somehow of late I have had a series of disappointments & am in difficulties. If you think I may apply will you send me the form. I have been so truly trying to economize but unfortunately I did not buy when the lire was at its lowest, not having the ready money & so I lost rather heavily for me. I am just passing through London, but I gave the address which will be mine this Summer & where letters will always find me. Or perhaps you might kindly reply c/o W. Langford Esq 43 Crockerton Road, Wandsworth Common, S.W. Believe me, dear Sir Faithfully yours

59 She was sent an application form but she was not eligible until 3 August for consideration. There appears to be no further correspondence in 1921 but it was decided in July 1922 that as Mrs Belloc Lowndes could not support an application that no grant was forthcoming. It was suggested she might be considered for a Civil List Pension which did not happen.

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To the Editor, The Times Shankill, Co. Dublin. 24 September 192160 Sir, In your review under the heading, which appeared some days ago, there is quoted a very-ill-natured passage about the Aberdeen Viceroyalty in Ireland.61 Permit me to say, as one who knows Irish affairs, that Lord Aberdeen’s offence to people like the memoirist was that he was the Home Rule Viceroy. In addition he was aware of the plain people and sympathetic with them, as was Lady Aberdeen, whose good work in Ireland happily continues. If to be the finest of fine gentlemen, the kindest and the most high-minded, is to represent the King worthily, then Lord Aberdeen represented him worthily. The indiscreet gossip may pass; it is very unlikely to be true. There were no murmurs against Lord Aberdeen nor against Lady Aberdeen when they were in Canada. It is possible that a good deal of this spitefulness is due to a somewhat common distaste for the domestic virtues in high places. To the great majority of the Irish people Lord and Lady Aberdeen remain as beneficent memories. Their actions “Smell sweet and blossom in the dust”.62 Yours, &c., Katharine Tynan Hinkson 60

Published under the heading, “Indiscreet Memoirs”, The Times, 27 September 1921. 61 The Times of 21 September quotes from Recollections and Reflections by A Woman of no Importance [Amy Charlotte Bewicke Menzies] [We] have to thank Gladstone in a great measure for the present lawlessness in Ireland, but also the Aberdeens, whose Viceregal reign had such a bad effect on that unhappy country. and When King Edward, Queen Alexandra, and Princess Victoria were in Ireland...the King was knighting some whom Lord Aberdeen called “faithful subjects”, though several had no wish for the honour, but were too polite to say so. All was going fairly well, when one of them refused to come forward and be knighted, declining the honour altogether...I have been told that the King turned to Lord Aberdeen, holding up his finger in the fie, fie attitude, and called, “You have made a fool of me.” 62

“Only the actions of the just / Smell sweet and blossom in the dust” The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses (1659), James Shirley (1596-1666)

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 6 December 1921 My dear Frank Mathew, I must send you all my warm good wishes for Christmas, catching you before you leave Rome. This the great day of the Pax Hibernica (I hope that is right.)63 We are taking it very quietly so far, but that means nothing. I felt nothing when the Armistice came though Pat was in the big advance that was to have started that morning. The spectacle of the Irish delegates emerging from that 8½ hours wrestling with L.G. after he had taken his coat off—would make a great picture. Was it Tobias who wrestled with an angel? 7 December [1921] The great news has emerged. It seems almost unbelievable. An “Irish” correspondent of the Morning Post described the Catholics of the South last Friday as proud to be (a) intensely disloyal, (b) utterly untrustworthy (c) grossly incapable (d) literally uncivilized.64 It is nice to think of the stomach ache to say nothing of the spleen and liver that good gentleman & his sort have this morning. There may be rocks ahead with an external left wing, but after all the delegates were plenipotentiaries. Labour I think is the real crux. They say Labour meant this island for a Labour Republic. Well let the future take care of itself: the present is good. Isn’t L.G. a wizard.65 I hope you hadn’t a very uncomfortable time when the Fascisti were round. It must have reminded you of the old Zepo nights. I hope Mrs Mathew was not too much frightened. The haunted room is very intriguing we should love to know the whole story of it. Pat comes home next week. The good friend has a change of plan. He has discovered that Pat has a flair for politics & has decided that he is to have a shot at the Foreign 63 The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 6 December 1921 bringing the AngloIrish war to a formal close. However, it did not please the republicans and a period of hostilities broke out between the Irish Free State and the IRA. 64 Morning Post, 2 December 1921. 65 Katharine Tynan, “The Great News in Dublin”, Star, 7 December 1921. In her article Katharine extols the wizardry of Lloyd George in pushing for the treaty, but notes that as the process has taken so long, the people of Dublin are cautious, and

As for the allegiance, let them know in Ireland that the King was behind the peace, and Ireland will give him the only allegiance worthy of a king; not the cold and formal allegiance of the lips, but the warm and loving allegiance of the heart.

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Office. If he gets in, & I think he has a good chance we shall probably become Londoners once more. I hope you would like that. It would have its compensations for us, though we should leave Ireland with reluctance. The next week or two will be very interesting here. We shall all begin to talk now. Ireland had got the habit of being tongue-tied & will only lose or loose it by degrees. The delegates hadn’t it all plain sailing in London. I heard that their doorsteps were splashed with red paint (blood) that bottles were flung in at their windows “Virus of Leprosy hope you will get it”,— & other little attentions of the sort. But I heard also that Mick Collins had many offers of marriage.66 Of course not that he wasn’t the real terror at all, but the true moderate. And the Terrible Turks were various other gentlemen whom I am yet sufficiently un-pen-tied to name. I am glad you agree with us to some extent about Italy. We hated the Italian men,—this “gallantry” laugh! Their filthy street manners, their incapacity for anything like manners. Give me the island men all the time. There were some nice clean Danes—artists at our Florence Pensione who brought clean air into the place & the Boche was ridiculous & spectacled, immensely superior to “our allies”. I hope the Irish gentlemen will come back, even if I don’t live to see it. Gallant Irish gentlemen all riding for a fall as they always did. They were best of all for us,—but an English or Scottish gentleman can be very good too and perhaps American, but of that I have no experience. I don’t bother you with books or booklets, though I have a charming collection of the latter. The Oxford Press used some poems in Christmas booklets & sent 6 dozen copies,—travelling you don’t want your impedimenta added to. I shall have a new volume of poems perhaps by the time you return. Give my love to Mrs Mathew & Tony, & yourself. Pam goes ahead an Irish serial is running in the weekly Freeman:67 Partridges have taken a girl’s book:68 she has received 12 guineas for a story from Lloyds & finds it easy to place all the short stories she writes.69 [ever yours K.T.H.] 66

The Irish nationalist Michael Collins (1890-1922) had worked in banks in London before returning to Ireland where he took up the cause of Irish freedom. He fought in the Easter Rising, was captured and later released. He was elected to the first Dáil (parliament) and was minister for home affairs and then finance. 67 Pamela Tynan Hinkson, “The Dark Rose”, Weekly Freeman, 12 November 1921 to 18 March 1922. 68 Pamela’s The Girls of Redlands (S. W. Partridge & Co.: 1923) 69 Pamela’s “Her Ladyships’ Pearls”, Lloyd’s Story Magazine, November 1921.

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To Alice Meynell MS Texas. Sylvanmount, Shankill, Co. Dublin. 22 December 1921 Dearest Alice, I meant to have selected the friendly “wipers” & sent them on in good time, but we’ve had a sick month, first I then Pam, who is still in bed: and Ellen, the maid on whose shoulders the establishment rests, went to hospital on Sunday with erysipelas which will be a blow thing as it is on the face. We have to clear out of this little temporary refuge at the end of January, & any house without Ellen seems unthinkable & I haven’t yet got a place to lay our heads but I am just postponing the consideration of it all until after Christmas. I hope your news can wait till the New Year. Pam has been in bed over a week & is very impatient especially now that she is nearly well. She is a most exacting patient & cannot bear to be abed so my Christmas letters are getting written under difficulties. Poor Pat arrived home last Friday & is very disappointed with Christmas so far, but once Pam is about again it will be all right. We are all much disgruntled over the things that are happening here. I have met no one quite as simple who is not delighted with the Free State,—except those who hate the going of the military—yet here people are talking for Ireland who have no mandate from the great majority who are sick for Peace. Miss MacSwiney’s three hour speech almost made me wish that woman was back in subjection.70 I do hate the fierce women. They are much worse than any man. How they misrepresent the real gentleness of Ireland, which is something so soft as not to be expressed. Dear, beloved friends, I send you all my love, & the children & to all yours. your ever devoted K.T.

70

The English-born Irish republican Mary MacSwiney (1872-1942) was a member of the second Dáil which operated from August 1921 until June 1922. Her speech on 21 December against the Anglo-Irish Treaty lasted for two hours and forty minutes.

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To Susan M Mary Yeats an nd Elizabeth Corbet Yeatts71 TLS Stony B Brook. 7 Sorrrento Terracee, Dalkey. 5 Februaary [1922] My poor Lilly and Lolly, You willl know how sorry I am, for I loved hhim too.72 Ho ow could anyone helpp it? I am thinkking of the mo ourning in youur home. I am m sure you always felt he would com me back, and that the new ws was a terrib ble shock and blow. P Perhaps he didd come back, resting r near yyou a little wh hile on his way to the Land of the Young. Y He was w eternally yyouthful. It was w not in him to grow w old, and we must be than nkful that he w was spared thee struggle between the young spirit and a the ageing g body that m must have come in time. I am sure thhat he is mucch nearer to you y than Am merica. His heeart could hardly be clloser in love, but it is not bound b by timee and space. I am sure his heart is nnear you and asking a help fo or you. He hadd a rich life, when w all is said and done, but he haas a richer liffe now, and itt is Life Everrlasting. I think of youur tears and I am a so grieved. Your lovin ng friend K.T.H H.

I keep him in my love andd prayers, and d I keep you.

71

Susan Maryy Yeats (1866--1919), known as Lily, was thee eldest daughtter of John Butler Yeats and sister off W. B. Yeats. Elizabeth Coorbet Yeats (18 868-1940), known as Lollly, was anotherr daughter and a publisher, artiist and writer. 72 Their father had died in America A on 3 February 1922 off heart failure.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 7 Sorrento Terrace, Dalkey, Co. Dublin 6 April 1922 Beloved Wilfrid, It would be only possible to accept such generosity if it was to be a spree for you, as it would be for us & we should share expenses. We go over on the 1st of May, but could arrange for a week elsewhere before the spree comes off, if that was more convenient.73 I want a spree & so does Pam. I have been working with the old ease, but finding it more difficult to place work & Pam is busy too. We were in a motor accident on Sunday week which shook us a good deal, but nothing serious though poor Pam was flung over the hood on to the road falling on the back of her head. Love always to you & Alice; the state of the country is disturbing beyond words, & now that it is our own fault it is harder to bear. It will be a relief to be out of it. God bless you. ever yours K.T.H.

73

Katharine’s and Pamela’s stay in Germany is recorded in her Life in the Occupied Area (1925). Katharine placed an advertisement in the Irish Times, 15 April 1922, saying she “warmly recommends her excellent Cook and House Parlourmaid; free first week May”.

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To the Editor, The Times [7 Sorrento Terrace, Dalkey, Co. Dublin] 11 April 192274 Sir, In reading The Times correspondence on “What Shall We Do With Our Sons?”75—with a painful interest, as many of us must have read it—the converse of the question must have occurred to some readers, “What shall we do with our daughters?” is a question of at least equal urgency. As I read, it has been borne in on me how very little is done for the girls. I had known vaguely that the universities and the public schools opened certain doors for boys, but I had not know that there was anything so definite as Appointment Boards, and other arrangements, for getting the boys into jobs. Is there any girls’ or women’s school or college which has corresponding advantages? The question about employment of girls becomes increasingly urgent with every day that passes, especially in England, where the preponderance of women over men, in the middle classes, is as appalling a fact as the unemployment, besides being a matter which a boom in trade will not set to rights. The days have gone by when the prayer of an Irish servant for her young mistress, “God send you a husband able to keep you in idleness”, had any appeal. The young women of the present day do not want to be kept in idleness. They have tasted the sweets of work and independence, and they know the fruits of idleness—sickliness, discontent, dreariness, dishonesty, meanness. The bitter cry of the unemployed men is heard in our streets and on the house-tops. The women are silent, but their unemployment may be at least as great a calamity for them as it is for men. The men of the middle classes, despairing of finding employment in these countries, are going in great numbers to the Colonies. Their going is being encouraged and expedited. In The Times correspondence columns many people suggest emigration to the Colonies as the solution for the unemployed public school and university men, against whom all the doors are closed while the terrible post-war depression in trade lasts.

74

Published under the heading “Our Daughters’ Future. Independence or Idleness? Miss Katharine Tynan and Emigration”, The Times, 11 April 1922. 75 A long correspondence had been started by a letter in The Times under the heading “What Can We Do For Our Sons?” (16 March 1922). The writer asked the editor to open the correspondence columns to suggestions from business and the professions as to a solution to the employment of young men.

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Lord Northcliffe was crying aloud the need for a White Australia.76 In suggesting this exportation of probably the most valuable class of men in the community, people never seem to realize that, if the men go alone there are so many more of their natural mates lost to the women, whose chances of marriage are already so diminished by the war. If there is a movement or encouragement to send out the boys and the men to the Colonies, let the girls and the women of their own class go as well. Open that door to the girls and the women, who want to take their share in the world’s work, and who are being fitted for independence by all the changed circumstances of the time. White colonies are not to be made by white men alone, but no one seems to have remembered the women. To send crowds of white men and boys into coloured colonies is not to realize the dream of Cecil Rhodes when he said, “I see homes, and more homes.”77 It is to court calamity.78 Yours faithfully Katharine Tynan79

76 In an interview, before leaving Australia, reported in the Sydney Herald, 1 October 1921, Northcliffe stated that

The Commonwealth may still be saved for the Anglo-Saxon race, and your ideal of a White Australia realised. The key to your White Australia ideal—the sure parent of all your ideals—is population. You must increase your slender garrison, by the multiplication of your people. 77

“I want to see homes, more homes”, quoted in Sir Thomas E. Fuller, The Right Honourable, Cecil John Rhodes: A Monograph and a Reminiscence (1910) 253. Katharine was to include this quotation in her The Rich Man (1929), ch. XXVI. 78 Following further correspondence Katharine wrote an article “Our Daughters’ Future”, The Times, 1 May 1922. 79 This letter was reproduced in the New Zealand Evening Post, 30 May 1922.

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To Wilfrid and Alice Meynell MS Greatham. Hotel Kaiser Wilhelm, Cologne 5 July 1922 Ever beloved Wilfrid & Alice, This is just a message of love. We are settled quite happily in Cologne & for the first time are not homesick. Alice will be shocked to hear that I am happier in Germany than in Italy. There are not the things that offend & hurt, & the people are very kindly. Do you know Cologne? It is a lovely town, & the real religion is a joy. The many churches are thronged for every service & they all sing beautifully & with such fervour. There was a procession on Sunday with the most adorable children carrying armfuls of lilacs & all the little boys ringing tiny bells. The traffic was held up & waited very patiently, & as the Sacred Heart went by everyone knelt in the wet street. The ever-present sense of religion keeps me very happy despite my own cares & the sorrows in Ireland. The struggle that will be sharp & swift. It had to be, & I am glad Collins was up to his job. We want to save what is left of Ireland. To-night we are going up to the North Sea for three weeks, with an old brother-officer of Pat’s in the Dublins. It will set us up for August & September which may be very hot. So far we have been in this exclusively German hotel which is all right except that it is desperately noisy. Presently we hope to be under the roof of this same officer & his wife who have been allocated a very big house with 10 bed rooms & 3 bathrooms. That will be better for work & sleep. There are a General & Lady Hutchinson80 here who are devoted lovers of Ireland they are very good to us & it is a joy to have them, so full of brains & heart. He gives up the Army next year for politics This place is very cheap. We live for about a guinea a week each. Our journey to the North sea we leave at 11.25 tonight & get there about 5. tomorrow afternoon with sleepers it costs us the equivalent of a pound for the three of us. Fortunately we don’t hate the place, as I must stay & retrench. Pam will have plenty of amusement & has a book to do for Partridges.81 I have plenty of work to do. I was sorry there was more trouble about poor Francis.82 Dear Wilfrid. 80 Major General Robert Hutchinson, KCMG., DSO. (1873-1950) and his first wife Agnes Begbie Drysdale (d.1941). Created Baron Hutchinson of Montrose in 1932. 81 The Girls of Redlands. 82 Francis Meynell had married Hilda Peppercorn (1886-1962) in 1914 and was now in a relationship with Vera Mendel (1895-1947) and they married in 1925 after Francis’s divorce.

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I am so sorry. I never can tell you how sweet these last meetings with you & Alice were. There was strange happiness about them. God bless you both beloveds. Give our love to Viola & to all yours K.T. Write c/o Captain P. W. Oulton,83 G.H.Q. British Army of the Rhine, Cologne. Through him our letters travel by military mail & are safe.

83

Captain William Plato Oulton, MC and Bar (1891-1968), Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

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To the Editor, The Times Cologne 25 August 192284 Sir, Your Dublin Correspondent writing of the calamitous death of Michael Collins, says of Richard Mulcahy that he is “handicapped by the temperament of a philosopher”.85 Well, he may have the temperament of a philosopher—thought I should not call that a handicap in Irish politics— but he has also the temperament of a poet, without which no Irish genius is complete. I listened at the Dail meetings last autumn to speech after speech which to me, brought up on the traditions of Irish oratory, deliberately commonplace and dull. Then came Mulcahy, and the whole thing was changed. He was not ashamed to put his emotions, and, listening to him, one was back in the great days. His address to the Army on the death of Michael Collins seems to me admirable as poetic prose. Nothing could be finer. There is no higher type of man in our history than the man who is at once poet and man of action, as witness the great men of the Elizabethan days. Ireland has suffered a terrible calamity in the death of her two leaders; but while such men as Richard Mulcahy and the Brennans of Clare lead her Army we may lift our heavy hearts.86 Yours, etc, Katharine Tynan

84

Published under the heading “General Mulcahy”, The Times, 30 August 1922. Michael Collins was killed in an ambush on 22 August by the IRA during the civil war in Ireland. Richard James Mulcahy (1886-1971) was imprisoned for a short period after the Easter Rising and later supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. After Collins’s death Mulcahy became commander-in-chief of the National Army and was minister of defence in the provisional government from 10 January 1922 to 19 March 1924. 86 Commandant General Michael Brennan (1896-1986) defeated the Republican troops in Limerick thus securing the south west of Ireland for the government. 85

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne. 14 September 1922 My own dear Wilfrid, I know that Wilfrid Blunt’s death will be a great sadness to you:87 you had so long been friends. But our friends go falling like leaves of Autumn about us now,—don’t they? We must love better all those who are left, & be tranquil knowing that they wait for us in the Land of the Young. To such a man as Wilfrid Blunt old age seems an indignity: I thought you would have done him in the Times, but it was not you. If you have elsewhere let me know. I should like to see your loyal word. I wrote a little personal article for the Star.88 I felt sure there were many more important people ready to do Personalia for the Times, & I thought you were the right person for that. I have a dear letter to thank you for, with those [illegible] & depth & kindnesses. I won’t say too kind, for I like you to think as well as possible of us. A word of you & Alice, God bless her, will be eagerly welcomed. We have got into this very comfortable flat of 3 self-contained rooms with an extra one for Pat while he stays in a German lady’s flat. She is one of the new poor & she is peculiarly glad to have us & cook for us & housekeep for us since it makes more remote the danger of the flat being “requisitioned” & paid for at a starveling rate by the German Government. Everything is abominably cheap for us, of course, but I don’t like gloating over the cheapness as it means the other thing to the Germans, whom we like very much. We hope to get back about next May & stay in London. The duration depends on the state of Ireland, which would not be a pleasant place to live in just now. Any of the letters that get through to us tell of the apathy, the fatalism of the people who are watching this burning. The man with the revolutions is still fatally on top. A Dansh Danish girl who is mad about Ireland & spends all her spare time there said to me the other day: It was sad about the National leaders: but I think it will be best for Ireland when she has no more National leaders but goes on her way without enthusiasm & without us. I thought there was a queer wisdom in it. I am inclined to think that ideas are the curse of Ireland. Just now I idealists are destroying the country, destroying other people’s property, taking life callously, committing a thousand cruelties with perfectly most impaired ideals. 87

William Scawen Blunt died on 10 September 1922. Katharine Tynan, “A Figure of Romance. Memories of Wilfrid Blunt”, Star, 15 September 1922.

88

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Darling Wilfrid,—I am going to pay all my debts, please God, just imagine,—we are living here something under a pound a week for the three of us. That is according to the present rate of exchange, but it goes up & down of course. We are really quite generous in our payments from the German point of view—but there it is. Our Frau told me to-day that the charwoman was so terribly expensive,—12 marks an hour for three hours a day. It is about ha’penny an hour. Keep well, dear ones, till we come back. I have one or two congenial people here so far. The most congenial who could have found for us the best to be got in the military circles has been away for nearly two months of our stay. She comes back next week for the Winter. I had Mass said for Wilfrid Blunt & I tried to get to Holy Communion for him this morning but failed. You never can count on any particular service at any particular hour in Cologne. Very much love from us all & especially from K.T.

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To the Editor, The Times Cologne [September 1922]89 [Sir], The outcry about excessive charges in Germany arises, I think, because we are too ready to think in marks. Let me give one instance out of many which, during a four months’ residence in Germany, have shown me the other side of the question. I had occasion recently to consul a highly trained oculist. On my first visit he removed, painlessly, some grit from my eye. His fee was four hundred marks—1s. 4d. of our money. Inflammation following the grit necessitated further treatment, which was so efficient and efficacious that the inflammation disappeared in two days. The fee for this was five hundred marks—1s. 8d. [I am, Sir, yours, &c.,] Mrs Hinkson

89 Published in the “Points from Letters” section of The Times, 3 October 1922. See Katharine’s letter of 5 November 1922 to Oliver Gogarty on this subject.

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To the Editor, Saturday Review Cologne [October 1922]90 Sir, Will you allow me to correct one or two misunderstandings in the most kind and sympathetic review of my Wandering Years in your issue of 7 October?91 Your reviewer says that I criticize the intolerance of my husband’s fellow-resident magistrates in Ireland. This is a mistake. The resident magistrates were kin and brothers to each other, all more or less in the same boat when the war came upon them, unprovoked with a living wage according to the new conditions, and all ready to share what they had with each other. These fellow-resident magistrates of my husband I hold in great affection and regard. It was a section of the local gentry that my words applied to. I am so sorry to have ruffled the feelings of my kind reviewer by what apparently seems a blatant Irishism. Perhaps as a small nationality, at least in Ireland, we are too assertive in claiming our places in the sun: but in some of my Irishisms I was laughing at myself, present or past. During eighteen years of life in England I learnt to love the beauty of English country with a passion. That is, I think, to be seen in much that I have written. If I turned to the beauty of my own country with a closer love it was natural, seeing we had been so long parted. No one knows better than I what English kindness and English friendship mean, and I have tried to return them whole-heartedly. I have sometimes hated English politics, but never an Englishman or woman—certainly not as English. I owe much to England if I love my own country best. The lady who told me not to trail my coat was an Irish lady.92 The trailing had no reference to Irish politics: it applied to the varying politics of her family—she married an Englishman—in which there was very good matter for an explosion. I am so sorry that I seemed to trail my coat for my kind reviewer. I have seldom had a review which gave me so keen a pleasure; there is so much human kindness and discernment in it. I only feel that it was too kind to one who had most unwittingly rubbed him up the wrong way and on whose unworthy head he has heaped coals of fire. I am, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

90

Published in the Saturday Review, 14 October 1922 under the heading “Irish”. Saturday Review, 7 October 1922. 92 Lady Alice Young (Wandering Years, 141). 91

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To the Editor, The Times Cologne 23 October 192293 Sir, In 1914 and the years that followed we could not have anticipated a time when all the privileges would be, not for the men who had fought in the war, but for the existing Army. Life in Cologne, from where I write, is a privileged life, quite rightly, for the Army of Occupation, but all privileges are denied to the ex-officer who may come here. Privileges extended to all the small auxiliary Services attached to the Army are denied to him. He is not allowed to use the tennis-courts, even in the hours when no one is playing. If he goes shopping he must pay 100 per cent, unless he finds someone attached to the Army, provided with “the pink card”, kind enough to accompany him. I have been present when a young officer who had served in the war and marched into Cologne after the Armistice with the 29th Division, who is still on the Reserve of Officers, was refused admission, as a civilian, by the German porter of the Rhine Army Officers’ Club, in the momentary absence of the lady who had invited him there. This indignity was witnessed by several officers who were in the hall at the time. As a mother of two officers who fought in the war, I make my protest. I am, Sir, yours, &c., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

93 Published under the heading “Army Privileges in Cologne”, The Times, 27 October 1922. In the “Points from Letters”, The Times, 1 November 1922, Major FitzRoy Gardner writes

It seems unreasonable that officers of the garrison of to-day should be expected to extend their hospitality to any and every visitor because he once held a temporary commission. But I am surprised to learn that discretion as to admission to the club is still vested in a German club servant—before he was overruled, last year because I was—quite correctly—in uniform, when returning to England from duty in another part of Germany, and although I produced credentials and pointed to my name in the current Army List.

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To Oliver St John Gogarty94 MS Stanford. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne (Köln) Germany 5 November 1922 My dear Oliver Gogarty, I send you this as a return for the “Old Goose”.95 We heard that you were in Germany & longed that you might have come to see us, you & Mrs Gogarty.96 Perhaps you did not touch Cologne, though it’s a funny place for meeting Dublin. We met James McMahon the other day at the Requiem for All Souls & went to tea with him at the Dom Hotel the last day.97 While we waited for him our Dublin dentist, Mr Bradley walked in. We are starved for Dublin & Irish news. No one will write expansively, but McMahon told us a lot & he is coming back next week & will tell us more. We are very comfortable here in a good flat, and our Frau, who is one of the new poor, does all our housekeeping & purchasing, getting everything at German prices. We shall keep her alive this Winter, for it is just people like her who are going to starve. If she had not us her rooms would be taken over by the Wohnungsamt, the German billeting body, who would put in people at German rates incredibly less than we are glad to pay.98 I must tell you about a Dr Jung here, a distinguished oculist, who took some grit out of my eye. His fee at was 400 marks, at the time 1/3. The eye is inflamed & he had to heal it again for two visits it was 500 marks 1/8. When he was giving us change we prevailed on him to keep a thousand marks. He was like a child saying,—“For me! Not for me!” I sent him a guinea afterwards & he was quite overwhelmed, & I wrote a letter in the Times afterwards,99 hoping people might write to me for his name & address. Since his treatment my eyes have been better that they have been for years. If you were sending a patient to Germany you might do worse than Dr Jung.100 Ireland is terrible, especially the women. You must have suffered a 94 The Irish surgeon and writer Oliver St John Gogarty (1878-1957) was a Sinn Féin member and supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty after which he became a Senator in the Irish Free State. 95 Oliver Gogarty’s poem “Old Goose” was included in his The Ship (1918). 96 Martha Duane had married Gogarty in August 1906. 97 Occupied Area, 180. The Irish civil servant James MacMahon (1865-1954) retired after four years as Under Secretary for Ireland in 1922. 98 Occupied Area, 117-8. 99 See p. 498. 100 Katharine recounts this episode with Dr Jung in Occupied Area, 123-5.

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good deal, for I know what lies under your flippancy. I still long to come back despite everything. The thing that is really holding me up is the uncertainty about letters, since all business is transacted through the post. I wonder how long Ireland will take to recover from the terrible decivilization. Our love to you & Mrs Gogarty. ever yours K.T.H. I wrote to you soon after we came out here, but never had a reply, which was common with my Irish correspondents.

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To AE (George William Russell) MS Stanford. Hansa Ring 64 II Cologne 27 November 1922 My ever dear AE., I hope you will have a thought to spare for this little book.101 I know you must be feeling that all your work is in ruins. Poor Erskine Childers & his wife & children.102 What a savage world. I wrote to you after I came out here asking for a letter but never had a reply. I expect either your letter or mine was confiscated by some of that section of our country people who have lost the sense of right & wrong. We think a great deal of Ireland Dublin. I am less home sick here than I usually am away from Ireland, partly doubtless because Ireland makes one feel fretted just now. It is funny how many Irish people come to Cologne. We met James McMahon, the Under Secretary at the Requiem Mass on All Souls Day. We went to tea with him next day & while we waited in the hotel lounge for him in came our Dublin dentist. The other day we were accosted by two elderly Miss Scotts from Dublin. They seem to know everyone in Ireland. I met with them yesterday a Mrs Burley Murphy, the wife of an R.I.C. Inspector who has been flung on the world. They are desperately poor & he is 48,—drawing 28/- a week from the Irish Refugees’ Fund. You should hear how she talked about Ireland with such love and not knowing there was anything to forgive. She said she was going back,—no matter what happened to her, she couldn’t live away from Ireland. There are others of her kind here. Why do those who represent Ireland drive out such lovers of Ireland? Pam & I are working hard, & Pat has been with us, still waiting on a job, poor Pat!. He is still here, but has grown very restless, & he is going to London to-morrow night to look around. Things have been dangled before his eyes for many months past. It has been a hard trial, but I think he is near a job. We would come home next Spring if we could. There are two great 101

Katharine’s Evensong (Oxford: 1922), a collection of forty poems. The Irish republican and writer (Robert) Erskine Childers (1870-1922), author of the best selling The Riddle of the Sands (1903). Just prior to the Great War Childers was a gun runner for the republicans. After service in the RNVR during the Great War Childers became a passionate believer in Irish nationalism and was elected to the Dáil in 1921. He was captured while carrying a revolver, the carrying of arms being a crime. He was executed on 24 November 1922 despite international appeals for clemency. He had married Mary Alden Osgood (1878– 1964) in 1904 and had two sons. 102

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difficulties,—one is the post. I should be buried if my post was interfered with as all my business is transacted that way. The other is the fearful profiting in Ireland. I saw in the Independent the other day that the Dalkey Town Council had given a contract to Mr Bowers, Killiney, for the creation of labourers’ cottages at £1200 each. You could buy a lovely house in England for that money. What a sluggish public conscience there is in Ireland. I hear Willie Yeats is settled in Dublin.103 That will be nice for us all, if anything can be nice now. I hope Violet & the boys are well. Give my love to her & Susan Mitchell. ever, dear AE. your friend K.T.H.

103

At the end of November Yeats was at the Savile Club, London.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

Katharine to Wilfrid Meynell 28 November 1922

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 28 November 1922 My poor Wilfrid, I know she has taken your life with her:104 She has taken half of what amounts of mine. You will know that I feel & I needn’t talk about it. We are together in this sorrow. It has been a hard blow this wet & miserable day. I lay awake in the night thinking of her & the big bottle of Eau de Cologne I was going to send by Pat who is going to London. That was strange. She was so heavenly last May. I keep the memory of her till we meet. I am grieved for the children who love her, but most of all for you, & much for myself your loving K.T. To think that she never saw my Evensong! It was going to her and you.105

104

Katharine’s great friend Alice Meynell had died on 27 November after seven weeks illness. Later Katharine included a chapter “Alice Meynell—The Dearest Woman” in her Memories. She also wrote “The Shrine of Alice Meynell”, in Commonweal, 21 January 1931. 105 Katharine sent the book with the inscription “To Wilfrid and Alice who can never be separated from their bedeswoman K.T. 1922-23”.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Hansa Ring 64 II Cologne 30 November 1922 My dear Frank Mathew, Here is the little volume of poems with my love.106 I hope you will find something to like in it. I’ve just been writing a most tremendous strafe of the Irish Combatants to poor old Willie Stockley whose German wife has landed him in the Republican Garda.107 It is a highly imprudent letter as it strafes both sides impractically & all the bloody ones. The Free State Government has shown how not to do it in the case of Erskine Childers. One sort of resents a gentleman & a man of education being executed by the hoi polloi. Hoity toity you may well say. Of course I’m in Cologne & sometimes think I shall have to end my days in England though I hate to leave Ireland,—but they will divide us all. Oh, for a nice wise despot! Without blood on his hands. We of our generation, who supported the War are all more or less red-handed, & we sowed the seed (extracts from the letter which will give poor dear Stockley a pain when he receives it.) Pat went off to London on Tuesday night. He had waited with wonderful patience. A letter from Robert Vansittart to Sir Eric Drummond about Pat & the League of Nations was carefully attached to some papers & pigeon-holed by a secretary’s mistake in Sir E.D’s absence.108 Some secretary! That letter was written on 15th September, & Pat waited two months before the matter was cleared up. There was then a quite encouraging letter (to R.V) from Sir E.D. saying that at the moment he was precluded from making any more British appointments, but that there would probably be Commissions & from priory appointments & he would keep Pat in mind. Meanwhile Pat was to write to him & tell him his qualifications. R.V. thought the answer quite satisfactory & said that a temporary appointment would lead to a permanent one probably & that the percentage of Britishers in the League would not always continue so high. But Pat had grown desperate & would wait no longer. He has gone to London to look about him. I don’t expect he will find anything worth taking at the London Exchange, etc & I trust R.V. to veto his taking a bad job if one offered: and he may have an opportunity of seeing Sir E.D. who 106

Evensong. The Irish scholar Professor William Frederick Paul Stockley (1859-1943) had married his second wife Marie Germaine Kolb in 1908 after his first wife had died in 1893. As a Sinn Féin member he served in the Dáil. 108 Sir James Eric Drummond (1876-1951), later 16th Earl of Perth, was Secretary General to the League of Nations from 1919 to 1933. 107

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is at Lausanne now. Of course he is a Catholic. That may help. Anyhow I hope & trust. This place is full of unemployed ex-officers. It is most piteous to see how they forgather. Nov 1st. I have destroyed the strafe to Willie Stockley. The situation is becoming too embittered for any kind of reasonable interchanges of opinion. I wonder if I am very unstable. A few days ago I was horror stricken and grieved about Erskine Childers. To-day,—well I begin to think that such sharp violence may be the best in the end. The demoralization of Ireland is terrible & I fear it is the door of the idealists from Pearse downward.109 If I had only strafed the Republicans I should have let the letter go but I have strafed the others as well, and I feel that whatever one feels about them or their methods they are the only chance for Ireland. I begin to hate idealism,—Irish, at least. They don’t seem to hand it on to their followers. The Great State Ministers are under sentence of death, & one can’t expect them to be very gentle with men who have doomed them. Do you ever see an Irish paper? John MacNeill spoke at the Dail on Tuesday on the subject of the executions, defending them.110 Well, John MacNeill has a son in the Free State Army & a son-in-law, & up to a few weeks ago he had a son among the irregulars but he was killed in an ambush, wasn’t all his own fault. John MacNeill has no blood on his hands & he moves nowhere the militants don’t. But a little while ago Collins & Mulchay & McKeen & all the rest of them were ambushing Black-andTans & soldiers. It’s a queer mix-up. I’m inclined myself to think that God is angry with Kilaide for the crises which brought the Black & Tans. You will have heard of Alice Meynell’s death. It has been a grief to me. Last May we saw a good deal of her. It was a gift of God. She was like an angel out of Heaven, already with the light shining from her. She has suffered a great deal of late years. Viola’s mad marriage,111 & Francis’s running amuck were heavy on her. It was so sad. Olivia married a well-to-do solicitor: all the rest have been calamitous one way or another. I was so glad to see the review in the Times of the honour.112 Of course its scholarship & industry could hardly hope for repayment. It is a lifework. Pam has already started on a course of [rest of letter missing] 109

Patrick Pearse (1879-1916), who, as the leader of the Easter Rising, surrendered and was executed. 110 The republican Eoin MacNeill (1867-1945) founded the Gaelic League with others in 1893 to promote the language. He was a member of the Dáil. 111 Viola Meynell had married a local farmer John Dallyn (1879-1947) on 28 February 1922. They separated in 1929. 112 “Shakespeare in his Work”, The Times Literary Supplement, 16 November 1922: a review of Mathew’s An Image of Shakespeare (1922).

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 4 December 1922 Darling Wilfrid, I do wish that I was near you. I read in your poor letter that it had broken you. I tried to read the letter to Pam, but I couldn’t. But there was never a more tender, & faithful husband, & we may be grateful that you were not to go together at least she went first. Think of how lost she would have been in the world without you! I remember when I stayed with you in Linden Gardens for days long ago when you went away for a few days,—I think it must have been to the Coxes,—what a lost & lonely care she had. You were so good to her, darling Wilfrid: you would have kept the wind from blowing on her too strongly & she knew it. She stepped straight over the threshold of Heaven, whither, please God, we are all treading. I can never thank God enough for those last meetings in May. I feel that was one of His miracles of love to me. She was so heavenly & so human. She had been withdrawn when I visited you at Greatham but she had come back, the glory shining about her, but so warm loving for last touch on earth. “Deepest veneration”,—that is what so many must feel for her, dearest saint & tenderest woman. I am sorry for the children. I love to think that she loved me & remembered me. I know that I had my own place in her heart; thank God,—and she won’t forget me & the children in Heaven,—where I pray my poor Harry may find her. I am just going to read the Observer with Garvin’s splendid tribute.113 I did the Times article,114 but someone added to it, & I really poured out my heart for the Star article but only so much appeared as I send you.115 It was 113

J. L. Garvin’s “Alice Meynell”, Observer, 3 December 1922. “Alice Meynell. The Poets’ Poet”, The Times, 28 November 1922. Katharine’s column ended with 114

Intensely retiring, she was always ready to bestir herself in appreciation of new writers. It was the same selflessness and sanctity witch discovered itself in her ascetic writing and her humility of life. She was not carried away by the admiration of the great, nor did she withhold from smaller writers that felicitous sympathy which is more than mere praise. 115

In a letter to Katharine, 30 November 1922, H. J., of the Star, declined to publish Katharine’s article as he felt it was too late. However, he decided to publish a short extract: “Alice Meynell”, Star, 1 December 1922. Katharine summed up her short article with

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too late. I will say all I find to say later. God bless & love you, darling Wilfrid who is with you these days. It is terrible when the house of life tumbles down, even though you know that she who made it is in Elysium with God. Shane’s tribute was beautiful too.116 your loving K.T. I loved her letters than any other friend.

She was my oldest friend living except her husband—a friendship of going on for forty years, and never a break of a coldness in it. There was a speech of hers I have always treasured. She said once that I was perhaps the only friend who had never hurt her. I take it to my heart in these shadows. 116

The writer John Randolph Leslie (1885-1971), 3rd Bt 1944. Born into a Scottish land owning family he became a Catholic while at Cambridge and took a great interest in Irish nationalism using the name Shane from then on. During the war he was working for the ambulance corps in France before he became ill on the way to the Dardanelles and was hospitalized in Malta. Shane Leslie, “Mrs Meynell”, Blackfriars, January 1923.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 8 January 1923 My dear Clement, Thank you so very much forwarding me the two Dora books, which I am very glad to have.117 I have been thinking much of Dora lately. As long as I live I shall always think of her at this time of year. The first anniversary began Harry’s last illness & every year both of them are in my thoughts & prayers together. I hope the change at Christmas did you good, although it seems to have been very rushed, & I hope your wife & child are well & giving you happiness. I had a letter from Hester the other day. She would not hear of sending the little girl to an English school, as I feared. I am sorry. It would mean much for the child, I am sure, but one can’t even grumble at the right of the mother to decide. All good wishes for the New Year ever yours K.T.H. Do you remember your suggestion that I should do a volume of Irish Portraits. I am writing such a book, but I would call it Portraits, so as to include some English friends.118 It would be mainly Irish, of course.

117

In Memoriam Dora Sigerson, 1918-1923. Died January 6th, 1918 (privately printed, 1923). This was a collection of poems by various writers and Katharine’s “Epiphany” was included. The second book was probably Dora’s The Tricolour. Poems of the Irish Revolution (1922). 118 Katharine’s Memories.

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To the Editor, Irish Times Cologne 14 February 1923119 Sir, Amid the many deplorable happenings in Ireland, of which one reads with horror and grief, I notice one or two terrible instances of insensibility to the sufferings of animals recorded in the Irish newspapers which reach me here. Within the last few days I have read that when Major Perry’s house was burnt the stables were fired first. Now this, if true—there were fourteen horses in the stableʊwould be an act of sheer devilry. Apparently no help was given to Major Perry and his family in rescuing the horses. Again I read when Colonel Maud’s house was burnt a request of Mrs. Maude’s to be allowed to return to save a pet dog was “roughly refused”. Sir, if there are any circumstances which could extenuate or explain these happenings, let us have them or we are branded as inhuman savages. The responsibility lies with the Republican leaders. If houses must be burnt as a part of their policy, will they not send men to do it who will see that no living creature perishes with the house. If they will not do this, terrible, indeed, is their responsibility. Yours, &c., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

119

Published under the heading “Animals in the Irish War”, Irish Times, 19 February 1923.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 8 May 1923 My dear Clement, Thanks for the Sphere & your commission.120 I have done the little article & it is gone to be typed. We did not get a Sphere from you with the picture of Pamela,121 but Shane Leslie sent one, & it came in my newspaper cuttings. The German post is still uncertain, but after the French entered the Ruhr there was a very bad time for letters & papers. Our time here is nearly up. We are waiting to get a little furnished house somewhere about London. Ireland does not invite us now,—I mean under the warring factions,—for the Country is always Ireland & the mass of the people. I have done the book you wanted me to do & it is with a London typist awaiting my return. I feel very happy about what it is like. I had so much trouble over its typing, for the little girl who does our work here got rather over stocked with my work & Pamela’s & I had two other people who both proved unsatisfactory, so I cut my losses & bundled the stuff off to London. I shall see what it is like when I get back I hope it is good, but some of the early things were badly typed & it gave me a queer feeling about it all. But I always hate things in typescript. I am sorry for Robertson Nicoll.122 I genuinely liked him & had no experience of him that was not pleasant. He was very old for 71, more like 85 or 86 when I saw him in 1920 at the Aberdeens & afterwards at his daughter’s wedding. I’ll let you know where we are as soon as I’ve got a place. A brotherin-law of Harry’s who is a War Office clerk offered his evenings househunting for me. I have been hoping for Ealing, which I love because I was sad & happy there. I shall miss Alice Meynell very much. With all affection, & hoping Mrs Shorter & Doreen are doing famously ever yours K.T.H. Pam’s Irish novel is with North.123 Her book with Partridges has not appeared. You know they are in liquidation. 120

Katharine’s “A Holiday in the Occupied Area”, Sphere, 4 August 1923. Sphere, 7 April 1923. 122 He had died on 4 May 1923. 123 Presumably The End of All Dreams which was published by Fisher Unwin in 1923. 121

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 18 May 1923 My beloved Wilfrid, Viola tells me you are home again. I am so looking forward to seeing you for we are expecting to be back in London on the 12th of June. I have taken a little furnished house at Wimbledon from then until the 25th September I want to look after Pat who has been in London since last November. If his work is to be there as seems likely I shall hope to settle down somewhere about London for the rest of the time. I can never be grateful enough for those exquisite evenings a year ago when we used to come to you & Alice & who was so heavenly. The little book should have gone to her dear hands as well as yours,124 but I know you & she are inseparable. You & I must cling together more closely because of her. Ever yours K.T.

124

Evensong.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. 31 Marryat Road, Wimbledon Common, S.W.19125 24 June 1923 My dear Clement, We have been here since the 12th. I took this house so that Pat might have an approach to country air & sounds & sights after his sad London Winter, & that I might see people, but by a queer twist of fate the night we were leaving Cologne, where we were extremely happy, a wire came from Pat to say that he had got a four months job in Belgium. He just met us at Victoria, stayed the night & was off next morning. So here was I saddled with a house quite unfilled for my purpose of seeing people. We take an hour to get of town & evening engagements are impossible. Then, after Cologne, we find it fearfully expensive so as I got an intimation that out Cologne flat was still available we hope to go back at the end of the week.126 I should like to see you. If this is too far for you to come to dinner Wednesday or Thursday I could come into to see you on Tuesday when Pam & I will be in your neighbourhood. Pam’s novel is appearing with Fisher Unwin’s First Novel Library in the Autumn.127 All affectionate regards, ever yours K.T.H.

125

A four bedroom, double fronted detached house. They left for Cologne on 30 June. 127 Pam’s The End of All Dreams was favourably reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement on 15 November 1923 and the Irish Times, 30 November, commented: “This is, in truth, a book which ought to be read by all the friends of Ireland and of the Empire.” 126

V. Aftermath

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Hansa Ring 64 II Cologne 4 July 1923 My dear Frank Mathew, The sub-letting was the quickest thing on record. I had an advertisement in the Times on Monday week. We travelled on Saturday with the new tenant’s cheque in my pocket. We had a lovely journey & the Two met us at Aachen. We never saw a douane. On the boat we were taken charge of by a Col. Hordern of the Engineers whom I had thought the resident man in Cologne. He was charming & I had the happiness of giving up an enmity & taking the other thing instead. When he went to his sleeper at 11 o’clock the only other Englishman travelling came to tell us that he was next door & entirely at our service in case of any trouble with the Belgians. But the Belgians were lambs. From Aachen to Cologne we clean forgot that we might be blown up at any moment. The surprise of the Transport Officers who sent us here with military labels etc, a little over a fortnight before may be imagined. Now one or both of them are here from 3. to 11. p.m. or we are their guests. The romance would take more time & space than I have even to indicate it. Frankly it seems to be clear adoration. If Charles had not to pick up the crumbs that fall from Pamy’s table,—he being the stronger character of the two! That gives one a pain to see. Yet they love each other closer & closer. Sometime I will tell you about it when things have developed perhaps.128 About the Fitzgerald book, John Heywood & Co. Manchester, are the people who pay.129 I meant to have told you this long ago. Give my love to Mrs Mathew. I hope all goes well with her & the boys. Why didn’t you tell me Wimbledon was so charming a place? If I had known long ago I should never have wasted my time at Ealing. I saw Fr Dalrymple & Fr Bliss. At first sight I did not take much to either, nor to the church, which seemed cold after our churches here. The only thing that was not cold besides the Essential Thing, was the altar for those precious creatures whom Ireland refuses to honour. Those wretched rulers of Ireland, & the whole ignominious affair! How one detests it all. Some time we might rail about the new Flight of the Wild Geese or Pam will.130 She has just gone off with 128

Pamela never married. Mathew did not have anything published by them. 130 Katharine has a note in her poem “The Flight of the Wild Geese” in Louise de la Vallière 129

The Irish soldiery, who, after the Williamite conquest and the treachery of

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Charles, who for once has a clear field! How I wish I had another daughter for him. I might mention that the boys haven’t a penny. The situation might be impossible if they had. Ever yours K.T.H. I did tell you that Pam’s novel comes out in Autumn,—didn’t I?131 She has published a girls’ book taken by the Religious Tract Society. Why do Jesuits make up to look like Inquisitors? I prefer my Benedictines who shall, or have, less strong beard. I asked Fr Bliss why Jesuits were so often black-avised men. He was rather black-avised himself.

the broken “Treaty of Limerick”, sailed away from Ireland and took service in the armies of France and Austria and Spain, were called “The Wild Geese”. 131

The End of All Dreams.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Hansa Ring 64 II, Cologne 4 October 1923 My dear Clement, You remember the article I did for you on Holidays in the Occupied territory.132 Well I believe you said you paid £5-5-0. I have your letter somewhere but cannot at the moment put my hand on it. They only sent me £3-3-0. I think you would wish me to draw your attention to the mistake. We are contemplating coming home. Indeed I have got so far as advertising for a furnished house near Dublin, but none of the replies have quite suited me Cologne lays her spells on all who come here. They find it difficult to break away. But if we stay much longer we may be better on away, as trouble is drawing nearer. I can hardly express my admiration of this sane & disciplined people. I wish my unfortunate country people would sit at their feet & learn from them. One never meets with anything but civility & helpfulness & in my experience here I have not struck a Hooligan.133 I wonder if Ireland is going to have peace this Winter. I want to go back for the Country’s sake but I loathe the bloody mess the ‘patriots’ have made of the beloved country. What a pity they didn’t get it off in the War! I hope you & Mrs Shorter & the little girl are all thriving. Pam asks me to ask you if a Bed Time children’s story ever reached you which she sent you. How is Hester, and how are hers? I am always fond of poor Hester however much we have disagreed. Please remember my address for letters is c/o Major W. Guise Tucker, M.C., R.E., G.H.Q. British Army of the Rhine. We send you our love ever yours K.T.H.

132

4 August 1923. The derivation is not clear but it probably refers to an unruly Irish family of that name in the eighteenth century. The English press used the word from 1898 onwards.

133

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To the Editor, The Times Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 28 December 1923134 Sir, I have only just come from Cologne, where I had special opportunities of being aware of the work of the British Women Police in Cologne since they came here last June. I had also the privilege of knowing some of these ladies, and I can hardly find words to express my admiration of the spirit in which they carried out their difficult and painful work. Only the very highest motives could, I think, move anyone to choose such a vocation, and the motives were there. There was no shrinking from the painful duties. There was courage, generosity, and humanity. “The charity of Christ urgeth me” might be a motto for these ladies:135 the charity of Christ and the love of humanity. It would be a calamity beyond words if the Women Police were to be withdrawn from Cologne. So I add my testimony to that of Mrs Corbett Ashby in The Times of the 24th,136 and join her in praying that they may be left at their posts. I remain, Sir, yours, &c., Katharine Tynan

134

Published under the heading “Women Police in Cologne” on 2 January 1924. St Paul, 2 Cor 5:14. 136 Margery I. Corbett Ashby, “Women Police in Cologne”, The Times, 24 December 1923. Margery Irene Corbett (1882-1 981) married the barrister Brian Ashby in 1910. Educated at Newham College, Cambridge University, she became secretary of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1907 and was president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1923-46. She was an unsuccessful Liberal candidate at many general elections. Created Dame in 1967. Despite protests the women police were withdrawn in 1925. 135

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To Father Thomas Dawson MS NLI. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co Dublin 5 January 1924 My dear Father Dawson, We are back here again. I have this house till May after which so far as I can see we shall go off again on our travels. Toby & Moria & their little son are here till then. Pat is here also & we were all together for Christmas the first time for many years. I had some hope of getting Pat a job in Ireland, but I have not received any encouragement from the people I consulted. He has now applied for a Colonial Office job. I don’t like his going to the ends of the earth & he will hate leaving us if he gets the appointment, but when one has no country one must take whatever is going elsewhere. The alarming thing is that there is a certain “No Irish” feeling growing up in England. They say: “We must think of ourselves first.” I pray that Pat may get placed before that grows. God bless the poor Irish gentlemen, & there are none better in the world who fall between this cruel Scylla & Charybdis. I know you will come to see us one day, though I hate your making the long pilgrimage for the tiny visit you usually gives us. I don’t go to Dublin partly because it interferes with my work—and the “The Night Cometh”:137 partly because it depresses us. Will you remember my Harry on Friday, his anniversary? I am always sad at this time of year although I have so much to be grateful for. With all affection ever yours Katharine Hinkson

137

“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” John 9.4.

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co Dublin 6 January 1924 My dear Frank Mathew, You guessed rightly. I lost the address discovered it painfully after some search only to have it swept away by Pam: I was meditating writing care of Miss Frost but was not sure if Frost was the name. Yes, we are back here,—the whole family as it now is including the younger branch who is a most eruditable specimen. I came here partly to put a roof over the returned ones, partly to see if there was any prospect for Pat here. So far I have not done anything in the latter direction. I find that people are fearfully pessimistic here, & I have received little encouragement. He was offered a job by Father Sweetman, the Republic Benedictine who runs Mount St Benedict’s Gorey.138 Such a job would have only emanated from an Irish hand. His duties were to be rather nominal, plenty of time for outdoor life & [a] horse to ride & the fat of the land to live on.139 Mount St Benedict’s is famous for its hospitality. The real purport of his joy being to expound to the youth of Mount St Benedict’s the British side of the picture. He wanted (1) an Englishman: he waived that in Pat’s case (2) a soldier (3) a luminist (4) a cultivated English speaker. A Protestant preferred. It would have been an amusing stop-gap but meanwhile Pat in desperation had applied for a Colonial Office job & was in London being interviewed when father Sweetman wanted to see him. However he interviewed him next day but that job had to be filled at once, & it has been filled, I think, by an English cavalry man, M.C. & D.S.O. Pat has not yet heard from the C.O. he will probably hear to-morrow. If it fails it will be another blow for a poor little head that has already borne too many: but I can’t bear it with more than equanimity: I cannot bear the thought of the Black Continent & the solitude for my poor little Pat. Our love to Mrs Mathew. Ever yours K.T.H.

138

The Benedictine monk John Francis Sweetman (1872-1953) was an army chaplain for the British during the Boer War but joined Sinn-Fein after the Easter Rising of 1916. The school was in Co. Wexford. 139 The school closed in 1925 as parents removed their children because of Sweetman’s political views and the harbouring of Sinn-Fein men, with the result that the Matron, Aileen Keogh, was imprisoned.

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To the Editor, Irish Times Killiney 13 February 1924140 Sir, Some statements made in a discussion at a meeting of cattle-owners and breeders held in Dublin last Thursday on the subject of a better transit for cattle between this country and England make appalling reading for those who care for animals and, indeed, for human civilisation. Apparently the animals coming from Ireland are deteriorated in value, not only by reason of bad methods of transit, but because of ill-treatment at the hands of cattle-drovers. The Irish cattle, said a speaker, unlike the English and Scotch cattle, were deteriorated because of much flogging, so that the meat of an Irish animal was sometimes deteriorated in value by 4½d. a pound below the price of the Scotch and English cattle. Looking back, I remember my father saying that he had seen herds of cattle leave Tipperary fair, everyone of them beaten blind—that was his phrase—by the drovers, each trying to get his animals out first. Those old days, beautiful in many ways, were far crueller these. One used to feel that such cruelty must call to Heaven for vengeance. I would appeal to the cattle-owners and those interested in the cattle trade that they should get rid of all such brutal drovers and employ decent men in their places. It is their responsibility. There is one very bright spot to me in the present situation in Ireland, and that is in the attitude of the new district judges and the Civic Guard towards this question of cruelty so long tolerated in Ireland. The Civic Guard who prevented, at the risk of their lives, some apparently adult savages from following the noble sport of chasing a goat having affixed a tin can to its tail; the judge who fined a man for keeping a horse three hours in drenching rain—in the old Ireland the animals stood out all day and all night and no one thought to pity them—such men as these are really the men who hold high the lamp of civilisation. My blessing goes out to them! One looks to an Ireland in which no dependent creature shall suffer without a champion and a deliverer—not a child nor an old person, nor an animal. Then, indeed, we may lift our heads and our hearts. Yours, &c., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

140

Published under the heading “The Transit of Cattle”, 15 February 1924.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 25 February 1924 My dear Clement, I thought I told you that Constables had refused Memories. They said they could not be sure of its paying,—Will Meredith! of course!141 I had offered it through Watt as I was abroad so I left it in his hands & he sold it to Eveleigh Nash.142 I should have preferred a different kind of publisher, but feared that the book might be difficult to get off. I wish I could get a good American publisher for it.143 Watt wants to offer through his American agent Mr Paget but Mr Paget has hitherto proved useless to me.144 I have a set of proofs ready to send for America. Hester comes to see me occasionally & we get on very happily,—for we are both of the utterly disillusioned, a very large class in Ireland now-adays. We expect to be in London the first week of May & to be there for a good couple of months. Pam is I think, going to make good. I think her new book is very good. It is about the ruin of life for the young which has followed the War.145 So far no one has touched it. Many may share her knowledge but they are inarticulate. She I hope, will enable me to set up house,—not in London but somewhere not too far from London. All affection all regards I hope the family is flourishing. ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

141

William Maxse Meredith (1865-1937), the son of the novelist George Meredith, was a partner in Constables. 142 It was published by Eveleigh Nash & Grayson of London. 143 It was not published in America. 144 Paget Literary Agency, 500, Fifth Avenue, New York City. 145 The End of All Dreams depicted the reaction of both the Irish and the English in Ireland to a returning Irish officer from the Great War. The Scotsman, 3 January 1924 called it a “quite exceptional ‘first novel’”.

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Katharine to Wilfrid Meynell 27 February 1924

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Kenah Hill, Killiney, Co. Dublin 7 April 1924 My dearest Wilfrid, I must catch you before you depart for Italy to tell you that we hope to be in London for the Summer. We are coming as soon as we can find a flat, & hope it will be by the 1st of May. I am so glad Olivia is taking you away. I wish I could have joined the party. My news is chequered. Pat’s long letter trial has come to an end. He is settled with the Anglo-South American Bank,146 an excellent employment, but I lose him. He is learning the job in London now: he will go out in August, so we are going to have the Summer together. Poor Toby left us yesterday. He is in London till Thursday week when he sails for East Africa. He is going quite into the blue to a station on Lake Victoria, Nyanza, 100 miles from a railway & only approached by foot-tracks through the forest for many miles. There are two other white men, one fortunately a doctor. He goes alone. The life does not suit his wife & I doubt indeed that she will ever be able to bear him company poor child. Trouble has moulded his character & made him very gentle & loveable. So Pam & I will again be dependent on each other. Blessed the hour that brought me a daughter! My best love always, K.T.H.

146

In Chile. He later became a foreign correspondent for The Times.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. 4

14 Pembridge Crescent, W.1. 13 June 1924 My dear Clement, I have had a night & nearly a day of stupefaction, mingled with indignation over your letter. I could not make out what you were driving at, & I confess that I was blaming a certain person who was “shocked” before over my own scanty reference to Dora in a volume which was finished before I knew of her death,147 though by request of the publishers I added some chapters afterwards dealing with a later date. I have been turning over & over the pages of the Memory wondering what you could have read into it that was not there. Then suddenly it leaped at me. “I think those were Dora’s happiest years.”148 But I was thinking not of the future with you at all, but of those years of her childhood with which the memory was concerned. It never occurred to me for one moment that there could be any confusion. Did you not see that I wrote to you in absolute good faith. I should have been indeed unforgivable if I committed such a brutality as you thought possible. I know her married years so far as you were concerned were by far her best. You gave her the love & protection she needed & you gave her rest. I don’t think she ever took to the English life but that is something entirely apart. Hester told me how touching was her love & gratitude to you especially during these last years. I have always admired your wonderful devotion to her & have expressed it constantly. If the book goes into a second edition I will put a note explaining or if you wished I could put something into a literary paper. It really concerns me as much as you,—for what sort of woman would I be if I could have the meaning you supposed in what I wrote? I don’t think there could be any general misunderstanding on that point. The critics have not misunderstood at all events. For the rest, it is repetition but you liked it when it was first said. I had no chance to know her during her married life that was her wish, not mine. I was wounded then & began to realize first that the old intimacy was not to continue, but I accepted it of course & got used to it. In a sense it is true that I knew little or nothing of her,—little passing to nothing,—during those years. Perhaps I was never in her intimate thoughts. We laughed & played together in girlhood: that was all. I could not tell more than I knew nor appraise her for what I did not know. 147 148

Dora’s sister Hester was “shocked”. Memories, 260.

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I am sorry you think poorly of the book. It seems to be very much liked. I will do whatever you wish about the matter. ever yours K.T.H. Anyhow I keep in all essentials in my love & prayers.

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To Arthur St John Adcock149 MS Victoria. 4

14 Pembridge Crescent, W.1.150 (Tel. 7119 Park) 16 June 1924 My dear Mr Adcock, I did not get Pity’s Kin from you, but I gathered you wanted a review so I have done this one at some length thinking you might include a Bookman Portrait of him.151 He is certainly very remarkable. Could you give me La Belle Pamela (Herbert Jenkins) for review.152 I am a specialist on the family history of the Fitzgeralds. All cordial regards ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

149

Arthur St John Adcock (1864-1930) poet, novelist and editor of the Bookman, 1923 to 1930. 150 In a letter to Clement Shorter (10 June 1924, Brotherton) Katharine writes that “We have been here nearly a month”. 151 Katharine’s review of Robert Vansittart’s Pity’s Kin, Bookman, October 1924. 152 Katharine’s review of La Belle Pamela by Lucy Ellis and Joseph Turquan, Bookman, October 1924.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

To the Editor, The Times

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4

London [14 Pembridge Crescent, W.1.] 8 July 1924153 Sir, I wonder how many shopping women are aware of the suffering of the other women who serve them, with a new turn of the screw in these weeks of sales. These girls and women behind the counters of most London shops stand for practically the whole of their days. None of the fortunate women on the other side of the counter could endure it for one day, much less for six days out of seven. The endurance of these poor victims of our civilization is amazing. Human nature is adaptable, and one grows used in time to most forms of torture. Any doctor, any nurse, will tell you the evil results of this barbarous system, and how these poor girls and women crowd the hospitals and are doomed to lives of suffering. There is a convention that the assistants may sit down. If you ask them if they ever sit, the conventional reply, especially if a shopwalker is within hearing, is “We never have time to sit down”. You may hear more if you take the trouble to inquire further. The seats are there: they were provided as a result of public agitation many years ago. But to sit down would be in some sort a black mark against the girl who sat. They may not sit, even when not serving. Will not the doctors speak? They know; and they know the evil results to future generations of this cruelty. Will they not say what should be done for the health of the shopgirls? Men, presumably, run the shops and are accountable for the standing girls and women. They are laymen, and perhaps they do not know or do not apply their knowledge. After all, it is the business of the shopping women. Perhaps some plain talking from the doctors might shock these supine women into action. There is a great deal of shop-serving which can be done just as well sitting as standing. Let the customers demand that their sisters the shopgirls shall have mercy shown to them. This is, happily, a humane country, and women should be the repositories of mercy and kindness and the gentler virtues. In some of the West-End shops I believe the assistants may sit down if not serving, but they are the exception. Let the more fortunately placed women see to it that these others are allowed to sit, that they do sit, that rest-rooms are provided for them at a time when they are not fit to serve all day. If they do not see to 153

Date of publication. It was published under the heading “A Word for Shopgirls”.

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this, then great is their responsibility and great is their shame. The case of the shopgirls is a reproach to our civilization and our Christianity.154 I am, Sir, your, &c., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

154

A letter in reply was in The Times, 11 July, from A. Larking, Secretary, Early Closing Association, stating that “as far as we can gather” the Shops Seats Act of 1900 was “being observed throughout the country”. He did not agree with Katharine’s final sentence.

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To Macmillan & Co. MS Reading. 14/4 Pembroke Crescent, W. 11. 15 July 1924 Dear Sirs, I am venturing to submit to you this story written by a young friend of mine, Peter Deane.155 I think it remarkably sincere & deeply felt, & I think it has power else I should not submit it to you. I hope you will think well of it. Believe me, dear Sirs, faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson Mr Deane is in the early twenties & of course, a beginner.

155

Macmillans did not publish anything by Pamela.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. 14/4 Pembroke Crescent, W. 11. 5 August 1924 My dear Clement, Thank you very much for sending the Sphere with the kind allusion to Pam, in your article on the Fitzgerald book.156 I wish you would do something like that about Memories. It would help the book enormously. We are feeling rather sad these days. Pat goes to South America on the 21 August for five years at least, a long time at my age. So I lose my two boys & Pam has all the responsibility of my old age & blindness. He made a hard fight to stay with me, but he had in the end to take employment where he could get it. Another great sadness for me is that Frank Mathew is dying of cancer rapidly, I hope.157 If the noblest courage & acquiescence could lift up so terrible a situation it is that. I am going to see him on Saturday. He writes about the most ordinary things & refuses to be pitted. What is going to happen in Ireland? These games seem pretty fatuous in the face of so harrowing a prospect. It is Nero fiddling with a vengeance. We can be certainly a very futile people at times. And the “distinguished guests”! Here there is no distinguished Irish they could ask that they must have Compton Mackenzie & Ezra Pound?158 We made a bad show before the world & give joy to all our enemies. I hope all goes well with you & the family. Perhaps this all hardly reaches you: because you will be taking your Summer holiday. ever affectionately yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson K.T.H.

156

Shorter’s “The Romance of Pamela”, Sphere, 2 August 1924 was an article on La Belle Pamela (Lady Edward Fitzgerald). Both Katharine and Pamela were mentioned in passing. 157 He died on 25 October 1924. 158 The Scottish novelist (Edward Montague) Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972).

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To Agnes Harold159 MS Shakespeare. 4

14 Pembridge Crescent, W.11. 4 September 1924 My dear Agnes Harold, I have been taking it that you have been or are on holiday with the children. If by any good chance you are back again or next week? I should like to see Mrs Baines so very much. Could you both come to tea or we will come to see you if you want us to. Ring us up if you are there. We go to Scotland on the 15th for a fortnight; and on about the 8th of October to Paramé where we have had a house lent to us for the Winter,160 so time is getting short. With love ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

159

I have been unable to identify her. Pré aux Clercs, Paramé Bretagne, France, home of Jessie Louisa Rickard (18761963), née Moore, widow of Lt. Col. Victor George Howard Rickard (1872-1915), 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, who was killed at Rue de Bois 9 May 1915. She published The Story of the Munsters at Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch in 1918. 160

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To Frank James Mathew MS Manchester. 4

14 Pembridge Crescent, W.11. 5 September 1924 My dear, I must send a line before Sunday intervenes. Agnes tells me you have a nurse now. I hope she is a very nice one though I fear she may forbid much letter-writing or reading. But perhaps she may not & may even read to you. Any[way] I shan’t stop my letters even if she forbids your answering them. I remember the Gamps of old: “If you read you’ll ave a bad ead.”161 Interestingly the head has not persisted. I was disturbed in this letter yesterday by Pat’s old friend Mrs Wedgewood arriving.162 I don’t think you know about Mrs Wedgewood. She had an adored son who was left behind at Gallipoli & never heard of again,163 & she has never recovered. There was a most amusing & touching friendship between her & Pat. He used to leave the things that should appeal to him & go off to dine with her coming home after midnight. She misses him. Imagine even more than I do. In a sense he took the place of her son. She is a Ross County old woman, very dominant but bullied by her servants & no young thing to defend her against them. She is spending her last years,—she is 68 in collecting the plants of these islands for his old school Marlborough to which she has already given a playing field to be called from [sic] her son.164 She fled before the Gurneys, nice convent gentlefolk who are our neighbours. Do you remember Lewis Hind?165 He came here the other day with his wife. Of all the insufferable egoists! He is a great admirer of Pam but she can’t bear him, because the war never touched him & he covers himself up by being a pacifist & because he does pass judgement on the young. She concedes that he wouldn’t have been much good even as a sandbag. We lunch with the Vansittarts to-morrow. We shall be talking of you. I 161

The nurse Mrs Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit. The botanist Mary Louisa Wedgwood (1854-1953). 163 2nd Lt. Allen Wedgwood (1893-1915), 8th Battalion. Northumberland Fusiliers, was killed on 19 August 1915 and his name is on the Helles Memorial, Gallipoli. 164 She had also published a Catalogue of the Wedgwood Herbarium: Now in the Possession of Marlborough College (Printed at the Arden Press: 1920). With a Preface by His Mother, Mrs. M. L. Wedgwood. This was a limited edition of twenty-five copies. The playing field called “Wedgwood” is still at Marlborough College, Wiltshire. 165 Charles Lewis Hind married Henriette Richardson Hitchcock in 1907. 162

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know how pleased he will be with your letter. You know we find a real affinity between Pity’s Kin & The Wood of the Brambles,166 & they have no other affinity. He is the gentlest person. I had a long letter from Toby this week which I am tempted to send on but I don’t want to give you too much to read. Very lonely poor boy, & longs for his mother. His wife will be here next week on her way to him. God love & bless you, my very dear: and my love to dear Agnes & the boys. Ever yours K.T.H.

166

Vansittart’s Pity’s Kin and Mathew’s book published in 1896.

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To Macmillan & Co. MS Reading. Pré aux Clercs, Paramé Bretagne, France167 15 February 1925 Dear Sirs, I should ask a guinea for use of this poem.168 I make it a rule to give free permissions to friends & authors like myself, but in the case of school-books I always receive a fee. faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

167

In a letter to Shorter, 16 September 1924 (Brotherton), Katharine writes: “We are being lent an old French farmhouse, fully furnished & with a good barn & a trout farm at Paramé Bretagne for the Winter & thither we trek sometime in October.” 168 This was in reply to a letter from Macmillan & Co., 11 February 1925, asking permission to reprint her poem “The Little Red Lark” in a reader for Australian schools.

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To Arthur Patterson Webb169 MS Vancouver. Pré aux Clercs, Paramé Bretagne, France 26 April 1925 Dear Mr Patterson Webb, To your questions I answer yes,—I have had your letter to me,—I am terribly blind,—and am not able to read it again myself.170 But you have any permissions you ask & there is no need to consult any publisher as the copyrights are all mine. Faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

169

The Presbyterian minister Arthur Patterson Webb (1889-1959) who compiled many anthologies and wrote devotional verses. 170 Despite this Katharine’s handwriting was quite legible at this period.

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To William Monk Gibbon171 MS Queen’s Kingston. Pré aux Clercs, Paramé, Ille et Vilaine, France 4 May 1925 My dear Billy, I have been having an agitated time & have been far too slow about answering your letter. It suddenly turned up [ink blot] that we shall be on the world with the child & his nurse in July, & that everything in these had been taken up long ago. I had one or two sleepless nights & then we made a wild journey to Southern Brittany to see an exquisite château where a lady of the old noblesse receives paying guests, but she had been filled up practically with last year’s visitors months ago. She is a poetess & I thought that might keep. Well, it did. We go there about the 22nd of June,—Château d’Arradon, près de Vannes,—as we were being evicted a month earlier than we anticipated. But we do not return from Cologne till about the 14th with only time to pack up. We expect to arrive in Paris Tuesday evening & be there Wednesday & go to Cologne at the Hotel des Hand,—the station hotel for the Cologne tram. If we could fix up a meal together on Wednesday lunch or dinner it would be nice. We should expect you to treat us! I am very glad the literary career progresses. I hope to tell you all our news. I hope Mary is happy with her little son.172 affectionately yours K.T.H.

171

The Irish poet and writer William Monk Gibbon (1896-1987). After leaving Oxford without a degree he served as a 2nd Lt. in the Royal Army Service Corps in France. He was invalided out of the Army in 1917 and taught in England before moving to Ireland to concentrate on a literary life. He edited The Poems of Katharine Tynan (Dublin: 1963). 172 Gibbon’s sister Mary Eleanor Gibbon (1899-1973) had married James Meredith (d.1931) a Merchant navy officer in July 1923 and they had a son Meredith.

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To Arthur St John Adcock MS Victoria. Château d’Arradon, Arradon, Morbihan, France 31 July 1925 My dear Mr Adcock, I know William Canton & I know his early work. I shall be glad to do the article,—and will send it in a few days so as to be in good time.173 I have none of his books with me, but I think I know enough to make the article. I had heard about him already from Mr Thompson of Boars Hill, Oxford,174 & had promised my small contribution wishing it might be much greater. The novels came all right & thank you so much I think Pam will portmanteau them for you with my signature. I can read hardly at all now, though I can see to write partly because I know what I’m reading. I can’t read what I’ve written without great difficulty. It has come quite suddenly, & I am cut off from my beloved newspapers, but I can still see the world though dimly. It is short sight which has suddenly gone, but I have expert promises that I shall have a little vision to the end. Anyhow there is diminution in my working powers. Did you do St John Ervin’s Parnell book?175 I should have asked you for that. Pam reads to me & so do other kind people. We hope to be back in London about October,—D.V. All affectionate regards ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

173

Katharine’s “William Canton”, Bookman, October 1925. The journalist, teacher and poet William Canton (1845-1926) was born on an island off the Chinese coast. After education in France he became a Protestant and moved to London. He later became editor of the Glasgow Weekly Herald. His main work is his five volume History of the British and Foreign Bible Society (1904-10). Katharine probably met him in 1891. The reason for an article was that Canton was approaching his eighty birthday. 174 The writer, Methodist minister and scholar Edward John Thompson (18861946) who was a friend of Canton. Thompson visited India and later published translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s works. 175 Parnell (1925) by the Irish playwright and writer St John Greer Ervine (18831971). It was not reviewed in the Bookman.

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To Desmond MacCarthy176 MS Texas. La Pensée, Avenue Duguay Trouin, Paramé, I et V [October 1925] Dear Mr Desmond McCarthy, I hope you will remember me & kindly. I am sending you a little book which is very near my heart, asking you if the book moves you as it has moved so many reviewers to help it to liver. It came out with a great flourish of trumpets & it has been warmly commended by such people as C. E. Montague, but the beast public remains unaware of it, going as usual after the husks of swine. But where are the bereaved of the War? Are they reading the Green Hat & its kind?177 The Victors, I will tell you in confidence is the story of my Pat & Michael Foster is a very living portrait of him. He was just saved from turning on the gas & he is now in a South American bank where he will make good if they don’t kill him with hard work. The hours are inhuman, but he doesn’t grumble. He has not yet got blasé with his job. He is tied up there for five years, without any holiday. The book is written by a friend who knew & loved him nearly as well as I do. The writer was 23 when the book was done. I see you are talking of books & being broadcasted. If you could talk of the Victors round about Armistice Day it would help the book enormously.178 Haig should have talked about it:179 it was a weapon to his head, but he has done nothing. I don’t feel that I ought not to ask you this. You will judge the book on its merits as you see therein. The last time we met I was a Sinn Fenian with reservations. I have been disillusioned since. AE’s second son has followed the first to India to a job under the Imperial Governor.180 Can I complain because Ireland has no place for my sons then? Both my boys have served in the War. Therefore they must have no part in Ireland. My elder boy is in Kenya on a 176

(Charles Otto) Desmond MacCarthy (1877-1952) was a journalist and literary critic. He married Mary Josepha Warre-Cornish (1882-1953) in 1906. Knighted in 1951. 177 Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat: a Romance for a Few People (1924). 178 The Victors (1925) writing as Peter Deane. This was Pamela’s reaction to the lack of help and consideration for the returning officers who were unable to find employment. 179 Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861-1928), 1st Earl Haig, Commander-in Chief of the British forces in the Great War. 180 Diarmuid Conor Russell (1902-73) went to India in September but moved to America in May 1929. AE’s first surviving son Brian Hartley Russell (b.1900) had been in India since 1922.

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Government job. Please remember me to Mrs McCarthy & I shall hope to have your commendation of the Victors for the sake of the young writer. With kind regards your very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson We expect to be in London about November for the Winter. I should like to think that we might meet.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. La Pensée, Avenue Duguay Trouin, Paramé, Ile et Vilaine, France 16 November 1925 My very dear Wilfrid, It is ages since I have heard from you. I did write to you from the chateau sometime during the Summer, but possibly you never got the letter, or I never got yours if there was one because we have been moving about so much. Now we are on the wing for London where we hope to be in a week or so. The address is 44 Pembroke Rd. Kensington W. One of the first people I hope to see is you, unless you at Greatham. I am not sure if the Granville Place flat is still yours, but we shall look for you there for news of you. I hope you are keeping well my dear other family. You will not recognize this as the writing you used to swear at. I know you will be sorry the hear I have had eye trouble more or less since last May which first took my reading from me, & for the last six or seven weeks my writing. You cam imagine what that means to me, but I have been under treatment with a very good occultist, & though I can still see only dimly, I have actually got back to work today. Fortunately you will say I have a typist who can decipher me at my worst, & as soon as I get back to England I shall set out to conquer the type-writer so I can compose on it, otherwise we are very well indeed, & Pam is becoming more & more of a help which is a splendid thing as naturally I shall be less & less in evidence. She really begun to earn, & she will make me quite solvent soon. This year she has got in so far about £250. I know how interested you will be in this, she is a dear good daughter & she seems no sign of leaving me. I should love to have all your news, & am hoping soon to receive it in person. With very much love always dear Wil frid Wilfrid your old friend K.T.H. I am not forgetting, dearest, the anniversary of the most precious most beloved most sainted of creatures.181

181

The letter was obviously dictated to Pamela with the postscript, remembering Alice, badly handwritten by Katharine.

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To Clement King Shorter MS Brotherton. 44 Pembroke Road, Kensington, W.8. 1 December 1925 My dear old Clement, We have just got back from France & I was thinking of writing to let you know of our return when last night at the Irish Literary Society’s dinner to W. B. Yeats I sat beside Garvin & he told me of your illness.182 I can hardly tell you how sorry I am that you have been suffering & how much I hope (and Pam hopes) that you will soon be well & about again. I have not been writing to Hester or I should have known. I have eye-trouble since last May though it only took a really troublesome form about two months ago. One often does not know how much one cares for this, or that friend till illness or misfortune comes. Anyhow we shall be happy to have good news of you. Take the affection & concern of both your friends K.T.H. & Pamela. When you are well enough for visiting I should like to come.

182

Yeats had come from Ireland for the dinner and stayed at the Knightsbridge Hotel, London. In a letter to Edmund Dulac, 18 November, before the dinner Yeats wrote that “It is a bore” (Yeats Letters). He returned to Dublin on 9 December. Shorter was suffering from a heart problem and he died on 19 November 1926.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. 44 Pembroke Road, Kensington, W.8. 26 February 1926 My very dear Wilfrid, Thank you so much for finding me the poem. You are such a dear angel. I hope you are keeping well, my dear. Isn’t the weather lovely? We are finding London remarkably expensive & may have to be off again. I feel like Padraic Colum’s “Old Woman of the Roads” praying for a little house of my own “out of the wind’s and rain’s way”,183 but it doesn’t come. Love to all the circle. ever your devoted K.T. Pam goes off to Chesterfield on Monday for a ten or twelve day rest. I hope she will come back better, London doesn’t suit her & she takes things desperately to heart. We met David in the street yesterday.184 Pam loves the Lucas children. I had wanted to know about Viola’s visit to the oculist, & about Olivia’s eyes. I hope she has seen Sir William Lister & forgotten the bogey man.185

183

“And I am praying to God on high, / And I am praying Him night and day, / For a little house—a house of my own / Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.” 184 David Lucas, son of Madeline Meynell. 185 The ophthalmic surgeon Sir William Lister, KCMG., KCVO (1868-1944) was from 1934 surgeon to the King. He was a nephew of the great Joseph Lister.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Furness, Naas, Co. Kildare186 11 July 1926 My beloved Wilfrid, I wish I could send you what it would make you happy. But I haven’t had my books for more than seven years; & I think it possible that one may have been sold. I sold a few books to Sothebys once when there was an economic crisis. If I find it when I get my books which may be in Autumn it shall [be] yours, but I am sadly afraid it may have gone. Dearest & best Wilfrid I fear the burden you have carried so goodly & bravely may be pressing. I send a fifth of my debt to you & wish I could send all. Pam’s complete run of bad luck last Winter has ended. She has had books accepted since we came here. No money yet but thank God the tide has turned. Do you remember Nicholas Synnott? Of course you do we are staying at his place for the Summer.187 He left his widow with very little money & a place too big for her to handle. The children are all grown up, two daughters married, the elder son at Oxford & too intellectual in his tasks to him to pull the place out of the economic mire. It is a lovely place & we are all thriving Mrs Synnott asks to be remembered to you. I hope all the children & grandchildren are well. My love goes to all your. I’ve been home once since but I seldom get a chance after my necessary work is done. There is always so much going on & relays of young men from Oxford all party lovers & tremendously keen to learn what I can tell them. There is a blessed chance of Pat’s being transferred to Europe. If that comes off & he is in London we shall set up an humble establishment near London. God bless you, my dear. You are managing the writing but not one word can I read. Happily my mind is well stored with poetry though I can’t remember peoples’ names. ever your devoted K.T. 186

The home of Barbara Louisa Mary Synnott (d.1953), née Netterville, widow of Nicholas Joseph Synnott (1856-1920) who was called to the Bar in 1879 and in 1918 became governor of the Bank of Ireland. Her son Pierce Nicholas Netterville Synnott (1904-82) was currently an undergraduate at Oxford. He later became Deputy Under-Secretary of Sate at the Ministry of Defence, 1964-5. Also staying at Furness was Synnott’s undergraduate friend the poet John Betjeman and Maurice Bowra, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and later its Warden. Katharine was looking for ghosts and she found one (Bevis Hiller, Young Betjeman, 1988, 198). Katharine’s account of this was in the Dublin Star, 11 August 1926, as “Haunted Fields: an Eerie Place in Ireland”. 187 The Georgian Platten Hall, Furness. Co. Kildare.

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To the Editor, Irish Times [Furness, Naas, Co. Kildare] 24 July 1926188 Sir, May I make a special appeal to your readers on behalf of the Irish Animals’ Protection League newly formed for the purpose of providing an animals’ hospital, dispensary, and ambulance for Dublin. The need is a worrying one. The League proposes to take medical care of all animals, however little and humble, including the domestic fowl. It deserves all the help we can give. It has met with much encouragement and sympathy at the start of its operations, but more is needed. It is proposed to start an animals’ dispensary as a first step as soon as a sum of £50 is in hand. It is hoped to hold a public meeting in September, when the League hopes greatly to increase its membership. Meanwhile, the Committee of the Dog Show, to be held at the Rotunda Gardens on Bank Holiday, August 2nd, have kindly permitted the League to provide lunches and teas with the object of helping the fund. Gifts in kind or money are earnestly solicited. The League asks for ham, roast beef, pressed beef or tongue, chickens, salad and all ingredients to make salad: eggs, butter, cheese, biscuit-cigarettes, mineral waters, etc. The gifts may be sent on or before Saturday, the 31st, to Miss Marie Schaffert, at 11 Molesworth street, Dublin, or consigned to her or the Honorary Secretary, Mrs. Warren Darley, at the refreshment tent, Rotunda Gardens, on Monday morning, the 2nd August, or to either of these two ladies at the various railway stations, in which latter case notification should be made to Miss Schaffert, at 11 Molesworth street, or Mrs. Warren Darnley, at 18 Northumberland road, Dublin. I appeal confidently to all those who love animals and have mercy in their hearts. The patient little brethren are waiting in pain. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

188

Published under the heading “Appeals and Subscriptions. An Appeal for Animals”, 26 July 1926. Katharine was a member of the Irish Animals’ Protection League and she opened a sale of work in aid of the League on 2 November in Dublin.

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To the Royal Literary Fund189 MS RLF. 44 Pembroke Road, Kensington, W.8. 22 Dec[ember 1926] Dear Sir, Miss May Sinclair & Mrs Belloc Lowndes sent in an application for a grant from your funds last spring. I did not understand that an accompanying letter from myself was necessary.190 I do not quite know what kind of statement you require. I suppose it is hardly necessary to make any statement of my literary claim. The special need for my making the application has arisen out of eye trouble which took place a year ago when a blood vessel burst behind the only eye I have to work with causing the retina to slip. I have a certificate from Sir William Lister who examined me. All reading has been dead to me since & writing is a matter of extreme difficulty. There are many days when I can not write at all. Following this I had a second burst of a blood vessel in the body this time, last September since which time I have hardly received the strength to work. I all be sixty eight next month & have no help from any quarter. My daughter is beginning to write but is at present dependent on me & very much occupied reading to me etc & correcting, all of which I am unable to do for myself. I have also a grandson of five years old dependent on me. I may add that all my reviewing & journalistic work has dwindled to disappearance because of my inability to read. If there is any further statement you wish me to make I will do so. I have no means of living or supporting my dependents other than my daily work & my two who would have to be able to help me are earning a precarious livelihood, one in S. America & one in B. E. Africa, as the result of the unemployment for soldiers after the war. yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson I was crippled by the unemployment to which I have referred, the long unemployment of one son after the War.

189 190

The letter was dictated to Pamela and signed by Katharine. She dictated a letter on 4 January 1927 with Pamela signing as her mother.

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To the Royal Literary Fund MS RLF. 44 Pembroke Road, Kensington, W.8. 11 January 1927 Dear Sir, Would you please put it before your Committee that my heart has gone a little out of working since the influenza that I have done no work for a month & that my doctor Mr Huxley has put me off work for an indefinite period; this is a serious matter for me without depending on work from day to day.191 yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

191

Katharine wrote again on 13 January thanking the RLF for a cheque, although she did not mention the amount of £125.

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To the Editor, The Times192 Dalkey, Co. Dublin All Souls’ Day [2 November 1927] Sir, Your most moving and eloquent leading article on the disaster to the West of Ireland fishermen will be read with deep appreciation in Ireland.193 It may not be inopportune to recall to your readers that these were the fishermen who, in circumstances of the greatest peril to themselves, went out in their currachs and rescued some of the crews of the Welsh trawlers who were wrecked off that terrible coast. The Welsh trawlers were taking the bread out of their mouths, but with the unconsciousness and generosity of children these splendidly brave men went to their rescue and saved many lives. The details will be fresh in the minds of your readers. The waves were said to be 100ft high when one man in a frail canvas currach carried a line to one of the boats of the lost trawlers. Like generous children, they rejoiced over the lives they had saved, giving their own scanty food and clothing to the rescued men, warming them by their cabin fires, lighting bonfires in the streets of Clifden to signalize their rejoicing. “They mothered us”, said one of the rescued men. Sir, I add no comment. Such great things shine down the ages. One of the drowned men had been recommended for the V.C. at Zeebrugge. May I add that the gracious sympathy and material help of their Majesties will be greatly appreciated in Ireland? Yours, &c., Katharine Tynan

192

Published under the heading “The Galway Fishermen” on 4 November 1927. “A Galway Tragedy”, The Times, 1 November 1927. There was also a report, “51 Fishermen drowned. Distress on Irish Coast”, The Times, 1 November 1927.

193

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To the Editor, Irish Times Dalkey, Co. Dublin 16 April 1928194 Sir, Yesterday morning, as I went to Mass, I saw children round about twelve years of age, collecting for Fianna Fail.195 They were outside the precincts of the church. Children very much younger than these have held up collecting cards and boxes to me elsewhere. If it is not Fianna Fail or the language or Ireland’s dead, it is some charity. The children are usually in poor circumstances. It is difficult to believe that any responsible persons or body of persons can entrust these children with the collection of money. Even if the collection could be checked, it would still be a most unwise proceeding. I should like to know if it is legal to expose children to such temptation and danger to health. It was piteous to see the children standing yesterday morning in the bitter North wind. In England, I know, street-trading by children is illegal. Street-trading by children is at least objectionable. If there is not a law against it, is not reform urgently called for? If there is a law, will not the police be instructed to put it into operation?196 Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

194

Published under the heading “Child Collectors”, 17 April 1928. The Republican Party of Ireland was founded in 1926 and became the government in 1932 under Eamon de Valera. 196 A leader in the Irish Times of the same date supported Katharine’s views. 195

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To John Betjeman197 MS Washington. 12 Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington W.8198 16 June 1928 My dear John Betjeman, Pamela and I are at this address till August. I hope you will come to see us if ever you are in London. Our telephone number is Western 2788. Please suggest a day & hour if you can come. With kind regards ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson I hope you are happier.

197

The poet John Betjeman (1906-84) was teaching at Thorpe House prep school after being sent down from Magdalen College, Oxford, for failing the divinity examination. He returned to Oxford in the Michaelmas term but was finally sent down in December. There is no evidence that he visited Katharine. 198 In a letter to Wilfrid Meynell, 2 June 1928 (Greatham), Katharine writes that “Pam and I are here for three months” and “We are in a little flat”.

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To the Editor, Irish Times London 21 August 1928199 Sir, May I implore the promoters of charity fêtes and the like to keep donkey races out of their programme? These promoters, I am sure, never mean to be cruel. They only look upon the outward laughableness of the Donkey Derby or donkey polo, or whatever it may be; but there is another side to such laughableness. I would plead the donkey’s side. The thoughtless people who look on and laugh do not realise the cruelty. Donkeys are most unfitted for such sport, and the zeal of their riders may have deplorable results. At a fête for a charitable purpose in England not long ago one of the riders was discovered in the act of stabbing his poor mount with a large safety pin. That incident should have made donkey races impossible for the future. The ass carried the Saviour of us all, not once but twice; yet the saints and gentle souls have pleaded for him too often in vain with Christian people through the ages. These things are done in ignorance, I am sure. I pray that donkey races may be made illegal by our good Government at no distant date. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

199

Published under the heading “Donkey Races”, 23 August 1928.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. 26 Queens Gate Terrace, S.W.7 15 October 1928 My dearest Wilfrid, We are so distressed at missing you when you called: by about ten minutes. We went to look for you at 12 St Mary Abbot Terrace—hoping you might be there but, alas, it was the wrong number & we came home sadly. We go off to-morrow morning to Ireland. Pamela is gone to see Verdun on the films and I am feeling the chillness of a hotel bedroom & a move:200 I am glad I did not find my warm welcome at our visit, though there is a unique one, run by two most charming soft-voiced daughters of an Irish mother & I think you would like them handsomely. Pamela has not been very happy. She has had a cold & her book has been doubly regretted by England & America having stretched her on the rack for three months.201 Her poor opinion of herself was lifted last night meeting Maurice Greiffenhagen again.202 He went over her looks & was for painting straight off, while he kept saying that he could even do her book justice. Au revoir my dearest Wilfrid. Old love like ours needs nothing to keep it alive. ever yours K.T.H.

200

The French silent film (1928) about the battle for Verdun in 1916. Not identified. 202 The British portrait painter Maurice William Greiffenhagen (1862-1931) did not appear to have painted Pamela. 201

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Katharine to Wilfrid Meynell 17 November 1928

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

To the Editor, Irish Times

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Leixlip, Co. Kildare203 25 November 1928204

Sir, While awaiting the establishment of village clubs, which I hope may come soon, is it not a matter of pressing necessity to get under cover the unemployed men who unhappily abound in all our villages and towns? Bound together by a common misfortune, they stand all day in rain and wind at street-corners and such places. There will be an abundant crop of deaths from pneumonia and other diseases this winter if these men do not receive some shelter. We are too oblivious of common human comfort in Ireland. Would it not be easy in every village to provide a room and a fire for these men? The winter streets are probably a more congenial place for them than the crowded tenements of the unemployed poor. A very little charity on the part of individuals would provide this merciful shelter. A few newspapers, some books from our surplus store, a table and a few chairs would be all that is needed. I plead just for a cover for them. In the towns it would be a larger question, but I leave that to the towns themselves. How can we go well-clothed and well-fed this winter while these unfortunates, ill-clad and ill-fed, are under the wind and weather? Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

203

Katharine and Pamela moved here on 28 October 1928 (Katharine to Wilfrid Meynell, 10 October 1928, Texas). 204 Published under the heading “Unsheltered Men”, 28 November 1928.

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To the Editor, Saturday Review [Leixlip House, Co. Kildare, Ireland] 19 January 1929205 Sir, The Irish Statesman is the only Irish weekly which combines an independent survey of public affairs with the informed and authoritative criticism of Irish scholarship, literature and art. In discharging this public function a severe and searching review, by a proved scholar, of a recent publication has exposed the writer and editor to an action for libel in which matter of such intricate and technical nature was submitted to the jury that the trial of the action ran into a third week, and made necessary the production of the highest expert evidence at home and abroad. Witnesses attended in defence of the paper and its reviewer of the high character and authority of Sir Richard Terry, Mr. Herbert Hughes, Mr. Martin Freeman, Mr. Arthur Darley, Professor Osborn Bergin, Professor O’Rahilly, Mr. Risteard O’Foghludha and Mr. Denis Cox. The defendants’ costs of the trial will not be less than £2,500; and this expenditure, which has been forced upon the paper as much in the public interest as in its own, jeopardizes its existence. If the Irish Statesman goes down under this sudden and exceptional burden an instrument of high utility to the country perishes. Criticism is of the essence of scholarship: if the incessant and, where necessary, rigorous testing of each fresh contribution to Irish thought and scholarship in all departments be not courageously maintained, there can be no advance in scholarship or science, and our country will stagnate. Believing this, and confident that it is most undesirable to permit an independent weekly of the standing of the Irish Statesman to go out of existence, the signatories of this letter, representing divergent opinions in Ireland, appeal to the thinking public to join them in coming to the aid of the paper and reviewer by helping to defray part of their costs.206 We are, etc., [twenty names, including Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Lynd, two Irish Senators, and Katharine Tynan Hinkson]207

205

Publication date under the heading “The Irish Statesman”. Seamus Clandillon and his wife sued for libel in a review of their book Londubh an Chairn by Donal J. O’Sullivan. They won with costs on 1 February 1929 and the paper ceased publication with the issue of 12 April 1930. 207 This letter had been published in the Irish Times, 12 January 1929, as a statement. 206

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To the Editor, Irish Times Leixlip, Co. Kildare 16 February 1929208 Sir, Would it not be desirable to present a petition to the Dail, asking for legislation to protect our birds, to make penal the use of bird-lime, and to put a stop to the nefarious traffic in song-birds between this country and Great Britain?209 Everyone who cares for the honour and credit of Ireland, as well as for her beauty, will sign. Is it not high time to put a stop to practices which give us the reputation, in other countries, of being a cruel and uncivilised people? We do not deserve this evil reputation. Why should we lie under it, that pockets of some people may receive ill-gotten gains? I would not give a fig for the Christianity, the morality, of these birdtakers. Farmers should be on their guard. They have long been accepting, encouraging the extirpation of their best friends. Something should be done also to prevent well-meaning people from imprisoning song-birds in small cages. Let the wild things go free as God made them. Let us not our Ireland be songless, but rather a paradise of birds. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan

208

Published under the heading “The Protection of Birds”, 18 February 1929. A letter in reply, signed Edna Power, published on 19 February, noted that such a petition was presented to the Minister for Justice in May 1927 by the Irish Society for the Protection of Birds and that this petition would taken into account in the Wild Birds (Protection) Amendment Bill.

209

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To Elizabeth Alice Blond210 MS Morris. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin211 13 April 1929 Dear Mrs LeBlond, I wish I could come to your luncheon party on May 8 but we are here awaiting the return of a much beloved son after a five year exile in South America. I fear I shall not see London this Summer though my daughter may pay some visits. I should have loved to come. Thank you very much & the Anglo French Club. With kind regards & good wishes yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

210

The Irish-born Elizabeth Alice Frances Hawkins-Whitshed (1860-1934) was married to her third husband Francis Bernard Aubrey Le Blond: her previous husbands having been killed on active service. She climbed Mont Blanc twice and was the first president of the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1907. She travelled extensively and wrote on mountaineering. In 1907 she founded the Anglo-French Luncheon Club within the Lyceum Club and then independently in 1909. During the War she worked in hospitals in France and raised funds for the British Ambulance Committee and after the war for the restoration of Rheims Cathedral. She received the Legion of Honour in 1933. 211 The house was owned by the Irish civil servant Andrew Reginald Gerald Bonaparte-Wyse (1870-1940) who was educated in England and heavily involved in the education systems of Ireland and also Northern Ireland.

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To the Editor, Irish Times Blackrock, Co. Dublin 30 May 1929212 Sir, I visited the other day one of the two playgrounds provided for poor children in Dublin. I except St. Stephen’s Green, as not coming quite under the heading. At four o’clock in the afternoon I saw the children pour into the civic playground. It is an oasis from the dangers of the streets, but an arid oasis, although flowers have been planted there. The children had no fault to find with it. They came tumbling in, the long families down to the baby. One saw the strange tenderness of the elder children—boys as well as girls—to their babies. The children loved the playground which was their own. Set between the houses of the mean streets, it had a prevailing aridness and greyness, despite the flowers; but the children were happy. I had seen the playground before in, I think, the winter of 1921. The improvement in the children is miraculous. It is of a piece with the brightening, the civilisation, which has come amazingly to Dublin and its suburbs. Good lighting, clean streets, lovely gardens, bright housefronts have taken the place of the dinginess of old. I had seen the children eight years ago, deplorably neglected and ill-clad. In some the nakedness was barely covered by a man’s old coat slung round the little body by the sleeves. It was terrible. Now the children were, in the main, clean and tidy. They looked beautifully healthy. They were friendly. They were practising the folk-dances for the féte to be held in Lord Iveagh’s garden next month.213 It was splendid to see the strength and grace of the little dancers. This playground movement deserves more support than it has ever received in Dublin, where we are strangely careless of the child life of the tenements. There is no grant for the playgrounds, and there are only two of them, both on the North side of the city. There is Merrion square, which might well hold a playground within it, without infringing on the privileges of dwellers in the square, which is fast ceasing to be a residential place, and houses, I imagine, few children. One remembers Germany and the lovely and flowery kindergartens within the parks, wherever a waste spot is to be found. Kensington Gardens is an example nearer home. The children’s playground at Notting Hill Gate entrance immediately absorbs the poor children. There is no question of an inhuman 212

Published under the heading “Letters to the Editor. Children’s Playgrounds”, 31 May 1929. 213 Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1967). The annual Folkdance Festival of the Women’s National Health Association was held on 29 June 1929.

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segregation, but quite naturally the children of a different class are to be found with their nurses at the south side of the gardens. Fitzwilliam square, Rutland square, could well have, I think, children’s playgrounds. Unfortunately our noble Phoenix Park is beyond the reach of little feet that very often carry the burden of another child as well as the owner. There is Mountjoy square, too; but Dublin is singularly deficient in open spaces and selfish in holding what she has. Again one harks back to Germany, remembering how, on a fine day, all the busy mothers were out with their embroidery and needlework in the flowery spaces where the children played. If that were possible in Dublin, what a boon it would be to those patient and heroic women, sometimes confined with a husband and children within one narrow and airless room! The civic playground has a long shed against the wet weather. If there was a corner for the women, flowers at their feet, what fresh air there might be circulating about them, what it would mean of health and refreshment! Voluntary workers are needed for the playground. The children require to be taught how to do things. How can they learn in the narrow tenement? There is a deplorable garden by the civic playground, set amid broken walls and refuse of one kind or another. I remember potatoes and cabbage there in 1921, and boys digging. There is none now. Are there no leisured people, loving and understanding gardens, to show them the way; and cannot some of the unemployed boyhood be used in such gardens? We have plenty of waste spaces which might become gardens. The love of a garden would be a most efficient prophylactic against hooliganism. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Alister William Mathews214 MS Delaware. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 11 July 1929 Dear Mr Mathews, I did review Billy Gibbon’s book in the Bookman I think215 and I should very much like to have a little volume of poems brought out by you. I have just been hunting for a book in which I should find the poems of the last couple of years stuck in, but so far it has eluded me. When I find it I shall hope [to] write again. You brought out the Branch beautifully.216 I should leave all matters concerning the format to you. I should like Billy Gibbon’s address on a postcard, if you have it—moving about a good deal I have mislaid it. Believe me yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

214

The printer and language teacher Alister William Mathews (1907-85). Mathews and Gibbon were friends. Mathews had suggested a small book but his Diaries at the BL give no mention. 215 Katharine’s review of Gibbon’s The Tremulous String (1926), Bookman, December 1926. She also reviewed Gibbon’s The Branch of Hawthorn Tree (1927) in the Bookman, April 1928. 216 E. D. L. Branch’s Poems was published by E. Mathews & Marrot in 1927. Edwin D. L. Branch (1905-70) .

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To William Monk Gibbon MS Queen’s Kingston. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 19 July 1929 My dear Billy, It is most kind of you to send me the book which arrived this morning.217 I can’t sample it for Pamela is in England. She has been away nearly a month & will be back I hope within a fortnight. I have a long letter of yours but in our last move here mislaid it. Now that my eyes are infirm I find it very hard to keep my papers in anything like order. But perhaps you see a great improvement in my writing I went to Dr Pagenstecher at Wiesbaden last Autumn218 & he did a lot for me though I can’t read written large print things like potboilers and instalments. How are you & Winifred,219 very happy, I hope. I must tell you that poor Toby’s marriage went on the rocks. I know you never liked the lady. She should never have been a wife or a mother. Toby is in London now doing salesmanship & she is in Dublin doing an occasional Noel Coward play! She has taken Michael away with no obligation for my being due money for him, for four years. Poor Toby! You liked him. The result of this trouble is to have made him most gentle & sweetly reasonable. Now about the poems,—mine, I mean.220 Yours have to wait till Russell comes but I shall ask the Bookman for it. I should love you to select them but W. B. Yeats had said he would do it when I could produce the books.221 It was an 217 Monk Gibbon’s For Daws to Peck At, which Katharine reviewed in the Bookman, October 1930, remarking

Mr Monk Gibbon is a young poet who has rapidly perfected his art. It was not such an art as comes at first stumbling and incoherent, and arrives at clarity and certainty. He may have discarded of course, but I cannot remember a poem or volume of poems of his which was without his quiet force and distinction. 218

The oculist Dr Hermann Pagenstecher (1844-1932), of the famous eye hospital in Wiesbaden, was an internationally recognised expert on degenerative eye diseases. 219 Mabel Winifred Dingwall (1904-89) had married William Monk Gibbon the previous year. 220 Katharine’s Collected Poems (1930) with a foreword by AE. Katharine sent an inscribed copy: “To Wilfrid Meynell for love & friendship without a break. Katharine Tynan September 30th 1930”. 221 Yeats declined to edit the proposed book owing to pressure of work (Yeats Letters, 27 September 1929).

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old compact. AE also thought he would like to do them.222 It has all been held up because my books are stored. I don’t know that any one else has all the books. Perhaps I shall come to you in the end. I am sure you would do them beautifully. We came I was so pleased about Alister Mathews commissioning me for a book. I feel I owe it to you. He said he wanted new poems. I can’t find the books in which I stuck my poems as they were printed. It is already [illegible words]. But I think it would be better almost to have a selection from other books. I had a book published by Basil Blackwell two years ago223 & really have not written very much since. I sometimes think my best volumes were Innocencies, Experiences. I think it was my best produced. No one remembers the poems now & the books are out of print. I am always represented by “Sheep & Lambs”.224 Why, Heaven knows. Do you ever come to Ireland. It’s allowed a lot. The people lovely & gracious and a great middle class,—what Pam calls the new smarties who pull oars through powers with commonsense. Crowds of consuls & diplomatic persons. There is a certain atmosphere of [illegible] for those who were in the I.R.A., which is perhaps natural as they won it without assistance from us. All affectionate regards to you both. I shall [illegible] the book very dearly. ever your friend Katharine Tynan Hinkson

222

Monk Gibbon made the selection. Twilight Songs (Oxford: 1927). 224 Katharine’s poem “Sheep and Lambs” was first published in her Ballads and Lyrics. It is better known by the first line “All in the April evening” and has been set to music by many composers. 223

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To Alister William Mathews MS Delaware. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 22 July 1929 Dear Mr Mathews, If I am unable to find the old poem book that contains actually only some poems of the last two years,—would you care [for] a selection from the early & not all books. You know I published altogether 20 or more little volumes & the poems, except those of which anthologists make a choice for each other would be quite new to the present generation. I have not written much poetry since Basil Blackwell published Twilight Songs in ’27. I think my best during the first decade of this century. What do you think? I should make the selection with an eye to your approval consulting perhaps AE. Would you like a Foreword from him or W. B. Yeats? How many poems? His are usually half lyrics. Kind regards yours very sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To W. B. Yeats MS Berg. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 24 July 1929 My dear Willie, I do not dare to let loose this lady on you at Coole.225 She is a very charming Dutch lady, a Doctor of Laws or something of that sort & she is doing precisely what Father [illegible] is doing i.e. writing a book on the Anglo-Irish Literary movement.226 I don’t think she knows that Lady Gregory is at Coole, but if you are to receive her it would double the favour that she would meet Lady Gregory.227 I hope Mrs Yeats & the children are well & that you have benefitted greatly by the French doctor’s treatment. Believe my visiting after Dr Pagenstecher’s treatment. ever your affectionate old friend & asking to be remembered to Lady Gregory & George Katharine Tynan Hinkson

225

Coole Park was the home of Lady Gregory. Margrieta Beer had been doing some research at the British Museum (Yeats to George Yeats, 26 July 1929, Yeats Letters). 227 In a letter of 26 July to Lady Gregory (Berg) Katharine writes 226

It is most kind of you and W.B. The nice Dutch lady will be overjoyed. It is so kind to include me in the invitation. It would be a privilege: But my daughter is away till August the 8th. I go nowhere without her.

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 22 August 1929 My dearest Wilfrid, I have been wanting to write you a long letter. It is nearly a year now since we went off to Wiesbaden. I have been thinking about you & about dear Olivia who did not write to tell me how her eyes are: but indeed I eventually think of you & wish we not so far asunder. I have not been across the Channel this year though Pamela went over for some visits she would have made her way to Greatham if she could. I hope you are having some sun over there: here it rains & rains I am afraid it has rained in your heart all Summer, but at least in Heaven it does not rain. It is life that is troublesome. I am so afraid that Mary Saleeby’s marriage which we saw in the Times may be another trouble for you.228 We here had rather a sad Summer although not as sad as yours. Poor Toby came home from Kenya suddenly in the year, having been imprudent enough to give up his job. He has very bad luck in his marriage. She left him as soon as they came home without any warning which was hardly to be regretted as she has been a very unfortunate influence in his life. Of course at 23 he married a girl who [was] quite irresponsible & took her to Kenya where even normal reason may go by the board; Toby has been practically unemployed since coming home though he has been working on commission. He earned his first £20 this week only to discover when he went to receive the amount that the man’s health—(it was insurance) was not quite satisfactory & the insurance though not turned down had to go to Canada for a decision. A very good friend of mine who is a business man is looking after Toby. He thinks he should go to America in October with some people who have undertaken to place him, & I must submit unless a change comes in his fortunes in the meantime. I only tell you this because you might be able to give some introductions in New York. At most he’s saved his character & personality. He is really rather charming & very gentle. His wife who is with her mother in Dublin, or was for a time has taken away the little grandson with not so much as a thank you for the years in which I did everything for him & she took no notice of him at all. Dearest Wilfrid,— isn’t this a gloomy [?crash]? And you have so much to bear yourself! But you will know that I am keeping a stiff upper lip. We both miss the child very much & he must miss us for we are his home & parents but I have not 228

Monica Mary Meynell had married Dr Caleb Williams Saleeby on 24 June 1903 and the marriage eventually broke down. The Times announcement of 31 July 1929 was that Caleb Saleeby had married Muriel Gordon the previous day.

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had any touch with him for a long time now. We expected Pat this Autumn but he decided to stay on for another eight months, so we shall not have him till next May otherwise we are well & hard at work. Happily I didn’t lose the capacity nor the joy in work. I busy at endless novels & articles while waiting for Pamela to catch on. If she had caught on & there was no longer a need for me [rest of the letter is missing]

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To Alister William Mathews MS Delaware. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 27 August 1929 Dear Mr Mathews, I am waiting on Billy Gibbon to send you the selection of poems. He took the volumes to Donegal with him a month ago;—I am not sure where he is now. I can’t ask W. B. Yeats to do the Introduction without placing the poems before him: he may wish to add or take away. I shall get on with all expedition as soon as I receive the selection from B.G. All kind regards your sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson

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To Wilfrid Meynell MS Texas. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 23 December 1929 My dearest Wilfrid, Dear Olivia has written me the sad news about your eyes. It is just what happened to me, only I hope that your case may be much less serious. Pamela’s friend & your namesake General Meynell had the same thing happen to him.229 The eye recovered within six months. I don’t know what treatment he had. My French oculist treated me with injections of mercury to absorb the blur. Have you had that treatment? Dr Pagenstecher said to me when I went to him that he could have done more for me if I had gone earlier. I hope you will go to him. Robert Vansittart said once that he was the only oculist in Europe long before I ever thought I should go to him. I cannot bear to think of your losing out of from your reading & writing. He did wonders for me, don’t you think? though he did not as he hoped give me back the promise of reading; but I also send my letters even they are very illegible & that is a problem born. We both send very dear love & sympathy to you. We are all well & busy this Christmas. D.G. and bless you, my dearest Wilfrid. ever your devoted K.T.

229

Brigadier General Godfrey Meynell (1871-1943).

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To the Editor, Irish Times Blackrock, County Dublin 16 January 1930230 Sir, On next Tuesday, the 21st of January, there will be a meeting at the Mansion House at 4 o’clock, convened by the Society for the Protection of Wild Birds and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The intention is to call attention to the fact that a bill for the protection of wild birds, which has already passed the Senate, will be before the Dail this session, and to give the promoters of the bill all the support that intelligent public opinion can bring. Your readers already know what is involved— for instance, the great cruelty of trapping the birds with bird-lime. Statements upon this particular form of cruelty have been made in the Press so often that I need not repeat them. We ask that the use of bird-lime be made illegal, with the use of maimed or blind birds as decoys, and the confining of wild birds in cages so narrow that they cannot stretch their wings. Other clauses of the bill ask for protection of birds useful to farmers, urge the provision of bird sanctuaries, and ask that the export of such birds as the goldfinch to England, where their capture is prohibited, be made illegal. I remember a songless valley in Italy, where one trembling bird twittered and fled for refuge to the graveyard of the Frate high on the hillside, as though it flew to St. Francis for protection. In Ireland there have been sickening cruelties inflicted on these little minstrels of the good God, Who surely remembered His world when he placed them in our gardens and groves. One remembers William Blake:— A robin redbreast in a cage Sets all Heaven in a rage.231 One wonders what Heaven thinks of the bird-limers, the wanton destruction of beautiful bird life for a little mean gain. The ignorance which confines the free wings in a cage is to be deplored. It is often not culpable ignorance. If Ireland is to be empty of her song birds, as seems likely enough unless they receive protection, we must bear the stigma of being a dull and cruel people, and the mass of us will not have deserved it. I believe that we may be only supine to bring about the is wrong and sin. Again, it is licensing time for dogs. These are days when the lover of his kind and country may well go heavy-hearted and be ashamed. There is an abominable custom of “stray” dogs to avoid paying the licence. There 230 231

Published under the heading “Birds and Dogs”, 17 January 1930. William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”.

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is no more piteous thing than a strayed dog. These satellites of man depend so utterly on man’s countenance and companionship. Poverty may be pleaded, and such dire poverty as exists in Dublin may well excuse many things. On remembers again William Blake— “A dog starved at his master’s gate Predicts the ruin of the state.”232 William Blake was a seer as well as a poet. People who are too poor to pay a licence for their dogs should take them to the Dogs’ Home, or to one of the various dispensaries for sick animals of the poor in the city, where, if homes cannot be found them, they may be painlessly put to sleep. In the country a kind-hearted veterinary surgeon (and in my experience veterinary surgeons are always kind) may be willing to give the poor dog his quietus if need be. I think that it might be possible to add to our many charities one for paying the licence of a dog valued by the owner who yet cannot afford the money for the licence. From a purely selfish point of view the presence in our midst of these deserted and half-demented dogs may be a grave menace. I plead with the animal lover that, if he has an outhouse or some such place, he should put in a bed of straw, and, if he finds a lost and starving dog, take it in. If the dog is not too miserable a specimen, it is not difficult to find a home for him. At the worst he can ensure that the poor dog has a happy ending. I feel that such a mercy must bring a blessing in its train—and I may add that I care nothing for the humanity of that man or woman who loves his or her dog, but is indifferent to the fate of all other dogs with the same capacity for devoted love and service. Yours, etc., Katharine Tynan Hinkson

232

“Auguries of Innocence”.

572

V. Aftermath

To the Editor, The Times Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin [April 1930]233 Sir, A great many of your readers will learn with regret that The Irish Statesman will cease publication with the issue for April 12.234 The calamity this will be for reasoned and educated opinion in Ireland can hardly be overestimated. It has been something to stand by in the unreason and turmoil of the last decade in Ireland. There have been certain newspapers and reviews which, however ably and faithfully served by others, have mirrored the personality genius of one man. On need not go very far back. There was Hutton of the Spectator, Henley of the National Observer, others…they were one-man papers. The personality of AE is unique. When he passes, there will not be his like left. A lifelong friend may say of him that she believes there was not one action of his life uninfluenced by the ideal. he has kept his light burning through the murky years. I have heard the cynical person say of him:—“The only man who has never hated”. He has certainly never hated his kind; though he has hated meanness, folly, dullness, hypocrisy, insincerity, cruelty, all the vices; but he has loved his fellow men and found good in them, loved all creation indeed. What the disappearance of such an influence in a country for which the issues have been clouded by the smoke and fire of war means can hardly be over-rated. The Irish Statesman was never feeble. It struck many a stout blow; but it was incredibly tolerant. We are an intolerant people, or those of us who are vocable are intolerant. There are always the quiet patient people behind. The Irish Statesman was an organ in which anyone whose opinions were worthy of respect was free to air them. If one could err on the side of over-tolerance, perhaps AE so erred. But as an editor and a man he has the greatest love of liberty. We in Ireland may have arrived at loving liberty for ourselves, but are unwilling to concede it to other people. No man ever so loved liberty. The Irish Statesman was the cradle of young poets and writers in Ireland. One feels very sorry for them, dispossessed like the birds when a great tree is cut down. Public opinion, always narrowly represented in Ireland, will suffer by its disappearance; it is a poor way of saying it. AE’s notes and articles in The Irish Statesman kept public opinion steady in Ireland. Where now will opinion, other than party and political, be heard? 233

Published as “The Irish Statesman” 2 April 1930. The Irish Statesman ran from September 1923 to 12 April 1930. It was edited by AE. 234

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

573

When two friends and contributors found in this week’s issue of The Irish Statesman the pathetic bit of typescript announcing its forthcoming dissolution they looked at each other in silence. It was the news of a death to be—the death of something noble and beneficent. I am, Sir, yours, etc., Katharine Tynan

574

V. Aftermath

To Edmund Blunden235 TLS Texas. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 4 April 1930 Dear Mr Blunden, Will you give me a copy of UNDERTONES OF WAR autographed for sale for the benefit of the poor Irish ex-servicemen who are in a bad way being nobody’s children? We are holding a big fête this summer under the auspices of the Irish branch of the British Legion, to raise money for them and I am responsible for the book stall.236 I am making a feature of the books of those who had a stake in the War, and who have written of it. I should be so grateful, and please, may an old poet express her admiration of the work of a young one? I have sent UNDERTONES OF WAR to one of my two young soldiers who was exiled to South America by unemployment after the War. faithfully yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson237

235

Edmund Charles Blunden (1896-1974), poet and critic. He served in the Great War and won the MC. After the Great War he went up to Oxford but left without taking a degree and turned to journalism. He then became professor of English at the Imperial University of Tokyo where he started work on Undertones of War, an account of his experiences. He returned to England and in 1931 was a tutor, later Fellow, at Merton College, Oxford and then professor of English. 236 The Donnybrook Fair in aid of the British Legion of Ex-Servicemen was held from 12 to 14 June 1930 in the grounds of the house of the 2nd Earl Iveagh in Dublin. Katharine wrote to many writers asking for donations of any of their books. The book stall was organised by Lady Maddock and Mrs Goodbody. See letters below. 237 Signed by Katharine.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

575

To Edmund Blunden MS Texas. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 13 April 1930 Dear Mr Blunden, Thank you for so lovely a letter behind which one can see the man who wrote the books. Your letter is my property & I shall love to have it. The book will go to the sale. Thank you so much for being interested about the collection. I hope to get Methuen & Sherriff & have written to Siegfried Sassoon, A. P. Herbert, Arnold Zweig.238 Would you add to your great kindness by suggesting a few I should add. I don’t want the lurid ones who seem to me,—I don’t read them for I am practically in the dark And the to defame the dead. I wonder if you know a little book called The Victors by Peter Deane. It was published before the rush of War books & sent many people to the [illegible]. I am Peter Deane’s mother. Again, thank you so much. ever yours gratefully Katharine Tynan Hinkson

238

It is not clear to which Methuen Katharine is referring. The Great War poet and writer Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), known for his Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930). The writer Robert Cedric Sherriff (1896-1975) whose experiences as a serving officer in the Great War led to his well-known play Journey’s End (1928). Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-19710) left Oxford and served as an officer in the Royal Navy Division being wounded and returned home in 1917. He recounted his experiences of Gallipoli in the novel The Secret Battle (1919). He later became an MP and was knighted in 1945. The German writer Arnold Zweig (1887-1968) served as a private and his experiences as a Jewish soldier led to him becoming a pacifist. He published his anti-war novel The Case of Sergeant Grischa in 1927. After living in Palestine he lived in East Germany.

576

V. Aftermath

To Oliver St John Gogarty MS Stanford. Herbert Lodge, Blackrock 24 April 1930 My dear Oliver Gogarty, It was most kind of you to give me the lovely poems with such an honouring & touching inscription.239 It is a happiness to me to know that you think so well of my poetry. I have long thought your poetry very beautiful indeed. Thank you so much. I love what you have written to me & am very proud of it. I hope to reciprocate presently. With my best regards and my homage too to a true poet. ever yours gratefully in arte, Katharine Tynan We shall call to see you before we go. My love to herself—and Brenda.240

239 240

Wild Apples (Dublin: 1930). His wife Martha Duane (d.1958) and daughter Brenda.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

To Padraic Colum241 TLS Berg.

577

Herbert Lodge, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. 5 May 1930

Dear Padraic Colum, Enclosed are the proofs of the poetry book which I wrote to you about. I should be so grateful to you if you would take it to New York Macmillans and ask them if they have made any arrangement about it.242 The London Macmillans said that they would communicate with them about it, and nothing further can be done till we know their intentions. I think Macmillans here will publish during the early summer and if the New York Ms do not propose to do anything, could you take the book elsewhere? I should be deeply grateful. Best regards to Mollie and yourself, Katharine Tynan Hinkson243 Some few of the poems are copyright on your side [added by Pamela] but not all. I should like a separate edition if possible.

241

See p. 355. There was no American edition of the Collected Poem. 243 Signed by Katharine. 242

578

V. Aftermath

To Edmund Blunden MS Texas. 26 Queen’s Gate Terrace, London S.W. 7. 24 May 1930 Dear Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War has found us here safely. Thank you so much. Hard on its arrival came another copy with the boy from Chile who was the subject matter of the Victors which I shall send you.244 He has been away nearly six years. On Wednesday there was tap at the door of our hotel bedroom, & in he came, not appreciably changed from the little boy who was praised & fetted by the Dublins in ’18. The copy of Undertones of War stands side by side with the gift one. Thank you so much for writing to Mrs Owen & Mr Tomlinson.245 I shall ask Mr Hardy with whom I had an intimate touch years ago & John Masefield who I am sure will have time for me presently.246 We move into 18 Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill on Tuesday next for a couple of months.247 If you are in London would you spare time to come & see us. It would be a happiness. Arnold Zweig has sent me The Case of Sergeant Grischa. I think that is splendid. He is the only German I thought of asking. I remember the [illegible] of the War in which so many young radiant figures lit a still house. This ill work pulling down that radiance & befouling for the sake of gain. ever your gratefully Katharine Tynan Hinkson What noble praises your book received. I shall have it all read to review. It went to Chile before that could be done. I love Collins’s Elegy & it’s written by your own hand.248

244

Giles. (Harriett) Susan Owen (1867-1942), mother of the poet Wilfrid Owen. Albert Ernest Tomlinson (1892-?1968) served in the war as a 2nd Lt. in the South Staffordshire regiment in France. He published Candour: First Poems in 1922. 246 Katharine obviously had forgotten that Thomas Hardy had died in 1928. She was probably hoping to have a copy of John Masefield’s Gallipoli (1916). 247 27 May. 248 The Poems of William Collins (1929) edited, with an introductory study, by Edmund Blunden. The poem was “Ode to Evening”. The Oxford educated poet William Collins (1721-59) published little but achieved a small reputation before dying at an early age. 245

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

579

To Edmund Blunden MS Texas. 18, Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill, W.8. 30 May 1930 Dear Mr Blunden, Thank you so much for the kind interest you have taken in my little collection & for the precious fragment of Wilfrid Owen’s poetry which his mother has so generously sent me.249 One almost hesitates to traffic in so sacred a thing, done for a purpose he would have loved to serve. May I have her address so that I may thank her. Thank you also for asking Mr Tomlinson: you are wonderfully good. I myself [two or three illegible words] a Yeats letter, an AE letter. The collection seems like growing beyond my first thought: It is like what one thinks about you that should show so much interest. The Pathway lies on my table side by side with Undertones of War.250 They belong to the boy just home from Chile, around when the Victors which I shall send you was written. yours most gratefully Katharine Tynan Hinkson

249

Edmund Blunden, writing to Siegfried Sassoon from Merton College, Oxford, 24 October 1942, remarks A MS of Owen’s which was meant for a charitable object years ago, through Katharine Tynan, came here for the same object deferred and is in the Bodleian now (Selected Letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, 1919-1967, 2012, vol. 2, 321).

250

Presumably Henry Williamson’s The Pathway (1928) which was the fourth volume in his series The Flax of Dream. Henry Williamson (1895-1977) became famous for his Tarka the Otter (1927) and notorious for his support of Germany in the 1930s.

580

V. Aftermath

To G. K. Chesterton MS BL. 18, Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill, W.8. 31 May 1930 My dear Gilbert Chesterton, I have been slow about thanking you & Frances for the lovely gift of the Poems for the poor Irish ex Service men.251 It is a really noble gift & unless it fetches a big price I shall buy it myself. I shall not have the chance however as it is making part of a collection which is even more important than I dared to hope. We have this house for ten weeks & hope we may see you & Frances here. We have only just got in. All our dear regards. ever yours Katharine Tynan Hinkson

251

The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton (1927).

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

581

To Hermon Ould252 TLS Texas. 18, Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill, W.8. 27 June 1930 Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter. My daughter Pamela and I, both being members of the Dublin branch of the P.E.N. club, hope to attend the dinner on 8th July. We will be bringing one guest, my son G. A. Hinkson. Will you place us according to the discretion of the organisers, but as I am extremely short sighted, I should like my daughter to be placed somewhere near me. yours sincerely Katharine Tynan Hinkson253

252

Hermon Ould (1885-1951), playwright, poet and general secretary of PEN, an organisation formed as Poets, Essayists and Novelists in 1921. It is now a worldwide organisation and includes a variety of writers. 253 Signed by Pamela.

582

V. Aftermath

To Siegfried Sassoon254 MS Cambridge. 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, S.W. 19. 26 October 1930 Dear Siegfried Sassoon, I am writing to send you my Collected Poems hoping that you will like some of them. We have been greatly cheered by the success of your last book.255 So many just men & women in this strange world! The book is to be read to me. Pamela has heard most of it already at the Plymouths where she has been visiting.256 She is burning for the reading to begin, & so am I, though it will not be wholly new as so many bits have been told to me. How is poor Stephen Tennant?257 Please excuse this scrawl. It is the oddest thing that sense of honour in the [illegible] which does not work when you think it does. Perhaps it is the slave getting his own back. Yours with very great appreciation & thanksgiving that such as you are still heard by 20,000 or so. yours most sincerely Katharine Tynan

254

See p. 575. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. 256 Presumably the 2nd Earl of Plymouth, Ivor Miles Windsor-Clive (1889-1943) and his wife Countess Irene Corona (1902-89), née Charteris. 257 The Hon. Stephen James Napier Tennant is described by the ODNB as an “aesthete” and he seemed to be a man living out of his time: self-centred and greatly influenced by his mother Lady Pamela Glenconner. He wrote, he painted and he travelled. He was a close friend of Sassoon and did not marry. 255

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

583

To the Editor, The Times 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, S.W. 19 28 October 1930258 Sir, I have read with deep appreciation Lady Leconfield’s article on Victorianism and the following letters.259 They knew how to write letters, those Victorian ladies, and it is becoming a lost art. What a gracious art it was. I have read many estimates of Queen Victoria and her times, and I express no opinion on her political sagacity or other such matters. Where I see her a very woman is in her capacity to impose on a Court and a people her own standard of morals and decorum. I believe the great mass of the Victorians were happy in doing their duty and living with dignity. It was a golden age. She had a power, far-reaching and intimate, which, I think, no Sovereign could exercise now. Her influence would have given short shrift to the open and shameless corruption which is at work now in books, plays, &c., against which so few voice are raised. I am, Sir, yours, &c., Katharine Tynan

258

Published under the heading “The Victorians” on 31 October 1930. “The Victorian Age: A Witness for the Defence. (By the Dowager Lady Leconfield)”, The Times, 25 October 1930. There were two letters in support.

259

584

V. Aftermath

To John Galsworthy260 TLS RLF. Personal and Private. 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, S.W. 19 9 January 1931 Dear Mr Galsworthy Just before Christmas I had a nervous breakdown from over work, and have had to lay aside all my activities for the time being. I think the Royal Literary Fund would give me a grant to help me over this time. I do not quite know how to set about asking for it, and I feel that you would have great influence. They helped me before when I had a similar break down some years ago. I feel that my contributions to English literature make me specially suitable to receive such help. I know you are very kind. If you would take this matter in hands and expedite it, you would be doing a most wonderful kindness to a sister of the pen who has always respected her vocation. I know I make [sic] as you to keep this as private as possible. Believe me, dear Mr Galsworthy, your very sincerely, Katharine Tynan Hinkson261

260

The novelist John Galsworthy (1867-1933) known today for The Forsyte Saga published between 1906 and 1921. 261 Signed by Pamela on behalf of her mother. The poet, novelist and writer Sylvia Lynd wrote on 19 January to J. C. Squire, editor of the London Mercury, asking him to get the RLF to provide a grant “for poor old Katharine Tynan”. The poet Walter de la Mare wrote to the RLF Secretary on 29 January saying that Katharine should qualify for a pension from the Civil List. Support also came from Oliver St John Gogarty. An application form to the RLF was completed (by Pamela?) but signed by Katharine on 31 January 1931. Giles Hinkson wrote to the RLF on 7 February stressing that Katharine’s case was very urgent. In a letter of 10 February to the RLF Pamela explains that Katharine had had a nervous breakdown and that she needed fulltime care at home. Pamela intended to move her mother to Ireland once she was better. In a letter to the Royal Literary Fund of 16 February Pamela apologizes for the delay in acknowledging the £100 and saying that Katharine was then in a nursing home. A Civil List Pension of £80 was granted to Katharine on 20 March 1931 “in recognition of her literary work”. In a letter after Katharine’s death to Mr Marshall of the RLF, 14 April 1931,Walter de la Mere thought that about £300 had been raised in Ireland for Katharine, presumably as a result of the appeal of 23 February 1931 shown below. A letter from the RLF Secretary to Walter de la Mare (15 April 1931) shows that his estimate of Katherine’s poetry decided the grant in her favour.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

585

To Wilfrid Meynell MS Greatham. 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, S.W. 19 14 January 1931 My dear Wilfrid, I am sorry that being so far away keeps you from visiting me and I should love to see you. It is very dull work being tied by the leg here. Will dear Dimpling or Prue’s grandchildren come to see me? It will save my life & Pamela’s. They can ring up any day at all. They will be dearly welcome. We are so lonely. your loving K.T.

586

V. Aftermath

To Oliver St John Gogarty TLS Stanford. 3, St John’s Road, Wimbledon, S.W. 19. [February 1931] My dear Oliver Gogarty, I am most deeply grateful for your letter. I have had a very trying experience, and your help will be a very great thing. I did not think about what AE got but I felt that Ireland would not willingly let me go to the wall.262 About the committee,263 I know that John Galsworthy and Walter de la Mare and Chesterton over here would be anxious to help. Chesterton as well as AE is in America but of course it would be possible to communicate with them. Galsworthy is in Arizona but a letter to his private address: Bury House, Bury, Sussex marked urgent would be forwarded. He is at Tucson, Arizona, but I don’t know if that is sufficient address.264 I think Bernard Shaw would also be willing, and perhaps Sir Horace Plunkett and Cecil Harmsworth.265 I feel I would rather that the appeal was done privately even if the results were less. They were not very delicate about the Sir William Watson Fund.266 About the Archbishops, they would probably bring in money, but I leave it to you. For my own friends to begin with in Ireland, I would suggest of course, you yourself, Philip Hanson, Joseph Hone,267 Stephen Gwynn, Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats, and in fact anyone you think likely to be helpful.

262

AE received a cheque for £800 in September 1930 raised by Horace Plunkett and others to help with cancer treatment for his daughter in America. Apart from her application to the RLF Katharine was also seeking financial support from her friends. 263 Appeal committee. 264 Galsworthy arrived in Tucson on 3 January 1931. 265 The newspaper proprietor Esmond Cecil Harmsworth (1898-1978), 2nd Viscount Rothermere in 1940. 266 The poet Sir William Watson (1858-1936) suffered from nervous illnesses and more than once friends had found money for him either privately or through the Civil List, but he was never satisfied. 267 Sir Philip Hanson (1871-1955) who had been private secretary to George Wyndham, 1898-1903, and working in the Ministry of Munitions during the Great War. He was later Chairman of the Board of Works in Ireland. The writer and publisher Joseph Maunsell Hone (1882-1959) who published a biography of WBY in 1943.

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

Agagin Again with deepest gratitude. yours ever sincerely,

587

588

V. Aftermath

Katharine to Wilfrid Meynell 14 January 1931

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist

MS: Trinity College, Dublin

589

590

V. Aftermath

Katharine died on 2 April 1931 of a cerebral thrombosis at home. Requiem Mass was said at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Edge-Hill, Wimbledon, on 8 April and she was buried in the St Mary Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green, London, her grave being next to her great friend Alice Meynell. Wilfrid attended the service. Among the various obituaries and notices were the following: New York Times, 3 April 1931; Scotsman, 3 April 1919 (with a report of the funeral on 9 April); Irish Examiner, 3 April 1919; The Times, 4 April 1931 (with a report of the funeral on 9 April); Irish Times, 4 April 1931 (with a photograph); Straits Times, 4 April 1931; Observer, 5 April 1919; Sunday Independent, 5 April 1931; Manchester Guardian, 9 April 1919; Tablet, 11 April 1931; Ulster Herald, 11 April 1931; and Longford Leader, 11 April 1931.

INDEX OF RECIPIENTS

Abercrombie, Lascelles, 305 Adcock, Arthur St John, 528, 539 AE, see Russell, George William, Allingham, Helen, 269 Athenaeum, 249 Betjeman, John, 551 Blackwood, William, 198, 199, 203, 204, 205, 213 Blond, Elizabeth Alice, 558 Blunden, Edmund, 574, 575, 578, 579 Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, 85, 94, 96, 101, 287 Chesterton, G. K., 468, 580 Chesterton, Frances Alice, 275, 350, 361, 468 Christie, Miss, 183 Colum, Padriac, 577 Combe, Florence Amy, 423 Dawson, Fr Thomas, 243, 482, 520 Desborough, Lady (“Etti”), 419, 427 Dobson, Henry Austin, 168, 268 Dowden, Edward, 57, 66, Downey, Edmund, 218, 219, 246, 251, 417 Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan, 86 Dugdale, Florence Emily, 335 Dunn, James Nicol, 134 Freeman’s Journal,121, 129 Galsworthy, John, 584 Garvin, James Louis, 363 Gibbon, William Monk, 538, 562 Gill, Mary, 135, 171, 225, 231, 233, 263, 265, 267

Gleeson, Evelyn, 459 Gogarty, Oliver St John, 501, 576, 586 Gosset, Adelaide, 354 Gregory, Lady Augusta, 283, 284 Gwyn, Stephen, 351 Hake, Gordon, 65 Harold, Agnes, 533 Henley, William Ernest, 99 Hinkson, Giles Aylmer, 381, 385 Hinkson, Henry Albert, 158, 206, 353, 358, 374, 376, 378, 383, 393, 401 Hinkson, Pamela, 389 Hodgson, Richard, 76 Hopkins, Fr Gerard Manley, 74 Hudson, Fr Daniel, 79, 100, 112, 116, 126, 194, 279, 285, 293, 304, 309, 311, 406 Hudson, Mrs Catherine, 319 Irish Times, 352, 356, 372, 410, 444, 512, 522, 546, 550, 552, 555, 557, 559, 570 Jackson, Holbrook, 388 Kelly, Richard John, 273 Kerry Sentinel, 184 Kettle, Mary, 443, 467 Lane, Hugh Percy, 257, 258 Lane, John, 181, 208, 210, 214, 220, 235, 236 Langbridge, Frederick, 90, 174

Lepard & Smiths, 297 Literary World, 180 Lowndes, Marie, 431, 436

592

Index of Recipients

MacCarthy, Desmond, 540 McClure, Samuel Sydney, 155 McDonnell, Kathleen, 314, 316, 321, 326, 328 Macmillan & Co., 327, 342, 531, 536 Masterman, Lucy Blanche, 313, Mathew, Frank James, 221, 294, 295, 300, 324, 345, 364, 456, 462, 475, 486, 507, 516, 521, 534 Mathews, Alister William, 561, 564, 568 Mathews, Charles Elkin, 182, 187, 196 Maxse, Leo, 298 Mew, Henry William Egan, 209, Meynell, Alice, 32, 44, 49, 59, 67, 70, 72, 98, 104, 108, 113, 114, 122, 136, 139, 147, 149, 162, 164, 169, 176, 178, 185, 188, 189, 192, 195, 197, 201, 216, 229, 241, 247, 270, 277, 282, 333, 338, 343, 369, 391, 404, 415, 422, 439, 441, 445, 458, 471, 488, 493 Meynell, Wilfrid, 35, 54, 80, 83, 93, 103, 110, 111, 119, 127, 130, 131, 132, 140, 145, 148, 177, 200, 211, 215, 223, 224, 289, 291, 302, 355, 360, 371, 396, 402, 407, 413, 421, 422, 429, 453, 460, 477, 481, 490, 493, 496, 506, 509, 514, 525, 542, 544, 545, 553, 566, 569, 585 O’Connor, T. P., 348 O’Donoghue, David James, 125, 153 O’Leary, John, 156 O’Sullivan, Seumas, 349 Osborne, Bernard, 437 Ould, Hermon, 581 Parkes, William Kineton, 144 Pellew, George, 87

Pinker, James B., 237, 245, 256, 395, 398, 399 Plunkett, Count, 91 Pritchard, Mrs, 30, 36, 39, 41, 46, 51, 61, 64 Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, 228, 347 Reid, Forest, 400 Rhys, Ernest Percival, 272 Roberts, Arthur Llewellyn, 433, 434, 435 Royal Literary Fund, 278, 433, 434, 435, 473, 474, 484, 547, 548 Russell, Fr Matthew, 58 Russell (AE), George William, 409, 503 Sassoon, Siegfried, 582 Saturday Review, 499, 556 Shorter, Dora, 280 Shorter, Clement King, 173, 259, 260, 368, 425, 448, 450, 463, 465, 469, 479, 511, 513, 515, 518, 523, 526, 532, 543 Sinclair, May, 238, 239, 240, 242, 252, 253, 254, 261, 267, 308, 323, 331, 340 Sladen, Douglas Brooke, 151 Smith, Mrs, 307 Sparling, Henry, 82 Speaker, 276 Thompson, Francis, 142 Times, The, 274, 485, 491, 495, 498, 500, 519, 529, 549, 572, 583 Todhunter, John, 117 Trotter, Jacqueline, 464 Tynan, Andrew Cullan, 106 unknown recipient, 167, 193, 248, 250, 480 Unwin, Thomas Fisher, 138, 244 Waterhouse, Elizabeth, 299

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Watt, A. P., 288, Webb, A. Patterson, 537 Weigall, Constance, 411 Yeats, Elizabeth Corbet, 489

Yeats, John Butler, 451 Yeats, Susan Mary, 489 Yeats, William Butler, 212, 367, 565

593

INDEX Abercrombie, Lascelles, reviews Katharine, 10, 305n Aberdeen, Earl of, 4, 11, 12, 13, 15, 23, 341n, 374, 389n, 395n, 396, 401n, 406, 413, 414, 467n, 485, 513 Aberdeen, Countess of, 4, 12, 13, 15, 156n, 341, 353n, 374n, 394n 395n, 401n, 445, 467n, 485, 513 Academy, 5, 53, 65n, 80, 182n, 323n Adcock, Arthur St John, 528n Alderson, James Beaumont Standly, 225, 231 Allingham, Helen Mary Elizabeth, 269 Allingham, Hugh, 269 Angelo, Fr, see Bary (Fr Angelo), Richard Brome de, Anti-Jacobin, 135n, 154 Ashby, Margery I. Corbett, 519 Atalanta, 89n, 94, 105, 110 Athenaeum, 7, 132, 135, 187n, 244, 249, 254n, 256n, 305, 323n Atlantic Monthly, 260n, 321 Ave Maria, 2, 9, 79, 82, 100, 112, 116, 126, 178n, 181n, 194, 279, 285n, 293, 304, 310, 406 Avebury, Lady Augusta, 460 Barlow, Jane, 170, 184, 208, 221 Barrie, James Matthew, 167, 266, 403n Bary, Mrs de, 460 Bary (Fr Angelo), Richard Brome de, 460 Batchelor’s Walk, 454 Beach, Rex Elingwood, 314 Beaufoy, Mark Hanbury, 97 Beer, Margrieta Johanna, 442, 445, 565n

Bellingham, Alice, 375, 376, 406 Bellingham, Lt. Col. Edward Henry, 429 Bellingham, Captain Roger Charles Noel, 374n, 385, 403 Belloc, Louis, 163 Belloc, Marie, see Lowndes, Marie Belper, Lord Edward, 383 Bence, Emma Sophia, see Pritchard, Mrs, Benson, Robert Hugh, Loneliness, 407 Benson, William Arthur Smith, 162 Besant, Walter, 87 Betjeman, John, 16, 551n Bibelot, 7, 244n, 267n, 299n, 313n Blackburn, Elizabeth, 110 Blackburn, Vernon, 9, 108, 113, 149, 150, 277 Blackfriars, 510n Blackwell, Mrs Mary, 307 Blackwood, William, 198 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 203, 204, 216; rejections, 6, 199, 205, 213 Blunden, Edmund Charles, 17, 574n, 579n Blunt, Lady Anne, 84n, 85, 101 Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, 3, 9, 83-4, 85, 97n, 101, 287, 496, 497; In Vinculis, 94, 96 Bonaparte-Wyse, Andrew Reginald Gerald, 558n Bookman, 4, 5, 14, 170n, 173, 182n, 228n, 289n, 323n, 340n, 343, 368, 405, 443, 469, 528, 539n, 561, 562; photograph of Pamela and Giles Hinkson, 445, 447 Booth, Charles, 383 Booth, Mary, 383

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Boston Pilot, 70, 78, 82, 136n Branch, E. D. L., Poems, 561 Brennan, Commandant General Michael, 495 Bridges, Robert, 74 British Legion, 574-6, 578-80 British Weekly, 8, 193, 266 Britten, James, 47 Brooke, Charlotte, 156n Brooks, Sydney, 190n Buchanan, Margaret F., see Sullivan, Mrs Alexander Bullen, Arthur Henry, 300, 347 Bunning, Herbert, 270-1 Burns, Robert, 76 Bute, Marquess of, 406 Butler (née Thompson), Lady Elizabeth Southerden, 145, 146, 338, 392, 404 Butler, Lady Rosamond, 421 Butler, Lt. Colonel Patrick Richard, 439, 441 Callaghan, Alfred John, 401 Cambridge Review, 64 Canton, William, 539 Cantwell, Teresa, 46, 47n Carbery, Lord, 385 Carrick, Lady Ellen, 421 Catholic News, 304, 310 Catholic Times, 4, 133 Catholic Who’s Who, 12, 370, 403 Catholic World, 10, 11, 84, 88, 294, 355, 437 Century, 88 Chadburn, George Haworthe, 289 Chadburn, Mabel E., 289 Chapman, Frederic, 210 Chapman, Lt. John Percy, 431 Chase, Lewis, 442n Chesterton, Cecil Edward, 350n, 361 Chesterton, Frances, 9, 275, 468; “The Small Dreams”, 350, 361 Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 17, 275, 361, 407, 580, 586; Antichrist,

595

or the Reunion of Christendom: an Ode, 350n; Irish Impressions, 468; “The Death of George Wyndham”, 362 Childers, (Robert) Erskine, 503, 507, 508 Christie, Miss, 183 Clarke, Fr Richard Frederick, 40n Clay, Herbert Henry Spender, 324 Clive, Caroline, 109 Cobden-Sanderson, Anne, 274n Colles, Ramsey W., 87 Collier’s Weekly, 10, 314, 316, 317, 321 Collier, P. F., 353 Collins, Michael, 15, 487, 493, 495, 509 Collins, William, 578 Colum, Mary Catherine, 355 Colum, Padraic, 355n, 544; Katharine’s Collected Poems, 577 Combe, Lt. Boyce Anthony, 424 Combe, Florence Amy, 423n Combe, Captain Harvey Alexander Brabazon, 424 Commonweal, 506n Connolly, Fr Patrick J., 448 Conway, Katharine Eleanor, 70, 78, 79 Corelli, Marie, 221 Cornhill, 307, 313n, 442 Cosgrave, John O’Hara, 328 Cox, Walter, 189 Creighton, Louise Hume, 379, 383 Critic (New York), 155 Crockett, Samuel Rutherford, 266 Croppies Lie Down: a Tale of Ireland in ’98, 296 Crottie, Julia M., 294 Cust, John Henry (“Harry”), 178n, 179 D’Arcy, Ella, Monochromes, 220, 253 Daily Chronicle, 202, 273

596 Daily Graphic, 155n Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), 99n Daily News, 51, 55, 67, 122n, 123, 361 Dallyn, John, 508n Davis, Richard Harding, 315 Davitt, Michael, 106, 124, 132, 153n Dawson, Fr Thomas, 5, 159, 178, 448 de Paravicini, Francis, 74 de Valera, Eamon, 441 Deane, Peter, see Hinkson, Pamela, Desborough, Lady (“Etti”), 419n; Pages from a Family Journal, 427 Delineator, 314 Dillon, John, 132 Dillon, Margaret, 95, 101 Dillon, Valentine Blake, 95n Dixie, Lady Florence, 121 Dixon, Ella Nora Hepworth, 264 Dobson, Henry Austin, 168n, 268 Dolan, Fr (John) Gilbert, 280, 285, 302, 311, 353 Domenichetti, Richard Hippisley, 114 Donovan, Robert, 132n Douglas, Sir George Brisbane Scott, 167 Dowden, Edward, 57n, 151 Dowling, Richard, 50 Downey (“F. M. Allen”), Edmund, 128; The Merchant of Killogue, 218; Green as Grass, 219n Drummond, Sir James Eric, 507 Dublin Review, 437, 442 Dublin University Review, 2, 52n Dudley, Mrs Lucille Yseult, see Tyler, Mrs, Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan, 86n Duffy, Lady Louise, 86n Dugdale, Florence Emily, 335n Dunn, James Nichol, 134n Egan, Eleanor, 339

Index Egan, Martin, 328 Eagan, Patrick M., 88 Echo, 175 Eliot, George, 50, 59 English Illustrated Magazine, 170, 184, 190n English Review, 340n Esmonde, Sir Thomas, 478 Espinasse, Francis, 167 Ervine, St John Greer, 539 Evening Herald (Dublin), 4, 119, 136, 139 Evening Telegraph (Dublin), 99n, 153 Everybody’s Magazine, 328 Eye Witness, 340, 347 Fagan, Arthur, 47 Fagan, Blanche Clara, 87, 206 Fagan, Charles Gregory, 31n, 36, 40, 42, 47, 52, 61n, 73 Fagan, Rev. Henry Stuart, 30n, 35, 64, 78 Fagan , John Stead Patrick, 37 Fagan, Mary, 62 Farley, Archbishop John Murphy, 304 Farrell, Hugh, 125 Figaro, on Katharine, 190n Fingall, Countess of, 444 Fletcher-Vane, Sir Patrick, 483 Forbes of Rothiemay, Mrs Mary Livesey, 378, 381, 383, 384 Fortnightly Review, 9, 289n, 294 Fowler, Ella Thorneycroft, 266 Freeman’s Journal, 1, 12, 36n, 101, 119, 127, 128, 131, 133, 272, 276, 295, 379, 401n, 456n, 487; Katharine’s letters, 121, 129 Fry, E. N. Leigh, see Lefroy, Isabella Gael, 76n Gainsborough, Earl of, 406 Gale, Norman Rowland, 176 Galsworthy, John, 584n, 586

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Gamlen, 2d. Lt. John Charles, 431 Garvice, Charles, 329 Garvin, James Louis, 17, 363, 543; “Alice Meynell”, 509 Gentlewoman: An Illustrated Weekly Journal for Gentlewomen, 227 Gibbon, Mabel Winifred, 562 Gibbon, Mary Eleanor, 538 Gibbon, William Monk, 16, 538n, 561; Collected Poems of Katharine Tynan, 16, 562-3, 568 Gibson, Right Hon. John George, 296n, 353, 358 Gilchrist, R. Murray, Passion the Plaything, 144 Gilder, Richard Watson, 88 Gill, Henry Joseph (Dublin bookseller), 85, 134n Gill, James Geoffrey, 226 Gill, Michael Joseph, 226 Gill, Mary Julia, 7, 8, 135n, 159, 267, 311 Giovanna of Italy, Queen, 381 Gladstone, William, 72, 108, 109, 123, 127, 132 Gleeson, Evelyn, 391n, 459n Gogarty, Martha, 501 Gogarty, Oliver, 501n, 586; Wild Apples, 576 Good Words, 90, 100, 154 Goodwin, Vera Dorothy, 469 Gordon, Alexander, 9, 278 Gordon, Mrs Maria Matilda, 378, 379, 381, 384 Gosset, Adelaide L. J., 354n Graphic, 51, 57, 82 Grattan, Henry, 476 Graves, Alfred Percival, 73, 109n Green Hat: a Romance for a Few People, The, 540 Gregory, Lady Augusta, 9, 11, 283n, 284, 367n, 556, 565, 586 Greiffenhagen, Maurice William, 553

597

Grenfell, 2nd Lt. The Hon. Gerald William, 419n Grenfell, Captain the Hon. Julian Henry Francis, 442; “Into Battle”, 419 Grey, Lord, 419 Guiney, Louise Imogen, 114, 117, 208, 228n, 239, 260, 437 Gwynn, Shelia, 482 Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 417, 482, 586; “Out in the Dark”, 351 Haig, Field Marshal Douglas, 540 Hake, Dr Thomas Gordon, 65 Hamilton, Lord Ernest, 302n Hamilton, General Sir Ian, 421 Hamilton, Lady Pamela, 302 Hamilton, Mrs Rowan, 432 Hammond, John Lawrence, 276 Handford, Hon. Mrs, 383, 384 Hannon, John, 279, 285 Hanson, Sir Philip, 586 Hardiman, James, 156 Hardy, Dudley, 184, 271 Hardy, Thomas, 107, 261, 578 Hardy, William J. M., “In Dark Donegal: the Tourist on the Celtic Fringe”, 204n Harmsworth, Esmond Cecil, 586 Harrington, Elizabeth, 358 Harrington, Timothy Charles, 38, 96n, 358 Hazlerigg, Sir Arthur Grey, 319n Healy, John Edward, 352n Healy, Timothy Michael, 55, 67, 358 Henley, William Ernest, 3, 99n, 156, 305, 572 Herbert, Alan Patrick, 17, 575 Herkomer, Hubert von, 105 Higgins, John, 425 Hind, Charles Lewis, 189, 534 Hind, Henriette, 534 Hinkson, Giles Aylmer (“Bunny”/ “Pat”), 6, 16, 215n, 226, 227, 232, 233, 247, 261, 294, 304,

598 309, 311, 331, 343, 392, 471, 473, 488, 503, 506, 507, 514, 515, 520, 521, 525, 532, 534, 540, 545, 567, 584n; education, 10, 11, 15, 320, 324-5, 341, 345, 365, 366, 392; at Sandhurst, 14, 415, 417, 421, 425, 429, 431, 433, 435; at Cambridge, 15, 473, 476, 477, 479, 482, 483; military service, 442, 453, 456, 457, 458, 463, 468, 471, 486; Bookman photograph, 445, 447; writes to Royal Literary Fund, 584n Hinkson, Godfrey Assumption, 5, 192 Hinkson, Henry (“Harry”) Albert, meets Katharine, 2, 106n; marries Katharine Tynan, 2, 158; conversion and death, 2, 14, 456; writes for Irish Daily Independent and Evening Herald, 4, 139; advertises for employment, 5, 164; attends Lionel Johnson funeral, 7, 242; Resident Magistrate, 12-13, 341, 364, 389n, 391, 433, 435, 473; visits the Meynells, 146, 147; called to the Bar, 7, 152n; article in Daily Graphic, 155n; article in New York Critic, 155; Dublin Verses by Members of Trinity College, 5, 152n, 187; Father Alphonsus, 10, 295; Gentleman Jack: An Adventure in East Africa, 366; The King’s Deputy, 214n, 222n; “Prof. Tyrrell at Johns Hopkins”, 155n; Student Life in Trinity College, Dublin, 140; Up for the Green: a Romance of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, 209; “The Ways of War”, 443n; When Love is Kind; 395n Hinkson, Katharine, see Tynan, Katharine,

Index Hinkson, Pamela Mary, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 223n, 226, 232, 233, 242, 247, 261, 277, 293, 304, 309, 310, 311, 319, 322, 326, 333, 358, 359, 365, 369, 374, 376, 378, 379, 381, 385, 386, 391, 393, 394, 396, 397, 402, 404, 406, 413, 414, 419, 420, 421, 427, 428, 436, 451, 454, 456, 458, 459, 460, 462, 463, 465, 466, 471, 477, 479, 488, 518, 520, 532, 534, 544, 545, 551, 553, 562, 563, 566, 567, 569, 581, 582, 584n, 585; writes as Peter Deane, 16, 531, 540, 575; education, 365, 432, 442, 446; Bookman photograph, 445; visits Italy, 480-3; visits Germany, 490-518; visits France, 536-43; “The Dark Rose”, 487n; The End of all Dreams, 15, 513n, 515, 517, 523; The Girls of Redlands, 487, 493; “Her Ladyships’ Pearls”, 487n; My Lady of the Lavender (unpublished), 470; “A Song of Autumn”, 414n; The Victors, 16, 540, 575, 578, 579 Hinkson, Theobald (“Toby”) Henry, 6, 206, 217, 225, 226-7, 232, 233, 240, 246, 247, 261, 263, 332, 374, 381, 385, 390, 436, 471, 477, 525, 566; education, 10, 11, 293, 294, 300, 302, 304, 309, 320, 324-5, 333, 338, 341, 345, 365, 415; military service, 14, 392, 415, 416, 417, 418, 425, 427, 429, 431, 436, 441, 445, 451, 453, 456, 458, 468; marriage, 15, 16, 475, 477, 522, 535, 562; to Africa, 475, 479, 482 Hobby Horse, 106n Hodgson, Dr Richard, 76n, 77, 89 Hodgson, William Earl, 80 Holly, Miss F. M., 314, 316

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist HolmPatrick, Lady Victoria, 444 Hone, Joseph Maunsell, 586 Hope, Lt. William Edward, 385, 393 Hopkins, Arthur, 75 Hopkins, Fr Gerard Manley, 74n Horne, Herbert Percy, 106, 107 Housman, Laurence, 371n Howells, William Dean, 87 Hudson, Fr Daniel, 8, 9, 10, 79n Hudson, Kathleen Mary, 320n Hudson, Mrs Catherine, 319 Hughes, F. S., 78 Hungerford (“the Duchess”), Margaret, 221 Hunt, Marian Fitzgerald, 104 Hutchinson, Major General Robert, 493 Hutton, Richard Holt, 53 Huxley, Henry, 206, 359 Huxley, Sophie, 359 Hyatt, Alfred Henry, 335, 359 Hyde, Douglas, 138n, 151 Illustrated London News, 362n International Congress of Women (Rome 1914), 12, 374-84 Irish Citizen, 467 Irish Daily Independent, 4, 12, 136, 139, 140n, 144, 145, 147n, 151, 168, 174, 191n, 272, 378, 379, 389n, 504, 590 Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 142 Irish Figaro, 190n Irish Fireside,76n, 269n Irish Idylls, 170n, 208 Irish Literary Society, Katharine and Yeats attend dinner, 543 Irish Monthly,1, 31n, 37n, 42n, 53, 58n, 70, 71n, 84n, 135, 182n, 210n, 267n Irish Statesman, 16, 556, 572-3 Irish Times, 88n, 389n, 401n, 491n, 515n, 549, 555, 556n, 590n; Katharine’s letters, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 352, 356, 372, 410, 444, 512, 522, 546, 550, 552, 555,

599

570, 557, 559 Iveagh, Earl of, 559 Jackson, George Holbrook, 388n Jerrold, Walter, 365 Johnson, Lionel Pigot, 7, 8, 195, 235, 242, 244, 259, 305, 364, 437 Johnston, Captain James Cecil, 413 Johnston, Violet Myrtle, 413n Jung, Dr, 501 Kavanagh, Rose, 92 Keats (“Zack”), Bertha Gwendoline, 238 Kelly, Richard John, 273 Kerry Sentinel, Katharine’s letter, 184 Kettle, Mary, 443n; and Francis Sheehy Skeffington, 467 Kettle, Lt Thomas Michael, 443n King, Maude Egerton, 323 King, Richard Ashe, 97, 152 Kipling, Rudyard, 100n, 136, 314 Kolbe, Monsignor Frederick, 384 Labouchere, Henry du Pré, 56, 68 Lady of the House, 169n Lady’s Pictorial, 54, 264n Lady’s World, 89n Lane, Mrs Annie, 208 Lane, Hugh Percy, 8, 257, 258n Lane, John, 5, 6, 170, 181n, 182, 183, 193, 208, 210n Lang, Andrew, 102 Langbridge, Frederick, 91n, 174 Larminie, Alexander Clendining, 391 Lawless, Hon. Emily, 184 Lawrence and Bullen, 178, 182, 193, 209, 223 Lawrence, Sir Henry Hays, 72 Leamy, Edmund, 146, 263n Leamy, Mrs Margaret, 263 Le Blond, Elizabeth Alice Frances, 558n

600 Leconfield, Lady, 583 Ledwidge, Lance Corporal Francis, 441-2 Lefroy, Isabella, 220 Legge, Helen Edith, 105 Legge, Rev. James, 74, 105 Legge, James Granville, 74 Lentaigne, Sir John Vincent, 401 Lepard & Smiths Ltd, 297 Leslie, Shane, “Mrs Meynell”, 510 Library Review and Record of Current Literature, 145n Lindsay, Lady Caroline, 177 Linlithgow, 2nd Marquess of, 14, 452, 460, 462, 463 Lipsett, Henry Caldwell, 220 Lister, Sir William, 544 Literary World, 5, 167n, 180 Lloyd George, David, 432 Lloyd’s Story Magazine, 487 Locker, Arthur, 82n Long, John, 395 Longman’s Magazine, 102n, 169n Low, Frances H., 276 Lowndes, Elizabeth Susan, 432 Lowndes, Frederic Charles, 431 Lowndes, Frederick Sawrey Archibald, 325n Lowndes, Marie, 163n, 325, 431; supports Katharine’s RLF application, 473, 547 Lowndes, Susan, 432 Lowry, Charles, 320 Lucan, Earl of, 391 Lucas, David, 544 Lucas, Percival Drewett, 403, 422 Lucas, Sylvia, 404 Lynch, Arthur Alfred, 128-9 Lynch, Hannah, 47, 52, 54, 276 Lynd, Sylvia, 584n Lyons, Ponsonby Annesley, 39, 41 Lyttelton, Lucy Blanche, 10, 313n, 342 Maartens, Maarten, 167 MacCarthy, Desmond, 540n

Index MacCarthy, Mary Joseph, 540n MacCormack, Constance, 459 Mackenzie, Compton, 532 Mackmurdo, Arthur H., 107n Maclaren (John Watson), Ian, 266 Macleod, Rev. Donald, 91, 101 MacNeill, Eoin, 508 MacNeill, John Gordon Swift, 393 Macready, General Sir Frederick, 476 MacSwiney, Mary, 488 McCarthy, Justin, 56 McCarthy, Justin Huntly, 57 McClure, Samuel, 156n McClure’s Magazine, 11, 321 McClurg, A. C., 6, 221 McDonnell, Kathleen, 10, 314n Maguire, Mary Catherine, 355 Magazine of Art, 89, 91 Magazine of Poetry, 4, 110, 118 Mahaffy, Sir John Pentland, 152, 401 Mainly About People, 233 Manchester Guardian, 136n, 295, 590 Manning, Cardinal, 2, 36, 52, 128, 130, 137, 142 Mare, Walter de la, 584n, 586 Martin, Richard, 372 Martin, Violet, see “Somerville, Edith, and Ross, Martin” Martyn, Edward, 283n Masefield, John, 578 Massereene, Lord, 84 Masson, Flora, The Brontës, 340n Masterman, Lucy Blanche, see Lyttelton, Lucy Blanche, Mathew, Frank James, 9, 10, 12, 17, 225, 214n, 358n; cancer, 532; An Image of Shakespeare, 508n; Father Mathew, His Life and Times, 294; One Queen Triumphant, 221; Spanish Wine, 214 Mathew, Mrs Agnes, 221, 222, 364 Mathew, Fr Theobald, 294n, 345n

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Mathews, Alister William, 561n, 563 Mathews, Charles Elkin, 170, 182n, 187n, 196n, 244, 359, 437 Maxse, Leopold James, 298n Mayo, Anne Agatha, 319 Mayo News, 389n Meade, L. T., 300 Meldon, Major James Austin, 390 Mendel, Vera, 493n Meredith, George, Alice visits, 197 Meredith, William Maxse, 523 Merry del Val, Cardinal, 379 Merry England, 2, 32n, 35, 39, 40, 49n, 50, 54, 73n, 83, 84, 103, 108n, 113n, 119, 140n, 142n Mew, Henry William Egan, 209n Meynell, Alice, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 35, 65n, 76n, 99n, 108n, 109n, 122n, 145n, 149, 158n, 170n, 182n, 200n, 201n, 202n, 291n, 402, 434n, 542; Katharine Tynan’s marriage, 2, 158n; death, 15, 506, 509-10; reviews Katharine Tynan, 49; Manning memorial, 141n; George Meredith’s praise, 197n; art reviews for Pall Mall Gazette, 224; American lecture tour, 229n, 240n; Women Writers Dinner, 284; “Artists’ Homes. Mr Hubert Herkomer’s, at Bushey, Herts.”, 105n; in Italy, 302n; illness, 402; The Colour of Life, 199n; “The Fugitive”, 277n; John Ruskin, 216; “A Letter from a Girl to Her Own Old Age”, 179n; Preludes, 32n, 81, 147, 367n; “The Rhythm of Life”, 98n, 192; The Rhythm of Life, 147n, 149n, 192n; ‘“Sœur Monique’ A Rondeau by Couperin”, 73; “Sonnet”, 367; “A Study: in Three Monologues, with Interruptions”, 81n; “Two

601

O’clock, the Morning of October 12th”, 415; “Veni Creator”, 226n; “Wares of Autolycus”, 5, 188, 192, 216; “Your Own Fair Youth”, 81 Meynell, Everard Henry Manning, 217; Life of Francis Thompson, 441 Meynell, Francis Meredith Wilfrid, 127, 149n, 189, 477, 493, 508; arrested, 371; conscientious objector, 441 Meynell, Brigadier General Godfrey, 569n Meynell, Madeline (“Dimpling”), 140, 403n, 404n, 439, 585; husband’s death, 422 Meynell, Monica (“Monnie”), 93, 108, 110, 122, 141, 197, 247, 460; marriage breakup, 566 Meynell, Olivia (“Lobbie”/“Beelie”), 108n, 282, 302n, 333, 343, 358n, 369, 372, 472, 508, 525, 544, 566, 569; Katharine’s Goddaughter, 3 Meynell, Sebastian (“Bastian”) Henry Tuke, 229; breakdown, 369 Meynell, Viola (“Prue”/“Prudie”), 139, 333, 405, 481, 482, 508, 544, 585; “Julian Grenfell”, 442; Lot Barrow, 343n; Modern Lovers, 343n Meynell, Vivian, 83n, 145 Meynell, Wilfrid, 2, 3, 5, 9, 17, 126, 128; publishes Katharine, 2, 32, 50, 103, 113, 119, 142, 360, 371, 407; and Katharine’s Louise de la Vallière, 2, 39, 42, 54; eye problem, 16, 162, 569; financial help for Katharine, 6, 16, 211, 215, 223, 224, 497; republishes Gladstone article, 108; as “mouthpiece of Cardinal Manning”, 127n; Manning Memorial Committee member,

602 141; edits Francis Thompson’s Shelley, 302; buys Humphreys Homestead, 339; visits Italy, 525; attends Katharine’s funeral, 590; Aunt Sarah and the War: a Tale of Transformations, 407; The Child set in the Midst By Modern Poets, 145; “Et cætra”, 355n; Halt! Who goes There?, 421n; Life of Leo XIII, 83; Rhymes with Reasons, 453n; The Selected Poems of Francis Thompson, 289n; Who goes there?, 421; The Works of Francis Thompson, 289n Miller, Florence Fenwick, 274 Monge, Ada, the Hinksons’ nurse, 105n Month, The, 40, Moore, George, 156n Morning Post, 486 Morris, William, 55, 162n, 272 Morton, Elsie M., Maxims from Katharine Tynan. 431 Mosher, Thomas B., 10, 277n, 299n, 311, 313 Moulton, Louise Chandler, 106 Mulcahy, Richard James, 495 Mulhall, Mrs Marian, 378 Mulholland, Clara, 80 Mulholland (later Gilbert), Rosa, 42, 72, 119, 131, 132, 296n; disagreement with Katharine, 190-1; Vagrant Verses, 65 Naden, Constance Caroline Woodhill, 109 Nash, Eveleigh, 8, 16, 252, 523 Nathan, Sir Matthew, 433 Nation, 3, 54, 88n, 91n, 94, 119, 305, 342, 415 National Press, 4, 127, 129, 132 National Observer, 3, 6, 99n, 129, 134n, 144, 149, 154, 204n, 302n, 572 National Review, 298n

Index New Budget, 189 New Ireland, 417 New Vagabond Club, 187 New Witness, 360, 425 New York Times, 182n, 465, 590 Newman, Cardinal John Henry, 51, 74n, 119n Nicoll, William Robertson, 167, 173, 228, 266, 513 Noble (“Evelyn Pyne”), Evelyn May, 42, 47, 61, 64; reviews Katharine Tynan, 53 Northcliffe, Lord, 492 O’Brien, Charlotte Grace, 92n O’Brien, James Francis Xavier, 124 O’Brien, William, 37, 96-7 Observer, 363n, 448, 450, 509, 590 O’Connell, Daniel, 123 O’Connor, T.P., 348n O’Donoghue, David James, 125n, 154n O’Gorman, Edith, 126n O’Grady, Standish James, 151 O’Leary, John, 86, 91, 113, 124, 156, 448 O’Mahony, John, 9, 10, 36n, 299n, 311, 358n Old Country, 174 Oldham, Charles Hubert, 2, 52 Oranmore, Lady Olwen, 402, 415, 423 Oranmore, Lord Geoffrey, 402, 423 O’Reilly, Elizabeth, 1 O’Reilly, John Boyle, 78 O’Shea, Kitty, 3, 123, 132 Oskison, John Milton, 316, 321 O’Sullivan, Seumas, 349n Ould, Hermon, 581n Oulton, Captain William Plato, 494 Outlook, 262 Outlook (USA), 55n Owen, (Harriett) Susan, 578 Owen, Wilfrid, 578n Pagenstecher, Dr Hermann, 562,

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist 565, 569 Paget, Robert Harold, 329, 523 Pall Mall Gazette, 5, 7, 11, 77, 109n, 178, 185, 188n, 189n, 192n, 197n, 201, 216n, 224, 229, 231, 244n, 272, 289, 291n, 292n, 340, 343, 368, 396 Parkes, Bessie Rayner, 163 Parkes, William Kineton, 144n, Parnell, Anna, 30n Parnell, Charles Stewart, 3, 4, 36n, 97, 100n, 106, 121, 122-4, 127, 130, 132, 136, 143, 145, 146, 151, 167, 171, 346, 363, 539 Parnell Leadership Committee, 121n Patmore, Coventry Kersey Dighton, 149, 158n, 291, 413 Paul, Kegan, 2, 39, 42, 45, 54, 64, 76, 126, 250 Payn, James, 479 Payn, Jessie Adelaide, 479 Pearse, Patrick, 508 Pellew, George, 87n, Peppercorn, Hilda, 493n Perry, Dr Bliss, 308 Philipps, Captain the Hon. Colwyn Erasmus Arnold, 421 Piatt, Arthur, Donn, 171n, 278 Piatt, John James, 71n, 93, 119, 140, 149 Piatt, Sarah Morgan, 71, 93, 119, 140, 147, 149 Pilkington, Moira, marries Toby Hinkson, Pinker, 2nd Lt Eric Seabrooke, 398 Pinker, James Brand, 7, 8, 237n, 399 Plunkett, Count George Noble, 91n Plunkett, Sir Horace Curzon, 401, 445, 586 Plymouth, Countess of, 582 Plymouth, Earl of, 582 Ponsonby, Major the Hon. Cyril Myles Brabazon, 415n Poulter, Mary, 231n

603

Pound, Ezra, 10, 308, 437, 532 Powell, Frederick York, 7, 241n Prince Albert Victor, 136 Pritchard, Florence (“Flossie”) Louise, 31n, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 48, 51, 53, 61, 64 Pritchard, James, 30n Pritchard, Lena Sophia Beatrice, 31n Pritchard, Mrs Emma Sophia, 30n, Probyn, May, 84, 93; Christmas Verses (with Katharine Tynan), 6, 84n Providence Journal, 2, 84, 88, 153 Providence Sunday Journal, 81n, 84n Purser, John Mallet, 90n Purser, Louis Charles, 90n, 117 Purser, Sarah, 90, 93 Pyne, Evelyn, see Noble, Evelyn May, Queen Mary, 383 Quiller-Couch (“Q”), Arthur Thomas, Oxford Book of English Verse, 7, 228n, 347 Quiver, 179 Rae, Catharine, 33, 132 Ramsey, Fr Leander, 345 Reader, an Illustrated Magazine of Literature, 248 Redmond, John Edward, 145, 417n Reid, Forrest, 400n Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 448 Reynolds, George William MacArthur, 83n Reynolds, Paul R., 316 Reynolds’s Newspaper, 83 Rhodes, Cecil, 492 Rhys, Ernest Percival, 272 Rhys, Grace, 272, 296 Richards, (Thomas Franklin) Grant, 6, 208, 209, 212, Richmond, George, 102

604 Rickard, Jessie Louisa, 533n Riddell, Bishop Arthur George, 280n Ridley, Hannah, the Hinksons’ cook, 105n Roberts, Arthur Llewellyn, 433n Rodd, Sir Rennell, 383 Robinson, Frances Mabel, 106 Robinson, Mary, 109 Rolleston, Thomas William Hazen, 52n, 80n, 91n, 144 Ross, Sir John, 358n Ross, Katharine, 358n Rossetti, Christina, 2, 55n, 59, 66n, 173, 368 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 35, 59, 65, 153 Rossetti, William, 2, 58, 59, 60, 66 Rothschild, Lord, 287n Rowton, Baron Montagu, 343-4 Royal Literary Fund, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 433, 434, 435, 473, 474, 484, 547, 548, 584; Katharine supports an application, 9, 278 Russell, Charles Arthur (later Lord Killowen), 43n, 98n Russell, Diarmuid Conor, 540n Russell, Lady Ellen, 98 Russell, Fr Matthew, 1-2, 5, 6, 45, 54, 57n, 67, 70, 74, 82, 131, 135, 153, 169n, 279n, 358n, 384, 396; letters from Katharine Tynan, 6, 30n, 31n, 32n, 42n, 46n, 47n, 55n, 61n, 77n, 153, 172n, 178n, 181n, 190n, 214n, 349n; “Poets I have Known IX. Nora Tynan O’Mahony”, 37n; “Poets I have Known No. 5 Katharine Tynan”, 58n Russell, George William (“AE”), 13, 14, 16, 17, 349n, 365, 385, 386, 409n, 434, 470, 540, 562-3, 564, 572, 579, 586 Ryan, Mark Francis, 37, 40, 47 Ryder, Florence Frances Augusta, 302

Index Ryder, Fr Henry Ignatius Dudley Ryder, 302 Ryder, William Henry Dudley, 302 Saleeby, Dr Caleb William, 292, 566n Sanford, Mrs Harriet, 384 Sargent, John Singer, draws Alice Meynell, 188 Sassoon, Siegfried, 17, 575; Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, 582 Saturday Review, 55, 129, 256n, 277, 323n; Katharine’s letters, 499, 556 Scots Observer, 3, 98n, 99n, 134n, 192n, 226n, 302n Scotsman, 523n, 590 Sexton, Thomas, 123 Sharp (“Fiona Macleod”), William, 106 Shaw, George Bernard, 292, 556, 586 Shaw-Stewart, Patrick Houston, 427 Sheehan, Very Rev. Patrick Augustine, 246 Sherriff, Robert Cedric, 17, 575 Shorter, Annie Doris, 9, 479 Shorter, Clement King, 14, 173n, 217, 259, 260n, 368, 448n, 46, 532, 543n; commissions Katharine, 15, 513, 518; Katharine asks for finance, 425, 450; second marriage, 479 Shorthouse, John Henry, 74 Sidgwick, Frank, 421 Sigerson (later Piatt), Anna Hester (“Hetty”), 171, 227, 526 Sigerson (later Shorter), Dora Mary, 9, 14, 173, 200, 206, 260, 368, 425, 448, 450, 469, 479, 511, 526 Sigerson, Dr George, 151, 171, 368 Sinclair, May, 7, 8, 238n, 240n, 252n, 332; supports Katharine’s RLF application, 473, 547; The

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Creators: a Comedy, 323; The Divine Fire, 239n, 261; The Three Brontës, 11, 340; Two Sides of a Question, 238n, 239 Skeffington, Francis Sheehy, 467n, 483n Sketch, 4, 169, 170, 173 Sladen, Douglas Brooke Wheelton, 151n Smellie, Dr Alexander, 475 Smith, Edward L., 385 Smith, George D., 14, 439 Smith, Reginald, 245, 395, 398 Snead-Cox, 2nd Lt Geoffrey Phillip Joseph, 291n Snead-Cox, John George, 202n, 391, 403 Snead-Cox, Midshipman Herbert Arthur, 391n, 403 Snead-Cox, 2nd Lt Richard Mary, 391n, 403 “Somerville, Edith, and Ross, Martin”, 219, 424; The Real Charlotte, 219 Sowerby, Catharine Mary, 472n Sowerby, Thomas Murray, 343n, 369 Spalletti, Contessa Gabriella Rasponi, 378 Sparling, Henry Halliday, 82n Speaker, 109n, 137, 145n, 156; Katharine letter, 276 Spectator, 53, 54, 55, 74, 154, 305, 321, 342, 411, 412, 464, 572 Sphere, 15, 513, 532 Stacpoole, Henry de Vere, 220 Star, 15, 16, 456, 486, 496, 509 Star (Dublin), 545n Stephens, James, 365, Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray, 224n Stevenson, Robert Louis, 87, 99, 156, 238 Stobart, Sophie Wylde, 359n Stockley, William Frederick Paul, 507, 508

605

Stoddard, Charles Warren, 79n Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 407n, 448, 451 Sullivan, Alexander, 70n Sullivan, Edmund Joseph, 265, 281 Sullivan, Mrs Alexander, 47, 70, 72, 106 Sullivan, Timothy Daniel, 54 Sun (New York), 99n Swann, William, 206 Sweetman, Fr John Francis, 521 Sykes, Elsie, 232n Sylvia’s Journal, 88n, 164n, 170n, 178n Synge, John Millington, Deirdre of the Sorrows, 369 Synnott, Barbara Louisa Mary, 545n Synnott, Nicholas, 545 T.P’s Weekly, 246, 251, 272, 348, 388n Tablet, 9, 10, 127, 129, 289n, 295, 355, 369, 414, 429, 461, 590 Temple Bar, 210n Tennant, Hon. Stephen James Napier, 428, 582 Thompson, Edward John, 539 Thompson, Emily Skeffington, 33n, 47n, 132 Thompson, Francis, 9, 111, 202, 291, 305, 355, 441, 434n; death, 289; “Dream-Tryst”, 142; “The Making of Viola”, 140n, 142n; To the Dead Cardinal at Westminster”, 140n; New Poems, 291; Shelley, 302n Thompson, Elizabeth Southerden, see Butler, Lady Elizabeth Southerden Thorburn, Captain Peter, 454 Tillotson and Sons, 216, 217, 245 Times, 8, 12, 15, 16, 305, 309, 378, 383, 389n, 432, 496, 508 509, 516, 566, 590; Katharine’s letters, 274, 485, 491, 495, 498, 500, 519, 529, 549, 572, 583

606 Times Literary Supplement, 308n, 429n, 508, 515n Tinsley’s Magazine, 128n Tobin, Agnes, 229, 241, 247 Todhunter, Dora Louisa, 107 Todhunter, John, 107, 117, 136n Tomlinson, Albert Ernest Tomlinson, 578 Tomson (later Watson), Graham R., Rosamund Marriott, 99n, 164, Townsend, Edward Waterman, 315n Trilby, 202 Trotter, Jacqueline Theodora, Valour and Vision, Poems of the War, 1914-1918, 464 Truth, 55, 59, 96 Tucker, Major W. Guise, 518 Tuke, Daniel Hack, 84 Tuke, James Hack, 84 Tyler, Mrs, 38 Tynan, Andrew Cullen (Katharine’s father), 1, 31, 42, 46, 68, 84, 89, 122, 154, 188, 189, 201, 277, 316; death, 285 Tynan, Andrew (Katharine’s brother), 38 Tynan, Elizabeth (Katharine’s sister), 38, 107 Tynan, Francis James (Katharine’s brother), 38n Tynan, Hugh, 126 TYNAN, KATHARINE, childhood and early life, 1, 153, 183, 250; eyesight problem, 1, 9, 16, 275, 463, 498, 501, 532, 537, 539, 547, 562, 569; meets Fr Matthew Russell, 1-2; in England, 2, 30, 32, 35, 61, 103, 162, 201n, 205, 215, 223, 241, 272, 460, 464, 477, 514, 515, 526, 542, 547, 551, 578; in Ireland, 2, 36, 67, 108, 201, 214, 218, 240, 331n, 338, 385, 463, 465, 484, 519, 545, 549, 553; meets the Meynells, 2, 31; contributes to Merry England, 2,

Index 32, 50, 103, 113, 119, 142; meets Yeats, 2, 52; portrait painted by John Butler Yeats, 2, 70; writings on Alice Meynell, 2, 4, 7, 11, 32n, 81, 109, 147, 169, 170, 201n, 229, 355, 506n, 509; meets Harry Hinkson, 2, 106n; Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems published, 2, 49; Godmother to Meynells’ daughter, 3, 108, 111, 282; politics: 3-4, 14, 15, 17, 96, 97, 121, 122-4, 132, 324, 346, 425, 437, 441, 454, 476, 486, 488, 495, 496, 503, 508, 512, 516, 518, 532, 540; religion; 3, 5, 122, 126, 127, 129, 130, 135, 162, 178, 365, 427; and Parnell, 3, 4, 37n, 97, 101, 106, 121, 122-4, 127, 130, 132, 136, 143, 145, 151, 167, 171, 363, 539; writes for Irish Daily Independent, 4, 136, 140, 147, 151, 168, 191; visits Donegal, 4, 156; articles on W. B. Yeats and on Christina Rossetti, 4, 173; interviewed in the Sketch, 4, 173n; marries Harry, 4, 152, 158; miscarriage, 5, 169; stillborn baby, 5, 178; contributes “London Letter” in Literary World, 5, 180n; reviews Yellow Book, 5, 178n; “Wares of Autolycus” (PMG), 5, 188, 201n: Godfrey Assumption Hinkson born, 5, 192; rejected by Blackwood, 6, 198, 199, 205, 213; Theobald (“Toby”) Henry born, 6, 206; title problem with W. B. Yeats, 6, 212; financial help from Wilfrid Meynell, 6, 16, 211, 215, 223, 224, 497; Giles Aylmer (“Bunny”/ “Pat”) born, 6, 215; edits Cabinet of Irish Literature, 6, 214, 218, 219,

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist 220, 276; Pamela Mary Hinkson born, 7, 226; in Oxford Book of English Verse, 7, 228, 347; Women Writers Dinner, 7, 9, 165n, 238n, 240, 283, 284, 332; visits France, 7, 8, 16, 241, 269, 270, 536-43; attends Lionel Johnson funeral, 7, 242; to edit Lionel Johnson’s poems, 8, 244, 249; proposed memorial to Lionel Johnson, 8, 259, 260; suffrage, 8, 274, 425; health, 9, 111, 176, 235, 277, 284, 584; on Francis Thompson, 9, 289, 291; publishes Yeats’s letters, 11-12, 367; attends International Congress of Women in Rome, 12, 374-84; Harry as Resident Magistrate, 12-13, 364, 389, 390, 391, 446; visits Scotland, 14, 456, 459, 460, 462, 463, 475, 533; Harry’s death, 14, 456; visits Italy, 15, 374, 480, 481; and Royal Literary Fund, 14, 15, 16, 278, 433-5, 473, 474, 484, 547, 548; death of Alice Meynell, 15, 506, 508, 509; visits Germany, 15, 490-514, 516-18; Sphere commission, 15, 513; death, 17, 590; meets Christina and William Rossetti, 66n; meets Gerard Manley Hopkins, 74; attends séance with Yeats, 76n; meets Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 83; Yeats suggests a commission, 88n; involved with Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 91; comments on Yeats, 103; riding a bicycle,113, 114; meets Lady Butler (Alice’s sister), 145; engaged to Harry, 148; writes for the Pall Mall Gazette, 185, 229; offers poems to New Budget,189; complaint by Rosa Gilbert, 190n; interviewed in

607

British Weekly, 193; John Lane rejects stories, 210; in Mainly About People, 233; lends her portrait for exhibition, 257, 258; British Weekly commission, 266; appeals for finance from Blunt and Lord Rothschild, 287; stays in Malvern, 302; pirating of Handsome Brandons, 304; moves to Southborough, Kent, 316; rejected by Macmillans, 327; to settle in Ireland, 333; meets AE, 349; to lecture in Cork and Liverpool, 366; offers The Flower of Peace to Wilfrid Meynell, 371; to compile a book of those killed in Great War (unpublished Roll of Honour), 394, 399; war poetry, 391, 394, 396, 403n, 411, 413, 414, 464; stays with the Aberdeens, 401; moves to Carradoyne, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, 402; speaks at Recruiting Meeting, 415; moves to Brookhill, Claremorris, 423; and John Higgins, 425; sells Yeats letters, 439, 446, 450; asks loan from Clement Shorter, 450; moves to Killiney, 456; railway strike, 465; possible American films, 471, 477; moves to Shankill, Dublin, 473; defends the Aberdeens, 485; reaction to Saturday Review criticism of Wandering Years, 499; at Irish Literary Society Dinner, 543; British Legion sale, Dublin, 574-6, 578-80; PEN dinner, 581; Civil List pension, 584n Works Autobiographies: Life in the Occupied Area, 15, 490n; Memories, 1, 2, 3, 8, 16, 31n, 32n, 37n, 42n, 71n, 74n, 91n, 114n, 155n, 165n, 170n, 173n,

608 184n, 190n, 195n, 225n, 280n, 296n, 451n, 460n, 506n, 511, 523, 526n, 532; The Middle Years, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 31n, 32, 73n, 137n, 140n, 156n, 167n, 188n, 201n, 214n, 216n, 241n, 258n, 270n, 280n, 287n, 299n, 302n, 307n, 316n, 319n, 331n, 338n, 346n, 353n, 416, 429, 439; Twenty-five Years: Reminiscences, 1, 4,11, 12, 30n, 31n, 32n, 37n, 38n, 46n, 51n, 52n, 55n, 58n, 66n, 71n, 72n, 83n, 85n, 106n, 121n, 135n, 146n, 225n, 339, 341, 344, 346, 355, 360, 361, 363, 364, 366, 367, 369, 376, 400, 416, 437; The Wandering Years, 13, 15, 71n, 389n, 462n, 465n, 469n, 473n, 477n, 481n, 499n; The Years of the Shadow, 12, 14, 15, 17, 31n, 338n, 374n, 378n, 390n, 402n, 404n, 405n, 411n, 419n, 423n, 424n, 425n, 442n, 450n, 452n, 454n, 461, 462, 465n, 467 Biography: The Child’s Life of Our Lord, 294; Father Mathew, 294n, 295, 296; A Little Book for John O’Mahony’s Friends, 9, 10, 299n, 311; A Little Book for Mary Gill’s Friends,8, 267n; Lord Edward Fitzgerald: A Study in Romance, 248n, 429; A Nun, Her Friends and Her Order: the Life of M. X. Fallon, 4, 108, 110, 113, 117, 119, 126, 131, 132, 133, 135, 183; The Story of Our Lord for Children, 353n; A Woman’s Notes in War-Time: Observations from a Quiet Corner (unpublished), 13, 416 Editions/Introductions: A Book of Memory, the Birthday Book of the Blessed Dead, 8, 13, 268,

Index 269n, 290, 347, 394, 399n; Cabinet of Irish Literature, 6, 214, 218, 219, 220, 276; “Dora Sigerson, a Tribute and Some Memories” in The Sad Years, 450n; Irish Love-Songs, 4, 138, 154; A Little Book of XXIV Carols, 277; “Poems by Lionel Johnson”, intro. Bibelot, (1904), 7, 244; The Roll of Honour: A Book of Glories & Illusion (unpublished), 13, 399, 403; “Frances Wynne: A Memory” in Wynne’s Whisper!, 169n; ; The Wild Harp: A Selection from Irish Poetry, 11, 367 Fiction: The Adventures of Alicia,297; “An International Idyll”, 246n; An Isle in the Water, 5, 193; “The Boys of the House”, 328n; “The Brothers”, 204; The Children at the Farm, 245; A Daughter of the Fields, 256n; Dear Irish Girl, 221; “Father Anthony O’Toole”, 194; “For Maisie”, 266; The Handsome Brandons, 209, 304; The Handsome Quaker, 199n, 223n; The Honourable Molly, 245; The House of Crickets, 296n, 300, 307; John-ADreams, 398, 399; John Bulteel’s Daughters, 407n; A July Rose, 480n; Led by a Dream and Other Stories, 208n; A Little Radiant Girl, 339n, 355n; The Land of Mist and Mountain, 193; The Lost Angel, 296n; Love of Brothers, 450n; Love of Sisters, 237; “Mary’s Paragons”, 285, 293n; Men not Angels and Other Tales told to Girls, 360, 407, 442, 481; A Mésalliance, 317n; “Mrs Grace’s Governess”, 100; Mrs Pratt of Paradise Farm, 332n;

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist “Old Soldiers”, 100n; Out in the World, 395n; “Out of the Night”, 203n; “A Pack o’Children”, 199; Paradise Farm, 11, 317n, 332n; Princess Katharine, 11, 317n, 328, 332n, 395n; The Rich Man, 492n; Rose of the Garden, 340n, 366; The Second Wife, 480n; “That Sweet Enemy”, 227n; A Union of Hearts, 8, 254; The Way of a Maid, 67n, 175n, 193; “Wayfarers”, 137; “The Whisperer”, 210 Letters to the Press: “Another Peamount?”, 356; “Animals in the Irish War”, 512; “Appeals and Subscriptions. An Appeal for Animals”, 546; “Army Privileges in Cologne”, 500; “The Baltinglass Cruelty Case”, 352; “Birds and Dogs”, 570; “Child Collectors”, 550; “A Correction”, 276; “The Decrepit Horse Trade”, 372; “Donkey Races”, 552; “The Galway Fishermen”, 549; “General Mulcahy”, 495; “Indiscreet Memoirs”, 485; “Irish”, 499; “The Irish Statesman (Saturday Review)”, 556; “The Irish Statesman (The Times)”, 572; Kerry Sentinel (private), 184; “Letters to the Editor. Children’s Playgrounds”, 559; “Lionel Johnson’s Poems”, 249; Literary World (private), 180; New Budget (private), 189; “Our Daughters’ Future. Independence or Idleness? Miss Katharine Tynan and Emigration”, 491; “Points from Letters”, 498; “The Protection of Birds”, 557; “The Protection of Irish Girls”, 444; “The Transit of Cattle”, 522; “To the

609

Editor of the Times”, 274; “Unsheltered Men”, 555; “Vegetables for the Red Cross”, 410; “The Victorians”, 583; “Women Police in Cologne”, 519; “A Word for Shopgirls”, 529 Plays: Miracle Plays, 178, 181, 183, 193, 235; “The Annunciation. A Miracle Play”, 178n; “The Flight into Egypt”, 235n; “The Nativity”, 235n; “The Purification. A Miracle Play”, 178n Poems: “Alice”, 229; “Alice Meynell”, 229n; “All in the April evening”, 7, 113, 228n, 299n, 563n; “All Souls’ Night”, 134n; “An Ode for the Opening of the Irish Village at Chicago”, 156n; “An Old Story”,79n; “The Angel of the Annunciation”, 100; “Aspiration”, 100n; “At Set of Sun”, 82n; “August or June”, 57; “A Bird’s Song”, 82n; “The Blackbird”, 99; “Chaffinch”, 314n; “A Child shall lead Them”, 198n; “Children of Lir”, 89, 94n; “A Child’s Day”, 145n; “The Colonists”, 464; “Compensation”, 359n; “A DayDreamer”, 90n; “The Dead Mermaid”, 90n; “The Dead Patriot”, 54n; “The Dog-Sleep”, 185n; “Doves”, 321n; “Epiphany”, 511n; “Epitaph”, 100n; “The Fairy FosterMother”, 134n; “Fame’s Temple”, 82n; “The Farmer Monk”, 134n; “The Flight of the Wild Geese”, 58, 516; “The Flower o’ the Year”, 113n; “The Flower of Youth”, 411n, 464; “For a Connaught Man”, 314n; “Forgiven”, 112n; “For Your

Index

610 Sake”, 321n; “Golden Weed”,119n; “The Grave of Michael Dwyer”, 91n; “He knows, the rogue on the tree”, 185n; “I will go out into my garden to hear the birds sing”, 299n; “In a Cathedral”, 106n; “In Summer”, 82n; “Irish LoveSong”, 138n; “Irish Pipes”, 273; “Joan of Arc: a monologue”, 55; “The King’s Cupbearer”, 54n; “King’s Prisoners”, 100n; “The Lark Waking”, 128n; “The Little Red Lark”, 536n; “Louise de la Vallière: A Dramatic Monologue”, 32, 35n; “Love’s House”,113n; “Lullaby”, 293n; “Lux in Tenebris”, 194n; “Mary in Heaven”, 267n; “My rose shall have no care at all”, 299n; “A Nested Bird”, 50n; “Night Prayer”, 195n; “A Night Thought”, 285n; “Nightingale”, 189n; “November Eve”, 174n; “The Occ. Bard’s Lament”, 185n; “Of St Francis: His Wrath”, 113; “Oh, safe for evermore”, 299n; “The Old House”, 314n; “Over Mountains”, 100n; “Palestine”, 464n; “Papist and Puritan (A.D. 1710)”, 91n; “The Perfect Playmate”, 403n; “Poppies”, 142; “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne”, 75n; “Queen’s Favors”, 100n; “A Rhyme of the Road”, 321n; “Rhymed Rosary”, 77n; “Ronain on His Island”, 88n; “The Sad Mother”, 134n; “St. Francis to the Birds”, 79n; ‘“Shameen Dhu”’, 91n; “Shamrock Song”, 82; “Sheep and Lambs”, see “All in the April evening”; “Sleep sweet Birdiekin”, 354; “Storm-Gold” , 90n; “Sub Rosa”, 103n; “They

who Return”, 411n; “To Inishkea”, 134n; “To Two Bereaved (For G.S.C., 20th October, R.S.C., 28th October 1914)”, 391; “Two in Heaven”, 112n; “The Venetians”, 100n; “Votive Offering”, 116n; “Where You buy Joy for a Penny”, 313n; “The Wild Geese”, 58, 59; “The Wind that shakes the Barley”, 313n; “The Wood-Pigeon”, 138n Poems in Anthologies: Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 2, 91; Gosset’s Lullabies of the Four Nations, 354; Hannon’s The Kings and the Cats: Munster Fairy Tales for Young & Old, 279n; In Memoriam Dora Sigerson, 1918-1923. Died January 6th, 1918, 511n; Irish Love-Songs, 4, 138, 154; Kelly’s Popular and Patriotic Poetry, 273; Wilfrid Meynell’s The Child set in the Midst by Modern Poets, 145; Sparling’s Irish Minstrelsy, 82; Jacqueline Trotter’s Valour and Vision, Poems of the War, 1914-1918, 464n; Elizabeth Waterhouses’s Companions of the Way being Selections for Morning and Evening Reading, 299 Poetry (collections): Ballads and Lyrics, 4, 119n, 235, 563n; Christmas Verses (with May Probyn), 6, 84; A Cluster of Nuts, 5, 174, 182, 183, 193; Collected Poems, 7, 16, 308, 562, 577, 582; Cuckoo Songs, 5, 170, 182, 183, 193; Evensong, 15, 503n, 506, 507n, 514n; Experiences, 10, 299, 300, 305, 308, 314, 347, 563; The Flower of Peace: a Collection of the Devotional Poetry of Katharine

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Tynan, 12, 371n, 396n, 407, 481; Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time, 13, 391n, 396, 407, 411, 413, 414n, 464; Herb o’ Grace: Poems in War-Time, 113n; The Holy War, 13, 58n, 403n, 411n, 464; Innocencies: A Book of Verse, 270n, 299, 308, 347, 563; Irish Poems, 11, 347, 358n, 359, 361, 362; Late Songs, 14, 441n; Lauds, 308n, 359; Louise de la Vallière and Other Poems, 2, 39n, 55n, 57, 75n, 79, 82n, 142n, 235, 516n; A Lover’s Breast-Knot, 113n, 196; New Poems, 11, 326n, 327n, 347; Poems, 7, 235; Shamrocks, 2, 75n, 76, 79n, 85n, 100n, 141n, 143, 183; Twilight Songs, 16, 563, 564; The Wind in the Trees, 6, 208n, 209, 212 Prose: “About and Around Avondale”, 145n; The Adventure of the Lady in Black”, 38n; “Alfred Percival Graves”, 73, 109n; “Alice Meynell” (Magazine of Poetry), 4, 109; “Alice Meynell” (Star), 509; “Alice Meynell—The Dearest Woman”, 32n, 506; “Alice Meynell. The Poets’ Poet”, 509; Alice Meynell’s Preludes, 81; Alice Meynell’s The Rhythm of Life and Poems, 147; “An Old English Catholic Mansion”, 112n; “The Author of ‘Irish Idylls’”, 170n; “A Book-Lover”, 156n; “Books and Bookmen in London”, 167n, 180n; “The Books of My Childhood. 10”, 246n; “Browning’s Heroines”, 88n; “A Catholic Poet”, 437n; “A Chat with Alice Meynell”, 170; “A Chat with Miss Jane

611

Barlow”, 170n; “Coming from Cologne”, 456n; “The Cottage Industries of Donegal”, 156n; “The Dearest of All”, 313n; “Died of His Wounds [J. B. S. A., Bethlehem, July 5]”, 231; Domenichetti’s The Quest of Sir Bertrand , 114n; “Dora Sigerson: a Tribute and Some Memories”, 448n, 450n; “Dora Sigerson’s Last Poems”, 450n; Dora Sigerson’s Madge Lindsey and Other Poems, 368; “Dublin for a Holiday”, 388n; “Dublin the Beautiful”, 310n; Ellis and Turquam’s La Belle Pamela, 528; “English Bards and Scottish Reviewers”, 156n; Ernest Rhys’s Lays of the Round Table, 272; “A Figure of Romance. Memories of Wilfrid Blunt”, 496; Flora Masson’s The Brontës, 340n; “Frances Bedingfeld of Oxburgh and her Friends”, 116; “Frances Wynne”, 169n; “Francis Thompson”, 289n; “Francis Thompson: An Appreciation”, 289; Francis Thompson’s “To the Dead Cardinal at Westminster”, 140n; “George Russell (AE). A Personal Study of a Great Poet and Reformer”, 409; George Sigerson’s The Saga of King Lir, 368n; “A Holiday in the Occupied Area”, 513n; “In Fond and Faithful Memory”, 267n; “The Great News in Dublin”, 486n; “The Irish Houses of Parliament”, 156n; “Irish Types and Traits”, 88n; “Haunted Fields: an Eerie Place in Ireland”, 545n; J. B. Yeats’s Essays: Irish and American, 451n; Jane Barlow’s Irish Idylls, 170, 208; “A

Index

612 Journey and a Journal”, 110; “Keats’s Heroines”, 88n; “The Lady of the Manor”, 307; “A Literary Causerie. Irish FolkLore”, 156n; “Lionel Johnson”, 244n; “London Letter” (Literary World), 180n; “Longfellow’s Heroines”, 88n; “Lord and Lady Aberdeen: An Appreciation”, 401n; “Lord Killowen at Home”, 190n; “Lord Tennyson’s Women”, 88n; “Match-Making Customs in Munster’, 184; May Sinclair’s The Three Brontës, 11, 340, 368; “Miss Jane Barlow”, 170n; Monk Gibbon’s The Branch of Hawthorn Tree and The Tremulous String, 561n; Monk Gibbon’s For Daws to Peck At, 562n; “Mrs Meynell and her Poetry”, 11, 355; “Mrs Piatt’s Poems”, 71; “Mrs Wilfrid Meynell. By Katharine Tynan”, 169; “The Neglect of Irish Writers”, 10, 294; “Nuns in New Tipperary”, 116; “Our Daughters’ Future”, 492n; “Our Lady in the Calendar”, 112n; “Our Lady’s Hospice for the Dying”, 112n; “Outgoing Viceroy, Lord and Lady Aberdeen’s Departure from Dublin (From a special correspondent)”, 401 “Personal Memories of John Butler Yeats”, 451n; “The Poetry of Christina Rossetti”, 173n; “The Poetry of William Allingham”, 269n; “Recent Irish Poetry”, 14, 448; Robert Vansittart’s Pity’s Kin, 528; “Roger Bellingham. A Victim of the War”, 406n; “The Shrine of Alice Meynell”, 506n; “Some personal Recollections of Cardinal Manning”, 136n;

“Some Memories of Christina Rossetti”, 55n; “Suburban Neighbours”, 185; Sydenham and Taylor’s Selections from Plato, 144; “Tennyson’s Heroines”, 88n; Todhunter’s The Banshee and Other Poems, 136n; “A Visit to Cardinal Manning”, 136n; A Woman's Notes in War-Time: Observations from a Quiet Corner , 14, 416; “A Visit to Oxburgh”, 116n; “W. B. Yeats” (Bookman), 173; “Wares of Autolycus” (PMG), 5, 188n: “Wares of Autolycus. Coming Back”, 201n; “Wares of Autolycus. Mushroom Gathering”, 201n; “Wares of Autolycus. To the Only Woman”, 201n; Wilfrid Meynell’s The Works of Francis Thompson, 289n; “William Butler Yeats” (Magazine of Poetry), 109n; “William Butler Yeats” (Sketch), 4, 173; “William Canton”, 539; “The Women of Ireland”, 191n; “Women in Council” (Westminster Gazette), 378; “Women in Council” (Freeman’s Journal), 379; “Women in Council” (The Times), 378; “Women of the World”, 378; “Yeats’s A Book of Irish Verse, 191n Tynan (Katharine’s sister, later O’Mahony), Nora, 1, 37, 108, 160, 171, 207, 264 Tynan, Sarah (Katharine’s sister), 38 Tyrrell, Ada, 227 Tyrrell, Robert Yelverton, 156 United Ireland, 38n, 97, 133n, 173n, 174n

The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist Unwin, T. Fisher, 139n, 183, 515 Vandyk, Herbert, photographs Pamela Hinkson, 466 Vansittart, Robert Gilbert, 482, 507, 534, 569 Vaughan, Fr Bernard, 370 Walsh, Edward, 157 Walshe, Beatrice (Bee), 30n, 38, 48n, 51n Walshe, John W., 30n Walshe, Margaret, 30n, 52n Ward, Mrs Humphry, 383 Warner, Captain Edward Courtenay Thomas, 385 Warner, (Leucha) Mary, 385, 386, 394 Warner, Private John Thomas, 431 Waterhouse, Alfred, 299n Waterhouse, Elizabeth, 299n Watson, Sir William, 586 Watt, Alexander Pollock, 288n, 316, 329, 395, 523 Watts, George Frederick, 103 Weale, John, 52 Webb, Alfred John, 125 Webb, Arthur Patterson, 537n Webster, Augusta, 110 Webster, Richard Everard, 103 Wedgwood, 2nd Lt Allen, 534 Wedgwood, Mary Louisa, 534 Wedmore, Frederick, 107 Weekly Freeman’s, 132, 487 Weekly Register, 2, 5, 32n, 49n, 54, 80n, 113n, 114, 116n, 124, 127, 129, 132, 133, 154, 164, 202n Westminster Gazette, 12, 201, 350, 378, 382, 384, 401 Weigall, Constance Emma Cromwell, 411n, Weigall, Lt. Richard Edward Cromwell, 411n Wemyss, Lady Mary, 14, 420, 434 Whitehall Review, 56 Wilde, Oscar, 6, 88, 214

613

Williams, Alfred Mason, 84, 88, 153 Williamson, Henry, 579n Wilson, Patten, 180n Windsor, 414 Woman’s World, 88, 90 Women Writers Dinner, 165n, 240, 283, 284, 332 Wyndham, George, 11, 14, 302, 353, 355, 362 Wyndham, Percy Lyulph, 353n Wynne, Alfred Henry, 83n Wynne, Frances Alice Maria, 83, 95, 97, 101, 140, 169 Wynne, Rev. Henry, 83n, 178 Yeats, Bertha Georgie (“George”: W. B. Yeats’s wife), 451 Yeats, Elizabeth Corbet (“Lolly”), 489n Yeats, John Butler (W. B. Yeats’s father), 14, 451n, 489n; portrait of Katharine Tynan, 2, 8, 12, 70, 257n, 370n Yeats, Susan Mary (“Lily”), 489n Yeats, William Butler, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 16, 17, 52, 74n, 75, 82, 87n, 88, 90n, 99n, 103, 104n, 106n, 111, 113n, 114, 117, 138n, 142, 151, 156, 157, 173, 174n, 191n, 228n, 283, 305, 341n, 349n, 367n, 400, 434n, 459n, 469n, 504, 516n, 565n, 579, 586; Katharine reviews, 109n, 173; reviews Katharine, 4, 76, 119n; Katharine publishes his letters, 11, 12, 367; sells his letters, 14, 439, 446, 450; at Irish Literary Society Dinner, 543; and Katharine’s Collected Letters, 562, 564, 568; “Irish National Literature”, 228n; Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, 91n; The Wild Harp: A Selection from Irish Poetry, 367; “Wind Among the Reeds”, 212;

614 Young, Lady Alice, 71, 84, 265, 499 Young, Sir George, 71n Young Woman, 191n

Index Zulueta , Cardinal, 379n Zweig, Arnold, 17, 575, 578