"My ambition has ever been," says the gentle author, "to try to do good and not harm by my works, and to write books which any mother can give a girl to read. I do not exactly form plots, I think of one character and circle round that. Of course, I like to meditate well on my characters before beginning to write, and I live so entirely in and with them when writing that I feel restless, and experience a sense of loss and blank when a book is finished, and I have to wait until another grows in my mind. I have sometimes rather regretted a tone of sadness running through some of my earlier stories, but they were tinged with many years of sorrow. Now I can write more cheerfully. Like many authors, I only work from breakfast to luncheon, sometimes at the table, more often with my blotting-pad on my knee before the fire, and I cannot do without plenty of air and exercise, and often walk round Putney Heath. More than twenty years ago I was introduced to Mrs. Henry Wood, who used often to come down to the old Jacobin House, of which I spoke just now. Our acquaintance ripened into an intimacy which only ended with her life. She was very quiet, interesting, and unlike anyone else, but no one ever filled the niche left by her death. Some of my favourite books are 'Amiel's Journal,' Currer Bell's works, George Eliot's, and biographies; also psychological works, the study of mind and character, whilst in poetry I prefer Jean Ingelow and Mrs. Browning."
The long-standing friendship with Helen Marion Burnside—the well-known writer of many clever tales for children, booklets, verses, and songs—began when they were in their early womanhood. Eighteen years ago Miss Burnside became an inmate of Miss Carey's house, and ever since they have shared the same home, living in pleasant harmony and affection.
Presently comes an invitation to join the family five o'clock tea-table. Glass doors in the drawing-room lead into the conservatory, whence issues the soft cooing of ring-doves. The pretty marqueterie cabinets disclose a set of Indian carved ivory chessmen and many quaint bits of china, whilst on a sofa, in solitary state, sits a knowing-looking little tame squirrel with a blue ribbon round its neck. After tea, on the arrival of some visitors, you are so lucky as to get a few minutes' private conversation with Miss Burnside, and you learn a few facts concerning your hostess that could never have been gleaned from one of such reticence and modesty as she. "I do not think," says Helen Marion Burnside, "that I have known any author who has to make her writing—the real work of her life—so secondary a matter as has Rosa Carey. She has so consistently lived her religion, so to speak, that family duty and devotion to its many members have always come first. She never hesitates for a moment to give up the most important professional work if she can do anything in the way of nursing or comforting any of them, and she is the one to whom each of the family turns in any crisis of life. Having had so much of this, and rather weak health to struggle against, it is the greatest wonder to me that she has been able to write as many books as she has done, and in so bright a spirit as many are written. Of course, real womanly woman's work is the highest work, but I think few writers put it so entirely above the professional work as she does. I have often been surprised at her surprise when some little incident has brought her public value home to her. Even now she does not in the least realize that she has her place in the literary world as other contemporary authors have. It is really quite singular and amusing to come across such a simple-minded 'celebrity.' I wonder if you found it out for yourself," she adds quaintly.
Certainly no better words could be found to describe the sympathetic, gifted, and lofty-souled Rosa Nouchette Carey.
ADELINE SERGEANT.
Despite the proverb that "comparisons are odious," there is a great fascination to those who love to explore the old quarters of London, and to hunt up the records of people who have lived and died there, leaving their mark whether for good or evil, and then to note the difference that a hundred or so of years have made in its buildings and inhabitants. Take old Bloomsbury for instance—by no means an uninteresting stroll—described by Evelyn in 1665 as "a little towne with good aire." Pope alludes to this once fashionable locality thus:—
"In Palace Yard at nine, you'll find me there,
At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square."