Yours very sincerely,
JOHN MORLEY.
Such a letter only served to strengthen friendship. Mrs. Ward’s literary comradeship with Mr. Morley remained unbroken in spite of widening differences in politics, and when, a few months later, he assumed the editorship of Macmillan’s Magazine he proposed to her that she should virtually take over its literary criticism:—
March 22, 83.
DEAR MRS. WARD,—
My reign over “Macmillan” will begin in May. I want to know whether you can help me to a literary article once a month—in the shape of a compte rendu of some new books, English or French. It is highly desirable that the subject should be as lively and readable as possible—not erudite and academic, but literary, or socio-literary, as Ste Beuve was.
I don’t see why a “causerie” from you once a month should not become as marked a feature in our world, as Ste Beuve was to France. In time, the articles would make matter for a volume, and so you would strike the stars with your sublime head.
I hope my suggestion will commend itself to you. I have been counting upon you, and shall be horribly discouraged if you say No.
Yours sincerely,
JOHN MORLEY.
Flattered as she was by the suggestion, she was never able to carry out his whole behest, yet between February, 1883, and June, 1885, she wrote no less than twelve articles for Macmillan’s, on subjects ranging from the young Spanish Romanticist, Gustavo Becquer, to Keats, Jane Austen, Renan and the “Literature of Introspection” (à propos of Amiel’s Journal Intime), while the series was ended by a full-dress review of Pater’s Marius the Epicurean. These articles did much to assure her position in the world of pure literature, as her Dictionary articles had assured it in the world of scholarship, and she never ceased to be grateful to Mr. Morley for the opportunities he had given her in inviting them, for the encouragement of his praise and the bracing of his occasional criticism.