But these articles were all written under the heaviest physical disabilities. Early in 1883 she began to suffer from a violent form of writer’s cramp, which made her right hand almost useless at times, and recurred at intervals all through her life, so that writing was usually a far more arduous and painful process to her than it is to most of us. Through the years 1883 and 1884 she was frequently reduced to writing with her left hand, but she also dictated much to her young sister-in-law, Gertrude Ward, who came to live with us at this time, and became for the next eight years the prop and support of our household. Many remedies were tried for the ailment, but nothing was really effective until after two years a German “writing-master” came on the scene, one Dr. Julius Wolff, who completely transformed her method of writing by making her sit much higher than before, rest the whole fore-arm on the table, and use an altogether different set of muscles. Many curious exercises he gave her also, which she practised at intervals for years afterwards, and by these means he succeeded in giving her comparative immunity, though whenever she was specially pressed with work the pain and weakness would recur. During the year 1884, however, before Dr. Wolff had appeared, her arm was practically disabled, and she wore it much in a sling.
Yet it was during this year that she began her translation of Amiel’s Journal and wrote her first novel, Miss Bretherton. The idea of it was suggested by her first sight of the beautiful actress, Mary Anderson, though she always maintained that, once created, Isabel Bretherton became to her an absolutely distinct personality. The manner of its writing is told in a fragment of Miss Gertrude Ward’s journal:
“The book was written in about six weeks. She used to lie or sit out of doors at Borough Farm, with a notebook and pencil, and scrawl down what she could with her left hand; then she would come in about twelve and dictate to me at a great rate for an hour or more. In the afternoon and evening she would look over and correct what was done, and I copied out the whole. The scene of Marie and Kendal in his rooms was dictated in her bedroom; she lay on her bed, and I sat by the window behind a screen.”
The book was published by Messrs. Macmillan and appeared in December, 1884. It attracted a good deal of attention. The general verdict was that it was a fine and delicate piece of work, but on too limited, too intellectual a scale. This view was admirably put by her old friend, Mr. Creighton (then Emmanuel Professor at Cambridge):
MY DEAR MRS. WARD,—
I have read Miss Bretherton with much interest. It was hardly fair on the book to know the plot beforehand, but I found myself carried away by the delicate feeling with which the development of character was traced. The Nuneham scene, the death-bed and the final reconciliation were really touching and powerfully worked out.
At the same time it is not a novel of my sort. I demand that I should have given me an entire slice of life, and that I should see the mutual interaction of a number of characters. Your interest centres entirely on one character: your characters all move in the same region of ideas, and that a narrow one. Your book is dainty, but it does not touch the great springs of life. Of course you didn’t mean it to do so: but I am putting before you what I conceive to be the novelist’s ideal. It seems to me that a novelist must have seen much, must lay himself out to be conversant with many sides of life, must have no line of his own, but must lend himself to the life of those around him. This is the direct opposite of the critic. I wonder if the two trades can be combined. Have you ever read Sainte Beuve’s solitary novel, Volupté? It is instructive reading. You are a critic in your novel. Your object is really to show how criticism can affect a nature capable of receiving it. Now is this properly a subject of art? Is it not too didactic? It is not so for me, for I am an old-fashioned moralist: but the mass of people do not care for intellectual teaching in novels. They want an emotional thrill. Remember that you have deliberately put this aside. Kendal’s love is not made to affect his life, his character, his work. Miss Bretherton only feels so far attracted to him as to listen to what he says.... I only say this to show you what the book made me think, that you wrote as a critic not as a creator. You threw into the form of a story many critical judgments, and gave an excellent sketch of the possible worth of criticism in an unregenerate world. This was worth doing once: but if you are going on with novels you must throw criticism to the winds and let yourself go as a partner of common joys, common sorrows and common perplexities. There, I have told you what I think just as I think it. I would not have done so to anyone else save you, to whom I am always,
Your most affectionate,
M. CREIGHTON.
No doubt Mrs. Ward stored up this criticism for future use, for when she next embarked upon a novel the canvas was indeed broad enough.