There, too, in the book-lined room which she had made her study, she would on Sunday evenings carry out in practice those ideas on the teaching of the Bible which she had striven to inculcate at University Hall. The audience sat on low stools or lay on the floor, while she read to them usually a part of the Gospels, making the scene live again, as only she could make it, not only by her intimate knowledge of the times, but by her gift of presentation. Systematically, making us use our minds to follow her, she would work through a section of St. Mark or St. Matthew, comparing each with the other, showing the touches of the “later hand,” taking us deep into the fascinating intricacies of the Synoptic Problem. But all the time the central figure would grow clearer and clearer, in simple majesty of parable or act of healing, while at the greatest moments commentary fell away and only the old words broke the stillness. She was immensely interested in the problem of the Master’s own view of himself and his mission, following him step by step to the declaration at Cæsarea Philippi, then tracing the gathering conviction that in himself was to be fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant. She was inclined to reject the prophecies of the Second Coming as showing too obviously the feeling of the second generation, as being unworthy of him who said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” But in later years she came to regard them as probably based on utterances of his own, for was he not, after all, the child of his time and country? With an episode like the Transfiguration she would show us the elements of popular legend from which it was put together, fitting piece into piece till the whole stood out with a new freshness, throwing its light backwards over the age-long Jewish expectations of the return of Moses and Elijah. So with the Resurrection stories; she bade us always remember the teeming soil from which they sprang, in that long-past childhood of the world; how none of them were written down till forty years, most of them not till sixty and seventy years, had passed since the Crucifixion; how the return from Hades on the third day is at least as old as Alcestis. These things, she said, forbade us to accept them as literal fact; but it was impossible to listen to her reading of the Walk to Emmaus, or the finding of the empty tomb, without coming under the spell of an emotion as deep as it was austere. For the fact that we in these latter days had outgrown our childhood and must distinguish truth from phantasy was no reason in her mind, why we should renounce the poetic value of scenes and pictures woven into the very fabric of our being. And so, Sunday after Sunday, our little minds drank in a teaching which she would fain believe could have been spread broadcast among our generation, could the ideals of University Hall but reach the masses. She did not realize how unique her teaching was, nor how few among her generation combined such knowledge as hers with such a power of instilling it into other minds and hearts.
The writing of David Grieve was a long-sustained effort, extending over the best part of three years, and too often performed under the handicap of writer’s cramp and sleeplessness. But Mrs. Ward was at the prime of her powers, and felt herself more thoroughly master of her material in this book than she had done in the case of Robert Elsmere, so that the revision, when it came, was a matter of weeks and not of months. Her visits to Manchester and Derbyshire for the local colour of the book had inspired her with a vivid faith in the working population of the north, which finds expression in a letter written to her father in September, 1890, in reply to criticisms which he, with his Catholic prepossessions, had made on the unloveliness of their lives:
‘You and I would not agree about New Mills, I am afraid! At least, if New Mills is like Bacup and the towns along the Irwell, as I suppose it is. After seeing those mill-colonies among the moors, I came home cheered and comforted in my mind for the future of England—so differently may the same things affect different people. Beatrice Potter told me that she had stayed for some time incog. as one of themselves with a family of mill-hands at Bacup, and that to her mind they were ‘the salt of the earth,’ so good and kind to each other, so diligent, so God-fearing, so truly unworldly. She attributed it to their religion, to those hideous chapels, which develop in them the keenest individual sense of responsibility to God and man, to their habit of combination for a common end as in their Co-op. Societies and Unions, and to their real sensitiveness to education and the things of the mind, up to a certain point, of course. And certainly all that I saw last autumn bore her out. I imagine that if you were to compare Lancashire with any other manufacturing district in Europe, with Belgium, with Lyons, with Catalonia, it would show favourably as regards the type of human character developed. All the better men and women are interested in the things that interested St. Paul—grace and salvation, and the struggle of the spirit against the flesh, and for the rest they work for their wives and children, and learn gradually to respect those laws of health which are, after all, as much ‘set in the world,’ to use Uncle Matt’s phrase, as beauty and charm, and in their own way as much a will and purpose of God. Read the books about Lancashire life a hundred years ago, and see if they have not improved—if they are not less brutal, less earthy, nearer altogether to the intelligent type of life. That they have far to go yet one cannot deny. But altogether, when London fills me with despair, I often think of Lancashire and am comforted for the future. I think of the people I had tea with at Bacup, all mill-hands, but so refined, gentle and good; and I think of the wonderful development of the civic sense in a town like Oldham, with all its public institutions, its combinations of workpeople for every possible object, and its generally happy and healthy tone. I wish the streets were less ugly, but after all, our climate is hard and drives people indoors three-parts of the year, and the race has very little artistic gift.”
Meanwhile, the Copyright Committee was again hard at work in the United States, arousing much anxious speculation in Mrs. Ward’s mind as to whether their Bill would be through Congress in time for her new book; but in the end the victory came more easily and swiftly than was expected. Congress passed it in November, 1890, and it became law in the following March. The effect on Mrs. Ward’s fortunes was not long in making itself felt. Mr. George Smith had been negotiating for her with an American firm that offered good but not magnificent terms for David Grieve; he was dissatisfied, and in his wise heart bethought him of her old friends the Macmillans, who had an “American house.” The sequel must be told in his own words:
15, Waterloo Place, S.W.
June 13, 1891.
DEAR MRS. HUMPHRY WARD,—
I met Frederick Macmillan in the Park this morning. It flashed on my mind that I would sell him the American copyright of your book, and after a long talk (which made me late for breakfast) I promised him that if he made me a firm offer of seven thousand pounds for the American copyright, including Canada, before one o’clock to-day, I would accept it on your behalf. He has just called here and written the enclosed note. I am rather pleased with myself, and I hope that you will not reproach me. I write in haste, for I shall feel rather anxious until I have a line from you on the subject.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
G. M. Smith.
Needless to say, the “line” was forthcoming, and Mrs. Ward was left to contemplate, with some emotion, the fact that she was mistress of a little fortune. Whether the Macmillans remained as contented with their bargain as she was is, however, a point of some obscurity. Certainly they desired her next book (Marcella), which amply made up to them for any shortcomings on David Grieve, but during the negotiations for it some uncomfortable tales leaked out. “Mr. Brett told me,” wrote Mrs. Ward to George Smith, eighteen months after the appearance of David, “that owing to the description of profit-sharing in David Grieve and the interest roused by it in America, their American branch adopted it last year for all their employés. Then in consequence of David there were no profits to divide! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over the situation, and I am quite determined that if there are losses this time I will share them.”
But as yet the prospect was unclouded, and the summer of 1891 was spent in a hard wrestle with the remaining chapters of the book—with the tragedy of Lucy and the sombre fate of Louie Grieve—but at length, on September 24, the last words of David Grieve were written, and on October 16 she and Mr. Ward fled for nine weeks to Italy.