One day she sent for me. “My dear, you must publish this,” she said as soon as I arrived.
At that time I had not long returned from my wedding tour. Needless to say, therefore, I laughed at the idea. Miss Barlee was determined, however, to carry her point.
“If you do not believe in my opinion,” she said, “may I send the manuscripts to my publisher, and if he approves of it, will you take the matter into serious consideration, as you are almost the first woman—girl, I should rather say—to have been across Iceland?”
Naturally I assented to her proposal, thinking the whole thing absurd. What was my surprise when, a little later, I received a letter from the publisher to say that he liked the notes, and if I would divide them into chapters he thought that they would make a nice little book. He also asked whether I could let him have any illustrations for it.
Feeling somewhat exalted, and yet very shy about the whole thing, I sent him a number of the sketches that I had made. Lo and behold, they were accepted for the illustrations, and the book appeared as A Girl’s Ride in Iceland.
How strange it seems to look back and remember the origin of the title A Girl’s Ride in Iceland. It was the title I had put on the cover of the little black book—but it seemed absurd and ridiculous to my mind as a cover on a real book. I thought of all sorts of grand, high-sounding delineations; but Miss Barlee would none of them. “I love your title,” she said. “You were a girl, and it seems such an original idea, you must stick to it.” I did, but the critics laughed at the idea of a girl doing anything—nevertheless it was quickly followed with A Girl in the Carpathians, and every sort and kind of “girl” has haunted the public ever since, from the stage to the library.
The book ran through four editions, finally appearing on the bookstalls at one shilling.
But, oh dear, how I struggled with those chapters! How I fought those “Mondays,” “Tuesdays,” and “Wednesdays” of the diary-form and wrestled to get the whole into consecutive line and possible chapters: but it gave me amusement during long hours spent on a sofa before my eldest child was born. I used to get into despair, the despair of the amateur who does not know what is wanted, and which is just as bad as the despair of the professional who really knows what is wanted and yet cannot pull it off. And so A Girl’s Ride in Iceland appeared just for the fun of the thing. It cost me nothing and amused me hugely at the moment; but I soon forgot all about it and set to work to enjoy myself again.
Among the friends who came to our bridal dinners—alas! years have rolled on and death has played havoc among them—was Professor John Stuart Blackie, my husband’s cousin. In Edinburgh that remarkable head of his, with the shaggy white locks, the incomparable black wide-awake and the Scotsman’s plaid thrown around his shoulders, was really one of the sights. In fact, no figure was better known north of the Tweed than Professor Blackie in his day. The north was his “ain countree,” but he was a delight to every social circle that he entered on those occasions when he came south.
Of course, he commanded the whole company. And why not? Who would be an octogenarian as full of activity and high spirits as he was, a Greek scholar, professor, and a wit, without the authority to bid others keep silence while one’s self talks? His little foibles and vanities were the man, and nobody who knew him would willingly have seen him part with a single one of them.