Having touched on the toil, sorrows, and worries of “work,” it is pleasant to pass on to the silver lining to the cloud.
I cannot remember when I first met Sir Walter Besant, although two or three meetings stand forth distinctly in the tangled web of recollection. One of the many kind things he did for me was soon after my election to the Society of Authors. A dinner was announced. I had never been to a public dinner in my life, but as a member of that august body I had a right to be present.
Naturally wishing to go, I wrote a little letter to Sir Walter, saying that I simply dared not go alone; did he know any lady who would join forces with me?
“I quite understand,” he replied; “you are young and new at the game, and may bring any guest you like. If you take my advice you will let it be a man, and not a woman, because, I think, you will have a better evening’s enjoyment.”
From that moment women writers were allowed a guest.
Accordingly, with a man as my “chaperon,” I attended my first public dinner.
Afterwards, when I was in great anxiety as to ways and means of obtaining a pension for the late Mrs. J. H. Riddell, I went one day to see Besant at his office in Soho Square. He was surrounded—half buried, in fact—by manuscripts, for he was then correcting his books on London—the really joyful work of his literary life. Volumes strewed the floor, volumes were stacked upon the writing-table, volumes lay pell-mell on the chairs. In fact, there was nowhere to sit or stand; London on paper filled the room.
He quite sympathised with my difficult task, but said there was then no fund available to which one could apply; and I asked if it would not be possible to form, in connection with the Society of Authors, some sort of Pension Fund for writers who had made fame but not fortune.
“Well, I don’t know; it might be,” he said.