People pray against sudden death. Let me pray for it. What more lovely ending than to sleep away into the Unknown? It may be a selfish wish, because the shock is greater for those left behind, but, after all, to them the death of a dear one is always a shock, come quick, come slow, and why should the parting be harrowed by tardiness? Yes, let me pray for sudden death, and at an early age before one gets dependent on others.
And my body. Well, if I die of anything interesting—disease or accident—that will make my body of any value whatever to medicine or science, I bequeath it for dissection to University College, Gower Street (or to any other hospital that may be nearer me at my decease). It is only right we should help the living to the last, and interesting cases should always be investigated; at least, my love and admiration for science and medicine tell me so.
Then the scraps can be cremated, because they will have fulfilled their end. Putrefaction is disgusting and harmful to living things; so let my remains be consumed by fire to clean white ash, and let that (in one of those beautiful urns designed by Watts) rest inside Kingsbury Church, or in the vault outside, beside my husband and father.
None of this is morbid, it is only common sense. Death has no horrors for me. I am content to die, and have even paid for and arranged my own cremation to save my survivors time and expense.
But let us return to Mrs. J. H. Riddell, who was the second of these two well-known women writers. Of her one thinks and writes differently; and for myself it is difficult not to hold her in memory more as the woman than the writer, for she was an intimate friend of my earliest years. Even then she was approaching middle life, and, unlike “John Oliver Hobbes,” who passed away when so much of the best of life seemed before her, Mrs. Riddell had reached the eve of her seventy-fifth birthday before death at last—in September, 1906—released her from her prolonged struggle.
She was writing as early as 1858, when women writers were little known. At one time she was among the most popular novelists of the day; but she only declared her identity in 1865, after the enormous success of George Geith of Fen Court.
The death of her husband whom she adored, the failure of her publishers, and her own constant ill-health, brought her much trouble, but she bravely struggled on with her writing for nearly half a century, producing some thirty or forty novels, many of which ran into second and third editions and are now in sixpenny numbers. Her insight into character was her strong point, and her people gradually unfolded themselves with skill and thought as the stories proceeded. She reaped little reward, however, as her best work was done before there was any copyright with America, and, being poor, she sold her books out for an average of about one hundred pounds each.
Although born on the hill-side in Ireland, at Carrickfergus, the daughter of a squire, and a lover of fresh air, fowls, flowers, and country pursuits and produce, Mrs. Riddell settled in London. She hated it at first, and then became an enthusiast over its charms. By day and by night she wandered into its highways and peered into its alleys. She learnt the City off by heart, and penetrated the mysteries of business life so successfully that, woman though she was, she wrote The Senior Partner, City and Suburb, etc. At that time business was not thought a suitable subject for the novelist except in France, by men like Balzac, so to Mrs. Riddell is due the honour of introducing the City gentleman and making him known to the West End.
Many of the tragedies, the failures, and mysteries of business routine which she so often depicted in her books, she wrote from personal knowledge. Misfortunes fell upon her family and, as she was the one to try to put matters right, she naturally learnt many curious ins and outs of speculation and failure. Had she not always had her hand in her pocket for someone, she would not have been so miserably off financially when old age and sickness overtook her.