Miss Bretherton

Miss Bretherton, by Mrs.
Humphry Ward

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Bretherton, by Mrs. Humphry
Ward This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Miss Bretherton
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13432]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS
BRETHERTON ***

Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

MISS BRETHERTON
BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

1888

PREFATORY NOTE
It ought to be stated that the account of the play Elvira, given in
Chapter VII.
of the present story, is based upon an existing play, the work of a little
known writer of the Romantic time, whose short, brilliant life came to a
tragical end in 1836.
M. A. W.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
So many criticisms, not of a literary but of a personal kind, have been
made on this little book since its appearance, that I may perhaps be
allowed a few words of answer to them in the shape of a short preface
to this new edition. It has been supposed that because the book
describes a London world, which is a central and conspicuous world
with interests and activities of a public and prominent kind, therefore
all the characters in it are drawn from real persons who may be
identified if the seeker is only clever enough. This charge of portraiture
is constantly brought against the novelist, and it is always a difficult
one to meet; but one may begin by pointing out that, in general, it
implies a radical misconception of the story-teller's methods of
procedure. An idea, a situation, is suggested to him by real life, he
takes traits and peculiarities from this or that person whom he has
known or seen, but this is all. When he comes to write--unless, of
course, it is a case of malice and bad faith--the mere necessities of an
imaginative effort oblige him to cut himself adrift from reality. His
characters become to him the creatures of a dream, as vivid often as his
waking life, but still a dream. And the only portraits he is drawing are
portraits of phantoms, of which the germs were present in reality, but to

which he himself has given voice, garb, and action.
So the present little sketch was suggested by real life; the first hint for it
was taken from one of the lines of criticism--not that of the
author--adopted towards the earliest performances of an actress who,
coming among us as a stranger a year and a half ago, has won the
respect and admiration of us all. The share in dramatic success which,
in this country at any rate, belongs to physical gift and personal charm;
the effect of the public sensitiveness to both, upon the artist and upon
art; the difference between French and English dramatic ideals; these
were the various thoughts suggested by the dramatic interests of the
time. They were not new, they had been brought into prominence on
more than one occasion during the last few years, and, in a general
sense, they are common to the whole history of dramatic art. In dealing
with them the problem of the story-teller was twofold--on the one hand,
to describe the public in its two divisions of those who know or think
they know, and those whose only wish is to feel and to enjoy; and on
the other hand, to draw such an artist as should embody at once all the
weakness and all the strength involved in the general situation. To do
this, it was necessary to exaggerate and emphasise all the criticisms that
had ever been brought against beauty in high dramatic place, while, at
the same time, charm and loveliness were inseparable from the main
conception. And further, it was sought to show that, although the
English susceptibility to physical charm--susceptibility greater here, in
matters of art, than it is in France--may have, and often does have, a
hindering effect upon the artist, still, there are other influences in a
great society which are constantly tending to neutralise this effect; in
other words, that even in England an actress may win her way by youth
and beauty, and still achieve by labour and desert another and a greater
fame.
These were the ideas on which this little sketch was based, and in
working them out the writer has not been conscious of any portraiture
of individuals. Whatever attractiveness she may have succeeded in
giving to her heroine is no doubt the shadow,