| R. PLUMER WARD. | 245 |
It is, I believe, pretty generally thought and said, that the authors of remarkable works are rarely answerable to the personal impressions of them created by their books. I have had unusual opportunities of judging on this point, and have seldom found the prevalent notion to be the true one; and I never found it so little true as in the case of the author of “Tremaine” and “De Vere.”
It would not be consistent with the object of these pages to inquire what are the personal impressions likely to be created in regard to their author by the perusal of those two celebrated works.* But I think it must be generally felt by their readers, that no
* At the period about to be referred to, Mr. Ward had written those two works only. |
| 246 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 247 |
Not long after the publication of “De Vere,” however, Mr. Plumer Ward changed his determination of remaining anonymous, and his first direct communication to me was signed with his own name—all our previous literary intercourse having taken place anonymously on both sides, and through the medium of his publisher.
Shortly after this Mr. Ward suffered a
fearful domestic calamity, in the loss (within two or three days of each other) of two
beloved and accomplished daughters—the joint models, as it was understood, of his exquisite
Georgina, in “Tremaine.” This wholly incapacitated him for all
social intercourse for a long period; and as, during the next two or three years, he wrote
nothing, I had given up all expectation of any further communication with him, when, in the
summer of 1831, while staying in Hertfordshire, at a few miles’ distance from his
beau-
| 248 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
At length, then, the moment was unexpectedly at hand that would enable me, if I chose, to solve the problem about which I had felt so much interest; and I confess that I prepared myself for an entire and blank disappointment; for the mutual acquaintance who was about to introduce me to Mr. Ward seemed to see in him nothing materially different from what he was accustomed to meet with in persons moving in the same station of life. Mr. Plumer Ward made, I was assured, an exemplary high sheriff of the county,* an unexceptionable magistrate, a model landlord, a pattern patron of race balls and archery meetings, and was, in brief, the beau-ideal of an English country gentleman and a lord of acres, of the old school.
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* Mr. Ward held this office during the year referred to. |
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 249 |
This was very well in its way, but it was not what I looked for and desired in the author of “Tremaine” and “De Vere;” and, as I had little inclination to get rid of the ideal I had formed for myself in the latter regard, I should certainly have avoided the proposed introduction if I could have done so without showing that such was my desire. But this was impossible, and the next day we drove over to Gilston.
Our first personal interview with distinguished men about whom we have long
felt a strong interest and curiosity, invariably impresses itself upon the mind and memory
more vividly than do any subsequent details of our intercourse with them, however marked or
memorable the latter may have been. And such was especially the case in regard to my first
introduction to Mr. Plumer Ward at Gilston Park. The
man himself, and the immediate adjuncts and accessories of the picture which his first
personal appearance before me presented, stand out on my memory as if they were of
yesterday; while all the collateral incidents and objects connected with the visit recede
into a misty and indistinct
| 250 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
As it is my desire to mix as little as possible with these reminiscences of
Mr. Plumer Ward anything but that which
immediately or incidentally relates to himself personally, I shall not dwell on this, my
first interview with him, further than to say that, after the
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 251 |
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