GENEVIÈVE WARD’S stories are endless and amusing. To mention only two of these.

“A man arrived to have a tooth out.

“‘Will it hurt much, sir?’

“‘Rather.’

“‘Real hurt?’

“‘Rather.’

“‘Well, I don’t think,’ began the man in a dither....

“‘Sit down, sir, sit down right there, and bear it like a woman!’”

Story number two.

“Another man asked the dentist his charge.

“‘Fifty cents.’

“‘Fifty cents, eh?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘But with gas?’

“‘Guess that’s fifty cents more.’

“‘Wa’al, I won’t have gas then.’

“‘You’re a brave man!’

“‘’Tisn’t for me, it’s for my wife!’”

Now a couple of child stories. Surely, the workings of a child’s mind are too strange to be imagined.

My little nephew, aged four, was saying his prayers, kneeling on his bed and resting against his nurse. Suddenly he stopped.

Nurse: “Go on, dear.”

Small Boy: “I can’t.”

Nurse: “Go on, dear.”

Small Boy: “I am switched off, Dod’s talking to someone else.”

Naturally, nurse’s breath was somewhat taken away, and she did not know what to answer, when suddenly reassurance came from the small boy. “It is all right. We are connected again now,” and he began again.

Here is another story about the same little man, though he was then rather younger, to be exact.

He was sent, one hot summer’s day, with his baby sister and two nurses, to Kensington Gardens as a treat. When he came back his mother asked him if he had enjoyed it.

“Oh yes,” he replied. “And what did you do?” she asked, but instead of replying in his usual bubbling fashion, he opened his eyes wide, and looking at her, exclaimed:

“Do you know?”

“Know what?”

“Do you know?”

“Well, what?”

“Do you know?” he again repeated, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head by this time, “we saw a lady smoking!”

Not being exactly sure what to reply to this remark, the fond mother went on with her work.

Seeing her unresponsive, the young gentleman trotted into the next room where his father was smoking.

“Dad, do you know?”

“Yes, I know, you went to tea in Kensington Gardens.”

“But DO YOU KNOW?” repeated the small boy, more earnestly than ever; and then standing before his father with his hands behind his back, he solemnly announced:

“We saw a lady smoking!”

The father, like the mother, was a little nonplussed, and merely exclaimed:

“Oh, really!” But the small boy stood firm to his ground, and with eyes still wider than before, exclaimed:

“Dad, do you think she was learning to be a gentleman?”

Occasionally my eyes light upon some jotting worthy of almost pigeon-hole dignity—too prized for the society of mere scraps, yet too small for the space of a chapter. Here is one concerning a famous lawyer.

Fate has often thrown me into the company of lawyers—the most excellent of people when you don’t meet them in a professional, or fee-paying sense. The really busy advocate is in most cases a delightful man, for the very qualities which make him a social favourite go no little way to establish his success at the Bar.

I once asked Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., what was his recipe for producing a good barrister, and was a little surprised at the importance he attached to the study of oratory.

“Every law student at the beginning of his work should study the art of speaking, the most valuable and the most highly rewarded of all the arts which can be acquired by man.

“The counsel needs the power of fluent and correct expression and of the rhetorical arrangement of his argument of speech. He should have an easy, clear, and well-modulated elocution which compels attention, makes it pleasant to listen to him, and so predisposes in his favour the judgment of his hearers.”

“Ah, but has everyone this gift?” I said.

“Perhaps not, but all these things must be acquired. Each one of them requires a special study. Some men are, no doubt, more highly gifted by nature than others in strength of intellect, tenacity of memory, and the graces of oratory, but no one was ever so highly gifted as to be able to dispense with the labour by which the natural powers are trained and strengthened. The best books for the young law student are Whately’s Logic and Whately’s Rhetoric. They should be read and re-read until he knows them from cover to cover.”

“You are a very warm advocate of speech,” I interposed. “Do you think it a lost art, or an improving one?”

“The ancients were the best teachers. Aristotle’s Rhetoric (the best of all), Cicero’s De Oratore, Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory, are the books of study; Blair and Campbell should be read, but are of no great merit, while of Whately I have already spoken. But the study of good models—and when I speak of study I do not mean simply reading a speech, but the examination and analysis of it, applying the rules of the art which these treatises contain: the attentive hearing of great speeches in Parliament or the courts, or of great sermons, is the only way by which the capacity for really good speaking can be acquired.

“Then every man who wishes to speak well should study elocution as an art. He should practise singing to give variety of tone to the voice. He should habitually see and study the best actors of his time, and so learn the ease and yet the moderation of gesture which helps so much even the best-constructed and most clearly delivered speech. If any one of these studies and exercises is neglected, the man who fails at the Bar must put some part of the blame upon himself.”

Sir Edward Clarke has fulfilled his own theories, even to witnessing the drama. He is a well-known first-nighter, and is often to be seen in the stalls of a theatre.

He sat in Parliament and listened to great speeches. He has himself built a church at Staines, wherein he has heard many sermons. And he has climbed to the very top of his profession.

It would be doing him an injustice to suggest that he places speech as the first and most essential quality in the lawyer’s training. The most brilliant speaker must have something to say. A capacity for logical and scientific reasoning and knowledge of the principles and rules of the law come before all.

“All success in every calling comes from hard work; there is no better secret,” he said decisively.

For years Sir Edward Clarke journeyed up to town from his charming home at Staines every morning, during the legal terms. His companion in the nine o’clock train was invariably the famous Orientalist and brilliant scholar, Dr. Ginsburg, who had made a home for himself and his unique collection of Bibles, and marvellous assortment of prints and etchings, at Virginia Water. Many and interesting were the conversations which these two celebrated men enjoyed during their little railway journey together. The one went off to the British Museum to work among the dead languages, and the completion of his life-work, the Massorah, and the other to the Law Courts, where, in wig and gown, he soon appeared from out his private room in the building, to the consolation of his own clients and the anxiety of his opponents.

Sir Edward Clarke declares the best speech he ever made in his life was addressed to one person—namely, the late Mr. Justice Kekewich. There was no jury, and the judge was alone on the bench. It was the case of Allcard and Skinner, a question of the plaintiff being allowed to recover from an Anglican sisterhood the money she gave while herself a member of it. Sir Edward managed to keep the money for the sisterhood, and Lord Russell of Killowen always declared it was his friend’s greatest stroke of oratory.

One of the events of the year at Leeds is the Lifeboat Celebration, when some thousands of pounds are collected. In these days when women are to the fore, the Committee decided to ask a woman to take the chair, and I was chosen for that position. They have the biggest of halls, which holds five thousand persons, with Members of Parliament, Lord Mayors, and other dignitaries on the platform.

The London editor of the Yorkshire Post came personally to ask me. I refused, funking the speech. Two days later, the Yorkshire Editor-in-chief arrived, flattered me to the skies, and begged me to go. But I persisted in excusing myself, and suggested his asking Sir Ernest Shackleton, promising that if they could not get him, I would do it.

Thank Heaven! Shackleton accepted, in spite of all his engagements, consequent on having just returned from the South Pole.

What an escape, but still it was a great compliment.

Here is a jotting that was pencilled down warm from the heart. As it stands, I give it, with its date, May 14th, 1909:

I do not know when I have been so pleased as at a little episode which happened yesterday.

It chanced a couple of years ago that I was able to help, encourage, and sympathise with a young man at a very trying time, and I laughingly told him I should not be satisfied till he had started again, and put by a thousand pounds. He scoffed at the idea of a thousand pounds as impossible, and wondered if he ever could begin life afresh.

Yesterday he walked in and said, “I have come to tell you that through your encouragement I have worked hard for the last two years, and have done what I thought then impossible. I have not only lived, but saved a thousand pounds, and in remembrance of this success, which is entirely due to you, I have brought you a little souvenir. It has taken me months to find anything quaint and old, such as I thought would really give you pleasure.”

Now, was not that perfectly delightful? He has, indeed, given me pleasure, and added to that his gift is quite charming. It is an old-fashioned pendant, set with beryls, that formerly prized pale blue stone.

Amongst the many disappointments one has in life, such success as this inspires one to fresh efforts.

Here is a tiny stray wanderer in the jotting heap. Such a little one, no one can object to it. Plainly it refers to some of my proof. Also that a review in “T. P.’s” familiar weekly had unkindly referred to me as an elderly sort of scribe, or something “previous” of the kind.

“P.S.—Just looked over proof. Feeling very sad at the prospect of settling down to contemplate middle age and anticipating senile decay, ordered hansom, gave man address.

“‘Yes, miss.’

“Hurrah! Nice man! Extra sixpence in prospect for the ‘miss’!

“Went to shop, ‘young gentleman’ behind the counter enquired:

“‘Your pleasure, miss?’

“Charming young man! Buy more than I really want.

“‘T. P.’ may be wrong; senile decay may be further off than he so ardently hopes!”

With this farewell to jottings.

And now I come to the publication of a big and serious book, Hyde Park, which made its appearance to the public in April, 1908, but took me eighteen months to write and rewrite, while as to the works consulted, seventy-three are duly acknowledged in the opening pages as sources of help, besides which there were, of course, others.

“What put it into your head to write about Hyde Park?” asked a friend the other day.

Well, partly because of my sons. When in search of data across an ocean and thousands of miles of land besides, my endeavour to return for the boys’ holidays entailed trying and often too rapid and arduous travelling. Hyde Park was nearer my own door, so “homeward bound fancy ran its barque ashore.”

Besides in anticipation the task seemed invitingly easy. From early childhood had I not ridden with my father every morning over the tan of the old Park, under its trees, or past its sunlit or steel-grey water? In later days, when friends whose hospitality had been warmly shown me overseas, arrived in London, it had become usual with me to drive them round “the ’Ide Park” until I felt a sort of London Baedeker.

Once, however, the work begun, it proved serious and engrossing, and meant study: study at the British Museum: study of many, many books: search for pictures of old London. Three or four times the amount of material actually used was assiduously gathered. Then began the task of sorting out what was needful. The real difficulty of writing a book is to know what to leave out.

Well, it was a great subject, and deserved the toil spent upon it. Reward came in the praise of the Press, and—this was specially sweet—at once. Within three days, thirteen kind, warm, even enthusiastic reviews! And yet how often the contrary has been the case, and will be with many works which the public slowly learn to value only after their writers have obscurely passed away, embittered, maybe, by the lack of appreciation.

Yes, I am grateful that my history of London’s great playground was called one of “deep research” by the Morning Post, of “bright, cheery entertainment” by the Pall Mall, a “thrilling and true romance which Londoners will have to read” by the Observer. The Westminster Gazette and the Sunday Sun agreed that the book made universal appeal to all lovers of London and lovers of England.

Perhaps not one among the many columns of flattering reviews, however, gave me so much pleasure as the following letter, from an old friend, well known to fame.

Love and friendship are the finest assets in the Bank of Life.

From generation to generation, Hyde Park has been the wide theatre upon which many tragedies and comedies of London have been enacted, the forum where many liberties have been demanded, the scene where national triumphs have been celebrated.

Yes, the book was a success; but every success in life brings a would-be friend, and a dozen enemies.

True friendship is not influenced by success or failure.