All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

Millom Castle, of which considerable remains are still in existence, is pleasantly situated near the church. It was for many centuries the feudal residence of the lords of Millom, and though its venerable ruins have been neglected, still they point out its former strength and importance. It was fortified and embattled in 1335 by Sir John Huddleston in pursuance of a license received from the king. It was anciently surrounded by a park well stocked with deer, and adorned with noble oaks, which were cut down in 1690 by Ferdinando Huddleston to supply timber for the building of a ship and fuel for his smelting furnace.

The principal part of the castle now remaining is a large square tower formerly embattled but now terminated by a plain parapet.

Mr. John Denton tells us the Castle in his time (the middle of the 15th century) was partly in a ruined state though the lords continued to reside there occasionally. Before the year 1774 the park was well stocked with deer and continued so until 1802 when Lord Lonsdale disparked it and 207 deer were killed and the venison sold from 2d. to 4d. per lb.

The feudal hall of the Boyvilles and the Huddlestons where the lords of Millom lived in almost royal state is now the domicil of a farmer. Sic transit gloria mundi.

The moat is still visible in one or two places and in a wall and also in the garden may be seen the arms of the Huddlestons.

The castle is now undergoing reparation; some new windows are being inserted and additional buildings are being erected.

(We are indebted to Miss Alethia M. Huddleston, of Lancashire, England, for the copy of the foregoing valuable account of Millom.)

APPENDIX II

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

APPENDIX III

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OTHER PUBLISHERS

This list includes none of the short stories written every week for Robert Bonner’s Ledger; none written very constantly in the early years of my work for the Christian Union, the Illustrated Christian Weekly, Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, Frank Leslie’s Magazine, the Advance and various other papers. Nor yet does it include any of the English papers or syndicates for which I wrote; nor yet the poem written every week for fifteen years for the Ledger; nor the poems written very frequently for the Christian Union, the Independent, the Advance, daily papers, and so forth. Nor can I even pretend to remember the very numerous essays, and social and domestic papers which were almost constantly contributed; I have forgotten the very names of this vast collection of work and I never kept any record of it. Indeed, only some chance copy has escaped the oblivion to which I gave up the rest. They kept money in my purse; that was all I asked of them. I do not even possess a full set of the sixty novels I have written. I may have twenty or thirty, not more certainly.

From among the hundreds of poems I have written during forty years I have saved enough to make a small volume which some day I may publish. But I never considered myself a poetess in any true sense of the word. “The vision and faculty divine” was not mine; but I had the most extraordinary command of the English language and I could easily versify a good thought, and tune it to the Common Chord – the C Major of this life. Women sang my songs about their houses, and men at their daily work and some of them went all around the world in the newspapers. “The Tree God Plants, No Wind Can Hurt,” I got in a Bombay paper; and “Get the Spindle and Distaff Ready, and God Will Send the Flax,” came back to me in a little Australian weekly. And for fifteen years I made an income of a thousand dollars, or more, every year from them. So, if they were not poetry they evidently “got there!” From among the few saved I will print half a dozen. They will show what “the people” liked, and called poetry.

I must here notice, that I used two pen names as well as my own. I never could have sold all the work I did under one name. But to my editors, the secret was an open one; and until the necessity for it was long past, not one of them ever named the subterfuge to me. That was a very delicate kindness and it pleases me to acknowledge it. Some of my very best work was done under fictitious names. Truly I got no credit for it, but I got the money, and the money meant all kinds of happiness.

APPENDIX IV

POEMS

The Old Piano

How still and dusky is the long closed room!
What lingering shadows and what sweet perfume
Of Eastern treasures; sandal-wood and scent,
With nard and cassia, and with roses blent:
Let in the sunshine.
Quaint cabinets are here, boxes and fans,
And hoarded letters full of hopes and plans:
I pass them by – I come once more to see
The old piano, dear to memory;
In past days mine.

Of all sad voices from forgotten years,
It is the saddest. See what tender tears
Drop on the yellow keys! as soft and slow
I play some melody of long ago.
How strange it seems!
The thin, weak notes that once were rich and strong
Give only now, the shadow of a song;
The dying echo of the fuller strain,
That I shall never, never hear again:
Unless in dreams.

What hands have touched it! fingers small and white,
Since cold and weary with life’s toil and strife
Dear clinging hands, that long have been at rest
Folded serenely on a quiet breast.
Only to think
O white sad notes, of all the pleasant days,
The happy songs, the hymns of holy praise,
The dreams of love and youth, that round you cling!
Do they not make each sighing, trembling string
A mighty link?

All its musicians gone beyond recall!
The beautiful, the loved, where are they all?
Each told their secret, touched the keys and wires
To thoughts of many colors and desires,
With whispering fingers:
All now are silent, their last farewells said,
Their last songs sung, their last tears sadly shed;
Yet Love has given it many dreams to keep
In this lone room, where only shadows creep,
And silence lingers.

The old piano answers to my call,
And from my fingers lets the last notes fall.
O Soul that I have loved! With heavenly birth
Wilt thou not keep the memory of earth,
Its smiles and sighs,
Shall wood, and metal, and white ivory,
Answer the touch of love and melody,
And Thou forget? Dear One, not so!
I move thee yet, though how I may not know,
Beyond the skies.

At the Last

Now, poor tired hands, be still,
Toil-stained through Death’s white hue;
No need now for your skill,
No further task to do.
Folded across the breast,
Take calmest rest:
Dead hands no work shall soil —
’Tis living hands that toil.