J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE

AMONG happy memories few are brighter than the recollection of those acquaintances which ripened into friendship. Among these I must reckon the warm attachment which sprang up between Mr. and Mrs. Shorthouse and ourselves. I met Mr. and Mrs. Shorthouse first at the house of a parishioner of mine, Colonel Ratcliff, when I was at Lancaster Gate. In one of those unaccountable ways we seemed to find each other, and a correspondence, happily broken by interchanged visits, gave continuity and strength to our friendship. "Friendship," said the late Professor Jowett, "should be carefully fostered." In this case it was ; and letters and visits nursed the growing affection between us. It began very simply.

There was a paper written by Mr. Shorthouse which was, I think, unique, in the pages of the Nineteenth Century. It covered, if I recollect right, a single page of the magazine. It was a parable drawn from a game of whist. The cards were dealt, and as they fell without any sign of order or sequence on the table, and suits were mixed up with one another, the cards, noting the haphazard fashion of their experience said, "We are the sport of chance." The cards were gathered up and the game began, and the suits were kept to themselves; spades followed spades, hearts followed hearts,, and so on, with such regularity that the cards now

declared that they were under the rule of inevitable and inexorable law; they said, "We are the victims of fate." Then somebody played a trump, and the cards saw that thought and will entered into their destiny, and they said "Our lot is ordered by intelligence."

As I wished to recover the paper I wrote to ask the date of its publication. This will explain the allusion in the commencement of the following letter. In the same letter I was able to tell him, in confidence, that Queen Victoria appreciated his writings. My letter brought the following reply

LANSDOWNE, EDGBASTON,

December 12, 1883.

MY DEAR CANON BOYD CARPENTER,

The little "apologue" you refer to appeared in the Nineteenth Century for July 1882. I seem to have only one copy, and that a poor one, or I would send you one at once. I have no doubt, however, that they are to be procured.

I have always regretted that I saw so little of you when we met at Colonel Ratcliff's; my wife was more fortunate, as she sat by you at dinner, and in consequence greatly enjoyed the evening.

I am naturally much gratified by what you tell me in confidence. I had the honour of being allowed to present a copy of John Inglesant to H.R.H. the Duke of Albany, and also, at the request of the Librarian, to send a copy to the Queen, but yours is the first intimation I have received of personal interest in the book. With kindest regards from my wife,

I

am, Yours

Yours very sincerely,

(Signed) J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE.

THE REV. CANON BOYD CARPENTER.

In my reply I asked what he wished me to do with some verses he had sent, and as in the following reply he put them at my disposal, I feel that I may now give them to my readers.

LANDSDOWNE,

EDGBASTON,

April 9, 1884.

MY DEAR CANON BOYD CARPENTER,

Many thanks for your kind letter; we were quite ashamed at sending you so many books, and very glad that you are not overwhelmed.

The verses on the Prince belong to you, I do not mean to make any further use of them. I could not let the week, which began so happily for us in Windsor Castle, pass without expressing in some feeble way my sympathy in the sorrow and compassion which the nation is feeling; and the obvious adaptation of the Dean's (Stanley) poem struck me as very forcible, which no doubt others will make use of.

If you think that the Princess would like to see the lines, make what use of them you will. I am not sure whether the first three verses would not end better

"He travelled Here."

With kindest regards to Mrs. Carpenter,
From

Yours very sincerely,

(Signed) J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE.

The verses were given a title derived from a phrase

employed by Dean Stanley. They were called

One little work by Mr. Shorthouse, Little Schoolmaster Mark, interested me in a special way, and my interest was stimulated by a letter from Mr. Shorthouse which challenged my ingenuity.

This letter I regard as very characteristic. Mr. Shorthouse had a very strong feeling that the stories which he

wrote had been given him: he was but the instrument of transmitting them to the world, and though they were his work, their full or truest significance might be as much a mystery to him as to the reader. The questions he raises have their origin in this conviction of his, that the products of his pen were not the results of previous imagination on his part, but were visions with messages which it was for him as well as others to seek to understand. As in this letter he, as it were, challenged me to suggest a solution of the problem, I gave the matter some thought, and I ventured to write a second part or continuation of the tale. There might have been an impertinence in doing this, but I know, from my personal and friendly acquaintance with him, that he would welcome rather than resent such a sign of interest in his work.

The letter was as follows

LANSDOWNE,

EDGBASTON,

December 15, 1883.

MY DEAR CANON BOYD CARPENTER,

Many thanks for your letter. At the risk of troubling you I should like to tell you that Mr. Ainger, the Reader of the Temple, whom I have the great pleasure of knowing, preached on Little Mark some Sundays ago, and sent me a very interesting (as all he writes must be) extract from his sermon. He takes the moral of the story to be, that if Religion is made a plaything or an art instead of an absorbing passion, it will die.

I would rather say that the story is that of one of many failures to reconcile the artistic with the