Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/223

 manuscript was to be delivered not later than 31st December, 1881, or, in other words, within a year. But I found it quite impossible to do this, and it was not until the end of 1885 that my work was published. By this time the scope of the thing had expanded from one volume of 500 pages to two volumes, each of 640 pages—and all because, while content to let my fee remain as at first agreed, I had been bitten by the ambition, wise or unwise, to complete the work on the scale which the importance of its theme seemed to demand.

"Soon after I had severed my connexion with the Times (in 1891) and settled down in London, Archibald Forbes did me the honour of recommending me as a desirable contributor to 'Battles of the Nineteenth Century,' for which he himself wrote some noteworthy articles, and that was how I came to resume my relations with the great publishing house which had been the first to employ my humble pen."

Mr. Lowe's reference to Archibald Forbes recalls the fact that the prince of war correspondents not only contributed to "Battles of the Nineteenth Century" but wrote for the House a "Life of William of Germany" (the first Emperor), published in 1888, and afterwards a "History of the Black Watch" (1896). He was often at the Yard in those days, and always ready, in scrupulously chosen and precisely enunciated words, to draw upon his remarkable store of reminiscences.

The year 1890 was rendered memorable by the publication of the famous "Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff," translated by Mathilde Blind. This extraordinary piece of self-revelation, of which many a reader must have been reminded by Barbellion's "Journal of a Disappointed Man," soon went into a popular edition.

Early in the 'nineties was published, in two series, each consisting of two volumes, "The Diplomatic Reminiscences of Lord Augustus Loftus," which the House had induced him to write. The author was, so to speak, born into the diplomatic service. While the Court was at Brighton during the winter of 1835–36 he was presented to William IV., his mother being Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Adelaide. "To my great