KATHARINE THURSTON.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 784, 6 April 1910, Page 3

KATHARINE THURSTON.

■: In "T.P.'s Weekly," Constance Smedley,'founder of the Lyceum Club, gives some impressions of . Mrs. ■ Katharine. Thurston, author of ''John- Chilcote, M.P.," and, othor striking stories. .' A well-known diner-out had said to her, speaking of this N lady:—"l sat next to her at dinner, ami'scarcely dared open, my mouth. Her, mask-like beauty froze- me. There, is something almost uncanny about her reserve."- A little later she met the'novelist, who spoke of Ireland. "Everything'that had- to do with young Ireland was of supreme,interest—its literature and art and music. "I don't belong to societies, somehow. Yet I care; and! try to help whenever I see away, lam desperately shy," she said. "Strangers ■ seem to expect me to be somebody 'great,' .and that's paralysing."- Anothertime they; talked of sincerity in literature. "Here and there," she said, "yon met with the man or woman who says to -, you, 'Oh, this or that was not my real work. ,1. did not put myself into it!' There' is no statement more falsi' than this. There is no position , more tenable for the artist. Every deed that a man does and every word that a man writes contains inevitably,something of himself; and if we-are-to'-he truly sincere, we do not shelter behind excuses, but prefer to say with all truth , and with all humility, 'The work was weak, the work was immature, but at the time I- could produce no better.'." The writer describes Mrs'." Thurston as having a calm face, classically regular, perfect in. colouring, and tall figure, with an erect poise of head, and faint trace of Irish accent.