The Story of the House of Cassell
wrote, of course, on all manner of subjects, politics excepted. One day, just after September 29, I wrote an article on extreme Ritualism and 'topically' gave it the head-line 'Michaelmas Geese.' Next day, to my intense amusement, there was a letter at the office addressed to the author of this article, in which one of the 'geese' whom I had particularly attacked, and who naturally supposed me to be a man, invited me to come and dine with him, and 'talk of these matters over a good glass of sherry and a cigar!' The worldly wisdom which induced the excellent clergyman to try and thus 'silence my guns' by inducing me to share his salt, and his idea of the irresistible attractions of sherry and cigars to a 'poor devil' (as he obviously supposed) of a contributor to a halfpenny paper, made a delightful joke. I had the greatest mind in the world to accept the invitation without betraying my sex until I should arrive at his door in the fullest of my feminine finery, and claim his dinner; but I was prudent, and he never knew who was the midge who had assailed him.
"I wrote on the whole more than a thousand leading articles, and a vast number of Notes, for the Echo during the seven years in which I worked upon its staff. There were, of course, subjects on which a Liberal like Mr. Arnold and a Tory like myself differed widely; and then I left them untouched, for (I need scarcely say) I never wrote a line in that or any other paper not in fullest accordance with my own opinions and convictions, on any subject great or small. The work, I think, was at all events wholesome and harmless. I hope that, now and then, it also did a little good."
On the first anniversary of publication day, the editor thus addressed his readers:
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