The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miscellanea, by Juliana Horatia Ewing

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Title: Miscellanea

Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing

Release Date: July 22, 2005 [EBook #16347]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MISCELLANEA.

BY

JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
London: Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C.
Brighton: 129, North Street.
New York: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.

[Published under the direction of the General Literature
Committee.]

PREFACE.

The contents of this volume are republished in order to make the Edition
a complete collection of Mrs. Ewing's works, rather than because of
their intrinsic worth. The fact that she did not republish the papers
during her life shows that she did not estimate them very highly
herself; but as each one has a special interest connected with it, I
feel I am not violating her wishes in bringing the collection before the
public.

One of Mrs. Ewing's strongest gifts was her power of mimicry; this made
her an actor above the average of amateurs, and also enabled her to
imitate any special style of writing that she wished. The first four
stories in this volume are instances of this power. _The Mystery of the
Bloody Hand_ was an attempt to vie with some of the early sensational
novels, such as _Lady Audley's Secret_ and _The Moonstone_;--tales in
which a glimpse of the supernatural is introduced amongst scenes of
every-day life.

During my sister's girlhood we had a family MS. Magazine (as our Mother
had done in her young days), and two of the stories in Mrs. Gatty's
"Aunt Judy's Letters," _The Flatlands Fun Gazette_ and _The Black Bag_,
were founded on this custom, Mrs. Ewing being the typical "Aunt Judy" of
the book. Mrs. Gatty described how the children were called upon each to
contribute a tale for _The Black Bag_, and how No. 5 remonstrated by
saying--"I've been sitting over the fire this evening trying to think,
but what _could_ come, with only th