Mrs. Warrens Daughter

Mrs. Warren's Daughter

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Title: Mrs. Warren's Daughter A Story of the Woman's Movement
Author: Sir Harry Johnston
Release Date: March 16, 2005 [EBook #15380]
Language: English
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MRS. WARREN'S DAUGHTER
A Story of the Woman's Movement
By
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920
TO
MY JURY OF MATRONS:
WINIFRED JOHNSTON ELLA HEPWORTH-DIXON CATHERINE
WELLS ANGELA MOND BEATRICE SANDS MARGARET
POWYS ANNETTE HENDERSON FLORENCE FELLOWES

MARY LEVY RAY ROCKMAN-BRAHAM FLORENCE TRAVERS
MAUD PARRY
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, IN THE
KNOWLEDGE THAT--IN THE MAIN--IT HAS THEIR
SYMPATHY AND APPROVAL.
H. H. JOHNSTON
POLING, _March, 1920_

PREFACE
The earlier part of Vivien Warren's life and that of her mother,
Catherine Warren, was told by Mr. George Bernard Shaw in his play,
"Mrs. Warren's Profession," published first in 1898.
(_Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant_: 1. Unpleasant. Constable and Co.,
6th Edition.)
I have his permission to continue the story from 1898 onwards. To
understand my sequel it is not necessary to have read the play which so
brilliantly placed the Warren problem before us. But as most persons of
average good education have found Mr. Shaw's comedies necessary to
their mental furnishing, their understanding of contemporary life, it is
probable that all who would be drawn to this book are already
acquainted with the story of Mrs. Warren, and will be interested in
learning what happened after that story was laid down by Mr. Shaw in
1897. I would in addition placate hostile or peevish reviewers by
reminding them of the continuity of human histories; of biographies,
real--though a little disguised by the sauce of fiction--and
unreal--because entitled _Life and Letters, by His Widow_. The best
novel or life-story ever written does not commence with its opening
page. The real commencement goes back to the Stone ages or at any
rate to the antecedent circumstances which led up to the crisis or the
formation of the characters portrayed. Mr. Pickwick had a father, a
grandfather; a mother in a mob-cap; in the eighteenth century. It is
permissible to speculate on their stories and dispositions. Neither does
a novel or a biography end with the final page of its convenient
instalment.
When you lay down the book which describes the pathetic failure of
Lord Randolph Churchill, you do so with curiosity as to what will
become of Winston. With a pre-knowledge of the Pickwick Club, one

may usefully employ the imagination in tracing out the possible careers
of Sam Weller's chubby little boys; grown into old men, and
themselves, perchance, leaving progeny that may have married into the
peerage from the Turf, or have entered the War Cabinet at the
beckoning of Mr. Lloyd George.
I know of descendants of Madame de Brinvilliers in England who have
helped to found the Y.W.C.A.; and collateral offshoots from the
Charlotte Corday stock who are sternly opposed to the assassination of
statesmen-journalists.
So, I have taken on myself the continuation of the story outlined
twenty-three years ago by Mr. Shaw in its late Victorian stage. He had
a prior claim to do so; just as he might have shown us the life--but not
the letters, for she was illiterate--of Catherine Warren's mother, the frier
of fish and letter of lodgings on Tower Hill in the 'forties and 'fifties of
the last century; and of the young Lieutenant Warren of the Tower
garrison who lodged and cohabited with her at intervals between 1850
and 1854, when he went out to the Crimea and there died of frost-bite
and neglected wounds. Mr. Shaw has waived such claims, having, as
Vivie's grandmother would have said, "other fish to fry." But for this I
should not have ventured to take up the tale, as I hold an author while
he lives has a prescriptive right to his creations. I shall feel no
bitterness in Nirvana if, after my death, another continues the story of
Vivie or of her friends and collateral relations, under circumstances
which I shall not live to see.
In justice to Mr. Shaw I should state that the present book is entirely
my own, and that though he has not renounced a polite interest in Vivie
he is in no way responsible for her career and behaviour. He may even
be annoyed at both.
H. H. JOHNSTON.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER