Her latter years were overclouded by poverty. This was due to her almost mad extravagance--to her constant attempts, in short, to live up to the standards of her own heroines. Had she acted like a sensible woman, she might have realized a very fair fortune. She had many appreciative friends, who gave her considerable sums to relieve her at various times from the pressure of financial difficulties; but they realized in the end that to do this was like pouring water into a sieve. Somebody gave her £250 in London to enable her to pay her hotel bill; but before a week was over she had lavished more than a hundred in turning her sitting room at the Langham Hotel into a glade of the most expensive flowers. She died, in what was little better than a peasant's cottage, at Lucca. Among the ladies to whom she had been introduced in London was Winifred, Lady Howard of Glossop. A year or so later Ouida wrote me a letter from Florence, saying, "Your name has been just recalled to me by seeing in the _Morning Post_ that you were dining the other night with Lady Howard of Glossop, one of my oldest friends." This is an example of the way in which her imagination enabled her to live in a fabric of misplaced facts, for the person through whom she became acquainted with Lady Howard was none other than myself. The next letter I had from her was to say that she was dedicating one of her later books--a volume of essays--to me. The letter did not reach me till after many delays, and I often regret the fact that before I was able, or remembered, to answer it she was dead.
Another authoress well known to me, of whom I have made mention already, was the beautiful "Violet Fane," who, under that pseudonym, published many volumes of poetry. Her actual name was Mrs. Singleton. She afterward became Lady Currie. I first knew her before my London days began, and I dedicated _The New Republic_ to her. She was the center of a group of intimates, of whom those who survive must connect her with many of their happiest hours. No one could have combined in a way more winning than hers the discriminations of fashionable life with an inborn passion for poetry. She was perfect in features, slight as a sylph in figure, and her large dark eyes alternately gleamed with laughter and were grave as though she were listening for a voice from some vague beyond. Many of her phrases, when she was speaking of social matters, were like rapiers with the tip of which, as though by accident, she would just touch the foibles of her nearest and dearest friends, the result being a delicate puncture rather than the infliction of a wound.