IMPRESSIONS THAT REMAINED emoirs By ETHEL SMYTH Introduction by
ERNEST NEWMAN NEW YORK ALFKED A. EDSTOPF 1 946 FIRST PUBLISHED 1919
by Longmans, Green Co., Ltd RESET AND REPRINTED September 1946
INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT 1946 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a
reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce not more than
three illustrations in a review to be printed in a magazine or
newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of America. Published
simul taneously in Canada by The Ryerson Press. This is a Borzoi
Book, published by Alfred A, Knopf, Inc. The Author, agd afam jfk e
IN MEMORY OF M E P THE HON. LADY PONSONBY AND OF OUR LONG
FRIENDSHIP 1890 1916 1 find Lady Ponsonby, the wise judge the firm
Liberal, more and more de lightful at last one feels she is getting
old she is eighty-two. She is like a fine flame kindled by sea-logs
and sandlewood good to watch and good to warm the mind at, and the
heart too. EDITH SICHELL 1914 INTRODUCTION Ethel Smyths Impressions
That Remained when it was first published in England I expressed
the opinion that this was one of the half-dozen best
autobiographies in the English language. This estimate has been
confirmed by a recent re-reading of it for the present American
edition. But there are several other books by the same author
equally worth reading, for Ethel Smyth was one of the most
remarkable women of her epoch and I am glad that a request from Mr.
Alfred Knopf to furnish an Introduction to this new edition affords
me an opportunity of telling the American musi cal public more
about her than is contained in her firstbook. The autobiography may
be trusted to tell its own story so far as it goes. But it was
issued in 1919, and a great deal happened be tween then and the
authors death in 1944. The memoirs, apart from a brief reference in
the Epilogue to friends or incidents of the years immediately
following, carry us only as far as 1892. Writing as she did in 1918
her scope was necessarily restricted here and there by the fact
that several people who had played a considerable part in her
life-story were still alive. One of these was the Ex-Empress
Eug6-nie of France, with whom she was on terms of close friendship
for more than a quarter of a century from 1890 onwards, the
Empresss English estate at Farnborough Hill being close to the
Smyth house at Frimley and to later residences of Ethel. It would
obviously have been impossible for the author to write about the
Empress at any length or with any freedom while she was still
alive. She died, at the age of ninety-five in July 1920 a year or
so after the publication of the Impressions and in her second book,
Streaks of Life 1921, Ethel Smyth painted a portrait of her that is
not only fascinating in itself but of value to students and
historians of the Second Empire. The passing of the Empress from
the scene also placed the author Introduction at liberty to indulge
in some amusing reminiscences of the old Queen Victoria, with whom
she had come into contact through Eug6nie they include the rich
story, told with rich humour, of the dreadful breach of etiquette
of which Ethel was innocently guilty at an after-dinner reception
at Balmoral. At one end of the large room was a fireplace, and in
front of this a hearthrug on which, in remote dignity, the Queen
wasstanding with the Empress. Lead ing up to the two august ladies,
says Ethel, was an avenue composed of royal personages ranged, as I
afterwards found out, in order of precedence, the highest in rank
being closest to the hearthrug which avenue, broadening towards its
base, gradually became mere ladies and gentlemen of the Court, and
finally petered out in a group of Maids of Honour huddled
ingloriously in the bay-window...
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